Arlestus Attmore interview recording, 1993 July 27
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| Chris Stewart | If you could just state your name, Mr. Attmore, so I can get a voice level on the recorder. | 0:03 |
| Arlestus Attmore | My name is Arlestus Attmore. | 0:08 |
| Chris Stewart | I'd like to start off then sir, by asking you if you have always lived here in Wilmington, I mean, excuse me, in New Bern? | 0:13 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 0:19 |
| Chris Stewart | We just came from Wilmington. | 0:19 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 0:21 |
| Chris Stewart | Were you were born here? | 0:22 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I was born here. | 0:23 |
| Chris Stewart | Were your parents from this area as well? | 0:24 |
| Arlestus Attmore | My father was from New Bern. He was a New Bernian. My mother was from Pamlico County. | 0:28 |
| Chris Stewart | What kind of work did your father do? | 0:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The earliest I remember, he worked on the railroad for the Norfolk and Southern Railroad, and then he got a job working for the lumber company, Roland Lumber Company. And then from there, the Broughton Ives Lumber Company. | 0:43 |
| Chris Stewart | The— | 1:06 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Broughton, B-R-O-U-G-H-T-O-N, and Ives, I-V-E-S Lumber Company. Those are the companies that he worked for. And of course, in the forties he worked as a janitor down to Cherry Point, Marine Corps Air Station until he retired. | 1:07 |
| Chris Stewart | What about your mother? Did she work? | 1:36 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah, my mother worked. Early childhood, she was in domestic work. And she also washed. | 1:38 |
| Chris Stewart | Did she take in? | 1:49 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, she took in washing, and she also worked to the base cleaners, Cherry Point Marine Corps air station cleaners, as a pressor. | 1:50 |
| Chris Stewart | Was that in the forties as well? | 2:05 |
| Arlestus Attmore | That was in the forties as well. | 2:10 |
| Chris Stewart | I've heard a lot about Cherry Point. In fact, there was a woman who was talking to me who wants to talk more about discriminatory hiring practices at Cherry Point. She says she has a lot of memories and a lot of information about that. It seems to have had a great impact upon this area. | 2:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, yes. | 2:20 |
| Chris Stewart | What about your grandparents? Do you recall your grandparents? | 2:20 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I recall my father's father. His name was James. James B. Hicks, and my step-grandmother, who was named Maggie Hicks. I do not remember the first wife. Her name was Rosa, which was my father's biological mother. I don't. She died when he was very young, and when she died, he went to stay with his uncle because his father worked out of town. And his uncle was named George, George Attmore. And they started calling him Little George Attmore Hicks. I mean Little George Attmore instead of Hicks. And that's how we got the name of Attmore instead of Hicks. So they always called him George Attmore, and he just kept the name, his mother's maiden name. She was an Attmore. | 2:46 |
| Chris Stewart | I see. What kinds of memories do you have of your grandfather growing up, when you were growing up? | 4:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I used to visit him quite a bit. He lived on Oak Street, and he was a member of Star of Zion Church, the church that was located right around the corner. He would come to visit us quite a bit, fond memories of him. He would sit down and talk with us, and bring us little things. He was quite easygoing. Quite easygoing. | 4:13 |
| Chris Stewart | What kind of work did he do? | 4:55 |
| Arlestus Attmore | He also worked to the lumber mill. Yeah, Roland's Lumber Company was the last place that I remember my grandfather worked. He either got a job at the mill. During that day and time, there were very few places that you could have a job, because the lumber companies were one of, I think the biggest industries that we had here. It employed most of the men in town, had a lot of men working at the lumber company. | 5:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | So I remember the barges used to come, the tugboats used to pull the barges from the Neuse River down in here on the Neuse River. And when they would come in, the barges would be almost as tall as the telegram posts. And after the men would get through loading the lumber, the barges would displace so much water until you could take your hands and wave in the water. That's how much lumber that they had. So you see the lumber industry was great. | 5:55 |
| Chris Stewart | What period are you talking about here? | 6:45 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I'm talking about the late twenties, early thirties, like that. I'm talking about that era. | 6:58 |
| Chris Stewart | When did Cherry Point— | 7:05 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Open up? | 7:10 |
| Chris Stewart | Yeah. Become established? | 7:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | It became established in the early forties, I believe. Probably about 39, 40. That's when they started working on it, because I believe that the first troops came in about 1941 or 42. And the very first troops that were here as Marines were all White. There was no Black, the Marine Corps. The Marine Corps didn't have any Blacks at that time. And we got our first Blacks in 1942, and they took their boot training at Montford Point, camp Lejeune. I served with some of the early Marines, some of the first Marines. | 7:13 |
| Chris Stewart | You did? | 8:20 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Black Marines. Yes, I served with them. Gilbert Johnson, Huff. I served with him. I served with Ruben Hines, Charles Jeanette, all of those fellas were in before I was inducted into the Marine Corps. | 8:21 |
| Chris Stewart | At what time were you inducted into the Marine Corps? | 9:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I was inducted in the forties. | 9:08 |
| Chris Stewart | You were? | 9:09 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. After they were. They came in the year of 42. | 9:10 |
| Chris Stewart | These men that you're speaking of? | 9:17 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. They came in. They were some of the first Marines. Willie Jones of the city, he was in the second platoons. He was some of the very first, with some of the very first. | 9:23 |
| Chris Stewart | Did you or did these other men talk to you about their experiences being the first Black men in the Marines, and how they were treated? | 9:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Yes, they did. And of course, during the time that I was inducted in the Marine Corps, some of the very things that they told me were still going on. They were still going on. As for making rank in the Marine Corps, I remember back in bootcamp, going for basic training, and from there I was assigned to the third anti-aircraft artillery battalion, third triple A. We had a first triple A, which was White, a second triple A, and a third A, which was all Black. The first two were White. | 10:03 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And soon, or maybe about a couple of years or so after this company was formed, we trained on the guns. We learned to operate the guns, various guns from the 105 houses down to the 50 caliber machine guns. They took the guns away and they put us in provisional companies. Rank came very slowly for us. | 10:55 |
| Arlestus Attmore | It was always that whenever the rank would come down, it seemed like no one was ever eligible to receive rank in our company. It was just like that all over for the Black Marines. Before, they would make a corporal or sergeant who had been in the same pay grade for maybe about 35 or 36 months, they would send to another company to take a sergeant out of that company to bring over to. So that's the way it was. Rank was just hard to make, that's all. And we had corporals, sergeants that had been in the same pay grade for 35, 40 months. | 11:30 |
| Chris Stewart | How often did the usual promotions or pay grade raises, how often did they usually occur? | 12:31 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I think they used to come in at least once or twice a year. They would come in once or twice a year. Whenever we would have the inspectors general inspection, that was the big one. When the commandant of the Marine Corps would come down, and he would bring all of the officers, his entourage, he'd bring them down and they would go to various parts of the base to question the troops. | 12:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And our biggest question would be, "Well, when do we receive rank?" And I remember a Colonel, I don't remember his name. He says, "Well, maybe because of the fact that you have not learned to take orders." I says, "Well, sir, you know, have my record book in front of me. And you can see that I haven't had any office hours, no break time or anything like that. And I have been in the same pay grade for 30 months. And I was just wondering why were we being passed over?" And he didn't ever give me an answer. | 13:17 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And all sorts of things were happening like that. We were separated, the Whites were separated from the Blacks. Even when we moved from Montford Point to what they called Camp Geiger. Now, when we moved out there, it was called Tent Camp. There were no permanent barracks out there, or we lived in quonset huts and the old hospital, that's what we lived in, the old hospital and quonset huts. | 13:58 |
| Chris Stewart | Only Blacks lived here? | 14:40 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Black Marines. The Black Marines lived in quonset huts and the old part of the old hospital. And the Whites were who were stationed out there also, they lived in another part of the old hospital, but they did not live in quonset huts. And it was a metal building, oval shape with a concrete floor. And in the wintertime, it was pretty cold. Yeah. | 14:42 |
| Chris Stewart | We were talking about what you called the Tent Camp, or Geiger? | 15:19 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. Yes. Tent camp. Actually they call it Camp Geiger today. About the only good—I really enjoyed being in the Marine Corps. It was just the thing that they passed over us as far as rank was concerned. I have some pretty fond memories. I made a lot of friends, fellows from all over the United States, and that was the good part about it. | 15:22 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And there was a tendency on our part to learn from each other, and we are gained a lot of experience. And especially from the older Marines who had actually been in combat. They had gone to the Far East, and they would sit down and tell us about their experiences. You see, of course, a lot of the fellows that came through bootcamp during the time that I was coming through, when we completed our basic training, some of us went overseas to replace those old veterans, we might say, that had been in combat. | 16:09 |
| Chris Stewart | So did you go to—Were you shipped out to the Far East? | 17:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I was not ever shipped out to the Far East. We were not even allowed to even go on the Mediterranean cruise. No Blacks. Whenever the med cruises would come up, they would send all Whites. We never hit any of the ports, like Italy or Spain or North Africa, all of them. No. | 17:07 |
| Chris Stewart | Did any Blacks go overseas during this time? | 17:41 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 17:44 |
| Chris Stewart | Where did they go? | 17:45 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They hit the islands. All of those islands, Sipan and—And they were actually, those first Marines were actually in combat. Gilbert Johnson, Huff, all of those fellas who were inducted prior to the time that we were inducted were actually veterans that had seen combat. | 17:47 |
| Chris Stewart | But you're saying that Black Marines were sent to specific places and not sent to other places? Maybe other places, like in the Mediterranean— | 18:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We were never sent to the Mediterranean. We were not allowed to go. The only time that we were placed aboard naval vessels was when we would go on maneuvers down to Vieques Puerto Rico. We would go down there for about three months out of the year, and then we would come back Bayside, come back to our same place we were stationed. But Med Cruises for the Black Marine were out during that time. We were not allowed to go. | 18:28 |
| Chris Stewart | How long were in the Marine Corps? | 19:19 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I was in the Marine Corps three years. | 19:26 |
| Chris Stewart | So you said you were in the Marines for three years, did you say? | 19:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 19:27 |
| Chris Stewart | Was that how long the tour of duty lasted? | 19:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, I stayed in three years, and after my tour of duty was up, I got out and went back to school. And prior to going back to school, I worked a while, for about two years, and then I went back to school, to college. | 19:28 |
| Chris Stewart | Where did you go to school, Ohio? | 19:51 |
| Arlestus Attmore | My freshman year was spent at Johnson C. Smith University. | 19:57 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh, wonderful. | 20:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | In Charlotte. And after I got out of service, I transferred to Shaw University in Raleigh. | 20:01 |
| Chris Stewart | What degree did you pursue? | 20:23 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Bachelor's of Art. | 20:23 |
| Chris Stewart | I'd like to try and go back a little bit to sort of get us to the point when you joined the Marines. Did you live in New Bern, did your family live in New Bern? | 20:29 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Yes. | 20:43 |
| Chris Stewart | What part of New Bern did you live in? | 20:45 |
| Arlestus Attmore | When I was inducted into the Marines, I was living seven 22nd Avenue, and had already spent one year at college at Johnson C. Smith University. And I went to service. | 20:51 |
| Chris Stewart | Had you lived in that home for a period, had your family lived there for a long period of time? | 21:12 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, about 14 years I stayed in that neighborhood. In other words, that was the neighborhood that I really grew up, you know? | 21:20 |
| Chris Stewart | What do you recall about the neighborhood? | 21:33 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I recall—The things that I recall that there were those parents who worked, like my mother, who was in domestics, my father working to the mill, and things of that sort, and to the base. And there were those who were fortunate enough to be housewives. And those who were housewives, they looked after all of the children in the neighborhood. We played baseball, and we made our own toys because we didn't have money to buy toys. | 21:44 |
| Arlestus Attmore | One of the favorite places that we played was under the home of Mrs. Sophie Willis. We played under her house, and whenever the parents were wondering where their children were, they would come and look to see if they were under her house. And that is where we spent most of our time. We did not have TV. We listened to the radio quite a bit, listened to ball games that were being broadcast. We listened to such stories as The Shadow, The Lone Ranger. And I think our favorite pastime was going to the movies. We would go to the movies. It only cost us about 11 cents to go to the movies. And that was on a Saturday? | 22:43 |
| Chris Stewart | Was this the Palace, or the— | 24:02 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. The Palace Theater. Yeah, the Palace Theater, which was located in the five-point area. The proprietor was Mr. Kitt Bowden. He was a small White man, very small in stature. I don't think he weighed about 120, 125 pounds. But that's where we went to the movie. And the movie was for all Blacks. We could not go to the theaters downtown. | 24:04 |
| Chris Stewart | So it was an all Black movie theater, but owned by a White man? | 24:54 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, yes. Our shopping centers, all the department stores were on Middle Street, downtown area, and it had water fountains in there for Whites and for Blacks. There were five and dime stores, McLellan's and Kress. Quite an experience in the five and dime stores. We as Blacks would go in to make a purchase, and after waiting for the clerk to finish waiting on someone else, then of course, if after finishing with that person, if a White person would come in, we would have to wait. And lots of times I would walk out. School was the same way. They had a White school and they had a Black school. I went to West Street elementary and high school. | 25:05 |
| Chris Stewart | Where was that located, sir? | 26:49 |
| Arlestus Attmore | On West Street. | 26:57 |
| Chris Stewart | Yeah. I know. On West Street, but where exactly? | 26:58 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The school was located between Queen Street and Cedar. When I first started public school, the student had to buy his own books, and we didn't have too much money to purchase books. So therefore, the Whites who were able to buy books, they would discard their books. And we had to go up to the courthouse to look among the stacks of books in order to get books so that we could get our lessons. And you paid according to the condition of the book. If you got a real good book, well, it cost you about 25 cents. The books ran from poor to fair to good, you paid according to the condition of the books. And for a long time, that's how we managed to get books in order to study. | 27:06 |
| Chris Stewart | Didn't they call it, the State of the County supplied books? | 28:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Later. Yeah, much later. Yes. | 28:42 |
| Chris Stewart | Was it after you had finished school, or was it during the time when you were in school? | 28:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | It was after I finished high school. It was after. | 28:55 |
| Chris Stewart | When did you graduate from high school? | 29:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I graduated in 45. | 29:05 |
| Chris Stewart | Okay. | 29:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I started out, and I was not a well person. I had a hearing problem. My aunt was supposed to have been watching me, and I fell off the bed and I could not hear very well. So therefore, I was retained for about two or three grades. That's the reason why I came out late. And of course, as soon as my hearing improved, my grades began to improve. And I did all right. I finished number six in my class. | 29:12 |
| Chris Stewart | Wow. | 30:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | So far as sports was concerned, we did not have an organized basketball team. We didn't have an organized baseball team. The only thing that we had was football. And the girls, well, the biggest thing that they are engaged in are cheerleading so far as sports was concerned, that was just about it. They did not have uniforms like they have today. The uniforms that we used were discarded uniforms that came from the White school. | 30:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | So the uniform that you practice in, well, you would have to take it home and wash it so it would be clean for a game. That's how we got along. But whenever we would have our games at home, there were quite a few White spectators that would come to see our games. They would come to see our games. Prior to the time that I started playing football, I remember we had one White coach to come and help the Black coach with the Black team. His name was Fred Ship. | 31:05 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Fred was about, he weighed maybe about 135, 40 pounds. He was all American. He made All American as a running back at Duke University. Pound for pound, he was one of the best backs they ever had during that day and time. A small fella, but he was a very good coach. At the time that he was coaching I was too small to play, but I remembered him. And he also coached during that era, I think 35, 1935. West Street Warriors were undefeated in 36. They weren't even scored on. | 32:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And we still have just a few of the fellas that played on those teams, those two teams, Vernon Robinson, Luke Martin, and James Bryant. Those are the only ones that I remember. But I was a little fellow. And strangely enough, Greenville had the same identical record. And we tried to get a game with them. And they wouldn't play us. They would not play us. They were undefeated. And so we never got a game with them. I guess they didn't want to spoil their record. | 33:07 |
| Chris Stewart | What schools did the football team play, with the county schools? | 34:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We played Kinston, Washington, Wilmington. | 34:20 |
| Chris Stewart | So you played Williston high schools? | 34:36 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, I played against Williston High School. Oh, they were such large fellas. The coach could pick because everybody in the county went to Williston, you see? And he could hand pick. And so far as size is concerned, they were about the largest fellas that we played against. | 34:37 |
| Chris Stewart | I interviewed a man who graduated in 1940 in Williston, and he was the captain of the football team. He was, oh, about six, four? | 35:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 35:21 |
| Chris Stewart | A good 250, maybe 260. He was a big man. | 35:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, they were large, they were very large. We were something like maybe 150, 160 pounds, something like that. Very seldom we had had an individual who weighed 200, 150, 130, more like that. 175, well, he was considered to be a very large man on our team. But we managed. All during the era that I played in high school, we never won a game from them. They were close. There were close games, but we never won a game from them. | 35:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Then we didn't win until, oh, say for instance, in the fifties, the forties. In the fifties, the late forties and early fifties. That's when we started winning games from them. Those were some of the teams that we played also, Tarboro. | 36:21 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh, as far as Tarboro? | 36:43 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Pattillo. | 36:45 |
| Chris Stewart | That's a ways away. | 36:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. We played them. See, there were no county schools that had football at that time. They played baseball, basketball, but no football. It was only just recently that our county schools started organizing football teams, you see? | 36:48 |
| Chris Stewart | How would you get to these different places? | 37:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We'd travel in automobiles. | 37:24 |
| Chris Stewart | Ah, glad I asked these questions. You did caravanning? Several? | 37:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 37:32 |
| Chris Stewart | So who would drive? | 37:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The coaches, or some of the ex-football players who were out, they had automobiles. I remember the first year I played, we also played Elizabeth City, and the car that the coaches were riding in broke down. And all of us were there. And we had one senior on the team that year. And so he had the coach and play. Sylvester Fisher had the coach and play. He had that much experience in which to run the team. I think by our coaches not being there, that made the difference. We lost the game by one point, but we had a good time. We had a good time. | 37:37 |
| Chris Stewart | Were there ever any incidences that occurred while you were traveling by car to any of these places that you were going to? | 39:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Nothing to speak of. Maybe a tire would blow or something like that. Have car trouble. That's just about it. We were always fortunate enough to reach our destination. All we wanted to do was just play. | 39:08 |
| Chris Stewart | Play. | 39:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Get there and play. | 39:28 |
| Chris Stewart | Was it—I'm going to be real blunt. Was there any danger in you traveling a group of high school, young Black men traveling from one place to the next or anything? | 39:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, no, we didn't run into anything like that, because we traveled within the States. I think that, in fact, I know when Black people would travel interstate during that day and time, they would have a lot of trouble on the roads so far as finding some place to eat. If it was a White restaurant, we were not allowed to eat in the White restaurant. Nine times out of 10, they would have a side window where you could get your food. | 39:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Sometimes they wouldn't even have that. They would not serve us at all. Some gas stations during that day and time, if a Black man drove up in, what we might say, a late model car or something like that, they would not sell him gas. They would refer to him as a boy, "Boy, whose car is that?" That is the manner in which we were treated. No motels. | 40:38 |
| Chris Stewart | How did you find out where you could stay if you were making long distance trips, or where did stay if you had to stay overnight? | 41:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, nine times out of 10 you would inquire, ask for the nearest rooming house. It was always rooming houses, you could stay overnight. But so far as the motels and hotels is concerned, it was all out. They were all White. They did not allow us to stay in there. Things are—Well, there were happy times for us and there were bad times for us. As I think back over my life's journey, in some ways I feel cheated because of the fact that I really wasn't allowed to pursue the things that I really wanted to get into so far as education was concerned. I believe that I was cheated. | 41:42 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Because they would always take the best. The Whites would always take the best. And what was left, they would give it to the Blacks. It was all worn out. And even in the fifties when I started teaching in the system, the city system, the Whites were carrying on the same practices. We would get books, new books in. We'd get a portion of the new books, and the rebound ones, they would send them over to the Black high school. That's the new school, JT Barber that I taught at. | 43:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And they would send all of the new books over to, what was called New Bern Senior high school, which was all White. We'd get new desks in, they would take all of the new desks and carry them over to the all White high school, and give us the desks that they took out of classrooms, which were cut up and mocked up, and bring them over to our JT Barber. That's what they would do. | 44:17 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Had to endure things like that. And teacher's manuals. I stayed in the classroom for 15 years, I didn't know what a teacher's manual was. So the best thing that you could do is get the book, two or three nights, you read it, two or three nights. And then when the students would come into the classroom, well you would teach, and you wouldn't have to have a crutch. That's the way we, who were on the staff prepared ourselves. By not having the teacher's manual, it made better teachers out of us. | 44:50 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Because the members of the staff at JT Barber, the majority of them never opened a book the whole time that the class was in session, because they knew their subject matter. And that's the way we taught. No index cards or anything like that. So you had to use the Black brain in order to get your subject matter over. And I found that it worked very well. We turned out some very good products. We have doctors, lawyers, or engineers. People of all walks of life graduated from JT Barber. So we did well. Those who finished college and received a bachelor's, well they went off to graduate school and they did very well. But now, if you would visit the New Bern Senior High School on— | 45:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | —Honor Society Day, that's when they induct the new members. Out of maybe about 1600 or 1800 students, probably they will induct maybe or about 20. Out of that 20, if there are two Blacks, as much as three, that had made the Honor Society, they're doing very well. Over at Barber, we would induct maybe 12, 15, 20. | 0:06 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I look upon my integration as having advantages and then too the disadvantages. I find that the Black student does not study, does not utilize its time as well as we might say his parents doing when they were in school. They don't utilize their time as well. | 1:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Of course, I realized that this is a different day and time. There's so many things to attract the youngster. I realize that it is very difficult for a youngster to grow up. We hardly knew anything about drugs, hard drugs from the time that I spent at West Street, the time that I left J.T. Barber as a teacher, we knew nothing about drugs. I wouldn't have known or recognized a marijuana plant. Of course, this new generation coming in and the parents being submissive, well, as they are, it just changed the entire picture and then the courts have not helped. | 1:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | When I was in school, if I was naughty, I got a spanking from the teacher and a note was sent home and she gave me a note sent home, to carry home, and I got another spanking, you see. | 3:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I think everything is so far as their education is concerned, is just—It's going backwards. They're not doing the basic things. I believe that is the reason why we have so many kids coming out of school who cannot read. When I was in school, it was very seldom that you could find a boy or girl that could not read, but it's nothing now to find one who has graduated from high school that can't read, that can't write, can't hold a decent conversation, or anything like that. | 3:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | There are some that can't even make a long distance telephone call, you see. It's bad. I think that they need to get back to the basics. | 4:25 |
| Chris Stewart | Do you think—What specific kinds of things do you think teachers did at J.T. Barber or even at Western [indistinct 00:04:47] there that Black teachers had specific approaches to teaching that Black teachers with their Black students, that resulted in such successful students? And adults, people. | 4:41 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I think more or less, teaching the basics, teaching the basics. One does not build a 60 story building starting at the top. You've got to start with the basics, the foundation, and phonics, things of that sort. They taught us to read. You see, if you can't read, you can't do anything else. They really taught us to read and really taught English. Of course, I realize that there are many changes that have come along since then in the field of English, but really and truly, we were strong in the basics. | 5:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We were taught to construct sentences or to analyze that—what was a verb, what was an adjective, and we drill on those things. By drilling on them, they became a part of us, and readily we could recognize the parts of speech or a sentence. You know? What modified this or—You know? What was a [indistinct 00:07:13] and what was a verb and what was a preposition and along with phonics, that's what we learned. | 6:32 |
| Chris Stewart | Were you an English teacher? | 7:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | No. I was a history teacher. | 7:24 |
| Chris Stewart | You were a history teacher? | 7:25 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Mm-hmm. I was a history teacher. My first year, I taught history, band, math. History, band, and math. The second year of teaching, I taught history and economics. Yeah. Taught history and economics. | 7:27 |
| Chris Stewart | Did you manage to bring any Black history into your curriculum? | 8:06 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. I did. Yes. I did. I found that in our history books, we were only introduced to a smattering of people of the Black race such as George Washington Carver and other Blacks that stood out. You know? | 8:07 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We did not know about Mary McLeod Bethune, all of those people that were not mentioned in the book. I would do research in the libraries and collect all of the materials that I could to let the children know of their accomplishments of the people of the race. You know? | 8:42 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They did not know anything about the Black man designing Washington, DC. They did not know anything about the man designing the clock. Such people like that, they didn't know anything about that. | 9:11 |
| Chris Stewart | How did students respond to your teaching that? | 9:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I had very good rapport with them. They would sit and listen, take notes, things like that. Always during the Black History Months, we would—All of the history classes would come together and give programs pertaining to Blacks, Harriet Beecher Stowe and all of those. | 9:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | In textbooks, you found very little materials concerning them and their accomplishments in life. I even found that after the schools were integrated, the books still were sparse information. I remember Mrs. Bryan who taught a Black history class at New Bern Senior High School, she did not have a textbook but only little pamphlets. The materials were limited. | 10:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | As an assistant principal, I made assistant principal when we integrated over there and I suggested that we get a regular textbook, a noted historian, somebody like John Hope Franklin, which was a product of Saint Augustine College in Raleigh. He's well-known. He was a visiting professor at Oxford University in England forever so many years. You know? He was the author of several, several books. Slavery from 1865 up until the present. You know? Of course, I believe that his books have been revised since then. | 11:29 |
| Chris Stewart | There's like a fifth edition of one of his. | 12:35 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 12:37 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:12:38]. | 12:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. | 12:37 |
| Chris Stewart | Fifth or sixth print. | 12:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Yes. A very brilliant man. Very brilliant man. Had a lot of great teachers. | 12:38 |
| Chris Stewart | How did the school board react to both when you were teaching, did the school board interfere at all with your teaching Black history at Barber [indistinct 00:13:14] during integration or after integration. The suggestion [indistinct 00:13:21]. | 13:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, they didn't bother us none. We were over there alone and they left us alone. | 13:21 |
| Chris Stewart | At Barber? | 13:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They left us alone. When we integrated and went to the all-White school, we had the eyes for those things and the books that they allowed Mrs. Bryan to teach from, they were little pamphlets. As I said before, materials were—It was just difficult to teach from those pamphlets because they were not filled with her materials pertaining to the accomplishments of Black people. She had to do a lot of research. | 13:27 |
| Chris Stewart | Where did these pamphlets come from? Do you know? | 14:33 |
| Arlestus Attmore | From the press, free press such as—I don't remember. I don't remember the company that printed those pamphlets. | 14:41 |
| Chris Stewart | These were approved by the school board? | 14:56 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. They were approved. | 14:58 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:15:00] textbooks. | 14:59 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. They were approved by the school board but not actually a hardback textbook. You know? I would often, as we would have meetings, staff meetings, have—I would often ask for a regular textbook. At that time, John Hope Franklin had one of the best. They would never order this book. | 15:01 |
| Arlestus Attmore | There were a few White students that were enrolled in Mrs. Bryan's class and they were amazed, they were amazed about the things that Blacks had done. They were amazed. The cotton gin, we give Eli Whitney the credit but really and truly it was a Black man who really set up the patent for the cotton gin. That's right. That the Black man at that time did not even own himself. He was considered to be chattel, no more than a horse. That's the way it was. | 15:44 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The ideas of many Blacks like that got the patent, and they received the credit. I remember my father told me about the little boy who was playing in the dirt one day, had a little toy train, a wooden train, he had carved the wheels of it, so it would stay on the track. He had a switch, the tracks would move over and it would go to a different part of the track, and this White man came along and he saw it, and he asked the little boy, he says, "What is that?" He says, "It's a frog." Called a switching frog. It was switching. He received the pattern for it. | 16:55 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Mr. Lewis Harvey, who was one of the blacksmiths who worked for Northern and Southern Railroad, and during that time, they were having a problem with the wheels on the boxcars and the trains running hot. He developed a grease to lubricate the wheels. To this present day, he never got anything out of it, or his children or his grandchildren or his great-grands. He never got anything out of it. | 18:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They took the pattern and used it for themselves and he didn't get a nickel out of it. Lots of things, lots of things that we've done, we never received credit for it. You know? Why? Because we didn't have the money, and during the early American times, those things that our people did, those ideas were taken away from them, and it was nothing that we could do or say. | 18:56 |
| Chris Stewart | It sounds like your father also had a great interest in history as well. [indistinct 00:19:42]. | 19:35 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Yes. My father and then my mother—My mother finished second grade. She read better than any high school student coming out of the high school today. She was a washwoman. She took in washing and she did domestic work too. I don't remember— | 19:44 |
| Arlestus Attmore | In fact, I was not born when her father was living. His name was William, William Dawson, but however I remember my great-grandfather, Pickett Gibbs, down in Pamlico County, he was one of the largest Black farmers down there. | 20:22 |
| Chris Stewart | Landowner? | 20:54 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Landowner. He was a Confederate soldier. He was mustered out of the Confederate Army down to Morehead City, down to Fort Macon, after being mustered out of the army, he took his little money and he bought land in Pamlico County. He raised corn, white potatoes, cabbage, and things of that sort. | 20:55 |
| Arlestus Attmore | He's a farmer and I would not say that he was very successful, because often times, they would come and he would harvest the potatoes and put them on the train and they would sidetrack the boxcar. It was not a refrigerated car. By the time that it got to the market, all of the potatoes would be spoiled and nine times out of 10, he would have to wind up paying them for the freight, you see. That is the sort of thing that they went through. | 21:42 |
| Arlestus Attmore | My father's side, his great-grandfather was named John Henry Williams. He was also in the army, Company K14 heavy artillery. That was his mother's grandfather. | 22:29 |
| Chris Stewart | He was in the Confederate Army? | 23:02 |
| Arlestus Attmore | He was in the Confederate Army also. He was in the artillery, in the artillery, Company K14 heavy artillery. My father found that in the archives. Of course, the information that they give him, that he was mustered out, he received mustered out pay nor the pensions, you see. | 23:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Going back to Pickett Gibbs, he was my great-grandfather on my mother's side, he was a slave. John Henry Williams was a slave. My brother did some graduate work and, of course, a portion of this work was on the Black church and my great-grandfather, Pickett Gibbs, was one of the founders of Green Hill Missionary Baptist Church down in Bayboro. | 23:39 |
| Chris Stewart | Down—I'm sorry? | 24:25 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Bayboro. B-A-Y-B-O-R-O. North Carolina. | 24:29 |
| Chris Stewart | What was the name of the church again you said? | 24:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Green Hill Missionary Baptist Church. | 24:40 |
| Arlestus Attmore | In digging around trying to find information on him, my brother found in the archives the information describing the day that he was brought over here on the slave boat. He was a small boy and it said that it was a hazy day, misty, when he was brought over. That was in the Boston Harbor. | 24:52 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Then the man that bought him was named Gibbs, and brought him to North Carolina to Hyde County. Of course, when the slaves were freed in 1865, then he migrated to Pamlico County. I also find that my father's people migrated from Hyde County. I find that there are some Attmores down there. I have never met them. I've never had the pleasure of meeting them. There was one family of Attmores in Goldsboro. They taught in the school system for years, and I never had the opportunity to meet them. They would always ask about me. | 25:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We had a local minister who was pastor of that church, Reverend Nesbitt, who preached at that church and was pastor and, of course, at that time, I was teaching too. I never had an opportunity to meet them. | 26:49 |
| Arlestus Attmore | When I look back on whole life's journey, I thank the good Lord. You know? For things being as well as they are. All of that is behind me. I look forward to seeing better things for my grandchildren. I have a five year old, whom I adopted. My wife and I adopted before she passed. All I can live for and hope for is that things will be better for all of the grandchildren. I have one great-grand. | 27:17 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh, wow. You mentioned that [indistinct 00:28:19] that you felt cheated because you [indistinct 00:28:25]. | 28:14 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 28:26 |
| Chris Stewart | Tell me a little bit about the dreams, what they were. | 28:26 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I wanted to be a doctor. I really wanted to be a medical doctor. Out at West Street, in the chemistry lab, we didn't even have a Bunsen burner. We used a hot plate to heat. You know? The materials that you used in carrying out the various experiments, we didn't have them. Therefore, when I went off to school, I was crippled. I was crippled. | 28:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | It was very difficult for me to keep up with those kids that had come from large high schools, that had been exposed to classes that had the necessary materials in which to get the subject matter over and things of that sort. | 29:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I had to study and study very hard. The thing that really cut it short for me so far as becoming a medical student was the fact that my father became ill. He had cancer. I had to forget all about becoming a doctor. I majored in social studies, history, so that was it. I would have loved to gone on. The money wasn't there and part of the support was gone. | 30:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Then too along with all of these things that had happened to me back at home. You know? Being cheated. I just couldn't accomplish what I wanted to. But I made best with that I received, because as I look around at the boys and girls whom I taught, the success that they had made, in such a short period of time, it makes one, like myself, feel good. You know? I have the satisfaction of knowing that I did play a little part in helping to shape their lives. Built no great monuments but just little things, and often times, they come back home and tell me, they tell me and they thank me. | 31:08 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I really got a kick out of when they come back and have a class reunion and invite me. It's just good to see how well they are getting along in life. I was just about it. | 32:23 |
| Chris Stewart | Can you talk a little bit about, sort of shifting topics, about police, your perspective on police here in the New Bern area or police as you were growing up? [indistinct 00:33:11]. | 32:51 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I remember as I was growing up, the police force was all-White, the town was smaller. Eddie Blanger was the chief of police. I think they had probably one or two automobiles. It was seldom that anyone went to jail. Oh, that was a disgrace, an individual going to jail. You just didn't go to jail. Of course, you always had the 10% that didn't want to act right. People were so familiar with the citizens—Citizens were so familiar with each other. | 33:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I've seen the police chief come up and make an arrest, and they would put the cuffs on the man. "Son, get in the car." He would get in the car. On the court date, the chief of police would be in court and he would often say, "Well, you know, this young man comes from a good family." He was well-known. He knew all of the families in town, he was familiar with them. "He comes from a good family, a good Christian family and I don't know the reason why he did what he did. Your honor, this is his first time coming down." | 34:31 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Lots of times, that he would get them off. Those that had to go to the chain gang, the camp was located on the location of Craven General. Craven Regional Hospital. | 35:23 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh, wow. | 35:41 |
| Arlestus Attmore | That's where the chain gang camp was located, for Blacks. | 35:43 |
| Chris Stewart | Right. | 35:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | If Whites got into trouble, they was shipped to the western part of the state. We never saw a White person there during that day in time. They were always shipped to another part of the state. | 35:48 |
| Arlestus Attmore | There were those characters who—We might say, "Well, that's satisfied, unless they were supervised." You know? They stayed in trouble, two or three of them stayed in trouble, and they were so familiar with the officers at the camp, until the clerk or the court would write up the order for them to serve on the chain gang. I actually gave them the papers to carry out that, and they would go. You know? They did not try to run away. | 36:12 |
| Chris Stewart | Did you see the chain gangs working around here? | 37:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 37:03 |
| Chris Stewart | What kind of work did they do? | 37:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They worked on the roads and cleaned out the ditches. No machinery. It was done by hand. Shovel and a pick. You know? They rode on a truck. On the back of this truck, they had a little cart where the guards rode in. They had it hitched to the truck and they carried shotguns, double barrel shotguns. Those who were known to run, they wore shackles. That's right. Wore shackles. | 37:05 |
| Chris Stewart | What kind of crimes did—Or what reasons did the police say they arrested them? | 38:08 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Fighting, fights. As a result of fights, maybe he cut someone. You know? They were caught stealing. Things of that sort. | 38:20 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:38:40] arrested unjustly. | 38:41 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Very seldom during that time but I do know that often times that they were arrested, they were mistreated. You know? There may have been cases wherein that one did not commit a crime, they would hang him. That was prior to my time. My father would tell me about it, told me about it. | 38:52 |
| Chris Stewart | Did your father tell you about a specific incident or was he speaking in general? | 39:26 |
| Arlestus Attmore | He was speaking about a specific incident that took place on the Bristol Bridge. They hung a man on the Bristol Bridge. I don't remember the details of the incident that led to that but they hung a man on the bridge. I can imagine during the early days when he was a boy, there were a lot of illegal hangings. Klansmen were at their heyday. | 39:32 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:40:26]. | 40:24 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I beg your pardon? | 40:27 |
| Chris Stewart | What time are you talking about? | 40:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | From my father's time even until the present. | 40:31 |
| Chris Stewart | About the Klan activity? | 40:40 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. Klan activity. They have quieted down somewhat. You know? Quieted down quite a bit but, say, in the '20s, in the '30s like that. It seemed like they took matters into their own hands, because they were allowed to wear hoods. Many of them that ran businesses in the Black neighborhood were members of the Klan, you see. Quite a few Black people were afraid of them. They were afraid. | 40:41 |
| Chris Stewart | Do you know what types of threats [indistinct 00:41:36] partaking in? | 41:33 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, they hated Blacks just as they hate them now. You know? I think at the ceremonies, they would—I think they burned crosses on your front lawn. You know? | 41:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | This incident of that nature happened over in Vance to a friend of mine. He had moved to Detroit and retired from Detroit Diesel, worked hard, saved his money, came back to Vance and bought a farm. They kept saying it in a joking way that they were going to burn a cross on his place, and one night, they did. | 41:57 |
| Chris Stewart | When did this happen? | 42:36 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Oh, that happened somewhere in the neighborhood of maybe about 10 to 12 years ago. They're still active. But there's a tendency for them to hide it now, because of the fact that they can cover their faces. That's the law. | 42:39 |
| Chris Stewart | Is your friend still there? | 43:05 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. He's still there. He's still there. They don't bother him anymore. | 43:07 |
| Chris Stewart | Were there specific people that the Klan would target or a specific type of person? | 43:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, they target Black people. They don't like Jews. They don't like Jews and they don't like— | 43:22 |
| Chris Stewart | Did they specifically target businessmen or landowners? You're talking about Black— | 43:33 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Oh, well, landowners, those who were in business. If they were professionals, during the early days, during the '30s and all like that, they would target such people like that and then too some of just ordinary people they would target. You didn't have to do anything for them to do something to you. It was just that they hate certain groups. There's nothing too good for them to do to you, especially if you were alone. That's the way they are. | 43:40 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They're still in operation. Every now and then you pick up a paper and see they're going to hold a parade and you can't deny holding a parade and people go out to taunt them, things of that sort. | 44:50 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I always say, "Leave them to themselves. Let them go on and hold their parade. I can stay home. I don't have to go out there." I believe that's what they want you to do. You know—intimidate them so that they can retaliate. You know? | 45:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | If a thing is in a fixed place and is not broken, so don't bother with it. Let it go on. You know? That's it. | 45:48 |
| Chris Stewart | Do you have any other, for lack of a better phrase, White supremacist groups, citizen councils, anything else in this area that you know of? | 45:55 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, the City Fathers were all White. There were certain areas in the city that a Black person could not be after dark. | 46:14 |
| Chris Stewart | Can you tell me about those areas? | 46:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. The area we call the Ghent. G-H-E-N-T. Also, the Gravere areas out here, that's where all of the prominent White people live, the rich ones, they either live out there or they live on the east front. | 46:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The Maxwells, E.K. Bishops, all of them. | 0:03 |
| Chris Stewart | What would happen if you were— | 0:10 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Caught in those areas after dark? You were arrested. You were arrested. | 0:15 |
| Chris Stewart | Did you know people who were arrested? | 0:24 |
| Arlestus Attmore | No, because they would always be out of that area before darkness would fall. The only time that such people would be in that area is probably they would have a party, and they were asked, the cooks, to remain over, and then they would bring them home in the automobile. That's what they would do. But just to say to stroll through the area, no. You couldn't do that. | 0:28 |
| Chris Stewart | Were there areas of town where you'd feel unsafe walking during the daytime as well? | 1:17 |
| Arlestus Attmore | No. I didn't fear walking anyplace in town. The town was small. You practically knew everybody. Everyone went to the same school. The Blacks went to the same school. And so far as the Whites was concerned, we just didn't bother them. Of course, when playing football, there were some of the guys that we knew who played on the White team like that. That was just about the extent of it. They would come and watch our games when they didn't have a game. Well, it was just one thing. We didn't bother them. They didn't bother us. We were at liberty to walk all over the place during the daytime. But at nighttime, in those two particular areas, they didn't want you in those areas. | 1:36 |
| Chris Stewart | Do you know of anybody who broke the rules of segregation, and perhaps got away with it? | 2:53 |
| Arlestus Attmore | That happened during the sixties. I was a classroom teacher, and we had a minister, a Methodist minister at St. Peter's AME Zion Church, the Mother Church of the South, who organized the students. As it started, as it came up from Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, all of those places, the idea seemed to have spread like wildfire. And they began to march, march in front of such stores like Kress, McLellan's, because they had lunch counters, and they were not allowed to sit and eat. | 3:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And another individual who stood out like a sore thumb, Leon Nixon. | 4:26 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:04:40]. | 4:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | You are familiar with him? | 4:40 |
| Chris Stewart | I'm trying to get in touch with him. | 4:41 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. Well, you'll find him probably down to the station. He lives right around the corner. | 4:43 |
| Chris Stewart | He does? | 4:51 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Leon Nixon, who was responsible, largely responsible for also helping to organize the children, and these marches, and things like that. And by them marching, and attending these meetings, and they were coming to us, the classroom teachers, for advice as to what to do. And we would tell them what to do. They carried it out, and they broke the back of such stores like Kress and McLellan's. McLellan's was the first one to let them start eating at the lunch counter. And when Kress decided to, that business had declined, and I remember hearing a statement made by the manager of the store to the other White merchants downtown. He says, "Well, you know, if you want to be successful in business, never get to the point wherein that you have people marching with placards in front of your door, because it hurts your business." | 4:52 |
| Arlestus Attmore | You see, what the Whites didn't realize is the Black man is America's greatest consumer. We are on fixed salaries. With the economy being like it is, and like it was then, we were not paid much, and therefore we had to spend our money. And with the Whites ignoring the Blacks, they lost money. They lost millions and millions of dollars. See, because they were the ones who had the money to be in business, and we had to spend our money with them. And it was like I said a while back, I would go to the five and dime store to make a purchase, and if I was next in line, and the White person would come in, the clerk would wait on the White person before he would wait on me. And so therefore, lots of time I would leave. And I can imagine that hundreds and hundreds of people were doing the same thing, and they lost money. And the S.H. Kress Company didn't realize how much money that the Black people were spending, so they lost out. They went out of business. You see, the business went right down to nothing. | 6:22 |
| Arlestus Attmore | There was a barbecue lodge in town, Moore's Barbecue, owned by John Moore. The Blacks had to go to the back door in order to make a purchase. And he said that before he would allow the Blacks to come through the front door, he would move out of town. He moved out by Weyerhaeuser. Thought that he was going to be successful with his business, but it wasn't as good. So therefore he moved back in town, on 17 South, a little ways out of town. And now everyone is allowed to come in and have their meals, if they so desired, to sit down to a meal. You see? So it was change. And he was like he was. I guess that was the thing that he was taught. That was just a carryover from his childhood, that Blacks were inferior, and they were not supposed to rub elbows with Blacks. And little did he know that the Blacks were spending more money than the Whites with him. So when he went out there, he lost. So when he moved back in town, he allowed everybody to come and have a meal. | 8:14 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And funny enough, we belonged to the same hunting club before he died. See, his son belongs to the same hunting club now. | 9:59 |
| Chris Stewart | When would you say the Civil Rights Movement began, do you feel like it began here in New Bern? | 10:35 |
| Arlestus Attmore | During the sixties. | 10:35 |
| Chris Stewart | Was it the early sixties? | 10:35 |
| Arlestus Attmore | The early sixties. Yes. | 10:35 |
| Chris Stewart | When did schools finally integrate? | 10:35 |
| Arlestus Attmore | They integrated the fall of 1970. Really integrated fall of 1970. | 10:39 |
| Chris Stewart | Can you talk a little bit about that process, and how that finally happened, similarly in different places, but there are some differences. Can you talk about that process? In other words, okay, I'll be blunt. How did the school board try to get out of it, and how did they finally end up integrating? | 10:44 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, first, starting off as a matter of choice, there were some Blacks, just a sprinkling of Black students that were already over maybe a year or two, over to the White high school by choice. | 11:14 |
| Chris Stewart | And this was around— | 11:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | That was around '68. | 11:41 |
| Chris Stewart | Okay. | 11:46 |
| Arlestus Attmore | '68, '69. And then the courts as well, the whole thing has to be totally integrated. So J.T. Barber, which was the high school for all Blacks, became the junior high school. And all of the high school students, from the 10th grade through the 12th grade, both Black and Whites, went to New Bern Senior High School. | 11:48 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, it was not easy. It was not easy for the teachers. It was not easy for the students. Because here we have two groups of peoples coming from two different worlds, an amalgamation of the two, mingling. And they had their opinion of us. We had our opinion of them. And oftentimes these things would clash. | 12:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We had two riots over there the first year. The first year, we had a principal named H.P. Honeycutt, and one of our Black teachers in the history department, Mrs. Jones, wanted to put on a Black program in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King. They was doing the Black History Month. Had all the materials together, the students who were supposed to participate in this program, and the plans were carried to the principal. And he really didn't think that it was important. | 13:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Black students became angry. So the White students, they says, "Well, hey. If they can honor Dr. Martin Luther King, we should be able to honor Robert E. Lee." But you see, the program never developed for Martin Luther King. So we were seated in the auditorium that morning, and some White students came in with a confederate flag, and that's when it started, the fight started. And all that I heard Mr. Honeycutt say was, "Oh my god. The fighting has commenced." He ran off the stage, ran into his office, and locked the door. That's what he did. I was left out on campus with all of those children fighting, and the members of the coaching staff. I was also a member of the coaching staff. Assistant Principal, and a member of the coaching staff. I says, "Well, this is not working." I went to the office and called over to J.T. Barber, who one of my former students, William Gaines, had the principal, who was Mr. Fields then, to let him come over so that we could get this thing straightened out. | 14:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | So we managed, along with the other members of the coaching staff, we were handling the Blacks. Two of us were handling the Blacks. Well, we were handling everybody. The Whites and the Blacks. And we got everything quieted down, and the police were out there, and everything was going along pretty well. And then the Sheriff Department, members of the Sheriff Department, came out, and one of the officers of the Sheriff Department struck a Black girl, and it started all over again. Mr. Honeycutt was still in his office, and we managed to get that settled. And Mr. Honeycutt still being in the office, I went to the office and advised him that he should call the superintendent to let the students go home. And he did. | 16:15 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And then there were meetings. Mr. Nixon, and parents, both Black and Whites were out, and trying to get the matter settled. And as a result, some members of the school board invited Mr. Honeycutt down and all of the members of his so-called staff. And when I got down there, he began to tell them, he says, "Well, I called the members of my staff together." And I was supposed to have been on staff, but he didn't call me. I was not considered. So I just told him, I says, "Well, I have a position, but no authority." He didn't call me. He did not ask me for any advice. The only advice that I gave him was that he should let the students go home before there were further injuries, because several of the children had to go to the hospital, and property damage. | 17:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Then the next year, it started again. I don't know what happened, but as a result, the following year that the riot started, they asked for his resignation, and begged Mr. Fields, G.C. Fields, who was the Black principal over to the junior high school, J.T. Barber Junior High school, to come over and take over. And that was the man that saved New Bern. | 18:48 |
| Chris Stewart | How did he and his staff, and you, and other people, how were things different after Mr. Honeycutt was gone? | 19:19 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, it was a complete turnaround. I had worked with him for 15 years before. In other words, he had sent me over there, and unbeknowing to me, he sent me over there. And I never knew about it until about a year before he died, he told me. He says, "I'm responsible for sending you over there." Well, when he came over, Mr. Fields came over, he worked in my office. He didn't even work in his office. We worked together for about three months in my office. And I had a list of names of both Black and White students who were responsible for fights. And we called them in, and just laid the law down, and told them, says, "Well, now, you know, you start a fight, you got to go home. If you see a fight, you better run away from it. Because if you're standing around, we had the feeling that you were instigating the fight, you're going home." | 19:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And gradually, the students began to really like him, because they found out that he was a fair man. He believed in giving each student a hearing. He said, "Oh, yes. You must have a hearing because I want to know what you have to say." And he would sit there patiently, and a lot of times it would be dumped in my lap. I had to do the same thing. Sit there patiently, and listen to the students. Matters in which that got them into trouble. And of course we would explain to them those things that they had done wrong, show it to them in the rule book, and what have you. | 21:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And the majority of the time, we would write up a disciplinary card on them, put it in the box, and if they came in too many times, more in that they had created a disturbance in someone's classroom or anything like that, then we would refer to those cards and says, "Well, on such and such a date, you were in here. You were in Mrs. So-and-So's room or Mr. So-and-So's room. You did so-and-so on such and such a date. And we've spoken to you about these things before, and I don't see any improvements. So therefore you have to go home for so many and so many days." | 22:09 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And we had that 20-day policy. You could only miss 20 days out of class in the period of a year. If you went over those 20 days, you didn't get no grade. And I think that was one of the things that was largely responsible for holding the students in check. Some would go 19, and hang on to that one day for life. Some of them I felt sorry for, because they would come ill, but they heal on. They wanted to graduate. | 23:04 |
| Chris Stewart | It sounds like the two of you together were able to confront the issues rather than running from them, the way Mr. Honeycutt— | 23:52 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, we were able to really confront them. But one thing, I didn't know it but two colors, that was the school colors, the red and the black. I think that fairness was the only way in which to deal with it. If you did something, and a Black student did the same thing, you were measured out the same punishment. And this was one of the things that I told Mr. Honeycutt when he first came over to get me as his Assistant Principal. I says, "You're just going to have to or deal and deal fairly. You can't do something for one group and then deny the other group. You're going to have to feed everybody out of the same spoon." | 24:02 |
| Arlestus Attmore | But I found that he was not doing that. You see, he didn't do that. Students, Black students were being sent home for certain things, and then when the White students were sent home for the same thing, the parents would call him at night. And when I look around, they were back in school. "Well, why is this?" So he began to do it so much, and I just finally went and told him, and says, "Well, the next time I send one home was in the wrong, and you let him back in, then I shall hand all of the disciplinary problems over to you." And he didn't want to be bothered with the Black students, because he was afraid of them. He didn't want to be bothered with them. And half the Whites, he didn't want to be bothered with them. So that's the way he was. | 25:11 |
| Chris Stewart | When did you retire? | 26:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I retired in '81. I had two heart attacks, and triple bypass surgery. | 26:16 |
| Chris Stewart | I saw the beginnings of the scars. | 26:26 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. The scars. Yes. I had that, and I had to leave. It was just too much. | 26:27 |
| Chris Stewart | Do you think it was the stress of the job? | 26:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. I know no job in the field of education that is without stress. It is a very stressful job in any part of the educational field. Whether it be classroom, or the administrative part, it's quite stressful. And I think that with me being the type of person that I was, I didn't scream. I didn't holler. Sometimes they would look to me and say, "Well, Mr. Attmore, nothing worries you." But it did. I held it within, and that is the thing that really got next to me. But it's quite stressful. | 26:44 |
| Chris Stewart | Mr. Attmore, do you have some advice to give young people now, given the experiences that you've experienced, and the wealth of knowledge that you've garnered from just living your life? What sort of advice would you give to young people? | 27:38 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Number one, to discipline yourself. Or getting back to what I was saying, I would advise them to learn self-discipline, and to learn everything possible that they can learn. Take it, put it to use, wherein they will become productive citizens. Help somebody. You know, you don't have to have a whole lot of money. Things that you learn, pass these things on so that the generation that's coming after you can take these things and build on and improve on so that their lives will be better. | 28:08 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Let's see. Be associated with a strong family unit. Family unit is the backbone. Sit down with your families. Have talk. Have family prayer. Bible study. Spend a lot of time with them, as much as possible. | 29:25 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And I think that if you do these things, along with the education, self-discipline, and get your life in order spiritually, and mentally, and morally, then you will be successful in life. That's just the way I look at it. | 30:04 |
| Chris Stewart | Sir, are there any questions that I should have asked you that I didn't ask? | 30:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I think you've just about covered everything. I can't think of anything right now. I just can't. I would like to say that I really appreciate you taking the time to come by and chat with me. I find myself, for right now, going through a period of adjustment. 44 years of marriage, you just don't crawl out from under it. In fact, I've been knowing my wife for 52 years, and 44 of them marriage. So it is something new. It's a good feeling to have somebody to come by and chat. | 30:42 |
| Chris Stewart | Well, it's been my honor, sir. It's been my honor. | 31:49 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. I'm very happy that I was chosen to be interviewed, and I hope that the things that I have said, and those things that I've mentioned, that I've done in life, will help someone. | 31:51 |
| Chris Stewart | It sounds like you've helped a lot of people. | 32:15 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I have quite a few children out in the world. So many, I remember their faces, but I don't remember names. | 32:21 |
| Chris Stewart | So many teachers and principals have told me that. | 32:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. | 32:27 |
| Chris Stewart | That they remember faces. | 32:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Only the naughty ones, I remember. I remember the naughty ones. But those that were nice, and sweet, and didn't make problems, I only remember their faces. | 32:34 |
| Chris Stewart | One woman told that she remembers children's—And you were teaching high school, so it's sort of different, but she remembers the children's childhood faces, so that when they come up and talk to her, and I think she was teaching sixth grade or something. | 32:54 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. Quite a change. | 33:10 |
| Chris Stewart | When they come and talk to her, they're so changed. So she always says, "You have to tell me who you are." | 33:11 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, even with high school children, I have to tell them. I have to ask them. "I don't remember your name. I remember your face." Yeah. It's embarrassing, but who can remember all of those names? | 33:15 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh, that's okay. There's only so much room. | 33:43 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. That's right. That's right. Now, I don't have any problems with the young men that I coached, like Walt Bellamy. Guys like that, I don't have any problems at all, because out on the field, athletic field, we were so close. | 33:44 |
| Chris Stewart | Right. | 34:16 |
| Arlestus Attmore | We were a closer unit than being in the classroom. You can only get so close in the classroom. But out on the athletic field, well, you're real close. And I do believe that coaches in all schools can do more to control the conduct of the student body than anyone on the campus. He can. Because if he receives a bad call, say for instance in football, he receives a bad call by the officials, everybody looks at him to see how he's going to react. And if he just goes along with it that, then—But if he jumps up and down like Khrushchev when they wouldn't let him into Disney World, then there's turmoil, you see. He can. He can control more so than the principal can. Yeah. | 34:18 |
| Chris Stewart | It's interesting that you were both a coach and an assistant principal. Did you feel like you had more input then cause of that dual role? | 35:53 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Yes. Yes. That's the reason why I got along so well. I got along very well with the boys and girls. Just only a few cases, it was nothing major. It was just someone pulling pranks, doing things that were annoying in the classroom, things of that sort. And I had to deal with things like that. But being a coach on the athletic staff, that gave me an edge. Really gave me an edge. | 36:03 |
| Chris Stewart | Were you a coach at Barber as well? | 37:03 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I was a coach at Barber as well. I coached, in the system, I coached for 24 years. Prior to the time that I stopped coaching, which was in '79, I was the oldest continuous coach in the county, the whole county. I had been coaching longer than anyone else in the system continuously. Of course, there were other coaches that had been coaching longer than I had. But I had been in the system coaching longer. We had some good teams, especially over at Barber. We were, for football, we were in contention just about every year. We won two state championships for football. Lots of good boys, went on to the big time. A big boy, Walt Bellamy. | 37:10 |
| Chris Stewart | Yes. | 38:31 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. And Aaron Martin went to the Rams, and his brother could have gone to Chicago Bears, but he wouldn't go. He decided to teach. Raymond decided to teach. So we produced some good athletes. Even at West Street, our first Black All-American in football was Bob Mann. That was back in the forties. He played for the Detroit Lions. He went to Hampton Institute his first year, and then he transferred to Michigan. And I think it was in his senior year, they played in the Rose Bowl. | 38:32 |
| Chris Stewart | [indistinct 00:39:33]. | 39:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And he caught the winning touchdown. So the city of New Bern has produced some very good athletes. He had Bob Perry go to baseball, and he was playing with the Angels, I believe, and carried him to New York. And country kid, first time being at bat, missed a signal, Whitey Ford was pitching, and he went out of the park at Yankee Stadium. First time at bat. | 39:33 |
| Chris Stewart | Oh my goodness. | 40:23 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Went out of the park. | 40:26 |
| Chris Stewart | Wow. | 40:27 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yeah. Whitey Ford. And Whitey Ford was one of the best. He went out of the park on him. Said his manager just hugged him. But he missed the signal, because he was supposed to lay down a bunt. He was supposed to lay down a bunt. Because there were, I think it was a man on first and third. Men on first and third. And he just went out of the park on him. That's all. | 40:27 |
| Chris Stewart | When you were coaching, you mentioned that coaches in general have a really great impact upon the student body. Can you talk a little bit about—And this is off the top of my head, this question's off the top of my head. | 41:10 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Okay. | 41:21 |
| Chris Stewart | Can you talk a little bit teaching young boys to be young men as a coach, and that process? | 41:22 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, for one thing, we looked upon the whole unit, the whole football team, as a family unit, especially over at Barber, where we were a family. And we also stressed that the wrong thing that you do hurts the rest of the members of the family. You have to be ever mindful of the things that you do. | 41:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Another thing, that you must have respect for the feelings and the opinions of others, you see. Then you must learn to dance. The reason being, because that fits in with your coordination. You had to learn to dance. | 42:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And when you managed to get all of these things down, then we considered you to be a coachable individual. You could sit, and listen, and take instructions, and carry out these instructions, you see. And we worked on them. We worked on them. And timing, what have you. So much to the point that you knew exactly what your partner was doing over on the other side. You knew where he was supposed to be, and what time he was supposed to be there. And that is the reason why we were successful. | 43:06 |
| Arlestus Attmore | But that family unit, I found that to be our strongest bond. Caring. When you hurt, I hurt. When you got that going, then you produce a unit that's very, very hard to beat. Very hard to beat. | 44:03 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Prior to the time, the last year that I coached, over to the senior high school, the fellow that was supposed to take over the junior varsity left. Some of the members of, another member of the varsity became dissatisfied, and the head coach wanted me to take over the junior varsity. I told him, he said, "Please do. I don't have anyone to turn to." So I took all of those kids, the youngsters, right out of junior high school, and molded them. They were a good team. They were a good team. | 44:41 |
| Chris Stewart | That was your last year? | 45:58 |
| Arlestus Attmore | That was my last year coaching, '79. They were a good team. It was wasn't too much that the varsity could do to us. They were little fellas, but they knew how to take advantage. I taught them how to take care of themselves. So whenever we would scrimmage, we would give them a hard time. In other words, I taught them to do things to the varsity that the varsity members didn't know what they were doing, you see? And the coach made mention of it to the principal, who was Mr. Fields, and— | 46:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | —wanted to know what I was doing over there. And he decided he wanted to come over. So, let him come over. It was his system, so I didn't show him what I was doing. As a result, for all the scrimmage, he took linebacker that made all-conference for four years. He was just a sophomore, he was in 10th grade. He took a knee-in and he took a tackle. He sent the tackle back down to me, because he said that he didn't fit in that program. And that Thursday night I put him in, he made 13 solos and six assists. | 0:02 |
| Arlestus Attmore | It was just a matter of telling them what to do, showing them what to do. And I found that a lot of coaches have good materials, but they don't know how to use them. Just don't know how to use them. And the good thing about it, I had a job for everybody on the squad. Everybody got to play. It's another thing, keep them happy and they'll produce for you. If you want to be successful, keep the members of your team happy. We had one small fella on the team, I think Brad Crawford weighed about 110 pounds. | 1:01 |
| Arlestus Attmore | And his mother would let him come to practice every day. But game time, she would tell me, don't put him in. I said, "I can't do that. He come to practice every day, he has a job to do and he has to do his job just like anyone else. I'm not going to let him sit on the bench when he comes out to practice and give his all and al." He was some little boy. Pound for pound, he was just as much man as anybody on the team. Kids liked that. He was all right. | 2:17 |
| Chris Stewart | So I have some family history forms that I'd like to take some time with you to fill out if you don't mind. What we do is we have family history that accompanies the tape. So that people can use it together. | 3:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | All right. | 3:21 |
| Chris Stewart | You're a history teacher. I feel like I've been redundant. You probably know everything that I've already— | 3:21 |
| Arlestus Attmore | No, I don't know everything. | 3:23 |
| Chris Stewart | Well, you know a lot. This is what I found out anyway. | 3:24 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Well, I've been here a long time. | 3:30 |
| Chris Stewart | Yeah. That's one of the really wonderful things about working on a project like this, is that you get to learn so much in a very short period of time. | 3:32 |
| Arlestus Attmore | I see. | 3:47 |
| Chris Stewart | To have the opportunity is really amazing. You can start by giving me your full name. | 3:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Arlestus, A-R-L-E-S-T-U-S. No middle name. Arlestus Attmore, A-T-T-M-O-R-E. | 3:59 |
| Chris Stewart | And your current address is 27— | 4:13 |
| Arlestus Attmore | 19 Moore Avenue. | 4:18 |
| Chris Stewart | And your current phone number, sir? | 4:28 |
| Arlestus Attmore | 637-6880, area code 919. | 4:32 |
| Chris Stewart | And how would you like your name to appear if any written material comes from this case? | 4:36 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Arlestus Attmore. | 4:46 |
| Chris Stewart | Your birthdate? | 4:47 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Second month, second day, '25. | 4:57 |
| Chris Stewart | And you were born here in New Bern. | 4:59 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, 22 Middle Street. | 5:06 |
| Chris Stewart | What was your wife's name, sir? | 5:23 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Her name is Geraldine Murray. | 5:23 |
| Chris Stewart | And her maiden name? | 5:37 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Harris. | 5:38 |
| Chris Stewart | When was she born? | 5:43 |
| Arlestus Attmore | She was born October 7th, 1930. | 5:45 |
| Chris Stewart | And you said she just died in May? | 5:49 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, May 22nd. | 5:55 |
| Chris Stewart | Was she born here in New Bern as well? | 6:00 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes, she's New Bernian. | 6:02 |
| Chris Stewart | What was her occupation? | 6:04 |
| Arlestus Attmore | She worked in the school system. She was a teacher. | 6:08 |
| Chris Stewart | Did she teach high school as well, sir? | 6:14 |
| Arlestus Attmore | No, elementary. | 6:16 |
| Chris Stewart | What grade did she teach? | 6:23 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Kindergarten, third grade, second grade. The last class that she taught, I think it was second grade. | 6:24 |
| Chris Stewart | So she had the kids at an early age and you got them— | 6:34 |
| Arlestus Attmore | Yes. Late, yes. | 6:37 |
| Chris Stewart | What was your mother's name, sir? | 6:39 |
| Arlestus Attmore | My mother's name was Mamie. | 6:43 |
| Chris Stewart | What was her maiden name? | 6:43 |
| Arlestus Attmore | She was Dawson. | 6:43 |
| Chris Stewart | Dawson? | 6:54 |
| Arlestus Attmore | D-A-W-S-O-N. | 6:57 |
| Chris Stewart | And when was her birthday? Do you recall? | 7:06 |
| Arlestus Attmore | She was born February 22nd. Let me see. Oh, boy. | 7:07 |
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