Benjamin Adams interview recording, 1994 July 20
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| Charles Houston | Could we start by having you state your name please and when you were born? | 0:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | My name is Benjamin, Benjamin E. Adams. And I was born 1933, July the 19th, 1933 in the town of Edgefield, in the rural section of Edgefield. | 0:09 |
| Charles Houston | What county is that? | 0:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Edgefield County. | 0:37 |
| Charles Houston | Edgefield County? | 0:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 0:41 |
| Charles Houston | In the town of Edgefield, in Edgefield County. | 0:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Edgefield County. Now my granddaddy was a minister, and he was sold as a slave in Virginia at the age of nine, he and his mother, and of course he never saw his mother anymore after then. And I think the Adams bought him and brought him to South Carolina. Now he was the firstborn of his mother. She might have had some children after since she had been a young woman, but we don't know who they are, whether she had any more children. And he came from Texas, I remember that He did come from Texas to Virginia at the age of nine and sold in Virginia. | 0:50 |
| Charles Houston | He was sold in Virginia to someone who brought him to South Carolina? | 1:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 1:59 |
| Charles Houston | But he and his mother had been brought from Texas to Virginia? | 2:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | That's correct. That's correct. And so like I said, we don't know whether she had any more children there after or whatever, because he lost sight of his mother. The Adams' raised him, and so he married and he had four son and he didn't have any daughters. That's about the extent that I know about my granddaddy. Now being raised partly in Edgefield up until by age of nine, my daddy share cropped, because I went to school at one room school, and that school had seven classes with one teacher. And I remember the teacher would come around to me maybe once every day and give me an assignment, and she would check my assignment the next day, happened to have to teach seven classes. | 2:05 |
| Charles Houston | Teacher taught seven classes? | 3:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, in that one room. And wait a minute, let me back up. Back up. No, she had four, first through the fourth grade. I'm sorry, not seven. And we all the boys had to go out and cut wood and stick for the heat done winter months, and we didn't have no outside toilet so we had to go in the woods, and we had to pick a different direction, or sometimes we didn't have no direction to go. But our parents, sometimes they would bring wood to the school, and we didn't have to cut it all the time, but we had to go out in the woods and cut wood to keep the heat going. | 3:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | We didn't have no after that anything like baseball, or basketball or whatever. And so we would entertain ourselves by sometimes playing dog and rabbits. One would be the rabbits and then the rest of them would be dogs running behind. We would run all through the woods. But I stayed in the first grade, because I really didn't learn anything, about two years. And then after my parents realized that we really wasn't learning anything, we had to walk five miles to Edgefield, the city school. And so then I went to the Edgefield city school, and then I stayed in first grade there for about two years, no, yeah, one year. I did first grade approximately three years. And because once I got good foundation then thereafter I made my grade every year thereafter. | 4:36 |
| Charles Houston | But you stayed in the city school? | 5:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, well I was stayed in city school for oh, approximately two years. And my daddy health got bad. We was sharecropping on a plantation, and so he had worked for this plantation owner for 23 years. But when health got bad, and it was only three young boys, I had seven older sisters and brothers but they had left. And so out of the three boys, myself being the young one, I was about nine years old. That was in about '41, 1941, and my next brother was about 10, and my next brother was about 13. | 5:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | We really wasn't able to do a whole lot of heavy farming. And my daddy health got bad, so the Mr. John Kemp who was the plantation owner came and I remember told my daddy, we had to move because you are no longer able to farm. And he had somebody, a family about 10 kids, he need the house. Well, my daddy health being bad, he couldn't work anymore. He had high blood and diabetic. We tried to go to move to the city, and my mother, she did the must work but she didn't make enough money to pay the rent. | 6:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | We was just about to be homeless, because you had to either be able to farm or you had to, well there wasn't much work could do for a Black man or you Black woman unless they did domestic work. And so then we finally, my daddy met a gentleman, his name was Broadwater, and his family wanted him to come north, and he had 40 acres of land and wanted to sell it for $700. And so my daddy finally got a bank to buy that land with a three bedroom house. And it's Edgefield County, a little town called Trenton. We moved to that in '42. | 7:42 |
| Charles Houston | And you moved— | 8:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | From Edgefield. | 8:46 |
| Charles Houston | It was in South Carolina? | 8:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, it's all in the same county. But Trenton is about six miles from Edgefield but it's in Afield County. | 8:52 |
| Charles Houston | And this man wanted to sell land to your daddy? | 9:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | Not Mr. Broadwater, who was Black, wanted to sell his land to my daddy because he wanted to go north with his children. | 9:06 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, Mr. Broadwater wanted to move north? | 9:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 9:21 |
| Charles Houston | And he wanted your dad to buy his farm? | 9:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Buy his farm and cause— | 9:24 |
| Charles Houston | It was how big? 700 acres? | 9:27 |
| Benjamin Adams | 40 acres. | 9:30 |
| Charles Houston | 40 acres. | 9:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, let me back up now, he wanted $1,200. I'm sorry, $1,200 for 40 acres. | 9:33 |
| Charles Houston | Was that a good price? | 9:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, oh yeah. And so the bank looked at it and they knew my dad wasn't working, but they knew that property well worth what he were asking for. Well, we stayed there in Trenton approximately six years, and Mr. Broadwater being old and he had grown, the property had grown all up, so it was only piece of Black property in between two White families. And so my daddy improved, and we fixed up the house and everything, and the first year my daddy made three bales of cotton. 600 something dollars and plus seed money nearly realized that when he was a sharecropper he plantation on didn't give you the seed money. And so we made that money and they paid, I think my dad paid about $300 on the age, and bought a mule for about $200. And my dad never had made that kind of money. | 9:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | But we did good and got prosperous. We were able to buy a halfway decent car, and so we began to show prosperity, and the White lady that lived on the left of us had a pond, and she also ran a service station. And when we would go off to the church, and back and then we go to church in the morning and come back maybe six o'clock in the afternoon, we stayed all day at church service. And my dad was, and my mother was religious and involved in the church, and when we come back we would find that we had a mule with a leg broke, and then we would find a car with a leg broke. And so we just didn't know what happened. And then the White people would ride by and shoot at our house, and we sat back off the road quite a distance, and we had a tin top in the old days, they really wasn't trying to do a harm but they shoot at the top. | 11:13 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so later on Mrs. Samuel, that's the lady name that had the pond lived next door to her. She wanted to sell us, wanted her sister to buy the property. And my dad said, "Well, no we don't want to move, we like our home and everything." And she said, "Well, I think you just ought to sell my sister that property. I want my sister to live next close to me." Daddy said, "Well, I understand that but I won't sell my property." And so later on she would come back maybe next week or so and tell, "I think you ought to sell my sister that property." | 12:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | And daddy would tell her again, "No, we don't want to sell our property." And she would tell him, "Well I think you might what you had sold my sister that property." And so we kept finding things happened to our cattle when we go to church and all. And so then she really got mad, and so then she began to show some resentment and all, and our mailbox got torn down every night by some means, somebody vandalized the mailbox, and back in then you didn't have no law on your side, and you didn't want White people really to get mad with you because you had nobody to go to. | 13:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | Then my daddy and my mother decide maybe we better sell is probably because we ain't going to have no piece here. And later we find 140 acres down about 12 miles in Edgefield County near Bettis Academy. Bettis Academy was used to be a private school with that sister high school and Junior College. My dad brought 140 acres there, and thereafter I grew up in Edgefield County on the ball of Aiken County, really, Hayfield County split our property. And so that's where I finished high school. That's about the extent. | 14:19 |
| Charles Houston | Was this a good arrangement for you? It sounds like although you were forced to move in a sense, it sounds like it turned out to be a good move for the family. Was it a good move for the family? | 15:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | It was a good move because we was the only Black property owner within about a six mile radius and we were in the middle of a White community. | 15:41 |
| Charles Houston | And when you moved out to this 130 acre. | 15:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | When we moved to the 140 acre, that was in a predominant Black area that had Black owners, property owners, and that near Bettis Academy. Then we lived happily thereafter, and then later on time was tough back in then, we'd go to school before then we moved to Bettis, my parents wanted us to get a good education, and so she wouldn't let us go to the school there in Trenton. And so we drove 20 miles to Bettis Academy before we moved to Bettis. We had three stations that we would buy gas from. | 15:54 |
| Charles Houston | This was before you moved when you were living up— | 16:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, before we moved. | 16:51 |
| Charles Houston | When you were living up on the 40 acres. | 16:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | 40 acres. | 16:54 |
| Charles Houston | You drove 22 miles to school? | 16:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | 22 miles. Because you see I live in a farming area, and Black male, when you got maybe about 16 years of age, plantation owner would make the boys stop and farm. They didn't get much education. And so since we owned our own property, nobody really controls, but we had problems trying to buy gas to go to school because we had to get it on credit and whatever. We had about three or four places that we would buy gas so people wouldn't know that we really was riding that much gas out every day. And we gas up at those three or four places and went to school. | 16:58 |
| Charles Houston | The reason you drove 22 miles is because there was no White school around, I mean there was no Black school around, you since you were the only Black family for a six-mile radius, there wasn't a good school for you to go to, is that? | 18:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, it was a school, but the Black male, when he got about 16 years age they had to go farm. And all for us to continue education without, well we could have went to school there, but we got a better education by going to Bettis Academy 22 miles away. | 18:12 |
| Charles Houston | And what town was Bettis Academy in? | 18:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Little town, well it is a community but it's address is in Trenton. It's in the rural section of Edgefield County. | 18:49 |
| Charles Houston | And is Basil? | 19:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, Bettis. | 19:06 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, Bettis, Bettis Academy. | 19:09 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. It's a long history, Reverend Bettis started that school right after slavery. | 19:11 |
| Charles Houston | And did your parents have to pay to send you there? | 19:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, they had to pay tuition because it was separate but unequal education back in that time. And so Bettis had their own buses to go out and pick up the kids, take them to school. But they bought them buses themselves, and the maintenance and the gas, so they would go out and pick up kids and would bring them to school there because there was only one high school in Edgefield County and that was about 12 miles away. And so the kids within about six-mile raised of Bettis, Bettis would go out and pick them up and bring them to school. And because back in then they didn't funded any bus for Black kids. | 19:23 |
| Charles Houston | Right. But you were too far away to be picked up by the bus when you were on that 40 acre farm? | 20:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 20:25 |
| Charles Houston | You were 22 miles away, the bus only went out six miles? | 20:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Six miles. Yeah. | 20:28 |
| Charles Houston | Now after you moved to the 140 acre farm, did you still go to Bettis or did you go to a different school? | 20:32 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, we went to Bettis. | 20:41 |
| Charles Houston | You still went to Bettis? | 20:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, we still went to Bettis only. We didn't have to drive, we could walk. | 20:43 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, so you were really close? | 20:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I was about a mile and a half from Bettis. | 20:49 |
| Charles Houston | And this was a Black farm owning area? | 20:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, Black farming area. Okay. A Black community. | 20:55 |
| Charles Houston | There were a lot of Black landowners in this community? | 21:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 21:03 |
| Charles Houston | And how big, 140 acres, that's a big farm. | 21:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | We got that. I think my dad paid, I think he paid $1,200 for that. 140 acres. And so we sold the property at and Trenton, that 40 acres, I think my dad sold that for about $1,400. We had enough to pay cash for that 140 acres. | 21:08 |
| Charles Houston | Your dad made out okay? | 21:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, made out okay. | 21:39 |
| Charles Houston | Those White folks did him a favor. | 21:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, did him a favor. And so then times was tough, but then in '50, no '51, I Savannah River Project. | 21:44 |
| Charles Houston | I'm sorry, | 22:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | Savannah River Project started being built, that's where they make nuclear and all, H-Bomb. Well, Black lived on the plantation and they were doing, they were really making a little money and all. But they started off paying, Savannah River Project started off paying to labor, $1.15 an hour. And that was big money because wages back in then I remember was $0.50 and hour up until 75 cents. And you got 75 cents, you were making top money. Well, Black people began to leave cotton in the field and moved off plantation, moved down around Aiken. And so a White man had a problem trying to gather his crop, because they began to work down Savannah River Project. And then my brother began to get a job, and so we were able to prosperity, and we had our housewives, electricity, and we didn't have no electricity, and we began to do real good. | 22:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | And my mother, I remember her, she did domestic work, housework. And so my brother bought a Lincoln, that was in '52. He bought a '49 Lincoln and that was right up-to-date for cars. And so my mother's car, she had an old '48 Chevrolet and it broke down. She had to drive my brother car to work down in Aiken so she could do domestic work in the White lady house. And she parked a couple doors from the house where she worked. But so happened the lady looked out and saw her getting out the car. | 23:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so she said, "Well I don't think I need you today. Said you driving a car better than what I am. And so you don't need to come back." My mother lost that job as a result of driving a nice car. And she would let my mother explain that's her son's car and whatever. But anyway, Savannah River Project really was the salvation of Black people as well as White. They began to get good jobs and paying good, and they be able to buy property and buy decent housing, decent car. | 24:27 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah. There was a question when your, and this is way back, I'm sorry to back up on this. | 25:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | No problem. No, no problem. | 25:26 |
| Charles Houston | But you said that your granddad was separated from his mother in Virginia and sold to somebody in South Carolina. Did he come in then to Edgewater County? Do you know whether your granddad, when he was brought to South Carolina was brought to the same area? | 25:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | Let me see, now he was sold in Virginia and he don't know where his mother went, but he was brought to South Carolina from Virginia. | 25:50 |
| Charles Houston | But do you know where in South Carolina he was brought? You said he was raised by the Adams'. | 25:59 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, okay. He was brought to Edgefield, I'm sorry, yeah. And the Adams family owned him. | 26:06 |
| Charles Houston | In other words, your family then stayed in Edgefield. | 26:12 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 26:15 |
| Charles Houston | Your dad was born there, and he grew up there, and you were born there and you grew up there. This is where you went to school? | 26:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 26:23 |
| Charles Houston | And then after your dad had to sell his 40 acre farm in Trenton and moved down near Aiken, moved down to the border of Edgefield County. to the 140 acre farm. | 26:26 |
| Benjamin Adams | 40 acre. | 26:42 |
| Charles Houston | And you continued to go to Bettis Academy. Did your brothers also go to Bettis Academy? | 26:45 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, my two brothers. In fact my whole family went to Bettis off and on. Even when the older sisters and brothers lived in Edgefield, my daddy it being a boarding school, they would go to Bettis after they finished high school. | 26:50 |
| Charles Houston | Okay, so your brothers, you and your brothers, Bettis was also a college, it had— | 27:14 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, well, elementary up to it was a junior college. Up to junior college. | 27:20 |
| Charles Houston | Two years after high school. | 27:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 27:22 |
| Charles Houston | And your brothers lived there at Bettis, after completing high school they went there for two years more? | 27:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, correct. | 27:35 |
| Charles Houston | Well, I'm wondering that if your dad had high blood pressure, and was not able to work fully, who worked the farm? | 27:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay, well my mother, and my other two brothers, even though they be able to do light farming in the evening and the morning, and my daddy, he would help out. But we a close-knit family. My other two brothers which were married, they would pitch in. | 27:51 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, now these are not the ones who were living at home? Two grown brothers, | 28:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | Two grown brothers. And my sisters would come out and help us with the farming. They lived elsewhere. | 28:24 |
| Charles Houston | How far away did they live? | 28:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | They lived probably five miles. | 28:36 |
| Charles Houston | And this was five miles from the 40 acre farm or five— | 28:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | Five miles from the 140 acre land. And because they helped out with us also on the 40 acre land. They had children, and they would come and help gather, harvest the crop and help plant it. It was a family affair, we were able to make out. And my daddy, he could supervise even though he wasn't able to work, but he would come out and get us started, and set the plow up and the mules and all. We were able to make it by being a close-knit family, we always able to come to the rescue. | 28:41 |
| Charles Houston | What was it like living in, now you were a little boy when you lived on that 40 acre farm, but you were only there about three years you said? | 29:34 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, probably five, six years. | 29:43 |
| Charles Houston | You moved onto that farm, how old were you when you moved onto | 29:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | I was about nine years old. | 29:51 |
| Charles Houston | You were about 14 when you moved onto the 140 acre farm? | 29:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 29:58 |
| Charles Houston | What was it like moving from an area of all White landowners where you were the only Black landowner family to moving to an area which was predominantly Black landowner? | 30:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well it was other than just that one family, White family that wanted the property, we got along good with all the White people. Because in fact, I didn't realize until there was a big difference in White and Black until I got, well my neighbor on the right of us was White, and they had a son one year younger than I, and they had a daughter one year older. And we played together each day when we have time. And her name was Anne. And so I eat at table with them. They was good family, and they made no this thing between Black and White for the way they treat. But then when Anne became about 13 years old, her mother said, told my mother that now Ben is going to have to stop playing with Anne and going to have to start calling her Miss Anne. | 30:14 |
| Benjamin Adams | My mother told me, well now Anne is a little later now and you have to call her Miss Anne. And so I being a kid, I said, "Ah, why I'm going to call her Anne. I ain't going to call her no Miss Anne. I play with her every day and everything, now I'm going to call her Miss Anne?" I said, "I ain't going to call her." Mother said, "Yeah, that's the way it is." And she had to sit down and told, and really, I knew you had to Mr. And Ms. White people, but they were people of age, grown. | 31:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | And I really couldn't understand that. And she had to really sat down and talked to me about calling her Miss Anne. And so then when I realized that there was a difference in all respect and because they would call my mother Auntie and call my dad uncle. They never would address him as my dad's named James, and never as James or my mother as Elizabeth. They would always say Annie when they speak to her, "Hey Annie." And everything, | 32:15 |
| Charles Houston | Your mother's name was Elizabeth, but they called her. | 32:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | The White people. That was the name they give all Black women, Auntie. | 32:53 |
| Charles Houston | Auntie and Uncle is what they called them. | 33:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. They wouldn't even speak to you how you done, Auntie, Uncle, and then they go on with the conversation. | 33:03 |
| Charles Houston | And even the White neighbors with whose kids you played called your parents Auntie and Uncle? | 33:17 |
| Benjamin Adams | Called my dad, Uncle Jim, and called my Mama Auntie. They called Elizabeth, sometime they would call, well very seldom they'd call her by name Annie. And so that was accepted in that time and age. | 33:26 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, it was almost in a way from racist White people, it was almost a term of affection, wasn't it? | 33:47 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, they thought they'd give you high respect. when they called— | 33:54 |
| Charles Houston | By calling you Uncle. | 33:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Uncle and Annie. | 33:59 |
| Charles Houston | It's Annie, not Auntie, right? It's not, were they calling her auntie? | 34:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, Annie. And Uncle. But I go back, it always stayed in my mind. I go back now backing up from before we moved from Edgefield, and this always stuck in my mind. I was out, we had worked hard. My mother and father told us that y'all worked hard at peak cotton. That was in October now, last week in October, we let y'all go to school maybe one week. And then maybe we get cotton picked up by next two weeks and y'all can go to school maybe later part of November. | 34:08 |
| Benjamin Adams | We had did that. We went to school, went to field early in the morning, and late at night because we wanted to go to school. And Mr. John Kemp came up one morning early that I had on my new overalls and high top shoes. And man, I was excited. And he came and he said, "Boy, what you got your good clothes on?" And I said, "I'm going to school Mr. Kemp." And he said, "Going to school?" He said, "Go in the house and tell your dad come here." My dad just started breakfast eating some corn bread, and black molasses, and buttermilk and all he was just enjoying his breakfast, it was early in the morning. T. | 34:58 |
| Charles Houston | This was where now in which county? | 35:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I backed up now. | 35:54 |
| Charles Houston | This was before you were on the 40 acre farm. | 35:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, before we moved on the 40 acre farm. And what I'm saying now, just stuck in my mind. | 35:57 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, okay, that's fine. Go ahead. | 36:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so I said, "Yes sir." I went in the house and told my dad, I said, "Mr. Kemp out there, he want to speak with you." He says, "Oh lord, I'm eating my breakfast." He got up from the table and went to the door. Mr. Kemp, he never come in the house and always come out and blow his horn. My daddy come back in the house, he had calmed down. He said, "Well you all going to have to pull your clothes off. Mr. Kemp said he don't want y'all back in school until you get my cotton together." And so my daddy couldn't be a man. He said, "Y'all going to have to." I said, "Why should I, we can't go to school. Y'all told me go to school." He said, "Well, but Mr. Kemp said you can't go to school." We had to pull off our clothes, and brother know we all getting ready. We had to pull off our clothes and had to pick Mr. Kemp cotton until we got it all get out. | 36:08 |
| Benjamin Adams | But that stuck in my mind that my dad couldn't be a man. And I said something was wrong about that, something wrong about that. And later on I got older. I said I never would be in a position that if I tell my kids that they could do something, that I could back it up and I wouldn't have to tucker my head. And I just knew something was wrong. That really instilled me in going to college, so that my kid wouldn't have to be submissive to a White man's decision. | 37:17 |
| Charles Houston | You recognize that education would somehow make you independent of the White man? | 38:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 38:07 |
| Charles Houston | And your parents recognized that? | 38:08 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, yeah. They recognized education would be key to Black man's salvation, and they worked hard to keep us in school, and that's why they worked hard to send us to a private school. But that really bothered me that my daddy, the look on my dad and mama faith. And when they had to tell us, well it's the way it is, we going to have to try to work hard and get the cotton picked. | 38:10 |
| Charles Houston | This was. | 38:47 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. That was in 19 maybe about, oh, maybe '40. | 38:48 |
| Charles Houston | This was maybe when you were still in the first grade? | 38:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, first grade. And because then if you had any problem that you had to go to your White man to solve your problem. For example, some White teenagers now back in Edgefield again before we move on to 40 acres, they would come by and peek at our house, and all throw rocks on the house, and also shot at the house tin top. They just having fun, and we knew who they were, and so you didn't dare try to shoot back. And we knew they wasn't trying to do us any harm, they just having fun shooting at the top of the house. | 39:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | My daddy would go to Mr. Kemp that morning and tell him that Mr. Smith boys was throwing rock and shooting at our house. And so Mr. Kemp said, "All right, I'll go down there and talk with the parents." And sure enough, they would stop, and about another six months or something, they'll want to have some more fun. And they'd come back and throw on top of the house, and we lived close to the road and also shoot at the top of the house sometimes. We had to get up and put tar on the tin and keep them licking in the house. They wasn't angry with us, they just having fun with a bunch of Negroes, they might so to speak. | 39:49 |
| Charles Houston | Shooting holes in your roof? | 40:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | And throwing them. And they knew that you didn't dare to fight back, because you didn't argue with a White man. If he was wrong, you didn't tell him, "Well, I don't think it's like that." And they would often times say, "You mean to tell me you argue with me or you speak what I said?" And I remember before my daddy moved to the 40 acre land, he had some different what the White man owns. See they didn't never let you see how much you own. They just said you owe X amount of dollars from last year and then carried on. And my dad said, "Well I didn't think I owe that much." | 40:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | And he said, "Uncle Jim, you disputing what I said?" And daddy was, "No, I didn't really mean it like that." You had to backtrack. You had to say what you really didn't mean. And so that's the way it was back in then. And anytime you had a problem, you wanted some shoe, you had to ask the White man to call rooming. It's a juice store, Rumor steel, anyway it was a juice store where we did our clothes, and White man would tell them, "Don't let them have one pair shoe." And we had to wear that shoe to school and church. | 41:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so somebody die in your family, you had to call the White man, plantation owner, and they'd tell you what funeral home to use, because there was a Black funeral home, was two Black funeral homes. One was owned by the White man, but a Black man ran the farm. And they would say, "Okay, you called Pep Blaylock." And so Black people, Blaylock, most of them because he had to borrow money to bury him or either whatever. If not, you had to do what the White man say. Pep Blaylock buried most of all the Black and everything you did, you just had to ask the White man and get his permission. | 42:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | If you worked on a job and you wanted to switch jobs, you first would have to get your permission from your owner to go on another job. Even if you wanted to move on another plantation, we had to get permission from your plantation owner, because he said that you couldn't move another plantation owner wouldn't hire you or even wouldn't let you move. And so I remember well my brother, he was my older brother now, older than I, not the one that was home. He was, well he was home, but he was about 18. And so he wanted to go to Charleston, and had a brother-in-law live in Charleston, near Charleston. He was a sawmill, worked at the sawmill. | 43:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | My brother wanted to go to Charleston and sawmill with him. Meantime, before then he was working with Pulp wood. And so the pulp wood owner had a truck and he would come by and want my brother go to work with him, which he did. And finally my mother told him to go down to Charleston and work. And so that Monday morning, the pulp wood man came by to pick him up. And so my mother said, "Well, he's not here." She said, "He won't be working with you no more. | 44:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | He said, "Well, I'll tell you what." He said, "You better have that boy ready in the morning when I come by to pick him up." He said, "Nobody quit unless I said they could quit." My mother didn't say nothing, went back in the house. He came by the next morning, blew his horn, picked my brother up, and my mother went to the door. He said, "I told you how that boy ready." She said, "Now, well, he's not here and he's going to Charleston, he's working." And he said, "But I told you to have that boy here, he said that boy just can't quit me." And so he got out of the truck. My mother said, "Well, you just be staying." | 45:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | Man came back second day and wanted my brother and my mother told him he wasn't home. And he said, "Well I'm coming in the house and see." So my mother said, "Well you just wait right there until I come back." And she went in the house and got a shotgun. And so she came back with the shotgun in her hand and [indistinct 00:00:28] man saw it and he ran back to his truck and he left that dig. I never seen a truck spin like that, but he left. My mama really would've shot him because she was that type of person. She said, "My son and I told him he could go, and you ain't going to come back here and worry me no more." And so he left. He left running. | 0:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | So that's the way it was back in then. That you didn't quit a White man unless he gave you permission. And if you got in trouble you had to go to the White man. Your kids got in trouble. And if you was a good nigger, and you got in trouble with another Black person, they said, "Well is this a good nigger? I need him. Turn him loose." And, "Oh, that nigger wasn't no good." He got in trouble with the law, there wasn't no trial, whatever. Or if there was a trial, most time if you was a good nigger so to speak, nothing really happened. And so that's way it was. | 0:59 |
| Charles Houston | This was in a Black on Black situation? | 1:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | Black on Black, yeah. Yeah. But with White people, you either had to leave town if you got in trouble. You got to leave town fast or somebody had to hide you out. And so— | 1:47 |
| Charles Houston | Did that ever happen? In the communities where you lived, the three different places you lived? | 1:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, yes. Well down in Bettis we didn't have that problem because we dealt with mostly Black people, and we had to buy groceries and all from White people. But around Edgefield and around the 40 acres, that's the way it was. If you got in trouble with a highway patrol speeding and if you could outrun him and get on your plantation, he had to turn around and go back or he had to go to the plantation owner and say, "I'm going to use the turn. I ran your nigger and he got on your property. I want to know if I can go arrest him." And he tell him "No, I don't want to see you on my property. I don't want to catch you on my property." So he would have to wait till he get back on the street to arrest him or whatever. But you didn't go in a plantation talking about arresting somebody unless you check with the owner and God of what he did. And so that's the way it was back in then. And of course that was— | 2:04 |
| Charles Houston | But do you know of situations where Blacks got in trouble with Whites and had to flee or had to leave town or be hidden out? | 3:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yep. One time I had a first cousin, he was maybe in his early teens and there was a White girl that they loved each other and they saw them together one time, and so they had to slip him out of town at night because they were going to lynch him. And the girl told them, she said that, "I love him," and there wasn't no sex involved, it just being seen with this Black boy. And then there were other people happened. | 3:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | And back in that time I had a first cousin. Now he didn't have to leave but it showed that any time a White person, especially a White woman driving a car, if she hit you, you was wrong. And I have first cousin that just painted his car and bought him a car because he taught in a rural section. And this White woman hit him and knocked him over in the ditch and totaled his car. | 4:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | And the policeman came out and asked him, said, "Why you hit this White lady? He said, "Man, you see the car. My car tore up. She done knocked me over in the ditch and you asked me why I hit that White lady?" He said, "Yeah, said you going to pay for it." So it was hard for him to get a lawyer. So he finally got a White lawyer and the lawyer told him, said, "Now listen. I don't believe I can win the case." He said "Now they was wrong, but if I win the case, you and I both have to leave town fast." He said, "Now the best thing you can do is to walk to school." | 4:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | And I don't know, he had just maybe six miles to walk to school and saved enough money and fixed this White lady car or leave town. He said it's just the way it is. So he known what the lawyer was saying is true. And so he saved up money to fix that White lady car. And then later on he'd be able to get him another car. That's the way he was. If you had accident with a White person, you was wrong, and you couldn't get no lawyer, even a White lawyer to represent you against a White person. So then I know some cases wherein I had another cousin was going with a Black lady and she also entertained a White man too. And so mysterious, a bunch of people came to him, I don't know what, the Klan, what, and took him out and beat him up and killed him really and then left him on the railroad. So we had several cases like that. | 5:31 |
| Charles Houston | You mean they killed him? | 6:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Because he was gone with this Black woman. | 6:58 |
| Charles Houston | You mean they beat him to death or the train ran over him? | 7:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, no, no. They just beat him to death. And of course, that's more than one incident happen like that. I remember when the Klan, if he did something to a White man in an argument, the word would get out that a Black person have a big argument with a White man. And so the Klan's going to run parade tonight. And sure enough, man, sundown, boy Black people went in because the Klan would come by. And if any Black that they saw, they would attack them. So that's why when I see the flag, I get nervous because the Klans used to have that flag, those confederate flags, and they would go by the house and be long convoy of them. And later on you hear about some Black they killed or hung or whatever. And so you really didn't have no law for you on your side but that's the way it was back in then. | 7:06 |
| Charles Houston | So it was about this time that some Black folks started, particularly in the cities, they started fighting back. They weren't fighting the same kind of fight that people in the countryside were fighting, people in sheets and violence and stuff like that maybe. But I'm thinking now about the forties and the fighting back against unequals, teachers pay and that kind of thing. The White primary. Now you were in school in the late forties in Bettis. And Bettis was in a town where there were lots of Blacks? | 8:34 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well it's not so much of a town. It is a more Black community. But the mailing address was in the town of Trenton, but it was about six miles away from Trenton in a rural section. | 9:14 |
| Charles Houston | What was that community like? You said it was a Black community. Did it mean you had Black stores and business people or just mainly farmers? | 9:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mainly farmers. And they did more like gardening work wherein they sold produce was taken to Augusta, Georgia. Augusta being like 15 miles away. And so that's how they made a living. Because they live on in a sandy area where the White people didn't want because it wasn't rich soil. And so that's why Blacks were able to buy the property and all and but they could grow enough farming enough to take care of the family and enough for gardening. They would sell produce and they would take it to Augusta, Georgia. And that's how they made the money. And of course some of them bootlegged too and all. And in fact, one family Klu Klux Klan, last time they ran to Edgefield was a White man who lived in the community and a Black family and they had partnership with a liquor still. | 9:42 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, they punished the Black man for a liquor still? | 10:56 |
| Benjamin Adams | No they didn't punish him, but here's what happened. The White man and the Black had some controversy about some whiskey or something. And so they dissatisfied with the Black family as to whether they got more liquor or more money and wasn't splitting up equal someway. I don't recall, but it was something different. And so they realized that the White people was mad and it happened today. That night, the Klan did come to his house and so they were ready. The Black family, his wife and his mother-in-law and himself, they armed themself that night. And so they knew the White man voice and knew it good. So they knocked on the door and they said to the Black family, "We the policeman. Open up." And so his mother-in-law had a gun and he had a gun and his wife. And they told him, "Well, come on in." | 10:59 |
| Benjamin Adams | They knew who it was. "Come on in." And he wore a Black hat, the White guy. And so they shot his hat off as he was entering the door and he fell back. And then the mother-in-law, she began to shoot and his wife began to shoot. So they shot a couple of them and they ran back and got in the car and left. And so we found out later on, it was a White man who run a store, and he just treated you real nice when you go in the store, you wouldn't think he'd be involved. And he backed his car in the garage but he had a Black man that worked on his farm and they said his back window was shot out. So come to find out, he was there that night. | 12:31 |
| Charles Houston | He was one of the Klansmen. | 13:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | One of the Klan. So then the Black community knew that they were coming back. So the next night, maybe about 25 other Black lined up in the woods and hid. So they were going to come back and sure enough, Klans came back ready to get him this time. And so when they began, the Black people started shooting first in the house and then the other Black began to shoot and all. So they were surrounded by Black shooting them. And so they had turn around and run some of them had to leave the car and had to get the sheriff go back and get the car. The White people had to get the sheriff and go back and get the car. Well, they don't know whether they really killed any of them but there was a White church in that community. And they saw some light by night and the fresh grave. So they believed that they killed one of them. They buried him that night because it was fresh grave. And the people that live around now don't remember. | 13:31 |
| Charles Houston | A funeral? | 14:50 |
| Benjamin Adams | A funeral, but it's amazing how several prominent White people in that area car was shot up with bullets and then the sheriff had come to get the car. So they knew the car. In a community like that, you know everybody car, Black or White. And so that last time the Klan really did something to a Black in Edgefield County. But the sheriff told them, "I'm not going to support you." Said, "They really should have killed you." The sheriff told them that. And so being in a Black community, they always pull together. | 14:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | White people stopped that school bus. And mine, it was owned by Bettis and make the driver get out and they would come all in the bus and raise the sand and the Black community got together on that. And so that was the intersection where they stopped our school buses. So Black parents armed themselves and sat at the intersection. So that put a stop to that. White people harassing our buses and all which only Black owned. See they didn't provide any buses for Black kids back in then. And we walked to school and they would throw out a chewing gum, apples at us and called us all kinds of names. And how bad it gotten, didn't get run over twice. | 15:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | See I was in elementary school. We got out earlier than my brother and we lived five miles. So I would walk to school. Walk back from school. I would go to school with my older brother and another older kid. But I would walk back to school by myself. And one evening, I heard the bus coming [indistinct 00:17:06] there's the school bus. So I walking on the edge and my mind said look around the bus was aiming right at me. So I got in a ditch, a little ditch maybe about three feet and that bus came right on the edge of that ditch. And I had to jump up on the back. And it happened the next day. Same bus tried to run over me so then I saw could go so I wouldn't walk down the road that way. I could go through the woods. So I started going through the woods on the way home and I only had to walk short distance on the main road. | 16:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | So that really, really, really shook me up. Walking and running over me. And so they would call you all kind of names and of course, probably familiar with that when you interview people, how kids would do on those school buses. But that's the way it was back in then. That's the way it was. And people used to pray for a better day and all. It was hard for you to see a better day coming. It was just hard because everything you had to ask the White man for it or you had to be submissive and you couldn't go to school after you got certain age of being a Black male. | 17:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so it wasn't no job unless it was labor and working on the farm. And so what kind of better day you could see? Everything, you had to look to the White man even if you had education, and very few people had education. You can count them on one hand, school teachers and all. But you had to preach or teach. You had to preach or teach and you had no other choice back in then. But I always hear my own people, parents and church and all, Lord, we pray for a better day. But being young, I couldn't see a better day, and I don't see how they had a vision. They believed that a better day coming. | 18:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | And that's why our parents believed that something's going to happen And they instilled that we needed education was the key and that's why they got together. Back in then, they had to support their own school. So that's what we got to do now, getting off the subject a little bit, but we got to go back where we provide our own school. We didn't look to the White man for our own school. We got to do for ourselves. And that's up what the old people did back in then. And they send the kids on cotton picking money. I don't know how they did it, but they did it. | 19:56 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so we took care of each other. Somebody in stress, I remember my parents would make us go and give a day's work to our neighbor if our neighbor got sick and wasn't able to farm. We had to give him a day's work and somebody else would give him a day's work with the children or the parents would go and give him a day's work until the family could get able to go back and take care of their own farm. Somebody was— | 20:41 |
| Charles Houston | Oh you mean they go over and work on the farm for day? | 21:18 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. That's when we moved in the Black area where we support each other and so nobody went suffering because everybody would help out and if they got burned out they would help build the house back for free labor. And also if they had to donate material, they would get together and raise money at church and give people money to rebuild a home or a sickness, the neighbors would get together. Like my mother sit tonight and some other lady was sitting another night with the ladies that was sick. And so we support each other and took care of each other. And that's what we going to have to start doing now to support each other. I guess I'm skipping all around. | 21:22 |
| Charles Houston | No, no, no you're not. This is very interesting. Now when you were in the area down near Bettis, 140 acre farm, and Blacks were supportive of each other as a community coming to the defense of people who were being attacked by the Klan and coming to the aid of people who had been stricken with illness or who'd been burned out. I know that you weren't totally independent, that there were probably some instances in which Blacks were still dependent on Whites. Maybe the stores were White owned. Were the stores White owned? | 22:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yeah. Stores White owned. Now Black people had no big grocery store but sell groceries. But you really had to deal with the White man and of course being in a Black area, a White store owner, they knew the buck of the business was coming from Black people. And so they treat you good as far as you go in the store and everything. So we had to do that. | 23:03 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. The other thing I'm really interested in is what you described as your parents' faith. Things were going to get better. Now even though it was hard to see how they were going to get better, it may have been particularly hard for you because you hadn't seen how things had been 20 years before or maybe 25 years before. Your parents had seen that. But do you remember any expressions of that faith? Do you remember any of the things they might have said about things getting better? I know you said that they said you have to get education, and I assume the time you're talking about when your parents were saying education is important, get as much education as you can and giving you the sense that they knew things were going to get better, that this was in the late forties, early fifties. Or was it- | 23:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | That was in the early forties and in the late fifties. | 24:29 |
| Charles Houston | Early forties to late forties or early— | 24:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well early forties and up until the late fifties. Because in the fifties, time hadn't gotten much better because we just began to get buses. I remember we began to get buses for Black people, was in '52. And so they said to the Black that now we have buses and come pick them up. And so Black people scared to go get the buses. And one man was a principal of rural school, principal of Elementary school. His name was McCain. I think his name was Jeff Roe. Jeff Roe McCain. He was a principal for an elementary school. So he went and got two buses. And so he told the other Black trustee for Bettis that now we can get buses, go pick up our kids and no longer have funny buses. The state will provide for them. Black people scared to go pick it up. | 24:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so after he got his buses, then Blacks had enough to go in Bettis also to ask for buses for our kids. And I rode the Bus maybe one year before I graduated from high school. And I felt good because every time I go to school before I had to carry me a damp cloth to wipe my shoes off and dirty and all. And now I get off, get on the bus fresh and get off the bus fresh and everything. And it was raining, they come to my door and I just felt like something was too good for me. All of a sudden, come to my door, pick me up and everything, what they done all the time for White kids. But I was so happy man. I go to school just like I left out the house and come back. No, but the Black people was scared to go get buses man. They were scared to go get it. But you always had some brave Black and this was Jeff Roe McCain. He went and got them buses. It was something. | 26:05 |
| Charles Houston | I'm just making a note here. | 27:32 |
| Benjamin Adams | You know the history of Bettis because that's in the book. You can read about Bettis Academy and Reverend Bettis Alexander. Bettis organized at school. See the White people, he was half White and really couldn't tell whether he was White or Black. And so back in then, if you light complexion or whatever, the White people would put you in charge or whatever. And so Reverend Bettis being half White, the White people would send him out to school so he could teach White kids and all. | 27:36 |
| Charles Houston | Black kids you mean? | 28:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. | 28:20 |
| Charles Houston | White kids? | 28:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. They was going to let him teach White kids. But still, after he got his education, he came back and organized 22 churches and those 22 churches supported Bettis Academy and the name of that association is Mt. Canaan Association. It's in the history book. And so as a result of him being educated and organized Bettis Academy, that's how Bettis Academy came involved. And those 22 churches raised money each Sunday and make donations to Bettis Academy support and put tuition and whatever. But that's one of the best organizations that put together by Black as well as White that was well organized. | 28:25 |
| Charles Houston | So was Bettis there when you were there? | 29:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, no, no. | 29:38 |
| Charles Houston | [indistinct 00:29:39]. | 29:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | He was gone. Yeah, that was right after reconstruction. Right after slavery. He organized Bettis. I don't remember the year. | 29:39 |
| Charles Houston | Now, the leadership in the community where you were, the Black leadership was where? Was the school the center of community life or was it something else like the church? | 29:56 |
| Benjamin Adams | It was more center of the community because all activities Black would happen at Bettis. If they had rallies or they had tried to work out some strategy, they would have it at Bettis. And a lot of it went on in Black churches. But Bettis was more of a center of the community and Blacks supported. And all the celebration like the 4th of July, because there was no facilities for Blacks to go to. And so you couldn't go to the parks and the beaches. And so Black people would together at Bettis Academy and it'd be sometime 10,000 people there for 4th of July. And they would have celebrations, they have something like carnival, and they would have about four or five different Black, I guess you would call drummers. And they had people to perform. They would do special stunts like soldiers, what they call those? | 30:10 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, drill teams? | 31:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | And they would do all kind of stunts and all come from Africa. Different different types of—It don't come to me. I know. Having a stroke. | 31:51 |
| Charles Houston | You mean like dances and stuff? | 32:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, dances and all also different stunts and all they have the guns and all. And because we never seen that because back in the forties, you didn't see it. So Black carry on they African heritage. They do that. | 32:21 |
| Charles Houston | Even this was back in the forties and the fifties? And at these carnivals and fairs at Bettis, African-Americans would put on dances that were from Africa? | 32:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, the people weren't from Africa. | 32:56 |
| Charles Houston | No, no, I know they weren't from Africa, but they would reproduce African dances. | 32:59 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yeah. They would do that. | 33:01 |
| Charles Houston | In costume? Did they wear costumes or did they just perform? | 33:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, they just have on normal clothes. | 33:05 |
| Charles Houston | But they would be doing African dances? | 33:09 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, African dances. And they had weapons, where they used sticks for a weapon, but they used sticks and all and it was beautiful to see. And that's one heritage that we lost. And of course when you see Florida A&M, it kind of bring it back to the kind of thing they did at Bettis. And so Blacks was real proud because 4th of July especially, they would have their own Black policemen. Of course you always had to have some White around, policemen, because they were deputized. | 33:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | But my dad was chief of policeman for that day, two days. And so he would deputize Black people, but it was some bad crime committee. Then he had turn more to the White policemen and they would take him to the county jail or whatever. But very few incidents they had. All them people get drunk and sometimes they get a little sprawled, a little fight. But it wasn'tno major shooting and cutting and all. Most people stopping it and all. And most was were drunk. People get drunk. | 33:54 |
| Charles Houston | And what year did you graduate from high school? | 34:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | 1953. | 34:36 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. I guess you continued to work part-time on the farm? | 34:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, yeah. | 34:47 |
| Charles Houston | But you went to school full-time until you graduated. And you graduated in '53 from the junior college? Or did you graduate in— | 34:47 |
| Benjamin Adams | From high school. | 34:54 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. And then what did you do after you graduated from high school in '53? | 34:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | I came here to Benedict College here in Columbia. | 35:02 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. So you didn't go to Bettis, the junior college? | 35:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. Because the junior college went out of existence in '50 for more than one reason. Black colleges closed down all across the nation. And so for one reason or the other. | 35:08 |
| Charles Houston | And so you came here to Benedict? And where did you live? Did you live on campus? | 35:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I lived in the city with a relative, cousin. And he lived about maybe 10 blocks from the school when we walked to school each day. | 35:48 |
| Charles Houston | And you went to school full time? | 36:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I worked in afternoon and days that I wasn't in class doing garden work and yard work and catch those hours in. Because I had to make money to go to college because my daddy health was bad and my mother did domestic work, so I really had to finance myself mostly and of course the church, it would make me a little donation. And so I learned a lot about gardening work. I had four White ladies and they taught me all about gardening work in the yards. So in fact, I ended up subbing for [indistinct 00:37:06] Roebuck, landscaping for new housing, putting shrub in because I learned how to do it and all. So I put myself through college like that, working after school and days that I was off. | 36:05 |
| Charles Houston | You were as a substitute worker for Sears, for Sears Gardening. | 37:18 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I subbed several jobs. Several had contracting and I would pick up the plants and- | 37:28 |
| Charles Houston | Oh, subcontracting. | 37:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | Subcontracting and do all that. Laying out, putting the shrubs out, especially these were mostly new houses and sometime older houses. | 37:41 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. And did you stay at Benedict for four years? | 37:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | Four years, yeah. | 38:01 |
| Charles Houston | So you graduated in '57? | 38:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I would have, but I had an interruption for service. I went in the service in '54 and I stayed in service till '56. And so when I came back, the GI Bill carried me all the way through the three years. | 38:06 |
| Charles Houston | Why did you go in the service and did you go into the service to get the benefit of the GI Bill? | 38:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, but I was glad that they called me. Back in then they would call you in. And of course I was glad because— | 38:36 |
| Charles Houston | So you were drafted? | 38:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I was drafted, and that was in September. And so school was just started and I had registered, but I hadn't started and I didn't see why I was going to have enough money really to make it through school. And tuition wasn't but $300 per quarter. We was on quarter basis. And I had time trying to raise $300. No, no, I think it was $150. I think it was $150 and about $300 the whole year I could go to school. Whatever, it was hard me for trying to raise that kind of money just doing labor work and all. So they called me into service and I was happy. I went and did my two years and came back out and GI Bill now. I finished. So I finished in '59, a degree in biology and minor in children's education. | 38:50 |
| Charles Houston | Where did you go in the service? | 40:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | I did my training at Fort Jackson. And then I went to mechanic school eight weeks and then they shipped me off overseas to France. And that's why I spent my other two years over in France, not two years, about 18 months in France. And so I be able to come back and finish my education. | 40:07 |
| Charles Houston | And finished in '59? | 40:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | '59, yeah. | 40:46 |
| Charles Houston | So from a kind of social point of view, from a point of view of race relations, what was it like going from a rural area down near Bettis, coming to coming here to- | 40:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Columbia. | 41:09 |
| Charles Houston | Benedict. What did that seem like? Was it a big difference or not much difference? | 41:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Wasn't much different other than that you could get more work like gardening work and around because wasn't a whole lot for a Black to do. But coming from Bettis, a predominantly Black area. We didn't have the stress and the problem that we were dealing with when we were living in Trenton with the 40 acres and problems there living in Edgefield, problem moving on the 40 acres. And we were more independent. We didn't have to go to the White man for special favors. We were able to buy what we wanted because Savannah River Project came in in the early fifties. So my brother—I worked down there too. I think that's part of my health because later on after I finished college, I went down there and I worked in the nuclear plant. | 41:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | I worked in that reactor for about a year and I was exposed to a lot of radiation. And the doctor said that could be part of why my condition is very similar to leukemia. But it wasn't much big difference because you had a little more freedom here in Columbia. And my cousin, where we stayed, was a minister, so he was independent. So it wasn't a whole lot of big changes other than just coming from a rural area into a city. And see Benedict being a Baptist school. And they instilled in us the same thing that Bettis instilled in us. | 42:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so in fact, we organized an NACP Youth chapter, but the campus advised us to not name it NACP, name it something like the youth councils or something. But it was the NACP. And if you had NACP member and you graduated from college, you wouldn't get hired. And same way in Orangeburg back in then, they fired four or five teachers because they put on the application that they was a member of the NACP. And the school district fired them. So that's why we changed the name of the NACP as a Youth Council for Change. And so then when students graduated from Benedict, they would not have to put down on their application that they member of the NACP. | 43:30 |
| Charles Houston | So you were one of the students who founded a youth council at Benedict. Were you there when that happened? | 44:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 45:05 |
| Charles Houston | So you were one of the founding members of the— | 45:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yeah, yeah. | 45:12 |
| Charles Houston | Do you remember why the youth council chapter was formed and some of the things that it did while you were there? | 45:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, '54, we were looking for a favorable position on the school. The segregation come through and we knew that the NACP need money to fight the cause. So by having the college chapter, although it wasn't named the NACP, we would support the NACP. And that's one reason it was organized. And then we were organized for test group to march on University of South Carolina. | 45:25 |
| Charles Houston | On state college? | 46:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yeah, yeah. University of South Carolina. | 46:13 |
| Charles Houston | So here? | 46:17 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, here in Columbia. | 46:18 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 46:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | And so we would mar— | 46:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | Then of course thought of all the time. | 0:01 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 0:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | Anyway— | 0:05 |
| Charles Houston | It's not apparent. | 0:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 0:06 |
| Charles Houston | You said there were really two reasons you organized the Youth Council and you were explaining the second one. The first one was to— | 0:13 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I didn't organize it. But I was one of the— | 0:17 |
| Charles Houston | Well, but one of the people who was there when it was when it was organized. | 0:17 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 0:17 |
| Charles Houston | The first reason was to help raise money for the NAACP legal campaign against segregated education. The other reason you said was to protest and to demonstrate at USC. | 0:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, USC. | 0:40 |
| Charles Houston | What were you protesting? When was this exactly that we're talking about? This was after— | 0:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. That was after. That was in— | 0:45 |
| Charles Houston | When you got back from the Army? | 0:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | From the Army. The organization was started before. It was formed in '54. No, I went in the Army in '54. Yeah, it must have been after I came back here. | 0:52 |
| Charles Houston | It was formed after you came back or that you protested at USC? | 1:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | We protested at USC after I came back. That was in 1957. Okay. We marched on USC. We first, I think about five or six, went down to university and tried to enroll. Of course, that's what happened all over the South. They ran us off the campus. Well, they ran my coworker, not coworker, my classmate and student, they ran us off. Must been about three times we tried to enroll in the university, and they ran us off. | 1:14 |
| Benjamin Adams | In the meantime, you know, university, around Reconstruction—they said the Black never attend university, but by—Eight people had graduated from university by Reconstruction. Lincoln Jenkins, Lincoln Jenkins Sr, was one person. I'm not sure whether Miss Jess Simpkins graduated from university or not. | 2:05 |
| Charles Houston | From USC? | 2:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I'm not positive, but about eight person that had graduated around Reconstruction from USC. | 2:38 |
| Charles Houston | During Reconstruction. | 2:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. But they were saying that no Black ever went to USC, and they wasn't going to let no Black in. After graduating from Benedict, I did my intern teaching back at Edgefield High School. I enjoyed teaching, but I mainly wanted to work in lab technician. That's really I enjoy. | 2:56 |
| Benjamin Adams | Condition like it was then, Black person, you only teach or preach. I found out the kids were so bad when I first started out. You could take them to the gym and put them on glove, you know, best man win, it's all over. We had couple boys [indistinct 00:03:51]. I was in good physical condition. I'd take one boy at the gym. But then they said, law passed that you couldn't hit kids and all, later on. I said, "Well, I better get out of this." | 3:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | I went down to Savannah River plant, applied for it. That's when the time when I was working in the reactor. I worked there for about two years. Then the fire department began to seek out for a Black firemen. So they came on Benedict campus about two years before I graduated. They wanted college people. I think about four from Benedict had graduated prior to me, and they joined the fire department. But then later years, I was hired. | 4:07 |
| Charles Houston | What year were you hired? | 5:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | I was hired in 1963. | 5:05 |
| Charles Houston | But you had already graduated? | 5:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | I'd already graduated, and I worked down Savannah River project, but I got laid off because reduction in force twice during that time. So I didn't try to go back third time. I had put an application with the fire department because anything you got back then, that was good for a Black man. Because the only thing Black person get was labor. | 5:12 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 5:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | I had a problem trying to get in a lab because they tell me either I had too much education, or they didn't have no opening. But they wasn't hiring any Black in lab back in that time, do no kind of lab work. | 5:42 |
| Charles Houston | Did you consider the military? | 6:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | I had put two years in. I didn't want, no. | 6:03 |
| Charles Houston | You didn't think about it after that. | 6:09 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I enjoyed tour of duty, but ain't enough to go back into the service. | 6:10 |
| Charles Houston | You never thought about the military as some place you might be able to do biology? | 6:15 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, no, no. That's something I never did think about, trying to get in civil service out of Fort Jackson. I never did try that. But even so then, unless you was already in the Army and got in lab work, they just wasn't hiring Black across the nation in that kind of work. But the thing about it, that they were looking for college kids, but they were hiring White firemen with third and fourth grade education. | 6:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | So you had to be a college man to be able to compete with the White man with a third or fourth grade education. So they hired about eight Black firemen, and they trained them be firefighters and how to take over the station. They told the first eight that they would be able to man their own station and all. The White personnel that was out there at that time would be replenished. | 7:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, it took about eight year before they hired Black. Then when they did hire Black, I mean, when they did promote a Black, that anytime an opening came up prior to then, they would replace it with another White person. Every time that White person get promoted, they would replace it with another White person. They had four stations. We couldn't go to the other stations if there was an opening, whatever. So we were confined to Harden Street station. | 7:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | We couldn't get promoted, like I said, until eight year. Then they still hired Black as the engineer. That was first step in promotion and then fireman, was the engineer. So all long time before Black was promoted to engineer. It was just in their position and everybody got paid the same. | 8:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, when they promoted Black to engineer, then they put in that you'd be a junior engineer. You wouldn't have the same power either, the same category that a White engineer would have. You'd be a junior engineer. They put that in as a junior engineer. But still every time promotion came up in the other four fire stations, Black couldn't go there and get that position. So unless a Black would quit or die, you didn't get promoted. | 9:05 |
| Benjamin Adams | I was instrumental in getting the fire department integrated. We told the chief that there was discrimination and all. He denied it. So we told him, said, "Well, within 30 days, if y'all and the city don't see fit to integrate the fire department, so we could go elsewhere and get promoted, we going to bring a suit." | 10:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | They said they wasn't going to do it. About the 28th day, no, 27th day after that, they did. Took the younger firemen and sent them a place across city. As a result, then Black would be able to get promoted and move on up. But a lot of discrimination still going on in the fire department. As elsewhere. I mean, city, fire department, no different. | 10:39 |
| Charles Houston | When did the fire department then break down under the threat of—You threatened to protest if they didn't open things up? | 11:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, we threatened to bring a lawsuit against them. | 11:23 |
| Charles Houston | When was this? | 11:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | That was in— | 11:23 |
| Charles Houston | You joined in '63. | 11:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, '63. That must been '70 maybe. No, maybe '69, I think. | 11:26 |
| Charles Houston | After about six years. | 11:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, after about six years. So they did send Black different area, and then Black began to get promoted as it came open. Not so good but they did—Well, the Black that did get promoted had something like 10 years of service, and White person had something like five years, six years of service. | 11:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | But going back to being at this Black fire station, our supervisor had third grade education, the captain and all had third grade education. They would ask us to do the paperwork. We'd go on a call, we had to write up a report, how much damage and what we did and how much fire hose we used, how much water we used and all. We had to send that in to headquarters. | 12:17 |
| Benjamin Adams | So we did all that work, and they began to praise the chief that was in charge of my station for the good paperwork done and professional done. We was just fresh out of college even though the ones that was [indistinct 00:13:12]. So they got promoted because of the good work that we did. Spelling was right and everything. Of course, we knew we had the proof. Of course, we did what we know, and so we did all legwork. | 12:52 |
| Charles Houston | He got the glory. | 13:34 |
| Benjamin Adams | They got the glory, and they got promoted, wherein we still in a standstill position. | 13:35 |
| Charles Houston | The injustice is just mind-boggling. This has been very fascinating. I think I mentioned I've got to be at Mrs.— | 13:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, Miss Thompson? | 13:51 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, not till two o'clock. But I've still got this paperwork. | 13:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 13:55 |
| Charles Houston | If I can, I'd like to go through this paperwork with you. | 13:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I'm going to let you fill out, because I don't have my glasses. Then I'll sign. | 14:03 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, that's how I always do it. I'll just ask you questions. | 14:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay, fine. | 14:09 |
| Charles Houston | Some of this stuff I may know, but I'm just going to ask you anyway because I don't always remember. Do you have a middle name? It's Benjamin Adams. | 14:14 |
| Benjamin Adams | Benjamin Edward. E-D-W-A-R-D. Edward Adams. Everybody call me Ben. | 14:23 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Your street address here? | 14:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | 724 Martha, M-A-R-T-H-A. Martha Street. Zip 29203. | 14:41 |
| Charles Houston | And your date of birth is July. | 14:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | The 19th. | 14:57 |
| Charles Houston | 7-19. So happy birthday. | 14:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yesterday. | 15:02 |
| Charles Houston | You just had a birthday. | 15:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I'm 61. | 15:07 |
| Charles Houston | Did you have a party? | 15:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. I guess my wife fixed me a good steak dinner. Don't take much to make me happy. I'm a home person. | 15:09 |
| Charles Houston | Well, happy birthday. | 15:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Thank you. | 15:22 |
| Charles Houston | I just realized that. | 15:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Thank you. | 15:25 |
| Charles Houston | And you were born in Edgefield County? | 15:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 15:27 |
| Charles Houston | Your principal occupation is retired fireman? | 15:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. Court officer. | 15:39 |
| Charles Houston | Is what? Co-author? | 15:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, court officer. | 15:44 |
| Charles Houston | Court officer. Sorry. | 15:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. Because I didn't break that gap. | 15:50 |
| Charles Houston | Before that you were a fireman? | 15:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I was real estate. | 16:04 |
| Charles Houston | Real estate? Okay. So you were a real estate agent or a real estate broker. | 16:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Agent. | 16:08 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Now there are three slots here. I'm determined to put down fireman. | 16:08 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, yeah, I didn't tell you. I left fire department after they did integrate it. That was most of I was interested in, because I wanted to get another line of work. In the seventies, real estate began to open up for Black. Of course we had problems trying to, they made tests hard, but we handled it. | 16:18 |
| Charles Houston | Let's see. This paperwork goes on and on. Now what's your home number? Telephone number here? | 16:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | 7-5-4. | 16:56 |
| Charles Houston | 8-0-3. | 16:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 16:58 |
| Charles Houston | 7-5-4. | 16:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | 7-5-4-0-7-2-6. | 16:59 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. How do you normally sign your name? Is it Benjamin E. Adams? | 17:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | Benjamin E. | 17:10 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 17:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | But just normally called Ben. | 17:18 |
| Charles Houston | Well, this question is, "Please indicate precisely how the interviewee would like his or her name to appear in written materials." So would you like yourself referred to in written materials as Ben Adams or Benjamin E. Adams? | 17:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | Benjamin E. | 17:39 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Now you were born in the county, not in the city, right? | 17:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 17:50 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. You are currently married? | 17:50 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yes. | 17:54 |
| Charles Houston | What's your wife's name? First, middle, and last name, and maiden name. No, no. Excuse me. First, middle, and last name. | 17:56 |
| Benjamin Adams | Adell. A-D-E-L-L. | 18:04 |
| Charles Houston | Does she have a middle name? | 18:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. You want her maiden name? Adell. | 18:11 |
| Charles Houston | Well, she has middle name, so I don't need her maiden name at this point. | 18:15 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. T. | 18:20 |
| Charles Houston | T? | 18:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | T like in Tom. | 18:21 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. And of course Adams. | 18:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 18:26 |
| Charles Houston | What's her date of birth? | 18:28 |
| Benjamin Adams | Seven month and the 29th day, '41. | 18:30 |
| Charles Houston | So she's got one coming up? | 18:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 18:38 |
| Charles Houston | 1941? | 18:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | '41. | 18:38 |
| Charles Houston | You guys have birthdays only 10 days apart. Where was she born? | 18:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, in Lexington County. No, no, I'm sorry. She was born in Columbia. | 18:50 |
| Charles Houston | In the City of Columbia. | 18:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 18:58 |
| Charles Houston | What county is this? | 18:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Richland. R-I-C-H-L-A-N-D. | 18:58 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 18:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Richland County. | 18:59 |
| Charles Houston | What's her occupation? | 19:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Teacher, music teacher. Elementary music teacher. | 19:13 |
| Charles Houston | Your mother's first, middle, and last name, and her maiden name. | 19:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. Elezibeth. E-L-E-Z-I-L-E-B-T-H. Elezibeth Brown. | 19:26 |
| Charles Houston | Brown is her maiden name? | 19:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 19:38 |
| Charles Houston | Does she have a middle name? | 19:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. | 19:42 |
| Charles Houston | So it was Elezibeth Adams. | 19:45 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 19:45 |
| Charles Houston | Did she use Brown, Elezibeth Brown Adams? | 19:47 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. | 19:49 |
| Charles Houston | What's her birthday? Or birth year, if you don't know the birthday. | 19:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | I don't recall now. I know she died— | 20:02 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah. What year did she die? | 20:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, that was in 1974. | 20:07 |
| Charles Houston | Do you know how old she was? | 20:15 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, she was 69. She born in January, but— | 20:16 |
| Charles Houston | So she was born 1905? | 20:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Okay. | 20:24 |
| Charles Houston | Do you know where she was born? | 20:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | In Edgefield County. | 20:31 |
| Charles Houston | Now, when you were telling me about your grandfather, I assume that was your father's mother that you were, I mean, your father's father that you were talking about. | 20:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 20:47 |
| Charles Houston | Your mother's occupation was farmer? | 20:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Domestic and farmer, yeah. | 20:54 |
| Charles Houston | Your father's name was James? | 21:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | James M. Adams. | 21:06 |
| Charles Houston | What did the M stand, did he ever use it? | 21:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Monroe. | 21:12 |
| Charles Houston | Monroe? So he was named after a president. | 21:12 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 21:21 |
| Charles Houston | Do you know what year he was born? Or if not what year he died and we could figure out how old he was. | 21:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. He died in 1965, March '65. Of course he was 59. | 21:28 |
| Charles Houston | He was 59, so that means he was born in 1906. | 21:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 21:42 |
| Charles Houston | Right? | 21:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well— | 21:45 |
| Charles Houston | That's right. | 21:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 21:46 |
| Charles Houston | I mean, if he was 59, well, it could have been one way or the other. | 21:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I think. | 21:52 |
| Charles Houston | If you subtract 59 from 65, it's six. | 21:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, that's right. | 21:57 |
| Charles Houston | He was about a year younger than your mom. They were close to the same age. | 22:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, you see, they was eight years different than the age. My daddy eight years older than my mother. | 22:03 |
| Charles Houston | He was eight years older. | 22:32 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Now see, I know my mother died in, what I say, '74? | 22:35 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 22:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | He died in '65, 1965. | 22:36 |
| Charles Houston | Your mother was eight years younger than he. | 22:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 22:42 |
| Charles Houston | That means, if he was 59 in '65, that means he was born in '06. If your mother was eight years younger than he, that means that she was born in 1914. | 22:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. '14. Yeah. | 22:48 |
| Charles Houston | Is that right? | 22:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Sorry. I should have had that. | 22:49 |
| Charles Houston | Which means that she was about 60 when she died. | 22:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yes, I know she—Yeah. No, she was older than that. She was 69. | 23:00 |
| Charles Houston | Well, see, if she was 69, that puts her age back to, her birthday back in 1905. | 23:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. My daddy was 59, but he was eight years younger than she, I mean older than she. | 23:44 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 23:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | But he died in '65. I'm trying to see. Well, that's probably close enough though. | 23:45 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, that's close enough. But you're sure there was eight years' difference between them. | 23:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I can find, I can call my sister in Memphis. Because I had the obituary here. I can't even find it. I think one of my son must have gotten it. | 23:55 |
| Charles Houston | Well, you may just want to straighten it out for yourself because the numbers don't add up. | 24:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, that's right, the number— | 24:12 |
| Charles Houston | Because if she died in '74 and she was 69, then she had to have been born in 1905. But if she was born in 1905 and your dad was born in 1906, she was a year older than he is rather than eight years younger. | 24:13 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I'm going to have to— | 24:29 |
| Charles Houston | I'm going to leave her birthday [indistinct 00:24:33] at 1914, which makes her only 60 when she died. See, that's the problem. If we have his birthday right, and she was born eight years later and she died in '74, that means that she could only have been 60, rather than 69. | 24:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Than 69. | 24:50 |
| Charles Houston | Maybe she was 59 when she died. | 24:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, no, she was older than that. | 24:56 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 24:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | I know that. But I could get that information to you if you need it. | 25:02 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah, I don't think it's critical, but yeah, it'd be nice to have it straightened out. Don't worry about it. | 25:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Okay. | 25:11 |
| Charles Houston | Now your mother was born in Edgefield County? | 25:14 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 25:21 |
| Charles Houston | I'm sorry. Yeah. | 25:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. In Edgefield County. Both of them. Well, my daddy wasn't—Yeah, he born in Edgefield County. | 25:22 |
| Charles Houston | Yeah. Your dad's principal occupation was farming | 25:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Farmer. | 25:34 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Do you mind if we stop for just a second? I'd like to use your bathroom. | 25:34 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, go right ahead. | 25:40 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. I know you have lots, I think you said—This next question has to do with your brothers and sisters. I think you said you had seven who were older, and then there were several who were at home with you. This question, how many were there all together? | 25:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | 10. | 26:07 |
| Charles Houston | 10? Can you give me their names in birth order? | 26:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. May not have a birth date, but Ethel Mae— | 26:17 |
| Charles Houston | Is the oldest. | 26:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Is the oldest. Yeah. She's deceased. | 26:26 |
| Charles Houston | That's M-A-E? | 26:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. M-A-E. Ethel, E-T-H-E-L. Ethel Mae Jones, she married a Jones. Adams Jones, I guess. | 26:32 |
| Charles Houston | Next? | 26:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | It's Georgia, G-E-O-R-G-I-A, Georgia Elizabeth Adams Jones. I mean, Patton, Georgia Elizabeth Patton. That's her married name. | 26:46 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 27:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | Next would be Sarah, S-A-R-A-H, Sarah Martin, M-A-R-T-I-N. | 27:12 |
| Charles Houston | Adams Martin? | 27:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, Adams Martin. Then Naomi, N-A-O-M-I, Naomi Adams Mathis, M-A-T-H-I-S. Naomi Adams Mathis. Then Jeannie. J-E-A-N-N-I-E. Jeannie Adams Simpkins, S-I-M-P-K-I-N-S. Simpkins. Then James M. Adams, Junior. | 27:25 |
| Charles Houston | So the first boy got the big handle. | 28:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. And John Quincy Adams. | 28:35 |
| Charles Houston | Another president. | 28:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. White people name you all the time. Most time you have to ask. Well, when you know your wife's going have a baby, they'll tell you what to name them. | 28:47 |
| Charles Houston | Is that what happened? | 28:59 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. A lot of White people name after some White family or either president. My name, I'm named after White doctor. Told my mama. So probably found a lot of Black got three or four names. They have a White name and then the one named them after their own people. So they put that name in. They kind of dictate to you. It wasn't so expedient not to name for a White person, you know, plantation owner or somebody. | 29:00 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. So John Quincy Adams. | 29:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | Albert. | 29:55 |
| Charles Houston | Albert? | 29:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, A-L-B-E-R-T. Albert Adams. Albert R. Adams. White lady named him. Andrew. A-N-D-R-E-W, Andrew L. Adams. And myself, Benjamin. | 30:00 |
| Charles Houston | So you're the last? | 30:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I'm the baby. My mother had 12 kids. Two died at an early age. | 30:41 |
| Charles Houston | What about children? Do you have children? | 30:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Me? Yeah, two boys. | 30:59 |
| Charles Houston | What are their names in order of birth? | 31:01 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. Ben Junior, Benjamin Adams, Junior. | 31:03 |
| Charles Houston | Okay, and? | 31:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Adrian, A-D-R-I-A-N. Adrian. | 31:18 |
| Charles Houston | Does he have a middle name? | 31:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | E. | 31:24 |
| Charles Houston | Is it also Edward? | 31:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. Eugene Adams. | 31:27 |
| Charles Houston | Do you have any grandkids? | 31:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, I have— | 31:39 |
| Charles Houston | How many? | 31:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | Three. | 31:40 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. I don't need their names, but to the extent that you know them, I'd like the birth and death dates for your siblings, for your brothers and sisters, if you know them. I know you said you didn't have the birthdays, but you might know some of them. | 31:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, boy. | 32:00 |
| Charles Houston | Well, here's an easier question. Where were they born? Were they all born in Edgefield? | 32:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | All born in Edgefield County. | 32:06 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. [indistinct 00:32:16] | 32:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | I just don't— | 32:17 |
| Charles Houston | I'll just go down the list, and if you can think of the year when they were born, I'll write it in, and if not, I'll skip it. | 32:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, I don't know. | 32:27 |
| Charles Houston | You don't? Do you know how far apart they were? | 32:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | Two years. All of us, two years apart. | 32:30 |
| Charles Houston | Even, so there's no gap between the groups? | 32:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, all of us— | 32:40 |
| Charles Houston | Two years apart. | 32:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Two years apart. | 32:43 |
| Charles Houston | Now the two who died, were they after you? | 32:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, no, wait a minute. Five of them dead. | 32:47 |
| Charles Houston | No, no. But you said your mother had 12 kids. | 32:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, oh, yeah. One died when she about three years old. | 33:00 |
| Charles Houston | Okay, but what birth order were they? If everybody was two years apart [crosstalk 00:33:11] in there. | 33:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, oh, oh—I couldn't say specific, but she between the oldest and the second. She was older than, she was in between Ethel Mae— | 33:11 |
| Charles Houston | And Georgia. | 33:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | And Georgia. | 33:30 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. You had one who died there, and one who was born between those two who died. What about the other one? | 33:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | The other one was after Georgia. | 33:42 |
| Charles Houston | It was after Georgia. | 33:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 33:43 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. It's pretty easy to figure it out then, because you were born in 1933. | 33:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, yeah. | 33:49 |
| Charles Houston | Then Andrew was born in 1931, and then Albert was born in 1929. Then John Quincy was born in 1927. | 33:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 34:01 |
| Charles Houston | I mean, this is just approximate. | 34:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, yeah. | 34:04 |
| Charles Houston | Then James was born in 1925, then Annie was born in 1923, then Naomi was born in 1921. Then Sarah was born in 1919. See if this is going to work out right mathematically, your mother having children at a very early age. | 34:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 34:36 |
| Charles Houston | So this may not work because that means then that the dead, that the deceased was born 1917, 1915, 1913. No, that's not going to work. | 34:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | I don't know. I know we all two years old now, but the one that deceased, I don't know whether there were two years between them and the rest of them. I know my mama. I know the one that I knew about. We were two years old, different in age. Now might have been one year different between the deceased that died at an early age. | 34:54 |
| Charles Houston | Right. I'm just going to leave those years out, because it's too—What about your kids? When were they born? Benjamin Edward Junior. | 35:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | Ben Ed born in '62. | 35:32 |
| Charles Houston | He was born in Columbia? | 35:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | In Columbia. | 35:36 |
| Charles Houston | What about Adrian? | 35:38 |
| Benjamin Adams | He born in Columbia. He born January of '63. | 35:39 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Let's see. The places where you've lived. Basically you lived in Edgefield County and you lived here. | 35:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, we lived in Edgefield County and Aiken County. After graduation from high school, we moved to Aiken County. | 36:02 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. You lived in Edgefield County from 1933 to 1953. | 36:19 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 36:28 |
| Charles Houston | Then you lived in Aiken County, but I thought you came here in 1953 for a year. You came here. Your family may have gone to Aiken County, but you came here in '53. | 36:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 36:42 |
| Charles Houston | You were here a year, and then you went to the service and then you came back here. | 36:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Correct. No, no, I came back to Aiken. Yeah. After I graduated from '59, I went back to Aiken, because my family had moved to Aiken County, my mother and all. When I was grown, we lived in Aiken County after '53. Then I came to college in '53. Then I went back '59 and stayed there until '60. Then I came back here in '60. | 36:46 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. What high school did you graduate from? | 38:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | Bettis Academy. | 38:06 |
| Charles Houston | You did graduate from Bettis. | 38:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. In '53, and then I came, in August '53. In September I came to college here. Started college in '53. | 38:08 |
| Charles Houston | You started Bettis Academy in what year? | 38:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, let's see. I got to think now. Well, middle school, it had to be '47, I believe, '47, '48. | 38:29 |
| Charles Houston | Where was Bettis Academy, in what city? | 38:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | That's located in the rural section, but located in Edgefield County. But it's in the rural. The mailing address of Bettis Academy was a little town called Trenton, but it was about six mile out from Trenton. It was just, I guess more like Tuskegee. | 38:59 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. So you graduated from Benedict College in '59? | 39:23 |
| Benjamin Adams | '59, and interrupted with two years of service. | 39:30 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Did you go to school after, did you take a degree after that? You took a BS from Benedict? | 40:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, BS. | 40:15 |
| Charles Houston | In biology. | 40:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 40:25 |
| Charles Houston | You didn't take a Master's degree? | 40:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. | 40:29 |
| Charles Houston | Now your work history, you were a court officer most recently, right? | 40:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 40:45 |
| Charles Houston | Did you have a title or was it— | 40:45 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, they called it bailiff. But it entail a little bit of everything. Sometime I had act as a clerk, sometime I had to help the solicitor negotiate, worked closely with the judges. I had to sign, serve contempt warrants. I was a constable also as well as a court officer. | 40:46 |
| Charles Houston | You were a constable? | 41:15 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm, state constable. Because I had to go all over the state sometime if I had to pick up somebody or serve court orders. | 41:16 |
| Charles Houston | Who did you work for? You worked for the state? | 41:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | City of Columbia. | 41:31 |
| Charles Houston | City of Columbia? | 41:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, municipal court. | 41:34 |
| Charles Houston | Columbia Municipal Court? | 41:36 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 41:37 |
| Charles Houston | What years? | 41:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | From '73 until 1986, August of '86. | 42:01 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Before that you were a real estate agent? | 42:09 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, well, I still part-time, even while I was working with the court, but yeah. | 42:13 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. What company? | 42:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Morris Morgan. | 42:23 |
| Charles Houston | Morris Morgan. | 42:25 |
| Benjamin Adams | Realty. | 42:26 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. That's Columbia? | 42:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, because I still have a license. | 42:34 |
| Charles Houston | You're still with Morris Morgan? | 42:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 42:43 |
| Charles Houston | What year did you start that? | 42:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Oh, 19, must have been 1985. That was the most recent real estate, and I was with another real estate company prior to them. | 42:45 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. What about your career as a fireman? You were a fireman for the City of Columbia from— | 43:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | '63 to 1970. | 43:13 |
| Charles Houston | Your employer was the Columbia Fire Department, I guess. | 43:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 43:39 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Getting close. | 43:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, no problem. | 43:57 |
| Charles Houston | Now this next question requests that we list your awards, honors, or any offices you've held in organizations like NAACP. | 43:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. Well, let me start back in 1972. I was president of and organized a Republican precinct. | 44:11 |
| Charles Houston | You're president and founder of the Republican precinct? | 44:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I mean, for Black in this area. I organized first Republican precinct. | 44:42 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Did it have a number? | 45:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | No, just Greenview Precinct, but Republican Greenview Precinct. | 45:05 |
| Charles Houston | So it was the first Black Republican precinct for Greenview? | 45:10 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, for the City of Columbia, really. Because we didn't have any Black Republican precinct. I was president of that for four years. | 45:14 |
| Charles Houston | That was 1976 to 1980. | 45:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Then I was president of this community men's club called Greenview Men's Club, president, I served them for two years. That was 1982 to '84. Then the real estate, well, I'm just a member of Board of Realtist, and also— | 45:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | —Board of Realtors. | 0:02 |
| Charles Houston | You're a charter member? | 0:04 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yes. South Carolina. Brought the first Board of Realtists to South Carolina. | 0:05 |
| Charles Houston | You're a charter member of the Board of Realtors in South Carolina? | 0:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. R-E-A-L-T-I-S. | 0:18 |
| Charles Houston | Oh. Charter member, Board of R-E-A-L-T-I-S? | 0:24 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yes. Realtists. That's a Black organization, national. I helped organize that organization. That was also in '72. | 0:25 |
| Charles Houston | Is it statewide or national or local? | 0:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | It's statewide organization, but it's a national organization but local— | 0:59 |
| Charles Houston | You organized the local chapter? | 1:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Local chapter. | 1:07 |
| Charles Houston | You were a charter member? | 1:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah, of the Board of Realtists. | 1:13 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 1:13 |
| Benjamin Adams | Also, I'm a member of the Board of Realtors, realtors, R-E-A-L-T-O-R, realtors, and, of course, that's a statewide organization. They had White and Black. | 1:17 |
| Charles Houston | What year did you join? | 1:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | I joined that in 1980. It must have been about 1983. | 1:51 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. [indistinct 00:02:02]. | 1:52 |
| Benjamin Adams | Now I'm president of Rainbow Alliance. Rainbow Alliance for the Mentally Ill. | 2:11 |
| Charles Houston | For the mentally ill? | 2:22 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. It's a support group. | 2:34 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. What dates? | 2:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | What is it? 1993. | 2:47 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 2:48 |
| Benjamin Adams | Republican Precinct, president of that. | 2:53 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. I got room for one more if you want to add one. | 2:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, NAACP, Columbia branch, NAACP. | 2:59 |
| Charles Houston | Are you an officer? | 3:07 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I'm the legal redress. | 3:08 |
| Charles Houston | Chairman— | 3:12 |
| Benjamin Adams | I chair that committee. | 3:14 |
| Charles Houston | Chair legal redress? | 3:15 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 3:17 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. | 3:49 |
| Charles Houston | Your current religious denomination? | 3:49 |
| Benjamin Adams | Baptist. | 3:51 |
| Charles Houston | Your church affiliation? | 3:53 |
| Benjamin Adams | St. John Baptist Church. St. John. | 3:55 |
| Charles Houston | Columbia? | 4:11 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 4:12 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Last page. | 4:17 |
| Benjamin Adams | No problem. | 4:19 |
| Charles Houston | My hand is getting tired. | 4:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Work Nicole, I always have to sit in, so it ain't no problem. | 4:24 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. List below any organization that you belong to. I suppose I'm just going to copy, unless there are others that you want to mention, I'm going to put down Republican Party, the—I'll just say C Awards, honors, and—No, I better write it down. I'll put down Republican— | 4:32 |
| Benjamin Adams | Precinct. | 5:01 |
| Charles Houston | Republican Precinct. | 5:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 5:03 |
| Charles Houston | Greenview Men's Club. Board of realtors. | 5:06 |
| Benjamin Adams | Realtist. | 5:42 |
| Charles Houston | South Carolina board of Realtist. | 5:44 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Yeah. R-E-A-L-T-I-S. Realtist. That's a Black organization, a national— | 5:46 |
| Charles Houston | T-I-S-T? | 5:58 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 5:59 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. The South Carolina Board of Realtors? | 6:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 6:21 |
| Charles Houston | The Rainbow Alliance for the mentally ill, and the NAACP? | 6:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Mm-hmm. | 6:24 |
| Charles Houston | When did you join the—You joined in college? | 6:41 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Down at— | 6:45 |
| Charles Houston | You joined in '57, '58? | 6:45 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Then that was—After college, I got back involved in 1970. | 6:48 |
| Charles Houston | I'm just going to say 1957. | 7:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Yeah. | 7:01 |
| Charles Houston | Do you have any favorite sayings? Favorite sayings, like expressions, mottoes, quotations. | 7:08 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, one motto is that little deeds done are better than great deeds planned. | 7:15 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. That's a good motto. | 7:28 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Anything else? Anything else you'd like to say? Comments you'd like to make? | 7:29 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. I just believe in doing what I can, and make more life comfortable for people. In all my life, I've been a public servant. Maybe I should have said make life more meaningful, but, in a way, it's okay. | 7:59 |
| Charles Houston | I put both down. You said you've been a public servant all your life? | 8:54 |
| Benjamin Adams | Pretty much so. Yeah. I got a long history. I can say a whole lot, but just by the extent, because I did a lot of social work for 80 counties. | 9:01 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Last thing I need to do is get your signature on this interview agreement, and I can read it to you. | 9:21 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 9:26 |
| Charles Houston | It says the purpose of the Behind the Veil documenting African American life in the Jim Crow South project is to gather and preserve historical documents, by means of tape recorded interviews. The tape recordings and transcripts resulting from such interviews become a part of the archives of the Behind the Veil Collection at Duke University. | 9:26 |
| Charles Houston | This material will be made available for historical and other academic research and public dissemination. Regulated according to the restrictions placed on its use by the interviewee. Duke University is assigned rights, title and interest, to the interviews unless otherwise specified. | 9:51 |
| Charles Houston | Participation in Center For Documentary Studies projects is entirely voluntary. We have read the above and we voluntarily offer the information contained in these oral history research interviews. In view of the scholarly value of this research material, we hereby permit Duke University to retain it without any restrictions. We, the undersigned, have read the above and voluntarily offer Duke University full use of the information contained on tapes and transcripts of these oral history research interviews. In view of the scholarly value of this research, we hereby assign rights, title, and interest pertaining to it to Duke University. | 10:14 |
| Charles Houston | I'll print your name and my name and then I'll sign it and I'll show you where to sign. | 11:00 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 11:03 |
| Charles Houston | Today is the 7th— | 11:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | 20. 20. Yeah. | 11:42 |
| Charles Houston | There's a place here for the address but I'll fill that in later. | 11:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 11:46 |
| Charles Houston | I'll get you to sign it right where I put the check mark, if you will. | 11:55 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. | 11:56 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Thanks very much. Okay. I really appreciate your time and this has been very, very interesting. It was a very fascinating morning for me. | 12:16 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 12:30 |
| Charles Houston | I appreciate it. | 12:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | One thing, though, and I know you got to go but I think important to say that Edgefield County and other counties in the state of South Carolina had what's called—There's a special name but the rural area, you only went to school something like six months, because they had planting season, so you had to be out for that. Then you had to cultivate and you had to be out of school for that. Then you had the harvest time. There's a special name, certain kinds, rural had that about three months, you were out of school, and so I would say that way, I didn't go to school until we went to on the 40 acres. | 12:31 |
| Charles Houston | When you went on the 40 acres? | 13:33 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 13:35 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 13:35 |
| Benjamin Adams | We had to stay out for planting. | 13:37 |
| Charles Houston | Right. No. I know that Black families on the White man's land could only send their kids to school when the White man left. | 13:40 |
| Benjamin Adams | That's right. | 13:50 |
| Charles Houston | The White man didn't care anything about them getting educated, he cared about making money, and so the children had to work in the field when he said. | 13:51 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. I think that that's important. | 13:59 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 14:03 |
| Benjamin Adams | Especially Black males, when they got to working, they didn't go to school nine months. | 14:04 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. The real change in your life came when that elderly Black man with that grownup— | 14:30 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 14:36 |
| Charles Houston | —decided he was going to go north with his children and that was the turning point— | 14:37 |
| Benjamin Adams | At that time. At the time and point. | 14:41 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 14:43 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. | 14:45 |
| Charles Houston | That was a real—It couldn't have come at a better time because your dad's health was failing and he'd just been thrown off— | 14:46 |
| Benjamin Adams | In fact, we'd been thrown off, because we couldn't move on anybody else's plantation, because they weren't families at the age to work. | 14:53 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 15:02 |
| Benjamin Adams | Then we couldn't move into the city, because my mother—The domestic work, she didn't make enough money. [Indistinct 00:15:15] we weren't able to work. | 15:04 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 15:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | The old man Broadwell, worked through him, God worked through him. | 15:21 |
| Charles Houston | Right. | 15:26 |
| Benjamin Adams | We was on the move from then on. | 15:28 |
| Charles Houston | What ever happened to him? You never— | 15:31 |
| Benjamin Adams | Well, he died up north. You might know Tom Broadwell, he an attorney. You might have heard of him. | 15:33 |
| Charles Houston | No. Is he related? | 15:39 |
| Benjamin Adams | Yeah. Yeah. | 15:41 |
| Charles Houston | Is that right? You still have some contact with that family? | 15:42 |
| Benjamin Adams | With the family. Yeah. Tom Broadwell, he's writing a book on Black South Carolina too. | 15:46 |
| Charles Houston | Is he the son of old man Broadwell? | 15:57 |
| Benjamin Adams | No. He's a distant relative. I don't know whether old man Broadwell is his uncle or what? I'd have to talk with him to find out. | 15:59 |
| Charles Houston | Okay. Now I need to ask you for directions on how to get out to Miss Thompson's, and maybe call her and tell her I'm going to be a little late, because it's already 1:30 and I need to get some lunch and work out the kinks before I go out there. | 16:20 |
| Benjamin Adams | Okay. It's— | 16:37 |
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