Interview with James E. Plunkett, November 3, 1984

CHARLIE HARDY: Got it. You know, when we were talking last time, uh, one thing I forgot to ask you about was, you never described for me, uh the farm that you grew up on.

JAMES PLUNKETT: Tobacco farm.

HARDY: Can you tell me a bit about that? You know, the sort of house, what, what the land was like, you know?

PLUNKETT: Well, we had good so-, land there, and we raised plenty of tobacco, and, and nun- uh its three or four, it gets ripe, and we cut it, then we hang it in the barn, cure it by fire. We use co-, used to use wood, but now, they use coal oil to cure tobacco. Then they, they strip it, and carry it to town, and sell it. That’s where they get their money, you see. Some peoples raise cotton. And where Joe [Whitehead] come from, they made their living raising cotton. Where in Virginia, we raised tobacco. That’s what we made our living 00:01:00on: tobacco. And Joe, that’s how he got up here, you know. The boll weevils ate up all his crop, and he couldn’t, he couldn’t make a living down there, so he come up here.

HARDY: Right. And you said that, I guess, summer of 1916, you had a bad year in the tobacco?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, in 1916, I had been, ‘15 or ’16. I had a bad year. I didn’t get nothing for my tobacco. That was 1915. I sold my tobacco, and I think I got something like 30 dollars for my tobacco. I figured I’d get two, 300 bucks.

HARDY: What happened?

PLUNKETT: Well, they just didn’t give you what you wanted. Sometime, the, the market would go up, you’d get a good price for your tobacco, sometime you don’t get it. So now, they passed a law, that was after I left from down there, they don’t let you raise t- too much. You can get much for 10, say 00:02:00about 10 acres, you can get more money for y- 10 acres than you would for 50 acres. ‘Cause we raised so much tobacco, we had the market runned over with tobacco.

HARDY: Now-

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Was your daddy a a, sharecropper?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Or did he rent?

PLUNKETT: He was a sharecropper.

HARDY: He was a sharecropper.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: How many, uh kids in the family?

PLUNKETT: Only two of us.

HARDY: Just two kids?

PLUNKETT: Just two of us.

HARDY: Why didn’t he have more? Usually you had big families down there, didn’t you?

PLUNKETT: I don’t know. His brothers had big families, but he only had two. Me and a girl. But his brothers had pretty good families.

HARDY: Can you tell me a bit about your mother and father?

PLUNKETT: Well, my father, he just worked on the farm, $10 a week. Said, I give you $10 a--I mean, $10 a month--and so much meat, so much meal. To ca-- yourself, give you rations, you know. ‘Cause, he wasn’t making money enough 00:03:00to buy nothing. They say they give you so much meal, so much meat. They like their sugar and coffee. If you use it, you have to buy that yourself. And of course, time I got big enough, I went to work myself. I was working around nine years old for them crackers down there, down South. I got, uh, three dollars a month and my board.

HARDY: Three dollars a month.

PLUNKETT: Yeah, and my board. They fixed me a place in the kitchen, someplace, fixed a nice bed, and I stayed in the house, stayed there. They want me to stay there, so they can get me up early in the mornings. On the farm, you know, them old crackers, they’d get you up early in the mornings, bell ring, and uh ,four o’clock, five o’clock, that bell’s ringing, oh, you got to get up, go feed the horses, and rub the horses down. And when it get light enough, then you go, 00:04:00then you go home, go to the house, and eat. Time you eat your breakfast, then it’s getting a little light, and then you go back and take your horses out. You done fed them, you’d feed them the first thing. If they done eating by the time you get back, you take them out, go out in the field, let them plow, hook them to a plow, and plow. It’s a, most of peoples apt to stop them from raising, to buy so much tobacco. They got good, make them good money now. They, they, they are living good. I was down there, I was ashamed of myself, you know, colored fellows blowing by me with big Buicks, and nice cars. Said, “Look-a-here, I been up North, and I ain’t got nothing. Then I come down here, and yes, these colored fellows running over, way over me, nice cars, said, “I ain’t coming--“ I was ashamed. “Well, I ain’t coming back no more.” And I didn’t.

HARDY: Huh.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Now, so, when you were young, nine, ten years old, then, you, you left your family, and you went to work on uh--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Somebody else’s farm?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Way before. Yeah. I was about nine, ten years old. I left my family.

HARDY: Did you get to keep your pay, or did you have to give that to your parents?

PLUNKETT: Well, he, my daddy wanted it, but I wouldn’t let him have it. I, I give it to my mother, but my daddy, he--was so hot he drank liquor, crazy about his liquor. He didn’t have but five dollars in his pocket, he’d spend it on liquor. He didn’t care if I had anything to eat or not. My mother, she worked on the plantation there, and you always have colored pe-, people, you know, they hang around the white people’s house, and churn, and help wash dishes, and sweep, and piddle around there in the house. Well, they get the meals free, and sometime throw them 50 cents, or a buck, or throw them a little money once in a 00:06:00while, the woman did, white woman. But she’d get all this butter and milk. But they bread for eating biscuits, they cooked their own biscuits. Well, she’d bring them back, pan of biscuits home, because all the sharecroppers like that, they give the, the colored folks meal, don’t let you eat no biscuit bread. That too much wheat bread. You eat meal and corn bread. When she went up there, she’d get nice biscuits, and butter.

HARDY: Hm. Wait, let me adjust this a little bit. Now, so, uh--

PLUNKETT: My old man, he’s sitting there, he’d grab that, time she get in, and eat it, help you eat it. “Ahh, I don’t think I want no corn bread. I ate some of this flour bread,” what he calls flour bread, “eat this bread.”

HARDY: Did, um, did your father raise any other, did he have, keep a garden? Did 00:07:00your parents keep a garden so they’d have vegetables and--

PLUNKETT: Yeah, he had his own garden, planted vegetables. Peas, and potatoes, and onions, you know. They had a nice garden, he had a nice garden. He raise his own hog. Sometimes, he buy a hog, couple of pigs, and raise them up for hog. When the fall of the year comes time to kill hogs, he’d kill his hogs, and he have his own meat for a while.

HARDY: But he, he didn’t want to keep you, uh, working on the tobacco farm with him? He thought you could make more money, uh, having you work on someone else’s--

PLUNKETT: He would have been better off if I could have worked with him, but him and I couldn’t get along.

HARDY: Even from when you were young?

PLUNKETT: No. He waited until I, he was all right when I was a kid, around six-, seven-year old. He was all right. After I got around ten, twelve-year old, he 00:08:00just wanted to beat me, and I wouldn’t let him do it. So, one time, I was staying there, but it was Christmas, should be time, you have Christmastime. The white people you work with let you off, “Well, Christmas. Got to be off during the Christmas.” We had a whole week. So I went home. So, I was laying in bed, and my sister just had, hadn’t been long got married. Her husband was in it. So he took the bucket, and went down the spring to get a bucket of water, spring down there towards that building. And he got mad, said, I ought to go get the water. So he went out, got the organ, I jumped out the bed, and start throwing fists at him. My mother hollered, “Oh, don’t you hit your Dad. Don’t you hit Dad. Don’t hit your daddy. Don’t hit your--” I said, “Daddy, hell, woman.” Start beating him with fists. [laughter] My mother, she, after I left, 00:09:00he said, “Well, we were both mens.” Said, “One of us got to go.” So I left, went to Richmond, Virginia. So it was so cold down there, I didn’t stay down there long, I left Richmond, went to the city in my home, Danville, that were 20 miles, 18, 20 miles from the tobacco farm. And my mother told me, he laughed, he cracked his side laughing. He told my mother, “That damned boy, better man than me.” Said, “ that boy,” Say, “Your head stop [?] me” Said. My sister, she jumped, and pulled me away from the old man. That was my mother. But I’ll feed him with fists, before I’ll let him whoop me. (laughter) And then I left home. But I would have been a lot of help to him if I could have stayed there.

HARDY: Right. Um, now what- what did you do during your teen years then, before 00:10:00you, before you started going North?

PLUNKETT: I still worked on a farm. I worked on a farm.

HARDY: Did you sharecrop, or you just work on someone else’s farm?

PLUNKETT: No, they hired me, the white--

HARDY: So you were a hired hand?

PLUNKETT: The white fellows, they hired me for a hired hand. Like me so much, I think I got $10 a month, board, place to sleep. They fixed me a nice bed in the kitchen, in their kitchen, all [?] they got, fixed me a nice bed. But I had a table in their kitchen. They, we eat together, their kids, their table where they eat on. Right there, they made that corner of another table. They fixed that for me to eat on. They’d be eating there, I’d be eating there. It was all right. They, “Oh, you got enough to eat? Got enough to eat?” The women 00:11:00say, “Eh, give him--” Come here, and give me more bread, fix me more to eat. They were good. I got along with them quite good. [Cough] And then, uh, I guess I, about 19, some of the boys got to talking about we make more money up in New York. “Well, yeah?” Said, “I’m going up on the Hudson River.” I said, “I’m going too.” So I left the farm with the boys. I’m up on the Hudson River. And the farm, I- it was better work than the Hudson River. Course, I made more money on the Hudson River, but it was hard work in a brickyard. You’re running, you know. You had to work like hell to, to put up so much brick. There was, get up four o’clock in the morning, and started to work. Well around, twelve o’clock, we finish. We done made our day.

HARDY: Twelve in the afternoon?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: So, be four a.m. to 12?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, from four a.m. to 12.

HARDY: Would they- would there then be an afternoon and evening shift that came after you, or--

PLUNKETT: No, they did no more work.

HARDY: That was just the work day.

PLUNKETT: You only made so much brick, put on so much brick, and we finish until next day. Next day at four o’clock, we’d go back again.

HARDY: You said when you were up in, in Ossining there, in the brickyard, that you stayed in shanty they had? What, what, what sort of, you know, place did you live in when you were up in the brickyard?

PLUNKETT: Well, we had houses full, sometimes there’d be 18, 20 of us in one house. First floor, second floor, third floor would be full.

HARDY: How would they sleep you, then? How many guys a room? Or how many guys--

PLUNKETT: Two guys.

HARDY: Two guys a room?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: So what, so they didn’t really crowd-pack you in then, you had a little--

PLUNKETT: But, there’s- I left my bed ‘cause fellows didn’t keep clean, place got lousy. Guy got bugs on it. So I left. Not knowing me a lot of stuff 00:13:00about that. Come in here. Beds in place, crowded together. When I get here, the place got buggy, got bugs in it, so I left, [cough] and come here to Philadelphia. For this--

HARDY: Now, why did you come to Philadelphia?

PLUNKETT: Well, I, well, I left Haverstrom, a lot of people from down home had left the farm, and were living in Philadelphia, and I had their addresses, and I knowed them all. All of us were on the farm together. So I come Philadelphia be with them.

HARDY: Had they told you anything about Philadelphia before you came here?

PLUNKETT: No, I heared about Philly. I had different guys leave home, come to Philadelphia and New York, and they’d come back, talk about New York, and Philadelphia, and different places.

HARDY: What would they say?

PLUNKETT: Oh, they say a nice place, and you make more money there, and a nice place. That why you want to go, up North. Better up there. You’ll make more money, and the people’s more nice than they are down there. But the peoples was all right down South. No, you stay right, live right, and walk--ch-, you had to walk the chalk line, when I was down there.

HARDY: You ever get in trouble down South?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, me and a fellow, fellow grabbed a great big stick to beat me up with, and I hit him with a rock, knocked him in the head with a rock--

HARDY: ‘Cause I heard justice was pretty, uh, strict down there.

PLUNKETT: It is.

HARDY: Particularly for a colored man back then, there.

PLUNKETT: It is. It is.

HARDY: You know, they’d use whatever excuse they could to get you in jail or have you do, uh--

PLUNKETT: Least little, yeah, least little thing you do, they’d put you in jail. They even locked the colored fellow up for dancing. He was on Main Street, 00:15:00and dancing. A new dance come out, called the Ball and the Jack, and he had two, three drinks in him, called the Ball and the Jack, , cops locked him out, made him pay $15. Well, he didn’t have no money to put, made him work on a chain gang. And my uncle, he was drunk. He had a few drinks on him. He told me that hisself. He said, “Don’t run the cops here, Plunkett.” They know him. He lived there in Danville. He left the farm [?]. Said, “Plunkett,” said, “You drunk.” Said, “We don’t allow no niggers to walk this street drunk.” Said, “We gonna lock you up.” My uncle-- said he begs and all, says, “I ain’t drunk. I only had one drink.” I said, “I just tired.” So, over in the colored- this place they call, colored place in north side of Danville, and they raise hogs, my uncle Emmett being a farmer. They got him to 00:16:00stick hogs, kill hogs, and he’d stick them. He said, “I’ve been off killing hogs, oh, more than I am tired.” He said, “Seen all of them blood while sticking them hogs,” say, “I am a little weak and nervous.” Says, “I ain’t drunk.” They said, “All right. You go on. Walk straight, and go on home. If I catch you out here again, I’m gonna lock you up.” So he went on home, he didn’t go out no more. And he admit that he was drunk, but why did he let him, they weren’t so hard on him, ‘cause he was an old man. If he’d been a young fellow, they’d have nailed him, knocked him out. But by him being an old man, he--

HARDY: Did you ever- did you ever have that fear when you were down there that they’d, uh, trump up charges, or try and lock you up for something?

PLUNKETT: I didn’t know it ‘til I was, right I, it was before I left. 00:17:00‘Cause by me being on the farm, I wasn’t in the city. Those boys in the city were caught hell. Them farmers were all right. They working on the farm. And if you get in trouble there on the farm, see, the white fellow would get it out, get you out. And those colored fellows say, you got, you got a big farm down there. You got couple of colored fellows working on your farm. Well them fellows get in trouble, you get them out. See? Over here, say , you go, going to the courthouse, say, “I want him. Best nigger I got. I want him. I need him on my farm.” Well, oh, they’d let him go, “There you go now, and, and be a good nigger, and don’t get in no more trouble. You go on back.” He’d come on back home. Yeah, them farmers were pretty good, ‘cause all them colored fellow they work with them white fellows on the farm. They take care of their colored 00:18:00fellows. But them fellows in the city, it’s different.

HARDY: ‘Cause they weren’t protected. They didn’t have somebody to look out for them.

PLUNKETT: No, they weren’t protected. No, they weren’t protected. They’d lock you up, and nobody to talk to you, say nothing. And they didn’t money to go and hire a lawyer. They just went on a chain gang. There used to be Richmond penitentiary.

HARDY: Now, when you got to Philadelphia, what was your first job? I was unclear whether you worked on the railroad first, or in New- Newton’s, uh, Newman’s coal-coal yard.

PLUNKETT: Railroad.

HARDY: You worked on the railroad first?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Can you tell me how you got that job?

PLUNKETT: Well, place, I didn’t have no job, and place I was staying, a woman said to me, says, “My friend says, you can get a job on a railroad.” I said “Yeah?” She said, “Yeah.” I say, “Well, I go there in the morning.” 00:19:00I don’t know why I didn’t go. So next morning, I walked on down to the railroad. Great big Irishman standing there. I walked up to him. I say, “You hiring anybody?” He looked down at me, “ever worked on a railroad?” I said, “Oh, I, I never worked on a railroad before.” “Yeah,” he said, “I need some mens. I’ll hire you. I need mens.” So he give me a pick and tamp stones under that tie there. We jacked the track up, you know, the ties were loosened. Good pile of stones standing there. I rammed them stones in and tamp them under there good.

HARDY: Was it Pennsylvania Railroad?

PLUNKETT: Pennsylvania Railroad.

HARDY: The, uh, the gang of men you worked with, were, what were they- where there a lot of guys up from the South like yourself?

PLUNKETT: Oh, all the guys I was with, men, most of them was Italian guys.

HARDY: Most were Italians?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. In them days, when I first come, it was plenty hard for a colored fellow to get a job with the railroad. Guess I was just lucky, you know, just luck that I got a job. But course, there’s two, three colored fellows on there, but there were more Italians, about 10, 12 Italian fellows. There were only about three, f- four colored fellows on there. The way they do, them Italians, when they get a job, they, they bigger the boss, is what they call. They hire four or five colored fellows, ‘cause they know there’s gonna come a time, they got to lay off somebody, so when it do come that time, see, they lay the colored fellows off. They always keep some colored fellows, working, for that.

HARDY: Last, uh, hired, first fired, right?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, last hired, you know the first fired. Yeah, well you always hire some colored folks, keep them, ‘cause there gonna come a day, 00:21:00somebody going to be let off, and colored fellow’s going to be the one going to get it, ‘cause they’re the last come.

HARDY: You know, during the war years, when you came up to Philadelphia, the men were coming in from the south of Philadelphia by the, by the thousands.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Getting jobs in the war factories, you know the munitions plants--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Working on the railroad-

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: That sort of thing. Um, tho- you know, those war years, when you were here, did you hang around with a lot of col-, uh, So-, men from the South? Guys up from the South? In your spare time, or work with them?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Uh, uh, some I knowed, I hang around with, ‘cause a lot of them come from the South, that directly- followed me up. And I knowed them fellows. I hang around with them. But those guys I didn’t know, I didn’t bother much.

HARDY: So you hung around a lot with guys from back home at, at Danville. They--

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Guys from back home in Danville I knowed, I hung out with them guys.

HARDY: Where- where would, where- where did they work? And, what sort of jobs would they get in the city?

PLUNKETT: Well, some of them worked on the railroad, and some worked on contract work, building, wheeling cement, cutting lumber, and some of them worked on coal yards. Some was lucky enough to get a job down the Navy Yard. Just different places like that, they worked.

HARDY: Most of them single? They come with families?

PLUNKETT: Most of them I knowed come with families.

HARDY: Did come with families?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, most of them hauled their families right on up here. Left tobacco fields, and got their families to come on up here.

HARDY: What’d you all do in your spare time?

PLUNKETT: Run around, drink liquor, and run after womens. [laughs]

HARDY: Was Philadelphia a good place to do that?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, Philadelphia good place to do that.

HARDY: Where, where were the centers? Where were the hot spots?

PLUNKETT: South Philadelphia and North Philadelphia. There were the hot spots.

HARDY: You remember any particular places, any streets, or any particular places?

PLUNKETT: South Street, Kater Street, Number Street. Uptown, Olive Street.

HARDY: So, can- can you describe me a typical evening on the town then?

PLUNKETT: A particular town?

HARDY: A particular, you know, what would, uh, uh, uh, r- an evening on the town be like then? You got- you got your paycheck, you get together with a gang of guys, and you go out on the town. What do you do?

PLUNKETT: We get our paycheck, and we go out on the town, up into, sometime, I remember always just hung around South Philadelphia. Some of them go to North Philadelphia. But I hung mostly North, South Philadelphia.

HARDY: Did you go into clubs, or were they speakeasies, or people’s houses--

PLUNKETT: Speakeasies. There wasn’t any clubs in them days. No, speakeasies. Because, see, the country was dry, and everybody, every house you go in was a speakeasy, people selling liquor. Every house. So yo- you go in a house, it was a speakeasy.

HARDY: Hm. Can you describe me one of them, those speakeasies?

PLUNKETT: Well, you walk in a house, and it’s a house like this, you know. You walk in, sit down, just tell them uh, gimme a pitcher, they sold it by the pitcher. It was all a pitcher. Well, then she’d go and get a pitcher of liquor, and bring it, sit it down, put the glass down and you drink it up. You want another pi- pitcher, you pay, set it up, like that.

HARDY: Whiskey, beer?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, they made the beer.

HARDY: White lightening, what?

PLUNKETT: White lightening. They made the beer, called it home brew. They made 00:25:00it, put it bottles, fixed it, and it was all right. Pretty good d- drink, the beer was.

HARDY: Did you gamble in there or--

PLUNKETT: Some of them did. I didn’t do no gambling.

HARDY: You didn’t get into the gambling?

PLUNKETT: Some of them had a run, you’d go ahead and gamble. Some of them go down and sat in the cellar. That’s where most of the gambling places at, in the cellar.

HARDY: How ‘bout numbers? You ever play the numbers back then?

PLUNKETT: I played the numbers, but I-I- I stopped. I couldn’t, I had hard luck playing numbers. When I first started playing numbers, my mother was living. She said, “You ain’t gonna hit.” She said, “’Cause, you’re gambling.” My mother was a church woman. No gamblers. No. After I couldn’t hit, I stopped. When she died, then I got married, and I started to playing this, the, the lottery. I was putting down with the lottery. Wife told me the 00:26:00same thing, says, “You ain’t gonna hit.” Said, “You ain’t doing nothing but gambling.” You, you ain’t going to hit nothing.

HARDY: Yeah. Did you ever hear of guy named West Indian Johnny?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: What can you tell me about West Indian Johnny?

PLUNKETT: He was a big number man. I- I didn’t know him. I seen him once or twice, but he was a big number man.

HARDY: Yeah, I’d- I’d heard that he actually brought it into the city.

PLUNKETT: He did.

HARDY: Came up from--

PLUNKETT: Yeah, he started that number when it first come out. He was a big man in that numbers, when it was first started gambling. West Indian Johnny.

HARDY: Was that in the war years, or did that not come until some time in the ‘20s?

PLUNKETT: That was after World War.

HARDY: After the war was over?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. After the war was over. Cause some West Indian fellas. They p- they pretty smart. They know how to make money. They’re pretty smart.

HARDY: How about Forrest White? You ever hear about Forrest White?

PLUNKETT: I heard of him. I didn’t know him.

HARDY: Yeah, ‘cause apparently, he was the guy who financed, uh, now this is some of the stories we’ve been getting is about, uh, West Indian Johnny and--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: And Forrest White, and apparently, Johnny ran the- the numbers, and- and White was the guy who put up the money--

PLUNKETT: Who backed him up. Backed him up.

HARDY: Backed him, yeah. You know, uh, one of the other things I’m interested in finding out, you know, is uh, is about when young guy come up, young single guy come up to the city, off of the farm--you know, back on the farm, there’s not that much to do right?

PLUNKETT: No.

HARDY: You got church on Sunday, they work you hard--

PLUNKETT: Work you hard.

HARDY: Evenings, there aren’t many places to go.

PLUNKETT: Nowhere for you to go but church and home. Then you go--

HARDY: Then you come to the city, and you got, you got speakeasies, [phone rings] you got the women, the entertainment, all that stuff. I guess they call it the bright lights.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah. There’s some those fellows just run wild, ‘cause after they left home, come up here in the big city, you know, speakeasy here, speakeasy there, gambling place, women setting around. They just went crazy. 00:28:00Some of them left their family. [laughs] Some of them, some of the men left their family. And women almost as bad as, as the mens. They’s leave their husbands, take up with another man, the way they go is, “oh they have--“ cause they been- they knowed they’d been down there on the farm, nothing but woods, wheat fields, and tobacco fields, where you get up, and look out, first thing you see is a big wheat field, tobacco field, you go that away, there going to be nothing but woods. You walk a mile, ain’t nothing but woods. [door bell rings] Yeah, so, they got up here, they just, just went crazy.

HARDY: I guess those temptations could be pretty hard to resist.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, temptation’s real hard.

HARDY: Should be do anything about answering the door there?

PLUNKETT: I thought she was going to answer it.

HARDY: Yeah, she’s upstairs, I think.

PLUNKETT: Hey! Somebody, at the door.

UNIDENTIFIED: I’ll get it.

HARDY: [laughs]

PLUNKETT: I thought you was in the kitchen.

UNIDENTIFIED: Mmhm.

HARDY: Hm. So, um, you got up, and then, yeah, those temptations proved a little hard for you to resist too, right.

PLUNKETT: Yeah, I did. They were pretty hard for me. I couldn’t save no money. I spent my money. Old mens, I worked with some old man on the railroad. He begged me, “Save money. Save your money. Save your money.” I didn’t save no money.

HARDY: Hi.

PLUNKETT: Hello.

UNIDENTIFIED: This is Mr. Dickerson.

PLUNKETT: “Down dar.”

HARDY: Huh.

PLUNKETT: My old man used to say, “Some of the fellows asked me, where you from?” “I’m from ‘Down dar’.” He means--

HARDY: Down dar?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. He called down South, “Down dar--I’m from down dar.”

HARDY: Your father never came North, did he?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. He come North.

HARDY: He came North?

PLUNKETT: Mm-hm.

HARDY: Before or after you?

PLUNKETT: After me. My sister got him up North. And he didn’t like up here.

HARDY: He didn’t? Why not?

PLUNKETT: I don’t know. He didn’t like up here at all. I said, “ Why don’t you--” “Ohh, I don’t like up here. I’d rather be down home. The 00:30:00people’s better down home.” “Well these people’s all right. They don’t bother you.” “Oh, I don’t like them.” Well, he went on back down, but he was sick. He jumped up, and went on home sick. Or, I didn’t know he was so sick. If I’d have knowed he was sick, I’d have went with him down. But I didn’t know. I just thought he was, just didn’t like up here. Wanted to stay here, my mother. He even left her up here, went on home. I mean, he was sick. He got, in Danville, Virginia, got him a, his brother’s daughter, got to her house, and that’s far he got. He was on his way to his mother’s and father’s house. Well, his, that time, his father and mother was living on a farm. He was, he went to their place, but he had 20 miles to go, but as far as he got was to his daughter’s house, or his brother’s daughter’s house. And that where he died.

HARDY: Hm. So your mother came North, too, then?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: And wha- what, what, um, was your sister, your sister was married when she came up?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, she was married.

HARDY: What- what did she and her husband do? What sort of jobs did they have?

PLUNKETT: Well, they had all kinds. They worked in private families most times. Worked in the laundry a while, [coughs] he quit the laundry, went done layman work for a while. And they been on in private family, both of them went in private fam-

[INTERRUPTION--RECORDING STOPS]

HARDY: Worth?

PLUNKETT: They wasn’t allowed to vote. No, they wasn’t allowed to vote in the state, in, in the South. They just got that, uh, President Johnson who used that, he’s the cause of them voting down South. Before that, we couldn’t vote, wouldn’t allow them to vote. I was told there was a white fellow, that’s when I was working in the clubhouse, and a white fellow come up here, and he met the car in, in Cherry Hill. They, they had come down to the club where I was working, get free drink, ‘cause, the boss that owned the club told 00:32:00me, say, “Anytime the cops come in here, they want a beer, give it to them.” Said, “Don’t charge them nothing.” So they, when the cops, they flock right there to get free beer, you know, at night. To-, they wouldn’t come at day, at night. So he brought this fellow down there with him. He, I think he was from Georgia. Yeah. He told me, says, “We don’t stop a colored fellow from voting. If he wanna vote, vote. That’s his privilege. Let him vote. But he walk up and cast his ballot, he never get back. Bullet hit him.”

HARDY: This was in Georgia?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, in Georgia.

HARDY: Did you vote when you came to Philadelphia?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, I voted when I come to Philadelphia.

HARDY: How did you feel about that, about being able to vote up here?

PLUNKETT: I feel all right, ‘cause I felt the freedom, ‘cause down home, I was pretty young. I didn’t know, I didn’t know they have elections then. Course, I was too young most times to vote anyhow.

HARDY: Right, they--

PLUNKETT: Course, I left there before I was 21. Yeah.

HARDY: Now, when--

PLUNKETT: But I know my father was, he couldn’t vote. I know that.

HARDY: Yeah.

PLUNKETT: And a lot of them, a lot of my old peoples I know left the South and come up here, but they stopped off at the--once they had them the vote, then they stopped them. And then all of them, a lot of them left and come up here. That would cause them to make it up here, ‘cause they can vote. Course I have some relations, old relations on my mother’s side, come up here, so they could vote.

HARDY: Hm. Now when you, uh, when you came to the city, you lived down on Kater Street, right?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: What hundred, what hundred block was it?

PLUNKETT: Twenty-two hundred.

HARDY: Twenty-two hundred?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Do you remember who the, uh, the committeeman was there, the ward boss, 00:34:00in that part of town?

PLUNKETT: I think his name was Robertson.

HARDY: Robertson?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Did he used to come around on election day and, uh, you know, hand out the 50 cents, or the drinks, or whatever, to get people to go to the polls, and--

PLUNKETT: No, he didn’t. I didn’t get nothing. We just went on to the poll and voted. We didn’t get nothing.

HARDY: Oh yeah?

PLUNKETT: I didn’t get nothing ‘til I come here, way up here. When I first started, we, a fellow give us two, three dollars. For a while, then he stopped that.

HARDY: When was that, when you came up here?

PLUNKETT: I come up here in ’22, and I stayed up here until, I think it’s around ’57. And then I went to town, then I went to Philadelphia.

HARDY: You came up in ’20-? What, what brought you up in ’22? What, what made you move in 1922?

PLUNKETT: From here? Oh--

HARDY: Well, from downtown.

PLUNKETT: Oh, I lost my wife. That’s when I, see, I lived, uh, Southwest Philadelphia. I bought a house in Southwest Philadelphia. My wife didn’t like here. She didn’t like out here. Too country. She liked the city.

HARDY: Hm. When did you marry?

PLUNKETT: Huh?

HARDY: When, when were you, when did you get married?

PLUNKETT: In the ‘50s.

HARDY: In the ‘50s?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Well, that’s, yeah, that’s what I thought. You, you didn’t marry ‘til late in life, right?

PLUNKETT: No.

HARDY: Well, you said, you moved in 1922. Did I misunderstand you there?

PLUNKETT: Y-Yeah, I come up here in 1924, two, two, 1922, when I come here, from Philadelphia. I was in Philadelphia, then.

HARDY: Right, that’s what I’m saying.

PLUNKETT: But I only stayed in there about a little over a year, but then I left and come out here.

HARDY: Why did you come out here from Philadelphia?

PLUNKETT: Well, I got a job out here. I got to go, I didn’t have no job, I got, got, I got laid off the railroad, uh, see? And I didn’t have no job. S- 00:36:00And I come out here, I got a job.

HARDY: Was that at the coal company then? Where- where’d you get a job when you came out here?

PLUNKETT: Contractor. I never worked with the coal company. I got a jo-, I come out here, I got a job at the laundry when I left Philadelphia.

HARDY: Ah.

PLUNKETT: With the laundry. Danbush[?] laundry. That’s what caused me to leave Philadelphia, and come out here.

HARDY: What--

PLUNKETT: Then, out here I worked at a laundry, and from there, I worked with contractor, builder, made, built houses.

HARDY: Huh.

PLUNKETT: I worked with him clean on ‘til when I quit him, then I went to the clubhouse, on the golf course. I went to work ‘til the government bought that, and built homes on the place. Then I went to work for a church, a janitor in a church here in Collingdale.

HARDY: Huh. Were you sexton there or something?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: When was that?

PLUNKETT: I stayed there until I retired.

HARDY: Huh. When, when did you leave, when did the government buy the country club, and you go to the church? Any idea when that was?

PLUNKETT: Oh, in the ‘40.

HARDY: That was in the ‘40s?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. They bought that, the government bought the land and sold it, the club, to the government, and they built houses on it.

HARDY: Right. Hm.

PLUNKETT: And then I went to work for a factory. A fellow that used to be a member in the club, so he give me a job in his factory. So I worked in his factory, at, from then on ‘til, well, I stayed there, uh, 19 or 20 years. And the union got in there, and he got mad, and moved the factory down North Carolina.

HARDY: Ah-ha.

PLUNKETT: That was in ’59, and then I got a job at a church, a sexton. So I 00:38:00stayed there until I retired.

HARDY: Yeah. What was the factory?

PLUNKETT: Oh, Shallcross Manufacturing Company.

HARDY: Oh, Shallcross.

PLUNKETT: Making electrical, oh, electrical stuff.

HARDY: Right. Let me ask some more questions about the, the early years when you came up here. You know, in talking to people, one of the things that seems to, to come up is that, um, you know, in the South, anything you do, like you told me in, in Danville--

PLUNKETT: Hm.

HARDY: Y- you step out of line at all, if you’re seen in the wrong spot, you drink a little, they’re going, they gonna come down hard on you. So, really you couldn’t do it. And a lot of men would come up to Philadelphia, and all of a sudden, they’d have all this freedom.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: And some of them, you know, were very resentful, or bitter, and, um, y’know, they would get in trouble, others would just sort of--y’know what, what I’m interested in is finding out is about, you know, how people felt about living in the city, having come from the, from the farms.

PLUNKETT: Well, they, they like it. They liked the city better than they do down home. They liked the city. Of course, a lot of them down there, you’ve got to walk the chalk line. You get up here, you don’t have to walk it. Some of them get smart, and raise a lot of hell, and get smart. Some of them. Some of them all right. And some of them are not. They been down home, they scared to open their mouth. They get up here, oh, you can hear them a mile talking, and get smart. That’s one thing they do. A lot of us, they been trying to break them from doing that, but--

HARDY: Can you give me some examples of that from, you know, back in the early days when you were up here?

PLUNKETT: Well, at the churches and all, the preachers preach about that, ‘bout staying in your line, and how to deal with, not to do that, preaching, t- teaching that, in the churches. Some of them go to church, and, and listen, 00:40:00and take it in. Some don’t.

HARDY: You know, I’m thinking of the, you know in the nu-, in, during the war years, still, in the early ‘20s, now you say some people come up here and, and uh they get--

PLUNKETT: Well, that’s when they flocked up here, during the war.

HARDY: Right.

PLUNKETT: Yeah, during the war, they flocked up here, and then when they did, and in the worstest part, well, that’s when the boll weevils got down there. Reckon after all the boll weevils run them away. Ate up all they cotton, ‘cause boll weevils eat the cotton up. I knowed farmers didn’t raise a bale of cotton, and they had to leave home. And they, most of them flocked to Detroit, Michigan, on account of the automobile place. Detroit, Michigan full 00:41:00of, um--

HARDY: There were--

PLUNKETT: Jersey. And Jersey got a lot of them, ‘cause Jersey, them farms, them farmers in Jersey, need to go down there, just go down South, and get a gang of colored fellows, bring them up here on the farm. They done the same as, the fellows had them build them a house, they’d move in, and all.

HARDY: Oh yeah? So they’d go South, and they’d get uh, a, a gang of men, and bring them back up?

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Go down South, and get a gang of men, and bring them back up to work on their farm. In the brickyard, they’d go down there, and get a gang of mens, bring them up to work on the brickyard. There was a brick fellow that used to go down there. Big rich white guys run the brickyard, they’d go down, down South, get a gang, see one colored fellow they know, put him wise, and he’d 00:42:00get all the rest of them. And he’d give them the money for them to come up here.

HARDY: Would that be just for summer work, or did they want uh, the men to stay up year-round when they came here?

PLUNKETT: Well, they, just summer work, ‘cause some of them stayed here all the time, ‘cause in the wintertime, nothing for them to do, but to load bricks on boat. Unless they got to ship them over, a lot of bricks to ship over here. They put them on boat, and ‘cause they have, get a job loading a boat. Or even loading the boxcars, some of them are regular, and some are water.

HARDY: Hm. So what’d they do when they went back home? I mean, if, if, if they were up North in the summer making money, when they get back home, what do they do in the winter? They’d missed the growing season, right?

PLUNKETT: Well, most of them didn’t have no f- families or nothing, they just, they worked with them white fellows, cutting wood, cord wood, they get a job over and they cured tobacco in the woods, just done all the cooking with the 00:43:00wood, and they done all the heating with the wood. And so all these jobs from going in the woods, they had uh, plenty of woods, you know, go in there and cut wood.

HARDY: Ah-ha. So a lot of lumbermen, then?

PLUNKETT: A lot of lumber. Well, I used to cut the wood.

HARDY: Did you?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, I had a good sharp ax. I’d go in the woods and cut down trees, and cut them up, and a fellow had a, his wagon, I hauled them, go over there and c- cut wood for so long. And they used that wood for the heater, to make fire, and for the cook, and all like that.

HARDY: And you’d do that all during the fall or winter?

PLUNKETT: All during the fall. I didn’t do it much, so much in the winter, because it was too cold. I didn’t stand out there much in the wintertime, hauling the wood.

HARDY: So what was the winter work?

PLUNKETT: That was the winter work, you know, cutting wood. Yeah. Then I used to 00:44:00cut wood, so high, stack it up way up high, yeah, so long, called cord wood. They’d pay you so much a cord. I know once I bought a suit of clothes--little bit, just, I thank you--made the, made the suit, fellow had a store, and you order your suits. I went down, put an order in for a suit. The suit come, I didn’t have no money. So he run the store, so he says, “Well, you cut, pay me in wood.” I say, “All right. I cut you a cord of wood.” So I cut the wood. I paid for that suit cutting the wood. I think I finally made a cord. They 00:45:00pay you something like 75, 80 cents a cord.

HARDY: Not much.

PLUNKETT: No. Didn’t pay--

HARDY: How long would--how long would it take you to cut a cord of wood?

PLUNKETT: I guess I would have had a couple of weeks. Oh, I could, pretty good with an ax. I cut them trees down, cut them up, stack them up, and put a c- cord of wood.

HARDY: Hm.

PLUNKETT: Course, I was working on the golf course, so I, the fellows were sawing, so I had a good sharp ax, so there’d be a tree standing there and I jumped on that tree, and cut the tree down, had it pretty near cut up, while they was sawing that tree down. [laughs] The fellows just laughed. “Whoa.” 00:46:00The ol’ Irishman, “Jesus Christ, that bloody--” Says, “We ain’t just got the tree down, and he done cut the tree down with a ax, and done cut it up, and we ain’t finished yet.”

HARDY: [laughs]

PLUNKETT: So there, then, then they kept me doing that. Said, “Here, you use axes. We use the saw.” We were cutting down a lot, it was golf link, you know, a lot of trees was there. We had to cut all them trees off to where to make the golf links bigger. There’s a nine-hole golf link, and they were going to make a 18-hole golf link. That’s why we had to cut down a lot of trees.

HARDY: Hm. I want to ask you a little more about um, your spare time. Remember you telling me, when you go out to the speakeasies, they’d be down on South Street, and Kater, and up on Niles Street in North Philadelphia.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Yeah? Where were the, uh d-, know, one of the things been tracking down 00:47:00too, is that apparently a lot of women who came up, know, uh, would get led astray, be taken in by the bright lights, and, know, end up in whore houses--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Up in Philadelphia. Where were those located in the city?

PLUNKETT: Well, they had a house all the way down on Lombard Street. I used to go on Lombard Street, and South Street, and all around Bainbridge Street.

HARDY: What were those like?

PLUNKETT: Rodman Street.

HARDY: Yeah, I’d heard about a couple on Rodman.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Rodman, yeah. Addison Street. I been on all them streets when I was young, yeah.

HARDY: What were they like?

PLUNKETT: The houses?

HARDY: Yeah.

PLUNKETT: They were just ordinary house.

HARDY: Would it be a couple of, you know, would there be a madam with a lot of women, or would it just be a couple of working girls?

PLUNKETT: No, it would be a lot of womens come in there. Normally there’d two or three girls got the house, but other girls from other places, other girls 00:48:00come in this house to make a buck. See, they’d go from house to house to make a buck. If you go in this house, and things are slow, then they leave, and go to another house. Things slow there, they go to another house. They keep going ‘til they get enough, where things is busy.

HARDY: So they’re more of this, like streetwalkers, than--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Than women who worked out of, uh, residences?

PLUNKETT: In some of the houses, womens just stayed there all the time. That’s what we’d call a whorehouse. They stayed there. A man, or you know, a man or woman, one, sometimes a man, he’d rent this house, put those womens in there. Sometime a woman would do it, rent it, put womens in it.

HARDY: And, um, were most of the women from the South, or were they North, Northern, you know, Philadelphians, too, or--

PLUNKETT: Some of them were Philadelphians. Some of them were from the, the 00:49:00South. But a lot of the South womens were pretty good. They’d get jobs. When they get up here, say some Jew womens in South Philadelphia, see, they always have colored womens working. Not only Jews, other womens. Yeah. They’d get better jobs than we did, the women. Some of them go on up on the Main Line, where all thems peoples at, make more money. [wheezing, coughing]

HARDY: Yeah, I guess that would be a, if you had a private uh, job in a private uh, house, private work, I guess is year-round there. It’s not like working on the railroad--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Or uh, in a factory where you could get laid-off every once in a while, right?

PLUNKETT: No. No, they’d get better jobs than me, ‘cause they, some of them women smart enough to go on, on the main line with the rich peoples hired for 00:50:00work, get more money up there with them.

HARDY: Yeah.

PLUNKETT: Some of them didn’t have the money, and didn’t, couldn’t get up there, didn’t know, were working around in Philadelphia, for the Jews, Irishmens.

HARDY: Right. Were there any colorful characters down on South Street, or Bainbridge, or Lombard?

PLUNKETT: Any what?

HARDY: Char- uh, colorful people who, who really sort of stood out. You know like--

PLUNKETT: Poor peoples, you mean?

HARDY: Um, no, I mean uh,--

PLUNKETT: Or rich, rich--

HARDY: I mean the guys like West Indian Johnny, who, who ran the, you know the numbers, or um, or any, any gamblers, prominent gamblers. You know, any characters--

PLUNKETT: Oh, yeah.

HARDY: You know, fellows who had uh, you know, pretty well known, and--

PLUNKETT: Yeah, South Street, there--

HARDY: Who were some of the, who were some of the, the characters there? You know, the, the--

PLUNKETT: Well, uh--

HARDY: The bright stars of the sporting class, uh?

PLUNKETT: Well, um, I know Allison, Smitty Lucas, Joe Davenport, hm, all them 00:51:00guys were sporting fellows, whiskey guys, and Stephen, Joe Stevens. Oh, I used to know a lot of guys that were-- around there, ‘cause I used to be around them places every night.

HARDY: What can you tell me about some of them, like Smitty Lucas?

PLUNKETT: Well, Smitty Lucas was, he had run the Clubhouse. He run the Clubhouse, and they all go there, and gamble. Uh, Davenport and Stevenson, Joe Stevenson, Joe Davenport, and them guys would have, see, Cheevus, and they’d 00:52:00go there and gamble in his club. I never been to his club, but I passed by there lots of times, seen fellows going in there, and they would gamble. But I never gambled.

HARDY: Huh.

PLUNKETT: I never did do no gambling.

HARDY: Where was he from?

PLUNKETT: J- Joe Davenport or, uh?

HARDY: Smitty Lucas or Davenport.

PLUNKETT: I don’t know where Smitty Lucas come from. I don’t know about his home. But Joe Davenport come from Norfolk, Virginia.

HARDY: And he was a gambler?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Did they drive a fancy cars or where, uh, you know, the suits and the diamond stickpins, or--

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Stevenson did. Joe Stevenson had a diamond, had a fancy car. Smitty Lucas had a fanc- fancy car. Joe Davenport, he didn’t have no car. He was, wore jewelry, rings, diamond rings, stickpins. Most of those fellows, you 00:53:00know, gamblers, you get any money, they’d buy a diamond ring, stickpin, things like that, with money. And then they figure if they get broke, get down and out, they always can pawn that.

HARDY: Right.

PLUNKETT: They can pawn it, and get money. Yeah, they always had a diamond rings flashing on their hand, or a pin sticking up there. They were good guys, they were.

HARDY: Were there any, was there any underworld, you know? Who were the, who were the kings of the underworld then? Would it be, would it have been those gamblers? You know, the underworld, on South Street, or--

PLUNKETT: Well, I would think them fellows were underworld. As far as I know, underworld was Smitty Lucas, and Cheevus, and Stevenson, and Davenport, all of them guys. They was underworld.

HARDY: Any problem with crime back in those days?

PLUNKETT: Huh?

HARDY: Any cr- problems with crime back in those days,

PLUNKETT: No.

HARDY: When you first came, came to the city?

PLUNKETT: No, they didn’t have the crime in days like they have now. Stealing, and killing, and all. They didn’t have that in them days. I used to walk the streets, South Street, Kater Street, all them streets, 12, one o’clock at night, three o’clock in the morning. Now I’m scared to go there in daytime here. If I go down there in night, I get killed, robbed.

HARDY: Yep.

PLUNKETT: Uh, I don’t, I ain’t been down there, I don’t think for years. I haven’t been down there. Well, that used to be my regular home, South Street, and Lombard Street. And used to work, I worked a while at 6th and South.

HARDY: What was that?

PLUNKETT: Used to be a hat place. Fellow cleaned hats at 6th and South, between South and Lombard. Cleaned hats and shined shoes. I worked there a while. But in them days, I could have walked the streets all around there, nobody would bother you. Can’t do it today.

HARDY: Hm. How about, um, you ever go up to the Gold Coast?

PLUNKETT: Huh?

HARDY: The Gold Coast? What was that on? Nineteenth Street or 17th Street, between um, Bainbridge and Lombard? A fellow’s telling me, back during the late –teens or early ‘20s, that the uh, place where where, the, the real fancy clubs and, uh gambling houses were, was up on 17th Street, they called it the Gold Coast.

PLUNKETT: Well, that was se-, yeah, 17th and South.

HARDY: Yeah.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. I used to hang out there. Yeah, that was 00:56:00the Gold Coast. Full of gambling place, taxi, [cough] taproom there. Oh. [cough] Of course, I was pretty young, I didn’t know, I just passed by and by I go on then, walked the streets, going to work, coming from work, I worked on the Pennsylvania Railroad, and uh, the peoples I boarded with, they lived on Sansom Street, 17th and Sansom.

HARDY: Seventeenth and Sansom?

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Hah.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. And I used to walk through there a lot.

HARDY: Was it hard to find a place to live in, in the city when you first came?

PLUNKETT: No.

HARDY: It wasn’t hard to find a place?

PLUNKETT: Uh-uhn. No, it wasn’t hard. You just room. I was in the --

HARDY: ‘Cause--

PLUNKETT: --, South Philadelphia, North Philadelphia, down Lombard Street, S- [cough] South Street, Bainbridge Street, Fitzwater Street, all them streets, Carpenter.

HARDY: Would it be, basically be, take renting rooms.

PLUNKETT: Well, you could rent a house, or you could rent a room.

HARDY: ‘Cause one of the things, know, I’ve been, been reading is that during the war years in particular, with all the people coming North, that there was a real shortage of places to live in, a real housing shortage. That there were some real problems, you know, for, for people tr- finding places to stay back then. But you don’t remember that?

PLUNKETT: No, well, I don’t. This was b-, here lately -- a fellow bought that golf club, I used to work. They’re kind of tight to get houses, but they build a bit, they started building houses for them to live in.

HARDY: Alright.

PLUNKETT: Everywhere you look, someones, they’re building houses. And that’s why I got a job so easy, when I left the railroad, ‘cause they were building houses all in Collingdale, and then all, all around. They even had a big [?]. 00:58:00You can jump out, you can eat breakfast, and get out, and go and get a job.

HARDY: Hm.

PLUNKETT: Just a walk-on job, but a lot of building going on. They say, “Hey, you want to work?” “Yeah.” If it’s 10 o’clock or 11 o’clock, start in, I pay you for the whole day. You start at 11 o’clock, get paid for the whole day.

HARDY: Jeez.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: Must have needed people.

PLUNKETT: Yeah. Every which way you look in them days, they were building, building houses, building places up, like Collingdale, Darby, Glenolden, always did buzz, get small buzz, you know, and they’re building them up.

HARDY: Hm. You know, the one other thing I wanted to ask you about was um, the race relations in the city when you first arrived here. You know, you came out of the South, which was supposed to be Jim Crow and, you know--

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: All segregation.

PLUNKETT: Yeah.

HARDY: What was it like in Philadelphia?

PLUNKETT: [cough] Pretty near the same. [cough] I didn’t see much difference.

HARDY: Really?

PLUNKETT: I didn’t see much difference. [cough] Only thing different you can see, down there, down South, if I’m going to ride a trolley car, you got a big sign up front, you know, inside the car, “White occupy front seats. Colored occupy seats in the rear.” That’s the way it is down South, but up here, they didn’t have that sign, but, but most of the fellows sit to theirself, because if you sit near, if a colored fellow sit down beside a white woman, she would get up, don’t want to sit with him. Hm. Yeah, so most of the fellows got in their seats, you know, if you want to sit side down, you find a place by yourself, and sit down, or you can sit down with a man. Course, I know, up here, 01:00:00we, where I worked, we could have picnics, where you go, rent a bus, picnic guys. Hm. One of them had a club, we were going to go around Media and all around, and throw parties. Well, I was the only colored fellow on the bus that time, at that time. And so the white fellow there, well I worked with him, he tells me, say, “You sit with me.” I said, “All right.” He said, “When the bus comes, and we get on, you watch me.” And he says, “I’m going to have room for you to sit down beside me,” said, “’cause you know, I tell you,” I said, “These white women don’t want to sit with, don’t want to sit with you because you colored, and they don’t want to sit with you. To keep down trouble, you sit with me.” Well, I do that. I watch him. The bus come. I sit side of him. We go on, have a party. I was the bartender. That’s why he’s taking me, you know, like I dr- I draw a beer and do, ‘cause it’s his 01:01:00own party, but they have beer. So I draw beer, and that’s why I worked, colored. Coming back, they all get on the bus. I watch him. He save a seat, and I get on, ride back. Don’t have no trouble. He always would do that. [cough]

HARDY: Hm. What--

PLUNKETT: We used, used to go all around with parties. They rent a place like Media, Chester, rent a place for a party at a club. In the factory where I worked, they made up a club there, called it Sunshine Club. Well, and I was, I worked on all the clubs, you know, bartender.

HARDY: Right.

PLUNKETT: They have beer. I was the bartender.

HARDY: Were you disappointed when you came up to Philadelphia and found things weren’t that much different from the South?

PLUNKETT: Yeah, I was just disappointed, ‘cause I used to hear fellows come up here, and stay awhile, they’d come back, “Oh, man, you ought to be up North. Up North.” Say, say, “You go anywhere you want, a restaurant, anywhere you 01:02:00want to eat, you go eat. Sit anywhere you want to, man, ride a train or trolley anywhere you want, you sit anywhere you want to.” Well, they were just lying. I didn’t know it. I thought it was the truth, until I come up here. And I seen they were lying.

HARDY: Why do you think they lied?

PLUNKETT: Well, ‘cause you uh, ‘cause you can’t sit anywhere you want up here--

HARDY: Right. Not--

PLUNKETT: You can’t go in a restaurant, because I went in two restaurants once, and got turned down. Right here in Philadelphia. I walked in one morning. I was gonna eat breakfast. There was a girl running the restaurant, she says, “I’m sorry, but we don’t serve colored in here.” Said, “You go down the street,” said, “You can get served.” I went down the street that girl told me the same thing. So I didn’t get nothing to eat. Then I was in Chester. I run around with a girl down there, until late at night--

[END OF INTERVIEW]