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  • Duration: 17 pages
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  • Western Carolina University
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  • HL_HIST472_Browne_McAdams_Williams_2017-03-24_transcript

McAdams Williams 1 Lift Every Voice Interview- Ann McAdams and Lunia Williams Interviewee: Ann McAdams and Lunia Williams Interviewers: Natalie Browne and Tyler Ellis Interview Date: Friday, March 24, 2017 Location: Waynesville. NC Length: 1: 27: 20 Natalie Browne: Alright, So let's see. Today is March 24, 2017, and we're at the Pigeon Street Community Development Center. We are with Ms. Ann McAdams and Ms. Lunia Williams. Do you both understand that you're being recorded and do you consent to that? Ann McAdams and Lunia Williams: Yes. NB: All right. That's just like a formality thing that we have to do it. NB: So first off are some easy questions. If we could go and just start with either one of you. In general, tell us a little bit about yourself, growing up in general, just to get to know you guys a little better. So, it doesn’t matter who wants to go first. AM: I was born and raised in Waynesville and I attended the Pigeon Street School, it wasn’t this school. There's another school that was across the street there. It went from first through sixth grade. And then getting into the seventh grade, we were bussed Canton to Reynolds High School, seventh through twelfth. So, we enjoyed, you know, even back then when we were being bussed that's the way things were. So we didn't realize we were being segregated against. Lunia, you add something. LW: Well. I only came here, I came here during the summertime, but I lived in South Carolina. But my mother was here and my other siblings. But I stayed behind in South Carolina and I would come during the summer and then when I was 15, I came here to live. And we lived here in Waynesville and, of course as Ann said, we were bussed to Canton to go to high school. We didn't realize how really bad it was until we got to be older and we were separated from enjoying so many of the things that the white people enjoyed. Just as simple as going to a movie. We weren’t allowed to do that. We weren’t allowed to go inside the movie theater. There was a huge fire escape on the outside. And we had to climb that dangerous fire escape in order to get into the movie and sit upstairs. We couldn't go downstairs to get snacks or anything, we had to stay upstairs. AM: Even when we were in elementary school, first through sixth. I could remember the books we had. And the books were discarded books for us to study from the white schools. And that was very disheartening because I realized then that wasn’t, even in second and third grade, I realized that wasn’t right. And, you know, that was the way things were, and we didn’t appreciated it we didn’t balk about it, but we just went long with the program and when we got to high school, things got even worse. You know, my brothers played football for Reynolds High School, and they would play football on Thursday. Canton High School would play on Friday. And we were the ones that would have to go over on Monday …. on Friday, and clean up the football stadium. Whereas the town would clean it up after Canton High had played. But our principal would come, say we will fix the little kids up to go over and clean up. And that wasn’t right. I can remember when I was at Reynolds I was a majorette. And our band instructor, his name was Mr. Charles Meeks. He came the latter part of Reynolds being there, and he formed the band. And we were so excited we got our little uniforms. The Reynolds Boosters Club bought our uniforms. And we were excited because McAdams Williams 2 they would have a parade for Labor Day in Canton and for the Christmas Parade here in Waynesville. And the first time we were asked to be in the parade, it was it was like two, three years after we had formed a band. Anyway, the first time we were in the parade, they put us behind the horses, you know. And that was just. Our band instructor he just said, “This is not right. It’s not right but we’re going to do it. Kids, just be careful where you step.” You know, just things were not right, things weren’t right. LW: They weren't anywhere near right. You know in our books also in Canton would be marked in, [AM: discarded], and pages out. And we were supposed to study and learn from those books and we didn't have the equipment and the things that the white schools had, you know. And we just had to bare necessities so to speak. But the thing that made it work for us was that we had excellent teachers. And they were good to us and they cared about us. And they taught us well. And we had good parents. Our parents, they didn’t mention color to us. So it was just people. So we didn't form the habit of distinguishing between black and white. It was just people. And our parents, our mothers, they cooked in the restaurants, and they took care of doctors and lawyers children you know, and taught them well as they taught us well. They taught us to respect authority and those over us. But one of the things about it was, that bothered me was that our parents cooked in those restaurants up town, but we were not allowed to go into the restaurants. And, they, if we wanted to get a hot dog I don't know why it was always a hot dog. It was always a hot dog, and if we really wanted to get a hot dog, we had to go around to that back street that Wall Street, and they had a window, and they would hand us a hot dog, you know, through the window. Our bus, well we had to go… we walked down here and caught the bus from down here and our bus wasn’t in good shape. It was in bad shape, bad breaks and different things. And most of our bus drivers were always the high school students, you know. Ann’s brother, Stanley, drove the bus, and my brother, Cleve, he drove the bus. But you know the Lord took care of us. We never had an accident on that bus. We were safe going and coming because the Lord took care of us is the way I believe. I feel that he took care of us during all of these situations as I've mentioned going to that fire escape, any one of us could have fallen off that fire escape, and we would have been dead, you know. But, that's that was the way it was. It was unfair. It was just, it was awful. AM: We weren’t allowed to go to the concession stand. Once we got into the movie, we weren’t allowed to go to the concession stand to buy popcorn, or drink, or anything like that. We have people within our race with whiter hues, like my husband, and sometimes they could, the young ladies or the young men, kind of pass for white and go back there. Nobody would recognize the fact they were, you know, and bring food. It was just, when you think about it, it was just so unfair and so. But that was the way things were. You know, it was… LW: And we went along with it. We had no recourse. It wasn't anything we do. But it's still bad now, but back when we were growing up it was awful. And there weren’t anything we could do. There was no protesting like the people do now in demanding equal rights and civil rights. None of that went on until the ‘60s. We were blessed, and we made it through. And from that little school at Reynolds High School, we had a great marching band, good musicians. We had a good football team. You know and they won championships and... AM: A lot of the students went on to be professional people, like doctors, and dentists, nurses and nurse teachers. We had a young man who just passed away a couple years ago. Worked for the NASA's Space Center in Texas and owned his own airplane and did very well. Those students never came… they would come back to visit maybe for a week, but they never came back here to live. They just never had a desire to come back. And they did well after they left. LW: There was not really any opportunities for them. And all of our students, Ann’s son, Scott, he graduate from Western [Carolina University]. My son, Michael, he graduated from Western McAdams Williams 3 [Carolina University]. But they never came back here to live. There was no opportunity for them really. Michael stayed for a while. Scott was around for a while, but there's nothing here for the black people. And the younger people, we tolerated it, but they will not. The things that we were put through, the things that was done to us they will not accept that. It's an entirely different world so to speak, now than what it was then. You know, our mother's parents they accepted a lot of things. They worked… our parents would work six and a half days a week. And sometimes, they would work and serve parties when the rich people, the doctors and whoever, had parties they would also, after working all day, they would serve those parties at night to get extra money because Ann had a big family, and I come from a big family. They needed the money in order to take care of us. The money was very scarce, and they worked our parents hard and they paid them very little. And they could have afforded to pay a good salary for what our parents did. Our mothers cooked, and they cleaned, and they took care of children. AM: Raised their children. My mother raised many kids, white kids here in this county from infancy on up. And mother was telling us that this young man that she raised, when he got into first grade, back then there wasn’t kindergarten, first grade. First day he went to school he came back and he ran into my house, “Odessa, Odessa, Odessa,” and mother is like, “O gosh, what is wrong with this child.” He was so excited and he came to her, she got to him saying, “What is it baby, what is it?” He said, “Odessa, I know what you are, you are a” and used the word. And she said that’s the first time, just that day he was in school, half a day he came back and said that. If people would leave things alone, you know, things wouldn’t be like they are. There is so much evil going on in the world. And as long as we keep our hand in God’s hand, things will always work out. It always has for us because we had strong faith. LW: Our racism and hatred, all those things are taught and learned. A baby that comes in, you put a black baby and a white one together, and they will sit there on the floor and there won't be any problems. But their families teach children to hate simply because their color is different, their race is different, things they speak different from you do, so hate that person and dislike that person. If they would not teach that, that stuff would die down. But we see them now. They put these huge Confederate flags on their trucks, and they just go back and forth through town parading those flags. And to us, those flags… they say it's heritage and pride, but to us, it's oppression and it's hatred and it's intimidation. And I saw it was maybe last week. It was down in South Carolina, and they were protesting about the game being moved there. And they were standing there on the corner, and they were angry because the flag was taken down from the statehouse. So they were standing there on the corner waving these huge flags protesting. For what, we took a lot as we were growing up. But as adults, we don't have to take that any more. You know, it was just so many things that we were denied. We weren’t denied a good education because we had good teachers. But when it came to get scholarships and help to go to school, we were denied those things. And even when they integrated the schools, the white students would get the scholarships, as opposed to the black students. And Ann was in a club of women ladies. AM: Ladies Auxiliary, we started a scholarship fund. LW: And they raised the money and started a scholarship fund to help the black students. We were denied help and most of us worked. I worked my way through it. When I graduated from high school, I worked for Dr. George Brown and then that led to working for his mother. And she was in a Business and Professional Women's Club. And I guess I cleaned her house to her liking and because of that, she got me a scholarship to help me to go to school. But I still had to work. I worked every weekend to help myself get through school and to have money. And then once we had down, they started something in the 60s called the Neighborhood Youth Corps. And Sarah Queen Brown was over that. And that's where we started to get help and come from under a little. Ann and I worked at the hospital. They had different jobs for us to work. You know, I was a McAdams Williams 4 messenger in the hospital. AM: And I worked in central sterilizing. LW: Where they sterilized all the instruments for the surgeries. And so we started to come out a little, you know, from under the oppression that we under because that's what it was, you know. And we were called every name that you can ever imagine, except our own names. AM: And she was speaking about putting the babies together. And they will just play with each other. And Haywood County Hospital, not the hospital that is there now, but the old hospital, they separated the babies. Thy put the black babies in one area and the white babies in another area. And, what’s up with that? They didn’t know any difference and the orderlies would come and get the mothers if they weren’t able to go see their babies. And they put us on one floor, the black people, on one floor, on a bottom floor, regardless of what your illness was, from having a baby to laying up beside a person that had cancer. It was just awful. We were all put on that one little corner at the Haywood County Hospital. And you would be fortunate if you had a black orderly that would come sometime to take you up to see your child. LW: They put you around the corner. It was like, this is the hallway. But then you turn the corner and there was another little place where they would put the black people, around that corner. Their call bells didn't show down at the nurses’ station. When I started working, we still had that segregated hospital, and you'd have to if it was a good nurse, then she would go back and forth around that corner to check on the patients around there and see if they were OK and if they needed anything because they were not visible where the nurse's station was, they couldn't get any help unless somebody would see about them. AM: It was bad. I hope no one else on this earth has to go through what black people had to go through in this country. I don’t want to get into the administration now, but I hope and I pray that things won’t get bad again for any race, not just blacks but for any race. To be suppressed, it’s not good. LW: And you know what, this may be totally off the subject, but the people today that hate different races because we have people that say they are Christians in other races that hate the people of color. Well, they all say they're going to heaven and see the Lord. There's only one heaven and one hell and whether you go up or down, you're going to be in one of those places, and it’s not going to be segregated. You're all going to be there together. I was not saved or Christian as I was growing up but as we grew up and learned and learn about the Lord and accepted the Lord and Savior and became Christians, it was a help to us. You know, our parents, they tolerated all that that they had to go. And I don't ever remember my mom fussing and arguing about how hard she had to work. And you know, both of us live not far from here. Ann and her family lived at one end of the little driveway and we lived at the other end where you could holler at one another. AM: Because we had to holler because we didn’t have phones. LW: And on the coldest day of the year, for a long time, my mother walked to work. She walked to work and worked all day. And of course they were very generous that they would drive her home in the afternoon after she was finished working at 5:00. But having to walk to work in that cold weather, snow, or whatever and then work all day. AM: To walk to work to clean up some someone’s home, cook their food, take care of their children. McAdams Williams 5 LW: Wash and iron their clothing. For $30 a week. AM: And less, $30 and less. LW: Now the man that my mother worked for the longest was a doctor, so he could very well afford to pay her more. We lived in substandard housing, and he did give us free medical care that was very generous of him. It was just so many, many things that we suffered and went through simply because we were different color. AM: My mother worked for well, for of course doctors. And this family that was really into Billy Graham, Billy Graham would visit the home where they lived and whatnot. The husband had been married, his wife died, the wife had been married and her husband died so they come together and had two different sets of children. And by the time Mother was working for them, the kids were grown up, and one of the one men, and it’s been since my mother has been dead, this little church up here on the hill, Jones Temple Amy Zion Church, he came to the church one day and he wanted to give, well he did give either $5 or $10,000 to the church in memory of my mother. Because he said, “I remember what Odessa had to go through” and…[cries]. LW: It’s very difficult. It angers you. And if it wasn’t for the Lord having control, we wouldn't be able to tolerate a lot of things that we do. It hurts so deeply when you begin to recall all these things. And think about how we suffered for what, for no reason at all. Because my skin is black, I haven't hurt you or harmed you. But you mistreat me simply because of that. And all these things have been hidden. Ann and I met up with some people a few months ago, a pastor and one of her members called us, and wanted us to come over and talk with them. And we did. And one of the women grew up here, and she didn't know the things that we had suffered, or she said she didn’t. She didn’t know we went to a segregated school called Reynolds High School. When you would say Reynolds High School, they thought you meant Reynolds School in Asheville. They didn't know about the little school that we went to. She said she didn't know, so they've tried to form a relationship with us. AM: These are white ladies. LW: Yeah, they’re both white, and we had lunch together. After that we had lunch together, we talked, and the lady was just visibly upset. She was really upset because she did not realize what we had gone through as a people. You know, it's not just a few, it’s the people. AM: Even me, I worked in the middle school, Waynesville Middle School. And when I went to work, I worked with 13 ladies, and they asked me where did I go to school. I live in Canton now. And I said Pigeon Street. It amazes me that people didn't know that we were around. They didn't know anything about Pigeon Street. “Oh, you went to Waynesville Township, Canton?” “No, I went to Reynolds High School for high school.” “O, you had to go to Ashville?” “No, it was right there in Canton” and when we joined the senior resource class, Lunia and I, and we toured different areas here in the county, these people had absolutely no…. we showed them were Reynolds is now, they had absolutely no idea. And these are people that you would think would know. They didn’t know anything about it. And that, to me let us know, not just me, but let us know that they didn’t care. They would see us, but they didn’t care what our livelihood was about. These were people that had, that owned stores, and what have you. They just didn’t care, and it’s sad when you think about it. I get emotional sometimes when I talk about it. It hurts because I can talk to my sons. My husband and I now we can talk to our sons about things, they are like, “Oh no you didn’t put up with nothing like that.” LW: Because they won't. That's why there's so much violence now and killing and whatnot because McAdams Williams 6 this generation will not tolerate what we did. It's a new day, and they're not going to tolerate anything like we did, you know. AM: We came along during the era with Martin Luther King and peace. These kids, they're not going to listen to peace. It will be a war. LW: Because they won't go for it, and you can understand that. And had we had a leader during our time, we would not have stood for it. We did not have a leader until Martin Luther King Jr. came. AM: And we were practically grown by then. LW: The year that he was around and, let’s see, was assassinated in 68? And we had already graduated from high school because we graduated 64. So we had already graduate high school and a lot of things that he did and stood for, you know, we are learning about them still now. We celebrate his birthday every year over at the Lambeth Inn. We have a celebration, for the county, it is supposed to be, but a lot of people don’t participate. LW: But strangely enough most people that attend that celebration they are white. And we meet together on a Saturday, after we have a march, we meet again on a Saturday and we talk and we have refreshments and we meet down here. This coming year we will meet down here, and we will say some of things that we went through. And I guess this, I don't know if this is how this came about because of some of the things that we said during one of the meetings down here. Yeah, I don't know if this is how this came about because someone has said they wanted to meet with us and wanted us to talk about the things that we talked about that day. I think it was a hard, mean thing, but it made us more appreciative for where we are now. You know, we married good men. We both was, you know, from here right close to one another. And then we married men from Canton. And they were good husbands and good fathers and worked hard at that mill. Both of them was in the air force. And then when they came home. They had jobs until they got, you know, you hired at the mill took their apprentice course down there and moved up for what they were doing to another level. But even at that, and Ann can tell you more about that, about the salaries and how they were paid even this day and time. You know they were treated differently. AM: At the Champion, It was called Champion then, what is it now, Evergreen? LW: Evergreen, AM: It was Champion then, and it was a lot of the black men that worked at Champion. Well, this young lady who had married a guy form New Jersey, they moved here, and he got a job, and his last name was Bobbet, which they thought was a white man’s name. So he was being paid a whole lot more then what the black guys, and they all got together, and they were like “What’s up with this? Why you gettin’?” And he just got hired. You know it’s always so wrong, you find out little things about, you think people are being honest, but they’re not. They weren’t paying those men. The men knew they weren’t being paid what the white men was getting paid, but then, they didn’t really find it out until Bobbet came in, and he let them know that they thought he was a white man because of his name. They weren’t familiar with the name. So they paid him what they were paying the white guys. LW: When you hear the report about Reuben Robinson. It's all good how he took care of his men but it's not all good. AM: That was the guy who owned Champion. McAdams Williams 7 LW: And then we had a YMCA in Canton, and of course, our children couldn't go to the Y. And now this is a football country. I mean… AM: Our children could go to the Y. Our husbands and stuff, when they were born, they didn’t get to go to the Y. LW: They didn't get to go to the Y. But at first, our children, remember when they was getting ready to play ball and they had to be a member Y. AM: Oh yeah. LW: And they couldn’t be a member of the Y because they wouldn't allow them to. And there was a woman in Canton that owned a restaurant called Little Boys, and her name was Juanita Dixon. And she stood for black people back then, and she still stands with them today. And she stood up for those little boys. And she offered to pay for their membership. But they still wouldn't let her. And she talked and talked and worked. But they still wouldn't let them, and she threatened to sue them if they didn't let them play ball. Well, our boys played at Clyde, but they wouldn’t let them play in Canton. You know African-Americans most of them are noted for being good athletes, even the small children. So, they were winning all kinds of games in Clyde. And then I think that changed their minds about playing in Canton because they were winning so many games. But even after they segregated schools and even back in the 90s, when our children went to school, there were still some difficulties and some mistreatments. It wasn’t all sunshine and even now. You know, when the last class at Reynolds, was that ‘65? 1965? That was the last class at Reynolds. And then they went over to Pisgah High School, but there were difficulties over there. Some of the teachers wouldn't call on the students when they would raise their hands, they would ignore them. And Ann’s got a good story she can tell you about a teacher and how she felt about teaching black students. And I've been to Pisgah High School several times. My youngest son was accused of stealing a book about Martin Luther King. I don't know why she picked him maybe because he was the only black student in that class. But anyway, she accused him of stealing a book. She sent him on a wild goose chase while she searched his book bag, which she had no business doing. Well as soon as he entered the room the white students told him what she had done. You know, I had to go over there and I … AM: Lost it. [laugh] LW: And I told her I said, “Look, Michael’s daddy works every day, and I work every day. Michael has everything he needs. And he does not need to steal a book on Martin Luther King Jr.” I said he has everything he needs and a lot of the things that he wants. You try to keep your cool in those situations. You don't want your child to know that you've lost it. But things like that can provoke you. And we have to pray and let the Lord take control of the situation because if not for that, there won't be a lot of problems. And as Christians, we don't want our good to be evil spoken of, and if you blow it and go ballistic on somebody then that's not going to look good for you as being a Christian because you're supposed to be under the control of the Lord. So we deal with a lot of things today and we deal with them better and well because we are Christians. I had an incident a few years, well it was back in the 2000s, I guess early 2000. My husband was sick. They brought him in from the mill, and I was working, and I got there, and he was just going wild. His heart wasn't pumping blood to his brain, and he was about to pass out. He was drawn his legs up to his chest, trying to keep himself from passing out. So when I got there and saw him in the terrible fix he was in, I was very concerned, so I told the nurse that was right there with him I said “Do something for him. He needs attention.” And so she informed me what I'm not doing anything to him or for him until you go out there and fill out those papers. It's not like he hadn't been in that emergency room before. His name and address and all that stuff was in that computer. She informed me, she McAdams Williams 8 was white, she informed me that she was not doing anything for him until I filled out those papers. That was the wrong thing to say. That was my husband and I was very concerned because I didn't really know what was wrong with him. He needed a pacemaker. I just had to stop, and look her eyeball to eyeball. And I told her, “Oh yes you are. You're going to do something.” And she got my drift and she went and started working with him and put him on a monitor and doing the things that she should of done. It was not necessary. I was going to be there in that emergency room. It wasn’t necessary to make me go right then and fill out the papers when my husband needed care. So it's things like that and then, a lot of folks think they can intimidate you because you are black. But we're not going through that anymore. As I said before, this is a new day and a new time. And we don't have to go through those things anymore. AM: When they were getting ready to integrate the school, they had a meeting at the courthouse here in Waynesville. And it was a lot of people there. And Pisgah was going to be Pisgah, and Tuscola and the elementary kids. This facility was going to be closed up and Central Elementary, and what have you here. This one white lady who was a teacher stood up and said, “I am handing in my resignation because I just feel I cannot, and will not teach a black boy.” That’s what she said. And it was like “Lady, you’re a teacher, these are still children, whether they be black, white, yellow, red, they are still children.” But she resigned. It’s just, we could tell you some stuff that’s really… LW: Awful. AM: Yeah, awful. LW: But you know Anna and I talk to different groups at different times, and we talk to different groups and a lot of them are from out of town. And they've moved here, Floridians and you know, they love the mountains and they've moved here. And we tell them certain things like we've been telling you all about the movies and not being able to go to the restaurants and used books. They are amazed. They can't believe that that kind of thing went on. AM: In this country, you know, water fountains. “White Only,” “Colored.” They put “White Only” and just “Colored.” They didn’t say “Colored Only.” How did they know? We’ve been everything, colored, African-American, black. But, why not put “colored only?” The whites could drink from our fountain, but we couldn’t drink from their fountain. You know, its just… Go in the drug store, girlfriends used to, some of us girls would get together on Sunday afternoon and just walk to town just to look in the windows, and there’s a drug store that sold ice cream. We weren’t allowed to go into that drug store and sit on a bar and order some ice cream. We stood back to tell somebody we want a cone of ice cream, but you couldn’t go to the counter and order something as simple as an ice cream cone. What was that going to do? LW: And even at the segregation, integration had taken place and the civil rights acts had been signed. You remember we had the yogurt place up at the old Wal Mart Plaza. You remember that place up there? Well, on Sunday evenings at church, we'd go up there get some yogurt. And we were in line, and so we stood there and then the people in front of us. They would go up to get what they wanted. Well, the girl that was waiting on the people, she would call somebody from behind us. She would lean over and asked them what they wanted, and they would be trying to say, “But, they were here first, they were in front of us.” She didn't listen to them. So when finally things cleared up and I got up there, I said I want to see your manager. Well, somebody else flew out from the back. Well, I said we've been standing here in line and we can't get service because she's been bypassing us and calling somebody from the back to come up here. And then she started making excuses and giving me them “fake grins” as I always call them. I don't need your fake grins. I want yogurt, you know. But that's what that's what she did. And we used to have this store in Canton, and McAdams Williams 9 if you went in that store and we frequent this store. That manager would follow you around that store watching you to see if you were going to steal something. She would follow you around. You know, who it was. She would follow you around. She's dead, and we won't call her name because she's got people living, but she'll follow you around the store to make sure you didn't steal anything. And we always went in there, and she knew who we was. I think she knew us by name, and we always spent money in there. But she would follow us around that store. And I was in a place in Ashville called Hamricks. And this hadn't been that long ago. And I was, as my husband will tell you, I'm notorious for just walking around a store and looking. When Ann and I shop together we’ll stay in that one store for hours, and they’ll still say, “What do you do in there?” We’re just looking that’s a woman’s things. We just be looking and with no intentions of stealing. We’re Christians and we don't steal and we work and we had our own money. Plus, our husbands worked. We had no need to steal. I was over there in Hamricks one day by myself, and I was just walking around looking like I always did. And I had always gone to that store and when I worked at this nursing home I used to go there, Ann would go with me sometimes and shop for the patients and spend a great deal of money you know because I'd get a list. And if I had 10 patients I had everybody sizes and would shop and buy everything. And so this particular day I was just walking around maybe I looked like a thief, but I was just walking around looking at things and this woman she followed me and she followed me until I went to the manager. And I don't mind to go to the manager. I don't mind, I don't mind to report you to anybody. And so I went to the manager and I told him I said, “She has followed me ever since I've been in the store.” And then they tried to explain to me, “Well she's just doing her work she's work.” I said “No, every department I go in, she comes in that department. She can't work in all these departments. She has one department that she's supposed to work in, but she followed me from place to place that entire time.” I didn't buy anything that day I wouldn’t had bought anything that day if I had $10 million dollars. But that's the kind of things that we were subject to, only because we're black. NB: So going back to I guess the schools that you mentioned like the desegregation schools. So when the African-American schools, Reynolds High School closed, and the teachers there, where did they go? Do they go and teach at other schools? AM: They did. Our principal, Mr. Davis, never taught after the schools closed. He never taught in any of the schools here, but Mr. Eggleston did. Mr. Leverette did. He taught at middle school. Mr. Eggleston taught at Pisgah. Mr. Leverette taught at Canton Middle School. Ms. Elsie Osborne, who was the principle here [Pigeon Street School], she taught at Hazelwood School for a while. And other than that, I can’t think. But our teachers, they were full of integrity and that is what they taught, for us to be what the best you can. If we had to dig a ditch, dig the best ditch you can dig. That’s what they taught. Don’t leave stuff for somebody else to do, do it yourself. They were good teachers. LW: During that time, they look like teachers, professional. They dress the part every day. The men had on jackets or suits and ties. The ladies had on heels. They'd be in full of makeup, dresses. That's the way they look back when we went to school. Now you don't know the teachers from the students. So, it's like the nurses. You don’t know nurses from housekeeping or whoever because everybody has the same thing and you don't know. If it wasn't for a name tag, you wouldn’t know who anybody is. But closing that school devastated Mr. Davis. And I don't think he did. He didn't do well. He didn't do well after then, after they closed that school. All we needed… AM: And he loved us, and we knew that our teachers loved us. The students that didn’t have money for lunch or, they didn’t do breakfast back then, but for lunch, our teachers took care of it. It wasn’t like they would let any student do without. LW: A lot of us didn't have the money. Trust me, I know. We didn't have the money, but they were McAdams Williams 10 just always so good to us they cared about us. They would discipline us. Now they wasn’t any running wild like they do in schools now. And when we would misbehave, we'd get punished for it. And then they called your parents. And then when you got home, you were in trouble again. But that devastated Mr. Davis, and he never did well after that school was closed. There was nothing wrong with our schools. All we needed was the proper equipment. That's all we needed. AM: And our school, Reynolds High School, as well as this school was newer than any of the white schools. The reason that they didn't keep them open was because they have to go in the black community. The white kids would have to drive through the black community, for here or at Reynolds. LW: They were not going to allow that. AM: And the school should have been used because the band room was just built on. It had been there about two years before it was... It was bad. And to this day, I mean, my boys are grown now. They got their own families. But me living in Canton, I would give anything to have gotten up in the morning and got my kids off to go to Reynolds. You know, that is just the way I felt. They did well. They didn’t have to go through all that stuff, but it’s just different. It’s just different. NB: So you guys were not part of the school desegregation process, so you guys were graduated. LW: We graduated in’64. NB: ‘64. LW: And it's good. I would not have made it. When they desegregated the schools, I wouldn't have taken the things that some of them took. I just wouldn’t have taken it. NB: Do you mind elaborating exactly what you know about any experiences of other students who went to the newly integrated schools. Some of their struggles that they faced? LW: Well I know you know. Some of them, as I said before, talked about the teachers, you know, not helping them and them raising their hands and the teacher wouldn't call on them she would ignore them. I do know that much and always in our lives we've had to do more than anyone else. When I worked, I had to work harder than anyone else. It's always been my thing. And I was into that pattern, and I did that until I had to come out of work in 1995. I just worked hard and put in more than I felt like anybody else did because… AM: That was the way we were taught. LW: You had to prove something. But I do know that about some of the students. AM: Some of the guys. Some of the guys who get in fights with some of the white guys because of the name calling and thinking they could go up behind them and kick them or whatever. And there was a lot of stuff that went down when school first integrated, with the students. They preferred to sweep it under the rug, but it happened. There were fights, even Mr. Eggleston. One of the teachers, Mr. Eggleston, who was one of our teachers when we were in high school, he and this man got into it. This man thought he could go up behind Mr. Eggleston and kick him. LW: That was a mistake. AM: That was a big mistake, and they go into a fight. The two teachers, they got into a fight. And McAdams Williams 11 Mr. Eggleston wore his little hinny out. LW: There is a word we use called “whooped.” And he whopped him. AM: He told us. Mr. Eggleston told us about that. LW: Wouldn’t Lin and Al be able to tell more about the schools when they integrated schools. How old is Lin? AM: I don’t know. She is fifty something. LW: Yeah, she would be able to tell. AM: She may be 60. LW: Well, Adolf is 69, and he was one of the first class that went to Pisgah. Him and Boyd Hall and that group, I believe. I think I’m right. AM: Adolf went to Tuscola, and Boyd went to Pisgah. LW: But they had some difficulties. I remember Stevie saying how they would line up in the hall and challenge them. All the black kids would get together, and they would line up in the halls so when they walk down the halls and called them names. And they had this awful habit of kicking black people, because that's what used to happen to slaves. And that's the wrong thing to do to a black person because you you're going to get whooped. You know, I didn't whoop no one but I was, this is in the 2000, and I'm working as a nurse. I've got my uniform and you're gonna kick me because somebody pinned a sign on my back saying “kick me” if that wasn’t the stupidest thing. But I nipped that and they never challenged me again because I took her. And I worked with the mentally challenged and some of them would get violent. And we had to know how to protect ourselves. So I put her in a hold, I took one hand and put her hands like this and I held them by her wrist and I held onto until they turned blue. And I wouldn't let her loose and I gave her a lecture on kicking people. And I said, “Don't you know that you never put your foot to a black person.” “Well they told me to do it.” I said “Don't you have any more sense than that?” But that never happened again. But they would do that to our children. Now our younger children, Michael and Brad, they graduated in ‘91 in ‘92. Things had changed some, and they were friends with the white children. Not all of them, but they were, they got along better with them. But some of the black children were still bullied by some of the white ones. But I can't tell you about the things that happened after they integrated. AM: My Brad was in a confrontation at school, and this was in the ‘80s. They were in study hall or something and this guy was playing. Brad was playing some music and this guy called across the room, “Cut that ‘n’ music off.” And Brad said, “I let him say it again,” and I told him to come and cut it off. And he had to audacity to come over there and put his hand on it. And he had a fight. Brad got expelled, and the guy got expelled for the rest of the day. And Ross and I went over there, and we read their title clean. There was thing that went down, even later on. Schools integrated in the ‘60s. This was in… LW: About ’65 didn’t it? AM: Yeah, the later ‘80s, maybe ’90. So there are still things that go on. LW: Things still happen. Michael got into trouble because they were in the lunchroom, and there McAdams Williams 12 was a teacher in there was supposed to be watching them. This was at middle school. And they would bully him, and they kept bothering him and bothering him until he got angry. And then he hit his tray and the fork flew up and almost hit another child. So therefore they took him to the office and wanted to paddle him. I asked where was the teachers that supposed to be in there, well they were in there, but they didn't bother to stop it before it escalated. And then things went on from that. They followed him, and he's on his way up to the track field and this group of boys followed him, got out and pushed him down. But he had an older brother that wasn't afraid of the devil himself. So he found these boys that had hurt Michael, and he stopped that and they didn't bother Michael anymore. But things like that happen. And I don’t guess until people’s hearts change that meanness and hatred it'll be there. And until people stop teaching their children to hate, it will be there. There's nothing really you can do about that. AM: That is true, is there something you guys want to ask us? NB: There is another question I would like to ask, it’s kind of related to it, but just maybe an observation we just wanted to get you take on it. So we observed now that Haywood County itself, there isn’t a large African-American population there and we know that before desegregation you had two African-American schools that were filled with students. And we were wondering, what do think may have caused people to leave Haywood County or did they leave or did they… AM: Because there are no opportunities in Haywood County. My sons graduated from college, they are not afforded the opportunity to come here and get a job. The jobs go to the good old boys. Like my middle son, Scott tried to get a job around here at one point, but he just got tired and he left. He lives in Charlotte and is a pharmaceutical rep. And they do well, but around here... Just like Magnolia. Magnolia lives in Canton, Magnolia Thomas. Magnolia is a principal of a school, well she is retired now, she was in Ashville. They would not hire her, even as a teacher, in this county. Said she was over qualified. LW: How do you explain? The more qualified the better. AM: Yeah. NB: That is what you would think, but… AM: And you know, we see through these little things they come up with. LW: The attorney that went to Pisgah, I mean Reynolds, he didn't come back here to practice. He probably would have never gotten a practice together here. The doctors, he was in Atlanta where the opportunities are better for blacks. You know, we had an abundance of nurses. And we had nursing instructors but not here, she went to somewhere else. AM: She worked here for a while at Haywood County High School, when she first got out of nursing school. Our kids leave you know. There used to be like you say, there used to be a considerable amount of black people around here in Haywood County for us to go to Reynolds and to have a school here. With all the black people in Haywood County, you couldn’t fill up this classroom because they’d leave. They started leaving years ago. LW: There are people that are moving in here, we don't know where they come from, but we see new faces around. But as far as our children and as we know, you know, everybody knows everybody in Canton, and they just a lot of them when they went off to college they never came back home. I mean, they came home while they were in college, you know, for breaks and things, and they worked during the summer that kind of thing, but as far as when they got that degree McAdams Williams 13 coming back they didn’t. AM: My oldest son who went to Caesars Business College and then went into the military. He and his little family lives, but his kids are grown now. But my other two sons, the two younger ones, they just left and will not come back. At one point there were wanting some male, black males for teaching and I talked to my sons about coming here. And they were like “no.” LW: You know, things are still not fair. They hired this young inexperienced white male to run the credit union. He's not even dry behind the ears. But they would not have given that job to a black man. NB: So, it seems like as you guys are talking, you do note that as time has gone on things have changed maybe for the better, but you guys still believe that there is still a lot more change that needs to happen. LW: There is a great deal of change that needs to take place. Things are not like they should be. People are not treated equal. You're treated on the color of your skin, as Martin Luther King said, not by the content of your character. Things are just still unfair. And change has taken place, yes, but it's still not the way it should be as people should be treated equally and not differences made all the time. Just like law enforcement, there seems to be an open field day on killing young black men and young black men have started killing back. No, it's not right. I don't stand for violence. It’s not right. But they have gotten tired of being killed for no reason. When they finally do let the tapes out where the killings are taking place, you can look at them and see there's absolutely no reason why they should have shot that man. They killed a young man, shot him 18 times. He was just walking down the street away from the police, away from them. And they said they felt threatened, and they shot him 18 times. LW: My grandson, who lives in Canton. This happened about 2-3 years ago. My grandson works here in Waynesville, and his girlfriend lived in Waynesville. He worked the 3-11 shift. When he got off work he went to his girlfriend’s home. Jarred drives a Jeep, a Jeep Cherokee is it? But anyway, he was on his way back to Canton and the policeman got behind him. Now, not bragging or nothing, but he is a good boy. He don’t drink, he don’t smoke, he don’t do drugs, partying, doing drugs, none of that. Policeman got behind him right in there by Tuscola, somewhere right in there. And he blue lighted him and he asked him where was he going. “I’m going home.” Where have you been? “To see my girlfriend.” Where did you just come from? “I told you from seeing my girlfriend.” He called backup and had him bring the dogs that got in his car and sniffed. It was nothing. Jarred keeps his car immaculately clean all of the time. He is proud of that car. His pa-paw got that for him. They brought the dogs. He called his dad. My son was livid. He went to the Waynesville Police Department and told them “You guys are racial profiling. My son didn’t do nothing. He’s never done anything. You guys see him around.” That was bad because it kind of traumatized Jarred. Jarred was what, 27 at the time. He said, “They had the dogs in my car.” For what, racial profiling? That’s all it was. And things like that happen. LW: And are still happening. AM: It still happens. And it’s all these policemen around him like he's some kind of criminal with the lights flashing. LW: Somebody even taught a young black man a class on how to behave when they stop you because you don't have to have drugs in your car. You don't have to have a weapon. I saw on TV one time, they stopped this man at a quick stop or something and they wanted him to get his registration and driver's license out. He reached in the console to get them out. He went back to his McAdams Williams 14 car to get them out and they shot him. For no reason, he didn't have a weapon. He hadn't done anything. He just went to do what he asked him to do and he shot him. He didn't kill him, and they sued him. You know, it’s just things like that, that let you know that things have changed but yet they haven’t changed. NB: When you were in school, you mentioned how you had a lot of national leaders at that time as African-American leaders. Was there any particular group or any sort of particular person you saw in the community that might have shared a more communal leadership role for you guys? I know you guys discussed faith a lot, do you feel like the church community was something that helped you all? What do you all think? AM: Our pastors of our churches and also our teachers and mainly our parents. They were our… who we look to. And then there was some students, some very good students at the time that would kind of pull you along the way. You know the upper class students, they kind of pulled you along the way. LW: I remember one of the nursing students, well she had graduated and had her degree, Gwen. She would come back and talk to the young girls. After she had graduated college she would come back and talk to the young girls and encourage them. Our teachers were excellent teachers. We knew they loved us and cared about us and wanted us to succeed. And then our parents, out of all the things that they went through and the things they suffered, they still the set an example for us on how to conduct ourselves and how we should live and the things that we should or should not do. But the pastors in the black community, the church is the focal point I guess you could say. And people look up to their pastors, and they would teach and preach and teach us the right things that we should do. There was an older pastor, his name was Reverend James Conley. And he was very visible in the community. And he taught well the things that we should do and should not do. He would teach and say that he's trying to teach the gospel and his children are out here doing… Wanda told me Rev. Conley told the boys that, “I am trying to teach the Word and you're out here spreading your seeds all over the country, all over the county.” And so even though he was a preacher and teacher and taught what was right. He didn't hide what his own children were doing. AM: Reverend John Smith, down here at Mount Olive, he was always instrumental in leading people in the right way. LW: And Reverend E. A. Armstrong had pastored this church right up here. He married us and we had to go talk to him before we got married. And he talked to us and he asked us “Are you Christians?” And we said “No.” And he said “Well you ought to be.” AM: Back then, we were not. LW: No, that was the furthest thing from our minds. Something else? Tyler Elis: Were people in Haywood County, were they aware of how national desegregation was or did they treat it more like a local event. Were they aware of how it affected the whole country or were they more aware of just how it just affected their county? LW: We were because one thing we would see the struggles on TV, and we would see our people being beat, and our young men being hung. I was talking today to Essie about this young man, Emmett Till, that you heard the story of Emmett Till, and I was mentioning that to him today about that. And our men, you couldn't even look at a white woman. You go to jail or be killed if you did. So, we were aware that this was going on everywhere, and especially when Martin Luther King came on the scene, and they would be marching peacefully. And John Lewis, of course, you know McAdams Williams 15 John Lewis and how he was beaten in the head when they were marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they show pictures of him often. He's a congressman now, and they showed him on the ground bleeding where they have beat him for nothing. AM: Integration came late really here in this county because integration started like in the 50s. It was late coming to Haywood County because they didn’t want it. They didn't want integration in Haywood County. Still wanted to be segregated. LW: And it's not been fully accepted. You know if they could hinder us from doing things, they would. We know that. Once you've been in our position you know the things that go on you know they grin at you in your face, but there is an inner feeling when you know how they really feel. You know, and I don’t push myself on them. If you don't want to be bothered with me, hey that's fine. If you want to be my friend, I'll be your friend. But if you don't want to be my friend and you don't want to be around me, fine. AM: I don’t know if you call it radar or what but we can walk, I can walk into a room, so can Lunia, and the room can be full of white people. We can just almost automatically tell who is not accepting of blackness. Just look around, you can tell who is not accepting. LW: Because we've been in this position so long. I'm 70 almost 71 years old in July. And we've been through this all of our days. And so, it's like these two ladies that are trying to form a relationship with us. And I feel like they are sincere, you know, I feel like they are good people. But then there's others. It's like they put up with us. They don't really want to, but whatever's going on dictates that they do. I had, my nursing instructor told me when I started going to school she had. There was one black girl who had started class before I did, and she tormented her so, ‘til she quit. And so when I started, she made the statement. I started and then I was a male that started she made the statement she didn’t want any men or any “you know what’s” in the class. And I made the statement, “I'll be here and she will not put me out of this class.” And I meant that thing. And she didn’t. And just to make her feel bad. But, she was that kind of woman. She was hateful, and she was mean and she tormented that other girl until that girl couldn't take it anymore. But I was of a different constitution than she was, and I was bound and determined. I’m going to finish this class, and you are not going to beat me down so until I leave this class. I have that kind of determination. AM: I have to kick her under the table sometimes. LW: Sometimes I’m talking and she will kick me under the table because I will be just a talking. And next thing I know, I have a foot hit me. NB: So to clarify, you went to nursing school? What was your career after you went to high school? LW: To nursing school at Haywood Community College. NB: Gotcha, and what did you do after you graduated from high school? AM: Just got married and worked in the school system. NB: School System, That’s right you mentioned that earlier and what school did you say you worked at? AM: I worked at Pisgah High School. I retired from Waynesville Middle School. NB: So I guess last question, is there anything else that you guys want to add that we might not McAdams Williams 16 have talked about out. AM: You somebody told me to write some stuff down. LW: We are guilty of not doing that every time. AM: Because we do this often. NB: That is what we were told. We were told that you guys go together? So where do you guys travel? Is it in just this local community? LW: It’s just here in the local community. We have this program called the senior leadership program. And what they do is take in different people from the community that want to take part and know about the community. And we travel all over the community. We were in this program, and traveled all over the community talking to different people and learning about different parts of Haywood County and all these things. And so, how did we get started talking to these people? AM: It has only been one other black, it was a lady, that took this senior leadership training. And when Lunia and I took it, we took it together and one of the instructors came up with would you all talk to the next class about growing up black in Haywood County. So it’s probably been 10 years. We do it every year. LW: We tell them about going to school here, and we always tell him about the movie theater. That sticks in my mind because it was so dangerous I think that... AM: You would have to have seen it to realize what we are talking about. And we didn’t go to the movies often because we didn't have the money. I can remember going up those steps with my mother. She took me see, it was just mine and her time, to see Snow White and the Seven Dwarves. And it had kind of rained, and I slipped. You know it was dangerous. I was just a little girl. LW: It was 25 cents a movie. Back then you could get, there was a soda that they sold that was called a Dixie Cola, and you could get a Dixie Cola for 10 cents. [laugh] That was one of my favorite things. And I drank Pepsi Colas until about 10 years ago and my husband was fussed and fussed. I stopped drinking Pepsi Colas, but I'd rather have a Pepsi Cola. AM: She and I both were addicted. We were Pepsi Cola addicts. LW: Nothing else would do. And you know sometimes, they do taste test in front of different supermarkets, they’d give me a Coke and I knew it wasn’t a Pepsi. I could tell the difference just like that between a Coke and a Pepsi. NB: If you guys don't have anything else to add, we would like to thank you for coming and sharing your stories with us today. AM: We hope some of that benefited for you. NB: I think definitely so and especially as you guys have talked about that the Haywood community doesn't really know its history. We hope that through your interviews, our research, and interviews with others, that hopefully we can help share this history that seems to be forgotten. So we thank you guys because you guys are helping us do that. LW: I don't know if he was forgotten that was never known. McAdams Williams 17 AM: Because even like at the courthouse. You're told to go get your birth certificate. A lot my siblings, the names are wrong, the birth date was wrong. You know, there have never been accurate records kept for blacks here. LW: My birth certificate is wrong, and I mean really wrong. They have my mother as my mother. Let’s see, how does that go? No, they have my father as my father and his sister as my mother. NB: That’s not right. TE: That's not something you think about that they would use it that way. LW: You know I don't know if the lady, I don't know. AM: It's just, it's like you don't matter, just put something down. LW: That's right. Their black, their colored. What does it matter. AM: It don’t matter, just put something down. LW: And if you want to get a straight match you pay a lot of money to get it straightened out. NB: Well thank you guys so much. END OF INTERVIEW

Ann McAdams and Lunia Williams are members of Haywood County’s Reynolds High School 1964 graduating class. After high school, Ann worked in the school system, and Lunia went to nursing school to become a nurse. In this 2017 interview, both women offer insight into what life was like as an African American living in Haywood County before and after desegregation. Ann and Lunia address the inequality they faced in their daily lives within the community and in school. Their faith proved to be an important aspect of their lives, with local pastors being prominent local community leaders throughout the Civil Rights Movement. They also speak of their experiences, and the experiences of close friends and family members, up to the present. Ann and Lunia both agree that as time has passed, things have slowly gotten better, but that much change still needs to happen.

• Creator
  • McAdams, Ann
  • Williams, Lunia, 1946-
• Contributor
  • Browne, Natalie
  • Ellis, Tyler
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Interviews
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
• Date
  • Date interview: 2017-03-24;
  • Date: 1960s; 1970s; 2010s;
  • Date digitized: 2017-06-05
• Extent
  • Duration: 01:27:20 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 17 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • African American nurses
  • African American schools
  • African American teachers
  • African Americans
  • African Americans -- Civil rights
  • Autobiography
  • North Carolina, Western -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century
  • School integration -- North Carolina -- Haywood County
  • School integration -- North Carolina, Western
  • Segregation -- North Carolina -- Haywood County
• Location
  • Haywood County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • WCU Oral History Collection - HIST 472
• Identifier
  • HL_HIST472_Browne_McAdams_Williams_2017-03-24_audio
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library