piedmont social history project - unc. · pdf filepiedmont social history project interview...

THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL

SOUTHERN ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM

Piedmont Social History Projec t

Interview

with

CHARLIE NECODA MACK

May 22, 1979

Durham, North Carolina

By Beverly Jones

Transcribed by David Knudsen

Original transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection

Louis Round Wilson Library Interview number H-0209 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

BEVERLY JONES: Granddaddy, give me your complete name.

CHARLIE NECODA MACK: My name? Charlie Necoda Mack. That's a biblical

name. Charlie's my given name. Added to Charlie Necoda.

BJ: You said biblical. What does it stand for?

MACK: the biblical part, it's just a tribl in the Bible.

Pa picked a name out of the Bible for me.

BJ: Where were you born?

MACK: I was born in Darlington county. South Carolina. Fifty miles from

where I was raised. I was born there but I was raised in Clarendon county.

BJ: Now when were you born?

MACK: 1890.

BJ: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

MACK: Two brothers and four sisters.

BJ: Were you the youngest, the oldest?

MACK: I was the last of the last ones.

BJ: So you were one of the youngest?

MACK: I was the youngest one.

BJ: Do you recall your parents, their names, what they did, where they were

from?

MACK: Farmer, country.

BJ: What was your mother's name?

MACK: Sylvia Mack. My mother.

BJ: What was her maiden name?

MACK: We can't give account of that. She must have been an orphan because

I never heard her speak of it. I never heard Papa speak of it. He spoke about

his people but hers. She must have been an orphan, undoubtedly.

Interview number H-0209 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

MACK 2.

No identification about her, where she was. She didn't have no kin folks at all.

BJ: So where was she from?

MACK: She was from the same place, Darlington.

BJ: How about your father's name?

MACK: My father? Charlie Franklin Mack.

BJ: So some of your name came from his, didn't it? Do you recall when

they were married? Do you recall what year?

MACK: No, I couldn't. He never discussed that.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: (In background) It was in the Bible, I saw it. But I

can't tell her because I've forgotten. I don't know what year it was. It was

probably in the Bible

BJ: Your parent's were farmers. So you grew up on a farm.

MACK: Farm, until I was grown. That's all we did. Farmers.

BJ: What do you recall in your early life, what you did on the farm?

You know, like milking cows, of whatever?

MACK: Farmers, plant cotton and corn. And hogs, we raised.

BJ: Did your parents own the land?

MACK: No, we rent the land. He won't no landowner. We rent the land.

BJ: Who did you rent the land from, do you recall?

MACK: From the landlord.

BJ: Oh, so he was a white . . . .

MACK: You rent the land, pay so much per year to use the land.

BJ: And you had to give money to him, or did you give crops to him for payment?

Did you give him money?

MACK: Oh, yeah. Papa, my father, he was a big farmer. Cotton and corn and

hogs.

BJ: What about the area in which you lived? Were there a lot of blacks

who owned farms?


MACK 3.

MACK: In that native place it was a big farming district. To the edge of

town. Little town was named Manning, South Carolina. Clarendon county.

All the rural district was big farmers, cotton and corn, oats, wheat and cattle.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Sugar cane and make molasses.

BJ: So you made molasses, sugar cane.

MACK: Oh yes, sugar cane.

BJ: How was that done?

MACK: The cane is about that large, grew way up, called ribbon cane.

Strip it down and cut it down and grind it. Juice come out and you cook

the juice and skim it until it gets thick. And that's molasses. You put it

in a barrel to use. To eat, you know.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: You use mules to turn the machine, it was not

automatic.

MACK: The old machine, here, I can show you. Put this way two pieces of

iron around the wheels in the mouth. You stick the cane in their and the mule

go around and around and grind the cane. It come out, the juice come in one place

and the stumble come in the other. Then they had a big flat vat, they'd pour it

in there and they'd cook it till it get a certain stage to use. Then you draw it

off and put it in a barrel. That's called molasses.

BJ: Oh, so you know about molasses. You were brought up on it.

MACK: Oh, Lord!

BJ: How about your brothers and sisters when you were growing up. Were

you very close as a family?

MACK: Oh, they married out from our home.

My brother Arthur he was the eldest boy. My sister Anna was older than he was.

And sister Maggie, she married. My brother, he married off. He went to school at

Allen University, got his papers. Then he went to teaching school. My brother.

Then after he teaching, he moved to Ohio and run a store until he died. That's


MACK 4.

the history of his life. He had two children,, a boy and a girl.

BJ: What about your sisters? What did they do?

MACK: They lived on the farm.

BJ: O.K., they just stayed on the farm?

MACK: Stayed on the farm. Died on the farm.

BJ: Did they ever marry?

MACK: Oh, yeah. Everybody in the house married.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: I'm going to help her out right there. Aunt Betsy and

Aunt Maggie moved to a place called Mullins, South Carolina after they married.

That's where they died at. And the one they called her husband, Aunt Betsy's

husband was a big logger. And one time she was in florist business.

MACK: My sister Betsy's husband worked a big saw. You heard tell saw mill

plants. Saw mills, saw logs. He was called a millwright. He kept the shop up,

kept up all the tools and machinery for the mill. It was a great big, two

brothers came from up North and put up a great big saw mill there to saw timber.

Make lumber. Well, he was called the man who took care of that, you see. He had a

good job, a very good job.

BJ: Actually, how many nieces and nephews basically in the family? How

many children were born by your sisters and your brothers?

MACK: Betsy didn't have nay a child.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Aunt Betsy had a child, she told me she had a son, I think,

a boy died at infancy.

MACK: It was in infancy? Sister Maggie, next sister, she had one girl.

She got grown, raised and schooled, but she died. Had sugar diabetes.

That took her life away. Sister Anna,

the oldest one, she had—how many girls—two boys and four girls. Her son, he

went to Missouri and went into the automobile business.


MACK 5.

At the crossroads there he put up an automobile plant there, repair cars. He

was a car repairer. He died the year before last. He done all right.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: He did all the plumbing work in their house.

They-lived on the highway. He fixed all that bathroom fixtures and

everything where they had running water. He did it because running that auto

shop, he knew how to do it. They lived on the highway. Lord, you wouldn't know

that place.

MACK: Went to a joint croassroads and put him up an automobile repair

shop. Then he took care of a whole lot of the cars in the surrounding vicinity

cuz he was a master mechanic.

BJ: Where did he pick up that trade?

MACK: He moved to Missouri. His daddy sent him to Missouri to get his

papers. But he knew the car just like you know your hat on your head. He was

a master mechanic. He married too. But he didn't have no luck with two wives.

Both of them died. He didn't have no children.

BJ: Can you describe the house you lived in? I think you said it was near

the highway?

MACK: Six room house. Right on the highway.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Is she talking about where he grew up?

BJ: Yeah, where you grew up.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: She ain't talking about Anna and them's house.

MACK: We grew up on a farm. Four rooms. Had a kitchen. When we all was

together. Lord, we tend all the land around us, you know.

BJ: So everybody helped with the chores that had to be done on the farm?

MACK: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

BJ: So it was a very close family?

MACK: Yeah, yeah, yeah.


MACK 6.

BJ: Did you all eat together?

MACK: Oh, yeah. See, the kitchen was off from the house. You slept in

them four rooms, but the kitchen and all them utensils was off in the yard, from

the house.

BJ: What time did you usually get up to . . . .

MACK: Three time a day. Sunrise, twelve o'clock and sundown in the evening.

BJ: You got up about what time? Five or six in the morning?

MACK: Six o'clock. Around six o'clock. Early, we was early risers. Had to.

BJ: What can you recall about your mother? Was she a very strong person?

MACK: Yes, mam.

BJ: Very strong.

MACK: Very strong. She didn't go to school much, as far as I concerned.

But she had something within her. Was God in her. She would give us advice how

to live. She told us, "You getting grown now. You go out in the world. Anything

you want's out there. If you want to go and be hanged, you can kill somebody and

be hanged. If you want to go to school and be somebody, you can be somebody. But

it's your choice." That's the advice she gave us as we moved out.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: When we lived she told us the same thing.

BJ: So she was a very very warm . . . .

MACK: Yes, Lord. Yes, mam.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: She ruint Polly--spoiled her rotten. We stayed

with her awhile.

MACK: When these children's mother died—there was seven of them—I had seven

girls. And the babay was four months old when your grandmama died. Well, I kept

them a year myself and hired somebody to cook and see about everything

and the old lady wouldn't do right. So I had to get rid of her. Then, after that

Fayetteville Street, you know where Fayetteville Street is, don't you?


MACK 7.

BJ: Yeah.

MACK: A gang of gang of white niggers over on Fayetteville Street wanted

my children. They went to welfare, Stanly, and told him a man round there on

Poplar Street got a gang of young ones and he can't take care of them. His

mama is dead. We want you to step in there and get them out from him and we'll

take them. Adopt them.

Well, I got the news. I went downtown and asked him about it. He said,

"Yeah."

I said, "Well, they ain't going to get none of them. I'm going to send them

to my father."

He said, "If that's the way you feel about it, I'll help you. Won't cost

you a thing." I bundled them all up, seven of them, and sent them to my daddy.

Then I worked at the factory and sent them money every week.

BJ: So you sent them back to Manning, South Carolina?

MACK: Yeah. Every week. To take care of them. Every Saturday at

twelve o'clock we'd get off, I'd buy a money order I'd send down there to Papa

for them children.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Polly, a little toddler.

When she went down there she just knew her grandmother was her mother. And when

grandmama died it took her a long time to get adjusted to living with him. She

was adjusted to us but not him. She thought his mother and father was her

mother and father.

MACK: Mama took them one year old.

In 1927, I got all the children back to me because I married again.

BJ: Let me ask you about your father. What type of person was your father?

MACK: He was very intelligent. He was African blood.

BJ: What do you mean by "African blood."


MACK 8.

MACK: No white people mixed in the blood. Back there the slaves,

the white people got with the nigger women and

That's why we got so much mixed blood now. They forced. The man with slaves

building his big old white mansions up there. And down by the woods over

there he got a nigger woman there giving children by him. That's why the

blood got mixed up. That's the history. Probably a full-blooded African, no

white blood nowhere about him.

BJ: Can you recall, did he ever say where he came from? About his father

or his mother?

MACK: He didn't even refer to his.

He was born free, Papa was. He was born just after freedom. What beyond that,

he never discussed it. His mother and father were slaves.

BJ:: Did he recall whether his mother and father lived in South Carolina

as slaves?

MACK: Oh, yeah. Their native home. Bred there.

BJ: O.K., as slaves. You mentioned he was African blood. Your mother,

what color was she?

MACK: Oh, she had white blood in her. A whole lot of it. 'Had long

straight hair. But her whereabouts and kinfolks, I never heard one word from

the time I was born and know what I talk about, until now. How she got in the

world or, nothing. Blank, blank, blank.

BJ: Now, living on the farm, did you have what I would call an extended

family? Was it a type of extended family? What I mean by extended family,

were there, did your father have brothers?

MACK: My father had two brothers, but they weren't very close. They

still living in Darlington county and we was in Manning.


MACK 9.

BJ: And what about your father's sisters?

MACK: He had three sisters.

BJ: Did they live around you?

MACK: No, we was the only ones that left from up there, up in Darlington

and come to Manning. We was the only family to come. The rest of them stayed

up there.

BJ: Why did you leave? Do you know why you left?

MACK: Never known.

I don't know nothing about it.

BJ: And your father never stated why?

MACK: No, no, no. Better convenience, or better land, or something or

other. But he struck a lucky streak and got a good place. We got along fine.

BJ: Did you attend church? Were you a Christian family? When you were

growing up?

MACK: Christian family?

BJ: Right.

MACK: Papa was a minister. He was a Methodist minister.

BJ: Did he have his own church?

MACK: Yeah.

BJ: On the farm area you were living?

MACK: The church was several miles from where we lived. But it was in the

same county, you know.

BJ: So he was a minister?

MACK: He was well read.

BJ: Was he self-taught?

MACK: Self-taught. He said he built a wood fireplace there and studied.

He taught his own self.


MACK 10.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Beats me in writing. And I went to school for it.

Beautiful handwriting, beautiful!

BJ: As a minister I'm quite sure you as a family you got to know a lot

of people on that farm area, right?

MACK: We had maybe a ten-mile surrounding. We knew the people ten miles

around, we knew them. Communities, other churches and things, we'd visit all

these other churches and everything.

BJ: Tell me something about the church experience when you were young.

What time would you usually go to church?

MACK: We'd go to Sunday school. Be there about nine o'clock. We'd

leave Sunday school we'd stay for preaching, you see. Because a lot of them

would have to come for several miles.

BJ: Oh, just to come to church.

MACK: In a two-horse wagon and two mules pulling the wagon.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: I know all about that.

BJt Your father would just preach the sermon.

MACK: That's right.

BJ: And church would get out about what time?

MACK: About two o'clock. Come on and hit the dusty road and get back

home.

BJ: What would your father preach about? Would he preach about problems

blacks were having at that time?

MACK: He just preached on the scriptures, you know. About how to live and

what was coming if you didn't live through the Bible. It was easy to learn.

BJ: What impact did it have being brought up in a Christian family would

you say?


MACK 11.

MACK: It was our whole life. Cuz we didn't give our father no trouble.

Nobody went to jail. Nobody had no fights. Nobody got in no trouble. No mam.

Sheriff never did come to our house for nobody. Nothing like that, NO!

BJ: So you were born about the 1890's. So about the 1900's you were

probably about in your teens, ten, fifteen years old, right?

MACK: Yeah. Then when I got up to 1907 I went to a training school,

I wanted to be a tailor. I went to that school two years. It's a little school

out from Sumter called Maysville, South Carolina. I went there two years. But

I worked my way, you see. I worked my way to help me out.

BJ: What did you do?

MACK: I went there two years and for some reason—at that time I was about

eighteen, seventeen or eighteen—and I came back home and I worked with Papa

until 1911. Then I married.

BJ: You said you went to a training school in Maysville and you found

a type of job to help you attend the school. How much did it cost you to go to

that school?

MACK: I forgot, it's been so long. It was a rural school there. An

orphanage school. Lady had an orphanage home there. She'd take orphanage

children and train them, any type of training they wanted she'd give it to them

there. You could work your way through. Had cows/ hogs. I'd tend them things,

you see. That was five miles from Sumter. I'd go there and I'd go there and

meet big dignitary people coming to her school. I'd take a horse and

buggy and go down and bring them from the depot to that school.

BJ: So that's the type of odd jobs you performed to go to that school.

You say you picked up a trade as a what?

MACK: Tailoring'.

BJ: Now how did you use that tailoring?

MACK: I dropped it. I didn't carry it out. I went back and went to farming.


MACK 12.

BJ: Why!

MACK: I don't know. I took it while I was there to make clothes. It

wasn't my type. Put it like that. Sometimes you take something that don't

suit you and you take that and it don't suit you.

MACK'S DAUGHTER: Tell her the reason why you went there. You told us.

You say you was so large and that granddaddy never could buy no clothes.

He decided to take up tailoring for men his size. Hard to find them clothes. He

told us that several times. Couldn't never find nothing to suit to fit him,

which you can't do now. Right now it's hard to find.

BJ: What size clothes do you wear?

MACK: Thirty-six inch sleeves, 17% collar.

BJ: Your height is about what, granddaddy?

MACK: Six feet six.

BJ: I can see why you probably had problems trying to get clothes to fit

you.

MACK!S DAUGHTER: Especially in that day. And it ain't much better now.

But people just don't stock them odd clothes like that, because they can't sell

them.

BJ: Let's go back to your experience when you were still young. On the

farm, were there any experiences, black- white experiences that you remember?

Any experiences that you had, black white relationships that you remember?

MACK; It won't back there in my time. Wasn't no relationship

between them. Just automatic dealing. But mixing, no nothing like that.

You stay over there and I stay over here.

BJ: Basically a form of completely segregation.

MACK: A pattern kind of like in Africa. You didn't go to white

people's church. You didn't go to white people's school. No.


MACK 13.

BJ: Were there any instances, knowledge about lynchings?

MACK: Lynchings? Yeah.

BJ: Did you hear about it?

MACK: In my neighborhood there, in where I lived, way around me—that's

in South Carolina now—they lynched'one boy, about twelve years old. He was,

the children was going to school, the white people had a carriage. Children

was riding a carriage—you know what I'm talking about, a buggy. Two seated

buggy. They was going to school in it. He throwed a rock in there and it

hit one of them. And that night they lynched him.

BJ: How old were you, do you recall how old you were?

MACK: At that time? I was a young man. About seventeen or eighteen.

BJ: And you heard about it?

MACK: In the neighborhood, yeah I heard about it. It wasn't but six or

seven miles from where I lived.

BJ: How did you feel when you heard about this incident?

MACK: Resentment. Resentment. That was the only one around there. That

we had resentment about it. I'll tell you another thing what happened. They

lynched that boy. And the little town eight miles from where we lived, where it

happened at, and that town went to pieces just as sure as you were born. And

all them folks that had a hand in it died.

BJ: Oh, you got to be kidding?

MACK: I ain't kidding no such thing. No I'm not. Went to nothing

and up to now ain't nothing. The blood of that one boy. Believe it if you want

to. Go by there, they sent him over to that brick building, the weeds growing

up there

BJ: Do you recall other incidents?

MACK: No, that's the only one. Only one, miles and miles, only one.


Mack 14.

BJ: What about the Ku Klux Klan?

MACK: They won't in my country. No. North Carolina is noted for

Ku Klux Klan. None in South Carolina,

MACK'S DAUGHTER ANNIE: They was here and then they got nationwide.

BJ: So there wasn't no Klans or organizations around like that?

MACK: No. North Carolina was the root of the Klan. You take this town

called Oxford, you heard tell of Oxford, North Carolina, Well, that was where

the Klan was at. Used to hang them up on the street and shoot them down.

Right there in Oxford, The wickedest state in the United States. Oxford,

North Carolina, Shoot down a nigger like you do a dog or a snake and go on

about your business. That's a fact. But not in my place. Didn't do it. No.

That was the only incident.

BJ: Now the landlord, was he a very old man, a middle-aged man, a

young man?

MACK: You mean all the landlord? The land at that time, the old people

had it and they died. Them boys stayed at them home places. Just like it

was you know. All of them had big plantations back there. Sons and grandsons.

Slavery was over with. See. They stayed right on there. Build their own

place. We lived on a place, his daddy owned slaves and only had two boys.

Well his daddy died, his mama died, and his brother died. And he was rich.

We stayed on his place, that's where he lived. He stayed on his place until

we all left off. He ain't been dead but.

ANNIE: He ain't been dead. I seen him. But he seemed to be a very nice

man. What I mean by that, he wasn't too rebellish.

MACK: He in his younger days got hold of a woman and raised a family of

children. They got out of the way, then he got another one, raised up another


MACK 15.

family come along with my children. Sent them to school, educated them.

That's a white man.

ANNIE: And fixed that will up so them pecks could not touch it and

built her a pure mansion.

She had the prettiest house in South Carolina. Beautiful home. She had a

peacock. We'd go by there going to town and we'd call her "Hattie." And she'd

be out there with a scarf on her head—she wore a little scarf—and that peacock

would be out there. And she had a big white mansion sitting on the hill. He

built that for her before he died. Then willed the girls and the boys so much

money in a trust fund.

MACK: So much land.

He had to go Columbia, South Carolina get the governor to help him out to do it.

ANNIE: To do that will.

BJ: Do you ever recall playing with his children when you were young? Did

you ever play with white children when you were young? In the yard?

MACK: In whose yard?

BJ: You know, when you were on the farm area.

ANNIE: She says, "Did you ever play with white children in the yard? "

MACK: No, never play with white children.

ANNIE: You living on the farm and

the man that owned the farm, did you ever mingle or play with their children? The

landlord?

MACK: No.

BJ: You stayed in ybur place and whites stayed in their place.

MACK: Niggers down there went to this church, went to this '.school and

stayed in their place. And white man stayed in his place.

BJ: O.K., so that's the way it was?


MACK 16.

MACK: I didn't know that you could preach and sing like they can be

cause I was never able to get in their church.

ANIIE: He's amazed at them now because he didn't know they could sing,

MACK: I'm amazed at them. Now you get up and turn on the radio, white

people preaching and singing, no, no, no.

BJ: Do you recall any times on the farm when different families would

get together and maybe have little picnics, black families would get together?

MACK: Picnics, oh picnics, in June or July, after church. Everybody cook

up food and things and go to the church. Set a table long from here to the

street out there. Put those on a calpul you know. Put the food that everybody

eat and enjoy themselves. And then they'd have a baseball game.

BJ: So that means that the families were close, black families were

close in that time period,

MACK: Very close. Very close,

BJ: So if a family was in need, if there was a death and the family was

in need of money or clothing, then everybody would come in and . , .

MACK: Here is what they do. I cut it short so. If a family get sick

over there. I was in that situation before I left the farm. A man gets sick

we would go around to the other men, they were their own boss on their own

land because they won't sharecropping, they was renting. Go over there. The

women would go over clean out the house, help her. Wash up all them clothes

and we getting the field plowed out and that crop out that day. Do anything

good for him while he was in the bed sick. That's the way we come up.

BJ: A very close community.

MACK: Close, just as close as that hat on your head. One in the neighbor

hood gets fall out, we was there. Didn't have no telephone. Man would


MACK 17.

get on a horse or rent a buggy and go and spread it around. His crop didn't

suffer.

BJ: Did you have leaders, black leaders? Was the minister, your father,

considered a leader in that community? Did you have so-called black leaders,

individuals that somebody would go to and ask . . . .

MACK: Oh, yeah. He done that, he done a lot of that.

BJ: So he was basically considered a leader in that black community?

MACK: He was, he was. You see, back there, ain't like it is now.

If a girl had a baby back there they black-balled her or put her out of business.

Would not bother her period.

Now they pick them up and try to help them. They didn't do it back there. I must

say they didn't do it. Because they call it brinking or getting your '

leg broke.

BEGIN TAPE I SIDE 2.

BJ: Then the black community response was what?

MACK: Black^spotting them. Won't bother with them. She go-out by

herself. She go to school by—no, she didn't go to school. She is, what

you'd call, I'd say, pushed aside.

BJ: Ostracized.

MACK: Exactly. That stayed till the time I left there in 1922, that

same thing.

BJ: Were there any crimes that blacks committed?

MACK: Very little. Jail house was almost empty.

A few murder cases. I saw them hang one man myself. I was going to school,

in my teens. He killed somebody, tried and hung. I saw it. Saw the guy and

everything. I can see it now like I did then. That ruint me.

I peeked through. Had the big fence, you know. Board fence. And I peeked


MACK 18.

through the cracks. And I could see it right now. That's something you'll

never forget, as long as you live. No, But the jailhouse was practically

empty. I know one incident in my home, a young man killed a white man and

they wanted to lynch him right in my home town there. And the Army had to

take him through the trial, stay there till the trial was over. That happened

too. I saw that. That in 1909. That's the first I seen those soldiers.

The jailhouse is about as far from here, oh good long way from the jailhouse

to the courthouse. He had to get out there and come down a couple of streets.

The soldiers on each side of him with guns, white soldiers. Going to the

courthouse with him, come out with him. And got ready to put him on a

train and send him back to Columbia for safe keeping. They tried him for

two years, that same man. Eventually they put him on a farm in Columbia,

South Carolina. He escaped and that's the last I heard about him. But they

didn't hang him, they didn't hang him.

BJ: Now when you were growing up in Manning, South Carolina, what

President do you recall when you were growing up?

MACK: I can't tell. I wasn't into that part of it, that's the political

part, I didn't know nothing about it,

BJ: You didn't hear anything about Harding? Did you hear anything about

Woodrow Wilson? Or any of those presidents?

MACK: No, because at that time--I don't know who was President—because

I was here when Harding and Woodrow Wilson, I was here in Durham,

BJ: Now Wilson, you see, in 1913 becomes President.

MACK: Nineteen t h i r t e e n ? I was down the re farming the land and thought

nothing about the p o l i t i c a l s ide of l i f e . Now understand me now, d i d n ' t

bother with no newspaper. Papa took a paper from town. I d i d n ' t want to be ,

never i n t e r e s t e d in t h a t p a r t of i t .


MACK 19.

BJ: Did your father ever talk about politics around you?

MACK: Right smart. Right smart.

He couldn't beat it in my head at that time because I was courting. I didn't

pay no attention.

ANNIE: He's a courting.

MACK: Busy courting. Didn't care nothing about that.

BJ: You said in 1922 you left Manning and came to Durham. Why?

MACK: In July, 1922.

BJ: Why did you leave Manning?

MACK: The bo weevil come through the country and put

in the people. The men, big wheels, committed suicide. Went to the asylum,

went crazy. I had to leave there. Had to borrow money to leave their home.

I was a big cotton farmer, I made nine bales of cotton bales one year. Next

year I made, I think, one or two, and the next year I didn't make none. I left

in July. Big farm, cotton stalks that high and fruit on the ground. I had to

leave. I borrowed money to get up here with.

BJ: Were you the only one out of your family to leave and come up . . . .

MACK: Well, the rest of them done gone. The rest of them already up here.

I left down there my sister Anna, the one who I tell you about the boy, they had

their own place so they stayed. But I couldn't stay. I had six children and I

know no jobs available. Wasn't nothing but farming and the bo weevil had the

cotton and gone. Well then I came up here in July in 1922 and got a job at

the factory. And by Christmas I had all my children with shoes, clothes and

everything on them.

BJ: Let me see, when did you first get married?

MACK: 1911.


MACK 20.

BJ: 1911 you got married. What was your wife's name?

MACK: Annie.

BJ: Annie?

MACK: Annie Miller.

BJ: Was she from Manning, South Carolina?

MACK: Yeah. You called them at that time 'big wheels', her daddy had

a big plantation. Rich nigger.

BJ: So you married somebody who was rich. (Laughter)

MACK: Back then when you got on your feet they honored you, you know.

The first, they didn't want me to have her to start with in the beginning.

Understand? I started courting her. We were about like that, she and me,

going to school. And on and on and on till we married.

BJ: So that means you were maybe about twenty-one when you got married?

She owned a big plantation?

ANNIE: No.

BJ: Her parents were.

MACK: Two horse farms bought and paid for. They didn't work for nobody

but themselves.

ANNIE: Big white house sitting up on the hill.

MACK: No they didn't, no they didn't,. You see, that's a single

blood, you couldn't tell my wife's daddy from a white man. He had two brothers.

White man been through in there

BJ: So she was quite light skinned?

ANNIE: No.

BJ: She wasn't?

ANNIE: Uh-uh.


MACK 21.

MACK: Her mama was half Indian.

ANNIE: She was dark, my grandmother.

MACK: That's the reason. My wife Annie, she could sit down and sit on

her hair.

ANNIE: She was dark , Bever ly , she wasn ' t l i g h t ,

BJ: How far did you go in school granddad? I know you were saying you and

your wife went to school together.

MACK: Yeah, but see, I quit. She went on and finished and I quit school

in 1908, but she went on in school and finished.

BJ: About what grade was that, do you recall?

MACK: At that time about sixth grade.

BJ: So you got married and set up a farm in Manning, South Carolina and

you had six beautiful children, all girls.

MACK: One born here, six down there and one here.

BJ: So you had six girls here and then one was born in Durham when you

moved in 1922.

ANNIE: Polly's the baby . Polly wasn't even born then. I remember

that.

BJ: O.K. You got married. You and Annie got married. How were the

children delivered, were they delivered in a hospital?

MACK: Midwives.

Midwives. Didn't keep no records.

BJ: Oh, so no records were kept.

MACK: And if it was a tough case you'd call the doctor. The doctor lived

in the town and you'd go get him. When Annie was born I'had to get the doctor

for her. I had the midwife but she couldn't deliver. So the doctor got out

of bed and come out there to my—I didn't live but two miles from town.


MACK 22.

BJ: What about your rearing of your six daughters you had in Manning?

Were you a very strict parent?

MACK: I found what type of children they dealt with and all like that.

We had sassy people back there too. But the children didn't bother with them.

I seen to that they didn't.

BJ: They went to school, didn't they?

MACK: Oh, yeah, went to school down there. How many of them went to

school down there?

ANNIE: I did.

MACK: The rest of them up here.

BJ: In reference to your children, of course, I know your father was a

minister so, of course, they went to church and Sunday school. Your children

did go to church and Sunday school?

MACK: Oh, my, yes mam. These children here were raised up in Mount

Vernon Church like that.

BJ: In Manning, South Carolina they attended?

MACK: Church down there, while they was down there. But they didn't stay

there but so long, I brought them back up here.

ANNIE: Tell them about the Crossroads, a church when Mama died.

Crossroads built by the people of the community.

I don't know how many young ones you had at that time,

church with the crossroad.

MACK: The family out there build a church not to far from us, just a family

then it growed. Called it "Crossroads Church."

ANNIE: It's where all his people down there was buried. Aunt Anna

and all her children were buried at the Crossroads.

Now Mama's church was a big, beautiful church in her lifetime, in her growing up,


MACK 23.

called Mount Zion.

MACK: That's about five miles from that church. Rural district, real

rural district.

BJ: So they were brought up in a real Christian family.

MACK: From the time my children knowed anything, they knowed what it was

all about. They was brought up in a Christian home cause when they got up here

Annie was the oldest one, how old were you, Annie?

ANNIE: I was eleven or twelve when you brought us up.

MACK: From then on we went to Mount Vernon. Joined the church there,

baptized there. I was joined there in 1922.

ANNIE: Under W. C. Williamson.

BJ: So you came to Durham in 1922 and you worked at Liggett and Myers.

It was your first job?

MACK: First job.

BJ: Was it hard for you to get on there?

MACK: Not at that time.

BJ: Very easy.

MACK: To get on.

BJ: How long did you work at Liggett and Myers?

MACK: From 1922 until I retired in 1953, about thrity five years.

BJ: What did you do as a worker at Liggett and Myers? What type of job did

you have to perform?

MACK: Repair work. I was a common laborer, I won't no trade man, I didn't

have a trade.

BJ: And you repaired machines when they broke down?

MACK: Yeah.


MACK 24.

BJ; We'll come back to Liggett and Myers in a few minutes. What I

want to find out from you is, when you did get to Durham, was it easy for

you to find a place to live since you had six children at that time?

MACK: At that time? Plenty of big houses. Houses run down, some of

them, nobody living in them. No problem. Houses rotting down.

Plenty of places, easy problem.

BJ: Whal. was the size of the house you were living in? Was it adequate

for your six girls at that time?

ANNIE: At that time.

MACK: Two family house, three rooms on each side.

ANNIE: They done tore it down. I wanted to show it to Louise, over there

on Poplar Street. Old man moved the house, I ain't knowed the landlord.

BJ: So you rented, how much did you pay? Do you recall how much you

paid a month?

MACK: At that time? I forgot, but it was reasonable.

BJ: Was it very difficult to adapt to a life in Durham which was basically

maybe the city?

MACK: No, you see my main interest was, I loved my family. I loved my family

and I adapted just like that. Didn't have no trouble about that at all.

And we had a community fund up there in the factory, there was thousands working,

about 1500 people, black. And any one of them get sick up here—I was the

treasurer—I would go round and get them money and go buy them

and buy them some groceries until they could get back on their feet. It was a

family, been my wife on her deathbed, somebody in my house all the time. I had

to work, folks could work all day at the factory, someone stay all night in my

house. And I ain't lying at all. And keep her just as clean as your

dress there. Women would come there and launder baskets of clothes and put them

down, strip her, give her a bath, comb her hair and carry them clothes back home.


MACK 25.

And wash and iron them. Like we had a big hosiery mill here at that time,

A lot of the women of Mount Vernon (Church) they go to the hosiery working, come

by there in the evening and take over everything. Take care of it. Annie

died like a queen. Nothing bothered her, nothing. And the worst part about

it was, my people didn't come and see about me. Close as we was, together

when we left home, everybody was making money. My sister, one of them was

teaching school, my brother he was running the store, and her people, none of

them didn't come. No, no one. I was here in trouble, bunch of people on both

sides, if they docked at my door, you docked there, I wouldn't lie to you.

Working for money. They could have come. My sister Janie was running a store.

And she could have come and she didn't come, never.'

BJ: What about the funeral, did anybody come for the funeral?

MACK: I'm telling you, NO.' I sent for her and sent her the money to come.

Your mama wanted to talk to my mama, my mama had the grip and she couldn't come.

And I sent for him and he come to the funeral, but the rest of them didn't

come. Later years, when I got straighten out, when I get on my feet then they

come see about it. I ain't lying. The family tie was alright when it was

there, but when it come to the showdown they won't with me. She died among

strangers.

BJ: The rest of your brothers and sisters were where now? You were in

Durham, North Carolina after 1922, Where were your other brothers and sisters

after this time?

MACK: Nineteen twenty-two?

BJ: Now you came to Durham in 1922. Now where did your other brothers and

sisters live?

MACK: They was away from there then. All of them, there wasn't none down


MACK 26.

there but me and the oldest sister. The oldest sister, she died down there.

The rest of them left. They left and went to Mullin, South Carolina.

ANNIE: Three of them, he had two sisters and a baby brother in Mullins.

That's his baby brother, he lived in Mullins, Aunt Betsy lived in Mullins,

Aunt Maggie died, all three of them died in Mullins. Aunt Betsy, she lived

in Wilmington, North Carolina.

BJ: I think I asked you before why you came to Durham. I know why you

came to North Carolina, because of the bo weevil. But why did you choose

Durham? Did you hear that Durham had a tobacco company here and you wanted to

come?

MACK: I know it was here, that name been out for years. I knew it was here.

I had some of my boyfriends up here then, before the bo weevils got there. They

was up here. I wrote them, they say they would get me a job,

BJ: So you were coming because you had friends that all were up here,

they were writing you. So you decided to come on because they said you could

get a job.

MACK: I had the job before I come on, walk right into the job. But they

weren't paying but fourteen dollars a week. At that time. What could you buy

for fourteen dollars a week? You could buy everything. Five cents worth of

something another, ten cents worth of something another. You know what I'm talking

about?

BJ: You can make it on fourteen dollars a week!

MACK: I got along alright. Saturday come, after I got my family up here,

I come by the grocery store and get a bag that look like that. Pay the house

rent. Light bill, water bill. Then have some left. You hear me, with that

same fourteen dollars. What helped me so much, I got in the factory, then there

was a job in that factory that an ordinary man couldn't hold it down. Drying


MACK 27.

tobacco. You don't know anything about it. I'm going to give you some

highlights on it. The job would whip the ordinary man, the sticks was oh,

about that long. And you hang tobacco on them sticks. Green tobacco. It

would go in the machine and dry it out and come back. The sticks of tobacco

would go on where the sticks was coming out. We had a cart out there, you'd

catch them in that cart. Then you'd take them and carry them around to the

racks where you'd hang tobacco, you know. It was a tough job. But I got in

there, in a month, no, about two or three weeks, the man raised me to 35* an

hour cuz I had a job that no one man could hold down. Hadn't done it, and I

held it down. And I got a raise right quick.

BJ: What were you making before that, about twenty or twenty-five cents

an hour?

MACK: No, I was making fourteen dollars a week. Then he give me

thirty-five cents an hour, then I was making twenty-two dollars a week. I was

just moving on then. Everything alright. But that is what is the

matter with me doing the rough jobs, I am worn out, now.

BJ: What type of jobs did whites have at the tobacco company?

MACK: They had the cigarrette side. No niggers over there. Where they

make the cigarettes at, on one side of the street. And the niggers on the

other side of the street.

BJ: Did you have a foreman?

MACK: Yeah. He was a white man.

BJ: What about the women? Do you recall what women were doing at that time?

MACK: They was hanging tobacco, hanging tobacco in the fall tobacco season,

then stem in the summertime. Stemming tobacco, you know. Stem by the pound.

So much a pound. Women got along, they had a good job. Some of them could do


MACK 28.

a lot of stemming, make good money. Make more than the men did.

BJ: Did you have any problems with the foreman while you worked up there?

You worked for so long, did you have any bad words?

MACK: Yeah. They fired me up there about that. They were doing some

repair work. We worked from Monday morning to Saturday night doing the

repair work, you know, no overtime. On a Saturday evening he come out there,

and I was—you ever see them people mixing cement—he come out there and told

me the way I was working we never would get through. My head jumped on him,

I said, "Well, you cut it like you want to cut it, then. You take the shovel."

He went and got the superintendent and put me in the street. Yeah, put

me in the street. And I stayed in the street then, from March until August.

I got another job then, working with a man plastering houses. Plasterer.

Then they sent for me. When it went time to retire, they didn't take that time out.

For what reason I don't know. But when I got back there, I'd have been

considered a new hand. Got my checks just like I had never been fired. That

happened to me. Then when we got in there I had some more trouble. After I

got in there, got everything through, that ain't been a whole lot of

ago. I was working with a cracker and they loved to put their foot in your

tail and laugh. I told him one day, "You put your foot in my tail again EVER

I'll break your leg."

BJ: Did he physically put his foot on you? Did he put his foot on you?

MACK: He had putting in other folks' tail hole and laughed at them,

you know, that's a cracker . . . laugh and ridicule. So I told him,

I said, "That won't go for me, I'll break your leg."

He got mad at me. Hated my guts. I give you the history of it. Our

foreman was his foreman. And our foreman had to go to and work


MACK 29.

up there up on some more bad machines. Put him over me. He's going to fire

me, you know. He gave me a piece of timber sixteen foot long. And we were

building on the fourth floor. He wanted me to carry that piece of timber up

them stairs by myself. There was a freight elevator right around. So I'd

tell him I couldn't do it, then they'd have a chance to fire me, you see.

Can't talk to foremans up there and stay over there. No you can't. At that

time. So the man over the whole thing, the big wheel. Said, "Necoda, Necoda

Mack, take this four by six and go up the stairs with it. No help, no no

thing."

I said, "Alright, I got it." I grab it up, throw it up on my shoulders,

and carried it right by the stemmery, lay it down close to the wall and broke

for the main office, looking for the big wheel. I told him my story.

He said, "What.1"

I said, "That's it is over there for you to see, I said he want to

fire me, he don't like me, me and him don't get along,"

"Why you's a good a hand as I've had since I've been here. That ain't

going to work. You go over there and tell him I said come here to me,"

I got something good for him.

I told him. "But you go on. I don't want you to hear it. You go on

back over there,"

I says, "Mr. Guther, Mr. Guther, Mr. Lotengood wants to see you."

"Alright, alright, drop everything and come over there." He stayed

about thirty minutes. He come back dragging his chin on the ground. ' "Necoda,

you would have liked to have me fired."

I said, "What, Guther, You going to fire me for that piece of timber.

I beat you to the punch, honey."


MACK 30.

He said, "Now if Luther Guther cross your path again he won't have no

job." See you mean a whole lot to the company because you do what you are

told and never miss a day. A lot of them lay off on Monday, they get drunk,

you know, blue Monday,

I said, "I don't drink liquor at all, Pierce."

"You'll be alright now. He won't bother you no more."

BJ: Did he ever bother you . . . .

MACK: No. When he come, he come, "Cody, have you got time to do so

and so please."

BJ: So they called you Cody.

MACK: Cody. C-O-D-Y. Because they didn't have time, always in a

hurry. So you see, I caught the devil up there, you know. I never forget it

as long as I live. But God was good to me. He let me get by.

ANNIE: Tell her about Mr, Charlie Gilmore. She knows the Gilmores.

MACK: You know the Gilmores, don't you?

BJ: Uh-huh,

MACK: Well, they were drying tobacco, and Charlie was a good man, a

very good man,

ANNIE: That 's the chi ldren ' s father .

MACK: Them children's father. They took him over there to dry tobacco.

Dried the green tobacco, dry it so to ship it so it wouldn't spoil. And

they got together and done something to Charlie. What they done I never know.

But he lost the use of his feet and they had to take them off.

BJ: Who is "they"? The foremen?

MACK: No, not the foremen, some more of his friends what worked with

him. The white folks thought a lot of Charlie. Jealousy.


MACK 31.

BJ: Oh, so some of the blacks . . . .

MACK: Blacks, all blacks. And they messed him out. They done that.

I wouldn't lie to you. Listen honey, let me tell you one thing. Our

people is the worst people in the world. I don't like white folks. I'm sorry

to say I don't. I read Uncle Tom's Cabin, it ruined me. I'll never get over

it. I read of Uncle Tom's Cabin when I was fifteen years old. It done something

to me. But I got to get it out of my system or I'll go to hell. I can't hate

no man and go to heaven. I intend to go to heaven when I die. And so, what I

want to say, you reap what you sow. You can believe it or not. I ain't going

to hand a dirty deal. The book don't tell it like that. If I hand it to you,

it come back to see me later. Just as sure as you be sitting there. No doubt

about that. This same man who had to mess up Charlie, he got sick. And I

went to see him too. He swelled up big as two men and panting and blowing.

Reaping what he sow. He messed up Charlie. It come back,

caught him. And I'll tell you another thing, I be work till nine o'clock

every night and the hog's head tobacco—ain't you seen a hog's head?

BJ: Uh-huh.

MACK: The head, them big thick boards, and I had a man to fix me up

some to carry home every night. We worked until nine o'clock.

And I told the man, the big wheel man, I was carrying the wood home every night.

That was strictly against the rules. They would put you in the street, so

help me God. No care, nothing, nothing. Away with you but your wages when they

pay you. He went and told the man, and the man, I walked right out, when I

got ready to go home, walked right in the man's face.

BJ: And he didn't say a word?

MACK: Wait, I had a stack of lumber on my shoulder that high.

I put it down. He said, "Don't you know it's against the rules."


MACK 32.

I said, "Yes sir, I do. But you ain't heard my story. I got a story to

tell you. I got a wife and six little children. And it's hard—and she's sick—

for me to make ends meet."

"How many children?"

I says, "Six. And she's not well."

"All right, got me out of my bed to come down here. He's a son-of-a-bitch.

Every night you getting ready to go, you get that same man to nail that together,

get as much as you want. All you can stagger under. And don't look back."

BJ: Who was that, was that the foreman?"

MACK: That was the big wheel talking to me.

BJ: You don't recall his name?

ANNIE: It's a Tom. Wasn't it Tom?

MACK: No, that Mr. Sloan.

ANNIE: Sloan, oh yeah.

BJ: Was he the manager or something?

MACK: Yeah, president, over the whole, big wheel.

ANNIE: One of the high officials.

BJ: So he told you take as much as you wanted.

MACK: As much as you can stagger with, it'd be all right with me. I'll tell

you the truth. Let me tell you something about black folks, honey. Hell gonna be

full of black folks. You can believe it if you want to. They hate one another,

jealousy, jealousy, jealousy. White people, if a white man is out there in the street

and a nigger jump on him and a white man coming by there, he'd get out of the car and

see about it.

That's what a white man will do. A nigger won't do like that. You hear me.

BJ: So up at Liggett and Myers were many blacks who actually didn't like

other blacks and they did everything in the world to try to get them fired or mess


MACK 33.

them up.

MACK: What you talking about, what you talking about? Just before I

retired, a nothing big wheel would come back there, he was.over the

whole thing. His daddy was president.

BJ: Was this one of the Dukes?

MACK: Liggett and Myers. Tom. And my blood pressure was up. I had,

I got it now. I told him about it. He said, "Yeah, it was. Yeah, He

didn't have to ask nobody nothing. Had it all in his hands."

I told him.

He said, "You."

I said, "No, I'm doing the best I can. I got a family."

He said, "Well, I'll tell you what I do. When you get hot." I ran the

band saw that cut up wood, you know. Carpenter take it down the place and

bring it over and set it. Come to set it. I saw on the band saw, that was

my job. Last, when I was getting ready to retire. "See, when you get hot you go out

there and cool off and come back. If any of these men ask you anything, tell

them I told you to do that."

I ain't had no more trouble. When I get tired.

ANNIE: Ain't that the same one, you have to go up there and pray for him

when they got sick.

BJ: Pray for who?

MACK: Hear what he done. They had stemming machines. You know they

had hand stemmers, you know, stem tobacco, I told you about it. He went and

ordered a whole lot of machines, stemmers and put a whole lot of folks in the

street. And he was in that crowd, he was the one that ordered them.

BJ: What year was this, do you recall?

ANNIE: Let's see, I worked in the '63 season over there. It must be . . . .


MACK 34.

BEGIN TAPE II SIDE I.

BJ: O.K. you were saying in the late '50s they put machines in the

factories and a lot of people were laid off because of it.

MACK: By the hundreds. Put in the street. No benefits, no pension,

no nothing, just BOOM. He done that.

BJ: Now were you one of them?

MACK: No, no, no, no, no, no. That was the stemmery.

BJ: So the stemmery there were probably a lot of women who were probably

laid off then.

MACK: That's right.

BJ: O.K. While you were working in the factory, what time did you

have to go to work?

MACK: Seven o'clock. Not be getting there at seven but be at your place

where you work at seven.

man, that would keep you out. Send you back home. You couldn't frolic all

night and go up there and a day of work.

BJ: So you had to be punctual?

MACK: If you kept your job.

BJ: What time did you get off?

MACK: Four-thirty.

BJ: Were there two shifts or just one shift?

MACK: One shift, seven o'clock till four-thirty in the evening.

BJ: Did you get any time to have lunch or did you have any breaks?

MACK: Hour for lunch.

BJ: Did you have breaks?


MACK 35.

MACK: No breaks. Just an hour for lunch. No breaks between, no.

BJ: What if you had to go to the bathroom?

MACK: Oh yeah, that's all right. That's included. There was

bathrooms right there.

BJ: So you could just go on . . . .

MACK: If you had a particular job, put somebody in your place while

you gone.

BJ: What did you eat?

MACK: Had a cafeteria there. Great big, shared table.

BJ: So that was pretty nice then. They provided for you pretty well.

MACK: IF you didn't want to cook at home, eat up there. Your choice.

Drinks and everything right there. So convenient.

BJ: Did blacks and whites eat at the same place?

MACK: No, no. That was along one side of the railroad, had a white

cafeteria on the other side. All white there and all black over here.

BJ: So you had some fond memories of working at Liggett and Myers?

MACK: Yes, mam.

BJ: So it really helped you when you really needed help. It really

helped you financially when you needed help to provide for your children.

Do you remember anything about, were there unions or strikes while you were there?

MACK: Unions came in later, after that. A union came in. And the

whole thing closed down about two weeks.

BJ: Was that about the Sixties?

ANNIE: Didn't they have a strike in the early forties, something like that?

MACK: Uh-huh. That was the first one. Then they had one last year.

BJ: What were they striking about in the forties, can you recall?


MACK 36.

MACK: Working conditions and more money.

BJ: What was the problem about working conditions?

MACK: All right the working conditions, but they want more money.

More percent on the hour.

BJ: Did you strike? They listed you

MACK: Uh-uh.

BJ: You didn't. Why not? You didn't strike?

MACK: Yeah, all of us. That's the first one, yeah, the first one.

Everything closed down, the stemmery, the cigarette side and everything closed

down.

BJ: So that was a strike that forced Liggett and Myers to close down.

ANNIE: Both closed down. That's the first one. I remember that.

This other one they had, I don't know, but I do remember that first one. We

didn't work.

MACK: Nobody worked.

ANNIE: Nobody worked. The whole plant was closed down.

BJ: How did you provide for your family?

ANNIE: It didn't last long.

MACK: Didn't last long.

BJ: Was there a union involved in the first strike?

MACK: We was striking for a union. The union was coming in then.

ANNIE: And then when they come they didn't want it.

MACK: Come and didn't want it.

ANNIE: Buying them out. And so the employees got together to close it

down. And they did close it down.

BJ: Since you were striking for a union, did the union provide for you?


MACK 37.

Provide money for you while you were not working?

MACK: Not to my knowledge.

BJ: How did you make it, even though you might have been out for a

week or two?

MACK: My rent man, he took care of that.

BJ: Who was your rent man?

MACK: C.C. Martin, head of the cotton division. I got along all

right. I didn't miss a meal or nothing else.

BJ: So he took care of you.

MACK: Everything, just like nothing hadn't happened.

BJ: Who won the strike, who won out, was it the workers?

MACK?: Liggett arid Myers won. I mean, the workers won and got what

they wanted.

BJ: A union did come in.

MACK: Union coming in.

BJ: Did things get better as a result of this union coming in?

MACK: Oh, my lord. How much better? Ninety-eight percent better.

BJ: Did you get more money?

MACK: Uh-huh.

BJ: About how much did you get?

MACK: I forgot how much percent we got. But it was nice.

BJ: So you got better pensions?

MACK: Uh-huh.

BJ: Did you get a better pension, retirement fund as a result of the

strike?

ANNIE: Holiday pay. Time and a half. That was the main thing.


MACK 38.

MACK: Back yonder, if you worked from Monday morning till Saturday

night it was straight time. But now, it's no Saturdays. It's five days.

And anything over, you get time and a half for it.

ANNIE: Then on Sunday you get double time. I worked on Sunday and

got double time. On Sundays is double time.

BJ: Were there any things that you basically dislike about working in

the factory?

MACK: Uh-uh.

BJ: You prefer that job than any job that you probably . . . . i

MACK: If you keep your mouth shut and look with your eyes and

keep niggers out of the business, it's the best,place in the

world to work. But you couldn't talk yourself for death up there. We have a

lot of white man niggers up there. You do something in the street and he know

it Monday morning what you done out there. That's Uncle Tom folks.

BJ: I think you did mention, was there a type of black organization

at the factory that would get together and provide for families? I think you

mentioned that if you were sick or something, they would come in and try to

help you with your family.

MACK: People done that on their own. Wasn't no organization. Just out

of the heart. Voluntary, love of people. Got along like a family. I wouldn't

lie to you.

BJ: Who owned Liggett and Myers while you were working there? Do you

recall who was the owner?

MACK: Liggett and Myers, that's a firm, incorporated.

BJ: Do you recall who was the president?

MACK: They always have a president. He don't stay in one job but two or


MACK 39.

three years. And put another one there.

BJ: So they rotate?

MACK: President's the head of the whole thing. They don't come on

down, you know.

BJ: What affect did Liggett and Myers have on the black community?

Would you say the majority of blacks worked at Liggett and Myers?

MACK: Well, it's bought a lot of homes for the black and sent a lot of

children to school from the black. Them women and men working there and send

their children to school, it was a great thing, greatest thing at all. That's

right. It was a big part of Durham, helped the black folks. Oh yeah. But

they had mean boss men, rebellious boss men until the union come. When the

union come then everything was beautiful. From then on everything looked

beautiful. As the union got set up, it broke the barrier, broke the black

barrier, broke it down.

BJ: Since you started working at Liggett and Myers in 1922, then you

were working there during the Depression.

MACK: In the Depression time, if you had a job you was sitting on top

of the world. Didn't have none, shame on you. Cut it short. O.K.

BJ: You are'-saying that a lot of people weren't fired during the

Depression. Were there any people fired during the Depression?

MACK: No, no, no. They won't hire nobody. Whoever had a job there,

the Depression didn't bother them period, I'm telling you. No. But if you

didn't have a job you couldn't get a job, because they don't hire nobody.

BJ: Do you recall Durham during the Depression, the problems other

people might have been having during the Depression. Cuz I know you had a job,

had some type of security working for Liggett and Myers, but what about people

maybe in your own community?


MACK 40.

MACK: Well, they got W.P.A. that helped the folks that didn't have no

jobs. And you would be there ready to go to work. You'd see a whole

lot of people on freight trains, going and coming. Hunting jobs. Couldn't

find none. But if you had a job, you sitting on top of the world.

BJ: Do you recall seeing soup lines?

MACK: Yes, mam, they had them too. If you didn't have a job, you was

in bad shape. But I don't know nothing about the Depression, didn't bother me.

I don't know nothing about it at all. Draw my money, buy my food, go on about

my business.

ANNIE: We had that black flour. You'd go somewhere here in Durham,

you go get the flour, says the flour was black, to make bread out of. Do

you remember that?

MACK: Yeah, I remember that?

ANNIE: And the people complained about that's all they had to offer

them. I don't know whether that was the W.P.A. I wished that I had

kept some of those pamphlets,

BJ: So what did you think of Franklin Delano Roosevelt?

MACK: You want my opinion? He was a

God give him a job to do. He done the job. God give it to him. God looked

down and see if he could give it to him, and he was a helpless man in a

rolling chair. But he had brains. God give him the brains. Closed down all

the banks. Took authority. Didn't bother the Congress or nothing. Took it

on his shoulder. Put it over for the Social Security. See, you take money

out before we get it. Cuz you know we won't going to pay it. That's God-man.

I'll tell you why it's God-man. Up there in Atlanta' they wanted to kill

him. Man had a .45 pistol and he in a rolling chair and shot at Roosevelt

and killed the man near Roosevelt and didn't toucn Roosevelt. God


MACK 41.

was there. You understand. God was moving. He died a natural death, no

bullets in his head. He died a natural death. When he got the job and

everything, he went on, like he did before. I'm giving you facts. God

run the world. Folks don't run the world. They think they do, but that's a

lie. Mr. So and So, no! This world, God planned this world for folks, and

if they do right HE run the world. Whatever he say, yes and no. He can shut

the door, you can't open it. He open the door and you can't shut it. That's

God for his people. So Roosevelt done the job. Something never been done in

the history of the world. Didn't push Congress behind it, always got to pass

on certain such things. What no pass there. He took the whole thing over.

That's one man, I'm giving you facts. Ain't nothing what I heard . I was

here when it happen.

BJ: Let me back back for a moment to your wife. You said your wife

Annie, died.

MACK: In 1925. February the 25th, I never forget it,

BJ: Now after she died you still working at Liggett and Myers. Who

took care of the children then?

MACK: I hired a lady.

BJ: Hired someone to come in and take care of your children.

MACK: Right. Kept them right there.

BJ: Then you later married again, didn't you?

MACK: Yeah.

BJ: What year was that?

MACK: Several years between that much. I kept them home then I carried

them down to South Carolina to my daddy. Then I married and come back and got

them and we got housekeeping again. All that happened.

BJ: And you still working at Liggett and Myers?

MACK: Right there. Best place in the world.


MACK 42.

BJ: Now you sent your children to school. They of course went to

church. Brought up in a very Christian family. Did any of your children

ever work at Liggett and Myers?

ANNIE: Yes.

MACK: Annie, Mae and Pansy. Three of them. Just three.

BJ: I thought you said my mama worked there.

ANNIE: Yeah. Annie, Mae and Pansy.

BJ: So three of the children worked at Liggett and Myers. Did you get

a job for them?

MACK: Yeah, Won't no sin. No sin at all, I made a record for

myself and then I got them a job,

BJ: By working they were able to buy clothes for themselves and try to

help with the family? '

MACK: They got the money the rest of them got.

Buy the things what they needed. Got some of the

load off of me.

BJ: Now after your second marriage you separated from your wife and

then you married again didn't you?

ANNIE: Carrie.

BJ: What year, do you recall when you married.

MACK: What year was it Annie?

ANNIE: I don't know, I know I was pregnant with Louise the year

she died. I got her old picture buried around here.

BJ: So it was about 1960-something?

ANNIE: Louise, she was a corpse and pa didn't want me to go see her.

She died in '56 and I was pregnant with Louise in 1956. And it had to be

in the fifties, somewhere along there.


MACK 43.

BJ: You were married three times?

MACK: Buried one and one, we couldn't get along. The middle one.

After Annie died I married one we couldn't get along. I met another one,

I married her. Buried two.

BJ: And then later you had another child so there were seven daughters

in all that you had. Polly was the youngest. Three of those worked at

Liggett-and Myers Tobacco Co..

At what age did you allow them to court? Did you allow them to have

boys to come see them?

MACK:. Annie, you ought to talk about that.

ANNIE: We about sixteen or seventeen, no younger. No younger, honey,

no younger.

BJ: When they decided to get married did the man have to come and ask

your permission?

MACK: Uh-huh.

BJ: And did you always say yes or sometimes did you say no?

MACK: No, I didn't say "no" nay a time.

BJ: You said "Go ahead if that's what you wanted."

MACK: I didn't say no nay a time. live with

the man, you know. I want to go live with a man. So I didn't try to run their

lives. See what I mean.

BJ: You told them to go on.

MACK: If that's what they wanted.

BJ: How did Durham change between 1922 up to the time now? What changes

have you seen in Durham in regard to the black community.

MACK: Oh, a whole lot of changes. North Carolina Mutual Bank is the

strongest bank in the United States, run by blacks. Right there in Durham.


MACK 44.

BJ: Wasn't there some black businesses in Hayti? Do you recall what

black businesses there were in Hayti when you came to Durham in 1922 and on?

MACK: Plenty of businesses in Hayti in that time. Hayti is an

entirely black district. No whites in there at all.

BJ: What were some of the businesses you recall in Hayti at that time?

MACK: Had black grocery stores, that was the most plentiful, grocery

stores.

BJ: I'm quite sure they probably had black hair salons for black women,

you know cosmetics and whatever.

MACK: Oh yeah, they had that too.

BJ: What about banks, what black banks did they have?

MACK: Black banks? Didn't have nothing in Durham but North Carolina

Mutual.

BJ: O.K., that was the only one.

MACK: That came way back yonder, honey. It started way back yonder.

Oh, fifty years ago.

BJ: Did you trade at that bank?

MACK; Dealt with them, yeah.

BJ: So there was a type of strong black community in Durham?

MACK: Yes mam, yes mam. Had black lawyers, black lawyers then back there.

BJ: Who were some of the black leaders in Durham maybe in the twenties

and thirties?

MACK: Merrick, Wheeler. I can't recall all of the names. Several of them.

BJ: Were the Spauldings part of the black community in the twenties and

thirties?

MACK: Yeah, they're really in Durham. They were leaders from way back.

Kennedys and Spauldings.

ANNIE: Don't forget Dr. Avon and his wife lived

on the corner there. He and his wife. Interview number H-0209 in the Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Special Collections Library, UNC-Chapel Hill.

MACK 45.

BJ: What about Dr. Shepard? Did you ever meet Dr. Shepard who was

president down at North Carolina?

MACK: He was a standard doctor from way back. He lived in the white,

his daddy was one that drove them Duke's sons.

ANNIE: You talking about Dr. Warren, ain't you? Got them confused.

MACK: Dr. Shepard.

ANNIE: Dr. Warren had a house up here that Dr. Grant had told him paid

him so much money

MACK: That's Doctor Warren.

ANNIE: Not to sit on his front porch.

MACK: His daddy lived in a home in the white district, white man

left it to him, you know. A white man, he do it for his children

you know. He even sent him to school. A doctor, a great doctor. And they

paid him so much money to don't be on the front porch, just stay back in there,

don't go on the front porch. In the white district.

ANNIE: In passing by you wouldn't even know he lived there.

MACK: The blinds was pulled on the front and no chairs on the front.

Everything on the back. That happened in Durham.

BJ: What about white black relationships? O.K., we know that you were

born on a farm and while you were growing up blacks stayed in their part of

town and whites stayed in their part of town. So you didn't intermingle at all.

What about in Durham, when you came to Durham, were there any changes between

black white relationships?

MACK: There's a place here called East Durham. That was the poor

cracker district. Niggers was Hayti district. Got me now.

BJ: Did the poor crackers and the blacks ever socialize together?


MACK 46.

MACK: Uh-uh,uh-uh, uh-uh. East Durham was a cracker settlement.

Hayti was a nigger settlement.

BJ: Were there any problems that ever existed?

MACK: Niggers stayed out of East Durham and the whites stayed out

of up here. No, won't no problems. Niggers don't go down there, period,.

They know won't no place for them, they get in trouble. They didn't go

down there. They had no class, no class, period. No.

BJ: What about problems between blacks and whites in reference to,

were there any fights, any riots in Durham?

MACK: No.

BJ: Lynchings?

MACK: No.

BJ: Did the klan ever show up in Durham? The Ku Klux Klan?

MACK: No, no.

BJ: None of those problems?

MACK: No.

ANNIE: Papa, forgot something, Beverly.

The largest riot we had was when Camp Butner was out here, the soldiers. We

was small then. Honey, they have a time* Papa, you forgot those buses.

MACK: Yeah, but that's soldiers. I was talking about citizens. There

a difference between when Camp Butner . . . .

ANNIE: I don't know what started it, but there was that.

MACK: When Camp Butner was outside—no, you can't remember. Well,

the soldiers would come to Durham for recreation.

BJ: O.K., is this during World War . . . .

MACK: Two. So, up in Detroit they had a company of a thousand soldiers

and they sent five hundred down to Camp Butner and sent the other part overseas.


MACK 47.

The crowd at Camp Butner, they'd come to Durham for recreation. So they

come down there one Saturday evening. Buying some liquor in the white liquor

store down on Federal Street. And them and one of the men, soldier and the

manager got in an argument. And the soldier slapped the man. And he called

the police. It was full of soldiers at that particular time. It was a

Saturday evening. The police come. As soon as the cars got down there, in

less than two, three minutes they had the car turned over and had the

policemen's pistols and everything and had them out in the street. That

happened right yonder.

ANNIE: And it took the city buses away from the—you know the,

our buses going through Hayti. You know we always had a bus that

go down Fayetteville Street. Every Fayetteville Street bus that came along--you

know we didn't have no white drivers, of course you know in that time—they

would make that bus driver get out. They drove the bus. Put him on the

ground and took the bus. Every one that come, they took the bus. That

happened here in Durham.

BJ: So, what happened in reference to the soldiers?

ANNIE: They had to send for the commanding officer.

MACK: The commanding officer, a little before sundown, a man as tall

as I am—that was the colonel—he could sentence you to death, you know.

He got all the words, all the answers. He come down there and stopped right

down there the end of Federal Street. I saw him. Got out of the car and got

in the middle of the street. He was doing this. That means that the boss

was down there. Right there. They come pulling out there, running just like

they was running from a rattlesnake. That's all they had to do.

ANNIE: They had to get him first.

MACK: The bunch of them, they sent them on overseas. That's the end

of that. Nobody get killed, but they got messed up. That happened in Durham.


MACK 48.

I was out there. I saw it. I was at home, I lived out there on Mobile

Avenue, I got down there and I got in the middle of it, I wanted to see

it for myself.

ANNIE: That's not like a white-black relationship because we didn't

have no white bus drivers at that time. Black bus drivers. And every

white man come through, he tell the people to get off and they'd get under

the wheel and drive the bus. Took it away from the white man. See we didn't

have no blacks at that time. No blacks at all was driving a bus. And I

don't what year they did start, I really don't,

BJ: Now, Granddaddy, you have lived a long, rich and full life. Let

me just point out a few things and get your comments on how you felt about

certain things that have happened in your lifetime.

In '54 we had the Brown versus the Board of Education decision in

which the whole idea was that schools now had to be open to all, no longer

could you segregate blacks and whites because this was unconstitutional.

What was your opinion in reference to the '54 decision in reference to educa

tion, since you have lived from 1890's up to the present?

MACK: I agree with what happened.

BJ: So you felt the schools should be open to all?

MACK: I open minded. It's the best thing that ever happened to the

colored man. You see, the colored man has got his foot in the door now. He

can get in something. Back there you couldn't get no way about there in this

period. Segregated, it ought have been done. I agree with that one hundred

percent.

BJ: What is your opinion of the late Martin Luther King and his whole

idea of boycotts and trying to bring about changes?

MACK: Well, we had to go back to the scripture on that. He was a lover


MACK 49.

of people and a leader. And God had his hands on him. He couldn't do it by

hisself. He went to Alabama down there and broke it up, in Alabama. He

put on a strike down there, and the folks, negroes, walked in the streets

and went on about their business. Didn't ride nowhere. So they broke the

back of the predjudice and brought it to light. God and Martin Luther King.

I put God in there, cuz God is in it.

BJ: What about the Kennedys? You know, President Kennedy, John F.

Kennedy?

MACK: Well, that old man made a fortune in whiskey way back yonder.

Call it the Kennedy clan, you know. And they was rich. But tragedy messed

taem up. Ain't none living now but Eddie, that's all. One got killed in the

Army and they killed the other two, murdered them. Ain't but one left. So

I just say tragedy struck in that family. But they was mighty strong, mighty

strong.

BJ: What do you think about our president now, Carter? Is he a very

strong president? What are your likes or dislikes about him?

MACK: He's better than some we had. I'll put it like that, he's better

than some we did have. Carter done something, he broke the color line. He's

got a colored girl in his house now nursing a child now. So he broke the

color line, in that respect. No nigger woman ain't never been in

White House to do nothing. That's happening. The gal's still there.

Got her out of the penitentiary. Put her in there. That's a break for the

colored people. I believe in giving the man what he make. I didn't say he

was a nigger lover, because he come from Georgia.

BJ: Let's see now, you're about eighty-six years old? How old are

you Granddaddy?

MACK: I'll soon be eighty-nine.


MACK 50.

BJ: Eighty-nine years old.

ANNIE: When did he say he was born?

BJ: He said 1890. If it's 1890, that's eighty-nine.

ANNIE: I can't keep up with it.

BJ: So, you lived for eighty-nine years. Having lived that long,

basically what would you say, have blacks progressed? You know, you've

been here from 1890 to 1979. Have blacks progressed within that time period?

Are we going backwards or are we going forward?

MACK: Now, you mean. Well, God set the picture and we going forward

and making good time. We got Congressmen now and we got legislators and all

like that, yeah. Making good time now, very good.

BJ: What do you account for the Wilmington 10? You know about the

Wilmington 10, Ben Chavis? What do you account for that if we are really

moving forward, how could an incident like this happen in America in which

blacks are moving forward?

MACK: For moving?

BJ: But what about the Wilmington 10? If blacks are progressing, how

could the Wilmington 10 incident happen in a land in which blacks are progressing?

How could that be brought about? The whole idea about the Wilmington 10 was

that these ten individuals, a white woman included, were being convicted of

a crime of bombing a grocery store and also inciting a riot, etc. Now, if we

as blacks are progressing in the twentieth century, how could the whole

idea about the Wilmington 10 take place?

BEGIN TAPE II SIDE II.

MACK: My belief is it is just alright.

See, it was just a few years ago women had nothing to do in politics at all,


MACK 51.

you know. Nothing whatever?

BJ: What do you think about the Wilmington 10 incident? What do you

think about the Wilmington 10 incident? Wilmington 10, Ben Chavis and these

blacks that were being tried, and of course, found guilty of bombing a grocery

store. What do you think about that? The Wilmington 10.

MACKi: That's the roots of predjudice. Predjudice has never died,

predjudice has never died. When this girl killed the jailer trying to

rape her, he'd been doing that all the time. But hadn't done nothing

about it. It's the roots of predjudice.

BJ: So, we are still progressing in a predjudiced world.

MACK: That's right. Beyond all that handicap and everything we still

moving up. We still moving up. Hands of God working. That's the only thing

I can give you.

Predjudice was handed down to the third generation. This young

crowd we got now, they're not predjudiced. They don't care which way you go,

white and black. See a black boy and a white gal locking arms and going up

the street. Well they broke that down in Virginia, see. Virginia was the

foundation of slavery to start with. Branched out from there. Then

Virginia turned around back and said, "Marry who you want to marry, if you

want to marry. It's all right." You see what I mean. So the blacks

when it comes to social they doing all fight. But the black boys

don't like white girl like they thought they would. They don't bother

much. But they can if they want to. And no lynching, no killing about it.

The young set of whites want to be liberated, they liberate themselves. When

they get grown they do as they please. And they accept a negroe man with

outstretched asms, and it's still wide open- now, this evening. They did

that. Not the old, the old said to broke the house. '


MACK 52.

Some of them committed suicide. That didn't help them none. But it's

offspring look at a different angle from the old folks. Yes and no, now.

Ain't Mr. So and So, you know.

BJ: So it was a different change in the . . . .

MACK: Oh, yeah, all together, all together. And the old folks, the

young folks out vote them, so they have to back up and let them do what they

see fit to do. The young folks running the world, and the old folks ain't got

so power for them.

BJ: I should have mentioned to you earlier, cited this person's name:

Booker T. Washington.

MACK: I saw him with my own eyes.

BJ: When was this, do you recall?

MACK: 1910, he came to Sumter. You heard tell of Sumter?

BJ: Right. Sumter.

MACK: Well he came down to visit and he worked his way through school.

White man was his daddy, put it like it is. He was a dark, about my color,

and about as nice a looking man as you ever seen in your life. Had pretty

black eyes, clean shaven. And he got a Pullman car at that time and come to

Sumter. Now here's how he treat the white man. He told the white man, "Now

I want you to help me build a school for negroes and I'm going to learn them

how to use their hands. Brick mason, tailor, harness maker, carpenter, stone

mason. And they can work for you and work for anybody.

So give me the money I'm going to build a school for that purpose." That's

how he got among the white people, nobody didn't lynch him and nobody would

bother him. . At all, and got the school built. But after so long a time" he

went to New York and got messed up,, got killed him.

They caught him with a white woman, in bed with her.

BJ: I didn't know anything about this.


MACK 53.

MACK: I know you didn't. See, enough of this will change history,

BJ: How do you know, how do you know about that?

MACK: How many thought it wouldn't come out? Tore him all to pieces.

She was a widow and she had donated a whole lot of money to that school. And

for some reason the devil fooled him to go to bed with her. That's so sure.

BJ: Repeat again how you found out about this? It was common knowledge

during that time?

MACK: People got eyes to see. At that time prejudice was at its

ripest age and New York got this many southerners as is anywhere else, right

there in New York you know. Don't forget that. Every nation under the sun

excluding the Eskimo. Naturally or not that he had eyes on her, cuz he went

to white folk to get the money. The niggers didn't have no money to give

him. He went to the shite folk, the big wheels. She took to his fancy and

she fooled him. She didn't intend to him messed up, but she didn't know

what she was doing. That happened out of tragedy. Bad tragedy, Martin

Luther King, he got killed, but he didn't do it. He didn't bother with it.

He went on about his business. But evil temptation that's what happened,

temptation. I'm giving you what I know. I've never been down there to--

it's a nice school. I ain'g never been there.

BJ: Tuikeegee Institute,

MACK: Good size.

BJ: Very good. It's well built and is quite . . . .

MACK: He laid the founding if crackers give him the money by the thousands

of dollars. They turned their pockets. He had a way. You know some


MACK 54.

some people got a way to convince you right quick about what they want to do.

Of course you know that. Well he had a silver tongue. Oh, he was an orator

on out of this world. When he went to Sumter there, as many white people in

that auditorium there as was black. Oh, he's an orator out of this world.

And he got applause in Sumter, he had to stop talking till it died down some.

Then when it comes to money, it comes pouring out.

Money, money, money, money, money, well he left there loaded. Well, he didn't

only go to Sumter. He went in Georgia, he went in Mississippi, they didn't

bother. He told what they want the nigger to do. You'll have some somebody to

do what you want done and do it like you want done. Guy puts it in

his head to do it. They fell for it. They grabbed the hook and swallowed the

hook. That's right. That's the smartest man you ever seen in the history of

the world. Fool the cracker. He had education, he worked his way through school.

Went to the Institute at Hampton. Hampton was in power then. That's a black

school. And he went there and worked his way through. And he was apt

and he'd make two grades in one year, you know. When he left there, honey, he

had it. And didn't only have it, but he used it on crackers. Psychology on

the cracker and ate them up. Swallowed it.

BJ: There was another individual in that time period: W.E.B. DuBois.

Did you ever hear about W.E.B. DuBois?

MACK: I know all about him. But he married a white woman, and he didn't

do so hot. He done pretty good and everything, but understand that Booker: T.

had the stuff. Won't outstanding as BJW. Couldn't touch him. Couldn't .

touch him.

BJ: Have you ever heard of a woman by'the name of Mary Church Terrell?

MACK: No, I haven't. I heard talk of Miss Bethune.

BJ: Oh, Mary McCloud Bethune, Right. So you knew she started Bethune


MACK 55.

Cookman's College?

MACK: Right, I heard of her. But not this one, no. She didn't make

the headlines very much. Did, I'd a knowed it.

BJ: Right, right. Terrell was up in Washington, D.C. and that does

make a difference because Bethune was located in the South, or her institute.

What other blacks do you consider to be outstanding in your ninety

years?

MACK: Frederick Douglas. He's an outstanding man. Noble spokesman.

I didn't see him now, I just read about him.

BJ: Yeah, he died in 1895,

MACK: But he left a record. He's dead and gone but his record's still

here, You see,

BJ: Do you recall any other blacks you knew about when you were growing

up?

MACK: No, I don't, I can't recall. They were a little bit scarce,

they were not plentiful.

BJ: So we have talked about Liggett and Myers. I think the basic

impression we've gotten is that Liggett and Myers did become an institution

that helped the black people.

MACK: That helped the black folks. Many a woman and man worked in

Liggett and Myers sent their children to school until they finished college

and went out themselves. That was Liggett and Myers. It was a step up

for them. And a whole lot of them working there and was able to send them

to school. But they sent them, they got their education. And they got all

vocations of life. Some of them are doctors, ministers, lawyers, pharmacists,

see. Got there to get the money to go to school. Liggett and Myers fur

nished the money. That's real, that's not a fairy tale. That's real.


MACK 56.

BJ: Let's see if we can basically end up by seeing what happened to

your family. Are you the last survivor of your family now, the only one?

MACK: I am.

BJ: And that means your mother and father are gone, and your brothers

and sisters?

MACK: Uncles and aunts.

BJ: You're the last one living now?

MACK: Last one. When I'm gone there won't be no more M cks. None of

them. Won't very large to start with,

BJ: What can you say basically America needs now to bring about closer

relationships between blacks and whites? What is needed to bring about a

peace?

MACK: Well, you want the answer? God, God is the answer to that. If

the blacks would serve him like they ought to, he'll give them what they want.

Slavery time, they used to cry and moan to God and shut the door. Cat-hole

in the door. So they could moan there for freedom. Well, God come along

and freed them after a while, see. All blacks got to do is get closer to

God, they got it in their hands. But they got several gods now. Some of

them got cards for a god, clothes for a god or house for a god. And forgot

about God, but there ain't but one god. When he say, "Love me first, with

all your heart soul, and thy neighbor as thyself." Folks don't bother

with that. All these folks is doing now is getting the fruits of the prayers

of the slaves. These folks ain't not even praying, they ain't praying worth

a cent. Don't let nobody fool, no. The prayers of the Saint, them old

folks, God heard their prayer and took them from under the slavery, broke the

slavery down. Well then the negro took it from them. Vice president or


MACK 57.

President. God did not give the word to the white man. He put it down

there. God is the answer, you can believe if you want to. Take it or leave

it.

BJ: Any thing else you want to commen on before we end up?

MACK: No, I believe that's all. I done the best I could, the best of

my recollection.

BJ: O.K., thank you, granddaddy.

END OF INTERVIEW


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