Interview with William S. Steffens, May 24, 1984

 UNIDENTIFIED MALE: (reads from phone book) Well, I want to look around here, and check for this thing right here, to see if these people are still there or here or not. Twelfth Street. No I can do that myself. Thirteen-thirty-two. St. John’s Sullivan Hall-- to St. John—

DEVORE: Okay, I’ll start by asking you, could you tell us the year that you came North, and, but before you came North, was there any advice or any things that you were told to look for once you did receive, or once you did come to Philadelphia?

STEFFENS: Yes. My mother told me that as I was preparing to leave home, that I would be very careful not to pick up loose friends on any street corners or anything of that kind, have definite goals, or definite places to go to, and go 00:01:00there directly, and when you finished whatever you had to do, return to the places where you left from, and don’t pick up friends or loose acquaintances wherever you go, and always try to strive to go to church. Always find a church near where you live or where you reside, and go to church, and make yourself known. Identify yourself with the church, even if it’s just to say you are a church person visiting in a strange city. Um-hm. I was also told that in New York, there were a lot of pitfalls, some that you wouldn’t believe, and be careful of walking on manholes, especially those that were right near a 00:02:00building, because it might be possible that they would give way, and you would slide right down in a shoot, and get into an underground, something under there in that basement there, that you would never be able to get out of. Of course, I imagine that was to make me be very cautious, and make me know that I wasn’t to take anything for granted. And of course, I obeyed those instructions, and I came through with flying colors.

DEVORE: You mentioned that mother said to have specific goals in mind. Did you have any goals?

STEFFENS: Oh, yes. The goals that I had in mind was to get to someplace where I could exhibit what I thought I had accomplished, or what I had absorbed from her teaching, and my father’s instructions, because when I first came to Philadelphia, I wanted to be a real estate man. And I went to the big 00:03:00Philadelphia real estate office there, on Broad Street, right around from City Hall, and walked in, and asked to see the manager. And I explained to him my qualifications, my scholastic qualifications, and told him I would like to associate myself with this organization, and learn the real estate business right from the ground up. I told him that there was no question of money, because that wasn’t a consideration. I just wanted to know the business. And he said to me, “What a pity.” I said, “Sir?” He said, “Oh, never mind.” Then he said to me, he was glad that he had an opportunity to talk to me, and that he didn’t have no opening like that at this particular time, but he would take my name, and address, and so forth, but he said to me, “Now, we 00:04:00do have an opening for a janitor, and if you knew anybody that you would recommend, whatever, whoever you recommended to us, we would accept, because we knew that you wouldn’t recommend anybody that was not worthwhile.” And I thanked him, and walked out. And I poured over that conversation. And I explained it to a person that I knew there, in Philadelphia, and he said, to me, he said, “You know, he was just offering you a job. A mop and broom. That’s all he was doing.” And I came to realize that that was exactly what he was doing. So I felt then, that the opportunities that they told me would be available to me before I left the South, it wasn’t so. I found out to my 00:05:00consternation that the white man up North was perfectly satisfied to ride with you on the subway cars, or on the elevator trains, and sit by the side of you, because when he got up to go to where he had to go, he got up with his briefcase, and went to his office. But when you got up, you went to a mop and broom, because there was no office for you to go to up here. But in the South, when colored men rode in the back in the busses, and the trains, and the trolley cars, in the South, when they got up, they went to their occupations, which was brick-laying, cement-finishing, carpentering, and mechanical engineering, but they had to ride in the back of the busses, and the transportation facilities. 00:06:00So that is the difference. It’s the same, it was, I found out, it was the same thing, only just painted with different colors. It was that same degree of segregation, and denying, denial of privileges that we thought we were going to enjoy when we came North.

DEVORE: You mentioned earlier that, when you were, when you came to Philadelphia, you mentioned about a bathhouse, that there were no facilities for taking showers and things.

STEFFENS: No.

DEVORE: Was this—

STEFFENS: Yes. Yes, I did. When we came to Philadelphia, the houses that we had to live in, of course, very few of them had bathrooms, and those that did have bathrooms just had a tin tub bath. It was a bathtub sitting right on the floor, 00:07:00lined with tin. Sink. It wouldn’t rust. But there were no toilets there at all. You had to wash your face from the bathtub, and when you wanted a toilet, you had to go downstairs, and go out of the house. Some of them were made, the toilets were made close to the house, and had a separate roof. You’d go out through the kitchen, and go out, and then others were out in the yard, and that’s where you found the toilets. They weren’t in the, none inside of the house. And the thing of it is, after I had been in Philadelphia for a few years, and got started in my own work, as a contractor, I bought a house that had one of those sink bathtubs in it, but I opened the floor, and installed a toilet, and a basin, and then I closed up the one that was out in the yard. Yes, I did 00:08:00that. Well, you know, when I came to Philadelphia, I felt that anything I saw anybody else doing mechanically, that I could do it. And I did. Yes, I did everything. There was nothing inside of a house that I couldn’t do, whether it was electrical work, paper-hanging, painting, plumbing, carpentry work, doesn’t make any difference. I could do it. And I did it. And I did that in Philadelphia 65 years. And I’m still doing some of it. But it’s restricted, of course.

DEVORE: I don’t know if we went into it, but you did mention before that you had done some work for a former mayor’s daughter in Philadelphia.

STEFFENS: Oh yeah, he was president. The daughter of the president of city council.

DEVORE: Oh.

STEFFENS: Yes. Shapiro. I forgot his first name, but he was president of city 00:09:00council under mayor Bernard Samuel. And his daughter called me. Some person that I had worked for before recommended me to her, and she called me on the phone, and told me she had a home, that the daddy was giving her a home because she was, as a wedding present, and she wanted some work done in it. And I went over, and saw her, saw what she wanted, and give her a contract, and she gave me the job. And I knew that I was on trial out there in Wynnefield, because no black man had ever done any paper-hanging in black, in Wynnefield. In fact, if we walked in Wynnefield, a cop would come up, and want to know what were we doing there, where were we going, and what did we have to do, and who did we know. And if you couldn’t answer his questions, you had to get out of Wynnefield. So, to 00:10:00make a long story short, I did the job for her, and I did a wonderful job. I knew I was on trial, and I did the job that I knew would pass inspection, and she came day-after-day, in her little sports car, and approved of the work that I was doing, and she was very well satisfied, and she told me if I finished on a Thursday or a Friday, that I would come on Saturday, and get my check from her father, because he didn’t have council meetings on a Saturday, but he didn’t get up, get up until late, but she, he would come around 12 o’clock. So when I finished on Thursday, she had gone because she didn’t stay, she just came to see how things were progressing, and, of course, she would leave, and she left before I finished on Thursday, so I came Friday morning, to find out from her, since I had finished, was everything satisfactory. And she looked over 00:11:00everything, and she was very well pleased. She says, “I’m thoroughly satisfied, and I’ll tell my father who will bring your check Saturday. If you come Saturday, he will be here around 12 o’clock.” I was there before 12 on Saturday, and she was already there, saw her car, and I went in, and spoke to her, but I came back out, and sat in my little truck, waiting for him to come. And when he came up in his big fine car, and jumped out, and ran in the house, I said, “Well, I won’t go in until they meet, and talk a little while.” About 15 minutes later, I got out of my little truck, and walked in the house, and I stood in the living room. I heard that they were in the kitchen, because the house was still vacant. Nobody was in it. She had, no furniture was in it. And I stood in the middle of the living room, and I happened to look toward the mantelpiece. They had a chimney press. And there was a check. And I went out, over there, and I saw it was my check, and I put it in my pocket, and stood in 00:12:00the living room, waiting for them to come in. And when he came in, if I had been a cockroach, he would have noticed me, because he would have stepped on me and busted me all to pieces. But he acted like I did not exist. And he said to her, “Darling, do you like it?” She said, “Father, it is beautiful.” And “Don’t you like it?” He said, “Yes. It looks good.” He said to her, “Well, where’s the paper-hanger?” She said, “There he is, right there.” And he looked at me. He said, “What? Him?” She said, “Yes.” Then he went all around that wall, trying to find something that he could feel, trying to find a seam that he could feel, and when he couldn’t find anything, he said to her, right in my presence, “You could have given it to a white man.” And I thought that he would have said, that’s the reason I stayed 00:13:00there, I thought that he would have said, “Well, I didn’t realize a colored man in the city could do something like this.” And I was so crestfallen, I didn’t know what to do. I was mad, and I wanted to resent it verbally, but something said to me, you better not do it, because he might stop payment on your check, and you would never get your money. And I just whirled on my heel, and walked out.

DEVORE: On that, (clears throat) excuse me, on that note right there, there are some people who seem to have thought that the Southerners who came to Philadelphia came, and were very thriftless, that we brought a lot of, how can I say it, un-urban attitudes and behavior with us, and that we shouldn’t be here. Did you come across people who felt that way? That some—

STEFFENS: Oh yes. Yes. Well, let me say, yes, I know that. I know some of that is true, but you must understand the reason for that. Down in the South, we were humiliated, and persecuted. We weren’t allowed to do anything. We weren’t allowed to even have an ambition, down in the South. And of course, when those people came up here, they had that same thing in their minds that I had, that when we crossed the Mason and Dixon line, we would get our justice. That’s the way they put it, that’s the way they said it. But you see, since they did not have scholastic training, and since they did not have religious up-bringing, some of them just came right from the farms, you know, and that’s all they knew, that rustic, rugged life. And of course, they thought they could be just embraced right in the city, just coming from a farm without refurbishing themselves at all. And when they didn’t get that, they resented it, you see? And that’s what gave the impression that, that they were this, and they were 00:15:00that, and it wasn’t a desirable so, and I said, “I know that that was true,” I said, “But I thought a person would stand on their own record, or on their own personality. I didn’t think that they had to be corralled, and everybody put into one basket, and pushed aside like the white people did, because anybody that was black, they figured all of us was the same way. Yes, I know that. ”

[Pause in recording.]

DEVORE: --What could you tell us about entering the union here? You mentioned that, the type of work that you did—

STEFFENS: Yes. After I had established my own record as a contractor here, I was in competition with a white men working, and I think they resented that. And one 00:16:00of the men told me why didn’t I join the paper-hanger and painters’ union. And I thought it over. He gave me application form, and I was discussing it with the, some of my other workers, that, they were, especially concrete or cement men, and he said to me, he said, “Don’t you join no union,” he said, “because if you do, you’ll never get work,” he said, “because if you join the union, you will have to agree to union terms, and declare that you’re going to follow out all the union terms and obligations, and that means that you wouldn’t be able to take a job, and work for less than union wages, and colored people couldn’t pay union wages. And white men wouldn’t pay you 00:17:00union wages, when they could get a white man to do the same job.” He said, “And if you take that, you see, you would never get a job, because as soon as you took a job for a colored client, you would be regarded as a scab, because you couldn’t get union wages from them, because they were poor people, and they had homes, but they needed some work done, but they couldn’t pay union wages.” And he said, “So you stay out of the union.” And then I found out that was good advice. Because I could do work for people just by the strength of, just by the strength of telling-- one person would tell another one, just by the word of mouth, say you get him because he’ll do a good job for you. And that’s how I got work. And I just kept on getting better, and better, and better work, because I always sought to improve everything I did, and as I would 00:18:00add various things to my repertoire, I found out I was doing everything. I was doing electrical work. I was doing carpenter work. I was doing plumbing work. I was doing floor finishing, sanding, graining, staining, and all of that. And after I’d been doing that for a number of years here in Philadelphia, eventually, when the Second World War was over, I registered, and taught in a GI school, in Washington, DC, for three and a half years. I was teaching painting, paper-hanging, hardwood floor graining, staining, and plastering.

DEVORE: In fact, you took the question right out of my mouth. You answered it for me. I was going to ask you, did you find most of your clients through 00:19:00networking, or through agencies, or through people you knew, to find work? So as you already mentioned, it was through word of mouth.

STEFFENS: Um-hm.

DEVORE: More or less like networking. Word of mouth got out that you are a very good paper-hanger and painter, and that’s how you managed to keep your clients.

STEFFENS: Um-hm. Yes.

DEVORE: Well, in terms of the type of work that you did, would you say that—I think you might have answered that already, too—that there was separate types of work available to you if you were not self-employed in Philadelphia at that time. Black men were restricted to a certain type of work. Black women could only do a certain type of work.

STEFFENS: Well, you see, yes. In this respect, if you didn’t know how to do it, and hadn’t learned how to do it, they would not teach you, you see. I 00:20:00learned by, just by looking and by—when I would see a group of men doing work that I wanted to do, I would observe them. I would just observe them, possibly without their knowledge. I would go day after day, and see how that thing was done, see how it was progressing, and see just what methods they used. Then he, I said, I would go, if I wanted to do that, I felt that I could, I saw what tools they used to do that with. I would go to a place, and buy those tools, but I found out that I could not go to a first-class place, because they wouldn’t sell me those tools, because they knew I’d be in competition with a white artisans, you know. I would go to a place where a Jew had his place, right in the colored section, and I know he was depending on colored people to keep his business going, and I would go there, and I could get plumbing equipment, I 00:21:00could get plumbing tools, and I could get carpenter tools, and I could get other tools that I needed to do what I wanted to do, and that’s how I did it.

DEVORE: Um-hm.

STEFFENS: I said, well, I won’t say this other thing—

[Pause in recording.]

DEVORE: For clarification, could you tell us again what year was it that you did come to Philadelphia?

STEFFENS: Yes, it was in the year, in April in 1917. I left Jacksonville on the 15th of April, 1917, and arrived in New York City on the 18th of April, 1917. It was three days and nights on the ocean.

DEVORE: Um-hm. Oh, and what year did you come to Philadelphia.

STEFFENS: Well, I stayed in New York, I guess, for about two weeks.

DEVORE: Oh. Okay.

STEFFENS: And then, I thought I was going to stay in New York, but I found out, you know, that the friend of mine that had put his feet under our tables for years down in Jacksonville didn’t want me in New York unless I had plenty of money to spend. (laughs) Do you remember I told you about that?

DEVORE: Um-hm.

STEFFENS: Yeah. So I left there, and came to Philadelphia, where my brother-in-law was in Philadelphia at the time, because he came North with his family in the previous December, and he was in Philadelphia for Christmas of 1917. And, of course, when I came to New York, and found out I couldn’t stay, couldn’t stay there because if I got $12 a week, and had to pay six dollars a 00:23:00week for a room, I know I couldn’t stay in New York. And so I confided that information to him, and he said, “Well, come to Philadelphia, because we have work over here. You can make $16.75 a week, and you can stay at our house for three dollars and 50 c-, three dollars and 50 cents a week for a room, and the job is waiting for you. And I was so glad, I didn’t know what to do, because I was working over there as a hatchet and saw man. That was called a ship’s carpenter. A hatchet and saw man, because those tramp ships were being outfitted to take grain, you know, to Europe because all the people in Europe was fighting the Kaiser, and they didn’t know whether he was going to win the war or not. And they didn’t have no time to plow, and farm anything of the kind. Everybody 00:24:00over there was under arms. And they had to have grain. They had to have food. And we were fixing these ships to take food over there. I mean just hundreds and hundreds of ships being prepared to be, and go to the, the grain elevators down in Port Richmond, and lowered that grain, you know, to push that grain up, in those great big elevators, in great big tubes like that would come down to the ships, in the ship’s hold, you know, and they’d shoot that grain in there, just day and night, just running. And we had to put shoring and do partitions in the hulls of these ships, and brace them up, you know. Because the ships, when they roll like that, if that grain shifted, and went over on its side, it’d turn the ship over. You see, when a big wave hit the ship on this side, it would turn it over, and everybody would be lost, so we had to shore them up, and just put them in pockets, put the grain in pockets, and build all these partitions, 00:25:00all crisscrossed in that ship, and that’s what I was doing, called, we didn’t need nothing but a hatchet and a saw. And we all used copper nails. No metal nails at all. All copper. Because a metal nail, when you hit it, it gets hot, and would fly off in the, in this, in that grain, and it would smolder there for two weeks. And on going across, that thing would set that ship afire. That’s funny isn’t it. But they found that out. And the copper nails wouldn’t hold heat.

DEVORE: Oh.

STEFFENS: See? And if you hit at a nail, and it would fly off and get in that, it would be all right, because they wouldn’t have to have any trouble with that.

DEVORE: What was it? What could you tell us about Philadelphia’s political machinery between, let’s say the years 1918—

STEFFENS: Well, I’ll tell you, politics was something I never wanted to get, I 00:26:00never wanted to get in politics. I felt this way, politics was something that I couldn’t really conscientiously live with, because I knew that, if I was, say, a little lacking in politics, say if I was what they call a little, not a ward leader, or a—committeeman. And if people had voted for me to be a committeeman, and they had given me that job, and then if I wanted to help somebody that had voted for me, and the big shots didn’t want me to help them, I couldn’t help them. I’d have to do just exactly what they said, and I always felt that I’d be trying to live two-faced. I would make somebody think that I was going to do something for them, and I was with them, but in truth, I 00:27:00knew I couldn’t do anything with them. But I would just give them some kind of lot, some kind of milksop, and thus, and so-and-so, and just do what the big shots, the bosses wanted me to do. I knew that. And I didn’t want to go into that, because I wanted to be truthful, and I wanted to be accurate, and I wanted to have the respect of people that I knew. And I would not get in politics. I still won’t get in politics, because I don’t like it.

DEVORE: Well, could you tell us anything about the politicians, anything at all during that time, during the ‘20s?

STEFFENS: Well, what I, if I would tell you something, it wouldn’t be, excuse me, it wouldn’t be to my own personal knowledge. It would be hearsay knowledge. But the results were the same. And what produced those results, if I would say, it would just be hearsay, and I could be refuted, because it’s not 00:28:00my personal knowledge that this thing happened. But the reasons for this thing happening was what I was told, and it was very shady, and very disreputable, but you see, I would be saying what somebody else told me. It wouldn’t be my own personal knowledge. But the result, what happened to that person, I know what happened, but I couldn’t say that I knew what the reasons for it happening, so that’s the reason I wouldn’t try to get in there, because I stayed away from politics. And I made a concerted effort to stay away from politics.

DEVORE: And for that reason, you don’t want to share the rumor? (laughter) I’m only asking, are you?

STEFFENS: Well—

[Pause in recording.]

DEVORE: I just want to go back to something you mentioned earlier. You mentioned 00:29:00that mother said to set specific goals, and also to return. Had you ever thought about returning to Jacksonville at any point?

STEFFENS: Oh, no. No. Because all of my people left. You see, I didn’t have no reason. I just had friends, school-hood friends down there, but since all my family left Jacksonville—see, my daddy sold a home, and we came North, because we were determined we was going to find new homes for ourselves. We didn’t want to go back to Jacksonville. Not for living any more. So when he came North, then, we began to look for places to buy, and never go back, because we felt that our biggest opportunity was in the North. And I made my opportunity, because when things were dull, and when I couldn’t work for a boss, I had my 00:30:00own work to do. And of course, then I increased that, because I added more and more to the things I did so that I was always in demand for some kind of work.

[Pause in recording.]

DEVORE: You said you were always in demand.

STEFFENS: Yes, because I increased my knowledge, I added more and more things that I did or learned to do to the things that I already knew, so that after a while, I was in demand because so many things I did, that I was, always had something to do. There really never was a time since I really started working for myself that I didn’t have work on my list. Never. After all these years.

DEVORE: Tell me, what could you tell us about a film called Birth of a Nation? Did you hear anything about that?

STEFFENS: Oh, yes. That Birth of a Nation was a terrible thing. That thing was 00:31:00the thing that made me know that-- what white people thought about black people, they got it from the lips of their educators, who knew they were telling things that weren’t so, but they believed it, because he was an educator. The Birth of a Nation started, can a leopard change his spots, or can a Negro cease being a Negro. He said, “One drop of Negro blood makes a Negro. It kinks the hair.” Thomas Dixon said it. “It kinks the hair. It flattens the nose. It bulges the lips. It puts out the spark of intellect and kindles the fires of 00:32:00brutal passion. One drop of Negro blood.” That’s what he said, and they believed that. And do you know— (laughs)

DEVORE: Who’s Thomas Dixon?

STEFFENS: Huh?

DEVORE: Who was Thomas Dixon?

STEFFENS: He was the editor of that book, The Birth of a Nation.

DEVORE: Um-hm.

STEFFENS: And—

DEVORE: Did you remember anything about the film?

STEFFENS: No, I never wanted to see it. I never saw it. I didn’t want to see it, because I had been too close to that kind of thing, and I knew I couldn’t sit, and just look at that thing. No, it’d get my blood boiling. And I didn’t want my blood to boil. (laughs) Lordy. Yes. There are a lot of things, you know, and when that decision of the Dred Scott-- that the United States, Supreme Court of the United States said that Negroes had no rights that a white 00:33:00man was bound to respect, that was a terrible decision. And they always disenfranchised Negroes, because of that old grandfather’s clause, you know. You know, if your grandfather didn’t vote, you couldn’t vote. And they know good and well there was absolutely no way on earth for my grandfather to vote, you see, but, oh, it was just terrible, and-- but it was a concerted effort to keep you, a foot on the Negro. Don’t let, don’t let him aspire, don’t let him rise. And that, that, that’s a terrible thing. That’s a terrible thing.

DEVORE: What could you tell us about Philadelphia social life during the –teens or the ‘20s, while you were here? Or is there anything specific that—

STEFFENS: Well, yes. I found out, you see, Booker T. Washington said this, 00:34:00“That—” let me see now how he had it. “That effort, or that idea, that had been woven into the warp and weft of our democratic institutions for 150 years could not be erased by shot and shell, or by blood and tears.” You see, it had to go through a long period of whitewashing or bolstering, a long period 00:35:00of gradual improvement through that long period. Well, you see, the social life of the Negro in Philadelphia, when I came, the high—started to say yellows, (laughter) but I don’t—

DEVORE: Yes, we’re aware of those.

STEFFENS: But they, very light-complexioned Negroes had a society all their own. And they religiously guarded it from the browns, and from the blacks. They religiously guarded it from us. So you see, we knew that, and it took a long time, because you see, they were kind of close to, they had Negro blood in them, but they had more white blood than Negro blood, and consequently, they had leanings that way, instead of this way. And we found that out. And it kept us 00:36:00divided, you see. The blacks had to stay to the blacks, and the browns had to stay to the browns, and so-and-so was over there. We couldn’t, that was the social life of Philadelphia when I came. It took a long time to break that down, because we had a slave psychology, you know, and that’d been drilled into us for 150 years, and we had to make conscious efforts ourselves to get away from that, you see. They weren’t helping us to get away from it. As long as we had that slave psychology, they would just cultivate it, and let us cultivate it too. And, of course, but, there was some whites, their affairs, that when they got married, they wanted the blackest man they could find to show that that 00:37:00white blood wasn’t dominant in their behavior, you understand?

DEVORE: Um-hm.

STEFFENS: You know, and a lot of pol-, I met a little one that told me that she hated her white color, you know. But I never cared much for the light ones until I got married to one, and I found out that was the worst thing I could ever have done.

DEVORE: Ok we’ll stop it there.

STEFFENS: Ah.

[Pause in recording.]

DEVORE: Okay, you mentioned, in a previous conversation, that you had attended meetings of the Honorable Marcus Garvey—

STEFFENS: The Marcus Garvey—yes.

DEVORE: Could you tell us a little bit about that?

STEFFENS: Yes, that was in New York City. He had put out leaflets all through Harlem, you know, that this meeting was going to be held in the Palace Casino. That was a, located at, on the corner of 125th Street and Fifth Avenue, in 00:38:00Harlem, and I went to that meeting because I’d heard him speaking on the soapboxes there in New York City, and I went to that meeting, and it was a very nice meeting, but it was just 19 persons there, because I counted them, and I was one of the nineteen. And when I heard how he unfolded his program, it was a good-sounding program, and I knew it had potential, but I knew then, right then, I’d have said it was 50 years too soon, and because at that time, I knew that the colonial empires had all the parts of Africa in their grasp, and that they weren’t going to let Marcus Garvey come in there, and do anything, that was 00:39:00supportive of his program. I knew that. And of course, he organized carefully in the United States, and in other places, possibly, in France too, so as I understood, because this was supposed to be a free country, and he organized in Chicago, and in Philadelphia, and in New York, and in some of the other cities, also. He didn’t do too much, I don’t think, in the South, you know, because it was too much opposition, to him and that kind of thing, in the South. But he had a wonderful organization. It eventually amounted to somewhere in the neighborhood of, I understood, of about 10 million people in that organization. And they subscribed liberally to his programs. He had the Universal Negro Improvement Association, and he had the Black Cross nurses, and he had the 00:40:00African Legions, and he had the-- oh, I’m trying to think of some of the other organizations that he had all under one big umbrella. And he had the Black Star Line. I didn’t want to overlook that. And he bought, I understand, two ships, and one was an ocean-going tramp ship that he could bring produce, and various articles of commerce in that ship, and he brought a ship load of that to New York, to distribute among his places there. The Universal Negro Improvement Association, they had all kinds of facilities for handling whatever he might have brought, but they wouldn’t let him clear it. They wouldn’t give him 00:41:00clearance to come in and unload that material off of his shipment. He stayed out there in Hudson River for the longest kind of time. He had gotten a, a regular captain. He had his credentials, because this captain had his credentials from, from England, and he was a navigator. He knew the sea lanes, and he was the one that navigated that ship up. I forgot what his name was. But he had that ship, and he had to take it back, I guess across the Atlantic Ocean, because they wouldn’t let him come in port with it. And I thought that was a terrible thing, but you know, when the people exploit subject people, when they exploit the underprivileged people, and they are taking away from them everything that 00:42:00is of value, they don’t give them an opportunity to resist. The only way they could ever resist was to take it forcibly, and if you wasn’t in a position to do that, you couldn’t get it, because they wouldn’t grant it to you. And I found that out. And that’s the way it was with Marcus Garvey. Well, when they brought charges against him, that he was taking money under false pretenses, that’s when he had to use this money to defend himself in court. And naturally, when he couldn’t produce what he said he was going to produce for the money that he’d been taking, then of course, they had judgment against him, that he was taking money under false pretenses, and now a warrant was out for his arrest, and of course, he had to skip.

DEVORE: Tell me something. If we were to use a water temperature as a measure of the response Philadelphians gave Marcus Garvey, what would you consider it to 00:43:00be? Cold, warm, or very hot?

STEFFENS: Their reaction to him?

DEVORE: Um-hm.

Steffens: Well, the reaction to him was very, very hot, so far as the establishment is concerned. But in one or two Negroes, that were slightly influential, disagreed with him, you know, because they figured he was taking money from the people, and he knew his program couldn’t succeed, but he didn’t stop taking the money, you know. And I think that’s what they were bitter about. But the other, the establishment, oh, they was terrible against him. Um-hm indeed. He was trying to organize a state within a state, that’s what they said about him, you know. Now, my sister, the one that’s living 00:44:00now—I had two sisters, and the youngest one is dead, but the one that’s living now, her husband was one of Marcus Garvey’s right-hand men. And in the African Legions, and his name was Captain King. He was a captain. And, oh, boy, when he dressed up in that uniform, and put that Sam Brown belt around there, with that sword there, he looked a-- he was a sight to see. And of course, we all knew that Captain King was quite a somebody in the Garvey organization, but of course, he himself is dead now. And so, I don’t want to say—

[Pause in recording.]

STEFFENS: That marriage didn’t last. She had to get rid of him, too. (laughter) That’s just, you know.

DEVORE: Uh-huh. Okay, oh, well, tell me something. Do you remember any of the 00:45:00conversations that Captain King might have had concerning the Marcus Garvey organization?

STEFFENS: Well, you know, he was a great speaker. He was vociferous. He could talk. And of course, he would always talk in support of the program that Marcus Garvey was putting forth, and when Marcus Garvey had his meetings in Liberty Hall there in New York City, he was one of the main men there. He would post the other soldiers or the guards at the various entrances, you know, and they had to report to him, you know. That’s the way it was done then in Liberty Hall. But of course he did a lot of work outside of Harlem, all up in New York state. But for all the things he did up there, I don’t know, because at that time, I was just going back and forth, because I had established my residence here in 00:46:00Philadelphia, and I’d go back and forth to see my people there, because my mother, my father, both of my sisters, and my brother, all were over there. And they had their children. And I’d go back and forth.

DEVORE: Did Captain King have much involvement with the Philadelphia chapter?

STEFFENS: No. I don’t think so. I don’t think he came to Philadelphia often. I know he came to Philadelphia on several occasions, but I don’t think he came to Philadelphia often, because the Philadelphia chapter had their own organization, and they functioned, I think, independently of New York, but of course, in line with the Marcus Garvey’s headquarters, which was in New York. Um-hm.

DEVORE: Had you ever attended any meetings here in Philadelphia?

STEFFENS: Here? No. No. Never attended any of the Marcus Garvey meetings here in Philadelphia. You see, I knew that that program was ultimately doomed to 00:47:00failure. I knew that, because, but he awakened in the consciousness of Negroes, the things that were important, the things that they didn’t know, and I didn’t know, that they had a culture that had been supreme there in Africa. But you see, when they brought us here, they tried to wipe all that out in my, in our minds. But you see, he knew that, and he would bring information that established that consciousness of value, or consciousness of importance in the hearts and the minds of the Negro who thought that he had no culture, or he had no background in actual culture, that he just came as a savage, and he was prosecuted, and as a slave, and that’s where he was told his beginnings started.

DEVORE: Um-hm. Very interesting. Moving ahead, I think you mentioned in another conversation that you had a friend who had his own publication in West Philadelphia. Could you tell us a little bit more about that? And what your involvement was with the newspaper?

STEFFENS: Well, I wasn’t involved in the newspaper that he had. He still has it. It’s called The Philadelphia Spirit. And that’s Mr. Bennett. But my granddaughter was his food editor, and that relationship, or that connection, I was involved. I subscribed to his publication, and my daughter, which was the mother of my granddaughter, she gave me another subscription after I had, when 00:49:00my subscription had run out for that particular year. She gave me another year’s subscription. But he’s still publishing The Spirit, I understand. But it’s just a weekly affair. And what success he’s having with it now, I don’t know, because my granddaughter isn’t his food editor now. I think she has other sources of income, and she’s not connected with this paper now.

DEVORE: Um-hm. Okay. Overall, what would you consider to be, correct me if—

STEFFENS: Be what?

DEVORE: If I’ve already asked this question, (laughs) let me know. What would you say would be the worst thing about Philadelphia, and what would you consider to be the best thing about Philadelphia?

STEFFENS: Well, you tell me, I’ll tell you the truth. The worst thing I think 00:50:00about Philadelphia is this graffiti that these irresponsible people are just destroying and defacing the city, and every, practically in every section wherever it seems that they go, they take a savage delight in defacing public property, or private property, disfiguring it, and doing everything they can, and on the transportations facilities. It’s ridiculous that-- what they have to, it makes a person feel chagrined when they go to other cities, and, and see the difference, and then come back to Philadelphia. They’re crestfallen to see, when they get on public transportation, all this graffiti that’s marked up all over the place. And I think that the officials let that thing get out of hand, right when it started, and now, they’re at a loss to know how to cope 00:51:00with it. That’s what I think. Now that’s the worst thing about, I think, about Philadelphia.

DEVORE: I gather the graffiti wasn’t here in 1918, 1920.

STEFFENS: When I came here, no. It was a pride, it was so prideful, for me and my brother-in-law to walk from West Philadelphia way up in North Philadelphia, and walk back, and walk up and down Diamond Street to see those beautiful places. It was just a pleasure for us to do that. But it seems that the situation has changed so drastically now, it’s hardly a pleasure to, hardly to go anywhere in Philadelphia that you just don’t see all of this. I used to think that Philadelphia, when I first came here, the city of Brotherly Love, was a place to be particularly proud of, but I don’t know. There’s so many things has happened to alter that idea that I had, or that thought that I had, 00:52:00and while I have stayed here, I made a nice living here, but the particular personal pride that I once had for my residence in Philadelphia, I don’t have now.

DEVORE: Okay. What about the, I guess the best thing that you would say about Philadelphia?

STEFFENS: Well, the best thing I can say is that Philadelphia enabled me, as a self-employed man, to give my family a substantial family background and something that kept them from going astray. It kept them in line. It kept them in a position to know the value of good citizenship. I think I have given them 00:53:00that. And as a result, all of my family has been right here in Philadelphia, and they have, all, they have made headlines, in no criminal kind of way. All of them are self-sustaining, and they all are good citizens, and I am grateful for that, because my stay or tenure in Philadelphia as a self-employed person has enabled me to do that for my family. And for that, I’m very proud.

DEVORE: Okay. Other than relating your personal experiences, is there any other advice that you think you’d like to give to young people today, in terms of surviving and, surviving within this--.

STEFFENS: Well, I’ll tell you. I became aware some time ago that there was a group of young people who were advocating this slogan, “Kill Whitey. Kill Whitey. Kill Whitey.” And I thought that was a very bad thing to do, because after all, we are in a civilization that’s second to none. And if we apply ourselves to this civilization, and partake of it in a way that is provided for us, I have found out that they will accept us, and they will, and even if we didn’t like the treatment that was accorded us at first, if we get into the mainstream of American life, we can achieve success. And we can achieve a good 00:55:00measure of success. (coughs) Excuse me. And it has been proven by that, because we now see a Negro that’s aspiring to the Presidency of the United States. And that’s very gratifying.

[Pause in recording.]

STEFFENS: I’m sorry I had to—see, that paroxysm of coughing, when it starts, it just—so you see, I feel that the North has enabled me to carve out a successful living, and now that I have retired, I can look back over my life, and feel that I have done something. I have furnished three boys, and they were 00:56:00all members of the military, they have served their country, and they have come back unscathed. With the exception of certain mental attitudes that didn’t congeal with one of my sons, but they’re all, can say they had on Uncle Sam’s uniform in support or defense of this country’s interests abroad, and it makes me feel good. I myself was too young for the First World War, and too old for the second one. So I can’t claim any relationship to the military that way. I know when I received my greetings from the President, before I could 00:57:00answer those greetings, the armistice was signed, and so that kept me out of it. One fellow told me if I had answered my greetings, and had the uniform on, if I had been in the service, even at home, for two months, I’d have been eligible for a pension. But that wasn’t my fortune. It wasn’t my good fortune.

DEVORE: Okay. I think we can stop at this time.

STEFFENS: Does that covers it?

DEVORE: Um-hm.

STEFFENS: Okay, doll.

DEVORE: Yes, for the time. And maybe you’ll invite me to come back for another interview.

STEFFENS: Darling, you have a standing invitation with me, sweetheart. You’re a wonderful girl.

[End of interview.]