George Moore interview recording, 1993 July 28
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
George Azel Moore | On Jones Street, city of New Bern. | 0:02 |
Kara Miles | What was your house like? Tell me what kind of house you grew up in. | 0:08 |
George Azel Moore | Well, we had a household of three sisters and myself. My grandmother lived with us prior to her death in 1932. But I would say it was a very nice, pleasant childhood experience. I attended the West Street School here and the high school before going away to North Carolina Central in Durham. | 0:12 |
Kara Miles | Why did you choose to go to Central? | 0:40 |
George Azel Moore | Number one, it's a good school. Number two, the President, Dr. Shepard, and my father were good friends in the Masons, and I was offered a scholarship by Dr. Shepard. | 0:47 |
Kara Miles | What did you study there? | 1:02 |
George Azel Moore | Commerce and History. | 1:05 |
Kara Miles | What did you end up doing with that and what were you interested in at the time doing with that? | 1:10 |
George Azel Moore | Well, after leaving North Carolina Central, I joined the Air Force where I was able to use my training in the accounting finance career field. I stayed in the Air Force 20 years where I worked in that field all the time. | 1:15 |
Kara Miles | Is this when you would've started working in the Air Force? | 1:39 |
George Azel Moore | Back what now? | 1:44 |
Kara Miles | What time period is this when you started working in the Air Force? | 1:45 |
George Azel Moore | 1951 to 1971. | 1:48 |
Kara Miles | Was the Air Force segregated when you started? | 1:55 |
George Azel Moore | No, it was recently integrated by Truman's Executive Rrder of 1948. And one reason I joined the Air Force, at that time, was because of its integration. They were ahead of other services. | 1:58 |
Kara Miles | Did you have any problems? I mean this was in the early years of Blacks and Whites being together there. Were there any tensions with the White servicemen or? | 2:19 |
George Azel Moore | I can say yes, but there's minor problems. More of a individual to individual problem rather than a mass group problem. | 2:30 |
Kara Miles | So the officers and things you think treated the Black—? | 2:47 |
George Azel Moore | I think they were treated pretty good. | 2:52 |
Kara Miles | Fairly? | 2:53 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah. You always run across some S-O-Bs, and that means servant of brotherhood. | 2:54 |
Kara Miles | Okay. All right. Well, let's go back. You said that your grandmother lived with you. How old were you when she died? | 3:07 |
George Azel Moore | About 4 years old. | 3:19 |
Kara Miles | Okay. So you don't remember too much about her? | 3:22 |
George Azel Moore | No, not too much. Not many conversations at all. The fact that she used to walk me around neighborhood and visit neighbors. At night, sit around a pot-belly stove. | 3:24 |
Speaker 1 | Oh Lord. | 3:40 |
Speaker 2 | Hurry up and get out. | 3:40 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember any of your other grandparents? | 3:42 |
George Azel Moore | No. No. | 3:45 |
Kara Miles | We were talking about your house. How big a house did you grow up in? How many rooms did it have? | 3:51 |
George Azel Moore | Six room house with toilet, three bedrooms. | 3:57 |
Kara Miles | That's two story? | 4:00 |
George Azel Moore | Two story. | 4:03 |
Speaker 1 | Oh. | 4:04 |
Kara Miles | Was that pretty unusual at that time to have an inside toilet? | 4:06 |
George Azel Moore | Yes. In fact, I remember when they put water down Jones Street from Pollock Street and it stopped at my house because my daddy had them to put it up there. | 4:13 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember when this—could you give me like a year or period of time this was? | 4:38 |
George Azel Moore | I guess about '34, '36, about '34. Somewhere along around '34 I'd say. | 4:49 |
Kara Miles | So your family was one of the more well off families in New Bern, one of the more well off Black families in New Bern. | 4:52 |
George Azel Moore | They were one of the lucky Black families, I say. I'll put it that way. But we were not rich by any means. However, my daddy worked long hours to make provisions for us. Didn't have an eight-hour day job. | 5:06 |
Kara Miles | What did your father do? | 5:25 |
George Azel Moore | Ran a grocery store from 1910 till he died in 1956. | 5:27 |
Kara Miles | Oh. Do you know how he got the money and such to acquire a store? | 5:30 |
George Azel Moore | Yes, yes. He went to New Jersey to work as a youth and he returned in 1910 and started selling sardines and crackers and he built up from there. | 5:41 |
Kara Miles | Started selling them like on the street? | 5:58 |
George Azel Moore | No, he had a store. | 6:00 |
Kara Miles | He had a store already. | 6:02 |
George Azel Moore | A little place on the corner of Jones and Pollock, selling sardines and crackers. Five cents for sardines and probably a nickel for crackers. | 6:03 |
Kara Miles | And did your mother work outside the home? | 6:16 |
George Azel Moore | No, except one time she worked for Forbretta's Laundry. They're now closed. She worked there I guess two or three weeks, something like that. | 6:19 |
Kara Miles | Why did she— | 6:30 |
George Azel Moore | And then she worked in the store. | 6:31 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 6:33 |
George Azel Moore | Principally, when my father was out of town. | 6:33 |
Kara Miles | Why did she work at the laundry for a few weeks? | 6:39 |
George Azel Moore | Get some spending change on her own. I believe that's why. | 6:41 |
Kara Miles | But after a few weeks she decided she didn't need this spending change. | 6:47 |
George Azel Moore | I don't know what happened, but during those days people were working really for nothing anyway. 15 cents an hour, you better all stay at home getting nothing than going down there, you know, exerting yourself for nothing. | 6:51 |
Kara Miles | Were you growing up during the Depression? How old were you? | 7:08 |
George Azel Moore | Yes. Mm-hmm. That's right. | 7:10 |
Kara Miles | Can you tell me about the Depression? What do you remember about it? | 7:15 |
George Azel Moore | I was born under Republican president in 1928. Shortly thereafter, when Hoover became President, that's when the Depression really hit this area. People were working for 15 cents, 25 cents an hour and glad to get the work. The bottom had dropped out of everything almost. A lot of unemployment. I remember when the veterans of World War I received their bonuses. I think it was in 1932. No it was later than '32. They did get some bonus from serving in the World War. Congress passed and approved later on. But around here, major employers were the mills, especially for our people. I was glad to see it come to an end. I really was. | 7:26 |
Kara Miles | What did you used to do for fun as a child? | 8:42 |
George Azel Moore | Beg your pardon? | 8:47 |
Kara Miles | What did you used to do for fun as a child? | 8:48 |
George Azel Moore | Play on the street corner, play in school during recess, and we had our teenage clubs and dances and what have you. | 8:49 |
Kara Miles | What kind of clubs did you have? | 9:00 |
George Azel Moore | We had a teenage club here one. And through the church we had Sunday school, picnics, hikes. And let me see what else. House parties. | 9:01 |
Kara Miles | You talked about Sunday school picnics. Was church a very important part Of your life growing up? | 9:28 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yes. Oh yeah. My mother and father both grew up in Clinton Chapel Church where I belong now. And all of us used to sit up front and Sunday school. All four of us with my daddy. He was trustee, he sat up front and my mother, poor lady, she used to get up, feed, dress us all and get us off on time. | 9:34 |
Kara Miles | Did church meet every Sunday here? | 10:02 |
George Azel Moore | Every Sunday. This is a station, what we call a station church, which meets every Sunday. Some of our churches meet twice a month. I don't think we have many now that meet less than twice a month. | 10:04 |
Kara Miles | But your church was always a station? | 10:22 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yes, station church. We were talking about the churches and see Clinton Chapel AME Zion church on Church Street. You probably been in that area already, I'm sure, is one of the city's prime churches. Is one of the big churches in the North Carolina AME Zion Conference. | 10:23 |
Kara Miles | Did you like going to church as a child? | 10:52 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yes. Still like it. | 10:55 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. What did you— | 10:58 |
George Azel Moore | I just don't go as often as I used to. | 10:59 |
Kara Miles | What did you used to like about it? | 11:02 |
George Azel Moore | The comradeship, friendship, participation in Sunday school programs, and just one of those things you were expected to do here in my church. | 11:06 |
Kara Miles | Is this a, sorry, was this a Baptist church? | 11:19 |
George Azel Moore | Clinton Chapel AME Zion Church. | 11:24 |
Kara Miles | Clinton Chapel, sorry. | 11:28 |
George Azel Moore | Methodist, African Methodist Episcopal. | 11:31 |
Kara Miles | Did White people live near you when you were growing up? | 11:41 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah, some of them lived on my street. | 11:49 |
Kara Miles | Really? | 11:49 |
George Azel Moore | Mm-hmm. Yeah. | 11:49 |
Kara Miles | What kind of relationship did your family have with them? | 11:49 |
George Azel Moore | Good relationship. My father, being in business, he had White customers. Yeah, he had good relationship with White folks and still do. A lot of the old ones are long gone now. | 11:53 |
Kara Miles | Was most of New Bern integrated like that or was it mostly —? | 12:08 |
George Azel Moore | No, and New Bern's more integrated now than it ever was, I believe. Most Blacks lived in Duffyfield or one area of the railroad track and I lived on the other side of the railroad track, and we had some White folks on Pollock Street, which is a block or so from where I lived. But most of Black people lived across town. It's what we called it, across town. | 12:24 |
George Azel Moore | All right. See you [indistinct 00:13:12]. | 13:06 |
Kara Miles | You said your parents, your father got along well with the Whites. Do you ever remember any conflicts between him and any White people? | 13:14 |
George Azel Moore | No, I sure don't. | 13:27 |
Kara Miles | And White people would come to his store? | 13:31 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yeah, we had White customers on a daily basis. You had more White ones than Black ones. | 13:33 |
Kara Miles | Really? Tell me about segregation in New Bern. | 13:41 |
George Azel Moore | New Bern has been called by some police officials as the freest town for Blacks in North Carolina. | 13:58 |
Kara Miles | As the freest? | 14:06 |
George Azel Moore | Freest town for Blacks in North Carolina. Now that I believe started from Blacks coming from all over North Carolina to James City. See James City used to be a place a lot of Blacks came to because the Union Army, when they came to New Bern, they came from James City way and they freed the slaves starting over there. I'd say New Bern never was a place for strong animosity and feeling, in general, for Black people. | 14:07 |
Kara Miles | So you would say race relations was relatively good? | 14:52 |
George Azel Moore | Good according to the segregated society in effect at that time. Yeah, I would say so. | 14:55 |
Kara Miles | Were there ever any incidents of racial violence or Klan activity or anything? | 15:04 |
George Azel Moore | Riots anything, I don't remember a thing. No, I sure don't. No uprisings, nothing of that nature. Mm-hmm. | 15:09 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about like were buses and streetcars segregated and things here? | 15:24 |
George Azel Moore | I'm not sure about streetcars. Streetcars used to come to the end of my street, but they took those out of commission late '20s or early '30s. But we had a bus station here. And I understand the first bus station here was run and operated by Black people. Just before the integration, I say prior to the '60s, the bus station had on the front at one time Colored on one side, White on the other. Then they remodeled the building, put the Whites on the front with the Blacks on the back. | 15:40 |
George Azel Moore | And as far as I know, White taxis would ride you if you summoned them. And I'd been to Atlanta and I couldn't get a taxi from White drivers. That was in the '50s. I would say that I don't think there's ever been much segregation or discrimination from business people as long as you had the money to buy from them. But they wouldn't hire us a lot of times unless you were doing a menial job for them as a maid or something of that nature. | 16:31 |
Kara Miles | If you were in a store waiting to buy something and someone White came in, would they wait— | 17:24 |
George Azel Moore | That still happens sometimes today. Yes. Sometimes that you have to call a ham and you find that happening. Yeah. And at one while there, I heard my daddy say that merchants downtown would send dresses, and goods, and whatever to Black women of means here. And we have had some Negroes with some money in this area. They would send stuff up for them to pick out, make their selection so they wouldn't have to go downtown. In fact, practically all those farmers I guess now are gone away or dead because I can't think of a one around here now. But that did happen. | 17:29 |
Kara Miles | Would your family have been considered a family of means? | 18:23 |
George Azel Moore | No. | 18:25 |
Kara Miles | No. | 18:25 |
George Azel Moore | No. Some people may consider them as such. Well, I'll take that back. I guess some people still do consider my dad as having been a man of means, a merchant long time, owned cars. If people didn't have a good pair of shoes and property. Some would call that man of means. | 18:28 |
Kara Miles | What kind of Black people were here then that you would've said were of means? What did they do? | 18:56 |
George Azel Moore | Well, we've always had three or four Black lawyers around here until most recent years. And of course, the undertakers were all Black. We had four or five Black doctors here in this town including one dentist. And they were looked upon, the school teachers, had cars, they were looked upon people of means. It was a great privilege and honor to be a teacher during those years. And just some recent years that people start doing something other than teach. | 19:05 |
George Azel Moore | Because I went to North Carolina Central, I took up student teaching. I took up education courses to do student teaching because my daddy thought he should prepare me to teach in case I needed to do that and make a living. But I never desired to spread any ignorance. It wasn't until I got ready to get out the Air Force that I got my teaching certificate in North Carolina, Delaware, and New Jersey just as a hedge, but I never desired to do any teaching and I didn't. | 19:41 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about your teachers growing up. Do you remember were any of them special to you? Did you admire or were there some that you admired a lot that you learned a lot from? | 20:21 |
George Azel Moore | Yes. I would consider myself lucky because I had some good teachers at West Street School. Teachers who were interested in the students learning. If you got out of hand, out of step in school, they send a note to your mother and father. You may have get a beating there and get one when you get home. I would say I had some good teachers who prepared me well for entry into North Carolina Central University. | 20:35 |
George Azel Moore | We've had a couple of band directors here whom I knew and studied under and I believe that the faculty at West Street High School, when I came along, is different than what Black children are getting now in the integrated schools. The teachers were more interested in the students learning and I believe they were of what we call it, old school, who wanted to see you do well. Teachers nowadays, if you do it, you do it. They don't give a rip. I heard a teacher tell a student, "I got mine. You got yours to get." Terrible, isn't it? | 21:16 |
Kara Miles | Why do you think that change occurred? | 22:06 |
George Azel Moore | Integration. Integration has worked to the great disadvantage of most Black folks. | 22:08 |
Kara Miles | Do you think integration in all aspects or are you talking specifically about school integration? | 22:16 |
George Azel Moore | Schools primarily, but overall, looking at the overall picture, I think it's better for Blacks and it's going to get better the more we can eliminate discrimination. A man can be considered a man regardless of his color. It's moving, but slowly. | 22:22 |
Kara Miles | Just switching tact a little bit, you said that you were saying something that your father had told you about them sending clothes to the women. | 22:51 |
George Azel Moore | Oh, yeah. | 23:00 |
Kara Miles | Do you remember other things that your father told you about his period, his generation, that period of time that he lived in? | 23:01 |
George Azel Moore | Well around New Bern, the fraternities, Elks, Mason, Knights of Gideon, Knights of Pythias, and Odd Fellows, to name the men's organizations, the Eastern Star. Other than traits, that was the secondary social outlet for Blacks. Church number one and these Pound Societies were the second primary thing that Blacks participated in around here for social activity, for having something to do. | 23:14 |
Kara Miles | What was the Pound Society? What was the Pound Society? | 23:58 |
George Azel Moore | It is, right on, a society founded by New Bern people, which is still in existence, formed an organization. Members joined and they paid so much a month. When a member died, each member would give them a pound of this, a pound of that. In those days when it was hard to come by, it was a little insurance society, really what it was and there are some members still. It was headed by church people. That's what they did. | 24:02 |
Kara Miles | You mentioned all the men's organizations. What were the women's organizations like that? | 24:47 |
George Azel Moore | Eastern Star is the oldest woman's organization, I believe. Now, you did have the Household of Ruth and some of the other a women's organizations who were affiliated with some of the men's fraternities. I don't know what the Household of Ruth they affiliated with one, I think it's the Odd Fellows, I believe. Now over years, as radio and other things came into being, more attention getting things, they sort of died out. But right now, we have a strong Elks Lodge here and strong woman's Elks and several Greek letter organizations still going strong now. | 24:52 |
Kara Miles | You said your father was a Mason. Was he in any of the other fraternal organizations? | 25:54 |
George Azel Moore | Well, at one time he was head of the Elks, the Masons, the Odd Fellows, Knight Pythian and Knights of Gideons. | 26:01 |
Kara Miles | Wow. | 26:10 |
George Azel Moore | There's five of them. And he died, he was the State Treasurer of the Masons. That's 28 years State Treasurer and he's been the State President of the Elks. | 26:11 |
Kara Miles | Are all those organizations kind of the same? Are there differences? | 26:26 |
George Azel Moore | They're different but working toward, principally, the same goals of helping Blacks. Providing a social outlet for them, comradeship. And like the Masons today, a Mason dies, you get $500 burial benefit. I remember they used to got $50 during the Depression. In 1935 you got $50. $50 would bury you then. $500 won't do much for you now, but they'll get you a cloth. That's about all. But the fraternities and sororities existed because, principally, of economic reasons banding together to help one another stay alive, stay healthy. | 26:30 |
Kara Miles | Could anybody join these organizations? | 27:32 |
George Azel Moore | Anybody of good character. And to join some organizations you have to believe in God. | 27:36 |
Kara Miles | Could you tell me which ones those were? | 27:46 |
George Azel Moore | The Masons. You have to believe in God to join the Masons. See I'm Mason now. | 27:48 |
Kara Miles | When did you become a Mason? | 27:54 |
George Azel Moore | Before you were born. I've been a Mason since 1949. | 28:06 |
Kara Miles | You said people of good character could join. | 28:06 |
George Azel Moore | You had to be recommended. | 28:07 |
Kara Miles | Okay. By one already. | 28:08 |
George Azel Moore | By someone already in. Yes. And one guy could and still can keep you out of the Masons if you get a blackball. Some of the organizations you have to have more than one to keep you out. But sometimes if you don't like a guy you could conceivably blackball him, but they usually do that only for cause. I doubt they would take a known murderer in the Lodge. I doubt it. | 28:10 |
Kara Miles | When you were at Central, did you join like a fraternity there? | 28:50 |
George Azel Moore | I joined the greatest, that's the Omega Psi Phi fraternity. | 28:56 |
Kara Miles | I knew that you were Omega. | 29:05 |
George Azel Moore | Omega Psi Phi fraternity. I joined the Omega's about three or four months before I became a Mason. And I'm still in. I got a 40-year plaque in the other room. | 29:09 |
Kara Miles | What made you choose Omega over the other ones? | 29:18 |
George Azel Moore | Number one, my sister was a Delta and she had some influence on me. And when I went to North Carolina Central, you always find Omegas in leadership positions and they ran the campus, especially when I was there. And from Student Government President to on down the major dances we had prettiest girls. Well, Omega's still have a good program. We are more community oriented now. Doing more for others than just having dances. | 29:23 |
Kara Miles | So back then it wasn't so community oriented. | 30:08 |
George Azel Moore | Not as much as it is now. Not as much as is now. Trying to do something for other people is what we are about now more so. | 30:12 |
Kara Miles | How about the fraternal organizations back then? Were they more social oriented or more community oriented? | 30:20 |
George Azel Moore | I'd say community because number one, very few people had cars and telephones. So when you went the meeting, that's one measure of socializing with someone you haven't seen maybe in three weeks or a month. | 30:30 |
Kara Miles | Is there any connection between White and Black Masons? We know there's White Masons too. | 30:50 |
George Azel Moore | We use the same books, same handshakes, same signs and symbols. But they have their meetings and we have ours. | 30:55 |
Kara Miles | So you would never have had contact? | 31:02 |
George Azel Moore | Nope. I have had contact with some, but I have visited the White lodge in England twice. Banquets and what have you. But we don't have any fraternal association here in this town. We have two jurisdictions. We have Prince Hall, Free and Accepted Masons, that's us. And then the Whites are called Free and Accepted Action Masons. | 31:06 |
Kara Miles | What was the first word you said? | 31:36 |
George Azel Moore | Action. AA, Action. What did I say? AF and AM. Action Free and Accepted, now that's us. There's another, they have another name but we all study out of the same book. | 31:43 |
Kara Miles | Was your mother in one of those kind of organizations? | 32:10 |
George Azel Moore | She's a past Matron of the Eastern Star here. In fact, my daddy belonged to the Eastern Star too. Men can join that. | 32:14 |
Speaker 1 | Oh really? | 32:22 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah. Yeah. They can join Eastern Star, but the women can't join the Masons. | 32:23 |
Kara Miles | That sounds a bit unfair. | 32:28 |
George Azel Moore | Well see. They belong to us. When I say us, the women belong to the men you see. And they allow men to join the Eastern Star. They have to oversee their activities and they can't have a meeting unless a man's present. The patron. You got to keep them straight. | 32:30 |
George Azel Moore | Now this town, West Street School had the first high school for Blacks in North Carolina. | 33:03 |
Kara Miles | Oh really? | 33:13 |
George Azel Moore | It's not here anymore. And we had an academy here too called Southerners Academy, which is the forerunner of what is now Elizabeth City State University. | 33:14 |
Kara Miles | Wow. | 33:27 |
George Azel Moore | It started in New Bern and then they moved it to Goldsboro. And first thing you knew, Hugh Cale, Elizabeth City, submitted a bill to the legislature to found Elizabeth City State Normal School and that became Elizabeth City State University. And New Bern has produced plenty of doctors, medical doctors, lawyers. At that time you could pass the bar without ever having to go to law school. We did have one lawyer, O'Hara, his father was a congressman here in this area. | 33:28 |
George Azel Moore | He was in law school when he passed the bar. And he was practicing before he finished. He just went through the formality. Now his daddy was a lawyer, so he what they call read law books in the office. Shaw University, as you know, perhaps used to have a law school and they had a medical school and a dental school. Those are long gone. But all our earlier doctors here went to Shaw University for professional training. | 34:12 |
Kara Miles | So when you were growing up and your family got sick, you had a Black doctor? | 34:42 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yeah, we had Black doctors. Mumford, Mann, Fisher, Martin, there's four Black medical doctors and one dentist. | 34:47 |
Kara Miles | Would any White people go to them? | 35:01 |
George Azel Moore | That, I don't know, but I sort of doubt it. Because they had plenty White doctors too. And they had these sections for backdoor Blacks. | 35:03 |
Kara Miles | What? | 35:16 |
George Azel Moore | Backdoor Blacks mean the Blacks came in the back door where the White persons came in the front. They had a section reserved for Blacks and they treated them. | 35:17 |
Kara Miles | The White doctors? | 35:27 |
George Azel Moore | Mm-hmm. All your surgeons at that time were White. | 35:28 |
Kara Miles | There was a Black hospital here wasn't it? | 35:30 |
George Azel Moore | That's Good Shepherd. I'm sure somebody told you that already. That's on West Street now. It's a nursing home now. That was started by Reverend R. I. Johnson of Episcopalian Church. He started working on that hospital back then. They were buying bricks penny a piece, old used bricks, clean them off. And St. Peters and AME Zion Church did the same thing. They had a fire in 1922. Big fire. They bought and built that church back partially with old brick. But before the hospital was built, Good Shepherd, Blacks were in the basement of the main White hospital here where it leaked at times and what have you, and at least they had a place to go. Some places don't have, even today, hospitals. They had to go miles to get a hospital. We have had two or three hospitals here, private. | 35:38 |
Kara Miles | So when Good Shepherd was built, did Blacks stop going to the White hospital and start going there? | 36:40 |
George Azel Moore | Yes. That's what happened. They closed it off for Blacks. | 36:48 |
Kara Miles | Oh. They stopped letting Blacks go there? | 36:52 |
George Azel Moore | They had to come to Good Shepherd. And the first superintendent at that hospital is in town now. Yeah, it's a fella named Faison lives on Bern Street. Faison, F-A-I-S-O-N, I think. Let's see what's Faison's first name? Ozzie. O-Z-Z-I-E, I think. Ozzie T., I believe. There's a Faison on Bern Street. You had the right one. | 36:54 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 37:24 |
George Azel Moore | Now, when that hospital closed, he was made the assistant to the hospital administrator of the new hospital. He's retired now. | 37:26 |
Kara Miles | When did it close? | 37:39 |
George Azel Moore | I imagine it was about 1960, about the mid '60s somewhere. But it performed a marvelous service for Black people. We had a Black surgeon here, I think the name was Dr. Patterson, I believe. Anyway, this was too small a town. He couldn't make any money here so he stayed here two or three years and pulled out. | 37:42 |
Kara Miles | Your father owned the store. Did you all ever go to White stores? | 38:15 |
George Azel Moore | Oh, yeah. You had to go the White store some things, of course. | 38:20 |
Kara Miles | What kind of things did you have to go to a White store? | 38:26 |
George Azel Moore | In the late years, he didn't sell meat, for example, but we bought most of our meat on the telephone from Blunt. He owned a grocery store over, I don't think that's Duffyfield, but across town. And we'd get our meat delivered to us from his store. | 38:30 |
Kara Miles | Was that a Black store? | 38:47 |
George Azel Moore | That was a Black store, yeah. And then we had farmer friends. They'd bring us a ham, you know something now and then. | 38:48 |
Kara Miles | Were there department stores here? | 39:09 |
George Azel Moore | Oh yes, but no Black stores, department stores downtown. Downtown, when I remember it for the first time, we had a Black barbershop downtown. Lawyer's office downtown. Lawyer had his office downtown. And they were hardly no Blacks in business downtown in the '30s at all. Barbershops, of course, we had four or five, excuse me, around. No, there weren't any. Now, Blacks have always had barbershops around here. And you still get the cheapest haircut in North Carolina in New Bern. | 39:12 |
Kara Miles | Really? | 40:12 |
George Azel Moore | Three dollars. Three dollars. And let me see, somebody already told you about the fire, I know. | 40:13 |
Kara Miles | The 1922. | 40:28 |
George Azel Moore | The big fire in 1922. Yeah. That wiped out a lot of Black homes down there across in the cemetery area. I'm sure you probably seen it already. | 40:29 |
Kara Miles | No. Actually, I haven't. | 40:41 |
George Azel Moore | You know where the police station is? Did you see that or pass it? | 40:42 |
Kara Miles | I don't know. I've only been here a couple days. | 40:46 |
George Azel Moore | That's okay. So anyway, that wiped out a lot of Black homes. That fire jumped, I don't know why, and it was mostly all Black that burnt. | 40:53 |
Kara Miles | So that destroyed a lot of Black businesses? | 41:10 |
George Azel Moore | A lot of mostly Black homes. And the fire folks wouldn't let them build back. They condemned the property and a second White cemetery was built where a lot of Black homes used to be on George Street. Because I had a aunt had a house that burned out and she moved to West Street. I own that house now. It came down in the family. I'm sure her house is one of them that was built as a result of the big fire in New Bern in 1922. | 41:12 |
Kara Miles | Does anyone know how that fire started? | 41:52 |
George Azel Moore | Well, there are a lot of tales about that. I don't even remember myself now. I really don't. But it started downtown near St. Peter's church. And I have something here, you may be interested in. Save it for now. Mr. Hatch told me at one time the reason he went into funeral business because he was married with Mary Whitley, who owned or started Whitley Funeral Home. Mr. Hatch had a business for years and years. Horse-drawn carriages and what have you. But his business never did flourish greatly, I believe, because a lot of people were envious that he was able to succeed where others had been working for years and failed. It created a lot of animosity. | 42:04 |
Kara Miles | What was he mad at? | 43:10 |
George Azel Moore | I don't know why he was mad at Mary Whitley, but he said he sure wasn't mad with him. So he ran the business, compete against him to get some business from him. I have another book here about—anybody show you the West Street Alumni Bulletin a couple years ago? | 43:11 |
Kara Miles | I think so. | 43:29 |
George Azel Moore | You did? Okay. That had some J. T. Barber in it and okay. | 43:29 |
Kara Miles | I think I saw that. I know it talks in here about how being a Lodge member helped him in his travels and things. | 43:36 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. | 43:48 |
Kara Miles | Do you have any experiences like that? | 43:50 |
George Azel Moore | Yes. When I first went to Denver, Colorado, I was in the Air Force then. After I'd been in town, I guess a couple of weeks, I wrote our headquarters in Washington and asked them who the Omegas were in Denver. They gave me a name. The fella just died not too long ago. And I went around his house that day, met his wife and went to meetings, the Omegas in Denver, and I was made to feel at home. Some of those same fellows I used to see at Grand Conclaves. One of our oldest members, Holmes, used to live in Denver as a dentist. It's been an avenue for me to a large friendships and I have enjoyed the association since 1949 and being a member of Omega Psi Phi fraternity. | 43:56 |
Kara Miles | Were these organizations back during segregation? Did they provide like a support system? I mean, if there were places that you couldn't stay in hotels, did you [indistinct 00:45:09]? | 44:56 |
George Azel Moore | Yes, you could. Yeah. Yeah. You looked up your brothers as you went from town to town or somebody recommended you see so-and-so when you go there. Oh, yes. Because most of our members in the '30s, '40s, were connected with the school system. The Grand Conclave met when school was out for Christmas break. Now we meet every other year, in the summertime, so they can bring their families and all. You can stay there when you have the money now, but there was a time that you had to schedule that meeting where Blacks could stay because it was tough getting around for a meeting. Mm-hmm. | 45:11 |
Kara Miles | Tell me about travel during this period. You said it was tough getting around. | 46:04 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah, because segregated travel was terrible. Even right here in town, you had to sit on the back of the bus. I remember when I came from— | 46:09 |
George Azel Moore | —sat in what was then the White section. And a fella came up to me, "You see, this is White folks over here," something like that. I didn't pay any attention to him. But we got ready to eat, we couldn't eat in that section. We had to go to the Black section to buy a sandwich. And right until—I'd say in the last 25 years, if you were going to travel, you better travel and get where you going before night, otherwise you'd have difficulty of finding a hotel, and you take your fish sandwich with you because you couldn't eat prior to the '50s, you couldn't eat in the restaurants. | 0:01 |
George Azel Moore | When you got what we call "up North" and Howard Johnson, some of those places, they would let you buy a sandwich. You could sit down and eat. My children don't know anything about that, and I'm glad they don't. | 0:52 |
Kara Miles | How old were you the first time you went up North? | 1:10 |
George Azel Moore | Six years old. | 1:13 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 1:14 |
George Azel Moore | Six years old. Wait a minute. Yeah, I think that's about right. About six years old. I just talked with my childhood friends last night. I heard he had cancer. And something told me to call him and I just happened to call. He was just getting back from Bermuda, he and his wife on a trip. And I was glad to hear from him. | 1:16 |
Kara Miles | Were you aware, when you were six years old, were you aware that when you went up North that things were different? Or were things different? | 1:44 |
George Azel Moore | Not really because I didn't do any purchasing. No, I would say not any noticeable difference. I lived in Harlem with my uncle and his family, but I did know they had the—at that time on the train, the Black folks were sitting in the last car. That was so, White folks up front, when that smoke came up, by the time it came down it would be past the White cars, and the Black passengers last car, so would it get the smoke. And you couldn't eat on that car either. You could get some segregated drinking water. | 1:55 |
Kara Miles | When you were growing up, what did you think of that? I mean how did— | 2:53 |
George Azel Moore | I ran across a good case of segregation in New Bern when I was a Boy Scout here. I didn't even realize it at the time. We were going from here to train station to Morehead City on the train to meet some Scouts down there. We gathered that morning, Saturday morning, going to train down to Morehead, and we went in the Pinnix drug store that's still down there. And we sat at the soda counter and a White fella came up and said, "Well you all come down here, you can get served quicker." He didn't want us sitting and what he considered seats reserved for White folks. It took me the longest time that really dawned on me that that's what he was doing, moving us away from the counter so we couldn't sit down. I tell my wife about that not too long ago because I still remembered. | 3:00 |
Kara Miles | Are there any other incidents that stick out in your mind? | 4:02 |
George Azel Moore | Well, years ago, West Street High School had a football team, the White high school had a football team. We had to schedule our games around their use of the main park here. If they wanted to play ball Friday night, then we had to play ball Friday evening or some other time because they used the park when they got ready. | 4:13 |
George Azel Moore | Let's see—I guess New Bern has had its share of parades. The Elks used to always have a parade here whenever they met in town. The Elks and the Masons used to turn out as a group once a year. The Masons would put on the aprons and gloves and the Elks would too and their fezzes. But they don't have that anymore. | 4:45 |
Kara Miles | Aprons? | 5:39 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah, Masonic Apron. | 5:40 |
Kara Miles | Oh, okay. | 5:41 |
George Azel Moore | Have you ever seen one? You never seen a Masonic Apron? | 5:42 |
Kara Miles | I don't think so. | 5:46 |
George Azel Moore | I got a lambskin in the back there that my daddy gave me before he died. It's just a ordinary apron with a masonic emblem on it on the front of it. | 5:48 |
Kara Miles | Is that something special you wear at certain occasions? | 6:02 |
George Azel Moore | Well, I have two aprons. One what I call a Dress Apron, when you're going to show out in the public, you wear your best apron. What we call a Work Apron is just a cloth apron. It'd be used just going to ordinary meetings. | 6:05 |
Kara Miles | So you dress for ordinary meetings, you— | 6:26 |
George Azel Moore | That's right. When you're going out somewhere, to a banquet or some brother dies, you put on your best. | 6:29 |
Kara Miles | And the gloves are worn. | 6:38 |
George Azel Moore | White gloves. You wear those all the time in meetings and what have you. Now, I'm sure somebody already told you about the politicians around here. | 6:39 |
Kara Miles | No. | 6:53 |
George Azel Moore | Nobody told you about the Black politician? | 6:54 |
Kara Miles | No. Tell me about it. | 6:56 |
George Azel Moore | New Bern has had two—three Black congressmen from New Bern. We've had members of the legislature in North Carolina, Raleigh back in the 1890s and the early part of this century. Somebody said a few years ago when they started electing Blacks again, "Oh, we got the first one." We've had them years ago. First Black superintendent of schools, Bishop J.W Hood, came from this town and then went to Raleigh. | 6:58 |
George Azel Moore | But when the White church came in, and the White church, you probably know about them being a history. And the early part of the century, White Democrats stripped Blacks of all the offices after Reconstruction. During Reconstruction we had Black sheriffs and what have you, and then all of them suddenly disappeared. | 7:47 |
George Azel Moore | And Blacks are coming back now and have been for I guess the last 15, 20 years. I mean, you have a Black Speaker of the House. That's a powerful position. Challenge the governor on the veto vote and beat him. But Negroes have—my folks always voted here as far back as I can remember. Any Black who wanted to pay that poll tax that was in effect at that time, you could vote without any opposition because the number was small. We didn't have a lot of people registering to vote because the White folks didn't feel that Blacks could ever have any control. Now, that happened here in New Bern. Blacks took over city hall with a Black mayor and four of—with the mayor and three councilmen, they controlled the city government here. | 8:16 |
Kara Miles | And when did this take place? | 9:22 |
George Azel Moore | I guess it was about four years ago. Yeah, about four years ago. The newspaper came out with a statement, "Blacks Take Over City Hall". They surely did. Blacks take over city hall. And that was quite the talk. And you're going to have an election again next month. No, October. And all those Blacks will be up to run again. And if we aren't careful, we going to lose our gains, because we're going to have to consolidate and get the vote out in order to hold what we have. | 9:25 |
Kara Miles | You talked about the poll tax. How do you remember how much the poll tax was? | 10:13 |
George Azel Moore | No. Small amount. | 10:18 |
Kara Miles | Small amount. So would you think that most Blacks could've afforded it? | 10:20 |
George Azel Moore | It was just enough, a guy who doesn't have thing to eat, he's not going to pay any poll tax. It was designed to discourage Blacks from voting, and it served its purpose for the White folks. It did. | 10:23 |
Kara Miles | Would that emphasize, in the fraternal organizations and things, was that a big thing they tried to get Black people to do, to vote? | 10:39 |
George Azel Moore | Nobody pushed it much around here, really. Nobody's pushing it like they're doing now, because they seen what we can do when we stick together, pool resources, and vote. See, now people in a lot of places, they strongly discourage Blacks from voting in this area. But now, all you got to do is go down there and register. See, Blacks have paid the price to vote. | 10:48 |
Kara Miles | Was there a literacy test back then? Or just— | 11:22 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah, all kinds of tests. | 11:27 |
Kara Miles | Okay. So it wasn't necessarily that you just had the money, you also had to be able to— | 11:31 |
George Azel Moore | No. You could be a teacher and if you couldn't spell catch—if you couldn't satisfy the registrar, you didn't get to vote. | 11:32 |
Kara Miles | Did you ever have any problems with that? | 11:45 |
George Azel Moore | No. First time I voted, I was in Durham. | 11:48 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 11:54 |
George Azel Moore | And when I came, moved back to New Bern, I just had to give my name, where I live, date of birth, I think. [indistinct 00:12:04], all the things I had to do. But all you have to do now go down there and say "I want to vote," and they'll swear you in. See, now that's a big thing. A lot of people died for that privilege, and we can't even get our poor people now to register and vote. | 11:54 |
Kara Miles | When did you move back to New Bern? | 12:28 |
George Azel Moore | 1970, ooh—1974, I moved back. I was in Elizabeth City before coming back here. | 12:34 |
Kara Miles | When was this that you went to England? | 12:51 |
George Azel Moore | I went to England in 1955. I was located about 45 miles north of London. | 12:54 |
Kara Miles | Was that for your job? | 13:03 |
George Azel Moore | Right, I was in the Air Force then. And we enjoyed it. That's the coldest place I've ever moved to. When I say cold, from—not from a climate point of view, but the coldness of the people. And I think that's because they didn't know us. We lived in a small village, and I was there three years before I knew another Black family was in that village. | 13:05 |
George Azel Moore | But after—I tell you what happened in 1955, the water all around us froze and the people had to come to our house to get water because we were the only ones around there with water. And we broke the ice right then. They used to come drink my liquor. [indistinct 00:13:51], they liked American whiskey. And then we got along well. I used to walk through the village catching the bus going to work, and they'd holler at and stop and talk and all. And when we got ready to leave, one of the neighbors had us over for breakfast. And that reminds me, I'm supposed to try to find those people in England because I think I know if they're still there, the postman would know where they are. Used to live in Groveside, 5 Groveside. I'm going to try to do that too, because my wife wanted to make contact with some of those folks. | 13:32 |
George Azel Moore | Now that's a place—when I went to England, I felt freer in general going and doing things than I did in the United States, because if you had the money, as far as I could tell, you could go and do. If you had the money here, you couldn't go and do certain things. | 14:32 |
Kara Miles | How were you treated at those places? | 14:57 |
George Azel Moore | All right. All right. You could go in a bar and eat and ride a train. Had two classes of train, first class and second class train service. And the same train, but the cars were better. First class cars were better of course. | 15:01 |
Kara Miles | So I imagine you liked the English. | 15:22 |
George Azel Moore | Well, after a while, yes. And we've been back to on a visit since we left. Had one daughter born over there. | 15:25 |
Kara Miles | How long were you there? | 15:35 |
George Azel Moore | Three years and three months. And looking back, we enjoyed it. We went to the dances, of course the base sponsored dances, and we invited some White friends. My wife met a lady who gave her a nice vase, I think, and some candlesticks. And the people wanting to know, why did she give them to her? Because they liked my wife, and they should call her her ladyship. We used to summon us a taxi, living in the country, and we marveled, she used to laugh sometimes. I said "Well, be over here, not in the South, but they still call you "Your ladyship" and "Your royal highness" and all that other stuff." And we were in England and Martin King led that in March in Montgomery. And when I went to Montgomery, the school—the Air Force sent me to Montgomery. I went to King's Church that he used to pastor when he was he leading that boycott. | 15:36 |
Kara Miles | What did the people in England think of the march? | 16:54 |
George Azel Moore | White and Black folks thought King was crazy. | 17:01 |
Kara Miles | Really? | 17:04 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah. Starting that, troublemaker. Troublemaker. A lot of people right now call King "Martin Luther Coon" around here now. Some of them still do. | 17:05 |
Kara Miles | But this is in England, they thought he was being a troublemaker. | 17:21 |
George Azel Moore | Yeah. Some of the Blacks, too. And that time, communist China—communism was taking China. And I talked to some of Chinese students who thought that communism was the common thing, and they were against Chiang Kai-shek in Romania. They were communist from China. | 17:25 |
Kara Miles | So what'd you do when you left England? Where'd you go? | 18:01 |
George Azel Moore | McGuire Air Force Base, New York, New Jersey. And then I stayed there three years, then I went to Michigan State University. I went to University of Cambridge while I was in England, and in fact, I'd been to four or five schools just to say I went. I find in traveling around, young person today had better get some education behind him, and it's the hardest job to influence some youngsters to get all they can get while they can. | 18:06 |
George Azel Moore | My wife helped several people to get in Saint Aug this year, this term. Some of them went up last week I think for orientation. And one fellow was telling me, "Well, they weren't organized, didn't have their things together". He may have expected too much. I don't see how he could really form an opinion being there just two or three days. And in fact, I would have little validity in his statement because he wasn't really there long enough to see the situation and be there in a student capacity. | 18:50 |
Kara Miles | I think I'm about— | 19:34 |
George Azel Moore | About through? | 19:35 |
Kara Miles | About out of questions. | 19:36 |
George Azel Moore | I start to say you're about through. | 19:43 |
Kara Miles | Are there things that I didn't ask you about that you think are important that you want to put down for the record? | 19:44 |
George Azel Moore | Well, let me see. Let me think. No, I sure can't. I'm sure somebody else about told you everything I said. | 19:49 |
Kara Miles | No. There's lots of things you told me that no one else has told me. | 20:38 |
George Azel Moore | Is that right? | 20:40 |
Kara Miles | Yeah. | 20:40 |
George Azel Moore | My sister Karen didn't tell you a lot of that stuff? | 20:41 |
Kara Miles | Well, I didn't actually talk to her, so I don't—another team ever talked to her. But, I mean, you told me lots of stuff about England— | 20:42 |
George Azel Moore | Well, it wasn't much. Wasn't much. | 20:53 |
Kara Miles | No, it was wonderful. It's very important, and I thank you for it. | 20:54 |
George Azel Moore | You are quite welcome. | 21:00 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 21:01 |
Item Info
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