Nathaniel White interview recording, 1996 November 11
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| Robert Carroll | But yeah, I was interested in talking more about your family and since 1950 and also about your business. And I realized we hadn't talked about your children at all yet. And I was wondering if you could tell me a little bit about your children when they were growing up. | 0:04 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Okay. Well I got married in 1941. I said '41, might've been '42. I married my childhood sweetheart. We met, she had an aunt that lived on the same street that I lived in, north of Virginia. And she lived in Washington, at Washington DC at the time. And she visited aunt and that's where I met her, cause I knew there aren't very well and I met her during that time. I met her earlier. We were teenagers. In fact, she was preparing to in a couple years go to nursing school. About the same time as that I went to, maybe a couple of years earlier, but I had gone to, after we met, prior to the time that I went to Hampton Institute to go to school. So we had a few years of knowing each other, but she went to the nursing school at Piedmont Sanatorium, which was under the University of Virginia. The nursing part was under the university. | 0:24 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Let me see, this wasn't the University of Virginia. It was one of the universities in Richmond, I believe that this nursing school was attached to that university. And during the time that I went, I think I went to school first in Hampton and she later years, so later she went to this Piedmont Sanatorium which had the nursing school that was attached to the university and that's where she graduated. And then she went to work in the Piedmont, not the Piedmont, but the Sanatorium in Staten Island. And my brother had to go there as a patient at the same time that she was working there. So he knew her previous years too, my brother John and I. And when I visited New York, he told me about her being there and I want to visit around Christmas time. I visited at while she was working there. And as time passed, I can't remember, but I got married that June or June after that. | 2:14 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But we got married shortly after that and I said 1941. And then she moved here then, and we raised a family and we lost our first child who was a girl. She had birth, and I tell the story to my oldest son sometime, the doctor advise that we have another child. And I guess he thinks that, well if she had been sick I would not be here, you think but he didn't wish that she was sick, but he was glad to be here. So we had two children, two boys or two and— | 4:08 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | The oldest son, he was in a group of five students, African American students, that went to Duke University. Two of them are from Durham, both of them had been, the other girl was Miss Mitchell, Mary Mitchell, and my son and Nathaniel White Junior. They had gone to school at the Burton Elementary School, the Whitted Junior High, and Hillside High School. And during the time that they were seniors, the advisors and the principal, evidently they had had some word from Duke University that they were interested in integrating the undergraduate school, but they already had graduate students. | 5:00 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | So they selected five students and three other students graduated, did two from Durham and one other one. I had one of the other students I think at one point was serving on the board of trustee, I believe yeah. Out of that group of five students, excuse me, been a lot written about that. And I think they had a tenth anniversary celebration. And during the time they graduated somebody said that they had a bomb scare, but nothing really happened. Somebody put the word out or something like that. | 6:05 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Those sir, I think it was either three or four, I believe three or graduate on time and in their schedule time and four years and everything. But well, I don't think they had any, maybe had some incidents but nothing very unusual. And my son is, the other son, Joseph went to Florida A&M because they had, they taught printing trade at Florida A&M, so that's where he went. He graduated there in four years and he was two years behind the oldest son. | 6:57 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And he came to work with us in the printing business and stayed until the employees, he sold the business to the employees in '83 and they had this fire in '85, so he stayed there. He spent his career there, and he was in the best in the preparation department, did the camera work, made up the pages, and did the graphics that went along with getting the work ready for to be printed. Oh yeah, both of them went to the neighborhood school which was Burton School. We lived near Burton School. I think I said earlier they went to Burton, Whitted, and Hillside. | 7:54 |
| Robert Carroll | Were all this schools segregated at that time? | 9:04 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | At that time they were, yeah, they were, wait a minute I believe at one point though. Yeah, they started integrating the schools and they had a number of White students at Hillside. I don't think they were there at first. Maybe it was during the time that they were there, because I remember us talking about either going to Durham High, which was being integrated or either going to Hillside. And Hillside was very popular school in the Black neighborhood. So they might have already been in there, and then most of the integrations started. | 9:07 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And you might run across the name Floyd McKissick when you're talking about black progress, he was a leader in the NAACP and one of the youth leaders love Ben Rough and John Evans and a number of other people. So, but they chose to stay at Hillside and graduated from Hillside. My oldest son was, I started say it was disappointed that he didn't go to Hampton cause, but I think he was, I don't think he was disappointed really, but I think he raised a question that we had been talking about going to Hampton, my school. But I felt like it was, that he was type of person that could accept a challenge and would not be hurt by anything that might come up. I mean hurt to the extent that he would, this is college education and all. So he did go and as I said earlier, did graduate. | 10:04 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Now he did a number of other things too. He helped to rebuild Hayti after the expressway, they called it then, but they call it a freeway. I believe it's freeway that's called, after they built the freeway and destroyed some of the business area and some of Hayti that some people had to move out for other locations. And he formed the Hayti Development Corporation, which is still in existence, and they laid groundwork for building a shopping center, Heritage Square on Federal Street and Lake Lakewood, Lakewood Avenue. And then they also built Phoenix Square on Federal Street. And they both still in existence. | 11:29 |
| Robert Carroll | I remember you spoke very highly of the schools you went to in Norfolk, Virginia, your elementary school and high school. | 12:38 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Oh yeah. | 12:50 |
| Robert Carroll | And I wonder, obviously those schools then were segregated. How did you feel as a parent when the schools were being integrated and then when your son went to Duke, which was primarily White students at the time, how did you feel? Were you afraid that might affect their education? | 12:51 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Oh no. Well, you think it's a possibility that if the opposition would create situations that make it difficult for him, but that's life. And my thinking was that a challenge like that would be good for him, make him a stronger person. And then there was a need to create better opportunities. And I don't just say that Duke was a better school than some of the Black schools. I think, but we had already talked about Hampton, I think he would've gotten a good education, that's good, good education. But there was a need to accept the challenge to make the future better. And I didn't have any problem with doing that. | 13:17 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I had done a lot of work in the Business Chain Organization, and in the Political Organization Durham Committee on Negro Affairs. I was a precinct chairman and I always, and still am, interested in equal opportunity. And I'm a little bit disturbed by the fact that it takes so long to do things. And when they set up barriers, for example, that Plessy versus Ferguson, I noticed they were discussing that down in Central, not to long in 18—, was it 1896? 1898 was during that time. | 14:42 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | That determined, that was a suit and transportation, but it spread into everything. We used to have a luncheon that we used to talk about things and one of the fellows, men, one our senior citizens who was active in that was JC Scarborough Senior who was the head of a film. He has still, it's just, he talked a lot about, he was living during the time after the Civil War. He talked a lot about a period in there, right after Civil War, that they had representatives, Black representatives in there, and there's a certain amount of freedom. | 15:42 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And I've always been involved about the fact that there's somebody that's been in slavery 250 years, and didn't fight a war of freedom. Then they come up with laws and things to take away that freedom and then it lasts for many years. It's just like the '54 decision, we might have mentioned that earlier. The Brown versus Board of Education. And you think about it, that people still not, and that says that segregated schools were not equal. That they should be open schools, be open, but you still have people by, in Durham for example, they talk about diversity and bringing the races together and give everybody equal opportunity education. And then it's a good idea to go to school, just get to know each other, but not have a deep feeling about being a superior person. | 16:46 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And I think some people, if they could, they'd go, they would instead of going forward together, they would go back to what, 1896 or 1898, whatever year that was and they argue about affirmative action. I think if you had the privileges of, if everybody had an equal opportunity, you wouldn't need an affirmative action. | 18:26 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | You need, everybody could go for themselves in terms of progress and knowledge, employment and he's never better country for it. But he still, even in election or even in things that we try to do, you got this imaginary difference and that everybody shouldn't be just saying, you still have see people seeking advantage over others and just seem to think that that's the way we want it to be. That it's so foolish. It also adds to people doing my thinking in a manner that looked at Waco, Texas, Oklahoma City and all, how did somebody get up in the morning and bomb a building and kill so many people. I don't know what they're trying to prove. | 19:05 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But even in spite of years of learning progress and training and all, we still seeking artificial barriers as if somehow or another it was better back when. But we ought to all be working together to try to make it possible for everybody to reach a level of achievement based on what you put into the situation, how much you work at, how much training and education and all you get. Not these artificial barriers. | 20:32 |
| Robert Carroll | You mentioned that people, laws that people impose to try to bring us back to conditions in like 1898 Plessy versus Ferguson. Did you and your business partners, how did loss like that affect the way you ran your business? | 21:24 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, I guess, but the system was set up that people, we didn't have a lot of said White citizens that really came into our neighborhood. Well I said this that, well, we were concentrating on giving our community the best that we could give in graphic arts. We did fine print, so we really kind of stayed busy just serving our community. And we printed school papers. We published a book on how to publish a school paper, we had a young person, Harris Dawson, H.T. Dawson, who was teaching down at Central and he wrote a book on how to publish a school newspaper. And we printed that and we had papers in, let me see, Henderson, Goldberg, several cities other than Durham, we had here it goes, we had Hillside and we made it. So we print newspapers here, the junior high and the high school paper in Oxford, and as I mentioned, Goldberg, several others. So we stayed busy serving our own community. | 21:45 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | So we were welcome to business person, business come to us, but Durham was very unique in a way because it has outstanding Black businesses and this all kind of Mutual Life Insurance Company at one time was the largest black business in the world I think. He might have run across some state and somewhere that booked you, Washington was very impressed when he came to Durham. He called Paris Street, Black Wall Street. They had a Savings and Home, the [indistinct 00:24:50) Farmers Bank, and the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company all in one block. They spread out a little bit that North Carolina Mutual go to Chapel Hill Street and Mutual commute to Savings Bank that used to be the Future Savings in loan. They moved over to on Chapel Hill Street, that's downtown right next to the post office. Yeah, two doors down from the post office. | 23:55 |
| Robert Carroll | What was it about Durham that made it, so many businesses, successful here? | 25:21 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well I think it was they had some outstanding leaders here and then I think they recruited well. They brought people in who were interested in joining in on what was being done. And they started, what is now North Carolina Central University, was a National Religious Training School and Chautauqua. Doctor Shepard was a founder, and he was a graduate of Shaw University. Now Shaw University was in, it's in Raleigh, and it had a lot of, made a lot of contribution to the education and training and inspiring and still in that same kind of situation that journalism. | 25:29 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I don't think you'd find a city in the country as small as them is, as much as they have, that the Mutual Community Savings Bank has a bank in Greensboro and the Mechanics and Farmers Bank has a bank in Raleigh and Winston Salem and Charlotte. And this city is smaller than each one of those cities, and they're still maintaining those businesses in other cities. And I think that with that basis and it builds up accounts for that type of progress. | 26:33 |
| Robert Carroll | You mentioned that you were active in the Business Chain. | 27:24 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah. | 27:28 |
| Robert Carroll | What kind of activities did that group focus on? | 27:28 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, they focus on having seminars, training, workshop, retreats, and solving problems, working together, getting to know each other, and all of that contribute. Coming in with the spirit already here, you join in with it, and then you do what business people should do, serve the community, help make the community better, work with the young people, help improve them, help inspire them, and it grows on the basis that it set. | 27:31 |
| Robert Carroll | Was the Business Chain involved in any politics or was it? | 28:30 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, I think some of the same people in the chain would be belonged to the political group, but it didn't in itself sponsor political activities. Some of the same people in both groups. But in terms of the activities, one group concentrated on business activities, the other one concentrated on political activities. | 28:35 |
| Robert Carroll | What kind of political activities was that, the other group in Boston? | 29:18 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Oh the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People? Well they encourage people to register to vote, and when voting time come they show the informed, the people, that election is coming up and they conduct interview sessions with candidates to see what they have to offer. And make a decision on who they want to endorse, and notify people who getting ready to vote other than people that they have endorsed. And they have reasonable good success in that. And that's what good citizens do, that's right. | 29:23 |
| Robert Carroll | Do you remember any notable successes that you felt like this group achieved? The political group? Were there any issues in particular? | 30:33 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, to go back a distance in terms of the schools, for example, they started out for equal schools. Same equipment, same courses, and good administrators and teachers, and then they had an accident, they had a suit. The first suit was they wanted see that separate situation was logged back when this group was organized in the thirties. And then they went to court to sue for make separate schools equal on the same all over town. | 30:46 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And then they came up, I don't know whether this might have been after the '54 decision or maybe during the time that same time, they sued to say that all students could go to all schools. And then after that time they had White students to come down to Hillside that, for example, in other schools, and then Black students went to Durham High. And seemed like the interesting thing to me was that they deserted Durham High, for example, and it sort of seemed like it went down, because people went out into the counter school. | 31:59 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And then there was a suit, that's something similar to that Brown versus Education, said that separate can never be equal, you have to bring them together. And that's what the law is now, but people are trying to get around it anyway they can. You know some people, rather than go to a mixed school and have an opportunity to learn what other people are like, they would rather go to a private school or something like that. | 33:11 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Which is, I guess, that's their privilege if they want to do that. But that '54 decision said separate could never be equal. And I think, cause I'm not historian or examiner I don't know what the ratio is now, what it is in other places. But they were talking about diversity, bringing the students together and some people have a problem with that. But you say that the Brown versus Board of Education said that separate could not be equal then the lawyers that the people who are out there working against it, they are committing an unlawful act to me. | 34:00 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I think it would be a lot better if we spend more time trying to understand each other. And I think I'm kind of interested in people finding a better way to solve their problems than by the number of body bags you end up with. Look at the people over there and I coach, they say that's a religious wall there in England where the Irish and the English is still fighting. You mean all these years and years? | 35:03 |
| Robert Carroll | 500 years. | 35:48 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | How is it? That's a whole lot of generations. And how come they have to still do that? And I saw a little sketch on the TV, the kids would have these automatic weapons over in Africa. I mean they were no play guns, they were real, the real stuff, and the kid, little kid three feet tall sitting out there shooting. Something's wrong somewhere. And that gets into thousands of people, we ought to be able to do better than that. I'm telling you, I'd hate to be in a situation like that myself, if my kids were loading up automatic weapons and going out and shooting. I just think, I don't know what it would take, cause I guess my time is about out, but well it's not going to be as long as it has been but I like to see people work on that. | 35:49 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I think that's why my, Jimmy Carter, he's built out building houses. Habitat for Humanity, and then I'm surprised that they didn't continue to use him more in peace settlement. He seemed to be able to settle things. And we need more people like that. And it just doesn't make any sense. Just like I was talking about that situation over in England, or anywhere but—I was born before World War I and it goes, I was just a young child and I know, I remember the song "Johnny Comes Marching Home Again" and then it's World War II. | 37:16 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But Hitler came along. I think he felt that the Germans been mistreated in World War I and he was going sell it, and look at the people that died. And other wars since that time, the United Nation was formed, to help solved some of those situations. And they have done some, maybe they should strengthen it and improve it, make it better. But don't make it a situation where it takes killing people to sell things. You need to take a different route. I'll leave that up to you. | 38:29 |
| Robert Carroll | Let me turn this over here. | 39:26 |
| Robert Carroll | Well, do you see other ways in our own community to bring people together besides through education? | 0:04 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah, I think in the organizations that you have of this kind of thing. You ought to have, when you select people to work in things and to take the leadership, to go across lines and talk to people and all—those people, it ought to be a standard for them. But most of the time those people who are in that position, they are put in there to defend their side and when they have meetings and get together and when they have an opportunity to vote and support people to make things better, they've seem to me that they come into the ring or sit around the table to protect their side and instead of coming around to see what can we do to get together and make things better and for everybody. | 0:17 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But I listen to these radio talk shows, these guys come on every day. One of them especially spend a whole year arguing against one candidate. I don't think he gave that other, that candidate, he didn't say anything good about it the whole year. And it would've looked like it was—thought it must have had some good. But that hammered and hammered and hammered and hammered. And that's not the way to get together. They said they acted racist. If it was going to be a time that we end up with one race, we know that's not possible and I'm just [indistinct 00:03:11], then it would make sense to try to make that one race what it would be. | 1:53 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But that's not going to happen. This life is not made up like that. So, if there's something wrong or you have the possibility of making things better, then we ought to concentrate on making it better. Well I just think about the way life was just before. At the time that I was born, for example, my race did a lot of things but you don't hear too much about it. Look at George Washington Carver, he worked with the peanuts and agriculture. Booker T. Washington started, he finished the school. I went to my homecoming yesterday at Hampton, he went to Hampton. And then after he graduated from Hampton, he started Tuskegee. That school been going ever since. That's when George Washington Carver was there. He created crops that saved the South and the way they would have been. But you don't hear much about that. | 3:18 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | That and Booker T. Washington was a great leader. Why didn't we just concentrate on those people and helped make those people that they came out of better? But no, they didn't do that. They came up with laws after 250 years of slavery, they came up with laws that made life, that's something wrong and different with those people. You got to set them aside and everything and no reward for all those years that you were in bondage. And that there are other inventors, black inventors too that worked on things. And so as we go into the next century, let's take another look that all of us are children of God and what we're going to do, make life not miserable for some and good for others. It's space enough around for all of us. And so work for a better world. | 5:00 |
| Robert Carroll | Do you think the feelings of divide between the races, do you think we've come along? Things have gotten better in that respect or not? | 6:33 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, I go back to this [indistinct 00:06:54] decision that said separate is not equal and it could never be equal. We don't regard that. We trying to figure out a way to get around and we criticize. We elect people to office and we criticize people who want to make life better, but we won't try to build good schools. And I think its some advantage in going to school together. If you go to school together and find out they just, the unknown is what bothers people sometimes. | 6:49 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But this guy is just, these people are all right they're not like I thought they were or whatever. But I'm just saying that they all don't have to go, don't have to go to school together. There may be some schools that be more Black than White and some schools that more White than Black. But I'm just saying let it be a choice. Don't make the law says that you can't do this, you can't do that. Or even don't teach our kids that all those other kids over there are something wrong with and let everybody do what they really want to do. I'm not saying you got force people to do things, but I'm just saying that— | 7:51 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Don't make it that the law or the rule says that these things, you should not rank people. It should just look like, well we made progress from the legal point of view, but we don't put to practice all the time. Because I know the Durham system is struggling with that idea and hopefully it will improve as it goes along. | 8:46 |
| Robert Carroll | Earlier you mentioned about the Durham Freeway coming through Hayti part of Fayetteville Street. When that decision was being debated, how did you feel about it as a member of the business community? | 9:20 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well, they had a long discussion about it. It appeared that what they were trying to do was to build it without excessive price and also to build it in a way that it would be serviceable. But when you started talking about price and [indistinct 00:10:21], it went very smacked to when it got downtown areas race to the Black community. And it was very disruptive and it caused a lot of problems. But at the same time it moved, they had to take care of us, the businesses, some of the businesses they moved to other areas. | 9:49 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And it appeared to me that what they were trying to do is to cut expenses in the low income area, maybe land's cheaper and the land, in fact, it ran through the area that right behind our business. What that did was to extend the downtown area. So that area where we were is downtown now. And that made it more attractive to other businesses then I think of revenue. Wherever you word put auto failure, place a business there. And so it is actually that moved it forward as I said earlier, the downtown board area and then that kind of business seems the attractive on a freeway type of business that I noticed that. | 10:57 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But they had one business that had the Elkton motor company there already. But this is right that be right next to it be the Chevrolet place. So at that time we had sold the business to the employees and that I said earlier, they had fire and all and everything. But to the time we were there, they never said that you disprove your property and all you can stay there. They made it like we had to move. But this fire and all had created problems for us and the people he'd be sold to, the employees they had made it difficult for them to come together and do the necessary improvements and everything. So it changed outlook for the business was very enforcement because we didn't have the opportunity to make some good plans to do something to rebuild this kind of thing. So the business went out. | 12:18 |
| Robert Carroll | I know there was a vote before the freeway came through about whether it could run through Fayetteville Street or not. What was the feeling in the neighborhoods about that? | 13:45 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I was trying to think it was a vote to have it there or not have it there, or what? | 14:04 |
| Robert Carroll | But maybe I'm incorrect about that. | 14:14 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I'm not sure right now. That's been some time ago, now. I'm a little bit—I thought maybe the vote was for us to have urban renewal or not. | 14:16 |
| Robert Carroll | Yeah. Could have been about that. | 14:33 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Urban renewal. But urban renewal gave the city the necessary endorsement. See urban renewal—they used the urban renewal to be able to clear their land. And I think it also helped the price that they had to pay. The urban renewal give you the privilege of taking the land and clearing it. But if you building a road, like a highway or something, you have to pay the person the replacement costs. In other words, you have to move and rebuild. | 14:35 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | You have to pay enough money to rebuild the business and all. Now every renewal says you can give them this fair market value for the price of the land. And I guess it has to be some structure on it too. But it doesn't say I think I understand it that you have to pay the money to replace that structure and all and move the whole thing. And that's a decided disadvantage that's different from a highway situation where you pay a person what it costs you to move and what it costs you to build an instruction. | 15:44 |
| Robert Carroll | So did people end up getting paid a fair price? | 16:38 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | No, I don't think so. They weren't given a view. I think we got what they call just a cost of the land and I don't know, it wasn't a replacement where they had to build a building and get the land and all and everything. So it was decided this is that. | 16:43 |
| Robert Carroll | This is a kind of change in subject, but I'm interested in hearing about your anniversary celebration here at White Rock. | 17:13 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Where? | 17:27 |
| Robert Carroll | Was that recent? At that time? | 17:28 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah, that was this month in October. This 130th anniversary. So that put it a hundred years would be 1896 and then thirty off of that. So it would be—we in the early sixties somewhere. And they celebrate that each year, the anniversary, they bring guest speakers and then have different programs and different groups and all. | 17:30 |
| Robert Carroll | Did y'all have a special celebration because it was the 130th? | 18:11 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah, we had a banquet and then some discussion was given to what things you plan to do in the future. And it's a continuing thing, keeping the spirit of the church and getting people involved and helping young people and people that are not well, this kind of thing. So it helped the spirit of helping people to appreciate. But we used to have the church that long, So now this church, by the way, this church was near the urban renewal area, so they were paid for the church. But I think we had to pay three or four more times of the cost was much greater to build this church, and that old church was not. It was old and it could need some repairs and all but it—I don't know where you've seen a picture of that old church or not. | 18:19 |
| Robert Carroll | I forgot. | 20:02 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah, it didn't look bad at all, but it was not as serviceable this church. | 20:02 |
| Robert Carroll | So it's quite large too. | 20:14 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Yeah, this is much larger. Much larger. | 20:16 |
| Robert Carroll | Where was the old church located? | 20:21 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Right in the middle of Hayti. In other words, it was just this side of the freeway. And you may have seen, mentioned Oldfield Street, if you go down and see St. Joseph's church that was on Ville Street and White Rock Church was about a block and a half down. Think this church was sitting right where the freeway is now. So it was doomed with the plans. | 20:23 |
| Robert Carroll | Do you think the freeway coming through and urban renewal changed the community besides just where the buildings were? | 21:12 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I think it was closely knit. More closely knit together than just spreading the people out. Well just, I think for example, if it was not for the freeway and it was a plan to make it better and plan to make better use of space and all and everything, you could've improved on the businesses. You might have got a better net proposition, but just knocking it half of it down and this kind of thing, it made it more difficult to keep things together and all. So, it take a much longer time. | 21:22 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | And I think it years ago, it would probably just increase it based on that's compared to what it used to be. But that time loss and everything and just knocking down things, just having to rebuild could make a difference. Now they have the shopping area. You come down here before you about two or three blocks down the street near, did you see with St. Joseph's church down there? That church was right a block and a half from this church. And they were just that close so that meant that thing for much closing in. | 22:30 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | But I think considering the time and the money that has to be spent is something that's slow to rebuilding and made it cost costly. And so you lost that advantage that you have all those, that together and trying to improve what you have. I think the amount of money having to be spent. And as I said earlier that some of the highway improvement that said you going replace what you take away is different from urban renewal. | 23:27 |
| Robert Carroll | But you've done a lot of work with young people I know through the scouting program and the church. What do you think about young people who are interested in opening businesses and being business owners? What do you think? Think their prospects are good? | 24:12 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Think about what now? | 24:37 |
| Robert Carroll | How are the business opportunities in? | 24:38 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | I think that happens in selling instances like this car business down the street there where there's touring was one of my boy scout, so he opened up nice business. Yeah, I can't think of the name of it. It's right down the street. There was some instances of that kind of thing happening. | 24:42 |
| Robert Carroll | Well, do you have anything else you want to say about— | 25:32 |
| Nathaniel White, Sr. | Well I think I've run out of talk, if you have any questions, I'll be glad to try to answer. | 25:37 |
| Robert Carroll | I think we've done enough for today. | 25:47 |
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