Interview with Fletcher Hillian, Utensie Hillian, June 4, 1984

 F. HILLIAN: You all are working.

HARDY: Good. Okay. Can you give me your names then and, and ages, or, or approximate ages if you—

U. HILLIAN: Okay. Yeah, well, we don’t mind giving you our ages. My name is Utensie Hillian. And I’m 83.

HARDY: Eighty-three.

F. HILLIAN: My name is Fletcher Hillian. And I’m 80—

U. HILLIAN: Eight.

F. HILLIAN: Eighty-eight.

HARDY: Eighty-eight. Geez. So many people I’ve talked to are up in age and just don’t look as, as old as they are. Remarkable. Can you tell me where you 00:01:00all come from?

U. HILLIAN: Now I’m, originally, I’m from Due West, South Carolina. And I went to school in Cheraw, South Carolina, and then after I graduated from Coulter Academy, I taught in Chesterfield, South Carolina for five years. And during that time I met Fletcher and 1925, we got married. And he came to Philadelphia in 1924. And then he came back to South Carolina in ’25 and we got married, September ’25. And then I came up in December of ’25 to start living here in Philadelphia.

HARDY: Mr. Fletcher, can you tell me a little bit about your own background?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: Not Mr. Fletcher—Mr. Hillian.

F. HILLIAN: My home is Cheraw. Cheraw, South Carolina, that’s the town where she went to school. And I attended school, State College of South Carolina, in Orangeburg. But I didn’t graduate from down there. And after meeting her, I told her I was coming to Philadelphia. She didn’t believe it. And when she heard from me the next time, I was in Atlantic City. Well, you see, that guy did go away. And it was getting laid off in the August, probably September. I didn’t have a job, but I just scouting around. And I said, well, the winter was cold at that time, very cold, where the snow would get on the ground and stay. And I wasn’t used to that kind of weather, so I decided to go back to South Carolina and come back in the spring, which I did. And during that time, 00:03:00after going back, she and I got ourselves together and decided what we’re going to do. So I came back to Philadelphia, worked here, and later on, I went back in August. We got married. I come back. Later on, she come up, December.

HARDY: What brought you up to Philadelphia in the first place?

F. HILLIAN: Well I was just getting away from the South. I just went to Atlantic City. I didn’t like it down there. And then I come back to Philadelphia, work here on the subway. A job was hard to find, way back in that time. You couldn’t hardly find a job to work. And the weather got cold, I worked for the Insurance Company of North America at 16th and Arch, where I could be inside and 00:04:00all nice and warm. And I worked there for about fourteen years, at the insurance company, but it didn’t pay you nothing. Didn’t pay nothing. A hundred dollars a month. It was less than a hundred—$95 a month. You could hardly find work to do that would be inside work, nice and warm, and I enjoyed working in there. And I left there, I went to the Navy Yard where I worked tours coming along. And I worked down there for about five years. When the boys come back from overseas, I had an application to the post office where they crowded me out in the Navy Yard because they had to get rid of you fellows because other employees was coming in. And before they said, notified me about the job, before it come up, they had taken all the jobs. So I was still out. And I had to do the 00:05:00best I could to find around here in Philadelphia. So I got a job and worked down at Gimbel’s where I could be inside to the warm, year-round. (laughter) I worked there about 17 years. And after that I just—

U. HILLIAN: Retired.

HARDY: Time to retire.

F. HILLIAN: Decided to rest. Yeah. Time to get out.

F. HILLIAN: So I never was a man who made a whole lot of money, but I’ve taken care of what I did make. We bought this home here in when?

U. HILLIAN: Thirty-one.

HARDY: Gee, in the midst of the Depression?

U. HILLIAN: Midst of the Depression.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah, and I had a little money, and the bank where I had it in went up. Lost all of it. Franklin Trust Company. Lost all of the little money there. I had a check, went there one morning, there was a white lady—I went there one evening. There was a nice, young white lady. She walked up to me and said, “You got money here?” I say, “A little.” She said, “You better take it 00:06:00out.” Go down to Second and Chestnut, I believe. And there it went. I went there the next morning with a check to put it, some more money in there, the place had closed down. Well, there was $1,000 gone. That was all that kind of luck, it seemed then. I couldn’t pay on my house here. I had to make other arrangements. And it throwed me off for several years, back, because I had to work to get some more money together.

U. HILLIAN: But we never missed a payment.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

HARDY: Oh yeah?

U. HILLIAN: Never missed a payment on the house.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn. No.

HARDY: So, so you bought the house before the, the bank failed?

F. HILLIAN: No.

U. HILLIAN: No.

F. HILLIAN: After the bank—

HARDY: You bought the house after the bank failed?

U. HILLIAN: We bought before the bank failed. But, see, I went to work. In fact I worked, when I first came to Philadelphia, I worked as a governess. And then 00:07:00after that, I worked with the Bureau of Recreation, as a teacher with the Bureau of Recreation. And from that, I went to, as a director of a day care center for twenty years. And then I retired.

HARDY: Hm

U. HILLIAN: That was our work.

HARDY: Now, I’m interested in about how you were able to pay off your house during the ‘30s, I guess, when most people were losing everything, you know, losing their shirts.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: But first, let’s back up. You say you came up from the South because you didn’t like the conditions down there.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. The other thing, I was a big farmer down there. And when I got to a place I said we could put down two and pick up three, we could buy them. But when we got to the place, I put down three and pick up two.

U. HILLIAN: It was time to quit.

F. HILLIAN: I said, if you want to go with me, I can’t keep that going. So I 00:08:00left the South. Had a farm down there. I still got that farm down there. My father had a plantation, and he left plenty of land for all of his children. But—

U. HILLIAN: We really came because we thought it was better conditions.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah. Farmer.

U. HILLIAN: And if we were going to raise a family, we wanted better educational facilities for our children. And, of course, we had one daughter, and she finished high school here, high school for girls, and then went to—

F. HILLIAN: Howard.

U. HILLIAN: Howard University.

F. HILLIAN: In Washington.

U. HILLIAN: In Washington. And she graduated there. And she had a pretty hard time even in Philadelphia to find a job.

HARDY: When did she graduate?

U. HILLIAN: Forty-eight.

HARDY: Forty-eight. And she, there was still a hard time?

U. HILLIAN: Still a hard time.

F. HILLIAN: Oh yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Everywhere she’d go to put in an application, they would accept 00:09:00the application and just drop it in the trashcan. And her first job was with an insurance company. And then the next one was with Rohm and Haas. That was a pretty good job. And then she got married. And her husband was in the army, and, of course, she was moving around all over the country with him. And they had two sons. They have two sons. And—

F. HILLIAN: She went to Okinawa, you remember.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah. I tell you, she was traveling all over the country, plus she spent two and a half years in Okinawa. While she was there, she taught in the school there. And then when she came back, she got a job with the 00:10:00government. And she’s still with the government. She’s in institutional research at West Point. And she is supervisor of her department there.

HARDY: Oh. So she did fairly well.

U. HILLIAN: Very well. She’s still doing well. We had our younger grandson graduated from West Point in ’81. The older one graduated from University of Texas, and then he went back for two years of law, and then he decided he would go into the army, and that’s where he is now. He’s a captain at Fort Benning’s, Georgia. And he’s married now.

HARDY: So your daughter and your grandchildren have done pretty good.

U. HILLIAN: Very well.

F. HILLIAN: Oh yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Very well.

F. HILLIAN: She’s still in West Point.

HARDY: Now you both have really exceptional educations for the time and the 00:11:00place you were growing up.

U. HILLIAN: Yes. Yes.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: You went to academy—

U. HILLIAN: Yes.

HARDY: And became a schoolteacher. You had some college. Can you tell me a bit about your family backgrounds that permitted you to get those educations?

U. HILLIAN: Well, now my father was a farmer, but my parents believed in education. And they had 10 children, and out of their 10, three finished and went on to teach. I had a sister who taught here for about 30 years before she passed.

HARDY: In Philadelphia?

U. HILLIAN: In Philadelphia. And I had a brother who was principal of a school in South Carolina. And then I had a brother who worked for the government here. 00:12:00And all of them have passed now. I’m the only one left out of ten.

HARDY: So a lot of them came up to Philadelphia.

U. HILLIAN: Came up after, they came up, and we had places for them to live until they got jobs. And out of the 10, let me see, it was about five or six came up. And we helped them until they were able to help themselves.

HARDY: Did you put them up in your house?

F. HILLIAN: Oh yeah. All lived here.

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes. They all, all have lived with us. Not all at one time. They didn’t all come at one time. The youngest sister came first. And she would stay in the summer and work, and went back to college until she finished her 00:13:00education. And the other sister has a, had a home—well, it’s, her daughter has it now, across the street. And another one had a home up on Westmoreland, and another one on Charleswood, and my sister had a home up on 21st Street, plus a gorgeous place in Avalon. And her husband still has that home in Avalon. She’s passed on, but he still has that home. It’s a beautiful duplex on 21st street in Avalon. So the family did, I think, pretty well, with our help and assistance.

HARDY: Alright. How did they come up? Did you encourage them to come or did they—

U. HILLIAN: They wanted to come because they felt that it was better, and they didn’t want to be farmers, and so, we encouraged them, “If you want to come, we’ll do the best we can for you until you get a job.” And now my brother had the home right around on 25th Street. They all bought their own homes as they advanced in their jobs.

F. HILLIAN: My first school, I went to my older brother. He was teaching. I went to school to him. After that, he got married in South Carolina, Cheraw, and his wife was a teacher. I went to school, used to take her horse and buggy to her school, (laughter) and I went to school with her. My second oldest brother, he was a teacher. I went to school to him. And from there on, I got the job too, 00:15:00going around working there, and after that, leaving the farm, I went to State College, South Carolina for two years. I didn’t finish down there because I had to come back to help my father on the farm. And living there, it’s while I was there I met her. And that was the end of my farming. (laughter)

HARDY: Did you encourage him to leave the farm?

U. HILLIAN: I don’t think I had to, because he knew I wasn’t going to stay on that. (laughter)

F. HILLIAN: No, she was--it’s an honor. That’s it. I left the South to come North, like I said. And I got up here, couldn’t find nothing all the way up here. I worked on the subway. When it, I was before they started Broad Street Subway. I was, went to Atlantic City first [ ] friend back to Philadelphia for two or three days in September. And the folks out there on Broad Street, 00:16:00the picks and shovels, hadn’t even started to dig up the subway.

U. HILLIAN: So you know he’s been here a long time.

F. HILLIAN: Delaware Bridge was over on the Camden side and over on the Philadelphia side. They hadn’t even met together over the Camden side [ ] side. They brought them together. All to-- that’s been along time. President Hoover, I think went across on the Fourth of July to open the bridge. That, that was about 1920-, must have been ’26.

U. HILLIAN: Twenty-six.

HARDY: That’s right.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. So you see, I been hanging around here for a long time.

HARDY: Now, you were an educated man when you came up. You had two years of college.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: Came from a family with their own farm.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah

HARDY: And you come up to Philadelphia, and the only job you can find is with a pick and shovel.

U. HILLIAN: That’s right. Pick and shovel.

F. HILLIAN: That’s pretty sure.

HARDY: How did you feel about that?

F. HILLIAN: Bad, but I had to work. I had to make it.

HARDY: What were your expectations? Or, you know, dreams before you came up?

F. HILLIAN: Well, I worked for the insurance company for a while, about seventeen—

U. HILLIAN: I think his best dream was, he wanted to work in the post office.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: And he took the examination. He passed it. But there was—

HARDY: They were all filled up. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: They stay filled up when they don’t want you.

F. HILLIAN: And then the tour, at the time for me to go in, the World War II was over. And the boys coming, they cancelled mine because so many people are coming from out of the army want a job, and they cancelled mine. Sent me mine back.

HARDY: Yeah. The thing I was wondering is, before you came to Philadelphia the first time, back in the 1920s, you must have had some expectations or some image or thought of what you would do when you came to Philadelphia.

F. HILLIAN: Well, I was a big farmer. I had a plantation down there. My father—

U. HILLIAN: No, he wanted to know what your expectations were when you came to Philadelphia.

HARDY: The very first time.

F. HILLIAN: Well—

U. HILLIAN: To get a good job in the post office.

F. HILLIAN: Get a good job and that I could make some money. Get a good job that I could make some money. I was a single man at that time, and I wanted to get married. After I met her, I decided I was going to get married. Well, you can get a job most any place, can’t find nobody to marry, you don’t try. (laughter) She agreed, she agreed to get married—I didn’t bother about a job. I just wanted to get married. I wanted to find a job after I get married. So we got married.

U. HILLIAN: But you had a job before we got married.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: I was going to say, what would your father think of a fellow without a job?

U. HILLIAN: I, I wasn’t going to get married without it. (laughs) I already had a job. And why get married to a man didn’t have one?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah

HARDY: Okay. Mrs. Hillian, what were your expectations before you came up?

U. HILLIAN: Well, I thought that maybe that I could get a job in the school system. But you had to have certain qualifications here to get in. In other words, the Pennsylvania certificate that I didn’t have. And then, I said then, I’d go back to school. You know, go to school here and get that, but I didn’t. I was married about a year. I became pregnant. And I didn’t have the money to go. And so, then I just went and got the best job I could with what I had. And that was with the Bureau of Recreation.

F. HILLIAN: I went to Central High School for nearly a year, but at night. You 00:20:00see, I was working in the daytime. But—

U. HILLIAN: He took welding. He went back to school and took welding. He took bricklaying. He couldn’t get a job bricklaying because they wouldn’t accept him in the union. He couldn’t work without being in the union.

F. HILLIAN: I got electrical—

U. HILLIAN: He took all that time to go back to school. And then he took—

F. HILLIAN: Electric—

U. HILLIAN: Electric. And he just couldn’t get a job with, in that type of field because they didn’t accept him in the union, and he couldn’t work without being in the union. That was the hold up.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: Did you know when you were taking the night courses that you would run into this problem with the unions in Philadelphia?

F. HILLIAN: No.

U. HILLIAN: No.

F. HILLIAN: No. No, we didn’t know that. Un-uhn. After failing in the [ ], I just got a job with the Insurance Company of North America. I mean, yeah, 00:21:00insurance company.

HARDY: When you were taking the night courses, this was before you got the job with the insurance company?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: Right? You were still, I guess, working on the subway?

F. HILLIAN: That’s right. Um-hm.

HARDY: Were there any specific events or incidents in which you learned that you weren’t going to be able to get these jobs because the union was going to exclude you? Now, how did you find out you just weren’t going to be able to get work?

F. HILLIAN: Well, it was summertime, you could get, do pretty good. But when the winter come, it was cold, and not convenient. It was bad to get around to either place. So I got a job with the insurance company where I, I could be, winter and summer.

HARDY: Ah. Let me ask you a bit about that. What was your job with the insurance company?

U. HILLIAN: Maintenance.

HARDY: Maintenance.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Um-hm.

HARDY: Were there any black men who wrote policies or made collections?

U. HILLIAN: No. No.

F. HILLIAN: No. No.

U. HILLIAN: Now, yes. But not then.

HARDY: Yeah. One of the things that interests me was what insurance companies then did to sell policies to black people and, and had [ ].

U. HILLIAN: Oh, oh, they sold policies to you, but you were not an agent. We been having insurance policy with the Insurance Company of North America ever since he started there.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Sixteenth and Arch Street. I worked there about 12, 15—

U. HILLIAN: They’d sell you insurance, but you couldn’t sell insurance to someone else. Because they did not have black agents. At that time, they called them colored agents. And they did not have them. But they would sell to you. Now we been in the Insurance Company of North America all of those years, ever 00:23:00since he started working there. We put our house into it when we bought the house in ’31, when we bought a car, and life insurance, still have it in there.

F. HILLIAN: About the time when this, when the bank where we had a little money, about a thousand dollars went out, all that was gone.

[Pause in recording.]

HARDY: North Carolina—South Carolina.

U. HILLIAN: North Carolina.

HARDY: North Carolina.

U. HILLIAN: North Carolina Mutual.

HARDY: Did they sell policies in Philadelphia?

F. HILLIAN: No.

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes, they have a company here. They have a, an office here, down in Progress Plaza. And—

HARDY: Ah. Were they active though in the ‘20s?

U. HILLIAN: No, they were not active here.

HARDY: Yeah. They’re more, they’re more recent.

U. HILLIAN: They were active in North Carolina, in Durham. Because I joined that insurance when I was teaching, back about ’22, the insurance, the North Carolina Mutual. That is a black company. Now they had all black agents, but a 00:24:00small company.

HARDY: Hm. Now, when you were young people, before you came up to Philadelphia, had you heard any stories about the city? What, what did you know about it before you came here?

U. HILLIAN: We heard it was great opportunities for blacks. And we didn’t find it like we had heard it when we came. Jobs were menial jobs. And yes, I could get a good job in someone’s kitchen, but I didn’t want that. I wasn’t educated for that. So I didn’t accept that. I was a governess for a while. And 00:25:00that’s as far as down I went. (laughter)

HARDY: Now had you heard that Philadelphia specifically was a good place, or just any of the Northern cities?

U. HILLIAN: The Northern Cities. The Northern cities. And I did not want to go to New York.

HARDY: Why not?

U. HILLIAN: I just didn’t want to go to New York. I had heard there was a lot of poverty there for the blacks. They were living in certain areas. And I just didn’t want that.

F. HILLIAN: You couldn’t buy no property in New York. because it’s--

U. HILLIAN: And in New York, you couldn’t buy property.

F. HILLIAN: You just had to pay a whole lot for—

U. HILLIAN: And we wanted to be in a place where we could buy a home. We’d been accustomed to our own home. And we wanted to be in a city where we could buy a home. And that’s why we came to Philadelphia.

HARDY: Hm. But you didn’t have relatives here?

U. HILLIAN: Oh no.

F. HILLIAN: No.

HARDY: Like most people I talk to you know, they already had family here.

F. HILLIAN: No. We were the first.

U. HILLIAN: We didn’t have any family here. We were the first of our family to arrive. But we helped the others as they came up.

HARDY: Right. Now when did you start your work as a governess?

U. HILLIAN: In ’26.

HARDY: Before you had your first child?

U. HILLIAN: Yes. Yes.

HARDY: How did you go about making the decision to take that job?

U. HILLIAN: Well, I saw an ad where they wanted it. I wanted to work. I wanted, because, as he said, in the winter, it was hard for him to continue to work when the weather was so cold, and we wanted to be independent. And welfare was just not in our category at that time—no, at no time. So, then I answered that ad. It was out on Broad Street and in the 6800 block. At that time, out there was, 00:27:00the wealthy people were living. And they wanted a governess for their five-year old child. And I accepted that. And I stayed there about three months. And when they wanted me to do certain things, I said, “No, that’s not my job.” And I quit.

HARDY: What sort of things did they want you to do?

U. HILLIAN: Cook. Clean. Wash. And I didn’t go back after that. So.

F. HILLIAN: I went to school—

U. HILLIAN: They had a maid. They had a maid. But little by little, they wanted to get rid of that and let this one person do it all.

HARDY: Hire a governess, but turn her into a jack-of-all-trades, very quickly.

U. HILLIAN: A maid. That’s right. And I didn’t.

F. HILLIAN: I went to school here in Philadelphia. I went to the Navy Yard. I got a job down there, settling welder. I was doing good down there. [ ] I worked on the boats, I work on, at night work, when we had to work, I’d go onboard to, sometimes they’d call for me to come to a certain boat. It had to leave in so many hours time, and they had a little settling job they wanted done in, [ ] around. I’d go in and do that. They didn’t have no money to pay me. There’s a fellow on the boat that give me all kinds of little things. I said, “No, that’s all right. I got the job done.” That’s the way down in the Navy Yard.

HARDY: So the night school you’d gone to, I guess, did pay off a number of years later.

U. HILLIAN: Did pay off. Yes. Um-hm.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah.

HARDY: How did you feel about your wife going to work as a governess when you 00:29:00all were first up here?

F. HILLIAN: Well, I didn’t want her to be out too much.

U. HILLIAN: I had no choice.

F. HILLIAN: If she could find a job where she didn’t have to be out at night, it would be different. But when she had to be out at night, I didn’t like that one little bit.

HARDY: And this was live-in work?

U. HILLIAN: Live-in. Yeah. Because the parents was away most of the time. And I was there alone with the child.

F. HILLIAN: And it wasn’t like if it was nice, you could get out at night. And she’d go out and do little jobs and a little, do work all around, church work and everything at night. I would walk from here down on Girard Avenue at night by myself, all the way to Ridge Avenue, all up and down Ridge Avenue. At Christmas time, I was looking for the Christmas trees. They were all down Girard Avenue. Around, you walk around, nobody would bother you. You can’t hardly walk to 25th Street now.

U. HILLIAN: I was the instructor for the American Red Cross for 30 years.

HARDY: Oh yeah?

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

F. HILLIAN: Always, no pay.

U. HILLIAN: Taught in the hospital, schools, industry, churches, you know, teaching first aid for 30 years. I have my five-year pin, 10-year, 15-, 20-, 30-, (laughter) but—

HARDY: You still doing it?

U. HILLIAN: No.

HARDY: No. You gave up?

U. HILLIAN: I gave up. After 30 years, I gave up. (laughs) But it was a nice experience.

HARDY: Well, that’s, yeah, real constructive work.

U. HILLIAN: I went into one school to teach first aid, and they wanted to know, what was I doing there? And I said, “I was sent here from the American Red Cross.” They weren’t accustomed to black teachers being in there. That was 00:31:00an experience. But it turned out to be a very nice experience. They learned to love me, or like me, and I learned to like them. And we had six weeks, then they wanted six more weeks.

[Pause in recording.]

HARDY: Getting back to one of the things that interests me a lot, is, is the whole world of women doing live-in, private work. And, I guess over 90 percent of all black women in the city during that period who were employed were doing that sort of work.

U. HILLIAN: Were doing that type of work.

HARDY: And most, most of the women I’ve talked to, say, it was okay. Or they treated me like a member of the family, and—

U. HILLIAN: I didn’t want to be a member of the family. I wanted to do my work, get my pay, and be a woman. I didn’t want to be a member of their family. And therefore I didn’t accept that type of job. And when I accepted 00:32:00this governess job, I accepted it just that. And then, little by little, they was trying to make me do something different. And I said, “No, I didn’t come here for that.” Maybe I was a little too independent, but that was just my way of life. And so, I left. I had many calls to come back.

HARDY: That right?

U. HILLIAN: Yes. And even after my daughter was born, I got a call, just to come to visit. They wanted to see my child. And I [ ]. And I had lunch with them, and they were just as nice as could be. And they appreciated my not allowing 00:33:00them to [ ] me. Had to.

HARDY: Well that’s the sort of thing that is interesting. Most women talk about how things were really, oh terrific. There must have been an undercurrent of, of discontent.

U. HILLIAN: Had to be. And now, some, I guess, was afraid to give up their jobs, but I always felt this way. I could do something else, so.

HARDY: You had your education, experience as a teacher.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah.

F. HILLIAN: Even though she had a whole lot of, in her family, older than her, I had a whole lot in my family. There was one boy, younger, younger than I. None of them was able to help us. We had to help all of them. (laughter) With our little money, I had to help my brothers, the one, one in World War I, he was 00:34:00wounded over there. He come out, and him and I went to State College together. He got sick, he had to come back home. And the government was taking care of him. And they put him through school down there. But as I said, we had to help all the others. All my older brothers, where I used to go to school to, I had to help them. (laughter) They all had somebody to help them. We never did, wasn’t able to help me. She had to help all her brothers, older and younger, mother and father. Nobody never helped us. We helped all the others.

HARDY: Well, it must give you a real feeling of satisfaction.

U. HILLIAN: It does, it gives you a feeling of satisfaction that I was able to help.

F. HILLIAN: Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: And I think that’s one thing that’s contributed to our long life. We were able to help someone else. And we didn’t do it grudgingly. We did it willingly. And so they’re all gone; we’re still here.

F. HILLIAN: She had seven brothers and three sisters, mother and father. I had nine brothers, one sister, mother and father. Twelve in my family, twelve in hers. All gone but we two out of those.

HARDY: Hm. Did members of your family come up to Philadelphia too?

U. HILLIAN: No, no.

HARDY: They all stayed home?

U. HILLIAN: They stayed home.

HARDY: Did you all send money home?

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes.

F. HILLIAN: That’s what I’m telling you. We had to help them out at home. Matter of fact, my father wrote me for $75 to pay his taxes on his plantation down there. I sent him $100. All of the other older brother out, down, living down there with him, he never—

U. HILLIAN: Look, sometimes they don’t do it because they don’t want to do it.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

U. HILLIAN: I still own my father’s and mother’s plantation down there.

HARDY: So you all have kept the family farms?

U. HILLIAN: We kept the family farms.

F. HILLIAN: I still have my farm down there.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

F. HILLIAN: With nobody living there.

U. HILLIAN: No one to live in there.

HARDY: Nobody’s living on it?

U. HILLIAN: But I keep the taxes paid. And I’ve get letter after letter, people want to buy it. I won’t sell it.

HARDY: Why?

U. HILLIAN: Well, maybe I shouldn’t say it, but I didn’t want, now if a black person would come and want to buy that land, I’d let them have it. But I don’t want to sell it to the whites down there.

HARDY: Ah-ha.

U. HILLIAN: For the simple reason: they did everything they could to undermine my father to get that place. And we’d always manage for him to keep it. And now that he’s gone, I’m won’t sell it to them. (laughs) Now, you might 00:37:00call that prejudice, I hope it isn’t.

HARDY: I think that’s understandable.

U. HILLIAN: But I think it’s understandable.

HARDY: Yeah, that’s a tit-for-tat, I guess. (laughs)

U. HILLIAN: That’s right.

HARDY: Why do you hold on to your father’s farm, plantation?

F. HILLIAN: Well, there’s 10, it was divided up into 10 parts, and I just have a little strip between some of the others, you see. Well, if some of them want to buy it, it’d be different. But somebody else to come in, just to buy that little strip, one brother died, and his wife did sell his little strip out. But what can they do with it? Just a little strip.

U. HILLIAN: See, his, his father’s plantation was divided among the 10 children.

F. HILLIAN: Ten children.

U. HILLIAN: Ours was not. My sister and I, after my father died, we bought it in so we could keep it intact. And my sister died, therefore, you see, I have 00:38:00charge of everything. I keep the taxes paid. When my brother lived, he sold the wood off it, you know, and it’s, it’s a, I could get, I sold five acres, didn’t I?

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

U. HILLIAN: And we got $500 an acre.

HARDY: Just for the wood?

U. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: Now, did you keep the land then, basically for sentimental reason?

U. HILLIAN: Sentimental reasons.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

U. HILLIAN: Sentimental reasons is why I kept mine.

F. HILLIAN: I sold $500 worth of timber off of my place. But my place [ ] is called the Sand, Sandhill land, Sandhills. And nobody do much farming around 00:39:00there no more. Nobody. They just growing up.

HARDY: How large were the your two family farms?

U. HILLIAN: How far apart?

HARDY: How large?

U. HILLIAN: Oh, ours is just, it was around 100 acres. And my brother bought so much of it. And then my father kept the other. So it’s all there together.

HARDY: Yeah. So it was a 100-acre farm when you were growing up, as a child?

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm. When I was growing up.

HARDY: Yeah. How about you, Mr. Hillian? How large—

F. HILLIAN: We had about 200 acres.

HARDY: Two hundred acres.

F. HILLIAN: It was divided up in 10 parts. Ten parts. Nine parts. And it all still is. As I say, one of the brothers got married. His wife sold out his part, about twenty-something acres. But what can they do with it down in, can’t get to it. They figured they’d get that, you see, and keep buying, getting. But it, it’s just go up to the highway and that’s all.

HARDY: You all ever have any desire to go back?

U. HILLIAN: No, not to live.

F. HILLIAN: Un-uhn.

U. HILLIAN: I go back occasionally. We were down there in ’80?

F. HILLIAN: Had a family reunion down there.

U. HILLIAN: We were down there in ’82.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

U. HILLIAN: We had a family reunion down there at my brother’s home. He’s dead now, but his home is intact. The electric is on, the telephone is there. And so, we went back in ’82, and had a family reunion. I haven’t been back since ’82.

HARDY: Did you go back when you were young? During the ‘20s?

U. HILLIAN: To visit our parents. To visit our parents.

F. HILLIAN: Oh yeah. Yeah. We’d go down. We’d drive down there to see—

U. HILLIAN: And I had a brother who lived there until ’79. He passed in ’79. And we would go back about every two years and spend two weeks with him.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: After you’ve been here a couple of years, you go home. Here you are, 00:41:00city people now, you know, learning Northern ways, and you go back. What did you talk when you went home? What did they ask you about?

U. HILLIAN: Oh, you mean, the family? Or the—

HARDY: Yeah. Yeah. Back during the ’20s, after you’ve been here a couple of years, and you go home. I mean, really wondering how the city would, would have changed you—

U. HILLIAN: They thought that the city might change us or change our way of thinking. But it didn’t.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

U. HILLIAN: And we’d go back. We was just a part of the family as usual.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

U. HILLIAN: And of course, some of them thought that we were making a lot of money, which we were not. We were just trying to make use of what we had. And use it, you know, where it would be beneficial to us.

HARDY: Would you say that was the general impression? That the people who went North were doing better or—

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes. Oh yes.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: So he’s in Philadelphia. He’s got to be making good money.

U. HILLIAN: Oh, he’s in Philadelphia. He’s got it made. And (laughter) they can help us. And all they had to do is write. And they thought they’d get it. But they didn’t know. And of course, we didn’t say we don’t have it. If we had it, we’d let them have it.

HARDY: You know, that was something I heard was that a lot of people would come up and, when I spoke to one man who came up from Jacksonville during the First World War. And I said, “Did you ever want to go home?” He said, “You know, the biggest mistake I ever made in my life was not going back.” And I said, “Well, why didn’t you go back?” He said, “Well, to tell you the truth, I was too embarrassed. You know, I didn’t have a, to go home without any money in my pocket.” And I was talking to someone else who was saying, what happened to a lot of people was, they’d get these glowing reports from up in Philadelphia about how well I was doing, when in fact the people were, you know, 00:43:00the same sort of thing. They didn’t want to admit that it was as hard up here, or harder in many cases.

U. HILLIAN: It was harder. It was harder trying to make it here, than it was at home.

F. HILLIAN: It still is.

U. HILLIAN: Because if you have your own farm, you make your own vegetables. Whatever you sell, that money is yours. Taxes were low. And really, some of them were doing better than we were doing here. (laughs)

HARDY: Did you ever think of packing it in and heading back home?

F. HILLIAN: No. Uh-uhn. Because the thing with the farm, I had a cotton farm. We had a cotton farm. We raised a lot of cotton, had a gin, there was a gin, sell a bale of cotton so much a bale. We’d make about 20 bales, get $200 a bale or 00:44:00something like that. Well, when you got through paying off all our debts, we had a little left. We had a thing like that, but—

U. HILLIAN: One reason, one reason I want, I wanted to stay here was the education of my daughter. We only had the one child. And I knew the educational facilities were better here. And the school year was longer. And it was one reason, because of her, that I wanted to stay and see that she got a good education. And so, I put her in kindergarten when she was five and a half. She graduated from high school when she was 16.

HARDY: Geez.

U. HILLIAN: She graduated from Howard University when she was 20. And, and to think that when she came out, she had a hard time trying to get a job. She 00:45:00didn’t want to teach. Her major was math. And she said, “Mother, because you was a teacher, I don’t want-- I don’t--I really don’t want to teach.” She wanted to either be in government as a mathematician—and the government didn’t want her at that time either. And she went to several places, put in her application. She had such high hopes. And sometimes, she’d come in, she’d say, “Mother, they didn’t even look at the application.”

F. HILLIAN: As I said, her husband was in the service. They sent him to Okinawa. When Darla left and went to Okinawa, she taught school over there for a while. Her youngest son was born in Okinawa. Had to get citizen papers to bring him 00:46:00back here. (laughter) Yes, there—

U. HILLIAN: That’s the one who graduated from West Point.

HARDY: He should have kept Japanese citizenship. Then he would never have to worry about being drafted, you know. (laughter) You had a cotton plantation you said.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. We did.

HARDY: Did the boll weevil get you [ ]?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. The boll weevil come through and ruined us. Ruined us.

HARDY: What can you tell me about that?

F. HILLIAN: Well, I think I found the first one on our farm, it was a little bitty bug, just about, about so big. A hump-backed little bug, a little tip on it. My brother took that bug, take him to Chesterfield, up in town, had it examined. They said, “Yeah, that was boll weevil.” The first one I found on our farm. Well, later years, they kept circling around until they got a plague. Everybody has them. They eat all your cotton. Eat the buds out. Couldn’t make 00:47:00much cotton. Just ruined the cotton farm. And there’s some kind of other bug come through called the army worm. They ruined all the fruit trees, all that kind of stuff. That was when I was a kid, when I was just coming up, before I got grown. So, when I got grown, the farm wasn’t much, doing much of any kind. The pupas had gin, around where they ginned cotton and everything. They, all gins, equipment, no place to get your cotton ginned. And had to just quit the farm.

HARDY: Now once the, once the boll weevil came through, did it stay year after year?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah. Um-hm.

HARDY: Do you remember when it first did arrive? How old were you when—

F. HILLIAN: I was about 16, I guess.

HARDY: And you’re 88 now, so that—

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: So a little before the First World War.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Oh yeah. Um-hm. Because my brother, well now, he was in the war. He was the only one of the boys. He’s the last in my settlement to go to France. White and colored, he was about the last to go. And most of them went over there doing stevedore work, you see. He told them he didn’t come over here for that. He got out on the field. And he was wounded. He said, on Sunday morning, they blew, shelling them. He said that when he come to, he told the other fellows, “Try to get in that hole over there.” A big hole where a shell hit. The fellow he was talking to was dead. Well, when he got to, able to walk, he got up that evening, tried to make, another Army man a tourniquet he 00:49:00couldn’t catch them, they were too far gone. They’d gone back to headquarters. And he got to headquarters. All his teeth was all loosened up and everything. He was in the service about a month over there, in camp about a month or two before they put him back out. Well that was the end of September, and the World War, they signed a peace treaty, later on. He was the last one in our settlement from Chesterfield, South Carolina, to go, and the first to get back. Because after the war was over, so many of them was killed, and so many was working over there and had to stay about six months to clean up and work. But he was in the Army, he was the first to come back home.

HARDY: Now you were old enough to go to war. Did you have any desire to? How did you feel about that?

F. HILLIAN: No, I was a little underage. I registered. And after the war was over, they put in class number 1, and everything, after the war was over. (laughter) They had me ready to go if anything happened.

HARDY: How did the men and boys in your part of the country feel? Did they say, “I’m not going to fight this white man’s war,” or were they all gung-ho to go out and do their part?

F. HILLIAN: No. They all went. Some of them was killed but mostly in my settlement, they were doing stevedore work. They were cleaning up, you see. Most of them come back, so. One or two of the white boys was killed.

HARDY: Now you both were, I guess, in your early teens when the war broke out?

F. HILLIAN: Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Oh yeah.

HARDY: And it was I guess, 1916 that really the floodgates opened for people to come North.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah.

HARDY: Do you remember when the migration really began and people started leaving, heading up for Philadelphia, and New York, and—

U. HILLIAN: I was about 15 when they started to leave my homecoming. They were not coming to Philadelphia. They were going to New York. And it was several from my home, went to New York to live.

F. HILLIAN: And Detroit back in there.

U. HILLIAN: And Detroit, yeah.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah-- I still have a bunch of folks living in Detroit.

U. HILLIAN: And I have relatives in Detroit. I have a nephew who’s a minister there. Two nieces who is teaching there in Detroit. So, they were going to New York, Detroit, Chicago. Quite a few of the young people left my home and went to Chicago. But I didn’t know any that was coming to Philadelphia.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

HARDY: What was the feeling when people were, for the first time, able to head 00:52:00North, get jobs?

U. HILLIAN: Well, they thought that they were doing the best for them to—in fact, they thought they was going to make money. They thought they would just do much better in the North. And some of them came and did worse. They didn’t do anything. And so, but if we hadn’t found anything to do, we would have gone back.

HARDY: Yeah. Did people come back home when you were young, in the years before you—

U. HILLIAN: Not too many.

HARDY: Most would, most stayed if they left.

U. HILLIAN: Most stayed. Yes. I think maybe they might have been embarrassed to come back. I, I don’t know that. But not many of them. They stayed.

HARDY: Do you remember any rumors or stories about what it was like in the 00:53:00Northern city?

U. HILLIAN: Well now, one girl came back, and she said, “Don’t let them fool you.” She’d say, “It’s no honeymoon in the North.” She said, “You have to work hard. You have to take jobs you don’t want to stay there.” So, but some didn’t believe that.

F. HILLIAN: No. No. The job I had inside, $95 a month.

HARDY: A month. Yeah.

F. HILLIAN: I got paid twice a month.

HARDY: Well that wasn’t too bad, I think. For that time that was a fairly decent wage wasn’t it?

F. HILLIAN: Insurance company, I think. Well, it—

HARDY: You know, when I was asking about the rumors or stories, I got a couple which I thought were fun. The one thing I know during the First World War, they always tell you, “Oh, you don’t want to go up there. The weather, the winters are so cold, you’ll catch pneumonia, and you’ll die.” And that was 00:54:00the way of scaring people to keep them at home.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Um-hm. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: From coming up. Yeah.

HARDY: Yeah, and then there’s a nice one about, in Phila-, the Philadelphia story, in particular, which actually I got from two women from South Carolina, is that when, when you come up to Philadelphia, don’t walk along the edges of the houses, because those trapdoors will open up. (laughter) And you’ll go into the basement, and they’ll use you for medical experiments. And the other, it was the same for women doing live-in work. You know, you have to be careful because they have their trapdoors in the living rooms or on the first floor, and—

U. HILLIAN: Well, I think I was too educated for that kind of stuff.

HARDY: Yeah. Well, here’s, here’s one you might not have been too educated for. They, that was one a woman told me from, I think she was from Georgia or North Carolina, and that’s “Remember Mary,” and this is a story that her family told her when she, before she came North. Apparently Mary went up to Philadelphia and she got in with the wrong bunch of people, and she started, you know, attracted to the bright lights, and started drinking, and hanging around 00:55:00like that. And she was just about down to losing the last of her virtue, and when she stopped into a church and was saved at the last moment, and turned it all around. And so when she was, before she was going [ ], they’d always say, “Remember Mary when you go North.” And this apparently was a story—

U. HILLIAN: So it’s a story. Yes.

HARDY: Yeah, that a number of-- that wasn’t just her family, but it was part of the culture.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: So, but you all didn’t hear any of those sorts of things?

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

U. HILLIAN: No, I didn’t hear any of those. No. Now, I was a great reader of books, magazines, papers. And I think I was well educated to what was going on. And so that type of thing wouldn’t have disturbed me.

HARDY: Now once you came to Philadelphia, did you all vote?

U. HILLIAN: We started voting—we registered to vote in 1926. We registered to 00:56:00vote; we didn’t vote that year. We voted in ’27. And our first president to vote for was Hoover. And we were living then on 15th Street.

F. HILLIAN: Parrish, yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Huh?

F. HILLIAN: On Parrish Street.

U. HILLIAN: We registered the first time when we were on Parrish Street.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah, but we was only living—

U. HILLIAN: But we voted on 15th Street. That was in ’27. And I think Hoover was in ’28, wasn’t it? I think it was in ’28. But we started voting, really voting—we registered in ’26, started voting in ’27.

HARDY: Republican?

U. HILLIAN: Yes. We were Republicans. And I was a Republican until this year.

HARDY: All during Roosevelt’s time, you voted Republican?

U. HILLIAN: All, I never voted for Roosevelt.

HARDY: Why not?

U. HILLIAN: Because I didn’t like him. I thought that Roosevelt was a farce. He had so many different-- the different types of projects. And really, what really got me—

F. HILLIAN: The duration of the war, after the war—

U. HILLIAN: And what he would say, what, “We will do this for the duration of the war for the blacks.” Why didn’t he say “We will do it?” My brothers were living in the South at that time.

HARDY: When is this now? You’re talking about—

U. HILLIAN: During Roosevelt’s time, my, I had brothers—

HARDY: The Depression or Second World War?

U. HILLIAN: Depression. During Roosevelt’s time, whatever war it was, and they would have these different projects. The white man would get a dollar a half an hour. They would get 50 cents an hour, doing the same type of work. Now, if it was a government project, why didn’t they all get the same? So, I just never voted for him. Not—

HARDY: What did Hoover offer?

U. HILLIAN: Nor did I like Hoover, either. (laughter)

F. HILLIAN: No. He didn’t, he didn’t last.

U. HILLIAN: I didn’t vote but once, but I didn’t vote for Roosevelt.

F. HILLIAN: He was [ ], Hoover.

U. HILLIAN: Now, I don’t want you to think that I voted Republican all that time. I split my vote. I voted for the person that I thought was better for us, 00:59:00whether he was black or whether he was white. Whether he was Republican or whether he was Democrat. I changed my registration this year for one particular reason. That was to vote in the primaries for Goode. Because I couldn’t vote for him registered Republican. I worked in this district here for 35 years on the board as a Republican. But I wasn’t always voting Republican, and I’m, still won’t always be voting Democrat, either. I feel that we’re going to have to be able to vote for the person, instead of voting for the party.

HARDY: I think that’s always the best policy. Now, when you all first arrived 01:00:00in the city—

U. HILLIAN: Most blacks were Republicans.

HARDY: Yeah. And the black vote didn’t have a lot of meaning back then.

U. HILLIAN: Didn’t have much meaning at all.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn. Uh-uhn.

HARDY: And I guess still in the hip pocket of the old—

U. HILLIAN: Because you were not organized, and you voted because you was a citizen.

HARDY: Or because you were offered a drink or 50 cents or—

U. HILLIAN: Oh no, no. I was never offered a drink to vote.

HARDY: Okay. Well, I’m saying, among the black voters, that was the reputation.

F. HILLIAN: Yeah. Yeah. Uh-huh.

U. HILLIAN: Most—yeah. Yeah. That was their reputation. But at our poll, I’ve worked on the poll in here for 35 years. Never was a drink offered near that poll. …

HARDY: Well 35 years only takes us back to not even the Second World War. Back, it’s back in the ‘20s that’s the period that interests me-- what can you tell me about your awareness of politics during the 1920s and early ‘30s in the city? How did things go on around where you were?

U. HILLIAN: Well, you voted the way you was registered, usually. You were advised to register. When I first came, I lived with people who were Republicans, and who were friends of the Alexanders, and the Scotts, and that type of people. I was very close friend to [Raymond Pace] Alexander. That’s lawyer, then judge. We worked together in the church, and then we worked together politically. And of course, they were all Republicans, Hubert and all that, those people. And so I voted, most of the time, the way I was registered, 01:02:00until I began to know for myself how to vote. Then I taught other people how to split their vote. We had classes. Whether they did it, that’s up to them. But I wanted them to know how to do it.

HARDY: Now, the state Civil Rights legislation passed in 1935.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: That was the first—and I know that Judge, he was then lawyer Alexander—

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: Was very active in testing that law in the city.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah. Um-hm.

HARDY: Were you all involved in that?

U. HILLIAN: Yes, I was involved with him.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: But the Civil Rights Legislation was one of the important--

U. HILLIAN: Yes, you know, there were certain places. We’d go to the movies, we could sit. We could not go to restaurants and sit anywhere you wanted to sit. I remember my first experience was out at Sears and Roebuck. We were out there 01:03:00shopping, and I sat at the counter to get something to eat. And they kept serving everybody all around. And finally I asked. I said, “We’ve been sitting here, my sister and I, a long time.” I said, “Why can’t we be served?” And of course, she went and got the supervisor. And he said, “Well, we could fix you something and put it in a bag.” I said, “For what?” He said, “We don’t serve colored here.” Now that was my first experience. And then once we were traveling in the South, in Virginia, and we drove up to get 01:04:00gas. And they thought that we drove up to go in to eat. And he said, “I’m sorry. We will not be able to serve you here.” I said, “Why?” Said, “We don’t serve colored here.” I said, “I didn’t stop here to eat.” I said, “I stopped to get gas.” And he said, “Oh, well, I can give you gas.” I said, “No, you won’t give me gas, [laughter] because that’s for white people.” And I drove off. But back to here, I guess I raised such a fuss until they did serve us at Sears and Roebuck.

HARDY: Now when the Civil Rights legislation passed, the Civil Rights Act—

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: Of 1935, right, there were efforts at that point, by people in the city, to go into the restaurants—

U. HILLIAN: Yes.

HARDY: And test the—

U. HILLIAN: Test, yes.

HARDY: Can you tell me about what took place then?

U. HILLIAN: Well, they would get people to go into the restaurants or into the movies. And, in fact, they wouldn’t sell you a ticket for downstairs. They’d sell you a ticket for upstairs. And so, we would, I got a couple of white people to buy my ticket for downstairs, right here on Lehigh Avenue. And when we went in and sat downstairs. They couldn’t ask us to move, because we had tickets for downstairs, but they wanted to know how did we get them. We said, “We bought them.” So we had some good white friends who helped us along with that 01:06:00movement. And downtown on Chestnut Street, we went in with Raymond Pace [Alexander] and we just kept fighting until it was passed.

HARDY: What’s that?

U. HILLIAN: The, the act, here in Pennsylvania.

HARDY: Did that make a difference?

U. HILLIAN: You mean when the act was passed? You had to fight just the same. You had to fight until finally the barriers went down. I couldn’t understand that. I was in one of the five- and 10-cent stores, and I was in front with some 01:07:00utensils—and it was a man behind me, a white man behind me. And I said, “I’m next.” And he said, “Don’t ever get in front of a white man.”

HARDY: In Philadelphia?

U. HILLIAN: Right here in Philadelphia. I had these pots and pans in my hand that I was going to, (laughter) going to buy, which I did buy. And I turned around and I let him have it with all of my might with those pans. He ran. And my sister was with me. She said, “Stop! You’ll be arrested.” I said, “I don’t mind staying in jail.” I went back and bought my pans and I came out. 01:08:00I didn’t see the man any more (laughter). So you would meet up with that type of thing here and there. But you had to stand up for your rights, and I was one that would.

HARDY: Yeah, that’s interesting. The general impression I’ve gotten from people is that once that the Civil Rights Act was passed, it really didn’t change things.

U. HILLIAN: It didn’t change things. You had the law in your favor, but it didn’t change the people.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

HARDY: No. About the same time in the city, up in this area, there’s the “Don’t Buy Where You Can’t Work” campaign. Dr. John Rice was one of the 01:09:00heads of that. Any recollection of that? On Columbia Avenue, they were picketing all the stores in that area—eight-thirty.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah, they were, they, oh yes, they were, they picket, they, the eating places. Reverend [Leon] Sullivan was the one that started that.

HARDY: Well that’s years and years later.

U. HILLIAN: Later.

HARDY: Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: But it, even in his time, they were still in some places where you could not go in and eat. Some stores, you could not go in and try on a hat. You could look at the hat, decide whether or not you want it. But they didn’t want you to put it on your head unless you bought it.

HARDY: That was a typical thing in the South. I’ve had a number of people telling me about when you wanted a shoe, you’d trace your—

U. HILLIAN: Foot.

HARDY: Your foot and you’d take that into the store.

U. HILLIAN: And you’d take that into the store. But I never had, I never had that trouble. Not in our town. We lived in a small town, a college town, and 01:10:00they were much more liberal than a lot of the other towns. My father reared seven sons and never had any trouble.

HARDY: When you both were young, I guess, lynching was still very prevalent. And the Klan was pretty active.

U. HILLIAN: Yes, and our, and—yes. About 12 miles from where we lived, Abbeville, a minister had been preaching, a Methodist minister had been preaching in his pulpit about Civil Rights. That was when I was a child, I guess I was about 10. They killed that minister, tied him to a car and drug him through the town of Abbeville. My father and those didn’t talk too much about 01:11:00it in front of us, because I guess they didn’t want us, us to know about it. But we knew it. And the whole county, some blacks, I mean most blacks and some were too afraid to say anything about it. But you know what happened to the policeman that started that whole thing? He and two more policemen got in a fight and they shot each other (laughter). Not about that, but about something else.

HARDY: So some justice there.

U. HILLIAN: Some justice. We didn’t have to (laughter). And that was because 01:12:00he was preaching in his pulpit about Civil Rights. That was before the movement started. And he was telling them, they didn’t have to take this and, and where they couldn’t work, don’t buy. And he was really ahead of his time.

HARDY: And he paid for it.

U. HILLIAN: Cost him his life.

HARDY: Did, I know this was the motivation for many people who came North, too.

U. HILLIAN: Yes.

HARDY: Not the economics or the education, but just to get away from it.

U. HILLIAN: To get away from that.

HARDY: Yeah. Did you all read The Defender? Do you remember The Defender, Chicago Defender, before you came North?

U. HILLIAN: No, I don’t.

F. HILLIAN: I don’t. No.

U. HILLIAN: I know of The Defender, but I didn’t do much reading of that.

HARDY: Yeah. Or how about The Messenger?

U. HILLIAN: Oh, I’ve read The Messenger. Um-hm.

HARDY: Back during the ‘20s? Did you have any awareness of it?

U. HILLIAN: No. In later years.

HARDY: I was looking back through some copies from the early 1920s. There was an advertisement for Brown and Stevens Bank in one of them. And the Crispus Attucks Hotel in Philadelphia.

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes, I remember the Crispus Attucks.

HARDY: Oh yeah, what can you tell me about that?

U. HILLIAN: That was a black hotel. And of course, I think it was two hotels here. I can’t recall the other name. It was on Broad Street. That was a black hotel too. And those were the hotels were the blacks, you know, would go when 01:14:00they would come to Philadelphia. They could go to some of the other hotels, but they had I guess segregated places for them. I never went to a hotel here in Philadelphia. Only for a banquet or something, so I don’t know about that.

HARDY: Okay. Let me ask you one final set of questions, then I’ll let you go. I know when the people were coming up, like yourselves, from the South in large numbers, there was an older black Philadelphia community, went back way, years and years and years.

U. HILLIAN: Um-hm.

HARDY: And apparently there were some tensions or, you know, misunderstandings between the two groups. Did you have any awareness of, when you were early in the city, of those differences?

U. HILLIAN: No. Like, the people coming from the South and—

HARDY: Yeah. The Old Philadelphians apparently were, stayed—

U. HILLIAN: The old—the OPs.

HARDY: The OPs stayed to themselves, didn’t want anything to do with the—

U. HILLIAN: Well, I heard about that, but I didn’t meet up with any of that because when I came, where we lived, the Cotters, they were OPs. I mean, they were with that OP society. And they accepted us right into that society. So we didn’t have that type of thing to confront. Now, when we bought in here, the first black family that bought, they burned crosses in front of their house down here in the 2400 block. The Bennetts. Not the Bennetts—the Beckets. And they 01:16:00did not want black in here. We were among the, I think it was four black families in here when we came. They did not want blacks in this section of the city.

HARDY: What sort of neighborhood was this?

U. HILLIAN: A very nice neighbor—it was—

HARDY: What sort of people lived here?

U. HILLIAN: Oh, Irish. A few Jewish people. But more Irish.

HARDY: Were you aware of the problem, the cross-burning before you came?

U. HILLIAN: Oh yes, yes. Yes.

HARDY: And what motivated you then to buy in to a block where you knew there might be trouble?

U. HILLIAN: Well, it was a home we wanted and a home we liked, and if we could buy it, we were going to buy it.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: That didn’t stop us.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn. There was one across the street over there, but that one was a thousand dollars more.

U. HILLIAN: But, when the first two black families moved in here, you know, sale 01:17:00signs go up like flags. (laughter) I guess they said, they were blaming the realtors.

F. HILLIAN: Realtors.

U. HILLIAN: And then the sale signs began to go up. I think it was one, two black families on this side. And there was about two over on that side when we came. The Hammonds, the Martins over on that side.

F. HILLIAN: And the Nicks.

U. HILLIAN: And on this side, the Nicks and Miss Reddick.

HARDY: So how long did it take for the whole block to go black? Was it quick or—

U. HILLIAN: Three or four years.

HARDY: So it was pretty quick.

U. HILLIAN: Well, some of them stayed until the older ones died.

F. HILLIAN: [ ] Yeah. About ten, ten or—

U. HILLIAN: They said, “We are not moving. We bought in here because we like 01:18:00it.” It was a beautiful street. There were trees in front of all the homes. We just had all of the old trees cut down and new paves put in last year. And now we’re getting the new trees, and we’ve had the lights put in. We have tried as a black organization—a block organization to keep the properties up, you know. But a lot of the older ones have passed on and some of the homes have been sold to other people, and because their families were grown, educated, and moved out. And so, and when the older ones died, they just sold it. So it’s been, been all a change. The Remhills, the Masons—oh, quite a few just stayed until 01:19:00their older people passed. They didn’t move. And they were, when we first came in, they were not friendly, but after they found out that we were decent people, they became friendly.

HARDY: So it was, yeah. That seems to be generally the case. One final question. Now are the, old age has, has really changed a great deal over the years.

F. HILLIAN: Oh yeah.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah.

HARDY: From the way, you know, parents and grandparents were cared for, treated when you all were young to the way they are now. What are the big differences in the way old people are thought of or treated?

U. HILLIAN: Some of the older ones are forgotten. Then they are others who they care. They still care. We don’t have too many elderly people in here where the 01:20:00families do not care. In fact, I don’t think we have any in here where the children do not care. They come to see them. They call them. And we have some in here getting pretty feeble and living alone, which is kind of dangerous because some are getting senile and what other disease they call it now, where they lose their memory?

HARDY: Alzheimer’s?

U. HILLIAN: Oh, yeah.

HARDY: My aunt, one of my aunts has that. Whew. She’s a big woman too (laughter). And she’s always had a temper. And it can be difficult at times.

U. HILLIAN: Yeah. But most of the, I don’t think we have a family in here now 01:21:00that was here when we came.

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn. Uh-uhn.

U. HILLIAN: Not a family. They’ve all come in since we’ve been here, because we’ve been here 53 years.

HARDY: A short time.

U. HILLIAN: Yes. (laughter) We have one family, some of them have been in here like 25, 30 years. I think Mrs. Branch has been here about 40 years. The others are new people. But by us being organized in here, and we go, and ask them to join the block association, and they come in, and kind of keep it down.

HARDY: It looks like a clean, well-kept block.

U. HILLIAN: Some are doing pretty good. Some we have to keep at.

HARDY: So all in all then, how do you feel about the move you made 60 years ago?

U. HILLIAN: We do not regret making the move. Maybe if we had not gotten along as well, we might have regret it, but we do not regret now that we made the move. It hasn’t always been easy. Pretty tough. Pretty hard. But as the song says, we made the journey, and after all these 50, soon be 59 years, yeah, this September it will be 59 years. That’s not a short time.

HARDY: No. (laughs)

F. HILLIAN: Uh-uhn.

HARDY: So you all got by then. (laughs)

U. HILLIAN: We got by with a struggle.

F. HILLIAN: Um-hm. Yeah.

U. HILLIAN: But we do not regret the struggle.

[End of interview.]