David Lyon interview recording, 1993 June 30
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | Maybe we could begin by you telling me where you grew up and the community, a little bit about the community in which you grew up. | 0:02 |
David Lyon | Well, I grew up in a community. Well, the farm land's name was Frog Pond. | 0:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Frog Pond? | 0:17 |
David Lyon | Yeah. That's the name of the farm I was raised up on. I went to school, had to walk about two miles, Strong School and along then, was teaching from first through eighth grade. | 0:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, the one room school? | 0:39 |
David Lyon | Three rooms. | 0:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Three rooms. | 0:42 |
David Lyon | Well, it had a kitchen where you take your lunch and that room was for, you take your lunch and heat it up for lunch. | 0:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:54 |
David Lyon | I went up to the fifth grade and I had to stop and go to work. I just took a little education by myself, my wife and different ones helped me. That's the way I learned on, went to Sunday school and like that. Then I grew up, went in the Service, spent three years and 16 days in the Service in World War II. I went all overseas in [indistinct 00:01:40], Strand, then back home, but I never did get into it in the action. | 0:59 |
David Lyon | I stayed about 50 miles behind the line. My duty pulled outfit to unload ship when it comes in. I stayed around the dock and got discharged out of the Service and come back home and went back and stayed with my daddy and then I started out farming myself. I started farming myself. Then I bought a little small farm, built a home, and I'm there now. | 1:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. When you were growing up, was this in Halifax County? | 2:33 |
David Lyon | Edgecombe County. | 2:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Edgecombe County. Okay. | 2:37 |
David Lyon | Edgecombe County. Township five. Now I'm still in Edgecombe County, but township seven. | 2:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. When you grew up, did your family own a farm, or were you tenants? | 2:51 |
David Lyon | Yeah, my family owned a farm. | 2:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Were there a lot of Black land owners around where you lived? | 2:57 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Along then, there weren't many Black owners. Yeah, but there a few Black owners now, but they're renting out to the big farmers. I rent mine out to the big farmers. | 3:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Who did you grow up with? Who lived in your home when you were young? | 3:23 |
David Lyon | Oh, my mother and father. I had four brothers and one sister. Yeah. | 3:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents take care of any other children? | 3:32 |
David Lyon | No. | 3:34 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 3:34 |
David Lyon | No, they didn't take care of nobody but their children and helped took care of their parents when they got old but any other children, they did not. | 3:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did your grandparents live with you? | 3:46 |
David Lyon | No. | 3:50 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 3:50 |
David Lyon | Well, my mother, grandfather, my mother's father, that was my granddaddy, and he stayed there about two years till he passed on, and she took him in. | 3:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. What do you know about your grandparents and about your ancestors, where they came from and so on? Do you know anything about that? | 4:09 |
David Lyon | Well, they were raised up mostly around in that community in Edgecombe County. | 4:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. Did they ever tell you? Did your grandparents ever tell you stories about their childhood? | 4:23 |
David Lyon | Yeah, they told me some stories. My grandfather, when he came then and stayed with my mother, he said when he was coming up, he used to catch a train to Emporia, Virginia and how they would drive cow from Emporia back about 60 miles and they'd get up soon that morning and drive cows. Didn't have the straight truck to transport like you do now. They had to walk and drive the cows back from Emporia and back down here to Tarboro. | 4:27 |
Karen Ferguson | They walked? They drove them by walking? | 5:05 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah, they drove them by walking, but they caught a train up there. Then get up soon that next morning, then drive the cows back to Tarboro. | 5:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did they own their own land, too? Did your grandparents own their own land? | 5:19 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah. They owned their own land, too. | 5:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you know how the family came about to own land? | 5:32 |
David Lyon | Well, my grandfather, they started owning land. Then my daddy was raised up on that little farm. Then he bought some land and added to the west side of it. Then he helped me to buy what I got. That's the way we got started. | 5:34 |
Karen Ferguson | The parents helped the children and to keep it, and the farms were all together? The land is all, it's one farm? The family owns one farm now? | 5:58 |
David Lyon | No. See, I'm about 10 miles from where I was raised up from. Yeah, I'm about 10 miles from where I was raised up from. He helped me to get a start about buying this farm and he paid a down payment on it. Then I went to working it out and paid for it like that. | 6:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. The microphone is not, just let me—[INTERRUPTION 00:06:42] | 6:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Sorry. It's just always having these problems. What kind of work did you have to do on the farm? | 6:32 |
David Lyon | Well, we had to do all the work. You had to start in the spring of the year cutting your stalks, dishing your farm, getting your land plowed and break it, plant it and then keep it clean, and then harvest. I do all the work, me and my wife. Then I had two children. They come up. They help, and half a day, transfer high school, they went to college. Then I went and got me a public job to help get them through college. The farm was small, wasn't a whole lot of money coming in and I got them through college. While I owned this public job, I just stayed till I retired, and I retired from the farm and public job then. | 6:51 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you like better, farming or public work? | 7:40 |
David Lyon | I really like farming better. | 7:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Why is that? | 7:46 |
David Lyon | Well, when I would farm, I'm my own boss, if I wanted to stop, I could stop any time I want to. Didn't have to ask nobody nothing. Public work, if I didn't be there on time, somebody want to know where I am. I wanted to get off, had to ask somebody. I just really liked farming the best. Any time you're your own boss, you've got the privilege to do like you want to. | 7:48 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were a boy, did you have to do? You went to work on the farm as well, do field work when you were a boy? | 8:24 |
David Lyon | Work on the farm? | 8:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 8:28 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah, I worked on the farm when I was a boy. | 8:28 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things, when did you start working in the field? | 8:32 |
David Lyon | Well, I started working in the field just as soon as I was big enough you do some chopping and pulling grass and weeds out. I said, by the time you start school, six years old. | 8:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What crops did you have when you were growing up on your dad's farm? | 8:46 |
David Lyon | They had tobacco, corn, cotton, peanuts, soybeans. | 8:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Nice. Could you take me through the year with the tobacco crop? Tell me what you have to do through the year for it from planting on? | 9:08 |
David Lyon | Oh, January and February, you started planting your plant bed. You go and clean off a place for your tobacco plant bed and you sow it and put a cover over it, so when it starts coming up, frost won't destroy it, and then you have your wood. You're going to burn oil and gas in there. In the winter time, you go in the wood and cut the wood for heating your barn and then you've got to haul it out and stack it in a pile at the barn. It would get hot, so you won't have to be doing it then. | 9:18 |
David Lyon | When the tobacco bed, in the spring, you had to keep your plant bed cleaned off. You had to pull the grass and the weeds out from the plant because didn't have no chemicals, nothing To kill the grass. After you do that, come time to sit it out. You pad your land for the sitting out. Then you go back to the plant bed and pull your plants off, take them to the field and have transplant them, sit them like they're doing there in the field. When they catch root and everything, sometimes you have to go back and reset the places where the plant then lives to get a good stand. After you get a good stand, you have to cultivate it and chop it and keep it clean so it'll grow. Put fertilizer to it and all that. | 10:04 |
David Lyon | After it gets growing, then you go back and keep the worms out. In them days, didn't have that dust and all this DDT stuff. It started, insects, you had to pick it off with your, pick the ones off with your hands, put them in a bucket, put kerosene on them or kill them. Then you harvest, prime the tobacco and put in the barn and cure it out, put it in a barn out there. In them days, you would have to separate the green and the bright, the trash. All that separating, they called it grading tobacco, and you had it tied in little bundles and then put it on a stick, get it right for the market. | 11:05 |
David Lyon | Then you take it to the market and sell it. A lot of work in tobacco, but man, nothing but work. It wasn't much money. People live on the farm, they were just making a living. Wasn't a whole lot of money, but now it's so much different. Got all this machines and all that. You're out there spraying, going back in the house where you'll be out there all day picking worms. | 12:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Well, what part of the tobacco cycle did you like the best in terms of work that you had to do? | 12:33 |
David Lyon | Well, I liked the grading tobacco, because when it's inside a building, or out in the hot sun. | 12:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What was your least favorite? What didn't you like or what did you hate, maybe? | 12:49 |
David Lyon | Well, picking that plant bed, that was a job right down in that hot sun. You couldn't mat the plant down and all that. That was a tough job, too. | 12:56 |
Karen Ferguson | When you took it to market, were Black farmers paid as much as White farmers for the crop, for the tobacco? | 13:07 |
David Lyon | Well, it was a little different in the market in a way, because the big man always can get in with the big man and the small farmer couldn't. He ain't have about three or four little piles and the big farmer has a rope from one end of the warehouse to the other and make a difference. He would get in front and the man would say, "This is Mr. So-and-so," and helping him, helping him, and the small man didn't have that privilege to do that. | 13:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, but you don't think there was a racial difference? | 13:47 |
David Lyon | No, it wasn't, because there was some small Black farmers, small White farmers and all of them were about in the same category. | 13:53 |
Karen Ferguson | I've been talking to some people from around who grew up around here and they said White people never worked in the fields in Halifax County. Was it the same in Edgecombe County? | 14:04 |
David Lyon | Well, some of them did not work in the field, but a few did. Well, same thing in Halifax. A few White had to work in the field because they were poor just like the Black. Yeah. I was raised up close to Halifax county line, because I would come over in Halifax, but the big majority didn't, but was a few did. | 14:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you remember, were there White sharecroppers in Edgecombe County? | 14:46 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative), they were White. Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 14:50 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, who were the people you were close to that lived near your home and your farm? | 14:58 |
David Lyon | Black and White lived close, because I used to help in tobacco, help the Black. Then I have been out and helped the White, hauling tobacco out in the field. | 15:06 |
Karen Ferguson | You helped each other? The White and Black farmers helped each other with that? | 15:19 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 15:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Would you sit down and eat a meal together? | 15:24 |
David Lyon | No. We didn't sit down and eat meals together. No. We played. | 15:29 |
Karen Ferguson | The children? | 15:31 |
David Lyon | With the children, till you get up a certain age. Then they started pulling that back and back. | 15:32 |
Karen Ferguson | When did that happen? When did you stop being friends? | 15:40 |
David Lyon | Well, we were still friends, but it just makes a difference. | 15:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Would the parents say something to them? How would you know? When would be the point at which the children would pull apart? | 15:49 |
David Lyon | When they hit about 10 and 12, you could tell that they begin, start pulling back. | 15:55 |
Karen Ferguson | The White children pulled back? | 16:06 |
David Lyon | Yeah, just like many. You're living right up beside some, close by. I mean real small, you'll be working around them. They'll play with you and talk with you and all of that. When you get up there at 10 and 12, you can tell the difference where they don't come out and play like they've been doing. You notice a difference. I mean, the small, well, doesn't make no difference because you know now how little, small children come play in there. The same thing back then, but they'll come to your house and all that and sit down and eat and all that. | 16:12 |
Karen Ferguson | The children. | 16:51 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative), the children will, but you get a certain age, you see them start pulling back. | 16:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Would the White children work in the fields? | 17:11 |
David Lyon | Yes. Yes. Some White people work in the field. Yeah. | 17:11 |
Karen Ferguson | How about the Black people who lived around you? Who were your family friends with? Was it mostly kin who lived around you? | 17:11 |
David Lyon | Well, kin and people who wasn't kin lived around me, Black. | 17:18 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did these people do for each other? | 17:28 |
David Lyon | Well, they helped one another on the farm, just like we'll catch up with our farm, the farmer side. They'll come over and see my father or something and hire me a couple days to get them catch up and do like that. That'd give me a little spending money to run to the store, because wasn't for that, we wouldn't have no spending money to run to the store. | 17:29 |
Karen Ferguson | When you were growing up, who was the boss in your house? Was it your mother or your father who made the decisions at home? | 18:12 |
David Lyon | At home? Well, my mother and father, well, they will talk and have conversations together and they make decisions together just like he was going buy something that he wanted, get some clothes or food or something. They'd make decisions together, but he would do the going. | 18:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. He went into town. | 18:54 |
David Lyon | Yeah. | 18:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Why was that? Why wouldn't she go into town? | 18:59 |
David Lyon | She would go sometimes, But most of the time, it would be him because she would stay there with the children, stay there with us and then sometimes, we had everybody, children and she and everybody go. | 19:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like that? | 19:06 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah. | 19:06 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do in town when you went there? | 19:08 |
David Lyon | Well, we just went and followed them around. See how they bought and go in the store, see how they trade and do. Yeah. | 19:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your mother do any field work? | 19:33 |
David Lyon | Yeah, she did. | 19:35 |
Karen Ferguson | She did? | 19:35 |
David Lyon | She got up in a certain age and she stopped. | 19:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did she do any other work to make some money? | 19:35 |
David Lyon | No. No. Didn't do no other work. See, back when I was coming along, you didn't have all this public work, factories and things you could go to. See, this come about after the Civil Rights Movement. | 19:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there anything people could do? Could they work in, were there sawmills or anything like that around that people could work? | 20:01 |
David Lyon | Well, it was, about the only thing around in them days was a sawmill and an oil mill or something like that. That was the only public work what you could do. | 20:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. I was just talking to a woman over in Enfield yesterday and she was talking about the Black people who lived in town and how they would be day laborers on farms, go out and pick cotton and that kind of thing. What other kinds of things would Blacks in small towns do for a living? | 20:24 |
David Lyon | Well, they'd come out, work on the farm and pick cotton, help people in the tobacco, and that and work for the White people's house like that. | 20:42 |
Karen Ferguson | They just live in town, but they'd work on farms? | 20:56 |
David Lyon | Worked on the farm and some of them made a regular house job, keeping house for the- | 20:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, for White people? | 20:58 |
David Lyon | White people. | 20:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Were Blacks who lived in town, who was better off? Were Blacks who lived in town or Blacks who lived in the country, you think? | 21:01 |
David Lyon | Who had it better? | 21:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Who had the better life? | 21:17 |
David Lyon | I don't know, in a way, because out on the farm, you could raise a good job and raise your food. See, my parents, see, they didn't know nothing about buying all this [indistinct 00:21:44] meat and all that stuff and a whole lot of stuff. Most that they bought was sugar, coffee and flour, salt. A whole lot of just something they wanted. All this other stuff, they raised it at home. See, that saved a lot of money right there. If you were in town, only about one or two working in that house and you got four or five children and you didn't have no money, a whole lot of money to spend, no more than just taking care of your family, | 21:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you kill hogs during the year? | 22:26 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 22:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you talk, tell me when that happened and what you did for work at that time? | 22:44 |
David Lyon | You killed hogs December, January and February, and when that time come, some people always be ahead of the other, knew how to make a better living than the other. Some of them, they killed hogs in December. That gave them a lot off fresh meat right after Thanksgiving. Then about February, they have some more to kill, and that gave them a lot of sausage, liver, all this meat where you go to the store and buy it now. See, they couldn't keep it, because there wasn't no electric out through the country, and they couldn't keep it for so long, but they would have at that time of year sausage and all this, spare ribs and all that stuff. | 22:51 |
David Lyon | Now, you see, you can get it anytime you want to and keep it, but then, you just had a hog to kill and take that meat and you kill it and you salt it down. Right. You put salt on it and it'll stay there till the spring of the year. Then they'll take that salt and wash it off and put black pepper, oil and they put oil and black pepper and then they put a piece of wire through it and string it up in the smokehouse and they'll smoke that meat, get that flavor, taste in it. That meat would stay there all the summer. | 23:38 |
Karen Ferguson | It would keep good? | 24:24 |
David Lyon | Yeah. It'll keep good. It may turn a little bit yellow on the outside, but the inside will be good, fresh meat. | 24:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Would that be ham, then? | 24:36 |
David Lyon | Ham, [indistinct 00:24:40] and millen. Okay. It'll stay there right on through the summer on up to the next time. | 24:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you eat any other kind of meat? | 24:45 |
David Lyon | Well, they had cows. You see, they'll sell a cow and buy a piece like that because my people raised a lot of hogs, and they'll sell a piece of meat and buy some other kind of meat like that and raise chickens. We raised a lot of chicken, raise 100 chickens, 150, 200 chickens. When they had killed a lot of chickens, they changed the meat. | 24:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Where did your parents do their marketing? Where did they buy the coffee and flour and sugar? | 25:15 |
David Lyon | Well, they mostly went to places like little small towns like that. Sometimes, they had to go out to a little country store and buy a little sugar, but most of the time, when you go out to a place, just like now, you go to the supermarket, you do get a break on things. You stop to these little country stores and stuff's 10 and 15 cents higher than all like that. Same thing back in them days. | 25:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they always have enough money to buy the stuff, or did they ever have to buy on credit? | 25:56 |
David Lyon | Well, sometimes they had to get it on credit and the man would credit them, and when they sell the crop that fall, they would pay this money back. | 26:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there a different price for things bought on credit and things bought with cash? | 26:12 |
David Lyon | Well, the price would be the same but of course, you'd get interest they would add on. | 26:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. How much interest would they charge? | 26:24 |
David Lyon | I think about 5 cents, I believe. I believe about 5% interest back then. | 26:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you go to church when you were growing up? | 26:38 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 26:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Which church was that? | 26:41 |
David Lyon | That was Bethlehem Baptist Church. I went to church. I went to Sunday school. I'm still there. | 26:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What role did the church play in the Black community in that area? | 26:49 |
David Lyon | Well, Sunday school, and they played trying to get the people, teach them to be better people and telling them how to treat people and what God meant to them and all that. | 26:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 27:17 |
David Lyon | Yeah. I'm still a member of that same church I went to Sunday school when I little kid. | 27:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was church a place to meet people as well? | 27:26 |
David Lyon | Yeah. That's the only way, church and school were the only two places children had to go. You go to church. You can meet other people, other children and people can meet and then talk, and school. Them were the only two places children had to go. They didn't go to a [indistinct 00:27:57] house. Didn't have all this outside show now. I'd say a bar, like you're going to stop and go out to them dancing and drinking. You didn't have all that then. | 27:26 |
Karen Ferguson | There weren't any Piccolos? | 28:09 |
David Lyon | Well, there was a few, but you couldn't walk there and back so far out in the country. | 28:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Would your parents have allowed you to go if you could get there? | 28:17 |
David Lyon | Well now, when I was allowed to go to these places, I was getting around on my own a little bit. Yeah. Well, a small kid, they couldn't go. | 28:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember your baptism? | 28:34 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 28:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you have any memories of that that you could talk about? | 28:43 |
David Lyon | See, I was 28 years old when I was baptism. That was in 1951. I joined the church in August. They had what they called a revival meeting. Had revival meeting in August, and I joined the church in August, and they didn't baptize that coming up Sunday. They would carry them over 30 days, and I was baptized that September and after I was baptized, become a member of that church. I joined the usher bowl, I think, that same year, along in October, started ushering at the church. I'm still ushering at that church now. | 28:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did they do the baptisms? | 29:39 |
David Lyon | They did it in a creek. I think about eight or ten of us put on. The ladies put on white gowns and the men put on t-shirts and pants, tied their heads up, and were baptized that way. Now, they've got a pool. We've got a pool at our church now. We don't go to the river and creek. We baptize in the pool now. | 29:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Were most people baptized around the same age as you were? | 30:11 |
David Lyon | Yeah. | 30:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, you were talking a little bit about the fun you had, places where you met your friends when you were young. What kinds of things did you do for fun with your friends at school or at home? | 30:22 |
David Lyon | Well, at school and things, we played baseball and different, but baseball was the main goal back then, baseball. No, we just played jumping stand, have sticks, run, jump over it and do it and friends just get together and just play like that, and had swings in a tree like that. Put a rope up there or a chain, we'll come down and swing and do like that. All this basketball and volleyball and all this ball, didn't have it back then. Hmm-mmm (negative). | 30:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you have a bat and ball, or did you have to make one? | 31:14 |
David Lyon | We had made some balls, that bag of twine where we saved from that bag and we took it out in the field and put it on that stick. We [indistinct 00:31:34] and the stick and we'd take it and sometimes make us a ball and they'll get a needle and keep sewing it together and get a hard ball, we called it, and play that way. Then sometimes, we'll buy a ball and sometimes make a bat, and then sometimes children buy a bat. | 31:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What other things did you do? What other things did you do for fun when you were at home, when you weren't at school? Would you play baseball at home, too? | 32:12 |
David Lyon | Well, we didn't have enough to play baseball, but we'd get out in the yard, just get a ball, about three or four, throw to this one, that one, throw to him, like that. Sometimes got three. We'd get a bat and wasn't nothing to play a game. It'd just take a pitcher and a one at the backstop and one that, you can just play baseball that way, three and four. | 32:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you have a special name for those games at all? | 32:48 |
David Lyon | No, we didn't have no special names. Just playing ball. | 32:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you have any sports heroes when you were growing up? Joe Lewis or Jackie Robinson? | 32:56 |
David Lyon | Well, let's see. When I was growing up, now as a little kid, see, we didn't have no radio. The first radio come out and had batteries. I think the first radio I remember in our house, I and my four brothers, we went out working tobacco and seemed like the radio was $40. I paid $10. My other three brothers paid $10. We went and bought this radio for $40 and it had batteries and had the wire come out from in the window. We had a pole kind of like that light pole there, and the wire go out and bring the music in. After we got the radio, I believe Joe Louis was fighting then and Max Miller. Down Saturday night, we used to listen to that, come from Tennessee. Can't think of the name of it now. We used get that about every Saturday night. Can't think of the name of it now. | 33:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Yep. What was it, what kind of program was it? What was it? Was it sports? | 34:44 |
David Lyon | Yeah, they spoke like, yeah. Yeah. | 34:48 |
Karen Ferguson | When you got older and you started to go to dances and so on, what kind of music did you listen to? | 34:54 |
David Lyon | Well, we listened to a record player. | 35:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). What musicians did you listen to? Who were the singers? | 35:04 |
David Lyon | Well, we didn't have no, we had some men and boys that sang a little bit and they had a quartet singing and had a [indistinct 00:35:07] top like that, making music like that. | 35:06 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of music was that called? Were the quartets, was it a barbershop quartet or was it gospel that they were singing? | 35:06 |
David Lyon | Well, some of it was blues And some were spirit like. Just like you go to a place that people care for blues. They'd play blues. Then you go to a place, people spirit, they play spirit music. | 35:40 |
Karen Ferguson | When you went out, you often heard people singing live, live music? | 36:02 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Right. | 36:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And would this be at Piccolos or dance halls or where would you hear people singing like this? | 36:08 |
David Lyon | It'd be a Piccolo, at a dance hall. Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 36:14 |
Karen Ferguson | These Piccolos, I've heard a lot of people talk about them. Were they legal? They served liquor, right? | 36:20 |
David Lyon | Some places, yeah. Some places did and some places, they didn't. | 36:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Would it just be at somebody's house or where would? | 36:35 |
David Lyon | It'd be a little joint like. Sometimes, it'd be at a country store. They'd have a little building out from the country store and have a Piccolo in there. They called it drawing a crowd for the store to make more money and all like that. | 36:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever go to the movies? | 36:58 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 37:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you go to see movies? | 37:04 |
David Lyon | We went to a little small town named Whitakers and Tarboro, but the first movie I went to come to the school, and it brought a movie to a school. That was the first movie that I remember going to. | 37:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember what movie it was? | 37:24 |
David Lyon | No, I don't. First, this movie I was going to, it wasn't talking. They had a movie, then put the reading up there what it was about. I think about after that, it seemed like the movies then started talking as they act. | 37:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did these silent movies that you saw, did they ever have Black actors? | 37:51 |
David Lyon | No. | 37:54 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 37:54 |
David Lyon | Hmm-mmm (negative). No. There were no Black actors back then. | 38:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, you said you went to school. What was the school's name again? It was the? | 38:08 |
David Lyon | The Grown school. | 38:12 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you were pulled out after fifth grade? You couldn't go any more because you had to work. | 38:16 |
David Lyon | Yeah, I was pulled out after I was fifth grade. See, what happened, I wasn't going enough to make a grade. I would go maybe a month, six weeks during that year, seemed like back then, there was what? Six months school? Seven months? Something like that. See, I had to work that fall. Then I'd go a little bit during the winter. Then the spring, I had to start back. | 38:24 |
Karen Ferguson | You missed a lot of school. | 38:48 |
David Lyon | Yeah, I missed a lot of school. Something like that, you sometimes stay in one grade two years and all like that. See, now, children got to go to school, must be in school. | 38:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there children who could go every day? Black children who went every day to school? | 39:01 |
David Lyon | Yes. Some did. | 39:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Why were they able to and you weren't? | 39:08 |
David Lyon | Well, mostly in that day, the girl had a better chance going to school than the boy. The boy had to, like I said, pad that land for getting it spring of the year and the girl had a better chance than the boy. The boy had it get that [indistinct 00:39:28] wood racked up and the boy just had more work to do in the field. See, after girls get the cotton picked, well, the girls had nothing else to do in the field. Corn and stuff like that, sometimes they'll help on Saturday, but the boys mostly pull the corn and all that stuff getting it in and done. The boy just didn't have the chance to go to school like the girl. Some of the boys could go to school, but as a whole, the boys didn't have a chance to go to school. | 39:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you like school? | 40:06 |
David Lyon | Yeah, I liked school. Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 40:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever resent the fact that you couldn't go every day? Did that ever bother you? | 40:13 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah. It still bothers me in a way. Wasn't nothing to do about it. Now, it is bothering me, because I can't read and do like a whole lot of people that went through the school. | 40:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were your sisters able to go to school all the time? | 40:36 |
David Lyon | Yeah. | 40:37 |
Karen Ferguson | How far did they get in school? | 40:37 |
David Lyon | My sister went to college. | 40:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, yeah? | 40:44 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative). My younger brother, he went further in school than I did because my older brother, it was a tough strain on him. He even went in high school. | 40:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What kind of values do you think your parents instilled in you? What was important for you to learn from them in terms of how to be a good person? | 40:56 |
David Lyon | How to be a good person? | 41:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 41:11 |
David Lyon | Well, one thing I learned from them, stay in good company and try to prepare for yourself food at home and stuff like that and go to church. | 41:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). What did it mean to stay in good company? What did they mean by that? Who was not good company, or bad company? | 41:37 |
David Lyon | Well, just like you go out and met people. Just like now, some neighborhoods is better than others to live in. Some neighborhoods, I said, right in that neighborhood with drugs, you wouldn't want to stay in there. | 41:46 |
Karen Ferguson | You were saying that there were neighborhoods, like today, that there are neighborhoods that you can't go into? We're talking about bad company. | 42:00 |
David Lyon | Yeah, bad company. Yeah. Just like this day. Well, just like some people, just like some neighborhoods, a lot of drug dealers in there. Then another neighborhood is not. That's what I call bad company. | 42:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there people like that? Were there bad people that you weren't supposed to hang around with when you were young? | 42:25 |
David Lyon | Well— | 42:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Or bad areas where you? | 42:35 |
David Lyon | Well, yes. Parents knew it. They wouldn't let you go there. Just like somebody, I said, the house, somebody all the time hanging around there in the cells, liquor there, and they knew it. They wouldn't let you go there to play and do. They would let you go somewhere people go to the church and have good company around like that. That's why I call, they're from bad company. | 42:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What kinds of things would the people, these so-called bad people, what kind of things would they do that that would be bad? | 43:00 |
David Lyon | Well, that wouldn't be so much they'd be doing bad, but just the company you're with. | 43:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). What were the signs of segregation around where you lived when you were growing up? | 43:32 |
David Lyon | What were the signs? | 43:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm (affirmative). What were the things that Blacks could do and what could they not do? | 43:42 |
David Lyon | Well, the Black couldn't get good jobs, and they couldn't go to certain places. They couldn't go to places to eat like they're doing now. Just like you and I sitting out here talking, we couldn't sit out here and talk then, such as that. | 43:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did your parents ever have to teach you about how to treat White people in order to stay out of trouble with them? | 44:13 |
David Lyon | Well, they just teach you don't bother and don't go to their house and start no argument or nothing. They don't want you there. Don't go, like that. | 44:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Were there certain White people that you knew particularly not to stay away from? Were there some racists that you knew about that you really were dangerous or violent? | 44:45 |
David Lyon | Well, some were worse than others. Yeah. | 44:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know anybody who crossed the line, who did some of these things, got into arguments with White people or anything like that and got into trouble for it? | 45:03 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 45:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you remember an example that you could tell me about? | 45:13 |
David Lyon | Well, some people wouldn't want the Black to come around, be around or something that like that. Some people, some of the White were different, because I know in my neighborhood now, you go to this White man's house, he'd tell you, "Come on in." He'd take me into the living room. You and him would sit down and talk. Then another man, maybe across the road, he wouldn't ask you in. He would say, "What you want?" | 45:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 46:12 |
David Lyon | If he asked you in, he's going to ask you in his kissing. That would be the truth. | 46:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right, right. Do you ever remember people being put into prison for things that they didn't do? | 46:20 |
David Lyon | Mmm— | 46:26 |
David Lyon | —be at the wrong place at the wrong time and all like that. Mm-hmm. | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Okay. Now, you said you finished up at school and then you went to work full-time on the farm. When did you leave home? | 0:06 |
David Lyon | Well, I left home when I was about—I come out of service, I was about 22. And I come back home, stayed there with my father and mother and went to work until I married. And I was 28 when I got married the first time. And I stayed there with my father and mother for two years. And then I moved out to my house. I built a house when I was 30 years old and then I start out on my own. | 0:25 |
David Lyon | My father had done help me bought this farm before I got married. And when I got married it didn't have no house on it. So I was renting a farm right there on the side of his farm. Helped him tend his farm and rented this farm. And that's where I got this money from to build this house. And after I was married two years and about five months, I had the first son born. I had two children, a girl and a boy. The boy about five years older than my daughter. That's when I start out on my own. | 1:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. How did you meet your wife? | 1:52 |
David Lyon | Well, I met her going to school, church. | 1:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you knew her when you were growing up? | 1:58 |
David Lyon | Yeah, I knew her when I was growing up. Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 1:59 |
Karen Ferguson | And where did you get married? | 2:04 |
David Lyon | Well, I got married at a preacher's home. Yeah. | 2:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So was that how most people got married in those days? | 2:12 |
David Lyon | Along then, most of them. Some of them had a wedding at the home and like that. But they didn't have a whole lot of church weddings. | 2:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Why was that? | 2:18 |
David Lyon | They couldn't afford it. | 2:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 2:25 |
David Lyon | No, they couldn't afford it. | 2:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. How did you buy the land? You said your dad helped you out. Did he get a loan to buy the farm? | 2:30 |
David Lyon | Well, in a way he got a loan, in a way he won't, because he was dealing with a fella buying fertilizer— | 2:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. So furnishing? | 2:59 |
David Lyon | Furnishing and doing. And this fella had a farm and he sold it to him. And he financed it his self. He didn't go through no loans or nothing. He financed it his self and we just paid him out. | 2:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was he fair with you? | 3:11 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. | 3:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Were there ever times when people lost their farms because they couldn't pay the furnishing agent? | 3:19 |
David Lyon | Yeah. Yeah, equal times. Mm-hmm. | 3:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Was your family ever in danger of that ever? | 3:32 |
David Lyon | Yeah, they got pretty scared back there. When was it? 1930s when the Depression hit, back on, some folk call them Hoover Days. | 3:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 3:45 |
David Lyon | You ever hear tell of them days? | 3:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, uh-huh. | 3:46 |
David Lyon | Okay then. That's when they got pretty scared then they're going to lose everything they had. | 3:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. And how did they manage not to? | 3:54 |
David Lyon | Well, by living at home, like I said, raising all this food. Just buying a little coffee, sugar, stuff like that about the only way they managed not to lose it. | 3:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. How about when you were on your own? Did you ever go through hard times like that? | 4:11 |
David Lyon | Not that kind of hard time. Mm-mm. After World War II, things started going up and the people began to make more money and gradually started getting better. That's the reason you know things been getting tight like this back then. Everything just went back down. | 4:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. How did your experience in the service change you? Do you think you were a different man when you came back from the service? | 4:50 |
David Lyon | Well, in a way. Because I learned in the service that if you want to be a man, you've got to stand out on your own. Just like you was a soldier, you can be a bad soldier or a good soldier or you get with a bad crowd and get in the guardhouse or something like that. But I didn't never go to the guardhouse or been locked up. Just like now, I ain't never been in court for anything. | 4:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 5:30 |
David Lyon | I have never been in court for anything. | 5:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Is that unusual for a person around here, a Black person, to have stayed out of trouble like that? | 5:30 |
David Lyon | No, it's not unusual. | 5:42 |
Karen Ferguson | No? Okay. | 5:42 |
David Lyon | Mm-mm. There's plenty of them ain't never been in court at all like that. | 5:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Yeah, I'm thinking not so much for something they did, but just being harassed by the police or things like that. | 5:49 |
David Lyon | Yep, like that. But see, just like driving a car or something that you get a ticket or something like that, had to meet in court. Yeah, I don't count that in a way. | 5:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 6:04 |
David Lyon | Hey. | 6:04 |
Karen Ferguson | So when you got married you started a family, what kinds of things did you teach your children, particularly your son? What did you tell your son about being a man? | 6:12 |
David Lyon | Well, I tell him stay out of bad company, go to church and look for good families to get around and go to like that. | 6:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. Did your father teach you anything about being a good husband? | 6:45 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. | 6:48 |
Karen Ferguson | What did he teach you? | 6:50 |
David Lyon | Well, he told me if I'm going to get out and court, going to see a girl, if I didn't want to marry her, don't start going with her. | 6:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. | 7:01 |
David Lyon | I think that's a pretty good example. You don't want a lady, don't start going with her and then if anything happen, you don't want her. Always start going with somebody you want to start with. | 7:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right, right. When did you first vote? | 7:29 |
David Lyon | I first voted back there in the first the sixties. | 7:36 |
Karen Ferguson | In the first the sixties? | 7:39 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. Many Blacks had to read the Constitution and all like that. And that's when I first voted. Before all this marching started, I was voting before that. | 7:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, how did you manage to do that? | 7:54 |
David Lyon | Well, when I first registered, a White lady registered me out there in the country store. See, she was a good lady. See, I used to go up there. She was about—from here to the highway out there from Hialeah. See, I used to go up there all time up there in her store. She was a good lady. And when I got ready to register, she was there in the store by herself. And she opened the book and she said, "I know you've got understanding enough to know how to register, what you want to vote for." She just go and put me on the book. | 7:57 |
Karen Ferguson | That's incredible. | 8:46 |
David Lyon | That's where I started voting. | 8:49 |
Karen Ferguson | That's a great story. Now, once you registered once, was that it? Was that the big hurdle? Could you register again when— | 8:54 |
David Lyon | When you got on the book, you were a steady voter. You didn't have to go back through that no more. | 9:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. | 9:10 |
David Lyon | See, ever since I've been on the book, I haven't had to register no more. | 9:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, was she known to do that? | 9:20 |
David Lyon | Well, I don't know about that, but that's the break she give me. | 9:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 9:30 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. That's the break she give me. | 9:30 |
Karen Ferguson | So Blacks wouldn't go, you people wouldn't go over there especially to register with her? | 9:32 |
David Lyon | No. Uh-huh, no. See, you had to register and vote in your own, like in Edgecombe County. And Edgecombe County got about 22 townships. You had to register to vote in your own township. And she had the book at that time and she was a good lady. And she said, "You've got understanding enough to know who you want to vote and register for." | 9:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Were there many Blacks who voted in Edgecombe County? | 10:07 |
David Lyon | There's many, but not like it is with me. | 10:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 10:16 |
David Lyon | No, I'd say about a third of the Blacks. | 10:17 |
Karen Ferguson | A third? | 10:20 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. | 10:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Would there be reasons why people wouldn't vote even if they were registered? Was there any intimidation of voters at all, do you think, of Black people who wanted to vote by Whites? | 10:23 |
David Lyon | No, wasn't no reason or nothing they wanted to vote. But some of them, I don't know. We've got some now still don't register to vote. | 10:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So even if you were a sharecropper or something, the White man wouldn't say, "Don't vote?" | 10:52 |
David Lyon | Well, some of them would tell you who to vote for and all like that. But I always feel if you've got good understanding and everything, don't let nobody put anything in your head what they want. You've got understanding enough to know who running for president or who not running for the governor and different things. You've got to understand enough to know who you want. You just let folks talk and put on the paper who you want. | 10:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, at the time when you came back from the service, did you ever subscribe to a Black newspaper? Did you get any Black news? | 11:35 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. Yeah, a Black paper come once a month. | 11:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-huh. What was it called, do you remember? Where was it from? | 11:54 |
David Lyon | I've forgotten now. But we used to get Black news from this paper. Yeah. | 11:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. When you started your own family, when you'd grown up there, did you belong to any organizations outside of the church? Farm organizations or anything like that? No? | 12:14 |
David Lyon | No, uh-uh. | 12:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Any fraternal organization? Were there Masons and things around here? | 12:30 |
David Lyon | Yeah, mm-hmm, there were Masons and all that, but I didn't never join no Masons or anything. | 12:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Did many Black farmers belong to that kind of organization? | 12:50 |
David Lyon | Yeah. | 12:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah? | 12:53 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm, yeah, there were many Black when organization like Masons and different lodge like that. | 12:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was there an NAACP in Edgecombe County? | 13:09 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. | 13:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you ever belong to that? | 13:12 |
David Lyon | No. | 13:13 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 13:13 |
David Lyon | Mm-mm. | 13:13 |
Karen Ferguson | When did they start to be active in— | 13:17 |
David Lyon | Oh, they started back there in the sixties. | 13:23 |
Karen Ferguson | In the sixties? | 13:23 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. | 13:23 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. Well, I'm about finished up. I'm going to finish now because we have to do a little paperwork before we stop. | 13:30 |
David Lyon | Mm-hmm. Okay. | 13:37 |
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