Henry Hooten (primary interviewee) and Lillian Hooten interview recording, 1994 July 11
-
Download
- Rights
- Files (6)
-
MP3
Part 1
-
MP3
Part 2
-
MP3
Part 3
-
MP3
Part 4
-
MP3
Part 5
-
MP3
Part 6
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
- Share
Loading the media player...
Transcript
- Download transcript as:
-
Text
-
PDF
-
WebVTT (includes timecodes)
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Hooten, could you tell me when and where you were born? And a little bit about the area that you grew up in? | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I was born in Pensacola, Florida, in West Pensacola, which was a rural section. I was born in 1918. I grew up on a farm. My father and mother had six children. And of course, it was interesting because everybody had to work. Besides the farm to make extra money, my father, during and right after World War I, worked at the shipyard there in Pensacola. My mother did the [indistinct 00:01:01] of work on the farm, and we were able to have people to help because they had quite a large acreage. They'd do cattle, hogs, corn, and most vegetables. Because he had vegetables weekly or monthly and they're delivering actually to make ready cash. And we had the chickens and turkeys. | 0:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Hooten, did your parents own that land or were tenants, or? | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now they owned part of the land. They owned 10 acres where the house was built, and they rented around 50 or 60 acres from one person. And they rented over a hundred acres from another person. And of course you rented the property by the year. As I can remember, at an early age, he was very friendly with the people that he rented from. Instead of giving them some of the goods, he paid them so much a year on rent. Now to help him with his work, he had a partner that was a Caucasian. And of course this partner would go and purchase the cattle and the hog. And my daddy would load them on the truck and deliver them to the farm. | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then after they moved to the point where they were ready for sale, my daddy carried them to the stock market to sell. Now there was no stock market close by, so we had to either bring them to Montgomery, Alabama, which was about 200 miles or carry them to [indistinct 00:03:14], Florida. Because those were the closest places that he could sell. But this partner helped him in terms of he was able to have situations that he wouldn't be able to handle ordinarily. | 0:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | What kinds of situations? | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, the situation in the community where we lived, you were either a part of a group that got along with the Caucasians in the community or you were a part of the group that didn't get along. And my family was a part of the group that got along with the other. Because of the partnership that my father had with this fellow in the community. And this fellow was rich. I'll just say it like that. | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I don't know whether you would call him a millionaire back in those days. But during the depression, he lost a lot of his money. And my daddy had been saving for a long time because he was saving to put us through school at one point. Then we had to pay to go to school. And he used some of his money to buy some land from this fellow, and he paid him by the month so that he would have money for his family. And in turns we were procuring land at the same time. | 0:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember the partner's name? | 0:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, I do. His name was, let me see, it was Dr. Nyland, he was veterinarian. | 0:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | And you mentioned that Dr. Nyland would do things, would purchase things for your father, such as livestock. Now, if your father growing up in that area or living in that area, is that something that only a White person should do? | 5:12 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, to purchase the best grade of cattle or hog, then only White in the community could. So even though you were at the stockyard, you couldn't purchase just anything you wanted because it was an auction. So well, the Black man couldn't actually join into the auction and not come [indistinct 00:05:48], but Dr. Nyland could. So he would make the purchase. And my daddy was just like, he was the driver on the truck, and the other fellow was on the truck to help load and unload. But Dr. Nyland always came up in his own vehicle, but he was there to do the purchase. And all the checks were written to Dr. Nyland. | 5:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr, Hooten, could you tell me a little bit about the area that you grew up in and where you were born? | 5:24 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. I was born in a little small town in Alabama by the name of Troy, Alabama. It was a county seat of Pike County, and it was about 65 miles from Tuskegee on US Highway 231 that ran from Montgomery down through Dothan, down through Troy. And it was a farm town. And my father was a foreman at a warehouse, the Alabama warehouse company. He was the foreman, which you had during that time. He was the foreman over Black and White workers. But to look at him, you never knew he was the foreman. He stayed nice and clean, but stayed in his place. What I mean, he did what the White man said do. He tried to teach his family to do the things that the White man wants you to do and you can get along. And if you don't you otherwise won't get along. | 6:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were some of those things that he taught? | 7:55 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, he says always respect the other man. Other words, let him say, "Yes, sir," and, "No, sir," you don't lose anything for being kind and nice and respected and things. Other words, being nice and kind will open doors that's been locked a long time. But if you be arrogant, say that you are this and that, being boastful, you won't get anything. Yeah. | 7:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did your father ever express frustration about his position? | 8:33 |
| Henry Hooten | No. He never did express any anger or disagreement of anything. He always tried to do what he was told to do. And because as a whole, the Negroes didn't have any money. The White man had all of the money. And so if you want a piece of it, you got to do the things that he would like for you to do. So he taught us how to tell the White man what he wanted to hear, not what we wanted him to know. And it was working in a small town, I had the experience to watch him and work with him during the summer months when school was out. The money was very, and the job was very little. Other words, it was $7 and 50 cents a week, a dollar and a quarter a day. | 8:56 |
| Henry Hooten | And well, I was pretty good with a pen or a brush. And this was in the cotton belt where you raise cotton and it was nothing for farmers to bring, in the run of a season, 500 bales of cotton to sell. Well, my father, his job was to weigh the cotton. But the boss man, Mr. Bassett, he would read the scales and he would, in weighing the cotton, get right to the P to banish it. And then he would settle right there. So here's a farmer that owned, oh, I'd say 500 acres of land. And he was nothing to gin 600 bales done a cotton season. He didn't like that. | 10:05 |
| Henry Hooten | So one day, as he was weighing the cotton, he got mad with the owner, who was Bassett, and told my dad to weigh his cotton. So my dad says, "No, sir, I can't weigh your cotton. My job is just to hook the cotton and pull it up." He says, "I said, weigh my cotton." And so, well, a man who's got that many bales of cotton, naturally, he's got to say so. So he did. Well, my dad weighed the cotton. And when he weighed it to the P, he'd kick it over a little bit so that in the favor of the farmer. And that's what the farmer wanted. But after the farmer left, my dad explained to the boss, he says, "Mr. Bassett, you not losing any money on when I kick the P over, because each time he sells his cotton, you got to get a sample of cotton from each side, and that's more than a pound." And this was actually helping him, but he didn't realize what was happening. And then from then on, my dad weighed all of the cotton just for the little tip that he said that would help him, think it's helping the farmer. | 11:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | And this farmer that you're speaking of, was he a Black farmer? | 12:50 |
| Henry Hooten | No, he was a White farmer. Now, no Black farmers in that area are of any magnitude, any size. Like my wife said, they had to work through the White farmer or the White millionaire during that time in order. If he had anything to sell, they had to have friends to sell it. And the same way that Lil's dad had the friend or the veterinarian to count on, that's the same way some of the farmers, Black farmers had. | 12:54 |
| Henry Hooten | It would be like sharecroppers. They had to say, for instance, if the bale of cotton was 500 pounds and they could get about $600 for it. But if it was a Black farmer that had that, he would get about $300, just because they didn't believe the Black farmer could produce the cotton that the White farmer did. They had this too. But my dad, I was able to learn some of the methods that he taught that he believed in. | 13:39 |
| Henry Hooten | He believed in helping those who was less fortunate than him. He never wanted to see anybody go without food. And he had a system that he had, and in this system that he had, he would raise two or three hogs in the run of a season. And when wintertime come, he could kill his hogs. He'd have ham and sausage, not only for his family, but for those who was less fortunate, they'd come in and help him to prepare the meat, and he would give them so much they would get. And same way with the corn or the vegetables or whatnot, he'd always share, and share alike. | 14:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | These would be people who perhaps would be sharecroppers? | 15:23 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, some would be sharecroppers and some would be just regular people in the little town of Troy. Now, one thing, Troy had very few Negroes that had property or had a home, and he strived to have his own home and everything like so. And he was showing how he did it by his small check that he got during that time as a foreman, he only got 17.50 a week. In other words, of course, the value of the dollar was nothing like it is today. You could get a dozen eggs for a dime or a pound of bacon for a quarter or things of that nature, but no more you can do. But he always believed in helping others. And as he says, "You can't beat God's giving, no matter how you try." The more you give, the more he give back to you. Just keep on giving. It'll come back to you. Just— | 15:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Hooten, I wonder if you could tell me a little bit about your family, a little bit about the internal life, your brothers and sisters? | 16:53 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now I was the second-oldest child. I had a brother older than I was. Now, he didn't get to start the school until he was seven and a half. Because they felt that it wouldn't be good for him to go by himself. We had school in the church in the community, and school was four and a half months and just as one got to six years old. Then you started the school. And the community people raised the money to pay the teacher an extra two months. So that you would have a longer school year. And of course, all six of us attended the same school. | 18:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And as far as the home life, everybody had to work. Everybody had a chore. Now, I enjoyed working in the field because it was freedom from the housework. The sister under me enjoyed helping my mother at the house, and then the next sister was the one that would alternate. She'd help at the house and then she'd come to the field sometimes. And of course there were a lot of chores to do. And the two little brothers, the two younger ones, I don't remember too much about. Other than their play, because the age span was of such that I was leaving home when they were getting to the point where they could actually work. But everybody had a chore and everybody helped the other one. | 18:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And of course, my mother, Lily, ran the house. She came from Wilcox County, Alabama. And my daddy came from Wilcox County, but they came from different little towns. My mother was from Snow Hill and my daddy was from Tilden, Alabama. They both attended and finished high school at Snow Hill Institute. She worked there 10 years and he worked there two years. And of course they moved to Pensacola because they saw a bright future ahead. They had enough experience in agriculture. He did a short course here to get experience. He was able to grow hens. | 18:58 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And after, I don't know, I guess it was about a year, they started purchasing. Then you bought 10 acres of land with a house on, I think they paid around $500 for a three room house. And we grew up in that three room house sharing the rooms and working. But we had a little, I call it, competition. In school, you didn't want your sister or brother to get ahead of you. And when you got home, you wanted to do your job a little better than the other. Because now both of our parents were praisers, but you had to do something to get praised. And if you got in trouble, you got a spank. Because you had to go get your own switch. But it was interesting because we started off instead of bicycles, like children have now, we took care of the pony and a horse and you rode horseback. The way kids now do the bike. | 19:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then by the time you were old enough, you could hitch up the horse to the wagon. And I think all except the sister, the third sister, were able to handle the horses and the mules. But you fed the animals, you had to, and you always had pets around. No pets in the house, but you had dogs and cats and you took care of your pets. | 20:59 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then we all, somehow they had 4-H clubs during that season. And you raised your animal, you see, you were interested in getting that animal ready for the fair in the fall of the year. So I had turkeys, that was my thing. My brother had a calf, the brother that was older than I was, that he raised. And then the next sister always raised her poulets, she had the chickens. Now come the next three, they didn't do any 4-H. I guess things were working down to the point where activities and that wasn't so interesting now. | 21:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But the family always had transportation. It was either horse and wagon to go, because we lived a good distance from town, even though it was, they called it, walking distance, five or six miles. We had the horse and wagon and the buggy, and then different ones rode horses. And then we got a T Model Ford. And that was a big thing, and everybody couldn't drive. My mother drove, the oldest brother and my dad. My oldest brother worked in a dairy after he got about 14, besides working at home, he would go to school and worked in a dairy close by. And he was able to drive the dairy truck at 14 delivering milk. | 22:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because I worked for a Caucasian family after school. And in the summer, from the time I was eighth grade until I finished high school. The next sister worked with the family, she took care of children of the family. And then the third sister worked at a motel. Because when she started working you made a dollar a day, that's the one who's, what is she now? 60? She's still in her 60s. | 22:26 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, she's 63 or something like this. | 23:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And she worked to—the idea twofold would work, because if you worked, you had to send— | 23:44 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because if you worked, you had some spending change but you had to save and your saving was to get a chance to go to college [indistinct 00:24:08]. Because our parents didn't ask us if you going to school, you went to school. | 24:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | There was an expectation. | 24:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was an expectation. They expected each one of us to finish high school because they finished high school and then they expected each one. But that was different sometime within brothers and sisters but it didn't get out of control because my mother didn't work away from home. All of her work was home based because we sold fresh vegetables from the yard and fresh fruit and then the turkeys and chickens and the like. | 24:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned that your father attended a course at Tuskegee. | 24:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, he took the short course in agriculture here. And that was to get him certified to work as a—They called them county agents then. They worked in agriculture, worked to help other farmers. | 24:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | So he worked as an extension agent? | 24:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's what he went to Florida to do. | 24:02 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 24:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But he didn't do that after he got there because he found out that there was no money in that. Because he went to Florida in 1913. I think that it was 1912 or '13 he went to Florida. And during that time, as they say, the shipyard was booming and it was much better to make the money at the shipyard than it was to work for that [indistinct 00:24:54]. | 24:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned school and that you were able to go maybe a couple months longer than other children. | 24:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. In our community, the people of the community raised money to pay the teacher two months beyond what the county paid. And that gave us two months longer. And you can make a grade if you attended school six and a half or seven months. | 24:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Rather than three or four? | 24:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Rather than [indistinct 00:25:20]. | 24:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the church and the school name, do you remember? | 25:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, the church was Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church. And of course we called the school Mount Pilgrim. And we had one teacher who taught eight grades. Well, she'd have around 25 to 40 students most of the time. | 26:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | And when your parents moved to Pensacola around 1912, 1913— | 26:51 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. | 26:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | —did they have family or friends that lived in— | 26:52 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | My daddy had some family. He had a brother that lived there and an uncle. | 26:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. Hooten, can you tell me a little bit about your family over in Troy? | 26:52 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes, as a youngster in Troy and my family, my dad was, as I mentioned earlier, that he worked at the Alabama Warehouse as a foreman and timekeeper. My mother, she was a wash lady. She washed and ironed for some of the rich people, rich White people, of Troy. And it was an honor to have a job. It wasn't much money. She might make $4 a week in washing and ironing. But this was an honor to be able to do that, to have that little money to come in. Now, my dad always instilled in us to learn how to do more than one thing with your hands. Now, as a youngster in high school, I think I was 12 or 13 years old, there was a friend who was a Caucasian that owned a truck garden. He grew tomatoes and okra and bell pepper and whatnot. | 27:20 |
| Henry Hooten | And he was a dear friend to my dad. So they bought me two billy goats to deliver the vegetables each morning to the East Side Cafe, which was a fancy place on the square down in Troy. So people in the morning would get up to watch this little Black boy and these two billy goats take these vegetables to this restaurant. Some days I could ride along with my vegetables and then other days I had to walk because a billy goat, he's hard headed, and you couldn't take him where he didn't want to go. But I did that. Get up at four o'clock in the morning and deliver the vegetables, bring my goats back home, and then walk to school. And walking to school from where we lived was about five miles. And we thought nothing of it. You'd get in the road and walk on over. But this was a lesson that was taught to us that if you can do more than one thing with your hands, you'll always have 15 cents. Yeah. | 28:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You had a brother that was in World War II, but he never did live at home with you. | 30:05 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes, my brother, he was about 22 years older than I and he went in service. And I was the one left home to do the chores. Now, what chores I had to do was each morning my dad would get up and milk the two cows. He had two cows. And my job was to churn the milk while my mother would cook the breakfast and fix the lunch for my dad and fix the lunch for me to go to school. And along with that, her wash water had to be drawn. What I mean, the well, we had a well, where I would draw maybe three tubs of water so that she could do her laundry then go to school. | 30:22 |
| Henry Hooten | And in the afternoon when I'd get home, my father and I, we would cut the wood. He had friends at the lumber mill where they would give you the sidings of the wood, what is prepared for the carpenter. They'd give you the scraps and you'd saw the scraps up. And then my job was to split it, stack it in stacks under the house so that it would dry. Every step counted and it was quite fascinating to me to do that. And I was learning something each day how to do— | 31:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who was responsible for discipline? | 32:17 |
| Henry Hooten | My dad and my mother. Other words, dad, you were disciplined severely if you did something wrong. Say, for instance, on your way to school you got in a fight or something. Well, the people that along the way knew you, being a small town they could call everybody by name. So the people, if I got in a fight, the people there who was friends of the family, they would give me a whipping or shillelagh. And then when they tell my dad, he'd give me one too and then my mother know, whoever, she'd give me one. So you'd get three if you did something wrong. So naturally you'd try to stay in line. | 32:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. Well, was that similar in Pensacola or was it— | 33:21 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, in the community where I was, we weren't close because we didn't have close neighbors. But if someone saw you out of line, it was not unusual. Even if you were at church and you'd go out and hang around outside of the church because you had the outdoor privies, you had no indoors there, facilities or anything. And if some somebody caught you out there hanging out, you got a little switching and then when you got home you got another one. Because even at school it was the same thing. If you got punished at school you got a second punishment at home. Now, mama did most of it. | 33:24 |
| Paul Ortiz | She did the— | 33:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Discipline, because daddy, he was just soft. I feel like that. He was soft. He'd let you by. | 33:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Did your houses have indoor plumbing? | 35:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | No, it didn't. | 35:40 |
| Henry Hooten | No. That's what she was saying, the outside privies. | 35:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, we had a pump, a hand pump. We had to pump the water. And after I started working, I think I was the one that put the first running water in the house. Because my brother put the electrical, the electric lights, in the house. And he was one that I told you worked at the dairy. He put—That was in '34 we got our first electricity, rural electrification. So he had the electricity put in the house. And then '38 or '39 when we put the—No, we didn't have—It had to be in the forties because when you came to visit, we had outdoor— | 35:40 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, yeah. | 35:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So it was in it had to be '42— | 35:40 |
| Henry Hooten | '42. | 35:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | —when we got the first—We had running water, but it wasn't in the house for a bathroom. We got the first bathroom because we closed in the back porch and put the bathroom on the back porch. And of course that house that started off four rooms, it was three bedrooms and a kitchen, has been added to and it's still standing. Because I was born in the house 76 years ago and that house is still—I have a niece that's living in it. But it had been moved, remodeled, two or three different times. But it has all the modern convenience now. With the different children, as you started working, you shared with your parents. That's what we did, do something at the house to make it comfortable for them. | 35:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | One more question on your respective family lives. You both told me who was in charge of discipline more or less, and that it was kind of a shared thing. Except in your case, your mother was the— | 36:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, she was. | 36:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. How about other kinds of decisions like financial decisions, budgeting, who would you say in each of your cases was in charge of that? Was it a shared or was it more— | 36:41 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, in our case, it was a shared thing. Because if my daddy would get this money, Dr. Now would pay him in cash. If it was $400 or it was $600, whatever, well, they would take out so much for spending and then you'd put your money in the post office. You'd buy postal notes. | 37:12 |
| Henry Hooten | Postal notes. | 37:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And he would put the savings in the post office. And that's what he did. Now, he invested some money in, that was when they were coming by pretty good money right after the Depression, Prudential. He worked it out somewhere with Prudential, but it was an investment type thing. And the last investment was just in land because he said that real estate was the biggest thing. They'd save and then he would buy. Because it ended up by the time he was disabled that he had over a hundred acres of land that he owned. And then he sold it, some of it, for a community to be built for Black people so that they could build homes and not—People were having a problem then. The government was putting up housing in and they didn't—Where they were living was rent houses that were going to be torn down and they did not want move into housing projects. So he was able to sell. It was about 30 acres that he sold to [indistinct 00:38:33] | 37:31 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's interesting to know. | 38:31 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 38:31 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And of course this group built houses and some put up trailer. And that's still established there because he had to give them a right of way so that they could get in and out of the area. But there were some unique things that happened in my family. Each time a child left home when you finished high school, you didn't go back home to live anymore, per se. Because it was hard to get a job at home because everybody knew those were Frank Carter's children. And all of us got jobs away from home. We didn't have problems getting jobs. We went to Montgomery to Alabama State for college, my three sisters [indistinct 00:39:48]. Two of us were there at the same time because I went in '36, the next one came in '37, the next one came in '40. | 38:32 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But the oldest brother took on the job training because he took training as a mechanic. At that time, I don't know if it was a federal program or not, but he was working at the dairy. But he was able to get this training to be an automobile mechanic. And he got work, civil service work, at the naval air station as a automobile mechanic. And he was there until he went in when he was called up in the Army. But the last, the fifth child, finished high school and had to go right into service because World War II was going on. So he got his college right here in Tuskegee but on the GI Bill. Now, the last one, all the family helped send him for college. He went to Florida A&M down in Tallahassee. Did everything but go to class. He played in the band, he did all the things and good time. And he stayed there for three years and he left. But he was in electricity and was able to get his license and everything to work as an electrician. | 38:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is really interesting. | 41:09 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But the house there, one brother, after he came out of the service, the oldest brother, built him a house on the family land right next to the home house. And the youngest brother went along with party and built his house on the other side. But we had a lot of problems coming up. Like walking from school and you had to get out of the road all the way because if it was a wagon or a car coming, it was just two—There were dirt roads and the car was wagons so you had to get over and—Now, we had things happen to us like people would throw things. The White kids would throw things at you. Well, you see, if you in a car and you'd throw something out, you gone. But we'd go home and tell about what happened. | 41:33 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And sometimes coming from church, we'd be broken down and whatever, we would be working and they would pass by and beat their hands on the car and yell at you, scream. But you didn't retaliate for the simple reason you had to live in this community. So as long as you didn't get hit or you didn't get hurt, you just didn't—Other than go home and tell and tell whose children it was. Because you knew the people of the community. | 42:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned—Were there other problems where Whites would harass you? | 43:07 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, the biggest was just that type of thing other than they were go in my daddy's watermelon patch. Just having fun, I guess. And they would go and just break open the watermelons and just ruin part of the patch. Now, you never knew who was up to that. You didn't know whether they were adults or whether they were youngsters because you didn't see the person. So after a while, my daddy put signs up and he put of course Dr. Now's name on the sign, that it was Dr. Now's watermelon patch. Now, I don't know whether that made a difference or not. But we had a lot of, I call them, small incidents, no big things. | 43:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were some of those incidents? | 43:53 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, we had one chance that my little sister didn't know any better and she couldn't read. So they had the two water fountains in the Kresge's store and we were in their shopping and she went to get a drink of water. And she got slapped because she was drinking out of a water fountain that was marked White. So she said, "I just wanted a drink of water." So my mother just took her by the hand and she told her to read up there, "You see that? If you see that, that means you don't drink there. And you see this, you drink over here." | 44:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who slapped her? | 44:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I don't know whether it was the clerk or or whether it was someone in the store shopping. It was a White person. | 44:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | And how old was your sister? | 44:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | She was about three. | 44:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there other types of incidents like that? | 44:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's the only one I can remember, other than an oldest brother of mine. He got into a lot of trouble. A lot of it he made for himself. Because when he was 14, he was driving his milk truck for this dairy. And he would really do things to aggravate people. Early in the morning delivering milk, he would do things like blowing the horn on the truck. At four o'clock delivering milk, you know you weren't supposed to go in the community blowing the horn. So he would always get citations and the like, but everything went directly to the fella that owned the dairy and not home. And they would have to talk to him about that. Well, I think he eventually stopped. But he would just deliberately do things to bring on problems. | 45:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was he kind of rebelling, do you think, against— | 46:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I think it was part of it. | 46:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | —against the racial order? | 46:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then he was rebelling against the—He called it the establishment. | 46:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | The establishment. | 46:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I guess that had to do with it. | 46:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | How about you, Mr. Hooten, in Troy now, did you have problems? | 46:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh yes. Yes, there were problems. I worked for Mr. and—LA Jones was one of the richest White families in Troy. After school in the afternoons I'd go by and take the coal and the wood in the house. I was the handyman, I was the handy boy. And they were teaching me how to lay a brick back walk from the house to the garage. And I was easily to learn because I would watch and listen and they thought I could do anything. But that was on the weekends. Now, I had to walk through the White neighborhood to go to school and to return home. Well, there was five little White boys. Each afternoon they would spot me walking home and they would say, "All right, let's run him. Let's run him." They'd get behind me and run me and I'd run. And so one— | 46:48 |
| Henry Hooten | And I'd run. And so one day Mrs. Jones saw me running through her yard and she called me in that night and says, "Henry," I said, "Yes ma'am, Ms. Jones?" Said, "Did I see you running through my yard today?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She said, "What you running for?" I said, "Was five little White boys was running me." So she looked at me and she said, "Can you fight?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." She says, "Well, the next time those five little boys get behind you, I want you to fight back. You think you can do that?" I said, "Yes, ma'am." So that next day I came through whistling or know what I was going to do. | 48:03 |
| Henry Hooten | So the father of the White boys got behind me and ran me again. So I ran to Ms. Jones' house and scooted behind the brick bat pile. And when they turned the corner, I began to throw bricks at them. I caught the first one up front on his head here. And when the he turned and went back, I caught the other one in the back of the head. I was pretty good with it. And then she says—After they ran, I went to her. She says, "Now, if any more trouble come, let them see me." I didn't have no more trouble there. Now again, we had shows to do. My father had a potato patch, he had corn, he had watermelons. And during the summer months, I was to hoe out to potatoes, or hoe out to corn and whatnot, and then I could rest. I could sit down and relax. | 48:49 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:50:06] land joined the city of Troy's land, which they had the swimming pool, the White swimming pool was there. So after I finished my shows, I'd go sit on the bank and look over the fence at them swim. So Mr. Gallester was the superintendent over the swimming pool. He told my daddy one day, he says, "Marcus," he says, "Yes sir, Mr. Gallester." He says, "I noticed your boy Henry, he comes down and look over the fence at us swimming every day." So my dad says, "Well, is he bothering you, sir?" They said, "No, he's not bothering us, but he's just looking over the fence at us swim." And he said, "But he's on your land. He's not doing anything wrong." | 50:03 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "Do you think Henry will work for me?" He says, "What you want him to do?" He says, "Let him police up around the pool. Pick up the paper and everything. And you send him over so I can talk with him." So I went over to see Mr. Gallester. He says, "Henry, I noticed you've been sitting looking over the fence at us swim. Can you swim?" I said, "No, sir, I can't swim." He said, "Well, how would you like to work for me and I'll teach you how to swim? And we have to clean the pool every week." And so I said, "Well, sir, I don't know, I never been in a pool. I don't know whether I could do it." | 51:05 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "Yes, you can. You can do it." So my job was to go pick up the paper while the kids was there. And as soon as we closed the pool, I'd go on Friday and pull the plug, so we can scrub the scum gutters and whatnot. And one day while I was there scrubbing the gutters, two White ladies came by and saw me in the pool. And they went to Mr. Gallester and says, "Gallester," he says, "I thought I saw a little Black boy in the pool over there." He says, "Where about?" They brought him on over so he could see, and I was just scrubbing the pool. She said, "Oh, that's Henry." Says, "He's cleaning the pool." | 51:54 |
| Henry Hooten | So she said, "Oh, by God, I thought he was swimming." But that was the relationship with Mr. Gallester. He taught me how to swim and I cleaned the pool, but we had a mud hole to swim in. I could swim, but I wouldn't let him know that I could swim. | 52:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:53:14]. | 53:13 |
| Henry Hooten | When I was 17 years old. I had an aunt and uncle that lived in Detroit, Michigan. They would work for an old multimillionaire that owned seven nightclubs, one in Miami, one in Reno, Nevada, and one up at Detroit Country Club. They would go south to those places or west to Reno. And my uncle, they would stop at our house and stay with us. Well, my aunt, if you didn't know her, you thought she was White. She was very fair and she had straight hair. She could sit on it. And they would come through in their station wagon. | 53:14 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, my aunt would sit in the back with her dog and her cat, one on each side, and my uncle, he would sit up front with his chauffeur uniform on. He was the chauffeur and she was the boss. So they would stop and stay with us. So he began to watch my patterns and ask me how would I like to come to Detroit? And they would get me a job working on the steamboats. I'd never seen a steamboat before. So he did, he wrote the directions in a letter, how to get to Detroit. The Greyhound bus stopped in Troy and I rode all the way to Detroit, and how to catch the street car and the bus. And they lived out on 66 Scotten Avenue on the west side of Detroit. | 54:07 |
| Henry Hooten | So I did, I followed the letter to the T. Went right straight to the house, and they were so impressed. My aunt was proving a pattern that I could follow directions. So I worked that summer on steamboats. He taught me how each payday to go to the post office there on 4th Street there in Detroit, to the post office and buy a postal note. And then he would check me at the end of the season. So he did, he checked me at the end of the season. The money wasn't much. It was $50 a week, more than I ever seen, and it was nothing to make money on tips. At 17, I was nice and strong. I could handle a 500 pound bale of cotton. So naturally I could do the work there. | 55:15 |
| Henry Hooten | The bell boys, they was over the laundry for the steamboat. And the waiters, they was over the ice. And so, they would pay me a dollar a block of ice to move it from the dock to the refrigerator on the boat. I would deliver at least 12 or 15 blocks, and that was 12, $15. And then the linen was the same way, I got a dollar bag. It was if I could move 12, 15, and it wouldn't take me over two hours to do that. Then after that, I'd go put my money in the postal saving. So when my uncle came back, he checked me to say, "Well, you've been working all the summer. Now you should have 300 to $375." So my aunt says, "Don't be so hard on him, Ruby." And he says, "Well, how much have you got?" | 56:18 |
| Henry Hooten | So I knew exactly how much I had. I got my little brown envelope. I said, "Well, uncle Ruby, I think I got a little bit." I gave him the envelope. And he began to thumb through it and he found 300 and 375, 400. I had over $500 what I had made that summer. But I had asked the good Lord to help me to do something for my mother and dad. Where my brother, he didn't show interest. He came back out of service and he got a bonus of $750. And we was at the table eating that night. So my dad had part Indian, so he was very quiet, but when he'd get mad, he'd get red around the neck and all. So he says, "Joe," he says, "Yesa papa," "I understand you got your bonus." "Yesa papa. I got $750." | 57:31 |
| Henry Hooten | And he says, "And Joe," he said, "Yesa papa," "I understand that you've bought you another old car." "Yesa papa. I need another car." And he says, "You hadn't paid for the first one." So he says, "And Joe," Yesa papa," "I understand you quit your job." He says, "Yesa papa. I quit it. I don't need no job. I got $750." And so, I won't tell you what he told me. But he says, in two weeks time, he didn't give his mom or his dad nothing out of that $750. And it was gone. He just threw it away, spent it right and left. But at my age, I was hoping that I could do something to help them, to make them proud of. So I did. | 58:38 |
| Henry Hooten | When I came back with that $500 plus, my job each Saturday was to go and pay on the bills at the drugstore, on the bills at the hardware, at the courthouse on the taxes. And the biggest bill was at your grocery store. My dad, I'll never forget, he says, "When you grow up to be a man, I don't want you to buy not a nickels worth of food on credit." He says, "You will never pay for it. You owe 15 cents now and you buy 25 cents worth, how you going to pay it?" So he'd always give me his paycheck, was $17 to go and pay on the little bills, and I went and paid on the bills. And so, that day, I went in and asked each one, what did mom and dad owe? They told me. I said, "Give me a paid receipt for all of it." And I paid each one of their bills, I paid each one of their bills. | 59:39 |
| Henry Hooten | And I put the receipts in the envelope that he gave me, along with his $17, and I brought it back. He was eating dinner at the time. He sat on the bale of cotton and I laid the envelope by him. He kept looking at the envelope. And all of a sudden he picked up the envelope and it was kind of fat. He looked in there and he saw his $17 and he saw all of the receipts. And I had a little note in there to say, "I know I can't repay you for what you have done for me, but I just want to show my appreciation." He started crying and I started crying. | 1:00:57 |
| Henry Hooten | And the boss came in and first thing he says, "Marcus, is Becky dead?" My mother was named Becky. Says, "Is Becky dead? Is something wrong?" So my dad was so full, he just gave him the note too. He looked at the note and he started to cry. | 1:01:47 |
| Henry Hooten | But that was lessons that I were taught through the uncle, how to make someone feel good. And this what gave me a chance to really know how to live with others, but don't be frustrated and let something disturb you. Have a peace of mind and do the things that you think you can do with what you've got. | 1:02:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Hooten, you said that you went to Alabama State in 1930— | 1:02:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | 1936, in the fall. | 1:02:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. So you graduated from high school in Pensacola. | 1:02:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | In Pensacola. | 1:02:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the name of that high school? | 1:02:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was Washington High School. | 1:02:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Remember how many students were there? | 1:02:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Let's see, we had seven through 12th grade. And I imagine our graduating class would usually have around 90, anywhere from 80 to 90. [indistinct 01:03:43]. The seventh grade would have about three times as many. I don't know how'd you work it out. Because by the time you got to the 12th grade, at least two thirds of the students had dropped out. | 1:03:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the difference between the students who would drop out and the ones who were able to like yourself, would go into [indistinct 01:04:05]? | 1:03:55 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, there were three reasons. Some of them dropped out because they needed to work to help their family. Some of them dropped out, the boys usually drop out as soon as they were old enough to join the navy. They joined the navy because that was a way out. And of course, a lot of the girls got pregnant, just like they do now. And then you didn't go back to school after a pregnancy. That was it as far as school was concerned. They were really the three things. Because we had some who just decided that they didn't—I don't know whether it was because they couldn't learn or they just couldn't fit because you had no special education or any type of programs that aided the kids who had problems. | 1:05:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And if the kids was having problems and dropped out, that was it. Because they could get some type of domestic jobs around, if they had the ability to think to the point where they could [indistinct 01:05:13] whatever, jobs were there. But for the Black kids who finished high school and wanted to go on, there were three things you could do. You could study to be a teacher, you could study it to be a nurse, or you could get married. There weren't any other type of job available in the '30s, the late '30s. And then we went to Alabama State instead of going to Florida A&M because we were going into education, and that was the state teachers college at that time. | 1:05:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And it was close to home, and we were on the railroad where we could get the train from home to my [indistinct 01:06:07]. And then I had an uncle and an aunt live and working at the college. | 1:05:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, I see. | 1:05:21 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So those were some of the reasons. Even though we lived in the dormitory and worked, my daddy paid the tuition because you couldn't work—So you could work for room and board, but not the tuition. And so you had your little savings to pay for the first room and board there. Whatever difference, if you had a job to help you, your parents had to pay. | 1:06:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was it a big change for you moving to Montgomery? | 1:06:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was quite a change as far as home life was concerned. Because going to Montgomery, living in the dormitory, you had all the more convenience. You had none at home. All right. You had different types of jobs, even though you were doing— | 1:07:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I worked in the library for a while, then I worked at the cafeteria because I found out I could make more hours, make more money working in cafeteria, and give that a little more part of your work. So I think we got 13 cents an hour at college for work. And you see, you were paid 50 cents a day doing the [indistinct 01:07:31] work. | 1:07:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Excuse me. | 1:07:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But it was quite a difference. It was a big change. And then you had to learn how to eat different kinds of food. | 1:07:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | Different kinds of foods? | 1:07:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Different kinds of food because I had never had baked beans. I had [indistinct 01:07:53] beans. And then the other things that they served that I had never been exposed to. So it was really a different kind of [indistinct 01:08:08] all together. So I had to adjust to that. But as far as making friends, I didn't have any problem because I had one advantage, I studied real hard. I wasn't a smart student. I had to work, I had to dig, but I studied because I was determined I was going to make it. So I made friends because I get my lessons. | 1:08:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then you'd always have somebody who was friends with you if you worked real hard at your lesson because you could help them along. We had little study groups. I don't know whether you do that in college now, such thing as a study group. | 1:08:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah. | 1:08:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then I had two or three little talents. I learned to sew when I was coming up because that was a must in our family. Every girl had to learn how to make your own clothes. So when I got from college, my daddy had bought me a portable machine. I carried a portable electric machine to college. And I was able to make friends because I could fix the kids' clothes. And then I made extra money on the side. | 1:09:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And the other thing that helped me, I had a way around the fellas. I didn't try to pick up on no boyfriend, anything like that. But I don't know, I worked in the cafeteria and if I could get something extra for somebody, I would get it. So I got along with the fellas, they kind of looked out for me. Then I built some enemies because my uncle and aunt were there, and some of the kids felt that I was getting special privileges because they were working at the college. | 1:09:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | They were teachers? | 1:10:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The uncle was teaching science in the high school. And at the boys' dorm, he was working with the boys in the dorm. And the aunt was over at the cafeteria. | 1:10:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the curriculum like at Alabama State in the '30s? | 1:10:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now in the '30s, for a freshmen, it was very much like it was a freshman year nine. You took all of you, you had math, freshman math, freshman history, freshman science. And you had to take your physical education, and music, and art. And then being a teacher's college, you were either in elementary or secondary education. I went in elementary education. For your second year in your electives, I chose the elective that was interesting to me because I could get the math and I enjoyed the history. | 1:10:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So all of my electives were in math and history, I stayed summer and winter. So within the three years, I like one semester graduate. So I worked the fall of '39. In the spring of '40, I went back the summer to graduate. When I went for college, I had never made a C. And it was rough to get that first C. And I guess I deserved it because it made me— | 1:10:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And I guess I deserved it, because it made me work a little harder. | 1:12:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were there teachers at Alabama State that stood at, that were—thinking in terms of [indistinct 01:12:22], perhaps popularity with students, that you can remember? | 1:12:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes. I can remember very well, because I had a history teacher that had a master's degree, and he went on to the University of Wisconsin to get his doctoral. He was unusually interesting and he was very smart. And then I had the supervisor for the courses that you took leading up to getting your certificates for teaching, was an interesting person. She [indistinct 01:12:58], but she did not get her education in the south. I don't remember what college. | 1:12:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was her name? | 1:12:32 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Ms. Washington was over the student teachers and all, but she came in—She was a Ms., and she came in from—I don't remember the college, but she had never actually attended school in the south or worked in the south, when she came here. Because her home was in New York or some place like that. But she was very interesting and very smart. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And she would just tell you that if you're going to go out and represent this school, that's the way she would tell it, you must look the part. Do your part. If it means staying up all night, stay a day ahead of your students. That's the way she taught too, but you had to actually look the part when you went in the classroom. I thought that was very good, because we had some kids who really looked at any separation, that's enough. That's the person that's going in the classroom. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But those are some of the things that she emphasized. You do your part, but you look your part too. And she emphasized study, work hard and stay a day ahead of those students. Never tell the students you don't know. You may not know, but say, "Well, we're going to look into that later. Leave that and work on it. Let's do a little research and we'll discuss that tomorrow." | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now you were going to be teaching anywhere from first through eighth grade. Well, she knew then that you were going to meet up with students who would really be young virgins to certain things, because you weren't going to meet up with the kids who really worked. And see, we worked in rural Montgomery County, doing your student teaching. Most of those kids were off a plantation. They hadn't been exposed to much. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But what if you get a job in a little city or a town? You're going to meet up with kids who have been exposed to other things, but not—I appreciate her, because she really told you what it was like. But I had those two that I will never forget. That's Gary Hardy and Ms. Washington. I never will forget. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Ms. Washington, yeah. Uh-huh. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But then I had one teacher that really didn't help me. That was my geography teacher, Mrs. Monday. She just didn't know her geography, and it made me work hard when I started working, because I said, "Now, every time something change, you have to be aware of it so you can help the kids." If you don't, the kids are going to get way ahead of you. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | In terms of geography? | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Geography. Okay. Because you see, there were such changes being made almost monthly, as far as geography was concerned, right in the south but nothing about it in the world. Because different countries were having problems. And kids grew up to the point where they were listening to radios. We didn't have any televisions, they would listen to radios and they'd get a newsfeed. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well if the kid could read, they're going to ask questions. And she just couldn't help us. But that's the only one that I could remember in college. But you made an A in her course, but you really didn't learn anything. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were all of the teachers at Alabama State Black teachers? | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, they were, when I was there. We had no partners or White teachers there. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mm-hmm. What was traveling like in those years? You would have to travel from Pensacola to Montgomery? | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, I could get a train out of Pensacola to Florence, and change trains in Florence, and you'd come on into Montgomery. Now we had the segregated coaches, so we always—The first coach was always the Negro coach. And we just knew it, because when you started getting on, you were in the Colored waiting room. And when you came out to load, you would just load on your coach. And when you changed trains in Florence, you would load it because we had the— | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The conductor would get off and stand in one coach, and then they had the—What did you call that other one? | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Pullman. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The puller would get off and he would always stand, and he'd help you with all your luggage and everything. | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Pullman pulled the—He would help you down. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Help you down and help you up. | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Help the ladies down and help you up. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Uh-huh, like that. You just automatically used to go on—But I had an experience after I left Pensacola. I was out in California, coming home. Well, going out, I went to New Orleans. And when you got on a train in New Orleans, the coaches weren't segregated, just wherever they seated you, you got on. That was during wartime. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But coming back from Los Angeles, when we got to Oklahoma, I didn't know what they were talking about. The conductor came through the coach and he said, "This is a—" Then he named something. What other names— | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Southern. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Southern. | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | "This is the great Southern." But I didn't know what he was talking about. And the lady that was sitting next to me was White, and I was trying to help her with her little girl. She said, "Don't move." I said, "Why?" She said, "As long as you are helping me with the baby, nobody won't notice we're not traveling together." | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So when he came back through, I was still sitting there, holding her baby. Because I was just resting her up, because sitting there all night and then this is the next morning, you're still holding that baby, and so he didn't say anything. So when we got ready to get off, she said, "Now remember this, when we go out, then you'll have to go into the waiting room with me. My parents are going to be there, and then you will change waiting rooms after my parents get there." | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So I stayed with her until after her parents got there, and then after that, I just changed to the other waiting room. But the only reason I was able to keep the seat—Because see, all the Black people in that coach started getting up, moving up, and she told me, "Don't move. Don't move, just sit there." | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Now she was the maid for her baby. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | See, as long as I was taking care of the baby, it was all right to sit in the coach with her. But that was one of the experiences. The other experience was that I was taking care of two little White children, and whenever I take care of them, you'd go to the room and I'd sit downstairs with them. And then when I'd go to the room with my brothers and sisters, we sat upstairs. | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | In the balcony. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | In the balcony. But I knew I couldn't take them in the balcony. But when I bought the tickets, it just automatically—And those were the things that I always wondered about. I said, "Now what's the difference between me taking these children, or being trusted to take these kids and sit down there? And just to sit down there if I'm not with them?" Because if their parents trusted— | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Those were the things I didn't under—I never did understand it until I got to be an adult, that—What was the difference between you taking care of these kids, you go in the house with them, the parents trust you, but otherwise you're not trusted to be with them. Even their counterparts there. I couldn't understand that. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would you ever break some of those rules, or do you know of anybody who would say, "Well, it's just making sense for me to do this anyway"? | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, I didn't, but the younger sister did. I think her group broke every rule. And the youngest brother. Both of the brothers. Because in high school, remember, I was away from home and they were in high school. They didn't allow the White kids to walk on the side of the street with their high school. They made it so uncomfortable for them, because they walked, so they had to pass them to get to their school, those that were walking. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because the White kids coming from our end were riding the bus, and they would jump on the bus and throw things out at the kids. And so, they decided they would—They weren't treating the same kids, they were treating another group who had to pass the school. And they weren't allowed, they would just block the sidewalks. They had sidewalks and they would block the sidewalks so the kids couldn't get by, so they had to walk in the street or walk on the other side of the street. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Then at one time, the brother that lives here, along with his group, took a vendor's cotton and just sat it off at the schoolyard, in the street. Because they weren't allowed to go down the street to the Black fellows. So to buy the things that the White vendor could come on the schoolyard and sell. And they weren't going to let him come, so they just moved everything. And of course, the principal pretended he didn't see it. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But those three came up. They were in high school in the late '30s and the early '40s, and they just broke all the rules that they could, even [indistinct 01:24:20]. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you think it had—You mentioned the late '30s and the early '40s, do you think it might have been, maybe a function of—that your—was their something about the '40s that might have been kind of different and— | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I think it had something to do with that, because during—You see, you had World War II starting in '41, and I think that made a difference because the kids had to leave high school to go in the service, and then you had so many—several programs where so many demands were on people. I think that had something to do, because actually, everything was run by women in a sense, because all the men were in the service, the able-bodied men, except the old men. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | By everything being led by women, did that make a difference in terms of breaking [indistinct 01:25:34]— | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It did make some differences, because women had to depend on women, and I think it made a difference. I don't think the women were as offended as men. Now that's my way, because I was in Troy during the war. I was working in Troy. That's how I met him, working in Troy. | 1:13:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We could go to the bank and the bank teller would have a conversation with us. It was, her husband was in the service, your husband was in the service, people were talking about it. That was something that hadn't been going on. I understand because see, I wasn't there before then. And in the post office, they had women landing the jobs that men had been landing before then, and it seemed like it made a difference. | 1:13:43 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's very interesting. How about the war itself? Can I hear you on that? | 1:13:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. There were segregations during that time, in wartime. When I first was inducted into the service, I was up in Michigan. In fact, I was on steamboats, and when I was called—My cousin was called in December to go, so my aunt and uncle wanted me to go along with him, so that he'd be comfortable. So I did. I volunteered to go. | 1:27:09 |
| Henry Hooten | I volunteered to go in service with him, and we did. We went in at Detroit, down at the Book Cadillac building there, and they sent us to Fort Custer, Michigan. When we got to Fort Custer, we stayed there for about three weeks, and then we parted. They sent me—We were on the same troop train, but I went to Camp Wallace, Texas, right on the Gulf of Mexico, and they sent him to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, which was an outfit there. | 1:27:25 |
| Henry Hooten | He went to the South Pacific and I went to Europe. I went to England. Well, I worked up through the ranks. I went in as a buck private and soon I became corporal, and then staff sergeant, first sergeant. Well, it was very rewarding. I had been taught to do what you are told to do and never question it. | 1:28:11 |
| Henry Hooten | They said if you want to be successful in the service, that's the way you'll have to do. It was well segregated, and we went one way not the Whites went another. Each outfit was equipped with the same equipment or what not, and while I was in the service, I was out in California, I invited my wife out with us. | 1:28:39 |
| Henry Hooten | The only place I could get to stay was Guadalupe, a little railroad town there between San Francisco and Los Angeles. So we stayed at the Guadalupe Hotel, and they gave me a pass with a permission to drive my Jeep from the post. It was 14 miles to the hotel at night. And then the next morning, I'd have to get up at 4:00, coming back to the base, to be there for [indistinct 01:29:48]. | 1:29:10 |
| Henry Hooten | We stayed there for the time we were in California. Then came time to move, they sent me to Camp Dix, New Jersey. She was on the troop train behind us. Her coach was attached behind us, and every time we stopped, I could see them, but I had to stay with my men. Then I went overseas. After I went overseas, we could see the segregated part. In other words, as a Black soldier, you had truck drivers or laborers, or—And if you had any education at all, you could maybe be a company clerk, or you would go up through the ranks. | 1:29:49 |
| Henry Hooten | But I found that it was much easier to follow orders and stay out of trouble, because they would court martial you if you didn't. The first trouble I really had, was in London. We were getting ready—The English people had invited us to a party one night, and we knew that we were going overseas. We were getting ready for an invasion, that was North Africa at the time. And so, the people in London were trying to show their appreciation towards the Black servicemen. | 1:30:38 |
| Henry Hooten | And so, my company commander was from Mississippi, and he didn't want his Black boys fraternizing with the White girls in that area. But he was—The commanding officer of an outfit was like a father of a big family, and all that. So they made up the passes to go to this dance at night, and I put them on his desk. He had signed four or five of them before he read the first one, so he looked and he asked the first sergeant of the outfit, "What is these passes for?" | 1:31:28 |
| Henry Hooten | So Sergeant Johnson says, "They're passes for the men to go to a party in Birmingham, England." He says, "Birmingham, England?" He said, "Yes." He says, "Well, ain't no Black girls in Birmingham, England." He said, "None of my Black boys gone dance with no White girls." And so he began to tear the passes up. He tore all of them up. | 1:32:18 |
| Henry Hooten | When he tore them up, the first sergeant, he tore his stripes off. Just— | 1:32:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, the first sergeant actually [indistinct 00:00:10] his stripes. | 0:00 |
| Henry Hooten | He tore stripes off. That mean that he busted himself. He degraded himself when he pulled his stripes off and laid them on the company commander's desk, and says, "Well, sir. I've been in this man's army 27 years, but we going to the dance tonight, if I have to go to the guardhouse tomorrow." So, he laid his stripes on the desk, and he came out and he blew us all out in formation, told us to be ready at a certain time. We had, what, it was about 12 trucks, loaded up the whole outfit. We went to the party. While we was at the party, the company commander, he sent the MPs to arrest all of us. Well, the little guardhouse wouldn't hold but, say 50-60 men, but you had a whole outfit. You couldn't put them in the guardhouse. | 0:11 |
| Henry Hooten | So, they arrested us in our quarters. You couldn't go out your quarters. You had to stay. [indistinct 00:01:21] generals, when the report went into Washington, the [indistinct 00:01:25] general sent a brigadier general, that's the one star, sent him in to investigate what had happened. So, he did. He came in and when he came in, I saw the star on his shoulder, shining like a big, pretty star in the sky. I saw him coming. I stood up and saluted him. I told him, I said, "I'm Sergeant [indistinct 00:01:59], Company Cleary." He said, "At east, Sergeant. Who is your commanding officer?" And I told him, Commander and Officer Wagger-Smith. He said, "Yes, that's him." He says, "Where's your first sergeant?" I said, "He's in the company street, sir." So he says, "Go get him and have him come here." | 1:13 |
| Henry Hooten | I went and got Sergeant Johnson and came back. And he asked Sergeant Johnson, says, "Well, tell me what happened, Sergeant." Sergeant Johnson saluted him and told him what had happened and everything. And so he says, "Where is that commanding officer?" I said, "He's in his quarters, sir." He says, "Go over there and tell him I said come here and on the double." So, I did. I went over to his tent and I told him. When I got almost there, we couldn't go to his tent. We had to stand outside. And so I told him, I said, "Major, General Thomas says for you to come to the only room and on the double." He said, "On the double? I ain't going nowhere on the double." So by that time, General Wagger-Smith stepped outside of the only room and said, "I said on the double, and I mean on the double." He did. He came on the double. | 2:21 |
| Henry Hooten | When he got there, he ripped him up and down. He asked him, after he saluted himself, he went at ease, and he says, "I didn't tell you to go at ease." So he says, "Now, tell me what happened." He says, "Well—" He said, "Don't start digging a well now." Every time he'd start to answer, he'd chop him up. Chop him up. And he says, "Now, just tell me in your own words what you said and why you tore up these passes." He says, "Well—" He says, "I didn't say dig no more wells. Tell me what I ask you." So he finally told him that he didn't feel that his Black boys should go to Birmingham to dance with the White girls. He says, "They wasn't going to eat them." | 3:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Then he asked him, says, "What is the responsibilities of a commanding officer?" And he says, "Well—" He says, "Don't say no well no more." He says, "I'll tell you the duties of a commanding officer. The duties of a commanding officer of an outfit is just like a father of a big family. To make it run smooth, you teach and you treat each one alike, and be firm. Whatever you say to this one, you say the same thing to this one. Like that." They busted him down and sent him back to the states, and sent him to Leavenworth. That was a federal prison. But many things happened as a Black soldier, but— | 4:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | In this case, was Sergeant Johnson Black? | 5:25 |
| Henry Hooten | Sergeant Johnson was Black. See, the commanding officer was White, and you had one warrant officer was Black, probably the chaplain. But the other officers was all White. | 5:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | And what was the unit? | 5:42 |
| Henry Hooten | It was the 1936 quartermaster truck company. You have to give it to the Black boys, they really could drive a truck. They'd double clutch it. I have driven a two and a half ton truck 48 hours, and when you cut it off, it just keep running. It'd be so hot. | 5:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember other occasions in the service, other kinds of stories like that, that involved segregation, discrimination? | 6:15 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. One, I'd like to say. We had a convoy coming back to Nancy, France. We was up in Darmstadt, Germany, and we had picked up airplane motors and parts, bringing them back to the base at Nancy. The highway during that time, I don't know whether you're familiar with the highway around Birmingham, but it was [indistinct 00:07:01] and it went into Birmingham, went through the mountains. | 6:25 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | 31. | 7:06 |
| Henry Hooten | 31. In other words, it went through the mountain before the freeways was fixed. That's the same way in Germany and in Italy, in Europe there. The highways was old and obsolete. Didn't have no guardrails to keep you from going over the cliff. It was built out of rocks. So, we had a convoy coming back to Nancy, and there was a sign at the foot of the hill said, this road has more curves than Mae West. You're on your own. That was the slogan of the British soldier. He's trying to tell you that the road was very dangerous, so put your lorry—He called a vehicle a lorry. Put your lorry into low gear and you're on your own. | 7:07 |
| Henry Hooten | So, that's when I had them stop and put their ass in lower gear. And then we're coming down the mountain, and we had to cross the river, right down in the very bottom, which was a good drop. So, I was leading the convoy with a Jeep, had the commanding officer with me. And all the sudden, he just looked up and he says, "There come a truck, coming over the cliff," which was about a 300 foot drop from where it went over, where it hit in the road in front of me. It hit on this bumper and settled down flat. It was loaded with acetylene drums and oxygen tanks, and they'd be going psst, like it's going to blow any minute. | 8:07 |
| Henry Hooten | So, I got out and got my fire extinguisher to put out the smoke. It was getting ready to—white smoke, gasoline smoke. It comes up first, regular white smoke, then it will burst into flames. So, it just was a blessing for me to have the fire extinguisher to quench it before it burst into flames. And then the commanding officer, he got out, he was hollering, "Come on. It's going to blow apart." And he ran. He left me and I finally got the buddy out and put him in my Jeep. And when I put him in the Jeep and pulled off, the back end of that truck blew off. It's like you set a match to it [indistinct 00:09:51]. I didn't get scared until I got to make the report, and I couldn't write. I couldn't do nothing. I was shaking. So the commanding officer, he wrote it. | 9:02 |
| Henry Hooten | But if he had wrote it right, I would've got a soldier's medal of honor, but I just got a plan soldier's medal. And over the years, different ones, after we said, if it had been a White boy, it'd have been soldier's medal of honor. But when I got it, it was just a soldier's medal. | 10:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | Did you talk to other Black soldiers that had that experience, that would say, "I should've been awarded a higher level [indistinct 00:10:42]"? | 10:28 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes, I have, since I've been out of service. I have the pictures. I'll show you before, where they was pinning the medal on me and everything. But that didn't dampen my spirit at all. I said, "What's going to be, going to be, and no matter." But it'd have been a difference in the pay. That was $5 a month when you get paid, but that was $100 a month for the soldier's medal of honor for the rest of your life, you would get it. But as long as I was in service, I got $5 for the soldier's medal, but had it been the soldier's medal of honor, I would've got $100 each month for the rest of my life. | 10:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, you were awarded, what was it, the distinguished service medal? | 11:41 |
| Henry Hooten | It was a soldier's medal. I'll show it to you. | 11:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, both of you talked a little bit about before [indistinct 00:12:00] a little bit about race relations. You were in the army, of course. [indistinct 00:12:09] you made an observation about when the men went overseas, it seemed like race relations changed a little bit. | 11:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:12:19] an improvement. | 12:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | An improvement. Was there any carryover from that, as a result of the war? And was there any sense of a changing political climate? | 12:21 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, I could say that because I had never registered to vote because we didn't get registered to vote [indistinct 00:12:43]. We came to Tuskegee, I went down about five times to get registered to vote. Finally I did it after about, it took me about two years, I did get registered to vote. | 12:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | What was the first year you tried? | 12:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I started [indistinct 00:13:03]. | 12:22 |
| Henry Hooten | '46. | 12:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I tried in '46. | 12:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | And what- | 12:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:13:14] '61 or '62 when I actually [indistinct 00:13:18]. | 12:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | And was there anything to that timing? You tried to register for the first time in '46. Why? | 13:23 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Number one thing, they told me I had to bring my birth certificate to prove that I was an American citizen. [indistinct 00:13:34] birth certificate. And then the next time, that would be [indistinct 00:13:41] the polls were only open about two days. And you were given a number but they'd never get to your number. And you'd go down another day. When you're working, you just can't take off but so many days. So, actually those two or three days [indistinct 00:14:04] the only time you could get registered was during the time that you were at work. So, you'd either have to take off a morning or an afternoon, and they never did get to your number. No other reason other than that. | 13:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, at the time, when you first made an attempt to register, you would've been about in your late 20s. Is that right? | 14:23 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:14:45]. | 14:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | '46? | 14:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | '46. [indistinct 00:14:45]. | 14:45 |
| Henry Hooten | '21. | 14:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | '21-30. | 14:45 |
| Henry Hooten | You was in your late— | 14:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I was born 1918. Let's see. | 14:45 |
| Henry Hooten | It was your late 20s. | 14:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Late 20s. | 14:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Late 20s. | 14:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Late 20s. | 14:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, because I was, I think when I came to Tuskegee I was 24, 25, after going in service. I went in service for—Yeah, it was your late 20s. | 14:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | I ask that question because I understand that it was extraordinarily difficult for Black people, sometimes it could be dangerous- | 15:02 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 15:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, it was. | 15:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | —to register to vote. | 15:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because again, it was just one of these passive type things. We would go to these classes, that the Blacks were giving to teach you how to register to vote, because we had to recite a part of—Because it's the preamble to the constitution, but they would ask you questions and all. So, we had classes to get you ready to become registered. But you would go to the classes and then you'd go down, and then you had to have someone, at least two people, citizens, who were registered voters to vouch for you. I didn't have no problems getting them. | 15:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | White citizens or— | 15:53 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I had Black citizens. But there was no problem there getting someone to vouch. But the whole thing was, to get into the registrar. So finally, I went down and got into the registrar, asked a few questions, and they had some materials I had to fill out. I had my birth certificate and everything which is needed. | 15:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | What were the things that led up to your decision to first try to vote? You were in Tuskegee? | 16:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see, in Florida, my father was a registered voter, even though they were republicans. Because everybody in Florida were republicans, and they talked about it all the time. And he just felt that when you settle down and you're an adult, that you should be registered to vote. Now, that was my attitude about it. [indistinct 00:16:57]. And then I felt that it would make a difference in the whole setup, as far as [indistinct 00:17:10] different from a lot of other places. | 16:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | How so? | 18:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was different. [indistinct 00:17:18] about 90% Black, about 10% White— | 18:29 |
| Henry Hooten | 10% White. | 18:46 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | —as far as population-wise. And we had a small, as far as city was concerned, but we had Blacks who participated, they were registered voters in the political part of the city. Because all of our, starting with the mayor on down, everybody was White in the city government, and then county government, it was the same. See, we weren't in the city limits, so we could register to vote and vote in the county and state elections. If you weren't registered to vote, you couldn't vote period. So that meant that the government was carried by Whites [indistinct 00:18:47]. I think that was one of the reasons I wanted—Not that it would make a difference in who was mayor [indistinct 00:18:47] but all the activities that led up to what was going on, because we had a lot of activities going on here, because we had a boycott from downtown. We just had a lot of things, [indistinct 00:18:48] be a part of the government body, at least to vote, because there were always two people running, and at least you could choose one or the other. | 18:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | You mentioned there were classes that were held. | 19:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We had some leaders here in the community, who held classes on the university campus [indistinct 00:19:18]. You could go to the classes. It was free of charge [indistinct 00:20:21] and get to know what was going on in the government [indistinct 00:20:21] and what you would have to do to become a registered voter. And then the things that were expected out of you, if you were to vote. You don't just go and vote to vote. They talked about the block votes. They talked about voters [indistinct 00:20:21] so and so's running. And they gave you a lot of information about you vote for the person that you think, from reading and listening, that would be the best person [indistinct 00:20:21]. And they talked about the block vote a lot, and what it could do, good or where it wouldn't be too good. | 20:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, the block vote was? | 20:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | When a whole group of people in a community vote for one person within an office. | 20:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | And did you go to the classes before your first attempt? | 20:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I didn't go to the classes before the first attempt. | 20:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | How did you find out about these classes? | 20:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You know how when you're working with people, you start talking about different things. I was very disappointed when I didn't get a chance to register, and just got to talking about it. And one of my coworkers told me, "There's some help [indistinct 00:20:52]." The classes was being carried out on [indistinct 00:21:00]. Said, "I don't think you need to apply. Just walk in." She told me the time. So, that's the way I found this class. | 20:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Where were you working at? | 20:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I was working in the county [indistinct 00:21:18] little community called Blue Rising Star. | 20:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Teaching. | 20:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Teaching. | 20:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, she had been attending these classes? | 20:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | She was a registered voter, and she was a person who was born and lived right here in the community. I don't remember when she was registered to vote but she had [indistinct 00:21:45]. | 20:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember the names of the people who conducted the seminars? | 21:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Mr. Gwin. I don't know Gwin's first name. He was a taxi driver— | 21:49 |
| Henry Hooten | Harvey. Harvey Gwin. | 21:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Harvey Gwin. | 21:49 |
| Henry Hooten | Right. | 21:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then it was Rita P. Mitchell. | 21:49 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Rita P. Mitchell. | 21:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Both of those [indistinct 00:22:09]. I'm trying to think of the other. There was a third person. | 21:49 |
| Henry Hooten | They was related. | 22:15 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Guzman. | 22:15 |
| Henry Hooten | Guzman, yeah. Mrs. Guzman. She was a professor on campus but she was a west [indistinct 00:22:28]. | 22:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Those are the three that [indistinct 00:22:34] were the two who vouched for me. You had to have at least two people to vouch for you. | 22:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | And [indistinct 00:22:54] but what was the first day that you attempted to register to vote? | 22:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Along the same time she did. | 22:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You got registered. | 23:06 |
| Henry Hooten | I got registered. I didn't have to go but one time. In fact, I was working—Was that when I started working for the government? | 23:07 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Uh-huh [indistinct 00:23:16]. | 23:15 |
| Henry Hooten | No, before then. Yeah. But the servicemen, we didn't have the problem that they had, by being in service. Before I was mustered out, we— | 23:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | No. You were stationed in Alabama until '46. [indistinct 00:23:41]. | 23:40 |
| Henry Hooten | Right. That's right. That's right. | 23:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You mustered out in '45 and you [indistinct 00:23:45]. | 23:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. I registered in '46, after I got back here. | 23:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | And then what led you to that decision? Were Black troops talking about politics? | 23:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, yes. They were talking about politics at the time. See, the Black airmen, their home was here at Tuskegee. I was in a quartermaster truck company but I was attached to the Black airmen at one time in Europe, and we had a chance to talk to the airmen. Now, [indistinct 00:24:29] James was from Pensacola, Florida, which was one of the four star generals that we had, as a pilot. And all he had to get up and go to be a general too. So, he always talked to his troops, and ones like that, got rights, what they could do and what they couldn't do. This made it quite easier for the servicemen at that time. Chaffee's group was in Europe, as I said. We were attached to them, for supplies or for gasoline, or whatever they needed in any order. Then the famous Tuskegee airmen, that gave the clout right there. | 24:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:25:42] in terms of politics. | 25:42 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. And everybody looked up to them, see? In fact, they didn't take nothing from nobody but they were some of the finest soldiers and airmen that we had. Mrs. Roosevelt, when she came to Tuskegee, they introduced her to Captain Anderson. I don't know whether you met him since you've been here, but he is the father of Black aviation. He lives there on Biv Street. He's in his 90s now. But every chance he gets, he still flies. He still flies. | 25:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | I should ask both of you this question. How did you come about making the decision to move to Tuskegee? | 26:39 |
| Henry Hooten | When I came out of service, Liv was teaching in my hometown, but we talked about furthering my education, and we said Tuskegee is a fine place for hospitals and for advancement and all. So, we did. We came to Tuskegee. She had her degree at the time, but we couldn't get a job. It was segregated. They had the superintendent of White, and the superintendent of Black. | 26:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | In Florida. | 27:42 |
| Henry Hooten | No, here. | 27:42 |
| Paul Ortiz | Here? | 27:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah. I didn't have [indistinct 00:27:50]. | 27:49 |
| Henry Hooten | Didn't have no trouble in Florida. | 27:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The state department [indistinct 00:27:50]. | 27:49 |
| Henry Hooten | But here, where they segregated- | 27:50 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It wasn't the segregation here that got me. It was the Black man in charge, that I had some difficulties with some members of my family, and he [indistinct 00:28:28]. | 27:53 |
| Henry Hooten | Couldn't get a job. | 28:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | So, I actually had to get my job [indistinct 00:28:28]. We have had discrimination on both sides, just as bad. | 28:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. What kind of discrimination? Was it personal? | 28:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was a personal thing. We had some personal problems with him and my uncle [indistinct 00:28:53] right across from them [indistinct 00:28:53]. | 28:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. | 29:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Of course, what you don't know and you use the wrong person's name for reference, and I put my uncle's name for reference because he had worked there at Tuskegee, and he told me [indistinct 00:29:05] get a job. | 29:04 |
| Henry Hooten | But we finally got a job. | 29:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was personal. | 29:04 |
| Paul Ortiz | It must've been mighty different, or quite a change to come to Tuskegee from Troy and Pensacola. | 29:05 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes, it was. How I got here at first, in my class in Troy, I was one of the athletes on the team, and we had a [indistinct 00:29:31] basketball team. The principal at my school and the coach here at Tuskegee was very good friends. So, my principal and coach, he begged the coach here at Tuskegee to let his boys, his country boys come and play his team. He had a B team. And so he says, "You country boys can't play no basketball." So he said, "Well, you let us try." | 29:15 |
| Henry Hooten | So finally, he gave in and he let us come up. And on that team that night, I was one of the members on that team, we played the Tuskegee B team, which that was upperclassmen some of them on there, who didn't get a chance to play on the varsity. And we beat their socks off. During that time, Logan Hall was new and they had just put the electric clock in there, and I broke that clock that night. What I mean by breaking the clock, the whole team, we played if you get over 100 points, that breaks the clock. It's got to start back at one and go. But during that time, from the side, we only got two points, but now you get three points on those angles and those sides and around. And I shot 28 points that night in that game. | 30:04 |
| Henry Hooten | And at the end of the game, the coach told each one of us, if you want a scholarship to Tuskegee, see me. So I went in service and after I went in service, I came back to Tuskegee and we brought my family up, and I was registered in there. I thought I wanted to be a tailor and make suits and everything like that. So, the coach walked up and says, "I know you." He'd either call you one of two things, call you bird or bonehead, and if he didn't know you, he'd call you mister. He said, "Bonehead, I know you." I said, "Yes, sir. I believe you do know me." He said, "Yeah. You from the little country town of Troy." I said, "Yes, sir." Your principal, my coach, was AJ Field. I said, "Yes, sir." Saying, "You the bonehead that broke my clock, shooting from over on the side." | 31:10 |
| Henry Hooten | But anyway, he was just like a father to his athletes. And he had a togetherness that he could [indistinct 00:32:36] something was wrong. They didn't have [indistinct 00:32:40]. They didn't have a scholarship but they would give you a voucher. They'd give you a meal book and stuff like that. So, we was here on GI bill, but at the same time, this little voucher would help. Those who had kids could take a sandwich home or some milk or something like that. Every little bit helped. Of course, on the GI bill, you only got $90 a month. That was for your family and your room and board. And they furnished all of your books. They paid for all of that, everything. | 32:21 |
| Henry Hooten | But as soon as I graduated, I got a job at the VA hospital in recreation, stayed there for about six years. Then I went into therapy, as one of the therapists in rehab medicine, and I worked there for 35 years and retired. At the same time she retired as a school teacher. | 33:24 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I retired first. | 33:51 |
| Henry Hooten | First, yeah. But we had ups and downs in the latter there, just like friends would help friends. Fraternities would help fraternities, but I didn't have the money to get in either one, no fraternity. So, my work had to speak for itself. But we made it. We made it anyway. | 33:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | I know I've kept you much longer than I really should. I just have a couple more questions though. [indistinct 00:34:38]. Do you remember Black owned businesses in Tuskegee in the 40s and 50s? Could you tell me the names of any of those? | 34:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:34:50]. Grocery store right down on the main street— | 34:42 |
| Henry Hooten | That was Miss Thayer's grocery. | 34:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Black grocery. | 34:42 |
| Henry Hooten | It was on the corner there of Martin Luther King and the square. | 35:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, you had Blacks running the Shell gas station out in Tuskegee. [indistinct 00:35:15]. | 35:04 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Right across from the post office. | 35:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And we had- | 35:04 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:35:20]. | 35:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | What is it? Amaco or was it— | 35:04 |
| Henry Hooten | That was the Gulf. | 35:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Gulf. | 35:04 |
| Henry Hooten | Mr. and Mrs. Frasier. | 35:24 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:35:26] still running it. | 35:26 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. They're still running it. | 35:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:35:30]. | 35:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Reed was—It was a Chevron. | 35:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Chevron. | 35:27 |
| Henry Hooten | It was a standard station. | 35:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Standard station. And they had [indistinct 00:35:39] Philips 66— | 35:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Phillips 66, Mm-hmm. | 35:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:35:45]. | 35:36 |
| Henry Hooten | They had the shoe shop, Collis had his shoe shop. He sold the Stace Adams shoes. | 35:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | He was [indistinct 00:36:00]. | 36:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | And that was Carter's? | 36:00 |
| Henry Hooten | Collis. C-O-L-L-I-S. Collis shoe shop. | 36:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I'm trying to think of some others. | 36:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. Another in the 60s— | 36:07 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:36:08] a photographer. | 36:08 |
| Henry Hooten | Pope had his photographer studio. | 36:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:36:23]. | 36:20 |
| Henry Hooten | Right. P-O-P-E. He had the contract with the university of taking pictures, and did a beautiful job for the community. | 36:23 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Other than that, we had the Black [indistinct 00:36:41] the hospital was on university campus. It was on the campus. And this was [indistinct 00:36:47]. That was a local hospital. [indistinct 00:36:53]. | 36:37 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. We had the funeral homes. We had all of the funeral homes. They have— | 36:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:37:04]. | 36:38 |
| Henry Hooten | People. | 37:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Burden was- | 37:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Burden was [indistinct 00:37:04]. And McKinsley. | 37:03 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Was McKinsley [indistinct 00:37:04]? | 37:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. McKinsely was here. There were three of them. | 37:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | Three? | 37:13 |
| Henry Hooten | Mm-hmm. | 37:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because Locklear— | 37:13 |
| Henry Hooten | Locklear, I'm sorry. Locklear was— | 37:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Something else. | 37:13 |
| Henry Hooten | Smith and Gaston. | 37:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Smith and Gaston. [indistinct 00:37:23]. | 37:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | Like AJ Gaston? | 37:23 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes. | 37:23 |
| Henry Hooten | Right, right. | 37:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | There's Locklear boys around. | 37:28 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Locklear bought his share- | 37:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I'm trying to think of something else besides any competing places, right downtown too. | 37:45 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:37:47]. | 37:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They had [indistinct 00:37:49] places, beauty parlors. | 37:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Barbershops. | 37:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Barbershops. | 37:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Some of them still exist. | 37:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Don't know the names of the different people who operated them. [indistinct 00:38:01] right in town. But when we first came to town, there were several businesses right here in town [indistinct 00:38:09]. | 38:01 |
| Henry Hooten | And they had one bank that was Tuskegee Saving and Loan, when we came here. | 38:11 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was Black. | 38:17 |
| Henry Hooten | It was Black. | 38:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They built the new building [indistinct 00:38:29]. | 38:18 |
| Henry Hooten | Right. They built a new building. At the same time, the government hospital, we had a Black credit union. It was on— | 38:30 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It wasn't there when we came here, was it? [indistinct 00:38:43]. | 38:42 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. It was there. It was there on—Of course, they was begging all new members to join the credit union— | 38:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:38:52] in '49. | 38:51 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, but it was in full swing then. MacDonald was the president of the credit union. Not Arbor MacDonald. This was MacDonald who was— | 38:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:39:08]. | 39:07 |
| Henry Hooten | No, not him. MacDonald was Mrs. Bibb's friend. | 39:09 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:39:17]. | 39:12 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. He was over the motor pool at the hospital. | 39:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | See, I can't recall [indistinct 00:39:24]. | 39:21 |
| Henry Hooten | But he was the one, because he was trying to show me how to join the credit union, how to save $5. He says, "It's only $5." I said, "Well, I don't have $5." He says, "Well, if you don't smoke for a week, you'll have $5." I said, "I don't smoke." He says, "If you don't drink a week, you'll have $5." I said, "I don't drink." He said, "Well just save $5." Let's see. We had some pretty good farmers too here. | 39:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You had the sweet shop, that was [indistinct 00:40:18]. | 40:16 |
| Henry Hooten | Sweet shop. | 40:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You know right on the corner. | 40:17 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Mrs. Burrows. | 40:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Mrs. Burrows ran it. | 40:17 |
| Henry Hooten | We had a sweet shop right where the book store is now. She was the owner of the little drugstore, sweet shop, as Liv said, where they would— | 40:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because it was closed [indistinct 00:40:38]. | 40:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Sweets, yeah. Ice cream. The kids on campus would take their girlfriends and go there— | 40:41 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Miller, [indistinct 00:40:46]. | 40:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Miller had his—Yeah. He had his— | 40:46 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was what? | 40:48 |
| Henry Hooten | It was a grocery store. Collis had his grocery store. | 40:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Collis, that's right. | 40:52 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 40:52 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Mr. Collis had an eating place and groceries. | 40:54 |
| Henry Hooten | Right, and that was Harry's. He had his shoe store on the block. | 40:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:41:12] had the taxi stand— | 41:14 |
| Henry Hooten | Taxi stand. | 41:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:41:20] because it was late years when he had [indistinct 00:41:20]. | 41:19 |
| Henry Hooten | Black taxi stands was the only taxis that was in the city. | 41:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:41:28] I've seen, there's a [indistinct 00:41:31]. Is that Black owned? | 41:28 |
| Henry Hooten | That's all Black owned— | 41:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But see, that came after [indistinct 00:41:38]. | 41:29 |
| Henry Hooten | That was a family that came in, [indistinct 00:41:44]. Each one had a— | 41:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:41:48]. | 41:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, it wasn't— | 41:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The girls had these— | 41:43 |
| Henry Hooten | The propeller [indistinct 00:41:56]. | 41:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then change it from a club and built a— | 41:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Supermarket. | 41:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Supermarket. That was during the [indistinct 00:42:03]. | 41:43 |
| Henry Hooten | The boycott, yeah. | 41:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The changing of the guards. | 41:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, changing of the guard. | 42:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | And changing of the guard— | 42:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That meant we stopped shopping in town, and we shopped [indistinct 00:42:14] out of town, because we used to go to [indistinct 00:42:24] to shop. | 42:14 |
| Henry Hooten | And if you didn't have a car, then pool together and get a friend to take you. There were lots of cars going. You'd get with one of those, go shopping. | 42:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | And then after that, what do you think [indistinct 00:42:46] thinking the impact on the demographics of business? | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | A lot of business [indistinct 00:42:54] and just closed it down. | 42:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Closed down. | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:42:58] wasn't affected. | 42:36 |
| Henry Hooten | No, they stayed. Still using. | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was a friendly group of people working there. It worked out real good. And A&P [indistinct 00:43:18] came in. | 42:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Right, right. | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And of course, people started going there, and then it was [indistinct 00:43:28] Piggly Wiggly. | 42:36 |
| Henry Hooten | Piggly Wiggly, yeah. | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:43:32] supermarkets came that we had coming in and closing through the years. Because we've lived here 48 years, and we've lived through the change from all White businesses to all Black businesses and then change to— | 42:36 |
| Henry Hooten | The mix. | 42:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:43:52]. And now we see another change coming about, because some of those businesses is closed down and moved out, and Walmart came in, and they moved out because they weren't making [indistinct 00:43:52]. We've just seen the town change two or three times. The florists seem to do all right. We've had those same florists. | 43:51 |
| Henry Hooten | But the employees, they're mixed up. They have White and Black. Those that succeeded has got a mixed— | 44:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:44:47]. | 44:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. We had a Black florist. | 44:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | One Black florist [indistinct 00:44:51]. | 44:47 |
| Henry Hooten | It was a family florist, right there on Yates, and the father, he had the two or three sons. | 44:51 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:45:03] it was a family. | 44:59 |
| Henry Hooten | Family affair. But it's still there operating, but on a very small scale. | 45:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, the [indistinct 00:45:12]. | 45:11 |
| Henry Hooten | Out by the airport, they built a whole section. In fact, out there they started out with a sawmill, and they ran that sawmill and then from that, they began to build houses in the Maribel subdivision [indistinct 00:45:50]. | 45:11 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was a family thing. How many brothers? | 45:52 |
| Henry Hooten | Six or eight. Eight brothers. | 45:52 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:45:52]. | 45:52 |
| Henry Hooten | Mm-hmm. Each one had [indistinct 00:45:54]. | 45:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Other problems like? | 45:55 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Like [indistinct 00:46:02]. | 45:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | People followed suit [indistinct 00:46:07]. Was that White people who [indistinct 00:46:13]. | 45:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I'm not sure. I can't say about it, because I don't know enough about that business. | 45:56 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Is there some way that, can you grasp or sum up your experiences? You both have had very rich life histories. | 46:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I'll start off summarizing. | 46:38 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. | 46:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | When we came, we brought two children. [indistinct 00:46:45] in school. I didn't have a job. But we were able to make it [indistinct 00:46:45]. And then the daughter that we brought here worked with tutoring down in Lawrence County. She was down there for those [indistinct 00:47:08] working as a tutor down there at that time. | 46:39 |
| Henry Hooten | Helping the people to vote. | 47:07 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | She was one of those, who really even though she attended the Black schools, the public school system, she was one of those that was really working with the civil rights program. And she was all mixed up in everything that took place. We volunteered because we had children, and as our children were coming up, I worked at girl scouts, I worked at 4H. I worked at cub scouts, a cub scout leader, and I worked with the church, and with the school as a community member. | 47:15 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, Henry did [indistinct 00:47:58]. Working with the little league, and [indistinct 00:48:05]. When the one child [indistinct 00:48:16] school, whatever they would participate in, he got to [indistinct 00:48:21] football team. He even went to England with the band. [indistinct 00:48:32] the band to England. He had to raise the funds for that. It was one of those things where you just got involved in the neighborhood activities. After our children all grew up and left, we still [indistinct 00:48:53] mainly because we were physically able to get out there [indistinct 00:48:56]. Because I enjoy it. | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, we enjoyed it. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And in bringing our family up, we taught them that it's not what you have, but what you do with it. And I think that meant a lot of them because they've got interest in the same things [indistinct 00:49:22] collecting stamps, collecting whatever you can collect. We have one daughter who collects record albums [indistinct 00:49:37]. But we have enjoyed our children. None of them lived with us since they've been in high school. They come back and visit. They've all [indistinct 00:49:50] to get out on their own. | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | Last week, we had a house full and we had about 25 folks. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The youngest one is 31, Sister Violet, and the oldest one is 50. We have four children and eight— | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | Eight grands. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | His mother lived with us [indistinct 00:50:15]. We didn't have any problems of kids coming home [indistinct 00:50:20]. | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. She was here [indistinct 00:50:23]. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We were both working and his mother was here for [indistinct 00:50:27]. And this house wasn't always a big house. | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | No. This was the kitchen at one time. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | This was the kitchen. | 47:16 |
| Henry Hooten | This was the carport. | 47:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | This was the carport. The youngest daughter's bedroom was the living. No, the oldest daughter's bedroom. Because we had three bedrooms, the boys in one, his mother was in one, we were in one, and the oldest daughter had the couch. One of those couches with the pull out bed. | 50:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | So you've add a lot of— | 50:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah. We remodeled the house. | 50:42 |
| Henry Hooten | Kitchen and big bath. | 51:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was '69. | 51:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | '69. | 51:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah, and we added a bedroom there. The kitchen, and the den. | 51:14 |
| Henry Hooten | The den, but it was the den that's— | 51:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We don't believe in buying furniture. | 51:14 |
| Henry Hooten | No. We made those bunk beds there. Underneath is a storage space for the cedar chair. Two cedar chairs was there. | 51:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And this dining room furniture [indistinct 00:51:31]. We inherited that from her. We bought the piano for the kids because they were interested in music. | 51:25 |
| Henry Hooten | That helped them all. | 51:25 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I think refrigerator, stove, washing machine are [indistinct 00:51:50]. Because we inherited most of them. But it has been heaven. | 51:45 |
| Henry Hooten | It has. | 51:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:52:02] living in Tuskegee. I heard so much about it. [indistinct 00:52:08]. That was one of my ambitions to get here. And when I got here, we stayed here. | 51:45 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. We had a chance to go to California. In fact, we had planned to go to California after I graduated from here, but we're still here. Well, we couldn't find no finer place to bring up a family at that time. Everything was right here. Education, hospital, and at that time, you didn't have to worry about locking your door. You had friends who would look after you, right straight through. And they'd encourage you in whatever you did to try to better your condition. They encouraged you to go ahead for it. But since that time, there's change. You've got new people coming in, those who won't work or see what they can steal from you or something like that. I guess we better knock on wood, we haven't had any problems. | 52:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We haven't had any serious illness [indistinct 00:53:18]. | 53:17 |
| Henry Hooten | And we've been married 53 years. The girls gave us our wedding anniversary. | 53:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | 50 years. | 53:39 |
| Henry Hooten | 50 years. | 53:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | To me, it has been a struggle, [indistinct 00:53:40]. | 53:39 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 53:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because I was able to do two things that's important in life. I was able to work, and be able to take care of the family at the same time, and live to get all the kids out of college, and get them out on their own. Because I think independence is very important. | 53:40 |
| Henry Hooten | Each one of the kids there, as she said, is out on their own feet now. They can do for themselves. | 53:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Those were the things that were very important. Just to get the kids out and get on their own, because we see so many kids who just don't make it. [indistinct 00:54:48]. If anything happens to them now, it will be because they made it happen. Same thing about us. [indistinct 00:55:17] and keep moving on. | 53:57 |
| Henry Hooten | We had our ups and downs as far as—But we made it. We attempted to do the theater. There was 22 of us got together and build a theater downtown, to give our youngsters and citizens a first class place to go. Well, beginning of it, it worked but if we could've got the backing and the help from each member, we could've stayed afloat. But while there's no Black film company, in other words, so we've had to pay over the barrel, and the overhead of the mortgage on the building was $6000 a month. At first, we was doing good, like school days and that type. We made good money. But you had to pay it out. And then you have a good day and then you can't run a movie with say six people in the movie at night. You've got your taxes to pay. You've got your employees to pay. You've got your film company, and you've got to satisfy all of them, plus your mortgage. Then when you get behind, nobody come to your rescue. That's what happened. | 55:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was [indistinct 00:57:02]. I say it was a big lesson. | 57:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:57:02]. | 57:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah. It's a lesson. You don't get too many people involved in one thing. Now, I thought my daddy was just one other person [indistinct 00:57:14]. But it was a man of the other [indistinct 00:57:17] during the time, that was the only [indistinct 00:57:22]. But he was successful. That other fella was successful and then he went down and he didn't manage. But alcohol carried him down. But he was able to get his family raised and everything and get along well. | 57:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But I saw that happen, but with Henry, 22 people, there's too many in any type of business, a small business, to make it successful. See, that was the lesson you learned. If you're going to go in partnership, go in partnership with one or two people who are willing to work and put up the collateral. You've got to have both. | 57:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's the one down in Ponzo? | 57:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's it. | 57:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, that's it. That's it. | 57:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see, it was repossessed by the bank. They were left with the big time mortgage [indistinct 00:58:31] person had to do their share. But still it [indistinct 00:58:41] because he's investing it to pay back [indistinct 00:58:46]. | 57:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | Seems like each life has moments like that, but you've obviously endured and transcended. | 57:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, yeah. | 57:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Just don't let things [indistinct 00:59:02]. | 57:27 |
| Henry Hooten | No. Yeah. Like the old saying, what's going to be, going to be, and you just do your very best and take it as it comes. Say a good prayer to hope for the best. | 59:21 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh, you're taping now. Okay. You go ahead and ask the question. | 0:01 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. Mr. Hooten, you told me about an experience you had when you had to construct a retaining wall for your house during, I think, the 1940s. | 0:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Yes, Paul. It was in '46. It was in '46, when I came to Tuskegee to school and I graduated in '49 and—Yes, I had experience in building my retainer's wall. I've always been crazy about fishing and we're close to the Appalachia chain of mountains, up at Lake Martin. And so, when I'd go fishing, if I didn't catch any fish, I'd pick up a few rocks and bring back. Had in mind building me a retainer's wall and a barbecue pit and patio. | 0:22 |
| Henry Hooten | My mother and my wife, Lil, they was always been crazy about tropical flowers. In building the retainer's wall, flower boxes around the patio, I built them and I built them out of rocks and I might've told you, some time ago, that I had a little experience in working with an Italian in Detroit, Michigan. The little bit that I learned about the rocks, I learned from him and he was very helpful. | 1:12 |
| Henry Hooten | And I said, one day, when I get a chance, I'm going to build me something out of rocks and that's what I did. I was up around Lake Martin collecting rocks after I'd fished one day and one of the White farmers saw me. He says, say, boy, what are you doing with those rocks? I said, Ms. Ann, she want a barbecue pit and I was picking up the rocks to build some barbecue pits for her. He says, if you're building a barbecue pit for Ms. Ann, you come on, go with me, and so I did. I went with him. He had a little farm up there around the lake and rocks just covered everything around and he had packed rocks up around, stacked them up around his barn so that he could have his quick crops. He had billy goats there and he had to grow a little grass and stuff for them. That's why he was moving the rocks. | 1:47 |
| Henry Hooten | He says, tell you what, you get all the rocks you want here and, when you finish, you tell Ms. Ann I want to try some of that barbecue. And I said, yes, sir, I'd be happy to tell her. He didn't know that Ms. Ann that I had in mind was my wife Lil, and he thought I was talking about the White mistress that had a Black boy making flower boxes, patios or barbecue grills or whatnot, so I did. After I had finished my barbecue pit and all, I went by the barbecue stand and bought some barbecue and carried it. I said, Ms. Ann says here's some barbecue from her barbecue pit. And he told me then, says, all right, anytime you want some more rocks, you just come on up here and get all you want, you hear? I said, thank you. That was about the barbecuer, grilled and all. | 3:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | But how many trips did you make out there to the— | 4:31 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh, I made maybe 12 or 15 trips, Paul, to pick up the rocks and rocks is very heavy, and the larger the rock, the heavier it is, see? But— | 4:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mrs. Hooten knew about this? | 4:47 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh, yes. She knew about this. It took me approximately a year to build the entire wall because, see, the wall is 125 feet long, starts off at about two feet and, in the middle, it goes up to about six and a half or seven feet, then it triples off back to about four feet on the end. But, something I didn't tell you, Paul, I would like to tell you, everything was segregated before that. Tuskegee VA Hospital was, at that time, all Negroes, all of the employees and all of the patients was Negro. Tuskegee was a hospital that was set aside for the Black veterans. | 4:52 |
| Henry Hooten | But, after integration, it changed. They began to take people from Tuskegee, and the chief positions, and send them to other VA hospitals in exchange for White. White would come in. This was fine because the qualified Negroes, in government work in the hospital, was at Tuskegee. They began to send them all over. I had a chance to go but I wouldn't go. I stayed here in therapy. | 5:55 |
| Henry Hooten | In '46, as I said, the hospital was integrated in '40, and '46, when I came to Tuskegee but, by the time I graduated in '49, I was offered a job at the hospital in recreation. I did. I went out and took the job and then specialists from all over the country would come in, especially White specialists would come in, in exchange for a Black specialist to go to his hospital. And, I'll never forget, my boss was a physiatrist, was Dr. Wilson. | 6:37 |
| Henry Hooten | He was a little common man. To look at him, you didn't think he was a doctor, but he was a genius. And so, he ran his department like a big family. He always felt for the little man and, what we did—The hospital, at that time, was 90% NP hospital. Most of the patients were neurotics and he taught us to always treat your patient as if he was special. Other words, you praise him for his effort rather than for his product, although his product might not be top shelf, but you praise him for having an effort to do it. | 7:32 |
| Henry Hooten | At intervals, we'd have what we call staff meetings and each one would get together, the nurses, the doctors, the psychiatrists, and the specialists in conference and we'd have the patient there and each one would give their assessment of the patient. He'd ask you, all right, Henry, what are you doing for Mr. Jones in your clinic? I would tell him that I was ambulating him, I was walking him and giving him exercise and whatnot. All right, what is his response to you? Is it helpful or is it resentful, whatnot? I tell him, no, he's very helpful. I always treat him as if I'd like to be treated. Then, the different psychiatrists—We had one psychiatrist there, he lived up at Auburn, but his home was in Mississippi and he felt that he was better than any of the Black therapists or the Black psychiatrists that were there, and we had top men. | 8:34 |
| Henry Hooten | He stayed to himself. He would talk to the doctors and the high echelon personnel rather than to the little man like, say, the therapist. He felt that we couldn't tell him nothing. He couldn't learn nothing from us. But I was always taught that every creature on God's green Earth can teach you something if you just listen. But, one day, he came in and he was talking to my chief, Dr. Wilson. He said that he was trying to build a rock wall and it wouldn't stand. Every time it rained, it would fall. Dr. Wilson listened to him and, after he finished, he says, we are honored. I got one of the finest rock masons in my service. And he said, Henry, and I stood up, I said, yes, Dr. Bob? I call him Dr. Bob. He says, I'd like for you to meet Dr. Presley. Dr. Presley. | 9:58 |
| Henry Hooten | He was a psychiatrist. He was living up at Auburn. He was trying to build a home. He had a swimming pool and he was trying to build a rock wall around it and, every time it rained, the wall would fall, so his wife had got disgusted at him and said, you go find somebody who got sense enough to lay a rock so they will stand. Dr. Wilson says, he's the best, meaning Dr. Presley looked at me and seemed as if he was reluctant to shake my hand but, finally, he gave his hand and I shook hand with him. He says, I understand you's a rock mason. I say, I know a little something about a rock but you might call it a rock mason, or Dr. Bob might call it a rock mason, but whatever it is, the rock stands. It don't fall when I put it up. | 11:17 |
| Henry Hooten | And so, Dr. Wilson said, if you think you want to see something pretty at—I have a noon break, let's ride out to Henry's house. He says, is it all right, Henry, that we can ride? I said, yes, Dr. Bob. I says it's perfectly all right. I said, I'll be willing to have you come and I'll give you two of myself. Paul, I brought them out to the house here and, when they drove up—I know they was looking for a shotgun house and everything all scattered but everything was in place and I had laid about, oh, maybe 50 or 60 feet of rock. | 12:24 |
| Henry Hooten | And so, when we drove up to the house, and Dr. Pressley said, this is where you live? He wasn't talking to me. He looked at Dr. Wilson. This is where he lived? Dr. Wilson said, yes, this is where he lived. He says, let him show you the tour. I led him out. I said, Lloyd, come right in, and I began to explain the rock wall as we went down. Dr. Presley, he looked, he says, let me ask you a question, he says, I notice you got little pipes coming out the base of the wall. What are they for? I say, that's weep holes. He says, weep holes? I said, yes. Weep holes. I said, it's just what it says. Weep hole. When water get behind the wall itself, the weep holes let the pressure off. I said, when someone is in stress having trouble with things, you let pressure off. I said, this little pipe lets the pressure of the water from behind the wall out to keep it from bursting. Keep it from— | 13:17 |
| Henry Hooten | He says, I never thought of that. We went on down. We kept explaining it. The chief of staff also was with the group. He was a nice fellow, he was from Pennsylvania. Henry says, could we get you to come up to our house and show us what we are doing wrong? We're trying to build this retainer's wall. I said, yes, Mr. Williams. I said, I'd be happy to. He said, what about Saturday? He says, could you come up Saturday and get us started? Show us what we're doing wrong so we can correct it? And I looked, I said, if it's all right with Dr. Presley. He said, oh, yes, that'd be perfectly all right with me. Paul, they went back home and they told his wife that they had a rock mason that was going to give him a few tips, show them what they was doing wrong, and that I would be there Saturday morning, early, about seven o'clock. | 14:48 |
| Henry Hooten | I did, Paul. I lived to my word. About 15 minutes to seven, I was there at the house, and Mrs. Presley was sitting on the porch and she says, young man, she says, may I help you? I said, I was looking for Dr. Presley. She says, I'm Mrs. Presley. Says, you must be Hooten. I said, yes, ma'am. She says, I understand that you's excellent when laying rocks. I said, I don't know about excellent in laying rock but I can lay some rock. And, by that time, Mr. Williams and Dr. Presley came out, too. They came out and I said, where is the wall, Mrs. Presley, that you having trouble with? She says, come on, go with me. She carried me around at the swimming pool. She says, see this wall here? I said, yes, ma'am. I see the wall. | 16:07 |
| Henry Hooten | She says, now, every time it rained, this wall falls. By that time, Dr. Pressley and Mr. Williams was there. I asked Dr. Presley, I said, Dr. Presley, what is your chemistry of your wall? What is your mixture? He said, oh, we got a sack of sand, one sack of lime, one sack of mortar mix and mix it together with water, and I saw what it was at, and then I looked at it and I said, I'll tell you what I want you to do. I said, I want one of you to wash all of the rocks that we are going to lay on in the wall and then I want to you to get me just cement and sand. We don't want no mortar mix. We don't want no lime. We want cement and sand. If I put one sack of cement, I want one sack of sand to mix with it and we'll take a mixer and mix it together. | 17:12 |
| Henry Hooten | And I say, the mortar mix, what we call mud, when we mix the sand and the cement together, it bonds and it will stick on rocks. That's clean. That's why I want you to wash them and they will dry off by time I get ready to use them. And, if the mixture is strong enough to stick on the hoe or the trowel, then it's strong enough to hold the bottom of the rock, so we did. I had both of them—One washing the rocks and the other one mixing the mixture. We call the mixture mud. Give me a little more mud. Like that. So we did. | 18:29 |
| Henry Hooten | After we did that, I laid about 20 foot of rock and, by the time I got to 20 foot, it was hard. It was sticking. Mrs. Presley came out and she saw it and she was well pleased and it was setting up so fast, so she says, I tell you what, let's go to dinner. She had dinner already. We all sat down to the table and we ate and everything. And, after that, we went ahead and laid about 20 more feet of rock and they were so pleased until I couldn't get rid of them, then. Giving them the pattern of what to do and how to do it and everything. And so, at the same time, I was able to get rocks from him. | 19:22 |
| Henry Hooten | The area that his house was being built in was nothing but rocks and the bulldozers and backhoes would break up the rocks. And so, Mrs. Presley said, Henry, you just take any rocks you want home with you to do that. So we did. From then on, I didn't have any problem. They would see you on the station and he was telling all his friends about it, and that rock wall is still standing, and that was done back in '49. | 20:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | It's still out there in Auburn. | 21:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, up there in Auburn. But he felt that they had all of the knowledge, that nobody could tell them nothing but, as I said, at first, I was taught that the good Lord didn't give no one fool all of this sense. He gave a little bit to everybody. Give them a chance. | 21:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you think that Dr. Presley learned something from that experience? | 21:37 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. He thought that you didn't have to wash a rock. He thought that you used cement mix and a little lime. But, lime and cement mix, they stand on their own. One don't mix with the other. But what you really wanted was the cement and the sand for it to bond together with your water, and you make up your mud just like you're making a cake. You start beating it and, as you beat it, the sand and the cement mix together and, the more water you put in it, the easier it is. But you don't want it to be too thin. You want it—As I said, to stick on your trial or stick on your hoe, as you begin to mix it. And, if it stick to your hoe or your trowel, then it will stick to your rock that's clean. Yeah. | 21:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | The sand and the cement— | 22:48 |
| Henry Hooten | Sand and cement were a good mixture. And if you want it real rich, you put a little more cement than you do sand. Yeah, for instance, if you have a sack of sand, you put maybe a sack and a half of cement and it would be stone hard at that time, in other words. And, in laying a rock wall, you got to have a lot of patience because no rock is the same size but each rock that you deal with has got a flat side, and the Italian that I worked with, he told me, he says, every rock's got a flat side. You just have to keep turning it until you find it. But he had taught me how to lean your rocks as you build your wall. Let it be at an incline and, as it's set up, it'll be pushing against the retainer's wall and, if you'll notice the wall is leaning to the slope, and that's when it's set up, it's pushing. It's pushing itself. | 22:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. Hooten, did people at the hospital—And they might've talked about this maybe in the forties but maybe not. Did people still talk about the founding of the VA hospital and all of the— | 24:15 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh, yes. | 24:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | The events surrounding it? | 24:30 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. The hospital, way back when Dr. Moton—He was the second president of Tuskegee University, it was Tuskegee Institute at that time. They owned the land all around and the government was trying to find a place to build a hospital for the Black veteran at the time. Tuskegee Institute gave the land to the government to build a hospital on for the Black veteran with a stipulation that, from the headman to the smallest man would be Black. The president would be Black and the smallest man would be Black. In other words, doctors, nurses, technicians, and all also was trained here at Tuskegee. They had interns that would come in from Mahara and from up in Washington, at Harvard. Yes. They would come in. Then, nurses would come in from North Carolina, from A&T, from Shaw and whatnot, Florida A&M, Tuskegee. | 24:33 |
| Henry Hooten | Tuskegee, they had a nurses program, one of the finest in the country that was here and, at intervals, they would come in and train with the veteran that was there. As I said, at first, the hospital was a 90% NP hospital, and then you had trainees in psychiatry and medicine and surgery and all. We had some of the finest that was here. But, after integration, they began to send different ones through the different parts. Now, that was a stipulation that the government paid the school a dollar for any exchange of the land that was used. | 26:10 |
| Henry Hooten | Now, in case the hospital should close, all of the land and all of the buildings would go to the school. But, back in 1923, I understand, was when they had the first beginning of patients. They had patients from World War I, Spanish-American War, all Black patients and, at one time, we had Black nurses, or Black patients who was nurses at one time in service, who was neurotics at this time. They had special building for them on hospital grounds. | 27:05 |
| Henry Hooten | But, after integration, then they began to send the patient closest to his home, whether it was Michigan or whether it was Carolina or where it was Florida or whatnot. But, at first, all of the Black patients, that had service connected, they came here, they brought them here, and school was the one that donated and gave them the land in exchange, so that the Black veteran will have someplace to go. They didn't have a Black hospital at that time and then that's when it started here in Tuskegee. | 28:05 |
| Henry Hooten | And, right now, it's still—The hospital director is a Black man, is a Black doctor or a Black PhD, who've had the training of hospital administration and who has served continuously for the benefit of the patients. But, now, it's patients that we treat at the hospital. Not just Black patients but all patients that would come in. But, as I said, when it first started, it was segregated. Of course, they had no place for the veteran and Tuskegee University was the one that gave the land for the hospital to be built for. | 28:45 |
| Henry Hooten | And, at one time, the hospital was like a little city. In fact, Tuskegee hospital and the town of Tuskegee itself was like three little towns in one. Each one was independent to the other. Tuskegee Institute was independent to itself. It had its own utility, light, water, sewage and all to itself and, the city of Tuskegee, it had its same utilities all to itself, and then the VA hospital had its fire department and all. But, in case of something happened, each one came to help the other. Say, for instance, was the chapel burned on campus and then the fire department from the little town of Tuskegee came and the government hospital fire department, it came, and they all worked together. In the county emergency, they did that. | 29:47 |
| Henry Hooten | And it's still that closeness where they work together. The city had a fire of the school downtown and the three went together. The hospital, the school and the city. And then they had—We never had a big fire at the hospital but, in case they're needed, they would come, too. But it's a medley cooperation between each other. It's more like a big family. In case one have trouble, they all go together. | 31:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would people, in the forties, talk about the conflict during the founding of the hospital with the White community? The conflict over the staffing? | 31:52 |
| Henry Hooten | No. They did talk about it, yes. The Ku Klux Klan was—They were threatening to march through campus but, the school itself, through campus, they closed the doors and they couldn't march through. They closed the gates and blocked off—And then the little town itself of Tuskegee, if they was going to march through there, the little citizens says, come on, they will greet you. We'll greet you for whatever you want to march through. What I mean by greeting them, they had their firepower too. After they found out that they was going to run into some trouble, they canceled the march or whatnot. | 32:12 |
| Henry Hooten | During the time that the school downtown was to be integrated, the Governor, Wallace at the time, he came and stood in the door, not to let the students in but Attorney General Kennedy—The President was Kennedy's brother and his brother was Robert. And Bobby was there. They told him to step aside. The marshals came down and moved the Governor from the door and then they came in. We—Can we? | 33:15 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | [indistinct 00:34:09]. | 34:08 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. Go ahead, Paul. Go ahead. | 34:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | Actually, we should just go ahead and probably eat. I think that— | 34:11 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. Whatever you say. | 34:14 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:00:05] resume. Yesterday, we were talking about what African-American people would have to do during the era of segregation in terms of survival strategies. That at times, you would have to tell a White person something to their face to satisfy them, whereas you were thinking that you didn't really want to say this, but you had to say this in order to stay alive basically. To really keep safe in other words. You were talking a little bit about these kinds of things yesterday. | 0:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You want to get started off here? | 1:04 |
| Henry Hooten | I'll let you first. | 1:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, before we came to Tuskegee, I started off in Montgomery, because I was in Montgomery in the late thirties. Of course, the buses were our transportation if you were a college student. You rode the buses and they had the signs in there. You knew when you paid up front, you walked around and went in the back door and sat down, and of course you were there to get out. But regardless to how many Blacks were on the bus, you did not come beyond the sign. Of course, that was one of the things. If you had to stand up, you stood up, even though the front seats could be empty because of the directions the bus were going. | 1:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But in later years, they moved the signs about two or three seats up because the population in the area where these particular buses were going were just settled with just the Negroes. But sometimes the drivers were kind of nasty towards you if you didn't have your change. It was 10 cents to ride the bus. If you got on the bus with a quarter, you didn't ask for change. You hand them the quarter, you showed them a quarter in your hand. Sometimes they tell you to drop it in and he'd give you the change at other times. He'd say, "Wait," and you'd have to step back and let somebody else get on who had some change. Sometimes he would borrow the change and other times the driver would give you the change. It all depend on the driver that you had that day. | 2:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But sometimes you just put your quarter in, you didn't get change for the 10 cent ride, because you didn't bother to ask for change because you wanted to get where you wanted to go. Say, so that was one of the things, because you could be ordered off the bus because you always paid up front and then walked to the back to load on the bus. | 3:10 |
| Henry Hooten | Going out the outside, coming in the back door, not down the aisle. | 3:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You didn't go down the aisle then. You paid at the front then you went out of the bus and got on, because they had both doors open, the front and the back door. But that was mostly it was going from the college downtown. | 3:44 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We had eating places downtown. We had one street, Monroe Street, where we had all the Black businesses. But it was no shopping places for anything other than you had your barbershop, you had your beauty parlor, you had a drug store and you had restaurants. But you had no businesses where you bought clothes, but there were back doors from the Dexter Avenue stores that you could go right off Monroe Street into the back door to the store without having to walk around the block. So, it was easy to just go through the doors. | 4:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, they had HL Greens is still there, I think, on the corner. They had eating place there downstairs. The Blacks went downstairs to eat. And of course they had the rest upstairs for White. You just automatically went downstairs. Being a student in school, you didn't want any trouble because if you got in trouble in town, it meant that you were in trouble with the school and they were going to send you home. So, you avoided trouble by trying to, if you were in town, following the rules and regulations. | 4:50 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We had one movie for Blacks there, and you went to the movie there. You didn't bother to go to the movie where you would go upstairs in the balcony, because the type of movie usually college students wanted to see were being shown at the Black movie house [indistinct 00:05:55]. But the Black movie house, I don't know whether it was run by White or by Blacks, but I know we had a Black person there selling the goodies and selling the tickets. Now, I don't know about the people doing the projection or the ownership of the business, but it was on the side street. | 5:32 |
| Henry Hooten | Pekin's Theater. | 6:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was Pekin's Theater. | 6:30 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. Pekin's Theater was also owned by a rich White man, Marford. He owned the Pekin's Theater and he owned a drive-in theater in Tuskegee and he had Negroes to operate. He had projectionists to operate the movie in both places. A dear friend of ours, he's gone now, he died. | 6:31 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Stokes. | 7:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Stokes. | 7:08 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Charles Stokes. | 7:08 |
| Henry Hooten | Charles Stokes. He was from Maryland but he came up under Mr. Marford. Marford sent him away to school as a projectionist, and he worked both places in Montgomery at Pekin's Theater and then had the drive-in theater in Tuskegee. So, that is how connection [indistinct 00:07:42]— | 7:09 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I didn't know because I know that we always went to Pekin's because we saw the type of movies that we wanted to see there in college. But you didn't come in contact with too many Whites on the campus at the college. Of course, if you had some of the state representatives or senators or some of the governmental people, who were to speak to you about something. Usually, it had to do with the appropriations and all and what they were going to do to improve the college. | 7:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Dr. Tremor always had his little group to school the student body on your conduct before an activity. And it was the same thing if we had anyone from out of town from the federal government or from some organization, who might share in some forms for the students. Before the activity, the housemothers would have all the young women to meet and they would talk to us either on Wednesday night when we had our regular chapel meeting. You would actually talk about your conduct when you attended these activities. It was to the point where certain students were pointed out, if you're going to ask questions, they were really given the questions to ask anybody, then raise your hand and ask a question. | 8:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Really, they had certain people, they was the president of the student body or president of some organization or some member of some particular class, psychology class or history class, that was pointed out. They were actually given the questions, I believe. I can't say that they were coached on the type of questions that would be asked, but the majority of the students weren't actually allowed to participate, because the ones who were going to ask the questions were already organized and they had them seated so they weren't all seated right at the front. So, it looked like it was a student participation more so than it really was. | 9:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Why do you think that it was done that way? Were there certain subjects that they didn't want, the administration didn't want, to be brought up? | 10:24 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, for me, it was two reasons. We had students from all over. From Ohio, New York, Michigan, you name, the east and the Middle East, who came there because they could get cheaper education, they could get work study. In their communities, they weren't top in their class, so they did not get scholarships for their life and they wanted to get in college. So, they came in to play football, basketball and play in the band, and then just to get their education. Some of them were children or former Alabama people and the others were just people who came. Because actually, they had a group that recruited football, basketball, and band members to come in each year. I think it was because they didn't want any controversy. Because usually if you started with some of those students participating in the activities, you might have called some controversies. That was my reason. That was my way of thinking. | 10:33 |
| Paul Ortiz | What kinds of controversies? | 11:57 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, if we had someone, a state representative or state legislator speaking to us, telling us about the different things that they were going to do to improve the cafeteria, improve the student life in the dormitory. Well, some controversy would come up because if a student knew that Auburn or University of Alabama was getting this large sum of money and getting these new buildings and all, and we weren't getting any of it, they would question why is it we're not getting our fair share. According to population, we're not getting the share that we—I believe that was some of the reasons. And Dr. Tremor was the person that planned to stay there, and he wasn't going to let anything happen to get him in trouble with the people who were responsible for either letting him stay or to leave. Because the legislators, the body, was really responsible for the monies they came to operate the school. | 12:03 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would the students talk about these kinds of disparities? Would you talk about things with other students? | 13:19 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They would discuss it with other students, and that was supposed to be reasons for them coming so questions could be asked. But when the questions were asked, the situations really weren't covered as you felt that they should be. | 13:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 13:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Then the time would always give out before the discussion ends. And then, sometime we were made promises that, "It's in the works now that we're going to get a new dormitory for the women. It may be a long time off, but it's coming. It's in the works that we're going to get a new cafeteria. You may not still be a student here if you're leaving this year or next year, but the next group coming in the next two or three years, we'll have this new cafeteria." Now, those were the kind of things that came out of these meetings. | 13:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, the student body knew that there were disparities between your school and, say, Auburn and University of Alabama. | 14:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. They were aware of it. | 14:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you feel that part of the controversy, the potential controversy based on Dr. Tremor's perspective, could have touched also on issues about segregation locally? That there is a fear that some of the students might question the racial order, a legislator or a representative who came in to talk? | 14:50 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I think there would have been because I'm not certain but I feel that some things were to be prepared in a sense that we will keep this college here regardless to what happened, and we want to keep as many students as we can here. But if you have opportunity to go to this other school, it maybe cut down on our attendance here. Now, I'm not certain in the thirties that that was being thought of. But then it was thinking in terms of I'm going to keep this job. I'm not going to let you do anything to jeopardize my job. That will stand up. You still have that happening at our Black colleges, I don't know about the others, that some things are done for this particular person to hold on to that job. Because we didn't have teacher tenure or anything like that in those days. More likely it was favoritism. Your job came because you were one of those favorite sons or favorite daughters, and when you got in, you put your friends or your family in. | 15:23 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. During those years as a student, when you had come up against situations like having to get on the bus and dropping a quarter in and not knowing for sure if you would get change, did you ever think about rebelling? Would you think about perhaps being more aggressive or doing something that wasn't necessarily sanctioned? I guess do you know other students who might have kind of broke the rules, so to speak, or talked about breaking the rules? | 16:55 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, some students did talk about breaking the rules. Because some students said that they were going to put tokens in instead of money. But I don't know whether any of them were able to do that. But you were supposed to turn your hand with your money in it so the driver could see your money before you drop it into the little cash box there, that little container there. | 17:44 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, the only thing that I did to protest, I walked a lot. I walked to town. I had a little group that would walk. You never walked along because you walked through and went right through the capitol grounds, so you always had to walk with a group. Now, that was my only, with the little group that I was with, we protested in terms of just not riding the bus. We walked. And I would walk to church some Sunday mornings after our regular Sunday school on the campus. You had privilege, you could go off campus to church and I'd walk on down to the church. It was about eight or 10 blocks. Because if I could put a dime in and ride right to the church, but I would walk. | 18:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | I see. | 19:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But it was a group. It was eight or 10 of us, all women. | 19:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Eight to 10. | 19:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. We'd just get in a group. We'd walk to the movies, we'd walk shopping, and we'd just stick together. | 19:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Rather than taking the bus. | 19:29 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Rather than take the bus. | 19:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | So, would the group talk about— | 19:33 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Oh, we would talk about it and we'd make plans what we were going to do, and we'd walk through the capitol grounds. They had the walk there. You didn't walk on the grass. There's no fence or anything, and you'd just walk through the capitol grounds. You'd walk in twos. | 19:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We had one advantage, we had paved streets all the way. But you'd cut corners and just go through. But no one ever confronted us or bothered us about it because you didn't bother anything. You stayed on the sidewalks. But you were determined you were going on the capitol grounds and you would just walk through on the walk. It was a narrow walk but you just walked through. You'd go right down by Dexter Avenue, King Baptist Church, when you come off the capitol of the ground. Go right across and go down by them and cross over. | 19:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's a good walk. | 20:43 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It is. | 20:44 |
| Paul Ortiz | That's several blocks, I think. | 20:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah, but we walked it off, honey. That was my third year there. Because your first year in college, you're trying to get adjusted. The second year, you're trying to get studies because you finished all that work that everything that you learned in high school is passed on, and the new things now that you're confronted with. Then the third year, you could relax a little. | 20:50 |
| Paul Ortiz | Initially, you're just trying to really survive as a student. | 21:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Just trying to survive, survive as a student. You spent a lot of time with the survival. But then you were concerned about what happened in the community. We had a lot of students who lived off-campus, who complained a lot about different things that were happening in their life. Because the distance to walk on a bad day was a disadvantage, and the distance, if they live close to school, they had short distance to walk. But the problem was the living conditions, because you didn't have any type of housing like you have now for off-campus school. They lived in people's homes and most of it was in basements. People opened their up basements up and worked it out. Some of it was just the floor of them. | 21:21 |
| Paul Ortiz | Would students, who came from the north, go through a different process of learning about segregation and having to cope with it? | 22:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, some of them did, but most of them seemingly adjusted. Now, we had several students who actually stayed just one. We had quarter systems. Some stayed one quarter and left. They just couldn't cope with the situation. | 22:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, you mentioned the tokens for the bus and that you would—Now, were Black people expected to use quarters rather than tokens for the bus? | 22:52 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, you see, the tokens weren't for the bus. | 23:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh. | 23:08 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | These tokens had to do with taxes, I believe. Instead of paying cash taxes you paid, you had a token. | 23:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | A token. | 23:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | For [indistinct 00:23:18], or same percentage of a cent. But it was about the size of a dime. | 23:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | That was issued by the city? | 23:24 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Issued by the state. | 23:27 |
| Paul Ortiz | The state? Oh. | 23:31 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It had nothing to do with the bus, but the kids would use them because it was about the size of a dime and it was shiny. But they had another token that had a different amount, value. It looked more like a penny. You couldn't use those. | 23:32 |
| Henry Hooten | Like a half 10 and two and a half shiny token. | 23:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It had to do with the taxes. You paid so much. You didn't have the tax actually where the vendor or they took out. You had your tokens and you paid your taxes with the tokens at that time. | 24:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. Hooten, yesterday, you were telling me about some experiences that we didn't get to during the first interview. You also told me about occasions where you would be thinking one thing that you'd have to do something else to satisfy the power structure in a way. | 24:29 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. Yes, I did. We were always taught never to talk back to the White man, but tell him what he would like to hear. But it's not what I wanted to say. That's in order to save your face. You're not being an Uncle Tom, but you just being fun and letting him hear the things that he'd like to hear you say. Yes sir, no, sir. Yes, ma'am. Being polite. But at the same time, you kept your mouth. | 24:53 |
| Henry Hooten | Speaking of transportation, I'd like to tell something that happened to us. In 1949, I was a member of the recreation team at the VA Medical Center, Tuskegee. This recreation team, we were athletes just out of school, and we tried to do things for the patients. Everything we did was for the patients. We had baseball teams, we had basketball teams, we had tag rag football teams on a modified scale and very safe. When a patient saw you playing, if he was an athlete, he came out, although he was a patient. He wanted to show you what he could do, so we played along with him. | 25:41 |
| Henry Hooten | This was during the time when Larry Dolby, Joy Campanella, Jackie Robinson and Joe Black had their barnstorming baseball team. They was the few Black that played on the big league team. During the winter months, they would come south and they would play us and different ones. I have some pictures I'll show you sometime to show. Well, we didn't know for what end this would lead to, but it did. Joe Black was introduced and he was on the staff of the Greyhound Bus company. He was one of the vice presidents for it. Making the long story short, we bought a bus, an old Greyhound bus from the Greyhound bus company. | 26:52 |
| Henry Hooten | During that time, the Greyhound, every 10 years they would take the old buses off and put new buses on and they would sell the old bus to the community, like church groups or organizations or whatnot. Private funds. We had a fishing club. Once a month, we'd go down Florida and fish in the Gulf of Mexico. Well, at first we would have little convoys of cars, like eight, 10 or 12 cars from three to four people in a car. | 28:00 |
| Henry Hooten | One trip, we was on our way out of Alabama into Florida, which mostly night driving. Well, a little town, they called Lara Hill, Florida, they had a speed trap there. This speed trap, if you were running, say, 40 miles an hour here on an incline, when you get to the bottom, you'd still be doing 45 coasting, and the police would pick you up and they would find you. So, the first trip they picked us up, they picked the lead car and had everybody behind him to pull in. Each one had to pay $125 a piece, each car. So that night, I made a suggestion, let's buy us a bus. If we'd be caught speeding, we'd just have $125 rather than eight $125. | 28:48 |
| Henry Hooten | So, we did. We bought a bus. We went up to Indianapolis in Indiana with one of the bus areas where they pulled the Greyhounds off the line at the end of 10 years. Four of us went up there and got this bus through the letter of Joe Black. Black being one of the vice presidents, they gave us a chance to view their buses. So, we was able to buy this bus. | 30:06 |
| Henry Hooten | Now, at the same time, going to Florida fishing, there was other recreation activities exposed to our groups. Like the kids, I'll never forget, we had 45 youngsters, which of my four kids, three kids was in there at the time. We had 45 kids and mothers and dads on our way to the beach. We would leave Tuskegee at 12 o'clock at night and we'd be in Florida at six o'clock in the morning so they could—We had no place we could stop at a motel, we had no place we could stop and eat but a segregated place. | 30:47 |
| Henry Hooten | Evergreen was the halfway point, so one night we pulled in. I was the driver of the bus. We had 45 kids, or maybe 50. Could have been two or three sitting in the other's lap, but they had never been to the Gulf of Mexico and we'd taken them down to swim. We was taking them to Panama City, Florida. So, at Evergreen, was the halfway point as I said, we could pull in the same lanes behind the Greyhound buses. What we would do is gas up behind the Greyhound buses. And at the same time, we had to stand in line to get a hot dog. Hot dog wasn't but 25 cents at the time, but can you picture yourself feeding 45 kids for a 25 cents hot dog? And they going to wait on the White man over the other portion. They had a little cubby hole for the Negroes to go in. | 31:46 |
| Henry Hooten | That night, I had a bunch of kids and they were scattered everywhere, and some of them went in the White side. They went in the White side. My son, oldest son, was one of those that went in the White side. So, when we started looking, we says, "Where is so-and-so? Where is so-and-so?" He said, "Oh, he went over next door to get him a hot door." Well, the White proprietor of the little restaurant there in the bus station, they got so excited. They never had that many Blacks in there in both sides to get a hot dog, so they called the police. | 33:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, the police came. He happened to be the chief of police, and he happened to own the station. He was asking, "Who's in charge? Who is the bus driver?" I was getting the bus filled up with gasoline. Not gasoline, but— | 33:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Diesel. | 34:06 |
| Henry Hooten | Diesel fuel. Diesel fuel was 25 cents a gallon at that time. Can you picture me filling up? I had 150 gallon, two. One tank was 100 gallon and another tank was 50 gallon, and I'd usually fill up both while we there. So, the policeman, he asked me, he said, "Boy, don't you know can't go in here? This is segregated. You can't go in there and eat." I said, "Well, can you picture having a bus load of 55 kids who want to eat, and what you going to do? Look at them?" He said, "No, you can't just look at them." He said, "Well, you can't do that because I'll have to put you in jail." I said, "Well, just cut my tank off." I said, "The amount that you put in there, don't put no more in it." | 34:08 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "Well, wait a minute. We can do better than this. We can do better than this." He closed the station. When he closed the station, he fed everybody in both sides. See, the money that he was going to get for gasoline, he wasn't going to get it because I told him, "Don't put another drop in." So he says, "All right, when you coming back through here? "I said, I'll be back through here tomorrow night." He says, "Well, I'll tell you, I'll close as soon as you get here." We did that for most trips. We got to be friends. Although he was the chief of police in the little town of Evergreen, Alabama, we fed all of the kids in both sections. We got the gasoline or got the diesel fuel, and we came on home. We did that for many years until after segregation was outlawed. But it's always a way to try. | 35:07 |
| Henry Hooten | The kids, they enjoyed themselves at the beach. But I didn't know my son was one of those who was in there demanding a hot dog before. But it's always a way to do anything. Transportation, we didn't have to stand in line, we had our own bus. We had been stopped many times by police. He says, "Oh." Says, "Whose bus is this, boy?" So we said, "It's the Deep Sea Fishing Club." He says, "All right." He says, "Y'all being satisfied?" Well, they didn't know no Black man owned the Deep Sea Fishing Club. This was some of the things you had to contend with. Okay. | 36:26 |
| Paul Ortiz | And you bought that bus as the Deep Sea Fishing Club. That was the group that would organized the trip for the kids and the— | 37:28 |
| Henry Hooten | That's right. | 37:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, I see. | 37:32 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. Each month, or in fact each week, we had trips that we couldn't make. We carried groups to Six Flags over Georgia, Stone Mountain. That's how we got up to Ruby Falls and Lookout Mountain, and down to New Orleans on educational trips. It was going Deep Sea Fishing, church groups, take them to the zoo. This was things to give a kid exposure to where he couldn't go normally. | 37:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. And in a way, it was also, I mean, buying your own bus was a way to do kind of an end run around some of the segregation. | 38:12 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. Yes. Not only that bus, that was the first one, but we ended up buying three buses, all Greyhounds. Right now, when you pass the post office, if you just look across the street to the right, they're on your way back to campus. Our first bus that we bought, the old bus is there still standing on the lot. | 38:24 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It's not in operation now. | 38:55 |
| Henry Hooten | It's not in operation now. | 38:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Which lot is that? As you pass the post office? | 38:59 |
| Henry Hooten | When you pass the post office— | 38:59 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It's right across. | 38:59 |
| Henry Hooten | Going to the campus, right across an old filling station there. It used to be the— | 39:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Shell. | 39:11 |
| Henry Hooten | Shell station. That's where we kept our buses. | 39:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, okay. | 39:15 |
| Henry Hooten | But it's just not operating now but [indistinct 00:39:20]. | 39:16 |
| Paul Ortiz | But there's still a bus? There's still buses? | 39:19 |
| Henry Hooten | The bus is there. | 39:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay. I think I want to take a picture of it. | 39:27 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, take a picture of that bus. That was it. That's the type of bus the community used to call it an old Henry J. They called it a Henry J. It was made during the time of the war. To conserve space, you had seats inside but you had to have smaller luggage underneath. When they used it on short runs to and from the bases, the soldier could put his duffle bag underneath easy. But later, they began to make the big buses. But it was good running. It run good. | 39:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | When you would be out on the road, you said that White police would actually stop you and they— | 40:10 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. | 40:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | They didn't— | 40:18 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, he'd stop you and want to know, "Let me see your license, Fessor." That's what he'd call you, Fessor. | 40:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Fessor? | 40:28 |
| Henry Hooten | Fessor. | 40:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | What did that mean? | 40:28 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, you was in charge. You wouldn't say professor, you'd say fessor. But he wanted to see if you knew how to drive that big bus. They had very few Black bus drivers at the cross country. In certain sections you had plenty. On your big Eastern cities, you had big bus drivers, Black bus drivers. Or out west, Black bus drivers. But down south, you didn't have many Black bus drivers. But after Joe Black got in as one of the vice presidents, it became a change. You did have more Black bus drivers. | 40:33 |
| Henry Hooten | But in order to get service, we'd pull in the bus stations. They didn't know who was driving the bus at first when they'd come up, and then they'd come up and see it was a Black man driving. "Where are you going, Fessor?" We said, "Well, we going to New Orleans." "What you going to New Orleans for?" Said, "We got a busload of kids going down on an educational trip." He said, "Oh," and he started talking to you then. He says, "Oh, that's fine. You have a good trip, you hear?" We said, "Thank you, sir." | 41:19 |
| Henry Hooten | So often, we would have breakdowns on the bus. We had a group of Boy Scouts, carried them up into Cherokee Indian Reservation up in North Carolina, and the bus broke down on us up there. Well, after it broke down, the Indian's Reservation is there, and so we was able to get them to bring us and the kids back to Tuskegee. So, they did. They brought us back, all the way back to Tuskegee. Then we got on our other bus and went up to pull the old bus back that'd broke down. We did. We were successful. | 41:54 |
| Henry Hooten | The policeman was very nice. He was an Indian up in the reservation. After we broke down, he came to us and said, "Well, you having problems?" We said, "Yes." He said, "You know, we got an old Henry J." They called the bus a Henry J. He said, "We got an old Henry J that broke down." And so I asked him, I said, "Do you know where we could get help with another bus to take us home?" He says, "Where is home?" I said, "Down in Alabama. Down in Tuskegee, Alabama." He said, "I heard of that place." He says, "Well, I'll take you," Him and another Indian. We loaded that bus and we brought them back to Tuskegee. We went back up and got the other one and in the meantime, the other bus was repaired. We made friends and we was always in contact with them. | 42:19 |
| Henry Hooten | We was always going to Six Flags over in Georgia, and I had a busload of ladies, would go up shopping at Macy's, downtown Atlanta. Well, the freeway wasn't completed at the time, and I broke down at a four-way stop. So, a big 18-wheeler from Texas pulled up behind me and he saw me looking under the hood of this Henry J. He says, "You having problems?" I said, "Yes, I'm having problems." So he says, "What it seems to you think is wrong with it?" I said, "Well, I don't know. I pulled up to this four-way stop here and it just cut out on me and stopped, and I can't get it started." He looked in and he said, "Here's your trouble right here." The cable had broken loose from the engine and the generator. So he says, "I'll tell you what now." | 43:56 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "You go inside now, and I'll tell you when to hit it." He got him some long gloves and leather gloves that came up to his elbow. He took that cable and stuck it to that generator. He says, "Now, I hit it." I turned the switch and it jumped on just like that, and it started. He says, "All right, don't stop it. Just let it continue to run so you can drive here to New York now as long as you don't cut it off." | 0:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Drove on up to Atlanta, went down to Macy's, and let all of the ladies out. He said, "Now, follow me." He carried me out to a truck stop out on Interstate 75 at the time, and he had a friend there that welded that cable back for me. After he welded the cables back, I asked him, "What was my bill?" He wouldn't take no money. | 0:33 |
| Henry Hooten | I couldn't pay the truck driver from Texas any money, but it shows. He says, "Maybe one day you will help me like so." But one [indistinct 00:01:20] shares another. So, that is how over the years that we have exchanged help from this to each other. This is a few of the types of hardships that we've run into, but overcoming the odds, we made it. | 1:06 |
| Paul Ortiz | Both of you have told me about experiences that you have, and ways that you coped with, and actually in a way, transcended or avoided the pain of segregation. A student told me about that rather than have that experience, humiliating experience of riding the bus, you had organized a group of friends and he would walk. | 1:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. | 2:34 |
| Paul Ortiz | Even long distances. | 2:35 |
| Henry Hooten | That's it. | 2:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | I've been to Montgomery. I know— | 2:37 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You know about going from one area to another in Montgomery. | 2:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | Mr. Eaton, you probably had the experience of actually buying a bus rather than having to ride on a segregated bus. | 2:41 |
| Henry Hooten | Right. | 2:54 |
| Paul Ortiz | Are there other kinds of experiences you can think of, similar kinds of ways that you avoided that, avoided segregation, any strategies? | 2:55 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. Most time, we would use strategy rather than use force. Be very kind, use psychology on that. That would be the first thing the White man thought she knew less about was a psychologist. He didn't think you had sense enough to psycho him. He knew it all, but you would listen to what he had to say. | 3:17 |
| Henry Hooten | As I said at first, you would tell him what he wanted to hear, but not what you wanted to tell him normally. So, first thing he would say, "You sassing me." Say, "No, sir, I'm not sassing you." He says, "This is what I want and can I get it? If not," just like the gasoline was getting for the bus. He says, "Well, you know this segregated place, you can't come in here and eat." | 3:53 |
| Henry Hooten | I said, "Well, have you ever had a bus load of hungry kids? No place to eat. No place to go." He said, "No, I never thought of it like that." I said, "Well, course now, don't put no more gas in. We'll go. We'll leave you. I'll load them up, and we're going to run out of gas down the road someplace. You wouldn't want us to be run out of gas down the road when you could sell us the gas now." "No, no," he said, "I'll tell you, I'll just closed my station to feed all of you." | 4:32 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, he only had about three White customers in there. He knew them, but they was laughing, thought he was going to put all of us in jail. His little jail wouldn't hold all of it. He said, "I better feed them and sell them the gas and get them out of here." | 5:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember what happened to the White customers? Did they just leave or? | 5:37 |
| Henry Hooten | He put them to work waiting on us. He did, but evidently they was off duty policemen. He was the chief of police. And after they saw what he was going to do, they helped. They got back there helped them fix the hot dogs and everything. | 5:41 |
| Paul Ortiz | This was in Evergreen? | 6:03 |
| Henry Hooten | Evergreen, Alabama. | 6:05 |
| Paul Ortiz | Do you remember the name of that chief of police? | 6:09 |
| Henry Hooten | Robinson, I believe they called him Chief Robinson, I believe. But we became friends after then and he'd always ask me, "Henry, when you're bringing the kids down again? When you go into Florida?" I say, "Give us about two weeks. I think I'll have a load." | 6:13 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "I made it to be 12 o'clock now when you get here." 12 o'clock, he'd close up the station, "It'll be closed when you get there." We try to make it be 12 o'clock each time to fill up with gas, with 25 cents a gallon of diesel fuel. | 6:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | And it started about 1949? | 7:05 |
| Henry Hooten | About 1949. So, that would be my halfway point to and from Florida at Evergreen to get service, use the restroom, and then get filled up with diesel fuel for 25 cents a gallon. Other than that, I'd have to scuffle to find another place, but accidentally it worked. | 7:05 |
| Henry Hooten | I think what really let him feel the pinch was when I told him, "Don't put nothing else in the tank," when my tanks would hold, one 50 gallon tank and another one, a 100 gallon. I figured that was 150 gallons of diesel fuel with 25 cents gallon. At that time, that was a pretty good chunk of money. | 7:39 |
| Paul Ortiz | Because he wanted that money. | 8:07 |
| Henry Hooten | He wanted that money. So that night, he only had, as I said, two or three people was there with him. They was watching to see what he was going to do. After he made that decision, that was it. He owned the station, and he could encourage others not to stop there, you see, not to get anything. | 8:08 |
| Henry Hooten | But I think we mentioned it to Joe Black too one time. He was making a payment on our bus that we had, and Joe says, "I understand—" Well, he found out. "I understand that you went down Florida and you stopped at Evergreen." He said, "Yeah, so how did you know?" He says, "Policeman told me." | 8:34 |
| Henry Hooten | He said, "But y'all was very kind. You didn't create no incident and you got what you wanted and everything." But we found that being courteous, not boastful or arrogant or nothing. You could solve the problem by talking, just let them know. | 9:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | This was something that I don't think either one of us mentioned, but if you notice that most of the people that you talk with, except for Sandy McCarthy, the men, have their names just signed with initials, like EL [indistinct 00:09:58]. | 9:42 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Let's see, some others. They just signed the names with initials. Now, to keep from getting your, when you go to the bank or what have, your signature was just initials rather than giving your first name. The reason for that was to keep from being called by your first name. Because I know even when I was coming up, my daddy always just signed his name, FJ Carter, and talking to anyone, nobody never knew my mother's first name. | 10:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | He referred to her either as "Mama" like we did, or it was "Mrs. Carter." In that way, no one knew her first name with people that he was dealing with, that had to do with both races. He referred to her either as "Mama" or "Mrs. Carter." And he was just an initial. I didn't pay too much attention to it until I went to work in Troy, and I noticed that my principal signed his name, AJ Fields. He never put his first name. | 10:41 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The men who worked with him signed their name, but the women always, he just went on and signed your name. Then when I came to Tuskegee, when I met up with the different ones here, that was AK Williams, that was EL Donalds and DB Mayberry But it was just a whole— | 11:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:11:45] Randolph. | 11:45 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | See, you run into some of it, that they never mentioned their first name. | 11:47 |
| Henry Hooten | CG Comillian. | 11:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But I noticed that that was a trend to keep from being called by your first name. I don't know. It was just the men. So, I imagine the men were the ones in public life, moreso than women, because men usually, if you did any type of business, whether it was getting your property tax assessed or whether it was using the bank or what have you, the men were the ones. Now, they was buying a vehicle. Black women never bothered to push to the front to do that until, I imagine, it was in the late '50s or early '60s. | 11:58 |
| Paul Ortiz | I know it's Mrs. Wright, I think. | 12:44 |
| Henry Hooten | JC. | 12:47 |
| Paul Ortiz | CJ. | 12:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | CJ. | 12:48 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:12:49] | 12:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. And her brothers is what kind of Hill? | 12:50 |
| Henry Hooten | James? George James. | 12:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But it's GJ Hill. | 12:54 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, GJ. | 12:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | And now this will be something that Black men, in particular, would— | 13:00 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Men in particular, use their initials rather than— | 13:07 |
| Paul Ortiz | To keep— | 13:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | To keep him being called by— | 13:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Keep White people from calling him by his first name. | 13:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Call him by that first name, because I know one uncle that I had, I never did know his first name until I got to be grown and old. We called him HH and we call the other one EN, because that was the way they were referred to when it came to in business, where they were business with the other race. When they had bank accounts, it was the same thing. They used the initials. | 13:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | Now, names, naming was a very important part, or seems to me to be a big part of the struggle for dignity, really, among [indistinct 00:13:59] | 13:46 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. | 13:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yesterday, you were telling me about a case where, I think, that we ran into this at the VA hospital. | 14:02 |
| Henry Hooten | Name identity. | 14:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, name identity, that's right. | 14:13 |
| Henry Hooten | Yes. In the small towns in the South like in Alabama and Georgia, and Mississippi, Louisiana, where you have the Black Belt, what I mean by Black Belt, you have more Negroes than you have White. You might have 10 Negroes to one White person living in the next— | 14:15 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, I had a chance to work with patients, a team from the Black Belt area, and in that little town, when he went in service, the White comptroller in the office where they drafted the name to service, he says, "You look like Curtis Even's boy." That's what he said. I imagine the White man was trying to make contact by making conversation with the Black man. | 14:41 |
| Henry Hooten | But the Black man said, "No, my name is Curtis Jones." "Don't dispute me, boy, you Curtis Even's boy." And he says, "No, my name's Curtis Jones." But he put Curtis Even on his papers that he sent him in service. He stayed the whole time he was in service, and every time he would come before an officer, the officer would see his name, still referring to him as Curtis Even. He said, "No, my name's Curtis Jones." | 15:23 |
| Henry Hooten | That's aggravated him the whole time that he was there, and even when he got so frustrated to the end up as an NP patient, he was still trying to get his name identity. He says, "My name is Curtis Jones, but she called me Curtis Eagle." So to correct that, as we worked with him as therapists, on therapist would call him Curtis Even, and I called him Curtis Jones. | 16:00 |
| Henry Hooten | Now, you could see him light up as you called him Curtis Jones. He would do anything that you wanted him to do, and he would answer you fluently and rationally. But when you call him Evens, it's he look like he'd get mad as wet hen. So, the least thing you could do is let him keep his name identity, although he's considered as an NP patient, but in order to get the best out of him, I would call him Curtis Jones. And my coworker would call him Curtis Even. | 16:36 |
| Henry Hooten | And that happened, and so down in the Black belt where the White man was in charge, nobody questioned him. He felt he knew it all, but he wouldn't listen to what the Black man was trying to tell him. "My name's not Curtis Even, I'm Curtis Jones." | 17:19 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I see what you mean. But you see in my mother's family, Mike and Phoebe, my great-great grandparents, did not take on the name of their plantation's owner, [indistinct 00:17:54]. They took on the name Carmichael, because Carmichael was owner of another plantation that befriended some of the members of the family after slavery. | 17:38 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see, when you came out, you automatically had your master's last name, but they weren't going be Rump. So really, they were Rumps from South Carolina on Rump plantation, but they took on the name of another plantation over on, Carmichael, so they were Mike and Phoebe Carmichael. | 18:11 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then you go on down the line until you get the name. They had 11 children, and Patty married a Johnson. That's my great grand— | 18:40 |
| Henry Hooten | Father. | 18:57 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | —father and mother, and then Ellis Johnson was their son. Ellis Johnson married Virginia. Virginia married, and then they had Lou Isa and Lou Isa married Frank Carr. | 18:58 |
| Henry Hooten | Frank Carr, which was your mother's daddy. | 19:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. But my daddy supposed to not take on the name of their master. They took on the name, see, their master was a Boykins. It was related to the Boykins who were part of the governmental system here in Alabama, and they were from Dallas County, but they took on the name Carter. | 19:15 |
| Paul Ortiz | This is your great-grandparents. | 19:17 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | My great-grandparents. This was my daddy's folks. Now, they took on the name Carter, because the wife came from another plantation, and her plantation owner was Carter. The great-grandfather took on the name Carter, that was the woman that he marries master's name, because they were very unhappy. The pressures that were put on them on the plantation where they were, they weren't allowed to marry. | 19:18 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But it was a lot of mixings going on, because the master took the young women who worked in the kitchen and all, and you had a lot of what they called Mulattoes in the family. And they were unhappy about that. That was the reason for them taking on the name Carter from the other plantation owner. | 20:25 |
| Paul Ortiz | Because that plantation owner did not— | 20:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They did not do that. They did not mix. They did not mix the races. But on my daddy's side of the family, it's very mixed up. Four parents and some of those great, great aunts and great-great uncles, because some of them went to New Orleans and passed right after they were freed. They went down the rivers and ended up in New Orleans. Some went to Mobile. You've met some of those from Mobile, some of those at the end group of those. | 20:52 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh yeah. | 21:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That they live in the section in Mobile called French Quarters, but they're not French at all. They were just mixed. | 21:37 |
| Henry Hooten | On a whole, we were taught that in all races, there are good and bad, good and bad, and he says, and one thing always remember that good Lord didn't give one man all the sense, whether he was White, Black, green, or red or what. He gave each one a little sense to carry on. | 21:51 |
| Henry Hooten | So although they would say, "Now, if every creature on God's green earth can teach you something, if you just listen, but if you can't listen, you can't learn." Now, this is something that happened on the outskirts of Tuskegee many years ago. They had a bus, had a brand new car loaded with dignitaries, all PhDs on their way to Tuskegee, and they got lost. Or did I tell you? | 22:28 |
| Paul Ortiz | No, no. | 23:02 |
| Henry Hooten | They got lost. So after they got lost, one PhD to the other, he says, "Say, doc," says, "you know what?" He says, "What?" He says, "We are lost." He said, "Yes, we're lost." So another smart PhD, he says, "Well, I'll tell you, the first human we see, we'll ask him how they get to Tuskegee." So he says, "Yes, all right." | 23:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Sure enough, they drove on down the road, and they met a little boy. He was ragged as a can of tripe and barefooted as a goose walking down the road trying to whistle. They drove up beside the little boy and one PhD said, "Say, boy, can you tell us how to get to Tuskegee?" And it frightened the boy. The boy had a pediment of speech. The boy said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, Yeah, sir." | 23:34 |
| Henry Hooten | But they was driving a brand new Rolls Royce car. The boy had never seen no brand new Rolls Royce car. So this PhD said, "You never seen a car like this, boy, before?" He said, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, sir." He said, "Well, you look at it and get your good eye up for then you tell us how to get Tuskegee." He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sir." Looked a little longer. | 24:09 |
| Henry Hooten | Then after looking another young patient PhD, he says, "You done looked enough now, boy, tell us how to get Tuskegee." He said, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sir." He said, "You go down the road a piece, and you come to—" He couldn't say crossroad, [indistinct 00:24:59] "Can you take a left?" "No." "You take a right?" "No." He wanted to be sure. He didn't want to tell him to go the wrong way. | 24:38 |
| Henry Hooten | So, that PhD said, "That fool can't tell us how to get the Tuskegee. He don't know his left from his right." The boy stopped, looked him right in the face, said, "Yes, sir. I might look like I'm a fool, but I ain't lost." So the other PhD, he said, "That boy is right." Said, "We are the fools," said, "if we don't listen," says, "We'll never get to Tuskegee, but let's listen." Said, "We are the fools, ain't got to Tuskegee." | 25:11 |
| Henry Hooten | But like we say, you can't look at the book and tell the contents of it. Same as we tell the White man what he want to hear, not what we want to tell him. | 25:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Just like the wife tell the husband. So, they would say, "Human nature don't change too much." | 26:00 |
| Henry Hooten | Human nature don't change. | 26:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | Oh, you know something else that both of you told me a little bit about that I didn't really ask much the first time and I regretted missing this. It was just about, say, in the '50s and the '60s, neighborhood life [indistinct 00:26:34], because you mentioned that your children were going to Mr. and Mrs. Paul's. | 26:15 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. | 26:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | You would go at Easter. | 26:39 |
| Henry Hooten | The Easter Egg hunts. | 26:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Easter Egg hunts and then sometimes we— | 26:39 |
| Henry Hooten | Ice cream party. We just have a backyard wiener roast and get together, togetherness. In other words, the families was very close. My mother, we brought her here and she stayed with us, and she was considered as one of the mothers of the street. When the kids come in from school, they'd make it here, and a lot of times— | 26:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | At Clover's, on Clover Street? | 27:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | On Clover street. | 27:13 |
| Henry Hooten | On Clover Street, yeah, a lot of times she'd have 12, 15 kids around her feet. And because they knew that they were safe and they knew that she had something to hand out to them. Now, she could make homemade ice cream and homemade cookies, and she had a ginger bread. Lord, you could smell it as you open the door. | 27:13 |
| Henry Hooten | The kids, they would mind us. She'd talk to them and they'd sit down. They'd be there just as contented as if they was in a nursery school. Everybody loved her, both adults and kids. But she was a beautiful lady staying with us. Over the years, she couldn't read and write, but the baby daughter and the rest of the kids, they taught her how to do a little bit of reading. | 27:37 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, if you told her something that she was talking, it seems as if she learned it by memory, or she could go to church. She could sing every song that was sang in the church and wouldn't miss a word, like that. Any sermon that the preacher started talking about, she might tell him Monday morning, said, "Boy, you got off your subject." She'd tell him, says, "You got to do better." | 28:22 |
| Paul Ortiz | She had it memorized. | 28:54 |
| Henry Hooten | She had it memorized, and it didn't bite her tongue, the doctors or the lawyers and their kids. They was honored for Big Mama to come and babysit for them. But he loved her. | 28:59 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, one thing we didn't mention, when we first moved out here, our street wasn't paved. So, the members of the street got together, and we had the contractor to come out and put the blacktop on the street. | 29:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right here on Clover? | 29:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Just on Clover Street, because we had a dirt road all the way down. | 29:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:29:40] | 29:40 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And then we did not have street lights. So the, community got together again and we put up our own street lights. We had that done. | 29:41 |
| Henry Hooten | The four people, two across the street and two on this side went together for each light. | 29:51 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, since we've been here, our street has been organized. We call it the Clover Street Neighborhood. | 30:00 |
| Henry Hooten | Watch. | 30:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Neighborhood Club. | 30:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Club. | 30:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And we are still organized. We used to didn't pay anything, but now we pay for, what is it, 12 or $24 a year. | 30:11 |
| Henry Hooten | 24 a year. | 30:20 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | In that way, when we have problem on the street for someone's in need or something, we have money in the treasury to take care. | 30:20 |
| Henry Hooten | Come to their rescue. | 30:30 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Come to their rescue. If a family has death in the family— | 30:32 |
| Henry Hooten | Come to. | 30:36 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | —we come to the rescue. If something happens to a child and they need some help, and we organize to the point where we have nurses on the street who will help for family, and we go in the home and give a bath to a person that's there that need help. But we've been doing that for the last, how many years? 42 years we've been here. | 30:36 |
| Henry Hooten | 42 years. | 31:00 |
| Paul Ortiz | So when you first moved in here and had to pool your resources to build up the streetlight, there were five families living here? [indistinct 00:31:12] | 31:02 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It was five or six families, the last five. | 31:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | And that was in the 1950s? | 31:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Of course, when we moved here, the Baldwins, you met Miss Baldwin, was here already and her next door neighbor, and it was just the houses up on the top of the hill, so to speak. | 31:18 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah, 1950. | 31:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | '59, something like that. Because we moved in 19, what was it, we moved in '52, but there were several houses that had been built then. But just as they built houses, we went on down the street or we needed a road to get out. | 31:32 |
| Paul Ortiz | It would've been hard on the hill to get out if it was muddy. | 31:56 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. | 31:58 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh Yeah, yeah. That's why I built a retainer wall. We used to try to mow it. | 31:58 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We had those walls with the big humps all the way down. And of course, that was good for the kids because they'd get a cardboard box and get on top of the hill and slide down. | 32:06 |
| Henry Hooten | Slide down the hill. Now, her brother may build every house that's on this street on both sides, all but the five across the street over here. We were instrumental in bringing him to Tuskegee. He didn't want to take no education. He wanted to take a trade. | 32:18 |
| Henry Hooten | So, he came from Pensacola, Florida, to Tuskegee, stayed with us in the project. He took up brick mason and say, I can knock on wood, he's one of the best bricklayers that was in this county. After he finished school, he got with a White contractor, Gorgans was his name, and the GI Bill was permanent then, and all of us down here with veterans. | 32:40 |
| Henry Hooten | Each one, each house, that was a bedroom there. So, we took advantage of the GI Bill and bought a home. So Gorgans, he build the houses on both sides all the way down. | 33:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And most of us knew each other before we came down. | 33:32 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:33:38] | 33:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We knew who our neighbors were going to be. | 33:37 |
| Henry Hooten | Just like the Harbors next door. They was our next door neighbors in the project. | 33:41 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And we were in the— | 33:46 |
| Paul Ortiz | In the Veteran's funded? | 33:47 |
| Henry Hooten | The Veteran's. | 33:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | The Veteran's Projects. | 33:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | [indistinct 00:33:50] when you first moved? | 33:50 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | When we first moved. Now, the Baldwins lived over across the street from us. | 33:51 |
| Henry Hooten | In the project street. | 33:55 |
| Paul Ortiz | And so that's where you met. | 33:57 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | We met there. | 33:58 |
| Henry Hooten | We met there. | 33:59 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | When all of the different husbands were students in school. | 34:00 |
| Henry Hooten | We came back to school in '46. | 34:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Now, like the Quinns, we didn't know Percy and Betty, but we knew their brother James. | 34:10 |
| Henry Hooten | Brother James. | 34:16 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | He was Henry's classmate. And we all lived across the street from each other, but it was—Now, quite a few of them built in other sections, but a lot of people liked this area. When we moved out here, we just stuck together and we have still, we have that togetherness. | 34:17 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:34:42] Now, each house that we have here now is retired, maybe a nurse or maybe a social worker or teacher or a therapist, a tailor or whatnot. Each one has a profession and they retired from either the government hospital or from the school system. | 34:44 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Or the university. | 35:20 |
| Henry Hooten | Or the university, which it has made it. And each one would always try to help the other, no matter what happened. If they had trouble, we had trouble. But we'd always try to help each other. | 35:21 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | And we are still pooling rides. We still pool rides. We share things with each other. If you have something in your garden, you check to see if they need some. | 35:39 |
| Henry Hooten | That's right. If you got food, I'll get it for you. Or just like George is sick now, I would put that garbage out and bring the cans back, whatever needed to be done, we do it. Cut his lawn. | 35:51 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | When Henry was in the hospital, they saw that I got to the hospital, they cut the lawn and sorted everything. When we go away, they take care of our mail, our paper. We give our next door neighbor a key so that they can take care of the things. You can come in and water the flowers, and we have lived like that for 42 years. | 36:08 |
| Henry Hooten | 42 years. | 36:35 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because we'd gone to Howard's before Herman was born, because we were next door neighbors. | 36:37 |
| Henry Hooten | Something over the years I have noticed, the Harbors had a big dog, stood up, great big dog like this. He was just as gentle as he could be, but if you looked at him, you thought he was, or he'd tear you apart. It was his dog. But he'd stay on my porch. He would stay on my porch, and that kept any strangers away. | 36:42 |
| Henry Hooten | The dog was named Ripper and Ripper left home or somebody picked him up and he was gone for about a year, and all of a sudden he shows up again. Ripper comes back. But it was amazing how, and he roamed the street. We would lay here and if anybody stranger come around, he'd go up and lay down at his dope. That kept any strangers, they want to know, "Whose dog is this?" | 37:09 |
| Paul Ortiz | Speaking of Mrs. Baldwin, she started telling me this. Unfortunately, I was on my way out of her house, and this is what often happens is people tell me stories that I should be taping, but I don't have the tape recorder on. But she told me that sometime during the '50s, well, actually, this would've been shortly after your friend's campaign was started. That the Klan had threatened to do some kind of a march, a ride, through this area. | 37:48 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That's right. They were going to ride through the campus and come on down this area. | 38:25 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:38:31] areas. | 38:30 |
| Paul Ortiz | They were actually going to come down by culvert in this area? | 38:31 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yes, because they were going to come through the campus, and they were going to come down Montgomery Road. We don't know how many streets they were going to turn down, but they had planned their ride. | 38:36 |
| Paul Ortiz | They had planned. | 38:51 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They planned their ride. | 38:51 |
| Henry Hooten | But it was known that everybody was ready for them. | 38:54 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But it wasn't successful because, number one, the campus blocked off the campus so that—See, the campus institute owned that property, even though the highway comes through it, and they have the privilege to whenever they want to, you notice that they have gates. | 38:57 |
| Henry Hooten | [indistinct 00:39:18] gates. | 39:18 |
| Paul Ortiz | Right. | 39:19 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see they just closed off the university. So ,the only way to march would be from town out through that way. | 39:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Through the Montgomery Highway. | 39:28 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Through the Montgomery Highway that way. | 39:29 |
| Paul Ortiz | Saw Mr. [indistinct 00:39:32], you said that they knew that you all in this neighborhood would be ready for that. | 39:31 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, the whole city, little town would be ready for whatever happened. | 39:37 |
| Paul Ortiz | And then what would that mean then? Would that be— | 39:44 |
| Henry Hooten | Okay. They let them know that they wasn't afraid of them. We hadn't done anything wrong, and if you come off of the road into my property, you invading my property. So, we can take steps to correct you for coming in my property. | 39:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Because usually, if they, go on. | 40:03 |
| Henry Hooten | If you hear some shooting here, the others is coming through to your rescue too, excuse me, what's happening. | 40:11 |
| Paul Ortiz | So in self-defense or in order to do self-defense, would there be people that had guns or— | 40:25 |
| Henry Hooten | Oh yeah, yeah. Not only guns, they'd have machetes and anything to protect his family. Other words, they're not afraid of whoever coming in, trying to disturb the peace. But we'll correct it, we'll turn it down. During those times, there was a preacher who was very outspoken. | 40:31 |
| Henry Hooten | He would speak to his congregation about everything, and so he also was a barber in a White barbershop. He was very fast and the strangers couldn't tell him from any other White person. So, he cut hair and the Klans would come in and plan their strategy of what they was going to do. And then they didn't realize that he was a Negro, and so he let them plan their strategy. When he go home, he tell everybody to be ready so they'd be ready in time. | 41:01 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Then the other way, you had Blacks who worked in the White home, took care of their children and cooked, cleaned the life, and they overheard conversations, because they could overhear telephone conversations. They could overhear the family conversation at the table, and that is another way that a lot of information got out, because so many conversations were overheard. | 41:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see, it was carried by word of mouth. But it was true, because if you working in this house and three or four of the businessmen were together there for dinner and they were discussing, well, you have to go in to see if you need some more bread or you would go in to see if they need to pour some more coffee or what have you. | 42:22 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You were just doing your job, but you could overhear whatever was going on. I think that had a lot to do with the way things got out because every home had one or two people working there. You had a yard man, and then you had somebody in the house to do the cleaning and the cooking and whatever had to be done to take care of the children. Sometimes it was two, depending on the amount of money you could afford, and somebody to take care of the children and somebody to do the cooking and the cleaning. That was another way, that information. | 42:49 |
| Paul Ortiz | If they could put the word out. | 43:34 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Put the word out, and they had key people that they could get the word to. | 43:35 |
| Paul Ortiz | Who are the key people then? | 43:44 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, you had Whites that didn't go along with the Klan. In other words, they was for humanity. Other words, justice for all. | 43:47 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Some of the key people in the community were the taxi drivers. | 44:06 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, yeah. | 44:09 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That carried these people backwards and forwards to work. | 44:10 |
| Paul Ortiz | Were these Black taxi drivers? | 44:14 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They had nothing but Black taxi drivers that carried backwards and forward to work and those were—And then the ministers were the other key people. | 44:17 |
| Paul Ortiz | Then they could help spread the word if they were in trouble. | 44:32 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | They could help the trouble, because all of our meetings, the civic meetings, were held in the churches. | 44:35 |
| Henry Hooten | In the churches. | 44:39 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see now, we're held on any public place. We didn't use the schools or any public. It was churches we used. | 44:46 |
| Henry Hooten | Back to the ministers, let's see, they was going to [indistinct 00:45:00] to him, going whip him, beat him up, [indistinct 00:45:05] the Klan was. But they went to his house one night, got to his house, his light was on the porch, and they called him and says, "All right, Reverend John, come on out here. We want to—" | 44:57 |
| Paul Ortiz | Okay, something about Reverend John? | 0:04 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. I said, "Reverend John," he said, "Yes, sir?" Says, "Come on out here, we want to talk to you." He said, "Yes sir, just let me get my hat." So Reverend John got his hat and he got his long arm, too. They had cut the light off on the porch, so when he cut the light off, Reverend John, he went with the hand that cut the light off, he took top of it off. When he took the top of it off, everybody started running. He started hollering and they said, this clan was telling us, "Wait, don't leave me, don't leave me." Reverend John said, "Well, hold tight. I'm going to help you, I'm going to help you." He done used his long John. But what they would do, they would watch the features, listen to the voice, although they was on the road or this one might've been slew footed. | 0:05 |
| Henry Hooten | He might be pigeon-toed and certain way, his shoes would go, he might be hippity-hop. But he'd always remember what that fella looked like. He could have been chief of police, the banker, the grocery man in the town. And after they found out, they took the cap off of the one that was screwing the light bulb and he was a permanent citizen. They respected, they thought he was a banker. But after finding out what's what, it's begin to cut them off the list, to close up the place. Don't buy nothing like food. If he's a shoe shop, don't take any shoes, just go barefooted. Don't use it. He got gasoline, don't buy any, just park your car. I mean, get together in a group and go. And that'll break it up. | 1:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Because he was trying to terrorize them? | 2:33 |
| Henry Hooten | Well, yes, he was a Klan, but he didn't think that they was going to recognize him. | 2:37 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | But they were going to terrorize his minister, because his minister came in here and had different ideas. | 2:43 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 2:49 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | About he was going to start working to make some changes. And I think that was the reason they were going to shut him up, so to speak. | 2:50 |
| Henry Hooten | Yeah. | 2:59 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that during the '50s? | 2:59 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | That was during the '50s. | 2:59 |
| Henry Hooten | That was during the '50s. | 3:13 |
| Paul Ortiz | Was that Reverend Buford? | 3:13 |
| Henry Hooten | No, it wasn't Reverend Buford. | 3:13 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Reverend Buford was very vocal when he came in. He was very helpful too, because he worked real hard with that struggle. | 3:14 |
| Henry Hooten | This was a minister that came in and he didn't go along with Reverend King as nonviolent. He believed in cast a stone for a stone, which, at that time it didn't work. It stopped it, but little understanding and confidence working along with them. You were successful in getting things done. Every time the stick cracked, don't pop. | 3:27 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | You see, it was two things, it was survival. Some people could leave Tuskegee, regardless to race and survive. There were others who were determined that they were going to stay here and survive. And you had to have a coalition of people who were willing to work together to make a difference. And that's where we had some Black and White to come together, to work together to make a difference here in the community. Because we had some people weren't going to run, Black. And we had some Whites, even though they sent their children out of town for school, we had Blacks too, after their child finished eighth grade. I call them mailed off to boarding school. Because the Taylors sent all three of their boys. You talked with Taylor, he sent all three of his boys away for high school, because they were college bound and he wanted to make sure that they got the best of education. | 4:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | He and his wife were both busy and they were working, so it was good to do that. But the Quinns kept their kids at home, we kept ours, the Baldwins kept theirs. A lot of others, but we had some who sent their kids away. Well, the Whites did the same thing and we had some Whites who kept their kids here even after the schools were integrated, they kept them in the schools here. So I think it was a matter of what you felt about yourself and a matter of staying with the system and surviving. That was my feeling about it. Sometimes you're just not willing to give up what you have and run, so you have to have some strategy to work out a way of survival. And I think that had to do with both races in the end to work together, even though it was a struggle. And there were a lot of things that could have been done different, I believe, but at the time and the way people were thinking, it wasn't. | 5:16 |
| Henry Hooten | There was some families that was really caught in a bind. Say for instance, the poor Black man with a family of about 10 or 12, and he was dependent upon the White man for a living, for a job. But he was in a bind. He couldn't say gee or haw, he had to tell the White man or do the things that he wanted because his family was at stake. And when his family's at stake, no matter what they say, he's going to do what Mr. Charlie wanted him to do. | 6:38 |
| Henry Hooten | In my hometown, a little Black man, his name was Sambo. He was a little short man about five six and he had hunchback. He couldn't do common labor. He could shine shoes, he could make a pair of shoes glitter. He could pop the rag in doing it. So he would shine shoes on the street down by one of the richest banks in Troy. | 7:26 |
| Henry Hooten | The people that he shined shoes for was the millionaires, was the White man, were no Black millionaires. He would shine their shoes and he had a system. When he finished, he'd pull the pants legs and says, "Thank you." He could smile and he could say thank you. | 8:06 |
| Henry Hooten | And he wore a clean shirt with a tie, although he had on raggedy pants, he did that. So the millionaires liked him so well until they had their carpenter to build him the finest of shoe shine stands and moved him inside the bank to shine shoes for the White dude. | 8:31 |
| Henry Hooten | And no Black man got no shoes, to come in there to shine no shoes. So he shined all of the White man's shoes. It's a possibility that this millionaire, he might shine his shoe four times in the run of a day, but each time he shined his shoes, he pulled his pant leg and tell him, says, "Thank you." And with a smile. | 8:57 |
| Henry Hooten | One Negro who was working in the post office had a little civil service job. Now, he's going to belittle the Black man shining the shoes there and call him, said, "Sambo." He said, "Yes?" He said, "When you going to stop cutting the fool, being a monkey and showing you 32?" He said— | 9:23 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | He's talking about his teeth. | 9:52 |
| Henry Hooten | He's talking about his teeth, is your 32, shining the shoe. And he would do a little dance. Well, the White man would give him 50 cents or a dollar for that little dance like that. | 9:53 |
| Henry Hooten | So he looked at him and, "You're just cutting the fool, you're acting a monkey and showing your 32." Sambo was very kind. He said, "I thank you, but I can laugh all the way to the bank." That meant that he had money in his pocket when he didn't have none. | 10:05 |
| Henry Hooten | But so often, the little man, as my dad would often say, never condemn a man unless you meet his troubles with what you got. | 10:25 |
| Henry Hooten | In other words, put yourself in his shoes and walk a mile. And if you have the same attitude about him after you walked that mile with his shoes on, says, then you condemn. But there are always a reason one do certain things. Some instances, you don't know his status, how many kids he's got. And each one, when they get hungry, they want something to eat. And you're going to do the thing that's right to feed him, keep clothes on him, try to get him the best of education so he won't be in the same shoes if you or him or you have been. | 10:45 |
| Paul Ortiz | Yeah, I'm certain that I've taken up more time than I should have. | 11:32 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It's been pleasant, though. | 11:32 |
| Henry Hooten | It's been pleasant with us. | 12:06 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | It's good to get to talk to you, because sometimes you have things inside you would like to say, but you don't have anybody to say it to. And it's good sometimes to be able to do that. But I always look at it like this. We all struggle at some time because we all set goals and it's something you want to do. And sometimes you have to take some knocks and bumps so that you can accomplish what you want to do. And I don't believe in taking anything from anybody. I believe in getting it honestly because there's three things I don't believe in. | 12:10 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | I don't believe in deliberately being lazy. I can understand a person who's not able to get a job and not able to do things, but I don't believe in seeing people lazy. Other things I don't believe in, I don't believe in seeing people filthy. I think everybody has a method of cleaning up. And the other thing, I feel that nobody should go around holding their heads down. Now, those are the things that I really believe in. You shouldn't be lazy and you shouldn't be filthy or dirty and you shouldn't walk around holding your head down. Because if you clean up, work hard and keep your head up high, you'll get where you want to go. | 12:56 |
| Henry Hooten | As my dad often said, you might be from a large town, a whistle stop or a crossroad. Be proud of it. It's not where you are from that's so important, it's where you're going. He meant that, he says if you're from a big city or you are from a cross roads or a whistle stop, whistle stop, I don't know whether you have noticed on a train, where you got a fast train coming by here and at this particular place, it's known on the railroad as a whistle stop,. The train will blow at it and it blow you off the map. | 14:08 |
| Paul Ortiz | But Tuskegee turned out to be a very good place to go. | 15:04 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Well, I'm happy to hear that. | 15:07 |
| Henry Hooten | Glad to hear that. | 15:08 |
| Lillian Carter Hooten | Yeah. If you're able to get some the information you want, it means a lot. And you enjoy what you're doing, I can tell it. | 15:09 |
| Henry Hooten | You put yourself in the shoes. | 15:20 |
| Paul Ortiz | Well, I get a lot out of it. I get so much out of it. More than—to me, I think I said it's more than reading a textbook because you can only learn so much in a textbook. Plus, meeting great people like yourself it makes it really worth it. | 15:23 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund