Cloria Walker interview recording, 1994 July 19

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Cloria Sanders Walker	Was like a slave to these people, the White people right up there. In that case then I was born there after long. So whenever I was born, people say she didn't love me, but I don't know whether she didn't love me or she loved me. I'm not going to put that on her because I feel like that she did the best she could after being born there herself. I mean, raised there herself. And she had to do whatever they told her to do because she had to go to the store in them times and buy the stuff and bring it back herself. She couldn't call, couldn't stay home and call and bring in stuff like we do it now. So that's what she did. And after my being born, then they said she didn't love me because she put me in a barrel. But she had to work and take care of me the best she could.	0:02
Cloria Sanders Walker	But there was no taking care of much because the White lady said that I stayed in this barrel for so many days, and she took me out herself more than one time and took the things out the barrel and burn them, put fresh ones in there. And then she washed me up and put me back in there with a lot of other clean things. But if you ain't got time to take care of them, they get dirty too. So things rolled on, rolled on until when the times got a little better, I reckon she'd call that. She began to treat me a little better. Course, I wasn't old enough to know about the treatments. It was just something that what I thought was right. I don't know. And I still thought it was right. So at that time, when they put out in a paper that to come get a little girl. You can have a little girl. Old Father and Mother wanted me. Sam Walker and Phoebe—No Sam Sanders and Phoebe Sanders.	1:31
Evelyn Walker Muse	Peter.	3:18
Cloria Sanders Walker	Peter Sanders and Phoebe Sanders. And so he went and got picked me up and took me to the house and told her, said "I got what you wanted for a long time." And she said, "What?" He said, "A little girl." She said, "How you know she's a little girl?" He said, "Because I know it." She said, "How you know it?" He said, "Because I saw the people dressing her," and out there he had to get out with that. He said he saw the lady dressing me, under dressing me. So she smiled and she say—And time after time, I guess he said that they loved me so much until they stopped talking about the—	3:21
Cloria Sanders Walker	Oh one man came along one day when they said, "What you going to do with that thing? You'll never make nothing out of that thing." Said, he said, "Yes I will." Said, "I'm going to make a lady out of her." And he said that he told her, "Yes, I'm going to make a lady out of her." She said he told her, said, "Well, if you make anything out of her, you let me know, and I'll help you out." I said, "Well, if I done made it, you don't have to help me out making. I be made her myself, me and the Lord."	4:25
Cloria Sanders Walker	And things went on. I mean, after time somebody put out that they needed to take me back or something, and they said they couldn't do that because arrangement was made different. And after long enough they just kept me, and kept doing the best they could for me, and teaching me different things, and I'd tell them different things. And it went on for a long time. And the father and the mother was old, both of them. And he got sick, and he was sick for a good while and long in the days, people loved it. They said that they was poison. Don't care how sick or what sickness they was or how sick; somebody poison them. And I didn't hardly understand that part of it. But even that, I had to write a lot.	5:06
Cloria Sanders Walker	I mean, I had to talk a lot and had to because the parents, they went out and worked. And where they went, they had to go a long ways from the house to work on some land and try to make, keep on going, trying to make a living. So then he took sick and them episodes that they left on, sometimes he would get so sick until he looked like he would die. He shouldn't have left. Thank you, sir.	6:40
Charles Houston	Sure.	7:30
Cloria Sanders Walker	That's where I'll put them where you can get them too. So after long enough he really passed and died and I got out. So then the mother, she was old too. She had asthma or something called asthma. And I didn't go to school like the children went to school because when I was a baby, I couldn't help myself. She took care of me. And when she got unable, I stayed home and took care of her. And she was so sick when she would have these attacks. I was sacred she'd set the house afire because we used brooms with the long straw brooms. And old people like to put the straw broom in the fire and light the pipe.	7:34
Charles Houston	Oh, take a straw from the broom and stick it—	9:00
Cloria Sanders Walker	No stick the straw, the broom, just pull it off from the broom. And sometime they could have the attack and that thing catch afire.	9:03
Charles Houston	She smoked a pipe?	9:12
Cloria Sanders Walker	Pipe, yeah. So that's what she did. She smoked a pipe. And there was another girl at the house during the same time I was there, but she was supposed to be what, seven days child or something. That was kind of new to me because I didn't understand what it was.	9:19
Charles Houston	I don't know what that is, a seven days child.	9:44
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	9:44
Charles Houston	What is a seven days child?	9:44
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	9:44
Charles Houston	No, but what is one? I don't know what a seven days child is.	9:44
Cloria Sanders Walker	Well, just a child that doesn't do the things that you do, and it wasn't the child that was born like me or you.	9:59
Evelyn Walker Muse	Was it retarded you mean?	10:11
Cloria Sanders Walker	Huh?	10:11
Evelyn Walker Muse	It retarded? Retarded?	10:13
Charles Houston	Slow?	10:18
Evelyn Walker Muse	Yeah.	10:18
Charles Houston	She was slow-witted?	10:19
Cloria Sanders Walker	Slow-witted. She would do things that you would think she wouldn't do. And the thing that she should do, she didn't do.	10:21
Evelyn Walker Muse	That's how they determined that [indistinct 00:10:34].	10:31
Cloria Sanders Walker	And she didn't have the sense that we have.	10:37
Evelyn Walker Muse	Oh, okay.	10:40
Charles Houston	Okay. She was dim-witted.	10:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	So they would leave her home with the mother one day and leave me with her one day because we had to pick cotton, do something though to try to make a living for ourself. So the last day that they left home with my mother, the White lady called me, said, "Cloria, I think you better go. I believe your house afire." But when she said that, I couldn't move hardly. I looked up and saw the smoke coming out the chimney. Just like I said, she would set that broom straw fire at the end of it, and then she'd throw it down, and let it burn. And in them times they had paper, newspaper or pretty pictures stuck up all over the house. And from them brooms, the paper would catch. And on the mantle piece they had lamps with kerosene in, and the kerosene bottles would catch and bust and explode. My mother, of course, died that Friday.	10:50
Charles Houston	After the fire.	12:10
Cloria Sanders Walker	After the fire. And the next Friday, we moved out of our house and we had bought up all the little sugar, and rice, and coffee, and had killed one or two of the little hogs to try to carry on. But it was poor going on. But nevertheless, it was better than what we thought it would be because it had to be. You had nothing else.	12:13
Charles Houston	So it was just you then and the seven days child?	13:06
Cloria Sanders Walker	That's right.	13:08
Charles Houston	What was her name?	13:10
Cloria Sanders Walker	We called her Hun.	13:14
Charles Houston	Hun?	13:16
Cloria Sanders Walker	I don't know nothing else.	13:16
Charles Houston	Where was this? Where were you born? When you were born to your biological mother?	13:22
Cloria Sanders Walker	Oh, I was born in Ulmer, way back over against—	13:28
Charles Houston	At Ulmer, South Carolina?	13:35
Cloria Sanders Walker	Ulmer, South Carolina.	13:42
Charles Houston	And do you know what year that was approximately?	13:42
Cloria Sanders Walker	No.	13:44
Charles Houston	But it was after—	13:45
Evelyn Walker Muse	Here, 1889.	13:47
Charles Houston	1889. And do you know who your father was? Who your mother's husband or—	13:53
Cloria Sanders Walker	No.	14:06
Charles Houston	Okay.	14:06
Cloria Sanders Walker	Born in the White people house.	14:08
Evelyn Walker Muse	Okay.	14:09
Charles Houston	And your stepparents, you said that Peter had to go a long way to work on the land and that he became ill. Was he a farmer or a farm laborer?	14:16
Cloria Sanders Walker	They had been farming; had farms of corn, and cotton, and different things, so to say because it didn't happen after I was—	14:30
Evelyn Walker Muse	They were not share croppers?	14:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	Huh?	14:40
Evelyn Walker Muse	Were they share croppers?	14:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	I don't know that because they was too old to be anything like that when I come along.	14:49
Charles Houston	So he owned his own house probably.	14:54
Cloria Sanders Walker	I don't know that either.	14:59
Charles Houston	Okay.	14:59
Cloria Sanders Walker	I know somebody come there one day, a lady, and smoked a pipe. And when she left, the house was afire, and he said that she set at afire.	15:00
Charles Houston	Okay. Did they have any other children? I mean, they were old people. Did they have grown children?	15:09
Cloria Sanders Walker	They had plenty daughters in there and sons. But they was old people. They was grown.	15:21
Charles Houston	Sure.	15:27
Cloria Sanders Walker	Old people even when I got in there. But they was good to me. I mean, as far as I could understand.	15:28
Charles Houston	Did you see those grown children?	15:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yes sir. Some of them named Mary, Arthur, Missy, Alice. I guess some are out. Carrie, that was the oldest son. Carrie.	15:42
Charles Houston	So they were like your brothers and sisters—	16:20
Cloria Sanders Walker	Sisters.	16:22
Charles Houston	—or almost like aunts and uncles—	16:23
Cloria Sanders Walker	Right.	16:24
Charles Houston	—because they were so much older.	16:25
Cloria Sanders Walker	Right.	16:25
Charles Houston	And did they live nearby? I mean, did they live in the community?	16:28
Cloria Sanders Walker	Little house right over there, and one over here. Close, you know.	16:32
Charles Houston	Okay. Where did you go to school?	16:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	Not much. I couldn't go because I had to take care of my mother that had the asthma so bad. It wasn't like the people, and she had grown people, old people, older people than me to come and take care of her. They was glad that I was drew in there, that I'd do it. I'd have to do it. Did the best I could. That's all I could do. Wasn't much.	16:44
Charles Houston	So you went to school sometimes? You and Hun took turns?	17:18
Cloria Sanders Walker	Oh, I went to some little school out there in the—We used to had to walk four or five miles just to school.	17:21
Evelyn Walker Muse	Barnwell County, right?	17:28
Cloria Sanders Walker	Huh?	17:28
Evelyn Walker Muse	Was it Barnwell County if you went to school, right? Barnwell County—	17:28
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	17:36
Evelyn Walker Muse	—public school or whatever it was.	17:37
Cloria Sanders Walker	And I would have to walk to school in the morning. Before I leave, I have to get up and knock cotton stalks, corns, cut corn stalks and pile them and burn them, and sometime milk a cow. There was a lot to be done if you was able to do it.	17:41
Charles Houston	Now, you said that the day that your mother, that the house burned down, that you were working in the field, working outside, I think you said.	18:01
Cloria Sanders Walker	True.	18:12
Charles Houston	And the White lady said, "You'd better go home. Your house is on fire." You looked up and you saw the smoke. Were you working, were you cutting corn stalks or something like that that day?	18:12
Cloria Sanders Walker	Picking cotton.	18:21
Charles Houston	You were picking cotton. Okay. And when you worked on the land, were you working sometimes on other people's land and sometimes on your parents' land or?	18:22
Cloria Sanders Walker	It wasn't the parents' land. I don't—It was all the White people land.	18:35
Charles Houston	Okay. And do you know whether the school that you went to was also built by the White people? Was it a school on their land? Was it,	18:42
Cloria Sanders Walker	It wasn't White and Black went together.	18:48
Charles Houston	They did.	18:49
Cloria Sanders Walker	They didn't.	18:49
Charles Houston	Oh no. Okay. Right. That was standard. They would go to separate schools. And it was it a one room schoolhouse?	18:54
Cloria Sanders Walker	Something like that. Something like a one room, but it was a lot of children.	19:02
Charles Houston	Okay.	19:08
Cloria Sanders Walker	And there was a stream down a little further from the house, and you had to go down there to get water. And the older children would smoke if they had to smoke cotton leaves. And this is the old coast thing, the paper bags. And somebody go back to the house, to the school and tell the teacher they was down there smoking. Don't care who said they wasn't. You got a whipping just as well as they did.	19:11
Charles Houston	Who did the whipping? The teacher?	19:50
Cloria Sanders Walker	The teacher. But they'd called in a man to do that. Some—Huh?	19:51
Evelyn Walker Muse	They called the principal to do it?	20:03
Cloria Sanders Walker	I guess it was. And I mean, I told them that I didn't smoke. I never smoked, and I would never try to smoke. That didn't help none. I mean, I got a whipping.	20:07
Charles Houston	Do you remember going—I'm sorry. You need something? You want—	20:26
Cloria Sanders Walker	I want my—	20:28
Evelyn Walker Muse	What, Mom. What You need? You need your medicine?	20:37
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	20:41
Evelyn Walker Muse	You do? Huh?	20:41
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah. The thing that I—	20:46
Evelyn Walker Muse	You sure you feel like it?	20:46
Cloria Sanders Walker	Don't ever think about it until I'm stop talking and somebody gone. But I was just saying that I had this epic story ready. Children would go back and tell the teacher that everybody smoked, and you couldn't beat it in the head you didn't. And then the teacher beat me, she said because I run my mouth. I told her I didn't smoke. I said, "I've never smoked it." And she said, well she didn't believe it, and she whipped me, and she scarred me around her neck.	20:50
Charles Houston	She hit you at the neck?	21:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah. Well, she had a whip, a green whip. And she hit me. She kept hitting me and I tell her I didn't smoke. And every time I said I didn't smoke, she'd hit me more. So I went home. I had a crazy sister there. She was going back to the place and beat the teacher. I told her, "Please don't do that. You'll make it hard for me. Don't go there to leave it alone like it is." The Lord always gives me a good mind, and I try to use it.	21:45
Charles Houston	You said you had a crazy sister. Was that Hun?	22:30
Cloria Sanders Walker	That was one of them older sisters.	22:33
Charles Houston	Okay.	22:33
Cloria Sanders Walker	She was going to make the teacher not beat me, but she was going to beat the teacher for beating me. You see, that's wrong; just think about it. I told her don't do that. Don't go there and stand up to the teacher because she'd make it hard for me, harder. Because she swear I went home and told her to, but I didn't have to tell her. She saw it on my neck.	22:38
Evelyn Walker Muse	Scarred you.	23:03
Charles Houston	When you said a green whip, do you mean a switch cut from a tree?	23:05
Cloria Sanders Walker	Outside, right.	23:11
Charles Houston	Okay.	23:11
Evelyn Walker Muse	But it was the long ones, the limber ones.	23:13
Charles Houston	The ones that don't break.	23:15
Evelyn Walker Muse	Right. And when they would cut you with it would wrap around you. You see some of the stories that TV—I see now where they have whips like that. But I think they may be made from leather, but that kind of—	23:16
Charles Houston	Yeah, I know what you mean, stiff but flexible.	23:38
Evelyn Walker Muse	Yeah, it was stiff but flexible. And then when they hit you, it would wrap around.	23:38
Cloria Sanders Walker	Thank you.	23:39
Evelyn Walker Muse	You're welcome. You need your cough medicine? You want this?	23:39
Cloria Sanders Walker	Same girls was going through the woods one morning and she smoked too if she didn't have nothing but the paper sacks and the cotton leaves. "Come on Neek and smoke some. Come on."	24:09
Evelyn Walker Muse	What did she call you?	24:27
Cloria Sanders Walker	She called me Neek.	24:28
Evelyn Walker Muse	Neek.	24:29
Charles Houston	Neek.	24:29
Cloria Sanders Walker	They, all of them are calling me different names.	24:29
Charles Houston	Okay.	24:33
Cloria Sanders Walker	So I told her no I didn't want none. So she didn't have but one match. And we was in the woods where some straw was. But I told her, I said "Don't set that straw afire because if you do, it's going to burn up this whole plantation."	24:40
Cloria Sanders Walker	"Well, I don't care what it do. I'm going to smoke my cigarette." I said, "You'll wish you hadn't if it force things closed." And while I was talking, she struck the match stuck it afire. The wind come, looked like they made it come up, went up in the trees, burned up the turpentine, blows onto the trees, and they caught from one tree to another.	25:03
Cloria Sanders Walker	And I said, "Now what you going to say?"	25:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	"They asked me who set the fire, I'm a tell them you."	25:54
Cloria Sanders Walker	I said, "Why? Because I ain't going be guilty." I said, "You will be guilty." I said, "If you tell them that, you did it, I didn't do it." I said, "You done it." I said, "In the name of the Lord, child, tell the truth." I said, "I'm not scared because they can't do no more than to lock me up, put me up." I said, "I'll be the same person."	25:59
Cloria Sanders Walker	Burned up all them people, trees, and horses, and things, houses. A crowd of White people came and some Black. And they said, "Look at who's smoking? Who? I know you are smoking." And she hollered and said "Me," because she thought that was a big thing to know that she was smoking. So they said, "Come on, tell the truth. I want the truth. I want to know who smoked and who didn't."	26:27
Cloria Sanders Walker	I said, "She did."	27:10
Cloria Sanders Walker	She said, "But she struck the match."	27:14
Cloria Sanders Walker	I said, "I didn't strike the match." I said, "Tell the truth," I said, "because this truth will set you free." And she never would own that thing. But it said that thing cost so many thousand dollars, $100,000 for what they burned up. You know them turpentine places on the trees was worth so much, because see, they go back every week and take the turpentine out, and they put it in a place where they drain it and make it what it should be, the turpentine; do something for it to make it turpentine.	27:20
Charles Houston	How old were you, and how old was your younger sister about? Were you?	28:12
Cloria Sanders Walker	Well, she wasn't my sister, but just my sister there. I mean—	28:18
Charles Houston	I understand.	28:25
Cloria Sanders Walker	I really don't know how old she was. I was, I believe I was about eight or nine years old, and she's about almost, I guess the same or maybe a little more or something like that. Well, it couldn't hardly be any more.	28:28
Evelyn Walker Muse	She was a little older than you, right? A older?	28:45
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	28:45
Evelyn Walker Muse	[indistinct 00:28:51].	28:45
Charles Houston	So nothing happened to her for smoking?	28:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	No. You know the people in them days, they—I don't know. They give in the sometime, and sometimes they just take and lockup, you know. But this girl, for some reason they didn't lock her up. But her people done whatever supposed to be done. And I don't know what that was. Lack of parents, you know? Never did find out what they done.	28:56
Charles Houston	So she was just a friend of yours? You called her your—	29:37
Cloria Sanders Walker	Well, yeah. And we were just meeting in the morning, going to work. We had to go and take the stuff from round them trees where she set the fire, and take the trash out of the turpentine, throw it off so it wouldn't catch her. And had to hurry up and get out of the trees before we catch afire. But you had to go and do something. Couldn't sit down all day. You had do some of some kind of work. And what I eat sometime from time to time was a raw potato. And the thing ain't never been told. It's so much more that to that I think, but that ought to been then and there and go on to now I know it mess her up.	29:42
Evelyn Walker Muse	You need something? You need something else? You need something?	30:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	No. Let me rest a minute.	30:52
Evelyn Walker Muse	Okay.	30:52
Charles Houston	Okay.	30:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	Awful picking cotton.	31:22
Charles Houston	Oh, you mean you tried to pick as much as he did?	31:26
Cloria Sanders Walker	I tried to pick as much as he did.	31:29
Charles Houston	How much did he pick?	31:31
Cloria Sanders Walker	He picked 280 pounds a day.	31:32
Charles Houston	That's a lot. That's a lot.	31:36
Cloria Sanders Walker	I'd pick 205 and 210.	31:38
Evelyn Walker Muse	That's a lot. I mean, Arthur was considerably—If he was your brother, he was Peter and Phoebe's son. So he was much older.	31:49
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah, he was a grown man, and wasn't worth a dime. He'd already do the wrong thing. He was a superintendent at school and of all parts of the Sunday school because he'd always be inviting different ones there to have some kind of association or something together. And all the time when he'd come, he'd do the wrong thing. So we called him Bubba. I told him, "Well you rob you walking up the wrong tree. And he loved the cotton and women. He loved it, taking men's wives and all them things. And whatever he started at, he prospered at it. He had all them things what people had to have in the yard to work with like the horses or the mules, the plows and any of them old big plows.	31:57
Cloria Sanders Walker	But he'd go to church and have his Sunday school and everything going on. Then he'd have somebody out on the ground selling whiskey. So I told him so many times, said, "Bubba, you think you're doing something big but you, you going wrong, so far wrong." I said, "You ought to be ashamed of yourself." But he didn't care. I mean, no he do whatever he wanted to do.	33:32
Cloria Sanders Walker	So in all of them episodes he had teamed up ahead of him and along with him, the people from where they lived then had to go to Barnwood to put the clothes in. Put them up and let them be cleaned and everything in. Then he'd wait. I mean, he'd tell them he'd come back the next Saturday to get them.	34:14
Cloria Sanders Walker	And he wouldn't just take his, he'd take two or three other men's clothes and tell them he would take them and bring them back. And the women would tell them, "Don't do it. Don't take them. Don't take the people clothes. You ain't going to bring them back. You don't want to bring them." He said, "I will because I don't want them." Go back the next Saturday, take them up and start home with them. And because the people knew he didn't mean it and wasn't doing right, they took him off that Sunday morning and killed him. They had his arms with his skin would peel off like potatoes up his jaws, and ash. They put the dirt over his face in his eyes, mouth. And they pulled his shirt off and had him all fixed up.	34:52
Charles Houston	Who did this to Arthur? Who did this to him?	36:23
Cloria Sanders Walker	People.	36:24
Charles Houston	White people or Black people?	36:26
Cloria Sanders Walker	I believe White. I don't know. White and Black. I don't know. Of course, they was dirty people together because I didn't like him doing my cotton. And maybe you're White, you didn't like about yours. You get together, and you'll do anything. You say you won't but you do it because you're trying to get back even, what you'd call even, what I'd say even.	36:35
Evelyn Walker Muse	And at that time there was no one to find out really or try to really find out who did what.	37:02
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	37:09
Charles Houston	So they tortured him, they pulled his skin off.	37:11
Cloria Sanders Walker	No, they rolled him in the sand and beat him. So many of them doing it together, and had him off running front of out there's some cotton rows running up and down like that. And they had him over there, eight or nine, maybe 12 cotton rows. And he'd been dead ever since that night with his daughter. He had one daughter by his wife. Had a decent wife, a nice wife which didn't care how long he was gone. He said, "Miss Arthur'll be back directly. He ain't going to stay all night, Lily."	37:13
Evelyn Walker Muse	But the beating and the dragging of him was the cause of his skin peeling off, right?	38:00
Cloria Sanders Walker	Oh, yeah. They beat him and got him, got him like that, peeled him up hitting on him, and they might have scald him with water. Who know? I don't know.	38:07
Charles Houston	They killed him. And they killed his daughter?	38:17
Cloria Sanders Walker	No. No.	38:20
Charles Houston	Okay.	38:21
Cloria Sanders Walker	But she said she looked for him till that morning, and she couldn't find him, and said Daddy didn't never go out and stay all night. He'd go one way and come the other, but he'd go, and he'd come back. But he didn't come back. Had to look for him all day Sunday. So she looked and looked, and other people looked. And when they went across that field and them rows, they find him in there so dirty, and muddy, and dusty, and everything. They didn't know who you was, but they looked and she said, "That's daddy." And nothing to do about it because he put it on himself. I mean, he went out there.	38:22
Charles Houston	Was this because he was trying to steal people's clothes, take people's clothes and not return them?	39:18
Cloria Sanders Walker	No, he didn't want the clothes, but he wanted to keep the clothes away in order that they would stay away Sunday who didn't have nothing wear to church. That's all I could see.	39:24
Charles Houston	Okay. Do you know why he'd want to do that, want to keep them away?	39:36
Cloria Sanders Walker	Because I told you, he loved the women and the cotton.	39:41
Charles Houston	Oh, okay.	39:47
Cloria Sanders Walker	That's so awful, ain't it?. And terrible too for a man to be that dirty. But oh Lord, I don't—People, it's bad now, but you know one thing is it has always been bad. Mess around with people. So all they good people, if this then they that. You don't know people. I hope you know.	39:48
Charles Houston	Did Arthur live with Peter, and did he live with his parents or did he have his own home?	40:26
Cloria Sanders Walker	No, he had his own place.	40:31
Charles Houston	Okay. Someplace else on the plantation?	40:32
Cloria Sanders Walker	Someplace else.	40:35
Charles Houston	Okay.	40:37
Cloria Sanders Walker	I was something like some White person died out and saw us and the main one was left. Must have let him have it, you know? Something like that. That's the only way I know.	40:39
Charles Houston	Did you ever go into town?	40:57
Cloria Sanders Walker	Lived in the town.	41:05
Charles Houston	Oh, you lived in the town.	41:05
Cloria Sanders Walker	I mean, going in there and getting anything whatever you want, anytime of day, anytime of night.	41:08
Charles Houston	But the house you grew up in, was that house in the town or was it in the countryside?	41:19
Cloria Sanders Walker	Not the house with him. Now that I done forgotten where I lived.	41:24
Evelyn Walker Muse	It was in the country.	41:33
Cloria Sanders Walker	The one I lived in?	41:33
Evelyn Walker Muse	It was in the country. It was in the country.	41:34
Cloria Sanders Walker	Oh yeah.	41:37
Charles Houston	After Peter and his wife died, after the house burned down, where did you live? Did you move in with one of your brothers or sisters? Did you live with—	41:45
Cloria Sanders Walker	I was already with one of them. His wife drowned. There was a well down—	41:58
Evelyn Walker Muse	Wait a minute, wait a minute. The wife his—Wait a minute. Now, your mother was burned. Phoebe was burned. She burned in the house, right?	42:08
Cloria Sanders Walker	My mother?	42:22
Evelyn Walker Muse	Mm-hmm.	42:22
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	42:23
Evelyn Walker Muse	And then one of her daughters—	42:24
Cloria Sanders Walker	Aunt.	42:28
Evelyn Walker Muse	Took you. You lived with one of the daughters for a while?	42:29
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah, Carrie.	42:34
Evelyn Walker Muse	Carrie. And then after that you lived with her for a little while and then after that you got married, right?	42:38
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah.	42:42
Evelyn Walker Muse	Okay.	42:44
Cloria Sanders Walker	Jumped out of the frying pan in the fire. That's her daddy.	42:44
Charles Houston	How old were you when you got married?	42:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	I don't know.	42:53
Evelyn Walker Muse	I counted 15. She was 15.	42:54
Cloria Sanders Walker	Something like that, or 14. And I didn't have something left to pull off my clothes when I went to bed.	43:03
Evelyn Walker Muse	And she married in 1904.	43:09
Charles Houston	Okay. Hi.	43:09
Speaker 1	How you doing?	43:09
Charles Houston	Good. How did you meet your husband? How did you meet?	43:20
Evelyn Walker Muse	[indistinct 00:43:23]	43:20
Cloria Sanders Walker	Meet my husband?	43:20
Charles Houston	Well, the man you married, how did you meet him?	43:22
Cloria Sanders Walker	Go to church on Sunday and Sunday night to prayer meeting and preaching. And they didn't have sense enough to know how to talk to you a few of them. "Lady, I'm walking with you now. Lady, I'm answering you. I'm asking you the question. Do you answer the question?" And they ain't saying nothing yet. Boy oh boy.	43:35
Evelyn Walker Muse	He would recite poetry.	44:05
Cloria Sanders Walker	Them boys are something else.	44:07
Charles Houston	So they were pushy, huh? The boys were pushy?	44:14
Cloria Sanders Walker	Yeah, they was crazy. They didn't know. And one of them was a tall, dark-skinned fellow. He'd walk along by you. He said, "I said so and so and so. And that's all it is. Did you get it, or you didn't get it? That's all it is." That was Dan. Oh boy.	44:16
Evelyn Walker Muse	Who's Dan?	44:51
Charles Houston	Tall, dark, and—	44:52
Cloria Sanders Walker	Little Dan, little Dan, little Dan, Dan, Dan. Dan's brother, I mean cousin to your daddy.	44:52
Evelyn Walker Muse	Oh.	45:00
Cloria Sanders Walker	I'm a stop talking after a while and go to bed.	45:11
Evelyn Walker Muse	You getting tired, Mama?	45:15
Charles Houston	Whenever you're tired, that's fine. We can stop. And if you want to stop now, and talk some more maybe another day, that would be fine too because you'll probably think of things after we stop talking that you want to talk about.	45:17
Cloria Sanders Walker	I know I will.	45:31
Evelyn Walker Muse	Are you tired? You tired now?	45:31
Cloria Sanders Walker	I ain't rested.	45:31
Evelyn Walker Muse	Well, tell us when you've ready to stop.	45:42
Charles Houston	We can stop whenever you'd like. We'll stop for a little while, or we can just stop for the day. Would you like to stop now?	45:44
Cloria Sanders Walker	And start another day somewhere.	45:51
Charles Houston	Okay, that's fine. Thank—	45:57

Item Info

Title:

Cloria Walker interview recording, 1994 July 19

Date:

July 19, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Houston, Charles

Description:

Name: Cloria Sanders Walker; Date of birth: 1889-03-18; Place of birth: Barnwell City, SC; Occupation(s): custodian; Residence: Orangeburg, SC
Informant ID: 487; Interviewed by: Charles Houston.

Occupation:

Custodian

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1417
b63f9a99-2ece-4e64-8dce-b15148c82ac7
behindtheveil
c5f457fa-7e12-44d0-b3b9-7178e4755c4e
ark:/87924/r4xp76c88
c5f457fa-7e12-44d0-b3b9-7178e4755c4e

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4xp76c88

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Cloria Walker interview recording, 1994 July 19

Transcript

Item Info

1. Cloria Walker administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Cloria Walker interview recording, 1994 July 19

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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