Stories that Emerge from the Collection

one of the only collections focused on this experience in Washington. Oral history projects

focused on the Great Migration in Washington, such as the 1993 oral history project at Potomac

Gardens, have recorded the stories of the First Great Migration.53 The Real World History

collection is the only oral history project focused on the later years of the Migration in

Washington.

Stories that Emerge from the Collection

While student oral history is often widely appreciated as a valuable educational activity,

the work produced is rarely taken seriously for its contributions to the historical record.54 In this

section, I will highlight some examples of how the Real World History archive contributes to

scholarship of the Great Migration and DC history. The interviews in the collection are rich, and

I encourage researchers to take this archive of student oral history interviews seriously as

primary source material. Even a researcher who might be inclined to discount the intellectual

contributions of young people can appreciate the historical value of the narrators’ thoughts and

reflections.

While it must be noted that these interviews represent the student interviewers’ first foray

into oral history interviewing, the recollections and reminiscences facilitated by students add to

our knowledge of the period and provide valuable material for historians. Yes, sometimes

students are bad at getting names and dates, or neglect an important follow-up question, or fail to

ask a narrator to elaborate on a thought, but all oral history interviewing contains missed

opportunities. Anyone who takes the time to listen to the student interviews will be impressed by

53 This community-based oral history project in Potomac Gardens was sponsored by the DC Community Humanities Council’s City Lights program and was the basic of both the documentary, In Search for Common Ground (1993), and the exhibition, “In Search of Common Ground: Senior Citizens and Community Life at Potomac Gardens” (1994-1995), at the Anacostia Community Museum. 54 Levin, “Authentic Doing,” 8.

the preparation, poise, professionalism, and maturity the interviewers exhibit when talking with

their narrators. Howard Levin, Director of the Telling Their Stories Oral History Archives

Project at the Urban School of San Francisco, is worth quoting at length in regard to the quality

of student oral history work:

“The initial reaction of adults in the field is almost always the same: a skeptical acknowledgment of quaintness at the idea of students as oral history practitioners. …However, just as predictable as the initial reaction, the response upon actually seeing samples of student work is often also equally predictable: a sense of flabbergasted appreciation of what students can actually accomplish with appropriate training, adequate equipment, and the world stage in which to publish this meaningful work.”55

There is far too much content in this collection to examine the variety of contributions

made by Real World History students and their narrators here (for starters, each and every

interview speaks to some of the specificities of Jim Crow in a different town or city in the

South). I will outline a few starting points for further investigation which I have observed in the

material.

Most of the narrators recount how they left the South as a teenager, particularly once they

finished their high school education. Listening to the interviews of the Real World History

collection, the centrality of family in the decision to migrate becomes a common theme. For

those who were minors when they migrated, the decision to leave was not always one they made

themselves. As was discussed earlier, coming of age in the later decades of the Migration, most

of the narrators had family who had migrated to Washington either before they were born or

during their lifetimes. Some of the narrators, such as Ms. Hattie Dunston-Tanner, recall the

decision to migrate being predetermined.

MIKAYLA SHARRIEFF: [00:14:59] What influenced you to finally move to D.C.?

55 Levin, “Authentic Doing,” 8.

HATTIE DUNSTON-TANNER: [00:15:04] Okay. Before I graduated it was just assumed. Meanwhile, another aunt had moved here, so I had two aunts that lived here. My grandmother had two daughters that lived here in DC. One of the daughters was in the house; I grew up with her, almost, in the same house with my grandmother. But she was older than I was. And so she came to DC and got established and everything, so by the time I came, finished high school and came to DC, she had gotten an apartment and a place. So, it was like automatically that I would be going to DC when I graduated. (Pause) My parents could not afford to send me—well, one brother was already in college—so they could not afford to send me to college down there. And, of course, some of the teachers did not tell you about financial aids and different things that you could get to subsidize your education, which I found out myself later on, but it was too late then. Well, [it’s] never too late to get an education; I take that back. But, by that time, it was just assumed that I would come to DC when I graduated.56

It is also worth noting that the kinship networks that brought Ms. Dunston-Tanner to Washington

were comprised of all women. This is a common theme among all the narrators, but particularly

the women, and is an interesting distinction from the women of Making a Way Out of No Way,

the majority of whom related that their husbands initiated the migration.57

While not all narrators describe the decision to migrate as predetermined, many of the

narrators discuss how they came to Washington soon after graduating from high school. In many

cases it was parents, particularly mothers, who would pressure their children to leave the South

upon graduation. The predominant reasons identified were: 1) there were no desirable jobs

available; or 2) there were no opportunities for furthering their education in the South. Ms.

Thelma Jones recalls that, though she had no particular destination in mind, her mother was the

one who encouraged her and her siblings to leave Snow Hill, North Carolina.

LOLA ROGIN: [00:19:07] So before you came here were you told things about DC? And then, when you got here, did it meet your expectations? Did you think it was going to be a different way? THELMA JONES: [00:19:15] You know, actually, I don’t really remember being told, other than, “You want to go elsewhere.” And, you know, opportunities would be better

56 Hattie Dunston-Tanner, interview by Mikayla Sharrieff, December 29, 2017, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. 57 Krissoff Boehm, Making a Way Out of No Way, 96.

for me, is what my parents said, especially my mom. Because, somehow, even though she was a farmer’s wife, and she grew up on a farm with her parents— . My maternal grandmother died early, so my mom had to play a leadership role very early. And she graduated from high school at sixteen—she was very smart—she went to New Jersey, and she would have stayed there, however, her mom became very ill, and she had to come back home to take care of her mom. So, I think that’s sort of how she came up with that idea, of sending me, encouraging me to go to DC. Because she tried that with [my other older siblings]. You know, your parents sort of know their kids and their personalities. ROGIN: Yeah. JONES: [00:20:31] So, with my oldest brother he went away to college, and he stayed in college for a long time and never graduated, but then he left and went to the military. And my next, my oldest sister, my mom tried to get her to go to New York.58

Both Mr. Caesar Dudley and Mr. Jimmie Suggs also recall how their mothers made the decision

that they would go to DC.

MICHAEL BAYLISS: [00:03:02] So, who in your family decided it was time to move? Or was it you that decided it was time to move? CAESAR DUDLEY: [00:03:07] It was my mother. My mother and father decided that—I had relatives here in DC—and they decided that it would be best for me to leave Georgia and come to DC and finish school and at least get a fairly decent job. BAYLISS: [00:03:27] So you came by yourself? DUDLEY: Yeah. BAYLISS: Wow. DUDLEY: [00:03:30] So they put me on a bus—five dollars—and sent me away to my relatives.59

JIMMIE SUGGS: [00:06:01] But, we came here because work was very little there, and we had to come here to find an exact—. I graduated from high school; my brother—who had been living here ever since 1966—he came down on graduation. And he was leaving that Sunday, and my mother told me, said, “Well, your brother got a seat driving [to DC]. His wife sits there, his daughter sits here; you be in the next seat. Go to DC and find a job.” So that’s what I did.60

58 Thelma D. Jones, interview by Lola Rogin, November 27, 2019, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:286548 59 Caesar Dudley, interview by Michael Bayliss, December 18, 2015, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272298 60 Jimmie Suggs, interview by Maya Woods-Arthur, December 11, 2017, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272821

For both women and men interviewed by Real World History students, the kinship

networks that either directly initiated or facilitated their move north were primarily made up of

women. The majority of the narrators moved in with aunts (particularly aunts), grandmothers,

cousins, and older sisters when they first came to Washington. Of the people who came north to

live with family, only Rev. Evangeline Taylor, Jimmie Suggs, and Ms. Jaqueline Hines lived

with a male relative upon arrival in Washington. This is an important pattern that emerges from

the interviews and corroborates scholarly arguments about the importance of women in the

migration chain.61

Family networks and educational and economic opportunities are the predominant

reasons that the narrators came to Washington, but there are a few narrators who came north

fleeing violence and racial tension. Mr. Henry Breedlove was sent north when he was 18 years

old because his parents feared for his life after a confrontation with some white boys in his

hometown of Vienna, Georgia. Mr. Julius Watson relates a similar story that led him to leave

South Carolina. While most narrators identify segregation and racial oppression as an

inextricable part of their motivation to leave, stories such as those of Mr. Breedlove and Mr.

Watson are a minority of the interviews. It is also worth noting that both are men, and the

collection’s lesser number of male narrators may be a factor here. Most of the narrators, even

those who witnessed racialized violence in the South, in one case a spectacle lynching, 62 identify

61 Darlene Clark Hine, “Black Migration to the urban Midwest: The Gender Dimension 1915-1945,” in The Great Migration in Historical Perspective: New Dimensions of Race, Class, and Gender, Ed. by Joe William Trotter Jr. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1991), 133. 62 In her interview, Mrs. Korea Strowder recalls the lynching of one of her classmates, Lloyd Warner, when she was a teenager in St. Joseph, Missouri. Korea Strowder, interview by Jamilya Rich, December 1, 2015, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC, 6, http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272811; “On this day – Nov 28, 1933,” A History of Racial Injustice, Equal Justice Initiative, https://calendar.eji.org/racial-injustice/nov/28

a job or educational opportunity as the moment/event/primary motivation that brought them to

Washington, DC.

There are several narrators in the collection, such as Rev. Irene Pierce, Alvin Harris,

Claudia Lewis, and Damita Goldsmith who came to Washington as children.63 The stories of

children in the Migration are not well-documented and these interviews provide insight into an

underexamined experience. With the exception of Ms. Lewis, the importance of the migration in

their self-conception is evidenced by their vivid memories of the South and recollection of their

migration to DC as a turning point in their lives. The journey loomed large for Ms. Goldsmith in

particular:

REBECCA AKHIGBE: [00:21:01] So how many states and countries did you migrate through before officially settling in D.C., and what were their names? DAMITA GOLDSMITH: [00:21:08] Okay. I actually have been in every state from Texas traveling north, and the reason for that is: my dad drove. We packed the station wagon up—five kids—and drove from Louisiana to here. My dad drove three straight days, because when we tried to stop—. I have seen where you pull up to a motel, and the sign says “Vacancy,” and when my dad walked in and came out, the sign said, “No Vacancy.” So he had no other choice. When we got here—I’ll never forget that night— him going to a Catholic church, to the rectory, and the priest said, “I’m sorry. I would like to, but I cannot.” And see, when you have five kids, people think you’re going to tear up their house—. So that’s how we ended up in rural Waldorf at a place called the Blue Jay Motel. They tore it down a few years back. But my mom ended up cooking on a hotplate; we lived there for three months, until he could find suitable housing. And that’s when I went to sixth grade. AKHIGBE: [00:22:33] Wow. GOLDSMITH: [00:22:35] And it’s ironic that they moved back to Waldorf eleven years ago, but it was a peaceful living for them, because they are eighty-three and eighty-five.64

Though Ms. Goldsmith was only eleven years old at the time, the hardship her family

experienced in the trip to DC would stick with her for the rest of her life. The Blue Jay Hotel

63 Mr. H. Bernard Hayes also migrated at age seven, but his family moved to New York City and he later came to Washington. 64 Damita Jo Goldsmith, interview by Rebecca Akhigbe, February 2016, People’s Archive, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272299

which Ms. Goldsmith mentioned, was a Green Book stop in southern Maryland.65 This is an

example of how the interviews can highlight interesting aspects of local history.

Picking up on a point raised by Darlene Clark Hine, in Making a Way Out of No Way,

Krissoff Boehm discusses how some of her narrators left children behind in the South in the care

of extended family when they migrated north. The narrative of men leaving wives and children

in the South in search of work is well-established, but the stories and experiences of women who

made this difficult decision remain marginal to the male-centric narrative. Some of the narrators,

such as Ms. Louise Baxter, recall how their mothers went north as the primary breadwinner.

KENYA AGUILAR: [00:03:04] So what made you move? LOUISE BAXTER: [00:03:06] My mother was here, and my aunt. AGUILAR: Yeah. BAXTER: [00:03:11] So after finishing school, I come to live with my mother. I was raised by grandparents in the South. AGUILAR: Yeah. BAXTER: [00:03:20] And I stayed there until I finished school. AGUILAR: Oh, okay. BAXTER: [00:03:23] So my grandmother passed, and then I come up here. AGUILAR: [00:03:28] Oh, okay, okay, okay. (Pause) So, why did your mom move to the North? BAXTER: [00:03:38] To get a good job and to make more money. AGUILAR: Oh, okay. BAXTER: [00:03:43] They wasn’t paying that much there. Uh-huh. And then she could send money for me, you know? AGUILAR: Yeah. BAXTER: [00:03:50] For my grandmother and those to care for me. AGUILAR: Yeah. BAXTER: [00:03:54] Mm-hm. But I had two cousins; it was three of us that lived with our grandparents. It was two boys and myself. AGUILAR: [00:04:03] So you didn’t have any siblings? BAXTER: [00:04:05] I’ve never had—. No. I’m an only child. AGUILAR: Oh, okay.

65 The Negro Motorist Green Book, originally published in 1936 by Victor Hugo Green, was a series of guidebooks that listed restaurants, accommodations, service stations, etc. that served Black travelers. Anthony Plaag, “The Green Book in Maryland: The Blue Star Motel and the Blue Jay Hotel in Southern Maryland,” Preservation Maryland, April 8, 2020, https://www.preservationmaryland.org/the-green-book-in-maryland-the-blue-star-moteland-the-blue-jay-hotel-in-southern-maryland/

BAXTER: [00:04:08] Uh-huh. (Both chuckle) It’s hard. (Both laugh) I always wanted a sister or brother. AGUILAR: [00:04:15] Really? BAXTER: [00:04:16] Yeah. So, I [could] fight or do something with them. (Both laugh) But I was the only child. AGUILAR: Okay. BAXTER: Uh-huh. AGUILAR: [00:04:24] So, you decided to move to the North to be with your mother, right? BAXTER: Yeah. AGUILAR: [00:04:29] So, was there anyone that didn’t want you to move? Like your grandparents or anything? BAXTER: [00:04:35] Well, my grandmother had passed, so, and my grandfather was there by himself, and he didn’t want me to leave. But there was nobody, no woman there in the house. So I came on, you know, he sent me up to my mother. So that’s what happened. AGUILAR: [00:04:58] How about, did anyone convince you to move here? Or you just did it on your own? BAXTER: [00:05:03] I, oh, I did it on my own, because I was a teenager, you know? So I come to [be] with my mother. Mm-hm. AGUILAR: [00:05:13] So, you came by yourself? No one came with you? BAXTER: [00:05:17] Mm-mm. No, I didn’t have anyone to come with me. AGUILAR: [00:05:21] And how old were you when you left? BAXTER: [00:05:23] How old was I? AGUILAR: Yeah. BAXTER: [00:05:25] Oh, I was in my teens. About seventeen, I guess. Seventeen or eighteen, something like that. AGUILAR: [00:05:33] Wow.66

Ms. Baxter not only speaks to the experience of women migrating north by themselves to support

their families, but her experience, again, speaks to the importance of women in the Migration.

Not only is it that her mother and aunt drew her to DC, but her move was initiated by the death

of her grandmother. Even though her grandfather didn’t want her to leave, there was an

understanding that she ought to be under the care of an older woman.

66 Louise Baxter, interview by Kenya Aguilar, January 17, 2016, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272812

There also are interviews that speak to the other side of this experience. In discussing her

quest to secure a government job and continue her education, Ms. Mabel Mitchell explains that

she left her daughter in the care of her mother and grandmother in Raleigh, North Carolina.

ALISON EIGSTI: [00:31:45] So you held your job at the drugstore, and then, did you ever look for other employment? MABEL MITCHELL: [00:31:53] Oh, well, when I got the job at the drugstore, I had no intention of staying there. I had to do what I had to do until I could do better. EIGSTI: Mm-hm. MITCHELL: [00:32:02] And they would often give the civil service test, and I would always take the test whenever I'd think it was something I wanted to do. Sometimes I would pass, and sometimes I wouldn't. I took typing when I was in school, but I really found I made a mistake when I really didn't go into business, you know, take a lot of business courses then. Of course, since I've been out of school years ago, I've taken courses. And, I continue to try to— . ‘Cause that was my objective, was to get in the government and to go to college. I started Federal City College but I didn't finish, so I didn't really go to college. I took courses off and on, but I never pursued a degree in anything. But until I had a child, and I left home— . Um, and I left my daughter with my mother and my grandmothers there; it was kinda rough doing that. EIGSTI: Mm. MITCHELL: [00:33:01] Because, when you get attached to a child, it's hard to leave them. EIGSTI: Mm-hm. MITCHELL: [00:33:06] But, I couldn't progress there with a job, and I just had in my mind that was gon’ do better, that I wanted to make more money. So, I sacrificed the relationship between my daughter—she was three years old—and came to Washington. My mother, she didn't really—. She wasn't happy about it. But the idea, she knew that I wanted to make more money. And I promised her that I would still send money home, which I did. And that's what most of us Blacks did, we went away to make more money to help ourselves and our family. EIGSTI: Mm-hm. MITCHELL: [00:33:43] And some sent money back to help their families to migrate also. But, I sent my money back to help with my daughter. And my, cause my grand—. I didn't have any problems with my grandmother and aunts and everything, they all helped me with her. And I, finally, I got a job from the drugstore. A friend of mine was working at George Washington University in the cafeteria. So, at the drugstore I had to work on Sundays, and I like to go to church. EIGSTI: Mm-hm. MITCHELL: [00:34:20] So, she got this job—helped me get a job there, recommended—I got this job as a bus girl, at George Washington University in the cafeteria. And I worked there. And, it so happened that a job came open in the bookstore

at George Washington University, so I applied for that job and I got that. So I kept on doing jobs until I finally got in the government.67

While thinking about Black women’s different migration experiences, Clark Hine

identifies the threat of sexual exploitation and gender violence as an underexamined push factor

for Black women. 68 Some of the women in the collection speak to this in their interview. For

example, in reflecting on her experiences with segregation in Culpeper, Virginia, and the racial

tensions of her upbringing, without prompting by the interviewer, Ms. Edith Crutchfield

discusses the sexual harassment she and her sisters experienced working in the homes of white

people:

ISABELLA RAMOS-BRACHO: [00:09:40] So, what are your, like, your encounters with Jim Crow, you know? Like, you mentioned that there was, all your town was mostly Black people and all the white people were over in the medical building, but like there should have been many encounters between both. EDITH CRUTCHFIELD: [00:10:06] It was, the town, it was small. But, there were white and Black people who lived in the town. On our street, we were the only ones that had the big medical building with the white people who resided there. RAMOS-BRACHO: Mm-hm. CRUTCHFIELD: [00:10:24] But around the corner from us, there were white people this way, and the Black people lived that way. So same street—West Street is what it was called—but they both stayed in their respective areas. They greeted each other; they’d say hello; they went to church. Our church was right around the corner in the middle of the two: whites on one side and Blacks on the other. So we, it was, it was strange. But, (sighs) most people just seemed to accept the behavior. Your greetings might be, like to my father they would say, “Hello, Uncle John.” But his response was, “How you doing, Cousin Joe?” Cousin Joe didn’t want to be called Cousin Joe. (Laughs) My father was strange. But, um, like going to the bus station—we took the bus station to come to Washington to see family members—you could not ride in the front of the bus; you had to ride in the back of the bus. Even the waiting rooms were segregated. The whites would be on one side and there was a door, and then the other side was the one—. Even the bathrooms were all divided. So you, that sort of that thing. You went, you know, you ran into—. In the stores, because they knew most of us, and there were so many of us, we did not encounter many problems of anyone following us around stores. I guess they knew if they told our mother or father we took anything, we would be punished forever. So, we didn’t engage in that, and they really did not bother us in that sense. But you could not go

67 Mabel Mitchell, interview by Alison Eigsti, January 8, 2016, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:294111 68 Clark Hine, “Black Migration to the Urban Midwest,” 138.

into a drugstore and sit down and order a sandwich or a soda, whatever. So you knew you could go in there to buy all the products, but stay away from the counters, because you knew you weren’t going to be served. And in some cases, when integration came and the stores had to serve everyone, a lot of the drugstores just took out all of their counters and seats, rather than do that. So, you had to, yeah, you had to accept that. And of course, going to school. As I said, we were not allowed to go to the school we could walk to and we got on the buses. And, the kids who came from other counties were to come into Culpeper to go to the school. Well, when these buses passed each other, there were rock fights. They would pull down the windows and throw rocks. (Laughs) And the Black kids would have rocks in their bags, and there would be a rock fight— ISABELLA RAMOS-BRACHO: Oh. EDITH CRUTCHFIELD: [00:13:33] —between the buses. I didn’t engage in that; my sisters did. (Laughs) I just thought it was stupid, on both sides. But, those kinds of things we encountered. And then I—. And babysitting, because we had to babysit when we were very young. And we were mature, so a lot of people trusted us with their children; plus, there were a lot of children in our family. We would encounter some problems, in, um, that manner. Uh, mainly with the husbands of the people for whom we were babysitting. Um, they would make overtures, uh, that we knew were not quite right, and we would just tell our mother and father we couldn’t go back and babysit for them. When they wanted to know why, we said “Well, they don’t really like us.” But, um, it was like we were expected to do whatever they wanted us to do. That made me feel kind of uncomfortable then angry. But, these are the kind of things we endured; We got around them the best we could. But at least I had my sisters to whom I could make known what had happened. (Whispers) “Don’t babysit for them!” They’d go, “Why didn’t you just hit him?” And I didn’t really mean big trouble, but those are the things that we contended with, lived with, and tried to get through.69

Though it is a long excerpt, it is important to show how, when given the space to reflect and

freely associate, these experiences at work are connected to other experiences of racism and

segregation in Culpeper for Ms. Crutchfield.

The collection also speaks to the specificities of the Migration to Washington, DC. As

can be seen in the above excerpt with Mabel Mitchell, a predictable theme that emerges when

listening to the interviews of the Real World History collection is the draw Washington had as

the seat of the U.S. Federal Government. Almost all the narrators worked for the federal

69 Edith Crutchfield, interview by Isabella Ramos-Bracho, December 14, 2018, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:270811

government in one way or another over the course of their lives and many came to DC in search

of a government job.

CLAUDIA LEWIS: [00:49:19] And the one goal we had in line, because we all used to say, “We want a good government job.” That was our main aim, because we knew that’s where the money was at that time.70

Despite Washington’s position as the nation’s capital and the first stop for migrants

moving up the east coast, it still was a southern city. A common theme among narrators, whether

they came in the forties, fifties, or sixties, is disappointment upon finding racism, segregation,

and discrimination manifest in Washington. For some of the earlier arrivals, such as Mrs. Korea

Strowder who came in 1943, it was more de jure:

JAMILYA RICH: [00:22:40] What were your hopes, dreams, and fears of leaving Nebraska and coming to Washington, DC? KOREA STROWDER: [00:22:47] I didn’t have any fears about that all. (Rich laughs) No, because after having gone through all I’d been through with Denver and St. Joe, Missouri, it didn’t bother me at all. Except I was surprised that there was so much prejudice in DC! RICH: Hm. STROWDER: [00:23:08] Oh, yes! When I got to DC, I came by train. And my sister was already here because she went to a college in West Virginia, and there were three other girls who graduated with her and they had an apartment, so everything was all set. But, when I got to Washington, uh, at Union Station, I have two big bags. And, there’s this white fella standing there, and I see the cabs all lined up over on this side. And, he puts his—I step forward to get a cab—and he puts his hand up to hold back, and tells the whites to come. (Taps table) (Pause) I said, “I don’t believe this.” RICH: Hm. STROWDER: [00:24:10] I said, “Well, maybe he didn’t see me.” So I came a little closer to him. And, he pushed me back. And I, finally, a Black cab driver across the street waved to me frantically, to come, “Come over here!” And I went over there, he said, “You’d been standing there ‘til tomorrow, because they don’t put Blacks in the cabs.”71

70 Claudia Lewis, interview by Michael Artemus, November 25, 2019, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:307697 71 Korea Strowder, interview by Jamilya Rich, December 1, 2015, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272811

For those who came as segregation was being dismantled in Washington throughout the early

1950s, several narrators identified the downtown department stores as holdouts.

ALBERTA BRYANT: [00:20:07] Yeah. And we, at that time, 1953, you know, segregation was taking place—I mean, integration was taking place—and they had—. I came to Washington, and I remembered we couldn't go to—. What's the name of that—? (Pause) Mm. It's one of the department stores we couldn't go to. We could go to, we could go to Hecht's, Landsburg— . But we couldn't go to a place like Neiman Marcus, or the big names. They were still segregated. HARRIS MARKS: I gotchu. BRYANT: [00:21:00] If they were not segregated, they were supposed to be integrated, but you met that resistance to service. MARKS: Okay. BRYANT: [00:21:09] They didn't want to wait on you, or—. No one was ever rude, but you can tell when someone doesn't like what they're doing. MARKS: [00:21:21] I gotchu. So, it sounds like the biggest thing is you really noticed how people, how just people were just like uncomfortable— BRYANT: Mm-hm. MARKS: —just did not like want you there. Could you go a little bit more into depth of what that feels like? If you want to, I guess. I don't know if it's— . BRYANT: [00:21:37] Well, really, it didn't bother me. I can't say it didn't bother me. It didn't bother me to the point to where it affected how I related to other people. MARKS: Okay. ALBERTA BRYANT: [00:21:50] It bothered me because I knew it shouldn't be that way. But I tried not to get into situations where someone might have an opportunity to mistreat me or not service me.72

Ms. Kathy Senior, who came to Washington, DC, in 1959 to attend Howard University School of

Nursing, recalled her disappointment to find such hostilities in the downtown department stores

as a young woman in the 1960s.

KATHY SENIOR: [00:30:03] I didn’t know that racism existed here, you know, I’m coming to the North. JABESSO YADETTO: Mm-hm. SENIOR: [00:30:08] But when I would go to a department store back in the sixties, [I’d] stand in line in a department store to pay for my items, and got discriminated against the same way I did in Columbus, Georgia. White people got waited on all around me, and I’m standing there. And that was what I ran away from Columbus, Georgia— YADETTO: Right.

72 Alberta Bryant, interview by Harris Marks, December 2016, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:307075

SENIOR: [00:30:35] —to avoid. Racism was—you knew—in your face, and you knew where you belonged. But up here it was subtle and wicked, sneaky.73

Some other aspects of Washington’s Black society during the 20th century that emerge in the

interviews are the phenomenon of white-passing for economic opportunity as well as class-

consciousness and colorism present in the city.

EDITH CRUTCHFIELD: [00:47:17] And then I had friends from Culpeper who came here to work, and they were working in the department stores—Saks, Hecht’s, and Woodies [Woodward & Lothrop]—and they were passing. And they would almost faint when they would see you come in the store. It’s like, “Oh, they will expose me! I’m finished!” Yeah. You knew better than to go over and say hello. Because they were going to get called in the office, “How do you know them?” And that was a rather strange encounter. And you were just kind of trying to give them the eye like: I am not going to say anything to you; Don’t worry about your job. And that became secret. And they would call, you know, they would call each other and say, “So-and-so is working at Woodies now, and she’s in the shoe department. Do not say anything to her. Make pretend you don’t know her, because she will get fired.” Yeah, that went on here a lot.74

ESSENCE FULWOOD: Were race relations different when you moved to Washington? THELMA MORGAN: The only thing about Washington, DC—. It was a little bit different. I found that we were more racially bound, Blacks with Blacks. We were as racially bound as we were with Blacks and whites. They had—I was just amazed—they had a school called Dunbar [Dunbar High School]. FULWOOD: Dunbar. MORGAN: It only catered to lightskin professional people. I was just shocked. They were very color conscious. Color conscious within the race. That was the first, my first impression of what I learned about race, differences in being in North Carolina and being in Washington, DC. So, the advertisement for jobs, they wanted lightskin waitresses. FULWOOD: So, you were basically segregated within your own race? MORGAN: Yes, that right; That’s right. And of course, if you were working for a white person, they wanted lightskin too, because that’s what people wanted to see. So I didn’t have a chance did I? I’m just glad God steered me in another direction. The jobs were subservient. There were more jobs in hotels, blue collar—. You could get a blue-collar job. Administration and businesses, you, it wasn’t—. They were not as free. The high school—this is interesting—the high school I graduated from was called Franklin County Training School. When I came to DC, all of the training schools were school for bad kids. When you had that “training” at the end—. And I found that to be part of the problem

73 Kathy Elaine Senior, interview by Jabesso Yadetto, January 1, 2016, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:272297 74 Edith Crutchfield, interview by Isabella Ramos-Bracho, December 14, 2018, People’s Archive. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:270811

with getting a job, was that they thought I was from a correctional institution. So on my own I just dropped the “training” part and put Franklin County High School. It took me a while to realize that that was holding me down. All of the schools down there were “training school,” and that was a big negative for the Blacks.75

Many of the narrators who were government workers recall their disappointment upon

witnessing discrimination in the federal government. In particular, narrators discuss

discrimination in hiring, promotions, and pay.

MABEL MITCHELL: [00:27:10] And once I came, I think when I came to the wedding, we came up in a car, but when I actually came to live in Washington it was by bus. And that's what helped me to decide to move to Washington, because the jobs, the government jobs were plentiful. And, they were open for Blacks. But, it was the lowpaying jobs. Like, for instance, a Black person that had a college degree, they would be hired as a messenger or custodian. But, I don't know, that's just the way the laws were. And the jobs that they would get, sometimes, the Black people would be making less than the white people. But they would be doing the same work! Because, for instance, I had a friend, he had a college degree, and when he first came here—and you know, if you go to college and get a degree, you look forward to getting something better making big money—well, he was hired as a messenger. Then he moved up as a clerk typist. So he just died about a couple of years ago. ALISON EIGSTI: [00:28:22] Oh, I'm sorry. MITCHELL: [00:28:22] He was a grade 15.76 And that happened through the, you know, by the time changing, and integration, you know, began to get better. And it's still [segregated], though, to a certain extent.77

SARAH ANN HARDY: [00:21:35] Now, it was a little disappointing when you would find that the white, um, employees or workers, or your coworkers, most of the time their grades were much higher than the Blacks. But, you know, that was just one of those things that I guess people just accepted at that time. They had a certain amount of grades Blacks, and then they had a certain amount of higher grades, you know, for the white people.78

75 Thelma Morgan, interview by Essence Fulwood, December 2015, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:297010 76 Referring to the General Schedule (GS) payscale for government employees. 77 Mabel Mitchell, interview by Alison Eigsti, January 8, 2016, People’s Archive. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:294111 78 Sarah Ann Hardy, interview by Ramani Wilson, December 26, 2016, Center for Inspired Teaching ‘Real World History’ Oral History Collection, People’s Archive, District of Columbia Public Library, Washington, DC. http://hdl.handle.net/1961/dcplislandora:277080

What I have presented here is just a small sample of the rich historical material offered by

these interviews. Each interview provides insight into a variety of historical topics and

provides a window into the experience of participants in the Second Great Migration into

Washington, DC. But, the historical value of the narrators’ reminiscences and

recollections are not their only contribution to the historical record. When we shift our

lens to focus in on the interview encounter itself, these interviews can be viewed in a

different light. They can be seen as a record of intergenerational encounters at the present

time and the generational transfer of history and memory within a community. This is

what I will be discussing in the following section.