Lloyd Wilson interview recording, 1993 July 15
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
Rhonda Mawhood | —have you lived in Wilmington all your life? | 0:01 |
Lloyd Wilson | No, no. I left Wilmington when I finished high school back in '75, and I lived away in several cities. I lived in Washington, DC, and that's where I spent most of my time. I lived 10 years there. I lived in New York for a while and California and Texas. So I've been around the country a little bit. | 0:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you were living in Wilmington, you lived in this neighborhood here? | 0:31 |
Lloyd Wilson | No, I grew up on the north side of town in Taylor Homes, which is a project development, and my family moved into this house when I was about 13 years old. So I lived here about five years before I finished high school and went away. I've been back since 1980, and I'm ready to leave again. | 0:34 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. As I said before we turned the tape on, you were referred to us as a storyteller. I'm wondering from whom you learned the stories that you're going to share with us. | 1:02 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, the stories that I tell as a profession are part of the African American folklore. My storytelling experience began when I was a little child with my parents. My mother would always tell me bedtime stories. In fact, that was one of my favorite times of the day. It was a time when I had my mother to myself, and it was a very sensitive, quiet time. | 1:13 |
Lloyd Wilson | She would read to me stories, the same basic stories that most parents read to their children, The Three Little Pigs, Goldilocks, Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella, those little fairy tales. But the stories that stayed with me the longest were those stories about my family and my heritage. I didn't know either one of my grandfathers, and so there were a lot of stories about them. My father wasn't in the home, so I heard stories even about him and, of course, everybody else in the family. | 1:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | So these were the stories that gave me a sense of who I was, a sense of esteem, pride in myself and my family. Didn't know too much about general history of the African American because I think that this just wasn't the thing to do at that time. Only in later years after I finished high school did I really begin to delve into the history of Africans and African American and even consider myself African. | 2:37 |
Lloyd Wilson | But coming up through the years, I heard a lot about my family, and that just rebounded and ping-ponged and would swell into other things. When my children were born, it was just, I think, a natural evolution for me to do the same things that my parents did. So I told them bedtime stories, some of the same stories that my mom told me about ancestors, elders. Of course, the fairy tales were also there and even stories that I would just make up on the spot. My children liked it. | 3:15 |
Lloyd Wilson | So my storytelling history goes back to when I was a little boy, when my mom used to tell me stories. It was quite by accident that I became a storyteller because I had no idea that I could make a living doing this until later on, until in the '80s, a matter of fact, after I'd left the military. But here I am telling stories. I'm a musician, and I guess you could consider me a community activist, an organizer, coordinator, that sort of thing. | 4:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When were you born, please? | 4:48 |
Lloyd Wilson | 1947. | 4:54 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. So you said that- | 4:55 |
Lloyd Wilson | Excuse me. | 4:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | —you got to consider yourself an African over time, that you didn't when you were very young. Can you trace that development of that identity? | 4:59 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I think so. I remember going to the movies on Saturdays, which was the big thing with all of us at that time and going to see Tarzan. We would go back home to play Cowboys and Indians or Tarzan and the Natives, and nobody wanted to be the Native. Nobody wanted to be Tonto. Nobody wanted to be the compadre. Everybody wanted to be the Cisco Kid or the Lone Ranger or Tarzan himself. | 5:13 |
Lloyd Wilson | To be called Black was like smacking somebody in the face. That meant you had to fight. You had to fight, whether you wanted to or not. That was like saying, "Your mama." So we were taught at an early age, and sometimes it was subliminal, that Black was bad and that if you were real Black, for instance, in elementary school, if a little girl or little boy had very dark skin, they were pretty much ostracized by the children in the community simply because of the color of their skin. | 5:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | Even then, as a young boy, I felt something different about that. I couldn't put my finger on it, but I knew that wasn't the right thing to do, especially since we were being dumped on by the White community. My parents always told me that just because somebody else does wrong doesn't mean that I have to do wrong. So that was pounded into me. I was always taught to do the right thing, think in terms of righteousness, and that just didn't seem right to me, even though I refused to be African. As a matter of fact, I remember telling people that I was Indian. | 6:38 |
Lloyd Wilson | It's ironic that even though I work with young people now, now that I work with young people, I hear the same kinds of rhetoric. It takes me back, and I can relate to it. Black is still taboo. Black is being African. I used to work with the parks and recreation as a center director, and I was always around children. They were always around me. I would always try to enhance their self-esteem by calling the young girls, princesses, and the young men, prince, trying to give them some kind of positive identity. | 7:23 |
Lloyd Wilson | I remember one day I told a young girl that she was a beautiful African princess, and she recoiled and said, "I'm no African," and was quite adamant about it. But we sat down and talked about it. She still would not accept it because she had been fed so many negatives about Africa and about Africans. So through the years, even through high school, I knew that I was a Negro, and that, I think, was probably as far as it went. We were considered Negroes. We would accept being called Negro before we would accept African. | 8:14 |
Lloyd Wilson | Even in high school, all through my formative years, we talked about being Negro. Black was taboo. African was out of the question. It wasn't until after I had finished high school, had gone to live in Washington, DC, had begun to live with Africans, to study the history, and to talk to other people who were more enlightened, that I became aware of what had happened to Black people in America as far as the demeaning factor, as far as slavery was concerned, why it happened, and how it happened and how it still exists. | 9:01 |
Lloyd Wilson | So those first 12 years of high school, Africa was nowhere to be found in my library of knowledge. Only after I left after becoming 18 did I find out just what was happening as far as the relationship African Americans have with Africa. As I struggled to find who I was, I became married. I'm trying to instill in my children a certain sense of African. Traveling, I was a musician. I started studying music and became successful as a musician. | 9:57 |
Lloyd Wilson | I went into the military and studied some more, traveled, just grew. When I came home, I knew that music just wasn't going to do it here, not to make a living, just to make a living on music. So I began searching for other ways to supplement my income in music and began to read about my instruments. That's when I came upon the concept of a spirit called Griot, who is the African storyteller and musician, and whose sole purpose in life was to preserve the culture through his stories and his music. | 10:55 |
Lloyd Wilson | This fascinated me so much that I got deeper into it. I studied more and began to read more African American folklore. Through the years, I have grown in that genre as a musician and storyteller following the tradition of the Griot. | 11:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Have you been to Africa? | 12:17 |
Lloyd Wilson | Never. Only in my imagination and in the books that I read, the people that I talk to. It is my strongest desire to go there and live there, to even replant my roots there. | 12:19 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Is your mother still living? | 12:35 |
Lloyd Wilson | No, I buried my mother this past December. That's the reason I'm living here now. | 12:36 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I wanted to ask you what she thought of your journey into this experience of learning about folklore and what she thought of you becoming a storyteller. | 12:43 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, she and my grandmother used to say, "Boy, when you going to get a real job?" Which was hilarious. We used to laugh about that. But I think that, in time, they came to understand my journey and respected it, even accepted it as a part of their own. When I came back to Wilmington, we started to attend family reunions and began to talk more in-depth about ancestry, who was who and how things came to be as far as the family tree was concerned. | 12:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | As we talked about it, the more enlightened they became and more willing to accept the fact, yes, they are African and that they should be proud of that. | 13:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were you brought up in the church, Mr. Wilson? | 13:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | Sort of. | 13:59 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sort of? | 13:59 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah. I attended church every Sunday. | 14:00 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you still go to church? | 14:12 |
Lloyd Wilson | No. | 14:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could you tell me some of these stories, please, some of the ones that you like? | 14:13 |
Lloyd Wilson | Okay. Well, there's one story that sort of encapsulates the reason I tell these stories, and it's called—Well, it doesn't really have a name. It's a very short story. It goes like this. And the young boy went to his grandfather and said, "Grandfather, is it true what they say, that the lion is the king of the jungle?" The old man said, "Yes, my son, this is true. Why do you ask?" | 14:17 |
Lloyd Wilson | The young boy said, "Well, Grandfather, if this is true, then why is it that in all of the books that I read and all of the stories that I hear, man always defeats the lion. How can this be true? How can the lion be the king of the jungle?" The old man pulled his son to him close and said, "It will always be that way until the lion tells the story." So that story, I think, explains better than anything I can say the reason I tell and do the things that I do. | 14:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It explains this project too, sort of, I think. | 15:24 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah. That's an old African folktale. I think it's from Nigeria. | 15:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you learn that story? | 15:38 |
Lloyd Wilson | I heard another storyteller tell it. I attended a Black storytelling festival, which is held annually in different places around the country. I was so impressed with this one storyteller, and he always opened his storytelling sessions with that little story. And then he went into other things. I'll never forget that story. It made a big impression on me, and so did the storyteller. Excuse me. | 15:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your grandmother tell you stories when you were a little boy? You talked about your mother, but I was wondering about your grandmother. Was she from this area? | 16:19 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, no. No. She was from South Carolina. My mother and father were born in the same town in South Carolina as my grandmother. My grandmother told me some things, but most of my knowledge came from my mother and my aunt. My aunt was, I guess she would be considered the griot of the family because she was the one who was always going to the family reunions, calling people, asking questions, delving into people's business, and bringing out the truth. | 16:26 |
Lloyd Wilson | She was that one. But my grandmother taught me other things. She was the youngest of 18. From what I've heard from my mother and my aunt and from my grandmother, she never went to school. She taught herself how to write, reed, do anything. She grew up working as a domestic, and she could cook anything. She taught me how to cook. I remember sitting in the kitchen for many hours just watching her and asking questions, and she would show me different aspects of the kitchen, cooking and taking care of myself. | 17:08 |
Lloyd Wilson | She taught me how to iron. She taught me how to take care of myself, basically. She would do things like electrical work. It was rather crude, but she did it. I was very, very much impressed with her. She was a very religious person, and that also impressed me with her. She was probably the most righteous person that I've ever known, and I respected her a great deal. As a matter of fact, everybody, whoever met her, respected her. | 17:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What was her name? | 18:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | Her name was Sarah Cooper Brown. I can remember my grandmother walking out. She would always, every morning, go out on the porch and, usually, there would be the neighbors on their porches. She would start from the left. "Hello, Ruben. How you doing, Maggie? Hello there." All the way down, all the way around, every house, she would have to speak to everyone. She was the kind of person who was very giving. | 18:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | Whenever she baked a batch of rolls, which was, I mean the best rolls you'd ever want to taste, she would have me to deliver rolls to everybody in the neighborhood. She was that kind of person. Well, she was just a wonderful spirit in my life. | 18:58 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I know you said that your father wasn't in the home. Did you ever hear any stories from any men? | 19:27 |
Lloyd Wilson | Only by happenstance. When I went to play ball, there were a lot of men talking. When I shined shoes on the street, my ears were always open. Even when I hung out on the block with the fellows, there were those kinds of stories. So basically, yeah, I did have a lot of men around, even though my father wasn't in the home, even from my friends' fathers who would accept me in their family, just like I was a part of it. | 19:34 |
Lloyd Wilson | So there were a lot of men in my life, even though my father wasn't there. My brother was there, my first cousin who was just like a brother. I was the baby boy, so I got kicked around, knocked upside the head and that sort of thing. But yeah, there were a lot of men in my life. | 20:10 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were the stories you heard from them or the way they delivered the stories different from how the women did? | 20:41 |
Lloyd Wilson | Oh, yeah. Well, see, the stories that came from the men were completely different anyway. They were either about women or just jiving around on the corners, for instance, stories such as Signifying Monkey. Are you familiar with that story? | 20:44 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Sorry? | 21:06 |
Lloyd Wilson | Signifying Monkey, stories that contained a lot of sexual innuendo, cursing, that sort of thing. Men's stories, I guess they would be called. Stories that I still read in anthologies today, the same stories that I heard standing on the block at midnight with the fellas, listening to men talk on the street as I shined their shoes, and going into my friend's home as the fathers talked to their sons. I would take all of this in. | 21:07 |
Lloyd Wilson | At that time, I was a very quiet, withdrawn type of person. Well, I don't think I was withdrawn because I was a part of everything that was going on. I was just in the background, not very vocal, but always alert and wide open and receiving everything that was coming, filing it away, that sort of thing. So the men did tell stories, and they were wonderful stories. I liked them. It's a shame I can't tell them. | 21:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Why can't you tell them? You don't remember them or you don't want to? | 22:24 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, some of them I don't remember, but the ones that I do remember were rather raunchy. Some people would call them even nasty, things like that. | 22:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You wouldn't feel comfortable telling them or telling them to me? | 22:41 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, telling them to you, I would feel a little bit embarrassed. | 22:45 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. All right. Do you remember any of your teachers, Mr. Wilson? | 22:51 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes. | 22:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And? | 22:55 |
Lloyd Wilson | I remember quite a few of my teachers. It seems, when I begin to think back, it seems that all of them—I have yet to think of any teacher that didn't have any true commitment to what they were doing. It seems that all of them were very much into their career, making sure that Black children learned. We were always being told that we are going to have to be 10 times better just to be acclaimed as an equal. So we would have to work 10 times as hard, not twice, but 10 times as hard. | 23:02 |
Lloyd Wilson | We were always being motivated in a very positive frame of reference. That's one of the things that I remember about the teachers. They always strove for excellence, but there was always that compassion, too, as if they understood that there were young people who would fall through the cracks. But they would still try to hold onto them for as long as they could. Some of them, they would pull through. | 24:01 |
Lloyd Wilson | So these teachers and principals were very strong images in my life and in most of the people's lives who came up with me. But I think that's one of the reasons we still honor them today, because they were so impressive on us. Well, they just were. They were very impressive, very much so. | 24:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Where did you go to school here? | 25:19 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, my elementary school was Peabody Elementary, and I went to James B. Dudley for a year, the fifth grade. And then I was transferred across town to Gregory for the sixth grade. And then I spent junior high school from seventh to the ninth grade in Williston Junior High, and I graduated from Williston Senior High in 1965. Some wonderful times, wonderful times growing up here. | 25:22 |
Lloyd Wilson | As I think about it now, even though racism, we knew about racism and it existed and it was blatant, it seems that that was one of the things that kept the Black community so intact because we couldn't move out of our areas. So we had to deal with each other as a family. Of course, there were times when there was rowdiness, but this is a part of family life anyway. We always worked it out. | 26:00 |
Lloyd Wilson | Living so closely with each other, we tended to help each other more and be concerned about each other's problems more. It was only after integration when we were allowed to leave our neighborhoods, go work in these high-level jobs, borrow these large sums of money from the banks, attend the White colleges, in fact, colleges like Duke and North Carolina, North Carolina State, did the Black community begin to fall apart because now a whole set of values were being injected into the Black community. | 26:41 |
Lloyd Wilson | No more were we concerned about our brothers. We didn't even know who was living next door to us because we were so much concerned about being on that job on time, paying that mortgage, living up to somebody else's standards. That's what I think has happened to the Black community. Our value system has changed. It's different from what it used to be when we were considered a close-knit family, and now we are more—We're alien to each other now. | 27:39 |
Lloyd Wilson | Of course, that's not everybody because there are some people in the community who are very much into—They embrace the community still. Unfortunately, these people are in the minority. But integration, and I'm sure you've heard this many times, that integration was probably the cause of the breakdown of the whole Black community. | 28:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | Even though we had secondhand desk and lab equipment, even though our books were hand-me-downs and we could see the names of the White kids who had used the books prior to us, and they were all raggedy and torn. Some of them didn't have backs. But even through all of that, education within the Black community was excellent. I have a theory. Now, Black people in New Hanover County, there are no transcripts. There are no transcripts. | 29:03 |
Lloyd Wilson | The building that held the records of all the school systems was burned. My theory is, and I hope you don't take this personally, is that it was burned, that the records would show that Williston was indeed one of the best schools in North Carolina, if not the nation, as far as academic excellence is concerned and right on down the line. For that reason, I think that the building was burned. So now we don't have any kind of records to show just how we excelled in that school. | 29:49 |
Lloyd Wilson | The only thing we can do is receive a little slip of paper that states that, yes, So-and-so did graduate at a certain year, at a certain time. But the school was excellent. If you continue to talk to those people who graduated from that school, you'll see that these people came out of there with a good sense of self, a solid sense of self, and it was basically because of the teachings and the values and principles that were instilled at that school and, of course, in the homes and the community. | 30:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of relations did you have with White people when you were growing up here? | 31:34 |
Lloyd Wilson | I fell in love with a little White girl. | 31:41 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How old were you? | 31:44 |
Lloyd Wilson | I must have been about four or five years old, six maybe. I don't know. I don't remember now. But I do remember that my grandmother used to work for this White family and, every so often, they would come and visit. They would come over. The father, the mother, the children would come over, and we would play with my toys and that sort of thing. | 31:45 |
Lloyd Wilson | There was this little White girl that would come over. Her name was Jenny. I just thought she was the prettiest little girl I'd ever seen in my whole life. Of course, nothing came of it because I never saw Jenny after my grandmother stopped working for the family and probably wouldn't have come of anything anyway. But as I think back on that, it was difficult for me to hate anybody, to dislike. I just didn't understand what that meant. I didn't understand that concept. | 32:07 |
Lloyd Wilson | Being such a young person, of course, I was about having fun and just wide-eyed and bushy-tailed. I played baseball. "Come on. Let's go shoot some marbles. Yeah. All right. Play some toys. Yeah." What was your question again? | 32:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of relations you had with White people when you were growing up? | 33:18 |
Lloyd Wilson | I remember going to school. We used to walk to school. I remember the school buses used to pass us, and little White kids would shoot the bird at us. I really didn't know what they were doing. I'd wave. It was only later that I found out what it meant. I would hear things. But still, I couldn't bring myself to even hate someone. I tried to understand it. I would think about it. | 33:23 |
Lloyd Wilson | Even as a young boy, I would spend hours thinking about why is this happening? Why does somebody hate me who's never seen me before and basically because of the color of my skin? Why? I could never come up with an answer. My grandmother worked for some very nice people, and so I was around some nice White people. They treated us nice, anyway. Even up until when my grandmother died, they always contacted her, sent her a birthday present, Christmas present, that sort of thing. | 33:59 |
Lloyd Wilson | I think when I went to high school was when I began to form some kind of harsh feelings because in '62 or '63, I think that's when we started the demonstrations. I was very much a part of it. I even went to jail demonstrating. Used to, as a young boy, wonder why I couldn't sit down with my mother and have a nice hotdog and Coke, why we had to go to the back to a little cutout in the wall and order and couldn't sit down. | 34:45 |
Lloyd Wilson | In high school, when Dr. King was doing his thing, it began to come to light. What was this hatred? It's basically all it was. It was just something that I still didn't understand. Even though I knew it was hatred, I couldn't understand why. So during the demonstrations, I really didn't understand until the bombing of the church and those little girls were killed. And then I think I started to realize what was going on at that point. | 35:34 |
Lloyd Wilson | That was when I became more interested in African American history, Black history, answering those questions of why. But even after that, even through all of that, when I went to live away, I came to understand that everybody wasn't like that, that there were some people, Black, White, orange, green, purple, it didn't matter, who were very righteous people, and that those who professed hate were actually the minority, but they were a strong, loud minority. | 36:22 |
Lloyd Wilson | I also came to understand that this country was like that. When I started to apply for jobs in Washington, DC, when my family was born, when I tried to borrow money from the banks, when I became financially corrupt or inept, I went to people for help and, because who I was, I couldn't get any help. And then it all dawned on me that just Black people in America just have this cloud that has been put over them, unfairly, of course. | 37:17 |
Lloyd Wilson | But I've only had problems with the White community who have presented themselves as problems. I always believed, no matter who you are, that you are a righteous person until you prove yourself different. That's basically my stand with all people. I try to meet people as individuals. However, it's difficult sometime living in this country because, especially being a Black man, I know that I'm the low man on the totem pole. | 38:06 |
Lloyd Wilson | I know that all of the deck is stacked against me just because I'm Black. So with that understanding, I've come to deal with what's going on. It's a lot frustrating, but it's a part of the struggle. | 38:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You told me that you went into the military. When was that? | 39:22 |
Lloyd Wilson | I went in the military in 1977. It was during a time of my life when I was still trying to find out what was going on. I had left my family and had become almost derelict. I was living with a good friend of mine in Washington. I had no job, however, I was very positive. I had good health. I was studying. I wasn't enrolled in school, but I was always attending college. I was at Howard University and DC Teachers University, always studying. | 39:28 |
Lloyd Wilson | And then at night, I would go out and play music, trying to learn what I was— just put in practicality the things that I was learning in school about music. I used that time to study, to really focus in on what was happening. I did that for about a year, I guess. In '77, I decided that I needed to do something. I needed to get onboard now. So the military offered me that chance. | 40:19 |
Lloyd Wilson | I went to join the Navy because I knew that I could possibly get a good job, electronics or something, computers or something, a job that would sustain me through the rest of my life. However, they weren't accepting recruits as old as I was. I was 32 at the time. But they said the Army would take anybody. So fortunately, my recruiter understood where I was coming from. I had done well on the written exam, and he was impressed. | 41:02 |
Lloyd Wilson | I went into the military and had a wonderful three years. I learned a great deal about myself and about life itself. I came to understand that every step of the way in life leads you to something. If you are aware, if you are following the light, you'll follow the right path. So my days of derelict I look back on as a very positive time in my life because it slingshot me into something that was very rewarding. | 41:48 |
Lloyd Wilson | I stayed in for three years. I came out with honors. They wanted to keep me in, but I had other ideas about what I wanted to do. The military also provided me a chance to take care of my family. So that was the main thing. They were being taken care of, plus, I was able to travel. I was able to study, which was very important to me. I studied everywhere I went, enrolled in the junior colleges, universities, wherever I was stationed. | 42:33 |
Lloyd Wilson | I spent two and a half years in California traveling up and down the coast as a military person. My superiors respected me to the point where—Is it off? | 43:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I was just checking. I just check periodically to make sure. | 43:25 |
Lloyd Wilson | Oh, okay. My superiors respected me to the point where—Well, I was just as old as a lot of my superiors and older than some lieutenants. So I got that respect from my superiors and from my peers. So the life was good in the military. I didn't have to spend very much money. I sent all of it home, and I was able to travel and study. | 43:28 |
Lloyd Wilson | So when I got out, I used all of that knowledge to help organize the people in the community and to vault myself into the music and storytelling career. Well, I started working with young people in 1975, but I've been working with young people ever since. So I'm happy with the way things are happening thus far. | 43:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Before you decided to enter the Army or when you were thinking about joining the Navy, this might seem like an obvious question, but did you think about having to fight for the United States? | 44:34 |
Lloyd Wilson | No. | 44:46 |
Rhonda Mawhood | No? | 44:46 |
Lloyd Wilson | No. No. During that time, we were at peace. There was no fighting. I think that was one of the reasons that I went in the military also, because I knew that if I had to pick up a gun against someone, I probably would not have gone in. But I knew that we were at peace. The job that I had, let me tell you, I had to beg my superiors to let me go out in the field with the rest of the soldiers. I was in administration, so I was behind a desk all the time. | 44:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I did good work, and they hated to lose me. I would have to beg my captain. I said, "Look, man, I cannot stay behind this desk all my life. I've got to go out in the field sometime." They would let me go out for a couple of days and bring me back in. So it was a soft life for me in the military, really. As long as I wasn't shooting at anybody, it was really nice. | 45:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You said something a couple of minutes ago about following the light. | 45:57 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes. | 46:06 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What light is that? | 46:09 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I think everybody has a particular road that they must travel down. Of course, there are side paths and off- | 46:12 |
Lloyd Wilson | But basically, we all have our own road that we must travel. And I believe, if you are a righteous person, if you are sensitive to other people's feelings as well as your own, if you listen to that voice that's talking to you all of the time, then you will forever be walking in the light. Your road will be well lit and that you will accomplish those things that you set as your goal. And so that's what I meant by the light. It's figuratively speaking, but I do believe that all of us have that road that we have to travel and there is that voice also that speaks to us. | 0:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I asked you earlier about church and about whether or not you go to church and you said, "No," but if I can ask you, do you have a religion or spirituality now? | 0:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | I think a spirituality would be more correct, closer to what I feel. And I don't know if I know how to explain it. I have taken all of the experiences in my life, the things that I know and feel, and I deal with that. I understand that man is fallible and that his books are written for certain purposes. And with that understanding, I choose to define my own way of life, my own beliefs, and that's basically how I feel. Spiritual, I don't know. I don't know. I just believe that all of us have some God in us or we are gods. I believe that you are a goddess and we can determine our own way. | 1:05 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Could I ask you if there are any more stories that you wouldn't mind telling me, like tape also? | 2:23 |
Lloyd Wilson | Let's see. Let's see. Let me think of a story. Oh yeah, this is one. This is a story that I learned about five years ago, and it came as a result of the controversy that men and women are having, the conflict. The women are saying that men have been dominating the scene and putting them down for all of these centuries. And I agree, they haven't been fairly treated. And I found this story amongst an anthology of African folk tales and I'll tell it to you. It's called Tongue Meat. And as a matter of fact, it's published as I told it, in an anthology of African American folk tales. It's called Tongue Meat. | 2:32 |
Lloyd Wilson | Many years ago there lived a sultan in a palace with his wife, and his wife was very, very sad and unhappy. All day long she would roam the halls and she would moan and groan and complain. And she began to lose weight. Her skin was very shabby and full of pimples. And no matter what the sultan did, he could not make his wife happy. But on the other hand, in the village, there lived a poor man and his wife was always very happy. She sang out her hellos to her neighbors. "Hello. How are you? Oh, I'm fine. Thank you." And she was a very stout woman. Her skin was soft like that of a baby. She always wore a smile. Everybody loved her. She was indeed a happy woman. | 3:25 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, the sultan heard about the poor man and summoned him to his palace. He said, "Poor man, what is your secret? Why is your woman, your wife, so happy all the time and mine is always so sad when she has everything?" The poor man said, "Oh, sultan, I have no secret. I merely feed my wife meat of the tongue." "Meat of the tongue," said the sultan. "Ah, okay." So the sultan summoned the butcher and he said, "Butcher man, you must bring to me all of the tongues of every beast in your shop." And of course, the royal cook had to prepare in all sorts of ways. There was roast tongue, fried tongue, tongue under glass, tongue casserole, tongue pie, even apple cran tongue juice. And all of this, of course, the queen had to eat and drink sometimes three and four times a day. | 4:18 |
Lloyd Wilson | But it didn't help because she continued to lose weight. She was always very frustrated and sad. And so the sultan summoned the poor man again. He said, "Poor man, you have deceived me and for this, you either lose your head or we will exchange wives." Excuse me. Well, the poor man did not wish to lose his head, so he reluctantly gave up his own wife and took the Lean Queen back home with him. | 5:14 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, two weeks passed, and it was plain to see that the new queen could not survive in that palace before she too began to lose weight. Her skin was all shaggy and pimply. She was frowning all the time and she was moaning and groaning and walking through the halls crying. "Oh, what am I going to do? I'm so frustrated. I'm bored. I don't know what to do with myself." But on the other hand, when the poor man would come home, he would tell his wife of all the wonderful things he had seen that day, especially the funny things. | 5:48 |
Lloyd Wilson | And he would take his guitar and he would play her songs and he would sing to her. And way up into the middle of the night, they would laugh and play with each other. And pretty soon she began to gain weight. Her skin was smooth and soft like that of a babies. She sang out her hellos to her neighbors as she messed in the garden, and she was always wearing a smile. And her neighbors loved her very much. She was a very happy woman. | 6:26 |
Lloyd Wilson | This went on like this for quite some time until the sultan decided that he wanted his first wife back. And so he summoned her to the palace, but she refused. So the sultan, angry, jumped on this deed and rode to the poor man's home. But when he saw his wife, how beautiful she had become, how happy she was, he asked her, "What has this man done to you?" And she told him, and it was then he understood meat of the tongue. Like that story? | 6:52 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Great. Yes, I liked that one. | 7:24 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah, I like it too. | 7:28 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of music do you play? | 7:33 |
Lloyd Wilson | All kinds. I'm a percussionist, and so that affords me an opportunity to play all kinds of music. I play country, western. Right now, I'm very active with a flamingo guitarist, so I'm doing some flamingo music. Of course, jazz has always been a part of what I do, and some other creative things. | 7:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | What kind of music did you like when you were growing up? | 8:06 |
Lloyd Wilson | All kinds. Now, when I was growing up, see, we could only listen to what was being fed to us, which was basically Country and Western. We listened to Tex Ritter and all of the Cowboys and all of the country western, and that's all that was being played on the radio until I got in—I think it was junior high school, a Black DJ came to Wilmington and they gave him a half an hour show. So all of us would— | 8:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Per week? | 8:46 |
Lloyd Wilson | I think it was once a week. And all of us would rush home from school just to hear Bayco, The Rocket Man for the half an hour and he would play Black music. But I listened to all kinds of music, and I think that was the reason I liked music so much because I enjoyed listening to all styles. It didn't matter if it was good. I enjoyed it and I thought all music was good. I believe, like Duke Ellington said, "There are only two kinds of music, good and bad." | 8:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Did your mother and your grandmother used to sing? | 9:33 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes. In fact, my mother was a soprano and she loved singing. She sang in the choirs at church. And my grandmother wasn't so open with her singing, but she would sing around as she piddled around the house. And of course, they were always religious songs, but yeah, very musical or music all the time in the family. And my aunt, she emulated Sarah Vaughan, so it was that kind of thing happening in the house. But music was a part of me as long as I can remember. There's a story that my grandmother used to tell me that when I was about two years old, she said, I was sitting in the highchair and the radio was on, and she said she couldn't believe that I would listen to the radio and that I would try to imitate the sound myself. She said, "Oh my goodness, look at this boy. He's going to be a musician." And fortunately it turned out that way. | 9:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | When you moved to Washington in 1965 from Wilmington, what was that like? | 10:46 |
Lloyd Wilson | Oh, it was like a new world. However, I believe that I fell right into the flow of Washington DC when I left here. I felt very comfortable being there. It speeded up a little bit, but I hung right in there. I was right there with it. I think more than anything, I was focused in on my career. And so I was constantly looking for a job, and that's what kept me going. And when I found a job, I was ecstatic. I was a porter in a drug store. I washed dishes, I cleaned the floors. Basically maintenance type of position. And being a young man from the south, eager, I did the job well. In fact, I was always taught, if you're going to do something, do it well. And that's the way I grew up. | 10:51 |
Lloyd Wilson | And from that, I kept going down to the employment office and I took some exams and was accepted into school. I went to school for laboratory technician, and I worked in hospitals in DC for 10 years for the duration that I was there, studying all the time, other things, but I did that. And when I left DC, I came back here, lived here for a year, worked as a volunteer in New Hanover County Drug Treatment Program. | 11:58 |
Lloyd Wilson | So I was around young people, and that's what really put me into young people, when I started working with them back in '75. And I left here, I stayed here for about a year, went to New York, lived with my brother for about another year, and then moved to back to DC. And that was during the period of my derelict. Well, I wasn't really derelict, but I had no money, no place to stay, none of my own. But it worked out really well and went into the military and got out and here I am. Who knows what's going to happen next. | 12:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Was your wife a southern girl also? | 13:32 |
Lloyd Wilson | No, she was from Toledo, Ohio. And we met in Washington, working for the NAACP. She was secretary. And my roommate introduced me to her, and I think we fell in love immediately. And we have two very fine daughters who are—Well, my oldest daughter has just completed her first year of her Masters. Oh, I forgot what she's doing. And is engaged to be married in October. My baby girl just finished her undergraduate work this past May, and they're doing fine. So I'm a very proud father. | 13:35 |
Rhonda Mawhood | [indistinct 00:14:30]. And are you still married or no? You don't have to answer. | 14:31 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I think she will always be considered part of my family. We are not together. And I think she feels the same way. In fact, I know it. We're always going to be family no matter what happens. Our children is that bond that holds us together. And we talk a lot about things. And so even though we are not living together, we're not husband and wife, we still have a relationship that is civil and friendly. | 14:38 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Were there stories that you told your daughters that they like particularly when they were little? You know I'm going to ask you this. | 15:24 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, there was one story that was like a series. I could never get to the end of it, and they would never go to sleep when I was telling it. It was a continuing saga of the golden acorn, and it was about a family of squirrels that lived in the forest, and one of the squirrels decided that it wanted to leave the forest. And the stories were about his adventures in the city as he left the forest and that sort of thing. And it was just completely off the top of my head. And I remember my oldest daughter, Kimberly, would say, "Daddy, you are a good storyteller." And of course, I didn't pay no attention to that. I mean, I heard it, but storytelling was just the furthest thing from my mind, basically because I was trying to meet the status quo. I was trying to be a businessman or a young exec living in Washington DC. I was dressing in suits and ties every day and going to work diligently to take care of my family and pay my bills. That's it. | 15:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | But there were those stories and the stories about the family. Even now we talk about different members of the family who have gone on like my grandmother. Especially my baby girl, my youngest daughter, we always talk about things. I think she's probably closer to who I am and my oldest daughter is closer to her mother as far as personalities concerned. And so we talk a lot about family tradition, carrying on traditions, even when they become family, they have their own families. So we do those things. | 16:55 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You were talking about traditions, and I was thinking about holidays that came into my mind. How did your family celebrate holidays when you were growing up? | 17:48 |
Lloyd Wilson | That was the best time, especially Thanksgiving and Christmas. It seems that my grandmother would start a month ahead of time baking and preparing and getting ready for the family. And with her being the youngest of 18, and I think all of her brothers and sisters had died except for one, everybody would come. All of her nieces and nephews would come to visit her. And on those special days, the house would be brimming with people, old and young, and food would be everywhere. My grandmother would fix everything. I mean food like you've never seen. And we would all sit down to dinner all over the house, and there would be prayer of course. | 17:59 |
Lloyd Wilson | And then after dinner, some of the young people would leave and go on their way outside to play or whatever. But the elders would gather and start talking about things. And to me, that was my favorite time when I would be right there in the center of them looking up in their faces, trying to capture every word. And so the holidays were very special here. And that's a tradition we continue to have on holidays. My children and I always get together. On birthdays, we always get together. Now that I am the last one in the family on this particular branch, I will either go to them—Well, usually I'll go to them because, well, they're just getting started and I have the transportation. And so I go to them and we always hang out and celebrate and reminisce and carry on the traditions. | 18:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Can I ask you for another story? | 20:07 |
Lloyd Wilson | Let's see. Let me see. Let me think of a story. You want a long one or a short one? | 20:11 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Oh, whatever you feel like telling. | 20:25 |
Lloyd Wilson | All right. This is a pretty lengthy one. It's called The Eagle who thought he was a Chicken. It's a Nigerian folk tale. Man, let me try to remember it now. Many years ago, there lived a chicken farmer and he raised some of the finest white leghorn chickens in the world, and people would come from miles around to purchase his chickens. And in time, the chicken farmer became wealthy and famous. But with all that wealth and fame, there came another—He became greedy and he no longer sat with his friends and talked about the news of the day, but he hoarded all of his riches to himself and would not share it with those who were less fortunate. | 20:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | And then one time, a dreaded disease fell upon his chickens and no one else came to buy. But one day, an old man came and said, "Chicken farmer, I understand your plight with your chickens, but I have an idea. I have an idea of how you can regain your wealth and fame. In the mountain yonder chicken farmer lives an eagle. This is what you must do. You must build a cage, sturdy and strong, and then go and capture that eagle. Place her in the cage. People will pay handsomely to see such a wonderful bird in captivity." Well, the chicken farmer had no other choice. He was at his wits end trying to figure out what was next to do. | 21:34 |
Lloyd Wilson | So he went to the mountain, and sure enough, an eagle lived there. And he devised this scheme, and he captured the eagle, brought her back to his farm. But every time he would try to place her in the cage, she would bite at him, she would claw at him, she would screech. And it was clear to see that this magnificent bird was not going to allow itself to be caged and shackled and locked away. So instead of allowing the bird to go back to her freedom, a chicken farmer took his gun and he killed the eagle. | 22:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | A few days later, the old man came once again, and he said, "Chicken farmer, I have heard of your plight with the eagle, but I have another planned chicken farmer. If I'm not mistaken, there were some eggs in that eagle's nest. This is what you must do. You must go and steal those eggs, bring them to your farm, place them under one of your most prized setting hens. And that way, chicken farmer, when the eagles hatch, they will think they're chickens. You won't even have to build a fence, to fence them in, to hold them in the barnyard. They won't know that they can fly. They will think they're chickens." | 23:08 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, the chicken farmer thought this was a wonderful idea, much better than the first. And so he hurried to the mountain, and sure enough, there were two eggs in the nest. And he stole those eggs, brought them to his farm, and placed them under one of his most prized sitting hens. And he waited and he waited and waited until one day one of the eggs hatched. And from the shells emerged a beautiful little eaglet with sharp talons and strong legs, a barrel chest. His wingspan was twice that of the chicken's nest and he could see for hundreds of miles. He was indeed a beautiful bird. But just as the farmers had planned, the little eagle did not know who he was. He thought he was a chicken. And each day he would follow behind the white leghorn chicken scratching and pecking around the barnyard. And whenever the farmer went in to feed the other animals, the little eaglet would run in fright. And the farmer named this little eaglet Tom. | 23:52 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, one day, as little Tom was scratching and pecking around the barnyard, he came upon a stream that flowed through one of the corners of the barnyard and he waited in. And when he looked at his reflection in the water, he screeched. He couldn't believe that he looked this way. "Why am I looking this way? I don't like the way I look. These ugly brown and black feathers. I want to look like my beautiful white leghorn brother and sister chickens." All of a sudden, he remembered that there was a special weed that grew in another part of the barnyard, a weed known as porcelana, and it was a bleaching weed. | 25:02 |
Lloyd Wilson | And so he went and squeezed all the juice out of that porcelana weed and rubbed it all of all over his beautiful brown and black feathers. And sure enough, his feathers began to become bleached. And he felt a little bit better now because he was beginning to look like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. And he went back into the stream to look at himself, to admire himself. But all of a sudden, he noticed that his feathers on his head were sticking straight out. They weren't lying down his back like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. "Oh, what am I going to do? I don't want to look like this. I hate myself. I want to look like my white leghorn brother and sister chickens." All of a sudden, he remembered that there was another weed growing in the barnyard, one that was sure to make his feathers on his head lie down his back like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. And the weed was known as jerry curl. | 25:42 |
Lloyd Wilson | And so he wandered over to the jerry curl weed and he squeezed the juices out of it and rubbed it all over the feathers in his head. And sure enough, the feathers on his head began to lay down his back, just like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. And he felt so much better now. But everywhere he went, he noticed that he left a wet spot and he didn't smell very good either, but he didn't care because now he was looking just like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. And each day he did his thing, following behind his brothers and sister chickens, scratching and pecking. | 26:42 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, after a while, the second egg hatched, and just as the first, a beautiful little eaglet emerged with sharp talons and strong legs, barrel chest, wingspan twice that of the chicken's nest and he could see for miles. But there was something different about this eaglet. He didn't follow behind the white leghorn brother and sister chickens, scratching and pecking, but he stood to the side and gazed up into the sky. And whenever the farmer came into the barn, he didn't run in fright, but he stood his ground and he screeched and he clawed and bit at the farmer. Farmer named this eaglet Malcolm. Okay, that's a good name. Named him Malcolm. | 27:20 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, one day, as Malcolm was standing to the side, gazing up into the sky, for some reason he felt that that was where he belonged. His brother Tom came over to Malcolm and he said, "Yo, man, what you doing standing over here looking up into the sky like that? Why don't you come on out here like the rest of us leghorn chickens? Who do you think you are? You must think you better than us or something. You better come on out here and scratch and peck like the rest of us. You think you better than us or something." | 28:11 |
Lloyd Wilson | And of course, Malcolm tried to explain that he did not think he was better than anybody, but that he did not wish to scratch and peck. "Well, look, since you ain't going to scratch and peck, do something with those feathers. Here, take some of this porcelana and cover that head of yours. Here, take this plastic bag and put it on your head." But of course, Malcolm refused the porcelana and the plastic bag. He knew that he was going to continue to do, to be. | 28:43 |
Lloyd Wilson | And well, Tom sucked his teeth and he turned from his brother and went back to his usual scratching and pecking like his white leghorn brother and sister chickens. And he left Malcolm there, gazing up into the sky. And as Malcolm looked into the sky, he saw, circling above him, a black dot, and it got closer and closer. And the closer it got, the larger it got, and he could see that it was the largest bird that he had ever seen. You and I know that it was an eagle. | 29:16 |
Lloyd Wilson | And the eagle came and circled the barnyard and landed on a branch that hung over one of the corners of the barnyard. And he looked down to Malcolm and said, "Hey, that little one, it's a beautiful day, isn't it? Yes, I saw you down here with these chickens and I thought I'd come down and speak to you. Tell me, why are you down here with these chickens?" And little Malcolm looked up and said, "Are you talking to me?" "Yes. Why are you down there with the chickens?" "I am a chicken." | 29:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, the eagle laughed. "Ah, you are not a chicken. You're an eagle." And little Malcolm looked up and said, "What's an eagle?" "I tell you what, why don't you fly up here and let me tell you your history?" And then with tears in his eyes, Malcolm said, "Everybody knows chickens can't fly that high." But the eagle was adamant. He says, "I told you, you're not a chicken. You're an eagle. Now, spread those wings." So Malcolm spread his wings. "Now flap them." And he began to flap his wings. | 30:26 |
Lloyd Wilson | And all of a sudden, before he knew it, he was lifting off the ground. He was flying, he was soaring, he was diving, and he was dipping, and he was having such a wonderful time in the sky. He had never flown that high before. And then he came and landed on the branch right next to the eagle. And the eagle said, "Now, let me tell you your history." He said, "You are the descendant of kings and queens. Your father is the king of the skies, the strongest bird to fly in the sky. He can fly for hundreds of miles and not get tired. And your mother rules right next to him. You have the strength of kings and queens in your wings. You are an eagle." And little Malcolm looked up with tears in his eyes. He says, "You mean I'm not a chicken? I'm an eagle? Yes, I am an eagle. I'm an eagle." | 31:04 |
Lloyd Wilson | A little Malcolm looked down into the barnyard and he saw his brother Tom, doing his usual pecking and scratching around the barnyard. And he called down to him. He said, "Hey, Tom, Tom, up here man, up here. Look, this man has been telling me all about our history. We are not chickens. We are eagles, Tom." Tom looked at him and said, "Hey, man, what you doing way up there? You know chickens can't fly that high. You better come on down here before you get the rest of us in trouble. I ain't got no time to be listening to no history. I'm too busy scratching and pecking for some food down here. You better come on down before you get the rest of us in trouble." | 32:14 |
Lloyd Wilson | And then the eagle looked at Malcolm and he said, "Do not worry, little one. Your brother has been brainwashed. But you come, let me show you your destiny." And together, the two eagles lifted off from the branch and they flew up into the sky. And they were soaring and they were diving and having such a wonderful time flying. And then they came upon this deep valley, and little Malcolm became frightened because he'd never flown that high before. And he said, "Oh, Mr. Eagle, what are we going to do? It's so far down." And the eagle reassured Malcolm. He said, "Do not be frightened, little one, for you have the strength of kings and queens in your wings. This is the valley of hatred but you can fly over this hatred. Come little one. Come." | 32:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | And together, the two flew over the valley of hatred, only to be faced by a desert that seemed to stretch for hundreds of miles. And Malcolm was, again, afraid. He said, "Mr. Eagle, this desert, there's no place to land." But the eagle was teaching Malcolm, nurturing him, sharing with him his experiences. He said, "Do not be frightened little one. This is the desert of mediocrity. You have the strength of kings and queens in your wings. Come, you can fly over this desert." And together, they flew over the desert. | 33:44 |
Lloyd Wilson | And then there was this mountain that loomed in front of them, and little Malcolm became frightened once more. "Oh, Mr. Eagle, we are going to crash into that mountain." But the eagle was steadfast. "No, little one. You have the strength of kings and queens in your wings. This is the mountain of racial injustice and you can fly over this mountain. Come little one. Let's fly." And the two eagles flew over the mountain. They flew away. They flew away to freedom. And that's the story of the eagle who thought he was a chicken. | 34:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | That's a Nigerian story? | 35:08 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah. Well, it's of course been changed and modernized and what have you. | 35:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | It's a wonderful story. Who do you tell it to and your other stories? | 35:18 |
Lloyd Wilson | I tell stories to everyone. Everyone. | 35:23 |
Rhonda Mawhood | How do children react to that one? | 35:29 |
Lloyd Wilson | Oh, they love it. It's a bit long sometimes, but they come out of it. Well, let me say this. I tell stories a lot of times to provoke thought. Even though I know that some young people are not going to get the gist or the essence of the story at first, I tell it to give them something to think about. And I offer the story to them and give it to them to take home to discuss with their parents or never. So I tell all kinds of stories, and I tell these stories basically to promote some kind of thinking. Some of them are very profound, but they speak to a certain sense of what's happening inside and hopefully cause them to think about what's going on. Adults and children. And most of my stories are African American in nature, but I tell all kinds of stories. It depends on the subject matter of what it's saying, what's being said in the story. | 35:32 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I was just wondering this, it's not to imply that you should, I was wondering if you've read European Folk Tales, and if you have, if you've seen any similarities between the African American? | 37:04 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah. I can't think of any right now, at this moment, but I have read some European stories that follow the same lines as some African stories. So I think that goes to say that we do have a lot in common, probably have more in common than we have differences. I think the biggest difference in peoples of the world is their location on this planet and maybe the color of their skin or the texture of their hair. But we all have the same kinds of feelings, same thoughts. We're human beings. As human beings, we just are one. So the stories reflect that too. We talk about the same kinds of things, same principles, same values in all of our stories, no matter where we've come from. Excuse me. | 37:24 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So you just said that you're going to be in an episode of Matt Locke next season. What's your role? | 38:33 |
Lloyd Wilson | I'm playing the role of a dishwasher. What is his name? Well, his name isn't important, but I play the part of a dishwasher working in a town that is—Well, what happens is Matt Locke has a flashback to when he was a young boy. And in the town that he grew up in, a Black man was accused of killing a White woman. And so you can tell from what happens there, and I'm part of the—I'm working in this cafe where the guy who's supposed to have killed this woman works. So I'm a part of the scene there in the cafe. | 38:39 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You're playing someone from the time period. | 39:32 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yeah, right. | 39:33 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Mm-hm. And what about in T Bone N Weasel? | 39:39 |
Lloyd Wilson | Oh, in T Bone N Weasel, I played the role of an eviction officer, and I evicted Christopher Lloyd out of his house. And this is in the very beginning of the movie. And Gregory Hines has just been released from prison. And so this is how the two of them hook up and pal throughout the movie. | 39:40 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So you kick him out? | 40:07 |
Lloyd Wilson | I kick him out. Kick him out on the street. And I had a speaking part, which was very nice and I really enjoyed that experience working with Gregory and Christopher. Gregory Hines is a very generous man and very sensitive to his role as a role model, his responsibility as a role model. And I really enjoyed the time that we were together. So if you should ever get an opportunity to watch T Bone N Weasel, and now you have to look in the very beginning of the movie or you'll miss me now. | 40:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Just the beginning, I might as well not watch it. | 40:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | That's right. Forget it. Forget it. | 40:53 |
Rhonda Mawhood | I need to ask you, we ask everybody who we interview some questions about family history and biography. Would that be okay? They're standard forms. They shouldn't take too long to fill out. I know it's kind of bureaucratic. I'm sorry. Would that be okay? | 40:54 |
Lloyd Wilson | No, I don't deal with bureaucracy. | 41:12 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Don't deal with bureaucracy? | 41:14 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, let me see what you're going to ask me. | 41:16 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. There you go. | 41:17 |
Lloyd Wilson | Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, behind the veil, documenting African American life in the Jim Crow South Oral History Project, project participant, biographical information, family history. To the interviewer, the purpose of this form is to collect information for a brief description of the lives interview. It used to be included with each tape recording. We saw this guy that we hope to develop. You should try to complete each section as fully as possible to interview you, but please do not press the interviewee to answer any question which seems too personal [indistinct 00:41:52] information in there. Please indicate— | 41:27 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You've told me a lot of it on the tape. | 42:31 |
Lloyd Wilson | I think I can handle this. | 42:31 |
Rhonda Mawhood | You can handle this? Okay. I have to ask you how to spell one word that the form that I'm supposed to fill out so the transcriber doesn't have a terrible time. | 42:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay. Thank you. | 42:49 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Okay, so last name is Wilson? | 42:49 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes. | 43:01 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Do you have a middle name? | 43:02 |
Lloyd Wilson | I have an African name that I have adopted. | 43:03 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Would you put that as your middle name? | 43:08 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I choose to be called by my African name. As a matter of fact, amongst many of my artist friends, they know me by my African name as opposed to the other given name. And it's Madafo, M-A-D-A-F-O. It's of the Twi language of Ghana and it means my friend. It's a greeting. | 43:09 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Madafo. And your address is 610 Queens Street? | 43:35 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes. | 43:48 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And the zip code here? | 43:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | 28401. | 43:51 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So how do you want your name to appear on the tape and on the transcripts? | 43:57 |
Lloyd Wilson | Well, I guess you could put Lloyd Wilson (Madafo). I'm a junior, by the way. | 44:02 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And do you want Madafo to be beside Lloyd or beside Lloyd Wilson. Is there only one name among the people whose language Madafo comes from? | 44:09 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes, only one name. | 44:26 |
Rhonda Mawhood | So you would be Madafo. Okay. | 44:30 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Can you tell me your date of birth, please? | 44:30 |
Lloyd Wilson | April 13th, 1947. | 44:37 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And you were born in Wilmington? | 44:42 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yes, in a Black hospital. | 44:43 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Community? | 44:50 |
Lloyd Wilson | Community hospital. And see, that's another one of the things that we've lost as a community because of integration. We had a lot of our own resources that we could pull from. But now, all of those have been abolished. | 44:50 |
Rhonda Mawhood | Would you say that you're divorced or separated or married? What do you want me to put [indistinct 00:45:23]? | 45:17 |
Lloyd Wilson | In our mind, we are spiritually separated. Legally, we're still married. | 45:29 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And could you tell me your wife's name? | 45:53 |
Lloyd Wilson | Yvonne. Capital Y, V-O-N-N-E, middle initial B, Braxton, B-R-A-X-T-O-N. | 45:56 |
Rhonda Mawhood | And her date of birth? | 46:11 |
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