Eddie Francis interview recording, 1993 June 29
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Eddie Francis | Always the greatest losers, you know. But that's something I never want to go through again. And I hope I don't ever have to carry anybody through it. Even if I do. | 0:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you marry again? | 0:13 |
Eddie Francis | No. No. | 0:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you think race relationships have changed, from your daughter and the community, from your daughter growing up? | 0:16 |
Eddie Francis | It's changed. It's changed considerably. The things that we were fighting for, as children, the children of today are experiencing it. But the thing that bothers me, they don't seem to appreciate it. | 0:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | And why do you think that— | 0:38 |
Eddie Francis | In order for them to appreciate it, they would have to know some of the things that we experienced in life, in order for them to experience what they're experiencing today. They have to see the difference in the past and the present. And if you know your past, you see your present, and you can direct your future. | 0:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | I think that's all of my questions for the tape. Did you have anything else you wanted to add? | 1:12 |
Eddie Francis | I think that's it. That's it. | 1:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Testing, testing, testing. Mr. Francis, could you describe the area where you grew up? | 0:20 |
Eddie Francis | I grew up in an area called Delmar. It's in Enfield. And where I grew up, it used to be a mill there called the Delmar Mill years ago. And when the mill moved out, it was seven men in the area, all Black. They got together and they purchased the entire section, which was about 2300 acres of land. And at that time, it was the largest track of land known, in this area, to be purchased by Blacks at that time. | 0:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | And that was the 1920s? | 1:06 |
Eddie Francis | Yes. They purchased it in 1926. | 1:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. How did your family come to live in Delmar? Do you remember that? Anything about that? | 1:13 |
Eddie Francis | My grandfather used to run a commissary at that mill. And when the mill moved out, he was interested in acquiring some of the land, and he purchased it from some of the original owners who purchased it, and he bought several tracks of land. And he was able to eventually purchase enough that he felt he had a comfortable farm that he could provide for 14 children, large families in those days, on a farm. It was a way of survival, because the more help you had, the more land you could acquire. | 1:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you have any special remembrances of your grandfather? | 2:04 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, I sure do. My grandfather, he was a terrific man. He was one of the hardest working men that I've ever known in my life. And he was up in the morning before anybody else, working. And when everybody else had quit and gone to bed at night, he was still working. He always said five hours of sleep is enough for anybody. If you got more than that, you were missing out on something. And that's the way he worked all the time. And he lived until 1973. | 2:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 2:41 |
Eddie Francis | Was always a healthy man. And one of his sayings was that work has never hurt anybody. It's the worry that gets you. And evidently, he didn't have too much to worry about. He worked all the time, because he lived a good, healthy life. | 2:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | You said he owned a commissary. You know how he came to own the store? And can you talk about that? | 3:00 |
Eddie Francis | I don't know exactly how he came to own that store, but my grandfather was an adventurous person. And he saw the need for a commissary there, because, as I understand, it was about 200 to 300 workers at that mill, and there was no other place for them to acquire anything there. So, I believe that's the reason he went into the commissary business. And later, he had a store. And as each one of his sons would get married, he would move them in a house that was just across from his house, next to this store. | 3:09 |
Eddie Francis | And that's the way they would get their start in life. They would run the store for a while, then until they were ready to move out and go on wherever they were going and start their lives. But he always had that store there for any of his sons who wanted to move into the store and they would run the store. And I think that was his way of teaching them the principles of business, because he always believed in doing for yourself. | 3:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was he from Halifax County too? Or did he come from another— | 4:21 |
Eddie Francis | Yes, yes. No, he was born here in Halifax County. I don't know exactly where, but it wasn't in Delmar. | 4:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I was going to ask, did he ever have any problems with White people because he owned the store? | 4:33 |
Eddie Francis | No. My grandfather, he was respected by Whites. Things that he wanted, he would go to Whites and tell them. And for some reason, they would just support him. And even when he went to banks for loans, and I guess it was because of his reputation, and everybody knew that if he asked for something, he saw his way through it. And now, he was never one of those who bowed to White people just because they were White. Because he used to tell us, if you owe the White man something, pay him what you owe him and go on about your business. | 4:40 |
Eddie Francis | And that's just the way he was. But I've heard many Whites in the area, when I tell them I'm a Francis, they say, "Are you related to the Francis in Delmar?" And I say yes. They said, "James Francis?" I say, "That was my grandfather." And even today they said, "That was one wonderful man." And I remember when my grandfather passed, it's not often you find Whites that would attend the funerals of Black people, but in this case, it was several of them who did. Before the funeral they came to the house and they bought bread and they bought food and sodas and things, and they were extend their condolences. And they'd tell us what a wonderful man he was. But now, my grandmother— | 5:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | I was going to ask you about her. Okay. | 6:31 |
Eddie Francis | It was a mixture with my grandmother. My my grandmother's father was a White man who was a sheriff here in Halifax County. And I think that has something to do with the way they felt about her, and about him too. And I was looking up some deeds in the courthouse not long ago, and his name was Sheriff Dawson. And I saw on one of the deeds, in fact, it was a deed to some land that my grandfather acquired for a cemetery. And it had James Henry Dawson. | 6:36 |
Eddie Francis | And there's a crossroad near where the cemetery is, was Dawson Crossroad. And I didn't know Halifax County had two Dawson Crossroads until just a few weeks ago. And that's what it was. That was the name of it. James Henry. Sheriff Dawson's Crossroad. And then I found out that this was the Sheriff Dawson who was her father. But years ago, Whites often associated with Black women. They always said the Black woman and the White man are the two freest people on earth. And I guess there's a lot of truth to it. | 7:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was your grandmother like as a person? | 7:59 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, my grandmother, as far as I'm concerned, she was the greatest grandmother in the world. I guess a lot of people would say the same thing. Her hobbies were fishing and hunting. | 8:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, was she hunting? | 8:13 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, she hunted. She could out shoot any man. My grandfather used to invite people down to hunt on the farm. And they would come the beautiful hunting suits from New York and from Washington. And they would have a automatic shotguns and they'd be rabbit hunting. They would shoot at the rabbit and miss it. My grandmother had a little barrel, 410. When the rabbit come by, she would shoot and they would say, "Did you get him?" And my grandfather say, "She shot, she did." | 8:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did she work outside the home? | 8:46 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, yes, yes. She worked the fields. And well, when I came along, most of her work was over. My grandfather, he worked up until the last day. But it was an enjoyment for him to get out on the farm. But my grandmother, so far as the garden, my grandmother always made sure that the garden was intact and the orchard was intact. And what we call a cellar, they had, I think, I believe, to be the first house in Halifax County that was built with the basement to it. And my grandfather built that house with his sons. And all of his sons could do carpentry work, with an exception maybe of one or two. And I think by doing these things, he would always build his barns and his storage houses, everything. And he built this house and he showed me the receipts for this house. | 8:49 |
Eddie Francis | It was $2100. He built this house and I think it was a 14 room house. And I remember it had the Corvallis lights in it. I had never even heard of Corvallis lights. And I've only seen maybe one or two houses who had the Corvallis lights. | 9:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | What are those? | 10:09 |
Eddie Francis | Corvallis is something like a gas. It was a powder. The people would come by and put it in. But you had bright lights instead of the lamps. You'd strain your eyes to read. | 10:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, before electric light. | 10:20 |
Eddie Francis | Right. That was before. Yeah. Well, that was the modern day electric lights at that time. Then electricity came. | 10:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 10:28 |
Eddie Francis | But even today, the Corvallis fixtures are still in that house. | 10:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you have any remembrances of your other set of grandparents? | 10:34 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, yes. My mother's parents. Now, my mother's parents, they were wonderful grandparents. But my grandmother on my mother's side, she was quick to get the switch. She was a strict disciplinarian and she always believed in doing it with the switch, which was just the opposite from my other grandmother. My other grandmother was, she wouldn't dare let anybody whip us unless we were really doing—But my grandmother on my mother's side, they were sharecroppers. | 10:38 |
Eddie Francis | They lived on a White man's farm. And I remember as a boy growing up, we used to go down to stay with my grandmother when my mother and father was going someplace. And there was some White boys who lived across the road, the Morrises. And they had the motor scooters. Even as little kids, they had all them modern day conveniences. And it was a wealthy family. And they would come over with their little motor scooters. And we would wait for them to come over so we could ride the motor scooters. | 11:18 |
Eddie Francis | And I didn't notice this until later in life, but they would always ride us up behind the house and down through the woods. They would never ride us on the highway where anybody could see us. And then later in life I began to identify with the reason they were doing this. Because Whites weren't allowed to be seen playing— | 11:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Even as children? | 12:08 |
Eddie Francis | Even as children, weren't allowed to be seen playing. And the same kids, later when we started to school, we would walk to school. And the White kids always were in the school bus. And we would be walking the school, and when the Whites on the buses would pass us, they would throw things out the window. Bottles, soda bottles, rocks, sticks. And we would always have to be on guard to dodge. They didn't do it every day, but occasionally they just, "Oh, here they come. Get ready." | 12:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they ever get in trouble for doing that, or? | 12:47 |
Eddie Francis | No. Because if you reported it, they wouldn't do anything to them. I remember one in incident, a boy was struck in the head by a soda bottle. And I mean, it put a real gash in his head. And the principal of the school, we went to the school and told him what happened. And he said, "Well, it's no need to making no big deal out of it. They not going to do anything about it." I don't think, until this day, they reported it. But now, when we got to high school, it was somewhat of a different story. We rode the bus to high school, because that was like eight mile away. And I remember one incident, our bus driver, you're supposed to stop for the railroad before crossing. And I remember one day, our bus driver was a guy I grew up with just across the field. | 12:49 |
Eddie Francis | And he stopped for the railroad. And you station a person to look both ways before you cross. And a White man said the bus driver didn't stop. And he reported it. And the superintendent, who was Overman at that time, he called the school and told the principal about it. And the principal asked him about it. And now, this principal was different than the principal in elementary school. He was somewhat what we call Uncle Tom. He just went along with the White man wishes. And so Mr. Wilder, our high school principal, he called when we got ready to load the bus that day after they called. He asked everybody, "Did Clinton Scott stop for the railroad?" "Yes, sir. Mr. Wilder." So, Mr. Wilder told them that everybody on the bus said he stopped. But this one White man said he didn't. | 13:46 |
Eddie Francis | And they took his license and the superintendent told him—Didn't take his license, took the bus, told him that he couldn't drive bus anymore, because of that one White man word. But he never came to the school to challenge it or anything. Just a telephone call. And this same principal, Mr. Wilder, now, he was a man of principle. And we had a janitor at the school who was handicapped. He was paralyzed in one leg, but he was a man that everybody at the school respected. He demanded respect. And he may have been a little slower getting the job done, but he did the job. We never attended a dirty school, especially as long as he was there. And Mrs. Johnson. Well, Mrs. Willa Blacksheir now. But at that time it was Willa Cofield, then Willa Johnson, then Blacksheir. She was married to a man by the name of Reid Johnson. | 14:44 |
Eddie Francis | Reid Johnson was a man, he stood strong on his convictions. The first demonstration I participated in was in Enfield, a place called the Plantation Grill. It was right on 301. 301 was the main highway going north and south in those days. And Reid wanted to demonstrate on this place, because they wouldn't feed Blacks. The only thing you went in there for to wash dishes and sweep the floor. And he was trying to get a group of people, so I volunteered. I was living in Washington at that time, and I volunteered to participate in the demonstration. And he started demonstrating. And then his wife was teaching at school. She was the English teacher in high school. And I think this could have contributed to it too. Mr. Overman wanted Mrs. Johnson and wanted Major Pittman, the janitor, he wanted them fired. So— | 15:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did he want Mr. Pittman fired? [indistinct 00:16:57]? | 16:54 |
Eddie Francis | I can't understand. Well, I never understood why. He just did. He just didn't want him there. But it sure wasn't because of his performance, because we were there to see his performance. And Mr. Wilder told Mr. Overman— | 16:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mr. Overman is? | 17:13 |
Eddie Francis | Was the superintendent. After Mr. Overman gave him the instruction to get rid of these two individuals, Mr. Wilder told him, said, "Well, Mr. Overman, I'm satisfied with their performance." Said, "So, if you are not satisfied with their performance, then you'll have to fire them. He said, "Well, I'll just fire you." And so Mr. Overman fired Mr. Wilder. And then they hired Mr. Luther Williams to succeed Mr. Wilder. I mean to replace Mr. Wilder. So, Mr. Williams came in, that's the first thing he did. He fired Major Pitman and he fired Ms. Johnson. And I guess that was putting security on his job. He just retired a few years ago. | 17:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, when they fired the Mr. Wilder, was this during the early 60s? Or the late 50s? | 18:10 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, early 60s. In fact, I think, yeah, it was early 60s. In fact, I think it was the year of 1960. And the 1961 school year, I think that was when they got rid of Mr. Wilder. But Mr. Wilder was no doubt, in my mind, just a good principal as has ever held the job. And Mr. Wilder, he passed just about three years ago. And Ms. Johnson later, shortly after that, she filed a discrimination suit against the Halifax School Board. And I think got what she want. She beat the case and it was something like 60 or 70 some thousand dollars that she got, she was awarded because of the discrimination case. | 18:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Can we go back and talk some more about your elementary school? And what type of school it was? | 19:06 |
Eddie Francis | My elementary school was what was known as the Rosenwald Schools, back in the early days of Black education. It was a man named Mr. Rosenwald who had the schools built. They raised money to build these schools. And well, I guess throughout the South, but I'm familiar with almost all of them that were in Halifax County at the time. And they were three and four room schools. But I remember they were built with partitions between the classrooms, so if you had something at school, you could open the partitions up and have one big room for whatever was taking place. And then you could close the partitions and cordon it off so you would have the private classrooms. | 19:12 |
Eddie Francis | And the one, my elementary school I attended was McDaniel Elementary School. But it was in the Daniels Chapel community. And I remember times we didn't even have water at the school. In fact, I remember when they finally put water in the school, they wouldn't even us a well. They ran the pipes from the church well to the school. In those days they had all of the modern day facilities in the White schools. But the, wouldn't even dig a well for us at our school. They ran it. And that's the way it was with most of the schools, because they usually built those schools near a Black church. And some of them were named after that community. | 20:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did the community help? I know since the schools were lacking in some of its basic needs, did the community help try to supplement some of those needs? | 20:56 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, yes. We could always go to the nearest person's house to get water when the pump wasn't working or something. But so far as lunches and so forth, we didn't have any of that. Lunch was always in your box or your bag when you got to school. | 21:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Children had to bring their lunch. | 21:22 |
Eddie Francis | That's true. And it was rough for some in those days. I remember one case in particular where it was a large family, but they would come to school and they would bring herring fish and cornbread. And the teacher would let them go into the cloak room. | 21:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? So they could— | 21:47 |
Eddie Francis | They were embarrassed. | 21:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 21:50 |
Eddie Francis | But it was just survival. We were all having a hard time, but to some it didn't look as bad as others. But we managed to get through it. | 21:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you have any remembrances of any of your teachers in elementary school? | 22:03 |
Eddie Francis | Every one of them. | 22:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 22:11 |
Eddie Francis | Quite vivid. | 22:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Does anything stand out in your mind? | 22:12 |
Eddie Francis | Oh yes. My first grade teacher was Ms. Margaret Scott, who was married to my cousin. And my second grade teacher happened to be my aunt who was Nancy Francis. And she was my second and third. Back then, one teacher would teach two classes. And Ms. Eason, who lives in Hertford, North Carolina, I saw her just a few weeks ago. She was my fourth and fifth grade teacher. And my principal, the sixth and seventh grade teacher, you never forget him for his whippings. I mean, this man, to me, he just loved punishing, you know? Because he wouldn't even ask questions. I remember once, we had the pot belly stoves, and he used to stick these long switches into the heater and when they were burned, he would hit you with the fire on the switch. | 22:13 |
Eddie Francis | And I remember one he struck at my brother, because he was talking or something, and they got some fire from the stick in my brother's ear. And that's the first time I ever seen my father really mad with anybody. My father was a very humble man. And when we went home and told my father what happened, he went out there. And I really think he wouldn't have taken anything for him to really beat the man up a chop. But he told me, he said, "Now, I whip my children. I don't have any problem with that." He said, "But I never burned one and nobody else is going to do it and get away with it." He said, "Don't you ever hit my children, any of my children, with a stick with fire it again as long as you live." And after that, I think that kind of—In fact the doctor that they took my brother to was a White doctor. And he tried to get my father to press charges, but he wouldn't. | 23:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Could you go back and talk some more about, I asked you about your grandparents. Could you talk some about your parents? What were they like? | 24:17 |
Eddie Francis | Oh yeah, yeah. Well, my parents, my mother was a nice, easygoing, very religious person, and so was my father. I remember as kids growing up, my father was a superintendent of Sunday school. Church was a way of life with us. When Sunday came, it was no question what you were going to do. | 24:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what church did your family attend? | 24:43 |
Eddie Francis | Daniel's Chapel Baptist Church. | 24:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 24:46 |
Eddie Francis | And it was a walking distance from our house. And in those days, the children enjoyed getting up, walking to Sunday school with the other children. Sometime we would walk with the group, and then sometime we would ride, but, to us, it was a disadvantage to have the ride, because you missed the walk with the other children. You always look forward to Sunday, even to just walking up and down the Daniel's Chapel Road to the railroad and back to the main road. And we were always active in Sunday school and church, and as well as my mother. And I remember we used to have to go to represent the Sunday school at the Sunday school conventions, and churches at the church convention. It was always a challenge, because there was nine of us in my family. | 24:46 |
Eddie Francis | And my mother, when they would ask for volunteers to speak for the Sunday school or speak for the church, my mother would even ask us. She would just say, "Well, I have two," or, "I have three." And I always knew I was one of them. And we would go to speak. And then those days, the first prize was $5. The second prize was $3. And the third prize was $2. And I remember one incident, my brother won first place, I won second place, and my sister won third place at the Halifax County Sunday School. | 25:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you did a sweep. | 26:11 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, so and my mother, she still is a very terrific speaker, and she loved poems. And everywhere she goes, she carried poems with her, just in case she need them. And when the three of us won, the judges came out and they announced it. Then they went back. They said it wasn't fair to give all three prizes to one Sunday school, and particularly to one family. So they didn't want to do it, and they knew they were going to cause confusion if they didn't, once they announced it. So they called my mother in the back and they told my mother what the situation was. My mother said, "It doesn't matter to me." She said, "I know who earned them. You can give them to who you want to." | 26:13 |
Eddie Francis | So, they changed it and gave the third prize to somebody else. But that was my first and last time winning second place. From then on, it was always the first prize for me, because my brother, he rode me so hard after that. We would be in the field working and he would start saying a speech or something. He said, "And you better be practicing or something." And I just got tired of it, so I just made up my mind. I said, "This is never going to happen to me again." And it didn't. It never did. | 27:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Can you talk some about what your father was like? | 27:37 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, my father, he was a easygoing person, but he was a strict disciplinarian too now. My mother would say things like, "I'm going to tell your daddy," if we got to that point. But usually she would just take care of the situation. But my father wasn't the type of guy that would constantly punish you. She would tell him something on Monday or Tuesday—And my brother and I, we were responsible for feeding the livestock. And we were guilty of not always feeding them like we were supposed to. We would say we fed him or something. But my father would always check. And on Sunday morning, everything would be totaled up and he'd be ready to pay off with the switch. He would always come in on Sunday mornings, just before you get out of bed. And he said, "You remember the other day when I told you to water the hogs and you said you watered them?" | 27:42 |
Eddie Francis | He said, "Well, when you water the hogs, the trough is always left wet. And I checked him and you told a tale." But he would water, but he wouldn't say anything. But then when he got ready to punish you. And when my father whip you, you didn't forget it the next day. And you never appreciate it then, but late in life, when you stop to think that he never had to come get one out of jail or never had to witness one going to jail or anything, I guess it all paid off in the long run. | 28:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | You said your parents both farmed? | 29:22 |
Eddie Francis | Yes. | 29:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they own their own land? | 29:25 |
Eddie Francis | Yes. My father bought a 58 acre farm in 1950. But until then, he was renting the same farm, 58 acre farm, that was part of this 2300 acre track I was talking about was purchased by all Blacks. | 29:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. So, he rented from a Black person? | 29:47 |
Eddie Francis | Yes, yes. All the land, the entire community that I grew up in, it was owned by Blacks, all of my life, until last year they sold one White man, I think it was—I'm not sure, but I think it was 173 acre track of land in there. But until then, it was an all Black community. | 29:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like? Were you ever in contact with Whites that much and things? | 30:13 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, sure. Yeah. Almost constantly. Not maybe directly, but the Whites were always coming in to try to sell fertilizer. And my grandfather, he was noted as a great farmer. People used to come from all over to ride down on Sunday. It was a dead end road. The dead end at the railroad. And my grandfather would not plant anything in a crooked row. When he planted the first row of whatever he was planting, I have known him to plant that one row at least three and four times. It had to be exactly straight and he would plant the rest of them from that. He just could not stand a crooked row of anything. And I remember people used to come down just to ride by to look at his place. | 30:18 |
Eddie Francis | And sometime they would even, they were sneaky, they'd have a camera and take a picture of the straight rows and his place. And always kept everything clean, like grass. Some people were lazy and wouldn't keep the grass out of the crop. My grandfather didn't believe in harvesting grass. Only the crop that he was interested in harvesting, usually. That's what it was he was harvesting. And people were always interested in how many bags of peanuts he made per acre, and how many bushel of soybeans he made per acre, how many bales of cotton. But my grandfather, he didn't care too much for tobacco. He always said there's more work in tobacco than tobacco's worth. | 31:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | So, he farmed cotton? And so, what crops did he farm? | 31:54 |
Eddie Francis | He raised cotton, corn, peanuts. Now. he had a tobacco allotment, but as far back as I can remember, he always rented that allotment out, because— | 31:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | [indistinct 00:32:09] somebody's grandpa. Okay. I'm sorry. You said he had a tobacco allotment but he didn't— | 32:09 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, he always rented that allotment out, because he said it was too much work in tobacco, in those days. | 32:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were growing up, did you have to help work in the farm? | 32:22 |
Eddie Francis | Did you put it on? | 32:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 32:23 |
Eddie Francis | Oh. | 32:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 32:23 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, yes. Worked on the farm every day. We used to get up in the morning, five o'clock in the morning, and work, sometime two hours before going to school. Then we would come home from the school directly, and my mother would have the food ready when we got home from the school. And then we would go in the fields and work until dark. And on Saturdays we always worked at least a half a day on Saturdays. And depending on the time of the year, but during the time of the year when the crop is coming on to chopping and the plowing and so forth, we always worked every day. And that was another thing about the school, and it used to bother me when we were in school. The children who lived on a White man's farm, the only time some of them would come to school was when it rained so bad that night they couldn't get in the field to work. | 32:27 |
Eddie Francis | The next day the classrooms were full. And I remember sometimes, about one o'clock, sometimes 12:00 or 1 o'clock, that White man was at the school with his truck and he would come up there, this was the elementary school, and he would just blow his horn. And we had one teacher who they would find out he was out there and she would go to every classroom and she said, "Everybody on Mr. Birch farm, everybody from Mr. Meyer's farm, he's out there waiting for you." And some of the kids, could see the embarrassment. They would get their books and some of would even leave the books and just walk out. | 33:25 |
Eddie Francis | And they would get on the truck and this man would pull off, taking his help home. And I was always thankful to God that my parents didn't allow us to go through that, but I was always sympathetic toward those who had to do it. And some of those kids, I followed them. And today some of those sharecroppers, like Good and [indistinct 00:34:30], he used to be a sharecropper up here in North Hampton County. And there were many of them just like him, who, they went off on their own, but did good. | 34:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did the teachers try to help them, since they couldn't go to school as much as the other kids? | 34:40 |
Eddie Francis | They didn't even have—Well, the people weren't even interested. The school system, the school board, the school system weren't even interested in those days in tutoring programs. You either got it when it was going or you didn't get it at all. And then, later on, they had the night schools. And when night school started, it was mostly for adults. But now they have it so you can get it night, or day, or in between. But I don't recall any such programs in those days. | 34:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you remember any things, I'm sorry, losing my voice, that your parents or your grandparents told you when you were a child, how to behave in front of White people? Anything they told you about that? Or told you about segregation and what to do? | 35:27 |
Eddie Francis | That was mostly they would set examples. Now, like I said, my grandfather, he respected everybody. But I guess it's like they said about Jesus in the Bible, he have no respect of persons. And my grandfather, he was the same way. Now my father, he never bowed. But I remember once, in fact the year was 1963, I came home from Washington to go to buy a hunting license from a place—No, buy some shells, because I was going to go hunting. And my father went with me to this place. And the man who owned this place, he was a big White farmer. And the man was talking and he was saying yes and no. And my father said, "Yes, sir." I said, "Wait a minute." I said, "Don't. If there's any sir'ing to be done, we are the one that's buying." | 35:42 |
Eddie Francis | And when we got in the car, I was telling him, I said, "When you go someplace to spend money, don't say 'sir' to White people. If you spending your money with them, let them say sir to you because that's the way it's supposed to be." And he said, "Well, you have to do what you have to do to get along." But I never believed that. But that was the way he was brought up. But as time changed, I guess people changed. But I just never liked seeing people bow to Whites because they were White, or because the Whites thought they were superior. Because that's never been part of my belief. | 36:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | And I'm sorry, you said, how many brothers and sisters did you have? | 37:15 |
Eddie Francis | It was nine in the family. Right. | 37:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Nine. Okay. Did you have chores around the house to do? | 37:19 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, sure. In fact, we were responsible for everything around the house. Cutting the grass, cutting the ditch banks every year. When the farming begin at spring season, it's always work on the farm. It's no such thing as a break on the farm, that's if you farming like you're supposed to, because there's always something to do. And the certain days of the year it's time to start. | 37:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Sorry, there's a little ant on you. Okay. | 37:48 |
Eddie Francis | They're supposed to start cleaning the ditch banks, then you start breaking land. And when we were farming, we were breaking land with mules. I mean, my brother and I, we had to walk over every foot of the land. But to us, it was a way of life. And the hardest part of any job is dreading it. If you know that's the way it is and you got to do it, you just go and do it, and the job is two-thirds done. But if you sit around and cry about it, it just makes the job harder. And that's the way I found it then, and I still believe that today. | 37:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what were the holidays like in your home? | 38:25 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, see, the 4th of July—Well, holidays was time for celebration. Families coming together. And our community was so close-knit. I have never—I've traveled all over these United States, and I have yet to see a community that was as close as the community I grew up in. This community was so close. If one person really got sick, I think most of the people in there would at least get a fever, because I remember they would come with their home remedies and everything. And doctors were hard to find in those days. Only time you went to a doctor in those days was after everybody had done everything they could for you and nothing else worked. Then they would try to get a doctor. And that was a job, even in those days. The first doctor I remember was Dr. Bryan coming to Enfield. And he stayed here for a few years and he left. | 38:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | He was a Black doctor? | 39:32 |
Eddie Francis | Yes. Because there just wasn't enough business here to support him. And I remember when I was in the elementary school, an incident with the doctor. I fell and I sprained my wrist and my thumb. And my wrist swoll up. We thought it had broken it. And my first grade teacher took me to the doctor. And this doctor gave me any medicine and we were on our way back to school. And I swear to the day that this man told me to take that medicine once a day, when it was hurting. And on the way back to school, I looked at the bottle. We stopped and we got the medicine. And I saw the skeleton on the bottle. And I told my teacher, I said, "This thing says poison." | 39:35 |
Eddie Francis | She said, "No," said, "It can't be." I said, "That's what it says." She looked at it. She said, "Sure is." So, we went on to the school and she showed it to my principal. In those days we had no telephones in the school. We went back to town. He said, "No, no, no. I told him to soak his hand in it twice a day." And it was a sprain. We thought it was broken. But, now that was a White doctor. But in those days they had, what was the [indistinct 00:40:43] insurance and insurance paid for the accidents. And I think the teachers were instructed to take their patients to this particular doctor. But I never went to that doctor again, and never recommended him to anybody. | 40:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have people in the community try to help people when they got sick? | 40:59 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, sure, sure. When the word went out that somebody was sick, it was almost like constant visitation. And I remember sometime people would sit up in the house so late at night, it was enough to make the people sicker instead of trying to get them well. And the same community where I lived, it was in 1949 I think, man by the name of Mr. Jim Marilyn Scott, who lived just across from us, he built a store. A new store. I mean, it was a nice store. And that became a community center. And Blacks would come from all over. At night they would sit and talk. And he had this huge fan that would keep them cool. And they would sit and drink and kids weren't allowed to sit around and listen to the old folks talk. Well, this man, he was a great lover of children, not just his own. He had nine of his own, but he just loved children. And he gave us a ball diamond behind that store. | 41:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | A baseball diamond? | 42:07 |
Eddie Francis | A baseball diamond, yes. And he gave us the balls, the basket gloves. He didn't ask anybody else in the community or the county or town, anybody. He gave us this himself. And of course he was a great lover of the game of baseball, period. But he wouldn't allow us to play on Sunday. That was the only thing. We could play ball anytime except for Sundays. And I remember sometime we would be playing ball and the temperature would be in the upper 90s or sometime approaching 100. And he would send his boys down to his house to pump a half a tub of water. | 42:08 |
Eddie Francis | And he would roll the lemons and make lemonade. And sometimes, as kids, you thought of having a soda, which was only five cent in those days, you thought it was a big thing. So, we would take the lemonade. We would rinse out a soda bottle and pour the lemonade in a soda bottle and drink. But later in life, I realized how important—in fact, he just died last year. And for somebody to just give you these things, and then watching you play the game, he see you sweating. He knew soda was only five cent, but he also knew half of us couldn't afford them. And he would give us the lemonade, because lemonade was cheap. But yet and still, it was just as good as any soda you could get. | 42:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | You talked about playing baseball. What other kind of games did you play growing up with you and your friends for fun? | 43:28 |
Eddie Francis | That was about it. Baseball and softball. It was never football. Well, we weren't that familiar with the game, and as rough as football is, I don't think we would've excelled in the game. | 43:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever play basketball? | 43:50 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, yes. Basketball. Yes, basketball. But in high school. And you didn't even get to basketball until you went to high school. And I remember when we would go to another town and we'd win the game, and you know how you always tease the other guy, "Man, you get your game together and we'll come back and play you again. Practice or something." And some of the guys couldn't take the joke and the fighting would start. We'd have a little spat or something. Or sometimes they would come out throw at the bus or something when they get ready to leave. And some of those same people, I see them now, and even today we kid about it. | 43:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Could you talk to him about your high school then? Or did we get everything? Did you want to add anything about elementary school? Or anything you remember? Or we could go on high school now. | 44:36 |
Eddie Francis | Okay, now high school, the thing that stand out in my mind most is Mr. Wilder, the principal I was talking about they fired. Now, he was a terrific principal. In those days, I don't think the Whites wanted us to have the teachers who were really dedicated to educating Blacks. And I remember one incident when we—well, this was before I went to high school. They were trying to give, it was a man by the name of Mr. Marcellus Miller. He was like a genius. He lives in Rocky Mountain. | 44:43 |
Eddie Francis | And practically everybody around here know Mr. Marcellus Miller. He taught in several of the schools. And he taught at Eastman High School. And he always believed that they should have a business administration in their curriculum. So, he would get the people together and the superintendent would always tell him, "Okay, if you want a business administration department, you buy the typewriters and the desks and you buy the equipment, and we'll see that you get it," thinking they couldn't do it. | 45:27 |
Eddie Francis | And they would go into the community. And Mr. Holmes, who was the principal of Eastman, he would go into the community. I remember many times he would come to my grandparents' house and come to our house and go into the garden and get the vegetables. They had what was called the teacher [indistinct 00:46:16]. It was a two-story building, had about six rooms in it that the teachers stayed in. And each week, two teachers were responsible for cooking. But he always made himself responsible for getting the food to cook. And it had to be donated. And my grandparents in particular, used to raise food just for the teachers. | 45:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 46:39 |
Eddie Francis | The garden was always extended because of the teachers. Strawberry time they would come down and pick strawberries. And— | 46:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did the teachers not get paid enough, so they could do that? Or why did they do that for the teachers? | 46:48 |
Eddie Francis | Well, no, the teachers, as far as I'm concerned, teachers have never been paid what they deserve. In fact, today, they should be getting hazards of duty pay, on top of what they're giving them. But they had to be doing it out of dedication, because it just wasn't that much money in it, and particularly in those days. And Mr. Miller, who was teaching at Eastman, he went out into the community along with Mr. Holmes, and I remember when they were raising the money. | 46:54 |
Eddie Francis | —Springs and it was in Aurelian Springs. So when they paid for the desks, they ordered me to pay for them, they sent the new desks and the new typewriter to Aurelian Springs, the White school, then they sent the old desks to Eastman School. So when the truck came with the equipment, Mr. Holmes told Mr. Miller, said, "Your equipment has finally arrived." Mr. Miller went out and looked at it. And he was standing on the ground and he saw written under one the desks, said Aurelian Springs. He told the truck driver, he said, "Don't take one piece of it off." And they said, "Why not?" He said, "Because I want the typewriters and the desks we paid for. We're not going to take any used typewriter from Aurelian Spring." | 0:00 |
Eddie Francis | So Mr. Holmes told Mr. Miller, said, "Mr. Miller," he said, "Now, I may not be able to defend you in this action." Mr. Miller said, "I don't need anybody to defend me." He said, "I'll defend myself. Don't take a piece of it off that truck, carry it right back where you got it from and bring the new equipment." So the next day they contacted Mr. Miller and Mr. Miller told them he was not going to take it, and they fired Mr. Miller. Mr. Miller left there and went to Phillips High School. | 0:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where was Phillips High School? | 1:30 |
Eddie Francis | In Edgecombe County. | 1:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 1:32 |
Eddie Francis | And he started teaching there. And he did the same thing in Phillips High School. He established a fitness department in Phillips High School. In fact, Mr. Miller is living today. And he was one of the healthiest 80 or 90-year-old individual I've ever seen anyway. And in fact, we are good friends. | 1:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | In high school you've mentioned you played basketball. What other things did you do aside from your academic work while you were in high school? | 2:06 |
Eddie Francis | That's it. And when you got to school, it was class time. The recess was the only real social time you had. And one reason I didn't make the basketball team, I couldn't play on the regular team, was because you had to practice after school. And living eight mile in the country you just couldn't get out there, and the majority of the basketball players all lived in town because they could hang around the school two or three hours and then go home. But it was no hanging time for us. We head straight for the bus, head home for work. | 2:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was dating like, or courting like, when you were in high school? | 2:57 |
Eddie Francis | In those days it wasn't that much courting. I guess that was one of the things you looked forward to when you went to school, was seeing your girlfriend. And if you happened to have one that ride the same bus, you always had a seat reserved for her on the bus. We'd call it holding the seat. And you'd get on the bus early and you'd hold the seat, or she would get on the bus early. And usually everybody on the bus knew who the seat was reserved for. And parents were so strict in those days, they didn't allow girls to go out. In fact, if you took a girl to the prom, Mom would be there. | 3:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 3:46 |
Eddie Francis | They would always say, "We just come to see the girls' gowns." But we knew whose gown she was looking out for. | 3:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 3:56 |
Eddie Francis | But I can respect it, because I guess we need more of that today with the teen pregnancy and everything. You hardly ever heard of a girl getting pregnant in those days. But one thing, when one got pregnant, I think they were too hard on them. Because some of the same people who had done the same thing and had lived to the point where they thought everybody had forgot it, they would be the first ones to complain, so and so. And the church was another thing. Whenever they heard of a girl getting pregnant, the first thing they'd do, have a meeting, call a conference meeting. And they would call the girl and the guy before the church. Oh, it was really embarrassing. And when you see who was sitting on the board making the decisions and knowing their background, what they were like, you wonder how could they even allow themselves to sit on the board and make such a decision? | 3:58 |
Eddie Francis | They'd call them in, "Well, we're going to put you out the church." And today they have a problem getting the young people to come to church because they see what's in the church, that's driving them away. And this starts even with the pastor. You see who's in there, and that used to be the strong point for the Black community, was the church. That was the basis of survival for the Black church. But today there are ministers making a mockery out of the profession and they're making a mockery of the church. | 4:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, I'm going to go on. What did you do after high school? | 5:31 |
Eddie Francis | I left home to go to Washington. | 5:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. Why did you decide to go to Washington? | 5:40 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, it was rough here. I decided to go long before I was old enough to go. It was a boy that lived, the same guy who was driving this bus, that they took his bus because they said he didn't stop for the railroad, he went to Washington a few years before I did. And in those days if you were from North Carolina, I don't know why, people would hire you, we just had a reputation of being good workers. And this guy, he was a supervisor at the Post Office. And I went to Washington, I think it was in October. And he told me, he said, "Well, you can come down and work with me until you can find something better." And they would hire for the Christmas rush, and they would start hiring in October for the Christmas rush. And when I went down for the interview, and they were going to start me out with $3.50 an hour. And we'd been making $3 a day on the farm. | 5:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's pretty good, yeah, $3.50. | 6:45 |
Eddie Francis | I said, "$3.50 an hour." I said, "I can't understand why he said until I get something better." I wondered if it was going get any better than that. So I took the job, and being used to hard work, the Post Office wasn't enough work for me. So I found a part-time job at a delicatessen. Then I still had a lot of time on hand because I didn't know anything about the street boys or the guys on the corner and I didn't know that many people in Washington. So I took another part-time job. I had two part-time jobs and a full-time job. And I worked those three jobs for two years. After I got an apartment like I wanted, I got furniture I wanted, I got my furniture paid for, then I bought a new car, which I was my dream. Then after I did that and saved some money, then I started to quit one job, then eventually I quit the second one. | 6:46 |
Eddie Francis | Then I started going school at night for diesel mechanics, because to me diesel was a big thing. And then later after I finished school, one of the guys who was my instructor in diesel school, he was employed with Greyhound, and he told me they had openings with Greyhound. So I went to work for Greyhound as a mechanic. And Greyhound didn't have first class mechanics. And there was another guy by the name of Sylvester Mines, we were friends, we both went through school together and we both started to work for Greyhound together. And his grandfather had worked for Greyhound for 30-some years. And when he and I started there, they used to think we were crazy because both of us were outspoken. So when we went to the office, we had a union at Greyhound, everybody paid the same union dues and everything. | 7:46 |
Eddie Francis | So then we went to the union first and asked them why was it that we pay the same union dues, we belong to the same union, and we can't have first class mechanics. I went to school for mine, and they were hiring White boys off the street, put him with a first class mechanic to train him, give him an apprenticeship to become first class mechanic. And Greyhound was paying money in those days. And they would never give us an explanation. So then we went to the NAACP. | 8:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what time period was this, the late '50s? | 9:16 |
Eddie Francis | This was in '62. | 9:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, okay. | 9:22 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, yeah, '62. | 9:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 9:26 |
Eddie Francis | So we went to the NAACP, then the NAACP got involved. And the first thing they said to us, "Why you didn't say something to us? You didn't have to do this." I said, "Well, we said something, you didn't listen. We had to find somebody you would listen to." So then they decided they were going to start the apprenticeship program for everybody. Then after I became a first class mechanic, then 1964, the Civil Rights Bill was passed and the March on Washington the 28th of August 1963, which happened to be my birthday. | 9:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 10:06 |
Eddie Francis | And we had it in our contract, instead of celebrating George Washington's birthday, you celebrate your own birthday. And they didn't have any problem with that. As long as they didn't have to pay us for extra day, that was the only thing they were concerned about. So they told us they weren't giving anybody leave the 28th of August. Now, the White guys who lived in Maryland, everybody said they were going to tear Washington down, they were going to burn Washington down. But I was going to be there to see it, and I was determined. And I remember I had a '63 Bonneville Pontiac convertible and it was a White guy who asked me, he said, "Why are you so upset about going to the march in Washington?" He said, "You're doing all right." He said, "Look at the way you come to work." He said, "I don't dress like that." I said, "Because you don't know any better." But we would go to work dressed and then we'd change into the Greyhound uniform. And I went to the March on Washington. That was one of the most exciting days of my life. | 10:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was it like? Can you tell me? | 11:17 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, that was my first time experience White folks embracing Black folk. And it wasn't like when the riots came on later, they were doing it for security reasons. They really wanted to be a part of you. They really wanted this thing to be balanced. They wanted to show their support. And I was down, I was right on the mall before, standing right there in front of Martin Luther King. But it was a struggle, because you thought you were standing still but you were moving all the time. That's just how crowded it was. And the day after the march I went back to work, and my time card wasn't in the rack. So I went to the foreman, the same guy who was my instructor in diesel school. And I said to him, I said, "Where's my time card?" He said, "Didn't I tell you if you didn't come to work on the 28th, don't come back on the 29th?" I said, "Do you know what you're doing?" He said, "Don't ask me any questions. I don't have time for it." So he walked on off. | 11:20 |
Eddie Francis | So then I went to the president of the union and I told him what happened. I said, "It's my birthday, so I was supposed to be off." He said, "Well, take off." He said, "Take off a month, a year, they've got to pay you for it." So I said okay. But I decided to come in every day. So finally I went in for almost a week and he told me, he said, "Don't come back on these premises again." I said, "Well, will you put that in writing?" And he did. I took off for a month. So finally I went back to the office and I asked him, I said, "Pointer, are you sure you know what you're doing?" He said, "Didn't I tell you not to come back on these premises?" So then I went to the superintendent and I explained to the superintendent what had happened. | 12:24 |
Eddie Francis | So the superintendent called him in and told him, said, "We have a problem." He said, "This man was supposed to have been off on the 28th." And he said, "Even when I tell him not to?" He said, "Yeah," he said, "It's a holiday for him, it's his birthday." And he said, "Well, why didn't you tell me?" I said, "You know everything else, you should have known that." Then instead of adding the whole four weeks to one week's pay, he didn't want to do that because that would have looked bad on his record, he wanted to add so much each week. I said, "I want all my money and I want it now." And they gave it to me. I called the headquarters, which was in Cleveland, and they gave me my money, but they gave him the devil for it. And after that he just turned bitter toward me. Then the next thing we came up, we said, Okay, Greyhound don't have any Black drivers. This other Civil Rights Bill's been passed." And they thought we were kidding, Sylvester and I. | 13:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | They didn't have any Black bus drivers? | 14:04 |
Eddie Francis | No, not in our region. They had them in Pennsylvania, in Massachusetts, but they didn't have any in the Washington region. And then the superintendent asked me, he said, "What makes you think you can drive a bus?" I said, "If I can make this sucker, what makes you think I can't drive it?" And then they decided they were going to make Black drivers. Then we had to go through the test and everything. | 14:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | You got it still in the '60s? | 14:29 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, yeah. In fact, it was in '64 right after the Civil Rights Bill was passed. And then they started hiring Black drivers. Well, after that Blacks did everything. And at that time the thing that disturbed me most, Joe Black, the famous baseball player, he was a vice president of Greyhound. And we wrote to Joe Black the same time we wrote to the NAACP. Until this day we never heard a word from Joe Black. So I was at an NAACP convention in Baltimore some years ago, and I met the famous Mr. Joe Black, the vice president of Greyhound. And the lady who introduced me to him was his secretary. And I said, "Mr. Black," I said, "We have corresponded before, but we just never had the opportunity to meet." And I told him about the situation we wrote to him, never heard anything from him. | 14:33 |
Eddie Francis | I said, "That's the way some of us are. Once we reach our goals, we're not concerned about anybody else." And he got an attitude, so he walked off. And that was the last I heard of Joe Black. And I think, I'm not sure, but he may be retired by now, but I don't know that to be a fact. | 15:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Can we go back and talk about, you mentioned earlier and yesterday about you participating in the demonstration in Enfield [indistinct 00:15:55]. | 15:50 |
Eddie Francis | Oh yeah, the first demonstration I ever participated in in my life, the same man, Reid Johnson, I was talking about. | 15:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | And could you talk some about him too? | 16:02 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, Reid, he was the kind of guy, and I hate he ever left Enfield, because he did a lot for Enfield. And I remember Whites, they were such rednecks in my childhood days. The police, you'd walk down the street, the police look at you and roll their eyes for no reason at all. And sometimes they would just stand there if you were coming down the street to make sure you had to turn out to go around them and all. And I see some of those guys now on their crutches and I don't feel sorry for them one bit. But when Reid was preparing for this demonstration 4th of July 1963, and he asked me if I would participate, and I volunteered. | 16:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what did he do, he was just a civil rights activist? | 16:55 |
Eddie Francis | No, Reid was an embalmer. He worked with the Cofield Funeral Home. | 16:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay, okay. | 16:59 |
Eddie Francis | His father-in-law owned the funeral home and he was married to his daughter. He did embalming and everything. And plus he worked with the NAACP. And when he was ready to march, I volunteered to march and we marched that day, which was on a Sunday. I'll never forget it. And the people would drive into this restaurant and they'd see us with the signs and they would pull off and go on, because demonstrating was rare in those days and the northern people never wanted to be a part of it. And it was like supporting us when they wouldn't go in. And the Whites, they were terribly upset. The town was really uneasy. People were riding and some walking and looking, and the people in the restaurant, they were just sitting there staring. That was their way of trying to instill fear in you. But if you'd just go and do what you came to do, it was no problem with it. | 17:04 |
Eddie Francis | And after the demonstration was over, we didn't have any incidents. Police, they would and try to intimidate you, but we didn't let it bother us. We went on, then when it broke up, everybody disposed of their signs and went on about their business. But I stayed, I was here for a week that week. And the police stopped me 12 times that week. We had never even heard of anything about marijuana and cocaine and heroin and crack. But they would always stop you to look for alcoholic beverages or see if you were drinking. I had never been much of a drinker, so it was no problem for me to stop. And when they would stop me to search the car, I would go sit on the ditch bank and that would make them mad, because they wanted to just stand up and hand them a lot of lip, especially when there were four or five of them and one of you. | 18:04 |
Eddie Francis | And the 12th time they stopped me, I made up my mind I'm not going to be stopped any more. Because the police officer went to his car and he got a pint of whiskey, put it in his shirt, and started to my car. And I confronted him, I went right into his face. I said, "If you go to my car with that whiskey, I'm going to make you kill me or you're going to make me kill you, one." He said, "What are you talking about?" I said, "English can't be any clearer than that." I says, "Nobody out here but the two of us." But I knew as long as I stayed in reach of him, he couldn't do anything with the gun if I didn't let him get to it. So he said, "I think you better get in your car and leave." He had already searched my car and there was nothing in my car. | 19:00 |
Eddie Francis | And I got in my car and I sat there waiting for him to leave. So he pulled on around and left. And the following Saturday evening I was headed to town and passed a patrolman again. And this was the same boy who rode me on his motor scooter as a child, but didn't identify me as a man. And we were going opposite direction. He saw my car, all of them knew my car. And he turned around, they catch me, and I decided at that time there wasn't going to be any catching. And I outran him. And taking a curve he went out across a pea field, and he was lucky he didn't kill himself. And I didn't hear anything else about it. I left town. In fact, I never stopped until I had crossed the Virginia line. And I left town, and a few years later I met him. | 19:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like? | 20:59 |
Eddie Francis | Well, we were at a, it was what they call a shot house where the people go gamble. And like I say, the White guys would always come around places like this, especially if they thought there was going to be some attractive Black women there, that they'd get a chance to say something to them. That was his only purpose I could see that he was there for. And he asked me, he said, "You from up north, aren't you?" I said, "No, indeed." I said, "I'm from the great state of North Carolina and the fair city of Enfield. He said, "No, but you live up north. I can tell by the way you dress." I said, "I grew up right where you grew up." | 20:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | He didn't remember you at all? | 21:30 |
Eddie Francis | He didn't remember me, no. And my uncle from New York was with me. And I said, "You remember in 1963 you were chasing a '63 white Pontiac convertible and you went out across the pea field down by Neva's store?" He said, "Yeah," he said, "We never did catch that guy." I said, "Well, you got him now." But this was years later, statute of limitations had run out and everything. And my uncle said, "You shouldn't have told him that." I said, "No, he needs to know it." But now he's no longer a patrolman. In fact, they fired him not long after that. In fact, when he left the department, he was fired, it was probably for something similar to that. | 21:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of values did your parents and grandparents instill in you to make you have such courage and be so outspoken? | 22:11 |
Eddie Francis | Well, my mother was kind of outspoken. My grandfather, he was a man who stood strong on his conviction. And my father and my grandmother, she didn't take, either one of my grandmothers didn't take anything off anybody. But I think what really made me take the stands like I do was my upbringing, to see how Whites were always mistreating Blacks. And I think this is the reason many young Blacks, we call them crazy, but I say if there's anything that we can benefit from this generation being the way they are, it almost assures me that segregation could never happen again. | 22:22 |
Eddie Francis | Because I was downtown Washington with a busload of people coming out of Washington when the riots started in Washington in '68 when they killed Martin Luther King. And I have never seen a situation like that in my life. Everybody was afraid. Even the people who were stealing, they were afraid, I guess. I don't know if they were afraid they were going to get caught or what. | 23:10 |
Eddie Francis | But that was my first time witnessing a riot. And once you see one, you don't forget it. I was sitting in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, couldn't go any place. People were getting out of their cars, leaving their cars, trying to get out of town walking. And the Blacks who were walking along, sometimes there were Whites that didn't even know you, they would come up and take ahold of your hand, because that would give other people the impression that they have a Black friend. But the purpose was to survive. And that's what we have been trying to do all the time. And I see these young people today and I don't approve of the things they do. We're about to lose a generation, it appears to me. But I really don't believe, they say history repeats itself, but we're going to go through some changes before it repeats itself to be like I knew it to be when I was growing up. | 23:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you get out of, you said your bus was right in the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue? | 24:36 |
Eddie Francis | I left the bus right there. | 24:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 24:43 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, left the bus. And I did just like the rest of them did, walk. I walked from Pennsylvania Avenue up to 60 Massachusetts Avenue, and I got a ride with a guy. When they got out of the downtown part, 'cause so many people had left their car, I think it was out fear, and everything was blocked. It was just no going any place. And I left the people on the bus and they just had to get to where they were going the best way they could. Because the smoke was so thick you could could die from the carbon monoxide. And it was something. Liquor store took the biggest hit. | 24:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was that? | 25:32 |
Eddie Francis | I guess it was because it was so easy. | 25:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | People broke into them. | 25:34 |
Eddie Francis | The things people were taking, I don't even think they were things they needed. I saw some people walking down the street with a recliner chair on their back. And I don't mean they was just taking it to put in the trunk of a car on the back of it. Some of them would walk for a block. Now, why would anybody pick the most awkward thing in the world to carry to steal? But that's the way it was. And I hope I never experience that again. If people see this, they would never want to see it again. | 25:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | How long did you stay at Greyhound and what did you do after that and stuff when you were there? | 26:11 |
Eddie Francis | During the time I was working with Greyhound, I always wanted to be like my grandfather. And my grandfather, he was an entrepreneur. And although he was a farmer, he had the commissary and he just believed in doing other things. And he always said, "If you can do it for somebody else, you can do it for yourself." And I went into the clothing business. During the time I was working with Greyhound, the same guy, Sylvester, who was a very good friend of mine— | 26:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you spell his last name, Sylvester? | 26:48 |
Eddie Francis | M-I-N-E-S. | 26:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 26:52 |
Eddie Francis | Mm-hmm. And we started going to New York, 'cause we could ride Greyhound free. We would to New York on our days off and we would buy clothes and sell them, whatever was in style at that time. And we built a business, a terrific business. So then we decided just to go on into the clothing business full time, and we left Greyhound and went into business for ourself in clothing. But he's still in the clothing business today. But when I got into the clothing business, I started selling caskets. | 26:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 27:24 |
Eddie Francis | My oldest brother used to work for a funeral home in Washington. And through him and the funeral director he worked for, I got to know several other funeral directors. And there's a company down here in Tillery called Tillery Casket Company. And I met the owner's daughter back in the early '60s. And I came down once and I went past the house and nobody was home. The next time I saw him I said, "I came by but nobody was home." She said, "We were at the casket factory." I said, "Casket factory?" She said, "Yeah, you didn't know we had a casket factory?" I said, "No sir," I was interested in seeing this. | 27:26 |
Eddie Francis | And I came back and I went to the casket factory. And I couldn't believe a Black man had chosen to go into a business of manufacturing something that nobody wants, as hard as it is for us to sell something that everybody needs. And I just had a great admiration for Mr. Grant. So every time I would come to North Carolina, which was often, because I was away for 20 years, I'd never missed but two months coming home, that was during the time I was in the service and couldn't come home. 'Cause I've always loved Enfield and Halifax County and always loved being with my family and being around my family. And I came down once and I asked Mr. Grant, I said, "Mr. Grant, do you sell many caskets in Washington?" He said, "No, I don't sell any up there." | 28:01 |
Eddie Francis | I said, "Well, you should be selling caskets in Washington." I said, "Funeral directors in Washington buy them by the dozen, and down here they buy one or two as they need them." He said, "Yeah, but I don't have anybody to sell for me." And in fact, I was working for Greyhound at that time and I told him, I said, "I'll sell caskets for you." And he said, "Boy, you don't know nothing about selling." And I came down, I asked him to sell, I actually had to beg for the job of selling caskets for him. And I figured it would be a challenge and just— | 28:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | How good [indistinct 00:29:27]. Sorry. | 29:23 |
Eddie Francis | I just liked it, liked the idea of it. So I came, he said, "Well, okay sir, you want to sell caskets?" He said, "You come down, spend a week at the factory, learn something about the product you're selling, the product you're trying to sell," he said, "And then I may give you a job." So I did. I came down, spent a week at the factory, and the first day I went out to sell caskets, I sold 21 caskets." | 29:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. | 29:54 |
Eddie Francis | And the second day I sold 23 and the third day I sold 16. I said, "Oh, I'm in the wrong business." And that's when I decided to start to sell caskets for Mr. Grant full time. And I was selling caskets faster than they could produce them, really. And then he decided to just confine himself to the North Carolina, Virginia area with his old customers, because there were so many of them he couldn't accommodate and take care of Washington and Maryland too. So then I just went into the clothing business full time. | 29:55 |
Eddie Francis | Then I decided I knew people who needed hearses from selling caskets, and then I started selling hearses and limousines for a company in Washington, Stacker. Stacker had never had a Black salesman. But when I started selling for him, I sold so many hearses and limousines that he wouldn't have sold without a Black salesman. Then he started concentrating, he realized the importance of Black business, so then he started making the effort to sell to Black funeral homes. Then I decided— | 30:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, hold on. Okay, I'm sorry. I wanted to ask you about, you mentioned you were in the service. Could you talk some about that? | 31:09 |
Eddie Francis | Oh yeah, I was drafted three times. I got two deferments, and then during the time I was working for Greyhound I transferred to Chicago and the MPs were looking for me in Washington. I had notified the draft in Chicago. But anyway, I decided I was going to go on and get it over. | 31:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | Is this for Vietnam? | 31:40 |
Eddie Francis | Yes. Vietnam started when I was in, I went in September the 21st, 1964. | 31:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 31:47 |
Eddie Francis | The Vietnam War started last of October, the 1st of November. I remember when it started they served notice to us we were going to have to have eight weeks of advanced infantry training, because we would be the first to go to Vietnam. I was the oldest guy in the company, and I hated every minute of being in the military. And it wasn't because I was serving my country, it was the way that I had to serve it. I experienced more discrimination in the military than any place in my life. And since I was being paid to fight, I figured I might as well fight for that too. And during the time I was in there, I got three court-martials. Well, I got two court-martials and they were preparing for the second one. But I beat the court-martial. | 31:50 |
Eddie Francis | And they were preparing for the second one, and the same man who defended me in the first two, his brother, he was a lawyer from Washington, he eventually became the mayor of Arlington, Virginia, guy named Stafford. He was an attorney. But he was an attorney in the military, and his brother was a doctor at Walter Reed, who was my neighbor, lived right across the street. And I was stationed at Fort Eustace, Virginia at that time. And the charges were loan sharking, like you loan a guy some money for interest, and everybody was doing it in the military. But the reason they tried to stop me, because my first sergeant was doing the same thing and I was loaning to some of his customers for a lower interest rate. You'd get as much as a dollar on a dollar. And that's what brought the court-martials about. | 32:44 |
Eddie Francis | But I beat all of them. And the third time he decided to file charges against the company for discrimination. And that's when they dropped it. But the idea of them closing these bases, I think it's a terrific idea. I've never seen so much waste in all of my life as I did in the military. And I never experienced discrimination, even living in Enfield. | 33:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | It's worse than when you were growing up? | 34:06 |
Eddie Francis | Oh yeah, sure. It was worse than— | 34:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Any specific incident? | 34:07 |
Eddie Francis | Sure, you have to be able to identify with it. In the military they say rank has its privileges, but who do they give the rank to? Why do they give them the rank? There wasn't any such thing as a Colin Powell when I was in the military. They had General Chappie James, when he became a general that was a big thing with us. But now you have quite a few generals. But back then a major or lieutenant colonel was as high as a Black man went in the military. And to give you some specifics, when I went to Fort Jackson, South Carolina, a new inductee, they talk to you like you're crazy, but they expect you to fight intelligent people. This guy came out by the name of Sergeant Ratcliffe and he told us, said, "I'm going to make you hate me for the rest of your life." He said, "But later on after you become a man, you're going to learn to love me." | 34:12 |
Eddie Francis | He said, "For the next eight weeks I'm going to be your mother, I'm going to be your father, I'm going to be your sister, and I'm going to be your brother." He said, "The only difference, they love you. I don't care about you." He said, "Your mom and daddy loved you, but they didn't raise you. I'm going to raise you and make a man out of you." When he said that, I walked right through the ranks and I hit that guy so hard he kicked sand up in my face when he hit the ground. And everybody grabbed me because they said, "One man messes up, everybody pays." And they took me through the 33rd degree. They even took me to the hospital to talk with a psychiatrist. And I knew what they were doing. And I told the psychiatrist, I said, "Nobody in life is going to tell me that, knowing what my parents went through to raise me." | 35:18 |
Eddie Francis | I said, "And if I stay here, the first person I'm going to kill, if it's anybody, is going to be him." And they said, "Do you know going to jail?" I said, "I'll go to jail." I said, "I'll go to hell before I'll let somebody stand before me and tell me that my parents didn't raise me." So then they shipped me out to Fort Gordon, Georgia and put me on a bus. The only troop with orders. Now, they knew that I was going to go AWOL because the average guy would have done that. But I had better sense than to do that, because I knew what they were doing. They were setting me up. I got on the bus, and when I got to Fort Gordon, Georgia was nobody there to even meet me. So I took a cab. | 36:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | They wanted you to try to escape. | 36:44 |
Eddie Francis | Right. | 36:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 36:46 |
Eddie Francis | They thought I was going to head back to Washington. And I took a cab to base, had my orders, and then they called Fort Jackson and told them that I had a ride. I went right on through basic, no problem whatsoever, other than the usual. But everybody looking at me like, "Man, you've got to watch him. Something wrong with him. They sent him down here from Fort Jackson." Everybody was watching, but I knew what the score was and so I went on, did my two years in the military, and got out. I got it behind me, and that was all I wanted. | 36:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you get along with your fellow soldiers? | 37:20 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, got along with them fine. I think some of them thought I was somewhat strange. Like I said, I was the oldest guy in the company, and I just never believed in a lot of playing. A lot of soldiers can do some stupid things. I think a lot of guys go in the military because it's an easy way out. You have what they call three hots and a cot. But I always felt that I could provide the necessities for myself, so I never needed that. But other than that, I got along fine. I was stationed in Fort Eustace, Virginia for the whole two years. | 37:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | So you never had to go overseas? | 37:59 |
Eddie Francis | I got orders to go three times, but I had friends in the Pentagon. | 38:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 38:04 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah, in fact I used to sell orders out the Pentagon. And guys had orders to go to Vietnam, they'd give me $400, $500, $600, whatever it was, and I would pay this guy, and then I would pay him his price and I'd my profit, and we'd get the orders for the guys. In those days there was plenty of people that didn't want to go to Vietnam. So it was enough to keep anybody busy. But I never went out of the States. But it was only because of that. One thing I learned in Washington, it's not what you know, it's who you know. That's right. And it's still that way today. | 38:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I guess we can go on. I forgot to ask you about some of your personal life. When did you meet your wife and when did you get married? | 38:44 |
Eddie Francis | When I went to Washington, I went to Washington on a Thursday. And on a Saturday I contacted a friend of mine who's from Enfield, had the same name I had, Eddie Rufus, but his last name is Thornton. And that Sunday Rufus called me and asked me to ride with him out to pick his girlfriend up from work. So I went with him out to pick his girlfriend up, and I met this girl named Alice. She worked at the hot shop with Rufus' girlfriend. And we used to double date, and we dated for 11 years. | 38:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. That's a long time. | 39:36 |
Eddie Francis | So then I decided that I was going to marry Alice. And at that time we had had a child, and I was really concerned about the child. And one day I called, I told her we were going to dinner. It was on a Monday. I'll never forget it, 'cause she was a beautician. | 39:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 39:55 |
Eddie Francis | And she was always off on Monday. But I had made arrangements with the minister. I told him, I went to the minister one day, I told him, I said, "Reverend," I said, "I think I want to get married." He said, "Well, if you think you want to get married," he said, "You just go right on about your business and keep on thinking." He said, "But now if you know want to get married," he said, "Well, maybe we can do something about it." I said, "Well, my mind is made up." So he said, "Okay, well, when you want to do it?" So I told him. And I told him what the circumstances were. I told him, I said, "I don't want her to know anything about it." He said, "How you going to marry somebody, they know anything about it?" I said, "Well, she'll know about it when we get to the church." | 39:55 |
Eddie Francis | They had a place in the back of the church where they performed marriages. And he said, "And you're not going to tell her anything about it?" He said, "How you going to get her there?" I said, "I'm going to tell her we're going out to dinner." He said, "This is a new one on me." So I said, "Well, that's the way I want it." He said, "Well, suppose she says no." I said, "Well, that'll be it." I said, "I won't be hurt." So he said, "Okay, you're setting yourself up for it, but I'll go along with it." | 40:30 |
Eddie Francis | So sure enough, that Monday I picked her up, we were going to dinner, which we really were going to dinner after we got married. We had already gotten the license and everything. And we went to the church and nobody answered the door. | 40:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you got nervous. | 41:16 |
Eddie Francis | Yes, I drove down the street and called the minister and he said, "What happened to you? You got cold feet?" I said, "No." I said, "I went to the church. What happened to you?" He said, "I'm at the church now." But I wasn't aware of this place they had in the back just for the purpose of marriages. And we went back and they had these ladies in there, they had cooked up these cookies and they had the champagne and everything. | 41:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's nice. | 41:44 |
Eddie Francis | And these people, they sit down and talk to you after your marriage. They sit down and they counsel you about marriage and so forth. And then afterwards we went on out to dinner. | 41:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, what did your wife think about being surprised like that? What did she say? | 41:55 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, she was delighted. Oh, she was never happier. And I knew it was going to be that way, because she had been asking me to marry her instead of me asking her to marry me. | 41:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay, okay. | 42:12 |
Eddie Francis | But it comes a time a man had to face up to his responsibility. And I knew the child was my responsibility. And we went on out to dinner. And in those days, well, I've always been a great admirer of Aretha Franklin. | 42:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 42:27 |
Eddie Francis | And she was a great admirer of a Muhammad Ali. So I told her, I said, "Baby," I said, and she said, "Well, this will be forever." I said, "You sure now?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, you saw how easy it was to get into it?" She said, "Yeah." I said, "Just that easy to get out of." I said, "All you have to do is say so." I said, "But I must caution you." I said, "I have one woman if she asked me to come tomorrow, I'll have to say goodbye." She said, "Who is that?" I said, "That's Aretha Franklin." She said, "Oh my God." She said, "Well, that's one, I'd have to go for it too." She said, "That's Muhammad Ali, and I'll make him beat the devil out of you." And we were married for 23 years, and we moved to North Carolina in '78. My daughter at that time was 10 years old, but my daughter's 25 now. So we were married for 23 years, and we got a divorce after 23 years. | 42:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask about your daughter. How do you think, you moved with her here when she was 10? | 43:28 |
Eddie Francis | Yeah. | 43:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | How do you think her life growing up here changed from your life growing up, when you were growing up and things? | 43:34 |
Eddie Francis | Oh, well, she didn't have to go through what I went through. The hard work, my daughter never worked, except she would go to the beauty shop sometime and do people's nails or something like that. So the only thing I wanted her to do was to get an education. In fact, when she was in college I didn't want her to work when she was in college. But she slipped and worked anyway and still begged me for money. But the main thing is that she made it through it. | 43:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you think race, the schools changed from when she was going to school and you were going school? | 44:10 |
Eddie Francis | Considerably. | 44:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. In what way? | 44:15 |
Eddie Francis | My daughter was always super sensitive toward racism. And I always taught her to respect everybody, but also demand respect in return. And she was very sensitive. In fact, sometime I think she was overly sensitive about it. When we moved to North Carolina, every day the first day of school I would always go with my daughter to school. And I would always take my wife with me. And I wanted to meet the principal and all of her teachers, and I would introduce myself. I would give them my card, 'cause I know what discrimination is about. Teachers, they find a way and a reason to punish the Black and turn the heads from the Whites. And I experienced this once, and I was determined I wasn't going to experience it any more with the same people. This was with my daughter. | 44:19 |
Eddie Francis | And I would introduce myself. I'd say, "Feel free to call me at any time if you have a problem." But I didn't want those White people whipping my daughter. | 45:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | She went to integrated school. | 45:24 |
Eddie Francis | Yes, I knew what would happen. And the law says one thing, but a man's principle can say another, and then you have to weigh the situation. And I remember one incident, my daughter, there was a White boy knocked my daughter's books out of her hand on the floor. And she tried to make this guy pick them up. And the teacher said he didn't see it, so he made my daughter pick him up. And my daughter wouldn't pick him up. And she called me, she said, "I'm going to call my daddy." And I always told her, as long as she's right, I'm with her 100%. When it gets too rough for her, it's just about right for me. | 45:28 |
Eddie Francis | And I went to the school and the books were still on the floor. She told me what happened. So then I went to the principal. And then I told the principal, I said, "Let's go to his room." The principal wanted to call him to the office. I said, "Let's go to his room." He said, "No, I'd rather handle him." I said, "No, let's go to where the problem started." Went to the room, over half of the kids in the room saw the boy knock the books from my daughter's hand. But the teacher was sitting there saying he didn't see it. So I said, "Well, that means you're not paying attention." I said, "Don't ever ask my daughter to do anything like that. If you don't know what the situation is, it's up to you to find out. If you were doing your job, I could be home doing mine instead of out here trying to do yours." | 46:05 |
Eddie Francis | From that day on I never had any problems with my daughter in school. And the only thing I wanted her to do was good academically. And she finished college, and when she graduated, my wife and I separated. But she became a little bitter about the divorce. But I always felt like if two people can't get along, you go along. And you don't have to be— | 46:53 |
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