Oral History: Rachel Williams

Oral History; Community; School; Work; Integration

Rachel Williams

Cathy Wood

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English

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FLPL_RCD_8 transcript.docx

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28:30

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Florence African American Heritage Project
Sunday, November 19, 2017
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interviewer: Cathy Wood
Interviewee: Rachel Williams
C: This is Cathy Wood, I’m here at the third history harvest. We’re at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library, it’s Sunday November 19th, 2017. And I am here with, and what is your name?
R: Rachel Williams.
C: Ms. Williams you are going to talk about just the things you remember about segregated Florence?
R: Yes.
C: So let’s start out with where and when were you born?
R: Okay, I was born here in Florence, Alabama and I was born in 1960.
C: Tell me about the places you went to school.
R: I went to school, I started out when I was five years old and they were beginning to integrate the white schools for kindergartners, so I was one of those. I went to, I believe it was Gilbert at the time, and it was my first experience at the age of 5 you know, being with white kids. And it was exciting, and I even told my mom, ‘I want to play with them,’ you know, because they were different, and it was a difference for me in a good way and not a bad way, I just wanted to get to know who they were as a people. And I noticed they didn’t want to play with me, they were a little standoffish, but after awhile we got kind of used to each other, we would play. But then I remember going home and saying, ‘mommy I want to play with them and they don’t want to play with me.’ And she tried to explain to me, said ‘Rachel well play with other kids if they don’t want to play with you.’ So I do remember that.
C: Were you the only black child in that class?
R: I can’t remember, I might have been. I usually was the only black, most of the time, but that was something I got used to and it wasn’t a big deal for me cause I seemed to get along with everyone. But when I was integrated into the schools at the age of 9 or 10, it was ok, you know we kind of looked at each other cause we were not used to being in school with each other, me and the white kids. But then after a while we just started talking and developed some really good friendships. But I noticed my teacher was very racist. And that bothered me. Even the black (white?) kids noticed it. She was my, I believe she was my history teacher. And I noticed every time she would get up in front of the class and reference black people we were either ‘colored’—which, I hated that word cause I couldn’t figure out what ‘colored’ was, because I figured you look at a crayon box, you’ve got every color, so why were we referenced as colored? Because I didn’t get this at home. So to hear it in a school system, it upset me at the age of 9, it’s weird because I was so young. But she would say colored and then the one that really got me was the word “nigra.” And I think I whispered to one of my classmates, ‘she’s trying to say nigger, but she’s being very subtle about it.’ We got offended, because there were more blacks at that particular time in the classroom, and she seemed to use this word quite a bit when she was talking about black history. So one day, me, as bold as I was, I raised my hand when she said the word nigra cause I was tired of hearing it, and I said ‘Ms. Killen’—that was her name, I don’t mind saying her name, she’s probably not even living today—but I said, ‘Ms. Killen, what is a nigra?’ And she said, ‘you, you people.’ I said, ‘what people? Because I’m not a nigra. Are you trying to say negro?’ And this is a kid at the age of 9. I said, ‘why are you using that word, cause we’re offended by the word, and it sounds like you’re saying ‘nigger.’ And I said this in front of the whole class because we were tired of her using the word nigra, it was so offensive. But she just kind of looked at me and brushed me off and she never answered the question, but I know she never used the word much anymore. Every now and then it would slip. But then there was the time that she wanted me to use the words, ‘yes ma’am.’ And because of the way my mom was, we were raised in a very Christian home and we were taught respect, but we either said ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ we didn’t say ‘yes ma’am.’ Because my momma felt that that was just being too submissive. So because I didn’t say ‘yes ma’am to her, I kind of got in a little trouble. So I went home and I told my mom, and of course my mother handled it so I never had to say ‘yes ma’am’ to this teacher. She was very racist. And maybe if she would have been respectful, maybe I would’ve said ‘yes ma’am’ just to appease because I believe respect is given to who honors it. Now that I’m older I can go past that but as a child, you know, you think a little bit different. But yeah that was really rough.
C: And what school was that?
R: This was at Harlan, when they started integrating the Harlan school out in North Florence. If you notice at that particular time, that was a ritzy area so to speak, full of hard-working white people. There weren’t any blacks in that area. It was very, only a handful, yeah. And they were over on Shade and Maple but there wasn’t any black people in that particular area, it was only white, an only white area. And this teacher she was so racist.
C: Is that where you all lived?
R: No we actually lived on the west side, but they bused us. But I didn’t bus because my mother would take me to school. But a lot of us, as they say, were bused in just to get into the schools to integrate us. They were closing the black schools at the time and they wanted us to go to the white schools.
C: So did you have brothers and sisters?
R: Oh Lord, yes. I have older ones, and I remember the stories that they would tell me. Now they were born like in 1950. And my brother was telling me that you really didn’t want to go uptown to Florence to eat in the restaurants cause you would have to go in the back. And that you couldn’t go into certain areas of Florence because you would have to fight, you would get picked with. And also my mother was a maid, she did maid work and she would walk over from the black neighborhood all the way over to somewhere near Coffee High School, I can’t remember the street now. And she would say that a bunch of young white guys would drive up beside her (as she was walking) and just say ‘nigger, nigger, nigger’ and ‘pull that dress up, what’s under that dress,’ you know stuff that was disrespectful to my mother. And she said it hurt her so bad, and I asked ‘mom what did you do?’ And she said you just kept walking, you couldn’t do anything. So she would walk and get on to work. But what really got me, I’m sure you know that story about the maids…
C: The Help?
R: The Help. My mother lived that.
C: That’s what I was thinking when you said that.
R: She would go to the homes, she would raise their babies and cook this and that, and they would think so much of her and say, ‘Miss Jenny is wonderful.’ Couldn’t use their bathrooms. And she would say she’d have to hold and not relieve herself until she got home, sometimes her shifts were 12 or 13 hours, and momma could not use the bathroom. And there was one place that she would iron the clothes in the basement, and there was a hole in the floor not even fit for a dog to use. And she said if she had to use the bathroom, she had to use that.
And I remember my sisters and brothers, this is going back on this side now, not racism, but I just remember my sisters and brothers telling me that during the school year they would have to go out and pick cotton just to have money to buy books. And my sister said she never could pick enough because it was just so hard, so they would make up for her to make the money up.
C: I remember that, being in school and having to supply your own books.
R: …even though I endured racism, it didn’t mold me as a person to hate, I don’t have time to hate. And my mother was a missionary, in addition to being a maid she was a missionary, and she ran revivals and people got saved under her ministry, so she taught her ministry in her home with her children. So we didn’t have time to wait, you know what I mean? Cause when you hate someone that’s a burden. I’ll tell you this story. I have a friend that I went to school with, we met in 8th grade, and she was from Petersville, actually. She came to Appleby at the time. And she was a little white girl, she was very timid and nervous cause I don’t think she was around a lot of black kids, maybe a few. But she came and she said, ‘is anyone sitting in this seat?’ And I said (mock yelling) ‘do you see anyone sitting in this seat?’ Just being a smarty, wasn’t being mean. And she said no, and she sat down and then after she sat down…we are like…that’s my sister, that’s my best friend, she’s my daughter’s godmother, I mean we developed a relationship. But we used to go uptown in Florence, cause we were taking a French class. And we would go uptown and we would speak French to each other. And we would get around certain older white people and we would say things in French and then revert it to English. And we would say things like, ‘well when I get home, I’m telling mom on you.’ And they would just look at me. They would stop shopping just to look at us, and we would do this for the fun of it. We loved each other genuinely, we loved each other so much like family, and we’re still close. But I just remember doing these things, pushing the limits, you know. Cause it would blow their minds, ‘one’s black but she could be mixed. And the other is white,’ they didn’t know what was going on.
C: So what did your dad do?
R: My dad worked at TVA, he had a pretty good job for a black man during that time and he was like a biology assistant. In order for my dad to keep his job and keep in good standings, he would have to go and cut their grass, he would have to go babysit their children sometimes and do stuff like that with my mom. Just to keep his job. Because if he said no to them, he could lose his job. So not only did he have to work at TVA, he had to go to the homes of the white people and do servant work. Just to keep his job. But you know what he did, he turned it around and said, ‘at least I’m getting paid.’ So he looked at it as a financial gain, but that’s the way it was. Cause my dad was born, this is weird, my dad was 60 years old when I was born, he was born in 1900.
C: Were you the baby of the family?
R: I have a brother that’s younger than me. So my dad was 64 when my brother was born. So he went through a lot, and he didn’t really tell a lot of stories. I just remember my mom saying that he had to go through this just to keep his job.
C: How did you parents manage to live with all that hate and not pass it on to their children?
R: When you think about the world now, and think about something like police brutality and I’m worrying about my grandson because he’s 16 and he’s at an age where they are killing 16 year-olds…you can’t hate, cause when you hate, you’re worse than they are. I mean they, people who have racism. Let me clarify that. Not all people hate, but I’m talking about people who have true racism in their hearts. So why should I become them? I have to rise beyond that, so I think about that with my mother, cause is she let that (hate and racism) shape her, where would she have been with us? And my mother knew who Jesus was, and because we loved him so much, you have to look at what he went through. He was beat for my salvation, I guess I can endure a little racism, cause I’m going to Heaven, I ain’t got time to hate.
C: So what do you think about racism today, do you feel welcome anywhere in downtown Florence now?
R: As a matter of fact, it’s weird because I lived up north for like 20-some odd years. We moved to Illinois. I graduated from nursing school here, I went to Shoals Community College and me and my husband went up there. He died a year later, he had sickle-cell disease. I went away and I came back, and what really got me was the Confederate flags, I had to get used to them, I was like ‘what in the world’ cause you don’t see that up north. Up north that’s a different type of racism, it’s a sneakiness. I don’t like you because of the color of your skin, but you’ll never know it cause I’ll work the underground, it’s hidden. In the south, if someone doesn’t like you because of the color (of your skin) at least you know, cause they let you know hey, I don’t like you, don’t come nowhere near me. So when I came back, I was like where did these Confederate flags come from, and my children were offended because they never saw anything like that. But walking downtown, I saw love, at least the people I encountered. They are not going to let that (racism) get into them.
I worry about my grandchildren, cause we need to do something in this country to stop the hated. And I think the President, I don’t really care for him, but he just brought it out, how people really feel.
C: So you raised your children in the 80s?
R: Yes my daughter was born in 1982 and my son was born in 1986.
C: So how did you have conversations with them about racism? And just for the tape, Rachel’s daughter is here, and your name is…
E: Erica
C: And you were born in Florence in…
E: 82.
C: So you’re…
E: 34, turning 35 next month.
C: So how did your mother use the lessons that she learned from her mother to teach you about racism and the prejudice that you might experience?
E: To be honest I never really experienced racism until we moved back here to Alabama.
C: Oh that’s right cause you grew up up north
E: Up north it’s a different type of racism. They will be in your face smiling but probably talk about you behind your back. If anything it’s the experiences of my son and daughter here in Alabama, cause they were born in Illinois. Like mom said, the Confederate flag.
C: So when did you all move back here?
E: Two years ago, 2015.
C: So it was a cultural shock for you coming here?
E: Yeah cause everybody up north, they get along. And you think back in the day, when racism (Jim Crow) started, they (blacks) got out of the south, they went up north. Coming back to the south, it’s just different.
C: So you (Erica) didn’t really experience racism because of where you grew up?
R: Well she did, she just doesn’t remember. There was an incident in Huntsville when she was only 5 years old, her first year in head start. And she went to school and I guess some kids was teasing her about her color, and it even went to the point where me and my husband went to class to see about what was going on. My husband was dark-skinned but because of my fair complexion, they told her, your momma’s color is ok, but your daddy’s color isn’t. So my daughter came home crying, and she told me, she made a statement that was so profound, she said, ‘ma, I don’t want to be black.’ I looked at her and I said ‘baby, there’s two things you’re going to be, and that’s black and die, and you can’t stop that.’ So I had to do something to make her proud of her blackness, so—and I don’t know if this is racist or not—but I started buying her nothing but black dolls. Because I wanted her to see the beauty in being black, and to see the beauty in enhancing her blackness. And I dealt with that head on because I see so many black people that hate being black. Their views are so twisted and messed up, I wanted her to be proud of who she was. But that was the only incident where she came home and said, ‘I don’t want to be black anymore.’
C: What about your children, how old are your children?
E: My daughter is 14 and my son is 16.
C: So have they experienced racism?
E: Oh gosh, yeah. When we first came here, because obviously we don’t talk like people in the south talk. I have a little bit of an accent, but my kids, they’re just straight north. So even at church, they would tell my mom, does she hang around these people, and pointing at white people, do they hang around these people a lot? Or they would ask, they say my kids talk proper, I don’t think it’s proper it’s just what they grew up with. Up north they…we did live in a community that was predominantly white. It was kind of mixed. But then here, it was a cultural shock for my daughter at least cause she was at the top of her class in everything, and so is my son, he’s A’s, B’s, so they are both pretty good.
C: Where do they go to school? So your son’s at Florence High School?
E: And my daughter’s at Florence Middle School. We went to Cullman, for my daughters basketball game. She was in 6th grade at the team was really mixed at the time, but there’s also a little mixed girl on the basketball team and her mother is white. And my daughter has never been called outside of her name. But they were all called ‘niggers.’ And she’s like, ‘mom they called us ‘niggers,’ and I’m like, ‘what? Are you kidding me?’ So at this particular game—now, I make sure that I am off to go to all her away games. Cause now that we are down in the south, I just feel more comfortable being with her and not just watching her go off on that bus and saying I’ll pick you up later. But her first year here was her first time ever enduring racism. And I worry for my son too, thankfully he is a homebody and doesn’t like to go out, but I fear for him.
And at my job I have endured it…
R: She gets called a nigger every day. Yeah, she gets called a nigger every day.
C: Do you mind sharing where you work?
E: I can’t tell you where I work, but I work with mental health people, so it’s the clients. And I have this one little old lady and she’s 71, and I have to get used to her calling black people ‘colored’ people. She doesn’t mean anything by it, it’s just the era she grew up in. So I asked her, and she said she didn’t feel right calling black people black, cause she thought it was offensive so she just called them colored people. So I had to get used to that, so I told her just call me black.
C: I think those older generations are trying to learn how to not sound or be racist.
E: We went to the Taco Bell in Muscle Shoals, and I have never experience anybody just dropping the change in your hand. It was a white girl and instead of putting the change in my hand, she literally dropped it in my hand. And I was like she probably doesn’t want the black to rub off. I just think that we have experience things totally differently here in the south, I think this is a great place in terms of college and school for the kids.
C: Well before we conclude the interview is there anything that y’all want to say?
R: I think we need to make a difference and we need to show more love. That’s all.
END OF INTERVIEW

Cathy Wood

Rachel Williams and her daughter Erica

Florence-Lauderdale Public Library

00:10 to 04:58--Integration into Florence schools; discrimination;
04:59 to 28:30--domestic labor; discrimination; TVA; racism