Annie Donaldson interview recording, 1993 August 03

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Sonya Ramsey	Interviewing Mrs. Donaldson. And I wanted you to ask you, Mrs. Donaldson, could you describe the neighborhood where you grew up as a child?	0:01
Annie Smith Donaldson	Where you are now, is my immediate neighborhood. It is a predominantly White neighborhood, and I've lived here all my life. And we didn't have too much problem growing up. In fact, my father bought all the property around us, so he could protect the neighborhood and be sure who his neighbors were. And we have rented this property to Whites at the time, and we got along beautifully at that particular time. One thing, the renter was a German descent and we didn't have too much problem. We had one little incident, some other children, White children from the neighborhood threw mud against the house. And the parent of the people of German descent, made the child come over and wash the mud off and were very apologetic for the incident.	0:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	So as far as neighborhood was concerned, it was peaceful and it is a quiet neighborhood. And so as far as neighborhoods are concerned, I really don't get the feeling of what my brothers and sisters went through in their neighborhoods.	1:22
Sonya Ramsey	How did your father come to buy land in a White neighborhood?	1:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	His father before him, was in real estate and he owned just lots of property. And at one time, he owned so much property where the present K football park is, that was in some areas—a little bit behind that was known as Smithtown. And after the fire of 1922, they condemned the property right away. And so we lost that. The present—my mother's house, right next door to me here, burned during the fire. Some of the general—everybody went through.	1:53
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. And you were saying your grandfather owned—	2:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	A lot of land.	2:42
Sonya Ramsey	Was he African-American?	2:44
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yes, African-American.	2:45
Sonya Ramsey	Did your family ever talk about how he came to own it?	2:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	I don't know. They don't talk much about that, but he was definitely Black, very much so. And I don't know how he got it. He served in the general assembly legislature, a long time ago. Isaac Hughes Smith Sr. My father's Isaac Hughes Smith Jr.	2:52
Sonya Ramsey	Were you the only Black family in your own neighborhood, or were there other Black families in your neighborhood, growing up?	3:15
Annie Smith Donaldson	Right across the street, St. Cyprian's Church, we had directors, priests who were there. And later on, they were others coming around towards George Street. Did you pass a red light?	3:25
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	3:42
Annie Smith Donaldson	Around there, a few homes.	3:42
Sonya Ramsey	Whose children did you play with? Did you play with other Black children from other neighborhoods, or with the White children from this neighborhood?	3:47
Annie Smith Donaldson	Definitely ain't no White children those days, no. My children were the ones who—well, they didn't actually play, no. And as a child they would slip and say hello, or pass a few words, then they were gone. After a while the parents would soon call her, "Come home, Jane or Sue," or whoever it was. And it was a matter of slipping and talking, and trying to play.	3:53
Sonya Ramsey	So when you were a little girl, who were your friends?	4:25
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, let me see. My friends were mostly the people who I attended church with, St. Cyprian. Father always—I guess it's a basic or economic too. And I think in those days, you played with the so-called nice children and they weren't always wealthy children, but children who had good home training, and people who wanted not to be ordinary.	4:30
Sonya Ramsey	Would your own parents take you to visit other children, other neighborhoods, since there weren't any Black children in your neighborhood?	5:07
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. Every age group had a little group that they associated with socially. Yeah, that's about it.	5:14
Sonya Ramsey	When you were growing up, what did your own parents—did they teach you about segregation and things, like why the White children didn't want play with you, or other parents [indistinct 00:05:35]—	5:26
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, gradually they did, for a while. And I would hear them speak about it. I noticed my mother would always make them call her "Mrs.", and she has gotten fussed at, about not calling her—she said, well, if she knew a clerk's first name, she said, "All right, Sue," and get them right back like that. And it was just awful at those days.	5:34
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask, you talked about your grandfather. Do you have any remembrances of your grandfather and your other grandparents?	6:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, I didn't know. I used to be a senior. I knew his widow, my grandmother.	6:28
Sonya Ramsey	What was she like?	6:35
Annie Smith Donaldson	She was a very proud woman and everything and she would resent any mistreatment, not calling her "Mrs." and everything like that.	6:35
Sonya Ramsey	Was she from this area too?	6:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think she was from Beaufort, if I remember. Somewhere down that way. I think the Smiths originally, at least on my father's side, came from Jones County.	7:00
Sonya Ramsey	Did she ever tell you about her life? Did she ever tell you anything about her when she was growing up?	7:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	A little bit. One thing, she went to parochial school and then, I think [indistinct 00:07:23] for a while, whatever education there they offered then. And she might have gotten a little bit—I don't know, Christ Church set up a school for—if they call it Colored. And they went off to about 1864. And then they stopped there.	7:17
Sonya Ramsey	Was she ever a slave, or was she [indistinct 00:08:05]—	7:53
Annie Smith Donaldson	Not that I know of. Because they claimed they never—see, I know on my mother's side there were no slaves.	8:05
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember your grandparents on your mother's side?	8:08
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yeah. In fact, I don't want to say it, but Thomas Day of the furniture, was her great-great grandfather. His work is in Raleigh, in the museum. And so I was trying to think what else she remembered. Oh, he built all the furniture in Milton and it was very segregated, then. He built his own pew, so his family could sit with the rest of the church members.	8:11
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, really?	8:57
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, he did. And he just resented all along. He fought in an easy way, to get it done.	8:59
Sonya Ramsey	This is Thomas Day, or [indistinct 00:09:13]—	9:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, Thomas Day.	9:13
Sonya Ramsey	And he was your grandmother's—	9:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Wait a minute. Great-grandfather.	9:18
Sonya Ramsey	On your mother's side?	9:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	9:19
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What was your grandmother like?	9:22
Annie Smith Donaldson	Let's see how describe her, she was a helper, community leader. She did a lot, I guess a little social welfare. She belonged to the church and the Dorcas Club and she was interested in the YWCA.	9:29
Sonya Ramsey	What was the Dorcas club?	9:46
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was a group of women, who just did a lot of charitable work.	9:48
Sonya Ramsey	What was—	9:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	And she worked with the YWCA and she set up a group on the campus.	9:58
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:10:08].	10:04
Annie Smith Donaldson	North Carolina Center.	10:08
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Was she living in Durham? Oh, okay.	10:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	She was Dr. James E. Shepard's wife [indistinct 00:10:20] Shepard.	10:16
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, yeah. Okay.	10:22
Annie Smith Donaldson	This is incidental, but she was Annie Day Shepard. My mother was Annie Day Smith. I am Annie Day The Third, and my daughter is Annie Day. I don't know whether you bumped into her coming in.	10:24
Sonya Ramsey	No, I didn't.	10:42
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, she's Annie Day too.	10:44
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, goodness. Okay. That's interesting. Does she ever talk about how it was being the wife of a college president and if she faced any problems with that and stuff from the White community and things?	10:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think the college community is pretty well contained, within the environment right there. My grandfather had no trouble raising money. He went north and of course with college, went through a lot of hardships in those days, raising money. And he fought for a lot of—a lot of people criticized it, but he fought, he prides himself with that. He'd never turned any money back to the general assembly. He always found use for money. He said, "We never have enough." And he was not going to turn it back to the Whites. And if it was nothing but build a walkway, he would use every penny he had. And they're asking, "Do you have enough money?" He said no. And some of the presidents pride in themselves in turning back money, but he never did. And he controlled the money for Black teachers, when they were so segregated for all those doing graduate study.	11:02
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, what do you mean by he—	12:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	They had a fund? I'm afraid to say the title of that fund now, but you could get graduate money to study.	12:19
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, he was—	12:27
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, because none of the schools had—	12:27
Sonya Ramsey	Graduate programs.	12:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	—programs for Black. Yeah, he set that up. I was trying to think of something else. I don't know whether he believed in—well, he said everything the Whites had, we should have. So I guess you would almost call that a separate but equal policy. But I was trying to really get the true facts. I know that much is his attitude. I won't say that was his definitely attitude. But he had expressed that so much.	12:31
Sonya Ramsey	Did you know your grandfather?	13:08
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yes, I did—	13:09
Sonya Ramsey	You did?	13:10
Annie Smith Donaldson	—very well. He was a gentleman. In fact, most people say he's kindhearted and everything. He's helped many person through school and everything.	13:11
Sonya Ramsey	So your mother grew up on [indistinct 00:13:28] campus—	13:26
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. That's right.	13:29
Sonya Ramsey	And then did she ever tell you how she met your father, or when they met?	13:31
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, they met up there in school. He was at national religious training school and he was up there now. I think it was an ROTC they had on the campus, and they met. My sister has a copy of their wedding announcement, the paper. And it said, two prominent families from the East and met the Piedmont area. So it was grandmother's from east and daddy was from there.	13:38
Sonya Ramsey	When you were growing up, did you ever feel any extra responsibility to behave and be a good girl, since you came from such a prominent family?	14:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yes. We felt it a lot. But it didn't bother us too much, because I think in those days, young people just don't think about doing the things they do now. You were from one extreme to the other. You were either a nice girl or boy, or you were a holy terror, a town [indistinct 00:14:52]. One or the other. And I think those days people, neighbors took more interest in the young people, because when my children would do something, anybody walking along the street would tell me for an instance. And today, we had a group playing around here and the train passed on Hancock side, about a block away. And a lady walking home from work told—she said, "They trying to hop the train." So before she was so outdone, because I knew it before she could get home, almost.	14:25
Annie Smith Donaldson	She said, "Who told you?" I said, "Some lady walking home from work." So it's always been like that. I think it's a little harder for the younger people, than it was for us, because it wasn't too much to do in those days. We didn't have the movie. I guess people have told you about the movies, have they?	15:35
Sonya Ramsey	What, they were segregated?	16:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yeah.	16:05
Sonya Ramsey	What were you going to say?	16:06
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, let's see. The Masonic there, the oldest movie in North Carolina. William R. I. Johnson's, the priest at St. Stephen's Church would call a few. I do that, few. The manager would call up and say, "Bring a few to see—" We saw Imitation of Life and Green Pastures, down there.	16:07
Sonya Ramsey	That was the only movies at that movie theater?	16:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	At that time, mm-hmm yeah.	16:41
Sonya Ramsey	And they would only have allowed a few Blacks in?	16:44
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	16:46
Sonya Ramsey	So rest of the Black, who couldn't go to the movies at all?	16:47
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. No, that's a quote, "Few." You know what that means? I guess, a select group. That's how we saw Imitation of Life. Otherwise, earlier I guess when I got older, maybe a teenager, we would have to go over to Little Washington, and where else? Little Washington, they didn't have one at Moorehead. I think that's the only place. But we in the buzzard roof, then. Had to climb many a step, to go against the ceiling to see a movie. And then later on, they developed some more.	16:49
Sonya Ramsey	When you growing up, what kind of games did you and your friends play?	17:31
Annie Smith Donaldson	Regular childhood games. Hide and seek, and hopscotch and all that. Elephant steps, and giant steps and all that, mostly. A lot of times, we just walked, look in the store. And I remember those days, the refreshment. Everybody, you went to somebody's house, they wanted to serve you cocoa for children. And if we had a party, it was always salmon salad sandwiches. That's about it.	17:36
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask you, what kind of values did your parents instill in you as a child?	18:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	Boy, everything that was good. They were hard, difficult. I think I was more afraid of my father than I was my mother, because he was sort of a stern person. Didn't say too much. And I didn't know how to figure him out. But I tell the children, they always instilled in me, we had so much to live for, and so much to do, and so much history and interest behind us, that you almost felt like you couldn't fail. That's about it.	18:34
Sonya Ramsey	How many brothers and sisters do you have?	19:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	I have one sister.	19:11
Sonya Ramsey	Just you two?	19:12
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	19:13
Sonya Ramsey	How many years apart are you?	19:14
Annie Smith Donaldson	Four and a half years.	19:17
Sonya Ramsey	Are you the oldest or the youngest?	19:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	I'm the oldest.	19:17
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, [indistinct 00:19:20]—	19:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	Like I said, my sister married, well, she's married to a doctor in Henderson, Dr. J.P. Green. You might know him. And his father served in the legislature, but that doesn't have nothing to do with it.	19:22
Sonya Ramsey	That's all right.	19:36
Annie Smith Donaldson	I forgot his first name, but he was a Green.	19:36
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I wanted to ask you, I guess about, what was the name of the church?	19:47
Annie Smith Donaldson	St. Cyprian.	19:51
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. How do you spell that?	19:56
Annie Smith Donaldson	C-Y-P-R-I-A-N.	19:57
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. And what type of denomination?	19:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	Episcopal.	19:58
Sonya Ramsey	Episcopal?	19:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	20:00
Sonya Ramsey	What role did that church play in your family's life?	20:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	Let's see. They were lifelong members, all the way from our grandma, I think. I don't know about her husband. I think so. But naturally, the wife usually follows the husband in those days particularly. And all her sisters were Episcopalian. My father was Episcopalian. My mother was a Baptist in Durham, before she married and came down here and then she joined the church, and all the whole family.	20:07
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:20:40].	20:37
Annie Smith Donaldson	My father served as senior warden for years, Church treasurer for a long time. And he contributed to rooms for the Good Shepherd Hospital, and they built that and furnished the room and he contributed.	20:39
Sonya Ramsey	And what was a typical Sunday like for your family?	20:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	Go to church, and in the afternoons you had to play choir. Thinking about playing, you'd just sit in your own house and play your dolls. Or sometimes, you could walk out with friends. And for adults, it was going for a ride. Just riding around.	21:10
Sonya Ramsey	So your father was a realtor?	21:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	Uh-huh.	21:36
Sonya Ramsey	And did he have any other businesses aside from—	21:36
Annie Smith Donaldson	No.	21:39
Sonya Ramsey	No?	21:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-mm.	21:39
Sonya Ramsey	And your mother, was she a homemaker or was she—	21:40
Annie Smith Donaldson	Homemaker most of the time. After my father died, she took over the office and ran it, operated that for him.	21:43
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I just wanted to ask, I guess we can go and ask you about some of your school. What was your elementary school like?	21:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	Let's see. It was very segregated, because we didn't have—I feel like my children were helped some by integration. The terms were short. We had shorter years to graduate from graduation. One thing, the teachers took a lot of interest in you. The first and only whooping I ever got in school, was from my 1st grade teacher. She said I was talking too much and before I could get home, she had already gone to the principal's office and called up my mother and told her, "Annie Day can do good work, but she still talks too much." And before I could get home, Mama met me on the porch and I got a good little tanning then. She said, "You can't behave." And that's about it. Then I didn't go to high school then. I went to Sedalia, Charlotte Hawkins Brown School.	22:03
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, what was that like? I haven't talked to anybody that went to that school [indistinct 00:23:18].	23:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was interesting. If you know anything, have you read anything?	23:20
Sonya Ramsey	Yeah.	23:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	I bet y'all heard about [indistinct 00:23:24]. You had to do things right there, too. And I think she put the finishing touches.	23:25
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of classes did they offer?	23:32
Annie Smith Donaldson	Some things that we, I wouldn't have gotten in public high school, like religion and music appreciation. See that came way later in the public school curriculum, for Blacks anyway. And you met a lot of nice people, girls and boys from really nice families.	23:36
Sonya Ramsey	And you stayed there in Sedalia, it was a boarding school?	23:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	24:01
Sonya Ramsey	Who were your roommates?	24:01
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yvonne Peele, from Greensboro. Let's see, I'm trying to think. Ruth Harvey from Danville, Virginia. You might know her. She's a lawyer.	24:04
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:24:20].	24:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	Her people were a lawyers there, and Yvonne Peeler's father was a principal. The A.H. Peeler in Greensboro.	24:20
Sonya Ramsey	Were most of the students there from prominent families also?	24:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	A lot of them.	24:34
Sonya Ramsey	Was it an expensive school to go to, or did you work your way through there, or mostly [indistinct 00:24:39]—	24:35
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, my father paid my way, yeah. I guess at that time, during the freshman year, I guess it was tough on them. But he made it.	24:39
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have classes in how to be a lady, and things like that?	24:46
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yes.	24:54
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of things did they teach you?	24:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, for instance, every Friday night they had a social and they served peanuts and mint. Instead of being Palmer Memorial Institute, we used to call it Peanut and Mint Institute. And if you danced too closely to a fella, she would come up there.	24:58
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:25:18]?	25:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. And tap you on your shoulder. And she was real strict, I can tell you. And she would tell you how to dress, if you had on a hat that she thought made your face look too round or something, she would tell you about it.	25:18
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have to learn sewing and things like that?	25:35
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, we had home-ec and it was pretty well-rounded program.	25:40
Sonya Ramsey	Were there a lot of boys there? Or was it girls and boys?	25:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was mixed. It was a good group of both. I think we always dominated. Yes, siree. But she had children from all over. Some of the names that I know now, I knew back then, like the group from Durham and everything.	25:49
Sonya Ramsey	How were the teachers out there? What were they like?	26:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	They were just like the rest of them. I think she really selected her—she might have selected a student body and her teachers. I have a feeling that she did. Knowing that they were right influence on young people.	26:19
Sonya Ramsey	Did you ever get to talk with her?	26:32
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yeah.	26:33
Sonya Ramsey	What was she like? What kind of person was she?	26:33
Annie Smith Donaldson	Stern. You might have had a little fear of her. You weren't sure whether you were doing the right thing, or the wrong thing. And she used to have a group of girls, living in her cottage with her. Canary Cottage it was called. And she asked me once, I never did want to go. I was having too much fun in the dormitory.	26:40
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of things would you do in the dormitory?	27:06
Annie Smith Donaldson	Cook and eating. Just talk, because there was no television then. And we would play tennis and things like that.	27:08
Sonya Ramsey	What was—they didn't like their [indistinct 00:27:25]?	27:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	Real strict. Very, very strict. You couldn't just call on a girl anytime you wanted to. You had certain hours that you had to come. And you would scamper to be out there on time, because if you didn't, you in serious trouble. And you couldn't go off the campus much. On Saturday morning sometimes, she would take us a little time, [indistinct 00:27:54], and you could buy your toiletries, and any little food you would want to eat. You had to go to church every Sunday. Yeah, that's about it. And every now and then, they would take you to a movie in Greensboro.	27:30
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have any athletics there, things like that?	28:12
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, a little bit.	28:17
Sonya Ramsey	Did they play the public Black public schools, or other private Black private schools?	28:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think they mostly could find it right there at the schools in the Greensboro area. See, it was just 10 miles from Greensboro.	28:24
Sonya Ramsey	And then did you go to the 12th grade or—	28:32
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, I finished them. That was one advantage I got out of high school a little bit earlier, because if I'd stayed here—in fact they didn't have the 12th grade here at that time. So it made me graduate a little bit early, before most of the children in high school.	28:37
Sonya Ramsey	Did your sister miss you when you left?	28:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. We were very close and she didn't go. I was the one who went, but she went to Atwater, to camp in the summer.	28:59
Sonya Ramsey	What was Atwater?	29:10
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was—	29:10
Sonya Ramsey	Where was that?	29:10
Annie Smith Donaldson	—in Massachusetts? I was [indistinct 00:29:20]—	29:15
Sonya Ramsey	That's very far.	29:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, it's really nice school. Sort of like Sedalia. She teases me all the time. You went Sedalia, and I went to Atwater.	29:20
Sonya Ramsey	And that was just for the summer?	29:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	29:34
Sonya Ramsey	Was that an all Black camp or was it integrated?	29:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think at that time, it was all Black.	29:34
Sonya Ramsey	Wow, that's amazing.	29:41
Annie Smith Donaldson	It's real nice. It's like today, you meet a lot of nice contacts, that last sometime a lifetime.	29:41
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Well after Sedalia, what did you do after that?	29:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	Went to Central, to my grandfather's school.	29:52
Sonya Ramsey	Did you want to go to that school, or you knew you had to go there or what happened?	29:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	I didn't want to go anywhere else. My children did not go to Central. My daughter, Uh-huh. Yeah, they went to Wake Forest. Both of them. Well, the attitude was, they felt like it was a challenge. They wanted a challenge. Truthfully, they wanted to challenge the White, to see that they could do as well as they did. And they did very well.	30:00
Sonya Ramsey	So you went to Central and did they know that you were the granddaughter of Shepard?	30:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yeah.	30:35
Sonya Ramsey	And how were you treated by the teachers and things? Did they show you any special favoritism?	30:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, because I got a D in physical ed, a [indistinct 00:30:50] D. I didn't like the horses, and that got me. So I tried to steer around the archery and other things that were, I thought a little bit easier. And they kept me out the sorority for a semester. I was about to pledge and I had to wait [indistinct 00:31:15].	30:53
Sonya Ramsey	What sorority did you want to pledge?	31:15
Annie Smith Donaldson	I was going Delta. I was Delta.	31:20
Sonya Ramsey	When did people pledge then, during their sophomore year? Sophomore year?	31:25
Annie Smith Donaldson	Definitely, yeah. As far as sorority, usually I'm the outcast, because my mother, aunt, are AKA—	31:31
Sonya Ramsey	What did they say when you told them you wanted to pledge Delta?	31:42
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, my granddad teased me. In fact, he claimed that Dr. Helen Edmond, had a good influence, or she influenced me. She was my history teacher.	31:44
Sonya Ramsey	When you, did they have rushes then, like they do now?	31:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. Yeah, and I think Dean Rush's niece, Evelyn Francis—No, Evelyn Rush had a good deal of influence too. She was going to Delta and we played together, down on the campus all the time. So naturally, we followed each other.	32:06
Sonya Ramsey	Was it a long pledge process?	32:24
Annie Smith Donaldson	No.	32:30
Sonya Ramsey	Is it about five weeks?	32:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	Five weeks, something like that.	32:31
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. So after you joined the sorority, what did you look for in selecting members for the next year's line and [indistinct 00:32:47]?	32:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	We looked for congeniality mostly. And those who we thought had goals, they wanted to reach to. And I'm trying to think of anything outstanding we did, but right now, I can't think of anything. We just followed the regular routine, I think for the most part.	32:47
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of activities did New Chapter do [indistinct 00:33:13]?	33:10
Annie Smith Donaldson	We sponsored training programs for freshmen sometimes.	33:16
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Did you have the Jabberwock there in front of it, or is it—	33:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, we didn't have the Jabberwock. I didn't come across the Jabberwock until I had set up the Chapter here in New Bern. I was one of the charter members. So we did that and I got my daughter in. That's about it. We did a lot of nice things. We encouraged people to pledge Delta and the biggest thing, to try to keep them in college.	33:30
Sonya Ramsey	When you were at Central, were the other sororities competing with each other?	33:52
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh yeah, they always.	33:53
Sonya Ramsey	In what ways did they compete?	33:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	Trying to get more pledges and everything. I can't remember offhand, some of the ways they did do competing. I guess homecoming floats and everything like that.	34:02
Sonya Ramsey	Were the Zetas on the campus then too, and the Sigma Gamma Rho, or was it just the Deltas and the AKAs—	34:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	Let's see. Yes.	34:24
Sonya Ramsey	And what were the friends of the Omegas? The friends of the Delta [indistinct 00:34:37]—	34:31
Annie Smith Donaldson	Friends of the Delta, yeah. And yeah, we really mixed it. I was thinking about my grandfather's a Kappa. So they were real nice about it. The fact my family is very tolerant about anything you do that's nothing wrong with, they'll approve of it. So they have a good time teasing me. And we will joke about it now, when they come home. They say gone, until they stop talking, "Go on Old Delta."	34:36
Sonya Ramsey	What were some of the other activities you participated in, while you were at Central?	35:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Intramural Sports.	35:16
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, what did you play?	35:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	Volleyball. That's about it.	35:16
Sonya Ramsey	What was the dating like, at Central?	35:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, as a freshman, if you went down with a date—we went back to dating.	35:35
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:35:40].	35:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was stricter those days. You had to go to Vesper on Sunday, then Rush would stand out there, Ruth Gremlin Rush, and she would have her sheet. You had a number. You supposed to sit in the same seat every Sunday, three o'clock Vesper. And she would check it and see. And if you weren't in your seat, you were in trouble. You had to see her. I've forgotten what the punishment—	35:41
Sonya Ramsey	She was the Dean of Women—	36:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	Dean of Women, mm-hmm. And let see, I think freshman had an early calling hour and—	36:21
Sonya Ramsey	Calling hour, that's [indistinct 00:36:28]—	36:27
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. They'd come and visit, to go downtown. Freshman had to go downtown. You had to find two other people to go downtown with you. And I think by the senior, you could go along if you wanted to go shopping or something, or go to the movie, something like that.	36:28
Sonya Ramsey	Why do you think the schools were so strict back then?	36:47
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, I think really it comes from, basically what I think we are short of now, is basically home training, community training and community expectations. We are getting back today—we are clamoring now, because so many of our Black youth are being killed. But if they realize that all along, it may not have been so bad, because as the youth grew up, they were clamoring "more freedom, more freedom, more freedom." And this is just my feeling. I think somehow, you can really copy the Whites. And I've heard a lot of teachers express that feeling, that we shouldn't hold onto those basic things that great grandparents through the years, preachers, teachers, neighbors or foster parents instilled in the children, and they just don't listen anymore.	36:52
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What year did you attend Central?	37:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	I finished in—wait a minute.	37:58
Sonya Ramsey	When did you—	38:02
Annie Smith Donaldson	1946.	38:02
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. I wanted to ask you, how did World War II affect you and your family?	38:06
Annie Smith Donaldson	What's that?	38:07
Sonya Ramsey	How did World War II affect you and your family?	38:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well—	38:14
Sonya Ramsey	Did you know anybody that had to go fight in there?	38:14
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, I didn't. I was a freshman, and since I was living in the dormitory then, that was my showing a little independence, that I wanted to live in the dormitory. I stayed in the dormitory two years. Then I think I got tired of eating cafeteria food, and I moved in the home with my grandparents.	38:19
Sonya Ramsey	Okay, I just wanted to ask you.	38:36
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, but I was there when the World War II and everybody—it was pandemonium. I think I ran all the way from the dormitory to my grandfather's house. Said, "Did you know the war?" He said, "Yeah, we're listening at it now." It was difficult, with the food stamps and everything to—	38:42
Sonya Ramsey	The rations.	39:01
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	39:02
Sonya Ramsey	Was it a scary time, at some points?	39:05
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, because every now and then you would hear about a death of some student. It upset the student body. You'd see the fellas leaving and everything. So it was—	39:08
Sonya Ramsey	Were there many men left on the campus?	39:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, not many. And in fact, we saw a lot of them right here, because the train used to run right down the street. They just took up the railroad tracks, about probably three or four years ago. And I would be on my mother's porch then, right next door and we would see them. They would be waving out the train window and everything. It was really sad. And some of them were crying in the windows, you could see them crying.	39:28
Sonya Ramsey	Did you get to know any soldiers who were—did they have a USO there, any people [indistinct 00:40:03]—	39:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	I always used to go down to Cambridge Junior, to some dances. My great aunt, I had as a chaperone and the recreation leader here, a fellow named Martin. And they would take us down on Friday nights, for dances.	40:03
Sonya Ramsey	What were some of the popular dances then?	40:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	Jitterbug.	40:21
Sonya Ramsey	Were you a good dancer?	40:31
Annie Smith Donaldson	Fair. Yes, fair. But it was really nice, because they had nights with freshmen and everything. It was just nice to talk away. It wasn't any social life here hardly. So it gave you a chance to talk to somebody, and everything.	40:32
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:40:45]. Were they only segregated dances and things like that?	40:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. That was that famous—I guess you read about that stuff, by that Montford Point. They had an article in the paper not too long ago, about they had a reunion. The first—I think there were three that came back to the reunion, Montford Point Marine. They were all clustered there at Montford Point.	40:50
Sonya Ramsey	The first Black Marines?	41:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. I did get to know a Sergeant Major. He was an Anderson from Birmingham, Pennsylvania. He married Mr. William Johnson's daughter.	41:16
Sonya Ramsey	And did you have a boyfriend during that time, when you were in college?	41:28
Annie Smith Donaldson	Off and on. I wrote to a lot of fellas, keeping their morale up during the war. And one or two came back, when they came home they stopped by college, to say hello and everything. That's about it.	41:35
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. So after you finished Central, what did you do after that?	41:51
Annie Smith Donaldson	I'll have to see, my father got very sick. And I to stayed home for a while, after I finished—oh no, I skipped the [indistinct 00:42:11], I went to AU, to take social work. My life is getting so long now, I forget. I took social work at AU.	42:02
Sonya Ramsey	Why did you decide to be a social worker?	42:22
Annie Smith Donaldson	I will tell you the truth, I wanted to be a doctor. Then I realized, I think it's like so many of us, we feel like you can't do it. And I gave that up. So he suggested going to take social work.	42:36
Sonya Ramsey	Was that a new field for—	42:53
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was—	42:55
Sonya Ramsey	Because most Blacks back then, became teachers and things.	42:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	I didn't want to teach particularly. So I think that had a big influence on it. Yes siree. So I enjoyed AU, that's where I met my husband.	43:00
Sonya Ramsey	Why did you select Atlanta University to go to?	43:12
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, my grandfather had a lot of different places he wanted to go to, Penn State and somewhere else. And he was naming the outstanding ones. And so my aunt said, "You go down to Atlanta." I just couldn't conceive Atlanta being the city that it was.	43:15
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I think you were talking about going—	43:38
Annie Smith Donaldson	Atlanta University.	43:42
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:43:44] you thought about? Yeah.	43:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	One reason, my aunt said, she said, "You have you a nice contact down that place." It was a good school, old school and everything. So she said, "I think you really need that, to get out and have you contact." And that's where I went. I had a good time, enjoyed it. Work was good there and everything. Then I came back home and worked about two years here in social services.	43:46
Sonya Ramsey	I'm going to go back and ask you, you said you met your husband there. How did you meet him?	44:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, that's a busy campus with all those colleges there, and the fellas just come around. He was a grader in Morris Brown, and just came around, and he happened to—I think we were sitting in the lobby and another young lady from New Bern went down with me. And we just started talking and he said, "I can't talk to you, because you were popular." And one night I almost did have a boo-boo, because I had told another fella he could come over, and all of them bumped in the lobby at the same time.	44:26
Sonya Ramsey	How did you get out of that?	45:07
Annie Smith Donaldson	The other fellow said, "I'll just leave, goodbye." And Johnson started talking again. He wasn't about to leave.	45:11
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. You went out.	45:22
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. So that was it. And then I stayed down there, while he finished school and I worked in the Gate City and the nursery school there, and I got to be director. Then I came back here. My father got real sick and he wanted me to come. I did not want to come back to New Window.	45:27
Sonya Ramsey	You wanted to stay in Atlanta?	45:46
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. But he begged. He wrote such a pitiful letter and said, "Come back home, I need you. But anywhere you go, I'll help you." So we moved back here in '51, '52.	45:46
Sonya Ramsey	What was Atlanta—what was the city like when you lived there, before you moved back here?	46:02
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was very segregated at that point. Very segregated.	46:07
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have a—they had a pretty large Black population.	46:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, yeah. I can see why it grows, because you have people who are interested in the growth. And anytime you have a cultural center like Atlanta, I see progress all the time. Even in race relations, I think. Because you have a different caliber of thought there. That makes it nice.	46:15
Sonya Ramsey	So then you and your husband moved back here in—	46:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	Back here.	46:43
Sonya Ramsey	—1951?	46:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	46:43
Sonya Ramsey	What was your husband's occupation?	46:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	Teacher.	46:47
Sonya Ramsey	Teacher?	46:47
Annie Smith Donaldson	He's retired now. He taught 34 years.	46:48
Sonya Ramsey	Goodness, okay. Did you work —	46:57

Annie Smith Donaldson	Two girls.	0:01
Sonya Ramsey	Two. It's like your mother, two girls.	0:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	Two girls, yeah. I'm keeping up with their education and they done feeling well.	0:09
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have your daughters when you were New Bern or did you have them before [indistinct 00:00:20]?	0:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	New Bern. They fuss with me now and say, "Why didn't you stay in Atlanta?" But I don't know. Atlanta, everybody wants to leave the larger cities too in a way. I laughed, I said, "I've been retired a long time," and I said, "I've been in New Bern all my life just about, except a little bit."	0:20
Annie Smith Donaldson	I'm glad I was around to help them with their problems with integration of the school. It really—	0:50
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to go back and ask you what was your wedding like?	0:58
Annie Smith Donaldson	My father was real sick. It was a family wedding and two, three church members. That's it. My mama had it very nice. We walked to the church and she had it all decorated. We had a big dinner afterwards. That's it.	1:05
Sonya Ramsey	Did you go in a honeymoon?	1:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	1:21
Sonya Ramsey	Where did you go on your honeymoon?	1:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	New York.	1:21
Sonya Ramsey	How did you travel there?	1:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	Pullman. Oh boy, I bet, have people told you about the grandfather travel Pullmans, either way because to keep fighting segregation. He said he just would not ride in the Jim Crow car.	1:34
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, so he did his own car. That's what he did.	1:48
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, uh-huh.	1:49
Sonya Ramsey	So on your honeymoon, you had your own car.	1:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	Uh-huh, I liked that.	1:49
Sonya Ramsey	What did you think about New York City?	1:57
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, I enjoyed that. It was wonderful. Coming from New Bern, all the bright lights dazzled. I think they were still dazzling me then.	2:00
Sonya Ramsey	So when you first moved back to New Bern, then you said you worked where when you—	2:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, I worked at the Cleveland County Department of Social Service for about three years.	2:22
Sonya Ramsey	And you worked in social work. What kind of people did you work with and kind of things did you do?	2:29
Annie Smith Donaldson	I had a general case load. At that time they were calling it welfare, welfare [indistinct 00:02:43] and welfare. And we had a very, I guess you would call her, she had a low esteem for Black women and—	2:36
Sonya Ramsey	Your boss, do you—	2:56
Annie Smith Donaldson	She was Anita Whitford, and she just got on me, if you called every woman that came in there, she had a illegitimate child. She would call them strumpets and everything.	2:57
Sonya Ramsey	Did she work with the mainly poor Blacks or with poor Whites also?	3:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Blacks all the way. I don't think, I didn't have a White person on my caseload.	3:18
Sonya Ramsey	So they sent the poor Whites to White social workers?	3:24
Annie Smith Donaldson	That's right. My daughter is in vocation of rehabilitation now. I was telling her then that there was a woman at Tony, permanents were just being put on the market, and this White woman, somebody gave her one, I guess, and it took all her hair out. That was so hush, hush, hush because they weren't hardly serving Blacks then.	3:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	I was telling Annie Day the other day, I said, "I remember that well," and it was just a boot to help a Black. If you had an accident like that, you just stayed like that.	3:58
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of problems did people have, what kind of problems do they have in general?	4:15
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mostly work for trying to find a job, all these children, and well, economic, that's your money and your job, and trying to find these husbands, they're still trying to find them.	4:21
Sonya Ramsey	Did you ever talk to them about birth control and things like that?	4:44
Annie Smith Donaldson	I don't think we were allowed to talk then. They did all that. The superintendent of welfare would do that, because they did some—they went from one extreme to the other. They did not talk birth control. Only birth control they taught was sterilization.	4:47
Sonya Ramsey	Really?	5:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	Period. Yeah, sterilization.	5:10
Sonya Ramsey	Did they tell Black women that more than or did they tell White women that too to get sterilized or is it mainly the Black women?	5:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mostly the Black women. First thing, sterilization and that was supposed to cure all.	5:18
Sonya Ramsey	Did they ever try to make them do that if they wanted benefits?	5:26
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. They would take them to court.	5:31
Sonya Ramsey	To get them sterilized?	5:33
Annie Smith Donaldson	Uh-huh.	5:35
Sonya Ramsey	Really?	5:35
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	5:35
Sonya Ramsey	What did the Black women fight that?	5:36
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, and I guess some of the mentality, they didn't even realize maybe what it actually meant. I think they put some fear into them that you won't get your check. They have a way of doing that even today. They threaten them by money.	5:38
Sonya Ramsey	How many children did a woman have to have before they would try to make her do that?	5:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	To tell you the truth, I don't remember now. But I imagine you had to have about three or four on up, like that.	6:09
Sonya Ramsey	Did most of the people you worked with live in the city of New Bern, or did they live in the rural areas?	6:14
Annie Smith Donaldson	Most of them in the city. We had a few cases, and I guess the nicest thing about that thing, they did get handicapped children off to these schools, like the deaf school and everything, blind treatment. That's about it.	6:22
Annie Smith Donaldson	But the rest of these young people, they just didn't do anything much for them except call them names and everything. That worried me more than anything else. They're here and see them crying. Somebody call you those kind of names and everything, makes you lose your self esteem.	6:41
Sonya Ramsey	What were some of the accomplishments you thought you made on your job?	7:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think I brought a little softness to those who are already downtrodden, because to tell you the truth, my aunt was hard on me, and she was seemingly joined in with the feeling already there, and I tried to see that their needs met. It got to the point that I just got tired of that atmosphere in the office. I just stopped after my first child was born.	7:15
Sonya Ramsey	When did you have your first child?	7:48
Annie Smith Donaldson	19, oh boy, '54.	7:51
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, so you didn't work, you quit working after your first child?	7:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	Uh-huh.	8:01
Sonya Ramsey	Did you resume working later at another field?	8:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, I haven't, no. I just helped my mother with something in the office. That's it. Let's see, if you want more about the work you would like to know or go over?	8:06
Sonya Ramsey	Oh no, it's fine. Whatever you want to share. I wanted to ask, let's see, you know some of the people that you worked with outside of the, that you worked with them. Did you know them in the community or they [indistinct 00:08:33]	8:24
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, I knew one girl and my aunt. That's it, great-aunt.	8:32
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask you, when did you—you said you were founding members of the chapter?	8:37
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	8:46
Sonya Ramsey	Why did you decide to do that, and when did you do that?	8:48
Annie Smith Donaldson	Well, lack of social activity around New Bern, lack of clubs, so many clubs. We just thought being nice to do if other places could have one. So we put on a drive to look for Deltas. We would ride over to Washington, 36 miles, went down to Morehead and Beaufort looking for Deltas [indistinct 00:09:17], and think we went as far as Goldsboro looking for Deltas.	8:51
Annie Smith Donaldson	We found, I think, one [indistinct 00:09:27], Virginia, came down to work for the county agent, and we found a good Delta there and we put on a recruiter, we got up enough.	9:24
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have a certain number?	9:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, we had to have a certain number. I think it was 14 at that time. So we wrote, I think, Dr. Helen Edmonds was, was she reading direct I think? She brought one and we had May Holmes came and helped us set up the chapter.	9:41
Sonya Ramsey	And this was what year? The 1950s?	10:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	1950s, yeah.	10:11
Sonya Ramsey	The late 1950s?	10:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	Uh-huh, that's right.	10:11
Sonya Ramsey	And what kind of activities would the graduate chapter do [indistinct 00:10:22]?	10:18
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, they do a lot of things. They have a big scholarship. The Jabberwock is the biggest money. They do very well with that.	10:21
Sonya Ramsey	And that's like a talent show thing or?	10:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	Sometimes they bring a college group players, dramatic club. I don't think they've done music. They have skits and different—one year they had just skits and some of them were very good, almost professional. And they contributed, community wise.	10:33
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have the other sororities have graduate chapters here?	10:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, they had AKA. I teased my mother because she's a AKA, and I said, "Well, we were the first ones in New Bern. They got jealous, very jealous." To tell you the truth, we did a lot of nice things because we had the Cotton Funeral Home is way out there on Highway 70. We were the first ones to use that place. They had it upstairs, of course, it was way out. It seemed they did, because we had not grown that much, and they were nice about letting us use it and we had a very nice—	10:57
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask about when they built the marine base Cherry Point, how did that change New Bern and the Black community in New Bern?	11:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh it made living conditions much better. You had more children going off to college without too much scholarship at that day. It gave them an opportunity for the parents to pay something now, because everybody's begging for money now for college. But you gave them training that they wouldn't have had.	11:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	It's remarkable how attitude, I don't know whether it got better or worse, but when Cherry Point was—my father being in the public, heard a lot and he had White client who put their property in his hands, the hammer collect for him. He said he used to tell us all the time that they really got angry, because it took their maids and nurses out of their homes. And he said they raised sand, oh.	12:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	It made us a little more independent. We did not have to take their mistreatments in their homes and everything. It was really a good thing for New Bern, because some of these home wouldn't be built.	12:55
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of jobs did they offer to Blacks [indistinct 00:13:13]?	13:10
Annie Smith Donaldson	The Cherry Point in New Bern?	13:13
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	13:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Before Cherry Point?	13:13
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, I guess before and then at—	13:13
Annie Smith Donaldson	Before Cherry Point, they were mostly working as maids and nurses for their children, and the salaries were very low, very low. If you worked for a very prominent White person, you might get as much as $5 a week, like that, and the rents went right along with them. But living conditions were terrible at New Bern then.	13:14
Sonya Ramsey	What decade did they build Cherry Point, was it the '40s or '50s?	13:53
Annie Smith Donaldson	In the '40s, the late '40s.	13:53
Sonya Ramsey	Now, what kind of jobs did they have for Blacks to work at Cherry Point?	13:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	I think first along, think the first group they got in at Cherry Point did have the—well, menial jobs, and especially Cherry Point, and then they worked on it as more of your children finished college, you're getting your engineers, your typists. There was a group came in here that worked in Washington D.C, and they were trained and as the employees moved, we got a nice influx of people like that.	14:10
Sonya Ramsey	Yes. Do you have friends that live in James City [indistinct 00:14:50]?	14:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	I know a lot of some people over there.	14:51
Sonya Ramsey	What was James City like when you—did you ever visit there when you were younger?	14:54
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh yeah.	14:55
Sonya Ramsey	What was it?	14:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	There were one or two nice homes, but the masses, people had little huts that you could see the fire in the stove as you pass there. They're tearing a lot of those down now, and James said it was really like a new place. You have nice homes on the highway, but riding along there, you used to see there were lean-tos, that's bad.	15:02
Sonya Ramsey	It was the all Black city?	15:27
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, and I haven't seen that cemetery they found. I said one day I'm going over there and see it.	15:35
Sonya Ramsey	Did your father work with property there too or was he just—	15:40
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, he had some. That's why I know why those places, they would have a dollar a week rent. That would be $4 a month, $2 at the most, and they were terrible.	15:43
Sonya Ramsey	Did your father ever, I guess later years, I guess in integration, have Black families that wanted to move into White neighborhoods and things like that?	15:56
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm—	16:11
Sonya Ramsey	No, most people just stayed?	16:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, they just stayed where they were. As things change and as the city laws got—where is he? Thinking about James City. The Whites have pushed all the riverfront lots. They stopped that. They are shrewd like that. They see this water and then they're greedy for water, and they stopped that migration and they fixed it so now they right up on the boundary.	16:12
Annie Smith Donaldson	I doubt that you can get any more of that waterfront property or too much over there. If you ride through there, you see all these suburban areas through they all these—I can't think of [indistinct 00:16:56] and the other. So they have really, I think, taken some property from Blacks.	16:42
Annie Smith Donaldson	It's too bad economically we can't hold on to it, because we had let some property right here in New Bern go, because people need money. If you don't have the jobs to make the money, you have to sell something or do something.	17:05
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to go back and ask you about the fire in 1922, and they condemned some of the Black men for this.	17:23
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, all this way.	17:32
Sonya Ramsey	Now how did that fire get started? Was it just a [indistinct 00:17:38]?	17:32
Annie Smith Donaldson	It started, as I understand, again, it's prejudice, it started in a Black neighborhood up near the Days Inn, somewhere, that area. It was a windy day and a fire broke out down in this area, and they naturally went to the White fire first. And by that time the wind had just swamp, and all this area was nothing but chimney standing up, looked like a ghost town. And there might be some pictures down in the library showing that.	17:37
Sonya Ramsey	When they condemned the Black neighborhood, that means that they couldn't rebuild their houses there?	18:19
Annie Smith Donaldson	That's right.	18:21
Sonya Ramsey	So they had to move.	18:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	Move.	18:21
Sonya Ramsey	Where did they move to, do you know [indistinct 00:18:25]	18:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	That's why we lost our best poplar. We had some nice homes, and they couldn't build. What they built back, New Bern is now, a lot of them been torn down, because they've had from the '70s to pass city codes, they have really upgraded New Bern a whole lot. But a lot of them went north to get a better job. That's the only way they could rebuild. We lost—some are just beginning to come back to New Bern now, some of the children.	18:25
Sonya Ramsey	Did your family own some of the land that was condemned, can you think or?	19:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, this area down here off of Bern Street.	19:08
Sonya Ramsey	Was that a financial hardship then when they condemned the land?	19:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	I guess so, because we got another bad deal of White. I don't know why his father or how he got it, but a White lawyer got hold of this property and he didn't pay the taxes. My father at that time, I remember as a younger person, I guess I was almost graduated college and my granddad said, my father was sitting there in the rocket chair. Dr. Shelton said, "Do you believe I can raise this money?" Wasn't but $25,000, but at that time, that was like a million dollars to pay the tax. He said, "Yes, you can."	19:15
Annie Smith Donaldson	So he sold law a lot of property to raise that money that that White man cheated on the matter. But on the secondhand, it's paradoxical. On the other hand, a White lawyer, another White lawyer, he was lawyer Lee, helped him. He pleaded with the city fathers to let him have a chance to pay it off. So I tell the children, it's all so mixed up.	19:57
Annie Smith Donaldson	One minute you say, "Oh I don't like them." Then the next one you think about some of the things you can do, so I said it's a kind of puzzle. I said, "You have to just sense a person and feel whether they is sincere or not." But he sold off all that on Bern Street. There are a lot of them, where those brick homes are.	20:26
Annie Smith Donaldson	My mother always felt like he sold them too cheap. But it was on his mind to get it over with, and he doubted, because now $25,000, people pay that much for a car. But that was like a million dollars to him. Not knowing, I guess, not knowing what the Whites would do, or where he could sell it to, because our people really did not have much money.	20:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	New Bern's always been a poor town, and so Cherry Point has been a blessing to them. And the White people still don't like them.	21:25
Sonya Ramsey	Oh really?	21:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, they still basically underneath every now and then they'll say something about it, just like they want us out of here now.	21:35
Sonya Ramsey	Out of this neighborhood?	21:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm, and I just tell them, whenever I hear something a White person tell me, I said, "Tell them I've been living here all my life and my people before me." But they feel like when we die that the girls going to be so anxious for money, they thought when my mother died, we would want money so bad that we would just say, "Have it." We wouldn't let them in her things either.	21:44
Sonya Ramsey	And they [indistinct 00:22:12]	22:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	We need to fix it up. I was begging my sister now to come down here and paint and fix up and do, because they looking for a loophole. They want us to falter somewhere along the way. But I'm trying to hold and they asked, I hate not to—they said, "Well, not everybody who's on hood won't keep the place nice." But I said, "We got a case right down the street and they put a Black family in there." They brought dope, they brought prostitution, and the neighbors are all against it. I mean, because it's always been quiet down here.	22:12
Sonya Ramsey	So land ownership is very important to your families and stuff and friends and [indistinct 00:23:07]?	23:00
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. So everybody had the home and built the home and everything. My father gave me this house, but the same aunt who was a social worker was very, oh well, I don't know how she—well, she was weird and she followed us all along the way, and my daddy is so happy, he gave me enough bonds too, along with the house. My mother pleaded with them. She said, "Hughes was my husband. I know what he wanted for his daughter." Said, "He fixed the house for her."	23:07
Annie Smith Donaldson	But they made me pay a little something like $3,500. But I had the cash bonds to do that. Everybody had their home. They had a brick hotel down there. Did anybody talk to you about the Rhone Hotel?	23:39
Sonya Ramsey	Me? No. What it a Black hotel?	23:57
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	23:58
Sonya Ramsey	No, what was the name?	23:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	See we had Rhone Hotel.	24:01
Sonya Ramsey	R-O-N-A-L-D?	24:02
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, R-H-O-N-E. They built the Hotel down there. They had a lot of people working on the railroad, and they would stop there to get a meal, and then they would let certain ones have a room, because there wasn't any place for them to stay now unless you stayed in a private home. And that was all, I think the lady who came down here, let's see.	24:03
Annie Smith Donaldson	In other words, they found a lot of architectural values in some of the Black homes in Duffyfield. She was saying a lot of Black history is in there. They were talking about some of the old organizations that had, like the Elks Club and I guess you heard of that, the [indistinct 00:25:02].	24:37
Sonya Ramsey	Wanted to ask you about, what were some of the organizations when your daughters were little that you belonged to, aside from the Deltas? You any children's, did they have Jack and Jills?	25:05
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, nothing like that. The biggest thing was Deltas and the Climbers Club, the Women's club, Women's club.	25:14
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of activities did the Climbers Club do?	25:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mostly uplifting, they observe every holiday. I attended the Negro History Week. They have big programs. They have beautification, home and garden club, they have beautification and projects. They go on trips and they give it—	25:28
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have a special activity that you did in the club or?	25:50
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mostly beautification?	25:56
Sonya Ramsey	Working with gardening?	25:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	26:01
Sonya Ramsey	You mentioned later that your daughters, you had to help them with integration. Could you talk some about that?	26:08
Annie Smith Donaldson	Let's see, I'll start with Marjorie first, the younger daughter was assigned to Central School right back here, one block. I think they used one part now, it was a high school, New Bern High School then. She was assigned.	26:19
Sonya Ramsey	What year?	26:41
Annie Smith Donaldson	So it crossed me—	26:42
Sonya Ramsey	Was this the 1960s?	26:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	[indistinct 00:26:49] Annie went to school in 1954—'59, I think.	26:49
Sonya Ramsey	Well, let's see.	26:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	Wait a minute, might be [indistinct 00:27:01]	26:49
Sonya Ramsey	Might be 1960.	26:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	60, yeah.	26:49
Sonya Ramsey	'64 or '69, around in there.	26:49
Annie Smith Donaldson	'59, yeah. She was assigned. It dawned on me. I said, "I'm not going to separate the children and let one go through maybe a traumatic experience by herself." We went down to superintendent, asked him, "Could Annie Day go," I said, "I don't want to separate the girls." He was nice about it and he said yes, so they entered together.	27:09
Sonya Ramsey	The White high school?	27:37
Annie Smith Donaldson	No, the elementary school—	27:39
Sonya Ramsey	The elementary school, oh.	27:39
Annie Smith Donaldson	Marjorie would have been all the way with her on 1st grade year. I don't know what she learned, whether it was better or good, probably. But she was assigned legally to that school.	27:42
Sonya Ramsey	Some of the first ones to integrate?	27:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah.	27:58
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of problems did they face?	27:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	I'll start with the older one first. Annie Day had a lovely teacher, Miss Helen Carr, and she did everything, every trick in the book to get Annie Day accepted, and she would talk about her home and talk about furnaces, because they felt like no Blacks had furnaces, something like that.	28:06
Annie Smith Donaldson	She did lovely things, and she would put her work on the bulletin board. They were both very smart young people, and they did as well as they did. She had trouble. One teacher would put all her Black kids under the window. I guess they were all supposed to have body odors and put the window up. What else happened with [indistinct 00:29:10]?	28:34
Annie Smith Donaldson	Then going back, I would skip back to Marjorie now, 1st grade she had a nice teacher, fairly nice, and at first, she started crying because they wouldn't half play with her at recess.	29:13
Sonya Ramsey	With the other children?	29:28
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah-huh. She didn't know how to take that, so Mrs. Gibbs saw that and that worked out. She got to 2nd grade. It was Little. We found out she was getting real nervous. She cried every day going to school, and so finally, Mama's house was right next door. When our windows were open, before the house with air conditioning, she said, "I'm tired of hearing Marjorie cry every morning before school."	29:30
Annie Smith Donaldson	She said it was beginning to make her nervous. You'll have stomach aches. And so she got on the phone, and right there where that phone is now, and called. She told her 1st grade teacher about, she said, "Now, I know that are different kind of prejudice in how you all do." But she said, "It is running a lovely child's disposition and nerves and everything." She said, "Some of you resent Blacks who can live like you do."	30:01
Annie Smith Donaldson	She said, "There are others who only like Blacks who can cook and clean up your house, you maids and so forth." Then she said, "There are some who only like entertainers and there are some who—" What did she say? She had a whole list. Something just like, "If you preachers and teachers," or something like that.	30:38
Annie Smith Donaldson	Miss Gibbs said, "I'm going to talk to Miss Little and see what is going on like that." She kept on putting Marjorie with all the little Black kids and they had no home training whatsoever. They came from way back here on House, one of the worst sections in New Bern, and they showed it. But I felt sorry for the children, because I said, "Nobody's helping them."	30:59
Annie Smith Donaldson	Then she, Miss Little did so much. Then the 3rd grade she had a teacher named Ms. Martin, and she again grouped all the Black kids together. It wasn't by ability or anything, it was just by color, and so we would go to PTA meetings and she would egg us completely. She would—	31:34
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:32:01]	32:00
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah. Then one time they were talking about people who had been abroad. So Marjorie said, "My grandmother's been abroad," and she almost told her she was fibbing.	32:00
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:32:21] a Black person.	32:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, could be there. Another little boy, his brother had been in the service and he had gone overseas. Next day, I thought of a little devilish things to do. I said, Marjorie, "Take your little doll from Germany your grandmother bought you." And I said, "Then your godmother gave you something from Italy."	32:25
Annie Smith Donaldson	She took her thing and it so happened she had on some Swiss and brought her suspenders made out of felt. And she took that. So the lady didn't want to accept it. She said, "Oh, they must have been soldiers." She said, "My grandmother hadn't been in the army."	32:51
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:33:13].	33:11
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, a bit. But that's the kind of things they went through.	33:12
Sonya Ramsey	Did you ever go talk with the teachers?	33:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh yeah.	33:18
Sonya Ramsey	What did they say to you?	33:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was all right. Miss Martin never would talk much. She would duck us, really ignored, and she would disappear rather than talk. But Miss Little, through others that we had talked to and told them what they were doing to the—Miss Desiway still at this day, makes little cutting remarks.	33:21
Annie Smith Donaldson	She's so quick to be around. I go sometimes, I have a women's fellowship, of course. I go down here sometimes to take bible study with the Christ Episcopal Church, the epitome of segregation and racism. But Miss Desiway, it's like, she'll let you know she belongs to St. Cyprian real quickly so they won't get an idea that you belong. Then they was in the midst of the race riot they had outside of the high school.	33:46
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask, before we go to high school, in your elementary school, what was the principal like? Was he helpful or?	34:23
Annie Smith Donaldson	The first one wasn't, because a group of parents had gone down there to talk to him and he slipped out and said nigger, and he couldn't say it with the pronunciation. He thought that was the way a lot of them try to hide behind that. That's the way it sounds to me or comes out to me. We all said, "Ooh," and walked out on him anyway, not a thing he had to say. Then another one, let's see, they had that terrible race riot though. The children didn't like it. I mean—	34:33
Sonya Ramsey	Do they have the same elementary and high school in the same building for the White students too? Or was it a different?	35:16
Annie Smith Donaldson	By the time, after a while, at one time it was. So now, they—	35:22
Sonya Ramsey	Was it the one school when your daughters went?	35:28
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-mm.	35:29
Sonya Ramsey	It's two.	35:29
Annie Smith Donaldson	Two still.	35:29
Sonya Ramsey	So after they finished—	35:29
Annie Smith Donaldson	Annie Day went from 6th grade to, oh, finished. She graduated when they were a high school.	35:36
Sonya Ramsey	That's when the end of elementary school was 6th grade or 7th grade?	35:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	Seventh grade.	35:43
Sonya Ramsey	7th, and then they went on to the high school.	35:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	High school. She stayed there through the 8th grade. Then there, it starts at 9th grade.	35:50
Sonya Ramsey	Did both your daughters go to the White high school?	35:55
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm. Marjorie started all, she's been with them, except one year, they paired the grade and I think it was 6th grade. She went to West Street, but she had a White teacher.	35:58
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask, when your daughters went to elementary school, did they have any Black teachers at the school or was it they're just White?	36:14
Annie Smith Donaldson	In that particular school, there wasn't any.	36:23
Sonya Ramsey	There wasn't any.	36:23
Annie Smith Donaldson	And they were just a small group of girls that went. The parents had said they were going to get together and just send them, and it was a hard time getting any Blacks to go to school.	36:26
Sonya Ramsey	Why, they were fearful and [indistinct 00:36:45]?	36:43
Annie Smith Donaldson	Fearful.	36:45
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:36:47] the children.	36:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	And they said that. The Whites were so prejudiced and everything.	36:46
Sonya Ramsey	What gave you and your husband the courage to send your children there?	36:51
Annie Smith Donaldson	Because Marjorie was assigned. See, a small group of older children, let me see, Stephanie Kenya was—I'm trying to think of those girls. Stephanie Acker Hockley went, and then Joan Parker and Park's daughter. Then they decided they would go. Marjorie was assigned and I put Marjorie there. I said, "What's good for one, it's good for the other." And so that's how that happened.	36:56
Sonya Ramsey	I guess going out to the hospital, you said your daughter Annie Day was in the middle of that riot?	37:29
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm.	37:34
Sonya Ramsey	How did that start off?	37:35
Annie Smith Donaldson	What time?	37:35
Sonya Ramsey	How did the riots start?	37:36
Annie Smith Donaldson	Hey, maybe call the expert. Let's see, what—it was over a program I remember.	37:41
Sonya Ramsey	That's okay. Was it a big, was it most of the students were rioting or—?	37:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, everybody had to get out of there in a hurry.	37:47
Sonya Ramsey	Was she okay? Did she [indistinct 00:38:01]	38:00
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, she was all right.	38:01
Sonya Ramsey	And she was—	38:01
Annie Smith Donaldson	We was called to go get everybody immediately.	38:03
Sonya Ramsey	Did Marjorie go to school then there too?	38:09
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, she went to high school.	38:12
Sonya Ramsey	Was it harder for them in high school or in elementary school?	38:15
Annie Smith Donaldson	It was harder in elementary school.	38:24
Sonya Ramsey	Elementary school, so even though they had the White, it was a little better.	38:27
Annie Smith Donaldson	Oh, Marjorie—I'm trying to think.	38:30
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have Black cheerleaders then at that school then?	38:40
Annie Smith Donaldson	That's why the incident with the principal and the parents walked out, it was concern—I'm glad you brought that up. It was concerning cheerleading, and they wanted to know why one young lady, who's very good, didn't make it.	38:45
Annie Smith Donaldson	It's difficult I think for them to get in things like the drill team and that cheerleader, but now it's better. I think the band was a little bit easy if they had been musically inclined.	39:03
Sonya Ramsey	Now, Ms. White, during that time period and before, were your family involved with the NAACP?	39:17
Annie Smith Donaldson	Mm-hmm, yep.	39:26
Sonya Ramsey	Then were they involved in any other political organizations?	39:26
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, they belonged to voters—wait a minute, what is? I guess the voters league they have.	39:31
Sonya Ramsey	I wanted to ask, so your daughters then went on to Wake Forest?	39:44
Annie Smith Donaldson	That's right.	39:46
Sonya Ramsey	I guess I think I have asked all of my questions that I can think of. Is there anything else I've left out I should've asked?	39:46
Annie Smith Donaldson	Asked, hmm. I was trying to think about, and they was mentioning the future this morning, and she said, "Looks like for young people it is getting back to 1950s real quickly," and she said, "I'm wondering what'll happen." She said, "Are we fighting enough or somebody should be on the watch-out, especially for agency, as far as jobs are concerned because the federal government and the state government, they are really trying to eliminate Black workers real fast." It's concerning to them, and you said the little underhand prejudice things that—	40:03
Sonya Ramsey	The subtle, prejudice things.	40:56
Annie Smith Donaldson	Yeah, they do, and she said, "One man," I don't know what's happening here today. Because she said, I don't want to get upset because she was going for a job interview or something, her boss must have said something.	40:57

Item Info

Title:

Annie Donaldson interview recording, 1993 August 03

Date:

August 3, 1993

Creator:

Donaldson, Annie Smith

Contributor:

Ramsey, Sonya Yvette

Description:

Name: Annie Smith Donaldson; Date of birth: 1925-11-23; Place of birth: New Bern, NC; Occupation(s): educator; social services; Residence: New Bern, NC
Informant ID: 254; Interviewed by: Sonya Ramsey.

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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Interview number: 685
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Annie Donaldson interview recording, 1993 August 03

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1. Annie Donaldson administrative file, 1993

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