Sarah Automon interview recording, 1995 August 04

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Sarah Bell Automon	Sarah Bell Automon.	0:00
Stacey Sales	And where were you born, Miss?	0:05
Sarah Bell Automon	I was born in Scott County, Mississippi.	0:07
Stacey Sales	Oh yes.	0:11
Sarah Bell Automon	Near Forest, Mississippi. F-O-R-E-S-T. Yeah. Forest, Mississippi.	0:12
Stacey Sales	Could you describe your neighborhood when you were growing up?	0:25
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, the neighborhood where I grew up was kind of what you would call [indistinct 00:00:40]. It wasn't like a lot of the neighborhoods around me. It was kind of a progressive neighborhood because most of the people, they were farmers, but they owned their own land. They not too far from where I was. There was a lot of sharecroppers and people who lived on other people there. But most of the area where I was living, most of them owned their own land.	0:28
Stacey Sales	Oh yes.	1:37
Sarah Bell Automon	And they did their own from it.	1:38
Stacey Sales	And those were Black people that owned that land?	1:39
Sarah Bell Automon	Black people. Yes. We were Black people. In fact, for a long time, for about, let's see, for 10 or 20 miles, there were only Black people in that area. Well, at least 10 or 20 miles.	1:41
Stacey Sales	Is that in the Delta or in the hills?	2:20
Sarah Bell Automon	No, that was in the South.	2:22
Stacey Sales	In the South.	2:24
Sarah Bell Automon	In the South. The place is located in the South. But as I said in the beginning, we were always kind of what you would call a progressive community. We had school, in fact, at first we had what was known as one of the Rosenwald schools.	2:25
Stacey Sales	Yes, ma'am.	3:05
Sarah Bell Automon	And then they kept adding to that. And we ended up with a high school right in the community. And there were quite a few children that were brought in from other communities to our schools to visit, not visit, to attend school. Because they had school buses running and they would bring them in from other areas to school. And we had one of the largest churches in that area was in our community. It was the Pleasant Valley. At that time it was Methodist AME Church. But it was one of the largest churches in that area. And well, I remember in our neighborhood, people would come in to visit, they'd bring people in. I remember at one time they, the Piney Woods School, they brought them in to visit us. And then as time went on, we had the, from over in Tuskegee, Alabama, we had a group of—	3:06
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, in fact we had a choir that came from Tuskegee to visit us from Tuskegee, Alabama. And I don't know if they attended anywhere else. I never heard that they did. The Globetrotters. We was lucky enough to have the Globetrotters to visit our area. So it wasn't what you would call a backward community.	5:35
Stacey Sales	What did your parents do? What did your parents do for a living?	6:18
Sarah Bell Automon	They farm.	6:23
Stacey Sales	Did they own their farm?	6:24
Sarah Bell Automon	They owned their farm. In fact, as I said, everybody in that area owned their own farm for a long time. They owned their own farm. There were no Whites in our area. And everybody had their own farm. They did their own farm. Yes. That's South and all.	6:26
Stacey Sales	Did people help each other back then?	7:01
Sarah Bell Automon	Yes. You take out known when, say for instance when Warren would get through with his crop and the other one wasn't through, they would chip in and help with the farming.	7:02
Stacey Sales	Yes ma'am.	7:23
Sarah Bell Automon	Chopping cotton and plowing or whatever. They would help the neighbors. But now, sometimes when I be talking to people, they say, you mean to tell me you didn't have to, you never was faced with getting up in the morning and four day in catching the cotton trucks up. The only time that we went away from home to chop cotton, pick cotton, it would be after we got through with our, and we wanted to pick up a little money, little extra money we would go. But now we had, on this farm, we had cows, we had hogs, we had chickens and turkeys. And so almost from one year to the other, we'd have meat all the year. We had butter. We raised sugar cane, we had our own serving. And usually the only thing to be bought was coffee and granulated sugar and maybe little stuff like that.	7:23
Sarah Bell Automon	But so far is lard, butter, eggs. We had chickens when we wanted, we had plenty of chickens. And if we wanted, kept some in what was known as the fattening pen. So if we had company, we wanted a chicken, we could have chicken. And now that's really, that's the kind of involvement I grew up in. Of course, now after I got up and got out of that involvement, I found a lot of areas that was quite different than where I grew up.	9:16
Stacey Sales	Oh yeah. Other people had to sharecrop?	10:14
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. Sharecrop. Sure. Yes.	10:18
Stacey Sales	Could you tell me what that is, describe that.	10:22
Sarah Bell Automon	They would work the crop, plant the crop, cultivate the crop. And they would get up and they had a certain time for them to be up in the morning, four o'clock in the morning. Everybody had to be up, especially in this area. See I was a teacher and that's how I landed in this area. This is what it called the Delta area. And I've learned quite a bit since I've been here. A lot of these people around here, they lived on the White man's place. They had to be up at four o'clock in the morning, get the breakfast or whatever they had to fix, ready. And then as soon as it got a light enough for them to see, they had to hit the fields. And then when they—now I understand that most time, now they do the working of the crop, all that.	10:25
Sarah Bell Automon	But when the crop was harvested, the landlord paid for the fertilizer. And when the crop was made, he'd take out what was known as his in expenses and whatever's left, that's what they got. And tell me sometime it was nothing. Because a lot of them, he would feed them, they buy food once a month for them. And he would charge them for the food, charge them for the fertilizers. And then they would have to, of course they did the work. But since I've been in this area, I've learned quite a different view, it was just as different as daylight and dark to the environment where I was. Although I was in the South.	11:51
Stacey Sales	You went to school when you were growing up?	13:17
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. I went to school. I went at my home. At that time, the school only went far as 8th grade, then the town of Forest, Mississippi at a high school. So I went to Forest. That's where I went to high school. And so after that, at that time, if you was made well, did well in your studies, and they had what was known as a Norman school, summer school. If you went to that school and you could pass those examinations, you could either make 1st grade license, 2nd grade license, or 3rd grade license. If you were able to make 1st grade license, they would give you an emergency license that would last a year. You could teach. Well, I tried that for a while, three or four years. But I didn't like that too well. So I stopped that. And I tried to save me up some money so I could go to college. I wanted to go. My parents weren't able because it wasn't too much finance now, although they had their own place and all of that. But it wasn't too much money.	13:24
Stacey Sales	Did they go to school themselves or your grandparents?	15:34
Sarah Bell Automon	My mother finished 8th grade I know, but my dad didn't have too much of a education. But what he knew to do, he would do it. But now he, so far as when it came to church, work and he was very good in that. Excuse me. And well, my mother, she finished 8th grade and I—	15:36
Stacey Sales	You save up money to go to college?	16:24
Sarah Bell Automon	Yes. Finally, I found out I could work and go to college. I could get on the work program at Jackson State. And I did that. So I attended Jackson State and got my B.S degree.	16:26
Stacey Sales	Your parents encouraged you to go in school?	16:49
Sarah Bell Automon	Really, they wanted me to go, but as I said, they weren't able to finance it. You know, for me to go. So mostly I sit myself just about who you might send to college. Because I would work and go to school. So when I finished college, and got my degree, well, I married, I was living in Jackson at the time, so I married in Jackson. And so I started teaching, regular teaching there. That teaching that I had been doing before that, it was teaching all right. But it wasn't counted as credit teacher too much. But anyway, after I went to college, then I became a regular teacher. And I worked in several counties around, I worked down at Woodville, Mississippi. You heard talking Woodville?	16:54
Stacey Sales	No ma'am.	18:39
Sarah Bell Automon	It's down. It's the last town you get to before you get into Louisiana, Woodville, Mississippi. And in fact, it's the home of Justin Davis. His old home was there. But anyways, I worked there. Then I worked up at, well I worked, after I worked there, I worked in over here. It was a little three school type. I worked at it. And I worked in know, I waited over to Saints Junior College. You heard talking Saints over at Lexington?	18:40
Stacey Sales	Oh, at Lexington.	19:43
Sarah Bell Automon	Did you hear talk of that?	19:44
Stacey Sales	Yes ma'am.	19:46
Sarah Bell Automon	I worked over there a year. And worked up at Mississippi. And in '70 I came to—oh yeah, I worked over in Catherine. Hello Willie Willie.	19:48
Stacey Sales	How you doing?	20:09
Sarah Bell Automon	I worked over in Catherine and I came here to LeFlore County in 1970. I started work here. I worked here for 13 years.	20:10
Stacey Sales	How much did you get paid when you first started teaching?	20:26
Sarah Bell Automon	It's funny. I can't hardly believe it myself. $75 a month. That's my first paycheck. If I had been able to keep it, I would've kept it and framed it. $75 a month is my first paycheck. Of course, after I got my degree, they wasn't paying too much. Not in here in Mississippi.	20:32
Stacey Sales	That first paycheck, when did you get that? What year was that?	21:03
Sarah Bell Automon	That was in about '54, '55, '56, '53, it was 1953. Somewhere along there.	21:12
Stacey Sales	$75 a month.	21:42
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, worse than that. As I told you, my mother finished 8th grade. Well she took those state examination and she passed and they hired her as teacher. That's when I was small.	21:46
Stacey Sales	And how much did she get paid?	22:17
Sarah Bell Automon	I have at my daughter's home, I got a little box I got it stored up in, 18 dollars a month. The principal got maybe $20 or $22. The principal of a school, that's what he was making, $20 and $22 a month. And after I got my degree, I was making less than $500 a month after I got my BS degree.	22:17
Stacey Sales	And what type of things did you teach in the classroom when you first started?	23:08
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh, it was some of everything. Reading, writing, English, math.	23:19
Stacey Sales	Did you talk about Black history and Booker T. Washington and different people like that?	23:29
Sarah Bell Automon	There was schools where I would, we didn't have no Black history. We did not have. But now there are a few of the schools you could teach Black history. But there were some schools at that time—see, schools wasn't segregated. Was not integrated as they are now. And you couldn't teach Black history. And so places you could even put up Black history pictures around. But now there were some schools I worked in. You could talk about it and have plays and teach the children some of those Negro poems.	23:35
Stacey Sales	Why was it different? Why was it different at some schools than others?	24:37
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, the thing about it, at that time in Mississippi, the Whites was White, and the Black was Black. You did not learn what the Whites was learning. People may say, oh, they all had the same books. No they didn't. You thought they had the same books. They did not teach you the same books the Whites had. I found that to be true. Our Black children did not get the books that the Whites had. That's true. A lot of people don't know that. They thought when Paul Johnson gave the free books to the children, they thought everybody just scored and get the same book. They picked them books out. The Blacks got books, the Whites got books. You did not get the same book that the Whites, you didn't study those books.	24:43
Stacey Sales	What was the difference in those books?	26:04
Sarah Bell Automon	They had stuff in them that they didn't teach the Black children. And now what makes me think about it, they talk about—I have company right now, Ms. Brown—they talk about so much how far behind our children are. I guess they have a reason to be behind. Because unless you took it up on yourself and really taught that child, the foundations of education, they didn't get it. Because now I tell you to begin with, when I was not bragging, but when I was three and four years old, I could read.	26:05
Sarah Bell Automon	Because my mother taught me at home. See, she teach me at home, spelling, reading, math, all this she teach me at home. But a lot of people wouldn't do that. And they leave it to the teacher, wait till the child get old enough. See, it wasn't no head starts, wasn't no kindergartens. When the child got old enough to go to school, he go to school, he's in the hand of the teacher. Well she had to begin teaching him his numbers and they start teaching him everything that the children in head start getting now. You understand what I'm saying?	27:22
Sarah Bell Automon	They call that the primary department. That's where you started. But you see, when I went to school, the first day I went to school, I wasn't in no primary department, I never had what is known as primer, pre-primer. And all first grade, I began school in 2nd grade. Because the day morning that I went to school, teach every book, the teacher, 1st grade teacher would burn up. I'd read it by the time she handed it to me, get through, handed me. I'd beat up almost through reading by the time she get the next book. Not that I was that smart, but you see my mama had already taught me at home. Well you see stuff like that pushed children ahead. And most of our people didn't have the time and a lot of them didn't have the knowledge to take their children and teach them. They'd wait till they go to school. The teacher would teach them regardless.	28:15
Sarah Bell Automon	See, it wasn't no such thing as 20 or 25 or 30 children in a class. Sometime teacher would have as many as 35, 40 and 50 children in one class. And you just think now one teacher working with that many students, it's not too much attention she can give a child. In fact, it's not too much. She not the biggest thing she could do. Kind of. And try to keep them quiet. Now that's true.	29:33
Stacey Sales	Yes ma'am. Did your mother talk about her experiences teaching?	30:20
Sarah Bell Automon	Well yes. She talked some about it. But see, I know it was worse after I got out on the field and found out for myself. I knew it was worse with her than it was with me. And in 1970.	30:28
Stacey Sales	1970.	31:03
Sarah Bell Automon	When I first came to not I'm, I'm changing now. In 1970, when I first came to LeFlore County, this town, this county was not segregated. They had the White school. The White school had carpet on the floor. They had air conditioning. Blacks didn't even have fan. When they got hot, you raised the window far as you can. Let what air come in, you sit there and sweating, fan and get you a pay for and fan. They didn't even have the little box fan. Because I know over to, it's the school over there for one of the high schools. I worked first in the elementary school when I came named L.S Rogers. And they transferred me from L.S Rogers over to LeFlore County High School.	31:06
Sarah Bell Automon	Well I went over there. I see for a long time Blacks couldn't even enroll over there in that high school. They had to come over here to Greenwood to the school that called Amanda Elsey. That's where the Blacks had all of them had to come. They couldn't go. It was a high school there, but they couldn't come. All the children that got high school age in LeFlore County had to go to Amanda Elsey.	32:25
Stacey Sales	And now it's in 1970.	33:04
Sarah Bell Automon	And after that they went on, they had the court order and they did. They did a little something about it. It was got better than what it was. You take the school over there. When they become integrated and it's a school here in Middle City, they put up a high school up there. So that at least put three high schools for the Blacks. And then as I said, they zoned it off. Whatever zone the Black and White, you could go to whatever school you were closest to. But it was a lot of fighting and stuff going on when they integrated these schools, lot of fighting. Not only the children, the Whites, grown folk would stand around the campus and watch them when they go to the lunchroom and all that.	33:06
Stacey Sales	As a teacher, could you vote? Being a teacher in LeFlore County, were you able to vote back then?	34:43
Sarah Bell Automon	I started voting in 1956. I registered to vote in Jackson in 1956. And so when I came to LeFlore County, I was already a registered voter. Only thing I had to do was have transferred my—so, but a lot of them here were scared to vote. No, they didn't vote. You couldn't, you start talking to them. Oh no. See a lot of people got killed. A lot of them got beat. All that trying to vote. Yeah. A lot of them got beat up.	34:51
Stacey Sales	Did you experience that when you were in the South? When you were in South Mississippi? Was it rough trying to vote?	35:47
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, at that time they wasn't so hard on that voting. But I understand that now they, lot of the people around where I was with, they wasn't voting, lot of them you got to know. She's about to have somebody teach you these things and nobody.	35:56
Stacey Sales	At what age did you realize that White folks and Black folks were treated different in society? How old were you when you realized that the Blacks and Whites were different or treated differently?	36:47
Sarah Bell Automon	When I found out that Whites could ride the school bus to school, we had to walk.	37:06
Stacey Sales	How'd you feel about that?	37:15
Sarah Bell Automon	I didn't feel so good about it. Because I wondered how could they ride and we had to walk. Because we had children go attending our school and walked at least six and eight miles a day. That's one way. Getting to school, they had to do that same thing to get back home. We had children at least six and eight, maybe ten miles.	37:20
Stacey Sales	This is when you were going to school? When you were going to school?	37:50
Sarah Bell Automon	Of course, we always lived near the school. I didn't need no ride. Because give me a few minutes and I'd be up on the hill where the school was. But some of those children, they'd have to get up early in the morning, leave home to get to school, to be on time. Because they had so far to walk. Oh well.	37:55
Stacey Sales	And did you all ever get a bus for the Black school?	38:34
Sarah Bell Automon	Finally, finally after I had finished the elementary school and I had gone to high school and they decided to make the school out there in our community. I told you at first they had what was known as Rosenwald building. And then they just all got together and decided it'd be a good spot for a high school. Well when they did put up the buildings for the high school, they had to add buildings. When they did that and they fixed the road, they paved the roads and also brought in buses. But before we out with that, you'd see the White children passing on the bus. Now children be walking, didn't care how far they had to walk. Now sometime their parents would take them on a horse or in a wagon and bring them to school. Or if the weather was bad, they come get them.	38:36
Stacey Sales	Were those students friendly on the bus? The White students?	39:58
Sarah Bell Automon	They'd holler at you and spit out the window. So they said, now I wasn't on the road. Because as I said, didn't take me long to get to school. I didn't have, but I would see them on the bus. Some of the children said they'd spit out the window at you. There's a lot of old stuff.	40:05
Stacey Sales	When your parents were planting the crops, did they use almanacs and different things like that to understand?	40:30
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah. Yeah.	40:34
Stacey Sales	Signs.	40:34
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. Yeah. They would use almanacs now. They'd plant by the signs, by the moon, full moon this and whatever moon. Yeah. Yeah.	40:34
Stacey Sales	Did that help the crops when you were—?	41:02
Sarah Bell Automon	I don't know. Really truly. Now there was a time when they plant crops that was gone. Say for instance, you plant your corn, if it was black, something like beans or something like that, that was going better crop above the ground. It was a certain time they'd plant it there. Now if it was root crops, it's a certain time they'd plant it there. But not really. And truly, I know they used them almanacs, MacDonald almanac, Lady's Birthday out. We had all kind of almanacs around there. But now whether it helped the crops or not, I'm really not able to say. But I know they did. Yeah, they did. They would go get them almanacs.	41:10
Stacey Sales	Were those signs used for other things other than just the crops?	42:10
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, in those crops they had horoscopes and sometimes they'd have remedies for different things.	42:15
Stacey Sales	Do people use plants and certain herbs to help people when they were sick?	42:29
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. Yeah. So herbs, plenty. My grandmother, step-grandmother, she used to take us in the spring of the year and take us to the woods and all outs cross there. And it was a little grass. It had yellow roots called fever hay, I've known us to go and just bring back feed bag for it, take and wash that stuff off. She put up and let it dry. And if you got fever or children have cold and fever and all that across the year, take a little of that and boil it. Wouldn't be good or till you be gone on to school or somewhere and better. And they had herbs now. They had what? They had a pneumonia weed. A weed they called a pneumonia weed. When people have pneumonia and different kind of stuff they make tea out of them. Have you ever seen what known is known as a Mullein plant?	42:36
Stacey Sales	Yes ma'am.	44:05
Sarah Bell Automon	You know what Mullein is? They take that. That's supposed to make a good tea. Oh boy. Mullein plants and pine top tea. Well all that different stuff. They had something, it was very seldom. They took us child to the doctor. They doctored on them themselves. Very seldom they had to take the children to the doctor.	44:08
Stacey Sales	Did they have Black doctors?	44:44
Sarah Bell Automon	Nope. Nope.	44:48
Stacey Sales	No Black doctors?	44:49
Sarah Bell Automon	No Black doctors, no sir.	44:52
Stacey Sales	So when you got sick, they put those things together.	44:55
Sarah Bell Automon	Because most of the time now we live, at least from our home to town was at least 11 miles. And if we got sick, of course the doctor made a house call. And to get the doctor now they'd have to go that far, get a wagon, a horse or something, and go that far to get the doctor, 10 or 11 miles. And so they get out there and get them herbs together. And they knew what they were for. Now that's what I couldn't understand about it. They could tell you what each one is for.	45:01
Stacey Sales	And these are the older people then? The older folks back then?	45:48
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah. They could tell you what they were for. What to use it for. They sure could.	45:54
Stacey Sales	Is that handed down to your generation? Did they hand that information down to you?	46:02
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, no. Now, sometimes they would try to explain. Now my grandmother, my mama, they would try to explain to you, but not a lot of them, they didn't explain. They just went on and gave you whatever they were going.	46:10

Sarah Bell Automon	But so far as sitting down, explaining that, mm-mm, no. 'Cause a lot of our youngsters—tell you truthfully, a lot of our youngsters wouldn't have believed it no way. Although they were still walking around here, but they wouldn't have believed it. Uh-huh.	0:03
Stacey Sales	Did—who delivered the babies back then?	0:35
Sarah Bell Automon	They had midwives, midwives.	0:39
Stacey Sales	Midwives.	0:42
Sarah Bell Automon	Old ladies. Most of them be old ladies or who had, Lord, they would go and some health department or somewhere and they'd teach them, you know how to live with the baby as well. And then whatever community they were in, they work in that community. And when the mother got in labor, they'd go get her, the midwife, and bring her to the house. To deliver the baby. Yeah. That's who, midwives.	0:45
Stacey Sales	And the midwives would, they would make the house calls?	1:34
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. But you'd have to go get them. 'Cause most of them didn't have transportation. You'd have to get a wagon, a buggy or whatever you had and go get them and bring them to your house. 'Cause they didn't have their own transportation.	1:36
Stacey Sales	And how soon would—would they stay with the woman before she gave birth to the baby? How soon would they come to the house?	1:55
Sarah Bell Automon	After she would get in labor.	2:08
Stacey Sales	Oh, okay.	2:11
Sarah Bell Automon	Whoever was going get the midwife, they'd take off, run, get her, bring her back. And she'd stay there. Sometime, tell me back—sometime they stay two days or something like that. Showing them, whoever was helping the mother around there. Be showing them how they bathe the baby and take care of the baby. Uh-huh. Yeah.	2:13
Stacey Sales	Midwife.	2:45
Sarah Bell Automon	Huh?	2:45
Stacey Sales	I said midwives. Huh?	2:50
Sarah Bell Automon	Midwife. They got a few to tell me now. There's a few, but.	2:51
Stacey Sales	And they learned—how did they learn all that information?	2:59
Sarah Bell Automon	They would go and take a few classes with the health department or somewhere.	3:03
Stacey Sales	Oh yeah?	3:12
Sarah Bell Automon	And then they would get that license and they could work in the community where they were.	3:15
Stacey Sales	Okay.	3:23
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah.	3:27
Stacey Sales	And—	3:28
Sarah Bell Automon	They didn't—	3:29
Stacey Sales	Were there ever any bad storms when you were growing up?	3:31
Sarah Bell Automon	A few. Not too many.	3:36
Stacey Sales	No?	3:38
Sarah Bell Automon	Wasn't No—lot of them, like—	3:39
Stacey Sales	Tornadoes?	3:41
Sarah Bell Automon	We have now. The first tornado I remember hearing about was after I left home. It was a few windstorm would come through, but not too many. We didn't have too many storm.	3:42
Stacey Sales	Did people have ways of making the storm go away?	4:02
Sarah Bell Automon	They thought they did or something? They saw, would open their Bibles to a certain book of the Bible. The Bible put on a table or somewhere. So if they had axe, they'd take it out in the yard and stick it down in the ground. They supposed to turn the handle the way they saw the cloud coming or something like that.	4:08
Stacey Sales	Did people do that? When? Did you ever see people doing that?	4:47
Sarah Bell Automon	Uh-hmm. That's how I know about that. I'd see them do it.	4:51
Stacey Sales	And when you saw it, did it work?	4:57
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah, I'd be scared.	5:00
Stacey Sales	Oh yes?	5:03
Sarah Bell Automon	I didn't know what it was. It worked or what worked, but I just know we didn't have no lot of storms.	5:04
Stacey Sales	Who was the person that put the axe? Was it a man or a woman?	5:15
Sarah Bell Automon	Man or woman? Oh yes. Whoever was at the house.	5:17
Stacey Sales	And would it be any kind of axe or did it have to be a certain kind?	5:25
Sarah Bell Automon	All I know it was an axe.	5:27
Stacey Sales	Oh, okay.	5:27
Sarah Bell Automon	I mean, some of them, maybe it had what is known as certain kind axe. All I knew it was axe.	5:35
Stacey Sales	And storms and things like that would hit, how would people put their crops back together and get back on their feet?	5:48
Sarah Bell Automon	It wouldn't be no big storm.	5:58
Stacey Sales	Oh no?	5:59
Sarah Bell Automon	It wasn't no big—I never remember no big storm coming through, hail storming and all that. I never knew—it'd be some wind, somewhere, but not no big thing. Yeah. We didn't have no big storm like they have now, no.	6:02
Stacey Sales	Did the older people talk about—did the older people talk about haints and spirits?	6:28
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yes. Yes. We had one lady used to come to our house, Mrs. Allen Montgomery. Well, when that woman will leave, I'd hate to see her come, and wish she wouldn't come in. She'd sit up and talk about haints and all the different haints she'd had seen and how they looked. And she'd talk about them so much, I'd be scared to go to bed. Yeah. Yeah. They'd sit up and talk about it. And that's practically all she'd talk about all day long.	6:34
Stacey Sales	And you were afraid as a child?	7:19
Sarah Bell Automon	Huh?	7:22
Stacey Sales	Were you afraid as a child?	7:22
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah. Yeah. Afraid of what she be talking about?	7:23
Stacey Sales	Mm-hmm.	7:28
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah. I'd be afraid. I be scared to go to bed.	7:28
Stacey Sales	Do you remember some of those stories she would tell that you got afraid of?	7:33
Sarah Bell Automon	I know one time she said she was walking along and a big old, she just walking along, she had been to the well or something to get some water. And when she knew anything, a big old—well you know when these red rubber balls, what children play with?	7:40
Stacey Sales	Yeah.	8:07
Sarah Bell Automon	Fell out of tree, almost fell on her. Almost hit her. Oh. Now, all known time when she had grandchildren that stayed with her. And if she went anywhere at night, she would put one boy in front of them and she put one boy behind her. She walk between them.	8:13
Stacey Sales	And what'd she do that for?	8:48
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, if they reached and grabbed, they'd get them and not her. So they get them and not her. That what you see?	8:50
Stacey Sales	Yes, ma'am.	9:02
Sarah Bell Automon	So she was the worst in our community. But there was some other that was scared. It was others that were scared. I'm not going to lie, there were other. But she just called me. She could sit all day long talking about just one thing to the—hey Car.	9:10
Stacey Sales	And she go all day?	9:34
Sarah Bell Automon	Huh?	9:35
Stacey Sales	She would talk about it a long time?	9:36
Sarah Bell Automon	All day long. But she's going to get up—before sundown, she's going to get up and go home.	9:38
Stacey Sales	Oh yes.	9:45
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh many time, I wish I could have got out somewhere in the bush and made a run.	9:49
Stacey Sales	Did you have to go to church when you were growing up?	9:59
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. We went to church now. Oh, maybe so, Sunday school, every Sunday. We probably have—we didn't have preaching every Sunday we practically have preaching without, on the second Sunday, we go to church. We go to church.	10:00
Stacey Sales	Do people get the spirit?	10:27
Sarah Bell Automon	Huh?	10:28
Stacey Sales	Do people get the spirit back then?	10:28
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, yeah. Yeah. And they really—they attended church.	10:29
Stacey Sales	Did they have revivals and baptism?	10:41
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Plenty revivals, baptism.	10:44
Stacey Sales	Do you remember your baptism?	10:52
Sarah Bell Automon	No. When I knew anything I was in the church. Almost. But they'd have what is know as Spring Revival. And then they, in the fall, they'd have Fall Revival. And we had a program for every, it's like Easter, Mother's Day, Father's Day, and all them, we had a program for every one of them days.	11:10
Stacey Sales	Did people get baptized in the pond or do they have a pool?	11:41
Sarah Bell Automon	Pond, lake, or wherever they could be baptized, that's where they got baptized. Wherever they could be baptized, that's where they got baptized.	11:45
Stacey Sales	What age were you allowed to court?	12:04
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, as far as my mama was concerned, never. I never was old enough to court.	12:11
Stacey Sales	Never was old enough?	12:21
Sarah Bell Automon	But Daddy, he's—Daddy know I would talk to boys and he wouldn't say nothing. But now, Mama, after I went to high school though, you see I's out—see, I wasn't at home.	12:25
Stacey Sales	So you got a chance to court then?	12:57
Sarah Bell Automon	Right.	12:57
Stacey Sales	When did your family do on holidays? What did they do on holiday?	13:03
Sarah Bell Automon	They celebrated Christmas and Thanksgiving.	13:08
Stacey Sales	Would you all have a lot of people over the house and food?	13:15
Sarah Bell Automon	Some times we would. I had an uncle. My daddy's brother whose birthday came on Christmas Day. Usually we would go to Grandpa's house on Christmas Day. Sometimes we'd take food and we mostly be over at Grandpa's house all day Christmas Day, celebrating his birthday.	13:19
Stacey Sales	Did you all have a day for the Blacks?	13:56
Sarah Bell Automon	Huh?	13:59
Stacey Sales	Did the Blacks have their own day they would celebrate?	13:59
Sarah Bell Automon	Celebrate. Like what?	14:02
Stacey Sales	In Texas, they have Juneteenth. They celebrate the freedom and slavery.	14:04
Sarah Bell Automon	No.	14:15
Stacey Sales	When you were coming along, what was the relationship with the Black folks and the policemen?	14:19
Sarah Bell Automon	Policemen?	14:27
Stacey Sales	Yes.	14:28
Sarah Bell Automon	Wasn't too good.	14:29
Stacey Sales	No?	14:30
Sarah Bell Automon	Wasn't too good.	14:38
Stacey Sales	What wasn't good about it?	14:38
Sarah Bell Automon	'Cause our—the Blacks, a lot of time they would get arrested and well just the least thing. And the Whites didn't.	14:39
Stacey Sales	Did White men have relationships with Black women when you were coming up?	15:09
Sarah Bell Automon	I didn't know about that until after I got out. After I got a—'cause as I said, in our neighborhood, probably the only somebody, all the White men come through there was mailmen. So I didn't know about that stuff at that time.	15:17
Stacey Sales	Oh, okay. Had you ever heard of any lynchings or anything like that?	15:50
Sarah Bell Automon	Hm. Yes. When that Civil Right Movement was going on and churches burned, people beat to death. A lot of stuff went on. Right here in Mississippi. Yeah, people were killed. I was living in Jackson when them Freedom Buses used to come in. We heard talk of [indistinct 00:16:32] got killed.	15:59
Stacey Sales	Oh yeah?	16:34
Sarah Bell Automon	I was in Jackson when he got killed. Yeah, I was living in Jackson when he met Medgar Evers. I was living in Jackson. And when all them Freedom Buses and things used to come in there, they'd sick dogs on the folk and all that stuff. Huh?	16:45
Stacey Sales	Did your grandparents ever tell you about slavery times?	17:20
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, not too much. No.	17:25
Stacey Sales	What do you think that the younger generation could learn from some of the things that you went through?	17:36
Sarah Bell Automon	If they would listen, they could learn. But a lot of them don't like to talk about things like that, that's the problem. Quite a few of them don't like to talk about those things. But quite a bit of stuff was going on. In the '60s, that was a bad time in Mississippi.	17:44
Stacey Sales	How were you and how did your family make it through those rough times?	18:13
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, most of my family, my father passed in '49. My mother died in '60. Well, you see, they wasn't here for the biggest of that was going on. So as I say, I was living in Jackson. Huh. So—	18:23
Stacey Sales	Well, even before then, during those rough times that your family experienced, even though they owned their own farm, how were they able to make it through? What do you think enabled them to come through those years?	18:45
Sarah Bell Automon	Well, usually they go to the bank, bought them, borrowed them some money to take them on.	19:07
Stacey Sales	Oh yeah?	19:13
Sarah Bell Automon	Yeah. They go to the bank. See they—	19:18
Stacey Sales	So Blacks could go to the bank in your town?	19:22
Sarah Bell Automon	Oh yeah. Yeah.	19:25
Stacey Sales	Was there a Black bank?	19:28
Sarah Bell Automon	No. No. But they could go to the banks over there.	19:29
Stacey Sales	And did they have businesses that Blacks weren't allowed to go into when were?	19:39
Sarah Bell Automon	Say what?	19:49
Stacey Sales	Coming along? Businesses that were for all Whites.	19:51
Sarah Bell Automon	They had restaurants you couldn't go in. Did, you have to go in the back door.	19:55
Stacey Sales	Were you upset because you had to go to the back?	20:02
Sarah Bell Automon	No. At that time I didn't know no better. Of course, I wasn't going to the back too much no way. But the most, I learned more about after I got grown than I did when I was at time, 'causes, I said, in our community we didn't have that kind of stuff going on. So, [indistinct 00:20:46].	20:13
Stacey Sales	Okay.	20:47
Sarah Bell Automon	What, you tired?	20:49
Stacey Sales	Yes ma'am. I'll let you go, but I've been really enjoyed talking to you.	20:51
Sarah Bell Automon	All right. 'Cause it's getting close to my lunch time.	20:55
Stacey Sales	Okay.	20:58

Item Info

Title:

Sarah Automon interview recording, 1995 August 04

Date:

August 4, 1995

Creator:

Automon, Sarah Bell

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Sarah Bell Automon; Date of birth: 1923-08-04; Place of birth: Scott Co., MS; Occupation(s): educator; teacher; Residence: Greenwood, MS
Informant ID: 1119; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0726
44704ea4-77fd-44d3-84f3-b3d530b5b7c1
behindtheveil
e80422ec-7367-4a3d-895b-c01f241c3a14
ark:/87924/r46h4r016
e80422ec-7367-4a3d-895b-c01f241c3a14

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r46h4r016

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Sarah Automon interview recording, 1995 August 04

Transcript

Item Info

1. Sarah Automon administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Sarah Automon interview recording, 1995 August 04

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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