Maggie Crowell interview recording, 1993 June 28
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | —If the tape is working properly. | 0:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Maggie Crowell? | 0:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, that's good. Thanks. [INTERRUPTION 00:00:11] | 0:11 |
Karen Ferguson | All right, Mrs. Crowell. The first thing I'd like you to tell me, Mrs. Crowell, that I want to ask you is about where you grew up. You could tell me where you grew up and a little bit about the place in which you grew up. | 0:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I grew up in Jackson, North Carolina, Northampton County. That's where I was born. And I stayed there until, I think, I was about eight, seven, eight years old when we moved from there. But I can remember how we had to live at five years old. My father, he was a farmer, and his wages were like a dollar and a half a week, but to feed me and my two brothers and my mother and him, which, it was terrible when we didn't have food to eat and no clothes to wear. And my mother was working at the house where my father was farming with the White men, and they would—She would cook, and they would give her food to bring home for us. And she went to the Red Cross. That's how we had clothes. 'Cause she went, the White lady went, because then in them days, the Colored people couldn't go to places like that. | 0:22 |
Karen Ferguson | The Red Cross? | 1:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Right. And she went and that's where we got our clothes from, but the food mostly come from where she worked at, 'cause my father wasn't getting about a dollar a quarter a week. Stuff was cheap, but it was still—It was hard for her, 'cause me and my brother used to go in the woods, in a big place of water, and we would get in that place and walk through it and muddy it up. The water was up to here. My mama didn't know where we was at, but we trying to get some food, 'cause we didn't have none. And when you muddy water, a fish in there, he'll come on the top. We had small pans that we would catch them and throw them out on the bank, and that's what we had had to eat. That, with no grease. But it kept us alive. | 1:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When people were in the farm and they got the peanuts, they shuck up the peanuts and all, then we lived mostly off of that. We would go out in the field at night and get them, 'cause we weren't allowed to go in the field. But the only way we could get them, we had to—Well I said, take them, 'cause we went out there at night. It was bad for us, because my parents, I don't think they had no education, and we growed up with no education, 'cause me and one of my brothers, we had—He went to work at six, I went to work at five. And that's how I come out, I don't have no learning. We moved in from Northampton County to Halifax County, and it's still, we had a little bit more to eat, but the living arrangement and everything was almost the same. | 2:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Color people just didn't have nothing, to tell you the truth. I guess it was kind of hard on me, because along then, I didn't have no sisters, just on the me one girl. And it was just hard for my mother to take care of us. My mother told me when I was a baby, they didn't have no food, and my brother, my oldest brother would, she would make coffee and leave there and he would put biscuits in coffee, and that's what he kept me alive off of. So that all my life until I got 12 or 13 years old. 'Cause I was married when I was 13. So up until then, it was just bad for living, 'cause you couldn't get nothing but through by the White man. And they wasn't advancing us. Because after I got married, up until I left in the '60s to go to the city, that I made $2 a day, and they would take Social Security out of that. | 3:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | In my marriage, I had five kids, which had to be taken care of. And my husband, he made $14 a week, and I made, it was $9 and something, 'cause after they take out the Social Security, and it was really hard. My children, they had to go from Friday night until after 12:00, 'cause you didn't get your money before 12:00. Then you have to go to town and get something. And my children went that long without eating any food. That's one reason why I went to the city, 'cause I got tired of this. | 5:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I'm working and my husband working, and we can't give our kids nothing to eat. It affected my oldest daughter. But some days, she would get up. She would try to get up, but she couldn't stand. And we didn't have money take her to the doctor. We never know what was wrong. But I would go to the store—I always mostly had a car since I was married, and I would go to the store and get her an orange soda, and she drank it. In about 30 minutes time, she was up gone. | 5:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But we didn't have money enough to take the child to the doctor. And my third child had spinal meningitis. That was rough haul. We were staying with a doctor, but he didn't know what was wrong with the child. She kept a drawing, 'cause she had it in the bone, not the regular meningitis, she had spinal meningitis. And she just draw, draw. That child had drawed for four days. When I did get her to the doctor, I only weighed about 79 pounds. That's how bad it was, trying to take care of her and had to work. It just was bad. | 6:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | As of now, when I look back, I really don't know how my mother made it with three kids and herself and my daddy offering a dollar and a quarter a week. And now, what can you get with a dollar and a quarter? Nothing. To me, I'm glad y'all doing this, 'cause the young people today, they really don't know what these people went through. I don't know how my mother went through, but I know from five years old, I can remember most of it, how we had to get food and clothes and on up until I got married. | 7:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When school opened, we would get one or two outfits, and what we already had, that had to last us the school season, 'cause we couldn't get no more. And most of the thing they would have was people would give us. And it's really was hard for me to think about that now. I don't see how that people could get along in them days. Because, I mean, it was really bad. The house you stay in, you could lay in your bed and look outside. The rain, the snow, and all is coming in the house. And seem the White man where he was working for, he really didn't care about the people, do, he would've fixed the houses at least. | 8:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | We know that White folks not going to give us nothing. But then when you work, like we was working, which people hadn't been too long come out of slavery, and we wasn't looking for the White man to give us anything but give us a chance to make something for ourself. And you couldn't make nothing for you working for him, he paying you, and you got nowhere to stay. It is ain't been but maybe about 10 years, a little more, that a Black man could get along, 'cause Black peoples couldn't get along. | 9:07 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Now, I look at the situation now, it's bad, but every human being got a chance to do something for himself or make a loan or whatever. 'Cause my husband made a loan, bought this house. After I got in the city and started working a little bit more money, it was amazing that you could make enough money, I said, to buy you a new dress. Which when we was on the farm, we couldn't do that. But I think my third daughter, I think she was about five or six years old, before I ever owned a TV. Black folks did not know nothing about no TVs or nothing. And it just, it's amazing people could live through something like that. | 9:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But as for now, I'm so glad that we got a chance to do for ourselves, because now I go to school, learned how to read, and it's amazing to me that they take the paper that I had—Because I can't write, I can print. And the way I was printing in and the way I printed now, it's just like day and night. The people tell me, "Well, you old going back to school." That ain't the problem. The problem is me learning how to read. I'm proud of me, 'cause I got enough guts or whatever you call it to go back to school to learn how to read, and since I've been going to the center or I meet different peoples and I learned how to do things for me, which I didn't know. | 10:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's why I'm glad that people like you all and other peoples is making it easy for our younger people, let them know what we went through which they won't have to go through. But then they will know, whatever you make, you take care of what you make. That's the only way you going to have anything, is take care of what you make. But when you don't know how to do it, then you don't know what to do. Because really, since I think I started going to the center, oh, it's been about four or five years ago I started going. That's where I first started going to school at. But now, I go to Pitman Elementary School. When I started there, it was a lot of people going, so they had two teachers. But now, seem that nobody don't want to learn nothing, so they had to get rid of one teacher. So teacher, whoever teaching me, she teaches at Southeast, and she volunteer one night a week for us. It's three of us. | 11:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It's a lot them going, but the other people is going for the GED, but we don't know how to read enough, so we go and she teaches and she's a good teacher, 'cause everybody can't teach old folks. But she is a good teacher. She takes me to school and she teach me, and she don't charge me anything. Which, it's good for me. To me, I would be a fool to not to go back to school and learn how to do for yourself. Especially writing money orders. And yeah pick up a letter, I can pick up a letter and read it pretty good. Because when you can't read, you don't know what people's telling you. Whether they're telling you the truth or whether they're lying to you. But if you can read a little bit, you can know what you know trying to do. | 13:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I tell you, I have come a long ways physical, mental, whatever. 'Cause I have learned a lot of things that to do for myself to make it easier for me. Because you wouldn't have no idea to know how a person feel that can't read and learned how to read. Because I always went pretty much, but I can see a word I know, but I can't tell you what it is. I still do that. Because I traveled from here to New Jersey, and before I even learn how to read [indistinct 00:14:53]. And now I travel, but it's lots of words and things I still don't understand, 'cause it really ain't that easy for an old person to learn so much. But the teacher told me that I had made two grades a year, which I'm proud of, because I mean to learn. 'Cause it's out here for me, I mean to get it. | 14:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because the people don't—They don't like to take too much time with the older peoples no how? Because they say they stupid, they crazy, they ain't got no sense to start with, because they know back when they was children, they did not go to school. Only a few kids that went to school, 'cause they had to help their parents work. But I don't hold it against my father, but I blame him, because he did not have to put me to work at five years old. I ought to been going to school or somewhere. But I'm out there in the field at five years old, and the White man daughter going to school! | 15:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I guess by he not having no learning, then he went along with that. But he dead and gone now. But I'm going to school and learning, which it's good, because my husband, he don't have no learning either. He said he couldn't learn nothing, but I believe you can learn anything you want to learn. But you got to get out there and do it. Ain't nobody going to bring and drop it in your lap. But then, that's why I come out—I thank God for Mr. Grant and Stephanie, which she's gone. I mean woo. That hurt her so bad when that— | 15:57 |
Karen Ferguson | It looked like it. Everybody was so— | 16:48 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Woo. Good lord. Her and Mr. Grant. But Mr. Grant, by him being coordinator, getting the people there who had we need to talk to. 'Cause what we full asked, had the sheriff's department there, the chief was there, whatever you call him. Anything we needs to know, he'd tell, but then he'll get the person there that we can talk to. I think Eva Clayton, she come. John Hall, he be with us all the time anyway. And lots of more, which I can't recall by name. I can't remember names. I just remember faces. | 16:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When you set and you think, how did peoples get along before this? And then that they fixing it so that the young White girls can come amongst the Black peoples and learn from us, and we learn from them. But we always had a White girl come in with us since I've been going there. They all were nice, but we never had one like Stephanie. (laughs) | 17:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Lord have mercy, did I hate to see that child go. Because really, she was like us. I mean, I think she feeled the same way we did, because she acted the same way we did. You had to stop and look like the lady said, the sun just didn't hit her. (laughs) You had to stop and think, well "God, she is White," but just the way she acted—It's beautiful. | 17:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | All of them come out there is nice people. We have a young mens come out for the summer school, mostly. | 18:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Come from—Where in the world they—Louisiana? They come a long ways. It would be so good to get these books and things made that y'all trying to make so that the young White and Black could see how that the peoples had to come up. | 18:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And they really need so much drugs until it don't even make no sense, how the young peoples is killing themself, killing other people. I mean, they just pick up a gun and shoot a person for nothing. Lord have mercy. But I think that what y'all are trying to do will help them to see that they don't need to do that. | 19:01 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They need to be, well, the generation that started the movement. And they need to be so well they can tell they kids or their grandkids or their great grand, "I had to do this." Back, way back 'cause they be called us old peoples anyway, (laughs) we don't understand. | 19:26 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But what my grandmama, my great-grandmama had to do, look how far we come. That should mean a lot to us, anyway. That we can pick up a book and look how far that the Blacks come out of slavery. I'm hoping it will make it different, because right now, it just don't make sense the way the system is now. I just don't understand. I don't even try to understand it, 'cause it's too much to—The system is maybe some of the White kids would mingle with the Blacks. | 19:44 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But the Ku Klux Klans and that saying, uh-huh, they ain't going to allow their kids to do it. And it's keeping a confusion at all time. The White want to kill the Blacks, the Blacks want to kill the White, and innocent children is getting killed on account of the grown peoples, when it shouldn't be happening. The nation is free now. When it was slavery, I could see something like this. But now, to me now, it's slavery, 'cause they act like they don't got no mind. All they want to do is to hurt somebody, kill somebody. "I don't like this from him." You don't like everybody nohow, but you supposed to treat everybody the same way. God don't care what color skin any of the people. But people don't think that way. They should. Maybe it would be a little better if it wasn't so much drugs. | 20:30 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But what I can't understand, that I don't—I ain't here to tell no Black man is got money enough to bring a kilo of drugs in here. That drug come in through by the White man, and then the Black man is stupid enough to go sell it for the White man. And then when he go to jail, he going to jail. The White man going to stay ahead at all time. 'Cause you so stupid, you go sell the mess, or use it, or whichever. Because when you doing that, you harming yourself and people's kids. They tell me that crack cocaine, said once you've tried it, you hooked. And you give a child, I said an eight or nine year old child crack cocaine. That child going to get hooked. Then what he going to do? He going to kill somebody, get some money, get something. At eight or nine years old. | 21:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I tell you, I got five of them, two boys and three girls. I don't think they on drugs or nothing. But the oldest one, he just all out of it. He drinks so much. He working do, but on the weekend, I couldn't see—At least I can't see wasting that kind of money on the weekend. Because he maybe waste $50, $100 dollars on the weekend. And here, me and my husband, we living off fixed income. What couldn't we do with a hundred dollars? I mean and paying the bills, eating and all of that. He working every week and think he make something like $10, $11 an hour, so it really don't bother him, but what the young people can't see, they need to be taking their money, buying themself a home to stay in. | 22:31 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because right now, my daughter stay in this man's house. She got two bedroom, the kitchen, and the living room. $600 a month is what she pay outside, and then she got to pay her light and gas, telephone bill and all that, then got to eat. And that's a lot of money. When they try to get their house and if they go pay $600 a month, after a while it'll be theirs. But the way they doing now, it'll never be theirs. They be paying for that man house two or three times. I'm glad I went to the city to learn how the people lived in the city. 'Cause before I went, people come down from the city and they a whole lot of fantasy to my idea, because when I went up there, I ain't seen none of it. And they come down here with their brand new cars. And after I got up there and I went to work and talking to different people, they going to rent a car come down here. | 23:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That makes it bad for the person that down here, 'cause I thought that you go to the city, you make big money. But you make the big money, where'd it go? You wound up with nothing just the same. And it's no place for no kids. My baby was born there, the rest of them was born here but they was raised there. I think my oldest son was 11 years old. I was downtown, I had to stay here, 'cause they would've been raised there, because in that city you got to work. People don't care nothing about your kids, and they out there and hearing everything and they tell them everything. That child going to listen to that what's out there, fixing to do them harm. | 24:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's what it make a mess. My baby was born there. We went, we had to go back, because my daughter got married. She had been shacking for years, she went on and got married, which I was so glad to see her get married. It just so bad. All of my sons, the baby son that stayed here, most all his friends dead, and the rest of them in prison for drugs. If he'd have been there, he'd have been dead himself, because he's a bullheaded child. | 25:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | See, I love everybody, but I love young people. I don't care what color, you young peoples. And to see young peoples doing like y'all are doing, like Stephanie was doing, it dos my heart a lot of good, because I know when you're doing something like that, you're helping yourself, you're helping other people. But when you just turn your life loose to drugs, alcohol, or whatever, you ain't doing nothing except nobody else. | 25:44 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, do you think that there was the same problem? I know there weren't drugs, but did people help each other out more, or did they—How was it different when you were growing up? | 26:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, they didn't help. Each of our peoples help each other. No. Uh-huh. Because, like I say, we stayed here and the next person stayed down there, they made a little bit more money than my father did. So therefore, we was calling nobody. They didn't bother with nobody. No, they didn't. Very few. If you got something like they got, yeah. But if not, no. | 26:34 |
Karen Ferguson | So if you were poorer than they were, they wouldn't help you? | 27:16 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, they wouldn't. It's bad, but they wouldn't. It's the same way now, if you don't got what they got, they still don't help you. But it is bad, but to come through what I come through and now, it's good now. You lay down, you can go to sleep. But when I was a child like that, I really didn't sleep that good. I don't know whether my mother knowed it or not. But I always been a sensitive child and I could always see things, and it bothered me. I guess it shouldn't have, but it did, because I just wanted to live in peace with everybody. | 27:20 |
Karen Ferguson | What were these things that you saw that bothered you? | 28:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Like if we would go to school, when we could, and the people would like, they wouldn't shy away much 'cause we didn't have clothes like they had. You tucked your lunch then, and we didn't have lunch they had, because our parents weren't able to do it. And it bothers me, but I don't really don't think my mama knowed. I didn't never say nothing about it. I don't know whether it bothered my brothers or not, but it bothered me, 'cause I said, "Well, I'm peoples just like they is." But I just ain't got nothing. | 28:13 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up in Northampton County, you said your father got a weekly dollar and a quarter— | 28:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Dollar and a quarter a week. | 28:54 |
Karen Ferguson | So you weren't sharecropping then. You were daylight [indistinct 00:29:01], or? | 28:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He was sharecropping, but he give them next so he could get something to eat, I guess that's where we were. | 29:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Did other people have it better? Did other Black people have it better? | 29:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not that much, no. But some of them had, well, a lot better than him. The man he was working with really was something like a slave driver. He really didn't give his people like the next man over there, because—It was just bad. I have thought and thought since I've been grown how in the world did my daddy do with a dollar and a quarter a week. I knowed I think like sugar, five pound sugar like 5 cents. But to take care of five peoples offin a dollar and a quarter a week? That was 25 cents apiece. | 29:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have a garden or any livestock to supplement your— | 29:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah, my daddy raised hogs and chickens. I remember that we couldn't eat, but over in Northampton County, well I think about three years before he moved from over there, he started raising hog. But at first we didn't have nothing but what he got offin the farm. But she always cooked for the people that we was working with, and when she cooked and whatever left over, she would bring home to us. But that's the only way we made it. I tell you. | 30:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember your grandparents at all? | 30:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Nothing but my grandfather on my daddy's side, because my mama daddy and mama, they were dead before I was born. But my daddy, his daddy was still living, I think. I was about 15, 16 years old before I ever seen him. They're all over in Northampton County, and my daddy looked just like a White man. | 30:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh really? | 31:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And his people, all his people was like White people. My mother was Black, I mean Black Black. My mother was jet Black. And they wouldn't have nothing to do with my daddy after he married this Black woman, 'cause he told him if he married a Black woman that they wouldn't have nothing to do with him, and they didn't. And when his daddy got sick and couldn't help himself, then they brought his daddy to him. He didn't like being there, but he didn't have no choice. Because all along, when the segregation world that the Black had to ride in the back of the bus and White in the front, his people could ride in the front, 'cause they was just White as the White ones. | 31:16 |
Karen Ferguson | So they passed for White? | 31:55 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 31:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Even up in Northampton County where people knew them? | 32:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's right. They got the school up there that his mama people was Keys and his people, his daddy people's Buffalo. They had a school up there when me and my husband and his mama and stepfather moved up there, they had the oldest girl was Black. The oldest boy was real bright. He went to that school, where them White folks—I call them White, where they looked like White but, and the sister had to go to another school 'cause she was Black. | 32:02 |
Karen Ferguson | So he went to the school where White people went to, or was it— | 32:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It was his people, because his people's like White. They got their own school. | 32:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. So there were three kinds of schools. One for White people, one for light-skinned people, and one for dark-skinned people? | 32:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's right. | 32:47 |
Karen Ferguson | I never heard of that before. Was that was official, or was that just understood that you would go if you were— | 32:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It was official. Because the White people had their school, and these Black Whites, I call, had theirs, and they had the school for the Blacks. | 33:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Were these all public schools? | 33:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 33:12 |
Karen Ferguson | And this was in Northampton County? | 33:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I'm glad I moved out of there. I don't know how it is over there now, but I know Mr. Grant was saying that 'cause we trying to make it hard for these people with all this hogs and maybe can keep our water. And they had a meeting over there and it's a White lady over there work with Mr. Grant, and she called and told them. They said that they wasn't going to build these hog—they ain't hog houses, hog industry—in the White people's neighborhood. They going to build them in the poor White and the Blacks, because the Blacks can't do nothing about it. I said, "I'll be sure, yes we can. We're going to be trying if we ain't." | 33:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | We done made it hard for them. But if we had done knowed it before they got in here, they never would have got in here. But them commissions up there, they knowed it in August, and when they put it in the papers is in December, and who going to look in the paper December running around trying to get somebody for Christmas? And then the oldest commissioner, he retired after they found out. | 33:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because that's how come they're here. They was in Virginia, they messed up the water in there, 'cause Virginia had to get water from Lake Gaston, that's here in North Carolina. Had to go—that's only kind these people in here now with these hog houses. Because it going to mess up the water. I said, "Lord have mercy." It's bad that we worked, me and my husband, all our young lives to try to have somewhere to retire, and now you ain't going to be able, if you stay here, you ain't going to have no water to drink, 'cause they going to mess up the well then you got to hook to the state water. That's another bill got to be paid, and I don't even like state water. I like to drink my own water. You can't even to be able to open your window, because right now, when the wind blows certain way, we can smell that thing, and it's five miles from us. | 34:27 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And what in the world going to happen in August, in July? And them that went right in the backyard, I don't know, woo. But I know we went to Black Mountain, or Blackstone or somewhere, to a meeting they had. I was listening at this man, this heavyset White man. He was talking. About, he said he had been where he was there for 25 years, and that hog thing had been there since '88. And he said them fly, them green fly was so big when they hit the window, seemed like they about to break the window, and he couldn't hike his windows. Ain't even think about trying to cook out, 'cause you can't do it. And he said them people go on your land and check and you can't do nothing about it. | 35:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I looked back at that man, and he was crying. I like to had a fit. Who else I wish I hadn't looked back at? I mean, it made me feel so bad. Now, all his life I guess he'd been in his home. Now he can't enjoy his home, because the green flies big anyway, but way he was talking, them that thing was bigger than your thumb. He said it sounds going to break the window when he hit it. And you can't breathe no fresh air if you got air conditioning coming through there still. And your house, if it ain't all that tight, it still going to come in. That stuff is stink. You can't stand that stuff. And then the air, you can't breathe fresh air. But that's why I come back in the country. | 36:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 'Cause up there, only way we could breathe fresh air was go on the mountain. And I didn't like too much going on the mountain. But that's the only way you could, 'cause down there where we was at, it weren't nothing but factories and all. You just didn't have no fresh air to breathe. Going to be the same way here, you ain't going to have no air to breathe 'cause them hogs, that stuff is—I don't have no problem with nobody with a hog house or a hog pen or something. I used to raise hog myself. But we ain't had nothing like this going on here now. I mean, they give you a hard time to put your septic tank down. But we had a hard time trying to get the septic tank down here. And now I ain't seen it, but they said that they call them lagoon cesspools, or whatever. They say it as big as that field out there. Open septic tank big as that field. How in the world? | 36:53 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And they start off with 500 sow. Each one of them sow have from 12, 13 pigs. They got to wash the house out with ammonia, and you know you over a bottle of ammonia, ooh, it knock your head off. They got to wash that house out, all the acid [indistinct 00:38:00] thing from the pig being born, the dead hog. | 37:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | There's one there now. And when it rain enough, it going to run over. If not, it's three of them leaking around here now. I don't know which three, but it dug the same level the well, and it leaking the water. I mean, you ain't have no water to drink. A lot of people don't want have nothing to do with it, but they don't have no water either! The water ain't going to turn from me and go to them! Getting on my nerves. I had one lady Tuesday when we was fixing to leave, "Well, I ain't going to ride up, 'cause I ain't going to do no good." | 38:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Let me tell you something. Everything make a difference. You can't stop them that already there. But if you keep making a lot of problem for them, ain't nobody going to be on there, no. People don't seem to see. I mean, Mr. Grant, he said that Black man had depend on the White man so long until he was scared to depend on himself. And this is what it's all about. I mean, days today, why is it that that now, because the Black man can go get him a loan. He can have a new car and have a new house or whatever. But they still don't seem to want to do nothing for themself. Let me have anything I can have. 'Cause people dying so fast. Let me have some before I do die. | 38:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | At least I got enough to know how to read before I die. And that meant a whole lot to me, 'cause I went to Nassau Bahamas, the church had a trip. I went over there, and I read a little bit, but it was kind of hard. You don't just ask people, "What's this and that?" And you a grown person. So it was kind of hard for me over there in reading line. But I enjoyed it, but it would have been better if I had knowed how to read like I do now. It make a whole lot of difference. Me and another lady and the man is going to school. That man is 73 years old, and he learning too. | 39:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It does my heart good to see peoples—I don't care what color they are, trying to do something for himself without—But really, we hardly ever see a White person that can't read. I saw one in my life, man used to run the store, and I did not know he couldn't read, and I found out later that he couldn't read. But it's strange that a White person—Why can't they read and write. When they was young, they daddy had Black people working for them so they could go to school. And why don't they know how to read? | 40:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you ever able to go to school? | 40:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | If it was raining. | 40:59 |
Karen Ferguson | If it was raining. That's it, huh? | 40:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I had to walk about—[indistinct 00:41:06] lake which is about seven, eight miles. I had to walk that far in the rain. | 40:59 |
Karen Ferguson | No buses? | 41:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. It wasn't no buses. | 41:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have enjoy school when you went there? | 41:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 41:15 |
Karen Ferguson | No. | 41:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Really, 'cause like I said, you go two or three days, then you'd be out for another month or so. Your mind, you couldn't comprehend what was happening, and it just didn't do you that much good. But the teacher, the first teacher I had out to the center, he said, well whatever you learned, you held onto it. I ain't had no choice. But I finished first and the second grade and went to the third. That's it. 'Cause I got married at 13 years old. | 41:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there children who went more regularly? Were there any kids who could go every day? | 41:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not many Black ones. Few, but not many. | 41:59 |
Karen Ferguson | And who were they? Who were the Black ones that could— | 42:01 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, it was our neighbors. Seemed they had a better chance than we or something. I'm my mama's oldest daughter, and my brother, the one where he put to work at six, he is my father's oldest son. My mother had two before she met him, but that was his oldest son. So he told her, "Them children got to help me work." And it just a shame. In the wintertime, we had to go in the field if we hadn't have gotten that crop, and we had to go in the field, pull them cotton bolls off, and take them to the house and pick them. | 42:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then we still, like when I got about seven years old, we would work his farm, when we finished we would go off his farm, go help somebody else, and they would pay us, and I would buy my baby sister's clothes. But that's the only money that we would have, because at the end of the year, if my daddy got anything off from his farm, he wouldn't give us anything. Not that much. | 42:53 |
Karen Ferguson | No? What did he do with the money? | 43:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He drinked it up. He was a drinking man. It was rough on—I guess that's most of how come I left home at 13 years old. I married my husband, he was 21 when I was 13. I still had to learn a lot, 'cause I didn't know how to cook when I got married, 'cause I got married so young. I don't want to see nobody getting married as young as me, 'cause it ain't that easy to live with. Because you in a grown woman place and you don't know what you—You don't even know what you done got into. I didn't, because I really—I didn't know how the baby got in here. Nothing, and that was kind of—I'm married to a man, and I don't know how a child get here. But I—I cried—It was hard for me coming up, but I kept my good mind. | 43:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did you have to do around the farm? You talked a little bit about that. What did you do to help your mother at home? | 44:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Nothing. | 44:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Nothing. | 44:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I always was in the field working. In the summertime, we had to—'Cause then, they don't chop cotton and peanuts now. We had to chop cotton and peanuts and everything, 'cause we didn't have backhoe then. 'Cause I don't even know nothing about no back. But when they plant the cotton, you just sow it, and we had to chop it out and chopped the peanuts and thing. That's what was done. Lord have mercy. Then the farmer, they plant this stuff, they put the stuff out there, they don't chop it or nothing. But that's what we had to do. And then time to pick cotton, if we didn't finish it before it snowed or sleet, then we had to take bags and go out there and pull the bolls off, bring them to the house, then pick it out in the house. | 44:47 |
Karen Ferguson | You said that the man that you on his farm you lived was a bit of a—Was a hard man. Was he fair in his dealings? His financial— | 45:37 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-mm. No, no. | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Why not? | 45:44 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, he worked the Black folk like slaves. And he knowed that whatever he give him, that they had to take that, or else move and you can't move from one White man farm to the other, but that man was asking why that man moved, and then you just was in big trouble. That's just the way it was. All White people wasn't like that, but the one we was staying with, he was. | 45:52 |
Karen Ferguson | So you felt you couldn't leave? | 46:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, he could, but okay. He go ahead and ask this White man about moving on— | 46:18 |
Karen Ferguson | —Black sharecroppers to go around or sharecroppers to go around, was there any time like that? | 0:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 0:07 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 0:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because mostly all farmers, well then the farmers had like five and six sharecroppers. And to lose one, it wouldn't make that much difference. And you know, you could do it. But you know? Where you leave this White man, you get over there, you'd be in worse shape than you were where you was at. | 0:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Might as well stay where you was at. To me now, I just don't understand how people could be so cruel and how that we could take so much and go along with it. I tell you the truth, I couldn't take it now, ain't no way I could take it. | 0:31 |
Karen Ferguson | You said your mother did some cooking for the White people. Did she do any other work? Did she work in the fields? | 0:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | She had to work in the field and up there too. | 1:04 |
Karen Ferguson | At the same time she was cooking? | 1:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | She go in the field and work till 10:30. Then she leave out of the field and go up there and fix the dinner. And my daddy—She would fix him some of that food because she couldn't cook it two places and she would bring us some but that's the way she did it. | 1:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you close to your mother? | 1:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not really, because I know she loved me and I loved her but at five years old you're pulled away from your mother to go in the field and work. You work every day. You get home at night, you be so tired, you eat what little bit you've got. You go on to sleep. You get up the next morning you go on back in the field. | 1:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It ain't that she pushed me away or nothing but just a little child working like that. And when you come home you're tired then you don't know, you know? And she be so tired by the time she go out there and work in the field and then go back up there and cook. And then she had to leave out of field in the evening, go back and cook supper. | 1:55 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Ain't no way she could have too much time for us. It was just bad. Lord have mercy. But my mama, she died year before last at 87 years old. But my mama is the mother of 19 head of kids. | 2:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, 19. | 2:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 19 head of kids. | 2:35 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, how many children—Who lived with you when you were growing up? | 2:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They was three girls, and let's see, Paul, Wade and James and three boys. But the rest of them, the oldest one, he never stayed with us. And then the next one he stayed a while and then he left and it just left, lets see, me, my two sisters, Wade, Paul, James. The four brothers and three sisters we growed up together. Yeah. | 2:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Was she able to raise all 19 of the children or did anybody—No? Who raised the ones she wasn't able to raise? | 3:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well she worked too hard. She lost part of them because, like the people, you see them putting that White stuff on the peanuts and stuff, she had to put that on there with her hands and she'd tote this big heavy bag around her waist on her stomach and she just couldn't make it. And she was having them like every year. | 3:30 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because there's two years twixt all of us, one twixt us and she was just having them too fast and she just couldn't hold them, not doing all that work. I don't know how she done it. I sure don't. Well they don't make it now. My age ain't made out of that material. I can't do it. Ain't no way. | 3:48 |
Karen Ferguson | A friend of mine was talking to Mr. Grant's brother, Richard Grant and he was saying that the women could always pick more cotton than the men. Did you think that? | 4:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I knew that. | 4:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, why do you think that was? | 4:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think the women's hands are smaller and they get in the bowl better because a man's fingers is big and that's the only reason I see. Then a man don't fancy bending too much. He always crawled and his knees get sore and so he just ain't do— | 4:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | A man just ain't going to do it like a woman no-how. Said he ain't. But that's the way because I know I used to pick. I picked, I think 230 something pounds on Monday. It rained. I couldn't go to work and I had my baby on a Wednesday. I showed them. | 4:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Well I think he said the most he ever was able to pick was 176 pounds. And he said that the women that he was picking with could sometimes do 300 pounds a day. | 5:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think I went high as 280. When I was doing that I was pregnant too. But I had got so big because by me being short and big it's kind of complicated. But I know that I lost that baby though. I sure did. They said her neck was broke. I mean, I picked 230 some pounds of cotton on Monday and it rained that Monday night and we couldn't pick that Tuesday. And I had the baby that Wednesday. Time won't too much better but it was better than it was when I was growing up at home. | 5:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But the White man we were living with, it just like everything was just cheap anyway. And we had a side crop we won't share cropping like—how you say it? We had two or three acres of peanuts, maybe an acre of tobacco. And that's so we'd have money for the winter and that's kind of hard to do if you want anything because you got to have the months of payments and you sure got to eat and you got to wear clothes. It ain't that easy to do. | 6:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then my husband was 21 but he really didn't know as much as me because his parents are just, done all the looking out for him. It's been a struggle but it's better. It's getting better. | 6:51 |
Karen Ferguson | When you said that the man who owned the farm was a slave driver, what do you mean? How did he control what you did? How was he hard? | 7:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well he would have my daddy working over here. My mother was working over here by herself. And to work them that hard to give him a dollar and a quarter a week. She didn't get nothing. She just worked. | 7:25 |
Karen Ferguson | She didn't get anything? | 7:37 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. And he did that knowing that my father wasn't going to ask for nothing because if he did, he would've not give it to him. And if you be half sick or something, he figured you to go, "I don't care how you feel, you go, you do your job." And that's just the kind of person he was. | 7:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And you know along then that's all that they had to go upon. So they had to take it and go ahead. But it was hard to take. My daddy, he was a person, when he'd get mad though they get out of his way because he would cut their throat. | 8:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Who would? | 8:14 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My daddy. When he'd get mad, he was real mean. But he try not to get mad because he knew that's all he had to go upon. So he tried to hold his peace. | 8:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Did he ever get in trouble with White people because of his temper? | 8:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. because when he be so angry, my mama, she be talking to him trying to get through to him and she must have because he didn't get in trouble. Oh, I like to got in trouble too over my daddy. | 8:40 |
Karen Ferguson | You got in trouble with— | 8:53 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I liked too, I think. How old was I? I think I was about 18. I saw that man point his finger in my daddy's face. Good gracious. (laughs) Oh, I went out there to get that man! | 9:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh what did he do? | 9:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He would point his finger in my daddy's face. | 9:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 9:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh, what'd he do that for? That thing made me so mad if I'd had gotten my hand on that man, I'd reckon I'd have—I was a little bitty thing too. And that White man told my daddy, "She mean." | 9:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | "Nuh-huh don't you point your finger in his face. He ain't no dog." And I know my daddy. He's standing there with his hand in his pocket and when he got his hand in his pocket, when he come out his pocket, his knife is right wide open. | 9:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh man. | 9:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And that man was not worth my daddy going to jail over. I went out there to get him. He got in that truck and went away from there. I think he and asked him for some money to get my baby brother some clothes to start to school. | 9:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And the man punched him? | 9:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, he was pointing his finger in his face. | 9:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh okay. I see what you're saying, I'm sorry. | 9:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And when he did that, I went out of there. Don't try it because— | 9:59 |
Karen Ferguson | And then your father brought out his knife? | 10:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, I'm glad he didn't. But when he'd get mad—He had his hand in his pocket. I knew what he would do if he come out with that knife. Because see he would've done it so fast he would've cut that man in two. So, it wasn't worth him going to jail. And my mama, she was kind of sick and she needed him there—You know, take care of my brother. My baby brother was about eight, 10 years old? Something like that. | 10:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Did he ever go to jail? | 10:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not as I know anything about. No. | 10:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the other men you knew, did they go to jail? | 10:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. They didn't go to jail. But they had trouble because if you do the wrong thing then the White man make it hard for you. And when a White person makes it hard for you, you in trouble. | 10:38 |
Karen Ferguson | So could you give me an example? | 10:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, for instance, if he done something he didn't like. Well if he didn't give him enough money to do whatever he had to do, he couldn't borrow it from nobody else. Because they wouldn't let him have it. It'd make it hard. It's bad but that's the way it was. It's a long ways from it now in some places. In some places it just the same thing. | 10:53 |
Karen Ferguson | What about when you settled up with the landowner? | 11:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Most time he tell my daddy, "You went in debt." | 11:26 |
Karen Ferguson | And that wasn't the case you don't think? | 11:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Now nobody don't use up no whole farm. Because see if you share cropping whatever's made on that farm, you're supposed to get half of it. And he'll tell them, "Well you didn't make nothing this year, Buffalo." And then he had to borrow something and go right back in debt again. | 11:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because we was smaller and he liked to buy stuff for us for Christmas and he would buy lots of small things. So we would have a lot. And just—It was rough. I guess that's how come he drank like he did. Trying to keep his sanity. | 11:58 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I declare, I believe now that if I had to go through what him and my mama went through, I would lose my sanity because I couldn't take it. It was pitiful the way that we had to get along. And then, to me, it was much more pitiful for a poor White person. Because every White person I had ever known, they didn't want for nothing. | 12:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They had whatever they need. And then to find a White person just like me, kind of grieved me a little bit because I didn't figure they supposed to be that way. Just us. | 12:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there any poor White people around? Were there any White sharecroppers around Northampton County? | 12:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Very few because most of them, if they were share cropping they were like share cropping for they father or they grandfather. It's miserable. I hate to even think about it. Even think about it. Bless his life | 13:07 |
Karen Ferguson | You said your father had a drinking problem. Did that affect your home life? Did it make it hard at home for you? | 13:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, because I really didn't understand it. I know he never fought my mama, I never heard them arguing or nothing. So therefore, the only thing—It was affecting her but we couldn't understand it because he didn't fuss with her where we could hear her or they didn't have problems. | 13:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But then when he drank we didn't have food and stuff. It wasn't nothing but a mess. But I never seen him and her arguing or nothing. That's the reason it really didn't affect us because we didn't see anything. | 13:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you close to your father? | 14:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not really. | 14:08 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 14:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because they didn't have no time for us. | 14:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Like you said. | 14:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I would often think you know, why they didn't take up time with us? But then, I didn't realize, but now, they didn't have time, didn't have no time for us. I tell you— | 14:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there adults around who looked out for you? Maybe older people or anything? | 14:33 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 14:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Around when you were growing up? No? | 14:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. My oldest brother had to take care of me and my other brothers. It was bad, wait a minute, it was six of us. I forgot my other brother. Lord have mercy. I know Moses said one day the house caught fire. He set it, my oldest brother. And she trying to make it to the house because she know the baby was in the house, which was me. | 14:42 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And she got there, she call him and then he went to crying. He's still in the house. My brother's still in there and I'm in there. All three of us could have got burned up. They're trying to work and knowing them old houses full of snakes and everything. And I just don't see how she did it. I don't know. But the people had put out to, "Minnie and Clarence's baby is dead." | 15:16 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | "What you talking about?" Said one man come up there, said, "Minnie, I'm sorry about your baby." She said, "What you mean?" Said, "Your baby, lost your baby." Said, "Come on." And went in the house and they said I was laying up there just as fat—(laughs) | 15:42 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because they know that she didn't have nothing to feed me with. | 15:58 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And my brother had kept me alive with bread and coffee. Sure did. She had the flour, she make it up with no grease or nothing. She didn't make it up and he put it in the coffee and get us off. And that's what he fed me on. But they thought I was dead. I'm like, "I'm going to live a long time." | 16:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Who took care of you if your mother was out in the field cooking all the time? Were you at home alone? | 16:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My brother? | 16:30 |
Karen Ferguson | With your brother? Your brother took care of you? | 16:31 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah, I think my brother, he was about 10 or 12 years older than I am. | 16:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Who was the boss at home, your mother or your father? | 16:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | You know, I ain't really never know. He always done all the shopping and everything. So she didn't ever do shopping or whatever. She didn't even buy her own clothes. He did. So I guess he was the boss but she would go into town with him or something but he did all the buying and stuff. | 16:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Who whipped you? If you misbehaved or who disciplined you? | 17:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My mama most. My daddy, I guess he probably stayed drinking so much and my mama, I don't think she allowed him to hit us when he was drinking. But we didn't get that many whoopings because we wasn't that bad of children because we didn't know nothing. | 17:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Well having to work all the time. Were there ever times when you could play or have a good time? | 17:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When it wasn't no work to do. I never really played until I was maybe seven, eight. I had me a playhouse and when I ain't working or nothing I would go in the playhouse and make mud cakes and things for cooking. But when I was younger I don't think I had understanding enough to have a playhouse or nothing. | 17:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because when you're that young, when you come home out the field—about half the time I didn't even take a bath and all that dirt—I just fell asleep because I was so tired. And then I'd get up the next morning, go right back in the field again. And most times it was five and a half days. It is kind of rough. My God, for a five year old child, Lord have mercy. I declare. | 18:19 |
Karen Ferguson | You talked a little bit about Christmas and how your parents tried to make it— | 18:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He would buy us—He'd buy me a doll baby, but he would buy me two or three doll babies, a tea set, some more things and he would buy every one of us a lot of small things and then he would have a lot of oranges and apples and stuff. | 18:58 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And he always did that every year. Even when we didn't get no money because they told us, "Well y'all can't get no toys, we ain't got the money." So that didn't bother us either because we really didn't understand enough to know that we ain't never had it to start with. So he would buy the fruit and the nuts and things he would like. It would be, like on the table, be one big bag of all kinds of fruit and stuff. | 19:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And we have the little bags for each one of us around so when we eat all of that little bag, we would have that. And that would be for Christmas. And old Christmas, the same thing. They done good with what they had and they didn't have time to teach us because they just didn't have time for us. And whatever we learned, we had to learn to learn the hard way. | 19:47 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And going to school like we was going, it ain't no way you could learn nothing that much. Because if you here this week two or three days and next three or four weeks you out. And then when you get back they done gone that far and you just don't know. But what little bit I learned, I hung on to it. | 20:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have a big meal at Christmas? Was that the biggest celebration during the year? | 20:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah we was glad to see Christmas come. My mama, she would start cooking like two weeks, cooking cakes. She always had this, cake— whatever it was. This thing with glasses in it. And they would hold about eight cakes and she would have eight to 10 cakes for Christmas. | 20:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then my father has started raising hogs. And the old I got, and when he killed hogs, he killed like 13 hogs at one time and we had ham or whatever. It'd just be a whole lot of food which we were glad because we didn't have it during the year. | 21:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you go to church when you were growing up? No? | 21:26 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not that much. No. She took me some but she had to take me with no shoes on. I didn't have no shoes. And I guess that she was ashamed to take us to church with no shoes because she could make us, the girls, a dress. Because people didn't take their kids nowhere much then. But she couldn't make no shoes for us. She told me about it. | 21:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | She took me to church with no shoes. Then I got—Must have been about seven or eight. She still took me, I still didn't have no shoes but she took us like during—In August time when they're all feeding and doing, they would take us and they would feed us out on the wagon. Lord have mercy. It was terrible. I really had just started really going to church about 18 years ago. Until then I didn't go to no church because my parents didn't go that much. | 21:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | So I really wasn't brought up really in church. I just, you know, I know about church and everything. But I really didn't know too much. And when I started going, I had all my kids come out, my baby, he'll be 27 years old in November 15th. | 22:46 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I must have been, I was older than that. I must have been—I was about 40 something years old, about 35 years old I guess when I started going to church because I'm 58 now. I must have been about 45, 35 or 40 years old. And therefore my children wasn't brought up in church because I won't going myself. | 23:09 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were sharecropping, when you were growing up, did you have credit at a store to buy things? | 23:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, I don't think so. No. I ain't never heard my dad say about no credit. | 23:56 |
Karen Ferguson | So he would have to pay cash for everything? | 24:07 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | As far as I know. Now he might have had it and see I just didn't know nothing about it. I know after I got married I know we didn't have no credit. We just had to go pay for whatever we have. But one thing, I had more than I got now, I mean, you know, more money than right now. | 24:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I ain't got no money now. By the time I pay all them bills I got to pay. But I had a little bit then. From week to week I would have a little bit left. But now when the third comes, I get the money. When I pay the bills, we don't got nothing left. Lord help that phone. Good lord. | 24:25 |
Karen Ferguson | I just wanted to ask you, why did you move to Halifax County and when did you do that? | 24:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well my parents moved me here when I was about eight or nine years old and they finished raising me here and I met my husband in 1949 and I got married 1949. And then on I was his wife. (both laugh) I mean, 13 years old, oof. But that's how old I was. | 24:50 |
Karen Ferguson | So why did they move? Was there a better opportunity? | 25:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah, it's something like you got the seniors houses now just especially for seniors but them houses was down on the farm down there by where Mr. Grant stayed down in there and the family people, only somebody could get them was the people that had family and they had to sign up and send their application here and they had to approve it. So when they approved the application, then we moved on the settlement farm down there by where Ms. Grant stays. | 25:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you buy the farm that you— | 25:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My dad was supposed to been buying it but he couldn't buy them farms. | 25:53 |
Karen Ferguson | I was talking to Mr. Grant's father yesterday and he was talking about a 60/40 arrangement. Was that how it was? Was it like you were share cropping on that farm? | 26:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yes. He supposed to been still paying rent. He been paying the payments on the house. But then people had been there for years and years. They hadn't finished paying then they said they wouldn't let you finish paying for him. But he didn't stay there because people say somebody pulled him, say he was drinking and going on so he had to move off of them. | 26:21 |
Karen Ferguson | How was it there living on the resettlement farm? | 26:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It was good for me because everybody done their own work on their own farm. It wasn't this, one have it, that one doesn't have it. Everybody done their own. And it was really good for us. And my father, he raised a lot of cucumbers and we had to get up, get out there early in that morning in all that dew to get them cucumbers off and it was a mess. I was glad to get married and get out of there. | 26:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet your husband? | 27:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Where did we meet? Down in Tillery. | 27:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet him? | 27:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I mean I really met him in Tillery, we used to go—They had a dance hall there so I met him there. And then we was on the same farm, that's how I met him because he was very shy. But we was farming with the same person, the same man. I mean my daddy and his mother and stepfather was farming with the same peoples. | 27:24 |
Karen Ferguson | So that was after they left the resettlement farm? | 27:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh yeah. We had to leave there. How old was I? I think I was about—I don't think we stayed there but two or three years. We moved from there and we moved to Enfield. We just moved around because we moved and everybody school where I go to now and we winded up, we moved to Enfield, we moved up here on 41. They done tore the house down now. That's the house I was staying in when I met my husband and I think— | 27:53 |
Karen Ferguson | So that you were at a dance, were there more things to do in this part of the—No? So there was a dance hall there that you went to. Now when he asked you to marry him, did you consider not doing it? | 28:27 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 28:43 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 28:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I really didn't know what I was getting into. Because at 13 years old you really don't know too much if you ain't been around. Because I had never been out nowhere, you know? After I got married I was in it then really. I ain't thought about getting out of it. I had hard enough time to get out a—If I get out of this, I don't want another marriage in there. | 28:47 |
Karen Ferguson | So was that unusual for a girl to get married that young? | 29:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah! | 29:21 |
Karen Ferguson | It was? | 29:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My daddy had to run my age up. They don't allow nobody to get married that young. So he told them that I was 18. That's the only way I got married. If he'd told them I was 13 years old they'd ask him was he crazy. | 29:23 |
Karen Ferguson | So your parents didn't mind you getting married that young? | 29:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My daddy didn't. My mama—Whatever he says, she didn't never say nothing to him. I went on and got on out of there at 13 years old. | 29:39 |
Karen Ferguson | So what was it like? How did you handle it? How did you cope? Getting married so young and all the things? | 29:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It was kind of hard because I didn't know how to cook. And we moved in with his parents since I got married, went on in with his parents and it was kind of rough there because his mother mostly teached me how to do what I was supposed to do. Cook, wash, iron and all of that because I was working in the field. I never done nothing in the house. | 30:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It's kind of hard right now. It's a lot of things I really don't know because things that people do know, I don't know because I ain't never been out there. I was married at 13 years old. I never been out there with young people. I really don't know. I'm learning though. It ain't easy. | 30:28 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you have your first child? | 30:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I was 16. | 30:45 |
Karen Ferguson | You were 16? | 30:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I lost that one. Yeah, that's the one I was with when I picked all that cotton. Said her neck was broke. I reckon it was. Then I had my oldest son that you know that's alive now. I was 18 years old. I just spaced them out. | 30:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How were you able to space them out? Did people use birth control at all back then? | 31:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 31:24 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 31:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I started to using birth control, like they had some cream like they would use after I had my third child? It wasn't no good because I really didn't understand how to use it. So they wasn't no good so I went on and got pregnant with the mess and—Shoot. | 31:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Who delivered—Did you have a midwife? | 31:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yes. All except one—Two. I mean I had problems with all of them mostly because my oldest daughter, I had to have the doctor there for what reason, I don't know. And the midwife was there and the doctor both was there. And the next one, I had to have a doctor and the midwife there then. | 31:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And the youngest girl, I supposed to have been in the hospital because they had to take the baby. But the doctor did it at home but it really didn't supposed to be done. But my baby boy, I had him in the hospital in New Jersey. But I had a midwife and all that stuff with him. | 32:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you remember the name of your midwife? | 32:30 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Cozzie Edmond. | 32:39 |
Karen Ferguson | And did she deliver all the babies around where you were living? | 32:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah and the one that delivered my oldest son, what in the world was that woman's name? I think her name was Nelly Johnson or something like that. But I know Cozzie was with all the rest of them. | 32:49 |
Karen Ferguson | What did she do for you? Did she just deliver? Help you deliver or were there other things that she did for you through your pregnancy and then after the baby— | 33:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Just delivered the baby. I had to go to the doctor every month. At least we were going to the clinic. I didn't have money to go to no doctor. The baby girl, they told me at the clinic I couldn't have it that I need to go to the hospital but by I was staying with a doctor, so he did it. | 33:12 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do when you were ill, when you were sick, when you were growing up, when you were young as a child? | 33:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh my mama always made tea out of some kind of roots or something. We didn't ever go to a doctor. Because when I was born I was like, I ain't never been with a [indistinct 00:34:01] or whatever you call it. I reckon you know about baby's born. Because the cord they cut and they put the band and stuff on it. They come off in three to five days. | 33:46 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mine stayed on until I got about five years old and they didn't have no money to take me to the doctor because I needed the operation and they couldn't do it. So she said that I was out there running & playing and she saw my dress had blood all the way down, scared her so bad. She said she called me there and looked to see what it was. And a few months after then my daddy had me out there in the field working. | 34:15 |
Karen Ferguson | So did you go to the doctor then at that time? No? | 34:42 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Nah, the people didn't have no money to go to no doctor. And she always told me, whatever, "If you have something you have to live with it." Because that's all she ever know because she didn't have money to go to the doctor. | 34:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you stayed with your husband? You're still married to him now? What did you do for a living? Did you farm all the way through or did you— | 35:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Farmed into '64. | 35:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Until 64? | 35:17 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Then went to New Jersey. Yeah. | 35:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Was your married life better than when you were a child before you were married? | 35:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm (affirmative) | 35:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Why? | 35:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I got to go places for one thing. When I was home, I didn't even go to town. My parents didn't let me go to town. I had to stay there and tend to the little one where she had. And then when I got married then I was able to go to town or maybe go to a store or something. Which I couldn't do when I was home. | 35:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Why wouldn't they let you go to town when you were young? | 35:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I don't know, no more than I stayed there and tend to the babies. | 36:09 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do for a good time after you got married? | 36:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Go to the dance hall. | 36:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Go to the dance hall. Is that the same as the Piccolo? | 36:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It's the same thing. People just call them different things. It's the same thing. | 36:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. What kind of music did you listen to there? | 36:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah, Lord have mercy. Rock and roll! (laughs) | 36:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Rock and roll? Okay. | 36:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yep. That's the only thing we know because we didn't go to no church. | 36:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And you didn't go to church after you got married, you said you just started about 18 years ago. | 36:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Right. | 36:48 |
Karen Ferguson | I wanted to talk a little bit about race relations when you were growing up. Could you tell me a little bit about the limits that were on Blacks in terms of how they could behave and the things they could do in order to stay out of trouble with White people? | 36:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I really ain't had no understanding of that while I was growing up home. After I got married, then I started learning what the Blacks couldn't do. As far as the Whites concern, you have—There's strict places you couldn't—Had to have a special place to go eat or a special place to go to have fun because you know, you just didn't have too many places for the Blacks to go. | 37:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And definitely, Blacks didn't go where the White was at, period. It was kind of rough. And when the Blacks would go to these places, sometimes they had to fight the White because they tried to take over the Blacks for them to not do nothing. They weren't doing that much. But for them to not have no place to go. | 37:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But this is after I had gotten married. I didn't really—The only thing we know was to work and go to the house and we'd be so tired. That's all we know. And I was up in age, when I learned about all this racist and all this stuff, which to me it was sickening because to me, everybody's human. I don't care what color your skin is. | 38:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because if I cut my hand it's going to bleed red blood. Now if you cut yours, it was going to bleed red blood. So yeah, I just didn't understand because my parents hadn't never taught me nothing like that. I had heard about slavery time and all that. But I figured slavery was over with but it wasn't. | 38:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you think of an incident or an example after you got married where that became clear to you? | 39:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, it ain't really been clear, really clear. But I think I was about 18 or 19 years old when I could really think, "What's going on with the different races?" Yeah. I'm about 18 or 19 years old. It really—I learned most of the things by listening to older people because I ain't never liked being around young people to start with. | 39:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I would listen to them and I hear them talking still not knowing what it mean. But I hear them how they say that things had to go along with the Black and White. It was just terrible all the way around. | 39:52 |
Karen Ferguson | How are Blacks supposed to behave in front of White people? | 40:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Like slavery. They're supposed to be humble, like I said, "Kiss they foot." That's what I say. That's the way they wanted the colored to do. | 40:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Like how did you have to—If you saw a White person on the street, how would you behave toward them? Could you walk on the sidewalk with them? | 40:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah, but not that close to them. | 40:49 |
Karen Ferguson | What would happen if you got too close? | 40:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Probably put you in jail and if you speak, Miss or Mister. And they would call the old people aunt and uncle. Never called nobody Mister. And just an incident where we were walking down the street and these two White men doing some cussing. | 40:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | The man said, "Wait." He said, "There's some women." He looked, he said, "I don't see no women. No ladies." That's what he said, to two Black ladies. But he said, "They didn't see them ladies." So that's the kind of problem that the Blacks had. You be humble or you don't, you get killed. | 41:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anybody ever defying those laws like this? Or did you ever do that? Did you ever stand up to White people who— | 41:47 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. The only time I learned anything about defying the law was when Martin Luther King started marching. That's really when I really learned what segregation was all about. | 42:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember? If you had defied the code of behavior, the laws or whatever, would you have gotten into as much trouble as a man who did the same thing you think? | 42:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. Got killed, woman. | 42:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Right? They killed women? | 42:31 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. They didn't care who they was, because really they didn't acknowledge Black women as women. Because most of them, that's how come it's a lot of mixed White and Black. Because them old slave drivers, that's what I call them. They went with all them Black and they got kids by them. And that's where they— | 42:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Did that happen when you were growing up with White men and Black women that way? | 42:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well maybe, but not where I was at. Yeah. Maybe some of the people that were getting out and do but I didn't never go nowhere. So really—And I didn't ever hear my parents saying nothing like that. But probably what's going on though. | 43:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It had to have been because there's too many, really White Black peoples and that's where they come from. White going with Black. But I guess if I had been getting out with a bunch of people I'd probably would've known. But I mean not getting out, I really didn't know. | 43:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anybody being killed by White people because of— | 43:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, not really. I remember hearing my parents saying, you know, that this White man, two or three of them, a heap of them killed a Black man and wife and said they told them that they had a cow hanging up they wanted him to help him skin it. Said when the man got there, it was his wife hanging up there, done killed her. So he told him, he said, "Okay." Said, "Wait till I go back to the house and get a sheet. Let me get her down." | 43:58 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When he opened that sheet up, he killed every one of them. I don't know whether he killed them not to have to leave them, but he killed every one of them. Had done killed his wife and hung her up in the tree. And she hadn't done nothing to nobody, it was him had done something they didn't like. And that's the kind of stuff that the Black had to go along with because the Black man knew if he don't go along then they going to kill his family. | 44:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any people being sent to prison for things they hadn't done? | 45:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No, I don't remember but I heard a tell on it. I know right down this road, down in this store where they ain't using right down there. The Black man, he was talking to this White man and he didn't say mister. That man put the man on him and said they took him to court. Judge told him, said, "Your mama didn't name you mister." So they turned him loose, but it wasn't nothing but a big mess. | 45:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But if you didn't call him Mister or Mrs. You in trouble. And when the White man's son got 18 years old, they would call all of the Black peoples to the—Because they had them bells then and tell them, "I want you to call him Mr." | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Where would they do this? They would take them— | 46:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Right around here— | 46:06 |
Karen Ferguson | And so the White man would bring his son? Where would he bring him to? | 46:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | To the house. | 46:11 |
Karen Ferguson | And he would say— | 46:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Sure. At 18 years old, it's—Oh boy. Just thinking about it makes you hot. | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, yeah. | 0:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Gracious. | 0:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Now how did you relieve some of that? I mean, it must have made you so angry, was there a way—Did you make jokes about White people or anything? How did you— | 0:17 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 0:28 |
Karen Ferguson | —No? Not among yourselves? No? | 0:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. It bothered me, but knowing that there wasn't nothing I could do about it, so I didn't bother with it. | 0:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then when I got so I know about praying, I just prayed it'd be better for us. | 0:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 0:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And it got getting better and better. I always been a person to speak my mind. You know? | 0:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And somebody just says something to me, I'm likely tell them about it, You know? I had an incident on the job, this man, he—My boss, the foreman. | 1:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Was this in New Jersey? | 1:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. He kept running off at the mouth. And I can't stand nobody just talking at me. | 1:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 1:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And he was, all at once, there was a box about this big, I took that box—And I hated it, after I had done it, because that man, he was old. But then he had got on my one nerve and I couldn't take it no more. | 1:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Then he went and I had another Black boss, like I was, a small boss, told her to come out there and talk to me. "Talk to me for what?" I said, "Don't him and nobody else don't get on nerves." | 1:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Right. | 1:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | "I mean, if you've got something to tell me, tell me. Don't go telling nobody to tell me nothing, tell me yourself. You grown." | 1:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 1:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I may have been small, but I was grown. Because the man that signed my check, I told him. I put my finger all in that man's face. I hated I done it, after I done it, but that man weighed about 400 pounds, he was about this big, and I was a little bitty something like this, had my finger all in that man's face. God. | 2:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Then, when the night boss come in, he told the night boss, he said, "Yeah. I hollered at Maggie, she hollered back." I said, "What was I supposed to do? I'm grown, just like you is. I might be little, but don't holler at me." Whoo. I couldn't stand it, she hollered at me, and my head went, "Whoo." | 2:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you ever do anything like that when you were living down here? No? | 2:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 2:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? | 2:42 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Before I moved and went up to New Jersey, I really didn't understand nothing about it. | 2:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. Okay. | 2:48 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But I started learning when I went to New Jersey. | 2:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And started working for me, not the White man. | 2:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 2:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | By me not knowing, not being nowhere, my parents hadn't taught me nothing, so the only thing I knew, "You work for the White man, or you don't work." | 2:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 3:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But when I went up there, I worked for me. And the White man out there working, just like me. | 3:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 3:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then I started learning. | 3:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What was it like moving to the city like that, was it a big change for me. | 3:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | A great big change. Whew. Because I was used to being outdoors, making my garden, or sweeping my yard, or whatever. And there you stay in the house or you get killed. | 3:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And that mess going on in the street, I can't stand it. | 3:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How long did you stay there? | 3:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 15 years. | 3:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I moved back down here in '78, in September, been here ever since. I'm going to stay here, too. I ain't about to go in no more city, no way. | 3:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Why did you move up there? | 3:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | To get from under White man laws. | 3:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And do something for myself. I was tired of my kids being hungry from Friday evening, until Saturday evening. | 3:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 4:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And, "I can do better than this." | 4:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 4:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then my sister stays out there, so I had a chance to go out there. | 4:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then I went out there before my husband did. I went out there and checked everything out. And I come back and the man that we was staying within, his wife said, "Yeah. Mattie called out on Lee." I said, "Well, too bad. Go do something for yourself." | 4:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:26 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | "And stop taking care of them. Let them take care of their own darn self." | 4:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Right. | 4:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I mean, own dresses and things. The only dresses thing we had was what their children done grew out of [indistinct 00:04:40]. No way. And I said, "If I can get anywhere, I'm going to feed my children." | 4:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:44 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I didn't want my children going hungry like I did. Because I been hungry so many times, it just didn't make no sense. | 4:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 4:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I mean, we'd go to bed hungry because we didn't have nothing to eat. | 4:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I didn't want my children doing that. | 4:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 4:55 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And that's how come I went away from here. I'm glad and learnt the city, but I'm glad I'm out of there. | 4:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:02 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because that, whew, [indistinct 00:05:04], New Jersey is terrible. | 5:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 5:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And almost as terrible as New York. | 5:11 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do, did you buy things on credit, when you were farming, after you were married? Did you say you did? | 5:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, we, after we was married a lot of years, we bought a TV, like something like that. | 5:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. But you food and everything you bought, paid in cash? | 5:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Right. | 5:31 |
Karen Ferguson | How? You talked about how poor you were before you went to New Jersey. What kinds of things did you do to make ends meet? | 5:37 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, before I went to New Jersey we had a garden. And we seemed to live out of that garden. And in the winter, the peas and stuff, we would let the peas and dry, and butter beans and stuff would dry, and that's what we would eat. And we'd have hog meat and chicken. That's the way we made it. Other than that, we just couldn't have made it. | 5:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 6:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Not in the food line because we couldn't buy it. | 6:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | We really didn't do too much eating meat nohow because we didn't have that much, but I had learned how to take a little bit and make it go a long ways. And it wasn't that easy to do, but I had to learn how to try to feed a family with a little bit of nothing. | 6:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 6:48 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And it wasn't really that hard because that's the way I was brought up. We didn't have nothing, so we was used to it. | 6:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Did you children have to stay home, like you did, instead of going to school? Or were they able to go to school? | 7:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. I didn't let my children stay home. They were in school. | 7:07 |
Karen Ferguson | They went to school? | 7:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh yeah. I said, "They'll never do like I did." They come out of school young, but they lied. One child lied, the other one lied. My oldest son, my oldest daughter, told the teacher that he was going to move back down south, so she sent his records down here somewhere. I don't know where she sent them to. | 7:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 7:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And you're allowed to quit after 16, so when he got 16 he quit. And I had one finish high school, the baby girl. And my son, I think he—Wait. He went to the 10th grade, or 9th, or something like that. I mean, he could stay home a whole week and go back and they'd give him a test, he would pass it. | 7:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Yeah. | 7:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's how good a head he had on him. | 7:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 7:53 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But he threw it away, looking at the other people, like in town, out there doing drugs and everything else. Because he would leave here, catch a bus out there to the road, go up to Wayland, get off the bus, catch a bus for him to come back. I thought he was in school. | 7:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 8:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And when I found out, "Get your tail off of that bus. And get out of that school seat. Let somebody have that seat that want to learn and that seat on the bus." | 8:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 8:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He did. | 8:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 8:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Now he wish he hadn't. "Go back to school." "No. Ma, I can't go back now." "That's you. I'm going. I sure am." It's just, to sit down and think about it now, it seems so unreal, that you had deal with such stuff as that. | 8:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 8:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But— | 8:38 |
Karen Ferguson | If your children weren't working on the farm, how did you make ends meet? Because did you not that extra labor, or did that slow you down? | 8:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. It didn't slow me down. We'd need it, but I just told my husband, "My children are not going to stay out of school, like I stayed. They're going to school. They ain't working on no White man's farm." | 8:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I sure did and they went to school. Uh-uh. I couldn't stand that. Because I said, "If his daughter's going to school, my daughter's going to school." | 9:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 9:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And she sure did. No sir. Because my sisters, the young ones, under me, they did not go on the farm and work, until they was about 15, 16, years old. | 9:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And my daddy put me and brother out there at five and six years old. No. I just meant, my children was not going to work. | 9:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:33 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | If I couldn't work and give them something, they'd just do without it. | 9:33 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of values do you think you taught your children? | 9:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, what I tried to teach that, "Don't ever depend on nobody for nothing, but yourself." | 9:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 9:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's what my daddy told me when I got big enough, he told me, "Don't ever depend on nobody, but myself." | 9:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 9:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And, "You don't throw away nothing. You use what you got, be satisfied, until you get some more to use." I really don't like debt, to start with, I never have. | 9:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 10:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | The biggest debt I had was this right here, this house. | 10:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And one of another big debts were my car. That's a pretty big debt. But other than that, uh-uh. Maybe a small debt, maybe buy a piece of furniture every now and then. But since I had this house, since '78, I ain't bought nothing in here. | 10:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 10:33 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | The heater was given to my husband. But the stove and the refrigerator, we had to get another one of them. But the beds and things in here, was in here when I bought the trailer. I just, I ain't ever been able to buy a lot, which it didn't bother me because I ain't never had it, so it didn't bother me. | 10:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 11:01 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I said, "Well, what I got, out here in this dirt, I keep it clean enough for me." | 11:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I enjoy it. And if it ain't clean enough for the next person, then just stay out. Because I mean, I'm not going to dust and do it every day, every time a car pass by, the house full of dust. You can't stay in here with the windows closed, you'll die, even if you got a fan. | 11:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 11:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I just open the windows and the dust just come in. But we going to try to get it, like new roads and things, because this road was in here when I got it. And all this dirt, everything, it just need overhauling. | 11:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 11:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But we don't have it, it's home, so nobody ain't got to put up with it, but us. | 11:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And when you go in your house and lay down and go to sleep and rest, "Huh?" Because maybe if I had of been used to a lot of stuff, it would bother me, but it don't bother me. As long as I got somewhere to lay down, something to eat, an old car to drive because I love to go to church. And I don't love asking people to do nothing for me. | 11:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 12:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And you know? As long as I got that, "Meh." I don't worry about nothing. People used to say, "Well—" before my husband would come home, men trying to talk to me, "Uh-uh. I don't need you." They'd say, "Well, can't we do something before your husband—" "Mm-mm." I said, "Look. I'm driving an old piece of car, I got a house to stay in, and I'm not hungry, because I'm to big to be hungry." They'd say, "What that mean, (phone rings) your husband taking care of business?" I said, "Right." Lord have mercy. [INTERRUPTION 00:12:36] | 12:05 |
Karen Ferguson | So you're telling me about the values that your parents gave you and then you gave your children? | 12:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 12:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Where do you think you got your fighting spirit? | 12:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My daddy, I guess, because he had kind of a mean spirit. And I think it passed on us. And we just control it a little bit better. But then, when somebody get on your nerves, you don't control it. Tell them about their self. And then I found out that there's a way to tell a person about their self, without ranting and cussing and all that. You can talk to a person and let them know what you mean, without a whole lot of foul language, you don't need that. Because we all just people, we sure can talk to one another. | 13:02 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But that's what I would like to—My children, they—I got five, they all is grown, with a baby twin set. Neither one, never full-time. My oldest son, they locked him up, but he done it himself by fighting his girlfriend, they locked him up. Other than that, I ain't had no problem with 'em in trouble, so I must've done something right. You know? | 13:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 14:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because most kids, they've in prison and in a whole lot of trouble, but they never been in no trouble. Not in major trouble. I mean, anybody would be in a little trouble or something. But so, I must've showed them some kind of values. And they never—I don't really deal with nothing to much, I stay quiet and I listen. You know? And they gets on me a lot about that, "Why you don't say something?" But then, I figure, if I listen at peoples and then after a while I can get where they coming from and where they trying to go. And then I can know what to say. But when somebody's raging, you don't know what to say, because you say something, it's just like pouring gasoline on a fire. | 14:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I don't need that. | 15:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Wait until something calm down and then try to talk to the person. They're learning, but it's hard for people their age to try to deal with stuff like they have to. Because there are so many bully White folks out here and so many bully Colored folks out here. And everybody trying to rule everybody. | 15:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 15:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And it just, it's hard for the two, the White and the Black, to get anything through to anybody, because everybody yelling at one another and you can't solve nothing like that. | 15:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 16:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And that's the whole problem with the young race now. I don't care what color they is, that's the problem. Everybody want to be Mr. Big. You know? All these big muscles and all this stuff. | 16:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 16:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And you don't have to do that to get along with peoples, peoples is peoples! | 16:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 16:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And people don't think that. I told them, I said, "I don't know. I may be dead and gone, but I can tell you what, I want you to tend to your own business, always keep yourself in the clear. If you see something wrong, then you go tell somebody. Always keep your own self in check, then if somebody says something to you, you got something to say. But if you wrong, ain't nothing you can say, you wrong. But then try to keep yourself right." And if you tend to your business—" My mama told me, "There's 12 months in a year, so you got six months to tend to your business, six months to leave the other person alone. 12 months," so you ain't got no time to mess with nobody's business. | 16:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Yeah. Right. | 17:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's what I try to tell them. You know? It's hard for them to that because they got so much growing up, which I didn't have. | 17:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 17:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because all this drugs, and maybe this Civil Rights stuff was going on, but it's not it is now. | 17:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:26 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because the Blacks didn't go nowhere, nohow, so they really didn't know too much about the situation that was going on in the world noway. All they done was work on that White man's farm and he'd pay them off. He had a farm truck, everybody on the farm get on that truck and go to town to get their food and come back home. You know? | 17:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 17:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And so, other than that, they don't have nothing, they don't know nothing. | 17:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Do you think that was deliberate? Do you think that White people have made it that way, so that the Black folks don't know about anything? | 17:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Right. Definitely. | 17:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 17:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because a lot of Whites now, they don't want Blacks to do nothing for themselves. They would like for them to come to them for help. | 18:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 18:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But, so now that a Black man can help himself. | 18:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 18:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But they don't want that. | 18:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Can you think of ways in which White people kept you ignorant, or kept you from helping yourself, when you were younger? | 18:17 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. Your parents, they work on their farm, that's all they know. | 18:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And they didn't go nowhere, if it wasn't to work. They get paid off, he'd take his big truck, and he'd put everybody on there, and he'd take them to town. | 18:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 18:42 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And they'd buy their food and they'd come back home. That's where they went, so they won't tell them nothing, so they really didn't know. | 18:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 18:52 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And that's a lot of what wrong with the older peoples now, they always depend on the White man for what they need. And now, they're scared to depend on themselves because they don't think they can do it. You know? | 18:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 19:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because they ain't never had to do it. But it's wrong, they can do it. | 19:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But if they don't try, they can't. | 19:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:17 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because they're scared. You know? Get some nerve from somewhere, I did. I would think, "here's got to be something better than this because it's a Black race and a White race and we all peoples. And why should we be so far down and they so far up?" But I didn't ask nobody because I didn't know how to ask nobody, "Who to ask?" | 19:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 19:47 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When I really started asking questions, is when I started down here to the center, about three or four years ago, because I didn't know who to ask questions. And I really don't like my feelings to get hurt, so I really shy away from asking questions. | 19:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And after I started down there, then I found myself asking questions. You know? And I started by—And the first question I asked, it scared me, because I, "God. What am I saying?" You know? But I was sitting there listening to the other people asking questions and, "Well, if they can ask, so can I. I'm peoples too." And this is how I learned, by listening to the other peoples. But this why the Black peoples was so dumb and ignorant because they didn't never go nowhere and the White man wasn't going to tell them nothing, so they couldn't be nothing but ignorant, that's all they knew. | 20:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:46 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | To go to work and get paid on the weekend, get your food and go home, that's all they knew because they didn't have nobody to tell them nothing. | 20:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 20:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And they didn't go nowhere. | 20:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 20:58 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because some of the White people didn't allow their people to go on nobody else's farm. You know? | 20:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. Really? | 21:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 21:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. | 21:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | It was bad. You know? | 21:07 |
Karen Ferguson | What would happen if they did go to somebody else's farm? | 21:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They'd be punished. | 21:12 |
Karen Ferguson | How? | 21:14 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They'd else whoop them, or put them in jail, or something. Or stop their money or something, and you can't live without eating and stuff. And it's just—Every county would do things different. | 21:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | This country here, is the worsest county in the world, this Halifax County, because you can't get nothing done for yourself here. Because I had been trying to get some help so I could get my medicine because I'm diabetic. | 21:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 21:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | For about two years. | 21:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 21:47 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I couldn't get no help. But Mr. Grant, Stephanie, and a lawyer, and the good Lord, I got some help, enough to get medicine. They wouldn't give me medical help, but they gave me some money, so I can buy my medicine and take it like I'm supposed to. | 21:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I was sick all the time. I've been diabetic about six years. | 22:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I never had that money to buy the medicine, like I should. Wonder I ain't dead. And I had got so tired because I like going and having peoples. And I just like, I don't know, I'm just used to going. And went to the doctor—I went to my son's that day, and I come back and I was so sick, it feel like I was dying. I said, "Something is wrong here," so stopped in there, Dr. Craig. That nurse looked at me, she said, "Maggie, your body is tired." So I knew it's got to be something, because the sugar was down to 160 something, it had been 470 something, 370, sometimes it'd go to 500. And I'm saying, "What? Okay." Because I ain't never liked needles in no way. | 22:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 22:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | So Dr. Craig said, "I don't see nothing, Maggie, but you're getting on needles," so I said, "Okay. Okay." Because I was so sick, that day there, I don't care what had happened, just so I get some relief from somewhere. | 22:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 23:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | So he told the nurse, he showed me how to—he started to show me, because he said, "Well. You know?" The nurse, she told me, "You can come back tomorrow and the next day and I'll show you." "Mm-mm," I said, "You show me." So she took up some water and she showed me how to do it. So I went and got the money, because I didn't have no money, I went and go the money to get the insulin with and got me some needles. And I went back in there, I filled the needle up, I gave myself the first shot. She hit my arm and I gave myself the needle. And she looked at me, she said, "Well, you come back on Monday." "Uh-uh. I can do it." She said, "No. You can't." Anybody can make a dress with their hand, they can do. Uh-huh. | 23:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 23:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I gave myself the first shot. And they showed me one time and I'd do it. But when you start on the needle, it mess your eyes up. | 23:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 24:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But I had to do something to keep from dying. | 24:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 24:14 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And now cholesterol problems, so it's always something. But I think my body done real good with what I had to go through because I couldn't even get enough medicine to take because I was taking it, miconazole pills. They wanted me to take three a day. I couldn't buy that kind of medicine. I couldn't even buy two a day, so I just took what I could. And then when I got on the needles, I was starting to get help from Social Security. And I've been able to buy the bottle of insulin. Because when I first started, they told me to take 20 units a day, which the bottle would last about two months. | 24:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But now, it last a little bit in a month, I got to take 24. But that's better than what I was—Because I would get 50 pills, it was $34.00 and something, it went up to $38.00 and something, but that was just for 50. And you take two a day, that ain't but 25 days. I thought, "Good God." Then I got the card from CCT, it give a 25% discount, so I started get the pills for, I think it was $29.90, something like that. But the insulin is $16.00 and something a month, but with that card it's $13.00 and something a month. | 24:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 25:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | So, really, that's a big help. | 25:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 25:53 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then, and the bottle, it lasts over a month. And the needles, the druggist told me, "Don't ever use it but one time," them little plastic ones, so they cost $2.00 for 10. So when I get a little money, I just try to pay all the bills and everything. Because after a while, it ain't going to last that long, but I get everything, get my needles and everything, so I make sure I have enough needles for the month. You know? That's really, it's a whole lot of help. | 25:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 26:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But you got to know somebody, to do anything. Because if I had have never went to the center and got to know Mr. Grant and Stephanie and them, I probably wouldn't have had no help today. | 26:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:38 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because Stephanie went with me, up there. | 26:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 26:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | She called to social services, I was trying to get medical sticker. And that lady talked bad to her. And so she told Mr. Grant. Mr. Grant called her boss. And I know when she asked me did I want her to go, I said, "Yeah." And so, when she got up there, the lady begged her pardon, but you don't talk to peoples any kind of way. She could've told her, "Well, Stephanie, I ain't allowed to give out that kind of information on nobody, unless they there," or something. But she didn't say that, she just talked. You know? You know how people talk bad to you? | 26:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 27:17 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Huh? I bet you when Mr. Grant got through telling her boss, I bet you he told her off. | 27:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 27:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then I went, and then she explained it. She told Stephanie, said, "I'm sorry," but then you don't talk to nobody, first, like they no dog or nothing. Peoples ain't dogs. But she went with me, she sat down there, everything she said, she wrote it down, so they got my record there, too. | 27:23 |
Karen Ferguson | When you said that the counties were different, was there a big difference when you moved from Northampton to Halifax County? | 27:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yes. Yes, it was. | 27:57 |
Karen Ferguson | How so? | 27:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, in Northampton County, right along in then, my mama was getting clothes and things, for us, from The Red Cross. | 27:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When we got in Halifax County, we couldn't do it. | 28:02 |
Karen Ferguson | What do you think the difference was? And why do you think there was a difference? | 28:05 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | The difference was we was living on a farm in Northampton County. | 28:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:16 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | When we come here, we was living on our own and buying. | 28:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And except, if a White person go up there for you, you couldn't get it. So we didn't know nobody here. At least my parents didn't no nobody here, so they couldn't get it. It's a whole lot of difference. | 28:22 |
Karen Ferguson | So you didn't have White folks to help you out here, is that what you're saying? | 28:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. Mm-mm. | 28:45 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you start voting? | 28:45 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Hmm? I started voting in New Jersey. | 28:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 28:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Hmm? I don't think I been voting, but about 10 years. Because before Martin Luther King had that drive, Black people couldn't vote. | 28:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you know any Black person who voted down this way? | 29:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. You know? I don't even remember what year that Black folks started to voting. | 29:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But I know it was somewhere in the '60s. | 29:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Uh-huh. | 29:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because my sister, she went to vote. But then, when we first started voting, if you didn't know how to read, you couldn't vote. | 29:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 29:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because you had to fill out some kind of something. But when I started to voting, then I didn't have to fill out nothing, I just told them the information. And then, when I come back down here, I had to register all over again, so I went up there to Halifax, up there to the place where you go vote at. I don't know what you call it, a farm, or something. And the lady, she filled out the paper for me, the little card I had to fill out. And not long after then, I think I been going to school about four years, or going on four. I learned how to—Everything I have to do, I mostly can do it myself now. I mean, I had to have a little help, but I can do most of it myself. | 29:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think you've ever been treated like a second-class citizen? | 30:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Always. | 30:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Always? | 30:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 30:33 |
Karen Ferguson | And how do you think that's affected your life? Not just— | 30:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | You mean mental? | 30:34 |
Karen Ferguson | —Mentally? Yeah. | 30:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I don't know how to put it in words, but often, you think about that, how you used to had to get along and it bothers you. Deep down, it bothers you. You don't be telling nobody nothing or nothing, but it bothers you. You know? To see how you was treated before and now. Because with some places you can go to now and you'll be treated second-class. | 30:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 31:14 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But I try not to go to them places. But shoot, mental, it bothers me. Still bothers me now. Sometimes you'll be sitting out here and your mind wandering and, "Why in the world did we have to get along like we did, down through the years?" But I still don't understand it. You know? I just don't understand slavery and nothing. | 31:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 31:43 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because to me, peoples is peoples. But it's bad. And now, it's really bad now, because some of the nice White peoples, their kids want to associate with the Black, and they don't want them to. | 31:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 32:07 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because they're scared that they're going to go together and there's going to be a mixed child. | 32:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 32:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Which that's bad on the child because if the dad is the White man, the mama's a Black woman, they had to go to the schoolhouse or something, "God. Your mama Black?" or, "Your mama White?" You know? It's kind of bad. | 32:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 32:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because I got, my daughter's girlfriend, she a White girl and she married a Black man. And her daughter looks Spanish and her skin is real dark, but she's a nice looking child. And got in some trouble at school and her mama had to go. Got a look at her mama, "Girl, you got a White mama?" She said, "Yeah. My mama White. Yeah." And that do the kids harm because they seem they don't treat them—You know? The White don't want them and the Black either. And it just, they're just twixt in between, it's bad. | 32:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think that light-skinned Blacks, when you were growing up, had the same problem as these mixed children? | 33:11 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. Not as many. They had some, but not as many as the Black did. You know? The Blacks did. | 33:20 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of problems did they have? | 33:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, for instance, my brother-in-law, he went to the Colored White school, and his Black sister had to go to another school. | 33:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Right. | 33:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And to me, that's racist. I mean, you don't do that. | 33:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 33:39 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Sister and brother ought to be in the same school. | 33:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 33:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But they wouldn't do it. She was too dark to go to that school. | 33:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 33:44 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And skin ain't got nothing to do with it. Gracious. | 33:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 33:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But it did to them. | 33:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think light-skinned Blacks had an easier time? | 34:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Some of them. | 34:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 34:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think the reason that they had a better time, that right off hand, they didn't know they was Black. | 34:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They looked like them. So—Because my daddy, he was as White as any White man I ever seen. | 34:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Hair and everything like them. But I got a sister got hair like White folks. You know? But everybody said we look Spanish. Some of the Spanish people, I do look like them, but I guess by my daddy being a practically a White man, it said 3/4 White, so he was just as White as any White man I ever seen. So my mama is real Black, so didn't none of us take color to either side. Like mixed color. My sister's a little bit lighter than me, but we all got—It wasn't, "This one's a White one, that one is a Black one," all of us— | 34:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you know families where that happened? You said that one family, where the brother went to the White school and the sister went to the Black school? | 34:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | —Mm-hmm. That was my husband's brother. | 34:58 |
Karen Ferguson | But what happened within the family? Was the lighter skinned child treated better than the darker-skinned child, do you think? | 35:03 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I don't know. What do you mean, in the home or in the school? | 35:19 |
Karen Ferguson | In the home? In the home? | 35:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh. No. No. | 35:19 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 35:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-mm. | 35:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So your daddy was 3/4 White? | 35:19 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 35:22 |
Karen Ferguson | So which one of his parents was White? | 35:23 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Both of them. | 35:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Both of his parents were White? | 35:27 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Just as White as any White folks as I seen. | 35:28 |
Karen Ferguson | See, I don't quite understand. Within the county, how was he seen? Did people call him Black or White? | 35:33 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think they called him White. | 35:39 |
Karen Ferguson | White? Okay. | 35:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Because all of the—Just a few of the Buffalos was my color, but the rest of them is the same color you is. | 35:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Right. | 35:51 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | You know? And they wore their hair long, like the White folks do. And his mama, the Keys, is the same way. Their skin is just as White as White folks. | 35:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Did White people consider him White? | 36:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. | 36:12 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Okay. Okay. | 36:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Unless it was someone didn't know him. | 36:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | They'd consider him. But if they found him out, then mm-mm. | 36:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. Uh-huh. | 36:14 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | But before Martin Luther King had this stuff. And the White ride in the front and the Colored in the back, but they wouldn't let his peoples ride in the back because they considered them White. | 36:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 36:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | There's a few of them my color, but the rest of them go for White. | 36:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Okay. I think I'm finished with my questions. | 36:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Okay. | 36:29 |
Karen Ferguson | I really appreciate, you've been so honest with me and helpful. [indistinct 00:36:52]— | 36:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, I sure try to be. Because I tell you, I want somebody else to know how we had to come through. | 36:29 |
Karen Ferguson | —Right. I just have a few forms to fill out. I just have to ask you few specific questions about names and dates, so that if people are looking at the tape, they have a better idea of when things happened and so on. | 36:29 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Okay. | 36:29 |
Karen Ferguson | What's your full name, first of all? | 37:21 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh God. My full, it was supposed to have been Magnolia Florence, but I don't know what that name is. Just try to write Magnolia Florence Buffalo because that's what I was, before I— | 37:21 |
Karen Ferguson | What's the second name? | 37:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | —Magnolia. | 37:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Florence. | 37:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Florence? Okay. And Buffalo is your maiden name? | 37:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Uh-huh. | 37:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:36 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And Crowell is the married name. | 37:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What's your zip code here? | 37:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 27839. | 37:50 |
Karen Ferguson | 27839? | 37:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 37:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And if your name appears in any kind of written materials or anything that results from this project, how would you like it to appear? Maggie Crowell? | 38:01 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Maggie Buffalo Crowell. | 38:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. What's your date of birth, Mrs. Crowell? | 38:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | March 5th, 1935. | 38:54 |
Karen Ferguson | And you were born in Northampton County? | 38:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Uh-huh. | 38:54 |
Karen Ferguson | And what's your husband's name? | 38:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Raymond Crowell. And he was born in Halifax County. | 38:55 |
Karen Ferguson | And what's his date of birth? | 39:00 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | July 28, 1927. | 39:03 |
Karen Ferguson | '27? | 39:08 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 39:08 |
Karen Ferguson | And what was his occupation? Farming, should I put that down? | 39:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. His last occupation was cabinet maker. | 39:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Cabinet maker? | 39:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 39:28 |
Karen Ferguson | So what was your mother's name? | 39:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Minnie Buffalo. | 39:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Minnie? Okay. | 39:31 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 39:31 |
Karen Ferguson | And what was her maiden name? | 39:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Boone. | 39:32 |
Karen Ferguson | B-O-O-N-E? | 39:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 39:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And do you remember when she was born? | 39:44 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | April 5th, 1904. | 39:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And you said she died in, just a short while ago? | 39:50 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | She died—She's been dead a year, this last past April. | 39:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Okay. So, 1992? April 1992? | 40:06 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 40:11 |
Karen Ferguson | And was she was born in Northampton County? | 40:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Northampton County. Mm-hmm. | 40:13 |
Karen Ferguson | And your father's name? | 40:13 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Johnnie Clarence Buffalo. | 40:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Clarence? | 40:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 40:35 |
Karen Ferguson | And when he was born? | 40:54 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh boy. Hmm? Lord have mercy. I don't know when my daddy was born. | 41:02 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. You don't have to— | 41:02 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I know his birthday is August the 8th, but I don't know what year. God. I don't know why I don't know what year he was born. I know what year my mama was born. | 41:03 |
Karen Ferguson | —When did he die? When did he pass on? | 41:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He died, I think April the 15th, 1969. | 41:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember how old he was then? | 41:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 61. | 41:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So he was 61 when he died? | 41:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 41:12 |
Karen Ferguson | So he was born in 1900, then, probably. | 41:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He wasn't older than my mama. | 41:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. | 41:33 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think. | 41:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Was she—Oh. Okay. | 41:37 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think he was born— | 41:37 |
Karen Ferguson | He was younger than your mother. | 41:40 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | —Yeah. My mama was four years older than him. | 41:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you think maybe she was born in 1900 and he was born in 1904? | 41:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. She was born in 1904. | 41:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So 1908, then? | 41:46 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. That's right. Born in 1908. | 41:52 |
Karen Ferguson | And was he born in Northampton County too? | 41:55 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Uh-huh. | 42:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you give me the names of your brothers and sisters? | 42:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | My older brother's named Willie Boone. | 42:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 42:15 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Jim Buffalo. | 42:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. | 42:18 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Johnnie Paul Buffalo. | 42:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Jennie? | 42:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 42:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What was the second one there. | 42:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Paul. | 42:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. | 42:28 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Walve Buffalo. | 42:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Wayne? | 42:34 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Walve. | 42:35 |
Karen Ferguson | W-A-D-E, Wade? Wade? | 42:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | He spell it W-A—Something. It's got a V in it, but I don't know. W-A-L-V-E, I think. Wave, or wavy, or something like that. | 42:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you say his name one more time? | 42:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | We called him Wave. | 42:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. | 42:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Maybe that's how he spell it. | 42:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Wilbur? Wilbur? | 42:59 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | No. It's W-A-L-V-E. That's the way he spell it, whatever that is. | 43:05 |
Karen Ferguson | I'm sorry. I just, I have a hard timing hearing sometimes. | 43:10 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, I ain't got no teeth, that's the reason it's hard for people to understand me. | 43:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. No. It's just me, as you can tell, I'm not a Southerner. | 43:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. (laughs) | 43:20 |
Karen Ferguson | I have a hard time, sometimes. | 43:20 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Well, the baby brother, his name's James Buffalo. | 43:32 |
Karen Ferguson | James? Okay. | 43:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 43:33 |
Karen Ferguson | And are they all still living? | 43:35 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Uh-huh. | 43:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And how much older was Willie than you? Do you know when he was— | 43:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Willie was—He was born in 1921. | 44:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. 1921? | 44:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I don't know what month he was born. | 44:04 |
Karen Ferguson | And Jim? | 44:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 1930. | 44:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And Jennie? | 44:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 1933. | 44:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And Walve? | 44:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 1937. | 44:22 |
Karen Ferguson | And James? | 44:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh boy. I'd say he was born in 1949. He was born the year I got married. | 44:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And so you were the fourth child? After Willie, Jim and Jennie? | 44:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 44:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 44:24 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And then I got two sisters. Bessie. Hmm? You want the maiden names, right? That's Bessie Buffalo, but she's named Bessie Carter, her husband is Carter. | 44:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So these are younger than you, these two sisters? | 44:48 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Oh. Yeah. | 44:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 44:49 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And I had one, the baby girl, Lillie Walve. | 44:51 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. So that's it? | 45:04 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's it living, the rest of them dead. | 45:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And Bessie was born, do you know? | 45:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Let me see? | 45:12 |
Karen Ferguson | In the '50s sometime? | 45:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Hmm? I think Bessie was—Hmm? '39. I think she was born in '39. | 45:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:12 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | And Lillie was born in '43. | 45:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Got it. So Jennie Paul, that's a brother. | 45:41 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Yeah. | 45:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Could you say his name again? | 45:46 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | J-O-H-N-N-I-E, Johnnie. | 45:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Johnnie. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. | 45:53 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | That's all right. I don't speak as plain with no teeth. | 45:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. Okay. I just want to make sure I've got everybody's name right. Willie, Jim, Johnnie Paul, Walve, James, Bessie, and Lillie? | 45:56 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. Yeah. Out of 19 of us, those are the only ones living. | 46:04 |
Karen Ferguson | 19? | 46:09 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | Mm-hmm. | 46:09 |
Karen Ferguson | I'd be tired out, having 19. (Crowell laughs | 46:22 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I think she did. The last one there, I think my mama was 44 or 45 years old, she had her last child. | 46:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Wow. | 46:25 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | I couldn't have went that far, no way, uh-uh. | 46:31 |
Karen Ferguson | No. And your children's names. | 46:32 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | The first one is name Raymond Jr. | 46:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And when was he born? | 46:55 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | 1953. | 46:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 46:57 |
Maggie Buffalo Crowell | February 25th. | 46:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 47:00 |
Item Info
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