Doris Epps interview recording, 1993 July 21
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. From a place called East Arcadia. | 0:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | East Arcadia. | 0:04 |
Doris Blanks Epps | North Carolina. | 0:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What county is that in ma'am? | 0:08 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Bladen. It's on the route to Fayetteville and I lived there until I was about 18. Then I came down here to live and I finally got married here and I stayed here, and I have five children, and they're grown now and gone to different areas. And now, would you like to know what they do or that's not imported or what? | 0:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well, while you're talking about them, sure. Please. | 0:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. I have a oldest son that lives in Concord. He has a family there and he drives long distance trucks. My daughter lives on Low Water Drive here in Wilmington and she is a teacher here, fifth grade teacher here. My other son, he's a lawyer. He lives in Alexander, Virginia. And my next child, he went to college in Durham to Central and he works for IBM. My baby son, he lives in Charlotte. He does odd things, construction and of course he finished the course in Syracuse, New York to be a refrigerator, air conditioner mechanic. So that's about it for the children. And so of course I went to school, I finished high school at East Acadia, and I came on down here now to work. And after I came to work, I got married here and I had these children. I went to work for National Linen. | 0:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | National? | 2:24 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Linen. | 2:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Linen. Okay. | 2:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | And I worked there for 38 years. So I'm retired and I retired in June. | 2:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Of this year? | 2:39 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, yes. | 2:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Congratulations. | 2:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I retired in June. So I've just been sitting around. Now I'm on dialysis. Of course I had planned to work for two more years, but after I got on dialysis I couldn't because I have to go out there three times a week to take that dialysis treatment. So I had to cease work then. So I'm just sitting around the house now, going from here to yard, cleaning a little and doing a little at a time. It's not a whole lot you can do with dialysis because it weakens your system. It weakens you down. So you're just not able to do the things you used to do. Of course, at my age I'm not able to do things I used to do in no way. But when you get off those machines then you're very weak. So I'm not just able to do a whole lot like I used to do. I'm just— | 2:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You take care of Stacey who's your granddaughter. | 3:37 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, yes, yes I do. I take care of her and do for her—Of course I do what is around here mostly to be done, cleaning, that sort of stuff. What little bit of cleaning I do, I do it myself most, of course my husband vacuums and that sort of stuff. Whatever I do. I have to do it a while and then stop because it limits you. It is a limitation on you. And then I was told that some people hold regular jobs almost doing that. But I just couldn't do it. Because what it does, it makes you tired. Just tires you out. Don't see how they can do it. But some people do, so they say. | 3:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did your parents do which is that— | 4:22 |
Doris Blanks Epps | My father died when I was about eight years old. My mother lived until after I was grown. We had a little old farm and she raised us as the best she could. Of course we got aid to dependent children for a while until we got grown, in order to go to school. So I had two sisters that went to college, myself, even though my father had died. But I had two sisters that went to college. And so we done fairly well off of that. | 4:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So did your mother farm or did she do public work? | 5:00 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Yeah. Well there wasn't any public work to do at that time. There wasn't anything that you could do other than farm there. So that's what she did. She farmed what little bit she could, and doing tobacco and corn and raising your own sweet potatoes and your white potatoes in your garden and that sort of stuff, and canning fruit. And that's what we got by off of until we got old enough. Because now in the summer we would work after we got up some size. In the summer we would go on farms and work and they would pay us and that's how we would get our school clothes to go to school the next year. We'd buy our school clothes and this is how we survived. | 5:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How many of you were there in the family Mrs. Epps? | 5:54 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Four. I had four sisters. Of course I had one sister that died and I have two sisters now that live in Syracuse, New York. Both of them are grown there. | 5:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So it was the five of you women on the farm? | 6:05 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. | 6:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother hire any men? | 6:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Even doing tobacco, we would do our own tobacco and thing. At that time, women would crop tobacco. I did. I have cropped tobacco myself and those kind of things. Picked blueberries, picked strawberries or anything that we could. Break corn and all of that stuff, we did it. Yeah, we did that. Did all that to survive. We did anything that you could do on the farm. We did pick cotton and all of that. We did all of that. | 6:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How big a farm was it Mrs. Epps? | 6:48 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. About 25 or 30 acres, something like that. | 6:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How was that for your mother being a woman alone like that? | 6:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well at times we would have to hire a man with a mule to plow and that sort of stuff. Either we would let him come over and plow and then we'd go over and pick something for him or do something, vice versa. We would swap work like that because we didn't really have the money to pay him because we didn't have that kind of money. And so we mostly made it like that. | 7:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you take the tobacco and the cotton to be sold, to be graded for gin? | 7:30 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. We would take the tobacco to Whiteville or Chadbourn and the cotton we'd take it to Elizabethtown and they were ginned there. And then they would pay you for the seeding and pay you for the cotton. | 7:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And did your mother feel that she got a fair price? | 7:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, I'm sure we got about the ongoing price that anybody else was paying. Because we would pretty much know what everybody else were getting. And so we would have got about the same thing as anybody else was getting. We would hire people to take it and we'd pay them so much by the pound to take it. | 7:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were there other family members living in that area like aunts or grandparents? | 8:21 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yes, yes, yes, yes. They've lived in there. | 8:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So did you see a lot of your grandparents for example? | 8:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I didn't see any of my grandparents to know them. My mother's mother, I didn't know her. And my daddy's mother, they say I saw her, but I was so small I didn't. So my grandfathers, they were dead. So that's about the gist of it. | 8:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | May I ask you how your father died Mrs. Epps? | 8:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. He had heart trouble. So did my sister. My sister had a heart trouble. He had it and my sister had it. Both of them had it. My oldest sister, she went to college for a year and came out and the next year she couldn't go back because she had heart trouble. She died. Both of them died. | 8:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were there White people living near you when you were growing up, ma'am? | 9:22 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not that many. There were a few, but we weren't going to the same school. About two families I think were living in—1, 2, 3 families were living up there. | 9:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you play with the children of those families? | 9:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, we'd play and fight too. We used to play, but we also used to work for them too. One man, that he would have watermelon and cantaloupe and cucumbers and a big market for those kind of things, we would go over and help them pick their stuff and harvest their stuff. And he would give us a whole lot of stuff. Tomatoes and that sort of stuff. We'd go and set out tomatoes for him and help them break corn and different stuff. And they would pay us and give us stuff too to eat. | 9:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So were you working with the White family in the fields? | 10:23 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, we would work with them. We worked with them. | 10:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things did you and the White children fight about? You're saying you played and you fought. | 10:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Different things. We didn't too much worry about the race, because we'd go there and sit down at the table and eat with them, and they would come and whatever we had, they'd share, we'd share with each other. And it was more like a family then than it is now. Because at that time they didn't know that much difference and it didn't make them that much difference, because we would play together and if they ate a cantaloupe, we'd eat out of it. And here you take a piece, you take a bite and we'd take a bite, and watermelon, we'd do the same. They'd break the watermelon in the field, the dad said leave us out there. They'd break the watermelon and all us would dig in to eat the watermelon together and different things like that. So it didn't mean that much difference because even though we didn't go to school together, but it wasn't that much difference with them, because they knew that we would work together and everything. So we were all children. Yeah. | 10:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you first go to school Mrs. Epps? | 11:36 |
Doris Blanks Epps | East Arcadia. We had a high school there and a elementary school. And children from around the area came to our school because it was the only accredited school between—The children from Ammon came there because they had a 10th grade, but it wasn't accredited to 11th. At that time you could graduate in 11th grade and it wasn't an accredited, they only accredited from there to Elizabethtown. About 35, 40 miles away, I was going there, accredited school. | 11:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was your school like? | 12:17 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, it was a little pot-belly school to start with. But finally we got a pretty decent school. Well I won't say that. When the children came along, it was a pretty decent school because they had built a brick school then and they still got a nice brick school up there now. But at that time it was just a little board school. | 12:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it one room? | 12:47 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, it wasn't one room, we had several rooms. I can't remember the one room school. We always had eight or 10 rooms, something like that. Even though it was board, we had the stoves with the wood and the coal and everything. But the coal came from Elizabethtown. They'd send the big loads of coal to the school. And the wood they'd send it there. So we had a janitor to come in the morning, make fire before we got there. So we had that. | 12:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like school when you were growing up Mrs. Epps? | 13:23 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Pretty much. And I still like. I took keypunch course here. Well I've been down here to Cape Fear Tech several times. And I was looking the other day and I saw where they're giving computer courses. I said, "Well what the heck? I might just go down there and take it." Because after 65 you don't even have to pay anymore. You can go free. So I said, "I might just go down there and take that computer course." I don't know, I just might. Because really I took typing down there. Don't go that way, go the other—Close it back now, close it back. I took typing down there, two or three courses of typing down there. | 13:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember your mother giving you or your sisters any advice about growing up or things like that? | 14:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh yes, yes, yes. She's always done that. Advice. She was always given advice. Bless her heart. She did enough of that. Just like parents will do. And yeah, she's always done that. | 14:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things would she advise you of? | 14:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, just be careful of the men. Most of them will do, tell you be careful of the men and don't get fooled. In the bathroom, she's in the bathroom, close the door. Don't get fooled by them and just be careful. Because one thing, we lived in the country and down here is a city, so they say you have to be careful with these city men because they're slickers. And so I guess it's about right. Yeah. | 14:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What do you remember about going to church when you were growing up? | 15:13 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, yes, I sung. I used to sing on the choir and yeah, yeah, go to different conventions for the church and things like that. | 15:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it a Baptist church ma'am? | 15:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, yes. I'm still a Baptist. I belong to Baptist church here. First Baptist at Fifth and Campbell. | 15:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was the name of the church that you went to— | 15:34 |
Doris Blanks Epps | At Home? Pleasant Union Baptist Church. | 15:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Pleasant Union. So why did you move to Wilmington then? | 15:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, to work. Up there, there wasn't anything but farming. So I came down here to try to get a job in some industry or that sort of stuff. | 15:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So working at National Linen wasn't your first job? What was— | 15:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, not my first job, but really my first decent job. Because I used to do housework and that sort of stuff. And so that wasn't paying nothing much. So National Linen was the first industry job that I had. | 16:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And it paid better? | 16:21 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yeah. | 16:22 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like the work itself better at National Linen? | 16:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, I didn't like the work all that good when I first went there, but I learned to love it. Like I say, I worked there 38 years and it seemed like a long 38 years. But I made it. Yeah, I loved the work at National Linen. | 16:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What work were you doing at National Linen? | 17:01 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. I started what you call flat work and went up to the table lady. I was doing table lady when I left there. | 17:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And at the table, what does a person do? Sorry. | 17:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | If you're doing sheets, you do 10 sheets, fold them over. Okay. The girls fold them, they fold them and fold them over, and you put 10 sheets in a ball and you tie each end of it and put it in the surveyor. And if you're doing tablecloths, you put 20 to a ball and you wrap them and you put them in the surveyor. Have to wrap all the tablecloths. Don't have to wrap sheets, but you do tablecloths. | 17:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And when you were working, doing housework, what were the people like who you worked for? | 17:45 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, some of them would be gone. Some of them wouldn't even be there. They just put you there to clean and wash and iron and cook or whatever they have for you to do. That's mostly what I would do. | 17:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was it one family you were working for or was it day work? | 18:19 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, one family mostly. | 18:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | One family. | 18:23 |
Doris Blanks Epps | At one time. And then at another time I have done day's work. Day's work pay more, but it's a harder work. It's hard work. You work for somebody today and don't go back until next week. The place is real dirty and you have a lot of work to do. So I have worked day work. | 18:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And when was it that you married Mrs. Epps? | 18:46 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, let's see. Yeah. Married in '49. | 18:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | '49. How did you meet your husband? | 18:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, so I think I met him at a ball game. | 18:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Basketball? Football? Baseball? | 19:08 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, baseball. Met him at a baseball game. We used to like to go in the afternoon to the baseball game. Yeah, met him at a baseball game. | 19:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And so you told me that you have five children. Were they all born here in Wilmington? | 19:20 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. | 19:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And when you had them, where did you have them? In what— | 19:27 |
Doris Blanks Epps | In the hospital out there. | 19:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Which one was that? | 19:35 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mostly New Hanover. Well it wasn't New Hanover then, it was James Walker. James Walker and Community. We had a Black hospital here called Community. I think three of them were born in Community and two of them were born in James Walker. | 19:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you like one hospital better than the other? | 19:53 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, not per se. Both of them are served a purpose. Yeah. They took Community hospital down and just converted all of them. They moved the other hospital to move all of them into one. Cape Fear Memorial. I mean, New Hanover Memorial. Then they got a Cape Fear here, that a lot of people go to out on Mercer Avenue, I think it is, somewhere. | 19:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you first moved to Wilmington, where in the city were you living? | 20:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay, I was living on Dawson Street. | 20:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | On Dorsal Street? | 20:47 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Dawson. Yeah. I had a cousin here and I lived on Dawson Street. | 20:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And so you lived with your cousin? | 20:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Well I didn't have to pay much rent because I wasn't making a whole lot. So you had to skimp and scrap along. | 20:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So I guess that was just around the end of World War II? | 21:10 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I suppose so. It's been so long. I can't even—I guess around '45 or '46, somewhere along there. | 21:17 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you first moved here and you were working and living with your cousin, what kinds of things would you do for fun when you had some spare time? | 21:30 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, we went to a place called Seabreeze. We had a place down there at a resort called Seabreeze in Bop City. And of course we couldn't go to Carolina and Ryder Beach and those kind of places. You couldn't go there because they didn't allow Black folk, and you couldn't go to Myrtle Beach either. And a place called Atlantic Beach down there. Bop City Seabreeze and Atlantic Beach. Those are the resort areas that we could go to. | 21:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things were there to do at Seabreeze and Bob City. | 22:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. Dance, which I used to love to do. Dance and listen to music. Used to have piccolos and dancing. That was the biggest thing. | 22:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you ever go to any of the traveling, the tent shows that came to town? | 22:29 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Yeah. Every once in a while. Out at Legion Stadium on the other side, Legion Stadium out there. We used to go out there every once in a while to the circus and different things. Yeah, we'd go out there every once in a while. | 22:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember a show Silas Greens? | 22:50 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, Silas Green used to be right down here. | 22:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Down here? | 22:56 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, right down the road down here. | 22:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, nice. | 22:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Silas Green. I remember. Silas Green. | 23:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was that a good show? | 23:02 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, very. Ministerial. Very good show. Yeah, I remember. I never will forget that they were singing a song. What was that song they were singing? But the man told him said, "Man, you out here singing that song. How you going—How was that he was saying? "How can you see his—I can sit right here, look a thousand miles away. That's what it was. I can sit right here and look—"Man, how the hell you can sit right there and look a thousand miles away. Can't see the other man that had your wife under the bed." I never will forget that. Yes sir. I wouldn't miss Silas Green. It used to be right down there where that D.C. Virgo School is, that's where Silas Green used to be. That's where it used to be. I remember that real good. Right where that school is. | 23:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did they have different shows? Some for kids and adults and some for adults only? | 23:53 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, not Silas Green. Silas Green would come here and they wouldn't stay but one night. That's all they would stay, one night and gone. And it's all the benefit now, isn't it? I don't ever hear talk— | 24:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No, I think it's— | 24:11 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Never hear talk about Silas Green. One night, they'd stay one night, and everybody was just so elated over them because they were so good. He would really be good, Silas Green. I had forgot about Silas Green. | 24:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So everybody would be rushing to go? | 24:27 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yes. Oh, they'd have a tent full of people. Yes sir. | 24:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you go to the movies sometimes? | 24:37 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not a whole lot. The movies were downtown and I didn't go a whole lot because really we didn't have a lot of money and stuff to spare. So I didn't go to the movies a whole lot. | 24:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember how much it cost to get into Silas Green show? | 24:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Seemed like it was about a dollar and a half or $2, something like that, I think. | 24:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was that a lot of money? | 25:01 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not a whole lot. Because you wasn't getting no more than 50 to 75 cent an hour to work. So it wasn't a whole lot. If you made $5 a day, you'd done good. You didn't hardly make $5 a day working. But I think about a dollar and a half or $2, something like that, to get into Silas Green. | 25:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was First Baptist the first church that you attended when you moved to Wilmington. | 25:27 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. First. | 25:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your cousin go to that church? | 25:35 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yes. | 25:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So did the church ever organize fun things to do? | 25:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not really. Well, now it has. They have baseball game now, Scouts and all that now. They have that now. But at that time they didn't have baseball games. They have baseball and basketball games now. But they didn't at that time. | 25:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember any disagreements coming up in the church? | 26:07 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, yes. Yes. We've had disagreements. They've even had the lawyer to the church, they've even had the policeman to the church. Yeah. Voting and that sort of stuff. Yep. I remember that. I wasn't a part of it, but they had it. | 26:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what caused these kinds of disagreements? | 26:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay, voting. Voting the pastor in and out. That's most of what it is. See the Baptist rule, you vote them. Now the Methodist rule, you don't vote them. The bishop sends them in and out. So voting. | 26:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So people would disagree about who they wanted. | 26:46 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Right. Who the pastor they want. | 26:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I'd like to go back for a minute to your childhood. How did your mother discipline you and your sisters? | 26:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | By whipping. She whipped devil out? Yes sir. She sure did. You got a whipping if you didn't do what she told you to do. | 27:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds of things would you be whipped for? | 27:22 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not minding and going places you didn't have any business and not coming back on time and that sort of stuff. She whipped you. | 27:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember what kinds of places you weren't supposed to go to? | 27:37 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 27:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kinds? | 27:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Juke joints and different places we weren't supposed to go at time. Now she'd let us go at time, but you go at a certain time and you'd be back a certain time when I tell you to go and come back. If you don't, you going to get a whipping, and you did too. | 27:42 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When your mother did let you go to the juke joints, who would you go with? | 27:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well it would be us sisters. Because of course eventually we started going with young boys and that sort of stuff. But at that time we'd just be with our sisters. | 27:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. When you had your own children, Mrs. Epps, would you say that you raised them in the same way as your mother raised you or differently? | 28:14 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Not per se. But they got whippings. They were got whippings. Yes. I whipped all of mine. A lot of people say don't whip a child, whipping don't do no good, but it does. I whipped them. I sure did. Still got whippings. | 28:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Ask you just some things that we ask everybody, Mr. Epps, just to make sure we have the same information straight on everybody. Like birthday and things like that. Okay. | 28:49 |
Doris Blanks Epps | You want that other light up there? Can you see? | 29:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I can see fine. Thank you. | 29:03 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay, I got a top— | 29:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I used to read in the dark when I was a little girl. | 29:06 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I got a top light. | 29:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That'll be fine. Thanks. So your last name is Epps, and your middle name ma'am? | 29:09 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Doris. | 29:15 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Doris is your first name or your middle? | 29:18 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, I'd say Doris Blanks. B-L-A-N-K-S. | 29:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And is Blanks your maiden name? | 29:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | It was before I married. Doris Blanks Epps. | 29:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 29:30 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I'm an Epps now by marrying. | 29:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And do you know your zip code here ma'am? | 29:35 |
Doris Blanks Epps | 20841. | 29:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you. Okay. And when I write your name on the tape, do you want it to read Doris Blank's Epps? | 29:38 |
Doris Blanks Epps | If you like, it doesn't matter. | 29:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Doesn't matter? I'll write it any way you like? | 29:48 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Right. Doesn't matter, either way. It's all right. | 30:04 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could I ask you your date of birth please, ma'am? | 30:04 |
Doris Blanks Epps | December 10th, 1925. | 30:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And you're born in East Arcadia? | 30:13 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. | 30:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And your husband's name is Jay? | 30:14 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Richard. | 30:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Richard? Oh, I thought it was— | 30:19 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Jay. Richard Jay. | 30:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Epps. | 30:21 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 30:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And could you tell me his date of birth please, ma'am? | 30:28 |
Doris Blanks Epps | June the 1st, 1926. | 30:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 30:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | '27 I believe it is. | 30:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And where was he born, ma'am? | 30:36 |
Doris Blanks Epps | In South Carolina. I can't think of what place it is now. Stacey, you see football out there? | 30:41 |
Stacey | I hear him. | 30:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | You hear him? Well, tell him to come here a minute. | 30:59 |
Stacey | Okay. | 31:02 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Calls him football. I believe. Manning, South Carolina. Wait a minute, you better wait. | 31:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 31:08 |
Stacey | Football. | 31:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And am I right in thinking he was a longshoreman? | 31:11 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 31:13 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did he always work here in Wilmington while you were married? | 31:20 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. And then there. | 31:23 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What's your mother's name, Mrs. Epps? | 31:27 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Zenobia. | 31:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Zenobia. Okay. And do you know her— | 31:28 |
Stacey | I heard something, but that's not him. | 31:36 |
Doris Blanks Epps | That's not him? Okay. All right. | 31:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you know what her name was before she married? | 31:43 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Bibbs. | 31:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Bibbs. Okay. B-I-B-B-S | 31:47 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 31:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Do you know what year your mother was born? Her date of birth? | 31:50 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I sure don't. | 31:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No, that's fine. | 31:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I didn't know. | 31:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's okay. Do you know— | 31:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Are you drinking milk? Take it and go back in there before you to waste it? | 32:01 |
Stacey | I don't want to spill it, that's why. I don't want to spill it. | 32:03 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. Okay. Just hush. | 32:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you remember when she passed ma'am? | 32:03 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Can't even think of that. I know she passed in January, February one. Stop before that falls. That's going to fall. January, February about. Right now I can't think of it. | 32:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's fine. | 32:30 |
Doris Blanks Epps | But it's been about 25 years ago. | 32:30 |
Stacey | Mama, what's that on you? | 32:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Her name is the most important thing. | 32:34 |
Stacey | Mama, what's that on you? | 32:34 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Microphone. Now go sit down. | 32:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | We're recording. Was she also born in East Arcadia? | 32:40 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, I guess it is. East Arcadia, Sandy Field, about the same. | 32:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sand Field? | 32:51 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Sandy Field. | 32:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sandy Field. And what was your father's name ma'am? | 32:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Luther. | 33:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Luther? | 33:03 |
Stacey | Luther. You didn't tell me his first name, you didn't tell me. And you going to tell somebody else? You should be ashamed of yourself. | 33:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Well did you ask? | 33:03 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes, she did ask. | 33:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You did ask? Oh, okay. I was going to say if you didn't ask. | 33:21 |
Doris Blanks Epps | She did. She did. Yes. "Is your mama dead, your daddy dead. Granddaddy dead?" She wants to know. "All, your people dead mama?" | 33:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you tell me the names of your sisters please dear? | 33:39 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay, Mabelle. | 33:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | B-E-L-L-E? | 33:45 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. Stevens. And Eleazer Hines. | 33:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How does she spell her first name? | 33:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | E-L-E-A-Z-E-R. | 33:59 |
Stacey | And Ashley. Write her name down. | 33:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Hines. | 33:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Hines. Okay. And Ashley? | 33:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, that it. | 33:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 33:59 |
Doris Blanks Epps | That's all. | 34:18 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You had two— | 34:20 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. My oldest sister died. You didn't want her name, did you? | 34:21 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sure. | 34:24 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Willie. | 34:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Willie? And did she have a married name? | 34:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, she wasn't married. Willie Blanks. | 34:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. And were you the third child ma'am? | 34:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 34:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you give me the names and the dates of birth of your children, please Mrs. Epps? | 34:41 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Okay. Luther. | 34:45 |
Stacey | Y'all got that [indistinct 00:34:49]? | 34:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Luther. Just a little one sweetie. | 34:49 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Let's see. He's 40. | 34:55 |
Stacey | What's the name. Just tell me, just tell me. | 34:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Move now, I got to figure out something. Now go sit down. Luther's 40. Wait a minute. I think he's 45, 44, something like that. 44, I believe he is. | 35:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And your next? | 35:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Flora is—What I say he's 44? | 35:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Uh-huh. | 35:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | 42 I think he is. | 35:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And that's Flora? | 35:42 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Flora. | 35:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And does she have a married name? | 35:46 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, Robertson. | 35:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And— | 35:53 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Richard is 41, I believe. Yeah. And Norman must be, I need to go look it up. Norman I believe is 39, I think. Yeah. | 35:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 36:09 |
Doris Blanks Epps | And Robert is 25. | 36:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. How many grandchildren do you have Mrs. Epps? | 36:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Let's see. Flora got three, Norman got one, four, Robert's got two, six. | 36:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Six. So you just had the one girl? | 36:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Mm-hmm. | 36:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did you treat her any special way because she was the only girl? | 36:39 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, no. Really, she's not spoiled a bit. I think her husband spoiled her, but not as far as us. We didn't spoil. Of course all the boys love her now. They love her to death. They have a fit about her. | 36:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | They did the spoiling for you. | 37:08 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Yeah. | 37:08 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. You gave me the names of your churches. Are you a member of any organizations ma'am? Any— | 37:08 |
Doris Blanks Epps | NACDS, life member? | 37:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. When do you remember when you joined Mrs Epps? | 37:18 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Golly. I've been in over 25 years. | 37:20 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 37:24 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I haven't been a life member that long, but I've been in it about 25 years. | 37:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any other organizations that you're a part of? | 37:35 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I'm a union—Wait a minute, now wait a minute. Is it the FLL? No, I don't think it's the FLL Night's. Allied Services. | 37:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 37:58 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Union Allied Services Division. | 38:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Are there any other hobbies or things that you—I know that, as you say, you're on dialysis now. Were there any other hobbies? I think you said you sang in the choir? | 38:16 |
Doris Blanks Epps | At the church when I was up home. No, I don't, no more. I don't sing on it, not down here. | 38:25 |
Stacey | You just sang on the choir for Bible School. | 38:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Who thought she would've thought about that? We had a Bible School choir and I sung on the choir then. So that's what she's saying. You just sung on the choir when we had Bible School and that's true. | 38:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | All right. | 38:49 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh God, that girl. | 38:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So she knows. Okay. | 38:50 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. | 38:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Five years old. | 38:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. | 38:56 |
Stacey | Five years old girl. | 38:57 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's how old you are, right? | 38:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Five years old girl. That's a lady, not a girl. You the girl. | 38:58 |
Stacey | I'm talking to me. I'm talking to myself anyways. | 39:00 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, you talking to yourself girl. Okay. Okay. Take your bike and go outside and please go ahead. | 39:03 |
Stacey | No. | 39:10 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Take your bike and go outside. | 39:11 |
Stacey | The mosquitoes are biting me. | 39:11 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, I'm tell Richard, kill little mosquitoes. | 39:13 |
Stacey | Kill those mosquitoes. | 39:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | We ask people usually if there's any favorite Bible verse or hymn or another song or poem or saying that they like a lot that they want us to write for the record? | 39:22 |
Doris Blanks Epps | There's one that I practice more. Fret not thyself over evildoers. Evildoers shall be cut off. And I don't even know what—I like that better than I do anything else. It's one of my favorites. | 39:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Fret not thyself over evildoers. Evildoers— | 39:51 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Shall be cut off. | 39:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Shall be? | 39:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Cut off. | 39:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Cut off. | 39:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | It's one of my favorite. | 40:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you first learn that one Mrs. Epps? | 40:10 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Oh, I guess in Sunday School and church. I go to Sunday School a lot. Well, I don't go every Sunday morning, but I try to go quite often. So I've learned a whole lot more of them. But just one of my favorites because I've seen it work so well. Where people thought that they were doing you wrong and it came back on them. That's what I have taken it to be. People do wrong things to you. | 40:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | In the time of segregation, did you or anybody else have conflicts because of segregation? | 40:52 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, I've had it. Because I remember one time we had a conflict on the bus. I was going to work, at that time I was riding a bus, of course. Recent years I bought a car, so I would drive back and forth to work my last years. And there was a guy on there who would not move to the front of the bus. And so there were several of us on there going the same place out there where I work at. So I asked him to move and he wouldn't move. And so he wouldn't move and I went and sit on the front seat of the bus. | 41:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So this was a White man? | 41:46 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. | 41:47 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 41:47 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Get off there. Get off there. So he got hot. Oh, GD, I move. GD, I move. So at that time I wouldn't move. And so he said, "Get up, get up. I mean for you to get up, you're not going to sit ahead of me." I got my pass off. I told him, "If you come over here, I'll beat your behind, your A-S-S down to the ground." I said, "I'm not going to move." And I wouldn't move then. So everybody jumped up to fight him because we were going to beat his ass down good. Because I had asked him to move before then so I could sit down. He wouldn't do it. He sat back there and he wouldn't let us. So at that time—Don't put that sand down there. | 41:48 |
Stacey | I'm going to pick it up. | 42:23 |
Doris Blanks Epps | At that time you weren't supposed to sit ahead of them. They were supposed to sit in the front. So we got on out and went and sit on the front seat. So he went to the driver and the driver didn't say anything. Because I guess the driver was scared too because he felt like we'd beat him up too. But at that time he didn't say any more. | 42:25 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So did you stay seated in that seat? | 42:44 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yes. We stayed seated. Yeah, we did. | 42:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And no more— | 42:49 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No. No more confrontation. No, we didn't, until we got ready to get off. He didn't bother. | 42:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So the other people, the other Black people on the bus— | 42:57 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. Yeah. They joined in. We were all going to beat his ass down. | 43:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What did the other White people on the bus do then? | 43:05 |
Doris Blanks Epps | They didn't do anything. They didn't do anything. | 43:07 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Nothing at all? | 43:10 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Nope. They didn't. | 43:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Not for you, not against you? | 43:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | No, they didn't. Well, it was enough of us anyway. I think we really would've had something like a riot that morning. Because I was dealing with a bunch of young girls and these young people really don't care. I think if it had not been for the sakes of these young people, we would've still been where we were. But you see, this is how it came about. These young people, they rallied and rallied big time. And they didn't care. If they got hurt, they just got hurt. And see, this is how this stuff came about. That it came from younger people. Because I know in '63 my children went to Washington. I paid for them to go to. I couldn't go because I had to work. But I paid for two of my children to go to Washington on that bus, to that first march that they had. | 43:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | And my daughter and my son went to Washington to that first march they had, from here. And they went in the ACP. You couldn't march unless you went in the ACP. We used to march. I'd go down there and march. They had been arrested. And my daughter, the judge told me if she came down there again, he's going to put on the road. I told him, "That's all right. Put her on there. As long as you give her her education." | 44:03 |
Stacey | Mama, I got hurt. I was running. | 44:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Come here. | 44:31 |
Stacey | I was running. | 44:31 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Come here. Now, see I told you to put that glass up, didn't I? Gone and found it. Go in there and get a wash cloth. | 44:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So in 1960s you supported it? Your children? | 44:45 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. I supported it. I'd go and work and come back and go downtown and march. We'd march sometimes for a long time. Then when they would arrest somebody, we'd go down there and march. We're picking them, going in the stores and to sit down and eat. We would march when they arrested us. | 44:58 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I don't don't know whether you know. One of the guys that helped to integrate was from here. The McNeil guy. | 45:23 |
Rhonda Mawhood | McNeil, that's right. | 45:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah. He was from here. | 45:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Yes, I've heard of him. | 45:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I knew him. | 45:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. | 45:32 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yeah, the McNeil guy. He was from here. Was three of them. McNeil and two more I think it was. But he was from here and he was here not so long and he may have talk to you. Going to school, I think at ENT. I believe it was ENT. And within the first three within that sit down riot. | 45:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You say that you supported your children. How did most parents feel about their children's activities like that? | 46:03 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, when you working for—What saved me, what helped me, I was in a union. See, they can't terminate you. Quit when you're in a union— | 46:12 |
Doris Blanks Epps | —some true facts on you, that's the only way they can terminate you. See, my employment was through unionism and a lot of people were not in unions and they were afraid. Because even when they would arrest these children, they would be afraid to even go down there and bond them out. But I wasn't afraid. The reason I wasn't, because I was in the union and the union does a whole lot for you, so far as that concerned, you know? | 0:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hmm. | 0:25 |
Doris Blanks Epps | And there were a lot of people around here that were afraid and their children couldn't march. They wanted them to march, but they were afraid they would lose the jobs, and I'm sure they would have if the employer hadn't known it that their children were marching. So I wasn't afraid because I was in the union. | 0:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your husband agree with you on this issue, ma'am? | 0:44 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Yes. Yes, yes. He didn't ever go down to bond any of them out because he didn't—You know how men are. But I'd go down and bond them out, I'd go to the trial, too. At trial, I'd go down there to trial. So I was not a person that was afraid to talk, I would talk. | 0:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You mentioned the union and that that's an important thing. What else do you think gave you the courage to talk? | 1:06 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, I guess by me not being bound by having to stay on somebody else's place. We always had our own place and I was always independent. I was brought up independent, and I think this has a big bearing on you. If you were pushed down to start with it would've made a difference. See, we went to school, my mother made sure that we went to school. We all got a pretty fair education. On top of that, we did not have to be pushed down because of somebody else because we had our own little raggedy farm. So that meant a lot. It mean that we grew up independently. What little survival we did, we did it independently. So this helped whole lot. | 1:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mrs. Epps, if you were going to give advice to young people coming up now, based on your experience, what would you tell them? | 2:11 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, to try to go to school. One, the main characters. Schooling is one of the best things in the world. And don't stop till you go every step of the way you can go. | 2:22 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Because I'll tell you where they're making a big mistake—I have out here on this corner over here where they stand out here all night long and peddle drugs. Well, [indistinct 00:02:48] and some of them are coming along here looking like that, they're so small, they're just— | 2:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Skinny? | 2:53 |
Doris Blanks Epps | —skinny where they have taken these drugs and they're just taking them, selling them until the Blacks are going to fall apart, and there's no health for it until they go to get help. Some of them you going to find on the street dead somewhere because they, your body and your system can't stand it so much. | 2:54 |
Doris Blanks Epps | So the way they are mistreating themselves now, they're not only selling it, they're taking it themselves and they'll sell some and take the rest of it in order to get a fix for themselves. They're not doing the thing but killing themselves, they're killing themselves. This is the pitiful part about it. | 3:09 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Try to go to school and try to get a decent job. Gainful employment is one of the best things in the world. I couldn't sit here today if I had not gone, I say all the way, as far as I could in work because I get a check from the government and then I get a check from social security and I get a check from where I was employed. That helps me to survive, to keep from having to go back out there and work. | 3:29 |
Doris Blanks Epps | So that's the only thing that I can say, they just have to stop mistreating theirselves and go ahead on and try to go to whatever schooling they can get. There're better schools out there now than it has ever been and more ways to go than has ever been. | 3:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | So I just don't understand it. They just don't want to do nothing about it, don't want to do nothing. It's pathetic. Because I'm really sorry for some of them I see because they're not going to be here much longer. No, sir. If they don't change their lifestyle, they're not going to be here much longer because the wind's about to blow them away now, they're so small. That's true. Some of them look like that, they're so small. It's nothing but those drugs. | 4:13 |
Stacey | [indistinct 00:04:42] Band-aid. [indistinct 00:04:48]. | 4:42 |
Doris Blanks Epps | Well, I had some Band-aid, I don't know where it is. Okay. | 4:49 |
Stacey | [indistinct 00:04:53]. | 4:51 |
Doris Blanks Epps | I'll get some. | 4:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Thank you very much, Mrs. Epps. | 4:55 |
Doris Blanks Epps | You're welcome. | 4:56 |
Item Info
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