Velma Neal (primary interviewee) and Andrew Neal interview recording, 1995 July 19

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Kisha Turner	Can we begin by you all just stating— each of you just stating your names and when you were born.	0:02
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. Velma Neal.	0:08
Kisha Turner	Okay.	0:15
Velma Holmes Neal	I was born February the 26th, 1914.	0:16
Kisha Turner	Okay. And Mr. Neal?	0:26
Andrew Neal	I am Andrew Neal, and I was born December the 22nd, 1913.	0:30
Kisha Turner	Where were you all born?	0:39
Velma Holmes Neal	In Norfolk.	0:41
Andrew Neal	Norfolk.	0:41
Kisha Turner	Okay.	0:42
Velma Holmes Neal	In Norfolk.	0:43
Andrew Neal	In Norfolk. Just say Norfolk.	0:43
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm—hmm.	0:47
Kisha Turner	Okay. And it doesn't matter which one of you speak, but can you tell me a little bit about the house? The actual, physical house that you were born in, or you grew up in as a child?	0:47
Andrew Neal	I was born in a bordering town, in a house that was considered being in the middle class. I see why you would ask that question, because my father was a contractor. A building contractor.	1:00
Kisha Turner	Okay.	1:10
Andrew Neal	And so we didn't suffer some of the hardships that my friends had.	1:10
Kisha Turner	Okay.	1:19
Andrew Neal	We had one house, Black people were taking care of us. Telephone and all the other things, including automobiles. We had that transportation.	1:33
Kisha Turner	Okay. And Mrs. Neal?	1:33
Velma Holmes Neal	I was born in a house that was bought by my grandfather, that still stands, that's 100 and some years old. And my father was a postman. My father was a postman.	1:42
Kisha Turner	Did either of your parents ever tell you about— were they both— Were your parents born in Norfolk?	2:00
Andrew Neal	Yes.	2:04
Kisha Turner	Did they ever talk about what Norfolk was like when they were younger?	2:05
Velma Holmes Neal	No.	2:10
Andrew Neal	Yes, to a certain extent, when they did. But the type of discipline they had to go through, I don't know.	2:10
Velma Holmes Neal	It was kind of rough at that time.	2:15
Andrew Neal	And the church was the primary guiding factor in our lives, both of us.	2:24
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	2:41
Andrew Neal	Always. Throughout Christians of the Baptist faith. And then your grandparents were—	2:41
Velma Holmes Neal	The founders of the church in Virginia.	2:43
Andrew Neal	— and all like that.	2:44
Kisha Turner	Whose grandparents?	2:47
Velma Holmes Neal	My grandparents.	2:48
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	2:50
Kisha Turner	Okay.	2:50
Velma Holmes Neal	Were the founders of the church, of which I am still a member.	2:50
Kisha Turner	What's the name of the church?	2:50
Velma Holmes Neal	First Baptist Church.	2:55
Kisha Turner	Okay. What do you know about the history of that church, since your grandparents founded it? What was it called when—	2:57
Velma Holmes Neal	The founders of the church, we all were outgrowth of Banks Street Baptist Church.	3:03
Andrew Neal	Another Baptist church.	3:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Another Baptist church. But we had the— The people had to ride what they called back then, a foot ferry, to get to the church.	3:10
Kisha Turner	What's that?	3:16
Velma Holmes Neal	And it got to the place that it got so inconvenient for them to ride. Thirty of them took their membership and they organized First Baptist.	3:18
Kisha Turner	Okay.	3:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Over on that side.	3:31
Andrew Neal	Hold on, maybe she can more understand that. When you say [indistinct 00:03:36] and Norfolk, including the section that we call Berkeley.	3:33
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah, you know.	3:40
Andrew Neal	And there was a water between there, the river.	3:40
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	3:40
Andrew Neal	So you had to hop on the foot ferry.	3:48
Kisha Turner	That's when you paddled or something?	3:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	3:50
Andrew Neal	But the river, you had to cross the river to get to the main church that we had.	3:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, it was a cottage. Yeah, that's right. It was a cottage. Mm—hmm.	3:51
Andrew Neal	Yeah. And no vehicles could go on this little boat, and that's why they called it foot ferry. You could walk on, but no vehicles. So they had to get and sit in it, like a regular row boat, and then we'd take it on the water.	4:00
Velma Holmes Neal	It was just inconvenient for them, the old folks to do that.	4:18
Andrew Neal	That's why they founded the church on this side.	4:22
Kisha Turner	On this side.	4:24
Velma Holmes Neal	Where they founded the church. Mm-hmm.	4:25
Kisha Turner	Okay. What were your grandparents' names?	4:26
Velma Holmes Neal	My grandparents were Nathaniel and [indistinct 00:04:34] Holmes. They are the people who helped to found the First Baptist, but—	4:29
Kisha Turner	Let me grab this mic. One second.	4:40
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	4:41
Andrew Neal	Was it this one?	4:41
Velma Holmes Neal	No. I carried it back in the living room. Down there. And our mother church, at Banks Street.	4:47
Kisha Turner	Okay, Banks Street Baptist Church.	4:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. Banks Street Baptist Church. That's still existing in Norfolk. Mm-hmm.	4:52
Kisha Turner	What were Sundays like?	5:04
Andrew Neal	Sundays were— The major thing was—	5:06
Velma Holmes Neal	Go to church.	5:09
Andrew Neal	— Sunday School. Prepare for the prayer meeting early, for some of us. Then Sunday School.	5:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Then church.	5:16
Andrew Neal	Then after Sunday School was church. And then I had—	5:18
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:05:20] BYPU.	5:19
Andrew Neal	— After church that was— What they called it? The BYPU, Baptist Young People's Union. And you may not be aware of it by being called the BTU.	5:20
Velma Holmes Neal	That's what they call it now.	5:38
Andrew Neal	They changed it. They had to change it from BYPU to BTU.	5:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	5:38
Andrew Neal	And as to what you were going to do on Sunday morning, it was no question. You knew you were going to church, and didn't nobody ever think of considering doing anything else.	5:46
Velma Holmes Neal	It never was.	5:59
Andrew Neal	And then this day, if you were too sick to go to church, you were too sick to go out that evening.	5:59
Kisha Turner	Okay. So if you wanted to go somewhere, you had to make sure you were at church [indistinct 00:06:10]?	6:06
Andrew Neal	Oh, yes.	6:10
Velma Holmes Neal	You can tell it's an old church. See the old folks?	6:28
Kisha Turner	Okay. Uh-huh.	6:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	6:28
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	6:28
Andrew Neal	Charles.	6:28
Velma Holmes Neal	And that's my daddy. That's one of the first picture clippings. And that was my father.	6:28
Kisha Turner	Okay.	6:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. Nathaniel Holmes. Yeah.	6:28
Kisha Turner	Who lived in the household with you? How many brothers and sisters did each of you—	6:28
Andrew Neal	You had—	6:31
Velma Holmes Neal	I had two brothers. All together, it was five of us, but two of them died. So that just left three of us. And there were two in his family, he and his brother.	6:38
Andrew Neal	I had one brother. That's two of them. That's one brother [indistinct 00:06:53].	6:45
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	6:45
Andrew Neal	We grew up living on different ends of the city. Different, certain parts.	6:57
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	7:02
Kisha Turner	Did you know each other?	7:03
Andrew Neal	We met in [indistinct 00:07:05]—	7:04
Velma Holmes Neal	I met him in high school.	7:05
Kisha Turner	Okay.	7:06
Andrew Neal	Yeah, we met in high school.	7:06
Velma Holmes Neal	He didn't plan to marry me, but I planned to marry him.	7:07
Andrew Neal	That's how we first came to—	7:14
Velma Holmes Neal	That's how we— We met in high school.	7:15
Andrew Neal	Met in high school.	7:15
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	7:15
Kisha Turner	Okay. Let's talk about your parents a little more.	7:21
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	7:22
Kisha Turner	How did— Your dad was a postman—	7:23
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	7:27
Kisha Turner	— during a time when there probably weren't a lot of Black postmen.	7:28
Velma Holmes Neal	No, no, no, no, no. No, there weren't a lot of Black postmen.	7:31
Kisha Turner	Okay. Do you know how he got into that line of work?	7:35
Velma Holmes Neal	Well I guess you still had to pass a test back then, at that time. But my father had been on the water, seaman, and he learned a lot. My father could speak six or seven languages, by being in the service.	7:38
Kisha Turner	Okay.	7:58
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. Because he met some people and went to a store, and at the store— You know how they would talk about Black folk. So at the store, they were talking and when Papa got ready to leave, they talked to him about Papa in Yiddish.	7:59
Kisha Turner	Oh, okay.	8:18
Velma Holmes Neal	Papa turned around and answered him. And then they said, "Stanley," because their name was Stanley, "come back here." And from then on, they talked to him in Yiddish, because Papa could speak about six or seven languages.	8:21
Kisha Turner	Oh, okay.	8:33
Velma Holmes Neal	And taught us nothing.	8:35
Kisha Turner	Nothing?	8:36
Velma Holmes Neal	No. I don't know a thing about it.	8:36
Kisha Turner	Did he ever tell you about his experience? He was in World War I?	8:40
Andrew Neal	Spanish-American War.	8:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Spanish-American War back then.	8:42
Kisha Turner	Spanish-American. Okay.	8:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	8:42
Andrew Neal	He predated the World War I.	8:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, he was the Spanish-American War bunch.	8:42
Kisha Turner	Did he ever talk about it?	8:52
Velma Holmes Neal	No.	8:54
Andrew Neal	Not too much.	8:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh.	8:54
Kisha Turner	No?	8:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh. He didn't talk about the war too much. Not to us.	9:03
Kisha Turner	Okay.	9:03
Velma Holmes Neal	But we knew he was in the war.	9:03
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	9:03
Andrew Neal	He was discharged from the Navy as a full engineer. He was discharged from the Navy. They hired some young folks then. He was in the Navy, so he came to see his discharge. An honorable discharge before the war.	9:05
Kisha Turner	An honorable discharge?	9:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	9:28
Andrew Neal	An honorable dis—	9:29
Kisha Turner	From the Navy?	9:31
Andrew Neal	Yes.	9:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Otherwise, he wouldn't have got in the government, carrying that mail if he hadn't have got—	9:31
Kisha Turner	Okay.	9:36
Velma Holmes Neal	— an honorable discharge. They wouldn't have accepted him there, and they were only a few Blacks in the post office at that time. He worked in the section that's called South Norfolk. He worked along the White folk, and they all got to like Papa. They were very nice, and then I got to know a lot of them. I talk to some of them now, and I say— And they live in South Norfolk. I talk. My daddy used to crack me up with that, "Oh, I used to hear my dad and mama talk about him, old Stanley." Everybody called him Stanley.	9:36
Kisha Turner	Stanley?	10:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	10:12
Kisha Turner	What about your mom?	10:13
Velma Holmes Neal	I never knew my mother died with my younger brother in childbirth. He had a— And do you know my brother had just died, not too long ago? He lived to be— Wilburn, he lived to be 75 years old.	10:15
Kisha Turner	Okay.	10:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. My grandmother reared us most of the time.	10:28
Kisha Turner	Okay.	10:28
Andrew Neal	And—	10:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Huh? What?	10:28
Andrew Neal	— your brother had— You have your other brothers with you, the older ones with you still. They're still living.	10:28
Kisha Turner	Okay.	10:28
Velma Holmes Neal	He's the oldest of the three of us.	10:47
Andrew Neal	Right.	10:48
Velma Holmes Neal	He's still living, but he is not able to move around. He uses a walker and that kind of thing.	10:52
Kisha Turner	Okay.	10:54
Andrew Neal	That was some years back too though.	10:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. And he is— How old is Preston?	10:55
Andrew Neal	He's 83.	11:03
Velma Holmes Neal	I'm 82.	11:03
Andrew Neal	He's 83.	11:03
Velma Holmes Neal	I'm 82. Preston 83. I think we've done well, for motherless children. Uh-huh. And we were well taken care of. Well taken care of, even though I didn't live with my father all the time. I did a lot of time with my grandmother.	11:20
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:23
Velma Holmes Neal	My father was very, very close to us.	11:23
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:23
Velma Holmes Neal	Very close.	11:23
Kisha Turner	And your grandmother lived not far from you?	11:29
Velma Holmes Neal	No. No, one in one block and one in the other block.	11:31
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:35
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh—huh. We were a block apart.	11:35
Kisha Turner	And how did your father get into contracting?	11:38
Andrew Neal	His father was a builder.	11:40
Kisha Turner	Okay.	11:41
Andrew Neal	Was the old carpenter, and he was into expanding the business. By the time it got to my father, he was going to contracting. He was one of the few Black contractors with the license to build houses or construction of a certain size or capacity, and certain materials. He qualified to secure the license to build [indistinct 00:12:21] license.	11:56
Kisha Turner	Yeah. Are there some places that— Were they housed? Were they—	12:21
Andrew Neal	Yeah, they built the houses. He even worked with, eventually, two larger constructions. And then he has— There is one building that's still— I can't ever just remember that. It's still in—	12:32
Velma Holmes Neal	No, they haven't moved it.	12:50
Andrew Neal	— It's still erect now.	12:50
Kisha Turner	What building?	12:50
Andrew Neal	One of the buildings that he was responsible for building and contracting.	12:50
Kisha Turner	Do you know what it's called? Is it—	12:54
Andrew Neal	It was—	12:54
Velma Holmes Neal	The old what?	12:54
Andrew Neal	— the old— It was a building for a lodge.	12:54
Kisha Turner	Okay.	12:54
Andrew Neal	Mm-hmm. It was called Elks Home, at that time.	13:06
Kisha Turner	Okay. So he built for White people and for Black people?	13:10
Andrew Neal	Anybody that would hire him.	13:14
Kisha Turner	Okay.	13:17
Andrew Neal	Very seldom he got jobs for White people beyond doing general repair work.	13:18
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	13:25
Andrew Neal	The maintenance. And see, he keep a— Incidentally, he ventured into a job that is still [indistinct 00:13:36] a feat. The house was a double house.	13:26
Kisha Turner	Okay.	13:39
Andrew Neal	And he had got to talking with the contractor—	13:40
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:13:46].	13:40
Andrew Neal	— He got talking to the owners. One owner wanted to fix it, his part, but the other owner didn't want to put the money in. So he said, "Why don't y'all split y'all house down?" And they looked at him like he was crazy. [indistinct 00:13:57]. My father talking about, "Yes, he will." "You can't split the house." He said, "Sure, I can split it. Right down the middle, right there." And he did. And he divided it and stuff. Cut the house in half. And he got that half, and that half was— He let them have a side. He gave them the wall.	13:46
Kisha Turner	Okay.	14:26
Andrew Neal	So he came down on the inside of the other person's wall, and remodeled the house and put in siding and all. That whole thing, it makes me laugh. A rather comical thing, but most of the time, he was work was mostly Black.	14:26
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	14:44
Andrew Neal	Because they knew— We were living in a time when— You already know. He was threatened by the White people.	14:44
Kisha Turner	Were there a lot of duplexes before your dad cut that place in half?	14:55
Andrew Neal	Yes, it was a lot.	14:58
Kisha Turner	Okay.	14:58
Andrew Neal	But no one ventured to do it after this.	15:01
Kisha Turner	Okay.	15:02
Andrew Neal	That I know of, at least around here. I passed that house the other day, when I was coming through that bend. You know where the cut? The house is still there right now.	15:10
Kisha Turner	Okay. What kind of work did your mom do?	15:17
Andrew Neal	Nothing.	15:17
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	15:17
Kisha Turner	Took care of y'all?	15:17
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh.	15:17
Andrew Neal	Yeah. She was sponsored. She didn't have to work.	15:17
Kisha Turner	Okay.	15:17
Andrew Neal	Because my income was [indistinct 00:15:25].	15:17
Kisha Turner	You all both grew up in middle class families?	15:25
Andrew Neal	Uh-huh.	15:34
Velma Holmes Neal	I would say so.	15:35
Kisha Turner	What was your relationship with White people, or Jim Crow and segregation?	15:36
Andrew Neal	We went through the same thing that all the rest of them did.	15:41
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah.	15:41
Andrew Neal	But we didn't have to do too much of it. I mean, very many of us were families [indistinct 00:15:59] working for the White people. Because see, her father worked for the government, the United States Postal Service—	15:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	16:00
Andrew Neal	— And so he had to do domestic work, or come under the kind of a treatment that the rest of us did, in Norfolk.	16:05
Velma Holmes Neal	And my grandmother— See, my mother was dead, but my grandmother did used to take in washing.	16:15
Kisha Turner	Okay.	16:20
Velma Holmes Neal	And then I would take them for her, to the homes of the White folks. And there are those people that I know now, that I used to take the clothes to, that were the first class people in Berkeley.	16:24
Kisha Turner	Did you ever feel that anyone resented, White people or Black people, your status?	16:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh.	16:58
Andrew Neal	No. Not too much. Seems that we had our own particular groups. That way, we didn't have to come in contact with them at all.	17:00
Velma Holmes Neal	When they first started to hire school traffic guards, there eight Blacks and the rest of them, most of them were White. They had eight Blacks, because we would have to serve the Black schools.	17:14
Kisha Turner	Okay.	17:26
Velma Holmes Neal	And I was one of the first eight Black school guards. That was back in— They organized in 1950.	17:27
Kisha Turner	Okay.	17:29
Andrew Neal	And that's what we had in 1960, was in that.	17:29
Kisha Turner	You all grew up in the area of Berkeley? Is that right?	17:52
Andrew Neal	I lived in what they called Alien Norfolk.	17:55
Kisha Turner	Okay.	17:55
Andrew Neal	It was in the city proper.	17:55
Velma Holmes Neal	And I lived across the water.	17:55
Andrew Neal	This was an annex part. Early annex [indistinct 00:18:06], and this area to Norfolk, is the alienest part of Norfolk City.	17:55
Kisha Turner	The section was called Alien?	18:11
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:18:13] sections.	18:13
Kisha Turner	Okay. What was Berkeley like?	18:13
Velma Holmes Neal	A small town.	18:17
Andrew Neal	It was like a small town.	18:17
Kisha Turner	Was it all Black?	18:20
Velma Holmes Neal	No.	18:20
Andrew Neal	No, no, no, no, no.	18:21
Velma Holmes Neal	But it— Once a White family would move into a section, then—	18:24
Andrew Neal	No, it wasn't like that.	18:30
Velma Holmes Neal	— a Black family would, then all the Whites left.	18:32
Kisha Turner	Okay.	18:32
Velma Holmes Neal	So it finally ended up mostly Black. And I think some of the houses that the Blacks bought from the Whites, were some of the most magnificent houses you want to see that's right down there now, in Berkeley.	18:41
Kisha Turner	How about Black businesses?	19:03
Andrew Neal	Yeah, we had Black— We had our own Black businesses.	19:03
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	19:03
Andrew Neal	To the extent that they would let us go [indistinct 00:19:03], for example.	19:03
Kisha Turner	Right. Do you remember any of the more— Anything stand out in your mind? Any shops or restaurants or anything like that?	19:03
Velma Holmes Neal	Mr. Manning, John Sumler, had a cleaning pressing shop. And [indistinct 00:19:09], Mr. — What's the last name used to have— You know, fish shop. That kind of thing.	19:09
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:19:24].	19:22
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	19:22
Andrew Neal	He's a White employer. He employed a number of people to run his cleaning press shop.	19:22
Velma Holmes Neal	Cleaning press shop. Yeah, because this is our—	19:31
Andrew Neal	Our other friend.	19:31
Velma Holmes Neal	— This is our other friend from—	19:31
Kisha Turner	Uh-huh.	19:31
Velma Holmes Neal	We have his picture here, John Sumler, and his cleaning press shop.	19:31
Andrew Neal	But anyways, we had our own businesses. We had our own places. Not too much in merchandising. There were places like personal needs, such as cleaning, [indistinct 00:19:56], things like that. There were even stores.	19:48
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	20:01
Andrew Neal	Grocery stores.	20:01
Velma Holmes Neal	Ms. Gottie Hill's son, Charles, wanted to be things. They made him a salesman at Bob's Jewelry Store, right now.	20:05
Andrew Neal	That was in the later years. [indistinct 00:20:15].	20:13
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. Uh-huh. That's in this picture here.	20:15
Kisha Turner	Where did you buy your groceries and clothes, and stuff like that?	20:18
Andrew Neal	What? Most of them were White staffed. Very few of them had interviewers or that vintage or older clothes from other places. And they would finally rent them to order them and sell them to people. And that's one way that was the Jews.	20:21
Kisha Turner	Okay.	20:40
Andrew Neal	At the time.	20:40
Kisha Turner	So the shops were—	20:40
Andrew Neal	And I—	20:40
Kisha Turner	— owned by Jewish people? A lot of the shops—	20:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. A lot of shops over in Berkeley—	20:52
Kisha Turner	Okay.	20:53
Velma Holmes Neal	— Most of them were Jewish.	20:56
Kisha Turner	Okay.	21:00
Velma Holmes Neal	Most of them were Jewish.	21:00
Andrew Neal	But in Norfolk, the other side, it wasn't that.	21:00
Velma Holmes Neal	We wanted to go shopping, you'd get on the streetcar. That's what we used to have to ride to go to Norfolk. We'd get on the tram, and then we'd go over there to Hot Bamas, [indistinct 00:21:14], Jackie Snyder's and all that.	21:03
Kisha Turner	I bought some shoes from her.	21:06
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. It was over there. And then we used to have Tony's Shoe Store. That's where we used to go and buy our clothes in Norfolk.	21:19
Kisha Turner	Do you remember them having the little x-ray thing, to put your foot in?	21:23
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	21:27
Kisha Turner	Yeah, I heard about those.	21:28
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	21:28
Kisha Turner	Then they stopped using those. [indistinct 00:21:31].	21:29
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, yeah. Uh-huh.	21:30
Andrew Neal	The x-rays were harmful.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Right, the rays.	21:30
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah, I've been in many of them.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Okay.	21:30
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. [indistinct 00:21:41].	21:30
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:21:41].	21:30
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Okay.	21:30
Andrew Neal	Now that was on that Berkeley side. That Norfolk, was just entirely different.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Okay.	21:30
Andrew Neal	Because there were other businesses.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Now Church Street—	21:51
Andrew Neal	Was the main street.	22:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Lord, have mercy.	22:07
Andrew Neal	Main thoroughfare going [indistinct 00:22:07]—	22:07
Kisha Turner	Why you say, "Lord, have mercy"?	22:07
Velma Holmes Neal	That's when the Black folks used to—	22:07
Andrew Neal	We used to go up and come down and [indistinct 00:22:07]—	22:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	22:07
Andrew Neal	— [indistinct 00:22:07] off.	22:07
Velma Holmes Neal	One end, you saw all the White folks in their stores, and go up to the other end and there would be Black folks.	22:07
Andrew Neal	Mm-hmm. Now there was a Black shoe wear owner, called the Tanner's Shoe Company.	22:14
Kisha Turner	Towner's?	22:21
Andrew Neal	Tanner.	22:21
Kisha Turner	Tanner.	22:22
Andrew Neal	Tanner Shoe.	22:23
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:26
Andrew Neal	He owned a shoe shop.	22:26
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:26
Andrew Neal	Sold shoes wholesale and retail. His were very similar to the White places.	22:27
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:33
Andrew Neal	And he was quite ingenious with it. He had— He owned what we would call a ballroom, over the top of the shoe shop. On the second floor of his shoe store. And that where's the club had the dancing and everything.	22:38
Kisha Turner	Okay. He had a club upstairs?	22:52
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	22:52
Andrew Neal	Yeah, at night. Well, it was more like a ballroom back then—	22:52
Velma Holmes Neal	He had a ballroom.	22:59
Andrew Neal	— because he didn't have [indistinct 00:22:59] ballroom.	22:59
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:59
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	22:59
Andrew Neal	And that was called Tanner's Ballroom. This name changed from that to other names, at the time he died. And he was one of the few businessman of that type, and also at that time, because the other businesses were that way, that Blacks owned. One was an antique furniture store.	22:59
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, yeah. Mr. Fonville.	23:32
Andrew Neal	Called the Fon's building.	23:32
Kisha Turner	Who?	23:32
Velma Holmes Neal	Fonville.	23:32
Andrew Neal	Fonville.	23:32
Velma Holmes Neal	Fonville.	23:32
Andrew Neal	His store was called Southern Furniture.	23:40
Velma Holmes Neal	He was the owner. Mr. Fonville was the owner.	23:40
Andrew Neal	I know what it was called. It was Fonville. And he was a— He—	23:40
Velma Holmes Neal	He was popular.	23:40
Andrew Neal	— He discovered a furniture restorer for scratched furniture, and he concocted some kind of way, a furniture polish that would actually cover—	23:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Up the scratches.	24:05
Andrew Neal	— the scratches.	24:05
Kisha Turner	Really?	24:05
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	24:05
Andrew Neal	And this store, eventually the Whites stole it from him. He ended up as being— We have to call them now, shoe polish. I don't know what the last name was, but they call it another name.	24:05
Kisha Turner	Okay.	24:23
Andrew Neal	But he was the one that had it. And he was the biggest business in the history of the— His business was a thriving business for the White people.	24:25
Kisha Turner	Okay. White people shopped [indistinct 00:24:34].	24:33
Andrew Neal	But he's antiques.	24:33
Kisha Turner	His antiques.	24:33
Andrew Neal	They liked their antiques.	24:33
Kisha Turner	Okay.	24:33
Andrew Neal	Refinished them.	24:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	24:38
Andrew Neal	And that's why he ended up being able to manufacture this polish.	24:39
Kisha Turner	How do you spell his name?	24:47
Andrew Neal	F-O-N-V-I-L—	24:50
Velma Holmes Neal	L-E.	24:50
Kisha Turner	E. Okay. Fonville. Okay.	24:50
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. Mr. Fonville said— He lived down on Ann Street, where all the—	24:52
Andrew Neal	Let me get to the end.	25:02
Velma Holmes Neal	— [indistinct 00:25:03].	25:02
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:25:03]—	25:02
Velma Holmes Neal	He know I [indistinct 00:25:03]—	25:02
Andrew Neal	I lived in the section that had— The time, coming back to my living, I grew up on— at an early age, from the age of three, on until I got grown, was called Ann Street. And on that street, they have their businesses. Your business people—	25:02
Velma Holmes Neal	School teachers—	25:32
Andrew Neal	— including school teachers, your doctors, grocery store— [indistinct 00:25:43] it was a grocery store on— They had a grocery store. It included a lot of the Whites. He owned and operated a large grocery store, and he had groceries delivered by horse and buggy, and they would help you. And I—	25:35
Velma Holmes Neal	Now see, he lived over there on that street. But on my street in Berkeley, I never lived anywhere where you had to rent the house. Where I lived in Berkeley, everybody owned their houses.	26:01
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:10
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	26:10
Kisha Turner	Was it like a neighborhood—	26:14
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes. Yes.	26:15
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:18
Velma Holmes Neal	We were all homeowners. And when I got to Norfolk and there were schoolteachers over there living on these little side streets, I couldn't picture it. I had never known schoolteachers who did not live in their own house.	26:18
Andrew Neal	In your area. You're right.	26:31
Velma Holmes Neal	In my town. On my side.	26:31
Andrew Neal	On [indistinct 00:26:35] town.	26:31
Velma Holmes Neal	In my section of town. Because those schoolteachers lived in a house that was not their own house.	26:35
Kisha Turner	How did the people in Berkeley end up owning their homes? You had the—	26:43
Velma Holmes Neal	They bought them.	26:47
Kisha Turner	— people in Norfolk weren't able to buy their homes a lot.	26:47
Andrew Neal	No, there ain't no way. Now very people in Norfolk—	26:49
Kisha Turner	Who owned their own.	26:49
Andrew Neal	— owned their homes.	26:49
Kisha Turner	Right.	26:49
Andrew Neal	And very nice that didn't.	26:49
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:49
Andrew Neal	And some of it was by choice, and the other ones by circumstance.	26:49
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:49
Velma Holmes Neal	I lived on what they called— You know how you have these tracks?	27:04
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	27:08
Velma Holmes Neal	And a certain set of people live on this side of the track, and a certain section lived on the other side of the track.	27:09
Kisha Turner	Uh-huh.	27:13
Velma Holmes Neal	And see when one side come from school, we were in Lincoln, and I'd cross a little bitty street to come home, I couldn't go back over there no more. That was the wrong side of the tracks.	27:16
Kisha Turner	Who lived on the wrong side?	27:26
Velma Holmes Neal	They all was. I lived on the right side of the track.	27:27
Andrew Neal	Where the school was at.	27:30
Velma Holmes Neal	School was over there.	27:30
Andrew Neal	But this happened in school.	27:30
Kisha Turner	It was a White area?	27:33
Velma Holmes Neal	No, it was all Black.	27:34
Kisha Turner	It was Black. Oh, okay.	27:36
Velma Holmes Neal	But it was well— Those people were people who did things and had things. Same as those people on his street.	27:37
Kisha Turner	Okay.	27:47
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes. That's the kind of section I lived in.	27:48
Kisha Turner	Okay.	27:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	27:49
Andrew Neal	Now coming back to the section over there, I was in Lincolnville. There was a— The street I lived on wasn't too long, just two blocks.	27:56
Velma Holmes Neal	Two blocks. Uh-huh.	28:01
Andrew Neal	1300 block and the 1400 block.	28:04
Kisha Turner	What street? Ann Street.	28:07
Andrew Neal	Ann Street.	28:08
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	28:09
Andrew Neal	And that one. Yeah, I would say in Ann Street, those blocks, we had two medical doctors. One [indistinct 00:28:21] and early doctor, and there was several students in that area that were in— At that time, were going to school for medicine.	28:09
Kisha Turner	Okay.	28:35
Andrew Neal	They had [indistinct 00:28:41], but they graduated. They went to high school, and we had two students that went into medicine and lived on that street. Then it was also— going back further than that, I can recall there was— That street, we had one of our [indistinct 00:28:58] worked in the ice cream manufacturing. He manufactured ice cream. [indistinct 00:29:05] and sold it to confectioneries and everything. And he made his ground, his kind of a home in Martinville. The man, at one point— A man by the name of Manning, and the other named Biggins, and they had Manning and Biggins Ice Cream. It ended up with them losing out to what would be Southern Dairies.	28:41
Kisha Turner	Southern bought them out?	29:31
Andrew Neal	They fooled them out—	29:32
Kisha Turner	Closed them out.	29:34
Andrew Neal	— because they couldn't keep up with the health requirements and what not.	29:36
Kisha Turner	Okay.	29:38
Andrew Neal	And he ended up selling to another White company, which was called Nantuck.	29:39
Kisha Turner	Nantuck Ice Cream.	29:46
Andrew Neal	Nantuck Ice Cream. And for a while, it thrived, but they couldn't do it and ended up finally being swallowed up by what we call Southern Dairy.	29:51
Kisha Turner	Okay.	30:17
Andrew Neal	I don't think any came from Nantucket, but because they're still operating under that name and they had [indistinct 00:30:18]— Now one of the homes on that street, it was a tire repair.	30:17
Kisha Turner	Tire repair.	30:17
Andrew Neal	Yeah. He's often [indistinct 00:30:27], and we traded him in. That ended up being— The business died. When he left, wasn't nobody in the parking lot.	30:27
Velma Holmes Neal	I want to tell her this.	30:33
Andrew Neal	Yes, ma'am.	30:33
Velma Holmes Neal	I wanted to tell her that the two of us went to college in [indistinct 00:30:49]. I have three children. They've all finished college. We are all of a family that believed in education, and me and my husband and my father and my three children, we have all— They are all second grade. We all have—	30:43
Kisha Turner	You have three girls?	31:07
Velma Holmes Neal	I had two girls, over there.	31:09
Andrew Neal	Two girls.	31:09
Velma Holmes Neal	I have a granddaughter over there. That one, finished University at Virginia. She works now, in the— You know how it is, the medical—	31:10
Andrew Neal	Medical pharmaceutical company.	31:19
Velma Holmes Neal	— pharmaceutical company, where you visit the doctor's office. That one over there.	31:22
Kisha Turner	Okay.	31:25
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. And then I have— This one teaches. That one there.	31:25
Kisha Turner	With the glasses?	31:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	31:36
Kisha Turner	Okay.	31:36
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. And that— I have another one that's in that little picture.	31:36
Andrew Neal	Was [indistinct 00:31:38], by herself.	31:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. Remains by herself, and she teaches. I think we've done well as a family, when you have everybody in the family has been to college and finished. My grandmother and father, grandfather and all of that, we all went to college and finished.	31:40
Kisha Turner	Good. Let's talk about your early education. How did you start out? What was the name of your elementary schools?	31:58
Andrew Neal	Just the public school, elementary school.	32:02
Kisha Turner	Okay.	32:04
Andrew Neal	My school, our schools, they all were Black.	32:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	32:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh. Mine too.	32:13
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:32:14]—	32:13
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah.	32:13
Andrew Neal	— We ended up with segregation period with our children.	32:13
Kisha Turner	Okay.	32:13
Andrew Neal	But we suffered the same thing. Even though we had money to do what we wanted to with, if you wanted, you could do it, but it just wasn't made for us. Just a certain area or certain section.	32:13
Velma Holmes Neal	When we went to college, we were the only two who finished high school at the time we went to college.	32:28
Kisha Turner	Okay. Where did you go to high school?	32:34
Velma Holmes Neal	Booker T. .	32:35
Kisha Turner	I know you went to high school together, right?	32:35
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	32:35
Andrew Neal	Yes, right here.	32:35
Velma Holmes Neal	Booker T. Washington High School.	32:35
Kisha Turner	Booker T. Washington High School?	32:39
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. And then when he went to college, he went to South Carolina State.	32:40
Kisha Turner	Okay.	32:45
Velma Holmes Neal	And when I went, I went to Virginia State. They called it Virginia State College for Negroes, when I went I there.	32:46
Kisha Turner	South Carolina State and Virginia State.	32:52
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	32:54
Kisha Turner	South Carolina State in Orangeburg?	32:55
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah.	32:57
Andrew Neal	How you know that? Well, it's known now.	32:57
Kisha Turner	Yeah. I mean, I was down there in Camden County.	32:58
Andrew Neal	Okay.	32:58
Kisha Turner	Not far from there, and we went over to Orangeburg several times.	33:06
Andrew Neal	For what? Down there for football games?	33:09
Kisha Turner	Interviews.	33:11
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	33:12
Kisha Turner	To interview people.	33:12
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:33:14].	33:12
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	33:12
Velma Holmes Neal	Because we went down there not too long ago. My son—	33:12
Andrew Neal	I was down there, my last time—	33:12
Velma Holmes Neal	— after my son went—	33:16
Andrew Neal	— in 1990.	33:16
Kisha Turner	Okay.	33:16
Velma Holmes Neal	My son wanted him to go back to school, to be there. And when we went back, we took him back for homecoming, and they announced that we have one person here at the homecoming, who is a graduate of 19—	33:22
Andrew Neal	Class of—	33:36
Velma Holmes Neal	— 1936.	33:36
Andrew Neal	— 1936.	33:36
Velma Holmes Neal	That was Brother Andrew Neal.	33:36
Kisha Turner	Okay.	33:36
Velma Holmes Neal	And he stood up and they applauded him.	33:36
Andrew Neal	Yeah, it was fun. But the trouble was, I didn't know it.	33:48
Velma Holmes Neal	He didn't know it. He didn't know where he was.	33:52
Kisha Turner	Yeah, it looked different, huh?	33:52
Andrew Neal	I hadn't been there in so long.	33:52
Velma Holmes Neal	He hadn't been there in 50 something years, you know that. How long had it been?	33:52
Andrew Neal	Fifty-two, 53 years then.	33:59
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	34:01
Andrew Neal	Before I went back, after the war.	34:02
Kisha Turner	Okay. What elementary schools did you go to?	34:04
Andrew Neal	We went to elementary school right here in Norfolk.	34:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. Abraham Lincoln.	34:09
Kisha Turner	Abraham Lincoln?	34:10
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	34:11
Velma Holmes Neal	Abraham, yeah. I did.	34:11
Andrew Neal	Went to the same school.	34:11
Velma Holmes Neal	And he went to Lowry Pike.	34:11
Andrew Neal	I went to— Yeah, Lowry— No, no.	34:14
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh. Carey.	34:14
Andrew Neal	Lott-Carey.	34:14
Velma Holmes Neal	Lott-Carey.	34:14
Andrew Neal	Lowry Pike was a White school [indistinct 00:34:24]—	34:14
Kisha Turner	How do you spell that? Lottcar—	34:14
Andrew Neal	L-O-T-T-C-A-R—	34:25
Velma Holmes Neal	E-Y. Lott-Carey.	34:28
Andrew Neal	That was elementary school. Then we ended up in going to the junior high school at Booker T. Washington High School.	34:28
Kisha Turner	And you went to high school and junior high at Booker T.?	34:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	34:38
Andrew Neal	You didn't have but one school.	34:38
Velma Holmes Neal	You didn't have but one school.	34:41
Kisha Turner	Do y'all remember studying any Black history, by any chance?	34:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, no.	34:44
Andrew Neal	Once a year, we had Black history week.	34:45
Kisha Turner	Black history week?	34:46
Velma Holmes Neal	Black history. Mm-hmm.	34:46
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	34:46
Velma Holmes Neal	It wasn't no Black history. It wasn't nothing but Black history day.	34:46
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	34:46
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	34:46
Andrew Neal	And of course, we had some teachers that were interested enough to give us— to let us slip in Black history, but it was against the law. They couldn't mention Black history—	34:50
Kisha Turner	It was against the law?	35:03
Andrew Neal	— as such, during the records when the school term was [indistinct 00:35:13], other than this one week.	35:12
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	35:18
Andrew Neal	That they allowed for. But then we had some militant individuals back there then, that dared to do it. Mr. Fordfort.	35:18
Velma Holmes Neal	And then I'll tell you—	35:28
Andrew Neal	— Ward, Ward Fordfort, was one of the teachers that was militant enough to put in enough [indistinct 00:35:37].	35:30
Kisha Turner	Do you remember what kinds of things he would talk about?	35:37
Andrew Neal	Negroes in the—	35:39
Velma Holmes Neal	Charleston.	35:41
Andrew Neal	Yeah. Negroes in the Black— Black people in the World War I.	35:42
Kisha Turner	Okay.	35:49
Velma Holmes Neal	And he talked about the Town of Charleston in here.	35:49
Andrew Neal	And his friend was this Clarence Charles Young, who was also— He was a graduate of West Point.	35:49
Kisha Turner	Okay.	35:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	35:55
Andrew Neal	But they did not want him to actually do what he was capable of doing. Had it been in this time, he would have been doing the same thing as Colonel Powell.	35:58
Velma Holmes Neal	That Colonel Powell was doing. Yeah.	36:06
Andrew Neal	They declared him being incompetent and heart trouble, and then retired him, so that they could put John Jim Pershing for the Navy chief, which was— which actually, graduated accordingly, because their roll, their record, they called him Charles Young, instead of that. So they—	36:10
Kisha Turner	Okay. These are the kinds of things they talked to you about?	36:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Huh?	36:39
Andrew Neal	Yeah. He taught us about a good lot of that.	36:40
Kisha Turner	Okay.	36:40
Andrew Neal	That should be in other history somewhere.	36:43
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	36:45
Andrew Neal	Now I think if you want to find out more about that, you check some of the boys that are members of the Omega chapter. I think you can find that with one of the graduating men.	36:46
Kisha Turner	Omega?	36:58
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	36:59
Kisha Turner	You were— Are you in—	36:59
Andrew Neal	No, no.	36:59
Kisha Turner	Oh, okay.	36:59
Andrew Neal	I'm not one.	36:59
Kisha Turner	Well did you pledge a sorority?	36:59
Velma Holmes Neal	But you don't want to tell them you're not. I don't know why they don't talk about what set they are. He's an elephant.	36:59
Kisha Turner	Okay.	36:59
Velma Holmes Neal	But he won't say it. That's just the way it is, but so important.	37:11
Andrew Neal	No, we're not important.	37:14
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, you are.	37:16
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:37:18]—	37:16
Velma Holmes Neal	Now the children, a lot of the men now—	37:16
Andrew Neal	Listen at her, she cut in front of me.	37:16
Velma Holmes Neal	— A lot of the men around our church, they are grabbing all the young boys, "Y'all come and go this way. Come go over with the Omegas." He wouldn't ask nobody to join ours. I can tell you. I know him.	37:21
Kisha Turner	Did you join a sorority?	37:39
Velma Holmes Neal	No, because I only went for the two year normal course.	37:41
Kisha Turner	Okay.	37:43
Velma Holmes Neal	And you could not join at that time.	37:44
Kisha Turner	So did you teach school after?	37:45
Andrew Neal	Two days.	37:52
Kisha Turner	Hm?	37:52
Andrew Neal	She didn't work up there like two days. She was out of the school payroll.	37:54
Velma Holmes Neal	But you know what, this carried me back in the country. I've never been in the country.	38:00
Kisha Turner	Oh, so they placed you somewhere?	38:01
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, yes.	38:03
Kisha Turner	Okay.	38:03
Velma Holmes Neal	They gave me a job.	38:04
Kisha Turner	Okay.	38:04
Velma Holmes Neal	I had to go to school, make the fire, do everything in the school and you see, I wasn't used to that.	38:05
Kisha Turner	Okay. Where did they send you? What town?	38:11
Velma Holmes Neal	I went up in a little town in Virginia, Windsor.	38:18
Kisha Turner	Windsor?	38:20
Velma Holmes Neal	And I didn't stay up there but it took— I went up there, I stayed two days, and when Papa looked, I was back home. I said, "Papa, I can't stand it." After that, and right during that time, we got married. And then I had all these children and then they came and asked me did I want a job. I said, "No, I have to take care of my children." Everybody else during my time, worked at the government. You know, Navy yard and down at the base and all, but I never worked anywhere other than the school guard, because I wanted to be where I could take care of my children. And because of that, I didn't ever get to go into the government service like most of my friends.	38:21
Velma Holmes Neal	All of them went to the base and went down somewhere like that. But I told them, my children were more important to me than the job.	39:06
Kisha Turner	So again, what did they ask of you when you went to Windsor? They wanted you to—	39:15
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, they tried him. [indistinct 00:39:20]—	39:19
Andrew Neal	She did everything. She already went to school [indistinct 00:39:23] operated—	39:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Making fire.	39:24
Kisha Turner	Were you going to be the principal or—	39:24
Velma Holmes Neal	Just when— You know, when I was coming home from the job, they would meet the children coming to school. "Y'all go back, because the teacher gone home."	39:26
Andrew Neal	Yeah, she's been doing it ever since.	39:36
Velma Holmes Neal	I haven't even done nothing.	39:36
Andrew Neal	Watch this here. It was one room or two room school?	39:36
Velma Holmes Neal	One room school.	39:36
Kisha Turner	One room school?	39:45
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. Back then, you had to have a—	39:45
Andrew Neal	And she would have to teach probably from the first grade through the third grade.	39:45
Velma Holmes Neal	Teach all the grades.	39:45
Andrew Neal	Through the fourth or fifth grade, until they got to the post grade.	39:45
Kisha Turner	And the schools y'all went to were much bigger, right?	39:57
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, no.	40:04
Andrew Neal	The schools, we had to carry ourselves.	40:04
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah.	40:04
Andrew Neal	That was in the smaller— the rural—	40:04
Kisha Turner	In the city? Okay.	40:05
Andrew Neal	— rural, where this happened.	40:05
Kisha Turner	Okay.	40:05
Andrew Neal	I guess you could call it [indistinct 00:40:10].	40:05
Velma Holmes Neal	They're walking down the road, bushes on either side of you. Uh-uh.	40:05
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:40:15] teach them.	40:05
Kisha Turner	Okay. And you, Mr. Neal? What did you do after college?	40:18
Andrew Neal	All kinds of things, including teaching.	40:21
Kisha Turner	Okay.	40:21
Andrew Neal	Yeah, I taught at a high school in Beaufort, South— Do you know where Beaufort, South Carolina is?	40:21
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	40:21
Kisha Turner	Yes, sir.	40:21
Andrew Neal	It was rather small.	40:21
Kisha Turner	Okay.	40:21
Andrew Neal	That's where my—	40:21
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:40:39] school was.	40:21
Andrew Neal	— where I taught.	40:21
Kisha Turner	Okay.	40:21
Andrew Neal	And I was there. I taught, and because I was a football player, I had a job of—	40:44
Velma Holmes Neal	Coaching.	40:49
Andrew Neal	— coaching football, basketball and track. [indistinct 00:40:53].	40:50
Kisha Turner	Okay.	40:52
Velma Holmes Neal	And he was the highest—	40:53
Andrew Neal	All that was—	40:53
Velma Holmes Neal	Let me tell her this. And he was the highest paid teacher in the school.	40:58
Kisha Turner	Really?	41:00
Velma Holmes Neal	He made $55 a month.	41:00
Kisha Turner	Okay.	41:00
Velma Holmes Neal	The rest of us making 35.	41:00
Kisha Turner	He made— Now what were you making at the country school?	41:07
Velma Holmes Neal	I wasn't making nothing, because I ain't stay too long to find out.	41:10
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:41:13] got paid—	41:11
Velma Holmes Neal	It was going to be like 40 something dollars a month.	41:13
Kisha Turner	Okay. Thank you. And you were making 50 bucks? Okay.	41:15
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	41:17
Kisha Turner	In Beaufort. So you all were separated? You weren't together?	41:18
Andrew Neal	I was in South Carolina. That was the first job. I was up in Virginia—	41:23
Kisha Turner	Virginia?	41:23
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	41:23
Kisha Turner	Okay. Did you all get to see each other often?	41:26
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:41:29].	41:27
Velma Holmes Neal	Just holidays.	41:28
Andrew Neal	I was in school. I'd come.	41:29
Velma Holmes Neal	Christmas. He would come home for Christmas and for the summer.	41:32
Kisha Turner	Okay.	41:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	41:37
Kisha Turner	Beaufort. What was Beaufort like? Was it much different from Norfolk, that you grew up in?	41:45
Andrew Neal	Yeah. No, it was about— See, I hadn't been south that far too, myself yet.	41:51
Kisha Turner	Okay.	41:57
Andrew Neal	So it was quite interesting. There was more getting along with the races in that area right there, than it was even up here in Norfolk.	41:57
Kisha Turner	Oh, there was more interaction—	42:09
Andrew Neal	Yes.	42:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	42:09
Kisha Turner	— between Whites and Blacks, in Beaufort?	42:09
Andrew Neal	Exactly.	42:09
Velma Holmes Neal	It was like too, in Beaufort, Andrew.	42:09
Andrew Neal	Yeah, Beaufort.	42:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Because our back door neighbors were White.	42:18
Andrew Neal	Yeah, we all lived right in the same area. Because when I was stationed in the Army, I— All my neighbors were White, one side and the back, most of them were White. We got [indistinct 00:42:46].	42:45
Kisha Turner	Did you?	42:45
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	42:45
Kisha Turner	They weren't— They didn't [indistinct 00:42:46]—	42:45
Velma Holmes Neal	They had done—	42:45
Andrew Neal	No, they—	42:45
Velma Holmes Neal	— It was better than down there than it was up here.	42:45
Andrew Neal	We had six— They had more. I don't understand this thing. I can't explain why it was like that, maybe you have to explain it to me, but they had— The only time that they made a difference is when you went to church and to your [indistinct 00:42:59], and to the schools. Other things that they may have wanted me to work to do, they had to [indistinct 00:43:08], and that was in the South.	42:51
Kisha Turner	Were there still restrictions on stores, eat— restaurants you could eat—	43:09
Andrew Neal	Well no, you couldn't eat [indistinct 00:43:15].	43:14
Kisha Turner	Okay.	43:14
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:43:16].	43:14
Kisha Turner	And on buses or public transportation?	43:32
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	43:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Both of us [indistinct 00:43:38], didn't it?	43:37
Andrew Neal	They didn't. What you remember about that day?	43:37
Velma Holmes Neal	What?	43:37
Andrew Neal	The time I was going to the school—	43:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh, yeah.	43:37
Andrew Neal	— and that incident happened. [indistinct 00:43:38]—	43:37
Velma Holmes Neal	The buses.	43:37
Andrew Neal	— The buses were—	43:37
Velma Holmes Neal	They had—	43:37
Andrew Neal	— The buses were segregated. We sat in the back, and then if you— I know you ain't knowing about Rosa Parks. What Rosa Parks finally ended up doing, it caused the whole thing. The whole chain. Well, we had to ride on the bus, transportation, public transportation, city transportation [indistinct 00:43:53], we were segregated. We sat in the back and if the bus filled up with Whites, we'd get up. Had to stand up.	43:39
Kisha Turner	Stand up.	44:04
Andrew Neal	And if it got too crowded, we had to get off. I can't ride— One of my first encounters though, with that thing, was when I was going back one time for Christmas vacation. And I had the baby with me. I had her and my baby. Then one of the women on the bus decided that she wanted to take her time and get off the bus—	44:04
Velma Holmes Neal	And we're supposed to wait for her.	44:29
Andrew Neal	— and I had to wait for her, until she got up, off the—	44:30
Velma Holmes Neal	Do you remember why that was?	44:31
Andrew Neal	Huh?	44:31
Velma Holmes Neal	All the White folk got off the bus first.	44:31
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	44:31
Velma Holmes Neal	So if you had to go get on another bus, they'd be the first to get there and get a seat.	44:39
Andrew Neal	So we had to— Normally not, being experienced in that type of thing, went off the bus. So I got on past her and walking past her.	44:43
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, he did. And [indistinct 00:44:54]—	44:54
Andrew Neal	Well, she got hot with her and fussed. [indistinct 00:44:57]. She even tried to grab her, to pull her back, wanting to get off.	44:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	45:02
Andrew Neal	We had created a little incident right there.	45:02
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, we sure did.	45:04
Kisha Turner	What happened?	45:06
Andrew Neal	She pointed us to the—	45:08
Velma Holmes Neal	The driver.	45:08
Andrew Neal	— bus driver. We were indigent niggers.	45:10
Velma Holmes Neal	And then he gets on the other—	45:14
Andrew Neal	Because we were— They thought if we were from the— They considered us being indigent niggers, the root. The bus driver paddled us off the bus. Everybody get on the bus but us, and he would make the changes. We finally get on the bus, after they let us.	45:16
Velma Holmes Neal	And he didn't want to get on the bus because he wanted to fight.	45:38
Andrew Neal	Boy, I had that mixture in me then, being from the part that you didn't really have to go through that.	45:40
Kisha Turner	Okay. Now where did this happen? Where were you when this happened?	45:46
Andrew Neal	That was in George—	45:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Was that in Columbia? When you changed those jobs?	45:50
Andrew Neal	No, [indistinct 00:45:53]. Was that little place called—	45:52
Velma Holmes Neal	Charleston?	45:55
Andrew Neal	No, no.	45:56
Velma Holmes Neal	We had to change buses, [indistinct 00:46:00].	45:56
Andrew Neal	I forget the name of the place. It might have been George— Do you know the name of any place in—	46:01
Kisha Turner	Was it Conway?	46:06
Andrew Neal	No.	46:06
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-uh. Uh-uh.	46:06
Kisha Turner	It's in South Carolina?	46:09
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm—hmm.	46:10
Andrew Neal	We were on our way to Beaufort.	46:10
Kisha Turner	Oh, you were on your way down to Beaufort?	46:12
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm—hmm.	46:13
Andrew Neal	I was on my way, going back to work, and that happened.	46:14
Velma Holmes Neal	You know what? You were carrying me back down there.	46:18
Andrew Neal	We had to transfer from the bus—	46:19

Kisha Turner	Did you have deal with that kind of stuff often or was it just some isolated—	0:00
Andrew Neal	No, that was just—	0:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Isolated.	0:07
Andrew Neal	— one time.	0:07
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	0:07
Andrew Neal	Just that one time. It might have been something that had had happened. But we not being aware what we're supposed to do, we're both coming from Norfolk, we didn't know what rules they had. We probably—	0:08
Velma Holmes Neal	Because down here—	0:32
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:00:34] the customs and the rules.	0:33
Velma Holmes Neal	You know why we weren't aware? Because down here, when we got off the bus, all the White folks got off the front of the bus, and all the Black folks got off the back of the bus.	0:34
Kisha Turner	There were two doors?	0:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Two doors.	0:41
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	0:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes. So we weren't aware of that.	0:42
Andrew Neal	That rule they had.	0:44
Kisha Turner	And that's how the buses were here?	0:48
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	0:49
Kisha Turner	Or in Norfolk?	0:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes.	0:51
Kisha Turner	Okay.	0:52
Velma Holmes Neal	The White folks got off the front.	0:53
Kisha Turner	And there, there was just one door, and you were supposed to wait until the White folks got off?	0:58
Velma Holmes Neal	Uh-huh.	1:02
Andrew Neal	Yeah, yeah. There were two exit doors.	1:04
Velma Holmes Neal	Right.	1:04
Andrew Neal	The door in the back was the exit—	1:04
Velma Holmes Neal	No, no, no. She's said down in South Carolina.	1:07
Kisha Turner	It was just one—	1:09
Andrew Neal	Door.	1:09
Kisha Turner	Okay. So y'all eventually got another bus though, right?	1:13
Andrew Neal	Yeah, we got— They let us get in on the front end again.	1:17
Kisha Turner	Oh, okay.	1:17
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:01:19]	1:17
Andrew Neal	But we had to wait until all the White people were seated.	1:19
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:01:26] We been here long. We've seen a lot of things in all these years we've been here. In dealing with people, we've seen a lot of things happening. We have been—	1:30
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:01:41]	1:39
Velma Holmes Neal	I'm glad to say I have lived to see the changes.	1:39
Kisha Turner	What kind of changes?	1:45
Velma Holmes Neal	Well, I mean from the way people do now, what we're able to do, where we're able to go and sit down and eat, and where we can—	1:46
Andrew Neal	You don't have that problem, do you, going into a restaurant? You can go into any restaurant—	1:53
Kisha Turner	If I have the money.	1:53
Andrew Neal	Yeah, any place to eat that you want to go.	2:01
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	2:01
Andrew Neal	See, but we couldn't do that.	2:04
Kisha Turner	You couldn't do that.	2:05
Andrew Neal	We had to live to see this decade. You in here now.	2:05
Velma Holmes Neal	Stop kicking that lady!	2:08
Kisha Turner	Oh, I'm fine. Don't worry about me.	2:09
Andrew Neal	So I have—	2:12
Velma Holmes Neal	We do appreciate the fact that we lived to see this.	2:18
Andrew Neal	See but our children remember. My son, he was one of those guys that wanted to test what would happen. He decided he had a right to do what you all do now. He came up right at the time when they had the sit-ins when he went to school.	2:22
Kisha Turner	Did he participate in any of that?	2:22
Andrew Neal	As much as he could.	2:22
Velma Holmes Neal	No, because we were—	2:22
Andrew Neal	See my kids participated in a sit-in at the five and dime stores right here in the city, because they wouldn't serve you at the lunch counter, Woolworth's five and dime store. I don't know whether they have it now. Of course, the ones [indistinct 00:02:26]. Is there a Woolworth's store still down in the shopping center?	2:22
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-mm.	2:25
Andrew Neal	They're all gone now, but they had the big lunch counter. It wasn't nobody that sat there but Whites. And my kids were involved in the sit-in movement at Woolworth's five and dime store right here in the city [indistinct 00:03:41] in Charlotte. We didn't have that.	2:25
Kisha Turner	Do you all remember, were you teaching here? Did y'all teach?	3:49
Andrew Neal	I taught in South Carolina.	3:52
Velma Holmes Neal	He taught.	3:52
Kisha Turner	Okay.	3:53
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:03:56]	3:53
Kisha Turner	Okay. Do you all remember the Norfolk 17 or when the school—	3:55
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yes.	4:00
Kisha Turner	What was that all about?	4:01
Velma Holmes Neal	My daughter was coming up during that time, because they closed the schools, all the Black schools, all the White schools, they closed all the schools.	4:02
Kisha Turner	They closed all the schools?	4:15
Velma Holmes Neal	They closed all the schools.	4:15
Kisha Turner	This was in the '50s?	4:15
Andrew Neal	Yes.	4:15
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. And then they had what they called the 17. And they taught them at Queen's Street Church.	4:15
Andrew Neal	They were the first ones to go into the integrate schools.	4:27
Kisha Turner	Okay, so the Norfolk 17, they were teachers?	4:28
Andrew Neal	No, no.	4:33
Velma Holmes Neal	No, no, they went to school—	4:51
Kisha Turner	Students?	4:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	4:51
Andrew Neal	That went into the Black and into the White schools.	4:51
Kisha Turner	Into the schools, I see.	4:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Because see they had been picked to go there. But they wasn't going to let them come in. They closed the schools down. And I tell you what they did. They have a section called [indistinct 00:04:53]. When the White schools closed in [indistinct 00:04:57] the White children from Norfolk got buses and they went over there, and they had school in the evening.	4:51
Kisha Turner	Okay.	5:04
Velma Holmes Neal	So they would have a place for school. And our children went to Queen's Street—	5:06
Kisha Turner	The church—	5:13
Velma Holmes Neal	Different churches opened up, and our children were able to go to school.	5:13
Andrew Neal	They had classes to keep them from falling behind.	5:17
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. They didn't get a chance to fall behind.	5:17
Kisha Turner	And they closed because they didn't want to integrate. Right?	5:27
Velma Holmes Neal	That's it. That's it.	5:42
Kisha Turner	Okay.	5:42
Velma Holmes Neal	The 17.	5:42
Kisha Turner	Wow.	5:43
Andrew Neal	How do you know about the 17? [indistinct 00:05:44]	5:43
Velma Holmes Neal	She heard somebody talk about, haven't you?	5:43
Kisha Turner	Yeah, I just [indistinct 00:05:44]	5:43
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:05:45] in this area [indistinct 00:05:47] other people and they've probably talked about it.	5:43
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	5:43
Kisha Turner	That's interesting. I was just wondering, what about kind of customs when you all were coming up around dating or stuff like that?	5:52
Andrew Neal	What do you mean?	6:08
Kisha Turner	Like how old, and what kinds of things were you allowed to do when courting or whatever?	6:09
Andrew Neal	Begging? You mean like you put—	6:12
Velma Holmes Neal	Dating she said.	6:13
Andrew Neal	Dating?	6:14
Kisha Turner	Dating.	6:14
Andrew Neal	Oh well—	6:15
Velma Holmes Neal	He come to my house and it was 10:00 and he knew when it was time to go. You know how he knew?	6:16
Kisha Turner	How?	6:20
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:06:27]. Didn't he?	6:20
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	6:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. [indistinct 00:06:33] go home now.	6:20
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:06:34]	6:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Because 10:00 you got to go.	6:20
Kisha Turner	You got to go, huh?	6:20
Velma Holmes Neal	You got to go at 10:00.	6:38
Andrew Neal	Your old man would start getting his shoes—	6:38
Velma Holmes Neal	His work clothes on.	6:40
Andrew Neal	— his boots and things [indistinct 00:06:45] that room, which was off from the—	6:42
Velma Holmes Neal	Living room.	6:47
Andrew Neal	— living room. We had a big fireplace in there.	6:48
Velma Holmes Neal	We had a big hot stove in there.	6:48
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:06:55] I don't remember what it was. So anyway, he got his clothes for them to warm up so he could go put on his warm work clothes in the winter time.	6:55
Velma Holmes Neal	Until the next morning.	7:07
Andrew Neal	The next morning. See, he's start doing that. And then he'd set the clock, the alarm clock.	7:12
Velma Holmes Neal	That means, get up and go son.	7:15
Andrew Neal	I knew it was time then.	7:16
Kisha Turner	Time to go.	7:16
Andrew Neal	Time to go.	7:16
Velma Holmes Neal	Time to go.	7:18
Andrew Neal	We went to dances.	7:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	7:20
Andrew Neal	We had dances. [indistinct 00:07:25]	7:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. We had nice dances in our time, during Christmas, because every college had its own Christmas dance. And we would get invitations to the various dances. And they might start in the day time and might not end up until the wee hours of the night.	7:30
Andrew Neal	Mm-hmm.	7:46
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. They don't have that kind of fun now. Colleges don't have that experience.	7:53
Andrew Neal	The colleges are not as close knit now as they were then.	7:57
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	8:01
Andrew Neal	What school did you go to?	8:01
Kisha Turner	I went to Spelman.	8:07
Andrew Neal	Spelman?	8:08
Velma Holmes Neal	Spelman.	8:08
Andrew Neal	Oh, I know Spelman.	8:15
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:08:16] what's that lady's name?	8:15
Andrew Neal	No, no, you talking about [indistinct 00:08:17]	8:15
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh no, I was talking about—	8:16
Andrew Neal	Spelman was down in Atlanta.	8:17
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	8:19
Velma Holmes Neal	But [indistinct 00:08:21] that was—	8:20
Andrew Neal	That was in Florida, Daytona Beach, Florida.	8:24
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:08:28] College.	8:28
Andrew Neal	Spelman, was it integrated?	8:30
Kisha Turner	All girls.	8:33
Andrew Neal	All girls at your time? It still—	8:34
Kisha Turner	It still is all girls.	8:36
Andrew Neal	Yeah? Well good. And Morehouse is—	8:37
Kisha Turner	All guys.	8:43
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	8:43
Andrew Neal	Guys [indistinct 00:08:47]	8:43
Kisha Turner	They're right there though. I mean, they're not far, so—	8:48
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:08:51] I drove up and down that area [indistinct 00:08:56] around the schools.	8:48
Kisha Turner	Okay.	8:48
Andrew Neal	Yeah, I had some friends from [indistinct 00:09:01] classmates that were from Atlanta. And we went down back and forth to wherever. She never got down to Atlanta.	8:59
Velma Holmes Neal	No, I never got to Atlanta.	9:05
Andrew Neal	I still like Atlanta.	9:05
Velma Holmes Neal	You said it's such a nice place.	9:05
Kisha Turner	It's a nice city. It's growing though. It's getting huge.	9:05
Andrew Neal	Oh, it was large during my time. But altogether different now, because the Whites, I mean, the Blacks don't have to depend primarily on their own now like they did then. Because back then they had their own drug stores and they had their own shoe stores [indistinct 00:09:29]—	9:05
Kisha Turner	In Atlanta, the Black people.	9:05
Andrew Neal	On Albany, Sweet Albany we used to call it.	9:05
Kisha Turner	Albany, yeah.	9:05
Andrew Neal	But now they can go anywhere they want to. Yeah, I think it has kind of had its effect on the Blacks. Do you find it happened [indistinct 00:10:02]	9:28
Velma Holmes Neal	What?	10:01
Kisha Turner	There's fewer—	10:02
Andrew Neal	The Blacks have not put as much emphasis and intensity into representing their own.	10:02
Kisha Turner	Yeah, because you can go to those White stores now.	10:12
Andrew Neal	See they had [indistinct 00:10:23] the man was the realtor and they had a hotel, motel.	10:16
Kisha Turner	Oh, Pascal?	10:23
Andrew Neal	That name doesn't ring a bell.	10:23
Kisha Turner	Down in Atlanta?	10:23
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:10:35] but anyway, he also [indistinct 00:10:43] he ended up in real estate. He had his own hotel and motel. [indistinct 00:10:50]. I don't know if they called it a motel. Anyway, but that name you talking about [indistinct 00:10:59] you could go down to — What is the big hotel in downtown now?	10:35
Kisha Turner	Hyatt or something, Peach Tree?	11:05
Andrew Neal	Yeah, anywhere now, but you had to come back and stay at this place then.	11:07
Kisha Turner	Yeah, I know Pascal's was one of them, and the Beautiful Restaurant, I don't know how long that's been there. It's been there for a while.	11:12
Andrew Neal	And so we didn't have, because they have not developed themselves like [indistinct 00:11:25] like they did back in our day.	11:19
Kisha Turner	When you all were married, did you have a wedding ceremony?	11:35
Velma Holmes Neal	No, we ran away and got married.	11:44
Andrew Neal	Yeah, we got married. No, we didn't have a big wedding ceremony.	11:49
Velma Holmes Neal	It was the two of us.	11:50
Kisha Turner	Okay. Where'd you go, far?	11:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yeah. It wasn't too far.	11:54
Andrew Neal	It wasn't too far.	11:54
Velma Holmes Neal	We didn't go far. We didn't have a whole lot of money to go away.	11:54
Kisha Turner	Okay. Okay. Do you remember the Depression era, what it was like?	12:07
Andrew Neal	Well—	12:12
Velma Holmes Neal	No.	12:16
Andrew Neal	No, not like a lot of people.	12:17
Velma Holmes Neal	Not like a lot of people.	12:19
Kisha Turner	Okay.	12:19
Velma Holmes Neal	We were never involved with that kind of thing.	12:24
Andrew Neal	Because her father was never without a job all during that time.	12:24
Velma Holmes Neal	No.	12:25
Andrew Neal	His pay was—	12:25
Kisha Turner	He still worked?	12:30
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah, and at that time, the post man made the most money.	12:31
Kisha Turner	Okay.	12:34
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	12:36
Andrew Neal	Yeah, and my father was [indistinct 00:12:43] got decreased, but he did other work. And he used to be a salesman [indistinct 00:12:55] salesman. So we never really [indistinct 00:13:00] like my friends right around the corner from us, our classmates [indistinct 00:13:06]—	12:42
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:13:06]	13:03
Andrew Neal	— fighting over that last [indistinct 00:13:12]. I knew about it, but I [indistinct 00:13:16]	13:09
Velma Holmes Neal	But wasn't involved.	13:15
Andrew Neal	I wasn't involved. I'm reluctant to talk about it now, because so many friends didn't have. And so I minimize talking about it [indistinct 00:13:31]	13:16
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	13:31
Kisha Turner	Okay.	13:31
Velma Holmes Neal	You don't want to [indistinct 00:13:36]	13:31
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:13:38] so much so, when I graduated from high school, my next trip was college, back in '32. The Depression era was from '29 up to '32 was when that—	13:40
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm, the Depression.	13:54
Andrew Neal	And then Roosevelt took over I think, he changed thing. [indistinct 00:14:07] and so I don't talk about that era too much.	14:01
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-mm. You don't want people to think you're bragging.	14:14
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:14:16]	14:15
Velma Holmes Neal	I hear people talk about [indistinct 00:14:19] was it the salt pork—	14:15
Andrew Neal	The fat back and all the kind of stuff.	14:15
Velma Holmes Neal	I never had to [indistinct 00:14:28]	14:15
Kisha Turner	That was the stuff they distributed, right, the government?	14:30
Velma Holmes Neal	No, this is the stuff that the families had to eat. That's all they had to eat.	14:33
Andrew Neal	So many of them, yeah. See most of our classmates, most of them [indistinct 00:14:46] go away to college.	14:37
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:14:48] delay a year.	14:49
Kisha Turner	Delay it, yeah. That's what some people I've spoken to before, had to wait.	14:49
Andrew Neal	They had to wait because they didn't have [indistinct 00:14:58]	14:55
Velma Holmes Neal	They had to wait.	14:55
Kisha Turner	Do you remember any WPA people?	14:55
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah.	14:55
Andrew Neal	I'll tell you right now, I knew them and then I did work with the WPA.	15:06
Kisha Turner	What kind of work did they do around here?	15:08
Andrew Neal	Well, they did public works—	15:10
Velma Holmes Neal	Picked the flowers off the cemetery and picked the flowers [indistinct 00:15:18]	15:14
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:15:20]	15:17
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm. They worked in sewing rooms.	15:19
Andrew Neal	They did a lot of different things. They just keep them busy so they could [indistinct 00:15:35]	15:26
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:15:35]	15:26
Kisha Turner	What about the servicemen around here? Did you often remember seeing them come in around?	15:39
Andrew Neal	Oh sure, you had to see them. It's the biggest base on the East Coast, the Naval Shipyard. I worked there during the war.	15:50
Kisha Turner	Did you?	15:56
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	15:56
Kisha Turner	What kinds of things did you do? What work did you do?	15:56
Andrew Neal	I did the work that I had been trained for that would keep you from going to war.	16:07
Kisha Turner	Okay.	16:17
Andrew Neal	I went into shipbuilding work. My father had trained me how to be in woodwork and carpentry. [indistinct 00:16:23] the Navy yard, what we called the [indistinct 00:16:33] work program, because see I got a deferment by working there so I didn't have to go into war.	16:17
Kisha Turner	Mm-hmm.	16:33
Andrew Neal	But this was a bustling place. Do you live anywhere near a ship? Your home is where?	16:49
Kisha Turner	Winston Salem, North Carolina.	16:55
Andrew Neal	Oh, you [indistinct 00:16:58]	16:57
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah, I got a couple of friends down there.	17:03
Andrew Neal	See we got the beach, the ocean, the Naval base and the ships come in.	17:03
Kisha Turner	Were there any unions when you were working?	17:11
Andrew Neal	What, Naval unions?	17:12
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	17:15
Andrew Neal	Other than the Pullman porters, they had theirs but [indistinct 00:17:25] organize and recognize [indistinct 00:17:29]	17:20
Velma Holmes Neal	Jobs were not [indistinct 00:17:33]	17:30
Andrew Neal	They wouldn't let the postal service, so her father worked with a place that [indistinct 00:17:42] organize, but that was a no no.	17:33
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-mm. No no is right.	17:38
Andrew Neal	And the one that did exist, it was only for the Whites.	17:56
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	17:56
Kisha Turner	Okay. So the labor unions were segregated?	17:56
Andrew Neal	Oh sure.	18:11
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yes, you couldn't belong to that. You couldn't belong to that could you?	18:12
Andrew Neal	No.	18:12
Kisha Turner	How about any civil rights organizations in Norfolk that you remember being active?	18:14
Andrew Neal	NAACP.	18:29
Kisha Turner	NAACP.	18:29
Andrew Neal	That's international, nationwide—	18:29
Kisha Turner	Yeah.	18:29
Velma Holmes Neal	That's the big thing they had.	18:29
Andrew Neal	That was the big one. And of course there were some groups in the churches that were [indistinct 00:18:35] outright name like the NAACP, but they were certain social clubs and groups, social clubs that did a lot of [indistinct 00:18:47] around here. Social clubs that their aim was to accomplish [indistinct 00:19:02] carried out immediately the way the NAACP could. But the clubs, they had requirements. It requires you to be a qualified voter [indistinct 00:19:09]	18:45
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:19:09] in the club.	19:08
Andrew Neal	You couldn't [indistinct 00:19:10]	19:08
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah. I was just [indistinct 00:19:21] I was in the club and you had to [indistinct 00:19:24]	19:09
Kisha Turner	So you had to vote, be a registered vote.	19:25
Andrew Neal	Yeah.	19:27
Velma Holmes Neal	You had to be a registered voter but whether you vote or not, you had to pay those taxes, or else you'd be fined by the club and you would rather pay that dollar and a half, because that's what it cost.	19:30
Andrew Neal	That was the [indistinct 00:19:44] action of civil rights among the—	19:43
Velma Holmes Neal	Blacks.	19:47
Andrew Neal	— social clubs.	19:49
Kisha Turner	Social clubs?	19:49
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	19:50
Kisha Turner	Did y'all ever hear of a group called the Tenths or something?	19:51
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yeah, that's a lodge.	19:53
Kisha Turner	That's a lodge?	19:54
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	19:54
Kisha Turner	What it kind of the same?	19:54
Andrew Neal	So it was a social group, but benevolent lodge, benevolent order. See the Tenths is a nation org now. They have chapters all over.	20:00
Velma Holmes Neal	I'm an Eastern Star.	20:12
Andrew Neal	See we—	20:13
Kisha Turner	Okay, I met some Eastern Stars in South Carolina too.	20:15
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:20:19] which also they have in those organizations, [indistinct 00:20:28] their aim is to do something about the civil rights.	20:20
Kisha Turner	Okay.	20:36
Andrew Neal	And so if you couldn't keep up your dues or if you didn't pay your dues and you didn't vote, you could not [indistinct 00:20:43]. There was one organization in this area, the longshoremen, were really the only labor union in this area.	20:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	20:53
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:20:54] something that you'd asked about, unions. But yeah, longshoremen.	20:53
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	20:55
Kisha Turner	Were the social clubs active the Norfolk 17 and opening the churches to teach the—	21:06
Andrew Neal	Oh yeah, they helped. See one of their aims was to see [indistinct 00:21:20] most people didn't have transportation back and forth.	21:11
Kisha Turner	Okay. Who paid for that, like paid to operate the church schools?	21:21
Andrew Neal	All that was no charge for that.	21:30
Kisha Turner	Did they have to pay the teachers? Or the teachers just volunteered their time?	21:34
Velma Holmes Neal	They volunteered.	21:37
Andrew Neal	They volunteered to do it.	21:37
Velma Holmes Neal	They volunteered, volunteer teachers.	21:37
Kisha Turner	Okay.	21:37
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:21:52]	21:37
Kisha Turner	How long did you work on ship building?	22:08
Andrew Neal	During the war. Started during the war and when after the war I went back into—	22:11
Velma Holmes Neal	He did insurance.	22:19
Kisha Turner	You did insurance, okay.	22:19
Velma Holmes Neal	That's what he retired on.	22:19
Andrew Neal	That was it. That was the last [indistinct 00:22:20]	22:19
Kisha Turner	[indistinct 00:22:20]	22:19
Andrew Neal	I worked for Mutual Life Insurance.	22:20
Kisha Turner	Oh, you worked in Durham?	22:30
Andrew Neal	That's where the home office is.	22:33
Kisha Turner	Okay.	22:35
Andrew Neal	But I worked here.	22:36
Kisha Turner	Okay. I didn't know they had a branch here.	22:37
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yeah, there are branches everywhere.	22:40
Kisha Turner	Everywhere, oh. Mm-hmm.	22:41
Andrew Neal	So I worked for them until retirement time at 65.	22:47
Kisha Turner	Okay. How did you all celebrate holidays in your house when you were growing up?	22:54
Andrew Neal	What?	22:56
Kisha Turner	How did you celebrate birthdays or Christmas or Easter?	22:58
Andrew Neal	Now birthdays were something worth celebrating.	23:01
Velma Holmes Neal	We invite everybody around and have dinner.	23:04
Kisha Turner	For what holiday, for birthdays, for Christmas?	23:09
Andrew Neal	Sometimes.	23:10
Velma Holmes Neal	Yeah, we always did something for Christmas, to whichever child had a birthday, we'd always go to that particular house. And as long as — When my son got married back in 1959, everybody comes home, and this is home for all the children. Everybody comes home for Thanksgiving day dinner.	23:15
Andrew Neal	We have Thanksgiving dinner. That's our day [indistinct 00:23:35] it's for all the children.	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	And grandchildren and the great grandchildren.	23:31
Andrew Neal	The last count we had, it was around 22.	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Last year.	23:31
Andrew Neal	And they all sat at the table.	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	We had [indistinct 00:23:35] tables in here.	23:31
Andrew Neal	We had [indistinct 00:23:35]	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Because we have a neighbor down the street.	23:31
Andrew Neal	And we had a sit down dinner.	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Oh yeah.	23:31
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:23:35]	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Everybody got to sit down, all our family and friends and that kind of thing.	23:31
Andrew Neal	My son started it with his family.	23:31
Velma Holmes Neal	Yes, when he first got married. And as they got married he said, "Momma, you got to come. [indistinct 00:23:35] started this." And so as they got married and as they had children, they all came home.	23:31
Kisha Turner	Everyone comes home for Thanksgiving, that's cool.	23:35
Velma Holmes Neal	And one granddaughter that has three children, and so they come. So we have everybody here. They look forward to being here for that particular day.	24:27
Andrew Neal	They all are here.	24:59
Velma Holmes Neal	It's funny, now I got these two. One girl has two sons. The rest of my children have girls. And when the last child was born, I'm sure glad they didn't have no boys, because we want to be the only ones with the boys. And that's that girl right there on the with that little red Dickies on.	25:00
Kisha Turner	Okay.	25:24
Velma Holmes Neal	She has the boys, those two boys in the back.	25:25
Kisha Turner	Okay.	25:27
Velma Holmes Neal	That one over there just finished, yeah that one, he's like his mother. He's like his father. He's like his mother. That one right that weighs 200 and some pounds.	25:29
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:25:43]	25:36
Kisha Turner	Handmade?	25:44
Andrew Neal	Well, it's considered being handmade because it had to be cut with a saw [indistinct 00:25:51]—	25:45
Velma Holmes Neal	I think they did a beautiful job on it.	25:51
Andrew Neal	—putting it together and all this.	25:53
Kisha Turner	How old is he?	25:56
Velma Holmes Neal	Well, Papa went to night school back in the '30s.	25:59
Andrew Neal	Way before the '30s.	25:59
Velma Holmes Neal	Way before the '30s? Mm-hmm.	26:07
Andrew Neal	Because that table, he had that [indistinct 00:26:15]. I would go to see her back in the late '20s.	26:11
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:14
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:26:15] we've been married 60 years.	26:14
Andrew Neal	So that table goes back beyond that time.	26:14
Velma Holmes Neal	Beyond 60 years.	26:14
Kisha Turner	So your father went to night school when he came back.	26:31
Velma Holmes Neal	After he got out of the—	26:35
Kisha Turner	The service?	26:36
Velma Holmes Neal	After he got out of the post office.	26:36
Kisha Turner	Okay, out of the post office.	26:38
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:26:41]	26:38
Velma Holmes Neal	Just to be doing something.	26:38
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:26:44]	26:38
Velma Holmes Neal	He went to night school.	26:45
Kisha Turner	At—	26:46
Velma Holmes Neal	Booker T.	26:46
Kisha Turner	Booker T, the high school?	26:48
Velma Holmes Neal	Mm-hmm.	26:48
Kisha Turner	Okay.	26:48
Velma Holmes Neal	They had night school there.	26:49
Andrew Neal	He took woodwork [indistinct 00:26:54]	26:49
Velma Holmes Neal	[indistinct 00:26:54]	26:51
Andrew Neal	See the school for adults, and they had school courses for men [indistinct 00:27:08] consist of woodwork, plumbing, masonry, electrical.	26:53
Velma Holmes Neal	You could go there and take any phase of it.	27:16
Andrew Neal	[indistinct 00:27:22] women had to take—	27:22
Velma Holmes Neal	Homemaking.	27:22
Andrew Neal	Homemaking, which consisted of cooking—	27:23
Kisha Turner	And sewing?	27:23
Velma Holmes Neal	And sewing, mm-hmm.	27:23
Andrew Neal	And you had courses on how to be good domestics. So [indistinct 00:27:31]	27:25
Velma Holmes Neal	One of my children up there is an art teacher, and —	27:33

Item Info

Title:

Velma Neal (primary interviewee) and Andrew Neal interview recording, 1995 July 19

Date:

July 19, 1995

Creator:

Contributor:

Turner, Kisha

Description:

Name: Velma Holmes Neal; Date of birth: 1914-02-26; Place of birth: Norfolk, VA; Occupation(s): traffic guard; Residence: Chesapeake, VA. Name: Andrew Neal; Date of birth: 1913-11-22; Place of birth: Norfolk, VA; Occupation(s): insurance agent; educator; teacher; Residence: Chesapeake, VA
Informant ID: 967; Informant ID: 968; Interviewed by: Kisha Turner.

Occupation:

Traffic guard

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 1990-2004

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:

RL00170-CS-1322
3c6fe54d-c6e8-4090-b0ba-abfda0f09fa4
behindtheveil
c1797353-8d6d-43e9-b7e0-3aa5e37fcc32
ark:/87924/r4834073p
c1797353-8d6d-43e9-b7e0-3aa5e37fcc32

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4834073p

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Velma Neal (primary interviewee) and Andrew Neal interview recording, 1995 July 19

Transcript

Item Info

1. Velma Neal and Andrew Neal administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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