• Format
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Text
• Extent
  • Duration: 36 pages (transcript)
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Identifier
  • HL_MSS98-03_Smith_Harrison_1987-06-11_transcript

Harrison 1 WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TOMORROW BLACK HISTORY PROJECT Interviewee: Howard K. Harrison, M.D. (I) Interviewer: Edward Clark Smith (H) County: Buncombe Date: June 11, 1987 Duration: 3:12:27 I: O.K. Now, you said she came from, which one came from Tennessee? H: My father's. The Harrisons were from Tennessee, from Greene County. Tennessee is the vicinity of the little town of Greeneville. On the Nolachucky River, out in the country in that area. That's where my grandparents on my father's side came from, Harrison. My father had two brothers, my father Edgar and a brother named James and Joseph. But my on my mother's side there were Hendersons, Bauchus Henderson and Mary Henderson. My mother had four sisters and a brother. There five girls and a boy. There were Hendersons. Bauchus was his name. I: Where were they from? H: I believe they were from Transylvania County. Let me call my sister. I'm not going to be able to give it all to you know. I can give you what little I got but that's interesting. On my mother's side, my grandfather Henderson who was from Charleston, South Carolina and he was brought as a slave up to Flat Rock, North Carolina. then sold there. That's where he met my grandmother who was from Transylvania County, Davidson River. They met on occasion of his being sold at Flat Rock. I don't know how long after that before they married. I: So, that was the story of your grandparents? H: Yes. I: Now, your parents, where was your mother from? H: She was from Davidson River, North Carolina. I: What was her name? H: My mother's name? Henrietta Elizabeth Henderson. Her sisters were Laura, Maurilda, Rosa and she had a brother, Charles, but he left home. We don't know what happened to him. But all the others I know about. All of them are dead now. I: Except Charles? Harrison 2 H: Yes, we don't know what happened to Charles. But I never knew him. He had gone before I grew up. I don't know whether he had gone before I was born or during my childhood because I never knew him. I just heard them speak of him. I: What about your father? What was his name? H: My father's name was William Edgar. I: Did he have a brother named James? H: Yes. I: Where was he from? H: He was from East Tennessee, Greene County, Tennessee, somewhere along there in the Nolichucky Valley River. S: How did they end up in Buncombe County? H: Well, now, my father came over in North Carolina to work. I think he worked out at Lake Toxaway. He and his brother, James, both worked out at Lake Toxaway. I think it was then that he met my mother over in Davidson River which is this side of Brevard. There's not a train stop there now. You perhaps are too young for this but it's interesting to me. You get on the highway and go from here to Hendersonville and you don't see anything in between except a little place called Mountain Home. You wonder but you go through Arden and Fletcher without realizing. There is a dozen of railroad stops between here. There's Buxbee, and Bullavistaand Arden and Fletcher and Bethel. You just don't here of anymore. I think every three or four miles it was a little train stop on the railroad. I do know that going out to Brevard there was a train stopped in Pisgah Forest that was this side of Brevard and this side of Pisgah Forest was this little place Davidson River. It wasn't nothing. Just a little box on the side of the road. This is not on the record. I guess I was a teenager but I was still going to public schools and my aunt lived in Davidson River. This was Laura, my mother's oldest sister. I went to visit them this summer from Asheville. Her son met me at the station at Davidson River. He met me with an ox cart. The only ox cart I've ridden by. We started up that dusty road and I heard something up on the hill. I said what in the world is that? He said that's a hog. He said I don't know, we'll see about it. We chugged on and chugged on and finally we came to a little country store. Out in the yard there, there was a pig pen and a big hog lying in the shade of an apple tree. I looked at that hog. I had never seen a live hog before. Its nose was prominent. I couldn't see its mouth. I wondered. I looked at that thing and wondered how in the world does it eat? I didn't want to ask, so I asked him if a hog ate apples? He said, "Yes." so, I wanted to feed it one. So, I reached and got an apple and threw it down there and watched it. They got the biggest kick out of me being so dumb. (laughter) I: That was the first live hog you had seen? H: Yeah. Harrison 3 I: That was in Davidson? H: Yeah, Davidson River. I guess I stayed out there a week. Way back in the country. Got up one morning, early before dawn going to the mill, grinding some corn in the mill. We took two, the same oxen and drove this little old road and finally came to the river. I won't forget the picture that came out of it. The mill a complete enclosure. I was all framed work, just these two by fours and what not. All exposed, the machinery exposed, all the machinery was going. This miller had propped himself on some of the engines and had a pipe in his mouth, and he was just leisurely looking down the river smoking his pipe. When we came he came over to serve us. The boy told him what they wanted and he took this corn and put part of it in the place to grind and then he took a part of it and put in his corn. I'm looking at him. I: He had taken the corn? H: He didn't put all of it in the grinder. And I'm looking at him and he turns the thing around and he goes away. When he goes away, I scoop it all back and my cousin starts laughing. I didn't say anything but when we left, I said what you laughing at me for? Didn't you see that man taking your corn? He didn't put all your corn in there and you gonna let him? He said, "That was his toll, that was his pay." [laughter) I: Now, you were born in Asheville to know that. H: I was born in Asheville. They shouldn't expect you I: When did you mother and father come to Asheville? H: I don't know. I ought to know, but I don't. I was born February 23, 1903. I'm a couple years younger than your father. I was born down in the Hill Street section of Asheville. Not too far from Hill Street Baptist Church, somewhere in the vicinity. Then my grandparents lived on Bay Street which is right off from Hill Street. Two of my aunts lived there until they died. We moved from Hill Street over to Ridge Street the fall of 1906. That was when this desperado come through town and had killed people. You heard about it. We got on a street car, an open car, where the seats run all the way across. You've seen them. I think they call them tourist cars or something. Well, anyway, even though it was winter time it was not an enclosed car. Seats ran all the way across. When we got on this car, there were several men, white, with shotguns. That impressed me seeing all these men with these guns. I didn't know what it was all about. I: How old were you? H: Three. I hadn't reached my fourth birthday. It's funny how some things will impress you. We got to the square, a place, it wasn't anything like this now, where this actual sight was near where the police station is now. There was a horse and buggy carriage stand there. All the streets, Eagle Street, Valley Street, Greer Street, Ridge Street, they were all unpaved streets. They had had this big snow. My father hired this carriage to drive my mother over to Ridge Street. But I being a child, the man carried me in his arms from by where the police station is. I remember that Harrison 4 incident. I don't remember things that went on in between. The only thing that I can remember, shows how sprite I was. I remember my fourth birthday. It was one of those warm days in February. The sun was shining and I was standing out on the porch kicking my feet between banisters. Mrs. Daily's uncle, Henry Pearson, lived nearby. He came up the street and spoke to me and I spoke to him. I told him, "I'm four years old today." That kind of interested him. He engaged in a conversation. I remember that very distinctly. I don't know why that isolated incident stayed on my mind, but that was February 23, 1907. I: What did your mom and dad do for a living? H: My father was a barber. My mother raised the family. Dad was of the old school. He didn't let any collectors come to the door. He went and paid them. Mamma stayed at home and took care of us. I: Did he own a barbershop? H: Yes. He operated the first black barbershop in the depot area. Boyd Quick worked for my father when he came to Asheville from South Carolina. I remember that. I was a good sized boy. I believe when Boyd Quick came, I think papa was in a building and it was kind of like when John Field and Sherrill and George Morris operated this shoeshop and barbershop together. This fellow, Sam Moore, had a tailor shop in part of this building. My dad had a barbershop. So, it was Moore’s Tailorshop and dad's barbershop in the same place. Sam Taylor later, he lived around different places but his widow died up here on the Southside Avenue. Little concrete building that Haig built on next door to him. It's all torn down now. But anyway she lived there and she died. My dad's barbershop had several locations. One location was practically on the alley. Between the little alley that ran from Ralph Street over to Depot Street is closed now. A fellow named Payne had a place with us back in there. He moved from that alley. When the flood came in 1916, he was on the south side of Depot Street almost across from where Green Mini Market is. Billy later had a post-office in there. The next, I think, was a shoeshop. When the flood came, I was thirteen. When it subsided, I think what impressed me, my boot black chair was suspended on a coat hanger on the wall. It got caught in the wall. Another location that dad had in his barbershop was a fellow named Yellock. Edward Yellock and his sister. They had a cafe and he had a cleaning and printing establishment. Dad's barbershop was near that. This fellow named Williams had a little greasy joint restaurant. Then there was a Greek restaurant all in that little. I: Little area? H: Yeah. That was largely railroad men. There was a tannery, Rees Tannery was in operation then. The freight depot was down on Depot Street. Instead of having these big trucks that haul. They had big wagons with large horses. They loaded these wagons and carried them. When they got the first trucks, they weren't as big as these eighteen wheelers but they were big sized trucks. When they got the first trucks, the drivers were white. But the blacks, they couldn't drive them, but they loaded and unloaded the delivery. I'm jumping from pillar to post, from different things. Once when my dad's barbershop was over around Depot Street across from, in the vicinity of Green's place, there was a white restaurant on this other side. The fellow's name was Ray that Harrison 5 operated it. He was a racist if there ever was one. Prejudiced! That was before you had all this refrigeration. It used ice and you brought it in large quantities, hundred pound blocks and what not. This Negro man was bringing this hundred pound block of ice in his cafe, and came in the door with it, with his hat on. He didn't stop to take his hat off. I: How can he take his hat off with a hundred-pound block of ice? H: Made the man mad and he threw at him. I forgot what it was. But he missed him and broke out this plate glass window. We laughed. We were glad that it happened but his prejudice had gotten the best of him. Wasn't that ridiculous? I: It sure was. H: That's what he did. You see these things and they stick with you and they impress you and you just don't forget them. I guess you should forget them but you just don't. I: Some of them were a learning experience. What was your mom like? How did you get along with her? What kind of person was she? H: Mamma was a rather quiet and docile. Everybody says that she was friendly and pleasant. Dad was a rather positive type of personality. I got along fine with both of them. But after I grew up I was in the barbershop. I was a boot black, but he taught me how to barber. So, I was not around home, I don't think as much as the average child is. My sister was there all the time. She was four years younger than I. Then having to go away to finish high school, I missed a lot. Do you see what I'm saying? From the barbershop through ninth grade and then away to boarding school. I: So, you started. How old were you when you started learning? You started off in the barbershop as shoe blacker. H: Yes. I was about. I was there in, I was about twelve years old. I: When you started shoe shining? How much were you making? Were you making any money? H: Very little. Shoe shines were a nickel a pair. If you got a tip you gotten cents a shine. Haircuts were a quarter. Shaves were a dime. I remember when the prices of haircuts went to thirty-five cents, a shave went to fifteen. You get a haircut and a shave for fifty cents. I: What did people talk about in barbershops back then? Do you remember any of those conversations? Was there any event that happened during that time that the barbershop talk would have been about, like the prize fight? H: Yes, they did. In those days, baseball was the great American sport even though it was in the summertime. But that was before radio, of course. People, if they could leave and go to the world series, they had done something that was really an event to go to. or to go to a big league baseball for that matter. Nobody ever thought about that ordinarily. The reports that you would Harrison 6 get on the progress of the game. I'm ahead of my story. This didn't happen routinely. But, World Series time, there would be an extra addition of the paper that would come out that afternoon telling in detail of the game. People wanted to hear it. It came in teletype, you know. They, somebody, would come out from the paper over a loudspeaker and announce the developments of the inning. People would stand around in huge crowds. That's the way they got the report for the paper came off. Where you sit now and listen to it, or see it, you went up to the paper office and stood outside and listen to the man recite it off this thing, inning by inning. I: Did you ever go? H: Yes, I was so tired. I didn't go much because I would be at work down at the shop but . . . and it was an all afternoon affair. If the man worked a long period of time, five or ten minutes before he came out, you'd know that some scoring has gone or been some delaying. Occasionally a game would be delayed by rain and all other things but it was an incident. I: How old were you when he started teaching you to cut hair? H: I think I was thirteen or fourteen. When I left here and went to Livingstone, I was fifteen years old and I was cutting hair then. I: During this time when you were starting out to be a shoe black all the way back, when did you start school? H: Here in Asheville? I: Yes. H: I entered school at the age of six and went every day during the school year. It was after school that I would go down to the barbershop. I think that's one of the reasons I remember so distinctly that school was held on Saturday rather than Monday because I wanted to work in my dad's barbershop all day on Saturday but I had to go to school. I: You went to schools on Saturday? H: Yes. I: Why? H: The blacks went to school Tuesday through Saturday where whites went Monday through Friday. Monday was the day that the kids went to get the clothes for the mamma to wash. If you had school on Monday, they wouldn't be there because kids were off getting the clothes to bring home to mamma to wash. That was before the day of the commercial laundry. I: So, you all had to go pick up clothes from people's houses and bring them back home to get washed? Harrison 7 H: Yes. At the end of the week when their laundry was ready to be delivered, you didn't have to take them back. The owners would come and pay for the laundry and take them home. You just went and got the dirty clothes. I: That forced you to go to school on Saturday? H: I hesitate to mention this because I'm not looking for any credit or recognition, but it was Dad who petitioned the city fathers to change that. I remember it quite well because I composed the petition and typed it up on an old Oliver typewriter that we had gotten from Sears and Roebuck. My English teacher at Catholic Hill School who was Mrs. A. P. Martin edited the composition and she complimented me on it. The composition was a petition. After this was presented to the school, they eventually changed it. By that time, of course, the laundries had covered. The situation changed. I: Can you remember what it said? The petition? H: No, I don't. Honestly, I don't. s: It got the job done. Where did you attend elementary school? H: All my elementary schooling was done at catholic Hill, first through the ninth grades. I went from 44 Ridge Street first and then we moved to 46 Ridge Street. Mamma could stand on the back porch and see me going to the schoolhouse. All of my schooling was done right over there. I: What grade did that go to? H: One through nine. But wait a minute now, I said at Catholic. The eighth and ninth grades were held where the Presbyterian Church now stands. So, one through seven on Catholic Hill, eight and nine on the hill where the Presbyterian Church now stands. I: So, you only went eighth and ninth at Catholic Hill? H: One through seven at Catholic Hill, eight and nine at the Presbyterian. I: Did that have a name? H: That was part of Catholic Hill School. It had changed hands. It wasn't built for the school. At one time I think it was a sanitarium and then the school bought it. I: It had been a sanitarium? What kind? H: Tuberculosis. Now, it wasn't the building that's there now. I'm talking about the site, the building that was. I: Yes. Harrison 8 H: In those days, tuberculosis was a terrible disease. Asheville was a health resort. People came here. They didn't know how to treat tuberculosis as they do now. About all they had to offer them was rest and food and fresh air. They froze you to death. You had to sleep out in the open. This mountain air was supposed to be pure. There used to be any number of sanitariums. There was the Windsor Sanitarium. There was a white one down on Montford. I: All they did was come to breathe? H: Yeah, come and get the mountain air, the rest and the sunshine. The drugs, the antibiotics had not come yet and this chest surgery for that hadn't come in. That hadn't even come in when Oteen was first built. You know it was built primarily as a tuberculosis hospital. It was specifically a government hospital for tuberculosis. It was not Oteen, but it was Memorial General. Now, wait a minute. I'm twisting my story. Memorial General is a veterans thing. Oteen was built as an army hospital. Later on it was an addition. They finally fused them into one, and then it became Oteen. I know. I was talking about Asheville being such a health resort. There was a man who operated a store. You may have known him on Hill Street, name Eugene Costion. You may have heard of him if you didn't know him. He came to Asheville from Charleston with far-advanced tuberculosis. It became arrested miraculously. He married Evelyn Shaw's mother. She was a doctor's widow, Dr. Tom's widow. He started his store. Then he decided he'd go back and visit his native Charleston, South Carolina. He went back down there and stayed a few weeks. His tuberculosis flared back up again. He flew back to Asheville and said he would never go back to one and didn't ever go back. I: Well, after you got out of the schooling here, where did you have to go finish? H: I went to Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. That's where I finished high school. I; Livingstone College? H: Yes, that's the AME Zion Church School down there in Salisbury. I: I know where it is. I've been there. H: Have you? I: Yes. H: Well, that's where I finished high school. Livingstone was not accredited. The facilities were really bleak to me. I won't ever forget the night that I got there. Helen Chandler, Helen Butler, Dr. Butler's second wife and Vivian Cline Cooper and a girl named Alda Fortune who is now dead, and I went on the train together. We took a cab from the station and went to the school. They went to the girls' dormitory which was nice. Then the cab driver took me to the boys' dormitory. It was a much older building and it was crude. It had electric lights in it and that's all. There was not central heat. There was no running water, no toilet facilities in the building. There was an old stove with the pipe you connected, wood and coal instead. There was a bedstead that Harrison 9 you assembled and put the slats on. "Where is the mattress?" "You go over to the laundry which is in the girls' building and get a tick." "What you gonna do with that?" "Go over there at that haystack and fill it with hay. That's your mattress!" Now, I wasn't accustomed to anything like that. I went and got that tick. Being as lazy as I was, I didn't half fill it. [laughter] But I wasn't cuttin' off my nose despite my face because I didn't have a mattress to sleep on. [laughter] There was a spigot out in the yard. There was running water outside the building, but there was no running water in the building at all. They had a service toilet down the way where you had to go and turn yourself up, for the boys. Now, that wasn't true but that's what I faced as a student at Livingston College. So, you know I didn't like it. I: What year was that? H: 1918. I: How did you make out? H: I didn't. I just suffered through it. I: How long did you stay? H: Well, going from here, finishing the ninth grade, I went to university. They assigned me to a second year high, they said ninth grade be the first year high. When I entered the classes and found that my training was in advance of anything they were presenting. So, I petitioned my instructors to let me go into the next class which would be third year high. They said we'll have to give you some examinations. All right. They gave me an examination in math and algebra. Well, I passed that very easily. They gave me an examination, I believe in Latin. Then they gave me an examination, I believe in Latin. Then they gave me an examination in a subject I had never even heard of, Medieval History. I didn't have the slightest idea of what Medieval History was. But my nerve said go ahead and try it and see what it is like. I don't remember all the questions but it said name the period that embraces medieval history. I said it begins with the fall of Rome and ended at the time of the discovery of America by Columbus. But I didn't give any dates because I didn't know them. I answered one or two other questions generally like that. The answer came back, "What you said is too general." "What you said is correct but it's not specific but we'll give you a passing grade on it." Well, that's all I was interested in. I: So, you put it in that time. H: So, I went from the ninth grade to third year high. I finished high school at Livingstone in 1920, valedictorian of the class. I wanted to change schools because Livingstone was not accredited. But Daddy was scuffling like the devil. He was a poor man. This isn't on tape is it? You don't have to record it. Are you? He was fair. He wanted me to go to school but he was thinking of the economic side of it. I wanted to go to Fisk University. Fisk was an accredited school. It was further away and it was more expensive. He was afraid that we couldn't afford it. He said "Son, I've heard that Fisk is a big folks school and all this. I don't want you to be embarrassed. "Well, I can appreciate that, but I still wanted to go, but I couldn't muster up the Harrison 10 nerve to buck my daddy's judgment at the end of high school. So, I went back to Livingston and took my freshmen year college. But I couldn't take it any longer. I: Didn't it improve? H: I bucked my daddy's will and went and applied to Fisk and went! They registered me as unclassified because they had difficulty recognizing the credits from Livingstone. They didn't know what kind of classification. So, they registered me as unclassified and I started. I: What was it like at Fisk when you got there? H: Well, the difference was most remarkable. We had a steamheated building, and we had shower baths. The furnishings were simple but nice. The meals were good. The meal at Livingstone were horrible. I: Before we leave Livingstone, what kind of curriculum did they have? H: Very weak. That's all I can say about it. It was weak. It was a church school and the biggest thing it seemed to me that they emphasized was oratory. If you could come down and make a good speech, you were somebody. Otherwise you just didn't rate. They made orators out of their students, attempted to. Everybody was talking about this doctor, Professor Aggpey, who was from Africa and who had been on the faculty. He was dead but his wife was still there. Sam Duncan's father was a teacher there. out of all that you've heard about, this Negro woman that done well in education, her daddy was an instructor there at the time that I was there. But the curriculum was terrible. The football field was just an open space. There were no stands or anything. Just go out in the field and play football. It was awful. I: How did you travel from Asheville to Livingstone? H: By train. I: What was the train ride like? Was the train segregated? H: Oh, yes! Yes, it was. I don't know whether I should tell this or not but I'm going to. I knew the train conductor, who was white, of course. I knew the porters being my daddy's shop down there. We knew all the railroad personnel. There was a practice in vogue at that time. It was horrible, that's why I'm hesitant to say. The train porter and the train conductor would make deals with passengers whereby they would travel without a ticket. didn't everybody go to the station and buy a ticket. They could make a deal with the conductor and the porter. Well, I'm in on all that. Not only did I make a deal but I didn't have to pay. I got on the train with my conductor and I went from here to Salisbury without paying a dime. I: How long did that take? H: It would take, from here to Salisbury, I think would be about five or six hours on the train because you stopped at all these places. But not only ... they didn't use no parcel post. Edwards Harrison 11 Smith is going to be the porter on the train Friday, leaving Asheville Friday and he's gonna bring a basket for you. So, when the train comes to Salisbury Friday, I'm gonna be there and you gonna hand me this basket and paid a dime. I got food in it. Mamma always cooked a chicken and rolls and bread and jam and peanut butter and all kinds of stuff. I: It would come right to you? H: Yes. I: All you had to do was be there. H: All I had to do was be at the station and get it. I would store it in my trunk. I didn't have no storage place. So, I would put my basket in my trunk. I: Oh, she sent you stuff you could keep for a long time without needing to have a refrigerator to keep it cold? H: That's right. Peanut butter and that sort of thing. Bread, cookies and cakes. No, we didn't have any refrigerator. I began to notice, see evidence, that somebody having gone in my trunk and in there. I couldn't imagine how it had happened. But I knew it was being done but I couldn't never catch them. So, now, it left me as to how I found out, but the guy finally told me. One day at chapel, I had my key ring on my belt and I had two keys to the trunk and they were both on there. This guy sat behind me and took one of the keys off and then in trying to put the key ring back it dropped to the floor. I didn't realize what had happened. I just thought I dropped my keys. I got the keys and put them back up. Then I didn't think anything about it. I didn't put it all together at all. But sometime later the guy that did it told me that was what had happened. To show you how clever he was, he had some valuables. In that day the silk shirt craze was among young fellows. He had a couple of silk shirts and he brought them and asked me to keep them in my trunk. He was afraid someone would steal them. And a ruse to keep me from suspecting him of having the key. [laughter) I: He was on the job? H: Yeah, he was. When I went to Livingstone, in those days you didn't, or boys didn't, go into long pants. They were knickers that came to your knees with long stockings. Trousers came to your knees, your knee pads. That's what I had on. I went to the leading black barbershop and asked to work in the shop on Saturdays. The man looked at me and turned me down. But there was another shop, second rate I would say. The man was a liquor head. He gave me a job. When he found out that I could produce, he really did lay down on the job. He stayed in his juice. He would let me take over. Of course, it was all to my liking because it meant that I got more work. But it gave me good advertisement in the little community. A boy in knee pants down at Bud Buford's barbershop can cut hair like the devil. So, the next year when I came back, I hadn't been on campus over an hour before the owner of this leading black barbershop was out there looking for me. He was there wanting to engage me to work in his shop. Well, I was glad and I knew right then I was going but I had to play a little difficult. I wouldn't commit myself. I told him I'd think about it. I didn't have to do any thinking. So, I worked for him after that. I was able by Harrison 12 working in town in the barbershop on Saturday and by cutting students' hair in my room after school during the week, twenty-five cents a haircut. I was able to make enough money to pay my way without help from my daddy while I was at Livingstone. As a matter of fact, I saved a few dimes. In that day hair straightening for men was in vogue. Some kind of lye-based preparation was used to straighten men's hair. A dollar was big money. But you got a dollar for straightening a man's hair. It wasn't anything unusual for me, from the time I went inside in the morning until the time we closed, sixty percent of what I took in being mine, for me to make twelve or fifteen dollars a day. That was big money. That was big money! Another thing about that day and time, the barbershops closed on Saturday at midnight! I: Why did they stay open so late? H: Men were still working in their work during the day. Some of them didn't get off until five or six o'clock. I: So, you stayed open to get that extra credit? H: Yes. The custom was that, even though you locked the doors at midnight, everybody in there when you locked the doors got waited on, regardless of how long it took. So, sometimes it was two or three o'clock before you left. It wasn't often, but every once in a while it happened. I remember the latest I would be… the man who operated the shop would get me to give him a haircut after everybody else was gone. So, it was really in the morning. That's ridiculous when you look back on it, but that actually occurred. I: How many barbers were there besides you and him? H: There were three of us in the shop. He and another man and I made the third one. Talking about riding free, I knew the schedule of my conductor. so, when I wanted to come home, I'd just get on the train and come home on weekends. I remember one year when they had a big celebration in Salisbury, the 30th of May. It was quite an event for blacks. Livingstone played Johnson c. smith in baseball. Crowds came from all around little neighboring communities. Trains had to put on extra cars to take care of the people going back home. I had not been aware of this particular problem and it was my conductor's night. I went down to the train too late to get in the regular car, the regular segregated car. They had these extra cars on the back. That's one of the cars I had to get on. Well, the conductor was not able to serve this car because he was starting up at the front. These people weren't going very far so he had a ticket collector back here. And here I am with no ticket and don't know this man. What am I gonna do? I told the man that I was going to Statesville and gave him a dollar. He got ready to write me out a ticket thing and I scooted away from him. I didn't wait to get it. I sat down wondering what was going to happen. The people begin getting off. The car got almost empty. I'm still there. Everytime they come and look, I sit right quiet. So, when we got to Statesville, I didn't budge. We got on up the road by Hickory and by that time, the crowd had thinned out and were taken off some of these cars. The porter, his name was Ed House, he used to live up here on Livingston Street, he knew me. When they said, "Let's go back here and see Ed sitting back there," he said that's Edgar Harrison's boy there. He's going to Asheville." I played sleep but I heard them. "Come here boy. Wake up! We're gonna cut this car off." [laughter] Harrison 13 I: Solved the problem. H: Oh, Lord! I: But you were discontented at Livingstone the whole time. H: All the time I was there. It just didn't measure up. I wanted to go to an accredited school. I wanted to study medicine. I: What made you decide on medicine? H: There was here in Asheville a physician, Dr. Holt's uncle, Dr. John w, Walker, the man for whom Lee Walker Heights was named. He was an idol of mine. He was a member of Hopkins Chapel. But he was a civic. He was an outstanding civicminded man. I just admired the grounds that Dr. Walker walked on. I just said I wanted to be like Dr. Walker. There were just some individuals that impressed you as a child, Mr. Lee was principal of the school, Mr. Trent who was the executive up at the YMI, and Archy Dusenbury's daddy, Rev. Dusenbury. To me those were outstanding persons. I don't know why, but some people just impress you, and those did. To me they were outstanding individuals. There was another man that I don't hear of now who at one time was the pastor of St. Mathias Episcopal Church, but he taught manual training in the school system. His name was Kennedy, Rev. Kennedy. I thought a lot of him too. He taught manual training, shoemaking and cabinet making. That sort of thing. But Dr. Walker was just my ideal of a man and I wanted to be like him. I: So, when did you decide? What year did you decide you were going to go against your dad? What year was that? H: That was in 1920 because I left in 1921. I: What made you make up your mind that you were going to do it? H: That's a good question. I think it had been building up and building up at this time. I just said, "No, I can't do it. I just have to go." I was just so disgusted with Livingstone. There was nothing there that appealed to me at all. I just didn't like it. I felt that I could make it. Daddy was afraid from the financial point of view. I don't know why I felt that I could make it. I guess because I had been successful there in making a little change there in Salisbury. I felt I could make it somewhere in Asheville. I didn't make all of my money but I didn't cost Dad that much money. During the summers, I got to run on the railroads as a pullman porter. I ran out of here at Asheville for three summers. One summer I ran to Memphis. Another summer I did what they call the loop-to-loop. I'd get on the train here and go to Chicago and come back and go through Asheville to Columbia and spend the night down there. Then I'd come from Columbia back to Asheville and get off the car loaded with passengers and another porter would pick it up and take it up to Chicago. That's what they called loop-to-loop by getting off before the trip was completed. I guess they did it that way because Columbia didn't have a pullman office. You say why didn't they do it from Columbia. But Columbia didn't have a pullman office. Harrison 14 I: Why didn't they have a pullman office? H: I think it was in Charleston. I don't think they have them everywhere. Administrative setup is about such that they would have one everywhere. I: So, you did that in the summer? H: Yes. I: But when you first got to Fisk, you said the conditions were much better. H: Oh, yes. I: Did it challenge you? H: Yes, it did. The professors inspired you. The students as a whole seemed to have been very interested in their work and all that stimulated you. You found yourself wanting to succeed. The courses were interesting. Knowing that I wanted to take medicine, they had certain basic requirements. They had an elective system where you elected a lot of your classes. I elected most of the sciences that would be beneficial in the study of medicine. My major was chemistry, but I also took physics and biology. But I took the other basic courses. I studied chemistry a while under this man who later became famous in Chicago with the Glidden Paint Company. He's dead now. I: He became famous with the Glidden Paint Company? H: Paint Company in Chicago. I forgot his name. It'll come to me. I: But you studied chemistry? H: Percy Julian! Percy Julian was his name. Dr. Julian, I studied chemistry under him at Fisk University. I: Now when you would work in the summers, you did a lot of traveling on the railroad? H: Yes. I: The three summers you worked. What were the different places that you would go, like Chicago? Did you ever have time to spend time? H: Very little. First place the work was hard and you'd be tired. I: What did the work consist of? H: Making the berths and serving the passengers and handling their baggage. I remember. Harrison 15 I: So, it was really three or four jobs in one. H: Yes. I forgot the occasion, I may have this wrong. But in the summertime you'd have on these white jackets, you know. While they'd be starched, you'd be working. You would sweat profusely. And those white jackets absorbed it. Somebody saw me all full of sweat and was talking about the exertion that was involved. Somebody had told Mamma about it. She was concerned about me. You really worked handling these baggages and time was a factor. You have a dozen people getting off a train here in Asheville and it's only going to be just a few minutes. You want to get their baggage off and get your little tip and all that too. You work like mad! [Chuckle] While the train is in motion you've got to be cleaning up, mopping the aisles, trying to keep it clean. I: That was a lot of work? H: Yes, it was a lot of work. I: How much money were you making? Was the money worth it? H: Well for those times it was. It isn't anything now. I think about sixty dollars plus tips. We used to have inspectors that would get on the trains and just ride for certain distances to see about the service and the condition of the cars. Funny thing, train crews, they had systems. They had little systems of their own. When you pass a train going in opposite direction sitting on the sidings, if there was an inspector down the road that wanted to get on, the crew would give you a signal and let you know that you are going to pick up an inspector. Between here and Knoxville we would be going north. We passed a train that was going south down to Marshall, Hot Springs or Newport. When we passed that train, that crew would tell us that there was an inspector that you'd want to pick up down there at depot. I: So you had a chance to get right for it. H: You get right. The conductors would get all panicky and eager and excited. It bothered me. I didn't learn this until much later. I said, "Why is he so upset? That inspector ain't nothing but a man like you. What's he all upset about? I ain't studying about it!" But I later learned that he was respecting his position of authority. It wasn't that he was afraid of any monster. He was respecting his position of authority, a thing that I had not yet learned. Sometimes I think we missed that even now. I'm convinced that there are individuals who don't know hardly how to express it. They don't know the art of our culture to the extent that they can evaluate the significance of these little things. I don't think I've expressed myself very clearly. I: I think that in other words, in respecting his position of authority, it could have been any person who held that position. But he understood the connotations of that position. H: That's right. I: The power and effect it would have on him. So, I see what you are saying. Harrison 16 H: Yes, and then the power structure he would recognize I: Where that came from. H: I guess as a black at the lower part of the totem pole, just didn't make any difference whether you were at the bottom regardless. I: Yes, but then on the other hand you had to work like the devil anyway. You probably had part of his job. H: I did. In addition to working for the Pullman Company, I worked a couple of summers for Canadian Pacific Railroad Company. I had left Fisk. I was in Meharry Medical College. At the end of my sophomore and junior years at Meharry, I worked with Canadian Pacific as a sleeping car porter with my headquarters in Vancouver, British Columbia. The first summer that I worked for the Canadian Pacific, I ran from Vancouver either to St. Paul or to Chicago. Chicago was one night and day further than St. Paul. Usually I would make the trip from Vancouver to Chicago but occasionally I'd make the shorter one from Vancouver to St. Paul. I won't ever forget that summer. I had not been out of the United states before. Going to Canada gave me a number of first experiences. In the first place, we left Detroit on a Saturday night. That was the time that Lindberg was making his nonstop flight to Paris. When we left Detroit, he had been sighted over Iceland. When we got to Toronto the next morning, I wanted to find a paper to see about Lindberg. I went to a big drug store across the street from the station and asked about a morning paper. "Well… "a man says this is Sunday." I said I know. "there ain't no newspaper on Sunday." [laughter] So, I couldn't get a newspaper. I: They didn't have a Sunday paper? H: No, Sir. It was the next day and in the next day's paper that I found out about Lindberg. But they had a lot of parades. I was in Toronto for three or four days. While I'm there, they were having a big parade on the queen's birthday or somebody's birthday. They had a lot of them. I'm curious • I'm on the streets and the crowd's gathering and I see the first mounted police that I had ever seen. This Royal Mounted Police on this horse. I never seen one before. But anyway, the crowd kept thickening and people milling around and milling around. Several of us porters had gotten a good place in the parade line. Near the time that the parade was to start, a bunch of youngsters came and planted themselves in front of us, which would have blocked our view. The Royal Mounted Police said, "These people have been standing here for an hour and a half. Get away!" That would have never happened in this country! I: Sure wouldn't have. You'd been just fine. H: Yes. But the police moved those people. So, we stood there and watched the parade. That impressed me! Then we went from Toronto to Winnipeg and that takes two or three days. The scenery enroute is intriguing. We traveled along the northern shore of Lake Superior for a long distance. We've seen mountains, snow-capped mountains. I had never seen now in the summertime before. I went to Winnipeg and the thing that impressed me about Winnipeg is that I never had seen so many bicycles in my life. Everybody, men, women, boys, and girls, everybody Harrison 17 riding the bicycle. Then I saw a parade in Winnipeg. The thing that impressed me about that parade, I saw a Salvation Army unit in the parade and a black woman in it. The significance was that she was the only black person I had ever seen connected with the Salvation Army to this day. There may be, but that's the only one I've seen, that woman in Winnipeg. It just impressed me. I've forgotten her name. I forgot how I met her but we were in a group together. The Negro population of Winnipeg was not too large. You could easily find them. I went on and worked out of Vancouver. The second summer… oh, I'm about to forget. That's the first time I've been away from most of my people. The Negro population of Canada was very small. So, when I got up in Canada and had been there for a few weeks, except for the few railroad people, I saw practically no Negroes. I'm feeling lonesome. I bring this car, and come to St. Paul and go to my quarters and go to bed. I wake up, take a shower it's a Sunday. I hear voices outside. I look out and there are Negro ladies gathered nearby. I get up and bathe and dress and go out. All of them looked beautiful to me. They weren't all pretty. I was just glad to see some of my people! [laughter] I: What were relationships between blacks and whites like back then in America and in Canada? Was there nobody there you could have a conversation with? H: Very, very, few. There was an elderly couple in Vancouver that operated a junk shop. That wasn't in Vancouver. There were some things I guess I was naive and dumb and didn't realize it. In Vancouver there was a lot of prostitution, all white of course. They didn't draw any lines. But there was one prostitute there that one of the porters was suppose'd to be married to. I now am sure that he was not married. They were probably living together. But everybody knew it. I woke up wondering how could this man be married to this prostitute? Fate answered that for me. on one of these trips to Chicago, he had one of the cars and I had the other one. If I had the Chicago car then he had the St. Paul or vice versa. He was good at cooking. (I can't boil water.) He made a deal that if I bought the food that he would cook it for us. Save us a dining car meal, and we did. I: You couldn't eat free on the train? H: No. You had to pay for it. I: They didn't give you any discount or anything? H: No. So. I: You bought the food? H: Yes. They had. In Canada your distances between cities was long. A distance from here to Memphis was a short run. But you rode for days and in doing that sometimes you would be riding for hours without stopping. When they would stop, they would stop for an half hour or so. That brings me back to something else. In America you have big coaches and your pullman cars. Those are the two classes of services for passenger trains. In Canada you have first, what they call colonist car, I'll explain that later. Then they have the first class car which is our day coach. Then they have a sleeping car which is our pullman car. They have three. Now, in the colonist car, the seats are crude. They had shelves overhead on which they placed their luggage. People Harrison 18 who ride them are kind of like campers. They get on with their sleeping bags and what not. As I said, the first cars were like our day coach. When they would stop in these towns, people would get off and go to the grocery store and buy their food. There was a stove on the train. They would cook on the train. So, that practice in Canada, we were familiar with it from the train. We got to be kind of buddies, three or four nights on the road together. In the three days we got to be kind of buddies. He volunteered and told me that he was married to this woman and that he knew that she was a prostitute. Here was his philosophy: He said all women are crooked. There aren't any straight ones. That being the case, since his woman was going to be crooked, he might as well profit from it. Well, I didn't agree with that but I just never conceived of anybody having that philosophy. That's what he told me. I think I was gullible enough; I was young. I believed that he was sincere about that. But I doubt that he was married to that woman. He might have been but I doubt it. I: Well, he was married to the money. H: Yes. I: As much as he was on the road, it didn't make any difference? H: That's right. I: So, you would do that through the summer and then plan on going back to school in the fall? H: The two summers that I worked for Canadian Pacific, I made good. One summer I ran what they call running-in-charge. It was a side trip. I ran from Vancouver to a little town in the mountains called Nelson. There was just one sleeping car on that train. You had to buy your ticket in Vancouver for all the places enroute. If you got on the train anywhere enroute, you had to buy your ticket from the porter. I acted as porter and conductor and that's what they call running in charge. My salary was more. It wasn't a conductor's, but it was more than a porter's. I had to make diagrams and punch tickets and make reports. Going east to this little town of Nelson, I reported at the station and turned in the diagrams and the tickets and the money that I had collected. Coming back to Vancouver, we got in late at night. So, I had to turn in my money at a little station enroute and then I turned my records in Vancouver the next day. They were audited in Vancouver. If I made a mistake and didn't charge the man enough, I'd have to make it up. For some of the places the fares are in the little book. But some smaller communities weren't listed and you had a formula or model that you figures from. There would be something to tell you about what it was from here to Hendersonville, but Skyland wouldn't be shown and you would have to figure out what it was to Skyland and back. I had to figure. This man was going on a fishing trip to a little place called Lyton. I won't ever forget it. I figures that it wasn't on there. I wasn't sure about it. I charged him a dime too much, to be on the safe side. The auditor called me in and told me that I had charged him too much. I said, "Well, give me the dime." He says, "No." I said, "Well, if I had undercharged him you would have made me pay it." He said, "Yes, but he might contest and we might have to refund it to him." As fate would have it, at a later date at that same station, I picked that same man up bringing him back to Vancouver. Well, I remembered that he was the same man that I had been called in about so, without even looking, I made the very same charge and wrote it up as such. So, when the auditor called me in again and Harrison 19 told me that I had overcharged, I said, "I know it. That was the same man." He says, "Harrison, if you knew it, why did you overcharge him?" I said that was the same man that I served before. I said if I charged him one thing going and another thing returning, he would think I wouldn't know what I was doing and he would have reason to complain about it. But at least I was consistent about it. He looked at me and didn't say a word. But I've questioned his wisdom. I: You didn't get the twenty cents? H: No, I didn't. I questioned the wisdom of my explaining my reason to him. He said this nigger can figure. He can think. He didn't say that but I could tell from his expression. [Chuckle] I: Were a lot of the Pullman porters college students, or were you sort of like one in a group? H: Yes, one in a group. I don't know whether you knew Roy Rogers or not who used to live up here on Blanton Street. He just died not too long ago. Anyway, he and I went to Atlanta the same day to take instructions on making beds for the Pullman Company in Asheville. We went down there and took the training course. He worked for the Pullman Company until he retired. He worked all of his life at the Pullman Company. H: I would come to Atlanta with Fisk’s football team. I: What position did you play? H: I played on the line. I was a guard. They weren't big then like they are now. I had a roommate from Oklahoma. He was a tackle. I: When you were finishing up at Fisk, was Maharry your only choice? H: No, I applied to Howard as well. But I preferred Meharry. I put in applications for both schools. I: How was your life at Fisk when you were there, when you were in school? Did the curriculum continue to challenge you? H: Yes, it did. I didn't apply myself as diligently as I might have. Well, there was a lot of student discontent. We didn't like our president. As a matter of fact, we struck my senior year. We had a president, an Irishman by the name of McKenzie. I: Then he was white, wasn't he? H: Yes. He had been away. There had been a lot of student discontent for a long time. I: Over what? What was the discontent about? H: It's a long story. Yolanda, daughter of Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, was graduating that spring of 1924. Dr. DuBois made the commencement speech at his daughter's graduation. Spaulding, of Harrison 20 Durham, his daughter, Margaret, was in school there too. Somewhere, unless I lost it, I have a copy of his commencement address. He had dinner with the president the night of the commencement. I think his subject had been announced but it didn't tell what he was going to say, in his address he gave the president hell. The president was reddened. Dr. Dubois started off, I remember, he said he was going to use a Latin expression, "To my long continuous silence oh conscript fathers partly through shame but not through fear, I now give expression." That was his subject. He began to give the president hell for all of the things in his administration that he didn't like. Dr. Dubois said "Of all the requisites of a great university, money is the least." He said that, "It once was said of Brown University… Brown University is outstanding. Now it has a million dollars." I've lost a thought in there but he began to talk about the deficiencies in the administration. It wasn't doing for its students the things that it might do. He was giving the president hell for it. In the Fall of 1924 and Spring of 1925, the president had been away and he came back and made a chapel talk, the tone of which was whipping the student body in line; they were getting too… they were tending to drift. He was getting them in line and we resented it. So, that night the fellows decided that they would strike. They started raising quite a bit of commotion in the dormitory. Then they decided that they'd go over to the girls' building and call the girls to the window and tell them that we weren't going to attend classes the next day. We got out on the campus and started towards the girls' building, Jubilee Hall. Cars came rushing through the campus, police cars. They had all these armored weapons. They went to the president's house. The president had called. When we saw all of that we got scared. One guy said, "I got a knife, I'd better go back." We didn't have no excuse. Finally, all of us went back, we didn't go to Jubilee Hall. We went to our rooms and went to bed. Well, it seemed like a long time but I'm sure it wasn't as long as it seemed before the officers were there and coming up to our rooms, assembling us downstairs in the administration part of the building. On the first floor of the building of this dormitory were offices, deans' offices, president's offices and the chapel. I: You all lived up over them? H: Yes, we lived over them. So, they brought us downstairs in the hallways. I'm standing there near a door and at first everything is quiet. After a while the folks started talking and it got noisier and nosier. So, one of the officers, they had these sawed-off rifles and riot guns, one of the officers said, "Hey you niggers down there keep quiet!" I'm standing there near the wall. I said, "You're kind of hard boiled, aren't you?" One of the officers said, "You don't like it?" He reached over across my shoulder and struck me on the face. It didn't hurt me. I didn't do a thing. They would've killed us like flies if I had. I didn't try anything. I didn't have a chance. It made me mad. Sometime later, some of the Negro faculty came into the building. I: Were there any grown people there? H: No, there wasn't any of the faculty there. I: They just came in the dorm? H: No, the president was there. They just came in the dorm. A little later the dean and some other members of the faculty came in and went into their offices, then they came out and ushered us in small groups into the office and asked us to sign a pledge of loyalty to the administrators. When I Harrison 21 went in they asked me to sign. I said, "I'm not signing anything." They ushered me out into another room. [inaudible] I: They separated you from… H: Yeah. Closed the door and go on with the rest. Some of the black faculty looked at me. So, way after while, after they and processed us, the law, they come back. They didn't forget me. They told me to go on to my room. Well, I went to my room but the next day I went downtown. J.C. Napier was one of the leading Negroes in the community. He was an outstanding person. I: What was his name? H: J. C. Napier. He was in some publishing company and he was banker too. But I went to him and told him about what had happened. He listened to me. When I got through he said, "That's what you get for being in bad company." I didn't answer. What bad company? I was with my classmates, my school, my friends, what was bad about it? I: What did he mean? H: I don't know yet but that's what he told me. "That's what you get for being in bad company." I: Did he mean that going to school and trying to get beyond where you were was bad? H: I think that he was just lost for an answer. I think that he was so conditioned to go along with the establishment with that answer. That's the only thing I can see. I: How did that make you feel? H: Well, I resented it. You know. I just had a feeling of debt for him. I think I owe my respect for him. I: Well, what happened? H: They arrested some of the students who had been spokesmen at some of our assemblies. There was one boy names George Streeter who lived in Nashville but sometimes stayed in the dormitory. He was quite a spokesman. He was not in the dormitory that night. They were looking for him. They wanted to arrest him. A boy named Johnny Andrew, from Charleston, South Carolina, a boy named Ned Goodwin from Tulsa, Oklahoma. They were spokesmen for the group. They were arrested but later turned loose. But after that incident, I came home. I left and came home for a whole month. I: Is that why you came home? H: Yes, I came home because of the strike. We went on a strike. Most of the students of the senior class left. There were some that their parents wouldn't let them leave. I had a girlfriend from Tuscaloosa, Alabama and her parents wouldn't let her leave. I don't know if it is a practice Harrison 22 but in that day the girls made mockingbirds out of all the fellows. A fellow would whistle and signal his girl to come to her window. Signals. The night that I was leaving to come home, I went to my girlfriend's window and was talking to her, telling her that I was coming home. We talked for quite a while and two of the teachers come out of the building while I was standing there talking to her. One of them broke down, "Don't tell me this is a Fisk man be standing here," as though I had committed a terrible crime. I knew she knew me. I was wondering what she was going to do to this girl. I got the impression that they might be going to discipline her because I had been standing there talking to her. It disturbed me. As I was walking away from Jubilee Hall, I ran right into the chancellor. I engaged him in conversation. I told him what had happened. I said, "Now, I want to know what they are going to do to this girl. I'm not worried about myself because they aren't going to do anything to me because I'm leaving. I can't leave until I find out whether they are going to punish her or not." He asked what happened. I told him I was standing there talking to her upstairs from her window. She was looking down. He said "Now, where was she?" I said, "She was up there in that window." I said, "She's there now." "And where were you?" I said, "I was standing down on the steps." He says, "So there wasn't a question of any sexual activity?" I said, "Not hardly with her up there." [Laughter] So, he says, "Well, I think that we can adjust that so you can go on." So, I went and told her that I wanted to hear from her. So, I did leave and came on home. I don't know now what I would have done if this particular incident had not happened. I had applied even though it was against rules. At that time sororities and fraternities were not recognized on the campus and you were not to participate in any. I had applied for membership in the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at Meharry Medical College. They were having an initiation and I had come home but they had acted favorably on my application and had sent me word to that effect. I got the letter on the day or the morning that I'm supposed to meet them. I looked at it and I said, "Six hours late, four hundred miles away." [Laughter] But I'm going and maybe I can explain it. So, I went to Nashville. I: You went back by train? H: Yes. I went back to Nashville to join the fraternity. That's why I went back. But I go out to Fisk and the lady there who was in charge of laundry, she had a strong influence on me, she urged me to go back to school. I didn't make a commitment other than I would consider it. I didn't tell her that I was going back. A problem that I had in my mind was that was my senior year and I was taking three sciences; chemistry, physics and biology. All of them were lab courses. I had lost a month's time. I really doubted that I could make up a month in those three courses in time for graduation. I had extra hours but that's a different story. I had more than the required hours for graduation. I could drop a course and still have enough hours to graduate. But Fisk had a rule in effect that at that time once you were in a course even though it was an elective, if you been in it for ten days or so, it becomes a required course for you. You understand what I'm saying. Even though it was an elective, I'd been in it too long to be able to drop it. Well, if I could drop that course and it not be required I'd re-enter. So, I went back to the dean with that proposition and told him what my problem was. He told me that he couldn't act on it but he would bring it up at the faculty meeting. He talked quite favorably. He would suggest that I not wait until that meeting but to come back. He was advising me in good faith. So, I said, "I'll just hope for the best. You realize if they turn me down, I'm not going to graduate." So, that was the way I went back. They did act. They did give me permission to drop that course from my requirements and I did graduate. We didn't have a picture made that year. We told the Board of Harrison 23 Trustees that we did not want the president's name on our diploma. They said, "Well, we think that can be taken care of. You'll have your diploma signed by the President of Board of Trustees." That's who signed my diploma. McKenzie's name was not on there. I: What ever happened with him? H: He left before commencement. I don't know what after that. I know he wasn't there for commencement. The president's home was right on the same campus area with Jubilee Hall. It's in the same perimeter. They built some other buildings around there now. The president no longer lives in that building. I forgot what it was for. They have got some other dormitories around there. The campus has become much more congested than it was. But, he left. I: So, the protest was a success? H: Yes, a huge success. I: Do you want to stop for a while? H: Yes. I was running on the railroad from here to Memphis. I decided that I wanted to do what they call on the railroad "running wild." I left here one day feeling just as fine as I feel right now. I took this car to Memphis and the next morning I went to Pullman's office and made up the biggest lie. I told him that I had taken sick and had been to the doctor and that he had given me some medicine. To make my lie effective, I had a little bottle. I had some tea in it. I said, "It's time for me to take a dose right now." I took some tea. I told him that the doctor had given me this medicine and I didn't know how it was going to affect me. That I didn't think I was equal to bringing that car back to Asheville from Memphis. I told them to get a porter in my stead. They weren't going to let me off here. They were going to keep me on the regular run. I had figured that once I got off, I'd probably be on a wild goose chase. So, it worked. They got another porter to bring that car loaded with passengers back to Asheville. I: They let you loose? H: Let me loose in Memphis. I said I wonder what they are going to say? They put me on a dead-head car (an empty pullman) and brought me back this way. I think it was a place called Florence, Alabama. The train comes through Alabama and Georgia. Well, any way it brought me to Chattanooga on the dead-head car. Well, the Elk Lodge were having a convention in Jacksonville and they got a car they needed a porter for to take some daughter elk to Jacksonville. I asked them to assign me to that trip. They said, "You are rather young." They give you a stripe every five years. I said "It's been on four years." I: You didn't have a stripe? H: No. So, they assigned me to this car. They were all young women. They were devilish and full of life. Harrison 24 I: You mean you had a train car full of women? (laughter) H: Yes. H: I was the only man in this car. I'm making down the beds. The woman in the upper berth, she isn't waiting for the stool. To reach her berth she comes and hops on my shoulder and goes to bed. Well, when I finally get all the passengers' beds made, it's time for me to go to bed. You go in the smoker and make your bed on the sofa in the smoker and pull the curtain. I went in there to pull the curtain and made my bed. The next thing I know the sheets and all being pulled off me and they just flying. I didn't get any sleep. They were just hilarious and having themselves a good time at my expense. The next morning, that afternoon rather, some guy from the other car saw what the situation was. He decided that he was going to come in and have some fun. So, he comes in and takes a seat. "Porter!! Come here! Where is the conductor?" I said, "What's the matter fellow?" "We chartered this car and we were told that you were to be the only man in here! Where is the conductor?" (laughter) His ears reddened and he looked crestfallen and he flew. They just died laughing! They harassed me. The only redeeming factor was when they got off that train in Jacksonville they paid off like Chinamen. They tipped me very liberally. But I hadn't got any rest that night. so, I was beat. I went to the quarters and went to bed. I woke up late in the afternoon and got my shower and starter dressing. There were porters there from all over the country. The caretaker was a fatherly old man. He saw us. He said, "Young men, I want to talk to you a minute." He says, "Feelings are pretty high here in Jacksonville now." He said, "Recently somebody has killed a policeman, Kelly. They haven't caught him, and any strange black man is a suspect. You are all strangers here so don't go out of the beaten path. It's all right to go in the main part of town. But don't wonder off because they will be likely to pick you up." I said, "O.K." I go into the station and look around. I hear the porter call, "Buddy, I don't mean no harm but you a stranger in town. These crackers are wrong. I wouldn't be out if I were you. I'd go in." "Thank you." I go across and get some postcards and some stamps and I go on back to quarters. There is going to be a parade the next morning at ten o'clock. I get up and go downtown to see the parade. The crowd is gathering. There is a little black child standing there near me. A big white man looking at me like, "Stop that kid! Don't no damn nigger stand in front of me." Good God!! That made my blood boil. I said, "Let me get out of this place." So, I went back to the quarters and stayed until I got assigned out of there. They assigned me on a car to New York from Jacksonville. I found out that car in Washington was going to be picked up on the Pennsylvania train out of Washington. I wanted to take the Asheville car to New York. I was glad of that because I would have a porter from Asheville who knew the city. It was Jay Harper. He took me and showed me around. Well, from New York they gave me a car. College kids going to Cornell at Ithaca. I took this car to Ithaca, New York. I'd go into Ithaca to get my breakfast and when I come back to the car, it's gone. I don't know where it is and nobody around there can tell me. There were several car loads of students but they didn't take them all. They took a few of them and mine were the ones that were gone. In a little while an engine comes up and hooks onto some more. I jump into one of them. I didn't want to be left there. I don't know where it's going. But we started on back and way down the road we overtake my car. It was on the side tracks somewhere. I jumped off and get in my car. Then they send me down to Washington. Washington gives me a car for the passage back to Jacksonville. Well, I didn't want to go to Jacksonville because I saw Jacksonville on that experience. But the man insist that I take Harrison 25 it and I do so. When we get in Jacksonville, I ask for the assignment home and the signup man said, "You have to wait until the morning." I said, "Ummh. I'm not going to wait anywhere. I'm going home tonight." So, I went to the train and the Pullman conductor was a man that I knew. I saw him and I told him that I wanted him to take me back home. That I'd come in to sign out. He wouldn't sign me back. He says, "Well, I can't take you home." I said, "Well, I'm going if I have to go by coach." So, he let me walk the distance of the length of the car and then he called me. He said, "Harrison, did the sign out man tell you that you can't go home?" I said, "No, he didn't tell me that because I'm going!" He said he couldn't send me. He says, "Put your bag in the locker and get over the blind side of the train until it pulls out and then come on in." I did that. I put my bag in the locker and got on the blind side of the train. It wasn't but fifteen or twenty minutes before it pulled out. In a few minutes I came on back. He brought me home. That could have happened here in Asheville. I: Things were that bad down there? H: Yes. But I saw it happen in Jacksonville. It just made that impression on me. Knocked this little innocent kid down. I: In other places that you would go, what were things like? Say, like in New York. What were things like and why? H: Well, I guess I was so excited being a youngster, the country so to speak, I got engrossed with the crowds. I guess I was frustrated and bewildered a lot. I know in New York, for instance, riding around on subways, you don't see much because you're under the ground. You don't realize distances in where you are going. I remember I was in a subway station and hadn't been there ten minutes before somebody I knew came up to me. I met Jimmy Lunsford up there one time. Then another time a chinaman came to me wanting to know which train to take to Chinatown. I didn't have the slightest idea. He didn't know that I was a stranger. He was just lost too. I went over to Coney Island. There was a porter from here named Sam Taylor. That was an experience. At this Coney Island there was a place there where you tried your strength. If you hit something, the ball would go up to register how much force. I got too close. The rebound knocked me down and knocked me out for a moment. Didn't hurt me, just winded me. When I came to and all these folks standing over me, scared me to death. [laughter] I When did you finish Meharry? H: 1929. I: That was a bad year to finish, wasn't it? H: Yes, sir! You can say that again. That was a Depression year. I: How would you recall your days at Meharry? H: As I said, we didn't have any graduation and such. We didn't take any pictures of the infamous class at Fisk. But when I graduated from Meharry, my parents came to my graduation Harrison 26 in '29. I'm in Meharry and my brother is in Morehouse. My sister is in Fisk. Daddy is catching hell. My parents come to Nashville for my graduation. They stayed with this lady that I told you about earlier. When they come home, I want to say in Nashville and take the Tennessee Board of Medical Exam. Members of my class and four fellows from Vanderbilt studied together and we take the Tennessee Board of Medical Exam. I have been accepted for internship at city Hospital of st. Louis, Missouri. It's been a sacrifice for my parents to come from Asheville to Nashville for my graduation. I don't have money to be coming from Nashville here and then go from here to st. Louis. So, I'm gonna stay in Nashville at the frat house and work around and then go from Nashville to St. Louis which is closer. That's what I do. I go directly from Meharry to St. Louis and start my internship. They pay the interns, room, board, and laundry and twenty-five dollars a month. I: That wasn't a whole lot of money to try and live in St. Louis on? But then you could do other things. H: I had my barber tools. I barbered right there in the hospital. I don't know where they got this idea or why they did that. But they withheld fifteen dollars a month. They gave you ten dollars a month and at the end of your internship, they gave you the lump sum of one hundred and eighty dollars, fifteen times twelve. I: How long was intern? H: Twelve months. They gave you one hundred and eighty dollars, fifteen times twelve. Every two weeks the Wells Fargo money wagon came by. They call the names and they give you a crisp five dollar bill but the nurses didn't get anything. They gave the nurse training free but they didn't get any pay. [laughter] I: The training was free? H: Yes, but they didn't get any pay. One other thing, I did not start my practice in Asheville. I'm going to explain. It's a long explanation about that. My internship was from July 1st to July 1st. The State Board of Medical Examiners of North Carolina met in Raleigh June 15th. and I knew that. If St. Louis would have released me to go from st. Louis to Raleigh for that examination and then come back and finish, I wouldn't have had the money to finance it. So, I didn't even try for that. I didn't even consider that. I said I'll miss that Board meeting but later on I'll take it. That's what I said to myself. So, I completed my internship. I passed the Tennessee Board. I passed the Missouri Board. I got those two Boards. I come back to North Carolina to take the North Carolina Board later. So, I came home in July and began inquiring about the North Carolina Board. "It's just met." 'Yes, I know but when is the next meeting?' "Next June." "You don't meet but once a year?" "No, they have a meeting in December but it's kind of an executive meeting." Can I get reciprocity or something? I've completed my course and my internship." says, " There is no way I could get any kind of license temporarily in North Carolina. You have to wait and take the Board next June." I said, "I can't twiddle my thumbs for twelve months. I have to start practice somewhere." Tennessee was closer than Missouri. So, here I go down to Tennessee, start my practice there. Then take the North Carolina Board. Harrison 27 I: You wanted to get back to Asheville? H: Yes. So, we go to the Richbury Motor place around the corner of cox and Hilliard Street and buy a brand new Ford. We decided to go down to Knoxville. I said "Dad, since I'm not going to be in North Carolina." You didn't have to have driver's license then. You did have to have license for the car but you didn't have to have driver's license. Just put license on the car and drive it. I said, "Dad, I'm not going to be in North Carolina. There isn't any point of my buying a North Carolina driver's license. Wait until I get to Tennessee and buy my license there." My dad said, "That is an idea, but you don't know, or we'll be liable to be stopped and questioned about somebody. You don't know how to talk to southern folks so you better let me do all the talking. Give me the papers and let me do all the talking." I said, "O.K." I gave him the papers. We get in the car and drive through Marshall, Hot Springs and Newport. I: You went through Madison County? H: Yes. We stopped along the way and got some soft drinks. We went down into Knoxville to that section of town which redevelopment has done away with now which was comparable to Market and Eagle Streets, Central and Vine Streets. I: Central and Vine? H: Yes. I got out and went to visit the various black doctors. I think about seven, telling them I'm a young physician prospecting, coming, and thinking about casting my lot among you. What about it? To a man they told me in substance we commend you, congratulations. We welcome you with open arms but we aren't making any money. We doubt you will. We believe there are better fields. In substance that's what they told me. I thanked them and I told them I'd look and see. So, then I went up to Greenville, Johnson City and Bristol. I: Was your dad with you at that time? H: Yes. Before leaving Knoxville, Dad's with me, but when I go to see these doctors he didn't go with me. I left him in the car. He gets tired of waiting and decides to walk around a little bit. When I come back to the car • police cars have surrounded my car front and back. A crowd come up like ants out of the ground. I told them I was looking for a place to practice medicine. "Well, what about this car?" I said, "I'm from North Carolina and I bought the car there. But I wasn't going to live there." Finally, one of them says, "We believe what you say, but the laws of Tennessee say that you can't drive a car without a license on it. Now, as long as that car is there, we aren't going to bother it but the very moment you move that car, we are going to arrest you." Some fellow heard them and came up to me and told me that he had a truck that he could carry me anywhere I wanted to and I wouldn't have to worry about that. In the meantime, Dad finally comes up and he shows them the paper. I say, "I'm ready to buy a license." The license bureau was closed. One of the fellows went somewhere, I don't know where but he came back and told me that he had called the license bureau man and told him the story. He was coming back and going to open up and sell me a license. It was all right decent that he did. I: Yes, it was. Were you far from it? Harrison 28 H: Uh? I: Were you far from where you get the license? H: No. I wasn't far from it. "What is your name?" "Howard Kenneth Harrison." "What is your address? "46 Ridge Street, Asheville, North Carolina?" He said, "You can't buy a license and you from North Carolina." He said, "You've got to have a Tennessee address." I said, "I haven't got one. H: I just got here." He said "You can't get a license without one. Well, Dad had an old letter from a train porter. In fact, we were going to see him about a place to stay that night. We pulled out that letter and took his address and gave that address as my address. That's how I got my first automobile license. We went out to his house and he kept us for the night. We left the next day. I: It's amazing that he could stay with you during that, while you were looking. H: He went with me. I think we, my brother, my sister, and I, well, there was a fourth one of us but she died in infancy. The three of us who lived, I think we were very fortunate and very grateful. Our parents were not trained people. They didn't have a whole lot of material things. But they were wholesome solid citizens, devoted to the family. I think my parents sacrificed their lives for all of us. I don't know whether we deserved it, but I think they did. I don't think there is anything in the world my father or my mother would not have done for us. I thoroughly appreciate it. I: Where did you set up your first practice? H: In Bristol, Tennessee. I: What was it like when you got there? H: They had . . . I: Well, how did you choose Bristol? H: Well, I looked at Johnson City, and I looked at Kingsport. I even looked at Greeneville. In Kingsport, while I was there, a professor from Meharry, a West Indian, was in Kingsport. He taught about geology. His name was Dent. He was a sharp-talking person. He was quick. "Harry, what you doing here?" He was there doing his survey. Studying something about the state, something about tuberculosis. "What you doing in Kingsport?" I'm prospecting. I'm looking over a field to start practice." "You want to come here and starve to death?" Then he went on talking about… I left Kingsport right quick. From his tone, that wasn't any good place to go. I go to Bristol and there is a doctor there who is revered in our community. There is another doctor and his wife there, both of them were physicians. This other doctor was a West Indian, but the one who was well thought of was from the western part of the state. The people really loved him. Almost to a man, the people would say, "We've got Dr. Reggy here and we really love him, but Harrison 29 they are working him to death. Please come and give him some relief. He needs help. We love him to death but he needs some help." Well, I thought that was a wholesome attitude. If that was the attitude… I: If that was the case, it sure wouldn't… H: So, I found this dentist who had an office in a building, one half a block from the state line that divided Tennessee and Virginia, in his office one half a block from State Street. The building was in disrepair but there was an empty building upstairs across the street that was available. The business down below was white. A white electrical shop but we could get the place upstairs. It was roomy. Plenty of room for him. Plenty of room for me and my housing as a single man. I could live there. The dentist was open to suggestion and agreed to unit and join. He moved over and we opened up fast on Fifth Street in Bristol. I: so, your first practice was on Fifth Street in Bristol in the city? H: Yes. I: You lived in the same place? H: Yes. I: Well, how did it go for you? H: Well, it was rough. When I say rough, those were the rough times. Those were the Depression years. I worried about making money. Now, teachers were making about $600 dollars a year, making less than a hundred dollars a month. A principal was doing well to make a thousand dollars, principal of a high school. I: A year? H: Yes. I don't know if you heard of Mr. Hauth or not but he came here, I think it was in 1937. He made $75 a month. S: How long did you stay in Bristol? H: I told you I stayed there until I could get my license. I stayed in Bristol for ten years. I couldn't leave. I was just struggling that's all. I finally came on to Asheville from Bristol around Labor Day in 1941, I believe, when the war was going to gather. That's a long story. In the spring of 1940, I left Bristol and went up to Howard University and did three months post graduate study at Freedman Hospital. The war clouds were covering them there then. We made this field trip, this group of us. We made a field trip to Hopkins in Baltimore. Then we made one to Graduate Hospital in Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, I met a young physician who was eager to get into the army. He had applied but the army didn't seem interested. There was a senior at Howard who was trying to get in the army. They didn't seem to be interested. Harrison 30 I: This was World War I? H: World War II. This is 1940-41. I'm getting literature in Tennessee from the various agencies and having known of these men that the army rebuked. I read it and tear it up. I come to Asheville and open an office and I'm here just a little while before some other man comes and has me enclosed in the Arcade building for medical man. They had allied men, doctors, dentists, pharmacists. The subject of this talk was the army needed physicians and they needed more than the medical whole could supply. They'd have to come from the civilian population. They were inviting the physicians to apply for commissions. It would be commissioned to army officers. The implication was if you don't apply, you'll probably be drafted as privates. He didn't say that. The implications were that if you'll volunteer and apply, you'll automatically be conferred a commission. Well, I applied and was commissioned. I was commissioned first lieutenant and Roy Ralston was commissioned captain. I was later promoted to captain. I spent four years in service department. I left here in the middle of July in 1942. I was in the service until May of 1946. I went overseas before I came back. In retrospect, I firmly believed if I had not moved to come to Asheville at the time that I did, I could have missed the service. I think I would have been declared essential to my community in Bristol had I stayed there. I was too new in Asheville. That's an assumption. I: Well, it's probably right. Yeah, I see your point. You had established yourself in Bristol and you were providing a service. H: The senior Negro physician there. There was another one but I was the senior one there. I think that is true. I didn't make a good soldier. I didn't adapt well to service. I wasn't military minded. Some of the time I'll show it to you. I can't get my hand on it now. But I got some talk about the army. I think you'd be interested. I'll be glad to show you. I: What was the army like? Was it segregated? H: Oh, was it! I should say. I got a telegram from the war department telling me that I had been declared available and this was my advising to go to the nearest place and take a physical. That scared me. I went down to Camp Croft in South Carolina. I stayed down there all day for an examination. They give me a very complete and thorough examination. So far as I know the only thing they found was a suspicious finding in my urine as a possibility of diabetes. They told me that they would want to check me every day for a week. I said, "I live in Asheville." I asked if there was any doctor or laboratory in Asheville. "No, we are going to make that test here at Camp Croft." I: In other words, you aren't going anywhere. H: Yes. I said, "Well, shoot." Well, I came on back home and went back the next day. I went down to Camp Croft everyday for a week, to pee, and then turn around and come back home. [laughter] I: You mean? Harrison 31 H: Yes, I did. Didn't take long. I was accepted and commissioned and my first assignment, I was commissioned first lieutenant, and my first assignment was for Fort Sill, Oklahoma. I was embarrassed any number of times on the train. Soldiers I'd meet and they'd see me in uniform and see that I was an officer and they'd start saluting. I didn't know a thing about saluting,.. I hadn't had any military instructions other than get into the uniform and get out to Fort Sill. So, I go to Fort Sill and the guard at the gate checks me and then he calls over to station hospital and they send a jeep for me. They come and get me and take me to my outfit. I'd been assigned to a medical sanitary company. An officer in a medical sanitary company, now, what is a medical sanitary company? A medical sanitary company, I don't know what the book would say about it but my definition of a medical sanitary company is a company of men of low intelligence whose duties are to be flunkies around the hospital, orderlies and what not. I: And here you are with a medical degree. H: Yes. I'm to be an officer over those men to do that. All of my work is administrative. If my men get sick, they've got to go to a medical place for sick calls. I can't attend them. The biggest thing I do is sign my name on a lot of papers that my sergeant types up, not much difficulty. Well, that was boring and very distasteful. Every once in a while, an inspector would come by and I remember one came in particular and he was very nice but he criticized my work. I listened to him and I was just full of… I said, "I don't resent what you are saying. I think you are thoroughly justified and it is true." I said, "Maybe you feel that I should feel kind of bad about it but I don't." I said, "Now, if you ask me how to treat pneumonia and I couldn't tell you or arthritis or some other medical disorders, I can't tell you. I'd feel bad because that was what I was trained to do." I said, "But I don't know this and I wasn't interested in it. The only thing I feel bad is I've been misassigned." Well, he looked at me and he reddened and he said that I was a company commander and that was quite a position of importance and authority, that I should feel proud of my company duties. But I get tired of all that stuff and write to the commanding general, the services command. That's the letter I want to show you sometime. I can't put my hand on it right now. I wrote a long letter and told him that I was very unhappy and that if the army didn't have any place in medicine for me to please release me and let me go back to my community where I can be of service. In the army when you write the higher authority, they've got a certain chain of commands they go through. You are supposed to send it through channels. I don't know all the channels but I sent that through channels. The first stop was the station hospital. My letter went to the station hospital and then on to the camp commander and then to post-commander and then on up. Each one of them had to make some types of notation on it. So, mine went to the station hospital commander. He sent his sergeant major to inquire as to what it was all about. I thought he was trying to be funny, get nasty. He said, "Well, we'll see what we can do. Maybe we can send you overseas and you can work in some of those remote areas and use roots and herbs and things and make your own medicine and what not." I said, "If I was interested in research, what you're saying would probably make an appeal but I've made no pretense at such. My field is the active practice of standard medicine. That's what I'm prepared for and that's all I'm interested in doing. If the army has no • place for me to do that, then I want a release to go back and do that." The thing was going on through channels. I don't know where all it went. But the hospital commanding officer is the one I heard from directly, immediately. In the meantime, while this letter is going on and being processed and acted on, the war department in Washington sends an order down transferring me to a Camp Tyson somewhere in Tennessee. Harrison 32 The letter that I wrote goes to the fifth service command and they transferred me from this medical sanitary company to Station Hospital at Camp Livingston, Louisiana which is about forty miles from where I was stationed. I go right over there and am assigned to a ward in this 3300 bed, Army hospital which is right in line with my work. That was the answer to my letter. When this thing comes from the war department which is the head of it all, my order is in conflict, the question is what will prevail and I'm over here wondering what's going to happen. They write me. This captain in Tennessee is writing to find out what is happening. The man who took my place at this medical sanitary, he's getting this communication and he let's me see it. Turns out I'm wondering what's going to happen. Letting those who are in position to act to let them act even though it is concerning me. I don't know what the service commander tells the war department. Probably the war department will rescind the action and leave me alone. Even though they ordered me to go to Camp Tyson, I, 'never go. I stayed at the hospital, Fort Clark, Texas, and then I come back to Livingston and then they sent me to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. Then Fort Huachuca assigns me as a medical officer to a tank destroyer battalion. Then we are committed to overseas. That's where I stayed until I come back, discharged. I: How was segregation in the army? H: It was just as bad as you can think of. I met Jackie Robinson and he couldn't take it. He had some trouble. He had some trouble with the military police and in Texas. I don't know any particulars but he couldn't adjust. They realized that he didn't fit. I think that was one of the reasons that he got out so easily. He got out the service on some kind of technicality. He didn't get a disability discharge. Yet, I think it was a disability discharge. I think it was his personality and his attitude or what not did facilitate in getting the discharge. They had all sorts of clubs that black officers were not welcomed to. It was . • • I'm just thinking from experiences. When I was sent overseas, my outfit, some 750 men, was the only black unit of this entire ship. My outfit was the only black soldiers on there. In my outfit we had a black warrant officer and I am the only black commissioned officer. I am a captain. On the ship they house you according to your rank. All first lieutenants in one compartment regardless of what your area is. If you're a chaplain or a line officer or what not. If you were a captain, all the captains were in the same place. I'm in with the captains. There are twenty-four of us in this compartment. Two bunks, I got a little bunk. Next to me, there was a chaplain that had been to the Aleutian Islands. The things that I remembered about him, he got terribly seasick. He was really seasick. He just couldn't keep anything on his stomach. He just stayed nauseated all the time. Yet, he had to go through "abandon ship" drill every day just like the regulars. I looked at him with sympathy. I guess. I said that it was providential that it happened to him. If it would have happened to me, if I had gotten that sick, there would have been no way in the world that anybody could have convinced me that it didn't because I was black. But it happened to him suddenly. I had an experience on that ship, a very distasteful experience. First day I went to breakfast and went to lunch and seated myself with the other officers and come on back to the compartment. Later on that evening my commanding officer comes to me and tells me that there had been some objections to my being served seated in mess hall. Rebels were still fighting the damn Civil War! He said, "Well, anyway the ship commander has set aside a table for you and the warrant officer to sit in the mess hall. "hell! But I didn't say anything. Well, that made me mad as He left. I decided then and there, no, I'm not going in that mess hall. I'm going to report this thing to the black press and they won't like it too well. They will publicize it. I might even get sick. Cause if I do, they'll put me in Harrison 33 a sick bay and give me meals there. I said I'm not going to that table. That's what I said to myself. So when suppertime came and the other fellows begin going, I just laid down on my bunk. I didn't go anywhere. So, sometime after that, my commanding officer came back to see me. By this time I had a chance to kind of get my thoughts together. I had learned earlier that in the army you can tell you superior anything that's on your mind as long as you put enough sirs in it, not to be guilty of insubordination. So, when he came back, I was ready for him. "Well, Harrison, how was your dinner?" I said, "Colonel, I didn't go to supper." He said, "You didn't?" I said, "No sir." I said, Colonel, I can't go in that mess hall as long as that kind of thing is in effect." He said, Well, what did Willingham, the warrant officer say?" I said, "I don't know. I didn't see him. I didn't want to influence his thinking." He says, "Well, I want to see him" Well, in the army a superior's wishes count same way as the law. He said he wanted you to, he might well say "do it." So, I went and saw the warrant officer and told him that if they set aside a table in the mess hall, I wasn't going. He said, "If you're not going, I'm not neither." I: Was he black? The warrant officer? H: Yes. We were the only two black officers on the ship. He said, "All right, we won't go." They had announced that night they were having a rec hall up in the mess hall, see movies and write letters and that sort. And the warrant officer, he said, "I don't play cards." I said, "Oh, yeah. We've got to go up there. We've got to participate. We got to go and do all." So, we went up and when we got there, the officer in charge says, "Why, we missed you gentlemen at supper. You weren't at supper." "No, we weren't there and we won't be there as long as that arrangement." He says, "What do you mean?" I said, "We are not coming as long as a special table is set up for us. He says, "What do you mean?" I said, "We mean just that." He says, "Oh, Captain, you can't starve for two weeks." I said, "That's just a matter of opinion, you'll just have to wait and see." [laughter] I: You were threatened to do it. H: Yes. So, we went on in and we played awhile. so, later that evening, my commanding officer came by and met me going to the toilet. He said, "I've been looking for you." He says, "Well, it's been a war going on." He said, "All that stuff I said about where to sit, just forget about it." He said, "Go in that mess hall and sit anywhere you want to." He said, "I have only one request to make. When you go in, pick any table that you want to, but pick a table that has not yet been occupied so you'll be the first one at that particular table. But any part in the mess hall you can go." I thanked him and told him yes. Well, the next morning I was a bit shaky but the warrant officer and I went in together. The ship was just going. That mess hall looks bigger than ever. I: And I guess you were right hungry too? H: Yes. I was hungry. We walk and sit at a table for four. One of the officers came and sat down with us. At lunch we sat at a bigger table for eight. Some others sat but they didn't fill the table up, just some of them sat there. My commanding officer sat with a higher-ranked officer. He watched us. After that we just sat around anywhere. We didn't even sit at the same table. If I had agreed to that segregated table, we'd have to sit at that table. Harrison 34 I: Forever? H: Yes. That's just telling you some of the stuff we went through. We caught the devil! I: When did you come out? H: 1946. I: Did you come back to Asheville? H" Yeah. I came back to Asheville. I: started the practice again? H: Started my practice back. When I left from Asheville I kept my office in the Wilson Building; I didn't ever give it up. I paid rent just like I was in practice. I didn't realize it but during war times, things went up in the rent world but they couldn't increase my rent. They thought I was taking advantage of them. I wasn't taking advantage of them. I was just maintaining office space. I: Trying to hold your place? H: That's right. I: When you came back in 1946, what did you come back to? How was Asheville then in terms of education for blacks and equality? How was that when you came back? H: Oh, segregation, was in full swing. You had to go in back of theaters and sit on the back of the bus. You couldn't eat in these cafe areas. In the city auditorium, you had to sit in the balcony. I: How was it for you as a doctor and having patients? What did you do for hospital facilities? H: When I left here in 1941, there was the Shuford Clinic operated by Dr. Mary Frances Shuford. It's located over on College Street. It has now been done away with. It was a house that had once been a residence and had been converted into a makeshift hospital. The surgery that was done there was done by Dr. Justice. He would bring his nurses and sterile supplies from Mission Hospital over there and do the surgery in the Shuford Clinic in the operating room. The woman in charge was the head nurse, chief nurse, and what not. She had black assistants. When I came back in 1946, they had opened the colored hospital down where Jessie Ray's Funeral Home is. I: So that was the colored hospital? H: Yes. All the black physicians were on the staff down there but there were just a few white physicians in specialty fields. I: What type of practice did you have? Did you ever . . . It looked like the last thing black people would have had money for didn't pay the doctor or insurance or something? Harrison 35 H: Well, that's true. They didn't have. I: With families like my dad, kids and no money? H: They didn't have it. I have in my possession a letter from a woman whom I attended. She lived at the time in the Montford area. She was not able to pay the bills. She later went to Tennessee and did better and sent me money and appreciation. It's rather pathetic. It gives you a sense of appreciation of human nature and the good that people will do if they are able. Hers was a matter of want. She just didn't have it. I: I expect that you did a lot of free service too, didn't you? H: Yes. In those days, when guys got into fights, cursing and shooting. They didn't go to the hospital. They went to the black doctor's office. All that blood and stuff, and you sew them up. They ain't got nothing to pay you. Not only have you lost your material but you got to clean up your office from all that blood. [laughter] I: Did you enjoy the practice? H: I thoroughly enjoyed practicing medicine. That was a part of it that just had to be done. I had experiences during my internship that conditioned me for a lot of that. You had a lot of touching experiences during your internship. You saw excessive, extreme conditions, some of which you never seen in private practice. There was a man who had an extreme liver condition whereby his abdomen was full of fluid. You just don't see much of that nowadays. You draw out a large quantity of fluid at a time. But an experience that I'll never forget, during that internship, a man came in with what we call acute urinary retention. He couldn't pass his water. He had a stricture in his penis. He was just scared and the water wouldn't pass. He had been to a physician, a white physician down in St. Louis. The physician had tried unsuccessfully to get into his bladder. I worked with him diligently and was finally able to get into his bladder. I won't go into particulars about him. We had what you call a filiform, little quill-like thing that you stick into the penis canal and take it as far as it would go and then add another. Finally, one would go all the way into the bladder. Then you took and threaded a catheter over it and went into his bladder. When I threaded this catheter and finally got into his bladder, the urine came out. The first that came out looked like coffee grounds and it frightened me because I was expecting it to look like urine. That was dried blood that had given it this color, but finally it cleared out. Before I got his bladder completely empty, the man was sound asleep. He had been in so much misery that when he got relief, he went to sleep. I: He was tired? H: Yes, he was exhausted. Well, we left his catheter in place but we had to operate on him later. They had a urologist do the surgery. We assisted him. When he completed the major part of the surgery, when he got the drain out and all, he left the closing up for us. That's when we were in training. He was white. But it was done under local anesthesia. The patient was not put to sleep. He was awake while all this was going on. As the urologist had completed his part, he turned it Harrison 36 over to us. The patient says, "Doctor, you not gonna leave me here with all these niggers, are you?" [laughter) I: Now, I'll tell you something, that's a bad situation to ask a question, isn't it? Going to be left in there with you. What did he say to him?" H: The urologist grinned and just flew out of there. He didn't give him any answer. That surgeon went out. [laughter) I: It's good you can laugh about it. Could you laugh about it then? H: No. I'm the one that gave him his first relief after some white doctor had torn him all up and made him bleed inside. I: And he acted like that? [laughter) H: Yes. In private practice, I had one that equals it. I'm not going to call his name. You might recognize him. The man came to me in office on Eagle Street. He had a stricture. He didn't stop. He wanted me to open up this stricture. I put him on the table and attempted and was unsuccessful. I wasn't as enthusiastic as I was during my internship. This was years later and I'd gotten more conservative. I said, "I'm sorry but I can't." He said, "Oh, go ahead, Doc." Dr. Miller used to do this for me and he never had trouble." He said go ahead. I said, "No, I'm going to send you a to a specialist." Dr. Belcher, who is now dead, was in the City Hall. I called Dr. Belcher and told him my problem. He said, "Send him right over and I'll take care of him." So, I told the man to go over to Dr. Belcher's office in City Hall. He goes down and catch a cab. The cab drive says, Where are you going?" "Going to City Hall." He says, "Na, you go to my doctor." I: That's something a man will take advice from a cab drive about his health. H: Well, that thing kind of irked me. I: Do you ever go to Livingstone's Homecoming? Do you ever go back? Never have? H: I've been on the campus once for comparison. When I was there few years ago, I came through the campus and made mental comparisons of changes and additions. The library was under construction when I was there. It wasn't even there. They didn't have the building.

Howard Harrison is interviewed by Edward Clark Smith on June 11, 1987 as a part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project. Harrison was born in 1903 on Hill Street in Asheville. His father operated the first Black barbershop in the area and Harrison began working there at the age of 12. He attended high school at Livingstone College, college at Fisk University, and medical school at Meharry Medical College, where he graduated in 1929. He made his way through college as a barber and a Pullman porter on the railroad. About 1931 he started a medical practice in Bristol, Tennessee and in 1941 started a practice in Asheville. He was drafted in 1942, and returned to a very segregated Asheville in 1946 where he continued practicing medicine.

• Creator
  • Harrison, Howard K. (Howard Kenneth), 1903-1992
• Contributor
  • Smith, Edward Clark
• Format
  • Sound recordings
  • Transcripts
  • Interviews
• Type
  • Sound
  • Text
• Date
  • Date interview: 1987-06-11
  • Date: 1900s (Decade); 1910s; 1920s; 1930s; 1940s;
  • Date digitized: 2019-08-29
• Extent
  • Duration: 3:12:26 (sound recording)
  • Duration: 36 pages (transcript)
• Subject - Topic
  • African American barbers
  • African American families
  • African American physicians
  • African American schools
  • African American veterans
  • African Americans
  • African Americans -- Education
  • African Americans -- Social conditions
  • Autobiography
  • Barbers
  • Enslaved persons
  • Harrison, Howard K. (Howard Kenneth), 1903-1992 -- Interviews
  • North Carolina -- Race relations -- History -- 20th century
  • Pullman porters
  • Segregation -- North Carolina -- Buncombe County
  • United States. Army -- Military life
  • World War, 1939-1945 -- Personal narratives
  • World War, 1939-1945 -- Veterans
• Location
  • Asheville (N.C.)
  • Buncombe County (N.C.)
  • North Carolina, Western
  • Tennessee, East
• Source institution
  • Western Carolina University
• Source Collection
  • Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project
• Identifier
  • HL_MSS98-03_Smith_Harrison_1987-06-11
• Repository
  • Western Carolina University Hunter Library