Clarence Powell (primary interviewee) and Sylvestra Powell interview recording, 1993 June 30
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Clarence Powell | I was born 1917. West Palm Beach, Florida. | 0:01 |
Kara Miles | Okay. Is that where you grew up? [indistinct 00:00:10]? | 0:05 |
Clarence Powell | Yes. I stayed there at West Palm Beach until I was about, about ooh, 16 years old. Then the little work we had to do around there was in the bean field picking beans on a farm. We didn't have any farm, but we picked a lot of beans and we got 25 cents a bushel for them. That was good money then. I had come out of school and by coming out of school I didn't get too much education and my sisters, four of us, two sisters and two brothers and four of us come out during the school period of time and worked because that was during the Depression. One day I didn't like working in the bean field so I got tired and I walked off the bean field about 12 o'clock that day and never went back. | 0:10 |
Clarence Powell | Then my mother had a second cousin. She was in charge of the Social Service in Palm Beach. She sent me to what was known as a CC camp. That's for young men's that didn't have no work. I went to CC camp and made $30 a month, $25 went home and you kept $25. That was a lot of money for me, $5 a month. What happened was I was living with my grandmother because I was partly raised by my grandmother, my brother and I. I stayed 18 months in the CC camp and my grandmother had all my money, had $375 of my money when I came out in 1937. That was a lot of money. I left West Palm Beach on March the 16th, 1937 and went to New York and joined my mother and my two sisters and—our youngest brother, he stayed in Florida with my grandmother. Went to New York City, got a job, what I could do, weren't too much jobs down there. | 1:05 |
Clarence Powell | Before I left, I'm a little head of the story. Before I left Florida, we had discrimination there, but you never could tell it because we didn't go to the White people for nothing. Everything what we called Colored Town, we had everything we wanted. We had two theaters, we had the supermarkets and the market, the meat markets, the funeral homes and anything else you wanted. We didn't never have to go to the White people. They had to come to us for things like the market and other different things they had to come for. | 2:26 |
Clarence Powell | I'll never forget this, when they showed Gone With the Wind, it came to West Palm Beach and the White folks didn't have a theater. We had two theaters in what we call Colored Town. We showed Gone with the Wind in one of those theaters, the Dixie Theater. What happened, well this one thing I won't forget to manager of the theater, which was Black, he got a rope in the mezzanine and he took a rope and divided the mezzanine from the front to the back, White sit on one side and the Black sit on the other side. We didn't know nothing about that but that couldn't happen today. | 3:10 |
Clarence Powell | We never had no problem. I never had no problem because the reason why we didn't have no problem down there because this is where all the rich people live. All the rich people, they the one that lived in Florida around where we lived in Palm Beach, Florida. They didn't have no much discrimination there because the Black folks, mostly that's where they got their work from. The tourism came from the North. Where I met most of my racism and segregation is New York City. That's the first place I met it and I continued to meet it all along until I stayed there in 1941. I went to the service, no, '41 I got married to my wife. In 1943, I went to the service and I stayed in the service 3 years, 9 months and 21 days. | 3:58 |
Clarence Powell | I ran into a lot of racism in the service. I was in the Navy, we was on an aircraft carrier. Certain parts of the aircraft carrier we couldn't go on. Yet still, we was in the service. They used to call us not sailors, "boy, you people. You people are not allowed on certain part of the ships. You people are not allowed this place and that place." This where I ran into racism and I went to a place down in the island called Midway Island. I stayed down there and we had White and Black all had to stay together because the island was small, it couldn't be separated. We couldn't be separated because the island was too small and the captain was in charge of the base. He would never tolerate racism, [indistinct 00:06:05], bigotry or nothing like that on that base. He said we all here for one cause, to fight, and he would never allow it. He said, you might do it someplace but you are not allowed to do it here. | 5:06 |
Clarence Powell | I stayed in the Navy and I left and I left the Navy, came back to New York City. Then me and my wife, she gave birth to my number one son. By that time I'd been looking for work, but like I said, a racism and segregation, a Black man could not get work in New York City. He could get it, but it would be the dirty work. I learned to be an automobile mechanic when I put applications in one place and put applications in one place but never could get no work. There was a Black guy up on Jerome Avenue in the Bronx in New York City. He was hiring, so I went up there and got a job and he paid me $42 a week. That was a lot of money. | 6:17 |
Clarence Powell | I started working there and started learning, and after I learned, started growing up. Then mechanics began to become a shortage. Then you didn't have no problem getting a job there. You could almost pick your job if you were a good mechanic, you could almost pick your job. What happened? Well I worked at different shops. Then as I got older, I began to feel, I began to see I was getting older. One Saturday morning, I went to a bar and just stopped by to speak to the fellas and I happened to pick up a paper and the paper said the New York City Transfer Authority was hiring bus mechanics. I left, went right down on the subway, went right in the Brooklyn and applied for the job and I got the job, the best move I ever made in my life. | 7:06 |
Clarence Powell | Then I stayed there about 12 or 14 years, then I retired. In the meantime, I came to North Carolina. Before that I had bought a little small mobile home here because I loved North Carolina. I found that North Carolina was a nice place to retire. I bought a little single-wide mobile home and I'd come in every year being the wife and visit State Island and vacation time. When I retired we turned and bought this new double wide mobile home when I retired. After I moved down here, it was a nice place. Everybody treated you nice. I started coming out there 50 years ago. After 50 years I went down. I came to move here and as an old saying, you can live with the Devil for 50 years but you go live with him and you'll find him out. | 8:22 |
Clarence Powell | That's what happened to me. I learned more here in five to eight years than I learned 60 years in New York City about people. People are the same, but there are a few different people. There are people that, like I said, you can be around they'll you treat you nice but go live with him and you'll find him out. I came here and I stayed here and I loved it. I love the place, of course it's a nice place. I live 35% cheaper here in North Carolina than did in New York City. I found out I got to work around in the center with people, trying to help the people out here. I was a member of a Presbyterian church while I was in New York City, which the denomination was mixed Black and White. We had some of the finest and the most educated peoples in the world went to which church I went to. | 9:48 |
Clarence Powell | Church I went to, some of the most educated people and they were finest people in the world, but they would never put themselves—if they found out that you didn't have the education they had, they would never put themselves above you. They would keep themselves lower at your level. They would never show you up. I lived in a complex in New York City too. I lived in a complex in New York City, it was about 1800 families. I hope I'm not backing up. | 11:05 |
Kara Miles | [indistinct 00:11:38]. | 11:34 |
Clarence Powell | I lived in a complex about 1800 families and we had all nationalities, you name it and we had them. Now to live like this in a neighborhood for 43 years in one neighborhood for 43 years with that many people, we spoke to one another, greeted one another, and that's about all. Now to come and live in an all Black neighborhood and I have never lived in a Black neighborhood, never belonged to an all Black church, never belong to a Baptist church, and I found out it made a difference when you come in a neighborhood like this and you live as long as I lived in a place I lived in New York City. Came here and I found out outsiders was not too welcome. If you're an outsider, you're not too welcome in this community. It's bad to say, but I try to go along with the program. When a person had never been nowhere and never traveled but you can't read and you don't write, there's a difference. You have to ask me some questions now. | 11:38 |
Kara Miles | Well I want to ask you, you said you've been coming to North Carolina for 50 years. Why did you start coming to North Carolina? | 13:04 |
Clarence Powell | Because this was my wife's home. This was her home. I would come down and visit her mother and her father and we'd stay a week when I had a vacation time and boss says two weeks, then we'd go back to New York City. I found I'd come down here, that's why I say instead of living in the old house where my father and mother-in-law lived, we bought this little mobile home and set it here where we got it here over here on this property here. That's why we had the little place down here. You know what I mean? | 13:12 |
Kara Miles | Where had you met your wife? | 13:47 |
Clarence Powell | I met her in New York City. I met her at a party one night. I'm going to tell that. You don't want to tell that do you? | 13:51 |
Kara Miles | Sure. Yeah. Tell me that. | 14:01 |
Clarence Powell | I met my wife at a party one night and she weighed about 100 pounds and nothing but legs and I fell and I liked her. We've been together for 53 years now, going on 53, it'll be 53 next year. That's it. We've just been together. That's all. Just a little one I guess. It's a long time. | 14:03 |
Kara Miles | Good. Okay. You told me so much. I got to go back to the beginning and ask you more questions about it. You said you all picked beans? | 14:34 |
Clarence Powell | String beans. That was farming there just like tobacco is here in North Carolina, string beans was the main crop down there. In the mornings, six o'clock, seven o'clock, we would get on a corner just like cattle and had an open body truck with a fence around the truck and we load in that truck and stand in that truck for 4 or 5 or 10 miles till we got to the bean field. Then we had to wait until the dew dry on the bush before we picked because if you'd go in there you'd get wet. We had to wait until maybe 9:30 or 10 o'clock, then we picked beans until it got dark, 25 cents a bushel. To eat, that's what you had to do. | 14:45 |
Clarence Powell | We didn't have, like the peoples in the country here, we didn't have pork to eat, we didn't have chickens to eat. Our diet was beans and fish because we was on the water, freshwater and saltwater. Things wasn't too bad. My father, he left my mother with four children. I was the oldest. What could we do? Then in 1928, September the 30th, school was supposed to open that Monday morning. A hurricane came through. A hurricane came through out of Cuba, down to Miami, up to West Palm Beach and left nothing but nothing standing. The Red Cross had to take care of us for about three to four months in tents. That's where we lived in tents. You talk about a hurricane, Andrew was no hurricane. That was a blow by to compare with the hurricane came and then because we didn't have no warning or anything like doing 1920, no radios or nothing. | 15:40 |
Clarence Powell | That's why I love the Red Cross today because Red Cross take care of us, built the home back and left us pretty well off. Left us in a good condition when they left, left in good condition. I've had good times and had bad times. As they say, the good Lord bless you. Try to do the right thing, love your fellow man. That's the most important thing you do. You don't love your fellow man, you on a bad fix. If you think you in a good fix, don't love your fellow man you will be in a bad fix. Now do you have any more? | 17:05 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. When the Red Cross came and helped you all lived in, you said you lived in tents? | 17:48 |
Clarence Powell | Yes. | 17:55 |
Kara Miles | Were there big tents and lots of families? | 17:56 |
Clarence Powell | No, individual tents. | 17:58 |
Kara Miles | Had your own tents. | 17:59 |
Clarence Powell | Inside our own tents. My mother had five of us. She had a tent for five children. Red Cross fed us with milk and whatever they had. Each family had an individual tent. That's where we stayed at. There was a time what they called the Everglades, they had the Seminole Indians, my grandmother was a Seminole. See my grandmother was a Seminole Indian. In 1928, there's a flower blooms in the swamps, whenever that flower blooms, you have to move. There's disaster coming. Well as the Seminole Indians told his White brother to get out because there's going to be horrible things going to happen to the Everglades. They didn't believe him. They called him crazy. All the Seminole Indians, which wasn't many during that period of time, all of them left the glades and went on high ground to West Palm Beach, Miami, Del Ray, Fort Lauderdale, up on high ground. His White brothers didn't believe him. | 18:00 |
Clarence Powell | When the 1928 storm was over, it broke the wooden dam they had at what they call Lake Okeechobee, the largest freshwater lake in the state of Florida. It broke that lake down, broke that dam down and it flooded the Everglades and it killed 1500 Whites. Not one Indian got drowned. 1500 White brothers got drowned. The worst part about after it happened, they called the National Guard and the National Guard came in West Palm Beach, Delray, Fort Lauderdale, wherever they can and pick up a Black man. That was his job to go out there and put those White brothers in body bags. I saw this personally, I saw a National guard shoot a Black man in the back because he wouldn't go to pick up the dead men out on the Everglades. They wouldn't get their White brothers to do it but they got the Black to do the dirty job, hauled them in trucks just like they would do when we was going to the bean field. Under guard to go out and clean up dead bodies up. I saw that with my own eyes. | 19:28 |
Kara Miles | Were they paying them to do that? | 20:58 |
Clarence Powell | No, you didn't get no pay. Then—I'm going a little bit coming back to me. During the school break in West Palm Beach, my mother used to send me to Georgia to visit my other grandmother and grandparents, which was Thomas County, Thomasville, Georgia. It was a mean town. Everybody in the town was named Powell because, I don't know whether I should tell you this. Okay. I used to come and visit. I saw a lynching. I saw some White men killed a Black brother. After they killed him, they tied a rope around his neck and tied him to a car and pulled him up the Main Street in Thomasville, Georgia. | 21:02 |
Clarence Powell | That I never forget. I was only 13 years old, but I can still remember that. I was only 13 years old. You never forget things. I stayed around my grandmother and them, come back here once in a year for my grandmother. We was a Powell. My great-great grandfather was a White man. His name was Steve Powell. He came from England. He came over here. He was 23 years old and he wanted a wife. He came from Virginia and he came to North Carolina in a place called Hannah's Mountain during that period of time. | 22:21 |
Clarence Powell | The White men was killing all the Indian men and taking their children and women and selling them. Steve Powell bought himself an Indian girl who was 17 years old and taken her back, they went to Georgia, a place called Midcap, Georgia, in Thomas County right outside of Thomasville. He didn't marry her. He had 11 children by her without marrying her. He's still not married to her. Got 11 children. One of those children, one of those boys, he had five boys and six girls. One of those boys was my grandfather. My grandfather got grown, then that period of time slavery was—began to be over with. Then he married a woman named Anne Hudson, which was my grandmother. When they got married, they turned and had three sons. One of those sons was my daddy, which was named Andrew Powell. All the Powells, all his sons, he had three sons and all his sons, it's a whole bunch of them, and they all had mostly boys, Powells. | 23:33 |
Clarence Powell | My daddy came to Florida. Yes, my daddy came to Florida. In the meantime, his mother and father had lived together for 65 years. He was 97 and she was 96. Both of them died three days apart. My grandfather died, never woke up, went to bed, one woke up his good health and before they put him in the ground, they found her in the walking chair two days later sitting in the rocking chair, she was gone. What a blessing that was. That brought me back in this. From then on, the Powells started having family reunions [indistinct 00:26:31]. | 25:28 |
Clarence Powell | Then we have a family reunion each year now. The last family reunion we had, we went back to Thomas County. We went out on our own homestead where Steve Powell and his wife, her name was Hannah Powell too, but he finally married her before they died. He finally married her before they died. The last family reunion, we went back to the home. We had a family reunion. We had it in Thomas County. It was 277 Powells, 80% of them was boys and men. When we went back to the old homestead, the house he had those 11 children was still there. There was a woman living in that house with three children. | 26:31 |
Clarence Powell | See what happened though? It was something, Do you know what poverty looks like? You ever know what poverty looks like? That was poverty when we saw that woman and her three kids. About 150 of us standing around that house. I made the suggestion, I said, "We all done been through this house." I said, "It's appropriate for us to take a collection for this woman and these three kids." We took over $200 for that woman. Cut that off. What was that? | 27:48 |
Kara Miles | You took up a collection? | 28:27 |
Clarence Powell | We took up a collection over $200 from that woman. You can believe me when we gave that woman that money, there wasn't a dry eye standing on them grounds because it was a moving program. One of the women said "if Jesus Christ ever been on this earth, He sure is here now." You know what I mean? He was. It was a moving experience for me. That's about all, unless you have something to ask me. | 28:29 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. I wanted to ask you, the great-great grandfather who bought his Indian wife. | 29:08 |
Clarence Powell | Yeah. | 29:17 |
Kara Miles | Did she and her children become his slaves or they lived as a family? | 29:19 |
Clarence Powell | No, no, no, none of the children became a slave. My grandfather, he never became a slave. He never lived with the slaves. | 29:24 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 29:34 |
Clarence Powell | He always told us, my grandfather told me this personally, that his daddy, which was Steve Powell, always treated his slaves very well. He did not abuse them. He didn't have his overseer abuse them. They never was abused by nobody. Well that's about it. He, as a matter of fact, he used to tell me he was the mail, he used to go pick up the mail at the Post Office my grandfather did. He looked like a White man. He was tall as that door. He married an Indian too. | 29:36 |
Kara Miles | Anne Hudson was— | 30:25 |
Clarence Powell | Anne Hudson was an Indian. My grandmother on my mother's side was an Indian, Seminole. On my mother's side, her mother was a full-blooded Indian. A full-blooded, not no half Indian, my grandmother was a full-blooded Seminole Indian. If I had a picture, I got a picture somewhere. You'd see her, you'd see my mother and you'd see her, my mother had seven sisters and three brothers, if you see them all looked like Indian high cheek bone. It's a mixed up thing. I don't know why that White man come from England and married an Indian woman. He got her like I said from Hannah's mountain and taken her back to Georgia, then built up and had 11 children. | 30:26 |
Clarence Powell | We plan on having a family reunion next year down in Miami. We have it every two years. Someone told us the way the Powell family's going, the last time we had it, the youngest Powell there was six months old and he was a boy. The oldest one there was 90 years old and he was a man. We had someone tell us, he said if the Powell family continue to go like this, they'll last another 200 years. | 31:27 |
Clarence Powell | The Powell family is a long lasting family. Looks like seeing everybody lives a long time. On my mother's side, I never knew anybody to die of a disease on my mother's side. Never knew nobody to die of a disease. Everybody that mostly died in their sleep or dropped dead. On my father's side, only thing I know is my grandmother and grandparents both of them died in their sleep at the old age, they had been married over 65 years. Do you got anything else? | 32:13 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. What do you remember about your grandparents? You knew them. What do you remember about them? | 33:13 |
Clarence Powell | Which one, on my daddy's side? | 33:20 |
Kara Miles | On either side. On both sides. | 33:23 |
Clarence Powell | On my mother's side, I don't remember too much about my grandfather. I remember he was a preacher and they came from a place called Madison, Florida to West Palm Beach, Florida. My grandmother came, when she came there, she had had money. I don't know where she got it from, but she had money. She bought up all the land from Fort Lauderdale to a place called Juno Beach, Florida. Everything, the swamps on the water, she bought it. I don't know what she saw, the vision, what she saw, but she saw something. | 33:24 |
Clarence Powell | Even today, it's paying off. It's about all gone now because my mother and them, they began to sell it off when my grandmother and grandfather died. My grandmother was a [indistinct 00:34:27] woman. She was a good woman. A good woman. You had to get up early in the morning to get to her or she was thinking while you were asleep. I stayed with her for about four or five years before I went, like I told you before, before I went to the CC camp. | 34:11 |
Clarence Powell | That was about all. She lived to a ripe old age too. Just like I said, she went to bed and didn't wake up. On my grandfather's side, I don't remember too much about, but I used to go there and stay with them when I was 12 and 13 years old in Thomasville, Georgia. I didn't know too much about him, but I know he used to go for his walk every day with his walking stick. I can remember something else, I used to see him wear a brown shirt and a brown pair of pants. My grandmother would always have a cup of coffee for him when he'd always come back from his walk. She always called him "Sam, Sam, I got your coffee ready." He'd call her, "Ann, where are you, Ann? Ann, where are you?" She was about four and a half feet tall. He was about six and a half feet tall. He was about six and a half feet tall. They was good people. | 34:52 |
Clarence Powell | The only thing I regret, my father left us when we was young kids. We was about eight years old, all four of us was babies almost, he left us went to New York from Florida and never came back. I didn't see him. He left Florida in 1923 or '22 or something. I don't know. I never seen him no more until 1937. He didn't seem like a father to me. His mother and father died and he wasn't 500 miles from them. He didn't even go to the funeral. He hadn't seen his brother in 40 years. He just didn't go back to his folks. But when he died, he died at his brother's house, died at his brother's house. | 36:03 |
Clarence Powell | I think this runs in the family. Got a brother just like him. Just like him. Just like his daddy. Wouldn't come to see nobody if you don't go to see him, he don't come to see nobody. I got a first cousin live in Miami. He got a brother lives in Thomasville, Georgia now. His brother will never come to see nobody, won't go to see nobody, and if you don't come to see him, he ain't going to see you. Same thing. I got a daughter, my daughter, on the same thing. She call us every three times a week but she live in New York City. | 36:57 |
Kara Miles | When your father left, did you all know he was leaving? | 37:40 |
Clarence Powell | I don't remember. I don't remember when he left. That's how young I was. I don't remember when he left and left my mother with four children. He didn't seem like a father to me. You understand? Because I never was around him. When I met him in New York City, he seemed like a stranger to me. | 37:43 |
Kara Miles | How did you end up meeting up with him in New York? | 38:01 |
Clarence Powell | When I went to New York City and my grandmother gave me my money, that $375 and told me, "come back now, you're going to see your mother and sister, come back and I'm going to send you to school to be a doctor. You wanted to be a doctor all your life, that's all you talked about." I said, "Okay grandmother." It was almost 20 years later before I went back to Florida. I met him that Sunday morning, that's where my mother was living at. I don't know. Somehow he was there at the house. I don't think he and my mother had went back together but he was there. After I went in there that Sunday morning, got off the train and went to the house down on 112th Street in New York City. | 38:03 |
Clarence Powell | That's all I can remember. I can't tell you nothing else about my father. Only he greeted me at the door that morning and said, "Clarence?" I said, "Yeah, I'm your son." That was the last thing I can remember. No. Another thing he said to me, I had changed the clothes and I just had on a shirt. He said, "You always put a tie on because you never know who going to visit you." From that, I don't remember nothing else about my father. | 38:46 |
Clarence Powell | From then, I met my wife that I went to the service. He died while I was in the service. I never didn't see him no more because he didn't look like a father to me because I'd never been around him. It's hard to say but I was raised without a father but no education. But you know what I did? I educated myself. | 39:24 |
Kara Miles | How'd you do that? | 40:08 |
Clarence Powell | You know the church I told you about? | 40:08 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 40:08 |
Clarence Powell | I had some of the, how do you say this? Professors, I'm talking about professors taught school at Columbia University. These some big people on the executive board of Columbia University used to go to my church and they was professors and they'd have classes at night at the church, free of charge, anything we wanted to know how to do. I didn't know these people were so great until I began to read about them. They'd given us literary tools, stuff like that to read. By reading the New York Times, I read New York Times and been reading for that for 25, 30 years the U.S News and World Report Magazine, read books like From Babylon to Timbuktu, that'll blow your mind if you read that, the Politics of God, books like that. | 40:08 |
Kara Miles | What church was this? What was the name of this church? | 41:11 |
Clarence Powell | The Good Shepherd Presbyterian, 64th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam. You ever been to New York? | 41:13 |
Kara Miles | Uh-huh. | 41:23 |
Clarence Powell | You know where the Philharmonic Hall is? You know where the opera house on Broadway? | 41:24 |
Kara Miles | Uh-huh. | 41:30 |
Clarence Powell | The Metropolitan Opera, my church is right behind there. I lived right behind there. For 43 years I watched that build up. I saw it come off from the ground, wasn't nothing there but slums, now it's the highest rent neighborhood in the world. That's where I lived at for 43. | 41:33 |
Kara Miles | Who were some of these professors from Columbia that used to help— | 41:44 |
Clarence Powell | That book over there right now. He wrote a book. It took him 20 years to write a book on a man in England. I got the book over there. He had it printed. He had a book made. He give me one of the first autographs, first copy. He was older than I was—and he was White now. Somehow he'd taken up to me in the church and I would go to see him and he was kind of feeble and I would take him out, go around with him. He kind of liked me a little bit because I would take up time with him. In the meantime I was learning from him. He knew more than I do so associated with him. I learned from him. I didn't know he was so far advanced. I didn't know he was such a great man until he died. | 41:59 |
Clarence Powell | When this man died, you won't believe that people came all the way from Australia to the memorial. People came from England. People came from Switzerland, Italy, to his memorial. We had the memorial and a chapel in Columbia University. Our church wouldn't hold it. Had the memorial service. He was cremated, had the service at a chapel in Columbia University. He was great. I knew all the big people. I can't recall their names. I got their names. All the big people in Presbyterian. I know the people in the General Assembly. I used to go to the General Assembly. I used to go to the meeting once a month. I was a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church for 33 years. | 43:04 |
Clarence Powell | Look as the man say it ain't what you know, it's who you know. I had a lot of experience in my life and I never tried to ignore people. I love people. Some people dislike you for liking people if you know what I mean. You'd be surprised if a person see the way you are, people don't like it. That's about all. Anything else you'd like to know? | 43:57 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. Your mother and sister had already moved to New York be before you came, before went to New York? | 44:48 |
Clarence Powell | No. | 44:53 |
Kara Miles | You all moved together? Didn't you tell me— | 44:53 |
Clarence Powell | My two sisters and my brother and four of us stayed with my grandmother. My mother went to New York City to try to find work. | 45:03 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 45:14 |
Clarence Powell | She found work, then she sent for the two girls. Me and my brother had stayed with my grandmother. What happened, like I told you before, I went to the CC camp, then I went on New York to see my mother. My brother still stayed with my grandmother. My grandmother raised him. He left my grandmother. He went to the service in 1940. He stayed the service 7, 8 years when he came out. He came on to New York too after he came out of the service. He's back in Florida. Living in Florida now with my sister and my other sister, one of my sisters are living in Florida now. I just lost a sister here about four weeks ago. | 45:16 |
Kara Miles | Oh. | 46:14 |
Clarence Powell | Yeah. She went to bed, didn't wake up, went to church Sunday, good health and everything. | 46:14 |
Clarence Powell | 45 minutes? | 0:01 |
Kara Miles | Yep. | 0:01 |
Clarence Powell | Wow! | 0:03 |
Kara Miles | And I got lots more to ask you about. Tell me about the CC camps. | 0:06 |
Clarence Powell | Well, the CC camp, like I said, was $30 a month. They paid all expense, health, anything. Our job was to clean the woods up. We was near a place called Fort Benning, Georgia, near Columbus, Georgia. Place called Harmony Church. That was in 1936. 50—1936. It was a nice place to be. I learned to be a man there. That's where I was—learned to be a man. It changed me all together. I lived with different people. Discipline. | 0:18 |
Clarence Powell | And our job was to clean the woods and make roads. We was near Army camp, near Fort Benning, Georgia. We would make roads for the Army to travel and have their maneuvers in, and that was our job to do. And we didn't have—it wasn't too much activity and, like, athletic. We didn't have too much athletic football, baseball or nothing like that. We didn't have too much of that, what I can remember. And I was young, too. The night that—they had to put a stamp out about him, too, Joe Louis? The night Max Schmeling knocked him out, I was in the CC camp. That's been a long time ago. And then, I heard it on the radio, listened to commissary, and heard it on the radio. And it wasn't much about the camp. Point is, I stayed there and worked for 18 months, and my grandmother saved $375 for me. And carried the money back to New York with me, gave it to my mother. | 1:10 |
Kara Miles | You said that that was where you learned to be a man. What do you mean? How did that teach you about being a man? | 2:36 |
Clarence Powell | By being around all of people that I was, see how they act. But see, there, you had discipline. You understand? It changed you, and just like you, when you went to the service. When you went to the service, you went—you might have been a rowdy one before you went there. But when you go to there, things changes, because they'll break you. You understand what I mean? They'll break you. If you don't do what they tell you to do, they will break you. | 2:44 |
Clarence Powell | Then you will wind up doing what you will wind up doing what they do. But there wasn't like that in the CC camp. But at the same time, you had certain time, in CC camp, you had a certain time to eat. You had certain time to get up in the morning, you had certain time to work. You worked certain amount of hours, and you had a little recreations you can have. You went to town, go to town a little while, have a little recreation. You did that. You came back, you had to be back in your sack, 10 o'clock that night. | 3:25 |
Clarence Powell | So, that's what I mean. You had to do those things. You learned rules and regulations. Obey them. You don't obey them, we'll break you. If we don't break you, we'll send you home. So, you see, the night that I got discharged from the CC camp, I was having such a good time in Columbus, Georgia, until I forgot about the train that was going to take me back to Westbound Beach. When I come to find out the train was gone. A fella had a car, and he going to beat the train from Columbus to Albany, Georgia. Try to catch that train for again that I can get on the train there. | 3:50 |
Clarence Powell | I'll never forget this, the car turned over, going too fast. The car turned over, and there was five of us in the car, and nobody got hurt. We all crawled out of the car, and some soldiers came by on the truck and help us turn the car back over, and we drove back to Thomasville. And come and say, see how, I don't even know where I stayed that night because I couldn't go back to camp. I don't know where I stayed that night. I just don't know. But it wasn't too much about the CC camp. I left there. Like I said, just came back to New York City. | 4:39 |
Kara Miles | Was this only Blacks? Was this a all Black CC camp? | 5:25 |
Clarence Powell | All Black. All Black. Everything was all Black. During that period of time, everything was Black. There wasn't no mix—there wasn't nothing mixed. Nothing mixed. Nothing mixed. No. | 5:28 |
Kara Miles | So, even the people, the adults, the people running it, were they Black? | 5:36 |
Clarence Powell | No. One had a wife, had a—had a White—he was a captain from the Army. His name was—why I ain't forgotten those names? His name was A.W. Goodyear. Why I haven't forgotten the name like that? That stayed with me all these years. But everybody else under him was Black. You see, all the—we called them squad leaders, and scoutmasters, all of them was Black. | 5:40 |
Kara Miles | And how long did you have to stay in that camp? How long were you there? | 6:23 |
Clarence Powell | We signed up for six months at a time. I signed up for three hitches, which was 18 months. And I didn't want to stay no longer. But when I went there, I was underage. I wasn't supposed to go there. I was 16 years old when I went. I wasn't supposed to go there at 16. You had to be 17 years and older. Because, when I got out, when I quit picking beans, I didn't go right away to the CC camp. And so, I started going around with a bunch of young fellas like my age. They won't know what to do, won't know what's around there. Only thing I did is caddy. And during the season, that's golf, I'd caddy. | 6:25 |
Clarence Powell | When the season was over, there wasn't nothing to do. Golf course is closed. So I got with a gang of young men, and my mother's first cousin, which she would be my second cousin, she saw the bunch that I was going with, going around with. She said, "Look, that bunch you going with is no good. I heard what y'all are doing." She said, "Look, I'm going to send you to CC camp." I said, "Okay." She put me up. She said, "Well, I'm going to put your age up." She said, "You asked any other of your friends, do they want to go?" They said no. Nobody's doing— | 7:12 |
Kara Miles | What? | 7:52 |
Clarence Powell | Not me, now. I wasn't doing this. But they started doing it after I went to the CC camp. They started forging checks. We had one fellow in there named—I forget his name. He was a good writer, finished high school in his education. He could forge names. Started forging names. Doing all right 'til they got greedy. He forged a check $50, $60. Then the man called. Called to find out, was the check legally? No, it wasn't. So that whole bunch, which was five, all went to jail. We called it reformatory school. They went to reformatory. That's when my, that's—I was in the CC camp when all that happened. My cousin told me, wrote me a letter and told me about it. At CC Camp. Yep. So, you see, I was glad I went to CC camp. | 7:57 |
Kara Miles | How did you get into a CC camp? Did you have to fill out a application, or take a test or anything? | 9:10 |
Clarence Powell | No. | 9:14 |
Kara Miles | How'd you get into— | 9:14 |
Clarence Powell | I don't know. My cousin, she was a schoolteacher. And she quit schoolteaching to go to the social service job, and she just made me an application and just sent me down. Sent me about 10 or 15. I was left West Palm Beach on the train and went to Georgia. That was a government, to get you off the street. I don't know what the WPA or public work—wasn't no money, no nothing. I worked on a milk truck for $2 a week. But the man would give me all the eggs and the milk and butter and cheese I wanted. That's what was for my sisters and brother, and my mother. | 9:17 |
Clarence Powell | And we didn't have—I only went hungry two days in my life. That is the worst pain that a man can bear. That's a hunger pain. You think you get sick, and you think you've got a pain, you get hungry, and when you can't have nothing to eat, then you have a pain. Believe me. And it's a pain. And the man say, "I don't eat this. I don't want to eat that. I ain't going to eat it." If you are hungry, you will eat anything! And believe me when I tell you. | 9:52 |
Clarence Powell | But, I've been lucky in my days. When I went to New York City, I got a job. When I got the first job I had—I never been out of work in 50 years. Never been out of a job. When I first got my job in New York City, I never got out of a job in 50 years. I had to change my telephone just to keep people from calling me. Because I was a automobile mechanic. And it was doing that period of time< it was in great demand in the '50, '60s; '40s, '50s, the '60s, and the '70s. Great demand. I'm here. I don't even work on my old car. I don't want to work on it. So, I made good money. I made money. I made money. I made my three children. And then me and my wife had four children. | 10:40 |
Clarence Powell | My first son—that tree out there, he's the same age, he would've been the same age of that tree. He died when he was eight years old, seven years old. He died from leukemia. That's the only thing in the world that ever hurt me. I wasn't a Christian, I wasn't religious, I wasn't nothing. But I was mad with everybody. Even the good Lord himself. I asked the preacher why the good Lord come along and take my son. He said, "the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh. So I can't answer that question." | 11:50 |
Clarence Powell | True, 15, 16 months later, I was blessed with another son. You know what I mean? But you can't understand these things. Then, I had a daughter. I had a girl, had a daughter, and I had another daughter. Well, I sent them all to school. All them went to college. I worked hard to send them to college. But after, I tell you this, everybody has got a vice. My vice was gambling. You want to hear it? | 12:28 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 13:06 |
Clarence Powell | I made a lot of money in gambling. I'm a horse player. A lot of money. Sent my kids—sent two of my— | 13:09 |
Kara Miles | Well, sent your kids to college? | 13:27 |
Clarence Powell | I sent two of them, my two daughters, through college, playing the horses. I made a fortune, and I lost a fortune. Get 2, 3, 4, $5,000 a day. A week, later it's gone. Four days later it's gone. But always—what I never did do, as long as I worked, I never did interfere with the money that I worked with. I never gathered with that money. My wife got that money. She'd taken care of my house. My wife didn't work. She stayed home and raised my kids. And she'd take care of that. And I brought the goodies home, and she'd taken care of that. | 13:29 |
Clarence Powell | But what I went out and did, the little extra money I made doing mechanic work, that was my money. And what I did with that money, that was my business. And I went to the horse races with that. That's what I did with that money. And the reason—and I'll tell you something else too. My son—I had one son. Two sons, one died, and I had the next one. When he got seven years old, six years old, I never, never, went got no place on the Saturdays or even the Sundays. If I had to go out somewhere, my son went with me. I don't care where I went. I don't care where I went. To the bar to get a drink. Would go anywhere, to the horse track, to play the horses. He went with me. | 14:14 |
Clarence Powell | So, I didn't never leave my son. The only time my son was home was with my wife, during the week, when he was in, then, he was in school then. But on Saturdays, when I had jobs to do on mechanic work, doing a little extra work on Saturday, he went with me. And that's what he like today. He likes cars. He worked for the Ford Motor Company. He's a representative of the Ford Motor Company out in California. And he's married, he's doing all right. | 15:08 |
Clarence Powell | The one thing I don't have is grandchildren. But the man say you can't have everything. Right? Yeah? And so, I raise a nice family. And my sister—you want to hear this? | 15:35 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 15:54 |
Clarence Powell | My sister had one daughter. And she married a young man in New York City, named—she lived, all live in the project, city projects, government projects. She married a young man. And he was a pretty smart young man. And he wound up being—working on computers. He helped develop the computer, [indistinct 00:16:42] and chips in the computer. He helped develop this. And he got to be a big man, and 40 years old, 38, 39 years old. | 15:54 |
Clarence Powell | And what he started it out, he started out at RCA, developed the computer. When the computer first started out, he helped, developed a lot. And he got into all this, until certain things happened. And he was my nephew. I didn't know these things. And he got to working, and living in a place called Vienna, Virginia. Two people had a business. This business was worth 300, $400 million. They put him in charge of it, put him in charge of this business. He ran this business. And then he sold—he was running the business that—this is, you've got to hear. | 16:57 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 17:46 |
Clarence Powell | He worked for this company, two men. They would pay him so much money, and then on top of that, gives him so much more. He was the boss. He had maybe five, 6,000 people working under him. He had secretaries, he had vice presidents. So, he worked for them for 10 years, and he made good money for them. And they was in the computer business. They came to here one day, and said, "Carl, we want to sell you the business. So, you did a good thing for us. You made us rich, and I know you doing all right." They say, "Do you want the business?" He said, "Yeah." They say, "We want $300 million for the business." "I can get the money for you. I can get the money for you." He says, "But you need two partners." | 17:49 |
Clarence Powell | But in the meantime—back up a little bit. In the meantime, I used to tell him, I said, "Let me tell you something." Can I say this, what I'm going to say? I said, "My uncle told me something that he told his son once, 60 years ago, and I'm going to tell it to you. He said, 'A White man is a White man. And don't you never forget it. Because he will never go against his brother for you and nobody else.'" I used to tell him this all the time. And now, that was because he was associating with mostly White folks. His wife, my niece, associated with White folks all the time. | 18:56 |
Clarence Powell | Now, that man told him that he needed two partners. He went to two of his top vice presidents, which he thought was his friends. And he laid the plan out for them what it was all about. Do you know what they did? They turned him down. If each one had bought—if they'd have bought the business, each one, they would've got a bonus of a million dollars apiece. Each one would've got a million dollars apiece for buying the business. That's been clear, separate. That's money—you want the business you got a million dollars. They turned him down. And it like to drove him crazy, because he thought those two men was his friends. That's why he elevated them to vice president of that company. And he came back and told me. I said, "What did I tell you?" I said, "What did I tell you?" I said, "They don't want to see you, the head of no organization like this, and they're going to be under you. No way. No way." | 19:46 |
Clarence Powell | But you know what he did? He fired all both of them. He got rid of all of them. And over the period of three months, he got rid of all two of them. One threatened him to kill him, so he had to get a bodyguard. Yeah. So, it's a long life. And he sold, they finally sold the business, and he got but another outfit. Communication cartel outfit. Some cartel outfit. And in communication, he built in Mozambique. Not Mozambique, a place in Nigeria. He helped set up communication there, and telephones and all that kind of stuff. And he went over there, got hold of some bad water. And it killed him. Ruined his kidneys. His 30-year-old son gave him one of his kidneys. He was doing all right. | 20:53 |
Clarence Powell | Doctor told him, "You got to retire, because you don't retire, it's going kill you." He was this workaholic. I guess it showed what the doctor told him. It killed him. And I didn't know that he was so popular in Virginia. Anytime the governor come and sit in your funeral, you all right. You know the lady that say the poems at Clinton? On inauguration? She was there. Say the poem there. Senators. The senators from Virginia was there. Everybody was there. I didn't know he was so popular. He kept it a secret. But he did a lot of great things for your charity. Did a lot of great things for charity. So, what do you got? | 21:49 |
Kara Miles | I got lots. | 22:37 |
Clarence Powell | What do you say? What? | 22:38 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about being in the service. You went in the service in '43, you said? | 22:43 |
Clarence Powell | Yeah. | 22:49 |
Kara Miles | Why did you go to the service? | 22:51 |
Clarence Powell | Because I was drafted! | 22:53 |
Kara Miles | Oh, you had to go. | 22:53 |
Clarence Powell | I was drafted. | 22:54 |
Kara Miles | What did you think about that? About having to go? | 22:57 |
Clarence Powell | I just had got married. I didn't want to leave my wife, you know what I mean? I got married in '41. I didn't leave my wife. I had to go. Drafted out of New York City. Went to Great Lakes, Illinois. Stayed there nine weeks, came back home, and stayed home two weeks. Went to a place called Hastings, Nebraska. And the coldest place in the world, with ammunition depot. During that time, 99% of the Blacks in the service was laborers. They call you a sailor, but you was a laborer. You was out in ammunition depot, out from nowhere, way out, God knows where. We stayed and took ammunition and stuff like that during World War II. It was a all-Black camp, and White officers, but all White Marines to guard us, we got out of line. And we did get out of the line. | 23:02 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about that. | 24:30 |
Clarence Powell | They wanted us to work in temperature 22, 23 below zero. And we wasn't equipped for the work. We wasn't equipped for the work. And you can't work in weather like that. You would die. | 24:32 |
Kara Miles | What happened? | 24:52 |
Clarence Powell | What happened? There's always a radical. Even during that time. Always, there was always a radical, right? And the captain of the base knew it, knew who he was. And what happened: We refused to go to work, okay? "You can't strike again!" Striking now. Get us some clothes to put on, we were willing to work. So, the captain, they went and got the Marines, off the base. They had Marines on the base. Went and got the Marines off the base, and back to all of us against—eh, 500 of us. Backed us all against the wall. Standing out in that cold weather. They got their furred clothes on, we ain't got nothing on but dungarees. They want us to work out there in that cold. And the boys wouldn't go to work. | 24:53 |
Clarence Powell | They sent us all back to the barracks. And the leader of the bunch, he knew he was, but he didn't act it. But the captain knew. And he got him, and got him in the car, and they drove somewhere. Just he in the captain and captain's chauffeur. About an hour, they came back, They didn't go off the base, but they went somewhere, and they came back, and he said, "All right." Told the Marines to leave us alone. Two days later, here come three boxcars. Three box cars backed into that camp, and nothing in them but all the winter clothes you want. I mean, they had some winter clothes there! Yeah, you see? So, everything went on all right. | 25:51 |
Clarence Powell | And I'll tell you what else happened, that incident happened. The Marines had they wives on the bases. We didn't have our wives on the bases. We had a theater, nice theater, the Marines—and they wives would come in, and get the best seats in the house, and we had to sit way in the back. We are the sailors on the base. The civilians are doing better than we are doing. You understand? So, we go to the theater, we ain't got no seats. We got to stand up. All the Whites got the seats. But we're on the base working. They're not working! One night, you always have to line up to go to the theater, getting ready in time for the movie. Nobody come. None of the Black guys come out, no Blacks. We always march from the barracks. Always go in order. Nobody going. Two nights, no Blacks in the theater. Three nights. Four nights. No Blacks. Nothing. | 26:45 |
Clarence Powell | Captain get [indistinct 00:28:13]. Nobody say nothing about it, working. Captain gets his son, "why nobody going to the theater?" He called us an assembly, in the dining hall. He said, "What's wrong? Nobody going to the movies no more. Anybody can speak, I won't hold it against him." The same guy. And he got up and he told the captain exactly why. "We are here on the base. We're the ones that working. The theater's made for us. We go there, we can't get a seat. Them other people are there and we don't going to have no seat. So, that's why we stopped going." That stopped—that stopped. The sailors, we went in first. What was left, they got the last. You see? You know what I mean? The theater was built for the sailors. It wasn't built for the civilians. If it hadn't gotten back out that the sailors couldn't go to the theater, and all the civilians going, and the theater was built, even during the segregation time, then it wouldn't have been looked bad for the captain. So, he stopped that. | 28:12 |
Clarence Powell | Well, I stayed there long. I stayed there—oh, my wife. When they finally started letting the wives come out, who wanted to come out, who was married. My wife came out and stayed with me—six—about a year. Not quite a year. And she got pregnant out there with her, with my daughter. And—no, with my son! And then she stayed out there with me. She worked out on the base and had a job out there and worked out there. And everything was nice out there. And so, finally, we got orders to ship out. My wife had to come East, and I had to go West. I went to a place called Shoemaker, California. From Shoemaker, California, I went to the Hawaiian Islands. And it was bad in Hawaiian Islands. A Black man. Bad. Bad! Called you a monkey with a tail. "Watch you don't go out him, he got a tail on him", and, you know, "Yeah!" | 29:27 |
Kara Miles | The Hawaiians would say that? Who would— | 30:24 |
Clarence Powell | But the White man had taught the Hawaiians that the Black man had a tail. Looking for the tail. This is the truth. Certain places you could go and certain places you couldn't go in Hawaii. You got a uniform on, you couldn't go. Went to a place once. Three buddies. I had three buddies, two buddies. We always—we left New York City together. We introduced, we got introducing, we introduced ourselves at the Paramount Theater in New York City. From there, we went to Hastings and back. From there, went to Shoemaker. From Shoemaker, went to Hawaiian Islands. | 30:26 |
Clarence Powell | And we went to a place once, a nightclub, in Hawaii. In Honolulu. This big fat man sitting up on a—a big fat guy sitting at the door, on the stool. So, we saw the sailors going in the club. So, we started in the club. This big White fella put his arm over the door. He said, "You can't go in." I was sort of a peacemaker. I wasn't a violent type. I never was, man, never have been. But my two buddies was the violent type out of New York. They was violent. "What do you mean we can't go in?" "Just can't go in." They said, "I see the other sailors going in." | 31:11 |
Clarence Powell | Black, White sailors coming there and going in. He's moving along. "What you mean? Why we can't go? I got a sailor uniform just like him. You got to tell me, you say you can't? Yeah, look man, you got to tell me—", this is Stokes. I said, "Stokes, please, come on, let's go, here." That's because I know what this man, my buddy, will do. I know what he do. He's the violent type. He said, "Well, I ain't going nowhere till you tell me." He goes, "Well, you want me to tell you?" He said, "Yeah." "It because you're Black, and we don't like Black folks in here." That's that time Stokes kicked the stool out from under the man. And then the other brother named Walters, he kicked him in the stomach, his big stomach, like this. Walter kicked him in the stomach about three times. Then Stokes kicked the guy in the face, and "Come on!" There come the Shore Patrol, we call it the Shore Patrol, and then, "Oh, my God." | 32:11 |
Clarence Powell | The three of us went in jail. We got back to the base, got one week on the base restriction. That was in Hawaii. Then, we went to—that's where we were split up in, all three of standing crying, three grown men. One went to Hawaii. No. I went to Midway Islands. One went to Guam. And the other one went to—was going to the Philippines, I think it was. We all split up. Never did see no more 'til—never did see another one 'til we got back to New York City. Two, one or two years later. I went to the Midway Island, got aboard this aircraft carrier. And it was about 35 or 40 Blacks. We had 1200 miles to go, from the Hawaiian Islands to the Midway Islands, going down under, going down, going down. | 33:13 |
Clarence Powell | So, the executive officers call us together in a room. They said—remember what I told you, now, that they always got a radical. Now, this is a different radical. He said, "I'm going to give you a little instruction of you people on this boat." He said, "You people on the ship here, I'm going to tell you what you can do and what you can't do." And this guy said, "Sir, who—you said 'you people', who are the 'you people'? Who's the 'you people'? Aren't we sailors like you?" This is the executive officer of the boat. He said, "Oh, sailors, then. Sailors!" He said, "Now, you are restricted to certain parts of this ship. This radical guy said, "What do you mean, 'restricted'? We are sailors on a government ship. Aren't we allowed to walk on the ship?" "Certain place you can't go." So he say, "If this ship have a disaster, on your end, where you not allowed us, you don't want us to come there to help you, do you? You want us to stay on this end, do you?" | 34:26 |
Kara Miles | And what did the executive officer say to that? | 35:50 |
Clarence Powell | Nothing. Didn't open his mouth. Didn't open his mouth. Then he said, "You have your pool room here. You have your recreation room here. But you're not allowed up front, after that." And we wasn't allowed. Had our own mess hall that the Blacks ate in. You couldn't mix on the ship. That's how it was. It was—and we got down to Hawaii, Hawaiian Islands, I mean, to the Midway Island. One thing about that, they had to mix then. Small island. Had to mix then. Well, nothing out there but white coral sand and the Gooney bird. | 35:52 |
Kara Miles | The Godey bird? | 36:48 |
Clarence Powell | The Gooney. | 36:48 |
Kara Miles | Gooney bird, okay. | 36:51 |
Clarence Powell | The Gooney bird. He stayed there nine months. When he stayed there, you leave too. When he leave, you leave. When the Gooney bird leave, you leave. I mean. They bringing another bunch. They will never keep a bunch. When the Gooney bird leave, the sailors came in there with the Gooney birds. They left, too. They claim it was something—I don't know what it was, but they would never tell us what it was. But, then I stayed there a long time. I just stayed there long. And the one experience I've had there, we didn't have too much racial there. We had a couple of fights, couple of boys threw "hot chocolate" in his "Alabama cracker face" a White boy's face, call him a nigger. Throw chocolate in his face and scrawl his face up bad. | 36:54 |
Clarence Powell | But, I was running a boatswain, me. Second class boatswain, me. I was running a ferry for one island to the next island, what's called a Johnson Island, to the Midway Island. You had to cross a channel. Over here, it's not deep. When you cross the channel, a quarter of a mile, and there is no bottom. That's where the aircraft carriers come in, the battleships and whatever not what may come in. On that side, it's shallow. As I crossed the channel, I saw somebody with their ski ship, that was headed out in the Pacific. The tides was going out, and I saw this thing, and I know what they wanted, help. And it was almost sundown. And I had about 18 mens on the boat, this whale boat, we called it. And I know, I said to myself, "I can't leave these mens out here." And I told the men, I said, "We got to go get them." | 37:48 |
Clarence Powell | And I went right up that channel. They lost the oars that were on the boat, and didn't have no way to get back, and the tide was taking them out to sea. And it was almost dark. We caught up with them, put them in the boat, taking the rope and tied it to the boat, and pulled the boat back. And I always wonder about those two men. Can they remember me as I remember them? I saved they lives. Because if they ever had've got in that Pacific, and dark would've caught them, it'd have been goodbye, baby. Because the Pacific—you know, "Pacific" means "peaceful", but it's never peaceful. That's the roughest water that you'll ever ride in. And I always wonder today, and this is 50 years ago. Always wonder today, do they remember me, as I plucked them from going out to see in a boat? | 38:50 |
Kara Miles | These were White men? | 39:59 |
Clarence Powell | Huh? | 39:59 |
Kara Miles | These were White men? | 40:00 |
Clarence Powell | Of course, yeah. I always remember by them. Of course they was, yeah. They was fishing. We used to catch—the food was bad, on the island. Bad, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. Bad. We ate lobsters and fish. We'd go out on the reef, and catch maybe three or four dozen lobsters, bring them back and boil them. Eat lobster, eat fish and turtle meat. Nobody ate good, from the captain on down. Nobody ate good. Sometimes Thanksgiving—one day, I was there, one Thanksgiving Day. Turkeys supposed to getting there, never got there. So, one of my—I met a friend on the Midway Islands. And I had been out there a long time. I was getting tired. I wanted to go home. You sit on that pier, and you watch that sun go down in that Pacific Ocean, and you think about home on a Sunday afternoon, you'd cry like a baby. So, don't tell me you won't cry. | 40:02 |
Clarence Powell | And the friend I met over there, he and I was buddies. He was older than I was. He had more points. He was getting out on points. And some troop ship came in there, and they called his name. "Be ready at such and such a time. You're on your way home." And he was leaving me there. I sitting out on the pier, he passed me that bag on his shoulder, going on that ship. You know what he said to me? "Ah, you dirty bum, you rotting on this island!" He said, "Rotting!" Went on and got him on that ship. Three days later, seven destroyers came in the island for refueling. Man call my name, "Be ready in two days." Homeward bound! | 41:11 |
Clarence Powell | As I got home, I was in Camp Pendleton, to be shipped back to New York City, which was Long Island, to be discharged. In uniform, now. Me, I was the onliest Black and 12 Whites, sailors. And a Black sailor, which was me. We left Camp Pendleton together on a plane. First airplane I ever flew in. Propellor, didn't have jets then. The plane got grounded in Nashville, Tennessee. So, they cancelled the flight. We had to continue the flight on train, from Nashville, Tennessee to New York City. We went to the station in New York City to—maybe that's enough, huh? | 42:08 |
Kara Miles | No, keep going! The tape's just going to cut. It's going to cut off in a little bit, though, but that's okay. | 43:11 |
Clarence Powell | We went to the station to wait for the train the next morning to go to New York City. So, the train didn't leave the next morning. So, we had to sleep in the station that night. So I started in the station with the rest of the White sailor. And the Black guy said, "You can't go in that way." I said, "Why?" He said, "Nothing but White goes in there." And sure enough, the guy, White guy told me I had to go in with the Blacks. So the man said, "No, he can't go, he can't go in there." So, went to the dining hall, didn't have no place for the Black to eat. They had to eat outside. I couldn't go into down there where the White sailor was at. So, they had Black cooks. | 43:16 |
Clarence Powell | And this woman said to me, she said, "Sailor, you don't have to go outside. Come on back in the kitchen." And she did a job on me. She did a job on me! And I had bought some nylon stockings. Nylon was very hard to get during war time. And I bought some stockings for my wife. I had about six or seven pair of stockings. And this woman, I gave her a pair of stockings. She treated me so nice. She said, "You don't have to go upstairs and sleep. She said, I got a nice cart downstairs for you. A nice cool place. You stay down here tonight. You sleep down until your train leave the next morning." And when I come in tomorrow morning, she said, "I'll fix you a nice breakfast. And you don't have to go upstairs with the rest of them." Everyone fix me a nice breakfast next morning. I get on the train—so we had Pullman. They put somebody off. We had Pullman, but the White boys had to sleep together. So I had my own—you know what I mean, private, them boys had to sleep more than one. | 44:08 |
Clarence Powell | So, before the train left, old White woman got on the train. When she got on the train, I was sitting in the Pullman. And she got on there, and she—Black porter had her back. And she said, "Are you sure this is the car?" And looking dead at me. Said, "We don't have but one, and this is the car." "Well, I don't know." And then she kept looking at me. And she went over there and sat down. And she said, that train pulled off and going, "Now we're going to the dining car." They had a dining car for Blacks. The Blacks had a little portion, but they had a curtain pulled. So, I marched through the train where I got— | 45:19 |
Clarence Powell | "He didn't eat in the station, but he going eat on this train with us, because we cannot be separated and I ain't going to let him be separated from us." The guy was in charge of the group and, "No, he can't eat here." Then I could see the curtain where the Black folk was at. | 0:01 |
Clarence Powell | It wasn't closed like this, it was about like that, and we were looking, we were looking, looking. Stewart went and got the MP, got show patrols and MPs walking the train because sailors arriving. Come there, "This man can't eat here." The leader said a bunch, said, "Look, this man is traveling with us. We cannot be separated. We got to be discharged together, and we cannot be separated. If he's not with us and we get a certain point, we can't be discharged. I want to get out of this man's service." | 0:18 |
Clarence Powell | And the show patrol and the MP looked at the stewardess and said, "Look, the man has got to eat with him. So what do you want from me? Huh? What do you want from me? The man has got to eat with them. It's a must. So please leave them alone." I go back to the dining car, I mean to the pullman. | 0:51 |
Clarence Powell | I sit there, I'm reading. I'm reading too. About an hour or two hours later, [indistinct 00:01:25] knock. Going, "Can you drink?" I said occasionally. She said, "Go get us two cups." I say what? She pulls out a bottle of Old Granddad. I'll never forget that. The last thing I seen that old woman do is staggering to her [indistinct 00:02:00]. I made it to mine and woke up the next morning in Washington, D.C. | 1:13 |
Clarence Powell | Then, got to Washington, changed trains and went on to New York City. We got in New York City. We just had missed a train, 11 o'clock train going to Long Island, where we was to be processed to get out. Mind you what I told you, we had to be together. Without together, nobody be processed til we are together. | 2:06 |
Clarence Powell | I hadn't been to New York City in four years. I hadn't seen my mother. I hadn't seen my sister, ain't seen my own wife, nobody. My wife was down here then. She had come down here about three months prior to me being discharged. I had some things I wanted to bring, because if I got out there I couldn't keep them. | 2:28 |
Clarence Powell | I said, "Look," I told the leader, I said, "Look, the train don't due until two hours." I said, "I'm going up town where I live at in New York." I said, "I don't live far from here." I said, "We on 34th Street, I live on 112th Street." I said, "Take the train five, 10 minutes and get up there. I'm going up there and take this stuff. See my mother and sister. Come on be processed." "Don't you be late. Remember, we can't be processed without you." | 2:49 |
Clarence Powell | I went up town. By the time I got back to Penn Station to go back to Long Island, four o'clock in the morning. I love it, four o'clock in the morning. I caught the next train out, five o'clock to go out to Long Island, daylight, who's sitting on the bench? It ain't funny. Them boys wanted to kill me. | 3:16 |
Clarence Powell | See, I threw them back almost four hours, five hours of being processed. They could get out five hours earlier, but that's five hours longer they had to stay there. "You [indistinct 00:03:55]." They had to get the MPs to keep them boys off of me. They would've killed me. They were killing. [indistinct 00:04:05] | 3:40 |
Clarence Powell | So we finally got processing out of the service I've been [indistinct 00:04:09]. Been out ever since. Everything's been all right. But one thing I regret. | 4:02 |
Kara Miles | What's that? | 4:17 |
Clarence Powell | You don't believe this. You wouldn't hardly believe it if you guarding a German prisoner, and he went to a restaurant in the South, a Black guy guarding him, you wouldn't believe that he was not allowed to go in a restaurant where he's at? | 4:17 |
Kara Miles | That happened to you? | 4:45 |
Clarence Powell | Friends of mine. | 4:45 |
Kara Miles | So that the prisoners would be able to go in, and your friends wouldn't? | 4:52 |
Clarence Powell | Because he was White. So that's about it. Anything else you got? That's all [indistinct 00:05:04] quickly. | 4:55 |
Speaker 1 | You didn't leave nothing out, did you? | 4:56 |
Kara Miles | Earlier you were saying that you didn't face any discrimination or any racism in Florida, and that didn't happen until you came to New York. | 5:09 |
Clarence Powell | That's right. | 5:17 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about that in New York. | 5:18 |
Clarence Powell | Well, I mean, I did. I think I told you my job discrimination. There's certain places you couldn't go in New York City. In Harlem, the hotel called Theresa Hotel, I went by that, I see a sign, "White only." White only, and there's certain theaters you couldn't go into in New York City on 125th Street. | 5:19 |
Kara Miles | They would actually have the signs up, that said "Whites only"? | 5:51 |
Clarence Powell | There's a building right now at the 125th Street and Morningside Drive, and it had rooms upstairs and it was White only when I went to New York City. | 5:55 |
Kara Miles | Was that the first time you had seen White only signs? | 6:06 |
Clarence Powell | No, I seen them. I seen them in West— | 6:08 |
Kara Miles | You saw them in Florida? | 6:09 |
Clarence Powell | Oh yeah, I saw them in Florida. I saw them at the station in Florida at the Rainbow Station in Florida, a lot of places I saw them. But we didn't have to get involved with them. You know what I mean? Everything we wanted was there. We didn't have to go to White folks for nothing, for nothing. They had to come to us for certain things we had, and in New York— | 6:11 |
Clarence Powell | You see in New York City, our White brothers was hypocrite, while the White brother in the South was not a hypocrite. You see the difference? | 6:48 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 7:07 |
Clarence Powell | He was not a hypocrite. He'd tell you down front what's it all about. But the White brother up North, he would tell you something then cut your throat behind your back. You know what I mean? | 7:07 |
Clarence Powell | I didn't have no problem with the transit. But I know the time of the transit, the subway system in New York City wouldn't hire Blacks. Bus wouldn't hire any Blacks. The oldest way they started to hire Blacks, they did the same thing that Martin Luther King did, they stopped riding the bus. | 7:32 |
Clarence Powell | He didn't do too much publicity about it in Harlem, but Adam Clayton Powell did both for Blacks in Harlem than anybody in the world did. 125th Street, Whites wouldn't hire nobody, wouldn't hire nobody if he was Black but you bought they goods. So Adam Clayton Powell said, "Stop buying their goods. You stop buying them, you take the dollar away from him, he come around to see how you feel." | 8:02 |
Clarence Powell | You couldn't rent apartments. You couldn't stay where you wanted to stay, and places where you stay, you were held off of one place and that's where you stayed at. You didn't go outside. That kept you in the hood in one place. You didn't go downtown or on the East Side, on the West Side, on Long Island or nothing like that. You couldn't buy a home out there because you was Black. You know what I mean? | 8:30 |
Clarence Powell | I saw a tough time, and I tell the young folks this today, and I talk about this. They look at you like you're crazy, "This can't be going on. This can't have [indistinct 00:09:25]." They don't know. In the years I've been—but you see, I'm not saying it because I wasn't a violent man, never have been. But I never did take anything off of nobody. Never did that. Never was a violent man. I respect you. I respect you. You respect me. I don't care who you are. We put on our pants the same way, one leg at a time. Respect me, and I respect you. | 9:12 |
Clarence Powell | Same thing around here. I respect people around here who respect me. I don't care who you are. If I call you mister, you don't have to call me mister all the time. I don't have to call you mister all the time. But respect me. But New York City, I worked up there. I went to work up there in '19 and worked for a woman up there. I want to call her name, or not name, Nationality. I worked for people up there. | 10:12 |
Clarence Powell | Black folks couldn't live in that neighborhood, couldn't live in the Bronx where I worked at. You could hardly walk in that neighborhood. That place called New York City in the Bronx called the Grand Concourse. That was like Fifth Avenue in New York City, Park Avenue. It was unheard of of a Black person living on that avenue, on Grand Concourse. But now that's all that's living up there now. It's all living there. | 10:48 |
Clarence Powell | And Black folks living there, but Black folks living now, where Black folks living in New York City, I remember when you couldn't live where Black folks living at now in New York City. I remember they couldn't live there. Couldn't even go through the neighborhood in New York City. | 11:18 |
Kara Miles | What would happen if they went through the neighborhood? | 11:35 |
Clarence Powell | They get rocks thrown at them. Get a bottle thrown at them down out of a window somewhere there, "Coon, get out of the neighborhood. You don't supposed to be here." | 11:38 |
Kara Miles | Did that ever happen to you? | 11:47 |
Clarence Powell | No. | 11:48 |
Kara Miles | You just didn't go to those neighborhoods or? | 11:51 |
Clarence Powell | Didn't go? I see a time in the New York City, if you was Black electrician went to get on a job, a contract on a job, the White wouldn't work because you're Black. [indistinct 00:12:08] smith wouldn't work. Brick layer wouldn't work, because you're hiring a Black. It was hard, and it's still hard. Are there any more questions? | 11:52 |
Kara Miles | No, I think that's about it. Are there any questions I didn't ask you that you want to tell me about? | 12:26 |
Clarence Powell | Well, no, we've been here almost two hours, haven't we? | 12:38 |
Kara Miles | Yep. | 12:46 |
Clarence Powell | What you going to do now [indistinct 00:12:48]? I was interviewed down here by the Herald Paper. | 12:46 |
Kara Miles | Oh, were you? | 13:00 |
Clarence Powell | Yeah. | 13:01 |
Kara Miles | For what? | 13:01 |
Clarence Powell | I'm going to put you in the paper and everything. | 13:01 |
Kara Miles | Why did they come to interview you? | 13:01 |
Clarence Powell | On the front page. | 13:05 |
Kara Miles | Why did they come? | 13:07 |
Clarence Powell | Why did I come to Tillery. | 13:08 |
Kara Miles | Oh, okay. | 13:09 |
Clarence Powell | And I told them, if you lived in New York 60 years, Tillery's a paradise. Believe me, when I first came out, this is a paradise. It's still a paradise. This ain't a bad place to live. It's not a bad place to live. Was your tape in? | 13:13 |
Kara Miles | No. Okay. | 13:47 |
Clarence Powell | The people—90% of the Black folks are Baptists, 90% are Baptists. If you ask 80% of the Black preachers, they don't know why, how it came about. | 13:50 |
Kara Miles | You know how it came about? | 14:07 |
Clarence Powell | Yeah. | 14:08 |
Kara Miles | How? | 14:12 |
Clarence Powell | It came about by slavery, that was a Baptist. During the period of time of slavery, that was the most denomination it was was Baptist. The old master would let the slaves come and sit in the back of the church and hear the sermon and hear God's word. What happened when slavery was over with, when they freed the slaves, all they knew was the Baptists. So they all came to being Baptists. | 14:15 |
Clarence Powell | That's why 90% of the Black folks are Baptists today. This might not be the history of it. I believe today that if 40% or 20% percent was Baptist and the rest of them was another denomination, I believe we'd be better off today. | 14:52 |
Kara Miles | You think so? | 15:20 |
Clarence Powell | Because the teaching I got from a Presbyterian church is different from the teaching in a Baptist church. I got a teacher that teach me how to get along in this world. See, the Black minister's trying to put you on the other side of the grave. You don't try to teach you what's on this side of the grave, and I'm not looking for that. I just, that's enough. You understand? | 15:20 |
Clarence Powell | You read that book From Babylon to Timbuktu, it will blow your mind. It'll tell you things that were unbelievable. And the book I read about politics of God, that's where I learned that there's a difference between the Black church and the White church. The Black church run as a business. The Black church run as individual. They are individual. | 15:52 |
Clarence Powell | We are split up. We are split wide on. And if you are Baptist, you know it yourself, everybody's for themselves. Same way down here. We got seven churches in this vicinity, and all seven got seven different medicines. And they have nothing but nothing going on in the church, no outreach or nothing to help these senior citizens. They help nobody in the neighborhood, don't bring no information or nothing. | 16:25 |
Clarence Powell | And so what happened, and my wife just joined the church, her old church she was baptized in 60 years ago. I haven't joined nothing yet. You be good until I see you again. | 16:57 |
Kara Miles | Well, I— | 17:12 |
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