TAPE LOG -- BISHOP JOHN THOMAS MOORE Interviewee: Interviewer: Bishop John Thomas Moore Christopher Weber Interview Date: November 15, 2000 Location: Library of Durham Hosiery Mill Apartments Tape: Cassette 1 of 1 (approximate total length 70 minutes) Topic: John Thomas Moore, Jr., is the founder and pastor of Faith and Hope Mission Holy Church in East Durham. As such, he took an active role in the events which rocked East Durham and the rest of the city: the Civil Rights Movement and integration, urban renewal, and the building of the Durham Freeway. In this interview, Bishop Moore talks about what Edgemont was like before these events, focusing on family and community life. He served for twelve years as president of the Edgemont community, and he discusses how he handled this and other leadership roles. He gives special attention to the plight of his congregation, which was displaced during urban renewal. Subject Headings: African American history; Durham; Edgemont; Civil Rights movement; Christianity Comments: Only text in quotation in verbatim; all other text is paraphrased, including the interviewer's questions. Some noise and voices in the background. 001 [Introduction: I say that we're going to talk about East Durham today and his memories of it.] 008 His sister was the first person in the family to move to East Durham, and later he and his mother moved in with her and her husband. They lived together for about 10 or 15 years. His sister worked at the (Hall-Meyer) Restaurant; her husband worked at the Robinson Tobacco Company. At the time, Moore worked at the Blue Light Restaurant, and worked at (Hall-Meyer) Restaurant in the afternoons. 016 His first memories of East Durham. "Everybody worked together and got along fine." Moore's family lived near and shopped at a Merita bakery. 022 "We had everything we needed in the neighborhood. Didn't have to go out for nothing, unless you wanted to go the market and get some meats." A neighborhood grocery store supplied nearly all of the neighborhood's needs. In East Durham, this self-contained black community was located south of the railroad tracks. Whites lived north of the tracks. 034 In East Durham, the black community numbered about 600 people, and the whites just a little less. "We didn't get along. We didn't bother them, they didn't bother us. It was a nice neighborhood, but the whites just didn't work together that good." 040 At the time, the Durham Hosiery Mill was operating as a sock factory. Later that closed and part of it was converted to a flea market.
048 Moore eventually moved with his mother to Toby Street in East Durham. 052 Bishop Samuel Williams had taken a house and converted it into a church, Mount Syl Holiness Church, and that's where all the people in the community worshipped. Moore again emphasized how self-contained the black community was. "You didn't have to go out of the community for nothing, unless you went to the market to get you some meats. Other than that, everything was right there." People would come along on Saturdays, selling produce: salad, potatoes, beans, tomatoes, squash, pecans. Also hog meat and rabbits. 066 When the ice man would come, they would buy and bury a 50 lb. block of ice in the backyard, so they could have ice all through the week. 076 Men would sit around the store, owned by Otis Fell, talking about fishing and hunting. Moore was interested in programs offered by the church, notably helping the senior citizens. "I never was a person to do nothing in the world. I'd always rather help people." At the time more was in his teens and early twenties. 095 Moore especially enjoyed working with the elderly. He learned how to make quilts from the ladies, had Bible study with them, and cooked cakes and pies. In school, he participated in a puppet show, sung in the glee club, and raised a calf in the 4-H. 123 Many of these neighborhood activities were sponsored by a senior citizens' club Moore participated in called "Lending a Helping Hand." The killing and butchering of a hog was likewise a community event, sponsored by a citizen's group called "Man Power." 129 Moore explains how to butcher a hog. 160 Describes quilting parties and techniques. The parties provided quilts for everyone in the neighborhood. Chicken-feed sacks were often incorporated into quilts, apron, or dresses. 190 Moore's family kept two milk cows. 195 Describes the neighborhood church. 201 "It wasn't like it is now. We didn't have all this mess in the street, shooting and killing and getting drunk and on dope. We didn't know what dope was, because at nine o'clock everybody would be in their house, getting ready to go to school." Moore attended Mill Grove Country School. 214 Otis Fell's grocery store was in a converted house. Fell own several other houses, which he rented. "He was white, but he and his wife treated us just as nice as could be." Fell's family also ran the ice house, which distributed ice all over Durham. 237 People in the neighborhood never accepted segregation at restaurants or buses downtown, and they welcomed integration. 247 Moore's mother encouraged him to tolerate segregation, but he refused. He participated in local marches. "Moses and Pharaoh had a fight, but the Lord chilled that ocean and let [the Israelites] come across. I know He was going to let us come across in these days and times. And it's still going on."
257 Moore recounts working at the Woolworth's lunch counter and (against the wishes of his coworkers) seating blacks next to whites. Moore urged his supervisor to hire blacks to work at the cash register and other positions out on the floor. He tells how he refused to work on Sundays because of his religious beliefs. 290 At Kress's drug store in Durham, integration was fiercely resisted. The store had two separate cafeterias, one for blacks and one for whites. 302 Explains that he has been a leader all his life, during integration and beyond. "The Lord has given me the authority to lead and teach people, whether they listen to me or not." He taught that all people were one and tried to get folks to understand this. 315 Says that the reason "there's all this trouble with the president" [our interview took place during the election crisis of 2000] is that "It ain't but one leader, and it's that man upstairs. He said, 'Thou shalt have no god before me.' They tried to put the president before God. You've got to ( ) God, pray and ask what He want. And before the end, Al Gore will be the president." 336 Says that Christ will soon come again. Mentions that all the signs are present. "Do you not know that Christ is soon coming? He's right at the edge of coming aback. Look at all these different signs. Put them together. You keep living, and you're going to see. You're going to see some terrible things happen before the end of time. You wait till you see people walking the streets just like they come into the world. The Bible say, that's going to happen. They doing streaking sometimes in Chapel Hill. They doing weird stuff in Chapel Hill." 359 "So Edgemont is a community that the Lord actually sprung up himself." Because human nature is to destroy what is good, Moore says, then Edgemont would have been destroyed without God's protection. 380 This community [East Durham] was a powerful community. It had drug stores, it had restaurants in it, it had just about everything you want in it-but it was all white. They didn't deal with black folks, didn't get along with them." 387 Describes (Leroy) Birdman's store in Edgemont. Like Otis Fell, he cooperated with black patrons, extending credit to them. He owned houses and rented them. 407 Explains that racist whites moved out of East Durham after integration and blacks from other parts of Durham and other counties moved in. 426 Established his church on Walker Street, and then relocated it to a house owned by Birdman. The church remained there for eight or nine years, but Birdman would not sell the building to the congregation. 470 Word spreads of that urban renewal will come to Durham and will change Edgemont. "That's what hurt: they didn't go through the white communities, they went through the black communities." Homeowners had to give up the properties they had worked so hard to buy. People had to scatter, "cast away like dogs and cats in a pen." 493 Churches that owned their land got to sell their property and resettle accordingly. But Bishop Moore and his congregation were offered only $2500 for their trouble.
515 Urban renewal devastated the neighborhood; house after house was taken by the City of Durham. 535 The City did agree, however, to help move the church building to a new site and connect the water and telephone. "The City promised me that, and they told me a flat-footed lie." 558 Describes the church building [END SIDE A OF TAPE 1] [BEGIN SIDE B OF TAPE 1] 001 Tells how he and the other leaders of his church went to City Hall to negotiate 025 In the '60' s Moore becomes the president of the Edgemont community, becaus e he lives in and knows the community, and because the church is a good meetingplace. "Without a church, you don't have a community... That's the reason so many communities now are full of hell and damnation, because they don't have a church or anything to draw the people there... When I was raised up, any type of meeting you went to, you bowed your head and had a word of prayer.. They don't do that now." 052 Good memories of Mayor Gulley. It was the bureau rats who did not want to help. Nearby land owners raised their prices and didn't want to sell a new plot to the church. 065 Once the church building was moved away, the congregation started meeting in an old store that belonged to a member. 088 Moore thought the congregation could move back into the old Birdman building once it had been moved and renovated. Instead, the City decided to make a community center out of it, Edgemont Community Child Center. 112 The survival of Bishop Moore's church is "the Lord showing what He can do." The church is now located at 301 Corporation Street. 127 [I get out a copy of the old Edgemont Redevelopment Plan and ask him to explain it to me.] 132 HUD had to renovate the Durham Hosiery Mill in order to bring new life to Edgemont. 165 Bishop Moore prays to the Lord and, a week later, the City Council finally decides to invest in Edgemont, which had been a "black spot on the map." 180 Talks about the building of the Durham Freeway, which reopened the wounds created during urban renewal. 191 Housing projects were build where there used to be private houses. 198 The different black communities affected by urban renewal and the freeway banded together for support.
232 Moore was on the original board for the Hosiery Mill Apartments; helped to develop them, then later moved in himself. [END OF SIDE B OF TAPE 1]