Julia Lucas interview recording, 1995 September 21
Loading the media player...
Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Leslie Brown | Say that again. | 0:00 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Julia Wright Herndon Lucas. | 0:04 |
Leslie Brown | Thank you very much. I'm sorry, Anne. This is— | 0:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Wright, my maiden name. | 0:12 |
Leslie Brown | Wright is your maiden name. | 0:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Herndon, my first marriage name. Lucas, my second marriage name. | 0:15 |
Leslie Brown | Are you originally from Durham? | 0:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, no. About 50 miles from here, in Warren County, Warrington, North Carolina. | 0:22 |
Leslie Brown | You're from Warrington. Could you tell me about your parents? | 0:30 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, we were farmers. My mother and father. My mother went to — Her highest training in education was at St. Lawrence in Virginia, that she had at that time. I don't know how this education was measured. I don't know by grades or by — they talked about the Blueback spelling, when you — Do you remember? | 0:35 |
Leslie Brown | Mm—hmm. I've heard of that. | 1:09 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You're finished by books, and taught school for a while, but basically we were farmers. We owned our own farm. Raised all the food that we ate. At that time in Warren County, which is one of the poorest counties in North Carolina, we had — Schools were segregated. The first school that I attended had three rooms, three teachers, so that was supposed to be a big school 'cause most of the schools were one room schools, 'cause remember now I'm about the second generation from slavery. To go to school, and this little school went to the seventh grade. You finished seventh grade, you could teach the lower grades. Then my older sister, she went to high school, but we did not have a high school in Warren County back in the 19 — the teens and the early twenties. | 1:12 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You had to go away to school, and most of the Black high schools were private high schools, like Henderson Institute. That was the closest school to us, and most of the teachers would come down from the north to the south, like church schools and teach. When you finished high school, you really had achieved something. | 2:46 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That was my early training. All I wanted to do was just finish — When I finished the seventh grade, then we had a new high school in Warren County named the John Hawkins High School, which was named for one of the first Black legislators, federal, from slavery time. When I finished high school, I came to Durham to go to college. 1931, I was a freshman in college. | 3:15 |
Leslie Brown | Did you go to North Carolina College? | 4:06 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yes. At that time was named North Carolina College for Negroes. | 4:14 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember your first day? | 4:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yes, yes. | 4:26 |
Leslie Brown | What was your first day like? | 4:26 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Scared. Because I told you, I said I came from this little small — and by the way too, transportation was not like it is now. You just didn't get on a car and drive an hour or so. If you came here, it was an all day journey. Roads weren't like they are now, little narrow roads. Some part of it maybe was not paved at that time, so when I came to Durham, ooh, this was the biggest city, bright lights and — because, well I go back again that we were a very sheltered family group, my little — Well, I could go back a little further. I guess I did not say. | 4:27 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I came from a family of 11 children in the family, closely, about 18 months apart, and I'm the child right in the middle. Five above me, five below, so I always had to fight my way through things. There were so many above me that it felt like I didn't have anything to offer, I guess, siblings, but we were all friendly in that way, but I didn't have any — and then yet there were five under me that I felt like I knew it all. I could tell — so it was just — My life has been one conflict, I guess in that way. | 5:15 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | My older sister finished Henderson Institute, 1922, I believe. Taught school for $40 a month. That's how much she was getting. The next two girls came to Durham, finished nurse training. I was the next girl, and I stayed with relatives here, paid $12 a month, and I won, I earned a scholarship. It was a quarter system, $30 a quarter, $90 a year. That's all you had to pay to go to school, but that was a lot of money in that day, because at that time then when I finished high school, I went up north to go to work. Worked at as a mother's helper, $15 every two weeks. I saved enough, and slept on the lot, if you know what that means. | 6:04 |
Leslie Brown | [indistinct 00:07:24]. | 7:23 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You don't know what that means? | 7:23 |
Leslie Brown | No, I don't know what that means. | 7:27 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You sleep at the place you work. | 7:32 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, okay. | 7:33 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That's what it says, when your — Your employment office — You had at that time had employment, you could get a — so the person would say, "I want a mother's helper that would sleep in," so you stayed at the house you worked. Really, I didn't know anything. I was able to see Montclair, New Jersey, I went to. Hadn't ever been away from home before to stay on my own. A mother's helper was like, this was a very nice White family that I worked with, and they were formerly from Canada, so they were a little more liberal than the average White in United States when it comes to treating people as a person. | 7:34 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I saved enough money out of $15 every two weeks at $30 a month to pay for my school, but it was tough going, and this where I met Mr. Herndon, and I always called him that, my first husband, because he was 32 years my senior and was running this barber shop and had a Buick. That was the biggest car I'd ever seen in my life. The first year, I would go out with him — We had been in college and had to [indistinct 00:09:31], because they let you go in groups, but somehow I'd make or find a way to meet him. I went away there some, and it looked like I just said, "There must be something better than this for me in life. Go back and work, come back to school," so after my second year, Mr. Herndon came to visit me in Montclair, and we decided we would get married, and I got married. | 8:40 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Then stayed out of school three years because he promised my mother that if I wanted to go to school to finish college, he would let me do it, so I did. I finished college in 1938. That is when I started working in the barber shop. This is when social security, so I really had a job in the barber shop keeping the books and the pool tables, because you had to keep a record and you had to file income tax, which was new to me then 'cause we didn't make any on the farm. We didn't have any such thing, any such thing as income tax. We were never in that bracket. | 10:04 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I had to keep these records, but at that time it was not foreign to me. As I say, see, that was my former training in business. From the next 42 years on, it was business, and my husband died in 1941. My little baby was three months old when he died, my only child. I had to run the barbershop and this little child, but as I said, we had a close—knit family. My youngest sister, this was her first year in college in 1941, so she came and lived with me, so I never was really alone. | 11:01 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We were staying at home, so she was not in boarding on the campus. Let's see. This is where I — From the third year, my baby's third, I put her in a Scarborough nursery school. This is when I really felt that I needed to know more about Durham and the public and what I wanted for my child, and we would go to a different meeting like the — I organized the first PTA meeting at the Scarborough Nursing School. Wherever Chauncey went — that's my daughter's name — I would go, all the way through the school system. | 12:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | But from that it branched out into other, like the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs and other — We had the Volcamania Literary Club, which is the oldest Black literary club in Durham. I just felt the need to know people, and know more about Durham, which made me work in the community. I guess it was from day one born, always, we went to church. At home I'd go back to my religious beliefs. We were Baptist, but my mother and father, on Sunday morning, we would always have prayer. We'd kneel in a circle and pray. We would all say Bible verses and pray, and when a child was baptized, we knew the next Sunday our father was going call on that child to pray. We would have more fun laughing, but we dare not let our parents see us laughing. When I had my sister, we weren't going to laugh when she prayed. All she could say when she prayed that, "Lord have mercy on my — Lord have mercy on me —" | 13:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | But when I go back now, I can really appreciate the discipline in the religious — which is a carryover now. If I don't go to Sunday school in church on Sunday, it'd be like I missed something. Those kind of dedication. We always had to study our Sunday school lessons on Saturday night. Back then, the Sunday school played — In the beginning, they had a little card, little cards that the lesson was on, and they would always have a biblical picture. I thought that was the prettiest thing. That was my first, I guess, beginning to have an appreciation for art and pictures and things like that. Still, when it comes to this abstract, I haven't really gotten to appreciate it like my daughter, but I guess that's — Well, we miss something. Let's see what else. How am I doing? | 14:42 |
Leslie Brown | You're doing very well. Can I ask you a couple of questions? | 16:15 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Okay. | 16:18 |
Leslie Brown | You've already told me so much. Well, you said you started at North Carolina College and that would've been — What year did you start? 1931? | 16:18 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | 1931. I was a freshman there. | 16:40 |
Leslie Brown | [indistinct 00:16:40] sorry. You said you had to sneak out to meet Mr. Herndon? | 16:40 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Right. | 16:43 |
Leslie Brown | How did you sneak out? | 16:44 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, we would always have to go in groups downtown to walk from North Carolina Center. Downtown then, now the streets weren't like they're now. Part of that Pettigrew Street was done then, so you'd walk downtown. Of course if — We had groups that would shelter each other, help each other out, we would — so we would plan and he would park his car a certain a place and we would go and talk, but never took advantage of me. Never took advantage me. | 16:47 |
Leslie Brown | Did your friends know that you were sneaking off? | 17:31 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, 'cause they didn't, but that [indistinct 00:17:39], he took me home and I told them that a friend was going to bring me home. When they saw this man, that it was not a friend, but they accepted it. They accepted it. | 17:33 |
Leslie Brown | When the group of students would go downtown, where would you go? | 17:59 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Do all the shopping, anything that we had to do down — so we split. That's the way, but we would always have a place to meet to come back together. | 18:07 |
Leslie Brown | Would you go downtown as in down on Main Street or— | 18:16 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. I guess then — See, downtown, they didn't have shopping centers like now. Durham downtown was the business district where you bought everything that you needed. You didn't have shopping centers then, so you went downtown to buy everything that you needed, but you had to go in groups. When you went in groups, if two or three would go in a store and want to shop around, maybe buying clothes, which took a little longer if you're going in the dime store and places like — but at a certain time, we would meet at the corner of Mangum and Main, 'cause that was center for us walking back. At that time too, the railroad always divided the Black and White community. On this side was the Pedigree street side and the Hayti side, but we weren't allowed to stop in Hayti. | 18:20 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, you weren't? | 19:34 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | The Black community. | 19:35 |
Leslie Brown | Oh— | 19:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, Black business. I guess they felt like there wasn't enough police — I don't know what it was, but we couldn't stop in Hayti. Well, then it didn't have the stores to buy the things that we — If it's clothing, then too, you bought your coat [indistinct 00:20:01] and things like that. I just don't — Come to think about it, I don't know why we didn't, 'cause there was two drug stores and I don't know whether they sold things like that then or not. | 19:37 |
Leslie Brown | Two big drug stores? | 20:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Huh? | 20:08 |
Leslie Brown | Two big drug stores, weren't they— | 20:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm—hmm, yeah. Mm—hmm. | 20:08 |
Leslie Brown | Dr. York, Dr. Gary— | 20:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Gary. | 20:08 |
Leslie Brown | I guess it was. I don't know— | 20:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | But anyway, we would always go downtown, but now they have things like that on the campus in machines and things, you see, but — Of course the administration building was the only brick building on the campus. All the classes for the whole college system was held in that one building. The business department was on the third floor, what's that called? The science, chemistry center, was in the basement. Literary was on the — and business administration registration on the first floor, second floor, and on the third floor was physical education and the music and some of the — | 20:30 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any of your teachers? | 21:33 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, every one of them. | 21:35 |
Leslie Brown | Really? | 21:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Let me see, I got a — | 21:38 |
Leslie Brown | Let me unhook you before you go. | 21:39 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | All right. | 21:41 |
Leslie Brown | Because we might lose you. Let's plug it in too. All right, there we go. | 21:42 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, and we would go to the theater. Like I say, I don't remember why we didn't go to the theater, 'cause they had a one room theater and — What was that other little theater down by the Biltmore? What— | 22:04 |
Leslie Brown | There was the Regal? | 22:21 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Regal Theater. | 22:22 |
Leslie Brown | There was Booker T. Wasn't there a theater called Booker T. | 22:23 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We couldn't go, but we could go downtown to the Carolina Theater and walk in around the back, up 75 steps. We went in groups, so we could do that, but — | 22:28 |
Leslie Brown | But you couldn't go to the downtown business district. Hm. | 22:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I've been trying to get to — All of that was so segregated that you had certain places you could go, but we would go to those places, but we always remembered that now when we're get ready to go back up. Most of the time we would walk, you see, that we're going to meet at the corner of Mangum and Main. | 22:56 |
Leslie Brown | Then you walk back across — | 23:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | The railroad tracks down on Pettigrew Street in Fayetteville. It was all flourishing. Then once you crossed the track from which it now Roxboro Street one way — That was Pine Street then at that time, but once you crossed Pine Street, everything was Black till we got to the college. | 23:18 |
Leslie Brown | Now, what did it look like? What did it look like when you crossed the railroad tracks coming back from downtown and you headed back up towards the college? What was on the street? What kind of people did you see? What kind of things— | 23:41 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Now in the business district, say from Pine Street to all the way — That was Pettigrew Street. From Pine Street to Pettigrew Street to Federal Street, Black businesses. That's where all of the — We didn't have drug — the loafers, I believe they would call them then, stood out. That's why I guess — Ms. Rush was dean of women at that time, and she was on the young ladies. That was a no—no district to stop in, but the business district, from Federal Street to Fowler Avenue in the Black section, was a little more, let's say — I hate to use that word. | 23:54 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | See, even in the Black community, they were class, if you know what I mean. Like you say, they was the better class of business of people. Okay, you could stop. Even the girls could go in a barber shop, but not on Pettigrew Street. It was some — I don't know whether you call it segregation or just protecting — | 24:55 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I guess too, this is what I need to say. The whole — Especially young ladies, the college students, most of them came from rural areas. They had not been exposed to what we call city life for us. When I look back at that now, how meager it was, but for me, it was a big thing. I guess — Ms. Rush, who was dean of women, who had got her degree at Boston University I think or somewhere, had been exposed to so much more. I guess she looked at us and said, "Poor little things. What on earth am I going do with you?" Yeah, and she sheltered us more than my mother did, which I thought she wouldn't let me — so this was the kind of — Like I said, when I came here to go to school, I still was sheltered by Dr. Shepherd, his regulations on the campus. He would not allow the men professors to smoke on the camp. They had to sneak— | 25:32 |
Leslie Brown | They had to sneak off too? | 26:59 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yes. I said, "Two years of this is enough for me. I want to get married and get out of this stuff." | 27:03 |
Leslie Brown | Was it too restrictive? | 27:07 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I thought it — I guess when I look back I can appreciate it though, 'cause had not it been, with the little experience that I had had, I don't know what would have happened, so I really appreciate it now. | 27:16 |
Leslie Brown | You raised a hard issue to talk about and that's class. There were class divisions— | 27:34 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Right. | 27:45 |
Leslie Brown | How were they defined? How did you determine who was in a better class than somebody else? How did you know? | 27:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That's what I try to figure out now too. Then too, you go back at that age — As I say again, I'm just about the second generation from slavery. Color had a lot to do with it. If you was fair—skinned, and we called in then [indistinct 00:28:22], they made a distinction. Even in the classroom, there was a division. | 27:56 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | North Carolina Mutual was a flourishing business, Mechanics and Farmers Bank. Especially, they didn't have that many — Black people didn't train in business, so they used this business school, North Carolina College for Negroes then, to help, but they would always get those fair—skinned [indistinct 00:29:05]. If they didn't know how to count one to 10, they got the job. | 28:31 |
Leslie Brown | But was that true with both men and women or was that true with just women? | 29:10 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I think more true of women, 'cause I remember even in high school, Bennett College in Greensborough, an all women's college, had a choral group that used to tour the school. When they would come to — That was before I had that one [indistinct 00:29:49]. Once a year, they would always come to the high school, the four years that I was in high school, they would — and I used to wonder why all of them were fair—skinned. I was one of the [indistinct 00:30:07] really Black children go to that school, so we've had this division. | 29:15 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Some of the students, they did not go to the public school. They went to Sedalia. Charlotte Hawkin Brown had this private — You've heard of that school? Private school, but it was not that, I guess, that most of the girls were fair—skinned. As it was, their parents were able to pay their way, but why they were able is the young ladies that were fair—skinned had the best choice of marrying men who were able to take care of them and their families. When you think about it, maybe that was one of the reasons for the division. We can look at it in different ways now, looking back, as to why there were divisions. Now am I making sense? | 30:18 |
Leslie Brown | That makes sense. That makes sense. | 31:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | In that upper part of Federal Street is where the people who worked at the North Carolina Mutual Mechanics and Farmers Bank, they were the people who had the most money and their houses were better. The yards were kept better, and you didn't — What I call them, the loafers, they were not in the streets along the way. I guess that was a reason, and that probably is why some of the division. At 84, I'm still trying to question, give justification for it. I don't know. | 31:41 |
Leslie Brown | It's a puzzle, isn't it? It's a puzzle. It's one of the things that I think about with this work. That there's segregation, but then there are class divisions. | 32:33 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 32:46 |
Leslie Brown | Some people have better jobs than other people have, but then how does that relate to how people get along with each other or how they relate to each other? Well, look, we can come back to that. I might ask that question a different way as we talk some more, because I'm wondering if people who lived in this section of town in the Hayti section — I know this, wasn't Hayti, this was the College— | 32:47 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Right, it was, yeah, College View, but this was really in the country then. | 33:24 |
Leslie Brown | Oh? Uh—huh. | 33:28 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | This was really in the country. | 33:29 |
Leslie Brown | Well, where did you live? When you left the campus and you got married, where did you live? | 33:32 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We had an apartment. Our business was at the corner of Mangum and Peabody Street where that parking lot is then, and we had an apartment up over the barbershop. That's where we lived until we built this house and moved here. | 33:37 |
Leslie Brown | Well, tell me about working in the barbershop. Tell me about managing, running the business. | 33:55 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, it was— | 33:58 |
Leslie Brown | And the shop [indistinct 00:34:03]. | 33:58 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | It was one of the better barber shops, I'd say. We were close to downtown, and it was kept neat, nice and clean. By the way, we did have a lady barber in the barber shop, and we had pool tables in the back. My husband didn't allow betting on the pool table, but it was our recreation. | 34:04 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | At that time too, all of the businesses downtown who had young men that were in the tailor shop or cleaning or whatever, they had a dinner hour or whatever, a time off at noon. That was their place for recreation, so they'd come in and play pool for that hour. But I threw, I think I'm going to need to go back too — | 34:35 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | See, the American Tobacco Company and Liggett and Meyer, back in the thirties. Lot of the stemming and — Well, they just had employed a lot of Black people, a lot of Black people. I'll go back to that class again. The factory people were a different class from those who worked at the Mutual. For what reason, I don't know now, come to think about it, but anyway, a lot of those fellows who were on their lunch hour would come down and play pool. In the meantime, some of them, that was the time they would get the haircuts or the shave. It just became a place to meet people, and I was right in the midst of it. | 35:05 |
Leslie Brown | Well, it must have been a lot of talk. Most people must have talked about it— | 36:02 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Everything. | 36:09 |
Leslie Brown | Especially the people coming out of the factory— | 36:09 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That's where you picked up on everything, in the barbershop. | 36:11 |
Leslie Brown | Did you ever hear people talk about — Well, let me ask you what you heard people talk about then. Then if you don't mention it, I'll ask it. | 36:14 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | They'd talk about everything from who went out with who, who is going with who, to where you go to church and who is good church people and who is the nothings and this from — They did talk about it all. | 36:24 |
Leslie Brown | Mm—hmm. I won't ask you about any of those things, but did people ever talk about when they were ready to unionize or when they were ready to strike? Did they ever talk about that? | 36:40 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. Now this — Yeah, back in the thirties too, that's when the unions in the tobacco companies were organized. This was really especially the younger men and women who worked in the factories. They would discuss it, but the older people, Black, it was kind of a hush—hush. They were so afraid that the wrong White people would get it to hinder them. But oh, they were so proud if they were a member of the union, what they were going to organize and what they were going to ask for. It was the beginning of a revelation to me, how Black was [indistinct 00:37:55], is the slogan go, "I'm all fed up, I can't take no more. We're going to do something about it." | 36:53 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | They would discuss it. This was a place that they felt — When I say a place, the barber shop, 'cause they gathered to talk about lot of things. That they talked about it and knew that it was secure, that the people with whom they were talking — 'cause we didn't have that many private places other than churches that we could discuss any movement that Black people, any of this things that concerned Black people's advancement, that they felt secure. Didn't have that many places to meet. | 38:03 |
Leslie Brown | Your barber shop and the pool hall was one of the places that people could go, and you said women came in also? | 38:55 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, mm—hmm, 'cause we had a lady barber, and women got to have cuts then too. Yes, and certain barber shops they wouldn't go in and some they would. I was there and we had another lady there, so they felt comfortable. | 39:02 |
Leslie Brown | Mm—hmm. Did they play pool too? | 39:18 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 39:21 |
Leslie Brown | When people talked about unionizing and they talked about organizing and they talked about striking, were there any particular people who emerged or came out in leadership roles, or were there people who had more to say about it than other people did? | 39:23 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 39:43 |
Leslie Brown | Among the younger group that you talked about? | 39:44 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, and it's — Well now, for the unionizing in the factories where I knew more about — and in the barbershop we had a union too. | 39:46 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, I didn't know that. | 39:58 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm—hmm. The barber shop had a union too, but I was more or less — 'cause that was for the Black barbers that had to do that. We could unionize prices and hours to work, so one shop wouldn't try to undercut the other one. That's really— | 40:00 |
Leslie Brown | I didn't realize. | 40:18 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Huh? | 40:18 |
Leslie Brown | I didn't even realize that. | 40:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. Mm—hmm, yeah. We had a — But going back to the unions in the factories, in our church, and this is when Reverend Fisher came to Durham in 1934, I believe. A young man, but believed in Blacks standing on their own. The older men and Mr. Trice, who was one of the older men that worked in the factory, and he would always talk to — Reverend Fisher was a young man, but Mr. Trice — I don't know, some of those older men, they would confide in Reverend Fisher. Reverend Fisher always believed that a Black person had something to offer, and he challenged them and worked with them and helped unionizing the first union in the factory. But now just what they wrote now. Florida could have all that back, right? | 40:20 |
Leslie Brown | Right, rather Tallahassee to see [indistinct 00:41:45]. | 41:41 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Some of the older people who worked at the factory, because — and the [indistinct 00:41:54] was at the corner of Fayetteville up there. Reverend Fisher would have meetings at his house to help, so Florida would know all that, even from a little girl. She keeps records. But that's — and then they discussed how to improve on hours, working conditions and pay. | 41:44 |
Leslie Brown | Now, did the other folks in Durham come out behind them? Did they have a lot of support in the Black community? | 42:28 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, I think that was one of the pluses for Durham in the Black movement. They always had — We had a Durham committee, then was the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs. That's what it was named. They really supported — and we always had the Ministerial Alliance. Have you heard of them too? Because they have a lot — Maybe it's in the Black history — They had supported and guided, and the top officials of North Carolina Mutual Mechanics and Farmers Bank supported them too, so I guess that's why they had had good support, trained support. | 42:36 |
Leslie Brown | They did the Durham committee and the mechanics and farmers, people in the ministerial alliance, did they come out and publicly support the unions? | 0:01 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yes. Yes. | 0:12 |
Leslie Brown | They spoke out. | 0:14 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 0:14 |
Leslie Brown | Now, when the unions did come around, do you remember any of the people who were shop stewards? Were there any men who were shop stewards, or were there women who were shop stewards? | 0:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, as I mentioned, as much as I try, I really don't know, because really I don't, but I remember because he was a member of White Rock Baptist Church, that Reverend Fisher would always let him have a little, bring us up to date on it in conference. | 0:28 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, really? | 0:50 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 0:51 |
Leslie Brown | Now I heard, this is one of those questions about class again, but from what you're saying, it doesn't seem to be true that only a certain class of people went to White Rock Baptist Church. You're saying that tobacco workers went. A lot of people went to the White Rock Baptist Church. | 0:54 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, definitely. | 1:09 |
Leslie Brown | Do you know if that was true with St. Joseph's, too or anybody, everybody belonged to St. Joseph's Church? | 1:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No. There were some factory workers in St. Joseph's, too, but I guess, too, we have to remember that White Rock and St. Joseph's is where the members, the CEO of North Carolina Music, Mechanics and Farmers Bank, Mutual Saving and Loan. Most of those officials were members of either St. Joseph or White Rock, so they were the trained people, but they wanted to be in the church. I guess they came, a lot of them came from southern states, too, this way from Atlanta, Georgia especially. | 1:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | They had been used to going to church, so they joined the church, and most of the ministers at that time at St. Joe's, of course, who did? They place their minister. It's not an autonomous body like the Baptists. We choose each church. Most of our ministers came from the northern states, and were trained ministers. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the ministers could communicate with the officials in the business, even in the church for the program they wanted to carry out, whereas most of the people that worked in the factory came, a lot of people from South Carolina places, but could hardly read and write. | 2:24 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | So it was a void or a gap, and I don't know who you blame for that, but yet I guess when you're in a church or something, you want to belong and asked to do. If you weren't asked to do, it was not because you were poor or worked at the factory. It's because really it was a lot of people then couldn't read and write, couldn't write their names. I don't know whether I'm trying to protect the group or not, but they just couldn't do, because I know even in some preachers. You ever heard of Jackleg Preachers? | 3:37 |
Leslie Brown | Yes. | 4:40 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | When Reverend Fisher came, and he would give them a Bible to read and they would get up and couldn't read the Scriptures, couldn't read hardly. Then if you had a program, you would pick somebody that could represent you well. What caused the division? I don't know whether I'm trying to justify. What am I trying to do? | 4:46 |
Leslie Brown | You're just trying to explain, because I don't understand. You're just trying to explain. | 5:22 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I guess I'm saying the flux, the influx of people, because at the factory, everything was done by hand like the [indistinct 00:05:44] and all. Whether you could read or write or not, you could get a job. They just needed somebody with some muscle to do what a white man stood up over them and said, you do it. It was more of them than it was for those who worked at the Mutual and the Mechanics and Farmers Bank, and yet they couldn't understand, if there's more of us, how come more of us are not doing the thing in the community at that level, that we needed somebody who could read and write and represent us well. I guess that's what puzzles the affirmative action now. Are we ready in certain areas, and are we not ready in certain areas? | 5:27 |
Leslie Brown | That's exactly the question. | 6:42 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | It was not an intent that we divide ourselves because we think you were better, but that you were more prepared, but I think maybe one of the failures, at that particular time, we were so busy trying to get ahead and assert ourselves that we didn't think about how we neglected those who really needed and didn't understand. That is where I had an exposure in a barber shop that I had the best of two worlds to understand people and that all of us wanted the same thing, but we weren't ready to accept. I don't know. Sometimes, it's so depressing to think about what might have been. | 6:47 |
Leslie Brown | There were things that did happen. I read somewhere that White Rock Baptist Church held literacy classes. | 7:49 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Everything was segregated back then. First library for Blacks started in White Rock Baptist Church. At that time, we had a juvenile court, a lady was judge and jury, and they had truant officers and little boys missing school. Parents think they sent them and by then, that, too, the parents go to work 6:00 in the morning thinking their children are going to school at 8:30 or whatever time and they go on off someplace. A lot of youth got into trouble that way. We struggled and struggled with that problem for Black youth, because it was a segregated, until Reverend Fisher came here and he bought an old house back of White Rock Baptist church. | 8:00 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | He would get up daily every day and go down there and sit with those little boys out there and talk with them and counsel with them. You know that Mamie Dow Walker was the juvenile judge for these children, would send children that she couldn't have down for Reverend Fisher to discipline and work with them. That is how that many Black children from parents who were giving all their all in all to American and [indistinct 00:09:53] working. | 9:04 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | But by being segregated, they did not put back in the community a place for that type of Black youth. That is one of the things, I guess, that's one of the greatest legacies that Reverend Fisher would leave for White Rock, to come out of that group and inspire. That's the beginning of organized recreation for Black youth in an organized place. | 9:56 |
Leslie Brown | What did they have for the girls? | 10:52 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Nothing. | 10:53 |
Leslie Brown | She did a lot for the boys. | 10:53 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, yeah, because he had both, mostly he had, well, two girls and four boys, but we had Young Women's Christian Association and that was segregated, too. The Y's were segregated. We had a building on, well, the first one was up on the corner of Fayetteville and was next to the corner somewhere up in there, a little wooden building. We had a Y, but the girls had a place to go, but the boys didn't have a place to go. Eventually, the John Nader Boys Club came in to being, but they didn't have a place to go with structured activities. | 10:57 |
Leslie Brown | The YWCA had structured activities? | 11:59 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | For girls. That's national and they always had a director plan. Even the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, the Girl Scouts, they had a place for girls to meet but they didn't have a place. | 12:01 |
Leslie Brown | For boys. Did you belong to the NAACP? | 12:27 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yes. | 12:36 |
Leslie Brown | When did the NAACP start in Durham? [indistinct 00:12:43] | 12:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, it was here when I came, so I really don't know. I really didn't tell too well, but yeah, it was here. It was back in 1931 when I came to Durham. | 12:43 |
Leslie Brown | It was here then. | 12:54 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Right. | 12:55 |
Leslie Brown | It had already been started, and how did you find out about joining the NAACP? | 12:59 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I guess through some of these organizations or the church, some church. White Rock Baptist Church was a church that reached out to the community. Just how I knew about it, I can't remember. | 13:03 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember joining, the first time you joined? | 13:21 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, I don't. I really don't. | 13:22 |
Leslie Brown | Did people ever talk about the NAACP at the barbershop? | 13:25 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | All the time. Yeah, because that was the spokesman. If you didn't belong to the NAACP, you just didn't care a thing about Black folks. | 13:28 |
Leslie Brown | Who was the spokesman? | 13:41 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | At that time, it was Louis Austin. You heard of him? | 13:43 |
Leslie Brown | I knew you were going to say that. | 13:47 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | It was Louis Austin. Louis Austin, by the way, too, when my baby was born and when we came back from the hospital, he came with my husband to the hospital to bring me home and he brought my baby in the house. Yes. He always called her Peanut. Yeah, so Louis Austin really was, and most of the officials in what North Carolina [indistinct 00:14:28], they spoke out for Blacks and they tried to instill into Black the word in organization and sticking together, why you should show support. | 13:55 |
Leslie Brown | That both people from the factories and people from the mutual group? | 14:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. That was where it was in oneness where they really, it wasn't this class thing when it came to— | 14:51 |
Leslie Brown | Not in the NAACP. Were there meetings? Do you remember any NAACP meetings? | 15:00 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Most of the time, we had the Stanford L Warren library. Most of the group civic meetings were there, met. | 15:06 |
Leslie Brown | It would've met there, and everybody? | 15:21 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | It was a mutual place where everybody go to the library and it wasn't like it was at one of the churches, maybe a St. Joseph or a White Rock. It might've been questioned, but at the Stanford L warren Library, it was more of a mutual place, and still is. | 15:26 |
Leslie Brown | Why might it have been questioned at White Rock or at St. Joseph's Church and not at the library? | 15:50 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Say what now? | 15:59 |
Leslie Brown | Am I misunderstanding you? An NAACP meeting might have been questioned at? | 16:00 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, as I say now, it was, which still is this little thing between groups like the factory workers and the professional workers, but when it comes to something like the NAACP or the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black people, we call it, but that's not what we called it. | 16:06 |
Leslie Brown | It was the Durham Committee on Negro— | 16:31 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Affairs. Yeah, I thought I was going to say, when you met at the library, if you couldn't read and write, but if you had a thought, you could get up and say it and people listened and accepted. It was more freedom, I guess, there. | 16:38 |
Leslie Brown | That's interesting. | 16:54 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Too, places, a place does make a difference in how you express and when you feel free to express something that you know is controversial. | 16:59 |
Leslie Brown | You're saying that some of the places that people could talk would be places like your barbershop and pool hall, like the library. Were there other places, or were those the only two places that people could go to? | 17:18 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Say what you just said? | 17:34 |
Leslie Brown | Did anybody ever go to the Lodges? | 17:40 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Now, the Masonic Lodge and the Elks, too, but I don't know much about those because, really, neither of my husbands was in those organizations, so I really don't know that much about them. | 17:42 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember any particular incidents? I've been reading the newspaper. I've been reading the Carolina Times from 1937 to 1939. I know all the news, but there were two issues that came out that the NAACP either wanted to be involved with or was involved with. One of them was the equalization of teacher's salaries. They wanted to bring a court fight in North Carolina on the equalization of teacher's salaries. The other one was actually 1936, was an assault on a young Black woman. Do you remember either of those [indistinct 00:18:55]? | 18:01 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Let's see now, the salary issue. I know that was a fight in that the NAACP and the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People really brought to the forefront and supported it. There again, like some of the older educators were saying, they said, "I remember, too, it seemed like Dr. Chapel and Cece Sproul called a meeting," were saying, but the time was not right. I think maybe they had done all that they could do but didn't want to relinquish their leadership because they felt like they were going too fast or weren't quite ready to go in the direction that they wanted. It seemed to me like I was on the side that, let's do it. Got to come in the barbershop and say, "Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it." | 18:54 |
Leslie Brown | That's something that people talked about in the barbershop, too? | 20:09 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Now about the lady, I can't remember that case. What is that? | 20:09 |
Leslie Brown | It was actually a young girl, and apparently she was assaulted, sexually assaulted by a white man whose father was some official in Durham. The girl's mother worked for the family, and Louis Austin wrote a letter to the NAACP to do something, to get the NAACP involved. There was a big uproar about whether or not the girl was respectable and why the mother wouldn't come forward. The mother wouldn't come forward because she worked for the family. She'd lose her job. That was very clear, also, but I was wondering if you remembered any community response. There were a couple of incidents like that through the years where young girls would be assaulted. | 20:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Now, that was one thing was hush—hush. | 21:22 |
Leslie Brown | People didn't talk about it much. | 21:29 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, they didn't talk about it, so I must have missed those. | 21:32 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, I have so many things I going to ask you. You said that you put your daughter in the Scarborough Nursery? | 21:38 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 21:48 |
Leslie Brown | How did you hear about the Scarborough Nursery? | 21:49 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, everybody in Durham, that was the oldest funeral. If Scarborough didn't bury you, you weren't buried. Then somehow or another, I just liked the discipline. I had visited the school over. As I say, then I was in business, so you knew business and you supported little groups that were doing things for especially underprivileged people. I put her in the nursery school, because I liked it and I knew the history of the school and the discipline. | 21:55 |
Leslie Brown | You said you started the first PTA there. | 22:39 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 22:42 |
Leslie Brown | What was that about? Why did you start a PTA? | 22:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, I just felt like, well, really one day I was talking with Mrs. Scarborough and I mentioned about it because a lot of the parents, a little girl three years old come home and certain words she had heard, she would come home and say, what does this mean? Say such and such a little girl called girl said this. She always says this when she doesn't like something. I said, "Well, what does she say? She says, "She says, 'Shit.'" Okay, but what does that mean? I said, I guess it means she's disgusted, but then I wanted to know what kind of parents were, get to know parents. | 22:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mrs. Scarborough and I talked about it. She said, "Well, why don't we organize?" I sent out these notes and then the purpose of it really was because then that was Mrs. Scarborough's training in preschool education, that children, when they're even at two, three years old, they pick up things you say. That was back during that 1940 war. A lot of parents just believed that a child didn't hear what you say. They never worried, and even action. They just felt like if you was two or three years old, you could do anything around a child. They didn't know and it wasn't discussed, hush—hush. That was my real need to get to know the parents. | 23:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Plus we could talk about what children know and at what age. That was Mrs. Scarborough's long suit. She believed day one, a child knew something and she would always, but she never really thought to get the parents together and talk to parents. That's one thing about parents, whether they can read or write. When they are small, the children are small, they'll follow them to a PTA. I found, I was a president of PTA in the elementary school, but when they get in high school, you can't get them to come to save your life to a PTA meeting, but up until, they'll come and you can discuss problems with children, but now they say no, I've seen their grades. They won't come. People, they won't come to the PTA meetings. | 25:02 |
Leslie Brown | You could get all kinds of different parents out to the PTA meetings when you had them. | 26:03 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 26:10 |
Leslie Brown | Were there children involved, but we'll use that class word? | 26:10 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 26:13 |
Leslie Brown | Children of all different classes at the Scarborough Nursery? | 26:14 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, it was a mixed school. See, Miss Scarborough, that was the funeral home this big, plus she was a member at St. Joseph's, and then if you were teachers then, back in the '30s, teachers was the high profession. If a teacher had to get up and go to work and young teachers had little children that were not school age but they're preschool age, they had to find somewhere to put them and Scarborough Nursery School, and you didn't have to pay but $2 a week from 6:00 to 6:00 and feed them and sleep them. Oh, I've been so blessed all my life. I guess that's why the Scarboroughs are so successful, that class issue. They know how to play that well. They, across the board, you are people. | 26:20 |
Leslie Brown | There's the nursery and, well, let me ask one more question about the PTA. When you said the parents came out, was it both parents? Would both parents come out? | 27:38 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, that's one issue too. A lot of one—parent families. | 27:50 |
Leslie Brown | Single mothers? | 27:58 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Especially in preschool, because if their mother had to work, to get them in school and at that price, she came out ahead, plus, go back to the funeral home. Mrs. Scarborough and them carried an insurance, a burial insurance, so a lot of people, one—parent families and poor people had comfort in Scarborough, in the very name Scarborough. Plus the old man, Mr. Scarborough, he was the most friendly man, people would say. When he passed, he would always tip his hat to a lady, very polite as people would say. They would say, there's a telegram post that when he passes it, he's going to tip his hat to the post. | 28:01 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I guess I don't know how he was real, but it's like a person who could empathize with poor people. The nursery school was really set up for those poor parents and his policyholders that needed somebody to care for, plus Mrs. Scarborough was his young bride to give her, make a job for her and in her profession. She was such a good teacher to some of the people who were able to pay, really, I don't know why we didn't organize another. We just, this is the best thing for my child, but it always had mixed group. | 29:18 |
Leslie Brown | Was the YWCA mixed group, too? | 30:16 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No. What you mean, membership? | 30:18 |
Leslie Brown | Yeah. | 30:20 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | White. | 30:21 |
Leslie Brown | Why did we say, was that a mixed—class group? | 30:23 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, because really, the Y is always something you had to struggle for membership. You're just glad to get anybody that wants to come to the Y, will get a membership, because when you make your reports, the more members you had, the more you had increased. It was a thing you had to work at. | 30:26 |
Leslie Brown | Was it hard work to get membership for the Y? | 30:59 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I don't know whether it was or whether the money, even 50—cent membership was something then when you can pay a pair of six stockings for 25 cents. Sometimes, you don't know whether they weren't members because they didn't have the finance or whoever it was a lack of interest, so that's debatable. | 31:04 |
Leslie Brown | Y membership, did you pay by the year? | 31:29 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | By the year. Seemed like it was, when I first started, I don't know whether it was 50 cents or a dollar. It was almost, many of them couldn't have operated at any less. | 31:30 |
Leslie Brown | Was Johnnie McLester a good organizer of activities? | 31:49 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | She came. She was director of the Y, when, in the '50s some? Was it '40s or '50s? | 31:53 |
Leslie Brown | I don't remember when she directed the Y. | 31:55 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I'm not sure. | 32:00 |
Leslie Brown | No, no. Let's see. She's in the paper as the executive secretary in the late 1930s. | 32:01 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Was it? | 32:08 |
Leslie Brown | 1938. 1938. | 32:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Sometimes, because she was not a McLester when she came here. | 32:14 |
Leslie Brown | Johnnie Marie Blanc. | 32:18 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. Right, right. Yeah. | 32:20 |
Leslie Brown | Now, all the women, there were a lot of people who came to Durham or who were in Durham. How did people meet each other? How did women in particular meet each other? | 32:25 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | The church was the meeting place, if you remember what church, mostly that's how you met people. Then if you participated, there are always people in clubs or organizations like a civic organization, PTAs or the Y, that look for work. Once, if you knew somebody, you would tell them of somebody in your church. It's like you ask them to approach that person. "This is a good person, I think, for that job." Especially in the Y, you had a class in crocheting, knitting, sewing, cooking or plays or reading book clubs, in those areas. People who were good, you said, "Well, why don't you ask that person to set up a program?" That's how the young girls were taken care of. There's different— | 32:40 |
Leslie Brown | Women who knew how to do things would be asked to design a program and set up a program and take a group of girls. | 33:56 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We had a place. Let's go back to that. We had a place for them. | 34:01 |
Leslie Brown | A place to do it. | 34:10 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 34:10 |
Leslie Brown | You belonged to the Vulca— | 34:15 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | [indistinct 00:34:17] Literary Club. | 34:16 |
Leslie Brown | [indistinct 00:34:22] Now, I've seen that name a number of times. I'm glad I now know how to pronounce it. [indistinct 00:34:29] Literary Club. It was a literary club, but what did you do? | 34:22 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Each month, a person was responsible for reviewing a book or a recent, interesting discussion going on. Then we would have sometimes speakers come in and talk. That was what we did, but it was mainly focusing on reading and supporting the library, getting people accustomed to just going in the library, trying to, and you had a base to talk about. | 34:37 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We would discuss even going back to people maybe who weren't able to buy a newspaper, subscribe for a daily newspaper. We said, "Well, did you know you could go to the library, set aside a time to go to the library and just sit there and read the different newspapers?" You could get the out of town newspapers that came in there, plus the different magazines. Some people really knew that was at their disposal, so this was the kind of thing that we would talk about that. | 35:36 |
Leslie Brown | Would you tell other people about that? | 36:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, I said, that's why we got to be known in the community. | 36:22 |
Leslie Brown | How would you do that? What would you do to get the word out? | 36:26 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, just like in little groups in our church. You always have little groups of your little missionary groups and they have the outreach programs in the church. You weren't really telling. in a way you would, say, mention that you have a program designed so that this information would flow out freely that you go to the library, and they have such interesting stories in a magazine. You would name the magazine or something. Why don't you try? | 36:30 |
Leslie Brown | [indistinct 00:37:13] I'm sorry. | 37:13 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Go ahead. Well, I will say, and this would be mostly in the missionary groups or in the other groups, like the Dorcas Club. You heard about it? | 37:13 |
Leslie Brown | I've heard of the Dorcas Club. | 37:28 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, that was a group that was organized, that came out of, I think Dr. Moore was one of the early physicians. I understand that when he would go in the home and found out how desperately and poorly and so many needs for people, that his wife, in talking, when he would go home, talk and they organized groups that will really, they would meet and have a sewing party and make clothes because they made a lot of little clothes for children then, or cook a meal and carry them a meal. That's what they did back then, the early Dorcas Club. This is where you got it out and you just talk in a club like that. That's what was at their disposal that they really never heard about. | 37:29 |
Leslie Brown | In a way, you're talking about a network? | 38:31 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 38:35 |
Leslie Brown | Network, that one group, you'd meet in one group and then you'd get the word out through to another group and then they would get the word out to another group. | 38:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | To another group. | 38:47 |
Leslie Brown | The Dorcas Club would hear of a particular family or one group would hear a particular family and then somebody in the Dorcas would find out and then they would decide to do something with this particular family, so this was all informal. | 38:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 39:05 |
Leslie Brown | You had to know. | 39:05 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Right. | 39:06 |
Leslie Brown | Would it be fair for me to say that a lot of people in the community knew what was going on? | 39:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | I think that was one of the problems, you say. I guess they knew. People knew then more about who were suffering and needed help, but because of segregation, there's not much that they could do about it, because say even the welfare system was segregated. They had certain days for Black to go and certain days for white. | 39:16 |
Leslie Brown | I didn't know that. | 40:03 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | To go for help. They didn't have that many, what we called these people were caseworkers, Black caseworkers in Durham that reported the need. We always had, I guess what we would call, the last had what was left, like the white caseworkers make a report. I think it was Pearl Henderson, you ever heard? Did anybody mention her name? | 40:03 |
Leslie Brown | No. | 40:33 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That was a caseworker, one of them early caseworkers. | 40:34 |
Leslie Brown | She was Black? | 40:38 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Maybe had all of Durham, well, what could one? I guess in other words, the city was run by whites. We took what was left, so we didn't get our fair share, and this is when Blacks started peeking out and said, "We want more, our share should be greater." | 40:40 |
Leslie Brown | Could I ask you one more question about the literary club? | 41:20 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 41:24 |
Leslie Brown | Who were your members? | 41:26 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Who were the members? | 41:28 |
Leslie Brown | Yeah, who were some of the members? | 41:30 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Dr. Shepherd, president of the college, a lot of the professors in the college, ladies especially. We didn't have that many men in the literary club, mostly other women. Then mostly, too, teachers. Most of the members were teachers in the school system and professional, because sometimes, too, you read a good book or something. You just want to share it with somebody, discuss it with somebody. We would give a little token to the highest. Getting in my mental block now. When North Carolina College for Negroes, in the English department, the student who made the highest marks, we would give them a little prize of $5, and that was a lot of money then. | 41:31 |
Leslie Brown | I was going to say that. | 42:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | That was a lot of money, but that was to encourage them in reading and in the English, in the literary, so that was, plus even the college at that time needed a support, a lifeline from the community, and we were one of those support groups to encourage people in literature, reading, more than just your books that you read. Go to the library. There was not the excuse that, I don't have a book. I'm not able to buy a book. | 42:49 |
Leslie Brown | Now, did you belong to the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs? Were you a member? | 43:38 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm-hmm (affirmative). | 43:46 |
Leslie Brown | How did you get chosen? How did somebody? | 43:46 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, anybody can. | 43:48 |
Leslie Brown | Anybody could belong? | 43:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | It's open. Just be Black. That's all they require you, to be a member of the Negro race. That's the only thing you can walk in and you're a member. Just be there, and it's still that way. | 43:50 |
Leslie Brown | Yeah. Was there an executive committee, though? | 44:06 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You always had a board. | 44:08 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm (affirmative). Who was on the board? | 44:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | You have a board that addresses civic affairs, voting, education, political, different issues of one person that would, and as many entities that they had concerned, that made up the board and you had a president, a secretary and kept records. | 44:15 |
Leslie Brown | Well, what was the difference between the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs and the NAACP? | 44:53 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Well, the NAACP is national, so you have a line, but the Durham Committee on Negro Affairs, it's a local, it's concerned with just Durham County, which now you know that it's number one city in the county of— | 44:58 |
Leslie Brown | And Bess Whitted and Viola Turner were probably members. | 0:02 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, because they were very vocal, in the past. | 0:05 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, were they? | 0:09 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. [indistinct 00:00:13], and for women's rights, too. | 0:09 |
Leslie Brown | Uh-huh. Really? | 0:15 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Very vocal. Yeah. Back then, in that day, we didn't have much to say in public, but— | 0:15 |
Leslie Brown | But they would say things in public? | 0:22 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, mm-hmm. So I don't know of any others, but I'm almost sure, that they were in there somewhere. I'm not sure. | 0:27 |
Leslie Brown | And Bess Whitted founded the Algonquin Tennis Club? | 0:37 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 0:40 |
Leslie Brown | And she worked with the Mutual. | 0:42 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 0:43 |
Leslie Brown | There were a lot of women who worked for Mutual. | 0:43 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Mm—hmm. | 0:46 |
Leslie Brown | But are you saying that Vi Turner and Bess Whitted were more outspoken than any of the others? | 0:48 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. Events. And would always do something about it. What was happening. And this is what the purpose was of the Durham Committee on Legal Affairs. When issues came up, this was the the organization, that whether you were rich or poor, you brought it to them, and they would make some decisions of about how to address it. | 0:59 |
Leslie Brown | What were some of the issues that people would bring? For example, did the Tobacco Workers bring the issue of unionization to the Joint Committee? | 1:29 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 1:41 |
Leslie Brown | And voting? | 1:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, voting, and how to divide the County, so that all the Blacks could be covered and contacted. And they would get out a slate of offices, even though, maybe they were White, but the ones that they felt would best serve the interests of Black people. | 1:46 |
Leslie Brown | This is in regards to voting. | 2:11 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. And they would write out a whole slate of officers, for every office, that was vacant there. Or that there were people competing to run for, even in the Primary to eliminate them. And then, this is where White people, when you got something they want, they'll find a way to make a path to your door. So, when they wanted these Black votes, when they found out, they would come. Asked if they could come to the meeting, and address why they think they should be elected, and what they had to offer. And oh! They would be so concerned for Black people there. What they're going to do. | 2:13 |
Leslie Brown | For those few minutes. | 2:57 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | For that few minutes. Lasted until they went out the door. But this was the purpose of it; to gather, and assimilate, and disperse information. It's bargaining, really, I guess, for the best person that was going to do more for them. | 3:00 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember the first time you voted? | 3:28 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | In my life? | 3:32 |
Leslie Brown | Mm-hmm. | 3:33 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, I don't. | 3:37 |
Leslie Brown | Do you remember— | 3:39 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Because it seems like I've been voting all my life. | 3:41 |
Leslie Brown | I was going to ask, have you always been able to vote? | 3:43 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. And, too, in voting— I don't know. It seemed like that was segregated, in a way. The first time I voted. Well, the first time I voted, I voted here in Durham County. I know the first time I voted, I voted in Durham County. Our Precinct was downtown, because, actually, we lived in the [indistinct 00:04:14]. I had an apartment, and you had Precincts. And my Precinct was White, mostly. There may have been two people in that Precinct. And we had to go to a lady's house. I remember that. That was the Registrar for that Precinct, to register to vote. | 3:45 |
Leslie Brown | Did you have to take a test? | 4:43 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No. Yes, we did. We had to read. We had to read, and open the book. And I remembered. Yeah, I remember now. It's coming back, I remember. We went to this [indistinct 00:04:56], and she opened the book, and read that first part of the Constitution of the United States. That's what it was. I remember that. But we went to her house. And at that time, I— Yeah, this is all coming back to me. That was the first time. | 4:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Back then, in 1931, too, like that, if you were a Black person, and the White people did not know you. If you went to their house, you had to go around to the back. They wouldn't let you come in the front door. So, when me, and Mr. [indistinct 00:05:40], that was my first husband. We went up to vote. This was our Precinct. And this lady looked at us. She didn't know whether to tell us to come around to the back. She wondered why we came? And we said, "We came to register. This is our Precinct. We live at 121 South Mangum Street. We want to register to vote." | 5:20 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | So, she picked up this. It looked like it made a mad [indistinct 00:06:14]. We wanted to vote. "Read this!" I read it. "You read it." He read it. She wrote our names down, and that was it. She didn't ask question one, because we came in her front door. I remember that. But we didn't have to go back anymore. From that day on, once we got on the book. I guess if they ever purged them— | 6:09 |
Leslie Brown | You didn't— [indistinct 00:06:54]. | 6:52 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | We didn't have to go back there anymore. And now, when we voted, our Precinct was at the Courthouse. So, we would go to the Courthouse. So, that's where all the Black folks always go. The Jail and the Courthouse are in the same building. So, we were always welcome there. | 6:56 |
Leslie Brown | So, you've always voted? | 7:19 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. | 7:21 |
Leslie Brown | You've always— | 7:21 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | And haven't missed! If it says, "Let's vote for a chicken." I say, "Yeah, I've got to go vote today." I vote. | 7:22 |
Leslie Brown | Do you encourage other people to vote? | 7:32 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Don't do that a lot now. But nah, I've given it all up. Yeah, and worked at the Polls, that kind of thing. | 7:36 |
Leslie Brown | Oh you did? | 7:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. Right. So, I've been here, now, like 50 years. And we vote right here. This was Hillside High School. It was our Precinct. So, I would work at the Polls, that day that the Polls were open. Worked at the Polls. And when I did not work, I always had something like cold water, lemonade, or something to give those. Because we would always have people outside. Didn't want to have the people who were running for office, have somebody at the Poll, passing out literature, forms and that kind thing. And I did that up until they moved this Precinct down to Weaver Street. I just remember that. | 7:45 |
Leslie Brown | Did you talk with people about voting, while you were working in the barber shop? | 8:36 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah, in places of business, you had the candidates wanting to know if they could put one of their placards in your barber shop, in your front windows in there. That was always a discussion, for who to vote for. Plus the Carolina towns then, that Pettigrew Street, you can't hardly imagine, if you just recently came, but Lewis Austin was down on the corner. And this was a place that we always met, at the barber shop, to discuss candidates who were running. Who were more favorable, because there weren't that many Blacks running then. But which one of the Whites that was more favorable, for doing things in the interests of the Black community. Those kinds of discussions were always in the barber shop. | 8:42 |
Leslie Brown | How did the war change Durham? How did the war change Black people's lives, in Durham? You said that 1941 was when you put your daughter at the Scarborough Nursery. And that would've been just before the war started. | 9:38 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | No, she was born in 1941. | 9:54 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, that's right. She was born in '41. | 9:56 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | And three years later, which would've been in '44, that she was put in there. | 9:56 |
Leslie Brown | I'm sorry. That's right. That's what I thought. | 10:05 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Let's see. That was when Pettigrew Street, Black businesses, during the war. And the train station was right there, down by, but one block on the same street. And when the soldiers would unload, they were right there. That street, right in the door, almost, of the barber shop. Just hundreds and hundreds of soldiers. But they were segregated, to me. Come to think about it. Load them up and carry them on, like Camp Butner. | 10:14 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | But then, they would always remember where; that it was a Black barber shop, where they came to town. They would come in, but eventually, most of the Black soldiers would come down in the Hayti section, because that's where the Black businesses were. And it was segregated, at that time. And they would come in by the truck load, and put them off in the Hayti. That's what bothered me, because if they had put them off up town, we would've gotten more of the business, you see. But they would go to the Black community. | 11:05 |
Leslie Brown | So, businesses did fairly well? | 11:45 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Flourished during the time Camp Butner was there. And that's where business went in. And who else? Susan Bullock and some old ladies, they would have dances out of that Camp Butner to entertain the soldiers. | 11:47 |
Leslie Brown | Oh, I didn't know that. | 12:08 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Yeah. And the young ladies who wanted to go, were screened and Sue Bullock— And let's see, who were some of the singing ladies? Now, I don't know much about that. I didn't participate in that, but I know this happened. They would take the ladies, by the bus loads, out to Camp Butner, and have dances to entertain the soldiers. And that's a lot of soldiers. A lot of young ladies met soldiers at Camp. And some of them married soldiers, and some of the soldiers made their homes here. But that was one of the ways the contacts were made. | 12:10 |
Leslie Brown | Well, I won't ask. I was going to ask, when you say, "Screen them." What does that mean? | 13:02 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Oh, certain young ladies. Now, you just didn't pick up somebody off the street, and carry them. And somebody, I guess too, that the women who were responsible for the young ladies; like 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. There weren't any old ladies at that dance. So, the people felt like they wouldn't run into any kind of trouble with them. That's what I meant when I said screen. | 13:07 |
Leslie Brown | Well, tell me when you're tired, because we can stop, and talk some more another time. Are you tired? | 13:41 |
Julia Wright Herndon Lucas | Whenever you get through, of course. Yeah. How long have we talked? | 13:50 |
Item Info
The preservation of the Duke University Libraries Digital Collections and the Duke Digital Repository programs are supported in part by the Lowell and Eileen Aptman Digital Preservation Fund