U.20. The Long Civil Rights Movement: African American Credit Unions

Transcription

1 This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program collection at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Other interviews from this collection are available online through and in the Southern Historical Collection at Wilson Library. U.20. The Long Civil Rights Movement: African American Credit Unions Interview U-1098 Joseph Battle 4 December Abstract p. 2 Field Notes p. 3 Transcript p. 4

2 2 ABSTACT REV. JOSEPH L. BATTLE Interviewee: Interviewers Rev. Joseph L. Battle Rob Shapard & Joey Fink Interview date: Dec. 4, 2013 Location: Fellowship Hall, Quankey Missionary Baptist Church 3265 Highway 48, Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Length: Three hours This interview was one of several pilot interviews conducted by SOHP for a possible project on the history of minority credit unions in North Carolina. Rev. Battle is pastor of the 136-yearold Quankey Missionary Baptist congregation. He was born at home in 1951 near Roanoke Rapids, N.C. and grew up about four miles south on a farm where his grandfather sharecropped. His other grandfather broke out of the sharecropping system by working nights and eventually buying his own farm. Rev. Battle recalled starting his schooling at a Rosenwald school in the community, and he mentioned Mr. Turner Battle, a vocational teacher in high school, as an important positive influence during his school years. After graduating in Halifax County, Rev. Battle went to work for New York Telephone and Telegraph in 1969 in computer operations. He moved to Richmond, Va., in 1972 to work for Reynolds Metals, and then came home to Roanoke Rapids in 1974 to work for the J.P. Stevens textile manufacturer. He was the first African- American manager in computer operations for that company s plants in Roanoke Rapids, and he went on to work there for the next twenty-five years. Rev. Battle became a manager at the company whom people trusted to share their problems and grievances with, as they felt he listened well and understood their perspectives. At J.P. Stevens, a credit union was established for employees in 1984, and Rev. Battle became a member. He went on to serve on the credit union s board and became chairman, with a strong commitment to helping credit union members received the loans they needed, rather than looking for reasons to turn them down. After Stevens closed its plants, the credit union continued as Industrial Credit Union, and eventually merged into Generations Community Credit Union. Rev. Battle was shaped in his views about credit unions by negative experiences with traditional banks, such as the time he sought a loan in the 1970s for $700 and was turned down by a bank where he had been a customer for many years. His father was a role model in that he always sought to do the right things, and as a Baptist and a pastor, Rev. Battle feels the Lord has guided him throughout his life.

3 3 FIELD NOTES REV. JOSEPH L. BATTLE Interviewee: Interviewers Rev. Joseph L. Battle Rob Shapard & Joey Fink Interview date: Dec. 4, 2013 Location: Fellowship Hall, Quankey Missionary Baptist Church 3265 Highway 48, Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Length: Three hours THE INTERVIEWEE. The Rev. Joseph L. Battle is pastor of the Quankey Missionary Baptist Church, a native of Halifax County, and a leader of the Industrial Credit Union established in that community in the early 1980s. THE INTERVIEWER. Robert P. Shapard is a doctoral student in U.S. history at UNC Chapel Hill and field scholar for the Southern Oral History Program. He recorded a pilot interview with Rev. Battle for a possible SOHP project on the history of minority credit unions in North Carolina. DESCRIPTION OF THE INTERVIEW. The interview took place in the Fellowship Hall of Rev. Battle s church near Roanoke Rapids, N.C. Joey Fink, also a doctoral student in history at UNC Chapel Hill and a field scholar for the Southern Oral History Program, also participated in interviewing Rev. Battle. The setting was quiet and comfortable, and the recording process went smoothly. Rev. Battle talked about the history of Quankey Missionary Baptist Church, and his early years growing up in the area around Roanoke Rapids. Born in 1951, Rev. Battle described influential people in his life such as his father, grandfather, and a vocational teacher in high school, Mr. Turner Battle, who prepared his students well for their working careers. Rev. Battle also recalled how he came to work at the J.P. Stevens textile operation in Roanoke Rapids in the 1970s, and his role in supporting a credit union at J.P. Stevens that continues today in Roanoke Rapids as part of Generations Community Credit Union.

4 4 TRANSCRIPT: JOSEPH BATTLE Interviewee: Rev. Joseph Battle Interviewers: Robert Shapard and Joey Fink Interview Date: December 4, 2013 Location: Roanoke Rapids, NC Length: Approx. three hours START OF INTERVIEW Robert Shapard: Okay, we are officially recording, and today is December 4, My name is Rob Shapard from UNC-Chapel Hill. I am blessed to be here today with Rev. Joseph Battle, near Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and also fortunate to be here with my colleague, Joey Fink, also from UNC-Chapel Hill. We re both also with the Southern Oral History Program at UNC. Our exact location is. I think maybe I ll ask you to say the name, because I want to make sure I say it correctly going forward. Rev. Battle, tell us where we are. Joseph Battle: Okay. We re at 3265 Highway 48, Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina, and the church name is Quankey, Q-u-a-n-k-e-y. It s a Missionary Baptist Church and we ve been here for a hundred and thirty-six years the church has, not me. [Laughter] In that time, in the last, I guess you would say probably close to eighty years, they ve only had two pastors and I m the second one. Joey Fink: Wow.

5 5 JB: The first one was here for over sixty years, so I followed him. I think that speaks well for the church and its relationship with its pastors. RS: Who was that? Who was your predecessor? JB: Rev. Robert H. Kidd, K-i-d-d. RS: Okay. I made a note of the hundred and thirty-six years of history, I think from your Facebook page maybe, and that s quite remarkable. JB: It is. you know it? RS: Can you tell us a little bit about the founding of the church, some of the history as JB: Be glad to. This church was established out of the Carter s Missionary Baptist Church, which is located on Everetts School Road, Roanoke Rapids. A Bible study had begun over in this area and it had grown to the point where they decided to plant a church, and so they planted this church so we are a product of the Carter s Chapel Missionary Baptist Church. RS: And the name Quankey; is that a place name or a family name? JB: No, that name came from the creek that we are near, which was. I don t know where the name actually comes from except there were Indians on that creek and there s very little that I was able to find historically on those Indians, except that they lived on the creek and they had come up from the Roanoke River, and the creek was named Quankey Creek after them. That s about all I could find on it.

6 6 RS: Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. We noticed that there s a different spelling. I may be pointing in the wrong direction. There s another Baptist church. JB: South of here. RS: South of here that had a slightly different spelling on the same name, Quankey. JB: Right. RS: I think we ve kind of discovered in talking with you that that church has a predominantly white congregation and your church here has a predominantly African-American congregation. JB: Correct. RS: Let s backtrack a little more. Tell us about where you grew up. When were you born and where exactly did you grow up? JB: I was born in August of 1951 and I was born at home, right up on Highway 903. That s also the Roanoke Rapids area. But I actually grew up a little further south of 903, probably maybe about four miles south of there, on a farm. My grandfather sharecropped and my father lived there on the farm with him. We later moved to Littleton, or the Littleton Township, I should say, and I grew up there, going to school at Everetts School. As a matter of fact I started at one of the Rosenwald schools. I used to walk. It was called Edgewood, and I went there the first two years, I believe, of my schooling, and then we transferred, after they built Everetts, to Everetts School, and I went there until I was eighth grade and transferred in ninth grade to McIver in Littleton. That s where I grew up.

7 7 My other grandfather had a farm that he had purchased off of [Highway] 158. Oak Grove Baptist Church, right across from there there s a street and his farm is down that street. Don t know if this is pertinent or not, but my grandfather was able to do that when they built the dams here. He was sharecropping in Halifax [County], and of course we know the sharecropping stories and it wasn t any different. So he decided, since he could never, ever make anything sharecropping, when they started building the dams he worked at night on the dams and worked in the daytime on the farm and saved enough money to buy this farm, hundred-and-fifty-acre farm. So that s how he broke the cycle of sharecropping. RS: Who built the dams? Are they a federal project? JB: I think both the dams were federally done, I believe. I really don t know, to be honest, for a fact, but I believe that was done through the. What did they call those engineers? But anyway, they built those two dams on the Roanoke River. RS: Corps of Engineers? JB: The Corps of Engineers, yes, sir. RS: Okay. What are the names of the dams, or the lakes? I ll go back and look them up. JB: Okay, Gaston, and the other is Roanoke Rapids. RS: Okay. JB: Now, Dominion now called Dominion Power. Back then it was called VEPCO, the Virginia Electric and Power Company, out of Virginia. They actually generate electricity from those dams, and much of that electricity though is not used in North Carolina. It s used in

8 8 Virginia. [Apparently, these two dams actually were constructed by the Virginia Electric Power Company, which completed Roanoke Rapids Dam in 1955, and Gaston Dam in 1963] RS: Mm hmm, I ve heard that story before as well. JB: Yeah, there s been some discussion before on that, but we still pay for the fuel and they get it free. [Laughs] RS: So when you were in school in the [19]50s and [19]60s, at least secondary school, was it strictly segregated that whole time? What happened with that? JB: Oh, yeah. It was segregated up until the year before I was to graduate. They had the volunteer integration and I was asked and I declined because the first group that volunteered I mean these were top students in classes they went and they failed. I mean these are good students and they just failed them, and I m saying, Nope. I m not going that way. So I stayed at McIver and 1969 was the year I graduated. In [19]71 it was mandatory that you integrate. So, I kind of decided that I wasn t going to go through that. I ll add this. One of the things that I liked in high school, when I was in school, and not only during my time but even after my time for awhile, they had what they called the agricultural program or Ag, as they called it, and those Ag teachers, the ones that I had, mine was named Turner Battle, and if you took his classes when you graduated school you could go to work. He taught us auto mechanics, small engines, electrical, building, drafting and design; all that was done right there in high school, and I was part of it. He even had us to do income taxes, and I felt very fortunate to be a part of that during that time and I really believe that helped me as I left school and went into the working world. Of course, when I graduated my first stop for

9 9 employment was J. P. Stevens [textile manufacturer], believe it or not, [but] they did not hire me. Isn t that something? RS: What was your experience with that? And I want you [Joey] to just jump in JF: I will. RS: whenever, okay? JF: I will. RS: Just barrel in. JF: [Laughs] RS: If I start to keep asking questions I m speaking to Joey now just jump right in. JF: Thanks, Rob. No worries. RS: Okay. What was that experience? Was that [19]69 or [19]70? JB: That was [19]69, and I went and put in my application and I stated on my application that I wanted to be in a clerical job. Of course they told me they had none. So during that time there was a gentleman named Jesse Shaw that has a place right up on [Highway] 158, just above Deep Creek, and if you wanted a job at Stevens usually you went by and talked with him and somehow or another he would give a reference and you d get a job. But in my case I didn t want to work in manufacturing, so they said the only jobs they had was in manufacturing. I said, No thanks.

10 10 Well, I went to New York, and I worked with New York Telephone and Telegraph, began working there in June of After a few months my manager told me that she felt that I was in a dead-end job, and there was an opening in computer operations, which was what I always wanted to do anyway. They asked if I was interested in applying and I said absolutely, so hence began my career in computer operations. After a few months they promoted me, after a year, to second-level manager. I had managers and supervisors working under me, which was unheard of for an African-American during that time, but myself, and I can t even remember the other gentleman s name now, it s been so long ago, but we were the first two African-Americans to be in management positions at that level in the telephone company, in computer operations. I worked there until December of 1972, at which time I left New York and went to Richmond, Virginia. I worked with Reynolds Metals, also in computer operations, not in management but in computer operations. I worked there for a year, after which I began working at J. P. Stevens in January of So, I was the first African-American to be in computer operations. They had a black female in data entry but in operations I was the first African- American to be hired in operations in Roanoke Rapids, and after working with them for several years I then was offered. I was offered a promotion in [19]74 and I declined because that was when they had their blowup with organized labor. They bought a plant in Wagram, North Carolina, at which time they asked me if I would want to transfer to be manager of that operation, and I said no. They wanted to know why, and I said, I just got here and I m not interested in relocating. So they didn t fire me, they let me continue to work, and each time they offered me management I declined because of what I saw. Finally my manager, we used to call him Butch

11 11 Rhome, he said to me one day, Joe, why won t you accept a management position? I said, I don t like what I see. He said, Well, you know, the best way to change a thing is to be a part of it. I thought about that and I said, You know? He s right. So the next time they offered me management it was in computer operations and I accepted. When they offered it though they did not offer me management with all of the responsibilities because they were unsure of whether I would accept and also unsure of how well those who worked under me would accept it, because the department I would run was predominantly white and they were concerned about that. Also it was predominantly female. They were extremely concerned about that. But anyway, I was married, so I didn t see where there would be a problem. I ended up working as a manager there and my whole tenure with Stevens was like twenty-five and a half years. RS: Wow. JB: So I worked in many capacities while I was there. I was the first African-American manager in computer operations for Stevens and the manager asked me about doing some additional work in regards to the company. One of the things that they asked me to do was to manage the conversions of their sites from key-to-cards to key-to-disk. JF: Oh, wow. You mean like those old cards where you d like put the knitting needle through? JB: Oh, yes. JF: [Laughs] JB: Yep, that was those cards. We called them punch cards. We took that on and we worked that area until Stevens then was bought out. Before they were bought out one of the things I guess that really solidified my tenure working with them was they were doing key-to-

12 12 cards and I said, Why don t you do this, you know, put everything online? and I was told that it would cost over a million dollars to do that and that was out of the question. I said, That s nonsense. My boss looks at me and he says, What do you mean? I said, It ain t going to cost no million dollars to do that. He said, How do you know? I said, I do the work, and I ve worked in companies in New York where we did everything online, and I said, This can be put online. He said, You sure you can do that? I said, Yep. Give me a programmer and let me tell him what to do, and he must do what I want. If you ll do that, I ll put it online. So we did, and once the conversion was complete, the parallels run, same numbers, and when I left there they were still running it. So my boss could not wait to make the phone call that day that we were in the parallel [system], but that s why they decided that, hey, maybe he s a value to us. So my up-lines, who all worked in Charlotte and so forth, that s who gave me the option of working other locations. I used to travel the state, and also in lower Virginia, Brookneal, Drake s Branch, and so forth. I used to go to these places to install equipment, to check to see what was wrong with equipment. They gave me that option, while running my department here. But when asked why, one of my upper line managers said, Well, the reason we assign Joe this job, every time we have a meeting out of town we notice Joe is the only one that s not on the phone while we re trying to have meetings. All of y all are on the phone. That s why he was appointed. But my philosophy was different than most of them. One of the guys that taught me at Stevens told me, Don t ever tell everybody everything they need to know. Always hold something back. I said, What for? He said, Man, you ll always have a job if you do that. I said, Nah, I don t believe that. So my philosophy is make sure your people know how to do the job as well as you or better.

13 13 JF: It makes you look good. [Laughs] JB: What my boss said, he said, The reason Joe got this opportunity is because his shop will run without him. The rest of y all, your shop won t run. I thought that spoke well of me. JF: Uh huh. JB: But my philosophy is to always do my job so well that if they have to replace me they ll choose somebody that looks just like me. That s just my philosophy, in any walk of life. That s what I want to do. RS: When you say, somebody that looks just like you, what do you mean? JB: In any way. I don t care what his color is. If he has the integrity I have, if he has the drive that I had, if he s willing to do what I did, yeah. Why not? Don t look at him because of what color his skin is. Look at him because he can do the job. Give him an opportunity. One of the things that I saw that Stevens did back in those days that really griped my nerves was, often there was a program that they called management training. They would bring guys in, and girls. They d bring them in and they d have them work all the phases of the job and then at the end of all of that they would assign them a task, probably in management. Well, during that time of course, there was a push to put African-Americans in management, and what I didn t like was they would bring African-Americans in who were not qualified. If you don t have any qualifications before you come, that s not going to succeed. You re working to have a failure. RS: You re put in the position to have a failure.

14 14 JB: Yeah. So I did not like that. That just griped my nerves, but I m thankful that God blessed me in such a way that I didn t get all my training in Roanoke Rapids. When I came to Roanoke Rapids from the phone company, and from Reynolds, there were things that I knew that they didn t know. We had the same equipment here so things that I knew how to do, the guys that had been working on their equipment, they didn t know. So, you know, God just brought me at the right time, is the way I look at it, and I thank him for that. Then from that point I was promoted. Stevens sold the company to the Bibb Company, and they had some really. They were money people, and when you have finance folk running a manufacturing company they re there for one reason, the money, so they did exactly what everybody thought they were going to do. Of course, they came in saying that they were going to run the plants, they had no intention of closing the plants. Well, one of the first things they did is they sold all the equipment and then leased it. Why would you do that? To take the cash out. So that s what they did with Stevens, and when the Bibb Co. came. Well, before Bibb Co. came, the credit union was started in [19]84. RS: [19]84, okay. JB: Yeah. If I remember correctly it was 1984, and then after. I think it was [19]88 that the Bibb Co. came in, and when they came they didn t like the idea of having a credit union in the facility so they wanted us out. So the credit union then purchased the building we have on 10 th St. and of course we re still there. RS: And that s in Roanoke Rapids.

15 15 JB: In Roanoke Rapids. Once we became the Bibb Co. of course my manager, who was then in operations. See all that changed. I had been in inventory control when I got a promotion and I was now responsible for inventory control and computer operations, but it was kind of unique because when I first went there the manager of computer operations had an assistant, the manager of inventory control had an assistant, and they both had secretaries. When I was promoted, I had a secretary, no assistant. Then when I got promoted into inventory control, I did have an assistant but they took the secretary. JF and RS: [Laugh] JB: So here we are, you want me to do as much work as four or five folk used to do. One thing they used to tell me all the time, my boss used to say, You did a good job, and pat me on the back. I said, You know what? That would work better in my paycheck. And he said, But you re the highest paid guy up here already. I said, Yeah, right. So we went on with that for years. Finally when they promoted me to inventory control manager I found out the real truth. They had to give me a twenty percent increase just to get me above the people that would be working under me. JF: Oh my gosh. JB: Mm hmm. JF: Twenty percent! JB: Yeah. God works in mysterious ways. [Laughs] But I thank God. I do. But anyway, I did inventory control and computer operations for several years and then one of my managers, Jim Garrett in Wagram, he had responsibility that I had, only upper level. Things go great as long

16 16 as you don t have to deal with people who are plant managers because once you start, as an African-American in a Southern town, having to tell plant managers who don t look like me what they need to do with their inventories, what s wrong with their inventories, everything hits the fan. I did fine as the computer operations manager. I was always helping people. They liked that. They don t like you telling them what to do. I hated that. That was the worst part of my career, I guess, was trying to, number one, make it so that people in a meeting would accept me being there when I m the only that looks like me there. Number two is getting them to accept the fact that you can do the job. So basically, the way I looked at it, I had to work three times as hard to get the same thing accomplished as a counterpart would have, but I did, for several years, and they didn t fire me. When I left. As a matter of fact my boss wanted me to stay. The Bibb Co. was still there, I left there. I put in my notice in 1998 to leave to go into ministry full-time, and when I put in my notice my boss called me from the Bibb Co. and he says to me, Look, can you stay around a couple of weeks until we get somebody in there? I said, Sure. Be glad to do that. A couple weeks turned out to be a couple months. A couple months turned out to be seven months. RS: [Laughs] JB: When I left then he knew that I had told the church that I was going to be coming out in July. I called my boss. He wouldn t answer the phone. I ed him. RS: [Laughs]

17 17 JB: He wouldn t answer my . He didn t want me to leave. Now these guys that were working with me, my managers and all, they were Christian guys, and I mean they d go with me to church and all that. That was kind of cool, I thought. I d never had managers that went with me to church. So, he did, or they did, and we had a good relationship. But they did not want to see me go because I guess how effective the jobs ran and so forth. Anyway, he called me and said this was the last week in July he said to me, Well, I tell you what I want you to do. I want you to go to Atlanta. I said, Look, that s my last week, and I really would not like to go to Atlanta. The last week, that s vacation week for me. We have a convention for the church and generally I go to that convention. Yeah, but Y2K s coming, so they wanted me to go down and run simulations on IBM s computers in Atlanta, Georgia. So I told him, I said, I tell you what. If you. Of course, this is against company policy. I said, If you will fly me back to Greensboro after I finish, I ll go. He said, All right, I ll get you approved. They approved it. So they flew me back to Greensboro, but while I m in Atlanta I m still calling my boss. He won t answer the phone. RS: [Laughs] JB: So there was an internal auditor there that used to come up and he said, Joe, I hear you re leaving. I said, I m trying, but my boss won t talk to me. JF: [Laughs] JB: You have to have an exit interview with your boss. I said, My boss won t talk to me. He said, Why not? I said, I don t know. All I know is I ve been calling, ing, and he won t return my calls. He said, I just talked to him. I said, Really? I said, He won t answer

18 18 my calls. He said, Hold on. He dialed his number. He said, How you doing? He said, I m doing all right. He said, Hold on. Somebody want to talk to you. [Laughs] RS: [Laughs] JB: That s how I got to talk to my boss for the exit interview, while I was in Atlanta. So I left them; that was my last week with them. When I came back I basically cleaned out my office and that was it for my tenure there. But we had quite some experiences while at Stevens, quite some experiences, and I m thankful because I believe the things that I encountered while not only at Stevens but in New York helped me greatly in what I do now. I really do. JF: Can you give us an example? Can you think of a story to share with us where you remember thinking, I can handle this because I ve done this before. I ve seen this before. JB: Wow. Well. JF: I don t mean to put you on the spot. If nothing pops up we can just move on. JB: You mean a story of something I ve done in ministry that I had experienced from before? I guess probably one of the biggest things would be handling the administrative functions in a church. It gives you a pretty broad base of knowledge. At Stevens the budget I had was in excess of three million dollars a year just for my department, computer operations, and when I took over the budget it was strange because the first year my boss kept saying, You re over budget. You got to do something about that. It s not good to be over budget. As a matter of fact the company only gives you ten percent. As long as you re within ten percent you re okay. I told him, I said, Look. I don t mean any harm. This ain t my budget. I didn t do this. But you throw me in this job, which already had been budgeted, and now you want me to live by this

19 19 guy s budget. I said, You ought to at least give me a year and let me do my own budget. Then hold my feet to the fire. So he said okay. He said, You got a good point. But each month I had to go down and explain why we were over budget. But anyway, to make a long story short, once I began doing my own budget I was always within five percent of budget, which is unheard of. Keep in mind, now, in computer operations you use forms that you have no control over. JF: What do you mean? JB: Because it s the business that dictates how many forms you use. JF: Oh, I see. JB: So it becomes very, very hard to, you know get that window that narrow. RS: Constrain that. JB: Yeah. But the Lord blessed us and I m thankful. As a matter of fact my boss brought a letter in one day which really surprised me. He said, I m not supposed to share this with you. I said, Really? He said, Yeah. Close the door, and he read it. This was before Jim Garrett became my boss. Jim Garrett was one of the executive vice presidents in Wagram at the time and he had written a letter because after I became manager of computer operations he came up one day and came into our department to use our conference room. So I m preparing to go to Charlotte for a meeting that day and in parades all these people into my department and I m saying, what s going on here? So I go in, I call him out, and I say, Jim, what s going on over here? RS: [Laughs]

20 20 JB: He says to me, We re having a meeting. I said, But, Jim, that conference room is mine. I don t know anything about a meeting. Why are you in my department? RS: [Laughs] JB: He just went, Oh, I m sorry. I m so sorry. He apologized. I said, Okay. Well, I tell you what. I m getting ready to leave. Now, ordinarily I wouldn t want anybody else in my department while I m gone, but inasmuch as you re here go ahead and have your meeting, and next time, if y all would, please let me know ahead of time, and he said, I will. He said, Thank you so much. I get to Charlotte and I walk into the meeting, there s applauding. I m saying, what s going on? My boss says, I finally got a manager in Roanoke Rapids who s got guts enough to stand up to folk. [Laughter] I said, What are you talking about? because, see, usually, because the plants really belong to the plants and not to operations, operations is given space in the plant so you can set up to support, and so they thought it was a very good thing that I had done, and I m thinking, I didn t do anything, you know. But anyway, getting to the point, the same man later on, when the push come on about finding managers of African-American descent who could manage, he writes a letter to the owner of the company and in this letter he states that, While other companies are searching for managers of African-American descent who are qualified to do a job, I just want to point out that we have an African-American in Roanoke Rapids who is managing a staff of predominantly whites who s having no problem at all and is doing a good job. I could ve fell out. I really could. I mean he told me, You re not supposed to see this letter. He said, But I just thought you need to know this, and I thanked him. Alan Wilson was his name, and he was my boss. I mean just.

21 21 RS: For him to take that step really touched you. JB: Oh yeah, deeply, very deeply, and we were friends. We haven t talked in a long time, right now I don t even know if he s living, but for years after I had gone, he would call me at least once a year and we d just chat; really super guy. I worked with some good folk and we were able to help good folk. Another thing that people used to do at the company, which had nothing to do with my job, they would come in my office, especially if they were having difficulty on their job, and they d sit down and talk, and usually all a person needs to do is get it out, you know. They don t really have to have any action if they have an opportunity to just express themselves and have someone just listen, and I guess I was a good listener because they kept coming. It didn t matter, black, white, didn t make no difference. They liked that. When I left a lot of them said, We sure do miss you. [Laughs] JF: Were those people who worked in operations and clerical or also people who did like manufacturing or? JB: No, different; different people. JF: All different people. JB: Different people, yeah. Manufacturing, they were out on the floor all the time, and the people who supported them, the clerical positions, all were upstairs. They had a few out on the floor who were managers or schedulers and what have you, but for the most part they were in different locations. We had seven plants here at that time and when I came to Stevens, if my

22 22 memory serves me right, we had over three thousand employees. We were the largest employer in the area. RS: Wow. That s big. JB: When I left them in [19]99, if my memory serves me right, they had somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen hundred folk. RS: Let me regroup in my mind. I m thinking there s a lot that we d like to. I d like to come back and follow up with your experiences with Stevens. There s a lot there. Let s take a few minutes to kind of. Before we do that, let s hone in on the credit union. JB: Okay. RS: Can you tell us more about that, like the circumstances when it was started in [19]84, the stated goals for it and who it was meant for, and then we can go to what happened in [19]88 and going forward. JB: Okay. I know that there had been talk before they actually got approval to start the credit union. There had been talk about having a credit union or some way for the employees to have somewhere to actually bank without having to go out. I was salaried and so was many of my counterparts and of course we got an hour for lunch so we got to go outside. But people who worked in the plant didn t. They got maybe twenty minutes for breaks but they didn t get the opportunity to go outside. So on payday, you know, lunch hour, we d go over and go to the bank. Other employees couldn t. I think that was one of the main thrusts behind that. They worked during the day and when you get off work at 4:00 everybody s rushing, trying to get to the bank before 5:00, so I think that had something to do with it. The bargaining unit at that time, they

23 23 also I think was in conversation with them about doing it, so they agreed somehow or another. But anyway, they went ahead and did it. RS: Did you say the bargaining unit? JB: Oh, yeah. RS: Who was that? JB: Wow. RS: [Laughs] JB: Let s see, what was the name of that group? They were the bargaining unit for the hourly employees only, not for management or salaried employees. What s the name of that group? Oh, wow. JF: I can check my notes. JB: I forgot the name of the group. JF: You re speaking of the group of workers that were bargaining for the contract? JB: Yes. JF: With the union? JB: Yes, yes. Wow. What is that? JF: I can t remember a name. I think I just see them referred to as the Roanoke Rapids Workers Bargaining Committee.

24 24 JB: Yeah, but they had a. It was a name, and I m trying to recall that name. RS: Is it okay if I take a couple of pictures? I should have asked you that. JF: [Laughs] JB: Yes, sir, that s fine. Go ahead. Go ahead. RS: Well let s look at them together when we re done and then I can decide whether. You can decide how. JB: Whether to use them or not. RS: Yeah, exactly. JB: Okay. barn? JF: I remember hearing that the bargaining for the contract happened in the old potato JB: I don t know where it happened. I really don t. to store their JF: Apparently there was a little building that in the old, old days workers used to be able JB: Right, potatoes in. JF: potatoes and then the company would let local Boy Scouts and stuff like that use it as a meeting space.

25 25 JB: Back then, as a matter of fact before I became part of Stevens, Stevens owned all those mill houses and everything that s around the plant. They owned them. Supervisors had somewhere to live because they provided a different home for their supervisors than they did for the workers, so that s why you see the difference in the home. You see some larger than the others. It was before they were sold out, they sold all those houses. If the people who lived there wanted to buy them, they sold them to them, and if they didn t then they sold them to some third party. But the bargaining unit, when they came along, I think it really. See I came in the same year that all that happened. I came in January. I started work January 2, 74, and by July they had voted, and I ll never forget that day: every manager in the place running like they had something on fire. I mean they were scrambling. I asked my boss, What s going on? [He said,] Can t talk. Can t talk. We can t say nothing. They had signed some kind of court order, a gag order or something. The company had them do that so they couldn t talk, and you couldn t get them to say nothing. [Laughs] JF: [Laughs] JB: So I m thinking, what on earth is going on, because everybody was making such a scramble around there. Later I found out, because we had to keep records, and we had a file called the Lucy Sledge File. There was a young lady that. There was discrimination suits and all that, and she was the one they used to do all that. Well, true, she was discriminated against, and bottom line I could have joined the discrimination suit. I didn t. They would say, How can you join it? Well, when I went there and asked for a job in a clerical position they told me they didn t have none, but they ve hired a bunch of folks since then. They didn t call me. So I said,

26 26 yeah, I ve got a suit, but why bother? I m working, got a fairly decent job, I thought, and they may have discriminated against me back then but, you know, I still got here, and guess where I was working? Where they wouldn t hire me before [in management]. JF: [Laughs] Right. JB: So, I was pretty cool with that. [Laughs] I m just thankful to God that he opened that door and allowed me to work there. I never thought I d ever be there forever. I never dreamed I would be there longer than anywhere I ever served. It shocked me, because I told my wife I ll never forget when I got the job and went to work, I told my wife, I m not going to be here long. She said, Why not? I said, It s not where I m supposed to be. I just don t feel like it is. Something s not right. So later the Lord, he had shown me and a lot of people don t believe this so I don t know how you will take it [the Lord] had shown me when I was working in Richmond the job that I was to have, I would be working by myself, and when I went looking for the job my wife said, Why are you going and putting in applications for jobs? I said, Because the Lord showed me that where I am now, at Reynolds, that this is not where I m supposed to be. She said, But you got a job. I said, I know, but if what he s shown me is what he has for me, that s what I want. So I began looking and, I ll never forget, I went to Union University and they had a job [Virginia Union University]. They needed an operations person who would handle everything for them in their operations group. They even told me to name my own price for salary. JF: Wow.

27 27 JB: I said, You really mean that? [Laughter] and he said, Yeah. He said, Of course we ve got to get it approved by the chancellor, but tell us what you want. So I gave them a figure. I was conservative. I didn t really try and do something extravagant. I was very conservative. They came back and told me, okay, it s approved, and I told my wife, I said, You know, I got the job, but it ain t the right one. She said, What do you mean? RS: [Laughs] JB: I said, I ve been praying about it. In here, it s not right. So there was a white guy at work. I told him, I said, Look, you are looking for a job, right? He said yeah. I said, Well, I found a job. You might be interested in it. So I told him about it and he went over and he got the job. RS: This was the one at Union JB: At Union University. RS: that you had gotten? JB: That s right, and I left there and we came here, and I had put in an application at Stevens, too, but never thought I d ever get on, never. But when they called me and they said, You ready to go to work? I said, Go to work? and he said, Yeah! I said, With who? He said, With J. P. Stevens in Roanoke Rapids. I said, Well, yeah. I guess so. I said, Can I think about it a little bit? He said, Yeah. If you want to go to work, give me a date. So I told him, I said, Well, let me call you back. So I told my wife, I think I got a job, and it s back home, because this is where we were born and raised, and I said, It s with Stevens, and I think I might take it. So I called him back and I said, How about me going to work January 2? He

28 28 said, That ll work with me. So I started work with Stevens January 2, 1974, and after getting that job I just, you know, I did the best I could, and then when the credit union came along I was number eighty-seven joining the credit union. RS: The eighty-seventh member. JB: I was the eighty-seventh member. RS: Okay. JB: The reason I was eighty-seventh is because I was working and I couldn t get down there, but I got down there and I joined the first day. JF: [Laughs] RS: The first day, okay. JF: Or you would have been like number twelve or eight. [Laughs] JB: Yeah. So after joining the credit union, of course, the reason I liked it was because of payroll deductions. That s great for people, I think. It can help you save, and out of sight, out of mind is the way I look at that. So after I joined the credit union, I ll never forget, Roger Warren was the first manager of the credit union, and he did a good job. The credit union, they had elections, I think it was like every two or three years, I believe, and so what happened is they chose me to be on the election committee, so I said okay. So the secretary to the general manager, she always, you know, whenever I went to meetings she was there, so I said, hmm. I wonder would she be secretary. I called her and I said, Look, I need some help. She said, You need some help? I said, Yes, ma am, and I hate to bother you, but I really think you would do

29 29 very well as secretary in the credit union on the executive board. I said, Can I use your name as a candidate? and she said, Well, what have I got to do? I explained to her what the policy said the secretary s supposed to do, and she said, Okay. I ll do that for you. So she won. Then later on she was on the committee and she called me and she says, Look, you owe me a favor. [Laughter] [I said,] [Hesitantly] Okay. What have I got to do? She said, The credit union. I said, Okay, what kind of favor you need? She said, We need some people who will work on the finance committee. I said, What have I got to do? She said, You would review loans and you would either approve or deny loans and so forth, and I said, Okay. I ll do that for you. So she submitted my name and I was approved, and when I first started I d go in, and I have to listen for awhile. I m not a dive-in type person. Let me learn what it is you re doing. So after seeing what they were doing, they were turning down an awful lot of people. I said, Why are you turning down this loan? Tell me so I can understand, and they said, They don t qualify. I said, Okay. Now, we re the credit committee, right? They said, Yeah, and I said, Now, isn t it our job to loan money? [They replied,] Yeah, but we ve got to make sure that the people are able to pay it back. I said, Well, can we look at loans then from this perspective: instead of looking at how to turn them down, can we look at them and say, How can we make this work? So what we began doing I ll never forget; one man came back and thanked us if his debt ratio was too high, not extremely high but, you know, just over the line, what we would suggest is rather than borrowing just enough money to make yourself, you know, a worse hole, can we just combine some of this debt for you, and if you would agree to make this payment. Now this is strange because, you know, often your payments, if you went by what your payment schedule

30 30 was, it would be like three to five years. We would say, Okay, we want to give you a payment structure that you ll have this paid off in twelve months. Would you do it? He thought about it and he said, Yeah. So after we did that, and this guy got his stuff under control, debt ratio improved and all of that, he was just ecstatic. He came back and thanked us. So we started looking at loans differently and now we are making better loans, okay, because when a person has the ability to pay then chances are they will pay. So then when they decided that, well, the credit union. The West Point Stevens had come in and decided, well, we are not going to promote this anymore, so all these. Now everybody was in this credit union, the managers, anybody that wanted to be, including the general manager. RS: Say a little bit more about that. Describe, if you had to kind of describe, who were the members? Tell me a little bit more about that. You started to say they were kind of from all aspects. JB: They were. The hourly were in the credit union, the salaried, the managers from all levels were in the credit union; everybody could be a member. As long as you worked at Stevens you could be a member in this credit union in Roanoke Rapids, so our field of membership was J. P. Stevens, Roanoke Rapids, bottom line. So the credit union did quite well, I thought, was doing pretty well, and then the West Point Stevens Credit Union decided that they wanted to purchase us. By now I m on the board of directors. I m not on the finance committee anymore; they asked me to serve on the board of directors. RS: And this is called Industrial Credit Union.

31 31 JB: Industrial Credit Union. RS: Okay. JB: Yeah. So they wanted to purchase us. They wanted to merge with us. I m listening to what they re saying and at this time, when all that started to get real heavy, I was chairman of the board. When they came in to talk with us their intent was that we were going to just say okay. I started asking questions: Okay, if we merge with you. Now we re a credit union and we got cash. We have twenty percent cash on hand. Now, if we agree to merge with you, what do we get? These guys start looking at each other, [Laughter] and I m saying, I thought y all came to talk? [They said,] Well, we re not prepared to address that. [I said,] But isn t that why we re here? [They said,] We re not prepared to address that. I said, So, if we decided to merge with you, then you re saying to me that we wouldn t have any say in anything? They start looking at each other. [Laughter] I m saying, I don t get it. If we merge, then are you expecting that we just turn over our cash to you, and our building, our property, everything, and walk away? I didn t tell them, but they re crazy. [Laughter] RS: And you weren t struggling at that time. JB: Oh, no. RS: The credit union. Yeah. JB: No, not at that time. We were not struggling. When the struggle began was when we refused to merge with them. I went back to the office. The general manager was leaving, turned around, come back, pulled up next to me, and said, Joe, I understand that the meeting didn t go very well. I said, Well, it was a meeting. He says, Joe, let me just share something with

32 32 you. He said, We will merge, and he said, I think you need to go ahead and vote to merge. I said, Mr. Garner, I promised the members of this credit union when they elected me I would make the best decision I could for them. I said, Now, if the best decision is to merge, they got my vote. If it s not, sorry. He got as red as two beets. RS: [Laughs] JB: He said to me, Joe, you don t understand. We will cease payroll deduction. I said, Mr. Garner, the answer s the same. Whatever s in the best interest of the members is what I will vote for. RS: What year would this have been? JB: Wow. This was probably in 19. It was in the [19]90s, I m sure. RS: Okay. JB: I m sure it was in the [19]90s because we were already West Point Stevens and that was before I left the credit union, or left Stevens, rather. RS: Okay. JB: He sped off, squealing tires. I go upstairs and I call the payroll department manager, corporate, and I said, I got a question for you. He said, Okay, Joe. I said, I m understanding from Mr. Garner here that you re going to cease payroll deductions for the credit union. Is that true? Long pause. He says, We ve not issued any statements such as that. I said, Now, Mr. Garner was mighty emphatic about the fact that he was going to stop payroll deductions. I said, I need to know from you, is that going to happen? He said, We ve not agreed to anything like

33 33 that. So I said, Okay. I hung the phone up, got out my pad, and wrote a letter asking specifically what is going to happen in regard to the relationship between the credit union and the company. It took them a couple weeks to answer, but the answer came back in writing that they had no intentions of stopping payroll deduction. So once I got that letter, as far as I m concerned, Mr. Garner can go take a flying leap. JF: [Laughs] JB: But, now, I respect management, don t get me wrong. I did, I respected management. But see, he was the general manager but he wasn t my boss. He couldn t fire me. If he could he probably would have, but he could not, and see, that s what always messed with their minds here, is because nobody here had any authority over me, and I thank God. RS: [Laughs] That was one of my questions: how did you avoid? If you avoided, how did you not face retaliation, but you re starting to answer that, partly. JB: Now, that don t mean they didn t retaliate in some ways, because, see, the only way they had to get back at me was either through what others said about me, and also through my job performance, you know, of how the plants perceived, the managers perceived, I was doing my job. Yeah, they retaliated. A friend of mine, Dicey King, he was the manager of the payroll department here, and he came to me one day, walked into my office and closed the door, and he says, Joe, have you heard anything about what s going on? I said, No, what s going on? He said, Nobody came and asked you anything? I said, No. What are you talking about? He said, Well, I just had a visitor. There s a petition going around. They want to know from all the managers what kind of problems they re having with you. I said, Are you serious? He said,