Nathaniel White interview recording, 1995 February 17
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| Paul Ortiz | Start off by asking you a question. Mr. White, could you start by telling me where you were born and something about the area that you grew up in? | 0:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I was born in Hertford, North Carolina in September 14th, 1914. I didn't remain in Hertford very long, but four years. My mother became ill during the influenza epidemic in 1918-19, and she had died at the age of 29. And my father had secured some work in the Norfolk Navy Yard. That's during World War I. And when she passed, we moved to Norfolk, Virginia. I was in a family of four boys and a fifth son died during the same time that my mother died. As a matter of fact, both of them were buried in the same grave. | 0:13 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So except for visits back to my hometown, I didn't remain in Hertford very long. My mother's father was a blacksmith and I used to go to Hertford during the summer as I was growing up and he was a very skilled tradesman. As a matter of fact, I was able to see him working in this blacksmith shop. And as I viewed at that time, he was building wagons and that type of thing. And I noticed there was a blacksmith there that shod horses. And also he was a church leader. And my mother's family was engaged and working and growing and contributing to the First Baptist Church in Hertford. | 1:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | But having moved to Norfolk, I spent most of my time in Norfolk, Virginia. Finished high school there at Booker T Washington High School and then went to Hampton Institute, at that time now Hampton University and studied printing and graduated with a BS degree in printing education and accepted a job in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I spent two years working for the Carolina Tribune newspaper. | 3:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And after two years I moved to Durham and came to Durham in 1939 along with a partner, two partners, Day F. Reed and Walter G. Swann. | 4:03 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We came here to manage the Service Printing Company and after two years we thought we would try to do something more permanent and we offered to purchase the business from the T.D. Parham family, the mother was working in the business when we came there. | 4:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And so after some discussion with the mother and the father who had opened this business, there was two of their children, Thomas David and Ward Parham who by that time had become, they were interested in the ministry and that's why the Parham sought to get us to come in and try to make success of the business. | 4:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So we purchased the business for $800 and they had lost one machine or one press and we paid $15 per month for the business. And that's how we started on our own ownership of the business. | 5:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, going back to your father's experience in going, I assume that you went with your father to Norfolk. | 6:18 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, me and four brothers. | 6:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | How did he go about getting the job in Norfolk? Had he heard about jobs opening up or did he have a relative in Norfolk? | 6:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't know the precise answer to that, but I do know that in the Navy there was a need during the war was a need for a lot of help. And my thought about that, there was always a lot of movement up and down the East Coast anyhow. And it was fairly easy probably to during the war to—Because there was a lot of naval installations in Norfolk. And my thought is that that was quite a need for a lot of help during the war. He later got a job at the Norfolk Western Railroad at that pier at Lambert's Point in Norfolk that loaded coal on ships going overseas. And this coal came to Norfolk from the west, mines in West Virginia by rail. And this pier was up in the air where the ships were—The cars were elevated. And then from that they loaded down to chute, the coal went down to chute into the ships. So that was his major occupation for the years after the war, working at a coal here. | 6:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | And you mentioned that your grandfather had been active in the First Baptist Church. | 8:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In the Hertford. | 8:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | In Hertford. | 8:46 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes sir. | 8:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you know the origins of that church, your grandfather? He talked about it? | 8:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I had some information on that. I don't recall the precise information, but it was one of the leading Black churches in the community. And I knew that, and I have read since how active he was in the church. And I think he was had held office in the church and was one of the leaders in the church. And in fact his whole family had strong membership in the church. | 8:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was he a role model for you as a child? | 9:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, he was. During the times I visit there, I was very impressed with him as a churchman and a person that seemed to be highly respected by others in the community. | 9:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | And was his wife still living when you were growing up? | 10:19 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. Yeah. | 10:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you have much contact with your grandmother on your mother's side? | 10:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I made some visits there and I did have some contact with her. She seemed to have a strong personality and well liked by the family members. | 10:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would they ever tell you about their own childhood, about stories about when they were growing up and how things had changed? | 10:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. I don't remember a lot about that because I was quite young. But there seems to be a strong family. There seems to have a lot of interest in doing well and staying in contact with the family members. My greatest influence came from my father's sister, Essie White-Red. At the time when my mother passed, my mother when she was ill with influenza seemed to want the family to stay together. And I think that my Aunt Essie Red. Well, my father's sister dedicated herself to the family and I think she was highly responsible for all of us. | 11:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | She sent two of us to school, to college, and she had offered that opportunity to my other two brothers that did not go to college. One of them got married at a young age working at the A&P store as a delivery boy. And he advanced to a point where he was a manager of A&P. And he still is still living. | 12:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And another brother that worked for the government in Washington, John Isaac White and the other brother took printing at Hampton. We had two years following me. | 13:30 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In fact, it was three years I believe because he finished in 1940 and I finished in 1937. So the two of us, he came down to Durham in 1940. And John knows at the Service Printing Company, along with the other people there. | 13:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did your Aunt Essie move with your family to Norfolk? | 14:23 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | She did for a short while and then she moved to Atlantic City for a while and then she moved to New York for the most of her life was spent in New York City. She was searching opportunity, she got married and the marriage didn't last very long, but during the course of her life, she stayed in close contact with us. She was a person with a strong personality, always looking for the best in herself and for us. And I think she had a tremendous influence on my family, particularly in seeing that we would be staying together and also that we would try to strive to do the best we could in life. | 14:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, Mr. White, that you talk about your family, particularly Essie, but other people in your family wanting to stay together and that was seems to be very strong value. Had your family originally, had they grown up in Hertford or they come from another— | 15:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I believe now that my father's family came in—Now they were in the outlying areas of Hertford, out in the county area. But they had their family roots were near Hertford. | 16:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Have they been involved in farming? | 17:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Some of the family members were farming. I didn't have a lot of contact with them until sort of later I visited them. And since that time I have been in contact with where my father's people live and they did have lots of farming and this type of thing. | 17:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | So did your grandfather, did he also— | 17:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now this is my, I'm sorry—You're going back to my grandfather's, as I mentioned earlier. Yeah, that's my mother's father, yeah. Okay. And what were you going to say? | 17:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, did he working as a blacksmith, did he also have land that he farmed or— | 17:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, that was his profession was blacksmith was he didn't do any farming. | 18:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would he ever talk about race relations in Hertford? | 18:17 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I wasn't there a lot. And I don't recall too much that he might have said and all. So I couldn't say that I had talked with him about it and anything about the race relation. He may have, but I don't recall. Yeah. | 18:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's fine. | 18:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I'm sure he had a lot of, by working in this blacksmith shop, he had a lot of contact with people in the community and all. It's just that I didn't do that much visiting and all, I guess just a child was when I was a child. That type of discussion, I don't recall that. I couldn't say I recall any type of discuss discussion in that area. But he was a community leader. | 19:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was he involved in politics as well? | 19:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Not to my knowledge. I would think he was, but I can't recite any incidents about it. See, I didn't do a lot of this and back and forth. | 19:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | So Mr. White, when you moved to Norfolk and you kind of settled down there, what was life like growing up in Norfolk, Virginia? | 20:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, as a youngster, I had the opportunity to join church. And this church had a very fine pastor. And in 1928, the first Black troop in Norfolk, Virginia was organized in my church, Mount Olive Baptist Church, I got an opportunity to become a scout at 14, you could John at 12. As a matter of fact, all four of us joined this scout troop. It was 16 boys in the troop and we were 25% of the troop. My oldest brother, John, shortly after he joined, John, he went to New York to live with my aunt. | 20:32 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My youngest brother had lived with my aunt in Atlantic City for a while, but he was back in—By 1928 he was back in Norfolk. And he joined the troop also. So we lived in a very nice neighborhood. We had good schools. One thing that I remember specifically about the school. They had nurses in the schools and seemed like my weight and my height didn't match. So looked after me and I went to a clinic in all to get that type of thing squared away, which I appreciated very much. I got health conscious, able to take care of my health. And then there was a lot of care and good instructions, a lot of encouragement in the schools to do well. The idea that you could become anything that you want to was sort of instilled in you, which was not an actual fact because it was a lot of discrimination and all, but you didn't feel hopeless. You just felt that if you did well and worked hard and you could reach goals that you set for yourself. | 21:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, when did you first encounter, or first as a child notice the discrimination? | 23:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I think the transportation facilities, the street cars and the buses and all the fact that you had seats for Blacks and seats for Whites. It was probably the first noticeable discrimination that you encountered. | 24:06 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And of course the schools were separate, but by that time it was accepted as a matter of fact that they had schools for us and schools for others. But there were seemingly very strong teachers and very strong principals. And I distinctively my elementary school principal, she's a very tall, handsome, stately lady that always had an encouraging word and making you feel like that you were somebody. So in your own separate world, you found encouragement. And even though you noticed these obvious things that separated you from others, you still felt some self-worth in your church and your school and all. And it helped to make you the kind of person that you were satisfied you could accomplish what you set out to do if you worked hard and stayed out of trouble and this kind of thing. So the opportunity was there. | 24:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Where did the teachers come from that were at your elementary? | 26:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | They came from within the city itself. Now my understanding actually in early years that teachers could teach without necessarily going way up at the higher level, like top degrees. But this all changed. But I suspect that my teachers came out of the north system. They been to the normal school and academy and this type of thing. | 26:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were they Black? | 27:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, all Black. All of the teachers and principals were all Black. | 27:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were your favorite subjects? | 27:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I liked math. I liked history. As a matter of fact, I took Latin, but I wasn't too fond of that. The word was out that that was a dead language, but it helped a lot in formation of structure and this kind of thing. So that was about in high school, that was my favorites. | 27:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, you mentioned that you were one of the original members of the first Black Boy Scout troop? | 28:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In Norfolk, Virginia, Troop 72 Mount Olive Baptist Church. | 29:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was that like and how did that come about that there were no other Black church before that? | 29:09 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now see, scouting started in 1910, I believe. And this was 18 years later. And the head of council, Tidewater Council was responsible for that. And it must have been coming out of understanding that now is the time to do something in that area. And that was a very interesting experience for my family and me. | 29:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And out of that experience, I volunteered to become scout master in this church in 1942 and remained scoutmaster until for 26 years and 26 of my boys became Eagle Scouts. I am very fond of the—And I'm still active as the coordinator scouting in this church. So I have about 56 years of continuous experience in scouting. Of course, at this point we are trying to get some new leaders since we have a new pastor and we are going to try to strengthen the church, but most of the leaders in scouting have been serving in this church for a long time. So I was happy to be able to give something back because of somebody helping me as a youth. And my brother who worked here with me, he passed in 1965. He was also active in scouting. | 30:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And the other part that I had, Day F. Reed was active. So we have helped to strengthen the scouting program here in Durham. | 31:38 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, how did your father react to scouting? Was he pushing you towards that direction as a child? | 31:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, he supported things that we tried to do and he often wondered how he'd buy all those uniforms. But naturally, since he was this one parent and anything like that he was interested in us doing. And then my aunt was also supportive of us doing, even though she lived in another city, but she still stayed in contact with us and encouraged us to do that to John the Scouts and Boys Club and groups like that, which were really a great benefit for us as we were growing up. | 32:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, what was your family, your internal family life like during those years? | 33:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was very happy. We learned, of course, early to look after each other and take care of each other, and sort of working together. And my father was always interested that we were staying out of trouble and not getting into things that we shouldn't do. And there was this street that we lived on, there was an athletic field out in front of us and so we spent a number of hours participating in football and baseball and other sports and this kind of thing. I thought that was of benefit to us and the fact that we joined the scouting program also was very helpful. So we stayed busy doing the right kind of things, I would think. Yeah. | 33:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there parts of Norfolk that your father didn't want you going into? | 34:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I can't recall that kind of situation. Well, one of the things that we did when my older brother got old enough to work, he was insisting that he would get a job and he sort of set a pattern for us and we just naturally thought that we had to get a certain age, we'd get a job. My youngest brother used to deliver the morning paper. I used to sell the Journal and Guide. That was a weekly paper. And my oldest brother, first job he got was shining shoes at a new stand that was downtown. Then my next brother to him, John Isaac, he got a job working at a drug store. Then the two of us younger brothers worked at a drug store too. So we were encouraged to get work and help with our own expenses and also help each other. | 35:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, where would you go during those days if you needed medical care? | 36:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I went to the clinic, King Daughter's Clinic, and then they had a St. Vincent's Hospital that you could go to. And I think that the nurse at the school made an outstanding contribution to it. Didn't even go to a medical doctor. | 36:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there Black doctors? | 37:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yes, in Norfolk. Yeah. | 37:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | And so did your family go to a Black doctor? | 37:27 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, we went to a Black doctor, yeah. | 37:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that true with dentists also? | 37:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think so, yeah. I was trying to think about that. Yeah, I believe so. Of course, let me see. Now, we also went to hospital too, but they had a Black section in the hospital. In fact, one hospital we went to had a—Over the garage, they had a—I saw that years later, I couldn't believe what I was looking at, but it seemed like to me they had over above this, they had room. | 37:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, the Black section was a— | 38:28 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Over seemed like it was over a garage. I'm almost sure of this, but there was just one place that we went to. There were others that was not like that. I know the St. Vincent's Hospital was a pretty big place. Yeah. I'm not sure whether that was all Black or not. | 38:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was there a Black business district that your family would patronize? | 38:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was not a whole district, but there was one Black store in the community and then there was A&P store, a grocery store. No, not A&P, DP, David Pender store. That was a chain in Norfolk DP store. And then I know there was a Jewish run store. And interesting thing, my father patronized that store and he had a book that we could go to the store and purchase things and charge them to him. So it meant that anytime he needed anything, we could go to the store and pick it up. | 39:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember your father making an attempt to patronize Black stores or was— | 40:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I guess we did the store that was in the community. This other store was that I mentioned that we had this book for was—I guess it was about a mile or so away from where we were living. Yeah. | 40:16 |
| Paul Ortiz | So it was the only store that would offer that system, that system of credit or— | 40:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't know exactly if it was the only store or not, but I just recall having gone to this store. And in fact to me, there was another store on the corner from us, but I couldn't say now why we were at this other—Maybe we were charging at this other store, but this an arrangement just my father had made. But there was another store later that was in the neighborhood along with this chain store. | 40:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. And Mr. White, by this time, had your father, did he decide to become active in church and community affairs and Norfolk? | 41:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It seems like he attended the church and all, but I can't recall that he was very active. | 41:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did he remarry? | 41:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He remarried for a short period, but he didn't stay—He was separated after a short period. Now how long? I don't have a good picture of how long did he stay married. But I know he did marry. | 41:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | And Mr. White, when you were growing up, did you have particular aspirations for a particular career or did you have any particular role models that you felt like you would follow in their footsteps, for example? | 42:19 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, now my aunt talked with me about the future in terms of what I would do when I finished school. And we got very serious about this in my senior year. And she came down to talk with me about what I was going to do after I finished high school. And by that time I was very interested in that because I had not had any serious discussion with anybody about what I was going to do. And I started thinking about it. What would I be doing in September? The other kids would be going back. I would be graduating in June. | 42:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And so we talk about it. My aunt was interested in me studying medicine and she wanted me to go to Howard University to study medicine. And somehow or another, I didn't want that. And I think I found out later on, I believe if I had to tend to people that were ill exclusively all day that I would absorb the feelings and everything and not be a good person to deal in that type of thing. I didn't think all this when she was talking to me, but I did—When I was carrying this newspaper, we used to go down and pick up the Journal and Guide newspaper and sometimes it would be late. | 43:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And we used to go all over the place around, and later on I used to wonder why in the world would they let us do that? And I thought, since I got into printing and newspaper work and all that, I find out that actually the news boys were the backbone of the place that they didn't sell the papers so they would tolerate us. So I was in talking to the fellow who was the brother of the editor. He was HC Young, and the editor and publisher was PB Young. They were brothers. And he said to me one day that I looked like I could be a good printer. | 45:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And what he wanted me to do at that time, you could go to Hampton in high school. It was like he had an academy. He wanted me to leave Booker T and go to Hampton Institute to study printing. Well, at that time, this school was a wonderful school. I liked it. I was enjoying myself. I was doing well in studies and all, and I figured nobody in their right mind would leave Booker T. I wanted to graduate. So when my aunts talked to me, I remember this conversation. So see, she wanted me to be a doctor, I wanted to be an architect. And so I settled for printing and I did graduate from Booker T, and I went to Hampton to study printing. And I guess that's a strange way to approach it, but that's the fact of life. That's what it worked out. And of course, I had a very interesting and successful career in printing. | 46:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | So you actually had the opportunity to talk to Mr. Young at the Journal and Guide? | 47:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. | 47:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I talked to him about career in printing, and that was my motivation for going into it. | 0:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, what role did the Journal and Guide play? Other than the fact, I mean, obviously, I mean, it was one way for you to make money. | 0:14 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, yeah. | 0:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did it begin to shape your outlook on life? What would you read it as you were delivering this stuff? | 0:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Well, I don't—See, I suppose that it was almost like a substitute kind of thing, something. I try and search for a career. I guess the other thing that actually worked out with me that that was doing something with your hands, and I seemed to enjoy doing things in that manner. Well, I hate to put it like this, but I guess it was getting away from going to be a doctor. I just didn't—That didn't appeal to me, and the architect part would've probably been a good occupation, but I guess print was like a compromise. | 0:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | What did your father have to say about it? What was he— | 2:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He sort of, as he did in the case of my brothers, he sort of left it up to me. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I thanked my aunt, who was a person that financed my education until I decided I would work and take care of myself. After about two years, I told her that she could concentrate on my brother, that I would— | 2:08 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | [INTERRUPTION 00:03:19 - 00:09:06]. | 2:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Actually mechanical then—I was doing the press work, and we had some opportunities to do a little writing for the newspaper, and also being able to put it together in a good form and pattern and make it attractive, and I did write a little column, and also we sold some advertisements, things like that. So, it was something in addition to the actual mechanical then. It gave you some leeway to learn something about newspaper publishing and this kind of thing. So, I found it very interesting. | 2:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | You were actually doing a column? | 9:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, I did a column, but just a small column, it wasn't much. I was writing for just a small column for the newspaper. | 10:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the column about? | 10:18 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was just some personal experiences and this type of thing. I didn't consider myself a experienced writer or anything like that, but maybe four or five inches is some of the brief experience to something I had, and in fact, I remember one column that I wrote on about a visit that I made to homecoming at Hampton. Something like that. | 10:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, what would you say that the philosophy of the Tribune was during those years? | 11:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was the editorials and things was very good in terms of attacked and discrimination and this type of thing, and it was trying to cover the type of news that showed the Black community in the good light, and also really a historical type of thing, and the editor, the paper publisher, [indistinct 00:11:47] and tell your name to him, he was a very well trained person who knew how to write and express himself and this kind of thing. And tacting the problems that faced the Black community, and also encouraging those in the community to do their best to make it. Yeah. | 11:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | When did you meet your other eventual partner at the service? | 12:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Not the one that sent for me, the one that—Oh, you talking about Walter Swann. He came over to Raleigh, and I can't really now think of what his circumstance was, but he used to work for the Carolina Times, the newspaper in Durham, and he came over to Raleigh, I guess, to get a job, and we worked together for a while there. So, that's the three of us that were—My brother was the fourth partner, was still in school then, he didn't finish until 1940, and by that time we were in Durham. | 12:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. But, when you were still in Raleigh, did you plan initially to, or did you have aspirations at this time, to eventually open a printing shop, or was it something that you just began talking about with? | 13:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, it was a very interesting thing. The owner of the Carolina Tribune spoke about retiring, and that didn't seem to appeal to me that this man was getting ready to retire, and I didn't think about, as I look back on it, I didn't think about that that would be an opportunity to own the newspaper or something like that. But, I just thought about working and taking care of this man and his retirement. Now, that's just a young guy's thoughts running through your mind. That didn't appeal to me. So, I told him that I was going to leave, and when I told him that I was going to leave, he talked to Reed, the fellow who sent for me, and was telling him what a bad fella I was, and this kind of thing, and so Reed said, "Well, I know him and he doesn't seem to be that kind of fella." So, he told him he was leaving too. | 13:45 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now, this fellow that came over there from Durham knew about the Service Printing Company, and he told us about the opportunity that we had to manage this company— | 15:05 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | [INTERRUPTION 00:15:25-00:20:35] | 15:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | —About the fact that he may have been saying that he's going to sell us the newspaper. Is it? Is that— | 15:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Always. | 20:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. But, that didn't been a conversation. So, that wasn't a decision to make— | 20:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | —he had that he might sell you the newspaper? | 20:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, he didn't. That— | 21:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 21:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I made a little talk at his funeral, and I don't know whether I expressed that or not, I may have, but I expressed the fact that something I was complimentary to him and all, and I guess the thought came to me, "Was this guy saying that he was retiring and going to give us the opportunity to own the paper or not?" But, that didn't ever come up in the discussion. But, I wonder what would've been my career or what it would've been like if I had looked at it from that point of view. But, that was just one of those things, and it also gives me a thought that you always think that great big things are things that influence your life sometime, and sometimes they are very small things that make a difference, between you living in one town or another, or getting one trade or something else like that, and that was the case at that time, and that's just the way I thought, and that was the result that I was leaving, and so everything worked out all right, I think. | 21:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, when you came to Durham to manage and then eventually to own the Service Printing Company, what was Black business like? Now was Service Printing Company, was that in the Hayti? | 22:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In the Hayti area, yeah. | 22:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there other Black entrepreneurs that you could work with? Did you have an organization or? | 22:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. Outstanding city for Black businesses. It has really, for its size, it's one of the leading cities in the country for African American entrepreneurs, and that was readily visible when we came to Durham. It was altogether different from Raleigh, I think. In fact, The Mechanics and Farmers Bank, which was based in Durham, had a branch in Raleigh and still has a branch, and of course they had a newspaper, had a savings and a loan association, had a fire insurance company, banker's fire insurance company, and the whole atmosphere of business was different, and to some extent it's still like that. The accomplishments of African American businesses is it's just outstanding, I think. I think probably it grew out of the fraternal organizations that were based in this city, and the idea of taking care of each other, really it is outstanding, and so when we came at a time that, in 1939, it was very visible and it proved to be a good choice for us to make, and we had what we considered a very successful career operating in Durham. | 23:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned the fraternal organizations. Did you become involved at this time in fraternal organizations? | 26:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I joined the Masons at one time, and what actually happened, I became a scoutmaster in 1942, and they met on the same night as my scout troop. I set my scout meeting on Mondays because, in my trade, our business, you have another day to take care of anything that you had to plan. But, if you—Normally, I would've met on Friday nights, that's better for the boys, but then I would find myself canceling the meeting or postponing or having it another day, and this kind of thing. So, I sacrificed the membership in the Masons to work with the Boy Scout, which I don't regret. I'm glad I did because I think I probably had an opportunity to make contribution that I would not have to make if I did not assume that position, and I was really always the sort to give something back based on what the benefits that had been given me as you. | 26:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. And Mr. White, you mentioned the fraternal organizations. What kind of a difference did they make in terms of African American [indistinct 00:28:05]? | 27:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | See, as the person coming in and observing, if you looked at—If you probably get a picture of Fayetteville Street as it stood before the freeway came through, you see these multistory buildings and all on Fayetteville Street, there were about four of them that were built by lodges and troops in this neighborhood, and I think out of that the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was organized in almost a 100 years ago, 1898. The bank was organized in 1910, a few years they organized— | 28:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think the idea of doing things to take care of each other sort of took hold here, and you got some remarkable achievements. You see that North Carolina Mutual building downtown, and at one time, I suppose it might be still so true that it was the largest business in the world that we had. That was right here in Durham, a relatively small community, and it's a tremendous demonstration of what can be done and what was done in this city to show the possibilities of working together and working for the benefit of each other. | 29:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, were you—I think, that Mr. Bryant mentioned that both of you were active in a number of different organizations— | 30:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Right. | 30:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | —community organizations. What were some of those organizations and what do you do? | 30:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, we work—First of all, we were members of the same church and we were working together, and still, we were members of the Durham Business & Professional Chain, and the Durham Business & Professional Chain was organized by JJ Henderson, who also was a Hampton graduate. Those organizations not only worked for the benefit of people all running businesses, but it worked in the general overall community, and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People. So, that's were some of the instances where we were working together. | 30:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People, were you—Now, I'm trying to remember what Mr. Bryant told me about that. What, that group had different committees? | 31:48 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, subcommittees. Yeah. | 32:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Subcommittees. Subcommittees. What particular subcommittees did you work on? | 32:06 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I worked on the economic subcommittee, the economic development, I think they would maybe call. But, at the time, I was working, I'm not sure the exact name on it. But anyway, I worked on that committee. I also—Floyd McKissick, I saw his help assistants who worked with me and we were co-chairs of the committee, and now all the committees have co-chairs, and so it was in that committee gave you an opportunity working in your own business, and also give you an opportunity to serve your community with whatever talents you might present to assist in uplifting other community. | 32:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | And you began working with the Durham Committee in the forties or? | 33:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, shortly after I came here. Yeah, we came in '39 and the Durham—Let me see. Durham Business & Professional Chain was organized in 1938. Now, the Durham Committee was organized before that, but shortly after I came here, I started working with the committee. | 33:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, Mr. White, what were some of the—With all of the different groups and committees, did the groups have different visions of what the Black community should be like in Durham? Were there— | 33:40 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think they were fairly well unified on what visions they had for the community. But, everything changes somewhat from time to time. Well, you have problems and you solve problems, then you move to other problems, and just keep working. Of course, one of the key problems was voting and electing, trying to get African-American representatives, people in office to—Well, actually, it's just in a democracy, if you're going to participate, you need to get out and vote and run for office and this kind of thing. So, it's a matter of doing what any citizen should do is to contribute in your way with your talents and other means to make your city better, and make it better for you as citizens in the community. | 33:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, how did you and the committee go about approaching voting issues in the thirties? | 35:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I guess, your first task was to be able to vote. That's a effort. There are all kinds of means and ways of denying to vote to Black citizens. There's a grandfather clause, and there were you not a whole citizens, and then I remember going to the poll to vote and there was a registrar reading out of a book, and I think if they didn't have that book, they might not be able to tell me the answers to the questions that they're asking me. That thing was also clear to me, and you have to—But instead of welcoming you to come in to fulfill your citizenship duties, this was a method to try to keep you from voting, and that thought sure came to my mind when I was looking at that. "Suppose they didn't have that book, could they answer that question?" But anyway, it was a fight to vote. | 35:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | When did you first try to vote? | 37:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Shortly after I came to Durham. Yeah. | 37:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was there already an organized effort within the Black community? | 37:09 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. But, you see, that was interesting. One that another thing was interesting that we didn't have precincts in your community. We went downtown to the courthouse to register. Then later on they had different precincts around, you know? | 37:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were all the registrars in those days White? | 37:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. | 37:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were some of the things that they would do to obstruct you from exercising your voting rights? | 37:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, as I say, when you're registered, they would ask you questions about the constitution and this kind of thing. Of course would they—If you had reasonable knowledge about things, they couldn't deny you that, but there was a strong effort just to try to prevent you from voting. So, the Durham Committee helped organize the community and organize people and encourage them to register to vote. | 38:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Then how would the committee go about doing that? | 38:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | They would do that in their meetings, they would do that in public meetings, get out the vote campaigns. When they had the precinct, they would organize people into going into the door to door basis, and then later on they got registrars that they registered people to vote. So, it was a kind of growing type of thing. Then they had a—I remember when they had elected the first person to the city council, R.N. Harris, and it's been growing ever since. | 38:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were churches involved in this campaign? | 39:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think the committee used the churches and then they used—Also, they had announcements made in the churches to call attention to registration and voting. Then they'd have rallies, mass rallies, where they had speakers to speak to and try to encourage people to vote. | 40:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | When did that start, the rallies? | 40:30 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, that's been going for some time. It started before I came here. I know I don't—I can't say it's—I don't know exactly precise time, but you know that now, after the Civil War, it seemed that they had a period of participation by The Freedmen, and it seemed like along near the turn of the century, they had a reversal. So, Mr. Scarborough, the undertaker here, we used to have what we call the One o'clock Luncheon Club. He used to talk about that period where they had postmasters and Black postmasters, and I guess that's a part of the thing that you all are looking at, aren't you? | 40:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yes, sir. | 41:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | That he talked about how—He made some interesting statements. I don't personally have that much knowledge about it, of course, but I imagine that's a interesting period to look at. Then they had a reversal of things with the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. They had segregation and all, and that in other words, you had to open it up, and then shut down. For me, born in 1914, I had a whole period where things were closed off, because like you mentioned earlier about the buses and street cars and things. | 41:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So, we may not still have caught up to the fullest extent when you hear people talk and you hear politicians talk, and I think that that segregation gave people a misconception about what should be happening and what is happening, and attitudes of not just segregated but inferior type situation. I mean, you have, say, people like George Washington Carver, Frederick Douglass, and Booker T. Washington, people who did great things and people still wondering about whether or not you are capable of—Then this guy at Rutgers up there, what was it? President— | 42:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:44:12]. | 44:11 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I mean, how could he do that in 1995? But, well, anyway, that's the kind of a thing that can come out of discrimination and misconception and wrong ideas. | 44:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, Mr. White, it's really it's interesting that you mentioned that earlier period, and because it seems to be connected to this current—Well, one of the things that seems to connect it is the church because, I mean, this church has been here since those early years, since 1866. | 44:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Right. | 45:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | I mean, what a rich history this church must have. | 45:05 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Well, this church, for example, they had a library in this church that later became the Stanford L. Warren Library. We had a minister that featured recreation, Reverend Dr. Miles Mark Fisher. He had a community softball league, and I understand that that probably may have been the first public recreation in town. The library, they had a nursery school, and had all kinds of things coming out of the church. | 45:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was White Rock the church that you joined when you first came to Durham? | 46:14 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, sir. I joined White Rock and I've been a member of ever since. | 46:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Then how did you come to White Rock? Did you just—Was it an accident or did you— | 46:28 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I think I got in my business, the printing business. I'm got to know the pastor of this church, Dr. Miles Mark Fisher, and I joined the church. | 46:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Your printing office had business with Reverend Fisher? | 0:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. We did work for him and we enjoyed a long relationship with him. | 0:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | And did White Rock, you mentioned earlier, the churches had some involvement in rallies. Was White Rock one of those churches that was involved in voting? | 0:21 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yes. Yeah. | 0:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would you ever have meetings or voter education? | 0:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | At this church? Yes. Oh yeah. | 0:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White. How did World War II affect the Black community in Durham? | 0:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well now, take my business, for example, we had four partners and two of them were drafted. So it left us personally short of management and sort of like a standstill in growth and this kind of thing because two of your owners and all went into the Army in the service. And so consequently, it slowed down our progress because our resources, our physical help and all was not there. | 1:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | But I guess we looked at it like everybody else, it's a sacrifice you have to make during that time. But I was a civilian necessity or some classification because the draft board didn't want to have to close our businesses because, first of all, what are these fellows who were in the service going to do for work when they come back? So I think there was some allowances made for, you couldn't just go into a business and draft all the men and all like that. | 2:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So the classification that I had permitted me to stay and help take care of business so that we could provide a job for people that were in that service. That was half of our management going in the service. So for us, personally, that's about the size of it. | 2:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did it seem like the war had an impact on race relations or politics? | 3:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, yeah, I would think so. There seems to have been some discussions about the African American citizens being allowed to do certain things. And I know that newspapers was pushing for those soldiers to be in actual combat. There was some discussion about the full participation. So there was some discussion about that kind of situation. And you're going have rights issues, fight to protect your rights like everybody else. | 3:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now, so far as the economy and all, I think at Camp Butner that was located near Oxford, they had lots of soldiers, Black soldiers out there. And then they had one or two racial incidents actually happened between the soldiers. They had one in the ABC store I know. I was trying to think of the exact detail of it, but I know a lot of the soldiers came in town to protect their rights. But in general it worked out fairly well I think. | 4:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | But they came in town. Were there Black soldiers coming in town to protect their rights? | 5:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It seemed like to me they had the gathering, I was trying to think of that exact incident. I'm going to tell you, it slips me. But anyway, they were near riots one time. Yeah. | 6:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was it something that one of the store owners said? | 6:27 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | How's that? | 6:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was it involved in the store? | 6:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In a whiskey store? Did you hear somebody talk? I'm trying to recall the exact incident, I can't. But some kind of discrimination between the White and the Black soldiers. But it wasn't no physical thing that happened. I think it was trying to arrest a soldier and somebody thought it was about being mistreated, | 6:38 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, one of the things I learned from Mr. Bryant was the different parts of the Black community in Durham. If you had to say, what were some of the different areas in terms of maybe class divisions and different neighborhoods in the Black community, what were some of the major? | 7:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I think that everybody, most people are trying to do the best that they can. And if somebody can build a better house or a bigger house, they might try to do that. And then certain groups of people try to live together. And so you do have kind of divisions that, I don't know. I would suspect that there's more togetherness than separations, and even in the White community that's more prevalent than it is in the Black community. People making a certain amount of money living together, then when they get more money, they move again. Then if they get more money, they move again. And that's a whole lot more movement in the White community than you have in the Black community. If you got 5 million, you live somewhere and if you get 10, you go move with the people with the 10 million. | 8:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you have a lot of contact with Black people who were working, say in the tobacco industry during the forties? | 9:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | The various groups in particular, the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People and the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs. Those people who worked in the factories and people who worked at North Carolina Mutual were working together for the same thing. In fact, some of the people in the factories was putting their money on the table just like everybody else. There was a good deal of working together in the churches and in the committees and groups and civic groups and helping to get out the vote and voting. They're working for the common good of all. | 10:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | And Mr. White, with the Hayti Business District being such a thriving district in terms of Black business, were you involved in trying to keep the district together during the urban renewal project and the eventual—? | 11:21 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, we were put in a position where that freeway was a big issue. Where you going to put the freeway? They discussed all kinds of ways. One suggestion was to build it above the railroad and they finally decided to put it where it is now. And what they did, they combined a urban renewal program along with the freeway because the urban renewal program, when they judged the area substandard and declared it substandard and with that permission you would have an area which was I think the area that they used. But the major portion of the freeway was area three, which gave them the privilege of demolishing the entire area, whatever area that they layed out in the urban renewal. And that gave them the possibility of constructing the freeway through that area. | 11:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now without that, they could stop it or change it or something like that. Now that was for the reason of constructing the freeway. And so there were certain kinds of things that needed to be done. Now one of the things that I did personally, I went down to Atlanta and got the government to agree, along with the people who represent the redevelopment commission, got them to agree to build some temporary buildings, which they said they had not done before. They hadn't built it. And this was a section that they called Tin City, that they built temporary steel buildings to house some people down on Pettigrew Street so that they could put the freeway through there now. | 13:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So it changed the whole area around to a point where they scattered the homes, churches and businesses. And that actually destroyed the Hayti area from what it was in the beginning. Because Hayti, it was a compact area that at one time had movie theaters, a hotel, three drug stores, and businesses, insurance, fire insurance, others, Southern Fidelity Insurance. North Carolina Mutual had a district office down there. We had an office on Pettigrew Street, which had a fire in 1985, but it was finally leveled a couple of months ago. Finally, even less time than that. | 15:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So what it did was scattered some of the businesses and destroyed some of the others and churches too. Now, one building, the Logan Building was brick, concrete and steel, which they leveled. I never have understood. It was not substandard, but I guess the law says that you could take anything in that substandard area out. The buildings that were left, and still there within short distance from that building, were a lot less standard than the Logan Building, which as I said earlier, was brick, concrete and steel. And one of the things is that our building was in there and I noticed they're putting a print shop in that same place that we were. | 16:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who had a print shop? | 17:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | The Ferguson Printing Company. It's going be in the same general area that we were. And we were never given the option to stay there. We were always looking for other places to move. And one of the reasons why we didn't move, we were not shown something equal to or better than what we had. But we sold our business to the employees in 1983, and they had a fire in 1985, and they didn't have the muscle to recover from that fire. | 17:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | So Service Printing Company stayed on Pettigrew? | 18:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | On Pettigrew Street. | 18:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | You didn't move? | 18:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We didn't move. We were looking for some place to move, but nobody ever suggested that we could fix up what we had. | 18:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | But you were supposed to be given an offer for basically assistance to move to a place that was either equal? | 18:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Equal to or better than what we had. And we were never shown anything like that. | 18:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | But would they show you things or show you areas? | 18:51 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We talked with them about it. What actually happened was we sold the business to the redevelopment commission. So they had the authority with that sale to do what they wanted to do. And as it turned out, when we were looking at it and we were discussing it, only one part of Pettigrew Street was actually taken out for the freeway itself. And that part, if you go down there now where you see Fayetteville Street coming over the freeway, you'll see where it was Scarborough's Funeral Home, State's Auto Service and two blocks of businesses that were taken out to facilitate the freeway. The rest of it, where we were on down to the Regal Theater and Garrett's Drugstore and all and everything, they were actually removed. But the land is still in place where it was without any interference with the freeway. So it's kind of a mixture that of what happened in that area. | 18:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the the address of the Service Printing? | 20:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | 504 East Pettigew Street | 20:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | And Mr. White, what were some of the things that you did politically to try to make urban renewal or to make this freeway situation, to make it not so onerous on Black businesses? What was there? | 21:05 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, as I said earlier, one of the things we did was that area near the corner of Fayetteville Street and Pettigrew with the State's Auto Service and things, we actually had them, the urban renewal, the redevelopment commission to construct some temporary metal buildings that housed some of those people. Actually Scarborough was down there, the Carolina Times. The Carolina Times, and the E.N Toole Electric Company and Elvira's Restaurant and Turner's—and Turner's Beauty Supply. Those businesses were moved down on Fayetteville Street, the Old Fayetteville Street and another street that ran off of Fayetteville Street. So they built some temporary buildings to house those places. | 21:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And at the same time we were looking around to see where we could locate, but then we got in the process of selling the business to the workers. We sold the Service Printing Company to the workers and they took over for a couple of years. Then at that time, in 1985, they had a fire down there. So that for all purposes was the end of our participation there. | 22:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you think that the redevelopment commission dealt fairly with Black businesses? | 23:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, the process makes it not fair. In other words, I think we got something like $32,000 for our building. Now what you really need when you're building a highway, either freeway or something like that, and you need property to build that, what you really need, as I look back on it now, is replacement. In other words, if you going drive a freeway right through my building, the only fair thing to do is to be able to replace that building. In other words, I ought to be able to move my equipment and everything into a building. If they do it like that, you will be able to withstand the damage. | 23:43 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now the Highway Department has a replacement cause in their building, but the urban renewal has what they call fair market value and that won't replace it. And that's where the handicap comes. You're building a road and you put the burden on the property owner to replace his property rather than just you give me that $32,000. That probably wouldn't, maybe it would've bought the land or whatever, but it wouldn't put the building back and everything like that. | 25:11 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So now when they worked in the Crest Street area, they operated under the replacement value with the extension of the freeway through the Crest Street area. So that's the difference. That that's what makes, in my eyesight, unfair. It's too much of a handicap to overcome. | 26:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | And those businesses in the Crest Street, they were also Black owned? | 26:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | The homes mostly were Black and some of them were rental and all that. But they took a lesson from what happened to Hayti and they came out better than the people in the Hayti. They didn't have as many business. Of course, they had some institutions, churches and the like. So that's what made a big difference. Yeah. | 26:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, were you also involved in other politics? I think Mr. Bryant mentioned the Black Solidarity Committee. | 27:09 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, that was a group fighting for rights and trying to protect the interests of the community. That group, they were organized for fair treatment and I think they conducted some boycotts and this type of thing. | 27:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who would've been the main people involved in the Black Solidarity Committee? | 28:14 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, it was a whole community organization that I don't have a list of people before me that I could call, but it was a community-wide organization. | 28:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, I don't want to take up too much more of your time, but a couple more questions. Did you keep contact with your family during your years here in Durham? Did you yourself marry? | 28:51 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. I married 1942. I married a childhood sweetheart, Jean Elizabeth Briscoe, and we have two children, Nathaniel B. White Junior, and Joseph Marvin White. My wife is deceased. | 29:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | And so your children went to school here? | 29:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | They went to elementary school here and my oldest son went to Duke University. He was one of the first five students at Duke. My youngest son, Joseph Marvin White went to Florida A&M University in Tallahassee, Florida. He studied printing by the way. | 29:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you originally intend for your oldest son to be one of the first African American students at Duke? Was that part of a coordinated effort? | 30:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | That's coincidental. I mean what happened was we had talked about him going to Hampton University and his guidance counselor approached him about the possibility of going to Duke University. We talked about it and together we decided that that was an opportunity that he probably should take advantage of. It was different from what he had planned and he mentioned that. But knowing him as a child and growing up and all, I felt that he had the kind of stability and maturity that, first of all, he had the training and the accomplishments that would enable him to go to Duke. And so together we made the decision for him to go. | 30:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that a difficult experience at first, kind of cracking that racial barrier there? | 32:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I don't know whether we have actually evaluated to that extent. But Duke had made some preparations for that. And he went in a situation where there didn't seem to be a general organized resistance, like the student body and the people. And it was something that they had decided that they wanted to do so it wasn't any organized resistance. It was some, I think, opposition but it was not outright vocal and organized, let's stop this, and this kind of thing. | 33:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And he had very good training. He was qualified and had the stamina and the background to be able to resist any kind of feeling that might come up. And I think he was successful in it. There's one thing about a situation like that. It's more like the real world than some other places that you might go, and everything seems like it's all right, but it's not training you for what you going to meet when you get outside. It's a real struggle out there, and the sooner you learn that the better off you might be. Now, I don't know, I have to ask him, is that why he went. But in other words, every day he had what it's like to be an African American citizen in this country. So he doesn't have to learn that after he graduated. He learned it every day at Duke. | 34:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, what were some of the main things that kept you going in your struggle all of the years, keeping the printing business going, and your family? What were some of the things that inspired you to give you strength? | 36:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I guess faith, religion, family. And really whatever opposition you might have, either artificial or real, a lot of what's happening it's a burden on the other people that you're facing. Sometimes it's difficult to understand, but I'm beginning to wonder within myself, how is it that we continue to have struggles? We have continued to have insurrections. We continue to have people out there killing each other. Sometimes these are people that grew up together and all. | 36:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I begin to wonder, how long are we going to be doing this? How can the people just go? We criticize people who do this on the street and on Saturday night somebody does it. But the next day we read that somebody shoots up and kills 40 people, 50 people, 100 people. I wondered for a long time, what was that they were doing over in England and the Irish. And it's a bigger problem than we think. And it's kind of puzzling. It's really disturbing. | 38:13 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I know we do that. Maybe up on Main Street this weekend, somebody'll get shot. But it is something deeper than we as human beings. It's something we haven't learned yet. And sometimes I reflect on that. | 39:18 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And now we're celebrating the 50 years ending of the conflict with Japan and how we ended that. It's something we need to look into. And I think that we as a group, the thing that I went through. You know Martin Luther King said that his mind and soul never sat on the back of the bus. Everything I had went on the back of the bus, mind, body, soul and everything. But at the same time, it did that, it did something for me. | 39:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | If I could do that and come out of it and not hate people because they're different from me, and maybe even love people that are different from me, maybe I have learned something that other guy didn't learn. 'Cause I see some violence in him. I see some things in him that I would never do. Kill people and eat them and all kinds of stuff. So maybe after all, maybe I came out on top and he hadn't caught up yet. And I'm concerned about it, but what can I do about it? But I think about it sometimes. | 41:14 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So who's right and who's wrong? This world that we got, I can still smile and be happy and I'm trying every day to unlock the doors of how to keep doing that. | 42:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And maybe we, as human beings, maybe we still need to work on those kinds of things and make this a better world for all of us because we need to do that. My time is running out. But hopefully somehow or another, I just— | 42:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Sometimes you think about the wars that we have been through. I've lived almost in four-fifths of this century. I think that it'd be a good idea if we could, we got a few more years left before we get to the 21st century, and we could concentrate on how we can make things better for all of us and make the 21st century better than the 20th century. Look at the wars you had. Two World Wars. | 43:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Woo! (laughs) So maybe you all can work it out, maybe (laughs) you can study this thing. That's a good project to work on. Let's see if y'all got the answers. | 44:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | We'll start this time, if you will, by having you discuss business on Fayetteville Street in the Hayti section when you first took over Service Printing Company. | 0:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Right, right. | 0:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | And if you could talk to us a little bit about some of the businesses? I'm looking at the city directory and it's such a thriving center for barbershops, stores. | 0:22 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Now, we were located on Fayetteville Street in the 600 block, in 608 Fayetteville Street, and we were on the second floor of that number at that building, and beneath us was a poolroom and that was where the Service Printing Company was started at that address. And now, Fayetteville Street at that time, right next door to us was the office of the North Carolina Mutual Durham District Office, and then going down, proceeding down Fayetteville Street, I guess it would be going—What is that? A north-south street. Let's see. | 0:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | This is where it's located now. It was going south on Fayetteville Street. There was a drug store next door to us that operated by Dr. James and his sons were in the business, the pharmacy. Dr. James was the leading pharmacy. And then there was another drug store right on the corner, now that's 608. That meant that, I guess it was—Well, next to the drug store was building supply, home modernization and supply company, that was next to the James. I was trying to think of what that— | 1:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember the address of being— | 2:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | What did Dr. James call his drugstore? Well, this is Fayetteville Street here. Let's see. | 2:38 |
| Paul Ortiz | Hayti Drugstore? That was on 618. | 2:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | 618? No. Oh, you have 618? Oh, you have an address there? Well, that was in that same block right on—That was on the corner. | 2:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. That's right before Al. | 3:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And then I was trying to see 608. That's it. You go there. You go right there. Bruce. That's a pool. Yeah, Billiards, pool. We just call it poolroom. And that was, we were on the second floor Service Printing Company. And then that's—Oh, this is Richard L. MacDougal. That was Home Modernization & Supply Company. They sold building supplies and I think they did some buildings. And that MacDougal, I suppose he must have—Oh, no, this is 609. That was his home address across the street from our address. That's number 608. That's 609. | 3:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He was a very prominent person in the community. He was an officer at the Mechanics & Farmer's Bank and the Mutual. I started to say Building Loan, but Mutual Savings & Loan, which is now a mutual community savings bank. And he was also given credit for encouraging a lot of building and home ownership and this kind of thing because of his position that he organized, I mean that he had into the bank and the savings and loan. And a lot of the development at that time was credited to him because he encouraged people to own their own homes and this type of thing. And so he was a very active person. And I said that was his residence across the street. Now, it was that Bull City Drug Store, let me see, it was on the corner of that block. And then I see you have here, you have a Right Way Laundry, that was a branch of the Right Way Laundry. | 4:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that owned by a Black business person, or? | 5:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't think it was, really. And then there's Amy's Fish & Poultry Market. Shelley was a shoe company, and Loftin's Bakery, I believe that was a branch. And then there was a—Let's see. Ever D Green, that's a office there, I believe. No, grocery store. That's a grocery store. | 6:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would you talk a lot with, and would you have a lot of interactions with these businesses that you're telling us about? | 6:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, there's another drugstore there too. That's an interesting thing now. That was the third drugstore. We've come across two here, but Biltmore Drugstore was on Pettigrew Street right next to the Regal Theater. And interesting enough, that was Dr. Garrett who came here from Rocky Mountain, I believe, operating the Biltmore Drugstore on Pettigrew Street. And it was actually the larger of the two drugstores that we mentioned so far. The one on Pettigrew Street was next to the Regal Theater. And then the Biltmore Hotel was on the second floor above the drugstore. | 6:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And then you have another older theater before. We skipped over something here, we're going on Pettigrew Street, but there's the older drugstore, older theater that was not operating at the time I was there, that was on Pettigrew Street too. | 7:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember the name of that? | 8:10 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I was trying to think of it. Do you have Pettigrew Street on here? | 8:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, we might only have— | 8:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Let me see. | 8:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | It goes on to—Yeah, we have. | 8:21 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I know that building was one of the first. It actually was closed, that theater that we're talking about, and it was one of the first locations of John Avery Boys Club. Maybe that'll come to me. | 8:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that theater a Black owned theater? Or it was— | 8:51 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, it was a Black owned theater. And it was, I think it might have predated the Regal or either at about the same time. Then there was a Booker T Theater that was built in that same building that we were in, that was there as I mentioned earlier, we talked about the layout on Pettigrew Street. In the building we were in, which was we mentioned that it was an old hosiery mill, either I think they manufactured cloth and they manufactured things from cloth and all that was built for Black workers on Pettigrew Street. That was building that we were in. Let me see. | 8:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | It was built for Black workers, or? | 9:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it was built and operated from—It was like a branch. I'm not absolutely sure, but it was like a branch of the Durham Hosiery. | 9:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 10:09 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I said hosiery, I guess it was textile. Something with textile. My understanding was, I haven't read an exact precise history of it, that was why this building was built. It was a block long building. You don't have any pictures of the outside of the building? Yeah, that's it. That's the corner. We were on the corner, but this building was a block long, and it was a building that— | 10:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | The hosiery was Black owned? | 10:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it was not Black owned. | 10:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | It wasn't Black owned? | 10:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, it was built. Durham Hosiery, they had several branches in the city, I believe. Now that's my understanding of it, but this was not in place when we came there. It was vacant. And one of the fellows that was really interested in that area, that vacant building down there, was Judge. I think Judge was not his real name, I think they call him Judge Watkins, but he was called the Movie King because he owned—Oh, that was a Wonderland Theater. | 10:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 11:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And he owned that building, that theater. | 11:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Judge Watkins? | 11:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Judge Watkins. Now Judge, now that wasn't his real name. I think that Judge was a name that was, he was called by that. But he was a very interesting person. He, somehow or another, I don't think he owned this building, he was acquainted with the owners of the building and he visualized what could happen in this building. In other words, he attracted us to move into this building from Fayetteville Street, as we talked about earlier on being on Fayetteville Street. And he was very dramatic. He was the type of person that when they'd have a parade or something, he'd be like the Marshall on the parade riding a horse or something in the parade. He had a lot of flair and everything. | 11:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And he took interest in this building and he sold us on the idea of moving from wherever we were into the building. He could describe what it could become and everything. And they divided the building into sections. Let's see. 18 feet section. Now, that first section where we were in when you went 18 feet, but when you got to the end of the building, it was a hundred feet. So it's like a triangle type of building. But if you go straight, this wall, this side would go straight back, and this side was spread out. So we bought two sections in that building. And I was trying to think. Did we buy a nine-foot section? I think we might have bought a 18-foot section and a nine-foot section. | 13:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And when we set it up for our use, we left the second section. So it was separated in the front and we rented out the front for a shoe shop. And one fellow, I think who we rented it to first was named Fred White, no relationship, and then he sold it. He sold his business to a fellow named Monroe. I recall him. Let me see. I was trying to think of his first name. But anyway, he had a shoe shop in that building. He bought the shoe shop from Fred White. Monroe did. | 14:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | So Fred White actually owned that part of the— | 15:08 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, we rented it to him. | 15:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, you rented it to him. | 15:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We rented it. We bought two sections of the building. | 15:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 15:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | See, it was divided into—I was trying to—See, that first section was more than nine feet, really. Maybe we must have bought it. We could have bought three sections of it, because this first section might have been—We might have bought two sections for our use. No, we bought three. I was trying to think really. But we rented one section, we remodeled it. But the way it was—Let's see. This is the one you had. The way it was, it was like this one section come down straight like this, and then this part here, and then this other section came out like this. And when they got in the back, it was a hundred and something feet. | 15:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And in the front, now I'm thinking now that we had—This was probably 27 feet here. And what actually happened was, every nine feet there were posting here supporting the wall, supporting the roof. And what we did was, we rented the front part of this out, but then we went on this side, we could go out and then go back here for one half of that part right there. And then this part was kind of an open space part right in there. So that was what that was. Now, we were going through this talking about what was on pit on the— | 16:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, I was wondering now, a couple questions on you and your partners coming to this new location. How did you first meet or get acquainted with Judge Watkins? | 17:19 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I think he came to us. | 17:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 17:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And he was that type of fella. He was a really open-minded fella. And what he was trying to do, I was trying to just—I was thinking, I don't mean to jump off too much here, but he lived on Fayetteville Street and I was trying to get his real name there. Let me see. I lived at one time on—Here is where I lived, at 1217, and he lived across the street. Yeah, here it is. Now, this is his real name. That looked like Frederick K. Watkins. | 17:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 18:32 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. So he lived almost—See, that's 1218, that house is still standing. And Judge was— | 18:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | So he was also kind of a Black real estate agent, or? | 18:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think he basically started out operating a theater and he may have done a number of things. And in terms of, he was interested in the community, he had a lot of flare about him, a lot of imagination about what could happen and what could do. And I really think he was an agent for the people that were selling this property and he went around talking. Now, I don't know what his exact connection was, whether had the commission or they hired him, but he came to us, for example, the young people in the community, knowing us and operating the print business, and we were up on the second floor. And I think because of the kind of cosmopolitan type of guy he was, he's interested in the community and they also sees an opportunity. He sold us on the idea of—He was trying to sell people on the idea of moving into this building. And he pictured how it would be very dramatically and it was just what we needed, really. | 18:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who owned the actual building? | 20:27 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I wish I could tell you. I think the hosiery mill still owned it. Durham Hosiery Mill. | 20:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | So he was kind of working as an agent for them? | 20:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think he was acting as agent for them. And then this I can come to tell you. I know we borrowed the money from the bank to buy it. | 20:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | From Mechanics & Farmers? | 20:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | From Mechanics & Farmer's Bank. And now, it's also other people who came in there, Carolina Times, Elvira's Blue Tavern, she had a restaurant that was in there. | 20:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Before you were— | 21:17 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think pretty near the same time. No, we were in there, we were about one of the first to go in there. And then also in that building on the right end of it, it was a block long. It was a second floor on that. And they, Judge, Lawyer Gates, and lawyer Thompson, about three attorneys moved in on the right end of the building on the second floor. There wasn't an elevator or anything, had to walk up. Then also, a theater was built in there. Someone mentioned Booker T Theater. | 21:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | They heard of the Booker-T Theater? | 22:13 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, they went in there real strong, because they built a wall. They built a wall from the ground up right onto the roof and it was a real nice theater. And that's what that meant, that there were a third theater in numbers on Pettigrew Street, but only two operating. The Wonderland was closed. Before we got to Durham, it was already closed. And it was also used, as I mentioned earlier, as one of the homes of the John Avery Boys Club. The John Avery Boys Club, first home I believe was on Fayetteville Street in the next block before you get to where we were on the sixth. We were in the 600 block, but there was a street, a Ray Alley about right next to the North Carolina Mutual District Office, and then there was White Rock Baptist Church next to that. | 22:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | So the building that you're describing that had the theater and the office space, what address was that on? That was on? | 23:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Pettigrew Street. | 23:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | On Pettigrew. | 23:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Our address was the first. First in the end was 608. Let's see. Now, I don't know what it was, the address, when there was a hosiery mill. | 23:38 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. And that was a building that you moved into? | 23:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We moved into that building, then we had to remodel it to suit ourselves. All we bought was a portion of the building. | 23:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | That was a big building. | 24:10 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it was. It a block long. It was a block long. See, we said the Service Printing Company, then a shoe repair, then a restaurant, and then a beauty supply, Big Turner Building Supply, and then the Carolina Times, and then EN Toole Electrical Company. Now, I don't know whether you'll get a chance to talk with him. | 24:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, is he be a good person to— | 24:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't know how well he is, but if you could get to talk with him, he might tell you some interesting thing. | 25:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | And his name is? | 25:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Toole EN. T-O-O-L-E. E-N. I don't know what that EN stands for. He's a fascinating person. He's a real skillful mechanic. He did all our electrical work when we moved down there and I'm glad he was still living as long as we worked because he knew where every wire was and he could fix things. Now, he's the type of guy, that if he was working on something and he needed a part, he could go down to his machine shop and make the part. And once he fixed it, whatever he was doing, it was fixed. The only problem you had with him was, if something broke down, you might have to go get him to come back and fix it because he knew where everything was and he could find out whether to repair it, or—He's still living, I think. He lived on Pekoe Street, I believe. | 25:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | And his last name is Toole? | 26:17 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Toole, yeah. T-O-O-L-E. | 26:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Now, he was a Black electrician? | 26:21 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. | 26:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, I wonder if you— | 26:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He's an electrical engineer. | 26:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Electrical engineer. Okay. Jack of all trade. | 26:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. You had a question? | 26:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, there are a couple of things I was wondering about. One, could you describe the relationship that you had with the other entrepreneurs in the building? Were you in an organization together, or? | 26:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | We never had a formal organization, but we had a close relationship with one another. And the thing that we did that saved us from the first fire that came down there was, we built a fire wall. One of the teachers over to Hillside, Thomas, his name was H. Thomas Tucker, he taught brick masonry, and I think that was his main subject. Because Hillside at that time, had a machine shop, brick masonry, and they had a carpentry shop and, I said machine shop, and automobile repairing. And one of the things that they did as a project, when you go down Lawson Street and come into—What is that? Is that Roxboro? Yeah, it is Roxboro. No, it is. If you go back past Hillside and you go down to, I think that, that's Roxboro, there's some houses on the left before you get to Roxboro. They were built by students. | 26:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, at Hillside? | 28:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, at Hillside. They right opposite. The field, the practice field would run into where those houses are. If you go by there sometime you can see they were built by students. And that was, in other words, the students in carpentry and building construction and all, actually built houses. | 28:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | And that was during the time that you were in your forties? | 29:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was during that. We came in '39, and this, I would say it might have been as much as five or 10, a few years after we got there, that they actually built those houses. And that was, this fella I mentioned, Ace Thomas Tucker to teach brick laying, that was Cisnet who taught machine shop, and he lived right next door to me on when I moved to Austin Avenue. I lived at 1501. If you go by there sometime, the last house in the 1400 block, he bought that house and it had a well in the yard and it was an old farmhouse, and he laid the bricks on that house himself. Laid every brick that's in that house. Now, he's no longer living there now. He lived right next door to me, but I thought it was very interesting that he was a machine shop instructor, but he laid the bricks on his house. I guess that's that Hampton spirit in him. He finished Hampton Institute, same school that I finished. | 29:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, were you both active in the alumni organization? | 30:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yes. We were. Yeah. He's a very fine fellow and a real artisan in the trades. Now, it was a close relationship. And when you mentioned organization, I don't think we ever organized a former group, but we all knew each other and worked together and planned anything that we might do. Each building, of course, is separate. You know where the Carolina Times is now don't you? It's on Fayetteville Street. | 30:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | On Fayetteville. Yeah. | 31:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It's really it's still on the Old Fayetteville Street, actually. They call it Old Fayetteville Street. And I might have mentioned it to you earlier that I was instrumental in helping them build that temporary structures, because they got to a point in the freeway where they were rushing the people out, and the lawyers, that they can't move anybody that doesn't have somewhere to go. And they tell me, this was done the first time in Urban Renewal in the country. Urban Renewal doesn't build anything for people. They only give you these orders to move. But we went down to Atlanta, I went down there with—I was trying to think of this fellow's name. Henry Moss. He was head of the redevelopment. Not the commission, but I guess the staff. And he was, might have been an assistant. And we went down to Atlanta, the office that was over this district and convinced them. They were trying to do the exit off of the Fayetteville Street crossing of the freeway as you see it now. | 31:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | Off of 147? | 33:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. They wanted to complete that. Started getting ready to do that exit. The interesting part about it though, after the first block, it didn't disturb Pettigrew Street, but they moved all the people out in—Speight, Theodore Speight, who has this. | 33:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, the auto mechanic shop? | 34:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. He was right on the corner of Fayetteville and Pettigrew. And then that exit was effective in the way the buildings down to where we were branch placed. That was the corner. The corner we were. Yeah, but this building right here. Right down to this building. They wanted all those people to move, but they didn't have anywhere to go. So what we did, we took the problem to the redevelopment commission and then we got together and they took me down to Atlanta to explain the problem to the people in Atlanta. And they put up a hundred thousand dollars to build those buildings, temporary buildings, and the Carolina Times is still in one of those temporary buildings. But what they did before the Carolina Times moved down, they bricked it in. That's a 10. That was another 10, a metal building. | 34:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, is that what they call Tin City? | 35:19 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Tin City. Yeah. | 35:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 35:22 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Now, it was more than just that. Where it is now, it was like a L shape. It came— | 35:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | What street was it on? | 35:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was on, let me see, Fowler Avenue, really. It was the Fowler Avenue on the other side of Fayetteville Street. Let's see. Oh, let see. Where's St. Joseph Church on here? Is this it? | 35:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Yeah. | 36:11 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it was there. Now see, it was—Now, which way is south here? | 36:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay, this is White Rock here. | 36:23 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, let me see this. That's north and this must be south. And anyway, it was right down Fowler Avenue. One building was built like this, and then the Carolina Times building, I think it might have been up this way a little bit. That building that's down there now, that's where the Carolina Times is now. So that, the two buildings that they built to take care of those buildings on Pettigrew Street, were built like that on Fowler Avenue. And they were made out of metal. They call it Tin City, but there was a metal building. Now, the Carolina Times building has been bricked around, and Toole went down there with the Carolina Times. | 36:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Did a lot of people patronize those businesses when they moved? Was there— | 37:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And see, the other thing is that Phoenix Square was the next step up from this metal building type thing. And it took in places like the Green Candle that are now in the Phoenix Square and the barber shops and several others. That took care of the smaller businesses in Hayti, which did not go into the Heritage Square Shopping Center. That's how they were able to move off of Pettigrew Street. | 37:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did they receive support from—I mean, you mentioned going and getting the funding in Atlanta from redevelopment. Did they receive support from say, Mechanics & Farmers or other lending institutions? | 38:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I suppose they did. I'm sure they did because they had to have their own. They did redevelopment commission, they built the building, but I don't know whether they actually physically moved them or not. And so, let's see, where do we go from here? | 38:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Mr. White, there was a couple more questions I wanted to ask you also. Well, I guess additional questions about your location on 608. And you mentioned earlier some of the businesses and you mentioned I think a billiard hall. | 39:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, that was beneath us. | 39:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | That was beneath you? Okay. | 39:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Uh-huh. | 39:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | So did you know the owner of the— | 39:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. Let me see. Where's that city directory? Yeah, it was—They had the name of the person there, Bruce. Yeah, William B. Bruce. | 39:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 39:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I had a discussion with somebody the other day about that. | 40:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was in there? Was it just pool tables? | 40:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Just pool tables. Yeah. | 40:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was there a bar, or? | 40:11 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, I think they sold soft drinks in there. | 40:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 40:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And that's Cardi Moore. | 40:19 |
| Paul Ortiz | They played pool there, or? | 40:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Very seldom. No, it's not—I can't think of if ever that went down. And that's Cardi Moore. That's Dr. Moore's wife, one of the— | 40:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 40:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | One of the founders. She lived right there. It's Cardi S. Moore. Her husband was, I believe, one of the founders of North Carolina Mutual. | 40:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. I was wondering, I noticed this the other day that there's no—I mean, they didn't put a C by her name, but I guess it's just a mistake the directory made. Now they had put— | 40:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | What is the C for? Colored? | 41:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | During segregation, yeah. They had a designated— | 41:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. | 41:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | See, now she doesn't have a C by her name. | 41:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | What is that? | 41:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | The O, means owner. | 41:23 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, I see. | 41:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | She owned the place? I mean, her residence? | 41:28 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, she was Black. | 41:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | She was Black? | 41:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. | 41:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | It's just kind of odd that— | 41:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | They didn't put it. Oh, I never noticed that. Yeah, okay. | 41:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | I guess the designations are kind of convenient for us now as historians when we find it. | 41:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. | 41:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Ironically. | 41:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, but it works that way sometime. | 41:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. In fact, I think her—She had a very—This was her residence by White Rock, wasn't it? | 42:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Yeah, it was right next door to White Rock. Yeah. | 42:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you know her, or? | 42:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. She was a member of White Rock. See, Dr. AM Moore, who was in my Sunday school class, his name for him, Moore, then the Ed Kennedy, he passed. | 42:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, what kind of position in the community did Mrs. Moore play after? | 42:35 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, she was a very prominent member of White Rock. And I hear a lot of talk about people who helped people a lot in the missionaries. I mean, they went out in the community, and somebody was ill, somebody needed assistance, and there was a lot of that type of thing being done. And so she was very active in the church. | 42:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was she ever active in business herself in her own right? | 43:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now, so far as my knowledge is, I don't think so, but I wouldn't be absolutely sure about it. I can't think of any business type activity that she was connected, but I know she was active in the church and active in the community. And I hear a lot of discussion about missionaries and all that. Really did missionary type of things in the community. | 43:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. Like? | 44:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Children was ill, or somebody had death in the family, that they come to their aid and this kind of thing. | 44:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there Black women who were active as entrepreneurs on Fayetteville? | 44:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. Mrs. DeShazor. Jackson—J. DeShazor—Jackson. Is it Jackson? "Madam." Now, she's in that second block down there. Let's see. | 44:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Is it the 500 block? Or the— | 44:53 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No, the higher number six, or what is it? Seven. Oh yeah, that's Bankers Fire. That was a fire insurance company. That was a Black company. And what year is this book? | 44:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is 1938. | 45:13 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. She was on that street. Let me see if I can find a Bankers Fire. Jackson Plumbing Company. That fellow was a Hamptonian too. | 45:16 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, the person that ran Jackson Plumbing? | 45:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Then let's see. | 45:40 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was his name? | 45:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh. Ooh, I can't think of his first name yet. That's history. | 45:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. Jackson, or? | 45:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Oh, one of these rooms. Dennis Eugene Thompson. That's the ABC store there. It's only one sheet here? | 45:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, it's two sheets actually. It might be in the next. | 46:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it's physical. | 46:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Start here. | 46:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Dr. Cory, he was a physician. Yeah, that's the block now they be getting down a little closer here to. Yeah, here you go. The DeShazor's Beauty Academy. They call it Beauty College. Now, her last name was DeShazor. Her first name was Jacqueline. Jacqueline DeShazor. And the North Carolina Mutual had that, they had—I had that district office a little in the 600 block. Now, this book, this may be a year or two before they got to the 600 block in the Southern— | 46:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I tell you another interesting about Hayti. Those buildings were built by fraternal organizations. And there were about four buildings down there, multi-story buildings that were built by fraternal organizations. Around this time that this book was published, they probably had been changed hands, and I don't believe any large group owned the building at this time. | 0:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | These were Black lodges, correct? | 0:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, uh-huh. You don't have a picture of Fayetteville Street, do you? An old Picture Fayetteville Street? There are some pictures of it. | 0:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | No. | 0:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now I know the Arts Council has some pictures of old Fayetteville Street. I know they had an exhibit down the down there. And maybe Hayti, the heritage center, they may have some pictures. But I know that the Arts Council has pictures of Old Fayetteville Street. So those large buildings down there, multi-story buildings, were built by fraternal organizations. And my thinking is that those fraternal organizations were the real basis for establishment of North Carolina Mutual. It's sort of a idea of taking care of your own, which was in 1898 that they were founded. | 0:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh. Speaking of taking care of your own, Mr. White, I was wondering, were there things that Black business people did in 1938 to encourage Black residents to shop in Black establishments? | 2:03 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. We had the Durham Business & Professional Chain, an organization, was organized in 1938 by James Jackson Henderson. We call him J.J. Henderson. He's still living, by the way. He's not too well at this time. But he organized that. Now, there's a little story behind that. They had the National Negro Business League. And Mr. Spaulding, in '38, was the president of the national, before they had a local chapter. And I've been intending to ask Mr. Henderson about this. My guess is that, while he was president, Mr. Spaulding, a very prominent business person, I know you have things about him, as president of the national felt the need to have a local chapter. I don't want to quote him without knowing the facts. I said I was going to ask Mr. Henderson. My thinking is that he came down, and being Mr. Henderson's boss, he just made a suggestion to him that might be a good project for him to carry out. | 2:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. | 3:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And— | 3:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | What kind of projects would the Chain do? | 4:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, they had what they call a Trade Week, where they asked people to pay special attentions to the Black businesses and call attention to. They had a parade, which was more or less cooperating with North Carolina colleges homecoming. And they had floats in the parade. Mrs. DeShazor was head of the Housewives' League. And the Housewives' League, one of its goals was sponsoring the patronage of Black businesses. And they asked you during that week to do all your buying from Black businesses. And it was quite a real boost. They had what they call a booster dinner. Mr. Henderson had the leadership role in that organization, and that was one of their projects. | 4:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, was there some concern that some Black residents of Durham were not loyal or were not patronizing Black businesses, that they might have wanted to perhaps go to A&P to try to save a dime here and there? | 5:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Let me see. They had an A&P store in Hayti. You know that, didn't you? | 5:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yes, sir. | 6:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So I think there was an encouragement to buy, but I don't think anybody, that store sitting right there, would be severely criticize the person for going in that store. | 6:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, they wouldn't be or would be? | 6:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't think that though. Well, I can't really say, because I have to go back into a memory of that. But I don't think that it was that kind of a situation, because this was something they encourage you to buy from the Black grocery store that's there. I don't know. I don't know. I can't—And I'll say my mind don't go back to a situation where they would stand out in front of the A&P telling people, "Don't go in here. Go across the street." But the idea was to do all the buying that you can from the Blacks during that time. Yeah, so it was a good project. | 6:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would the Durham Business & Professional Chain—Did they have a relationship with the A&P or other White businesses? Or was there much— | 7:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't see what that relationship would be. I mean, I think they would know them and all, but I don't even think that probably was in discussion between the owners of the A&P with the Durham Business & Professional Chain. We did a newspaper for them too at [indistinct 00:08:14]. I don't know where you might find some copies of that though. They ought be somewhere around. | 7:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, do you remember the title of it? | 8:19 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I believe it—Let's see. I can't remember. I think it was something like The Chain. I can't remember what that title of that was. | 8:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | But it was a periodical? | 8:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It was just done on special occasions, because that organization wouldn't do a competitive newspaper, because they would look at the Carolina Times as the Black newspaper. | 8:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 9:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | This was more or less like, what do you call it, a house organ. This is an official organ of the— | 9:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | A booster organ? | 9:10 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, of the Chain. | 9:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, you mentioned the Carolina Times. And I was wondering, considering your earlier experience in journalism, what kind of relationship did Service have with the Times? | 9:18 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, at one time, for a period of several years, we printed the Carolina Times for Mr. Austin. L.E. Austin was the editor. And we had a lot of respect for him and his newspaper, his editorial writings. He was a terrific writer campaigning for rights, and he campaigned against injustices that are directed towards the Black community and encouraging participating in politics and active in citizenship and helping to uplift the community. And he was a terrific writer. I mean he was outstanding. I mean that would be a whole history in itself, if anybody preserve, or if the library had films or copies of that newspaper. He was a leading campaign for rights against any wrong done to the community, any mishandling of the duties by the police or anybody like that. The Carolina Times was really a spokesman for equality. | 9:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And I think Mr. Austin is an example, L.E. Austin, Louis Austin, of what was a very valuable resource in the Black community. I call him a natural. I don't think any record will show that he went to school to learn how to edit the newspaper. But that seemed to be his natural talent for him, not only in publishing a newspaper and writing editorials, but also speaking and addressing the community on wrongs that were being perpetrated against Black citizens and all. I mean, he was really an outspoken—He was a fireball writer and everything. The community seemed to be blessed with people of that character. Mr. Spaulding, who was president of North Carolina Mutual said the only time he went to college was to give a commencement address. | 11:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 12:30 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | An outstanding business person. | 12:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who would you say were other people of that character? Who would you put in that class? | 12:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I think later on following these people, of course, you had people that they themselves invited in to come and help, was not the same as inviting a college-trained person for a particular job, as one that was doing a job without that kind of training. So they were also smart enough to invite people in to help them. Of course, Mr. Austin was difficult to help, but Mr. Spaulding was just the opposite when it came to help. They got a whole—Just like I mentioned David Henderson, he was a college graduate. Following these people like C.C. Spaulding, they had also the wisdom to bring in people who had specific training then to make the business stronger and make sure that it would survive. | 12:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, I wanted to ask you about—Actually, the person who told us that we needed to interview you was Mr. Kelly Bryant. | 14:03 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Right, mm-hmm. | 14:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | And could you tell me how you first met Mr. Bryant? And what kind of relationship— | 14:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I met him while he was at Hampton. I was at Hampton Institute. I was probably about three years ahead of him at Hampton. And at that time, it was more just like meeting another student. And I didn't have no idea that we would end up in the same town. He came here shortly after I did, but he also had relatives here. And his home is in Rocky Mount. So the Hampton alumni has a regular organization in the city. So we came together in the Hampton alumni. I also recruited him to work with the Boy Scouts, and he accepted the leadership as Scoutmaster of one of the Scout troops and remained Scoutmaster over 30 years, really. He out distanced me in that. I think I got a few more Eagle Scouts than he did. But I had a church to work with, and he had a school. He worked with Burton School, and my Scout troop was at White Rock. So I had more ready help and more boys that—But I did make a speech at his banquet, and I told those boys, "If I was going to John the Scout troop now, I'd join his." Yeah. | 14:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | He was a person who was involved in—You mentioned earlier fraternal organizations. And I think he was a person who was really involved in the fraternal. | 16:17 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Absolutely. And now he's the grand secretary of the Masons in North Carolina. Actually now, after he retired from North Carolina Mutual, he went to work for the lodge. | 16:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you know his son? | 16:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, I do. Yeah. Not really close up, but I know of him. | 16:53 |
| Paul Ortiz | Kelly Bryant Jr.? | 16:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, uh-huh. He adopted two children, a girl and a boy. I give him a lot of credit for that. In fact, I encouraged him to do that. When you get old, when you don't have any children, you looking at the end, it's tough. And he'd done it quite well. And his daughter went to Hampton University. And she's a speech therapist, and she lives here now. She was working in Raleigh, but she works for a firm that hires a speech therapist. She's quite well-trained and all. So she adopted a little girl too. She followed her parents, that part of her parents that adopted her and her brother. | 17:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, one of the things I wanted to talk to you a little more about today was actually was your experience in Scouting and being a part of one of the very early Black Scouting groups? | 17:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. I joined Scouting in Norfolk, Virginia, the town that I grew up in. And this is the story about my troop that I was a Scout. And there I am up there. If I hadn't known I was going to be half hidden, I'd probably stood a little taller. But there were 16 Scouts in this troop. And I have three brothers, and four of us joined the troop. Now my oldest brother—We had a discussion on this. This is a picture that was made in 1928. And that's my brother next to me, and this is our youngest brother right there. | 18:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | And the brother next to you, his name? | 19:03 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | His name is John Isaac. And this one's name is George, after my father George Daniel. And this picture was made in 1928. And my oldest brother was trying to figure out what happened that he wasn't on that picture. And we concluded that he had gone to New York by that time. That was probably made in the summer of 1928. | 19:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now this gentleman over here? | 19:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He's the Scoutmaster. | 19:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. His name was? | 19:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Maceo Johnson | 19:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Maceo Johnson. Did your parents know him? | 19:45 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, they knew him, yeah. Now, my mother was dead at this time. She died in 1919. She left four children under 10. And she asked my aunt, who was my father's sister, to keep the family together. And she's dedicated herself to that and sent two of us to college. And this troop sort of influenced me. I decided in 1942 that I would give something back, and I have volunteered to be Scoutmaster. I served 26 years as a Scoutmaster of Troop 55 at White Rock Baptist Church. 26 of my boys attained the Eagle rank. And I'm still trying to give something back. So I have about, I think the last time I checked up on them, was over 60 years experience in Scouting. And I'm trying to find somebody to take my place now. If you interview anybody looking for a Scout job, let me know. | 19:51 |
| Paul Ortiz | It will be difficult to fill your shoes. | 21:17 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well— | 21:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Starting out as a Scoutmaster in 1942, what were the race relations in the BSA, Boy Scouts of America? | 21:21 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Actually it was separated in the racial. In other words, the Black troops had their own executive. And they went to a different camp from the White. So we actually organized to make a point that we should be with Scouts, and Scouts shouldn't have that kind of a division. So we work together now. But at that time, we had our own executive. And to some extent in terms of numbers of boys, I don't think we have as many active Scouts as we had when we had our own group. Kind of hard to explain really. I think the year before we organized, came together, we had over a hundred boys in camp. And that was a long time ago. I don't think we've had that many Black youth going to camp since the—It's hard to explain, but I can't say why that happened and why it's still happening. | 21:36 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | At this time we have more Scout executives. In fact we have top leaders in the Scouts. I think the field director is an African American person. And then we have a couple of more in the council. Occoneechee Council is our council. And I'm still wrestling with the fact that—And even now in our church unit, I guess a lot depends on the individual Scout leaders. And I hate to say that. But we lost ours in our church. We lost our Scout leader. He got a job in South Carolina in Greenville, and then he moved to Atlanta. And it seems to be on an individual basis. And just like anything else in life, some are good and not quite as good as others. | 23:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | But in 1942, what would you say brought young Black children into the Scouts? | 24:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think it was the executive. We had an executive. He was very good. His name was Henry Gillis, and he went to Washington as a Scout executive. And he's retired in Washington. He was very unusual. He understood how to work with people, and he understood what it would take to get the movement going. And he did a very excellent job. Those that held back, didn't live up the standard, he worked with them and made a top-flight situation. | 24:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was there a sense in the '40s that being in a Black troop was part of—You had a sense of race pride in a Black troop? | 25:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, those troops, most of the institutions, and the institution themselves, are mostly just like churches. And even now today, you don't have—You have some churches that come together. So that's a part of reality. But now, they're coming together at a council or district level, we don't have this separation. But it is just one of those things that's difficult to explain that why you would actually have more boys in '42 than you have in '95. | 25:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you think part of it, you were saying the institution, could have been White Rock and the supportive culture and White Rock for Scouting at the time? | 26:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think the support that you have, but it is sort of based on the individual that you have. When I started as Scoutmaster in '42, we had three troops. We had White Rock, St. Mark, and St. Joseph. And I think they have more in numbers than they had then. I don't know whether the Scouting has a draw for our units. Scouting is absolutely a very good program. There's no question about it. In fact, Scouting is a program that'll take a young boy at 11, just when he is beginning to think in terms of outside of the home, and it gives him a sort of entryway into a unit with people and all, that really can have a very definite, precise influence on his life. I mean a healthy influence. And in fact, if you want to look at it like that time is coming, when he's going to be leaving home anyhow, and it's like helping preparing him for that time. And it's also helping the parent to help them develop the child to the extent that he can get ready for what's on the outside of the home. | 27:24 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And it's a mechanism that's used a lot. And I have thought about it that maybe some groups understand that more than others, and that it's a helping hand. I had a situation, fine home. The father worked at North Carolina Mutual, and the mother was a school teacher. There was two boys in the troop. When the wintertime came, they stopped coming to the meeting. And I had a system, when I was in Scoutmaster, if I had a problem, if I wanted to get a boy to go to camp or want to go on a jamboree or something, then, if necessary, I would go right to the home and talk with the mother and the father about it. | 29:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I had one Scout who had—It was three brothers. And when a boy gets a certain ages, like 14 or 15, he's sort of looking at the girls then. And you know you can talk all you want to about how, "This is good for you. You going to need this later on in life," it won't mean a thing to him if his head is turned around wrong way. So I went to the home and talked to him. Well the father said, "I know what's out there. I've been out there and everything. And it's not all it should be." The mother said, "Well, I'm working. I'm tired and all and everything. And I got those things to think about." I said, "Well, let me tell you something. We can teach him how to go now. And I can't guarantee you that he won't be playing up and down the street, plucking each other on the heads, stopping by the store and buying candy and buying sodas and this kind of thing." I said, "I can't even guarantee you that he won't get hurt. I am not going to tell you he might not get hurt. But I can tell you one thing. We can teach him how to come and go now, but when he gets 16 he's going whether he knows how to go or not." | 30:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And they bought it. One was nice tender little boy, who wouldn't look like he wouldn't hurt a flea, if anybody had told me he was going to be a commissioned officer—His rank went way up. He went into the Army. They were drafting people then. I would've bet anything that that boy would never be an officer in the Army. Then the other young man joined the State Department and went to Hawaii. He married a Hawaiian girl, and both of them doing real fine. Both of the parents are gone now. But they got it made. It's just a sort of understanding what it's all about. | 32:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And I'm not sure that maybe the fact that it stayed segregated so long that we lost all those years trying to learn about it. Now this troop was a first troop in Norfolk, Virginia, 1928. I don't know what the Scouting program is like up there now, but they got a whole history of it. And maybe the fact that it was segregated so long, because Scouting started in 1910 in America, that it stayed segregated so long that we just haven't taken on to it. And I understand that to some extent. Boys kid boys, who join the Scouts, other boys. And what they say to them and all, I don't, I'm not acquainted with, but that might have some effect on it. But you do have some division there. | 32:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, the discussion you had with parents of the children you were talking about sounded really vivid and really— | 33:57 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. | 34:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there other interactions like that you'd have with parents where you would try to intervene? | 34:08 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. I had one boy that his brother—Now, his brother teaches at Central. We were talking about going on a jamboree trip, and he didn't want to go. And I tried. I said, "Well your brother went. Maybe you should go." So I talked him into going, just somehow or another just convinced him he ought to go. And of course, I talked with his parents, because his father was a Scout leader himself. That person there was a school principal. He was a Scout leader. And that boy went to that trip. And he liked it so, so much that there was a trip that they were looking for a young man to go to Paris in a conference, older boys, some kind of conference for a worldwide conference. So he went to that trip. Now, I can't think about the number of years, but, let's see, this is '42. No, this is this '40— | 34:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, that's a program or is it a— | 35:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It's a dedication to this boy's father that I'm talking about now. So he's a missionary now. That's a young man that had to talk him into going on a trip, that didn't want to go, that he's a missionary and a teacher over in Italy. And he got his PhD degree. And I guess he going to retire in that job. | 35:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is a picture of the 1960 Scout [indistinct 00:36:32]— | 36:27 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, that's it, White Rock. That was the church before we moved from—We were in on Fayetteville Street at that time. And— | 36:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were the jamborees like? | 36:46 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | They were very fascinating, because you can get more on a trip like that than you can a year in the program, going to meetings and all. You meet boys from all over the country, and they talking to you and checking you out to see if you got a badge on you. And they going to start talking to you about it, see if you really earned that badge and how much you know. I say a jamboree is worth for year of going to Scout meetings. And my theory was, "You can't be anymore than you can see. If you go see it, then you have a better chance of trying to be what you see." | 36:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were the jamborees back then—Was it an all Black jamboree or— | 37:43 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now that was the thing that—Oh, I got a picture of a jamboree troop. They were mixed. They were mixed. And we had a problem on a jamboree in '60. We went to on the '60, and some of the White boys didn't want—We were supposed to sleep in the gymnasium, and some of the White boys didn't want to do that. And they read the riot act on them. They told them, "Either you sleep in this gym, or you go back on home on the bus." And they slept on—They didn't have no problem after that. | 37:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who was they? | 38:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | That was the—See, what happened was it was five troops that we—They actually had a Black troop, but it wasn't all just Durham. It was the Occoneechee Council troop. But when we traveled on—We had a separate bus. But when we come to the area that was the camping area, it broke down. We were together. So this night that we stopped in this town, we stayed in a gymnasium. So that meant that we all came together in this gymnasium. So there was some objection raised to us coming together. And they just told them that they would either they'd have to stay there or they were going to put them on the bus and send them back home. | 38:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | It was the executive council that said that? | 40:07 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, that's right. See, it was five different units, and under the Occoneechee Council, yeah. But they go to camp there in the summertime. All that stuff is over now. They all go. If you in a unit, you go with your unit. But certain things they do together. I got that picture in here somewhere, one of them I can give you one of these— | 40:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, that would be wonderful. | 40:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | —yeah, to show you the history of it. I think it's the 40th year that—See, we had the advantage of—By me being a printer, I could print this stuff for free. And we had a chance to get some good records. | 40:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Ah, some familiar names. | 41:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Say what? | 41:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | Familiar names, Mr. And Mrs. W.A. Clement. | 41:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. Oh, I see, yeah. Oh, I was saying something about his son. He got three sons. I didn't get to tell you the whole story. But I had a way of, when the boys getting ready to get that Eagle Badge, they got different ideas in their head. And his son was kind of slipping a little bit. So I went and talked to Bill about it. I tell, "You all going to get this Eagle Badge." Well, they would get down to a point where they have two or three little things that they had to do, and he started looking at the girls and all that. His head is turned the wrong way. So I just told him. I said, "You are going to get it." I said, "I think if we can get him to get the Eagle Badge, we won't have to worry about the other two." And he had three boys and three Eagle Scouts in his home. And they did real well. | 41:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | That's one they had dedicated to me. I want to find that jamboree troop. I got it in here somewhere. | 43:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | Those are great pictures. | 43:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. | 43:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | A lot of history in these programs. | 43:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, uh-huh. That 40th year, it has a history up until that time. Got all the names, this one. You got the 40 one? | 45:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | I have the 35. | 45:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | 35 and 40 about the same. But that one has a real—It has all the names, all the Eagle Scouts, and the ones that made the trips. Well, I had the advantage I could get printing free. That program probably cost over a whole hundred dollars, this here. And— | 45:41 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | When did they begin the Girl Scout troops, the Brownie troops and that sort of thing? | 46:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Boy Scout? | 46:04 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | For the Girl Scouts. | 46:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Girl Scouts. | 46:04 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | When did they start doing that? | 46:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | What you mean, generally? What you talking about? In my church, or what you talking about? The actual organization of Girl Scout? | 46:29 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | No, actually in your church. | 46:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. This, see the Girl Scouts on the bottom there? That tells you. It gives you the date. | 46:35 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Okay. | 46:42 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. I just really wanted to you to see that jamboree in '60. I don't even see that one of those pictures anywhere. But we had a picture of that troop in 1960. And I guess we talking were about difference in all the Black troops and the others. It's kind of like a personal kind of thing with the church and organization. If you don't have the people in there that do the job, it's just one of the things you're going to not come up to par with. | 46:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | So you took over for Joseph A. Christmas? | 47:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes, uh-huh. He went to Hawaii. And I think he's still living. Well, one advantage of this church is they had a minister who was really interested in youth. In fact, he had some programs in the church that they didn't have in this city for boys, Reverend Miles Mark Fisher. | 48:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Uh-huh. What kind of programs did they have in the church? | 48:35 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | He had a community center and a softball team, ping-pong team, basketball team that organized league. Some people said before the city had organized league, so he was very progressive. He came out of Atlanta, but he went to school in Chicago, got his PhD in Chicago. | 48:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. Mr. White, I'm going to have to run out to my car and get another tape. | 49:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Okay. | 49:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Shavonna, do you want to take over? I'll go out and get a tape? | 49:19 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | [indistinct 00:49:24]. | 49:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | And I can just buzz in the back door? | 49:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I think— | 49:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Or is it open? | 49:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It's probably open. Let me see. That door right there is open still, isn't it? | 49:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 49:40 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, it's open. If you have any problems, just leave the door open so we can hear you knock. I don't think you have to knock though. | 49:40 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. | 49:44 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So what is your deal here? You in school too? | 49:47 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Actually, I just graduated a couple weeks ago. | 49:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, is that right? So what you going to do now? | 49:55 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | I'm taking a couple years off, and then I'm going to go on grad school. | 49:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Don't take too much time off now. Your mind will get lazy on you. | 50:01 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Oh, actually the type of work that I'll be doing is still academic, so. | 50:05 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh. Oh, I see. Where will you be working? | 50:10 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | I have two options right now, either be working with The Institute for Women's Study up in DC working on urban issues and that sort of thing, particularly housing and job opportunities. | 50:14 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah, write your name down here for me, so I can at least remember it. | 50:27 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Okay. | 50:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So where'd you finish school? | 50:34 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Duke. | 50:37 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | At Duke? | 50:38 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Yes. | 50:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My son was with the first group of Blacks at Duke. | 50:39 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Oh, really? | 50:43 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Uh-huh. '63. | 50:47 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | So it'd be '63, [indistinct 00:50:47] guess he graduated in '67 then. | 50:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. Oh, you know about the date? | 50:48 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Yeah. Yeah, actually— | 50:50 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, he's Junior. You've seen that story on him? You heard about him? | 50:53 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Yeah. | 51:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | You read it? | 51:00 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Read it [indistinct 00:51:03]. | 51:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. He was all set to go to Hampton. | 51:02 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Really? | 51:06 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And kind of at that time, he looked like he was kind of disappointed that he wasn't going. But I told him that I thought that that'd be an opportunity. First of all, I knew he would take it. He could take it. Anything that came up, he's just that type of person. And he came back in and led the building of that shopping center down there, Heritage Square. | 51:07 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Oh, in Heritage Square? | 51:35 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. So you going to be working in Washington? | 51:36 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Yeah, probably. | 51:38 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh. Yeah. Well, that's good. That's nice. Yeah. So did you find Duke all right, huh? | 51:39 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | [indistinct 00:51:54]. | 51:49 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | It'll do? | 51:54 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | That was quite a trip. I'll get it somewhere. Well, if you need any one of those— | 0:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:00:31] on a particular line? | 0:30 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | No. | 0:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh. | 0:34 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | You all right. Any one of these if you see that you might want a copy of, I think I got extra copies. | 0:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, really? | 0:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. | 0:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | I'd love to have these copies if it would be— | 0:52 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah, all of those are different. | 0:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is 35th anniversary. This is the 40th, and this is the— | 0:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, okay. Yeah, that I think I got plenty of—If you need a extra, oh your whatever y'all need. | 0:55 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | We just need one. | 1:10 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Okay. All right. Yeah. Okay. | 1:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's terrific. Mr. White, going back to the business district, I just had a couple real basic questions. Where would you go to get your hair cut in the '40s? | 1:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, we got plenty places and plenty barbershops. Yeah. In fact, in the South, you had a few Black barbershops for White people, so we cut our hair and others' hair too. And they weren't mixed though, the White barbers didn't cut Black people's hair. I think later on they did, but there were Black barber shops that cut White people's hair. And they were generally downtown the ones that did that, but in our neighborhood we had plenty barbershops. | 1:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would you patronize one in particular? | 2:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yes. Just pick out one that—In fact, you have your own barber, you know then that you'd probably stick with that barbershop. | 2:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who was your barber? | 3:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My barber was a fellow named Sterling Hope and he's still cutting hair. Yeah. So he got too slow for me, I got another one that a little faster. (laughs) | 3:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In fact, my brother was the one that discovered this guy down the street that was cheap and fast and good. (laughs) | 3:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | Nice. Does Mr. Hope still talk to you? | 3:29 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, oh yeah. In fact, it's interesting thing about him, he was in Raleigh, I think he was in barbers school, and then when I moved here he was here. And so I just stayed with him a long time, so that's the way it goes. | 3:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | How about eating establishments? [indistinct 00:03:59]. | 3:56 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, different restaurants and all. Yeah. | 3:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | Where would you eat? | 4:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Now, The Green Candle, which is still operating, was operating back then, I used to go eat with them. And then of course when I got married I didn't eat out as often as I did before when I was single. And so that's the way it is. Yeah, plenty of services, beauty shops. Fact, we mentioned earlier beauty schools, so the women were pretty well covered. And the men too, for that matter. | 4:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. White, I've heard other African-American businessmen talk about the important roles that women, particularly their wives, would play in their businesses. Did you see that? Did your wife have a role in your— | 4:45 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yeah. She worked at some point, but my wife was a nurse and most of the time she was taking care of the children when they were small. And then when the children got older, she worked at nursing. And so that was more or less took care of that. And then at one point we had, just like we didn't have a large folding machine, we did a lot of folding by hand, then she helped with that, too. But when we got the equipment to—Folding by machine is much faster than folding by hand, we had less of that type of work to do. | 5:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would your other partners, would their wives also help in the business? | 5:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Some of them did help some, but not too many because some of them had jobs. And in fact, one of the partners married the secretary, so that took care of that, she was already there. (laughs) But yeah. | 6:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Wow. Shavonna? | 6:25 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Actually, I did. I was just very curious about the community from all the men who went to Hampton Institute, and you talked about it a little bit earlier, but how was that comradery between you all? And you stated that your son was at first going to go to Hampton himself. Were there a lot of students from this area because of you all's influence that went to Hampton as well? | 6:32 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My son was what? | 6:57 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | I was just stating that earlier you said your son was— | 7:01 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My son was—Oh, yeah. | 7:01 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | And I was just wondering if the young men in your Scout troops, a lot of them were encouraged to go on and they also went to Hampton and that sort of thing. | 7:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Right, right. Well, Hampton seems to be that type of school. We had professors and then we had a minister that Sunday school and this kind of thing. We had talk about what you do when you go into a town, for example. And we were taught that—That's like when I went to Raleigh and we started looking for friends, that's the first group you associate with, and so that's camaraderie with the Hampton group trying to continue. And then I found it very interesting when I went to Raleigh, how dealers, these earlier graduates before we went to Hampton, how they really cared for Hampton and it was like they made good friends. | 7:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And when I came to Durham, the same way. I mentioned Mr. Henderson, Mr. Henderson, he finished the year before, he finished at '32 and I went to Hampton at 33. But when we came here, we were immediate friends and we got together in the business organization, and then there's the other Hamptonians there. So we didn't have frats when I was at Hampton, but Hampton alumni was just as good as having a fraternity. And we were encouraged to do that, that's what I said, that you start talking to you about getting adjusted when you get in a new place. And so we just followed through on that. And even today some of our best friends are Hampton friends. | 8:25 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Anything. | 9:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | All right. | 9:36 |
| Shavonna Maxwell | Do you have any— | 9:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, could go on and listen, actually, listen to you talk for quite a while, but I don't want to ruin our relationship by taking your entire day. | 9:47 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh yeah. Well— | 9:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, I know, actually, one more question is actually related. This summer we're actually doing some oral history work in Norfolk. | 10:02 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | In Norfolk? | 10:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yes, sir. | 10:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Is that right? | 10:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | We're going to be in Norfolk from the second half of July through August, I think, or something. | 10:16 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Is that right? | 10:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | So I was wondering if you knew of some people that we should be getting in contact with in Norfolk to do interviews. | 10:25 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Mm-hmm. Well— | 10:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | Or maybe you could think about it, I could get back with you or— | 10:39 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Probably so. I'm a little bit dim on Norfolk right now, but I'd like for you to look this church up. | 10:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay, that's Mount Olive Baptist Church. | 11:04 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, you'll have a copy. If you don't have one—You have a copy of this? If you don't— | 11:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah, that's one that you gave. | 11:12 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, if you don't have one, you can take another one if you need it. I would be interested personally in the results of your interview— | 11:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | If we can interview people from Mount Olive? | 11:31 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, yeah. I think that would be one connecting link. So having met me as a graduate of this or whatnot, and I consider that one of the outstanding—Being a member of this church and a member of this troop, a very valuable asset in my life, and what I did in Scouting definitely comes from the fact that my being a Scout in this troop and my desire to give back what they had done for me. See, as I mentioned earlier, I grew up with a single parent, my father with four boys, and the church had definitely had very good influence on my life. And since you going to be there, you can check on me there, or you can let them know that I appreciate it and I tried to do what I could. | 11:33 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And you'll have some of my troop there, and I regret that I haven't been able to go back and visit as much. And then what has happened, I used to travel all the time and I used to go home once in a while, but I didn't know I was going to get up here. I am 80 now, I'll be 81 in September, and you don't have the desire to jump out on that road as much as you did then. But I would certainly, since you are going to Norfolk, suggest to you that since we have talked and you see for yourself what I have tried to do and I would like for them to know that, too. | 13:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 13:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So I give you an assignment, both of you. Both of you. | 14:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Actually, if we could use, with your permission, use your name as a reference. | 14:06 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, yes. Yeah. | 14:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | And say do you know if—Is Troop 72 still existing, or would it be a different— | 14:15 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Frankly, I don't really know. I doubt it, I doubt it. I hope that they in existence, that would be a good connecting link if they are. It's good to find out what the situation is anyhow, and I'll be interested in knowing how it comes out. Yeah, I really will. And I say if I can help you in any way, I'll be glad to do the—But I don't know. I don't have any—Let's see, I have one young lady up there that might, instead, so you going to have to go cold turkey that I could call you and give you her name and telephone. And you're going to be there when? | 14:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | Let me see. We're going to be there in mid-July. Yeah, that's right, because we were until August 16th and there— | 15:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Where will you be? Do you know? | 15:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | No, and actually we have two different teams, and I'm going to be on the team that's going to Memphis and the other team that's actually going to Norfolk is composed of three other people. | 15:59 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So you won't personally won't be going— | 16:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | So I won't be there, but I'll brief people on this and I'll actually make a copy of the article and talk to them. | 16:22 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, I can give you an extra copy if I have it. So rather than have to make a copy, you can just give them a copy. | 16:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 16:41 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | And I'm going to give you this person's name and I think that she might be able to facilitate a connection without you having to fish for it yourself, see. | 16:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | That would really be helpful. | 16:55 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, I think I'm going to give you her name and telephone number and all. | 16:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. | 17:00 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | So that she might get on the telephone and call, say, "You go see so-and-so," or something like that. I gonna call her too, I call her too, see. That keep you from having to go through this misery of finally find out who to talk to and this kind of thing. | 17:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right, that would be really helpful. Let me give you my office number too. That's my home number, I'll give you my voice—I have this new voicemail thing just in case. | 17:20 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah, okay. Yeah, I would appreciate that because I'm interested in that, and I know they would be interested in knowing how I have been benefited by this experience and all. And so all of my Scouting experience comes from this church. | 17:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you know anybody that might be still connected at some level to the Journal and Guide? | 18:05 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Oh, you know, they have sold that paper and it's have a different ownership, so I don't know those persons there now, but that was my first job selling newspapers and all. I think some religious group person, either some minister or something. I don't know how many times it's been sold, but I know the original owners are not there. In fact, that had an influence on me studying printing, based on my connection. | 18:12 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you know, and I wish I could remember, did you talk about P.B Young? | 18:58 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. That was the editor, and his brother H.C. Young, he was the actual printer. He was in charge of the printing of the newspaper and he tried to suggest to me that I would—At that time Hampton had the Academy High School, really. And he wanted me to leave Booker T. and go to Hampton, but I don't know if anybody with their head on right would leave Booker T. and go to Hampton when they—You want to finish Booker T. That was one of the finest schools, I thought. It must have been, I don't know whether it was just me going to Booker T., but I think it was one of the finest schools in the south. It's still Booker T., I believe, Booker T. Washington High School. And it was really great, we had great teachers and everything. So even if that fella told me that I could go to Hampton right then, I said, "Not until I graduate." | 19:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | Does Booker T. have an alumni organization? | 20:32 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Yeah. But our class had a meeting, I try to get them—Because this town is really have fine alumni and almost all the classes have a reunion, and I tried to copy from this town and I went there and after our 25th reunion, I tried to get somebody to call us together. We finally met at the 48 and 50, but that's the last time we met. | 20:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | In 1948? | 21:26 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | Well, it was the 48th reunion from '32, whatever that add is, and then they met two years later for the 50. That was the last of it. I did the printing for the reunion, yeah. So I don't think they have the same drive this city has. Most of the classes meet—Now I don't know, that might change when they go to the new school, Hillside School, down the street down there. | 21:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you know people locally from Norfolk that we might get in touch with that are active with the alumni? | 22:03 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | I did know. Let's see, I'll try to do that along with this other person that I thought, yeah. | 22:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Sure appreciate it. | 22:30 |
| Nathaniel Bradshaw White Sr. | My close friend has passed, I know that, but I'll try to see what I can do. So what will you be doing in Norfolk? Similar to what you're doing here? | 22:32 |
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