RL00170-CS-0688_02

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Clarence Powell	45 minutes?	0:01
Kara Miles	Yep.	0:01
Clarence Powell	Wow!	0:03
Kara Miles	And I got lots more to ask you about. Tell me about the CC camps.	0:06
Clarence Powell	Well, the CC camp, like I said, was $30 a month. They paid all expense, health, anything. Our job was to clean the woods up. We was near a place called Fort Benning, Georgia, near Columbus, Georgia. Place called Harmony Church. That was in 1936. 50—1936. It was a nice place to be. I learned to be a man there. That's where I was—learned to be a man. It changed me all together. I lived with different people. Discipline.	0:18
Clarence Powell	And our job was to clean the woods and make roads. We was near Army camp, near Fort Benning, Georgia. We would make roads for the Army to travel and have their maneuvers in, and that was our job to do. And we didn't have—it wasn't too much activity and, like, athletic. We didn't have too much athletic football, baseball or nothing like that. We didn't have too much of that, what I can remember. And I was young, too. The night that—they had to put a stamp out about him, too, Joe Louis? The night Max Schmeling knocked him out, I was in the CC camp. That's been a long time ago. And then, I heard it on the radio, listened to commissary, and heard it on the radio. And it wasn't much about the camp. Point is, I stayed there and worked for 18 months, and my grandmother saved $375 for me. And carried the money back to New York with me, gave it to my mother.	1:10
Kara Miles	You said that that was where you learned to be a man. What do you mean? How did that teach you about being a man?	2:36
Clarence Powell	By being around all of people that I was, see how they act. But see, there, you had discipline. You understand? It changed you, and just like you, when you went to the service. When you went to the service, you went—you might have been a rowdy one before you went there. But when you go to there, things changes, because they'll break you. You understand what I mean? They'll break you. If you don't do what they tell you to do, they will break you.	2:44
Clarence Powell	Then you will wind up doing what you will wind up doing what they do. But there wasn't like that in the CC camp. But at the same time, you had certain time, in CC camp, you had a certain time to eat. You had certain time to get up in the morning, you had certain time to work. You worked certain amount of hours, and you had a little recreations you can have. You went to town, go to town a little while, have a little recreation. You did that. You came back, you had to be back in your sack, 10 o'clock that night.	3:25
Clarence Powell	So, that's what I mean. You had to do those things. You learned rules and regulations. Obey them. You don't obey them, we'll break you. If we don't break you, we'll send you home. So, you see, the night that I got discharged from the CC camp, I was having such a good time in Columbus, Georgia, until I forgot about the train that was going to take me back to Westbound Beach. When I come to find out the train was gone. A fella had a car, and he going to beat the train from Columbus to Albany, Georgia. Try to catch that train for again that I can get on the train there.	3:50
Clarence Powell	I'll never forget this, the car turned over, going too fast. The car turned over, and there was five of us in the car, and nobody got hurt. We all crawled out of the car, and some soldiers came by on the truck and help us turn the car back over, and we drove back to Thomasville. And come and say, see how, I don't even know where I stayed that night because I couldn't go back to camp. I don't know where I stayed that night. I just don't know. But it wasn't too much about the CC camp. I left there. Like I said, just came back to New York City.	4:39
Kara Miles	Was this only Blacks? Was this a all Black CC camp?	5:25
Clarence Powell	All Black. All Black. Everything was all Black. During that period of time, everything was Black. There wasn't no mix—there wasn't nothing mixed. Nothing mixed. Nothing mixed. No.	5:28
Kara Miles	So, even the people, the adults, the people running it, were they Black?	5:36
Clarence Powell	No. One had a wife, had a—had a White—he was a captain from the Army. His name was—why I ain't forgotten those names? His name was A.W. Goodyear. Why I haven't forgotten the name like that? That stayed with me all these years. But everybody else under him was Black. You see, all the—we called them squad leaders, and scoutmasters, all of them was Black.	5:40
Kara Miles	And how long did you have to stay in that camp? How long were you there?	6:23
Clarence Powell	We signed up for six months at a time. I signed up for three hitches, which was 18 months. And I didn't want to stay no longer. But when I went there, I was underage. I wasn't supposed to go there. I was 16 years old when I went. I wasn't supposed to go there at 16. You had to be 17 years and older. Because, when I got out, when I quit picking beans, I didn't go right away to the CC camp. And so, I started going around with a bunch of young fellas like my age. They won't know what to do, won't know what's around there. Only thing I did is caddy. And during the season, that's golf, I'd caddy.	6:25
Clarence Powell	When the season was over, there wasn't nothing to do. Golf course is closed. So I got with a gang of young men, and my mother's first cousin, which she would be my second cousin, she saw the bunch that I was going with, going around with. She said, "Look, that bunch you going with is no good. I heard what y'all are doing." She said, "Look, I'm going to send you to CC camp." I said, "Okay." She put me up. She said, "Well, I'm going to put your age up." She said, "You asked any other of your friends, do they want to go?" They said no. Nobody's doing—	7:12
Kara Miles	What?	7:52
Clarence Powell	Not me, now. I wasn't doing this. But they started doing it after I went to the CC camp. They started forging checks. We had one fellow in there named—I forget his name. He was a good writer, finished high school in his education. He could forge names. Started forging names. Doing all right 'til they got greedy. He forged a check $50, $60. Then the man called. Called to find out, was the check legally? No, it wasn't. So that whole bunch, which was five, all went to jail. We called it reformatory school. They went to reformatory. That's when my, that's—I was in the CC camp when all that happened. My cousin told me, wrote me a letter and told me about it. At CC Camp. Yep. So, you see, I was glad I went to CC camp.	7:57
Kara Miles	How did you get into a CC camp? Did you have to fill out a application, or take a test or anything?	9:10
Clarence Powell	No.	9:14
Kara Miles	How'd you get into—	9:14
Clarence Powell	I don't know. My cousin, she was a schoolteacher. And she quit schoolteaching to go to the social service job, and she just made me an application and just sent me down. Sent me about 10 or 15. I was left West Palm Beach on the train and went to Georgia. That was a government, to get you off the street. I don't know what the WPA or public work—wasn't no money, no nothing. I worked on a milk truck for $2 a week. But the man would give me all the eggs and the milk and butter and cheese I wanted. That's what was for my sisters and brother, and my mother.	9:17
Clarence Powell	And we didn't have—I only went hungry two days in my life. That is the worst pain that a man can bear. That's a hunger pain. You think you get sick, and you think you've got a pain, you get hungry, and when you can't have nothing to eat, then you have a pain. Believe me. And it's a pain. And the man say, "I don't eat this. I don't want to eat that. I ain't going to eat it." If you are hungry, you will eat anything! And believe me when I tell you.	9:52
Clarence Powell	But, I've been lucky in my days. When I went to New York City, I got a job. When I got the first job I had—I never been out of work in 50 years. Never been out of a job. When I first got my job in New York City, I never got out of a job in 50 years. I had to change my telephone just to keep people from calling me. Because I was a automobile mechanic. And it was doing that period of time< it was in great demand in the '50, '60s; '40s, '50s, the '60s, and the '70s. Great demand. I'm here. I don't even work on my old car. I don't want to work on it. So, I made good money. I made money. I made money. I made my three children. And then me and my wife had four children.	10:40
Clarence Powell	My first son—that tree out there, he's the same age, he would've been the same age of that tree. He died when he was eight years old, seven years old. He died from leukemia. That's the only thing in the world that ever hurt me. I wasn't a Christian, I wasn't religious, I wasn't nothing. But I was mad with everybody. Even the good Lord himself. I asked the preacher why the good Lord come along and take my son. He said, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. So I can't answer that question."	11:50
Clarence Powell	True, 15, 16 months later, I was blessed with another son. You know what I mean? But you can't understand these things. Then, I had a daughter. I had a girl, had a daughter, and I had another daughter. Well, I sent them all to school. All them went to college. I worked hard to send them to college. But after, I tell you this, everybody has got a vice. My vice was gambling. You want to hear it?	12:28
Kara Miles	Mm-hmm.	13:06
Clarence Powell	I made a lot of money in gambling. I'm a horse player. A lot of money. Sent my kids—sent two of my—	13:09
Kara Miles	Well, sent your kids to college?	13:27
Clarence Powell	I sent two of them, my two daughters, through college, playing the horses. I made a fortune, and I lost a fortune. Get 2, 3, 4, $5,000 a day. A week, later it's gone. Four days later it's gone. But always—what I never did do, as long as I worked, I never did interfere with the money that I worked with. I never gathered with that money. My wife got that money. She'd taken care of my house. My wife didn't work. She stayed home and raised my kids. And she'd take care of that. And I brought the goodies home, and she'd taken care of that.	13:29
Clarence Powell	But what I went out and did, the little extra money I made doing mechanic work, that was my money. And what I did with that money, that was my business. And I went to the horse races with that. That's what I did with that money. And the reason—and I'll tell you something else too. My son—I had one son. Two sons, one died, and I had the next one. When he got seven years old, six years old, I never, never, went got no place on the Saturdays or even the Sundays. If I had to go out somewhere, my son went with me. I don't care where I went. I don't care where I went. To the bar to get a drink. Would go anywhere, to the horse track, to play the horses. He went with me.	14:14
Clarence Powell	So, I didn't never leave my son. The only time my son was home was with my wife, during the week, when he was in, then, he was in school then. But on Saturdays, when I had jobs to do on mechanic work, doing a little extra work on Saturday, he went with me. And that's what he like today. He likes cars. He worked for the Ford Motor Company. He's a representative of the Ford Motor Company out in California. And he's married, he's doing all right.	15:08
Clarence Powell	The one thing I don't have is grandchildren. But the man say you can't have everything. Right? Yeah? And so, I raise a nice family. And my sister—you want to hear this?	15:35
Kara Miles	Mm-hmm.	15:54
Clarence Powell	My sister had one daughter. And she married a young man in New York City, named—she lived, all live in the project, city projects, government projects. She married a young man. And he was a pretty smart young man. And he wound up being—working on computers. He helped develop the computer, [indistinct 00:16:42] and chips in the computer. He helped develop this. And he got to be a big man, and 40 years old, 38, 39 years old.	15:54
Clarence Powell	And what he started it out, he started out at RCA, developed the computer. When the computer first started out, he helped, developed a lot. And he got into all this, until certain things happened. And he was my nephew. I didn't know these things. And he got to working, and living in a place called Vienna, Virginia. Two people had a business. This business was worth 300, $400 million. They put him in charge of it, put him in charge of this business. He ran this business. And then he sold—he was running the business that—this is, you've got to hear.	16:57
Kara Miles	Okay.	17:46
Clarence Powell	He worked for this company, two men. They would pay him so much money, and then on top of that, gives him so much more. He was the boss. He had maybe five, 6,000 people working under him. He had secretaries, he had vice presidents. So, he worked for them for 10 years, and he made good money for them. And they was in the computer business. They came to here one day, and said, "Carl, we want to sell you the business. So, you did a good thing for us. You made us rich, and I know you doing all right." They say, "Do you want the business?" He said, "Yeah." They say, "We want $300 million for the business." "I can get the money for you. I can get the money for you." He says, "But you need two partners."	17:49
Clarence Powell	But in the meantime—back up a little bit. In the meantime, I used to tell him, I said, "Let me tell you something." Can I say this, what I'm going to say? I said, "My uncle told me something that he told his son once, 60 years ago, and I'm going to tell it to you. He said, 'A White man is a White man. And don't you never forget it. Because he will never go against his brother for you and nobody else.'" I used to tell him this all the time. And now, that was because he was associating with mostly White folks. His wife, my niece, associated with White folks all the time.	18:56
Clarence Powell	Now, that man told him that he needed two partners. He went to two of his top vice presidents, which he thought was his friends. And he laid the plan out for them what it was all about. Do you know what they did? They turned him down. If each one had bought—if they'd have bought the business, each one, they would've got a bonus of a million dollars apiece. Each one would've got a million dollars apiece for buying the business. That's been clear, separate. That's money—you want the business you got a million dollars. They turned him down. And it like to drove him crazy, because he thought those two men was his friends. That's why he elevated them to vice president of that company. And he came back and told me. I said, "What did I tell you?" I said, "What did I tell you?" I said, "They don't want to see you, the head of no organization like this, and they're going to be under you. No way. No way."	19:46
Clarence Powell	But you know what he did? He fired all both of them. He got rid of all of them. And over the period of three months, he got rid of all two of them. One threatened him to kill him, so he had to get a bodyguard. Yeah. So, it's a long life. And he sold, they finally sold the business, and he got but another outfit. Communication cartel outfit. Some cartel outfit. And in communication, he built in Mozambique. Not Mozambique, a place in Nigeria. He helped set up communication there, and telephones and all that kind of stuff. And he went over there, got hold of some bad water. And it killed him. Ruined his kidneys. His 30-year-old son gave him one of his kidneys. He was doing all right.	20:53
Clarence Powell	Doctor told him, "You got to retire, because you don't retire, it's going kill you." He was this workaholic. I guess it showed what the doctor told him. It killed him. And I didn't know that he was so popular in Virginia. Anytime the governor come and sit in your funeral, you all right. You know the lady that say the poems at Clinton? On inauguration? She was there. Say the poem there. Senators. The senators from Virginia was there. Everybody was there. I didn't know he was so popular. He kept it a secret. But he did a lot of great things for your charity. Did a lot of great things for charity. So, what do you got?	21:49
Kara Miles	I got lots.	22:37
Clarence Powell	What do you say? What?	22:38
Kara Miles	Tell me about being in the service. You went in the service in '43, you said?	22:43
Clarence Powell	Yeah.	22:49
Kara Miles	Why did you go to the service?	22:51
Clarence Powell	Because I was drafted!	22:53
Kara Miles	Oh, you had to go.	22:53
Clarence Powell	I was drafted.	22:54
Kara Miles	What did you think about that? About having to go?	22:57
Clarence Powell	I just had got married. I didn't want to leave my wife, you know what I mean? I got married in '41. I didn't leave my wife. I had to go. Drafted out of New York City. Went to Great Lakes, Illinois. Stayed there nine weeks, came back home, and stayed home two weeks. Went to a place called Hastings, Nebraska. And the coldest place in the world, with ammunition depot. During that time, 99% of the Blacks in the service was laborers. They call you a sailor, but you was a laborer. You was out in ammunition depot, out from nowhere, way out, God knows where. We stayed and took ammunition and stuff like that during World War II. It was a all-Black camp, and White officers, but all White Marines to guard us, we got out of line. And we did get out of the line.	23:02
Kara Miles	Tell me about that.	24:30
Clarence Powell	They wanted us to work in temperature 22, 23 below zero. And we wasn't equipped for the work. We wasn't equipped for the work. And you can't work in weather like that. You would die.	24:32
Kara Miles	What happened?	24:52
Clarence Powell	What happened? There's always a radical. Even during that time. Always, there was always a radical, right? And the captain of the base knew it, knew who he was. And what happened: We refused to go to work, okay? "You can't strike again!" Striking now. Get us some clothes to put on, we were willing to work. So, the captain, they went and got the Marines, off the base. They had Marines on the base. Went and got the Marines off the base, and back to all of us against—eh, 500 of us. Backed us all against the wall. Standing out in that cold weather. They got their furred clothes on, we ain't got nothing on but dungarees. They want us to work out there in that cold. And the boys wouldn't go to work.	24:53
Clarence Powell	They sent us all back to the barracks. And the leader of the bunch, he knew he was, but he didn't act it. But the captain knew. And he got him, and got him in the car, and they drove somewhere. Just he in the captain and captain's chauffeur. About an hour, they came back, They didn't go off the base, but they went somewhere, and they came back, and he said, "All right." Told the Marines to leave us alone. Two days later, here come three boxcars. Three box cars backed into that camp, and nothing in them but all the winter clothes you want. I mean, they had some winter clothes there! Yeah, you see? So, everything went on all right.	25:51
Clarence Powell	And I'll tell you what else happened, that incident happened. The Marines had they wives on the bases. We didn't have our wives on the bases. We had a theater, nice theater, the Marines—and they wives would come in, and get the best seats in the house, and we had to sit way in the back. We are the sailors on the base. The civilians are doing better than we are doing. You understand? So, we go to the theater, we ain't got no seats. We got to stand up. All the Whites got the seats. But we're on the base working. They're not working! One night, you always have to line up to go to the theater, getting ready in time for the movie. Nobody come. None of the Black guys come out, no Blacks. We always march from the barracks. Always go in order. Nobody going. Two nights, no Blacks in the theater. Three nights. Four nights. No Blacks. Nothing.	26:45
Clarence Powell	Captain get [indistinct 00:28:13]. Nobody say nothing about it, working. Captain gets his son, "why nobody going to the theater?" He called us an assembly, in the dining hall. He said, "What's wrong? Nobody going to the movies no more. Anybody can speak, I won't hold it against him." The same guy. And he got up and he told the captain exactly why. "We are here on the base. We're the ones that working. The theater's made for us. We go there, we can't get a seat. Them other people are there and we don't going to have no seat. So, that's why we stopped going." That stopped—that stopped. The sailors, we went in first. What was left, they got the last. You see? You know what I mean? The theater was built for the sailors. It wasn't built for the civilians. If it hadn't gotten back out that the sailors couldn't go to the theater, and all the civilians going, and the theater was built, even during the segregation time, then it wouldn't have been looked bad for the captain. So, he stopped that.	28:12
Clarence Powell	Well, I stayed there long. I stayed there—oh, my wife. When they finally started letting the wives come out, who wanted to come out, who was married. My wife came out and stayed with me—six—about a year. Not quite a year. And she got pregnant out there with her, with my daughter. And—no, with my son! And then she stayed out there with me. She worked out on the base and had a job out there and worked out there. And everything was nice out there. And so, finally, we got orders to ship out. My wife had to come East, and I had to go West. I went to a place called Shoemaker, California. From Shoemaker, California, I went to the Hawaiian Islands. And it was bad in Hawaiian Islands. A Black man. Bad. Bad! Called you a monkey with a tail. "Watch you don't go out him, he got a tail on him", and, you know, "Yeah!"	29:27
Kara Miles	The Hawaiians would say that? Who would—	30:24
Clarence Powell	But the White man had taught the Hawaiians that the Black man had a tail. Looking for the tail. This is the truth. Certain places you could go and certain places you couldn't go in Hawaii. You got a uniform on, you couldn't go. Went to a place once. Three buddies. I had three buddies, two buddies. We always—we left New York City together. We introduced, we got introducing, we introduced ourselves at the Paramount Theater in New York City. From there, we went to Hastings and back. From there, went to Shoemaker. From Shoemaker, went to Hawaiian Islands.	30:26
Clarence Powell	And we went to a place once, a nightclub, in Hawaii. In Honolulu. This big fat man sitting up on a—a big fat guy sitting at the door, on the stool. So, we saw the sailors going in the club. So, we started in the club. This big White fella put his arm over the door. He said, "You can't go in." I was sort of a peacemaker. I wasn't a violent type. I never was, man, never have been. But my two buddies was the violent type out of New York. They was violent. "What do you mean we can't go in?" "Just can't go in." They said, "I see the other sailors going in."	31:11
Clarence Powell	Black, White sailors coming there and going in. He's moving along. "What you mean? Why we can't go? I got a sailor uniform just like him. You got to tell me, you say you can't? Yeah, look man, you got to tell me—", this is Stokes. I said, "Stokes, please, come on, let's go, here." That's because I know what this man, my buddy, will do. I know what he do. He's the violent type. He said, "Well, I ain't going nowhere till you tell me." He goes, "Well, you want me to tell you?" He said, "Yeah." "It because you're Black, and we don't like Black folks in here." That's that time Stokes kicked the stool out from under the man. And then the other brother named Walters, he kicked him in the stomach, his big stomach, like this. Walter kicked him in the stomach about three times. Then Stokes kicked the guy in the face, and "Come on!" There come the Shore Patrol, we call it the Shore Patrol, and then, "Oh, my God."	32:11
Clarence Powell	The three of us went in jail. We got back to the base, got one week on the base restriction. That was in Hawaii. Then, we went to—that's where we were split up in, all three of standing crying, three grown men. One went to Hawaii. No. I went to Midway Islands. One went to Guam. And the other one went to—was going to the Philippines, I think it was. We all split up. Never did see no more 'til—never did see another one 'til we got back to New York City. Two, one or two years later. I went to the Midway Island, got aboard this aircraft carrier. And it was about 35 or 40 Blacks. We had 1200 miles to go, from the Hawaiian Islands to the Midway Islands, going down under, going down, going down.	33:13
Clarence Powell	So, the executive officers call us together in a room. They said—remember what I told you, now, that they always got a radical. Now, this is a different radical. He said, "I'm going to give you a little instruction of you people on this boat." He said, "You people on the ship here, I'm going to tell you what you can do and what you can't do." And this guy said, "Sir, who—you said 'you people', who are the 'you people'? Who's the 'you people'? Aren't we sailors like you?" This is the executive officer of the boat. He said, "Oh, sailors, then. Sailors!" He said, "Now, you are restricted to certain parts of this ship. This radical guy said, "What do you mean, 'restricted'? We are sailors on a government ship. Aren't we allowed to walk on the ship?" "Certain place you can't go." So he say, "If this ship have a disaster, on your end, where you not allowed us, you don't want us to come there to help you, do you? You want us to stay on this end, do you?"	34:26
Kara Miles	And what did the executive officer say to that?	35:50
Clarence Powell	Nothing. Didn't open his mouth. Didn't open his mouth. Then he said, "You have your pool room here. You have your recreation room here. But you're not allowed up front, after that." And we wasn't allowed. Had our own mess hall that the Blacks ate in. You couldn't mix on the ship. That's how it was. It was—and we got down to Hawaii, Hawaiian Islands, I mean, to the Midway Island. One thing about that, they had to mix then. Small island. Had to mix then. Well, nothing out there but white coral sand and the Gooney bird.	35:52
Kara Miles	The Godey bird?	36:48
Clarence Powell	The Gooney.	36:48
Kara Miles	Gooney bird, okay.	36:51
Clarence Powell	The Gooney bird. He stayed there nine months. When he stayed there, you leave too. When he leave, you leave. When the Gooney bird leave, you leave. I mean. They bringing another bunch. They will never keep a bunch. When the Gooney bird leave, the sailors came in there with the Gooney birds. They left, too. They claim it was something—I don't know what it was, but they would never tell us what it was. But, then I stayed there a long time. I just stayed there long. And the one experience I've had there, we didn't have too much racial there. We had a couple of fights, couple of boys threw "hot chocolate" in his "Alabama cracker face" a White boy's face, call him a nigger. Throw chocolate in his face and scrawl his face up bad.	36:54
Clarence Powell	But, I was running a boatswain, me. Second class boatswain, me. I was running a ferry for one island to the next island, what's called a Johnson Island, to the Midway Island. You had to cross a channel. Over here, it's not deep. When you cross the channel, a quarter of a mile, and there is no bottom. That's where the aircraft carriers come in, the battleships and whatever not what may come in. On that side, it's shallow. As I crossed the channel, I saw somebody with their ski ship, that was headed out in the Pacific. The tides was going out, and I saw this thing, and I know what they wanted, help. And it was almost sundown. And I had about 18 mens on the boat, this whale boat, we called it. And I know, I said to myself, "I can't leave these mens out here." And I told the men, I said, "We got to go get them."	37:48
Clarence Powell	And I went right up that channel. They lost the oars that were on the boat, and didn't have no way to get back, and the tide was taking them out to sea. And it was almost dark. We caught up with them, put them in the boat, taking the rope and tied it to the boat, and pulled the boat back. And I always wonder about those two men. Can they remember me as I remember them? I saved they lives. Because if they ever had've got in that Pacific, and dark would've caught them, it'd have been goodbye, baby. Because the Pacific—you know, "Pacific" means "peaceful", but it's never peaceful. That's the roughest water that you'll ever ride in. And I always wonder today, and this is 50 years ago. Always wonder today, do they remember me, as I plucked them from going out to see in a boat?	38:50
Kara Miles	These were White men?	39:59
Clarence Powell	Huh?	39:59
Kara Miles	These were White men?	40:00
Clarence Powell	Of course, yeah. I always remember by them. Of course they was, yeah. They was fishing. We used to catch—the food was bad, on the island. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Bad. We ate lobsters and fish. We'd go out on the reef, and catch maybe three or four dozen lobsters, bring them back and boil them. Eat lobster, eat fish and turtle meat. Nobody ate good, from the captain on down. Nobody ate good. Sometimes Thanksgiving—one day, I was there, one Thanksgiving Day. Turkeys supposed to getting there, never got there. So, one of my—I met a friend on the Midway Islands. And I had been out there a long time. I was getting tired. I wanted to go home. You sit on that pier, and you watch that sun go down in that Pacific Ocean, and you think about home on a Sunday afternoon, you'd cry like a baby. So, don't tell me you won't cry.	40:02
Clarence Powell	And the friend I met over there, he and I was buddies. He was older than I was. He had more points. He was getting out on points. And some troop ship came in there, and they called his name. "Be ready at such and such a time. You're on your way home." And he was leaving me there. I sitting out on the pier, he passed me that bag on his shoulder, going on that ship. You know what he said to me? "Ah, you dirty bum, you rotting on this island!" He said, "Rotting!" Went on and got him on that ship. Three days later, seven destroyers came in the island for refueling. Man call my name, "Be ready in two days." Homeward bound!	41:11
Clarence Powell	As I got home, I was in Camp Pendleton, to be shipped back to New York City, which was Long Island, to be discharged. In uniform, now. Me, I was the onliest Black and 12 Whites, sailors. And a Black sailor, which was me. We left Camp Pendleton together on a plane. First airplane I ever flew in. Propellor, didn't have jets then. The plane got grounded in Nashville, Tennessee. So, they cancelled the flight. We had to continue the flight on train, from Nashville, Tennessee to New York City. We went to the station in New York City to—maybe that's enough, huh?	42:08
Kara Miles	No, keep going! The tape's just going to cut. It's going to cut off in a little bit, though, but that's okay.	43:11
Clarence Powell	We went to the station to wait for the train the next morning to go to New York City. So, the train didn't leave the next morning. So, we had to sleep in the station that night. So I started in the station with the rest of the White sailor. And the Black guy said, "You can't go in that way." I said, "Why?" He said, "Nothing but White goes in there." And sure enough, the guy, White guy told me I had to go in with the Blacks. So the man said, "No, he can't go, he can't go in there." So, went to the dining hall, didn't have no place for the Black to eat. They had to eat outside. I couldn't go into down there where the White sailor was at. So, they had Black cooks.	43:16
Clarence Powell	And this woman said to me, she said, "Sailor, you don't have to go outside. Come on back in the kitchen." And she did a job on me. She did a job on me! And I had bought some nylon stockings. Nylon was very hard to get during war time. And I bought some stockings for my wife. I had about six or seven pair of stockings. And this woman, I gave her a pair of stockings. She treated me so nice. She said, "You don't have to go upstairs and sleep. She said, I got a nice cart downstairs for you. A nice cool place. You stay down here tonight. You sleep down until your train leave the next morning." And when I come in tomorrow morning, she said, "I'll fix you a nice breakfast. And you don't have to go upstairs with the rest of them." Everyone fix me a nice breakfast next morning. I get on the train—so we had Pullman. They put somebody off. We had Pullman, but the White boys had to sleep together. So I had my own—you know what I mean, private, them boys had to sleep more than one.	44:08
Clarence Powell	So, before the train left, old White woman got on the train. When she got on the train, I was sitting in the Pullman. And she got on there, and she—Black porter had her back. And she said, "Are you sure this is the car?" And looking dead at me. Said, "We don't have but one, and this is the car." "Well, I don't know." And then she kept looking at me. And she went over there and sat down. And she said, that train pulled off and going, "Now we're going to the dining car." They had a dining car for Blacks. The Blacks had a little portion, but they had a curtain pulled. So, I marched through the train where I got—	45:19