Interview with JOHNETTEINGOLD FIELDS October 18,1995 by Melynn Glusman Indexed by Melynn Glusman The Southern Oral History Program University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill -.Original trancoript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection Louis Round Wilson Library Citation of this interview should be as follows: "Southern Oral History Program, in the Southern Historical Collection Manuscripts Department, Wilson Library, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" Copyright 1996 The University of North Carolina
SOHP Series: The North Carolina Fund a->3 TAPE INDEX Interviewee: Interviewer: Interview Date: Location: Tape No: Topic: Johnette Ingold Fields, North Carolina Volunteer, Summer of 1965 Melynn Glusman October 18, 1995 Wilmington, NC 10.18.95-JF (cassette 1 of 1) An oral history of Johnette Ingold Fields' experience as a participant in the North Carolina Volunteers in 1965. Fields has been a public school teacher in Wilmington for the past nineteen years. She was born in Columbia, South Carolina in 1943, and her family moved around South Carolina until relocating to Wadesboro, NC for her high school years. Fields attended college at Meredith in Raleigh. The summer after her junior year, in 1965, she joined the North Carolina Volunteers, an antipoverty effort of the North Carolina Fund. Through that program she worked at Headstart in Wilmington, where she met her future husband, Tom Fields. After finishing her senior year at Meridith, she married Tom Fields and settled in Wilmington in the summer of 1966. The interview focused on Fields' experience in the NC Volunteers program and her attitudes toward poverty. Topics of discussion included her young idealism, her religious motivations, the living conditions of the NC Volunteers, and their experiences as an integrated group in a segregated town. Comments: Only text in quotation marks is verbatim; all other text is paraphrased, including the interviewer's questions. TAPE INDEX Counter Index Topic [Side A] 000 Why she got involved in the program 032 How much she got paid ^Os& ^VA "^a^-^cco
~ v 3 037 "I was very starry-eyed and idealistic. And we're talking about being a religion major- I didn't feel very fanatic, but in some way I felt like it would be something that God would want me to do to help people who were not very fortunate." 042 Relationship between race and poverty 049 Johnson and the War on Poverty 055 Possibility of ending poverty: "The people I was with felt that if we could just break the cycle, and that maybe we could do it really quickly in a few years, there'd be no more reason for poverty in the United States. All we had to do was clean up this one generation, educate these people and lift them up, and it would be over with. And we really believed that. We felt like we were soldiers; we called ourselves "soldiers in the War on Poverty." 061 MerJdith College chapel service where she first heard about the NC Volunteers 068 Other chapel services at Merfdith- intellectual topics 078 Tutorial program in Raleigh that she was involved in. "We were involved in all kinds of service projects on campus and in Raleigh, to try to put our faith in action. But we weren't really conservative do-gooder' kinds of people, or I didn't feel like we were." 089 Tutoring program- she questions whether or not these programs made any differenceprobably, they had no impact. 110 North Carolina Volunteers (NCV) orientation. Bonding activities, speakers. 125 Ideas about poverty 141 "My parents grew up during the Depression and they were very poor... they lived on tenant farms, and so I knew, and had heard people talk about, really bad poverty." 145 Arrival in Wilmington- unusual living situation 155 Description of NCV team, home they lived in 170 "The Old County Home had been condemned, nobody lived there anymore. So they put us in the Old County Home. We drove up to the Old County Home; it was really dilapidated. And we knew that we had to do some repairs, but it was really in bad condition. Someone had gone in and disinfected the walls, but they were still crumbling. But the good news was, there was a prison next door, and they brought some prison beds in and put in there for us, and some prison mattresses. The living conditions we were living in poverty too, so we were really starting to get a taste of it." 182 Parents' response to NCV program, conflicts with parents
Q-\3 193 "In Wilmington, there were still signs that said 'Whites Only.' The group that I lived with of course, being integrated, we caused a stir wherever we would go. And we didn't think that was right, so we would go anyway." Closest laundromat had "whites only" sign. "At Wrightsville Beach, as an integrated group, we were kind of scorned a couple of times. People said some ugly things to us." 210 Idealism, lack of cautiousness of team 217 Having trouble finding places to go as an integrated group gave her empathy: "It sort of gave you the feeling, how does a black person feel where do you go? Nobody will let you do anything. So I was beginning to really feel the racism because I was living in an integrated group." 224 "Dangerous" activities in housing projects 245 How she met her husband that summer 273 Other "dangerous" activities: Housing projects, beach 284 Even though now she thinks she did naive things, she would do them again 297 Someone spitting at the group when they went to the beach MG: "What was the reaction of the group when people spit at you?" JF: '"We're going back. That's okay, we're going back.'" 305 Mid-summer retreat at Livingstone College kept volunteers motivated. 315 Education of NCV's about Wilmington community 325 "Every Sunday we went to a different church. And of course we had blacks and whites and Protestants and Catholics. We would show up and St. Mary's Catholic church one Sunday, and the next Sunday we'd be at First Baptist (white) and the next Sunday at a black Baptist church. So we found out a lot about Wilmington and what was going on by doing that. On one of the letters that I wrote... I said, 'Well, we integrated another church today.' And sometimes we'd integrate a black church and sometimes a white church. We saw that as kind of a badge of honor, that we were trying to show everybody that we weren't different, that we really could all worship together, and we just needed to get to know each other." 340 Reaction of church members to NCV's 350 "In Christian churches, they really couldn't say anything was wrong with what we were doing. We felt like they were kind of stuck." 360 "We felt that as Christians- Christians believe that God loves everyone, and Christ came for everyone, so we felt like it would be wrong, that a Christian couldn't say that blacks
- v 3 and whites couldn't both be Christians. And if we were worshipping, that there was no way they could say that that was a bad thing to do." 369 Religious beliefs of the volunteers 387 Going to church was encouraged by the NC Fund to promote community visibility 399 No overt religious messages in NCV training 409 Interactions with team members first time getting to know blacks JF: I had never been friends with black kids. And so just getting to know them was really unique for me." Her roommate (Shirley Hinton) was black. 447 One team member was the only white female at all black institution 456 Experience working at Welfare Department- felt under-utilized 481 Her job at Headstart 497 Welfare Department didn't really know what to do with them 510 "Years later I though, Yikes, they put us at the Old County Home because they didn't want anybody to see us.' Well, I think that... why would they put you in a condemned, abandoned building, next to a dilapidated prison? I think there were other places in town they could have put us... Maybe they thought that males and females, blacks and whites, if people in the community knew where we lived they might be more likely to cause some trouble. So maybe they thought it was a safety issue." 530 Living in community was the most significant part of the experience 550 Conflicts within the group- mostly typical household spats 573 Most people in the group were very accepting, open-minded 589 [End of Side A] [Side B] 003 Feelings about impact on the community- mostly discouragement 015 Belief that Headstart kids were better prepared for school 021 Continuation of Headstart program in New Hanover county 036 Impact of program: "When you go back to the same places, the same housing projects are in worse condition now than they were then... in terms of the social problems and the
violence that's experienced. Now I would not go into any of those places; I would be afraid to go there definitely now... Perhaps somebody succeeded because of that; we may have won a few battles, but the big Great Society War on Poverty just didn't work. That's kind of sad, because I was idealistic enough to think that I would be a part of something that would change the world, and after years and years you begin to see: Oops, this isn't working.'...i don't think it was totally unsuccessful, either; I think probably some good things happened, but obviously, we didn't wipe out poverty." 054 Advice for present-day idealistic young people: JF: "I don't think I would discourage their idealism. Even though I guess I'm not as naive, I'm not as idealistic, but I'm still not without hope. And so, I guess, having raised my own family, I've begun to see how things have to sort of change within families, within small social structures... I wouldn't discourage a young person, but I might tell them... if they think they can make a difference, to maybe set their goals in a more realistic way, or try to make inroads in small places rather than thinking you're going to have this grand 'TA DA!' in a couple of years. And we really believed that within a short time span, four or five years, that we could just turn it around... We thought with one generation you could change the cycle." 071 "I've begun to see poverty in different ways. I think each person has to make his or her own decision about that now. And to save one generation doesn't mean that you'll save another generation. But you shouldn't stop trying." 073 Why she keeps hoping: JF:"That probably goes back to just a basic religious belief. I still think all human beings should love each other and care about each other. But I know that it has to be done in small groups, it has to be done in intimate situations. I really don't see 'the government' as being able to fix it. So if I were to advise young people to try to make a change, I would advise them to try to do small things. To go into their own church or some civic organization and make a difference with one or two children, or one or two families, to try to do something... Little bitty miracles that happen to individual people and small groups." 096 Conservative changes in thought- government can't really change anything. "Big things, I have my doubts about now, but little bitty projects, I think can be successful." 104 Changing one person/family is a beginning 109 Beliefs about poverty: JF "I used to think it was more of an economic thing, and now I see poverty more as an intellectual, spiritual kind of deficit, as well as financial." 114 Changing way of defining poverty. "You have to work at the total person to eradicate poverty." 141 Reading lots of "liberal stuff ^as a religion major at Meridith 169 Politics of NCV's- she didn't get too involved in marching, radical movements.
192 Political climate in Wilmington- lots of Northerners moving in who don't know history 199 Race relations in Wilmington. School is a place where races work together harmoniously. 216 Impact of NCV on her life. "Maybe the college kids benefitted more than the community, but if they learned to live together and they learned more about other cultures, and at some level their intellectual poverty was diminished, then maybe we did wipe out some of the poverty." 236 Overall impact of NCV on her life: Broader understanding of the way other folks lived; beginning of making a statement about who she wanted to be 252 Why she decided to be a teacher one of the few occupations available to women at that time. 270 Story about black friend (Shirley Hinton) from NCV who wasn't invited to her wedding: "I wanted to invite her to my wedding, and my parents were just absolutely appalled that I would consider inviting any black people to my wedding. And they said that I just couldn't do that. And so my only choice was either to not invite my parents or not invite Shirley. And so, I wimped out, and I did not invite Shirley. And I didn't have any contact with her after that. And I felt like I may have hurt her, because I think she probably was expecting an invitation. And I felt like I didn't really live up to who I should have been in that relationship. But I had to keep my parents too."