Marian Judkins interview recording, 1994 July 20

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Stacey Scales	—have you lived in the Tuskegee area of Macon County?	0:01
Marian O'Neal Judkins	46 years.	0:03
Stacey Scales	46 years. What brought you here? Or were you—	0:05
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Having finished school here and my husband, having finished Tuskegee Institute, my husband had employment here. We decided that we liked the town and that we would like to stay here.	0:12
Stacey Scales	Okay. Where are you all moving from?	0:29
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, that's kind of biggest—We had lived here, before he went into the service, before we went into the Army, out to Colorado, so we came back and that he was going to veterinary school at that time.	0:29
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes. And were you in school as well?	0:46
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, I was working.	0:50
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay. And where were you raised?	0:51
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I was born in Atlanta and stayed there until 1933. I moved to Jacksonville, Florida, which was my last two years, junior and senior high school, was spent in Stanton High in Jacksonville, Florida.	0:56
Stacey Scales	Okay. And then, after that, which?	1:10
Marian O'Neal Judkins	After that, I came to Tuskegee in 1937.	1:12
Stacey Scales	Could you describe how the town was when you came?	1:17
Marian O'Neal Judkins	It was small and, back then, your whole setup was so different, in that, if you were on campus, you had to have blue slips in order to go across the street to the drug store.	1:23
Stacey Scales	Really?	1:36
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. You had to sign in and sign out and you didn't have too much dealings in the community as such at that time. You had things provided for your own campus, your dining hall, your regular work areas and whatnot. But the town was a small town.	1:37
Stacey Scales	Did you do any traveling while you were here at school?	1:59
Marian O'Neal Judkins	To the dining hall, to the science building. Really, that was basically what we did. We attended the football games. We were permitted to go to football games in Montgomery.	2:03
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	2:15
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We played 'Bama State. Turkey Day was traditional, so we were able to go. Two years, we went on the train. The last year we went by bus. That was about the extent of visitations anywhere other than White Hall Douglas or some of the dorms. That was about the extent of it.	2:16
Stacey Scales	Right. What was the relationship between the community and the people at the institute?	2:34
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Do you mean when I was on campus?	2:42
Stacey Scales	Yes, ma'am.	2:43
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You just practically knew nothing about the outside community, particularly the Whites as such. You didn't know anything.	2:45
Stacey Scales	More so the neighborhood around—	2:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	It was Black.	2:54
Stacey Scales	Right.	2:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes.	2:57
Stacey Scales	Was there a lot of interaction between students and-	2:58
Marian O'Neal Judkins	The campus and the—Oh, yes. There was a good deal. We had a good deal of—They would have you out to dinner and whatnot. Very cordial. You had a very good relationship between the students and the community of people.	3:00
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah? Who was president? That was Mark—	3:18
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I don't know. I came in the second year that Dr. Patterson, who had been a veterinarian on campus, was inaugurated as president. I came in his second year. I came here in 1937 and he had come in 1936.	3:24
Stacey Scales	Had there ever been-	3:40
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, it was 1935 that he came. That's right, because I did a year in Jacksonville. He came in as president in 1935. I spent one year in Jacksonville at Edward Waters College, a small two-year school in Jacksonville.	3:40
Stacey Scales	Had there ever been any lynchings around the area during that time? Any talk of that?	3:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Not in Tuskegee, per se. The climate was different but, in certain other places, you did know that they did occur. Other than things like politics, basically we didn't have too much a problem in that we had the VA hospital, which was one of the largest ones, and it was basically staffed with Blacks as such. Therefore, I don't think you had too much a problem because we had movies that were shown on campus.	4:00
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes.	4:34
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Those are things that—	4:34
Stacey Scales	The campus was pretty much independent—	4:36
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes.	4:41
Stacey Scales	Of other areas.	4:41
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I would think so.	4:42
Stacey Scales	Okay. How about if you wanted to shop, where would you go in the area?	4:46
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You could go downtown and you could shop downtown.	4:51
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	4:53
Marian O'Neal Judkins	At the stores that they had.	4:54
Stacey Scales	Those stores weren't segregated	4:56
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Now, you mean whether or not they had Black clerks?	5:00
Stacey Scales	You could shop at the same stores as the White folks could?	5:05
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes.	5:08
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	5:09
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes.	5:09
Stacey Scales	Was there a Black business district where they had a section maybe that Black folks owned their own businesses?	5:13
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We had a number of Black businesses. Shoe shops and things of that. That's one thing that Tuskegee is noticed for because Booker Washington believed in your head being developed as well as your hands.	5:23
Stacey Scales	Right. Had you heard of the incident with the syphilis study?	5:33
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes, I had known about it because, when I lived in Atlanta, we had friends and neighbors who were involved with it. We didn't know about it.	5:44
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes?	5:55
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We didn't know about it.	5:57
Stacey Scales	Did you know about it at the time, were there a lot of people that you knew that ended up getting involved in that?	5:57
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, because the whole thing was secretive until about, I would say, 10 years ago. The syphilis thing was more or less secretive. We knew about it and, until we had the case wherein the few veterans who were living who had been used as guinea pigs, went to court and lawyer Gray represented them and, therefore, they were awarded some money as compensation.	6:04
Stacey Scales	Did a lot of people react harshly to finding out about that in the community?	6:33
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. There was more a feeling of let down, which is a natural thing wherein you're using humans as your specimens.	6:40
Stacey Scales	Do you remember the Freedom Train? I've heard about it but not in great detail.	6:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We saw a lot of it on the television and then we had SNCC people who came here. If you wanted to mention anything about civil rights, Tuskegee was with it, as you young people sometimes have said, so therefore, we knew about SNCC and all of those things. Yes.	7:02
Stacey Scales	There was a student on campus, I think Sammy Young. Do you remember that?	7:22
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, Sammy Young was born the day after our daughter Brenda was born. That was the 12th of November. 1943. Same hospital. Yes, and we lived next door to him. Sure, I knew Sammy Young.	7:26
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	7:38
Marian O'Neal Judkins	And there were others, too, who were really involved with the matter of integration here in Tuskegee. There are a number who didn't perhaps end up getting killed but were very much involved.	7:39
Stacey Scales	Do you remember the first time that you voted in Tuskegee?	7:55
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Quite vividly. I can't tell you the year but, this sounds terrible say, but this is true, because my husband was involved with the suit that they have and, when I was working at the high school, we would go down and try to register during your free period, usually you have a free period and, of course, they never were able to register you and it was just time, more or less, lost. Whereas, in Georgia, when I worked as an instructor at Tallmadge's home, which was Mac Gray, we had registered all of the young men who went into the service. Therefore, it's a letdown that you, as a college graduate and a citizen of a particular area, can't vote.	7:59
Stacey Scales	I was told that there was some that were allowed to vote.	8:46
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Very few. It's negligible.	8:50
Stacey Scales	Why were they allowed to vote and not others?	8:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	The whole thing, it's just like this, if you have 100 and you decide I'm going to take five, it was that. To say that we are, in some way, registering some niggers because that was a common term that was used.	8:56
Stacey Scales	Were there any people around that were involved in educating people about the process, so you can have—	9:13
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We had the organization that, its main roads, that I said, Tuskegee Civic Association was seeing that people were intelligent, didn't know something about government and whatnot. It wasn't where you had a bunch of illiterates because those who were able to read were well schooled and could have answered any questions. And then they had questions that were very foolish when you applied. My husband was mentioning yesterday wherein they asked, how long will you be in Tuskegee? And what did you answer, Judkins?	9:17
Robert Lavender Judkins	I live here.	9:59
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I live here. He's been here since he's 15. Therefore, the fact that you live here and that was a thing that disqualified him. It was things like that. And then they would move the board. You didn't know where it was. And we had one young man who was very fat, who was welcoming, that they thought he was Caucasian and he found out where the board was and carried some other people of color with him. And that was the kind of thing, it was the whole thing wherein it was designed to discriminate.	10:00
Stacey Scales	They discriminated against the people by the gerrymandering, right?	10:35
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. And that was the thing that Dr. Gomillion challenged and did win. And that you would have Whites and Blacks living next door to each other and the White would be registered and the Black wouldn't. And the gerrymandering and comes from Gerry, who was up in there, I think it was Massachusetts, drew that thing that looked like a salamander, so they said gerrymandering.	10:41
Stacey Scales	Right.	11:04
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Those things.	11:04
Stacey Scales	Okay. How did people respond to that? What were some of the ways people responded to-	11:08
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We had a boycott. We wouldn't shop in town, other than with the Black businesses. We went to Auburn, Montgomery, Opelika, and it was a very successful boycott.	11:12
Stacey Scales	How long did it last?	11:23
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I would say about six months.	11:26
Stacey Scales	And do you remember some of the businesses that you patronized in Tuskegee? Some of the names?	11:28
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You mean the Black businesses as such?	11:34
Stacey Scales	Yes.	11:35
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. We had Miller, who had a grocery store, and we had Carter's Grocery Store. And—Judkins, help me remember some of these stores. I've named Miller's, Carter's. During the boycott.	11:36
Stacey Scales	Some of the Black stores.	11:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Booth's store. Booth's store.	11:55
Stacey Scales	That people patronized during the boycott.	11:57
Robert Lavender Judkins	Carter's.	11:57
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Carter's. Miller's. Booth's.	12:00
Robert Lavender Judkins	Brown.	12:03
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. And we also had Howard's Store. And these were good businesses. They weren't the kind where you had to get the cat off the cheese and then sell it.	12:06
Robert Lavender Judkins	Did you mention [indistinct 00:12:22]?	12:20
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, I didn't mention [indistinct 00:12:23]. That was a woman. She had one downtown. Right downtown.	12:22
Stacey Scales	I heard Otis Pinkard had a store in the city, was—	12:27
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I don't know anything about that. Judkins knew Otis from the time he was—	12:30
Robert Lavender Judkins	My brother, I'm thinking recent years. Back in that time she's talking about, Otis was a youngster.	12:36
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah?	12:41
Robert Lavender Judkins	Yeah. Otis Pinkard now—	12:45
Marian O'Neal Judkins	He was along with Judkins.	12:45
Robert Lavender Judkins	He had a store, he did farm store and all that out in the country. Otis isn't quite as old as I am, I believe. In other words, we chatting about things that happened when we were youngsters. Otis was in school right along—He wasn't in business then.	12:45
Marian O'Neal Judkins	And since we are not talking anything now, we just talking 101. You're not recording?	13:06
Robert Lavender Judkins	Yeah, I think—	13:13
Stacey Scales	Yes. I'm recording.	13:14
Robert Lavender Judkins	At least you're recording.	13:14
Marian O'Neal Judkins	That's all. It's okay if you're still recording. This is—Okay. Go ahead.	13:17
Robert Lavender Judkins	It's something I think she's trying to tell you.	13:20
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I did.	13:21
Stacey Scales	Okay. I can turn it off.	13:21
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Turn off.	13:21
Stacey Scales	Right. There was the boycott for six months and—	13:31
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Or more. It was very successful. Very successful. We shopped out of town. We had a slogan: shop with your neighbors.	13:33
Stacey Scales	How did the word get around?	13:43
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We had meetings in the church. We were organized. Tuskegee has always been pretty much solid.	13:45
Stacey Scales	Were there ever any other organizations other than the Tuskegee Civic Association that played an active role?	13:53
Marian O'Neal Judkins	The churches were the mainstay because most of our meetings were in the churches and strategy, plotting what you were going to do, the churches served as models. Otherwise, I don't know where we would've gone if we had not had the ministers and whatnot.	14:01
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay. Were there any classes on campus that taught the voting process or was that something learned at the meetings that-	14:19
Marian O'Neal Judkins	They set up—What shall we call it? Something like a seminar, wherein people would come and you had people who would volunteer to help them be able to answer questions that would possibly be asked because we are very well-prepared. It was voluntary. We had a lot of people who did this just voluntarily.	14:33
Stacey Scales	Were you living in Tuskegee during the time of the depression? Or that was before?	15:00
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Some of the depression I knew when I was in Atlanta, because, the thirties, those were the years where you had depression. See, I was born in 1917. By the time you get to the thirties, you're pretty good size woman, tell I said young woman as such. And then I moved to Jacksonville in 1933 and, when you're 16 years of age and you go to another place wherein they have no industry, you had all of the food share stuff that you have now, they would issue grocery orders and you had a number of people who were clerical workers wherein they would go out and canvas and take the information that was necessary; person's age, number of people in the family and whatnot, and what was the need, because some were not able to get employment. I saw it from that angle before I came here. That was really in the depression. Because, see, I didn't come here until '37. I went there at 33. I did see it.	15:06
Stacey Scales	Where was your family during that time?	16:13
Marian O'Neal Judkins	My family?	16:15
Stacey Scales	They were in Atlanta, too?	16:16
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, no. We moved. My parents separated, we moved from Atlanta to Jacksonville, Florida.	16:17
Stacey Scales	Oh. How did you survive?	16:29
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You see, one thing about it, we worked. My mother worked and we did have a little—	16:29
Stacey Scales	You didn't really feel the pressure that—	16:33
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Everybody, I think, really felt it because you have cousins or you have schoolmates and they don't have any—If you have any sense of being a human being, you will feel it. And people were very generous with each other. They share.	16:36
Stacey Scales	Oh, that's—When there was a crisis, people shared in the community?	16:51
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. Yes. And, see, they would have what they called—My sister, the older sister, she was out on Marsh Brown having done a year of work. Therefore, she got employment as a case worker and they would go out and interview people and then they would have things like grocery orders wherein they could get certain things. And most of the things had "not to be sold" stamped on them. If it was cheese, if was milk, if it was flour, it had "not to be sold." That was one of the things. And the merchants would get something for permitting the government to stock the things in their store.	16:56
Stacey Scales	When they had not to be sold, was that reject material?	17:36
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, no. It was good things but it was the government stuff and, therefore, they didn't want the merchants or anyone else to get it and sell it and, see, by it being stamped on there not to be sold, everybody knew that this was the government—What shall I call it? It was—What would you call it? A governmental what?	17:40
Stacey Scales	Like welfare or something like that?	17:59
Marian O'Neal Judkins	It was a type of welfare. And see they would give it to people. Grocery orders would be written up and it would be so much, according to the size of the family and the age of the family. And, say, someone having children, they would need more milk than some older people. Maybe there's an old couple or whatnot. And, see, everybody didn't go on welfare. The people who had jobs were not out to try to say I want to get something from the government.	18:01
Stacey Scales	Could you describe how family gatherings were coming up?	18:29
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We always had picnics and things of that sort and then you had plays that were at the school and whatnot. You really had a better plan program than we have now. Because, most of the time, it's spent at the TV, where people were very neighborly and you used to have a chance for kids to play tennis in the neighborhood because different people, and then at schools they would have those things. Checkers and what have you.	18:37
Stacey Scales	Right. How would you say times are different between then and now? How are times different?	19:04
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Now, do you mean specifically as to age groups or just in general? How are times—	19:15
Stacey Scales	Just in general. Living.	19:22
Marian O'Neal Judkins	There's a lot of distrust among people and you can see why, and that you do have the murders and the robberies and such. Therefore, those are things that are different. There was a time you didn't have to worry about locking your doors or such. No one would go in. If they did go in and get something, to tell you I have it. You didn't have a gangs like you have now.	19:29
Stacey Scales	Did you ever travel north coming up?	19:55
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes.	19:58
Stacey Scales	How would you compare the north and the south?	20:00
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Frankly, I didn't stay there long enough to see but the whole thing, part that we saw, from Maine to Spain, you found that Black people were about the same. If you had laborers here, you had laborers there and if you had the alleys or the slums, we had them in the south, you had them to the north.	20:05
Stacey Scales	Okay, you really didn't notice much of difference?	20:25
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Very little difference. Some of it was hidden. That's what happened in certain northern areas. It was hidden.	20:34
Stacey Scales	How about in education? Did you find racism there or discrimination there when you went to other universities?	20:37
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, no. That's in modern time. We weren't faced with any. We went to Colorado State. We weren't faced with any discrimination. Colorado State. And then we went—In fact, people more or less welcomed us. I'm saying because we were in the far west here. Colorado State, Fort Collins and whatnot.	20:50
Stacey Scales	You didn't find that in classroom?	21:16
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, we found it and, see, we carried our kids with us when we went out to university. That was in 40 what, Judkins? When we went to Colorado?	21:21
Robert Lavender Judkins	[indistinct 00:21:39].	21:32
Marian O'Neal Judkins	It would've had to been because 40 just—	21:39
Stacey Scales	You drove from here to Colorado?	21:41
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, no. We went by train. Had a reservation, was sleeping out of Montgomery. We could get there and we went all the way to Fort Collins.	21:44
Stacey Scales	It was the secondary train?	21:54
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, yes. The trains were segregated. We'd have coaches near us, if it were being fueled by coal, you'd be near that?	21:57
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes? Is that a lot different from the other sections?	22:09
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Was Colorado?	22:14
Stacey Scales	No, the section of the train's a lot different from where the White folks were sitting?	22:15
Marian O'Neal Judkins	It wasn't any different other than location, which meant that it was near where people were stoking coal.	22:20
Stacey Scales	Oh.	22:27
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You might get a few cinders more than White people did.	22:27
Stacey Scales	Did you get all dirty up from that?	22:29
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Negligible.	22:34
Stacey Scales	Did you ever drive that distance?	22:44
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No. No. We the non-drivers.	22:46
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes? You didn't have a car?	22:53
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Didn't want one. He doesn't like to drive. But our son, we've got one for our son, our daughters.	22:54
Stacey Scales	Did you live in this neighborhood when you were in Tuskegee? Before?	23:03
Marian O'Neal Judkins	This side of town. But we lived over near—Have you seen the middle school? Used to be called Tuskegee Institute. When we came back to go to school, he was a GI, they had a veteran's project over there, so we spent about 10 years over there and then we moved out here.	23:08
Stacey Scales	Did most people own their homes or did they rent them?	23:30
Marian O'Neal Judkins	In Tuskegee?	23:33
Stacey Scales	Yeah.	23:34
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Most people were homeowners, even if it were a small place. That was one of the things that Booker Washington preached.	23:34
Stacey Scales	Homeowners.	23:44
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Homeownership.	23:44
Stacey Scales	Did you ever have any interaction with Carver? I think your husband mentioned—	23:46
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, yes. I knew him. I was in a Carver Chemical Society. Yes, we knew Dr. Carver and he stayed in the same building with Judkins, Rockefeller Hall. And then, when I was taking home economics, so I was in education, but we had to take a course in sewing, one in—They called it the house where we were designing things. One in cooking. At that time, Dr. Carver was living in Dorothy Hall and, therefore, there were things that we cooked which Dr. Carver ate.	23:50
Stacey Scales	Oh, yeah? Could you share with me any of the memories you had with her?	24:18
Marian O'Neal Judkins	To be perfectly frank, we were interested in getting on with experimentation and he would have us reading abstracts on different things and we figured it was a waste of our time that he knew as much as he did and that we should get on it and do some experiment. Now, I'm being perfectly truthful.	24:30
Stacey Scales	And he had you doing the technical part of the—	24:50
Marian O'Neal Judkins	A lot. This was a Carver Chemical Society. He did have us reading a number of abstracts wherein, say you were trying to find out something about a resin in something, he would tell you to go to the library and look at that. But he was a decent sort of person. I wish you could've had a chance to know him.	24:50
Stacey Scales	He had a lot of offers from the outside. Why do you think he didn't take those?	25:09
Marian O'Neal Judkins	He was not materialistic. He had checks that were there and whatnot. And he had a suit that began to turn green because when the A's—If it's a dark suit, they will get green-like and all. But he always had a flower. He always put a flower on. He was not really interested in material things.	25:16
Stacey Scales	Do you think that was wrong or did he ever get abused by that? Because, looking at the museum, you can see where he created a whole lot of products.	25:41
Marian O'Neal Judkins	And you haven't seen the half of it. They had a fire down there and there are far more things. He could knit, crochet and all those things. And some of the things you still see over there. When I came here in 37, he had some means of preserving those turnips and things. He was a very talented person. And then, what some people don't know is that he was an artist. He could draw things. Oil paint. Very talented and somewhat shy.	25:55
Stacey Scales	Oh, yes? Did he have a relationship with the community or was he very reserved to himself?	26:28
Marian O'Neal Judkins	On campus, he lived in one of the dormitories, Rockefeller, where the boys lived, he was there and I think they had Sunday school or something of the kind, didn't he? Sunday school, Dr. Carver. He would have Sunday school, wouldn't he?	26:44
Robert Lavender Judkins	I recall his having Sunday school but, now, in the dorm there he would talk with us and that sort of thing.	27:04
Stacey Scales	Sunday school for the boys?	27:12
Marian O'Neal Judkins	No, he said he didn't remember it but—	27:20
Stacey Scales	Oh, okay.	27:22
Marian O'Neal Judkins	But they did—Now, Dr. Gomillion that you hear about, he taught Sunday school. That's how I met Dr. Gomillion. I came here on a Thursday, met him on a Sunday. He taught sophomores. Very interesting person. I hope you'll have a chance to meet him.	27:22
Stacey Scales	He taught Sunday—Did he teach anything else on the campus?	27:44
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Dr. Gomillion?	27:44
Stacey Scales	Yes, ma'am.	27:45
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, yes. All the sociology. Dr. Gomillion was an excellent teacher.	27:47
Stacey Scales	That's interesting. You remember the case and that whole thing?	27:56
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. And we honored him back here. It was September—Was it September that we had that honoring of Dr. Gomillion in September?	28:01
Robert Lavender Judkins	I believe it was.	28:13
Marian O'Neal Judkins	In September? Wherein we honored him and he mentioned some of the things that happened during the time. Once he said, when he first came here, he wanted to buy some shoes, so he went downtown to buy some and the clerk did not answer him as he thought he should, so he told him to keep his D shoes and walked out.	28:14
Stacey Scales	Really?	28:38
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes, he's a very strong-willed person. A nice person. He has a grandson and some great-grandchildren who still are here.	28:39
Stacey Scales	When that case took place, did the administration of the school have a role or were they involved in the—	28:50
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Not directly. It was really more the civic association. We had a very strong civic association.	28:58
Stacey Scales	Okay. Okay. That's pretty much all the questions. I don't want to take up your whole evening. Did you have anything you wanted to add?	29:08
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I'm trying to think of something that might be interesting. We had a number of things that were [indistinct 00:29:27]. Our girl scout leader.	29:17
Stacey Scales	Yes.	29:31
Marian O'Neal Judkins	That studied in France. And she was an avid swimmer. Taught French and Spanish. And was really a—It's how I'd say a born leader. If you had someone like that.	29:32
Stacey Scales	Yes.	29:49
Marian O'Neal Judkins	We did have very good scouting. In fact, you can't imagine a little Black school like this sending representatives to the councilors out from Washington DC. But we sent them and we also sent them when they had the roundup. Every so many years, they was having the roundups in different cities. We had a very active boy and girl scouts because, when Jefferson was here as a board, we had very active boy scouts. In fact, the leaders were even paid by the council as such.	29:49
Stacey Scales	Do you remember any stories that were coming down through your family about slavery or discrimination?	30:32
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Very much so because, you see, my mama's grandmother was stolen from Alabama and sold in Griffin, Georgia and she was literally 100 years of age. She lived until 1912 and she told them how it was and how they said, "Yeah, the little nigger gal, she would bring you so many children." And they did it just as if you were an animal. Yes, I remember.	30:39
Stacey Scales	Did they ever talk about spirits and things like that?	31:12
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Did—	31:18
Stacey Scales	The older folks.	31:19
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Some did.	31:21
Stacey Scales	Yes.	31:21
Marian O'Neal Judkins	And others didn't. Some did. There were a number who did believe that you had haints as they called them.	31:22
Stacey Scales	Yes. Was that something taken serious or just—	31:28
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Some people did. You still have people now who believe in those things? See, so many things are environmental. And, see, when I was a child in Atlanta, we lived on the south side. At that time you had Gamlin, which is now the international religious school that's on the west side. We had Clark University, which was out on the south side. See, my first year was spent under practice teachers because this is what they were turning out. And we had an intelligent community there on the south side. That was a road, [indistinct 00:32:13] road, went on out to the federal prison and you had the blue collar workers who were Whites across and then the Black people who were, tell I say, lots of homeowners are working people living on the other side, so you didn't have a lot of problems that you do have. It was as if you didn't know people.	31:32
Stacey Scales	Were there any places that you wouldn't go there?	32:34
Marian O'Neal Judkins	In Atlanta?	32:35
Stacey Scales	Yes.	32:35
Marian O'Neal Judkins	I can't think of any because the whole thing is Atlanta was a city that was growing, in that you would have the Capitol Theater open, brand new theater. The buzzard roost as we used to refer to, that was the upstairs, that was reserved, Negroes could go and, certainly, we had the 81 Theater, which was owned and Negroes, as we used to call with them, were there. Have you ever heard of Canadian Sunset? The music? Canadian Sunset?	32:40
Stacey Scales	I heard of Caribbean Sunset.	33:13
Marian O'Neal Judkins	But, any rate, Eddie Heywood wrote that. And he was an Atlanta boy I've seen sitting right by the piano. And his daddy was a worker down at the 81 Theater and also was a musician. We had a lot of that because, see, we had Atlanta University, we had all those schools there, and then there was outreach in the community.	33:17
Stacey Scales	Did you ever go to Auburn Avenue for entertainment?	33:39
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Oh, yes. Auburn Avenue. People go to Auburn Avenue.	33:41
Stacey Scales	How was Auburn Avenue? Was it very popular?	33:49
Marian O'Neal Judkins	Yes. My mama went to Morris Brown when she was a girl and she lived over there. That's what we called a fourth ward. She lived over there. And we always had a number of things at Big Bethel, that was an AME church, and we would have a number of church activities. And, during the time I was at Booker Washington, we had the glee club and we had arranged wherein different schools throughout the state would come and compete in different categories and then he'd have recital. The last night. We had a number of culture things there.	33:53
Stacey Scales	Okay. I'd like to thank you for your time.	34:25
Marian O'Neal Judkins	You're mighty welcome. And we'll finish this material for you, too.	34:36

Item Info

Title:

Marian Judkins interview recording, 1994 July 20

Date:

July 20, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Marian O'Neal Judkins; Date of Birth: 1916-07-05; Place of Birth: Atlanta, GA; Occupation: educator; teacher; botanist; Residence: Tuskegee, AL
Informant ID: 668; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

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Location:

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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

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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.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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RL00170-CS-1592
34ce6023-0ea8-475e-9612-d45568836358
behindtheveil
de87313f-5b7d-449f-a350-452fdcdea40c
ark:/87924/r4kk9gn3c
de87313f-5b7d-449f-a350-452fdcdea40c

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Marian Judkins interview recording, 1994 July 20

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1. Marian Judkins administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Marian Judkins interview recording, 1994 July 20

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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