Beatrice Swift interview recording, 1993 June 17
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| Karen Ferguson | We're not really certain what, what's happened to you. Okay, Mrs. Swift, could I begin with asking you where you grew up and to talk a little bit about the community in which you grew up? | 0:01 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. I grew up in a community called Biddleville, and it was about—my home place is still there now, and it's about two and a half blocks from Johnson C. Smith University on Solomon Street. And my parents were Arthur and Beatrice Wilson. I had one brother who passed last August, Arthur Wilson Jr. And the family was a very closely knit family. My mother passed at the age of ninety, and my dad passed at the age of eighty-four. My mother went to Barber-Scotia Seminary. It is now Barber-Scotia College. That's where she graduated. And after graduating, she taught school in a place called Pineville, North Carolina, until she married my dad, and they were married for over fifty years. | 0:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | And my dad worked on the railway. He was a dining car waiter for the Southern Railway. And at times we thought we owned the railroad station. Growing up, you know he would—his run would take him from Charlotte to Augusta, Georgia. And when the train would come in, when we were small, my mother would take us over to the station to meet my dad when he got off of his run, and we would always say, "We're going over to Daddy's station." Thought we owned Southern Railway. | 1:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | And that is that part of it. And I went to school at the old Biddleville School. It's torn down now. And at first it was just a four room school, and then it was later converted into a community center. And then they built a brick building by the Biddleville School. And I finished there in the fifth grade. That is as far as that school went, to fifth grade. And upon leaving Biddleville School, I went to Myers Street School. It's torn down now, and they have—what is the name of the school that they have there now, Henry? | 2:17 |
| Henry | [indistinct 00:03:16]. | 3:10 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, it's the school for handicapped children. | 3:19 |
| Henry | [indistinct 00:03:25]. | 3:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. And I went there for one year. I completed the sixth grade there. And from the sixth grade, I went to Second Ward High School. It's demolished also. And I finished there in the eleventh grade. That is far as—when I was coming along, we went to the eleventh grade. | 3:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | And by that time, the depression was hitting real hard. And that was in '35. Now, getting back as a child growing up, my mother had a sister that had twelve children, and nine of them survived. So it was just a closely knit family among my cousins, and my brother and myself. And my mother's sister's name was Sadie. You know how you give people nicknames? And they called her Coot. So we called her Mama Coot. We'd go to Mama Coot's house, where all the children were, and they would in turn come to our house. | 3:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | And for games, we would play—the house was not underpinned, you know, brick from the ground up. There was space underneath the house. That's where we would make our playhouses, and that's where we would play playhouse, underneath the house. And my grandmother lived on Mill Road, and on the side of her house was a vacant lot. And we would play baseball there in the summertime. Now in the wintertime, there was not too much playing going on, because the days would get short, and we'd be inside trying to keep warm. One of those things. And we did not—at that time, we didn't have a theater or anything to go to, so we made ourself content at home. And on Sunday evenings, my mother would sit us down in the living room. She had what she called a Victrola, and she'd play hymns, and then she would read us Bible stories. | 4:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Just put this in your lap if you want. You don't need to— | 6:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | And that was the gist of our activities. | 6:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you—can you tell me a little bit more about your grandmother and your other grandparents? | 6:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. My grandmother, my mother's mother, her name was Lula Alexander, and my grandfather's name was John Alexander. And I called my grandmother Ma John, and I called my grandfather on my mother's side Pa John. And on my Daddy's side there was Mariah Wilson and Joseph Wilson, and we called her Mama Ri and Pa Joe. And my mother's father was a plasterer. And my grandmother, she took in washing and ironing. And on my Daddy's side, my grandfather worked at the mill. What was the name of the mill that he worked? Henry, I told you about the mill over in Greenville. | 6:30 |
| Henry | Buckeye. | 7:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Buckeye Mill. He worked at the Buckeye Mill. And my Mama Ri, she did not work, she was a homemaker. | 7:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they ever tell you anything about their childhood? | 7:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | My mother told me that my grandfather was a little boy during slavery. Yeah. And my grandfather, he—on my Daddy's side, he was part Indian, and he said that he came from the bull docks. So I found out where the bull docks are. They're out from Fayetteville. | 7:53 |
| Beatrice Swift | It so happened, I was going to Wilmington on a plane once, and I sat beside an Indian person and we got in a conversation. And the bull docks came up and she told me where they were, what the bull docks was, and said it was a very lonely, desolate place, the bull docks were. | 8:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was it a swamp or something? | 8:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | From what I can understand, from what she told me, yes, it was a swamp, more or less. Yeah. So we did not go into that, you know— | 8:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did both sets of grandparents, did they grow up in Charlotte? | 9:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. No, my mother's mother, she grew up in Davidson, North Carolina. And my mother's father, he's a native Charlottean. Yeah. And my grandmother on my Daddy's side, she's a native Charlottean. Now, how my grandfather got to Charlotte, I don't know; Grandfather Wilson. I don't know how he got to Charlotte, but he would say that he came from the bull docks. | 9:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did your grandparents grow up in Biddleville? Did they live in— | 9:56 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. They own homes in Biddleville. On Mill Road was where my mother's parents lived. And my Daddy's parents, they lived on Dixon Street. They owned their own home. Mm-hmm, yeah. | 10:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you talk a little bit about what Biddleville was like when you were growing up? | 10:19 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, yeah. Oh, well, it was just a neighborhood where everybody knew everybody. And you'd go down the street and you'd have to speak to everyone. And if you did not speak, they'd get back to your mother and say, "Do you know Louise passed the house, she didn't even speak to me?" So you would have to speak to everybody. It was just a place where people looked out for one another, and if they saw you doing anything wrong, they would correct you, and then tell your mother about it. And when I'd go out, Mom said, "And don't forget to speak now. You better speak to so-and-so. You better speak to so-and-so." And sort of just became a habit of speaking to people. And—what was I—I lost my thought, what I wanted to say. Oh yeah, just about everybody in the community owned their own homes. We did not have rental houses at that time growing up. Yeah. | 10:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did most of the people do who lived in Biddleville? | 11:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay, now—let me see now. There was a hairdresser that lived there, a lady, Mrs. Thomas, she was a hairdresser. And then there was a person that lived across the street, [indistinct 00:12:05] husband. He drove the truck for the Coca-Cola place. And then there was a store on the corner, we called it Mr. Bigger's store, he was a store owner. And the McCombs's, they lived next to my grandmother's. And Ms. Sobella, she taught school. And her mother took in washing and ironing. And then there was my aunt, she did not work. She had to take care of the children. And her husband was a plasterer. In fact, he built his home and is still standing there. | 11:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | There was a minister, Reverend West, and then there was Reverend Harriston, and then there was Dr. Davis. Dr. Davis's wife was principal of Fairview School. Reverend West's wife, she taught school. And Reverend Harriston's wife, she was a homemaker. And then there was my aunt that lived on Dixon Street. She was a homemaker and her husband was a plasterer. I had a aunt that lived down the street from us on Solomon Street. She was a homemaker. I don't know what Uncle Charlie did. They had four children. Can't think of what he did. I do know this, he was cutting down a tree, and he broke his neck and that killed him. I do remember that. | 12:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | And let me get to the place—we did not have door-to-door mail delivery. They had a line of boxes on West Trade Street where each person had his mailbox there, and you'd have to walk—I had to walk a block and a half to get to the mailbox to get our mail. And it wasn't until I was in college that we started to get door-to-door delivery of mail. | 14:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why do you think that was? Was it because it was a Black neighborhood or—? | 14:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | It was not—it really wasn't incorporated into the city. I'm thinking that the city limits stopped at the creek. I'm almost sure it did. And then, as they would extend the city limits, you would get city services, because we had outhouses until they brought the water, sewage line into the Biddleville area. | 14:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | When did that happen? Do you remember? | 15:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | I am seventy-four now, and I can remember as a child—I judge I was about second grade when we got sewage, and not having to have—we called them slop jars. Yeah, the night chamber. | 15:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Slop jars? | 16:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they called it slop jars. That was a night chamber that you would use at night. And then in the daytime, you would go out to the outhouse. And then there was some men that would come back, come around every so often to empty the containers that were in the outhouses. And you talking about a terrible smell, you could always tell when Mr. Morgan was coming around, because it was just a terrible smell. And we called it the stink wagon. | 16:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was his job called? Did you have name for somebody who did that? | 16:54 |
| Beatrice Swift | I judge you would call him a sanitary worker, I judge. I never considered just what—my mind hadn't gotten to the extent where I knew what Mr. Horton's job was, but I judge he was paid to do that type of thing. Henry, did you all have outhouses when you lived in [indistinct 00:17:28]? | 16:59 |
| Henry | In the earlier years, we did. [indistinct 00:17:35] put inside. Early, when I was in the [indistinct 00:17:41], we had outhouses. Then eventually they put them all on the inside. | 17:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | They put them all on the inside. | 17:45 |
| Henry | Inside. Most of a lot of times they started adding them to the house, but it was on the back porch. | 17:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, that's where ours was, on the back porch. | 17:52 |
| Henry | They started bringing them outside, they got up to the back porch. And of course eventually they got them into the house. | 17:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. Now, where do we go from here? Where was I? What was I— | 18:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | You were talking about the outhouses— | 18:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 18:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | —and what Biddleville was like. | 18:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, yeah. | 18:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | What were the geographic boundaries of Biddleville? | 18:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. It started at Five Points. And it went to the bridge up here, where the old Biddleville school was, where the Seaboard Railroad is underground. And that was the boundary of Biddleville. And it stopped there. And from the Biddleville School, and the railroad, Seaboard Railroad, that area coming on up Beatties Ford Road, that was called Washington Heights. And from Five Points, to the creek on Beatties Ford Road, that was called Western Heights. So there were three geographical areas, there was Western Heights, there was Biddleville, and then Washington Heights. | 18:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, were those all Black neighborhoods? | 19:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes, they were all Black neighborhoods. Yeah. Now, on Biddleville, West Trade Street's extension, they called it West Trade Street Extension. And on one side of West Trade Street Extension were Black homes. And on the other side of West Trade Extension were White homes. But their backyards faced the front yards of the Black people. And my first grade teacher lived on West Trade Street, on West Trade Street Extension. She was the principal of the school. | 19:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember what the—was there ever any trouble between the Black and White— | 20:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, no. None whatsoever. None whatsoever. | 20:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Can you talk a little bit about the people? You've already spoken a little bit about them, but were there—who were the important people in Biddleville? Maybe not—they weren't political leaders, or ministers or anything like that, but who, when you were growing up, were the important people to you in that neighborhood? | 20:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, my mother and my Daddy, they were my role models. And then I always admired—Ms. McComb, she was a teacher, and Ms. Saso—Ms. Paring, her name was Paring, she was a teacher. And I say, I wanted to be a teacher too. And there was the ministers, there was Reverend West. In fact, just about everybody at Biddleville at one time were related. | 21:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Blood related. | 21:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. And I admired Reverend West. I admired Reverend Harriston and Ms. Esther. Now the Davis's, Dr. Davis and Mrs. Davis, they more or less stayed aloof from the other people in the community for some reason, I don't know why. Yeah. She was the principal of Fairview School. It's demolished now. And Dr. Davis worked on the campus. And then my grandparents, I would love to go and sit on the front porch at Ma John's and Pa John's. | 21:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | I don't know. I didn't do too much around my Daddy's mother. I don't know. Because there weren't too many children. All the children were on my mother's sister with the twelve children. And then there was a lady named Ms. Woodard, she did domestic work, and she'd come home from work and she'd—at that time, people used to sit on the porch. And Ms. Woodard would come, and she said, "I just come from bridge. I just come from bridge." I said, "Mama, Ms. Woodard, has she been playing bridge?" She said, "Oh, no, Louise. She's been washing and ironing someplace for the White people." | 22:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why did she say she'd been playing bridge? | 23:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, well, that was just her vernacular. I guess the lady that she ironed for, or worked for, she was playing bridge, so she was imitating her. She said, "I just come from playing bridge. I just come from playing bridge." Yeah. | 23:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | What were some of the reasons why you admired these teachers in particular so much? | 24:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, well, they wore nice clothes. And I like the way they carried themselves. And I just respected them. And I wanted to be like them. They were role models, more or less. Yeah. | 24:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they encourage you in any way? | 24:41 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, Ms. Saso was my first grade teacher, and she was very nice and everything. You know, growing up I couldn't tell. She was very strict. She saw that I got my work and all, and so was Ms. McCombs. But other than that, you just obeyed the teacher. You did not give them problems. And of course there were some that did give problems. But I don't know. I got along nicely with all my teachers. Yeah. | 24:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you tell me a little bit more about the home and house in which you grew up? | 25:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. The home that I grew up in was first—let me see. Living room, we had two living rooms, had a dining room, we had a kitchen, two bedrooms and a bath. And then, as we grew older, my Daddy added on to the house, added on a story, went up, and there were four bedrooms upstairs and a bath. And that house is still standing now, and running water, it's underpinned, it's insulated, and—what kind of vinyl siding does it have on the house, baby? Where you never have it painted anymore. Aluminum siding. Would you call it aluminum siding? | 25:45 |
| Henry | I guess so. | 26:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, on the house. And growing up, we didn't have a movie house until later years. We had the grand theater out here. But in high school, we'd have our parties at our houses. We didn't go to clubs or anything like that. We'd have parties at our houses. And I know I had several birthday parties. Mother would give us birthday parties. One year she'd give my brother, called him Bud, his birthday party, and the next year she'd give my birthday party. | 26:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | So just every other year? | 27:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, every other year. That type of thing. And my mother was a Sunday school teacher. And before she married, she was the secretary of her church. And she was a very religious person. And she said that one Sunday night, it was a terrible storm, and she went to church. And her mother didn't go, and she came back. And she told her mother, "It wasn't but two fools at church that night. Nobody but me and the preacher." Because the weather was so bad. | 27:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Now, my father, he was an avid gardener. And the width of the property is seventy feet wide, and it went 250 feet deep. And that's where he had his garden all the time. And he would come home at night on a moonlit night and work his garden when he get off from work. And then he would work so many days, and then he'd have so many days off from his job on the railroad. And during that time when he was off, he would work his garden. | 28:27 |
| Henry | Work his farm. | 29:14 |
| Beatrice Swift | His farm, yeah. More or less his farm, because he grew everything. We even had pigeons. We'd eat meat pigeons. | 29:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | You'd eat them? | 29:21 |
| Beatrice Swift | Mm-hmm. And we'd have chickens and turkeys, and—oh, the vegetables were in abundance. We had a [indistinct 00:29:31], we had apple tree. We furnished the whole community with apples. We had peaches, we had muscadines, and we had pears. Pear tree's still there now. The plums. Oh, we just had just a bountiful things of fruits and other vegetables. And he would call the corn, I thought he was saying—he would say "roashin' ears", and it's roasting ears. He would have corn, and sweet potatoes, and peas, okra. He was very fond of okra. And string beans, sweet peas, and greens. He was just a avid gardener. | 29:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me about some other special occasions in the year other than your birthday parties? | 30:32 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. At the church, we would have Easter programs, and that's when I got shoes three times a year. No, yeah, I got shoes for Easter. I got Black patent leather shoes for Easter. And they would have a program at the church where you say your speeches, you know. And then they'd have Children's Day. I'd get White shoes, and then they'd have a program, and I'd say my Children's Day speech. And then I would get shoes to go to school. The first of school I'd get a pair of shoes, some school shoes. And so those were the three pairs of shoes that I'd get a year. And trying to think whether I got shoes for Christmas or not. No, I got baby dolls for Christmas. I didn't get shoes for Christmas. | 30:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | What are baby dolls? | 31:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, doll baby. | 31:37 |
| Henry | If you'll all excuse me, I've got to [indistinct 00:31:38] a little bit. If my brother comes by he said he might [indistinct 00:31:38]. | 31:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. All right. | 31:38 |
| Henry | But it was nice meeting you, and I hope you have a good interview. I've got to run off a little bit. | 31:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Thank you. | 31:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, we call them baby dolls. | 31:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would everybody else get the same set of shoes? Would everybody be wearing Black patent leather shoes at Easter? | 32:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Those that could afford it. Those that could afford it. | 32:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there many children who couldn't afford it? | 32:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, sure. My cousins with the nine children living, and being a plasterer, a brick—a plasterer, where you see your work is only seasonal, and they all did not get shoes. I thought we were rich. | 32:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | You did? | 32:46 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah, I thought we were rich. | 32:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why was that? | 32:48 |
| Beatrice Swift | Because I got to get three pairs of shoes. | 32:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | [indistinct 00:33:00]. | 32:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | A rare occasion, for Easter I had new clothes. And getting ready for school I'd have new clothes. And we were rich, we were just rich with love. But we did not own a car. But I don't know, I just thought we were rich because we— just the two of us, my brother and myself, and we got our needs, and some of the things we wanted. And by my dad working on the railroad, you'd get what you call seasonal passes. And every year my father would put in for a pass, and he would take us to Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, and Atlantic City, and you would go there free. And it so happened we had relatives living in all those cities. Yeah. So I just thought we were just rich, riding the train free. | 33:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did that cause any conflict with other children who didn't have as much when you were growing up? | 34:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, well, I don't think so because we always shared with my cousins. And I'm trying to see the other children in the neighborhood that I grew up with. There was Regina Bailey. She was the only child. There was Adelaide. And they'd had sisters and brothers that couldn't look out for her. And yeah, they were the McKee twins. They were less fortunate. But it wasn't too much mingling with the other children in the neighborhood, it was more or less just staying with my cousins and that type of thing, and my friend Adelaide. | 34:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Even when you went to school? | 35:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, even when I went to school, yeah. | 35:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that because you weren't allowed to play with those children or—? | 35:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, no, no, no, no. It was just a pattern. I don't know what they—they played with their group and we played with our group, that type of thing. No. You see, I didn't have to go to get any others to play with, because my mom had the nine children. So I didn't have to look for playmates. We played among ourselves. And my uncle built this lovely home for his family, and they had what you'd call a playroom, a vacant room in their house they called the playroom, and we'd go down to Mama Coot's and play in the playroom, that type of thing. So we didn't have to seek, go anywhere else to find friends or anything. Yeah. | 35:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you have any contact with people in other Black neighborhoods in Charlotte? | 36:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes, I had a friend living in Washington Heights. Her name was Mildred Nelson. We're still friends. And then there's Samella Twitty. We became friends in high school, when we got to high school, you see? And growing up as a child, I did not go out of Biddleville for friendship or anything. But as I got older, and in high school, that's where we formed the other friendships, of people outside of the community. And that's where I met my husband, Henry, in high school. | 36:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you go to other Black neighborhoods for any other reason? Did you go to Brooklyn to shop, for example? | 37:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I had no cause to go to Brooklyn. Until I got in high school, and I had a friend that lived on Second Street, and I would visit her, and she would come and visit me. And then we formed the club in high school, and it's still going, the [indistinct 00:38:06] Club. And it's over fifty years old, and we would meet in different homes, which we still do. And some of the members lived in Brooklyn, and we would go to their homes for club meeting, and they would come to my home, and then I would go to Washington Heights, I would go to club meetings, where of my friends lived that were members of the club. | 37:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | I haven't really heard very much about Washington Heights as a neighborhood. Do you know why that would be? I've heard of Greenville, about Greenville and Brooklyn, Biddleville, but— | 38:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Do you know—did you see the Excelsior Club? | 38:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, yeah. | 38:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | Did you see that sign say, "Welcome to Washington Heights"? | 38:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | So that's— | 38:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | That's the area. | 38:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | It's very close to Biddleville. | 38:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they join one another. In fact, so many people just say they live in Biddle. And when I was growing up they called it Washington Heights. | 38:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there any difference in the kinds of people who lived in Washington Heights and Biddleville? | 39:10 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, no. They were homeowners in both areas. Yeah. They could have had—I'm about to say—they could have had a rental house here and there, but there were mostly homeowners that lived in Washington Heights. Yeah. | 39:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there any bad areas of town that you were not allowed to go to when you were growing up? | 39:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, I didn't go to Greenville too much. | 39:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Why was that? | 39:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, because I—Mama just wouldn't let me go to Greenville. I had no need to go in Greenville. And then to Brooklyn, I didn't go to Brooklyn neither, because that was the movie house over there. And my mother didn't take me, so I couldn't go by myself. And I'm trying to see, what would we call a bad area in Charlotte? Odd parts of Greenville, I judge, and then parts of Brooklyn. | 39:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Blue Heaven maybe? | 40:48 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah, Blue Heaven was over there. Yeah. But I never went into Blue Heaven or anything like that. Yeah. | 40:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you have any particularly happy memories from your childhood that you—or sad ones that you could— | 41:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | As I told you, I always looked forward to going on the train trips that my parents would—my Daddy would put in for the pass, and we'd go to, as I told you, Washington, Philadelphia, Atlantic City, and New York. And I cherish those moments quite a bit. And I enjoyed going to church. And sometimes my mother wouldn't go, because she complained of headaches, and then I had to come back and tell her the preacher's sermon and everything, and that type of thing. And by my Daddy working on the railroads, he would, different runs, he would come in at night. And I guess he'd get home, that train would get into Charlotte about seven thirty, and just would be about eight o'clock when he'd get home, and he would bring us ice cream. And we'd look forward to Daddy bringing us ice cream at night. Snow on the ground, cold outside, and we'd be eating ice cream. Yeah. | 41:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you have any—were there any famous people, whom you particularly admired when you were growing up? Particularly famous Black people that—sports figures or— | 42:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | Now, let me see. | 42:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | —public figures. | 43:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | You know, that's just been a thing in recent years, the sports that Negroes have really participated in and become well known. I judge it would've been Joe Lewis, would be the person. And then there was Lena Horne. She was in the movies. And there was Hattie—what was her name? I can't recall her name. There was Pearl Bailey, Lena Horne and Joe Lewis. Trying to think of anybody else. | 43:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | So Lena Horne was in a film, in movies? | 44:12 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, she was in the movies. Lena Horne,. | 44:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | When she appeared in movies, was it with White actors? | 44:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah. | 44:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember seeing any movies that just had Black actors in them? | 44:25 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, no, no, no. An all Black movie? No. No. In fact, I didn't go to the movies that often. | 44:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, you said that. | 44:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. And at one time, it was just a silent picture. And then the writing would come. You'd have to read the screen. | 44:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember seeing silent movies? | 44:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. Yeah. And then you'd put the writing on the screen. And then the talking movies came in. | 44:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Maybe we could talk a little bit about your family life at home. Who was the boss at home when you were growing up? | 45:07 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay, growing up, my mother was the boss. | 45:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:17 |
| Beatrice Swift | Because my Daddy stayed gone all the time. And if I wanted to go somewhere or anything, and say something to him, my Daddy, he'd say, "Ask your Mama. Ask your Mama." And if there was going to be a party or anything and I wanted to go to the party, she'd say, "You better ask your Daddy before he leaves here, so we'll be together as to whether you can go or not." So it was just—and he would send me back to Mama and say, "Ask your Mama. Whatever your Mama say." And so they bought me a watch, and I had to be home at eleven thirty. Mother was the power behind the throne. | 45:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he was still on the throne. | 46:10 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 46:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How so? | 46:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | How's that? | 46:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | How so? How was he still on the throne? | 46:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, paying the bills. | 46:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 46:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, paying the bills. | 46:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he took care of the money, all the money— | 46:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. Yeah. He'd give her the money too, and he would—mother would buy the groceries and everything. And we had—growing up, we had ice boxes. We didn't have electric boxes. And the ice man would come by— | 46:25 |
| Beatrice Swift | —were heated. The house was heated by a stove. We had a fireplace in mama's bedroom and there was a fireplace in the front bedroom. And then later, came the warm morning stoves and that heated upstairs and downstairs and the fire would stay in it all day long, it would not go out. You would bed down the fire and it was heated with coal. | 0:01 |
| Beatrice Swift | And the man would come by selling wood. We'd cook with wood stoves in the kitchen and my Daddy would buy wood by the cord and stack it out in the backyard. And he'd come home at night and he would cut the wood to last for a while, while he was gone. Mother do the cooking. And they had a wash pot where you wash outside, where you boil the clothes in water. And then after you boil them in water, you had three different tubs. You'd wash them again. You'd rinse them, and then you'd take them through a bluing water and then you hang them up outside to dry. They didn't have dryers or anything like that. | 0:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did your mother ever hire anyone to help her out with her housework? | 1:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | With her housework? | 1:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 1:41 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, she and my dad did it and as I grew up, I helped with it. | 1:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did she ever work outside the home, your mother? | 1:47 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, she was just a homemaker. Now as we grew older, she would—with the house being so large, she would keep teachers and they would stay there and she'd only have one at a time. And she would both cook for her, and that's where she made extra money doing that type of thing, and I guess that's what helped to get me through college. | 1:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | And that was something—that was her money then, when she got the rent? | 2:33 |
| Beatrice Swift | Sure. That was her money. Yeah. | 2:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did anybody else other than your immediate family live with you ever? | 2:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | I had a uncle that lived in Philadelphia. And my grandmother took sick, so he came home to wait on her, and she passed and they rented out the home place and he stayed with us for about a year. And then he went into business with a store and there was—he lived in his store, on the back end of his store. Yeah, and that's the only person—family member that ever lived with us. | 2:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | What store was this? | 3:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | It was called—the first name was Biggers Store. A man named Mr. Biggers owned the store, and then it was Wilson's Grocery. Wilson's Grocery. It's demolished now. | 3:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where did you do most of your marketing? | 3:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Growing up, we went to Mr. Biggers store. | 3:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | And with that owned by a Black person? | 3:58 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, Mr. Biggers was a Black person. Yeah, and then eventually, A&P came where Five Points begins now. You see that old building that's all torn and everything? That used to be a grocery store in there and that was A&P and we would do our marketing there, but mostly it was done at Mr. Biggers's store where we'd buy pork chops. And people from the country would come in with vegetables and with chickens on foot and my Daddy raised chickens and all, so—mostly we bought was the fat back and the pork chops and liver pudding and Mr. Biggers carried all of that. My Daddy didn't—I remember the stink with him. He had a hog and he killed him and we had the meat from the hog. Yeah. | 4:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that common for people to have livestock? | 5:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, yeah. Yeah, just about everybody had their own chicken yard. | 5:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was Biddleville—was the area around it developed, or was it? You said it was outside the city limits. Was it like being in the country or was it— | 5:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | More or less. We did not have paved streets and we did not have the sidewalks that we have now. Yeah, it was more or less like being in the country and we did not have city lights on each corner, that type of thing. No, as I recall until later years when it was incorporated into the city that you had that type of thing. And in one instance, the people that lived in Western—Washington Heights as I told you from Biddleville School, they could not go to the school in the city. If they did, they would have to pay to go to the school because it was considered the county. | 5:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | But not Biddleville. | 6:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | But not Biddleville. Yeah, but not Biddleville. Yeah. | 6:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kind of values do you think that your parents instilled in you when you were growing up? | 6:46 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, I would say to always act like a lady and be a lady and to respect older people and don't look down on people. Look at the individual and there's self-worth in everybody, and be friendly to everyone. I would say that. And the most I think she would say, "Do unto others is you'd have them do unto you." That would be—that would sum it up to me. Do unto others as you'd have them do unto you and not to look down on people. | 6:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | How were you expected to behave in front of adults, both Black and White adults? | 8:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | Just normal. Just normal. It wasn't a matter of, "Shut up, don't say anything." It was just a normal thing. | 8:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you have any contact with White children when you were growing up? | 8:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | Mm-hmm. | 8:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 8:30 |
| Beatrice Swift | Mm-mm. No, none whatsoever. | 8:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | How much contact in general did you have with White people growing up? | 8:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | The only contact I had with White people growing up would be when I go downtown to buy something from a clerk, a person waiting on me in a store. And if my mother would buy a piece of furniture at that time, the insurance collector would come. The furniture man would come and collect the money. If she bought a bed, she'd pay so much down in so much monthly or weekly, whatever the payments were, the furniture man would come and collect the money and that would be a White man. That was the only contact I had with White people. | 8:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Did your parents ever sit you down and try to explain segregation to you or tell you how you had to behave in order to get along with White people or anything like that? | 9:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No. Uh-uh. It was never discussed because as I said, I never did come in contact with them. Of course, my dad did working on the railroad, but he never discussed it and I never did come in contact with anybody. I often wished that I had worked for some White people so I could have had more money or anything like that, but they wouldn't let me do that. | 9:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kind of work did you want to do for White people? | 10:29 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, I had a friend that would go and, I guess, wash dishes, make up the beds, that type of thing. Be a maid. | 10:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. Why wouldn't your parents let you do that? | 10:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, they said I didn't need to do it. I told you I thought we were rich. | 10:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. You talked about that woman who did some laundry. You're were talking about playing rich and making fun of the person that she worked for. Did you make fun of White people when you were growing up a little bit? | 10:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, no. Uh-uh. No. Uh-uh. No, I never made fun of White people. It was just, I never came in contact because you catch the street car, honey, and you get on at the front door but you'd have to go to the back. There would be seats vacant in the front, but you could not sit there. You'd have to go to the back and if all the seats were filled, you'd have to stand up. And I know vividly, this has been after my daughter was born, I'd take her downtown and they had had no facilities for Black people at all and I would just let her turn her little self up and wee wee on the square. And you get hungry, the only thing you could buy downtown would stop by Grants or Chris's and get some popcorn. That's the only thing you could buy to ward off hunger because they did not sell, you know, to Blacks. | 11:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could you go in all the stores downtown? | 12:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | At one time, only—all of them, yes, but one, that was Montaldo's, and only a certain few went in Montaldo's. | 12:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | A certain few Black people? | 12:53 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, Black people. | 12:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | And who could go in there? | 12:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, that could afford it and mostly principals because they made money. | 12:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | What would happen if somebody, like if you had gone in there? What would they have done? | 13:02 |
| Beatrice Swift | I never attempted to go because I didn't have any money. | 13:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay, because I've heard some people say that in Montaldo's, no Black people could go in there, but you think that some people could? | 13:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | At one time, before things were integrated, yeah, some Blacks could go in. Can I give you something cold to drink? | 13:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Only if you'd like some yourself, but I'm fine right now. | 13:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Okay. All right. | 13:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any incidents growing up where kids maybe just have fun or anybody really deliberately defied some of the signs of segregation, like drinking out of the White fountain or anything like that? | 13:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No, I don't recall because we did not go into town that much because it was just to get the shoes at Easter, to get the shoes for Christmas, for Children's Day and for Christmas. | 14:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | So just a few times a year? | 14:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, that you would go in town. | 14:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember people getting into trouble with the police, not for anything that they had done, but just being harassed by the police? | 14:29 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, that's where my husband could be here and fill you in on this. He said he and a friend, Dustin Chair, were standing on the corner and the policeman drove by and said, "Come on, get in this car," and he took them downtown and was just standing on the street corner and whoever—it so happened that the person that—I'm trying to think how Henry tells this. His Daddy worked for this man and the word got out that he and his friend, the police had taken him downtown. | 14:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | And so, this White man that Henry knew and all and his Daddy had worked for, came and spoke up for him and they let him out. And he said, "Now Henry," he said, "Now be sure you haven't done anything." He said, "I'll go along with you and I'll be with you if you done it, but I'm not going to hold you up for anything that you done against the law." And those two boys had done nothing but standing on the street corner and they just drove by and picked them up and carried them downtown. | 15:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was he put into jail? | 16:14 |
| Beatrice Swift | Uh-huh. | 16:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember that happening to other people when you were growing up? | 16:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. Uh-huh. No, I just remember him telling that incident to my grandson and to me. Just standing on the street corner. | 16:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there Black policemen when you were growing up? | 16:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Not until later years, until I judge after I finished—I know after I finished high school. | 16:42 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about if there was some crime in the neighborhood? Say somebody broke into your house or maybe somebody's house was on fire, would the police and the fireman respond? | 16:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah, we got service like that. We got service like that. Yeah. | 17:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you went on these trips with your dad to up north, did you travel on a Jim Crow car? | 17:18 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yes. Oh yes. You sit in front right next to the cinders. That's before they got the steam cars and everything and you get soot all over. Your clothes get dirty and everything and you had a shoebox. That's where you put your lunch in, a shoebox. Yeah. | 17:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anybody trying to sit in the White section of the train or— | 17:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no, no, no, no, no. | 17:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was it like up north? Did you like—did you find it a lot different than being in Charlotte? | 17:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, I would say so. It was more or less, more integrated, more or less. I found that to be true. You did not have to sit in—you could sit anywhere you wanted on the sub or the street car, or whatever mode of transportation you had. It wasn't for Blacks and Whites there, that type of thing. It was more integrated. | 18:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember other things that you would do there that you wouldn't be able to do in Charlotte? | 18:41 |
| Beatrice Swift | Let's see. I enjoyed going to Atlantic City, going into Atlantic Ocean, that type of thing. I enjoyed that because you see, at that time they did not have swimming pools for Black or White. I mean, for Blacks. And in fact, there were no city swimming pools that were private. The people that had the swimming pools, they were for White only, not owned by the city. I enjoyed that part when we would go—we'd say, "Going north." Going north, yeah. What else would I—what other thing would— Really, the thing that fascinated me most would be riding on that train. I really liked riding on the train. Yeah. | 18:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | I guess with your dad being—working on the train too, he could tell you about it or— | 20:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes, and as I grew older and in college, he'd put in a pass for me and I would visit my friend. I had a friend living in Florida. I visited her and he'd tell me of certain waiters that were on the car and after the Whites finished eating, they would serve Blacks and— | 20:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | You could go into the White car. | 20:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | I could—they would draw a curtain and you could eat. | 20:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | That was for everybody, not just because you knew of the waiters? | 20:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, that was for anybody that wanted to, but if I knew the waiters, I'd get my food for nothing. That was a courtesy one waiter would pass on to another waiter. Yeah, yeah. | 21:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Maybe we could talk a little bit about your schools you went to now. What was your elementary school? | 21:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | My elementary school was Biddleville. | 21:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Biddleville Elementary. | 21:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | Biddleville Elementary, and then I went to Myers Street Elementary, and then I went to Second Ward High School. I went there in the seventh grade to the eleventh grade. We had no cafeteria. We had no gym. We did have an auditorium. And bless their hearts, they would play basketball and they would have to move the seats from the—the auditorium was elevated you know, and on the main floor, they would move the seats out so they could use that as a basketball court. | 21:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | No gym. No swimming pool. No type, it was typing and just a general course of high school, your English, your French, and your history. I think there was one Latin class, and of course, there was a home ec class. And they had various clubs in high school and I belonged to the dramatic club where we'd give plays. I was very active in that. And then we had—it's an outcome of the YWCA. We called it the Girl Reserves. I was active in that. That's a part of the Y at that time. | 22:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was this during the war or— | 23:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, this was before the war. | 23:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | What were the Girl Reserves? | 23:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | That was a program that the YWCA put on for the girls in high school. | 23:11 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what did you do there? | 23:18 |
| Beatrice Swift | We would meet and on Saturdays, we would go on hikes. We had an advisor and we would go on hikes on Saturdays and we'd have a skating party. We'd do that type of thing. Yeah. How'd we get back to high school? Repeat that question again about high school. | 23:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | I just asked you about where you went to school. Well, we can go back maybe to the Biddleville School just for a second. What did you like and dislike about going to—well, in elementary school, both at Myers Street and— | 23:58 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, at Biddleville School, as I told you, first it was a full room, wooden schoolhouse, and then it was replaced by a brick building. And at first, it was two story. And to get to the second floor, they had outside steps. They were not enclosed. And later, they enclosed the steps from the outside so you would not be exposed to the bad weather. That's what I did not like about it in high school, I mean, in elementary school. | 24:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | And we had no cafeteria. You had to take your lunch from home. And we did not have organized play period as they do now. We did not have physical ed teacher or anything. We did not have music teachers, or we did not have art teachers or anything like that as they do now. You just had recess time. We'd call it recess or play period. You just gather on the school yard. Everybody out there just mingling, doing your own thing, and nothing organized. And that's when kids would get into fights and things like that. Yeah. | 24:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Who would fight? The boys? | 25:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | The boys, yeah. | 25:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why would they fight? | 25:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | Now that's a good question. I don't know. I can't tell you what the reason for fighting. | 25:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you went to Biddleville School, were there a lot of children who came—well, from outside of Biddleville? | 25:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. It was just a community. It was just a community school. | 26:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | And was Myers Street a bit big— | 26:09 |
| Beatrice Swift | It was larger and they came from different areas. They came from First Ward, Second Ward, and Cherry. No other school in Cherry. First Ward and Second Ward in Biddleville if you wanted to. Now I had, pardon, I had the option of going to Fairview School, but I had to cross the railroad track and mother didn't want me—was overprotective. She didn't want me crossing the railroad track and I had to walk to school. But if I went to Myers Street School, I'd catch the bus, the street car, and go to school. It was safer. More expensive too. I told you, I thought we were rich [laughs]. | 26:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Other students wouldn't take the street car? They would- | 27:01 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, the other children in the community, they went over to—they walked over to Fairview. | 27:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were the children at Myers Street School as well off as you were? Were the children poor over there or— | 27:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | They were mixed. They were mixed. | 27:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you play with poorer children and were you allowed to associate with them? | 27:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yes. Oh yes. Oh yes. Yeah. | 27:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would they ever come— | 27:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | But we weren't rich, now. | 27:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | No, no, I know, but just in relation to some of the other [indistinct 00:27:42] school. | 27:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, sure. | 27:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say—I just thought, because I know that other people living, especially in the Second Ward, there were a lot of children who wouldn't have— | 27:46 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, underprivileged and everything. That's true. In fact, that's in every area. Yeah. Yeah. | 27:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you ever disciplined by your teachers? | 28:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | Only once, and she was my favorite teacher. She was my daughter's godmother and I love her to death. I did love her to death until she passed. That's when I was in sixth grade. And what you say there—I hit somebody, which I denied. And anyway, she gave me a switching and then she came home and ate dinner with us [laughs]. That hurt my heart [laughs]. | 28:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was she living with you at the time? | 28:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, she lived out on Baileys Farm Road. Her name was Miss Bilimo. She was the principal of the school and she taught sixth grade. | 28:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Had she been invited over for that for dinner— | 29:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. I judge she came to make nice with mother because she and mother were good friends. | 29:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you get it from your mother as well when you got home? | 29:17 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I didn't. No. | 29:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you think she told her? | 29:18 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, she told her. Yeah, she told her. Explained it to her and of course, I denied it. That was the only whipping I ever got. | 29:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did the teachers in your school ever play favorites with students, do you think? | 29:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they'd call them the teacher's pet. I was one of them [laughs]. | 29:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, you were? | 29:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | I was one of the teacher's pets [laughs]. | 29:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why do you think you were teacher's pet? | 29:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | They'd ask you to do different things for them. They'd ask you to wash the board [laughs]. A good worker. | 29:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Good worker. How involved were your parents in your schooling? | 29:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, very much so. | 30:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | How so? | 30:09 |
| Beatrice Swift | By PTA and anything that—what would they call on Mama to do? Make a donation for something. And we didn't have grade mothers at that time in school. Hadn't gotten that far advanced, but she made it a point to know my teachers and everything. Noticed she was behind them and any project they wanted to put on or anything like that, she would support it. Yeah. | 30:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they do anything in school to help out children who were underprivileged? | 31:12 |
| Beatrice Swift | Let me think. No, they didn't even have a clothes closet. And they did not even have free milk or anything like that. No, no, no. Nothing like that. Free lunch, no. What was that? If you didn't bring your lunch from home, that was it. Yeah, and if you didn't have the proper clothing, that was it. | 31:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you remember children who did come, who didn't have proper clothes and that kind of thing? | 32:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I don't because just about everybody in Biddleville, they were—had jobs and could afford it and they were not in need, no need for that type of thing. Yeah. | 32:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | How long did your parents go to school? Did they both— | 32:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | My mother finished Scotia. | 32:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. That's right. You said that. | 32:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | I told you that. And I judge that was equivalent to a high school education then. And my Daddy, he could read and write and he said he went to Biddle. That was Johnson C. Smith. I judge that's how he got his formal education but he never finished. He dropped out and started working on the railroad. | 32:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you learn any Black history in school? | 33:17 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, did not have it as a course not in high school, but my history teacher would incorporate with her classes. And I do remember when I finished high school, my counselor was a Miss Brody and she wrote a play, the Negro Builds a Pyramid, and that was for the high school graduates. She would single out different accomplishments of Black people and different persons in the class would take that role and imitate that person. I'm trying to think who was I. | 33:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | I think I was Lena Horne. I think I was. There was George Washington Carver and there was Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Howard Thurman, and there was Drew, the man that you know—blood plasma. And There was Paul Roberson. I'm trying to think. Anyway, there were quite a few that had roles in this pageant, The Negro Builds a Pyramid, and that's the way we got into Black history in school. In fact, when I was in college, I had no Negro history as such. | 34:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where did you go to college? | 35:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | I went to Bennett College in Greensboro. Where's your home? | 35:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm from Canada. | 35:44 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, you are? | 35:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | In Toronto. | 35:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, you are? I've been to Toronto. Yeah. How long have you been—oh, you're doing your graduate work? | 35:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | That's right. I've been here for three years. | 35:56 |
| Beatrice Swift | At Duke? | 35:59 |
| Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 36:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | My son-in-law's brother finished Duke in engineering. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Small world, isn't it? | 36:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you went to high school, what clubs were you involved in? | 36:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | As I said, we called it the Girl Reserve. | 36:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | That's right. | 36:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | That was the only club. I did not sing, so and I belonged to the Dramatic Club. | 36:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, you said that. | 36:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | The Dramatic Club, yeah. | 36:32 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you belong to any social club? | 36:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | We made up our social club. Yeah, and we called it the Modernettes. | 36:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Was this the beginning of the Modernettes? | 36:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, the beginning of the Modernettes. I think we were about a junior in high school. | 36:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why did you decide to form a social club? | 36:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, I don't know. We were just all friendly. And at that time, the club idea, each area had their club. Groups had their clubs so we just got ourselves a club and we called it the Modernettes. | 36:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why do you think there are—everybody I've spoken to practically belonged has belonged to some social club. That has been very important. Why do you think that people joined these and started these clubs off? | 37:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, they just had ideas together and they had fun things that they enjoyed doing together, that type of thing, and they more or less had things in common. I think that's the reason. I know a lot of them played bridge. And in my club we played pinochle but at first we were not playing pinochle. We were just sitting and talking. | 37:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | But why form a club, because you could do that same thing? | 38:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, that was the status to have a club, just to have a club. Yeah. | 38:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what's involved with the club beyond just having a name? Is there anything else or is there some way else you can identify yourself? | 38:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No. No Constitution, no bylaws, anything like that? Just having fun. Just having fun. Yeah. | 38:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | And the Modernettes, that was all women. | 38:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, all women. | 38:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did the men have their own clubs? | 38:33 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, the men had their clubs too. | 38:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | Which one were the—I know about the Scorpions and the Swing. | 38:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | My husband is a Swing. | 38:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | You said you met your husband during high school? | 38:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. | 38:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you allowed to go out with boys during high school? | 38:53 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yes, after I became sixteen years old. Yeah. Yeah. | 38:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things would you do together? Where would you go on a date? | 39:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | We wouldn't go—he'd come to see me. That's it. | 39:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | At home? | 39:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | At home, and we would not go out. | 39:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | What other kinds of things did you do for fun when you were in high school? | 39:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, they'd have dances. | 39:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where were they held? | 39:33 |
| Beatrice Swift | At school, and then they'd have the basketball game, and then they'd have the football game, and they'd have the plays, and then the glee club would give a recital, something like that. Those were the only activities that you'd have. | 39:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there any gathering places for teenagers outside of the high school? | 40:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no. | 40:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | No ice cream parlor or— | 40:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no. Let me see. I couldn't go there. That was on Second Street. They had a drug store there, but I didn't go in the drug store because I wanted to get back home because I lived so far away from [indistinct 00:40:39]. | 40:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | That was down in— | 40:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | In Brooklyn. Second Ward was in Brooklyn. | 40:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | How would you get down to Brooklyn if you wanted to get down there because it is a fair way. | 40:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | You'd get the street car. You'd get the street car and go. The street car would go through Brooklyn. Yeah. | 40:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were in high school, do you remember there being fights between boys from different sections of Charlotte? | 40:57 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yes. They would have fights. | 41:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | And why would they fight? | 41:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, they'd say that they would fighting over girls. | 41:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did anyone fight over you? | 41:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | No [laughs]. No, not that I know of. | 41:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there any ever any fighting between Black boys and White boys? Do you remember that ever happening? | 41:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. My husband would tell me that there was a place in Cherry. They called it the Thompson Orphanage and they'd have rock battles on Sunday afternoon. The boys from the orphanage would rock the boys in Cherry. | 41:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | And these boys in the orphanage were White? | 41:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they have rock battles. | 41:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | So the— | 42:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | But there was no fighting or anything like that. Just throwing rocks. Just throwing rocks. | 42:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | Let me make sure I have this right. It was an orphanage with White children in a Black— | 42:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes, in a Black neighborhood. | 42:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why do you think that was? | 42:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | I tell you, where the orphanage was, they have a chapel there now, where they have the Vietnam memorial. Have you seen that? | 42:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | No. | 42:32 |
| Beatrice Swift | You haven't? Well, they have a marble slate right in that area. It's near Central Piedmont Community College. There's this little chapel there and that's the area where the orphanage was. | 42:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you remember ever there being other kinds of White institutions in Black neighborhoods like that, or places where White people would live in Black neighborhoods? | 42:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I don't. No, it was just really segregated. | 43:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Would there ever be some—there were never sort of disreputable Whites who would come into the [indistinct 00:43:29]— | 43:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | The Black comm— | 43:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | —or anything? | 43:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. No. | 43:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember White men coming in and having relationships with Black women? | 43:32 |
| Beatrice Swift | Uh-uh. | 43:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 43:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I don't recall any of that. If it was, it was undercover. It wasn't out in the open. | 43:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was going to Second Ward like, Second Ward High School? Did you enjoy that? | 43:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah, that was fun days. I enjoyed walking to school from Biddleville walking through town. | 44:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | You missed doing that when you were in elementary? | 44:10 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes, yes. | 44:15 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was better about walking than taking the street car? | 44:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | I don't know. It was just fun walking with a group. Yeah, laughing and talking and walking. On rainy days, I'd take the street car. Yeah, but it was just nice walking. | 44:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you went to Second Ward, did most of the friends that you started out there, did they finish high school? | 44:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. Yeah, in fact, this Modernettes club I'm in, all of them have finished high school and college. We're all college graduates and one girl just recently had an honorary PhD bestowed on her and several of them have their masters. Yeah. | 44:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that typical of people going to Second Ward? Did most of them go on college? | 45:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, I tell you, I went to Second Ward during the Depression, and very few of them went to college. | 45:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would— | 45:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | I judge it was the elite, the select group, the fortunate ones that went to college because two of my friends, their fathers worked on the railroad. And one girl, her sister had a beauty parlor. She helped to send her to school and they just had good jobs and knew how to manage their money. | 45:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | What about the ones who couldn't go to college? What happened to them? What did they end up doing? | 46:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | Marrying and I judge working, taking domestic work, that type of thing. Yeah. | 46:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did everybody who went to Second Ward High School take academic subjects or were there other things you could take? | 46:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | It was just academics. It was just academics. | 46:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | There was no technical or occupational training? | 46:30 |
| Beatrice Swift | They did have a shop there and I think that was an elective. It was not a one of— | 46:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | The thing, as I say, a business course or anything like that. They didn't have typewriters. So the only person that had a typewriter was the secretary. The principal's secretary. | 0:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | If somebody did want to learn to type, where could they learn? | 0:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | There was no place to learn. | 0:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there any clerical jobs that Blacks could take? | 0:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. Not as I know of. | 0:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you take home ec when you were— | 0:44 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, I took home ec. | 0:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did they teach you in home ec class? | 0:47 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, well, how to prepare foods. I baked a fruitcake in the home ec class. Let's see. What foods did we do? The only thing I really recall was baking this fruit cake in high school. I enjoyed my sewing class better. I made a pair of pillowcases, and that was only for—it wasn't a whole year. Half year, I took home ec and the second half I took sewing. Yeah. And I think also took me about that whole semester to make the pillow cases, that type of thing. | 0:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | [indistinct 00:01:50]. | 1:48 |
| Beatrice Swift | I was more interested in food than I was sewing. | 1:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you learn anything else but cooking in home ec, and sewing? | 1:58 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm trying to think. | 2:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | Housekeeping or something like that. Did you— | 2:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, that was not in the course. | 2:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you finished up in Second Ward, and then did you go immediately to college? | 2:19 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, I went on to college. Yeah. Four years at Bennett College in Greensboro. | 2:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you join a sorority when you were there? | 2:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. We did not have sororities. They now have sororities at Bennett. But let tell you, oddly enough, after I retired from teaching, my daughter is a Delta, and she said, "Now mom, you need to join a sorority so you stay active." And do you know I joined the Delta Sigma Theta sorority after retiring, after teaching forty years in public schools. And then I joined the sorority. But I enjoy it, I really enjoy it, yeah. | 2:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was the curriculum at Bennett like? | 3:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | I took elementary ed. You had your choice, home ec, biology, or major in history or whatever, liberal arts, that you wanted to take, science. So I was in the liberal arts. Yeah. And I also kept up with dramatics. I was in one or two plays at Bennett. | 3:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you engaged to your husband at this time? | 3:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no. No. | 3:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you— | 3:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | I had other boyfriends [laughs]. | 3:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, were they from A&T? | 3:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they're from a A&T and from Smith. Yeah. | 4:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were you allowed to see them when you were— | 4:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | At Bennett? Oh, yes. They'd come call me. Yeah. Have dances. Oh yeah. | 4:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | What else? What other kinds of things were you involved in when you were at Bennett? | 4:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | Dramatics. That was most important. I did not sing, so I could not join the Glee Club. Yeah. It was just dramatics. | 4:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember any of your professors at Bennett or your teachers before talking about the situation of Black people and saying that there needed to be civil rights or questioning the system and saying that there should be some kind of action for change? | 4:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm trying to think. I finished Bennett it in '39, and to me it was just a way of life. It was not a questionable thing, as for a change, anything like that. I think the war started and it was still segregated. It wasn't until the 60s, was it not? When they had the walk-ins and everything like that. It was after the war. But it was just a way of life, no one questioned it, as I recall. | 5:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever read anything, books or essays or things in newspapers or periodicals, written by W.E.B. Du Bois or any of these race leaders who were criticizing the system when you were growing up? | 6:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I never was exposed to any of that. No. I never was exposed to any of that. | 6:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did your parents subscribe to a Black newspaper? | 7:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | A magazine that was called The Crisis. Mother took The Crisis. | 7:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | And did you read that? | 7:14 |
| Beatrice Swift | I never took too much to reading it. We took The Afro. Oh, I read The Afro. And the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Those were Black newspapers. Yeah. | 7:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did they come to your house or did you go someplace to buy them? | 7:30 |
| Beatrice Swift | The people would come by and deliver them. | 7:33 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you had a subscription? | 7:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. That type of thing. | 7:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Would it come through the regular mail or would they actually—somebody deliver it? | 7:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Someone would deliver it. There would be a person to say that they would order about fifty newspapers and just like a paper boy would have the customers. Well, that's the way the persons would do that sold the Norfolk Journal and Guide, The Afro America paper. | 7:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | You said your mother subscribed to The Crisis. That was the NAACP magazine. Did she belong to the NAACP? | 8:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no. It was just, she liked The Crisis magazine. And I'm trying to think, didn't W.E.B. Du Bois have something to do with The Crisis magazine? | 8:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah, he was the editor. | 8:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 8:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you never talked about what was written in— | 8:41 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no. Just didn't have the interest, I judge. | 8:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you ever remember anybody having ideas like that? Just maybe not doing anything about it, but talking about how things should be different? Not your professors, maybe a minister or just friends of yours in high school or—? | 8:51 |
| Beatrice Swift | I can—I often wondered myself. There was Central High School and they had a cafeteria and everything, and the Blacks didn't have anything like that. They had typing rooms. They could take typing. And Blacks didn't have anything like that. And I often wonder within myself, why? I questioned why was there such a difference? Yeah. When my parents were paying taxes, we were homeowners. But I just took it as a way of life that that's the way it was. I didn't question this. I questioned, but did not take any action. I wasn't bitter or anything like that. | 9:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you know people who were bitter? | 10:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | There was a man by the name of Tres Anderson that lived in Charlotte. He was one of the four leaders in getting Black mailmen. He questioned that system, as to why we didn't have Black postmen or anything like that. So I would say, I don't think he was bitter, but he was one of the promoters of getting Black postal workers. | 10:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Who was he? | 10:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | He was just a person that grew up in Charlotte. His name was Tres Van Anderson, as I recall. | 11:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | And how did you learn about him? About this campaign to get Black mailmen? | 11:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, you would read it in the paper. | 11:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | In what paper? | 11:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | In the Charlotte newspaper. | 11:22 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. So they'd write about that? | 11:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | They would write about that. | 11:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you know who he was? | 11:26 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, I knew him personally. | 11:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what did he do for a living? | 11:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm trying to see. I'm trying to think. I think he was a post—he ran on the railroad as a postal mail clerk. I think he did. | 11:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | So what was this campaign like? How did he pressure the powers that be to allow Blacks to deliver mail? | 12:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | I can't tell you how it was done. It was all in politics, I'm almost sure. Yeah. | 12:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | But there were no Black politicians back there in the local politics, were there? | 12:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, yeah. There was Dr. Charles and Bishop Dale. | 12:35 |
| Karen Ferguson | So they held offices in local politics? | 12:48 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm not a political person and I can't tell you. | 12:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | But they were leaders— | 13:01 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 13:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | And they had some connection with White people? | 13:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. That's the gist of it. Yeah. | 13:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | So when you finished up with Bennett, did you start working as a school teacher right away? | 13:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | I had a offer for a job in a place called Plymouth, North Carolina. And in checking with the location of the place, it's flat in Plymouth and coming right out of college, my doctor say I had a irregular—I had a murmur in my heart, and the place was too flat. So he advised me not to take that job. So I did not work my first year. And my second year, I vowed I was going to Plymouth or anywhere else. I was going to have me a job. So I got a job working in the county. The schools had not—they had city schools and county schools. | 13:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. This was Mecklenburg County? | 14:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, it was Mecklenburg County. And I had a job in a place called Huntersville. Yeah, Huntersville. That's where I worked, in Huntersville. I worked there a year and then I got a job in the city. | 14:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | How did you get your job? | 14:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. I'm going to tell you how I got my job in Huntersville. It so happened there was the Black lady, she was the supervisor, had White supervisors and Black supervisors, but she's the Black supervisor for the county, to get teachers and all. And she asked me, "Do you want a job?" I said, "Yes, Ms. Jackson, I'd love to have a job." "Well, I have a opening in Huntersville, come fill out this application." Which I did. And she arranged for the principal of the school to pick me up every morning and bring me back. So that's the way I got that job. | 14:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | And then the children, the schools were closed in the county so the children could pick cotton. That's when cotton was king. And while school was closed, I found out that there was going to be a vacancy at the Biddleville School. And I went to this principal, she was my first grade teacher. She told me she had made her selection. She had a vacancy, but she had made her selection. | 15:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | So I went to my—and I said, "Mama—" I said, "Do you know any White person you can get to talk and speak up for me?" I said, "What's that White lady's name that Marjon used to wash for and iron for?" And she told me the name. And I said, "Well, call her and tell her I want a job and help me get a job in the city." So she called up this lady and she said, "Beatrice, I'll be glad to speak to Mr. Harden for you. We are both in the same Sunday school class." So a day or two later, she called back, "Beatrice, Mr. Harden said for you and the daughter to come down there at a certain certain time and sign a contract." And that's the way I got my job. That's the way I started teaching in the city. | 15:52 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did people often do that? Did they try to get White— | 17:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. You have to. | 17:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | You had to? Why did you have to? | 17:07 |
| Beatrice Swift | If you wanted the job and the Black principal already had somebody else in mind, and they would take the White person's pick over than what they had in mind for the job. You see what I'm saying? | 17:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. So Whites had that much influence? | 17:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 17:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there other ways in which they could influence what happened in the schools? Can you remember as a school teacher? | 17:29 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, at one time we had separate meetings. We had the White teachers, they would meet once a month, and the Black teachers would meet once a month. All city Black teachers would meet at Second Ward High School, and all city White teachers would meet at Central High School. At that time, there were only two high schools, Central High School and Second Ward. And we'd have our teachers' association, and they would have their teachers' association. And of course, whatever the Whites did, the Blacks more or less would fall in line with what they did. Yeah. Support what they said, because they were more influential. There were more of them and everything. | 17:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there ever any cooperation between the two associations? | 18:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm trying to think. No, I don't recall them sponsoring anything as to coming together, fighting a cause or anything. I can't recall. | 18:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Within the school system, when you were working in segregated schools, did—was there a—did certain Black teachers have more prestige, or was there any hierarchy within the school teachers in the Black schools? | 19:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, yes. They had what they would say, some of them were just super teachers, you know what I mean? And then others that could not control the classroom or anything, they were considered a poor teacher. Yeah. | 19:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Could they keep their jobs? The ones that weren't so good. | 19:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | Some did and some didn't. Yeah. | 19:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | So would they be fired or? | 19:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, they would be fired. | 19:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | So how long did you teach at Biddleville School? | 19:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | I was assigned to Biddleville School. Biddleville School did not have enough teachers, so they needed a teacher at Fairview School. So I was transferred to Fairview School. Then Fairview School, Biddleville still wanted me as a teacher. Ms. Saso, at her school, so she asked for me to be transferred from Fairview School back to Biddleville school, because I was with her first. So I went back to Biddleville school, and I stayed at Biddleville school until they built Oaklawn School. | 20:05 |
| Beatrice Swift | And I got a letter from the school board wanting me to go and help with the opening of Oaklawn School, where Mrs. Saso, who was the principal of Biddleville, they transferred her to Oaklawn. So we were there together until she retired. And then years later, integration came and Oaklawn became fifth, fourth, sixth, fourth, and fifth grade, grammar grade. And I was transferred to Allenbrook, which was primary. They went [indistinct 00:21:57] first, second, third through sixth grade. I was transferred to Allenbrook and I stayed there for ten years. | 21:04 |
| Karen Ferguson | That was a desegregated school? | 22:05 |
| Beatrice Swift | Desegregated school, yeah. | 22:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Can you talk a little bit about desegregation? What were some of the good and bad things that you feel happened with desegregation? | 22:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | With me, it was all good. | 22:23 |
| Karen Ferguson | It was all good? | 22:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | Because I say that because in the segregated schools, we got secondhand books, we were limited to paper supply, to pencils, art supplies, in the segregated school, and books. When integration came, and I went into this White school, they had a book room, and you could go in there and get anything you wanted. In the Black school with segregation, I had to send in a requisition if I wanted a ream of paper, if I wanted a dozen of pencils, I'd have to write it down. | 22:26 |
| Beatrice Swift | And of course, the principal would order it from the school warehouse, I judge. But when I got into the—I judge was just going into heaven. But they just had a book room, and it was just stocked with materials, paper, paperclips, all the construction paper you wanted, and pencils, crayons. And you didn't even have to make out a requisition. You would just go and get what you wanted. I said, "Oh, mercy. I see the difference between the White and the Black." It was just like a different country entirely. | 23:16 |
| Karen Ferguson | What grades did you teach? | 24:05 |
| Beatrice Swift | I taught first grade. | 24:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | First grade? | 24:07 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. Now, when I was at Fairview, I taught first grade and I carried them at first grade to third grade. I kept them for three years. | 24:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you had all three grades in the class? | 24:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no, no. | 24:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | You moved? | 24:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | I moved. First year, I taught them first grade, then second grade, and then third grade. I enjoyed that experience, but I got a little tired of them. I knew each one, like a book. And I just enjoyed just getting a fresh group every year. Yeah. | 24:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you think that your role as the teacher was the same as the role of the teachers had played when you were growing up? Was it the same? [coughs] Excuse me. | 24:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | What would I say to that question? Repeat that question again. | 25:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were—do you think that teachers played the same role in the children's lives as they did when you were growing up, when you were teaching? | 25:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | I think they did more in the segregated school than they do as to when I was teaching in the integrated school. Because the teachers, they make you do, make you do, make you do, whether you wanted to or not. But nowadays, if you don't want to do, you don't want nobody forcing you to do anything to see where you need to go on and better yourself. If they see you cutting the food, they just let you cut the food, and that's it. | 25:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | So why do you think that that's different now? | 26:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | I think that they're not dedicated to teaching. It's just for the paycheck. That's what I feel about it. And then too, they can't touch the child now, and you can't do this. They'll get you for abuse and everything. And then you are limited as to what you can do. So you more or less just let it be and go on. | 26:27 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why do you think that teachers were so—why do you think Black teachers were so strict with their Black students in segregated schools? | 27:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, they wanted them to excel. They wanted them to be somebody. And they kept more or less saying that you can do, "I want you to be somebody." And just kept preaching that to you and all. And finally get the point over. | 27:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did you perceive your own mission to be when you were teaching in the segregated schools? What was your mission towards your students? | 27:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, my mission towards the students was to see that they learned how to read, write, and do number work, and how to be a good citizen, how to get along with one another, and to be fair and square. That was what I perceived myself doing with the kids. | 27:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Maybe we can go back to your husband a little bit. Sometime in here you met, you got married. When did you get married? | 28:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, this is my second marriage. My first marriage was to my daughter's father, and that was in '42. And then we divorced in I guess '50. And then in the meantime, my husband Henry, he was married and he had lost his wife. I told you Henry and I went together in high school. And then he called me up one day and we talked, and then we started seeing one another, and then we decided we wanted to get married. | 28:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | And when was that? | 29:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | That was in '50, about '53 I think it was. | 29:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | So for a few years in there you were a single mother? | 29:54 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, I was a single mother. | 29:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | How was that? How did you—who took care of your daughter? | 30:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | My mother. My mother was my nana. Yeah. Wynonna was seven years old when I married Henry. And then he adopted her with papers and everything. So we've been together ever since then. Forty some odd years. Yeah. | 30:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | That's good. When did you start working as a school teacher? In 19—when did you graduate from Bennett? | 30:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | I graduated from Bennett in '39, and I started working in '40. | 30:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | In '40? | 30:44 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 30:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | So right just before the war started, or it was already going on before the US joined? | 30:47 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. | 30:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was the Second World War like at home, on the home front here in Charlotte? | 30:56 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, well, we rationed things. Ration shoes, sugar, and I don't think they're rationing food, but I know shoes and sugar, they ration that. Had to get a stamp for shoes. And oh yeah, coal fuel was another scarce thing that was hard to get. Yeah. | 31:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you know anybody who was in the service? Did you have— | 31:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | My brother, he went to Guam. He was on Guam for about two years. And my first husband, he was in the service. And Henry was in the service too, Henry was in infantry. And my first husband was in chemical warfare. | 31:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he was gone away through most of the war? | 32:06 |
| Beatrice Swift | Most of the war. Yeah. | 32:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | How was that? So you were alone again. Did you have a child at that point? | 32:14 |
| Beatrice Swift | Let me see. I was working, and then Mack left and went to overseas. And then Wynonna was born while he was overseas, and then he came back and I was living in New Jersey. And then we decided to disagree, and I came back home, and then I got a job working. That's the way it was. And mother took care of Wynonna. | 32:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Why did you move to New Jersey? | 32:54 |
| Beatrice Swift | That was his home. | 32:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, I see. Where did you meet him, if you don't mind me asking? | 32:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | At Smith. I met him at Smith. | 32:55 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you were seeing him when you were at Bennett? | 33:03 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 33:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he came from New Jersey? | 33:07 |
| Beatrice Swift | To Smith. | 33:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | What was it like living up there? | 33:10 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, I lived with his parents and it was all right. I was glad to get back home. | 33:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you lived there during the war time when he was gone? | 33:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, I lived with mother and those, and then he came back and he was still in the service. And then I went to his family. | 33:29 |
| Karen Ferguson | When he got out of the service? | 33:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. Then he reenlisted in the service. | 33:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | What did he do for a living? | 33:44 |
| Beatrice Swift | He taught school. | 33:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you teach school up there too? | 33:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. What you mean? What he do for a living? | 33:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Other than— | 34:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | He reenlisted, I'm saying— | 34:00 |
| Karen Ferguson | I'm sorry. | 34:02 |
| Beatrice Swift | In the Army. | 34:03 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you teach school when you were up there? | 34:05 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no, no, no, no. | 34:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | So you came back here, and then you were back working in the schools, and you got married to your second husband. And what did you two do when you were a young couple? What kinds of organizations did you belong to? | 34:14 |
| Beatrice Swift | I belonged to my Modernettes Club, and he joined the Swings Club. | 34:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you ever go to The Excelsior Club? | 34:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, yes. | 34:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | Tell me about that. | 34:41 |
| Beatrice Swift | Saturday, Sunday afternoon. See, we would go together to the Excelsior Club and just mingle with the people. | 34:43 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, was the Excelsior Club, did you have to join it to go to use the— | 34:53 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm almost sure there was a membership fee, but Swift never paid a membership fee to join it. | 35:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Well, I know— | 35:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | I don't know. He say he didn't see the need of paying the money to buy liquor, when he could drink his liquor at home. | 35:14 |
| Karen Ferguson | So he was the [indistinct 00:35:32] | 35:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | [Coughs] Excuse me. You had some friends to come in and want to take them out someplace, he'd take them up to Excelsior Club. | 35:31 |
| Karen Ferguson | And they would just let him in? | 35:39 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, yeah. Yeah. He knew Jimmy and Jimmy would say, "Let him in." Yeah. | 35:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | So were you hanging around with the same group of people you'd hung around with in high school or— | 35:46 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, it was more or less that type of thing. | 35:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was it the same group of people who went to the Excelsior Club all the time? Or was there a very large membership there or? | 35:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, it was quite a large membership there. It was for men. The men were taking out the membership in the Excelsior Club. And if you take out a membership in the Excelsior Club, you in with the elites. That type of thing. Yeah. | 36:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where did the people who weren't in the elite, were there bars and things for them to go to? | 36:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | Now that's a good question. I think they had liquor houses, more or less. | 36:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, what's the difference between a liquor house and a bar? | 36:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, this way a person to sell liquor in his own home. You see what I'm saying? Now, a bar, it's just been recently that you could have a bar and sell liquor. Right? And there were, we call them cafes or cafeterias, that type of thing. And it's just been since, I don't know, 70s, where they've had places where they sell liquor. You had to get the license and all and sell liquor. | 36:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | So the Excelsior Club, because it was a club, it could have the bar and— | 37:32 |
| Beatrice Swift | And pay for the license, I'm thinking. I don't know what was involved in it. | 37:34 |
| Karen Ferguson | So the liquor houses wouldn't have been legal, technically legal? | 37:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | Right, right. right. | 37:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | And where would most of them located, you think? | 37:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Different areas. | 37:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | So they were everywhere. | 37:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | Everywhere. All over. | 37:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | Where did you live when you got married? | 38:02 |
| Beatrice Swift | I lived at home with mother. | 38:06 |
| Karen Ferguson | So your husband lived there with you in the— | 38:08 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 38:09 |
| Karen Ferguson | Your second marriage? | 38:11 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, no. He had a home. And I moved into his home with him. | 38:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | And where did he live? | 38:17 |
| Beatrice Swift | He lived on Fairmont Street. And that's in Washington Heights. | 38:20 |
| Karen Ferguson | Washington Heights. | 38:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | Not too far from Excelsior Club. About two and a half blocks from the Excelsior Club, coming this way. He lived on the street called Fairmont Street. | 38:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | And what did he do for a living? | 38:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | He's a plasterer, contract plasterer. | 38:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | I see. | 38:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. In fact, we built this home. | 38:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | And I've met many people who men have been plasterers. Was that an exclusively Black occupation when you were— | 38:44 |
| Beatrice Swift | More than likely. More so, yeah. | 38:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was it one of the better kinds of jobs that men could— | 38:59 |
| Beatrice Swift | Sure. It was good money. Yeah. | 39:02 |
| Karen Ferguson | And as a plasterer, or would he work with White contractors? | 39:05 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. And then he would contract work. He'd have people working for him. Yeah. | 39:10 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did he have both Black and White people working for him? | 39:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, he just only had Black people working for him, but most of his work came from White people. Yeah. | 39:18 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did he go to college? | 39:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. He just finished high school. | 39:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now, did he have to apprentice somewhere or did he learn— | 39:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, he had to apprentice that. | 39:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | And who did he apprentice with? Do you know? | 39:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | He got interested in it in high school, I'm thinking. Yeah. And his first wife's father was a plasterer, and I think he apprenticed with him. | 39:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How did he get started? Did you have to have some money to start your business supplies with? | 39:58 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah, you'd have to have your materials and your supplies, your tools and everything. And then people will ask you, you'd advertise. Yeah. And rental people, agents that rent houses, you know, would contact him too. He mostly did patchwork. Yeah. | 40:12 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there other kinds of jobs like a plasterer where people could work for themselves? | 40:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | There were bricklayers and there were painters. And then at one time they called them [indistinct 00:40:59] where they had taxes. | 40:50 |
| Karen Ferguson | And those were all things that Black people could do? | 41:04 |
| Beatrice Swift | Those were things that Black people could do. And then we had doctors. | 41:07 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about for women? | 41:16 |
| Beatrice Swift | Women taught school. That was mostly what they did. | 41:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | I guess beautician. | 41:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. Beauticians. Yeah. | 41:25 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now if somebody were a beautician, would that person be considered a professional, like a teacher? | 41:28 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. | 41:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | No? | 41:40 |
| Beatrice Swift | No. | 41:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Okay. We can talk a little bit about church now. Did your family attend a church? | 41:49 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yeah. | 41:54 |
| Karen Ferguson | What church did you attend? | 41:55 |
| Beatrice Swift | I attended Gethsemane AME Zion Church. Bishop Battles was the minister there, and he was made bishop from that church. But my husband was a Presbyterian, so when I married Henry, I joined the Presbyterian Church. So we went to First United Presbyterian Church up until two years ago. We moved our membership to Memorial Presbyterian on Beatties Ford Road. It's closer, and we enjoy it quite a bit. | 41:57 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that a big change for you to move from AME Zion to Presbyterian? | 42:37 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, not too much. They worked me to death in AME Zion Church [laughs]. | 42:45 |
| Karen Ferguson | [indistinct 00:42:56]. | 42:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | Working with Day Education Bible School, working with Sunday School and being a Sunday School teacher and being a Secretary of Sunday School, and being responsible for the Children's Day Program and the Easter Day Program, it was a relief, yes. Get to a church where I could sit down. | 42:56 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was there any difference in the religious services or the— | 43:24 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. It was shorter. | 43:28 |
| Karen Ferguson | It was shorter? | 43:30 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. Much shorter. | 43:30 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about the kinds of people who went to the AME Zion Church? | 43:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | The same. | 43:36 |
| Karen Ferguson | The same? | 43:36 |
| Beatrice Swift | The same class of people. You had a mixed congregation. Yeah. | 43:41 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you still attend church? | 43:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh yes. Make it every Sunday. My husband is a Ruling Elder in the Presbyterian Church, and I am ordained. What am I? I am an ordained Deacon. I was ordained in First United Presbyterian Church, and Henry was ordained over there too, as an Elder. And he's been an Elder, a Deacon, and a Trustee in the church. | 43:48 |
| Karen Ferguson | When you were going to United—First United Presbyterian, what kind of roles did your minister and the congregation play in community and civic affairs outside of the church? Was there anything that they did? | 44:25 |
| Beatrice Swift | I'm trying to see. It was where [indistinct 00:44:53]. They had an afterschool program going for high school students at First United. And that's the only thing that I can recall that they did. And the minister playing a role, I don't know of anything that he did, Reverend [indistinct 00:45:34] did. They did not have a Boy Scout program going, nor a Girl Scout program. | 44:40 |
| Karen Ferguson | How about at the church that you went to, the AME Zion Church that you went to? | 45:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, not until recent years. The only thing that they would have going would be—oh yes, they'd have daily Vacation Bible school. They'd have Bible School at the First United and then at Gethsemane AME Zion they would have Vacation Bible School. | 45:58 |
| Karen Ferguson | Did you go to that? | 46:15 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. In growing up, there was only one church that had—there were three churches in the community. There was the Baptist Church, the Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church. And for years, the Presbyterian Church was the only one that had daily Vacation Bible School, and it was open up for all children in the community. And I looked forward to going to—it was two weeks of that. And that went on, I don't know, for years and years it was nothing but the Presbyterian Church having daily Vacation Bible School, and eventually the Baptist Church and the Methodist Church started to have a daily Vacation Bible school. Yeah. | 46:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | You said that that Bishop Battle, did you mention him before in connection— Oh, I guess that was Bishop Dale you mentioned before. | 47:09 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. | 47:17 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was Bishop Battle involved in the same way? | 47:18 |
| Beatrice Swift | I don't know how to explain that to you because he's Chairman of the Board of Education. George Battle is. | 0:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | Now? | 0:13 |
| Beatrice Swift | Uh-huh, now. And he was made Bishop while he was minister of Gethsemane AME Zion Church. | 0:13 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that while you were going? | 0:20 |
| Beatrice Swift | Huh? | 0:21 |
| Karen Ferguson | Was that while you were still attending? | 0:23 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no. [coughs] Pardon me. It's just been in the last year that he was made Bishop. | 0:24 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. But, when you were growing up, was he involved in that kind of— | 0:31 |
| Beatrice Swift | He wasn't the minister. | 0:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 0:38 |
| Beatrice Swift | He wasn't the minister there. Had several ministers. | 0:39 |
| Karen Ferguson | Have you ever had a minister who was involved in that way? | 0:42 |
| Beatrice Swift | In politics? | 0:44 |
| Karen Ferguson | In politics, in local politics— | 0:45 |
| Beatrice Swift | No, no, no. No. No. | 0:47 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were there ministers who were? | 0:48 |
| Beatrice Swift | Not as I recall, no. [indistinct 00:00:56]. | 0:53 |
| Karen Ferguson | Were the ministers at any of your churches involved in the Civil Rights Movement when it started? | 1:00 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yes. The one at Seventh Street, First United. He marched with the group in Washington. And I think he was arrested with a group in Washington where [indistinct 00:01:28] was. | 1:05 |
| Karen Ferguson | And was the congregation involved in any way with the Civil Rights Movement? | 1:27 |
| Beatrice Swift | None other than supporting the kids and the younger ones and not shopping at places that were not integrated. | 1:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | Right. I see. Did that ever happen before the 1960s? That you wouldn't shop at places that weren't integrated—maybe they wouldn't be integrated then, but maybe that treated Blacks unfairly or? | 1:54 |
| Beatrice Swift | It only happened in the 60s? In the 60s. | 2:08 |
| Karen Ferguson | When your daughter was born—you have how many daughters? | 2:22 |
| Beatrice Swift | Just the one child. | 2:26 |
| Karen Ferguson | One child? When your daughter was born, when she was growing up, did you ever have to explain to her about segregation? | 2:26 |
| Beatrice Swift | Did she ever question me? I'm trying to think. No. She never questioned me about why she couldn't do this or why she couldn't do that, as I recall. Until she got older, and she was in college, and she wanted to join with the marches. And she went to Bennett College too. And she was determined that she was going to join in the marches and all, and she did it. And I told her to go help herself. Just don't get arrested. | 2:37 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you think you have ever been treated like a second class citizen in your life? | 3:50 |
| Beatrice Swift | Sure. When I couldn't sit down, go downtown and couldn't go to a restroom. It said, "White only," and I had no decent place to eat. It would not serve Black people, and I feel very indignant about it. Yeah. | 4:01 |
| Karen Ferguson | What do you think that that segregation has meant to your life? That kind of treatment has meant to you in your life? | 4:35 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, segregation and integration—versus integration. Things are more open now. It has made me see the world in a different perspective than when everything was closed. And I've been able to travel halfway around the world. I've been to Hong Kong, I've been to Tokyo. My daughter lives in Hong Kong. And just things are just open. And when I ask for a plane ticket, they don't say "Well, are you Black or White" or anything like that, you can just get your plane ticket and go wherever you want to. And when you sit on a plane, you make your own—select your own seat and everything. And it's quite a difference than when it was segregated. It's more open. I just feel freer in doing the things you want to do. Yeah. | 4:46 |
| Karen Ferguson | Do you think you lived day to day with a sense of limitations before? | 6:07 |
| Beatrice Swift | Yeah. There were certain things you couldn't do. As I said, you couldn't eat, you couldn't relieve yourself downtown. And now it's more open, you can go anywhere you want to. | 6:19 |
| Karen Ferguson | All right. Well, I guess we can—we'll finish up with that. We've been talking a long time. | 6:34 |
| Beatrice Swift | Oh, have we though? I hope it's been some help to you. | 6:38 |
| Karen Ferguson | It's been great. It's been very good. Just before we finish up, I have a few things. I've got a little bit of paperwork to do. | 6:43 |
| Beatrice Swift | Well, do you mind if I get— | 6:51 |
| Karen Ferguson | Sure. | 6:52 |
| Beatrice Swift | You— | 6:53 |
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