Wyonella McClain interview recording, 1993 June 12

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Sonya Ramsey	Could you describe the neighborhood where you grew up?	0:01
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I grew up right where I'm living now, right here in this neighborhood. It's called then Biddleville. Right around in here from Seversville. That was Seversville State Street up to Oaklawn Avenue. That was Biddleville.	0:04
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What was Biddleville like then?	0:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, it was really a really close family. Mostly all were family members that lived around in Biddleville. And—	0:26
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, go on.	0:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, of course all wasn't family members, but the most of them were family, from one maybe Wiltsons, Alexanders, and things like that.	0:40
Sonya Ramsey	Was it a segregated neighborhood?	0:53
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yes. When I was coming up, yes ma'am. It was.	0:55
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of people lived in Biddleville? What did they do?	1:01
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, let me think. Most of the folks in Biddleville, we were always classed, as you would say, the richer folks on this side. Biddleville. If you lived in Biddleville, you were somebody. That's the way that was.	1:08
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Did the people in Biddleville think that?	1:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, I don't think so. Mm-mm.	1:31
Sonya Ramsey	Were they mostly professionals, though? Or teachers and things?	1:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, by Smith being right there, we had quite a few teachers living here. They were mostly on Campus Street right around in this little— down in here not too far.	1:38
Sonya Ramsey	What did you and your childhood friends do for fun in your neighborhood?	1:54
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, then— What did I do? Played playhouse in the backyard. That's what most of the things we did. Would go on little picnics and our picnics would have to be in the woods across from West Trade Street, and that would have to be after all the Whites were out. So we couldn't let them see us go in the—	1:59
Sonya Ramsey	Out there.	2:32
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they didn't want to be bothered with us, see? We were niggers. That's what we were.	2:34
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Do you remember any of the other neighborhoods, Black neighborhoods in Charlotte, the time you were growing up? Did you travel to any of those?	2:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I went to Brooklyn because I finished Second Ward High School.	2:55
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay. What was Brooklyn like?	2:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, Brooklyn was a prosperous town, place for the Black folk because they had a theater and cafeterias, shoe shops.	3:02
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Did you go shopping there and do things there?	3:16
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Mm-hmm.	3:17
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember? Cherry? The Cherry neighborhood?	3:20
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, I didn't go in Cherry too much and neither did I go in Oaklawn.	3:23
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. Why is that?	3:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, my parents were very strict and they always thought I couldn't go there. I just didn't go there.	3:30
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. How did you travel from place to place?	3:38
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, we had a horse back then. That is the way I did most of my traveling.	3:38
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. Did a lot of other people have horses?	3:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. Uh-huh.	3:57
Sonya Ramsey	What time period was that? What decade?	3:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Let me— Let me— I have to think back. That was near the end of, I'm going say, the '20s.	4:04
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. Do you have any questions?	4:08
Chris Stewart	Yeah. I wanted to ask you about your family. Who did you grow up with here in Biddleville?	4:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I grew up with my cousins. That's just about all I grew up with. I did have a dear friend that lived on Oaklawn Avenue, and one on Beatties Ford Road. That was practically all.	4:31
Sonya Ramsey	What were some of the important people to you in your neighborhood when you were growing up?	4:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, and they're past on. They're not living. That's none of those folks living there.	4:58
Sonya Ramsey	Do you have any remembrances of them or?	4:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yes. I have fond memories of them, especially one old lady. She lived right down the street from me. She was a Mrs. Burrows. She was just a mother of the neighborhood.	5:07
Chris Stewart	Okay. What kind of things did she do?	5:20
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. She would cook and give you cookies and fruit. She had a lot of fruit trees and give us fruit. Yes, ma'am. She had an old car. I don't know what the make of it was. Then she would take us all for a ride. But yeah, she was a very dear person.	5:22
Sonya Ramsey	Were there some bad parts of town that you couldn't go to?	5:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I just told you. I couldn't go to Cherry.	5:54
Sonya Ramsey	Cherry. Were there any others?	5:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	And there was some parts of Brooklyn I couldn't go to.	5:57
Chris Stewart	Why was that?	5:59
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they were bad. They were considered bad, then. To my parents anyway.	6:02
Chris Stewart	What kinds of things went on there?	6:06
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well—	6:08
Chris Stewart	To make them think that it was bad?	6:11
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, then it wasn't any drugs, but it was just risque. They had a lot of those kind of things there. I wasn't allowed to go in any of those. Well, I was brought up just kind of close to home.	6:13
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. Did you have any brothers or sisters?	6:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I had one brother. And he passed 12 or 13 years ago.	6:30
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. I wanted to go on and talk more about your family. Do you have any remembrances of your grandparents?	6:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. My grandparents lived right across the street over there.	6:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay.	6:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now what you want to know about them?	6:52
Sonya Ramsey	Do you have any memories or stories that they told you, or?	6:55
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, she would talk and tell us, "Always be good. Be yourself. You can always be something." She always told us to look beyond what other folks say to you because you don't take that in and things like that.	7:00
Sonya Ramsey	Did you spend a lot of time with them?	7:18
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm. I did.	7:19
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember, when was she born? What time—?	7:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. That was my mother's mother.	7:31
Sonya Ramsey	Did she remember slavery or anything like that?	7:33
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I imagine, my grandmother probably.	7:36
Sonya Ramsey	Did she ever tell you any stories about being a slave?	7:43
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. She never wanted to talk about that. She never wanted to say anything about that.	7:43
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember your grandfather?	7:52
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. My grandfather was an Indian. But I don't know. I never knew where he came from. All I knew he was an Indian, and he was a very dear sweet man, too.	7:55
Sonya Ramsey	Did he have any other Indian friends did you know? Or he just hung around mostly—	8:10
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mostly with us. Now, he had a sister and she lived right there in that house over there, right next door. They lived over there. I can remember her there, too. They just mostly stayed together.	8:16
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. How did everybody plan? Did they plan on living together? It seems like we've talked to a lot of peoples' family, they all lived together.	8:31
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. Well, let me see. How can I put this? My great-grandmother, I can remember just a few things about her. Not nothing too much. I can remember where she lived and remember a well she had, and that was right there on West Trade where those apartments are down there that is now. My great-grandmother lived back in there. From her, she had five or six children. They owned all of this right round in here. Then when her children, my grandparents came along, they all were given. So that's how that got started with my family. Because my grandmother and grandfather lived there and my aunt lived there and my uncle lived here and my uncle lived back here. Then my daddy's folks, they lived right on Mill Road down here. They just started— No, that's how it got started. Just—	8:40
Sonya Ramsey	Okay.	9:57
Chris Stewart	How did they come about to own all that land? Do you know?	10:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What, my grandparents?	10:04
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm.	10:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I don't know that. I really don't. I really don't know. All I can remember being there because they would have a garden, peach orchard, apples and all of that type of stuff. I guess I wasn't interested in how they got it. I don't know how. I really don't know.	10:06
Sonya Ramsey	Were they farmers or did they work in the city? Was Charlotte a big city then? Or was it more rural?	10:31
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. It was kind of a rural town then. It wasn't a big city. No. Uh-uh.	10:38
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I'll ask you, would you talk some about your parents? We've asked about your grandparents.	10:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. Well, my parents, give you their name. O'Dell Alexander and Emma Alexander.	10:49
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. What did they do for work?	11:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	My father was a plaster.	11:05
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Mm-hmm. What did your mother do?	11:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	My mother went to Barber Scotia. When you finished up there, she would always say she taught school. But you know that was just a— She would tell us, "It's nothing like the school you have now. But I taught school." Just if you finish one book, then you would go and teach some other children what you've read. That was their way of teaching the rest.	11:14
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. Did she work at a school here in town?	11:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. Mm-mm.	11:37
Sonya Ramsey	Or she just taught then her children?	11:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. No, she never worked.	11:43
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, she didn't. Okay. What kind of chores did you have to do around the house?	11:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The biggest thing I had to do around here is this same house I'm in now. The biggest thing I had to do was wash— You see it was dogalay doors all in here. That was my job, was just to keep those doors clean. Wash those windows. Inside. Don't go on outside. You're not going out there on the outside and have your dress flying up in the air. Just stay in and that type of thing now. And washing dishes. I do not like to wash dishes as of today because I had to wash dishes. And then, we didn't eat like you eat now.	11:53
Sonya Ramsey	How did you eat then?	12:40
Wyonella Alexander McClain	We had a plate, a fork, a knife, a spoon, a glass—	12:42
Sonya Ramsey	Oh.	12:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	— like folks eat now. But we always ate here in the dining room. The food was put in the dishes, bowls, and on the table. That's the way I was raised.	12:47
Chris Stewart	Did you ever have anyone come in and help your mother with the housework?	13:01
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. But she was a relative, and they lived out in the country. I can't think of their names because after I married, she came in here to help. She did my washing for me, this cousin. But I really can't think of her name right now. I didn't know. Probably, if I had known that was going to be asked, I'd have—	13:09
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, that's fine. That's fine.	13:28
Chris Stewart	Did she live with you? How did she—?	13:31
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. No. No. No. No. My mother didn't work, as I said, and she believed in everything being exactly— You were either right or wrong.	13:32
Sonya Ramsey	How did that make you feel as a child?	13:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, sometimes it made me feel kind of— I thought she was wrong, but you know you would dare to speak back. Now there wasn't any no mean, forcible parents or anything. But she was just believed in right and wrong. You either right or you're wrong.	13:46
Sonya Ramsey	How were you and your— You said you had a brother?	14:09
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	14:11
Sonya Ramsey	How close?	14:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, we were very close.	14:12
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. What kind things did you do together?	14:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Now— Make me start. Oh, we played around here together and we went to school together. We did everything together until he grew up to be a teenager, and then he started going his separate ways. I couldn't understand that.	14:21
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. How far apart in age difference were you?	14:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Two years.	14:36
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, yeah. Okay. Okay. How did your parents discipline you and your brother?	14:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Did most talking. They never did no spanking or anything like that. They always talked.	14:47
Sonya Ramsey	Were you ever disciplined by other people in your neighborhood?	14:54
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yes. If they'd see you do anything. But you always try to be careful because you knew some folks going to come back and tell what you did. So, you would always have to be kind of careful. But if they saw you anywhere, back then they would come back and tell your parents and then that would be a whipping for you. If we were used to say they'd be mean. They won't let me go nowhere because I didn't do this. But see, that was their way of punishing us. But they didn't do no whipping too much. Not mine.	14:57
Chris Stewart	Well, what kind of values did your parents instill in you? What was important for you to do, for you to learn from them, do you think?	15:33
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they tell me I have a lot of my mother in me. I just, like I said, I believe in that you're either wrong or you're right. I cannot stand a liar, and I cannot stand a rogue. She would always talk about that to me and tell me that. And I never forget that. I raised my children the way I was raised.	15:44
Sonya Ramsey	What did your parents teach you about segregation and about White people?	16:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they always say, "Stay on your side. Don't bother. If you don't say anything to them, they won't bother you," because it would be a lot of fights going on. Well, not really fights. Pushing and shoving and going on back down in here.	16:18
Sonya Ramsey	Where is—?	16:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Because it was a store. You know where Broadway Place is?	16:37
Sonya Ramsey	I think so.	16:40
Wyonella Alexander McClain	That old ragged building down there. Well, that was a grocery store down there. Of course, it was run by a White. If you go in there, you had to— I don't care how many was in there, you had to be last to be waited on. That was the only store we had to go to.	16:41
Sonya Ramsey	That's a Black neighborhood, isn't it?	16:59
Wyonella Alexander McClain	It is now. It is now.	17:01
Sonya Ramsey	It wasn't then?	17:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, no. Mm-mm. It was White. Everything on this side of West Trade Street, even down here. You know where West Trade Street?	17:03
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	17:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, all of that was White in there. All of that wasn't anything Colored, as they used to say, in there.	17:14
Sonya Ramsey	And the storekeeper used to make all the Black people wait until—?	17:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Uh-huh. Until he finished with them and then he would wait on us. Sometime he'd tell you he didn't have it, or, "I don't have enough to go around," or just something like that. You had to take what he had. Then it was a man opened a little store down here on Mill Road and Solomon, or Biggers. That's where most of the Blacks started trading, with him.	17:27
Sonya Ramsey	Why was that?	17:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Because they would get better treat—	17:57
Sonya Ramsey	Was he a Black person?	17:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	18:00
Sonya Ramsey	Oh.	18:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Yeah. My—	18:01
Sonya Ramsey	How did you get— How did— Oh, go on. I'm sorry.	18:06
Wyonella Alexander McClain	My uncle, my mother's brother, finally and last bought that little store and he ran that store until he died.	18:07
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Did you ever work in the store?	18:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. No. I never worked in that store. I never worked nowhere. His store, my children loved to go there. I had one that used to go down there and help him out in the candy department. She loved to work, and her pay was candy.	18:17
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, yeah.	18:40
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	18:42
Chris Stewart	When you said that there was fighting that went on, what kind of fighting?	18:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, maybe you got shoving if a Black would pass a White, you know how they would shove. Then next thing you notice was fists, or something like that. My parents always told me, they said, "Now, don't be afraid. You just stand up," say, "if you see them coming, you go right past. Don't speak, don't say a thing. Just walk right on." And that's what I'd do. And our brother would do the same thing. Then sometimes we would, if it's three or four of them and they knew you wasn't going to get out the way for them, we would just step down. It wasn't no sidewalks and on the sidewalks, but it wasn't like there are now. Dirt roads. We just step on off and go on about our business. No one bothered us. But it's like I said, the Hunters, Alexanders, Wiltsons, no one bothered them. There were always classters. The upper class of Biddleville.	18:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Were there any poor people that lived in Biddleville?	19:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I don't want to get into that.	19:50
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay.	19:54
Chris Stewart	I wanted to get back to what you were just saying about the fighting. Did girls ever get into trouble?	20:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, not too much. It would be the boys.	20:08
Chris Stewart	Right. But you still felt like you could get in trouble?	20:10
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. Mm-hmm.	20:13
Chris Stewart	Do you—	20:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Now, they would say ugly things about the girl and call them all kind of names, and that would make the boys angry. That's when they would— But the girls themselves, they wouldn't be fighting. Mm-mm.	20:20
Chris Stewart	Do you remember any specific incidents that stand out in your mind? Maybe when there was more serious trouble?	20:31
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I can't think of anything because there wasn't no arrests or anything like that because we had a cop.	20:42
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, a Black cop?	20:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. He was White. Everything I have to say is Severs. He was a Severs. He and our family, my grandparents' family, they were very close and he kept an eye out on everything. A lot of times he would come and visit them.	20:53
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Was that a usual practice or was that unusual?	21:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	For the cops to do that?	21:15
Sonya Ramsey	Uh-huh.	21:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. That was unusual.	21:20
Sonya Ramsey	Did your neighbors ever say anything about that, or—?	21:23
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I don't think they pay that any attention. I really don't. Uh-uh. I don't remember them saying anything. I don't think they— Because then when we would see a cop, you would start to running because you don't know what they going— They going to lock you up or what?	21:26
Sonya Ramsey	Were women afraid, too? Or just—	21:49
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. Everybody's afraid for a cop to come. Go in the house and close the door. Peep out. See where he's going. Yeah.	21:51
Sonya Ramsey	If you had any trouble, if someone was breaking into your house, would you call the policeman, or would you—	22:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I guess they would have. I never. I don't know. We didn't have anything like that. We didn't.	22:08
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. I was just wondering, people, did they feel comfortable calling a policeman?	22:14
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. Yeah. I don't know whether they did or not because it's— I'm trying to tell you, Biddleville wasn't that type of place. Biddleville—	22:19
Sonya Ramsey	It didn't have much crime?	22:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. We didn't have too much crime around here. No. Because we could sit out on the porches to 12 or 1 o'clock if you wanted to.	22:28
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. Do you have any?	22:40
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Do you remember anybody getting into trouble with the police for things they hadn't done? Them chasing them and then—	22:42
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I'm trying to think. I can't. Because I just about know all the families around in here and I don't remember any of them being in anything.	22:54
Sonya Ramsey	I had a question about your home life. Well, this is your home. This is your home. I was going to ask, could you describe your home? Could you describe it again for the tape because they can't—	23:13
Chris Stewart	What it was growing up.	23:20
Sonya Ramsey	—when you were a child. Yeah.	23:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Just like it is now. I have made no changes. Well, I did change my kitchen and just got that changed last year.	23:28
Sonya Ramsey	How did you change it?	23:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I had it remodeled, got my little modern kitchen. But I still had a kitchen and a little back porch. I did some remodeling last year.	23:39
Sonya Ramsey	As a child, did you have your own room?	23:48
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. I had my room. My brother had his because we had four bedrooms. They always believed in a guest bedroom then.	23:52
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have a lot of visitors to visit you and your family?	24:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah, my family did. Uh-huh.	24:07
Sonya Ramsey	Do you have any remembrances of any special visitors or friends that came by?	24:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. A lot of them. We had— Yeah. You want their names?	24:22
Sonya Ramsey	Well, you don't have to mention the names per se, but any experiences that you guys had.	24:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. Now, this is what they would do: They would come here for dinner. They would cook dinner here, and then maybe the next Sunday they would cook dinner at someone else's house. So, we would go down on Beatties Ford Road, like I told you, I had some friends down there on Beatties Ford Road, on Oaklawn Avenue, and back here on Flint Street. It was about five or six families, and they were very close.	24:30
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. What were the holidays like at your house?	25:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, we celebrated in our yard.	25:09
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What kind of—?	25:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Ice cream. Churning ice cream. Jump rope. Playing marbles. Things like that.	25:15
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of ice cream did your family make?	25:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, that was mostly vanilla.	25:23
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay. What was Christmas like?	25:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Ooh. That was a beautiful time of year. Oh. Yeah. We always had a Christmas tree. Gifts. Get up early Christmas morning and go around in the neighborhood and visit folk. They would all have a gift for you, every house you go to. They'd give you a little gift.	25:32
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. What— Oh, go on.	25:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Then we would come back home and that's when we would open our gifts. Other than after we outgrew toys. We just had a beautiful time at Christmas.	25:51
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of toys did you get? What kind of toys?	26:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Dolls. Sewing machine. And dishes. Table. Chair. Little things like that.	26:14
Sonya Ramsey	All right. Do you have any questions?	26:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. We got a doll, baby carriage, they used to call them then. Mm-hmm.	26:26
Chris Stewart	I wanted to, now I guess I wanted to ask you some questions about your elementary school. What elementary school did you go to?	26:32
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I went to Biddleville Elementary School. It's torn down. It was right up here. That's where I went to, Biddleville Elementary School.	26:38
Sonya Ramsey	What was that school like?	26:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	It was nice. It was just a little four-room building. I stayed there until I finished, was promoted to fifth grade. Then after that, I went to Myers Street. That was across town. I went there for— I didn't go there but one year. It was too many kids there. They had a lottery. You sitting in one corner where you were sitting, that's where you would get to go to Second Ward. I happened to be on the seat on the right hand side. That was how I got to West Charlotte— Not West Charlotte. Second Ward.	26:51
Sonya Ramsey	So someone was sitting next to them?	27:35
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm.	27:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. It was crowded. We had two to a seat. Not seat. They were little desks.	27:40
Sonya Ramsey	Could people change if they didn't want to go to West Charlotte or if they didn't want to go to—?	27:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I don't know. Not West Charlotte. Second Ward.	27:52
Sonya Ramsey	Second Ward. Second Ward was the only school.	27:53
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. That was the only school we had. Well, we didn't hear no complaints. Only some of them would say, "I wish I had have been sitting there," you know, thing—	27:56
Sonya Ramsey	So if they didn't choose—	28:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	It really wasn't nothing but the sixth graders, that we had too many sixth graders.	28:07
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. I'm not understanding. If they did get picked, where would they go if they—?	28:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, they would stay there.	28:21
Sonya Ramsey	They would stay. Oh, okay.	28:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. Uh-huh. Yeah. They would stay there.	28:23
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Do you have any special remembrances of your teachers in elementary school?	28:24
Wyonella Alexander McClain	In elementary school?	28:24
Sonya Ramsey	Any experiences?	28:24
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. I remember my first grade teacher.	28:35
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, what was she like?	28:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	She was a sweet old lady. A Mrs. Anderson.	28:39
Sonya Ramsey	What do you remember about her?	28:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Then, they would take a lot of pains with the children. They would teach us lots of little things. They teach you how to— She would ask you, "Do you like to sew? Do you like—" We were first graders. You'd tell her, you ask, and she would get us draw something and have you to sew that little thing because we didn't have no material or anything. We just sewed on paper.	28:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I know teachers from first— She was my first grade teacher. I know some teachers that I had, but I'm going to skip all of that and go to elementary, to the next Myers Street. Ms. White, she's passed, too. She was the principal of Myers Street. Ms. Bula D. Moore, she's passed. She was my teacher when I was at Myers Street.	29:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Then when I went up to high school, I had three or four teachers then. They had a teacher for each subject like they do now. I guess they still had that now. I don't know. Because I remember Ms. Hannah Stood. She was very strict and nobody wanted to get to her because if you didn't do it right, she'd pop you. She was going to be sure that you had it before you left out of her room. Her friend, the late Ms. Austin, she taught us literature. Mr. Hunt was my algebra teacher. I think his wife's still living. Let me see. Mr. Johnson, he was my biology teacher.	29:59
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm. What was your favorite subject in high school?	30:54
Wyonella Alexander McClain	English.	30:57
Sonya Ramsey	English. Okay. Did you ever work on the school newspaper or anything like that?	30:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. You know, if anything I did when I was in school, I worked in the sewing. No. I loved to sew. And I've been sewing.	31:07
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember any of your teachers playing favorites or anything like that with the students?	31:20
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I think so. I think they had favorites.	31:28
Sonya Ramsey	How did they base their favoritism?	31:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they would let that child do more, let them run. They would give them notes to carry, then they'd have to take notes to them, then they would have that child had the notes and they had to run to the store. They'd get who they wanted to go. That type of thing.	31:34
Sonya Ramsey	Was there any favoritism based on skin colors?	31:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, see we didn't have no Whites in our school.	31:58
Sonya Ramsey	Between light and dark skinned Black?	31:58
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, no.	32:01
Sonya Ramsey	No?	32:03
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I can't remember whether we did or not because I had some real light ones in my— And some of them were my friends. I'm trying to see if any of them had any trouble. Well, I do know one real light child. She was— we were in high school. We all walked to school from here to Second Ward. She usually be walking by herself because they would tease her, call her White, "You think you White." And things like that. Say little ugly things to her.	32:06
Sonya Ramsey	Did she not have many friends?	32:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, no. She didn't have too many friends. Just like I say now, she had to be my friend because my parents wasn't like that.	32:53
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. They taught you not to—	32:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Because she would come here and play, and then I would go to her house. But other than that, I don't think she had too many other friends.	33:02
Sonya Ramsey	Do you remember your teachers' favorite people who came from certain neighborhoods over other neighborhoods?	33:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What? From my teachers?	33:20
Sonya Ramsey	Uh-huh.	33:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Now Ms. Sasso, she was the principal of Biddleville School. She lived right here on West Trade Street, right down here. Ms. Anderson, I was telling you, my first grade teacher, that would be was where the girls' dormitory, that's where they lived. It was a house in there because there was houses back in there. She lived there. On Flint Street, I had two or three teachers live down there. So, we had teachers all around in here.	33:22
Sonya Ramsey	Actually, in Second Ward, did you get any favoritism from being from Biddleville? Did people expect you to act the same?	33:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yes.	34:04
Sonya Ramsey	In what way?	34:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, you had, "She thinks she's something," if you didn't want to be bothered with them. They would always say, "She thinks she's something because she lives in Biddleville. Here come the Biddleville crowd." And things like they would always throw little slams at you.	34:05
Sonya Ramsey	How did you respond to those?	34:20
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Pass on by because I was scared they might hit me, and I couldn't fight.	34:28
Chris Stewart	Would girls fight over—?	34:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. No. It would be mostly boys, just like I said. They would do the fighting. Oh, no. I was afraid to say anything.	34:34
Sonya Ramsey	In Second Ward, did you do, aside from your sewing, did you participate in any other activities?	34:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, I didn't. Other than working— Well, now, I helped serve lunches because we sold lunches then.	34:52
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. The school sold them or did you—?	34:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. We made them in the cooking class, like peanut butter sandwiches and crackers. So I stayed behind the counter in there and served milk and crackers or stuff like that. But anything else like sports and all that, no, I never did that.	35:00
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have any friends from other neighborhoods?	35:18
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, yes. But most of my friends were my relatives.	35:22
Sonya Ramsey	Relatives?	35:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	35:28
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. So what was dating like in Second Ward, things like that? Did people date a lot?	35:32
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. They dated.	35:38
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of things did they do?	35:39
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mostly thing when they went out dating men was going to the basketball games, football games. That's where most dating, in the proms and stuff like that.	35:42
Sonya Ramsey	Did you go to your prom?	35:55
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh.	35:56
Sonya Ramsey	What was that like?	35:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, that was a beautiful place. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I went to my prom. Went to—	35:58
Sonya Ramsey	Was your date from Biddleville also?	36:03
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No.	36:03
Sonya Ramsey	Oh. Where was he from?	36:03
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He lived over near the Second Ward— When I went to my junior— They had two proms: junior, senior prom. When I went to my junior prom, I had to go with my brother.	36:09
Sonya Ramsey	Oh. Why did you have to go with your brother?	36:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, my mother thought I didn't need no boy to take me because he was a senior and he was going.	36:24
Sonya Ramsey	How did he feel about that?	36:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He didn't mind it because he had his girlfriend.	36:32
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, he did. Oh, okay. Okay.	36:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. But I just wasn't dating. But now my senior prom, I had a date. And he lived not too far from Second Ward.	36:40
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Did y'all meet through school?	36:51
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Because he had to come here and meet my parents.	36:54
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What was that experience?	37:01
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they liked him in the first beginning because he told them what church he belonged to. My folks were very religious folks, not over-religious, but I meant they believe in moral things. He started telling them about what church he went to and what they did in church. Of course, us being a Methodist and he was a Methodist. And that just fell right in. When it come time to go to the prom, I was free to go with him.	37:03
Sonya Ramsey	Did you date outside of going to the prom? Did y'all go out?	37:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The boy?	37:38
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	37:38
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. We would go to, just like I say, nothing but games. And he would come to see me. But now, if I had to go to church, like now I said, Christian and devil, he had to go with me. Anyway I had to go with the church, he had to be there too.	37:40
Sonya Ramsey	Why did he have to?	37:59
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, because my momma said, "She's going to church tonight," or not tonight because I couldn't go nowhere during school night. On a Sunday afternoon, she say, "You remember now, you're going to the Christian devil. Tell that boy you going. If he want to stay and go, he can go." So that was the way that went.	38:00
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of music was played at your prom?	38:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. Jesus. Common music.	38:22
Sonya Ramsey	And what kind of music was like—?	38:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	We did mostly waltzing. That's what mostly we did was waltz.	38:30
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of music did you and your friends like to listen to?	38:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Slow music. I can't remember any of those old songs. Maybe if I sit and think, or hear some of them on TV or something, it bring back. I can't remember them. But just right now, I can't think of any of them.	38:40
Sonya Ramsey	Did you ever listen to the blues?	38:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	38:56
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What are some of your favorite blues music?	39:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What did I listen to? You name something, if you know any—	39:05
Sonya Ramsey	Uh-oh. That's hard.	39:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	And maybe I can tell you I did.	39:10
Sonya Ramsey	Bessie Smith. Did you listen to her?	39:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yeah. We listened to her because we had Victrola.	39:17
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay. Did you play a lot of records?	39:23
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Believe it or not, I still have some records.	39:24
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Wow. That might be nice. Okay.	39:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. Yeah.	39:36
Sonya Ramsey	Do you have any questions?	39:36
Chris Stewart	Mm-mm.	39:36
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay.	39:36
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Now you don't want nothing about my family.	39:37
Sonya Ramsey	Hmm?	39:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	You don't want nothing about me and my family after I married.	39:37
Sonya Ramsey	Oh.	39:43
Chris Stewart	Oh, yeah.	39:44
Sonya Ramsey	We haven't got to that yet. We still in high school. We got to get to that. Okay. In high school, after you finished, what did you do next after that?	39:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I was getting ready to go to Winston-Salem Teacher's College.	39:58
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Why did you select that school?	40:06
Wyonella Alexander McClain	That was the only school we could have, it and Barber Scotia. And I didn't want to go there.	40:06
Sonya Ramsey	Why didn't you want to go to Barber Scotia?	40:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, I had a lot of reasons. I just—	40:12
Sonya Ramsey	Just didn't want to?	40:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. I wanted to go to Winston-Salem. It's not a teacher's college now. It's Winston—	40:20
Sonya Ramsey	Salem State.	40:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. They had carried me downtown, bought me a wardrobe trunk, buying clothes and everything. Then about three or four weeks of going to school, they told me, they called me in this very old living room, sit me down and say, "We got some bad news to tell you, but we don't want you to take it like it sound." My brother was in college up here at Smith. They said that they could not put both of us in college at the same time. My daddy said, "My work is slacking off." He went on to tell me all kinds of things. That was a very bad, hurting blow. Of course, I cried. They tried to talk to me and everything. I could not understand why they could keep him in and I not go.	40:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I told them, "Why not pull him out and let me go one year and let him stay home?" No. They didn't want to do that. But they promised me I could go the next year. But the next year, see, I was hotheaded, and my cousins, just like I say, they were my friends. They weren't interested in going to college— Let me get that. I was saying I could not understand that. They were telling me they were having such a good time running around. My mother's name was Emma, my daddy's was O'Dell. "I don't know how come Uncle O'Dell and Aunt Emma can't send you—" They just filled my head full of nothing. And I believed it.	41:35
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Anyway, they went and they found me another boyfriend.	42:24
Sonya Ramsey	How did they find you another boyfriend?	42:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Then, the American Legions used to come out here, Johnson C. Smith, and play every Wednesday night. We would go over there to hear them play and march around, cutting up, that's all. They had been talking about this boy, telling me that he wanted to meet me and this, that, and the other. I finally let them introduce us over there. He walked me to the corner, not home, two or three times on Wednesday night. My daddy was sitting out there one night on the porch, and he saw him turn around and go back. He told me, he said, "Next time that boy walk you, you tell him to bring you to the door. Don't leave you on no corner to come home." I didn't know he saw him. And that's the way. And that was the man I married.	42:33
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay. Did you ever get to go to college? Or were you—	43:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No.	43:26
Sonya Ramsey	No. Okay.	43:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh.	43:26
Sonya Ramsey	You married soon after you met him?	43:32
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh.	43:34
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Okay. Where was he from?	43:35
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Charlotte.	43:40
Sonya Ramsey	Oh. He was from Charlotte, too.	43:41
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	43:41
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. So what was your wedding like?	43:41
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I did not have a wedding. I went to York, South Carolina, and married. When I came home, they had a little reception here in this house.	43:47
Chris Stewart	Why did you go to York to get married?	43:58
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, that was cheaper. That's where everybody was going to, York, South Carolina.	44:01
Chris Stewart	What year was that?	44:06
Wyonella Alexander McClain	1930— Let me see. Let me tell you. Get it straight now. If he had have been living, I'd have been married 50 years this August coming. So what year was that?	44:08
Chris Stewart	1933, then?	44:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. I'll say that.	44:23
Sonya Ramsey	That was during the Depression.	44:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. That was one of—	44:26
Sonya Ramsey	[indistinct 00:44:28] Depression [indistinct 00:44:29].	44:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. That's why I couldn't go. They told me all of that. I just didn't put that in there. But that's what my daddy was telling me about, his work being slacking, the Depression and what little money they had. They had saved money for me, but he told me if I just wait. Now, they didn't want me to get married. They did not.	44:29
Sonya Ramsey	Why not?	44:52
Wyonella Alexander McClain	But that's why I slipped off in there that Saturday.	44:55
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, you eloped. Oh, okay.	44:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I told them when I left. See, he gave me an engagement ring for Christmas. That Christmas. Then Mama and them saw the ring. They thought it was nice and everything. She said, "I know you're not going to get married. No. No." But we kept talking about marrying. "No. No." And I told her that Friday, I said, "Mama, I'm going to get married." And she said, "What?" And she said, "Why? First things we want to know, you're not pregnant, are you?" That's the first thing. "No." So she didn't say no more. She saved a few things. She saved some more.	45:00
Sonya Ramsey	Why didn't she want you to get married?	45:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	They wanted me to go on to school.	45:45
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. They wanted you to go to school. And you said women that were married didn't keep going on to school? Or they decided to be a homemaker then?	45:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, what'd you say?	45:57
Sonya Ramsey	Usually, did they think if you got married you wouldn't be able to go to school as easy as when you weren't married?	46:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. Yeah. Because they say, "Well, now you're not going to school. You're getting married. You're not going to college. I so wanted you to go to college, and this, blah, blah, blah." A whole lot of stuff. Then when we came back, she had some ice cream and cakes. We lived right here, and I've been here ever since.	46:08
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay.	46:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	She told him when we came in here, and told him, she said, "I have a son-in-law." She said, "There's one thing I want to say to you. Don't ever take my daughter away from here. I want my daughter to stay here. Don't ever take her away from me," say, "because that's the only one I have." Say, "Will you make that promise to me?" He didn't have nothing. I didn't have nothing. We didn't have no where to go, no way. Yeah. So he agreed to that.	46:26
Sonya Ramsey	How did he adjust to living in your home? Was he—	46:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, now, I guess for a while he was kind of shy. Usually, he would either say he had to go to work or something. When we'd get ready, he wouldn't want to come down.	47:00

Wyonella Alexander McClain	— head hurt, I got to go to work early, any kind of excuse for a while. And then Mama told him once, "There's nothing wrong with you, boy. You come on down here and eat."	0:01
Sonya Ramsey	How did your father treat him?	0:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He was all right. He wasn't near as hard on him as my mother was. Well, you see, she thought wasn't nobody good enough for her daughter. That's the whole thing, wasn't good enough for her daughter.	0:12
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have much privacy to go on dates?	0:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. When I would have dates, yes. We had a big clock out there in the hall. When that clock struck 11:00, they need to know to leave. And if they didn't, them stair steps, they had a switch upstairs and a switch down there. That light would start switching, going off and on, and I knew that he had to get out of here. Yeah. She would always say, "I don't mean wait till no 11:00 to get up to make the attempt to go. I mean I want to hear him going out that door at 11:00."	0:33
Chris Stewart	What did your husband do when you first got married?	1:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. My husband, he was working at a furniture store, and he wasn't making but $12 a week.	1:17
Chris Stewart	Did you work at the time?	1:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh.	1:32
Chris Stewart	No.	1:32
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I was living right here at home. I didn't have to work. My parents were still doing everything.	1:33
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay.	1:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I wasn't doing nothing. Then when I got pregnant, by him working at a furniture store, he just got everything I needed. When we didn't have any money, we didn't have to go out. He would go borrow money on his check. One time he draw past his limit, was maybe $12 now. He overdrew the $12, one week there didn't get nothing. Well, anyway, then from that, he went to a paper mill back here. And from that, he went to the Southern Railroad. That is where he, I'll say, made his fortune.	1:35
Chris Stewart	What did he do on the railroad?	2:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He was a mail handler.	2:31
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Was he gone a lot? Did he travel a lot?	2:35
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, he didn't go out of town. He worked the trains, shifting mail.	2:37
Sonya Ramsey	Did that job pay better than the other ones?	2:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Ooh, yes. Oh, yes.	2:46
Sonya Ramsey	Was it many Black men employed in that job?	2:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, it was quite a few, but not as many as could have been, but it was a few. My brother worked there too.	2:54
Chris Stewart	How did he get that job?	3:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Let me see. Through communication, different ones telling him. He had to take an examination and anything.	3:07
Sonya Ramsey	Was that how a lot of people got their jobs, through being told?	3:19
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Mm-hmm. See, my brother had gone to college, and he had gotten one there. He was telling him about it, and he was giving him some answers and different things. Because my husband just finished sixth grade, but he had the knowledge of a college student if he could have gone. His family couldn't afford it.	3:24
Sonya Ramsey	You said his family was from Charlotte. What part of Charlotte?	3:55
Wyonella Alexander McClain	His family, his mother and father really wasn't from Charlotte.	3:58
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Where—	4:03
Wyonella Alexander McClain	They were from, oh God, what is that name? They were right out in the country. What's the name of it?	4:04
Chris Stewart	Was it in Mecklenburg County?	4:13
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes.	4:14
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay. Okay.	4:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	But it was out in the country.	4:17
Sonya Ramsey	Pineville?	4:18
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. I can't think of that right now.	4:19
Sonya Ramsey	That's all right. That's okay. Did you ever visit his family?	4:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	4:42
Sonya Ramsey	Yeah. How'd they feel about him living with your family?	4:42
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, fine. They liked me. They liked my family, and I liked his family.	4:42
Sonya Ramsey	Did you get along well with his father and his mother?	4:42
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. He was the baby of his family. He had four sisters, and he was the baby. Now, they lived across town over there in Cherry, in that part of— Then when they moved out on this side, they were living right back here behind the Water Works. You know where University Park?	4:44
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	5:07
Wyonella Alexander McClain	They lived right there.	5:08
Sonya Ramsey	What was that neighborhood called?	5:11
Wyonella Alexander McClain	It wasn't called anything until Smith started building houses out in there, and then they called it University on account of Smith.	5:14
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What did your parents think about you marrying somebody who was less educated and poorer than you, than your family? Was there any problem with that?	5:22
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No.	5:46
Sonya Ramsey	No?	5:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	They didn't have, uh-uh, because they called themselves raising him too.	5:46
Sonya Ramsey	Oh. Okay. So they adopted him into the family?	5:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	5:46
Sonya Ramsey	Then you said you had your first child. Was it a boy or girl?	5:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Boy.	5:46
Sonya Ramsey	Boy, okay. How was that adjustment to be a young mother?	5:53
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, that being my first baby and the first one on both sides, I would say three sides because my aunt— I would say all four, that was the first one. They're just taking him. I didn't have too much to do with him. He was mine, and that's all I knew. He was mine. My mother did everything as well as my aunt. Now, his mother taken sick, and she didn't get to— Yes, she did. She'd taken sick, and I wasn't going out.	5:55
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He had to take the baby up there for her to see because that's all she talked about, she wanted to see her baby's baby. He carried him up there, and she died two days after that. We feel good about letting her see the baby. His daddy hasn't been dead that long. He doesn't have but one sister living now. In fact, that's one of them weddings I told you I was going to this week, to his niece's wedding, my husband's niece.	6:32
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Were you involved in any organizations or activities as a married couple?	7:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. We didn't have nothing like that, nothing but just a little neighborhood, our friends. We would be up at our friends' homes.	7:27
Sonya Ramsey	Were you involved in any women's clubs?	7:38
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. The only thing I was involved in was church work.	7:38
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I meant to ask you, what church did you attend?	7:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Gethsemane AME Zion, right down the street.	7:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. What role did religion and the church play in you and your family's lives?	7:48
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh. It was a big role. Yes. We were all taught the Golden Rule. I instilled that into my girls, and they were taught by that too.	7:53
Sonya Ramsey	What do you mean by the Golden Rule?	8:11
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you and all the rest of that.	8:13
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Did you go to church more than on Sunday—	8:18
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh.	8:24
Sonya Ramsey	—or do other activities besides Sunday service that you went to?	8:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	8:27
Sonya Ramsey	What were they?	8:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Now, what you mean, go in the church?	8:32
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	8:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Sure. I was in this junior choir, they used to call it then. I belonged to the Buds of Promise.	8:35
Sonya Ramsey	What was that?	8:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	That was just a little organization, something for children, but they called us the Buds. Instead of saying the young, we were just buds.	8:45
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of activities did you do?	8:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Picnics, that's all we could do, have picnics. Let me see now. This was when we went to Stowe Park up here at Corn Co. or somewhere up that way. On Tuesdays, they would let the Black folks have the park that day. We would go up there on Tuesdays to Stowe Park.	9:00
Sonya Ramsey	How did you get there? How did you drive?	9:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	In a truck.	9:33
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, a truck. You had a truck by this time. Okay.	9:34
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. We done moved from the horse to a truck.	9:37
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Okay.	9:41
Wyonella Alexander McClain	But that was when the whole neighborhood would be going, not only just my church. We all would be going because that was Black folks' day, and you would see folks from everywhere because we didn't have no other parks or anything to go to.	9:43
Sonya Ramsey	Was it a nice park?	9:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Had little rides. We thought so because see, we weren't used to nothing like that.	10:01
Chris Stewart	Were there any parks you could use in Charlotte?	10:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh.	10:08
Chris Stewart	No?	10:09
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, if it was, we never seen anything about it. Because that was the only thing we would talk about when our Tuesday come, to go to the Stowe Park.	10:09
Sonya Ramsey	If someone snuck into a park on the wrong day, what would happen to them?	10:20
Wyonella Alexander McClain	We wouldn't get in.	10:24
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have someone there who watched?	10:24
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. No, you just wouldn't get in. "This is not nigger day." That was their word.	10:30
Sonya Ramsey	Were there other places that had days for Blacks and days for Whites?	10:38
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. Uh-uh. That was the only one.	10:42
Sonya Ramsey	Did they have a skating rink and movie theaters that were like that?	10:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. Here in Charlotte?	10:50
Sonya Ramsey	Mm-hmm.	10:52
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. I remember, yeah. Carolina Theater, we had to sit in the balcony.	10:52
Sonya Ramsey	Was the balcony— how did that differ from sitting under in the—	10:59
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, that was— niggers sit in the balcony. I guess the building, how lies the building, that was where that was. That was all. It was about maybe eight rows of seats, and that's where you sat, up there. If you didn't get there in time enough to get a seat, you stood up. You didn't go nowhere else.	11:02
Sonya Ramsey	Did people ever protest that or try not to do that?	11:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, after this segregation came about, that stopped. That was also the same way at our dime stores. We couldn't go in. You could buy all you wanted to, but you couldn't eat nothing there. You had to carry it with you. They'd sell it to you, but you sure couldn't eat there.	11:30
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. You got any other questions?	11:54
Chris Stewart	Yeah. Did you vote when you were growing up?	12:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh.	12:03
Chris Stewart	No.	12:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	But my parents voted.	12:08
Chris Stewart	They did?	12:11
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. I didn't vote until after I was married. I guess I could have if I'd registered.	12:11
Sonya Ramsey	Was it hard for Blacks to register to vote?	12:18
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Yeah. They stressed that. They do now.	12:21
Chris Stewart	Who stressed it?	12:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The Black leaders.	12:30
Chris Stewart	Like who?	12:31
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The NAACP and other organizations here, they would come door to door and carry you if you had no way to go. They stressed that.	12:32
Sonya Ramsey	Your parents, you said they voted. Did they talk about politics to you and things like that, politicians or current events?	12:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Well, now I could hear them say sometime, they would say, "I hope he don't get it because he's too mean," things like that. But I didn't pay that too much attention.	12:59
Sonya Ramsey	Did a lot of Blacks in Charlotte get to vote?	13:09
Wyonella Alexander McClain	When that started, just since desegregation went through.	13:13
Sonya Ramsey	After that, they voted.	13:17
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. That's when we had them voting.	13:18
Sonya Ramsey	Since your parents voted, did they have any special requirements for Blacks that they didn't have for Whites for voting, to register to vote?	13:23
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, you had to be a citizen of Mecklenburg County, and they were. That was one of the main things, they had to be that. I don't know whether it was anything else or not, but I do know they had to be a citizen.	13:33
Chris Stewart	Did you subscribe to a Black newspaper?	13:51
Wyonella Alexander McClain	We didn't have no Black newspapers when I was growing up.	13:54
Chris Stewart	Okay.	13:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The Black newspapers came along after my children started coming along.	13:58
Chris Stewart	Do you ever remember reading the Black newspapers from other places, like maybe the Afro-American or the—	14:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, now ever so often they would buy a paper from somewhere. Maybe somebody from out of town would bring a paper, and that's where we would read mostly about that then. But I don't think they sold too many of them here in Charlotte.	14:09
Sonya Ramsey	Where did people in Charlotte get their news? Where did people get their news?	14:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	From the Observer. We had two papers then, the Observer and the Evening.	14:31
Sonya Ramsey	What was the better paper for Black folk?	14:38
Wyonella Alexander McClain	The Observer.	14:44
Sonya Ramsey	Was it more fair than the other paper?	14:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Mm-hmm. News soon went out. That didn't last too long, the News, but the Observer, you see, it's still—	14:45
Sonya Ramsey	How were Blacks referred to by the papers?	15:01
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they would always say Black, the Black neighborhood. They didn't use too many words like a nigger unless you got in trouble, they'd say a nigger, nigger did this.	15:04
Sonya Ramsey	They'd actually say it?	15:19
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm.	15:19
Sonya Ramsey	Would they call people mister and missus?	15:19
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, no. There wasn't nothing like that.	15:19
Sonya Ramsey	How did they address people?	15:19
Wyonella Alexander McClain	By their first name, a boy, hey you, or anything like that. No, if they didn't know your name, they'd say, "Hey you, I'm talking to you," and stuff like that. They didn't—	15:20
Chris Stewart	How did you teach your own children about segregation and things like that?	15:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, most of mine came up in it, and they were taught in school about some of it. Then when they would come home and they would tell us, and then I would just sit down and tell them what I knew. Because my younger children, they had to go to these schools.	15:51
Sonya Ramsey	Desegregated schools?	16:15
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yes. But they did not want to go. Then, you didn't have to go if you didn't want to when they first started this. They were selected to go.	16:18
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, you mean the integrated?	16:28
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	16:30
Sonya Ramsey	Okay.	16:30
Wyonella Alexander McClain	They were afraid to go because we had had that incident with Dorothy Counts. They came home crying and carrying on, "Mother, I don't want to go, I don't want to go." And we didn't want them to go. We didn't push that for them to go. They all finished in West Charlotte.	16:33
Sonya Ramsey	When you said, "The schools taught them about it," what did the schools tell them?	16:53
Wyonella Alexander McClain	About the integration. They had to tell them how to act and what to say and told them that there were going to be a lot of ugly things said about you and don't you say anything. You just take it. Then of course, then they had bullies just like they have now. They never get away with that. They'll never get away with that and things like that.	16:58
Sonya Ramsey	Your children chose not to go to the White school. Did they get any criticism from the neighborhood or the community about their decision?	17:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. No, because wasn't anyone pushing the children too much to go after that Dorothy Counts incident. I think most all of them really finished in West Charlotte. They preferred to stay at West Charlotte than to go, to be moved.	17:30
Sonya Ramsey	Did you know any parents who did send their children to the White schools?	17:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	See if I can think of anybody who sent their kid. Well, now of course, my grandchildren went to these White schools. It was in full force then. They didn't have no other choice but to go. They were treated nice. They liked it. They didn't see nothing wrong with it. But see, that's another generation. It was all right. They got along fine. They had White friends, Black friends. Of course, they would bring them here to the house and everything.	18:03
Sonya Ramsey	Did you and your husband or your family participate in the NAACP or—	18:33
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, but we'd support them.	18:37
Sonya Ramsey	Were your children activists in civil rights?	18:42
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. He wouldn't let them.	18:42
Sonya Ramsey	Who wouldn't let them?	18:45
Wyonella Alexander McClain	My husband.	18:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh. Why was that?	18:48
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, he was always afraid something might happen to them because they were all the time in the paper, something they did, the NAACP was. It just got forcible just recently. Because when it first started all of that, it really wasn't like it is now.	18:49
Sonya Ramsey	What things did you do to occupy your time while your husband was working?	19:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What did I do? I read and I sewed, and I had nine children.	19:05
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. We'd only gotten to the first one. Okay.	19:05
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I tended the children. That was just about it because I had a wash lady. Then, you didn't have washing machines. I think I was the first one to get a washing machine.	19:06
Sonya Ramsey	You stayed in this house. How did you get everybody in and fitting in and things like that?	19:46
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, out of all our nine, it was seven girls and two boys. The two boys had a room. I had a room, or we when I say that. We had a baby bed in there. The baby stayed in there until she got seven years old. Then my father had a bedroom, and after my father passed, my mother taken one of my daughters in her room. Then the next room, we had two double beds. That's the way that we did it. Because see, we have four bedrooms. That's the way we did it.	19:56
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have your children in succession, or was there time apart?	20:40
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. Right in succession, yeah. Only except my last ones, because my last three, I thought I had finished having children, about three years apart. And then I jumped right there and had three, one right after the other, just like I had those older ones, one right after the other. Because the older ones, when my baby was born, my oldest child was 16 years old.	20:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay.	21:24
Wyonella Alexander McClain	That was the way that went.	21:24
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. You said you sewed. What kind of things did you used to sew?	21:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Dresses, slips, panties, coats, jackets. If I could've made shoes, I would've made them too.	21:36
Sonya Ramsey	Did you sew for your family?	21:47
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. That's what I did most of my sewing for was for my family. Mm-hmm.	21:48
Sonya Ramsey	Did you ever sew for neighbors and friends?	21:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Just once in a while, not too much. I just had a few select friends that I would sew for, but I wouldn't sew for— Because it kept me busy with them, because see, every year I would make each child to start out school, they had seven new dresses, each one of them. Now remember now, them three little ones wasn't going to school, but the others. They had seven new dresses, and they had a dress for every day in the week and two extra dresses. So if anything happened at school, they had to come home and change or they're going to take them on a trip or anything, I always let them have another dress where they could wear for that and stuff like that.	21:54
Chris Stewart	When your children were growing up, was Biddleville still an exclusive neighborhood?	22:51
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. It just got this bad like it is now since desegregation. Really, when they moved Brooklyn and that pushed everything over there out here.	22:57
Chris Stewart	What do you mean by "when they moved Brooklyn"?	23:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they started buying up. Blacks, they owned just about everything in Brooklyn. I mean, out there now where all of them low buildings and all of that. All of that was owned by Black, even where the Charlotte Town Mall, because that was Cherry, and all that, that was Black folk in there. And where they tore down Good Samaritan Hospital, all of that was Black.	23:14
Chris Stewart	When you had your children, did you go to the hospital?	23:40
Wyonella Alexander McClain	With my children?	23:42
Chris Stewart	Mm-hmm.	23:43
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh.	23:44
Chris Stewart	When they were born.	23:44
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Not my two older ones, I didn't. They were born here.	23:45
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have a midwife?	23:49
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. A doctor.	23:49
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. He came to the house?	23:49
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. When they were born, yeah, he came to the house and delivered. But after that, I went to the hospital, all except my last one and I refused to go because I told them— I'm going to tell you who my doctor was. He's still living. I don't know whether you heard tell of him or not, Dr. Rand. His office was right up here on Beatties Ford Road. That was my doctor for my last children. I told him, I said, "I have paid Good Samaritan too much money, and I'm not going over there no more." But now, one time they compelled you to go, the doctors did, to go to a hospital. They told you everything, what happened, this, that. I told him that I done had too many babies to go to the hospital, and I was going to stay at home.	23:50
Wyonella Alexander McClain	So he said, "Well, I tell you what. When you get in labor, you call me." And I did. It was on a Sunday morning. My husband called him, and he came here. And he said, "Well, I'll go back home because it's not time," and all of that. "And I just wait." He told him what time to call him back, and that way he wouldn't be running in and out and nobody wouldn't know. When he came back the last time about 8:00 that night, the baby was being born so he stayed here. That's how I got to stay here.	24:50
Sonya Ramsey	What was Good Samaritan Hospital like?	25:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, it was segregated, nothing but Blacks.	25:21
Sonya Ramsey	All Black doctors?	25:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. We didn't have no White doctors unless you had a specialist. Now, when one of my children got cut, she was a baby, she would jump down out of her high chair on a coffee can and cut her foot, we had to take her to the hospital. And of course, they had to bring in specialists, and they were White. But other than that, we didn't have no—	25:30
Sonya Ramsey	How did the doctors there treat the patients?	25:54
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, they were nice to them. Yeah.	25:57
Sonya Ramsey	How did people pay the doctors? Did they have a special pay scale or did they pay upfront?	26:02
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. You paid upfront.	26:07
Sonya Ramsey	They didn't have health insurance back then?	26:10
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, I guess not because I know we had to save.	26:13
Sonya Ramsey	Did many Black people go to the hospital or to doctors then?	26:16
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Now, just like I said, I think it must've been about the early '60s or somewhere, that's when Blacks really started going to hospital. Before that, they were mostly doing at home.	26:25
Sonya Ramsey	When Black people got sick in Charlotte, what did they do? Did they call the doctor in?	26:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. Doctor would visit you then. Doctor would come to your house and treat you. Yeah.	26:43
Sonya Ramsey	You didn't have anything?	26:59
Chris Stewart	I wanted to know, do you remember President Roosevelt in 1930?	26:59
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, now I remember, but I don't know if I know anything outstanding.	27:03
Chris Stewart	Okay. What was the Second World War period like for Black people in Charlotte?	27:12
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they had to go. My husband had to go too. Yeah.	27:16
Sonya Ramsey	So you had children by that time.	27:21
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh.	27:24
Sonya Ramsey	World War II, had your man gone?	27:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah.	27:26
Sonya Ramsey	What did he do?	27:27
Wyonella Alexander McClain	He went in the Navy.	27:28
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. What did he do there?	27:29
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What was he on that ship? I don't know. He was on the ship, being shipped out of different places, but he never did go where they would fight.	27:32
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Did he receive special training or anything?	27:42
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Oh, yes. Mm-hmm.	27:44
Sonya Ramsey	What kind of things did they teach him how to do?	27:49
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What did he do? Just I guess most of his must've been little manual jobs.	27:51
Sonya Ramsey	I think they were segregated at that time. Did he talk to you about his experience?	27:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No. He wouldn't say anything like that because everybody in there was a brother. That's the way they are, just like they are now. My grandson's in the Navy.	28:00
Sonya Ramsey	How long was he in the Navy?	28:10
Wyonella Alexander McClain	What's that now?	28:13
Sonya Ramsey	Your husband.	28:16
Wyonella Alexander McClain	About two years and then war was declared.	28:16
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Oh, okay. He entered before the war.	28:16
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Mm-hmm. Then my son, of course, he was in the Vietnam War. And my grandson, I raised him and he's in the Navy now. He's been in there now for four years because as soon as he finished high school, he went in.	28:16
Chris Stewart	So your husband joined the Navy before the Second World War?	28:48
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, he was in there during the— War had started.	28:55
Chris Stewart	Oh, okay. He was drafted or he enlisted?	28:57
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, he was drafted. Then, let me tell you, if you got another job, you had to stay on the job you worked at. I told you, he had a job at the paper place. And then after he found out about the railroad, that's when they drafted him. They found out that he had left his job.	28:59
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, okay. Did he know they were going to do that before?	29:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, he kind of thought it, but they said they were going to try to fix the papers and, "Man, you don't have to go nowhere. You got too many children. They ain't going to do that. They ain't going to do that." But he got a letter for him to come. Yeah.	29:27
Sonya Ramsey	What did you do with him being gone for financial support?	29:41
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, they sent us money.	29:56
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, they did?	29:56
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. We got a lot. I got a lot for me and the children.	29:56
Sonya Ramsey	Was it as much as when he was working?	30:00
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Well, it might have— it probably equaled out about the same.	30:00
Sonya Ramsey	What was neighborhoods in Charlotte like during that time? Did they have to ration things?	30:04
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah. Everything was rationed, your sugar, your shoes, your clothes. Everything was rationed.	30:11
Sonya Ramsey	Did Black people have a harder time getting things than White people did back then?	30:19
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, I don't think so because it was rationed.	30:24
Sonya Ramsey	It's across the board.	30:25
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Yeah. You just got so many tickets, whatever it was. You got a book, just like they give folks now for, what is it, food stamps. Yeah. You would get a book, so many in there for shoes, so much for sugar, so much for canned goods and things like that.	30:27
Sonya Ramsey	Did you have a hard time feeding your children on food stamps?	30:48
Wyonella Alexander McClain	No, because I had a lot of them.	30:51
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. I meant with the rationing of food like that.	30:54
Wyonella Alexander McClain	Uh-uh. Because sometimes, I would exchange maybe some sugar or either shoes stamps for someone out there that asked me, "Wyonella, if you let me have some sugar stamps, I don't have no sugar and that's that." Because see, we're given five pounds of sugar per person, and I didn't need all that sugar.	30:58
Sonya Ramsey	That lasted a long time.	31:26
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I didn't need all my shoe stamps because they weren't buying no shoes. I wasn't buying shoes every month and things like that.	31:26
Sonya Ramsey	Okay. Have any more questions? I don't either.	31:37
Wyonella Alexander McClain	I don't know whether I helped you all or not.	31:47
Sonya Ramsey	Oh, you helped a great deal. Okay. I guess it's about time for us to let you go.	31:49
Chris Stewart	Get ready for your wedding and everything else.	31:54
Sonya Ramsey	Because we have some—	31:56

Item Info

Title:

Wyonella McClain interview recording, 1993 June 12

Date:

June 12, 1993

Creator:

McClain, Wyonella Alexander

Contributor:

Ramsey, Sonya Yvette

Description:

Name: Wyonella Alexander McClain; Date of birth: 1913-04-18; Place of birth: Charlotte, NC; Occupation(s): homemaker; Residence: Charlotte, NC
Informant ID: 46; Interviewed by: Sonya Ramsey.

Occupation:

Homemaker

Location:

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Related Resources:

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Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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

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Interview number: 254
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Wyonella McClain interview recording, 1993 June 12

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Item Info

1. Wyonella McClain administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Wyonella McClain interview recording, 1993 June 12

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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