Harry Goins and Sudie Goins interview recording, 1993 June 17
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Transcript
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Kara Miles | Voice is going to pick up. So if you could— Where did you grow up? | 0:01 |
Sudie Goins | I grew up right around Mecklenburg County. I was born in Huntersville, North Carolina. I went to school here in Charlotte at Second Ward. Graduated Second Ward in the class of 1937. | 0:04 |
Kara Miles | What neighborhood did you live in growing up? | 0:24 |
Sudie Goins | Second Ward. | 0:28 |
Kara Miles | What was your neighborhood like? | 0:32 |
Sudie Goins | Well, it was like most neighborhoods. It wasn't the best of neighborhoods, but it was an average neighborhood. I saw very little 'cause I didn't get out that much. I was usually trying to get my lessons and doing chores. | 0:35 |
Kara Miles | Who were your neighbors? | 0:53 |
Sudie Goins | Oh dear. We had a multiplicity of neighbors. My parents didn't live here. They lived in Huntersville and they sent me here. I lived with one of the teachers that taught at Second Ward. She was an old maid, and she was very strict. So when I'd get in from school, my duties were to get my lesson and do some of the things that she wanted me to do. I didn't have much of a plate. My playing time was cut. | 1:00 |
Kara Miles | When did you come here to live with her? | 1:32 |
Sudie Goins | Oh, I came here in '33. 1933. | 1:35 |
Kara Miles | And why did your parents send you here? | 1:37 |
Sudie Goins | In Huntersville, at that time, we didn't have a high school. Not for us to go to. We had one for the Whites, but we didn't have one for us. So when we finished grade school there, we had to come here and these were my distant relatives that I stayed with. My parents proceeded to send me to my relatives so I could finish high school, which was to my advantage. | 1:42 |
Kara Miles | What was your childhood like in Huntersville? | 2:22 |
Sudie Goins | Oh, I had a delightful childhood coming up. I had many friends and many neighbors around. It's not a— It's rural. All of it is rural. So we didn't live right close to one another and we would visit. During the week time, we would go to school and we had to walk to school, which was about three miles. And we had fun walking to school and from school and then after school on the weekends my neighbors would visit us and we would visit them. So it was delightful. | 2:26 |
Kara Miles | Did you used to come in contact with White children? | 3:03 |
Sudie Goins | Very seldom. Only going to and from school. See they had buses and they would ride the buses to school while we would have to walk. Of course, that wasn't anything, that was done all over back then at that time. I had a real nice— My childhood bringing up was very good. | 3:07 |
Kara Miles | What did you think of that? Of seeing the White children on the bus? | 3:39 |
Sudie Goins | Do you know, at that time, it wasn't really a big thing. We accepted it because we didn't know anything else. We didn't know of— It was just a common thing until we grew up. Then we found out that, oh my goodness, look what advantage they had. It just wasn't brought up back then. I don't know why, but as you grew and got older you could see it was a difference. | 3:45 |
Kara Miles | How old were you do you think when you realized this difference? | 4:15 |
Sudie Goins | Oh, I must have been in high school, must have been my second year in high school when I came to Second Ward and I realized and I looked around, everybody there was Black and then we started talking about— We had history and different subjects and it came up that we were really kind of pushed back in the back because many times the White children went to school and we had to stay out and pick cotton and that didn't bother. I don't know what it was. It was kind of funny back then because it didn't really occur to us what was going on. But about the age of 17, 18, you began to realize that things were not equal. | 4:21 |
Kara Miles | You mentioned picking cotton. Were your parents were farmers? | 5:26 |
Sudie Goins | Yes they were. Yes they were. | 5:29 |
Kara Miles | Did they own their land? | 5:32 |
Sudie Goins | No, they didn't own their land. They lived on a farm, John Paul Lucas Farm, and they worked that farm and for as sharecroppers, but they made very good— He was really a scientific farmer and he had all the big things to farm with like tractors and had beautiful horses and had six or seven of those and he had people working for him. My father was an ideal farmer. He knew exactly what to do and I was telling my husband, we never knew what it was to go to the store and buy much of anything because he raised everything out there, even meal flour. Everything I think we had except sugar and just a few— We raised everything except sugar and coffee and things like that. | 5:34 |
Kara Miles | You said your father had people working for him? | 6:45 |
Sudie Goins | Yes. We stayed in what you call the big house. We had a big house there and people stayed there and out front there, he let people stay that worked the farm, but actually, he didn't own the farm. Do you know what I'm saying? | 6:49 |
Kara Miles | Do you know how he managed that? To live in the big house and— | 7:09 |
Sudie Goins | I guess Mr. Lucas saw to it that he got the best of everything and he put him in the house to see over the farm and he was the overseer of everything and he hired people to come in and work the farm. It was just like our own farm because we didn't— I thought it was. We didn't know the difference. We never saw the owner. | 7:14 |
Kara Miles | You said your father was a scientific farmer. | 7:41 |
Sudie Goins | Yeah. By that I mean he didn't ever get out and dig and shovel. He used those big machines to do things. I always look back and see how smart he was to have those fellows come in and take out the big tractors and do up the farm and do up the ground out there. He had all the mechanisms to work with, but he didn't do any farming himself. He didn't do it. He would oversee the land, oversee the workers, and oversee. We were really small. We didn't do much of anything either. But my brothers did work. They did plenty of it. | 7:44 |
Kara Miles | Were there other families like that in your community there that lived in the big house and had other workers working for them? | 8:39 |
Sudie Goins | Do you know I think we were about the only family that worked that way? Now I can think of a couple of other families that owned their own land and worked their own land. They tilled the soil and worked their own land, but it wasn't a big operation like this where we lived because he just worked for that. I don't know anything about the income. I don't know anything about what was taken in and what went out. I don't know that. | 8:50 |
Sudie Goins | But I know he did all the operation of the work and I don't know how he and the owner of the land did that, but I know he had many in the wintertime he'd kill all these hogs. He had seven, eight, and 10 hogs and killed them. Now, what became of those? I know he would sell some of the hams and things and had a big house out from the house called a smokehouse and that is where he stored the meat. And I don't know. I was really too little. You should have somebody else doing this that remembered because when I left from up there I didn't— I wasn't in touch with the farming and all of this that I need to know to tell you all of this. | 9:24 |
Kara Miles | So tell me about Charlotte. | 10:08 |
Sudie Goins | Oh, now Charlotte is an ideal place for coming up when I was coming up. It wasn't like it is now, but I know Charlotte as educational. We really got our lessons back then at that time. We didn't know much else to do and it wasn't all these activities. We didn't have television. Many things back then we didn't have. So we didn't have any outside activity. We are ready for you. So now I turn it over to my husband. | 10:15 |
Harry Goins | Good morning. Good morning. | 10:52 |
Kara Miles | Good morning. Sure you do. Where did you grow up? | 10:54 |
Harry Goins | Many places. | 11:05 |
Kara Miles | Where are those places? | 11:09 |
Harry Goins | North Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia. | 11:09 |
Kara Miles | When did you live in each place? | 11:13 |
Harry Goins | I lived in— Born in Lexington, North Carolina. And at three years old, I presume, I went to Madison, North Carolina. At nine, I went to Roanoke, Virginia. From Roanoke, Virginia, I went to McComas, West Virginia. That's about the age of about 12. And I stayed there and went to high school there, but I went back to Lexington, North Carolina at Dunbar High School and I graduated from Dunbar High School. You want to know what year? 1933. | 11:15 |
Kara Miles | Okay. Of all the places that you lived, which places do you like best? | 12:03 |
Harry Goins | I really can't say. Hard. Maybe between Lexington and Roanoke, Virginia. Lexington, North Carolina or Roanoke, Virginia. | 12:15 |
Kara Miles | Why? | 12:38 |
Harry Goins | Well, I don't know. I guess I was a little— In Lexington I was more of an adult if you call 14 years old an adult. | 12:38 |
Kara Miles | So how did you come to Charlotte? | 12:48 |
Harry Goins | Well, I was attending Hampton University. At that time it was Hampton Institute and I left there on my way to Florida. I stopped over in Charlotte because I had relatives here and I met formerly an associate of mine who went to Hampton by the name of Herbert Johnson. And Herbert asked me if I would like to go to Smith. And I said sure. So I registered. I didn't register, but I put my application blank in et cetera in December. And I went to Florida, got broke, and came back to Charlotte. And that's how I got to Charlotte and I've been at the factory ever since. But Herbert Johnson didn't show up anymore. | 12:51 |
Kara Miles | How did you have the money to go to college? Did your parents have the money? | 13:45 |
Harry Goins | I only had one parent at that time. My father was dead. I went on a scholarship and worked. | 13:54 |
Kara Miles | So how old were you when you came to Charlotte? | 14:05 |
Harry Goins | I guess I was at least 21 years old. I'd have to do a little subtracting. Twenty, 25, take say two— I was 22 or 23 years old when I came to Charlotte. | 14:13 |
Kara Miles | What did you use to do for fun? | 14:29 |
Harry Goins | Can't tell you that. | 14:37 |
Kara Miles | You can't? | 14:37 |
Harry Goins | No, I can't tell you that. | 14:38 |
Kara Miles | What kind of places did you use to go to? | 14:41 |
Harry Goins | I went to nightclubs and I went to dances and all those places. | 14:47 |
Kara Miles | What nightclubs were they here? | 14:56 |
Harry Goins | Well, at the particular time, see after my father died, he died when I was in West Virginia and I came to North Carolina, stayed a few months, and then I went to Atlantic City to live with my uncle. That is when I found out about the nightlife in Atlantic City. That was about 1934, 1935. And that's where the nightclubs were. | 14:58 |
Kara Miles | What was Atlantic City like compared to the South? | 15:28 |
Harry Goins | Atlantic City was a melting pot of all places. I don't believe that you compare it to any place north or south. It was what was called, the playground of the world. | 15:33 |
Kara Miles | Growing up, what experiences did you have with Whites? | 15:52 |
Harry Goins | Most of my growing up with Whites was mostly as close as you could get on equal basis. | 15:58 |
Kara Miles | What do you mean? | 16:13 |
Harry Goins | I didn't see, no— I didn't see where I was inferior or they were superior to me one way or another. I didn't think of it in that manner. I thought of each one that I knew them as individuals and those that I knew as individuals were just equal to, I say, me. | 16:15 |
Kara Miles | So what kind of relationship did you have with those? | 16:38 |
Harry Goins | Very good. | 16:41 |
Kara Miles | Did you have Whites that you considered friends? | 16:43 |
Harry Goins | No. | 16:45 |
Kara Miles | No. | 16:45 |
Kara Miles | So when would you have come in contact with Whites? | 16:48 |
Harry Goins | Well, mostly when I lived in West Virginia. My father was a barber and he worked a White trade and that's how I associated— Not associated with, but that's where I knew most of the White fellas because I was there say five or six days a week and I just knew them. Of course, now everything was segregated, but that's how I come to know them in West Virginia. | 16:51 |
Kara Miles | Did you ever— When you would see the signs saying Colored and White on the water fountains or the bathrooms or things, did you ever not pay attention to them? Did you ever drink from the White water fountain or things like that? | 17:37 |
Harry Goins | No. I didn't. At that particular time, I don't think we, as Black people— We just knew that was the way of life and the Black water and the White water— I mean the Colored water and the White water didn't make a difference. In West Virginia, there was a place called a community center and it was owned and operated by the coal mine, Pocahontas Coal Mine. | 17:52 |
Harry Goins | And they had a long building, two restaurants there, one Black and one White. They were equal. They had two pool rooms in this building and they were equal. They had two barbershops in this same building and they were equal. The only difference is that Blacks went over here and the Whites went over there. But when you go into a coal mine and go down in the ground, all of you become Black until you come and take a shower. | 18:27 |
Kara Miles | So is that where you worked in the coal mine? | 19:01 |
Harry Goins | I didn't work. I worked in the barber shop. At that time I was only, I'd say 14, 15, 16 years old. | 19:07 |
Kara Miles | So this community center, by equal you mean that the buildings were the same size, pool halls, and— | 19:14 |
Harry Goins | It was in the same building. Everything was equal. They had three pool tables in the Black, three pool tables in the White. They had a restaurant with the same thing on one side they had on the other side. The only difference was the petition between where you sit. The barbershops were the same. Two chairs in the White side and two chairs in the Black side. | 19:26 |
Kara Miles | How about when you moved to Charlotte? What kind of contacts did you have with Whites here? | 19:48 |
Harry Goins | Only one. | 19:53 |
Kara Miles | What? | 19:53 |
Harry Goins | Well, one of the female students at Johnson C. Smith asked me did I want to work and I said yes. And at that time buses were seven cents and taxi cabs were 10 cents. So I didn't know how to get to Miles Park, never heard of it before. I paid 10 cents to get out there and the woman wanted me to do some waxing for her. So I waxed two bedrooms and I don't know what you call it, the thing upstairs when you come out at the hallway. Similar to a hallway, but it's not. | 20:00 |
Harry Goins | And then they bounced down the steps. And I did this in about a little over two hours 'cause I was working by the room and when I finished, the woman told me that she paid her help 20 cents an hour and I worked almost two hours and a half, but she was going give me 50 cents anyway. And so as you can see that was a bad business proposition 'cause I had paid 10 cents to get out there and I had to pay seven cents to get back and I got a total of 33 cents left in summary. So I told the girl don't ask me to work anymore 'cause somebody— I wouldn't insult the woman, but somebody at Smith might have wanted a job like that, but I didn't. | 20:43 |
Kara Miles | Is that what you told the woman? | 21:39 |
Harry Goins | No, but I told the girl that sent me out there. No, I didn't want to insult the woman 'cause there was someone out there at Smith that might have accepted that and would need it worse than me. Of course, I was broke, but I didn't need it that bad. Of course, if I would have known I was working by the hour, I would have still been out there waxing. | 21:42 |
Kara Miles | So that was your only contact with Whites here in Charlotte? | 22:04 |
Harry Goins | No, I used to wait tables at conventions and things like that, but I didn't come in contact with anyone. Just waiting on the tables and carry out this, that was all. No contact whatsoever. | 22:07 |
Kara Miles | How did World War II affect your life? | 22:26 |
Harry Goins | Beautiful. | 22:29 |
Kara Miles | What do you mean? | 22:32 |
Harry Goins | Well, I went in and I had a good time and came out and I wasn't hurt, nothing bothering me, and I guess I enjoyed it. | 22:35 |
Kara Miles | Did you go to war voluntarily? | 22:37 |
Harry Goins | Oh no, no, no. I would never have done anything like that. I was drafted and tried to figure out a way to get out. | 22:37 |
Kara Miles | Couldn't figure out anything? | 23:06 |
Harry Goins | No, because I went to— I guess it was your homeland, north Africa. Was that your homeland? You're Afro-American aren't you? | 23:08 |
Kara Miles | Yes. | 23:18 |
Harry Goins | Which I went to your homeland. That wasn't mine. I stopped over in Casablanca. Have you ever heard of Casablanca? | 23:19 |
Kara Miles | Yes. | 23:26 |
Kara Miles | Why wasn't it your homeland? | 23:29 |
Harry Goins | I'm not Afro-American. | 23:31 |
Kara Miles | What are you? | 23:34 |
Harry Goins | I am an American period. I told you that you didn't want to listen to me. | 23:35 |
Kara Miles | So what kind of work did you do once you got out of school? | 23:48 |
Harry Goins | I waited tables as a waiter. That's what I did while I was going to school. And then I went to Norfolk Navy Yard. I worked in the Navy Yard as a laborer. That was it. And then I was drafted and I spent what, 40, 41 months, 35 months overseas. 41 months total in the Army. And then since I made the terrible mistake of getting married, I came to Charlotte, North Carolina where my wife was. | 23:54 |
Kara Miles | Where did you meet your wife? | 24:29 |
Harry Goins | Johnson C. Smith. | 24:30 |
Kara Miles | And what kind of places did you use to take her on dates? | 24:33 |
Harry Goins | I don't think you were— You don't remember too well do you? In the history what— Take someone to where? Didn't have anybody to take anywhere and didn't have the money to take anybody anywhere during the winter. Now in the summertime, it was different. You had a job, you might take them to the movies. But maybe I did take her to the movies. That has been so long ago, I don't remember. | 24:40 |
Kara Miles | When you were overseas, how were Blacks treated in Europe or other places outside the United States? | 25:06 |
Harry Goins | Once again, I didn't have any problems because I figured out that I was over there doing the same thing the White boys were doing and I didn't let myself be. I was always an American. | 25:14 |
Kara Miles | Was your Army unit— | 25:30 |
Harry Goins | It was segregated. The only thing we had Black and White officers that didn't have any enlisted men in the outfit I was in. | 25:33 |
Kara Miles | What did you think of that? | 25:43 |
Harry Goins | What did I think of didn't have any— I didn't think. If you had been born red in a segregated world and you went into the services, most of your life have been your employees. I mean your employers have been White. So that is the way it was in Army. You had some captains and some lieutenants Black and I think we didn't have a major until after the war was over, but the colonel and the majors were White. | 25:46 |
Kara Miles | So when you came back from the war, what did you do? | 26:33 |
Harry Goins | What did I do? Oh, the first thing I did, bought 50% into a restaurant. I worked in the restaurant for a while and then I became a manager of the Charlotte Veterans Club. Because at that particular time the rest of them had jobs that I didn't, so I was the most qualified to be there. | 26:35 |
Kara Miles | And then what? | 27:07 |
Harry Goins | Well, I stayed there from 19— I think it was 1948 to 1957. And then I left there and became a manager of a rock and roll group and I stayed there for 25 years and then I retired. | 27:08 |
Kara Miles | What group was this? | 27:33 |
Harry Goins | Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs. | 27:35 |
Kara Miles | Were they a national act? | 27:36 |
Harry Goins | Mm-hmm. | 27:42 |
Kara Miles | So did you travel with them and— | 27:44 |
Harry Goins | Mm-hmm. | 27:46 |
Kara Miles | What restaurant was this— | 27:49 |
Harry Goins | English Tablet. | 27:52 |
Kara Miles | And what happened to that? | 27:55 |
Harry Goins | Well, after I became manager of the Charlotte Veterans Club, I turned over to my partner and I just— You just don't have it and left about 50%. | 27:57 |
Kara Miles | In your travels with your band, what was your favorite place that you went? | 28:14 |
Harry Goins | That is kind of hard to say. Favorite place that I went to? I'd say Roanoke, Virginia. | 28:24 |
Kara Miles | Why? | 28:30 |
Harry Goins | Well I had lived there and it was like going home and meeting old acquaintances and associates and then when I get there they knew me and I knew them. So I guess I liked it there better than in other places. | 28:31 |
Kara Miles | Mrs. Goins? | 28:48 |
Sudie Goins | Yes. | 28:50 |
Kara Miles | What did you do after you finished high school? | 28:52 |
Sudie Goins | After I finished high school, I went to Barber Scotia College. | 28:55 |
Sudie Goins | I finished there then I went to Winston-Salem Teachers College and stayed there a year and then came to Johnson C. Smith where I met my husband. So we finished in the year. By me leaving Winston-Salem Teachers College, I lost some units so I had to make up my time in summer school. He finished with the class of '41 with the regular class in June. So I had to go two months to make up my units to finish in that same year. But I didn't come out with the class. So that same year he fooled me. So we got married. That was in 1941. So we've been fighting ever since. | 29:04 |
Kara Miles | What do you mean he fooled you? | 29:51 |
Harry Goins | I told her I was a millionaire. That wasn't hard to do. | 29:53 |
Kara Miles | And you believed that? | 30:00 |
Harry Goins | She told me her daddy had a farm and estate up here in Huntersville and if I married her, I wouldn't have anything to do with selling the shade tree. The boys out there were family me and I just keep time for them. But I never found that place. I've been all over Huntersville and I haven't found it yet. | 30:01 |
Sudie Goins | He's teasing you. You know that though. | 30:21 |
Kara Miles | So what really happened? | 30:28 |
Harry Goins | We got married. We both were unemployed. | 30:31 |
Sudie Goins | And no money. | 30:34 |
Harry Goins | I did. I had $60. I don't know what you're talking about. I was rich. | 30:39 |
Sudie Goins | The thing about it though. He left and went to Atlantic City to get a job to go to work so we could kind of make it because we were planning on— We had talked about we were getting married as soon as we finished and we were trying to accumulate something and he went to Atlantic City, got a job, went to work, and I think he was making like $15. | 30:42 |
Harry Goins | $12. $12 a week. | 31:00 |
Sudie Goins | $12 a week. And then he said for me to come to Atlantic City and we found a way that we could get married by going down to Elkton, Maryland, having a preacher to marry us, and wouldn't be a big expense. So we went to Elkton, Maryland, got married and we got a job. I was working for a lady from— Taking care of her little baby from Australia. | 31:06 |
Harry Goins | Austria. | 31:34 |
Sudie Goins | Austria. And she was a princess and it was a nice job. And I worked there a while and he was working at $12 a week. We did well. Back then that was all right. We did fair. So wasn't too long before he had to go in the service. | 31:35 |
Harry Goins | I went to Norfolk. The job ran out and see in the summertime jobs run out in Atlantic City and it would last until Thanksgiving and I went to— I had a very dear— It was that particular time I called them friends. I call them associates now and he told me to come on down and I went there and I stayed with him until I got a job. That is when I went and worked in the Navy Yard. | 31:57 |
Sudie Goins | In Norfolk, Virginia. | 32:24 |
Harry Goins | But you're not asking me, I've told you. She asked you what did you do. | 32:25 |
Sudie Goins | Then? After I left Atlantic City your job ran out. | 32:30 |
Harry Goins | No. What did you do? That's it. | 32:33 |
Sudie Goins | I came and went on to Norfolk with you. | 32:33 |
Kara Miles | How much money did you make on the job that you worked for the Austrian princess? | 32:41 |
Sudie Goins | I think it was $8 a week. $8 a week. | 32:53 |
Kara Miles | How did the war affect you? | 32:58 |
Sudie Goins | Oh, it was devastation for me because, see, he came up just pulling apart from— We didn't have anything to work with and pulling Harry away and I had no job security and the only thing I had to look forward to is the $50 a month was sent through the government and I'd pick a job here and there until I finally earned the job. Got a job someplace and worked. But it wasn't good. It was a sad time for me. | 33:00 |
Kara Miles | Were there good jobs to be found then? | 33:43 |
Sudie Goins | The jobs were hard to get, especially teaching jobs that I was looking for. And I think it was a couple years. It was a year before I got a job. I think my first job was in Sheldon and I was making about $103 a month then. | 33:45 |
Sudie Goins | And I can't remember what year that was. Then I left there and got another job, which was nice. Working in Madison, North Carolina in Harry's hometown, one of his hometowns. He has many. | 34:02 |
Kara Miles | He told me. | 34:24 |
Sudie Goins | And that was a nice experience. So I worked there a couple years and then I came back to Charlotte. | 34:24 |
Kara Miles | So was life different after the war? Were there any changes in society or in the community or anything after the war? | 34:36 |
Sudie Goins | Harry, you— | 34:47 |
Harry Goins | I'm about to ask her to explain was there any difference. That is what you mean? That is what you asked wasn't it? | 34:48 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 34:57 |
Harry Goins | Now what do you mean was there any difference? | 34:57 |
Kara Miles | In anything? Were there new jobs opening up? Were Blacks treated any better or any differences? | 35:01 |
Harry Goins | I'm trying to think very, very hard, which is— I'm not able to do as you may know. | 35:18 |
Sudie Goins | I told her she needed somebody that is— | 35:21 |
Harry Goins | See because— | 35:23 |
Sudie Goins | Younger than we. | 35:24 |
Harry Goins | I never had— I've had small problems when I was with the band I would go to a place early in the morning and I would ask for coffee. The man would tell us he couldn't service. I had been to other places they were glad to have us. Come on in. So most of the time, the place where we stopped, I didn't have too much difficulty. Then when I was at the club in Sheldon, I didn't have any associations with White people at all other than purchasing things from them. I didn't have any problems with them. They didn't have any with me. | 35:25 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 36:06 |
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