By Tramaine Pride
My grandmother has lived through some of America’s most interesting decades these past 65 years. She was in school when desegregation began, angry when “King” was killed, saw man go to space, bought herself an iPod, and has lived to see the first black president in Barack Obama. In our interview I asked her about these events and others that happened during her lifetime to understand a Southern black woman’s view of them when they happened. Bringing up these events brought up an immense amount of memories and stories which led to us having a two-day interview because apparently “our family tends to be a bit longwinded.” Although born in the North, she has used Southern values of church and family to overcome the daily challenges that she has faced.
My grandmother is the youngest of five children who all were born in North Carolina with one exception — her. Her father, a New York native, wanted to move his family up north so his children would have a “better chance on life” rather than one in North Carolina where he had had many problems as an African American. After my grandmother was born, the family stayed in New York until she was around ten years old when her parents divorced and separated. Although her oldest brother and her father stayed in New York, she moved to the South during a time she described as hectic. Though she had heard about desegregation, she didn’t pay it much attention because she had gone to school in the inner city with all “colored” people her whole life. She always knew race was an issue growing up, but she is admittedly ignorant to marches and protests that I was so eager to find out about. “You just didn’t want to stir up any problems down here,” she explained.
She grew up in North Carolina in a single-parent home with two brothers and a sister; everyone in the family played their parts in helping support the family. Her mother did her best and taught them how to use the water pump and how to handle their business in the outhouse. She wasn’t used to the Southern way of life after living in New York. She told me that her mother kept chickens and that she learned to catch, kill, pluck and cook a chicken with great goory detail. Reflecting on this practice she laughed at my face and told me how lucky I am to have Food Lion now. Though the chores and living were harder in the South, “You did them because you had to for your family, and that was true love. I did all that because we had to, and I loved my family; mean as she was, I love my mama.”
During high school she worked for the Pinehurst Resort (“The Hotel”) as did most of her classmates and neighbors from Taylortown. Her oldest brother went into the Army, the other brother went back to New York for college, but she and her sister stayed in the local area after high school working and “courting.” She had fun partying on the “hill” in Taylortown and being the center of attention for the local male population. My grandmother was married four times total and is currently still with her fourth husband. She tells me the reasoning behind these marriages was because “It was the right thing to do. Marriage was how you stayed in a relationship with a man. One did not just move in and live together because you were in love; it was a sin called shackin’ in the church I was raised in.”Her second husband, my grandfather, was “real country boy” raised in West End North, Carolina, by some “Indians and white folks,” she says with a laugh, “Why you think your mama’s so bright?” In that marriage she had four children and was a true housewife. “I cooked like my mama, I cleaned like my mama, and I loved hard like mama too.” She learned about root medicines and home remedies from my grandfather’s Native American mother. My grandmother was suspicious of some of those practices like most southern blacks; she referred to them as “witchy.” She took her family to the same A.M.E. Zion Pentecostal Church that her mother went to in Taylortown. The church was what kept and still keeps the family together. She made her children sing in the choir and attend Sunday school, they were all christened there, and she had three of her four weddings there too. Her two children who are married, my aunt and uncle, were married in the same church. Life was pretty much the same from generation to generation, her children had children, and I was subsequently raised in Taylortown.
We discussed some changes such as her interaction with white people. For a long time she didn’t deal with white people outside of being a service to them. Most of her adult life she either worked for or served white people, many from the North. She served these rich victors who came to Pinehurst for golf and recreation while she was young and later served and nursed them when they were old in the retirement and nursing facilities in Pinehurst too. In her early ‘50’s still working in nursing, she decided it was time for a change, and that change was her education. Growing up in the South she “didn’t care much about school as much about making money and helping the family survive. That’s just how everybody did it; you worked and survived but never really elevated yourself beyond that.”
She says her children and grandchildren were her inspiration to focus on her education. She attended community college and received an associate in arts degree with honors and elevated her pay and status. She credits her family for helping her along the way. In high school I remember helping her to use a computer and prepare presentations and spreadsheets. She had white classmates who have become her white friends now. “I took me long enough,” she says with a smile. When I asked her did she think race was still an issue even with Obama as president, she responded, “It’s really a beautiful thing how far we’ve come, and I hope y’all just love on each other till all that’s gone.”
My grandmother was uprooted from the North and was raised in the South. Her life has seen many changes in culture over the years and she has changed hers along with it. But the Southern ideals such as church and the importance of family are still how she will live forever.
Work Cited
Baldwin, Toni. Personal interview. 8 Sep. 2011.
Note: Tramaine Pride, who is from Southern Pines, NC, is a university transfer student at Sandhills Community College where he is pursuing an associate in arts degree.
