Grandma’s Journey from North to South

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.

The Town Time Forgot

By Christy Evans

Nothing is more interesting than learning about “how things used to be” — that’s exactly what I did by interviewing my mother-in-law, Emma Jane Brown Evans. Born on October 4, 1950 in Robbins, NC, she was the younger of two children of W.C. and Denese Brown. According to Jane, life growing up in this small southern town has not changed very much over years.

"The biggest thing about our town I remember from my childhood was a huge sense of community. Everyone looked out for each other, and love your neighbor was our code of life.” When growing up, about 15 kids on her block always got together to play in the streets, go to the movies, and go trick-or-treating every Halloween. “You didn’t have to worry about the meanness then that you have to look out for now. It was a God-fearing town.”

The event in the South that had the most effect on her life is the integration of schools. Until 1965, she attended school with only other white children; however, when entering the tenth grade, integration began taking place in Robbins. The all-black school closed, and all the students from it began attending North Moore High School. For her, this wasn’t an issue, but some seniors who were graduating made huge deals by “taunting the lower classmen about having to share their school with people of color.”

According to Jane, when she was growing up, her parents did not raise her to be prejudiced but to love everyone. However, not everybody in town shared those beliefs. Even though integration was going on in the schools, it wasn’t going on in the neighborhoods. No black families were allowed to live inside the city limits of Robbins. “If a house was for sale and a black family tried to buy it, then someone else in the community would buy it first so that the black family couldn’t.” She also said, “As far as I know, that still happens today. I guess that some things will never change.”

Like most other Southerners, family and church were very important. Parents taught and instilled values and manners in their children. A child was expected to show respect to elders and address them properly. Another important element of her childhood was church. “That is where you were supposed to be on Sunday morning, and if you weren’t then Grandma would show up at your house afterwards wanting to know why.” After church every Sunday, family dinners consisted of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, green beans, and homemade biscuits. It was a time to sit down with family, enjoy their company, and catch up on everyone’s lives. Teenagers weren’t allowed to date until they were sixteen, and “women had more respect for themselves by not letting everything hang out. Churches and their preachers pretty much ran the town.”

Jane’s parents brought her up with the mindset that attending college was a must, not an option, and that’s what she did. She started at Sandhills Community College, got her associate in arts degree, and then transferred to UNCP where she received her teaching degree. Jane said, "Education is a must to survive in the world today, not only in the South but all over."

One last nugget I learned is how Robbins seems to be “stuck in the past.” According to Jane, neighboring communities describe Robbins as “the town time forgot” because even as everything in the world has changed, Robbins still stays with the simpler way of living.

The changes in life — and resistance to change — are so interesting. My mother-in-law taught me that some of the “good ol’ days” are still alive in our neighboring communities, and we should hold on to as much of Southern culture and value as we can.

Work Cited

Evans, Emma Jane Brown. Personal interview. 5 Sept. 2011.

Note: Christy Evans, who is from Aberdeen, NC, is a nursing student at Sandhills Community College where she is pursuing an associate in arts degree.

Good Ol’ Days

By Darlene Brown

Some may say growing up in the Sandhills area of Scotland County was a simple and uncomplicated way of life. Compared to the affairs of the world today, it may seem as such. Although families did not worry about home invasions or gang-like violence, the way of life for those who experienced it was all but simple. Growing up in a family of sharecroppers, country living was definitely not a life of luxury but a complicated life of hard work, necessity and family bonding. A close family friend, who experienced the life of working on a farm during the “good ol’ days,” revealed to me a real-life account of the tedious routines of growing up in the Sandhills of Scotland County.

My interviewee, whom we will call Mrs. H., told of her personal experiences living on a farm. Mrs. H. said she did not go to school because school was not a high priority. She recalls that at the age of nine her typical day was to get up at sunrise and go outside to the water pump; she would wash up with lye soap in cold water. Then she would carry water into the house for her younger siblings to wash their faces. She would next start the wood-burning stove to cook breakfast for her siblings because her parents had already gone to the tobacco fields where they made a living for the family as sharecroppers. Mrs. H. was so small that she had to stand on a soapbox to reach the top of the wood stove. She would prepare a breakfast that consisted of homemade biscuits, fatback meat, and syrup. Unfortunately, the fire would go out in the process of cooking; therefore, she would have to walk barefoot into the woods, chop, gather, and haul wood back home to keep the fire burning.

After getting her siblings washed and fed, it was time for her many chores. Mrs. H. said she had to “shoo” the chickens from under the porch of the house, which was a difficult task because the dilapidated porch, which had holes and cracks, allowed the chickens to see her coming, and they would run farther and farther underneath the porch and house. After that task was completed, she pumped water for the mules, fed the horses, milked the cows, and slopped the pigs. Next was the task of washing clothes; she drew water from the hand pump and collected it in a large tin tub. Lye soap was served for multiple uses of washing the body as well as the laundry. A washboard was used to scrub the clothes clean. After cleaning the clothes, they were drooped across the bushes in the yard to dry and watched carefully by the younger ones to keep the cows and mules from gnawing on the clothes.

Yet, the day’s work had just begun. Now she had to cater to her parents who were out in the tobacco field. She would wait for the iceman to come around and pay 25 cents for a chunk of ice, which she would wrap in a cotton sheet and chip using an ice pick. Then she would gather clean Mason jars, a bucket, and a ladle to carry the water and sandwiches to the field for her parents. She did this daily until her “time and age came around”; Mrs. H. was then taken to the field by her father and taught how to “suckle” tobacco — known today as topping, which is taking the flower tops off the tobacco stalks and clearing growth from around the roots of the plants.

During her childbearing years, Mrs. H. would carry her baby to the field in a crib, put the crib at the foot of her row under a big oak tree, and place a cotton mesh sheet over the crib to protect the baby from flies and mosquitoes. Then she would then go about her duty of “priming tobacco.” Along with working in the field, she also worked as a tobacco stringer and as a market preparer, which consisted of stringing tobacco leaves on sticks and hanging them in tin barn to be cooked.

Regardless of what Mrs. H. has been through or what has been taken from her, she still fines joy in giving someone a piece of her wisdom from her youthful years in the old South. She managed to survive on the food of her farm, which is actually healthier than the processed food we have today. She also made sure that her younger brothers and sisters went to school while she took care of the house when her parents were away in the fields. Mrs. H. also made sure that her parents had food ready after their long day of work. Her family benefited every day from her hard work.

Work Cited

McLaughlin, Hattie. Personal interview. 10 Sep. 2011.

Note: Darlene Brown, who is from Wagram, NC, is a student at Sandhills Community College in the medical office administration program.

Moonshine

by Kayla Cruz

When my father was born in 1948, he was the only boy of eight children. Growing up in Red Springs, N.C. (part of Robeson County), he was taught as early as age eight how to plow fields by mule and fill up tobacco barns. He referred this as “hard work” and “good times (Mcmillan), but on weekends all the boys went out and had some fun. “Friday night football, girls, and moonshine” were all you needed (Mcmillan). For centuries, moonshine has been an icon for the American South.

White liquor was very prevalent during this time. The southern names for moonshine were known as: “white lightin’” or “hooch.” During this time money was hard to come by, and many people started making and selling moonshine to provide for their families. People who made and sold moonshine made good money. The men, known as “bootleggers” or “backwoods brewmakers,” made the liquor. Their wives, also known as “Mary Janes,” “Jezebels,” and “Modas Jones” sold the liquor (Mcmillan).

Moonshining was illegal; therefore the “bootleggers” had to make it deep into the woods so that no one would be able to find it. The process of making moonshine was not simple, and it took the most precise measurements to make it. The most common ingredients were brown sugar, water, honey, and yeast. All of this was poured into a fermenter and was left to sit for six to fourteen days. After it was fermented and bottled, to test it you could shake it, and if suds came to the top and then disappeared, it was good. If the suds stayed, you knew not to drink it. “It was sold in Mason jars or Pepsi Cola bottles, and was only a dollar per gallon. Pool tables and juke boxes were provided to stay and party” (Mcmillan).

The U.S. prohibited the making and selling of moonshine in the 1920s, although “hooch” is still made today. Many illegal distilleries are being shut down by law enforcement each day. Moonshine led the first revolution against the U.S. government. This outbreak was known as the “Whiskey Rebellion,” which occurred right after the Revolutionary War when the government tried to tax homemade moonshine. During this time, the slogan was, “For the sake of my family, vote dry” (Rewald). They distributed stickers with the slogan on it to each customer to support the making and selling of moonshine.

I personally have never experienced drinking moonshine; however my father has had his share. Even though, my father had to work hard during the week to get the fields plowed, the weekends were the times to relax, hang out with friends, and drink a little moonshine. Most southern natives will say that it is “good stuff” (Mcmillan). It has been many centuries since this southern tradition was created, and today it is still going strong.

Works Cited

Mcmillan Bobby, Jr. Personal interview. 29 June 2011.

Rewald, Jason. "Moonshine, Canned Heat, and a Cathead." TheDeltaBlues. 23 Aug 2010. Web. 3 July 2011.



Note: Kayla Cruz, who is from Aberdeen, NC, is majoring in surgical technogolgy and nursing at Sandhills Community College.

The Southern Experiences of Papa

by Auriel Jeffries

To extend information to my generation about growing up in the South, an amazing man who grew up right here in Southern Pines shared his experiences with me. Thomas Braxton Ray, my papa, is now seventy-four years old. Although the experiences were not positive, Papa was still willing to share them and relate his journey as a half Black, half Cherokee in the South. From movie theaters to restaurants and schools, he was wrongly treated — not because of his character but because of the color of his skin.

When he was in school, he experienced much more prejudice people than someone today. The schools that he went to were segregated. When he was in the eleventh grade, Papa had to use old ninth grade books, which were from the school across town that had only white students. The books were so old that the white students no longer used or needed them.

When my grandpa was young, his family was very poor. It was hard for a black family to have a decent paying job. His household contained of four other siblings. With his mom and dad, there were seven people in all. His dad, a Baptist minister, also worked other jobs. Both his mother and his father worked in food service (much like restaurant jobs today). His mother also did domestic housework. There weren’t any good jobs available for people of his status. The saying that they used back then was, “If you’re white, you’re alright. If you’re brown, stick around. If you’re black, get back” (Ray).

Restaurants in Southern Pines were also prejudiced when my grandpa was growing up. Black people were treated differently from the white people at some restaurants. At one restaurant, Papa had to go to a back window to get food. He referred to this behavior as feeling like he was treated like a dog getting food out of a doggy window, though it was common and expected then for this behavior to take place. The restaurants and schools were not the only places my grandpa was mistreated.

A lot of locals are familiar with the Sunrise Theater in downtown Southern Pines. I discovered from my grandpa that the theater was not always as it is now. Because my grandpa was black, he was not allowed to watch the movies like we can now. He as well as other black people who wanted to watch a movie had to sit at the top of the theater where he said they could barely see anything instead of being able to sit in the main floor area where there was a better view.

My grandpa unfortunately experienced the prejudice in the South not only in Southern Pines but in the military, which he also joined. He said that the military was prejudiced and segregated. I would not expect this to be in the military of all places, but apparently it was. The military would do things like rotate the black guys to another company, and this happened to him.

Though my grandpa had a hard time growing up in the South, he let me know that he is glad that he was able to live through the transformation of the South. He experienced not only the bad but the good change that has come today. He feels happier than ever to see that his grandchildren are able to have a better life growing up then he did and can have better opportunities.

Work Cited

Ray, Thomas. Personal interview. 29 June 2011.


Note: Auriel Jeffries, who is from Southern Pines, NC, is majoring in criminal justice and psychology at Sandhills Community College.

Historic Biscuits

by Brady Hale

The majestic Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia are home to number of small counties and towns. Nestled right in the midst of them all is Franklin County. Named for the great Benjamin Franklin, it’s mostly known for its steep history of moonshinin’ and its proximity to Smith Mountain Lake. Franklin County has always been a rural, backwoods community and remains so to this very day. However, I know Franklin County for something totally different, the birthplace of the greatest biscuits ever made. To make this story make more sense let’s wind the clock back almost a century ago.

September 3, 1919 was a day that I obviously can’t remember, but it is a date that I will never forget. Why, you ask? On that day, some ninety-two years ago, my grandmother, Ola Scott, was born. As was often the case then, she was one of several children -- eleven to be exact, nine boys and two girls. Times were certainly different for her then, no T.V. or video games, not even electricity or motorized vehicles. Chores were aplenty. As most of her brothers were in charge of the outdoor duties of the farm, she and her sister Libby were responsible for most indoor and household chores.

Her early childhood was a typical one for a young girl growing up in rural Virginia at that time. School, chores, and church were the staples of her early life. Then in the early 1930s the deep depression ravaging the country’s great urban areas began to impact the rural South. Times were tough, work was scarce, and money was tight. Feeding a family of thirteen was not easy, and often just basics were available. Chicken and pork were normally staples, but with less money for livestock feed fewer animals were kept, and meat portions were smaller. However, one item was served with almost all meals, biscuits. Easy to make, cheap to make, and quite fulfilling, biscuits were a great solution. Wonderful you might say, a family tradition passed down from her mother to be passed on for generations, but unfortunately not the case.

Beginning in the late ‘30s my grandmother received training from a “finishing teacher.” This was actually was an initiative started by Franklin Roosevelt as part of his New Deal. He felt it necessary to refine the young women of the country in household basics such as cleaning, cooking, and some nursing skills. The warring nations of Europe gave him reason to believe that eventually the U.S. might be pulled into the unfortunate situation, and we needed trained young women to care for returning soldiers. My grandmother quickly enlisted the help of her “finishing teacher” to help her develop the skills necessary for baking the delicious treats. I’m sure you’re thinking OK, just biscuits, not that hard. Well, that simply wasn’t the case. Only a wood burning stove was available, and the biscuits had to be cooked on top. Just getting the temperature of the stove to the correct temperature was a difficult task. But hardest of all was achieving the perfect brownness on top which is what kept the inside so moist and warm.

That’s it -- Grandma’s great biscuits, which I thought were a family recipe, instead were literally the makings of an act of Congress. From Benjamin Franklin to Franklin D. Roosevelt to Ola Scott to me, her biscuits aren’t just good -- they’re historic!

Work Cited

Bowling, Ola S. Personal interview. 3 Feb. 2011.

Note: Brady Hale, who is from Radford, Virginia, is majoring in turfgrass management at Sandhills Community College.

The Civil Rights Movement: In the Words of My Father

by Orin McCauley

When I visit the birthplace of my father, I can still see remnants of the Old South. Cotton fields, dilapidated tobacco barns, and the occasional Confederate flag still line the rural streets. Such sights allows me to imagine Jim Crow police with fire hoses, dogs, and billy clubs attacking protesters. I recall the footage of grown men crying after receiving the news of MLK’s murder. I have always been in awe of the strength black people had to display during a time where they were considered three fourths of a human being. I’ve seen and read about the National Guard escorting little black children to school. Today this seems so unimaginable. Sadly, these events occurred, and my father, Edward McCauley, was there to witness.

When I asked my father to describe his life in rural Mt. Gilead, NC, during the Civil Rights Movement, I did not know what he would say. I hoped that I would not hear that he had not been exposed to the hurt and pain associated with being thought of as “less than.” I hoped that rural little Mt. Gilead was removed from the injustices suffered by Blacks in bigger cities like Birmingham or Cleveland. When I expressed these thoughts to my father, he replied, “Boy, don’t you know the Civil Rights Movement started an hour up the road?” Then he began to tell me about the Greensboro Four. On February 1, 1960, four college students entered a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro. They sat down at the whites-only lunch counter and refused to get up. News of this courageous move by the four young black men in a segregated South soon spread, and the next day more students joined in and sat at the Woolworth’s whites-only lunch counter. The sit-ins, which occurred for several more days, catapulted the Civil Rights Movement in the South.

When I asked my father about the emotions associated with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his head dropped. Then he began to speak about the loss of Medger Evans, Malcolm X, and President John F. Kennedy. He spoke about the feelings of anger and despair. He said he had heard the adults in his family and community saying that everyone who tried to stand up for the civil rights of Blacks had been gunned down. They spoke about being discouraged but not being defeated. My father said, “When all them died, everybody kinda knew that equality would be a slow, uphill battle.”

To my dismay, my father was exposed to the pain associated with the Civil Rights Movement. However, the effect it had on him does not sadden me. It makes me proud. I believe he is proud too. He is respectful, strong, and ethical. When I asked Daddy about feeling "less than" as a black man in the South, he quoted James Brown’s 1968 hit, “Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud.”

Work Cited

McCauley, Edward C. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2011.

Note: Orin McCauley, who is lives in Ellerbe, is majoring in business administration at Sandhills Community College.