Mildred Davis interview recording, 1993 June 16
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Leslie Brown | Well, the first question is always, are you originally from Charlotte? | 0:01 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Born in Charlotte from the square, five blocks from downtown. | 0:06 |
Leslie Brown | What was your neighborhood like? | 0:14 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | A middle class neighborhood. Whites were all around me except my street on the right. Well, I'll say on the west side, on the east side and on the south side of me, but they were mixed Whites. Some of them were poor, poor Whites and some of them were sort of middle class Whites that later moved to rich sections and made—First Ward. That was First Ward where I was born, but I was in the first block of Blacks from in First Ward. | 0:17 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Then First Ward went over 12 or 15 more blocks. I had an extended family in my house, a mother and a grandmother, but no father was in the house, and one brother. Now we were poor, but we were brought up to believe that we were not. My grandmother had some little shotgun houses, as they call them now. (doorbell ringing) Cut that off because I don't know who in the world that—cut— | 1:06 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | [INTERRUPTION] | 1:44 |
Leslie Brown | Where were we? | 1:44 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I was telling you that I was reared with an extended family that made life a little better for us than it did on a lot of kids that are one-parent family. My grandmother never worked outside. She stayed there, was always there when we got out of school with a hot meal. It might have been corn and hot biscuits with butter and pinto beans, but she didn't like beans now. My grandmother didn't cook many beans, and that was very odd for her age, because she would've been 120 I think now if she had lived. Mother was 90, but she didn't like—she didn't cook chickens and pig feet and pig tails and pinto beans. She liked one kind of, bean dried and that was a lima bean, but anyway, whatever she had it was there ready for us. We would race to get in the toilet, the White bathroom, to wash your hands. | 1:48 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We went to a complete segregated elementary school about 10 blocks away. We passed the White school, which was exactly three blocks away, and they had hand washing machines then and everything else. 20 years later, I came back to that school as a teacher and there was a hand washing machine and all these things I couldn't believe because I'd never seen it in the Black school in my life, but they had everything. | 2:59 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | The old books were sent down to my school, Alexander Street School, and we had one radio for the whole school, so you come out in the hall and listen to the radio or take exercise by the radio and this kind of thing. They fed at that time—you have lunch program now, but you didn't have anything with peanut butter and milk for the undernourished children. I weighed a hundred pounds at eight, so they didn't give me any peanut butter. Oh, it would smell so good and I would want some of that peanut butter and to this day I like peanut butter as a result. | 3:34 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | 90% of the teachers in my school were members of my church. It was called Seventh Street Presbyterian College, in seventh, it's called the First Presbyterian Church now, but 90% of the teachers at that school were members of my church. I didn't know they were role models, but I imitated every one of them because they stood for something from the choir to the Sunday school teacher. My principal was the superintendent of the Sunday school at my church, and I wanted to be like those people. I tried my best to emulate them, but I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't know that that was even called a role model. | 4:24 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | My brother did the same thing. I was more forward than he was. He was 18 months older than I was, but I surpassed him. Graduated from high school and I was in the last 11th grade class, so he had to go to the first 12th grade class. That put him behind me two years, you see. | 5:14 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We went to college. I went to college, and he went to college but he had to go seven years because he became a Presbyterian minister, so I was teaching and working and helping out four years or something. Anyway, I helped Mother with him to get him out of school and to graduating and put him in the Omegas, and all of those things. But as I said, would never use welfare, but nowadays people in Mother's position, condition, would have been on welfare, but you see, my grandmama never would have taken it because Mr. Russell, who was over welfare, was one of her best friends at my church. | 5:39 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | You see what—If you have something to lift you up, it'll make you want to do better for yourself without somebody—I just wish there was something nowadays that we could do to get young mothers out of this syndrome, one generation to the next on welfare, and they're just waiting to hand out the food stamps and all of those things, but we were too proud to even think about that type of thing. | 6:26 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I went to camps and conferences as a teenager and child. I just knew I was going. When it was time to go to college, mother made $9 a week, and there were two of us in school, so mother said that you all will have to make up your mind, decide which one's going to go and the other one into next year, but I don't have enough money for both of you. | 6:59 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I said, "Well, I know I'm going," and he said, "Well, I know I'm going." That was the type of thing that we had, and I missed the point though. I had polio and it put me a year behind. You saw me limping there. Well, I went to college on crutches, determined. Went to Barber-Scotia College on crutches, but determined to go. I said, "I know I'm going," so my grandmother said, "Well, it looks like she wants to be somebody. I'm going to send her. [indistinct 00:08:04], you send the boy." | 7:31 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | That was how I made it. Didn't know about any programs, but after I got to Barber-Scotia, a former teacher knew about a rehabilitation program, and I was able to qualify for that having the polio. That made life easy again, me staying in college those four years. | 8:06 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We didn't have any money in the bank as such, my mama didn't, but my grandmother had a few. We had the type of family—Only two of the seven children, my grandmama's children, had children, and so my grandmama was the matriarch of the family. She would say, "Creola, you get that girl a coat. Grady, you get that boy a suit." We had things that other children, maybe more, because of the way she handled that extended family, and if mama said it—We called her Mama Callie, and my mother mother. | 8:33 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | If Mama Callie said it, everybody moved. That made life a little better for us, but I had hatred in my heart for Whites. I didn't take a thing off them, not one thing, and my mother feared that one day I was going to get in trouble with them. See? But go back to the back. I say, "You go back," and wouldn't move. The bus driver would stop the bus. I would hear, "Move back." I said, "Well, tell some of them to move. I'm not going to stand up," and wouldn't, but I never did get put in jail, but it was threatening. | 9:15 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In the Black schools, including Barber-Scotia, and that was a church related school, we still didn't have things like Warren Wilson and Queens College and Davidson College. We didn't have a proper bedding, the furniture, the food or anything, but I don't remember grumbling like these children do. I was there to get an education so I'd better myself, so that didn't worry me. Now, my girlfriend worked in the kitchen. I didn't have a work aid job in college because I didn't have a disability, so I never had to work in college. But she did, and she said, "Take two weenies or three and cut them up in little pieces and make gravy," and get served up on the table. Have a whole bowl of gravy with a few little pieces of weenies, so you get about two little bites out of it. | 10:06 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | But I got a good education. The teachers were not too biased. You had a few, because now, see, you're younger so you didn't come up on the Black and get back and Whites you're right, but I did, you see. In a lot of instances the light-skinned person, the professor's daughter, got the best breaks. You don't see too much of that now. We are faced now with Whites just don't want us, period, but that was actually a fact. At my church and school, the girl that was valedictorian—Which is the highest, salutatorian or valedictorian? | 11:15 |
Leslie Brown | Valedictorian. | 12:01 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Valedictorian. That's right. Well, Annie Lutz was valedictorian, but a girl that lived in a little shotgun house, smart as a whip, got the salutatorian, but she should have had the valedictorian. Now that's us, one another, but her daddy was Professor Leino and the mom and the aunts and all were teachers and this kind of thing. It used to have its effect on us also. Kids, just like they know now that Whites don't want us and Whites pushing us back, they felt that in the Charlotte schools. We went to the largest high school in the state, which was Second Ward High school. In later years, kids had to walk maybe five or eight miles to Second Ward School to get to have an education. Still, you were discriminated against. | 12:02 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Charlotte in its treatment of Blacks, they just didn't pay you. They didn't pay, Blacks and they still don't, but Lord, honey, Blacks used to work for $5 a week in this town. They just could not see where Blacks needed as much money to live on as Whites, yet still your expenses and your food and everything cost just as much as it did for others. | 13:00 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I wrote, and I wished—my brother died and I decided to throw away everything, nothing left. We were just like twins. We were too close to have been met two married people, but we never cut each other loose. When he died, I just didn't—Oh, he loved everything that I would do. He carried me all the way to Atlanta to get me some clothing. I was appointed the first Black on the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church. He carried me to Atlanta to buy outfits for me to go up there, because he wanted me to be just right. You'll see all those plaques in that living room, or did you see them when you came in there? I have really never aspired to be on these boards and agencies. It would come to me as a surprise. | 13:43 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | George—what was his name? Bryant George wrote me a letter from New York saying, "Bar and all, you will be appointed to the board of National Mission." This is this thing I'm telling you about that my brother—and I say, "Me? I can't serve with all those big bankers. Chase Manhattan and all that. I can't do that." I called him, and he said, "Now listen, Mildred. I have given your background and they say you are just the person that we need," so I got together and went up there. I felt inadequate. I'm going to tell you like it was, but I soon found out that they might have had more money than I had, but they didn't have no more of this. That's what they used to tell me. If you had it up there, that's something nobody can take from you. I have found that out. | 14:46 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now, this child is an adopted child, and I never—She has a high mind in one way, but she doesn't have that, that we had, being a pusher. She works in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, but it's because of me. You understand? Dr. George Battle is the chairman of the school board and he's one of my best friends, and so he talked to the superintendent, the superintendent called me and say, "She has a job." It's tough in Charlotte, but that's the way she got—what I'm trying to say is she doesn't have that push on her own. | 15:57 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | My first job was at Asheville, North Carolina, at Stevens-Lee School. I walked in here after the interview and my brother say, "Well, sister, how'd you come out?" I said, "Oh, the job's mine." He said, "You signed the contract?!" I said, "No." He said, "Well, you talk like a fool then." I said, "The job is mine." He said, "Sister, did you sign any contract?" I said, "No," but when I left that interview I knew the job was mine, and it was. | 16:44 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now somebody else who could play the piano and all this other stuff—but they couldn't talk like me. You see my point? When I left there I felt good, and I carried the Lord with me also. I carried him with me, but just everything in my life, everything has happened that way. | 17:09 |
Leslie Brown | Can you tell me about your grandmother? | 17:34 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | My grandmother was quiet, very deep in thinking and ideas and so forth, but she didn't talk every minute, but when she said something, everybody listened. She had three grandchildren, and her foremost thing was for those three grandchildren to be educated. She didn't go any further than the fourth grade, I don't think, but she read every day of her life, everything she got her hands on. She'd throw up her glasses up there to tell you, you better get quiet, and then pull back down to finish reading. My mother does too. I'm sorry, she's in the bed. She reads more than I do, because—now, I'm blind in the right eye and just have very little vision in the left, and I have been wearing glasses since the third grade, but it should have happened before I started school time. | 17:40 |
Leslie Brown | We're talking about your grandmother? | 18:51 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Oh, oh yeah. Mama was a great Christian lady. We sang songs in the bedroom at night and read the Bible. I can pray anywhere. You just call on me, I'd sing any—no, nothing, it's just like talking. But that was because of that background, and my grandpapa, he'd do the same thing. They were great, great, great religious people. Mother is too, deep thinker and can just tell you all about it, but she's not as sincere as my grandparents were. | 18:55 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I think that I have problems sometime with her because of that, but I worshiped my grandmama. I just purely idolized her. I really, really did, and so it took something from mother and me and that, and I've never told anybody this in my born life before, but I'm telling the truth. I'm at the age now where I can, and I realize what it was. I didn't ask my mother, could I go to the movie, or could I go to a party? I asked my grandmother. If my mother said I could do something and my grandmama said no, I didn't do that. I tried not to let mother get the hope on knees like mama had on me, because mama really had—I never respected my mother like I did my grandmother. | 19:35 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. Who else was important to you in the neighborhood that you grew up in? | 20:42 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | The people in my neighborhood went to my church and A.E. Spears. I idolized those kind of people. I told you that I didn't know nobody. I thought my church—I went to a Presbyterian church and they had 40 members, I nearly died, up in Asheville. My church had 350 to 450, and they were all principals. At one time, 40 or 50% of the principals were members of my church, and the teachers, because you knew if you went to First United Seventh Street, some of those principals were going to hire some of us. See, it was just a foregone conclusion that you had, but—Now I didn't worship the principal of my high school, J. E. Greeks. I don't know whether you've heard his name in moving around or not, but he was a tough one. I don't know if anybody that worshiped him. I really don't. | 20:56 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | But the others principals, Black, we thought a lot of, and they meant a lot to us. They carried us to camps and conferences. My pastor, Dr. J. W. Smith Senior and Dr. S. Q. Mitchell—now that was another thing. We had intellectual educated ministers. Never been a minister who didn't have seven years and above, because after they got out the seminary, they went on to get a master's or a PhD or something of that sort. You could look up to them because they had something to tell you, to share with you. I'm trying to do that right now. Can't hardly see, get around, but I'm up there trying to teach Bible school, up there working in the tutorial program, on the staff of the tutorial program. It's in me to want to help somebody else to make this world a better place in which to live. | 22:02 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Just so many, many people, more than the average church group would have, that really had a great influence on my life. Ms. Marie Flo, that was my—and one's up there right now, Louise Young Harris, my second grade teacher. They had so much class. You know what I'm saying? To give you, to make you want to be somebody. Miss Louise Young has 90 years old and still trying to help. That's just the kind of way it is. | 23:18 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We don't have a minister right now, but do you know we are carrying on that church and the minister been gone be two years to—What's the date, the 15th? 16th? Two years yesterday. We haven't had a minister in our church two years yesterday, and we are carrying on the church. You got the people there that know how to do it. We have one or two that have given the 11 o'clock sermons, but just about everything except the 11 o'clock sermons, we carrying on with less—really, well, we just have good leadership. That's just all there is to it, and I might as well admit it. | 24:00 |
Leslie Brown | What about your teachers? Did you have a teacher or a group of teachers who stood out in your mind? | 24:43 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, yes. Edward H. Brown, and Charlotte Denson. She's in Washington now. I carried her phone number with me to call her. She believed in me and she pushed me. You used to have Girl Reserves watching. Well, she pushed me up in that, because she saw that leadership in me. In fact, she's the person that called me about this rehabilitation for students with polio and things like I had, disabilities, because I didn't know a thing about it. | 24:51 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | What was her name? Maddie Hall was another one, in junior high school and high school, that stood out and pushed me and put me in things. I was Dr. Mary McLeod Bethune in the ninth grade at Negro—Black History Week, and they put the Black dress on and the deeds and things. I really believed I was going to be like her as a result of it. I had to read all about her and be able to say all of this. All of those things were pieces of the puzzle that made me want to try to be somebody. That is the truth. I've been an elected official and president of about—I was the first Black to serve on the Uptown Development Board that runs the city of Charlotte, uptown Charlotte. The—What is it? Community Development, the Afro-American Center—What else is it? You just name it and look in there on those plaques, but I've been in some of anything and everything. | 25:48 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | They call me for decisions and what do I think about it? I'm one of the few that was in social. I'm a Sigma Gamma Rho sorority. I'm Cordette Masters bridge, Merry Makers, that's pinochle. I have served in the church. I've been in everything. I'm an elder in the church and that's as high as you can be without being a pastor, but I've served on every level in the church up until president of Black Presbyterians Throughout America, in the church. | 27:16 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In politics. I've served as an elected official. I'm president of Black Elected Officials now. In social life, I'm in the social clubs and in the sororities and so forth. Religion, church, education. Taught in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools, director and counselor at Central Piedmont Community College. Served on summers at Johnson C. Smith and A&T State University. What other fields you have? Education, politics, social, what else? Religious—Okay. | 27:57 |
Leslie Brown | Cultural? | 28:52 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yeah, cultural. Afro-American Culture Center, helped to really organize it, and just helped to hire this new director down there last month. | 28:53 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. Is that Wanda? | 29:07 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Wanda Montgomery, and we had many of the meetings right here in that living room back here. Yep. I helped to hire Wanda. Now, my six years were up, but they needed my something and they asked me to serve on the search committee and we hired Wanda. | 29:10 |
Leslie Brown | You seem to be very decisive. How were decisions made in your family when you were growing up? | 29:36 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Oh, by my grandmama. By my grandmama, and that is the gospel truth, but as I grew older, she would ask me what did I think? But when I was younger she made the decisions for my mother and all of us. | 29:50 |
Leslie Brown | At what point did she begin asking you what you thought? | 30:04 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In high school, I believe. It was in high school, because she didn't ask me in no elementary and junior high. See, we had junior high in Charlotte, and high school, so ninth grade, seventh, sixth, seventh, eighth—then we went to senior high school, but she didn't ask me anything earlier than that. | 30:13 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now, like going to the camps and conference and things, I would tell her I wanted to go. I had had been invited to go. The church kids were going. I had one friend, Dima Johnston Armstrong, that we went everywhere and still do, after 50—Dima went to—I was Dima's maid of honor. Dima was my matron of honor in my wedding. Dima went to Chicago to live. She stayed up there 35 years. She's back here now, and we are just like that again. We made all the trips and the conferences and everything else together. We went to Africa together. We went to the Caribbean together. We have traveled extensively together. She was in Chicago and I was here. We'd make our plans, get together and go. She went with me this past weekend, because I can't travel alone. | 30:37 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. When you went to the conferences, the conferences and the camps you went to, were they interracial? | 31:35 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | No ma'am, not a one. I didn't go to anything interracial until the late sixties. I didn't go to anything interracial, not even in the church. I was a Bible teacher, and they felt, and right here in Charlotte, that White students and Black students shouldn't have had a banquet together. That's right. Now, that was a big slap in the face. | 31:48 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | The head one told me, said, "Well, I can talk to your children for you and explain. I'll explain to them." Because I said, "this is devastating and these children are looking forward to this." Now she's the head Christian. "I can talk to your children." I said, "Let me tell you something. There's nothing you can say to my children better than I can." I say, "They might would show off on you because they are disappointed. No, I don't need you to come over to my school to talk to my children." She never had a Black to talk to her like that before. | 32:28 |
Leslie Brown | How did she react when you were talking to her? | 33:03 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | She went and told the board that I didn't want her to come. | 33:06 |
Leslie Brown | And the board's response? | 33:12 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, there was nothing they could do because they certainly couldn't go over me in my school with my class. | 33:13 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. Did you have a lot of autonomy as a teacher? In segregated schools? | 33:21 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, to an extent. Would you believe, every school I've ever attended, I was a teacher there. Every school, so I did. I told y'all, I've just been lucky, because ain't no way in the world I could have made it in life if the Lord hadn't been on my side with the disabilities I—but I never used it. Teachers worked with me for five and six years and didn't know that I had this disability, but I can tell you one thing. They saw me sitting and I know they talked about, "Every time you see her she's sitting." See my point? I had a special chair and I would move it around with me. At church I had one in the Sunday school rooms and in the meetings and so forth. I had a chair with arms on it. See, I never would have been able to work 28 years if I had not known how to take care of myself. | 33:24 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. The teacher that helped you find the rehab program, how did that happen? | 34:29 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | She read about it or something. Somebody told her, and she says, "Well, Mildred didn't have a father, that her mother and grandmother and Baxter—" and she loved my brother to death too. And, "Baxter's in school, and—you give me some more information," says she told the person. They got her the information. Found out we knew the man. I told you, I'm born under something, the grace of God. We knew the man, but didn't know that he was in charge of anything like that. | 34:43 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm, and was that something that was done right at Barber-Scotia or did you have to go away for that? | 35:21 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Oh no, no, no, no. I was right there at Barber-Scotia. I was in Barber-Scotia, see, and it just cut down on Mama having to pay as much money as she had been paying. Because as I said, see, I couldn't get a work aid job because I went to college on crutches. There wasn't nothing I could do, I could hardly take care of—My friends really would make up my bed for me while I was in the bathroom and stuff, so I could play cards or something or go somewhere. I've always had good friends. I was blessed with good friends too. | 35:30 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. How did you meet the friends that you had? | 36:09 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | School and church. Then I moved up in the political world and civic world. See, you know the fourth largest bank in the state of North Carolina, NCNB? Well, Hugh McColl is the CEO. Hugh has been sitting in that room right there. That's my bedroom across the hall there. Hugh has been in that bedroom many, many times. Rolfe Neill is the publisher and president of the Charlotte Observer. He likewise. These committees that I've served on, I've never been a yes, yes, a second-the-motion person. I had to offer something. They respect you when you do, so Hugh learned to love me. Rolfe learned to love me. Rolfe served on my board. I didn't tell you about that either. Girl, I can't remember anymore. I am the president and founder of this community, and I had a partnership with NCNB. You saw all those condos up there? | 36:09 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, I am the president of the Committee to Restore and Preserve Third Ward. I had a partnership with NCNB and we developed them together. We sold all of those, we made about 300,000. When I say we, that's my Committee to Restore and Preserve Third Ward. We put some of it back in the community. I have a house over on Cedar Street for mentally retarded. It's a home for five, and about three residents. People live there with them. We have— | 37:31 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | You didn't come out this short street. There's a six complex building called Baxter Manor, but it says, "Dedicated to Dr. Mildred Baxter Davis." That was an old dilapidated building there, and I had it done over and made a six-family for senior citizens to live in it. | 38:13 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | The street back here was called Greenleaf, and 95% of the houses belonged to absentee landlords, White, and it looked like the devil had been through. See, again, you got to win the confidence of people. Rolfe Neil, as I told you, and he's a mess, but we are kissing cousins, the publisher of the paper? I put him on my board. You see what I'm trying to say? He was on my board of directors. The governor's brother Joe Martin was on my board. He was on the school board and he's executive vice president of NCNB. | 38:38 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I had those two names. When you go in to say something, when you say Rolfe Neill and Hugh McColl, see, Hugh McColl's known throughout the world. You say Hugh, they say, "She's saying Hugh McColl," so you get what you want. I stand in front of city council and say, "Listen, now I know that you don't want to be embarrassed when your friends come from Germany and Africa and look in that window and see that junkyard down there. I want it removed." Paper and everything else jumped on it. | 39:30 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Same thing about those dilapidated houses. They had voted to spend 23 or $20,000 to upgrade them. I went back to city council and said, "Listen, I don't want your $20,000," because now you know my house. See, I paid for this house in six years, and it's a two story. It's a big full basement downstairs and two more rooms and a bed back there, seven rooms up here, but I paid for it in six years. Again, I learned that from my grandmama. I don't owe nobody in the world 5 cents. Not sitting in this chair. Jesus. | 40:12 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I said, "I don't want your $20,000, because if you not going to put the $20,000 in those houses around there, they'll be a slum in less than five years, so I'm saying, thank you, no thank you." They gave me a—Have you been to Fourth Ward over there? They wanted to give me a house in Fourth Ward to put over here. We'll just give it to you. I said, "Rolfe, that's mighty nice of those folks, but you tell those folks for me that I don't want it. That was mighty nice of them to think—" Rolfe said, "Mildred, I'm ashamed of them." | 40:50 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now that's how I get along with them. That's exactly how I get along with them. We built that thing up that together. Now NCNB put Dennis Rash to run it, because again, I told them, unless you give me technical assistance, I will not take it. See, they would give Blacks—all these Blacks get into a mess. Give them just enough to break their necks, and they drop them. Well, I didn't know—Listen, girl, I had never had $10,000, so what in the devil am I going to do with 10 million? (laughs) See my point? But they done mess me down. I didn't know nothing about no $10 million. I really did not, darling. I had a little money, but it was Mildred's money, but they respected me for it. | 41:28 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now, I could have bought up land after land for Mildred because I do have some money now, but I didn't want it. I wanted them to know that here is a person that want to do something for the community and the city of Charlotte without thinking, "What am I going to get out of it?" I didn't buy one piece of land, not one dilapidated house. I had this house. I bought this house in 1960 or something like that, over 30 years ago, so it was about 19—but anyhow, this house was paid for, so I wasn't asking for anything for Mildred. I wanted to make the city of Charlotte a better looking place, and girl, they have given me anything I have asked for. | 42:25 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Plus we have at least about $200,000 in the bank. Again, my treasurer is a banker. See my point? Don't write any checks. Now, I have to sign them, but usually I sign him a lot of checks and let him go. But I don't—I've never written five checks in these 10 years. I don't want to. I don't want to. See, you try to keep your name straight and let people know you are for real, and that's what I have tried to do. | 43:20 |
Leslie Brown | Were you ever active in your church before 1960? | 43:57 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yes. | 44:07 |
Leslie Brown | What kinds of things were you active in? | 44:13 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I was Director of Christian Education in my church. I was director of Christian Education. I was a Sunday school teacher. I was a deacon. I don't—No, I wasn't an elder doing this. You can be an elder for six years at a time, but 50—I was not an elder at that time, but I was superintendent of Sunday school, and as I said, the chairman of the youth committee and this kind of thing. | 44:13 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. What do you think the role of the church was in Black community before 1960? | 44:55 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, that was the main place that we felt that we were a part of. They furnished that recreation for us. Being able to learn about people of other races and nationalities. We used to have studies. That's why I wanted to travel to Africa and to Europe and went to 10 countries in Europe and the Caribbean and so forth. I wanted to know more about it, and would have been a missionary, even after I had the polio. My mama wouldn't let me go. I really, really wanted to do something for somebody else. | 45:03 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. Why would you drawn to missionary work? Did you know other people who were missionaries? | 45:50 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, see in the Presbyterian church you just had gobs of missionaries. Ms. Stafford in our church—and the first preacher, minister of mine, Dr. R. P. White, he had been abroad studying and helping in other countries. People used to tell me, "Girl, how you know this?" Well, I got it at church. Now, we didn't go to visit a lot. We didn't do that kind of stuff. My outlet was the church. It was really the outlet for me, was the church. We even went to prayer meeting on Wednesday night and Mr. Young, that was another man, William H. Y-O-N. | 45:55 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, I was going to Myers Street School, so that was just sixth grade, seventh grade. She would make jelly in the summer and give you a jar of jelly with a pretty little piece of paper and a ribbon tied around there at Christmas time under the Christmas tree, and you looked forward to that. She had little missionary girls and we would leave Myers Street School and she lived less than a block from Myers Street School. Honey, you looked forward to that because she had those good greens and baked sweet potatoes and some kind of meat and that wonderful cornbread. | 0:03 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | And honey we all went to her house for those little meetings because she was going to feed us, and then she just knew that Bible from A to Z. She would teach us all kinds of how to take care of ourselves and how to be respectful and oh, good table manners and all of this. As I tell you, I had so many role models, I can't even think of them to tell you, but that has been the success of my life, my grandmama and these role models in my church. | 0:47 |
Leslie Brown | Well, who were the people who weren't so respectable? | 1:20 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Hmm? | 1:23 |
Leslie Brown | Who were the people who were not so respectable? | 1:24 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | My principal, Mr. Grigsby. That's the worst one, really. In my whole life history, that was the worst. Now, a teacher slapped me in the sixth grade once, and we ended up teaching together at Second Ward and she never got over it. I didn't want her to continue to bring it up, but she would—I left school and my aunt Creola, lived about a block and a half from Myers Street School and I ran and got my aunt Creola, because my aunt Creola knew I wasn't doing anything or cutting up enough for somebody to slap me. She slapped me like this. See, like that. I was eating, and she said—some salmon croquette and a hot biscuit. Evidently, running late and my grandmama probably gave me a salmon croquette biscuit and see, running late to school, and I carried it on with me. | 1:27 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | See, I was trying to get me a little bite and she said, "Are you eating?" I said, "Mm-hmm," and she slapped me like that. I went and got my aunt, and my aunt came over there back with me and said, "Now, this is unusual for her, but then Baxter," which is my brother, "we wouldn't have thought anything about it." But she said, "You slapped her, and I just wanted to know from you, did you?" She said, "I was wrong." She used to tell me, I was young, I was just out of school and that's something, she said, "That's the worst thing I have regretted to have slapped you." But we worked together at least 10 years. She was getting older by that time, but that was one that was not so good. And Mr. Grigsby sent me home once. I was singing The Music Go Around and Around. You ever heard that song? "Oh, oh," (singing) and something, "comes out here"? | 2:28 |
Leslie Brown | Yes. | 3:34 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I said, "Now, why he going to send me home for, in the big auditorium where you study?" The teacher sent me out, sent us all out that was singing right there on the side there, said, "Go to the office!" He said, "Baxter, what are you in here for?" I said, "I was singing The Music Go Round and Around." (laughs) He said, "Suppose you go round and around home?" I fainted, never been sent home in my born life. But he called my house before I got there and told Mama that he had to do it, that it wasn't that much, but he had to let me know that have to follow rules and regulations and send me on back. But good God almighty, that killed me dead. Ooh, ooh, tell me to go home and I had to face him? But that was the worst, I think. I really, really do. | 3:35 |
Leslie Brown | Did you ever overstep your bounds growing up? | 4:48 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, I'm sure I did, with my brother, mostly. I wanted the boss, him. He wanted to boss me and I wanted to boss him. That's the truth. When he died, he was still trying to boss me. But with other people. Let me see now, Lord. Being a leader, you are a little bossy, so now I might have been a little bossy but I don't remember overstepping my bounds. But I believe in doing right, and don't do this and don't do the other, you might get in trouble. | 4:55 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I don't smoke nor drink, but at school, and again, this first Sunday school teacher was my principal, and you were not supposed to smoke at school. Well, I was her pet, let just tell it like it is. They all knew. "Lord have mercy, Ms. Hemphill loves Mildred. Ms. Hemphill loves Mildred." "Mildred, go tell Ms. Hemphill so-and-so." "Mildred, ask Ms. Hemphill so-and-so." but Ms. Hemphill tried to be nice about it, but she'd take me out. She and her husband would take me to dinner Sundays and all kinds of things, very nice to me. | 5:45 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | But see, I was old and big from my age, so I talked like I was 30 when I was just 23. You see my point? I've always been old for my age. But anyway, they wanted to smoke in a roomed and locked the door. So I said, "Well, honey, y'all can go on and smoke. You don't have to worry about me." See, I never did, even though I could get by, I could be late for school, but I never have believed in trying to hurt you to get up there. I've always been able to get up on Mildred's own merits, so I never did. | 6:22 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | But you see, there are people who would think that, "Oh, she might tell it," because Ms. Hemphill told me that a lady from our church, Helen Alexander, came there and said, "Now, Miss Hemphill, Mildred might tell you so-and-so and so-and-so." She says, "Mildred didn't tell me a darn thing on you niggers." That's what Miss Hemphill said. I don't know why Helen would even say that, other than, I was younger than they were. I'm just out of school, you see. | 7:03 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | They'd been working much, much longer, but I came there with new ideas and all of this and not afraid. See, I've never been afraid of a job or nobody in my life and they were. They never felt secure. I'm not afraid of the President of the United States, and I went to his inauguration. Yes, yes, ma'am. I went to Washington. That's what I'm trying to tell you now. I believe in myself, and a lot of people never have liked that. They can't stand that. They think you a threat to them, or "How can she?" | 7:34 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I went to New York University and the first day or two I'm there, I get a boyfriend. They say, "Well, how can she? How can she get—?" And already somebody buying me food and all this kind of stuff, and I'd get them some. But then they talking about, "Well, what is it about Mildred?" I say, "Personality." I believed in myself. My brother used to say, "If you don't believe in yourself, who's going to believe in it for you? " | 8:12 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now we held on, we helped each other. We talked to each other, we discussed things with each other. Even sometime, we'd be a little disgusted with my grandmama, would [indistinct 00:08:53] with her. We'd get together and console one another. But I don't know, not too many people disliked me, I don't think. In fact, the first time I found out somebody was talking about me it liked to kill me because I didn't know. They said, "Girl, don't everybody talk about somebody?" But I didn't go around talking about people, and I really didn't have sense enough to know folks would talk about me. | 8:41 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | And that is the gospel truth. "Yeah, me. Why would anybody be jealous of me? Here I am crippled and everything, trying to push myself, trying to pull up myself by my own bootstrap. Why would anybody be jealous of me?" But you'd be surprised now. You'd be surprised, because as I told you, fat, Black, didn't help you. You had to exert yourself and believe in yourself. Now I'm going to tell you, that was just as hard as segregation with Blacks that in that way. | 9:29 |
Leslie Brown | Was there a division between classes in the Black neighborhood? | 10:09 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, yes, it was. It is now. The Blacks looked down on the poor Blacks, and in the housing projects. We didn't have but one housing project when I was a child, that was Fairview Homes out in Greenville section, but yes, yes, yes. I was just lucky again. We didn't have the money like the Spears and Dr. Tyson. May Bates was one of my friends. Her daddy was a doctor. The Thad Tates, they were rich Blacks, but now they went to the Methodist church. But now, ain't nobody in Charlotte you can ask me about I don't know. I knew everybody in Charlotte that was somebody. I was strong with them. I didn't have the money, now don't you—We didn't have that kind of money. But as I told you, that life lent itself and the environment that I was brought up in and in the church that I was brought up in and made it possible. | 10:16 |
Leslie Brown | What was your grandmother's occupation? | 11:40 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Stayed at home, took care of us. She didn't work. Now, before I was born I think she made bonnets and little things. I think that's what they told me that she made bonnets for people, for little children to wear and things of that sort, but she didn't work out. | 11:43 |
Leslie Brown | What did your mother do? | 12:02 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | She was a domestic then. She worked at the spastic hospital with the spastic children, the dietician. She ended up in Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in the cafeteria. She went back to school at 65 at Central Piedmont. Yes, ma'am. She was only Black and about four Whites. There's a tape there on it that she was a star in this program on her on the work and stuff that she has done. | 12:03 |
Leslie Brown | What was your first job, the first job you ever had? | 12:46 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | The first job that I ever had, because see, they wouldn't let me work. I had finished college, that was my first job and getting ready to go back fall to teach. I was making $30 a week at—and honey, I thought that was big, never made any money, $30 a week. I can't think of the name of the place. It was something with the Army, something. Anyway, it was working for the military. I can't think of it. Right here in Charlotte, you had to catch a bus, a special bus and go there down to York Road. But guess what? I worked two days on it. Honey, honey, honey, I thought that was something. I knew I'd never worked and never been up all night in my life before, but that was the only job they could give me was working 11:00 to 7:00. | 12:51 |
Leslie Brown | Was this during the war? | 14:01 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yeah, mm-hmm, '44, '45. I finished college in '44, so I took the job. About 3:00, I got sleepy. 4:00, my head started hurting and I went down to the something, and so I made it that night. Oh, looked like 6:00 or 7:00 never would come. But that next night, about 3:00 again, 4:00, and I told somebody that I was sick, I had a headache. I went to that same place, but I didn't go to the nurse to get a tablet. I just stretched out on a little bench there, and they said they were looking for me because they didn't know I'd gotten killed down there or just what. | 14:03 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Everybody was looking for me and trying to give a description of me and everything. So somebody came in that place and woke me up and said, "Are you the person they looking for, thinking that something has happened to them of something?" They said, "Oh, they are upset." I got up, I went down there. He said, "Well, we been looking for you." I said, "Yes, because I'm coming to tell you I'm quitting." Did you hear what I said? He was going fire me or lay me out one. I said, "Yes, I'm coming to tell you I'm quitting." | 15:02 |
Leslie Brown | What was your job there for a time? | 15:42 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I really don't know, because see, I ain't work but one night, really. Girl, if I had to tell you the truth to keep from dying right this minute, but it was some kind of machine. It was some kind of machine that you worked. | 15:42 |
Leslie Brown | Were there all Blacks at the— | 15:57 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | No, now that was integrated. That was integrated. See, I didn't go to integrated colleges or anything until after. I went to New York University, '59, I think it was. That was well integrated, but well, that was just about the first integration I had. Now, I went to a place once when I was just getting out of college and me with a degree, and this is a place that made pictures in the schools. You know where I'm talking about that place that made pictures in the schools? So they advertised wanting some people to work. Well, see, I'd walked off of that job, so I still needed some money to get me something, to buy some clothes, going to teach that winter. | 16:03 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I took a test, passed the test. But then they got to running around talking to one another. They were saying I was too large. The girl came out and said, "Well, we are not going to be able to hire you." I said, "Why? I passed the test." See, that's what they were running around, but I didn't know, you see? "Well, we don't have much space in here and we can't hire a person that your size." I gave up and look, when I say, "That's where my mama wanted me to go to college." I didn't try anymore. | 17:09 |
Leslie Brown | What was student life like at Barber-Scotia? | 17:53 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, very limited. We had a gym but there was nothing in the gym, and corn card, that was almost 50 years ago. It was 50 years or '43 when I left there. There was nothing to do in the city; very, very primitive, if you want to know the truth. You had a few balls over there. Well, I couldn't play ball. You could have company on Sunday evenings. You got two sandwiches and an apple on a Sunday for dinner. After you eat at 1:00, you didn't get anything else till Monday morning, so you got a apple butter. | 17:58 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I don't eat it to this day, old brown apple butter, and maybe a potted meat and a apple butter and a apple in a little brown bag when you had your lunch, so you had to try to get you something else. My mother would bring a box for all of us quite often and my little gang, and so we'd have some good eatings but we'd eat it all up just about that day; eat it all up that same evening, but it wasn't too much. Again, I was on the committees and speaking and in the various clubs there. I've always been involved from high school. I don't remember elementary school how involved I was, I really don't. But high school, very involved, and in college. | 19:03 |
Leslie Brown | Barber-Scotia is in Concord? | 20:02 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yes. | 20:04 |
Leslie Brown | What was Concord like? | 20:04 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Nothing but a little one-hick town, country at that, but now you had to stand out as a college student. You had to put on gloves and a hat and you had to go downtown in twos. | 20:06 |
Leslie Brown | What kinds of students came to Barber-Scotia? | 20:26 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Presbyterians first and scholarship kids second, from the North, and from South Carolina. The Northern kids would be, White churches would send them down, and give them scholarships and this kind of thing. In South Carolina, you didn't have a lot of high schools, so they went to boarding schools and all those Presbyterian and boarding schools you had Boggs Academy, Spelman, all those schools, they would give them scholarships or write the school and get them in there. The parents would send them meat and vegetables and this kind of thing from down there. Mary McCleod Bethune went to Barber-Scotia. My nephew's the minister of church down there in Maysville, Presbyterian Church. (phone rings) What was we saying? | 20:30 |
Leslie Brown | We were talking about Barber-Scotia and Mary McCleod Bethune and your nephew. | 21:51 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Oh, oh yeah. Yeah. The school had a historical name because of some of the people that had gone there. Presbyterians sent the girls to Barber-Scotia and sent the boys to Johnson C. Smith. White Presbyterians sent the girls to Queen and the boys to Davidson. So if you were a staunch Presbyterian, you went to Barber-Scotia. If you were a staunch Methodist, you went to Livingstone College, and so that's the way Charlotte was divided. | 21:54 |
Leslie Brown | Is how people decided which school they were going to? | 22:31 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In most cases. In most cases, the church-related schools. | 22:34 |
Leslie Brown | What kind of expectations were placed on you as a graduate of Barber-Scotia? | 22:40 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Go out into the world, get a good job, come back and do something for Barber-Scotia. But they emphasized hold up Barber's Scotia's name. Be a good citizen. Be a good person. | 22:47 |
Leslie Brown | I hear that echoed in all of the Black institutions. | 23:04 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Is that right? | 23:09 |
Leslie Brown | The name of the church, the name of the school, the name of the college. Did you find that that was true also? Did your church have certain expectations of you also? Did your school have certain expectations of you? | 23:13 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yeah, but the church didn't seem to have as much as the school or they didn't put it in you as much as the school, but the school did more of that. Right now, we provide a lot of things with kids right now and send them and expose them and have workshops and get acquainted affairs for them. You visit around, see, like this time the youth conference would be held at my church. The next time the youth conference would be held in Winston-Salem. Well, you looked forward to going to Winston-Salem. Well, Dima and I down to Florida once to a conference. Well, you couldn't tell us anything, honey, going to that big conference and it was well planned. You had a schedule, breakfast and then Bible study, and then recreation and this kind of thing. You just looked forward to it. | 23:29 |
Leslie Brown | When you went to conference, who did you stay with or where did you stay? | 24:40 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In the dormitories, lived in the dormitories. When we went to Camp Whispering Pines, you lived in some little cabins like. | 24:44 |
Leslie Brown | Did you have any contact with Whites before you started to teach? | 25:00 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | In what way? | 25:11 |
Leslie Brown | In any way? | 25:13 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Not much, very, very little, other than the stores and on the plane, on the train, on the bus, because during the war, they'd try to get in front, but honey, I'd just do this and get on in myself; was never left off of one. Other schoolmates were left off, have to catch the next bus. But see, just 22 miles from Concord to Charlotte, but you'd have to wait maybe four more hours. It's the same thing about the train, but I've never left myself because they would push you back. But I didn't let them push me back. See, some of them scared to push against them. I told you my mama was scared to death I was going to get put in jail, but I ain't let push me, and to this day I don't. | 25:14 |
Leslie Brown | What kind of changes did the war bring? World War II? | 26:07 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, see, I was sort of a transient in that war area, just getting out of school, and not having worked to be a part of them, I didn't see any changes until the '60s, late '60s tell you the truth, as far as being segregated against and not being able to sit down and eat in the stores. | 26:12 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I cut up my charger plate at Ida's, I told him he was practicing Paganism. I went to the head, I said "Lord, I could have gotten fired from school," because JBI was a big man in this town. I told him that he was practicing Paganism closing his windows, always would close the windows on Sundays; never could look in there. Other stores you could look in the windows, but you couldn't shop in the windows, window shop in there because they closed them. But yet, and still a Black couldn't sit down in his cafeteria. | 26:54 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I just took my scissors, cut it up and threw it down to him and told him I couldn't be a part of it. "Well, I need to talk to you." My mama said, "Don't you go up there, you'll get locked up and they'll claim you trying to steal or something because a many Black person has been scared. I was watching last night a story, In the Heat of the Night, poor fella just as innocent as he'd be, but he'd been talking to a White girl and decided to get rid of him and finally killed him. Well, if I'd have been in some of those little small towns, I never lived further than where I am now from the square, heart of the city here. | 27:30 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any incidents of racial violence? Remember anybody being beaten up. | 28:17 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now you know, I sure no—no. My brother went down east with a team of preachers where the Ku Klux Klans was going to get them, but I didn't even know anything that the Ku Klux Klans did until after integration, and they tried to burn down Dr. Hawkins' home and another civil right worker's home. But we didn't have too much of that. | 28:27 |
Leslie Brown | Why do you think that was? | 28:56 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | More or less, I guess they stayed in their place. | 29:03 |
Leslie Brown | They stayed in their place. | 29:07 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep, because right now, you can have some of these parks and things with Whites and Blacks. Of course, I don't frequent them and maybe I stayed out the way. Now, that's another thing. As I told you, the church was my life. I didn't do no whole lot of running around and so forth, and don't to this day. When I leave this house, I'm going to a meeting or something. That's it. | 29:07 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any controversies within the community or in your neighborhood, any disagreements over any issues at home? | 29:37 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Now, the controversies that I remember is trying to get the theaters open and being able to sit down and eat, being able to drink water from the fountains. Ed Brown and I got a first summer school for Blacks. They had summer schools all my life for Whites. When the two of us went to the superintendent to ask for summer school for Whites, he said, "Well, I didn't know you all wanted one." The next summer we had summer school for Blacks and been having summer school ever since, and that was in the '40s. | 30:00 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We'd never had—late '40s or early '50s, the first time we had summer school for Black children. It was a carryover from Whites' mentality that Blacks didn't go to school certain times of year because they had to pick cotton, but this was a city, but they were labeling behind that. I don't know whether it was true or not, but that's what Dr. Harry was the superintendent at that time, Harry P. Harding, and that's what he told us. "Didn't know y'all wanted one." | 30:40 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any boycotts or protests before 1960? | 31:15 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | At my school, Johnson C. Smith is the only place I remember. Again, I was caught up in that. I was a student representative. They sent a student home and the kids say that her suspension was not up so she shouldn't have been sent home, and so they boycotted classes. When the president of Johnson C. Smith came out front and all the students out there, he said, "Well, you all pick out two representatives and we'll sit down and talk with them," because my name was one of those names. So they all having a ball up and down, walking up town and everywhere else, and I'm sitting up there all day long with Chris, William Chris. We were the two representatives, and they stayed out of class though, until they decided to send for Barbara Dent and let her come back to school. But as in Charlotte, I don't remember any. | 31:24 |
Leslie Brown | When did you first vote? | 32:31 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Let me see. It had to be in the '50s. It had to be in the '50s because see, they tried to discourage you from voting. You had to be able to recite this and you didn't know what the question they were going to ask you. Sometime they say they would ask you to recite something and another time they would ask you questions. So the NAACP, so that's, you know what I'm saying, it's the late '40s or early '50s started encouraging people and having meetings. Of course, I was joining in the NAACP, telling us, "Don't become frightened, go on down there and registered to vote." So I registered to vote and started working at the polls. I don't do too much now working at the polls, but I did for years. | 32:35 |
Leslie Brown | Did your mother vote? | 33:44 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yes. Yes. Now Mama, I don't think Mama voted. I really do not believe Mama voted. | 33:47 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any national political figures before 1960. Anyone that you paid attention to? | 33:55 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | White or Black? | 34:11 |
Leslie Brown | Either. | 34:11 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, Roosevelt was my idol. He had a great impact on my life as a national figure. Whitney Young, was it Whitney Young? | 34:15 |
Leslie Brown | You mentioned Mary McCleod Bethune, didn't you? | 34:48 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yeah. What's this lady, Dorothy Height? Oh, yes, Adam Clayton Powell was another one that I admired greatly. | 34:51 |
Leslie Brown | What about Adam Clayton Powell did you admire? | 35:18 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Hmm? | 35:21 |
Leslie Brown | What about Adam Clayton Powell did you admire? | 35:21 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, I liked anybody that could stand up against Whites, and I thought he wasn't afraid to speak out. I thought he was a leader of Blacks up there in New York and Whites that he had to work with. I thought he was not straddling the fence and was not a yes, yes man for them. Those are the kind of people I've always admired. | 35:22 |
Leslie Brown | What about Dorothy Height? | 35:57 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I think that she has tried to lead women in the right directions, and I was a member of that. I'm not now. I'm not a active member, but I was a member of that too. | 35:59 |
Leslie Brown | The National Association of Colored Women? | 36:11 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Mm-hmm. That's right. I was president of the local chapter here. | 36:13 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, really? | 36:20 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Mm-hmm. | 36:21 |
Leslie Brown | What did the local chapter of NACW do in Charlotte? | 36:22 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Really, raise money, have programs, send money to National, that's the truth. | 36:28 |
Leslie Brown | What kind of programs? | 36:40 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | But not a great impact like Black Women's Caucus giving scholarships and things of that sort. They have moved to better things now, but it used to be that they didn't. Most groups now are doing more than raising money, but it used to be even some church groups, instead of having Bible study, their thing was to collect money and sing a song or two and that was it. But people are doing a little bit more now seemingly. | 36:41 |
Leslie Brown | Do you belong to any sororities? | 37:19 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, yeah. One of the founding members of the Charlotte Sigma Gamma Rho, 39, 40, about 40 years. | 37:20 |
Leslie Brown | Did you ever feel like a second-class citizen? | 37:42 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Around White people, yes. I told you that's my hangup. Yes, yes, yes, and that's why I think I fought against them. So. I wrote a paper at New York University on poor mental health. Regardless to what you had done to upgrade yourself and to better your condition, you were still treated as a second-class citizen. Dr. McGowan tried to get me right then and there to come to New York and work. I would've made $4,000 more than I was making in Charlotte, but I told him that I was in school to improve myself so I could come back and help my people in North Carolina. If money had been my thing, I would've stayed in New York and worked, but my thing was to help my people as much as I could. | 37:48 |
Leslie Brown | What do you think makes your life so much different from your mother's life and from your grandmother's life? | 38:46 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | I had all these opportunities and took advantage of them. My mother was sent to the Lutheran school, but she stopped herself. You see my point? I took advantage of everything they gave me because I wanted to stop school after two years at Barber-Scotia and go to Washington and work while a lot of the girls were leaving and taking government jobs, but they didn't want me to. They wanted me to complete my education, said I had plenty of time. "Well, I want to help you all." | 38:54 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | They said, "You can help me better if you go ahead and complete your education." So I threw a hand up and came on over here to Johnson C. Smith. Barber-Scotia was only two years at that time. The next year, they added on the four years. But I took advantage and the advantages were there for me if I want—I never had to worry about school thing. My money was there. Girls having to call home and couldn't take the exam, I never been through those kinds of things. I took advantage and that's why I don't smoke. | 39:27 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | That's right, I never did finish telling you about the cigarette. They were scared because I was sitting in the teacher's lounge and they were going to go slip and smoke. I said "Listen, so you all will know if she finds it out, I didn't tell it. I'm going to go smoke with you all." I went in there and puffed a cigarette with them. See my point? To assure them that if Ms. Hemphill found it out, she wouldn't find it out from me. I've never inhaled a cigarette in my life, but I sure did puff that one. I was at the club eating one night and smoking the same, and they was smelling something burning. I was trying to burn the wrong end of the cigarette, it was a thing on it. But I went in there that day so they would know, so that alleviated some fear and feeling in there that, because see, "She's close to Ms. Hemphill, Miss Hemphill goes to her house," that kind of thing. | 40:07 |
Leslie Brown | Now, where did you learn to play cards? | 41:06 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Lord. Lord. Lord. How you know I'm a card player, because I'm a card player? | 41:08 |
Leslie Brown | You told me you were a card player. | 41:12 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yes. | 41:14 |
Leslie Brown | You said you played and pinochle and you played— | 41:15 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Yep, bridge and spades and bid whist and you name it, I play it. I started at home slipping playing Jack. There was a game called Jack, and whoever was left with that Jack card was the Jack, see? Well, we'd slip and play that and you hide the cards up under you if mama showed up. At Barber-Scotia, you could play on the inside all you wanted. At Johnson C. Smith, you couldn't play out on the lawn, so we took root cards, red, yellow, green and black. We'd have those root cards down beside us. The matron would come along, "Girls, you know you're going to get sent home. You know you're not supposed to—" She said, "Now listen, are you going to get sent home with number cards?" That's proof meal of glory. We played morning, noon and night. At Barber-Scotia, the same way. If you want to revitalize my spirit, just bring out the—You see them tables there, don't you? Yes, ma'am. | 41:19 |
Leslie Brown | Who you play cards with? | 42:32 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | With different friends, but in the bridge club, there are 12 of us and they're all educators, every one of us. In fact, now we've been in this bridge club 30 some years. So you can see that we all started out pretty young, but we've ended up. A girl was here helping me, I entertained the bridge club at Christmas time and she was here helping us. She said, "Are all of y'all senior citizens?" I told the group after she left, and we just hollered. But do you know, I do believe everybody in the group's retired now except one, and she's the head librarian at Johnson C. Smith, Shirley Wilkins. | 42:36 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Shirley is about the only one that is not retired. Now. Some did like I did. Well, now listen, I don't mean now, but I retired at 54 because of my disability, but some of them retired. After 30 years, you can retire anyway, see in the state of North Carolina. So some of them, honey, as soon as they got that 30 years in, they retired, but we've been in that a long time. The Merry Makers, now that's the pinochle club. It's older than the bridge club. But honey, I can play some cards any day in the week. We played last weekend. | 43:22 |
Leslie Brown | How did your card club get started 30 years ago or longer? How did it get started? | 44:10 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, we went to take some bridge—It was fashionable that if you were up in the upper class, and I was going to tell it like it is, you had to know how to play bridge. So Dr. Bertha Maxwell, she's been teaching out at UNCC and I think Dr. Harper, there were four of us and somebody was offering bridge classes over at the Y. Marge Belton was the thing, but anyhow, they had offering bridge at the Y, and we went over there to take the course. But Bertha know it all, we took one course and organized the bridge club and we've been playing ever since, been playing ever since. | 44:16 |
Leslie Brown | What do you talk about— | 45:19 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well— | 45:21 |
Leslie Brown | —when you're playing bridge? | 45:21 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | Well, see now we give things to students and bring them gifts. We honored one little boy in sixth grade with one parent, family with a grandmother. We had the grandfather and the grandmother there. Well, I can get the Afro Center almost time that it's not being used. So we had a little dinner party for them and made pictures of him and gave him clothing and books and things for the summer and honored him because of his good work in school. | 45:22 |
Mildred Baxter Davis | We invited his principal but she couldn't make it, but we were disappointed because we wanted her to say something to the class the next day for him. But we put it in the paper and everything. We do a lot of nice things for families and Christmas time and this kind of time. But when we used to have a lot of affairs for our sales too, but we would calm down because honey, we used to have the big dances and all of this, honey, with the band and all this. We ain't doing that no more, we having luncheons. (laughs) | 46:07 |
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