Ruth Morris (primary interviewee) and Catherine Wilson interview recording, 1993 June 10

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Ruth Morris	— but we grew up in First Ward on North Davidson Street between Seventh and Eighth Streets.	0:01
Kara Miles	What was your house like?	0:10
Ruth Morris	Well, our house, we had a story and a half house. What was it? Eight rooms? Yeah, eight room house we lived in and of course, there were how many of us in the family?	0:13
Catherine Morris Wilson	Nine.	0:26
Ruth Morris	Nine of us there in the family with my mother and father. And of course, we had a very good life, although there were many of us there. My father was a brick mason. My mother was at home. Was a homemaker.	0:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I am next to the youngest. There was six girls and three boys, the oldest, a girl, and the youngest, a boy, of the nine. But now when I was born, my oldest sister finished high school the year after my birth. She really was not there when I was growing up, so to speak. She was out and was working. And during that time, the work that they did was maid service in homes out in Myers Park. That's where she was and she lived on the lot and came home on Wednesdays. They had Wednesdays off and on Sundays, half a day, something like that.	0:45
Ruth Morris	In fact, that was the only type of work, more or less, for the Blacks to do too then. Of course, we were called the Negroes then, or Colored. Maid service and the butlers and—	1:36
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yard.	1:51
Ruth Morris	Yard work. In fact, if you went to school, probably the only thing to do be a teacher, a preacher, or nurse. And of course, there was a nurse here. The school was the Good Samaritan American Hospital, which was Black, and what church was that at?	1:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	The Episcopal Church.	2:11
Ruth Morris	Church, yes.	2:14
Catherine Morris Wilson	And All the Angels was the church down on the South Met Street.	2:15
Kara Miles	How did your father learn his trade?	2:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Another friend of the family, an older person taught him how to lay brick and that was his trade although— And he had no education. He was illiterate, but he could count his hours and his money. My mother, more or less, taught herself how to read and write her name, but they believed in education. They were determined that we would get an education and we did. All but one finished high school, wasn't it?	2:37
Kara Miles	Mm—hmm.	3:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	And that was my older brother. And of the nine, let's see, Lucia, Ruth, Margie, me and Herman, five of us finished college.	3:20
Kara Miles	Did you—	3:34
Ruth Morris	One brother did attend college but he did not finish.	3:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, Sarah went. The other sister went to Winston—Salem, but she did not finish. She got sick and had to come out.	3:39
Kara Miles	Did your parents have the money to pay to put you all through college or did you have to find other ways of—	3:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	There was no other way. Well, you could get scholarships, if you got scholarships, and I believe during that time they did have something they called a work aid.	3:55
Ruth Morris	Yeah, work aid.	4:02
Catherine Morris Wilson	Work aid, but—	4:03
Ruth Morris	What was that called?	4:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	— most of what it was— It's interesting, I went to Livingstone College, a church school that's near [indistinct 00:04:14], a church school in Salisbury, and room and board at that time a month was $18 but it was hard to come by. But my parents did come by it because I did not do work aid. And then as the older ones, with my being down on the—	4:07
Ruth Morris	Bottom.	4:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	— bottom, as they got out and got jobs, we helped each other through school. That's not [indistinct 00:04:40].	4:36
Ruth Morris	Yes, because my older sister, who was out in the maid service sent the next girl to school and then, as it is, we just passed it right on down to the next one. Now when I was in school, I went to Winston— Salem and my junior year I did get a job because that's the time Sarah went. There were two of us there at that time and I got to work there. I'm trying to think what that work was called, and that's been so long ago now, but I don't remember. I worked for two years and the first year I went to Winston—Salem room and board was $13 a month, and I believe it was around about $50 for tuition. Then it went up to $15. I think it was $15 when I finished and that was back in 1942 when I finished so that was before you were born.	4:40
Kara Miles	Where did you work on the work aid?	5:39
Ruth Morris	That was on the campus there at school. Well, I tell you what, my job was to— I was supervising the people who cleaned the bathrooms and answered the telephone sitting on the desk in the evening. That's what I did. See, some of the work aid, some of them, the boys mostly did the yard and some of the girls worked in the—	5:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Cafeteria.	6:03
Ruth Morris	— in the dining hall.	6:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Dining hall. That what they would call it.	6:06
Ruth Morris	Not the cafeteria. In the dining hall, you see these waitresses and some of them worked in the laundry because there was the laundry there where we took out laundry once a week. Certain days, took different classes— That was what it was there. It was different work. Most of the students were working students.	6:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	But now getting back, you're talking about Jim Crow, and I guess that second thing is segregated. And it's always has been amusing to me when now you hear people say, "We want to get back to neighborhood schools." That's a joke because when we lived in First Ward, we at— You know where Orville— Have you been over there? Well anyway, we lived on North Davidson Street in the 400 block between Seventh and Eighth, where the next street was Ninth, and a block right up Ninth was an elementary school called First Ward Elementary School. We were in the 400 block and in the 500 blocks, some whites lived there when we lived there. And on Ninth Street, First Ward was always an integrated neighborhood because even on Seventh Street, some whites lived on Seventh Street.	6:31
Ruth Morris	Right on the very corner from us.	7:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Right on the corner from us.	7:33
Ruth Morris	We were in the middle of the block. On each corner on Seventh Street, white people lived there and down Seventh—	7:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	On Caldwell Street, another street up. It was an integrated neighborhood but by the same token, we could not go to First Ward Elementary School, but we were about two blocks from there. Instead of going there, you had to go to, it was called Alexander Street School, and it was over by—	7:41
Ruth Morris	Over in the bottom.	8:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	Over in the bottom because they used to call it—	8:07
Ruth Morris	Mosquito bottom.	8:10
Catherine Morris Wilson	Mosquito bottom.	8:11
Ruth Morris	It was low.	8:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was low and it was—	8:14
Ruth Morris	And it was—	8:14
Catherine Morris Wilson	About how far was it from there? It must have been about eight or 10 blocks or more. And now where Central Piedmont Community College is— Now, it was not that big. It was Central High School and you had Blacks right down on Seventh Street, right at Central Piedmont but they could not go to Central— It wasn't Central Piedmont. It was Central—	8:17
Ruth Morris	Central High School.	8:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	— High School. Could not go to Central High School, but they were right there. But they went and we all went to Second Ward High School, which was the only Black high school in Mecklenburg County up until 1938. You see, this is why I said it was no such thing as neighborhood schools because you were right there in the door of the school, but you couldn't go there. It was because of the segregation.	8:49
Kara Miles	On the block that you lived on, where did the white people live on your block?	9:23
Ruth Morris	They lived on the corner, which it was the next street though over. They were on another street.	9:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	And then they were on the next block. We were in the 400 block of North Davidson and you had whites in the—	9:35
Ruth Morris	500 block.	9:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	— 500 block of North Davidson. And then right on the corner of North Davidson and East Seventh where we were in the middle, there were whites there.	9:41
Kara Miles	Okay. Were there any neighborhoods where whites and Blacks lived house by house, side by side?	9:53
Catherine Morris Wilson	I don't—	9:58
Ruth Morris	Yes, because you see in those houses there— But what she's telling you about now, some Blacks live next door to them because you know the Glens—	10:01
Catherine Morris Wilson	Glens, yeah.	10:08
Ruth Morris	— and all them, the other side?	10:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's only Seventh Street.	10:08
Ruth Morris	Oh, that's only Seventh Street. Well, in the 500 block, Mr. Irving was up there next to those white people.	10:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	[indistinct 00:10:18] white people. Yeah, she was.	10:17
Ruth Morris	Yes, there were some side by side. And across the street there, you'd see—	10:21
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes, she was.	10:26
Ruth Morris	— there in the 500 block.	10:26
Kara Miles	Did you all have any contact with the whites that lived near you?	10:31
Ruth Morris	No, we didn't really have any contact with them.	10:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	Probably speaking, and that was it. Not associated.	10:41
Ruth Morris	No, no association. Just speaking, because I remember Miss Owens sitting on the porch there. We'd have to pass her house and it's just speaking, just ordinarily speaking, just neighborly speaking. Her name just came to, Owens.	10:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	Owens. And with the Holtons—	10:59
Ruth Morris	Holtons. Will Holton.	11:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	— they were the whites that lived on the corner of Seventh and North Davidson Street at that house.	11:03
Ruth Morris	Yeah, Davidson. Uh—huh, and he owned most of the houses in the 400 block behind his house, across the street from us.	11:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	And most of the people on the side that we lived on, Blacks owned that property.	11:17
Kara Miles	Your parents owned their property.	11:28
Ruth Morris	Yes.	11:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	Uh—huh.	11:30
Kara Miles	Did you play with the white children?	11:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	11:35
Kara Miles	No? What did you all do for fun as kids?	11:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	You made your own fun.	11:41
Ruth Morris	Our picture [indistinct 00:11:45] shoes in the driveway, shooting marbles, playing Old Maids on the front porch there at the table, bringing it out. Skating, roller skating. See, there was the ball bearing skates then at that time and we skated. We had scooters. We made scooters out of—	11:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	Wood.	12:03
Ruth Morris	— wood after the skate had worn out, put in those wheels on the skate on the board. And then there was a time that— Remember Bessie Watkins on Eighth Street from us would have block parties and that's when the skating party and they would block off the street—	12:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	Would block the street.	12:25
Ruth Morris	Let them block the street off and have a skating party. Oh, we had much more fun than and same way [indistinct 00:12:34] the Valentine, Halloween.	12:28
Kara Miles	Tell me about Halloween.	12:38
Ruth Morris	Well this is what we would do. Have the Halloween party, so they'd invite all the children around in the neighborhood and bobbing of the apples.	12:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	In the tin tub. Put the water in and put apples in. You know about that?	12:50
Ruth Morris	Yes.	12:54
Catherine Morris Wilson	And on the weekends mostly what we did, we would go window shopping. That was downtown. That did not look anything like it does now. And when we said window shopping, that's exactly what it was, just window wishing. Looking in the store windows. Either the bus or the street car—	12:58
Ruth Morris	Street car.	13:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	— street car was 7 cents to ride and you'd get on the street car and go for a ride with a group. That's what we did on Sunday. Now, a lot on Sundays too at our church, Little Rock AME Zion Church was on the corner of Myers and—	13:28
Ruth Morris	Seven.	13:47
Catherine Morris Wilson	— and Seven. In the afternoon, we had Fair Christian Endeavor, and children in the neighborhood, whether you belong there or not, we would all go to that. Then we would leave there and go up to— It's First United now, but it was—	13:47
Ruth Morris	Seventh Street Presbyterian Church.	14:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Seventh Street Presbyterian Church. Then we would all leave there and go up there to Young People's Meeting.	14:05
Kara Miles	It sounds like church was very important.	14:11
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was.	14:14
Ruth Morris	It was.	14:14
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was. Really, church was really it, and you didn't— Sunday school. Most Sunday school was after morning service starting say, at 1:00, and that's about where all the children and the people were at. Sunday school did all the churches.	14:17
Kara Miles	Okay. Your parents went to church?	14:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	Oh yes.	14:39
Ruth Morris	Oh yes. You went to church—	14:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	You went to church.	14:42
Ruth Morris	— because they would take us to church in the mornings. We all would grow up on a seat there.	14:45
Catherine Morris Wilson	And if you didn't, it was a thing that you knew, and not only just us in the neighborhood, if you didn't go to Sunday school or go to church, you didn't go anywhere that afternoon or that whole week maybe. When you got home from school, that was it. Or if it were in the summertime, if you were too sick to go to church to go to Sunday school, but then you were too sick—	14:48
Ruth Morris	You were too sick, to go to work, to do anything else but to stay home.	15:14
Catherine Morris Wilson	— to do anything else would stay at home and be sick. We soon find out, well, that won't work, so you went. It was easier to go—	15:16
Ruth Morris	So you could be free.	15:25
Catherine Morris Wilson	— so you could have your freedom.	15:26
Ruth Morris	But so much freedom. That freedom was limited too.	15:28
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's right.	15:30
Ruth Morris	Yeah, your limited, but that was a lot of freedom for us then.	15:30
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now I don't remember. You may want to talk about— Didn't Mr. Jim Davidson on a store down on— Who was that?	15:37
Ruth Morris	Yeah. Oh well, see, there was the neighborhood stores. There was a store on the corner from us and there was another store on the next corner, Lawrence Market was on the next block, same block that your church was in, and you were able to have— All of these stores were run by the white man. And of course, you could run a bill there and let's see, then that was up on the next corner. Mr. Curly, up at Ninth and Davidson, that was a store. See, you had your stores all right around you. Now that store down on the corner from us, I don't remember that from the very beginning. But anyway, there were stores all around that you could buy. There wasn't anything as these—	15:45
Catherine Morris Wilson	Chain—	16:33
Ruth Morris	— chain stores then.	16:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	— stores. Big stores.	16:34
Ruth Morris	No.	16:35
Kara Miles	Downtown, were there big department stores or anything?	16:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	They were department stores but they weren't anything like they are now.	16:43
Ruth Morris	No, nothing like they are now.	16:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	Nothing like they are now.	16:47
Ruth Morris	No.	16:49
Catherine Morris Wilson	There was Belts and Efirds.	16:49
Ruth Morris	Ivey.	16:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	Ivey's.	16:52
Ruth Morris	Grants—	16:55
Catherine Morris Wilson	Grants.	16:56
Ruth Morris	— was there.	16:59
Catherine Morris Wilson	5 & 10, the [indistinct 00:17:00]. Raley's.	16:59
Ruth Morris	Yes.	17:01
Kara Miles	And could Black people go in those?	17:03
Ruth Morris	Yes.	17:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes, but they did not have—	17:07
Ruth Morris	Water fountain and then—	17:10
Catherine Morris Wilson	— water fountains and restrooms.	17:10
Ruth Morris	— restrooms. If they had a water fountain, they had Colored up there. White, color. Same way it was with the bus station, but you were downstairs in the bus station. Everything was labeled.	17:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	And if you rode the bus or the trolley— Streetcar it was called, street car, you seated from the back.	17:30
Kara Miles	And what did you all think of these rules?	17:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, we didn't know—	17:43
Ruth Morris	We didn't really know.	17:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	— but this is all you knew.	17:45
Ruth Morris	This was all you knew.	17:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	You accepted it—	17:46
Ruth Morris	And that was it.	17:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	— and that was it.	17:46
Kara Miles	Did anyone ever defy those rules? Did any people ever drink out of the white water fountain or—	17:51
Catherine Morris Wilson	If they did, they slipped. I don't know of any.	17:56
Ruth Morris	I don't know of any either.	18:01
Kara Miles	The neighborhood stores, they were white owned, right?	18:08
Ruth Morris	Yes.	18:10
Kara Miles	Did Blacks and whites both go there to shop?	18:11
Ruth Morris	Yes. Well, you see, it was mostly in the Black neighborhoods, but I guess the whites went there. I don't know, but see, there was so few whites there in the community.	18:15
Kara Miles	How did the white owners act towards their Black customers?	18:26
Ruth Morris	They're Fine.	18:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	Fine, and you had no problems. There were no problems with that. You ran a bill, and at that time you could go to the store and get 5 cents worth of sugar, 10 cents worth of sugar, a nickels worth for this and nickels worth for that. And of course, they treated you very well because they wanted your service.	18:34
Kara Miles	Did you ever hear your parents talk about their relationships with whites or incidents that had happened?	18:55
Catherine Morris Wilson	Mm—hmm. No.	19:08
Kara Miles	No?	19:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	19:09
Ruth Morris	No. The only thing this was— Well, I was out working [indistinct 00:19:15] once when mom and I were in the A&P. They built the bigger stores and we had a dog and she asked the butcher for some bones for the dog. And when we got to the counter, this white lady asked, "Well Auntie, did you get your bones," and then when she said, "Auntie," that ruffled my feathers. I said, "What do you mean by Auntie?" I said, "She's Mrs. Morris. She's not your Auntie." She said, "Oh, I'm sorry. That was just a courtesy." I said, "That's not a courtesy to her." I said, "She's Mrs. Morris." And of course, that settled that. That's really the only thing I know that—	19:10
Catherine Morris Wilson	But you do know that when you went downtown and you just waited, if whites came up and you were there, they were waited on first.	20:01
Ruth Morris	And that sometime happens now. That happens now.	20:13
Kara Miles	Did you think anything of that? I mean, did that bother you or—	20:19
Ruth Morris	No—	20:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, as you as you got older— Now and I'm not going to call the name. In our neighborhood and at Second Ward there was a family. You could not tell them from being white. And we played together. We went to school together and I never forget an experience that we had and was with some others. Went downtown to Ed Mellons. It was a big store and they saw this Black person they thought was white and we were all together but they went to her to wait on her first. And one of the other ones said, "Isn't that something?" They said, "We all together and she went to wait on her first," and she looked and she said, "Sure," or something to that effect and we said, "Well, she's Black too."	20:25
Kara Miles	What did the person say to—	21:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	Turned red.	21:22
Ruth Morris	Because she had blonde hair.	21:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	She had blonde hair. I mean—	21:25
Ruth Morris	In fact, you would not know because she would go down to bus station and—	21:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	They'd pass for white—	21:35
Ruth Morris	In certain areas.	21:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	— in certain areas. And I mean, some people frowned on it, but as I look back, if you could get what you wanted and they didn't know the difference, then more luck to you and they used it to their advantage.	21:36
Kara Miles	Were people like that treated differently within the Black community, people who were really light skinned or—	21:56
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, now children are cruel and from my own experience, when we would be coming home from Second Ward, it was a little factory, not a big factory. And we got out of school about 3:00 and all the white people would be hanging out the window to see her and we would say— And as I say, children are cruel. Although we were in high school, we were still cruel. We would say, "It's your time to walk with that white girl. I'm not walking with her today," one of these kind of things and—	22:04
Ruth Morris	But she didn't hear it.	22:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	She didn't hear it. She would never hear it. And I'll never forget, one Sunday we left Little Rock Church going up to East Seventh Street and she was along with us and one of the fellas was walking with her and traffic stopped. White people in cars stopped because they thought she was white and here was this Black man with this white girl, and everybody's hollering, "She's Black. She's Black," because I don't know what would've happened, but she felt it.	22:39
Kara Miles	She felt—	23:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	A lot of times that— Brother, you said it directly, you can hear the little— But she was a very friendly person. She was one of my personal friends, but you could not tell her from white.	23:22
Kara Miles	Very light people, did they get special treatments sometimes at school from teachers?	23:41
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, not that we know of. Now it could have happened and I'm not saying they got special treatment or if it was something that they were capable of doing. I'd hate to label and say that they did when I don't know this for a fact. And I could never see that she got any special flavors, although her mother was a teacher and they were very prominent people in the neighborhood and by that I meant professional. But I don't know of any special treatment that they got from the schools.	23:54
Kara Miles	Were there certain neighborhoods that the professionals lived in, Black professionals?	24:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	24:43
Ruth Morris	No, Mm—mm. No, because they were [indistinct 00:24:49].	24:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	They were scattered all around. You've got First Ward, Brooklyn, and then you had—	24:48
Ruth Morris	Second Ward.	24:53
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Second Ward and you had Biddleville.	24:54
Ruth Morris	But it seems that more were up in Biddleville.	24:54
Catherine Morris Wilson	Biddleville, but in later years.	24:59
Ruth Morris	Yeah, yeah, of all. Yes, later ages.	25:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was later years there were more of them up in Biddleville.	25:00
Kara Miles	Later years. What years are we—	25:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	You're talking about say in the late 30s.	25:07
Ruth Morris	I believe you better go to the 40s probably.	25:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, maybe the 40s.	25:14
Kara Miles	Were there any neighborhoods that your parents didn't let you go to that were maybe—	25:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	It may not have been neighborhoods, but there was a dividing line, that you knew that you were not allowed on Second Street. That was more or less Bourbon Street. At your age, you knew there was certain streets and most of us— Although they had what they call piccolo joints. You knew that you were not allowed. Your parents did not allow you in cafes and those kind of places and the streets that were known like Johnson Street that was out in Greenville over at Seaboard Street—	25:25
Ruth Morris	And certain areas of the streets now.	26:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	Areas of the streets.	26:06
Ruth Morris	Yeah, certain areas.	26:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	You knew that you were not allowed there.	26:08
Ruth Morris	Yeah, because some parts were called what is the Red District Light.	26:20
Catherine Morris Wilson	The Red Light District.	26:20
Ruth Morris	Red Light District. And of course, you knew you didn't go there. As you say, that was the piccolo joint or the whiskey joints, I'll say.	26:21
Catherine Morris Wilson	They sold—	26:32
Ruth Morris	Liquor.	26:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	Right, the bootleg liquor. That's what it was called—	26:33
Ruth Morris	Bootleg, that's what it's called. Bootleg.	26:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	— and you had bootleggers.	26:35
Kara Miles	How old were you when you could go to a piccolo house?	26:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, you never went.	26:43
Ruth Morris	We wouldn't. You didn't. In fact, [indistinct 00:26:47] you didn't come up with that and then when you got old enough, you didn't want to go to those.	26:47
Catherine Morris Wilson	[indistinct 00:26:51]. You didn't go.	26:51
Ruth Morris	You didn't want to go.	26:55
Kara Miles	Did you ever sneak to any of these places you went to [indistinct 00:26:58]?	26:55
Ruth Morris	No—	26:58
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	26:58
Ruth Morris	— because you had no desire to really go to those places.	26:59
Catherine Morris Wilson	And then another thing, you were—	27:03
Ruth Morris	It was a caliber of people.	27:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	People, uh—huh. And then another thing, you knew if you did— Everybody knew everybody in Charlotte and you knew if you did and somebody saw you, that was it. You didn't take those chances.	27:06
Ruth Morris	Chances, no.	27:20
Kara Miles	Have you all heard of an area called Blue Heaven?	27:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes.	27:30
Ruth Morris	That's what I was trying to say, the Red Light District.	27:30
Catherine Morris Wilson	Blue Heaven District.	27:31
Ruth Morris	— That's what was— I couldn't—	27:31
Catherine Morris Wilson	Blue Heaven was in Brooklyn.	27:31
Ruth Morris	Brooklyn, yes. Brooklyn, off of McDowell Street.	27:31
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was down in Boundary Street. That was Blue Heaven.	27:32
Kara Miles	What can you tell me about Blue Heaven?	27:36
Ruth Morris	Well—	27:37
Catherine Morris Wilson	The laundry was down there.	27:40
Ruth Morris	The laundry was down there. And seemed to have been a rough section.	27:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Section.	27:48
Ruth Morris	You know.	27:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	Most of the houses over there were shotgun houses.	27:48
Ruth Morris	Shotgun house. Well, the shotgun houses were all over the city.	27:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	All over the city.	27:56
Ruth Morris	Shotgun houses were all over the city.	28:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, Blue Heaven.	28:01
Ruth Morris	You what the shotgun houses is, don't you?	28:06
Kara Miles	You said that when you would see the signs, the segregation signs or be on the street car, whatever, that you didn't really pay much attention to it.	28:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, you didn't question it.	28:16
Ruth Morris	No.	28:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	You accepted it. [indistinct 00:28:20], accept it.	28:19
Ruth Morris	But you just accept because that was the way of life and you knew nothing else.	28:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	The first time I remember anyone, she didn't really question it, she didn't accept it, was when I was at Livingstone College and came home for Easter. My roommate came home with me, Gwendolyn Sheldron, and she was from Chicago and we had been downtown and was going to ride the bus back. And we got on the bus and I went onto the back and I thought she was behind me, but she stopped up front and the bus driver asked her to move to the back and she got off of the bus. I got off the bus too to walk home with her. That was the first time that I remember experienced anybody—	28:35
Ruth Morris	But see, she was from Chicago.	29:17
Catherine Morris Wilson	Of course.	29:18
Kara Miles	Do you remember the first time that you were with someone who questioned this or—	29:21
Ruth Morris	No, I never have been with anyone. See, this is my first time hearing that.	29:26
Kara Miles	Growing up, were there any— Well, I guess maybe not. Were there any organizations, maybe political organizations or anybody who were questioning these things, like a NAACP or something?	29:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now, I don't know when we were coming up that early about NAACP, but I know in later years my mother was very active member and recruited members for NAACP. But like I'm saying, that was later years—	29:46
Ruth Morris	The later years.	30:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	The later years.	30:04
Kara Miles	What years?	30:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Was in the late 40s.	30:05
Ruth Morris	Late 40s.	30:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Late 40s.	30:05
Ruth Morris	The late 40s.	30:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	The late 40s. She was very active and she thought it was a shame anybody who was not a member of the NAACP and they used to have some drives people and she used to get out on me and—	30:14
Ruth Morris	Especially time for voting. They would have you—	30:26
Catherine Morris Wilson	The voting, uh—huh. She would really get out to recruit people and get your membership for the NAACP.	30:27
Kara Miles	But before that came along, there weren't any—	30:37
Catherine Morris Wilson	Not that I know of.	30:39
Ruth Morris	Not at the time.	30:40
Kara Miles	What other organizations? Were there any social clubs and—	30:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	Social clubs. Oh, plenty of them. Now you've got some social "clubs—" And when I say that I cannot justify this because from what I've heard and from what I've seen, it doesn't go hand in hand. They were seeing like the Bluebird Club.	30:49
Kara Miles	The bluebird was—	31:10
Catherine Morris Wilson	You had to have blue veins. You were Black, but you had blue veins, but I do know—	31:12
Ruth Morris	It was in the paper. They organized that it was for complexions—	31:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's right. That's why I'm saying.	31:23
Ruth Morris	Quote, unquote.	31:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's why I said "The Bluebird," and they said you had to have blue veins to be a member of that but one of the organizers had Black veins. She did not have any blue veins.	31:28
Ruth Morris	Brown veins.	31:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	Brown veins.	31:44
Ruth Morris	Brown veins.	31:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well anyway—	31:47
Kara Miles	You meant that when you were looking at your skin, you would be able to see—	31:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	You were very light, yeah. That's what they meant, very fair, but she was not. I don't know. Then you had the Swings and you had— What was this? The men—	31:51
Ruth Morris	Black Cats Club.	32:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	Black Cats Club.	32:07
Ruth Morris	That was the men's club.	32:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was the men's club and it dates way back. What was this one that Elsie was in?	32:09
Ruth Morris	Can't think of it now. All right. There were a number of social clubs. You see, they started in school because our club started the year after I finished high school, the Modernettes Social Club and the Lapariattes. You see I learned that the other day at the funeral, that that was started for the girls in high school. Liz started that and then when they went off to school and they came back and got together again.	32:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now the Y team was very active. Phyllis Wheatley, YWCA, was another thing that Black girls were very active in throughout the whole communities, not just one.	32:50
Ruth Morris	Throughout the city.	33:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	Throughout the city. And they had what we call Girl Reserves. It was an organization. Have you heard of that, The Girl Reserves? And it started from school and you were carried on over to the summer to give you something to do. And that was down on South Rhode Island.	33:07
Ruth Morris	YWCA.	33:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Wasn't it on Second or First Street, Doris, and then—	33:33
Ruth Morris	Let me see. I'm trying to think where it was. I know the library was there Brevard and Second. See, that's been so long.	33:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	I think it was on Brevard Street, the YWCA.	33:35
Ruth Morris	It was.	33:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was on—	33:35
Ruth Morris	It was on Brevard. See, that that big building. Now its coming to me.	33:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, it was on South Brevard Street, the YWCA, and it was called Phyllis Wheatley Branch of the YWCA.	33:57
Kara Miles	Did you all used to go there?	34:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes.	34:04
Ruth Morris	Mm—hmm.	34:05
Kara Miles	And what did you used to do there?	34:07
Ruth Morris	Well, you had the meetings of the Girl Reserve there sometimes, didn't you?	34:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah.	34:12
Ruth Morris	And of course, there was a boarding section there.	34:15
Catherine Morris Wilson	And then another thing that people in the neighborhood that I remember is Anderson and people. You know what kind of papers that we used to have at the little clubs? The little organizations—	34:18
Ruth Morris	Crepe paper.	34:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Crepe paper and make flowers and things out of that. They would gather up children, Bible storytelling time, and this is what you would make flowers, bouquets, and they were pretty. Make roses and you'd wrap that paper around the stem, that kind of stuff, or crepe paper.	34:32
Ruth Morris	Yeah, those are some of the things— See, the things that we learned to do in Bible school, then we carried it over at home. On rainy days, that's what we would sit and do.	34:54
Catherine Morris Wilson	Talk about Easter and Children's Day were big days because you had your Easter programs and all the children said their speeches. You'd have pageants and Easter and Children's Day. It was nothing like what it is now and you dressed up. Everybody came to see everybody all—	35:05
Ruth Morris	Dressed up.	35:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	— dressed up with your hair fixed and the big bows on their head and—	35:28
Ruth Morris	It was so different now because children are dressed up all the time now. Same way it was at Christmas. You were glad to get anything at Christmas time, but now Christmas is every dang—	35:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	You [indistinct 00:35:44] in the store [indistinct 00:35:44]. It was only fruit. It was only around Christmas time but now it's all the time.	35:43
Ruth Morris	Time. I mean, there isn't any Christmas or Easter Children's Day, so to speak, anymore comparatively speaking as to what it was in yester years.	35:54
Kara Miles	When was Children's Day?	36:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	The second—	36:06
Kara Miles	Sunday in June.	36:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Sunday in June. And it still is.	36:07
Kara Miles	And so that was were children would give speeches and—	36:15
Ruth Morris	Speeches.	36:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	Speeches and you'd learn speeches and you sang songs—	36:19
Ruth Morris	Most of the time at Children's Day you dressed in white.	36:22
Kara Miles	What was Christmas like at your house?	36:26
Catherine Morris Wilson	Oh, it was a lot of fun because it was a lot of us. And you'd bake cakes.	36:28
Ruth Morris	Oh yes.	36:37
Catherine Morris Wilson	Starting before Christmas, the layered cakes, and everybody was trying to figure out, "Well, what are you going to get," but you didn't get that much. But what you got, you appreciated it because you hadn't gotten anything all year long. And you knew too— Like they say, you better watch out.	36:38
Ruth Morris	Santy Claus, be good.	37:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	Better be good because they didn't play with it.	37:02
Ruth Morris	But we had beautiful Christmases.	37:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	We had beautiful Christmas and most of what the children wanted when you got there were ball bearing skates. If you got ball bearing skates, you were it.	37:09
Ruth Morris	And of course, now we were very fortunate that my father was working and that was one of the top paying jobs in that day and we had bicycle, skates, scooters and all.	37:22
Kara Miles	I wanted to go back to the social clubs for a minute. What ones were you two in?	37:42
Ruth Morris	Well, now they're still doing segregation as a member of the Modernettes.	37:48
Kara Miles	And what kind of things did you all do?	37:55
Ruth Morris	Well, I tell you what now.I'm trying to think. It was a game that we used to go and play meet at different members' houses but now we played pinochle. It was a game that we used to play. I don't remember what it was until we learned to play pinochle, but we enjoyed that. It was some game that you bought in a box and everybody enjoyed that and we'd serve and we'd go to the member's house and go—	37:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	Was it Pokeno?	38:30
Ruth Morris	Huh? It wasn't Pokeno.	38:30
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now our club that I'm a charter member of was still doing the segregated times but we organized in 1948 and it was a civic and social club and we played pinochle, but we always took so much of our dues too, and at Christmas time we would take a family and then we graduated from that, that we would help children. If somebody brought in a family that a child needed clothing or something, we would allocate so much for that. But now, the club is still functional, but we just play— We met then twice a month, the first and third Saturdays and every month. But as we got older and people got married and had other responsibilities, we only meet now once a month, the third Saturday, and it's usually in the daytime now but it was at night then. And we don't do the civic pushing now like we did.	38:30
Ruth Morris	And we were meeting twice a month and then we started meeting once a month at night, and of course, now we meet at 2:00 in the day on Saturdays.	39:58
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's when we meet, at 2:00 on Saturdays.	40:08
Ruth Morris	Our age will not detain us going out at night now.	40:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	And it's so dangerous.	40:15
Kara Miles	When was your—	40:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	Oh, another thing that we forgot. Sunday school picnics.	40:23
Ruth Morris	Oh yes.	40:25
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now that— And you used to have hayrides. Moonlight hay rides.	40:26
Ruth Morris	Moonlight picnics.	40:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	Moonlight picnics.	40:35
Ruth Morris	Moonlight picnics.	40:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	Moonlight picnics.	40:39
Ruth Morris	Yes. The Sunday school picnics, we would have to go out in the country and all the members of church would just turn out.	40:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	Fit your basket.	40:44
Ruth Morris	Basket. And even my daddy would take his vacation during that time the picnic was going to be, because he'd have one week or two weeks off of vacation and he would get his vacation around that picnic time and we would go, but see— Well, we had a car and he'd pack us all in the car because I remember one time—	40:46
Kara Miles	We'd go down to Hickory Grove, wasn't it called? Out in Hickory Grove?	41:10
Catherine Morris Wilson	Grove, yes, [indistinct 00:41:11]. Yeah, on Sundays we'd all pack up in the car and go down out in the country or just riding and we had a seven passenger car where the seats had folded down in the floor. Now there was so many of us, well, even with that, we used to put a board on that seat and make three seats out it instead of the two seats. And most of the time, I had to sit on that middle seat, sit on that board.	41:11
Kara Miles	Would Sunday, the picnics—	41:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	During the summer.	41:41
Ruth Morris	During the summer.	41:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	During the summer.	41:43
Kara Miles	Several times?	41:44
Ruth Morris	It was usually in August, the picnic, I remember, in August. Papa would take him vacation in August and that's when the picnic was.	41:45
Kara Miles	Your father worked for someone else or did he—	41:56
Ruth Morris	Oh yes. He worked for H C Sherrill Company that built buildings all over town and homes.	42:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	And he helped to build the first courthouse, wasn't it?	42:09
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:42:14]. See, on Sundays he would drive us around, showing us the building. In fact, the person who taught him to lay brick was Mr. Joe Benton. And those people back then, I don't think they had any white brick masons and I think most of them were Black. And he was a brick mason.	42:13
Catherine Morris Wilson	But they worked for people.	42:40
Ruth Morris	Yes. Yes, it was the Sherrill company. H C Sherrill Company.	42:44
Kara Miles	Was that a Black company?	42:49
Ruth Morris	No, no, no, no, no. No, uh—huh.	42:51
Kara Miles	But he did work for—	42:56
Ruth Morris	Yes.	42:57
Kara Miles	— for a white— Had one more social club question. You told me about the Bluebirds and that was exclusive. Were there any other exclusive clubs?	42:58
Catherine Morris Wilson	I'm trying to think of the one that Elsie was in. What was the name? White Rose.	43:09
Ruth Morris	That's what it was. The White Rose.	43:15
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was the White Rose Club and that was all women. And it was an old, old club and I think most of them are just about dead.	43:16
Ruth Morris	I think they are.	43:26
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, White Rose and they used to give dances.	43:28
Ruth Morris	Of course, we gave dances too.	43:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, we did too.	43:34
Ruth Morris	Dances, card parties.	43:36
Kara Miles	The White Rose Club, how did you become a member of that club?	43:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	I really don't know—	43:45
Ruth Morris	I really don't know.	43:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	— how they— Because that was older women that were in that.	43:47
Kara Miles	In the organizations you were in, could anyone—	43:52
Ruth Morris	No, but I—	43:55
Catherine Morris Wilson	When we started out with ours, our—	43:56
Ruth Morris	Guidelines.	44:01
Catherine Morris Wilson	— guidelines to be a member, you had to be a college graduate or equivalent. Some went to two year business schools but that was the requirement.	44:01
Ruth Morris	Same way about for ours.	44:14
Kara Miles	I want to go back to your family a little bit. Do you know where your parents were from?	44:21
Catherine Morris Wilson	My daddy was from Hickory Grove section. That's in Mecklenburg County. And my mother was born in Lancaster, South Carolina, but her mother died when she was about six weeks old, I believe she said. And so, she was reared by people who were not really related, but it was a thing. You became a part of that family, "foster" children. But during that time, Blacks took in Blacks. That was what you call the extended family and it was true to the extended family. The one that we were just telling you about, Elsie, being in the White Rose Club, was not a bit of relation to us but her mother reared my mother. We went in as family. All through the years, we were family.	44:29
Ruth Morris	Yeah, and a lot of people did not know the difference.	45:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	Know that we were not related.	45:28
Kara Miles	Your mother was born in Lancaster. She moved—	45:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	She brought to Charlotte very early. I don't know remember what age, but very early. And I remember my mother's hair started back here and she told us what had happened, was they used to plait your hair—	45:36
Kara Miles	Plait your hair and then wrap it.	45:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	— and wrap it.	45:58
Kara Miles	How? Wrap it—	46:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	Wrap with a string to keep it and it would be so tight, it would blister all around. Her hair came out and I don't ever recall her saying specifically any mistreatment that she got. But I do know through the years, she used to say all the time, "My prayer is that I see my children grown, that God spare me to see my children grown so they won't have to go through what I went through." But we never could pinpoint what it was that she was saying. And God did spare her that because she was 92 when she died right here, living right here—	46:00
Ruth Morris	In '79.	46:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	And she was determined that we would have an education because she was denied that and she said it was important.	46:53
Kara Miles	Do you know anything—	47:03

Ruth Morris	Anything about the growing up.	0:02
Catherine Morris Wilson	The growing up, what it was like.	0:05
Ruth Morris	And of course he has a sister now in Greensboro that's got a little CN Nurse. But 97 I believe. That's his youngest sister. All of my dad— I don't remember how many there were— Started counting, just for numbers. I have never just said how many.	0:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	But she's the only one that we've got.	0:26
Ruth Morris	She's the only one living now that we've got living on either side.	0:28
Kara Miles	Did you know your grandparents?	0:38
Ruth Morris	No. Not the father's grandparents. But we knew—	0:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	Not your father's grandparents, but we knew my father's father and we knew my mother's father, but we did not know the mothers.	0:44
Kara Miles	Did they ever tell you about their childhood?	1:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	No. But now, wasn't it Grandpapa's Papa that used to talk about slavery? He was a slave—	1:01
Ruth Morris	Now he remembered—	1:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	He remembered when the slaves were freed. He said that was the saddest thing that happened because they had nowhere to go. Now that was Papa's Papa that talked about that.	1:13
Ruth Morris	But anyway, I'm not sure whether he was a slave or—	1:25
Catherine Morris Wilson	I thought he said—	1:28
Ruth Morris	But anyway, I know he used to talk about seeing the people on the block at the first of the year or something. Was it January the first? I don't remember too well what was said now. But he did say something about selling them off the block.	1:30
Kara Miles	And did you have other family who lived around you? Like uncles, aunts?	1:56
Catherine Morris Wilson	Not really. In fact they were in other cities.	2:04
Ruth Morris	Yeah. Now Elsa was the only person really around. This is the family that my mother was reared in.	2:10
Kara Miles	So did you ever used to go visit your family that lived other places or would they come visit here?	2:17
Catherine Morris Wilson	As we got older, we remember because as a matter of fact, we didn't have any room for anybody to come visit when we all got in there. But as we got older, yes, my aunt that lived in Greensboro, would come to town sometimes and we'd go visit.	2:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	But not like spending a week, or no time, just maybe go up and come back. And Aunt Mary lived out in Mint Hill and once we went down there and stayed about a week when mama went on vacation. But that was about it.	2:39
Kara Miles	What do you remember about your neighbors? The people who lived right near you?	2:58
Ruth Morris	Well the people who lived near us reared us too. Because when I say that, I mean, if you did anything wrong, they would chastise you. And if they told my parents what you had done, then you were chastised again. Everybody reared everybody. That's the way it was because you knew to stay in line with everybody. And I just wish so, it was like that today.	3:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	And you know for a while [indistinct 00:03:36] we were all born on North Davidson Street. But then we moved to a section called Green Brook. But it was called Sellwind Park.	3:35
Ruth Morris	Yes.	3:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	And then we moved back to First Ward.	3:50
Ruth Morris	In the same house.	3:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	In the same house.	3:57
Ruth Morris	Well in fact it was our property and it was rented out while we were out because the house had gotten smaller and we were growing up and we needed more room. In fact, the house, the Fairview Homes is where this big house, where we lived in. And they had picnics out there in the yard then.	4:00
Kara Miles	Who used to punish you?	4:22
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:04:24] Both of them.	4:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	Both parents did. It was no such thing as, "I'm going to tell your Daddy. I'm going to tell your— But it was not daddy, "I'm going to tell your Papa, I'm going to tell your Momma." There was no such thing. Who ever caught you, that's who you got it from. And I got it because I was always being caught.	4:25
Kara Miles	What kind of things were you punished for?	4:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	Not doing what I was told to. That was mostly just not doing— And it was a ruling that when we were out playing, when the street lights came on, that was your clue to go home.	4:57
Ruth Morris	To be at home.	5:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	To be at home.	5:17
Ruth Morris	To be at home.	5:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	Be at home. You knew if you weren't going to make it home. Well everybody else would, but I wouldn't. I was having a good time and I would not go.	5:19
Kara Miles	But—	5:31
Ruth Morris	She suffered the consequences.	5:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's right. My daddy thought I didn't have good sense. He said it. For one solid week I got a whooping every day for the very same thing, not going home. And he told my mama— My mother's name was Amanda and he called Manda. He said, "You know Manda, I don't believe that ones got good sense." I would take a dare. Don't dare me to do anything. I would do it. And that's what I would get whippings about.	5:40
Kara Miles	What was your school like? Your elementary school?	6:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	What was it like? Well, we never went to— When you hear— I didn't ever go to the one room school house. I never went to one of those with the pot belly stoves. I never went to that.	6:20
Ruth Morris	Well here we didn't have the one room schools here. That was in the county?	6:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Oh yeah.	6:47
Ruth Morris	Yeah. Now, because where I went to school, we had to go past the white school to get to first Alexander Street School, it was called. When I went there that was a frame building, a two story frame building with the bell on top. And of course we did have the pot belly stoves and the white school had a furnace. They had steam heat.	6:47
Catherine Morris Wilson	And you got the books left over from what they had. But I cannot say that— We had good schooling because the teachers were dedicated.	7:14
Ruth Morris	Were dedicated.	7:26
Catherine Morris Wilson	And you knew, like I said, everybody knew everybody. Everybody knew all the teachers. All the teachers knew all the students and knew their families. And all you had to do was just act up. And that was it.	7:28
Ruth Morris	In fact, you were saying that the books left over. No, there weren't any books left over. The first day you went to school there was a book list that you got for each grade. And then you took that book list home. And your parents bought those books because I remember we used to go to Caldwell Street over to Crockets.	7:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Were the books new?	7:58
Ruth Morris	Huh?	7:58
Catherine Morris Wilson	The books weren't always new that you got.	8:02
Ruth Morris	No, see, sometimes I don't remember about them always being new. But anyway, the parents had to buy those books. And the parents cautioned you in my family, "You take care of that book." Because it had to be passed down to the next person.	8:06
Kara Miles	What happened to children whose parents couldn't afford to buy them books?	8:20
Ruth Morris	Well, I don't remember they'd probably look on with someone else.	8:25
Catherine Morris Wilson	Then it came a time when you rented the books too and you had to turn them back at the end of the year. And if you had lost one you had to pay for it. You rented them. And then at later years— Well that's been since my children were in school where they gave you the books. We had to rent them.	8:34
Kara Miles	So you had to pay?	8:53
Catherine Morris Wilson	A rental fee for the book. And they were turned back in at the end of the school year. But if you lost a book you had to pay for it.	8:55
Kara Miles	And were those new books or they were—	9:04
Ruth Morris	No.	9:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	No. They weren't new.	9:07
Ruth Morris	See the books were turned back in and see, in fact, I know what you were talking about now because see I was working at that time. You'd put in the book the child's name and the condition of the book, good, fair or poor. And then when that book was turned back in at the end of the year. You would go according to what you had put down at the beginning in that book. And they were charged according to that. If it was damaged too much or if the book was lost. If they didn't turn a book back in.	9:09
Kara Miles	But were the books new? I mean were they handed down from the white schools?	9:46
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes.	9:50
Ruth Morris	Yes. Yes. That's when they started renting those books.	9:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes they were.	9:55
Ruth Morris	The furniture and everything else was handed down from the white schools.	9:56
Kara Miles	Did teachers ever play favorites? Were there some students that they let get away with things or that they treated nicer than others?	10:04
Ruth Morris	Yes, there were sometimes that that happened.	10:12
Kara Miles	And why would they treat those—	10:18
Ruth Morris	Well some of those students were treated nicer. All of us weren't really mistreated. None of us were really mistreated. But there was some favoritism. Like, what I'd say, sometimes going this place for them or handing out papers and different things while the children whose parents were—	10:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	A little bit more educated—	10:38
Ruth Morris	More affluent parents.	10:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's what you want to call it.	10:43
Ruth Morris	Yes. They'd get—	10:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	And according to their ability too.	10:51
Ruth Morris	Yes.	10:53
Catherine Morris Wilson	You seem to be a little bit brighter than the ones sitting beside of you. Yes.	10:55
Kara Miles	Did you all learn any Black history in school?	11:03
Ruth Morris	Yes.	11:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes.	11:06
Catherine Morris Wilson	We had what we called Negro History week.	11:10
Ruth Morris	Yes. And there's a time everybody had to learn the Negro National Anthem.	11:13
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was no question. You knew that. And you learned different things from Langston Hughes that you learned and then you would do— The Blackboards would be full of all that stuff. Even way back then you learned it. You knew that.	11:18
Kara Miles	What kind of activities were you all in in school?	11:37
Ruth Morris	Well we had what you call recess.	11:43
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's really what it was called. That's when you went there in elementary school, recess.	11:47
Ruth Morris	And in High school too.	11:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah. And if the weather permitted, you went outside and you'd play games. Like we were saying, hop scotch and jumping rope and playing ball. But one thing I remembered, and who was this that was telling me they'd never heard of it? And I mentioned it to you the other day.	11:54
Ruth Morris	In May we always had the May Pole the first day of May. [indistinct 00:12:18]	12:11
Catherine Morris Wilson	Wrapping the May pole, that was an activity that everybody looked forward to. And then when we got in high school, you had a gym, gymatorium, because this is where the assembly would meet and they would have football and basketball in school. But for recess, that's what you did. You ate your lunch—	12:17
Ruth Morris	And mostly we had to carry the lunch because we didn't have money to buy the lunch because when I was there, that was say the cafeteria and there was a long counter, probably sold hot dogs—	12:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	Croquettes—	13:01
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:13:03] So and then you went on the outside probably some milk or a drink or something. You went on the outside and ate because—	13:02
Catherine Morris Wilson	Buns.	13:07
Ruth Morris	That's right, those big chocolate buns.	13:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, the cinnamon buns.	13:12
Ruth Morris	And during that time, you didn't have— If you had five or 10 cents, you were doing good.	13:13
Catherine Morris Wilson	You were rich—	13:22
Ruth Morris	Because at that time it used to buy, you could get a 5 cent loaf of bread and 5 cent can of pork and beans. And the boys used to take that loaf of bread, break it in two and holler out the center and put those beans down in that. And that was some good eating. And then there was just, well those who had to ride the bus, ride the trolley to school, that was 5 cents. And coming to Second Ward during the time I was in school. Now Second Ward was the only school. The children from the county even came in to the city to live. Some of them had cars. They would come in, some would come and stay with relatives during the week and go home on the weekend to go to school. And that's how a lot of them got their education.	13:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	A lot of them went to boarding school. Like Brandon Institute and up in Kings Mountain. What was that up in Kings Mountain? Had to leave home and go?	14:15
Ruth Morris	Palmer Institute.	14:22
Kara Miles	Why did you all choose the colleges that you chose?	14:31
Catherine Morris Wilson	I chose mine because it was a church school and all I'd heard all my life, Living Stone College, Living Stone College, our church school. I chose that, went there two years. Then I left there and came to Smith, to Johnson C. Smith and finished Johnson C. Smith.	14:35
Ruth Morris	Well, I don't know.	14:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	Then I got a scholarship to Living Stone. But that's not why I chose it. I just had always heard about it and wanted to go there and got there and wanted to come home.	14:54
Kara Miles	Why?	15:11
Catherine Morris Wilson	They weren't ready. They weren't ready.	15:15
Kara Miles	What do you mean?	15:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well— I guess I'm comparing it with— No, I'm not either. When I say they weren't ready—	15:27
Ruth Morris	She wasn't ready. That was the first time she had been away from home.	15:43
Catherine Morris Wilson	And plus I just felt that the accommodations were very inadequate. That's when I say they weren't ready. Some of the toilets were not working and the beds were— I don't know.	15:47
Kara Miles	So that's why you left there to go to Smith?	16:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, not really. I really don't know why. But I did leave there and came home.	16:13
Ruth Morris	But as you say, she was ready to come home but they weren't ready for her to come home.	16:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	I was ready to come home by the time I got there. Because I didn't unpack my trunk for two weeks. Cried every day. Wrote my mama, "If you let me come home. I will give you your money back." But we went in the dining hall that Sunday morning and the Dean of Women would always, if you got a telegram, open them before she gave them to the students.	16:41
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I could— You know if you looked back, you can understand why. And they brought the telegram in and then, like we'd send you and you had students who were working in the dining hall and they brought me this telegram and I was so sure I was going to get to come home. And when I opened it and read it, they thought somebody had died in my family the way I hollered and screamed.	17:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	Because all it said on the telegram, "Sorry my dear but you will have to stay there." I hollered and screamed. Well you see, if the Dean of Women had not seen this, they would not have known what happened because people were sitting there wondering, "What happened? What is It?" But they soon found out. I soon found out that I had to stay so I stayed.	17:33
Kara Miles	So you stayed there for two years hating it? But you finally got used to it?	17:55
Catherine Morris Wilson	I finally got used to it.	18:10
Kara Miles	But it was just the surroundings that you didn't—	18:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was not what I had anticipated and heard about going off to college, what it was going to be like. It was not what I thought it was going to be. And when I came home, I didn't stay on the campus. I stayed at home.	18:19
Kara Miles	So what was your college life like?	18:35
Ruth Morris	Well when I went to college I was much more mature than she was when she went. Because I had been out of high school three years before I went to college because there was an older sister in college, there was no money for me to go. So of course I had worked out in service before I went. And my college life, I just made the best of because see, being older I understood that you go and do the best you can and not play around.	18:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	I wasn't playing, I was serious.	19:12
Ruth Morris	Yes. I mean being three years older, see that made a difference. That did make a difference.	19:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	I had never been away from home.	19:25
Kara Miles	So what kind of organizations and things did you do in college?	19:27
Ruth Morris	Well, they weren't really any organizations even there weren't any sororities on the campus when I finished. I finished college in '42. And if there had been, there wasn't any money for you to join anyway. There wasn't a fraternity or sorority on the campus when I was there. But there are some now. But that's been how many years ago?	19:31
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now I joined a sorority when I was in school.	19:59
Kara Miles	At Smith?	20:01
Catherine Morris Wilson	At Smith.	20:03
Kara Miles	What did you join?	20:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Delta Sigma Theta.	20:06
Ruth Morris	Well I joined Delta here, have been in it now for 26 years. I joined the graduate chapter here.	20:08
Kara Miles	Where there other sororities on campus? Why did you choose Delta over any others?	20:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	I liked the people and they would have what they call rush parties and you more or less went with your friends, what they were doing. And that's why I went to Delta. Now, when I was at Livingstone, they did not have a Delta chapter in Livingstone. They had AKA and ZETA but they did not have Delta. But I don't remember when they got Delta at Living Stone. But it was not there when I was there.	20:22
Kara Miles	What kind of things did your Sorority do?	21:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well on the campus during then, it was more or less what you called a prestigious thing to be in a sorority because you didn't have that much money to be doing anything else. And to say you were a member of a sorority or a fraternity when you were in college, you know just kind of stood out from others. But now Delta Sigma Theta sorority is a service organization. It's not a social organization.	21:07
Kara Miles	So while you were in college, did you all do service things or—	21:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	Not really? Because as I say, you really didn't have the money. And your guidelines are more or less— Your rules and regulations and policies are by Grand Chapter. The National Grand Chapter set your rules and you didn't get in just because you wanted to be in. You had to maintain or have a certain average. It was based on academics and, excuse me, what they felt like you had to offer the sorority.	21:54
Kara Miles	Were there any political organizations or groups on campus?	22:33
Ruth Morris	No.	22:37
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	22:37
Kara Miles	No NAACP or—	22:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	Mm—Hmm.	22:41
Kara Miles	What did you all major in?	22:47
Ruth Morris	Mine was Elementary Education.	22:49
Catherine Morris Wilson	Mine was Sociology and then I went on to graduate school and did social work. So I was a social worker. That's when I retired, doing that for 37 years.	22:52
Kara Miles	Where did you go to get your masters?	23:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	Atlanta. Excuse me, Atlanta University in Atlanta, Georgia. But I did not get my master's. I only did one year.	23:06
Ruth Morris	And tell her about your scholarship you got there, the money you got to go there. Tell them that.	23:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes. Why I went to Atlanta, during that time when Blacks finished college and wanted to further their education and there was a school within the state of North Carolina. But because of segregation you could not go there. The state paid your tuition and your transportation there and back. Now there was a school of social work at Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina, but I could not go to Chapel Hill. So the state paid for me to go to Atlanta University.	23:17
Kara Miles	Did you like Atlanta?	24:17
Catherine Morris Wilson	Un—huh.	24:18
Kara Miles	What was different about Atlanta?	24:21
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, I was older then. And now I didn't really just say, go into the city, do a lot of that. But I enjoyed it because I realized what I was there for.	24:23
Kara Miles	Was Atlanta any different than Charlotte in any way?	24:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yes, it was bigger and Atlanta was more or less considered little New York. And one thing that was shocking to me when I went to Atlanta University was, the boys and the girls lived in the same dormitory. The only thing that separated you was the dining hall. And the president let us know when we got there, "You are mature, you didn't come here to play, but we will send you home." And that was just it. But the dormitories were— And you were well taken care of. That was some difference too. And I enjoyed it.	24:47
Kara Miles	They— were these undergraduates they let live—	25:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, no, no, no. This was a graduate school. This was all graduate school.	25:51
Ruth Morris	Well it makes a difference when they are graduates then. Because I did my graduate work at A&T. That's where I got my master's from A&T and some of the buildings— Some of the students had their families there during the summer. See that's when I got mine, during the summer. And the men and the women were in the same dormitory and some of them had their families there. But you see, it makes a big difference after you finish college. And of course I retired after I had been with the Charlotte Mecklenburg School system 38 years.	25:59
Kara Miles	So do you remember when school became integrated?	26:38
Ruth Morris	Yes. I remember the school being integrated and I remember from the county schools because I first worked in a two teacher school with the potbelly stove and an outdoor toilet and the pump. Sometimes I probably would rather be back there in those days than now with all the modern equipment that you have because you got the respect of the students and from the parents. You had control. It seems if more or less now the students—	26:41
Catherine Morris Wilson	Respect. I think maybe you want to— A lot of times people misinterpret when you say control.	27:10
Ruth Morris	Yes, you got the respect. And of course, just like I said, then from the community, if you did anything in the community and the neighbors told your parents you were chastised. And that was the same thing it was in the county. If the students did anything, all you had to do was send a note home by the sister or brother and they were chastised at home and it was such a good place.	27:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	And not only that, children would tell on you.	27:46
Ruth Morris	Yeah. The children would tell on you.	27:47
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I don't mean your siblings, just somebody in there. You know, so and so did so and so at school today. So everybody was your keeper. As the scripture says, "Am I my brother's keeper?" Yes. Everybody was your keeper.	27:47
Kara Miles	What school was this with the two teachers?	28:15
Ruth Morris	Oh, well that was Lauren Elementary, Paul Creek Hoskin. And I'm trying to think, what was that in Davidson? Cornelius and then I went to Davidson there to [indistinct 00:28:39] schools. See I was in several schools. See they started closing up the schools, these smaller schools in Macon and building bigger schools. That was under superintendent Jim Wilson.	28:19
Ruth Morris	He started closing up the one and two teacher schools and building bigger schools. [indistinct 00:29:03] I can't think. There were several schools and I went from one to the other. And then I went to Ada Jenkins school and that was a bridge school. But a good number of teachers there. It was a large school there. And I left there. And then that's when they started segregating, I believe. I'm trying to think, was that in '66 when they closed Ada Jenkins school? And then I came here in the city to work at First Ward School.	28:50
Kara Miles	What did you think of school integration?	29:31
Ruth Morris	Well sometimes I think we have lost out on a lot because we do not get the recognition. Our children don't get the recognition that they got when we were in the all Black schools. There were plays or programs that we had that our children could stand out. See now, we don't get all of that. We've lost a lot of our identity through desegregation. And then also, which you could discipline our children. Especially when we went to all Black schools. It's a little hard disciplining them in desegregated schools.	29:34
Kara Miles	Okay. What jobs that you've held did you all like least and like best that you had throughout your life?	30:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well that's the only job that I had. Well sometimes I'd babysit, but say to really have a paying job, I only had worked at one place 37 years. And that was at the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services. I was in different programs during that tenure. But I enjoyed it and I guess the one— Now, we were segregated there when I went there. There were one, two— There were five Black social workers. And we were all in one room—	30:46
Ruth Morris	Down at the end of the hall.	31:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	Down at the end of the hall, back in the little—	31:36
Ruth Morris	Cubby hole.	31:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	Cubby hole.	31:39
Ruth Morris	See I had been there, so I know.	31:41
Catherine Morris Wilson	And there was no air conditioning. But we had fans. None of them had air condition. But here was your Black water and white. It didn't say [indistinct 00:31:55] it just said, "Black and white." We could not— Blacks, we did not have white clientele. We only did Black. But they could do any of it. We, as Blacks had to have some form of social work training before you were hired. But they could come right out of college. And some came right out of high school and got jobs doing that.	31:43
Catherine Morris Wilson	But the pay in child welfare was different. And they were all white in there. Their pay was higher than other social workers, Black or white. And the reason then, their salary came from the Child Defense Fund out of Washington where ours was federal, state and local. So they don't have that anymore. It's not there anymore.	32:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	But in child welfare it was different. That was your foster care, your adoptions and protective services. Children who had been abused or neglected. And that was the last thing that I did. And I was the first Black in the county that ever held that position as Program Administrator of that department where really of any of the governmental agencies.	33:20
Catherine Morris Wilson	I was the first that held the position as Program Administrator of a unit like that. And I had 72 people in my department and I enjoyed it. But it got to be— I don't know, when you talk about integration and I used to kind of not say how I felt about it.	34:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I may not have been quite sure, but it didn't take me long. And I was sure, after I got into that department, I was sure about how I felt about it. Everything has its advantages and disadvantages. And I feel certain, because you've got some people going to make it, I don't care what.	34:41
Catherine Morris Wilson	But I think on a whole, integration, and I might not be [indistinct 00:35:09] for this, but that's all right. You have a right to your opinion. And I have a right to my opinion. And I think that's probably one of the worst things that could ever happen to us. Now I'm not saying, "Separate but equal." We know there's no such thing.	35:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	But I think if maybe what had happened when they were building like Myers Park High School here and building West Charlotte. If they had said, "You're going to put the same thing over here that you put out there." Then to me, that could have been equal. For every dollar you put out there, you going to match it over here for all the equipment you put out there. You going to match it over here.	35:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	But you see, when integration came, what did they do? Here. I'm talking about Charlotte. They paired the children in public housing with the richest children in the city. They bused them over there. Now you take a child who has never seen or does not have, excuse me, a magazine, does not have his books. Parents can't read and put them with children—	35:55
Ruth Morris	Some hardly had shoes.	36:27
Catherine Morris Wilson	Hardly had shoes, nothing to wear. And you put them with—	36:29
Ruth Morris	Children who go to Europe for vacation—	36:36
Catherine Morris Wilson	Children who go to Europe for vacation, who go to the beach, these kind of things. What did you expect? It was set up.	36:41
Ruth Morris	I feel you.	36:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now this was not the intention of the Blacks who fought it. That was not what they intended for it to be. But when it was said, "You've got to do it." The white man said, "Okay, we'll do it, but you still cannot make us integrate." And they still til today, they have not integrated.	36:49
Ruth Morris	No.	37:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	So they said, "You made us put them over here." What they're doing with a lot of the children? First thing they did, they started labeling our children, "You can't read, you got a discipline, you are retarded, you are this." Where in when—	37:14
Ruth Morris	So they found different kinds of programs to put them into to separate them.	37:26
Catherine Morris Wilson	But when you went to the all Black schools you never heard of— When you said somebody was retarded, they were really retarded. You remember they used to have the Opportune class?	37:31
Ruth Morris	Yes.	37:44
Catherine Morris Wilson	What they call it when we were segregated. They were in one school where you knew and you could look at those children and tell, but if I had not been exposed to all of this, and you put me over there with them— Like, who was it, said that when they were giving a test on some children and asked the child, "What color is a banana?" And he said, "Black." Well, they marked it wrong. Well it was Black when he got it. It had started turning Black when he got it. But it didn't mean that he was retarded. That's what he had seen.	37:44
Ruth Morris	See, it's something, in the terms that they use is, see, it's not common in there—	38:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	And what I learned when I got in the position that I got in, and we say children were "Hung in the system." They are hung in the system because I had been in the system for years, new families. And when I got in that department, we had children who had been in foster care, hung in the system. And they were telling me that, "Nobody wants them. They don't have any relatives."	38:24
Catherine Morris Wilson	Until one day I got enough of it. And I said— I was over on foster home licensing and relicensing when the children were coming into care we were having to file. And this name popped up. And I said, "I had this case a long time ago. And I said to the supervisor, I said, "What's going on here?"	38:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	"Oh, they don't have anybody." I said, "You mean to tell me that all the family got killed in the airplane or in a car wreck at one time?" But I got the name of trying to be smart, but I admit exactly what I said. So I went back and started pulling records and the mother was coming into the department and was on AFDC. But you're over here, nobody— What difference does it make?	39:20
Catherine Morris Wilson	And things that we begun to see. And I heard a judge, Judge Willard [indistinct 00:39:56] say in court to a Black family, "Black people don't do this, white people do this." And that was incest. You've begun to hear our children need to be on Ritalin. Our children need to be on drugs. Our children have never had to be on drugs. But what they were doing, they were drugging them.	39:49
Ruth Morris	I had never heard of ritalin until I got in the white school.	40:25
Catherine Morris Wilson	And see, we started picking that up and abusing our children, Black people—	40:29
Ruth Morris	Hyperactive.	40:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Never did that. You would see, we would get them. And they never gave them up for adoption either because the adoption program was not designed for Blacks. It was designed for white girls who had babies born out of wedlock so nobody would ever know.	40:34
Ruth Morris	Yes, because what's the name of the place?	40:52
Catherine Morris Wilson	Florence Crittenton Home.	40:55
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:40:59] Florence Crittenton Home was about four blocks from our house.	40:59
Catherine Morris Wilson	In the Black neighborhood right there in [indistinct 00:41:05] that's where the white girls, when they got pregnant came.	41:02
Ruth Morris	That was the Florence Crittenton Home.	41:07
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was the Florence Crittenton Home. But you had no home for Black girls. They kept their children and somebody in the family reared those children. But we got so, we started giving our babies up for adoption. And what happened? A lot of them never got adopted because we didn't want them and nobody—	41:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	Well, one thing about it, what happened too is, I'll back up and say nobody wanted them, but the guidelines that they put for adoption for whites was the same thing for Blacks. Now, how many Blacks would have a bank account of x number of dollars, have education, before you could adopt a child? So consequently, they were hung in the system because they couldn't meet the guidelines and you didn't have Black workers.	41:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	And we started abusing our children, sexually abusing. As I said, I heard the judge say in court one day when the case came before him he said, "You know, Black people don't do this, white people do this, Black people don't do this." And we looked at each other and we thought, "This is some of the what we are picking up."	42:15
Kara Miles	When was this?	42:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	This was in the '50s. In the '60s.	42:50
Kara Miles	So when you started working there, it was segregated?	42:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	Oh yes. I started working there in January of 1949.	42:54
Kara Miles	Okay, so you saw changes when things began integrating, you saw these changes?	42:56
Catherine Morris Wilson	I saw the changes.	43:02
Ruth Morris	That's the same way I said that I saw that our children lost out. We don't have that. We lost our identity because we had children who were very smart and the programs and any activity. But you see, when we desegregated, they were on the bottom then. So that was one thing that I was against desegregation, because they just couldn't—	43:03
Catherine Morris Wilson	You couldn't meet their expectations. And their expectations were for them. I never will forget the school board. And it used to come on television. Charlotte Mecklenburg School Board and Poe was the chairman of the board. And this was after integration had been in several years. And a group of parents met because they were supposed to draw the guidelines again for busing.	43:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	And one person got up and said, "Why do our poor little Black babies?— Because in first grade it was the Blacks that were bused out of the Black neighborhoods into the white neighborhoods, which was first grade and all. First, second and third grade. And then fourth, fifth and sixth, they brought the whites into the Black neighborhoods. Said, "Why do every year we have to bus our little Black babies out?" One person said, "Because if you draw the lines this way, you're not going to get the proportion of Blacks that the court is asking for."	44:02
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I never will forget, Julia Malden, [indistinct 00:44:56] who was a board member, said that night, "Because you asked for it." And these two friends of mine, the next day, we were talking about it, were really upset and they were going to call and have lunch with her to give her the riot act.	44:49
Catherine Morris Wilson	And I said, "I wouldn't do that. Let me tell you why. Now if you going to give anybody the riot act, you give the board chairman and those others that sat up there and lied to you about, if they draw the line what it would do. You can draw any line you want and make it do what you want it to do." I said, "But she told you the truth." I said, "I respect her for that."	45:20
Catherine Morris Wilson	She said, "You ask for it, so we're giving it to you." And they said, "We hadn't thought about it that way." See, I can appreciate— I don't care whether I like it or not if you are honest with me. But sitting up there, they lied from the beginning and they're still lying—	45:42
Ruth Morris	Oh yes.	45:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	— About it. But tell the truth. And we've had more children that got in trouble. You know why they got in trouble? Because they were put in those situations. They could not compete. They were embarrassed. So consequently, they were always involved in trouble. How many children got—	46:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	Who was getting excluded from school? Our children. Why? Because they could not— If you put me right now, if I couldn't read and write and you tell me to go out and have dinner with Bill Clinton and his children, and I got to set— What do you think I'm going to do?	46:19
Kara Miles	I understand. So when working during the '50s and the early '60s when the struggle for desegregation and integration was going on, did you all foresee any of this? Any of the problems that were going to come out of this?	46:42
Ruth Morris	No.	46:55
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, because we didn't think it was going to be that way.	46:56
Ruth Morris	No. Had no idea.	46:58
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Idea that it was going to be drawn up and done that way. And I don't think that the ones that thought it, thought it was going to be done that way either.	47:01
Kara Miles	I mean, I'm talking, not just about the school busing, but about the family, like the way you saw the family situations?	47:09
Catherine Morris Wilson	No.	47:16
Ruth Morris	Uh—huh. No.	47:16
Catherine Morris Wilson	You had no idea—	47:18
Ruth Morris	I had no idea that it would be like this.	47:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	I did not.	47:18
Kara Miles	So you were forced—	47:23
Catherine Morris Wilson	Because you see—	47:24

Catherine Morris Wilson	— anything stable in their lives?	0:01
Ruth Morris	No.	0:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	You started out with integration, then you went through and you tore up our neighborhoods. Then you had the walls. What else?	0:05
Ruth Morris	Well, it wasn't only hard for the students. It was hard for the teachers. It wasn't easy.	0:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	And what did they do for the school? They took the best Black teachers when they integrated and put them at the white schools.	0:27
Ruth Morris	Because it's like when I left Ada Jenkins and I came to First Ward, I was at First Ward three years, and it had been stated if a teacher was moved in the last three years, that teacher was not to be moved right then.	0:34
Catherine Morris Wilson	Mm—hmm.	0:50
Ruth Morris	During the summer, I got this letter that I was to going to Windsor Park and I was not supposed to have been moved according to what they had said. And then when I went to Windsor Park, I was there 11 or 12 years, and then they start saying something about moving and stuff again. I said to myself, "Well, that's all right. They can just say whatever they want to say. I'll go home."	0:51
Ruth Morris	Of course, I had more than enough years. Then there was an incident there where I said, "Well, that's all right. If I take this," I said, "I'm going fight it." This was within the system, in the school itself. I didn't have to come. I did fight some of it. I said, "Well, it's all right. I'm not going to take so much of it because I will go home."	1:15
Ruth Morris	Of course, when I came home, everything was all right then. I just decided to come on. I said, "Well, what's the use of me staying here?" I said, "I'm going home. They won't have to carry me out and I'm going to go home and have a good time." And I have been ever since then. I retired in 1980. But there was a big difference I saw in what was done from years ago up through now.	1:38
Kara Miles	You all said something interesting in this conversation. You were talking about White teenage pregnant girls. There was a home near—	2:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	In the Black— Yes, in the Black First Ward community, there were no White families in that area. They were all Black. And it was this big house on McDowell between Ninth and Eighth Street.	2:14
Ruth Morris	That would be the 500 block of North— that'd be around the 500 block of North McDowell Street.	2:31
Catherine Morris Wilson	North McDowell Street, where they had the Florence Crittenton home where White girls only went when they got pregnant. And how we knew— What we used to do is — Now, I didn't live down on that end, but if you were visiting some of your classmates then, everybody would get out— Because back then, parents didn't do a lot of talking to children about things like that.	2:40
Ruth Morris	No.	3:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	And how we found out what was going on, we didn't know what a Florence Crittenton home was. But we knew we saw pregnant girls because every evening they'd get out and walk, and here they were all pregnant. And then it dawned on us, this is what this is. They're putting them over here where they would shield them.	3:04
Ruth Morris	You wouldn't know them.	3:20
Catherine Morris Wilson	Nobody would know them.	3:22
Ruth Morris	And [indistinct 00:03:25] out of town girls. And then later when they moved the Florence Crittendton home, Dr. J E Alexander turned it into a hotel.	3:24
Catherine Morris Wilson	Alexander Hotel.	3:36
Kara Miles	So how long did that stay in business?	3:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	It wasn't too many years.	3:42
Ruth Morris	Wasn't too many years. And you see, when the stars, the singers would come to town, jazz singers and whatnot, came to town, that's where they stayed down at the Alexander Hotel.	3:46
Kara Miles	So these girls would go for a walk every— Did you all ever have any contact with them? They didn't speak?	4:02
Catherine Morris Wilson	No, no, no, no, no.	4:09
Kara Miles	What happened to teenage Black girls who were pregnant?	4:13
Catherine Morris Wilson	They stayed at home.	4:16
Ruth Morris	They had their babies and stayed at home.	4:18
Catherine Morris Wilson	And ostracized a lot of them.	4:20
Ruth Morris	Yeah, either went out of town to a relative, but there were no Crittenton homes for Blacks.	4:21
Kara Miles	And how were the Black girls seen in the community after—	4:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	Having a baby? Well—	4:32
Ruth Morris	They were ostracized.	4:36
Catherine Morris Wilson	More or less. That's a bad girl.	4:38
Kara Miles	And so—	4:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	And then a lot of them, even right now, is coming out. When I say right now, I don't mean today. Just within recent years that had babies that went away and had them. It's now being known. And they went for brother and sister. It's coming out now, that that was my child.	4:44
Ruth Morris	And of course you know today, they go to the home— What's the name of the school or whatever they go? Teenage pregnant— CAPS.	5:12
Catherine Morris Wilson	CAPS. CAPS program.	5:21
Ruth Morris	And of course the girls now just proud, over there just—	5:24
Catherine Morris Wilson	That's Black and White.	5:28
Ruth Morris	Yes.	5:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	It's no stigma on it.	5:32
Ruth Morris	No.	5:34
Kara Miles	So these girls back then though, did they have to drop out of school?	5:35
Ruth Morris	Oh yes. Oh yes.	5:40
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah.	5:44
Kara Miles	Did they ever go back to school?	5:45
Ruth Morris	Some of them probably did go to school later, many years later. But you didn't get back into the public school. You didn't go back to the public school.	5:48
Catherine Morris Wilson	[indistinct 00:05:57] getting back into the public school if you had a baby. Not if they knew it.	5:57
Kara Miles	How about college, when you were in college?	6:04
Ruth Morris	Well see, by the time we got to college, that was different. The years had changed.	6:07
Kara Miles	If unmarried women in college had a baby, were they—	6:17
Catherine Morris Wilson	They got sent home. If you got pregnant—	6:21
Ruth Morris	Oh, you got pregnant in college, you got sent home if you were in college	6:21
Catherine Morris Wilson	And even, I know at Livingston, a girl was not there that got pregnant. But this was this young man's senior year just before graduation. And she wrote President Trent that she was pregnant and had to drop out of school wherever she was. He called him in and asked him, did he know her? Now this is according to the information that circulated on the campus. And he said yes. He said, well you ruined that girl's life and you will not graduate from here. I want you off of this campus by such and such hour. And he had to leave and he did not get to graduate.	6:26
Ruth Morris	That's fair enough. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.	7:14
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah.	7:14
Kara Miles	So how about unwed mothers who maybe were older, who weren't teenagers, who weren't in college, just like in the community. Was that all right?	7:20
Ruth Morris	No, it was never, never, never.	7:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	Never all right. But you see when you got grown and that, there was nothing really they could do about it but talk about it.	7:33
Kara Miles	And when were people considered grown?	7:43
Catherine Morris Wilson	When they got out of high school back then.	7:45
Kara Miles	Just a couple more questions. This is as adults in Charlotte, what did you all do for fun?	7:47
Catherine Morris Wilson	As adults in Charlotte? Like we were saying, the clubs, social clubs that we had and going to dances and house parties more or less. That was what it was. To the movie. And you didn't have—	7:58
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:08:14]	8:08
Catherine Morris Wilson	You didn't have that many places that you could go out of town for recreation like you do now. So that was a [indistinct 00:08:26] or something like that. As adults, that's what you did.	8:16
Kara Miles	Did you all ever go out of town during this period?	8:32
Catherine Morris Wilson	What period are you talking about?	8:34
Kara Miles	Before integration, like before like 1960. Did you ever go to the north?	8:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah, we did because my sister lived in Washington DC. We would go there and stop on the highway to eat.	8:41
Ruth Morris	Carrying your lunches.	8:50
Catherine Morris Wilson	Carrying your lunches. And then my husband had sisters, had a sister in New Jersey, and we would go back.	8:51
Ruth Morris	And then my brother in the Indianapolis.	9:00
Catherine Morris Wilson	Like that.	9:04
Ruth Morris	And you see, even back during the segregated times, the teachers, most of them to further their education went to Columbia University, went to New York. I guess that was prevalent everywhere, going to Columbia University. And see, they would take that time as a vacation, make that a vacation, and going to summer school.	9:05
Catherine Morris Wilson	Now wasn't it said one time, Ruth, if you were teaching— That was way back, might have been before your time, but if you got married you lost your job.	9:29
Ruth Morris	Yes. It was something about that.	9:39
Catherine Morris Wilson	It was something about—	9:41
Ruth Morris	The teachers years and years before they did not get married. They stayed single.	9:42
Catherine Morris Wilson	Because if they got married, they lost their jobs.	9:49
Ruth Morris	now that was all hearsay. I don't know how that was.	9:53
Kara Miles	Do you know why all the women went to Columbia in particular?	9:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	That might been one of the schools that would accept them—	10:02
Ruth Morris	Was easy acceptance.	10:07
Kara Miles	What was—	10:10
Ruth Morris	And then say going to New York, you see, and that was vacation. New York. That was the word. New York. New York.	10:11
Kara Miles	What was— You said you went to Jersey and to Indianapolis. What were those cities like in comparison to Charlotte?	10:19
Catherine Morris Wilson	Indianapolis, even right now is more like Charlotte to me. If I had to relocate, I'm looking for—	10:27
Ruth Morris	Some comparable to this.	10:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	— To this, it would be Indianapolis or Montclair, New Jersey. Because it reminded me, you didn't have all of the apartments like you have in Washington, DC. Houses—	10:41
Ruth Morris	Real houses. I think that's what they're called. They're—	10:57
Catherine Morris Wilson	The houses in Washington DC—	11:00
Ruth Morris	Back then.	11:04
Catherine Morris Wilson	— Back then I thought they were apartments when I went because they were connected, but they let us know that those were not apartments. But in Montclair and out in Annapolis, you had houses like this, and that's what I liked.	11:05
Kara Miles	How about race relations? Did you have contact? What was the situation with Blacks and Whites?	11:22
Catherine Morris Wilson	They were segregated.	11:30
Ruth Morris	[indistinct 00:11:34]	11:30
Catherine Morris Wilson	My brother that lives in Indianapolis has been there now since 1940. And at the height of integration in the 50s when all this was going around, and I remember him saying that some of the people out in Indianapolis was saying, "I don't know how you live in the South". And his remark was, you got it here. We had it in the South and we knew we had it. You are too dumb to know that you got it here and you've got it here, but it's no different. The only thing, it's subtle, but you got it. And he says, a matter of fact, you are worse off here than we were in the south, because you knew that you wanted to buy a house, you could go in this section because this is where they were putting them. You didn't have any problems. There, you had problems buy because they didn't want you anywhere. And same thing in Boston.	11:34
Ruth Morris	Boston. Thought that the church had a brother in Boston and then he brought a friend down here, and she said, "I can't understand by the people from here are coming to Boston, living out there in Boston, with all this greenery here". That's what she was saying. And I remember they were getting ready to desegregate the schools there. Mall Walker, that was the lady who they called Mall Walker from Boston, came down here and she was visiting. And she sat right there in that living room, say she dreaded the [indistinct 00:13:22] school opening because what was going to happen? Even some teachers from Boston came here to see, to observe, to see how Charlotte integrated—	12:51
Catherine Morris Wilson	So smoothly.	13:34
Ruth Morris	— So smoothly. Even because my brother was in the school system there and he had told some of the teachers who were coming there to contact us. And I talked with some of them who came back here to see.	13:35
Catherine Morris Wilson	[indistinct 00:13:48] some up here one year went up there to tell them how—	13:48
Ruth Morris	How it was done. Because, now you see, Boston, they were supposed to have everything there as you think, but it was subtle. And they're still having problems there. They have more problems there than we have here. The parents were, oh, they were very upset as dreading for our school to open that year.	13:52
Kara Miles	What year was that? Do you remember?	14:19
Ruth Morris	No, I don't.	14:21
Kara Miles	The 60s? Late 60s or—	14:24
Catherine Morris Wilson	Yeah.	14:29
Ruth Morris	It would be the late 60s.	14:29
Catherine Morris Wilson	It would be the late— Excuse me, late 60s.	14:30
Ruth Morris	Yeah, that would be the late—	14:33
Catherine Morris Wilson	Because they were late—	14:37
Ruth Morris	Late 60s to early 70s, and was that after we went up there? Remember we went up to New Jersey and then we spent the night there in Boston and went on up through Vermont?	14:38
Catherine Morris Wilson	That was—	14:49
Ruth Morris	That was '74 then, but this was before that. This was the late 60s or early 70s because it was before '74.	14:52
Kara Miles	Okay. Well, I think that's all of my questions. Do y'all have anything you want to add? Anything I didn't ask you about that you want to tell me?	15:00
Ruth Morris	No, I can't think of anything else. Well, if you think of something later, you can call us.	15:14
Kara Miles	I have some forms.	15:22

Item Info

Title:

Ruth Morris (primary interviewee) and Catherine Wilson interview recording, 1993 June 10

Date:

June 10, 1993

Creator:

Contributor:

Miles, Kara Giselle

Description:

Name: Ruth Morris; Date of birth: 1919-01-14; Place of birth: Charlotte, NC; Occupation: domestic; educator; Residence: Charlotte, NC. Name: Catherine Morris Wilson; Date of birth: 1924-08-18; Place of birth: Charlotte, NC; Occupation: managerial; social services; Residence: Charlotte, NC
Informant ID: 52; Informant ID: 85; Interviewed by: Kara Miles.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

Interview number: 260
ba9a7de8-9fdf-42e9-a413-68ed4a394887
behindtheveil
btvnc02040
ark:/87924/r4sn05j9b
42cd16ff-268f-4de5-99aa-be07eb66c512

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Ruth Morris (primary interviewee) and Catherine Wilson interview recording, 1993 June 10

Transcript

Item Info

1. Ruth Morris and Catherine Wilson administrative file, 1993

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Ruth Morris (primary interviewee) and Catherine Wilson interview recording, 1993 June 10

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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