Edward Todd interview recording, 1993 July 20
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Speaker 1 | There's something other than water. | 0:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | I like water. | 0:14 |
Speaker 1 | Is that [indistinct 00:00:17]. | 0:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Hello Mr. Todd, could you describe the neighborhood where you grew up as a child? | 0:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Yes. I grew up in a neighborhood in which was predominantly Black and not integrated at all. There were a lot of children in that neighborhood. We played together and enjoyed ourselves as we grew up. | 0:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you grow up here in Wilmington? | 0:37 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no, no, no. Indeed not. I came here in 1950. | 0:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 0:43 |
Edward M. Todd | And— | 0:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was your— where did you grow up? What town? | 0:47 |
Edward M. Todd | I grew up in Roanoke, Virginia. | 0:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 0:51 |
Edward M. Todd | In that neighborhood and mountains area, if you know anything about it. | 0:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You said your neighborhood was predominantly Black neighborhood? | 0:57 |
Edward M. Todd | Predominantly Black. | 0:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did any Whites live near you? | 1:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yes. There was a hospital near there and of course they came by and, but just down the hill or down the slopes, there were a lot of Whites who would come past there and go to hospital and for work and what have you. But nobody lived in a general vicinity, which I lived, no Whites. | 1:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did they map out the neighborhood so that all the— | 1:21 |
Edward M. Todd | Gerrymandering I guess it was done prior to my knowledge and prior to my knowing anything about it. And of course it's changed now, but during that, in those days it was gerrymanders. | 1:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And you said you lived near a hospital? | 1:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, there was a hospital right up the hill. | 1:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was that a White hospital? | 1:41 |
Edward M. Todd | Integrated hospital during that time far as, I really don't recall. But in recent years I knew my dad was in this. I knew it was integrated. | 1:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were growing up, did you hear stories of how Blacks were treated in that hospital? Were they segregated? | 1:55 |
Edward M. Todd | No. No, I didn't hear stories about that. | 2:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did most of the people in your neighborhood, when they got sick, did they go to the hospital or did they do other things? | 2:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Good question. I don't know. Really don't know because I didn't, that wasn't a part of my agendas to determine where they went. | 2:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 2:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Whatever. But I can tell where my father and mother went, and that was in late years, in the early, late '60s, late early '70s, they went to an integrated hospital out, which was not there but out another area of Roanoke. | 2:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | In your own community, what jobs did the adults have in your community? | 2:33 |
Edward M. Todd | My father being a minister and a lot of the adults worked the hospital and in service jobs. I don't know of any industry that early in those days there was no such thing as industry where I came from. That was generally every education or ministering or few doctors and some lawyers as I recall. | 2:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | How many brothers and sisters do you have? | 3:09 |
Edward M. Todd | I had two brothers and one sister. | 3:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you and your brothers and sisters and your friends in the neighborhood do for fun when you weren't doing your chore work? | 3:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, I was interested in athletics. And what I did was when I had the spare time, I would always go to the gym and work out as school was not far away from where I lived. We'd go to the gym and we were allowed to go into the gym and play and play basketball and play other games that were available at that time. | 3:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | There weren't any White. You never played with White children? | 3:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, yeah. There were White. We played with them. They would come over to our gym or to that gym and sometimes we would go to that gym, go to the other gym. | 3:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? What was that like? Did you ever face any problems with that? | 4:01 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Didn't face any problems. That was pretty much, pretty much a children's thing, they were doing that thing. Nobody interfered with it what have you. | 4:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Being a minister's son, were you ever teased or because they thought you had to behave better than other kids? | 4:14 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, I don't— I've heard the expressions that he's a minister son and you got to allow for that. And what that meant, I don't really recall, but we had a lot of problems in those days growing up, especially downtown, in the downtown area. | 4:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of those? | 4:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Not being able to ride the buses and what have you and wanted to sit in the back and things of that nature, general nature. | 4:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | But for the young people listening to the tape, what things of that nature? They don't know. If you had to sit on the back of the bus— | 4:56 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah, sit on the back of the bus. Is this light, this light is hot. | 5:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Turn it down. | 5:10 |
Edward M. Todd | I'm going to turn it down and let me go back. I would go back and forth sometimes from New Haven, from where I lived to New Haven, Connecticut. | 5:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 5:20 |
Edward M. Todd | And now I'm talking early on now. Real early when I was a child. | 5:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, okay. | 5:29 |
Edward M. Todd | I would travel by bus from Smithfield, North Carolina to New Haven, Connecticut. And we encountered a lot of problems on the bus and especially two places. I remember very distinctly you had problems. If you ever go through south here, Virginia, you had difficulty. You ever heard that before and early on in those days you had trouble in Richmond. Richmond was one of the most segregated cities in the south and they had policemans in there to dictate and tell you exactly. And that was not a good feeling. | 5:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you said problems, what type of things would they do to Black people? | 6:10 |
Edward M. Todd | And the bus stations wouldn't allow you to go in and get a sandwich and you'd have to go to the, they'd line you up to be the last one to get on the bus and yet the others would be the first one to get on. You had to go to the back of the bus and all those kinds of things that you didn't have the opportunity. Getting water as you wanted to have, you had to set it, had separate water fountain, well, you had all those kinds of things that irritated you at that time. But to see the police were around and they'd fit you in a minute if you didn't comply, with whatever it was. And they would take no, they'd say you get in your place and you'd have to get in that place. You've heard that before. | 6:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. What about some other problems? How did stores treat the Black customers? | 7:05 |
Edward M. Todd | Stores? Stores? I used to go with my mother to the store and we had no problems at the time. No difficulty getting what you wanted because you didn't have the conveniences and that you had to walk from the store to from home to the store and walk back and you had whatever groceries you had. Dad would always be in the minister would be away. Sometimes he wouldn't. Sometimes he would so no, no problems in the store, as I recall. Of course, a lot of times I didn't go to the store, would just, if she went to the grocery store, I went with her to get the grocery and bring that back home. But I don't recall really the problems in the stores as it would be if you were traveling. | 7:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Traveling was one of the worst. | 8:00 |
Edward M. Todd | That was the worst thing in the world. Don't get on the bus because you know what you had to do. | 8:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was the train worse? | 8:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Trains were available, but we didn't ride the trains like we did the bus. Bus was more convenient so consequently you rode the bus. I remember getting on a bus from Smithfield and you know where you had to go? You had to go to the back and you'd go through from, which was Greyhound bus from Smithfield to Washington. When you get to Washington you could change and go to get anywhere, you sit anywhere you wanted to. But it was, getting to Washington was the problem. You had to sit back, you couldn't get the sandwiches and you had, oh, it was terrible. | 8:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever know or hear of anyone that broke those rules that wouldn't move? | 8:54 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. | 8:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would happen? | 8:58 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, they would take them off the bus, arrest them. And this was particularly true in Richmond. And I said early on that Richmond was the most segregated city, the ugliest city to treat people that I've ever seen. Richmond and Emporia and Richmond and South Hill, Virginia. They were terrible, really terrible. Look at it, South Hill, you go through South Hill, sometime the bus would go through South Hill and if you wanted to get a sandwich, you had to go to the back and you had a little peep hole and you'd tell them what you want and you'd get a little sandwich. Oh, it was terrible. | 8:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | And when you said you traveled to New Haven, did you have family in New Haven? | 9:38 |
Edward M. Todd | I had a sister in New Haven, yeah. | 9:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 9:44 |
Edward M. Todd | But going to New Haven was one of the most pleasant things in the world. I don't, to me was. | 9:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why was it, why did you think it was? | 9:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Because you didn't, you were not confronted with the problems and you in New Haven as you did in the south or in the area, which I can't— | 9:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were a little boy. | 10:00 |
Edward M. Todd | When I was a little boy, I was twelve, thirteen years old I guess. Yeah. | 10:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did your parents, and did they ever teach you about segregation? | 10:06 |
Edward M. Todd | They never said that much about it. We told our children, the son and daughter we have, about it. But my parents never said anything about it. | 10:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you learn as a little child how to behave around Whites and do stuff? | 10:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, you just heard how you were supposed to behave or how you're supposed to conduct yourself as an individual. But let me give you one experience. My dad being a minister, he bought a car in a place called Smithfield. I don't believe if you heard that South Carolina. And Ava Gardner, you ever heard of Ava Gardner? Her daddy was the auto dealer. | 10:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Well I'd go with him sometimes to the service station or to the, for service on his car. And Ava would be there or she'd come in and Ava would always come over and pull my hair. And I wondered why she pulled it. She said, comb your hair. At that time it was bushy and curly and not really taking care of it as I should have I guess. She said comb it and she'd pull it so that was one of the things. And I didn't want nobody see her doing it because I didn't know how I would be treated as a result of that. See what me getting at? | 11:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well you were, how old were you then? | 11:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, twelve, thirteen years old. | 11:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | In that age was— | 11:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, yeah, yeah. twelve, thirteen. But all oddly it may seem, there was a doctor who lived there whose son was Bobby Rose who went to Carolina. And he would come over and play with us, to play basketball and we would go over and play with him. Bobby Rose and another individual who would come visit him. They would come, we'd play basketball together. | 11:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | But there wasn't much interaction between White and Black. | 12:17 |
Edward M. Todd | There were not any interaction, you said much, not any. If it was done, it was done behind that door, behind the wall or whatever. | 12:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | You said your father, what type of what denomination? | 12:33 |
Edward M. Todd | A minister, Baptist Minister. | 12:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Baptist. Did he do any other work aside from being minister? | 12:36 |
Edward M. Todd | Not other than that, no. | 12:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did your mother work outside? | 12:42 |
Edward M. Todd | She didn't work, no. | 12:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to change gears a bit and ask you, do you have any remembrances of your grandparents? | 12:47 |
Edward M. Todd | A lot of memories there. My grandmother who was my father's mother, I remember her very well. She was a cordial young lady. Well young lady, cordial lady. And she did what she thought what a grandmother should have done whatever that was. Don't ask me what it was, I couldn't tell you. But my father's, my mother's mother. I remember her very vividly. I don't want to get into something else. My mother's, well my mother's father was White. | 12:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay, okay. | 13:29 |
Edward M. Todd | And my daddy's, my daddy. Because she was Black, her mother was Black. But my daddy's mother was Black or almost like an Indian. And I remember her, his— I remember her husband or my granddaddy very vividly. I don't quite remember him as well. | 13:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they ever tell you any stories about their lives or how their lives were like? | 13:50 |
Edward M. Todd | No. I'd hear my mother talk about a lot of them, what their lives were like. And that's how I got to know good bit about whatever we're talking about now. Yeah. | 13:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 14:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Right. | 14:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they give you, ever give you any words of wisdom or advice and things? | 14:11 |
Edward M. Todd | Such as it was, words of wisdom, you are trained the best we know how and we hope you're going to follow it. That was the word of wisdom. And we had to read in between lines and what have you. And he, daddy was all, daddy was a continue— Daddy, he was always tell us of certain things. His main thing was sitting, talking to us about females. | 14:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of things did he tell you about them? | 14:44 |
Edward M. Todd | He'd always say to something like this, he says now if you fool around with those girls, you may get yourself in trouble. And this is maybe what they're looking for so my advice to you, if you don't want to get yourself in difficulty, don't bother. Does that make sense? And I talk about Ava Garden and Ava Garden was one of the ones who did all she could. And I knew it, but I didn't have sense enough to put it together as to what she was doing. And there was another young lady, White girl, who worked at the telephone office who would always come to the store which I worked, I worked as a grocery boy. They, I'm going, I'm jumping. | 14:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's okay. That's fine. | 15:40 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. I'm going from, I was still ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen years old. Worked at this grocery store and this girl who was a telephone operator, would come by the store and ask the owner to let your delivery boy take this to my house and I'll be there in a little while. In thirty minutes he said, take this over to such-and— I knew where she lived. When I got there, this particular occasion, I knocked on the door and went upstairs. She said, come in. And when I got in inside the door, she was standing top of steps and she wasn't dressed. | 15:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh my goodness. And you were just a young boy. | 16:27 |
Edward M. Todd | I was twelve, thirteen years old. | 16:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. | 16:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, sure was. | 16:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | What happened if you had gone upstairs? | 16:32 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know. | 16:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would've happened to you if you got— | 16:37 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what would've happened. | 16:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Could you have been hurt even though you were that young? | 16:38 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what would've happened. As I look back at it, I'm sure she would not have said anything, but I didn't trust me in that situation. I didn't know how to handle it at twelve, thirteen years old. Yeah, she was eighteen years old, I guess. I don't really recall how old she was, but she was old enough to be working as an operator. You heard an operator being in the telephone office. And at that time you'd always dialed the operator. She said, number please? And she'd give you your number, that's before your time. And other occasions, when I would deliver groceries at certain places, I would be intimidated by the females not knowing, having sense and what have you. Dad, we always sit and talk about it. He said, now you be careful because they says, what are they trying to do? And soon enough I encountered that many times. | 16:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did it get worse as you got to be— | 17:50 |
Edward M. Todd | As I got older? As I got older, I went on to, I finished high school and I went on to college. And then when I finished high school, went to college, I was interrupted by the war, had to go to war. I think of the year, 1942, '43, when I entered the military. I went to Fort Bragg and that's where I was in, that's where I was enlisted and trained, basic training. And I left there and went to Camp Lee, Virginia, that's a military base near Petersburg. And there was a Virginia State, you ever heard of Virginia State College, Virginia State. And we used to visit the campus a lot. And we would go back and forth from— and we were not treated well as military men. They wouldn't want to give us passes and didn't want to let us go out on the basis and what have you. And so we— | 17:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | The Black military, the Black soldiers? | 19:12 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. Oh yes indeed. Yes indeed. It didn't dawn, I was eighteen, nineteen years old mind you at that time, seventeen, eighteen. Yeah. But it didn't strike me as being strange because I've encountered, I encountered it beforehand, but I thought that when I got into the military it would be a little different. But it wasn't. | 19:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Because you were serving your country. | 19:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Serving the country. Yeah. Black soldiers were in one area and White soldiers in the other area. | 19:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have Black officers? | 19:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Black officers? Let me see. Black officers, that's a good question. I don't really recall at Camp Lee Virginia, where I know there were Black non-commissioners officers. And there were some Black commission officers as I recall. But anyway, we didn't stay there long, we left and went to Camp Ellis, Illinois that's near Peoria. Yes. Not existence in the long run. And we went through the same thing, in there we had officers who were all White and what have you. Joe Lewis, you ever heard of Joe Lewis? | 19:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | The boxer? | 20:36 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 20:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 20:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. He Was there and he was training there. And we'd always go to the, let me see where, I don't recall the name of the place. But anyway, somewhere in Peoria at Camp Ellis, Illinois. Well anyway, we left there and went to Camp Shanks, New York. And from Camp Shanks, New York to Europe. In early '43, I believe it was, 1943 got to Liverpool, England. Didn't know where we were going, but I heard a little boy whistling Blues In The Night. You ever heard that song? I know you haven't. But it was a popular song in America at that time, Blues In The Night. I asked the little kid, we didn't know where, as I said, I didn't know where we were heading. When we left Camp Shanks, we went to on a ship and we stayed on the ship twenty-one days on that ship, getting to Europe. And there was a convoy. You know what a convoy is? A lot of ships are spare out over the ocean, going into the same directions with some escorts. | 20:38 |
Edward M. Todd | Escorts where they lead ships, who had fighters, planes on them and whatever to protect those in the convoys. We got to Liverpool, England and I looked back at that time. And from Liverpool we went to Reading, R-E-A-D-I-N-G, Reading, England, which is southern part of England. And that's where we were stationed for quite a spell. | 21:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to go back and ask you a few, later on after you finished about the military, I wanted to go back and ask you about high school and things like that. | 22:19 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, okay. | 22:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | But I wanted to go back and ask you, why did you move, why did the soldiers have to move from so many different camps? | 22:30 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a good question. That's a good question. During that time policy was to move them from one camp to the next camp in order to keep them what? Keep them active. Active in so they wouldn't get discouraged or anything. Just keep moving and what have you. | 22:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you getting, and were the Black soldiers getting trained for different things than the White soldiers were getting trained to do? Or were they getting trained— | 23:01 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what they were getting trained for. | 23:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | You didn't have any contact with them? | 23:10 |
Edward M. Todd | You didn't have any contact with them. See, I was in, as I said, when I went, I was in college, I was in administration going into administration and this information was taken and they read it from resume that I had from college. They used that and asked and to send me into some area in which I could be trained and help somebody else. I got into administration and when I said administration typing and— | 23:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were there many other Black soldiers doing that? | 23:43 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah, quite a few of those. But we did a number of jobs, basically was designed primarily for administration and helping to organize, help run, help train other soldiers. Those who were not quite as fortunate as some of those. Excuse me. | 23:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's all right. Also, another question. You said sometimes you have White officers. How did they treat the Black soldiers? | 24:13 |
Edward M. Todd | We didn't have contact with them much over here, when I say in the States, but we had them contact with those rascals in Europe, in England. And they were, I'll never forget, let me name one or two. One who was named Murphy, Lieutenant Murphy. He was a commander, company commander. He was the most rubbish and prejudice commander, I think ever walked this earth. Murphy. And there was another one who was named Jim Leming. He was a second lieutenant. And he'd always try to water it down and always said, and he was White too. Always say, we are trying to help him so he can be more humane. But he was the world's worst. | 24:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, what kind of things would he do? | 25:10 |
Edward M. Todd | He didn't want to let us go out from, we are in England now, in Reading. He didn't want to give us passes to go out into community or go out to dances or go out to restaurants or go out to visit families and whatever. You didn't, won't do it. I'm going to tell you something going to shock you in a minute. As a result of this, he wanted to restrict us to the area. And I'm looking at the area right now where we restricted to in Reading. It was a fence around it, which was designed before we got there. And it wasn't none primarily for us, but it was around the area which we lived. And we had guards at the gate. Let me give you a little secret. Something happened. We went out into the community and we met people and people said that they were told by the White Yanks that we carried knives and that we had tales. | 25:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | That Black soldiers had tales? | 26:12 |
Edward M. Todd | That's right. That's right. You ever heard that before? That's right. The White Yanks told the English people or the Britishers that we had carried knives and we had tales. | 26:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you all react to hear things like that? | 26:30 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, let me, how did we react? We didn't let it worse. It didn't bother me because I know it wasn't— knew it wasn't true. I got familiar with a family there and I'll never forget this family. And during the off days on Sundays, I'd always go to church with them. | 26:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | A White family? | 26:53 |
Edward M. Todd | A White family. Yeah, White family. But it took a little time to get, you know how you have to get warmer to somebody. Took a little time to get warm. They had to warm up to us and we warmed up to them. | 26:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you all know they would be nicer to— the White people in England would be nicer than the White people in the south? | 27:06 |
Edward M. Todd | No, didn't know it. Didn't know it at all. Really we were really some of the first Black people that they have ever seen. | 27:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have questions about— | 27:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah, they have questions. And I'm going to ask you, I'm going to tell you what some of those questions were. You've heard some of it, I'm sure you have. Do we really carry knives? Do we really have tales? Do we really kill people like they said we were accused of doing. I said, I never heard we carried an knives or carry tails. I never heard it. Well, it worked. Well the Britishers, if you can hear them talk, sometimes you couldn't understand what they were saying because they had that— | 27:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Accent. | 28:02 |
Edward M. Todd | Accent that you couldn't, unless you listened very carefully. If they were true Britishers, you couldn't understand them. But I'd always listen carefully to what they were saying. Because I'd always go in and sit down with them and have, you know what a bun is? They'd have bun and tea and we'd sit and I'd sit and have tea with them and always come on, have tea with us. And that's why we'd talk. They wanted to know something, know about us and had a daughter. And I'll never forget her name was Joan. I got a picture in my photograph book in the lounge. | 28:03 |
Edward M. Todd | I got to know her and the family said, invited us, invited me to come in and give them some of my history on Black people so I did that. And they were most cordial. They were most grateful. And they treated us with dignity. After they found out we weren't like the White gangs say we were. I go to church with them and they invite me to church. I'd go with them and the daughter invited me to go to a dance with her. | 28:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you think about that? | 29:26 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, I said, if you invite me to go, I'll go. I was game. I didn't think it was, it was downtown in Reading. And I don't know whether it was a YMCA, but it was a nice hall to dance. And what is your name again? | 29:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Sonya. | 29:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Sonya, and Sonya when we got there, the White Yanks were there. | 29:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, what did they think? | 29:53 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, I'm going to tell you now. We walked in and we started dancing. They didn't like it. Oh, they thought that was the world's worst, was dancing with those White girls. They kept getting in groups and start talking about it. Our group was there and we were talking about it. Oh, they were talking about we weren't, were enjoying ourselves and just dancing. We can always dance anyway, you know that. And they can't dance. Oh, they couldn't then. Joan, I taught Joan how to dance and that time you heard of Jitterbug, they wanted to learn the Jitterbug and one or two other kind of dances. I don't recall what it was. And we'd stay a while and then we'd left. | 29:56 |
Edward M. Todd | We would stay there a while, and we left and go back and well it time for it to go anywhere, whatever it was. Didn't have any lights over there at that time, the lights were out because that was during the battle, the Blitz, you've heard of the Blitz. Germany was bombing England and didn't have the lights. Because turned the lights on, they could see from the air so they cut them off at night. You couldn't see where they were bombing. | 30:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did people see to get around? | 31:14 |
Edward M. Todd | Had these little lights, had little lights. They called Blackout lights on cars had blackout like this here, it had blackout protection of the windows so you couldn't see the lights from the outside. That you could see but they had the real, something that was designed to keep the light from going outside and you couldn't see it. And this was throughout the whole Britain at all lights were out and you couldn't see a thing even walking along at night unless you had a Blackout light, a flashlight. | 31:16 |
Edward M. Todd | Anyway, we went back and she said, I want to go back again to dance. I said, well, whenever to go again, we'll go. We went back on another occasion and there we were dancing and the other British girls wouldn't have done out dance too. And they'd always come and ask us for a dance. We'd dance with them. White Yanks didn't like it. And boy they raised sand. And we started to battling. | 31:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Started fighting? | 32:22 |
Edward M. Todd | Start fighting, sure did start fighting. The fell word got back to the company. All the boys from the company came and those girls joined in with us, took their shoes off and started beating those White Yanks with the heels of the shoes. Oh, that was something, oh, that was something. This same company commander wanted to put it off limits to us so the owner of that, and again, I don't recall what it was, it must— it was something like a YMCA, YWCA or nice place to dance. And the company commander went to him and said, we can't let those Black Colored boys go there no more. And the owner said to the him, he says, now if you let those, don't let those Colored Yanks come I won't have any business. Because those Colored, those our girls like to dances with those Colored boys. You see what I'm getting at? That was just another situation. | 32:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, what happened? Did they get, did they close it down? | 33:32 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 33:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | No? | 33:35 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 33:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you face any repercussions during, on the base or afterwards? | 33:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, that was not a base. As I said, it was like a big house. And our company at that time we stayed in that house. And I guess it was two or three stories high. And if you ever go to England, you won't find any bricks over there at all. They don't have bricks. They all in they big build wooden structures by wood, nothing but brick because they don't have that much brick. They got a lot of wood in that area. That's was experience with that dancing with the girls. When the invasion started now we got on a LST which down in southern France— | 33:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | What is LST? | 34:30 |
Edward M. Todd | A landing ship. A landing, landing barrage. You've probably seen those soldiers on tel— but you didn't pay any attention. When they get to shore, that big door goes down and they run out. | 34:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 34:42 |
Edward M. Todd | That's what we went across the channel on. The channel was rough. And this was during the time of the invasion. And we landed at Shuberg, you ever heard of Shuberg? Never heard of Shuberg. Or we landed at another place. I don't recall right off, it'll come to me maybe shortly. And as we got near the shore on those banks, they had, the Germans had pill boxes. And in those pill boxes, they had guns, they had artillery, they had what have you, trying to somewhat prevent the invasion. But the allies were dropping bombs. They were dropping, they had tanks, they had all kinds of ammunition. And out, we're sitting back out behind us with warships, find those big barrages and tearing them up and what have you. | 34:43 |
Edward M. Todd | Softening up so we could land. As we got near the shore on this LST, which is a landing craft, the door went down, we walked out and there were a lot of soldiers being killed, Black and White. And we couldn't stop to help them. We had to keep going because they says, there was a slogan at that time. They said, "Kill or be killed", you kill them or they kill you. That didn't make no sense to me at that time. I could care less. But anyway, we got on this on shore and there were a lot of our buddies or comrades who were being stepped on. And I stepped on some of them because they were firing at them and what have you. And we got up on, you've been to the beach, haven't you? To a beach, the nearer you get to shore the shallow the water is. But then you get further up, you got to maybe a high area. And as I said all along that Shuberg, all along that channel, all along that area where the Germans had built their pillboxes and what have you, they were firing at us. | 35:45 |
Edward M. Todd | And we were firing back at the them. I had what had known as a Carbine, two Carbines, one on this shoulder, one on that shoulder. And they were carry 32 rounds of ammunition. And of course I had a whole belt. You've seen belts of ammunition around soldiers? And around all around me I had ammunition and we were firing just as quick as, just as rapid as we could at the Germans. And we were hitting and missing, but we were firing. And well, that went on for a period of two or three days. And we softened. Yeah. | 37:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well when did you get to sleep or how? | 37:48 |
Edward M. Todd | Sleep? Sleep? | 37:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | You fired off for two, three days? | 37:53 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, you sleep? No such thing as sleep. | 37:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | They never stopped? | 37:57 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no. Day and night. Day and night. All around you there were firing and just different. But once we got up behind the pill boxes, these— and you've probably seen them sitting out with channeling inside those pill boxes were big, big artillery guns. Once we got behind them, we turned and killed them. I don't know how many we killed, but we killed them. German planes were still firing at us and we were still firing at them. And what, it was a mess. I'm glad you weren't even born in those days. | 37:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you feel that you were adequately trained for that experience? | 38:36 |
Edward M. Todd | Sure did. As well trained as you could be trained in those days. As much information and much, as much as they could give you as much information as they could give you as to— | 38:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | You said you were fighting then along with the White soldiers? | 38:58 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, well, I don't know. I don't know where the White soldiers were. | 39:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you think they would send the Black soldiers more for combat than others than the White soldiers? | 39:05 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 39:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | No? | 39:09 |
Edward M. Todd | No. I don't believe they would. A lot of things they got we didn't get. | 39:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Like what thing? | 39:19 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what I'm talking about. A lot of training they got that we, some training we didn't get. Now you say what? I don't know what I'm talking about, but I do recall hearing some of the soldiers say some of the soldiers got another aspect of training that we didn't get. But I don't know what it was so I can't give you, I can't tell you. | 39:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | And that went on for three days? | 39:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, that went on for, I said three days, maybe longer. I don't know how long it went on. | 39:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you all get more ammunition when you need, they would bring it to you? | 39:53 |
Edward M. Todd | They would always bring it to you. Yeah, they would always bring you ammunition. They'd always, they would have what is only their service supplies, which was supplying us with the ammunition and what have you. And food, we had K rationing and what have you. | 39:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | But you were trained in administration, how did you— | 40:14 |
Edward M. Todd | But yeah, you, that's a good question. Even though I was trained in that area, we had to be trained otherwise too. Because you got to protect yourself. See, when you get yourself trained, they give you training in order to protect yourself in the event. Now, I was able to use that knowledge once we got set up in France, let me tell you where it was, Shuberg and Le Havre. Shuberg, Le Havre was sitting right behind Shuberg. When I said in mind, that was a time, once we got ashore and then we were able to establish a foothold because the infantry was ahead of us. Infantry they were just, and of course the planes that were dropping bombs knew where to drop them. And they had some intelligence radio and planes and ships and what have you. In order for somebody to say you need to drop a bomb, in essence what it meant. But they would give signals and they knew what that meant. | 40:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask though, after you got to Shuberg and then you said you turned around and then you got the Germans. What did you all do right after? What did you all do next after that? | 41:43 |
Edward M. Todd | All right, after we established a position behind the line of the Germans, we made our way head on. We went going and made our way to, as I said, Shuberg, Le Havre was behind us. We made our way into that town. | 41:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did the people there— | 42:16 |
Edward M. Todd | They took us. They accepted us very well because we were helping them. They took us and they shouted for joy. And I'm going to give you something else in a little while. I'll never forget. On a number of occasions, we were, after all of this, after we got that foothold and got in, we were still battling. But we ran the Germans out of the area in which we were. All along that coast. All along. All along. I mean I guess it was twenty, thirty miles long. The Germans had established the positions there and we were able to move in and counteract them. And that went on for, don't ask me how many days, I don't recall. | 42:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | You never got to sleep that— | 43:06 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh no. | 43:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. | 43:07 |
Edward M. Todd | You heard the expression, old expression, Wars Hell. Have you ever heard that? | 43:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | I think I did. | 43:17 |
Edward M. Todd | That doesn't really describe it because who knows what hell is like, that doesn't really describe it. Because you got people, you got enemy firing at you all the time, and you never get a chance to get yourself together as to what you really want to do. And as I said, I don't recall how long this went on because this was 1940, 1945. | 43:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you all know when to stop fire— when they stopped firing? How did you all know when to stop? | 43:48 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay, that's a good question. How did you know when to stop firing? When their activities seemed to cease or slow down. And we knew then that we had a pretty good foothold and we knew that we were able to knock them out or able to kill them or able to do whatever we did. Whatever it was. How many, I don't know how many I killed, if any. Hope I didn't, but I'm sure I did. It was killed or be killed. Okay. We got established in Le Havre, L-A-H-A-V-R-E or something, I don't recall now. Yeah. This is the— and on it the town we're sitting down like a little valley here. And if you wanted to get up the way we were, had to go up an escalator. | 43:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 44:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Or go around and travel around and go up. But we chose, I chose, we chose to use escalating, going back and forth from uptown to where we lived. But I was telling you about the French girls, French people, they were the most cordial. As the British were cordial people in the world, they had nothing. And we had all the items that they needed. We had food, we had clothing, we had blankets, and they were cold. I shouldn't have done it, but I did it. I gave them blankets, gave them clothes to wear, and I'd always go in and get some more. And while, you weren't even born then, while my mother and father, as I said, were suffering, they didn't have, we had all the sugar we wanted all the gas we wanted, all the shoes we wanted. Anything we wanted, we had it. | 44:53 |
Edward M. Todd | And you know what we do, we'd give it to the French because they didn't have anything. They became very cordial. You, if you don't, because you never see any, you see some French girls or boys whose parents were Black or parents were White, father was Black. | 45:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Talking about from war. | 46:15 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a, not from the war as such because those people then about my age. But as a result of that. | 46:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you know any of your fellow soldiers that stayed there or that didn't want to come back? | 46:26 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I didn't know any of them. I didn't know any of those who— | 46:30 |
Edward M. Todd | They were available, and all you had to do was say, "Come here." Just like pouring water off a duck's back. | 0:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what did the White soldiers think about that? | 0:09 |
Edward M. Todd | They didn't like it. They didn't like it at all. But the same trend in Great Britain followed us through France. And I'm going to tell you about Berlin, and Germany, and what have you. But now we are in France now. We're in France, Le Havre, and when we pushed the Germans back, we kept pushing them back, you heard of that expression? | 0:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm—hmm. | 0:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Pushing them back to, and we'd always established a foothold and we set up camp or set up an area where we would live. And this is where we would sleep and what have you. The girls and the boys would come in and want to sleep with us at night because they didn't have heat, clothing, blankets to keep warm. I never allowed them to come in to sleep because I didn't think that was ethical. I never allowed them do that. But I'd always give them some food. I'd always give them plenty of food. And the most beautiful women in the world are Frenchmen. They are. And they're cordial, just like the Britishers were. Going into Paris, moving into that area, which was declared, that city was declared an open city. You know what an open city is? | 0:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, what does that mean? | 1:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Open city means that No, the Allies were not bombing, nor the Germans were bombing. | 1:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did they declare that open? | 1:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Now that's a good question. You ever heard of Eisenhower? You ever heard of de Gaulle? Okay. They had some kind of agreement. And the Germans are, I don't know who, I don't recall, can't remember the Germans at that time. I don't recall who he was. | 1:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Before Hitler? | 2:12 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh no, that was during Hitler's time. That was during the time of World War II now, I'm talking about. Hitler was thee Hitler at that time. According to history in, but Paris was declared an open city. No bombing, nor artillery. No— | 2:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Germans didn't even bomb? | 2:34 |
Edward M. Todd | German didn't bomb it either, because that was, I think it must have been Goring. Goring must have been one of the generals that they met with. Oh, don't quote me on that. Yeah, don't quote me. But that was, that name somehow rings a bell. And as I recall, there was an agreement between those three people. De Gaulle, Eisenhower, well maybe may have been somebody else in that German army. I don't know who, don't recall who it was. But anyway, it was declared an open city, but a dirty city. | 2:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what kind of dirt, dirty as in? | 3:05 |
Edward M. Todd | Dirty. When I said dirty, it needed cleaning. | 3:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 3:13 |
Edward M. Todd | It needed cleaning. They needed to take, needed to take a army and go in there and clean the whole area. The buildings, the streets. You've seen Eiffel Tower and you've seen some pictures of those, dirtiest places in the world. But yet historical, and Eric Chancellor got, I would go into Paris to just visit and go from, but the ladies, girls, beautiful, beautiful. And I say I could have married fifty thousand of them if I wanted them. | 3:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you fall in love? | 3:52 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 3:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | No. | 3:53 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no. Did not. Because I knew, I had a goal in mind. I had a goal that in order for me to be somebody, I had to come out of there and get back to school and establish my career. That was why, that's probably why I didn't get involved, or wanted to stay there or something. You asked me a little earlier on if any of the soldiers stay. I'm sure they did, but I don't know who they were. You see, once you get in a war and you really get into battle, you don't know where your buddies are. It's killed or be killed. So you take care of yourself. | 3:54 |
Edward M. Todd | So we got, some of those boys came back together and they always, I'll never forget a young man from Kingston who name, fellow went to John C. Smith University. We'd always paired together and he was John C. Smith University graduate. And we'd always go into Paris together, come out of Paris together. We'd paired around a good deal together. And after the Germans were pushed back, we didn't fight as much. We didn't do as much fighting, but we had to do a lot on that beach. Cherbourg and Normandy. That's where it is, Normandy. | 4:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever not see any, you didn't get to see any of the concentration camps? | 5:33 |
Edward M. Todd | Yes, I did. | 5:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | You did? | 5:38 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, yes, but I didn't know what I was looking at. | 5:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you— | 5:41 |
Edward M. Todd | This was later on. | 5:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, this is later on. | 5:43 |
Edward M. Todd | This was later on. You ever heard of a Siegfried Line? What is a Siegfried Line? | 5:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | I just heard of it. | 5:51 |
Edward M. Todd | You heard of it. Siegfried Line was a pillboxes. I don't mean pillars that were built by the Germans. Back on the other side of, north somewhere up there in France. Don't ask me where. Rouen, El la Chappelle. Somewhere up there in middle of France that the Germans build in order to try to knock our tanks out, keep them from going through, us making a foothold or going forward. So we had to destroy those in order to keep pushing forward. And you heard at that time, everything was all clear on the Western Front. You ever heard that expression? All clear on the Western Front. We had communication systems. We could hear what they were talking about. And we had to destroy those, that Siegfried Line in order to push forward. And we did that by setting up, bombing it, dropping bombs or those little things. What do you call them? That we used to throw? | 5:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Hand grenades. | 7:08 |
Edward M. Todd | Hand grenades. They wouldn't knock them out. They wouldn't knock them out. So they weren't strong enough. So we had to bomb it, and in order to get through. Now moving on up a little further into France, we into Central France, we were able to knock those pillboxes out and we were able to move forward. And you asked me about a concentration camp. There were not many concentration camps in France, but we saw those in Germany. But we didn't know what we're looking at. And that's where all those people, millions and millions of Jews were destroyed. | 7:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you think when you saw them? What did you think? | 8:03 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't know what they were. | 8:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did they look like? | 8:03 |
Edward M. Todd | They were big buildings, frame buildings. And we never went inside. Didn't want to go inside. Let me stop here and tell you this. All these things didn't dawn on us as young people, as young boys at that time. They didn't, could care less. All we were trying to do was get this war over and get out there and come back. But I'm almost try to explain to you what those concentration camps look like. Have you ever seen a chicken house where they raised chickens? Whole lot of chickens? | 8:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | I think so. | 8:44 |
Edward M. Todd | You think so. A concentration camp would stretch from here to that street down there. Market Street. | 8:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. About about a quarter of a mile? | 8:56 |
Edward M. Todd | A quarter of a mile. And around that camp would have barbed wire fences. And inside that fence you'd have guards. But the thing that dawned on me was the odor that we encountered. It was a strange odor. And I knew then there was somebody had been burned or something had happened. I couldn't tell what it was. And nobody was talking about it. | 8:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they abandoned when you got there, or they were still— | 9:24 |
Edward M. Todd | No, they were abandoned. They were abandoned. Now they would destroy, these concentration camps were, let me see if I can tell you when they were done, in the late thirties, in the forties, somewhere along there in order to destroy those Jews. Hitler didn't like the Jews. So he had them all destroyed because of the fact that if the Germans could, if the Jews could establish a foothold, they would rule Germany, didn't want them to do that. So he had them destroyed. I know I'm missing a lot of it, but I'm giving you that. | 9:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, that's fine. Did you know that, so when you got to the camps, there weren't anybody left there? | 10:10 |
Edward M. Todd | No. There was nobody there. No. Nobody was there. | 10:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | But they never tell you, they didn't tell you what they were really? | 10:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Yes, as I recall, the Germans told us what they were as we advanced ahead. And they would say, of course that old German, you couldn't understand what they were saying because that old [indistinct 00:10:40] and old German language was difficult. Much more difficult than the French language. But I met a family, again, I'm meeting a family who asked me if I, if I'd seen a concentration camp. I said, "Yeah. I said, how did you get around and didn't not catch you?" He said, "We went underground." And I didn't ask him what we meant when he said went underground. I knew what he was talking about. But he got in a place where he could not, Germany, the generals, Germany generals could not find them. | 10:25 |
Edward M. Todd | That was something awful. That's where it really struck me. It really struck me because to know that these people were being destroyed by Hitler authority. I said, a human being. And I said to myself, I said, he's going to get it too. And I said, we can catch him. We going to get him. But the Allies were on the move, on the Western Front moving forward. And as I said, I know I missed some things, but I want to tell you about the Western Front. The Western Front was established because the Russians, Russia was coming from the west. And we were coming from the east. And we met. But Berlin itself was completely destroyed. We bombed them and the Russians were bombing them. I didn't tell you much about the Russians, did I? | 11:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | No. No, you didn't. | 12:31 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't really know what to tell you about Russia. | 12:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you meet any of them? | 12:38 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. Met a lot of them. | 12:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were they like? | 12:40 |
Edward M. Todd | They were cordial too. Stalins. You ever heard of Stalins? They thought well of Stalins and Stalins were, so Stalins himself was running the German, the Russian army. There was a Russian general named Zhukov. And know you never heard it. And I know his name is in history someplace, but we got to know him after we met on the Western Front. This front came together and then we were all together. And he was talking about his experiences with— | 12:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | And he talked to the Black soldiers and things like that. Or were y'all together and— | 13:24 |
Edward M. Todd | No, we was, and I don't know how I got that. I don't know how we met, but somewhere along either, I was talking with some of his commanding officers. I met him. I saw him. I didn't know who he was. But that name always stood out, Zhukov because he was the man just like Eisenhower was, Zhukov was Russian, Eisenhower Allies, Bradley, Omaha Bradley, who was another general in the United States Army, did an outstanding job. And several, I can't remember the names now, whom we were, I don't know. He just— | 13:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did y'all think of the Russians during, later on you toward Russians? Much different. So what did you think of them? | 14:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, we thought, at that time we thought Russian was, Russia was just like Germans, just like the French, just like the British. They were looking for a way to end this war. And I never gave it a second thought as to that someone was about to, a Cold War was about to develop between United States and the Allies. I mean the Allies and Russia, what's his name? Khrushchev. Is that his name? Khrushchev. That's when the problem really started, when Khrushchev took power and he wanted this Communism to reign throughout the world, if he could. Let me give you, see if I can go down to China. No, I ain't going to China. Because I can't, I'm not going to bring that up. | 14:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. No, that's fine. I can get— I wanted to ask you. Did you have much contact with your family back home? Did you write letters? | 15:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, yeah. Wrote letters. Wrote letters. Mother and father was living yeah. But the letters that I would get, all they would get would be not the same kind of letters I would write. They would censor the letters. | 15:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 16:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Sure. | 16:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | They read your mail? | 16:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Sure they did. | 16:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did they do that? | 16:01 |
Edward M. Todd | And made a photocopy. Small, I had one of those letters and mother, I don't know what or where it is now, photostat copy of a letter that I had, that her, that I either I wrote from her or she heard from me or I wrote her. I don't recall now, but it was not the same. You know what a letter looks like now. But if I would get a letter from her, it would be much smaller. Like a thank you note. You know what a thank you note is? Like that, much smaller. And some of the information was not, was blotted out. | 16:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why? What types of information would they blot out? | 16:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Where I was, where I was located, what I was doing. | 16:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 16:57 |
Edward M. Todd | Contact Germans. Well, anything that was pertaining to the war. All they wanted was to write how we were getting along. Couldn't even tell where we were. | 16:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever have USO troops, performers perform for you or? | 17:10 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 17:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | No. | 17:14 |
Edward M. Todd | USO. That was something for— | 17:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | Bob Hope. | 17:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Bob Hope I never knew Bob. No. Joe Lewis was the only one that he would always come and perform. See, was anybody else? No. We always got the people who performed in Germany, from Germany or France or England, whatever. They would always perform for us. But I don't remember Bob Hope coming. | 17:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where were we, you were pushing back the Germans? | 17:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, we met the Germans. I mean the Russians in at a point. And we kept there, stayed there for a number, for a while. We just kept day in and day out, day in and day out routine. And we kept diminishing the German army. I knew we were winning it. But you heard of the Battle of the Bulge. You heard of that? Okay. We were about six miles from that area when the Germans broke through. And with lo and behold, there was a lot of information that was passed on to the Allies that knew what were taking place. So we able to counteract that, knock that out. And in the meantime, snow was | 17:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | To your waist? | 18:52 |
Edward M. Todd | To the waist. | 18:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. | 18:55 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. War is hell. Worse than that. Yep. | 18:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they give you the warm clothes and things? | 19:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, we had plenty of clothing. Plenty clothing. Plenty clothing, plenty food. Yeah. But that wasn't what we wanted. We wanted to get out of there. So this went on for a period of time. And finally, lastly, we were sent back to England. | 19:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Why were you sent back to England? | 19:26 |
Edward M. Todd | Because the war was diminishing. The war was coming to a close. | 19:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did y'all know that at the time? | 19:39 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, we knew it. We knew it was, because the Battle of the Bulge, I mentioned that, that was a last effort in order to knock the Allies out and they couldn't do it. So when that failed, there was nothing left for them to do. | 19:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever hear of, did you know anybody who went to fight over in the Japan? | 19:55 |
Edward M. Todd | Japan? Yeah. When the war ended in Europe, we were heading on our way to Japan. | 20:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh goodness. There was no end. | 20:13 |
Edward M. Todd | No end. | 20:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well let me, before you do that, go back and talk about, what was it like coming back to London? To England. | 20:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, okay. Came back to England and we lived in a very plush place, a nice place. We were selected to come back to England because we were college boys and we were able to get into Oxford University. | 20:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 20:40 |
Edward M. Todd | You heard of Oxford? | 20:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. Yes I have. | 20:42 |
Edward M. Todd | But that was called for the American, Shrivenham American University in Oxford. And we were on the Oxford campus and we studied there for, I don't even know how long now. | 20:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it more like six months or? | 21:00 |
Edward M. Todd | More, longer than that? Yeah, a year, maybe. It may have been a year. | 21:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | What classes did you take? | 21:08 |
Edward M. Todd | Courses in philosophy. | 21:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Goodness. | 21:14 |
Edward M. Todd | Courses in language. | 21:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were your classmates Black or White or? | 21:22 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, they were Black. They were Black. | 21:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what was that experience like, studying? | 21:28 |
Edward M. Todd | In American, Shrivenham American. It was one of the best, had American professors. I never forget I had a professor from University of Illinois. And he was the cordial, most cordial White persons I've ever known. And he'd always said, and he had an expression and he knew we were in administration and he'd always say, "Let me drop this in your lap." He had this expression. I'm going to tell you what it is now, don't you think nothing about when I say it? Yeah. | 21:36 |
Edward M. Todd | He said, "You young men who are going back to America and going to get in education, you going be administrators. Three things I want to tell you to be careful about." Three, I'm going to tell you. And he named them. There were no girls in the class. So he named him. And I don't mind telling you, I told my son and daughter what he said, told my wife. "Three things to be careful about when you get it to be administrator, you want to be careful about going to school drunk. You want to be careful about the girls and you want to be careful about stealing the money." Those three things. And from that day to this day, I never forgot it. Those are words of wisdom. Now, does that make sense to you? | 22:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes, it does. | 23:02 |
Edward M. Todd | Does it? Okay. Okay. But that was one of the most gratifying experiences I've ever had on the campus of Oxford University. | 23:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, they had finished, they stopped bombing? | 23:19 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Oh yeah. They had stopped. They stopped bombing. When the invasion started, and don't ask me when it was. I could— | 23:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's okay, we can pass it. | 23:32 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. The invasion probably started on 1944. The June the fifth, 1944. | 23:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 23:41 |
Edward M. Todd | I'm giving you the dates now. And VE day. You heard of VE Day? | 23:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh yeah. | 23:51 |
Edward M. Todd | Victory in Europe ended. Don't ask me. | 23:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh— | 24:00 |
Edward M. Todd | Don't— | 24:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | But don't worry about the dates. | 24:01 |
Edward M. Todd | — dates. | 24:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | We can find those out. | 24:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. But I gave you the dates of the invasion when it started. And I may have that wrong. I may not have that correct. | 24:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's [indistinct 00:24:11]. So that's no problem. We can find those out. | 24:11 |
Edward M. Todd | The invasion and when it ended Victory in Europe, it was declared. And this is where it went back to. Well, I went back there before the war ended in Oxford University and visited. | 24:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Were you still in school when you heard that? Learned the war had ended? | 24:26 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, but we had gotten a notice or messages or something or whatever you call it, that we were destined to go to South Pacific. | 24:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Where did y'all think about that? | 24:53 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't think anything of it. I said, well, if you got to go, we got to go. But now you asked me about it now. I tell you, I won't think anything of it because, but somewhere along the line, I think the war ended in South Pacific in August. I think it, don't, that may not be right, but I think it was in August. Either '44 or '45. | 24:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | '45. | 25:15 |
Edward M. Todd | Is that right? Okay. September may have been September '45. You get those dates in, its history somewhere? | 25:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah, we can find those dates. Yeah, there's lots of those dates. So did you go to the South Pacific? | 25:24 |
Edward M. Todd | Didn't go to South Pacific. Because the war ended in Japan, the bomb was dropped in Hiroshima. And that ended the war between Tojo. And that was, I believe he was dictated at that time. Tojo. Am I right? | 25:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes, I think so. Correct. | 25:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Tojo and Mr. I don't know who? Maybe Mr.— Who was the general [indistinct 00:25:58] then, come on help me. | 25:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, I don't know. We can find those. Doesn't— | 26:00 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I'm going to tell you who it was. Because I met him too. I'm going to tell you. He was fired by Mr., by the president, who was Truman. | 26:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Patton? | 26:10 |
Edward M. Todd | No, it wasn't Patton. Patton was over there in Europe. Patton was the one who gave Rommel a fit in into Desert Fox. We were knocked down in that area. But Rommel was, Patton gave Rommel a fit in that area. But I'm trying to think of a name of the man who, not who. And Mr. Truman fired him. Come on. | 26:12 |
Sonya Ramsey | I know who you're talking about. I just can't think of his name. | 26:44 |
Edward M. Todd | I can see him now. Hey, Bert, tell me this. Who was that, that Truman fired over there in— Come here Sugar Pie. She's my recorder. Who's that Truman fire down there in South Pacific? | 26:47 |
Speaker 1 | MacArthur. | 27:03 |
Edward M. Todd | MacArthur. | 27:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 27:04 |
Edward M. Todd | MacArthur. Okay. That's what, she's, see that's my confidence. She can tell me all that. | 27:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 27:08 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. See we were destined to go there, but the war ended. | 27:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | You happy about that? | 27:12 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. Hey. Oh, Lord. Yes. Lord, yes. So we left. I don't, again, I don't, don't ask me about dates, how long I stayed there. How long after the war. But I stayed long enough to get into that university. And I don't know where I went when I left Shrivenham American University. I don't know where I went, but I was somewhere there in England and we got on ship and we got on a plane and came back to America. | 27:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like when you first got to the United States? The plane landed. | 27:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Plane landed in New Jersey. I'm going to tell you where it was in a minute, if I can think of it. It's no longer in service now, that's deactivated, so to speak. But we didn't have any, that much difficulty. The German, the soldiers, and especially if he had on a uniform, ODs or khakis, ODs winter dress and khakis for summer dress. If you had on that uniform, you had you pretty well recognized. However, Jim Crow had not left yet. And it was still alive and well. I believe it again, I'm giving you some, I was discharged for the military in 1946 and I left in February, 1946. That's when it was. And when I got out of the military, I came to Goldsboro, North Carolina. That's where my mother and father was. And then I found, I began to get myself together about where I was going back, going to school. | 27:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you ever in any parades and things like that? | 29:24 |
Edward M. Todd | Huh? | 29:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you ever in any parades? | 29:27 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Didn't have parades. No. That parades was not for us. It was for them. | 29:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, so the Blacks weren't in it? | 29:33 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Well, I don't, we weren't. That's what you're asking me. I think that's what you're asking me. We weren't. | 29:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you feel you were received as well as the White soldiers? | 29:40 |
Edward M. Todd | No. No. And that's still alive and well. You hear what I said? It's still alive and well. And if somebody tells you differently, it's not true. And it ain't going to go away for until the next fifty years, sixty years. | 29:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you readjust to civilian life? | 30:09 |
Edward M. Todd | That was a good question. That's a good question. Readjusting. I remember coming home and being in the military and then in combat. I couldn't sleep in the bed. Bed was too soft. I was, because something hard. So I, making me a pillow made me a pallet on the floor. | 30:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, what did your parents think of that? | 30:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Nothing. They said, "Why you sleep on?" I said, "The bed is too soft. I'm not comfortable." They didn't think anything of it. They could understand it. Because you had to adjust. You had to adjust. Things weren't like, it was when you left, you've been through hell and high waters and you— | 30:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they feel you've grown up for— | 30:55 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah, you want to do things. You either grow up or you don't grow up. And it helps you grow up. It helps you grow up a whole lot. There ain't no doubt about it. All the experiences that you go through, all the disappointments that you run through, you got accustomed to. We got accustomed to them. Of course now it's maybe a little different, but it's still there. And it's well. | 30:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Or how did you get after being in England and France and how did you get readjusted to Jim Crow again? I learned how that was again, how did that make you feel? | 31:29 |
Edward M. Todd | I knew, knew what to expect. I knew exactly how to adjust to it and I didn't. I mean, let me give you, I came back and this was later on in '49 or '50, somewhere along the way. And I worked in a Hotel Goldsboro as a waiter. And how did I get adjusted? And this is a good question. Everywhere I used to go, I had problems with the White girls. That sounds strange, doesn't it? | 31:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, I can understand it. | 32:15 |
Edward M. Todd | In this hotel, I worked as a waiter and I had to take, when I bring the food out of the, if you know anything about it, when you bring the food out of the hotel on the tray, you go by this girl and she give you a bill. This is called a checkout girl. And this girl was White. And I noticed that she kept bothering me and wouldn't let me go. At the time I thought, I should have gone with the food. And finally she said to me, she said, and I don't mind telling you, she says, "I want to talk with you." I said, "I ain't talking to you. What you want to talk to me about?" All right. This went on for a period of time. And I went to, went bought me a new car. | 32:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of car did you get? | 33:08 |
Edward M. Todd | I got me a, yeah, in those days you had Plymouth Chrysler, Plymouth Fords from Chevrolets, what have you, I bought a new Plymouth and I parked behind the hotel where I worked. And when we cleaned up our stations and if you know anything about waiting station, you know anything about that, we had to clean up stations and everything, make sure the floor was cleaned, whatever. Before I walked out of the hotel and we got to my car. And when I got in the car, I noticed something in the back. And there she was lying on the back seat. | 33:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | I'm sorry. | 33:53 |
Edward M. Todd | So I told her, I said, "Get out, now." I said, "Because I ain't moving this car till you get out." I said, "You better get out of here." | 33:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Because you were an adult then, you were— | 34:10 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, I was. I was, no, I was in college. I was in college. I was twenty-three, twenty-two, twenty-three, twenty-four years old. Of course a little older than the average college child because stayed in the military four years or something of that nature. Something like that. Anyway, she was in that car and I said, "You get out of here." So I began to get angry and I said to myself, I said, if she didn't get, I'm going to pull out. I said, "If you don't get out of here now I'm going to pull you out." She got out and I didn't go back to that job anymore. I went to another place and got a job as a waiter. | 34:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | You was kind of sexually harassed weren't you? | 35:05 |
Edward M. Todd | That's exactly what it was. Exactly. Exactly. And I told you somebody, Eva Gardner, didn't I? Sexual harassment. I didn't know, I told you about this girl who worked at the telephone office. And there were others too I didn't even get into. But there were others who sexual harassment, what have you. But anyway, it's— | 35:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | I guess while we have, I wanted to go back and ask it. Were you going to say something else on that? | 35:24 |
Edward M. Todd | No, go ahead. You asked questions. | 35:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Ask about some more of your schooling before college so we can lead up to that. Do you have, what was your elementary school like and you have any remembrances of any special teachers there? | 35:33 |
Edward M. Todd | I had memories of, in fact I can go back and far as my fourth grade. I had a lady who was named Ms. Smith. I'll never forget her and had a lady Ms. Gray. | 35:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | What makes you still remember them? | 35:58 |
Edward M. Todd | Because I thought, as I look back at it, they was outstanding teachers and they were pretty rigid. Said, now you got this to do and you're going to do it. That's what I'm talking about. And we did it. | 36:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did your school look like and how did it compare to the White school? | 36:16 |
Edward M. Todd | Our school set across the railroad track. That school sat way on the other side of town. And as far as I can determine, I thought our school was just as good as that school. That's— | 36:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | In your mind? | 36:32 |
Edward M. Todd | My mind, yeah. I thought the building was not as good or as large and or as modern as it should have been. But nevertheless, it was a school. | 36:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you go to school with children who were sharecrop and sharecropping families? | 36:44 |
Edward M. Todd | Some yes. Some were, some weren't. I didn't know many of those. I knew most of those who were not sharecroppers. I didn't know that many who were sharecroppers. I knew some of them. | 36:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | But you lived, Roanokes kind of more of like a city— | 37:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Urban, yeah, that's right. | 37:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's why. | 37:06 |
Edward M. Todd | Right. | 37:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever have, I guess as you got older, during high school that children, young people that had to work and instead of keep going to school? | 37:09 |
Edward M. Todd | Not that. Not that. | 37:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you go to the same school through, was it the same school building through, all through or just— | 37:22 |
Edward M. Todd | From elementary. You know what a union school is? | 37:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes. | 37:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. | 37:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | It was that— | 37:30 |
Edward M. Todd | It was, that was the type of school it was. | 37:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. So was there much of a change between elementary and high school, even though it was the same school? | 37:35 |
Edward M. Todd | When you say much of a change, what you mean by much of a change? | 37:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | The teachers treat you any differently? | 37:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh no, they're all the same. I don't say this. And if I hear it again, because it's being recorded. We were well thought of in the neighborhood, in that area. | 37:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Your family was? | 38:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Family was. | 38:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Because your father was a Minister? | 38:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Well thought of. | 38:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you think you ever received any special treatment or because of your family was a Minister? | 38:04 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't, I can't determine that. I can't determine whether we received any special or consideration at all. I can't determine that because if I did, I didn't aware of it. Because I didn't know if anybody else was getting the same thing. See. | 38:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever notice in teachers or other playmates showing favoritism or not showing favoritism to people based on their skin color [indistinct 00:38:34] ? | 38:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Now you talking about in, this is a Black school now. | 38:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | I mean— | 38:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, you mean yellow? Yellow. Oh yeah. No. No. I don't want to get into a lot of this information, but I believe to this day there was a teacher I had who was in 10th grade teacher, math. She was older than I was, but I believe, and this is just an opinion, I have no way of knowing and she didn't show it anything at all, that if I was old enough. Okay. Is that, have I said enough? | 38:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Ah-ha. | 39:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. And that's been my problem throughout my life. I don't know why, but it has been from early age and when I've retired from school as an administrator. Same problem. | 39:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were in high school, what other activities did you do aside from your academic work? | 39:36 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, my basketball. Ah, baseball. Let me tell you something. If I was coming along today, and I'd tell my wife that often where I would be. | 39:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where would you be? | 39:51 |
Edward M. Todd | In the NBA or in the major leagues? | 39:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were, well, a very good athlete then? | 39:56 |
Edward M. Todd | I had no doubt, well, I don't want to say it. Pittsburgh Pirates came down to the college in which I attended, and this was in early fifties or late fifties, late forties, looking for baseball players. | 39:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | That Pittsburgh Pirates? | 40:20 |
Edward M. Todd | Pittsburgh Pirates. | 40:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | The White Pittsburgh? | 40:21 |
Edward M. Todd | That White Pittsburgh Pirate that you hear so much about right now came down and I can't tell you the name of the scout who came and talked to me and asked me if I would be interested in playing in the major leagues. | 40:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | You did? And what did you think about that? | 40:37 |
Edward M. Todd | I thought about it, but I never heard, never heard anything else from it. | 40:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was this before Jackie Robinson? | 40:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. This was before Jackie Robinson. | 40:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 40:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Jackie Robinson wasn't even, well, he was, I don't know where Jackie Robinson was. I'm talking about it in the late forties now. You got it? During my time '46 to '50 when I was— | 40:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever think about playing for the Negro League? | 40:58 |
Edward M. Todd | They had a Negro league, the Nashville Blues. And I know you don't, the Homestead Grays and Birmingham Black Barons and the Chicago Black Socks and some other teams. But it never dawned on me. When he asked me about the Pittsburgh Pirates, and I'll never forget this. He says, "Are you interested in playing baseball?" He saw us play and oh, it's a long story. | 41:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | It's okay. | 41:33 |
Edward M. Todd | It's a long story. That day I went four for four, I hit two home runs and I hit one double in a single. And I guess that's a scout that he called himself scouting. | 41:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you, well, did that make you being a big athlete in campus, did that make you very popular? | 41:52 |
Edward M. Todd | What do you think? | 42:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | I think so. You think? I think so. What was, and then the next question is, well what was dating like then? Since we've been [indistinct 00:42:06]. | 42:01 |
Edward M. Todd | You want to shut this off? | 42:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Well, no. | 42:11 |
Edward M. Todd | No, leave it on. I don't care. I had to take a stick around with me. | 42:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | You had a lot of attention from the females there? | 42:21 |
Edward M. Todd | Now, period. I was able to control it though. I was always in command and I was always a captain of the ship, but I had to just take me a stick. | 42:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever wish you weren't so popular? | 42:44 |
Edward M. Todd | Yes and yes indeed. | 42:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why? | 42:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Because I wanted to be me. I wanted to be to the point where I didn't have to worry about all this attention. I'll never forget, we went out and played a school in West Virginia called West Virginia State. You never heard of that. And there were two girls who came out to that bus when we left, when we were getting ready to leave to go to, we were going somewhere, I don't know where we were going, maybe Kentucky State or someplace, Kentucky State. We're going someplace or maybe Tennessee State. And they gave me the address, said, "Please write me." So when I got back to the camp, we were on a tour. When I got back to the campus, I had several letters from these girls. | 42:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | This was in high school or in college? | 43:42 |
Edward M. Todd | This was in college | 43:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did it happened to you in high school? | 43:44 |
Edward M. Todd | It happened in college. I mean in high school. | 43:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did other, while you in high school, did the other guys, were they ever jealous of you? | 43:49 |
Edward M. Todd | No. If they were, I didn't know it. If they were, I didn't know it. You know how you walk around and sometimes and don't even know that the day is Sunday and you don't even know that, there were so many girls. And I don't mind, my wife knows about it. I told her, so many girls that I could have just gone ahead and closed my eyes, picked. But that wasn't my style. That wasn't my style. I had to look at what they were made out of. | 43:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you look for in a girl that you wanted to date? | 44:22 |
Edward M. Todd | Good question. That's a good one. Something that they were looking forward to in life. What kind of, and this is maybe something for you, what do you look forward to? What are your goals? What are your aspirations? What's important to you? How can you set your agenda, in other words so that everything will go well for you? What is your carriage? What is your character? Now I said a whole lot there, didn't I? And maybe something else, but I don't really know off the top of my head. | 44:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have a steady girlfriend in high school or just quite a few. Did you go to your prom? | 45:08 |
Edward M. Todd | Yes, indeed. | 45:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like? | 45:10 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, that was outstanding. We decorated our gym. I never forget two other fellas who were, now I've taken contact with them now, who lives in Winston-Salem. We talk frequently and we talk about those days. How it was and what have you. Yes, indeed. I went to the prom, had a good time. | 45:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you didn't get to answer about the girlfriend. | 45:50 |
Edward M. Todd | What was your question? | 45:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have one steady girlfriend or quite a, or dated quite a few? | 45:50 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't date them. I didn't date them. I didn't, I thought the girls that I wanted was silly and they were. The girls that I was attracted to, they silly. And they didn't have the tenacity and what have you that I thought they should have. So I didn't bother them. | 45:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | What, oh, were you going to say something? Did what your, was your parents, were they very strict about— | 46:17 |
Edward M. Todd | No. No. My dad was always, he gave me the low down. We'd always sit at dinner and talk about girls. How could they get trap you, and how they can get— | 46:22 |
Edward M. Todd | How they can set up traps for you, what you can do to get around it and everything that good is ain't gold. | 0:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would happen to a young man that did get a woman pregnant? A girl pregnant. We know what happened to the girl. | 0:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 0:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would happen to the guy? | 0:14 |
Edward M. Todd | The girl would disappear. Now that's a good question. What would happen to the girl that got pregnant? The girl would disappear and then the next thing she'd show up. But I didn't really get into that type of thing because I was careful and didn't get trapped. I didn't let them sit that door— Open that door, and I didn't walk in it. I'd always kept my distance and dad always told me how to keep my distance. | 0:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | How to keep your distance. How was that? | 0:44 |
Edward M. Todd | You see something coming and you know what it looks like. I can almost look at a girl, I could look at a girl and tell almost what they were thinking. And as I became administrator in the school system, I could look at teachers and tell what kind of mood they were in, tell how their weekend was or say something. But I could do that with girls then, because dad always told me, these are the signs you can look for. These are the signs you can pick up. Pick it up and don't ignore it. | 0:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | So what did you do? What was your social life? What did the young people do? | 1:23 |
Edward M. Todd | We danced. | 1:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Danced. | 1:27 |
Edward M. Todd | Enjoyed dancing. We enjoyed dancing a lot. They don't have gatherings like they have now. They didn't have a whole, no, we didn't ever go to the take the girls out to dinner. We didn't do that. They were no such things as go into restaurants and sit down and enjoy the— We'd go to the school or we'd go to the dances or we'd go to— We'd have something of that nature. School activities. Church activities. | 1:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Okay. I wanted to ask, did you have a part-time job during high school or— | 1:58 |
Edward M. Todd | Mm-hmm. | 2:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did you work? Or during the summer? | 2:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, during the summer. Eighth grade. Ninth grade. Tenth grade. I delivered groceries on a bicycle. That make sense? You ain't never heard that before. | 2:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah I have. I have. | 2:17 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. That's what I did. | 2:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Okay then. Okay. After you graduated from high school, what college did you go to? | 2:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Winston-Salem State University. | 2:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you select that college? | 2:30 |
Edward M. Todd | My coach went there. | 2:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 2:32 |
Edward M. Todd | When he left high school, he went to Winston-Salem State and he got me the scholarship there. Basketball scholarship. There were three of us on that team. We won the state championship and three of us went. | 2:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Okay. Would you like to talk about winning the championship and? | 2:43 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, I don't mind talking about it. | 2:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like and was it a lot of competition or? | 2:50 |
Edward M. Todd | The school that had the greatest competition at time was Statesville. Morningside High School in Statesville. And that team had some players on that team from New York City. The coach would go to New York and the coach was named, I could almost tell you the name of the coach. Can't, it doesn't ring the bell right now, but that's not important. But he'd always recruit boys out of New York City to come to Statesville and we would, in our school, would always have local boys. But we worked hard at it and we'd train and what have you. Then we— And that was, well we won the championship and that's just another championship. There's nothing to it. | 2:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you pretty well known in the neighborhood? | 3:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yes. | 3:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Community. | 3:54 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yes, the Todds. Are you talking about the Todds? Okay. Period. | 3:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | What do you mean, period? What do you mean? | 4:01 |
Edward M. Todd | That means if you mentioned the Todds, you are well known period. No more. | 4:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were your other sisters and brothers active? | 4:08 |
Edward M. Todd | I had a sister who, yeah, I had a sister who much older than I was. She went to North Carolina College at that time, college in Durham. She and her friends had that thing. I had brothers, two brothers at that time and one died and a sister died too. Got a brother now he lives in Roanoke. Yeah, they were pretty active in. | 4:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, before we go to college, I wanted to ask you, what was— Your father's a minister? What was a typical Sunday like for your family? | 4:40 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh good. Good question. Sunday School, Church. BYPU. | 4:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | What? What is that? | 4:56 |
Edward M. Todd | Baptist training. BTU Baptist Teachers— Baptist Training Union for kids, children. | 4:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did they do during that? | 5:05 |
Edward M. Todd | Teaching Bible lessons and what have you. And then church at night. | 5:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Church at night too? | 5:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Have BTU at six o'clock, church at 7:30, Sunday school, nine o'clock. Regular church service at eleven. BTU at six o'clock. Regular church service at 7:30. Okay? | 5:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what your father was the minister of your church? The Baptist. | 5:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Baptist Church. Baptist Church. | 5:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it a spirit filled church? | 5:41 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh my Lord, yes. | 5:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | The people shout. | 5:44 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh Lord, yes they did. Yes they did. He would— And don't let him sing. That's something you don't know about. You don't know what I'm talking about, but he preach a while and sing a while. | 5:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 5:57 |
Edward M. Todd | You never heard that? | 5:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes, I have. (laughs) | 5:59 |
Edward M. Todd | And if he starts preaching and singing, then the church would jump up and shout. | 6:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did the people in the church kind of keep an eye on you there and? | 6:10 |
Edward M. Todd | Wanted to know what you would do? Yes ma'am. Yes ma'am. Sure did. You don't do nothing wrong. You the preacher son. Don't you go astray, you the preacher son. You see what I'm getting at? | 6:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you participate in any activities in the church? | 6:30 |
Edward M. Todd | Such as there were. | 6:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Like were you in the choir? | 6:38 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 6:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | No. | 6:43 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 6:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Washing board? | 6:43 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 6:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have pageants and things like, have plays or? | 6:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Adults had plays and I'll never forget one play that they had us rings a bell with me right now. And the name of that play was called Heaven Bound. | 6:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that play about? | 7:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Play about the devil and the Lord. The devil would always try to tempt you some things and if you were weak and you would tempted to go with the devil, he'd get you. But if you're not weak and you are strong enough, you'd go with the Lord. That's what it was called, Heaven Bound. Which way you would want to go? | 7:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | I have one more question about your parents. What type of values do you think they tried to instill in you? | 7:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Values, those things that would bring you up in the ammunition and some things that, and I'm just giving you a gist of it. The best training that a child could really get and I compare it with they, up against those of yesterday. You don't see that now. You don't see those children going to church and enjoying their festivities around the church and what have you. There were no such thing as drugs. No such things as drugs and pregnancy was far and few between. You didn't hear that much, if at all. So this is why what I'm saying to you that the kind of activity that the life that we had was different from the life that the children have today. Quite different. Much different. And the values that parents instilled in you were of such that you couldn't go astray. | 7:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | And how would you describe some of those values? What kind of things? Advice that kept children from doing those things. Did you now— | 8:34 |
Edward M. Todd | They don't have, as I said, they didn't have drugs. How about your education? What can you do in life? What are you looking for in life? No pregnancy, far and few between, as I said. No drugs, no such thing as drugs. None whatsoever. I didn't even know about drugs. I knew about whiskey, white lightning. I knew about that. | 8:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you? | 9:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Because I hear people talk about it. I knew, I would hear people talk about white lightning. People would sell it in their homes and you go and buy it. I never, no, but you'd hear about it. Values, family values, strong family values. Taking care of yourselves. We used to have what is known in school as inspection in the morning. | 9:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did that involve? | 9:54 |
Edward M. Todd | That consisted of inspecting your ears. Inspection the teeth. | 9:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Your parents did that? | 9:55 |
Edward M. Todd | No, we had to take, we didn't have showers those day. We had to take baths and we'd go to school clean, we'd wash our clothes. We didn't have washing machines like they did now. Didn't have the necessities, the kind of things that you have. And you don't know what I'm talking about, but you can just imagine. And these kinds of things right, heat. | 9:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Air condition. | 10:20 |
Edward M. Todd | Air condition and what have you, didn't have it. Windows open, screens up, fire in the fireplace. | 10:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I guess we could go on. Is there anything else you want to say about high school? | 10:32 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 10:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. We're going to— | 10:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Tell me what— | 10:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Winston-Salem. | 10:40 |
Edward M. Todd | Winston-Salem State. | 10:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that like when you first arrived there? | 10:41 |
Edward M. Todd | The word got around that three championship boys were in school. Three boys who won state championship and they wanted to know who these three boys were. Now again, athletics, I'm talking about. The three us and then two other freshmens went into the gym and beat the boys who were already there. | 10:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you get in trouble for that or— | 11:15 |
Edward M. Todd | Not when I said beat them, I mean beat the teams. | 11:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | I know. | 11:19 |
Edward M. Todd | Team wise. Then they begin to open eyes. Where did these boys come from? No, we didn't get in trouble. We were just glad that we were able to come and build a name for the Winston-Salem State University. It wasn't Winston-Salem State. What was it? Winston-Salem Teachers College. | 11:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 11:39 |
Edward M. Todd | Winston-Salem Teachers College. | 11:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you major? What did you major in? | 11:42 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what I majored in. I don't know what I majored in. | 11:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you? | 11:44 |
Edward M. Todd | Because I didn't stay that long. | 11:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, because then you went off to the— | 11:51 |
Edward M. Todd | I went off the war. | 11:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | How long did you get to stay there? | 11:53 |
Edward M. Todd | September to maybe February or March. | 11:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's not long at all. | 11:58 |
Edward M. Todd | We were drafted. We were drafted to the military. So | 12:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | They just pulled you out of school? | 12:04 |
Edward M. Todd | They cleaned the campus, college campus of all the eligible 1A males. | 12:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | And 1A, what did 1A mean? | 12:15 |
Edward M. Todd | Means that you were healthy. 4F meant that you were not healthy and that they want to bother with you. | 12:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now you, did you get to pick which branch you wanted to go into? | 12:25 |
Edward M. Todd | A military? No. | 12:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | They just sent you to— | 12:29 |
Edward M. Todd | They put you in a branch. Quartermaster. | 12:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were there Blacks in the Marines then or in the— | 12:35 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know. I don't know about the Marines. I don't know anything about the Marines at all. I had a brother who was in the Navy who was at Great Lakes training system in, where is that? Illinois, Chicago, somewhere up in that area. But I didn't know anything about the Marines. I didn't know a thing more about the Marines. | 12:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I guess we can go talk about when you came back to, did you come back to Winston-Salem State? | 13:00 |
Edward M. Todd | Mm-hmm. | 13:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did you go? | 13:06 |
Edward M. Todd | I came back to Shaw University. | 13:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh wow. | 13:08 |
Edward M. Todd | In Raleigh. | 13:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you decide to— | 13:08 |
Edward M. Todd | My coach came there. | 13:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. You're very close to your— Was he like a role model to you? | 13:11 |
Edward M. Todd | He's a role model. My daddy and this coach, role models. | 13:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | What made him your role model? | 13:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Because he was interested in us. The three— Well, all of his boys, he was interested in the boys and he was a coach and he tried to give us his best, the best that he knew how. My dad and Coach Wilson, Brutus Wilson, never forget him. Brutus Wilson. Never will forget him. | 13:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | And he was your coach in high school? | 13:44 |
Edward M. Todd | High school. | 13:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 13:44 |
Edward M. Todd | And college. | 13:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, so how did he get from, he just got— | 13:50 |
Edward M. Todd | How'd he get from high school to college? | 13:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 13:54 |
Edward M. Todd | When he left, he got an opportunity to go from high school to Winston-Salem. And when he got that opportunity, he took it. | 13:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | So he was going to be the coach at Winston? | 14:01 |
Edward M. Todd | He was a coach when I got out of the military. No, when I got out of high school, let me get this right now. He was a coach when I left high school, we went to Winston-Salem. So we went left— As I left Winston-Salem, got into the military, we, he left Shaw. We left Winston-Salem and came to Shaw, during the process. And that was some time in between. And when he kept— And when he left Winston-Salem and came to Shaw, I knew this when I got out of the military. So I just came to Shaw on a scholarship. Didn't cost me anything. | 14:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. Okay. | 14:40 |
Edward M. Todd | See I was getting, it didn't cost me anything to go to school. | 14:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 14:45 |
Edward M. Todd | It didn't cost me not ten cents. | 14:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 14:47 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 14:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Wow. | 14:48 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't pay in the bursar's office ten cents as long as I remained in undergraduate school, I was getting the GI Bill. You ever heard of that? | 14:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 14:59 |
Edward M. Todd | And I was getting a scholarship, which was more than enough. | 15:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's good. Did you have to work? | 15:06 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Didn't work. | 15:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Wow. | 15:10 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no. Didn't work. Had a training table. Most of the kids couldn't get enough food. We had a training table, got what we wanted and that we didn't want, we got that too. | 15:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well that leads up to my next question. | 15:24 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. | 15:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | What activities did you participate in college then? | 15:27 |
Edward M. Todd | Basketball and baseball. | 15:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you in any fraternities or any clubs? | 15:31 |
Edward M. Todd | Or you asked about the great Omegas Fraternity. | 15:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 15:42 |
Edward M. Todd | You see that on the wall. | 15:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 15:43 |
Edward M. Todd | See that? | 15:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Picture with the little girl, AKA girl and the little Omega. | 15:44 |
Edward M. Todd | Can you tell who that is? What that is? What it represents? | 15:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. Why did you select Omega of the other fraternities? | 15:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Because they had high standards. | 16:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | In what areas? | 16:03 |
Edward M. Todd | For example, I could almost, they're going out my mind as to what they were. Four cardinal principles. Four of them, of which I'm not going to repeat what— | 16:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's fine. | 16:21 |
Edward M. Todd | Say what they are. But the four cardinal principles of ethics. | 16:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 16:28 |
Edward M. Todd | And of life and of living, is what attracted me to it. | 16:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they very popular on campus? | 16:33 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh my Lord, yes. Woo. Woo. | 16:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have to, when— Did they select, did they recruit members or you had to offer yourself? | 16:39 |
Edward M. Todd | No, they could tell based on the character of the individuals. They saw what we were lacking. They just fell in with us. | 16:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were they ever competitive with the other fraternities? | 16:56 |
Edward M. Todd | The Alphas and what other are there? | 17:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Kappas. | 17:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Kappas? Alpha's and the Kappas. Sigmas was down. | 17:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Sigmas was [indistinct 00:17:06]. | 17:06 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I'm not going to get into that kind of thing. Omegas, Alphas, Kappas. | 17:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were the other ones? If you could just give a brief description of what they were, kind of, their reputations on campus and things like that of the fraternities. | 17:18 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I can't tell you what their reputations were, it was not the, didn't have that high standards like Omega had. I knew that the intake was quite different from intake of the Omegas. I'm not going to get— Don't let me get into that. | 17:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, that's fine. | 17:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 17:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | I just have one more question. Did you join before you went to service? | 17:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Joined after. | 17:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | After. Now, was it harder being initiated when you were older? | 17:53 |
Edward M. Todd | No. No. No. No. | 17:58 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well, after you became a member, what did you look for in selecting new members? | 17:58 |
Edward M. Todd | In selecting new members in the fraternity? Four cardinal principles. | 18:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | The same principles. | 18:12 |
Edward M. Todd | The four cardinal principles. | 18:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 18:14 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 18:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. What activities in the community did the Omega's do? | 18:14 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, what activities in the community and achievement programs, had talent hunts. They had scholarship programs for students and what have you. We still have those now. | 18:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have steps shows and things? | 18:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Like what? | 18:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Steps shows and—? | 18:32 |
Edward M. Todd | What's a steps show? | 18:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, when they step, when they perform their songs. | 18:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, I don't know. We didn't have that. | 18:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, you didn't? | 18:38 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no, we didn't go through that. | 18:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 18:48 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 18:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's interesting. Okay. Well were you in any other clubs besides [indistinct 00:18:55]? | 18:51 |
Edward M. Todd | No, that was enough. | 18:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you quite busy with the, how— Did you have a hard time managing your studies and your sports? | 18:57 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I didn't have a hard time managing because that was number one. That was number one. And I always, if I would have a class at eight o'clock, I'd get out at nine and I didn't have another class at eleven. I was to the library studying because I knew what I had to do. | 19:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now you had gotten a major, what was your major by that time? | 19:20 |
Edward M. Todd | Physical education. | 19:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Physical, okay. | 19:24 |
Edward M. Todd | Physical education. Yeah, that was my major on the undergraduate level. Of course I was a major on graduate level too. I got a certificate in physical education on a graduate level, a master's. And I got a master's in school administration and I got a sixth year degree on the administration. | 19:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You go back, did what was Raleigh like as compared to the other? | 19:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Raleigh? As compared to where? | 20:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | North Carolina, the town where you grew up and— | 20:00 |
Edward M. Todd | There ain't no difference. | 20:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | No? | 20:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Ain't no difference. Ain't no difference in the— | 20:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it as segregated as some of the other places? | 20:08 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, I'm about to say ain't no difference in the price, but all of them segregated. I can tell you about an experience I had with a girl who I just go in. She looked like she was White. And I had a friend who was a policeman downtown and he'd always come to the games. | 20:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | A Black policeman? | 20:34 |
Edward M. Todd | Black policeman. In those days. He'd come to games and he would always say, "You come downtown with that White girl they going to get you." I said, "You going to get me too?" "No." But they didn't like when you walk downtown with that yellow gal, she looked like she was White. See, she wouldn't have that pretty brown like you, she had that yellow. I mean she looked like she was White. Follow me? | 20:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. How did that— Did she ever talk about being looking like that and all the reactions— | 20:58 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 21:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | That she had? | 21:03 |
Edward M. Todd | No, she didn't never talk about it. Uh-huh. | 21:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | 'Cause that didn't seem like it'd be a pleasant experience for her. | 21:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Mm-hmm. She never talked about it, but I— | 21:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever get in trouble for—? | 21:14 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Uh-huh, I never got in trouble with it, but I could see them. I could see them staring at me. I could see them staring at me. A lot of those merchants knew who I was downtown because I'd go, well not a lot of them, some of them knew who I was, and in those days they were standing in the door of their stores and they'd speak to me. I would buy shoes, shirts, pants, suits. | 21:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they call you Mr.—? | 21:42 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no, no, they didn't, no. | 21:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. So where were we? Okay. What did Shaw University, do you think? What did it contribute to your development? | 21:44 |
Edward M. Todd | A total development of life. Shaw University was a Baptist institution. And that thought, the philosophy that school initiated and projected in individuals gave them a true value. It ain't like that now. See, a university was a university in those days. | 22:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | What do you mean? | 22:24 |
Edward M. Todd | When I say that, had a lot of value to it. Had a lot of character to it. Where you in school? Chapel Hill. | 22:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | I went to Howard. | 22:31 |
Edward M. Todd | Howard, okay. Howard was one of the schools who had a lot of character. I'm going to tell you, the president at that time, what's his name? | 22:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | I don't know. (laughs) I'm not supposed to talk. | 22:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. Howard University, Shaw University. | 22:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mordecai Johnson. | 22:55 |
Edward M. Todd | Mordecai Johnson. That was his name. Mordecai Johnson and Daniel, R. P. Daniels at Shaw University were the most well thought of Black presidents in the southeastern United States. Mordecai Johnson, that's his name. They had another named Johnson C Smith in Smith called Steel. And the other one who was at Morehouse is Dr. | 22:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Benjamin Mays. | 23:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Benjamin Mays. There you are. That's how you are. That's what I'm talking about. Mays at Morehouse, Daniels at Shaw University, and Mordecai Johnson, Howard University in Raleigh. I mean in Washington. Mordecai Johnson in the Washington City. And there was somebody else of that Lincoln, I couldn't think of who that was, but he was White. At that time, they had a White president at Lincoln University. You ever heard that before? | 23:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 24:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah? Well you well versed then, aren't you? Aren't you? Huh? | 24:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | I'm not supposed to talk on the tape. | 24:10 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. Okay. Shoot them. [indistinct 00:24:12]. | 24:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh okay. | 24:11 |
Edward M. Todd | Shoot them. | 24:17 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, if you were finished. All right, what did you do next after graduation from college? | 24:19 |
Edward M. Todd | I came here. | 24:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Came to Wilmington? | 24:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Wilmington. | 24:23 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you decide to come to Wilmington? | 24:23 |
Edward M. Todd | I had three jobs offer. One was here, one was in Raleigh, one was in oh, somewhere else. I don't remember where it was, but I decided to come to Wilmington. | 24:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | And why was that? Why Wilmington over Raleigh? | 24:41 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know. I don't know. You asked me why did I decide to come to Wilmington rather than Raleigh? | 24:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 24:49 |
Edward M. Todd | I just wanted to come see what Wilmington was like. And again, there ain't no difference. There ain't no difference in— | 24:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | Segregation? | 24:58 |
Edward M. Todd | Huh? | 24:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Between— You mean segregation wise? | 25:00 |
Edward M. Todd | Segregation wise. People wise. People are people, I don't care where you go. Shaw University, the University of Hong Kong, Peoria, Illinois. Wherever you go, I don't care where you go. People are people. They're same. | 25:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Had you met Mrs. Todd by that time? | 25:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, that's a good question. I met her back and forth when I was an athlete playing basketball and we'd go to her school and play and her sister was the one who was cordial and talkative, but she was stuck up. That makes sense. | 25:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | She was shy. | 25:47 |
Edward M. Todd | No, she wasn't shy. She wasn't shy. She didn't want to be bothered. But I said to her one day, I said, "Believe me," I said, "I'll see you, I'll get you." | 25:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you tell them apart? | 25:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, I could tell them apart. I could tell them apart because of personality. Other one had more personality than this one. And that's the only way I could tell apart. The other one smiled more than this one. So I could tell them apart. The other one just a little bit. One was just a little slightly taller. I saw them together, I could tell which was which. But someone else couldn't do it because they didn't know what we're looking for. But I looked for the personality and there's a difference in personality. They're both cordial girls. It's as nice as they can be. But I chose her. | 26:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you choose her? | 26:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Because of— That's a good question. Why did I choose her? Because I thought that she had more character than the other one. Now that's just a blank statement. Don't hold me to that. | 26:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 26:52 |
Edward M. Todd | When tomorrow I may tell you another reason why I did it or the next day, another reason. But that's the reason I thought they were both charming and they were pretty. But I knew that one day we all look alike so it make no difference anyway. | 26:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, did you met them while you were playing basketball? And when did y'all start dating? | 27:09 |
Edward M. Todd | When I came here? First year I came here, she was not here. But then the second year I was here, she came and I looked at her. I said, "Aren't you the girl who was up here on that other school?" I said, "I told you I'd get you. Didn't you?" | 27:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | And how long did you date before you were? | 27:33 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, we dated from '51 to '53. | 27:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why so long? Why so long courtship? | 27:36 |
Edward M. Todd | Maybe there are fifty thousand reasons. Number one, I didn't know her. She didn't know me. I didn't know her likes or dislikes. She didn't know my likes and dislikes. And I could pretty well determine her likes and dislikes based on my association with her being with her. Some things I didn't like, some things she didn't like here, but I knew that that's who, she's the one woman I wanted. That make sense? | 27:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 28:19 |
Edward M. Todd | And I could sit down and write you a book and it would be that thick about some of the other things and it would be a good seller. | 28:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 28:30 |
Edward M. Todd | And I thought I was able to select, well, I didn't have any problems. I could have gotten the Queen of Sheba, but I didn't want her. She's the one I wanted. | 28:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's nice. Okay. I guess I'm can go on as what, where did you first teach when you first— | 28:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Right here. | 28:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | At Williston? | 28:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Williston School. | 28:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it junior high or the high school? | 28:54 |
Edward M. Todd | Junior? Well, it was all that time. Industrial. Williston Industrial School. | 28:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 29:00 |
Edward M. Todd | I was teaching physical education at that time. | 29:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | And what were your students like? | 29:05 |
Edward M. Todd | Cordial. I set the stage, I determined the agenda for them. And then once I established my— I established the criteria for which they could follow, they followed it. They knew what I liked, what I disliked. And if they got out of line, they knew it. | 29:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you discipline your students? | 29:29 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a good question. Every September I would always sit down and go over a list with every class I had, "These are the rules we going follow." I said, "We going follow them." And I'd go through that list and I said, "Now if there's anybody who can't comply, you let me know now." I could do it then I can't do it much that way now. And that's how I disciplined. And if I see somebody, I was in physical education, I would be one with one group. And if I see somebody out of line in one group, another group, I'd blow my whistle and put my hand up and they knew what I was talking about and they fell in line. That make sense? | 29:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of, just to get agist of what things, what did you teach them? How to play sports or? | 30:17 |
Edward M. Todd | Taught them, we went through the basic fundamentals for athletics for those sports. | 30:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 30:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Basic fundamentals and as well as tumbling. You heard of tumbling? | 30:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, kind of like gymnastics? | 30:30 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, gymnastics. Boy, that was, we had some good times. | 30:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you teach women and men? | 30:37 |
Edward M. Todd | No, just the boys. | 30:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | The boys. | 30:39 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't want boy with girls. They— I didn't want— Excuse me. | 30:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | So you just taught— Who taught, they had a women's physical ed? | 30:44 |
Edward M. Todd | I had physical ed for the ladies. | 30:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | So they were separate classes? | 30:48 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, separate classes. | 30:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Okay. | 30:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Separate classes. I didn't mean that when I said that. | 30:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's okay. That's fine. I know what you meant. | 30:56 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Okay. | 31:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you a coach also? | 31:00 |
Edward M. Todd | I was a coach. | 31:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | What sports were you coach? Did you coach? | 31:03 |
Edward M. Todd | Basketball, baseball. | 31:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You never liked football? | 31:06 |
Edward M. Todd | I didn't coach— No I didn't. I didn't play football, 'cause the coach wouldn't let me play football. | 31:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | You thought you would get hurt? | 31:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Thought I'd get hurt and wouldn't be able to put that ball through that hoop or be able to hit that ball over the fence. | 31:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were kind of like a Bo Jackson there? | 31:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, basketball, baseball. | 31:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Playing two sports. | 31:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Playing two sports. I started off playing three, but I cut out that football because that was, if I was going to be more valuable to basketball, no point in playing football. So I knew early on that I should not participate in but two sports, which I did. | 31:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Do you have any special situations with students that you remember or things and do they ever come to you for advice? | 31:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh Lord, yes. Let me, that's a good question. I took an interest in the students early on. The background of the students suggested to me that I need to get involved as daddy. Not only as a teacher with them but as a daddy with them. I had some students that who I had on my teams and who I thought was academically inclined to be achievers that I got scholarships for. And I could sit here and tell you name a lot of them, but I'm not going to go. But I could give you one that who did well with Governor Martin. You ever heard of Governor Martin? | 32:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 32:42 |
Edward M. Todd | And you never knew who his advisor was, did you? | 32:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh that was one of your students? | 32:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 32:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's great. | 32:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Dr. Lee Monroe. You don't know him. That's not important. I've got students now who are teaching doctors up there at American University. I've got them at, two at Howard. I got some down at Southern University, some at some at Talladega. And I guess some of them are ready to retire, early on. Many of those students who were academically inclined and who was had sports mind and their grades were such, they could get scholarships I had succeeded for. | 32:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | So were more interested because some coaches seemed more, they were making sure their students always played the game if they needed, even if they needed to work more on their academics. And how did you balance the academics and the athletics? Did you ever have a student who was an excellent athlete but not such a good student? | 33:30 |
Edward M. Todd | You always find that true? You always find students who are academically low and some students who are sports minded and high standards in athletics, but low academically. So we had to work on them. I'd always get some teachers. I'd always have teachers. "Teachers, would you do such and such a thing for me?" I got a student. Yeah. I said, "Would you spend some extra time with this student?" They didn't know who I was doing it. 'Cause I knew if I could get them to reach a certain standard, I could get them in college. So from 1953 through 1966 when I got out of teaching '65 or 4, whenever it was, I don't remember the date. | 33:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | And did you teach all those years at Williston. | 34:45 |
Edward M. Todd | Mm-hmm. | 34:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You said you gotten a master's degree. When did you get that during that time? | 34:51 |
Edward M. Todd | I got that master's degree between 1953 and 19— No, excuse me. 1955 and 1959. | 34:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And you went to the summer. | 35:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Went summer school. | 35:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | What college did you attend? | 35:05 |
Edward M. Todd | Central in Chapel Hill. | 35:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And while you were at— Do you have any experiences at Chapel Hill that— Any racist experiences there or— | 35:12 |
Edward M. Todd | What? | 35:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was that? What was your experience at Chapel Hill like? | 35:22 |
Edward M. Todd | I was taking some graduate courses. And I didn't have any problems at all. | 35:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | You didn't? | 35:28 |
Edward M. Todd | No. I didn't have any racial problems, you mean? Didn't have any racial problems. Well received. | 35:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were there many other Blacks? | 35:33 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yes, there were many of them there. | 35:35 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 35:37 |
Edward M. Todd | There were many of them there. And there were many. And I did some working with Duke. | 35:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 35:42 |
Edward M. Todd | With Eddie Cameron. You don't know who— you ain't never heard Eddie Cameron have you? | 35:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | No. I haven't. | 35:46 |
Edward M. Todd | You ever heard of Cameron Indoor Stadium? | 35:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh yes, [indistinct 00:35:54]. Okay. | 35:49 |
Edward M. Todd | He was the athletic director at that time. | 35:49 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 35:57 |
Edward M. Todd | When I was doing the study. Cameron at Duke. I did eight schools. | 35:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | And you would well received there? | 36:06 |
Edward M. Todd | Four Blacks and four Whites. Yeah. Wake Forest, NC State, let see if I can get back. That was in the early, in the middle '50s. Duke, in Carolina. Wake Forest, NC State. | 36:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 36:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Central. Okay, go ahead. | 36:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you, did you, as the later, I guess as we moved into the '60s, Black athletes were being recruited by White universities, how did that affect the way you taught, coached, and did you have more famous students and famous athletes that came through and things like that? | 36:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 36:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | They try to influence you? | 36:47 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a good question. Up until the time I got out of teaching, I was still able to get those good athletes academically and athletically inclined into the Black colleges, because I knew the coaches, Winston-Salem, Shaw University, Central, Smith, blah blah, wherever else they may be. I was able to do that. But when I got out teaching, I no longer had those students who I could recommend to them. And when I got out of teaching and into administration that this is something I didn't follow as much as I did because I didn't go into the gyms or go out on the playing field and watch them as much as I did when I was teaching. | 36:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. You said you got into administration in about 1960? | 37:38 |
Edward M. Todd | 1960. | 37:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you do when you became a assistant? | 37:42 |
Edward M. Todd | I became assistant principal at a school called Chestnut. | 37:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Was that a elementary school? | 37:46 |
Edward M. Todd | No, that was a middle school. | 37:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Middle school. | 37:49 |
Edward M. Todd | All my dealings was done through a middle school, but junior high or middle school, and that was a level I enjoyed. | 37:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you decide to leave coaching and teaching and going into administration? | 37:56 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a good question. Number one, you got to live. | 38:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | More money. | 38:06 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Yeah. And the next reason is I wanted to help run some schools because I saw what the White principals weren't doing a bang, bang job. And I got into those administrative positions and I was able to take my influence and move them into the schools and give them some ideas about how it ought to run. And it worked well. | 38:08 |
Edward M. Todd | I did it on a gradual basis. I didn't go in that gung ho feet first, my head first. But I went in there gradually established and set up my philosophy based on what I got out of Chapel Hill or got out of Duke or got out of Central or got out of wherever, East Carolina College or whatever else was. And based on what does it take to run a good school? Academically, how can you implement programs in order to get all the students involved, those who are not so academic inclined, what do we do with them? | 38:36 |
Edward M. Todd | We had to find some ways to handle those two, work with those. We had to get students to the point where we could get, or we had this school out here was, we had six hundred some students and I wanted to get all of them involved. When I went there, the student and principal didn't have them involved. But I gradually, I worked and worked and worked and worked and I got them all involved. | 39:12 |
Edward M. Todd | And when I left there, I went to another school as an administrator and implemented programs and got the students involved and so much so that it became the best junior high school in this county. And when people would come and move in, they'd always ask, "Which is the best junior high school?" And I said, "Don't ask me, you go ask somebody else." I knew what the best high school was— Junior high school was. I | 39:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Wanted to ask you, why— Did you have to adjust the teaching younger students from teaching high school students before? I mean to the administrator for younger students? | 40:09 |
Edward M. Todd | No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I didn't have to adjust to that. 'Cause I was already had, that was my background working with junior high school students. And I enjoyed it, loved it, worked with them. And they tried to pull me from the junior high schools to the high school. I wouldn't go. | 40:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you like that age group? | 40:37 |
Edward M. Todd | Because so many of those students were, couldn't quite find a way, couldn't quite determine what life is like, what they're looking for. And I was able to see them, pick them out and bring in and work with them and said, "Now maybe you want to try this." I wouldn't tell them what to do. I say, "What about this? What about that?" I'd always give them some information. I'd always ask them questions. I never told them what to do. I said, "I'm going to ask you some questions." And it worked. Where do you expect to go in life? How do you plan to get there? When do you plan to get there? And they made them think, I never tell them they had to a goal in life. What? You got a goal and I want to tell you what it is. I went, "Oh, you tell me what your goal is, what do you want to do with it?" | 40:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you to go back and ask you kind of shift gears and ask you, were you involved I guess when I guess after you first got to Wilmington in the '50s and '60s, any other organizations? Any like NAACP or things like that? | 41:36 |
Edward M. Todd | That wasn't forego conclusion, but yeah, I was involved with it but I wasn't involved with it as much as I— You see during that time NAACP was militant and I wasn't militant. I wasn't militant at all. I was a moderate. | 41:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | What do you mean by, do you define what militant? | 42:18 |
Edward M. Todd | Militant is that whatever it takes to get it done, do it. That's not the way you get it done. | 42:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | And you were moderate to what it be a moderate? | 42:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Moderate means find a solution that would be satisfactory to everybody. | 42:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would be an example of that? | 42:34 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know. You asked me a question, what would be example of that? | 42:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | In what ways did you, examples, did you think the NAACP was militant? What were some of the activities that made you think that? | 42:45 |
Edward M. Todd | You heard the expression, you can't beat city hall? | 43:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 43:02 |
Edward M. Todd | You heard that expression, but what can you do? You can turn city hall, but you can't beat it. If you go in there with the idea, I'm going to make you do what I want you to do, but you use that old philosophy that we can coerce you, we can work together and get it done. What is the best solution? | 43:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 43:23 |
Edward M. Todd | That's what I'm getting at. How do you plan to— If I can go back to [indistinct 00:43:35] days, I bet my wife told you about that, didn't she? I ain't going to get into that. | 43:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well I wanted to ask you, did you become involved with the Omegas here? | 43:38 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh yeah. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. | 43:45 |
Sonya Ramsey | What kind of activities did they— | 43:46 |
Edward M. Todd | Achievement program? Right now we are working on achievement program for November and I'm working training somebody how to do this. I was chairman of that achievement committee for fourteen years and some younger person ought to have it. | 43:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you think when you first arrived here that you were well accepted and things like that? I mean it takes a while to become accepted? | 44:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Well no, but let me say it this way. Wilmington was a peculiar town. Unless you're from Wilmington and I always heard this expression, you came here on a boat, you don't tell us what to do. And I always say, "You ain't doing nothing." So if you're not doing anything, let's get to doing something so that we can make progress. You can't make progress if you're going to sit back on your heels. That was my philosophy, that let's get something going for the good of everybody. That make sense? | 44:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | During the '50s, what do you remember some of the activities filmmakers did then? | 44:50 |
Edward M. Todd | Lord, same thing. Some of the same thing. Scholarships of students. Telehunt. | 44:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they, what role did they form— What was the social life in Wilmington? Were they active with that? Fulfilling that need? | 45:00 |
Edward M. Todd | Dances. Diners. You invite people to your social gatherings. For Example, we would've had— And the Shaw alumni, I was a member of Shaw alumni and we had very strong chapter. We had Dennis and of course that's, yeah, had to make sense to you what I'm talking about now. But early on when there was no place— You couldn't go to the restaurants and what have you. We had dinners in the cafeterias and dinners in homes, cookouts and what have you. Those are the kind of things, 'cause you don't know what I'm talking about. You see you young, you don't know what life was like then. | 45:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's why we want to do this project, so we can learn. | 45:48 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay. | 45:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever go to the beaches in the? | 45:52 |
Edward M. Todd | Atlantic Beach, South Carolina? A Black beach. | 45:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 45:59 |
Edward M. Todd | Down at Wrightsville Beach? No, no. | 46:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | The beaches were segregated? | 46:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Well, Lord, yes. | 46:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | What would happen if Black person went to— | 46:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Don't know. I don't know whether what would happen. They didn't go. | 46:10 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask, during the '50s, did you ever have any encounters with White supervisors or things like that? | 46:16 |
Edward M. Todd | I had an encounter with the superintendent at one time. I'm trying to say to you that my philosophy of training people, teaching people was cordial. I wanted everybody to learn and I was in the gym— | 46:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Try to train them all, train those who he can train. And I counteracted them. I said, "I'm going to try to train all of them, this is what I'm here for." I was concerned about all the students, not just those who academically or who were physically capable of it, and who had the skills to form on a court. I wanted to train those who were not physically and athletically inclined too, I want to work with them. He said, "Don't waste your time," I said, "I'm going to waste some time with them, I'm going to do it. That's what I'm here for." That make sense? | 0:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did he say that? | 0:37 |
Edward M. Todd | He didn't say anything. He went on and left. He left. He didn't respond one way or the other. And that was my first encounter with the superintendent, and that was early in the '50s or something like that. | 0:39 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, let's see. Were you involved in any social clubs? Like Pinnacles? | 0:51 |
Edward M. Todd | Had a— Called a Townsman. The Townsman. | 1:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did they do? | 1:03 |
Edward M. Todd | We had dances. We had meetings every month. We had cookouts. We had, as I said, had dances on Christmas. We'd go to meet the Townsman in Fayetteville. | 1:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, there's different chapters? | 1:22 |
Edward M. Todd | There're different chapters. | 1:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Is it a social organization? | 1:27 |
Edward M. Todd | That's a social organization. | 1:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | What type of men were members of the club? | 1:30 |
Edward M. Todd | Don't ask me. Elite. | 1:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | Elite. Okay. Did you have a initiation process like fraternity's do? | 1:36 |
Edward M. Todd | No. | 1:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. And was it a big group? | 1:43 |
Edward M. Todd | We had twenty members. Twenty members, which constituted the total organization. Twenty members and their wives. | 1:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Could more people join or was it a set number? | 1:55 |
Edward M. Todd | At that time, there were only 20. | 1:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | And how did you get to become a member? Were you've asked or did you have to apply? | 1:59 |
Edward M. Todd | We used to ask. Some of them saw the philosophy of that organization. Now, it wasn't a fraternity that was a social club. And for a long time it maintained its number twenty, so we didn't have to ask anybody in. But as we got older, they would begin to drop out. I dropped out of it because I couldn't do things I used to. I couldn't run them down that court like I used to. I couldn't hit that ball like I used to. So I just dropped out. | 2:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | They did a lot of sports activities too? | 2:35 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, yeah. We traveled from here to Washington DC to see the Washington Redskins play. | 2:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay, okay. | 2:43 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. And it was before Griffin. Was that his name? No, no, not Griffin. | 2:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, the— | 2:51 |
Edward M. Todd | Who was the owner? | 2:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, I know who you're talking about. | 2:59 |
Edward M. Todd | He was the owner of the Washington Redskins at that time. He did not have any Blacks on the team. So Kennedy told him, he said, "Now, you get some Blacks or you can't play in this stadium." | 2:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Wow, okay. | 3:08 |
Edward M. Todd | You ever heard that before? | 3:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | No, I didn't know that. | 3:10 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. He says, "You get you some Black players on this team, or you get out Griffin Stadium. You can't play." | 3:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Jack K. Cook? Ken Cook? | 3:20 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Jack K. Cook is [indistinct 00:03:24]. | 3:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. It's before. | 3:23 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. Oh, yeah. | 3:25 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 3:27 |
Edward M. Todd | No, I can almost tell you the name. Name doesn't ring a bell with me now. But he told him point-blank said, "You get some Black players on this team or you can't play in Griffin Stadium." I mean, play in John F. K. Stadium. That's what it was. | 3:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you have any experienced students before you went to administration that went to be professional players? | 3:44 |
Edward M. Todd | No. No. | 3:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, aside from the Townsman, were you any other organizations? | 3:56 |
Edward M. Todd | That was enough, my Lord. That was enough. Trinity Church. | 4:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | What church did you— | 4:04 |
Edward M. Todd | Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. | 4:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Now, why did you change? You changed from Baptist. | 4:09 |
Edward M. Todd | Baptist to Presbyterian. | 4:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was that a big change for you? | 4:14 |
Edward M. Todd | No. Gods in every church. Okay. I had a friend here who was a graduate of Shirley who was a minister. And the church that I went to, he was a pastor and I belonged to it. And the people were not as cordial. So I said to my wife, I said, "We going to find us another church." This was early on. So the principal of school Booker Washington, bless his heart, he was just a cordial gentleman. Dead now. Come to our church. So that's been the process. Over a period of time we decided to go. We went there. We've been there since, 30 years ago. | 4:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were talking about, I'm sorry to interrupt, about Wilmington. How did you get acclimated to the community? How long did it take to get accepted into the community? It seems you were pretty well accepted. | 5:02 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. How long did it take? I don't know how long it took. | 5:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was it a gradual process? | 5:20 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, yes. Surely, gradually. But then we became outstanding in the community. | 5:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's what— Yeah. | 5:28 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. We became outstanding. And right now, because I don't want talk about that because that's too much of a pat on the shoulder and I don't want to do that. | 5:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well, that's fine. | 5:40 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 5:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Let me see. I think— Do you have anything else you'd like to add about the fifties in the early sixties, that you'd like to add? | 5:49 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know. You may ask me something about the fifties and sixties specifically. | 5:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you keep in contact with any of your south fellow soldiers? | 6:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. As a matter of fact, up until last— I called one last year who lives in Jessup, Georgia. | 6:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 6:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Who's a funeral director. And I talked with his daughter and his daughter was saying to me something like this, "Dad is not doing well." And he didn't even remember my name, as well as long as we stayed together in the military. He's a funeral director now. And has one of them up in Kinston now, who's, as I said, back and forth. And every now and then we keep in touch. And I have one who used to call me from West Virginia. And one used to call me Bert, nevermind. I had one who used to call me from West Virginia from out there in— Somewhere. I don't know, Kansas someplace used to call me. And I tried to get him to get a reunion, soldier reunion. And he said, "You work on it and I'll come." I said, "I ain't working it. No, you work on it and I'll come." So that's answering your question. I think, I did. | 6:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you, what do you think were some of the— I know some of the negatives of segregation, but do you think there were any positive aspects about it? | 7:07 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah. | 7:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of those? | 7:16 |
Edward M. Todd | Some of those was the fact that some of those individuals who were implementing the programs of segregation, knew it was wrong. And they said on occasions that this is going end one day. We know it's wrong. We don't want to treat you that way. I've heard that many times, but we are just a small portion, but we knew it's going to end. And as I told that fellow over there and— What did I say? Riding that bus. I said, "This will end one day." And it ended. | 7:17 |
Edward M. Todd | And some of them, I had some coworkers who, "Sorry, it happened." And if you talk to some of them now, they'd say, "I'm so sorry, but we were not responsible for it. We're sorry it happened." Jim Lehman, who was one of the fellows who used to broadcast for the Philadelphia Eagles, who was a lieutenant in the company who gave us support in England, I called him once. He wanted to know how we were doing. And he was broadcasting, I believe, for the Philadelphia Eagles. I believe it was. And he finally died. Jim Lehman, who was a sportscaster. And I thought he did quite well. Quite well. | 7:55 |
Edward M. Todd | He wished that it had not happen in England when we were there, but he'd always say, "I'm glad y'all went over to that dance." But the Murphy, who was the company commander, didn't want us to go. Okay. | 8:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you think there was any negative things about integration or that the Black community lost anything from integration? | 9:00 |
Edward M. Todd | No. I'm sure they lost something, but whatever they lost it wasn't worthy of losing it. In other words, we gained more than we lost. | 9:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | You think so? | 9:18 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't think so. I know so. | 9:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | What are some of the things that we gained? | 9:20 |
Edward M. Todd | Positions are one thing. Status is another thing. Right now, you could not have gone to— Where you studying in school? | 9:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | Chapel Hill University. | 9:38 |
Edward M. Todd | You could never have gone to Chapel Hill. You see? | 9:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I had— Oh, go ahead. | 9:43 |
Edward M. Todd | Job wise. That's why we lose a lot of teachers, excuse me, minority teachers right now. Right this minute because it opened up that opportunity for other jobs that was not available when I came along. I could only do one, or two, three things. Teach, preach, be a doctor. What else could I do? I couldn't go out there and do nothing else. Those are the kind of things that has changed, whether it's good or bad. Okay. You can determine that. | 9:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you a question about the Black community in Wilmington in the fifties and the sixties. Was there much distinguishment on class differences and things like that? | 10:25 |
Edward M. Todd | Defined class. | 10:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, did the people who worked at service jobs associate much with the people that were teachers? Or did they have separate organizations based on where you work? | 10:41 |
Edward M. Todd | Okay, now let me give you this. I told you about the Townsman, you had to be professional in order to be in a town. | 10:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have clubs for people that weren't professionals? | 11:03 |
Edward M. Todd | If they did, I don't know. And you had to be professional in order to get in the fraternity because— I don't know, are you in a sorority? What sorority? | 11:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Delta. | 11:13 |
Edward M. Todd | Delta. Okay. Delta. Sigma Theta. Okay, okay, okay. | 11:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was there a big difference? Was it just based on jobs and things like that? | 11:24 |
Edward M. Todd | Was there a big difference? What you mean? | 11:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | The different people in different jobs. | 11:29 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, yeah. It was a big difference. Those who were in service jobs were not making as much money as those who were otherwise. | 11:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did professionals have their own neighborhoods or did they live— | 11:42 |
Edward M. Todd | Yeah, they began to branch out. They began to— Now, when we came here 32, whatever the number years my wife tell you, we were almost just in the inside of city limits. Now, you see all that up there. Women in college, all out there. Where you staying? | 11:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | In UNC housing. | 12:04 |
Edward M. Todd | You know what that was? Woods. Nothing. And from that street right out here on forward was nothing but woods. It was known as outside the city limits. I don't know whether that answered your question or not. | 12:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | And I wanted to ask in Wilmington, were there differences amongst skin shades? Did light skinned Blacks discriminate against darker skin Blacks? Or vice versa and things like that? | 12:25 |
Edward M. Todd | If they did, I didn't know that. I was never discriminated against between Blacks, what have you. And I don't want to go through that again because there's too much into that, that I could get favors where no one else could. And I don't want to say it that way. | 12:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | But that happened? | 12:58 |
Edward M. Todd | It happened. Sure, it happened. Sure, it happened. Sure, it happened. Just like now, you got two individuals. I used to have to interview teachers. They'd come in, one White, one Black. I'd get an impression about the White and I'd get an impression by the Black. It's so common occurrence and you can't help it. It's just like walking through that door, you got two people walking through that door. You see one Black and one White. And it's just a common occurrence. It happens all the time. And until such times in sixty, seventy years from now, when there be no such thing as race, it's going to still happen. | 12:59 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Did I leave anything out that I should add? | 13:35 |
Edward M. Todd | No. I don't know whether you did or not?. | 13:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Here's my last question. What advice would you give a young man or young woman growing up today based on your experiences in life? | 13:44 |
Edward M. Todd | What advice would I give them? Oh, Lord. I'll sit there now and talk about that for the next book. See that book there? | 13:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 14:00 |
Edward M. Todd | But then I could cut it down to maybe a paragraph, or sentence, or two. Number one, don't forget how to grow up and be an individual first. How to be an individual, know who you are. Number two, be sure you get something that you can use in life. Whatever it takes, whatever that is. Something that's of value. Something that serves some kind of usefulness. Now, I've said to my daughter and son. And early on, we used to talk about it all the time. You determine what you want, and let's see if that's what you think you can handle it. | 14:00 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't know what, but you look like you are on your way, which is good. But whatever you're doing— And I've always said to teachers, to people, I've always said to people, "If you can't use it, don't bother it." That make sense? If you can't use it, if it's not going to serve a purpose, if it doesn't help you in life, why bother it? You always look forward to greater things. And I've always said to my son and daughter— I ain't going to get into that though. That's marriage. And I don't want to talk about that. | 14:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, okay. | 15:25 |
Edward M. Todd | I don't want to talk about that. | 15:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well, I was going to ask you about your children. I was going to ask you, how do you think their educational experience differed from yours? | 15:31 |
Edward M. Todd | Now, that's a broad question. How does it differ from mine? Now, what do you mean, how does it differ from mine? Explain that. | 15:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, did you think they have it better or worse? | 15:47 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, do you think that educational experiences give rise to greater learning experiences? Is that what you're trying to say? | 15:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Or not as great? | 16:01 |
Edward M. Todd | Oh, okay. As I look at it, daughter and son gained as much value and knowledge as I did because— | 16:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Of their parents? | 16:17 |
Edward M. Todd | Of their parents. And we tried to guide them in the direction we felt that it would be useful to them, something that serves a value to them. And again, I used to say to my son, "If it doesn't serve a value, serve a purpose, why bother it?" And I used to ask the daughter, "Why bother it, if it doesn't serve a purpose?" | 16:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well, I think I've covered all my categories. I'll probably think of something later. | 16:43 |
Edward M. Todd | If you think of something later— | 16:47 |
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