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Interview with Otylia Sudderth

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  • Otylia Sudderth is interviewed by Lorraine Crittenden on May 8, 1986 as a part of the Western North Carolina Tomorrow Black Oral History Project. The audio of the interview is unavailable, but the transcript is. Born in 1912, Sudderth’s maternal grandparents were brought over from Africa by Colonel Thomas of Cherokee, presumably William Holland Thomas. Sudderth moved to Cullowhee as a child and talks about race relations in Jackson County and her experience with segregation. She discusses the Depression, black soldiers, and the Civil Rights movement.
  • Sudderth 1 WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA TOMORROW BLACK ORAL HISTORY PROJECT Interviewee: Otylia Sudderth Interviewer: Lorraine Crittenden County: Jackson Date: May 8, 1986 Duration: 16 pages; no audio Lorraine Crittenden: Mrs. Suddarth, has your family always lived in NC? Otylia Suddarth: No. I: Where did they live before? S: Well, My father was a well-digger and he moved around and we moved around with him. So we lived in Georgia, South Carolina, I: Where was he originally from? S: Mhmm he was from Hayesville, North Carolina. I: But he went to the different places to work? S: To work, yeah, wherever he could find work. I: Was your mother from North Carolina.? S: Yes, born and reared in North Carolina, yes. I: Would you please trace your family history as far back as you can remember, perhaps beginning with your mother's grandmother or great-grandmother, as far back as you remember. S: Well, mhmm, I can't give it to you as far back as I remember, because a lot of it was told to me. I: That's fine. S: And, mhmm, I can't give it back as far as I remember, because I didn't know them, but I was told about them. What I know is from my grandfather, Bill King, William King, from his generation on down, and that was my mother's father. I: Now, where did he live? Sudderth 2 S: He lived, well he lived here in Jackson County. He lived at Webster. I: And what did he do for a living? S: Well, he farmed, and uh, horse traded and things like that. I: So he owned horses? S: Yes, mules. I: Mules? S: Mules. I: Now was the farming primarily for his family or did he sell the produce? S: No, that was primarily for his family. I: But for money to buy the things that you couldn't make or grow he sold uh, cattle? S: Cattle. I: Mhmm, huron. S: And studded mules. I: Oh, did he own the land? S: Yes. I: And this was in Webster? S: Webster, yes. I: What else can you tell me about your grandfather? S: Well, he was, he was a kind gentle man. Very loving with his children, and uh, he had uh, he had very intelligent outlook for a man at that time of living. I: What do you mean? Sudderth 3 S: Well I mean, he was a very intelligent man. I: Did he have much education? S: Well, I uh, I, not too much, he didn't finish high school. I: Do you know how he acquired his property? S: Uh, yes, he bought it. I: He bought it? S: He bought it. I: So would you say that your grandfather was well to do? S: No, I wouldn't say he was well to do, but he was a good liver. Good country liver. I: What about your grandmother? S: My grandmother, well you see, my grandfather was married twice. My grandmother that had the children by him, was named Amanda Casey and she was tall, African woman. She came from Africa, when she was, her mother and family came from Africa when she was seven years old. And they were brought back, Colonel Thomas found them in Qualla, NC. I: On the Indian reservation? S: No, Qualla's not on the Indian reservation. I: It's in the boundary. S: It's in the boundary of it. I: So, that he was in Africa, and brought your grandmother and her family? S: He, no, no. My grandmother's family, her father and her mother came from Africa and a white man in Qualla, bought them. Named Colonel Thomas. I: Did he buy them as slaves? S: Yes. Sudderth 4 I: Now I understand. S: Un huh. I: And they lived on the Qualla boundary? S: Yes, until just before he died. I: The Colonel? S: Yes. And then he gave each one of his slave's children the land at Cullowhee. I: He gave your grandfather… S: My grandmother. I: Grandmother, land. S: Yeah, uh huh. My grandmother married this here William Casey from [Bell] He didn't come from Africa. He was always here in Jackson County, and you know, around in the little counties here in North Carolina. In western North Carolina. I: Did your grandmother pass on any of the African culture? S: Uh, no, no. Not to my knowledge she didn't. I: Why was that? S: I said not to my knowledge, she didn't. I: Do you think she was too young to remember or what? S: Too young to remember because she was only seven years old. I: When she came over here? S: Yes. Uh huh. I: Did she get an education? S: No. Sudderth 5 I: What else do you remember about your grandmother? S: Well she was tall, sturdy, stout woman, very independent. I: Did she work outside of the home? S: No. She worked at home. Her husband let her stay at home and raise the children. I: Now, this was on your mother's side. What do you remember about your father's side? S: Well my father's side of the family. He was raised with nine brothers and one sister. I: Large family. S: Yes. I: But at that time that was just about an average size family. S: Yes, an average family. Yes. They lived in Hayesville, NC and he was a well digger. And he moved about digging wells [inaudible]. I: So you were born in Georgia? S: Un hum. I: When did you come to Western North Carolina? S: When I was seven years old. I: Where did you live then? S: In Arden, North Carolina. I: What did your family do in Arden? S: Just lived there, we just lived there and he had the well company. I: Did your mother work then? S: Uh, no, not then she didn't. he would go away and work. I: Did you ever, did the family own its own home? Sudderth 6 S: Uh, no, not until after my grandmother, uh, just before my grandmother passed, and she provided the land to each one of the children. I: That's out here in Webster? S: No. That's at Cullowhee. I: In Cullowhee? So you didn't own your home in Arden? S: No. I: After you left Arden, where did you live? S: We came to Cullowhee. My mother and two children. I: Where in Cullowhee? S: Well, uh, do you know where Glen Hughes lives? I: I'm not sure I do. S: Do you know the Matillas? I: So you lived in Cullowhee in the area which is now called the Moss development? S: Yes. I: How long did you live in Cullowhee? S: Well, I stayed there, I was there until I was a young lady, about 17. And I left. I: Now, did you go to school in Cullowhee? S: Uh, I went to uh, two years in Cullowhee, then they consolidated the school, and we started coming down here to Sylva. I: And so you rode the bus to Sylva? S: Yes, I rode the bus to Sylva. I: Did all of your brothers and sisters have the opportunity to get an education? Sudderth 7 S: Yes, all of them finished high school and some went to college. I: Would you say that that was unusual during your generation? S: No, No, I wouldn't say it was unusual because most of the black people around here were sending their children to Allen Home and when they left Allen Home they were going to Raleigh to Shaw. I: Shaw University? S: Yes, mhmm, most all of them. I: And Allen Home is in Asheville? S: Yes, mhmm. I: And it later changed to Allen High School? S: Yes. And when I was there it was run by the Methodist Church. I: Was it also run by the Methodist Church then? S: I don't know I didn't go there. I: Why did the parent's send their girls to Allen? S: Well, they just, at that time they just went to the eleventh grade here in Sylva. So, they was, Allen was a good school and uh, a good disciplined school and the girls were very well taken care of and they just knew that that was a good place to send their children. I: What do you remember about the social conditions when you were growing up? By that I mean uh, graduation, income. S: Well, when I was growing up it was kind of different. My mother, she worked at that time, she was working when I was coming up. She was working at Western Carolina College as a cook. And for two years I was taught music and tutored by one of the teachers that worked up there. And after that I started going to school down here at Sylva. But my social life and my uh, education has been just a little bit different from the people that was originally raised here in Jackson County. I uh, went to school in Sylva, I worked very hard at my studies, and then after that I wasn't able to go to school. I finished high school down here. Dr. not Dr. but Professor John Davidson gave me my twelfth grade extra down here. He wanted so bad for me to go away to college, that he gave me my twelfth grade down here at the school. Sudderth 8 I: So he tutored you individually? S: Yes. mhmm, he did. And then I wasn't able to go to college so I went out on my own. I: So you started to work when you were about seventeen? S: Yes. I: Where did you work? S: Well the first family I worked for was Davidson, and then I worked for different people. I worked for Lewis Smith. I: As a domestic? S: Yes. As domestic worker, and uh, then I left. I: You left Sylva? S: Yes. I: Where did you go? S: Well, I went all around. I went to Washington, D.C. And then I just traveled. I: You did? S: Yeah. I: Now that is different. You have seen more of the United States than many of the other Jackson County residents. S: Well, I think I have. There's not many places in the United States that I haven't been. I worked very hard. And you know yourself uh, Mrs. Coleman, back then it was very hard for all the blacks that was around here. It wasn't so hard uh, to live but the wages were no good. Working for twenty-five and fifty or seventy-five cents an hour. And I don't see how we lived or how we made it back then. It was very, very hard. But, for myself I've always been kind of ambitious and got out and made and done what I wanted to do and what I wanted to have. I went to school, I worked in the afternoon, and I studied. And I had a very good social life here in Jackson County. With the black and the white, I was never segregated at a ball game or anything like that. I: You were not? Sudderth 9 S: No. See I can't sit here and say I was segregated as one of the people because I wasn't. And we had, my family had some of the nicest white friends that we were raised up with the Hensley's and the Hooper's, Bryson's, the Ledbetter's and they were all very, very nice to me. I: So there wasn't at that time too much racial tension and strife. S: There was racial tension and strife around but I didn't come in contact with it. I: Now are you saying you singularly, or the black population as a whole? S: I made the statement that you got along well with the white people in the community. White and black, I got along very, very well. I: Was there much racial tension and strife when you were growing up? S: Oh yeah. There were places you didn't go and things you didn't do. I: Such as? S: Well, you didn’t go in the restaurants and things and sit down and eat, and you didn't go to church with them. And [Inaudible] but they were nice, they were very nice. I: Do you remember the depression? S: Sure. I: What do you remember about it? S: Well, you see, uh, Jackson County as a whole, they didn't have means, whites that had more than the blacks, they all worked, everybody worked. [Inaudible] the depression, we had food, and my mother had, on the farm there, food to divide with the people, white and black, as they come along. And the depression, it was hard, and just really had to know how to manage or you didn't get along. I: Can you remember if your family ever had to go on relief during that time? S: No. No. My family never did go on relief. They offered my mother thirteen dollars a month if she would sign over the property, either the children paid for what she had gotten when she passed. My mother told them to take it right back where they brought it from, she didn't want it. I: Did your family receive stamps for the staples, like sugar? Sudderth 10 S: No. I: So you didn't have anything of the relief program? S: Not anything of the relief program, nothing, what we had we worked it out on the farm. We ate our own food, sold eggs and chickens, and things like that to get sugar and coffee and stuff like that. The corn and, the, wheat, we raised corn and we raised wheat and took it to the mill and we had it ground. And coffee and sugar and flour and stuff like that, we didn't have the wheat ground into flour, we bought flour, but my mother, she would, you know work days, and she saved the money and my father would give us money and we would buy a hundred pounds of sugar and a hundred pounds of flour in the fall. And about thirty pounds of coffee. So that would run us all winter. And uh, we would have somebody to bring it down on a wagon across the river, we used a boat for transportation across the river. And then we would pile it in the boat and bring it across the river in the boat. And then carry it on up to the house. I: So you had to ford the river to get from your house to the highway? S: To the highway, yes. I: Now if you wanted to come to town how did you get here? S: Walk. Just get up early in the morning and walk. We would leave Cullowhee about [Inaudible] not quite [Inaudible] in the morning. I: Walking? S: Yeah, walking. I: And did you not use your horse and buggy? S: No. We didn’t have a horse and buggy. I: A mule? S: No. We, I mean we had a horse, but we didn't have no buggy. But we didn't ride no horse to Sylva. I rode into Cullowhee to get the mail and things like that. I: Now you said that the depression didn't affect your family that much because you had most of everything that you needed. S: Yes, we grew our food on the land that we lived on. Corn, beans, potatoes, we had a lovely garden every spring with onions and tomatoes and everything we needed and we raised our corn and had corn meal and Sudderth 11 we raised our hogs, and we raised a yearling every year for slaughter, to have beef and we dried the beef and we cured the ham. I: So you had plenty? S: Yes. We had plenty to eat. I: What other historic event do you remember such as World War II? Were any of your brothers in the war? S: Uh, yes, my brother Sherman was in the war. My oldest brother he passed, when he was, he died when he was uh, eighteen. I: Quite young. S: Yes. I: Was there some illness? S: Uh, yes, yes. I: How long did your other brother serve, how long was he in the service? S: He was in the service, uh, oh he was in the service about four or five years, because even when he was there he fought about two years you know he was in the army about two years and then it was about three years before he could get a way to come home. I: Now, at that time, do you remember if the troops were mixed? Were mixed like black and white? S: Did you ever know a war that wasn't mixed? I: Well, if you'll remember in history the civil war. S: Yeah, well that's back before my time. I: Yeah, a long before all of our times, but there were, there was what was called the colored troop. S: Yeah. I: This wasn't so during World War II? S: No. Sudderth 12 I: And so he came back… S: That's the reason why the black boys came back and demanded their rights, because they fought with them and they ate with them and they slept with them and they died with them, so now why not could they not have their rights when they carne back. So that's where all this segregation began to get started. Because the black soldiers felt we have fought, now we have, or should have, the same rights that you do. Should have the same rights. But it was a long, long time before they got them rights. I: When the black soldier came back from World War II, what did he do? S: What did he do? I: Right. S: He just had to get out and find him some work and do the best he could. I: Did many, do you remember if many of the black men made the army a career? S: A career? I: Yes ma’am. S: Not then, they didn't. No, not then, they was just a soldier. They didn't make careers. I: Well do you think they could get better jobs? S: Well, they didn't. I: When they came back? S: They didn't. I: So they, so they returned to essentially the same thing? S: The same thing, what they left. I: Do you remember when things began to change? S: When things began to change? I: For black people. Sudderth 13 S: Uh, they began to change uh, they began to kind of change about 1939 and 1940. In the south. In the north, it was very different for black people. I: Would you describe what you are talking about? S: Yes. In the north, the black people could get better jobs, began to have their own business and things like that. And they were never really segregated like the blacks were in the south. I: Did you notice any change in the south? S: Any change? I: You said, 1939 and ‘40. S: I wasn't here. I: You were up north? S: Well, I was here, there and around. I: When do you remember things beginning to change in the north as well as in the south? S: Oh, the north has never been as segregated as the south was. [inaudible] it began to open up uh, in the second war, it opened up. I: For men and women? S: [inaudible]? I: Would you say that the greatest change occurred when Dr. Martin Luther King started the civil rights movement? S: Well, it helped a whole lot. But it was already on a change. It was already on a buildup. But it helped. I: Dr. Martin Luther King? S: That helped an awful lot. [inaudible]. I: So you're saying before his time, perhaps more individuals were making changes instead of the whole group? Sudderth 14 S: That's right more individuals. More individuals were making changes individuals made change all along, but, as a whole and as a group, no, they didn't make many changes. I: During the early days, the church was the meeting, a central meeting place for the black community. S: Yes. I: Do you find that that's still true today? S: Yes, I do. In some places. Now in some places they have outlets for different activities, and different funds for people to do, but now in Jackson County, the only place that the black young girl or boy has to go is to church. And they all don't go to church. They try to find other things to do, and other people to meet and they talk about segregation, why shouldn't there be segregation here in Jackson County? Because the blacks don't have no where to go, and it seems as if the young people of Jackson County have turned this segregation thing around, and they mix and do and marry and have children just as bad as they did way back then when the depression was going on. In the depression time, some of the women, they had to do things. But nobody can tell you that the white girls and the black boys, and the black girls and black boys have to marry now. Or have to be around with each other. They can, they can live whichever life they choose to live. And the church now, is the only thing that's holding the community together. Because you go to church, and if you have the right pastor, minister, or whatever he calls himself, evangelist, or whatever he calls himself, he can tell the young people, white and black what they should do. But, it seems very hard now, to get the program over to them. And we should go, when we're living in a community, we should always teach our young people the Bible. What thus saith the Lord. And teach them the right way. Not the way that you think it is, you can't lean to your own understanding. It's dangerous. You have to go by the Bible, what the Bible says. And, but as we go along in the Bible, we don't have, see nowhere, where the blacks and the white was segregated. Moses, he married a black woman. Zipporah. And he married Jethro's daughter, and Jethro was an Ethiopian, and Moses' brother and sister, Marian and Aaron made fun of Moses and God put a plague on her, for seven days. And he would have destroyed her if it hadn't been for Moses. Solomon was very, very, black. And he had all kinds, nationalities, and all kinds of wives. And not only him, there was Alexander, and Rufus. And when Jesus was crucified, Simon of Sinai, Sinai is a black African town, and Alexander and Rufus was Simon's sons. And he carried the cross of Jesus. So I don't see any segregation at all in the Biblical line. I have worked in the church, in Liberty Baptist Church down here off and on for about uh, straight for about thirty years. I have been president of the senior missionary, and vice president of senior missionary for twenty years. I was holding one or two of the offices. I have had all, I'm very interested in young people. I've had all kinds of groups of young people pass [inaudible]. And I've had Bible teaching, and as of now we're a little bit short, but I have Bible classes for the young middle-aged women, you wouldn't call them old women and you wouldn't call them young women, but the middle-aged women, I have a Bible class that comes to my home now in the evening. There's no teacher, we have three officers. Counselor, Secretary, and Treasurer. And we read and study together. Nobody teaches. Nobody. Because my Bible tells me, even now I'm searching in Jeremiah, and way over in Jeremiah it says that God sent all the people that disobeyed him, especially the Israelites, and the Hebrews, the Jews, to Babylon, to give them into the hands of Nebuchadnezzar, and he said when I bring them back to this land, they won't have to ask their brother, their Sudderth 15 sister, nobody to teach them, because I'll write my laws in their hearts, and stamp them in their minds and they'll know me from the least to the greatest, who I am and what I am, and won't nobody have to teach the greatest. A long time ago they had a school teacher, but they don't have no teacher. There ain't no need. If they're appointed and ordained, they don't have to have a teacher. So today, people have gone kind of backwards, in this falling away, with religion. White, black, all classes of people. They think that they can fix the religion and their Bible like they want it to be. You know, but you can't do that. [inaudible]. You either know the way of the Lord, live the way of the Lord, or either you're not [inaudible] but a lot of people don't see or know that. And you have to be very careful with your young people, especially the black needs pushing along in these because they've not had too much of a chance to see for themselves. [inaudible]. I: Your father treated mules, and cattle, were there any other, and he was a land owner, were there any other professional people in your family? S: Yes. I had an uncle, named Henry Alston, and Henry Alston was a lawyer and a school teacher. First, he was a school teacher. And he taught, right here in Jackson County, for several years. Here in Sylva. And he went on and got his law degrees. Stood the bar, here in North Carolina, he was the only and first black lawyer in North Carolina. And he wasn't a lawyer that you went to his office, and hear the case, you went to the courthouse. And my uncle died, and was holding the post [inaudible]. And he was a very well respected man, his name was Henry Alston. I: Now that is, that's an interesting story. There were no black lawyers. He was the first. S: Yes. I: Do you remember where he went to school? S: Where he went to school? He went to, I don't know just exactly where he went to school, but I think he went to Maharry’s. I: In Memphis, in Tennessee. S: Right. That's where he got his law from. So Mr. Alston had two sons. And a wife, a very charming wife, and mother to her children. She had two sons, Henry the second, and Theodore. And Henry died quite young, about eighteen, I think. And Theodore lived long after his father passed. And took care of his mother, and became a teacher and then he was a counsellor. More a counsellor than he was a teacher. And he got most of his education at Howard University in Washington, D.C. I: So they left western North Carolina? S: Yes. They left, he left Washington, and went to, I mean he left Asheville and went to Washington, D.C. And then he brought his mother with him to take care of her. He was such a wonderful person, he was a remarkable man. Such a great credit to the blacks. Sudderth 16 I: I sense a feeling of pride in your family. S: Well. I: In that you would not accept relief, during the depression. That you were ambitious, that you had more education than many of the black people, that you worked hard to earn the things that you had. S: Now, we were talking about my mother, a few minutes ago. And my mother was a schoolteacher. She finished school here, the grades that she could go to here in Jackson County. Then my grandmother sent her to Waynesville to stay with a lady. And she finished school there. And then she got the degree, if you finished high school at that time you got the degree to teach. And so she taught for about two years before she got married. I: And you're referring to Della? S: Della Alston. Uh huh, that was my mother.