Dorothy Woods interview recording, 1993 July 20
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Karen Ferguson | Telling me a little bit about the community in which you grew up, and the place in which you grew up. | 0:01 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. I grew up here in Wilmington, North Carolina. I was born at Community Hospital here in Wilmington, which was on South 11th Street. And I raised up on Hall Street, which is a little small community, which consists of a lot of relatives, People that had moved from South Carolina to North Carolina. Consisted of mainly uncles and aunts from South Carolina. And it's a small community off of Long Grove, and it's between 10th and 11th Street. There was a mill out in Long Grove and most of the parents worked there at this mill in Long Grove. | 0:07 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of mill was it? | 1:05 |
Dorothy Woods | It was a lumber mill. And I remember my father was a foreman at this mill. My mother worked at this mill. And mostly everyone in the community that could work, worked at this mill. And I do remember when this mill caught on fire and burnt. And the older people was in the community crying. As children, we didn't understand what was going on. But now, since I have become an adult, I do understand it, because this was their main means of living, from this mill. And a lot of people got out of work. But my father, being a foreman, he continued to work. And after working at the mill, my father went to B&W. And the first school I attended was Peabody School, which is on North 6th Street. And from Peabody School I went to James B. Dudley School. From James B. Dudley, I went to Little Williston. All these schools we had to walk. There was no transportation. | 1:05 |
Dorothy Woods | When we did get to Little Williston, you could catch the bus, but it was 10 cents. But my family, being poor, I had to walk still. And when I became over at Williston Senior High, I still had to walk, some. Sometimes I was able to catch the bus, but most of the time I had to walk. Several children or kids walked during that time. In bad weather, you had to walk. Good weather, you was out there walking. And I attended Mount Calvary Baptist Church from a early age. And I still go to Mount Calvary Baptist Church. | 2:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Who did you grow up with? Who lived in your home? | 3:27 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. I had one brother. There was only two children in my family. And I had several cousins, but like I told you, on Hall Street, everyone was sort of like kin. So, the whole neighborhood was just family-type. And I had several, several cousins. And my parents was there. My mother worked when the mill was going on. But she didn't work after the mill had burnt. So she went into housework, doing housework for people. Cleaning and cooking. | 3:33 |
Karen Ferguson | And you said your family came from South Carolina. Where was that in South Carolina? | 4:20 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. Pinewood, South Carolina. It's Clarendon County. | 4:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. Do you remember anything about your grandparents? Did they come up here with you? | 4:31 |
Dorothy Woods | They would come and visit. And what we would do, each summer while my parents was working, when school was out, they would take us to South Carolina to stay with our grandparents, because they could watch us and we would go and spend the summer. At the end of summer, my parents would come and pick us up, or one of my younger aunts would bring us back. Then in the summertime, well, we would pick cotton. | 4:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 5:09 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. And help in the field and did chores. And my grandmother, she took in washing for people. And we had to pump the water for her to do the washing. And she would iron their clothes. Wash and iron. And what amazed me so about her was that the irons, you heat them at the chimney. So, we had to keep wood and fire going for her in the chimney when she did not use this wooden stove. And how she would press those White shirts and have them so pretty. It was just amazing without any kind of soot or anything getting on them. And she would have everything neatly pressed and folded. And they would come and pick them up and pay her. But she did this every Monday and Tuesday. I forgot how many families she had washed for. So, this was wash day. And then the latter part of week was when she would do the washing for her family. | 5:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, so summertime was not out of vacation. You were working hard. | 6:21 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, but it was fun. | 6:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 6:28 |
Dorothy Woods | It wasn't compared to work, like go in the fields, but this is something we wanted to do. | 6:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 6:33 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, experience. And I enjoyed it. A lot of times they wouldn't let me go and I would get upset and cry, because I wanted to go and be with all the other kids. And my grandmother would always keep me home, because she stayed home and would cook and have dinner waiting for us at 11:00 or 12 o'clock during the day. | 6:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did they own their own land? Or were they tenant farming? | 6:57 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, they had their own land. | 7:01 |
Karen Ferguson | They owned their land? | 7:03 |
Dorothy Woods | Mm-hmm. | 7:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Do you remember anything about your grandfather at all? | 7:06 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, my grandfather, he worked at the cotton gin mill in Pinewood. He always worked there until his death. And he had a little, I didn't know what kind of cart, but it was one of those rumble seats, where you let it out in the back, and the children were sat in that rumble seat and the adults was up front. And they attended church very much, was well known in the church. My grandmother went to a Baptist church and I think my grandfather went to a Methodist church. She was Mount Calvary. He was at New Hope Methodist Church. And only thing I know about him is that he worked at the gin mill in Pinewood and he worked there, I guess all his life, until his death. Because he worked all day that day and he died at night. So, really he worked up until his death. | 7:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Now your parents, when did they move up to Wilmington? What age were they? | 8:27 |
Dorothy Woods | I don't know. I can't recall. I really don't know. | 8:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Was it before they were married? | 8:42 |
Dorothy Woods | Because they was married in South Carolina. They lived there and then I think my father came up here. I don't think it was a very early age. And I know after he got here, my father went to the Navy. That was one thing. Yeah. | 8:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:01 |
Dorothy Woods | And I think he stayed two years in the Navy. | 9:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Now was this during the Second World War, or when was this? | 9:06 |
Dorothy Woods | He said it was during World War II. | 9:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 9:12 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Mm-hmm. | 9:12 |
Karen Ferguson | So in the 40s? | 9:16 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 9:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:16 |
Dorothy Woods | And I do vaguely remember, because we haven't talked that much about him. I just noticed this, last week a letter came in the mail about they're having a reunion or something, for World War II veterans or something, somewhere. So I said, I just happened to had glanced at it. So, I might talked to him, I said, about this. And, but I think after he got out of the service, that's when he started at the mill. Then after he left the mill, he went to B&W, Babcock & Wilcox Company, and he would work and then get laid off. | 9:26 |
Dorothy Woods | And then after he would get laid off, he would go back to the mill. They always took him back. I mean, this went on constantly for about, I don't know how many years. He would go back to B&W and then he would get laid off and he would go back when they would call him back each time. And then when he got laid off, they'd let him work at the mill. And then finally, when I guess everything got settled, he just worked that straight until he retired at B&W. | 10:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And what was B&W? What kind of company? | 10:37 |
Dorothy Woods | It was a bottle maker plant. | 10:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. Okay. | 10:38 |
Dorothy Woods | Mm-hmm. | 10:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, so he came up first and then your mother came up after him? | 10:44 |
Dorothy Woods | Mm-hmm. | 10:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, why did they come to Wilmington? | 10:48 |
Dorothy Woods | Because of jobs-wise, because I guess in South Carolina, they way they talk like there wasn't that many jobs available for the Blacks. And then there was a shipyard here in Wilmington, too. And several of my uncles came up and they worked at the shipyard. | 10:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was the Hall Street community already there when they came up? Were there people that they knew who had moved up here already? | 11:20 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There wasn't that many houses. It still existed. And there was what you call a little small cafe, a store, whatever, in the community, you could go and get things from. And then they had at Long Grove, that was nex—I know we had to take my father lunch to him back then. My mother would fix his lunch and we would take it. And there was a little small store across from the mill, the lumber company. And it was ran by a lady named, he used to call him Ms. Sarah Rumler. She's dead now, but I forgot her real name is Hattie-something. And she ran this store. It was a little wooden store. And my father would get something sweet or sometime and then he would get us something before we came back. | 11:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Now was he, was she Black, this woman who owned the store? | 12:24 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 12:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So, there were some Black businesses in your neighborhood? | 12:28 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, there was Ms. Owens. They're deceased now. Her and her husband, Liza Owens and Mr. Willie Owens, they had ran that cafe I told you about. And the cafe still stands. | 12:31 |
Karen Ferguson | What was it called? | 12:46 |
Dorothy Woods | It was called The Owen's Cafe. | 12:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 12:50 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. And they had the house. The house was right nextdoor, both still standing. I don't know. They wanted their son to running, but I don't know what happened. But it's still standing. And then it turned in—So she started selling food, fixing dinners and selling, as I got older. And we had a lot of Black businesses back then, because on Raycroft Street there was the Culver's restaurant. And there was what you call Murray's Transfer Company on 11th Street. Mr. Murray. And, oh gosh, we had Mr. Jakes, he was a shoe repairman. And then we had on 4th Street there was George's Shoe Shop and then there was Mr. Brown's Cleaners. And what's this man name? There was the Kief Cleaners. And I can't remember this thing. There was garages that people owned. And had the Shell Funeral Home. That's a business which started, I think, in the 1800s. Still exists. I can't think of anymore. | 12:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, that's all right. That's a good start with all the others that we've heard of. Now, you said that it was a very close-knit community. Could you talk a little bit about that? What would people do for each other? And what kinds of things did you do together? | 14:50 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay, in the evenings, in the summertime, it's so hot now. After a certain time in the evening, you took your bath and you put on clothes. And we would have baseball games. We had a baseball diamond on 11th Street side, between 11th and 10th Street. And we would have different teams playing against, and then during that time we had girls playing, which I played too. And that was one entertainment that we had. And it was a lot of fun. And I know when we would go to PTA meetings at night, that was another entertainment, well for the kids, because we would get in front of the parents and the parents walked behind. In that time we could kind of play together. | 15:07 |
Dorothy Woods | And they would walk behind us and we'd all go to PTA meetings. And we had our church bus took us to Mount Misery. It's a community over there near Leona, Southport, somewhere, for picnic during time. And they had, out in Long Grove, there was a thing called the Trussle. And we would walk out that way. And then it was a place near there. What would they call that place? I think it was the dam, they used to call it, where the guys would go swim. | 16:00 |
Dorothy Woods | And the guys from the south side would come over and swim also, but they always end up fighting. And I think about two or three people had gotten drowned down there. It was very dangerous. But I didn't have anywhere to go or nothing that was long as entertainment that, well the children had for the summer, of cooling off. And we had the trains come by in the neighborhood on Hall Street, because it would pass going up north. And a lot of times anyone that was leaving on Hall Street and was going up north, we would go out to the tracks, near the tracks, and could wave by to them for the last time. A lot of times we would just walk to the tracks when it was time for the train, the one that went up north to go, and just to wave to the people. And they would wave back. | 16:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did adults look out for all the kids? Was there— | 18:03 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, everybody look out for each others. And it was like, if I had done something wrong and an adult did not approve of it, they could punish me, and still go tell my parents, and my parents could punish me also. | 18:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh yeah. | 18:34 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 18:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Did that ever happen to you? | 18:35 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, several times. Yeah, they looked out for each others in that neighborhood. And then we was the first to have a television in our neighborhood. And all the kids would come to our house and everybody would be all on the floor, all around. But my mother, she didn't care. We had the first television set in that block. Well, in that neighborhood. | 18:39 |
Karen Ferguson | So, were you a little better off than the other people in the neighborhood? Economically? | 19:11 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, sort of. But we always bought on the equal basis. And then we had that James Walker Hospital, which my mother had worked there sometime too, in the laundry. And I had an aunt that retired, where she worked there until she retired from the laundry there— | 19:22 |
Speaker 1 | Sorry. | 19:48 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, I don't know, someone probably already done brought this up at James Walker Hospital, there was a Black section. | 19:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. The Black ward. | 19:58 |
Dorothy Woods | Ward. And then there was a White ward. And you couldn't go through that White ward. And all the Blacks, the Black ward was much, much smaller. | 20:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were the facilities adequate? I mean, was it clean and did you receive fair care? | 20:16 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, it was clean and the care, but it just was that section. And when you walked in, the kids was in the front part, and you walk on through. And then the adults in the back part. | 20:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, why would people go there if they could go to Community Hospital? | 20:37 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. Community didn't have that many doctors. That was another thing, too. And it was small. Very small. So, you had a choice between Community and James Walker, I would say. Now, I went to Community. I don't know when it happened. I should have got my papers, because I wrote a thing when I was going to UNCW. Well, when I was in South Carolina visiting one summer, the horse ran away and threw me off the wagon and broke me up. | 20:48 |
Dorothy Woods | And I stayed in the hospital for about two or three months in South Carolina. And I came to Wilmington. My mother came and brought me from South Carolina to Wilmington. And I came and stayed up here, because I had to keep the cast on a year. But I had to go back in the hospital to get the cast off. And that's when I went to Community Hospital. Dr. Gray was my doctor. So, they cut the cast off and I think I stayed in there a couple of days after that, and then I returned it back home. | 21:27 |
Karen Ferguson | So, a whole year in a cast. | 22:06 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. And I was out of school for a whole year. But what happened was, I still made my grade. My mother had it fixed so that there was one of the young men that was in my class would bring my homework home every day. And I would get it done and give it back to him and he would take it back to school for me every day. I kept up with my work that way, so. | 22:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did you have much connection with other Black neighborhoods in town? Did you have friends over in Brooklyn or some other places, and other neighborhoods in the town? | 22:39 |
Dorothy Woods | No, it was just that. No. I can't remember. | 22:51 |
Karen Ferguson | No? | 22:51 |
Dorothy Woods | No. | 22:51 |
Karen Ferguson | So you stayed in your own— | 22:51 |
Dorothy Woods | We just stayed, yeah. It was Long Grove community. | 22:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:03 |
Dorothy Woods | And Hall Street. | 23:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:07 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 23:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 23:09 |
Dorothy Woods | And we might have had a few friends just nearby, like on 10th Street, but not on the south side. Not until I got older. | 23:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. Now, how do you think your neighborhood was, in terms of economically, compared to other Black neighborhoods? Do you think people on Hall Street were doing a little better than other neighborhoods, or? | 23:21 |
Dorothy Woods | I think they was. I think they was doing good. | 23:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Because of the mill? | 23:43 |
Dorothy Woods | That was a close bound—yeah, there. And I think, yeah, because of the mill. That gave people employment, yeah. And we didn't have an all young group of parents. There was a mix. There was older people and there was young people. And everybody seemed to lookout for each other, too. And I remember at one time my mother had worked at, I don't know if you've heard of Will Rehder's Florist? | 23:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Uh-uh. | 24:33 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, it was at the end of South 11th Street. It was a florist. And a lot of people found employment there, too. | 24:33 |
Karen Ferguson | So what would they do there? | 24:42 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. So, like, a plant farm. They made flowers and stuff. And he sold flowers. He's still in business, but the florist is not down on 11th Street. Yeah. And I know as kids we had pear trees and plum trees. And how kids are, we would go and try to sneak plums or pears. And I have to thank God, because we could have gotten kill. And he was shoot at us. | 24:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh. | 25:22 |
Dorothy Woods | And here we are trying to get them. Kids going to be kids. | 25:22 |
Karen Ferguson | He'd shoot at you? | 25:26 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes. And I mentioned to him several time, because he comes in the library a lot. And I just said, I guess they say God take care of babies and fools, so. But we would go, you know how things like that are always tempting to kids. And we'd go back there. | 25:28 |
Karen Ferguson | So, he had a little farm then, or a little— | 25:50 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, he had about three pear trees. | 25:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 25:54 |
Dorothy Woods | But all of it was on his property, all that, which he owns all of just about on 11th Street from 11th and Hall, to, let's see, what's that street? I think it's 11th and Green Street. The next block over, because he has that Calvary Cemetery down there. So, he owns all that land there. And he had stuff was going on for a while that. It wasn't that by itself wasn't supposed to be touched, but it was on his property. | 25:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Right. | 26:32 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 26:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, where did you do your shopping? Where did you do? At these little stores you were talking about, or? | 26:44 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. What I can remember is that there was Carl Shoots grocery store. And oh God, I can't remember those other people my mother used to do—but my mother did theirs across the street. But there was there Shoots Brothers. There was two stores. One on Fanning Street. What is that street? It's not Raycrofts. I know it's Fanning. 9th and Fanning. And then the brother had one on the other corner. 9th—oh, God. I can't remember those people. | 26:52 |
Karen Ferguson | That's all right. We don't— | 27:42 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, my mother and them did theirs across the—Oh, the Freemans. Yeah. | 27:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 27:50 |
Dorothy Woods | They had a grocery store, and that's because mother worked for them. And so therefore, what you did was whenever you ran short or something, you could get grocery on, what you call— | 27:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Credit or? | 28:04 |
Dorothy Woods | Credit. Yeah. Get it on credit. And you'll pay at the end of each week when you got paid. | 28:06 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 28:13 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. And then a lot of people, they traded at Shoots grocery store. | 28:14 |
Karen Ferguson | How did people decide where they were going to go? Was it on the basis of this credit, whether the credit was available? Or? | 28:21 |
Dorothy Woods | I guess. I guess that was it, yeah. If you had to. Because mostly, you didn't have anything. So most everybody I knew got things on credit. Then they had what you call a—they would deliver your grocery, the guy. They would have a Black guy that worked there and he would bring your grocery to you, after you would order your grocery. And he had a bicycle, which he had a basket he would bring them. | 28:29 |
Karen Ferguson | When did people stop shopping at these little grocery stores, and go—When did there start to be big chain grocery stores and that kind of thing? | 29:00 |
Dorothy Woods | This went on for a long, long time. Which it's still going on in some parts. | 29:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, really? | 29:16 |
Dorothy Woods | I guess, I think it was the first one was the A&P store, something like that, came here to Wilmington. But then again, see, these was neighborhood stores. You could easily get to them, as to these larger stores, because they were so far out. If you didn't have transportation, that meant another thing too. So, that's about in the 50s, or late 50s, something like that, when things started to change over. Yeah, because I know for the longest time, my parents, they still had shopped at Mr. Freeman, and to the Shoots. Yeah. | 29:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. Were there any bad areas of town that you weren't allowed to go to? Where there other places or neighborhoods where you were forbidden to go? | 30:06 |
Dorothy Woods | They used to talk about Nixon Street a lot, now. But we never did go over there anyway. There was a place in Nixon Street, Highland Park. That was supposed to have been kind of a bad place also. | 30:17 |
Karen Ferguson | So what would go on? | 30:40 |
Dorothy Woods | They had a club at this place. | 30:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 30:44 |
Dorothy Woods | And it was a popular name. A popular club. | 30:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 30:54 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. So. | 30:55 |
Karen Ferguson | So, just drinking and that kind thing? | 30:57 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. And dancing. And Nixon Street, it was like clubs and stuff. And you wasn't supposed to—you dare not go there. | 30:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 31:13 |
Dorothy Woods | And there wasn't anywhere else. It wasn't like it is today. | 31:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 31:21 |
Dorothy Woods | I guess because we wasn't exposed to all—It's a big difference. Back then they kept everything hush-hush and you didn't get exposed to as much. Yeah, they kept you away from it. They didn't say why. They just kept you away and kept everything away from your eyesight and your ears. | 31:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Now, who was boss at your home? Who was in charge of things? | 31:45 |
Dorothy Woods | I'd say my mother, really. Yeah. She was in control. My father, now, don't get me wrong. He was in control, but he was quite—My mother was an aggressive-type person. What she wanted, she got. And I think that's why she's looked up to today, because anything—She wanted a television. She got that television. I guess by working in the homes of these White people, that gave her so much, I guess, hope or whatever. | 31:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 32:44 |
Dorothy Woods | She just saw things there, next thing she wanted. Like I say, we was the first Blacks to have the television. My mother, when she wanted to get out and get a home, she got her home when she first—next thing was she wanted to get a car, she got a car. My father, he is quiet and all that, but mean, so far as the outgoing person in the family, it was my mother. | 32:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So, she had a lot of ambition. Ambition. | 33:08 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 33:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 33:10 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 33:12 |
Karen Ferguson | And your father, what was he like? | 33:13 |
Dorothy Woods | He would work, but he was quiet. Yeah. He was the bread winner now of the family. | 33:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Okay. | 33:21 |
Dorothy Woods | And I can never remember him being—when he'd get out of work, he'd go someplace else get a job. And he always provided us with the things that we needed, really. | 33:22 |
Karen Ferguson | So he provided. He was more of a breadwinner than your mother? | 33:35 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 33:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. Now, did your mother work steadily while you were— | 33:38 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, she was working for long as I can remember. | 33:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, who took care of you while she was at work? | 33:48 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. There was an aunt that we had stayed with. She had her children. We stayed with them. And then, after we got up a size we would stay home, because you didn't run the streets or anything. You stayed home. | 33:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 34:09 |
Dorothy Woods | And then like I said, in the summer, they would take us to South Carolina, where we would stay at my grandparents until the end of summer, and school would start back and then we would come and return to school. | 34:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, you said your mother was the boss. Did she also discipline you? | 34:27 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 34:40 |
Karen Ferguson | She whipped you? | 34:41 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, she would. But we would prefer my father to. Because he would just going and do what he had to do, and discipline you and get it over with. But with her, she looked like she would never stop. This is how went. And I can remember the times when we got into trouble and it came time to get disciplined. My brother had this habit of running under the bed. And we would run under the bed and I always was left on the front, so I got the most licks. And she'd always say, "You got to come out. You got to come out sometime." | 34:42 |
Dorothy Woods | But another thing is that Christmastime too, we would prepare for Christmas and my mother had a big trunk, about the size of this desk. And you'd start cooking about a week, couple of weeks before Christmas. You make these cakes and you set them inside the trunk, and then until Christmastime come and then you could take them out. And then I could remember the ice man coming into the neighborhood, because at the time we came up, we didn't have refrigerators. We had ice box. And I would like to run and get behind the truck and get the little chips of ice as he would chip the ice. And that was fun too. And then we would have vegetable men coming through the block, selling vegetable. And then most of the time we had gardens that we could depend on for our food also. And then— | 35:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Did people keep chickens or anything? | 36:32 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 36:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 36:35 |
Dorothy Woods | Then there was, I think it was George Trask, they had big farm, out next to the mill. And when they got finished with their field, they would let my parents them go and gather vegetables from the gardens. But you couldn't get too many, because you didn't have any ways of freezing them back then. Because like I said, we had ice box. | 36:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So, your mother didn't do any canning? or— | 37:08 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes, she did canning. My grandmother did a lot of canning. And my grandmother had what they call a smokehouse. | 37:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 37:18 |
Dorothy Woods | My grandparents had what you called the smokehouse. And she would go and pick blueberries. And then they had a big garden. And she would work all day, and late at night. All the grandkids would go to bed, but I always got a kick out of this. I would stay awake and watch her can, because at the end she always gave me a little scoop of something. Especially when she was canning blueberries or peaches or something like that. You know you was going to get a little treat. And she would always scoop up and fix me a little bowl of something. And they had the smokehouse. They kept the meat and the jars of what she canned in there. And they had chicken, and they had hogs, horses, cows. About everything there was. | 37:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 38:17 |
Dorothy Woods | And I think they had, what it called? Sugarcane, which I like those. I would go and steal and eat those. A lot of those you. And I noticed my grandmother, when it was getting cold, they would dig a deep hole. And she had all kinds of beautiful plants, and she would set these plants inside of them. I said, "Well, don't they die?" We'd ask her question, "Well, how are they going to stay alive and not die?" And then she said they would put a tin over these plants and put croker sacks on top of them and then put the sand. And then she would take them out that next spring and they would be so pretty. | 38:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 39:11 |
Dorothy Woods | And that amazed me a whole lot. How could they stay alive and come out so pretty? | 39:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 39:21 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 39:22 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of values do you think your parents instilled in you? | 39:23 |
Dorothy Woods | Work. | 39:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Work? | 39:26 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Work for what you want. Hardwork, it takes. And going to school and getting an education, that you can't get anything without that. And getting things on your own. And making the best out of life. Taking a little something and making something big out of it, just whatever. And I seen my friends down and how they bounce back up. | 39:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. How did your parents expect you to behave in front of adults? | 40:14 |
Dorothy Woods | You better be on your best behavior, I tell you that. Well, I'll tell you what, when we was younger now, if my parents then had company, we were not allowed to sit in the same room. You went into another room, and that's where you stayed or played. If the company brought kids, you all got together and you found some type of entertainment to keep you company while they sat and talked. You were not allowed to sit up like—things have changed today. Everyone can sit together. But the kids was in one room. If you wasn't in a room, if it was warm enough outside, you played outside and behaved, and your parents sat inside and talked or carried on a conversation. | 40:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents ever have to sit you down and tell you how to behave in front of White people? Or things that you had to do in order to stay out of trouble with Whites at all? | 41:27 |
Dorothy Woods | No, we always kind of instilled in us about being in the right place at the right time. That was one thing. And that if you was there, you did this, what was going to happen, you know? | 41:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What kinds of things are you talking about? What kinds of situations would that be? | 42:11 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, let's see. Okay, I guess like, before integration, the buses. You wasn't supposed to sit in the front of the bus. You know you wasn't supposed to go into a bathroom that was marked White only. | 42:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 42:42 |
Dorothy Woods | And there was just certain things that it was just understood you wasn't supposed to do it. | 42:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 42:59 |
Dorothy Woods | I had worked at Carolina Beach when I was in school. And we had to go downtown here, come downtown and catch the bus to get to Carolina Beach. And there was a White waiting room and a Black waiting room. And there was a Black bathroom, White bathroom, water fountain, everything was separate. Then you were supposed to go and sit at the back of the bus. When we got to Carolina Beach, there was separate facilities also. And that kind of bothered me, because I felt like if I had worked all day, if they trust me in their house, around their kids—it really bothered me, because I would just be thinking about it, like, "How can I go and work in these people house, around their kids, and then before you got ready to leave the vicinity, you had to go back to where you started from, separate facilities." | 43:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. And that brings up a question. Now, you were working in people's homes? | 44:41 |
Dorothy Woods | At Carolina Beach? | 44:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 44:44 |
Dorothy Woods | I worked at a hotel. | 44:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. At a hotel. | 44:45 |
Dorothy Woods | Mm-hmm. | 44:46 |
Karen Ferguson | But when people worked in private homes, were they allowed to use the restrooms in their homes, or the bathrooms in their homes? | 44:47 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 44:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. | 44:54 |
Dorothy Woods | Sometime if it was a real large home, they had separate facilities. | 44:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. But otherwise, if they didn't have that, would you be allowed to use their bathroom? | 45:02 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, I did. I did. | 45:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. | 45:09 |
Dorothy Woods | I got to go to the bathroom. | 45:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:11 |
Dorothy Woods | I do. | 45:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Now you were talking a little bit about the kinds of segregation that existed in Wilmington. Do you ever remember kids or adults defying those signs? Like, going and, on a dare, taking a drink out of the White fountain or anything like that? | 45:17 |
Dorothy Woods | I don't remember. I can't recall right offhand, but I remember some people, yeah, would go and sit in a White part. And then again, because if you didn't know, because I've seen it happen, if you didn't know, if you was a stranger in town where they were going to the wrong part of the bus station, I've seen that happen. And I've seen people go into restaurants or something and want to be served, where they'd say they didn't serve Blacks in there or something. They would tell you to come to the kitchen and eat. | 45:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 46:31 |
Dorothy Woods | Because I had an incident happen to me when I went to New Jersey. The first time I came back home with my— | 46:32 |
Dorothy Woods | —serve Blacks in the restaurant, but they could let us go in the kitchen and we could get something to eat there and stand up and eat it. And my uncle, he said that was the first time that happened, he got highly upset about that. And so we went out and we found a Black restaurant. Well, sort of like a cafe and went and got breakfast there. I guess people knew how things was and knew where they stood, so that didn't really bother people that much. And I wasn't here during the '70s when things started or the mid '60s when they started turning around, but it was just understood. And if you worked for someone, a maid or something like my mother you had to go through that back door, you didn't go through their front door and you did your job. I can't remember as being small because we just stayed into our community and went to where our parents took us at. | 0:01 |
Dorothy Woods | So it wasn't like going off on your own, exploring and doing things on your own. And one thing I just remember fairly a little is where people would go walking to the wrong part of the bus station. And my mother have told me of different incidents that have happened in South Carolina of people there, about whistling at a White person, or looking at a White person. | 1:25 |
Karen Ferguson | And then people getting killed. | 2:00 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, lynched and all like that. | 2:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they ever talk— | 2:04 |
Dorothy Woods | I think she said she had an uncle that even got lynched too. Because they say that he did it, but he said he didn't do it. So back then your word didn't stand up to nothing too. | 2:05 |
Karen Ferguson | So she would tell you about this. Now when she talked about this did she say that it was better here, that things were better here than in South Carolina? | 2:17 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Yeah. She did. She said. | 2:25 |
Karen Ferguson | So do you think that was part of the reason why your parents— | 2:29 |
Dorothy Woods | I think that that was part of it. I think the living conditions was much better. | 2:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Was your mother afraid for your brother ever because of those kinds of things? The Black men being accused of looking at White women the wrong way or that kind of thing? | 2:38 |
Dorothy Woods | No, she just talked to us. She laid down the lines and she would talk constantly to us and let us know what was going on, "If you did this you—this equaled this." She let us know. I don't think we had too much trouble with—no, she didn't worry about him that much. | 2:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. Maybe we could talk a little bit about school. | 3:29 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. | 3:34 |
Karen Ferguson | You said you went to Peabody and then— | 3:39 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, Peabody. | 3:40 |
Karen Ferguson | —to Dudley and then to Little Williston. | 3:40 |
Dorothy Woods | Little Wilson is what they call Gregory now. | 3:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me did you like school? | 3:48 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, I loved it. I always loved school. At Peabody School though there was like Miss Miranda, Miss Free and Miss Johnson. I can barely remember some teachers. We walked there. Peabody is where Head Start is at now on Sixth Street, South Sixth Street. And I remember I was in the spelling bee contest there and I was in a rhythm band. I don't know if you know about the rhythm band, but you play instruments there. Always got in trouble because I constantly—I played the sticks and I was always breaking the sticks. I think Mr. Swing was over there at the time our principal— | 3:51 |
Karen Ferguson | I interviewed Mr. Swing. | 4:53 |
Dorothy Woods | You did. No, he was at James B. Dudley. I think Mr. McDonald was over at Peabody, Mr. McDonald then Mr. Swing. And then I went over to Dudley to B. Dudley High School. I think I stayed over there two years I'm not sure. I stayed until the 4th and 5th, 6th, 5th, 6th grade at Dudley. There was a store on the other side of the alley because there was the alley right behind Dudley, and the main thing was trying to keep the kids from the store because we was not supposed to—they had the biggest pickles. So you would go over there and get you a pickle and a peppermint, that was the style back then. You would take that peppermint and stick it down in that pickle and go around school with that. If you didn't have a pickle and a peppermint you was not into it, that was it. | 4:53 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you do with the peppermint you stuck it inside— | 6:01 |
Dorothy Woods | Inside the pickle, you bite the top off and stick it down your throat. And that's what you would do suck off of it, it was good back then. And that was one of the things that we had done. And I think Ms. Stevenson was my teacher. And like I said when I was in the 5th grade, it had to have been 5th or 6th grade, that's when I went to South Carolina that summer. The horse ran away and threw me off the wagon and broke me up, and I had to stay out of school for a year. And I didn't really get too much at Jame B. Dudley for one year. Then I went on over to Little Williston and you just thought you was in something then because you could go to the cafeteria, which I didn't go that much because like I said we was kind of poor. | 6:03 |
Dorothy Woods | I had to take my lunch and I would buy milk and sit and eat, and I would envy the other people that could buy lunch and I couldn't. I was kind of lucky because my cousin had rheumatoid fever something like that, rheumatic fever. And she had to ride to school little cab a lot of time, they would let me ride long with her so therefore I didn't have to walk. I kind of got off easy, then we had to stop that because they had cracked down and said that it wasn't supposed to be done that way, then we had to start back walking. And then for the PTA meetings going over to Little Williston. Like I said before our parents would put us in front then we had the time to play and all that, and they would walk behind us and then we had time to play coming back, so that was a outing. | 6:58 |
Karen Ferguson | And now what kinds of things did the PTA do? Because a lot of people have talked about the PTA as being something that they were—even if they weren't involved in other activity organizations. | 8:02 |
Dorothy Woods | I don't remember. I know they would call the role of each teacher. I remember that part and the parents would stand representing their teacher. And then I know the teacher with the most parents or something like that they would have it. I can remember that part that they would get the teacher that had the most parents to come out. They didn't do as much with the parents as they are doing now. Parents got on different boards or whatever or work with different projects and all like that, that they didn't have to do. | 8:15 |
Karen Ferguson | So it was more like presentation [indistinct 00:09:04]. | 9:02 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, presentation I think, on being present to me the focus on that was. And you would talk to the teacher, she told you gave you a update on what the child was doing. And then they had another thing they called open house, they had that once a year at the beginning of school where parents would go and visit the classrooms of the children, and see how they was doing and what kind of work they was doing. | 9:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember being disciplined at school? | 9:44 |
Dorothy Woods | I remember one time I was at Peabody School and I had to get a spanking, back then they spank you in your hand with a paddle. And I knew what I was going to get when I got home, and it just took something away from me. I can remember that, so good. It looked like I was going to never stop crying. It bothered me and it still does bother me up to this day because I never did get off it. I guess I wouldn't have got so upset, but I thought I was going to get by with this. And it was my cousin that had spanked me, I just got—Ezell Johnson— | 9:52 |
Karen Ferguson | So she was the teacher. | 10:40 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. | 10:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay, and she had to spank you. | 10:44 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. She said, "Hold out your hand." And, oh, God. | 10:47 |
Karen Ferguson | You were ashamed— | 10:53 |
Dorothy Woods | I think I was talking— | 10:53 |
Karen Ferguson | —or you were feeling like it was unfair? | 10:55 |
Dorothy Woods | I guess I was shame, hurt and everything, all of it bubbled out. I just didn't want to get that spanking. But I don't remember being in anything else after that. I was a quiet type person. I use to say to myself. I didn't do much with big school or activities. | 11:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember the teachers ever playing favorites with students at all in high school or in elementary school? | 11:26 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes, high school of course, yes. | 11:37 |
Karen Ferguson | And who were the favorites in school? | 11:38 |
Dorothy Woods | We had, who was it, Dr. Eaton, Hurbet Eaton because his father was a doctor. Back then when I came up if your parents was a teacher, lawyer, doctor, something like that you got favoritism shown to you. And another thing was if you was light complexion you got favoritism shown to you a lot, the way I saw it. And you got a lot shown to you. Like I said, if your parent was on the high scale up in the neighborhood. Because I felt like this when we got ready to graduate we should have been educated on how to go about getting scholarship grants and all that. Which we wasn't, certain people was told about how to go—I didn't find out about how to go about these things until after I had gotten out of high school, which I wanted to go to college. And I had to end up going to college in later years after I had graduated. | 11:42 |
Karen Ferguson | So there was no encouragement for someone like you to go to college? | 12:56 |
Dorothy Woods | No, unless you got it on your own or there was someone out there to help you. Which there wasn't many in my family at that time that had gone to college. Oh no, there wasn't a booster there. I was determined I was going to go to college. I was determined I was going to get me a degree and I did get it. I got it at a later age, but I got it. | 13:01 |
Karen Ferguson | So this was something that was always in your mind even when you were in high school? | 13:28 |
Dorothy Woods | Mm-hmm. | 13:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. Were you getting encouragement at home from your parents to do that as well to get to go to college? | 13:33 |
Dorothy Woods | No, because back then the only thing you was suppose to do was finish high school, as long as you finish that high school. What was instilled into most Black kids was that you had to just finish high school and go to work. It wasn't that there was education beyond high school. | 13:40 |
Karen Ferguson | So what did you do when you finished up at high school? | 14:08 |
Dorothy Woods | After I finished high school I went to New York—I mean New Jersey. And I lived with my uncle who was a minister there, and his children was there. And I worked at Beth Israel Hospital and had worked at Garden Loan Company, and then I worked at Penn Products, then I went to school at night at Market Training Institution, then I went at Drake College at night. But I was determined I was going to stay and go get some type of education. | 14:11 |
Dorothy Woods | And I got a certificate from Market Training, which they taught you typing and switchboard operation. Then at Beth Israel I worked as a page girl, and I went from page girl and I started working in the accounting office doing light typing. And I worked at Garden Loan Company, which I processed loans. Before I went to Garden Loan I worked at Penn Products and I worked in the factory, and then from the factory I went to the office. | 14:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Now when did you graduate from high school? When did you leave from New Jersey? | 15:35 |
Dorothy Woods | 1960. | 15:37 |
Karen Ferguson | 1960, so why did you leave Wilmington? | 15:48 |
Dorothy Woods | It was like the plight that they did from South Carolina, South Carolina to Wilmington. You're thinking it's a better place from Wilmington. Everybody else left that didn't go to college went up north. But I only stayed up there I think about four years or five because I didn't like it. | 15:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Why didn't you like it? | 16:14 |
Dorothy Woods | I don't know. I didn't like the apartments really. I just liked to have a house by itself and I like a big yard. I didn't like being cooped up all the time. I didn't like that that much. I came in here and started working. | 16:18 |
Karen Ferguson | So where did you work when you got back here? | 16:39 |
Dorothy Woods | I went to Fannie Norwood Home and then from there I went to Singer Core Division, and I worked out there for eight or nine years. | 16:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Now were you getting as good jobs as you were in New Jersey? | 16:51 |
Dorothy Woods | I think so. Because I worked at Fannie Norwood and from then when they found out I had typing skills, I began working, helping in the office, and I went to Singer Core Division. And after they saw my application there the boss there had told me whenever a opening came in the office they would pull me in from the plant and they did. And I worked in there for about eight or nine years in the plant as a office worker. | 16:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Now were there many Blacks working in offices? | 17:24 |
Dorothy Woods | I was the first Black at Singer Core Division and only. | 17:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, this must have been when the industry was starting to come into Wilmington a little bit more. What was that like? How did that change things for Blacks here when some of this— | 17:31 |
Dorothy Woods | Well, Blacks was hired that was another thing form of employment. I had just was getting back in here, and I got a lot of envy because of, "As soon as she comes in she can get off." But they had promised me after they saw my application on it that most of work that I had done was office. I've been like I said myself start somewhere. But most of my jobs that I've gone on I would start out and then I would end up in the office, this is something I really wanted to do and I wanted to go back, I was in school. And it helped I think by going to school up there while I was in New Jersey at night that made a difference. | 17:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Would other Black women have clerical training here who had stayed in Wilmington. Would they be able to get any kind of clerical training like that shorthand— | 18:26 |
Dorothy Woods | They had Miller-Motte because when I came back and I went to work at Singer and they had put me in the office, I went to school, I went back to school at Miller-Motte. They had Miller-Motte because it was on Fourth Street, but now it's on South College Road, they moved. At first I didn't want to accept it, because I didn't know how racial barrier was at that time, but they treated me on a equal basis. | 18:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Have you had any negative job experiences since you graduated from high school? | 19:14 |
Dorothy Woods | Let's see. You mean here in Wilmington? | 19:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Yeah. | 19:28 |
Dorothy Woods | I worked at the library, Singer— | 19:33 |
Karen Ferguson | No that's good. | 19:47 |
Dorothy Woods | And over here Fannie Norwood, I can't recall. Because I worked here and I left and I came back here and I worked at the school. I didn't have any problems there. I was a teacher's ed and I assisted in the office there at Mercy Williams School. And I was a secretary but I didn't have any race—because they chose me as secretary of the PTA meeting. | 19:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you said your mother bought a home for—I just forgot to ask you this when you were growing up did your family rent back then? | 20:31 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, they rent. | 20:46 |
Karen Ferguson | But you said your mother worked to own a home. | 20:48 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes. They got their home. | 20:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And when were they able to do that? | 20:52 |
Dorothy Woods | Okay. My daughter was one year old, that was in 1969. But they was determined, she was determined and the home that she got, she got in a nice decent neighborhood. She worked for some of the biggest people here in Wilmington that boost her up a lot. | 20:54 |
Karen Ferguson | She was paid more than other people who worked in homes. | 21:24 |
Dorothy Woods | I don't know about that part, but I know she worked for some big people. | 21:29 |
Karen Ferguson | And that helped her to buy a house. | 21:33 |
Dorothy Woods | It could, I think it boost up her—as my mother knowing where to go and what to do and get things. She always liked nice things. And I think by working in these homes when she saw these nice things and that gave her a good taste too, because silver. She was like the first Black to have silver in her home, these kind of things and chandeliers, this kind of stuff. Whatever she saw in these homes she just strived toward getting it, and she did get it. My mother, she couldn't read or write, she couldn't sign her name, but my mother was a go-getter. She had mother wit about her. She could tend to business. I have the education, but she could beat me tending to business. My father also, she could beat him in tending any of us, she just had it. But that was my main goal we started working with her to learn, and then she sort of was coming on good on reading and writing. | 21:36 |
Karen Ferguson | So they weren't able to get any kind of education. | 22:59 |
Dorothy Woods | My father did, he got good education. But my mother by her being the oldest she had to work and then also tend to the young children. I think she got 2nd or 3rd grade education. | 23:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Now your own children have they been able to get more education than you were able to get or are they— | 23:18 |
Dorothy Woods | I have one she's a junior, got up to a junior. | 23:25 |
Karen Ferguson | In college. | 23:38 |
Dorothy Woods | It's college. | 23:38 |
Karen Ferguson | So there's been a progression. | 23:38 |
Dorothy Woods | For me too I would go to school, I stop, go to school, stop. And then when I went to transfer to one school, I think it was Shaw. And I added up all my credits, and I saw how close I was and that me gave me a determination to get it and get it out the way. Because I've been to Miller-Motte first I attended the schools up in New Jersey, Drake College and Market Training Institution. When I came I went to Miller-Motte then from Miller-Motte I traveled back and forth and I went UNCW. I traveled every Saturday to Fayetteville State University and then from there I transferred to Shaw University, that's where I graduated. | 23:39 |
Karen Ferguson | So you got a college degree? | 24:30 |
Dorothy Woods | I graduated May, 1990, May 12th, 1990. | 24:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Congratulations. That's great. I just wanted to finish up here with talking about church a little bit, so you went to Mount Calvary and you've always— | 24:37 |
Dorothy Woods | Missionary Baptist Church. | 24:50 |
Karen Ferguson | And you've always attended there? | 24:52 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes, ever since a early age. I can remember my mother taking us to Sunday school or sending us after we got of age, get us dressed and send you to Sunday school and she would come on to church. My mother sang in the church choir and we had a little store in the corner, gave us money for Sunday school. We would never put our money in Sunday school we'll go and spin it at the corner store. | 24:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Did she ever find out? | 25:26 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah, that was our biggest problem was that spending, going to that corner store. We had Easter programs, Christmas programs where, we gave little speeches and presentations, and got a little present, and we would have a Easter egg hunt around Easter time. I think I can remember Reverend Vaughn was our pastor and the next pastor was Reverend Graham in my early age, most of the deacons that I know are deceased. And I didn't become working in church, I didn't join the church until later after I was married. I went. Because my mother always said that we would have to make up our own mind when it came time to that. | 25:28 |
Karen Ferguson | So you weren't baptized until you were— | 26:38 |
Dorothy Woods | Until I was married, I was in my 20s, but I went to that church all the time. | 26:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Were other children pressured into being like that? | 26:49 |
Dorothy Woods | Some parents would tell them, "Go join the church." My mother always say, "Well, these kids don't know what they're doing. You make up your own mind because you're not going to say I made you—" She said, "Because when you got of age you might want to go someplace else." But several kids was there and then we had baptism, we had the pool in the church and preacher dressed in a black outfit and he would baptize you. | 26:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Now was church an important institution in your neighborhood was it a— | 27:20 |
Dorothy Woods | Yes, it was. | 27:29 |
Karen Ferguson | In what way? In what way? | 27:31 |
Dorothy Woods | I guess that's just instilled in us as being Black and—the church was like school. Like I said, it was just instilled in us, you know had to go to church every Sunday. I think that's just instilled and yes it became important. Because we didn't have that many places to go back then, so we had to look at the church as being the most important part of our lives. They didn't have activities going on like they have today. | 27:34 |
Dorothy Woods | And the activities that you got was from the church like Easter program, you went to revivals. And every Sunday this is what you look forward to going to church and hearing the minister preaching, seeing people shout and seeing the choir sing. And you look to going to Sunday school on Sundays, and you probably look to going to that store on Sunday mornings, really this is something. And seeing other kids you haven't seen all week. I don't remember anything else. | 28:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you ever remember the minister before when you were a girl, before the '60s, preaching about racial equality or anything like that, talking about it? No. | 29:09 |
Dorothy Woods | Mostly it was from the Bible. Only thing that we might talk about something— if something had happened really terrible it might be mentioned, but other than that it was not. And most of the time if anything had happened it was kept quiet. Like I said, children wasn't exposed to things like they are today. We have the television, we had the video, we got the newspapers. And back then newspapers wasn't exposed to us because you couldn't afford it. Parents talked about things among themselves, among adults on a adult to adult basis. I will tell my child more than what my parent had told me with a lot of things. And it was just things was just kept on a hush-hush basis, and that's why we wasn't exposed to a lot or know what a lot was going on. I've heard my parents talk about things after they'd gotten older. | 29:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Were there any incidences of police brutality against Blacks when you were growing up? | 30:45 |
Dorothy Woods | I've heard my parents them talk about people have gotten shot or killed, but there wasn't anything I don't think done about it, which was done wrongfully. I remember something about—they had said something about—this man had done something, but the policeman said, "Follow him." And how they shot him going underneath the house or something, which how they shot him up. But that was still sort of like a hush-hush thing you just barely heard. Didn't hear too much. I've heard of just people getting locked up. My mother them would say about at Sea Breeze when they'll go and drink too much and something like that. And I think little incidents that have happened at Carolina Beach among Blacks. I know one time there was a sought of fight or something out there among Blacks and Whites. | 30:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Among Blacks and Whites. | 32:21 |
Dorothy Woods | Yeah. Some kind of little incident while we was working down there, but it was swallowed down. | 32:22 |
Karen Ferguson | So people were put in jail sometimes for things that they—very minor things. | 32:33 |
Dorothy Woods | Minor things. Most people I guess they knew the consequences behind some of these things, so they was on their Ps and Qs, you dare not go and use a bathroom that had White only on it. You did not go to a White church or White restaurant without being arrested. Or you did not go in a all White neighborhood like it is today you can go. | 32:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right, that's fine. I think we can— | 33:33 |
Dorothy Woods | That's all. | 33:34 |
Karen Ferguson | —just stop here— | 33:34 |
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