TRANSCRIPT: ERNESTINE CAREW AND JOHNNIE HUELL. Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell

Transcription

1 TRANSCRIPT: ERNESTINE CAREW AND JOHNNIE HUELL Interviewees: Interviewer: Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell Will Griffin Interview Date: June 18, 2008 Location: Length: Charleston, SC One CD, approximately 111 minutes START OF CD Will Griffin: This is Willie Griffin. I m here with the Southern Oral History Program in Charleston, South Carolina. It is about 10:00 on--. This is June the 18 th I think, June the 18 th? I m here in the home of Ms. Ernestine Carew and also joining us is Ms. Johnnie May Huell. I m here to interview them as a part of the Long Civil Rights Movement project. Could you both please--first you, Ms. Carew--state your full name and when and where you were born? Ernestine Carew: I m Ernestine Whyne Carew, W-h-y-n-e. I was born in Charleston, South Carolina, September 19, WG: Okay, 1912, hmm. That would make you ninety-six, ninety-five? EC: Well ninety--. Yeah. A couple of more months I ll be ninety-six. [Laughter] WG: Wow. That s a long time. EC: Mm hmm, that s a long time. [Laughter] WG: What about you? Johnnie Huell: My name? WG: Your name, your full name.

2 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 2 JH: Johnnie May Rice Huell. WG: Johnnie May Rice Huell, okay. And you were born--? [Sound of telephone ringing] JH: July 20 th. WG: July 20 th, okay. JH: [00:01:27] the phone? EC: Hello? Good morning, [00:01:34]. Listen, I m in the midst of something right now. Uh huh. Call me later. [00:01:46] Go ahead. WG: Okay, so Ms. Carew, what part of Charleston did you grow up in and what do you remember about your childhood, particularly the neighborhood that you grew up in? What was it like? EC: Oh, I grew up in a neighborhood with all blacks. WG: All blacks? EC: Mm hmm. And we had a few older teenagers that helped with us quite a bit. In fact the oldest one was Helen Bennett, as I remember. WG: Helen Bennett? EC: She took a group of us to Roper Hospital when we were about between five and six and took us there so we could be vaccinated to begin school. And it was like one big family. There s two streets, H and F Street. It was like one big family. And we came at six, walked down King Street to Mary, where I am living now, to school which was two doors from me. WG: Are you serious? EC: Yeah. [Laughter]

3 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 3 WG: [Laughter] What was the name of the school? EC: Shaw School. WG: Shaw School? Okay. EC: Yeah, which we called Mary Street School. Some of us didn t even know [00:03:13] [Laughter] Yeah. Some of us didn t even know the name of the--always said Mary Street School, which is now Shaw Center for Boys and Girls Clubs. WG: Okay. So what about your parents? What did your parents--? EC: Oh, my parents. My mother was just a homemaker. My mother worked at--. He was chauffeur and--at a furniture store. He was the only black there. WG: Wow. Did he ever talk much about his experiences working there? EC: Yes, he had a very good experience working with that group. This part off the record. Whatever they didn t want they gave to Dixie. We would have five dozen eggs a week, all the rabbits they caught--this off? WG: Yes, this is off. EC: All the rabbits they caught, crabs, that I had to pay so much for on Saturday-- ninety dollars! JH: Ninety dollars. EC: Ninety dollars for a bushel Saturday. WG: Wow. EC: We used to get--. They d bring us--. The man would bring us a crocus bag full, and sharks, small sharks, where you had no way to keep them. WG: Did you eat sharks, or did you keep them? EC: Yeah, we had--they called them sand sharks.

4 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 4 WG: Oh sand sharks, okay. EC: And we had nowhere to keep all those sharks so you eat as much as you could and you gave away the rest of it. We used to boil the crabs in the yard, you know, not in your house, like we do now, and you eat as much as you can and you give the rest away. You had no place to keep anything. [Laughter] WG: So what was your father s name? EC: Richard. WG: Richard? EC: Richard Whyne. WG: Richard Whyne, okay. And your mother? EC: Oscillia Fisher Whyne. WG: Arsella? EC: Oscillia, O-s-c-i-l-l-i-a, Whyne, W-h--. I told you that. WG: What do you remember about them? What are the some of the lessons that you know that they taught you growing up in Charleston? EC: My mother? WG: Your mother and your father. How much of an impact in your life were they? EC: Very much so. I was an only child. WG: Oh, okay. EC: Yeah, and everything came my way. Yeah, everything came my way. [Laughter] WG: So you were spoiled. [Laughter]

5 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 5 EC: Yeah, and that was so. [Laughter] Just the opposite to how I raised mine, yeah. WG: So what about--? EC: We were church. WG: What church were you members of? EC: I m a member of St. Matthew Baptist for eighty-three years. WG: Wow. So you re the mother of the church, I would--. EC: Not in name, but--. [Laughter] WG: Okay. [Laughter] EC: Not in name but otherwise, yeah. JH: Because there s somebody older than you but they won t say so. EC: [Laughter] WG: [Laughter] Okay. So you went to school here and you started at Shaw School. Is there another school that you attended, or did you attend that school from the time--? EC: Burke High. WG: Burke High? EC: Yeah. WG: And what was Burke High like? What were the teachers like, the faculty? It was predominantly black I m pretty sure, all black. EC: Oh yeah, they were all black. Some of them half white, but you know. [Laughter]

6 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 6 WG: [Laughter] Okay, so when did you graduate from Burke High? Do you remember? EC: Yeah, 25--I mean 30. WG: 1930? EC: Yeah. WG: Wow. EC: I just took off the ring about two months ago. [00:07:08] Yeah. I was always proud to say-- WG: So you still had your graduation ring? EC: -- Could you tell it? And they d say, Not 30? Yeah, 30. WG: Okay. So after high school--. What was Burke High like? What were the teachers like? Can you remember any of your--? EC: Very strict. WG: Very strict? EC: Very strict. You either got it or you didn t. You didn t graduate from school unless you got it. They were very strict; very good but very strict. WG: Did you have any favorite teachers? EC: Well I--. My favorite high school teacher was my math teacher, C.R. Rutledge. WG: C.R. Rutledge? EC: Yeah. She was good, yeah. And math was my strong subject. [Laughter] JH: It still is. WG: It still is?

7 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 7 EC: Yeah. Math was my strong subject. WG: Wow, okay. So after you graduated from high school what did you decide to do? How did--? EC: Well being an A student, they made a class for us, teachers, one year, and I graduated in 31 from that. We had a half year theory work. WG: Theory? EC: Yeah, in the classroom. Now that was work. WG: That was work? What was it like? EC: They crammed four years into one, is why. [Laughter] WG: And this was still at Burke High? EC: Yeah, but you--. No, the class wasn t at Burke. The class was at Simonton School. WG: Simon--? EC: Simonton [00:09:03], yeah. And the curriculum was out of state. WG: What were some of the classes, like what were you learning? What were some of the names of the classes or the subjects? EC: The subjects? WG: Mm hmm. EC: Oh, lordy, pedagogy. WG: Okay. Wow, back in 1931? EC: [00:09:25] There s so much jammed in there. WG: So after you finished this program, what did you do? Did you work? EC: We were guaranteed a job.

8 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 8 WG: At the school? EC: We were guaranteed a job in the city and I taught at Buist School, which is now Buist Academy on Calhoun Street. WG: Okay. When did you start that? EC: Hmm? WG: When did you start working there? EC: In 32 WG: 32? EC: Mm hmm. They guaranteed if you could make it--. [Laughter] WG: So you made it. EC: They guaranteed you a job, yeah. JH: How many graduated? EC: Hmm? JH: How many graduated when you graduated from high school? EC: From my high school class it was just fourteen of us. WG: Fourteen? EC: Yeah, ten girls and four boys. [Laughter] WG: [Laughter] So do you think that the girls were more--? EC: But no boys took the course, took the teachers course. WG: Why do you think so? Do you think it was hard, or--? EC: At that time we didn t have many male teachers. WG: Okay. So what were they doing? What type of employment did they go into after high school? Did they--?

9 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 9 EC: Mm, frankly, well I think two of them went on to college. And one boy was already into work because his family was florists and he stayed that until he died, made good as a florist. Yeah, he was one of the best florists in Charleston and they made good like that. And I don t know what happened. Two boys--wait a minute--one stayed here, two boys went to college. That s the way it was. WG: Okay so when you taught, how long did you end up teaching at that school? EC: Oh about five years, I guess. Of course see I got married, and you couldn t teach in the city. WG: Oh, you couldn t teach and--? EC: No married teachers in the city! WG: Are you serious? JH: Mm hmm. [Laughter] EC: [Exclamation] [Laughter] WG: What was the reasoning behind it? EC: Now, you tell me. [Laughter] You tell me. WG: [Laughter] I do know that in Charlotte they had the situation where two married teachers, if you were married and your husband was a teacher, the city wouldn t hire both of you. So I don t know exactly why Charlotte--. EC: When I graduated and taught school it was a little less than prison. We couldn t go to questionable amusement, no questionable amusement. WG: Okay. EC: Yeah, no public dances and things like that. You couldn t do things like that.

10 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 10 WG: So I guess they were doing it for the reason that you didn t want to have a negative influence on the students. That they shouldn t be thinking about marriage. They shouldn t be thinking about things like sex. EC: Yeah, yeah. I guess that was part, yeah. WG: That s interesting. EC: Yeah. And now you weren t having any babies and teaching. If you were teaching you could go--. You d have to go off, you know, something. You find something to do, like that, but you weren t teaching, not in the Charleston public schools, not in the city. You go out in the country. Soon as you get married, you know you re going out of the city. WG: Okay, wow. EC: You aren t staying here. WG: So were there certain places--i guess backing up a little bit--were there certain places in Charleston that you couldn t go as being a black--? EC: Oh, my Lord, yeah. WG: So how did you--? EC: You know you rode on the back of the bus. WG: You rode on the back of the bus. EC: Street car. WG: Street car at the time. EC: Yeah, yeah. You go into the theater you sit in the balcony. [00:13:28] WG: And restaurants you just didn t--. EC: Oh, that was out of the question.

11 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 11 JH: [00:13:32] EC: Out of the question, no. We had what we called--my cousin used to tickle me. After we d go in this place he d say, A cook shop. That s what he used to call it, you know, a cook shop. But no, you couldn t do anything like that back then. WG: So did you ever have any experiences where I guess whites in the city told you not to come here or come around, or did you have any experiences? EC: Well no because you knew. WG: You just knew? EC: You knew where you were [00:14:03]. Growing up we knew. I was just so happy when Burke school kids went down and sat in the five and dime store here. They went to the counter. That was the first step. WG: You remember that? EC: Oh yeah! JH: [00:14:18] WG: So what was that like, I mean, how did the black community respond? EC: Oh, that was just--. Everything that the kids did during the civil rights I knew about. I think we--. Frank didn t tell me but I think we put up our house to get these kids out of jail and stuff like that, yeah. Especially we had some kids one door from here-- they re remodeling that house right there one door from here now--they would always go, always get in jail. I tried to go to jail but I couldn t get there! [Laughter] If I went one place they locked up someplace else. We went every night soon as Frank came in from work, get a bath, eat dinner, and we re going someplace. There was always someplace to

12 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 12 go. And I go this place they lock up over on this side. I said, Oh, I can t get to jail. [Laughter] WG: So I gather there were meetings all throughout the black community. EC: Meetings every night. Right across the street from me, Abernathy--right on this corner here--they cut my door with the number on it and stuff at night because Abernathy was over there. They was having a time. WG: Ralph David Abernathy, when he came? EC: Oh, a brick thing then. They didn t have the shoot up like now. These boys would have a shoot up. But then there were bricks and things going and I just--. My husband s family was here from New York and this guy had a new Chevrolet parked in the yard. [Laughter] He was so worried to death because they were throwing bricks and sticks and stuff like that. But like I said, me and Frank we worked very hard. I worked hard. I went to Washington [00:16:09]. WG: Oh, you did? EC: I went to Washington. WG: And this was for--? EC: For the Civil Rights Movement. WG: For the march--? EC: The March on Washington: I went. [Laughter] WG: So what was it like? I mean, how did you feel? EC: Oh, good, oh, I was never so happy in all my life. When we got to Washington and see all the whites was helping us out, the celebrities from Washington. And the surprise thing, if you drop a pen somebody would say, Oh, I saw a pen. Who

13 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 13 does it belong to? People lost their wallets; they lost their tickets. I don t know how you could do it but that s what people did. You could find anything you lost in Washington that day. And to hear Martin Luther King, I will never forget it. Of course I went to the first march in Charleston. WG: You did? Okay, when was that? Do you remember? EC: No. This was the first of the movement when [00:17:09] came to Charleston. JH: [00:17:10] WG: [00:17:12] in the 60s? EC: But down at Emmanuel Church, it s just about five blocks from here. WG: Five blocks? Okay. EC: Down--a big church down there. And we went there. Then they said we re going on a march. Well the church was full of people but there wasn t too many willing to go on the march. But when we came out of the church my husband was standing [00:17:34]. That s him there. WG: Okay. So your husband s name was Frank? What--? EC: Frank Carew. WG: Frank Carew, okay. EC: Frank was standing--. We were classmates coming up. WG: [Laughter] See I need to hear more about that relationship. EC: He was standing--. Emmanuel has a big porch and he was standing out there, so when I came out there he said, Are you going to march? I said, Yeah! You? He said, I hadn t planned. I said, Well you stay right there until I get back. And he said, Well you know I can t do that. If you re going I got to go too. [Laughter]

14 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 14 JH: Sound just like him. Sounds just like him. EC: So we marched, and it wasn t anything. You know they thought it was going to be a lot of trouble. That s what most people thought. But a group of us--. WG: About how many of you were marching? EC: Oh, a hundred. WG: A hundred or so? EC: Yeah, because Emmanuel holds a lot of people and a lot went on the walk. And all we walked was a block square. We walked from Calhoun straight to King Street. We went down one block to George Street, came back up Meeting Street to the church and come back to Calhoun. That s all we did and the white folks just didn t look at us [00:19:02]. They didn t say anything. WG: They didn t say anything? EC: No, but I was ready to fight. I had on me some high heeled shoes. [Laughter] WG: [Laughter] So what were you marching for exactly? EC: [00:19:14] Martin Luther King came down, you know, for his speech and stuff, so we marched to show that we were dissatisfied with what was going on. JH: What was going on [00:19:26] EC: Yeah, so the only thing they do, they say you march to show--in a group--to show--. JH: And we boycotted a lot, the stores and stuff, not shopping there because they didn t hire the black people in the stores and stuff. You stopped at Piggly Wiggly for a long time, didn t you?

15 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 15 EC: Oh yes, yeah. And I had [00:19:50] and he said before he hired blacks he would go ride--. He started off riding a bicycle in Charleston as a young man then he had one of the biggest stores up there. And he said before he hired blacks he d go back to riding a bicycle. I said, Well I m helping. [Laughter] If he want to go back that s good with me. I ll help. So we stopped going there. WG: You stopped going to the stores? JH: Mm hmm. EC: Yeah, and it didn t take long before he hired some blacks. JH: What did he tell you when you went back? Glad to see you? You remember you said he--. EC: Oh yeah he s glad to see me, because when I went--. See we tore up like-- what am I saying--your card, your store card. [00:20:41] So I took it and--. This is what we did. We took all the cards who had them from all the stores in Charleston and we took it and we put it into a box about this big we called a coffin. They called it a coffin. Everybody went who wanted to, put their cards in this box and we nailed it to hell and back. And I put my card in there so when I went back to the store I didn t have one. And the guy says to me, I don t know you. [00:21:21] said, Oh, I ll [00:21:22] for her. [Laughter] WG: Okay. So what was the name of the store? EC: Piggly Wiggly. WG: This was Piggly Wiggly? EC: Mm hmm. WG: Okay, wow. So during the march, were you here?

16 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 16 JH: Like I told you I was in the north area all that time. WG: You were in the north area all the time, so what do you remember about the Civil Rights Movement? JH: The only thing that I remember, those kids sitting, you know, young children, sitting at the lunch counters and stuff like that. And then when we had our meetings we were meeting up there in [00:21:57]. WG: Fire mount? JH: [00:21:58], a section called [00:22:01]. And we went to church up there [00:22:03]. It was different things. And I did go to--what s the name of that place on King Street, the auditorium there, used to be? EC: Oh, County Hall. JH: Yeah, County Hall. WG: County Hall? JH: Yeah, to see Dr. King. WG: Okay, so you couldn t get in? [Laughter] JH: I couldn t get--yeah. EC: Thurgood Marshall came down and got that open for blacks. JH: Yeah. WG: The County Hall? EC: Yeah, County Hall, before this civil rights--. WG: The city? EC: Right. WG: He did it?

17 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 17 EC: Yeah. WG: So you remember him coming here? EC: Yeah! WG: Did you go see him? [Laughter] EC: I been here all my life. WG: I know. JH: I went to see him. WG: Okay, you did? JH: Yeah, but I couldn t get--. My neighbors were going and I couldn t get my husband to go. EC: And from what people say that I have a memory. WG: You obviously do. [Laughter] EC: Yeah, I have a memory, yeah, a good memory. So that s the way it was. Boo was in school then. My son s seventy-six years old. He was in Burke School then because he played there. He was in the band and he played there when they--. The first time we went there Boo played in the band there. WG: So your husband, what did your husband do? EC: He was an electrician. WG: He was an electrician. Wow. For how long? EC: Oh, God. He worked at that trade for twenty-nine years. WG: Twenty-nine years? Okay. EC: Mm hmm, in the Charleston Naval Shipyard.

18 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 18 WG: At the Naval Shipyard, okay. So did they ever have any experiences about I guess protesting at the Naval Shipyard for the treatment of black workers? EC: Well that was federal so they didn t go through too much. WG: Okay. Now your husband, Dick Huell, he worked at the same place, right? JH: No. WG: Where did he work? JH: My husband worked at the Army depot. WG: At the Army depot? JH: But it was still federal. WG: Federal, okay, so they didn t run into many problems. JH: No. EC: No, no problems. That s why we could go anyplace we want and do anything we wanted to. See some people couldn t. They had to do it underhand, you know. You couldn t just come out and go like that because you d lose your job, even the teachers. Teachers here couldn t--. JH: And you couldn t be a member of the NAACP and be a teacher or they would fire you. Yeah, I remember those times. WG: Yeah, because wasn t it Septima Clark--. EC: Yeah. JH: Mm hmm. WG: She lost her job. EC: And she was born and reared just one block above, one block above Emmanuel Church there, on Henrietta Street.

19 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 19 WG: Do you remember her? EC: Yeah! Her brother, Poinsett, he was my mail carrier and he knew--. He came along with my husband s family. Yeah, I knew them. WG: So did you ever try to join the NAACP? EC: Oh I ve been a member from the beginning. WG: From the beginning? EC: Yeah, from the beginning, yeah. WG: Okay. Do you remember when you joined, what year? EC: The only thing, I m not a member now. I got so mad years ago I quit with the NAACP, not because of them but because of a girl that was selling that day, you know, taking orders for your ticket. And I gave her my money and I never got it--she didn t turn it in. And I kept asking her, I said, [00:25:25] where s my membership card? Oh, it hasn t come yet? I said, No! And I kept asking and I finally realized that she didn t turn it in. And so she: Well if it didn t come you can pay half for the next one, or something. [00:25:45] WG: That s a shame. EC: I don t want to be bothered with that. JH: [00:25:51] WG: Right, yeah. So who were some of the more I guess prominent leaders and local Charlestonians besides--? You mentioned that Martin Luther King came to Charleston, Abernathy, Thurgood Marshall. Who were some local people who were more vocal? Do you remember? EC: Well there s so many that I can t--.

20 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 20 JH: [00:26:08] EC: There s so many people that I--. I know like [00:26:13] was one, and Gibson. JH: Marylee Davis [00:26:17] WG: Mary? JH: Marylee Davis. WG: Marylee Davis, yeah. So there were a lot of active women? EC: There was so many people back in those days. I don t remember so much because we were really mad at what was going on and got a chance to express yourself and people did and got a chance to do something about it, you know, so we did. But right now that eludes me about who. WG: That eludes--. EC: [00:26:49] The ministers--. WG: The ministers? EC: Yeah, that s it. The ministers, the majority of the ministers then, they could come out. Some of their wives were teachers. And they played it low too, see. Like my pastor, he had to play it low. WG: Who was your pastor? EC: Whipper. WG: Whooper? JH: Whipper. WG: Whipper, okay. EC: His son is now up in [00:27:14]. He s a judge, Seth Whipper.

21 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 21 WG: Wow, Seth Whipper, okay. So what are some of the more memorable experiences about the Civil Rights Movement that you--? I mean when you think about it what first comes to mind about Charleston? EC: Well our people had different--. I mean if you said well we--. Anyway, here s what happened. We were able to do things that you weren t able to do before. And I m not saying that white people embraced [00:27:54] but they just couldn t do any better, you know. And so it was always some white people that were good. JH: Yeah, that s true. EC: But they couldn t, because of the others, they didn t want to get too far over, you know, but plenty of people were, like I said, middle like. WG: Middle of the road. EC: Yeah, middle of the road. But I noticed this about white people. If they liked you they will do anything for you, but not me, you see. And I might be even your wife; they ain t going to do but so much. But they ll do anything for you. I found that out years ago. JH: And people were afraid to be called a nigger lover. That was the main thing. If they liked you they had to kind of--. EC: Yeah kind of go--. Now I have always--since I ve been in this house, fiftytwo years--i ve always had a white [00:28:57]. WG: Hmm, that s interesting. EC: Always, and they would do anything for us, but I don t think they d do anything for you. I had a party Saturday, now these new white neighbors come over, here. They came over and I looked at Boo doing something I wouldn t have done to the

22 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 22 man. My son kissed the woman, but I wouldn t have done it. I wouldn t have kissed him, but then he did that. Of course he s younger. He was younger than me so he doesn t go back that far. WG: A different experience, right. EC: Yeah, different experiences the whole way. Then I had a young boy that lives upstairs over here--these are renters over here--a young boy that lives upstairs. I told him, I said, Brian, I m going to have a little party for Boo over there. Come on over. But he came and said, that morning before he said, Ms. Carew, I m coming to the party. What do you want me to bring? I said, I don t want you to bring anything. He said, You have everything? I thought about it. I said, I need some ice, I said, Because my ice is going to come late so I need some to get started. He said, Ten bags will do? I said, I don t think I need ten. I said, Just five because I m going to get a whole chest full. And so he brought it up. He said, I ll bring it at 2:00. Ten minutes to 2:00 he walks in with the five bags of ice. And now you ll promise me something but you won t bring it or you won t get here on time. [Laughter] That s the way it s done. That evening he came over and he sat. And could eat, he ate. [Laughter] Yeah. Johnnie said, Yeah, he ate, because Johnnie was sitting back there with him and he ate. Now the people from over here she told me the day before. She had a big place downtown there. They re in from Washington. She said, Ms. Carew, John is going to Chapel Hill but he ll be back tonight so we ll be a little late. So when they came they came on over and they ate. But when everybody left, Lord, I had some food left, Jesus--woo!--big pans like this one. WG: Wow, so you cooked a lot of food.

23 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 23 JH: People brought it. WG: [00:31:22] brought all the food? EC: They helped bring everything into the kitchen and stuff. So I had no problem. All my black friends and family were gone, but they said, We ll help. Thank you! So they helped and brought all that. And I ve always had white neighbors over there, yeah. WG: So how has the neighborhood changed since the Civil Rights Movement? EC: Oh, didn t nothing change. WG: There weren t any whites--? EC: I am the only black on the street that owns the house. WG: Wow, okay. So would you say that home ownership went down after the Civil Rights Movement? Blacks left the area? EC: Blacks left the area. They put us out. They d put me out if I would go, but I m not quite ready. WG: Because of the value of the land, the proximity to downtown? EC: Yeah, and see that across the street is the governor s mansion. WG: Are you serious? Wow. EC: Yeah [00:32:21]. You have to pay five or seven dollars to go in there now. So, and I live across the street from it. And Mary Street, you know, is the Charleston Visitor s Center, right up this street, and I just--. This one here [00:32:44] I just got to pay three thousand thirty-one dollars and sixty-four cents for insurance on this house. WG: [Whistles] Wow. EC: And my taxes--.

24 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 24 WG: I know they re astronomical. EC: That s right. WG: [Laughter] Yeah. EC: So like everybody says, They re trying to get rid of you, but I said, I m not going anyplace. WG: Right. JH: But this house used to be owned by blacks one time. WG: One time, the house next door? JH: Yeah. EC: Yeah, and it has changed three times in the last six years, because the first guy that bought it, Robert--. JH: He gutted it, didn t he? He [00:33:23] gutted it. WG: He gutted it and refurbished it? EC: Yeah. He bought it and he put a house in the back. JH: Yeah, that s right. EC: He bought it for two hundred and forty thousand dollars. WG: Hmm. EC: See I can tell you what every house, because from Mary Street to the Battery, this is--. They say from the Battery to Mary Street is Charleston. WG: Right, okay. EC: Okay. Whenever they sell a house they send me a placard, who owned it, who bought it, and how much they paid for it, so I know. I don t have to guess at it. There s a house that looks like this house next door here that s on the next street. But the

25 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 25 house is right on the street. This one is off the street. That was a million three hundred and forty thousand and some dollars--board! See that s board. This was a million two. And that s what made mine go zooming up, you see. WG: Okay, so your taxes go up. JH: And how much did he sell this house for? EC: The guy that bought it, he worked for--what s this bank named Wachovia? WG: Wachovia. JH: Wachovia. EC: Anderson, he bought the house for eight hundred some odd thousand dollars. I forgot that middle number, but I know it was eight. Then he stayed a year and a half, painted it again, and put up a fence and sold it for a million two. WG: Lived in it a year. That s big business right now. EC: That s big business, yes indeed. Then Robert, when he bought this house, the first thing he said, Mr. Carew, if you ever want to sell your house let me be the first to know. But Frank died. They came over. They were very nice to me. They came over and they even went to the church to the funeral and everything, so I really have no quarrels with my white neighbors. WG: Right. JH: They brought food and everything. EC: Yeah, they re very good to me. WG: That s good. EC: Yes, so, I guess the age wise too. WG: They have respect for your age?

26 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 26 EC: Yeah. WG: So I guess talk a little bit about--. From my understanding--i mean I m not from Charleston--but I understood that there was a color complex within the black community. EC: Oh, there was always a color complex. Yeah. I had--i don t know what happened to it--but I had an Ebony that the cover, the front cover, had a picture of St. Mark Church. That s a--i don t know whether they call it black or not; I call it a mixture- -but anyhow, a black church, with a fake comb on it. WG: Like a pick, or was it--? EC: A comb, a hair comb, but it was big on the cover. If your hair couldn t go through a fine tooth comb, you couldn t belong to St. Mark s. JH: [Laughter] WG: Are you serious? [Laughter] EC: I m wondering now what happened to that. I moved twice since that and the Ebony got--but I wanted to keep it. WG: And this is Ebony magazine? EC: That s why--and they didn t take them to court, so it had to be true, right? WG: It had to be true, exactly. EC: When I got that Ebony and that said--. Nothing, but we used to--. When I was growing up we called them high yellow. JH: High yellow, yeah. EC: We d say high yellow, you know. JH: But they thought they were better.

27 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 27 WG: They thought they were better. EC: Mm hmm, the mulattos and high yellow. We used to even call red rice mulatto rice. JH: [Laughter] WG: Mulatto--. [Laughter] EC: When I was growing up I never heard red rice. What kind is that? Mulatto rice. [Laughter] WG: So I mean growing up you d say plain rice and--. EC: You want something to drink while we re talking? WG: No ma am. I m fine. I m fine. I ll be alright. EC: You want something, Johnnie? JH: [00:37:54] EC: I ve got some Heineken back there. [Laughter] JH: [Laughter] EC: I ve got all kind of beer back there. [Laughter] WG: [Laughter] Well maybe I ll have one after we finish. But so did you ever have any problems out of, I guess, mulattos or people of high complexion? EC: No, no, no. They knew better than to pull up with me. Nobody bothered me. You know as small as I am, I never had any trouble. WG: You didn t? Okay, that s good. EC: Uh uh. Don t fool with me. WG: Did those relationships change any after the Civil Rights Movement?

28 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 28 EC: Oh yeah, yeah. [00:38:26] black man. When I say black I mean people like your color, my color. They improved themselves to the point with education, good jobs, and what not. And that s what everybody wants, money. You know that. WG: Exactly. EC: And so red women they latched onto black men if they had money and stuff like that and then the kids come and all of them didn t come brown. Some of them came black, [Laughter] you see. And so that made a difference. But it s written in what we call the Chronicle--that s the only black paper we have in Charleston--where the mulattos didn t even speak to their black family members, yeah. And that was true. And school, like your classmates and all, okay in school we re classmates. We meet on the street you look the other way. That s the way it was in Charleston, but no more of that now. We don t have that kind of crap now that--. JH: Wasn t Avery predominantly yellow? EC: Yeah, like Ashley Avenue, that s what they said, just like one little space over there, not too much, yeah. One thing about Charleston when I was growing up, blacks lived everywhere below Broad Street. They lived below Broad Street. In fact Frank was born on Archdale Street, just a few from Broad Street. They didn t have black/white like that. You could live anywhere you could afford to live. You could buy a house someplace. Of course they had a way of keeping you out certain places, you know. But we had some black--in fact one of my classmates--he didn t graduate--bubba Middleton, he was a--. WG: [00:40:30] Middleton? EC: Yeah, he was a contractor here, and he--.

29 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 29 JH: Bubba. WG: Bubba Middleton? Okay. EC: Mm hmm. And he went to Columbia, married a half white gal, of course she looked white, came back. He wanted a house a certain place, so she got the house and there wasn t anything they could do after she had bought the house, see. Now take this: when Robert bought this house next to me here, what he wanted to do, he told me, he was going to tear this house down, build something in the back--i don t know what Robert had in mind--but he told all of the blacks here that he was going to tear the house down. Of course he said later the city wouldn t let him tear it down, see. You can t--right here next, these houses here, board houses, you can t take the board out. You can t put up a new board. That s why they got paint, paint, paint, paint, paint. A historical house in Charleston, you can t do anything with it. WG: Right, it has to remain--. EC: Right now if I wanted to--. I had a leak here and my son-in-law said, Mama, why don t you put shingles up there? I said, I can t. I can t take the tin off the house. If I was going to put I d have to put new tin. WG: New tin, right. EC: And where the leak was, I had a black guy come and--[00:41:52] sent some black guy here--and he told me that he would charge me eight thousand dollars to just patch that place right there, so it s crazy. WG: That is crazy. EC: The repair is crazy. So I told Robert--Robert is my buddy-- Robert, I need my house painted. He said, Okay. I ll find somebody to do it for you. And when I

30 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 30 told him couldn t he do something to paint the place, he said, I could scrape it down and paint it for you for three thousand dollars. So I wasn t too happy with that at that time. I told Robert, Robert, I need--i got a leak and I need this place painted, and whatnot. He said, Okay. I ll find you somebody. He found a man and the guy came and he told Robert--of course he didn t know I owned the house. Robert just told him what he wanted done and he charged Robert seven hundred and fifty dollars, scraped it down and painted it. WG: Wow. EC: That s right. WG: So you think he probably would have charged you more or tried to charge you--? EC: If he knew it was my house, yeah, he probably would. Because the guy that worked for Robert, he said he don t care who he s working for. If Robert need him he stops and for that time being go to because Robert will pay whatever he wants. JH: But Robert s a contractor, right? WG: Yeah, okay. EC: And Robert--that guy, I asked him about the house. He wanted seven thousand dollars to paint the house. I thought that was too much. So I got a guy who charged less than that. He painted the house here. But people, everybody, if they know you they seem like they charge you more, like I said: Well I know you, so, -- JH: They know you got money. EC: --you going to charge me.

31 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 31 WG: They know you own this house in this expensive neighborhood so you must have some money, right? [Laughter] EC: Yeah, gotta have it, yeah. WG: So the other question I was going to ask you, we were talking about the divisions between mulattos or light skinned blacks and dark skinned blacks. Would you say that light skinned blacks had better opportunities prior to the Civil Rights Movement because of their lighter skin complexion? EC: Well I guess they did because most of them had a little more knowledge. You see they re half white. You see when you say light skinned you re talking about these half white folks whose father left them things, you see, or sent them to college, you see. And some of them didn t mind telling you about it. We had the Macbeths. They had a place down on George Street, and the Macbeths would say, Our father was white and he left us [00:44:42]. Of course there were some whites who didn t do as well, but because people were light they thought because--you know how it is. You take care of your family. Like they say [00:44:57]. You saw that? WG: Yeah. EC: [Laughter] You see? You re going to take care of your family, you see, so one half white tried to help the other one and stuff like that [00:45:12]. JH: But a lot them passed, though, didn t they, as white? WG: A lot of people passed as white? EC: Oh yeah, yeah, but they didn t do too--. You couldn t do too much if you were born in Charleston. WG: Okay, so--.

32 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 32 EC: They left. WG: Because they knew you here. They knew your family name. EC: Yeah, they left, yeah. I knew plenty of people who left. If they wanted to be whites they left. Now my cousin stayed here and they thought he was white. That s Mort. Mort s mother, my grandmother s sister, now I look at her, she was half white. But Mort and the sister, as the sister grew older she grew darker but Mort got lighter. He just got whiter. He died [00:46:08]. He was white. Nobody would think of him as being black, you know. WG: Genetics is something, right? [Laughter] EC: But he was family, you know, and he acted that way. But he worked as white. WG: Mm hmm. What was his job? EC: And people said that how he got his trade as a white boy, see. And he said, Nobody asked me my color, he said, So I said nothing. [Laughter] He had property across at Mount Pleasant over there, bought property. And the boy now, he s going to make--. He s going into property and stuff. That s what he s doing now. But he said nobody asked him anything. But he married a black girl. Okay, so she goes to the doctor s office and after the examination like she wanted, Who brought you? My husband. Where is he? He s out there. They went out there, they looked, came back, they said, No he isn t. [Laughter] WG: Because that couldn t have been her husband. He s a white man.

33 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 33 EC: Yeah, yeah. And then the cop, he didn t lock him up but he jacked him up about the granddaughter. We were at Pine Haven Shopping Center. You remember when Belk s and those were there? JH: Mm hmm. EC: And they went in there and he had the child by the hand walking some place and the cop stopped him because, What are you doing with this child? You don t know what he was doing with the child, you know, maybe kidnapping the child or something. This is my granddaughter. [Laughter] JH: Whatever happened to St. Mark Church? Are they still predominantly yellow? EC: They ve got a few blacks in there. I was surprised. There was a teacher here that--. They were [00:48:21]. They were black. But there were a few black teachers [00:48:35] And she belonged to Memorial. They had belonged to Memorial around the corner there. But she, when they had the split here, she went to St. Mark. So that s one. She was the only real black person that I know that went to St. Mark, but this was after. WG: After the Civil Rights Movement? JH: They segregated themselves. EC: Uh huh, but St. Mark, like I told you, and Ebony had this comb and it said if your hair couldn t go through a fine tooth comb--. JH: [Laughter] WG: And that s one of the older churches in Charleston, isn t it? EC: Yeah. JH: Where is St. Mark?

34 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 34 EC: St. Mark Thomas Street. WG: On Thomas Street? EC: Mm hmm. WG: Okay. About jobs, what were some of the better jobs that you could get as a black person in Charleston before the Civil Rights Movement, and then how did the job opportunities change after that? EC: Well--. WG: What was considered a good job back then when you were--? EC: Well if you want the truth there were no jobs. [Laughter] JH: Nothing but the lawyers. The black lawyers you could count on your hands, like doctors. WG: Like doctors? JH: Those were the best jobs. EC: Mm hmm, that s true. Now my father was considered having a good job, you know, because he was the only black there and respected. He could do whatever. Dixie could do almost anything he wanted there, you know. But my father didn t know his value and he wasn t paid for what he could do because my father could take a piece of furniture, an old piece of furniture, and make it to look better than a new piece. And sometimes my father would come in and they re selling a piece of furniture. He said, I tried to wink at this one about that. It isn t a new one but it s so shiny, see that they think it s new but the new ones are not that shiny but after he s finished with it-- WG: It looks that good.

35 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 35 EC: --it looks better than the ones that s there so that s what--. And so that s why they respected that. My father didn t know. I didn t know until I m grown. After I m grown up and stuff I realized what was going on. But he made a good salary considering what people were making in Charleston. And we got, like I said, we got so much things: five dozen eggs a week. They used to get a case a week and they divided it equally, you see, and we got five dozen eggs. Now what three people need with five dozen eggs a week? But that s the way it was and like I say, in the winter we could have things being thrown on the porch. Like they go hunting, all they didn t want they throw on Dixie s porch. Bam! Bam! Bam! You know, the things falling on the porch. JH: [00:51:37] EC: Yeah. And we lived different because we lived between two streets like that. There was two big lots between our house and any other house so you had to come up to my house. We lived up on the hill like. You had to come up to our house, you see, so you could hear. And they throw the things on the porch, Okay, Dixie. And man, to put the icing on the cake, one of the boys, the Robinson boys, would not go to the Citadel. All the others were Citadel grads. Ned said he s not going. So then the daddy--. JH: [00:52:18] white boy. WG: Is it? JH: Uh huh. EC: Yeah. The daddy say, You re not going to the Citadel, you re going on the truck with Dixie. He said, Well that s fine with me. So he and Dix worked together. He d come for dinner. He d come and have dinner with us every day and stuff now. And

36 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 36 when they go down to the wharf to get their things, everything that wasn t nailed down Ned and my daddy got it. [Laughter] And like I say, I wouldn t want a rug on my floor because we had different [00:52:53] and there was no such thing as a vacuum cleaner. You can forget that. In order to clean the rug, I have to tie my head, put the rug on the line, get a broom, and beat the dirt out. And I said, When I grow up I m never going to have rugs on my floor, just a little piece of something like that. But we had--in my one bedroom there--we had blankets stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The furniture store sold blankets. JH: [00:53:31] EC: The furniture store sold blankets. We had blankets stacked from the floor to the ceiling. And Ned come, and then my daddy had a barrel of [00:53:44 cider?] sitting up on a stand with a faucet on it. And Ned was friendly with the federal people some and they d get the liquor and Ned bring the liquor [00:54:03]. And any time people come to our house and sit around, you know--my daddy had some big time friends and they d come sit around--. WG: Turned the little faucet on? JH: That was scrap iron? EC: Yeah, scrap iron. WG: Scrap iron--? EC: Scrap iron. Well there was no real liquor when I was a child. It was Prohibition. You couldn t buy liquor. When the liquor first came out I was about twenty-one years old, if I can remember, and then you had to get it from the drugstore.

37 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 37 You had to buy your whiskey from the drugstore. Then eventually, you know. When I was small they used to have beer with a long spoke like this on it. [00:54:44] WG: You had to hold it like that? EC: Yeah, yeah. I can remember one, Bevo. WG: Bevo beer? EC: Bevo beer. That s the only one I can remember. [Laughter] Now when beer came back, I had just got married and beer came back ten cent a bottle. WG: Wow. You can t get it for ten cents today. [Laughter] EC: Horton s Beer. The only one I can remember is Horton s beer, that ten cent beer, ten cent a bottle. So that s the way it was with Charleston. WG: Okay. So do you remember--? One of the things that we re interested in when we come here is the hospital strike. EC: Oh, the hospital. WG: Do you remember anything or do you know anybody who worked there? EC: I know--. Now Lucille Whipper--by that time things were good--lucille Whipper is one of the persons that really worked with that hospital thing. WG: Lucille Whipper? Okay. JH: That s her pastor s wife. EC: Yeah she really worked. Well she became representative from South Carolina up there or something like that, yeah, she s a big girl. In fact part of the bridge is named for her, part of this new--. WG: The new bridge? EC: Uh huh.

38 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 38 WG: Wow, okay. EC: Not the bridge but you know, a part of it. WG: A section of it, okay. So what do you remember about the actual strike? EC: I know that--. I wasn t into that thing. WG: Wasn t involved with it? EC: No, I really wasn t into that. By that time I was--. WG: Well did blacks begin to work at the hospital after the Civil Rights Movement, or--? JH: They were working [00:56:15]. EC: No, they were there as nurses and everything, but they were paid a very small salary. That s what happened. WG: And that s why they organized. EC: And they re still not up to par from what I can understand. JH: But they had the union to come down, the president of the union, and he told them if you don t put these men back to work he s going to close the whole port of Charleston. And that next week [00:56:43]. [Laughter] Do you remember that? You were there. Was that Hoffa? WG: Hoffa, was it Jimmy Hoffa? JH: Who was the president of the union? Was that Jimmy Hoffa during that time? EC: Was it Hoffa at that time? Maybe. WG: Okay. JH: Whoever it was I know he threatened he s going to close the whole port down.

39 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 39 WG: So do you think, I mean since the Civil Rights Movement, do you think that Charleston is better, is a better place now? EC: Oh yeah, oh yeah, much better--not up to par. WG: Okay. JH: Because I think our black children went the other way. WG: Mm hmm. You think it had an effect on black kids? JH: Yeah, they just--. EC: They re not taking the opportunities that s afforded to them. That s the big thing, yeah. And so many people are looking for a handout, you know. They re not going to work as long as they can get something from--what that?--welfare or something like that. They re not bothered with things like that. And the opportunity s here now. The opportunity s here. I ve got a cousin that I tried so hard to help. [00:58:01] JH: Mm hmm. [00:58:03] EC: He say, Send them to me. [00:58:06] And he came from lowly beginnings but he s worked himself up. He had to. And he s a Cornell grad. You got your--. I mean he s got his master s from Cornell and Cornell is one of the--. WG: Best schools in the country, yeah. EC: Yeah, one of the nine Ivy League colleges and there are only nine in the United States, and when you graduate from there--. See I got a granddaughter, she is graduating from Cornell with her doctorate and now she teaches at Georgetown. WG: Georgetown, in D.C.? EC: Yeah, in D.C.

40 Ernestine Carew and Johnnie Huell 40 WG: That s amazing. You must be really proud of her. I know you re proud of her. [Laughter] EC: [Laughter] [00:58:54] JH: Oh, we all know. [Laughter] EC: And she s a sweetie pie, you know? To look at her you wouldn t think, but when she first come out of Cornell she was offered a hundred and thirty-five thousand a year. WG: Wow! EC: But she said it was--. JH: [00:59:14] EC: She said it was too [00:59:18] but what she--. You know all that trouble that she went to, you know what she went to it for? To teach at Howard. Howard was her alma mater and she wanted to teach there, but after she got that Howard couldn t afford her, see. WG: So what does she teach? EC: I told you she teach at Georgetown. WG: What subject does she teach? EC: Math. WG: Math. She got that from you. [Laughter] EC: [Laughter] Yeah, she teachers math. WG: Wow. Okay, I guess the other thing I was interested in about Charleston is the culture, the history, the heritage, the black heritage, especially pertaining to the Gullah culture. Did that change? Because from what I was taught--.