Roderick Thomas interview recording, 1993 July 20
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Roderick Thomas | —in Wilmington 70 years ago on the north side of town with a section called Brooklyn. | 0:01 |
Kara Miles | Okay. Tell me about what streets did Brooklyn encompass? | 0:10 |
Roderick Thomas | Brooklyn ran from, I'll say Princeton Street to the railroad track, which is Taylor Street. | 0:17 |
Kara Miles | Was this an all Black section of town? | 0:34 |
Roderick Thomas | Yes and no. The paved section was White and we stayed in the dirt streets. There were Whites in the Brooklyn section. They didn't call it Brooklyn, reckon it was upper Brooklyn where they lived. There were numerous White churches over there. That later were bought up and now occupied by Blacks. The houses in that section of town were moderate homes. Some Blacks lived in moderate homes, some Blacks lived in shacks. Most of them lived in shacks, rental property. Absentee landlords came in and got the money and left and didn't fix some. Most of the toilets were on the outside. I think once a month a fellow would come by with a little wagon and pick up the waste and haul it off. I was a little fortunate. My parents was a Pullman porter and at that time, most Pullman Porters had a little college education, which my father had. He bought a home and we had an inside privy. We were privileged big shots. | 0:38 |
Kara Miles | Okay. Where had your father gone to college at? | 2:48 |
Roderick Thomas | Well, it was an old A&T. I think it was Dillards, wasn't it? I think it was Dillards. It was a two room boarding school in Greensboro. He was from Cloud, South Carolina and he moved to Laurinburg working in the hotel there. That's where he met my mother. My mother was a Lumbee Indian. She was real fair with hair on her shoulders. My father was dark. They moved here from Laurinburg when they transferred him with the train. All the trains of Atlantic coastline would go to Hamlet and Laurinburg. That's where he was stationed there. But he later on was transferred here. He brought his family here. I was born here. There was six of us and I think I was—Two of us was born here. The rest of them was born in Laurinburg. | 2:50 |
Roderick Thomas | My one thing I would like to bring up, my mother's mother was real fair. She changed over to the White race and left my mother and her sister to be raised by her mother. Now her mother was a set old time fashioned Indian. She didn't like Black people and she would tell my father that. She would—I forget, I was, oh, I don't know how old, but she would hold me on her knee and sing the rituals to me. She would—Her hair was down and my mother used to comb it and stroke it. She would look up and sing these songs, remind me of Roots. She was that way and she was old, but she never did like my father. She claimed that he took my mother. By the way, they were raised in the jailhouse. She was the cook and she kept her two daughters. Now they were pretty women. One of them had blue eyes and the other one had hazel eyes. As I said, her mother decided that she didn't want to be whatever she was. | 4:20 |
Roderick Thomas | I think she did have that ounce of Black blood in her. That made her Black. But the old lady didn't have any in her and she hated it. But we were raised—There was six of us and we were raised pretty well. Because my father, during that time in the '20s and in the '30s, he made what they call a good salary. He ran on the train and he got the tips. Like I say, he bought him a home. He sent my sister to one of the most prestige schools in North Carolina, Sedalia, Palmer. She went to Palmer. We were lucky. We were lucky. I was lucky. He sent me to college. I went to North Carolina. It was North Carolina College for Negroes at that time in Durham. Of course, I went into the Marine Corps, when I came out of Marine Corps, I sent myself to school then. | 6:18 |
Roderick Thomas | But as I say, we were fortunate. We did have a little more than people down the street and course we shared what we had. We had the first radio on the block. An Atwater Kent, I'll never forget the name of it. We used to play it and people from all around the neighborhood would come and listen at the fights between Joe Lewis. You heard of Joe Lewis, I think. I think so. They would come and sit on our steps and listen to it. Ask me a question. | 7:44 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 8:36 |
Roderick Thomas | This is my wife, Esther. | 8:36 |
Esther Thomas | Good morning. | 8:40 |
Kara Miles | Hello. You were talking about listening to Joe Lewis on the radio. | 8:40 |
Roderick Thomas | Oh, yes. As I said, in our neighborhood, we were fortunate to have the first telephone, the first radio. People would come and sit on our steps and listen to it. Actually, I didn't experience too much Jim Crow because we stayed in our place. We had people that we would go around with that we enjoyed ourself with. We probably wouldn't have enjoyed in a integrated situation, which is what has happened today. I find myself wanting to be with my people, but I do want to know that I can go there, that you can't restrict me from going there. But that's the way it was was then we had our own clubs. | 8:43 |
Roderick Thomas | We'd go have our own dances and parties. We were fortunate. There were a few Blacks during those days. In the time that you were running into Jim Crow, it's when you wanted to better yourself. I'll say that's when you ran into that kind of person. I left here in '41 and went to Durham. I learned a lot there. Because Durham is a city where—People in Durham branches out because of North Carolina Mutual and because of Carolina where you got two sets over there, you got the rednecks and you got the liberals in Carolina. I did experience this when I was in school. Dr. Phillips gave us an assignment and told us to go to Duke Library and look it up. Well, Blacks on Duke campus at that time was just like chicken in the teeth. They were—All them was on there was Hindus, turbans around the heads of putting on from Africa. They got it—They would go there. But I asked the librarian for this book, she said, "Yes, it's so and so and so." The catalog. She said, "Those seats over there are reserved for you." | 9:53 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "Duke University endowed by the Duke Foundation and all the money and all that?" We sat there. I said, "I'll never go back on." I've been pulling against Duke ever since. That's Carolina beat above be so glad. But that's one thing that I experienced. Then I got with a group of people in Durham, was Wallace. I would go to Carolina to, they call them cell meetings. I'd sit at— | 11:48 |
Kara Miles | At what? | 12:29 |
Roderick Thomas | Cell meetings, what they call it communist later on. | 12:30 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 12:37 |
Roderick Thomas | I'd sit there and listen, I was young, 18 and listen and listen and listen. I didn't think that would bother me in my life. But it did. I got a job at the post office working for the government and before they confirmed me, he pulled out this folder and he had this on it. Had you have you ever thought about throwing over the government? I said, "You kidding?" I said, "I'm a Black man. That was never entered my mind." But I never thought that would come back to touch me. Because I had gone in the Marine Corps. That's another thing. I think that's why Beverly sent you. You see all Black unit over here, all Black unit. Most of those fellows had a darn high IQ. | 12:38 |
Roderick Thomas | Most of them were from the north. They had real good training. I had two years of college. I thought I was it. When I got in the Marine Corps, I knew that we had to go through basic. What was the blessing to me that I ran into two or three fellows in the Recruit depot where you go the Marine Corps, into service, what they would train you and all that. I ran into two fellows at Central with me, I'll say Central, North Carolina. He said, "Well, Rod, we go look out for you. You don't have to worry about it." End up, we came out basic training. I was out of basic training about two weeks, they put me in the ammo company, ammunition company unloading ships. | 13:48 |
Roderick Thomas | I wasn't used to that. Course, it made a man out you, but you don't want to be a man like that. But I said, "Well, I'm going file for officer candidate school." The officer we had was White. All the non-commission officers were White. Then the what made me so angry, they were telling you to call a non-commission officer, sir. I knew better than that because it was in the book that you address a non-commission officer, his rank and his name. But anyway, I filed for office candidate school and I was overseas, I was on Guam. | 14:52 |
Roderick Thomas | They sent me down and exam, had me medical and all that. They went through the procedures now. They said I had high blood pressure. I said, "Well, if I got a high blood pressure, I can't go to OC at school, then you put me out." I never heard any more of it. I never heard any more of it. It was—Like I said, it didn't bother me too much because I was secure. Then I came out of college, oh, man, Dr. Shepherd made this speech, I want to say. But you go out into the world, make your life. I had a degree in economics. The only place I could've gone to North Carolina Mutual with that insurance book and carry that. We got married. She was my high school girlfriend. | 15:51 |
Roderick Thomas | We started going together in the ninth grade. She went to Fayetteville, I went to Central. Anyway, I had to have a job. She got pregnant. I had to have a job. I got the job at the post office and I walked in the post office, chips on my shoulder in the first place. I ran into my people, older. I said one or two things and one of them called me off to the side, this elderly Black fellow, "Now we get along fine here. We don't have any trouble with these White people and we not going to let you come in here and change things." | 17:05 |
Roderick Thomas | But like I said, I read a lot and I read the government's manuals on how things are supposed to be done. They had two bathrooms, two toilets, two restrooms where you'd rest. One was for the clerks and one for the carriers. In those days, most Blacks, all Blacks were carriers or custodians. They told us to go to the carrier side. Now the White carriers, they went to the clerk's side. Oh, smart me, I went to the supervisor. I said, "Why are they going in there, in the clerk's side and not coming over in the carriers side?" | 18:02 |
Roderick Thomas | Always in the midst of Whites, you find one White in there that really believes in liberty justice. Now that is the truth. You'll find one boy from Southport over there, Gene O'Brien. He said, "Rod, I'll see that stop." He was a clerk. He said, "From now on, no carriers will come in the clerks swing." Understand what I said? No carriers, that meant the White carriers couldn't go over there. They got on me about that. Because the boy from Mississippi said, "I wish I had you in Mississippi." I said, "Well, I wish I had you in Brooklyn right now." But anyway, I fought that. Got that changed. Then those days, they weren't hiring in the Black supervisors. Had a fellow in the post office, I don't know why, he was a teacher, principal. He had hours on his doctorate. He decided to come to the post office. | 19:10 |
Roderick Thomas | He took the examination. I took the examination, I passed the examination. He passed examination. He made such a mark that they just couldn't deny him. They couldn't deny him. They made him a supervisor. First thing happened, they put him on the worst shift he could have. I think that 2:00 to 6:00 in the morning. You don't have no time for your family. You don't have no time for anything. They put him on this shift and he just couldn't make it. He turned the job down and went on back to the carrier. But little things like that. Now I serve on the planning commission of the city of Wilmington. These people don't know this is happening to themselves. Whites—Most of them, something they were born with and it's nothing they can do about it. I feel sorry for them. I told a White man that, and he said, "You feel sorry for me?" | 20:39 |
Roderick Thomas | But what happened is that this chairman of the planning commission was giving out assignments and he gave—I'm sitting in the middle of this thing now. I'm the only one there. He gives out assignments all around me. He didn't say one word to me. I said, "Just a minute. You didn't give me assignment." "I didn't think you wanted one." I said, "Well, bless you. You're a smart man. You can read what's inside my mind." I said, "I like you." I said, "You shouldn't be here. Man reading people's mind." I said, "You ought to be on the stock exchange and you can make you some money." "Well, I didn't know." I said, "Well, that's what's wrong. You do know," I said, "but you're not big enough to admit that you are prejudice." "I'm not prejudice." I said, "Oh, yes, you are." I said, "You just proved it to me." But people—Like I said, I feel sorry for them. I do. I'm sorry. | 21:53 |
Roderick Thomas | Well, going back to the post office. The government works on seniority. The more seniority you have, the more influence you got. You can halfway demand the job you want. We had this situation to come up right before the riot here. The last riot here. It's been two here, the one in '18. Then the Chavis, I call it that, whatever it is there. They were the carriers that was in the Black neighborhoods, White carriers, they refused. They weren't going in those neighborhoods. | 23:06 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "I'm not afraid. I'm going back on my route." Course, I worked out here in the influential section of town where they're not prejudice out there. They have too much money to be prejudice. It's funny. Anyway, I worked out there. I didn't have that much to worry about. They don't call you a nigger. They call you Colored. Okay. They're nice people. Nice people. But the boys that worked in the drop on section down in there are nothing but rednecks, they were concerned about going in there. The White boys said they weren't going. We had a meeting and as I said, now you work on seniority in the government. | 23:58 |
Roderick Thomas | More seniority you have, you can get the easy jobs. These White boys in this Black neighborhood, and he was talking to the supervisor. He said, "Why don't you give all the Black boys the Colored routes? And we go in the White neighborhood?" I jumped out of high. I said, "I don't want to call you anything." I said, "But you tell him how this thing works." I said, "I've been here," but I've been there about 15 years then. I said, "It works such and such a way that I have seniority over you. I can take your job from you." But it shouldn't be that. Put all the Black people in—That's the way it was. | 24:57 |
Roderick Thomas | It's funny thing. Another situation happened where we used to ride—Had the trolley buses in town and the mail carriers rode the bus to go to their routes. You get on the unit, at that time in the back, front. I'd get on the bus. I got that mailbag on. Boom. I'd sit right behind the driver. One of them will get up and come up and tell the driver, "He's sitting up here." He said, "He's not up here. That's that mail bag up here." It's one of those things. Well, it's a lot better. | 25:58 |
Kara Miles | They had to allow you to sit up there because you were— | 26:54 |
Roderick Thomas | The mail bag. | 26:56 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 26:57 |
Roderick Thomas | Not me. | 26:57 |
Kara Miles | But because you had the mail bag— | 26:57 |
Roderick Thomas | I had the mail bag. | 26:57 |
Kara Miles | —that you could— | 26:57 |
Roderick Thomas | I got a rash—Had a spray, they'd spray dogs. It got back on me. I had to go to a dermatologist. I carried my wife with me. We flopped up in the waiting room. Boy, that receptionist come around that desk so fast. She said, "You can't stay in here. There's a little cubby hole back there for you to sit." I said, "Oh no, I'm not going in there." "Oh, yes, you are." I said, "Well, I can either leave. I'm not going in there." The doctor, Dr. Dickie, I'll never forget him. He came out and he said, "You've been around here long enough to know how it is." I said, "Well, it shouldn't be like that." I said, "I'm in here." I say, "Dr. Dickie, I didn't come to you. They sent me to you. The government sent me, the United States government." | 27:03 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "You heard of them, haven't you?" He said, "Well, just the way it is, it's the custom." I said, "Well, the government shouldn't have to take a backseat to no one." I said, "I'm here representing the government." He said, "Well, you can stand here, but your wife will go back to the—" She's about belligerent as I am. She said, "I'm not going in there." We got up and walked out. By the time I got back to the post office, postmaster sent for me. He said, "Rodrick, you out there starting things again." | 28:11 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "No." I said, "Now, you know I'm right." He said, "Well, I know you're right." Said, "You going to be right if you wrong." I said, "Well, I just see it that way that I'm representing the government and you going put me in a little cubby, you going to segregate me. I'm not going to let you do that." I said, "I'd rather not go." I said, Now, I got this in working in your postal service." I said, "I'll have you send me to darn Duke before I go back up there in that hole." He said, "Well, would you compromise?" I said, "Like what?" Said, "Will you go there after hours?" | 28:49 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "No." I said, "You slapping me in the face." I said, "Well—" Anyway, he said, "Well, you want the doctor to make a house call?" I said, "Yeah, let him come to my house to treat me." But it takes a pretty good man. It's not the White, it's more my people than that. It's just as much their fault as it is the White. The White man, I say doesn't know any better. But the Black man knows right here in this neighborhood, in these nine houses, we got together years ago, 26 years ago and bought this land. Fellow living over here, doctor. No, not a doctor. He's a lawyer. He bought the land. We got together and built these homes. | 29:34 |
Roderick Thomas | Then the riot came on. Now we were always—The few in here, we were all going to White cafes anyhow because even though we'd probably have to go through the back door, we were there. Which doesn't make me feel good and doesn't make me look big or anything like that. Was just the thing that—This where Robert Barnes—Where you from? | 30:55 |
Kara Miles | Virginia. | 31:28 |
Roderick Thomas | Virginia. Virginia. Okay. What part? | 31:29 |
Kara Miles | Richmond. | 31:31 |
Roderick Thomas | Richmond? Bee town. We were going in these places, but we were Uncle Toms. We were cutting our own throat because it's nothing to be feel good about. Because we were doing it because every woman out here was a school teacher. Principals. I think I worked the post office, but the rest of them were school teachers and undertakers and all that. I mean, it was just—This was a neighborhood where little money was here. As I said, we were cutting our own throats. Then when the kids been down were marching and burning. I wasn't for the burning, I was for the marching because I marched and I think my wife was one of the few school teachers that marched. | 31:32 |
Roderick Thomas | The lady called up and told her, "You going lose your job, honey, if you get out there and march." But we marched anyhow. Her father was a Baptist preacher. He was arrested twice. I marched in the mailman uniform. I knew that was against the law. The Hatch Act would've made me lose my job. But they didn't say one word to me. But what I'm saying is that the Black people that had to a little something, they would always say, "You're going too far. You should stop. You got enough. Stop it right there." | 32:49 |
Roderick Thomas | But those kids enjoy there Brooklyn homes, they didn't have anything. They didn't have anything. They turn around and let the certain people give away everything we had. Our high school, our parks, even our street names, they took our street names, some of them and moved out in the White neighborhoods and changed the names of streets. But the most detrimental thing that happened to the Blacks here in Wilmington was taking our school. I'm guilty of sending my children to a White school. They went to a White school before they integrated it. I was one of those to try it, try break it down, to try it. I sent them. They wanted to go and I sent them. But I still say that that was something that we didn't need to do. Because we had a school there. We had the best English department in North Carolina. You left Williston and went off to college and set up and quite—Recite the Canterbury Tales and all that. I did that at Central and the lady looked at me, said, "Where'd you learn that?" | 33:46 |
Roderick Thomas | I said, "We learned that in eighth and ninth grade." Things of that such. We had a topnotch school. Band and football team, basketball team. We had a top topnotch school. We lost all that by integration. For some reason, I think we fared better segregation. That sound critical of me, but they just took everything from us. We don't have anything here now. We look at those teachers. We used to have had pride in us. The teachers used to go to the pupils' homes and talk with their parents. It was PTA. The PTO now. Do they have PTAs anymore? I don't know whether they even have them anymore. But those are small things. But I hope what I've said has helped you. | 35:30 |
Kara Miles | Oh, doing wonderful. You said your kids went to a White schools before integration. Did they go to schools around here or where did they go? | 36:53 |
Roderick Thomas | My daughter did. My daughter went to school right here. My two sons went to New Hanover High. | 37:08 |
Kara Miles | Before— | 37:16 |
Roderick Thomas | Before they made it. Before they made him go. Then he would—I don't know, did you meet my son Larry? | 37:18 |
Kara Miles | Oh— | 37:28 |
Roderick Thomas | Runs a bookstore. | 37:28 |
Kara Miles | I didn't meet him, but several of the people on my team did. | 37:29 |
Roderick Thomas | Is that right? He writes quite a bit. Writes quite a bit. He talks about—Matter of fact, he got his Masters from Carolina in history. He said when they first went to New Hanover High, how to—Bullies would block them so they couldn't get by. I told him, I said, "Well, just go ahead and take what the hand you. There's too many of them. You just go ahead and take it." But he's never—He's tall. He's tall. He likes basketball. I think he likes watermelon, but he won't eat any. He's one of those. I wish you meet him though. He is definitely one of those that—Well, you talk to him, he could sit here and talk with you for a month. I'll tell you something. | 37:32 |
Roderick Thomas | But anyway, he said he went to—First, we carried him up to Carolina and got his room and all that. He said he was coming across the campus and all these White kids were standing there, "Oh, man, we got another, we got another one." He said, "Another what?" "Another basketball player." He's tall. He said, "No, I'm up here for this—I want to put something in the head." They said, "Oh." Well, I talked long enough. | 38:31 |
Kara Miles | Oh, no. Okay. Let me go back to your mother and the being an Indian, your mother was— | 39:06 |
Roderick Thomas | Well, she was a Lumbee. | 39:13 |
Kara Miles | Did she teach you any Indian culture? Were you raised in— | 39:18 |
Roderick Thomas | My great-grandmother, she did. She never would give up any heritage, even though that she was—I don't say she was made to live Black, but she was not—She was all in Indian. At the night, she'd got the tub of water and wash her feet and sing and take her hair. I remember it because it scared me so. She would go and sing those songs. But my mother was—She didn't do as much as she did. I saw my grandmother do more of that than anyone else. She, on one occasion, we went back to Laurinburg, I was a little fellow, and she took me with her and her people turned their backs on her, turned their back and they're the same way today. They turned their backs on me. My mother say she married someone that was going to take care of her. She married my daddy. He took care of her. Said other women was out working and she was sitting home raising her family. She did a pretty good job of it, I think, too. | 39:23 |
Kara Miles | How did your parents meet? | 41:06 |
Roderick Thomas | I really don't know. As I say, he was—I can surmise, he was working to the hotel there. I never heard him talk about, tell the truth. That's all I know that she was fair. He married her against her grandmother's objection. Like I say, her mother left. She— | 41:09 |
Kara Miles | Did she keep in contact with them? | 41:46 |
Roderick Thomas | No. | 41:47 |
Kara Miles | Or she just— | 41:47 |
Roderick Thomas | No, no. My son, he went to Laurinburg, Scotland County and went to the courthouse, checked all the records, checking all of that. It was an Indian girl that had two girls, didn't have any names. They probably picked up on the name themselves, which she left. Mama said she didn't never look back anymore. She don't know where she was. She heard she was in Chicago. But they didn't know. She left Laurinburg with a White fellow and she wanted to be White, but she was more Lumbee than she was White. He probably got up there and got rid of her when he found out. But he know what his imitation of life, one of those deals. | 41:48 |
Roderick Thomas | But we checked. We checked and checked and checked and never could— Larry, my son, he went over it and went over, he got a whole lot of notes and things from Laurinburg, but we never—As far as he found in the record, deed, he found out that there was this woman had two children, no names. They were quicks. I don't know whether quick's Irish or what? I really don't know. But they were quicks and we found that much out. But other than that, never did find out my grandmama name. She didn't have a name. But, we ever find it out in there, start giving us some of that land up there, we going up and claim some of it. | 42:59 |
Kara Miles | You were saying that it was your mother that was raised in the jailhouse? You were talking about that? | 44:01 |
Roderick Thomas | My grandmother was the cook there. | 44:07 |
Kara Miles | Your great-grandmother or your— | 44:10 |
Roderick Thomas | My mother's, mother's mother. | 44:14 |
Kara Miles | Okay. | 44:18 |
Roderick Thomas | Okay. That's my— | 44:19 |
Kara Miles | Great grand-mother. | 44:20 |
Roderick Thomas | —great-grandmother. They were raised in—She had a job cooking at the jailhouse. I reckon they had a little building over there for them. She raised them without a man and without even their mother. When they got a chance to get away from there, I think they just took over and gone. But her sister married a fellow, she moved to New York. She had blue eyes, pretty blue eyes. They'd joke each other what she was—It was one of those things, in those days, the woman was there. They took advantage of it all. That's all they wanted to. | 44:21 |
Roderick Thomas | But as I say, we've have had a beautiful life. We've got three children. Fortunate enough to get all three of them through college. Matter of fact, the whole household is college trained. Her family, all college trained. She's got a brother's currently in the Army. We are fortunate. We saved our little money, went down to the beach and bought us a place down there. Family get together and they all go down there. We had our ups and downs, but I think we had more ups than we had downs. Doing all right, got no money, but we doing all right. | 45:18 |
Kara Miles | Why did you decide to become a Marine? | 46:27 |
Roderick Thomas | The truth, that pretty uniform. No, I wanted to be a Marine because of— | 46:31 |
Roderick Thomas | And, really, I wanted to fight. I wanted to fight. I didn't want to join the Marine army. Anything to do what I was doing. So that's the reason why I wanted to be a Marine in the first place. And the second place, Camp Lejeune is about a hundred and some miles from Fayetteville, and she was at Fayetteville. So, I think that that's one of the reasons too. I wanted to stay near her and she wouldn't marry me. Well, she wouldn't. But I think that's the reason why I really wanted to—I saw this picture, movie, and I just wanted to fight. But most people my age that we ran together, we had the same feeling about America that the White boy did. We wanted to fight. We wanted a piece of this pie. And we believed what our leaders were saying, Philippe Randolph. But anyway, we believed what our leaders were saying that go ahead to walk, do the thing, come back. It will be better. Wasn't better. | 0:02 |
Kara Miles | So what was it like when you got home from the war and you were expecting things to be better? | 1:54 |
Roderick Thomas | It was one of the biggest disappointments in my life. I just didn't feel that I was being treated right. And you'd feel the same way. Everybody would feel the same way. Because if you would go to Federal, I don't know where the veteran hospital in Virginia, is it Richmond? | 2:01 |
Kara Miles | Mm-hmm. | 2:22 |
Roderick Thomas | It is in Richmond. If you go out there and see these Black people and White, the condition these fellas are in, you would understand. I went in a skirmish in Guam and these people were falling just like flies. And they took a bulldozer and dug a big trench. Came that way and the other way they came with all those bodies and just pushed them, just pushed them off. And now they claimed it was Japanese, but got to be few people in there that were American people. So if you want to get angry, if a man my age wants to get angry, he'll go to a veteran hospital and look on the headboard and see when this fella came in, 1942, 1943, 1944. Man, been laying there all these years. | 2:25 |
Roderick Thomas | Don't even know what happened to himself. He's just there. So it makes you proud, sometimes. And it makes you mad. I think I get mad a little more than I'm proud. And they come back and you think that you're going to get a piece of the pie and you get the crust and you got to like that. That's all I got. That's all I have for you. That's all I'm going to give you. That's all. And you get to—By yourself working right next to one every day. White boy by the name of Japp. Most Japp's are what, Germans? We talk every day. He came in the post office. I taught him everything he knew. And we were talking one day and I used the word brother and all of a sudden he changed. He said you're not my brother. I said, I know that. Not the chronologically. I said, I'm talking about brothers in God, brothers in faith. Oh. | 3:40 |
Roderick Thomas | And he thought about that thing that night and he came back the next morning and he apologized. Said, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I said, well, you hurt me. I said, cause when your people wouldn't have nothing to do with you, I did. I said, well, I'll never forget it was raining, snowing one day. And I got through with my route and I went and helped him. I'll never forget that. And I wasn't about to remind him of it. Cause I knew that he knew. I didn't say one one word to him. But small things, it's small things. You get so, being old as I am, you get so that you forgive people. And just go on. | 5:13 |
Roderick Thomas | Got a little grandson now I won't see nobody mention it with him. In each league, basketball league, baseball league, soccer, we take them, put them right in there, put them right in there. Aren't you going to carry them to the boys club in Brooklyn? No, I'm going to take to the Optimist Club. I said, ask let them play right? Cause you got to learn to live together. He got to learn to live together. And I said don't feel afraid. Can't do nothing but beat you. You can beat them too. So like I said, we got a good thing going here, I think. And just, I work so hard. Everything they have around here, I take part in. And tomorrow, I got meet with the city council tomorrow. I love it. And my wife say, you ought to slow down. I can't slow down. I've been there. I'm going to put you out. | 6:17 |
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