Hersey Quinn (primary interviewee) and Bettie Quinn interview recording, 1994 July 18

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Paul Ortiz	Mr. Quinn, can you tell me where you were born and some information about the area that you grew up in?	0:08
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I was born in Fort Deposit, Alabama. That's in Lowndes County. 'Course, I don't know anything about my stay there because my parents moved to Tuskegee when I was a young age. I guess I must have been somewhere around two years old when we came to Tuskegee.	0:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	So I don't know anything about living in Fort Deposit, Lowndes County. My first knowledge of light was when we were living here in Tuskegee.	0:46
Paul Ortiz	And how did your family come to move to Tuskegee?	0:58
Hersey Copeland Quinn	My father was a World War I veteran. After he got out of service, he came to Tuskegee to further his education.	1:06
Paul Ortiz	And where in Tuskegee did your family settle down?	1:26
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We lived over in the Greenwood community.	1:31
Paul Ortiz	Greenwood?	1:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right.	1:34
Paul Ortiz	Now, at that time, this would've been what year? 1920s?	1:46
Hersey Copeland Quinn	This must have been about 1923 or '24, because I was born in 1922.	1:55
Paul Ortiz	So in 1924— Now, you said this is the Greenwood community.	2:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	That's right.	2:09
Paul Ortiz	Were there other communities and, I guess, what separated Greenwood or what distinguished Greenwood from other communities?	2:10
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, I guess that was a neighborhood or the side of town, I guess I should say. Tuskegee, at that time, was more or less referred to according to communities. Had the Greenwood community, Rockefeller Hill, Zion Hill, communities like that.	2:20
Paul Ortiz	Now with the Green— I'm sorry, Greenwood community, would that be people who were instructors at Tuskegee?	3:01
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. More or less.	3:12
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	3:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Quite a few of the people who lived in the Greenwood community were employed by Tuskegee University. 'Course, it was Tuskegee Institute at that time.	3:13
Paul Ortiz	Now, I hadn't heard about— You said there was a Rockefeller community. Who would've lived there?	3:29
Hersey Copeland Quinn	People are, well, basically the same as we were. The only thing about it, they lived on the other side of— They lived in another area. And the areas were referred to as communities.	3:45
Paul Ortiz	Oh. They would've also been employees of the Institute?	4:05
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Of the Institute. And some worked in other areas, maybe the VA hospital.	4:15
Paul Ortiz	Was there a community where people who didn't necessarily work for the Institute live in?	4:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	There were communities where people— Well. Now, most of the instructors at the Institute at that time lived in the Greenwood community. And some lived in the campus area. There were houses on campus, and many of them lived in houses on campus.	4:39
Paul Ortiz	And so when you moved to Tuskegee in '23, 1924, your father was attending school at the Institute?	5:37
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes.	5:50
Paul Ortiz	And your mother, was she working outside the home?	5:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, she was housewife. She didn't work outside home.	5:56
Paul Ortiz	And did you have brothers and sisters?	6:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. At that time I had— Let me get my statistics correct. I must have had two brothers and a sister.	6:08
Paul Ortiz	What are some of your earliest childhood memories of growing up in Tuskegee?	6:43
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, my memory of Tuskegee at that time is pretty short, because we didn't stay here very long. My father was in school here and when he finished his studies, we left Tuskegee.	6:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	He bought a farm in Shorter, Alabama. He was still in agriculture and 'course he bought this farm at Shorter. And he went— We moved there and we farmed there.	7:11
Paul Ortiz	So he was going to school for about three years? Four?	7:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I have no idea. I don't know. No.	7:40
Hersey Copeland Quinn	He wasn't working on a degree program. It was— But whatever his study was he finished it. And after finishing, we moved to Shorter and he bought this farm.	7:48
Paul Ortiz	Oh, now your family was able to buy their own farm. Do you know who they bought the farm from? And about how many acres it was?	8:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It was between 80 and 90 acres. And he bought it from a lady named Camille Bowen.	8:12
Paul Ortiz	Was she Black?	8:33
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, she was Black. 'Cause she worked at, what was then, Alabama State College. It's Alabama State University now.	8:38
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember having experiences with segregation, discrimination during these years in Shorter?	8:56
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.	9:04
Paul Ortiz	Can you tell me about [indistinct 00:09:08]?	9:06
Hersey Copeland Quinn	My experience was— Well, I'll say it like this. My parents sort of kept us shielded from most of the segregation to some extent. We didn't have much dealing with the— It was with the White race.	9:21
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We, as children, didn't. My parents did, but we, as children, didn't come in contact with them much. And of course, we had segregated schools too.	9:44
Bettie Barret Quinn	Didn't have a school buses.	10:08
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, didn't have school buses or anything.	10:08
Bettie Barret Quinn	Did anyone provide you with transportation?	10:09
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	10:10
Paul Ortiz	Your parents would drive you to school?	10:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, first of all, when I was in elementary school, when I first started school, we had an elementary school nearby. We walked to school.	10:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	After that, my parents drove us to school in his car. He would take us in the morning, come back and pick us up in the afternoon.	10:38
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And 'course that went on all the way through elementary school. We didn't have school buses. White students has school buses but we didn't. And sometime we walked to school. And of course, when we walked to school, the White children would pass us on the school bus because we were walking to school.	10:50
Paul Ortiz	When they would pass you on the school bus, would they ever— Any incidents where they would assault you?	11:14
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Sometimes they would, yeah. They would— Well, holler at us and make such remarks.	11:21
Paul Ortiz	Now you said that your parents tried to shield you from discrimination, but they experienced that daily experiences. Do you know that some of those experiences are?	11:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, most times going to the stores, my parents went to the stores, which the White people were in that area were operating at that time. Small stores. Instead of sending us, they would go most times.	11:47
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And, of course, if when we went to the stores, one of them would go with is. 'Course my daddy was a cotton farmer. That was our main product. And 'course when he would take his cotton to the cotton gins, he would always go but he would take us with him sometime.	12:11
Hersey Copeland Quinn	But he always went himself and transacted business with the people operating the stores and the gin where he ginned and sold his cotton.	12:44
Paul Ortiz	Now, when he went to sell the cotton at the gin, did he ever talk about feeling that he was getting unfair price for his cotton or that?	13:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, not really because at that time the prices were published in the paper on a daily basis and he sort of knew about what he was supposed to been getting for his cotton.	13:19
Paul Ortiz	In Shorter, did you hear about, I guess, other cases of discrimination against Black people when you were a child, perhaps violence against Black people, lynchings, other kinds of—?	13:49
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh yes, yes.	14:15
Paul Ortiz	What kinds of things would happen?	14:25
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Let me go back a little. This didn't happen in Shorter. But I had a cousin in Lowndes County who was lynched by a White mob. Now I didn't witness that because we were living at Shorter at the time.	14:33
Hersey Copeland Quinn	But I heard my relatives talk about it as I was growing up.	14:57
Paul Ortiz	Do you know of any of the events leading up to this?	15:10
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Beg your pardon?	15:12
Paul Ortiz	You know about any of the events leading up to this?	15:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I'm trying to get together now. I'm trying to see what led up to it. It was something about a White girl.	15:24
Bettie Barret Quinn	He walked across the yard, through the yard?	15:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, I think he walked through the yard or something.	15:40
Bettie Barret Quinn	Your mother said he actually, he walked through the yard. He went down road, but she stated that he came across the yard.	15:46
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And, in fact, he was in the field working. And they went to the field where he was working, got him, took him to the woods, and lynched him.	15:55
Bettie Barret Quinn	Something [indistinct 00:16:11]?	16:10
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Say what?	16:11
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:16:14].	16:11
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	16:14
Paul Ortiz	What was his name?	16:14
Hersey Copeland Quinn	The person who was lynched, his name was O'Neill Quinn.	16:19
Paul Ortiz	And this happened during the 1920s?	16:26
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It had to be the twenties, yeah. Yes.	16:27
Paul Ortiz	When the family would talk about this terrible event, what would they say? Was there anger, grief?	16:37
Hersey Copeland Quinn	That was the grief.	16:47
Paul Ortiz	Did they talk about the event itself? Did they talk about the injustice of it?	16:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	They talked about the event and the injustice of it. Really, they didn't talk about it much. And I guess the reason they didn't because it was so tragic and grieving to them.	17:02
Bettie Barret Quinn	His father was minister.	17:20
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, that's right. Yeah. His father was minister.	17:23
Paul Ortiz	I guess, what was your reaction as a child to this event? I mean, once you heard about it through your family?	17:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, when it happened, I was real small. I guess I must have been maybe six or seven years old. And 'course I didn't— Well, I didn't like it. And 'course at that time I felt there was nothing I could do about it.	18:05
Paul Ortiz	How did it make you feel and, I guess, your family feel towards White people?	18:46
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, it made them— They were bitter toward White people. And I think that's one reason my family had a tendency to try to keep us shielded from White people.	18:51
Bettie Barret Quinn	Somebody calling about Parker Avenue house. They'll call back in 30 minutes.	19:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Okay.	19:30
Bettie Barret Quinn	It's Clayton's daughter.	19:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Okay.	19:30
Paul Ortiz	Oh, Mrs. Quinn. Can I ask you some questions?	19:35
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	19:36
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Maybe if you could scoot a little closer because the mic is—	19:39
Bettie Barret Quinn	Now, I was not reared in Alabama. I was reared in North Carolina.	19:43
Paul Ortiz	—Oh, that's fine. That's great. Anywhere in the South. Okay.	19:46
Paul Ortiz	So Mrs. Quinn, can you tell me about when you were born and about the area that you grew up in?	19:51
Bettie Barret Quinn	I was born in Pitt County, Farmville, North Carolina.	19:57
Paul Ortiz	And what occupation were your parents?	20:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	They were farmers.	20:19
Paul Ortiz	And what kind of farming did your family do?	20:25
Bettie Barret Quinn	The main crop was tobacco.	20:29
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh.	20:31
Bettie Barret Quinn	Small amount of cotton.	20:36
Paul Ortiz	Did they rent the land? Own it?	20:43
Bettie Barret Quinn	They rent it.	20:46
Paul Ortiz	Rent it. And how old were you when you first began working the field? Or did you work in the field?	20:47
Bettie Barret Quinn	I worked a small amount because I had polio at a early age and I did not go to work in the field. I stayed at the house preparing meals for the hired hands.	21:08
Paul Ortiz	So your parents employed people helping to harvest?	21:28
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	21:31
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember about how many people they would employ?	21:38
Bettie Barret Quinn	The days that they were hiring to gather their tobacco, it would be about anywhere from six to ten that they would hire.	21:48
Paul Ortiz	Did you go to school in Pitt County?	22:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. At that time, I think they called it primary through high school. I graduated high school.	22:05
Paul Ortiz	And what kind of school was this? Was it a public school?	22:20
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes, a public school.	22:23
Paul Ortiz	And how many months out of the year would you go?	22:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	Eight months to nine months.	22:32
Paul Ortiz	And was this the same amount of time that other children in the county would go?	22:41
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. Yes. We did not miss any days going to school. What happened there in the school area, they would start taking in classes when we were working in the farm. Classes will start around 7:30 in the morning and get out at 12:30-1. We'd get back home time enough to assist.	22:45
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see.	23:07
Paul Ortiz	And what was school life like for you?	23:08
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was nice. I enjoyed school. Because not— As my husband stated, we had to, the parents purchased the bus that I rode to school on and it was a regular school bus. And when I got in junior high and high school, I was the first one to board the bus and the last one to get off, because I would have pick up first and ride the whole route and then the last one to get off.	23:20
Paul Ortiz	Wow.	23:59
Paul Ortiz	But the Black parents in the community—	24:04
Bettie Barret Quinn	Purchased.	24:06
Paul Ortiz	—got together and pooled their money and purchased the bus.	24:09
Bettie Barret Quinn	That's probably for you. Telephone.	24:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I got this. Hang on.	24:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	Take it off.	24:23
Paul Ortiz	When you were telling me about your schooling, do you remember the names of your schools in Pitt County?	24:24
Bettie Barret Quinn	Oh, I went to public school of Farmville and High School. When I said public, I mean I'm the under grade. The junior high.	24:32
Paul Ortiz	I see.	24:52
Paul Ortiz	Were there any teachers that stood out that you really enjoyed?	24:52
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. One, Mrs. Jordan and the high school principal's sons. And in the grade school, we had one principal that rode the bus in the community. Samuel House.	24:59
Paul Ortiz	And do you remember segregation affecting your life as a child and your family's life in Pitt County?	25:41
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. As my husband stated, there was in the stores area and all. 'Cause now, in some areas, they did not allow, did not want the Blacks to come in. But we had friends who you could not tell but difference in the race and family members. They could go in and get what we wanted.	25:52
Paul Ortiz	So they would pass, basically?	26:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	Mm-hmm. Yes.	26:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	But I guess as my husband stated, it was two of us. Our parents more or less kept us sheild away from these areas too. But right in the community that we grew up in, there were Whites living there.	26:31
Bettie Barret Quinn	But they made no difference because we played together, we would go to the movie together and all. But I guess this is because the parents did not believe in segregation as some of the rest.	26:49
Paul Ortiz	Who was responsible for discipline in your family?	27:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	My parents and grandparents.	27:30
Paul Ortiz	Did your grandparents live with you?	27:38
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. My foster— Should I say foster grandparents?	27:41
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh.	27:46
Hersey Copeland Quinn	My father was the main disciplinarian in my family. Yeah.	27:50
Paul Ortiz	Mine too.	28:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	28:04
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Quinn, do you have a memory of your grandparents? Did they— Do you remember what kind of people they were? Would they tell you stories about their upbringing?	28:07
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. My foster grandparents— My daddy was an adopted child. That's why I said foster grandparents. They will talk about their bringing up. My foster granddaddy was one of a family that owned their own land and I used to hear him discuss that.	28:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	And my foster grandmother, she was an only child and I used to hear her talk about her parents.	29:02
Paul Ortiz	Would they talking about experiences with discrimination that they faced or that they had to deal with?	29:20
Bettie Barret Quinn	They would casually mention it, but not too much. I suppose what discrimination they had did not bother them that much to do a lot of talking about it.	29:31
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Quinn, did you know your grandparents?	29:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. I knew my grandparents on my father's side, but I never knew my grandparents on my mother's side. My grandparents on my mother's side died. Well, my grandfather died before I was born and my grandmother on my mother's side died when I was an infant. I guess I must have been— Or was I born then?	29:58
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, I must have been maybe about a year old or something like that. And now, 'course I remember the grandparents on my father's side quite well. My grandfather was— Well, he was sort of tall and I remember had white hair, but he was a farmer too. And he accumulated, well, a pretty good size portion of land in Lowndes County, about 500 acres.	30:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And I don't remember anything about his actual farm and crops he raised and so forth because we had moved away. And when I was growing up, they were still in Lowndes County and 'course we were here in Macon County. And we would go there occasionally, maybe once a year, and maybe spend all day Sunday and come back. And then next year we would go back.	31:12
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:32:00] had called homecoming for you all?	32:00
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well?	32:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	I mean at the church.	32:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Usually when we go down to visit my grandparents, there was something at their home church and 'course we would have a chance to meet a lot of the relatives.	32:05
Paul Ortiz	And this would happen once a month?	32:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, once a year. Once a year.	32:25
Paul Ortiz	Once a year.	32:25
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	32:25
Paul Ortiz	Was that a reunion?	32:25
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It wasn't called a reunion. It was an annual affair they would have at the church. And 'course all the people in the area would go to this affair. And they gave us a chance to, and gave all the people a chance, to at least meet the people at least once a year that they otherwise wouldn't have seen.	32:31
Paul Ortiz	So it was kind of a social event?	32:58
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, it was they would have church. It was church. And I guess it was maybe a combination, right? Yeah, because they would serve a meal after church.	33:04
Paul Ortiz	What role did the church play in each of your communities?	33:21
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, the church played an important role in my community. I guess I should say just about everything was centered around the church and school. We always went to church on Sunday. And spend most of the day at church on Sunday.	33:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We'd go to Sunday school in the morning and 'course church would end sometime maybe around two or three o'clock in the afternoon.	33:59
Bettie Barret Quinn	Y'all waited that late to start church, huh?	34:12
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I said would end about that time.	34:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	Oh, I thought you said—	34:17
Paul Ortiz	And was that role similar, Mrs. Quinn?	34:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. We would get up, go to church on Sunday— Go for Sunday school, church service at 11. And then at three o'clock if we did not stay at our church, we would visit another church. And then at five o'clock we can go back for BTU, evening service.	34:26
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, and maybe I should say this, too. We didn't have church every Sunday at my church. It was maybe every other Sunday, first and third or second and fourth Sunday. I think we had, at my church, we had on first and Thursday Sunday.	34:48
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And 'course on fifth Sundays, there was nothing at our church. Most of the churches in that area didn't have anything on fifth Sundays unless it was a special event. They had service either on second and fourth or first and third Sundays.	35:04
Paul Ortiz	So what would you do when your church didn't have a service?	35:26
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We would go to other— Visit other churches.	35:29
Paul Ortiz	And now, which denominations or which denomination did you grow up as?	35:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Methodist.	35:41
Paul Ortiz	And you, Mrs. Quinn?	35:47
Bettie Barret Quinn	Free Will Baptist.	35:49
Paul Ortiz	Free Will Baptist.	35:49
Bettie Barret Quinn	You find that in North Carolina mostly.	35:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Now at that time, my denomination was African Methodist. African Methodist Episcopal Church. Now I belong to United Methodist Church.	36:01
Paul Ortiz	And AME was started by Richard Allen, right?	36:18
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right. Right. That's right. Right. Who's your denomination?	36:24
Paul Ortiz	My denomination?	36:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	36:28
Paul Ortiz	I grew up— I was baptized Catholic, then we switched to Baptist.	36:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh.	36:35
Paul Ortiz	And Duke, of course, is Methodist.	36:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh.	36:38
Paul Ortiz	So we had a little bit of—	36:39
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah.	36:41
Bettie Barret Quinn	Now, I'm United Methodist now, too. I've been in Methodist ever since I came to Alabama.	36:42
Paul Ortiz	All right. Did you switch after you left home to United Methodist?	36:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Right.	36:54
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Do you have a particular reason for doing that? Philosophical or—?	37:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. Well, I had a reason. I didn't switch immediately after I left the home. After I left home, I joined another African Methodist Episcopal church. But after staying there awhile, I got dissatisfied with some of the things that were going on at the church, so we moved our membership to a United Methodist church.	37:11
Paul Ortiz	Were some of those things, were they particular tenants of the church or practices?	37:47
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, I guess we could say—	37:57
Bettie Barret Quinn	The pastor. We found out that he was homosexual and he was bothering with the teenage boys and we had teenage boys and we didn't want to be involved in it.	37:58
Hersey Copeland Quinn	—and we couldn't get rid of the pastor, so we just left the church. Yeah. And joined another church.	38:12
Paul Ortiz	Now, Mrs. Quinn, you said that you really enjoyed school, that you had— There were some very good teachers at your school. Were all the teachers at your school Black?	38:26
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	38:41
Paul Ortiz	Would they come— Do you remember, would they come from North Carolina?	38:44
Bettie Barret Quinn	They were from different states.	38:49
Paul Ortiz	Different states.	38:51
Bettie Barret Quinn	I can remember one teacher was from West Virginia.	38:52
Paul Ortiz	Did your parents instill in you a value for education?	38:54
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	39:11
Paul Ortiz	Do you know if they had the opportunity to go to school themselves?	39:13
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	39:18
Paul Ortiz	Do you know basically what level?	39:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	My mother attended a boarding school because they did not have public schools in the area at that time. And my mother came from Edgecombe High, North Carolina.	39:26
Paul Ortiz	And she went to a boarding high school?	39:44
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. She attended boarding school in Enfield, North Carolina. You know where that is?	39:47
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	39:53
Bettie Barret Quinn	That's near Richmond, Virginia.	39:56
Paul Ortiz	Did she go to Brick school? Oh, okay. I've been there.	39:57
Bettie Barret Quinn	That's exactly where she attended.	40:02
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Is she a member of the alumni organization there?	40:07
Bettie Barret Quinn	My mother?	40:10
Paul Ortiz	Her, yeah. Was she?	40:11
Bettie Barret Quinn	I'm not sure. That's where she attended school.	40:11
Paul Ortiz	We worked with them last summer.	40:18
Bettie Barret Quinn	Oh, you did?	40:19
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, we did interviews in that area.	40:20
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah. You were right out of Richmond. What? Not too far out of Richmond. 301.	40:22
Paul Ortiz	Now I suppose we should move up to young adulthood, say perhaps your late high school years. Starting with you, Mr. Quinn, did you have an idea of a career of a field that you might be interested in during those?	40:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I really didn't have much— Well, I didn't hardly know what I wanted to do. Let me go back and sort of tell you about what happened. After I finished— Well, I told you about, we were living at Shorter, Alabama. Now the school there—	41:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	He talking about high school. After finishing high school, that's what he want.	41:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, after I finished high school. I thought he wanted know about high school, too.	41:38
Paul Ortiz	Sure. That would be—	41:42
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, okay. After I finished— Well, the school in Shorter didn't go any higher than the seventh grade. So after seventh grade, we couldn't go to the White schools. We couldn't go to the White high schools. So my father— So we had to come school here at Tuskegee. So my oldest brother was old enough to drive then. So my father let us drive the car here to school. So I came here to school in the seventh or eighth grade.	41:45
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And 'course after finishing— No, I went to two years high school here. And I really enjoyed my schooling here because it was somewhat different from what I had had been accustomed to and the elementary schools I had gone to in Shorter.	42:37
Hersey Copeland Quinn	At the high school here, it was what I considered a real good high school. We had trades. We went to our academic subjects a half day and the other half day we went to a trade, trace school and studied a trade.	43:04
Hersey Copeland Quinn	The second semester, all students who went to school, who took the academic subjects in the morning, were switched to the afternoon for the second semester. And 'course, that's the way we taught high school.	43:31
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I didn't know what I wanted do. My father wanted me to study agriculture, but growing up the farm, I didn't want no more part. I didn't want anymore farm life.	43:48
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh.	44:02
Hersey Copeland Quinn	So I studied a machine shop practice. And 'course when the students finished high school here, they also had a trade. I didn't finish high school here. I went two years here. And 'course, I had other sisters and brothers coming along and my father thought it was too expensive to keep us in school here.	44:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	By the way, we had to pay for it, too. Didn't have any public, any free free public schools.	44:26
Paul Ortiz	Talking about Tuskegee High School?	44:32
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes.	44:34
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. And you had to pay for that.	44:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	44:38
Bettie Barret Quinn	But the high school was on the campus.	44:39
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes, on campus. On the university. So after two years, my father sent me to another school that was less expensive. It was over in Montgomery County and not far from where we were living. And we didn't have as far to drive, so it was less car expense for us to go there. So that's where I finished high school.	44:40
Paul Ortiz	Is there a difference in quality between these high schools?	45:16
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Yeah. Quite a difference. This was a much better high school than the school I went to there.	45:21
Paul Ortiz	And Tuskegee was better.	45:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It was much better. Yeah.	45:30
Paul Ortiz	What do you think accounted for that difference? Was it the curriculum? The teachers?	45:32
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It was the curriculum and the teachers. The teachers here seemed to been better teachers than the teachers at school there. Because the two years I went to high school there, I really didn't accomplish much academically because a lot of things that they were teaching there, I had— Well, I had already been taught on my here.	45:41
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And 'course when I graduated down there, I graduated valedictorian of my class. And that was probably the reason for it, because—	46:21

Hersey Copeland Quinn	—here really put me ahead of them.	0:01
Paul Ortiz	That was both in terms of trade and academics?	0:08
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Academics, right, right.	0:15
Paul Ortiz	What kinds of academics subjects were taught and stressed at the high school here?	0:17
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Mostly mathematics, English, history, literature, music, and even had a foreign language too, that students could study.	0:32
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. During this time you were doing a lot of traveling, a lot of driving back and forth from school. Did you have experiences with segregation when you were traveling?	1:11
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yes. Yes. I remember distinctly we were on our way from school one afternoon and a car passed us. And they were students from Auburn University because they had on a uniform, Auburn University uniform, and one of them threw something out and hit the side of our car when they passed.	1:25
Bettie Barret Quinn	You had the accident?	2:09
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, no, that's not when I had the accident.	2:10
Paul Ortiz	Would you have experiences trying to get gas or using restrooms?	2:20
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, I didn't have any experience using restrooms 'cause I knew not to try to use them in the first place. Of course, I didn't have any experience getting gas because we bought gas at the stations that we — Well, the people knew us and we knew them and, of course, we just bought gas and that's all. But as far as using restrooms and facilities like that, we didn't try to use them because we knew better than try to use them in the first place because they wasn't going to let us use them. Plus, the fact we bought most of our gas at that time at one station, the same place. It was a service station there near home where my father where did most of his trading as far as gasoline was concerned because that's where I bought our gas.	2:28
Bettie Barret Quinn	Cleveland, he's still interviewing. Would you—	3:24
Paul Ortiz	What was that a Black-owned business?	3:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	That's White-owned.	3:32
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah. Yeah. Okay.	3:32
Paul Ortiz	Were there ever times during those years when you or somebody else you knew, perhaps one of your friends would just get fed up with all of these rules about segregation and perhaps maybe go over the line and violate or push those at some point?	3:39
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I definitely got fed up with it, but I didn't go over the line as you said, because well, I knew how far to go. I knew if I had gone any further, I knew what the consequences were, so I tried to avoid that.	4:04
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. Did you know of any other people who might have stepped over some of those boundaries or just out of anger or just out of, during the '30s?	4:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. Most of the people during that time knew about how far to go. Of course, they just didn't go any further because they knew if they had gone any further or stepped over a bound they knew what the consequences were and, of course, they didn't want to deal with it.	4:48
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Quinn, in your latter high school years, did you have any particular kinds of aspirations for a certain kind of career or calling?	5:32
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. I wanted to go into nursing, which I did.	5:46
Paul Ortiz	Did you go to specialized nursing school after high school?	5:54
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. L. Richardson School of Nursing.	6:00
Paul Ortiz	Richardson School of Nursing.	6:05
Bettie Barret Quinn	L. Richardson.	6:06
Paul Ortiz	Oral Richardson?	6:09
Bettie Barret Quinn	L— L. Richardson School of Nursing in Greensboro, North Carolina.	6:10
Paul Ortiz	What year did you start there?	6:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	1947. I graduated in 1950.	6:25
Paul Ortiz	I don't know much about Richardson school. Is this publicly funded or—?	6:37
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was a private school, I think.	6:45
Paul Ortiz	Was that set up by a church?	6:55
Bettie Barret Quinn	I think so.	6:58
Paul Ortiz	Seems like it might have been quite a move from Pitt County.	7:14
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was, but it was not hard adjusting because you see, and at that time in the school of nursing, we went to school year-round. 1085 days for four years. You would get a week or so of vacation per year to go home. But it was not like college school now that you go nine months and out three months. We went year-round.	7:24
Paul Ortiz	Would you do practice nursing at a hospital in Greensboro?	8:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	L. Richardson School of Nursing was a hospital.	8:07
Paul Ortiz	Oh, [indistinct 00:08:12]	8:12
Bettie Barret Quinn	Hospital connected.	8:12
Paul Ortiz	I see.	8:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	See, we would have to go over to A&T for some subjects. There was a Lutheran school that we would go there for some subjects that was not offer at our school, and also Bennett College. If we didn't go to the schools for the subjects, the instructor would come to our school, it was the subjects that you needed.	8:17
Paul Ortiz	What was the training like?	8:46
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was nice. It was more really, you pay $75, if I can remember correctly entrance fee. You had to buy your books and uniform, but your working and everything helped defray your expense for going to school.	8:50
Paul Ortiz	Now, you were coming into the profession at quite a unique period of time because you experienced, when you began your career— You began your career as an LPN or a—?	9:09
Bettie Barret Quinn	Registered, as a RN.	9:29
Paul Ortiz	As an RN, okay. At the beginning of your career, the hospitals are strictly segregated.	9:34
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	9:41
Paul Ortiz	Then towards the end of your career, they were—	9:43
Bettie Barret Quinn	They were still segregated. 'Cause now we even went over to, I can't think of the name of the White nursing school, we went over there and had classes with the White students. The classes, some that was not offered at our school in Greensboro. See, after graduating from high school, I could not get into a nursing school for two years after graduating from high school because they all was filled. I had to wait two years before I could get in school.	9:46
Paul Ortiz	I see. So once you became a registered nurse, where did you go to begin?	10:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	I was here.	10:34
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	10:34
Bettie Barret Quinn	See, for my school, they did not offer psychiatric— They had psychiatric patients, but they did not offer psychiatric nursing. So we had to affiliate, come here to Tuskegee, to the VA hospital for psychiatric affiliation.	10:37
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see.	10:51
Bettie Barret Quinn	This is where I came for psychiatric affiliation.	10:52
Paul Ortiz	So you worked here at the VA hospital?	10:58
Bettie Barret Quinn	I came here as a student for 90 days for training in psychiatric nursing. Then after that, I went back to school and I graduated. While I was here, I met him as a student. Then after graduation, I married and came back.	11:01
Paul Ortiz	Okay, and then you came back to work at the VA hospital?	11:28
Bettie Barret Quinn	I worked at the school hospital on the campus.	11:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	John Andrew Hospital.	11:39
Bettie Barret Quinn	John Andrew Hospital. I worked there first before going to VA.	11:40
Paul Ortiz	Okay, and you worked there for about?	11:45
Bettie Barret Quinn	Oh, about two-and-a-half years.	11:47
Paul Ortiz	Two-and-a-half years. So Mr. Quinn, what were you doing at this time?	11:49
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Okay. Well, after finishing high school, well, my parents were not able to send me to college, so, well I worked, I was out about maybe a year or so. The air base was just beginning out here. It's called Tuskegee Army Air Base at that time. So I worked there for about, I guess, a year, a year-and-a-half, something like that. But I worked in the canteen service, and I finally became canteen manager.	12:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I was managing the canteen and, of course, I got drafted into the service because the draft was still on then, so I was drafted into the military. Of course, I stayed in the service. This is in World War II. I was in service about three-and-a-half years. I was inducted at Fort Benning. I went from there to Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. We did maneuvers in Louisiana. While we were in Louisiana, I was sent from there to the school up in Savanna, Illinois, at Savanna Ordnance Depot. After I finished my tour of schooling there, I went back to my outfit in Oklahoma and we transferred, well, we were sent overseas to England.	12:45
Paul Ortiz	What unit was this?	14:02
Hersey Copeland Quinn	This was 637 Ordnance Ammunition Company. We spent seven months in England and, of course, we made the D-Day invasion. We made the invasion attached to the 29th Infantry. My outfit didn't land, didn't get off our ship by D-Day, we were out there because we left, well, we pulled out from where we were. Maybe I should retro that a little.	14:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	When we were getting ready to make invasion, we had been told that we would probably invade Europe from the France area, but they didn't tell us when. So we were in training in England, and we would go on road marches. So when we would leave we would take all our equipment. So this time when we were on the road march, we didn't know whether we was coming back or not, and we didn't come back. We went down the road, just a little ordinary road. It was finally turned into a dirt road, went down to the channel and there was a ship there, LST.	14:57
Hersey Copeland Quinn	This LST, the bottom could, well, it had a door that could drop down and, of course, vehicles could drive in. So we boarded this LST and all our vehicles, they drove them into the ship. We sat on that ship for a solid week, doing nothing but we would eat and go up on deck for calisthenics and that's all. So one day, the ship pulled out about 7 o'clock in the morning right after breakfast.	16:00
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We sailed up the channel for about an hour and we turned around and came back and went back into the same place. The next morning, we sailed out about the same time, but that time we didn't come back. As we would go along, other ships would come out from various little nooks and join us. So around noon that day, we had a fleet ships just as far as you could see either way. We sailed up the channel at a very slow pace. When night came, we were still sailing along. So I went to sleep. So some time that morning before day, I guess around 2 or 3 o'clock, I woke up and, of course, the ship had stopped.	16:42
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I could hear artillery, guns shooting, so we were anticipating we might have been going into something like that. So when daylight came, we look around and just as far as we could see, nothing but ships. So we stayed in the channel all day that day. Ships would pull in to unload. We attempted to unload about, I guess, maybe around 3 or 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and we were getting off in waves. A group would get off on a landing barge and go into the beach, and then another group would get off and go in. So many of our troops got killed off the ship that I was on until around, I guess, around maybe 5 or 6 o'clock, some time just before dark, we got orders not to get off, and we wouldn't get off until the next day. So we pulled back a little further out into the channel, and we spent that night on the ship. So we got off the next day, which was the 7th of June.	17:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Of course, we went on up through Normandy on through, and of course, I was in the Battle of Bastogne too. When the 101st Airborne was trapped. At that time, we were supporting the — Well, I was an Ordnance Ammunition Company, I don't know whether I say that or not. But we were supporting at that time the 101st Airborne along with other divisions. Now, my outfit usually operated about, well, our SOPs operate approximately from three to five miles behind the artillery. The setup then, I don't know whether it's like that now in the military, but the infantry was up front. The artillery was about behind the infantry, maybe about two or three miles behind the infantry. Of course, we were from three to five miles behind the artillery.	18:56
Hersey Copeland Quinn	So when the 101st Airborne got trapped at Bastogne, we were between the Germans that trapped the 101st Airborne. I mean, the Germans that trapped the 101st Airborne were between us and the 25th Infantry. I guess they didn't try to include us in the trap because we were only ammunition company and they wanted to try to knock out the 101st Airborne. But anyway, this was Christmas Eve 1944, and, of course, that was the last major battle that we had with the Germans and we got out of that. Later on, the war ended, and so I was discharged and I came back home. So the GI Bill had passed, and I had planned to go to school 'cause I wanted to go to college before going in service, but I wasn't financially able. So I had planned to enroll here at Tuskegee, but Tuskegee was on a quarter basis then. I was discharged in December and I planned to enter school the spring quarter, which was going to begin in March.	20:01
Hersey Copeland Quinn	But during that time, I didn't have anything to do, so I decided, well, I should try to do something to have some financial income, so I went to work at the Veterans' Hospital. So after going to work there, I didn't enroll in college in March as I had planned to. I decided to just work until September. So I worked there until September. By that time, I changed my mind about enrolling in Tuskegee. I decided I wanted to be a doctor. So having even seen some of the doctors out there and some experience with me and talked with them and so forth. So I enrolled at the Morehouse College in a pre-medical course, and I stayed there two years, did two years there. I came back to Tuskegee and went back to work at the Veterans' Hospital. Well, while I was working there, I also enrolled in school at Tuskegee. It was Tuskegee Institute then, so I enrolled in college there.	21:44
Bettie Barret Quinn	So you worked and attended college?	23:29
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Yeah. I worked in winter and attended college at the same time.	23:34
Paul Ortiz	What course of study were you following or doing at Tuskegee?	23:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I had a major in science and a minor in mathematics.	23:40
Paul Ortiz	At a time you were planning to go to medical school or—	23:50
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, no, I had given up medical school then because I had a family, and I decided that it would be too expensive for me to try to go to medical school then.	23:53
Paul Ortiz	One question about your military career or experience. I assume that you were in a segregated unit.	24:05
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right, I was. Now, we had White commissioned officers, but our non-commissioned officers were not White. We had a Black first sergeant and all of other enlisted men who were Black, but our commissioned officers were White.	24:14
Paul Ortiz	Did you witness cases of discrimination against Black soldiers in the Army during those years?	24:45
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes, not particularly in my outfit. I said my outfit, I mean as far as the White officers and the soldiers in my outfit, but the units were segregated. We had all Blacks in my outfit except the White commissioned officers and other outfits that were all White. Of course, they had the White enlisted men and White officers. In the camps, we had segregation. We had Black service clubs, White service clubs. I believe the posts changed were segregated too. I'm not certain now. It's been so long, but I think they were segregated.	24:57
Paul Ortiz	So now both of you are in Tuskegee after World War II. Were you both at the VA hospital when you first met or—?	26:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	26:31
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I was working at the VA hospital when she came there as a student.	26:33
Paul Ortiz	So really, it was really quite by accident that you first met.	26:43
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right. Yeah. Mm-hmm.	26:47
Paul Ortiz	Did you one of you notice the other first, or did you meet each other at a social event?	27:06
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, I was working in the office that she had to process through and, of course, that's when we met.	27:22
Paul Ortiz	Oh. Now, before you married, did you have to go back to your families to get an okay or take each other to meet your families?	27:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. No.	28:00
Paul Ortiz	So you married here at Tuskegee.	28:00
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, because she was here on affiliation as a student, and she went back to North Carolina to finish. After she finished there, we got married in North Carolina.	28:00
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. Did you live North Carolina for a while or—?	28:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, I just went up there and we got married, and then we came back here to live.	28:31
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see. Okay. So this would've been about 1950 that you came back?	28:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Right.	28:43
Paul Ortiz	Now, what was Tuskegee like in 1950? Now at this time, were you back in living in Greenwood or were you living in—?	28:47
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, no. At that time, well, when we first got married, we lived in, well, a place called Simmons Gardens.	28:59
Bettie Barret Quinn	Macon Gardens now.	29:10
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It's Macon Gardens now. You say you interviewed Sandy McCorvey before coming here?	29:12
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	29:21
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Okay. When you were coming here, where you turn, there's a traffic light, you turned left the traffic light to come here. If you had turned right that way would've taken you in the area where we live when we first got married.	29:21
Paul Ortiz	Oh, That's on Josephine Street, or—	29:37
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, it's—	29:37
Bettie Barret Quinn	No.	29:37
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I believe it's Patterson Street, isn't it?	29:37
Bettie Barret Quinn	It's Patterson Street.	29:38
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Patterson Street.	29:39
Bettie Barret Quinn	Right there, right there.	29:40
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Yeah.	29:40
Bettie Barret Quinn	Right off of Patterson Street.	29:41
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	29:46
Paul Ortiz	So that was the first place the you lived?	29:46
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	29:48
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.	29:48
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	29:51
Bettie Barret Quinn	We lived there from September to May—	29:56
Hersey Copeland Quinn	To May.	29:58
Bettie Barret Quinn	—because they were building the house.	30:05
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, then we moved here.	30:05
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	30:05
Hersey Copeland Quinn	They were building this house here and we moved here after it was complete.	30:09
Paul Ortiz	Was this an area on Culvert Street— Now was this an area in the '50s that was expanding rapidly for Black families?	30:10
Paul Ortiz	Yes. In fact, it was started in the '50s. This was all woods prior to that. They cut this street down through here. When we moved here, they were only—	30:26
Bettie Barret Quinn	Five houses [indistinct 00:30:48].	30:47
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Five houses on this street—	30:48
Bettie Barret Quinn	Up above us. The houses [indistinct 00:30:52].	30:48
Hersey Copeland Quinn	But this house and the house next door were only houses down here in this area.	30:51
Paul Ortiz	How did you make the decision to move back here?	31:00
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, we needed some place to live because we were renting over in, what was it, Patterson—	31:05
Paul Ortiz	Summer's Garden.	31:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Summer's Garden. So we wanted a house of our own, and this was a place that had just began to build up. In fact, it was the only area like this where they were building the new houses at that time.	31:14
Paul Ortiz	At that time, were you on a Black [indistinct 00:31:55] apartment? Was it financed? Did you go to a local bank for financing?	31:44
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Excuse me. Well, under the GI Bill, they had a method of helping veterans finance homes, so I financed this under the GI Bill.	32:00
Paul Ortiz	Now, what was life like in Tuskegee for you during the 1950s? I guess, in terms of social life?	32:21
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, life, it was good here then. Tuskegee back during that time and immediately prior to that time was really good as far as social life was concerned. Well, see, first of all, we had the air base out here. Was the air base still there when you came here? No, it just closed. Yeah. Okay. During World War II, we had a air base here where Black pilots were trained, in fact, the first Black pilots.	32:43
Hersey Copeland Quinn	As a matter of fact, I tried to get in flight school, but, well, first of all, my parents didn't want me to fly and they wouldn't sign the papers for me to try to get in flight school. But Tuskegee, at that time was, it's real promising. There were a lot of prominent Blacks here. Those who didn't live here, a lot of them came through here for various things in connection with either the university or the air base, which was here at that time. You've probably heard of Chappie James, I imagine?	33:22
Paul Ortiz	Just a little bit.	34:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. He was trained here. In fact, he married a girl from here. His home was in Pensacola, Florida, but he married a girl from here.	34:25
Bettie Barret Quinn	Who was that?	34:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Chappie James, he was the first Black four-star general in the Air Force.	34:35
Paul Ortiz	So Mrs. Quinn, at this time, during the '50s, were you working at the VA Hospital or John Andrews?	34:50
Bettie Barret Quinn	In the '50s?	34:58
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	34:59
Bettie Barret Quinn	I worked at the John Andrew in 1951 to 1953.	34:59
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	35:02
Bettie Barret Quinn	In September of '53, I went to VA.	35:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	35:11
Bettie Barret Quinn	Which I worked until June '84.	35:14
Paul Ortiz	Now, some people have told us about the Syphilis Experiment that was happening at—	35:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	I was not there during that.	35:31
Paul Ortiz	Okay, that was after.	35:34
Bettie Barret Quinn	They were finishing that up when I came here as a student.	35:36
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	35:40
Bettie Barret Quinn	Isn't that correct?	35:42
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	35:43
Bettie Barret Quinn	Because I don't remember them testing anyone for syphilis or treating anyone.	35:43
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I was here during that time, of course, none of my people involved with it. But I do remember some of the persons that were involved, some of the physicians, nurses, and so forth. I didn't know what was happening then. But since everything came to light, and I began to read about it, I recall some of the names of those people. I recall some of the things that, well, they used to go around to the schools and so forth giving shots and injections and things.	35:56
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:36:54] syphilis?	36:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I know some of them were connected with the syphilis, some of the same persons I were connected with syphilis—	36:56
Bettie Barret Quinn	A public health nurse?	37:02
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I know it. But some of those same people worked with this syphilis thing after I started reading about it.	37:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	You had referenced one public health nurse. She was a [indistinct 00:37:16]	37:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. No.	37:17
Bettie Barret Quinn	No?	37:17
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. No. Several of those names that were mentioned that I read about in connection with this syphilis case. They apparently worked along with the public health nurses, because I know one doctor was Dr. Miller. I remember him distinctly that worked with it, and they used to come around giving— Reading it in later years when they finally came to light and I started read and about it, it appeared to me that they disguised what they were doing through public health, through the public health nurse. That's the way it appeared to me from what I read and remembering the names of some of the people who were working with it.	37:21
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:38:26]	38:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Huh?	38:25
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:38:27]	38:25
Hersey Copeland Quinn	That may not be true now, but that was the impression I got when I read about it in later years and recognized some of the names of some of the persons that were involved.	38:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	Some of the public health nurses work with the VA with it.	38:40
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, maybe so.	38:42
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:38:48]	38:42
Paul Ortiz	Mrs. Quinn, do you have a different recollection or a different interpretation?	38:49
Bettie Barret Quinn	I don't want to discuss it.	38:56
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well see, I was here then. She wasn't here then. That happened when I was growing up. I was a youngster growing up at that time of course. She was in North Carolina. I didn't know what was happening until in recent years when it finally came to light and they started publishing it. When I started reading about it, I remembered some of the names of the people that were working here at that time. I remember them going around to the communities and what they were doing and so forth. But I didn't know that they were working with this syphilis case or anything.	39:02
Paul Ortiz	What was social life like in Tuskegee? Where would you go say, in your spare time, or if you had spare time, events?	40:10
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well—	40:28
Bettie Barret Quinn	When I first came here every other week, there were always different fraternities and sororities having big bands coming to Tuskegee, like Cab, am I my right? Cab Calloway and all those—	40:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Cab Calloway, all the big bands came here.	40:49
Bettie Barret Quinn	We would get invitations to the dances and things.	40:52
Paul Ortiz	Where would those be held at?	40:58
Bettie Barret Quinn	What was the name of the place?	41:01
Hersey Copeland Quinn	There was a place called the Propeller Club at that time.	41:02
Bettie Barret Quinn	That was owned by the Bulls?	41:07
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	41:09
Paul Ortiz	That was—	41:11
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Of course, the air base was here then too, so that—	41:11
Bettie Barret Quinn	The air base wasn't here when I came in.	41:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, it had just closed, and prior to that it was here. It started when the air base was here.	41:16
Paul Ortiz	But the Propeller Club was out where the air base used to be or—	41:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	Mm-mm.	41:25
Paul Ortiz	—no?	41:26
Bettie Barret Quinn	Off of Patterson.	41:27
Paul Ortiz	Oh. Is there a building still there that, is that building still there?	41:29
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, no it burned.	41:32
Bettie Barret Quinn	It burned.	41:32
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Burned.	41:32
Paul Ortiz	Oh. But that was considered to be a very popular place to go, the Propeller Club?	41:38
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right. That's right. Yeah.	41:42
Bettie Barret Quinn	We had other activities there too. Social activities.	41:44
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	41:48
Paul Ortiz	What kind of social activities? Dances?	41:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Dances and theatrical programs. Quite a few of the actors came here at that time, Lena Horne. Oh, quite a few of them.	42:01
Paul Ortiz	Would they be at the Institute?	42:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	They have been to the Propeller Club and of course, the Institute too. But the Propeller, this place had a large—	42:42
Bettie Barret Quinn	Auditorium.	42:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	—auditorium, and of course, quite a few entertains entertained there.	42:55
Paul Ortiz	What was the relationship between the Institute and the community, say, over here? Would you go to events held at the Institute?	43:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Yeah. Most so then than now, I would say, because years ago and back during time when I was growing up, and of course even since then, the only swimming pool we had was at the Institute. Of course, all of the kids went up there to swim. The Whites had a swimming pool, but they wouldn't let us swim there, so we had to swim at the Institute. So swimming pool, which is the university now.	43:18
Paul Ortiz	Did— Oh, I'm sorry, Mrs. Quinn.	43:54
Bettie Barret Quinn	They organized the little league baseball teams and all during that—	44:14
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Yeah.	44:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	We had, was it four groups? Greenwood, Greensboro—	44:15
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	44:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	Rockefeller, Zion Hill.	44:15
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We had a little league baseball league and there was several teams. Of course, at the end of the season, they had a playoff for a championship. It was quite a bit of activity in that time.	44:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	A lot of parents and different organizations sponsored the teams and bought the uniforms and all. Because we had three sons that participated.	44:50
Paul Ortiz	That was a major activity at that time—	45:11
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah.	45:16
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	45:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	For the young children.	45:16
Paul Ortiz	They were ran primarily by the parents?	45:18
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes.	45:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	And different organizations, because what happened, like Mr. Hooten, he was one of the officials.	45:25
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, but he was a parent too.	45:31
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah.	45:33
Hersey Copeland Quinn	The parents was operating it. Now, however, organizations would help furnish uniforms, baseballs, and things like that bats because there was no source for equipment and uniforms and things like that. So either the parents had to furnish it or the organization would furnish it.	45:33
Bettie Barret Quinn	That's when it first started we had to do that—	46:06
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	46:06
Bettie Barret Quinn	—furnish it, but later years they started—	46:07
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh yeah, yeah. In later years—	46:10
Bettie Barret Quinn	They started furnishing these things for them.	46:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	46:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	Because we had, what was it? Two sons, we purchased their uniforms and everything that they had to use to begin with. When the third son wanted to play and he stayed out—	46:16

Paul Ortiz	Okay. Mrs. Quinn, you were talking about the baseball leagues and that the baseball leagues for kids were a major activity.	0:06
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes. During the spring and summer.	0:16
Paul Ortiz	Would there be other types of activities for the kids, say during the winter months, that would be quite popular during those years?	0:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	There were Boy Scouts.	0:31
Bettie Barret Quinn	Girl Scouts.	0:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And Girl Scouts. I'd say Boy Scouts because we had mainly boys, at that time anyway.	0:38
Bettie Barret Quinn	I worked with the Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. I was not a leader, but I volunteered.	0:50
Paul Ortiz	How about civic organizations during those years, say during the '50s? Were you involved in any— Well, you said, Mrs. Quinn, that you were involved in, were you in a sorority or a— ? Okay.	1:07
Bettie Barret Quinn	Nurses' sorority.	1:27
Paul Ortiz	Nurses' sorority.	1:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	I was a member of the Order of the Eastern Star and several other organization that's auxiliary from the Masonic body and the Elks Club. That's why you heard me say that the organizations donated materials for these students too because we would contact [indistinct 00:02:12].	1:55
Paul Ortiz	So Mr. Quinn, you were involved in the Masons here?	2:17
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes.	2:19
Paul Ortiz	What was that—?	2:21
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Masons, Shriners, Elks.	2:23
Paul Ortiz	Were those common organizations to belong to for Black people in this area?	2:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. Yeah.	2:35
Paul Ortiz	So pretty thriving organization, the Masons?	2:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. More so then, I would say, then now because I guess one thing that made it be more thriving in was because we were segregated and didn't have the opportunities to participate in some of the activities that we participate in now. So it appears to me that those organizations thrived a little better then than they are now because there's so many other activities that we can participate in now.	2:41
Paul Ortiz	Did you begin during this time with any kinds of political activities, voting, registering to vote perhaps?	3:33
Bettie Barret Quinn	I'm one of those that was caught in the voting problems here in Macon County. I had to go to court in order to become a registered voter in Macon County, Alabama during the 19— That was '60s, right?	3:51
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. That Judge Johnson you were before, wasn't it? Didn't you go before Judge Johnson [indistinct 00:04:16] Yeah.	4:13
Bettie Barret Quinn	I had to appear before Judge Johnson in Montgomery and Opelika at the federal courthouses.	4:16
Paul Ortiz	So initially you tried to register to vote at the county courthouse here?	4:26
Bettie Barret Quinn	And had problems with getting registered to vote. So then they sent— Who was the man down from Washington? I can't think of his name.	4:31
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Castleblanc or something like that.	4:34
Bettie Barret Quinn	Anyway, someone came out and interviewed us. There was a group of us and then we had to go to court.	4:34
Paul Ortiz	What was your experience like when you tried to register to vote here?	5:04
Bettie Barret Quinn	My experience and observations was that they did not want us to become registered voters and they placed barriers in to try to keep as many as they could from getting out because when you would go in, they would want you to copy the constitution. And I saw no reason why that was necessary, other than keeping another person from getting in. And I picked it up. This is what happened. So I would just scratch a little bit of it down and give it to them and get up and come out. See, I caught them. When you pass it to them to copy and give it to them, they would not do anything but put it in the trashcan. And that was to keep— And get a group of us, so many in one day to become a registered voter.	5:11
Paul Ortiz	They were trying to slow down the—	6:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	The process.	6:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Mm-hmm.	6:03
Bettie Barret Quinn	Because I left and got up and got dressed and left there 6 o'clock in the morning to go down and be among the first ones to be there waiting to get in.	6:09
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, they'd have long lines then if you were trying to get in, trying to vote. I mean, trying to register. Now when I registered, I didn't have any problem registering to vote. I didn't have to copy the constitution, anything. And of course, that was before she attempted to register. What happened, this was shortly after I came out of service worked at the VA, and someone there, I remember his name was McDonald, told me about going down to register to get votes. Said, "Quinn, why don't you to go down and register to vote?" He say, "You a veteran." And at that time, they had to pay poll tax. I don't think veterans had to pay poll tax.	6:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	Veterans don't have to.	7:12
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Veterans wouldn't have to pay poll tax. So I went down, registered. I didn't have any problem. I just filled out some forms. I don't even remember what was on the form now. I filled it out. Later on they sent my certificate. So I didn't have any problem registering to vote. But when she tried to register, well, this was really shortly after I came out of service—	7:21
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:07:45]	7:42
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, yeah. So I guess they were getting too many Black applicants. So they tried to devise some way to slow down the process. So they start having them to copy the constitution and things like that in order to delay, to slow down the procedure.	7:42
Bettie Barret Quinn	Because I remember when I was going in, I saw them putting somebody else's in the trash can. And when I came out, I passed the word on to the folks, that's what was happening, as opposed to the [indistinct 00:08:25] and come on out.	8:10
Paul Ortiz	Now, this is really interesting because I've heard a similar story by other people here that where men would register shortly after they left service and women would register a little later and then actually have far more problems trying to register.	8:32
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Yeah. That's what happened, I know in my case, because I didn't have any problems getting registered. Of course, that was shortly after I came out of service and before there were an influx of Blacks trying to get registered.	9:00
Bettie Barret Quinn	I guess the female veterans didn't have any problem either, did they?	9:15
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No. Probably didn't.	9:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:09:24] recall.	9:15
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I think the main thing was after so many Blacks were trying to become registered, I think that's what happened. They did devise something to slow the process down.	9:25
Paul Ortiz	Well, were you thinking about voting and registering when you were in the service? Was that something you began to—?	9:28
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yes. Yes. As a matter of fact, that's when I really thought about voting and became conscious about voting because my parents didn't vote when I was growing up and never said anything about voting or anything. But when I was in service, they were having some kind of election, might have been for president. I don't know if it was for president or what.	10:03
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:10:24]	10:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	But anyway, yeah, when I was in service. And at that time, servicemen could vote, I guess it must have been what you call an absentee ballot, but it was some kind of form you could fill out and send in to vote for the person in your state, whoever, whatever it was. I don't remember exactly, not the details, but I do remember that form and that process.	10:24
Paul Ortiz	At that time, that was for registered voters, so that would've been mainly— You were watching, now were Black troops voting?	10:55
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes. They were segregated among Black troops. This must have been— I don't know whether it was for state election or national election, but I do remember while I was in service, they passed out forms that veterans could use to vote. And of course, you would mark the ballot and mail it in somewhere. I don't remember exactly where it was sent now.	11:02
Paul Ortiz	Did you talk about voting and politics in your outfit in the Army? Was that one of the things you may have discussed?	11:45
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Very little. It was mentioned, but very little. Now near the end of my military service, there began to be more talk about voting and things like that.	11:49
Paul Ortiz	What would you say was the source of that and the origins [indistinct 00:12:30] this?	11:49
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I don't know really. It's sort of hard for me to determine what the source or origin was. At that time, to me, it was just something that the military wanted to do. But I didn't think much about the origin of it.	11:49
Paul Ortiz	Now by the time both of you have moved here, the Tuskegee Civic Association was active. Did you hear about their activities or at some point become involved in those activities?	13:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes.	13:39
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, yeah. Yeah. As a matter of fact, I joined the Tuskegee Civic Association and participated in the activities.	13:46
Paul Ortiz	What year did you join?	13:49
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Mmm, I have no idea now.	13:52
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:13:56].	13:53
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, it was, uh—	13:56
Paul Ortiz	Like late '40s?	13:57
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Late '40s, I would say. Yeah.	13:57
Paul Ortiz	You also joined, Mrs. Quinn?	14:06
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yes, it was in the '50s.	14:07
Paul Ortiz	'50s?	14:07
Bettie Barret Quinn	Over in the '50s when I joined.	14:07
Paul Ortiz	Now what would be a typical Civic Association activity or meeting? What would happen?	14:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	There would be discussion and plans of what we could do in order to overcome a lot of the discrimination and things, activities that was going on here.	14:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And back during that time, one of the main things that the Civic Association was emphasizing was voter registration. As a matter of fact, I believe I'm correct in saying that the Tuskegee Civic Association was responsible for these voter registration cases that she mentioned when she had to go to testify in Opelika and Montgomery.	14:48
Bettie Barret Quinn	At one time they, they gerrymandered Tuskegee, all the registered voters, except I think it was about 10—?	15:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	15:30
Bettie Barret Quinn	—was left out of the—	15:41
Paul Ortiz	So both of you actually began your involvement with the Civic Association before the boycott started?	15:41
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh yeah, yeah. Way before. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Long before the boycott.	15:51
Paul Ortiz	How many people would go to those meetings during those years? And what kinds of occupations were people involved in it? Was there—?	15:58
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was all walks of life.	16:12
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, all walks of life.	16:13
Bettie Barret Quinn	The people who was participating.	16:13
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And the attendance depended upon what was going on and the interests of the people. Now during voter registration, we had good attendance. During and leading up to the boycott, we had good attendance. If something was going on, we always expect good attendance. And of course, as things began to level off, attendance sort of dropped off.	16:20
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember the discussions surrounding the boycott? I mean, that was quite a big decision, quite a big step. Was there a lot of debate around that?	17:01
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I wouldn't say it was a lot of debate. I would say that at least 90% of the people, if not a 100%, were in favor of it. Very few people, to my knowledge, were not in favor of the boycott.	17:01
Paul Ortiz	And was that decision made at an actual meeting, the TCA meeting, to engage in the boycott?	17:01
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I believe it was. I can't say definitely that it was because I wasn't at a meeting where the decision was made. But I believe I would be safe in saying that the decision was made at Tuskegee Civic Association meeting because, at that time, the Tuskegee Civic Association was the main leader in things like that. Of course, people looked to the Tuskegee Civic Association for guidance in civil right matters.	18:19
Paul Ortiz	Do you know if there's any kind of overlap between the activities that were happening here and, say, in Montgomery? Would people come from Montgomery and people involved in—	18:36
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes, on certain occasions especially. Because I remember distinctly when King came over here for something, Martin Luther King. It was something at the courthouse too.	18:55
Bettie Barret Quinn	Boycott started in Montgomery in 1950.	19:30
Hersey Copeland Quinn	We were in court for something and King came over. What was King over here for? He was over here to testify for something. I don't remember the particular incident now, but there was some involvement between Tuskegee Civic Association with people in Montgomery, because I distinctly remember King coming over here, and I for sure was down there that same day for something. I don't recall what it was.	20:03
Paul Ortiz	So you had nearly unanimous support for the boycott. There had been this gerrymandering issue that Black people were basically being stopped from voting. So it sounds like there were a lot of things happening here during the '50s. It sounds like—	20:03
Hersey Copeland Quinn	It was. It was.	20:23
Paul Ortiz	Were there other experiences in terms of segregation, other events, other than voting and other kinds of discrimination that you saw or experienced or heard about, that particularly enraged Black people in Tuskegee during those years?	20:34
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Well, as I mentioned earlier I think, the swimming pools and other things in Tuskegee were segregated. Our children couldn't swim in the public swimming pool downtown. All our children had to go to the university, to that swimming pool and swim. We didn't have any baseball fields or anything for them to play baseball or any activities like that, except at the university and the VA hospital, of course. We'd go out there for activities. In fact, the VA had a baseball team. But as far as using the public facilities downtown, we couldn't use them. Couldn't use the swimming pool. Couldn't play ball at the baseball field.	21:15
Bettie Barret Quinn	So you'd go to the VA because that was called a part of activity for—	22:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	For the community.	22:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	—patients.	22:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, for patients, yeah.	22:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	See, they could come out and watch it and that's why we could use that.	22:19
Paul Ortiz	But there were baseball park that White children could use?	22:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah.	22:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	Blacks—	22:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Always to my knowledge, that was a baseball park that White children could use.	22:19
Paul Ortiz	Now does that park still exist?	22:19
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yes, it's still there.	22:19
Paul Ortiz	All right. What is the name of that park?	23:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	It's Henderson now. It's named Henderson.	23:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	23:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	It's downtown.	23:27
Paul Ortiz	But it had a different name before?	23:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was what, City?	23:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I think it was City Park, I think. Yeah.	23:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	It was City Park.	23:27
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	23:27
Paul Ortiz	I guess, I always have difficulty asking the, including the kind of questions— What have been the biggest changes that each of you have seen throughout your life, in terms of race relations? And then, also, if you could think of a particular philosophy or saying or even religious scripture that's kept you going or that's inspired you through the years, what would be that?	23:27
Bettie Barret Quinn	You first.	23:54
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, one thing, I came from a pretty religious background. My parents were very religious. And whenever the going got tough, rough, they always felt and taught us to fall back on our religious background, pray for things to get better. And that if you pray and believe hard enough in what you praying for or asking for or trying to do, that it would come to reality. So I think that's the main thing that kept me going. And what I would always fall back on when things got tough.	24:14
Bettie Barret Quinn	I guess another thing that helped with having children in school— Well, even before they reached school age, we devoted a lot of our time to the PTAs here in this county because we worked with the PTA right in back of us at that school. We had no children there. And we worked with the PTA at the elementary school that was on the campus when we had a son at the beginning. And we worked with all of the PTA. Both of us were PTA presidents. And my husband has helped organize what they called the Macon County PTA—	26:02
Hersey Copeland Quinn	PTA Council.	26:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	—Council.	26:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. And that consisted of all of the PTAs in the county.	26:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	In the county.	26:22
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I organized that organization. I don't remember what year it was.	26:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	In the late '50s or early '60s because you and Dilly was the one— Dillis started it, didn't he?	26:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Right right.	26:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	Before he left.	26:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	And what we would do periodically, all of the PTAs in the county would come together to discuss our things that were common among all of us to help try to resolve some of our problems.	26:52
Paul Ortiz	Those are things like maybe transportation, materials?	27:11
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Well, yes, those some of things, yeah.	27:14
Bettie Barret Quinn	[indistinct 00:27:16] that schools would need.	27:14
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see.	27:14
Bettie Barret Quinn	And to contact the principals to see what we could do.	27:14
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	27:14
Bettie Barret Quinn	What was needed. And working with the PTAs, what he had referenced a while ago, when I cut him off about visiting the schools, I used to volunteer my days off from my job, working with the public health nurses, going out in the rural areas to work with the children, to give the injections and everything and visit those who, in the homes, parents and all that, needed assistance. This was my volunteer service that I've rendered ever since I been in Macon County, because that was my idea first, after graduating from nursing, was to go into public health nursing. But I changed my mind later on. I am the one that organized— I saw a need for children being examined and everything before they started school. I'm the one that helped organize that at the Lewis Adams School here. Got the doctors and everything to volunteer service to examine the children, pre-school examination.	27:15
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I see. So you were working on this program in the '50s?	29:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	Say that.	29:19
Paul Ortiz	You were working on this program in the '50s?	29:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah, '50s, '60s, '70s.	29:19
Paul Ortiz	That's quite an important program.	29:19
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah. And I will always remember that where we had the first pre-school testing. There was one child, he must have been born in somewhere '54 or '56. But when he was pre-school, we found out that he was a diabetic. And that had given me a lot of thrill to know that I was interested in starting this so we could find out if there were things wrong with sharing before they started school, because his parents did not know that he was a diabetic. That's an Adams boy that's a minister.	29:25
Paul Ortiz	So you would've been working with people like— Was L.M. Randolph the principal at Lewis Adams?	29:41
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right.	29:41
Bettie Barret Quinn	He's the one that we worked together to get this stuff done. To get the pre-school. And it was started at the school, the first pre-school examination.	30:14
Paul Ortiz	So that was a full kind of medical examination?	30:22
Bettie Barret Quinn	Yeah, for the children.	30:25
Paul Ortiz	I see.	30:29
Bettie Barret Quinn	You see, what happened. Now, the doctors at VA and John Andrew, I solicited their help in volunteering to do this work. Because, see, this was all volunteer work when it first started.	30:29
Paul Ortiz	I talked to Mr. Randolph last week.	30:35
Bettie Barret Quinn	Oh, you did?	30:35
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I was pre PTA president up there under Mr. Randolph.	30:36
Bettie Barret Quinn	And we had no children going to school up there at the time. We just get out and go up there to start going to that PTA meeting, and we would even go down to Shorter to volunteer for—	31:11
Paul Ortiz	Now, oh, I promise this will be my last question.	31:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	Okay.	31:23
Paul Ortiz	Now, during that time, I think that I discussed this with Mr. Randolph and also with—	31:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Mr. Hooden?	31:23
Paul Ortiz	—Young.	31:23
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Oh, Young.	31:24
Paul Ortiz	Who had been a principal at the high school—	31:24
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	31:24
Paul Ortiz	—in the '40s and '50s.	31:24
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. K.B. Young.	31:24
Paul Ortiz	K.B. Young.	31:24
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah. Yeah.	31:24
Paul Ortiz	And they mentioned that their relationship with their superiors was less than ideal, talking about the superintendent, who was—	31:48
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I want to say Danley, but it wasn't Danley.	32:06
Paul Ortiz	Davis? Davies?	32:08
Bettie Barret Quinn	I know that superintendent, but I can't recall his name now.	32:08
Paul Ortiz	I guess what I'm trying to get at then, it would be, were you ever able to get them to support this very important program that you were working on? Did they express interest in it?	32:16
Bettie Barret Quinn	What, the superintendent?	32:23
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	32:23
Bettie Barret Quinn	I don't think so. I never discussed it with them. I worked through the principal.	32:31
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	32:32
Hersey Copeland Quinn	No, I never even talked with the superintendent back then, during that time. As a matter of fact, I barely knew him. My main contact and work was with and through the principal and teachers at the various schools. The superintendent during that time, to me, as far as I was concerned, was some [indistinct 00:33:10] and farfetched. Even when I was doing my practice teaching, I never even came in contact with the superintendent. I don't even remember who was the superintendent at that time.	32:38
Hersey Copeland Quinn	At that time, I knew who was superintendent. But if you don't have much contact with somebody, after a period of time, their name sort of get away from you. Now people's name like Mr. Randolph or Mr. Young and people like that, I'll always remember them and remember their names because I had a lot of contact with them. And it's something that'll just stick with me. But the superintendent, I couldn't tell you his name if I had to.	33:24
Bettie Barret Quinn	Was it Light? Was it Light, superintendent?	33:56
Hersey Copeland Quinn	I don't know. I might wouldn't even recognize if you call his name. He was just that farfetched from me and my activities.	34:05
Paul Ortiz	So these are programs that the White school officials— Well, obviously they hadn't initiated them themselves. These are programs that you as parents—	34:16
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Right. That's right.	34:31
Paul Ortiz	—Black parents—	34:31
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah.	34:31
Paul Ortiz	—PTA [indistinct 00:34:31].	34:31
Hersey Copeland Quinn	Yeah, that's right. Mm-hmm.	34:31

Item Info

Title:

Hersey Quinn (primary interviewee) and Bettie Quinn interview recording, 1994 July 18

Date:

July 18, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Hersey Copeland Quinn; Date of Birth: 1917-07-25; Place of Birth: Ft. Deposit, AL; Occupation(s): administrator; hospital worker; civil service; Residence: Tuskegee, AL. Name: Bettie Barret Quinn; Date of Birth: 1922-01-29; Place of Birth: Farmville, NC; Occupation(s): nursing; Residence: Tuskegee, AL
Informant ID: 684; Informant ID: 685; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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

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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.

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RL00170-CS-1637
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behindtheveil
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ark:/87924/r4bp08c47
c28917b0-401b-46e4-b440-ee4b27c5d6dd

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Hersey Quinn (primary interviewee) and Bettie Quinn interview recording, 1994 July 18

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Item Info

1. Hersey Quinn and Bettie Quinn administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Hersey Quinn (primary interviewee) and Bettie Quinn interview recording, 1994 July 18

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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