Herbert Cappie (primary interviewee) and Ruth Cappie interview recording, 1994 July 02

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Herbert Melvin Cappie	You don't know if you did?	0:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You know what I did.	0:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	All those dances you went to with all those guys, and that stuff.	0:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Dances. We would go over to the lake most weekends.	0:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And visit different areas of the country too.	0:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	0:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Sections, small towns around.	0:16
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Small towns.	0:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Most people had relatives out there.	0:18
Michele Mitchell	What was that like?	0:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was nice.	0:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was nice. They'd take us riding after on Sundays, and you'd go all in these little towns, all around.	0:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Then when we visited relatives out in the country, they were always glad to see us. They'd grab one of the chickens up out the yard and fry the chickens. In [indistinct 00:00:41], they had a pot of beans or something already cooked, and we'd have fried chicken and red beans, or whatever they had. The visits were nice.	0:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	After we were married, we'd visit some friends up the river.	0:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:01:00].	0:56
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm, and when we were coming they would put on a spread, and all the friends and neighbors would bring things. She would put a table in the yard in the evenings. That was for the dessert. It was so much food you wouldn't know what [indistinct 00:01:20].	1:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	During the summers that I'd spend in Covington, my grandparents were Protestant. I'd often go to these things they called rallies, church rallies. Boy, it'd just be food galore there and everything like that. Then like over in Covington too, we used to go down in the river, freshwater swimming, stuff like that. We also swam in New Basin Canal. That's back at Xavier, where Xavier is now. That expressway through there was a canal, and they brought watermelons, and oysters, and everything, all kinds of produce.	1:20
Michele Mitchell	Through the basin?	2:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes. It was called the New Basin Canal. We used to go out there and taught the guys on the boats bringing in the watermelons, and somebody would jump up there and take one off the boat. Things like that. We also had a bad habit taunting the people on the trains [indistinct 00:02:27] throw stone coal at us to burn, keep warm.	2:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You didn't [indistinct 00:02:32].	2:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Terry-O and them did that out there on the river some. Don't tell me. They did do that. I didn't say I did it. I'm not confessing now. We weren't bored. We weren't bored. We always had plenty to eat, fortunately. Or I'd spend a lot of time cutting grass with a sickle in the summer. My parents both worked. I kept the house clean and sometimes washed, sometimes ironed, sometimes cooked. If I could get in off the playground fast enough to do these things.	2:32
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Ruth was a spoiled girl. She didn't have to do anything.	3:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	[indistinct 00:03:27].	3:24
Michele Mitchell	What sort of things did you have to do?	3:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Clean up.	3:31
Michele Mitchell	Clean.	3:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Help cook. Wash dishes. Just what other girls did. That's right.	3:33
Michele Mitchell	You both mentioned Sieper. What was that like?	3:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was on the lake.	3:47
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was the Black beach.	3:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was where we had to go if we wanted to go swimming.	3:49
Michele Mitchell	Was it big?	3:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was adjacent—It was right where the Industrial Canal empties into the lake. That's a big lake departure train, 45 miles long, 24 miles across. This was the area where we could go. We weren't allowed on any other section of the beach.	3:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We could go to West End because we used to go there all the time.	4:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is out near [indistinct 00:04:19] Park Homes. It happened to be located near it now. That was the second, but it was the largest, Black residential development in the City of New Orleans. That was developed when, Ruth? In the 50s? I think it must have been in the 50s.	4:16
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	After the war.	4:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, it was after the war.	4:37
Michele Mitchell	You could go to the West End?	4:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, we used to go to West End.	4:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We went there, but Blacks didn't go there. I don't know why. I never heard it say we couldn't go there.	4:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	[indistinct 00:04:54] tell us anything. We went—	4:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But we went there because they used to have band concerts there.	4:54
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm. I used to go with some friends. We would go on Saturday evenings, and she would bring the supper, and we'd spread a tablecloth and eat out there and listen to the music. They didn't tell us anything.	4:59
Michele Mitchell	They didn't tell you not to come.	5:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	5:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Nobody said anything.	5:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Nobody said a word.	5:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:05:15] nothing at all.	5:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	So we went all the time.	5:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I never saw you there.	5:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Then after—	5:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We were both doing the same kinds of things.	5:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	After we got married, we used to go and just get in the swings and swing. [indistinct 00:05:31]. They didn't say "For Colored" "For Whites Only", so we just went. Many a evening, we'd go.	5:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I told you about this White friend that I had, didn't I? I think I told you about Jack, who sat upstairs with me. Then there was a Black boy who was a fair as Jack was. I think I told you about Louis too. Jack was the one who encouraged me to go to the White theaters. "Come on, Herb. Let's go."	5:42
Michele Mitchell	Really?	6:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And we went, and we went, and he started me to go. When I wanted to go, I would just go on by myself. Nobody gave a damn, so I kept going as long as I wanted to. You see, in New Orleans, you have so many Black/Whites and so many White/Blacks. Everybody's confused.	6:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It's true.	6:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Of late years, they're hesitant to ask you your race because they feared offending a so-called White person.	6:31
Michele Mitchell	Was it like that back then too?	6:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, it like that then.	6:40
Michele Mitchell	It was?	6:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. These people are all related. They're all related, you know? I was stopped one night coming from—Well, I'd been out and it was kind of late. It was about 1:00 in the morning, and I was coming home along Broadway Street. I was smoking at the time, and I didn't have a cigarette. I just started scratching matches and throwing them down like [indistinct 00:07:12]. As I approached Mountain Blue Drive, a policeman threw the lights on me. They were parked in an automobile. I hadn't noticed. They threw the lights on, they're blinding me with the lights, jumped out with machine guns and everything and said, "Where are you going?"	6:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I said, "I'm going home." "Where you been?" And all these kinds of questions. "Where do you live?" Told him where I live. "Come on, get in the car." I said, "Oh my God, this is it." Well, they took me to my home. Fortunately, I had a key and I let myself in. I said, "Good night." My mother said, "Who was that?" I said, "Some friends."	7:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They'd been brought my brothers home too.	7:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know what that was about.	7:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They would pick up these Black boys.	7:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It wasn't a habit of doing nothing.	7:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, but most of my brothers were brought home when they were in this White area up around Fountainview Drive.	7:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was dangerous to be out there.	8:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	8:07
Herbert Melvin Cappie	If they had been irate that night, we would have gone to jail.	8:08
Michele Mitchell	Why was Fountainview a dangerous area?	8:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	White area.	8:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	8:18
Michele Mitchell	It was a strictly White area?	8:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yes.	8:18
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, White area. We had to pass through there to get home, walking.	8:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And upper middle class.	8:20
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, boy. All in all, like I said before, when you grow up with a situation you're accustomed to it and it doesn't seem so strange. Not that you like it, but you adapt.	8:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But there were people—	8:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Human beings are adaptable, I think.	8:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—in country towns that really suffered because they wouldn't even sell you a Coca-Cola.	8:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, I had this friend, Dennis Lee. Poor Dennis, his folks were sharecroppers, and his way out of sharecropping was the Second World War. He was inducted into the army. He served overseas, and he came back after the war. Fortunately, he survived. He visited his home, and he went into an establishment and he asked them for a Coke. They brought him a bottle of Big Red soda, strawberry soda, and they gave him that. He said, "That's not what I ordered. I ordered a Coke." The man responded, "That's that a nigger Coke. That's your Coke. That's a nigger Coke." Oh, boy.	9:00
Michele Mitchell	Any logic behind that? There shouldn't be, but—	9:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But they wouldn't sell Cokes [indistinct 00:09:48].	9:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He couldn't have a Coke. I'm sure Coca-Cola didn't like that.	9:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I didn't ever experience [indistinct 00:09:56]—	9:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't think Coca-Cola would like that at all if they knew it.	9:56
Michele Mitchell	Let me see if I can understand this. They wouldn't sell Coca-Cola to Black people?	9:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	To Black people.	10:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	To the Black people.	10:05
Michele Mitchell	Why not?	10:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know. It's too good for Blacks. Probably that was the idea, it was too good.	10:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They would not.	10:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	So this red drink—	10:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I've had oh so many people [indistinct 00:10:13].	10:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	—is a nigger Coke.	10:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that's your Coke. A nigger Coke.	10:12
Michele Mitchell	It's unbelievable. Really.	10:22
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Actually, it's the truth.	10:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, you're a little too young. You can't comprehend this kind of thing.	10:26
Michele Mitchell	What was it called again? A red—	10:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	A red drink.	10:33
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was a red soda pop.	10:33
Michele Mitchell	Just a red drink.	10:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Or a strawberry soda maybe you'd call it that, I guess, or the Nehi soda, or whatever.	10:34
Michele Mitchell	It doesn't make any sense.	10:46
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The whole thing didn't make any sense, did it?	10:49
Michele Mitchell	No. No.	10:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Listen, there were times like we would be going to—You couldn't pass through Slidell.	10:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, yes.	10:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	If you passed through Slidell and you were just two miles over the speed limit, they would haul you in and you'd go to jail.	10:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Good. You reminded me of Lincoln and them, and the time they went over there.	11:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, that happened.	11:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Even in this period in the 30s, we were allowed to rent automobiles. I was shocked. I didn't. I wasn't aware that we could rent automobiles. But these friends rented an automobile and they drove over going to Mandeville-	11:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Madison.	11:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Madisonville, which their fathers and mothers came from. They liked the little girls over there. A lot of little Creole girls over there. They went over there, big sports in an automobile. They stopped them in Slidell, "Where'd you niggers get this car?" "We rented this car." One thing or the other. They said, "Come on, we're going to take you to jail." They took them to jail and they checked with the rental agency, found out that it was a rental car. But they held the car and told the agency "Come get your car. We're going to let these niggers walk back to New Orleans."	11:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They had to walk back.	12:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's 35 miles.	12:07
Michele Mitchell	This is in the 30s? Were there other towns in the community that you just shouldn't go through or couldn't go through?	12:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Many.	12:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	There were many. There was a sign in Slidell. What was that cop's name?	12:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I can't think of his name.	12:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, boy. He was a bad cop. He had this sign "Read niggers and run. If you can't read, run anyhow." In spite of all this, we survived.	12:31
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	12:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	At the same time, there were White—	12:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We were fortunate living here in New Orleans.	13:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. Many Whites were our benefactors. Most of us had White benefactors. The man I worked for was instrumental in getting me my job in the post office because I had been passed up on the list. The procedure was to call up three names off the list and select one of those three. The other two would be dumped, then they'd move down to the next three. Well, I came out the first group there rejected. And so I just happened to mention to him one day that I had taken the examination and I had waited for about a year or so and hadn't been called.	13:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He said, "You want to work in the post office?" My response was yes. Within a week's time, I was called. I learned that my name had been dumped. I never would have been called had I not mentioned it.	13:38
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Same thing with teachers.	13:49
Michele Mitchell	Teachers, did the same thing happen?	13:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Teachers, everything. Yes.	13:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, a lot of the Whites at the back got them hired.	14:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's a joke. It's a real funny thing. In many instances you have a White man who had two families, a Black family and a White family. You're aware of all this, I know. They regarded their children. They sent them abroad to school and all these kinds of things. They looked after them. I don't know, they got so many of these Whites, Blacks who have passed over and lost their identity. Whites don't know how much Blackness they have in them. So, the whole thing's crazy.	14:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It is. It really is.	14:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The whole thing's crazy. The priest asked me one time, he said, "Herb," a priest, "Did you ever pass for White?" I said, "No, I didn't pass for White. I went where I wanted." Of course, you'd tell anybody whether I was White or Black, or whatever.	14:43
Michele Mitchell	No, that makes so much sense. You just went where you wanted to go.	15:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And he asked me this in the presence of many people. I had to respond the truth. No, I did not pass for White. How could I pass for White and go to a Black school and everything as a Black. I mean, I wouldn't [indistinct 00:15:23].	15:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You passed for White when they got you over in Picayune.	15:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, well I didn't pass. They made-	15:26
Michele Mitchell	What happened?	15:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	—me White. This isn't for publication. Now, this shouldn't be published.	15:33
Michele Mitchell	I won't ask any other questions about it then.	15:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I'll tell you about it.	15:54
Michele Mitchell	What year was it?	15:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This was about '34 or '35. It was the same year that Tulane went to the Rose Bowl. I can't remember what year that was. I had had a big night that Saturday, and boarded the train Sunday morning going to Covington with a suitcase ye' big to bring gifts to my relatives. I was supposed to transfer from one train to the other in Slidell. I was asleep when we got to Slidell. I stayed aboard the train, the wrong train. I wound up in Picayune, Mississippi. I was afraid, scared to death of Picayune, Mississippi at that time.	15:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I got and said, "How am I going to get back to Covington, or home, or wherever?" I walked over to the filling station and I stood there contemplating my dilemma. Old Pecowitz came along in an old raggedy truck and he said, "Where you going, man?" I said, "I'm trying to get back to Slidell." He said, "Come on, we'll give you a ride." I'm hesitant. I don't know. He said, "Come on man, you want a ride?" They called me man and all that stuff. I said, "Okay, I'll ride."	16:38
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I got in the truck. They said, "We just going down here to Necaise. I'm taking old Unc here," somebody or the other, "To get a haircut." Went on down the road driving along, and said, "What are you doing?" I said, "I'm going to Covington." "Where you from?" "New Orleans." He said, "What do you do?" I said, "I'm going to school. I go to school." That was the only conversation. He pulled out a flask of White Lightening and he offered me, "You want a drink?" I got a drink. I took a drink. And they drank behind me.	17:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I said, "I gotcha now." He said—Conversation picked up again. "Where do you go to school?" I said, "Loyola." We went on talking then about the Rose Bowl. I knew all that, for me, with all the players' names. Don Zimmerman and Bill Backer, all these people. We got to Necaise and, "Look, after old Unc gets his haircut, we going on further down the road. If you want, we'll pick you up again." I said, "That's all right. Thank you." [indistinct 00:18:21].	17:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know boy, that's enough of that. I didn't know where I was, really. But they gave it away. They gave me the drank. I drank first out the bottle. Sure, I'm the guest. Wow, I gotcha. That's it. You see, there's been many mistakes made like that. Men like the White gals who would make passes at you. You're scared to death to acknowledge, showing a sign that you noticed it.	18:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was a beautiful life. And the house we rented, Ruth, the first house we rented had been occupied by a fellow who worked for Standard Oil Company. He left in a hurry because he had some kind of a problem with a White gal. You hear this talk. We don't know exactly what it was.	18:53
Michele Mitchell	Where was the first house that you rented? Where was it?	19:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	3516 South Melrose Street. Housing was scarce then, wartime.	19:22
Michele Mitchell	This was the wartime?	19:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, it was like '38.	19:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'39.	19:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The war happened in—30 who?	19:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'39. I don't know.	19:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I got married in '37. I don't know when you did.	19:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In '37. No.	19:42
Michele Mitchell	You got married in '37 [indistinct 00:19:46]—	19:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, '38, '38, '38.	19:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'38, okay.	19:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	When did you get married?	19:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'38.	19:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	'38, all right. We're crazy.	19:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Don't ask these things. I can't keep up.	19:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You see that attitude is what helps us to survive.	19:55
Michele Mitchell	This is true.	20:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Did he work for a hotel or something?	20:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, he worked for Standard Oil.	20:05
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Standard Oil?	20:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah.	20:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I understand that the reason we were able to get the house, they had to leave here in a hurry because—They had an empty lot right next door. They said that these crackers came down in that lot and they wanted to lynch him. So, he and his wife and children had a coup.	20:10
Michele Mitchell	They just left?	20:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm. I think they went to California.	20:35
Michele Mitchell	What was that neighborhood like when you moved in?	20:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was mixed.	20:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mixed.	20:43
Michele Mitchell	It was mixed?	20:43
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, mm-hmm. Mixed neighborhood.	20:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah.	20:47
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It was very mixed. They had a lot of Whites around, all around [indistinct 00:21:03].	20:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	All around the side streets.	21:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, on our block they only had one family.	21:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And you had Whites next door to Sam's.	21:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that's right.	21:04
Michele Mitchell	Oh, so you were next door neighbors?	21:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Across the street.	21:08
Michele Mitchell	Oh, across the street.	21:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm, then we had some on this side—	21:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We did?	21:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—next to that Hill store. Yeah, that house. Mm-hmm.	21:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't remember. I was rarely home. I had to work.	21:18
Michele Mitchell	After you left there where did you move to?	21:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Moved back with my mother.	21:29
Michele Mitchell	I know, Mrs. Knappe, you told me where your mother lived, but I forgot.	21:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Colapissa Street.	21:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's the street you like, C-O-L-A-P-I-S-S-A. That's Indian. It's the Indians.	21:37
Michele Mitchell	That neighborhood is—	21:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Black.	21:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Black.	21:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Was Black.	21:50
Michele Mitchell	Was Black at that time?	21:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, mm-hmm.	21:50
Michele Mitchell	And you moved to this house after that?	22:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	22:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was 1945 or '46.	22:10
Michele Mitchell	You moved here in '45 or '46?	22:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	22:10
Michele Mitchell	No?	22:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We moved here in 60—	22:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, we had moved here—We moved here in '64.	22:16
Michele Mitchell	Have you considered one area, any one area, being better to raise children than other ones? Like this is [indistinct 00:22:22]-	22:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, but the thing is neighborhoods are always changing.	22:22
Michele Mitchell	Constantly.	22:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Constant change.	22:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	22:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What's nice this year might be undesirable next year.	22:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	When we first moved up here it was very, very nice. But it has changed. It isn't the worst yet.	22:36
Michele Mitchell	Uh-uh.	22:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:22:42] undesirable is one-by-one they're coming [indistinct 00:22:44].	22:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, the people die out, like next door. That family died out and they sold the house. It isn't getting better.	22:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is an aside. Turn your machine off.	22:54
Michele Mitchell	The reason I asked you is do you think that he changed New Orleans for the better or for the worse?	22:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I wasn't that interested in what he was doing. I don't remember that he did anything other than be a hypocrite.	23:04
Michele Mitchell	Could you explain that?	23:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, like typical Whites, he tried to make the Blacks think that he was doing something for them when he wasn't. As I understand too of the early times, they had to move cautiously.	23:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I think he changed. After the war, things changed.	23:37
Michele Mitchell	After the war things changed generally with him or without him?	23:37
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	With him or without him.	23:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, in fact the war brought on changes.	23:40
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The war brought on the changes.	23:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The war brought on changes throughout the whole country.	23:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Country, that's right.	23:46
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Changed the economy and everything. Some of the advances that we made were due to the war.	23:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It sort of brought us out of the Depression because people got good jobs, full-time jobs, and they began to make money, they began to buy homes. Things just got better.	23:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What we did was inherited the White folks' old leftovers in the city when they moved away.	24:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	24:15
Michele Mitchell	When did they start moving away?	24:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	In the 60s.	24:19
Michele Mitchell	This is in the 60s?	24:20
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The early '60s I would say.	24:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, when integration began to—	24:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	When the federal government started building all these highways, that's when they moved. That's when they left. They made it easy and convenient for them. Then the land developers saw a chance to make some money and they started building the houses. As soon as they built the housing and the people moved out into the suburbs, the Catholic church was right there behind. They're building new churches and schools. I'm a Catholic, I can see the folks in [indistinct 00:24:53] too.	24:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Tell her about St. Aug. They would build churches and gyms out in the nettery, out in the suburbs.	24:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They'd try.	25:03
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And we had this high school, St. Aug here, and they went begging for-	25:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	There was a capital donation program.	25:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	25:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And everybody was promised something, this money they were going to give. St. Aug was promised a new gymnasium. The Blacks fulfilled their pledges, paid all the dues they were going to pay, they were supposed to pay, what they had promised. They failed to build a gymnasium. This was a period when Blacks became militant. You can't remember that, of course. We've got the bushy hair, and we did all these things, and you had the Black Panthers. This is just another area in history. We had a meeting with the archbishop at St. Aug one night, and these radicals all came out.	25:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The archbishop tried to explain that he didn't have the money to build the gym, that if he would build the gym he would have to sell some of the church property. Well, the response from these guys was, "Sell the damn property. We don't give a damn. You promised a gym. We put the money up, and we want the gym." Well, the gym came after that. Sometimes you have to be forceful.	26:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They were nasty to them.	26:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And relying on the law—	26:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We understood. See, usually they're bowing down to him. Well, they didn't bow down that time.	26:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, the church has been negligent. You may have been familiar, read about it, heard about Judge Leander Perez who was excommunicated. Do you have something on this? Do you have something on here?	26:42
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	26:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, well I don't need to tell you about it then.	26:57
Michele Mitchell	Well, he was excommunicated, not on—	26:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	From the Catholic church.	27:02
Michele Mitchell	When did that happen? That was-	27:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was in the 70s I think.	27:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	60s.	27:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	60s or 70s. I don't recall exactly. It was during the late 60s too, right after the integration [indistinct 00:27:12]. Yes. That's what it was about. He and several others [indistinct 00:27:16] woman and others who raised so much hell left over integration in the Catholic schools, and was excommunicated. I often express my feelings about his excommunication in this way. The Catholic church had for so many years taught that Blacks were second class people, that I could understand poor Leander's flight. He still felt that the church was right, but the church had turned around then and said, "No, Leander, these people are normal people like you and I, and we can't do this to them anymore."	27:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I can understand he was an old man, and this affected him. It's difficult to take change. I said, I feel sorrier for him than I do for anybody else. He'd been taught this throughout his whole lifetime. It's like me, I've been taught lots of things too. But sometimes, I will think for myself. I don't accept everything that's taught me. I question it or I don't accept it at all. So, I felt sorry for the judge, really. I said he's no good, but no—I felt sorry in this regard, that he had been taught something by the church and then they retracted this, took a reverse stand on it. This is upsetting to anybody. I like to set a policy, and this is it. We don't change the policy. That's it. That is it.	27:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is the way it is in law. You don't change. You might put a new law in place to supersede this one, but we don't exactly change it. I had a White assistant who couldn't accept change at all. My boss came up one day to me and he told me, he said, "Herb, you think you could handle the whole operation up here? You could take the fossils and everything?" I said, "Sure. Sure. I could take it. Sure, Lester." He said, "How long will it take you to be set up to take it?" I said, "Give me a week." My assistant was standing there. He said, "No, [indistinct 00:29:30]. We can't do this. We can't do this. We don't have room in here for what we got now."	28:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I said, "Steve, if need be, we'll go on the roof, or where we want to go. The more they give us to do, the more money we'll make. So, we'll find a way." I had already had it in my mind. By the time the week passed, I got [indistinct 00:29:52] everybody up there, and we were set up for the operation. [indistinct 00:29:56] knew what to do and everything, and it was in full swing. Lester came by and gave me $250.00 for what I did. The people from Dallas came, they all came, to see, look at it. Nothing brainy or nothing. If you don't have enough room on the ground, you go up in the air.	29:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's as simple as that. I mean, what do you do? You don't stack all your stuff on the floor at home. You put it up on shelves. So, we went to work [indistinct 00:30:20] shelves. We had bins, and we worked it up there like that. They just thought it was remarkable, but I said ain't nothing to it. But Steve was about to die, "Man, we can't do it. We can't do it. Oh, no." He just got all upset and whatnot. [indistinct 00:30:36].	30:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You ask me some questions. I can't think of anything more. I know fairytales.	30:37
Michele Mitchell	One last question I wanted to ask you, when you first got married or a few years after you got married, did you take car trips out of state? Did you travel?	30:43
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yes. We had been to New York. We went to Washington, and all around [indistinct 00:31:03]—	31:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We went to Mobile all the time, and that's out of state. Mississippi.	31:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mississippi almost every weekend. What was the experience going to Washington and-	31:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You went to Colorado Springs and left me when you chased behind that fellow. What was his name? That was during the war.	31:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was during the war. You went to Colorado Springs yourself. You remember we were going to Washington?	31:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, the incident with the guy when we were coming home. When we were coming home, in South Carolina.	31:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We were going.	31:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We were coming. Well, either way—	31:49
Michele Mitchell	This was during the war?	31:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No. No, no. This was right after the war, wasn't it?	31:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Yeah.	31:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We were coming back and in South Carolina we had automobile trouble. I pulled aside and I examined the engine to see what the problem was. I saw it. I said, "Gee whiz, I'm in trouble here." It wasn't a major thing. It was something that could easily be remedied if I could get the part. This old White guy, a young White dude was passing down the opposite side of the road and he turned around and he came back. He drove up behind me and he said, "Can I help you, dad?" I said, this is tantamount to calling me Uncle or something like-	31:51
Michele Mitchell	Dad?	32:33
Herbert Melvin Cappie	—that, you know? I guess with him, it's probably slang. Anyway, "Can I help you, dad?" I didn't like his attitude, his approach. I said, "No, that's all right. I'm okay."	32:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	A real cracker. A real redneck.	32:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He said, "Look man, I came here to help you, if you'll let me help you." I said, "Well, I'll tell you I know what my problem is. I need—And my points have gone on me. If I can get some points, I'll be all right." He said, "There's a station down the road about three quarters of a mile," or whatever, and you're over in hilly country like that, you know? I couldn't see. He said, 'I'll push you down there. Maybe you can get what you need there. I'll push you there if I've got enough gas." I said, oh, boy, "Okay, since you want to help me, come on and help me."	32:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	So he pushed me down there, and I got the points. I put them in the car, and I set them blind without a gauge. I set it up and fortunately the car was ready to run and everything. I said, "Thank you, man. Pull your car up to the tank and fill it up." I filled him up with gas. He said, "You don't have to do that. I just wanted to help you." I said, "Yeah, you told me you didn't have any gas, so I got you some gas. I thank you. I appreciate it." It was just a Good Samaritan came along. The fact that he was White didn't make no difference, really.	33:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It surprised me, and I was shocked when he called me that dad stuff. I didn't know what he was talking about.	33:54
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And I looked at him.	33:58
Michele Mitchell	[indistinct 00:33:59] dad.	33:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm. I bet I'll be your daddy. You remember when we went to Atlantic City and stayed in the Black hotel?	33:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She don't want to hear anything about that.	34:12
Michele Mitchell	No actually, when was this?	34:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I don't remember.	34:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was about '50, 1950—[indistinct 00:34:26] in the late 40s, the early 50s.	34:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You couldn't stay on the boardwalk in the hotels. It took about three blocks back they had these Negro [indistinct 00:34:36] Black rooming houses. That's what I called them.	34:26
Michele Mitchell	So it was like a rooming house more than a hotel?	34:38
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. We stayed and it was awful.	34:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well that was something else.	34:40
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, but it was one of the things we had to put up with being Black.	34:49
Michele Mitchell	When you say it was bad, what was bad about it?	34:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The accommodations weren't nice. You know that. Oh, and then too, we had this place in Gainesville where we stopped in Gainesville. The woman told us "I don't have that kind of thing going on in my house."	34:55
Michele Mitchell	What kind of thing?	35:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, I said "What are you talking about?" "No Black and White in here." I said, "This is my wife. That's my daughter there." We had Adrian with us at that time. And Betty too.	35:09
Michele Mitchell	This is in the 50s?	35:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	35:20
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, about 1960, close to '60. Late 50s or close to '60. That was a Black place. It was before we could stop anywhere we wanted to stop anyway.	35:22
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, you couldn't stop. We stopped in Atlanta and we went on.	35:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She's thinking I'm come bringing—It's a Black woman bringing a White man up into her house, and she wasn't going to have that.	35:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We couldn't get a room. They had a Black motel, a new black motel.	35:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Gaston's. Gaston's was full in Atlanta.	35:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We couldn't get in.	35:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was full.	35:42
Michele Mitchell	This was in Atlanta?	35:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm.	35:42
Michele Mitchell	It's called Gaston's?	35:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Gaston. That was a Labor Day weekend, wasn't it? Or Fourth of July?	35:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The Fourth of July. Mm-hmm.	35:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Everything was slow in Atlanta, so we went on out to Gainesville. That's where it was. What other things were crazy? Oh, we had two hotels here in New Orleans, Black hotels. We had the Page.	35:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And Patterson.	36:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And the Patterson. This was where all your celebrities, musicians, entertainers, ball players had to stop when they came to New Orleans. This is where I met Willie Mays and Jackie Robinson, and all these people. That's where they had to stay.	36:14
Michele Mitchell	What were those motels like, and where were they?	36:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Fleabags. They were fleabags. They weren't fine, you know that.	36:40
Michele Mitchell	No, but I'm just trying to [indistinct 00:36:45].	36:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—decent.	36:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The Page was better than the—	36:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm, Page wasn't too bad.	36:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	—Patterson. The Patterson was on Rampart Street and the Page was on Drive Street. The Page also had a little restaurant in it.	36:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, and it was—	36:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's right, a little restaurant.	36:58
Michele Mitchell	They don't still exist, do they?	37:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, the places don't exist. The buildings are gone too.	37:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	This is where all the celebrities stopped, the Page.	37:10
Michele Mitchell	The Page especially, not Patterson.	37:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Page, right. Yeah, right.	37:16
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm. Didn't we hear something on [indistinct 00:37:23] Avenue of guest houses.	37:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They had a guest house on [indistinct 00:37:23] Avenue. You was familiar with all the fast food places like Popeye's. That was originated here by a Black person. He had a beautiful place on Louisiana Avenue, fine establishment. You couldn't go in there without a tie and jacket. It was called Hayes Chicken Shack.	37:25
Michele Mitchell	H-A-Y-E-S?	37:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. Right. Hayes Chicken Shack. That was a fine place.	37:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He started the fast food chicken.	37:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was a chicken place.	37:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He had fried chicken around for Blacks around.	37:58
Michele Mitchell	And it was a really, really fine establishment?	37:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	A real nice place, yeah. He started it in his home and it developed to that extent. You had to find places. That is the thing about segregation. It was good for Black business. Good for Black business, except the Italians and the Cajuns had all the corner grocery stores. Blacks didn't have grocery stores to an extent.	38:00
Michele Mitchell	Not really? No?	38:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, hardly.	38:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Italians and Greeks had a stand around here, and Jews.	38:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	First Black grocery stores were emerging, were Andrew Smith and Eugene Turk. There was a third person.	38:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	There were some markets downtown.	38:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Mason. Well yeah, you had the old Creole butchers, like Martin Vaucresson, Vaucresson's, V-A-U-C-R-E-S-S-O-N. They were in the public markets. We had public markets all around. Every little neighborhood had a public market. In this market, you might have several butchers, eight or nine, several of them. Early days when I was young, they were fairly open markets. You'd find the [indistinct 00:39:26] hanging on the hooks, the chickens hanging on the hooks. They had fish. They had—	38:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They do that in New York.	39:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, right. All this stuff hanging on the hooks.	39:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In the stores, or hanging in the windows.	39:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Then when they'd send you to the store you could buy a quarti of rice, [indistinct 00:39:47], beans and get all that for a nickel. A kid would get a little piece of candy or something called [indistinct 00:40:00]. That's what'd you get for going to the store. Stuff came in barrels. They'd get butter in barrels, and [indistinct 00:40:12], and jelly, and all this in the barrels. They'd put it up in little scoops for you. These Italians had a way they could wrap your rice in paper, beans in paper. They really did it up nice too.	39:40
Michele Mitchell	These open markets [indistinct 00:40:27]—	40:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, this was the corner grocery store we're talking about pretty much. Mm-hmm. Mostly, we had in the public markets, we had meats. I don't know if St. Bernard Market was all Blacks, or if it was integrated, really. But they had Black butchers in there. They was Creole. Those people who live down in the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Wards.	40:27
Michele Mitchell	The last thing that I—This is actually what we started out talking about and we didn't get it on tape, about Mardi Gras.	40:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Mardi Gras. Tell her about Mardi Gras, honey, how you could get in trouble at Mardi Gras.	40:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	One year we took my niece—Was Adrian born? Or was it just Betty? We took her to the parade and we were standing on St. Charles and—	41:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:41:23].	41:22
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	[indistinct 00:41:23] Street. You know, when they throw these beads-	41:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Everybody would grab at them.	41:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—grab at them. Only a handful of Black people. It was just crawling with Whites.	41:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:41:35].	41:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	41:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Not even a handful.	41:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, one or two. They threw these beads, and this Negro caught the beads. This White man takes them out of his hand and fight erupted. I mean, a nasty fight. He wanted to get into it, and I was right. I said, "No, you stay out of that." Because the Whites were crowding around and they was stomping this poor guy. The police came.	41:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Took him to jail.	42:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And you know who they took to jail?	42:10
Michele Mitchell	The man that was getting beaten.	42:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. The man who was getting beaten. Or they had so many incidents at parades and on Mardi Gras. Of course, we had a very nice Mardi Gras down in North Claiborne. You would meet families, you wouldn't see them again until the next Mardi Gras.	42:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And we'd shoot up and cut up one another.	42:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yeah they used to fight and cut.	42:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	All right, that's the truth. The last time we were down there, this girl shot and killed somebody.	42:38
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She sure did, because they ran into the back of the car. This little young Black girl got out and she shot up those people.	42:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The most difficult thing about segregation was in knowing one's place. In New Orleans, my place may have been over here. Alabama, it was in another place over there.	42:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	43:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We had to know how to deport yourself in different places.	43:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It's like in foreign countries, you can't go to foreign countries—	43:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	To show you how the White rich, wealthy, politically endowed ran the country, I was going through Arkansas. I was on my way to Colorado Springs. There was a commotion outside the train that morning. A bunch of people were holding a Black man, and they were charging him with rape and whatnot, carrying on. The train had to stop there for something, to take on water or something. I don't remember what it was. It was there for a little spell. They just insisted on doing this man in until this big White guy came up there. He says, "You're not going to do John anything. That's my nigger. Come on, John." And he took John and walked away. John knew the right people.	43:14
Michele Mitchell	Luckily, for John, he knew the right people.	44:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, boy.	44:13
Michele Mitchell	Was it in the 50s or-	44:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was in the 40s.	44:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It was in the 40s. During the war.	44:20
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You don't need any more incidents. You got enough.	44:24
Michele Mitchell	No, I mean y'all have given me lots of stuff. The last thing I need to get is just biographical information.	44:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Okay.	44:32
Michele Mitchell	What I'm going to do is fast-forward the tape because I'm getting ready to run out here.	44:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	See if you can hear that, because—	44:34

Herbert Melvin Cappie	—basketball. There's a good team out of Philadelphia. We also had a semipro team here in New Orleans, the Black Pelicans. The Birmingham Black Barons and always a good baseball game. Then we had fights at the Coliseum Arena and the Pelicans Stadium. These were some of the best ball players you could imagine.	0:01
Michele Mitchell	And you said that the first, you gave me the Ethiopian Clowns. What was the other team?	0:38
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Birmingham Black Barons, the Homestead Grays, Ethiopian Clowns.	0:43
Michele Mitchell	With the football—	0:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We had lot of teams. Most of your southern cities had a baseball team. There's a Philadelphia team, which was a very good team. I can't recall who they were. A lot of this stuff is fading from my memory now. Josh Gibson was a great player. Put Josh down there. He would sit down and catch the ball.	0:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Lincoln Park, remember Lincoln Park?	1:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Lincoln Park, that's right.	1:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He would go to the—I don't know, I was in high school then.	1:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's where Lincoln Park was, where the prep school games were played. I can't remember many of those teams, but they all came here. It was the Big Blacks city even then. Then we had had local clubs. Each neighborhood would just about have a ball club and our team would go out to the country, Vasher, to play the Vashers. They'd have, not a keg of beer because beer was outlawed then, a big freezer of ice cream, something like that. That's what they'd have.	1:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	A freezer that tall.	1:58
Michele Mitchell	Just full of ice cream?	1:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. And then, but there would be threats made, now. The sheriff of these small towns would be there. He would bet on his team and we had no business whipping their teams. At that time there was a Mandeville player on one of those teams, you remember? And coming back—	2:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He managed it.	2:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, coming back they had a flat tire in another small town and they tried to get the tire fixed. And they said, "Yeah, we fixed tires but not for niggers." Oh, brings back another one. During the war we went to Fort Rucker in Alabama.	2:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Rucker.	2:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right, R-U-C-K-E-R. I took an old friend of mine, a co-worker. He was old, older than I am. His son was in Camp Rucker. And my wife, myself and I, his wife and him and his son, we went up there. We drove up there to visit and we reached Dothan, Alabama on a Sunday morning. And I drove up to the pump in the station. And I stopped the car and the guy looked at me and I say, "Need some gas, you sell gas?" "I don't sell niggers gas on Sunday." Now, that is the best thing I ever heard. I could come back Monday and get it. That means I better get my gas on Friday if I want to ride on Saturday or Sunday. But that was strange.	2:45
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	"We don't sell [indistinct 00:03:45]"	3:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	On Sunday.	3:45
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	How did we get it? I know we all looked at [indistinct 00:03:45]	3:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know how you got it, I was outside the car, y'all were in the car.	3:45
Michele Mitchell	I'm glad that you told me about the sports teams. I'm glad that I got that. Because it must been fun going to those games.	3:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I didn't go to them. A college game in high school, but we used to look forward to Xavier's game on Thanksgiving.	4:07
Michele Mitchell	Why?	4:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, you just dressed—	4:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was a social event.	4:21
Michele Mitchell	On Thanksgiving?	4:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, that was a social event. The ladies dressed all in their finest, girl. Yeah, back in Xavier Stadium.	4:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Years ago.	4:37
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We also had semi-pro football teams. New Orleans must have had about six teams, I believe. I can't remember the names of all of them. The Trojans, the Scrubs, the South Siders. And geez, some of those old guys ought to be here with me, they could recall those names. The Scrubs, the Brutes. Did I say the Brutes?	4:38
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The Trojans.	5:06
Michele Mitchell	And Scrub is just S-C-R-U-B-S?	5:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right, like it is, right. They played Xavier Stadium on Sundays.	5:07
Michele Mitchell	I mean, this is really great information.	5:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You see that there was always something you could do, you could find to do.	5:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Then there was always—	5:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You could go to the park, like [indistinct 00:05:32] Park to the zoo.	5:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But you weren't welcome then until later years.	5:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You couldn't sit down. You could go to the zoo and take your kids to see the animals and things. And so during the war, my mother and I took—I didn't have any children. Did I tell you this?	5:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, you told her that the other day.	5:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, I told these White people that the other day.	5:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I know you told her something.	5:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I told them that. I was telling them how we suffered. And my mother sat down and we all sat down on the bench in the park. And here comes this little man on some kind of little scooter or something. "You can't sit here, you can't sit here." She told my little niece, "Sit down." She said, "You mean to tell me I can't sit here and my sons, these children's fathers are overseas, fighting for you and we can't sit down?" Well, we sat down, he left. But it's against the law.	5:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, you got it now.	6:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They have plenty of them over in [indistinct 00:06:48] his grandmother told him, "You go over-"	6:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't believe anybody talked to you as much as we did.	6:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, I'm sorry.	6:51
Michele Mitchell	You have given me so much great information. It's hard sometimes to get details.	6:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You can't get details. And when you get old people, we forget. It becomes foggy. I know, I've gone. I can remember some things.	7:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, that's the purpose of this work here, to preserve some of this stuff.	7:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. I only wish, like you told John Russo, he should put that stuff down and many could have gotten it from her.	7:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	So many things we neglect to leave for those who come behind us.	7:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Because my mother and father used to talk to us and my mother and I would be cooking and she would tell me all about in the old days and how she came up, what her father did, what her mother did. And this is how you have to get it and pass it on.	7:35
Michele Mitchell	Well, you do. And that's what we're trying to get. And actually, I think I'm going to ask you now, information about your parents real quick. And ma'am, what was your mother's name?	7:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Ruth Wilson Mary Weber.	8:11
Michele Mitchell	So Wilson is the maiden name?	8:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	8:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Ruth Irene Wilson.	8:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	8:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She wasn't?	8:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, I was Irene.	8:20
Michele Mitchell	Your middle name is Irene.	8:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My middle name's Irene.	8:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:08:24]	8:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, I was named for aunt.	8:23
Michele Mitchell	Now, there are millions of ways to spell Meriwether.	8:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	M-E-R-I.	8:31
Michele Mitchell	M-E-R-I.	8:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	W-E-T-H-E-R.	8:35
Michele Mitchell	W-E-T-H-E-R.	8:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right, they're all different.	8:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But they're all sprang from the same plantations.	8:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I was was sprang from the Carolinas.	8:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You think that's funny?	8:56
Michele Mitchell	It's not funny.	8:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's just true.	8:57
Michele Mitchell	It's just the way you put it.	8:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's just true. That's where these names come from. We didn't bring them from Africa.	8:59
Michele Mitchell	No, not at all. It's just the way you put it. And your father's name?	9:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Samuel.	9:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Samuel little Black boy Meriwether.	9:13
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I still can't believe they put that on his birth certificate.	9:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Bubba took that.	9:22
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My brother, he comes here and he goes through all the pictures and I don't know where they are anymore. He's taken them, he's taken them.	9:25
Michele Mitchell	And your parents were born in Mobile?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And did both your parents work outside the home?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, my mother didn't work outside the home.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And your father?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Was a contractor.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And I hate to ask you this again, because you told me what month they were born and now I've already forgotten.	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My mother was born in August 2nd, I guess it was 1894, something around that. And my father was two years old brother than her, and he was born December the 9th. They were married June 5th. Every year when June 5th comes, I say, "Oh, this is my mother and father's wedding anniversary."	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Did they marry in mobile, too?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. My oldest brother was born in Mobile and I was the baby, then I had another brother born here while he was working at Strait. We were born and he was teaching at Strait.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And your brother's name?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My oldest brother Jervey, J-E-R-V-E-Y Meriwether.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And he was born in Mobile?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And do you know about when he was born?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Wait a minute. He was born 7th of September, 1916.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And then your middle brother?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He was born August the 13th, 19—He was two years younger than him.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	1918. Okay. And he was born in New Orleans?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, he was born in New Orleans.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And what was his name?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Samuel, he's a junior. Samuel Ringgo Meriwether.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Ringgo? R-I-N.	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	G-G-O.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Two Gs?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Did your oldest brother have a middle name?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Wilson.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And then you were last?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, I was the baby.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Just the three of you?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. My brother died two months before my son, year before last.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Really? 1992?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	This was the middle one?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The oldest.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And so when your husband referred to Bubba, that's your middle brother?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that's Bubba. That's right. He lives in Maryland, right out of Washington DC.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	That's funny, does he have all your pictures and all your stuff?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, he took most of my stuff. He'd come down here visiting and for funerals and things and go through all of the pictures and things I had. I don't know where they are anymore.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	And he's got them all?	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He's taken them. He's taken them all.	13:01
Michele Mitchell	Well, as long as they're kept.	13:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My cousin sent me from some of my grandparents and all that, they have pictures years ago. But oh Lord, they're in a big box, put away. My great grandmother, my grandmother and all my great aunts and all that, grandfather.	13:06
Michele Mitchell	Were they all from Alabama?	13:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They were originally from North Carolina.	13:30
Michele Mitchell	Really?	13:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And then they migrated down to Alabama, Mobile.	13:37
Michele Mitchell	Where in North Carolina?	13:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh goodness, I can't think of it. I can't think of it. It'll come, but I can't think of it right now.	13:45
Michele Mitchell	I didn't know that. Well, there's a lot I don't know.	13:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Not by yourself. Yeah, they were from the Carolinas. My father's, they came from the plantation up there?	14:03
Michele Mitchell	They did?	14:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, my father's father, his father was a judge, Meriwether. His mother was an Indian. I have her picture.	14:16
Michele Mitchell	Really?	14:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes. Brandywine was her last name. I have her picture back there.	14:29
Michele Mitchell	You still have it?	14:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I have the pictures of all of them, all of his sisters. Some of the family went, they're White. Well, they don't have Black in them. And some of them are married, but same thing with him. His grandmother is half French and half Indian. So you see, I don't know. The Labats over there was his grandmother's sister. That's half Indian, half French. But they Black, they married Black men.	14:39
Michele Mitchell	They married Black men?	15:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. And my grandfather married Mary. Mary Williams was her name. And well, she had my daddy.	15:17
Michele Mitchell	On the birth certificate, it still said the little Black boy?	15:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Well, Mary was Black.	15:34
Michele Mitchell	She was Black.	15:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She was Black. I mean Black. My dad is like me.	15:37
Michele Mitchell	Oh, but she was Black?	15:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. You talking about a shape, Coca-Cola bottle shape.	15:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Should have seen my grandma.	15:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, Black too. I mean, when you say Black-	15:54
Michele Mitchell	You mean Black, Black, Black.	15:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Like that stove.	16:00
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	16:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's my grandma, my great grandma.	16:03
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, but he's got the prettiest Black relatives you want to see.	16:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Cole Black straight hair.	16:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And they got the pointiest nose and pretty little lips.	16:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Straight from Madagascar.	16:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Pretty Black. That's what you call pretty Black.	16:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She was mean, though. Mean.	16:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My Mag was mean, too.	16:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, she was mean, too. But she never was mean to me, I never had a problem with her. The mean ones couldn't catch up with her most of the time.	16:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But her grandfather, he wasn't from Madagascar. It was your grandmother, your great grandmother that was from Madagascar.	16:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right.	16:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I really don't know where my grandmother Williams was from, Meriwether, after she married him. But her mother, my daddy used to tell us about her mother and everything, because she lived with Mary and Meriwether. And my mother used to tell me my brother was born and they had a fire the next day in the house. I don't know what happened. And the old lady just died from fright. Well, I guess a heart attack. She died. And she outlived her daughter, Mary. We still kicking around here.	16:52
Michele Mitchell	Yes. And then you went to the Neil school?	17:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	17:46
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:17:55]	17:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	JW Hoffman, back down at '35. And I went to Xavier College and I got married. And I didn't have children for quite a while, 11 or 12 years.	17:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	12 years.	18:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	12 years before I had my first child.	18:17
Michele Mitchell	Oh, that's right. You were married in—	18:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'38.	18:24
Michele Mitchell	'38. And you were at Xavier-	18:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	A year.	18:32
Michele Mitchell	So 1939?	18:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that September '38 until.	18:38
Michele Mitchell	And Madonna, '35 from—	18:45
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Hoffman. Now I've forgotten, did I go at 8th, 9th? [indistinct 00:19:01]	18:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was three years at-	18:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, I spent two years.	18:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Three years, 9th, 10th and 11th at 35, 7th and 8th at Hoffman.	18:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Was it? I've forgotten. Well, I don't know how many years.	19:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's it.	19:17
Michele Mitchell	But you left Madonna in '38?	19:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, I graduated in—	19:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	'37.	19:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	'37, honey.	19:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	'37. That's what the class you-	19:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right, I got the little thing.	19:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You eat with.	19:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Go get that little thing off of my jewelry box.	19:33
Michele Mitchell	I'd like to see it.	19:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's for the 50th.	19:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, that's nothing but a class reunion thing, that's all that was. He knows, he knows	19:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He's seen where—	19:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Where everything is and what it is, too.	19:51
Michele Mitchell	And you're Catholic as well, ma'am?	19:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, but I'm a convert. I was congregationalist.	19:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	When we get through with all this, you're going to have to tell us about yourself.	20:04
Michele Mitchell	Sure, that's only fair.	20:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's right? You're going to know our innermost secrets.	20:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He doesn't know what I'm talking about.	20:28
Michele Mitchell	Now it's your turn.	20:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Huh? All right, shoot, shoot, shoot.	20:28
Michele Mitchell	Oh, it is only completely fair. And I believe in being fair.	20:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Turn about is fair play, huh?	20:32
Michele Mitchell	Yes. And it is.	20:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I thought it had 37.	20:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh yeah, they do. Class of '37, see?	20:51
Michele Mitchell	Okay, the—	20:52
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that was the football. They called—	20:55
Michele Mitchell	15 years. I started having palpitations when I realized I'd been out of high school for a certain amount of time. So 50 years, that's so amazing. Covington, Louisiana, is that the place?	20:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right.	21:19
Michele Mitchell	What parish is that in?	21:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	St. Tamany.	21:23
Michele Mitchell	St. Tamany. And your mother's first name?	21:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Evelyn.	21:37
Michele Mitchell	Evelyn?	21:38
Herbert Melvin Cappie	E-V-E-L-Y-N.	21:39
Michele Mitchell	And did she have a middle name?	21:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Not that I ever knew of. I don't know, did she?	21:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, and I can't remember.	21:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They called Honey, that's all I know. That wasn't her name.	21:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was her maiden name. What's her middle name? I can't remember, the Davenport. Because my mother's middle name was Hubbard.	21:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Hubbard, that's right.	21:55
Michele Mitchell	It was Hubbard?	21:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, that was her middle name. Ruth Hubbard Wilson.	22:18
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But she was a Wilson.	22:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Like my name's Irene, but I go Ruth Meriwether.	22:25
Michele Mitchell	I know I've got it here. Hubbard, H-U-B-B-A-R-D?	22:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	22:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I feel sorry for you, dealing with these old folks like this, don't remember anything. Can't remember.	22:42
Michele Mitchell	No, this is—	22:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No records available. You don't have a record? That's great.	22:50
Michele Mitchell	You said that-	22:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And can't recall what you're trying to say.	22:58
Michele Mitchell	Like this. No, it gets like that many times for me. You said that both your parents worked. What did your mother do?	23:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Cook.	23:14
Michele Mitchell	Cook. And where was she born?	23:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Covington.	23:21
Michele Mitchell	Covington. Do you remember when?	23:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	May 29th.	23:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I'd say, yeah. What year, I don't know, but about 1900, huh?	23:30
Michele Mitchell	Around 1900?	23:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. Circa 1900, I guess.	23:38
Michele Mitchell	Your father's name?	23:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oswald. O-S-W-A-L-D. Bortel was the middle name.	23:48
Michele Mitchell	B-A-R-T—	23:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	B-O-R-T-E-L.	24:02
Michele Mitchell	B-O-R?	24:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	T-E-L.	24:03
Michele Mitchell	And where is he born?	24:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Pass Christian.	24:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, where you say? Pass Christian, Mississippi.	24:12
Michele Mitchell	How do you spell that?	24:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N.	24:14
Michele Mitchell	Okay, Christian.	24:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	P-A-S-S. Yeah, right. It is Pass Christian, like you said. But you live here long enough, you'll talk like us, too.	24:21
Michele Mitchell	That's in Mississippi, right?	24:33
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right.	24:34
Michele Mitchell	And your father worked on?	24:37
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Was a chauffer.	24:39
Michele Mitchell	Can you spell his name?	24:47
Herbert Melvin Cappie	C-H-A-U-F-F-E-U-R. Chauffeur.	24:48
Michele Mitchell	Chauffeur. And did you have any siblings, brothers and sisters? You said you were an only child. Schools were Blessed Sacrament?	24:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I went to school in Covington and Pass Christian. Went to little private school here called Ms. Barnes, that was a one room schoolhouse.	25:18
Michele Mitchell	Really?	25:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Great place.	25:30
Michele Mitchell	What was that like?	25:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was great. I was a youngster and all the kids, most of the other kids, they were older than I was and I was picking up a whole lot of stuff from them. It was great, really great.	25:32
Michele Mitchell	And then you went to Xavier Prep. You told me that you went to Saint Philomena's.	25:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's the one in Pass Christian, yeah.	25:59
Michele Mitchell	How do you spell that?	26:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	P-H-I-L-O-M-E-N-A.	26:02
Michele Mitchell	Just like it sounds?	26:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Like it sounds. We don't pronounce that-	26:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She isn't a saint anymore. They say she wasn't a saint.	26:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	There was a public school I attended in Covington.	26:17
Michele Mitchell	There was?	26:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You know the name?	26:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No.	26:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Don't remember. This is our you little, very small. Because you came here—	26:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Public school number three for Blacks. Why, you enjoying this, huh?	26:33
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	26:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's terrible, making fun of me.	26:44
Michele Mitchell	No, I'm not. You've just got such a wit, it's wonderful. And you were Christian, Catholic? Okay. Is there any way that both of you would like to wrap this up? Any insights, anything you'd like to say? Then you can wrap it up.	26:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I went to Xavier College, too.	27:16
Michele Mitchell	I thought so.	27:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Three years, had to come out for the war.	27:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, I got a job. Jobs were scarce. Take the job when you can get it.	27:32
Michele Mitchell	Take the job when you can get it.	27:33
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. Well, I could say I explained that once before. The post office paid better salaries than teaching school, working for welfare.	27:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, because my brother finished, went down-	27:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Had his master's in social.	27:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, came here, worked in post office.	27:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The post office was full of Blacks, university educated.	27:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh yes. This useful man was in the post office.	28:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	John. Yeah, john.	28:07
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Got educated.	28:07
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right, couple of years ahead of me at Xavier.	28:13
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Many, many more.	28:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But the Whites got all the supervisory jobs, though.	28:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was all the Black men had, or teacher.	28:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But in all fairness, I have to give credit to those Whites who did have the supervisor jobs. In spite of the eighth grade education, they were smart. They were able to do the job, I have to give them the credit.	28:24
Michele Mitchell	That much?	28:38
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Not much. And I had a supervisor. I didn't know, I thought the man hated me. And we got along poorly, he and I. He picked on me every chance he had. He was always writing me up for something or other, some discrepancy I had, to which I would respond in words he didn't understand. He'd called me up, "What does this say? What do you mean? What does this mean? What do you say in here?" I said, "It says what it says, it's what it is. Nothing else but that. You read it." I used to burn George up, boy. And that got him. He'd come down on the floor and he'd stand over me. I'm casing my mail and whatnot and he'd torment me one way or the other.	28:46
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And I finally found out why he was doing this, to try to wake me at full blast. If I get angry, then I'd go, just go boogedy, boogedy. I think was what his idea was. And he and I got along so poorly that one day he jumped on me on the floor and he's chewing me out all kinds of ways. His face turned red and it looked like it was going to turn blue and whatnot. I said, "I'm going to swing on this cracker before he swings on me." And I let go of a blast at him verbally and it knocked him off his feet. I didn't have to hit him, hit back like that.	29:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And there were other people around. He said, "What's the matter with that guy? Don't he know I'm the only one supposed to blow up around here?" He's the boss, he's supposed to blow up. Then there was another cracker that I had. George wasn't such a cracker after all, because he met me later after he retired. He met me in the hay and feed store. He said, "Did you become a supervisor yet?" I said, "No." He said, "I don't know why you didn't." But then there was another guy when I was subbing, when we come in the evening at the platform, we would dump our mail on the platform and go on off wherever we'd go swing, as it was called, until the next trip. And this guy, they started the practice of checking us in when we'd come in and recording the volume that we brought.	30:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And he was there one evening, next evening, next evening. One evening I came, he wasn't there, so I dumped it on the platform and went on off. When I came back, he jumped on me about, "Where was your mail? When did you come in? What time?" I said, "I don't know what time it was, no." Said, "Look at the card, you see." I guess I was flip. And he said, "You're supposed to report to me." I said, "The hell I am. You're supposed to be out here." I was 20 or 21 years old. Brash young Black dude. Crazy, didn't give a damn about anybody and figured I couldn't get sick, I couldn't get hurt.	31:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	So he said, "I ought to have your ass in Mississippi. I'd whipped the hell out of you." Well, I'm down here on the ground, he's up there on the platform. I say, "Bring your down here on the ground and I'll whip the shit out of you." He turned around and walked off. I'm about to climb up there, I'm about to climb. Yeah, you don't have to go to Mississippi. "Come on down here." I'm about to climb up on the platform. I'm going to climb up there and get him, I had no fear. You didn't have sense enough to fear. And you get tired of this stuff, too.	31:47
Michele Mitchell	I'm sure, very tired.	32:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You get tired of it, yeah. But I didn't experience that much of it, really.	32:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You experienced some in St. Rita.	32:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, well, I won't discuss that. I'll let that go. That that's just ridiculous. I was a wee small lad then, forget about that. I forgive and forget. Forgive and forget. What else you need?	32:29
Michele Mitchell	I just wanted to know what you would like to close with.	32:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	My best closing statement I could give is what I expressed to you before, that we knew our places and it was difficult to stay in our place, because the place was not the same everywhere. The laws were different from town to town. Whereas you had to go to the back in this place, the other place you could go in a division on the side, some places you could integrate. And it was difficult to know just what you were supposed to do in a given place. Nonetheless, like I said too, we are survivors, we survive. And because of the fact that we so passive, that we survived, I think. Because we don't raise too much fuss about anything, we don't even now. No, that's all for the record.	32:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Now, off the record, in order to register to vote, we were obliged to read and interpret the Constitution. Our interpretation was judged by the registrar of voters. And he always understood it differently from the way we did, so we never did properly interpret the Constitution, so all Blacks were denied the right to vote. But being a Republican, one could only vote every four years in a general election, presidential election. So they didn't mind if you registered as a Republican.	33:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They laugh at you, so I registered as a Republican the first chance that I had, and they laughed at me and I walked on out. The law stated six months later, you can change your registration, which I did. I registered once in my life and I've been registered ever since, when I became 20, 21, 22 years old. And now it's easy, just walk in there and register. Now we got mail registration and all kinds of things like that, but that's just a little incident from segregation. We couldn't register, we couldn't vote.	34:30
Michele Mitchell	But you both registered when you were in your 20s?	35:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. And then you had difficulty when you went to the polls. I voted. We lived the White precinct I told you on Miro Street. We registered, we voted at Wilson School, which was a White school, and the poll was in the White school. And I went to vote and everybody looked at me like I was crazy in there and all this. You got to stare these people down. And I voted, there was no problem. But her father had a problem in his precinct. He had to go get the assessor to come up and let him vote.	35:13
Michele Mitchell	When was this, around what year? During the '40s?	35:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is in the '40s, yeah. This was in the early '40s, late '30s, early '40s. Late '30s, early '40s. Like I told my neighbor, I said, "Dave, I registered today. Why don't you go down and register so you can vote?" "Oh no, Herbert. I'm not going to register. I'm not getting into White folks' business.	35:53

Michele Mitchell	You have to say, actually.	0:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Her experiences may have been different from mine.	0:03
Michele Mitchell	Well, I'm going to see what it's like with this microphone, and then if it picks up your voices without it, because I think so far it's okay.	0:07
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Whichever way you'd like to do it. You have a level on that shown?	0:15
Michele Mitchell	Yeah. I've got a level and it's showing kind of low.	0:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Kind of low. Let it this way. Show you any better? That's better?	0:22
Michele Mitchell	Yeah, that's much better.	0:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is a clip on now. Maybe it'll work if I clip it on, huh?	0:33
Michele Mitchell	Yes, sir.	0:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Got to put it on the wrong side. This is for a woman. It's on the wrong side.	0:44
Michele Mitchell	We can flip it around so it does it on the right side.	0:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, that makes sense. Still wrong, see. That's for a woman.	1:05
Michele Mitchell	I never thought about it that much in terms of which way it buttons.	1:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	How's the level now?	1:09
Michele Mitchell	The level's good. What I'm going to do is I'm going to—	1:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The level is good?	1:12
Michele Mitchell	I'm going to rewind it and see how it sounds.	1:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Okay.	1:13
Michele Mitchell	Then if you could just tell me how to spell your name.	1:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	My name is Herbert, middle initial M, Cappie, C-A-P-P-I-E.	1:19
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	1:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I was born in 1917 in Covington, Louisiana.	1:28
Michele Mitchell	Covington?	1:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Covington.	1:31
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	1:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	As fate would have it, my birth was never recorded. I don't know why. Being in a small country town, St. Tammany Parish, we were treated differently from anybody else. We couldn't go into the drug stores and have a soda. To go to school we had to walk four or five miles, regardless of what the weather may have been. While we were walking, many mornings the White kids would pass on the school buses, and they would yell out to us, "Walk niggers, walk." The only thing that made it, I guess, bearable, was the fact that if we hustled up a empty Coca-Cola bottle halfway to school, we could stop at the Coca-Cola plant and they'd give us a Coke to drink in return for the bottle. The school was located on the outskirts of the town near the state fairground, at least the Parish fairground. I attended school in Covington, that was a little small school.	1:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I later attended school in Pass Christian, Mississippi, which was supposed to be a terrible state for Blacks. However, at that time I was in a Catholic school and we had a very militant priest there, father Sweeney, who was very forward in trying to get things for Black people. However, there was very little forthcoming. Then I moved back to New Orleans. I experienced school in New Orleans too. My earliest schooling in New Orleans was in another segregated school. This was a school operated by Mrs. Barnes. This school was a one room school house. All grades were included from one through eighth grade or however far she went. I found this very educational for me because I learned a lot of things that the older kids were learning at that time. On the street car, if we went downtown, we had to ride in the back behind a screen for Colored only.	2:51
Michele Mitchell	Could you, when you say a screen, I don't know what you mean.	4:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, this was not a big screen. All the seats were the same. This was a little board about six or eight inches high and it had two hooks on it. You'd drop it in the receptacle on the seat before you, and if a White person moved up, then you could move the screen up and take that seat. However, they refused to move up most times and we had to stand because they didn't move. Amusingly, when I went to high school, I had a friend who was very fair. He was as White as anyone, and he and I were very close friends. We would board the car in front of Xavier Prep. The conductor would come and tell us, "Go sit up there in front of the screen where you belong." This makes a joke of the whole damn thing. This is what we experienced.	4:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We were not supposed to go to any of the shows downtown, but I had a little White friend called Jack, and his parents were well-to-do. Jack and I would go to the neighborhood theater together quite often. Jack would sit upstairs in the Colored section with me because upstairs was a nickel and downstairs was a dime. So Jack had an extra nickel to spend for candy or whatever. We played football together and lots of other things. I was the only Black there and if I would get the football and be successful in gaining some yardage, somebody would holler out, "Stop that nigger." That would result in a fight.	5:04
Michele Mitchell	I'm sure.	5:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	But nonetheless, we survived all this. Like I said before, we were denied access to the parks and places of entertainment. However, I was successful in going to a lot of these places because my father was half crazy and he insisted that we had the right to go to these places. I went to the parks anyway. I can't think—Well, oh yes. Growing up too was traumatic when I was in my late teens, because during those years, there would be cases of rape. If a White girl were raped, all Black boys had to stay off the streets until the police had picked up one as a suspect. They'd usually find them one, whether he was a true suspect or not, he was made a suspect, and he invariably went to prison for it not necessarily being guilty. There was a very famous case during those years, a Poret Labat case.	5:54
Michele Mitchell	Could you spell that?	7:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	P-O-R-E-T L-A-B-A-T. These were two different names, Poret Labat. They were charged with having raped a young woman and everyone knew that the woman was a prostitute. They went to prison. You can remember some more about this, can't you? Was it—	7:05
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Well, they finally-	7:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	One of them died in prison, didn't he? Or they finally got out. But anyway, they were sentenced to prison. And these were the kinds of things that happened whether you were guilty or not. There were incidents in the Black neighborhoods, the White men going with Black women.	7:32
Michele Mitchell	Did that happen a lot?	7:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, it happened frequently. Like in our neighborhood, I should let my wife tell you about this one because she's more familiar with it than I am. This bus driver would stop his bus, he'd go into this woman's house and he'd spend considerable time in there. It was obvious to everybody what was going on till a bunch of the men in the neighborhood got together. They caught the man and they beat the hell out of him. You remember, Wingy was one of them. I can't recall who the other—Yeah, don't recall his name. No, don't do that. The man's dead now, let him rest in peace. Now, you may have some questions you might want to ask me about some other incidents you may have heard of beside these things. Oh, to speak of my work experiences, I worked serving dinner parties, doing house cleaning and things like that as a youth. Eventually I went to school with the intention of becoming a doctor. However, at that time, the opportunity didn't present itself because of the economic situation of the times.	7:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I nonetheless continued in school until I took the postal examination. I realized when I was called as a result of this examination, that I'd either do this or I would teach school or work for the state and welfare department. These two jobs, the teachers were paying less than $100 a month at that time, welfare workers were paying even less, I believe. I'm not certain about those amounts of money. I realized that working in the post office, I could get $150 a month, which was better for me than 100 or less. I took that job. I was called from a job where I was making 25 cents an hour. I worked 50 hours a week. We didn't get paid till Saturday. That was eight till six every day. Eight the morning till six every day with an hour off for lunch, Monday through Friday. On Saturday we worked till one o'clock. We didn't get paid till Saturday, unlike today. I guess they wanted to make sure we came to work on Saturday.	9:10
Michele Mitchell	Yeah, make sure that you get there. What kind of work was this?	10:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I was working in an automobile dealership, JD Cafe Chevrolet Company. I could not work on an automobile do any mechanic work. We were only allowed to wash, grease, polish, Simoniz and pick up cars and deliver cars. We couldn't put our hands on any tools.	10:28
Michele Mitchell	But you could drive the car.	10:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We could drive the car, yes.	10:55
Michele Mitchell	That doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.	10:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, it does make sense in this respect, I believe. If you realize I was working for 25 cents an hour. I'm sure the mechanics were making much more than that. In retrospect I look back and I tell my wife all the time, I say, "We used to look at these women working in the department stores thinking that they were making meager salaries." I grew up to learn later that these people were doing much better than we were no matter what we were doing, because they were all able to obtain a home at an early age. Whereas it took us a long time to be able to buy a home because of the fact that it was so difficult to borrow money. Some were 75 or 80% of the cost of the property, to be able to get the loan. We were taken advantage of too, by some real estate operators like Singer, who built a subdivision. They took advantage of the streets in the city. They split a block down the middle and formed another street, thereby getting two more rows of housing facing each other.	10:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't recall, I was a little too young to understand how those houses were financed, how they were paid for. But many of those people lost their homes. So I don't think they gave them too much of a fair opportunity to buy them. We were subject to all kinds of discrimination, and we were taken advantage of in any way it deemed possible. I think everything sold in the Black neighborhoods at the corner grocery stores was inferior merchandise and often charged a higher price than for quality merchandise at a reputable store. Every corner in that day and age had a grocery store, or a dry goods store or a drug store, some form of business or a restaurant. These were the people who thrived off of Black people. There was a corner grocery store I recall, people bought on credit at that store until they were paid or whatever, wherever the money would come from. They marked the book with a fork. We were passive people. We allow lots of things to be done to us. When I say passive, we don't object.	12:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	When I say mark it with a fork, there was a book you'd take to the grocery store and he would mark down your purchase in the book. At the end of the week or whenever you would come to pay, he would add it up, total it up, and you were expected to pay them. Some people left their books at the store trusting people. That's why I say they mark it with a fork. If you bought beans, bought rice, well, he bought probably put sugar and flour too on the book for that day, whether you got it or not. Many of us were illiterate, we couldn't read, we didn't know. Today, we're still being taken advantage of. It's in a different form. We now have our own people taking advantage of us. Like I tell my wife all the time, "Don't trust these salesmen." I got a friend who sold automobiles. He survived because he was one of the first Black salesmen in New Orleans. We all patronize Mr. Turk out of our pride. Everybody working in the post office bought their vehicles for Mr. Turk.	13:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He survived and he did very well because of this. Now today we have many other Black salesmen and we don't support them like we used to because the need isn't there anymore. It's up to them to develop their ability and sell on their accountability. You just can't figure that Blacks are going to support you now entirely. That's a way of looking at it because when you walk into an establishment, you have Black salesmen, you have White salesmen. Many places, the procedure is for whoever's up at that time it's his turn to approach the customer. So it's his turn. You get a Black one or a White one. But we have many other ways that we still support one another.	14:54
Michele Mitchell	You think so?	15:46
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes, we do. I'm trying to think. Well, no, we have Black businesses that we support.	15:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	15:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Black establishments that we support. However, that support has not been what it should be. We always had a difficult time too getting financed. That has always been a problem. My wife's father was a contractor and he'd had difficulty getting big jobs because they wouldn't bond him.	15:50
Michele Mitchell	A contractor here in New Orleans?	16:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes. He was not bonded. He couldn't get bonded and insured. He built a home for the mother of a prominent judge.	16:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mother-in-law.	16:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	A mother-in-law of a prominent judge, I should say, who was instrumental in some of the best decisions handed down by the court. Now have a court building named after him. My father-in-law was building this house in Covington, Louisiana. He had a checkbook given to him and his name and everything, the money to pay for whatever he buy and what whatnot. This judge just couldn't stand this, that his mother-in-law trusted Samuel with all this money. But this is a liberal-minded man now. So I don't know, at some point they let you know they're White. That's the way it comes out at some point.	16:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The old lady didn't budge.	17:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, the old lady didn't budge.	17:20
Michele Mitchell	So she didn't?	17:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She didn't budge, no.	17:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She believed him, in the [indistinct 00:17:29], and she stuck with him all the way.	17:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Now, we had had a mass movement of Whites from the city in the sixties. I call it the escape of the Whites. At that time, or shortly prior to that time, this was with the help of the federal government when they created all these highways, interstate systems and whatnot. This allowed them to leave from the city and go into the suburbs. They were escaping us. They've all left now, except a few of them who are stuck here. This is a big Black city now.	17:32
Michele Mitchell	It seems to be.	18:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We are suffering. We're suffering because of this. Our tax base has eroded, the property values have gone down. We're denied any assistance from the state government or the federal government because of the fact we are primarily a Black city. At this time, if it weren't for the business people lending assistance, we'd be in real bad shape here. Because Freeport-McMoRan, they have several projects. They've sponsored support. Then too, now today, we have a Black man whom I'm very proud of, Mr. Lundy, who has a Pizza Hut franchise.	18:11
Michele Mitchell	Really?	18:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He's quite civic minded. He's always doing things for the city publicly, giving his money and support to things.	18:55
Michele Mitchell	Is he related to Mrs. Lavinia Lundy?	19:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know if—You know Lundy? Yeah, that's an old woman. Yeah, Lavinia, she's an old school teacher. She ought to be able to tell you a whole lot of things too.	19:08
Michele Mitchell	Yeah, she's very impressive.	19:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Maybe she can tell you what that salary structure was for teachers back then. I may have erred in talking about $100 a month, it may not have been that much. Let's see. Well, I was talking about Lundy. Yeah, Lundy has, nonetheless, see, this thing hasn't changed too much. Because Lundy bought out a Pizza Hut franchise here. He's got some 30 odd outlets, I believe. He attempted to put one on Britannia Street down in what's a mostly White neighborhood and they fought him every inch of the way. However, he was able to get it there anyway. It's no nuisance like they claimed that it would be. It's not a dine in place, it's a takeout place or delivery place. They protested this thing because of what it would bring into the neighborhood, the trash and all that sort of thing. It's a very beautiful, well-kept place. To the contrary, they permitted a saloon to open on the corner with no parking. They're going over and parking in Lundy's lot.	19:19
Michele Mitchell	Now where is this?	20:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This is on Britannia Street, this particular one. It's on Britannia Street, block off St. Charles between Lions and Robert Street, I think, Upper Lion and Robert. It was a shopping center, had a superstore there, which moved, and they subdivided into smaller places. This man's really civic minded. They fought him again when he tried to open one down in the French Quarter. I think they don't like to see a Negro prosper, that's part of it. But on the other hand, some of them will help him to prosper, like Pepsi Cola is behind him. So now I've talked enough. Let my wife tell you something. I might think of something else.	20:28
Michele Mitchell	No, well see—	21:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, yes. Well, we got some more. I got some more to tell you about. My kids integrated the first Catholic school in the city.	21:15
Michele Mitchell	Which school is that?	21:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was St. Rita. They were encouraged to do so by the nuns at Blessed Sacrament School. We discussed, I talked to them for quite a while, whether they wanted to do it or not. I tried to explain to them how traumatic it could be. It'd be a terrible experience. It was left up to them entirely if they would want to do that. They said they would. I was glad, I knew they would go through a whole lot of trials and tribulations. They were welcomed at school the first day by a nun who came out to the gate to meet them. However, I took them in there with all these jeers standing around and whatnot.	21:27
Michele Mitchell	Jerry Bancops?	22:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, jeerers. Jeers, they're jeering us in-	22:18
Michele Mitchell	Jeerers, okay.	22:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Jeerers, yes. They were cutting up and whatnot, and they went on in. I was satisfied that they had entered the school all right and whatnot. I finally took them to school a couple of days, and then I followed them without them knowing that I was following them.	22:19
Michele Mitchell	Watch out for them.	22:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They made out. Oh, sure.	22:38
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And the police, they made—	22:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, there was a lot of turmoil here. One evening, someone from the school came by and they threw eggs on the house. But that was a worst thing that happened. There was another White family, Desandros who took it upon themselves to escort them home to see that they got home safely.	22:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	When it rained.	23:04
Herbert Melvin Cappie	When it rained, yes. They got them home when it rained. It worked out pretty good, except my son was having trouble with one little dude who gave him a hard time to go. He eventually whipped him up and put him in a garbage can.	23:05
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And sat on it.	23:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	And sat on it. He was going to kill that boy. He sat on it. Yeah, he sat on it, boy. But eventually everything worked out all right. What was he? Altar boy, is his President?	23:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	President. President—	23:33
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Altar boy is a side president of his class. He did all right. The girl caught more hell than he did though, because—	23:35
Michele Mitchell	Really?	23:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, she caught more hell than he did. She was four years older than he was. They'd do little things like giving presents at certain times, and they'd give all the Whites and exclude her.	23:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It's just the parents.	23:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, the parents would doing this. Parents would do this. No, not the children. The parents did this.	23:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The parents.	24:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's like at Christmastime or Easter time or some other occasions I can't name. They would do this. As usual, there was always some nice person there who would look out for her. But the thing that amazed me was when I went to register them in the school, the priest asked me, "Why do you want to come here?" In that tone of voice, you know?	24:03
Michele Mitchell	The priest?	24:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes. I said, "Well, because I'm Catholic and because this church and school is near my home. I see no point in sending my kids clean across town to a school when this church and school is available here. I intend to put my membership in this church too." He didn't like it at all. "Well, you're going to have to help pay for the school." I said, "Of course, I expect to do that." So I don't know, this attitude from him was entirely unexpected. There were other little incidents. They suffered nasty little-	24:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We went to the [indistinct 00:25:12] and we happened to be walking across the street from the church, going to the school. This priest came up to us and said, "Why do you all want to come here?"	25:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's the same one.	25:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Father Castel. Was it Castel? Father Castel.	25:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I wasn't there at that time.	25:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No. In the meantime, Bishop Cody was dedicating the church. So he came up and he escorted us across the street to the school.	25:38
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He's the one who integrated the school.	25:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes. He's the one who integrated the school.	25:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They sent him especially for that.	25:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	25:56
Michele Mitchell	This is 1960 or so?	25:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	1964, about '64, '65, somewhere thereabouts.	25:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Something else happened when my daughter came to the house school. I'm not good to talk because I can't remember.	26:07
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You can talk.	26:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It was in the debate club. She had won little trophies around the city, and they asked her to go to Monroe, Louisiana. When she came home and told us this, my husband said, "I don't think you should go." So he went around to the school and talked to the principal. He said, "You know how they are in North Louisiana. I wouldn't want my daughter, the only Black going, on the team to be hurt." She said, "Well, you needn't worry because if we go into any restaurant or hotel, if they refused to serve Adrian, won't any of us be served." So she went and came back with the trophy.	26:21
Michele Mitchell	She did?	27:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She won the trophy. The Black girls in the school went wild. They went wild. They also, her class was the second Black class to enter Dominican. When they had dad's dinner, something they did, so the girls usually invite their daddies to this affair. They set the table and bring the food. So it was five mothers. They'd go, my daughter and her little friends, they got together to bring their dads. So we got together and we fixed a beautiful delicious dinner and a beautiful setting with silver, crystal, China and everything.	27:13
Michele Mitchell	The whole thing.	28:07
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They won first prize. They won first prize and my daughter, she said, "Some of those dads were sitting up there eating fried chicken from Popeye's." We had baked ham and everything, homemade rolls. Everything was homemade.	28:08
Michele Mitchell	Everything homemade?	28:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. It was beautiful. The tablecloth and, well, they named it yellow elegance because we had a big yellow bouquet of flowers in the middle of the table. It was beautiful. They talked about it.	28:32
Michele Mitchell	That must have been something that you were so proud of.	28:52
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah, we were proud.	28:54
Michele Mitchell	But you had to have been afraid for your children being there, going through all these things.	28:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yeah.	29:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	There was great concern, yes.	29:03
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Of course, they tell me things now that was terrible.	29:04
Michele Mitchell	Years later.	29:13
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. But they didn't tell us when they were going there, but they went on through.	29:13
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I can tell you some more about my experiences in the post office. I spent 38 years in the postal service, and we were denied any promotions in the postal service. I refused to take the postal supervisor's examination because I held out very little hope for being promoted. I finally decided if I didn't take the examination, I could never hope for anything. So I took the examination and I wound up number eight on the roster of an examination that was even easier than the one I took to enter the postal service. About two years had passed since the creation of this roster and I still hadn't been called because custom hadn't changed. People didn't even have to be on the roster to be called.	29:27
Michele Mitchell	When was this? Around what time?	30:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	This was about 1963 or four, about 1963 or four. I took the examination and like I said, I passed. I was working outside as a carrier attached to delivering parcel post. I was approached one day about whether I would like to act as a supervisor in the parcel post area. As much as I would be an indoor job as opposed to an outdoor job and they figured that I would be eligible because I was working attached to the parcel post unit. Well, I went inside, I tried it. The first day I was brought to the area and introduced to it by a White supervisor who said, "This is your unit. This is the unit you're going to operate. I'll see you later." That's all I got.	30:31
Michele Mitchell	That's helpful.	31:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's what I got. I stayed back there and four o'clock in the evening, here come people walking in. I don't know Joe from Jim, what his abilities are or anything, his scheme knowledge. No, nothing. So I walked around and I interviewed each fellow in his workstation after I finally got him put together some kind of way or the other. I was asking them what they were doing. I questioned him so much that one guy said, "Don't let the guy fool you. He knows what you're doing. He knows everything. Don't let him fool you. He knows what's going on." They took that attitude and they'd come to me and point out certain things to me. I got a lot of help from the fellas working in the unit. Eventually we reached a point where I figured I had to get a promotion and it came about in a funny way because my immediate supervisor was racist, no end. There was need to create a new supervisor in our unit, and one of my supervisors was questioned as to who could take that job. The general supervisor, general foreman, questions who would take that job.	31:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He mentioned this fellow and the postmaster said, "Oh, not him. What does he know?" Then the guy responded, "Well, he can operate the unit." The postmaster replied, "But you put a monkey in an airplane and he'll fly it too." But anyway, he finally said, "Isn't there anybody else in the unit you think who could be the general foreman?" Well, then he was forced to name me. I got the job, and eventually they dumped some more work orders from Birmingham. They closed the terminal up in Birmingham, Alabama, and they shifted all that mail down here to New Orleans. With that, I got another supervisor and I requested a reevaluation of position. I thought my position should have been higher level than it was, and I requested a reevaluation. But shortly thereafter, the postmaster sent one of his emissaries down to ask me, "Why did I apply for a position as a station assistant superintendent that was vacant?" In reply, I told him that I want to go out to a station. I thought with my experience, I could be a station manager.	32:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I also felt that I still had ambition. My ambition had merely been stifled. I don't know if you liked the words I used, but anyway. He said, "Well, all right. But I'm going to give that job to Jimmy Brands." I said, "Well, okay, that's your prerogative. But I just want to let you know I'm still interested. I want to be promoted." He was a racist person too. So eventually he sent for me and he said, "You want that job at Broadmoor?" I said, "Yes, I want the job at Broadmoor, if you feel you want to give it to me." He said, "Well, I don't know. I want to give it to you, but you say you want to reevaluate your position here." I said, "Yes, I do. I requested it." "Well that's not going to come through." I said, "I don't know if it comes through or not." He said, "Well, I'll tell you what, if you go to Broadmoor, you can come back here if your reevaluation comes through." I said, "No, I wouldn't want to do that, because each is the same level. Broadmoor is the same level. It's a new job."	34:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He said, "But you can have it if you want to come back." I said, "No, thank you." So while at Broadmoor, I went to Broadmoor as assistant and the position came open down on the floor to a superintendent. I applied for that and he sent for me at that time. He said, "I would give you that job, but I have promised that to—" I can't recall the fellow's name at this time. I said, "Well, if you promised it to him, it would be best if you give it to him since you've promised it to him. But I hope that by not taking this job, it doesn't jeopardize my chances for a future promotion." All the time I'm laying this on him. So finally he sent for me one day. He said, "We've been criticized because we don't have any Blacks out in the stations. I'm going to make you the first Black station manager." He didn't say Black, he said, "I'm going to make you the first Negro station manager."	35:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	So he spelled out how he was going to make the moves and everything. When he sent me out to station B as an assistant, the incumbent to him, he said, "Well, Herb, when I saw you coming, I knew I had to look for a job. I knew it was coming one day."	36:41
Michele Mitchell	But how many years did all of this take?	37:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, well, let's see. That was about, oh, gee whiz, I had 20 on, almost 30 years of service when this happened. Close to 30 years of service. That's why I'm saying my ambition has merely been stifled, it's not dead. Well, fine anyway. I got to become the station manager. However, they did see fit to give me the worst stations in the city.	37:03
Michele Mitchell	So this happened?	37:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah.	37:30
Michele Mitchell	They would give you the worst one?	37:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right, the worst ones. The most difficult stations. Stations where there were three types of carriers. You had one trip, two trip, and three trip carriers, people coming and going all day long. You had motor vehicle operations, all kinds of different things. But the level of difficulty was not commensurate with the level of pay. But eventually it reached a point where I applied for a postmastership, which meant I went to Memphis for an interview. I approached this interview and I was told that because you don't get this job—It wasn't if you don't get the job, but because you don't get this job, don't let this stop you from applying again.	37:32
Herbert Melvin Cappie	After the interview I was told, "We would like to see you back up here." Well, in the meantime, a friend of mine, Shank Henry, who was the president of Longshoreman's Association here in New Orleans, told me, he said, "Herb, if you want the job, I'll talk to Lindy Boggs for you." I said, "No, Shank. I don't think we need to talk to Lindy. I don't want to be indebted to Lindy." Lindy may have promised the job to someone else already. I think it was promised to the guy who got it. The guy who got it incidentally was a supervisor in a unit who had trouble supervising Black women.	38:21
Michele Mitchell	What kind of trouble?	39:02
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I don't know the trouble, but however, he was not supposed to supervise Black women anymore. He was given the job as the manager of a postal station across the river. He went over there and he had messed it up within 10 days. A friend of mine was sent over there to try to straighten it out. Edgar was sent over there, and I hold Edgar and Lionel for one of us not getting the job. Three of us were supposed to apply for the job, and we figured it would be difficult to not take one of us. We had good reputations and everything, but these two guys backed out at the last minute. They didn't apply. I was the only one who applied.	39:04
Michele Mitchell	Why do you think they backed out?	39:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I never questioned them about it. I just felt bad about it. I figured they just either didn't care or whatever. I don't know. But nonetheless, Edgar still had to go out over there straighten that place out this guy had messed up. You wanted to hear about it before integration. I'm getting into since integration, things haven't changed a bit.	39:49
Michele Mitchell	Well, I think that's an important thing to get on tape [indistinct 00:40:19].	40:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. Everything has not improved. We get the benefit of going to the state universities. Here's something that's come up lately that I'm shocked about. I wasn't aware that these legislators had these scholarships to award to Tulane University. This only came out because our last mayor saw fit to give his to his son.	40:19
Michele Mitchell	His name was Sydney.	40:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	[indistinct 00:40:46]. It created a big scandal and it brought this out to the public. My son was seeking whatever way he could to get to school, and we were unaware of this thing. Then now, I find that two Blacks have given their scholarship to Whites. As badly as we need help, these people who are politicians, they depend upon the Blacks to get them elected and they're giving these scholarships to Whites. It doesn't make sense to me.	40:46
Michele Mitchell	You said so many things that make me want to go back and ask you questions.	41:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, sure, anything.	41:18
Michele Mitchell	First, just because this a little while ago, you and your wife were talking about the integration of a St. Peters school. Where was that neighborhood because you said that that was a school in a church?	41:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That was near Gert Town. You heard of Gert Town?	41:33
Michele Mitchell	Gert Town, G-I-R-T?	41:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes. Gert Town. G-E-R-T. Gert Town. That's supposed to be a bad section of town. We were living on Colapissa Street. The school was about three or four blocks away on Fountain Blue Drive. That's where it's located. 65, I think, Fountain Blue Drive.	41:40
Michele Mitchell	I didn't get the house, the street where you were living on. I didn't get it.	41:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Colapissa.	41:59
Michele Mitchell	How do you spell that?	42:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	C-O-L-A-P-I-S-S-A.	42:02
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	42:06
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's named after an Indian tribe.	42:07
Michele Mitchell	The school was on Fountain Blue?	42:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Fountain Blue Drive, right.	42:14
Michele Mitchell	Gert Town, what are the main streets?	42:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Gert Town is between the area of—What was it? At that time the inbound IC track, which is currently Earhart Boulevard and Washington Avenue or the New Basin. From Carrollton Avenue to Jefferson Davis. Jefferson Davis. That's right, yeah. That was Gert Town.	42:22
Michele Mitchell	Gert Town. Okay.	42:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's named after old man Gert.	42:57
Michele Mitchell	And who's that?	43:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	He's the guy that owned all that land back there. Well, when you hear of Gert Town, it had a bad reputation. I don't know. They said we lived in Gert Town, we were a block off of Gert Town. But everybody called the area Gert Town like they call this Hollygrove. This is not Hollygrove. This is still Carrollton.	43:00
Michele Mitchell	Hollygrove is a little bit back that way.	43:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Back that way.	43:25
Michele Mitchell	Back that way.	43:25
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, right. That's right. Back that way. Back where Ms. Reed lives.	43:25
Michele Mitchell	Yeah, that's where—	43:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She lives in Hollygrove.	43:29
Michele Mitchell	—She told me that he grew up in Hollygrove.	43:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. That's right. You remember all that, huh?	43:31
Michele Mitchell	A little bit. So when your children were integrating the school, was that neighborhood mostly White?	43:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, it was all Black.	43:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That neighborhood where the school was was White. Yeah, we were living in a Black area. However, it was only a couple blocks away from the White area.	43:47
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. It was right off of the White area.	43:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Now that area, most of that has become Black now.	43:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh yeah.	44:00
Michele Mitchell	Well, that seems to be the pattern that it slowly starts to shift over.	44:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. We always get the trash they leave.	44:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And they began to go down.	44:20
Michele Mitchell	Oh yes, this is true.	44:20
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah.	44:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They begin to go down because the houses are old when they buy them and they can't afford to keep some of those places up. The money isn't there. Some of them are able, and nobody buys great big houses. I see two Black families in Fountain Blue Drive with red big houses. They look nice though. They're still looking nice. I hope they'll be able to keep them up.	44:20
Michele Mitchell	But I've been reading that back in the thirties and the forties, New Orleans wasn't as segregated as it is now. That more Blacks and Whites lived in similar areas. Is that true?	44:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	New Orleans wasn't what? No, it wasn't it. Where she lived as a baby, there were Whites and Blacks and Blacks and Whites. It was not nearly as segregated as it is now. Oh, there he is.	44:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, my father came to New Orleans to teach school at Straight University.	45:11
Michele Mitchell	Now, where was he from?	45:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mobile, Alabama.	45:24
Michele Mitchell	Your father's from Mobile?	45:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, my mother and father were from Mobile. They moved here and they taught at Straight College on Canal Street.	45:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What kind of car do you have out there? A White one?	45:36
Michele Mitchell	It's a White one.	45:37
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, okay.	45:37
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	And I was born—	45:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes.	45:43
Speaker 4	[indistinct 00:45:50].	45:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes, a white car?	45:43
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	45:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Okay, thank you.	45:50
Michele Mitchell	Hang on.	45:51

Herbert Melvin Cappie	—in those days and nobody had anything.	0:00
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	0:07
Herbert Melvin Cappie	All the similar circumstances.	0:08
Michele Mitchell	Your parents were—	0:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, they had a house on Rocheblave Street, right between Canal and Iberville. It was all White neighbors. When I was born, my mother said she used to go down to Canal Street where the shops were. This old lady would keep me and my two brothers. I had two brothers and the three of us, she would keep us. She said they were very nice. They were very nice. It wasn't as segregated and nasty as it has become. I think it's getting worse myself.	0:15
Michele Mitchell	Did you ever play with White children at all, or not really?	0:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	0:59
Michele Mitchell	Really?	0:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes. I played with White children. We played with White children. Well, always, there was an Italian on the corner with children and if we were playing outside, they would come and play. I used to go over to Pass Christian every summer and there was a little White girl that I played with every summer. We'd play with dolls and everything. We lived right near. In fact, we could go out of our backyard into their backyard. They had a little gate and it wasn't our house. I was only visiting over there with my aunt. We had played a lot. Ate with them.	1:00
Michele Mitchell	Ate with them, too?	1:54
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uh-huh.	1:56
Michele Mitchell	This is in [indistinct 00:01:59]?	1:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, this was in Pass Christian, Mississippi.	1:59
Michele Mitchell	This was in Mississippi.	1:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. That's right.	2:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	The whole thing about it all was in those days, we knew our place.	2:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yeah.	2:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We knew our place. When the White kids left, goodbye.	2:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, I went to high school, I went to McDonogh 35 on Rampart Street. We used to walk to Canal Street in the evenings after school and go to the shores. They were always fair children that could go to the Sanger Theater.	2:14
Michele Mitchell	Fair children?	2:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Fair. The fair ones. We would all walk together to Canal Street. The fair ones would go to the Sanger. We'd go to the Loew's or Orpheum.	2:37
Michele Mitchell	You would go downtown. Then would you sit downstairs or up in the balcony?	2:47
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We'd sit in the balcony, the darker children. The lighter ones went on over to the Sanger.	2:50
Michele Mitchell	Really?	2:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That went on a lot in high school.	2:59
Michele Mitchell	It was just—	3:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, we were friends. We were friends. We understood that they wanted to go there to pay more money. I didn't want go anywhere when I had to pay more money.	3:04
Michele Mitchell	It was cheaper to go sit upstairs at the Orpheum.	3:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. In the Loew's State. They didn't go downstairs at the Loew's State or the Orpheum, they would go to the Sanger when they wanted to see a movie. They would just go on.	3:14
Michele Mitchell	Now—	3:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They were [indistinct 00:03:31].	3:29
Michele Mitchell	I mean, did a lot of people do that sort of thing and how did people think about it?	3:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, we didn't pay it any mind.	3:36
Michele Mitchell	It just wasn't any—	3:37
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, it wasn't a big thing. They said if they'd catch you, they'd throw us over. That's your problem. That's your problem. We were friends and they would go—They said, "We can got to Sanger to see that picture, that movie." Go on over to the Loew's State.	3:38
Michele Mitchell	Do these [indistinct 00:04:11]-	4:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Of course, New Orleans is full of that.	4:10
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	4:10
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That happened in those days when I was in high school. We'd all walk to Canal Street together. They'd cross on over and go to the Sanger, go on over to Loew's State or Orpheum.	4:10
Michele Mitchell	These are people that went to McDonogh 35?	4:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	4:21
Michele Mitchell	They didn't—I mean, no tension?	4:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, there wasn't any tension.	4:29
Michele Mitchell	Do people do this to get jobs, too?	4:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, they do that a lot to get jobs.	4:43
Michele Mitchell	Because they're better paying jobs, right?	4:43
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, that's right. I didn't complain. I could have got a better job. At one time, you couldn't get a job on Canal Street working for doctors or some old store unless you were very fair or your hair had to be a certain texture. You couldn't get that job. It was something before that integration, they did move away from here, move up north and passed this White to get jobs. I know several families left. Then they—	4:44
Michele Mitchell	Some families [indistinct 00:05:24].	5:16
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Then they migrated to California to be White so they could get jobs.	5:24
Michele Mitchell	Mostly California?	5:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, a lot of them went to California.	5:31
Michele Mitchell	Why California?	5:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Some Florida. I don't know.	5:32
Michele Mitchell	Why California?	5:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I don't know. I really don't know why they went to California, but I know so many of them went to California to be White. So many of them went to New York so they could get more money. But I can remember me having a relative and she worked as White care.	5:36
Michele Mitchell	She did? Where'd she work? Did she put that on?	6:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She worked at a department store, it wasn't anything great, but she continued to work as White for 20 or 30 years.	6:10
Michele Mitchell	Now when did she start working as White?	6:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	As a young woman.	6:27
Michele Mitchell	About 19—	6:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes.	6:30
Michele Mitchell	—years old? Around 19—	6:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	6:34
Michele Mitchell	—30, 19—	6:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In the '30s. That's right.	6:34
Michele Mitchell	In the '30s?	6:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In the 30s. She walked to work and she would meet us downtown and just hug and kiss us all right in front of the White people.	6:36
Michele Mitchell	Downtown?	6:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uh-huh.	6:50
Michele Mitchell	She wasn't afraid of losing her job?	6:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, she wasn't afraid. She would meet us. She was really only working for the salary, the money. There is so much of that. I went to a wake one night in Madisonville, Louisiana. That's over the lake.	6:51
Michele Mitchell	Over the Lake Pontchartrain?	7:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	St. Tammany. I was shocked to see I was the darkest person at this wake. That's right. That's today. That's today. They tried to even—Everybody live in this little area, in the little town. Fair. Green eyes, blonde hair.	7:18
Michele Mitchell	That fair?	7:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. That fair. You see one or two sometimes marry a brown or a darker person, but most of them cling to that fair.	7:51
Michele Mitchell	This is—What's the name of the town again?	8:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Madisonville.	8:08
Michele Mitchell	Madison.	8:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Madisonville, Louisiana. They're over there today. My good friend's son married a girl. She was a Baton from over there. The son died, a young man in his thirties. We were at the wake and this Madisonville crowd came over to the wake and everybody was looking around, what? Are they White coming here like this? So many of them, they were Black. But so many of these people, they don't want to be White, but they don't want to be Black either.	8:10
Michele Mitchell	Either.	9:00
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	9:00
Michele Mitchell	They want to be considered Creole?	9:00
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. They want to be separate themselves as Creole.	9:01
Michele Mitchell	Because of that—Now, how would they identify—I mean, how would they define what Creole means?	9:07
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, Creole means so many things.	9:12
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	9:15
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Creole means so many things. It means if you are a native Louisiana.—Louisianan, you are Creole. It means if you're—What I had learned when I was a kid, if you were French and Spanish descent, you were Creole. But the Blacks say it's French, Spanish and Black. They're the true Creole so I don't know. That Creole stuff is something, but it's still going on. There's a place above Baton Rouge somewheres called Hoochieville or Coochieville. They had picnics in the summer and everybody there is very fair. A few shades brown, you can't—	9:17
Michele Mitchell	There's a few shades brown.	10:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Few shades brown, but of course they're losing all of that themselves. It's integrated. We say they're integrated. We went to a party—This is my kids were little in Lacombe, and you—	10:28
Michele Mitchell	You spell that L-A-C-O-M-B?	10:45
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uh-huh. Lacombe, Louisiana. They began to come into this country party. The man played the violin and they had made gumbo and they had a lot of beer. That was a party, real country. Here they come marching in with their husbands and things. Some of the girls were so very fair and their husbands so very dark. The little children were chocolate brown. My husband say, "Oh, they're integrating now."	10:48
Michele Mitchell	This is in the '50s?	11:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, indeed.	11:32
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	11:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In the '50s. In the '50s.	11:32
Michele Mitchell	But I mean, wouldn't people's families disapprove of that?	11:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, they did, but I don't know what happened. They really are integrating in these—I don't know if Madisonville is doing it yet. I know last year I was told that Madisonville is still the same. Still the same. They don't like to go to Covington or something. They say Black niggers live over there.	11:39
Michele Mitchell	In Covington?	12:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uh-huh. Black niggers live in Covington.	12:09
Michele Mitchell	They just don't go.	12:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They don't want to be bothered with Covington.	12:12
Michele Mitchell	Well, do they want to come down to New Orleans?	12:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, they come down to New Orleans. A lot of them. They moved here. They moved here and gone to California. I had one friend—I had a lot of them were friends of mine. They were fair. But her husband's brother and the husband went to the service, to the Army. The husband went as a Black in the service. The other brother went as White. The mother was getting two checks. One from a White son, one from a Black son in the service.	12:16
Michele Mitchell	Was the White son's check more?	12:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I don't know. I don't know. They told me this, but I don't see how she could get two checks from two sons unless they were sending it.	12:57
Michele Mitchell	It's kind of—	13:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, it doesn't ring true. But anyway, she had one Black and one White in the Army. But the Black one was as fair as the White one.	13:06
Michele Mitchell	Really? It was just a [indistinct 00:13:20] made.	13:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But he [indistinct 00:13:21]. He just went on as a Black person.	13:20
Michele Mitchell	This is during the war?	13:22
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. This—The second World War.	13:28
Michele Mitchell	Isn't that something? Did you grow up in the 7th Ward?	13:33
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	13:38
Michele Mitchell	No. You grew up where?	13:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uptown.	13:41
Michele Mitchell	You grew up Uptown.	13:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I was born—	13:41
Michele Mitchell	In—	13:43
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—downtown. No, I was born here.	13:44
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	13:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Then my father moved Uptown. He built a house Uptown.	13:49
Michele Mitchell	Where was the house? It was between the-	13:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	On Colapissa, between Broadway and Audubon. We stayed there until I was grown and married. I came back there after we were married because we couldn't find a house. Houses were hard to rent. My daddy fixed the place into an apartment, one for the family and one for my husband and I and my children were born there.	13:54
Michele Mitchell	In the house?	14:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, not in the house, but while—	14:23
Michele Mitchell	I mean, grew up.	14:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. I had one brother born in Mobile and one born here, too. I was born here.	14:25
Michele Mitchell	Before you went to McDonogh 35, what school did you go to?	14:45
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I went to Danneel and then—It's still back there, but not the same school.	14:48
Michele Mitchell	D-A-N-E-E-L?	14:54
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Uh-huh. D-A-N-N.	14:55
Michele Mitchell	N-N. Okay.	14:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Then I went to Hoffman public schools because I wasn't Catholic. I didn't go to Catholic school because I wasn't Catholic at the time. Most of the kids—Then, too, the kids that were Catholic and went to public schools, usually they were from big families and they couldn't afford to send them all that tuition, even though it was a nickel or dime, they couldn't afford that.	15:02
Michele Mitchell	That low.	15:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	15:28
Michele Mitchell	The tuition was—	15:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Twenty-five cents.	15:28
Michele Mitchell	Was this for a year?	15:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, a week.	15:30
Michele Mitchell	A week. Okay.	15:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I went to Hoffman then to 35. Graduated 35. I went to Xavier a while. Couple of years. Then I got married.	15:35
Michele Mitchell	Well, do you mind if I ask you what sort of things you did for—I mean, you talked about going to the movie, but what other things did you do for entertainment?	15:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, what did we do? We'd go to the movies. We'd go to the lake. We could go to the lake.	15:50
Michele Mitchell	Now, there on the beach?	16:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	On the beach. But we had our section. What was it? Oh, I can't think of it. Oh, I can't think of the area where we had to go.	16:05
Michele Mitchell	But it was a separate area.	16:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, yes. The worst.	16:25
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	16:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The worst. Then we had—	16:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Ruth, food's out there. Got to go ahead.	16:26
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Okay.	16:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She'll help you.	16:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She can.	16:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Ms. Mitchell will help you.	16:36
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	16:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She can't help.	16:40
Michele Mitchell	Ms. Mitchell will help you.	16:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	What was the name? SeaBrook.	16:44
Michele Mitchell	SeaBrook.	16:46
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That was the name of the-	16:47
Michele Mitchell	Where we went swimming?	16:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	16:48
Michele Mitchell	And got drowned and all that?	16:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. Holes, you know, where it was terrible for the Blacks.	16:50
Michele Mitchell	No life [indistinct 00:16:58] or nothing.	16:57
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Then they built Pontchartrain. No, Lincoln Beach for Blacks. That was down in Littlewood. What else did we do?	16:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Got to get the food in the fridge.	17:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Okay. They did Little—	17:18
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You don't mind, huh?	17:23
Michele Mitchell	No.	17:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We'd have little dances and parties.	17:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yesterday's the 20 what?	17:27
Michele Mitchell	Twenty-second.	17:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's about it. I used to go to Mississippi and Mobile every summer.	17:31
Michele Mitchell	On the coast?	17:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm. I enjoyed that. The funniest thing, the beaches over there in Pass Christian was the only place along the course that would let Blacks go in a certain area.	17:36
Michele Mitchell	Really?	17:52
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But I had—	17:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Where did I go?	17:54
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	His grandma told him to go on up there off the White pier.	17:56
Michele Mitchell	How did that work?	18:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It worked.	18:00
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It worked. They didn't tell him anything.	18:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	My folks were aggressive. They were humbled.	18:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	18:05
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, the amusing thing about it is the entire Pass Christian at one time was owned by Blacks. The Charlot family.	18:06
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They owned the beach.	18:18
Michele Mitchell	How do you spell this?	18:18
Herbert Melvin Cappie	C-H-A-R-L-O-T.	18:22
Michele Mitchell	C-H-A-R—	18:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Some of them still living around there.	18:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	L-O-T. Their family owned so much of the beachfront—You know how White people take away Blacks' land? Of course, they sold it to them, but they didn't get anything.	18:24
Michele Mitchell	This is on the Gulf Coast of Mississippi.	18:40
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right. They called—	18:41
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I'm sorry, Michelle, but we got to put the—	18:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My freezer.	18:45
Michele Mitchell	Ma'am, I'd like to ask you some questions about what courses you took in school. You talked about going to McDonogh and just what courses you took at Xavier.	18:47
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well. I was in home ec, so you know what we took there. We had French and we had math and we had the home ec part of it. What else? We had a regular educational course.	18:57
Michele Mitchell	Do you remember what things they taught you in terms of U.S. history or state history? Did they teach you any Negro history at all?	19:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	19:28
Michele Mitchell	No?	19:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	But we got Negro history coming up in the public schools. No, I didn't have history back at Xavier. But I had it in the public schools. We used to—When I was a kid, we'd have little plays and Harriet Tubman and we'd put on these little plays. I can remember my daddy had a book, poems by Paul Laurence Dunbar. My mother, she could take off those, say those poems. She was really good at that.	19:30
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	20:03
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, I can remember going to see Fisk Jubilee Choir and well, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington, We had all their biographies to study and to learn in school. We had that, but I think the teachers really just gave us that, you understand? It wasn't a course, but the Black teachers would give us these things. Now he went to Prep High School.	20:06
Michele Mitchell	Xavier Prep.	20:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah. I think some of the teachers gave him that.	20:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Give who what?	20:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Black history.	20:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Old White woman from Iowa. She was the greatest teacher I ever had. She was wonderful. During the history period, she always gave us Black history.	21:00
Michele Mitchell	What sort of things did she teach you?	21:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She taught us history. That was her field. She was great.	21:12
Michele Mitchell	What you-	21:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Ancient history. Medieval history. History period. Black history. That was her. We had all White teachers. Well, this was founded by the sisters, the Blessed Sacraments. They operate the school and they were supposed to be doing great for us.	21:18
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He's not—You're not getting that.	21:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well she—Anyway.	21:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh.	21:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They were trying to make us acceptable citizens.	21:45
Michele Mitchell	Both of you, actually.	21:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	To some extent, they deprived us of some our manhood, I believe.	21:51
Michele Mitchell	You said these really tantalizing things then you stopped.	21:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, I won't go on. When I say deprived us of our manhood, maybe some of us became too timid. We weren't able to go forward and push and raise hell for things that we should. Okay? I'm just saying that I don't know anybody who was like that though. But they did their best and they really made us decent people. I think. You going to tell us [indistinct 00:22:31]. She can tell you some stuff.	22:02
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I can't remember. I can't remember anymore. I [indistinct 00:22:39].	22:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I got that disease, you know CRS? You have that?	22:31
Michele Mitchell	No.	22:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	CRS? It's dangerous. It's catching, too. You in here, you're probably going to catch it.	22:39
Michele Mitchell	CRS?	22:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Mm-hmm.	22:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Can't remember.	22:48
Michele Mitchell	Okay.	22:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You said that. You said that, I laughed like that.	22:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I didn't say that word.	22:50
Michele Mitchell	I was like—	22:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You didn't say the S word. Mama didn't said S word.	23:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh goodness. Well—	23:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Guess I'll catch penny tonight.	23:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, but by 5:00—	23:01
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They're gone?	23:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They'd be gone. Got to go to a ball, $22 this time.	23:23
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's what I feel—Oh, she called?	23:24
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	She called.	23:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What'd you tell her?	23:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I told her you couldn't come right now.	23:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You didn't tell her I wasn't coming at all?	23:30
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, I didn't.	23:32
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Get somebody else or whatever.	23:32
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No.	23:32
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's what I wish you had told her.	23:36
Michele Mitchell	Just tell me when you need to stop.	23:36
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, you ask him the questions because-	23:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We didn't anticipate all this problem.	23:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Today, there's so much came up on us with this freezer thing.	23:45
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's the way it happens.	23:48
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I've been looking for that.	23:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It happens.	23:48
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	23:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	S happens. You know?	23:48
Michele Mitchell	It does. It does.	23:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We don't want to lose all that food out there.	23:48
Michele Mitchell	No.	23:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's for sure.	24:07
Michele Mitchell	No, with this heat, you will, too.	24:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We—	24:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Made a quick transfer. At least I think I know where stuff is. You got fish, Ruth.	24:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I've got fish?	24:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah. It is hot.	24:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You better-	24:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You got enough from her?	24:09
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He's got enough.	24:26
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What questions you have?	24:31
Michele Mitchell	Well, actually, what I could do is both of you have said things that are really interesting to me. If you're willing for me to take another afternoon, I'd like to come back and talk to you all a little bit more.	24:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It's up to her.	24:41
Michele Mitchell	It's up—	24:42
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Up to her. I don't have anything to do. I'll be glad to.	24:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	When would you want to come back?	24:56
Michele Mitchell	Let me just turn this off real quick.	24:56
Michele Mitchell	Okay, Mrs. [indistinct 00:24:57] I'm happy, you would go ahead.	24:56
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Wednesday, June—I don't even know the date. Twenty—	25:00
Michele Mitchell	Twenty-ninth?	25:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Isn't it? Twenty-ninth.	25:10
Michele Mitchell	You said that you went to Donneel?	25:12
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	25:13
Michele Mitchell	Hoffman and 35.	25:16
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yeah.	25:17
Michele Mitchell	What were those schools like?	25:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, they were terrible.	25:22
Michele Mitchell	How so?	25:25
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Well, Danneel wasn't too bad, but Hoffman, we sat in a classroom with potbelly stoves and each room opened out into the yard or on the street. It was just a number of buildings around the square and in the middle of the courtyard where you played and everything. Danneel also had a courtyard, but it was a two-story frame building, which wasn't so bad because we had steam heat there. Radiators, I don't—And 35, the building was so old. It was crumbling.	25:27
Michele Mitchell	Really?	26:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It was so old and gloomy and dark. They had no yard. You used to have to go out—Stand on the fence, something about three feet, four feet wide, something like that. Of all the classes and the basement was very low. They had classrooms in the basement part. They were dark and the basement was dark and the schools were terrible, really. They were terrible.	26:18
Michele Mitchell	See, I find that so interesting that you tell me about McDonogh 35 because everyone I talked to—I mean, it sounds like in many ways it was a really wonderful school but, they beam about it.	27:00
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, it was good. It was good. I enjoyed my—We had very good teachers and we had principal, he was eccentric, but he had the good of the students at heart. I found that in all of the teachers that taught there. But I was talking about the physical building at that time was terrible. But I enjoyed my high school days there. Was very good.	27:10
Michele Mitchell	Well, I think you've made a difference between the teaching and the building itself. But it's important to know what the building was like, too. Because somebody told me that it used to be a boy's school?	27:50
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I don't know.	28:04
Michele Mitchell	Something?	28:04
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, I don't know. But it was a terrible. You know, what they gave the Blacks.	28:05
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	28:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Something left over, thrown away. That's what it was. It was in—Like I said before, we didn't even have a yard you can go out into hardly. You'd cram all those students. We used to lean on the fence and talk.	28:11
Michele Mitchell	Was the fence on Rampart Street?	28:28
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, the school opened out on Rampart. That was the front. The fence was on the side. They had a little alleyway and they had one on the inside of the lot. The school was on a corner. We used to come out and just line up against the fence. You could see the cars passing in the street because it was a iron picket fence or something. What street is that, 35 was—	28:31
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Rampart.	28:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, the side.	28:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	That's on Girod.	28:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Girod. Girod.	28:59
Michele Mitchell	How do you spell that?	28:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	G-I-R-O-D.	28:59
Michele Mitchell	Oh, Girod. Okay.	28:59
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	You couldn't find it, huh?	29:10
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No.	29:11
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I can't find it.	29:15
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Your brother get that stuff.	29:23
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	My brother must have taken it.. Like I said before, I enjoyed my years there.	29:26
Michele Mitchell	What courses did you take there?	29:31
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Oh, he didn't go to—	29:36
Michele Mitchell	He didn't go to McDonogh 35. Okay.	29:37
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, he didn't. Well, I took English, mathematics, French. What else?	29:43
Herbert Melvin Cappie	What math?	29:52
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I forgot.	29:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Algebra?	29:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, algebra.	29:55
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Trig?	29:55
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, we took trigonometry. What else did we take? Chemistry? [indistinct 00:30:10] I said English.	30:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Educated.	30:13
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	English? I've forgotten. I think that's about it. Math and English.	30:14
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I know you had French. I know you had all the sciences.	30:19
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We had French.	30:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Had physics, too? Physics?	30:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, they did have physics. We had physics.	30:29
Michele Mitchell	Did they teach you—Did you get an opportunity to hear about Black writers or Negro history or anything like that?	30:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Renaissance. Oh, course, we had to have things like that. Even you had that. Some of them had to tell you about all that.	30:44
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, they did. They did. I had Black history school throughout school.	30:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	She had good teachers there.	30:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Throughout school.	30:51
Michele Mitchell	You had Black history throughout school?	30:51
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes. From elementary up. The teachers always—It wasn't in the books, but they gave us this Black history. We used to have to make outlines and write essays about them.	30:59
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Glad you had all that.	31:14
Michele Mitchell	How about you?	31:14
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	He wants to put down on public school because he went to the prep.	31:24
Michele Mitchell	A-ha.	31:24
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It took me a year longer than it took them to get my requirements in. Did it. But I was overly qualified for the university level though.	31:27
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	That's right.	31:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	You didn't have Latin?	31:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	No, didn't have Latin.	31:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We had Latin.	31:47
Michele Mitchell	No. Mr. Cappie, which school did you go to again?	31:48
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Xavier Prep.	31:53
Michele Mitchell	Did you go to Xavier Prep?	31:54
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Mm-hmm. That's when it was a school. It's no longer that. It's just an old girls' school now.	31:55
Michele Mitchell	See, I'm really confused because I understand that some people went there that it was co-ed during the early '60s and then it was an all girls' school before?	32:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No.	32:16
Michele Mitchell	No?	32:17
Herbert Melvin Cappie	After. It was co-ed to begin with.	32:17
Michele Mitchell	Oh, it was?	32:21
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right. It became a girls' school and it's still a girls' school.	32:21
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	In the '60s, I think.	32:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Sixties.	32:29
Michele Mitchell	Were there any—	32:34
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Go ahead.	32:34
Michele Mitchell	I've got down that you said that you went to a Catholic school early on from the beginning. Which schools exactly did you go to?	32:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Blessed Sacrament. I went to school in Pass Christian, Mississippi. I was—Currently, it's called Father Sweeney School. I believe it's closed now. It's not no longer a school. It was St. Philomena then, which truly was not, we found wasn't even a saint. It turned out that way. We even found out St. Christopher was not a saint. Found out so many of them were not saints.	32:47
Michele Mitchell	Pass Christian. Then you were Xavier Prep. Did you have any courses in Negro history coming up or anything like that?	33:22
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Not prescribed. I had clandestine courses in Negro history, I guess you'd call it because it wasn't in the curriculum. But we had this good old White lady. You notice when you say White, you say White lady. That's not my style. This White woman, [indistinct 00:33:55], we'd call her. She was bad as Mama on us. She was tough. Everybody was tough on us. Then you had, I guess, I don't know what it was, it's just hard on us. She always found time to give us some Black history.	33:36
Michele Mitchell	What sort of things would she tell you?	34:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, she gave us—At that time, she brought out much of the Black history as relates to Louisiana. She presented the different sides of the Civil War. Especially, she dwelt upon the fact that it wasn't to free slaves, that it was strictly political and financial. That was—She just downed poor Mr. Lincoln. Well, her reason was good. The South had all this free labor and the North couldn't compete with this free labor. Make sense?	34:13
Michele Mitchell	Mm-hmm.	35:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I mean, in those days and age, that was unheard of. We had all White teachers, Miss Jackman, she was another one. Nolan, I remember these people because they were sincere. They were good teachers. All good teachers. They treated us like we were their children, so to speak. They're concerned for us. They were good devoted teachers.	35:08
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Missionary.	35:34
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I was—	35:34
Michele Mitchell	They were missionaries?	35:35
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I was an incorrigible-	35:35
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Missionaries.	35:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They were not missionaries. No, they were teachers.	35:42
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	They were teachers.	35:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	They came from the middle west. I guess you might say maybe they were missionaries.	35:45
Michele Mitchell	They weren't White Southerners then?	35:50
Herbert Melvin Cappie	No, they weren't Southerners. Neither of them was a Southerners. It makes no difference. We had White Southerners, too, who would've done the same thing. Probably who did the same thing. They did it in the Black schools. In the Black churches. Yes, you did. You had White missionaries helping [indistinct 00:36:14] the Blacks in the Black areas, in the churches. Your early preachers were White, many of them. Your organized religions, your recognized religions.	35:52
Michele Mitchell	Well, I'm wondering if—In terms of going to public schools, Mrs. Cappie, did you hear the same things about the Civil War that it was strictly economic?	36:30
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, yes.	36:41
Michele Mitchell	They didn't talk about slavery so much?	36:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We talked about slavery.	36:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Our memories are foggy now. Our memories are foggy.	36:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Harriet Tubman and—	36:51
Herbert Melvin Cappie	See, I told you that.	36:53
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	—we had—Because I can remember we went through all—Frederick Douglass and we had to write papers on them and about the Underground Railroad.	36:58
Herbert Melvin Cappie	How about your writers? Didn't you get up and line all those things? All Lawrence Dunbar and all that stuff.	37:07
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Yes, we had to recite the poems and things.	37:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We did the same thing they did. There's no different. I mean, like I said, I don't know that it was prescribed or not. It may have been, but it was during the history period.	37:17
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	History class.	37:27
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Hello? I'm fine, Dolores, can I call you back? Are you home? Oh, can I call—Talk to me this evening. I have an interviewer here right now. Okay? All right.	37:30
Michele Mitchell	That's interesting because I was just wondering if it was the same thing or it was not.	37:41
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	By being a Catholic school, it would be different? No, I haven't-	37:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Catholic schools were considered better.	37:49
Michele Mitchell	Because I mean, did they—Was it, hey, did you have to pay to go?	37:53
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yes, we paid to go. Naturally, supposed to get better when you pay, but it isn't always true. But these people that I'm talking about who taught us seemed to be dedicated, as I said before. They didn't just always stick to the subject matter. They tried to give us something extra. She mentioned these courses that she had. In addition to that, we had at least two years of Latin, two years of French. We had plain and solid geometry. We had trig, we had some calculus. We had chemistry. The year before I reached that level, they discontinued physics, which was a sad thing. I was looking forward to taking physics. It was tragic that at that time it discontinued physics when it became such a necessary part of the development of the weapons of war, atomic bomb, et cetera, et cetera.	37:56
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Refrigeration, air conditioning and all that stuff depended upon physics. It was tragic that it was discontinued at that time. When we found that we got into the war, we found we needed a whole lot of physics. Not only Xavier discontinued it, I think it was discontinued it in several different areas. But I think we had most sciences, more languages than the public schools had. English, English literature. It was our art teacher, I think, who taught us all this literature and stuff. No English teacher, all this Black artists, composers and whatnot. Hello?	39:02
Michele Mitchell	Mrs. Cappie—	39:44
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Hello?	39:44
Michele Mitchell	When did you graduate from high school?	39:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Oh, can I call you back? I got an-	39:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Was it '38?	39:49
Herbert Melvin Cappie	—interview on me right now. All right.	39:49
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	It maybe '37.	39:52
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Little duck, she still there? Oh, okay then. I'm going to call you back, hear? All right.	39:58
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	I finished in '37?	40:08
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I think so.	40:10
Michele Mitchell	You finished?	40:11
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Thirty-four.	40:12
Michele Mitchell	Do you think that physics was cut out because maybe of the Depression?	40:16
Herbert Melvin Cappie	I have no idea. I don't have the faintest idea. I don't know why. I don't know why. I was looking forward to taking physics, too, but didn't get it.	40:20
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We couldn't have it but a year.	40:32
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, that's all anybody had it really at that time. But I think we had more than the necessary credits to enter college in the 12 years. I didn't learn a whole lot, much more in college than I had learned already really.	40:34
Michele Mitchell	Xavier Prep went 12 years, not 11.	40:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Twelve.	40:58
Michele Mitchell	I asked Mrs. Cappie about the physical building of McDonogh 35. What was the physical building of Xavier Prep went at that point?	41:03
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was secondhand building, too.	41:11
Michele Mitchell	It was secondhand?	41:12
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was originally Southern University. When they moved Southern University to Baton Rouge, the nuns took it over, was Xavier High School.	41:13
Michele Mitchell	It's on Magazine Street.	41:28
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Magazine Street, but that's not the original building. It's no longer there. They built a new school.	41:29
Michele Mitchell	Where was the original building?	41:36
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Right in the same location, just, back behind that. Some part of the old building might still be there. I don't remember. But it was a dreary old building. Been there since the 19th century. At that time, we had another Black university in the city, maybe you know. That we had Straight University. We had New Orleans University and we had another high school that was well known.	41:37
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Gilbert Academy.	42:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Gilbert Academy was excellent high school. It's no longer in existence.	42:10
Michele Mitchell	Gilbert Academy was a school?	42:19
Herbert Melvin Cappie	It was a missionary school. That's what I'm talking about. New Orleans University was operated by missionaries. I think Straight was, too. They were missionaries who operated those schools. Gilbert Academy was likewise. I think Gilbert Academy had a Black principal, I think. But that was a high class school. Had to have money to go there. That was a prep school.	42:22
Michele Mitchell	When both of you were in high school, what sort of things did you do for entertainment? Where did you go?	42:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Well, we went to SeaBrook in the summer, swimming. We both went across the lake to Pass Christian, Mississippi. We went to the theaters, we dressed up on a weekend or a Sunday and walked on Canal Street window shopping.	43:03
Michele Mitchell	Oh, so you window shopped on Canal?	43:18
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Yeah, just strutting around, put on your best and walked down Canal Street. Doesn't that sound exciting?	43:20
Michele Mitchell	Sounds like fun.	43:29
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	We had parties and [indistinct 00:43:34].	43:29
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We had a couple Black drug stores where you could go in and have a soda. We had Belfield's.	43:33
Michele Mitchell	Belfield's?	43:39
Herbert Melvin Cappie	We had—Right. Hackett Drugstore. Can you think of another one? We had one excellent Black restaurant called The Astoria. White tablecloths and everything real nice, real nice.	43:41
Michele Mitchell	Where was that located?	44:00
Herbert Melvin Cappie	On Rampart Street where everything Black was. On Rampart Street, south Rampart that is. South Rampart. We had the Pythian Temple. This is a multi-story building, five or seven stories high, owned and operated by the Knights of Pythias, whatever that is. That was a Protestant society. I don't know if it's religiously affiliated or not. This is a lovely building, auditorium, roof garden, which was as pretty and as lovely as there was any place. There may be some pictures around someplace. We had dances on the roof garden. It was open and there was a roof on it. It was on the top of the building with a roof on it, but all around it could be opened up. It was beautiful.	44:01
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	The floors.	44:57
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Hardwood floors, everything real nice. You could look down into Parish Prison, you see the prisoners down there. That was across the street from there. But you were elevated so you could see over into the prison yard. The high schools had basketball games there. [indistinct 00:45:19] Boy Scouts had functions there. We had dances there. Public and private dances. All the schools held dances there. That was one of the things that we did. Some of us got drunk. Well, you asked me what we'd do.	44:58
Michele Mitchell	Yes.	45:40
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Some people did get drunk and we used to stop at the donut shop and buy donuts late night, walking home, hot bread, late at night, bananas. [indistinct 00:45:56] Get a whole hand of bananas for a nickel. About 12, 15 bananas for a nickel. Lots of the boys who went to Xavier University survived on bananas. Like Pierce. You remember, Pierce?	45:40
Ruth Meriwether Cappie	Mm-hmm.	46:09
Herbert Melvin Cappie	Pierce could eat some bananas. What else did we do? We did lots of things. I happened to have an automobile available most times and we'd ride. I don't know.	46:10

Item Info

Title:

Herbert Cappie (primary interviewee) and Ruth Cappie interview recording, 1994 July 02

Date:

July 2, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Mitchell, Michele

Description:

Name: Herbert Melvin Cappie; Date of birth: 1917-07-25; Place of birth: Covington, LA; Occupation(s): postal supervisor; civil service; Residence: New Orleans, LA. Name: Ruth Irene Cappie; Date of birth: 1920-03-12; Place of birth: New Orleans, LA; Occupation(s): homemaker; Residence: New Orleans, LA
Informant ID: 522; Informant ID: 523; Interviewed by: Michelle Mitchell.

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Location:

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

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Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

Interview number: 820
8dd4081f-de1b-4a7b-840d-6624c707544c
behindtheveil
btvct07063
ark:/87924/r4qn63s5c
b969199c-c31b-43e1-ac2d-d03816592d3a

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Herbert Cappie (primary interviewee) and Ruth Cappie interview recording, 1994 July 02

Transcript

Item Info

1. Herbert Cappie and Ruth Cappie administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Herbert Cappie (primary interviewee) and Ruth Cappie interview recording, 1994 July 02

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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