Interview with Gertrude Crum Sanders

Transcription

1 Interview with Gertrude Crum Sanders June 21, 1994 Transcript of an Interview about Life in the Jim Crow South Birmingham (Ala.) Interviewer: Mausiki S. Scales ID: btvct02119 Interview Number: 193 SUGGESTED CITATION Interview with Gertrude Crum Sanders (btvct02119), interviewed by Mausiki S. Scales, Birmingham (Ala.), June 21, 1994, Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South Digital Collection, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University Libraries. Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South An oral history project to record and preserve the living memory of African American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. ORIGINAL PROJECT Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University ( ) COLLECTION LOCATION & RESEARCH ASSISTANCE John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library The materials in this collection are made available for use in research, teaching and private study. Texts and recordings from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission. When use is made of these texts and recordings, it is the responsibility of the user to obtain additional permissions as necessary and to observe the stated access policy, the laws of copyright and the educational fair use guidelines.

2 Sanders 1 Gertrude Crum Sanders interviewed by Mausiki Stacey Scales, Birmingham, AL, June 21, Transcribed by Greta Ai-Yu Niu. tape 1: side A Mausiki Scales: okay um I guess we'll start out by, I'll ask you your name and how long have you been in this area ma'am? Gertrude Sanders: My name? MS: Yes GS: I am Gertrude C. Sanders. MS: And how long have you lived in this area? GS: I have been in the Birmingham metropolitan area since 1921 MS: how has the area changed from that time to now? GS: it has changed from, uh, a community situation uh where everybody practically knew everybody else and everybody was practically responsible for everybody else, and it has changed from that type of community atmosphere to a neighborhood and that is that you do not know the person living next door to you, or you dare not interfere with what goes on, in the house next door to you, and uh, early on, you could leave all doors open all windows open and go to bed and go to sleep, and knowing that you going to wake up the next morning, bright and early, with everything in place and now you have to sit in your house with the doors locked, windows locked bars everywhere if you were to catch fire you'd die in your own house because you are a prisoner in your own house, it's that type thing

3 Sanders 2 MS: do you remember your grandparents? GS: do I remember my grandparents? on my mother's side I do. MS: Did they ever talk to you about any stories they have about I guess about race relations or segregation or how GS: my grandmother my grandmother was a midwife, she delivered all the children in the neighborhood and thereabout, I uh my grandfather was a fisherman who drowned at a very very early age, in fact it has been my grandfather drowned in 1921 and I think that as he was living in Talladega County, Lincoln Alabama, and of course that's where I was born and my mother and parents uh came early on immediately in '21 to Birmingham Alabama MS: where did they live here? GS: pardon? MS: where did they live in Birmingham? GS: they lived in Alley C, which was a block behind what is now the University Hospital, it was a Hillburn Hospital at that time and we lived between Eighteen and Nineteen Street, Alley C, uh, which was on the South Side you would probably never realize but it is the area now where uh the University of Alabama Hospital MS: was it a black neighborhood? GS: definitely so, with uh, frame houses, very close together my mother worked at that time at the domestic laundry which was very close in that area in that area I I never knew my

4 Sanders 3 father's parents but I knew the people who raised him, they were white MS: ( ) GS: they were white and they were called the last name was Lawson l a w s o n and his first name was Brian Brian Lawson these white people who reared my father was given to them according to my mother's information he didn't know his parents, but his parents gave him away to these white people early on before they left Lincoln naturally before they left Lincoln because they raised him, and some of those people white people lived in West End for a great long time which is close to where we live, now and um they uh, they taught my father, they taught him to be independent, they taught him to uh, really work for himself that was one of the things that uh has come down now I believe in being independent I believe in being selfsufficient uh those traits were handed down to my father by his fos- by his foster parents so much so until we had the only black store in our neighborhood for many many years because MS: what was the name of it? GS: what? MS: what was the name of the store? GS: oh the Crum's Grocery Store MS: Crum's Grocery Store

5 Sanders 4 GS: yeah because the white folks always had a store, so they taught, huh? MS: Crum's was GS: that's my father's name MS: okay Crum's was that here in Birmingham? GS: yes yes we had a store in Birmingham we had the only black store MS: oh yeah? GS: and and everybody came to trade with us in that area of course there were very very few houses in that area where we lived but my father was a business man with no real formal training MS: hmmm GS: but he was a business man and he kept the store he taught us how to run the store MS: about what time period was this? GS: this was in the uh [sneeze] excuse me this was in the 'twenties, the late 'twenties on yes in the decade of the 'twenties, and my father would keep a ledger of uh, what what what he bought what he sold what went out on credit and who paid him and what he had left, and uh, he taught us, if we wanted anything out of that store we either had to sign an IOU for it which had to come out of our allowance MS: mm-hmm

6 Sanders 5 GS: or we didn't get it, he didn't allow he did not allow us to say we had credit, that has been a part of me, and my father uh my mother taught my father how to read MS: okay GS: and then how to count and then he got so he could add it while she called it out, he was just that smart, without a formal education and I said and another thing he taught that I got from him uh just just being a daughter never borrow from anybody unless they have a license to lend, he said never borrow from anybody unless they have a license to lend, he said uh you know people used to have those go to so and so and get me a cup of sugar go to so and so and get some if Miss So-and-so have it, you ought to have it too, say so uh, don't you ever go to anybody's house and ask for something you go to a store if you want credit you go to somebody who got license to give you money MS: the neighborhood that you stayed in, did blacks own their houses? GS: yes, I am four blocks from that place now MS: mmm GS: yes we owned the houses and it was very comical because, my father bought and built the house uh, in the middle of a cotton patch in the middle of a peanut patch and only one house was in about eight or nine blocks around us, you been to Birmingham? you live here?

7 Sanders 6 MS: no I live in Atlanta GS: oh Atlanta well you know about Birmingham somewhat but uh, we were in this three room house surrounded by peanuts cotton everything and we thought we had alot of land, until the WPA came through MS: WPA? GS: yeah MS: what's that? GS: that's the uh, that's the Welfare Program Administration see that type thing MS: right GS: to give money to pave the streets MS: oh okay GS: and to pave the land around and then we found out what we thought was our land really was street, so... MS: did your father have a car? GS: yes, my father had a T Model Ford one of the first in the city [chuckle] and he got to have a car and you know it had to run in MS: right GS: and in the winter time as the car got older Daddy had to let the water out at night fill it back up in the morning, and then crank it with a crank MS: right GS: he had a T Model Ford so uh we always had a car I taught at

8 Sanders 7 a school the other day in [Ansley?] and uh I told the children there that talking about the Depression, I didn't know that we were at the poverty line, I had no way of knowing, we had two dresses, one on and one off, but while it was off it was being washed and ironed you put it back on the next day we didn't know that we were poverty, and and one boy asked what did you eat? we ate soul food, 'cause that's all they understood MS: right GS: uh we didn't have fast foods at that time MS: did the community ever have any crisis and if so how were they resolved? GS: everybody took care of everybody else's child, we were a, we were just as afraid of Miss So and so as we were of Mama, because if you got out of line and there was a grown person around, she that grown person would say I'm going to tell Miss Crum or I'm going to tell your daddy that grown person say come here cut the switches off the peach trees switches off the apple trees switches off the hedges and you got a whipping right there by that person, and you didn't go home and tell Miss Crum 'cause that meant another one MS: at what age were you considered an adult then? GS: at eighteen MS: eighteen

9 Sanders 8 GS: yes at eighteen because that's what they taught us, say that's what they taught us, and then after you became an adult, if you stayed in your father's house, you abided by those rules, because that was the man of the house and he always said that the house ( ) came but one woman stay in that house, he taught I had one sister and one brother, but Daddy always said one woman in this house and that's Miss Mable, that was my Mama he called her Miss Mable until the day he died MS: what was had you uh, what were your early experiences with Jim Crow? GS: uh I didn't learn too much about that uh, because I just obeyed the rules my father set for me and my mama said this is right you do this uh, I was old when I learned I can say really and truly I must have been grown, when I encountered that MS: how did it make you feel? GS: uh well one of the reason, we just we just felt that the white folks were right MS: mm-hmm GS: uh you know you go on the bus and you go to this waiting room this door right around here and the bus with the other waiting room around here, well you just automatically went to the waiting room that said colored, because that's all you had been accustomed to, uh, only after I was real grown

10 Sanders 9 and um, a mother, a a woman that I encountered Jim Crowism at the bus station, uh-huh, that was that and I remember having my daughter, tiny daughter, and uh, she wanted, to get the water, and she just falling out MS: is this your daughter that I talked to you GS: that's the only one I ever had, just falling out, and I'm trying to get her around here to the colored water, and she is just so I well okay dear and I look around and I take her over there to get some water, uh white man didn't say anything then, right then and there but later on before we caught the bus he came up to me, and he said girl, don't you know to take that baby up there to that white fountain, you know better than that, and I said I'm sor- I said yes sir I'm sorry and he said well all right, let you by this time, and I went on, and I I made it a point not to, have that type of interference again, another time she was a pretty big girl I ran into a Jim Crow situation at Ludmond Village not Ludmond Village Ludmond Store she used to meet me under the clock there at Ludmond and in crossing the street I had her by the hand and we went across the street at the wrong time a cop came over there and stopped me and he said, I'm going to give you a ticket for jaywalking, I said, I was running after my daughter she's going across the street that's all right I'm going to give you a ticket for jaywalking, I said she was the one doing it, anyway he

11 Sanders 10 gave me a ticket, I I never been afraid of white folks 'cause they raised my daddy so I went up to the court house and told him with the ticket the next day told the man up there that that police I mad him mad by calling him a cop I said that cop gave me a ticket because my daughter went across there I didn't, I said people who saw that I didn't my daughter now if you can charge her a seven year old with a parking ticket she can pay it, now where is a seven year old going to get two dollar something to pay a parking ticket and the cop talked to me the man rather talked to me he said well we'll get that out of his pay, just that strong, because I looked him the face and told him, my my white folks raised my daddy, I ain't scared of you, you know, 'cause uh, they white folks have been to our house all the time in and out helping us so I ain't scared of you MS: so where did you go for entertainment? GS: we didn't, we went to the Lyric Theater there used to be downtown, and uh we didn't that's the part see as I told the children I was a teenager most of the time during the Depression, you know about the Depression when the banks burst and the pennies got lost and and we didn't, uh, we went to walk, buy a big sucker at Marberry's Store Marberry and, couples would couples would walk around in the neighborhood, uh and there was no television televisions hadn't come out see so we would walk and then we would

12 Sanders 11 gather at our house or wan't but six houses then, and uh, we would uh, sing and play games, and things like that, and there were no newspapers, because we didn't take the paper and when we did start taking the paper all the excess paper my mama plastered the house with it MS: yeah GS: and made flour paste and made us she always put them right, and then we had to read what was on that paper on the wall MS: what was your first job? GS: my first job was working at the laundry, for fifty cents a day MS: where was that? GS: I was at Les Dames Dry Cleaners in Birmingham Alabama on Twenty-ninth Street on the South Side, that was my first job I made fifty cents a day. MS: did you ever have any experiences of Jim Crow there? GS: no, because I know my mama was working there then she had gone from the Domestic Laundry to the Les Dames Dry Cleaning and uh Mr. Ed [Shakas?] a white man who was there uh, owned the laundry it was his laundry, I didn't have a problem because uh, my mama, was a very strong religious person, uh, very outgoing, very helpful and I went there because I could sew not that I could press clothes at that time we had to change the man's collars turn them over when they got raggedy on one side we'd rip them off and turn

13 Sanders 12 them over to the other side and that's what I did, but while being there I watched and I learned how to run the press, do do the sheets and the towels, and then I I watched, and I practiced at lunch time on the machines when the folk went to lunch MS: yes GS: and I learned how to do shirts how to run the shirt line and then I started making a dollar a day, making a dollar a day, and and uh I was rich [chuckle] MS: um GS: I was rich [chuckle] MS: um could you tell me more about the Fourth Avenue district? GS: very little I can tell you other than that there was a library down here in the temple in the Masonic Temple that's where the library was in that bottom part a lady named Miss Driver was running it MS: Miss who? GS: Driver, was running the library and we always went there on a Sunday to read books to check out books or to eat ice cream at the Temple pharmacy and then finally uh they built Carver, Theater, that was for the black folks, because we couldn't go to the Alabama Theater, I guess you have heard that many times so they built Carver Theater and that was a social attraction, there, and uh, we didn't do much downtown uh, because only thing down there there was a

14 Sanders 13 Newberry's downtown I think they still down there on the corner somewhere dime store, uh so I know uh I know that the bus would bring you down to Fourth Avenue and you catch a bus and come back, but I did not, did not have much, to do with downtown, because MS: were there places that you weren't allowed to go? GS: well because of Jim Crowism? MS: or family GS: I I don't recall because I never my parents were religious people my parents were private people my parents were close-knit people, and my parents were people who just wanted to work and take care of the children send 'em to school, so uh, now I didn't learn the things that I should have learned I don't dance I never did learn how never was put in a position to dance, so there was no drinking in my house period in our house period not even coffee, no coffee no beer no wine no liquor it just didn't come, no smoking period nobody, if you didn't see it didn't hear it you didn't do it so you didn't miss it, you didn't miss that you never had, see I I learned that early on MS: how has your did you say your values are the same as your grandparents and parents? GS: yes as my grandparents yes, uh my grandmother on my mother's side, uh she was a very strong, matriartichal [matriarchal] mother, she had girls and boys, but she

15 Sanders 14 always said that her girls were her girls and uh she didn't condemn them for anything that they did that she thought that people thought was wrong like getting pregnant ahead of time, grandmother would always say, I don't know who the daddy is I don't ask them that's my girl, and she would take that make sure that that child was well taken care of MS: so who made the decisions in the family? GS: my grandmother, my grandmother MS: she lived with your parents? GS: no no she came and stayed she lived in Lincoln Alabama she came to Birmingham and stayed about four or five weeks and she would visit see she would visit my mother visit us my grandmother, she was the boss in the family see, and uh ( ) many of my aunts say now, Gertrude you just like Mama I got three aunts living in [Aniston?] Alabama, all more than eighty years old one is not eighty the other two are eighty MS: Aniston Alabama? GS: yeah and they tell me all the time you just like Mama you just like Mama, that's where I, I kind of like, uh, I like things going the way I think they ought to go MS: were they educated people, as far as school was concerned? GS: not formally educated but this strong and strange mother wit situation I go over it now and I talk to my granddaughters I said now I don't know where mama my mama got all of this 'course she did go to Barber College when

16 Sanders 15 she was at Talladega but not to the college part at that time it was the school part, my mama my mama, mm-hmm she went to the undergrad part in Talladega at that time it was Barber's College, but uh not to college now, uh but she had come up with I said with some strange things things that you learn now out of the book MS: right GS: see, that's what's going on, it took me years to go to school to get to be a psychologist and Mama is still Mama was doing those things without having been to school saying those things MS: right GS: now where did the old folk get off? they come out with this stuff I pray [chuckle] MS: so church was pretty mandatory GS: you went to church you went to Sunday School you stayed for church you went to BYPU Bringing Young People Up in the afternoon and there was a revival every so often you went to church gatherings, you went to family picnics, uh you got up made a basket lunch, uh, my daughter gets after me now she says there are very few people mother, as family oriented as you are, but that's all I knew MS: right GS: uh MS: did your family ever travel anywhere go on vacation?

17 Sanders 16 GS: my family did not MS: no? GS: no my family did not MS: so the car that your father had was it for work purposes? GS: it go back and forth to work uh-huh to go back and you see when we came to Birmingham where we lived was really country MS: okay GS: we had hogs cows chickens, goats, uh, hogs cows chickens goats garden, right in the same place, city came along made a move, you know we had outdoor toilets had water wells, there was no electricity, no running water, none of that on the same lot that the house is still on, so uh, we, ( ) and that's the reason why sometimes I cannot understand what goes on with these kids but I'm the one who has done as my daughter told you a great deal of travelling, I've been on every continent in the world, see myself, see because I want to know what's going on, and I was the first person at Lawson State to get a doctorate degree, I was working at Lawson State so MS: were you the first person or the first African American GS: we didn't have no white folks out there MS: oh GS: when I got my, see that was before integration, of the college

18 Sanders 17 MS: so when did you finish at Lawson? GS: I I retired from Lawson in 1981 MS: and where did you get your degree? GS: I got my degree from Atlanta University MS: oh okay GS: uh-huh, you are from Atlanta? MS: yes I go to Clark GS: you go to Clark Atlanta so you know about Dixie Hill MS: right GS: pardon? you know about Pine Dale Drive, out there near Dixie Hill? MS: okay GS: my father used to own three houses on Pine Dale Drive MS: yeah GS: uh-huh at Dixie Hill, yup, I just wanted to know if you know about MS: so when did you move to Atlanta? GS: pardon? MS: when did your father move to Atlanta? GS: he he didn't necessarily say move to Atlanta, he worked in Grady Hospital MS: oh GS: and retired from Grady Hospital and when he retired from there as chef cook he worked at uh Macy's and then he retired from there now I got an Eds from Atlanta University

19 Sanders 18 and then uh, when my mama died, I I buried myself MS: you buried yourself? GS: I buried myself in the books MS: ohhh okay GS: metaphor MS: right GS: and went on and got the doctorate from Atlanta University, but my Master's came from New York University, yeah MS: so in comparing your education with your parents and your grandparents, what what would you say is the difference? GS: they had just as much from Jesus Christ and experience as I got from these so called professors and books, I firmly believe in that, that I spent many dollars, read many books, sat up under many professors, they got more sitting at the foot of Jesus, and praying MS: did you experience any Jim Crow in the classroom? GS: where? MS: uh GS: no MS: when you went to Atlanta GS: no no no because of, we didn't have I went there in grad school you see because I studied at Boston University I I I felt Jim Crow in Boston University very much so MS: could you tell me some of your experiences? GS: in Boston uh, when I went to Boston they had all been

20 Sanders 19 taking out money to send to Alabama, to help us, and then uh Dr. [Arbuckle?] who wrote the book was my teacher, I was standing at the fore of my professors who wrote their books uh, the Old South Church in Boston MS: Old South Church? GS: uh-huh, they were taking up money to send to Alabama to help Arthurine Lucer MS: Arthurine Lucer? GS: yeah she was the first at Alabama, University of Alabama, you know she's the one that Wallace stood at the door to keep segregation now segregation forever, uh-huh well, Boston took up money, and they looked over there at me, and they said uh Sanders are you going to make a contribution I said I've made a soul contribution, because I lived there, but the next week, they hired an assistant pastor for Old South Church who was black and half the members left those same members who were taking up money to help free Alabama when they got on their doorsteps half the members left and Dr. Arbuckle told me you see what I am saying when the shoe is on you foot it feels a little tighter, they left, okay going across Bos- going across Nantucket Sound in a boat, I'm the only black, going to Martha's Vineyard, over in Massachusetts, Cape Cod, so what they decided to do, I'm smart what they decided to do is uh put me as captain of the boat so I could sit at the front so I wouldn't have a

21 Sanders 20 seat mate because everybody else was white, so they set me at the front with the instructor, who was white of course, but those other whites didn't want to, 'cause I'm black, they made pictures oh boy they made pictures going and coming everybody and I laughed about it when we got on the other side that's when the [Andoria?] went down I laughed about it I said, if I had not been, in that driver's seat, this boat would have been in the bottom of the ocean [chuckle] I said but they knew better than to sink this ship with this black girl on it, and we laughed, okay another time I'm in New York University, there was a Jew in there, and uh, it was group process I know you got to go me too it was group process MS: I don't have to go GS: [chuckle] and uh every day the professor would say, sit with somebody new, group process, so, when I went in one day, stayed on the outside and went on in every seat was taken except one and there was no chair there at the table where there was one left, now I stood around with the man in charge, I said I guess I have to take your seat he said oh we have enough chairs where is that chair nobody could find it, I just so you stand up I'll take your seat he went and got a seat for me to sit in and I know, some of them kept, and I said uh-huh so the next time ( ) the next time the class met that day I was one of the first ones in there

22 Sanders 21 I got me a seat at a table nobody was at that table, I knew there had to be five whites who had to come had to come and sit at my table but there was a Jew boy in there so this Jew came and he sat at the ( ) so the others had to come and sit so I witnessed that type thing in New York and in Boston, now in Washington I was in school in Howard University, you know from your studying you ought to know that Howard was built, for what? Howard University MS: ( ) GS: Howard was built for those students that had been fathered by those congressmen, so practically everybody in there was half white, and E. Franklin Fraser, that was my teacher who was white who was black I read a book about him last week too, excerpts from a book and he had us to stand up and tell where we were from, and when I got up I told them I'm Gertrude Crum so and so I'm from Birmingham Alabama he looked at me very sarcastically he said that's a good place to be from MS: how'd that make you feel? GS: I it it it rubbed me wrong but I had a knack of not showing it I said okay okay, so this is the game he plans to play, say, so, and the next day he assigned a book a whole book for you to read, the white half-white girls would just come in and they would just talk to each other about everything, his being in Africa and his doing other things and then the

23 Sanders 22 next day he would test on the book, so on the test on the book give a test on the book I he thought I was ( ) I wrote down how I felt about what he and his group had talked about and all that I had heard and that I had not heard anything about the education of the Negro and that type thing I wrote a whole page, and I turned mine in and they turned theirs in, the next day he was there bright and early, talking to me, and I told him I wasn't no child that's just the way I felt and I told him how I felt about him, I MS: did you have your own ways of protesting? GS: yes, I always do, did you hear me make the statement I'm always right? MS: [chuckle] GS: I don't do too much talking to begin with, I kind of size up a situation, and I don't beg, not at all MS: you don't what? GS: I don't beg MS: oh right, so how would you react in certain situations? GS: how would I? MS: how GS: in a silent in a silent way, you would never know, you would never know immediately what I'm thinking because if I don't say anything you don't know what's on my mind, and I don't say anything unless I know I'm right and if I believe

24 Sanders 23 that I'm right, you can say anything you want to say, but that's the way that I feel MS: what would you say is the difference between um or if there is a difference between the Jim Crow you experienced here in Alabama and the Jim Crow you experienced in Boston, New York and GS: I've always said this, of course I told you I got my Master's at New York University and I studied at Columbia University studied at Howard University, in Birmingham Alabama, I know these white folks don't like me, just because I'm black, see they don't dislike me because I'm Gertrude, I just happen to be a nigger, and and I know it, they put up with me in certain areas because they have to, see, I but in New York, Boston, Chicago and Atlanta around they camouflag [camouflage] it see they put on a show, uh and and it irks me to hear black folks, just going on with these white folks and I sittin' there and look at them, they say oh this is my so-and-so come on, this is Dr. Sanders, ( ) changes all together then they come up, oh hi! ( ) that's a put on show, up the country, we black people are not wanted, in many places, we are not respected in alot of places but uh, we don't have to uh, bow, see, we don't have to bow, we just have to get prepared, as I tell my daughter don't feel like working don't go to work MS: is that how you responded to some of the jobs that may have

25 Sanders 24 been uh discriminatory? GS: I am uh, yes! uh not discriminatory but anytime I didn't feel like going to work I worked forty-one years in the city of Birmingham anytime I didn't feel like working I didn't go, and I tell Lillie that now she's my only child, she was pretty this morning she's she's sick sinus I told her I had gone on a walk and I got back before she left I said you look better how you feel? she said ohh, I says listen you got thirty some odd years if you don't feel like working don't go, but when I didn't have any years, and I was teaching eighth grade here in Birmingham Alabama, if the children or the principal upset me I didn't take it out on those children nor the principal I didn't go to work MS: how would they respond to that? GS: they wonder, they don't know me MS: so you always have had a concealed GS: always they don't know me and they don't know what I'm going to do, my colleagues at uh Lawson State where I was working every day, didn't know I was going to Europe to study until they read it in the paper, it came out in the morning paper and I was on my way MS: what year was this? GS: that was year '70 and '71, they didn't know it until they read it in the paper I didn't tell them I didn't talk, uh when I got ready to build my second house... [end of side

26 Sanders 25 A] tape 1: side B GS:...that's the house I'm living in now, they now I was living on Second Avenue I still got that house but they didn't know, my mama didn't know she lived two blocks from me,and my brother worked at Ansley Steel Factory he heard it that Gertrude building a mansion on Goldwire he told mama, mama called me and tell me what she heard, I the frame and everything was already up I told her I thought I say I was going to build out there in [Beslem?] mama and I carried you out there you said that was too far for you to walk to see me and I thought I'd get up on Goldwire two blocks so you could walk, but I didn't tell anybody, when you talk so much, young man, people know what you're going to do, they cut you off, see, they didn't know, they didn't know that I was studying at to get a doctorate degree at Atlanta my colleagues didn't know it until May and I was graduating at August, I had been five years studying at Atlanta University they didn't know it, and when I was hired to be a counselor in the City of Birmingham they didn't even know I had enough credits to be counselor I had got that at Boston, and they were looking for counselors 'cause Sputnik had gone around, you know about Sputnik, they went through the record at the Board of Ed, why here's

27 Sanders 26 a woman that ought to guide us and everything, call her in, that's me, [chuckle] MS: do you know about um Parker Industrial High School GS: yes MS: could you tell me about this school? GS: what you want to know about Parker? MS: maybe about the curriculum about the neighborhood GS: well it's it's in Smithfield one supposedly one of the better neighborhoods it was Industrial High School MS: that's why I really want to know about Industrial High School GS: I went there MS: oh you went to Industrial GS: yes, I graduated from Industrial High School MS: when? GS: I did four years in two, I graduated from Industrial High School in 1932 MS: did you know Fes Watley? GS: yes, I know Fes Watley, ( ) Parker when I went there it was Industrial High School they later named it Parker for a Professor Parker uh, Industrial High School we wore uniforms which was one of the best things that could have happened to the black folks, and they need to put them back in uniform, and we made collars and cuffs sets to go with the blue uniform so you change your collars and cuffs you

28 Sanders 27 wore the same dress, my daddy had us my sister and myself had us two dresses made a piece, two, one on and one off, and when that one's off it better be in the wash, getting ready for the next day, and we could iron them and they would slick down and we couldn't wear lipstick at Par- at Industrial, we couldn't wear jewelry at Industrial, it was an industrial school, we were taught cooking, sewing, washing and the laundry, beauty culture I know we were taught those things and you had to take one of them a semester, uh while you were there I remember taking in cooking I never will forget this I couldn't get it right, we cookin' a cake and Miss McCawly wanted to know how would I know if the cake was done and I kept saying when the cake be done you will know it 'cause you touch it it will rise back up she said okay what you say Crum I say when the cake be done she never did tell me that was wrong, I was supposed to have said when the cake is done but she didn't correct me and that bothered me a long long time why am I wrong? what did she say when the cake be done but she never told us okay I took beauty culture, so that's really the way I got my start in life because uh when I started working at the laundry I took my little beauty culture stuff to the job with me and I did hair on my lunch hour and made a quarter a head twenty-five cents to dress your hair, all right I went to Industrial High School, and I was

29 Sanders 28 only there two and a half years because I was skilt [skilled] I was double promoted twice, I didn't know that much, I just knew where to find it MS: okay GS: and I wasn't afraid of the professors, and when they would ask questions MS: raise your arm GS: okay Crum and I'd get up and I'd say Mr. So-and-so I think that such a such a thing would be such and such or whatever or I'd get up and say, I feel [chuckle] that so and so ought to you know and so when two of the professors went away they left me in charge of the class, so I when they came to tell me that I had been double promoted and skipped I was playing hookey on the outside MS: [chuckle] GS: we had three recesses, I was due out on the first recess my girlfriend was due out on second recess I was out on second recess with Gwendolyn Chapman my girlfriend MS: Gwendolyn? GS: Gwendolyn Chapman my girlfriend I was out on second recess and they told me that uh Mr. Parker looking for you you got to go to the office oooh that was worst thing I ever heard in my life, 'cause here come mama and I'm going to die, you know that's the first thing I thought about, that, Parker looking for me, he the principal of the school, I got to

30 Sanders 29 tell mama! and she gonna kill me and what they wanted was to tell me that I was skip that next class and I would go to another group, so uh therefore I finished early MS: could you tell me more about the teachers and GS: they were most of them were strictly uh prejudiced most of them were prejudiced they liked those half white girls, yeah strictly prejudiced... MS: you experienced alot... GS:... the English the English teacher Mrs. Wyatt Wyatt w y a t t we had uh taken Spanish I never will forget and uh Effie Dobbins' daddy was the principal of Lincoln School and we had to learn the story of the Three Bears in Spanish, and I knew it, and Mrs. Wyatt wanted Effie to say it because Effie was half white and her daddy was principal of Lincoln School and she called me in one day and said Crum if you teach Effie this in Spanish the Three Bears I'll give you an E also, she said because you won't show up under the spotlight, that's right, everybody who went there knew how prejudiced she was, that was now that was the most disgusting thing that has ever happened to me at Industrial High School, I wouldn't show up under the spotlight, so MS: how would they discipline students? GS: very strict Mrs. Mrs. uh by sending them home, Mrs. Odessa Kennedy I know one day it was raining and uh we were late 'cause we walked from [Tenorsville?] to Industrial High

31 Sanders 30 School and it was raining and uh we put wrapped our shoes in paper and went out there barefoot and was late walk in Mrs. Kennedy's office, she said and I'm putting on my shoes wiping off my feet and putting on my shoes another girl with me she said girl you can may as well put them on or you can go back like you came because you're late, go back home and get an early start tomorrow morning, I cried but I ran all the way back home in the rain long way from Tenorsville to Industrial High School and I remember her saying there's no excuse for an excuse, she was half white you see and that has never gotten out of me never never never I I should hate white folks, but I don't, I feel sorry for 'em, but that's just that was most disgusting, distasteful MS: so they would treat the uh students who had white fathers better than GS: they treated them much better, even if they were just light skinned, they treated them much better because Age Parker was really not black he was an Indian plus white MS: oh yeah GS: mm-hmm he was from Kentucky MS: that's who the school was named after GS: uh-huh so uh uh let's see [pause]. MS: well I really don't have any further questions is there anything you'd like to add um?

32 Sanders 31 GS: no I enjoyed talking with you uh, I'm glad that I got an opportunity to uh talk with you and that my daughter told me that uh all right take this thing take this mike off me now