James Ingram interview recording, 1995 August 08
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
| Doris Dixon | Mr. Ingram, could you please state your full name and date of birth? | 0:04 |
| James Ingram | James Ingram. 4/9/25. | 0:09 |
| Doris Dixon | And Mr. Ingram, where were you born and raised? | 0:21 |
| James Ingram | I was born and raised in Yazoo County. In Yazoo City rather than Yazoo County. | 0:26 |
| Doris Dixon | And how many years did you spend there? Have you been here your entire life? | 0:39 |
| James Ingram | Basically all my life. Now, I've lived in quite a few other places like California, Illinois, and you name them. But this has been bas—well, I said that, because my mother has been here all the time, and that's what I said. I've lived away, but I always more or less consider this as Maria stop over. | 0:46 |
| Doris Dixon | So you were raised in Yazoo County? | 1:07 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. Like school. | 1:09 |
| Doris Dixon | Would you please hear some of your earliest memories of growing up here? What it was like in those days in the 30s. | 1:10 |
| James Ingram | Well one was, it was very—things were very scarce, and it was a lot of hard work, and very little resources like money and food and stuff. I remember that definitely. | 1:19 |
| Doris Dixon | It was like that for your family? | 1:41 |
| James Ingram | For my family. For a lot of family. I can say that truthfully. | 1:42 |
| Doris Dixon | Did your family have a tough time? | 1:47 |
| James Ingram | Very tough. | 1:49 |
| Doris Dixon | Could you tell me some more about that? How it was tough or— | 1:50 |
| James Ingram | It was tough. Actually having enough food to eat, and try to make ends meet. It was really, when you think about it, it almost make you flinch now. It was quite tough. Actually we were farming, actually we were living out there on the farm outside of town, here out East. And you'd go out there and work, work in the field all day, and that's hard work, with a capital H. And you start young, and you work long hours and the pay was practically non existent. So it was tough trying to make it. Trying to buy food and clothing and things like that. Tough. | 1:54 |
| Doris Dixon | So you buy food. Did you raise food or— | 3:03 |
| James Ingram | Well we raised most of it. Right. We really raised most of it. And the most pleasant part, I remember during that time I was going to school. The school was something like an oasis, I guess you would say. | 3:05 |
| Doris Dixon | Why? | 3:30 |
| James Ingram | Well, one thing I started, so really, I started when I was three. I used to go out, I started with my older brother, he was four, and one was two years older than I. So I would go out there with him and the teacher just started teaching me when I was at school, and I got hung up on school and I was almost a fanatic from then on about— when I want to go to school, and I worked in the field and I'd say, when I was fairly small that, this is not what I wanted to make a living doing. I always say. And while I was three, the teacher tried to get my mother to give me to her. She was telling her about she wanted to send me to college, and she begged mother for me, and she told mother she wouldn't be able to send me but she would be, so she wanted her to give me to her. | 3:31 |
| James Ingram | And we used to laugh about that. She passed a few years ago, but we used to laugh about that all the time. She always. She said, I surely want you. Well anyway, I didn't have an idea obviously at three years of age what college was all about. But I knew I was almost a fanatic about school. I used to get up sick. Sometime I'd be so sick I just couldn't walk. I maybe had to walk a mile or something like that to school. But I'd go to school, get back to bed in the middle of the day. I guess that was one of—I don't know anything. I was more involved in school, and I didn't do a lot of staying out of school. A lot of people really, didn't do any better. They said stay out of the school and farm. But that never was my problem. It was hard to keep me out. That's one thing. So— | 4:29 |
| Doris Dixon | How many months out of the year did you go to school? | 5:28 |
| James Ingram | Well, maybe about six. At least about five, six months, early part of it. Now, later on we started going a little longer. | 5:32 |
| Doris Dixon | By the time you were in high school? [INTERRUPTION] | 5:43 |
| James Ingram | When we were in high school here—oh this was a good while before high school, we were going maybe— well it is a little long, maybe six or eight months. All right. Well it started—I don't know exactly when, maybe junior high or something. But anyway, we started going to—well one reason, it wasn't because it was the distance was so far, sometime you had to walk at least maybe about three or four mile. And a lot of times the creatures would get up and bad weather and different things. So | 5:56 |
| Doris Dixon | They would close schools in advance- | 6:57 |
| James Ingram | Basically. And next thing people, like I said was farming. And when it's time to farm, people just wouldn't have school, and they wouldn't start school until you get to gathering your crops and things, that's late in the fall. So it was—that seemed to have been the rationale behind the school business. Just wasn't like school. | 7:00 |
| James Ingram | And Will Morris, he's a native Yazooan, you might have heard of him. He's a great writer, and his book on Northport Home, he got to be a Harper's Bazaar editor. And I think he has a quote in there where I said then, when I was a little boy going to school while a bus would pass and splash mud upon—I always wondered why we couldn't ride the bus. It was always raining. I did though. I always wonder, why we couldn't ride the bus. We'd be out there in the rain and mud and cold, and I always wondered there. And he has it in that book. I was talking to a friend who lives out here, and he mentioned it to him. So he put that in his book. But that was real problem with me. | 7:24 |
| James Ingram | I wanted to go to school, and a lot of times it would be really rough. A lot of times we go by—we had to cross a creek, and the creek would get up. I could go to school this morning, and it looked like [inaudible 00:08:40]. But when we come back, it would stay there and it'd start raining, raining, raining, the creek would get up sometime over the bridge. And there have been time we had to go right about six or eight miles or nine miles around and get back. And the Lord was just with us, because a lot of time we'd go and look the next day, that bridge would've washed away down the creek somewhere. It's true. We've gone through that water sometime with it up to near the, where about this deep. And there been time we decided to go around, and a few times there, we were just blessed, because on several occasions the bridge had washed away. So we were just blessed. | 8:29 |
| Doris Dixon | Was it a public or private school? | 9:28 |
| James Ingram | Public. | 9:30 |
| Doris Dixon | So was it a county school? | 9:31 |
| James Ingram | County school. That's right. | 9:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Was it funded well by the county? | 9:35 |
| James Ingram | You could say it was almost not funded. A lot of times the teachers had to get paid, people would give them some of their goods. Like they'd give them ham and different stuff to boost their salary, the peoples in the community. | 9:38 |
| Doris Dixon | So they paid them in kind to try to help them out? | 9:50 |
| James Ingram | That's right. That's right. | 9:50 |
| Doris Dixon | Was there a PTA? Was there some kind of parents organization? | 9:50 |
| James Ingram | Right. See, we would use wood, and they were responsible for all the wood, but a lot of time they couldn't get to it, because we get the rain. Rained for a week or two like that, and the wood would give out, and we'd had to go down in the woods ourself, go down and find somewhere and cut the wood. I remember we'd haul woods in there with icicles on them and put them in the room there, and water run all in the room. Really. When the icicle melt, it's just water. I can remember that vivid. | 10:15 |
| Doris Dixon | And the room is cold? | 10:49 |
| James Ingram | Sure. Sure. Every time you got the old big pot belly stove warmed up, and then just most of the people gather around it and everything, it kind of warm up then. | 10:51 |
| Doris Dixon | How were your parents involved in your education? | 11:02 |
| James Ingram | Well my mother, I was raised basically by my mother. And she would always say, she didn't want to keep us out of school, and she would go out there and ply, if we had some plying to do or something like that, she'd go out there and ply, so we could go to school. She said, I don't want you there, will miss school. | 11:06 |
| Doris Dixon | How many were of you at work? | 11:30 |
| James Ingram | Four of us. It's mother and the three brothers. Very fortunate, all of us are living now. | 11:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Were there other people in your household? | 12:01 |
| James Ingram | No. No. | 12:01 |
| Doris Dixon | It was just your mother and the three boys? | 12:01 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 12:01 |
| Doris Dixon | Now, did you live on a plantation? | 12:01 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 12:01 |
| Doris Dixon | And your mother, would share crop, then? | 12:01 |
| James Ingram | That's right. Now, we lived like that a good portion of the time. Now there was an uncle who lived with us some of the time, for a few years. But basically, it was just the four of us. | 12:03 |
| Doris Dixon | You might not remember, but did your mother have any problems being as a single mother, as the one in the household? As opposed to having there been a man in the household? I mean dealing with the plantation owner or dealing with other family— | 12:16 |
| James Ingram | We were fortunate. We were kind of living with my auntie, and her husband. Aunt Mame and uncle Bunk, and most of the time that—a few years that we were there, and she moved here in '36, she left uncle Bunk in '36. | 12:35 |
| Doris Dixon | [inaudible 00:13:03]. | 13:01 |
| James Ingram | Uh-huh. And my older brother moved that day with her. We came and stayed at Y, and then we go back out in the country and help mother, and we'd come back and stay with her. But he was renting, that's a step above share crop. He did the selling and different things, but we were share cropping with him, and we did pretty good like that. Bet we did a lot better than a lot of people. Because a lot of people never could come out the hole. I don't care how much they raised, what they just never could come out. | 13:03 |
| Doris Dixon | And then this was your uncle? | 13:38 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 13:39 |
| Doris Dixon | And he was a renter. | 13:39 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 13:39 |
| Doris Dixon | So now part of your childhood, you lived on a plantation with your mother, and part of you lived with your aunt and uncle? | 13:44 |
| James Ingram | Right. That's part of it. Not just my aunt. When she moved here, she moved here in '36, she left Uncle Bunk. | 13:51 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. | 13:56 |
| James Ingram | Right. Came to this place called Yazoo City. | 13:59 |
| Doris Dixon | So she came to the town itself. | 14:03 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 14:05 |
| Doris Dixon | Where did she live? | 14:06 |
| James Ingram | Up on Jefferson. | 14:07 |
| Doris Dixon | And you lived in that house with her? | 14:16 |
| James Ingram | Right. I lived part in there and part island country. Had two homes you might say. But she always said, well this is your home, because she said, I raised your mother and wheresoever I am, this is your home. | 14:18 |
| Doris Dixon | Could you tell me the difference between, how it was to live in the country, and living in town? | 14:36 |
| James Ingram | You didn't have many material things you might say, but it was a world of difference. It's almost like living here in '46 and maybe living in New Jersey, or Ohio or New York, in that time, it was quite a different. You could tell the difference. Now I wouldn't call either place a paradise, but it was certainly a big step up. | 14:42 |
| Doris Dixon | What was difference? | 15:22 |
| James Ingram | Well one thing living in the plantation, people always looked at you as always being ignoramus. Most people. Now that was something that was—you going to always find—I will say this, you will always find there's a difference. There's no all or exactly alike, but it's too many people would look at you as being ignoramus. And here a lot of times, people were just a little different. | 15:25 |
| James Ingram | An example, is a lady that had a drugstore down there, and Ms. Cars, and her husband got to be the mayor here. And I remember her telling me once I was standing outside the drugstore on the street, she said, "Young man." I said, "Yes ma'am." She said, "Come here, let me tell you something." I say, "Yes ma'am." She said, "I want you to do something." I said, "What's that Ms. Cars?" She said, "I want you to go to school and get the best education you can get." She said, "Because that's something nobody can take from you." She said, "Even if you can't do anything about it, you will have sense enough to know somebody cheating you or trying to make a fool out of you. People can't take sense from you. So you go to school and get the best education you can get." I never forget that. I was shocked. There was a White woman telling me that. That's when I say it was quite different. But she told me that. And I guess as long as I have a memory, I will always remember that. You go to school. | 16:11 |
| Doris Dixon | You describe things with the plantation as having been tough. Were they tough in the city as well? | 17:18 |
| James Ingram | Not as tough, no. It really wasn't. | 17:24 |
| Doris Dixon | Was that because of convenience? You had certain conveniences? | 17:26 |
| James Ingram | Right. And people looked like they got along a little better, for some reason. | 17:33 |
| Doris Dixon | When people did out and played the games, you mean the other families or between the Whites and Blacks? | 17:38 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. Right. Between Whites and Blacks. | 17:43 |
| Doris Dixon | How did the Black people along amongst themselves? | 17:47 |
| James Ingram | Well, most of the time it's remarkable, but they got on good and a brother just—I tell people that now to see somebody go in there, killing brothers is a hurting thing. To kill anybody hurts. But I remember people used to say, man, you can't do that. That's your brother. You can't do that to your brother. You just can't do that. And people used [indistinct 00:18:22] hang you, if you mistreated a brother. That's true. I remember, it was takin' place in Chicago, but this was during the mid 40s. I remember there, and people can say it might be the worst place in the world to live, but I remember when you could go there, we could go out in the parks, and carry a blanket anything and spend the night, and they never worry about anybody bothering you. Now this is a fact, I'm telling you. And brothers just didn't do that. A brother was safe, when he was with another brother or sister. | 17:52 |
| James Ingram | I don't get a chance to go out there like I used to say, so I don't know what's going on now, but I'm still trouble. Why? We will just pick on— We shouldn't pick on anybody. I stress that. I always have. You just shouldn't mistreat anybody. I really don't believe in that. But you can't make everybody be the way you want to be. Because you not the way everybody wants you to be. But I can't see how we can just go out there and do this to one another. I've often said that sometime we flinch from people criticizing for acting like that. But we need to change that. We definitely need to change it. | 19:06 |
| Doris Dixon | I was really struck by you describing going to school as an oasis. | 20:04 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. Actually when I go there, I would be happy. Really. To me, learning was a thing, like, some people consider food, I would just go and I would just be so happy. That's one reason I go, when I was sick. I could be sick, and if I could walk I'd go to school, because it was so joyful. | 20:09 |
| Doris Dixon | Was there anything that you did not like about school? | 20:38 |
| James Ingram | Not particularly. I tell you, I guess one sad experience I had, the teacher gave me a spanking once, and till this day, all these years ago, on my sacred honor, I have no idea whatsoever, it was about. And I never could figure it out. Till this day. Really. And she hit me so hard, my leg was just swollen all up and down there, just big old knots on there. And to this day, I don't know what it's about. You see if I'm doing something like that, and yeah, I get a licking, I could live with that. But I don't remember doing anything. God knows I don't. And I've never been able to wash that out of my mind. I still wonder. If I could just figure out why did she do it. I guess that's something, I just never knew it. | 20:43 |
| Doris Dixon | Were teachers prone to give a lot of discipline to difficult students quite frequently in those days. | 21:53 |
| James Ingram | Well, they would, definitely. Right. I remember getting about two whipping in this entire school. That was one of them. And I can't explain about that one. Another one we were running, I think long division, and the teachers tell us to bring the problem work the next day, and we hadn't drilled anything. Didn't anybody in class have, so she whipped everybody. And I remember that because I never got— I didn't think I should get a whipping for the lesson. I couldn't conceive of my having to get a whipping about my lesson, because I was always a person who would really go out and try to get that lesson. But she gave me a whipping. And I confess because it's the truth. That kind soured me on math. It really did. And I hope a lot of people learn a lesson from that. | 22:00 |
| Doris Dixon | The fact that discouraged you—it was a stick instead of a caring. | 23:03 |
| James Ingram | That's exactly right. And I went on and on, and I came out—I had to take math, but I came out and I had to teach math, and had kind of soothe it somewhere. In fact I had to go back and take more math, higher math, the different thing to go on. So that made a difference. But I can remember where that was—I always say, I got a whipping about that long division, and had anybody told us, or showed us, or anything how to work. She had said, you all bringing problem, you don't pay such anything like that tomorrow. And wouldn't anybody have it, because no one understood the principals involved. We all got a whipping. Even though we all got a whipping, everyone got a whipping, I still couldn't understand it. I still didn't understand it. | 23:08 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you teach so much education yourself? You mentioned teaching later in your life. | 24:13 |
| James Ingram | Unfortunate, no. In most instance. | 24:21 |
| Doris Dixon | How far did they have to go before they could teach? | 24:30 |
| James Ingram | Some, 10th grade. I know when I was in high school, I think I was taking about second year algebra or something now. And the teacher, she fessed up. She said, "Well, I don't see why they had me trying to teach this, I didn't get but 10th grade, and I don't know anything about this." I admire her. Not because the little she knew, I admired the lady for being upfront, and I believe what she's trying to tell us, you do the best you can. Learn as much as you can, and do the best you can, because I'm just not capable of doing a whole lot. But you do the best you can. That's where I accept her. I didn't try to put her down because she only went to 10th grade or something. I tried to learn as much as I could on my own. She was a Ms. Akin. But she sure was up front. | 24:33 |
| Doris Dixon | Where'd you go to high school? | 25:47 |
| James Ingram | Here. | 25:47 |
| Doris Dixon | In Yazoo City? | 25:47 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 25:50 |
| Doris Dixon | Was it a Colored high—was there a Colored high school— | 25:51 |
| James Ingram | Right. Called, Yazoo High number two, and a Black man built then. Mr. Oaks, I don't know if you heard about the Oaks Centers. Mr Oaks, he's the one that—he was one of the richest men in Yazoo City, and we got a Oaks Center up at his house, we turned into a center up on Monterey. I sure wish you could see there before you leave. | 25:54 |
| Doris Dixon | He was Black? | 26:17 |
| James Ingram | He was Black. And he went and bought his wife. She was a slave, and bought—and he used to own as much property he had, more than most people in Yazoo City. He bought that school. A big old school. They just torn—let me see, fans tearing it down here during the 50s, the 60s. I think in the 60s. Something like that. But anyway it was, he was one of the richest men here, and he was a contractor and all that. He owned property all up and down the street there, all downtown and all over town. And they sold bonds where he bought it. You see a school bond. And he was rich enough to buy all the bonds that they sold for that school. He built it, he physically built it, and then bought the bonds, and after that, donated it to the Blacks. That's how I got that school. | 26:19 |
| Doris Dixon | So his company constructed it— | 27:19 |
| James Ingram | That's right. That's right. He had a big lumber yard out there. Just across the railroad track down here. They just tore that building down. I had some of the lumber out here in the back there, where he had his office. That was a long time ago. Long time ago. Because I know, I just turned 70, and I don't know if I was born then. | 27:28 |
| Doris Dixon | Do you remember Mr. Oaks? New York life? Was he around in your lifetime? | 27:52 |
| James Ingram | I don't remember him. But I'll tell you what, I remember going by the house then, when I was small. I remember going by the house, and they said, Negroes live there, and I never could believe that. And I'm serious. It was hard. Took me a long time to accept that. Because it is up on the hill just looking out over town like that, but it is—even now it's a swank building. | 27:57 |
| Doris Dixon | So it's still standing? | 28:27 |
| James Ingram | Still standing. Oh, we made— | 28:28 |
| James Ingram | Uh-huh. A kind of cultural center. Black cultural center. | 28:30 |
| Doris Dixon | Where would I find it? What street is— | 28:37 |
| James Ingram | On Monroe. North Monroe. Wait a minute. Please don't put North, that's changed to South Monroe, I mean. South Monroe, just above Perry. It's on right above Monroe and Perry Street. And you think about way back at that time, ooh he had sons that graduated from Tougaloo, was in Tougaloo back in 1931. And I was just a little old boy, I hadn't started school then. But I remember his wife. Now I remember old man Oak's wife. See my auntie was living in one of the houses, and she got fared behind in the rent, and she got angry and came over there and took the door down, took the door off the house. | 28:39 |
| Doris Dixon | Ms. Oaks did. | 29:36 |
| James Ingram | Ms. Oaks did. She said, now you get that rent, and I'll put the door back. But other than that, you'll stay in here without a door. She sure did. You get that money from somewhere. | 29:42 |
| Doris Dixon | Now is my understanding that a lot of smaller two or smaller southern cities, some towns, that races live pretty close to each other— | 30:00 |
| James Ingram | Vicksburg, not a whole lot. Somewhat- | 30:11 |
| Doris Dixon | There was one Black part of town here. | 30:17 |
| James Ingram | Right. But they're so mixed up now, it's kind of hard to tell where you are. Unless you go to summer. It's a few exclusive area, then even they living in there. But most of them had the kind of money. | 30:19 |
| Doris Dixon | But when you were coming up, it was pretty much a noticeable defined Black section of town? | 30:36 |
| James Ingram | It was an absolute. I'm serious. | 30:43 |
| Doris Dixon | I believe you. | 30:47 |
| James Ingram | That's right. It was absolute. No, it's just certain parts you live in. That was— | 30:47 |
| Doris Dixon | What do you remember about that time? | 30:56 |
| James Ingram | I remember when we would walk on the street there, when we were boy, if we could walk up there, then if the White walking right there, it was your job to move out the way. Even though if he going south, and he's coming north, he could walk on the south side. On your right side, his left side like that. You supposed to move whatsoever, he's not—it was just one little thing imply, and then he'd probably tell you—he'll even that nigger, get out the way or something. Said what? | 30:58 |
| Doris Dixon | You mentioned Mr. Oaks had a construction company. Were there other Black businesses? | 31:40 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. There were some around here. One had the finest cafe in town, Black and White. That was the Legion Cafe, Mr. R—I think, it's R. J. Pierce. And another one had one right in front of him. That was Mr. King. Vivian King, called the Dew Drop Inn. And right along there about the Dew Drop Inn there used to be a bank, a Black bank, that way back right after the Civil War called, the Dime Bank, I think it was. Penny of the Dime Bank. That was way, way back. And that were a few other. Now one of the largest and most remarkable place would be, the Blacks had had something called a Afro Hospital funeral home, and everything. Had one of first Black hospitals in the state, and that building is still out there. And they had funeral homes all over Central Mississippi. Central had funeral homes all over, they got one now they're up in Clarksdale, Greenwood and you name them all around. But they just actually dominated Jackson, and well you name it. Sprung from right here in Yazoo City. | 31:44 |
| James Ingram | And a spinoff is this Dr. Yatu Miller Center here, right where George Payton live, is about—it was quite a few of us worked, but it was about four or five of us worked at the last minute to hold onto it. We were about to lose that property. And actually I was the one who gave the name, see government wouldn't say—we used called it Negro Fair Association, and we had to give it another name for it to get funds from the federal government. So I was fortunate to offer the name and accept it, Yazoo County Fair and Civic League. And that's the name of it now. We might say we are the Black folks on that. We had to let the city have it for 20 years, the use of it. And then that would pay off the federal money they put in. They would give it back to us. | 33:32 |
| James Ingram | So we got it about in '94, I think it was '93 or '94. We got it back after 20 years. And it's lot of land. In fact, it's a housing project up there with it. And it was remarkable how Blacks were able to do at that time, because it was so tough. I remember one of the first games they had out there, I was a little old boy. I remember I used to argue with people. I'll say a lot of people I know. But it was in 1936, I think I must have been about third grade then. Let me see. | 34:35 |
| James Ingram | Yeah, I was around about fourth grade, and they had came out, they had a fair. I remember, I think that was the first time they had the fair out there. And this might shock a lot of people, but we used to have some of the largest bands in the land that come here. Like, Duke Ellington and Camp Base and all that, used to come right to this town. And Ella Fitzgerald was here singing, "A-Tisket-A-Tasket". I think that was 1938. And one of the big band members said a few years ago, somebody wrote about, they had saw some of the finest women in Yazoo City. And he said, well I have gone in Europe and all, I have traveled the world. When I say, the world, all the world. And I've always said, some of the finest women in the world, are right there in Yazoo city, but people haven't been listening to me. The dude would say, he was shocked there're so many good looking ladies. | 35:21 |
| James Ingram | But it's what I've been trying to tell him all the time. He said, I don't know what it is, but Yazoo produced some good looking ladies. We had some ladies from here used to be in the— Let me see. What's the name of the show? It was Elena Parlor, at the Apollo Theater, and then she lived right down here on West Madison. Now one of those real glamorous ladies- | 36:27 |
| Doris Dixon | It was in Cotton Glove or— | 36:48 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. | 36:53 |
| Grandchild | Grandad, can we go to the library? | 36:55 |
| James Ingram | Sure. Now you know what granddad feel about the library. | 36:58 |
| Doris Dixon | Yes. Were Blacks allowed to use the library when you were coming up? | 37:04 |
| James Ingram | No, no, no, no, no, no. Just started. | 37:12 |
| Doris Dixon | How long has it been? | 37:16 |
| James Ingram | Oh, maybe in the 60s, or 70s. In the 60s or 70s. | 37:17 |
| James Ingram | Which walked out every day. And we couldn't go there. Rick's library. And it was a public library. But that's where the cookie crumble. And some people ask, how did you tolerate that? And I have to explain realistically, it might not be your first choice, but let's say this, you have to learn though, if you dislike a law, you change it. But that really was the law. That was backed by the law. The constituted elected authority. That was the law. I'm not saying it was the right or good, but that's just really what it was law. And I was telling somebody, naturally I never did like it, and I never told anybody I liked it. | 37:27 |
| Doris Dixon | Were there people who tried to go against the law? I'm talking before the Civil Rights Movement. | 38:31 |
| James Ingram | I imagine so, because I know back, and I think I had a paper up in mother's room now where, see I was one of the first reporters for the Years of Here. I was the first Black reporter for Years of Here, and I was itching and scratching then, back in the mid 50s. | 38:39 |
| Doris Dixon | Tell me something about that. You say you were itching, and scratching. | 38:55 |
| James Ingram | The issue came up. They would put Mary Jones and so and so. About that son maybe in service or something happened. And the people got a little wrestler about it, and one lady said, well I'm a married lady, I'm not just a street walker and I do have a hood. See, I had to have something, some good excuse. I was itching for something like that. And so I went to the publisher. We are good friends today, as far as I know. We are a good friend. Really. Now he's White and I'm Black. But I told him, point blank. And I told him, I could not continue to tolerate that. I'm talking about the early '50. And there was a White lady there, she was a Laura Stickler, and she was so upset, she quit. She said he's right. Said he is right. And she quit. I thought that was something I said, this lady taking bread off our tables like that for my cause. And I think about it a lot, now. And I'm telling you that was back in long, about '54, '55 or something like that. About 40 years ago. | 39:01 |
| Doris Dixon | When you were in town, you were living with your aunt. | 40:54 |
| James Ingram | Oh, I used to live with Y, but we've been living here. Grew up in 50 and something years. I'm talking about, when I was a little boy, maybe younger boy, I was younger than that. | 40:54 |
| Doris Dixon | That's when you were living with her? | 40:58 |
| James Ingram | I used to live with her in Y. Right. | 41:01 |
| Doris Dixon | What did she do for a living? | 41:04 |
| James Ingram | Wash and Iron. | 41:05 |
| Doris Dixon | She took in wash from White people? | 41:06 |
| James Ingram | White. See, there was a oil line here, Charlotte. Well they just took it from peoples who had money, and then this oil came in here about '39 then Yazoo got to be the oil capital of the state. And a lot of people would come in. And her son, now we same age, I'm about six months older than he. And we grew up like brothers. And we would take the clothes, and if she charged a dollar, a dollar and a half, we'd always make us about 30, 40, 50 cents extra and divide it. We were hustling then. Getting bars, selling bars. You get about nickel for a bar, or something like that. A nickel. We'd go out and pick up bars and things. And later on we'd go to field and pick cotton for a while, until we started getting other jobs. | 41:11 |
| Doris Dixon | What was your first job outside of fieldwork? | 42:13 |
| James Ingram | Actually, I used to work for a fellow here, Mr. DC. He was buying cotton, and I was something like his office boy. I would clean up and do repair work like, plumbing and just about anything that was needed to be done, I would do it. And after a while, he had me running his office. I used to have high 16, $18,000 out of hand there. And he had no way to know how much of would cash, so I was in cash and everything. I'd bank it for him just like it was mine and everything. That's when I was in high school. Sure. | 42:21 |
| Doris Dixon | And how much were you making? | 43:02 |
| James Ingram | I don't know, really. Because the way I do, I'd go down there. I guess this is the first time I would be saying this public, but if I needed some money, I'd go down there and basically he had upstairs and downstairs. He might just say, well—he wanted just tidy up the upstairs. I go up there, and maybe if anything I might sweep a little bit like that. Then I'd spend the rest of the time looking out the window, at my friends passing out. I went and talk with them until I figured I had made enough. Then I'd come on back down, and get paid. | 43:04 |
| James Ingram | And really he never said question it. And when I went to college, he used to send me money just like—actually more than my father. So now this is White and Black relationship. He used to tell people all the time, whatsoever I said, do it. See if James said and you do it, it's all right with me whatsoever. Now if people around here now have grown men and they older than I, but they'll tell you, he said to do anything. Whatsoever, he said do, you just do it, and it's going to be all right with me. And he would send me clothes and money and different things. And his wife, when she passed her last, on her deathbed, she told them said, well I don't want to—talking about living like White and Black, I don't remember, but just like family, I'm talking about like blood. These was her last words on this earth. And after she said that, she passed. She said, I want that relationship to be like that. | 43:49 |
| James Ingram | I remember once, I never did go in the back unless I thought they were riding it back there. At that time you didn't go in the front of the house. I burst up in the front, and I never heard anybody tell me, even if they had come about, go around to the back. And I remember once, she was telling the lady, she had a friend there. She said, I had a young man working for me, and said, he's very smart. And said, and stuff like that. She said, oh yeah, so you don't believe me. She said, let me see. She goes, "James." I say, "Yes ma'am." Yeah, I remember it well, but see I had overheard the conversation. I heard them discussing it in there. I went about my business. Went back doing. And I'm glad of this. | 44:51 |
| James Ingram | They always said, they told everybody in here, in this, and they always said, one thing about it, James would not steal. Don't say all negro will steal. She said, James would not steal. She said, we have tried him everywhere you can try. Put money under the thing, they would tell me, and say, clean up the carpet, and they had some runners on the steps upstairs, stepping everything, having money like it's old and been there a long time. Don't care what it is. They clean it up and everything. Take the money and stack it up there. He never missed a penny. He said that's one thing, we can truthfully say, we have never missed a penny. He said he won't steal. That we try him everywhere you could try placing, but that's one thing, he will not steal. | 45:48 |
| Doris Dixon | When you mean, we try, did they actually try to trap you? | 46:34 |
| James Ingram | Yeah. Money's falling out the pocket or something like that, and you kicked it under a bed or something like that [indistinct 00:46:45]— | 46:38 |
| Doris Dixon | Okay. I didn't quite understand, Mr. Ingram. | 0:01 |
| James Ingram | Okay. | 0:04 |
| Doris Dixon | Mr. Ingram, do you still tell people, "Do whatever you said do"? | 0:09 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm. Fact, we would be working. See, he had a refrigeration business along with the cotton business. He had appliances. And I remember once at the wartime there—that might have been just before I went to the Army. But anyway, and that was wartime. And you couldn't get a refrigerator easily. They were rare. He had one that was sended to a lady. And somehow, he was saying, "Please try not to damage it." And we kind of dropped it or something and bend it on there. And I told him later on, I said, "We've bent it a little on there." He said, "Dave, it's all right." I said, "But I don't think it did any structural damage but it's bent." He said, "Well, she probably never look under anyway. And as long as it's not structural damage, that's all right, Dave. I appreciate you telling me, boy. It's all right." | 0:13 |
| James Ingram | He had absolute comfort in me. I would tell him the truth. Really, even if it hurt me, I would just tell him the truth, "We bent it." And whatsoever we were doing like that, I leveled with him. I've always said, it's something I can't take. I tell you a falsehood, and you come around and catch me in that. I don't know how I could live with that. Really, I take real pride in trying to tell the truth, even to this day. That's one thing I tell people, "I try to tell you truth." Now I might misplace it, because of a misunderstanding. I might misunderstand something like that. But if I do, I'll try to straighten it out. But I'm not going to try to mislead you. People used to say, "All politicians are liars." I spent eight years on alderman board here, and I can truthfully say I was a straight-up alderman. And if anybody has anything different, I want them to tell it public or private anybody who'll listen. Straight up. I've had people that have money, awards of money like that, trying to bribe me. As I'm too poor, I don't know what to do with it anyway, mm-mm, no way. | 1:08 |
| James Ingram | And they used to say that on the board. That's one thing they always said though, "That's one thing about him. You're not going to bribe him. Two things, you're not going to do. You're not going to bribe him, and you're not going to frighten him. Ain't got no sense to be frightened. And he too hard to be bribed." Really, that was my category of being alderman. They placed me in those two categories. Yeah. | 2:39 |
| Doris Dixon | I want to ask you about the military service and going to school, about going to college. But I also, before we go on, I want to ask about lessons which you were taught by your aunt, by your mother. What kinds of things did they try to instill in you? | 3:17 |
| James Ingram | Well, one thing in particular, my mother always taught me though, "A lazy person suffer much. An honest person will always have a way to go." That's the way she put it. That might be in layman's term, but that's the way she put it. She said, "Oh, this person will always have a way to go." So even if you don't have money, you'll find somebody. Not maybe everybody, but somebody will help you. And I go through that right now, even at this age. That's what. | 3:34 |
| Doris Dixon | How were you expected to behave? | 4:18 |
| James Ingram | Mother was a strict disciplinarian. People said, "Ladies can't raise boys or children." My mother raised us, and we seemed to have been pretty decent citizens, as far as I know. I guess she came down during the time though, they called her and then she could give you that look, that dirty look. And she didn't need to whip you. That dirty look whip you. Just shake her head, in the same way. And you just didn't want to do it. She always stressed that, "Don't do things that would reflect on the family and everything and make everybody else look bad and everything." You're not an island. It appears to me that young people have become disconnected, really. It look like they think whatsoever they do is just to themselves, but they got to have somebody, mother, father, sister, brothers or aunt or cousin or somebody. And that's kind of reflecting on them. | 4:25 |
| James Ingram | And I tell people a lot of time, "You might not like it, but what you're doing is—it's not just you. It's just a big family." Sometime even the people's not blood-related to you, but they're connected. Well, they stressed it all the time. I remember when we used had to go to the store and get things and the white fella there used to say all time, "So that's one thing about Belle, she can get anything we got, because she going to pay her bill." And said, "One thing about her children, they will work." The only thing said about that young one, that's me, "His problem, he want to know what you going to pay him before he work. Now he work, no question about it, but he wanted to know." Now I've always been like that. I tell people—I said, "I lived in Mississippi a good portion of my life, but I never worked for anybody that didn't pay me." I'm glad they do. I mean I'm glad they did [indistinct] pay me. I'm glad they paid me, because if I worked for y'all, I always expect to get my money. | 5:41 |
| James Ingram | I remember when I first started to seek up here, the superintendent came over. And he had left the checks. I went in there for mine, and he say he didn't leave it. And I asked him, "Why not?" He said something. And I was getting ready practice football. I told my team, "You just wait a minute." I said, "Y'all just take it easy here till I get back." I went over and got my check. And I'd be honest. I didn't go over to get a promise. I went over to get my check. I got it. So I think that's explanatory. I sure be. And people used to marvel at it. They'll say, "Ain't never seen anybody—you deal with superintendent different from other people." I said, "Yeah." I said, "We're straight up." I said, "He understand me. I understand him. When my check is be supposed to be, there it's supposed to be there." That's just the way it is. | 7:05 |
| James Ingram | I don't believe in no rah-rah and all that's loud and all that stuff like that. But I'm just firm believer: business is business. I'll never forget that one. I walked in the door. I guess he could see. I didn't feel so well. I guess, I don't know. I might have been taller than that door over there in here. He said, "Oh, it is." I said, "I came for my check." "Didn't Palmer tell you?" I said, "No, he didn't. No, he didn't. I want my check." He said, "All right." I'm serious. That man dead in a grave, but that's the truth. He said, "All right." He said, "Well, if he ain't tell you, then that's not your fault." I said, "No, it's not my fault." I got it. I had to have my check though. It's just that simple. Oh— | 8:19 |
| Doris Dixon | You had a family by that time? | 9:24 |
| James Ingram | Not at all. | 9:26 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 9:26 |
| James Ingram | Mm-mm. I just—you asked me about summer job though. When I first, I think maybe in high school, maybe just entering high school, I working for the paper, started working for the paper. And there was a fellow down there, and he wanted to talk a lot of racist stuff about he didn't think that the Black children should be going to St. Francis and being taught by a white teacher. And it upset me, so I left. I quit at noon. I didn't go back. They begged me come back. I told them I couldn't do it, because I didn't come down to discuss the race issue, came down to work in the paper business." I wouldn't go back. | 9:28 |
| James Ingram | And I did quite a few other little old jobs after that. I was working at a feed and seed store down there. We were putting up a building down there. The owner and I had some difference of opinion, and I quit. Well what happened, I was trying to tell one of the workers. I said, "If we swing this up together, we can lift these heavy sacks up easier." It was cement. It was cement. That stuff was really heavy. And I think he had to tow them all. He came over there and tell me. I said, "Well, if we swing it, it'll make it easier. But just take it and try to strain like that?" I said, "That's very tiresome." He told me plain, said—well, he didn't have me to tell him what to do. "I'm paying you to do what I said do." | 10:17 |
| James Ingram | I said, "You right." I said, "You right, 100% right. And I'm gonna tell you something. I'm gonna say, "When I quit this afternoon, I'm going to quit so I can do some of the things I want to do, and some of the things I know I should do. And you won't have problem, worry about I trying to tell what to do. And I won't have problem trying to listen you tell me something that I know is wrong.' So you just have that ready. When I quit today, you have my money ready. And we'll be A-okay." And when I quit, when we left, I came up by. He had my check right there on the desk, right on the edge of it. I picked it up, it was right there, and gave him a pretty good look and walked on out. And there won't more trouble. | 11:20 |
| James Ingram | I respect the authority, even today. At those times, I still respect authority. Somebody put you in charge, I could listen to you just like I could a 50 or 70, a 80 or 90-year-old person. I could. But the point is— Now don't tell me to reach my hand in here to pull out these rattle snakes in there with my bare hand. I'm afraid I might not listen so well. We have principal out here, and they used to ask us all the time about how I get along with him. And I said, "Well, one thing I do, as long as it's school matter, I listen to him. He's the principal, because he doesn't have to be right, but he's still a principal. But now when he's wrong, it's no secret. He'll tell you. He the first one to know. Now if he wrong, he know that I'm not listening. He knows that. It's not debatable." As long as school matter like that, I'll listen. I say, "He doesn't have to be right, as long as he the principal." I said, "Well, we get along." And that's the way it were. | 12:15 |
| James Ingram | I even had people ask me how did I stay in Mississippi, because I'd go all over the country and everything. And they'd ask me, "Man, how you do in Mississippi?" I said, "Just like I would here, maybe in California, Illinois or anywhere, Washington or somewhere." I said, "I'm going to tell you a little secret. Wheresoever you are, if you don't have a backbone, people have a shoe to fit you where you sit down." And I said, "I stay in Mississippi, just as easy as I stayed in New York, because I expect the people to treat me right in Mississippi. That's the reason." And I said, "But it's no secret. If not, the same result would be if I was in Mississippi as it would be in New York or Nebraska or California anywhere." | 13:29 |
| Doris Dixon | When was the first time you left Yazoo County? | 14:32 |
| James Ingram | Oh, when I really left to leave? | 14:32 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. | 14:34 |
| James Ingram | When I went to the Army. | 14:35 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. That was in World War II. | 14:37 |
| James Ingram | World War II, uh-huh. Ah, well probably World War II. | 14:38 |
| Doris Dixon | Now you mentioned before we started the tape about German prisoners of war being treated better than you were. | 14:44 |
| James Ingram | Oh yeah. | 14:51 |
| Doris Dixon | Or did I mishear you? Could you tell me about that? | 14:52 |
| James Ingram | Yeah, well, we were in Camp Ellis in Illinois. And they were just really treated better. I've been on troop train, where the prisoners could go in and eat in the dining hall and the Blacks couldn't. Mm-hmm. | 14:53 |
| Doris Dixon | How many years were you in the service? | 15:28 |
| James Ingram | Oh, I wasn't in there quite a year. I got a early discharge. At that time, both of my brothers were—they researched and found that both of them were in combat. Now, my older brother had gone North Africa there. I think at that time they moved down in Italy there. And my next older brother I'm next to, he was in the hospital in London there. And they had just flown him out after getting him out of bed and flew him to Saint-Lô, France, where he hooked up with the 5th Armored Division. And he went on, and he was one of the few that met the Russian at Elbe River right out of Berlin. He sure came with the Russian here. I just gave him a map about two years ago, and he cried like a baby. | 15:29 |
| James Ingram | He used to me though. He said he called me king. He said, "King, I have been through something." He said, "I have been through with something." He said he had been in so much killing. He said, "Actually, I've been in places where people's just stop. They shot off just part of— The General would turn that 88 there. That's what you shoot tanks with." He said, "They hit a person with that 88 in there, something like that. You just see this part down here. It's like somebody take a knife and cut it off." He said, "I've been out there and look like I was standing up out there by myself. And this is people all around me, just dead, copses everywhere." And he said, "It's a strange thing, though." He said, "You can kill so much, and killing becomes easy for you." | 16:25 |
| James Ingram | And I was thinking yesterday, I think, in the bathroom. I said, "I wish peoples could think of this." And a lot of us don't seem to realize— When I said years ago, we had turned loose one of the greatest forces of killers the world has ever known. Well, see, war train you to kill. And World War II, if we look at the crime rate, how the crime rate has been steady increasing since World War II. But we trained people to kill. They're killers, professional killers. And we might as well face it. And you can't undo that. I mean you train just like a bulldog. It's like you have these pit bulls or something, and you train to be a killer, it's hard to untrain that dog out there to be just a little mild pit. And so he was trained to kill. When he go to bed that night, when he wake up in the morning, that's all he talks about is how to kill. That's right. And they didn't leave all those ideas in the camp and everything when they came back. They brought some of those ideas with them. And some of that spread off to their childrens and maybe their grandchildren. | 17:16 |
| Doris Dixon | So you were in service for about a year. Did you come back to Yazoo County at that point? | 18:38 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm. | 18:41 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. And how long were you here that time? | 18:42 |
| James Ingram | Well, I stayed here about maybe a year or two. I went to school. I went off to school. And I was actually in high school. I was junior in high school. | 18:48 |
| Doris Dixon | So you came back and finished? | 18:55 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm. | 18:57 |
| Doris Dixon | Where'd you go to college? | 18:58 |
| James Ingram | I went to Tougaloo. I graduated from Tougaloo. I took courses at at JSU, Jackson State University, MVSU, and Roosevelt University in Chicago. And I took special seminar with at Wayne State University in Detroit. | 19:00 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 19:21 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm. | 19:21 |
| Doris Dixon | What was Tougaloo like in those days? | 19:22 |
| James Ingram | It's hard to believe it was in Mississippi. That's the first integration I saw in Mississippi. The paper even said—if you go back and read some of the old papers, they'll tell you. They've had integration out there for a long time. That's where you could see a big blonde lady and a Black dude strolling across the campus there. | 19:32 |
| Doris Dixon | Were these faculty or this was the student body? | 19:54 |
| James Ingram | Let me put it like this. The faculty had some children. And the children would intermingle with the Black. And not only that, Millsaps, which is a white college then, they would come out, and we'd have dances together. Now this was back during the late '40s, early '50s. Now this happened. | 20:01 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm. And the students at Tougaloo would dance with the students at Millsaps? | 20:30 |
| James Ingram | Right. | 20:34 |
| Doris Dixon | And did this cause a flap? | 20:35 |
| James Ingram | No! Well, the people and Jim didn't like it. In fact, the last time I remember, when the Klan was supposed to have—. They were to have come up. We got word of it. And at that time, it was shortly after World War II end. And the veterans got there. I have a binocular thing there now. But we had binoculars on and all this kind of stuff. And we set up sentries and everything. Just see, all these experienced veterans and everything, we set up sentries around there. And the word got out. And I haven't heard of the Klan being on that campus from that day to this one. That was a long time ago. And I remember this. Well, you see dude brought back all kinds of guns and things. We had sentries all around that campus. They set up out there. They said, "They start up here, we going to blow them out of existing." | 20:36 |
| Doris Dixon | The Klan was going to march on Tougaloo? | 21:35 |
| James Ingram | No, they coming down. I don't know what they plan doing, but we got word that they were coming up there. So a soldier just kind set something like protective coverage. Till today, ain't hear no more. Yeah, was something to do was saying, "Well, I just risked my life out there on the battlefield for this country. Certainly, I don't think it's any more dangerous here than it was out there. So I've seen a lot of blood. Some of us has shed that blood. We'll shed some more." People might not believe it, but that's kind of what the ticking of the time bomb for integration, because— | 21:37 |
| Doris Dixon | What was the interaction between the students or people defending themselves against the Klan or both? | 22:52 |
| James Ingram | Well, people— | 22:52 |
| Doris Dixon | We're talking about Tougaloo. And you were talking about the seeds of the civil rights movement. | 22:52 |
| James Ingram | Right. It's really something. I don't know. I haven't mentioned in public before all these years. I don't know if it's good to mention it now. But that's where one of the seeds of the civil rights starts sprouting. | 22:54 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. | 23:20 |
| James Ingram | That's where that group of [Indistinct] JSU students, and they started giving our Honorable Bilbo. I don't know if people heard of him. That's where that seed was sown. That's right, right there on that campus. One thing, you had some older fellows there. They were active. | 23:22 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. | 23:54 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm, sure were. Yeah. They were the one that went on and filed a lawsuit. I was out of state at the time they filed it. I was upstate. I might've been Illinois or somewhere, Chicago. But they did file one, I know. | 23:56 |
| James Ingram | I saw a friend a few years ago at Zion Bank. I have a friend. He's vice president of the bank here. It's Deposit Guaranty. And we were upstairs having coffee. And he told me he was going out to meet a friend. And I said, "Okay, bring him on up." So I had my back turned to him, and he said, "I want you to meet a friend of mine, Alderman Ingram." He said, "You mean James Ingram from Tougaloo?" I was shocked. I turned around, said, "That's right." And then we started talking about the old times and everything. Yeah, he's one of them. He's the president of a big insurance company there in Detroit now. | 24:19 |
| Doris Dixon | Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. | 24:53 |
| James Ingram | Mm-hmm. But what they doing. | 24:54 |
| Doris Dixon | So when you look back at Tougaloo, those are fond memories? | 25:05 |
| James Ingram | Yeah, I always say, "I don't know if I could— " I'll always be indebted to them, because they taught that you are somebody. And they worked you hard. I know at that time, they thought I was the star of the team. But even the star, when they got ready to go up upstate here to play a game, the players got on that bus and waited an hour. You got your lesson first, foremost. And I guess that's one thing I really admired about it. | 25:09 |
| James Ingram | Now they can't cut you any the slack. I don't care you could be big cheese or little cheese; you got lesson. And amazing thing, student left there, they could go anywhere in the country. And if they could produce there—now this been proven, if they produced there, you could produce anywhere in the country. I had a friend. He's passed now, Dr. Harrison. He finished there. He went up to Northwestern at the time. And he finished somewhere between three and five in his class. And they had hundred of students from all over the world. But he prepared well enough to finish within the top three or five, somewhere in that neighborhood, of his class. | 25:47 |
| Doris Dixon | Did you go there on football scholarship? | 26:33 |
| James Ingram | Scholastic scholarship. I had a lot of offer. Actually, Tougaloo didn't offer me. I had a lot of scholarships from Alcorn State, Jackson State, Tuskegee, and a lot of places. I don't remember them all, but I'd rather have the scholastic scholarship. I said, "Well, I might get out there one day. And it might be raining or cold or something. And maybe the coach and I might fall out. He'd toss me off the team. Then where will I go? But I'm supposed to get an education." And I think that's more stable, so I actually went on a scholastic scholarship. | 26:35 |
| Doris Dixon | Let me ask you this now. You mentioned when you were in high school, I believe it was, and there were a couple times that you quit jobs, because—one's a newspaper because of the racist comments of the men. I guess I wonder, what gave you the cushion that you felt that you were able to quit a job? | 27:28 |
| James Ingram | I was born with it. I was born with it. Ever since I can remember, everything I can remember, I was like that. That's when I said whichever I was living, I just didn't ask for the people cutting me a lot of slack. I really wanted to do right. I want to treat people, and I would expect them to treat me right. I quit a couple jobs like that. That's what happened when I was working out here to the seed store. | 27:51 |
| Doris Dixon | You know what? I would've— | 28:21 |
| James Ingram | I—okay, go ahead. | 28:28 |
| Doris Dixon | Well, I meant more in the economic line. If you were able to quit a job, how did you make it, if you quit a job? | 28:29 |
| James Ingram | I just always had a belief that I'd find one, something like that. I just couldn't think of being on a job and being mistreated. I think maybe I was a little emotionally unstable, but I couldn't handle that. I couldn't handle mistreatment. My mother found that out early in the ballgame. Can't handle be mistreated, really. That's why I said, if I go to prison, I'd probably commit suicide or probably be killed or something. I always hope and prayed I never go to prison. Now, I can't. No really, to me be mistreated, it's hard for me to take. It's a make-up about me that it's hard. | 28:36 |
| James Ingram | I dread thinking about it. And that's why I don't try to do anything that would get me in jail. No, I think that's the least. I always say that's the least you can do is try to treat me right now. I try to treat you right, and you treat me right. To be in a place, and I can't do anything about it—and that's the reason I always shudder when I think about the prisoner of war survivors. Must be horrible. You can't ever live that down, because actually a lot of times you treated worse than a wild animal in the day. Now I know it can happen, but, oh, I—I shudder to think about that. | 29:22 |
| James Ingram | We all born with certain make-ups. Now I remember this. When I was small, I was like that. And most people wouldn't even be close and everything. They know that. They say, "He just as friendly as he can be. Always got a smile and everything like that." But they always would tell you. They'll tell you. My closest friend will tell you, "Don't cross the line though. He'd be nice and everything, but just don't push too hard." Really, and I was like that when I was growing up. Even my brothers were saying—we used to have rows like that, and they learned something that I couldn't handle being pushed too far. I guess we all have a certain amount of wild animal in us and everything. I guess most of mine would come out if you want to push back. [INTERRUPTION] | 30:23 |
| Doris Dixon | All right? | 31:19 |
| James Ingram | All right. | 31:19 |
| Doris Dixon | Why don't— | 31:19 |
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