Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 August 3

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Chris Stewart	Just state your name and your address so I can get a voice level on the mic.	0:02
Annie Joyner Gavin	My name is Annie Joyner, J-O-Y-N-E-R, Gavin, G-A-V-I-N.	0:06
Chris Stewart	Okay. I'd like to start Ms. Gavin's by asking you if you've always lived here? Or if you were born here in—	0:15
Annie Joyner Gavin	I was born here.	0:22
Chris Stewart	You were?	0:24
Annie Joyner Gavin	In James City, in Old James City, we call it.	0:24
Chris Stewart	What was Old James City?	0:24
Annie Joyner Gavin	Just before you came across, after you came across the bridge, that area in there was Old James City.	0:28
Chris Stewart	What did it look like?	0:39
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, huh?	0:40
Chris Stewart	What did it look like?	0:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, actually it's the Ramada Inn is there now.	0:40
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	0:44
Annie Joyner Gavin	Right in that. Well the whole area clear to the water was where they put the slaves down. My great-grandmother said that they brought them here. I think they brought them from Hyde County. But their soldiers put them ahead of them. Put them out in the road ahead of them and they had soldiers to go back and forth between them. I think they called themselves protecting them because some of them would've not left. They would've gone back.	0:45
Annie Joyner Gavin	But there were some good slave owners and these people loved them. That's all they knew. But this is what happened. They kept them coming. Then when they got to James City just before it got, you know where you get to the body of water, they put them out there. At that time it was real huge. And they were given, they said they gave them an acre of land and a mule. And they gave them the knowhow to build makeshift houses for themselves. And this is where they lived. Then after the slaves were there for a few years, then New Bern tried to collect the rent from them.	1:21
Chris Stewart	Oh, really?	2:12
Annie Joyner Gavin	And they wouldn't pay them. The Grace's great-grandfather told them, "Not going to pay rent for what I own. These were given to us." She was tough. "They was given to us and we not going to pay the rent." And they start fighting them. They had to bring in the military.	2:12
Chris Stewart	The ex-slaves, the freed slaves starting fighting the—	2:31
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	2:34
Chris Stewart	Where did the fighting hit?	2:35
Annie Joyner Gavin	With bricks. Right over there. As you came across that bridge, in that general area where the Ramada Inn.	2:36
Chris Stewart	Right down by the river.	2:42
Annie Joyner Gavin	Mm-hmm.	2:42
Chris Stewart	And that you said who called in the military?	2:47
Annie Joyner Gavin	Harris James was put in charge of them. I just missed whatever this woman is, I forgot her name that I told you was here. She says it's not so, according to her book. But I believe those old people, they wouldn't have lied. Well, I know one thing, they ran. They had to call the military from Raleigh because they meant business. They [indistinct 00:03:18].	2:54
Chris Stewart	They weren't going to pay.	3:18
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	3:19
Chris Stewart	And how long did the fighting last? Do you know?	3:20
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, I think they sent the military and they got them quiet and then they had a big party.	3:22
Chris Stewart	Oh.	3:30
Annie Joyner Gavin	That's what my great-grandmother said.	3:30
Chris Stewart	So they ended up not having to pay then rent?	3:33
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	3:36
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay.	3:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	But eventually. But she couldn't buy the land and those Blacks that got ambitious enough and smart enough, that wanted to own their own land and house, they had to buy on this side. See this side of the creek is another area and it was owned by Blacks. I don't know how long, far back it went. But they were able to buy lots of their own.	3:39
Chris Stewart	So the Old James City part, on the other side of the creek, after that was over, you couldn't buy land there anymore?	4:04
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, you couldn't still own. So the people, as I said, that were ambitious enough to want their own house because they were just mostly straight up boards. They were livable, had a fireplace. I remember how my great-grandmother's house was.	4:13
Chris Stewart	How was it?	4:30
Annie Joyner Gavin	Straight up and down boards and a fireplace and cooked on the fireplace. But you had thing you could pull the pot too, like in Tryon Palace. That's how they did. Then they of course heated water out of those and the big pot. And in the summertime they cooked outdoors.	4:32
Chris Stewart	Right. What kind of work, was your grandmother a housewife? Or was she working?	4:54
Annie Joyner Gavin	My grandmother.	5:01
Chris Stewart	Your great-grandmother.	5:01
Annie Joyner Gavin	My great-grandmother. No, she kept the younger women's children.	5:03
Chris Stewart	Oh.	5:07
Annie Joyner Gavin	And they worked in the field. They took in washing and ironing worked in the house. And the old older people took care of the babies. Her husband worked.	5:08
Chris Stewart	How old were you when your great-grandmother died?	5:21
Annie Joyner Gavin	I was 12 years old.	5:23
Chris Stewart	Wow.	5:29
Annie Joyner Gavin	I'll be 82 years old, 28th October.	5:29
Chris Stewart	Wow.	5:29
Annie Joyner Gavin	So see I was a big girl.	5:31
Chris Stewart	What kinds of other things did your great-grandmother tell you about her growing up? Or about her life?	5:35
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well she said that just like human beings are now, some of the slave owners were very good to the slaves. Especially those that were having babies by the Black women.	5:44
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	5:56
Annie Joyner Gavin	Because I knew Ms. Hannah and her father was her owner. She played in the big house with her White sisters and brother and he put her in a house. She didn't have to work in the fields. Yeah. He kept her there for his own use. That was wrong for the White women too. Not only Blacks went through something, the Whites went through something because there wasn't anything they could do about it.	5:57
Annie Joyner Gavin	And Roots was almost exactly like they described their life, you know Alex Haley's Roots. But there was some good and some bad. And Uncle Tom named my grandmother. One of those slave people knew Uncle Tom and the master's wife had got rid of one of his favorite slaves. He sold her to Tom so she couldn't find him again. And he was her favorite slave.	6:26
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, Uncle Tom really, well I guess to say Uncle Tom, you think in terms of carrying news, what he did. He drove the team and stuff and he knew a lot. But he carrieU word from one plantation the other. And the railroad, what they used. Passed to you, passed to you, passed to you.	7:05
Chris Stewart	This was your uncle?	7:25
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, no. He was called Uncle Tom.	7:27
Chris Stewart	Okay.	7:29
Annie Joyner Gavin	Now they say a Black person who is chummy-chummy. Well they used to say it, but it's not that much difference anymore. They call him Uncle Toms because they tell the White man everything. Right. Well back then, Uncle Tom was more of a messenger between the—Let them know what was happening because he drove the horses and buggies and stuff.	7:33
Chris Stewart	So let the slaves, the Black people know what was happening, what was going on?	7:57
Annie Joyner Gavin	Right, right. And Uncle Tom was just a slave owner's wife's favorite driver. But she did something that he didn't like. He sold Uncle Tom, said she had almost died. I don't know that she ever got it back. But they talked in general things that happened.	8:00
Chris Stewart	Did your great-grandmother ever give you any advice?	8:26
Annie Joyner Gavin	My great-grandmother taught most of all to pray, most of all to pray. Says, "No situation is too big for God." She was a very good Christian. Most of them were. They let us know if you want something, work for it. You can make it. She's right. We could.	8:29
Annie Joyner Gavin	Now, my husband died when my baby was about two and a half years old. I got five children. But by me working with the sisters of my father and my sister, she didn't have any children, all five of them got a college education. My baby girl, she would be interested to do this interview, but she's a little thing, short, but she's very strong. She went to work at a Catholic, the Veteran's Hospital in Washington DC. She's been working there over 20 years.	8:53
Annie Joyner Gavin	And she went there to work. She said everything was so dark and dreary. So even though those people mine, mines are not good, they still want to see something pretty. She asked her supervisor could she solicit clothes for the women? And she got clothes for the women. They let her have it.	9:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	And then she looked at the walls. They were dark brown, dark green, dark. She said, "It was so dreary." So she went to her supervisor and asked about getting the walls painted. And she didn't give her no answer. So she went over her and she was slow. She said, "I'll write my congressman." The next morning they were painting the walls. Somebody has to care.	10:08
Chris Stewart	Where do you think she learned that?	10:33
Annie Joyner Gavin	Where does she live?	10:35
Chris Stewart	Where did she learn that?	10:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	I guess from me. Have to keep kicking until you get what you want.	10:37
Chris Stewart	Do you remember the place, the house that you grew up in?	10:43
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yes. The house that I grew up in was a modern house because, well, the house that I was born in was just a ordinary house, that's straight boards. But it was comfortable. And papered inside, there's wallpaper inside, and a fireplace and a cook stove in the kitchen. The fireplace was for heat.	10:47
Chris Stewart	Did you grow up in that very same house? Or did you move?	11:15
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, my father finally was able to get his own house. He was living with my mother's grandmother. As a matter of fact, my mother's grandmother raised her. And they married very young, like 16, 17. And they lived with her.	11:18
Chris Stewart	Is this the grandmother that you were telling, your great-grandmother that you were telling me about? Or is this a different?	11:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yes. Great-grand. I didn't know my other grandmother.	11:38
Chris Stewart	Okay.	11:43
Annie Joyner Gavin	His great-grand. My mother's mother died young and her grand. Well what happened back then, where there were right many children, her grandmother would take some, my aunt would take some, kind of divide them up. And my mother's grandfather was a Indian from Florida. She said he was bald head.	11:45
Chris Stewart	He was bald head?	12:18
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. And his wife was from Virginia. She was very fair. My mother say she was real fair skinned with long hair down her back. I didn't know her, but I knew my Aunt Lucinda, who lived in Boston and she was so fat. We been in the drug store. My mother, not me, my mother, her been in the drug store and she had that Boston accent and she was asking for something. They didn't understand what she was saying. Told her come around the counter and look. My mama said, "Now she wouldn't have invited me around that counter."	12:19
Chris Stewart	This is your mother's mother?	12:57
Annie Joyner Gavin	My mother's aunt.	12:57
Chris Stewart	Aunt, okay.	12:57
Annie Joyner Gavin	Father's sister.	13:05
Chris Stewart	Did you ever hear about any—You said your mother's mother was very fair.	13:09
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, my mother's grandmother.	13:14
Chris Stewart	I see. Okay, was very fair.	13:16
Annie Joyner Gavin	My mother said you couldn't tell her daddy's mother from White. And she didn't like it. She didn't like to be that way.	13:18
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Did you ever hear anything about that? Or what kinds of problems it created for her?	13:26
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, I guess the way my mother explained it, she didn't want to be White as she was and not be White. I guess that's what she said. Mama said you couldn't tell her from White.	13:33
Chris Stewart	Really?	13:45
Annie Joyner Gavin	I said her mother was mulatto and her daddy was a White man.	13:47
Chris Stewart	Did she ever pass to say, I don't know, get something, to get a job? Or?	13:51
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well actually it wasn't too much work for them, but field work at the time. Because later years they worked in different places, in different homes and stuff like that. And in the fields. And this, oh, there's a judge. This actually happened, they say. And back then, White babies, if they were the same age as the Black baby and you took care of them, you nurse your breasts because I guess they hadn't invented bottles and stuff.	14:00
Annie Joyner Gavin	But this lady worked until she couldn't work, and then she sold whiskey. She lived right across near that railroad over there. And I knew her. And the law caught her for selling whiskey. They had a court. She went to court naturally and the judge kept looking at her. Then he asked her if she was what her name was. He told her, "Yeah." He looked around at, said, "I can't sentence that woman. I nursed her breasts."	14:39
Chris Stewart	Wow.	15:12
Annie Joyner Gavin	Said, "She was my mother in a way." Because her mother, maybe his mother had parties and stuff.	15:12
Chris Stewart	Right.	15:22
Annie Joyner Gavin	And he told her, her name was Charity. I knew her. And he told her, "Charity, don't sell whiskey anymore. You send somebody to me every week and I'll send you money for food." So he took care of her.	15:24
Chris Stewart	When was this? When did this happen?	15:38
Annie Joyner Gavin	Oh, this was maybe 50, 60, more than 50 years ago because I've been back home 50 years.	15:40
Chris Stewart	Right.	15:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	But it was so many incidents that happened connected with Black and White.	15:47
Chris Stewart	You mentioned a couple, several incidents where Black and White were connected really intimately.	15:54
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	16:01
Chris Stewart	Do you know of any instances where there was separation? Bad? I mean, I don't know, where there was violent separation? Or difficulties?	16:03
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, I don't know of any real problems. They were always mixing. And I was brought up in the public and they were always mixing, but they kept it secretive.	16:16
Chris Stewart	Have you heard of the phrase segregation by day and integration by night?	16:32
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	16:38
Chris Stewart	Would that apply?	16:38
Annie Joyner Gavin	That, yeah, it would apply. Or a fella that lives down background park, Harris Floyd, he's very wealthy. They said his family own the whole town. And he loved to hang around Black people. But he said when he was a little boy, they were separated by towns. The Whites stay on their side.	16:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	And he said he slept out through the, he still does it. He comes to see me sometimes and different fellows he knew. And he said he would slip to the Black Town, as you call it. And the kids would hide him because he'd rather play with them than play with the White.	17:02
Chris Stewart	Why do you think that's so?	17:21
Annie Joyner Gavin	I don't know. It's surprising. But maybe they treat him better. Yeah, they treat him better. In other words, the Black ones felt, well naturally we were taught to believe the White man is supreme. But as we grew older, more education, we know that we're all God's children. They're all God's children. It was just a little different race.	17:28
Chris Stewart	You mentioned several times about Black men coming into Black communities or having affairs with White women. What about the other way around? What about White women?	17:55
Annie Joyner Gavin	Having—	18:08
Chris Stewart	You mentioned White men, excuse me, going into Black communities.	18:09
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	18:12
Chris Stewart	What about White women and Black men?	18:12
Annie Joyner Gavin	There were a lot of them, but they didn't most hiding.	18:15
Chris Stewart	Why?	18:18
Annie Joyner Gavin	I guess they thought it was the grace to them. Well, whatever they got, it had to come out. And Grace for instance, you couldn't tell her grandma was White, and her mother gave her to a Black woman. And Miss Rebecca could pass anywhere for White. You can see how Black [indistinct 00:18:50].	18:20
Annie Joyner Gavin	But there's a whole lot of interesting stories came out. Because a lot of Whites harbored Blacks, helped them to hide, helped them to get out. There's always been a link between White and Black to a certain extent, but they were not allowed to show it.	18:47
Chris Stewart	Can you think of ways in which people hid? Or how things were kept secret?	19:11
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well they had, so what they call an underground railroad. They had a way of communicating. It was interesting for the most part because now there were Whites that would take sides with Blacks at the fight. Yeah. That was true in New Bern. And actually the blood at one time was so intermixed, you could hardly tell who was who.	19:21
Chris Stewart	Do you remember that when you were growing up? Or?	19:58
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yes, I remember that when I was growing up. Because when I was growing up, the most jobs for women were either housework or farms. And you work in the house and take care of the White babies and stuff. And they learned to love you.	20:01
Annie Joyner Gavin	I worked for a Jewish family and when I was still in school and in Baltimore. And she had a little boy, two boys. One of her sons was a accident that had hit his head when he was born. So he was kind of deformed and dripped at his mouth. But he was a sweet little fella.	20:24
Annie Joyner Gavin	And she couldn't keep a maid because of Jojo, they called him. Because he wanted to stay with the maid all the time. He wouldn't eat with them. He'd eat with the maid. And some of the maids didn't like that because he dripped at the mouth. But I played games with him. Now you see I got slick with him. I'd say, "Jojo, I'm going to see if you can eat your dinner before I eat mine."	20:49
Annie Joyner Gavin	And his head, he was a accident with it when he was born or something. But he was a very sweet little fella. And then he'd eat his food out of his plate. So when it dripped, he dripped in his plate, not mine. But some of the girls had left because he wanted to eat, hang on their shoulder and stuff like that. But he was a very sweet little boy.	21:14
Chris Stewart	So you think that those kinds of ties, that they really connected people when you were basically raising children?	21:42
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. They learned to love you. Jojo, both of these was Jewish people, and the husband traveled. So I slept in. But the baby, she loved to party. She was gone about all the time. Except her husband liked the car to go on one time.	21:50
Chris Stewart	Oh no.	22:11
Annie Joyner Gavin	And I hid for her. I called her name real loud. Let her know that he was there and she had to laugh when she came in there. And she was out and gone all the time. Because she could trust me with the kids. And her baby, Jojo, at first when I went to work there, Jojo didn't want to lay still to play with the doll family or put his clothes on. And I had heard other maids say that the White baby, if you want to spank him, got use a wet cloth. We had all kinds of things.	22:14
Chris Stewart	Why did they say that?	22:52
Annie Joyner Gavin	It wouldn't leave no signs.	22:53
Chris Stewart	Oh.	22:54
Annie Joyner Gavin	See because it would leave a mark. And say just get a wet wash cloth and smack their little butts. And they didn't know how to be still. So I found that out because I never was harsh with them. But I tell Jojo to be still when I had other things to do. I'd get that wet cloth and pat his little butt. And he looked so funny the first time. But he got used to it.	22:55
Chris Stewart	I bet. I bet.	23:22
Annie Joyner Gavin	And learned to obey and loved me to death. When it was time for me to get off to go home, he wanted me to go, so he could tell he wanted to go with Anna. He called me Anna. Cry, holler, want to go with me.	23:24
Chris Stewart	When did you move up to Baltimore?	23:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, I went to Baltimore to live with my aunt, to work, to go to school.	23:43
Chris Stewart	What? To go to college?	23:47
Annie Joyner Gavin	College.	23:48
Chris Stewart	What school did you go to?	23:49
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well I went to nursing school.	23:50
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did.	23:51
Annie Joyner Gavin	And my husband, well I had met him in school before and he was in Baltimore. We got married in Baltimore.	23:55
Chris Stewart	How old were you when you moved up?	24:02
Annie Joyner Gavin	I was grown.	24:07
Chris Stewart	Like 20 or something?	24:08
Annie Joyner Gavin	20, 21 I think. So we were married in Baltimore.	24:11
Chris Stewart	I'd like to talk a little bit more about James City if we can.	24:14
Annie Joyner Gavin	Okay.	24:19
Chris Stewart	What do you remember about your neighborhood in James City?	24:20
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, you know the James City people are close-knit.	24:24
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	24:29
Annie Joyner Gavin	Like they pass the word down the line. A secret service man came one time. Well I hadn't always been here. I was further down near the water when I first moved back home after my husband died. And the secret service man came there looking for Lucy Spencer. Her check had been lost and he had located it. So he came there looking for me, did I know Lucy Spencer? I said, "No." I was lying. I knew her.	24:32
Annie Joyner Gavin	And he say, "You mean to tell me you keep store right in the area and you don't know the people?" I say, "You can't make me know them." In James City and the people got why. Then he did what he should have done in the first place, showed the check that had been lost. I say, "She lives right across the road." But the reason I hadn't told him, because her husband sold whiskey and I was afraid. That's how we operated. Everybody looked up.	25:02
Chris Stewart	You take care of each other.	25:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yes, we took care of each other.	25:40
Chris Stewart	Who are the people that you make sure say, who are the people that you'd let talk to? Give people directions? And who are the people that you wouldn't give directions?	25:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, I give almost anybody directions unless I think maybe something's going to happen to the person I'm directing them to.	25:52
Chris Stewart	Oh.	25:58
Annie Joyner Gavin	We were just like that. We were clannish, that's what we were. We were clannish.	26:02
Chris Stewart	Sounds like that you were able to take care of each other that way as well.	26:07
Annie Joyner Gavin	Right. I guess more or less it was something Black slaves in a way you had to help each other. Because what happened during slavery time, like I say, I was telling you about Miss Hannah, who's a slave owner was her father. Well she was welcomed in the big house with her half White. Well she was half White. Her sisters and brothers.	26:12
Annie Joyner Gavin	And I guess his wife had no choice but to treat her good. But she learned to read and write. Whatever they would learn, they carried right back on. And one of the stable boys was able to get a book and they'll hide the book under the house. But then he carried home, they would all try to learn what he had learned. Because a lot of educated Blacks, even before they were free, smart, they learned.	26:35
Chris Stewart	Did anybody ever talk about Africa? Were there any stories about Africa and coming from Africa?	27:06
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. Well they knew that originally with Blacks were descendants. But Africa was the beginning of civilization, White and Black.	27:13
Chris Stewart	Right.	27:21
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. The beginning of civilization.	27:22
Chris Stewart	So we were talking about people taking care of each other, right?	27:30
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. They took care of each other. Then the Whites, by the time I got to be almost grown, the Whites and the Blacks in James City were like all the same. They got to know each other better. And they looked out for each other and they shared. Because most the work for Blacks were the farms.	27:33
Annie Joyner Gavin	And at one time my daddy, he lost his foot on the train. He used to work at the railroad and his foot got cut off. And had got good sum of money, bought a car. And there was a White family there that the girls were teachers, but they didn't have a car. So my daddy carried them to town each day. Of course they sit in the backseat. But that was one instance was where the Black in that case were better off than the White.	28:02
Chris Stewart	Did your dad get paid? Did they ever pay him or anything?	28:34
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah, they paid him. They paid him. Paid him for carrying them and paid him for bringing them back. And they grew up right there in the Black neighborhood.	28:38
Chris Stewart	So in James City there were Whites and Blacks living in James City. What part of town did the Whites live in?	28:48
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well they lived, they were kind of intermixed. And some Whites lived a distance. And they didn't live yard to yard. But it was a kind of connection. If a problem came to the Black neighborhood, the Whites worked with it.	28:55
Annie Joyner Gavin	It was I think more or less after the war, people understood that they got to live together. And they worked in the house, took care, cooked and took care of the babies. But my great-grandmother saw Abraham Lincoln. Yeah, she say he was traveling alone. He was well-dressed. Very homely man, just like we knew it to be. Excuse me. But he came by himself to this plantation where she was.	29:23
Chris Stewart	Do you know the name of the plantation?	30:00
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, I don't know the name of the plantation. But he stopped there with her master, and his wife was expecting a baby. And Abraham Lincoln left a name for a boy and a name for a girl if the baby turned out to be. But he didn't give the letter to them. He hid it in the wall and wrote them back from Washington, DC that he was the president. He had come to oversee what to do about the Blacks.	30:02
Annie Joyner Gavin	And he left. After he went back to Washington, but he traveled alone. She said he came to their plantation alone. He was looking over the area to see what was happening. And say the stable boy that took his horse out said, he asked him, "Are you living good? Are you getting enough to eat?" He questioned him. That's why he was finding out for himself.	30:34
Annie Joyner Gavin	Because he had a quotation said, "When you get a chance to strike that thing, you strike it hard." So after he left, or she said it wasn't long before the soldiers start coming in. Soldiers start coming in and putting them out in the road, marching them away. And most of them hated to leave because that's all they were used to. Say but as far as they could look back, they would see their master and his family on the porch, saying they were sad. But they stayed right in the road.	30:57
Chris Stewart	So this is when President Lincoln was President?	31:31
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	31:34
Chris Stewart	He came when he was president?	31:35
Annie Joyner Gavin	When he was president, yeah.	31:36
Chris Stewart	Wow.	31:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. He had a lowly life too. And he said, "It wasn't right to have human beings as slaves like animals." So he said, "When he got a chance to hit that thing, he's going to hit it hard." So he and investigated things for himself.	31:37
Annie Joyner Gavin	Because I don't think that naturally in anything, there are mean people and better people. But for the most part, and what I could gather from what they talked, they weren't unhappy because that's all they knew. That was all they knew.	32:00
Chris Stewart	Why do you think President Lincoln, if he saw things like what you were describing he saw at this plantation. Why do you think then he would think that slavery was so bad? If it sounds like he was, I mean he didn't sound—	32:17
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well he said, I read that, he said that, "Human beings weren't supposed to be slaves."	32:33
Chris Stewart	Right.	32:38
Annie Joyner Gavin	Animals supposed to be slaves. That's what he didn't like about it.	32:39
Chris Stewart	Right. Do you think that's also what people like your great-grandmother and those people who were living, do you think that that's the case for them too? Regardless of whether or not it was okay, that that's what they believed?	32:43
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well yes. They felt like they were God's children too. Just a different color. And they felt like it was wrong, but they had to go along with it because you could no better do, until the time came. But they prayed for freedom.	32:54
Chris Stewart	Right.	33:11
Annie Joyner Gavin	They prayed for freedom.	33:12
Chris Stewart	Did your great-grandmother ever talk to you about things, anything that would happen to people who tried to run away? Or tried resist the master?	33:13
Annie Joyner Gavin	Sometimes. Yeah, if they tried to run away, they either catch them and bring them back and tie them up. They got one of those things in Tryon Palace where they tie them up until they know they won't do it again.	33:21
Chris Stewart	Is that a whipping post? Or is that—	33:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	They got a whipping post over there at Tryon Palace inside the back door. But they would kind of, might say, put them in jail, or the word. And beat them. They used to beat them too.	33:38
Annie Joyner Gavin	But now it was Miss Hannah, it was a different story. She was too White to be Black. Because her mother was a mulatto in the first place. And then the plantation owner was her father, which was White. And you really couldn't tell her from White. I was a big girl when I knew her.	33:58
Chris Stewart	Why do you think that the people came and settled here in James City? Why do you think that it's this spot when the soldiers were moving?	34:24
Annie Joyner Gavin	The sand and the water. The sand was good soil and good water.	34:31
Chris Stewart	Did the free people get to choose? Or did the soldiers choose where?	34:38
Annie Joyner Gavin	The soldiers choose. And then, but Harris James was a preacher in Boston. They brought him here as overseer. And he was good, they said.	34:47
Chris Stewart	Do you remember when you were growing up, any places in James City where your parents did not want you to go to? Maybe bad places where they didn't want you to hang out?	34:58
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, when I was growing up, there were whiskey joints and places where the women sold their bodies. No, we weren't allowed to go.	35:07
Chris Stewart	Were White men coming to these as well?	35:19
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah. Well usually the White men, they weren't so good either. They drank whiskey and maybe sold it and stuff.	35:26
Chris Stewart	So your parents just didn't want you to hang around at those places?	35:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	No. No.	35:39
Chris Stewart	Did you ever?	35:39
Annie Joyner Gavin	No. Other than serve them because my daddy had a cafe.	35:40
Chris Stewart	Oh.	35:44
Annie Joyner Gavin	And later a store. And they were customers.	35:45
Chris Stewart	Where was your dad's store? Where was your dad's businesses located?	35:48
Annie Joyner Gavin	Out on the highway. At first he was right near that bridge.	35:52
Chris Stewart	Right.	35:56
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well that's where all the Black people used to be in that side. This is where you see that sign, James City. Finally we talked and talked and we got that. But that's Old James City, that whole young area. That's where the soldiers put them down.	35:56
Annie Joyner Gavin	And like I said about Grace's great granddaddy, he then rebelled and told him he wasn't paying no more rent for something that belonged to him. And he got all the men together. They didn't have weapons, but they had sticks and stones and bricks. They fought, they run the law. Oh boy. It's just in recent years, a lawman can come over here and arrest somebody.	36:20
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, back then, all the whole people would go against them. They run the law, oh boy, two or three times. I done never hear them killing anybody. I never hear the law killing anybody either. But finally, finally they got Black helpers. Black helpers would go talk to people like they were said. The only thing I know about them though would sometimes some men beat their wives and the law would get them and so forth.	36:45
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:37:17].	37:14
Annie Joyner Gavin	What?	37:17
Chris Stewart	Sometimes, what did you say now?	37:22
Annie Joyner Gavin	Sometimes that the Whites were on the same side as the Blacks in some things that happened. Black, the man beating his family, unnecessarily the wife and stuff. And nobody appreciated that, whether he was White or Black. So really.	37:24
Chris Stewart	What would happen to a man if he was doing that?	37:49
Annie Joyner Gavin	They'd put the law on him.	37:52
Chris Stewart	So at that point they would call law to come over here.	37:54
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	37:57
Chris Stewart	They didn't like to have the law coming in at other times?	37:58
Annie Joyner Gavin	No. Well usually anything that would happen that got out of hand, if they had to walk the bridge, they'd go and get a lawman.	38:02
Chris Stewart	Okay.	38:07
Annie Joyner Gavin	And they've been known to run the law back though. But James City had a bad name though.	38:14
Chris Stewart	It did. How come?	38:23
Annie Joyner Gavin	Because people would fight for themselves.	38:23
Chris Stewart	That's supposed to be a good thing, isn't it?	38:26
Annie Joyner Gavin	In a sense. When my husband and I went in business in Duplin County, where we rented this place from the man. Well he set us up in goodness, really. And we had come back from Baltimore because my husband's mother was sick and I persuaded him to come home. He was a baby and she had taken him to Washington and everything. Sent him to college. And I persuaded him that we come back so that he could look out for his mother.	38:30
Annie Joyner Gavin	And anyway, the White, for the most part, they would take sides with the Blacks if the Black were right. Even against Whites at that particular time.	38:58
Chris Stewart	Miss George was talking a little bit about how the way James City started to deteriorate. And that was happening sort of in the late '30s.	39:16
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	39:28
Chris Stewart	Started to happen in the late '30s. Do you know anything of what happened? Were Whites starting to get more militant and starting to want more land? Or what?	39:28
Annie Joyner Gavin	No, I think for the most part there was an understanding. I'm in my place and you in your place. But yet they got along. But the Blacks had started to stand up for their rights. For instance, had a White postmaster. And he was too lazy to get up and get your mail and didn't have boxes. And so the Whites went to the law about him. Get us a Black postmaster if he didn't want to get up and wait on us. So they did.	39:37
Chris Stewart	The Blacks went and asked for a Black postmaster?	40:19
Annie Joyner Gavin	Mm-hmm.	40:21
Chris Stewart	And when was this?	40:22
Annie Joyner Gavin	Oh this was years and years ago. You had to be prepared, you had to have an education. And a guy named Richard Sawyer, that particular family went down through the ages as teachers and stuff. So he was the postmaster and eventually it just all kind of went into one.	40:23
Chris Stewart	Where did you go to school? Where did you start going to school when you first started?	40:49
Annie Joyner Gavin	I started school at, first school I went to was Catholic.	40:52
Chris Stewart	It was, what was the name of it?	41:00
Annie Joyner Gavin	St. Joseph. They still have it. I know whether they have a Catholic school now or not, but they have a church.	41:01
Chris Stewart	In New Bern?	41:06
Annie Joyner Gavin	In New Bern.	41:06
Chris Stewart	So you would go, the first school you went to, you would go across the bridge over to New Bern?	41:08
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah, we all had to. Not the first one because we had elementary over here.	41:12
Chris Stewart	Oh, you had elementary here.	41:16
Annie Joyner Gavin	But I basically went to AME Zion's School. This was a Black school connected with Livingstone College. And at that time, our Presiding Elder was, I would say headmaster. But there, you were taught prayers and you were taught discipline. It was a church school.	41:17
Chris Stewart	This was elementary school. Your first school that you went to?	41:42
Annie Joyner Gavin	Uh huh.	41:43
Chris Stewart	Miss, I don't know if she might even be related to, Lavinia Joyner.	41:49
Annie Joyner Gavin	Hmm?	41:53
Chris Stewart	Lavinia Joyner. Do you know?	41:53
Annie Joyner Gavin	Lavinia, yeah. Lavinia's my uncle's wife.	41:55
Chris Stewart	Oh. She talked about, I'm going to interview her on Thursday. She talked. Well, but when I just started talking to her.	41:58
Annie Joyner Gavin	She and I are almost the same age.	42:04
Chris Stewart	Really?	42:05
Annie Joyner Gavin	Mm-hmm.	42:05
Chris Stewart	She told me that when she was young, that the people used to, older people in the community would conduct school in different places throughout James City. Because until there was a formal elementary school.	42:07
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well, old man Sawyer taught school in his house and he was educated. And Miss Alvania Finner. But for the most part, she taught in the public school.	42:30
Chris Stewart	She did?	42:50
Annie Joyner Gavin	Mm-hmm. But she's right. Well I don't, Lavinia didn't learn too much. She was my uncle's wife. She was right that they would teach in the house and you paid something like 10 cents a week or something. You'd learn to read and write.	42:53
Chris Stewart	So which church was the AME Zion school at in?	43:13
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well it was located in New Bern, over in Duffyfield.	43:17
Chris Stewart	In Duffyfield. So even to go to elementary school—	43:31
Annie Joyner Gavin	You could go to elementary school there too.	43:33
Chris Stewart	Were there any school houses here in James City?	43:36
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah, there was a schoolhouse right across the railroad. Right over in that area where they were going to put that addition to the new road. But I understand they didn't give them the money.	43:39
Chris Stewart	Yes. That's good.	43:55
Annie Joyner Gavin	And they had already paid us off because I had some problem with that. But I understand they're not getting that grant. But anyway, the Baptist had schools and some of those people taught in the home at the beginners.	43:55
Chris Stewart	What was the name of the elementary school in town? Do you know?	44:17
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well the school that I attended was called Sutton School behind Headmaster, you might say. Sutton School.	44:20
Chris Stewart	And where was that located?	44:30
Annie Joyner Gavin	Duffyfield.	44:31
Chris Stewart	So your elementary school, you went to New Bern?	44:33
Annie Joyner Gavin	Yeah.	44:36
Chris Stewart	How did you get there?	44:37
Annie Joyner Gavin	Walked the bridge.	44:39
Chris Stewart	How long was it? How far away was it?	44:40
Annie Joyner Gavin	It was about five or six miles.	44:43
Chris Stewart	A long walk.	44:50
Annie Joyner Gavin	But you got used to it.	44:50
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	44:50
Annie Joyner Gavin	That bridge itself was long. Then you go straight up that bridge, to the veteran cemetery. Before you get to veteran cemetery, you turn in Duffyfield.	44:51
Chris Stewart	What did you do to pass the time on your walk?	44:57
Annie Joyner Gavin	Well there were a lot of us and we would be tagging and playing and talking. We got used to it. It wasn't bad.	45:00
Annie Joyner Gavin	Finally my daddy bought me a bicycle. But the purpose of the bicycle was, by this time, he had lost his foot and he had a cafe down there. He made meals for the men, my daddy was very smart, at the factory. The factory's all on that railroad over there. Fertilizer factory where the boats would come up and get the bag.	45:05
Annie Joyner Gavin	And so he bought me a bicycle when I was nine years old. And before I went to school I had to cross that bridge, go downtown New Bern, but wasn't a lot of traffic, and get his meats for the day. Because it didn't have freezers and things that you got now. And I had to cross that bridge and get his meats before I went to school. Then I'd come back and bring his meats. Then I go back and have to go over in Duffyfield as far over as the veteran cemetery. But you get used to, it's not bad.	45:32
Chris Stewart	You were getting good exercise.	46:08
Annie Joyner Gavin	And we walk sometimes and then about five or six of us and walking and tagging, talking, and it's not bad. We got personal training really because we would train good manners and all that kind of stuff, which you don't get in the public school. Because my chair meant the public school.	46:13
Chris Stewart	Did they also teach you reading and writing and—	46:34

Chris Stewart	I'm Sorry. I'm going to have to ask you that question again. Were there any people who—	0:03
Annie Gavin	At first, the girl got pregnant while she was supposed to be carrying the baby, until the baby came and all. The girls that was supposed to be her friends, that didn't have babies, they would play with her, but they had to do it. They didn't really put her down, because it could have been them.	0:08
Annie Gavin	Because some of the best girls got babies and never got husbands. But things were so different then. Because people were more, "I love you." You belong to church. They'd have you up in church and the mothers would talk to you and tell you things. But they didn't have this pre-advice stuff like they have now, because these girls and boys now know exactly what will happen. But the pitiful part about what's happening now is just drugs. That's the pitiful part. And back then, any mother could chastise another mother's child.	0:33
Annie Gavin	And if they were doing something they'd hide from their friends mother's as quick as they would their own weather.	1:30
Chris Stewart	Oh, really?	1:36
Annie Gavin	If they were doing something that was wrong.	1:36
Chris Stewart	Why is that?	1:41
Annie Gavin	And it seemed like to me there was more love among people.	1:41
Chris Stewart	How did you meet your husband?	1:44
Annie Gavin	In school. He went to Sutton School too.	1:52
Chris Stewart	He went to Sutton School?	1:52
Annie Gavin	Well see, the little country towns didn't have schools for Blacks and they'd have to go up to some town where there were schools.	1:55
Chris Stewart	So your husband lived outside.	2:05
Annie Gavin	Wallace didn't have any schools for Blacks.	2:07
Chris Stewart	How'd he get here?	2:09
Annie Gavin	They had dormitories, boys' dormitory, girls' dormitory.	2:10
Chris Stewart	So he lived there?	2:15
Annie Gavin	He lived there. And all the kids from those outlying areas that didn't have high school, had to go somewhere, if they did have.	2:22
Chris Stewart	When did you know you were going to marry him? Sounds like you knew him for a while before you married him.	2:30
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Well I knew him in school and I used to do his homework for him. But I didn't have no idea I'd marry him, but I met him again in DC. That's when we were married.	2:35
Chris Stewart	How long did you court?	2:49
Annie Gavin	Quite a while. We have five children.	2:51
Chris Stewart	Wow. What kinds of things would you do for fun in high school? What kinds of activities were they?	2:56
Annie Gavin	Well, every day we had assembly. We'd go and meet and say prayers and songs. And then we had socials and the women would be over with social. Well actually, there seemed to have been more fun then than now, because these drugs and stuff making things bad for some of these young people. And you could dance with the boys.	3:01
Chris Stewart	Were there dancing places around?	3:36
Annie Gavin	Well, whenever had the social, they used an auditorium.	3:40
Chris Stewart	Were there meeting places? It sounds like your father's cafe or his store was a meeting place, where people might just kind of come in and sit down and talk for a while.	3:47
Annie Gavin	Well, yes it was, especially for men and women. And they sat out on the bench and visited. Well, you'd get accustomed to whatever you have to. Now, when you would go to school, we had a lot of us went to Sunday schools and my kids went to West Street. By the time that my kids—for the most part, they had buses. Well, a long time ago, they had buses for White and not for Blacks.	3:55
Chris Stewart	Did you ever see the buses going by?	4:34
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	4:36
Chris Stewart	Would you or anybody else ever do anything, say anything? Or would they ever say or do anything to you?	4:38
Annie Gavin	No, because I guess in our cases, we didn't have far to go. But there was some kids had a long way go and my daddy had a truck. He used to go to the four districts and the parents would pay him so much to pick the kids up.	4:43
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay.	5:00
Annie Gavin	And later years they got a bus. And was one of the fellows that finally got to be a musician. He's a singer or something. I forgot, but I read his story. And he had a White friend. He lived a far from the high school, but this White friend would make a point to sit on the back of the bus. Then he'd slip a ride for this Black boy. Famous singer, he turned out to be, I forgot his name now.	5:00
Chris Stewart	What kind of singer?	5:32
Annie Gavin	Blues singer. But he grew up in the country and was far away from school.	5:35
Chris Stewart	I've heard about a blues singer, a guy by the name of Henry. Something, Henry.	5:42
Annie Gavin	I forgot his name now. But this guy, a White boy, made a point to sit in the back. I almost thought of his name. So he could pull this guy on. They were all still small. But he had to walk. He couldn't ride the bus, but he would make a point. But then there's always been Whites that looked out for Blacks, even if they had to hide to do it.	5:46
Chris Stewart	I've also heard that there have always been, in this area Whites who have treated Blacks very poorly.	6:15
Annie Gavin	Yes. Yeah, There was many of them—	6:23
Chris Stewart	Well, a couple of people have talked to us about a lot of Klan activity.	6:26
Annie Gavin	Well yes, but we didn't have too much of that in James City.	6:34
Chris Stewart	Really? Why do you think that's the case?	6:38
Annie Gavin	Well, there's mean people in the White and Black, and they just didn't appreciate the fact that the Black man could do things like they did. That's what I say. Because you don't have no problems now.	6:48
Chris Stewart	Do you think it's because James city was basically an all Black town and it was separate from—	7:01
Annie Gavin	Well it wasn't just James City, any town there were Black and White. But then the time came when so far as the law was concerned, there was no Jim Crow.	7:06
Chris Stewart	As far as who?	7:26
Annie Gavin	The law.	7:26
Speaker 3	Just going to use your phone.	7:30
Annie Gavin	But I think God has his time set. Just like in Bible times, they had wars between the tribes. And I guess they thought that was the right thing to do. But now I say in one sense, it's too much mixing.	7:37
Chris Stewart	Really?	7:59
Annie Gavin	In one sense. Yeah.	7:59
Chris Stewart	Why do you think that's because?	8:00
Annie Gavin	I don't know. It seems like there are Whites that would rather be Black than White. Because there was a woman that lived right down the street there, and she was always moving in a Black neighborhood. And she's got a son and he loves to associate with Black boys and girls. And some in cases he's not accepted, but he's just a sweeter person as you want to know. So she's constantly moving. But then I don't know, I reckon she's kind of stupid too. She told me her daddy got that job for her, against her will. I don't know or else I'd tell it. So the boy really, he's a very sweet person and he gets along, because after a while, they get used to it. Well, she hadn't been long moved out of this neighborhood and she got some daughters and they all got Black men. But I guess what the Blacks think about is, they should go in their own race. But ain't things like that anymore.	8:09
Chris Stewart	Why do you think that's the case now, and it wasn't necessarily the case when you were coming up?	9:28
Annie Gavin	It was a case when I came up too. But they just didn't express it.	9:33
Chris Stewart	Really? It's like what you were saying, it was kept secret.	9:36
Annie Gavin	But as people age and as time moves, people realize that God made us all. Personally, I think that I should marry a Black man just like I did. And well, a White woman should marry a White man, because they're your race. But I think they would be able to get along together. And they do for the most part. Now, Harris Floyd that I talked about, he's rich and he acts like he prefers company with Black people. But his family owns a town in South Carolina. He doesn't stay there. He stays here, lives down Battleground Park. He owns that big brick building out there on the road. He's very well off.	9:45
Chris Stewart	And he still comes into James City?	10:42
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Well, he lives right below James City.	10:43
Chris Stewart	I'm going to take you back again, if you don't mind. Why did you decide to go up to—	10:55
Annie Gavin	Baltimore?	11:00
Chris Stewart	You went up to go to school, just for school?	11:00
Annie Gavin	I went to work. I had an aunt living there.	11:05
Chris Stewart	How was Baltimore different from James City?	11:09
Annie Gavin	Well really, it's not that much different, except it was a city and you could get work. Which as I say, I worked for this Jewish family, and Jews are much more tolerant. Well, I don't know. I can't say that's true, but they're much more easier to get along with than Gentiles. At least they were at that time, because there was a Gentile family living below. Mr. Is Steinberg. She was Jewish. And her maid asked me, "Y'all got roaches up there? Y'all place clean?" I said, "What you mean asking me this? No, we don't have roaches. Yes, our place is clean." Because they considered Jews filthy. So she told me why she asked me. Her boss lady had asked her. I said, "Tell her come up and see." One thing Miss Steinberg didn't stay home that long, because she found—	11:17
Chris Stewart	Was she the woman that liked to go out and—	12:18
Annie Gavin	Yeah. And her husband traveled. Sometimes she just didn't be in. And sometimes she'd be just gotten in when you'd come and I talk to him loud. So she'd know he was there.	12:21
Chris Stewart	She'd know he was there?	12:32
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	12:35
Chris Stewart	Where would she go?	12:36
Annie Gavin	Partying, clubs and stuff.	12:38
Chris Stewart	And you'd take care of the kids and the house?	12:40
Annie Gavin	I'd take care of the kids, mm-hmm.	12:41
Chris Stewart	And it sounds like you would cover for her.	12:41
Annie Gavin	I'd cover for her.	12:44
Chris Stewart	Did her husband and she ever fight about it?	12:48
Annie Gavin	No, because I reckon he was sporting too. But another time, I worked for a family of people and she didn't have any children. She was from Florida and her boyfriend was there in the house. And I'd been speaking to him loud, because he'd always go back to his room when he'd come in, evenings. He'd go back to his room, change his clothes and this man got out of—Because there was a hall and you'd go downstairs. That man got out of that house. And so I didn't never mention it to her and she never mentioned to me. But when she came to the dining room, I was sitting at the table for dinner, she smiled at me. She knew what I had done. I had call real loud, "Mr. Steinberg, how is it outside?" So she knew I was talking to him. He'd always go to his bedroom, change his clothes.	12:49
Chris Stewart	First thing he'd do?	13:53
Annie Gavin	And then he came in evening. So I said, "Uh-huh, I ain't going to be in here, somebody would kill somebody."	13:55
Chris Stewart	So you were living in with that family?	14:02
Annie Gavin	No, I wasn't living in with them. I'd go every day—	14:04
Chris Stewart	You did day work?	14:06
Annie Gavin	They didn't have any children. I did days work.	14:06
Chris Stewart	Did you ever do live-in what?	14:08
Annie Gavin	Hmm?	14:09
Chris Stewart	Did you ever live in, do live-in work?	14:09
Annie Gavin	Yes. I lived in with the Steinbergs, that had the children, a while. Because he was gone a lot.	14:12
Chris Stewart	Which would you prefer live-in or day work?	14:20
Annie Gavin	Didn't matter. It's the same thing. You figured it all out. And except that they stayed overnight. I was in high school then.	14:21
Chris Stewart	How much did you get paid for the—	14:35
Annie Gavin	You got the regular pay. They had the salary to go by, from the employment office.	14:36
Chris Stewart	And was it the same for living and day work?	14:43
Annie Gavin	Well, I don't really know. But back then it was during the depression, wasn't a whole lot of money involved. You got enough to pay your car, for your trolley fair. You got enough. And you ate there. So that was meals you didn't have to buy.	14:48
Chris Stewart	So how did you go to school and work?	15:08
Annie Gavin	I would miss school in the wintertime. I worked in the summer.	15:10
Chris Stewart	I see. So did you stay then in the dormitory? Were you with your aunt?	15:15
Annie Gavin	Well, the dormitory was here where I went to school. No, I lived at home, because we walked to school from here [indistinct 00:15:30]—	15:22
Chris Stewart	Okay, I understand now. We up to Baltimore in the summertime—	15:32
Annie Gavin	Summertime.	15:33
Chris Stewart	—and worked in the summertime as a maid. Then went back in the wintertime and went to school.	15:34
Annie Gavin	Right. My ambition was to go to Howard University, but I didn't get to go. But I had two grandchildren who graduated from Howard. My grandson graduated from Howard in electrical engineering. And he's just as smart as he can be. And he's in Chicago now and he's in engineering. And he was very smart. His mother was smart too.	15:43
Chris Stewart	How come you wanted to go to Howard?	16:13
Annie Gavin	I had a teacher here who was from Washington, DC and each summer, she would take a girl home to experience city life. And I still can't figure out why my daddy let me go, because he needed me here, because he had a store. But Grace was a very warm, kind person. And I guess he was anxious for me to experience the city life. So she asked him to let me go home with her. And I went and stayed all summer. Came back to when I—	16:17
Chris Stewart	And you got to see Howard?	16:59
Annie Gavin	Well, that's one of the big attractions. She graduated from Howard.	17:03
Chris Stewart	I see.	17:06
Annie Gavin	So school was out early enough for us to get in DC and go to Howard graduation.	17:07
Chris Stewart	What would you do? What did you do that summer? What kinds of things did you get to do, that you didn't used to do in James City?	17:14
Annie Gavin	Well, I actually worked, because she and I were downtown one day. And this young—I think she was Jewish, needed somebody to help her. And I asked Grace if I could go and Grace said, "If you want to." So I worked with her all the summer. So I had money to buy my school clothes and everything.	17:21
Chris Stewart	Did you get to do anything like entertainment wise when you were there? Did you ever go to movies or live shows?	17:44
Annie Gavin	Yes, we went to concerts and stuff.	17:56
Chris Stewart	Concerts. At Howard?	17:57
Annie Gavin	No, not at Howard, but at theater.	18:00
Chris Stewart	What kind of concerts were they?	18:07
Annie Gavin	Well actually, they were different from now. Most of them they had was special entertainers. You'd go to places that they had them.	18:11
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any of the names of the theaters? Is there one called the Howard Theater?	18:27
Annie Gavin	Yes. One called Howard. A theater connected to Howard University. But quite a few entertainment spots and live shows and stuff. And these different entertainers, White and Black, sometimes they were mixed. And we would go to them and it was an experience, because we didn't have—And at that point in time, I don't think anybody was able to buy a TV. And I only went one summer, with Grace McDowell and I stayed the whole summer. That's when I met this little woman and she needed somebody to help her in the house. And I asked Grace, she let me go.	18:31
Chris Stewart	So this isn't when you met your husband again, was it?	19:29
Annie Gavin	No.	19:33
Chris Stewart	You had gone back?	19:33
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	19:34
Chris Stewart	So when did you go up to DC when you had met your husband again?	19:36
Annie Gavin	Well, my husband, I met in school and he would go to DC too, every year to work. Because we only had his mother to help then. And we met again in DC as matter of fact, we got married in DC.	19:39
Chris Stewart	How did you meet again in DC?	19:57
Annie Gavin	I had a girlfriend from Wallace and she told James I was there, but James said he knew I was going to be his wife. You didn't get your assignment or something. And then they'd make you write it. Well, I don't know where they did it during the time you went to school. But they did when we went school. And I used to write his assignments for him and he had to write it so many times, because he didn't get it. And he said then he knew I was going to be his wife.	20:01
Chris Stewart	Why do you think that?	20:35
Annie Gavin	I don't know. I didn't know it though.	20:37
Chris Stewart	You didn't?	20:39
Annie Gavin	Mm-mm.	20:39
Chris Stewart	Did you take some time to warm up to him?	20:40
Annie Gavin	Well, we were friends, but he was a very nice person.	20:45
Chris Stewart	What made you decide to marry him, besides the fact that he asked you?	20:54
Annie Gavin	Right. Well, I cared for him and we were good too. Find what was wrong?	20:58
Speaker 3	Yes, ma'am. [indistinct 00:21:14] talking about.	21:14
Annie Gavin	That's all right. I can take care of you.	21:14
Chris Stewart	So where did you get married, in DC?	21:17
Annie Gavin	We got married in church.	21:20
Chris Stewart	You did?	21:21
Annie Gavin	In a parsonage, at the church, AME Zion Church. And the preacher took him aside and told him what to expect out of marriage. We were still both in school, but he didn't tell me anything. But James said that he said, "The time now, a woman to get on your nerves and you'll want to beat her but don't beat her." Things like that.	21:22
Chris Stewart	Did your mother ever tell you what to expect out of marriage?	21:55
Annie Gavin	No, because my mother and my dad fought. And it was always my mama. And she get mad and she'd just go and throw the lamp at him if anything else. And I hated that. I never would've fought with him anyway, because I used to hate to see my mother and father. Well, once she got to fussing, the next thing you know, she was going to be hitting.	21:58
Chris Stewart	Was your mother being unreasonable or was it your father or was it both of them?	22:22
Annie Gavin	No. Sometimes. Well, I guess because I was closer to my dad. Sometimes thought mama made a big thing out of it.	22:27
Chris Stewart	Out of little things?	22:37
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm, but all my daddy would do send for her grandmother. He'd send his brother, who was also a child on the way because my mother and he raised him. And then go and get her grandmama. Her grandmama come right there. "Gail, I told you about your mouth." She had been a slave. "I told you about your mouth." She was for peace all the time. And my daddy loved her when she got sick, she had heart dropsy. And when she got sick, my daddy would come home every day, when my mother was ready to give her a bath and stuff. Because she's kind of heavy, and he lift her and treat her just like she was his mother. And her husband had been killed in the war of 1898. So she got a pension. She got a check.	22:37
Annie Gavin	And my aunt Rosie had a husband and mama had a husband. And whenever she'd get her check, she'd give them all money from her check. And my daddy took her in his house. He took the living room furniture out, and made way for her a bedroom in the living room, in our house. We had a two-story house. And he would come home every day when it was about time for mama to give her a bath, so he could lift her. And he treated her just like she was his mother.	23:38
Chris Stewart	Wow. Did you ever get caught in between any of the fights between your mom and dad?	24:12
Annie Gavin	No, because I stayed out the way.	24:17
Chris Stewart	You ran?	24:23
Annie Gavin	But my mama just soon hit him with brick as anything. But one time, she ran outdoors and ran to the wood pile and my daddy had lost his foot on the train. And so papa saw and he closed the door. And she had sailed that ax and tore the door up. But he didn't get hit. By the time her grandimama got there, she would blame mama, which mama was to blame.	24:23
Chris Stewart	Sounds like your grandmother knew your mom.	24:55
Annie Gavin	Yeah. She knew her—	24:58
Chris Stewart	Really well.	25:00
Annie Gavin	She knew Mama wouldn't say anything back to her too. She never would say any—I don't know, maybe times, maybe she thought Papa was to blame. But papa was very good to her. When she got sick, like I was saying, he had all the furniture taken out of the living room and put her bed in there. Then he'd come home. But when mama was ready to give her a bath and stuff so he could lift her. He treated her just like she was his mama.	25:00
Chris Stewart	Did your father own both the cafe and the store at the same time? Or did he have one at one time and one at the other?	25:35
Annie Gavin	Well, the first time, after he lost his foot, he was down at the foot of the bridge, like going to Newbury. Most of the Blacks were over in James City then. And he didn't own the building, but he ended up, we got a stone building out there on the road. By the way, when you go out of here, you got to go this way.	25:41
Chris Stewart	Oh, go this way?	26:08
Annie Gavin	This road here and then up there by a real big church. Well, it was the school. You got to turn on the road and go out.	26:09
Chris Stewart	You said that the stone building—Was this where the store was or where the cafe was? Is that still there?	26:20
Annie Gavin	Well the stone building's still there. They ran through the top of it recently, because it wasn't being used. Just used for—	26:26
Chris Stewart	Was this the store or the cafe?	26:34
Annie Gavin	Well, the store, café. It's a big building, has upstairs and downstairs.	26:37
Chris Stewart	So both of them were in there?	26:41
Annie Gavin	Hmm?	26:43
Chris Stewart	Were both of them in there or was it just the store?	26:43
Annie Gavin	Well, there was a time, my daddy had dancers upstairs and downstairs was the store. But we lived around the corner there, where we lived is still there.	26:47
Chris Stewart	I asked you before about the store being a place where people would come and just sit and talk. You said it was a place for mostly men to do that.	26:57
Annie Gavin	Well, mostly men, yes. Women would come sometimes, but I think the women did most sitting on the porches and stuff.	27:10
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things would the men talk about when they came?	27:19
Annie Gavin	Well, he also had a poolroom.	27:22
Chris Stewart	In the store, or by the store?	27:28
Annie Gavin	In the back part of the building.	27:30
Chris Stewart	Were you [indistinct 00:27:33]—	27:32
Annie Gavin	My dad had lost his foot on the train. He was brakeman on the train for a long time. And down to Morehead, he was braking the car and the track rolled over his foot. So after then, he had to give up that and he got a check. They tried to let him be a signal man. But he said he didn't want that. So he built this building and then he was a barber, cut hair.	27:33
Chris Stewart	He was? He was a busy man.	28:10
Annie Gavin	Yeah, he was smart.	28:12
Chris Stewart	First of all, were you allowed in the pool hall? In the pool?	28:15
Annie Gavin	Well, the pool hall was in the back of the store. And I always kept the store.	28:18
Chris Stewart	Okay. What about the barbershop? Did you hang out in the barbershop at all?	28:24
Annie Gavin	He had one room for the barbershop.	28:27
Chris Stewart	In the building?	28:29
Annie Gavin	Yeah, the same building.	28:30
Chris Stewart	So you had everything in this building?	28:31
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	28:33
Chris Stewart	Oh, this is great. What kinds of things would the men talk about? Did you overhear anything?	28:33
Annie Gavin	Well, the men, most of that talk, I was inside and they were outside. But I learned a lot from listening. Things they would say about women. And a woman would pass and then they had to lay her out. I would say—	28:40
Chris Stewart	What do you mean by lay her out?	28:52
Annie Gavin	Talk about her.	28:53
Chris Stewart	What would they say?	28:53
Annie Gavin	She was a slut. "No, I don't want her, anybody could get her." That kind of thing. I learned a lot. I said, "They'll never get a chance to sit down and talk about me like that." You learned a lot from listening. And where the place is, is right near the road, the other road over there. You came in on that same road, but when you go out of here, you got to go down here and take the first road to your left.	29:03
Chris Stewart	Am I going to drive by it when I leave?	29:31
Annie Gavin	No, because for the end, then the highway.	29:35
Chris Stewart	So if I kept on taking a left though, if I took a left and then took another left back on Elder, would I drive by it then?	29:38
Annie Gavin	Well, you'll be able to see it from the road that you will have to travel. Because if you look oh, straight over this way, it's a concrete block building. There's a little White church there near it. And the storm took the top off. Got to have that fixed.	29:45
Chris Stewart	Did men ever talk about their work or any kinds of things, like if they were farming or if they were working?	30:06
Annie Gavin	Men talked about some of everything around the poolroom. But my daddy let them understand that they couldn't talk about things that didn't make sense, if I was there. Because sometimes, I was there and they talked, but they didn't even think about me being inside. I heard a whole lot that I wasn't supposed to hear.	30:14
Chris Stewart	Was there anything that you were surprised about, that you heard when you were—	30:37
Annie Gavin	No, because mostly they would talk about like a woman would pass along.	30:41
Chris Stewart	And that was the stuff that you weren't supposed to hear?	30:46
Annie Gavin	Well actually, they didn't know I heard them. And they'd say, "Oh, she ain't nothing. I wouldn't have her. And she did this, she did that." And I said to myself, "Men won't ever be able to sit on the vine, talk about me."	30:49
Chris Stewart	What'd you think about that, them saying that?	30:57
Annie Gavin	I thought it was bad. It was bad on the part of the woman, really, because they weren't lying. They were telling the truth. There was some women at that time —Also, some women at this time, would have men for money. And they'd call them whores. But there's some women that I guess, preferred not to work and they didn't. But I noticed that most of those people like that, they didn't live long. They died young. And then there was some that had to drag themselves up. The mother and father or what have you, died early. A lot of people, victim of circumstances. We had White and Black over here.	31:00
Chris Stewart	Who were people who were important to you? Important people to you or to the community, when you were growing up?	32:03
Annie Gavin	Oh, school teachers and the preachers.	32:10
Chris Stewart	Was there anybody in particular who spent a lot of time with you as a child, besides your parents?	32:12
Annie Gavin	Well actually, we had a family of people over here Ms. Alvina Senna. She had been living in this area for a long number of years and she was like more or less a guide. And she'd make a point to get the young people together and talk to them about life. Because there was a whole lot about life that a lot of kids never had experienced. And back then, the mothers seemed to been hesitant about telling the daughters things. But Ms. Alvina had a group she talked to. She was a native James City person. And she taught school all her life.	32:18
Chris Stewart	Was this the same woman who you told me was in the school and you talked to the girls about—Was this the same woman who was teaching at the Sutton School?	33:12
Annie Gavin	No, this one, Miss Alvina taught in public school.	33:21
Chris Stewart	I see. Okay.	33:23
Annie Gavin	And Ms. Todd was teaching at Sutton School, which was a church school.	33:25
Chris Stewart	So it sounds like—	33:28
Annie Gavin	And a boarding school.	33:31
Chris Stewart	Sounds like teachers took it upon themselves to make sure that, especially— well, the young girls knew about—	33:35
Annie Gavin	Yeah, especially Black teachers. Because I guess, I don't know, maybe the Whites were getting some sort of training at that time, but the Blacks weren't, so they took it upon themselves to.	33:40
Chris Stewart	Did she ever warn you about White men?	33:54
Annie Gavin	No. Nothing was ever said about White men. She was half White herself, real fair.	33:57
Chris Stewart	So how long did you stay in Washington DC when you were up there?	34:07
Annie Gavin	Well, I stayed the summer, the whole summer.	34:13
Chris Stewart	When you married your husband?	34:16
Annie Gavin	No, not that time. The next time I did.	34:17
Chris Stewart	How long was—	34:18
Annie Gavin	I came back to school, we both came back to school. But I knew James already.	34:20
Chris Stewart	Where did you live when you came back?	34:28
Annie Gavin	When I came back from DC?	34:30
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm.	34:34
Annie Gavin	We went to live at his home, after we were married. Like I said, I had told him that his mother worked so hard to send him to school, but he didn't finish college. And he was making preparation for him to go back to North Carolina Central, when he had attack of appendicitis, and died.	34:34
Chris Stewart	Did he ever get to go back?	35:08
Annie Gavin	No, he didn't get to go back. He died. We were in business at the time.	35:08
Chris Stewart	You started the business then?	35:10
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	35:10
Chris Stewart	What was the name of the place that your—	35:11
Annie Gavin	Wallace.	35:13
Chris Stewart	Wallace.	35:13
Annie Gavin	North Carolina.	35:13
Chris Stewart	What kind of business did you have?	35:13
Annie Gavin	Grocery store, filling station.	35:18
Chris Stewart	It's in your blood, isn't it?	35:19
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Well, I was the one who had the idea. And what happened, James, when we first came back from Baltimore—Because I persuaded him to come back home where he could take care of his mother. He was a baby and the only boy. And she had taken in washing and worked in White folks kitchen and stuff, to send him to college. Or she sent him to high school. For that matter, it was high school where I met him. But then he went on to North Carolina Central, but had to stop out, because she got sick. So I told him, I said, "We should go home so you can take care of your mother." That's what we did. You see—	35:21
Chris Stewart	What did you have to do to start a business? How did you go about starting this business?	36:10
Annie Gavin	Well, a man named Hammond from South Carolina, he had a business on— Well in Wallace, it was White street and Black street. The front street was the White business. The back street was the Black business.	36:15
Chris Stewart	What was the name of the Black street?	36:33
Annie Gavin	I don't know that it had any particular name, except that everybody knew they were mostly Black. And the train came in back there, because it was the railroad track. But he was a Seven Day Adventist. He belonged to Seven Day Adventist Church. And it was closed on Saturdays. So I told James, I said, "Why don't you go and ask Mr. Hammond and Lucille—" His clerk that was also a member of the same church that James belonged to. I said, "Why don't you ask Mr. Hammond let you work in Lucille's place?" So he did, like I told him. And he told James he didn't need any help, because he had quite a few children, his family could fill in until Lucille got back.	36:36
Annie Gavin	He said, "But I got a place in Kenansville," which is a county see, "That I'll set you up if you are interested." Well, I was interested, because I was brought up in a business. So he put everything on our shelves and got us set up and would come up every Sunday night. He'd come up Sunday night and whatever money James was able to give him, until he got him paid.	37:27
Chris Stewart	Wow. So he got you all set up?	37:55
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	37:59
Chris Stewart	So White man or Black man?	37:59
Annie Gavin	He was a Black man, real fair skinned, from South Carolina. And he had started off in a very small way. But like he said, he didn't need a clerk. But a building was there and it had been a joint.	38:02
Chris Stewart	A big joint?	38:22
Annie Gavin	It had been a joint before we went there, where he sold whiskey and dance and stuff, and it had a house made to it too, because Mr. Hammond had been there. And then he moved on to Wallace. So we had a house in the store, a combination just like I got here.	38:25
Chris Stewart	Wow, that's nice.	38:47
Annie Gavin	James was easy, but I had been brought up in the public. So this time, this boy was in there, talking things that I didn't want my children to hear, or not discussed in that place. So I told him to leave. He told me he wasn't going nowhere. And I looked, and I'm not a fighter. If somebody had told me, I would pick up the poker and hit him across his face, I would say that I wouldn't do it. That's exactly what I did. He said he wasn't going nowhere. And my husband was easy. I took that—It was an iron poker, like you poke in the fire, and him straight across the face. And they said, "Well, you ought to have known better than Barbara Annie. She's from James City." James City had a reputation of people being mean. I'm glad they had that reputation.	38:48
Chris Stewart	Wow. What was he saying?	39:41
Annie Gavin	Words he shouldn't say around my children.	39:44
Chris Stewart	Curse words?	39:45
Annie Gavin	Curse words. And a damned this and a damned that. And so another time, to a girl there, she was sort of a slut, but she had a husband and she used to meet this guy there every Saturday, to get money from him. But I wouldn't have had anything to do with what they did outside. But I kept noticing it. And this guy had a family and a lot of children, nice wife. And this other girl, she was kind of a flirt anyway, so I got them told off, I said, "Don't meet in here anymore. The street's out there, don't have anything to do with what you do in the streets. But you are not going to meet Judy here, to give her money that you need for your family." I pieced them out. I didn't have no more trouble out of them.	39:46
Chris Stewart	Wow.	40:39
Annie Gavin	But a whole lot of instances where you're defending other people, but you're right. Because his wife is just a nicest person you want to know. And they had four or five kids. He didn't have nothing to give Judy. Judy had a husband too. I told Judy I was going to tell her husband. I never did though, because he would've beat her butt.	40:40
Chris Stewart	Were there women who did tell husbands about things that were going on?	41:03
Annie Gavin	No—	41:08
Chris Stewart	[indistinct 00:41:10].	41:08
Annie Gavin	—I didn't ever tell, because I didn't want to cause a disturbance.	41:11
Chris Stewart	How long did you stay there?	41:12
Annie Gavin	We was renting the business, and Hammond set us up and we stayed there long enough that the gas people—We had sold a lot of gas. Because James would—like the fellas. Sunday nights they'd go call on their girlfriends and about to give out of gas or something. They stopped there and he'd get up and wait on them, and I'd go to the door too. And sometimes, they'd buy sandwiches and stuff. And in other words, then the oil people offered us a place in Wallace. And so that was better, because James would be right there, where his mother was. It was just eight miles. But by the same token, it was a distance from her. And when she was well enough, she'd come out there, to be with us. And so we moved there. And the reason we moved there, because we were able to buy that place. I still own the land.	41:17
Chris Stewart	Oh, you do?	42:27
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm. That's in Duplin County. We stayed there until he died. And when he died, my daddy wanted us to come back here for us to be near.	42:27
Chris Stewart	Did you stay then with your parents when you came back?	42:37
Annie Gavin	No, when I came here, I moved in my own place.	42:40
Chris Stewart	How was it raising five kids all by yourself?	42:43
Annie Gavin	Well, my mother and father were just down the alley from us. It wasn't hard.	42:46
Chris Stewart	Because—	42:52
Annie Gavin	I married again.	42:53
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did?	42:54
Annie Gavin	But he didn't work out and I put him out.	42:55
Chris Stewart	Nothing Like your first husband, huh?	43:01
Annie Gavin	No, nothing like him. because one thing he drank, then he hung out. Then he'd steal my money. That was the main reason I put him out.	43:02
Chris Stewart	So how'd you put him out?	43:10
Annie Gavin	Told him to take his—Well, we had a car. He had the car. But I could always drive my daddy's car. So this night, he was supposed to bring the car back, so I could carry the children to the double feature movie. And he didn't come back. So I got my dad's car and I said, "Now, he's at the club," because he drank. And we had a white car, white Pontiac. And as I went around here over in Duffyfield, over there by where the school is, I saw the car. So I drove up and I parked. I went inside. On the inside—Well, they don't have those clubs like that anymore.	43:12
Annie Gavin	And there where you would buy the drinks and stuff, you could see everybody. But in the part that they sat in the booth, it was kind of dark. So I walked on in, went on back. And then when I looked around to my right there was Rich, and this girl. Looked like she was about one of my girls' ages. I had on some heels, I pulled on my shoe and had squared him away in the face. I told him, come to my house and get his clothes. I put him out	44:02
Chris Stewart	That night?	44:34
Annie Gavin	That night. So I told him I could do bad by myself.	44:34
Chris Stewart	How long had you been married to him?	44:41
Annie Gavin	I had been married to him quite a while. I didn't have any children for him though. And my baby, Ruth was quite a big girl. He was nice to me and nice to the children. But he knew that I carried kids to the double feature movie. And then didn't come back to bring—of course I got my daddy's car and carried them. But I was supposed to have our car back. And so I put him out. And the girl he was with, looked like to me was one of my girlfriends. And that made me mad.	44:43
Chris Stewart	Yeah, I bet. So you were really living alone raising the kids, although it doesn't sound like this guy was very much help raising your kids.	45:19
Annie Gavin	Well, he would work. He worked at Cherry Point and he was an ex-service man. And he'd give me money, but I didn't like the set up, so I told him to go.	45:28
Chris Stewart	How old were your kids then?	45:41
Annie Gavin	Ruth was about four, my baby.	45:43
Chris Stewart	So you still had small children at home then to raise?	45:45
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	45:48
Chris Stewart	But your mom and dad, you said—Did your mother help you or how was your relationship with your mom?	45:52
Annie Gavin	Yeah, but my mother came out there with us every day. And my daddy had the business on the road at Poolroom, and the barbershop. He was a barber too. And she would stay at my house and eat dinner with me. And we were still kind of one family. The children be in school. And I had a sister, she worked at Cherry Point.	45:58
Chris Stewart	So what—	46:23

Annie Gavin	—way down at the end of this street. Well, almost to the water, where the water is. You came across the bridge.	0:03
Chris Stewart	Down Brown Street almost to where the water is.	0:09
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	0:10
Chris Stewart	And was that your own store or was that your family's store?	0:13
Annie Gavin	That was my store.	0:16
Chris Stewart	So—	0:17
Annie Gavin	Because see, I moved my building and everything from Wallace.	0:17
Chris Stewart	You did?	0:22
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	0:22
Chris Stewart	Wow. So you didn't sell anything out there, you just moved everything over.	0:24
Annie Gavin	Oh, yeah.	0:28
Chris Stewart	So were you in competition with your dad?	0:30
Annie Gavin	No. Because he had a barbershop and poolroom.	0:32
Chris Stewart	Okay.	0:33
Annie Gavin	And by that time he sold sandwiches and stuff. I didn't sell sandwiches.	0:36
Chris Stewart	What kinds of stuff did you sell in your store?	0:37
Annie Gavin	I sold flour, meat, lots of groceries, cigarettes.	0:43
Chris Stewart	Did you have credit customers as well as cash customers?	0:48
Annie Gavin	I didn't have too many credit customers. That's where you get in trouble with the credit customers. And then they did the big grocery shopping at the big stores.	0:52
Chris Stewart	What do you mean trouble?	1:00
Annie Gavin	Well, they—	1:03
Chris Stewart	What do you mean you'd get into trouble with credit customers?	1:03
Annie Gavin	Well, they'll get your stuff and won't pay you.	1:04
Chris Stewart	Did you have any ways of getting people to pay if they were on credit or did you just not do that?	1:10
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm. By not crediting them.	1:15
Chris Stewart	You just stopped crediting them.	1:15
Annie Gavin	They bought whatnots and bread and soda and stuff. Mostly from me. But when they got the big grocery, they went to the stores where they have cheaper.	1:16
Chris Stewart	Right.	1:29
Annie Gavin	And bring it home.	1:31
Chris Stewart	Right. Did your dad or did you save any of the business records from the stores or the pool hall or the barbershop or any of that stuff? Do you know?	1:33
Annie Gavin	Well, the pool hall was my daddy's. He had the poolroom. But no, not really. But I haven't run any credit here because since they have these convenience stores, they buy most of what they want.	1:44
Chris Stewart	Right. Did your father keep any ledgers or any logs of his earnings or of his customers?	2:06
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Because we had to keep some records for social security or for our—	2:14
Chris Stewart	Taxes.	2:17
Annie Gavin	Taxes.	2:17
Chris Stewart	Do you still have any of those?	2:17
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	2:20
Chris Stewart	You've saved them?	2:24
Annie Gavin	No, I did save them for a while.	2:27
Chris Stewart	Yeah. But—	2:35
Annie Gavin	And then I carried a Sunday morning paper route for 32 years.	2:35
Chris Stewart	You did what?	2:37
Annie Gavin	Carried a paper route.	2:38
Chris Stewart	Wow.	2:40
Annie Gavin	And I closed the store up, go on the paper route, and opened back up when I come from paper—When my children were in college, that's how I was able to send them to college.	2:41
Chris Stewart	Wow. Wow.	2:52
Annie Gavin	And wherever they could, they got work in the summer.	2:56
Chris Stewart	So you said your children went to West Street?	3:03
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	3:05
Chris Stewart	How do you think their schooling was different from yours?	3:06
Annie Gavin	Well, in a sense I think mine was better because mine was more personalized.	3:10
Chris Stewart	Now how do you—	3:19
Annie Gavin	In the sense that church school, you have prayer. Well, back then we had prayer in public schools. I think that's what's the matter with these kids. They don't never get no prayer because some of them don't get it at home. When I went to school, you had a devotion. You started the day with a prayer and a song. And of course, our headmaster, he was a preacher. He was a Presiding Elder for our church too. It was an AME Zion Church. It was Dr. Sutton's School but it was under the Methodist connection.	3:21
Chris Stewart	Oh, was it through Livingstone?	4:01
Annie Gavin	Hmm?	4:03
Chris Stewart	Was it through Livingstone?	4:03
Annie Gavin	Livingstone College?	4:06
Chris Stewart	Right.	4:07
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm. He was connected with Livingstone College. He was Presiding Elder. And back then—My Pat is a social worker now. But when she went to college, she was able to get assistance from the church. A lot of kids were able to get assistance from the church and in some cases, they got jobs in the dormitory.	4:07
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay.	4:36
Annie Gavin	But four of my children are graduates of Livingstone. Not Livingstone. In Greensboro.	4:42
Chris Stewart	A and T.	4:58
Annie Gavin	A and T. Yeah.	4:59
Chris Stewart	Okay. Did you ever see any Jim Crow signs growing up?	5:00
Annie Gavin	Not really. There wasn't too many. Yeah.	5:09
Chris Stewart	Where were they?	5:13
Annie Gavin	Some smaller towns. The toilets with Jim Crow, no Black. Do you know what I did one time?	5:15
Chris Stewart	No.	5:22
Annie Gavin	It was Copeland Smith, I think. It was one of those big stores.	5:23
Chris Stewart	Stores.	5:26
Annie Gavin	And they had signs on the water thing. And had signs on the toilets too. Okay. I went along with that. Then when my baby wanted some water, I went right onto the White side. I wanted them to say something. I'd have said, "What's different in the water?"	5:27
Chris Stewart	There you go. They didn't say anything to you?	5:53
Annie Gavin	They didn't say anything. They didn't say anything. Sure didn't.	5:53
Chris Stewart	Wow. Were there more signs—There were signs in New Bern.	5:54
Annie Gavin	New Bern.	5:58
Chris Stewart	What about restaurants?	6:00
Annie Gavin	Well, you could go to the door and get served.	6:02
Chris Stewart	Were there any restaurants that you could sit and eat in?	6:05
Annie Gavin	Later years. Now all integrated.	6:10
Chris Stewart	Right.	6:12
Annie Gavin	But then you could take out, but that soon passed away and now you don't know the differences.	6:14
Chris Stewart	Right. Were there any instances that you can recall where you thought that people treated you like you were a second-class citizen?	6:26
Annie Gavin	Well, I never experienced too much of it.	6:36
Chris Stewart	But they treated you, maybe like they didn't think that you were as good as they were.	6:39
Annie Gavin	Not really. I guess one reason is, I guess I didn't notice it too much. And in my case, I got to know a lot of White people through that paper route and then at the store. But do you know what I think? I don't think it was so much all White people or all Black people as just some White people and some Black people. And I found that the ones that really were good Christians, they were not able sometimes to show when they cared, but they still would go to bat for you. I know one occasion, something happened with me and this person that went to bat—I didn't say anything, but this man was fussing. Whatever happened, it wasn't my fault. Something happened. And this man was fussing at me. And another White man came up and said, "Don't fuss it. Don't talk to Annie like that." It hurts. I didn't say nothing back to him. But it's so different now. People want to be friends.	6:44
Annie Gavin	And of course, even then, I know my daddy had a car and this White family— Because when he lost his foot and stuff, he bought a car. And the two girls, White girls that lived right in the area where his store was and they didn't have cars and they would teach us. So my daddy carried them to the school and picked them up. But, of course, he sat in the front and they sat in the back. There was nothing unusual about that. But there have always been White people that were close to Black people and just couldn't show it. And now you don't know the difference really too much.	8:09
Chris Stewart	If you had some advice to give to young people given your life experience.	9:09
Annie Gavin	My advice would be, first of all, believe in God and love. And if you do that, it's not hard. In other words, I don't have to be your bedmate. I don't have to be in your house, but I can care for you. You can care for me regardless of the color. Because God loves us all. And if that was carried out, it'd be a whole lot less stress on people. Because it's not so bad now. In other words, there was a time if you got on the bus with White people, they'd move over like you were poison. But they don't do that anymore. And they try to be helpful to each other. And this is good. You don't have to be friends and don't have to be bedmates to care. That's my idea.	9:17
Annie Gavin	And I found that in those 32 years that I served White people on the paper route, they all seemed to care about me. In some cases, sometimes I'd get along to the house, they had some cake for me or some cold water or something. They showed that they cared. And some of the women confided in me and in the matters of their husbands and stuff. But I remember.	10:16
Chris Stewart	Why do you think they confided in you?	10:41
Annie Gavin	They didn't want the neighbors to know what was happening. This woman was all packed. She was going to leave her husband, she was tired of this and she was tired of that and she had children. And I say, "You're going to leave him." I said, "The man if he's stepping out and you don't see it, why worry about it? But your children need their daddy. You better stay here where he supports you." Because she didn't work. So she didn't leave. She stayed there.	10:41
Chris Stewart	Wow.	11:16
Annie Gavin	But she asked my advice and that was what I would've done. And I told her. But in her case, she didn't have to work. And the man worked for her all the time. I don't know what he was doing or nothing, but I know it wasn't enough for her to take—I think she had three children, three children, to go try to find her way in the world. They needed to be with their father. And I told her, I said, "You say he doesn't beat you or anything and he got a girlfriend. As long as you don't see it, don't worry about it." That was the advice I gave her because that's the advice I would've taken. Because when you got children, there's a whole lot of things you'll have to sacrifice. In other words, sometimes you put up with a little bit of meanness because you want your child to grow up with his father. But a lot of families have been broken apart and they'll go astray, the children just go one day and it's bad on the kids.	11:18
Chris Stewart	Real bad.	12:24
Annie Gavin	And I never. My mother and father used to fuss. My mother would throw things. One night she threw the lamp, my daddy had to grab her. And I hated that so bad. I told the Lord and myself, when I get a husband, there ain't no fussing and fighting with my husband. It's kind of bad on the kids. But my daddy never would hit her. But what he would do if he got the chance to get her hands so she couldn't be grabbing things, he'd hold her and send my uncle for her grandmother. Her grandmother would come right there, "Francis. I told you about your mouth." And she just fuss my mouth. Then Mama would cry, "You always blame me. You don't blame Doc for nothing." "Well, Doc ain't doing nothing. You the one doing it, throwing axes." Mama would throw anything. So I said I'd never go through that.	12:27
Annie Gavin	But Mama didn't never work. She had a car of her own to ride her friends. They'd go shopping and then they'd go sit up on the street to White folks' funerals.	13:19
Chris Stewart	Really?	13:32
Annie Gavin	Yeah, people that they knew and they did it so much until the usher would come out and ask them if they wanted to go in after things got better. They could go into the funeral if there weren't too—	13:33
Chris Stewart	Right.	13:47
Annie Gavin	But mostly they were White. They knew all the White folks because sometime another of Mama's friends had worked for them. But it's so different now than what it was a few years ago.	13:48
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	14:05
Annie Gavin	In a sense that people realize that you're human and they have the same feelings and everything everybody else has. And you make friends. I always had a point that if I could get along with anybody, I got along with them. If I couldn't get along with you, I didn't bother. I'd just leave and go about my way.	14:05
Chris Stewart	I talked to a woman in Wilmington who told me that she'd treat anybody with respect who came into her house as long as they treated her with respect. But if they didn't treat her with respect, there were seven doors in her house that they could leave by.	14:36
Annie Gavin	Show them the door. Well, that's true. That's a good motto, good idea. If you can't get along, don't try to.	14:52
Chris Stewart	Right.	14:59
Annie Gavin	But try to get along with everybody because everybody has something to offer. And then God loves us all. That's what I think about most. Now we're invited to White churches.	15:01
Chris Stewart	You are?	15:16
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Come to our service. And one Sunday morning, I went to church and we had two pews of White people visiting our church.	15:17
Chris Stewart	Really?	15:27
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	15:27
Chris Stewart	What church do you go to?	15:27
Annie Gavin	I go to the Methodist Church, the church right around the street here.	15:32
Chris Stewart	Which one?	15:32
Annie Gavin	Jones Chapel.	15:32
Chris Stewart	Okay.	15:32
Annie Gavin	Grace and I belong to the same church.	15:32
Chris Stewart	Yeah?	15:32
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	15:33
Chris Stewart	Ma'am, I tell you what, I have a couple of other things that I need to ask you. I have a form to fill out. It's biographical information. Basically, it's the names and dates part of the interview. And if you can remember things, that's fine. And if not, that's fine too. But do you mind if I ask you some of these questions?	15:41
Annie Gavin	No, I don't mind.	16:02
Chris Stewart	It won't take very long. First I need your full name.	16:02
Annie Gavin	My full name is Annie Maria, M-A-R-I-A	16:07
Chris Stewart	M-O.	16:10
Annie Gavin	Maria, M-A-R-I-A.	16:10
Chris Stewart	Okay.	16:17
Annie Gavin	Joyner Gavin.	16:23
Chris Stewart	Joyner is your name.	16:24
Annie Gavin	My maiden name is Joanna	16:26
Chris Stewart	Gavin or Gavins?	16:26
Annie Gavin	G-A-V-I-N. It's a married name.	16:31
Chris Stewart	Do you spell your name A-N-N-I-E or A-N-N-E?	16:33
Annie Gavin	A-N-N-I-E.	16:35
Chris Stewart	And your current address is 615 Brown, right?	16:44
Annie Gavin	Brown Drive.	16:48
Chris Stewart	What's your phone number?	16:55
Annie Gavin	637-2837.	16:56
Chris Stewart	How would you like your name to appear if any written material, from any written material that might come from this?	17:04
Annie Gavin	Well, it doesn't matter to me if it's a benefit to somebody.	17:11
Chris Stewart	How would you like your name to look? Would you like it to be Annie Joyner Gavin or Annie J Gavin or Annie Maria Gavin or—	17:15
Annie Gavin	Annie Joyner Gavin.	17:22
Chris Stewart	One of the professors who runs this project, his last name is Gavins.	17:33
Annie Gavin	Oh, yeah.	17:38
Chris Stewart	With an N.	17:38
Annie Gavin	Uh-huh.	17:38
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	17:38
Annie Gavin	Mine's with an N, G-A-V-I-N.	17:38
Chris Stewart	I-N. Yeah. He's with an S at the end.	17:38
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	17:38
Chris Stewart	When is your date of birth?	17:47
Annie Gavin	October 28, 1911.	17:49
Chris Stewart	'11. And you were born here in James City?	17:57
Annie Gavin	Yes.	17:58
Chris Stewart	Were you born at home?	17:59
Annie Gavin	Yes.	18:04
Chris Stewart	Did your mother have a midwife attend you or a doula—	18:05
Annie Gavin	A midwife.	18:08
Chris Stewart	Were there midwives around here? Were there set—	18:10
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Midwife right in there.	18:12
Chris Stewart	Did you give birth to your children in a hospital or did you use a midwife? Or did you use a doctor or a midwife, I should say?	18:15
Annie Gavin	A doctor.	18:21
Chris Stewart	Doctor?	18:21
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	18:21
Chris Stewart	And was that in Wallace?	18:26
Annie Gavin	In Baltimore.	18:27
Chris Stewart	It was.	18:30
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	18:30
Chris Stewart	So you had all your kids in Baltimore before you came here?	18:30
Annie Gavin	I had Ruth here, my baby girl.	18:35
Chris Stewart	Oh, you did?	18:52
Annie Gavin	Uh-huh.	18:52
Chris Stewart	Okay. That's right. You said your husband.	18:52
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm. In fact, I was living in Pamlico County when she was born.	18:52
Chris Stewart	Really?	18:52
Annie Gavin	She was only two when her daddy died.	18:52
Chris Stewart	Yeah, that's what you said. What was your mother's name?	18:52
Annie Gavin	Mary Francis. Mary Francis Joyner.	18:53
Chris Stewart	What was her maiden name?	19:01
Annie Gavin	Mary Francis Spivey, S-P-I-V-E-Y.	19:02
Chris Stewart	Do you know when she was born?	19:07
Annie Gavin	Yeah. I have a record of it. I can tell you right quick. They were from the Havelock area, but my daddy was from Rocky Mount.	19:09
Chris Stewart	Really?	19:25
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	19:26
Chris Stewart	We just got back from Rocky Mount. We spent some time in Edgecombe and Nash County, Halifax County.	19:26
Annie Gavin	Edgecombe County was my daddy's birthplace. My brothers passed when they were still babies.	19:32
Chris Stewart	Really?	19:40
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	19:41
Chris Stewart	How many did you have?	19:41
Annie Gavin	Two.	19:42
Chris Stewart	Do you know their names?	19:45
Annie Gavin	My oldest brother was named Jenious, J-E-N-I-O-U-S, just like my dad.	19:48
Chris Stewart	After your dad. Jenious Jacob, did you say?	19:54
Annie Gavin	Jenious Joyner.	19:57
Chris Stewart	Okay. And he passed when he was a baby?	19:58
Annie Gavin	Yeah. He drank kerosene.	20:01
Chris Stewart	Oh.	20:06
Annie Gavin	They used to have strawberry sodas and the kerosene was red. They used to have red kerosene.	20:06
Chris Stewart	What about your other brother?	20:18
Annie Gavin	Wilbert died. Seemed like there was some kind of swelling going around. He died from that.	20:21
Chris Stewart	What?	20:28
Annie Gavin	There used to be things happened to people that they didn't have a cure for. And my mother had a cousin that just her stomach would swell up and she waited on her and the same thing happened to my brother, my other brother.	20:28
Chris Stewart	Wow. Were there people in the community who would take care of sick people?	20:52
Annie Gavin	Yeah.	20:59
Chris Stewart	Who had cures for sick people?	20:59
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Well, a lot of things those old people knew to do, but some things they didn't.	21:01
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	21:04
Annie Gavin	They had doctors. They had doctors that were—	21:04
Chris Stewart	Did you have anybody in the community that could work roots?	21:04
Annie Gavin	No.	21:12
Chris Stewart	No?	21:12
Annie Gavin	Uh-uh. There was a time that were supposed to be a root worker. But this guy mostly was fooling the people getting the money.	21:12
Chris Stewart	Really?	21:22
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	21:24
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things would people, those people who you said did help sick people, what kinds of treatments? Were there any home remedies?	21:24
Annie Gavin	Yeah, they were mostly home remedies.	21:32
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things? Do you remember?	21:34
Annie Gavin	Well, like fevers, they knew to put Palmer Christian leaves and not—	21:36
Chris Stewart	What kind of—	21:42
Annie Gavin	Palmer Christian leaves, those wide leaves that grow wild.	21:43
Chris Stewart	Okay.	21:47
Annie Gavin	And they'd put them on the people when they got a fever and it'd draw the fever out. Because my husband's mother, Gran had fevers when she was a little child and Mother came and she brought the leaves and stuff with her and put them all over. And she was sweating, sweating the fever out.	21:47
Chris Stewart	Right. Draw the fever out.	22:09
Annie Gavin	See, they had to learn these things through experience.	22:10
Chris Stewart	What kinds of other cures were there, did people use?	22:13
Annie Gavin	Well, like stick a nail in your foot, a penny, and a piece of fat meat. Then tie it onto—so it wouldn't come off. And that penny, I guess, was supposed to draw the poison out and the meat furnished the grease, I guess. But that's what they used to do. Back at that particular time, people didn't have doctors and stuff like they have now. So they had to learn to survive with leaves and teas and stuff. But now, of course, they got the doctors and they supposed to know all the answers.	22:20
Chris Stewart	What about when something real serious happened like when your father's foot? When your father hurt his foot, how did—	22:57
Annie Gavin	They put him in the hospital.	23:03
Chris Stewart	What hospital?	23:05
Annie Gavin	Down below Morehead City. That's where he was.	23:07
Chris Stewart	By Morehead City. Did you know what the name of the hospital is?	23:09
Annie Gavin	I've forgotten it, but the hospital is still there. Carteret County Hospital, I think is the name of it.	23:14
Chris Stewart	Carteret?	23:21
Annie Gavin	Uh-huh. He was in that area.	23:24
Chris Stewart	When it happened?	23:28
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm. He went and put his foot and pulled this thing. I don't know that you ever seen it. You pulled it up and he didn't pull up fast enough and the car rolled over his foot. And so he had no foot there, just the heel. And then they sent him an artificial foot and stuff, but it never fit. So he made his own foot. I still got it.	23:30
Chris Stewart	You still got it?	23:55
Annie Gavin	He made his own shoe, fixed his shoe, made cork, and everything.	23:59
Chris Stewart	Wow.	24:04
Annie Gavin	And then he made him a peg and put his knee on that peg and had a strap. That's how he walked.	24:05
Chris Stewart	Wow.	24:14
Annie Gavin	And while he was a barber, he cut hair.	24:17
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Imagine that, standing up on his feet all the time to cut hair. That might have been a little uncomfortable.	24:19
Annie Gavin	Yes, it was uncomfortable, but he had a high—made him a chair.	24:27
Chris Stewart	Oh.	24:35
Annie Gavin	That he could see. He was the only barber in that neighborhood, so he really made a—	24:35
Chris Stewart	He was?	24:36
Annie Gavin	Uh-huh. But people would cut children's hair with scissors, and they wanted his son to cut. Papa always did it.	24:40
Chris Stewart	Were there any other kinds of activities besides barbering that took place in the barbershop?	24:46
Annie Gavin	They had a store, sold sodas, and made sandwiches. Back then, it wasn't so much you had to have a license for this and a license for that. But he always had somebody that would make fish sandwiches and then barbecue. He would cook—	24:55
Chris Stewart	What about checkers?	25:10
Annie Gavin	They played games. Yeah, they played games, cards.	25:11
Chris Stewart	What about, was there any gambling that went on?	25:14
Annie Gavin	Well, there were gambling joints but he didn't have no gambling on.	25:18
Chris Stewart	In his barbershop?	25:21
Annie Gavin	No, because we were growing up out there too.	25:22
Chris Stewart	Right. What about the names of your children?	25:28
Annie Gavin	My children?	25:31
Chris Stewart	Uh-huh.	25:32
Annie Gavin	My oldest child is named Patricia. Patricia Delores. She's a social worker.	25:32
Chris Stewart	Patricia what?	25:39
Annie Gavin	Patricia Delores.	25:40
Chris Stewart	What's her married name?	25:42
Annie Gavin	Well, she was married. She's not married now.	25:44
Chris Stewart	She's not. Did she keep your name then, Gavin?	25:47
Annie Gavin	Yeah, she's back in Gavin because she divorced.	25:57
Chris Stewart	When was she born?	25:57
Annie Gavin	She was born—I guess I better look to make sure. I still have all them. She was born in DC. Oh, Baltimore. Let's see when Patricia was born. I still have everybody's birthdays.	25:57
Chris Stewart	Is it in the back here? Nope.	26:12
Annie Gavin	No, not here. Not here. Patricia Dolores. Oh, that's both of them. That's William and Jeannie's girls. See. I must have Pat. She's a social worker.	26:40
Chris Stewart	How old were you when she was born? Do you know?	27:00
Annie Gavin	I was in my twenties.	27:04
Chris Stewart	Okay. What about your next child?	27:06
Annie Gavin	Next one in age is James. His name is James Francis. I don't think I got any of them in here.	27:08
Chris Stewart	And then who?	27:28
Annie Gavin	Let me see my other Bible. She went to work at the hospital and she decided that there were a lot of changes she wanted made and she set about to do it. So they sent her back to school and paid for it, St. Elizabeth's Hospital. That's a 100-year-old hospital, World War I hospital. Then she set out and put the women in clothes rather than uniforms.	27:29
Chris Stewart	Right. You told me about that. That's right.	28:09
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	28:13
Chris Stewart	Jones Chapel, is that an AME Zion church?	28:14
Annie Gavin	That's AME Zion.	28:16
Chris Stewart	Have you ever belonged to any organizations, community, business, civic organizations?	28:22
Annie Gavin	NAACP. I belong to NAACP. I belong to NAACP and the community organization. We have an active community organization now. James City Community Organization.	28:29
Chris Stewart	Any social clubs or anything like that?	28:51
Annie Gavin	No, not really.	28:55
Chris Stewart	Have any hobbies or anything that you like to do that you'd like to—	28:58
Annie Gavin	I guess talk.	29:02
Chris Stewart	Well, it's awfully fun, I tell ya.	29:06
Annie Gavin	And my daddy loved to talk too.	29:10
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	29:12
Annie Gavin	With the younger kids, I try to sit them down and explain things to them because some of these kids don't get it. And some of them don't even know what it is to say their prayers at night.	29:16
Chris Stewart	That's one of the reasons, ma'am, that we think that it's—You talk to the kids here in James City about stuff. And we're hoping that through this tape recording, you can talk to students and children away from James City as well.	29:28
Annie Gavin	Right. Well, actually, it's sad, but it's true. But there are so many people who weren't taught to say the Lord's Prayer because they just didn't get it. But it's good to know there's a God and it's good to know that you have a protector regardless to what ties, God will take care. And I used to tell my children that. And in Ruth Ann's case, she's always been very smart in school. And she had a friend, they were about to come up for the finals. And this girl was very nervous because she didn't think she was going to pass. And she was an orphan and somebody else was sending her to school. And she hated so much not interacting. So Ruth said, "Wait a minute, let's lock that door. Let's get on our knees and take it to God." And she got down and prayed with this girl so she got less nervous. She passed. Yeah.	29:43
Chris Stewart	Have there times in your life, ma'am, when you've done that when you've been really frightened or afraid or worried when—	30:46
Annie Gavin	Yes. There have been times, even in storms when I was carrying papers and thunder and lightning. I'm not afraid of the storms because I noticed when I was growing up, my mother was never afraid. Because some people when it started thundering, they'd go get behind the door and all that kind of stuff. I never experienced that. But I do know to ask God to take care and I'm not afraid. But that business of being taught to know there's a God means a lot to a child. I always had to go to Sunday school and church. And when I was in the beginner's class, we had an older woman, a Sunday School teacher, and she'd tell us all about God and how good God is. And those kinds of things stick. But I think a lot of this dope problem and all this is because they've taken prayer out of schools. You used to go to school, you had started the day off with prayer. But it seems to me that ever since they took the prayer of the schools, the devil is let loose on young people. And it's pathetic.	30:58
Annie Gavin	Now, my Ruth, she even gives a cross to those people with feeble minds. She tells them about God and how good God is. And sometimes she says they bring it up to her. And something else she experienced. She's been working at St. Elizabeth's for more than 20 years, and they got a way for her—They paid for her to go to Catholic University.	32:17
Chris Stewart	Oh, wow.	32:56
Annie Gavin	And she learned all this secretarial work and she taught other secretaries at St. Elizabeth's.	32:57
Chris Stewart	Wow. That's a good—That's a—	33:03
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	33:05
Chris Stewart	Wow.	33:05
Annie Gavin	Right.	33:07
Chris Stewart	Well, Miss Gavin, I have one more thing I need to do, and that's to ask you permission to use this tape in the collection.	33:08
Annie Gavin	Okay.	33:16
Chris Stewart	In our collection. And what we have, of course, is we have a form.	33:16
Annie Gavin	Okay.	33:19
Chris Stewart	As usual. And this form, it's called an interview agreement form. And what it states is that you give—	33:21
Annie Gavin	Permission.	33:31
Chris Stewart	—you give permission to place this tape in the collection at Duke University. And in addition to that, I don't know if I told you this, but there's going to be a copy of all the tapes that are going to come back to the James City Historical Society.	33:32
Annie Gavin	Good. Good.	33:46
Chris Stewart	So you will give permission then to have this tape in the James City Historical Society as well.	33:47
Annie Gavin	Right.	33:52
Chris Stewart	And what that means is that students can listen to the tape and researchers can listen to the tape and write about—	33:53
Annie Gavin	It's really to help somebody maybe.	34:03
Chris Stewart	Yep.	34:05
Annie Gavin	Hopefully.	34:05
Chris Stewart	Well, is this all right then? Can I—	34:06
Annie Gavin	It's all right.	34:07
Chris Stewart	Okay. Let me fill it out. And if you could sign it. Is that okay?	34:08
Annie Gavin	Okay.	34:10
Chris Stewart	We're going to interview the mayor of New Bern this afternoon.	34:15
Annie Gavin	Yeah. Morgan	34:19
Chris Stewart	Mayor Morgan. Yeah. That should be interesting.	34:20
Annie Gavin	Yes.	34:25
Chris Stewart	How long has he been mayor?	34:27
Annie Gavin	I think Lee has been there—He's from Kinston. He has been there—It's been quite a long time now.	34:29
Chris Stewart	How long has he lived here?	34:38
Annie Gavin	I think Lee came here from Kinston, I believe. But he married the undertaker's daughter, Barbara. Rivers Funeral Home. And Rivers just died so Barbara really does own—She got some boys. She and Lee got some boys, lawyers. One is a judge.	34:43
Chris Stewart	Really?	35:10
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	35:11
Chris Stewart	How old a man is he?	35:12
Annie Gavin	Well, Lee must be, he's in his late fifties.	35:14
Chris Stewart	Is he?	35:17
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	35:17
Chris Stewart	Well, I'm really excited to be able to interview him. That's going to be pretty exciting, I think.	35:18
Annie Gavin	Uh-huh.	35:26
Chris Stewart	I didn't realize he from Kinston. I'm going to ask him the same kinds of questions I asked you.	35:27
Annie Gavin	Did he tell you he was from Kinston?	35:30
Chris Stewart	No. No.	35:32
Annie Gavin	Where is Lee from?	35:33
Chris Stewart	Well, I have—	35:35
Annie Gavin	I know Bishop was from Kinston.	35:35
Chris Stewart	Really?	35:36
Annie Gavin	Mm-hmm.	35:36
Chris Stewart	I just was able to set up an appointment with him. So I'll have to ask him all that when I get there.	35:39
Annie Gavin	Yeah. He'll tell you.	35:44
Chris Stewart	But at three o'clock this afternoon I get to talk to him.	35:45
Annie Gavin	He's a very nice person.	35:48
Chris Stewart	This is what I've heard. Well, here's the form.	35:49
Annie Gavin	Okay.	35:52
Chris Stewart	If you want to—	35:53
Annie Gavin	Take it.	35:53
Chris Stewart	—take a look at it and here's where you'd sign.	35:54
Annie Gavin	Okay.	35:57
Chris Stewart	Right there.	35:59
Annie Gavin	Right here?	35:59
Chris Stewart	Yeah.	35:59

Item Info

Title:

Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 August 3

Date:

August 3, 1993

Creator:

Gavin, Annie Joyner

Contributor:

Stewart, Chris M.

Description:

Name: Annie Joyner Gavin; Date of birth: 1911-10-28; Place of birth: James City, NC; Occupation(s): domestic; merchant; Residence: James City, NC
Informant ID: 321; Interviewed by: Chris Stewart.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

Interview number: 693
a87735b7-4de2-4075-a95e-cd28d6922588
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Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 August 3

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1. Annie Gavin administrative file, 1993

2. Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 January 26

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Annie Gavin interview recording, 1993 August 3

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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