Oral History with W. Waymon Pack and Cora Pack, March 11, 1991 (Ms1991-019)

Michael Cooke: Today is March 11, 1991. I'm conducting an interview with W.

[William] Waymon Pack of Christiansburg, Virginia. Mr. Pack, can you give us a

brief biographical sketch of your life, your date of birth, your birthplace,

education, and occupation?

Waymon Pack: Well, I was born in Montgomery County, August 1920.

C: 1920.

WP: Occupation--well, let's go back to the education part first, I guess. We had

a little two room school that we went to.

C: And you were raised where? In Riner, [Virginia]?

WP: In Riner. We went to this little old school, Black school. And after the

seventh grade there, I came to Christiansburg to school. It was the

Christiansburg [Industrial] Institute. And after 00:01:00Christiansburg Institute, then,

I guess I went to the farm.

C: You were a farmer?

WP: Farmer. My brother and I ran a farm for, at that time, for the

superintendent of the schools here in Montgomery County.

C: Okay. What was the name of your brother and who was the superintendent?

WP: Homer Pack.

C: Home Pack.

WP: And the superintendent at that time was C. C. [Claude C.] Shelburne-

C: C. C. Shelburne.

WP: Claude Shelbourne. And he was superintendent here for oh, a number of years.

I don't know now. Anyway, we ran a dairy farm for him. 00:02:00And then I went to, well,

I drove a bus for the powder plant.

C: During the war or after-

WP: During the war.

C: During the war.

WP: After that, I went to Wake Forest to work in the mines, about five years.

And when the mines closed down, then I went to DC and worked twenty-five years

in DC in the public school system there. I retired from there in 1980.

C: When did you marry your wife, Cora Pack?

WP: [Laughs] 1943.

C: You had to think about that one! [Laughs].

Cora Pack: [inaudible 2:49] Say something [Laughs]. Got it in recording.

C: Okay. Well, Mrs. Pack is here listening to the recording, and she'll keep him

right. [Laughs].

CP: [Laughs].

C: Okay, let's back up a little bit and start with the schooling first, and then

we'll work our way to your 00:03:00work experiences. We probably won't talk about the

Washington experience that much because mainly we're interested in terms of race

relations in this area, Black life in this area.

WP: Well, during the elementary school time, where we lived was right beside the

road, and the white school bus came by, right by the house, everyday going to

the white school. But, no Blacks could ride it.

C: Did you have to walk to the schools or were Blacks able to get a bus to go to

the elementary children-

WP: The elementary school was right in the community-

C: Oh, so just walked.

WP: So we walked. Now some of the kids that lived a distance away, I had some

cousins that lived about three miles from the school, and they had to walk.

C: From three miles away? 00:04:00There was no thought about giving them a bus?

WP: No.

C: Or was a bus accessible to that area?

WP: No.

C: Even if they had a bus, could it have gotten to the--

WP: Well, at that particular time it would have only been maybe about half a

dozen families that lived that distance away, and the others lived pretty much

in the neighborhood.

C: Okay, what were their names?

WP: Well, the ones that lived the farthest away were the Hamptons, the Barretts,

the Boffman's--

C: Oh, Amos Boffman?

WP: Some of his relatives.

C: Oh, Amos Boffman's relatives?

WP: Yes.

CP: [Whispers] And the 00:05:00 Dobbins.

WP: Yeah. And the Dobbins.

C: And the Dobbins lived over there. Is over the mountain--what mountain was it?

WP: Calfee's [Knob] Mountain.

C: Calfee's [Knob] Mountain.

WP: C-A-L-F--Calfee.

C: Very good because I would have never figured that out.

CP: [Laughs].

WP: Now, when those kids, the Dobbins, would walk into school, now this bus

would pass them going to the white school.

C: [Laughs]. Would pass them? Would they wave at them? [Laughter]

WP: But they couldn't pick them up. Well, the bus driver would say that many a

time, he would want to pick them up. He knew them, and he would want to pick

them up in bad weather, I mean rain or you know real bad weather.

C: And snowing-

WP: But he knew if he picked them up, it would be his job.

C: He would lose his job?

WP: He would lose his job.

C: Was he a white man?

WP: He was a white man.

C: And he would have lost his job?

WP: Yeah.

C: Do you remember his name?

WP: No, I don't.

C: But he was troubled by that-

WP: Right.

C: The thought of some child walking through-

WP: Well, he knew the kids' parents, and he knew the kids. And he knew where

they lived, and he had to come back by and pass them on the road coming to 00:06:00school. And he would pass right by the school where they were going.

C: Well, that was a different time with different standards.

WP: Now, the time that I was going to Christiansburg Institute, we had to get

there the best way we could from out there. That's nine miles.

C: Nine miles?

WP: Yeah. There was no bus. Now, a cousin of mine had a car, and he was going

over there. So we'd carpool sometimes and come to Christiansburg.

C: So, if you hadn't had a cousin who had a car, nobody would've-

WP: Well, I'd hitchhike part of the time.

C: You hitchhiked?

WP: That's right. To school and back home. As a matter of fact, on one trip this

friend of mine and I, we were going home walking back to Piney Woods-

CP: Amos Boffman's brother, Sam.

C: Sam.

WP: And this guy picked us up. Well, Sam thought he knew the guy, and he asked 00:07:00him about riding up the road. He said, you guys want to get in? He was a white

guy. Found out he was drunk. [Laughter] He got up the road a little piece and

pulled over to the side of the road, come up with a handful of shells and a

pistol. And he was driving a little old 1935 Ford Coupe. Well, the driver--I was

in the middle, and Sam was on the outside. Well, when he started slowing down,

he came out with these shells. Sam opened the door and stepped out and started

to back up the road. Well, that left me and the driver [Laughs].

C: [Laughs].

WP: Well, he got out, so I got out.

C: [Laughs] You made it out too.

WP: And then he started loading his gun.

C: What did you think he was going to do? Shoot you?

CP: [inaudible 8:00]

WP: He dropped a bullet on the ground. Well, when he dropped the bullet and

stooped to pick it up, that was my turn to leave.

C: 00:08:00And he shot at you?

WP: Yeah! [Laughs]

C: Did you report this incident to the police?

WP: Well, there was some fellows working on a farm nearby there and somebody

called the police.

C: Did they ever apprehend this individual?

WP: Yeah, they caught him.

C: What did they do about this?

WP: They arrested him for being drunk, and that's about it.

C: That's it huh? If he hadn't been drunk, he'd been okay.

WP: [Laughs]

C: Well, they arrested him for the lesser of two evils because being drunk is an

evil regardless of color.

WP: Yeah [Laughter].

C: But if he had shot you, that might not have been an evil. It might have been

evil but-

WP: Well we were right near a house--as a matter of fact, the house was about as

close as this little house right here to the 00:09:00road--where he stopped. This lady

was sweeping off her porch, and the house had a tin roof on it. Well, when he

shot, the bullet hit upon on that tin roof and you know what sound that would

make. And she thought she had been shot! [Laughs] She squealed. She hollered and

went back in the house. Later on-

C: When did this happen? I mean, how old were you when this incident-

WP: I was in high school.

C: You were in high school, so you were fifteen, sixteen, seventeen?

WP: About sixteen.

C: Sixteen. That must have scared you to death.

WP: It did.

C: Did it cure you of the hitchhiking blues or-

WP: Yeah [Laughs].

CP: Well, I think when his mother found that out, she wouldn't let him hitchhike

anymore. So, I 00:10:00think, they made a deal-

WP: Well, Sam's daddy bought a car, and we rode back and forth.

C: So, Sam Boffman.

WP: Right. Then later on, the same superintendent, Mr. Shelburne, well he more

or less helped us to get a bus out there, really.

C: Was that incident something that spurred his concern, or was it just

something after this that happened? Did it contribute to him saying, well, we

can't have our students getting shot trying to get to school.

WP: No, that didn't matter.

C: You don't think that mattered?

WP: No. But he more or less interceded for us getting a bus.

CP: Him and the County-Wide League.

WP: We knew him from way back because he lived out there, originally. He was

living here in town at the time.

C: He lived out in Riner, [Virginia]?

WP: He was born and raised out there.

C: I see.

WP: Of course, he told us, when the school board 00:11:00meeting was going to be, and he

said, now, don't come in boasting and demanding. He said, if you want to get the

bus out here, he said, you come in and offer to do a part, like pay for the

travel or buy the gas for the bus. So, the County-Wide League at that time

decided they would take care of the driver.

C: What was the County-Wide League?

WP: It was just an organization of the Black community.

C: Was it a political organization or a social organization?

CP: It was just to help wherever help was needed in the community. I don't know

if you've heard of Walter Price's father and Tim Mallory, man here ran a

pressing shop--a Black man--Tim Mallory. And several of the other citizens-

C: You're not talking about the Lester's?

WP: No, no.

CP: Several of the other 00:12:00citizens got together and paid for the bus, paid the

driver. But it was an old broken down bus to start with so-

C: [Laughs].

WP: It was an old Dodge bus that the county had more or less discarded that we

got. On a rainy day, I stood up behind the bus driver and run the windshield

wiper. Had a crank on the inside of the bus that you run the windshield wipers with.

C: To make it? [12:46]

WP: Yeah. [Laughter]

C: Was the County-Wide Organization similar to the NAACP? Or, was there the

NAACP Organization at the time that you are talking about?

WP: Well, let me put it this way, they did have NAACP, National. But around 00:13:00 in

this particular area at that time it was not enforced too much.

C: There was no branch?

WP: No.

C: It had some of the functions of what we would now expect of an NAACP branch,

but it was not really politically inclined. It just simply tried to make things

better. Were they elected members of this organization?

WP: No, no, no.

C: But you said there were some people that were kind of key leaders of this-

WP: Well, they just more or less kind of got together and organized it.

C: Um-hm. Where were these people residing in the county? All over the county or just-

WP: Some here in Christiansburg, the Clarks, Mr. Sam Clark. [inaudible 13:58] 00:14:00Christiansburg. Elliot Dillard was over at Vicker, [Virginia]. Walter Price was

Radford, just around, you know. Tim Mallory was in Christiansburg.

CP: My father, Everette McDaniel.

WP: Yeah. Just different of the older members of the community.

C: And this organization stayed in existence till when? I guess I should ask the

question, when did it first start operating?

CP: It was in the [19]30s-

WP: It was back in the [19]30s.

C: In the [19]30s.

CP: In the [19]30s. And I don't know when it ceased to operate, but they were

not operating when I went to high school-

C: Which is when?

CP: Which was in the year [19]39 -[19]40. That was about it.

C: 00:15:00So it was during part-

WP: [Inaudible 14:58] in the early 30's.

C: Early [19]30s, but by the late [19]30s-

CP: By 1940, it was not in existence.

C: Let me ask you another question. It seemed to be an operation during the

Depression. Was that one of the reasons for its founding because meeting the

needs of the destitute and the needy among Blacks?

WP: Probably so.

C: Was that one of the reasons for being? That there were a lot of destitute

Blacks and Blacks who needed help and-

WP: All of them were destitute. [Laughter]

C: Yeah, I guess at that time yeah. [Laughs]. There were very few who weren't.

CP: You know in the [10]30s, of course that was the Depression era. But so far

as school transportation in the [19]40s, it was about the same when it was when

he went to school. Because when I went to school, I walked from here, three and

a half miles, to the [Christiansburg] Institute which is over on [U.S. Route] 460.

C: Yes.

CP: And they also had buses passing by me, and 00:16:00I had the horn blown at me-

C: So not much had changed?

CP: Not much had changed during that period of time.

C: Okay. Let me ask one other question. In terms of the Riner community, they're

not going to talk about the Mud Pike because you're now on the tape and you just

talked yourself into this interview-

WP: [Laughs].

CP: Oh my goodness.

C: But in the Riner area, were there people that tried--You said they had this

meeting, and they urged Blacks to come--Who were some of the spokesmen when they

went to that meeting? Were you attending that meeting when they had it at the

school board?

WP: Oh at the school board?

C: Yeah, when the Shelburne-

WP: Oh, no. I wasn't in that-

C: So you weren't a participant?

WP: No.

C: Do you know if people went and spoke on behalf of the community? Did they 00:17:00designate certain people that, you, you, you will talk and say, we will do this,

and, we will do that?

WP: I'm trying to think [17:02]. I'm not for sure, but it seems to me like Homer

[Pack] was one of them.

C: Your brother?

WP: Yeah. Now, he probably could tell you.

C: Okay. I'll try to interview him and ask him about that.

WP: Because at that particular time when we got the bus, see I was just a

student in the school.

C: And Homer was already out of school, I guess, wasn't he?

WP: Yeah.

C: Yeah, he was an adult by that time.

WP: An old man [Laughter]

C: [Laughs] I don't know about being an old man. I guess anytime you have an

older brother, he is an old man. Going to Christiansburg Institute, 00:18:00do you

remember any teachers or things that stood out in your mind as being very

important, for both of you, in terms of what do you really treasure about the C.

I. I. experience?

WP: Truthfully, if it hadn't had been for that school, the whole Black community

here would have been in trouble.

C: Why would that have been the case?

WP: They didn't have any other place to go.

C: There was no other education?

WP: They were bussed in here from Floyd County, from Pulaski County. There were

some kids that lived way up in the upper end of Pulaski County that left home.

They had to get to Pulaski to get the bus to come to Christiansburg. It was some

Millers, and--I forget the 00:19:00name. But anyway, they had to leave home before day--

like in the wintertime--before day in the morning to come to Pulaski to catch

the bus to come to Christiansburg.

C: I understand that even further south that Blacks came. I mean maybe not on a

commuting basis but boarding school.

WP: At the time I was over there, they had boarding students there from New York

and some from down in the Eastern part of Virginia, down in Buchanan County and around.

C: What about Tennessee, anybody?

WP: Probably so, I just don't-

C: You just don't remember. Well, that is New York and everything. So in other

words the Christiansburg Industrial Institute had a reputation as being a fine school-

WP: Oh, yeah.

C: And out of necessity for many others 00:20:00who lived in-

CP: It was the first Black high school in Southwest Virginia. The first one for

Blacks in this area. Well, like his sister who lived in the Riner area, she

stayed with cousins in the Roanoke area to go to school. She was, of course, a

school teacher in Roanoke for a while.

C: They did have a high school for Blacks in Roanoke, eventually.

WP: Yeah.

C: [Laughs]. But you're right, for the longest period of time, there-

[Break in recording]

WP: [Inaudible 20:42]

C: You left out Giles.

WP: Well, that's right.

C: There was nothing in Giles either.

WP: That's right. After you left elementary.

C: Um-hm. So, you had people all over, and families made great sacrifices.

WP: 00:21:00Oh yeah, at the time-

[Telephone rings]

C: We'll stop here.

[Break in recording]

C: You had just talked about--we're back on the tape--the bussing and how costly

it was for families to have to reach into their threadbare pocketbooks and come

up with the money. You said it cost how much?

WP: A dollar and a quarter.

C: A dollar and a quarter a month, which was about two days wages for some

people, which is a lot of money.

WP: Particularly raising a family.

C: Yes. So that's the kind of sacrifices that people--so Black people had to be

bussed all over the place. I've heard from as far away as Bristol. That Blacks

came from Bristol, Virginia all the way to Christiansburg Institute. Did you

know anybody that came that far? You said some people from New York.

CP: [Inaudible 22:00-22:03] [Static in tape]

C: Yeah boarding students.

WP: More than likely they were boarding students. At that particular time really

it was kids 00:22:00from, gosh, all around.

C: From New River Valley primarily were bussed. But the boarding students could

come from anywhere?

WP: Right. In Virginia and out of Virginia.

C: And out of Virginia.

CP: Well, one other sacrifice that they made, they exchanged--they had a Lester

family that lived on C. I. campus. Their daughter taught school in Riner, and

she stayed at his mother's house. So, what they did was exchange boards. So he

stayed with her parents to go to school, and she stayed with his parents to

teach, I think.

C: Oh! Okay, that's a good arrangement. That's a very innovative and thoughtful

way to come up with a--that's fair exchange. 00:23:00Basically, many of the teachers

didn't have cars. They didn't make great salaries. And even if they had cars, in

some places they would have torn their cars apart trying to get-

WP: Trying to get to places.

C: Yeah.

WP: But on the weekends, her brother would come and pick her up and well, I

could come home and she could go home.

C: This sounds very familiar because the people in Wake Forest also talked about

that. And that is that they had someone would stay with them. The teachers would

stay in the community, and then on the weekends somebody--or on Friday more

likely--would pick them up. And then they would bring them back, of course, on 00:24:00Sunday. Then they would stay there the whole week. They didn't leave the community.

CP: Yeah, but one of the teachers that taught in that area lived right next to

me, right up there, and he would go over on the weekends and stay all week and

then he would come back home. He lived in the Wake Forest area.

C: What was his name?

CP: Professor L. D. Cobb. He was also a science teacher at Christiansburg Institute.

C: Yes, I believe I've heard that name before. Okay, we're going to move forward

a little bit, and I think we have dealt with the education, unless you want to

single out some teachers that stood out or occasions that were special in terms

of your education.

WP: 00:25:00Well, I could maybe single out a teacher. The music teacher that I had was a

Mrs. Elliot, and she's in DC now. She lives there. She has been here to come in

and set up [25:03] for the reunions-

CP: Reunions.

C: So she's still alive?

WP: Yeah.

C: Oh.

WP: And then there was a Mr. Queen who was one of the professors there. And when

I was working in DC, he was the assistant principal at the school that I worked awhile.

C: Oh, what school is that?

WP: Stuart Jr. High.

C: Stuart Jr. High.

WP: Fourth [Street] and Main [25:33].

C: Fourth and Main.

WP: They got community spaces [25:36].

C: Okay.

WP: Right there by [inaudible 25:34].

C: Okay.

WP: [Laughs] And Lomax, he was a science teacher. A. A. Gaskins was math. Cora,

what was the professor's name that died here just a while back?

C: 00:26:00Holmes? No, it wasn't Holmes.

WP: No, it wasn't-

CP: [inaudible 26:12]?

WP: Oh, shoot. [Laughs].

C: Well, we can't be accountable for every name but--Dodson or something like

that? Talbert?

WP: Where was he? California when he died?

CP: Yeah.

C: Oh, not in this community. Well, let's press on. Did you graduate from C. I.?

WP: I went as far as the tenth grade.

C: Okay.

WP: I had to stop and go to work.

C: This is during what time? During the Depression?

WP: [Inaudible 26:51]

C: Oh, it was rough. So where did you go after you 00:27:00had to drop out? What type of

work did you do?

WP: Well, my dad had a milk route. We picked up milk around on the farm and

brought it over here to Christiansburg to sell to dairies. And he had a truck

for the route, and I helped.

C: That's where he met you-[Laughter]

CP: On the milk truck. He came by.

C: Oh, on the route, huh? He met you en route, huh? [Laughs].

WP: [Inaudible 27:20] go to work.

C: Well, obviously you spent not just simply time on doing your job, but you

also had another job, finding a wife! [Laughter]

WP: She'd be out there flagging me. [Laughter].

C: So, how many years did you work doing this route? Just a little while or?

WP: I guess--let's see. About four or five years.

C: Four or five years. 00:28:00Did you get well paid or was it something to do?

WP: Wasn't no such thing as well paid in the [19]30s. [Laughter]

C: You were just happy you had employment.

WP: You had a job.

C: Yes.

WP: Each customer would pay so much per hundred pounds of milk.

C: A hundred pounds of milk! Did people drink that much milk back then? [Laughter]

WP: Well see, some of them didn't have but maybe two or three cows to milk, and

they would have a little five gallon can of milk they'd have at the end of the

day. Some of them had a herd of cows and sell maybe three or four ten gallons

cans of milk, 00:29:00everyday. We'd bring down here to the creamery. Of course, we were

paid for the hauling of the milk. But-

C: Did your father work continuously? Did he stop this job or did he get another

job or did he work-

WP: Well, we gave it up--my father was crippled in the mines out in West

Virginia and he lost his leg in the mines.

C: Oh, where did he work? McDowell County, that area?

WP: Yeah, I guess it could be.

C: But he had been injured?

WP: In a slate fall. As a matter of fact, he almost got killed.

C: And he lost his 00:30:00 leg?

WP: Yeah, he lost his leg.

C: You know, you're the second person I've interviewed who's father has lost his

leg in a mine related accident. The second person. I interviewed a lady in

Blacksburg--what was her name--Wade. Her father had lost his leg.

WP: Wade? Lost his leg?

C: Christine Wade lost his leg in a quarry, not actually a mine, but a rock

quarry accident. Well, Black people did dangerous work and sometimes-

WP: Well, this slate fell on my dad, and his partner that was working with him

got it up off of him enough to put another rock underneath it to hold it up off

of his chest. He had a broken collar bone and leg. When he went to get some help

to move it off of him so they could get him out, it took nine men to move it-

[Break in recording]

C: We're back on the tape. We were talking about 00:31:00the dangerouses--I made up a

word. It was dangerous to work in the mines! [Laughs] We were talking about how

so many Black families had problems when a father or relative got killed in the

mines. People got killed-

WP: I don't know if they told you in the interview in Wake Forest They had an

accident and killed [31:20]-

C: Was it a Paige or Sherman?

CP: Paige, wasn't it?

WP: Paige.

CP: [inaudible 31:30] husband, ain't he?

C: Yeah.

WP: At the time that I was working for some of them.

C: After you left the dairy work, what else did you?--We're going to work our

way to the mines and then we'll get into it. [Laughter]. We're not going into

the Washington period. We'll skip 00:32:00 that.

WP: Let's see--

CP: When you were hauling milk, it was in the [19]30s.

C: You never went into the military? Oh that's right, you went to work with the

powder plant mill?

WP: Driving the bus, hauling the workers to and from.

C: But that was during the war years?

WP: Yes. That was after we had given up the milk route because I was called in

to the service, but I was turned down on account of my eyes. And then this

friend of mine had started a bus running to the plant.

C: Because there were so many people working?

WP: Oh Lord, yes.

C: And during the war, how many people do you think would work at that plant?

Several thousand?

WP: I'm pretty sure. Because like I said, 00:33:00people were coming in from everywhere.

They were running trailer busses from Roanoke.

C: From Roanoke?

WP: Yeah. They had the tractor with the trailer hooked on to it and made up

their busses. And they were running two or three every shift from Roanoke.

C: And how far in the other direction?

WP: Oh, well, you had people driving from West Virginia.

C: [Laughs]. From everywhere. Driving in their own cars?

WP: Driving in their own cars. [inaudible 33:36]

CP: [inaudible 33:38]

C: In fact, I even have some cousins I discovered who lived in Gary, West

Virginia who work, now, presently at the 00:34:00Arsenal [Radford Army Ammunition Plant].

WP: Probably so, yeah.

C: That's a long drive-

WP: You got that right. [Laughter]. Well, they were driving some of them from

Bald Head, North Carolina.

CP: Our son is at the Arsenal.

C: Oh.

WP: But back then, if you wanted to work, you had to try to get there. [Laughs].

C: And you had to go far and be willing to go far every day. So people made that

kind of sacrifice. It wasn't a sacrifice; it was a necessity.

WP: Well, when Mason and Payne started building that plant over there, the labor

force was about sixty-five cents.

C: Were there a lot of Blacks employed there?

WP: Yeah.

C: Was there any discrimination against the Blacks?

WP: Yes.

C: In what kind of ways?

WP: Even in the [19]50s.

C: Even in the [19]50s?

WP: Yeah.

C: In what kind of ways?

WP: Okay, during the [19]50s when I was working in the mines--during the summer 00:35:00the mines was slack. So, we decided to go into the Hercules Plant that summer to

work. Now, every Black that went in there to be hired, the only thing we had to

offer was labor, which was a dollar an hour. They took in some whites over there

who could not read, put them on the line making powder, for a dollar and a dime,

a dollar and twenty-five cents.

C: Couldn't read? Isn't that a dangerous occupation to be in? I mean, not being

able to read and write-

WP: What do you think about handling powder? [Laughs]

C: And not being able to read directions?

WP: They had foremen over there who couldn't read and write.

CP: And Mr. Cobb, you know, they'd say, do you all need Cobb here?

WP: That's right! He was a professor. VPI sent him off on some scholarship thing

up in-

CP: Maine.

WP: 00:36:00Maine or somewhere for some science project, and he was out there working

with me for a dollar an hour.

CP: Sweeping.

C: Sweeping?

WP: Yeah.

C: And that's basically what Black people did, swept the floors?

WP: Sweeping and digging ditches, just common labor.

C: And it didn't change until when?

WP: When the government came in and said, you're going to lose your money if you don't.

C: This should have happened earlier because there was a Fair Employment

Practice Commission during the [19]40s. Are you familiar with A. Philip

Randolph, and his threatened march on Washington [36:36]?

WP: Um-hm.

CP: Um-hm.

C: That should have kicked in and forced them to do right. It didn't? It didn't-

WP: Not in the [19]40s.

C: It didn't trickle down to this area?

WP: Unh-uh. Not until in the [19]50s.

C: Not until the [19]50s. When do you think that might have--mid [19]50s?

CP: We're still segregated, in a sense. Now when my son went here on the 00:37:00 bus,

the kids, they didn't want to sit beside him. They didn't have nothing to do

with him. They pushed him off. I'd have to go to the teachers. So, they assigned

him a seat. Well, to start off with, he had a little white friend that he played

with all the time. And since he went to this school, he wanted to go with his

friend. Well, that was after the 1954 Brown decision [Brown v. The Board of

Education]. So, he went up here. But to get him there, I had to go to the school

board, and they had, then, in Virginia what they called a Pupil Placement-

C: Oh, yes. I'm familiar.

CP: So, I got letters and so forth. Of course, he's got them all now because

when he married he got all this information. But anyway, they didn't want him to

ride the bus. And I'll say, almost a generation after that, we had my 00:38:00 niece's

children here, and the bus would go right by here. Now, she would not stop here,

the bus driver--white bus driver--they had to either walk out there or up there.

You know, the next-

WP: Come back one time though, in the paper, the bus stop was here.

CP: Yeah, the bus stop in the paper was at Pack's, to pick up these children.

But the bus driver wouldn't do it; she would not.

C: Oh, in other words, it was supposed to pick people up-

WP: In the paperwork, that was the bus stop.

CP: And I'll tell you what that bus driver did. We had a flash flood, and we had

a flood in the bottom over here, water rushed down-

C: Oh, yes. I can see that.

CP: And she put these two little kids out at the top of the hill, and they had

to wade through water up to their waste to come here. And she went right by

here! She could have stopped there.

C: And when did this happen?

CP: Oh-

WP: The [19]50s?

CP: The 00:39:00 [19]70s-

WP: [Laughs].

CP: No Ernie was born in [19]70-

C: And people-

CP: [19]80. Kenny was born in [19]76. [19]81. That's just ten years ago.

C: That's terrible.

WP: [Laughs].

C: Now I know, when I got lost here, I had the good fortune of knocking on

somebody's door, and the people that live up the street from you are white.

That's a white residence, right?

CP: Um-hm.

C: And so that's what you're saying is that right up the street from you, a few

blocks away-

WP: Yeah the people right up here were white. Now they would stop out there and

over here.

C: So that was intentional?

WP: Yeah. [Laughs].

C: So in other words, they still adhered to old customs?

CP: Sure.

WP: Because I went over there one time [Inaudible 39:55-39:59]. 00:40:00It made me hot,

really, because she had them meeting up here to get on the bus. Okay, some

little kid started going to school out here. So instead of going up here, then

they had to come back out here. Now why couldn't that kid come over here? See

what I'm saying? But no, they didn't move them. These kids had to go from one

place to the other.

C: They had to go-

CP: Either up there. They had to go over here, and then they had to go out that way.

C: Well, it's pretty clear that you know where the center of the universe is!

[Laughter]. It's not here. [Laughter]. What was your mining experience like? I

mean, hopefully it wasn't as bad as your--now how old is your son? When was he

born, by the way?

CP: My son was born in 1958.

C: 1958?

CP: Um-hm.

C: So, he's younger than I am. So, he 00:41:00had to endure all this type of discrimination?

CP: Yes, he did.

C: They would force him out of his seat and-

CP: Yeah, push him off. I'd have to go sign off on the parents [41:08] and-

C: And did they call him racist names?

CP: Oh, yes. Now, the officials were very nice. They give him a seat behind the

bus driver.

C: So that he could be watching out for him?

CP: Right, so he would be right there. But when I would ask him to sit there, of

course, at that time, he said, well the rest of them sit anywhere on the bus

they want to. Why can't I sit anywhere that I want to on the bus? But I wanted

him to be up there for protection because he was the only Black child, at that

time, here to ride the bus.

C: And he was just being harassed. He didn't understand why.

CP: No, he didn't. But he never went to the Black school. He started in the

white school.

C: But in 1958, he's just too 00:42:00young. By that point all the Black schools, one

room schools, are closed, right?

CP: And parents still sacrificed, and you what I did? I didn't have an

application, but I wrote the principal a letter. And I told her, because my

husband, he was working in DC. I said, what I'll do is I'll come to your school

and I'll do anything you want me to do. I wanted a job. I'll wash the dishes.

I'll be a maid or anything. So, I got a job up there and stayed with him up

there until he grew up a little bit to take care of himself. [Laughs]. So, I

guess we've had to sacrifice.

C: Yeah. That's a lot, a lot to go through. Now the mining experience, what

mines or mining operation or outfit did you work with? Did you work at Big Vein,

Great Valley, or some other place?

WP: 00:43:00[Inaudible 42:53]

C: Or it wasn't Big Vein?

CP: The Jones--the one that-

C: The Jones?

CP: Yeah, it was Sector Four [43:08]. It was a vein of coal, and this was

operated by [inaudible 43:06] Blacks and they [inaudible 43:08]. It could be Big Vein.

WP: Yeah, it was Big Vein Coal, rightfully. But they could not get it from Big

Vein Mine. So they had to open up another mine up there and work this coal out.

But we hauled it down to Big Vein.

C: Oh, I see. So they had a contract with Big Vein?

WP: They had a contract with Big Vein to get the coal out and deliver it to Big Vein.

C: Oh. Did they pay fairly well? Did you get paid well?

WP: Now, I got paid by the ton for hauling. When I worked in the mine, you get

paid by the car.

C: By the car.

WP: Yeah. So, you worked inside and outside?

WP: 00:44:00 Right.

C: When did you first work inside the mine?

WP: Oh, I started over-

CP: 1950.

WP: There in 1950 and worked there until 1955. I would guess around 1951 or

[195]2 when I worked in the mine [44:23].

C: Eventually, even this mine, or this work, eventually played out?

WP: It got so gassy they-

C: Oh, it was dangerous.

WP: Yes.

C: So, it wasn't even safe anymore. It was still good quality coal there but it

was just too-

WP: Probably.

C: Hazardous to try to extract? So what happened after you stopped mining?

WP: [Inaudible 44:52]

C: Did you leave your wife here?

WP: Yeah.

C: And you worked 00:45:00in DC?

WP: Yeah, she put me up.

C: She put you up? [Laughter]. Well, I won't get into that.

WP: [Laughs].

C: But you lived in DC for a while?

WP: Twenty-five years.

C: Twenty-five years?

WP: I left here in [19]55.

CP: He came home most every weekend.

WP: Well, as a matter of fact, before I went to DC, just before [inaudible

45:22], we went to Ohio trying to get a job.

C: Trying to get a job?

WP: And-

C: There were no jobs on campus--for instance VPI, weren't they hiring?

WP: There was nobody hiring around here.

C: Were they hiring whites? What happened to the white miners? They lost jobs,

too. Did they get hired?

WP: [inaudible 45:40]

C: They can get a job where?

WP: The powder plant, mostly.

C: The Black people weren't being hired in the same numbers. So, it was kind of

a preference for whites.

WP: We went to Ohio and stayed a weekend up there. We didn't know it until we

got there but General Motors was on strike so we- [Laughter].

C: Where did you go?

WP: Youngstown.

C: Oh, 00:46:00Youngstown. So, you were just desperate?

CP: You went to Connecticut didn't you?

WP: No, we came back here, and the day that we came back here, it was on a

Memorial weekend, a really bad time to go. But, after we got there and found out

that they were going on strike up there, [inaudible 46:30]. So, we came back

here, and Hugh Hopkins picked up a paper and he saw down here in Salem, they

were having an opening there. They had built this plant down there where the

[inaudible 46:45] owned telephone poles and railroad ties, and they were doing a

clean-up job there. And they were paying a dollar an hour. This was in [19]55.

So, we went down, and the guy told us, he said, we need about thirty days work, 00:47:00if you want it? [inaudible 47:09] We said, we do. We stayed down there until

that job was closed and then [inaudible 47:20].

C: Was this typical for many other Blacks for this period? I mean, especially

Black men, were they leaving by the droves because of lack of work? Were there

people like you who just couldn't find a job in this area?

WP: Well, some of the guys that I worked with over at the mines, like [inaudible

47:38] he left and went to Roanoke with Hugh Hopkins, the guy that was driving

with me. They went to Roanoke and got a job at the Veterans.

CP: They were veterans.

C: So that helped. They had an advantage.

WP: Because they were veterans.

C: You were not a veteran, so that didn't help you at all. Okay. So, did other

people leave even Virginia to go to Washington or Baltimore? In other words, you

saw an exodus of people who couldn't 00:48:00find jobs?

CP: Most of Wake Forest, they went up to Alexandria and around near the

Washington area.

WP: Yeah.

CP: A lot of them are still up there.

WP: The majority of those guys that I worked with in the mines went up around

Alexandria and got jobs.

C: Doing what type of work?

WP: Well, some of them were carpenters and got jobs up there, you know. Well

there was just more work going on up in that area at the time. I don't know,

some of them were working with the gas company, just different jobs.

C: They just took whatever they could find. There was nothing to be found 00:49:00 here.

What about VPI? What about building-

WP: I worked at VPI.

C: You did?

WP: Yeah. [Laughs]. Both of us.

C: Both of you?

CP: Yeah.

C: Were there a lot of Blacks working at VPI?

CP: Cooks.

C: As cooks? Mostly. There was not a lot of work for Blacks?

CP: No.

C: Do you think they kept a cap on how many people they hired? Or were they

mindful of how many Blacks they would employ or-

CP: See VPI has grown so since then. That's been since-

WP: In the late [19]40s.

CP: Yeah, because [inaudible 49:23] was born in [19]29. The late [19]40s. We

cooked at the girls' dorm. They had-

WP: This was before it was coed over there.

CP: Um-hm. The girls' dormitory and we cooked there.

C: Was that Hillcrest [Hall]?

CP: Right.

WP: Um-hm. Cooked there and stayed there in the building.

C: And you lived there?

CP: Lived in the basement, yeah.

C: 00:50:00And that would be the only way that you really would have-

WP: They had a hundred and ten girls living there.

C: Did you have a family at that point?

CP: No, we didn't.

C: So you didn't have a family, but after you had a family obviously that

wouldn't work.

WP: [Inaudible 49:59]

CP: [inaudible 50:01] was born in [19]49, and in [19]50, he left. So, I came

back here with my mom, and she kept my baby. Then I drove to Blacksburg and

worked until two or three years after that.

C: Okay. Then where did you go from there?

CP: Well, I worked in the school system here-

C: Oh, that's right. That's when you made that arrangement.

WP: [Laughs].

CP: Yeah.

C: You made an arrangement.

WP: At that time, they had built this little new school for the Blacks.

C: Are you talking about the one 00:51:00at Harding [Avenue]?

CP: Friends.

WP: No, right up here on the hill-

CP: Right above C. I.

WP: Just before you get to [inaudible 50:50].

CP: Right behind Burrell Morgan's house.

C: Oh, okay. I didn't know that. I didn't know they had another school.

CP: Yeah-

WP: This was when integration first was beginning to come into effect. Now, this

same guy, this George [Claude C.] Shelburne, told us--Well, he was real close

with us because we knew him from way back. We knew his dad and the whole family

of them. He came out there, and he told me, he said, now they're going to build

you all a new school. He said, but when they build it, it's going to be obsolete

when they build it. But they're doing this to keep from putting you in the white school.

C: [Laughs].

WP: [Laughs].

CP: And I'll tell you what they did. They built a four classroom, they had a

dining room there, and a kitchen. Of course, we organized a PTA, and for several

years there, I was president of that PTA. They wouldn't even give us a telephone

over there. In order to get a telephone, we had 00:52:00to pay for it, and we had to put

it in the president's name. So the phone was in my name at the school.

WP: [Laughs].

CP: And we tried to get a light up there because the traffic was getting real

bad over on [U.S. Route] 460, and we tried to get a light there. And, well, we

picked the large children, and they had the little white belts and the badge and all-

C: This is at night?

CP: Well, in the day when school would open and close. And now, that the high

school is up there, every morning and every night, the policemen are right there

to stop the traffic to let the busses go in and the kids come out.

C: But you didn't get that kind of service when-

CP: No, I'd say not.

WP: Looking for trouble [inaudible 52:58]

CP: We had to use our own kids and it was so dangerous out there for them.

C: Yeah, there's a lot of traffic now. There probably wasn't as much-

CP: Well, now when we worked at VPI-

WP: There wasn't as much then, but it was too much for them kids.

C: Sufficient amount of-

WP: For them kids.

C: Yeah.

CP: When we worked at [Virginia] Tech, 00:53:00there were only four thousand students in

the whole school, and then it went up to five thousand. And it kept going up,

and I guess they have about twenty-five or thirty thousand, now.

C: Yes, it's really mushroomed over the years. Well, let's see. I'm trying to

think. We dealt with the school desegregation issue. How did whites take it? Do

you remember any reactions on the part of community leaders who were vocally

opposed or for de[segregation]--were any whites for desegregation that were

vocal about it and public about it that you can recall in Christiansburg? Did

anybody stand up-

WP: Nobody [inaudible 53:59]

C: No ministers? Was there any-

WP: [inaudible 54:04]

C: But were there people opposed? Were there people vocally and publicly opposed

to the process?

WP: Well, it was just the 00:54:00school board itself. I mean, they set the rules, and

that was it.

CP: We had some very good Black leaders in the community that, you know, if we

want certain things done, they would form a committee and go to the school

board. We had Reverend George Calloway and Mr. Sam Clark, Mr. Elliot Dillard, my

father. But-

C: Sam Clark? What were some of their occupations? Sam Clark was what?

CP: A railroad [inaudible 54:27]

WP: He retired from Norfolk and Western. [54:29]

C: And Reverend Calloway, what church did he minister at?

CP: He ministered out of town in a place called Rural Retreat, in Wythe County [54:46]

C: I heard of it. That's a long way.

WP: [Laughs].

CP: Well, he ministered that but his membership and mid-prayer meeting he

attended at Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church on High Street.

C: But he lived in this area?

CP: Uh-huh.

C: And ministered--Rural Retreat?

WP: Rural 00:55:00Retreat is exactly fifty-four miles from right here. [Laughter]. And

Jim Howell is on up the road.

CP: [Laughs].

C: That is a long way.

WP: She had a cousin that lives in Rural Retreat.

C: So you've-

CP: Yeah we go there. We-

WP: We were just out there yesterday.

C: So, you know it well. [Laughs].

WP: We pass right by his church.

C: Oh.

CP: Well, he's deceased now. So is Mr. Clark. But--

C: And Dillard.

WP: Dillard was over at Vicker, [Virginia]. He had a little store-

C: Right-

WP: Now his son-

C: Dillard's store. Somebody mentioned that to me. Yeah.

WP: His son is a member of Schaeffer [Memorial Baptist Church].

CP: But this last principal that we had a C. I., he did not work very well with

the community. I think he went to the same church that you attend in Blacksburg.

WP: St. Paul AME?

C: St. Paul AME?

CP: Uh-huh. He attended there. He didn't work good with the community. And I

know my dad and 00:56:00several others would go over, like committees, to get a school

bus or to do various things, and he just told them, you don't have any children

here. You come with a chip on your shoulder. I will not help. That's what he

told Daddy. Dad asked him to join the NAACP. But see, when my daughter started

going to school, she would have to walk from here up to Mrs. Burford's, up here

at the beginning of Mud Pike to catch the bus.

C: That's right at..where is it at-

WP: College Street.

C: College Street. But it is real close to Main, near Main Street.

WP: Yeah. Right.

CP: Yeah. Right.

C: So you were on the outskirts of the town, where you had a good street, I

believe. That was probably paved, right?

WP: Um-hm.

C: That had always been 00:57:00pretty much paved.

WP: Yeah.

CP: Route 8 up there, you're talking about?

C: Um-hm.

CP: Come out of Tanker, West Main [Street].

C: West Main [Street].

CP: I can remember when it wasn't paved [Laughs].

WP: Well, College Street was the main street, basically. But these kids, all

these Black kids out here, would walk up there to catch the bus.

C: Always at College?

CP: Yeah, and see, my daughter--and at that time, when she first started I think

Mr. Collins was teaching in Wake Forest. I'm not sure, but anyway, I'd walk with

her because she was just six years old. I would have to walk with her and then

go back and meet here. And I saw no reason why the bus couldn't come by here so

we 00:58:00formed committees, and we went several times but we finally got the bus.

C: How long did it take for this? [Laughter]. You said several times, you had to

go to the board?

CP: Several times, yeah.

C: When did this process begin, and when did it finally end? [Laughter].

CP: Now he had gone away at that time--her first year in school I think. And-

C: So this was around [19]52--[19]55? So right after the Brown v. Board of

Education, that's when you first went? [Telephone Rings]. We'll stop here.

[Break in recording]

C: We were talking about desegregation, and you said that you, Cora Pack, had to

go to the school board on several occasions. And you started around 1955. When

you first went the first time, what was the 00:59:00board's reaction?

CP: Well, the bus driver said that they couldn't come this way because the roads

were too narrow. They could come up there. We had a church bus that used to come

out here and pick up, and it would turn right in our driveway. So on one

occasion, when I went to the school board, I told them that we had a church bus,

and the church bus could turn around in my driveway.

C: Um-hm. Yeah, I could believe that.

CP: So, then they told the bus driver to turn around here. But they still

couldn't turn around, so they gave them another route. And as they were bringing

the high school children to Christiansburg Institute, they would come out

through the back way and come by here and pick the children 01:00:00up on Mud Pike.

C: So when they finally decide, they said, well we're going to make it a little

more convenient for your children? [Laughs].

CP: I think this must have been when she was in about the second grade. That

first year that we had to fight for it.

C: So around [19[55, [19]56?

CP: [19]56.

C: So it finally did happen, and it was due to the intervention of a number of

people that you already named and yourself?

CP: Oh, sure. Yes.

C: That's good. Well, let me ask you the last question. When was the NAACP

branch organized here?

WP: [inaudible 1:00:33]

C: Or had it been organized but kind of dysfunctional because of lack of support

or interest, or both of the two?

CP: To start with, when they organized here, they really didn't come together.

But I 01:01:00don't know how the James brothers were designated, but they would go

around to the Black and collect the dues and send it to the main office in New York.

C: When did they organize? I know it's a tough question, but it's important.

Roughly speaking.

CP: Now, my dad, he just passed last April.

WP: [Inaudible 1:01:20]

CP: Uh-huh, a long time.

WP: Now that must have been about the [inaudible 1:01:25].

[Break in recording]

C: We were just getting into the organization of the NAACP in this area and you

said that your father was an NAACP man and one very active and you also

mentioned Sam Clark, who has been mentioned before. Was there other people, too,

that were critical to the early years of the NAACP branch here?

WP: Dillard.

C: Dillard, 01:02:00yeah. And he's in Vicker's, [Virginia].

WP: No, his son is in Vickers, but this Dillard is this boy's dad that was along

with her dad and Mr. Clark and--

CP: [inaudible 1:02:15]

C: This is in the [19[40s?

CP: [19]40s. See [inaudible 1:02:17] worked as secretary, and they moved here

around 1941 or [19]42 from West Virginia. And, well, I would say they got

organized around 1940 with officers and having a meeting place. Now Mr. Ed

Reynolds was the president a long time ago.

C: Are there any surviving records of this branch? Or does anybody have control

of the records? Maybe they're 01:03:00with the branch today, I guess.

CP: I don't know. Now John T. Harrison was the last president--well, Oscar

Williams is now-

C: Now, right.

CP: But John T. Was the last one, and I don't know if they have any of the old

secretary's books or not.

C: Right. I was just wondering if anybody would have the old institutional

memory of what went [on] way back when?

WP: Horatio Stewart.

CP: He was the president for a while. And so was the Dillard boy, Mr. Elliot's

son, he was president for a little while. But they were very active, and they're

active now.

C: In the [19]40s, what were they mainly concerned with? What type of problems?

CP: That main thing they were concerned about was jobs-

C: 01:04:00 Jobs?

CP: Yeah. And opportunities to--well, for better education. And-

C: So they went to the school board, like you talked about?

CP: Yeah. Yeah.

C: Did they go to the various employers trying to break open-

CP: Oh, yes. Elmer Bishop--don't forget him--he was a very dynamic leader.

C: What was that name again?

CP: Reverend Elmer Bishop.

C: How do you spell his name?

CP: E-L-M-E-R. B-I-S-H-O-P.

C: Okay.

WP: Now his son, Nathaniel Bishop, is a member of this Methodist church here in town.

C: United Methodist?

WP: Yes.

CP: It's Asbury.

WP: Asbury.

C: Oh, Asbury! I'm sorry. Asbury, okay.

WP: He lives out on North Drive now.

C: Because I was thinking about St. Paul 01:05:00because you got two, isn't there two

United Methodist?

CP: There's a Black United Methodist-

C: Yeah, a white and one Black-

CP: The Black is not United Methodist; it's the Asbury AME-

WP: No, Asbury's not AME. Blacksburg is AME.

C: Yeah, its.

CP: Oh, it's St. Paul.

C: St. Paul. I was thinking about St. Paul.

CP: Are you talking about the St. Paul down here? Christiansburg, the white St. Paul?

C: So that's a United Methodist?

WP: Right.

C: And Asbury's a United Methodist, right.

WP: Yeah.

C: No, there's not a Black AME in Christiansburg. I know that. [Laughter].

CP: Asbury Methodist.

C: So, they were very instrumental in trying to-

CP: Reverend Bishop and he pastored that church, that Methodist Church here.

C: So he was very active?

WP: Oh, yes.

CP: Yes.

C: What did he do?

CP: Very outspoken.

C: What 01:06:00were some of the things that he was calling for?

CP: He was calling for equality. I can remember some of his statements. He said,

I don't want to marry a white woman, but if I want to, I want the opportunity to

do it. [Laughter].

C: Yeah, that was controversial. That's one stay to stir up the pot.

WP: [Laughs].

C: Any other things that you can remember that he said?

WP: Well, up Radford [inaudible 1:06:09] that park.

CP: Yeah, they had a farm up there, the Wildwood Park. They'd gone down to see

about the Blacks going in for activities, picnics and so forth.

C: Over in Depot off of-

WP: No, in Radford.

C: Oh, this is Radford.

CP: I don't remember his exact words but he said that he may not ever go there

on a picnic, but if he took a notion to go, he wanted it to be alright.

C: Is he still 01:07:00 alive?

CP: No, he's dead. And his wife was buried last month.

C: Oh.

CP: He had a son that lived on North Drive until [inaudible 1:07:07]

WP: He used to be on the police force here in town.

C: Oh, I know Bishop.

CP: That's Reverend Bishop's son.

WP: That's his son.

C: Oh, I know him.

CP: Butch. He has a son that's a pastor, but he's living in Pennsylvania.

[Inaudible 1:07:23]

C: Now the names are--so he was a minister's son? Did he get himself in trouble?

Did whites try to put him in his place or?

CP: I don't think he ever really had-

C: Any trouble.

CP: Trouble.

WP: Really, in this particular area here, 01:08:00even in downtown when desegregation

started there--now the Five and Ten which was on Main Street at the time-

C: The one where the Western Union used to be located? Is that the one?

WP: It's on the same side of the street now that the Old Town Mall is on.

C: Oh, on that side? Okay.

WP: They had a lunch counter in there, and when he opened it up, he said for us

to [inaudible 1:08:13]. Now they had a lunch counter in the drugstore that was

on the corner right up there from where the bank office is now, right up the

street on the corner. Thompson had a [1:08:35] drugstore over there, and they

had a lunch counter. You could go in there and buy your ice cream cone, but you

were not going to stay. [Laughs].

CP: They had a Black girl working there.

WP: There was a Black man--oh, in the Five and Ten.

CP: Oh, yeah, and over at the 01:09:00drugstore, too. Maureen worked at the drugstore,

but you know to start off with, they picked these real fair ones you know

[Inaudible 1:09:00] [Laughs].

C: Well, did Bishop and them bring 'em up and say we should be able to go

anywhere we want? Did they go to these various stores and say these practices

have got to cease?

CP: [Inaudible 1:09:17]. The NAACP had a march when Medger Evers died, but this

was just a march protesting what had been done to Medger Evers. We did it here

because we--But, you know, the white people in the area, they never pushed. They

were quiet, just silent. We had that march, and we borrowed Clayter's hearse,

just like a funeral procession.

C: Oh, from Radford, yeah.

CP: 01:10:00 Uh-huh.

C: [Laughs].

CP: And we walked through town behind the hearse and everything and carried

placards. I have never to this day heard a word about it as Reverend Calloway's

wife said, we put the quietus on them.

WP: [Laughs].

CP: I have never heard a thing about that since we did that march. We also did a

march from the post office to the old gymnasium over at Christiansburg Institute

when Martin Luther King [Jr.] got killed. Never heard a word about that. We

walked from the post office all the way over to the [Christiansburg] Institute

carrying signs, you know. And then, of course, we had a program there in his

name because I was on that program.

C: I had never come across this even in the various vertical files and other

things. It didn't get filed. Was it in the newspaper?

WP: I bet you didn't come across them burning a cross here in Christiansburg

either did ya?

C: No.

WP: [Laughs]

C: Oh, yes I did. There was 01:11:00one in Blacksburg, I believe.

WP: There was one here in Christiansburg, too.

C: Okay, when did that happen?

WP: Down off Roanoke Road. Oh, it must have been two years ago.

CP: Yeah, I think so.

WP: Two years ago.

C: Two years ago?

WP: Yeah.

C: Wow!

WP: [Laughs].

C: Well, what was the message?

CP: Nothing was never heard.

WP: There was nothing in the newspapers, nothing on the news-

C: I never saw it in the news.

WP: I know you didn't. [Laughs].

C: I didn't see it. What is all this stuff that didn't get in the newspaper.

Only the people in the know, know.

CP: Most of them are quiet. Well, like the people that live out here, we have

been mixed all along. Now, we had a white lady on the hill and the mother, they

were [1:11:31] almost like sisters. Her kids would stay here, I mean all night,

and we'd go up there and stay all night. And I have a neighbor right here, and

she's the best neighbor I 01:12:00have. She's white. But I don't know how it would be if

it ever came down to the nitty gritty. But they are very good neighbors.

WP: Truthfully, I don't think Hazel over there [1:12:03] would be any different.

I really don't because when you go in her house here-

CP: [19]89.

CP: We were without power here for, what, two weeks?

CP: Uh-huh, about sixteen days.

C: You were without power that long?

CP: Yeah, and I had a sick father here in the bed. That was the twenty-second of

September. I'll never forget it.

WP: He ran a cord from his house over here, so we could have light.

C: I also lived in Christiansburg at the time, and we were out for only two 01:13:00days. And you're talking about two weeks?

WP: Two weeks. The [inaudible 1:12:50] pulled the whole line out of the house.

Pulled the brick off the wall. Pulled the shutters off the windows. Knocked a

hole through the wall into the bedroom back there.

C: Did you complain to the electrical services, and they were just that slow?

WP: They were that slow.

CP: Well, it did so much damage we had had to have some carpentry work done.

WP: We had brickwork done, carpentry work done.

C: We were very lucky where we were. Nothing happened. Across the street from us

trees got toppled.

WP: Well, from here on out, they had lights.

CP: Well, we did get the phone back in. I have a souvenir brick there that got

Hugo on it.

C: Oh a Hugo brick. [Laughs].

CP: It's a brick off the house. [Laughs].

WP: In speaking of 01:14:00the neighbors, truly, I don't think these people would be any

different regardless because they have about near shown their true colors

really, when he come down.

C: Good or bad?

WP: Good. And I think whatever turned out that they would stand up and be counted.

C: That's good.

CP: In 1955, my brother married a German girl and brought her here. Now Mother

and Daddy had to go through a lot of signing of papers and all in the courthouse

and everything to get her here.

C: At the Montgomery County?

CP: The Montgomery County Courthouse. I guess the town knew that this white

woman was coming into our home. And my father at that time worked at Lynchburg

Foundry Company. They had a shop in Radford. One man made a remark and said,

Everett, aren't you afraid to have that 01:15:00white woman in your house? Aren't you

afraid that something might happen to your house? That it would burn down or

something? Now that's all he said. Well Dad didn't answer. But there were

several Black people working around, so they just came right up to him and said,

if Mack's house get burned tonight, yours is going to get burned down the next

night. [Laughter]. And we had no trouble.

C: I think that was the answer. [Laughter]

CP: And Annie has been in our family and she comes here. But, now, we used to go

to town together back in the [19]50s. They would see us together, and a clerk

would come, not like now when you go in and wait on yourself with a basket, they

would come to wait on you. If we would be standing together, they would go to

her first. And sometimes she would say, I'm [inaudible 1:15:32]. And then they

would ask me, what do I want.

C: Well, I think that we have 01:16:00covered a lot of ground here. A lot of ground.

Okay, on that note, I'm going to have to depart the premises. My wife might

throw my clothes out at this point. [Laughter]. So, I'm going to have to

terminate the interview. I have learned quite a bit. Thank you for your cooperation.

[End of interview]