Alma Ward interview recording, 1995 July 31
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| Doris Dixon | Mrs. Ward, could you state your full name and date of birth please? | 0:05 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My name is Amastine McKinney Ward. I was born January 31st, the year 1937 in Itta Bena to the late Mr. Fred McKinney and Mrs. Lilydale Hawkins McKinney. Of course, she's still alive. | 0:10 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you grow up in Itta Bena? | 0:46 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yes. | 0:47 |
| Doris Dixon | What are some of your earliest memories of growing up here? What was life like? | 0:48 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I thought it was really great. It was only two of us. I have a brother that's named Fred McKinney. There was just the two of us for 10 years or better. Well, I was about 11 before mother had another child. We grew up in a neighborhood where people were approved, but we got along very well. My father had a daily job. Of course most people did farm work in the fields, chopping cotton. My daddy always said that we needed to know how to do most things, so we chopped also a little, not much. When we picked he would always say, "You got to at least pay for your lunch." So we had to pick 100. We didn't have no other responsibilities, but you must pick at least 100 if it was at all possible. | 0:56 |
| Doris Dixon | You mentioned farm work. Did you live on a farm? | 2:10 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | No, I lived in the city limits of Itta Bena. | 2:12 |
| Doris Dixon | What do you remember about your house and your neighbor's [indistinct 00:02:23]? | 2:19 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Well I think I can remember. Some things I can remember. My mother said I was only three so I think I can remember back as far as three years old. We had, at first, a great, big, beautiful wood and cold range. I can remember, I don't know what year it was, but I know it was in the 40s, maybe 45, 44, something long there when we got electric lights. Before we had the lamp. Then, because I'm skipping some I guess, in 1947 they put a pipeline through here, natural gas. My father got my mother hooked up, this house for gas. From then on we had gas. We already had lights. Yeah, it was in 1944, '45 that they gave us the lights. I remember that. In '47 we moved and then daddy got the gas. | 2:25 |
| Doris Dixon | Where did you move in '47? | 3:55 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | We moved out one house and another closer to Itta Bena. We were in Balastu. That's what they call it for whatever reason. | 3:58 |
| Doris Dixon | Oka, Balastu? | 4:12 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Uh-huh, Balastu. It was the name of the little community that I grew up in. | 4:13 |
| Doris Dixon | Can you spell that for me? | 4:14 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Just Balast, B-A—I think that's what it was, Balastu. We moved in the army of quarters after that. | 4:16 |
| Doris Dixon | You remember much about Balastu? | 4:36 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Oh yes, I remember a lot. I was not much more than playing and going to school. My grandmother lived across the street in front of us. Well I can remember an experience while we were living in that house that my grandmother had with this White man who called, he felt like he was so much greater than we people as Blacks. My grandmother had went to Greenville to stay for a little while. She let a friend of hers stay in her house. While she was gone they cut the water off. The water, I think they were what they call—Well the meters, one meter was serving the purpose of maybe two or three houses at that time, flat rate water bill. | 4:39 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But anyway, nobody paid it while she was away, so they cut it off. Shortly after the man left, my grandmother understood that the woman went back out there and her husband or someone turned it back on. Later the little, I guess farmer or what he was, worker for city came back and found the water on. By that time, I don't know if it was a weekend. I can't remember; I was small. But anyway, my grandmother was home ,I think for the weekend or something. He asked her why did she turn the water on? She knew nothing about what he was talking about. She told him she didn't turn the water on. Why did he ask? | 5:37 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He told her don't get smart with him, nigger, because you know you talking to a White man. She said, "Well, I don't care who I'm talking to. I didn't turn any water on or off." He told her to button up her lip, and if she didn't, I don't know what he said he'd do. I just know she said he told her to button up her lip. When we were outside playing, and when I noticed this, he was running and she was right behind him with an ax. He said he was going to slap her or he attempted to slap her. But anyway, he ran and my mama saw the running and she ran out and asked her what was wrong. | 6:19 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My grandmother went on to tell her what the White man had said. At that time, when people lived in rent houses and they were owned by certain people, they were considered his Colored folks or niggers or however you want to put it. Somebody told Mr. Rucker, when it went on down there where you see, because my grandma had—Well my grandma I think had bought her house or was buying hers, but we was in one, and a few more other neighbors and the little quarters was in his houses. So he came down there and asked my grandmother to explain to him what happened and she did, and he was furious. | 7:03 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | So he went back up there and told, we only had one police, his name was Weber. He came down there and he said, as he called it, got it straight. They fired the White man, because I guess the clout that the White man that owned the houses had, but they fired the other White man. Now that's the first incident that I can recall, but when I was growing up going to school, we were expected to say yes ma'am, no ma'am. My mama always said, when I got big enough to go to the stores and places by myself, "Amastine, remember to say yes ma'am. It's just a matter of keeping down trouble." She would always say, "It doesn't make you any less of a person but just say, "Yes ma'am. I appreciate you do that."" She told us that almost daily, she sure did. | 7:53 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you say yes ma'am and yes sir to White people? | 8:52 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yeah, that's what I mean. The grocery store, there were one or two Black grocery stores but no more. If you went to any other store where there were White people, they expect you to say yes ma'am and no ma'am. | 8:59 |
| Doris Dixon | What did your mother tell you when addressing Black elders or Black people? | 9:11 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yes, yes. I had to do that too. I had to address older people, and of course older people then, they would chastise you and was nothing said anymore than you might get a whooping from your mom. Even if they wanted to, they could whoop you and nothing was said, but it's not that way anymore. | 9:18 |
| Doris Dixon | Was this your maternal grandmother, your mother's mother? | 9:48 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yes. | 9:51 |
| Doris Dixon | You said you spent significant number of years around her, growing up around her? | 9:54 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I lived around both grandmothers. My father's mother lived where valley is now. There was a plantation called Ralph Limbos. My grandmother's was out there. I went from time to time to my grandmother's on my daddy's side house, and we'd spend the night, weekend, if my mama decided she wanted to go out or something like that. We did that, but my grandmother, up until 1947, my mother's mother lived across the street in front of us. Then when we moved to the oil mill quarters, then my grandmother was four blocks or five. | 9:57 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your grandmothers, one or both of them, tell you little stories about some of their experiences coming up, some of the things they had gone through when they were younger? | 10:48 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My grandmother only told me about an incident that happened to a man. Well now that was one of the things she had experienced, but she used to tell us about something happened years back where the man, he always wanted to be nice. He thought by saying what he said, that was being polite and nice. They had benches then, a lot of times, sitting on the streets where people could see when they go to trade or just go to town or whatever. You would find benches along the sidewalk. There's this White lady who came out of one of the stores and a bunch of Black men standing around. | 11:00 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My grandmother say he told them, "Get back, get back, y'all get back boys and let the lady by. Don't she look nice and handsome?" He thought he was doing something nice, she said the White lady went back in one of the stores and repeated what he said. They came out there and got him and beat him unmerciful because of him saying, "Don't she look nice and handsome?" This happened before my grandmother moved to Itta Bena. I think she said it was in Kruger, right down in Holmes. Yeah, I think Kruger or Chula. | 11:53 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But that's the only thing I can think of now. I remember a lot. I know there was a lot more, I just can't think about it at the moment. One of my own personal experience, because I skipping a few years ahead. Would that be okay? In 1954 I think it was, I had graduated from high school and went to college. I think there was a football game on campus and me and my date, my husband, later we married, but we went to the store, where his name was Milam, the family that was responsible for Emmett Till's death. The man drinked a lot, but he owned the grocery store, and he sold bootleg liquor out of the store also. | 12:31 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My friends and I went up there to pick up some kick knacks, chips and skins and stuff, and the men were getting liquor and pops. What it seemed to me, I think I remember it vividly, both of them had been drinking too. This White man, Milam and his friend was in there. My friend said something ugly, some kind of word. I don't recall what he said. The White man said, "Hey man, my family lives here. I don't want no cursing in here." He said, "Okay man, I'm sorry." Went on picking up different items off the shelf, but he forgot, I guess because of the liquor, he cursed again. Then the White man got furious and he said, "I told you," but now he was already still talking about things to the other man. | 13:32 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He said, "But I told you I don't want any cursing in here because my family lived there." In the meantime he said that his wife and the children were gone to the movies or someplace in Greenwood. I can't remember the fellow's name, but my husband wouldn't remember. He said, "Oh I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He said, "But what the hell? You said they gone to the movies. They can't hear me that far." The man went up under the counter and got his gun and my friend had a gun on his hip. I didn't know I like to die. I almost had a heart attack, it scared me so bad. He just knocked his coat back with his gun. "Oh my god," I thought, "This is it." So I was saying, "Let's go, let's go." | 14:35 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I was trying to pull his coattail and back out of the store. I think that threw the man, the White man kind of got nervous. He started shaking, but he did not put his hand on his gun when he saw the other man's gun. That frightened him. I made a habit of trying to stay out of that store. But before that, I forgot. Before that time, I went to that store and his wife, well they were having some kind of domestic problem. He told her something real loud, I don't remember, but by the time I realized that there was problem going on, I tried to go out the store. He hollered at me and asked me what did I want. Then I told him I wanted a bag of popcorn. He said, "What?" I said a bag of popcorn. He still act like he didn't hear me. He said, "You tell me that again." I said, "Sir, I want a bag of popcorn." "Now, that's better." | 15:28 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I cried all the way back home. He didn't touch me, he just hurt my feelings. When I got back home I couldn't talk, I was just crying. My mama wanted to know what was wrong. I finally got able enough to tell her. She was jumping out to go up there. My grandmother happened to be there and she said, "No, no, no, no, don't go." She said, "Amastine, did he hit you?" I said, "No ma'am." She said, "Did he act like he was going to hit you?" I said, "No ma'am." She convinced my mama not to go. There was no harm done except my feelings being hurt. | 16:36 |
| Doris Dixon | May I ask you a question? Was this the [indistinct 00:17:20]. | 17:17 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | It was in Itta Bena. | 17:19 |
| Doris Dixon | Itta Bena. He had a store in Itta Bena. | 17:19 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He was not the actual one I don't know. I really don't know. He's family. I don't really know which one, but they say he had a part in it. I know this much. I can say for the people who lived in Itta Bena at that time, after the Emmett Till incident, they didn't go to his store. He had to go out of business. His food perished. They said that one of the men across the street would take items and sell it to help him out, but not beknown to Black people. The Black people really didn't go in that store, so they just really stopped trading with him. It was just only about one family that still went, and for whatever reason, I don't know. | 17:25 |
| Doris Dixon | One family would still go in there? | 18:22 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | There was one family that still—Well, as a matter of fact, yeah, I would say about one family that still went in there for some reason or another. I wouldn't want to call their names, but I do. | 18:22 |
| Doris Dixon | I understand that, but without calling their names, was this a common thing for [indistinct 00:18:40] to go their own path as far as the Black community was concerned? For them to have patronized the store after everybody else stop patronizing them, was that uncommon for them, or was this something you'd say people wouldn't expect any different from you? | 18:33 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Oh no, it was uncommon. Everybody wondered why. After they said, "Well a lot of people who was afraid to say no to White." They were afraid to say that they didn't know. If you know something and you say you don't know, they didn't know how to do that it seemed, because when they first started helping people, well I don't know if they were called ADC checks or whatever back—They had social workers who ride around and pick up certain Blacks and just question them and quiz them to death about other people and what they know about this family or this lady and her children. For them to say, "I don't know," seemed to be very hard. They'd try to tell whatever they saw. A lot of people say, "I wonder why won't he say or she say that she don't know and let it be dumb? She can't swear you know it," but they didn't seem to know how to do that. We had that kind of problem. | 18:59 |
| Doris Dixon | You mentioned you didn't live on the farm, well on farms. [indistinct 00:20:20] | 20:15 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | No, no, no. That's just a little community. No, we never lived on a farm. I can tell you of another incident of how Whites treated Blacks. To be honest, to tell it like it was, my daddy worked for the vendor machine for a man called Joe Gloroso. At one time this Ralph Limbo, I think he was a part of it or he worked—I was small. Then later I think he came over here and worked a little [indistinct 00:20:56]. But anyway, back then my daddy and my mom, they were bootleg liquor and stuff like that. Money was really no problem. My mom, at that time, she didn't have a car. She wasn't driving. So we got up Monday morning. She would take me and Bubba with her, and went to the bank and went to do a little trading I guess she was going to do. She had let her checks that daddy made accumulate. | 20:21 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Now my reason for telling you about the bootlegging, because I know that's why she would have X amount of dollars that she didn't have to bother with cashing the check. By that time she had five of them. You could not believe how furious that teller got. She was mad with my mom. "Well what is he working for?" and on and on and on. She would not cash those checks, because there was five checks, payroll checks. My mom had to go across the street to where my daddy worked to get her his boss man to come over there to verify that the checks were good. She didn't like it. It just seemed to take a lot away from her for the mere fact that this Black woman could have that many checks and hadn't needed to use them. I recall that, because I was standing right beside my mom when she did her that way. Oh, she went all over her being mad about it. | 21:30 |
| Doris Dixon | I want to ask a question. If it's asking too much, we can move on to something else, but somebody making money on the side, doing something like bootlegging, how would that be perceived by other Black people at the time? People who say you would call your neighbors, your friends? | 22:40 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | As far back as I can remember it didn't seem to make enough difference for people to—You mean shun you or something like that? | 23:01 |
| Doris Dixon | Yeah. | 23:11 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | No. At school I experienced children, I'm sure their parents had said something, but they would try to tease us. There was more than me. There's one or other two more families that did the same. They would try and say ugly things, so I went home back to and told my mom what was said. She said—Should I say it just like she said? She said, "When them little bastards tease you again, you tell them I say their mother and father buys." I did just exactly like she said, and they stopped. So I never had, but I never could tell my mother and my father both had quite a few friends. My daddy was not a church goer, but he believed in doing things real good. | 23:12 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He was a good man. He really was. He died at an early age. He died when he was 35. My dad has been dead since '50, and he's been dead longer than he was alive on his earth. But he would always tell my mom if they came by and asked for some kind of a donation, each other pay her money. There were times when people used to take the pastor from every month. This month you have—Well when my mom's time came, came he didn't lie. He'd always tell her, "Take an extra five or $10 and give it to him and tell him go buy him some food." He didn't like that. He just didn't like that, he said because he had experienced it when he was growing up. He said the people come and eat up all the food from people, children, and he didn't like that. So he would never let her accommodate the pastor. She'd have to give him when her time came the money. That's what he did. | 24:12 |
| Doris Dixon | [indistinct 00:25:14] | 25:11 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Oh yeah, we went. We went on a regular basis. We had Sunday school. At that time they don't do that now, the regular church service, Sunday school weekly. I think it was the first Sunday was our pastor day. Then I think one time it started first and third. Then at night we would have night service. They don't do that any—We even had BTU back then. They don't do that now. But yeah, I went to church all the time, sure did. I even served as church secretary, I don't know how many years, Sunday school secretary. Then a couple of times, maybe more, delegate for the conferences and the conventions that they would have during this summer. | 25:16 |
| Doris Dixon | You mentioned Pastorial Sunday. Was that a preaching day? | 26:23 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yeah. | 26:27 |
| Doris Dixon | How was the services different in those days than they are today? Are there any many differences between going to church then and going to church now? | 26:28 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I don't know if I can answer that truthfully, because in 1959 I left the Baptist church and joined the Catholic church. I've been Catholic ever since then. I only go every so often, but I do go. Can I ask you something? Of course I told you my father died in 1950. All this mostly happened, this happened before he died. There was a planter in Itta Bena who he drove real fast. He had a real nasty attitude. My father, I don't know where he was coming from, maybe Sunflower on the gravel road, but anyway he passed this White man. This White man was furious because the Black man passed him. | 26:42 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He went to my father's boss and told him he was going kill that nigger if he ever passed me again. He said, "What?" "Yeah, he passed me. He too smart for his britches. He think he's White." Then the man came and confronted my daddy with it and told him about it. He said, "Yeah, I pass him, but I ain't doing nothing but just pass him like you pass him." He said, "Well Fred, that's my father. Don't pass him no more, just to keep down trouble." My father actually cry. He was so upset to have to swallow his pride and it don't matter if he see that man and he was in a hurry, he could not pass him. That hurt him a lot. | 27:55 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But a lot of things like that happened went on. My grandmother, God rest her soul, she was sweet too and she believed in saying what she was thinking. You did not have to guess about where she was coming from or whatever she's about to say, because she made it very clear. She had to go to town for something. In those days Black women, all of them didn't have cars. Of course my grandmother never learned how to drive. She was going to go to town. I asked her if I could go and she said yes. We took off, going to town, which wasn't very far. She said that when we got to town, there was a man, he had a mechanic standing out in front of his shop. We knew him real well and he knew us. | 28:37 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But for some reason he said, "Morning Annie." No, "Hi to grandma," that's what he said. She said, "Hi to grandpa," and he got mad, because she called him grandpa and you could see his colors changing. My grandma said, "You don't have any Black children that I know about." She said, "But I figure if I can be your grandma, you ought to could be my grandpa," and she never [indistinct 00:29:58], just the way she felt. He later told my mama that, "Your mama is crazy." He didn't appreciate her saying that. He thought that was being smart. Well when you said what you was thinking, White people always referred to you as a smart nigger. You would never— | 29:31 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you ever feel like you were treated like a second class citizen? | 30:23 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Oh yes, yes. Especially when we would go and pick up mail. They were not very kind to us. The man was better than the lady. Now I say this, but I guess it really doesn't matter because it's really true. I don't know if he can bring home to me or my, but everybody know who the postmaster and his wife was. They want to run the post office for years, and she was very nasty. If you go in there and at that time we got our mail general delivery, if a White person came in, even after you were there, you had to wait until she wait on them. They actually did that. When you finally get a chance to get serious when she do your mail like that, it'd come on off on the floor in front of you. She'd throw it out. I experienced that a lot. I'm trying to think of something else that might have happened and maybe of some use to you. | 30:26 |
| Doris Dixon | When was the first time you voted? | 31:38 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | When did I vote? I think, if I can recall, that I paid a poll tax one time before they stopped us from having to pay the poll tax and then vote. But even then we went, but they stared at you so. It just made you a little bit nervous, but yeah, I can't recall what year that was. I guess I should know that. I should be trying to find that out, but I have been an active voter ever since I started, that much I can say. But I don't think my grandmother ever voted. I don't even know how many times if my mama voted before she left, before she left. She doesn't live here anymore. | 31:41 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Let me see. Oh yes, I ain't found myself going back. When I was a little girl, they had the curtains and the buses and things like that where the Black people rode in the back, and the White people sat up to the front. If you get 20 White people to ride. That mean there was less room for the Blacks, because the more they got on, the more he put the curtains back. We would often go from Itta Bena to here, to Greenwood, for my mom and them to do their little shopping. This particular morning, my mom and her girlfriend and me and my brother and her mother-in-law was together. My mother's friend was named Ruth. Her husband's name was Larry, and he was mulatto. | 32:44 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | He was very White. You couldn't tell him from not being White, so was his mother. But he was in the army and she and her mother-in-law was together. She really did look White, very White. She had her hair pinned back with the plastic—They called going to put your pin back then and a ball on the back of her head. She looked very much like Ms. Anne as we call them. The bus driver told my mom's girlfriend, "Get up. Don't you know you ain't got no business sitting beside that White lady?" Everybody turned around to look. So Ms. Ruth went to get up, and her mother-in-law caught her. "Sit down Ruth of May." She said, "Let me tell you one thing, I'm Black. I wouldn't look like it if y'all didn't tip around and do things in the neighborhood and pretend that you don't like." | 33:36 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | She said, "That's why I look like I look." She said, "But I'm a Black woman, and this is my daughter-in-law and she going to sit with me." He looked so pitiful. He got quiet. He got red. He got blue. He just changed colors. Every one of the little ladies sit down, just as quiet and wasn't moving. So he embarrassed himself. There was nothing else said from there all the way to Greenwood. Everybody was so quiet you could hear a pin fall, but that's what happened. He told her that she know better than sit beside that White lady. "Don't you know better?" But that's the way they treated us. | 34:28 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | They always made you feel inferior. Had that problem. Let me see what else can I think of that happened to us? When they finally moved the curtain, my grandfather sent me a ticket to go to Chicago, and I went. At that time we went 51, and went on through parts of hillbilly Tennessee and into Kentucky, then crossing the old Ohio River into Illinois. They sat there on the benches, chewing their tobacco and smoking their pipes. It just had you scared. "That woman sitting right there," they would say, "I see one way up yonder." Them people in Tennessee and Kentucky were really interested in seeing whether or not we were going sit all the way up to front in that bus or not. They did that. | 35:11 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | That was like '52, '53 back that far. My grandfather decided to bring me home one of the years, because I did that up until I started, even after started the valley, go and spend the summer and do my little school shopping, and come back. We came to a little diner in Cairo, Illinois. They never said a word to us, but they wouldn't wait on us. We sat there and we sat there till you'd have to stick in your crawl. You realize there come somebody else in, and there's another person, and they get waited on it and they still don't come to you. Finally my grandpa said, "Let's go Stine," and then we stopped at a store and got some cold cuts, and we ate and traveled on, but they wouldn't wait on us. | 36:22 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | That was in Illinois. That wasn't in Mississippi. But we had water fountains that said Colored, and one that said White and all those kind of things when we were growing up. The library, we could not use. If it was something that our teacher really wanted us to get an assignment out about, she would have to go up there and borrow books and bring them back, and then take them back for us to get whatever we needed to get out of the book. We could not go in the library. It was just for the White children or the White people [. | 37:20 |
| Doris Dixon | Now were you an avid reader at the time? Were you interested in— | 38:11 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | No, I read funny books and novel like that. Nothing more at that time, except the ones that my mom bought for us. She would buy us books. We had books with biblical stories in it, and then a few others. We had all the little golden books back then, but that's as far as it went until I started got in high school, I guess, eighth grade. Then she would go and get us books to read. Then of course when we went to Valley, I kind of picked it up. Me and one other lady were pioneer workers for the library period, because see, I worked downtown. That was 1975. They didn't really want us to wait on them. [indistinct 00:39:13] now I think. I don't work over there, because [indistinct 00:39:16] problem, because if one comes in here, he understands that I have to wait on him. But when I worked downtown, they try to find everything in the world to stall or to do until one of the other White ladies come to be waited on. Just didn't want you to wait on them. | 38:17 |
| Doris Dixon | You told me before [indistinct 00:39:40] | 39:37 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Yes. The principal's name was Mr. Brazil. In 1950 I think, Mr. Milton Ford took over and his wife was the Home EC teacher in 1950, in 51, school year '50, '51. We had two principals. Go ahead. | 39:43 |
| Doris Dixon | [indistinct 00:40:15]. | 40:12 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Well, when Mr. Brazil was living, he also did things like he taught young people how to plant and to grow and to raise vegetables, he did. He was the ag teacher. Of course, I understand from my mama that he really helped the community a lot, because a lot of people didn't have—We didn't have a lot of land, and he would take so many acres of whatever he had, owned, or had access to and raised community gardens where everybody could come and get stuff. His wife, she taught us how to [indistinct 00:41:04]. | 40:15 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My mother was also a student before she married. I used to often hear her say, "You need to know these things, because you get up and you're grown, and you call yourself grown, and you're married, and then you don't even know how to fix your husband a meal." So she often tried to teach us how to cook. I had one girl, she was very funny, they got somehow another got [indistinct 00:41:33] and burned their biscuits up on [indistinct 00:41:35]. We were scared of her. She made us give her some our biscuit so that they could get a good grade, and it did. | 41:04 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But whenever she got mad with them, she'd call all of us who she taught our parents, her grandchildren. She'd say, "I don't have that kind of trouble with my grandkids. Y'all too grown. You better stay from up there on the streets on Saturday night, because if you don't do that you won't know how to do it. See my grandchildren? They did this just like I told them." Then after that my girlfriend, she'd tell us she going to beat us, and if we tell her she was going to beat us, so we'd have to give her whatever turned out right if theirs turned out wrong, to share it. We did. | 41:42 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you all like or dislike about [indistinct 00:42:26]? | 42:23 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | I don't know. I can't think of anything I disliked. I enjoyed school. I really did. I was kind of popular. Like I said, my daddy had this work for the vendor machines, seabird and things. He would often get records. We had a record player. We didn't have television then. I think we got a television in well the early 50s, but at first we had no television. I saw something the other day, I cannot imagine what it was like, but it was nice. Like I said, we read funny books. We sat down. We told jokes. It was much, much cleaner fun than it is today. We'd have socials, and we'd dance, and I was a very good dancer. I can't recall anything that I just hated about school, because I was always excited to go back. Maybe because my mom would buy me so many little things, I guess, I don't know, but I cannot think of anything I disliked about school. | 42:32 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your teachers play favorites or choose favorite? | 43:54 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | My teachers didn't. Well maybe they did, I don't know, but I was never shown any real hostile or funny kind of feelings that I could say. They never did me that way. No, I don't recall that. | 43:59 |
| Doris Dixon | What about differences of color? | 44:25 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | Well, that affected me. I had a complex problem about the difference in skin color because now your academic scores and things that people look at to choose who should be running for this or doing that. But back then, they chose the girls with the long hair and the light complexion. We had one girl in our school who was very light. Every year, was more than one, but they would try to make the mayday queen and stuff like that. Those girls would be considered by far. Even so, when I got to going to Valley, the school was very small, freshmens did outnumber all the other three upperclassmens at that time. | 44:30 |
| Alma McKinney Ward | But they would have study period or whatever and ask put signs up and on bulletin boards for people who wanted to try out for the band to become a majorette. They wanted all the girls who danced pretty well to try for being a majorette. Of course that made me fall in that category. The girls from up in the hills, and Carthage Mississippi, and places, all those girls from the hills looked like they were all high yellow. I got out, because I was about the only Black one in there. I was the darkest one that I can remember. I had this complex problem. I remember that my [indistinct 00:46:14] | 45:26 |
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