Matthew Polk interview recording, 1994 July 22

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (5)
- MP3 Part 1
- MP3 Part 2
- MP3 Part 3
- MP3 Part 4
- MP3 Part 5
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Document
- btvct06055.pdf
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='//idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h130p24?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h130p24
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

Kate Ellis	Okay, would you state your name and when you were born and where you were born?	0:00
Matthew Branch Polk	My name is Matthew Polk. I was born in the city of New Iberia, small community called Brooklyn on the 21st day of May, 1912. There was the distance of my early childhood.	0:11
Kate Ellis	Hold that, hold that thought. So as you were saying, you were born in New Iberia.	0:33
Matthew Branch Polk	It's a small place called Brooklyn. Yeah. May 21st, 1912. That's it.	0:41
Kate Ellis	Can you tell me about the community that you grew up in?	0:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Oh yes. You ready now?	0:53
Kate Ellis	Yep. It's running.	0:56
Matthew Branch Polk	Good. I grew up in the small community called Brooklyn as the son of Reverend Branch Polk and Mary Mitchell Polk. There in that community is very small. We had a secular population, probably about 400 at the time. There we provided certain accommodations for people. My father worked in the rice field at that time and then at Conrad's Mill and after a while he went into the ministry and then also an insurance agency, which I propelled at the place site. My mother was quite aggressive. She worked as a salesman and also we had a small grocery store at that time and there I received my early education at a school that we had, Howe Institute there I went for the total educational experience of my elementary and high school years.	0:58
Kate Ellis	Howe Institute.	2:15
Matthew Branch Polk	Howe Institute. For that period of time, I achieved and went on to the site of Leland College in Baker, Louisiana.	2:17
Kate Ellis	It was called?	2:26
Matthew Branch Polk	Leland College.	2:26
Kate Ellis	Leland. Okay.	2:26
Matthew Branch Polk	In Baker, Louisiana on the outskirts of Baton Rouge at the end of Scotlandville. Then after that, I matriculated and became a member of the faculty of our institution, which was Iberia Parish Training School at that level. From there, I had an opportunity to teaching and I was promoted to the Francis Jeanerette Colored Elementary School that I worked with the five teachers and myself for a number of years, and the school grew by years and until we accomplished and got into the high school. We generated that facility to get all of the accommodations and specifications that was needed to attain a high school for the children of that community.	2:27
Kate Ellis	Would you tell me the name of that school again?	3:32
Matthew Branch Polk	The Jeanerette Colored Elementary School. That's where we begun and we engaged—	3:32
Kate Ellis	What'd you say?	3:43
Edith Bijou Polk	They called them Colored.	3:44
Matthew Branch Polk	We engaged in that school, Jeanerette Colored Elementary School, Jeanerette Junior High School, Jeanerette Colored High School. And after the years, in 1949, the name changed to Francis M. Boley High School when we went to a new site. I worked in that community 33 and one half years. In that engagement, we continue to progress. The students there ascertained certain possibilities in [indistinct 00:04:28] and they have had an opportunity to go into various fields. We do have them from the Pacific to the Atlantic and elsewhere across the nation working in different fields.	3:46
Kate Ellis	The students who graduated?	4:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Graduated there previous years. We keep in touch with them in every form of of existence. In the year of 1992, we had a school reunion and they came from all parts. At that particular time, I was unable to attend it, but I understand that there were [indistinct 00:05:09], more than a thousand present, and we have engaged in similar activities for classes during various periods of our years and we hit it off right now.	4:43
Matthew Branch Polk	And my childhood experiences, my grandmother came for me, I'm told, at the age of six months. And the community in which they live was a farm called the Plantation that was owned first by the persons, the [Wallettes 00:05:43] and McLeans. And after John Wallette died, it was owned a brother, Pleny Wallette. Then that host of experience there was quite prolific for the engagement on the plantation. You had quite a number of Negro workers who were at one time been property owners and therefore been slave owners and through some means or other, when the high water came in 1912 and the land was lost, taken from them, really, they had to suffer under the quails of working for the plantation owner. Worked there at a long time and education was nil for the children. The engagement, no schools, the closest school was about, as I was told, was about five or six miles.	5:24
Matthew Branch Polk	And during the harvesting time or the time before harvesting, the children had the leave school and to go to work. However, I was told at that time, there was also an older teacher. Teachers were teaching for 10 cents a day in an old farmhouse that one of the Negro men had, by the name of Mr. Cross. And when it engaged and he owed $85, he had 85 acres of land. This land was taken from him and all of the engagements of the large farm owners who were around who could not meet their bills had the sign an X and liquidate or give their properties over to the farm owners. A lot of them at that time moved away. They were moving from plantation to plantation to better their conditions. Some of them left. They started going to plantations within the parish and others outside of the parish where now you have Acadiana Mall and all that area. And they continue to go from parish to parish, city to city and to other states.	6:46
Matthew Branch Polk	And as I claim now, most of them have engaged in the field of education. The children who at one time their parents were slave and their parents had to work, but these farmers have become the teachers of some of children of their former masters and slave owners. And they have engaged technically in all of their aspects. The church churches were small, revered, and the ministers at that time, they were purely spiritual, limited in the forms of education. The closest organizations that were built for them were possibly, they call it the benevolent organization, which gave an opportunity for Negroes to be buried. At that time—	8:06
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:09:00].	8:58
Matthew Branch Polk	Buried. At that time, a funeral cost $65. I understand they had to put a saucer, put the person on a cooling board after being dead, put a sauce on his chest and let the people come by and put whatever they had, contribute to bury that person. It was pretty hard for most of them. An organization that was organized by my father and members of that community called the True Friend Benevolent Society, which is being liquidated this year, disorganized, provided for one of the first little buildings for school there in the year of 1923. And that school existed in the little village of Loreauville. The other existing schools were set aside, little one room buildings that were afforded by persons who lived off the plantation, possible distance five and 10 miles away, so it was very hard.	9:00
Matthew Branch Polk	In between the spectrum, you did have on the road to the plantation, White schools at different areas where the children could attend school. One was on the road to Caroline, the other was in the Belle Place area. And then you came to the schools here. And similarly, churches and the Negro schools were operated in certain little churches along the road in Benevolent Hall where one or two teachers group. In the latter years, they began to possibly provide buildings for persons where they would be able to attend school.	10:11
Matthew Branch Polk	Those in the city of New Iberia, we had Howe Institute and Douglas Institute at the time. And from that, the outgrowth of those two institutions went into the public school, which is Iberia Parish Training School. And which later became, as the period grew into the Jonas Henderson High School. And since integration, the schools have been, well, not disorganized, but the names have been changed from the names that they were named after, the Negro principals and other supervisors and parts that were here in this community. That have gone back to the names of streets and what have you. There's only one remaining factor in the [indistinct 00:11:41] of Iberia area that I understand that is still here. And that was the stadium, that was set aside by our first, my first superintendent, Mr. Lloyd G. Porter. And that's the only thing that is left to be identified educationally.	10:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Could you turn it off right now?	11:58
Kate Ellis	I have a bunch of questions. The first is the Iberia Parish Public School you said became, or there was part of that was the, did you say the John B. Henderson? Jones?	11:59
Matthew Branch Polk	No, the school, the high school named Jonas Henderson High School.	12:14
Kate Ellis	Okay. Now, that wouldn't be Mr. J.B. Henderson's father?	12:22
Matthew Branch Polk	That's his father. That was our principal.	12:27
Kate Ellis	Am I right that Mr. J.B. Henderson is a friend of yours?	12:29
Matthew Branch Polk	We were friends. We had about 72 years together.	12:32
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay. So I wanted to make sure I made that. Jonas B. Henderson was your friend Mr. J.B. Henderson's father.	12:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, that's right.	12:42
Kate Ellis	And he was the principal of this high school.	12:44
Matthew Branch Polk	High school, Howe Institute.	12:47
Kate Ellis	Okay. I have lots and lots of questions. So maybe it's in no particular order. Can you tell me more about, I heard a little bit about Howe Institute yesterday for Mrs. Manuel, just that some people boarded there.	12:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	13:07
Kate Ellis	They came from other towns and they boarded there.	13:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	13:10
Kate Ellis	Can you tell me more about the Institute and who it served and who went there and just—	13:11
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	13:20
Kate Ellis	They came from all over?	13:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. When you turn it on, I'll do that.	13:23
Kate Ellis	It's on.	13:24
Matthew Branch Polk	Howe Institute was granted to the Negro public, I guess, under the auspices, the last part, Union District Missionary Baptist Association. And I believe that's when Professor Henderson became engaged in directing that institute.	13:30
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:13:49].	13:46
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Twenties. We had students from all over. That was the only high school between New Orleans and Beaumont, I understand. We had students from the whole area, and I'm sure people would tell you, we had boarding students, girls and boys students. The building was a one frame building, three story high. The brick building was stitched to the building. In the frame building, we had the development of the diner where students ate. The second floor, living quarters for the principal and his wife and some of the students and the members of the faculty. We also had a music room up there to the left. Well, yes, at the left from the track.	13:49
Matthew Branch Polk	We had two classrooms below on the first floor. Then we called it a kitchen and a pantry at the bottom floor of that particular building. And we engaged, at that time, the brick building had an office, an auditorium, classrooms, and second floor for the boarding boys and the second and third floor there. And after a while, the laundry was built in the rear of the building, the large room at the school was between the Southern Pacific Railroad and at that time the Missouri Pacific with Providence Street on the right and Iberia on the left. Engaged with the home and whole house possibly during slavery time was the servant quarters that had been transferred into kind of store room. The principal was very much engaged in flowers, raising chickens, things like that. And his horse for transportation. Cut it off a while.	14:50
Kate Ellis	Please don't worry about repeating yourself, I'm sure everything [indistinct 00:16:11].	16:03
Matthew Branch Polk	The—	16:13
Kate Ellis	Can I ask you a question? I want to just—	16:14
Matthew Branch Polk	Come on.	16:15
Kate Ellis	Again, as you go along, I'm just going to clarify things.	16:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Okay.	16:18
Kate Ellis	I'm sort of slow. But all of that, which you just described, where the faculty was housed, the principal and his wife, the students who were from outside the area, the cafeteria, the music, the classrooms, all was housed in this three story building.	16:20
Matthew Branch Polk	Two buildings.	16:39
Kate Ellis	Two buildings. Okay, the second two—	16:40
Matthew Branch Polk	The brick building and the frame.	16:43
Kate Ellis	Okay. And then the frame, was the frame the one that you said you think might have been old? Did you say it might have been old slave quarters?	16:45
Matthew Branch Polk	The building that was a little living quarters on outside.	16:58
Kate Ellis	Okay.	17:00
Matthew Branch Polk	It's been the home for hospital workers at that day in time.	17:01
Kate Ellis	Okay. So that was sort of converted to, you said, a storage—	17:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Kind of storage room.	17:11
Kate Ellis	I just am amazed that there's so much that was housed in that.	17:14
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Uh-huh.	17:18
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh. Can you tell me—	17:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Go on.	17:22
Kate Ellis	Can you tell me about the teachers and just sort of what you remember about the sort of things that they taught you.	17:22
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. The teachers that we had, they were quite dynamic, fine, and seemed to have been interested in students. I know pay was very limited, but the curriculum was fine, very fine. The only school at that time was not pressured into just going along with the state and providing persons for certain academic procedures as becoming cooks, persons to work on the train and what have you. I understand one time when the state department had seemed to have talked to our principal just about teaching the children simple agriculture and things like that. He refused to have it that way. We had a dual set here where, in the public school system, we had the dual education as it grew, where the curriculums that were so provided as mandated by the state for Negroes as separate as they were. And my experiences was, when I became principal, we had to utilize a lot of time the old books possibly been used for a few years and I don't know if it was in the knowledge of superintendent, but those things that were handled.	17:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Our schools were wholly equipped at that time. And the school that I entered in at the time that I got in, there was just a little five-room school with a small auditorium that was provided for the whole facility. And we grew from that school to utilizing the various four halls in the community. And in that community, we added two teachers to each hall to get the faculty need and we had to have our exercises in the churches and a theater that was provided by a man by the name of Mr. L.C. [Lampore 00:19:48] of Jeanette. We also utilized that facility to raise money projects for our school. In the wintertime, we had stoves that only used coal and wood. In the wintertime, when we'd run out of coal that was provided by the school board, we had to go to a little place called Albania and pick up, cut wood, and bring that in to keep the children warm. When the camps were being regarded around Camp Clayborn, the school board bought a few to complete and start what we call a lunchroom.	19:02
Matthew Branch Polk	From that development, we were able to take care of the children from a few of those facilities. They brought them and placed them on our campus. And we generated. In that early years, our children were only provided with water from a cistern. So we had to have our students, and under the directing of the industrial art teacher who was serving at two schools, Mr. Faulk, we had to run water from Sycamore Street to our school and attach plumbing features in order that we would have water on the campus. The facilities previous were outdoor privies. And when it rained, well, that covered the stench of the whole campus. Campus was very much inadequate. But over the years we had to try to mandate, raise money to equip and qualify the different departments, which were very meager till we were given sometimes some of the things that were possibly provided from the use of other schools.	20:33
Matthew Branch Polk	You can cut it just right now.	21:46
Kate Ellis	Just one quick clarification. When you were just talking about the period of time when you came in as a teacher and worked with others to constantly sort of improve the facilities, was that in the 1930s that that—	21:49
Matthew Branch Polk	It started in the 1930s, to the forties.	22:06
Kate Ellis	What year did you become a teacher?	22:06
Matthew Branch Polk	I started out in the session of '35 and '36.	22:09
Kate Ellis	Okay. I'd just like to sort of put these in sort of chronological order. Can you tell me more about the benevolent organizations like the True Friend Benevolent Society?	22:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	22:30
Kate Ellis	Now, you said that your father helped you out with that?	22:32
Matthew Branch Polk	He was a president.	22:34
Kate Ellis	He was a organizer. And that started in—	22:37
Matthew Branch Polk	1923.	22:37
Kate Ellis	1923. And this was in New Iberia?	22:43
Matthew Branch Polk	That's in Loreauville.	22:45
Kate Ellis	In Loreauville.	22:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Loreauville.	22:45
Kate Ellis	Okay. And so will you tell me more about how it started and about the organization and who it served?	22:47
Matthew Branch Polk	I'm going to try to bring in all of them.	22:58
Kate Ellis	Okay.	23:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Those were the starting point for the Black folk in Iberia Parish, seemingly that every church after that had an organization and that was to provide medicine and the doctors and burials for persons and to assist those who were sick. Now, our organization, I think through this period, came from 1923 and we are disorganizing this year. And I think that's a period of almost 70, 60-some years. So we had them here and Catholics had them in Loreauville that were headed by different persons and almost in every community. Seemingly at that time, we must have had about 50 benevolent societies in the parish.	23:01
Kate Ellis	In what parish?	23:57
Matthew Branch Polk	In this parish. Iberia Parish.	23:58
Kate Ellis	50 benevolent societies—	23:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Societies.	23:59
Kate Ellis	In Iberia Parish?	24:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Iberia Parish.	24:05
Kate Ellis	In this century.	24:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	24:08
Kate Ellis	And this was, the one founded by your father, was one of the first ones?	24:09
Matthew Branch Polk	It was the early ones. And they had a True Friend that we named ours after was a True Friend in Iberia. And the Catholics had one, St. Joseph and they named that after, I'm told, individuals. And we had them various names, Morningstar and all kind of names, as far as that's concerned. Then we grew into fraternities, art fellows, masons and Knights of Pythias and Coats of [indistinct 00:24:43] and Wise and all of those particular persons. Most of these organizations now are dismembered. They have gone down, according to the calamities of the time. Only the Masons and the Knights of Peter Claver. I think in those broad organizations, Iberia Parish still exists. We may have one or two besides one organization in Olevia and the couple in Jeanerette, but they're constantly going down. The young people do not see the need as the ones was sought and was related to help the people in our community. That has made it very hard. They have forgotten the things that really brought their parents over the shoddy roads of time.	24:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Now, within that fixture, the organizations, the prices that, what we call at that time, the prices that they paid as not a donation but as a little fee to take care of that obligation, the cost of doctors and medicine and hospitalization has risen so great till the common person could not afford them. And now, we have entered a new day, the medical day, where at one time to go to the community of Loreauville, a doctor would go there for $2 and the office visit sometime in Iberia was 50 cents and sometime a dollar. And pulling a tooth at that time, which came from 50 cents to a dollar or $2. Now they start at $95. So you see, it's a hard infringement upon the persons, even the persons who have maintained local or better salaries.	25:34
Matthew Branch Polk	And that's one part of the justification where the hospitals, well, undeniable, now, they're high and they're above the course of what the average person can afford. Therefore, we seem to have a lot of suffering and maybe experiences that would mean periods that would be somewhat detrimental to the average person, the day laborer in our community. So I don't know just what the fixation would be. We have a lot of people now who engage in ideas who are disregarding the Clinton's plan. And it's just one [indistinct 00:27:18] thing. Hospitalization now cost you about a thousand dollars a day when you get into them and most persons can't afford it. But I worked for an insurance company at the time, that my father and I worked for. Most of our Black insurance company had gone out of existence in the state. And some of them have been bought by other companies as Atlanta and Universal have purchased some of them.	26:31
Matthew Branch Polk	And now as it is, we have gone into taking part of the larger insurances such as Aetna, Equitable, and some of the others that now exist. But terrifically, it has been a meager and a terrible experience for the Negro persons in this section. Coming onto businesses as we have, we have not had any stable Negro businesses as grocery stores and whatnot. In the early years, we had a little small grocery store and there were about two others in the city. One who had the better grocery store was a man by the name of Ernest Joseph.	27:45
Kate Ellis	Stanis Joseph?	28:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Ernest Joseph. And well, after the years passed, he moved to Chicago with his family. And I understand they have been very productive there. The persons left the south and went to, well, Louisiana, this particular part, the West and to the East. And a lot of them, as I have heard from a lot of them, they have succeeded very well. Can you cut it off for a second?	28:36
Kate Ellis	So how did your father start this Benevolent Society?	29:08
Matthew Branch Polk	By getting the people organized. I think the fee then was 25 cents a month. People came in and they started on the plantation in a old house on the plantation. And then they moved into a church. And after a year or so, they bought the place on Broussard Street and the property, which cost, at that time I think 50 or a hundred dollars on Broussard Street and built a hall and had that hall to be developed into a school, a society hall and a school to serve the people, and that was the beginning. And I'm sure the congregations in the various churches and in the community, they did the same thing.	29:13
Matthew Branch Polk	It was just where men sought to do something for their people. And that's about the thing that I seem to think suffered more prevalently. They took care of the needs to the best of their ability. And after the monthly fee, they also would have a little burial tax, some that were engaged in early years from 25 cents to 50 cents. And as the time grew to $1, but they could not keep up with that for burial purposes started at $65. Now they're two and $3000. Cut it.	30:02
Kate Ellis	Can you tell me, so as far as, you're describing a lot about the ways that Blacks organized schools and society and whatever it took to provide services to one another. So it sounds like there was always somewhere that someone, that a Black person could go if they needed help and the community did its best to try to help. Does that sound right?	30:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, they did their best.	31:26
Kate Ellis	And can you tell me about, well, there's a lot of different questions, a bit more about the stores and services that were owned by Blacks during the earlier times?	31:31
Matthew Branch Polk	Those stores were very small because of purchases that they could not afford the better prices that we had, the like. And they carried such a staple items as the things that were needed and necessary for the community. At least by that time you only had two things possibly in cans, sardines and tomatoes. So from that on, all of the other staple foods were carried in blocks and in bins where you had to serve persons from. That which you have today, millions of articles, products on the market, on the shelves were very limited and finances were poor. And the interest from those finances and income, very limited. Credit was a terrible thing, 'cause most of the people earning 50 cents a day could not meet the payments for the food that they had to eat—	31:50
Kate Ellis	That you would pay the White people?	32:57
Matthew Branch Polk	That you had to eat. Now the White man was able to carry the credit a little better. And then, really, my experience was they strove to pay their indebtedness to the White man before they paid the Negro. And when insurances prevailed, that seemed to be the same thing. As an insurance agent, I would encounter where I would be asked to come back on certain days. But they always saw that the White man received his payment from insurances, the agent, when he came to the home.	33:01
Kate Ellis	Why is that?	33:37
Matthew Branch Polk	I don't know. It might have been just a peculiar fear that was imposed upon them from the slave born purposes, see?	33:38
Kate Ellis	Right. You don't want to owe something to the White man.	33:53
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. So those are things that were like, because at that particular time, the demands were so if a fellow worked on a plantation and he owed something at the end of the year, he could be kept for the following year. He wouldn't be free to leave unless that demand was met, unless he ran away at night or any time or took his family away unknown to the boss. And those were the things that happened. Before starting, would you cut it off a second?	33:58
Kate Ellis	Okay.	34:37
Matthew Branch Polk	And as far as I understand, before my time, I was told that when the political organization that my father told me, and they planned the first riot that they had between the Republicans and the Democrats was in the little community of Loreauville. And it was because of the politician, those who demanded that they weren't, the votes for the Republicans or those for the Democrats. And that started a stigma. And coming up to the political issues in the early years before we were able to vote, that was a terrible period. And in the year '34, a few of us voted. We were from the Leland College. Well, it was open under Huey Long, all over the state where Negroes were given privileges to vote. And at this time, they stated about every man being a king. We registered several of us in the city hall in Baton Rouge in 1934. But before the performance of our activities of engaging in voting, that is in the year of '54. It took 20 years to come along with that particular thing.	34:39
Matthew Branch Polk	A lot of persons who were registered and the like were reprimanded for doing so at certain instances. They could not come out and voice their sentiments. I remember one time [indistinct 00:36:12] and raised our voice about it, he said, "It's coming, but don't rush it." So it came and when I went in and [indistinct 00:36:26] in '54, my card was already there. I was about the 15th of the line. And his son put it on the table. "Polk, there it is." And we had an organization in the state of Louisiana, Louisiana Colored Teachers Organization and they did much under the, of our committee, which we had 17 persons in the executive department and the direction of a leader, president at the time, and executive director J.K. Haynes, who took a great part in trying to educate our persons.	35:59
Matthew Branch Polk	And along with that, we had the help of Thurgood Marshall and the New Orleans lawyer, Mr. A.P. Tureaud, and the other boy who worked with him, a young man who came out. So that gave us sufficient evidence to go out and try to do the best that we could.	37:05
Kate Ellis	As far as registering?	37:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Registering and perpetuating, trying to get the vote established in Louisiana. And those members of the Masonic Order who cooperate very much John G. Lewis, who was our chief captain in the state, a director and ably assisted by members of the National Association for Advancement of Colored People. So that spread has come. But even with that, we've had a lot of trouble. A lot of men who had to meet the challenge and a lot of them who were really, well, disregarded as human beings for such an intervention. It has been an experience that sometimes could have been settled, the thing, just as human rights. There were times when court experiences were, well as such, in that time you seemed to have, there was little justice rendered in the courts as far as the communication between the two races. And whatever was given, handed down to you had to just be as it was. Some incidents were almost unbearable.	37:36
Kate Ellis	[indistinct 00:39:02]	38:58
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. My experience was that at one time, young Negro girl was raped by a White fella. And in that deliberation, they proved in the courthouse that that girl had no business on the street that time of night. And we've had others to happen here in Iberia. In 1944, we had a little trouble here where all of the, well, there seemed to have been professional engagement because of disturbances that were arisen in the community. And we had a few doctors here, Negro doctors, dentists, and leaders. And because that was just prior or during World War II, provisions had been provided through the federal government for building establishments to train men to meet the demands of that war. Well, the provisions there for the Negro was thrown into Robertson Street, a small outlay where it was formerly a grits mill and a place to taking care of horseshoes. And the teacher just to teach them welding where the provisions were training built on another campus for the White boys, which gave them a lot of advantages.	39:01
Matthew Branch Polk	After that part, it became somewhat, as a trend came in, the Negroes were beaten, rushed upon and taken out of town. They were, first, the leader. He was at that time, the director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.	40:35
Kate Ellis	His name was?	41:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Leo Hardy. He was caught up on the street, beaten and rushed out of town. Then started to going around to invade, taking out—Now there was a Dr. Williams, we had, that has happened to him first. Dr. Pearson. And however, mandated had about 53, I understand. And one of the teachers, Mr. Faulk. And that's about as far as it went at that particular time with the engagement that they were supposed to get what they thought at that time, I think, the leading professional Negroes out of the community who seemed to have engaged in [indistinct 00:41:45]. But by the time that happened and the Negroes got prepared, they thought, and they were invited to come in, they ceased. That was under the sheriff of that particular time who headed the group, I understand.	41:01
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry. I'm not sure that—	42:00
Matthew Branch Polk	The group that headed there. It wasn't the Ku Klux Klan attacked it, but it seemed to have a raiders group to destroy the Negro leaders in the community.	42:02
Kate Ellis	Do you know who was in that? Was the sheriff part of that?	42:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, the sheriff of New Iberia led the group, I understand, Mr. [indistinct 00:42:24].	42:20
Kate Ellis	Were these men friends of yours who were run out of town?	42:28
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. They were friends and leaders of ours in New Iberia. They were doctors and leaders who helped to build the community. And they seemed to have been successful going from one end of things, building the community up. And they seemed to have thought that that was an intrusion upon the White man's leadership, similar to me. It was a fact that those things really apprehended our success. And since that time, it has been impossible for us to get Negro doctors to come back to the community to serve.	42:31
Kate Ellis	They wouldn't [indistinct 00:43:11].	43:09
Matthew Branch Polk	No. We have had a lot to finish. But during those years, we had Dr. Diggs who came and he worked, and then a lady doctor came and several came to work for a while, but they got discouraged and left right out. The lady doctor came and she had some trouble with them and she left and she had been away, been cut off a while.	43:12
Kate Ellis	I've heard a little bit about that incident in 1944. It really scarred—	43:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	43:48
Kate Ellis	—the Black community as it was intended to do by the Whites who carried it out. How did you respond at the time? How did you—	43:48
Matthew Branch Polk	At that particular time, I think, at the time, I was supposed to be one of the number two. My father was sick and Dr. Dorsey was the fellow who attended him. And at the time he was leaving, he came by tell us goodbye. And my father died during that period of May 21st, 1944. And it was alleged that a few more were to go, but at that time, it had subsided and some of the folk had kind of organized for whatever would come, live or die on circumstances.	44:02
Kate Ellis	Really? You mean, they'd organized?	44:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Fellas had to decide to protect themselves. So that kind of ceased it. And many other incidents happened where Negroes were shot, killed and what have you. It was kind of rough for certain things and the motives of moving up.	44:44
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	45:07
Matthew Branch Polk	And the motives of moving up, and therefore, to get a chance, as the education improved, we had to kind of go out and get it and to seek to do the things, people. I remember that when school buses were given to—White provided for Whites a long time. Negros had to walk these miles to the school that they had to attend. I transported the teachers and then the students after I became principal, starting from one, my cousin, Henry, in Iberia and picking them up. I bought an old bus and transported the teachers, left them at their legal destiny where they had taught in the little churches along the road and what have you and to the other schools in the parish and started the children from the [Olevia 00:46:13] area through the Little Woods area and [Herbertville 00:46:20] and took them to school. And from that, many of the students have graduated and many have retired.	45:08
Matthew Branch Polk	They have gone on to various colleges and they've assessed themselves as men and women. But when the time came for school, for buses, it was a long time after that that buses were provided for Negro children. And if they were to receive an education, they had to go to the school for a second or third grade, right in that community. You can cut it for a second.	46:25

Kate Ellis	You bought a bus, you as a principal.	0:05
Matthew Branch Polk	I bought a—	0:06
Kate Ellis	What year did you become principal?	0:06
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, session of a '37, '38.	0:09
Kate Ellis	So you became a principal almost right after you became a teacher?	0:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Yeah.	0:16
Kate Ellis	Would you tell me again the name of the school at the time that you became principal?	0:20
Matthew Branch Polk	Jeanerette Colored Elementary School. Okay.	0:23
Kate Ellis	Okay. So when did you buy the bus?	0:26
Matthew Branch Polk	I bought the bus in the year I provided first an old truck-like bus that was almost out of existence. And that bus, we had a size of a tapering cloth to protect the rains off the students. One of the men who owned it before was, well, a student that I taught from Loreauville at Iberia Parish Training School. And he sold me that truck bus for $50.	0:30
Kate Ellis	Really?	1:02
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. So I kept it going with the little experience I had and picked him up. And then after that I bought the Loreauville bus, Loreauville High School bus from the principal there, Mr. Freeman. And that he sold that bus to me for $500, which took me three years to pay. And so I engaged in transferring the student, that bus served for taking the children to school, taking the persons from here to the rural church.	1:03
Matthew Branch Polk	And my church is in Loreauville, Mount Zion Baptist Church, the family church, Polk's Church. And taking the people of Iberia Parish to different associations and possibly to teachers too. When I left, first got into it, took them to it. We organized Louisiana Colored Education Association, which has grown from that to what is now the LAE of Louisiana.	1:37
Kate Ellis	Louisiana Association—	2:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Of Educators.	2:07
Kate Ellis	Wow.	2:08
Matthew Branch Polk	And one of my students became the first president of that association, it was so good to him so he stayed and he's the lobbyist now. Lawrence Narcisse.	2:09
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, what?	2:20
Matthew Branch Polk	The name is Lawrence Narcisse.	2:21
Kate Ellis	So the year that you bought the bus, was that in the early '40s?	2:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, it was. It was just living in the beginning of the '40s.	2:28
Kate Ellis	Okay. I think that's incredible that you did that.	2:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, the persons were suffering. You passed along the highway. The people and the plantations were getting 50 cents a day, 75 cents a day. And their children could not go to school. And I think it was just out of humanitarian concept to get them going.	2:40
Kate Ellis	You would pick up the students on the plantations?	2:59
Matthew Branch Polk	On the plantations all the way through. And one started with me from here, my little first cousin, she wanted to finish at that school and she finished. My school area at that time covered—There were no school buses from a place we called Sorrel, Jeanerette. Sorrel, Patoutville, Four Corners in St. Mary Parish and what we call the Grand Marais area and part of the Olivier area. So after you've received buses, they start breaking the district down and sending most of them to New Iberia. That's the issue of our group.	3:02
Kate Ellis	And when they said they were sending them to New Iberia, that was the Howe Institute?	3:51
Matthew Branch Polk	No, at that time it started with the school. The New Iberia High School. New Iberia High School, which is the new school way on the end. Since that time we built a good number of schools at the point of integration. Yeah, unless you have a question. You cut it for a minute.	3:56
Kate Ellis	This is Kate Ellis back with Mr. Matthew Polk. It's now July 26th, I think. And we're here for the second part of the interview and we're going to start by filling out the family history form. And would you just state your name? Mr. Polk.	4:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Matthew Branch Polk.	4:41
Kate Ellis	Okay. So Mr. Polk, your middle name is, what is your middle name?	4:43
Matthew Branch Polk	Branch.	4:50
Kate Ellis	Can you spell that?	4:51
Matthew Branch Polk	B-R-A-N-C-H.	4:52
Kate Ellis	And you were born on May 21st, 19—	4:58
Matthew Branch Polk	'12.	5:02
Kate Ellis	In New Iberia.	5:09
Matthew Branch Polk	New Iberia.	5:11
Kate Ellis	Okay, which is Iberia County.	5:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Parish.	5:14
Kate Ellis	Parish, okay.	5:16
Matthew Branch Polk	French.	5:16
Kate Ellis	Okay. And your principal occupation has been, school principal?	5:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Education school principal, high school principal.	5:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. For written documents. How would you like your name to appear?	5:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Just as it is.	5:51
Kate Ellis	Okay, so Matthew Branch Polk.	5:52
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	6:00
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay. And all right, your wife's full name? First, middle, last.	6:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Edith Bijou Polk.	6:18
Kate Ellis	Could you spell Bijou?	6:21
Matthew Branch Polk	E-D-I.	6:23
Kate Ellis	Bijou.	6:23
Matthew Branch Polk	Bijou? B-I-J-O-U.	6:23
Kate Ellis	B-I-J-O-U, Polk. And is her maiden name Bijou?	6:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	6:39
Kate Ellis	Okay, and her date of birth?	6:41
Matthew Branch Polk	What's your date of birth? Oh, it's the 5th 1917, yeah.	6:42
Edith Bijou Polk	August the 5th—	6:42
Matthew Branch Polk	1917.	6:42
Edith Bijou Polk	—1917.	6:42
Kate Ellis	So you've got a birthday coming up?	6:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, yeah.	6:42
Edith Bijou Polk	Yes, 77.	6:43
Kate Ellis	All right. Congratulations.	6:43
Edith Bijou Polk	Soon I'll be 77. Thank you. Oh, yeah.	6:44
Kate Ellis	Where were you born? In New Iberia?	7:01
Edith Bijou Polk	Right here. [indistinct 00:07:04].	7:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Mm-hmm, in this house.	7:03
Kate Ellis	All right. Now you were born in the house?	7:04
Edith Bijou Polk	Right here, well you know, they didn't have—	7:04
Kate Ellis	Yeah, right.	7:06
Edith Bijou Polk	—hospitals.	7:11
Kate Ellis	They didn't have hospitals.	7:11
Edith Bijou Polk	Uh-uh, they had to come with a [indistinct 00:07:14].	7:13
Kate Ellis	You had a midwife.	7:15
Edith Bijou Polk	Midwife. And then they had to get a doctor for me. Dr. King was mine.	7:17
Kate Ellis	Dr. King. Were there complications? Is that why they had to get a doctor?	7:22
Edith Bijou Polk	Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.	7:24
Kate Ellis	And your occupation has been?	7:27
Edith Bijou Polk	Hm? I've been a nurse, a licensed practical nurse. And then I went back to school, got my masters, and I taught school for 30 years.	7:31
Kate Ellis	Wow, what did you teach?	7:41
Edith Bijou Polk	A first grade teacher [indistinct 00:07:49].	7:47
Kate Ellis	The first grade. Okay.	7:51
Edith Bijou Polk	That's my life. They're good children.	7:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. Mr. Polk, what was your mother's full name?	7:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Marie Z Mitchell Polk.	8:02
Kate Ellis	So her maiden name was Mitchell?	8:08
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	8:09
Kate Ellis	What does the Z stand for?	8:11
Matthew Branch Polk	Zowie.	8:13
Kate Ellis	Oh, now do I spell that, Z-O-E?	8:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Z-O-W-I-E.	8:17
Kate Ellis	Z-O-W-I-E, okay, Polk. And do you know her date of birth?	8:18
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. September. Let's see the what date now? 4th, 1918—Not 19, 1894.	8:26
Kate Ellis	And when did she pass?	8:43
Matthew Branch Polk	1975.	8:47
Kate Ellis	And where was she born?	8:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Community of Loreauville.	8:55
Kate Ellis	Which is still Iberia Parish?	9:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Iberia Parish.	9:02
Kate Ellis	And her occupation?	9:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Housewife.	9:12
Kate Ellis	Okay.	9:12
Matthew Branch Polk	And associational worker.	9:12
Kate Ellis	Associational worker?	9:12
Matthew Branch Polk	Worker. Yeah, that was just a almost missionary, church business.	9:26
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Associational worker. It's like, okay. Because your father, was he a preacher? Oh, because this—	9:35
Matthew Branch Polk	He became a minister? Yes, Reverend Branch Polk.	9:46
Kate Ellis	Was that his? He was a minister. Did he have another occupation?	9:46
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, first he was a laborer first, a farm laborer.	9:49
Kate Ellis	Farm laborer.	9:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Mm-hmm, then an insurance man and a minister.	9:59
Kate Ellis	All right.	10:01
Edith Bijou Polk	Insurance agent.	10:01
Kate Ellis	Insurance agent?	10:05
Edith Bijou Polk	Mm-hmm.	10:10
Kate Ellis	So he started out as a farm laborer.	10:10
Edith Bijou Polk	That's right.	10:12
Kate Ellis	Now, and pardon me if I asked you this—	10:12
Edith Bijou Polk	That's all right.	10:15
Kate Ellis	—last week, I don't remember if I did. Did he own his own land or was he—No, he was a sharecropper.	10:19
Matthew Branch Polk	No, well, the family owned property at first, but then they worked for on the plantation, plantation worker.	10:24
Kate Ellis	Which plantation did they work on?	10:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Caroline Plantation, Loreauville, Louisiana.	10:34
Kate Ellis	Caroline Plantation?	10:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Mm-hmm.	10:37
Kate Ellis	Where was Caroline Plantation?	10:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Back of Loreauville where you were the other day, owned by the Kleins and Walets.	10:43
Edith Bijou Polk	[indistinct 00:10:51].	10:46
Kate Ellis	By the Walets and—	10:56
Matthew Branch Polk	Klein. And Kleins, K-L-E-I-N-S.	10:56
Kate Ellis	K-L—	10:56
Matthew Branch Polk	E-I-N-S.	10:56
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. So those were the owners?	11:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh.	11:03
Kate Ellis	Okay. Okay, I'm going to ask you something about that a bit later. So your father's full name was—	11:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Branch Polk.	11:17
Kate Ellis	His first name was Branch.	11:17
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	11:20
Kate Ellis	Okay, did he have a middle name?	11:20
Matthew Branch Polk	No, not at all.	11:20
Kate Ellis	Okay. And his date of birth?	11:27
Matthew Branch Polk	I'll have to get that. See, yeah, I'll let you take this over.	11:32
Kate Ellis	So when you go to gather a family reunion, it sounds like it's a major production.	11:35
Matthew Branch Polk	It is. It started out about 12 years ago, getting it together and it's a major production. We do have listings about committees. We have from the generations down, you see, great-grandfather and all down, it's quite a problem.	11:42
Kate Ellis	Problem?	12:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, to get together. I'm working on one now on my mother's side. And that's a problem to get people to be receptive and to answer letter notes and what have you. Those are big problems. Yeah. Yeah, you're working with people of different categories and it's kind of tough.	12:04
Kate Ellis	Different categories?	12:24
Matthew Branch Polk	I mean educational factors, they're concerned. Some can and some can't. And then some just lazy. That's all. It's kind of rough. I've tried to do that to the best of my ability.	12:26
Kate Ellis	It seems like it's really important to you to keep your family together. Yes. Your extended family and to sort of keep, I don't know, to have as much information about—	12:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, it was my father, he used to try to do that. He wasn't a very scholarly person at that time, but he maintained the interest of keeping a record of all of those who came along. Because at Christmastime we always met on the plantation at my grandmother's house.	12:55
Kate Ellis	At which plantation?	13:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Caroline?	13:17
Kate Ellis	On Caroline Plantation?	13:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Caroline Plantation.	13:17
Kate Ellis	That was the-	13:19
Matthew Branch Polk	The mainstay after they had lost their home and they were at the place we call the Lodge. That's where all the Polks were first settled.	13:22
Kate Ellis	The Lodge?	13:34
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, we called it the Lodge, where they were settled after they came from the Carolinas and Tennessee. Yeah. So...	13:34
Kate Ellis	When did they come from—Well, first, the Lodge. The lodge itself was on the plantation?	13:43
Matthew Branch Polk	That's a separate plantation that was owned by various members of the family and possibly ex-slave groups in the land grant situation. And a time came and working without money and not in a position to get money, they lost their place. And then they had to go to the plantation.	13:48
Kate Ellis	To the Carolina Plantation?	14:16
Matthew Branch Polk	To work for the bosses, yeah.	14:17
Kate Ellis	Was the Lodge in Loreauville?	14:20
Matthew Branch Polk	It is in the area of Loreauville, just about five miles from Caroline Plantation. It's just a section they call the Lodge because all the folk who lived there was of the minority group. They owned land and they were farmers. And as I said the other day, when the high water came and they lost their homes and their production was low and finances. So they had to go somewhere where they could make a living, a method of survival.	14:23
Matthew Branch Polk	And that was tough, because they had to leave there and try to go to other areas. That's when my father started and he came, started moving away from the plantation. Because he told me at one time that his father had 12 boys. They worked in the swamps and everywhere to maintain their livelihood. And when any of you here came, they settled with the boys. He just tell them that he owed a hundred dollars for each boy, $1,200 a year. So he was the first one to leave as now, well, a lot of them, you see, had migrated away from the place.	15:00
Kate Ellis	Now, migrated away from the Caroline—	15:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Caroline—	15:43
Kate Ellis	—Plantation?	15:43
Matthew Branch Polk	—and he started working his way to New Iberia. That's where my mother was, formerly of Loreauville, but they met and they married there across in Brooklyn.	15:46
Kate Ellis	In Brooklyn. Which is that little section of New Iberia—	15:57
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	16:01
Edith Bijou Polk	Mm-hmm.	16:01
Kate Ellis	—that you were born in?	16:01
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	16:02
Kate Ellis	Which is across the bayou.	16:02
Matthew Branch Polk	Across the bayou, yeah.	16:02
Kate Ellis	Now, just to get the sense of the time of this, your father left the Caroline Plantation around what year, or?	16:12
Matthew Branch Polk	It must have been somewhere around 1911, I guess it.	16:17
Kate Ellis	Okay, around 1911. And worked his way to New Iberia?	16:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. On the different farms as he came.	16:28
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay.	16:32
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, he used to tell me about them.	16:32
Kate Ellis	And just basically trying to work so that he wouldn't be put into debt—	16:34
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah—	16:44
Kate Ellis	—[indistinct 00:16:44] a sharecropper.	16:44
Matthew Branch Polk	—that's right. He became independent on his own. And after that, as he established himself, they maintained the family church and the organizations that he was interested in, his community and his people. He went back and there was an old man by the name of, well we called him, Breneau, but he—	16:44
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, just—	17:01
Matthew Branch Polk	We called him Breneau, B-R-E-N-E-A-U. He was about the only fellow out there who could read a little and served as a local minister and kind of leader with the people	17:06
Kate Ellis	In Loreauville?	17:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh, and he became interested in my father and had him to be president of various organizations and through splits. And then my father organized one to maintain this particular thing, the True Friend Benevolent Association that I told you about.	17:22
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	17:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	17:37
Kate Ellis	Now can I just, when you say he got your father to be the president of various—	17:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Organizations.	17:42
Kate Ellis	—organizations. What kind of organizations?	17:45
Matthew Branch Polk	They were benevolent societies to help take care of people. They grew out of the church. The first one was the Old Union.	17:48
Kate Ellis	It was called Old Union?	17:55
Matthew Branch Polk	Old Union Benevolent Society. And then after there became a little rumor-	17:57
Kate Ellis	What was it called?	18:07
Matthew Branch Polk	A little rumor that they could not get along. So he established the one that called a True Friend Benevolent Society.	18:10
Kate Ellis	Okay. That—	18:19
Matthew Branch Polk	And that was in 1923. And we were dissolving it this year, 1994. We—	18:21
Kate Ellis	Why is it dissolving?	18:26
Matthew Branch Polk	The membership grew small and was not able to take care of itself. Time and conditions changed because of financial reasons. At that time, the doctors could go take care of the people. Say, they had doctors who would go all the way to Loreauville for $2 and they'd come to the office. A dollar office because medicine was cheap and the monthly dues, as we call it, was low. And the people did not increase the amount, the financial payments to meet the demands of the present day society.	18:27
Kate Ellis	I see. Mm-hmm.	19:08
Matthew Branch Polk	So medicine and doctor, the visit for doctors and this price of medicine became too high. And therefore acknowledged that we could not take care of it.	19:09
Kate Ellis	And now people pay into insurance policies?	19:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, they some into insurance policies. And well, that too is kind of out of whack with most people, the local people. Because they don't have enough money—	19:23
Kate Ellis	To pay for insurance.	19:35
Matthew Branch Polk	—to pay, yes. You see, a Negro began as an insurance agent for a while, my father and myself, after that, the premiums were low and the remuneration from the premiums were not high. See when persons had premiums as low as 25 cents a quarter, we call it. And some had additional means programs, insurance companies starting with life programs for three pennies, three cents. And we went on and up to 50 cents.	19:37
Matthew Branch Polk	And the money from that, it wasn't much on the policies. So when we began to get in, but the other insurance agencies split up and made it a bit solid as it is now. But as that has grown, the premiums on these present day insurances has outgrown the capacity of the persons who are able to take care of them. That way it has too much security with the people who are establishing insurance companies now. How the school board and others offer very fine reasons for which you can be accepted. And that's the best premiums I think, that are appealable.	20:12
Matthew Branch Polk	And otherwise, if a person doesn't have a fair income, he can't sustain a beneficial insurance. The social security system came in and that provided a lot of help for people in the early years. Before the Roosevelt time, people did not have social security. People were working for, I remember, 50 cents a day and 75 cents. And when they worked for a dollar a day, that was pretty good money. So we had to cut rice, where I started, I had, for sometimes—	21:00
Kate Ellis	Cut rice?	21:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Cut rice, yeah, with the sickle at $3 and a half an acre. And an acre of rice, it'd take one man about a week to cut an acre of rice.	21:39
Kate Ellis	Oh my gosh.	21:50
Matthew Branch Polk	So we used to cut rice in groups and split the money. And working the cane field was approximately 50 cents a ton. And that's just by hand. And—	21:51
Kate Ellis	50 cents a ton?	22:02
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. 50 cents a ton. And the dollar, as you see those canes out there—	22:04
Kate Ellis	That's amazing.	22:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. It was pretty rough. Cotton picking in this area too was pretty good, long years ago. But cotton has outdated itself here. Corn and vegetables and what have you. And most of these things have gone to other areas of the country. And sugar cane has become possibly the most valuable crop here. And rice in sections—	22:09
Kate Ellis	Rice?	22:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Rice, and then—	22:40
Kate Ellis	Still here.	22:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. Rice, we still have some rice here. And the oldest rice mill, I think, in the United States is the one that my father and the fellows worked in that was built in 1912.	22:41
Kate Ellis	Which rice mill?	22:53
Matthew Branch Polk	That's Conrad, Konriko, yeah.	22:54
Kate Ellis	So your father worked there	22:58
Matthew Branch Polk	21 years, he worked there 21 years. He served as water attendant and was a mill service man, getting the rice together, coding it and what have you.	23:02
Kate Ellis	He did that. Now, was that after he left Caroline Plantation?	23:18
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, yes. All of that was when he came to New Iberia. He first worked with persons on different—a little farm. I remember the Trotter place that he told me he worked on. And then he went into this. That was an old man, we feel to believe he was at one time, I think they came from the Netherlands and he settled here. There were many settlers in that area. As you see, this particular, all the growth of this city going on your way to Loreauville as soon as you got out onto Perry Avenue, leaving out all the way, that was a rice field. All the way from where the population is so heavy.	23:19
Kate Ellis	Wait, could you say the name of the—Which avenue?	24:04
Matthew Branch Polk	The Perry. Did y'all go out that way to Loreauville?	24:09
Kate Ellis	Maybe we did and I wasn't sure.	24:12
Matthew Branch Polk	I see, we didn't know it.	24:13
Kate Ellis	And that was—	24:13
Matthew Branch Polk	All the area from there to Lewis Street where Dauterive Hospital is, the present hospital was a rice field. You see?	24:18
Kate Ellis	And that was in the '20s?	24:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, in the '20s and '30s. All the end of the first bridge that you go across New Iberia to the second bridge up on what we would call the extension of Jefferson Street cross the bayou, where is now the oasis. That was a plantation.	24:32
Kate Ellis	The oasis was?	24:45
Matthew Branch Polk	All of that, where that place is. That was a plantation.	24:47
Kate Ellis	And that was a rice plantation?	24:49
Matthew Branch Polk	No, that was a sugarcane plantation owned by the Indests at first.	24:51
Kate Ellis	By the who?	24:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Indest.	24:54
Kate Ellis	Oh.	24:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Indest family.	24:54
Kate Ellis	I-N-D-E-S-T, okay.	24:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh. And after that, the mayor, Mayor Allen Daigre. Allen Daigre. And that Joe Daigre, his father, owned it. And it came into the possession of the Daigre family.	24:54
Kate Ellis	Daigre?	25:14
Matthew Branch Polk	Mm-hmm. That's how he began building so many bridges in New Iberia. We started with one at the Perry inlet. Now we have bridges, from here to Olivier, five bridges. The city has grown tremendously.	25:14
Kate Ellis	That was from the mayor. Did—	25:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Well he started out and the other mayors completed. It's just as Huey Long started out, when you had no bridges in Louisiana, you crossed Mississippi River and all places by ferries. That's the only way you could get to New Orleans in Morgan City and Baton Rouge we had ferries. And when Huey Long came upon the program, he first built the bridge in New Orleans, then in Baton Rouge. And now since that time we have a good number of them in Louisiana.	25:41
Kate Ellis	What did you think of Huey Long?	26:07
Matthew Branch Polk	I thought he was a great man. He was a great man. Served at times, that's when we began to vote, register in 1934 under his administration. I had the privilege here when he came to New Iberia on a Sunday. I was in the town at the time. And he spoke at the gymnasium, Bahon Gymnasium, which was the high school.	26:11
Kate Ellis	So which gymnasium?	26:40
Matthew Branch Polk	B-A-H-O-N, Bahon, which was the high school. And no Negroes before that time had had a chance other than work around there, had an opportunity to go in that gymnasium. And I remember clearly that day when he came to New Iberia, he parked his wagon and his cars and on Main Street by the old courthouse, which was a very beautiful thing, monumental, somewhat like St. Martinville.	26:40
Matthew Branch Polk	And he walked over to the place. And when folk followed him there, he invited him to come in. And I happened to have been in the crowd. He came to the door and told all of us to come in. Because the gymnasium was a part for all people. And that's when he instituted the idea of every man a king. And I know the cities were, they were angry with him. And he lived longer than I thought he would have, the way the people were.	27:09
Kate Ellis	Because—	27:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Because he was trying to enforce a rule where there would be a bit of equity and a bit of better financial reasons for people. And when he was governor, the taxes were not so high and the automobile licenses were $3. He built the bridges and built the state capital and the highways and still had money.	27:41
Matthew Branch Polk	But now the taxes are high and the automobile license and everything else high. And you can't maintain anything to stay. So it's something to look at, I think, to see just where the management and the people of Louisiana hated him for that reason. But I've seen since there in their reluctancy, they miss him. They miss his contribution to Louisiana and the way he did it.	28:09
Kate Ellis	You mean Whites miss him?	28:39
Matthew Branch Polk	The people.	28:39
Kate Ellis	The people, yeah.	28:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Black people, White and everyone. So I remember when they announced we had no televisions. It was the radio. And when they announced that he was shot, Louisiana was in sorrow. I doubt there were many people who didn't shed a tear. He had done so much for them, so much, bringing them out of darkness and providing things for the land, for the people. And it was rough. And the idea, I think he became hated because he said, "Every man a king." We had a song by that nature.	28:42
Matthew Branch Polk	And I had a chance to pass by his home many times. Out at Jonesboro where he lived, the little wooden white house. And he and his brother, Earl, and the rest of the family. So education began to expand at that time. When we were in school, we had to buy our books. I've never had an opportunity to have a free book. We had to buy our books. There were three places here in New Iberia that sold books. The Estorge Drugstore, the Conn's—	29:25
Kate Ellis	The what drugstore?	30:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Estorge, E-S-T-O-R-G-E. Estorge Drugstore.	30:01
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	30:01
Matthew Branch Polk	The Conn's Drugstore.	30:04
Kate Ellis	Conn's Drugstore.	30:13
Matthew Branch Polk	And the Taylor's Drugstore. And if you weren't able to buy a book at that time, you received none, an education. So that started out. But when he came along on the scene, he maintained that, so that everybody was provided. The books were given to persons. Now, regardless that some of them weren't fairly distributed. The books, as I observed in my principalship years, the Negroes got the worn out books first. And then after that we had to do a little clamoring and start getting the use of the free books and the new books because the situation was terrible.	30:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Sometime you'd get a good one or the book sometimes the pages were all scratched up and the like, and the name of the person in them. And that's what was distributed to most of the Negro schools. And that enhanced to keep the curriculum back a little, and it was pretty hard to keep up. But the persons who I'd say interested in that journey could afford a book, bought them during my day and time. That was very serious. And I guess that's the reason many persons in that day and time did not get a chance to maintain or get an education. But yeah.	31:07
Kate Ellis	In the '30s and '40s.	31:52
Matthew Branch Polk	In the '20s. In '30s, they're coming up.	31:56
Kate Ellis	Because they had access to books?	31:56
Matthew Branch Polk	Books and facilities and the like, fees, those who attended the private school. Here, the school that my mother attended at that was a private school.	32:02
Kate Ellis	Which was that school?	32:08
Matthew Branch Polk	It was the Daisy and Mamie Robinson School.	32:08
Kate Ellis	Was it that the—	32:09
Matthew Branch Polk	Daisy Robinson and Mamie Robinson. They were teachers and they had a private school. And I guess those school operated on about 5 cents a day per student.	32:18
Kate Ellis	And that was your mother's-	32:33
Matthew Branch Polk	School, yeah. She had an opportunity to go through that school to the seventh grade.	32:37
Kate Ellis	She went to school?	32:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, in seventh grade at that time.	32:42
Kate Ellis	That was in—	32:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Near Iberia on Iberia Street.	32:46
Kate Ellis	How long was that school open?	32:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I guess it must have been possibly, I don't know how long, but it closed somewhere in the '20s. Yes, it closed in the '20s.	32:52
Kate Ellis	Now that's not the school that then became-	33:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Howe Institute?	33:11
Kate Ellis	—the Howe Institute?	33:11
Matthew Branch Polk	No, uh-uh. That's just in the home.	33:11
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	33:15
Matthew Branch Polk	That was in the home, like yeah, with a room.	33:15
Kate Ellis	Which, the Daisy—The Robinson school was in—	33:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, that's right.	33:17
Kate Ellis	—a home?	33:18
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	33:22
Kate Ellis	That's your people?	33:23
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. That's it.	33:24
Edith Bijou Polk	Was my father's aunt.	33:27
Kate Ellis	Your father's aunt went to that school?	33:28
Edith Bijou Polk	They had the school.	33:29
Kate Ellis	Oh, had the school.	33:29
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	33:31
Kate Ellis	Okay. Well we'll have to get that.	33:32
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, she'll get that when you—	33:35
Kate Ellis	We'll have to get that part of your—	33:36
Matthew Branch Polk	—get to her.	33:36
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	33:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	33:36
Kate Ellis	So I can see how well these—	33:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	33:40
Kate Ellis	—two histories are going to complement—	33:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Well we'll see how they-	33:43
Kate Ellis	—each other. Huh.	33:43
Matthew Branch Polk	And that's it, yeah.	33:43
Kate Ellis	All right. Let me go back to a number of things that you've said so far.	33:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Okay.	33:52
Kate Ellis	When Mr. Long came to town, and it sounds like that was a really significant event.	34:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Very much so.	34:07
Kate Ellis	What kind of repercussions were there, say, among Whites? I mean, that must have created quite a ripple when he left.	34:09
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I don't know how much created after he left, but on that day poor White folk and Negroes attended that meeting in the gymnasium that time, in the Bahon Gymnasium. But I didn't see any of the—And I used to keep up with the officials of the community, policemans and sheriff and whatnot. I didn't see any of them there at that time. So that means that nobody really were interested in his coming to town. His program was too highly proposed for people and seemingly on the line of benefiting and making life real for human beings. So I don't think they would concur with that at the time.	34:25
Kate Ellis	So they just stayed away from the meetings?	35:12
Matthew Branch Polk	That's it. Yes.	35:14
Kate Ellis	They didn't—	35:19
Matthew Branch Polk	There was no calamities, no fights or anything. It was just as is, The Kingfish was in town. That's all it was. Yeah.	35:21
Kate Ellis	Another question I have about that, I need to pause just a second. You mentioned a little while ago that for a long time there wasn't anything like social security or anything like that for poor people, for workers.	35:43
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, nobody. Mm-hmm.	35:56
Kate Ellis	Do you remember what it was like when—	35:58
Matthew Branch Polk	During that time?	36:01
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	36:01
Matthew Branch Polk	You didn't have any—	36:01
Kate Ellis	Well actually, when social security and that sort of thing started to come in?	36:03
Matthew Branch Polk	It came in during the Roosevelt Administration. Before that time, everybody was on his own regardless to whatever the situation was. And it happened in the area of social security. A lot of people who did not get it before Roosevelt time. And a lot of men who lived after that, they were placed on social security. And some were even before their passing to benefit from it. And many were old people alike and the day laborers and what have you. You had no protection out within that which you could afford yourself before social security. No protection. No. So when you had nothing to eat or anything, like you were just there.	36:09
Kate Ellis	You'd starve.	37:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. It's just one of the things that it was. There were times that when the banks were low, persons were given tokens by which they would be able to buy food with. The tokens would serve as incentive for money, so that's what was the type of distribution for compensation to put. And in some levels where men worked, even in the school system, they were given scripts to go to different stores because of financial difficulties where they could get things until the money would be able to come in. And many of the stores, society there, many bought it in that way—	37:09
Kate Ellis	They—	37:57
Matthew Branch Polk	—tokens and scripts.	37:57
Kate Ellis	It's in scripts?	37:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. That's a note saying that you worked for this person so long and you were able to let him have this and charge it to the boss. And when the money got there, they would pay. The tokens were after the high water and a little before that, persons were given tokens to make purchases, they'd go to the store. And that is just like what you call now, they give you food stamps.	38:00
Kate Ellis	That's right.	38:29
Matthew Branch Polk	You see? That's corroborative to the-	38:30
Kate Ellis	Those were like food stamps.	38:31
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. You see they were metal, of a metallic substance.	38:33
Kate Ellis	Uh-huh.	38:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. So those periods would cause you to do much in evolving situations to get what you really needed. And they were used at clothing stores and grocery stores and what have you. And some of the drug stores when it was needed.	38:39
Kate Ellis	So many people used these, they were given to people by their employers?	39:05
Matthew Branch Polk	By their employers, yes. They couldn't afford to pay them.	39:11
Kate Ellis	The employers couldn't?	39:16
Matthew Branch Polk	No.	39:16
Kate Ellis	Was this—	39:16
Matthew Branch Polk	You see, before the FDIC came in, the federal deposits, so for the protection of banks, banks were at a very low ebb, most of them.	39:18
Kate Ellis	I see.	39:25
Matthew Branch Polk	So-	39:25
Kate Ellis	So the banks ran out of money.	39:29
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	39:30
Kate Ellis	And this is what the employers would get, the money, to pay their employees?	39:30
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. The bank, the first bank in Loreauville, they had dried out and because of some reason in Jeanerette, the bank had to close and there was no money in it for a while. And when they renewed them. In Jeanerette, the FDIC had come in to protect the insurance companies, the Federal Deposit Insurance Company. I think that was made possible under the Roosevelt administration. And the one in Loreauville did not open again until two or three years ago. The banks reestablished in the community of Loreauville. Now we have branch banks from this, from New Iberia. We have the New Iberia Bank and we also have, which was the old state bank, now it's Premier. So those two banks are branches from here, there. They have branched out, even the First State National was in Jeanerette. But now you have then the Iberia Bank, there is saving and loans. The Sugarland Bank and Premier and all of them established in that area.	39:37
Kate Ellis	What did you think of Roosevelt then?	40:51
Matthew Branch Polk	I thought he was an exceptional president, although he had polio or something, he was an exceptional president, very exceptional. And Mrs. Roosevelt, we could hear her through the radio, but she was a grand person and read about her in the newspaper. She was very grand, a great person. Yeah, she seemed to have helped the president in many decisions. In that time that was established, the CC Camps. And that was there where they took the, not delinquent, but boys without jobs of age. And took them to these camps, providing them with an education, a work system towards building a better Louisiana.	40:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Many of the boys from there I taught, moved in these sections and were able to go on. After that, they left from there, they went to the Army when World War Two came on. And from the CC Camps, they were trained to go into the army and many of them left. And they went to different parts of the country, and they did well. Many survived. Some came back home. And some came back home and completed their education and began to work. And that was very creative in that system.	41:52
Kate Ellis	So that really helped develop—	42:26
Matthew Branch Polk	It helped.	42:26
Kate Ellis	—young men?	42:28
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Then you had another system, the ERA and two other systems, and the WPA, Work Progress Administration, under his system they had put to develop the cities to put men to work. They worked the projects that were given. I remember that in this community, they paved the many streets and outlined search plans and what have you, and developed areas that gave a lot of the men work, the WPA, work program administration, all of those agencies were very helpful to people.	42:29
Kate Ellis	So you really felt the effects of those programs in this community?	43:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Very much so.	43:16
Kate Ellis	You saw young men that you had taught perhaps go off and develop into-	43:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, very much so.	43:16
Kate Ellis	—productive citizens. You saw streets paved here.	43:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	43:16
Kate Ellis	Sewerage systems developed here.	43:22
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, very much so. I remember a time when the main street that you possibly rode on was brick, a trolley system you had there. And when the Perry Avenue was paved, most of the streets were dust on the side street and the sidewalks were out of wood, you see?	43:27
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	43:58
Matthew Branch Polk	So in many of the areas were put a drainage system, you had no sewer at the time and you had large ditches.	43:59
Kate Ellis	Mm-hmm.	44:05
Matthew Branch Polk	You see? So there are many things to remember and think about. And the systems, which at least the homes had no sanitation, most of them. And most of the homes possibly were heated by wood and coal. We had coal services in the schools and what have you, were heated that way. Well, that was before the use of gas and the electricity came into our community. Such the appliances and what have you, and those were things that were made available.	44:05
Kate Ellis	Around that time?	44:46
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh. So we had a great turning point. And for all of these issues. And that has meant I think, quite a bit to us.	44:46
Kate Ellis	A great turning point, you mean around World War II, in the '30s?	45:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Moving on. See, I was around for World War I, II.	45:05
Kate Ellis	I know.	45:09
Matthew Branch Polk	So—	45:09
Kate Ellis	But you were born in 1912, do you remember very much from World War I?	45:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I wasn't too quiet. I rambled a lot. And I was able to go when the soldiers left in 1918, to see them leave because I had my four uncles and friends. They slept at home to go to people from the country. Many of them. And I remember when the band led the soldiers down the main street, they had, we call it the Firehouse, but there was a big whistle that would blow for all occasions. And they had the band that led the soldiers down in World War I.	45:20
Matthew Branch Polk	And as I think I told you before, that at that station, the people were all there to see their sons, daughters and friends off. And they had, to my understanding, as I see it, about 18 cars separated, White and Black. You see? Front, back portions. And they were crowded and they were going to different camps. And I remember my uncles and whatnot during times after they went to certain camps, and my mother and I would pick pecans and she would make can and things to send to them.	46:03
Kate Ellis	Oh, really? To send them wherever they were.	46:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh, and one of my uncles who went in, he came back from the army. He brought me things from France, the little suits and whatnot that they had to—oh, yeah—	46:40
Kate Ellis	Oops, will you—	46:51

Kate Ellis	Okay. You were saying that your uncle brought things back?	0:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, a little suit and leggings and what have you, that I was able to display and put on my head and little—	0:07
Kate Ellis	Oh, really?	0:15
Matthew Branch Polk	—Navy caps and whatnot. Some of the song books that they had in the Army.	0:16
Kate Ellis	He sent those? He brought those back?	0:22
Matthew Branch Polk	He brought those to me, yes.	0:24
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow.	0:26
Matthew Branch Polk	I guess that was the idea of the first war. It was tough.	0:26
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	0:35
Matthew Branch Polk	Tough for them. A lot of the boys who left did not have much of an education, but I guess after they went to the Army, they saw the need and a lot of them came back and tried to do what they could. Many of them left this section relatives of mine and went to other sections.	0:37
Kate Ellis	Went to other sections—	0:55
Matthew Branch Polk	Texas, California and what have you, Philadelphia and the like, they left.	0:59
Kate Ellis	To—	1:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Better establish themselves because the treatment, I guess they saw it was more civil in these other areas than they were here.	1:06
Kate Ellis	You're talking about Black people, right?	1:14
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Because I remember a time when they came back, some of them, they were told at times by some person they would have their Army suits on in Main Street and tell them it's time to take them off.	1:16
Kate Ellis	This was after World War I?	1:30
Matthew Branch Polk	World I. Yes. The war was serious, but I think it gave the men an opportunity to see just what it was. Because as I understood from some of the soldiers there and to certain countries and the American soldiers tried to disregard the Negroes soldiers by American soldier. As far as fraternization and what have you.	1:34
Kate Ellis	As far as—	2:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Fraternization, fraternizing among themselves, the people of the European or French areas. I was told by fellas who worked with me, that same thing happened in after World War II by students of mine who had gone and they embarked. They were told by the people of other countries not to pay any attention to these people. Because I guess they looked at them in a demeaning condition way, as being because of color or whatnot, not being able to protect themselves. Those were issues that confronted the Black American soldier.	2:08
Matthew Branch Polk	I never had an opportunity to be a soldier because when they started out, my job became so that it was important. Then I was trying to make my contribution to the Army. I was called by a superintendent two days to go to the bar and gymnasium to help register, get the fellas off because of the inability of many people to understand them. A little Creole, French and what have you, makes it out. Many folk could not understand themselves.	2:51
Kate Ellis	You're almost like a translator for these soldiers who are being registered.	3:30
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. People who were being registered and worked right with them in that time. You can cut it off just a second.	3:33
Kate Ellis	Sure.	3:40
Matthew Branch Polk	The high water, 1927, I think it was, the water rising and the bursting ring of the Mississippi levee. At a place we called Morganza, the Morganza Levee, that's I think is an adjacent parish somewhere on the other side of St. Landry Parish.	3:44
Kate Ellis	Okay.	4:11
Matthew Branch Polk	That water came in herding throughout the parishes, the same as it did come from the slightly northern area of Iberia Parish through the [indistinct 00:04:29] St. Mary by the Teche, clean through.	4:12
Matthew Branch Polk	For—It was mystical because when it hit in New Iberia and the people were warned, they had to start moving and serving as refugees. Camps were being placed for them. They were moved from the country area, Louisville and what have you, to the Highlands here in New Iberia, to Cade, Louisiana and Segura, where they would establish camps for them. That water came in and it devastated New Iberia at that time that there weren't too much up here, but on across in Brooklyn and across Main Street to stand by and see.	4:36
Matthew Branch Polk	When it started out, we had moved across for protection, but it never took the spot where we lived.	5:16
Kate Ellis	It didn't?	5:25
Matthew Branch Polk	It didn't hit. It came to the Basic Inn and the Dauterive Hospital and most of the homes in Brooklyn on the bayou side were almost covered up to about possibly four or five feet were left out of the homes. That showed the water level there. Dauterive Hospital. And that came down to the foot of Henry Street where we lived, because after a few days, we would go across the bayou. One of the swampers had his big boat. Then after about four days, we were able to guddle across the bayou and go to see how the places looked. Some of the places didn't leave. They stayed and build escape places in their homes on top of the roofs where they would thought they would be safe.	5:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Many of the homes were damaged along the line. That water came into our community standing near the bridge to see it come as the low end of the bayou. It started coming so rapidly that animals, small houses and what have you, came down there with the rushing of the water that they even took railroad steel irons to try to wade it down. It came so in such a terrific manner, it was hardly possible for them to open the bridge. Many animals and little houses were stopped there and we—On each side of the bayou were where the little farms were. The animals there took everything with them, with the raging water. When we were able to go back to our homes, the bridge could not be used because it had been broken by the strands of the water.	6:20
Matthew Branch Polk	After some time there was built what we call a pontoon bridge. That was at the foot of the street that hits Weeks street. Pontoon bridge was measuring where you came across where steps were on barrels and wood linings and to hold a rope as you came for protection. That was the way of survival to come there then—	7:29
Kate Ellis	To come across—	7:58
Matthew Branch Polk	—across the bayou. Yes.	7:59
Kate Ellis	Wow.	8:02
Matthew Branch Polk	It was terrific and it's terrible. People were moved from their farms, their homes, to scurry the high points in Cade and tents were furnished. Then something like what we see now is gone on in various countries was thrown up for people and set up, made where they took care of them at what they call at that time ration food. They cooked and served them there and the like. After the high water, the government had to subsidize the people with foods, stable foods, just as you have now for social security and the stamps. People got rationing, so much per person in the family, the basic food. We had stations there where they would register at the courthouse and go to these places and receive the food that was needed for them.	8:02
Matthew Branch Polk	It was a long time before some of the farmers could go back to their places to get places really established and workable as they should. That threw a hardship, I believe on the poor people, a very terrible hardship. From that on, they had somewhat a nonproductive movement.	9:08
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	9:35
Matthew Branch Polk	From there on for a while, we had a non-productive movement. See? Hard to get started. Farmers had to get in debt and along with the federal government to give them a little assistance. That meant much in developing the area. You can cut it off just a second? Please.	9:36
Kate Ellis	What I'm wondering about is during that period, after the flood and assistance was offered to people who were devastated by it, did you see differences in the way that Whites and African Americans were assisted? Did African Americans end up suffering more because of it?	9:57
Matthew Branch Polk	I believe so in many ways because they didn't perish. But some of the churches were very fine and offered assistance to their ability to minister, priests and what have you. Social organizations, I said the benevolence did what they could, but at a hardship, it was hard seemingly. If you were underdog and you were caught in that position, you were just an underdog. It was hard for you to rise until you get a foothold. Some reestablished themselves and some did not. After the high water, really, a lot of persons went to other areas. They left.	10:20
Kate Ellis	They left the area.	11:06
Matthew Branch Polk	They left this area anyway. Therefore, I think that's the reason for a number of people whose persons' parents were homeowners, farm owners, they left to do better and some didn't come back. See.	11:06
Kate Ellis	You're saying African Americans left at that time.	11:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Many of them to go elsewhere where labor was provided. See, because—	11:28
Kate Ellis	They could find other work.	11:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Other work. They had a group left from here and there's a place called Bon Ami,	11:39
Kate Ellis	What's it called?	11:43
Matthew Branch Polk	The Bon Ami. That's in Texas.	11:46
Kate Ellis	Bon Ami, Texas.	11:47
Matthew Branch Polk	They left and they swamp us and whatnot, but they were able to come home twice a month, something like that. They worked there in the swamps and took part. The others went to the other areas like Lake Charles and Port Arthur and Beaumont where the oil company was becoming quite fine and giving work to them, we lost.	11:51
Kate Ellis	Beaumont, Texas had an oil company?	12:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	12:25
Kate Ellis	What gulf?	12:25
Matthew Branch Polk	They have it now, Gulf [indistinct 00:12:26]. What have you, Beaumont, Port Arthur and Houston and large companies.	12:25
Kate Ellis	I ask that just because Michelle and I have noticed that a number of people talk about other people who've gone to Beaumont, Texas. There just seems to be this connection between New Iberia and Beaumont, Texas.	12:31
Edith Bijou Polk	Texas. All of Texas.	12:42
Kate Ellis	All of Texas.	12:44
Matthew Branch Polk	A lot of people—	12:44
Edith Bijou Polk	All those places. All of there.	12:47
Matthew Branch Polk	—to Lake Charles on—	12:49
Edith Bijou Polk	I'm sorry?	12:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Lake Charles on. Lake Charles and across at Westlake. You have one of the largest plants in this part of the state. Say Westlake, across—	12:51
Kate Ellis	Largest plants.	13:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Oil plants and plants were taken care of. The nature of different things as different products, you see. From the oil products, it's very huge. You all didn't get a chance to pass through that, did you?	13:04
Kate Ellis	In—	13:20
Matthew Branch Polk	Lake Charles?	13:21
Kate Ellis	No.	13:22
Matthew Branch Polk	If you go through there and you cross the river, there is the—In Westlake, they call it, you have a large development of plants or oils and what have you.	13:23
Kate Ellis	That's where a lot of—	13:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Lot of—	13:33
Kate Ellis	—Black people went to get work in Texas.	13:33
Matthew Branch Polk	That's in Louisiana. I had a lot of my relatives there, too. A lot of went to Port Arthur. They established themselves in Port Arthur and in Beaumont and in Houston.	13:40
Edith Bijou Polk	They didn't have a little education [indistinct 00:13:58].	13:55
Matthew Branch Polk	I see from that, many of them were able to educate their children to do much for themselves. They changed from farm work to send them to school. Lot of them going different professions and what have you. These establishment, they seemed to have been—They've done well.	13:58
Kate Ellis	This was in the '30s and '40s that this was—	14:21
Matthew Branch Polk	After the high water and some before the high water that left. Some of the older men who left before the high water. I have a lot of cousins who left before.	14:25
Kate Ellis	Your cousins, you said?	14:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Cousins. Yes.	14:33
Edith Bijou Polk	[indistinct 00:14:39].	14:33
Matthew Branch Polk	The machine takes that strength, doesn't it?	14:39
Edith Bijou Polk	I'm sorry.	14:41
Matthew Branch Polk	The machine takes the strength of my voice.	14:41
Kate Ellis	The machine takes it. You'll be—No, no, it's fine. It's true. I'm asking—I'm like, "What? What?" But you're right, it will be on the tape which is good. It just means that I have to annoy you with, "What?"	14:45
Matthew Branch Polk	That's all right. Just go on.	14:59
Kate Ellis	Okay. Speaking of that, I mean, again, I mean what you're describing as a really interesting period between the '20s and the '40s, it sounds like when there were a lot of changes it sounds like, in the community—	15:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	15:16
Kate Ellis	—brought about by World War I and the high water and then you haven't really mentioned specifically the Depression years. I mean, you haven't said—Or Hoover times, but—	15:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Hoover times were tough.	15:35
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	15:37
Matthew Branch Polk	The President Hoover, tough. Yes. The Depression. When you say the Depression, it was a depression.	15:38
Kate Ellis	It was a—	15:46
Matthew Branch Polk	A depression. People almost hardly existed. That's during the time, too, when the tokens and the scripts, a lot were given as a survival. The industry, as far as they had the sugar cane and things sold very cheaply on the market. Therefore, payments for the products and produce were very limited. They had one time I realized that a crate of okra which is a very large thing, a person would work hard to get a crate of okra or seven, eight crates of okra and possibly get $3 a crate. A crate of okra is much larger than this.	15:46
Kate Ellis	Than your television?	16:55
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	16:56
Kate Ellis	Wow.	16:56
Matthew Branch Polk	To get a day's work out of seven, eight crates of okra, the whole family had to work from morning before day until 5:00 or 6:00 in the evening one day to deliver it.	16:58
Kate Ellis	Wow.	17:14
Matthew Branch Polk	My experience with that, I tried to sell okra from my farm. I had to get the okra up, head them in and sell it at seven cents a pound. That didn't mean anything.	17:14
Kate Ellis	No.	17:29
Matthew Branch Polk	The men in the factory, they were making the money because they would send men to sell to really place this okra across the sea, pay them fine salaries to go and work in other places, the agents. While the man in the field would suffer. If you had to pay people to pick this okra and you get seven cents a pound for it, you had some worry. That means a hundred pounds of okra would fill this thing up and it would be rough.	17:29
Kate Ellis	Wow. Sounds—	18:15
Matthew Branch Polk	You had to pay them most times you'd have to get with them and at least five cents a pound to get the men to work for you. Those you couldn't get to work by the day. That was a pretty hard productive thing. I tried it on a small scale myself. That was long after World War II at even the Korean conflict.	18:16
Kate Ellis	That you tried to—	18:48
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, I—	18:48
Kate Ellis	—sell it. Wait, say it again. Try—	18:48
Matthew Branch Polk	—tried to operate a little vegetable farm in Louisville. Right next to where you all were Sunday.	18:50
Kate Ellis	Oh.	18:54
Matthew Branch Polk	That's our place. One of our places there.	18:56
Kate Ellis	This was while you were a school principal—	18:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	19:01
Kate Ellis	In Jeanerette.	19:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. It didn't do too well at it.	19:02
Kate Ellis	Really? But you were trying to get extra income?	19:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, that's what it was. But you got none. Raising—	19:11
Kate Ellis	Got none.	19:13
Matthew Branch Polk	—swine and a few things.	19:14
Kate Ellis	Oh.	19:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Vegetables and cattle and all of that. Didn't get nowhere. Just hard, unless you were able to maintain it and be there yourself at all times, that's about the only thing that could be done. You had much on the Hoover administration?	19:17
Kate Ellis	I—Have I?	19:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Mm-hmm.	19:39
Kate Ellis	No, not so much.	19:39
Matthew Branch Polk	It—	19:40
Kate Ellis	Tell me as much as you can.	19:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I don't know too much about it, but I knew that the times were hard because it was talked about quite a bit among our people. Quite a bit. Time and as I said, financial difficulties for the people.	19:45
Kate Ellis	Again, the thing I'm interested in that period is how African Americans might have experienced it differently than Whites. I mean, it just seems that things in general would be harder for African Americans at almost any given period. I'm interested in what you remember about that.	20:04
Matthew Branch Polk	I remember the plantation homes quite a bit. I went to a good number of them and a good number of people lived in them. In some of the homes that were placed and made are built somewhat and structured almost like barns. You had wooden windows made with heavy lumber and sometime fair covering. Sometime, you could look out of the house and see the moon. Then some of the houses rain came when rain came. They had to place tubs and things in certain spots. It was just somewhat unbearable in some areas.	20:36
Kate Ellis	These were homes on the plantation?	21:26
Matthew Branch Polk	On the plantation—	21:26
Kate Ellis	That—	21:26
Matthew Branch Polk	—the bosses owned.	21:26
Kate Ellis	—lived in them.	21:26
Matthew Branch Polk	Where the bosses owned those homes. Very little care sometimes would be given to them. When the fellows would come for labor from other sections, in other words, if around Opelousas or St. Andrew Parish and other parishes, when their crops would play out, when they had the cotton, the corn would play out, they would come to the area to make what we call grinding during the winter months. When they came, there would be—There was established a little one room in the yard of the boss man of the owner, and possibly a bed and a little small—It's not a stove, it's something like a coal and wood heater that they were in the wintertime that they could survive warm by. Maybe a few things where they were given food. The food that was given to them was prepared by the persons in the owner's kitchen. They would've to get their food from the man who they work for and eat that food in the little, we call it the shack.	21:32
Kate Ellis	The shacks that—	22:58
Matthew Branch Polk	That's, we call it the shack.	22:59
Kate Ellis	—they lived in.	23:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. A little shack.	23:00
Kate Ellis	Sounds a bit like slave times.	23:02
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, it wasn't slave, but it wasn't much better. It wasn't much better. Because fellows would come and when a fellow would work and he would possibly not have money after the lay be them. They called it lay-by.	23:04
Kate Ellis	What was it called?	23:26
Matthew Branch Polk	Lay-by. You see when the crops are planted, there comes a time when they lay by them and let the rest to just grow.	23:26
Kate Ellis	Oh, lay-by. L-A-Y dash B-Y.	23:44
Matthew Branch Polk	They didn't go out to cut wood or to pick moss or things like that. They had no money coming in. If the boss supplied them money, that would—If they had another place that they could go to, they could not leave that farm before they could pay the boss back. That was, to me, a type of slavery. Some of them who were—Well, they were some people I knew, they were knowledge of things they couldn't read too well. But they would go to the commissary and they just made marks for what they got. Still at the end of the year, they would be out.	23:44
Kate Ellis	No, thank you.	24:34
Matthew Branch Polk	At the end of the year, they would still come out short. Although they knew what they had gotten credit, they'd come out short.	24:38
Kate Ellis	Even if they couldn't really read or do numbers, they knew they had enough of a—	24:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Understanding.	24:54
Kate Ellis	—system or even a written system to know—	24:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Just what they were indebted for. But even that, sometime it was much higher than they proposed. If they were working sharecropping, it was always higher when they would come to the end. Then what they proposed. But then some knew what they had done and what they had made. I think after a year's work, I understood some of them. They hardly came out—If a man came out with four, $500, he did well. He became possibly the property, in other words, not written, but of his boss, they couldn't leave. Many of them had to—In other words like the Underground Railroad, run away at night to go to other places.	24:58
Kate Ellis	Readily escape.	25:52
Matthew Branch Polk	To make that escape. I know a good many. It was rough. I had a truck at the time and I had to do some hauling myself sometimes.	25:54
Kate Ellis	You need to help people leave?	26:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Strategist certain places.	26:07
Kate Ellis	Really?	26:10
Matthew Branch Polk	It was tough.	26:11
Kate Ellis	You'd go and pick them up in their shack?	26:13
Matthew Branch Polk	In their shacks and try to bring them on to other places where they could possibly do a little something to get on their feet.	26:18
Kate Ellis	Where would you take them?	26:25
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, to other areas where they'd go to other bosses. Some would come from distant areas and bring them back where they would try to start out a new, it was rough. That was also—When they had completed the indebtedness to their boss, sometimes they would hold him and did not want them to leave.	26:26
Kate Ellis	Sometimes they'd-	26:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Hold on to them and would not want to leave.	26:54
Kate Ellis	The bosses wouldn't—	26:57
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. Have that down.	26:58
Kate Ellis	But you'd help them get out of there. Was this the same truck that you used to also pick up students to—	27:00
Matthew Branch Polk	No, that was a little truck I used to use for hauling rice and everything else around the community. Used that at the beginning to really—The church you went to Sunday, that church was about—A little wooden church about 24 by 36.	27:06
Kate Ellis	Twenty-four feet?	27:26
Matthew Branch Polk	Twenty-four feet wide and 36 feet long. Posted and the lighting was by lamps with reflectors. If you had anything at night, you had reflectors and the like. That's how this thing was done. The school I became principal of before the system developed in our high school year, we gave a drama there. That was by reflectors on the wall. If you didn't have it in the daytime, you were out at night other than reflectors.	27:27
Kate Ellis	You improvised a lot as far as—	28:10
Matthew Branch Polk	We had to.	28:16
Kate Ellis	—using whatever you had to make do.	28:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Made do. That's right. Had to do a lot of that. We had to do it. Get where we were going. Disconnect me for a while. Let me check.	28:16
Kate Ellis	Okay. Going back to the forms. Forms, family history. Oh, wait, you don't have any brothers and sisters. It's just you.	28:25
Matthew Branch Polk	All alone.	28:34
Kate Ellis	Okay. All right. I need to list the places where you've lived. You've lived in Iberia Parish all your life.	28:34
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right. Iberia Parish.	28:48
Kate Ellis	Actually, in New Iberia though.	28:48
Matthew Branch Polk	New Iberia, yes.	28:49
Kate Ellis	Okay. New Iberia from 1912 to present. Okay. Now I need your education history. The name of each school that you attended and when you attended.	28:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Howe Institute.	29:11
Kate Ellis	Which was in New Iberia.	29:19
Matthew Branch Polk	It was in New Iberia. That was about from 1920 to 1932, I think.	29:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. And—	29:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Leland College.	29:37
Kate Ellis	Which is—Where's Leland College?	29:44
Matthew Branch Polk	It was at Baker, Louisiana. Baker, Louisiana. B-A-K-E-R. Then 1932, 19—I took my degree in '36, but I finished in '35. Mid-session of '35.	29:46
Kate Ellis	So, '35, when you got a B—Did you get a B—	30:11
Matthew Branch Polk	BS in science.	30:13
Kate Ellis	A BS in science. When you graduated from Howe Institute, that was a high school?	30:13
Matthew Branch Polk	High school.	30:20
Kate Ellis	Oh, wow.	30:22
Matthew Branch Polk	I did my elementary and secondary education there. Primary, elementary and secondary.	30:23
Kate Ellis	Okay.	30:32
Matthew Branch Polk	Then I did an establishment for administration in '39 at Southern University.	30:33
Kate Ellis	Southern in Baton Rouge?	30:42
Matthew Branch Polk	In Baton Rouge.	30:44
Kate Ellis	Baton Rouge. That was a one year, you said? Nineteen—	30:52
Matthew Branch Polk	It was—We did that on a summer and what is a session.	30:54
Kate Ellis	What was it called again?	31:01
Matthew Branch Polk	It was administration.	31:03
Kate Ellis	Did you—Was there a certificate involved?	31:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	31:10
Kate Ellis	Did you get a certificate in administration?	31:10
Matthew Branch Polk	That's what it is?	31:13
Kate Ellis	Does that—Okay. Okay.	31:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Prairie View.	31:13
Kate Ellis	Prairie View?	31:13
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. Prairie View. A&M University, Prairie View, Texas, completed my master of education, MED 1956.	31:33
Kate Ellis	1956? Masters of Education. Okay.	31:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Have any listings you wish—Work with the Louisiana Colored Teachers Association, which is our organization in Louisiana. Do you have room for that or what?	32:17
Kate Ellis	Okay. Yes. That's actually comes up in a minute where I'm going to ask you about organizations—	32:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Okay. Okay. That's all right.	32:31
Kate Ellis	—and stuff like that. First, I need to get your work history, which is the most important jobs that you've had.	32:32
Matthew Branch Polk	The most important jobs?	32:42
Kate Ellis	I guess you could start from now and go back. I guess, it doesn't matter. Either way.	32:43
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I start from back and come up.	32:52
Kate Ellis	Okay, sounds good.	32:53
Matthew Branch Polk	We worked as a young salesman with Mother for Saymans.	32:57
Kate Ellis	Salesman for—	33:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Saymans.	33:04
Kate Ellis	Can you spell that?	33:04
Matthew Branch Polk	S-A-Y-M-A-N-S.	33:19
Edith Bijou Polk	Say it.	33:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Saymans.	33:19
Kate Ellis	Saymans.	33:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Then—	33:19
Kate Ellis	Insurance, is that what—	33:20
Matthew Branch Polk	Then—Oh, then that's—	33:22
Edith Bijou Polk	That's a salesman.	33:22
Matthew Branch Polk	—a place—An order that sold [indistinct 00:33:28] and different things, toiletries at that time for the drug store took them. After that, we had a little grocery store.	33:22
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Saymans, was that in New Iberia?	33:43
Matthew Branch Polk	No, the products came from Illinois.	33:47
Kate Ellis	Oh, so it was a mail—	33:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Mail order.	33:51
Kate Ellis	Okay. I need to just—Mail order. Around what time period was that?	34:07
Matthew Branch Polk	That was during the '20s.	34:09
Kate Ellis	Okay. You did that while you were in school?	34:15
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. We had a small grocery store, worked there.	34:16
Kate Ellis	Should I say still, a clerk in the grocery store?	34:21
Matthew Branch Polk	We owned the store.	34:21
Kate Ellis	Okay. So—	34:21
Matthew Branch Polk	We owned the store.	34:21
Kate Ellis	I'm going to say—I could say salesman again.	34:35
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, that's what it is. Everything. Salesman. Everything else.	34:37
Kate Ellis	Then it was your parents'—	34:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Store, yes.	34:45
Kate Ellis	Did they have a name for it?	34:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Just Polk's Grocery Store, that's all.	34:47
Kate Ellis	Okay. Where was that located?	34:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Across from Brooklyn, 242 Hortense Street.	34:53
Kate Ellis	That was in—	35:02
Matthew Branch Polk	We call it Brooklyn.	35:02
Kate Ellis	Okay.	35:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Then—	35:03
Kate Ellis	Now that was on Hortense Street.	35:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Hortense, yeah. In the alley.	35:04
Kate Ellis	Hortense.	35:10
Matthew Branch Polk	I worked in the—	35:10
Kate Ellis	There's actually one thing I was going to ask you about, but I'll let you—I want to know about Hopkins Street and if that was considered the main street for African Americans.	35:15
Matthew Branch Polk	It wasn't the main street, but it was the most publicized street for having the generation of good times.	35:27
Kate Ellis	Oh.	35:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Good times.	35:37
Kate Ellis	We're talking bars and cafes? Is that what you mean?	35:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Things like that.	35:42
Kate Ellis	Not cafes, but bars and—	35:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	35:43
Kate Ellis	—clubs and—	35:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	35:45
Kate Ellis	—cafes? Now I looked in the 1940 city directory at the library. It did—Of course at that time it would indicate whenever a Colored person lived at a certain address or has a store. I noticed on Hopkins—Here comes the thunder. I noticed on Hopkins Street that there were a number of, I guess Black owned businesses.	35:47
Edith Bijou Polk	They had more than that.	36:12
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, if I can get through this, just a second.	36:13
Kate Ellis	Okay.	36:16
Matthew Branch Polk	I'll go through some of them.	36:16
Kate Ellis	Okay.	36:16
Matthew Branch Polk	The first Afro American drug store was on Main Street. It was owned by Dr. C.A. Pemilton, the pharmacist.	36:18
Kate Ellis	Dr. C.A.—	36:32
Matthew Branch Polk	Pemilton.	36:32
Kate Ellis	Pemil?	36:32
Matthew Branch Polk	Pemilton. P-E-M-I-L-T-O-N.	36:36
Kate Ellis	Okay.	36:42
Matthew Branch Polk	The attending doctor there was a Dr. Welch.	36:42
Kate Ellis	That was a drug store.	36:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh. The second movement at that drugstore was on the corner of St. Peter and the extension of Jefferson. There, in that particular area at the time there, Dr. Pemilton, Dr. Alex Henderson was the dentist and Dr. Welch was the physician.	36:51
Kate Ellis	What time period was that?	37:25
Matthew Branch Polk	That was by in the '20s and '30s coming up '40s. He moved across on Hopkins Street.	37:30
Kate Ellis	Dr. Henderson?	37:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Dr. Pemilton, the drugstore—	37:40
Kate Ellis	Okay.	37:41
Matthew Branch Polk	—moved on Hopkins Street. There, the doctor worked with him was Dr. E.L. Dorsey, the first one.	37:42
Kate Ellis	Dr. E.L. Dorsey joined him?	37:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Then after that, we had a lady doctor. I've forgotten the name right now. I'll get to it. Then Dr. G.W. Diggs. There was a man from Lafayette.	37:59
Kate Ellis	Dr. Diggs—	38:22
Edith Bijou Polk	Catalog?	38:24
Matthew Branch Polk	Catalog.	38:26
Edith Bijou Polk	From Lafayette.	38:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Catalog from [indistinct 00:38:30]. Well, yes, but I'll get to that.	38:30
Edith Bijou Polk	You calling Diggs, that was—	38:32
Matthew Branch Polk	The second I got this machine on.	38:36
Kate Ellis	Doctor Diggs. You said after Dr.—	38:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Catalog.	38:44
Kate Ellis	Thank you, Catalog.	38:45
Matthew Branch Polk	I can't think of the name of the lady doctor. She was there.	38:51
Edith Bijou Polk	Worked for Dr. Chatters.	38:53
Matthew Branch Polk	Now Diggs is just—Dr. Chatters.	38:54
Kate Ellis	Dr. Chatters?	38:58
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh.	38:59
Kate Ellis	That was the lady doctor?	38:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Lady doctor. We had other doctors in town, too. Dr. Williams was during that time. Dr. Pearson was dentist on Hopkins Street and had Dr. Scoggins on Corrine.	39:00
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	39:34
Matthew Branch Polk	Dr. Scoggins, A.C. Scoggins.	39:35
Edith Bijou Polk	Scoggins	39:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Scoggins.	39:39
Kate Ellis	Scoggins.	39:40
Edith Bijou Polk	S-C-O-G-G-I-N-S.	39:46
Matthew Branch Polk	Had others who came to town. Let's see, had a dentist there.	39:47
Edith Bijou Polk	[indistinct 00:39:54] drugstore.	39:53
Matthew Branch Polk	They had a drugstore, Cooper's Drugstore on Hopkins. I've forgotten the name of the doctor who worked with him. The pharmacist at the time. Those are not all, but Dr. Ennis was a dentist here.	39:59
Kate Ellis	Dr.—	40:29
Matthew Branch Polk	Ennis, E-N-N-I-S. Dr. Garrett home boy.	40:30
Kate Ellis	Dr. Garrett.	40:44
Matthew Branch Polk	G-A-R-R-E-T-T.	40:46
Kate Ellis	This was—You're talking about doctors from the '20s, the '30s and then—	40:52
Matthew Branch Polk	No.	40:56
Kate Ellis	—the '40s and '50s?	40:57
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. On up to now. Dr. Diggs is still here.	40:57
Kate Ellis	Okay. The later though—The doctors that you just most recently mentioned were from the '40s and '50s.	40:58
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Before that during the—Told you the other day, I think that we had this interruption in the city. A good number of them were—They left. The others came in to try to do a little something.	41:11
Kate Ellis	Well—	41:27
Edith Bijou Polk	It's hard to get an Afro-American here after they ran doctors off.	41:36
Kate Ellis	Mr. Polk, it sounds like you're mincing words when you say that they left.	41:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, they ran them out of town. They were beaten and what have you. They were strong away. That's—As I said the other day that came about about this provision for World War I trainees. The knowledge that was given about the school that was provided for White and the ones for Negroes just possibly questioned. I guess this was somewhat—It wasn't Ku Klux Klan, but it was just motivated thing among the officials of the community. That made it rough. We have a lot of boys from here now who have finished in the field of medicine, but they don't come back home.	41:42
Edith Bijou Polk	Dr. Diggs has four of his children doctors.	42:34
Kate Ellis	Really?	42:38
Edith Bijou Polk	They won't come here [indistinct 00:42:40].	42:38
Kate Ellis	That's interesting because somebody that I interviewed a few days ago was saying something very similar that he said that there are a lot of people raised here who become doctors, PhDs, and they leave, they don't come back. People—It's a—Do you—	42:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, there are two things about it now. I guess the fast healing of financial benefits in other areas and the stigma that this left on the community. I guess so because now we are just beginning to have Black lawyers in the community. Most of them who have come back have been students from this area, students here. They're doing well. Lady lawyers and men lawyers. We have one who served as the DA. He has become one of the district judges already. That has done pretty good to have a couple of person, men who take care of the—Let's see what you call them—Boy, Lawrence [indistinct 00:44:08]. He's an accomplished tax control. Now see—We have a few come back into the field.	43:04
Edith Bijou Polk	CPA.	44:18
Matthew Branch Polk	CPA. I don't know the intervention of anything being—It's being changed a little, but the fellows who come just have to have the courage to stick with it and to do whatever they can. It's still a tough situation that we're undergoing—	44:19
Kate Ellis	That's—	44:44
Matthew Branch Polk	—in some areas.	44:44
Kate Ellis	I was just wondering, I mean, Mrs. Polk and I began to talk about that a little bit a few minutes ago. Michelle and I can't quite figure out what the situation is between Whites and African Americans and this community and how, just given some of the real brutal acts that have taken place, I mean, that Whites have perpetuated.	44:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, as I see it, there's all a dominant factor to me that the fellow who is in the upper hand, there's always a tendency to try to keep the other fellow down. Financially, economically, in every way that shape or form. In other words, if he can bribe you out of what you have, that's all right. If he can manipulate you to an extent, to get you to be [indistinct 00:45:51] enough to do the things that he wants you to do, all right. But when one is outspoken and does the best to define himself or to declare himself as to what he believes, you become a target in the community. That's sometime, you'll have some to bend to it and some won't. As I see it on the agenda now, the present, young, Black American isn't going to bend.	45:18
Kate Ellis	Going to bend.	46:16
Matthew Branch Polk	They don't bend.	46:16
Kate Ellis	They don't bend.	46:19
Matthew Branch Polk	No, they don't bend.	46:21
Kate Ellis	To that manipulation or oppression.	46:23
Matthew Branch Polk	It makes it a little difficult to control them.	46:27
Edith Bijou Polk	Some of them.	46:29
Matthew Branch Polk	You need fairness. Fairness to do what you have to do and to accomplish, to me, the seemingly what you have to accomplish. The opportunities, when you're neglected of the opportunities deprived of those opportunities, there are things that would really throw you back. You see.	46:32

Matthew Branch Polk	Had that.	0:03
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	0:05
Edith Bijou Polk	Education.	0:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Had that, yeah. Schooling, some of it.	0:07
Kate Ellis	What are you saying? What about schools?	0:11
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, as we've explained, talked about schools, they've grown and the like. You have problems in the school still. There's one big issue now, a student of mine who was principal of the high school from where I left that community. Well, he's accused of not being to respond to some of the response money, monetary issues, not handling things properly. And they're demeaning him and he has to accept right now, a teaching position. I'm sure if you've been in Iberia very long enough, maybe you read about the things that Mr. David Hills, that has been going on.	0:13
Kate Ellis	And that's in Jeanerette?	1:10
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, Jeanerette Senior High. We do have some members on the school board and we are hoping of getting more. We do have some on the ward bosses. In Jeanerette, you have the men in the councilor assembly, I think you have three Blacks to two Whites and the mayor is White.	1:12
Matthew Branch Polk	We did have one man, he passed. He tried two consecutive times for the mayor, mayorality, but he lost out first time by 200 and a few votes, the last time by 149 votes. He wasn't from here originally, but he married a girl from Jeanerette. And he established business, he worked for Southern University as an agent and America and across sees, a purchasing agent for Southern. And he had a business in New Orleans and he came back here to live. He brought his family. His family, his wife was originally from here. And he lost out by a very small margin and refused to believe that a lot of the people who voted, they were bought out, in other words.	1:44
Matthew Branch Polk	That's one of the things that you have to undertake quite a bit. They're working with certain beer parties and hamburger things and get them to meet a lot of promises and nothing behind it. Yeah, they sell their votes. But I guess it's a kind of misunderstood thing. And we're hoping that day it will become normally stronger. Even now we have Jeanerette, the Concerned Group, one of my students who's a minister there, who challenged them because of the killing of an Negro boy. And they have an organization called Concerned. Now he's being subpoenaed now because of the situation that was that caused the chief of police who shot the boy to give up his job, and now he's suing them.	2:36
Kate Ellis	The police is suing them?	3:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	3:41
Kate Ellis	Suing Concerned?	3:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Suing concerned.	3:43
Kate Ellis	Oh, I see.	3:44
Matthew Branch Polk	And the leader, Reverend Arthur Lee Jones, because he thought that through a lot of trouble to the people in that area, the businesses and whatnot, we were just organized and they boycotted a lot of businesses because the people seemed to have supported it. They're pursuing that as an avenue of retaliation. He is, rather. I don't know how far he's going to get with it, but it seems, according with the paper said, that that caused him to lose his job, although I understand he was coming from his brother or somebody at Mother's funeral at the time when that went out. And he went to support the other officer on duty, which seemed to have been out of the line of his jurisdiction. He gave a command to the boy and said the boy didn't react, had a knife or something and he shot him. That has caused a stigma in the parish.	3:45
Kate Ellis	It's caused a—	4:53
Matthew Branch Polk	A stigma, yes. An feeling and what have you. But I guess they're going to unite their efforts and going to continue. They always sought for what they thought were right. And I'm hopeful we will continue, because one time down there it was almost, well the parish in general, almost like slavery.	4:53
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry.	5:16
Matthew Branch Polk	One time it was almost like slavery.	5:16
Kate Ellis	Down in—	5:16
Matthew Branch Polk	In that area, yes. Near the farm area you had big plantation there, you called it Delgato's Albania, owned by the Delgatos, but it's Albania's Plantation. And that's where most of the persons worked. That had been since slavery time and the plantation is down, but the mansion is still there.	5:16
Kate Ellis	The mansion is still there?	5:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Still there in St. Mary's parish. Just across the line on the main road, going down.	5:54
Kate Ellis	Across the line from Iberia Parish?	6:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Iberia Parish, going down just across St. Peter Street, going to Franklin.	6:03
Kate Ellis	I see. St. Peter's the last street in Jeanerette.	6:12
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	6:14
Kate Ellis	You cross over and that's—See you I've learned in a week, since I was here a week ago?	6:15
Edith Bijou Polk	When he was teaching when he was principal, he had children from St. Mary's Parish [indistinct 00:06:32]	6:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, they had no schools on the borderline for the children there and no means of transportation. A lot of them walked from Sorell, a place we called Union Hill. They came from Grand Mary and St. Peter's and Patoutville and all the area. And not that most of these children, men became ministers, doctors and principals. They have some of the best farmers in that area, student farmers. While the Sigues, well, all of Grand Mary. Sigues, Jomanet, Olivias and all of that group.	6:32
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	7:23
Matthew Branch Polk	Sigues, Jomanet, Olivias and all of that group, Broussards and what have you. And then across the line in St. Mary's Parish, we do have some of the boys there who are large farmers. They see they provost, so they they're well-to-do farmers.	7:28
Kate Ellis	Well-to-do farmers.	7:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	7:47
Kate Ellis	And these are people who came out of your school?	7:48
Matthew Branch Polk	The boys did come out of school, however, some of their fathers were farmers before them. But they're acquiring a greater area now. Some of them are working as neighborhood boys, brothers and sisters together, as much as 2,000 acres of land. See they even go way up, one of the brothers go all the way up to Carencro and that's about 50 miles down from Jeanerette. Big time farmers.	7:51
Kate Ellis	They've done well.	8:24
Matthew Branch Polk	They're doing well.	8:26
Kate Ellis	You must be proud of the numbers of people who've really succeeded.	8:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, I'm glad that they're doing well.	8:31
Edith Bijou Polk	[indistinct 00:08:38] Christmas and all these things.	8:34
Kate Ellis	Really?	8:34
Edith Bijou Polk	Oh, yes. "You made me what I am. I just want to thank you again." If you wanted anything, the children to know that.	8:52
Matthew Branch Polk	I appreciated working with and for them, especially the parents, they had done a nice job. Had nice teachers who were genuine in the life, though I had to serve as my own visiting teacher and everything else, help them out of the field. Because I had them to know they couldn't accomplish anything and stay away from school. It wasn't a matter of just promoting them because they worked, it was a matter of getting what they—	9:00
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	9:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Not promoting them because they worked, but allowing the system to master the things in the books that they have.	9:27
Kate Ellis	You go pick them up?	9:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Get them out of the field, let the people know they can't—Because the boss said stay in the field, you couldn't stay there. That's right.	9:42
Kate Ellis	So you'd have to tell them that, "No matter what the boss says, you kids get to go to school."	9:48
Matthew Branch Polk	When I came up, they made it their business to get away, to drop their hoes and go home. And sometimes then they start coming to school regularly.	9:51
Kate Ellis	You mean in other words, if they saw you, they knew that they had to get to school?	10:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh yeah, that's one of the impressive things to keep them reminded and keep the parents informed. You couldn't give them an education and keep them on the streets and keep them out of school. And many of them, they've done well.	10:11
Kate Ellis	Sounds like really, one of your life's missions throughout this century has been to get kids into school.	10:30
Matthew Branch Polk	That's where it's been from the family on up.	10:41
Edith Bijou Polk	Other children.	10:45
Matthew Branch Polk	From my own family on up, because it's such a deserving thing for them. As long as they stayed in darkness, that was it.	10:45
Kate Ellis	They could be used by White people.	11:00
Matthew Branch Polk	That's right.	11:03
Kate Ellis	I mean, if I can say that.	11:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, it's all right, they could be used. Many of them who did not take advantage of it, they're still being used because they think they're on the direction in which they can go, is that which the White man tell them. But they've got no line and they're set in their ways, so it's nothing that I can do about it or think about it. That's what you think, that's what you believe, that's what you do, that's your business. That's what I settle it within my mind to say.	11:05
Kate Ellis	I don't know how much you want to talk about this, but I'm not sure what you mean. I feel like I get the sense you're referring to something.	11:39
Matthew Branch Polk	I'm referring to those who wouldn't take advantage of the system of education. I had an opportunity to supervise the adult education program in 1938 and offered a lot of them to come and who could not read, to take part and try to learn and they wouldn't, so that wasn't anything for me to worry about.	11:41
Kate Ellis	They would not come?	12:00
Matthew Branch Polk	No, they didn't know and they didn't care to know, so I didn't care to worry too much, especially as far as that was concerned. But after you try to get an individual to do what is possible in my life, I always felt, after reading the story of Booker T. Washington and the other fellas, that they had to go to school, walk five miles at night.	12:07
Matthew Branch Polk	And what my father said, they had to walk five and six miles to go to school, then any fella up in the '20s and '30s, if he wanted to go to school with the opportunities that were afforded them with the educational program, adult educational program, they could do it and a lot have done it. When I mastered that program, we had 1,100 and a few in our system and they were only 13 in the White school. So the White coach who became superintendent and I worked together, the superintendent appointed us to go together and worked in different areas. And we worked all over the parish.	12:30
Kate Ellis	To get people in?	13:10
Matthew Branch Polk	To go to night school, adult education.	13:13
Kate Ellis	And this was in—	13:16
Matthew Branch Polk	1938, yeah.	13:16
Kate Ellis	And you worked with a White man on that project?	13:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, he was the coach then and he became superintendent and he's gone, I'm still here. We were kind of buddies. And so that happened, his life went out early.	13:22
Kate Ellis	I don't know how you're going to react to this question, but do you feel that at a different time in life you would've been made superintendent, were it not for racial politics?	13:50
Matthew Branch Polk	That came up once, I was told by the superintendent's son, and one of the board members said, "He's Colored."	14:01
Kate Ellis	So your name did come up.	14:11
Matthew Branch Polk	That's what I was told.	14:14
Kate Ellis	By the superintendent's—	14:15
Matthew Branch Polk	Son told me about it.	14:16
Kate Ellis	And they said, "He's Colored."	14:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. The superintendent's son was the controller in the office, secretary to his daddy.	14:21
Kate Ellis	And you were friends?	14:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, we grew up on the same side of the bayou. Superintendent lived a few houses from me.	14:37
Kate Ellis	Oh, really, in Brooklyn?	14:37
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, he lived on the [indistinct 00:14:40] and I lived in Hortence.	14:38
Kate Ellis	Oh, was your neighborhood that you grew up in Brooklyn, was it sort of—	14:44
Edith Bijou Polk	Mixed.	14:48
Kate Ellis	Was it mixed?	14:48
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, I knew everybody in the White community and I guess all of them knew me, because I served as a little agent when my people would bring vegetables and things to town. I liked to use the buggy and I'd go around selling them to the people. It was a lot of fun but they needed the finances, such things as the vegetables that are needed now. And sometimes you didn't have chickens and things in the store, they brought and sold. I went around in the buggy to sell that for them.	14:51
Kate Ellis	So you provided the White community sometimes.	15:21
Matthew Branch Polk	All of them, White and Black, yeah. Well, they knew when I was coming because they'd come out to meet me. It was just a [indistinct 00:15:38] act to help them if I could.	15:25
Kate Ellis	Did you ever have little White friends, I mean in your—	15:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh yeah, we all came up together. We got along nicely. They didn't run over me, I didn't run over them, I was just that way. We were independent in our group structure. And what I said, I meant, and what they said, I'm sure they meant.	15:45
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	16:06
Matthew Branch Polk	If I made a decision, whatever I said, that was it. That was it, that's all. Never had too much problem, never had to run or nothing like that. But if you did me something and I run after you, too.	16:08
Kate Ellis	They didn't mess with you too much?	16:22
Matthew Branch Polk	No, we were nice to each other.	16:24
Edith Bijou Polk	Children were good.	16:24
Kate Ellis	Children were good?	16:24
Edith Bijou Polk	Yes.	16:24
Kate Ellis	In that whole period, certainly one of the things that's talked about a lot during the Jim Crow period is the amount of violence that Black men in particular had to experience or at least worry about. And that would be at the hands of the police or it could be at the hands of groups like the KKK. If it wasn't the KKK, it was some other—	16:34
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, they had a little of that and they had certain names for them at the time. Some of them, I used to be able to recall, I can't do it too much now.	17:04
Kate Ellis	The names of the groups?	17:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, we'd go out and try to work in groups to defy or if a Negro would react, they'd whip him or something like that. But some, they reacted and they fought back. Some of them were brave enough in the little villages when if you struck them, you'd have a battle on hand. And Jeanerette was one of the areas, I remember that becoming late. But if you met with a fella on Main Street and he happened to hit him or something, you had to fight, you didn't run.	17:18
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	18:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, sometimes fellas pat their feet and they make you think you got to run. And a lot of them wouldn't run because on Saturday evening after work, they'd go to the various stores and stand up on the street, talking and go on like that. And a long time ago if you were on the street, sometimes White fellas come push you in the ditch. Some areas, push you off the sidewalk. But when they start standing up for themselves and resisting to that, they became respected.	18:08
Kate Ellis	Really?	18:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, as long as they took and went on. They would always try to get a group to try to come on them, but sometimes, two in the old folk home now, who did not run, that they just stood the resistance, they fought back. And that gentled a lot of situations, that gentled a lot of situations.	18:47
Kate Ellis	It did What?	19:11
Matthew Branch Polk	Gentle, made it better.	19:11
Kate Ellis	Oh, when actually, African Americans really—	19:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Started defending themselves.	19:20
Kate Ellis	That actually made it better?	19:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. I guess all of that's in the course of life.	19:22
Kate Ellis	Many people I've talked to say that the Jim Crow never ended, it just has taken on a new—	19:36
Matthew Branch Polk	New meaning.	19:44
Kate Ellis	New meaning, new forms. Would you agree with that?	19:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, yes. Since the days of integration, it has taken on a new form. And if you have an understanding about it, the competitiveness of it is it's just on a high psychological order to remind you in some instances that you're still a Negro, that's what it is, that he is still a Negro. And if you fall for it, it's something that those persons who try to strengthen themselves, make themselves independent, they'll respect it, they'll respect it. And the greatest issue, and I hope that they would be able to stand by it, is to register and vote.	19:50
Matthew Branch Polk	They have a choice in selection. Because choice is job, although you're a citizen. And the people who possibly would do the mandating and running of the other group, you see. This thing that's causing quite a bit of trauma in Louisiana and America, the redistricting because of numbers. The redistricting, that's causing a lot of trouble. And if you redistrict and put the population where it could be, they really don't want you to have some jobs, therefore it's rough.	20:41
Kate Ellis	It's still rough.	21:36
Matthew Branch Polk	It's still rough. Yes, it's still rough. Because I think right now that issue, the judges are trying to throw it out. And it's in this fourth district that's turning out, and I understood, I didn't get a chance to hear the ballots. But one of the men in Congress, because the redistrict and they're trying to get him to lose his job. I don't know which one it is, but you have organized assembly but it's the Black caucus because you have a few representatives now and that's rough. It's kind of rough. So citizenship, you're trying to gain your path in citizenship, but that's slowly coming in reality. Integration is a tough thing in some instances, cause most of us in this parish are a mixed group.	21:37
Kate Ellis	Are a mixed group?	22:31
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	22:35
Kate Ellis	What do you mean by that?	22:35
Matthew Branch Polk	I mean that my great-grandmother, our great-grandfather was a Spaniard, my great-grandmother was an Indian. And my grandmother married a Negro, an African American. So some of us, some of them, they just went on around the areas.	22:37
Kate Ellis	They just passed as White?	22:59
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, they went on the other areas and they passed as White, and they're still White. They come back sometime, but their children never came.	23:03
Kate Ellis	They come back, but they won't bring their children?	23:09
Matthew Branch Polk	No.	23:16
Kate Ellis	Because they don't want their children to know that they have African American roots?	23:16
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, no, the humiliation in the community at that time when that happened, those things happened. And that's practically all over Louisiana.	23:17
Kate Ellis	Oh, a lot of mixing.	23:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, a lot of mixing.	23:27
Edith Bijou Polk	[indistinct 00:23:33] when they were slaves.	23:34
Kate Ellis	When they were slaves? Yeah.	23:35
Matthew Branch Polk	It's something to—	23:35
Edith Bijou Polk	The only people free were Black woman and the White man.	23:35
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	23:35
Edith Bijou Polk	The only free people then in those days was the White man and the Black woman.	23:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, it's a matter of [indistinct 00:23:57] did what they wanted. Well, this thing of intermarriage now is causing quite a sensation because this can't be stopped. It could be, but I just went to one of the weddings of one of my students' son Saturday. They married, he married a White girl. And a cousin of mine, his friend married a White girl. However, that's normal in these village parishes, that's going fast now.	23:54
Kate Ellis	That's happening around here?	24:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, yeah.	24:38
Kate Ellis	What about that area, Grand Maris?	24:38
Matthew Branch Polk	It was just—	24:51
Edith Bijou Polk	They're White.	24:51
Kate Ellis	They're White as White, is that what you said?	24:51
Edith Bijou Polk	Oh, yeah.	24:51
Matthew Branch Polk	When the man came to sell me rings one time in my school, he was surprised, he was from New York. He came to sell class rings and he looked at some of my children who had green eyes. And he asked me why we integrated, he said he didn't know. I said, "No, we are not integrated, we are amalgamated."	24:51
Kate Ellis	Amalgamated.	25:12
Matthew Branch Polk	That was the mixture and that's about the size Grand Mary was or is. But now they're mixing terribly, they're mixing terribly. And really, they knew nothing but farming and things, but now their children are expanding, they're going into medicine, lawyers and teachers and all what have you.	25:16
Edith Bijou Polk	They're beginning to marry Black darker.	25:44
Kate Ellis	Marry darker now?	25:46
Edith Bijou Polk	Oh, yeah.	25:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Very much so.	25:47
Edith Bijou Polk	Used a dark man, [indistinct 00:25:50] color couldn't do anything.	25:48
Kate Ellis	Really? They wouldn't have a dark person even in the neighborhood?	25:51
Edith Bijou Polk	But now they have learned since. They've come to [indistinct 00:26:07] beautiful homes and everything. They're living really like a person should live.	26:03
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I don't think like a person. They're affording the things that they can afford in life.	26:08
Kate Ellis	The people in Grand Mary?	26:14
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. And they built a large place there, they call it the Monome. It's one of the largest entertainment sections in this area for Blacks. And now a lot of Whites go there to have the entertainments, too. It's on the highway going towards New Orleans.	26:14
Kate Ellis	And so now darker skinned Blacks can go, but there was a time when they couldn't.	26:36
Matthew Branch Polk	When they oppressed them, I think I remember from the first graduate I had from out there, his father had a club. And the night we brought all the seniors and juniors in my old bus out there. And the girls told me it wasn't them that felt that way, but the older parents. And I remember that night when they gave the entertainment for my students and those who were graduating from out there, all the males then stood outside looking in. They wouldn't go in and they just stood looking.	26:42
Kate Ellis	You mean the dark people couldn't go into the—	27:22
Matthew Branch Polk	No, it was the fathers and friends of the places.	27:23
Kate Ellis	Oh, they stood outside.	27:27
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, they wouldn't come in.	27:28
Kate Ellis	The light-skinned fathers?	27:28
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	27:31
Kate Ellis	Because they were scandalized by this, by having these—	27:34
Matthew Branch Polk	I think that caused the situation of a lot of family intermarriages.	27:39
Kate Ellis	What did?	27:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Just trying to keep themselves separate.	27:47
Kate Ellis	Oh, like families marrying each other.	27:49
Matthew Branch Polk	And it brought about—	27:52
Edith Bijou Polk	A lot of children. That's all, you told them about some, they can't sit up there with all these different ill-formed children because they've got to marry in your family.	27:52
Kate Ellis	And that was all to keep everybody light skinned?	28:09
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	28:12
Kate Ellis	What was the name of that club that you took them to, that entertainment?	28:13
Matthew Branch Polk	That was it. No, no, that was the Sigues Club at the time.	28:21
Kate Ellis	Sigues Club?	28:21
Matthew Branch Polk	The Sigues Club.	28:21
Kate Ellis	How do you spell that?	28:21
Matthew Branch Polk	S-I-G-U-E-S, Sigues. That was Altima Sigues Club.	28:25
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Wow. Well, why don't I ask you more from this and then maybe I should wrap this up, because we've been talking a long time. You were telling me about your jobs and we had stopped at the salesman for your families. That period of when you were a salesman for your parents' grocery store, was that also the 1920s?	28:30
Matthew Branch Polk	'20s and '30s, about 14 years. Then after that I start working for the Eagles Life Insurance.	29:03
Kate Ellis	Eagles?	29:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Life Insurance.	29:21
Kate Ellis	And you were an agent?	29:24
Matthew Branch Polk	I was an agent. And Mr. Vavesseur of St. Martinville.	29:24
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, what was that?	29:24
Matthew Branch Polk	Vavesseur, V-A-V-E-S-S-E-U-R.	29:37
Kate Ellis	Wait, what are you spelling? I mean, what is it?	29:40
Matthew Branch Polk	The name of the superintendent.	29:42
Kate Ellis	Oh, okay. Of the insurance?	29:44
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, he was the area Superintendent	29:44
Kate Ellis	And where was the insurance company?	29:52
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, it covered the parish, St. Martin Parish, the part of Iberia. I worked for him. And after that, the company I got into, they offered me a position in the People's Life Insurance. I succeeded a gentleman that was retiring, a Mr. Alexander. I worked at debit and after other men retired and brought my father into the field, and debit was given to him here for the People's Insurance Company.	29:55
Kate Ellis	Was this both in the '30s when you were—	30:36
Matthew Branch Polk	Coming up to the '40s.	30:39
Kate Ellis	1930s to 1940s?	30:40
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. And I worked long after that, after my father's passing in 1944.	30:45
Kate Ellis	So you did that while you were also a school principal?	30:47
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, I did that in the evenings. And this was small but after it grew, my father, his debit increased and we would work them together, same company. We worked from a small place called Ashton, Louisiana. And we worked Jeanerette, Loreauville, Grand Mary, Patoutville, all the way up through St. Martin, St. Martinville. St. Martin Parish, up to Breaux Bridge, and then part of Lafayette and Landry Plantation.	30:50
Kate Ellis	Wow. And then, okay.	31:29
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, the superintendent, president of the people wanted me and the superintendent to leave school and to go into the insurance field altogether. My father had been known not to stop going, so he did what he could and I went on, completed my work in the college. And when I sometime come back, I'd do it again in the summer. And when I started out, was before I got my assignment and jobs, I continued and I worked my community in the evenings to make us step high with that company. And therefore, that's what I kind of had to do because my salary then was $70 a month.	31:36
Kate Ellis	As a principal?	32:24
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes, started out well. I was the second highest paid fellow. I was the assistant principal here at the time and the principal was getting $75 and I got $70, and that was the highest paid salary because most of the teachers started at $20 to $50 and that was it.	32:25
Kate Ellis	Now, so as far as what I should write down as your first job with the schools, you were a teacher for one year?	32:46
Matthew Branch Polk	A year and a half, almost two years. I began the mid-session of '35, '36.	32:55
Kate Ellis	What school was that?	33:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Iberia Parish Training School, that was just one year above the high school where, when the students finished from that school, they were given certificates to go out and teach. And therefore, you could see why the salaries were so low, because Mr. Henderson and I in the second generation were the first ones to come back to this community with degrees, and then Mr. Augustus and the other men followed after that.	33:02
Matthew Branch Polk	We did have a few who came out and they were much older than we were. Mr. Ellingston Green and Ms. Eglin, well, they achieved their bachelor's degree along the line through extension services. But one of the Lillys and the Robinson's sisters and very few others. That's how my teachers who started out, all of my teachers and I started out, I took them to the first association meeting because I was made district president after my second year, visiting the association. I took care of congressional district. I worked in that for 13 years.	33:36
Kate Ellis	Wait, that was in—You were the district president?	34:24
Matthew Branch Polk	Third district, congressional district president of the Black Louisiana Association. That comprised parishes from—	34:30
Kate Ellis	The Louisiana Association—	34:39
Matthew Branch Polk	The Colored Teacher's Association, that's what we called it at that time.	34:48
Kate Ellis	Louisiana Colored Teacher's Association.	34:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Then we renamed it Louisiana Education Association.	34:53
Kate Ellis	Louisiana Association. Okay. I'm sorry, but because I'm writing this down in a couple different places. It was the district president?	35:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, president of the district, third congressional district. That's what we called it. We had eight of them in Louisiana and each vice president was made president of that district. We had to go out and try to build it. And therefore, we had our claim came in, that came in that worked for better schools and petitioned the state and what have you, to seek for better schools and facilities for Negro children. And that led up to integration through AP2 Road. And the other fellow in New Orleans, Thurgood Marshall, was our retainers, and so they worked with us.	35:17
Kate Ellis	They worked with you to integrate the schools?	36:10
Matthew Branch Polk	To seek for better education. But when he took the case, they saw that you could not have separate and equal, it had to be equal, you couldn't be separate. And that led to integration, that's what it led to.	36:13
Kate Ellis	Now, just to get back to the employment history, you started out as a teacher at Iberia Parish Training School.	36:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, science teacher.	36:40
Kate Ellis	And then you became a principal.	36:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Principal, yes. I served under him as assistant principal for a while.	36:43
Kate Ellis	Pretty much Iberia Parish Training School from say, 1937?	36:50
Matthew Branch Polk	'35. The session of '35 and '36.	36:59
Kate Ellis	For the teacher?	37:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. The end of '37 I started out, the superintendent saw that I should go to Jeanerette because the principal there weren't a change, Mr. Chester Smith. Chester Berry Smith.	37:02
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry, were you ever principal at Iberia Parish Training School?	37:19
Matthew Branch Polk	No, just as an assistant for him.	37:27
Kate Ellis	Assistant principal?	37:30
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	37:31
Kate Ellis	From 1936 to '37?	37:33
Matthew Branch Polk	Session of '35 and '36. The last part of '37 going to '38, then they moved me to Jeanerette to become principal.	37:35
Kate Ellis	Okay, that's what I want to get. And the name of the school at Jeanette was?	37:45
Matthew Branch Polk	Jeanerette Colored Elementary. Everything was Colored all the way through. So we moved it up from the Jeanerette Colored Elementary to the Jeanerette Colored Junior High, to the Jeanerette Colored High. And we ended up with the Bully High School, showed the pictures of the man who was one of the former principals there.	37:51
Kate Ellis	And you were with this school from 1938?	38:30
Matthew Branch Polk	To end of session, '37, '38 up to 1969 and '70.	38:34
Kate Ellis	So you retired in 1970?	38:45
Matthew Branch Polk	The session of '69 and '70, going into '70.	38:48
Kate Ellis	Did you retire in 1970?	38:51
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh yeah, yeah. I can say that. That's what it was. We started with the integration process in 1969 and they broke my school up from a high school to one of these intermediate elementary school. Just something like a school, that they had a special name for them. That's when I left out.	38:51
Kate Ellis	You left and you never took up anywhere else?	39:34
Matthew Branch Polk	No, no, no, I went on my own. I'd worked long enough but not survived to get enough money.	39:39
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	39:44
Matthew Branch Polk	I survived to get enough money. The pay was the lower at the time.	39:45
Kate Ellis	Okay. Well, I need to ask you about awards and honors that you have been given. I know there's probably a lot, huh?	39:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, well, a few.	40:01
Kate Ellis	Can you name some of them?	40:01
Matthew Branch Polk	One from the district, which I served, I served at the first Black president after integration, yes.	40:13
Kate Ellis	President?	40:28
Matthew Branch Polk	After integration in that district.	40:29
Kate Ellis	Of the?	40:32
Matthew Branch Polk	It broke up and went into the LAE, the Louisiana Association of Education of that district and moved right on to what we have now. So we've been changed from the third congressional district because of the parish assessment, to the fifth conventional district, so we are on the other end. And from the school system and various ones, I received quite a few things and that meant much well for my students and members of the graduating classes. They gave me a lot of gifts, honorariums and what have you. And up to now, they're still doing things. In 1992, they had a school reunion, which I wasn't able to attend, and they focused a lot of things upon me. Physical things, all of these things here and they still send the plaques. And I have about a couple hundred of those in boxes.	40:35
Kate Ellis	Do you really, a couple hundred plaques?	41:58
Matthew Branch Polk	And books, yeah, in boxes and things.	42:00
Kate Ellis	A few hundred plaques from?	42:00
Matthew Branch Polk	Various classes in the communities.	42:00
Edith Bijou Polk	How about the [indistinct 00:42:02].	42:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, when they had that, they just outfit me with suits. All my clothes and finances. I have books that those who have gotten their doctorate degrees, that they gave to me and many other issues. So I have all those things, as I told you, they stored in boxes. I just don't have the room for them, because I get in a fuss if I try to bring them out. I preserved all of their things that I could, their pictures and everything else. And we have a copy from the tape of the activities that they had.	42:02
Matthew Branch Polk	However, they sent a limousine here for me and I couldn't get out, so that was the issue. My daughter and granddaughter attended, I was ill at the time. Yes, but they made tapes of the situation for me. And they're still, every class reunion, just two weeks ago there was one, they've been having them and they still give me plaques and other things that I need. Well, I'm grateful. I'm grateful because I don't know, I didn't know that so much had been done for them that they appreciated it.	42:52
Kate Ellis	I need to know about other organizations that you have belonged to, civic, community, educational, political.	43:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, all of the parish educational associations, Iberia Education Association, and the Retired Teachers Association, served as the legislative chairman in the AARP.	43:51
Kate Ellis	One second. Did you say chair?	44:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Chair, the legislative chairman of a section of the AARP For a while. They still send me the notices. I reply, I respond, but I'm not the chairman, not sent to anyone else. And I served as president of the local Mary B. Amos Retired Teachers Association for a while. Mr. Augustus has been president now for a good number of years since. I served six years and then double that time on him because no one wants to go back to it, you see. That makes it kind of difficult. The benevolent societies and the Masonic Lodge.	44:23
Kate Ellis	The Masonic Lodge?	45:10
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	45:12
Kate Ellis	And what did you say about other societies?	45:13
Matthew Branch Polk	The benevolent societies. True friend, I served as president, assistant vice president during my father's time. And was there right after his passing as president for until about six years ago, since 1944.	45:15
Kate Ellis	Wait, I'm sorry. Truth and Benevolent Society, you were president?	45:33
Matthew Branch Polk	I was president, succeeded my father.	45:41
Kate Ellis	From 19—	45:42
Matthew Branch Polk	'44 with an inter displacement of one break of about three years, until almost about six years ago.	45:43
Kate Ellis	Okay, wow.	45:56
Matthew Branch Polk	About 1988. Now, Ms. Melvina, one of my first cousins, she's president now.	45:57
Kate Ellis	Melvina is?	46:07
Matthew Branch Polk	Melvin Dural.	46:07
Kate Ellis	Oh yeah.	46:08
Matthew Branch Polk	That's in our breaking up period, she serves as the president. That puts me out now.	46:11
Kate Ellis	What?	46:20
Matthew Branch Polk	That puts me out now. At my age, I need to rest.	46:20
Kate Ellis	Yeah, you've done a lot of work.	46:29
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, it's been a lot thrown upon me. I still try to do what I can, that's kind of, I hope reasonable. The church, I served as clerk at one time for about a period of 27 years.	46:29
Kate Ellis	Clerk for about—	46:46

Kate Ellis	You were teaching?	0:00
Matthew Branch Polk	[indistinct 00:00:03] teacher.	0:01
Kate Ellis	Wait.	0:01
Matthew Branch Polk	I am a deacon now, but served as part-time superintendent and teacher of the Sunday school, and now a good number of years as deacon.	0:04
Kate Ellis	Also a teacher and superintendent of Sunday school.	0:17
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I had my early beginning at Star Pilgrim Baptist Church in New Iberia. I became a member of that church in 1918.	0:28
Kate Ellis	You're kidding?	0:35
Matthew Branch Polk	Baptized there 1918.	0:40
Kate Ellis	Star Pilgrim Baptist Church.	0:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Baptized there under the—	0:49
Kate Ellis	That's in New Iberia, right?	0:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Reverend Jackson is the pastor now. But the man who I was under, the first one, was Prince Albert, who baptized me, 1918.	0:54
Kate Ellis	Baptized 1918.	1:02
Matthew Branch Polk	Uh-huh. Lived there in 1930. Went to the family church in Loreauville.	1:03
Kate Ellis	Right. This is the final question. Are there other activities or affiliations that you have? Or hobbies, interests? Basically anything else that you left out?	1:15
Matthew Branch Polk	No. No. Only the early years, I see it. When I came on the scene, I'd served as teacher, coach, and everything.	1:41
Kate Ellis	Teacher, coach and everything—	1:49
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, at—	1:50
Kate Ellis	—at Champ?	1:50
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. When I first started at IPTS, to organize the first boys basketball club. And then I went to Jeanerette, had that interest to keep on going. To get my school started.	1:51
Kate Ellis	In 1935 at IPTS? That you organized the first basketball?	2:04
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes.	2:17
Kate Ellis	But you've been kept busy, you're saying, with just building the Jeanerette schools.	2:20
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. Until my retirement. When we left it, when I left the school, we left it with everything, mostly, that every school in the state had.	2:25
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry? You—	2:37
Matthew Branch Polk	We left it with everything the other schools in the state had. Basketball team, football team, band, forensic clubs, and what have you. And added on all the departments to it. Yeah. And if that's a contribution, that's it. Yeah, that's it.	2:37
Kate Ellis	That's a lot.	2:58
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	2:59
Kate Ellis	Just very sort of [indistinct 00:03:03], but I have a feeling this might be a whole story in itself. When the schools integrated in Jeanerette, were you displaced in some respect by White—	3:01
Matthew Branch Polk	No, I wasn't displaced.	3:19
Kate Ellis	— administrators or anything?	3:21
Matthew Branch Polk	No, I wasn't displaced. They wanted me to take another job and I just didn't feel like my school should have been broken up to that level. You see? To the type of elementary school that they wanted to make.	3:22
Kate Ellis	They wanted to make it an elementary school?	3:38
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. A junior high, as it is now. They called it Jeanerette, they took the name off, from Bolen, the junior high, they say, and all of that so—	3:39
Kate Ellis	Oh, they did what they, I'd heard about this, that they named, they took away all of the—	3:53
Matthew Branch Polk	Colored, Black, the Afro-American names off the schools. And then they named the school after the streets that they were on, after the section and the ward where they were. You see? My former principal school was Jonas Henderson High School, the first one. Then it moved out to what is now, I think Freshman High, where on the road, they changed the name, as the school grew. And my school, Bolen, they moved the names and even the stadiums that were named after the supervisor, Black supervisor, that they discarded all those things. In other words. And I had an interesting experience because I had a open field, I asked for an enclosure for a period about near 28 years.	3:58
Kate Ellis	You asked for—	4:54
Matthew Branch Polk	A field to close my school gate field up and put fence around it. So really, it was because of finances, it was missing. So I engaged with them to play the White stadium two years, and that cleared everything. We made an enormous amount of money and took care of all our desks.	4:54
Matthew Branch Polk	But as it was, people just could come out on the open field and we couldn't do anything about it. And that meant much. And they said integration, a fence went up. They had all the [indistinct 00:05:33] they had. They didn't have money for anything. A fence went up at every school in the parish. A fence. A fence went up. They found that—	5:20
Kate Ellis	There's your separate but so-called equal.	5:43
Matthew Branch Polk	That's what your separate and equal was. And they didn't have money for nothing. Called the school board members together, no money. But when that went up, I don't care how large the campus was, they had a fence. They had a fence. So I don't know, it was when they were afraid for protecting the little White child or keeping the Negro child out or what. But that's went up.	5:47
Matthew Branch Polk	But I'm hopeful that it'll become better. I'm hopeful. It's a long ways off. One of my students, who was head coach, I think, in Jeanerette, he just left to go back to Lafayette. And the other students, who were coaching assistant coaches, they chose a fellow, I think from Baton Rouge, come to be the coach. And that's a terrible problem in Jeanerette right now.	6:15
Kate Ellis	But they chose somebody from—	6:44
Matthew Branch Polk	Baton Rouge, a White fellow from Baton Rouge or [indistinct 00:06:50] somewhere to become the coach of that school.	6:48
Kate Ellis	As opposed to choosing somebody from the area, who might be Black.	6:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Yes. And you have them qualified right in the system down there.	6:57
Kate Ellis	Sounds like Jeanerette is—	7:01
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, they'll fight for it. That's one thing.	7:02
Kate Ellis	Really?	7:04
Matthew Branch Polk	They'll fight for it. Yeah, you might cast them down, but they'll go after you. I think they know what it means, hard times. It's rewarding to come through. It's kind of rough.	7:05
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, this area, this part of our community, [indistinct 00:07:33] just put what they want and that's it.	7:26
Kate Ellis	I'm sorry?	7:34
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah. I said in the Iberia section, they put what they want. And you are to have no retaliation.	7:35
Kate Ellis	So, in other words, there's less kind of organized retaliation among Blacks if something happens. They're less organized in New Iberia?	7:41
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, I wouldn't say less organized. I don't know, more fearful of what, but they go out.	7:53
Kate Ellis	They're not, uh-huh. The way that, in Jeanerette, they fight.	7:59
Matthew Branch Polk	They'll go for it.	8:04
Kate Ellis	Yeah.	8:04
Matthew Branch Polk	I think they'll express their desires and whatnot. So if they don't get it, they'll let you know how it is. Because the percentage of students are greater in the Black community and receive less attention.	8:08
Matthew Branch Polk	Maybe you've been faced with the problem since integration, most churches and individuals, they tried to put up what they call private schools. And I don't see how some of them could manage with so limited a group. You see? Of students. But some kind of way, they're bypassing that. And I don't know how the schools are inside, how they're qualifying for all the things that are needed. But they seem to be doing a good job putting it over the state. They are really lacking public education.	8:29
Kate Ellis	Just to avoid integration?	9:06
Matthew Branch Polk	To avoid, [indistinct 00:09:11] the mixtures there, so they're not getting anywhere.	9:09
Kate Ellis	What do you mean?	9:14
Matthew Branch Polk	The mixture is there. The students are getting together and they're going along so—	9:15
Kate Ellis	So the students get along.	9:19
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	9:20
Kate Ellis	They want to be together.	9:21
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah, they're going together. Yeah. And all of this coming about, you have them in the athletic departments. You have, well, a good feat of Black athletes. And they do well and they accomplished much for the school. And I think some of the Negro coaches could accomplish what the other coaches seem to think they can do.	9:22
Kate Ellis	Certainly.	9:52
Matthew Branch Polk	They've been doing it. Yeah, so it's just sometimes it's a lilywhite situation that reflects, but—	9:56
Kate Ellis	Sometimes it's a what?	10:03
Matthew Branch Polk	A lilywhite. Yeah. That's what they seem to think it's predominantly. Yeah. But—	10:05
Kate Ellis	What do you mean it's— But when you say sometimes it's a lily, I understand the term, but what are you re—	10:13
Matthew Branch Polk	I'm referring to that the implications are that they just want to have it that way. That's all it is. Yeah. So that's about a breaking point, if that is such. You have any more questions? Anything?	10:19
Kate Ellis	I think I'll let up on you now.	10:39
Matthew Branch Polk	Oh, well.	10:41
Kate Ellis	It's been a, yeah, we can stop here.	10:42
Matthew Branch Polk	Well, if, at any time, I'm around with anything you think I know, I'd be glad to do what I can.	10:49
Kate Ellis	Really?	10:54
Matthew Branch Polk	Yeah.	10:54
Kate Ellis	Well, I'll stop this here.	10:54

Item Info

Title:

Matthew Polk interview recording, 1994 July 22

Date:

July 22, 1994

Creator:

Contributor:

Ellis, Kate

Description:

Name: Matthew Branch Polk; Date of birth: 1912-05-21; Place of birth: New Iberia, LA; Occupation(s): educator; principal; Residence: New Iberia, LA
Informant ID: 643; Interviewed by: Kate Ellis.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

Interview number: 790
2f5e38db-41dd-4bd2-84e8-9f0ab90cb126
behindtheveil
btvct06055
ark:/87924/r4h130p24
e668a926-418b-4a70-b02f-cc0afd99ca2f

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4h130p24

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

Matthew Polk interview recording, 1994 July 22

Transcript

Item Info

1. Matthew Polk administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options

Matthew Polk interview recording, 1994 July 22

Transcript

Item Info

Related Items

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options