George MacRae interview recording, 1993 July 21
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Transcript
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Karen Ferguson | —to talk about what you'd like. All right, Mr. MacRae. Could we begin by you telling me a little bit about the place in which you grew up, and a little bit about the community there? | 0:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. I was born here in Wilmington, New Hanover County. My neighborhood was, it was sort of mixed, I would say. We only had maybe one family that wasn't of African descent. I attended a segregated school because the schools at that time were. We had some wonderful teachers, and life was pretty good for me because—I don't know. Some people aren't as fortunate as others, I think, at times. During those times, it was who you knew or what families you knew. | 0:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | My family was supposed to be one of the more respected families in the community. My father was a postman. At that time, a postman was—Even if you were working for the government at that time, you were considered upper crust, something. I've had some incidents, I know, of segregation. I remember one incident on the bus ride, which today would be compared to the Rosa Park thing, I think, leaving downtown Wilmington, coming on the south side where I lived. | 1:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | We were always told to move to the back. That was the order of the day. An African American sat down beside one of another race. And then they wanted them to move, kind of push it. But the bus was crowded here at this time, and it was a big uproar. But see, Fifth and Castle was a corner where a lot of people hung out, what we call. But they were of the White race there. | 1:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | After you passed Fifth Street, it was known as, I guess, as African American territory, Black territory. So the bus driver refused to—He tried to quiet him down, I think, at that time. Most of them got off, most of the Whites, because when the bus got to Eighth Street, which was a turning point, we considered that Black territory. It was safer that way. | 2:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | But I was comparing this to Rosa Parks because this fellow had worked all day and he was tired, I guess, and he didn't want to give up his seat. But at that time, they would probably drive the bus to police headquarters to quell things. Now, I worked in the downtown section. I remember those signs of segregation, Colored water, White water. I remember I could get served at what was known as New York Café, but I didn't go in the front door. I went in the back where the chef and the others were. | 3:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | They had a table back there. You could be served, but you were served by the chef and the dishwasher. We had another territory. Well, I'm just speaking of how things were in those days before integration. There was a territory in the city of Wilmington that was known as Delgado, a section on the south end of town. In a way, Blacks weren't allowed in that section after dark. Very seldom they would go through that section. | 4:01 |
George Middleton MacRae | I know of a family that had lots of property in what is now an affluent neighborhood for Whites. But he owned, at that time, great tracts of land. He had some sons and with them getting in trouble and the lawyers downtown taking their cases to keep them out of prison, he kind of bartered it off or gave it away to them, in a way. Now today, I can say that his descendants only have a small tract of land with a house on it left, and they have to go through somebody else's property to get to that. | 4:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, do you think that this man's sons got in trouble because were they framed to get— | 5:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, no, no. | 5:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay, so they got in trouble? | 5:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | They got in trouble on their own, I think. Yes. That's what I was thinking. But it was showing you how much property and what the lawyers at that time could maneuver to get your property from you, in a way of speaking. It probably wouldn't have cost that much just paying cash. But they knew that he had this land. I've heard the story that Carolina Beach at one time, I don't know whether you have this recorded or not, at one time was owned by Blacks, most of it. | 5:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | They sold that property or traded it, bartered it off for transportation to Wilmington from the beach. At one time, the Blacks weren't allowed on Carolina Beach. They could go through Carolina Beach, but they had to go to a section that was known as—I don't know. Later years, they called it Bob City or something. That's where they had to go for their bathing in the ocean and all. But at one time, they owned the majority of it. | 6:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | It was showing how property could get away from you where they weren't wise enough to hold onto some of these things that they once owned. Is there anything you expected? | 7:18 |
Karen Ferguson | No. I'll ask some questions. I just wanted to ask a couple of things. You said about this—What is it [indistinct 00:07:46]— | 7:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | Delgado. Yeah. | 7:46 |
Karen Ferguson | How did they keep Blacks out? How did you know that you weren't supposed to be there at night? | 7:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I guess they were in the majority, and there were gangs. See, they have known to attack, assault you if you were in that area. | 7:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember people being assaulted in— | 8:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. But see, now we did have Blacks that would be out there, but there was a mill. This Delgado was known as Spofford's Mill. They had a fabric manufacturing plant out there. I don't think any Blacks were working there. But most of them that were in that territory, they were either chauffeurs or maids or housekeepers or something like that for those people. | 8:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, this was an affluent neighborhood or was— | 8:40 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, it was close. It was bordering one though. Yeah. It was bordering one. | 8:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could you tell me a little more about this incident on the bus? You were on the bus? | 8:50 |
George Middleton MacRae | I was on the bus, yes. | 8:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. This man sat down beside a White person? | 8:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. Well, see, they always tell you. The bus driver, at that time, seemed like they had as much authority, in a way, as the police did it because they'd tell you when you enter the bus, "Move to the rear. Move to the rear." There was a vacant seat. This fellow sat down there, I guess, in that seat, being vacant. | 8:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | But I've known cases where if somebody moved from the back, even though you had a seat close to the front, you were sitting close to the front and somebody moved from the back, you were asked to move, to get up out of that seat and move back, which you're already seated which didn't make sense, in a way. But that's the way things were in those days, I think. | 9:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there a White gang that came on and tried to stop this? | 9:53 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, in that neighborhood, Whites hung out on that corner. When I say hung out, they were congregated on certain corners. Now, Front and Castle was a transfer point for buses, and they would congregate there. Fifth Street was just about the end of their territory, and they would congregate there. | 9:58 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. And where did this man— | 10:30 |
George Middleton MacRae | It happened between Front Street and Fifth Avenue, which is about—This is five blocks, maybe two bus stops. This is where all this occurred, between there. | 10:31 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, so there was some scuffle between— | 10:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | This guy, they told the Black that was seated, some of our people told him, say, "Well, don't move." Well, he's sitting there, but the other fellow seemed to want to push him out, see? that's where it got to be an uproar. The bus driver, I guess, and then again, he didn't open the back door. He opened the front door, I think, so that the Whites could go out that way. | 10:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Probably most of them got off at that stop because, like I say, when they got to Eighth Street, I don't think there was a White on the bus because they figured, "Well, we're in Black territory now, and it's dangerous for us to be here." Integration has been around, in a way, quite a while because we had integrated neighborhoods. | 11:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | My grandfather's family and my father was born at Third and Church, which was considered a White neighborhood, but they had several Black families in that neighborhood because when people first settled in Wilmington, they settled, I guess, close to the river, close to wherever they could get. At that time, I guess the bigger the house and the bigger the family, the more affluent you were. Or whatever your job in life was, I guess, that's the way they figured. | 11:49 |
Karen Ferguson | That's where you lived for— | 12:27 |
George Middleton MacRae | I was born far out. I was born on 10th Street. | 12:32 |
Karen Ferguson | You said that there was one White family that lived in your neighborhood? | 12:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, there was a White family lived across the street from us. And then two blocks away, there was another family. Two blocks and a half, there was a whole alley that ran a full block. It was all White in there. At that time, I mean those people got along all right, it seemed like. Yeah. | 12:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, what did most of the people do in your neighborhood for a living? | 13:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, we had postmen. We had teachers. We had warehousemen, chauffeurs, hospital attendants. We even had one or two businessmen. I mean they owned their own grocery stores at that time. There was quite a few Blacks that had businesses. But it seemed like they didn't survive after—In later years, I guess, after they got chain stores and all that, the small, independent groceries and all went out of business. | 13:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, what did the White family do? What did the people in the White family do? | 14:15 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know what their job was [indistinct 00:14:23] now. | 14:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Why do you think they lived in a neighborhood that was predominantly Black? | 14:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. But I do know that that one family, White, was always in trouble because I've known them to get him for stealing chickens and stuff like that, see? But I don't know. But I imagine wherever they could find to rent. | 14:30 |
Karen Ferguson | So they weren't very well off? They weren't— | 14:58 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. No, uh-uh. No. But they seemed to get along with people, everyone, very neighborly. | 15:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your neighborhood have a name? | 15:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Well, this section of town, south side, most likely that was known as Dry Pond. | 15:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Dry pond. | 15:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. The north side of town was known as Brooklyn, after you get—I don't know. Maybe you need some leading questions or something. | 15:25 |
Karen Ferguson | That's fine. That's fine. Sorry. | 15:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know exactly what to— | 15:50 |
Karen Ferguson | So you lived in what was called Dry Pond? | 15:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 15:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you close to the main Black business district, Red Cross Street, I guess?[ | 15:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, not exactly because, well, we had scattered grocery stores and things like that in those neighborhoods. But I think most of the businesses, restaurants and insurance companies and all that, undertakers, was over on the north side on Red Cross Street. Of course, we did have several clubs on the south side here. They were supposedly popular at times. They were owned by Blacks. We had three, I'd say, within a four-block radius of each other. That's where they went for food and recreation. | 16:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they serve alcohol at these places? | 16:58 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. Beer at most of them. | 17:02 |
Karen Ferguson | It was legal? They had a license? | 17:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Right. Right. | 17:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me a little bit about the people you grew up with, the neighborhood? Was it a close-knit neighborhood? | 17:10 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. Everybody knew each other. During those times, if you did something wrong, you could be chastised by any neighbor. The neighborhood would know about it. Your parents would know about it before you got home. They could visit each other or they would share with each other, whatever they had. They were always sharing, always welcome to have them. | 17:16 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did people do, other than sharing? What kinds of things would they share? | 17:45 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, they'd share anything from food to flowers. If you didn't have this in your front yard, they would share those with you. They'd come there and help you plant it or show you how to take care of it. Or if somebody went hunting and they got some game, they'd share it with you. Fishing, the same way. Everything. | 17:52 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, who did you grow up with in your house when you— | 18:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I had three brothers and four sisters. It was a family of eight of us. I was the third child, in a way, because there was a set of twins between me and my oldest brother. | 18:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, can you tell me, and then your mother and father as well? | 18:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, right. Yes. Yes. | 18:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, your father was worked for the Postal Service? | 18:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. He was a letter carrier. | 18:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Your mother, did she work? | 18:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. She stayed at home all the time. | 18:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Stayed at home? | 19:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 19:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember anything about your grandparents? | 19:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. I remember my grandfather very well. He lived on the sound, known as Masonboro Sound. Well, he was a farmer and a fisherman, I would say. I remember him telling the story about an incident back in I guess this must have been the late '90s, 1890, somewhere along in there that there was some kind of race riot or something. | 19:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right in Wilmington? | 19:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | It was in Wilmington, and it extended out there, I think. I don't know what the outcome, but he said he hid in a ditch, and he heard him planning to go a few miles down the road and get somebody. I don't know whether they were planning on lynching them or what. But he said he laid flat in the ditch. I've heard him tell this story. | 19:56 |
Karen Ferguson | So the riot extended outside of Wilmington? | 20:32 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. I don't know whether—I've heard that there was a riot. Now, I'm not sure about the facts. But I think that it might be recorded somewhere that it was in the late—It had to be in the late '90s. | 20:35 |
Karen Ferguson | Did people talk about that riot very much, other people other than your grandfather? Do you remember people talking about it? | 20:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I've heard smatterings, but I never did—He didn't talk too much about it anyway. They just let it, I guess, smooth over or something, go over. I don't guess they carried a lot of these things. They wanted to forget about these things anyway, I imagine anyway. | 21:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your grandfather say anything about what happened after the riot? Did things change at all after the riot? | 21:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, I didn't hear. He didn't discuss it. | 21:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was this your father's father? | 21:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | My mother's father. | 21:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Mother's father? | 21:38 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 21:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you know anything about your father's people? | 21:40 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. My father's father, my grandfather, he worked for the post office, too, but he worked as a custodian. During that time, I don't know whether—The Whites thought they were superior to the Black side. I'll say it this way. I mean I'm just going to tell it. He being a custodian, naturally he'd be sweeping around. Now, I've heard him say that he'd have his trash swept up sometime. It happened more than once. A guy would come along and kick his trash, scatter it all around. | 21:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | One day, I imagine he got tired of this going on. So he took his broom handle and cracked the guy upside the head with it. It didn't hurt him. But the guy did go to the postmaster. When it got to the postmaster and when my grandfather was called in, the postmaster told him. His words were, "You should have knocked his head off. I imagine it was quite aggravating for you to be trying to do your work and then somebody else going to come along and just—" | 22:33 |
Karen Ferguson | So he didn't get— | 23:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, he didn't get reprimanded for it or anything. But, in a way, the postmaster was, he was pretty fair because I mean once you knew a person and then they knew your character, your background and all, you didn't have that kind of trouble, I don't think, with people. Because I've gotten along, well, I'll say good. I've had more, well, not more trouble. There wasn't any trouble. But I've had things since integration because I was a leader on my job, and I had a mixed crew. | 23:15 |
George Middleton MacRae | I've had some that didn't want to be told by me, in a way, to do the job, see? Because since integration, I've been up before. Well, they went to personnel and this guy called in the union steward from the shop. I was in the union, too, but I didn't have a rep. But when it boiled down to, I was right all along. I knew I was right. So they just told him to forget about it. He didn't have a case or anything to grieve, I mean no grievance at all to push for. | 23:59 |
Karen Ferguson | I guess we're jumping ahead a little bit, but— | 24:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. This is latter days now. I mean this is after. | 24:51 |
Karen Ferguson | We'll get back to that then. | 24:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 24:55 |
Karen Ferguson | All right. Now, your grandfather, the one who worked for the Postal Service, now was he from Wilmington? | 24:58 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. | 25:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. How far can you trace your family back in Wilmington? | 25:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | I can't go back farther than my grandfather now. No. | 25:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Okay. But he was born here as well? | 25:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, right. Right. | 25:18 |
Karen Ferguson | How did he get his job in the Postal Service, do you know? | 25:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know whether he was recommended or whether he had to take an exam for that at that time. But a lot of times, some of those jobs didn't require a test. Now, the letter carriers and clerks and all, they required an examination. At one time, I had a brother in the Postal Service. I had an uncle in the Postal Service. I think all those were in there temporarily at the same time. | 25:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | I had one uncle that worked in the employment office here for over 20-something years. My family, I've had somebody in the school system as long as I can remember. | 26:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Teaching or? | 26:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. Teachers, principals, and all. | 26:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Who were they? Were they aunts and uncles? | 26:21 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. Well, aunts, uncles, and right on down to sisters and all now, and daughters now. I'm down to my daughter. The school system was real good, I mean so far as—But I knew we were getting hand-me-downs. I can tell you that. If the Whites had the books this year and they got new books, those books were passed down to the Blacks. They were used. I've even known times when the budget was so tight, I guess, or what they allotted, that toilet tissue was rationed, in a way. | 26:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | I've had the principal come in and say, "Well, when you go to the bathroom, you don't use but so many sheets. This is all we have to carry us through." In a way, I got a job right out of high school in 1938. I went to work for Analytical Consulting Chemists in the downtown section as a porter. I guess they would call it a porter. Today I would be considered a lab assistant, I imagine, because I would get the mail. | 27:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | I would prepare the samples for analysis. A lot of times, I would have to run some of the tests. At that time, this lab had students from Georgia Tech coming here during certain seasons for their training, some of them. I stayed there three or four years. From there, I went to the shipyard. The ship building company was in progress at that time. I mean they had just built the shipyard here. | 28:10 |
Karen Ferguson | That was during the Second World War? | 28:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. I stayed at the shipyard until I was drafted in '43. But from '43 to '46, I was in the Navy, several places, Maryland, Rhode Island, Massachusetts. I was mostly state side. I was only aboard ship about 18 days. When I came back, The ship building company, they had the last ships on the shipway. They hadn't completed them. So since I was a former employee and I was working in the warehouse when I left, the warehouse was open. It took me some time to get the job back, to tell you the truth. | 28:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | I was entitled to the job. I went down to the office two or three times, and it looked like they didn't want to take me back. They would give me all kind of excuses. I knew the last ships were on the shipway and this and that and the other. But there were fellows there that had been there all the time. I had been and served my country, what I consider. So I was entitled to the job, according to the law. | 29:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | So they did hire me back, and I stayed there until the yard closed. Then the next day, I went to work for the government. I went to work for the Maritime Administration. | 30:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you go back a little bit back to your childhood a little bit for a little bit longer here? Were there people in the neighborhood to whom you were especially close, beyond your family, adults you really looked up to as role models? | 30:34 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, yes. I would say most any adult at that time, you could patent after because they carried themselves in such a way that they would—I would say this attendant, well, he would be called, I guess it was attendant that worked for the hospital. He was a very quiet man, very neat and everything. I respected him. We had a warehouseman, and he was known. I mean his family and my family were just like brothers and sisters, in a way. So it was no conflict there. | 30:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think all of them took care of their family as well. Most of them were churchgoing people. I believe that if I had turned out as well as any of those at that time, I would have been really satisfied. But I went all the way through elementary school and high school with most of them, I mean most of the people in my neighborhood. I was in school during the time that the Williston High School, this high school here, burned. I don't know what grade I was in. I must have been a junior. | 31:44 |
Karen Ferguson | Now how did that fire happen? Did they know what the cause was? | 32:43 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't think they ever knew the origin of that fire. But that fire went pretty fast, I think. When I got out, my class got out and the rest of the classes, well, I kept right on up 10th Street because I lived up from the school. I lived maybe five or six blocks, and I kept right on home. People, at that time, they'd do the washings in tubs outside and all. They were out there looking and didn't know what. I was taking the news. | 32:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | And then I thought about my brothers in the same school. So I was sent back to school. So I went back and checked— | 33:24 |
Karen Ferguson | So it burned while you at school? | 33:30 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. It happened in the daytime. | 33:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Did anyone get hurt? | 33:34 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. It was lucky everybody got out safely. And then it was rebuilt. This must have happened in '36 or '7 because my class was the first class, I believe, to graduate from there. I think one class graduated from what is now Thalian Hall downtown. Okay. They had the baccalaureate it seemed like to one of the churches here in the city. They graduated or either they had—I think they had the graduation exercise there. | 33:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | Now, on South Seventh Street is where I originally started school. it was Gregory Elementary School. It's up there next to where Gregory Congregational Church is. That whole block, they had one big structure, two-story. And then they had several little one-room classrooms, I guess you would call them [indistinct 00:34:50]. From there, they moved to 10th Street, Williston. I imagine they must have been the senior high then. They moved. | 34:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | Then they built the other Williston. They changed from that and brought the students from over to Gregory over here. And then in recent years, they built that school in between, which is now—Let me see, which is it's now Williston, the one in Center. But the one on the corner, which is now Gregory, was originally Williston High School, the school that most people know, I mean from back they graduated. | 35:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, what was the— | 35:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | That was the only Black high school in the city of Wilmington. New Hanover High was for the Whites. The students from the north side had to come all the way from the north side to the south side to this school. They passed this school coming to the school. Buses were, I guess, the same way. But they didn't know anything about busing until later years. I think they started giving them passes or reduced fairs to catch the city bus. But now they have buses to pick them up even within a half mile of school, I think. | 35:41 |
Karen Ferguson | What effect did the burning of the school have on the community? Was it a devastating fire? | 36:29 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, at that time, yes, it was a great loss. But see, I guess with it being built back as soon as it was, it didn't have too lasting effect, I imagine, I would say. But at that time, well, everything was in an uproar because our school had gone. Everything had gone. Everything that worked. But what they did during that time, they would use one of the other schools. | 36:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | They would let some classes out at 11:00 or 12:00. And then these students that used to go to the school would go in the afternoon or in the mornings. And then I believe they may have used some churches and maybe some other meeting places to conduct classes in at that time. | 37:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did the city government rebuild the school? Did the community have to contribute to not— | 37:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, I don't think. I think the county built it back, I believe. I was just a student at that time, so I didn't know too much about politics or what. | 37:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you like school? | 37:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | Sure. Yeah. | 37:59 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you like about it? | 38:00 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I liked everything. I liked all the courses and all. Of course, one course that I should have taken I didn't take was chemistry. That was the first job I got was in the lab after I got out, see? | 38:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any favorite teachers? | 38:18 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. | 38:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me who they were and why you liked them? | 38:21 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I would say Mrs. Mitchell, she was a music teacher at that time. That was maybe probably sixth, seventh grade. She was very nice, very interested in what you were doing. Well, the one, Mrs. Lofton, which was a chemistry even though I never took chemistry. She kept after me for weeks to come to her chemistry class. Well, most of the teachers that I had, I couldn't say there was one any better. But they were interested in what you were doing. If you applied your mind to what they were teaching, you got a good education. | 38:27 |
Karen Ferguson | What other things did they teach you besides the academics? What do you think that you learned from your teachers, either what they taught you directly or things that [indistinct 00:39:29]— | 39:18 |
George Middleton MacRae | Not cutting you. We had one teacher that had a High Y Club. Now, she taught you character. If you were a member of Mrs. Leonard's High Y Club, you were one of the fellows. You were taught manners, and you were taught how to conduct yourself. You just did good. | 39:30 |
Karen Ferguson | This was just for boys? | 39:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 39:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. What kinds of things would she teach you? Can you remember anything specifically? | 39:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | She would teach you to respect people and when you go out, how to conduct yourself. She'd even teach you table manners. You keep those elbows off. You put your fork here. She would try to instill within you what you really should do, what was proper, in a way of speaking. | 40:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could anybody belong to the High Y Club? | 40:40 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. I guess as long as they met her criteria. Yeah. | 40:44 |
Karen Ferguson | So she chose who could— | 40:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, in a way she did. But see, I don't think she would turn anybody down. If she thought she could help, she did. | 40:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, what other kinds of groups did you belong to in school, other extracurricular activities? | 41:08 |
George Middleton MacRae | I didn't. | 41:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, you didn't? | 41:15 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, at one time I was a member of the dramatic club now because we put on several plays. Well, we had football and basketball, but I wasn't athletic. | 41:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did you work during high school? | 41:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Well, I did work a little on the side. What we used to do is have a weekly paper that used to come out. I don't know where it was coming from. It was Grit, old paper. We'd delivered those— | 41:41 |
Karen Ferguson | What was it called? | 42:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | —my brother and I. Grit. G-R-I-T. | 42:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Was this a Black newspaper? | 42:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Uh-uh. I don't know whether it came out of Philadelphia or where. Some of them did at that time sell The Afro-American. | 42:09 |
Karen Ferguson | But Grit wasn't a Black paper? | 42:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Uh-uh. And then we used to help around on the City Market down there, help people take the packages to the cars and all. City Market was a vegetable, fruit, and meats. You could get it all there. It has just been revised last year. It was closed for a number of years. But that's where the local farmers used to bring their produce. Saturday morning, we'd go down and get with some of the farmers, and we'd take the people's packages to the car, stuff like that for extra money. | 42:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | Going back, I remember they had a public toilet downtown at one time at Front and Market. They had a White and a Colored side. But they finally did away with this, I don't know whether because of sanitation conditions or what. But I don't know. A lot of people may not remember this, but it was kind of underground, not underground exactly, but it was— | 43:14 |
Karen Ferguson | So they got rid of the toilet? | 43:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 43:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think that happened with integration or? | 43:51 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, I think it happened before. That's the reason I say I don't know whether it was sanitation or what the problem because I think you know how people abuse or they can smell them. | 43:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. Do you remember were you ever disciplined by your teachers? | 44:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. | 44:14 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things would you get in trouble for? | 44:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I got in trouble. It was only one time I can remember. I think the teacher stepped out of the room. Of course, it wasn't actually my fault, but I was one of the ones accused of making a little noise there. See, that wasn't tolerated when I was going to school. The teacher could go from here home or something, but you didn't get out of order. But she happened to come back in. I think a close friend of mine, we got sent home for—I don't know whether it was for a day or what. | 44:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | But anyway, our parents had to go back and see to talk with the principal before we could go back to school. I think we were just out about a half a day. But the next morning, my parents were there with me and talking to that principal and we had to get—But other than that, I don't think. Everything went pretty smooth in school. School was pretty nice. | 45:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember the teachers ever playing favorites? | 45:29 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. I couldn't say that I—But they might have had some that they would push harder than others to excel maybe. Yeah. | 45:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Who would those people be, generally? | 45:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, not offhand. | 45:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you encouraged to go to college? | 45:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. | 46:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Why didn't you go? | 46:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. Well, I'm going to tell you one thing. It's probably not an excuse. But during that time, my father was on disability. When I finished high school, my father had been on disability several years because from about '29 or '30, somewhere along in there until '41, he went back during the war, I think, because he had had a heart problem. My older brother had been to college because he was working. He'd work the beaches and all. | 46:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | Got your clothing and all, you probably could make it, you know? | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | Because tuition and room and board wasn't all that—So he went to Livingstone for a couple of years. My sister had been to Fayetteville State. Well, it's Fayetteville State now. It was Fayetteville Normal School at that time. | 0:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 0:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | I figured that after I got this job, I said, "Well, I'll try to make it." So I was encouraged, the minister of my church asked me, he said, "Why don't you go to Johnson C. Smith? We can arrange something, I think." But at that time I said, "Well, I'm working now. I'll go later." | 0:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Did he want you to be a minister? | 0:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. He didn't, not exactly. No. Uh-huh. | 0:51 |
Karen Ferguson | But he wanted you to go there because it was a Presbyterian— | 0:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Presbyterian church, I mean, school. Yeah, right. So, I don't know. I passed it up, but in later years I don't regret not going because since I did 35 years or something with the government. During that time, I had the opportunity to take courses and that kind. I had the instructors from North Carolina State, instructors from Emory University and several other schools. I have had several short courses in accounting, supervision, and listening and memory courses and all those kind of things too. So I fared pretty well. There were times and there'd been other jobs that I wished I had gone probably. | 0:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Now if you go back a little bit to your neighborhood, to your growing up in your neighborhood again. What were some of the gathering places in your neighborhood? Where did people gather to talk and to share news and that kind of thing? | 2:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, if you didn't visit your neighbors or a restaurant or something like that, church was the biggest place where you got information. Church was that. | 2:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of role did church play in the community? | 2:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, the church and your minister, they were the backbone of the community, I believe. | 2:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. In what way? | 2:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, they had advice for you. They had a message for you, I got to say. If you were in church, you met the best people in church. The most intelligent people, I would say they would call them most intelligent. The people that wanted to accomplish something for themselves. The people that wanted to keep their families together. I think the church has played a bigger part in a way than the schools at that time. That's where you—It was the backbone of the community, I would say. | 2:51 |
Karen Ferguson | What role did the minister play in the community beyond church, maybe? [indistinct 00:03:47] | 3:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, the minister would try to encourage you to get an education and try to assist you in seeking out the opportunities for you. Maybe writing resumes or something or helping you in this kind of way. Putting you in contact with some people that he knew maybe that could help you. | 3:51 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So he helped out his congregation in all sorts of ways. | 4:22 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. I would say he was an advisor and a counselor in a way. | 4:25 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of activities was your church involved in that helped the community at large? Did it do any mission work or anything like that? | 4:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes, but my earliest contact with the missions came from the White Presbyterian church. | 4:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 5:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | There was a church around here at 12th and Quinn. The teachers and all from the First Presbyterian Church would come there on Sunday afternoons at four o'clock and conduct Sunday school for that community. But see, my church was on Chestnut Street, which was across town. We would have Sunday school at 12:30. But I would still be at this church at four o'clock in the afternoon. | 5:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you went to the White Presbyterian church for Sunday school? | 5:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 5:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 5:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | The White teachers— | 5:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. I'm sorry. | 5:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | Teachers from the First Presbyterian Church, which is White, came to a church in this neighborhood. It was just a couple blocks from here, and conducted Sunday school. We'd call it the four o'clock Sunday school because that was the time it was. But the teachers from the First Presbyterian Church were the ones that did the instructing. | 5:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What did you, was that—Why do you think— | 6:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | It was a missionary. | 6:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. They were doing missionary work. | 6:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. Now, in my church, we sent a missionary to Africa and all. That's what I was telling you about, I was getting ready to tell you. You want to cut that a minute? If you don't mind. Let me see. | 6:19 |
Karen Ferguson | You're saying that some of the notable members of your church— | 6:38 |
George Middleton MacRae | Miss Carrie [indistinct 00:06:46] was the first and only missionary to Africa from this church. The Reverend Sanders, he was first Negro president of Biddle University, which is now Johnson C. And Mrs. [indistinct 00:07:04], a member of the original Fisk University Jubilee Singers who appeared before the Queen of England. There's a housing project now in the city of Wilmington named after the late Robert R. Taylor, who's the first Negro graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology from there. You want me to get— | 6:44 |
Karen Ferguson | No, that's okay. Whoever you want to talk about there. | 7:26 |
George Middleton MacRae | I remember all, most of these people. This is Nora Hargrave, a graduate of Freedmen's Hospital School of Nursing, was the first registered graduate nurse in Wilmington. Now, these members were all members of the Chestnut Street Presbyterian Church. I was fortunate enough to know these members and to attend worship service with them. | 7:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of people did attend your church? Were they mainly professionals? | 8:00 |
George Middleton MacRae | I would say yes. We had people from all walks of life, though. | 8:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 8:15 |
George Middleton MacRae | We had bricklayers. We had quite a few teachers. We had morticians, nurses. But I would say most of them had been into education in some form or another at one time. | 8:15 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of activities did the church do when you were growing up for the community at large? Did they have a, help the sick or the shut-in, whatever, anything like that? | 8:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, we had a youth group that would go out and visit the sick and see what we could do. We have always— | 9:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you do any other charity work? | 9:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, not too much. Not too much. Most of the time we would just maybe give them a hand at home, or furnish, those that had cars, if they could transport them to the hospital or the doctors, they would do what they could, along that line. | 9:21 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things did you do for fun as a boy and a young man? What kinds of— | 9:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, we had the lake. Being segregated, we had a special place at Greenfield Lake that we used to go swimming. We had a special tree that was called a hawk tree. | 9:57 |
Karen Ferguson | The heart? | 10:21 |
George Middleton MacRae | Hawk. H-A-W-K. If you could swim to the hawk tree, you were a good swimmer. Now the water was clear. The lake wasn't polluted at that time. I don't know. Because you could see the White sand down there, it was just as clear as the sky. We did a lot of fishing. As a boy, I did a lot of fishing and crabbing. Well, my father was a big fisherman, sports fisherman. He would always, not always, but he'd take us with him a lot of times. Then he had a regular fishing club that he belonged to, a kind of fishing club, that they would go to the surf and surf cast. | 10:22 |
George Middleton MacRae | Catch fish, 45 pounds, 50 pounds was nothing for them. Red drum and all like that. And we used to do a lot of the rowing for them because at that time they didn't have an outboard motor. I think the first outboard motor that I remember my father having, Dr. Robert R. Taylor and he bought it together. He bought it for him because he liked recreation fishing and hunting. Father was avid hunter. I would be the one to shake the vines for him, shake the squirrels out of the nest. | 11:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | They had little clubs, maybe card clubs, what they call Whisk clubs. There's a game called Whisk that they'd play. We had a lot of social clubs too that we belonged to. We'd just gather at somebody's house and have fun, or either we'd go for an outing. Sometimes we'd go as far as Myrtle Beach. | 12:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Sorry. What social club did you belong to? | 12:34 |
George Middleton MacRae | I belonged to one called the Royal Knights. | 12:41 |
Karen Ferguson | The Royal Knights? | 12:43 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 12:44 |
Karen Ferguson | When did you join that? | 12:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, I guess that was in, must have been in '38 or nine somewhere, '39 probably. | 12:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Did most people you know belong to social clubs? | 13:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | They belonged to some club or some organization. I would say, yeah, they belong to some organization. Most people that I know, they belong to something. | 13:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Why do you think people joined clubs and organizations? What purpose did it serve, do you think? | 13:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think for the fellowship and communication with each other, to gain knowledge. | 13:34 |
Karen Ferguson | Would people who belong to these clubs, I'm thinking also Masons and Elks and that kind of thing. Would they help each other out getting jobs and that kind of thing? | 13:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. If you belong to one of those organizations, they were brothers. Now, the International Longshoreman's Association has come a long ways because they didn't have too much of a meeting place, and their salaries weren't all that good until they got organized. Now they have built a big building out here. They're pretty well organized now. But before there, it was who you knew to get into it. Well, that's the way it is with a lot of organizations. | 13:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could you tell me, when you were growing up and still at home, who was the boss at home? Your mother or your father. Who made decisions in the family? | 14:45 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, in my family, I think they made them together. | 14:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 14:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | But my father was the breadwinner, but my mother was the housekeeper. I think what she said was the order of the day. But they would always, my family, I think they would confer with each other. It wasn't, "What did your father say about it? What did your mother say about it? I'm not going to give you a definite answer," maybe like this. "Because I don't know what she has told you. We are going to have to get together," type of thing. | 15:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Who disciplined you at home? | 15:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, whenever it was, I guess it was my father most time. He was about the only—Of course my mother, she didn't spare the rod if I needed it. I think that might be a lot of trouble today. | 15:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did everybody in your family go to church? | 16:08 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. | 16:10 |
Karen Ferguson | You went together? | 16:11 |
George Middleton MacRae | I went to my father's church. My mother was a Baptist. | 16:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, I see. | 16:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | My whole family, all my brothers and sisters went to the church my father went to. Occasionally we would visit with my mother. Her church was only two blocks from ours, and occasionally we'd visit. But most of them, we ended up going to the Presbyterian church. I don't know. My grandfather, I guess, and the whole family, it's one of those things, the tradition, I guess, had come up in the Presbyterian church, and we just stuck with it. | 16:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was that an unusual situation, to have two parents in different church, your parents be in different churches like that? | 16:51 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, I don't think so. Not at that time. And today either. My wife is a Baptist. I'm a Presbyterian, so we still— | 17:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. It didn't cause any— | 17:09 |
George Middleton MacRae | But all of my children, all our children go to, right now, they go to the Presbyterian church, except the one that has moved away. I think she's finally going to the Baptist church. | 17:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So you don't remember that causing any conflict at home? | 17:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Uh-huh, no. You worship where you please. | 17:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Could you tell me a little bit about your parents? What kind of people they were, your mother and your father? | 17:32 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think the very best people in the world. My mother went to, she attended school. She attended I guess what is now North Carolina Central. At that time it was—It wasn't North Carolina College. It was Durham—Yeah, it was, I believe. | 17:39 |
Karen Ferguson | She finished up there? | 18:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know whether she finished or not, but I know she attended there. Because it was before it was called North Carolina College, I believe. But that's where she went. My parents always encouraged us to do the best we can. Could, not can, could. And be honest and honorable in whatever we did. Whatever we chose to do, be sure we did a good job of it and let it be right, law-abiding citizens. We were always encouraged not to get into trouble of any kind. And to teach our children to do the same, and to always attend church. Because she told me, my mother always told me, "You meet the best people in church." I found that out to be a fact in a way. Of course, Satan is anywhere, but I think— | 18:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did your father go to college? | 19:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't think so. I'm not sure. He was from a family of 13. But out of that, I don't know how many out of that 13, I think all but maybe three did have some education beyond high school. | 19:23 |
Karen Ferguson | But he wasn't able to go. | 19:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. I don't think he did. I don't think he was one of them that—Or he was one that didn't go right. | 19:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Was there a different attitude for boys and girls towards education? Was it expected that girls might go further than boys at school? | 20:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | I believe it could have been, because they figured that boys would, I imagine more boys dropped out than girls. And the reason for that was they dropped out to seek employment, to try to help out with the families or to get out on their own. So you had boys dropping out a whole lot earlier than girls. Of course, you did have some girls to drop out. But very few girls, most girls tried to finish high school. At least high school. And then a lot of the boys did get a trade. I mean, if they took a trade, they could make it through life maybe. | 20:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you think boys had more opportunities, job opportunities than girls? | 21:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yes. During those times they did. I mean, it might have been a meager job or something, a low-paying, low salary job. But they had a better opportunity of getting a job. Because at that time, Blacks didn't have the opportunity to take secretarial courses or anything in the school that I was in at that time. We didn't, the only thing they had home economics, they taught to sew and cook. I think the boys were taught carpentry and brick mason. See, during these times, we didn't even have auto mechanics or any of those chances to learn any of these things. Only way where you'd learn that, you'd have to pick it up as a journeymans from somebody else. | 21:20 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of jobs did your classmates who didn't go on in school, who graduated from high school, what kind of jobs did they get? | 22:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | Those that graduated from high school? Then didn't go to college? | 22:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 22:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, some of them went into the service. Most those that went into the service when they came out, they got government jobs as—Well, they could have been custodians or chauffeurs or whatever they had. But most of them got government jobs that did go into the service. Now we had quite a few to go into service right out of high school. Some of them went into the insurance industry, agents. I'm talking about the males now. | 22:34 |
Karen Ferguson | How about the girls? Well, the girls too. What did they do? | 23:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. Because I didn't have too much contact. Well, I have in recent years, but I guess they were homemakers, a lot of them. | 23:29 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So you don't remember any of your friends going into domestic service at all? | 23:38 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. One or two of them. Because I think there's one still in, to this date. I think she's partially retired, semi retired, but she's still—She's the one that got married right out of high school, or during high school. | 23:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. She didn't finish. | 24:05 |
George Middleton MacRae | She finished high school. Yeah, but she married during her senior year or right after her senior year. | 24:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Did your parents ever have to sit you down, or did they ever sit you down and talk to you about segregation and how you had to behave in order to get along with White people? | 24:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, not as such, in a way. Because, well, they knew, I guess they figured you know how far you're supposed to go or something like this. But I think, so far as my family is concerned, my father and grandfather being born in this neighborhood, downtown neighborhood Third Street, and being in government service as long as they were, during that time, they knew most of the people, most of the Whites. Well, at one time, when I was a younger boy, I probably could've told you every lawyer and every doctor. | 24:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | But see, now it's 200 and some doctors. I couldn't tell you half of them, because those people have gone on, I imagine. But as a young boy, I would say a young boy, a young man, I used to work to the oldest club in North Carolina down here, White Cape Fear Club, Second and Chestnut. And they would have the medical society meetings there. The lawyers would come around for lunch, and you can learn a lot. I would say that some of those cases that were decided in court, that they were decided right there in that club. By having to get some of these doctors and all to the phone, you could learn names. And so you could associate the name with the face, and that's the way I got— | 25:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did those connections help you with what, through the Cape Fear Club, powerful White people knowing who you were and so on? | 26:47 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, I guess it did in a way because somebody would probably ask you about a lawyer or about business transactions. You probably could tell them who you thought would do, be good [indistinct 00:27:13]. | 26:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember people ever getting in trouble with the police at all? The police harassing Black people at all? | 27:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, they had some police that were known to, I guess what they call [indistinct 00:27:39] your head or something. Now, they had one cop, I don't know whether the Blacks feared him or what, but he was called Jim Jordan. His last name was Jordan. I think they call him, his first name might have been. But see, if they'd see him coming on his bicycle with his night stick, and where it would take a riot squad now to dispense a crowd. when he rode up, I don't know whether it was because of fear or what, but they would split. Because he was known to—Today it would be police brutality, I guess. But then I guess it's laws. See, people, I don't know whether they had because of fear or whether it was authority figure that they were looking at that caused them to act differently. | 27:27 |
Karen Ferguson | What kinds of things would people get in trouble for the police? What would these people be doing for him to beat them up? | 28:30 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, a lot of times I imagine they would probably be intoxicated or something, the biggest things. They would say he would use his night stick. I never encountered any of them because I tried to stay away from those things at times. | 28:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you think your parents were more afraid for you to get in trouble with the police or with White people than your sisters? Do you think that boys were in more danger to get into problems than girls? | 29:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, I imagine, because male figures would always, they would look out for, or they were going to protect the family anyway. Or protect the sisters and mothers and so forth. They were going to be aggressive, I guess, in a way. They would take more chances [indistinct 00:29:46], but so far as my parents were concerned, I don't think they would, they had any fear for us at all so far as that concerned. | 29:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember there ever being people in the community, Black people in the community who would not play by the rules, so to speak, who didn't know their place and got in trouble for it? | 30:01 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Not in my neighborhood, I wouldn't say. | 30:21 |
Karen Ferguson | But in other neighborhoods? | 30:24 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Well, I couldn't say. I'm not sure. I've known, not by the rules, but some that would break the law. | 30:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 30:58 |
George Middleton MacRae | I've known or heard about one guy that it would take three or four police to take him downtown because he was well built and he was strong. It would take that many to arrest him. | 31:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Do you remember as a child, if kids maybe playing pranks or on a dare drinking out of the White water fountain or doing anything like that? Just as a prank? | 31:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Because I don't imagine I was exposed to that too much. | 31:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, okay. | 31:45 |
George Middleton MacRae | I know a lot of times they would stand there at some of those lunch counters till they were—See, at those lunch counters before integration, they might would serve you. | 31:51 |
Karen Ferguson | They might? | 32:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | But you'd have to wait till everybody else got served and then you were down to the end of the counter and then they might come and serve you. But you couldn't eat in there. You couldn't be seated. Oh, yeah, they'd probably sell you something to take out. I mean, it's only one place that I can remember, and it was run by a Greek, but it was in a Black neighborhood. He had the stools lining the counter. Because he had the best hotdogs in town, and they patronized that place. That's where, I don't think you saw any Whites hardly in there, but Blacks were, that's the way he made his living. He made a fortune in a Black neighborhood selling hotdogs and hamburgers, with seating for the people. | 32:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | Now, there was another Greek that I was telling you about this place where the buses transfer, where you would transfer. He would sell you a hot dog, but you couldn't sit in his place. One thing I think you probably could have, but I think he was afraid of peer pressure because that was one of those corners that the Whites hung out on. They did business with him too, and he didn't want to offend them or something like that. So I would say that was his reason. | 33:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Well, I guess somebody who defied the segregation laws would be that person who sat on the White, in the bus too. | 33:53 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 33:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you remember any other incidents like that ever happening? | 34:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. When I was a young boy, I remember, it wasn't an incident like that. This was a incident of a Black fella that was working at Carolina Beach. He was a well-dressed fella. He must have been a bellhop or something down there. And fair complexion. I don't know whether he talked to this White girl or something one day or she said something to him, and he had to leave Carolina Beach. I don't know how they smuggled him out of there at night. He came over to, right across the bridge here from Carolina Beach was a place that Blacks owned, called Sea Breeze. | 34:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | That used to be the recreational place there, and they brought him over there. He had to stay around there two or three days because they came through there looking for him. Now, I don't know, I don't think it was anything he had said. They were only talking, I think. But see, this is the way that things worked during those times. I reckon they couldn't stand for you to, you were out of your place, I imagine. Everybody so far as the Whites was concerned, they were Mr. or Mrs. So and So. But you were a boy, or you got to be too old to be a boy, you're uncle. And I've heard them say, "I'm not your uncle." | 35:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, do you remember your mother ever being mistreated on the street or anything like that? | 35:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Uh-uh. I wouldn't say it was the way you carried yourself, but a lot of times people knew who to bother with, I guess, or who to mistreat or who to deal with. | 36:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did certain neighborhoods have more trouble with the police than yours, do you think? | 36:18 |
George Middleton MacRae | Than the neighborhood I lived in, yes. | 36:25 |
Karen Ferguson | I've heard some people talk about Brooklyn as being a place where there was more trouble with the police. Do you think that's right? | 36:29 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Well, yeah, they had a lot of trouble there, I guess. But they had a lot of, I imagine a lot of crime too. But there's a section over here that had a lot of crime. We used to call it, well, somebody's always getting cut up or something there. | 36:36 |
Karen Ferguson | What did you call it? | 36:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | Blood Block. | 36:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Blood Block? | 36:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 36:59 |
Karen Ferguson | And were you allowed to go onto Blood Block? | 36:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh yeah. I had friends living on there. I had classmates living there, but it just got that name because they had so many cuttings, I guess, and shootings going on too. | 37:06 |
Karen Ferguson | What kind of people lived on that street? Were they— | 37:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | They seemed to be ordinary. Yeah, it was just, I don't know, I guess somebody just nicknamed it. It just got that name like that because of these incidents that happened. | 37:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Now for men, you were talking a little bit about this fellow who got in trouble for supposedly having relations with this woman or whatever. Did you have to watch out for that? Did you have to, in terms of White women, were people afraid of being accused of that kind of thing? Black men? | 37:45 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. I imagine they didn't say too much to them or didn't make too much contact with eye contact, anything else, because of being afraid that they would be accused of these things, see. Because I don't know, it seemed like it was a form of jealousy or something that maybe you aren't good enough to do this. She is superior to you or we are superior to you. And that's the way it went, I think. | 38:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, I was interested in some of those anecdotes that you gave at the beginning of our interview where you were talking about the one man whose land was lost or his sons who were in prison there. Were there other ways in which White people could control how successful Black people could become? Did Whites have control over Blacks in terms of their prosperity and the kinds of things they could do? | 38:53 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. I imagine knowing a lawyer, or lawyers knowing about real estate and all this, they could maneuver where the property owners would lose their property. Either it would be turned over in a way to them. But we did have some people that entrusted their property to these people, and see, in the long run through some manipulations or something, they lost their property. I guess there's a scheme or a slick way to do anything. It's all in knowing how or what. | 39:29 |
Karen Ferguson | So that happened more than just to this man? | 40:22 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh yeah. I'd say so far as people losing their homes that they've owned, they've been manipulated out of them or something. That's right. For little or nothing. Or even people that have gone down, they've gone down and paid the taxes on them, and got a quick claim lease or something. I mean, there's all kind of ways I imagine that they knew how to do these things that probably these other people didn't know about. Or they might take out a mortgage and say, "Well, I'm going to stand for this mortgage for you," or something. Next thing you know, the property belongs to them. | 40:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Was there a way to buy property without having to deal with a lawyer? Were Black people, was it easy to get a mortgage or a loan from a bank? | 41:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know whether it's that easy to get a mortgage unless it's according to who you knew, I imagine. And see, most of these building and loans or whatever they were at that time, they were kind of family-owned or something in a way of speaking. Because see, I will tell you that Whites either married in a way, I'd say they married money or affluent people or something like that. You take, like today we have maybe some judge that has married this doctor's daughter. Well, there's two families together right there. Well, then with good paying jobs, either good salary, incomes. That's what I call, sometimes, we used to call it money marrying money. So they could keep these things, and they would let them know what's going on. | 41:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | Most of the time, I guess the Blacks would have to go to them, the lawyer or the savings and loan or the banks that were controlled by. And probably even to get a loan approved, during that time, you had to have somebody that knew the banker or something in there. Either a very good job and somebody would recommend you probably. See, if I wanted to get a loan and I know the guy that's working for the bank over there, and he tells the banker, then I probably could, you wouldn't have any problem. Maybe we wouldn't even have to have any collateral or anything. But a lot of times back then it was who you knew. | 43:02 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 44:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | Not what you had. | 44:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Do you have a time at which you have to finish? | 44:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. I don't know whether you wanted something to drink or something yet. | 44:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Well, would you like to stop for a second to do that? | 44:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | I can get—You can cut that? | 44:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah, sure. The jobs that you did, you said that after high school, where did you— | 44:28 |
George Middleton MacRae | After high school, I got a job in a lab working with analytical and consulting chemists. After a few years there, I went to work for the North Carolina Shipbuilding Company, working in their store room for I guess a year and a half, two years, until I was drafted into the military. | 44:35 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you get that job in the lab? | 45:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think somebody contacted, my grandfather was still at the post office at that time. He found out that they needed somebody, I think. | 45:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. He helped you get [indistinct 00:45:21]? | 45:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 45:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Now was that a good job? | 45:22 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, the job was good. At that time, salaries were real low. See, when I first started working, I think I was working for something like $9 a week. I believe the shipyard was paying about 44 cents an hour. That's when I went to work for the shipbuilding company. And I got that job through a recommendation from, I knew a friend of mine, my uncle and another guy working in the employment office at that time. It was through them that I was recommended. Of course, you had to stand in line and be picked when you went to the shipbuilding company's employment line, I mean office. But it was through them that I got that job. | 45:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What was the shipyard like compared to the lab job? Was the shipyard, you were earning a little more money? | 46:31 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, earning a lot more money. Right. The hours were, well, I was helping out. It was war time and I thought of it as a defense job, so I was doing my part. | 46:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | When the ship building company came into Wilmington, I think it boosted the economy, because jobs were pretty scarce. Salaries were pretty low, and had put a lot of people to work that were on the street. It brought a lot of people into Wilmington too. The population increased by 10,000 or more I imagine, during the defense project, during the shipyard thing. A lot of these people never went back to their homes. They made Wilmington their home. We had defense projects, housing projects that were built for servicemen, because the military was here. At Camp Davis, 30 miles from here. Between the defense houses, the housing for the defense workers and housing for the military, they give quite a boost to the economy. A lot of people, brick layers, carpenters and all, plus those that were working for the ship building companies. So, employment really boomed during those years. | 0:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. How did the community change? There's this huge influx of people. Was there a change in the community? Did it— | 1:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, yeah. There were a lot of strangers, but it didn't take them long, I guess, to make friends. Then a lot of people started taking in boarders and all, run the boards. There wasn't enough space for them in a way of speaking. Then people became friends, they met other people, and the businesses started booming. I guess cafes and little clubs sprung up around, to meet the needs of the demands of the people. | 1:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Did the Black leadership change at all? | 2:26 |
George Middleton MacRae | I would say maybe not at that time. Well, yeah. I say it could because you had some leaders, I guess, men with different professions coming into the community. | 2:36 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 3:16 |
George Middleton MacRae | Excuse me. I imagine that would have a big influence on the population. They had diversification of ideas and things, and that would definitely change. | 3:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So, it wasn't just people working at the shipyard. Professionals were also— | 3:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. | 3:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 3:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | A lot of professionals came in and went to work for the ship building company. | 3:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Why would they do— | 3:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | A lot of guys, for a better salary. | 3:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Huh. So, they would earn even more— | 3:51 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. | 3:53 |
Karen Ferguson | —they could as a lawyer or doctor? | 3:53 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. Yeah. Well, a lot of them were teachers, when the salaries probably in their state or something wasn't as high as what they was paying at the defense plant. So, a lot of people changed jobs. A lot of what you would call porters or helpers in these department stores and jewelry stores and all, left their jobs and went to the defense plant. I mean, went to the shipyard. | 3:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, was this typical—I know your father always worked for the post office. Were federal jobs always better paid than other jobs you could get? | 4:28 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think federal jobs and those in the teaching profession were the main jobs that a Black at that time could exceed at all, would be accepted. | 4:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 4:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | But I'm going to tell you about another incident I think. Now, I don't have any proof of this. | 4:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 5:11 |
George Middleton MacRae | But I would say, to me, it seemed like it was discrimination. My brother was graduating from A&T University in the early fifties, electrical engineer. He had been accepted by the core engineers here in the Wilmington district. Said the job was his. One week before graduation—I had never known any Black electrical engineers, or any Black engineers as such, in the Wilmington district. Any kind, construction, architectural, any kind during that time. But he got a letter the week that he graduated, or the week before he graduated, I think it was the week he graduated, telling him that the electrical end of the contract didn't go through. Which seemed like it was—To me why he had already been accepted for a job and then three or four days before you graduate, everything falls apart. | 5:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 6:32 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, I would say, at that time, and maybe now, I believe it was discrimination in the government. It probably came from the locals. | 6:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Now, it was very unusual it seems, from talking to people around North Carolina, to have a Black engineer at that time. | 6:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 6:55 |
Karen Ferguson | What did he do? Was he able to get a job as an engineer? | 6:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. He went to Oregon instead. | 7:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 7:01 |
George Middleton MacRae | He was the first electrical Black engineer on the St. Lawrence— | 7:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Seaway? | 7:08 |
George Middleton MacRae | Seaway. | 7:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 7:10 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. He's been retired now—Oh, I've been retired 11 years. He retired—I don't know, three or four years before I did. He retired on his 60th birthday, 55th birthday. They didn't want him to retire, but he told them, he walked in and told them on his 55th birthday, "This is it." They told him they can't do it. The chief told him, said, "Well, he has the time and he has the magic number 55, if you're—" But see, a lot of people will stay in, I don't know why they do it, but a lot of people that stay in a job forever and ever. | 7:10 |
George Middleton MacRae | I was in Washington in 1955, to receive an award for work we had done out here. The ship got Maritime Administration, we saved the government some millions of dollars. I saw men up there at 45 and 50 years of service, still working. I was wondering, I say, "Why are these fellas still going?" But I figured that once I got my kids out of college, and if I had a mortgage payment, if I could meet that mortgage payment and live, I'm coming out. I'm going to let somebody else have that job. I think I'm robbing somebody else by staying in too long. You can stay to a situation too long, and y'all going get so much, but I don't. That's it. | 8:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, so you were drafted in '43, is that what you said? | 9:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 9:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 9:08 |
George Middleton MacRae | I came out in '46. May of '46. | 9:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, how did you feel about that? Were you— | 9:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, excuse me. I knew I had to—It was one of those things, the country was at war and I had to do my share. I had to do my time. I figured that. With other young men doing it, I figured that I could do it too, whatever I was called upon to do. | 9:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 9:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | I did. I fared well, because well I went into the stewards branch. That's where I ended up. My brother went in the same a few months after I did. He was, I think he was aviation machinist mate when he—But there was discrimination in there. | 9:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. What kind of discrimination did you experience? | 10:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | Sometimes so far as promotions are concerned? | 10:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. | 10:22 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. I was supposed—I'll tell you one incident happened. I was supposed to be on Liberty, what they call a 48, that's 48 hours off. But I had asked them for a pass. You had to get an out of bounds pass if you went over 25 miles from the base. I was used to going to New York. That's when I was stationed in Rhode Island. But they didn't approve the pass, but I still had my 48 hours. So, I went into Providence, Rhode Island, which is the last town. Then I went on over into Massachusetts, which didn't put me that far from where—I didn't go to New York. When I got back the next night into Rhode Island, the guys was telling me that I was AWOL. But I say, "I can't be AWOL. I'm on the 48, midweek 48." What they wanted me to do, I finally found out, was come back in to the base that night before, most of the next morning, and then leave again at 13:00, which is one o'clock, which would cut in. I wouldn't be on a 48 like that. | 10:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 11:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | I'd just be on an overnight pass or something. They sent me, I didn't go to Captain's Mass. I did go to have to meet though before then. They gave me something like two weeks restriction, and 100 hours extra duty. I'm supposed to be now—We had all White officers in there, because I was working in the officer's quarters. But I would say I was discriminated against because I was supposed to be on a 48, but still they wanted me to come in and muster and go back out at one o'clock. That's cutting six, seven, eight hours out of my 48 right there. | 11:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 12:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | Which was— | 12:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could you explain a little bit about what you were doing? So, you were working with White soldiers mainly, or you were in a Black unit or what? | 12:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, I was working—Well, all the officers at that time in the Navy were White. I was working in the quarters where they lived. | 12:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 13:10 |
George Middleton MacRae | See, in the bachelor's office of quarters, they have a big dining room. They have regular rooms like a hotel. So, you are actually acting as a porter in a way. | 13:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 13:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | The deck steward takes care of the beds and the rooms and all that. The dining room steward takes care of the food and plus the gallery steward. | 13:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 13:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | Mess steward. So, that's what I was doing. | 13:38 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So, do you think that one of the officers was— | 13:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | Not cutting you off, but see what I was saying. The reason I was later on, I took the test for steward, first class or third class. You go from steward mess to steward, and everything went along all right. The test did. Now, there was a WAVE there, which is a Navy woman officer, women in—She recommended me. But Belton, when the marks came out, he didn't recommend me for the promotion. So, I knew it was a discrimination because the exam, she had told me the exam was all right, everything was all right, and recommended me for the promotion. | 13:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Why do you think that—Why wouldn't this officer recommend you, do you think? | 14:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. We had—Well, I don't know about how to say this, but you've heard of revels. | 14:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Mm-hmm. So, he was revish? | 14:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | We had a second officer. He was from New Jersey. But we did have these guys that just couldn't stand to see you get a promotion. | 15:01 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Right. | 15:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. If there's any way they could keep you from doing it, they would do it. Right. | 15:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did you experience, was there any violence or anything during the military, your military experience? Was that kind of feeling on the part of White sailors and officers, did that ever go so far as to cause fights between Black and White sailors? | 15:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | Not on the whole, because even in the New England states, a lot of times, Blacks and Whites didn't frequent the same places. | 15:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 16:01 |
George Middleton MacRae | A lot of places they did, even though they reintegrated, they could. But a lot of places they didn't. Then a lot of places they would go, they were just like that. Because I had heard all kind of—You know how you hear things, "Oh, White boys can't dance," and all that. I've seen Blacks and all, stand back right up there in the Roseland ballroom in Taunton, Massachusetts, and let them take the flow. | 16:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Let the White— | 16:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. So, there wasn't any—When it came to recreation, a lot of times they were all buddies and all. | 16:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So, Black and White sailors sometimes were friends? | 16:47 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, yeah. | 16:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 16:49 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. I say, they frequent quite a few places together. But as a whole they didn't. There was a USO in Providence, Rhode Island, because I helped—Well, I didn't help open it, but I was one of the first sailors there, initial opening. They didn't have a USO for Blacks as such. Now, the Whites used to have their USO at the Elks Club I think it was, Elks Hall. They had a big place down on West Minister Street in Providence, the Whites did. But as such, you would think they would've had one for everybody. But the Blacks actually didn't have anywhere to go until they opened this. | 16:50 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 17:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | What they did was renovated what used to be an old jail house, from what I understand. | 17:42 |
Karen Ferguson | This was just for African-American? | 17:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 17:48 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 17:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think that's about all that went to that one. | 17:53 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 17:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | The hostesses and all were Black, I believe. It made headlines in the Providence jungle when they opened it. | 17:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. What is your experience, these kinds of experiences in the Army, did they affect you in any way? Did you come out of the Navy a different man, or having different ideas than you had when you went in? | 18:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | Maybe I had a better idea that no man is superior to another, and that we could all work together. Yeah. No man is an island. No man stands alone. So, I think that there was a way, where there's a will, there's a way. | 18:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 18:51 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, yeah. | 18:51 |
Karen Ferguson | You saw Blacks and Whites working together? | 18:53 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 18:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Achieving something? | 18:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 18:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did that affect your actions or behavior after the war? Did you get involved in things you hadn't been involved in before or anything like that? | 18:57 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 19:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 19:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. See, like some of the guys say from the Vietnam War, they came right back home to the same thing. Well, you might have a different outlook because you've been integrated, you have met different classes, different characters. See, sometimes when things get hot and heavy, everybody's a brother. | 19:14 |
Karen Ferguson | Does it make you angry to come back to the same situation as you left? | 19:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. I didn't have that type of feeling. Well, I probably didn't have it before I left, since I—Before I went. To see how things could be done and were done in different parts of the country, and people tell you so and so up north, up north, but it's the same thing. I don't know. Where you from? | 19:50 |
Karen Ferguson | I'm from Canada. | 20:23 |
George Middleton MacRae | Canada? | 20:24 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 20:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh. Where you visit Detroit, huh? Around. | 20:25 |
Karen Ferguson | I know. When you got out of the military, when you came back to the shipyard, you were able to get your job finally? | 20:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Right. | 20:49 |
Karen Ferguson | How much longer did you work there? | 20:51 |
George Middleton MacRae | When the shipyard closed, like today I went to work in the same place for the government the next day. | 20:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. This was for the Maritime Administration? | 21:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 21:06 |
Karen Ferguson | How did you get that job? | 21:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | They were looking for shipyard employees. We happened to be—I made an application, and I was sworn in the next day after the shipyard closed, and went right back to work. But I was—Well, it was a temporary job. Well, indefinite appointment. I ran into some difficulty down the line, not so far as—So far as unemployment is concerned. See, when I came out of the service, they had what they called a 52 20. You could get $20 a week for 52 weeks. | 21:10 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. | 21:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I never got a chance to draw any of that. I did in a way, because I went right back to work. Then I went to work for the government temporarily. I had a RIF, a reduction in force, so they had it. I was out of a job. I went to apply for that, and I think I got a chance to draw one week of it. Then the time had run out on this 52 20. I hadn't pocketed any social security by working for the government temporarily they hadn't taken anything out. So, I wasn't entitled to draw anything. So, there I was, out in the street doing that, breaking service without any income. | 21:49 |
Karen Ferguson | How long were you without a job? | 22:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, the first time they called me back, it took them about two weeks or so to call me back. They had another reduction in force a little later on. I was out, I guess six months or more. But in the meantime I went to work. I worked in a hotel as a waiter. I worked at the same club I was telling you about, the oldest club in North Carolina. Yeah. I worked the country club. I worked the beaches. I mean, I was going to have me a job. I had a family then. | 22:43 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 23:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, I had to. | 23:26 |
Karen Ferguson | Were you able to make as much at these jobs since you had been at your job? | 23:28 |
George Middleton MacRae | Not at—Yes. Because when I went to work for the government, I was making 68 some an hour. That was after I had been in the military and come out and finished the shi—My check was $66 every two weeks. | 23:37 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 23:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. | 23:54 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now— | 23:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, you can see how salaries—And that same job today pay $8 and something? | 23:56 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. Okay. | 24:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 24:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, were you receiving, were you earning the same amount as Whites were in your job? Or was this a job that only Blacks held? | 24:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | You mean? | 24:17 |
Karen Ferguson | In the shipyard, and also in the Maritime Administration. | 24:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 24:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. You were earning— | 24:21 |
George Middleton MacRae | They had a pay schedule, and every once in a while the schedule would come up and you could tell according to what grade he was, what grade—Everybody made the same according to that grade. | 24:22 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. All right. So, you were earning the same amount? | 24:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. But see, most of them were helpers, or laborers, were Black, and some guys had been machinists or something and their salary would be higher, a crane operator or something like that. | 24:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, could Blacks do all those jobs? Like crane operator and that kind of thing? | 25:00 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, they didn't have any higher, it was a very small crew. They did have a guy that used to fire the crane. He was a fireman, called him fireman, or switchman. Because he would operate on the locomotives. His salary was higher than the others because he was in a different category. | 25:02 |
Karen Ferguson | It was sometime here you got married, huh? | 25:30 |
George Middleton MacRae | I got married in 1947. | 25:36 |
Karen Ferguson | '47? | 25:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 25:36 |
Karen Ferguson | After you got back from the war— | 25:36 |
George Middleton MacRae | I had been back a couple of years. About a year and a half. Something like that. Yeah. | 25:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you meet your wife? | 25:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | Strange. I met my wife, she was a local. But I met her, I was coming from Boston, and she just came from New York. I met her in Rocky Mountain up there. | 25:47 |
Karen Ferguson | On the train? | 25:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 25:59 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So, you hadn't known her when you were growing up? | 26:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | I knew her family. | 26:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 26:05 |
George Middleton MacRae | I went to school with her sister and brother, but I didn't know her. Yep. | 26:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, how long did you court, how long was your courtship? | 26:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, if you call it that, I guess a year or so. | 26:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Yeah. | 26:21 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, because see when I met her, I was supposed to be engaged to somebody else. | 26:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. So, you had a little bit of a— | 26:26 |
George Middleton MacRae | But see, I had been to visit her in New York, because she was living in New York at the time. I mean, I met her coming from New York, coming home. | 26:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Was she a local girl as well? | 26:44 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 26:44 |
Karen Ferguson | A woman in New York. Okay. Where did you meet her? | 26:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, she wasn't in New York. The one I was talking about before, she was a nurse here. | 26:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 26:55 |
George Middleton MacRae | When I left here. But right after I left, she went to Washington to Freedmen's Hospital. | 26:57 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. So, you were engaged to her all the way through the war? | 27:05 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. That's what we called it. But see, after I got out, she came down here the same summer I got out, and she had already found me a job in Washington. As she said, it had prospects of a job. But see I came back home. So, she came down that summer to visit, and then I didn't see her anymore. The wife came, I mean, yeah. The one I married, she came home to live and I started going to see her. So, the next thing I know, I got an invitation. I noticed that this girl that I was engaged was getting married. | 27:11 |
Karen Ferguson | But you were— | 28:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 28:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, when— | 28:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | I didn't see her anymore until 1955, when I went to Washington to get this award. She was married then at that time and had a couple of kids. | 28:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did her family approve of her getting married to you? The woman you married? | 28:18 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, yeah. | 28:24 |
Karen Ferguson | What did her family, what did her parents do for a living? | 28:26 |
George Middleton MacRae | Her father worked at Coastline for— | 28:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 28:35 |
George Middleton MacRae | 40 something years. Then he was a minister. So, he gave me a whole book to read before I could get— | 28:35 |
Karen Ferguson | So, now what kinds of things would you do when you went out on date? | 28:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | Oh, we'd go to the movie, go to the nightclub, go to church sometimes. Well, I'd go to some churches with him or her, you know. You had to stay in with family, you had to get in. | 28:55 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did you go to the Ritz Theater? Or where did you go to the movies? | 29:14 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know whether I remember. She used to go to the Ritz all the time, because she was from the north side of town. I went to the—I didn't go to Louis too much, but when I would go, I'd go to the Bijou, the Royal or the Carolina. | 29:21 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 29:30 |
George Middleton MacRae | Now all those places, they'd sell you tickets, but the seats were in the balcony. | 29:33 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:40 |
George Middleton MacRae | You didn't have no front— | 29:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 29:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | —first floor seats at that time, | 29:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Did people ever—I've heard a couple of people talk about throwing things down onto the White—Have you heard of people doing that at the— | 29:46 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know, they may. Popcorn or something. I don't know. I imagine you're going to have somebody that's going to mess up. | 29:56 |
Karen Ferguson | So, what was your marriage like? Did you have a big wedding? | 30:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, because my mother was ill and she had been sick for about 14, 15 years. | 30:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. | 30:19 |
George Middleton MacRae | Arthritis victim. I got married at my home, my mother's home, so she could be close too. It was just a quiet family wedding with a few friends. Very, very good. | 30:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Where did you live after you got married? | 30:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | I stayed with my parents for the first few months. Of course, when we first got married she was going back home. She thought she was going. | 30:44 |
Karen Ferguson | So, she was— | 30:56 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, we stayed together. We stayed there. | 30:59 |
Karen Ferguson | But she was feeling a bit— | 30:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't know. [indistinct 00:31:00] But we stayed there until I moved in the housing project out here. | 31:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. The Taylor home? | 31:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, Hillcrest, right out here. At that time, it was the defense workers right on living there, military, because it was where the rent was reasonable. They still were on the low rent, some kind of low rent, something they had. But I moved into a one bedroom apartment, and from there I moved into a two bedroom apartment. From there I moved into a three bedroom apartment. I stayed out there from, I guess I moved out there in '47 or '48. I moved down here in '56. | 31:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, you bought this house? | 31:58 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 32:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, did your parents own their own home? | 32:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 32:03 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 32:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think was one of those homes that was family owned, an uncle or something had some ties in it. But they ended up owning it. Then at one time, seemed like—I don't know if it was a mortgage or something, but my brother, they advised him to buy the house and he bought it, my oldest brother. Well, he bought it in a way. They paid the mortgage on it, but it was in his name. That house of theirs, it's been moved when they built that Jerry place up that housing project, they moved that house in 1950, two blocks down here, two and a half blocks. It's been renovated several times. So, my sister owns it now, and her husband. So, it's been around. | 32:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, so you have some children? | 33:09 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah, I have four children. Four adults. | 33:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Where were they born? Were they born during segregation as well? Did they go to segregated school? | 33:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. All but—Yeah. All of them went, I think until the last two years. Yeah. Well, two of them went to segregated schools the whole time. I had a son that's living in Durham now, he was a graduate of North Carolina State. | 33:19 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 33:47 |
George Middleton MacRae | I have a daughter in Texas that's married too. She graduated from Hampton Institute. Two are here with me, because one of them is in Texas right now visiting. But one of them was from North Carolina Central. Graduated from North Carolina Central, and the other graduated and lives in Salem State. | 33:47 |
Karen Ferguson | So, they all went to college? | 34:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 34:08 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was that something important to you, that they go to college? | 34:10 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. I wanted to see them get as much education as they could, and prepare themselves for the— | 34:13 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. What did you teach your own children about segregation? Do you remember ever talking to them, explaining to them about it? | 34:18 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. I don't think—I just told them to do the best they could, or do what they had to do. They would probably have problems, some problems, but they could iron them out. I mean, no different than anybody else. | 34:33 |
Karen Ferguson | How was their childhood? How was their life different than yours growing up? | 34:54 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I don't think they had—I don't know. Some of the problems that we had, they didn't have to face, I don't think. I don't think they had a White and Colored water—They didn't have to go all the way to the back of the bus. Tell you to move back or something like that. Or they could apply for a job wherever you couldn't. I don't think in later years they saw the sign that says, laundromat, White only, or this or that or the other. So, some of them, times changed a lot. | 35:04 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Now, you worked at the military, the Maritime Administration, that was the job that you retired at was there? | 35:55 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 36:11 |
Karen Ferguson | Oh, okay. When did you— | 36:12 |
George Middleton MacRae | I worked for the Maritime until 1960. Yeah. 1960 I think. Then all this land was given to the state. | 36:15 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 36:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's when they expanded the port, State Port Authorities expanded the port. I went to work for the Port, North Carolina State Port for about four months. Then they got a opening. We had sent in applications before I left the Maritime, we had sent in applications to Camp Lejeune, Sunny Point and Fort Bragg, places, installations, coast around. They got an opening at Sunny Point, Military Ocean Terminal, which is five miles from South port. | 36:41 |
George Middleton MacRae | Was [indistinct 00:37:23] in Military Ocean Terminal on the East coast I think. They had a permanent job and a temporary job, so I went down and got an interview to chief of the engineering division's house that Saturday. I went to work that Monday. It so happened when the time ran out that I got the permanent job. The other fellow that had been working with me at the shipyard got the temporary job. So, he was at it about a year before they got a permanent job, called him back in. So, I went there for 20 years. | 37:20 |
Karen Ferguson | Now—No, sorry. | 38:03 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, I left the government service with about 35 or 36 years of service, plus two years of sick leave, I guess. | 38:07 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, it was here that you experienced some problems having Whites under you? | 38:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Right. That's right. | 38:25 |
Karen Ferguson | Can you talk a little bit about that? What happened? They didn't want to take— | 38:26 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, in a way they didn't want to take orders or something, I guess, you see. It wasn't—Well, it wasn't a bunch. I would just say one probably. So, it only takes one troublemaker sometime to start something. That wasn't the first time, or the only time, because he figured it another time we had these tractor mowers and we always told them, they had to license to operate them. I told him, I said, "Well, you can operate this mower if you want to. You don't have to. You're not—" He wasn't of the grade. He was qualified to do it. He was one of those that anything with a motor on it, you'd rather ride or something like that than to get out there and probably with a bush axe or a swing blade and do manual labor. I mean, he'd rather be riding. | 38:40 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 39:38 |
George Middleton MacRae | So, the second incident, he brought that up, and the chief of engineer division told him, say, "Well, he told you you didn't have to do it, but you say you'd rather do that than to do what the others were doing. But see here that that's not a legitimate complaint there, because if somebody tell you you don't have to do this, you go ahead and do the rest of what they're doing. But if you'd rather get up there and ride and operate, than walk, well that's something else." | 39:39 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. So, he was making complaints? | 40:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | That's right. | 40:18 |
Karen Ferguson | Did they ever come to anything? | 40:20 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, we went to personnel, and they just told him he was wrong, I guess, in a way of speaking. That he didn't have nothing. | 40:23 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Did you experience any kind of job discrimination before the desegregation of the civil service and the government service? | 40:33 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. Because I went to work with a small crew, and all those were pretty well knit together. Yeah. | 40:47 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. This was a Black crew then before or this was a— | 41:06 |
George Middleton MacRae | No, we had integrated crew before. | 41:09 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 41:11 |
George Middleton MacRae | Because we had a crane operator that was White. We had a machinist that was White. We had electricians, well all the tradesmen mostly were White, and those were laborers, but they got along together pretty good. | 41:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, was this at the Maritime Administration? | 41:28 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 41:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, were you in charge of Whites ever there? | 41:32 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 41:35 |
Karen Ferguson | So, at Sunny Point, it was the first time that you had been a foreman or a supervisor? | 41:37 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Right. Yeah. | 41:45 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, you were talking a little bit about the union. At the beginning, having to do with this guy who was making complaints. | 41:48 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. It's— | 41:57 |
Karen Ferguson | What union was that? | 41:59 |
George Middleton MacRae | American Federation of Government Employees. | 42:00 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Now, that union, did you ever have problems with that union, or did it always deal fairly with its Black members? | 42:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. We never had trouble with the union, because I never had that much to do. I paid my union dues and I never had too many complaints. But I've seen that union save some White guy's jobs though. That I figured should have been gone in a way. | 42:12 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 42:27 |
George Middleton MacRae | If it had been—Probably if it had been me or somebody else, I would have. | 42:27 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. So, you don't think they would've supported a Black employee that way? The union. A Black member. | 42:34 |
George Middleton MacRae | They probably would've given them support. This union would have, I believe. Yeah. But what I was saying, not the union itself, but the administration probably would've put the roles—They would've fought it, I'd say. | 42:46 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Because I knew an incident where the guy, they thought he was drinking on the job. This was White, they found a beer can half full and something on his desk. | 43:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. | 43:17 |
George Middleton MacRae | In the water plant. I don't know whether they sent him home that night, supervisor or somebody, or whether they took him home. But the union went to bat for him and he was reinstated. I mean, he never was out of the job, see. I was just saying, probably it might have not been true, but if it was me, they probably would've sent me. I probably would've gotten fired on the spot, something like that. | 43:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Right, right. | 43:47 |
George Middleton MacRae | But his story was that he picked it up outside on the grounds, just half full. | 43:50 |
Karen Ferguson | So, you think that the local officials, federal officials, were sometimes discriminatory more than the union? | 44:04 |
George Middleton MacRae | They might have showed favoritism sometimes. Yeah. | 44:17 |
Karen Ferguson | Now, did you belong to any civic organizations after you got out of the service, like the Masons or the Elks or anything like that? | 44:27 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. | 44:36 |
Karen Ferguson | No. Did you ever have an opportunity to— | 44:39 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. | 44:41 |
Karen Ferguson | Why didn't you join? | 44:42 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I don't know. I started once. My brother-in-law, he was writing in another guy and I know some that have made it in there since then. Because I went to, I started out once, but I don't think my interest was that great. | 44:49 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. Okay. Did you belong to any other kinds of organizations when you got back? | 45:11 |
George Middleton MacRae | Nothing but my class. My class, we just finished our—Celebrated our 55th class reunion this year. | 45:18 |
Karen Ferguson | You belong to the Williston alumni? | 45:25 |
George Middleton MacRae | Yeah. Williston. The alumni class of 38. | 45:30 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 45:31 |
George Middleton MacRae | I don't belong to the alumnus. There is a Williston alumni. | 45:32 |
Karen Ferguson | Did you continue going to the Royal—Were the Royal Knights still active? | 45:40 |
George Middleton MacRae | No. They aren't active anymore, no. They played out. I think some of them went to the four corners of Earth. | 45:44 |
Karen Ferguson | So, that didn't really last after high school? | 45:52 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, this was right after high school, but it didn't last but maybe a couple of years or so. Yeah. | 45:55 |
Karen Ferguson | How about your wife? Did she belong to anything? Any organizations? | 46:02 |
George Middleton MacRae | Her class. | 46:05 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. Her class? | 46:07 |
George Middleton MacRae | I think that's about all. | 46:10 |
Karen Ferguson | So, you've kept in close contact with the people you went to school with? | 46:13 |
George Middleton MacRae | Right. | 46:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Okay. | 46:16 |
Karen Ferguson | Final question that I try to ask everyone. I'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about what segregation and the system of segregation has meant to your life. Whether you think it held you back or whether you ever think about what it would've been like had there not been segregation in the South. Maybe just talk a little bit about that, if you— | 0:01 |
George Middleton MacRae | If it hadn't been segregation in the South? | 0:28 |
Karen Ferguson | Or what do you think the system of segregation has meant to your life? | 0:32 |
George Middleton MacRae | Well, I believe that it hadn't been segregation we probably would've been far more advanced and far more considerate of each other now if we had had the same opportunities and the same facilities at our disposal. Maybe if we had had the laboratories and the reference books and all and the opportunities for other trades, we probably would've been a closer knit nation than we are today, but I guess that's hindsight and that's past now. So all we can do is move along, try to do what we can with what we have available now. And I believe that opportunities will open up. We have advanced, even though we had some difficult times, but we can't look back, we have to move forward. | 0:42 |
Karen Ferguson | Right. All right. Thank you. [indistinct 00:02:32]. | 2:25 |
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