Georgie Johnson interview recording, 1997 October 13
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| Keisha Roberts | Okay. Okay. There are just a couple questions I want to ask you really quickly so that I can fill out my paperwork. | 0:01 |
| Georgie Johnson | Okay. | 0:07 |
| Keisha Roberts | Could you tell me what your full name is? | 0:08 |
| Georgie Johnson | Georgie Johnson. | 0:10 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. And what's your maiden name? | 0:13 |
| Georgie Johnson | Beasley. | 0:15 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. What's your home address? | 0:16 |
| Georgie Johnson | 1528 Valley Road, Rougemont. | 0:20 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. What's your phone number? | 0:22 |
| Georgie Johnson | 477-4463. | 0:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. When's your birthday? | 0:32 |
| Georgie Johnson | August 17th. I was born August 17th, 1913. And add it up from there, I'm 84. | 0:34 |
| Keisha Roberts | And where were you born? | 0:42 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, in Pearson County some—no, I was born in Durham County, I was born over here on what they call the Old Mill Road now, going out towards Quail Roost. No, let's see. No, I believe Ms. Beatty said I was born down there, and we moved over there. I was born on—I tell her, where 501 is, now. | 0:46 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. What was your husband's name? | 1:10 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oscar Johnson. | 1:13 |
| Keisha Roberts | Do you know where he was born? | 1:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I thought he was born in Durham County, all I know. I known him from a teenager on up. That was in Durham County, then, I don't know where he was born at. | 1:27 |
| Keisha Roberts | What was his birthday? | 1:37 |
| Georgie Johnson | His birthday was June the 26, born 1905. | 1:38 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. What's your mother's name? | 1:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | Molly Bass. That was Molly Bass, she married Charlie Beasley. | 1:45 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. And what was her birthday? | 2:02 |
| Georgie Johnson | I don't know. To tell you the truth, you ask me something I don't know now. | 2:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Do you know what your father's birthday was? | 2:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | I got his [indistinct] paper, now I can't tell you right out of my head. Anyhow, he was—I think 50 something when he died. My momma was 30 something when she died. Folks died early back in those days. | 2:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Could you tell me the names and birthdays of your brothers and sisters? | 2:21 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I got a brother stay up the road, up the railroad that's 90 years old, his last day was in March, and he will be 91 this coming up March. And I ain't got any another brother, the other one is dead. I'm all but three of us, living. I think my daddy had six children but they died when they was young, with pneumonia. | 2:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | Back in those days, if you had pneumonia, the folks didn't know it. And then again, the people staying out in the country, didn't have no way to get you to the hospital, wasn't but two hospitals in Durham and that was Lincoln Hospital and Watts Hospital. | 2:52 |
| Georgie Johnson | And Duke—I don't know what year Duke moved over there, but anyhow there weren't many Colored folks over at Duke. And didn't no Coloreds go to Watts, everybody had to go to Lincoln. | 3:09 |
| Keisha Roberts | Can you tell me the names and the birthdays of your children? | 3:24 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, not right off the bat. I had one born 1935, the oldest one. And that boy there, he was born—oh, I'd have to get them books. All right, he was born July 17th, three years later than the girl, like in one month, he was born in July. If he'd have been born August, she'd have been exactly three years older than he were. And that one, I feel was born in October, October the 10th. I don't know the year, let's not look it up, and the other one was born September the 11th, about five years later. | 3:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | Can you tell me what your children's first names are? | 4:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 4:20 |
| Keisha Roberts | Can you tell me what your children's names are? | 4:21 |
| Georgie Johnson | What's the name? Margaret Louise Johnston Umstead. She married an Umstead, she stay right there edge of Person, in Durham County, on the edge, over there the edge of Durham County line. And that boy there, he stay in Goldsboro. That one there, he stay over there, and the other one stay in Durham, I don't even know the name of the street. | 4:23 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. Well, now we're going to get onto the other questions that I brought with me. Can you tell me what some of your earliest childhood memories are? | 4:49 |
| Georgie Johnson | My what? | 4:57 |
| Keisha Roberts | Your earliest childhood memory. | 4:57 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I remember this just as clear as it were yesterday. My momma died when I was about four, and my grandma had come there to stay with us and take care of us, that's when we was staying over there on the Old Mill Road, that road going out through there was paved. And my daddy didn't farm, he worked the saw mill and different things. And after my momma died, he broke up housekeeping and grandma went back to one of her other daughter. And lady Lucy Lies and Willie Lies took me and carried me back to Durham, we deciding what to call them and I stayed with them about eight years. Him and her didn't have no children. | 5:00 |
| Georgie Johnson | And when they broke up, went up the road, well, Poppa didn't want to take me, so I went to the girl grandmother who had left here just awhile ago, and stayed there about a year or two, on account of she told Poppa and them, Poppa and Luther worked the saw mill, she told Poppa it wasn't good for me to stay there by myself. So, she took me then. I stayed there for about two or three years. Then I went to [indistinct], stayed there, oh, I was 13, about 14, when I left there. | 5:55 |
| Georgie Johnson | Poppa got married then, I went back home. And from then on, I—went to work down there at Mrs. Lilian Terry's, I was 14 years old. I had to quit school, I went to working down there for $2.00 a week! Working a half a day, go down there and help the girl who I think had went up here at Greensboro and got [indistinct] girl, Sophie. And then her run—you see the big house, sitting up there on the hill, after passing Jehovah's Witness hall? Well, that's where I worked for about two years. | 6:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | And I was 14 when I went down there to went to work. I quit school at—I was in the fifth grade and from then on, my daddy moved back to Rougemont, moved up here in the house. Was my first house me and my husband stayed in, after we married. And my [indistinct] house. We stayed up there for about two years, then we moved to Quail Roost, stayed down there, I reckon for about 20 years. That's where I raised all my children, because my son went in service when we was living at Quail Roost. And he wasn't quite two years old when we moved to Quail Roost and he went in service a little before he was 18, because he finished school at 17, went in service, stayed 20 years, that boy right there. | 7:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | And from then on, we just drifted and we bought this place up here, and it stayed here for about four years before we could even start to think about building on it. And my husband was getting old, because he was older than I were. And we kept saving and then we tried to get a loan. Didn't nobody back then, they—it was in '61, let Black folks get a loan, no way. So, we couldn't get a loan. So, I went to—well, you could get a trailer, but I didn't want a trailer. And a block house, you could buy the blocks, but you had to save money, buy the blocks so you could get somebody to stand for. | 8:19 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, we got a shell, we went looking around, got a shell house. We went to Raleigh and we went to Winston-Salem, Burlington. And this is a wise home, it's not a Carolina home, it's a wise home. We had a shell house built here. And then, we still staying at Quail Roost. And I worked every day, my husband paid most of the bills and I would buy the food and save money and go to Lowe's and buy sheet rock, pay for it and my son-in-law had a truck, he could go there and pick it up and bring it out here. So, they'd hang it at night, that's the way we got this house. | 9:15 |
| Georgie Johnson | And we had this built, then built on to about 10 years later, after we had paid for the house. You had to really struggle back then. But now, I look at these folks get cars cost more than my house. I mean, the average car, the average car costs more than my house. I think we paid, for the shell, we paid $2,200.00, for the shell. And I got most of—well, I paid for the sheet rock and all. My son hauled all this stuff up here from Goldsboro, the paneling when we was building this, there, they had a place down there where if one sheet gets scratched or something, they pile it over there or something, and sell it for a dollar a sheet, a dollar half a sheet. | 10:02 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, he told them not to buy no panel for here, he'd buy it down there. He brought up enough paneling on his truck, except two sheets. Now, I took a piece, and went over to Lowe's and matched it, enough to finish it. And so, that's the way we got the house. It's the old folks used to say, "Where there's a will there's a way." But you take a lot of folks, who'd rather drive a nice, big car, than have a place. | 11:00 |
| Georgie Johnson | But I had always wanted somewhere of my own and I worked hard to get it. And I saved, I didn't buy every little thing I wanted, that I saw. I just—we struggled hard. See, this was a cornfield when we bought this land. We bought two acres. And that boy, when he got married, we let him have a lot and he— | 11:29 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, you see he was getting in more shape, better shape, and he was young. And if you had a fairly good job, you could get a loan. But my husband, when he—when we tried to get a loan, he didn't have but eight years before he retired and the loan called for 12 years and up, on down to 15, 20. So, we just couldn't get a loan for nothing like that. | 11:54 |
| Georgie Johnson | And it was hard, that boy, he had a good head on him, learning. We couldn't get a loan for him to go to college, and so he went in service. He said he wasn't going to cut no pulpwood for no living, folks was cutting pulpwood then. I don't know if you know what that is, do you? | 12:25 |
| Keisha Roberts | Not really. | 12:43 |
| Georgie Johnson | That some stuff they haul up and down the road in trucks and make paper out of. | 12:44 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay. | 12:47 |
| Georgie Johnson | Them logs and things. Folks were cutting down trees everywhere, folks were—these things that Black men do then was cut pulpwood, farm, or haul garbage. And James said he didn't want to do never one of them for no living. That's what he had told us before he even graduated. And so when he graduated, we had to sign—the lady over here what I worked for, clean house one day for, she was a notary public. So, she signed the paper and he went and said he wasn't 18 and somebody had to sign for him. And the lady that I worked for, she had a fit. "Oh, what in the world for y'all want to sign for that boy to go in the service for?" | 12:49 |
| Georgie Johnson | And I told her what he said, I said, he said the biggest thing, a job, he getting, was down in a ditch or something like that and he wasn't going to do it, if he could help it and so, he went on. Went all overseas everywhere, he didn't get a scratch on him, 20 years, come back. He was over there in Thailand and oh, next to Vietnam. He said he didn't really—see, he was in the—I mean, I started to say Air Force—he was—I can't think what it was, now. | 13:32 |
| Keisha Roberts | Was it the Army? | 14:20 |
| Georgie Johnson | No, he wasn't in the Army, he was a—what they have down here down Goldsboro, what you call that base? Seymour Johns Air Force? He was in—he didn't join the Marines and neither that or the Army. And so, he worked on planes, radios, and things like that. He could take that thing all in pieces and then put it back together and it'd play. | 14:21 |
| Georgie Johnson | My daughter had a radio, they had an FM radio and knocked down. And he came home on leave and he said, "Let me see it." And he took it and sat down here in the floor, had it all—I said, "That thing never play no more." And we went on to bed and the next thing we know, he had it together and it played. And I had a TV. Took down and got a piece for it and fixed it and it played. He could do anything like that. | 14:52 |
| Georgie Johnson | But he learned all of that after he got in service. He said he couldn't learn that cutting pulpwood neither, or hauling garbage. All he'd have learned was to haul garbage and all he'd know how to haul garbage or farm or something like that. And he didn't want that. So now, he's teaching at the Johnston Technic down there in Smithsfield you know where that is? | 15:24 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 15:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, he teaches agriculture. How to prune and plant and do all that. They got the prettiest place down there, tall grass, deep pond. I go fishing every time I go down there. And he's doing fine, he'll be retired from this place in three years and he said he's not going to get another job, because he didn't have to, had his house paid for now, and got a nice eight room, great big rooms too still. Where he stays is retired service people, in that section. It's a new section, all those houses around in there, it's back of the base, where the base Seymour Johnson is. | 15:51 |
| Georgie Johnson | And he, this man that built this house, he was a captain or something, he and his wife got dissatisfied and want to go to Florida. So, they put it up for sale and he had come back from overseas, and him and his wife bought it. He made the last payment on it last year. And so, he doing fine. She working and he working and he joined his Army pay, too. | 16:37 |
| Georgie Johnson | But he said he won't get any other job after these three years out, he's going to just piddle around. Because he didn't have to, he bought him a new truck and she bought her a new car, and they paid for both of them, went and bought them. So, and their children is grown. She got a daughter in Florida. I've been to Florida twice. | 17:10 |
| Keisha Roberts | When did you go to Florida? | 17:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 17:33 |
| Keisha Roberts | When did you go to Florida? | 17:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, about two years ago. Last time I went, I went and stayed two weeks. Oh, I had a time. We'd ride through the daytime and fish at night, go out about 9:00 o'clock or 10:00 o'clock at night and come in about 12, with all the fish we could—they'd grab a big old cooler about like that, about so high, just packed full. Sometimes, we cleaned them there at the ocean, throw the stuff away, waste back in there and then one time, we brought them to the house, cleaned all that stuff. I'd say, "Ugh." | 17:39 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, the next time, Viola would start cleaning them before we stopped fishing. She'd get most of them clean. Oh, I enjoyed, but if you fish in daytime, you ain't catching but little ones, about like that. But we caught them about like that, we had—I liked those ocean fish. But you don't have to season them, they salty enough. Don't have to put no salt on. | 18:13 |
| Keisha Roberts | What was the first time you went to Florida? | 18:43 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh, let's see—it's about five years ago, the first time I went. We went through the country. See, she's a good driver and he's a good driver, they'd done all the driving. Each one would drive about 100 miles, we'd stop somewhere, eat, walk around for about 30 minutes or something, and rest, and one of what wasn't driving would get on the wheel and drive. And see, she had a momma, too, me and Lee Ann rode in the back. And her and James rode in the front. And they switched drivers like that. We went twice. Last time she went, her momma wouldn't even take the ride. She bought three tickets. | 18:46 |
| Keisha Roberts | Now, earlier you were telling me about the jobs that— | 19:34 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, she bought three tickets, they were going to fly that time and I hadn't told her I was going, I hadn't even decided to go. I told her, I said, "I ain't going this time," I done flew once. I went to—that girl what was here, her momma stayed in Memphis. I went out there, stayed two weeks after my husband died. I flew out there and flew back. I told them, "Shucks, the way planes falling down, ain't getting on that other plane." No, sir. | 19:36 |
| Georgie Johnson | And now, I told her, I said, "I'm not going this time." She want to know why, she tried to out talk me, she said, "Me and you and momma going on the plane." And Johnson and somebody else was going, he was gone—no, James wasn't going this time. And so, after I didn't go, the little Filipina girl who stayed down there, she rode the ticket, they went right on. | 20:07 |
| Keisha Roberts | Now, earlier, you were telling me about some of the jobs that your son had to chose from, that he didn't want to take. You said that the only jobs that were opened up to Black men back here was hauling pulpwood or farming or— | 20:34 |
| Georgie Johnson | What? | 20:44 |
| Keisha Roberts | Or taking out trash. What kind of jobs were there for women? | 20:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 20:53 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kind of jobs could women do back then? | 20:54 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, housekeeping, washing and cleaning. Folks, you take a person then, back then, when you'd worked in a house, you'd done it all. And then you take folks, pays folks now, $10.00, about $5.00 and $10.00 an hour for just going in and vacuuming and cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom. Well, when I was working, I tend—their folks go to work, leave one or two, sometimes three children there, you had to cook, feed them children, clean the house, wash and iron. You done all of that, for about $4.00 a week. That was it. $4.00 a week. | 20:56 |
| Georgie Johnson | The last job I had before I went to the factory, I was getting $5.00 a week and I went to Liggett Myers Factory and that's where I'm working when I married. And they weren't paying but about $18.00, $20.00 a week. And so, one—that was in the '60s. Early '60 to late '50s, because we married in '35, 1935—no, weren't that early, because me and Oscar married in '35, it was early '30s. Somewhere I worked in the factory about a year, a little more. Because I worked night shift and when the night shift went off I went to day and I stayed on the day until I got married. At Liggett Myers. Oh, I thought I was making big money then, but then, that's about what, shoot, folks don't work for that a day, now. | 21:36 |
| Georgie Johnson | When I quit work over there, I was getting about $40.00 and $50.00 a day. I'd go over there and clean that lady's house, it wasn't bigger than mine. And she's rich. I doesn't see her going to work, she stayed in there, but she had the prettiest yard in Durham, right, just about. But her yard was her glory, because she hired—that boy's been working over there about 20 years. And she'd hired somebody to work, she have pretty roses just like these you buy in the store. And the yard, it's just beautiful in the summertime. | 22:39 |
| Georgie Johnson | And so, sometimes, if I stay a little late, she'd pay me $50.00. And I said, I told Martin "Now I said, when I was able to work, I wasn't getting that." I said, "Long at last, I was getting something, I could've saved some money, but I wasn't able to work." That's when I retired. I could've kept working over there. | 23:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | But I wasn't able to keep driving over there. You see, I drove, and I drive over there and time I work, I'd be so tired I just didn't feel like driving back. And I told her, I just—see, I was 70 when I retired from over there. I told her I just felt—you know, I said, if I just had to walk out the door and walk in your house and then walk back in mine, I would, you know, kept on, but it's just no use when I don't have to. And I didn't. | 23:41 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were there any other jobs that Black women could do? | 24:27 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 24:27 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were there any other jobs Black women could— | 24:27 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, some worked in laundry and hosiery mills and the factory. Places like that, that was the biggest thing. And housekeeping. That was about it, for the Black woman. | 24:27 |
| Keisha Roberts | What about White women? | 24:45 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 24:45 |
| Keisha Roberts | What about White women? What kind of jobs did they get? | 24:47 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, Whites? | 24:50 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 24:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, they had the best jobs, you know? Because most of them, secretaries and things like that. They didn't have all these computers and things but they had typewriters then. They had secretaries in places like that. They worked in an office and things. | 24:55 |
| Georgie Johnson | Now, I did have a friend one time running that elevator in there, that building they tore down. Oh, shoot, I think Rutila run that thing about 20 years. Now, you could find Colored folks running elevators, something like that, back in the '60s and '50s and all like that. But the softest jobs, the White folks had them. | 25:13 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did those jobs pay more, too? | 25:44 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 25:45 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did those jobs pay more? | 25:46 |
| Georgie Johnson | Mm-hmm. And you take just like now. Where I worked at, the waterline busted. That old big waterline what pull water from Lake Michie to Durham, went right across her property, her yard, over there to where the reservoir is. It busted, had a leak or something and it finally busted out the ground. Oh, that was something. It was in the paper. And when they went to fixing it—she was on vacation when it happened. Ecker would take care of that boy there, take care of all of that, him and Dr. Neubauer. | 25:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | And I told Mrs. Rustell, when she come back, I said, "Now you see what I was talking about? All those people who are in the ditch is Black folks." I said, "The man, the people in the machine is White folks." I said, "Everyone can run any one of their machines out there," I said, "and you don't see no Black man running no machine." | 26:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | And it used to didn't be a Black man run a garbage truck. I remember when White men run the garbage truck. The Black man done all run to the house and getting the garbage. It come in the paper one time, it turns out he went to a man's house and got a garbage and he said, I don't know was it a dead chicken or what it was. That was a long time ago. And so he took the top off, it like knocked him down, somebody had thrown a dead chicken or cat or something in there. And he carried it to the truck and dumped it in there and he went back and throw the can down and the man come out— it was in the paper—cussing, telling him to go back there and put that so and so top on there. But the boy didn't do it, he went on and jumped in the truck. And the White man, supposedly—it was mentioned in the paper by—Mike didn't do it, I know the boy, boy daddy worked at Quail Roost, but you see the people worked at Quail Roost that Black folks done the farming, my husband done the—you know, they raised corn, soya beans, and hay and stuff. | 26:55 |
| Georgie Johnson | They done all of that and White people have done most of the dairy work. I know all of that for a fact. They done that clean dairy work, matter of fact, those that got up there. Littering and stuff was Black, Buck Turnton run a truck there, got up all the, he run it, I think they had two that scattered the litter, but they was Black. And Buck worked with that stuff so much, they said, when he took a bath, he still smelled like it. That's what they said. | 28:11 |
| Georgie Johnson | But he did, he helped run that old little truck all the time. Well, you see, it had a thing behind and you filled it up and it scattered it over the fields and all, but—Our folks come through something, I'm telling you. And the folks ahead of us, come harder than that, because take my daddy. He didn't know what running water, electricity. And he'd like this world, furnishing all such of that, and had towed water from the spring, when I stayed at home, towed that wood, milk the cow, and all such of that. Now, when the farmers farmed, they didn't get nothing. | 28:54 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were they sharecroppers? | 29:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 29:52 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were they sharecroppers? | 29:53 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. Mm-hmm, sharecroppers, most of them. They didn't own their own mule and the supplies and things, you know, and the people that they rented the place from got a fold or a half, depends how you rent it. If he's going to furnish you everything, he got half of what you made. If he furnish you fertilizer and when you go to the store or something like that, a man with a car from around here would furnish folks. He put it down. Then when end of the year comes, half the time, they claim you didn't make enough to come out, and some of them would have nerve enough to take your cow, your mule, if you have one of your own, for the pay. | 29:53 |
| Georgie Johnson | Because I know Noelle said she had never seen her daddy cry but one time and that was when a man with a car was going to take his two mules. Uncle Ecker was buying his mules, trying to buy and he didn't make enough that year or something and said that her daddy brought the mules down there and had them in the yard and to bring them up here. And he said Mr. Tom hadn't have come that morning—I reckon Ecker heard about it—come down there and told them and said, "Take your mules on back and put them in the stable." Early said, "I've got the mules now." Ecker—Tom went on and so he could keep the mules and have something to farm another year. | 30:46 |
| Georgie Johnson | They even take the pigs sometimes. Mrs. Terry told me, she said, they had somebody working with them and the man said that he didn't come out— I mean, didn't make enough to pay up—and said he was worried about it, had a gang of children. Back then, folks had 10, 12 children. They'd didn't stop at two like—wasn't no such thing as birth control pills. And so she said that he had an old sow, was going to have pigs, said she told him, said, "Don't worry," said, "I ain't going to take your pigs neither your cow. When that sow have pigs, you just raise and give Isaac two of them." And that'll be all right, said, "I'll talk to Isaac." | 31:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | That was Mrs. Terry, she was a good hearted old woman, but she just didn't want to pay you. Now, I worked for her, and so, that the way it was. Some of them was good hearted, but, they wanted to keep all the money for themselves. Yeah, so we come through something. | 32:30 |
| Keisha Roberts | Well, after— | 32:59 |
| Georgie Johnson | We used to have to walk two and three miles to church. I walked from Quail Roost to right down there, schoolhouse was about down below them houses down there. I walked from Quail Roost. A minimum it would be so cold to up there to reach my school. And then Mr. Mitchell, he stayed right up there at that house, the school teacher, one of them, and we had to build a fire in that old big, potbellied stove. The first one got there built a fire. And so, if you know how long it takes for it to heat up a big old building like a school there, sometimes it be, 12:00, we would be about ready to go home and wouldn't be got long. | 32:59 |
| Georgie Johnson | And the White folks had buses long before we did. They did. Long time before we did. They ride down—now, I wasn't up here then, I was at Durham, at that time they said they chucked stuff out the windows at the children that be walking to school and they be riding. Ms. McCrae said when she moved here, she moved back up there somewhere, she a real light skinned woman, she married a light skin man, her children were standing out there on the road, waiting for the bus. The White bus come on and stopped, they thought they was White, and they didn't get on. | 33:57 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, when the, I think the Colored folks had got a bus then, and so when the Colored bus come on, it didn't even stop. (laughing) Ms. McCrae's little girls were real bright, she had three. And yeah, they said, it come on, it didn't even stop. So, the children had to go back to the house. | 34:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | But the first buses that the Black folks got after the children got through the seventh grade here, Uncle Willy Roberts, several of the men, the Colored folks got together, Uncle Willy Roberts furnished a car, then they want to go to Hillside, not to Hillside, to Merrick-Moore, I think that's where they first started going. They carried them so they could go to the 12th grade. About seven, it was two cars I think, Johnny Roberts drove one, and then finally, they got a—and some of them put the children and Durham had people they know and kinfolk so they can go to Hillside, and that's where most children got further than the seventh grade. | 35:04 |
| Georgie Johnson | May, so and Emelina, Malina, several of them, they folks put them over there with folks that they know and furnished them a little something, I reckon best they had, like, vegetables and stuff, and give them stuff like that, a ham or something, paid like that, because they didn't have no money. And then, finally, give us old run down buses that the White folks had done drove down and then we had to get in the buses. And so it just was after this integration mess that's the only time we went to Black folks went to getting buses that wouldn't break down on the road. | 35:48 |
| Georgie Johnson | As I told that lady that—I said, reading, I ain't got no more education. And then I got, I had to go to work and then again, when I was going to work, I said the books we got half the time were two or three leaves out of them, they done went to they school, children done wrote in them, them was the books we had to study. | 36:30 |
| Keisha Roberts | So, at your school— | 36:56 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 36:56 |
| Keisha Roberts | you all got the leftover books— | 36:57 |
| Georgie Johnson | We got secondhand books done been tore, wrote in, sometimes the leaves be missing. And it was just hard. | 36:59 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kind of things did you study in— | 37:12 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 37:13 |
| Keisha Roberts | School? What kind of things did you study? | 37:14 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I got one book here, I don't know where it is, it's about—the rabbit and the hedgehog and the patrol—I reckon you heard about that, heard, let me see—I think it's over here, I don't know if I'll even find— | 37:16 |
| Keisha Roberts | Just a second—microphone on you. | 37:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh! | 38:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Here, I can stop it. | 38:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hang on, hang on. I'm trying to see— | 38:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Here, I'll hold the cord. | 38:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | There they—Nah, that ain't it. I don't know where it is. But— | 38:04 |
| Keisha Roberts | What subject did you study? | 38:04 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 38:04 |
| Keisha Roberts | What subject did you study? | 38:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I studied about—oh, we studied arithmetic, spelling, we have spelling matches sometimes at school, and we have—we had commencement day, and the best spellers, they would choose them and you know, have a rule every time one miss he had to sit down. And I know you seen a spelling match, and things like that. | 38:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | But back then, most of the children could read, because that was a—you had to learn your ABCs first thing, when you went to school, that's the first thing you learned, and you got folks going through high school can't say their ABCs. Now, I don't know what they learn and most of them learn that computer mess. And so, that's what we were— | 38:59 |
| Keisha Roberts | What was your favorite subject? | 39:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I don't have no favorite subject. | 39:32 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you have a favorite— | 39:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | And another thing, you had to learn your time tables formulas. You started at twos go through the 12s. I used to could say them the twos through the 12s. You've seen the times tables, haven't you? | 39:40 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 39:52 |
| Georgie Johnson | Mm-hmm, two times two and all—and each one—I had a book here, had that on it, in it, somewhere here. Yeah, but things like that, the children would laugh at it now, but we learned it, had to learn it before they pass you to another grade. But now, they pass them on, they don't know nothing. | 39:55 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you have a favorite teacher? | 40:20 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 40:21 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you have a favorite teacher? | 40:22 |
| Georgie Johnson | Nah, uh-uh. Sometimes the teachers have favorite pets, but— | 40:23 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were you ever a teacher's pet? | 40:32 |
| Georgie Johnson | Nah, uh-uh. I was one of the mischievous ones and everything. I was. And back then, the teachers could whoop a child if he didn't—I never will forget, me and Mildred Cassidy, girl I know, used to—she stayed down there, me and here used to come up here and get the principal's dinner. See, you didn't have but two teachers down there. Had one that teach first, second, and third, fourth grade, and Mr. Mitchell taught fifth, sixth, and seventh. We had just two rooms. | 40:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | And while he was—at least before that happened, we would do something about it every time. He walked up here and get his dinner, walk home, his wife was a sickly woman, most of the time he'd want to come on and see about her. He'd walk home and when he come back, we'd have done something. We killed a snake one time, never will forget and put him on a stick and run the young ones all over these woods and the fields. Yeah! We did. | 41:09 |
| Georgie Johnson | That was stupid, but they run and the snake was dead. We killed it, put him on a stick, see, the girls was older than we were, we was about 10, 11, 12, something like that and them was about 15, all I reckon, age. They was sitting over there, on the little cook room porch, talking, I reckon talking about boys. We killed that snake and they run all over there, they losing it there's two houses down there, hollering and going on—we just be just mischievous. Didn't hurt nobody, but— | 41:43 |
| Georgie Johnson | And then again, we—you know, they had outdoors toilet then, and saw a girl go in there and we run down there and buttoned the door so she couldn't get out. Oh, such junk as that. And then one time, we locked the boys out and went in and—see they had a piano in there, an old one. I don't know what this piano [indistinct] 'cause [indistinct] could play it, so we said we were going to get her to play it and was going to have a party. Now, well, Mr. Mitchell up here eating his lunch. Finally went around and found a window that was unlocked and climbed in the window. | 42:26 |
| Georgie Johnson | And we had one or two little nosy folks would tell everything and they— I had a cousin, she would never join nothing, she sat around there, and next thing you know, she done told the teacher. So, we was just mischievous, didn't do—we didn't take no stick and beat nobody, nothing like that. Just do mischievous things what we weren't supposed to do. | 43:09 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you all go to school year round or did you have the summers off? | 43:39 |
| Georgie Johnson | No, school was always out in May or last of May or first of June. Yeah, it was May, because most folks' children had, they start keeping them out and start planting tobacco. Because I know Mason had 10, 11, he had—about eight big enough to work in the field, and he kept his out so much when he was planting tobacco, woman come out here to see, and he told her, said, "If you think that me and my wife can make enough to feed all these children, you need to send us some food or something out here." Said he tell her when time comes for the work, he need them that will help him to work. But all of them got educated, some of them went to college. Mason had two, three to go to college. | 43:43 |
| Keisha Roberts | Do you remember—well, what were you taught about slavery? | 44:47 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 44:50 |
| Keisha Roberts | When you were in school? Did they teach you anything about slavery? | 44:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | I don't know much about slavery no more. What I heard, what my granddad was a slave. He said he was 12 years old when he freed the slaves, he 12 years old. He said he wasn't no big enough to do nothing but tow water to the field and chop wood, tow them wood and fire the pots and keep wood towed in for the cook. | 44:53 |
| Georgie Johnson | He said Emma Gray, she was about four or five years old and she was old enough to cook, she worked in the kitchen. And they belong to a man, Sam Beasley, that's where we got our name, Beasley. Most back then, the Black folks just had a first name when they first come in. And whoever who they worked for, they took a— | 45:20 |
| Keisha Roberts | Can you tell me more things that your grandfather told you about— | 0:02 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, Grandpap said back then most of the slaves, they had to work hard and dig up stumps. When they'd clear cut the trees down, they didn't have bulldozers to push them up then like they do now. They had to take their mattock and an ax and try and cut them roots and dig them roots up and clear the fields. That's the way they cleared fields then. They didn't have all this equipment like they got now. I guess they did work hard. Digging up a stump, one stump. I guess if they didn't dig it up fast enough, the man whooped them, I reckon. The old folks went through something. | 0:06 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did he ever tell you anything about the plantation, about what it was like? | 1:04 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hmm? | 1:05 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did he ever tell you anything about what the plantation was like? | 1:05 |
| Georgie Johnson | Plantation? | 1:08 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 1:09 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, he stayed with the old man he stayed with. He had a big plantation. He stayed there right—I don't know exactly how many slaves he had. He was kind of in the young gang, because his mama wasn't there. He never did tell us what did happen to his mama. Well, they sold him from his mama or not, I never did hear him say that. But, they did such things as that. Man, they sold—come on in. | 1:09 |
| Speaker 3 | Hey, hey. | 1:40 |
| Keisha Roberts | Okay, and you were talking about your grandfather? | 1:45 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. After they freed him, he went to Person County and growed up doing what might everybody do, farming and saw milling then. A lot of saw mills because most folks done a lot of build out of just plain planks and saw mills, what they done. They cut the log down one side and the other, get the bark off it. They slice it in little thin planks. A lot of people used the bark and the slabs for wood to cook with. They'd have to saw it up though. For stove wood and all. But, all of that's way gone. | 1:48 |
| Georgie Johnson | And then he say he married. He married Nellie. Grandma Nellie was—let's see, was she a Parker? Yes, I think she was a Parker. Anyhow, they had about 10 children. I know, let me see, some of them died. I know Allie, Cora. We called her Mouse. I can't think of her name right now. Annie, Early, Eulie. No, I can't even think all of them names because some of them died. About five of them that I can remember, because they was living. I had one to go in service—I mean one that died in service. | 2:44 |
| Georgie Johnson | Uncle Eulie, he went to service. Uncle Earlie, he went to serve. They was young boys. They was too young to go in service, but they lied around their age and went into service about 16. Both of them come back, but Uncle Earlie. He died after he left, he got back. I don't know whether he had some disease or what. Uncle Eulie ain't been dead about six, seven years. He was close to 90 when he died, about 89. So, all the Beasley family down here is dead. I got a cousin staying, but I don't know. That's about it, I reckon, on my daddy's side. | 3:39 |
| Georgie Johnson | On my mama's side, come from down towards in Person County. That's a lot of the Basses living. I mean, a lot of her niece and nephews, things like that. | 4:35 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kind of clothes did you wear to school? Did you wear dresses or did you wear pants? | 4:53 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, you ain't see no women, no girls in no britches then. You wore dresses. I don't care how—but you wore cotton stockings. You had these old, thick, cotton stockings. Girls didn't wear no britches then. Lord have mercy. It's started, the old folks would have thought it was a disgrace and a shame, seeing a girl out with some britches on. | 5:00 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did girls even have to wear dresses while they were doing chores at home? | 5:19 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? No, they didn't wear no britches then. Only time a child, you see the girl with britches on be something like going to pick blackberry in the bushes. They maybe, if she had some brother, she put on some of they clothes, something like that. But she didn't, she wore what she had. They didn't buy no britches for no girls then. I don't even know whether they made them for girls then. But the only time you see the woman or girl in britches then, they was out berry hunting or something like that, in the briar and the bushes. Didn't see no women with no britches on. | 5:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | Now they got nerve enough to wear them to church. That just gets me. They do! They wear them to church. I saw some at that film the other day. Woman had on britches. They weren't overalls, but they was britches right on. It's not like them girls, that girl had around here. I don't care what it is. I think I respect God's house better than that. | 6:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kind of clothes did you—tell me a little bit about the outfits you used to wear to church. What was your favorite outfit? | 6:32 |
| Georgie Johnson | They didn't wear them up here like you see them now. They sit down in the church and they're way up here. That's where they is. They wore these gathered skirts, and they were way down there. Long sleeves. You didn't see nothing in the church with the arms all out neither. Not even children. Children, folks bought cloth and made the dresses, most of them then. They wore them to church. They didn't have many, but what they had was dresses. And the menfolk, I remember when time was so tight one time that the folks made the children clothes, most of them out of feed sacks. | 6:41 |
| Georgie Johnson | Now, I've seen a man at the church with one of these—his wife though could sew. Miss Berden. She was a Rogers. She married a Rogers. She made him a shirt. You've seen these sugar sacks with the stripes in 'em? Well, she made him a shirt. The stripe come down like this. She gave it a cuff on. It was so neat. You just had to notice it. She had it washed, bleached and starched. Everything come out except that stripe. That stripe was a red stripe. I never will forget. | 7:26 |
| Georgie Johnson | And they used to make children underclothes out of feed sacks. Used to buy all the feed then, mostly in sacks, except something coarse come in a grinder sack, they didn't want to make clothes out of that. But, the sugar sacks and cotton sacks. These folks would soak them in cold water at night, put them in a pot and boil them in lye, bleach them. Wasn't no Clorox then. We used Red Devil Lye. And you rinsed them, washed them, rinsed them good. And if it don't come out that time, you'd wash them again and bleach them. They'd be right white, and that's what they made the children underwear out of, the drawers and the slips and all. | 8:05 |
| Georgie Johnson | And they'd go to the store. You could get gingham them for about 10 cents a yard. This calico stuff. Stuff's all right. Something like this. You could get that for about 10 cents a yard. And now when it costs you two dollars and something a yard. And they'd make—folks would sit down and make the children clothes. And you could buy these cotton stockings for about 10 cents a pair. And they'd be long. In the wintertime, that's what the children wore. But in the summertime, they wore socks. And they didn't wear nothing when it got hot. They went barefoot. Went barefoot the whole summer until you got ready to go to church or something. That's when you wore your socks and your stockings. | 8:56 |
| Georgie Johnson | We had to walk from Quail Roost to the crossroads down here. Me and that child who was out there. When you come a mama, we had to walk from down there to the crossroad barefooted. Carry a rag and wipe our feet off and put on our shoes. Then go and walk on up to church in our shoes. We didn't wear no shoes when we were walking. Nothing at all, uh-uh. You saved your shoe and used your feet. Now, they don't want a child to go barefoot in the outdoors. They don't. You don't see no children. You see more White folk barefooted than you do Black children, going in summertime. You don't see many of them. Most time stuck up in all these old big—whoo, look like to me, them things hot. These old big, athletic shoes. | 9:51 |
| Keisha Roberts | Earlier we were talking about what kind of clothes people wore to church. Did the women wear hats to church? | 10:54 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah, you didn't see a grown woman at church bareheaded. Not now. And most time, the little girls had on some sort of hat, a bonnet or something. No, you didn't see no one bareheaded then. I feel kind of naked going to church service bareheaded now. I wear a hat most times I'm go to church service. If go to something like a meeting or conference meeting, I don't wear no hat. | 11:01 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you straighten your hair before you went to church? | 11:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | No. I have never done much straightening of my hair. | 11:35 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did other women in your family straighten their hair? | 11:45 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 11:47 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did other women in your family— | 11:48 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, way back they didn't because most of them, they just combed or braided. No old folks know how to braid. I never did learn how to braid hair. They braid their hair, and most of old folks braid [indistinct], if they, you know. Most of them wore hats, comb in big plaits or something, and you're gone. Don't know nothing about no—straightening combs just come out, I reckon, in the '50s and '60s, I reckon. I don't know. | 11:50 |
| Keisha Roberts | How did you used to wear your hair to church and school? | 12:24 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hmm? | 12:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | What hairstyle did you wear—? | 12:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | I'll tell you the truth. One time, the lady I stayed with, see, her children had real short hair. I used to have hair down to here when I was young. My daddy, who was kin to the Indian. My granddaddy was a half Indian. So, we didn't get real bad hair. It was twixt in between Mama had bad hair, short stubborn hair. When I was young, Cousin [indistinct] used to wrap Gertrude and Kathleen's hair with strings. You ever heard her tell, wrap it with strings? What's so bad about it, she wrap it with this here string you string sacks with, and that was yellow. She wrapped their hair, Emma, Gertrude and Kat's. Emma had right long hair, but it was rough hair. She had hair about like that. But, she'd wrap her in too. I begged her to wrap mine. She wrapped mine. I thought it was pretty. I didn't have no sense. Yeah, I thought it was pretty. She wrapped it. She was a good old lady, Beth. | 12:31 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever have corn rows? | 13:45 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 13:48 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever have corn rows? | 13:48 |
| Georgie Johnson | Have what? | 13:50 |
| Keisha Roberts | Corn rows in your hair? | 13:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | I reckon that's—no, see, this here, the way they plait it now, it just come out. I reckon years ago, a few years ago, folks might have know'd how to plait it like that. I don't know. I didn't weave mine then. I know my daughter's daughter, she had thin long hair like mine, but her hair was about that long. She let her went off and played with a little girl one day. And this little girl had hair in plaits like that. Her mama plaited Rae's like that. Got home. Betty said, "Who told you to put your hair like that?" And Rae call over the little girl. "She had her like that, and her mama asked me if I want my plait." She said her mama plaited her hair. Betty said, she told her, "I don't care who asked you to plait your hair like that no more." It took her hours just about to get that mess loose. | 13:55 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kind of products did you used to use in your hair? | 14:59 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I used to use this BBB. I use nothing now. I used anything on it, because there ain't nothing going to help it now. Because it's getting so thin, coming out. | 15:01 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever have an Afro? | 15:23 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hmm? | 15:24 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever have an Afro in the '60s or the '70s? | 15:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | When my hair—this girl down here cut—I mean, gave me a perm, and I had to cut it about this short. That's when that old lady come down like, "You done cut your hair!" Miss Jeanette. And when I cut Margaret, my daughter. When she was about two year old, she had long—a lot longer than that little girl's hair. There, it was about that long. And she'd stayed right puny. The old folks told me if I cut her hair, she'd grow. Her hair was outgrowing her. I cut it. Went to church, and the first thing Miss Jeanette saw was Betty's head. "Who cut that child's hair!" Wanted to know what I cut if for. I said, "Well, folks say maybe she'd grow if I cut her hair." She got on a big head of hair now, a nice head of hair. She can get a perm. Her hair is coarse than Min, her daughter. Her daughter's got hair sort of like me. Thin. | 15:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | Was it okay for people to have coarse hair? | 16:19 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hmm? | 16:29 |
| Keisha Roberts | Was it okay for people to have coarse hair, or did most people want to have good hair? | 16:30 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, back then, everybody hair looked about on the same coarse, and so nobody paid attention to it. When the Afro come in, everybody wanted a Afro. And then folks with good hair tried to get it. I know Ruth Wade had sort of fine—her hair was better than mine. She had fine hair. Miss Wade said Ruth tried so bad. She cut hers and then she wet it and tried to comb it so it would frizzle up. I laughed at her. Yeah, everybody tried to wear—the Afro put the beauty shop out of business for a while. | 16:38 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever go to the beauty shop? | 17:20 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I went with my friend. After her mama die. See, her mama was going to Carolyn Cash, and she was going. So after mama died, I went to ride with her up there, and I get Carol to wash mine, just because I thought the lady would cut fine, and I didn't have to pay but $15. She washed it and sort of rolled it up. It didn't last no longer than if I washed it and rolled it up, so after she quit going, I didn't go no more. I didn't go to this girl down here but about two times. | 17:22 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did the women at the beauty parlor like to talk a lot? | 18:02 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 18:04 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did the women at the beauty parlor talk a lot? | 18:05 |
| Georgie Johnson | I didn't understand. | 18:09 |
| Keisha Roberts | Oh, I'm sorry. Did the women at the beauty parlor talk to each other a lot? | 18:10 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, yeah. Yeah, they gossiped. Just like men who stay in the barbershop. Just like the folks down to the center. That's the biggest thing they do is gossip. Some of them, they don't want to try to make nothing. "No, I can't do this." I say, if I can do it, my hand shakes bad, the right hand. I say, "You don't try to do nothing, you ain't going to know to do nothing." It's true. My daddy always said, "Don't never say, 'I can't.'" Say, "You don't know what you can do until you try." So, I do about anything. I painted this whole house when we first built it. I'd come up here. See from crew, one man looked at it and told my husband he'd paint it for $100 on the inside after he got the sheetrock up and all. I told Oscar, I said, "Shoot, I could—" $100 was something in the '60s. I told Oscar, "Shoot, I can paint it cheaper than that." | 18:14 |
| Georgie Johnson | I went over to Lowe's, bought a bucket of paint. He bring it up here before he went to work. I bring my food and I'd bring it. It had a wood stove in there then. I'd cook pinto beans, paint and get one room painted about every time I'd come up here. He'd come pick me up when he got of work, and I'd have my beans done. All I'd have to do is to cook my bread, cook most stuff here on top of the wood stove, except the bread. I got the whole house painted myself. The sides, see, we didn't have paneling in there then. All of it was sheetrock like that. I paint the whole house. I didn't paint it all at once. I'd paint some maybe this week. The days that I didn't go to work, I'd come up here and paint, paint this whole house. I told him, I said, "It didn't cost me no $100 neither." Paint weren't about $4 a gallon or $3 a gallon then. | 19:21 |
| Georgie Johnson | I'd go to Lowe's and pick out my paint. I'd ride with Ed then. He was a boy who would come in here. He was working with the city. I would ride to work with him. I got off from work, I'd get a cab and go to Lowe's and buy me some paint. Then I'd walk back down there where he had the car parked and wait until he got off from work. Walking wasn't nothing then. I used to walk about four or five blocks to catch the bus, street bus, from where I worked. Now folks don't want to walk. They done rose so much, they don't want to walk across the road. That's the truth. They can't walk nowhere. I takes my stick now. I'm 84. Me and the dog walks all down at the park, all up there. I try to get a little exercise that way. | 20:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | When did you get your first car? | 21:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | Car? | 21:35 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 21:37 |
| Georgie Johnson | Let's see. My husband. I got my first car way before my husband died. He been dead 15—well, it's been at least 20 years ago, because he died in '81. I owned—let's see, first car I owned was when my—it was a '72. The next one was a six cylinder Buick. The next one was a eight cylinder Buick and that one. I've had four or five cars. But the people I work for helped me pay for all of mine, all I bought. Now, the first car I bought I didn't give but $200 for it. It was a Chevy II, Chevrolet. Oh, that was a good little car, but it was too, I mean, it was sort of getting raggedy. I sold it to a Jehovah Witness. He wanted it so bad. He said he was going to have it re-upholstered and fixed up and all. So I sold it to him and I got less. | 21:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, I don't reckon I'm getting nothing. My boy wanted me to get one about six or eight years ago. He wanted me to get a brand new one. I said I ain't going to do it. I could have got a new one, but I wouldn't do it. I said because, the reason why I didn't get one, because I know they drive it more than I did, and they'd tear it to pieces. That boy up there been driving that one more than me. He done got his one running now. He come down here, "Grandma, I want to borrow your car." Well, I couldn't say no because I don't know what he might have to do for me. So, I let him have it. "I'll be back in about two hours." Sometimes it's 12, one o'clock at night when he get back. | 23:07 |
| Georgie Johnson | One night I looked out there. Car weren't there. Next morning, I got up and looked out. I don't know what time he come in. His old car was down, so he got it running now. I'm glad he did. Of course, I told him I don't plan on getting another car. At my age, hm the last minute until I quit driving. I don't go nowhere now in the car but maybe to the store, I mean, down the road to the supermarket. Of course, last Tuesday, I went to Walmart and went to Rose's. Most of the time I go with my son-in-law or my daughter if we go a long distance. They got a new car. He retired from the Lincoln Mine, and she worked there selling [indistinct]. She had two jobs after she got cut off, so she said she's going to retire this year. So I reckon, she going to retire. | 23:55 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you ever go to Hayti? | 25:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hayti? | 25:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 25:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh Lord, yeah, back when the Hayti was there. There ain't no Hayti now. Ha! I went down there one time. See, I was working then. That was before I married. I was working over in Walltown and all them places had different names then, they done change. Old Walltown, this girl told me, "Come on, go with me. I'll be right back." So, I was working with a White lady up there on Buckingham. So, I was down there visiting her. You have to stay in the cab with her and go home with her over there, and she went in the house. We went in. It was a nice house, nice furniture and all. Big old lady come and open the door. She locked the door behind her, put the key in her pocket. I said, "Uh-oh. I can't leave." | 25:12 |
| Georgie Johnson | And the gal kept on to the back. I don't know whether it was drinking or what. I didn't go. I sat down in the living room. That was the last time I went over there. I know who she was, but I didn't think she was that kind of girl. I said, won't catch me out with her over there no more. | 26:07 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kinds of of things were around Hayti that you—? | 26:26 |
| Georgie Johnson | I imagine there was—huh? There were all kind of these liquor houses. Now, they going into crack houses and dope houses. See, they used to be where they sold liquor and prostitutes and things like that. But they might be doing the same thing now, but mostly they's drugs now instead of liquor. It used to be liquor. Nobody even know nothing much about drugs back in '50s and '60s. The biggest drug they know was liquor. And the folks that sold it from these houses and things, they bought it from the bootleggers what made it up and down the branches out here. They'd buy maybe two or three half gallon jars and then sell it, shots, like that. 50 cents or something like that a shot or little glass. 25 cents a shot. I don't know what they was selling it for. I didn't drink it. | 26:31 |
| Georgie Johnson | I reckon one reason I never did like the whiskey because I was around it all my life, mostly. Everywhere I went, most of out here, folks were making liquor. Somebody in the family was making it or something, down these branches. My daddy made liquor. My brother made liquor. They worked for folks, big shots like John Poole and all. They had plenty of liquor, and they have liquor there now. Nobody didn't think nothing about it. They didn't. You didn't think nothing about it. Have a jar of liquor sitting behind something. Somebody come in to drink, they'd go get it. Have a drink. Give them a drink and all, sit there. They won't sell it. They would give folks a drink. | 27:34 |
| Georgie Johnson | I know we went to— Ghana one time, this is tobacco stripping time. Folks stripped tobacco then. Now they just pull it up and tie it up. They don't even grade it. We went to a Robeson man's house, my stepmother's half brother. He had tobacco packed up higher than your head. He reached over behind there—this is who Lonza [indistinct] was driving for. He had a car then. He had bought him a 1927 Ford, brand new. This man reached over behind one of them piles to tobacco and got a whole fruit jar full of peach brandy. Lonza was a drinker. He got so drunk somebody else had to drive him back around. He was from Ghana. | 28:19 |
| Georgie Johnson | But now, Lonza didn't, he shouldn't have. Oh, I think Patty Brill was with us. I believe he the one drove back. Had to have somebody else drive back. Lonza was just drunk. By and long, as much liquor as my daddy made, and how, I never did see him drunk. Never did see him staggering drunk. My husband, he drank when we first married. I never did see him drank enough to stagger. Now, he drank. He had something else to go in his liquor. Now, he kept it at the house most time we stayed up there at Quail Roost too until he quit drinking. He had always had some at the house. | 29:17 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did women drink too? | 30:07 |
| Georgie Johnson | Some did. Most of them, their husbands done it mostly, because most time the woman had to look after the children. They didn't fool with getting drunk. I know they used to have parties around every Saturday night. They had one down the road here. We was invited. I wasn't going to the party. I didn't have but one child. She was two year old. That was before that boy was born. I said, "No, ain't going down there, having these drunks falling all over my youngin." He went. I said, "I ain't going down there, having no drunk falling all over my youngin." So, he went. He come back. He wasn't drunk though. He drank some, but he wasn't drunk. But I never seen him staggering drunk. | 30:09 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did most of the women help each other take care of the children? | 31:09 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, back then, them days, people help each other in everything. Like farming. If somebody got sick, like that boy down there is sick and his wife too, but folks got so now they don't do nothing. The neighborhood go there, clean up, cook and wash and clean the beds and all and leave. Now, Miss Cora said when her mama was sick, the women come there. Of course, see, Miss Cora sat up night and day when her mama was sick. Said people would come in and just take over the house. "Now, you go lay down and rest. We're going to do." She said they washed. They cooked and they cleaned the house. Everything. When her mama was sick. | 31:12 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, when my auntie was sick, my grandmama used to walk, it's about four miles from over there where Uncle Sherman stay. Over here, down at her house. Most of the times, she'd bring stuff over with her to cook in her basket with a towel on it to hook on your arm. Then she'd be done cooked up stuff. And once she get there, she'd clean the beds and clean the house and all. See, Uncle Willard had lost—that was his second wife, and he had small children. He had three children. And that's the way folks did back then. | 32:02 |
| Georgie Johnson | Now, I know man got sick, and this man took his children after he worked out his crop, his folks went over there and worked that man's crop out. Got the grass out, and they plowed it. After I married, Arthur Parker got sick down here, where Black Horse Run is, he was farming back in there. It wasn't no Black Horse Run then, because we stayed there at the Teely place. It was a farm, big farm, back in there. And Arthur Parker got sick. His wheat was ripe, and he was a Mason. The Masons got together, about eight or 10 men went down there with their cradles, and they cut that man's wheat and shucked it. Uncle Ike took his threshing machine and went down there and threshed the next day. And they didn't charge him nothing. | 32:45 |
| Georgie Johnson | Folks done things, volunteered. I said that folks don't know how to help people now. They don't help nobody. They got the government right there, though. | 33:38 |
| Keisha Roberts | So, you think that the community was stronger then? | 33:54 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah, it was. In love and showing love towards one another. But see, when the government took over and went to call theyselves—helping these folks with welfare checks and things like that, that cut all that help out. Folks just quit. "Well, they got that welfare check. Let them get somebody to do their—let them pay for it. Get 'em walk 'em to the launder." They don't volunteer to do nothing like that now. Somebody gets sick, somebody in the family gets sick, they take their laundry, their stuff to the laundry somewhere and wash and bring it back. Uh-uh. Folks don't do nothing like that now. I said the government caused a lot of that. | 33:57 |
| Georgie Johnson | Now, a lot of these folks setting up getting welfare checks is in better shape now, a lot of them. They get their money, and they don't do what they ought to do with it. Some of it use it for the wrong. Their children go hungry. Some of them go without the right clothes and all [indistinct]. Government causing a lot of these children being bad too, I'll say that. Because one or two people here and yonder, they can hit the child or bruise them or kill them or something like that, they went to giving the children permission to dial 9-1, call the police now. You can't even spank your own children now. If I had some, I'd spank them if they done wrong. | 34:42 |
| Georgie Johnson | See, when you take discipline from a child, and then you send them to school. You ain't done nothing but fed them. You went on to work, and he run up and down the streets somewhere. You feed him, send him to school, and that teacher can't handle him. Then you want to look at the teacher. If you ain't done nothing for him in the six years you had him before he got in that school, you don't expect that teacher to raise him. You send that child to school to learn, not for the teacher to raise him. They got so even kindergarten, they can't punish them or spank them in there. The people I used to work with, if it wasn't done wrong, they'll spank you. I don't want nothing said about it. | 35:47 |
| Georgie Johnson | I never will forget the little boy. One time I was working over there in Walltown. His mama worked at the factory. I forget where his daddy worked at. It was two of them. Denise and I forget the little boy's name now. Some little Colored children were playing, flying a kite across the street over there. I told him, I was then bathing the little girl. I said, "Don't you go out of this house." When I got through taking them, see I always gave them a good bath on Saturday because she done her running around to a beauty shop and all on Saturday, whatever she had to do because she worked five days. I stayed there night. | 36:35 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, I got her out of the tub and looked for him. He was standing over there with them youngin's. I got him by the hair, drug him down—I spanked him good. Grandmama didn't like it though. But, I didn't like whether grandma liked it or not. But he mind me after then. I told her what he done. I say, "He went across the street over there, and I told him not to go." And I said, "When I got Denise out of the tub, looked for him," I said, "He done run out of the house." See, he was older, and she wasn't even about four or five. But now they put them in a nursery, places like that. Yeah, I told him not to go out of the house. I said, "You could have got run over." I said, "The boys could have beat you or something." They could have, and it would have been my fault. | 37:19 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yes, I spanked him. I spanked him good, and I told Miss Betty when she come, I said, "I gave him a good spanking," and I told her what he'd done. She didn't say nothing, but when old grandma found out, she was hot about it, but nothing she could do about it. I reckon she wanted Miss Betty to fire me, but she didn't. | 37:39 |
| Keisha Roberts | How were you disciplined when you were a child—? | 38:36 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 38:38 |
| Keisha Roberts | How were you disciplined when you were a child? | 38:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh shucks, everybody whooped us if we'd done something wrong. You go over yonder, visit that man's children. If you done anything or even said anything out of line, they heard it, they whooped you. And there wasn't nothing said about it when you got back home. The parents were glad they did. You had other folks discipline other children. You went somewhere to play with somebody else children, you know better than to get out of line, because you get a whooping from them just like you would your parents. Folks. | 38:38 |
| Georgie Johnson | And the children respect old folks then. But now, you scared to say anything to any. I see a little boy that comes out of church. He just runs in. Runs in, and he's about eight year old, I believe. I said, "Lord, my, I never did do that." I just sit there and look at him. Diane's up there in the choir most of the time. I said, but if she give him one thrashing, he'd stop that mess. I think he's seven or eight. Have to go to the bathroom about a dozen times in a hour and a half service. I said, "If it was one of mine, he'd set down there, and I mean he sit there. It can't be long before I went up in that choir stand and I said, 'Now I don't want to see you get up, neither. If you get up and go out of here, you going to get it when you get home.'" And he wouldn't. I bet you when I got through him, he wouldn't do that, try that trick no more. | 39:16 |
| Georgie Johnson | I read a poem in a book where a man—I don't know, I got to get that and carry it to the things too sometimes. That says when a man carries his son to church and stands about in the heat of the sermon. A man preaching, preaching. And it said little boy had his cap gun in his pocket, and the daddy didn't know it because little boy kept it from him. Finally, he shot it. It's like "a-Pow!" And it said the man chucked him up and tried to started out of the church with him. An old woman looked at him and said, "Let him alone. He scared more hell out of the folks than that preacher have in 10 years." It's in one of my books. Yeah, she said, "Let the boy alone." | 40:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | I say, I got to carry then down there for grand to read. "Scare more hell out of the folks here than preacher had in 10 years." So, the preacher must have been there 10 years. | 40:54 |
| Keisha Roberts | What church do you go to? | 41:22 |
| Georgie Johnson | Red Mountain. The New Red Mountain. Ours is on the left, and Whites is on the right. | 41:24 |
| Keisha Roberts | Have they always been separate? | 41:27 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh Lord, yeah. I tell you what, now. If you want to know the history about this, I know the history about this because I've heard it every history day, they read you. See, we first was on this side where they is. But, they claim that the Black folks didn't have no deed to it. No deed to the land. They done build a little log church. And so, they took that land. Then the Black folks had to find somewhere else. Well, they finally bought that little track over there across the road from them. And they got the deed to that, and the bill. I think this is about the fourth church that's been in this site. | 41:32 |
| Georgie Johnson | We settled on this side, on Mitchell, who was the first man to establish Red Mountain. Mitchell. We got his picture there. We've had about a dozen preachers or more since then. We had none stay there a long time like Reverend Croon. Reverend Croon stayed there 22 years. A Red Mountain preacher, 22 years. And he longest we have had to stay there since he left was Reverend Stewart, and I think he stayed there about 12 years. Then the next one, about six. | 42:19 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did the preachers' wives, are they different from the other women or were they expected to do different kinds of things? | 43:11 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, the wives got to the place now, most—I tell you what's ruined most of the preachers. Too much education. They go to these divinity schools and get that all education. They come out, and they think they own the church. They wants everybody to do what he said. And a preacher, if you go according to that Bible, it's not supposed to be that way. He's come now to preach the Gospel and teach the spiritual. And the deacon is his right hand man. The trustee is supposed to take care of all the money problems and whatever needs to be done to the dwelling or the grounds or all like that. But, they done got away from that. That's the way it used to be. Their trustees took care of all the business part. The deacon's supposed to be out there visiting the sick and ministering to the sick and doing things like that. They ain't supposed to be all this mess going on. | 43:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | Ain't no spirit in church now. Too much business. They got so they call a meeting right after the service and all such as that. We used to never did do that way. We had conference on third Saturday. Folks walked. We had more folks walk to conference on third Saturday than we have ride to conference now, which is three time a month, I mean every three months. We have them March, June. We had it about two weeks ago. I think the next one is in November, I reckon. Yeah, we had one in this month. Just about every two months, every three months. It's just so off based, old folks like me will come up and all of this. We ain't more used to that. | 44:25 |
| Keisha Roberts | What kinds of things did you do in church? | 45:27 |
| Georgie Johnson | Who, me? | 45:28 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-hmm. | 45:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, I don't do nothing much now. I used to be president of the mission. I'd go to mission all right. | 45:31 |
| Keisha Roberts | —and when this other tape stopped, you were saying that you handed over the mission? | 0:00 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, yeah. I was President of Mission for about 15, 20 years. After my cousin, [indistinct 00:00:15], got sick. She appointed me as her assistant before she got down, and then when she got down, I had to take over President, then we had another Vice President. And I was a missionary for 15—I got a plaque in there, they give me. I got two or three plaques in there they give me. For service that I did, in mission. I used to go different place and minister for folk. Go to Campbell, see the people down there that we knew. Give things for them, or something. Like fruit baskets at Thanksgiving, big fruit basket, or if there was somebody down there we know need clothes. Like gown, pajamas or housecoat, or [indistinct 00:01:07]. | 0:05 |
| Georgie Johnson | And just visit the rest home. Sometimes we'd go visit rest homes, we'd give soap, or bath cloth and things, different stuff like that. Little gift for everybody. And we went out here, Rosemount, at Christmas for last year, we had something for everybody. We'd give them soap, or a box of powders, or a washcloth, or something that we knew they need. I don't know, what they're using up, or—so them folks got it. Because they tell me, they can't get anything new there, that ain't somebody there, they folks, or something. It winds up in the wrong hands. That's what I have heard. | 1:08 |
| Keisha Roberts | People steal it? | 1:52 |
| Georgie Johnson | I mean, they would steal it, they take it, and—yeah. Edward Glen say his daughters brought him two new pair of pajamas. He wore one, but see, the thing about it, the children should have kept them home, to wash them. Well, when it went through a cycle of washing down there, he said he ain't seen them since. Well, I bought some at a yard sale, for my cousin when he was in a rest home, up there on—going towards Chapel Hill. And Zora Lee got this ink that wouldn't come out and wrote his name in the back of the—back here. And you could wash and it wouldn't come out. | 1:55 |
| Georgie Johnson | And me and her went over there one time to see John, he had on an old top or something, and a bottom of something else, and neither piece of it was what I gave him. So, that's the way they do. And so, when Zora Lee's mama was down there, they carried a laundry bag down there. And whenever they change her, they supposed to put them clothes, her clothes in there, and they brought them home and wash them, and iron them, carry them back. That's the only way they kept up with her clothes. So they didn't get to steal her, if they stole them. And I carried to Aida an afghan down there—you know, she's sat in a wheelchair a lot—[indistinct] was the one at Duke. | 2:37 |
| Georgie Johnson | You see, when they're sitting in a wheelchair, they need some sort of gown, some kind of short. I carried her an afghan Miss Viola McCrae, crocheted, at least, she knitted it for them, and I give it to Aida. And I went over there, saw it one time after I give it to her over her lap, and I ain't seen it since. I don't know what come of that, whether somebody took it or what happened to it. I didn't ask. That's the one that Edward Glen was at, he was at that rest home. | 3:25 |
| Keisha Roberts | Now, just a few minutes ago we were talking about the missions that you did at church. Was it mostly other women who did the mission work? | 3:58 |
| Georgie Johnson | No, we all go together. The President always go with the other group. When we go to the rest home, the President always—one President, if they couldn't go, well, the Vice President would go. And we'd go to down here at Butner. Like, that one go. We carried donation clothes down in there. Different folks bring clothes. We'd go through them and see how they is before we carry them though. We don't just grab up the bag and carry them, because we got—one fellow brought a whole lot of stuff out that somebody donate, and we went through that stuff, and we had to throw away about a fourth of it. Because I'd say, "I wouldn't give that to nobody." And you can't guess what we found in the stuff. | 4:09 |
| Keisha Roberts | What? | 5:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | A gun holster. It was a shotgun holster, or a rifle holster. I brought it the house and give it to that boy, because I know he got some antique gun. There was leather. Old belts, and literally everything. We sit down there in the basement and went through that mess. DC was living, then. He said "Mm-mm" (negative) he always shake his head. Said to me, "Nobody, I not—I give nobody nothing like this to give away." He said, "I throw that away." I said, "No, I'll take it to Ed." Ed could be glad to get that gun holster, because he got some antique guns up there on the wall. They won't shoot, but they're an old gun. And I brought it here. Ed rubbed that thing, and it was leather. I said, "Well, I don't see how in the world anybody could be stupid enough to want to send a gun holster to Butner! | 5:03 |
| Georgie Johnson | That got me. And DC, he turns to her— he dead, that poor thing. But he always made a miration at everything. And then we— we sorted it out, and all what won't fit, we let him throw it in the bag, throw it on his truck and carry it to the junk pile. | 6:02 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were there things that only the women in the church did? | 6:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 6:27 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were there things that only the women in the church did, and some things that only the men did? | 6:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well, the mens help us sometime, because women used to box up the food, that canned food. Well, DC help us box that up once or twice, and he would deliver. And some of my—I got up in church, and told that, right in the church. And I told them, I said, "Now, if you're giving somebody something, you want to give them something worth something." I said, "Somebody giving you something, you want to give them something that is good, and not bad." I said, "Some of those cans, the tops were swollen," I said, "And some of them was marked with that black stuff, where they had put out there, and was cheap." And I said, "And been in the store a long time, is the reason they done it." I said, "I don't even buy dog food, what's been in. I don't buy my dog—" | 6:32 |
| Georgie Johnson | And so, I said, "If you can't buy but one can, buy some that's label is not done gone, done expired or something." I said, "Because you don't want to give nobody nothing like that." So, last time I went, last year when we went through it for Christmas, we didn't come across no bent cans, but we did come across some that's there was stamped the label was out. I mean, you know, it's out of date. So we didn't give that to nobody, we just divided it up and took it home. I got some in there now, I'm going to throw out. My dog won't eat it. That real old spaghetti stuff, she won't eat it. I got about four cans in there. | 7:24 |
| Georgie Johnson | And now, when you—that's another thing. Folks don't know how to give. If they read the Bible, they find out, because the Bible's tell you, said that when you wouldn't give your child a stone when they ask for bread, and that's what it means. You give good gift when you give folks something. You don't give them something you don't want. "Just like clothes," I told, I said, "When you bring clothes here, you don't give them something raggedy, or out of style, or done faded or something." | 8:14 |
| Georgie Johnson | I said, "All us can at least spare one good something we don't want." I said, I told them then. I said, "I got two or three dresses hanging up in the closet that I didn't even put on this year." And I said, "If we can sacrifice and give somebody something for good, we get a blessing from it." I said, "You don't get no blessing from giving somebody something you need to throw away. You don't." | 8:47 |
| Keisha Roberts | Earlier, did you say that you— | 9:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | But when folks want to receive gifts, they want you to give them the best. Because I know, one lady, she dead now. The Pastor's Aid thing, they was giving out—oh, they just went to extreme. I didn't even ever join that, because I said, we give the Pastor too much, now. According to the Bible, told them to go, and what'll right be given to them, but most of them, they like when you set a certain salary, and give him, promise him so much. He won't even preach. Because we had one preacher come out that one time, and we was going to pay him $50 for a sermon, then. And this preacher preached, and they went to pay him. I don't whether they going give him a check, or going give him money. And that's been a pretty good while ago. | 9:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | He told them, "Brother, I tend to get $100 for a homecoming sermon." Now, even though—he not no preacher. He was just man out there for money. He wasn't a Godsent man. Now, if I'd have felt like then I was a preacher, I sure wouldn't have said it. I wouldn't have told them. I just wouldn't have went to come back there no more. Yeah. Said, "Brother, I tend to get $100 for a homecoming sermon." And the people ain't up there about 30 minutes, preaching. He's sitting down most time, and he get up most of them preach about 20 minutes, and they talk and that's about 10, and that's about it. And you're paying a person that much for - now, they get about $100. I mean, about $100 worth. Most of them get about $100, I said, for five or 10 minutes. They do, for what they charge. I'm telling you, all religion that money's done—well, the Bible says, "For the love of money is root of all evil." And money is just done gone to most fool's heads. | 10:08 |
| Georgie Johnson | But it don't bother me, because God said He'd supply all I would need. And I told him all I had, I've been making it pretty good on what I had. And I haven't been hungry. I didn't get cold last winter. Had plenty of gas in the tank. And had plenty of food. And I got plenty of clothes. Got more clothes than I could wear in one winter. About saving suits, which, usually run to the store buying or nothing. I don't care if they is out of style, or ain't the newest thing on the market. I don't need the newest thing on the market. Yeah, I got a whole lot of winter suit, about four or five summer suits, and all those dresses. I don't need them. Most folk want something new or different every time they go out. | 11:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | I told them one morning there, I said, "Now, other folks done got to the place, they use church as a fashion house. They think they can't come to church if they ain't got something new to show off." I said, "I don't come here to show off my clothes. As long as I'm clean and decent, I feel like I'm all right." Goodness. | 12:18 |
| Keisha Roberts | Well, I think this might be enough for our first interview. | 12:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm. | 12:53 |
| Keisha Roberts | We've been talking for probably a while, and you might want your own time now. | 12:53 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. It's been a second. My daughter always says that. "Mama, you're all talked up." | 12:57 |
| Keisha Roberts | Well, it's definitely— | 13:05 |
| Georgie Johnson | She didn't want me to go to the doctor, the other doctor. I went—see my doctor down here, [indistinct 00:13:14] she was—that clinic went out of business, and I had to find me a new doctor, so I went to old Dr Hargrove, do you know her? | 13:05 |
| Keisha Roberts | Mm-mm. | 13:22 |
| Georgie Johnson | Just down here on Duke Street, you turn before you get to that place, on the right. And I went there, and seen them. I didn't like that, after. After I first went there and see, a nurse done everything. She come in there and took my pressure, my temperature, and punched my finger and got me a little blood. And then way later on, Dr Hargrove come in there and just said, talked a few words to me. And I told her, I said, "I just come down here for you to renew my prescription." I said, "Because the other doctor, she wrote for three months, and the three months is about out." And that heifer went in there and changed the prescription, and I took about a week or more before I kind of see an effect, and I told Betty, I said, "Betty," I said, "I got to find me another doctor, I don't like old Dr Hardwater." | 13:22 |
| Georgie Johnson | My son, Roy goes there, but you see, he's with a company, there, he's a more company doctor. I mean—and so I went there and I said, well, I kept calling, calling, and I said, "I want to speak to the doctor, Dr Hargrove." First time, I talked to the nurse. Next time, I talked to her, she said, "Well, can you tell me, what your problem?" I said, "I want to talk to the doctor." I said, "She changed my medicine and I'm having problem." I said, "I told her I wanted this prescription, but I didn't need it changed. I was doing all right." I said, "And ever since then, my legs and everything been sore." | 14:29 |
| Georgie Johnson | And then I went back to Lee Miller, my main doctor. I found out where she were, because she thought they were going to leave town when her husband graduated from Duke. If he didn't find a job, she said they were going to go back home. And I found out she was on Duke Street. Now, Betty called her, my daughter, called her and got an appointment. She give me an appointment just like that. After I told them I was having problems with the medicine, give me an appointment about four or five days later. Four or five days. | 15:14 |
| Georgie Johnson | When I went down there, I carried the appointment card because what she had. I said, "Appointment card they did give me was dated on Sunday. It weren't even dated on a office day at all." It was dated for the seventh, and I said, "Now, y'all messing with my body and I don't like that." I said, "Because it's not your body you're fooling with." And I said, "The doctor changed my medicine. I told her all I wanted her to do was rewrite the prescription." I said, "And I know if she's a doctor, she knows what that prescription were." And she wrote it and I didn't know it was different until I go down here at the drug store, and go down that drug store, and the lady at the drug store, she knows me, because I go get my medicine. | 15:50 |
| Georgie Johnson | She said, "She changed your prescription." I asked her how much it would be, she said, "$40." I said, "What?" I said, "Well, I don't see how could it be that much." She said, "It's for stronger medicine, and it's for a longer period." I say, "Shoot." And so, after I gone and checked with my old doctor, I carried her all the prescription what Dr Hargrove, and then she said she couldn't understand it, what she wrote that script. I said, "Now, I thought I kept taking that medicine she'd kill me." I said, "I couldn't have sued her because I'd have been dead." | 16:36 |
| Georgie Johnson | But darn, they kills more folk. Doctors kills that many—I heard that on TV. That doctors kill as many folk as they cure. They experiment and that. Because I - see, my sugar level was all right, it was 130. That's what the nurse told me, she had one of those machines. And I got a cousin down here, got one stay down here at out by the river, and I got another cousin across the river, over this way, got one of them things. They take their own sugar count. And so, I told her, I said, "I could have had that done without coming down here. But I had to have the prescription renewed so I could get the medicine. They wouldn't give it to me at the drug store without a doctor signing." | 17:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | So, I had Margaret to call and cancel my appointment over there at Dr Hargrove's, I said, "Don't tell her I done gone back to another doctor." I said, "I ain't going back to her no more." Next thing you know, I'll be laying on the box, still. | 18:05 |
| Keisha Roberts | Did you used to go to Lincoln Hospital? | 18:25 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. I went over there and them folks got so messy I got scared of them. Some of them now, they got a new group over there, now. They said they doing—they must have caught up with a whole lot of them. A lot of those folks over there, they go down there and get their prescriptions and have to wait I don't know how long, again. Oh, he got on a mask. (laughs) That dog. | 18:27 |
| Georgie Johnson | And you get the prescription, you get home, you find out you got somebody else's stuff. Messed up like that. Now, I had a friend, she's dead now. But she got home with her medicine—stayed right down the road about a mile from here. She got home and said it looked like something told her to look at it. And she took the bottle and looked at it, and poured the pills in her hand, and said, "This don't look like what I been taking" Said she grabbed one of her old bottles and read the numbers off of there, and it was the wrong stuff. And she called, they told her to bring it back. And she did. | 18:55 |
| Georgie Johnson | And I said, folks over there, half of them ain't got their mind on what they doing, they just thinking about that dollar they going get at pay check. They ain't care nothing about your body. And that old group what was over there, some of them just seem— well, right hateful. Woo! One used to work at the desk there, she said—my doctor's give me appointment card for the flu, and this would have been about two, three years ago. I drove over there one morning in the pouring down rain, by myself. And I got over there, and she said, "I'm sorry, we're out of flu shots." I said, "Well, how come somebody didn't call me? Y'all had my number." "They was supposed to call everybody that had the appointment for the flu shot." And I said, "Well, nobody called me." I said, "They try one time, they ought to try it again." I told Betty. | 19:31 |
| Georgie Johnson | I said, I got so mad, the woman behind had me—(laughing). Betty said, "Mama," she said, "We better stop Mama from going over to Lincoln." Said, "We going be seeing her flash up on the news." I told, yeah, I felt like grabbing that old woman, dragging her—I did tell her, I said, "A old lady, 80 year old drove way over here in the rain, you sit there and tell me you sorry." Exactly what I told her. I laid her out. I told Betty, "I wish they would have had a tape of what I said. I don't even know what all I did say." But the saying is, I saw red, just about when she come telling me they was out, when she could have called me. I said, "A old lady, 80 year old, driving over here in the rain. And you sit there and tell me you sorry." | 20:31 |
| Georgie Johnson | See, it's just poor management. They didn't—and then one time, they give me appointment. They sent an appointment card in the mail, it come in the mailbox. I said, "I ain't ask for no appointment." I looked at the card and I couldn't understand. I drove on over there, and behold, that was the—downstairs, I showed it to the woman at the desk, she said, "You supposed to go downstairs." I said, "What for?" She said, "Go to the one on the left, down there. That lady will tell you." Got down there, it was those folks were going there for something about drugs. I got mad again. I told Betty, my daughter, we call her Bet. That's when she said, "We got to stop Mom from going over to Lincoln." Said, "Because she going be in the news over there." | 21:21 |
| Georgie Johnson | I said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Whole team messing with me, over there." I had to quit going to Dr Banks, because by that time I go over there, she'd be at the hospital and referred me to some other doctor I had never seen before, didn't know. And I drove way over there, and I'm seeing, just switching from doctor to doctor. You don't do that. | 22:11 |
| Keisha Roberts | When you were growing up, and when you were younger, did you just have one doctor that you always saw? | 22:37 |
| Georgie Johnson | Oh, folks done better than they do now. No doctor [indistinct 00:22:44] lessing there was something serious wrong with us. | 22:41 |
| Keisha Roberts | Who delivered your children, when you had babies? | 22:46 |
| Georgie Johnson | Dr Stroud. Every one of them was born at home. We had a country doctor. Now, Dutton was born in the hospital, Dr Stroud was in jail when he was born. (laughing) He performed an abortion on a little girl. They put him in jail. That's what they had him in jail for. He got out on some technicality. He didn't pull no time. Yeah. He had performed an abortion on somebody's girl. When Dutton was born, Dr Mills drove out here and delivered him. We had to pay him a dollar a mile, and then $25 for to deliver the baby. See, and he came about—it was about 20. We paid him about $75 or close to 100, because he charged by the mile and Dr. Stroud just charged $25 flat. Yeah. Dr Stroud delivered all my children at home. | 22:50 |
| Keisha Roberts | Is that the way most people had— | 24:01 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. Back in them days, the doctor didn't do half it. The Granny woman delivered. | 24:03 |
| Keisha Roberts | Who? | 24:11 |
| Georgie Johnson | An old woman. Granny woman, they call them— I can't think what you call them now. | 24:11 |
| Keisha Roberts | A midwife? | 24:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | Huh? | 24:17 |
| Keisha Roberts | A midwife? | 24:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | Yeah. And Mary Mack was one, and Aida Johnson was one. There was too many. Becky Parker was one. We had about three or four around here. But most of them was going out after Dr Stroud and old Dr Bahama and the one up here, they had Lena. Would come to your house. Yes, sir. I heard often, they said folks would come to the door, his grandmama, my husband grandmama, was a—I call them a Granny woman. One of them said folks come to the house sometimes, and Grandma had to get up on the horse behind and go. They come after. That's the way he carried just back to his house, the woman be in labor. And they come and say, "So and so is in labor." | 24:17 |
| Georgie Johnson | And he'd get up and dressed and get a little bag, and get up on the horse, or mule, or whatever it was behind, and go on. | 25:15 |
| Keisha Roberts | Was Dr Stroud a Black doctor? | 25:28 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? | 25:30 |
| Keisha Roberts | Was Dr Stroud a Black doctor? | 25:30 |
| Georgie Johnson | White. | 25:31 |
| Keisha Roberts | White? | 25:31 |
| Georgie Johnson | Mm-hmm. | 25:32 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were the midwives Black women? | 25:33 |
| Georgie Johnson | Dr Mills was a Black doctor. He was in Durham, though. His office in Durham. | 25:35 |
| Keisha Roberts | Were the midwives Black? | 25:44 |
| Georgie Johnson | Hm? Mm-hmm. Yeah, all I knew were. There might have been one or two White around. But they didn't come to Black folks' houses. They went to the White, and the Black go to the Black. Yeah. They [indistinct 00:26:06] most of the people, if they know what to do, how to cut the cord and fix the cord, and get that afterbirth that was the biggest thing to it. And a lot of women still died from childbirth back in those days, because the midwives didn't have equipment if the baby was turned and— or something, and it was coming out foot forward instead of head forward. See, if one come out head forward, he comes out, you know, straight. But if he turn, and is coming out feet or his hands, or something. A complication. When you're in the hospital, a doctor knows what to do, how to— You see sheep or cows born like that. The menfolks have to roll up their sleeves and run their hand up in the cow, and turn the calf, so it would come out right, or something like that. | 25:45 |
| Keisha Roberts | Well, I thank you for your time. We've been talking— | 27:06 |
| Georgie Johnson | Well— | 27:07 |
| Keisha Roberts | —for quite a bit. And I imagine you probably want to eat some— | 27:07 |
| Georgie Johnson | Okay. | 27:12 |
| Keisha Roberts | So, are there any questions that you have about this form that I need you to sign? I'll go ahead and stop the cam. | 27:13 |
| Georgie Johnson | No. That's enough. | 27:18 |
| Keisha Roberts | No questions. | 27:18 |
| Georgie Johnson | If you want it signed, I'll tell you what— | 27:18 |
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