Lester Bullock interview recording, 1993 June 28

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Karen Ferguson	I'm just going to ask you questions about your life, about growing up and so on.	0:02
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	0:09
Speaker 3	How you doing?	0:09
Karen Ferguson	Hi. I'm just going to ask you a few questions about your life and coming up.	0:11
Lester Bullock	Talk about coming up.	0:15
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	0:16
Lester Bullock	I've been kind of a sickly boy all my life, but I've still worked—what my daddy's job had—was work, all of that, on the farm. I ain't never done nothing but working on the farm. All my life.	0:17
Karen Ferguson	Where was the farm that you grew up, where you grew up?	0:35
Lester Bullock	Where I grew up at, old Mr. Luke Anderson's farm, that Mr. K. Anderson—It was K. Anderson's farm where I grew up on but he died when I was small, and then his son took over, Luke Anderson but he's dead now.	0:51
Karen Ferguson	Right. And where was their farm?	0:59
Lester Bullock	Over here—You know where Kingtown at?	1:03
Karen Ferguson	I think so, yeah.	1:05
Lester Bullock	Go on walk there, James Lawn stay back in there. Back in that there, where the farm was. Then left out of there and come down here on 44, down here over [indistinct 00:01:23] farm, he had acres over 44.	1:06
Karen Ferguson	Were your family sharecroppers?	1:27
Lester Bullock	We were farming.	1:30
Karen Ferguson	Farming, okay.	1:31
Lester Bullock	Farming on half.	1:32
Karen Ferguson	Farming in half.	1:33
Lester Bullock	His land, but that's what my daddy was doing.	1:33
Karen Ferguson	What does that mean to farm on half?	1:36
Lester Bullock	See, the man who the land belonged to, he furnished all the land. He'd give you half of the stuff where you'd make all the two horse crop. Half of that crop goes to you.	1:39
Karen Ferguson	Did you furnish your own mules and equipment?	1:56
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. The man that was the landlord, he furnished the mules, put some mules to the house for you to work. After my daddy died, he had his own mules. Two own mules. When he died, we rent the White man mules.	1:58
Karen Ferguson	Okay. Who did you grow up with? Who lived in your house when you were growing up?	2:18
Lester Bullock	The oldest brother was named Ricky Boy, Richard. He's dead. And then Annamae, she lives in Scotland Neck. She's the next oldest.	2:21
Speaker 3	I'm from Scotland Neck. Yeah. When you say Annamae Bullock—	2:37
Lester Bullock	You know her?	2:39
Speaker 3	I heard the name but—	2:44
Lester Bullock	[indistinct 00:02:47]. You know where the old [indistinct 00:02:50] be in Scotland—	2:48
Speaker 3	Yeah, yeah. Right.	2:50
Lester Bullock	Yeah. You'd be right there [indistinct 00:02:53].	2:51
Speaker 3	Okay, yeah.	2:53
Karen Ferguson	In Scotland Neck.	2:53
Lester Bullock	And holy [indistinct 00:02:56] you can hear that up from her house.	2:56
Speaker 3	Okay. Yeah. I'm from Scotland Neck. Yeah, I grew up down here.	2:59
Speaker 4	There's another lady and a girl interviewing back there, so you can take their picture whenever.	3:04
Karen Ferguson	So, you talked about your sisters and brothers.	3:10
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. I'm the oldest brother living and Richard, the oldest one, he's been dead. And Annamae, she's next to me, wanted to stay in Scotland Neck. And the next oldest one, he's dead, onto Annamae. And then my sister was the next oldest one is Rocky Mount. She [indistinct 00:03:42] neighborhood and the oldest one stayed out here [indistinct 00:03:44]. The two youngest ones in Rocky Mount.	3:14
Karen Ferguson	So, you lived with your parents and your brothers and sisters? Did anybody else live with you when you were growing up?	4:04
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. But my mama and daddy, they all lived.	4:09
Karen Ferguson	Can you tell me a little bit about the chores or the work that you did as a boy on the farm?	4:16
Lester Bullock	How you worked? How you worked—	4:22
Karen Ferguson	Right. What your work was through the years that you had to do?	4:24
Lester Bullock	In the summertime, around this time of year, you'd be on the plow to crop a whole bunch. And then be chopping and doing, chopping that whole god darn field, chopping grass off that row. When it got dry like that, they don't plow so much. But when it rained, we got that mule out and stay in the field with him plowing. Yeah. Sometimes plowing it with one row, one mule sometimes. Sometimes I'd have two mules pulling the [indistinct 00:05:04] go a lot faster with that. I liked that better than I did with one mule. Yeah.	4:30
Lester Bullock	And then it got ready to put in that barn, because you knew you had to get out there, get ready to put in that 'bacco, that green tobacco because you had to go from one end of the row to the other stooping down, plowing that bar the mule got on that middle walking, take that bar and put it over there in that [indistinct 00:05:34] like that. Sometimes I'd have two rows and sometimes I'd have one row [indistinct 00:05:40]. Wanted to get that barn before the night. If we get two rows, go ahead and get it, and because when I get a barn, my daddy got more and knock us off. We done done a day's work. I used to love to do it like that.	5:15
Karen Ferguson	What did you love about that? Why?	5:54
Lester Bullock	Why that?	5:55
Karen Ferguson	Why did you love it?	5:57
Lester Bullock	Because when they got through priming that bog all day, next morning, you couldn't hardly get out of the bed.	5:58
Karen Ferguson	Because it was so hard.	6:04
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Your whole back ached. You couldn't straighten up your back. You had to lower down your knees. Couldn't hardly walk. That was hard work, long days.	6:10
Speaker 5	Did you farm when they used [indistinct 00:06:23].	6:18
Lester Bullock	Yeah. I farmed by my daddy. My oldest brother, Richard, he used to plow [indistinct 00:06:29] my daddy told us to get one row, we'd go ahead and get two rows. Two row [indistinct 00:06:34] and we knock off. Wouldn't do none of that that day, if we get to the barn by 12:00. We wouldn't do nothing before that next morning. Just lay around home in the shade then.	6:23
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:06:49].	6:45
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Get up sometimes 4:00 in the morning, go to the barn, take that bog out of the barn [indistinct 00:06:58] for the tobacco and pressed it off. I done that a long time.	6:49
Karen Ferguson	So, on the farm, did you only grow tobacco?	7:04
Lester Bullock	Hm?	7:07
Karen Ferguson	Did you only grow tobacco?	7:07
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Had to grow tobacco while we was on the farm. Yeah. Sometimes we'd have five acres or 10 acres like that. Then when they putting in bar work, take that and go to every stalk and break them suckers out of that stalk, tobacco like that. You ever know any boy do that?	7:12
Karen Ferguson	No. I've only ever taken suckers off of tomato plants.	7:29
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Folks used to go wondering—they had long rows from here on down the highway, breaking them suckers off. I used to hate to do that. [indistinct 00:07:40].	7:31
Speaker 5	There's a lot of new ways to get rid of them now.	7:39
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Now they don't suck. They've got some spray to get suckers out of there.	7:48
Karen Ferguson	Did your family have any garden or livestock for their own use?	7:56
Lester Bullock	We raised hogs. We raised some hogs, two milk cows, sometimes I'd milk them cows the morning before they go to field. Milk them and put that stuff in it. Didn't have no freezer. No deep freezer. They'd take that little—Do you know anybody that take a bucket and draw water out a well?	8:01
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	8:24
Lester Bullock	They take that bucket and put it on that chain, let that milk and butter stay down in the bottom of that well, until that night, come back and that water—that milk be cold. Yeah. We were spoiled in that, and eating and drinking milk.	8:26
Karen Ferguson	Sounds good.	8:48
Lester Bullock	Yeah. It was good.	8:57
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:08:58] milked two cows all the time. Two cows all the time. [indistinct 00:08:58] before going to work.	8:57
Lester Bullock	Remember daddy would get up in the morning, have to go to the hog pen to feed hogs, had five or six head of hogs. Yeah. In the fall of the year, when it turned cold, they would kill them hogs, go on and pick the hair on them, cut them up and put them in the smokehouse. Have a smokehouse, salt them down, pack them down. [indistinct 00:09:19] eat it. That was good. Little homemade sausage. Stuff that sausage in them guts. That stuff was good too.	9:03
Speaker 5	My daddy used to feed the hog twice. [indistinct 00:09:34].	9:28
Karen Ferguson	When did your daddy—	9:33
Lester Bullock	My daddy die?	9:36
Karen Ferguson	When did he slaughter hogs?	9:38
Lester Bullock	He'd kill them at the house. He'd have a [indistinct 00:09:49] wood pile, have a great big old pot out there where he stored them in. Have a gallows up there high, hang them up on the gallows and gut them like that. That was something to look at, with them hogs hanging up on that gallows. Then the next day, they cut up that fat. Cut up that fat with potatoes, put that on that washboard to dry. Them cracklings was all kinds of good. Some sweet potatoes and cracklings, cornbread, that was good.	9:43
Karen Ferguson	Good. Did you have—Sorry, go on.	10:20
Lester Bullock	Then they had to go and smoke all day, salt it down, rub it down and [indistinct 00:10:48] like that and salt. Pack it all down like that. All the same way.	10:24
Karen Ferguson	Right.	10:48
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm. And that was something to look at.	10:48
Speaker 5	Ain't much of that going on now here in Jackson.	10:48
Lester Bullock	That man right down here, Richard Diggins, he kill hogs every year.	10:48
Speaker 5	Richard Diggins?	10:50
Lester Bullock	16 minutes between here and Kingtown.	10:51
Karen Ferguson	Did your family have a celebration, or did they have a party or anything when they killed hogs?	10:58
Lester Bullock	No, no.	11:06
Karen Ferguson	No?	11:06
Lester Bullock	Sometimes they would, but all the [indistinct 00:11:11] kinfolk would come in and they'd help eat some of the meat. Some of them would help us [indistinct 00:11:19] give them some, I guess.	11:07
Karen Ferguson	Were there other times during the year when people got together to have a good time at home?	11:21
Lester Bullock	The only time they had a good time at home, they'd have a prayer meetings and things. Like the old people used to have prayer meetings, singing and drinking wine at night. Yeah. Preaching and doing. They call that the old baptist preachers. You don't know anything about those baptist preachers? Preachers, folks used to call them old baptist preachers, didn't you?	11:29
Speaker 5	Mm-hmm.	11:54
Lester Bullock	They didn't have that long then. And that type of folk would be long, live for a day or more, and that singing [indistinct 00:12:06] more important. Yeah. [indistinct 00:12:11].	11:56
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:12:12].	12:03
Karen Ferguson	Okay, all right.	12:03
Lester Bullock	Well, you're just working on for state old 44. [indistinct 00:12:18] Red Hill Church. You come up along then, didn't you?	12:13
Karen Ferguson	I'm not sure—	12:15
Lester Bullock	It's a really small label [indistinct 00:12:28] Red Hill Church yard, but we [indistinct 00:12:32]. You were sitting there [indistinct 00:12:35] and two of them asked me how did I like my doctor. I told them—One them smaller than you, but I told them—	12:25
Karen Ferguson	It wasn't me, I don't think. I don't think it was me.	12:38
Lester Bullock	I told her, "Look, you're the same one—" You was in that [indistinct 00:12:52] small one there. And she come down to Dr. Hughes was my doctor [indistinct 00:12:57]. I told them I still go to Dr. Hughes right on. Been going to him on [indistinct 00:13:03].	12:38
Karen Ferguson	Could I ask you a few more questions about growing up?	13:14
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm.	13:17
Karen Ferguson	Did you do any public work when you were growing up?	13:22
Lester Bullock	I never done that.	13:24
Karen Ferguson	No, never?	13:25
Lester Bullock	I ain't never done none of that. That's my only farm.	13:25
Karen Ferguson	Did your daddy ever have to do that?	13:30
Lester Bullock	No. He didn't do no public works.	13:32
Karen Ferguson	No?	13:35
Lester Bullock	No. My oldest brother who's dead, he done public works.	13:38
Karen Ferguson	Why did he leave farming?	13:43
Lester Bullock	Didn't need him on the farm. He public works.	13:44
Karen Ferguson	Okay. Did any of your brothers and sisters move north?	13:47
Lester Bullock	No.	13:53
Karen Ferguson	No?	13:53
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm. All been in this county since we've been born.	13:54
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm. When you were growing up, did you have electricity in your house?	14:00
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm.	14:14
Karen Ferguson	No?	14:15
Lester Bullock	No. Didn't even have a TV.	14:15
Karen Ferguson	No?	14:22
Lester Bullock	The first thing I know [indistinct 00:14:23] had in the house play was an old radio. A radio that had a [indistinct 00:14:30] back of one, you know anything about that?	14:22
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. Uh-uh.	14:37
Lester Bullock	That's the only thing [indistinct 00:14:38].	14:38
Karen Ferguson	What was it like when you got electricity in your house? Was your life a lot different after that?	14:39
Lester Bullock	Yeah. A lot different.	14:43
Karen Ferguson	How?	14:44
Lester Bullock	Could see better. Yeah. The casting lamp was so dull at night, then electric was bright, could see a long way.	14:45
Karen Ferguson	When did that happen? How old were you when you got electricity?	14:57
Lester Bullock	I was old enough to plow good. I know if there's a bad storm come up in July that time. Folks were working out there in that brick house, up on the field—that brick house right over there. Man was plowing on a riding plow, or gangplow by two mules, and the man said he wanted to go to [indistinct 00:15:26] that Monday night in Rocky Mount. And we were sitting on the porch, me and my mom and daddy, and sent the oldest brother to go to grand daddy, get some apples then I'll come back at night, fry some apples for supper. When he went out the door, he kicked the mule out on the lot to get on the mule's back. [indistinct 00:15:48] we looked across the field out there, come a hard clap of thunder, it was loud and right sharp. I got up, I went in the house. In the morning, [indistinct 00:15:53] sitting on the porch, man sitting out there on that gangplow—riding plow. He was burning his mule laying down dead. The lightning done killed the mule.	15:07
Karen Ferguson	So, the lightning killed the mule? Was that—	16:07
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm. It killed the mule and man both. Yeah. We weren't too [indistinct 00:16:13] at the house.	16:10
Karen Ferguson	Okay. But it wasn't your mule, your family's mule—	16:16
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm. No. The man from [indistinct 00:16:25] working for, the landlord there.	16:24
Karen Ferguson	Now, did you say you owned your own mules when you were growing up?	16:25
Lester Bullock	No, but my daddy owned two before he died but the mule didn't live too long before he died. Then the mule died. Daddy was old.	16:28
Karen Ferguson	What made a good mule growing up? What kind of mule did you want to have on your farm in order for it to be—	16:45
Lester Bullock	A good mule, a solid mule, you got to beat him along, and make him go. Don't care what [indistinct 00:17:03] get out there in the field and just go along.	16:55
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	17:06
Lester Bullock	Sometimes they're so tough, you hit them, they won't move. Yeah. A little old mule, you just hit like that, it go right along. It would go down the field and work.	17:07
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever have a mule that wasn't so good?	17:19
Lester Bullock	Yeah. I had some good mules but the boss man we worked for—farming with. He put him on some young mules down there, how to work. We'd run along there. They were good mules.	17:23
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever have a bad mule, didn't work so well?	17:38
Lester Bullock	Yeah, but I still worked him. Yeah. I still worked him. Worked with a [indistinct 00:17:49] mule like that. Put the plow in the ground deep, he wouldn't move and it would break him down, he'd calm down like the other mules. That's the way they used to do.	17:41
Karen Ferguson	What did you do for fun when you were growing up? Were there children to play with?	18:00
Lester Bullock	Had children to play with, yeah. Was working. Lay around the house and play and walk around the fish pond, catch fish and stuff like that. Doing that, watching around the ditch banks, picking barberries and huckleberries [indistinct 00:18:23] for the cook. Yeah. Times were good then.	18:04
Karen Ferguson	Were there other people living close to you?	18:29
Lester Bullock	We had [indistinct 00:18:35] lived by the corner, that wood, they do the same down there.	18:33
Karen Ferguson	Right, right, right.	18:33
Lester Bullock	And sometimes we'd go and help them put in the barn and they would help us.	18:33
Karen Ferguson	And these people were working on halves as well?	18:48
Lester Bullock	Yeah.	18:49
Karen Ferguson	On the same man's land?	18:51
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Same man's land. Yeah.	18:51
Karen Ferguson	What other things did you do to help each other out, these two families?	18:55
Lester Bullock	Just like that man over here now, he need some work doing, and us ain't got nothing, and us crop [indistinct 00:19:06] we'd go down help him, and if his crop get grass, he'd come help us. That's the way you'd do.	19:00
Karen Ferguson	Did you help each other out in other ways?	19:06
Lester Bullock	Just like if he didn't have nothing to eat like that?	19:19
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	19:22
Lester Bullock	Like if he didn't have no hog or something to kill, we'd let him have something to eat and he'd do it the same way. Yeah.	19:24
Karen Ferguson	Did you get into any trouble with your family, with your parents when you were growing up?	19:33
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm.	19:37
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever get into any mischief?	19:38
Lester Bullock	Uh-uh.	19:39
Karen Ferguson	No?	19:39
Lester Bullock	No. Had to be good and do what they tell you. They'll get them a brush broom and whoop you with it. You had to do what mama and daddy was saying. They'd send you somewhere, you don't come back before the sun go down. They about kill you, wish they had when they got through with you.	19:40
Karen Ferguson	So, you had to get home before the sun went down?	19:58
Lester Bullock	Yeah. I had to get there. Sometimes I wouldn't get there but I wish I had got there, but they won't get you until you're getting ready to go to bed that night. They'd wait until you get your clothes off, and [indistinct 00:20:19]. He would tear you up.	20:03
Speaker 5	Boy, I said don't let the sun [indistinct 00:20:23].	20:18
Lester Bullock	Yeah.	20:18
Speaker 5	Better be back before sun—	20:18
Lester Bullock	Better be back before night [indistinct 00:20:26].	20:18
Karen Ferguson	Why did you have to get home before the sun got down?	20:27
Lester Bullock	Because the folks out there is mean, starting to get whooped or some of that, be somewhere you're not supposed to be. Yeah. Go to town, to [indistinct 00:20:42] to the store, Jim Harbor, he was a White man. We'd go down there and get fresh fish on time with [indistinct 00:20:51] and getting money to pay him money. Go to his store and get anything you want.	20:29
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	20:55
Speaker 5	That man about 100 years old.	20:56
Lester Bullock	Matt Harbor.	20:58
Speaker 5	Uh-huh.	20:59
Lester Bullock	Yeah. He was a good man too. He'd let you have something. If you ain't got the money, you get the money and go pay him.	21:01
Karen Ferguson	Right. Were there other store owners who weren't so good?	21:08
Lester Bullock	Yes. Some more stores down there, I had a first uncle down there in Leggett. He was named Johnny Bullock. He was just tight with that. He was tight with that. You couldn't get nothing from him no money. You had money, you could get it.	21:15
Speaker 5	You wouldn't have credit.	21:38
Lester Bullock	No, he wouldn't credit you. If you get money, you get anything. Then when he'd weigh your stuff like that, he'd put stuff up there on his little scale and weigh it for us. You ain't watching, he got his fist up there weighing this stuff like that.	21:40
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh. So he was putting more weight on—	21:56
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm. Yeah.	21:57
Karen Ferguson	Okay, I see.	21:58
Lester Bullock	He was tight.	22:00
Speaker 5	He was tight.	22:00
Lester Bullock	Yeah. He dead and gone now.	22:00
Karen Ferguson	Did you have a good—The man on whose land you worked, was he a good man?	22:15
Lester Bullock	Yeah. He was a good man. Yeah. He was good.	22:19
Karen Ferguson	What made him a good landlord? What made him a good landowner?	22:21
Lester Bullock	His daddy was good. His daddy was good too. They were good to you. He didn't bother you about work.	22:28
Karen Ferguson	Now, did other land owners bother people about work?	22:38
Lester Bullock	Some of them did, but I ain't done no work [indistinct 00:22:45].	22:40
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh. How would they bother people? How would they bother you about work?	22:45
Lester Bullock	Tell you that you ain't doing what suit them. Yeah. [indistinct 00:22:56] like that. But this one [indistinct 00:22:59] Mr. Luke Anderson, he would deal with good folk.	22:50
Karen Ferguson	Was it fair—When you settled up, how did you settle up with the landlord?	23:04
Lester Bullock	See, he'd have [indistinct 00:23:10] sometimes, or he'd settle up and bring your part around to the house and settle up with you right at the house.	23:09
Karen Ferguson	Was that fair always?	23:18
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Always fair. Yeah. I've been one place, Sam Adams would work you hard, harder than a dog. And he [indistinct 00:23:33] every time I would tell him, pull apart and pull apart and you got to do this, got to do that.	23:21
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:23:43].	23:38
Lester Bullock	[indistinct 00:23:46] go to him [indistinct 00:23:47] piece of money, oh partner, oh partner, money is scarce. Money is scarce. Yeah. Along this time of year, you couldn't get no money from him.	23:45
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	23:54
Lester Bullock	So, if you didn't get it in the summertime, you wouldn't get none the end of the year, because he'd pack that money back. You couldn't get it.	23:55
Speaker 5	I worked with a man—	24:04
Lester Bullock	No, you couldn't get it. He was tight.	24:06
Speaker 5	Yeah. You can't get it, right.	24:09
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever have any cash during the year?	24:15
Lester Bullock	Cash?	24:18
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	24:18
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am.	24:19
Karen Ferguson	None at all? So, you buy everything on credit?	24:21
Lester Bullock	No, sometimes we had some food stamps. When the food stamps got out, you would go down to that store, I'm talking about Jimmy Harbor, get stuff on time and pay him when you get some money.	24:26
Karen Ferguson	Did you have to go to his store to use the stamps?	24:40
Lester Bullock	No, but you could get sell them and get rid of them in Tarboro. Go to Tarboro. We went to the closest place, closest store, the cheapest place.	24:44
Karen Ferguson	Right. Were these government food stamps?	24:52
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	24:56
Karen Ferguson	What about before they had food stamps? What did you do then?	24:58
Lester Bullock	It was tight. It was tight.	25:05
Karen Ferguson	Okay. What did you do? You went to the store?	25:05
Lester Bullock	Yeah. And get it on time. Sometimes we'd raise enough hogs and take one [indistinct 00:25:15] and take that money, go to the store and get [indistinct 00:25:19].	25:06
Karen Ferguson	Okay. And did you have to—Before there were food stamps, did you have to go to a certain store to buy things on time?	25:19
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. You could go to any store.	25:24
Karen Ferguson	Any store?	25:25
Lester Bullock	Any store. Yes, ma'am. When you got them food stamps. Now, I don't get but $10. You can't buy nothing with $10 worth of food stamps.	25:29
Karen Ferguson	Right. Right.	25:39
Lester Bullock	And then I got [indistinct 00:25:44]. The little old security check I get, that ain't nothing.	25:42
Karen Ferguson	Yeah, that's hard.	25:58
Lester Bullock	It's hard. Takes about $60-70 [indistinct 00:26:03] every month.	26:02
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. Were you able to go to school when you were growing up?	26:03
Lester Bullock	Yeah. I went, the folks, their children had to walk to school. They had to walk about a mile. Ma and Pa sent us to school, and it got hot and got to raining. We went in the woods and stayed, wouldn't go to school [indistinct 00:26:25] walked to school and they wouldn't send us no more. They sent us in the field, on the ditch bank, with a swoop blade cutting them ditch back like that. I didn't go to school no more. They put us on the ditch bank and work on the farm. Yeah. I wasn't learning nothing in the school no how.	26:06
Karen Ferguson	Why weren't you learning anything?	26:42
Lester Bullock	Huh?	26:43
Karen Ferguson	Why weren't you learning anything?	26:44
Lester Bullock	I'm talking about reading. To go to school, you had to have a book to read. I couldn't learn none of them books. I couldn't—(laughs) That I couldn't. I would've been home working on the farm, went to school.	26:45
Karen Ferguson	Right. Did you ever stay home from school to work on the farm?	27:02
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. Sometimes, there'd come a week you couldn't work. The rain, you had to stay that next week, had to stay home on the farm and work.	27:06
Speaker 5	If it was a fair day, you couldn't go [indistinct 00:27:19].	27:17
Lester Bullock	No, couldn't go.	27:19
Speaker 5	I couldn't go.	27:19
Karen Ferguson	On a fair day, you weren't able to go?	27:21
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm. You had to be in the field working.	27:30
Karen Ferguson	Right.	27:30
Speaker 5	Come a little rain [indistinct 00:27:31].	27:30
Lester Bullock	Yeah, go to school. Yes.	27:30
Karen Ferguson	When you went, you would've missed a lot of the lessons if you hadn't gone to school. How did you learn your lessons?	27:30
Lester Bullock	I didn't never learn none. I never learned none.	27:38
Karen Ferguson	Were your sisters able to go to school more regularly?	27:44
Lester Bullock	Yeah. They went. All my sisters went. [indistinct 00:27:52] my oldest brother. Yeah, all my older—	27:47
Speaker 5	Some of the youngest girls went.	27:47
Lester Bullock	They went and learned good.	27:47
Karen Ferguson	Right.	27:47
Speaker 5	One brother, me and him, couldn't go. Had to work. At that age, you had to work. Rain a little bit, you could go. Sometimes they'd come to the schoolhouse and get you.	27:47
Karen Ferguson	If it got fair and then they'd—	27:47
Speaker 5	Yeah. [indistinct 00:28:12] we'd come and get you. Yeah. Cutting barn wood and everything. I didn't go to school [indistinct 00:28:12].	27:47
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	27:47
Speaker 5	All my younger brothers got some learning, good learning.	27:47
Karen Ferguson	Why were they able to go and you weren't?	28:12
Speaker 5	Huh?	28:36
Karen Ferguson	Why were they able to go?	28:36
Speaker 5	Well, me and my other brother, where I'm next to, these young ones, they had a chance to go. We didn't. I had one brother lost one arm and he couldn't do [indistinct 00:28:57] other brother. I had one named George, before was—I had my oldest brother, he and my daddy got to talking about farming, daddy [indistinct 00:29:12] cotton, and he just wanted to get some for a side crop. When he got his money, he said, "Dad, I ain't farming no more." (laughs) That was my oldest brother.	28:38
Karen Ferguson	Right, right, right.	29:22
Speaker 5	Yeah. He didn't farm no more.	29:22
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	29:22
Speaker 5	Went up north, come [indistinct 00:29:31] worked shipyard. All my brothers worked the shipyard, most of them.	29:22
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm. Mr. Bullock, what were the teachers like at the school? Did you like them?	29:30
Lester Bullock	I just went to look at them teachers.	29:49
Karen Ferguson	You went to look at them.	29:51
Lester Bullock	Yeah. They were looking so good. I went to look at the teachers.	29:51
Karen Ferguson	These were women teachers?	29:57
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. And then they had one man up there. I didn't go nowhere that man was. He was mean. He was a mean man. [indistinct 00:30:09] I quit going, [indistinct 00:30:11]. I went up there just to look at the teachers.	29:58
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh. Uh-huh.	30:11
Lester Bullock	I didn't try to learn.	30:14
Karen Ferguson	Right, right. So, the man was a teacher and he was mean?	30:16
Lester Bullock	Yeah. He was a teacher too.	30:23
Karen Ferguson	How big was your school?	30:25
Lester Bullock	[indistinct 00:30:27].	30:26
Karen Ferguson	Yeah.	30:27
Lester Bullock	A big school? How big was the school?	30:29
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. Did it have more than one room?	30:30
Lester Bullock	It had two big rooms over here [indistinct 00:30:39] and the first little school I went to, it was something like a little one room going there.	30:31
Speaker 5	One long room.	30:44
Lester Bullock	One long room, some over there, some over there.	30:46
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:30:47].	30:46
Karen Ferguson	And were all the grades in that one room?	30:46
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	30:46
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh.	30:46
Speaker 5	I went to that one. I didn't go to that one over there much. Once or twice, four or five times. But that one [indistinct 00:30:48] long one room, I went to—When I could go, I went to here. It's been a long time too.	30:47
Karen Ferguson	Where did your family attend church?	31:25
Lester Bullock	Bethlehem. Bethlehem church.	31:28
Karen Ferguson	It was a baptist church—	31:30
Lester Bullock	Over here. It was missionary. It was missionary. Right around over there where those [indistinct 00:31:39] at. That's mine.	31:30
Karen Ferguson	Can you talk about, what was your baptism like that?	31:42
Lester Bullock	What's that?	31:45
Karen Ferguson	Your baptism?	31:45
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:31:49].	31:45
Karen Ferguson	Were you baptized?	31:49
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. I was baptized one time, Ruben Clark. His name was Ruben Clark.	31:51
Karen Ferguson	And when was that?	32:00
Lester Bullock	I was about like that.	32:00
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh. Do you remember that day?	32:03
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	32:05
Karen Ferguson	Could you tell me about it?	32:05
Lester Bullock	It was on a first Sunday. One first Sunday morning. One first Sunday morning, August. There was a Bible meeting going on at church. I remember [indistinct 00:32:20] down here in the branch creek [indistinct 00:32:24] down in the creek.	32:23
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	32:24
Lester Bullock	I remember that good.	32:26
Karen Ferguson	What else went on that day? Was there a big celebration?	32:30
Lester Bullock	Yeah. When they got out of the water, we had went home and put on dry clothes and go to church, and then go back to church here sit down here preaching and singing. Long day. I remember that good.	32:34
Karen Ferguson	What other things did you do at church that were—	32:54
Lester Bullock	See, some of them had to [indistinct 00:33:01] park cars around church [indistinct 00:33:03] park. Yeah.	32:59
Karen Ferguson	Did you enjoy going to church?	33:09
Lester Bullock	Yeah, I enjoyed it.	33:11
Karen Ferguson	Why?	33:13
Lester Bullock	Because I just loved to sing and do. Loved to have some good old singing and doing. But you've got to sit there so long before they start singing. Just like you go to school. Go to school, you've got to sit there as long as [indistinct 00:33:30]. I get taught sitting and waiting. You ever been fishing any time?	33:13
Karen Ferguson	No.	33:29
Lester Bullock	I go to creek, go to fishing. If the fish ain't got to bite, I get taught. I get taught, I go and move somewhere if I don't catch nothing. Then if I don't catch nothing, I get up and go on back to the house and lay down in a cool place.	33:29
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	33:29
Lester Bullock	I get taught sitting down waiting, fishing and doing like that.	33:29
Karen Ferguson	Would you meet your friends at church?	34:01
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Yeah. We'd meet them at church.	34:03
Karen Ferguson	Was there anywhere else where you met with your friends?	34:06
Lester Bullock	No. [indistinct 00:34:12]. They ain't around here now.	34:10
Karen Ferguson	There was no gathering place?	34:15
Lester Bullock	Uh-uh.	34:17
Karen Ferguson	Okay. Did you go to town very much?	34:17
Lester Bullock	We'd go even sometimes three times a month, down there to get the medicine down at drugstore, [indistinct 00:34:29].	34:20
Karen Ferguson	Right. What about when you were growing up? Did you go to town much?	34:29
Lester Bullock	My daddy [indistinct 00:34:36] stay home on the farm, my daddy and mama living. Yeah. If you go away, you had to be back before night.	34:34
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	34:43
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm. The only time I went to go into town—my own man. Yeah, my own man. [indistinct 00:34:57] I got ready.	34:46
Karen Ferguson	Right, right. Were you glad when you became your own man and were able to do that?	35:01
Lester Bullock	I sure was. I sure was.	35:04
Karen Ferguson	What was it like at home?	35:07
Lester Bullock	[indistinct 00:35:10] a better time home, when my mama lived and she would let us go and come back.	35:10
Karen Ferguson	Right. So, your dad was stricter?	35:15
Lester Bullock	Yeah. He would stick to [indistinct 00:35:21] my ma and dad were living, I would have better times. Sure would.	35:19
Speaker 5	Yes, sir. My mother [indistinct 00:35:35] living.	35:30
Karen Ferguson	When you were growing up, who was the boss at home? Who—	35:37
Lester Bullock	My daddy. My daddy. He was named Blair Bullock.	35:40
Karen Ferguson	Right. And how was he the boss? What decisions did he make?	35:46
Lester Bullock	Well, he'd make, you got to do it. Yeah. He'd make you go do it, or guess what. Yeah. Yeah. He'd tell you what to do, you go do it.	35:49
Karen Ferguson	Who took care of the money at home?	36:07
Lester Bullock	My dad.	36:09
Karen Ferguson	Your dad?	36:09
Lester Bullock	Yeah, but he [indistinct 00:36:12] my mama took care of it.	36:10
Karen Ferguson	Did your mother ever do any work off the farm?	36:16
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. No, ma'am.	36:19
Karen Ferguson	What did she do?	36:23
Lester Bullock	She stayed around home, in the field, chopping, pulling tobacco and cooked. She [indistinct 00:36:36] stayed around home and cooked for all of us. We were big eaters [indistinct 00:36:40].	36:24
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:36:41] It's 18 of us.	36:38
Karen Ferguson	Well, when you're doing field work all day too, you get hungry, I'm sure.	36:44
Lester Bullock	Sure would. And then we raised a lot of vegetables, cabbages to go home [indistinct 00:36:55] cabbage and cornbread up there. But dammit, that stuff be good because that was home made meat.	36:47
Karen Ferguson	It sounds good.	37:00
Lester Bullock	It sure was. Take that cornbread, put it inside the old wood stove, cook it like you do best. Cut it off with a knife. That stuff was good.	37:00
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:37:08]. I used to fight. Give me a [indistinct 00:37:08] piece of the ham meat [indistinct 00:37:08]. I'd put some wood in the stove and go out eat, come on back for more. She said, "You ain't getting no more before suppertime [indistinct 00:37:08]."	37:08
Karen Ferguson	Who whipped you if you got in trouble?	37:08
Lester Bullock	I remember my daddy whooped me before my mama whooped me. My mama whooped me, she ain't going to stop whooping until you see some water crying. You going to cry. And I'd cry a little bit later, and I'd cry a whole lot. She going to whoop me all across the shoulders and everywhere. [indistinct 00:38:01] with old brush brooms. Take one down and put you in that room there, she'd beat you good. My daddy would be standing in the door, you can't get out. My daddy whooped me, he got to get his old belt and whoop. I'd make like I'm crying, then he'll stop whooping me.	37:39
Karen Ferguson	So your mother was—You didn't want to be whipped by your mother?	38:19
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm.	38:23
Karen Ferguson	No, huh?	38:23
Lester Bullock	No. My mama would knock you down anytime she get a hand on you, telling you don't do—what to do and talk back to her. Yeah, she'll do it.	38:23
Karen Ferguson	Could you tell me what the happiest day of your life was? Was there one day that was the happiest of your life?	38:37
Lester Bullock	The happiest day of my life. I don't hardly know. I did know that day. We would go home and the happiest day of my life, I'd be going somewhere and come back home and to have something good cooked, and not even know you got cooking. Yeah. That stuff would be good too. Sometimes my mama cooked cakes and stuff like that, some barbecue, ice tea and stuff, we wouldn't be expecting it. That stuff was good. Eating that stuff [indistinct 00:39:33]. We'd eat that stuff and then go out there on the porch and lay around, sit around, get hungry again, go back in the kitchen get some more in.	39:04
Karen Ferguson	Get some more.	39:41
Lester Bullock	Yeah, and that stuff was good. Sometimes my daddy used to kill a hog, we didn't know he was killing. You'd dig a hole in the ground and cook a hog.	39:42
Karen Ferguson	Right, right.	39:42
Lester Bullock	They'd cook the hog, that barbecue [indistinct 00:39:46]. And that's happy day too. Mm-hmm.	39:42
Karen Ferguson	Were there ever times when you didn't have enough to eat at home?	39:42
Lester Bullock	Around this time of year, folks would have something to eat all the time [indistinct 00:40:11] when they're raising the garden and chicken and things [indistinct 00:40:14] and hogs in the garden.	39:45
Karen Ferguson	So there was never a time when you were hungry?	40:17
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. Didn't never get hungry. [indistinct 00:40:23].	40:19
Karen Ferguson	Were there people who didn't have enough to eat?	40:23
Lester Bullock	Some of them didn't have enough to eat, and folks used to have a great big watermelon patch then. Sometimes we would slip in other folks watermelon patch. [indistinct 00:40:40] but us would never tell my mama and daddy about it, they would find out. And my mama and daddy would tear us up. The folks at the watermelon patch would see us [indistinct 00:40:52] to the home and tell [indistinct 00:40:55] watermelon patch, they would tear us up. Yeah.	40:30
Karen Ferguson	Uh-huh.	40:58
Lester Bullock	Them watermelon, old mush melon were good. Had to get them out of [indistinct 00:41:05].	40:58
Karen Ferguson	Were there any places that your parents told you you could not go around here?	41:08
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm.	41:13
Karen Ferguson	Where was that?	41:14
Lester Bullock	They didn't want you to go to Leggett, this little piccolo joint, a little old piccolo joint. They serve beer and whiskey around there. No, we wouldn't go that place.	41:15
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever go?	41:25
Lester Bullock	No. Uh-uh. But in that one time, they had an old record player, and the man that run the store told my daddy about it, and he whooped us. We didn't ever go there no more.	41:28
Karen Ferguson	These planes are so loud. And they're so fast. It's an Air Force?	41:50
Lester Bullock	Uh?	41:53
Karen Ferguson	Air Force? Is that what it is?	41:54
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:41:58].	41:57
Lester Bullock	I ain't never been up in there.	41:57
Karen Ferguson	Right, but that's where the plane is from?	42:00
Lester Bullock	Yeah. You ever ridden an airplane?	42:02
Karen Ferguson	Yeah. Have you?	42:08
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm.	42:10
Karen Ferguson	Never?	42:10
Lester Bullock	I ain't got no business up there. Got no business that high off the ground.	42:10
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever travel away from this area? Have you ever gone any place?	42:16
Lester Bullock	I've been to Georgia, the other side of Georgia, but I ain't been on an airplane. I'll go on a bus. I've been to New York and places on buses and things, no airplane.	42:19
Karen Ferguson	When did you go to New York City?	42:31
Lester Bullock	Two or three years ago. I got a half sister that lives up there. Half sister lives in New York.	42:35
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever go anywhere when you were a young man?	42:40
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. No, ma'am. I didn't never go nowhere. No [indistinct 00:42:51] and Rocky Mount. And the Rocky Mount. Yeah. I got some folks [indistinct 00:43:07].	42:43
Karen Ferguson	Morning.	43:04
Speaker 6	[indistinct 00:43:08].	43:04
Karen Ferguson	When you were growing up, were there places that Black people could not go?	43:11
Lester Bullock	Mm-mm.	43:16
Karen Ferguson	No?	43:17
Lester Bullock	No.	43:17
Karen Ferguson	Could you go to restaurants?	43:18
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. In Tarboro.	43:20
Karen Ferguson	In Tarboro?	43:20
Lester Bullock	But one place in there, I forget the name of the place. Right there on 64 [indistinct 00:43:31] get into Tarboro, Black folk couldn't go in the café there. But the Whites could. And I met another man, White man, he was from an overseer, and two more men, his brothers. We come in Tarboro one Saturday, he stopped there and I go, when I get out he told me to come on in there. And the lady that run the café asked me, "You can't read can you?" And that other White man told me, "Come on." Told me, "Come on." He told her I was with them, and I worked with them. Yeah. I went in there and sat down at a table and ate. She talking about, "The next time you come in here, you better read." I told her, "I can't read." And my overseer told her I couldn't read. Told him, he come in there next time he got to bring me in there.	43:32
Karen Ferguson	Right, right, right. Were there ever problems with White folks, with violence?	44:26
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am.	44:37
Karen Ferguson	No?	44:37
Lester Bullock	Uh-uh.	44:37
Karen Ferguson	Do you remember the Ku Klux Klan being around here?	44:38
Lester Bullock	I hear tell of them. I hear tell of them. They said a few of them things around here now, they said, don't it?	44:41
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm.	44:46
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm.	44:46
Karen Ferguson	But you don't remember them doing anything?	44:50
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am.	44:51
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	44:51
Lester Bullock	No, never known doing nothing. Said they burned a cross in somebody yard, wasn't more [indistinct 00:45:03].	44:55
Karen Ferguson	Were there things that you had to do—Did you try to stay out of the way of White folks?	45:05
Lester Bullock	Stay out of the way?	45:11
Karen Ferguson	Mm-hmm. What contact did you have with White folks?	45:12
Lester Bullock	They were good. They'd talk with me. I go on talk with them. There was some—	45:18
Speaker 5	[indistinct 00:45:28] you want to get. Some, they wouldn't bother.	45:31
Karen Ferguson	But some would?	45:33
Lester Bullock	Yeah, some would.	45:34
Karen Ferguson	And how were they bothered?	45:34
Lester Bullock	There's some ain't working and won't have work, run up and down the road all the time. They would get them. They steal and do, they would get them.	45:43
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	45:48
Speaker 5	He wouldn't bother anybody. We had these [indistinct 00:45:56] won't work and steal everything. [indistinct 00:45:56]. That's the reason [indistinct 00:45:56]. Some of them wouldn't work. [indistinct 00:46:09]. That old bar [indistinct 00:46:14] say, "Hey, how about, how many [indistinct 00:46:18]." He said, "I don't do that kind of work." Didn't work neither but he'd steal everything he could get his hands on. He'd go out one night and steal something. He'll make $10 or $15. Go in your house, yes.	45:55

Speaker 1	Found out the day to off, he went in the window and got his shotgun, and pistols, and I don't know what all. Some jewelry you know, in the box, but they got him, though. They got him. The way they got him, he sold a ring to another lady, and the lady was working for this White lady. She said, "Let me see that ring.", and she put it up in there, and she said, "That's my ring." She said, "No, it ain't." "Yes, it is." And she told the lady who she bought it from, and they got him, skinned him. Yeah. He was scared and he think [indistinct 00:00:52]. His name was, we called him "Stalks". He wouldn't work.	0:02
Karen Ferguson	Do you ever remember people getting into trouble with the police or being sent to prison for things they had not done?	0:59
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am, Yes, ma'am. I've known that too.	1:07
Karen Ferguson	And can you talk a little bit about that?	1:09
Lester Bullock	I've been in prison myself.	1:12
Karen Ferguson	Oh, you have? And why was that? You don't have to answer that if you don't want to.	1:17
Speaker 1	Yeah.	1:24
Lester Bullock	I got threatened with the law, I've been in the law, call them on him. They called him "Old Muller", [indistinct 00:01:37].	1:24
Karen Ferguson	A Muller?	1:24
Lester Bullock	That's what the man was named, old law, they named him "The Muller".	1:37
Speaker 1	Right.	1:39
Lester Bullock	Well, I was just [indistinct 00:01:43], my daddy had been dead. So what's that's sad was boss me kept me [indistinct 00:01:48] because I was down there, and he's gone and go one back home. And I was sitting on the banks, that old Muller come up there, told me to come on and go with him. I was like, "I just got off from work, I'm tired", I just got me a bowl of soup and [indistinct 00:02:06] and eat there [indistinct 00:02:08].	1:40
Lester Bullock	And he just got up and and said, "Oh hell, you're drunk!" Carried me over to the car, like that car right there. Well, he told me to get in, but he wouldn't open his car door. Rolled the glass down, "Oh, get in." I said, "Open the door, I'll get in." Every time I saw him, I would get this black [indistinct 00:02:31], he'd have a black neck tie, I'd grab that neck tie around there and [indistinct 00:02:35], and he hit the ground. I got right on the top of him, then the boss man got around there, I didn't do no time for it and them White men was there and said he'd done me wrong.	2:09
Speaker 1	Right.	2:46
Lester Bullock	Yeah. And I took it good and from him, and I had that fork and he was a little calmer then, but he carried it on to Tarboro. I didn't get to go nowhere. I told them if they wanted me to, I'd go with him, and I didn't go. That old man walked and he carried me on down to jail and I stayed in jail until that Saturday night into that Sunday. My boss man come down that Monday morning and got me out.	2:46
Karen Ferguson	Did you know other people that got into similar situations?	3:27
Lester Bullock	No, that old kicking mule would come out. Old stuff that you drink called "Kicking Mule [indistinct 00:03:39]", some of them would get locked up every Saturday night from being drunk.	3:33
Karen Ferguson	For being drunk?	3:46
Lester Bullock	Yeah.	3:47
Karen Ferguson	Where people sent to prison for longer periods than that?	3:50
Lester Bullock	Sometimes they'd get six months, five and six months.	3:52
Karen Ferguson	What kinds of things would they do for that? Or what would they be accused of?	3:59
Lester Bullock	Be fighting and cutting up one another, yeah. Some of them you would get cut by [indistinct 00:04:13] every Saturday night	4:12
Karen Ferguson	When they went to prison, what did they do there? Did they have to work at the prison?	4:15
Lester Bullock	Yeah, when the judge sentences you for you to go to Raleigh, to the penitentiary, you stay in the penitentiary just like they closed [indistinct 00:04:33] to give them some more clean clothes, they be having that laundry come with it. Them were the prisoners would fold them up and put them in this white bag like that. Laundry, the county laundry. Then when you get ready to leave Raleigh, they bring you back to a prison camp somewhere and let you stay at that prison camp and work on the road shrubbing [indistinct 00:04:55].	4:21
Karen Ferguson	Right.	4:54
Lester Bullock	Ditches where the [indistinct 00:04:59].	4:54
Karen Ferguson	Did you know anyone who had to do that? Who had to work, went to the work camp? The prison camp?	4:59
Lester Bullock	It's been a long time. I'm about to say I'm going to go a long time, but a long time ago, people were working them old mules, folks just stay in prison. A long time. The last time where the mule we sent back on Friday, I think by that Saturday morning, the man with hauling the water sit that [indistinct 00:05:36] wanting to play that old record there. He told that man, "Don't cut that record on." That man told him his boy is playing that record. He went around and cut it off and told this man stay there and he'd come back around the corner where he stayed at [indistinct 00:05:57], over in that building, came back with a shotgun and shot him right in his throat. Laid there and the doctor, Raven, he was a doctor, told me if he had got him to him that Saturday night, he said the man wouldn't have died. Laid there all night and died.	5:03
Lester Bullock	This man would run away, but his boss man fixed up some papers, you know like a local boy would come [indistinct 00:06:30]. Picked up them papers so he could make the local boy would be [indistinct 00:06:38] and he sent them papers out trying to [indistinct 00:06:41] and he told him, "Hey, come back here." And he was scared, and the White folks was scared of him, come back here and he stayed around Leggett. Let him walk around so they didn't bother him and he got three or four sacks, caught him down the street was running up on him and got him before he knowed it. Came down and put him jail and they carried him down to Raleigh. They carried him down to one of those prison camps, one Sunday evening his mama went down and carried him something to eat, and then his mama said she'll see him that next week. He said, "No, you won't ma. You'll see me tonight, I'll be home tonight."	6:08
Lester Bullock	She told him, "Son, don't you run." "I'm going to see you tonight." And that Monday morning, they carried him off to go to work, and he jumped and run, and the man that rode the old motor grader told him "Halt", he didn't halt, so they shot him in the belly. He was running, too.	7:22
Karen Ferguson	This was your brother?	7:42
Lester Bullock	No ma'am, one of kin to them. That was a mean man, he stayed around Leggetts. Yeah, he shot him with a double barrel gun and told him to "Halt", and he didn't stop, he kept on running. The guards and law and all was scared of him.	7:43
Karen Ferguson	Do you ever remember Black people being killed by Whites and nothing happening to the White person?	8:04
Lester Bullock	It's been a long time, I was small.	8:12
Karen Ferguson	But there was something like that that happened?	8:21
Lester Bullock	I'd hear my mama and daddy talk about it.	8:21
Karen Ferguson	Right.	8:21
Lester Bullock	Yeah, Ma and Daddy would talk about it.	8:21
Karen Ferguson	Did you parents ever tell you things that you had to do to stay out of trouble with White people?	8:32
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	8:37
Karen Ferguson	What did they tell you?	8:37
Lester Bullock	Treat them right. Always treat White folks right. Don't be dogging and don't be fussing with them.	8:39
Karen Ferguson	Right.	8:46
Lester Bullock	Yeah. Whatever you got to do, treat them right, and stay out of trouble.	8:52
Karen Ferguson	Were there ever times when you felt like fighting back and not—	8:53
Lester Bullock	Um-um, no. But if you fight back, you might get the worser end of it. No, I didn't never fight back.	8:56
Karen Ferguson	Did you know anybody who fought back and got in trouble?	9:07
Lester Bullock	Sometimes they would fight back and get in trouble. Get between three months and a year. Two years like that in prison. I always tried to stay out of trouble.	9:13
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever get married?	9:35
Lester Bullock	A shacked a little bit. I've got three children.	9:36
Karen Ferguson	Did they live with you?	9:46
Lester Bullock	No, they're in New York somewhere. I saw one about two or three weeks ago. She was in the hospital, they bring me to the hospital.	9:47
Karen Ferguson	It seems like most of the people that farmed had large families. How did you farm? Were you just by yourself when you were a man? When you were a grown up man?	10:06
Lester Bullock	My mother and my sisters and things, they would always help me when my daddy and ma passed away.	10:15
Karen Ferguson	What happened after they died? What did you do then?	10:26
Lester Bullock	Well, my sister is living now. My sister and her children are living now.	10:31
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	10:38
Lester Bullock	We don't do no work now. I ain't done nothing in about 15 years. I been had two heart attacks, and all of them works Public Works. I stay with my niece, I stay in a house with my niece.	10:38
Karen Ferguson	So after your mother died, you stayed on with your sister's family?	10:56
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am, I grown up with them.	10:59
Karen Ferguson	Was she married? Was her husband there?	10:59
Lester Bullock	No ma'am, no she didn't ever get married.	11:00
Karen Ferguson	So you were the man of the house?	11:06
Lester Bullock	And the oldest brother, he was with us too.	11:07
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	11:07
Lester Bullock	His name is Richard Boiler, he was the man of the house before he got married.	11:07
Karen Ferguson	And did you stay on the same farm that you had grown up on? Or was this a different place?	11:18
Lester Bullock	Where I growed up on? I'm with the same man, we were with the same man where I first knowed, on the same farm where my daddy used to farm on. Been there all my life.	11:24
Karen Ferguson	You were talking before about the overseer. Who was he?	11:44
Lester Bullock	That's Mr. Luke Alston, his daddy was named Cage Alston, when they had his son, the overseer. Ms. Cage, he was land launder him and Ms. Luke, the overseer's boy, he was a good man too, Mr. Luke, he passed about three years ago. Mr. Luke, that was a good man, you can get anything you want from that man. He was good.	11:45
Karen Ferguson	Did other people move around more than your family? Did most people stay on the same farm for a long time?	12:25
Lester Bullock	Nowadays, hardly any of them boys farm nowadays. All them go to go to town and places. But all my sister's own a farm but we don't farm it, rent who is there. Rent the house now.	12:30
Karen Ferguson	But back then, did people move around from place to place much? From farm to farm?	12:45
Lester Bullock	Yeah, if this man didn't treat them right, that man over there would say "Go to that best man over here. That's where they treat them the best."	12:49
Karen Ferguson	What happened when somebody moved after the landlord didn't treat them right? Was it easy to go to another place?	13:01
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am, that man didn't like that boy, that man over there, he's got a farm better, you can move over there.	13:12
Karen Ferguson	What did the unfair landlord say to that? Could he stop you from moving?	13:22
Lester Bullock	No ma'am, he couldn't stop you. If you didn't owe them no money, he couldn't stop you.	13:29
Karen Ferguson	But if you did owe him money and you did try to leave, what would happen?	13:36
Lester Bullock	Then that man over there where he got moved with and you would owe him two or three hundred dollars, that man would pay the money [indistinct 00:13:47] and move you on in the house.	13:37
Karen Ferguson	Okay, I see. Where there times when that was easier for people than others, to move from place to place? Where there always places to move to?	13:48
Lester Bullock	Mm-hmm, because all of them was like that.	14:01
Karen Ferguson	Were land owners always looking for tenants?	14:03
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am, when you tend them big farms, they like you stay here with this man, and this man you can't make no money with this man. That man over here, he'll tell you "Come move over here. I guarantee you'll make some money next year. Don't let that man over there know it." "If you move with that man over there, you'll make money."	14:06
Karen Ferguson	What did you do when you were growing up for a doctor? When you got sick, what did you do when you were sick?	14:35
Lester Bullock	What, when I was little bitty or something like that?	14:41
Karen Ferguson	Or even when you were older or later on, but early on, when you were—	14:46
Lester Bullock	When I first knowed nothing about a doctor, I was about 14 or 15 years old. My daddy always would get some kind of remedy or something they would give you for the stomach ache. Some liniment and water and sugar. That stuff would be hot!	14:56
Karen Ferguson	Oh, I can imagine!	14:59
Lester Bullock	Yeah, make you have a belly ache, a stomach ache. Yeah, that'd do you all the good, then and I was grown, my daddy dead, I was on the job and for the doctor I went to, I had broke my leg. Fell out there and broke my leg, then the next time the boy cranked the car and broke my arm in two places right here, I went to the doctor and he put me in the hospital to heal up. But for long, I was grown when I knew anything about a doctor.	15:04
Karen Ferguson	You talked about your father's belly ache remedy. Where there other things that you did when you were sick instead of going to a doctor?	15:57
Lester Bullock	Yeah.	16:06
Karen Ferguson	Like what?	16:07
Lester Bullock	In the morning I used to dig up some kind of weed that had a root to it, dig it up and wash that root off and you tote that in your pocket and chew it. They called it some kind of peppermint [indistinct 00:16:26] for the stomach ache. Rub it, get some grease or something and rub your stomach all like that. Get some kind of old remedy to rub in to keep from going to the doctor. They knew all that old stuff that he did.	16:07
Lester Bullock	Then sometimes they'll give you a raw egg to stop the hurting, beat up a raw egg just like you've got to make a cake out of it. Then you put some flavor or something in there and drink that stuff down. Make it feel better.	16:46
Karen Ferguson	Where there people who weren't doctors, but other people who knew a lot about these weeds and things?	16:48
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am, like some old people that would go around the woods and dig and find something for you to take. We call them old "Root Workers". Them old root workers.	16:52
Karen Ferguson	Who was the root worker when you were growing up?	17:27
Lester Bullock	All I know is the man Kelly Jones, he would have a [indistinct 00:17:35] that would fill at the school. He would go in there just like this. We used to call him old "Broom [indistinct 00:17:40]". Go over there in that [indistinct 00:17:44] corn field and find some kind of root out there. It's some old root we called it "Crows Foot". Get some tea and we'd drink that tea of it, get it as hot as it can get and put a little sugar in that tea, and drink that tea. You ever seen strawberry vine?	17:31
Karen Ferguson	Yeah.	17:58
Lester Bullock	That crows foot looks like a strawberry vine, but it's got a different root.	17:58
Karen Ferguson	Right.	17:58
Lester Bullock	You get that root and make tea of it. Wash them off and that'll do you all the good. But I can't find them now, that old crow's foot. A lot of folks need to use it.	17:58
Karen Ferguson	When you had to go to the doctor, was it a Black doctor that you saw?	18:23
Lester Bullock	No ma'am. Dr. House, he got killed in an airplane, up there besides Rocky Mount. He was a good old doctor, he stayed right there in Leggets. Yeah, Dr. House. That was the first doctor I ever went to, Dr. House. My daddy, he done died, Dr. House died, I went to Dr. Raven, a man called Dr. Raven. I stayed with him when my arm was broke in the hospital.	18:26
Lester Bullock	Then the next doctor I know, I've been with Dr. Hughes [indistinct 00:19:13] when I had this heart attack. I go to him now twice a month.	18:59
Karen Ferguson	Where there other ways in which Black people helped each other out? Did you ever belong to a burial society?	19:20
Lester Bullock	You mean a [indistinct 00:19:32]?	19:28
Karen Ferguson	I don't know, what's that?	19:32
Lester Bullock	That's the insurance that puts you away when you die.	19:39
Karen Ferguson	Right.	19:39
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	19:39
Karen Ferguson	Was that run by Black people? The one that you belong to?	19:39
Lester Bullock	That's like a undertakers' shop?	19:45
Karen Ferguson	Right.	19:45
Lester Bullock	Do you have [indistinct 00:19:49] you can go to the undertaker's shop and take a [indistinct 00:19:49] out on you.	19:47
Karen Ferguson	Was there anything else? Any other kinds of things like a mutual aid society or anything that you belonged to where you pay a little bit of money each month and then they'll help you when you get sick?	19:48
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	20:06
Karen Ferguson	What was that?	20:08
Lester Bullock	I did. Just like, uh, we pay here, but I don't know what [indistinct 00:20:20].	20:16
Karen Ferguson	But when you were younger, when you were growing up, was there anything like that?	20:20
Lester Bullock	No ma'am, when I was growing up, no. When I first started going to the doctor and paying my own insurance policy when I take on the bad leg after my ma and daddy died.	20:25
Karen Ferguson	Do you remember the Bricks School at all from when you were growing up?	20:46
Lester Bullock	What's that school here?	20:50
Karen Ferguson	Yeah.	20:50
Lester Bullock	No ma'am. I didn't. I've got two sisters that went up here, but that lady drives that car, you said, "Good Lord" [indistinct 00:21:01]. She teached my sister.	20:52
Karen Ferguson	Or really?	21:00
Lester Bullock	My two youngest sisters. And that little lady in there they called her "Railroad", she used to teach here.	21:05
Karen Ferguson	Right, Ms. Morning.	21:12
Lester Bullock	Yeah, I know Ms. Barter, I've been knowing her a long time.	21:13
Karen Ferguson	Did you know that the school was here when you were growing up?	21:20
Lester Bullock	No, ma'am. I didn't know it was there. The first time I know this school was there, the old T-Model car came out, my daddy had one and we carried up [indistinct 00:21:37] all the little small [indistinct 00:21:39] went along this road going to [indistinct 00:21:42] and he told us that was Bricks School. I was small then. That's the only time I knowed it.	21:23
Lester Bullock	Then after I growed up, my [indistinct 00:21:53] I seen the boy play ball over there. I didn't play them boys, just sit up there in the shade and look at them. [indistinct 00:22:00] uphill.	21:53
Karen Ferguson	You said your daddy got a Model-T car.	22:04
Lester Bullock	He had one before he died, an old T-Model. You stand in front of it and crank it up.	22:08
Karen Ferguson	Right.	22:11
Lester Bullock	You know anything about them old cars?	22:11
Karen Ferguson	I know a little bit about that. But just from books, I've never seen one.	22:16
Lester Bullock	You take them and crank them up in the front.	22:19
Karen Ferguson	How did that change your life when you got a car? How were things different after you got a car from before?	22:24
Lester Bullock	Got you a car [indistinct 00:22:33]. I don't know, them old T-Models, they were pretty if you seen one on the road. They went from there to an A-Model Ford.	22:30
Karen Ferguson	But when your family got a car, how were things different for you after that? Did anything change?	22:44
Lester Bullock	It didn't change much.	22:49
Karen Ferguson	Did you go different places to buy things then?	22:53
Lester Bullock	Yes, you go to Tarboro sometimes to get groceries, and sometimes you come to [indistinct 00:23:01] to get groceries from cheap stores, the cheapest place.	22:56
Karen Ferguson	Was it cheaper than where you were going before?	23:05
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am. Yes, they were cheaper.	23:08
Karen Ferguson	Would you get credit at those stores as well?	23:14
Lester Bullock	Yeah, one man who owned a S&M, he was a creditor, he's dead and gone now. Whitaker. About all the good White folks' gone. With credit, [indistinct 00:23:35] farming.	23:16
Karen Ferguson	When you were a grown man, did you continue going to church?	23:39
Lester Bullock	Yes, ma'am.	23:42
Karen Ferguson	Same church that you went to earlier?	23:44
Lester Bullock	Same one. I love preaching there, and this old prayer meeting, folks used to have that a long time ago, the old folks. Used to talk about an old Baptist church, them folks could do some singing at nights. I used to love to hear them preach. Then sometimes we'd eat three or four times a night.	23:51
Karen Ferguson	Do you belong to anything at church? To the choir?	24:18
Lester Bullock	No, my old lungs can't do choir because I can't stand so much loud fuss, or my chest go to bothering me, my heart gets to bothering me.	24:27
Karen Ferguson	When you were younger though, did you belong to anything at church?	24:29
Lester Bullock	Yes, but I used to be a trustee there one time. Then the doctor told me I better let it alone, I couldn't stand too much fuss.	24:33
Karen Ferguson	Did you belong to any other organizations when you were young?	24:47
Lester Bullock	No ma'am, no.	24:50
Karen Ferguson	Oh, okay. Do you want to finish off? Should we finish off? Is it time for you to go to lunch?	24:52
Lester Bullock	The truck done been here?	25:00
Karen Ferguson	I don't know, someone was just calling to see if you were coming in.	25:00
Lester Bullock	Yeah, they done been here.	25:00
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	25:00

Item Info

Title:

Lester Bullock interview recording, 1993 June 28

Date:

June 28, 1993

Creator:

Bullock, Lester Augustine

Contributor:

Ferguson, Karen

Description:

Name: Lester Augustine Bullock; Date of birth: 1924-05-30; Place of birth: Edgecombe Co., NC; Occupation(s): agriculture; Residence: Enfield, NC
Informant ID: 121; Interviewed by: Karen Ferguson.

Occupation:

Agriculture

Location:

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

Identifier:

Interview number: 362
f1cf7b2b-d053-4a81-a5b3-f67bf13627ef
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b7e0a39b-799a-48cb-b382-271b1034ff0d

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Lester Bullock interview recording, 1993 June 28

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1. Lester Bullock administrative file, 1993

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