Interview with Bernice Magruder White

Transcription

1 Interview with Bernice Magruder White August 10, 1995 Transcript of an Interview about Life in the Jim Crow South Washington County (Miss.) Interviewer: Paul Ortiz ID: btvct04134 Interview Number: 517 SUGGESTED CITATION Interview with Bernice Magruder White (btvct04134), interviewed by Paul Ortiz, Washington County (Miss.), August 10, 1995, Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South Digital Collection, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University Libraries. Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South An oral history project to record and preserve the living memory of African American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. ORIGINAL PROJECT Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University ( ) COLLECTION LOCATION & RESEARCH ASSISTANCE John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library The materials in this collection are made available for use in research, teaching and private study. Texts and recordings from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission. When use is made of these texts and recordings, it is the responsibility of the user to obtain additional permissions as necessary and to observe the stated access policy, the laws of copyright and the educational fair use guidelines.

2 1 Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South Interview with BERNICE WHITE Paul Ortiz, Interviewer Ortiz: Mrs. White, can you tell me when you were born and something about the community that you grew up in. White: Yes. I was born in Now, the community, I'm certain, was a rural area in Washington County. Now, during this time it was seven of us in the family. I was the second of seven. Of course, my father was a tenant farmer. He had his own tools, but he would go from place to place and rent land from the farmer. Usually the type of land that he rented was poor type or either undeveloped. That's my understanding. Therefore, if he didn't make good crops during that two or three years, he would move to another place. So we did a lot of moving during my growing up of fifteen years on the farm. Now, I did chop cotton in the fields and I also picked cotton in the field, but I also went to school. I completed eight grades in the rural area. Now, one thing I can say, our school time was much shorter, six months probably the most, but

3 2 during this time we didn't have a lot of subjects, but we did cover those real well. Most students, if they completed eighth grade, they were good in math, they were good in survival skills, reading, and spelling, and those were the things that we more likely put emphasis, the teacher put emphasis on during those eight years. You probably had one teacher that taught you possibly from first through third grade and another one from fourth through sixth, and you had another teacher for seventh and eighth grade. I think we might have been some of the lucky ones, but I understand there were many schools had only two teachers. We had from three to four in practically all of the schools that I attended during this moving around with my father and family. I tried to count the number of schools that I attended during my first through eighth grade. I attended six different schools. Well, actually five different ones, but six times changed, so I changed through six different times. Ortiz: So there was a lot of moving. White: Right, a lot of moving. Of course, a strange thing, and I have read this in After Freedom--that's a book. I forgot the author that quick, but you might be familiar with that. It's a book written about Sunflower County, and then when I reflect back, I saw the same thing in moving. My father never moved possibly over five or six miles from the original place, and he

4 3 kind of recycled himself around. During this time, we lived in two different counties of all this moving. He moved six times, and we just changed counties more likely. At that time, I remember in the beginning he had mules, but before we left the farm, he was able to get him a tractor. Of course, my father was some type of little mechanic, homemade mechanic, so he could work on his farm goods, farm appliances, whatever, and he kept them in fairly good shape. I remember that the second to the last time he moved, all this was taken from him by the farmer that he was renting from. He said that he owed the farmer money because he didn't make enough from his crops to pay his rent, so all this was taken from him, his tractor, his other tools. So he left that farm, and he almost had to start from ground level. Then he became a farmer without--i forget what you call that type of farmer. It's another name. Ortiz: Sharecropper. White: Sharecropper. He became a sharecropper for two years. And then, of course, my daddy did other things. He didn't like the fields too much. He was an only child, so he had grown up fairly, I'd say, sheltered, being an only child. So he didn't like the fields too much. He would do other things, too, to supplement what we had. He always kept him a truck, and then he would move people, he would move materials, and he used his

5 4 truck for other supplemental income. He also was a bootlegger. This is not a family secret, but he did it along with his brother-in-law, bootlegging, and this is how we could survive a lot. After two years being a sharecropper, he bought his tool and he moved to his last place, and this was back in the late fifties. I'm sorry, I don't mean the late fifties. The early fifties. He worked there, I think, three years, and he decided he'd give up farming and he moved to this town I'm living in now, Indianola. When we came to Indianola, he then opened up places like restaurants, cafes, more likely, they were called during that time, and they had jukeboxes, they sold beer, and just a gathering place for people, especially on Friday nights and Saturday nights and part of Sunday nights. So this is what he went into, and we worked in the cafe all the time, no certain time. Ortiz: Mrs. White, what was the name of his cafe? White: Just a minute, because it was three in the family. Bloomer, and it was on Church Street here in Indianola. Okay, I had an aunt who had also moved back in the forties, and she had become well established here in Indianola. She was also in the cafe business, and, of course, my mother--that was her sister--and their brother went in business together in

6 5 another cafe called White Rose. White Rose is still standing. Ortiz: I've seen that. White: White Rose is still standing. Ortiz: And so, Mrs. White, you worked at the cafe? White: I worked at the cafe. But I do think I was somewhat lucky. If I go back just a little bit, before we left the rural area, I was sent to, when I got fifteen, then I had finished-- well, fourteen, I'm sorry. I finished elementary school. There was no school that I could go beyond eighth grade, and so if you go to school, you had to live with someone or they had boarding schools. So I was sent to a boarding school in Coahoma County. The name of that school was Coahoma Agricultural High School, and I finished ninth and tenth grades there. Then I came to Indianola to go to school, because my people were well established. At one time they were coming in. They hadn't completely moved. Now, what was happening to my other sisters and brothers, my oldest sister was also going to the boarding school, but her grandfather was keeping her because she was--it was my understanding that my mother was real young when she was born, and she came down with a childhood disease. I think it was whooping cough. She almost died. And so my grandfather took

7 6 her and they raised her. So then she went to this boarding school, also, through three years of schooling. The one under me, Alice, was somewhat ill. From my understanding since I've been up, she might have had a kidney problem, so she was just in and out of school. So she never went to a boarding school, and by the time she reached eighth grade, we were here in Indianola, so she just went to school here in Indianola. Ortiz: Mrs. White, you were saying earlier your family had to move a lot when you were growing up. Did that have anything to do with race relations and the settlements your father was trying to-- White: Yes, because sometimes, as I said before, he didn't like to work in the field. Once you took the land, the owner of the land expected the entire family, it's my understanding, from six or seven years old on up to work in the fields one way or another. If you had a lot of children, they stayed at home and kept the smaller children, and those when they got seven and eight years old, they were supposed to come to the field. And so he and the landowner would have some words, and usually they would ask him to leave the place. Ortiz: So your father was really trying to stand up and to help his children.

8 7 White: Well, and my mother, too, because she was the one that pushed education. What my father was trying to do was just find food and things that we need in the home. They had this thing called settlement. Well, with my father rent his land, he too had to go for settlement because he had to go and see how much he still owed the man, if he was selling his own cotton. Most places, the man sold the cotton, and he would sell it for one price and tell my father he sold for another price, a lower price. Therefore, many times he had little left when he sold all the cotton. And then if my father was not satisfied, he would just leave. Well, the man would talk to him and tell him he couldn't do better he'd have to leave. I think about twice he might have asked him off the place. So that's why he would leave to another one. But during this time, I had seen some terrible things that happened to people. They would come to these plantations, and sometimes if they didn't have anything and maybe one family didn't have the money to pay the owner for what they had done for them, they would leave. So they couldn't carry much, because a lot of them didn't allow cars or trucks on the place. So they would leave. Then here was another young couple who got married, and they were getting married real early, if I understand. Well, they'd just move in that house with what was left from another family. Of course, if they had to get ready to leave, they couldn't carry that away, either. So then the

9 8 thing just continued to revolve itself around people not having anything. My grandfather was a very active man. He did work for-- well, he was what we call a cook, but it was more of a--i don't know how you would describe it. He did a lot of barbecuing for picnics for big plantations, and he also would go with hunting groups. These hunting groups would be hunting clubs. They all would be whites, and he would go to do their cooking for them. So that's how he made some money. Of course, they feared him a little bit because he was a good marksman. He did a lot of hunting himself. So it was no argument during hunting season or anything, and nobody really approached him, not another white approached him, but they would have somebody to-- I remember one time he built a park for us, and in this park was nothing but a merry-go-round, a handmade merry-goround, a seesaw, a swing with a tire in the tree. And he collected snakes, rattlesnakes. Of course, he caught them himself, and he had a cage for them, and people would come and look at the rattlesnakes. One of the overseers of the place was very angry with him about the snakes because his wife had become upset with the snakes. So somebody came one night and opened up all three cages of these snakes, tore them open and let them out. Then with that in mind, they figured--most people kind of feared him as far as arguments and other things. They went along with him. So he eventually left because he was tired of how he had been

10 9 treated. Ortiz: Mrs. White, where was the park at? White: Well now, this little park was in front of, well, it was a little area in front of his house that he built a little park. It was for us. I call it a little park because it was about three trees there and he built his own picnic tables, and then when he'd have all us come, this is where we'd go and play, out in front. It was kind of in front of the house and away, but it was not part of his yard. It was part of a portion of the front of his yard, which a road would separate the two. So it didn't have a name. Ortiz: This was in Washington County? White: This was in Washington County, right, yes. Ortiz: It sounds like a wonderful place where a lot of the children would come. White: Yes, we would all gather there on Sundays. He made ice cream. Well, we were the only group to come, because his son was the only child. So he took a lot of playing and care with us, not as far as white relations. You know, you didn't come, as a child, never came in contact with too many white young

11 10 people my age, because they were just in the big house, I guess, and we were in the little house. But I can remember, when we were in Sunflower County around the Sunflower River, we did get to fighting with a group. We were walking, and every day when the bus came along--it was a narrow road. We had to walk about three miles to this school, and the place was called Kennelock [phonetic]. The school has been removed now. And then the white students, I'm not sure where that school was, but they had to pass by us. Well, they would usually pass us because they were in the bus. It was raining. We always had to jump across the ditch to keep from splashing that water in our face. Sometimes if they wanted to have fun, they'd call out at us to see us jump over. So one day we happened to be along when they were putting out about three white students. It was my sister and another sister, and the one sister and I were close together. Well, we were close together in size but not in age. I was two years older, but she was the more aggressive one. I think we were about, I was eleven and thirteen then, I believe, and there was another younger sister. And so when they got out of the bus, some words were passed. I don't remember. And one threw--they had these big hard balls of mud. We called them clogs of dirt-- threw it at us, and we fought. They went running home. They didn't have far to go, but we had about two miles to go. We ran all the way. We didn't tell our parents. We were frightened for about the rest of the

12 11 remainder of the school, and I think they were frightened, too, because we never had that problem anymore. So we settled that. That's about the closest we have come, actually, to having problems with whites our age during my growing up. When we came to town, after we came to town-- Ortiz: That was in the late forties? White: That was the late forties, right. No, I'm sorry. This was the early forties when this was happening. We came to town in the mid to late forties. When I say mid and late forties, my grandfather came first, and then my father came. My father came to town about '46, I believe. My grandfather came in about '42. So that may be early and late forties. Ortiz: So you were still living with your mother out in-- White: When my grandfather came, right. When my grandfather came, we were still in the rural area, in the rural country. Then about '47--it may have been '48, I'm not sure--my mother and daddy moved to town. I finished school here in '48, high school here in '48. I went to school two years here. The other two high school years I went to Coahoma Agri High. They called that Agri High. One of my sisters finished in Greenville, and then all the others completed school here, and the school was called Indianola Colored High. Some teachers are still teaching

13 12 who were teaching at Indianola Colored High, but they're not the ones who taught me. But it's gone now. Then after I finished high school, I always wanted to--i was intrigued by outdoor things, and I didn't know what the study I want, but I knew it would be about outdoor things. We could row boats, we could swing in trees, we could climb, we could go through woods, and then I always dreamed at night when I saw the stars, so it was something around that. So when I did start to school, in high school I did learn a little science, and that's what I said I wanted to go into, science. But when I finished high school, the closest college--they were away. There was no school here in the Delta that blacks could attend. None. They were working on establishing Valley State. During this time, I went and stayed a year in Chicago, and I was one of those that I reckon headed North, migrated North. I worked in this place called R.R. Donnelly & Son. About 10,000 people worked there, three shifts together, and I said, "If this is what they do in the North, I don't want it. This is worse than the cotton fields." I could see people who were no older than I was looking like they were thirty-five and forty years old. I just couldn't believe what I was looking at. And so when summer was over--no, not when summer was over. This was in about February, March. I came home, back to Mississippi. Then I left and went to Los Angeles. I got to Los Angeles. It was not any better. The weather was better, but the living conditions that I saw, people was coming in, soldiers, thousands

14 13 a day. They were living in garages, and you just had to find anywhere you could. I stayed there about eight months, and I came back home. I knew that my people still had the restaurants and cafe, so I could work in that, and I felt a little better. Maybe the life was not really that fast. It was just I didn't like the lifestyle. Then when Valley opened, I was one of the first students that entered that school. As I came back from Los Angeles, they were opening that school. Maybe I got back in July or August, July I believe, and I started at that school when they opened it in September. I went there my four years, and I got my science. I studied some of the things that I wanted to study. Ortiz: So you got your B.S. White: At Valley State. At that time, it was not accredited, and the only area you could go in when you completed more than likely would have been teaching, because it was more educational courses. So that's what I became. It was not what I had wanted to become. I had wanted to do research in big labs, and I had never seen a big lab. I had never been around a person who had done research. But it was something that I knew when I found the answer to one thing, it bored me to continue with it, and so I had wanted to go into research. But I never did. Ortiz: Mrs. White, just a few more questions about your earlier

15 14 life. You talked at length about your father. Can you tell me a little bit about your mother? White: Well, let me tell you, she passed in '54 at the age of forty-seven. She was not real active in working because she was somewhat ill, and we didn't know what was wrong with her. A strange thing, you don't know. We thought our mother was lazy because she didn't like to cook. But my grandfather did like to cook, and so that's why we kind of hung around at his home. But my mother had an enlarged heart. I think she grew up with that, and that was a problem. But it was years, we were grown when we found that out. She assured that we went to school. She was the one that looked to find out what school we could afford to go to, and whereas my daddy, I don't know whether it would have mattered with him if we had continued on or not, but it did matter with her. She was, as I said, somewhat in the background a lot and just believed in going to school. Now, my father, during his age, was able to get into eighth grade, and that was uncommon at his time. My mother only got in the fifth grade, so my father seemed to have a better understanding of maybe paperwork than my mother did. But she was interested in school, and I think maybe that was the reason why, because she never got beyond the fifth grade. Let me say one or two things about some of the things. I was the only one out of the seven that's still in the South.

16 15 I'm the only one. The others, as soon as they completed high school, they left, but all of them went to California. That's where they went. The school that was here, they didn't particularly like it, but they didn't have the money to go to the other schools that were well established, and, of course, they did find they did real well. We had an uncle who was in California, and that was a stopping-off place until they move out from there. All six of them went Los Angeles. They all lived in Los Angeles. Now they've moved out, and they did real well, real well. They went to school and they were what they call self-made individuals. That's why I don't have too much to say about them, because as soon as high school, they were gone. Ortiz: Mrs. White, when you were growing up, you talked about your grandfather. Did you know relatives, older relatives on either side? White: Well, a unique thing. I know I have more relatives than I'm aware of. My grandfather, it's my understanding, it was a large number of them. I've got some information from one of his nephews, who is about ninety years old. His memory is good for way back, but not up. He says there's about twelve of them. I remember one that died from overexpose because he was an alcoholic. That was one of my grandfather's brothers. I can remember only two for a long time. Now, the two that I remember changed their names to Brown. They had a reason to do that.

17 16 Their offsprings are all scattered and I don't know them. They moved to St. Louis, changed their name to Brown because they had gotten into it with revenues in Canton, Mississippi. Ortiz: Got into it with who? White: The revenues. These are people that search for bootlegging. I don't know whether you know anything about that in North Carolina, but they tell me they know a lot of it in Tennessee. It was my understanding that when they left, they changed their name to Brown, and they didn't make too many visits back South because they were still afraid that if they would come, they wouldn't know what would happen to them. They knew this would happen. All right. So my grandfather was the only one here in the South that I know about. He had a sister or two, but most of them maybe may have died early. I remember two of his sisters, but maybe they might have died in their fifties. Ortiz: Mrs. White, this is your grandfather and his family. White: Right, on my daddy's side. Now, on my mother's side, she never knew her mother because her mother died when she was two years old. So she was raised by her grandmother, and this grandmother passed a lot of information on down to her sister, my mother's sister, who was the oldest of them. My grandmother

18 17 said that she was twelve years old during slavery, when slavery ended. My great-grandmother, I'm sorry, because I never knew my grandmother. And, of course, she told them a lot of things, too, that went on as far as she was a little girl. My mother had two brothers and one sister, and we kind of grew up with them. So I know those about my mother's side. I never knew her father. She knew little of her father, because it's my understanding, when her mother passed, her father just moved on, and so the grandmother raised them. But we do have a picture of him, and through looking at some other information that was passed on to us, he might have had three or four families, so he was a man that didn't stay long anywhere. And, of course, it seemed like he was part Mexican. From his features, he looked like he was part Mexican, and that's the only thing that I know about him, from his picture. My mother knew little about him. She saw him two or three times. But he still have a family in Jackson, out from Jackson, that we know about. Ortiz: Mrs. White, you said that your great-great-grandmother-- White: No, my great-grandmother. Ortiz: Your great-grandmother had experiences and told about experiences during slavery time. Did she ever tell you or did any of those stories pass on to you?

19 18 White: I never saw her, but my aunt, which this is her grandmother, because that's the one raised her, told her. Well, she did say a few things. She said she never worked in the fields, but she did tend to children at a house, like a big house. And when she was speaking of as the big house, it was not my understanding that this was in the keeper's house. It was more like a special place where maybe all the children would come that could not go to the field. This is my understanding. She said that they would all line up on the floor, and they would be given pans. That's how they would feed them. They'd put the food in. They'd all line up on the floor, and they were fed on the floor. Ortiz: Like troughs? White: Well, she didn't mention a trough. She didn't mention a trough. Now, it could have got lost down through the time. She just they were all lined up on the floor with tin tops, and that's what they ate out of. This is the only thing that stuck with me from my aunt talking. I often wonder about, you know, when I see some things, and I wonder how much true it is. I can't remember too much more she told me about what her grandmother had told her. But I can tell you some other things that she told me, but it was not told by the grandmother, and this happened in her time and possibly during my time, too, but

20 19 I might have been small, and it happened about Indianola and around Indianola. About five or six years before she moved to town, moved here, she said that black couldn't own--well, they could own new cars, but they had to be very careful. They couldn't drive them around on Sunday and be dressed up in them. They could own these cars, but they preferred them buying secondhand cars. They could drive freely in secondhand cars. She said also no women were allowed to drive cars. This was during the early, late--i don't know what part of the thirties and the forties, because she was still out in the rural area. It may have even been a little farther back than that. She also said that when driving on Sunday, the wife could not sit in the front with her husband. We're talking about Sunflower County. I don't know about Washington County. Then finally, if the wife could drive the car, she could not drive it in town, and she could not ride in the front seat with her husband in town. Ortiz: This only applied for black people? White: For black people, yes. And this may have occurred through about the early forties, maybe mid-forties. I would ask her what would happen. She said, "Well, if the wife was in the front seat, when she gets to town, she'd just get on the back seat."

21 20 I said, "Why?" She said, "Well, it's just something that you had been accustomed to. Nobody asked why." So somewhere along the line, the information had been passed down. I don't know was it any problem with it or would anybody have been hurt or anything, I'm not for sure. Ortiz: Mrs. White, during the time you were growing up, and maybe other stories that you heard about, was there white violence against black people in this area during those years? White: I've heard of much of it. Never seen any, but I've heard of violence. Now, I remember when we first came to town, here in Indianola there was about two electrocutions, and they were supposed to have been rape cases, black raping white. I also remember--i didn't see any of it, but I just heard people talking--i can't remember what year. They get all confused sometime--that there was a black man who had killed a white man, and they hemmed him up in some type of wooded area and killed him. And, of course, they drug him and then brought him to this small community and displayed him in the back of a car like a dead deer or something. Now, I remember when that was going on, but we were--this is hearsay, but we knew that that had happened one way or the other. Whether that happened like that, I don't know. But most people who had heard about it through listening at their boss people talking, because I don't think no black

22 21 viewed that. If you understand what I'm saying, none of the blacks went to look at that, but they could hear them talking. This was almost like a picnic, as I can understand. Ortiz: Mrs. White, now, the electrocutions, they took place-- White: In the jailhouse. And, of course, during that time everything closed at twelve o'clock, and everybody left the street at twelve o'clock. Now, I know that to be true. Ortiz: Twelve o'clock in the afternoon? Rolling: A.M., twelve at night, because all electrocution was done at 12:01, I believe. Why I don't know. Ortiz: So when you were growing up, Mrs. White, you were aware of the dangers of being black. White: Oh, yes. That's taught. Even my daughters in there probably have seen some of it, because as they grew up, they know there were certain swimming pools they couldn't go to. Yes, I knew about the bus riding, that you rode in the back of the bus. I know about the fountains, and I'm so sorry I didn't get in it. I'm looking on that. It was so common, I guess, that was something, the Jim Crow thing, we didn't see anymore. I forgot to collect them as they began to disappear. Yes, I

23 22 know about that. I've known about that since I was grown, since I've been grown. I might know about it a little bit now every once in a while. Ortiz: Mrs. White, when you were growing up and your parents were talking, was there a difference between what you would tell your children about the system as opposed to what your parents told you about the unfair treatment that black people faced? White: They didn't have to tell us. We just could see it, and it was just part of, I guess, just part of the nature of things, that you knew that you were not socially accepted and supposed to be with the white. It was just there. I think a two-yearold would probably know that. But I told mine about it. They know all about it. My parents didn't talk to us about that. We just grew up in it. But I told my children all about the things and what we had to go through and some of the things that happened. Yes, so it is a difference. Ortiz: Mrs. White, another question that I missed earlier, when you were growing up, were there midwives in the black community? White: Yes, all of us were delivered by midwives, the seven of us. They have midwives now, but they're more trained. Yes, they do, but you possibly have to have a degree beyond a R.N. to

24 23 be a midwife. But up until through the sixties, they still had midwives, and all babies were delivered by midwives. Through fifties--wait, wait, change. No. Through forties, I believe, and maybe fifties people started using doctors to some degree. Ortiz: Mrs. White, were there activities that brought the black community together when you were growing up, like say maybe quilting? White: Well, when I was very small I remember the quilting. I'm looking at seven, eight, nine years old, nothing hardly beyond that. Now, it could have been. My mother was none of that, because we also wondered why didn't she take part in some of the things, but later on we found out that it was her heart, you know. But my aunt, this is her oldest sister, she would have quilting parties, and they would sing, having singing around the quilting party. And then I had another--this was my great-aunt. This was my grandpapa's sister. They would go to houses and sing, not quilting parties, but they would go to houses, and I guess they would call this maybe singing groups, and, of course, they would sing. They didn't sing like--i guess they sung like they're doing now, but they didn't have music, and they usually used their hands or their feet to keep time. And they would have leaders, and when they'd go to church, those people would do most of the singing. But it would not be

25 24 in a group, a choir group like they do now. They just possibly were scattered all over the church. But certain people would lead certain songs in the church. And that was, oh, up until I was about nine, ten years old, and then they started forming choirs. Ortiz: Was it mainly women who were doing the singing? White: Men. Ortiz: Men, too? White: Men, also, right. Ortiz: So would people would get together in houses and sing. White: Right, in houses. They didn't hardly go to the church at night too much. They would just go to each other's house that was participating in that. They never came to our house. My daddy was not a highly religious man. Now, there were other activities. Baptizing was one of the great things. Ortiz: Did you attend? White: Oh, yes. I've been looking for some baptizing now to go

26 25 to, because I make a lot of pictures, and every time I hear one, it's over with, so I never get to make the picture. Yes, they had baptizing. Now, they baptizing they have now are in churches, but at that time they would be in bayous, lakes, shallow water things. But I understand that they still do that part time in some places, not in swimming pools, but still find nice lakes they still use, and they do it, I think, just for old's sake. Now, they had also what they would call revival. That revival would go on two weeks, and people would gather every night. They would pray and sing, and ask people who didn't belong to the church, who were sinners, to come forward and accept Christ. They do that now, but not like they did when I was growing up. It could have been, but it didn't seem like it. Ortiz: What was the main difference when you were growing up, Mrs. White, between then and now? White: Oh, okay. They require you to--you always would have to have seen changes. When I say "see changes," something that's unnatural. Then you know that Christ or God had heard you. He was going to make a difference in your life, but you're going to see a difference. And you would have to go to-- [Begin Tape 1, Side 2]

27 26 White: And, of course, then they would preach hell and high water and all that, and it frightened you, and possibly you never saw some of that, but you'd say, "Should I go?" You'd talk to yourself, you know, "Should I do this?" And they say, "Yes, go to that," and you join church. Now you just walk in and join church if you want to and ask for people to help you to accept Christ. It's a big difference. Ortiz: So there's a sense it was much more kind of maybe serious or more spiritual? White: More spiritual in my time, right. Now it's just take you in the church and they'll help you to become spiritual once you get in there. Ortiz: Mrs. White, were there other kinds of spiritual beliefs when you were growing up? Did people talk about spirits? White: Yes. They talked about them. I didn't believe in them, but I was still scared. Oh, they would talk about they see things at night, that people come back and talk to them. Every once in a while I hear that now. I don't believe it. I never believed it, but I didn't take a chance on it not being true. There were storytellers that would do that. Certain people could tell the stories better than others. Usually they were older men would do that, and, of course, they could make it so

28 27 frightful, you didn't know whether it was true or not. But as a small child, it frightened you, but as you grew up, you kind of doubted it a little more and more. And I say this because of the older men, because they did most the walking at night, and all these supposed to have occurred at night, all the things that they saw. Even around their horses there were supposed to have been seeing things and supposed to have been lights and other things that they would see. So then I found out later, of course, that they possible did see light. There's a certain type of fungi that would glow, and in the area where we were living, there was a lot of decaying going on and a lot of wooded areas, and it was possible that you could see. They would call it foxfire. That's what they would call it. But it was a same type of fungi that would illuminate at night, and I've seen some since I've been in town. It'll glow, especially in moonlight. So I think this is what a lot of the stories around, and especially when we're in the rural area. At that time, it was a lot of wooded area. I can remember when the rural area of this county was just filled up with what they call breaks. These are little clusters of woods, probably ten or twelve acres, and then there was another open space for several miles, and another cluster of woods. Ortiz: Oh, like a cane break. White: Right. All this is gone now.

29 28 Ortiz: Mrs. White, you mentioned the storytellers. Did they tell other kinds of stories, like the history of the community? White: No. They were more or less people, at that time they were more or less people just told about what they would see coming from church or what they would see in graveyards. That was the only thing they dealt with, the unknown. I can't say whether was it ever true or not. I often wonder what happened to all of this, but I never found out. No, there were not storytellers at that time, but when I came to town I imagine there were still some, but my lifestyle changed a little bit with me working in the restaurant. We worked a lot, and the little time we had, we went to school, still went to school or did something. And so we were around a different group of people. Ortiz: How did that change your life, your lifestyle, moving to town? White: Okay, when I first came to town, I was real glad. I would never go back to the rural area, I thought. It was better. We could see people each day. But when we were in the rural, you hardly see anybody but your family. It might be somebody, a family down the road, but nobody had time to visit too much until on Sundays or Saturday nights. So it was kind of

30 29 somewhat isolated a lot. When you're in town, even though you might have been isolated as far as socializing, but at least you could see things. So I thought it was great when we moved to town. Now, I don't know whether I would want to go back to the rural area or not. I don't think I would. But I would like a little more isolation than I have now. Ortiz: Mrs. White, it must have been quite a change going from the cotton fields to the cafe. White: Yes, it was. It was a great change. I liked it. We learned to make the change easily. But the type of people we were serving were like the same type of people. The people were the same. We didn't have too much work to do during the weekdays, but on Friday night, Saturdays, Sundays, all of the people that were in the rural would come to town. Let me change that. Many of the people in the rural would come to town, and they would drink their beer, eat the fish, have a little fights that they had started in the rural. They didn't fight there, but they would come to town and when they'd together, they would box, sometime every once in a while a stabbing. They go back, they were friends again, until the next weekend. Now, that was strange to me. I never found out why, even though I tried to find out why that happened. You know, you can come up with some idea, but I

31 30 really didn't find out the true meaning of why they would do that. But they would be the same people. You would know many of them that you had left, and then you would learn more from other plantations that were very similar. They were good people, good people, but I think their frustrations just bent out when they get to the point where they feel like they were free, and that would be in a black cafe. Now, there were white cafes, but you food had to be handed out a window or come in a back door, a kitchen. Ortiz: So Mrs. White, the clientele that your cafe catered to was all black? White: Yes. Every once in a while we would have maybe a white person would come in and order, and sometimes they were sent in. It catered those for what the blacks wanted. They could come in if they wanted to, males. No females ever came in. Ortiz: Did you have music? White: Oh, yes. You know, they had--what are these called? They call them jukeboxes early. Then the nickelodeons, what are these called. They were the type that you put your money in and play. That's been ever since I can remember.

32 31 Ortiz: What kind of music was popular in the cafe? White: Now, if we go back to the cafe, let me see. Blues. I guess that's what you would call it. That was in the early part. Then, of course, popular music, they played that also, and gospel. Seldom did they play any country music, unless it sounded like it was sung by a black. It had to be that kind. But if I could go back a little bit, back to the country, they had, I forgot to tell about in the country. They had places where people would have the same thing, but it would be only on Saturday nights through Sunday, and these were at people's houses. Ortiz: Oh, okay. White: This was at people's houses. My daddy had a room built on to his house and he had a piano, and he would hire a piano player. Every Saturday night, they would come and they would dance and play the piano. This little room was off kind of like, and we couldn't go in there, not even during the weekdays. It was always locked till on weekends. And, of course, maybe two or three miles over somebody else would have one very similar, and they did the same thing. So that's how they were entertained in the rural area before people could get to town. It was a hardship getting to town.

33 32 Ortiz: Was there a name or were they just called stores or cafes? White: No, this was called Vince Place. That was my daddy's name, Vince Place. If you had one, it would have been your place. It would have been in the rural. Ortiz: So it was like a social place to gather. White: Right, it was a social place to gather, and they drank their home brew and homemade whiskey. I don't know whether they made sandwiches or not. Not at my daddy's place, but some of them did cook food, but not at my daddy's place. Ortiz: Mrs. White, earlier you were talking about your father. This is something that people told me a lot, that during those days, bootlegging was something that was almost a necessity to make any kind of money. White: It was. Ortiz: Was that true in this area? White: Yes, even possibly on up through the sixties. My daddy passed in '71, and he had the Blue Moon I told you about. He bootlegged, but it was legal whiskey. He didn't have a license

34 33 to sell it. And this state was dry, but they sold as much as any other state that had legalized it, so, see, they called it bootlegging. And also, the moonshine type, he also sold that. That was bootlegging. He sold that, and it was common. It might be still common now. I'm certain it is. It's still common now. But not with him. You know, he's passed. Yes, that was a necessity to earn money. That's probably how most of the people survived anyway, and those that could get ahead. Some of those that were not able to do that, they possibly lived their lifetime on the plantation, which was shorter years. Ortiz: So that was a way to kind of move up the ladder. White: You're right. It was one way. Now, some people could manage a little better than others, I can imagine, if they didn't have a large family, and they could move up a little bit. But then they didn't have any offspring to show anything for it, you see. Ortiz: Mrs. White, I don't want to take up too much more of your time. White: It's okay. Ortiz: I was wondering, after your journeys North and out West,

35 34 you decided to come back and to live in Mississippi. And then you went to Valley and got your bachelor's degree. When did you meet your husband? White: I met my husband--okay, my father had a service station, very similar to what my husband is doing, and I was working for my father, and I met my husband at the service station. He came there to do some work on his car, and that's how we met. Ortiz: Oh, I see. What was the name of your father's service station? White: It was just called Vince Magruder's Service Station. Ortiz: That was in Indianola? White: Yeah, it was here. He didn't have a special name for it. Ortiz: Then you were married sometime during the fifties? White: '57. Ortiz: How did married life change your lifestyle, Mrs. White? White: I'm not for sure it really changed it at all. With two

36 35 children--well, we had three children, one passed--i didn't have as much time to maybe work outside the home as I had been doing. See, I was teaching and then I could help my father, but after we got married, I could only teach and raise the children. It didn't change it too much. Ortiz: So you were teaching locally? White: Right. Well, I would call it locally because I could drive to work. I worked outside the county. Ortiz: Where were you teaching at? White: In Leflore County. I worked there for nine years. Ortiz: That was in the public schools? White: In the public schools. I left there in '66, and I went to Greenville and worked there until '90, and then back again in '92 and '93, and back again. Ortiz: So your teaching career was really between White: 1954 and '90. But since then, I've been going back doing part-time work. But what I'm really doing now, most of my emphasis is placed on science fairs, where I give workshops and

37 36 also direct a regional science fair for the Delta area. Ortiz: So during the earlier part of your career, you were a science teacher? White: Yeah, a science teacher. I concentrated in biology and chemistry. Ortiz: On the high school-- White: High school all the way. Ortiz: What were the challenges, Mrs. White, facing you as a young teacher when you began your career in the classroom? White: Well, when I first began teaching, I just knew I was going to teach everybody science like I had wanted to learn, and I found out that was one of the biggest challenges, that the students did not even early, did not take on to science as I thought they would, because I had learned science and it was something I had wanted to, and I thought that was great for everybody. But I found out that I was wrong, because a lot of students said they hated it and other things. That was one of them. The other one was that you couldn't do like you wanted to. You couldn't teach like you wanted to. You had a few

38 37 guidelines, and if you got too involved in your teaching, you'd run into problems with people, maybe with families, with parents saying they don't want their child to do this, with the administrator who said, "No, you don't need to do that. Just stay within your classroom," things like that. A lot of things you'd want to do, they would have been all right, nothing wrong with them, but they thought maybe you might run into problems somewhere along the line. Some of them didn't want to be known for doing certain things. For instance, when we were teaching about, oh, certain subjects, and maybe they don't want their child going to go into it like the book had suggested. Ortiz: Oh, like science subjects, biology. White: Yes, science subjects, biology, right. That was some of the things. Another thing, I found out that when you get so involved in teaching and you want to move up, you don't move up like you think you should, and I found out there were some others who cared less, and they would be the one that seemed to move up. I never understood it, so I didn't bother about it too much. Ortiz: It sounds like you were more dedicated to the teaching part. White: Right.

39 38 Ortiz: Getting the science learned through your students. White: Right. Well, that was the basis of what it was like. I really didn't have too many other problems. I get along with teachers, administrators. We did disagree, but I followed the rules and regulations, and when I found out I was following the rules and regulations I could disagree, and I kept [unclear]. It happens there. Ortiz: Mrs. White, did integration impact your teaching in the classroom? White: No, it didn't. I was in Greenville in the seventies when they did a lot of rearrangement of the schools, and my classes then were about--well, say, some of the top-level class there may have been seventy white and thirty black, 30 percent black and 70 percent white. These are some of the upper-level class of the top students in biology. For the first fourteen years, I only taught biology, straight day in and day out, so they had them kind of grouped in levels like. But as some of the academies began to come, then the classes fell off with the number of white. I'd have no problem at all, no problem whatever. Now, the impact it did, I had greater chances of doing some of the things that I wanted to do. For instance, if there were

40 39 certain activities that were going off in other schools or at the state levels, we more likely could participate in them, because at one time, in the all-black school we didn't know anything about them. Now they were still going on, and so they opened them up, had to open them up now because all the schools were one. So I had a chance to participate in activities with students. Ortiz: Like science fairs. White: Science fairs, right, and competitions, science competitions, like decathlons and things like that, and I could attend them, too. I also began to mingle with other teachers, which once we could go to meetings and they were all black. Now we'd go to meetings. Now they were mixed. I liked it better because everybody was moving and going to workshops, and that's what I like to go to. I didn't like the other part, where one or two people did all the talking, and this was like mostly when it was black you'd have one or two and the others just sit around. But when it became integrated, more likely you could take part in things, so it was more hands-on learning. So to me, I liked it better, much better. I was more comfortable. Ortiz: Mrs. White, during the sixties in this area, there were a lot of struggles for social changes. Did you participate?