Anderson Broussard interview recording, 1994 August 09

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-	[Michele Mitchell] I got your voice okay,	0:01
	so did you sound good?	0:02
-	[Anderson Broussard] Huh?	0:03
-	I'm going to ask you just to say your name	0:04
	and tell me when you were born,	0:05
	just so I can check and make sure	0:07
	that your voice sounds good.	0:08
-	Okay.	0:09
-	Okay.
-	Anderson Broussard, I was born 1914,	0:13
	August the 17th.	0:20
-	Start back up again.	0:26
-	Oh, okay.
	I was hauling people	0:35
	for the justice of the peace at Glencoe	0:42
	and the high sheriff didn't get the vote	0:48
	that he wanted to get to go in.	0:53
	But at the time when it happened,	1:00
	Nathan Levy, one of my friends,	1:07
	he came and told me about what it was happening	1:12
	at the courthouse in Franklin.	1:16
	So I went on and got in my car and went to Franklin	1:21
	and talked to the high sheriff about it.	1:28
	And told him	1:32
	that I couldn't have known	1:33
	to vote against him	1:38
	because I wasn't in authorities of these things.	1:42
	I didn't have any money to go to nobody,	1:47
	to pay for votes or nothing of that kind at that time.	1:52
	So what happened?	1:59
	When I told Buck Shaw what had happened,	2:04
	which in fact of it,	2:10
	our high sheriff had taken a fellow	2:16
	off the payroll	2:21
	down here in the Second Ward.	2:23
	And that was this woman's, she had a store.	2:27
	She was Miss Bules Demesnell.	2:31
	She was meeting the people as they come in the store	2:38
	and talking to them	2:42
	and telling them what to do.	2:44
	Well, Harry (indistinct) had told,	2:50
	The high sheriff, what he tell them Negro was here,	2:54
	what to do,	2:58
	they're going to do what he said or else,	3:00
	but I didn't know that.	3:05
	So what happened?	3:10
	The high sheriff couldn't go in	3:13
	because he was lacking 75 votes	3:16
	of going into the office,	3:20
	going into the seat.	3:23
	So what happened at the time,	3:26
	I go there and I explained it to him and told him,	3:31
	what would and what wouldn't.	3:36
	So I goes and I tell BP Jacob,	3:41
	the man that haul	3:46
	those few votes for-	3:50
	He was no man, he knowed what was going on	3:54
	and he should have told the high sheriff straightly	3:58
	what I was doing out there,	4:03
	hauling people for him	4:06
	and not being against him, which I wasn't against him.	4:09
	So what happened?	4:16
	I told him, I said, "You not a man,	4:18
	because if you was a man,	4:21
	you would've went to Franklin	4:23
	and told those people straight what would happen,	4:26
	what it had happened."	4:30
	And I said, at the time, I said,	4:32
	"If I live and God say the same,	4:36
	I'm going to run against you the next four years."	4:39
	And the next four years,	4:43
	I came up and I run against him.	4:44
	That's where I qualified.	4:49
	That's where I qualified to run against him.	4:52
	And when I run against him,	4:57
	oh, he didn't like it.	5:01
	He had different fellow,	5:05
	he had Harry (indistinct).	5:07
	Fellow got this big plantation here,	5:10
	to come to talk to me about it.	5:15
	I told him, I said, "Look, let me tell you one thing,	5:17
	you all not going to run me out,	5:23
	you're not going to scare me out.	5:26
	You can't do but one thing, is kill me.	5:29
	Therefore, if you kill me, if someone kill me,	5:34
	therefore, I got kids enough	5:39
	to notify the federal government, that's my right,	5:42
	to run.	5:50
	I'm a born citizen of the United States,	5:53
	born and raised here, right here."	5:56
	And I said, what the people what qualified me,	6:00
	what they would think of me,	6:03
	they took time to qualify me and I pulled out.	6:05
	Parker was in North Louisiana,	6:14
	he running for governor during that time.	6:17
	The 11th day of September, I qualified.	6:21
	Parker qualified, be on the 18th,	6:25
	but he didn't run all the way.	6:30
	Parker pulled out.	6:33
	You may have heard of that.	6:36
-	No, sir.	6:38
-	Parker-	6:40
-	Parker?
-	Parker run for governor.	6:42
	And he pulled out, but I wouldn't pull out,	6:46
	I ran all the way.	6:49
	And the next, which I lost election,	6:51
	which in fact of it, which he could have,	6:55
	didn't give me the right numbers,	7:00
	or thing in which to win election.	7:03
	But the next year, I won it.	7:09
	I came back and I talked to the people on Four Corner.	7:14
	And here I had-	7:22
	Ernest Metz was my Constable,	7:26
	and they all was in my corner.	7:30
	I had a lot of people was for me	7:34
	in tracks of it.	7:39
	And so this man, he cried.	7:42
	When I beat him, he cried.	7:46
	I told him, I said, "You can't do wrong and get by.	7:48
	Because if you would've did the right thing,	7:53
	I never would've run.	7:56
	Because if you would've notified	7:59
	those people at the courthouse	8:01
	and told them that this man	8:03
	wasn't out there to get vote for Shine Fuqua	8:09
	he was there to get the few votes.	8:14
	He had the list,	8:18
	the people that he sent me to get to haul with my court,	8:21
	to the school out there."	8:27
	So he went on.	8:29
	Oh, he cried and carried on all the time.	8:35
	But it wasn't there-	8:40
	From then on, Anderson Yancy,	8:42
	he was the police juror.	8:46
	Ernest Metz was my Constable.	8:50
	I was the judge.	8:54
	And Joe Davis on Four Corner,	8:56
	Stanley Barry, Stanley Johnson	9:01
	and the Tardy boy.	9:09
	He was a Tardy.	9:12
	He was constable out there.	9:13
	I carried many of them in when I went in there.	9:17
	Before that, you couldn't get a Colored man,	9:22
	no Black to go to courthouse	9:27
	and qualified to run for, no of it,	9:30
	you couldn't get them there.	9:33
	That was 1963,	9:37
	that was the year that Kennedy got killed.	9:39
	That's the year Kennedy got killed.	9:43
	I went to Atlanta, Georgia,	9:47
	and I stayed there 60 days.	9:51
	I went away to that mountain where they cut them stones	9:55
	for to make tombs and things like that, I went there.	10:00
	And one of the Jordan,	10:04
	he was the secretary	10:08
	of the Southern Region Concert,	10:11
	which I was a member at the time.	10:15
-	What's it called, Southern?	10:18
-	Southern Region Concert.	10:19
	We left from here and drove over there,	10:25
	drove to Atlanta, Georgia.	10:29
	I went to Morehead College,	10:33
	to Morehead College.	10:38
	We went to the other college over there.	10:40
	I went to the Ebenezer Baptist Church	10:47
	and Martin Luther King Church,	10:50
	Ebenezer Baptist church on Warden Avenue,	10:53
	I went there.	10:56
	And Coretta King,	11:00
	she talked to me a long time.	11:04
	She hugged and kissed me and had tears run out her eyes.	11:06
	Junius (indistinct), Herbert Ward and all of them	11:12
	came to New Orleans and we the first Black people	11:16
	that had rooms in the Roosevelt Hotel in New Orleans.	11:22
-	Really?	11:27
-	Yeah.
	I was in room-	11:31
	I was on 11 floor number 72.	11:34
	Come on in, boy.	11:42
	Two, he was a lawyer.	11:46
-	(indistinct)?	11:49
	Huh?	11:50
-	(indistinct)	11:51
	No majority in the back there, he back there.	11:52
	Toole and Ernest Morial the one with with the mayor,	11:59
	old Ernest Morial who died.	12:05
	His son is mayor there now.	12:08
	I talked it for them in New Orleans.	12:14
	You see, this White fellow was a Jew,	12:17
	he didn't hit no Colored people.	12:22
	He would protect the Colored people.	12:24
	His papa had that office.	12:27
	His papa did there 40 years.	12:30
-	What was his last name?	12:36
-	Huh?
-	What was his last name?	12:38
-	Who?
-	The man who you said was a Jew?	12:39
-	Yeah, Nathan Levy.	12:43
	Nathan Levy.	12:45
	And he had a son, he got a son in New Orleans,	12:47
	his name is Nathan Junior, he's a lawyer.	12:55
	He's a lawyer.	13:00
	He's a lawyer.	13:02
	So what happened?	13:10
	They all was right in my corner.	13:14
	I had no worry at all.	13:18
	That's their land right there.	13:22
	They got land further down the land,	13:24
	they got land going to the Gulf,	13:27
	they got lot of land.	13:31
-	So this land out in front, that's their land?	13:33
-	Yes, their land, where that bush patch.	13:35
	That Georgetown.	13:39
	Well they had that land,	13:44
	I always did work that land.	13:48
	Yeah, I'll tell you one thing,	13:58
	the Colored people	14:00
	have caught the Devil	14:02
	through years, as time went on.	14:12
	Now, we used to have a big house there,	14:17
	just like that house what you entered in Glencoe,	14:21
	that Colored boy bought that.	14:25
	Well, I used to have a house then, right there.	14:29
	I can tell you one thing,	14:35
	the men used to sit on that corner	14:37
	and just like you is a lady,	14:41
	you know you're not going to mail no men.	14:44
	The White girl would pass,	14:48
	you sitting down there, minding your own business,	14:51
	didn't tell them nothing.	14:55
	If they spoke, it was all right,	14:56
	and if they didn't was all right.	14:58
	Old kids would say,	15:03
	"Nigga what you looking at?"	15:08
	Now, you and I, you didn't told anything,	15:13
	you minding your own business.	15:18
	See, now you minding your own business.	15:22
	So therefore I broke up a lot of-	15:26
	I broke up a lot of stuff that went out over the jury,	15:34
	I broke up a lot of that humbug	15:38
	that they done to do Colored people.	15:41
	Yeah, I stopped that.	15:44
	I told a sheriff,	15:47
	I said, "when you all know you're going to treat	15:49
	the Colored people right, I'm in your corner,	15:52
	but when you very far from that, don't count me.	15:55
	Don't count me in."	16:02
	Once in time, you couldn't sit on that corner.	16:08
	War was on, World War II was on,	16:14
	either fight or go to jail,	16:16
	or fight, or work, or go to jail.	16:19
	But I was the judge at that time.	16:24
	I didn't allow them to do that.	16:26
	He couldn't-	16:30
	If a man,	16:31
	when they come to arrest him,	16:34
	if he obey the law, give in to the law,	16:37
	when they said, "You consider yourself under arrest,"	16:42
	he couldn't touch it.	16:49
	He better not have a scar on him.	16:51
	He go to Franklin, he better not have a scar on him.	16:53
	The NAACP was strong through this part of the country	16:57
	during them time.	17:02
-	During the war?
-	Yeah.	17:05
	I belonged to the NAACP at that time.	17:09
-	But didn't the NAACP get run out of town in New Iberia?	17:16
-	No, maybe in New Iberia, but not St. Mary.	17:21
-	Not down here?	17:26
-	Not down here.
	They ain't run us out down here.	17:33
	People were free.	17:39
	They could go where they wanted.	17:41
	And when they arrest the man,	17:50
	he had the right to act,	17:54
	what he was charged with.	17:58
	I told him, I said, "When you read the warrant out,	18:03
	what was he wanted for?	18:09
	That's what the law."	18:11
	Now, if he said anything could use that against him	18:13
	in the court of law,	18:17
	so they couldn't hit you.	18:23
	They wouldn't allow to hit you.	18:24
	Time back,	18:28
	the law from Franklin would come and beat your brains out.	18:30
	Things like that.	18:35
-	That happen a lot?	18:40
-	Certain people it ain't happened to.	18:46
	And then certain, some boys left here,	18:49
	and died away from here.	18:52
	They brought their body back on the sake of certain things.	18:56
	You see, years ago,	19:01
	they had a fellow they called K.H. Wright.	19:07
-	Wright?	19:12
-	K.H. Wright.
	He was from Atlanta, Georgia too.	19:14
	He was from Atlanta, Georgia.	19:19
	He was the chief deputy for the high sheriff.	19:25
	And he called him out.	19:32
	What would really happen,	19:38
	if a Negro would show that he wouldn't scare,	19:43
	they would beat you,	19:48
	to try to calm the other Negro back, you see?	19:50
	But we didn't do that.	19:54
	We had a bunch of-	19:58
	That wasn't scared of you.	20:07
	And we had women that wasn't scared of you,	20:08
	that women wasn't scared.	20:12
-	Women that weren't scared?	20:17
-	No, you got women that wasn't scared.	20:19
	Women wasn't scared.	20:23
	I tell you one thing,	20:28
	I have been through-	20:31
	I have been through life.	20:35
	You can't do wrong and get by,	20:40
	and I had lived to see all of those fellows die,	20:43
	and I'm still here.	20:48
	I've lived to see	20:50
	you can't do wrong and get by.	20:52
	God said, "The least you do unto one of my little ones,	20:55
	you also do it unto me."	20:59
	And I say this, I can say this,	21:02
	I saw a lot of 'em die	21:06
	and be calling people to their bedside,	21:15
	big important for certain things they done,	21:18
	which were wrong.	21:22
	You can't do wrong and get by,	21:24
	regardless if you White or Black,	21:26
	it didn't make me no different.	21:29
	It was you, regardless of your color.	21:33
	I had no hate against you in my heart,	21:39
	of course you was white, I didn't do that.	21:43
	I didn't get that in office for party share	21:48
	or try to share a better for nobody.	21:53
	What would the law, that's what I performed it.	21:59
	And that wouldn't the law, I didn't perform it.	22:03
	I didn't care who it was.	22:07
	And if was a White fellow done something,	22:12
	and Metz could tell you,	22:18
	and he had to go, I had to sign him once to pick him up.	22:23
	I told them, I go and I tell him, I said,	22:29
	"Now you had to go to jail for what you done done."	22:34
	I said, "Now, if you don't let that man take you in,	22:38
	if I got to call for Franklin, I'm going to call Franklin	22:43
	and I'm going to call Baton Rouge from Baton Rouge,"	22:47
	I called the warden.	22:50
	'Cause I knew where to call.	22:51
	I knew what the law was.	22:55
	and I told him, and I didn't,	22:58
	he didn't had many trouble.	23:02
	He carried fellows White and Black, to jail,	23:05
	just like you were supposed to can.	23:08
	No trouble, none whatsoever.	23:12
	They really didn't have no doper like we got now.	23:20
	They didn't have that doping.	23:26
	None of that.	23:29
	We had none of that, that time.	23:30
	You think if you get a little moonshine,	23:35
	or go to saloon and get high.	23:40
	And we saying things like that,	23:43
	but otherwise you didn't do that.	23:46
-	A little moonshine?	23:51
	(laughing)
-	Yeah, moonshine.	23:53
-	Now, you were born here, right?	23:58
-	I was born right on this spot, right here.	24:00
	I born right on this spot, right here.	24:05
-	Did your mother call a midwife?	24:08
-	Huh?	24:10
-	Did you have a midwife?
-	Yeah.	24:13
-	Who came to deliver you?	24:14
-	Huh?
	Who came to deliver you when you were born?	24:17
-	Ann Delphi.	24:19
	Old midwife from the farm, they called call her Delphi.	24:22
-	Uh-huh.	24:26
	That's amazing, right here?	24:29
-	Yeah.
-	So what did it look like when you were growing up?	24:35
-	Huh?	24:37
	What did it look like when you were growing up,	24:38
	did it look the same?	24:40
-	Yeah.	24:41
	Things change a little	24:43
	'cause they taking some buildings down.	24:46
	Some buildings burned down, taking some down,	24:49
	but when I was-	24:53
	Right that garden went further down	24:55
	between that house, big house,	24:58
	and the highway, they had two,	25:01
	they had three houses.	25:05
	They had a house right there,	25:07
	a big house right there,	25:09
	a store right across,	25:12
	a store right on the same side, right there,	25:16
	and they had a big store, old Georgia had a store there,	25:20
	had a house there.	25:25
-	It's right over here where your garden is?	25:27
-	Yeah.	25:29
-	It'll come.	25:31
-	Yeah.	25:32
	You see right there,	25:38
	there, right there,	25:39
	they had a big house right there.	25:43
	Right where them trees at, it was a bigger shop there.	25:48
	You could get hot bread,	25:53
	or anything you wanted that day, back then.	25:54
-	Right back there where the trees are?	25:57
-	Yeah, right there with them trees.	25:59
	And right on the other side of that,	26:01
	they had a store, and you'd sit on that.	26:03
	And old Judge Levy,	26:07
	he had a house in the vacant,	26:09
	you see a vacant open in there.	26:11
	He had a big store, big in his house.	26:13
	They taken that store down and carried it to Weeks Island.	26:18
	His son had a place, they called a Blue Goose,	26:22
	at age in a mine.	26:26
-	A blue what?	26:29
-	Blue Goose.
	Used to have them sometimes, there.	26:33
	You talking about pretty women,	26:36
	you get pretty, pretty women there,	26:39
	good looking woman there.	26:42
-	A Blue Goose?	26:44
-	The Blue Goose.
	Prince used to run the Colored.	26:48
	He had a saloon.	26:56
	He had a dance hall.	26:58
	He had bands coming from different places.	27:01
	Different big bands coming.	27:06
-	Right across the way?
-	No, you go to the island.	27:09
-	On the island?	27:12
-	Yeah.
	We had a hall right in the back there,	27:14
	right at the mission hall,	27:17
	you see tore down and right in that back, or across there	27:19
	you used to have a big hall.	27:28
	I remember when they put that church up there,	27:30
	that church which you see there,	27:33
	I remember when they put that up.	27:36
	I remember when they put that up.	27:39
	They used to have a big camp store	27:43
	across where that brick house is,	27:46
	further to the road,	27:50
	they had a two story building that was a camp store.	27:51
	They used to haul logs from the swamp,	27:56
	and came the Balling, called Balling Lumber Company.	28:01
	Time, he used to have time.	28:10
	Glencoe used to be a player at one time.	28:12
	He used to have plenty good looking women.	28:18
	Plenty good looking girl at the time.	28:22
	Well, as time went on,	28:27
	now they had a free (indistinct) church at	28:30
	they called Freetown.	28:33
	Yeah.	28:36
	That church, it would-	28:40
	They had plenty girls there,	28:49
	nice looking women.	28:52
	Which, I'm the trust-	28:56
	I'm the president of the trustee board of that church,	28:57
	I had to go to Franklin and get all the property straight	29:02
	the land and everything, all the graveyards,	29:07
	everything straight.	29:12
	They had a parking there at that church, it burned down.	29:13
	He had big stores in Freetown,	29:20
	used to have big store there.	29:24
-	And Freetown is which way, this way?	29:27
-	Yeah.	29:29
	They cross that track.	29:30
	They move a big building, as big as this house,	29:33
	out to the front.	29:37
-	As big as this house?
-	Yeah.	29:40
	They move a building big as this house,	29:42
	call a saloon.	29:47
	The Colored fella used to run it.	29:49
	You see where them green,	29:52
	them sage grass	29:55
	on side of the wall?	29:59
	Well, where you turn,	30:02
	you cross that track,	30:03
	you go farther that Black tableau there,	30:05
	they call it Freetown.	30:10
	They used used to have some pretty girls there.	30:13
	Four Corners, Glencoe.	30:20
	Be anything you want there, anything you wanted there.	30:26
-	So you weren't bored?	30:32
-	Yeah.	30:33
	No, everything was there.	30:35
	All kind and good looking women.	30:40
	He had nice, pretty women there.	30:43
-	And music and the whole thing?	30:48
-	Huh?	30:50
-	You had music too?
-	Yeah, they had a band, yeah.	30:52
	They had a band, yeah.	30:54
	They had songs and they had a band there.	30:57
	I couldn't court nobody, I had so much family here,	31:05
	I couldn't court nobody here.	31:08
	I had to go to India.	31:10
	I had to go to Four Corners to get her.	31:11
	I couldn't court nobody here.	31:14
	Everybody kin to me.	31:18
	It wasn't kin to me on one side,	31:19
	it was kin to me on the other side.	31:22
	It was on Gaines side, Broussard side,	31:25
	Casseau side, or the Shinette side, all was all kin,	31:29
	everybody in this land was kin to me.	31:34
	(speaking off microphone)	31:43
	Yeah.	31:52
-	So you met in Four Corners?	31:55
-	Huh?	31:57
-	You met in Four Corners?
-	Yeah, she was raised there.	31:59
	They had pretty girls there.	32:02
	They had some pretty gals there.	32:04
-	Really?	32:10
	You were married in 1940?	32:11
-	I been married 54 years.	32:13
	About 1940, that's 54 years.	32:20
	And never been parted.	32:26
	We different, but we still stay together.	32:30
	I never hit her through madness,	32:34
	through anger, I never hit her.	32:36
	I've been mad enough to hit her.	32:41
	I never hit her.	32:46
	And I asked the Lord, which I can say one thing,	32:49
	she done a job for me.	32:53
	My mother stayed paralyzed,	32:56
	going on four years.	33:04
	And she wouldn't leave my mother to go,	33:07
	she did for my mother and my mother sat right	33:11
	until she died.	33:16
	And my mother told her, she said,	33:18
	"I'm going to fix you up."	33:22
	She said, "I had two sisters that both dead."	33:26
	And she said, "If a fellow put his foot on that wall	33:32
	and you don't want his foot on that wall,	33:35
	tell him, get his foot off there,	33:38
	he got to get his foot off there."	33:39
	She signed, she said,	33:42
	"I don't want no man to quit, to procure.	33:44
	I don't want no woman to procure."	33:49
	She said "I want God to procure."	33:51
	And she signed out here for this place.	33:55
	I got a big spot of land.	33:58
	Go to the back over here, go behind that building there.	34:00
	He's spraying cane.	34:19
	Spraying that cane.	34:21
	Spraying that-	34:23
-	That's what that is?
-	That's what that is.	34:25
	Airplane spraying that cane.	34:26
	Can you spray-	34:30
	Can you see your okra,	34:32
	things like that,	34:36
	they don't come here no more.	34:37
	They don't come here.	34:40
	Yeah.	34:44
	We're right on the golf course.	34:45
	Right on the golf course.	34:48
-	So when you were really little and a child,	34:49
	what did you do?	34:50
	Did you-	34:52
-	When I was a boy, 11 years old,	34:54
	I had to stop school.	34:59
	I went to Catholic school.	35:03
	I used to, where you see that road go back there,	35:05
	I used to take care of 16 mules,	35:12
	the horses.	35:17
	Yeah, I used to take care of the mules, I worked there.	35:21
	I had to take care of my sisters, my two sisters,	35:29
	one called Annabelle and one was called Caldonia.	35:34
	I used to work to take care of them.	35:40
	That's my daughter-in-law, my son's wife.	35:43
-	Oh yes, I met your daughter-in-law the other day.	35:48
-	Hello, nice to see you again, mam.	35:50
	You want to sit back down?	35:54
-	Yeah, we can sit down.	35:56
	Yeah.	35:58
	I can say I had a beautiful life.	36:05
-	Well now, you went to school with the Catholic school?	36:09
-	Went to Catholic school over here.	36:13
	St. Peter School.	36:17
	Mother Catherine and Mother Drexler	36:20
	built those school for the Colored people and the Indian.	36:23
-	For Colored and Indian?	36:29
-	Huh?	36:30
-	For Indians too?
-	Yeah, that's for the Colored and Indian.	36:33
	She built, that's called Mother Catherine from New Orleans	36:41
	and Mother Drexler,	36:45
	they the one's who built them school.	36:47
	They built the school on Four Corners.	36:49
	They built one at Grand Mary too.	36:52
	That's where I learned everything that I learned.	36:56
	They used to send teachers from New Orleans.	37:02
	One of the teachers live here with us.	37:05
	Ms Leefroy.	37:08
	You kind of feel Ms Leefroy a little bit,	37:09
	you still not like her.	37:12
	(Michele laughs)	37:14
-	And you said you had a teacher living here?	37:25
-	Huh?	37:27
-	You had a teacher
	living here with you?	37:28
-	Yeah.
	She lived here.	37:31
	Miss Leefroy.	37:34
-	Now, was anyone who was Indian going to that school?	37:41
-	Oh, I were going there at the time.	37:46
	My sisters was going there.	37:50
	My two sisters were going there, Annabelle and Callie.	37:52
-	Annabelle?	38:01
-	Annabelle and Caldonia.
	(crosstalk)	38:13
-	When you got out of school, where'd you go to work?	38:16
-	Huh?	38:18
-	When you got out of school, where'd you go to work?	38:19
-	We worked on Kemper plantation over there.	38:25
	We picked cotton, they had cotton to pick.	38:30
	Hold cotton.	38:36
	You'd pick cotton in the fall of the year,	38:41
	when the school was out, you'd pick cotton.	38:44
	With my older brother, Leon, he in California.	38:50
	And my grandfather, he used to work on the Ozimar.	38:59
-	That's down there?	39:06
-	Yeah, right down there, called Ozimar.	39:07
-	Now, you said that you worked at Kemper.	39:22
	Now, did you work at Kemper when you were in school too?	39:25
	Kemper plantation,	39:28
	did you work there when you were in school too?	39:29
-	No.	39:31
	When I get out of school.	39:33
	When school would be out, we would pick cotton in the fall.	39:36
	Like now we pick cotton,	39:42
	like now we pick cotton.	39:47
	And when I got to be 11 years old, I quit school.	39:51
	I was promoted to eighth grade.	39:57
	I quit school and I had to take care of 16 mules	40:02
	and feed the mules.	40:10
	And saddle up the-	40:20
	Always see a horse every morning	40:22
	and pin the mules up for the men to catch them.	40:27
	And get ready to plow the crops.	40:32
	They didn't raise nothing but cotton.	40:41
-	No cane?	40:45
-	No cane, no cane at that time.	40:47
	Nothing but cotton.	40:54
	The people that used to raise cane,	40:57
	when I worked over there, the Kemper	41:06
	I worked there, I took care of the mules,	41:10
	and when the grinding was over,	41:16
	I went to that Inez.	41:18
	I was at Inez,	41:23
	and a fellow called Willie Gabe, he died in New York.	41:24
	We worked there.	41:30
	We used to work there at Inez	41:35
	I can say we enjoyed this,	41:43
	I had a well spent life.	41:46
-	Did you ever work at the mines at any point?	41:53
-	Huh?	41:55
-	Did you ever go work at the mines?	41:56
-	Yeah, I retired from the mine.	41:58
-	Which one you work at, Weeks Island?	42:01
-	Weeks Island.	42:03
	I retired, I worked 38 years there.	42:06
	I've been retired 19 years.	42:10
	1976.	42:15
	I retired February the 28.	42:20
	I figured that up in 19 years-	42:24
-	1978 was when you, 1976.	42:29
-	Huh?	42:31
-	1976, right?
-	1976.	42:33
	I was 62.	42:39
	I asked the Lord, if he let me live to see 62,	42:42
	if I was counting money, I'd get away from one child.	42:48
	Many days I come here, that woman there can tell you,	42:51
	I come here with water in my shoes.	42:55
	Work so hard, you sweat water in your shoes.	42:58
	The people that work there,	43:06
	they got it easy there now.	43:10
-	How so?	43:13
-	We used to pick up	43:15
	3000, 4,000 sacks,	43:20
	pick up salt.	43:25
	It was 100 pounds.	43:27
	Used to put	43:37
	40, 50 sacks to the skid.	43:41
-	50?	43:45
	50, 100 pound skid.	43:46
	A skid was that little wider than that sofa,	43:53
	that had four legs on it	44:00
	and you had to tote it. Tote it and put it to the-	44:02
-	This big?	44:06
-	Yeah, it was bigger than that, bigger than that.	44:07
-	And you carry this thing, you push it?	44:11
-	No, you one man catch it that way	44:14
	and the other man have in front	44:19
	and he put it to the machine,	44:22
	drop it on the side the machine,	44:24
	and then belts run and catch them sacks	44:26
	and put them so many certain way.	44:32
	And you go five high.	44:36
	You put 50 on there, it be hard that thing there.	44:40
-	And you carry it?	44:46
-	No, you don't carry it, the motor carry.	44:48
	A motor with a long lip run underneath that	44:51
	and pick it up and stack it in the aisle.	44:55
	He have so many aisle, different grids and all.	45:01
	And I run the laboratory there for 13 years.	45:05
	I could test blood and do anything like that.	45:09
	Chemistry.	45:14
	I would run a laboratory there on the third floor.	45:15
	If I tell them their salt is no good,	45:23
	he had to throw that salt away, and that cost him money.	45:26
	That cost them money.	45:31
-	Now, what did you do when you first went there?	45:35
	You must have started when,	45:39
	when did you start working at Weeks Island?	45:40
-	1940.	45:44
-	1940?
	1940.	45:47
	1942, '44, something like that.	45:48
	I worked for 38 years straight.	45:54
	38 years straight.	45:58
	And if they'd have give me my two years, I'd had 40 years.	46:00
	See, they sold Weeks Island to the Morton Salt Company.	46:08
	The Benjamin sold it.	46:13
	I was there at the time when they sold it.	46:17
	The Morton Salt Company don't believe in hiring-	46:24

	[Anderson Broussard] You know taking me, him,	0:01
	put him with the chemistry	0:05
	and run him after reading it, I could tell you,	0:07
	I could take you to take your blood and test your blood,	0:16
	run your blood.	0:22
	And you know one of the worst things you ever-	0:23
	I'm going to tell you something,	0:26
	which you know life, just like I know it.	0:29
	You ever saw the water come from	0:34
	one of these the outdoor privy toilets?	0:37
	You see something used to work, work in working.	0:43
	You see something working like,	0:49
	like in the water that's how syphilis work in your blood.	0:51
	The chemists brought two bottle of blood from Chicago	0:57
	and they came	1:05
	and they brought the things from Chicago	1:07
	and then they put some on a glass and we had a microscope	1:13
	glass microscope to look through	1:18
	and see all those germs,	1:23
	see all the germs in it.	1:26
	See all those germs eating at.	1:33
	And just like you see	1:36
	your water run up out of that pit	1:39
	what they'll have at the privy toilet,	1:44
	you see outdoor toilet, you see them things working	1:47
	and clean things working in there	1:52
	and that's what makes most people	1:55
	have syphilis die with heart attacks.	1:59
	And you see some of them are,	2:03
	you take some of them	2:08
	that go in your blood, go in your bloodstream.	2:13
	Have you saw different people with nickels and dime	2:18
	on the neck, on their arms?	2:23
	Have you saw look like had quarters things bigger	2:28
	that watch on them, different places?	2:33
	Well, that's where that germ it,	2:36
	through that vein and coming in his skin	2:39
	and he can't live in your skin,	2:45
	he turned the turn.	2:50
	Now, when he in that vein,	2:53
	he take the life	2:57
	out of that blood.	3:01
	That's why you see that those things,	3:09
	most people die with heart attacks, have syphilis,	3:15
	catch gonorrhea and don't clear their blood out	3:21
	when they have gonorrhea,	3:24
	they have syphilis like that.	3:29
	They don't do nothing, but I know the man had that,	3:33
	didn't do nothing. Every woman he had	3:38
	had to take her uterus, take all her organs out.	3:41
	He wouldn't tell the doctor see, he'd be better	3:46
	be take a shotgun shoot the head off.	3:50
	And he ain't nothing, but a pain to women.	3:53
	That's true, that's what happens.	3:58
	That's what happens.	4:02
	When you catch these diseases like that they don't clear up.	4:08
	They got a Penicillin. If you can get a dose of claps,	4:13
	you know, you got it, you go you get three shots, three	4:19
	it'll clear you up.	4:25
	I can tell when you're on.	4:32
	They had them chemists	4:41
	come to Weeks Island and they like me and another white boy	4:43
	and a colored boy.	4:48
	I can take if you check your check in,	4:51
	which I'm a diabetic	4:58
	that means you eat too much sweets,	5:03
	but he can't say nothing about that.	5:08
	Nothing but,	5:14
	that's from eating a lot of sweets.	5:15
	Start your food I mean you guys are diabetic.	5:21
	I'd rather have that than have I have gonorrhea.	5:30
	Or have syphilis, boy when you got syphilis	5:35
	oh, you got something.	5:38
	It did take them pretty women's head that.	5:43
	And you can't do the-	5:48
	They ain't going to tell you they got it.	5:55
	Then when you look seven days after, four days,	5:59
	five days after you be with her	6:04
	you'll find you got it, then you're messed up.	6:07
	Well, I can tell you one thing, I knock on wood,	6:14
	I live my life that was wise.	6:18
	Thinking, it's a very few of 'em that live my age.	6:24
-	Oh yeah, that's true.	6:29
	You're doing real good.	6:33
-	You're doing good.	6:34
-	Yeah.	6:37
-	You're doing real good.	6:38
-	Yeah, that's the only woman that I know	6:39
	and she's the only woman that I've been dealing with,	6:43
	but I don't think about that,	6:45
	I love myself and I love her.	6:50
	I'm telling you if you got a good thing going for you	6:54
	you better keep it going.	6:58
	(engine roaring)	6:59
	And they got many White and they Colored,	7:07
	they got Colored like that too.	7:11
	Many White, and they got the Colored with that.	7:15
-	Oh, you think so?	7:18
-	Oh, what else?	7:20
	See, they got many White, many Colored with that.	7:23
	I'm telling you that I've been around and I know.	7:33
	I can look at them and tell you.	7:39
	And (indistinct) told me one day	7:45
	I was picking up some pepper there	7:49
	I got a pepper they called it's a pepper on that	7:51
	along by that it's a hot pepper,	7:55
	Mexico, Old Mexico.	7:59
	She told me she said, "I'm hotter than that pepper."	8:04
	I said, "Really?"	8:09
	I said, "If I was a young man,	8:10
	I wouldn't want nothing to do with you."	8:12
	I guess see me, she got a kid now.	8:15
	She still look at me, she married,	8:21
	and she said, "what you telling me, Mr. Broussard?"	8:26
	I said, "I wouldn't want nothing from you."	8:28
	I tell you,	8:31
	"You're going to man up."	8:32
	Boy, I laughed at her, and I teased her.	8:34
	I can. Now they big as a boiler there.	8:38
	They got one,	8:43
	she live on the road going up there going up to the front.	8:46
	She put her arm round my neck I told her,	8:58
	"Get your hand off of me!" I tell her I don't want it.	9:01
	I said, "my wife going to kill me."	9:04
	She said, "what?"	9:07
	I said, "you don't know your own strength."	9:08
	I said, "(indistinct)"	9:12
	All the ribcage was busted.	9:18
	I said, "you put the bathrobe on him,	9:21
	you bust up on all of his ribcage."	9:23
	Before I, I tell you I can't-	9:25
	She ran-	9:28
	She kicked on me, she said,	9:30
	"You scared of me? You scared of me?"	9:32
	I said, "what?"	9:35
	I said,	9:37
	I said, and you know, "First of all	9:39
	you are a great kid," I said, "When your father	9:44
	pass by looking for you what will happen?	9:48
	Take you to the hospital, for all your ribcage,	9:51
	and the doctors got to roll you up.	9:54
	And fix you up.	9:59
	I tell you, all, all	10:01
	There ain't nothing going good to you	10:03
	yourself or nobody else.	10:05
	You know I lay around one day, I carried them all."	10:07
	"Mister, (indistinct)."	10:10
	She said "You old fogey, you're dumb."	10:13
	I said, "You'd rather be a fogey and live a long time,	10:15
	than live a fast life."	10:20
	You know how they say, one of them cowboys say.	10:22
	"Live fast, live fast,	10:26
	and die young,	10:31
	leave a beautiful life."	10:32
	I hear, I don't want that. I want to live-	10:34
	My own grandfather lived	10:39
	my great-grandfather lived 115 years.	10:40
	My great-grandfather lived 115 years.	10:46
	And my grandfather lived over a hundred years.	10:51
	My grandfather lived over a hundred years.	10:54
-	So then you started working at the mine	11:04
	around the time you got married.	11:05
-	Huh?	11:06
-	You started working at the mine	11:07
	around the time that you got married?	11:08
-	Yeah.	11:10
-	Yeah.	11:11
-	I got married in 1940,	11:13
	I worked at (indistinct) before that.	11:16
	This what I want to ask you, do you live anywhere close	11:20
	or around Santa Fe, Mexico?	11:25
-	Yeah, that's 50 miles from it.	11:28
-	You know, I must have know something about it,	11:32
	I got to ask you about it.	11:33
-	Yeah, how you know it?	11:35
-	Boy, they got plenty of pretty women there.	11:37
	(indistinct)	11:40
	She was, we used to, I used to work	11:45
	at Louis, California in 43.	11:49
-	Now where'd you work in California?	11:54
-	In 43.	11:55
-	And what were you doing?	11:57
-	Working at Louis Packing Company	11:58
	and I worked at Douglas too and we used to,	12:05
	I used to bring him, we used to bring meat back	12:10
	to Fort Secours on them. He's building them camps	12:16
	that had Fort (indistinct) right on them.	12:20
-	Uhuh.	12:23
-	And I used to come through that,	12:24
	I drive in one of those big trucks, 10 Wheeler, and I was-	12:26
	I used to stop at a cafe at every weekend	12:35
	and I just sat down and put him right in there.	12:38
	I wasn't, I wasn't married then.	12:44
	So she told me, she said, "Broussard,"	12:49
	I said, "What?"	12:52
	She said, "You ain't got nothing on that truck."	12:53
	I said, "Yeah, what you want on that truck?"	12:56
	She said, "You carried all that meat to them soldiers?"	13:01
	I said, "Yeah, I got the meat at the meat packing."	13:04
	She said, "Will you swap meat?" I told her, "Oh no!"	13:10
	I still remember	13:14
	Boy, you took that Mexican pop,	13:16
	boy, you got something.	13:19
	That would kill you. Done killing me or you,	13:22
	Or near with it, they never do nothing.	13:25
	And I know that. And I laugh at her,	13:30
	I used to laugh at her.	13:33
	I used to bring 'em, I used to bring them (indistinct) hams,	13:35
	We're tired, and we didn't think.	13:38
	Yeah, I didn't give them that	13:41
	they had a hold around me.	13:44
	She maybe was a year or a little older than you.	13:47
	And, boy, she's-	13:50
	When I used to drive up there, boy,	13:53
	she'd fly,	13:56
	get ready to fly and things for me.	14:00
	I lived a beautiful life in my life.	14:04
	Yeah, I wanted to ask you,	14:15
	did you live close to Santa Fe in Mexico?	14:17
-	Right below it.	14:23
	I used to go, I used to go through that.	14:24
-	So you know what it looks like, huh?	14:30
-	Huh?	14:31
-	You know what it looks like?	14:32
-	Yeah.	14:33
-	Yeah, yeah.	14:34
-	Yeah, I done really,	14:37
	I wanted to ask you that the other day,	14:39
	but we was talking I didn't have time	14:41
	to try and follow if you used to live down in Santa Fe.	14:47
-	Yeah, just an hour south.	14:52
	That's where I'm from is an hour south, Santa Fe.	14:56
	Not many people know what it looks like.	15:01
-	Huh?	15:03
-	Not many people know what it looks like.	15:03
-	No.	15:05
-	And you do.	15:06
-	Yeah, I had to go through there.	15:08
	I had to go through there and go,	15:11
	go through the Four Chicos, Arizona.	15:12
-	Now, why did you go to California?	15:19
-	Well, I got tired of out on here	15:21
	and I wanted, wanted, wanted to go.	15:24
	My wife, I was married then.	15:30
-	You were married?	15:33
-	Yeah, I was married then.	15:34
	Yeah, I'm married then.	15:38
	And I left here on-	15:40
	Left here on the 15, April 1943.	15:47
-	That's when you left?	15:57
-	Came back in 45.	16:04
	I worked, I used to live on,	16:07
	in Long Island on east 54th Street.	16:12
-	Where did you live?	16:16
-	East 54th street.	16:18
-	Wow.	16:20
-	That's about from Hooper-	16:21
	that was a block from central.	16:27
	Between central and Hooper.	16:32
	Yeah, I can remember that.	16:38
-	So you stayed there during the war?	16:42
-	Yeah, I was there, I was doing that,	16:44
	doing that job at Douglas.	16:48
-	How, I mean did, was it good money working for Douglas?	16:50
-	Yeah, Douglas was paying, paying around six or $7 an hour.	16:54
-	Really?	17:01
-	Yeah.	17:03
-	In 1943?	17:04
-	Yeah, Douglas was paying good.	17:05
	And Lowell was paying good. Lowell Packing Company,	17:10
	the governor had taken that over.	17:14
	You couldn't get no meat unless you worked there.	17:17
	I used to work there.	17:23
	My daddy used to live there.	17:26
	My daddy lived in on Ascot, you know, Ascot street?	17:31
	Well, my daddy used to live on Ascot street,	17:37
	but, I used to work for Helbert and Brother's Dock	17:41
	Helbert and Brother's Dock I used to work there,	17:47
	for Helbert and Brother Dock.	17:53
-	What were you doing for them?	17:59
-	Unloading stuff out of coal box-cars.	18:02
-	So they pay, they paid a lot better	18:12
	than the mines didn't they?	18:14
-	Oh yeah, they paid more money, which is out.	18:15
	Well, we didn't-	18:20
	When I come back 45,	18:23
	my oldest boy had taken sick. The one in California,	18:30
	he taken sick and she called for me to come home.	18:34
	And I came back.	18:40
	One of my foreman from which I had heard that,	18:41
	"Yeah, he come here."	18:44
	"Broussard, I'll give you all the time	18:48
	you need for your vacation."	18:50
	So I said, "Okay." Well, we got the union at that time	18:55
	and got the OW	19:00
	Union, got the union there at that time.	19:05
	It was rough though, we got that union there at that time.	19:13
-	Was it hard getting the union there?	19:19
-	No, we just worked hard on the fight,	19:21
	but on the last we made it, no trouble.	19:26
-	And what was it like I mean?	19:37
-	Huh?	19:39
-	Was it different?	19:40
	Was it really different before the union pay?	19:41
-	Well, yes, it was a lot different.	19:43
	You did tell you get it or get up the hill	19:47
	or get it or get off the hill.	19:50
-	No.	19:53
-	Yeah, they tell you get it or get up the hill.	19:54
	I worked it hard, many days I used to come here	20:00
	they had a belt run on the floor, big belt,	20:02
	number one belt they called it.	20:07
	And many times I used to come here with water	20:10
	in my shoes and make a big garden there.	20:13
	Yeah, they tell you, you're here, you'd have to have	20:22
	a strong back and a weak mind to stay there.	20:26
	And there I stayed there, worked there	20:32
	many years.	20:38
	It's a lot of people.	20:39
-	Before the union came did you ever strike?	20:46
-	Yeah, we striked once.	20:49
-	Yeah, did you stay out long?	20:52
-	We stayed out about not quite a month,	20:55
	we stayed out.	21:00
	We didn't trouble or nothing.	21:07
-	You told me earlier that Black people,	21:18
	you told me earlier that Black people here caught hell,	21:21
	that's what you told me earlier.	21:24
-	What?	21:26
-	You were telling me how difficult	21:27
	it was for Black people.	21:28
-	Yeah.	21:29
-	Was it difficult in the mine too,	21:30
	working with White men?	21:32
-	No, they didn't,	21:35
	they didn't worry you.	21:39
	They had to go along cause the Negro knowed	21:42
	everything about that mine.	21:46
	That would mean they had to go along with you.	21:49
	A Negro know everything.	21:56
	Yeah, it was difficult, it wasn't difficult in your mine	22:17
	because the powdermen was Colored,	22:22
	the drillers was all Colored.	22:27
	I'll tell you what I discovered was,	22:32
	if it was a (indistinct) town,	22:37
	like Franklin, that was hell for you,	22:40
	you caught hell there then.	22:44
	I wouldn't, I never did want to work in Franklin.	22:48
	For reason why, if a contract they could come there	22:53
	and he's paying $4 an hour,	22:58
	then paying $1.5 in the field	23:02
	they wouldn't want you to work there.	23:05
	And they wouldn't want you to work for that contractor	23:08
	because he paid more money.	23:13
	And they never did want	23:16
	nothing too much to come to Franklin,	23:18
	that's the reason why you see	23:21
	Franklin ain't no bigger than what it is.	23:23
	Franklin- Morgan City is bigger than Franklin.	23:25
-	Oh yeah.	23:29
-	Because the people there	23:30
	would sell land	23:33
	and they made provision for things to come in.	23:37
	But the farmer-you take the farmer in the country.	23:48
	They, they're all right.	23:52
	They know how they want to get it.	23:55
	If you take the farmer, they're the ones that they come	23:59
	on through here.	24:03
	Because if you have anything come here,	24:06
	the farmer want it. When you used to hole in the field	24:12
	now, they don't hole no more. They poison the grass.	24:17
	They got poison that won't kill the cane,	24:21
	can kill the grass, but it won't kill the cane.	24:25
-	So you really do remember a lot about	24:49
	the way it used to be.	24:53
-	Huh?	24:55
-	You remember a lot about the way it used to be.	24:56
-	Oh yeah, oh yeah. I know.	24:58
-	Did you stay away from Franklin?	25:02
-	Huh?	25:03
-	Did you stay away from Franklin?	25:04
-	I had no reason to leave here.	25:06
-	You had no reason to go there, you never went?	25:08
-	I had to go there to pay tax or buy something	25:12
	if I wanted something, but to see, to see,	25:15
	to get a job, you couldn't.	25:21
	Then you did all,	25:24
	they don't want nothing to come there. They be-	25:26
	The rich people don't want nothing to come there,	25:30
	that'll give you a chance, give my son a chance,	25:35
	the next fellow son a chance.	25:39
	They don't want nothing to come there.	25:42
	Them fellows want everything under their thumb,	25:46
	they want to do what they want with you.	25:50
	And that's the way it is.	25:56
	But it never really like that-	26:03
	You take the poker plant	26:07
	that they ended in Abbeville.	26:12
	That was supposed to be right there in Baldwin	26:15
	on that Charenton Canal, that poker plant.	26:18
	that mean didn't want nothing.	26:23
	If a contractor come there and hire two of them in,	26:25
	but they don't want to, they don't want the farmers,	26:30
	the big shots there don't want 'em to pay you	26:35
	what they pay them in.	26:38
	If they're paying $4 an hour, didn't want to pay you $4	26:42
	or $5 an hour, $6 an hour,	26:48
	regardless of what you know.	26:51
	That's what tore your town down.	26:54
	New Iberia and Lafayette always going to	27:00
	go more than Franklin in generating,	27:02
	because them places there don't want to see	27:06
	don't want get nothing to come there.	27:10
	You see when those places like that,	27:13
	why Morgan City grow like that	27:18
	because it was a sea port town.	27:21
	You see Morgan City,	27:28
	the people need to come in there	27:31
	and Morgan City they got to be no count now.	27:34
	I'll tell you like this.	27:39
	You take all those things	27:42
	they build in there before the war and all that,	27:46
	what they do they goes overseas and have them	27:50
	things built with cheap labor.	27:55
	Here they got to pay the price.	28:00
	And they get it in	28:03
	and they bring it back over here and finish it	28:05
	and they ain't paying no more money.	28:12
	They make a load of money on the Federal Government.	28:16
	The Federal Government supposed to stop them contracts	28:19
	going over there, working them people for a dollar an hour,	28:24
	$2 an hour.	28:29
	You know, where you make 15, $16 an hour here,	28:31
	you don't get that there.	28:39
	They go out overseas, go overseas	28:43
	and make them people work there for nothing,	28:49
	frankly, for nothing.	28:54
	That's the reason why Franklin City and Morgan City,	29:01
	and them,	29:05
	we went bad during last year.	29:07
	And part of this year.	29:13
	They took a lot of them	29:16
	contracts (indistinct) had,	29:19
	and put 'em overseas.	29:23
	That the federal government would've grabbed	29:27
	some of the contract out of their hand,	29:29
	took 'em contract away from them and bought 'em	29:32
	you got 'em, you got their contract in United States,	29:38
	they got to be built in the United States.	29:41
	You see where they work a man for what,	29:46
	$4 an hour,	29:52
	you get $8 an hour somewhere else.	29:55
	Well, that's a biggie. Look at the money	29:59
	you are making in three hours.	30:02
	Look at the money you show in your pocket.	30:07
	That's for sure,	30:15
	They used to work women	30:23
	in the field for a dollar a day.	30:28
-	When was that?	30:33
-	That was in the forties.	30:36
	Or 90 cents a day, in the forties.	30:44
	Now, the minimum wage is $4 and a half.	30:48
	Or $4.40.	30:52
-	Quite a difference.	30:56
-	Huh?	30:58
-	Quite a difference, there is a big difference.	30:58
-	Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's a big difference.	31:00
-	Now you were working at the mine when you ran	31:04
	for Justice of Peace, right?	31:08
-	Yeah.	31:10
-	Were you afraid of losing your job?	31:12
-	No.	31:14
-	No?	31:16
-	No, wasn't no danger losing no job.	31:21
	Not then.	31:25
	That don't come in conflict with nobody.	31:29
	When you run, when I run	31:34
	for judge that was just like,	31:39
	come in here and sit on in the house.	31:43
	Everybody trying to get something for themselves,	31:54
	that's what the whole thing is a lot about.	31:58
	Everybody trying to free somebody and make	32:04
	it better for somebody else, that's what we all-	32:08
	You see,	32:16
	you take, you take a hundred percent.	32:19
	We worked it on a farm for little or nothing	32:23
	and the farmer didn't want to,	32:28
	didn't want the Weeks Island to hire different people.	32:31
	If you didn't live on his place,	32:36
	he couldn't do nothing about it.	32:38
	Couldn't do a thing about it.	32:44
	Because you, you free.	32:47
	Yeah, Black people had it rough, I can tell you that.	33:00
	I remember that time, I remember that time,	33:05
	when the people worked	33:12
	for (indistinct),	33:16
	to survive, to live.	33:23
	Weeks Island was the only place	33:25
	was paying cash money.	33:30
-	Weeks was only place paying cash?	33:33
-	Oh yeah, out there on them islands there was a mine	33:35
	Erie Jefferson Weeks was paying cash money.	33:43
	(plane engine roaring)	33:49
-	So when you were working for that plantation,	33:59
	you weren't paid cash? When you were picking cotton	34:02
	and taking care of the mules you weren't paid cash?	34:06
-	Yeah, he paid cash, he paid cash.	34:09
	But it wasn't but,	34:11
	it wasn't but 75 cents a day.	34:13
	You had to work from sun down to sun-	34:18
	from sun up to sun down.	34:24
-	For 75 cents?	34:31
-	Huh?	34:33
-	For 75 cents.	34:34
-	That's right.	34:35
	They had three prices in the winter time.	34:43
	They had a dollar, 90 cents,	34:48
	and a dollar and a quarter.	34:53
	Now I'm telling you. Now, if you kept up with the men,	34:55
	you got a dollar quarter, you kept up with the women	34:59
	you got a dollar.	35:03
	My wife can tell you about that. She didn't tell you,	35:07
	she worked for that.	35:11
	I remember, I remember the time,	35:16
	Colored people had it rough.	35:22
	I could write a book about,	35:26
	I could write a book about the South,	35:28
	how Colored people, Black people were treated.	35:31
	Ever since they hit these shores from the New Island	35:36
	they've been mistreated.	35:40
	They tell me- which I wasn't big enough to know about	35:49
	I wasn't born at the time- but they tell me when that,	35:54
	when they tell me-	36:00
	When that ship was out in the Gulf coming	36:01
	and the south wind would blow or east wind would blow	36:06
	from that ship, you could smell that ship.	36:12
	They had you shackled down. You couldn't take a bath.	36:14
	Women, some of them, men, some of them.	36:20
	Couldn't clean	36:25
	yourself up. And all kind of people,	36:27
	Black people caught hell, naked hell. And they ought	36:32
	to thank God for being alive.	36:36
	I can tell you that	36:40
	the Black people they are the ones that caught the hell.	36:43
	Every dirty job the Black people had it.	36:48
	Yeah, I can tell you that.	36:55
	I remember.	37:00
	Yeah,	37:07
	you don't see many colored foreman, do you?	37:09
-	No.	37:14
-	Why? Because they paid the foreman big money	37:18
	and they pay-	37:24
	If he don't work hard	37:26
	telling you what to do, regardless.	37:29
	Let me tell you one thing.	37:33
	What I experienced in my life,	37:35
	a White man don't want to take orders from a Black man.	37:40
	He always think he's a bully.	37:45
	And I made the company	37:50
	pay me many dollars,	37:52
	that wouldn't usually have.	37:56
	Number one, you take a White man,	38:00
	you set the machine to put out so much salt	38:04
	and put out so much dry,	38:10
	or iodine-	38:14
	I used to sit there with the machine, I was the chemist,	38:16
	I just run the laboratory there.	38:20
	And I'd tell 'em,	38:24
	he got the machine fixed for 16 hours.	38:27
	Some of them Whites wouldn't want to move,	38:32
	wouldn't want to know that you got	38:37
	that machine shot for two shifts, you know?	38:42
	Well, he going to go and mess with it, change things	38:48
	and more they go on to them change things,	38:53
	they go to messing up.	38:56
	And then they lose over 200 tons of salt	39:01
	I see them call me there, on that phone there.	39:05
	And you know what I'd tell them.	39:10
	I tell 'em,	39:12
	"If you have $50 for me when I come there,	39:15
	if you don't pay $50 cash money, I don't want any check."	39:19
	'Cause they check bounce on you with a check.	39:23
	I make 'em pay me $50 cash money.	39:28
	Now I leave for my car,	39:33
	I leave for my car,	39:38
	I go to the third floor	39:42
	the mezzanine floor the third floor.	39:43
	I'll make 'em all leave off that floor	39:47
	and I run that floor.	39:51
	I check everything,	39:54
	I don't want them to see what I'm doing.	39:57
	And then when I finish I tell them the salt is good,	40:04
	the bend is full.	40:08
	And I'd even put a big box it up there	40:11
	if they want. And you know what they did?	40:14
-	What'd they do?	40:16
-	I run them all, all of the	40:18
	third floor.	40:21
	They're all on the second floor.	40:23
	They're all (indistinct).	40:27
	When I come on the second floor,	40:30
	them bends is full, full of them cartons,	40:33
	around cartons.	40:36
	You see, you'll learn from your-	40:41
	you'll learn from your work.	40:45
	Many time I didn't eat dinner till two o'clock,	40:50
	one o'clock, things like that.	40:54
	Well, what did I do?	40:57
	I take- do you see that salt wasn't right?	40:59
	And I take- the company is losing no material,	41:03
	I take and I change everything run right.	41:08
	When I first get there in the morning at seven o'clock,	41:13
	I blew that scale on. They got a scale weigh that's all,	41:17
	that's all running on the belt and they'd tell you	41:20
	just how many tons of salt to run on that belt.	41:24
	Now I tell them, I blow that salt, blow that and belt off.	41:29
	And that scale all it up and everything.	41:34
	When I tell 'em, everything is right,	41:38
	I can take and pour a box of salt right there,	41:40
	pour salt out the box right there and tell you	41:44
	just what is going, what it is going come up to.	41:47
-	Really?	41:51
-	Sure, I know that I had done that long enough to know.	41:52
	I can do it, I can do it.	41:57
	And when I told the superintendent,	42:00
	one time the superintendent of all the plants	42:05
	Things got kind of tight, money got tight.	42:11
	They said, "we're going to cut on a dryer."	42:16
	I said, "yeah, yeah."	42:21
	I let him talk, wait until he finished talking,	42:23
	I told him "that ain't going to work."	42:27
	He said, "how it ain't going to work?"	42:30
	"It didn't work other places," I said.	42:31
	"It ain't going to work here."	42:33
	He said, "How?"	42:36
	I said, "Now I'm going to do what you said to do,	42:38
	but the book going to tell just what I put on	42:41
	and went up, writing down.	42:48
	You see, let me tell you one thing.	42:53
	You're born in the South,	42:56
	when the south wind blow, blow like Weeks Island	42:59
	that flow get just like you pour water on it.	43:03
	That salt get heavy, get wet and that dryer	43:09
	ain't going run like it's supposed to run.	43:14
	You take that mezzanine flow,	43:18
	if you had a colloidal dryer come in, g rex powder	43:23
	and when that powder come in if you've been hold 20 sacks	43:30
	you always-	43:35
-	(unknown speaker)	43:36
-	Hi, go back there and see.	43:37
	What I do,	43:40
	if they've been on 20 sacks,	43:42
	I'll put	43:46
	16	43:49
	old sacks	43:53
	and four	43:58
	out of the new stuff come in.	44:03
	Whereby that new stuff running with that	44:05
	old stuff is going to mix with this old.	44:09
	But yet that old, you put that new stuff with that salt	44:15
	it ain't going to run it going lump up.	44:19
	It ain't going to run, I found that out.	44:21
	And girl, I tell-	44:25
	Give me a dollar	44:28
	and put there	44:31
	that they'll don't wave for 25 pounds.	44:33
	I'm supposed to get a big bag, put 'em in get	44:38
	25, 15 or	44:42
	20 bags, I'm going to put 16 full bag,	44:45
	mixed full bag, put full bag,	44:51
	the full bag in the middle	44:54
	and had them arms turning and mixing that up,	44:58
	that new dryer with the old dryer	45:04
	and when she go in that hot salt it's going,	45:08
	it is going mix, but they couldn't.	45:12
	Right now,	45:17
	they got a woman from Mississippi.	45:18
	They call her-	45:24
	well, really, let me tell you her name.	45:26
	She's a big woman, I mean a girl,	45:31
	Betty Maloney.	45:34
	Now, she figure because I'm a Black man,	45:37
	she's a white woman, she figure I wanted her,	45:42
	she figured that out.	45:47
	I'm not sure how she even think I'm going to	45:48
	be with a white woman or figured I'd get to her.	45:51
	I don't want her on me, what I want to do with her?	45:57
	I don't want her on me,	46:00
	I got the woman there right here	46:02
	who would do anything I want, what I want to do to her?	46:05
	Every time I go to the mine, "Come on, push me,	46:10
	I'll tell you on the third floor."	46:14
	She want to get some secrets from me,	46:16
	I ain't going to show her nothing! She's-	46:18

Anderson Broussard	- the box [indistinct 00:00:05] So Mr. Young come there, the Young children told me what they do and I told them, I said, "That ain't alright." He said, "That ain't going to work." I said, "That ain't going to work." He said, "How you know that?" I said, "I'm born and raised here." See, you let that south wind blow, just like some of my folk take a bucket and pour water on the floor.	0:01
Michele Mitchell	Really? Just water coming in?	0:43
Anderson Broussard	Sure. That's the water, that's that dampness from the south. I know that. I know those things just going to be. So what I do, I know how to handle and check it. So I went got some salt that we had, put in boxes, better than two years, I poured it on that. I said, "Now this is good salt." He said, "How you all manage to [indistinct 00:01:18]?" I said, "Because I know what to do." As long as the north, you got a dry climate.	0:43
Michele Mitchell	Right.	1:32
Anderson Broussard	It take the south and its dampness and I born and raised here and I know. I told them, he told the superintendent, "If he tell y'all to do something, y'all better do it." They had 24,000 cases come back, come and [indistinct 00:01:57] all over the country, they had to send them cases back.	1:34
Michele Mitchell	Really?	1:49
Anderson Broussard	All that material was lost. Well, I told him it wasn't going to work. He said, "I never do that again." He said, "When you tell me something, I listen to what you have to say." I said, "Well, Mr. Young, you the superintendent of all them plants and you supposed to know." I said, "I told you cutting back don't-" I said, "Making 2,500 cases and you can sell every one, you make 3,000 and you can't sell four. What you want to do with that?" But when I told him that, he looked at me. He said, "Anderson, you know." Well, I know, I'd been through that. Well, you make 4,000 case, you've got 2,000 you can't do nothing with, 3,000. 30,000 you can't do nothing with. You got to throw that away, all that salt in them bins you got to get rid of.	2:18
Anderson Broussard	So when i told him that, he told them, he come from Chicago to Lafayette and he got a call from Lafayette, come to [indistinct 00:03:47] and the first man he asked for was me. So he asked Chicky Broussard- He White, but he kin to me. He asked [indistinct 00:04:03] say, "Anderson on the mezzanine floor." Say, "I want to see him." Say, "If you want to see him, you got to go up there because he ain't going to come down. He'll tell y'all he's busy and you can't come now." They're worried them winters up in them big doors, the old big slide doors, just like you take and throw water on that gallery.	3:28
Anderson Broussard	That south wind blow off that Gulf, all that dampness come down. The guy laughed. When I told him that, he told me, he told Chicky Broussard and all them y'all better listen if you want this plant to stay open. I said, "We can't buy stuff and throw it away." He said, "Them men send that salt up here. Y'all got to do the right thing." They wanted me to work till I was 68 years old.	4:44
Michele Mitchell	They wanted you to work till you were 68?	5:45
Anderson Broussard	Uh-huh.	5:45
Michele Mitchell	But you quit when you were 62.	5:46
Anderson Broussard	Oh, yeah. I asked the Lord if he let me live till I get 63 years old. If I was counting money, I can get away from that. You know what I was doing when I was 63 years old? I was— Every department was there. I had a jug for coffee in every one. I had cups, spoons for everyone. And the big gang, I had three-gallon jugs, two-gallon jugs, I carried them in the office. You take our Colored people, now they take a Negro, he's from Four Corner, he was working there in them [indistinct 00:06:45] at the mill, at the office. He was new. It didn't carry no good. He mop, he [indistinct 00:07:04] the mop on the floor. What it take for him to come to that door and get two thermos bottle, go put them on a shelf they built there in the corner and come get a cup with the handles on it?	5:47
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	7:33
Anderson Broussard	No. He wouldn't come get them. I would have to go in there and put them things there. [indistinct 00:07:45] reason that now, you know what happened?	7:36
Michele Mitchell	Mm-mm.	7:41
Anderson Broussard	I'm going to tell you what happened. They took him out there and they put a woman in. White woman in. Now when they come down, they put him, they worked him like a dog and they treated him like a dog. He wouldn't work with me. You see, our color work [indistinct 00:08:05] together. They won't work with each other. Now I already took him to come to that door and get that coffee and a pack of cups. [indistinct 00:08:05] All had to do can get them cups. Now what they done, they told him— He took sick on the job, they had to get rid of him. They got rid of him. He's farming and he had to stop farming. They got rid of him. Now he can't do— When I see him, I hollered at him, I said, [indistinct 00:09:03] He [indistinct 00:09:05] look at me and "Brouss, I tell you, you can't do wrong and get by." I said, "You got to treat everybody right if you want to [indistinct 00:09:19] God."	7:53
Anderson Broussard	I said, [indistinct 00:09:20] I used to send coffee in the morning when they didn't— I used to send that jug of coffee down there, send cups down there, send the foreman of the mine. You know what they used to do when I'd send that coffee there? He'd take charge and see all of them get coffee. He'd drink what he want, then he'd see that all the men get the coffee. I used to send coffee. The men always telling my son, different ones send me word, different be telling me, send me word, different ones be sending me word. Why? It's better to be kind to people and be nice with people. It pay you, you don't lose nothing. [indistinct 00:10:17] laugh at me. Because I done made my [indistinct 00:10:23] I ain't want to have nothing to worry about. All I got to do is take it easy and live. God let me live, so I don't have nothing to worry about. His wife quit him. He's mean to her.	9:18
Michele Mitchell	He sounds like something else.	9:53
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	9:53
Michele Mitchell	He sounds like something else, this man.	9:53
Anderson Broussard	Oh, he was something. Oh, he was mean to his wife. All the children left him. He's farming and he's [indistinct 00:11:14] He want to be putting his faith in the other womens' affairs and don't want his wife to talk to nobody. I used to laugh at him. I tell him, I said, "Man, I got a pretty wife. I don't think about them women." I said, "I don't laugh. I don't think about that." Let me tell you one thing. Let me tell you, when you do right, always good coming for you. I served on the clinic's board, I was Chairman of the Rules Committee. I was—	11:13
Michele Mitchell	Do you want this back on?	11:53
Anderson Broussard	Huh? No, you want to put it back on? According to how you want it.	12:23
Michele Mitchell	No, I'm fine.	12:27
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, so I left and I left. For me, I don't have no regrets. God has spared me to live through this life and I have nothing regrets. Now I sit on the board, on the clinic's board, the clinic in Franklin. The board, I stayed on that three years. They had two nurses there, they called Donna Marie and Marie. So I [indistinct 00:13:23] I took them to the house one time. They come here and I took them to the house. You going to ask me. [indistinct 00:13:35] none of my gal, I said, "None of them—" So they had a White fellow, was there showing them different things. [indistinct 00:13:50] whisper in my ear. [indistinct 00:13:56] I said, "What?" She say, "Nothing [indistinct 00:14:01]" I say [indistinct 00:14:06] She say, "I'm not going to tell you about that." She said, "A man is the thing that I look at." She say, "It ain't the color. I look at the man."	12:27
Michele Mitchell	Right.	12:27
Anderson Broussard	So he come back. Moments [indistinct 00:14:40] Them two women, they were young women, about, one was 21, 24 years old. So I look at it, I said, "What one do you want?" He said, "I like that." I said, "You like that one?" I said, "I didn't know you still liked that one, but she don't like you." He said, "How you know that? You must be their dad." I said, "I ain't their nothing." But I said, "I know the schools and the [indistinct 00:15:25]" Let me tell you one thing. What's your name?	15:37
Michele Mitchell	Michelle.	15:42
Anderson Broussard	Michelle, I couldn't walk. Girl, I had arthritis so bad. I couldn't get out the bed. So God let me [indistinct 00:15:58] So she come in that door just like that with them folders in her arm, one arm, like you got there. She called my name. "Anderson Broussard." You know what she used to do? [indistinct 00:16:11] I had a big White [indistinct 00:16:13] She used to bring— They bring me that. She used to come with that wheelchair and help me herself. I [indistinct 00:16:36] but I never thought it would happen to me.	15:43
Anderson Broussard	So she used to help my daughter-in-law, all of them, with me, [indistinct 00:16:49] and my wife. All of them. So she take [indistinct 00:16:52] from them. So one time I went there, God let me walk. So I drove my car and I went to Franklin to get my check-up. So she used to come in that door like that. She say, "Anderson Broussard." I didn't say nothing. She'd say, "Anderson Broussard." I say, "Yeah." Boy, that [indistinct 00:17:33] When I said, "Yeah." So I stood up, she raised my arm, crying.	16:43
Anderson Broussard	She said, "You wasn't supposed to walk no more." I said, "Why is that?" She said, "From the pictures of your leg, you wasn't supposed to walk no more." I said, "Well, the good Lord didn't say that. Man said that, that ain't the good Lord. The good Lord didn't say that." So Dr. Welsh and Dr. [indistinct 00:18:06] so he said, "Bring him in. I'll check him." They had a doctor from New York come. They come here just like y'all come here. They come here to Franklin. So I didn't say nothing. So she asked me, she said, "What you going to be doing Sunday?" I said, "I'm about to take my wife to church and I go to church." She said, "If I want you to come take breakfast with me." I said, "I can't." She said, "What time you [indistinct 00:18:52] to church?" I said, "9:30, I'll be at the house."	17:40
Anderson Broussard	You know that makes you [indistinct 00:18:55] that van like that, so I drove right there. [indistinct 00:18:55] So she said, he told her, she said, "You like my old man." She said, "Yeah, that's the sweetest old man in the world." Just like that, she told my son. So she said, "If you were like your old man, you would be something." So she come there. My nephew got killed that very evening. You may have heard of him. A fellow come from California to Louisiana and got killed on 90. Right after Christmas.	18:54
Michele Mitchell	Oh no.	19:56
Anderson Broussard	Mm-hmm. My nephew come there [indistinct 00:20:02] We had took them to [indistinct 00:20:03] So I wasn't home. I went to see my nephew. My nephew had drove from California. He come here to spend Christmas. He had spent Christmas and went to go somewhere and was run down by a 18-wheeler. My brother from California was there then. We had took him out for dinner. [indistinct 00:20:46] We had took him out for dinner. So at the courthouse, so I used to sell all that. I used to have more equipment in the back there than what I got right here.	20:00
Michele Mitchell	Really? You had it back this way?	21:15
Anderson Broussard	In the back, back there over there. Same side, but I had more.	21:16
Michele Mitchell	That way?	21:16
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, in the back, I had more than what I got there. I'd pick up five and six bushels. So they had a woman they called Lenaire. She was about your size. Lenaire. [indistinct 00:22:23] So we had had a party at the courthouse on the fourth floor. So a fellow, Ernest Bredlaw, I showed you where the Bredlaw lived, they lived in New [indistinct 00:22:25] on that side.	21:17
Michele Mitchell	No.	22:22
Anderson Broussard	So it's Bredlaw. So she really liked them chairs over there. So I was sitting down like you.	22:22
Michele Mitchell	[indistinct 00:22:32]	22:22
Anderson Broussard	She liked them chairs. She come in [indistinct 00:22:51] sitting down there. So she said, "Boy, when you was a [indistinct 00:23:00] kissed you like that, you would have been dead. They'd have killed you." I said, "Well, that's nothing [indistinct 00:23:09]" She wasn't [indistinct 00:23:13]	22:32
Michele Mitchell	Now what happened to your knee?	22:59
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	22:59
Michele Mitchell	When you were in the clinic, what happened to your knee?	23:19
Anderson Broussard	Well, my knees, I couldn't walk. They come [indistinct 00:23:24] I couldn't walk.	23:21
Michele Mitchell	Did you hurt yourself at the mine?	23:23
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	23:23
Michele Mitchell	Did you hurt yourself at work?	23:23
Anderson Broussard	No, I didn't get hurt. I got [indistinct 00:23:38] retired. My knees just start to— Arthritis took me and I couldn't get out the bed. My leg would hang out the bed, my daughter-in-law or either my wife would have to put my leg back in the bed. Boy, if I tried to move that leg, look like I tear my heart to pieces. Oh Lord, that crippling [indistinct 00:24:14] I couldn't walk. Lord have mercy. But I still thank God. The Lord have blessed me. To see all of those things and I'm yet able to do a little yet. When I was a judge, I didn't stay home like some of them fellows. I was always on the go, always going. I got my credential, where I went to law school and all that. I went through all of that.	23:43
Michele Mitchell	Really?	25:06
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	25:06
Michele Mitchell	Could you tell me about that? You went through all that stuff?	25:09
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. I went to Baton Rouge about 12, 13 years.	25:11
Michele Mitchell	Are there other organizations that you want to tell me about? You said that you belonged to Masons?	25:27
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. I been a Mason 50 years. I don't pay my dues.	25:35
Michele Mitchell	Do you want this on or off?	25:36
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	25:42
Michele Mitchell	On or off.	25:42
Anderson Broussard	You can put that on.	25:45
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	25:45
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, I been there for 50 years. Huh?	25:45
Michele Mitchell	Your house is on Georgetown Road?	25:53
Anderson Broussard	That's right.	25:55
Michele Mitchell	What's the number of the house?	25:56
Anderson Broussard	109.	26:02
Michele Mitchell	Can I ask you a couple questions?	26:02
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	26:03
Michele Mitchell	Your wife's name?	26:09
Anderson Broussard	Florence Broussard.	26:12
Michele Mitchell	Florence?	26:13
Anderson Broussard	Florence. Florence, you want to give her your name?	26:22
Florence Broussard	For what?	26:22
Michele Mitchell	I just need your name and your birth date.	26:22
Florence Broussard	My birthday February the 3rd of 1924.	26:26
Michele Mitchell	Thank you, ma'am. Were you born here in Glencoe?	26:32
Florence Broussard	Uh-uh.	26:35
Michele Mitchell	Oh, you're from Four Corners?	26:35
Florence Broussard	[indistinct 00:26:38]	26:36
Michele Mitchell	Is that Saint Mary?	26:44
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, that's Saint Mary Parish.	26:46
Michele Mitchell	In Saint Mary Parish?	26:49
Florence Broussard	Uh-huh. [indistinct 00:27:00]	26:49
Michele Mitchell	You said your wife worked?	26:59
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	27:00
Michele Mitchell	You said that your wife worked in the fields?	27:01
Anderson Broussard	She worked in the field time back.	27:02
Michele Mitchell	Way back?	27:02
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	27:02
Michele Mitchell	You've got children, right?	27:18
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	27:21
Michele Mitchell	What are your children's names?	27:21
Anderson Broussard	I got Anderson Jr. Deloris Ann Broussard. Rose Broussard. Merker Broussard. That's all. Four children.	27:23
Michele Mitchell	They all born here in—	27:55
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	27:56
Michele Mitchell	Were they born in Franklin or Glencoe?	27:57
Anderson Broussard	Glencoe.	27:58
Michele Mitchell	Y'all got grandchildren too?	28:04
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, I lost a grandson. Lost a grandson about a month ago. Dolores' baby boy died.	28:06
Michele Mitchell	That's horrible.	28:13
Anderson Broussard	He 29 years old.	28:18
Michele Mitchell	He was young.	28:23
Anderson Broussard	Mm-hmm.	28:23
Michele Mitchell	I'm so sorry to hear that.	28:23
Anderson Broussard	All the grandchildren— Latasha's the only girl I got. My only grandchild I got. Latasha. Florence, how many grandchildren we got?	28:38
Florence Broussard	Huh?	28:42
Anderson Broussard	How many grandchildren we got?	28:49
Florence Broussard	How many grandchildren? [indistinct 00:28:57] had seven grandchildren and one great-grand. No, wait a minute. Boy, I can't think right.	28:52
Michele Mitchell	Four?	28:52
Florence Broussard	I had more but [indistinct 00:29:12] and my other grandson [indistinct 00:29:19]	28:52
Michele Mitchell	Ten?	28:52
Florence Broussard	[indistinct 00:29:38]	28:52
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	28:52
Florence Broussard	[indistinct 00:29:53]	28:52
Anderson Broussard	That's my son right there.	28:52
Speaker 1	How you doing?	28:52
Michele Mitchell	Hello, nice to see you again, sir.	30:13
Speaker 1	Uh-huh. How you doing today?	30:15
Michele Mitchell	Pretty good. Pretty good.	30:16
Speaker 1	I see you didn't have no trouble finding your way back out here.	30:21
Michele Mitchell	Oh no.	30:25
Speaker 1	It's no big deal.	30:29
Michele Mitchell	Mm-mm. No, it was just straight to.	30:29
Speaker 1	Yeah, once you get on the four-lane, just come straight down.	30:30
Michele Mitchell	Yeah. It was easy. My concern was missing the turn-off to four-lane.	30:32
Speaker 1	Oh, okay. Well, all they had to do, just see Landry's Seafood and Steakhouse, that's your first landmark. When you get to the cross lane, hang right.	30:37
Michele Mitchell	Yep. Well, I'm glad to see you again.	30:48
Speaker 1	Uh-huh. How you guys coming along? Pretty interesting?	30:48
Michele Mitchell	Very. Very.	30:56
Speaker 1	Kind of makes you scratch your head, wondering how did he survive from all of that?	30:57
Michele Mitchell	Yeah.	31:03
Speaker 1	Black people went through hardship. We was victimized for no reason. A lot of Blacks don't want to relate to that, but truthfully speaking, you look at even in today's life, we being victimized still for no reason. Because you look at the White man, he's still be trying to change the game to stay on top. That's why it's so much hi-tech today. It's not so much that we need it. They feel their people can adapt and the Black people cannot. So that's why you have a whole lot of— If you sit down a person, a Black person that experienced things, and just look at what is being handed down and handed out, really it's not in their favor, if you really look at it from my viewpoint.	31:04
Speaker 1	Because it's just like my job. When my job stop, I got to report to another foreman. Now you got a White guy, is driving the same type of forklift, doing the same work, but he don't have to report if his job stops. You see what I'm saying? The Black man going to forever have it hard, but it don't bother me for one reason. Like I said before, I know we been victimized, White people today is doing it in such a way that— I'm not prejudiced. That's the first words they holler, "I'm not prejudiced." But saying it and living it is two different things. We got a boss man, he can say he not prejudiced. You get off into the corner, you watch that sucker for five minutes, you want to hang him.	31:59
Michele Mitchell	[indistinct 00:32:57]	32:54
Speaker 1	And Black people mainly, I think, as being Black, we need to set our differences aside and come together because that's the only way we going to go anyhow. But I'm going to get on out of here, I got to— Did Mark call?	32:57
Florence Broussard	Where's Mark?	33:05
Michele Mitchell	You had two sisters, right?	33:18
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	33:44
Michele Mitchell	You had two sisters?	33:44
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, I had two sisters. They dead. Annabelle and Caledonia.	33:44
Michele Mitchell	Caroline?	33:44
Anderson Broussard	Annabelle and Caledonia.	33:44
Michele Mitchell	Were you the oldest?	33:45
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, I'm older than them.	33:45
Michele Mitchell	Do you remember about when they were born?	33:56
Anderson Broussard	Annabelle was born 1916, I believe. Annabelle was two years older than Callie.	34:12
Michele Mitchell	Your mother's name?	34:43
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	34:45
Michele Mitchell	Your mother's name?	34:45
Anderson Broussard	Rosa Brent.	34:45
Michele Mitchell	Rosa Brent?	34:48
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, B-R-E-N-T.	34:49
Michele Mitchell	Was she born in Glencoe too?	34:51
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	35:02
Michele Mitchell	Do you know about when your mother was born?	35:08
Anderson Broussard	My mother?	35:11
Speaker 1	I'll see you guys later.	35:11
Michele Mitchell	Bye-bye.	35:11
Anderson Broussard	My mother was born 1888, March the 29th.	35:16
Michele Mitchell	How old was she when she passed?	35:30
Anderson Broussard	75.	35:42
Michele Mitchell	Your mother, did she work out in the field? Did she—	35:42
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. She worked in the field. She worked in cooking and all a long time. Cooking for Mayor Machin.	35:44
Michele Mitchell	For Mayor Machin?	36:03
Anderson Broussard	Mayor Machin. She cooked for the Magrates too.	36:03
Michele Mitchell	Your father's name?	36:17
Anderson Broussard	Willie Broussard.	36:19
Michele Mitchell	Do you know when he was born?	36:23
Anderson Broussard	He's seven months older. He died in 1960.	37:07
Speaker 2	Antoine over here?	37:07
Florence Broussard	Who?	37:07
Speaker 2	Antoine.	37:07
Florence Broussard	Antoine.	37:07
Speaker 2	[indistinct 00:37:08] over here?	37:07
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. I believe he was born— He died in 1960. He died [indistinct 00:37:13] like 1960. Surely when you [indistinct 00:37:20]	37:08
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	37:17
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	37:17
Michele Mitchell	So he was born around 1888 too?	37:28
Anderson Broussard	'87.	37:29
Michele Mitchell	He was born 1887.	37:29
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. He was older— He was born in 1887.	37:30
Michele Mitchell	He was born in Glencoe?	37:47
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	37:47
Michele Mitchell	Did your father work in the field or did he ever mine?	37:48
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, he worked in the field.	38:06
Michele Mitchell	Did he sharecrop?	38:06
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	38:06
Michele Mitchell	Did he sharecrop?	38:06
Anderson Broussard	No.	38:06
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	38:06
Anderson Broussard	You [indistinct 00:38:35] about older brother? Leon.	38:34
Michele Mitchell	No. Leon?	38:38
Anderson Broussard	Leon.	38:42
Michele Mitchell	He's older than you?	38:45
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. Leon Broussard. He born September the 7th, 1909. He be 86 years old a year. He five years older than me. It's a boy and a girl dead in between us. He live in Los Angeles. He want me to come over there, but I can't go.	38:46
Michele Mitchell	Where did he move to?	39:19
Anderson Broussard	He live in Los Angeles.	39:21
Michele Mitchell	That's the brother that was in Los Angeles.	39:23
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	39:25
Michele Mitchell	You were telling me about a brother in Los Angeles?	39:26
Anderson Broussard	Yeah.	39:28
Michele Mitchell	So you stayed out there from 1943 to 1945?	39:35
Anderson Broussard	Yeah. I went there and when his wife died, I believe his wife died in 1980, I believe. I stayed 20 days with him over there. He lost a daughter last year. [indistinct 00:40:05]	39:37
Michele Mitchell	Just last year?	40:04
Anderson Broussard	Yeah, his wife dead. She passed, Eloise. I always remember what year she passed, but I went to California and stayed there 20 days with him. He wanted me to come back with him, come [indistinct 00:40:26] with him this year, but I couldn't make it.	40:11
Michele Mitchell	You went to St. Peter's School?	40:37
Anderson Broussard	I went to St. Peter's School in Glencoe right here.	40:41
Michele Mitchell	How many years did you stay there?	40:43
Anderson Broussard	Huh?	40:45
Michele Mitchell	How many years did you stay there? How many years were you at St. Peter?	40:46
Anderson Broussard	St. Peter's School were in Glencoe.	40:56
Michele Mitchell	Were you there for a long time? Did you go to another school?	40:59
Anderson Broussard	No.	41:04
Michele Mitchell	I think I've asked you a lot of questions.	41:18
Anderson Broussard	That's all right.	41:21

Item Info

Title:

Anderson Broussard interview recording, 1994 August 09

Date:

August 9, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Mitchell, Michele

Description:

Name: Anderson Broussard; Date of birth: 1917-08-17; Place of birth: Glencoe, LA; Occupation(s): miner; justice of the peace; Residence: Glencoe, LA
Informant ID: 612; Interviewed by: Michelle Mitchell.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

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

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Provenance:

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

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

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RL00170-CS-1073
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behindtheveil
e29082eb-e3ba-4841-95ed-ee6e64149289
ark:/87924/r4z60qb1g
e29082eb-e3ba-4841-95ed-ee6e64149289

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Anderson Broussard interview recording, 1994 August 09

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1. Anderson Broussard administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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