Ezell Johnson interview recording, 1993 July 21
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Ezell Juliette Johnson. I'm a native of Wilmington. I was born and reared here in Wilmington. I am one of eight children who was born to Thomas and Darkus Johnson. Two of the children died in infancy, so there were six of us who were reared as a family unit. We were grassroots people; very, very poor, but happy. As children, we really didn't know how poor we were because we were happy. | 0:03 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Before I began grade school, my father died, which left the burden of rearing six of us on my mother. Because we were so young, we really didn't know what burden she was struggling under because she never mentioned it, nor complained. | 0:46 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | That sister that you just saw again and I are the youngest of the six. All the other four are now deceased except she and I. | 1:08 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | but before I began grade school, when my sisters and brothers studied their lessons, usually at night, each had a station around a given table, large family table. At night, each put his or her books in a little pile and that's where he or she studied. Before I began school, I studied along with them. When I started school, I stayed in the first grade two weeks. Then, you met a Mrs. Hazel Millet on Sunday. It was her mother who took me across the schoolyard; I can close my eyes and see her now; to the basement of our church because the school got too crowded. | 1:21 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Mrs. Millet took me across the yard to the basement of our church. Our church was allowing Peabody to use its basements for additional space. | 2:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Peabody is? | 2:27 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Peabody School was my first school. | 2:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 2:32 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I stayed in the second grade there two weeks, then I was skipped to the third grade. So I stayed there the rest of that school year. At the end of that school year, I was skipped again. So I had been skipped twice in my life. When I was skipped that second time, they placed me in the room with a sister who was four years older than I. She and I stayed in the same room from then on, until we graduated from high school. So every time my mother got something for one, it was necessary that she got something for the two of us. | 2:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did it feel to be quite younger than your other classmates? | 3:24 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I don't know. They sort of spoiled me, but I managed. I kept up grade wise, I think, so that was what was considered more than anything else. At that time, the Board of Education allowed children to be skipped. But before I got out of elementary school, it was outlawed. There is no more skipping. Even after I began to work, I skipped some children, but now it's not done. | 3:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you a few questions about your neighborhood growing up. Was it a segregated neighborhood? | 4:06 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Everything here was segregated and a disadvantaged area of this city. But so far as I was concerned, I didn't know anything about, we just accepted a lot, especially after my father died. My mother, there was no fight in her, other than to keep us together. | 4:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was the street that you lived on? | 4:36 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Fanning Street. 1009 Fanning Street. All of my friends got to know, I lived at 1009 Fanning Street. It was in, as I have just intimated, it wasn't a place that you would choose to live in, but the people in that area were very educational minded and it seemed like the unaccepted rule was, if you just do this for your child, something that's nice, then I'm going to do it, too. That prevailed until I reached high school and after. | 4:39 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But I had my greatest disappointment when I finished high school because the majority of my classmates, as soon as they finished high school, they went to college. But I stayed out because of lack of finance. I stayed out of school four years before I went to college. The average friends of mine who did not go to college did not seem to have the burning desire that I kept constantly with me. I heard some friends one day discussing college and how one might, who didn't have the necessary means might work their way through school, so I followed that up and finally found out that I go could go to Elizabeth City State Teacher's College and work my way through school and that, I did. | 5:25 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I stayed there, at Elizabeth City, three consecutive summers and worked all those summers. We didn't see money. We never saw money, but we were given dollar credits for our work. So I stayed like this summer and all that was given me by way of money credit went towards the next year's finances, bill. So that's the way I got through college. | 6:28 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to go back and ask you some questions about your family. How did your mother manage raising you and working at the same time? | 7:02 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | She had never worked before my father died. My father was a railroad employee. He worked for the railroad. That brought in, supposedly, for those times, a substantial salary. But after he died, my mother had to leave home and work. I think often now of the obedience of children then and now. She would get up early or the evening before. I remember her cooking pans of biscuits. She would, we call it preserving. She would get peaches or pears and she would put them up, as we used to say, but she would put them in jars. She would put a jar out, one or the other jars of fruit. She says, "If you get hungry after," she always made breakfast for us before she left home. She said, "Eat biscuits and pears," or, "biscuits and peaches until I get home." And we did that. | 7:10 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | She says, we had a large or the circular front porch. She said, "If your friends come to see you, it would be all right, but do not carry them on the inside. If they want water, bring it to the porch." During those days as a pastime, we played jack rocks a lot. | 8:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 8:40 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | You know about jack rocks? | 8:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | I've heard of it, mm-hmm. | 8:42 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | The ball and the jack stones. She said, "If your ball rolls off the porch on the ground," she said, "you go get it, but don't leave the premises around the house." | 8:44 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So we did that. If it rolled, we would run down and get that ball and we had loads of fun. We accepted it because that was all we know, unlike the children of today. I think some of them, they don't respect the wishes of their parents as we did. We loved, we adored our mother. We thought everything she said was so highly truthful that we accepted it and we did it. | 8:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was she strict? | 9:29 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | We didn't think so, but after we grew up and the boys started looking at us, it was commonly known, "You can't go to Mrs. Johnson's house unless you're good," or, "You can't go to Mrs. Johnson's house unless you go to Saint Stephen's Church," which was not so and I didn't know it was circulated, but that was so. Children during those days were whipped. The parents used to whip them. She didn't abuse us by whipping. She had other ways to punish us, standing in the corner or, "You don't get to read this book today, you don't get to read that book today." | 9:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I look back now and admire her for having vision to look for enough, to not abuse us. There were five of us girls and one boy. He adored us and we adored him, but he would not let us spoil him. That's the way of the family unit. After we grew up, and say high school, and many parents allowed children to go and work on the beach, but she never would. She never would let us go. It's amazing how we got through on the small means that we had. All finished high school, but I was the only one who went to college. This is not braggadocio, it's just fact. I think it was something in me so strong that I just wanted to do it, plus the children all around me were going. | 10:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you, what type of values did your mother and your father try to instill in you? | 11:19 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, very, very high. I say they each had a station around the table at night to study. She almost made the older ones teach the younger ones and take care of the younger ones. We didn't run the street. I remember the superintendent, under whom I got my first job, the superintendent of schools, parents had a store, an all occasion store at the corner of my block where I live. In off times, I would hear him tell persons, "Miss Johnson's girls didn't run the street." To me, that said much. I think he had something to do with me getting my first job. I did not seek it. Again, this is not braggadocio, it's fact. I have never sought a job. It sought me. | 11:24 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So when it was time for me to, before it was time for me to graduate from Elizabeth City, persons, he and others were seeking me for a job, so I was happy. He still lives. He tells everybody, I'd give my right arm for Ezell. He's a Caucasian, but our families are real close. | 12:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to go back and ask you. Were there any White children in your neighborhood? | 12:59 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No, no. No. But his family, he and his sisters were in and out of our home constantly. | 13:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were growing up? | 13:12 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Hmm? | 13:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | When you were growing up? | 13:15 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yeah, when we were growing up because they had the store on the corner and they would come up the block and come to our home. He ofttimes loaned me books. Even after I got my job, he had a very sensitive camera and it was valuable. I had a need for one at one time. I said, "Hayward, let me use your camera." He did and every time I'd take it back he'd say, "No, take it back and keep it for a while. Take it back and keep it for a while." So as to your question specifically, there were no Whites. | 13:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you some questions about your high school. You went to Williston High School? | 14:00 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yeah, I went to Peabody. From Peabody, we walked about a mile to the next grade level to get to Williston. At that time, my mother was working to the hospital. So if this were home and this is the route to the hospital, my mother may have worked here at the hospital. So ofttimes, my mother, we could see her before we get to her, standing her with fruit in her hands to give to us on our ways to school. | 14:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | What hospital? What was the name of the hospital? | 14:28 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | James Walker Memorial Hospital. | 14:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 14:32 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | She was a seamstress there and worked there for years. Of course, after her health deteriorated, there was no pension for her. Whenever she had to stop, the money stopped. I don't really know how we got along, but we did. Even after I got to Elizabeth City, I've already said I worked, but I actually don't know how she did it; maintained a home and needs, clothing needs, food needs, and all that. | 14:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you, what was your high school like? | 15:12 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, it was the best. We had some of the best teachers, some of the most capable and caring teachers. They like to say now that Williston was the greatest school under the sun and I guess each would say that of his or her school, but it really was. The teachers got to know all of us as a total person and if there were problems, they would leave wherever they lived to go and check with the family [indistinct 00:15:49] out. I know there was a classmate of ours who lived beyond Fanning Street, in Low Grove, one of our classmates. He just didn't have the clothing and the other needs to continue school, so he said he was going to drop out. The principal and the teacher of our school stopped their duties and said, "You can't do this." Somehow or other, they found means to, so that he could stay in school and he graduated with our class. | 15:18 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was coincidental, but it was a strong plus that some of our daily school teachers also taught us Sunday school, so that was a reinforcement, back to back, that served as a high plus. In North Carolina especially, if you went to school in North Carolina and told the heads of that school, say Raleigh/Durham or wherever, Elizabeth City, wherever, if you, "Where did you go to school? Where are you from?" "I'm from Wilmington." "Did you graduate from Williston?" They expected you to perform well because we were so very well taught. | 16:26 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | During those days, a lot of the teachers even did not have transportation. I mean cars, so they would walk. They would walk the four areas of our city as a need arose to follow up some needed information about a child. | 17:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask, what activities were you involved in aside from academics? | 17:25 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | We had the high wire club. I know you don't know it, but it was supposed to be for children, or it invited children who performed academically on or above grade level. | 17:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Who sponsored that club? | 17:44 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Huh? | 17:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | Who sponsored that club? | 17:46 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | You spoke of favorite teachers. One of my favorite teachers was a Mrs. Bebe Leonard, L-E-O-N-A-R-D. They said I tried to act like her, tried to talk like her, tried to do everything like Mrs. Leonard. But she founded that club. She also was a member of St. Stephen's. I belonged to that club. I belonged to the French Club. I belonged to the Glee Club. I was not too much on athletics because I was long and lanky and not too agile, but I was sort of clumsy, skinny as I was. I was afraid of scarring my knees, so I was not the athletic type. | 17:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | What type of activities did the high wire club do? | 18:40 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It encouraged high scholastic attainment. It encouraged us to be all around persons. It encouraged us to join other clubs of the school. We could not, Mom wouldn't let us get overloaded with activities because she thought the basics came first and she saw that we got them, nor would she let us join too many activities that required going out at night. We were sheltered. | 18:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have social clubs? | 19:27 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Huh? | 19:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they have social clubs there and things like that? | 19:28 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I can't remember too many social clubs, but if you got in that High Wire Club, you had achieved something. Of course, then and now, I just love music. Something else I didn't say, that as poor as my mother was, especially after my father died, she sent most of us girls to take piano. | 19:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Really? | 20:00 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Mm-hmm, and we went because that 50 cents when you send four, so $2.00. She sent each of us until each proved to her, "Piano isn't for me." | 20:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you keep on playing? | 20:17 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes, I played. I went to get lessons until I went to college. The person who was over the music department told me, at Elizabeth City. We had to go for prayer meeting, Elizabeth City, every Wednesday. Children would hide, they would get up on their clothes closets and the others would take blankets to keep from going to prayer meeting, get up on top of the clothes closet and we'd pile them over with blankets. We did a lot of terrible, stupid things. | 20:19 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But I went. So she said, "If you play for a prayer meeting for me, I will give you piano." So a sort of reciprocal thing. I did it for a while. Then, when I would be inside practicing, I'd look out and see the others on the campus, even me, because I was sort of quiet. I said, "I don't want to be in here, sitting, practicing. I want to be out there with them." I told her, but it was one of the biggest mistakes that I made, to not do that. | 21:00 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I haven't followed that greatly, but I play hymns. I play simple things. | 21:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you more. Could you talk more about St. Stephen's and what role did the church play in your growing up? | 21:44 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, forever. The kids in a radius of about four square blocks always said, "Isel and her family, those children, they go to school, they go to church." So of course, most of us were walking at that time, so it was circuitous route from home to church. I began early playing for the Sunday school and graduated from that playing for the young people meeting. Then to the junior choir and then to the senior choir, in conjunction with another person, Arthur Berle Stewart. | 21:49 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Our church served as a place to train us about religious activities, yes. That was its first and basic purpose for being. But it was also a social place for us to go because we saw our friends. Every month, the Sunday school gave a "frolly". It was something like a bizarre, up on the fourth floor. Did you get up there, on the fourth floor? | 22:32 |
Sonya Ramsey | Mm-hmm. | 23:04 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And every organization of the church was privileged to have a booth. The booth may have sold simple things or it may have made candy and gave us, and taught us games. We really had a glowing. I wouldn't give anything for my early religious training as well as my school training. | 23:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I just had one more question before we move on to your college experiences. I wanted to ask, do you have any remembrances of your grandparents? | 23:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | None. I have no memory of either of our grandparents and that, I regret so very, very much. But my parents were not North Carolinians. They came here from South Carolina. | 23:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. What part of South Carolina? | 23:52 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Some place called Pine Wood. We have been down there. When my father died, it was something. We thought it was like a picnic. It was a new experience. We thought it was something to be joyous about. | 23:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | How old were you? | 24:08 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was the first time, I was five. | 24:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 24:14 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was the first time I had been on a train. I've already said that he worked at the railroad. So we could, my mother could carry his body back to his home, and all of us, for free because he was a railroad employee. But I thought it was something great, all this attention that everybody was giving us. | 24:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you about Wilmington. When you were growing up, what was race relations like in Wilmington? | 24:41 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | We saw White people, but we didn't come that much in contact with them, other than Haywood and his family. All the places were, the public places were segregated. We couldn't drink at a given fountain, of our own will, drink at a given fountain. The toilet facilities were captioned, Whites, Negroes. The food counters, but as a child, it was something that I just accepted. We didn't have too many Negroes then who stepped out and fought for the betterment of the majority of us. | 24:49 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But later, there was a doctor, a Dr. Hubert Eaton, Negro doctor who, all of his children except the baby were out of school, but he allowed himself and his family allowed him to use his baby daughter as a subject to fight segregation. He fought for, first I remember, for lunch, to have hot lunches in the schools. He fought for integration. He wrote a book, see that book that says, "Every Man Can Try"? Every Man Should Try. It was he who authored that book. | 25:39 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So it was he who stepped forward and fought real diligently for integration. That was a changing point for those of us in the races. It seems that the accepted premise was, "You're a Negro. That's your place. You stay there." Most of us just conformed. | 26:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Well, people that broke those rules, what would happen to them? | 27:00 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Hmm? | 27:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | For people that broke those rules, went to the White water fountain? | 27:04 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | There was nothing public that I know of, public beating, like in Roots or like that. But even the men, seemed like the resistance was not that great. It was just something that you accepted until Dr. Eaton. Then others later began to join him and it changed. Even when I went over to my first job as a principal of this school. | 27:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 27:40 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I've lost my train of thought. Oh, they built that school and it was strategically built between two housing project, a housing project on that side and that side. It served also the inner periphery of that environment. That school was built to offset integration because the children of a given project are usually children of unmarried young women, so there were many. But there were those who did not want the children of that neighborhood in the better White school, so they built that school. | 27:41 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | All of my requests, I say all because all of my major requests, they granted to keep me happy and to keep the children in the setting. It worked for one or two years, but some wise Negroes saw through it and they said, "We want better than this." We had all new facilities, all new pieces of equipment. To me, they were all new teachers, but they underlined that this is a courtyard, this is a school. But in the center, the very center of the school was a courtyard. The PTA embellished it with furniture and flowers. It was one of the best equipped Negro schools in our city. But their hidden motive was to keep you happy, keep you there, keep these children out of some of our prestigious schools. | 28:34 |
Sonya Ramsey | The early activity. | 29:41 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | This was the secretary's office and this was the principal's office. It was suitably built, at first, for children K through six, no, K through four, but before I left there, they added fifth and sixth grade. | 29:42 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | These spell out some of the activities. I found out this, that these parents, although most of these young ladies were unwed mothers, they had pride. They seemed like they were starved for leadership and they worked well. They had activities like Brave Mother. It was a money raising project. We had May Day, things like that. They don't have them anymore. I think a lot of our Negro children have missed the privilege of preforming. | 30:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | What was May Day like? | 30:47 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | May Day was the first day of May. Each class, they joined together. These are the same, I think. No, this one's different. As a grade group or as an individual group, the children came together and they spoke. They had little dances. They had marching. It gave them a chance for self-expression. | 30:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 31:11 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Even then, we programmed a lot. We pointed up certain days like Washington's birthday or Mary McLeod Bethune's contributions to the Negro. It gave the children a chance to express self, so it gave them a chance to talk. I think they needed that, but they don't do it anymore. | 31:15 |
Sonya Ramsey | I had to go back and ask you about, why did you select Elizabeth City State College? | 31:45 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Why did I do what? | 31:52 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you select Elizabeth City State College? | 31:52 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I didn't elect it. It was a place that I heard of that I could go to work to help myself get through school. I don't know if I would have, the school offered me much and it's the bridge that helped me to get across. I wanted to go to Bennett. You know Bennett? | 31:53 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. | 32:11 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Uh-huh, but I couldn't even think about Bennett because of the money barrier. I don't know that I would have chosen Elizabeth City. I've given the reason, a partial reason. But I got along well, so well until, when I finished college that summer, I was invited back to teach summer school and I taught summer school there. It frightened me to death because I was teaching adults. But I got along well. I taught three summers. | 32:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, okay. | 32:46 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | As an auxiliary, this person is a [indistinct 00:32:55] and she examined our children so that's health side of it. On Arbor Day, we planted, that's Isel Johnson. This is Isel Johnson. But we had Arbor Day, we planted trees and did things of that sort. This is, we doctors, Negroes and Caucasian doctors came in at the beginning of different school years to examine the children's eyes, ears, hearing and like that. This is another nurse examining a child. | 32:50 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Most of those things have been dropped. In many ways, it seems that we are going backwards. | 33:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | In what ways? | 33:43 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And the children, although they were from that poor neighborhood, came from the projects, the schools knew and we talked about it often as a faculty. We taught them how to appreciate and preserve things. This, "You had a hand on the wall. Pretty wall. Don't touch the walls." Oftentimes, even in the evening, the children did not want to go home. They wanted to stay at school. I say, "You must go home. Your mother is looking for you and she wants to know where you are. Now, if you go there and she tells you," which I almost thought that she would, "you can come back, you come back." But I said, "It's time for school to be out. She's expecting you, so first you go home." | 33:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask, you were at Elizabeth City State during the summers, or in the whole year, or just during the summers? | 34:31 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, I stayed there four years, but ofttimes, I stayed there year round because when school was out, I didn't go home. I stayed there and worked, so that whatever credit was given me would go on the next year. | 34:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | What did you decide to major in? | 34:51 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was not as highly departmentalized as it is now, so in general primary education. Of course, later I took specifics. I went to Elizabeth City. I went to Chapel Hill. I went to the University of Pittsburgh because two of my older sisters and my brother live there, so I could lodge and eat free. So I went to the University of Pittsburgh, University of Chicago. I was then helping myself. I would work in winters and save for the summer, or go to the bank and borrow money to keep sending myself on. | 34:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | And Elizabeth City State, what activities were you involved in there besides academics? | 35:51 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Glee Club, mostly, scholastic clubs, drama clubs. | 35:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | You were in the drama club? | 36:03 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Drama. | 36:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were you in plays? | 36:06 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes. Yes. I was especially interested in speaking, that sort of thing. | 36:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you join any other social clubs or did you join a sorority there? | 36:17 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No. At that time, Elizabeth City did not have sororities. But since then, here I joined a sorority, AKA sorority. | 36:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | AKA? | 36:35 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Mm-hmm. | 36:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask. What was the social life and the dating life there at Elizabeth City? | 36:37 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was fairly good for that time. When I first went there, imagine this. I don't think you may have heard of it. We never danced face to face. You would get in front of the young man with the appreciable distance between and he started out. You stepped forward and he started guiding and he was behind you. | 36:42 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. | 37:05 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was quite strange to me, but we humans are adaptable and we got used to it. No, no. You did not face each other because you weren't supposed to touch that much. But before I left there, students were dancing face to face. | 37:06 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that was a big change. | 37:26 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | A big change, a big change. Now, Elizabeth City's doing quite well. I must tell you this. The university, a Dr. Wagner, who was the Chancellor of UNCW, when he was inaugurated, he wrote all, I guess all, all the presidents of state institutions, especially Negro institutions, and invited them to be a part of his academic procession. A Dr. Thorpe was president of Elizabeth City, who wrote to say that he thanked him for the invitation, but he could not come. | 37:26 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So then I got this letter from Dr. Thorpe, whom I didn't even know. I knew he was named the president. If I would take his place in the academic procession. I have some pictures around here, for him. That made me smile and I was pleased to do that. | 38:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. What role did Elizabeth City State play in your development? | 38:38 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | In my development? | 38:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. | 38:45 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, a basic part because I've already said it was a bridge that gave me an opportunity to do the things that I did subsequently. Although it was a poor school because Elizabeth City catered to children whose parents didn't have a lot of money. It came from, I didn't know it until I got there, but their parents depended on farming because some of the children were even late getting to school a given fall because they were still helping their parents harvest crops, et cetera. | 38:46 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | A young lady told a story, a facetious one. Said she went home one summer and her daddy says, "Come on, Fanny, and help me drop peas." That was an expression that I didn't even know. I said, "What is dropping peas?" Plant peas. So she said, "Oh, Daddy, I don't know how to drop no peas. I don't feel like dropping any peas." So he says, "I've sent you to school these two or three years," however many years it actually was, "and you mean to tell me they didn't even teach you how to drop peas?" So she always told that joke and we laughed about it. | 39:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you adjust going to a more rural area coming from a bigger city? | 40:14 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | How did I did what? | 40:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you adjust to coming to a more smaller town coming from a bigger city? | 40:20 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was all right. We didn't get out that much. You mean during Elizabeth City? | 40:26 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah. | 40:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | We had to sign out to go to town. Sign out to go up to shop and sign back in when you were supposed to be in. I guess I was accepting. I didn't make that many waves, but there were some girls who did. They bucked it and got out and had fun, whatever else. Did you do all your four years in Howard? | 40:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yeah, mm-hmm. | 41:00 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | You didn't choose to go to [indistinct 00:41:05]? | 41:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh. Is there anything else that you wanted to add about Elizabeth City? | 41:05 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No, let me see. I went to Elizabeth City undergraduate school. I went to those schools that I've named for graduate work. I had doctorate insight, but my mother took sick. I remember the year that she took sick and the oldest sisters and brothers say, "You stay on and go to school. We'll go home." But I said no. My mother was sick, which was unusual because she had to be sick sometimes, but we didn't know it. | 41:11 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So I came on home. I think I was in something like in sight of seven or nine lacking hours to get the doctorate. I never have gone back. | 41:50 |
Sonya Ramsey | I guess we can move on to your first teaching job. You said they selected you. How did that work? | 42:04 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I came home one summer for something. When I got back there, a scout had been there looking for teachers and they gave my name as a likely person. So I taught three years away from home. | 42:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Where did you teach? | 42:31 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Washington County. A place called Roper, North Carolina. | 42:33 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 42:37 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Mm-hmm. That cut into the finances that could have come home because, you see, I had to pay for board and lodging. All during those three years, I was interested in trying to come home. One real hot summer day, the principal of Peabody School, that school right behind St. Stephen, the principal came and offered me a job. | 42:38 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So I stayed there, stayed at Peabody until a supervisor one day walked in and said, "Miss Johnson, the superintendent wants to see you," and it scared me to death. I said, "For what?" You think of the sins of, "What did I do?" He said he didn't know, but he did, but he didn't tell me. So I says, "Let me go home and change my shoes," because I had on flats and I thought if I could fuss up a little bit, I should. He says, "No," he said, "As soon as you excuse the children, you come on over to the central office." | 43:07 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It really frightened me. When I went over, he asked. We had, had a lady principal at Howell. No, at — Yes. No, this was at Peabody, but she was ill and they were talking about replacing her, and Howell was in the process of being built. So he said, "We wondered if you would accept to be principal of the new school that is being built." I told him no. No, no, no. | 43:47 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you say no? | 44:22 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I wasn't interested at all. He said, "What?" I said, "No." He said, "Why?" I said, "I like the presence of small children." The small children pat you all over trying to get your attention, "Miss Johnson, Miss Johnson." He said, "You'll have the attention of hundreds more." I said, "No, I just don't want it." I had never thought about it. | 44:24 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So he says, "I don't want you, nor do I expect you to give me a definitive yes or no at this time." He said, "Go home and think about it and talk to your people about it." I said, "When I come back, I think it's still going to be no." But when I got home, my people, they thought it was something. I still wasn't jumping up and down about it, but then I had a Negro doctor, a Dr. Samuel Gray, who we were, my whole family, we were very close to him and I told him about it. He thought it was something out of this world. | 44:47 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But you see, there weren't too many Negro principals at that time, especially women. | 45:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was this the early 1960s? | 45:42 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was in the '60s. I went over there in 1963 during the time of all the rioting and the marches, et cetera, et cetera. So Dr. Gray, plus my own family, talked me into accepting. We'll be with you. We'll do this. We'll do that. Each did. Each was a great support. | 45:44 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So I went over. It was quite, quite challenging. I had a lot of surprises both ways, because I had not even thought of it, so I had no way of thinking of the lacks, the things that you did not have in the school. There was no state money that was given to you to buy like a curtain for the stage or to buy other needs, furnishings for the courtyard. We had to, the PTA did raise moneys to get the things that we really needed, even some pieces of equipment. The larger pieces of equipment that were needed, the Board of Education did supply. I had very, very good Negro— | 46:06 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | —then, and I guess it is now, that the Whites got what they needed and wanted first, and oftentimes we didn't even know to ask for. | 0:01 |
Sonya Ramsey | That's what I was going to ask you. | 0:10 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So I'm remembering, especially Mr. Gobel called, he said, "Oh, do you have flags for each classroom?" "Flags for each classroom? No." "Well call Mr. So-and-so now and ask him if you may have as many flags as you need." And he did this constantly, and I love him now for it. And those men, they took care of me. They teased me a lot. They teased me a whole lot. "Ms. Johnson, you look like you need a joke today." I said, "No, I don't need any joke." "Well, you aren't smiling." And I would smile, said, "Well, we going tell it anyway." And whenever I look I would be in the center, they'd all circle around me and I'd be in the center. I said, "If you tell an off colored joke here today, I'm going to scream right here." And they would proceed to tell the joke, but they were never smutty and low, but they would be funny related to something that had happened recently. | 0:11 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask, did you ever as a female principal face any problems because you were a woman when you were managing? | 1:12 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, a lot. Because when we went into that new school, the street around the school was not paved—That's all right. All around, the roads were not paved. And we didn't have a curtain, we didn't have a cafeteria. So I was constantly going to the mayor and to the city commissioners and to the Board of Education asking for things for the children that would help them to grow better physically and academically. I remember going down to the mayor, and I have seen this during the cold winters and it rained a lot. Remember now that the street was not paved and there were big potholes, puddles. And I have seen a little first-grader perhaps step in a puddle and that puddle would suck his shoe and his socks off. And these are little children, they don't know how to maybe step from this dry mound to that one. So they stepped in it and pulled it out. And I went down and told the mayor and those things like that, and then the street paving came to be and other things like that. | 1:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they respect you? | 2:43 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And they were White. To a degree. I've already said that they tried to do things to appease me, to keep me happy, to keep me—not me only, but the children in that city. So in some matter of time, the streets were all around, were paved, and so the puddles went and we got the curtain. Things like that. Does that answer your question? | 2:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did you get along with your teachers? And thank you. | 3:12 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Fairly well. There were some, you see my first set of teachers, principals in the other already established schools, if you are asked to get rid of some of your teachers and send them over here, some schools gave their teachers a privilege to go. Other principals chose them, "You go to the new school." And if that happened naturally, he was not going to get rid of his better teachers. So I got some that I would not have chosen and others, but I got some very, very good teachers also, and I got along very, very well with them. You ask about integration beginning of '64, '65 onward, the faculty was integrated and we got along very, very, very well. I'm not saying we were without entirely some disagreements or whatever you would wish to call it, but nothing major. | 3:16 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to go back and ask you a question about when you taught in Roper, what was that school like where you taught? | 4:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Very rural, very different. A lot of things that they did were totally unfamiliar to me. It was a farming area and the children were poor, but they were proud. Very clean persons. They had ways of doing things, that to me was very strange. | 4:36 |
Sonya Ramsey | What do you mean? | 5:07 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | My land lady did come in a room of her house to say, "Ms. Johnson, may I borrow some black cotton?" I looked at her, "Black cotton?" All the cotton that I've ever heard of was white. So when we boiled it down, when she was talking about thread, black thread. And little things like that. I can't remember. I spent a long time. But I had the privilege of living with a family that had values. At that time had, she had a son who was in A&T. So she had high educational values, and they were nice clean people. But all of the things that perhaps that I could relate to you that I would call negative things, I think helped to make me stronger in some way or the other | 5:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did that school have adequate facilities? | 6:18 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | The barest. | 6:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | How many grades did you teach when you were there? | 6:24 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I think it was something like one through 12, but I'm trying to remember. It spanned a lot of grades. It was a large wooden building. And the principal, it was a great coincidence, he said he was born and had lived in Wilmington and I never heard of him. But when I came back home and asked persons about him, some remembered his name. So it was the truth. | 6:27 |
Sonya Ramsey | And then you went to Peabody. And what was that school like? | 7:03 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, it was home. It was a joyous occasion when Mr. McDonald came and offered me a job, and I was very happy because I was coming home. And then persons just took me under their wing and helped me. Most places, most all of them, places and persons just helped me greatly. And I hope I showed gratitude by doing whatever I tried to do as well as I could. | 7:09 |
Sonya Ramsey | I'm guess, what values did you try to instill in your students? | 7:47 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | In my students? Studying hard. It was very delightful to me, and even sometimes in the recent last 10 or 12 years, the teachers, you would go through this school, and then when you reach another grade level, you would go to another school. And the same Ms. Smullett that you may have talked to Sunday said, "Reach the divide to get your children." For when they left you—Who was your teacher? I taught fourth grade for eons. And when they went oh to a school called Dudley, those teachers would vie to get my children because they said that they thought they taught were well. And to me, it was delightful to hear it. | 7:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did. When did you join your sorority? Did you join when you were in college? | 8:47 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | In '52. | 8:51 |
Sonya Ramsey | In '52? Why did you select that sorority above the other ones? | 8:53 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Say what? | 8:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Why did you select your sorority above the others? | 8:57 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | They selected me, and I think I lost friends until this day because the Deltas were, I hear vying for me too. And I remember the Deltas invited me to a Founder's Day in a home, and I went, but that Founder's Day, in an underlying way, was supposed to be, if you went, it was supposed to be showing interest in becoming a member. And my mother, she didn't know too much about sororities, but when she got the newspapers—I did not say, later she became very arthritic and she stayed in the housebound. 15 years I authorized some of those [indistinct 00:09:47]. But we would get all the newspapers like the Baltimore, American, the Afro, we'd get all the Negro newspapers, and she would read them and she would say, "I would like for you to be a member of this. I'd like for you to be a member of that, blah, blah, blah." | 8:59 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And I really showed no interest in being a Delta, but they did invite me to that Founder's Day, and I didn't know that it was tantamount to saying, "I want to be a Delta." So I knew I wanted always to be an AKA. So whenever they invited me, then I finally did not elect to join their sorority. I think I caused enemies maybe until this day. | 10:03 |
Sonya Ramsey | But you made new friends too though, didn't you? | 10:36 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh yes, the Deltas, oh yeah. Now some lady Sunday came up to me, and she said, "Ms. Johnson." I looked back, I said, "Yes?" She said, "You don't know me." She said, but somebody in the back told her to speak to the lady in the green hats because she's an AKA. I said, "Yes I am." She says, "Well, I am negotiating to buy a home here, and my husband and I," he was with her, "Anticipate moving here and they tell me, you're an AKA." She repeated. I said, "Well, yes I am." She says, "Well, I see your house over there." It was the house right across the corner. I said, "Yes, we're in the process of repairing it." And she was a true AKA because she says, "We say we help each other and I just want you to know me and I'm moving around from church to church, and I may join this church." And so I tried to be as cordial. I said, "Please do come on. We'll be happy to have you." And we exchanged addresses. | 10:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Was your initiation period a long period or was it— | 11:44 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes, it was long and difficult and frightful, but a lot of it was all through jest. But anyway, those of us who were in the program to become, we were afraid, and some of those same top-notch teachers from Williston were officers of the AKA sorority. | 11:48 |
Sonya Ramsey | After you became a member, what qualities did you look for in women that you wanted— | 12:16 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | In membership? I tell you now, I'll say this quickly, the memberships, the expectations, the qualifications have deteriorated. | 12:22 |
Sonya Ramsey | You think so? | 12:35 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes. I look around at some people who are now members who never have gotten it. Is that you? Do you hear that much? | 12:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | Yes, we do. | 12:51 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And then so far as initiation is concerned, the national organization has outlawed some things that they used to do on becoming a member. And it's a wide chasm between then and now. | 12:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask— | 13:18 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But they're still tops, or what present they has to offer. | 13:18 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask— | 13:23 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Are you a sorority person? | 13:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | I'm a Delta, but that's okay. | 13:24 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, I'm sorry. | 13:24 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh, that's all my aunt's an AKA. | 13:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, have you met many here? | 13:31 |
Sonya Ramsey | Met quite a few of both. So I wanted to ask, what activities did your sorority do during the time of segregation when— | 13:34 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | During segregation? | 13:43 |
Sonya Ramsey | During that time period? | 13:45 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was sort of muted as I remember. There wasn't too many outstanding, but we are a service organization and we give children clothing and shoes. We had a shoe bank, we had a clothing bank. We give scholarships. Now more than ever that I would like to sort of boast about, we give scholarship. | 13:46 |
Sonya Ramsey | During that time period, did you have debutante balls and things like that? | 14:15 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | We have a debutante ball used to. That used to be really something. I have pictures up in the attic there someplace. And to become a debutante time was something, to be chosen. | 14:20 |
Sonya Ramsey | How did one get to be chosen? | 14:38 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | First, your academic grades had to be a given, not below a certain average. And social wise, you had to be A+. You were a ladylike woman. And of course then the money angle came in. They brought in money, they gave activities, and the person who brought in the greater amount of money was chosen as queen of the debutante ball. And we thought we really picked the cream of the crop, and I'm guess you would say the—do you have a Jabberwalk, you know that word? I guess they would say the same thing. | 14:40 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask, aside from the sororities, were there any other social clubs that you belonged to? | 15:46 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | What? | 15:55 |
Sonya Ramsey | Aside from your sorority activity, were there any other clubs that you belonged to? | 15:56 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, my high school class, I was a member. I'm not as strong a member as I once was, but I belonged to that. And I was an Elk at one time. Still am, but not too many in that area. | 16:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | What activities did the Elks do? | 16:26 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, it was highly social. We met and it was sort of like a hen party, and we had goals and we also gave money to scholarships. | 16:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | And how did they select their members to become—how were you selected? | 16:40 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | It was mostly by some member who belonged gave your name in, and if the majority of the others said yes or whatever, you became a member. | 16:44 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask, I guess just a general question about Wilmington. Were there big differences among people among like light skinned Blacks and darker skinned Blacks and things like that? | 16:58 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | That? I'm not understanding your question. | 17:08 |
Sonya Ramsey | Were there any friction in Wilmington between lighter-skinned Blacks— | 17:11 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | There was a group of people called the Wilmington 10, Ben Chavis, you've heard about that. And he and eight or nine others, they called them the Wilmington 10. He came down to see if he could create more peace between the races, and incidentally he was at St. Stephen in May of '93. And that place upstairs and down was packed, you couldn't get a seat. So yes, there was high friction. But as time developed, I understand that he was sent here to try to help create better race relations. | 17:16 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But it was something because during the process, buildings were burned, a Caucasian was shot and they put his body in the back of a—this is during my time, I remember. They put his body in the back of a pickup truck and they drove him—It was awful. And those who were fighters holed up in one of our better Negro churches. And the people of the neighborhood feared for their lives. It was something. But Ben Chavis was put in jail, and one White female joined the 9010. So she was with them all through the struggles and they holed up in that church and had guns and knives and other things to fight with. But Ben Chavis was jailed and he served his time. He's out now. And I know you know that he is the head of the NAACP. Oh yes, we've had our friction. | 18:02 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask you, was there any friction among Blacks themselves based on skin shade? | 19:16 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well more now— | 19:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | Based on lighter-skinned Blacks, did they see more favoritism than darker-skinned Blacks and things? Did you notice that? | 19:23 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I didn't understand. | 19:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you notice when you were teaching in some of the organizations that there was preferential treatment given to lighter-skinned Blacks over darker-skinned Blacks? | 19:30 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes, because even when they said, "We're going to integrate the schools and we're going take some Negro teachers out of this school and send them to that school, or takes Negros out of this school and send them to become faculty members of a majority White school." They did take the lighter skinned Negroes first to send them to the White school. And moreover, they took some of the teachers with the better minds and put them in the White schools, and that hurt the Negroes program of teaching and learning greatly. It's true that some of our own Negro teachers are accused of favoring the lighter child, even now, and it was not right then, it's just not right now. I really feel intrinsically within myself that I was not guilty of that. It seems rather that if I had preferential feelings, it was towards the child who didn't have, or the child who didn't look. | 19:40 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Maybe I was thinking about my own upbringing, I don't know. But I never talk about my upbringing unless somebody like you all ask about it. Because really my family and I, we were accepted and I remember my mother, although we didn't have—I remember we would get ready and go to bed and here's a dirty dress by the time I get up in the morning, or have gone to bed and that dress was washed and thrown over the back of a chair, near a heater, but the next morning when I got up that morning, that dress was ironed. It was clean for me to wear the school. And during those days when I was in grade school and high school, we programmed a lot. And it was an honor to be chosen to be in programs, and oftentimes they called for costumes. And I don't know where mom got the money, but whatever was asked, she got it. Somehow we had it. She did so. And I think that helped her. | 21:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Outside of teaching, did you notice if there was preferential treatment given to light skin? | 22:11 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes, it seemed it was all over. Seemed like it was just that way. But now, and during that time, it seemed like there were a lot of lighter-skinned children. Lighter, darker, brown, all the way down. But now have you noticed that there seem like the race is tapering off? I don't see as many real light, light children. The schoolrooms used to be filled with them. | 22:19 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did they ever get any negative treatment because they might have looked White or things like that? | 22:51 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Did who get— | 22:57 |
Sonya Ramsey | They looked so light-skinned, did they— | 22:58 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Did they what? | 23:00 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did you ever hear of them receiving any negative treatment because they looked White? | 23:01 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No, I see what you're saying. See, it could have worked both ways. No. And now I had a dear friend in college, she was light, but some of the darker children resented, "You're Black so-and-so." Used to call each other. She disdained, I think being as light as she was. She was sweet, seemed like she was trying to overcome or maybe to compensate that, "You think I think I'm better because I'm light." But her name was Romaine. I'll never forget her. | 23:07 |
Sonya Ramsey | Do you ever know anyone that tried to pass for White? | 23:47 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No, but I tell you, I had this experience going from here to Elizabeth City, going to school. I had to travel from here mostly by way of bus to get to Elizabeth City. And at some point, a very, very fair man got on the bus and it was true then, when you got on the bus like Rosa Parks, you went to the back. That was the truth. So well, he got on and he was making it—this very, very light person, making it to the back. So the bus driver is driving and I think he's looking through his rearview mirror. And so after a while he started doing this. If he's driving, he's calling him to come up to the front. And so the man appeared to be ignoring him or something and the driver thought he was ignoring. So he didn't respond to this, "Come on up." | 23:51 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So he said, "You there, come on, sit up here." He says, "You supposed to sit up here." He says, I think he had tobacco in jaws or something. He said, "No, I's a nigger." And everybody on the bus just rolled. He said, "No, I's a nigger." He was real fair. You couldn't have told him. Isn't that something? Have you ever had any experiences? | 24:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Not like that, but we've heard stories like that. I guess I wanted to move on and ask, is there anything you wanted to add about your teaching experience before you became a part— | 25:26 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I just love children and I think they love me. Many of them are grown now and they come up and it's most embarrassing to me when they know me and I have forgotten them. But I try not to let them know that I may have forgotten them. Sometimes I can look after them and I can't see anything I remember but the little big eyes and they stick out, say, "Oh, you are so-and-so." But I just adore them. At our house on Fanning Street, used to stay filled with children. | 25:37 |
Sonya Ramsey | I wanted to ask— | 26:13 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And they love you because there's a guy at our church, he calls me, "Mama," and a lot of the children doing that. They thought of you as their mother. And he calls me, "Mama." Not the slang. He says, "Hey mama." And not the slang way. | 26:14 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask, as you became a principal. How did you develop your management style? | 26:35 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, I was advised when I was going into principalship or when they asked me to become principal, they gave me a privilege to choose some of my teachers. But I was told, "Do not choose any of your friends." And the superintendent told me why. He said after some point, he was given a lead job, and some of his friends came in and after they came in, they wanted his job among other things. He told me that. But although I tried to be very flexible and fair, you have to let them know. And you see, it wasn't long before then that I was one of them, so it was a little difficult to be there—but you had to be fair and very firm. Because if you were not fair, the others who you may have given preferential treatment were always looking. | 26:42 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | So you had to be firm and fair. And in my mind, I used to tell the faculty often, I said, "Treat and teach each child who sits before you each day as if each child was your own. Treat each child and teach him as if he were your own." And I'm sure if each child or any of them, if they were your own, you would want them well taught. And discipline was high with me because I was a woman and the people had a tendency to sometimes mistake kindness for weakness. So you had to make a difference in your own way for whatever the occasion was, to let them know this is not weakness, this is an attempt to be kind. And there were those who bucked it. I had a teacher who had two children in high school, and she was always getting to work late. | 27:48 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And she had a daughter who had a nice suite of hair, long, and she would take that daughter in front of her class and comb her hair mornings because she was late. And it came to my attention, and we had a showdown about that. There are other things that I could mention. But in your own way, you have to get over to your faculty, not in a way that's braggadocios or condescending, that they sent me here to be a leader. Because everything that happens, I mean everything, I am responsible. If something happens on the remotest corner of the school yard, I am responsible, if I'm not there even. So I'd have to let them know that if I'm going to be responsible for everything, and I would accept it. | 29:04 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Now, even up at the church, I had an occasion to tell Reverend Calhoun, he said, "I want you and two other persons to be in charge of this book." Well see, nobody told us exactly what to do like 1, 2, 3 in order. No, nobody told us that. So when you got the book, you did what you thought you should do. And when I got it, I did what I thought should be done, the way too. So there were three, I says, "Well, I would like to ask off of this group because it is not organized. All of us are not doing the same thing." | 30:13 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I says, "I would like to make a recommendation that one person do the book and then that one person would be responsible for all the pluses and the minuses." So that's the way we are doing it. Now, the same thing at school. We had faculty meetings every Wednesday and we had called the meetings too, but I tried to keep meetings at a minimum and let the meetings be meaningful. Just not calling a meeting for meeting's sake. And then you have so many things to watch. Teachers and ideas can get on tangents away from the main issue so easily, so quickly. You got to have your own way of bringing them back to the issue. Okay. | 30:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | I'm going to ask, how long were you principal Howard? | 31:53 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | 22 years. | 31:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. So you remained there until you retired? | 31:58 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Of my own volition. | 32:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 32:04 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well I had my sister, the ones who you have met, she has had three hip operations. And while working and trying to be with her just physically drained me. And when I told the superintendent, the same Haywood who was there in our block grew up to be school superintendent. | 32:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Haywood Bellame? | 32:27 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Haywood Bellame. And they even teased me now, "Haywood love's Ezell." I said, "Yes, I love him too." And all of us love him because he was our superintendent during the nineties, the 60 years. And he has shown, I mean outwardly, he almost died for Negroes. So the Negroes really show that they care for him. Haywood Bellame. | 32:29 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask you, did you marry? I didn't ask you anything about those questions. | 33:03 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Well, you see, I haven't said anything. No. If I had it to do again, I guess I would—some friend told me, "Every lady pursues a man. It might not be open, but she does it." So I never did. Then too, I was the one in my [indistinct 00:33:26] who made the salary [indistinct 00:33:30] keenly that to take care of my mother at home. | 33:04 |
Sonya Ramsey | Did your parents try to pressure you and— | 33:34 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yeah, they tease me even now. I say, "I'm too old now." Yes sir. I had fellas who wanted to, but ultimately I think I thought no fella would stand for me giving as much time and money to my family as the need was. So I guess that was it. | 33:38 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of your, as a teacher, and I guess generally, what were some of your greatest accomplishments? | 34:03 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | When especially now, I see children who I have taught, they have become nurses, doctors, teachers, lawyers, some right here. To want to be good citizens, even if some of them did not finish high school, to stay out of jail, to stay out of trouble, to have high ideals, to want to be somebody, and to see them grow up and command and demand respectful jobs have been some of my greatest accomplishments. | 34:13 |
Sonya Ramsey | What were some of the things that you would change if you could go back and change? What are some of the things that you would try to change in your life if you could go back and change things? | 34:56 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | I perhaps would get married. Some people tell me now, said, "There comes a time you have to look out for self." But I didn't think of that. I'm trying to think of some of the things that I would do differently that I tried to do, and I can't think of too many. | 35:05 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. | 35:27 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Your questions are very apropos. They helped me along. | 35:30 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. Well, I think finished all my questions. Do you have anything that [indistinct 00:35:40]—? | 35:33 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | No, but —I derailed. They dedicated this one. That's how I used to look. | 35:41 |
Sonya Ramsey | [indistinct 00:35:53]. | 35:50 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | But these were quite telling, and the one that has our dedication in it, one of those I guess, was quite telling. And each teacher, these rehearsal superlatives of that class. So I feel that I've made some contribution. I hope I did. | 35:56 |
Sonya Ramsey | Oh yes. You were the first Black [indistinct 00:36:20]. | 36:17 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Yes, because I was very concerned. See, the board of education from here sent me there to get my principal certificate. They underwrote the cost of it. | 36:21 |
Sonya Ramsey | How was that experience like living [indistinct 00:36:35]? | 36:33 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | Oh, it was grand because my relatives and I were concerned about—see, it was in the sixties, where I would live and how I would get along. And then when one of the supervisors, when I mentioned it to him, he said, "You couldn't live on the campuses. You go and give this note to school." | 36:35 |
Ezell Juliette Johnson | And so it was a wonderful experience. And I didn't know while I was at East Carolina that I was under surveillance the whole while I was there. Because I remember some Caucasian professor came up, he said, "You Isa Johnson?" And I said, "Yes." And I didn't know him and I didn't know that he knew me, but he could tell me they had been watching my behavior, if I might say so. Wow, Because there were any number of Caucasians up this study over summer school. And when they got ready to come home on the weekends, they would always invite me, "You want a ride home? We're going home this weekend." But more often than not, I stayed up there and studied all weekend. I had to prove myself. People were so kind to me. I had to not let them down. | 36:54 |
Sonya Ramsey | Okay. I wanted to ask— | 37:52 |
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