Interviewee: Ira Harris

Interviewer: Will Hinton

Interview Date: April 18, 2015

Location: Louisburg, N.C.

Length: 01:11:57

Audio Excerpt

Will Hinton: This is the 18th of April, 2015. My name is Will Hinton and I am interviewing Mr. Ira Harris. Mr. Ira Harris’ home address is Kittrell, North Carolina. I’m interviewing Mr. Harris this morning for an oral history of school desegregation in Franklin County, North Carolina, sponsored by the Tar River Center for History and Culture at Louisburg College with funding provided by the North Carolina Humanities Council.

Good morning, Mr. Harris.

Ira Harris: Good morning.

WH: From now on in our interview I’ll call you Ira and you can call me Will.

IH: Yes sir.

WH: Okay?

IH: Just fine.

WH: Ira, tell us a little bit about your background, when and where you were born, your parents, your education, what you do for a living.

IH: Okay. I was born April 28, 1953 in Franklin County. [I was] born at home. My parents were Walter Harris and Cora Harris and we lived with my mom’s parents, James Hunt and Maggie Hunt, lived on a farm, grandparents’ farm, [00:01:38 father helping with my mom], and had one sister named Cora Harris. She’s a couple years older and we grew up on the farm, and life was good. We attended B. F. Person-Albion School, started there in the first grade on up through the ninth grade.

WH: Before you get off the farm, did y’all have animals, pigs, cows, chickens–

IH: Yes.

WH: –or did you do all the produce? Tell me more about the farm.

IH: It was a tobacco farm.

WH: Tobacco farm.

IH: Also raised cotton and corn and, like you said, animals, had mules, cows, pigs and chickens, more or less self-sufficient because my parents and grandparents grew all their own food.

WH: Okay.

IH: Very seldom had to buy anything for food stocks. I helped a lot with the farm and I loved the animals. I loved plowing the mules, you know, taking care of them, and helping my mom with the cow and take care of the cows and, you know, feed the chickens and get the eggs up, and the whole nine yards.

WH: So you had responsibilities early on as a young boy on the farm.

IH: Right, because my grandfather was older and he stilled worked some but he couldn’t do as he was younger, and, you know, my father had died earlier, so my mom did a lot of the farm work with my grandmother, and of course we’d get the neighbors and relatives to help when they’re needed but as I got larger I was able to take on a lot of responsibility and take some of the stress off my grandparents and parents. So, they always depended on me as well as I depended on them for everything, so I enjoyed it and glad I could do it.

WH: Now your mother lived a long life. She passed away in 2009. Tell us a little bit about your father.

IH: Father, Walter Harris, was in the Army and I barely remember. I remember just seeing him [00:03:37 when I was–.] I just barely remember him. I remember being at the funeral. That’s my biggest memory of him. He was in service with the Army Air Corps, that’s before it was the Air Force, and then the regular Army. I forgot the length of time he served. My mom is part Indian, as well as my grandmother, part Cherokee Indian, and if I remember correctly my grandmother was half Cherokee and my mother was considered a quarter Cherokee Indian. Both, you know, had different cultures that mixed with the black culture, the Indian culture.

WH: So as a young boy you must have had a special relationship with your grandfather.

IH: Very special. My grandfather, he taught me how to do all the farm work and really taught me about life. But one thing, I remember my grandfather, he never said anything bad about a white person, never talked about race or anything like that because he knew that wasn’t going to help him none. My grandmother didn’t and my mom either. My mom just said, “No matter what, you just do the best you can. That’s all the Lord requires,” because, like I say, I would never expect my life would change as it did, as time progressed.

WH: So you grow up as a young boy and then it’s time for you to go to school, and you’re six, seven years old?

IH: Six years old.

WH: And you go to school, and what school do you go to?

IH: B. F. Person-Albion in Franklinton, North Carolina, considered the black school, but being raised on the farm, you know, in the neighborhood, the Concord Church community, didn’t venture out of the neighborhood that much. Once in awhile you might go to town or something, otherwise, you know, you go to the church, you visit your neighbors and friends, visit relatives, and you might see some of this stuff on TV, what’s going on, on the other side of the world, but it wouldn’t concern you that much because the white people in the neighborhood were in the same boat we were, you know, farmers just trying to survive, and they didn’t treat me or my parents and grandparents no different from what we treated them.

WH: So, for the first eight, nine years of your education, you went to that same school.

IH: Yes, B. F. Person-Albion School. In fact, you’ll probably find this hard to believe, but I sung in the elementary glee club. Ms. Hill was the music teacher. I’ll never forget, because especially at holiday time, Christmastime, we’d go around and perform at churches, other schools, and stuff. In fact sometimes I would have a solo where I sung alto, but as I grew older my voice changed and I couldn’t sing a lick so I didn’t even try out for the high school glee club or nothing like that. [Laughs]

WH: How about that?

IH: Right.

WH: Here I am interviewing Cab Calloway. [Laughs]

WH: All right, well then, what really is our focus of our time today, is your education changes. Your education goes through really something special in 1968. Could you tell us a little bit about the events of April, in the spring? You see a woman at your front porch, and you’ve seen her before, and how does your life change in 1968? How old were you then?

IH: I was getting ready to turn fifteen before the end of the current school year at B. F. Person, you know, because with your friends and all at school, we were always talking about it. That was the biggest subject, talking about, you know, some people were going to have to go to the white school. Everybody said, “It ain’t going to be me,” you know, and I was saying that too, “It ain’t going to be me, because I want to stay here with my friends and teachers and everybody I know,” and my sister was there, you know. I wanted to feel secure. I don’t want to go there, you know, never had the idea I would go there, because I never really talked to my mother about it, because, you know, whatever your parents would say back then, grandparents too, that was the law. You just did what they said, no questions asked, because every time I heard my mom talk with somebody at church, or talk to the grandparents or people coming over and asking her about it, she always said, “My son, I expect him to go to the black school with his friends and his sister, like he’s been doing all his life.”

So I felt secure, knowing that, so I didn’t think nothing of it. But close to the end of the school year – I remember this almost like it was yesterday – I came home, and my grandparents, they was gone somewhere I believe, but my mom was in the living room and she was talking with this blond lady. Her name was Elizabeth Canady. I remembered her, but just barely, from when I was smaller, because she had moved away. Her parents, they lived only just about a mile down the road.

WH: What do you remember about her? Did she keep you?

IH: Well she used to keep me, you know, with her kids.

WH: That’s a white woman, with her kids, with you. Did she take you, like say going into stores and things?

IH: ...So I respected her and, like I say, I didn’t remember her at first until she started talking to me. She said, “Boy, you done really grown up. Come here and give me a hug,” you know, and she was talking to my mom so I gave her a hug and talked a little bit and then I just went on, changed my clothes and went on and started my chores.

So, I can’t say for a fact, but I think she was there about this integration stuff because her and my mom was really close, really close friends, because I remember my mom was sad, she told me she was sad when Elizabeth moved away years ago, but they communicated by letter, you know. There wasn’t no internet or cell phones. You had phones, now, but, you know, [00:09:43] called long distance and stuff. So, I believe Elizabeth was a big influence on my mom changing her mind about that, because up until the end my mom would always say no, no matter what the people from the white school, the black school, the school board. In fact, I always wondered who recommended me and my classmate, Henry Lee Daye, to go, because I feel like it was my music teacher, because she used to always tell me I had a good temperament, you know.

WH: Now, who was your music teacher?

IH: Ms. Hill. Now, you know, I can’t think of her first name.

WH: Not Ms. Mary Hill?

IH: I’m not sure, but she taught at B. F. Person.

WH: Okay. But Ms. Hill, the music teacher.

IH: Right, Ms. Hill. Also she taught something else because I was in one of her classes. She taught something else too. She was very strict. She wanted to make sure–. If something was wrong, as far you not paying attention or wasn’t getting the lesson or something, what she would do, she would drive you home and talk to your parents.

WH: How about that.

IH: Right.

WH: How about that. So, certainly you don’t know how it came to be that you seemed to be the young fifteen-year-old boy that was going to move from your school over to Franklinton.

IH: Right.

WH: But Ms. Canady, the white woman who had kept you from when you were a little boy, she came and talked to your mother and really got your mother over some fears that she had?

IH: It must have. It must have because, like I say, before my mom was strictly against, because she even told this guy – he said he was superintendent of the white school, that came to the house – she said, “Why can’t my son just go to the black school like everybody else, and then the following school year, when y’all say it’s going to be totally [integrated], why can’t he just go like everybody else?”

WH: Right. So you really went a year early.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: Now, your grandfather had had some type of relationship with Mr. Edward Yarborough, lawyer here in town.

IH: Right.

WH: Could you tell us a little bit about that? Did you know Mr. Yarborough?

IH: I just knew him through my grandfather. My grandfather would take me with him sometimes when he’d go see Mr. Yarborough, and sometimes Mr. Yarborough would come to the house and I would speak to him because he would just, you know, rub you on the head or something and say, “Hey, kid, how you doing?” and all. But he would help my grandfather a lot because my grandfather was one of the few black people that owned their own property, and some people made it difficult for him to get loans and stuff to farm because he was more or less independent. I remember this like yesterday. Pete Smith – that was when Mr. Pete Smith was still living himself – he bought some kind of vehicle from Pete Smith.

WH: Your grandfather.

IH: Yes, sir, my grandfather, James Hunt, bought this vehicle from Pete Smith, and didn’t have it long before it started giving problems and it wasn’t like Mr. Smith said it was going to be. He took it back to him to get it repaired, get it repaired, get it back home, doing the same thing. So my grandfather, he just–. I heard him talking to my grandmother when I was in a different room. He said, “I’m not going to pay any more money on this vehicle until it gets fixed,” and he had a wooden garage and he locked it up in there. The sheriff came out – I can’t think of who the sheriff was at that time – and he told the sheriff the same thing, “I paid my hard earned money on this vehicle and it don’t run,” and he also told Mr. Yarborough. So Mr. Yarborough, he came and talked to my grandfather, he said, “Well, I’m going to go talk to Pete Smith, because this is something that can be settled easily without getting mad and all that kind of stuff, or nothing like that.” So he went and talked to Mr. Smith, Mr. Yarborough did. A few days later these two white men came out, younger white men, and one of them talked to my grandfather and he listened to them, and they said, “Mr. Yarborough’s been talking to Mr. Smith and we came to get your car and we’re going to fix it and make sure it’s right, and then bring it back and you drive it a week, two weeks, and if you’re satisfied then Mr. Smith would like you to start back making payments on it.” So that’s exactly what happened.

WH: How about that.

IH: Got it straightened out.

WH: Well, it’s a small world. Of course that’s the same Mr. Ed Yarborough who’s representing the board of education during desegregation.

IH: But, from what I could see, Mr. Yarborough–. Understand, at that time, what the black people in the community went through, they needed a champion to help them out sometimes, and I could see that he could see my grandfather, grandmother, and mother trying to help theirselves so he didn’t mind helping them.

WH: Tell us a little bit, Ira, about, once you were a fifteen-year-old boy in the tenth grade, it sounds like, and you go to Franklinton High School, how was that first day, how was that first six weeks, how was that first year, and did it change up until the time when you graduated?

IH: You know, I went there that first day, had all the confidence in the world, because, the way the people explained to me – the federal people – they came to the house probably about two weeks before school started, asked my mom to change her mind, and this time I was included in the conversation. All the other times I wouldn’t be included.

WH: Right.

IH: I was in there with my mom, the federal people, the local school people; in fact it was for or five white and black people there, school system, federal people, my grandparents, and my grandparents went to Concord and that minister over there, I remember that, and of course my sister was there, and we just–. They were talking over what they expect and all and how to present yourself and how to behave, you know. They said, “Things are going to happen, don’t lose your cool, because, I don’t care what’s happened, you’re going to get the blame if you’re in any kind of altercation between you and a teacher or a student, or anybody just pushes you or shoves you or something like that.” I remember the federal guy, and to this day I remember exactly what he said, “You’re probably going to get attacked. Remember this: if it’s one or two persons, don’t matter what, cover your face the best you can and fall down to the ground or floor and, after awhile, a person see’s you’re not fighting back, they might hit you and kick you and punch you for awhile but after awhile, human nature, you’re not fighting back, and that’s finally going to subside or somebody’s going to stop them.”

WH: So to the best of your knowledge that was a man from the federal–

IH: Government.

WH: –government, not someone from Franklin County, that was giving you advice about what to do if you were attacked.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: But there were also at that meeting, your grandparents were there, your pastor from Concord Church was there, your older sister, Cora, was there–.

IH: And my mom, because–.

WH: And your mom.

IH: Because I remember my mom speaking up and saying, “My son knows how to act. I brought him up right,” and my grandparents, “He knows how to behave. He’s not going to start any trouble, but I just hope he’s taken care of.” That’s why they told her, my mom, that she could join the PTA.

WH: Okay.

IH: And with that, you know, she’d be able to maybe come to the school some time and just take a look and see how things are going for me.

WH: Now, one of the things that might have made it a little easier for you is you had a friend, another African American student that was going to go with you.

IH: Right.

WH: And you thought you would have a buddy there.

IH: Right.

WH: Tell us a little bit about how that worked out.

IH: Okay. Like I said, they explained that, “It’s going to be two of y’all; you’re going to be on the same schedule, be together every day. Of course you live the other side of town, he lives in town, so he’s going to have an easier way of getting to school but you’re going to have to ride the bus and all and get to school.” But, like I said, I was confident. It felt just like I was going to B. F. Person at first until I got there. Okay, we was together–. I found him–.

WH: Did you ride the bus there the first day?

IH: I rode the bus there.

WH: Okay.

IH: I found him and we was together up front there. [00:18:25 He was still there,] and grown people and all, and everybody was mingling because it was the first day of school, and everything seemed to go fine till it’s time to go into school. I could see people, not real close to me but further away, they were saying, “Why are they here? Why are these so-and-sos here?” Some people would say “Negroes,” some would say “niggers,” “Why are they here?” you know. I heard some of the students say, “Well, my family don’t want me to be going to school with people like that, don’t want me to be taking classes, and I don’t know whether I’m going to stay here or not if they’re in the same classes as me,” you know. So I tried not to let that bother me, and then we go on up in school, you know, and there were some people on each side saying things.

WH: When you were walking down the hall?

IH: No, going into the–.

WH: Actually going into the school, okay.

IH: Saying, “Why are you here?” you know. “Y’all got a school. How come y’all don’t go to your own school?” and all that kind of stuff, you know. I tried to ignore that. There was somebody showing us, I forget who it was, showing us to where we need to go for orientation, so I felt comfortable after getting to orientation because there wasn’t none of that stuff going on inside there. I felt good, pretty good, that first stuff didn’t bother me that much, but what really hit me, when we got into orientation, I find out I was in a different homeroom, and my schedule – because after we got all our paperwork we sort of met back up – and that was just the lowest point in my life because I said, “How in the world am I going to face all this stuff by myself?”

WH: What was the other African American student’s name?

IH: Henry Lee Daye.

WH: Henry Lee Daye.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: Okay, D-a-y?

IH: I think it was D-a-y or D-a-y-e. I forget.

WH: D-a-y-e, maybe. Okay.

IH: I forget.

WH: So you didn’t see Henry Lee anymore, so you were on your own.

IH: I’d just see him in passing in the hall every once in awhile, and then, you know, that would pick my spirits up when I’d see him. I guess it did the same for him. But, you know, I might speak to him, but you couldn’t stand in the hall but a few minutes and then you’d get in your classroom, and you get in the different classrooms, some of the teachers was nice, like you are, Mr. Will Hinton, you know, just like the teachers at B. F. Person, but some teachers weren’t nice and wouldn’t recognize myself being in the class, would say things like, “We got a new student here, but I really don’t know that much about him and I don’t have anything here that says–. I don’t even know whether he’s supposed to be here or not.” I tried to stay close to the front of the room so they’d feel like I was interested and then the kids in the back would throw things, books, and hit me on the head and the back and all, and the teacher would say, “Well, he seems to be disrupting my class,” and she would say, “Well, I know he’s new here,” so she would get one of the guys, “Take him to the principal’s office if you don’t mind.” So, I sat in there, and then the principal said, “What did you do?” I said, “I didn’t do anything.” I said, “Kids was throwing stuff at me.” He said, “I believe you,” but he said, “Tomorrow you go back to her class.”

But some teachers was nice and would accept me, and some kids, but some of the kids that would accept me, they wouldn’t do it in front of their friends because it could backfire on them, you know.

WH: Right.

IH: They would do it in secret, you know. They would whisper and tell me, you know, “Ira, the next class is two or three doors down,” something like that, you know, do it, you know, when everybody’s gone to the room and nobody was looking,–

WH: Right.

IH: –try to help me out.

WH: So they didn’t want to be seen helping you out and making you feel welcome.

IH: Mm hmm. It could backfire.

WH: How about eating in the cafeteria? How was that?

IH: I tried that a time or two, but it didn’t work out because some people, if I sat down, everybody would move to another table or something, and some people would come by and pretend like they’re tripping and knock my food over and stuff like that, so I just started–. I was bringing my own lunch and I tried to find me a secure place to eat, which was hard to do, find a place maybe in a classroom that was unoccupied, get in a corner and be by myself and eat.

WH: Now that was when you first went. Now, after three years there at Franklinton High School, did it lessen? Did you develop some skills to be able to deal with it or did you feel like people started to welcome you more once they knew you? How did that change?

IH: It lessened my second school year when it was total integration,–

WH: Okay.

IH: –1969-1970, because friends came over that I’d been going to class with that I knew, you know, from the Franklinton area and from my neighborhood that I knew, and it was more of us there so it was more of a balance. So, there still were some people that were like that but, you know, you could tell who they were because they wouldn’t associate with you or speak with you, stuff like that, but they didn’t necessarily bother you. But the new black kids, their first time there, a lot of them would get offended easily so there was a fight almost every day, but me and Henry Lee didn’t participate because we had enough of that stuff because of all that directed at us, people messing with you and stuff.

WH: Could you tell us about a story–? I don’t think you formally played on the sports teams but you must have played some pickup basketball games or something–

IH: Right.

WH: –after the day, after the school day.

IH: Yeah.

WH: Could you tell us anything about that?

IH: What that was, back at Franklinton High they had some basketball courts, and I would be waiting for my bus because the bus would first, you know, it would take the elementary school children home and then come back and take the high school people home. So, while waiting for the bus, I would just watch these guys, all white guys, playing ball every day. This went on for several weeks and it came to the time that one day they were short one player and so they asked me, would I play on the team that was short one person. They asked me, but the players on the other team, someone said, “No. I don’t want to play with this Negro,” or “this nigger,” or whatever. “No, I don’t want to play against him.” But this big guy, he said, “Well, if I ask him and he says yeah he’s going to play,” just like that. So he asked me, he said, “Do you play basketball?” I said, “I play a little bit at home, you know, with the guys in the neighborhood, guys from church and all,” something like that.

So we played a pretty good game, pretty close game, and, get down to the end, I stole the ball from one of their guards, because I was playing guard in the basketball game, and I went down and scored the winning layup, and the whole opposing team, they jumped on me and started beating me up. I covered my face, just like the guy told me, and just waited. But the big guy on my team, he pulled every one of them off of me and gave them a good talking to. He said, “That’s no way to be. That’s not a good sport,” you know. “He stole the ball fair and square and we won the game.” But the guys said, “I don’t want to be beat by a Negro – a nigger,” you know, “That’s shameful.”

WH: Do you remember that fellow’s name?

IH: I don’t remember his name offhand but he was on the football team.

WH: He was on the football team.

IH: Yeah, he was a big guy. I didn’t go to any afterschool activities so I didn’t know, but he said, “When you grow up and graduate and get in the world, when you go to college or just wherever, you’re going to have to deal with all kinds of people. You’re going to have to learn how to grow up and just face it, because things are changing.”

WH: Wow.

IH: He understood that.

WH: So you went from whispers, with people ashamed to be helping you, when you first got there, and then you had, in this big fellow who played football, he overtly was saying, “This isn’t the way you’re going to treat Ira.”

IH: Right.

WH: Now, I wouldn’t go as far as to say he was your friend, but he knew that you weren’t being treated right.

IH: Right. He understood and he took action, and, you know, that surprised me and that made me start–. Even though, what happened to me, you know, the guys beating on me, that made me start to feeling better about being there.

WH: Okay.

IH: And gradually things did improve, but some people still wouldn’t accept me, no matter what, even some teachers, you know. Just like, you’d be in a classroom and, you know, the teacher’s asking questions about whatever subject she’s talking about, and I’d raise my hand up and know the answer and she’d ignore you, completely ignore you, and you knew the answer all the time, and a lot of times the student that did answer, she would accept that answer even though they weren’t totally correct. They might just have a portion of it and I knew the whole thing. So I just kept it to myself and I’d learn everything they was teaching me and wanted more knowledge, and they saw that and some of them didn’t even like that. They said, “Well, I don’t have time to talk to you after class. I got some other students that need help more than you do.”

WH: Let’s go back. You’ve talked a little bit about this, but when you were born, in 1953, looking back at growing up on the farm, how did you interact with people of other races, probably not on your farm and not in your church, but were there white folks in your neighborhood–

IH: Yeah.

WH: –or did that interaction just happen when you went to town?

IH: No, in the neighborhood it was white farmers, like I say, in the same shape we were. Like Elizabeth Canady, my mom’s friend, her father had a large farm, so in the summertime he had a lot of tobacco and when I got big enough I would work for him and earn extra money for something I want, or to buy clothes for school, and they never treated me any different from anybody else.

WH: Did y’all help, say, prime each other’s tobacco when it came in?

IH: We would mostly help them.

WH: Okay.

IH: Elizabeth would keep myself and my sister when we were small, keep us while my mom was either working for them or working on her own farm with her parents.

WH: Ira, how did you–? Did y’all listen to the radio? How did you know what was going on in the world?

IH: Well, my grandfather was one of the first black people in the neighborhood to have a TV, but we had the radio too. But my grandparents had rules about TV and radio, very restrictive, wouldn’t let us–. Nine o’clock was his bedtime. Whatever program you were watching, if it was something he and my grandmother and my mother didn’t approve of you weren’t going to watch it no how, no matter what time it was. If something was on that he didn’t think we needed to be watching, especially something like the news, and he’d see all the people getting beat or something, [00:29:21 he’d cut it off and say], “Y’all don’t need to know that.” All I knew about the civil rights struggle at that time was what I learned from classmates, and heard stuff at church, and stuff like that, because when I was going to the black school I really was in the dark about a lot of things.

But I remember, I probably was eight, nine, ten years old in the black school, our classroom faced where our six buses was parked, and I noticed this situation and I always wondered what was going on. I thought it was normal at first but as I talked to other people, students and stuff, it was a slight against us, meaning black people, and the school. The school bus garage, from what I understand, was here in Louisburg, and the fuel truck would come there to refuel our buses. It was a crew of guys, two or three, and when they’d turn the fuel on they would turn the fuel on before they would stick it into the tank of the school bus for the first one. I thought maybe at first, you know, that was to make sure it was running or something. But what it was, they would do that because they didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to be at the black campus fueling up the black school [buses], because you heard people talking loud but you couldn’t hear what they was saying, but what they was doing was cursing, why did they get the assignment to come to the black school to fill these black buses. They would turn the fuel on before they would even put it in the tank, never cut it off, somebody in the truck would pull up to the next one, fuel’s still running on the ground, stick it into the next bus, that same practice to get all six of them, and as I got older and learned more stuff and learned what they was doing to us, as time went on, okay, my school couldn’t pay the fuel bill because they had a budget for that, just a certain amount, and come to finally they had to park maybe one or two buses at some time.

WH: So they were paying for gas that was being spilled on the ground.

IH: Right, and come short they had to park a bus or two, and that made you have to wait longer before you can get to school or get home. I remember that, because at first I didn’t understand what was going on till, you know, classmates and the teachers was telling me what was going on. They were just wasting our little money because our budget won’t be [00:31:41 as far as] because we’re getting hand-me-down books from the white schools, the same with the buses, you know.

WH: So, you realized, from when you were an elementary school child, that–. You must have had a lot of pride in your school but at the same time you knew that books and things you were using were secondhand. Was that correct?

IH: Right. I felt like–. After I learned about that gas situation I could see everything connected. We was being punished for something but I didn’t understand why we was being punished. It just made me feel bad about that but still I was proud to be at school.

WH: So you were proud of your school but you realized you were being punished in a way that you didn’t feel like back in your neighborhood where you were growing up, because–

IH: Right.

WH: –you felt like we were all on the same–. We were all farmers and trying to make it there, but you felt some judgment once you got in the education system.

IH: Right, and what’s this all about?

WH: So did you know from early on that this really wasn’t a separate and equal endeavor?

IH: I knew, you know, when we started going – or at least I remember when we started going to the doctor and stuff, the separate waiting rooms, you know, the black and white waiting rooms, but at the time, being ignorant, that really didn’t bother me because I just thought that was normal, you know, that black people sat over here and you sat over there and everybody had their own water fountain and stuff like that. But not going to the doctor that often, you know, I just thought that was a normal thing. I didn’t realize why it was that way.

WH: So the same doctor was treating white kids and African American kids but you were waiting in two separate waiting rooms.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: And when you went–. Are there any other places in your life, say movie theaters or any other things, where things were separated like that?

IH: We didn’t go to the movies–

WH: Didn’t go to the movies.

IH: –so that didn’t affect me, but my mom, after she got older, you know, and started getting sick, she was telling me before she got married she’d go to that movie theater by herself and she would sit in the balcony, you know. That bothered her but she said she wouldn’t let it bother her, because, by her being mixed – because my mom was a really light-skinned woman and a lot of times people wouldn’t know until they got closer to her and then they’d kind of change their expression.

WH: Hmm.

IH: [Laughs]

WH: How about that.

IH: Right.

WH: Let’s go into that just for a minute. Did you ever meet–? Well, your mother’s mother you said was half Cherokee?

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: Did you ever go back any further than that, say your great-grandmother?

IH: Yeah.

WH: Were there any kind of family reunions?

IH: Her father, Richard Holden, in fact they still have reunions for him but me and my wife don’t attend because my wife’s been sickly the last few years. But my grandmother told me about the whole family and the whole situation and how things happened, because my mom sometimes would, before she got married and all, she would go and stay with her cousins, you know, Indian people with this long dark hair and stuff. She would stay with them but she would fit right in because she was bright-skinned and her hair was long and dark, you know, and you couldn’t tell whether she was Indian, white, or black, but she preferred to go as black since she married a black man.

WH: Right, right. Did she grow up in the same–? Did your mother know Walter when they were growing up? How did they meet each other?

IH: They met–. I think they met at church.

WH: Okay.

IH: As far as I remember they met at church, and that’s how they met and, you know, fell in love.

WH: Were you ever curious, growing up, about you went to one public school, and then there was a white public school? Were you curious about what things were like in that other school?

IH: I was, because the neighbor’s kids, you know, went to the white school. I was curious about that because, they were talking about, you know, say trips they went on, class trips and stuff, and different things at school they had that we didn’t have, you know. So, yeah, I was curious about it, but didn’t let it bother me, you know, because I’d say, you know, sooner or later, you know, I’m growing up, because like Ms. Hill – Dora Hill. I can remember her first name.

WH: Dora Hill.

IH: Dora Hill.

WH: Okay.

IH: She always was very conscious of what was going to happen after you grow up and have to work and all. She said, “You’re going to have to learn how to be–. I know you’re polite to me, but no matter what people you meet in the world, especially if you go for a job, you’re going to be polite to them no matter what they might say to you. Be polite and look them in the eye and just be straightforward in all your dealings. You might get turned down when you’re applying for a job but don’t let that deter you; just keep on. Some of you might be lucky enough to go to college,” because Ms. Hill thought I should go to college but my parents couldn’t afford it, so that’s something I had to let go.

WH: Okay. So you were clearly a student, in the–. We don’t know–. Was it ninth grade, tenth grade?

IH: I’m trying to–.

WH: If you were at Franklinton High School for three years–

IH: Three years.

WH: –maybe it was the tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade.

IH: I think so.

WH: Okay, so you were a fifteen-year-old–

IH: Fifteen years old.

WH: –and you go through and you graduate.

IH: Yes, sir.

WH: You graduated, and you’re a proud graduate from Franklinton High School.

IH: Very proud.

WH: And by the time you graduate, instead of being just one or two African American students, is the student body, would you say–? What would be the racial breakdown of your graduating class?

IH: I would say, at that time, probably about sixty-forty.

WH: Sixty which way?

IH: White.

WH: Sixty white and forty percent people of color.

IH: Right, something like that.

WH: Okay. Let’s go into when you got out of school. Healthy young man, 1971: the draft’s going on.

IH: Right.

WH: How did that affect you?

IH: Well, I really didn’t think that much about it till it came in the mail, because me and some classmates met in Franklinton, this bus came down from Raleigh and picked us up, and we went up there, and it was just like you go to a stockyard. You go through all these lift gates and everybody prodding you and poking you and all like that. There was a sergeant there that took a special interest in me because, when they did the hearing test, one of the hearing tests revealed, low range frequency, I couldn’t hear, because at the time I had a head cold and I couldn’t hear it because my head was halfway stopped up. So when I didn’t hear part of it he thought I was doing something to keep from, you know, going into the Army. He said, “Well, see here, young man, I’m going to give you a hundred percent anyway [Laughs] even though you say you can’t hear, but I know you can.” He told me right then, he said, “I’m Sgt. So-and-so. I’m going to make sure you’ll be with me for training from day one and when we leave for Vietnam you’re going to be right by my side,” and he stayed with me the rest of the time, all through the rest of the physical stuff, you know, when they tested me and everything, and even though I couldn’t hear it he classified me 1-A.

I didn’t pay no attention to that, just went on home, went back to work helping my parents and everything. A few months later I got this letter in the mail telling me to report, you know, for basic training, somewhere. I forget where it was at now, it’s been so long, South Carolina, Georgia, wherever. But then my mom, it upset her because my father was killed while he was in the service.

WH: Right.

IH: So she talked to Mr. Yarborough.

WH: Mr. Yarborough entered your life again.

IH: Right, because this veterans’ organization, I’m trying to think of the name of it, had a chapter in Louisburg.

WH: So it was a veterans’ organization and your mother went to see–.

IH: Mother and grandparents.

WH: Mother and grandparents went to see Mr. Yarborough, who had been a lawyer that had a longstanding commitment with your grandfather, and said, “This doesn’t seem right because my husband, this young man’s father, Walter, had been killed in the service.”

IH: Right, and back then, you know, farming was king in North Carolina, and if you had any males on the farm you was lucky to have somebody in your family to help you. By me being the only male we found out right away that I wasn’t supposed to get drafted no how, but the Army, you know, I guess didn’t get the information.

WH: Right.

IH: So, it took a long time, but sometime before the end of the year I got a letter saying I didn’t need to report because, by me being the only male child on the farm, that disqualified me from having to serve, from being drafted.

WH: So then you, because you’re the only male on the farm, because your father had died in the service, then you go back to working on the farm–

IH: Working on the farm.

WH: –and then over the next, from 1971 until 1983, you’re doing some different jobs but your predominant job is working on the farm.

IH: Working on the farm.

WH: And then in 1983 you decide–. Why did you decide to leave the farm and go to the Department of Transportation?

IH: Well, okay, I guess so far as the farm, tobacco allotments was getting cut every year and it got down to the point we didn’t even have an acre of tobacco. It was under an acre of tobacco and we couldn’t pay all the bills and make a living like that, and I needed to do something to help my family. So I decided to, you know, find a good job. In fact, how I found the job, was again Mr. Yarborough. He had helped my grandmother – this was before then, because she died in the ’80s. After my grandfather died she needed some help on getting the property straightened up because my grandfather didn’t leave a will, so Mr. Yarborough, he helped some, but he said, “I know this man in Durham that can help you, and he’s got a daughter, still in law school or getting out of law school,” because Susan, she got–. She passed the bar before she graduated law school.

WH: So Mr. Yarborough introduces your family to Mr. Bill Olive. Now who is he?

IH: Bill Olive, like I say, he’s the first patent attorney in the Research Triangle Park area in North Carolina, but also he does other law too but he knows about property and stuff, and after talking to Mr. Yarborough he was glad to meet me and my mom and did everything he could to help us, you know, get everything straightened out.

WH: Did Mr. Olive then help you get this job at the Department of Transportation?

IH: Well his daughter did, because this was after–. It was ’80 when I first learned of him and met him and, okay, later on when I needed a good job – I think I really started looking for a job in ’82 – I remembered them and I contacted them. So Susan said, “Well, Ira, you have to come up to Durham one day, and I’ll start looking in the newspaper. Maybe we can find a job that you would like and you could do.” Then it so happened that the Department of Transportation had this job open in the paint department and she said, “Ira, I know you probably can paint a house or something. I don’t know what they’re doing, but most anybody can work with paint.” What she did was, I [00:43:46 figured] for the job, she got me an application and everything, and I used their law office address and their phone for–.

WH: As your contact information.

IH: Uh huh and when time for the interview came she notified me in plenty of time so I could get there and do the interview and again, just like–. Her stepmother helped me get ready for it. She said, “Ira, you know my husband is about the same size as you,” so she picked out a shirt, and maybe pants too, and said, “I want you to wear this. I think this will look more presentable when you go for your interview.” [Laughs]

WH: How about that.

IH: Went for the interview and got the job and went on and been there ever since.

WH: So, now let’s look at–. You start out at the bottom of the rung in the North Carolina Department of Transportation, painting highways, and now, after thirty-two years, you are a transportation supervisor.

IH: Mm hmm, Transportation Supervisor II.

WH: Transportation Supervisor II, so you have certainly moved up there and had a successful career with the North Carolina Department of Transportation. Look back at the positives and the negatives of your role as a young fifteen-year-old and the desegregation of Franklin County Schools. Talk a little bit about some of the positive outcomes–. Certainly one of the positive outcomes is you’ve had a wonderful career.

IH: Right.

WH: Some of the positive outcomes, and were there any negative outcomes, for you, making this decision?

IH: It was negative as far as facing, you know, not used to being around people that’s putting you down because of your race and stuff, you know, and hearing terms about your race you never heard, you know, people making you feel bad about being a human being.

WH: That’s how you felt.

IH: Yeah, made me feel bad, but the positive was the few people that wouldn’t do that and would help you out, in public or in secret, and still was helping you, that understood that you was a human being just like they were. You know, some people was afraid to sit close to you, or even touch you, or be in the same classroom as you, stuff like that, and some, it didn’t faze them, because they realized you was a human being like they were and deserved to be there, to have the right to get an education, because that’s what it was all about, getting an education.

WH: Was there something about how you learned that in school that was different from the lessons you learned in church?

IH: I would say it would coincide because always, in church, you know, you remember that “turn the other cheek” no matter what, and that’s mostly what the federal guy told me, you know, “Don’t fight back. Sooner or later people are going to get tired of that.” And, slow but sure, people got tired of picking on me and stuff like that, because at first it was even a challenge going to the restroom. In fact–.

WH: Were you scared?

IH: People would be in there, you know, the guys that smoke and stuff like that, and skip class and stuff, would be in there, and, yeah; I was scared to death. Some of them, you know, you’re trying to use the facility [and they’d] push you and stuff like that, make fun of your name, and say, “What you doing in here? If you use it we can’t use this no more.” So I learned after that, that experience, I learned to train myself at home not to drink a lot of liquids at night or in the morning before coming to school, and could make it all day and wait till I get home, so I wouldn’t have to go through that experience, or otherwise wait till classes are in and then ask the teacher could I go, you know, about mid-class or something. Some of them would let you go, some of them wouldn’t.

WH: So, if I ask you how you responded to the things that made you feel uneasy, you would say that you were uneasy–. You’ve already talked about your uneasiness in the lunchroom made you end up making your own lunch. Your uneasiness in the bathroom would mean that you would try not to drink water the night before so you wouldn’t have to use the bathroom.

IH: Mm hmm, try not to, you know.

WH: So that made you feel uncomfortable but you realized that you had to develop some skills, not to put yourself in a bad situation.

IH: Right. You’re going to have to be there, because it got to the point, me and my classmate, we didn’t want to be there at all because we wanted to go back to our black school, but we found out we couldn’t. They wouldn’t accept us back. They were going to make it work anyway. I don’t know why they weren’t going to accept us back but they were going to make it–. It got so bad there, I guess about mid-year, school year – I remember this. Like I said, we was in different classrooms. They came and got myself and Henry Lee and they locked us in this tiny classroom. We didn’t know what was going on at all. I was scared, and I know he was scared too. The two teachers that brought us in the room, they said, “We’ll be back after while. Y’all just sit here. Everything’s okay,” and they went–. They had an assembly for the entire student body and the teachers and the people that worked there. We found out later, because nobody was talking to us, that the assembly was about us. The feds demanded that everybody start treating us better.

WH: The assembly was actually about you two young fellows.

IH: Right. They could see that we weren’t getting treated correctly and they said, “You need to start treating these people better, because if not, if they end up not staying here, the funds are going to be cut off and nobody’s going to be going to school.”

WH: So you two, you and Henry Lee, were the only two African American students at Franklinton High School.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: And you were locked up in a room while the federal education people came down and talked to all the rest of the students, the white students.

IH: White students, staff, you know, the people that worked there and everything, everybody there.

WH: But you actually didn’t know about that until–

IH: Later on.

WH: –you heard about it afterwards,–

IH: Through the grapevine.

WH: –and no one stayed with you in the room.

IH: No, just locked in there. That made you feel scared, you know, because you’re locked in, and if something–. If there was a mob or something they could come in there, and you’re in there, and no way in the world you could escape.

WH: Wow. You said your grandfather had a television, which was an unusual thing to have.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: Did you understand, while it was going on, or just in hindsight, that civil rights folks, like Rosa Parks, are riding a bus, and Ira Harris was riding a bus, and did you realize how brave, and what you were right in the middle of?

IH: I didn’t realize that at the time. I felt like scared to death, just living from one day to the next, hoping nothing was going to happen. But, you know, things did happen, and in fact my mom was upset about that stuff and I tried not to worry her. A lot of things that happened I never would tell anybody about. I might would tell my grandfather but he would keep it in confidence too. But I do remember my grandfather was a member of the NAACP.

WH: The NAACP?

IH: Right. He was a member of that.

WH: Your grandfather was.

IH: Right.

WH: Okay.

IH: I remember going to different churches at night for meetings. I remember different people would come to town that was in the civil rights movement, you know, fundraising, and was telling what was going on in different places, and taking up a little money. You know, nobody had no money but my grandfather and other people would give what they had, you know, and that’s when I was first catching on to what was going on, and that was after I had just started going to high school. I got to going with him, you know, because I was getting close to learning how to drive and all and at times he would let me drive a little bit so when the time comes for driver’s ed, you know, I wouldn’t be facing a new experience being scared to death, like I was going to school.

WH: Right.

IH: So I was learning more about that and it was scaring me because, the situation I was facing – because they were telling about, you know, how the marches in different places–.

WH: Well, Dr. King’s assassinated on April 4, 1968.

IH: Mm hmm.

WH: And you’re entering high school–

IH: Right.

WH: –in August of the same year,–

IH: Right.

WH: –1968.

IH: It was scary.

WH: Did you feel like you had – that you were carrying more than your own individual pressure? Did you feel like that you were – that there was a lot on your shoulders?

IH: I felt like I was an experiment.

WH: You were an experiment.

IH: I felt like if I didn’t work out there probably won’t be any integration, if myself and Henry Lee didn’t work there probably wasn’t going to be no integration, because, okay, if we couldn’t blend in or won’t accept it, how could the rest of the people?

WH: So there was a lot of pressure on you?

IH: Yeah, I felt that pressure.

WH: Now, your sister, Cora, how much older is she than you?

IH: Cora was born in October, 1950 so she’s about three years older.

WH: So she went to–

IH: B. F. Person.

WH: –B. F. Person all through high school and graduated.

IH: But she got–. No, she didn’t graduate. She got sick, I believe the ninth or tenth grade, and she didn’t finish.

WH: Oh, okay.

IH: But my sister, Cora, at the time when she got sick, she was the smartest student in school, so naturally, by her being smart like that, as I came to school and the same teachers that taught her, as I met them, they expected the same from me and nothing less. I could do the stuff but not like her, you know.

WH: Did Cora overcome her illness?

IH: No, she’s still sick now and she lives next door to me. In fact I take care of her. She lives next door in my mom’s house and I take care of her, just like I did my mom after she got older. So, still very close and still my sister–.

WH: Well, in reflection you must have made your grandfather, your grandmother, your mother, and your sister, must have been very proud of you, Ira.

IH: They were but they was afraid for me too, especially my mom, because when I’d come home sometimes she’d see the bruises on me. She’d say, “What happened?” I’d say, “Well, just probably, you know, playing ball or something, on the field or the playground or something.” I would never tell her all the details but she knew what was going on, you know.

WH: So, sometimes your response to what you had to go through, you wanted to protect your mother and your sister from really telling them the truth? You took that on?

IH: I would internalize it and a lot of times I would talk to the animals about it. When I was plowing the mule I would talk to the mule about what was going on.

WH: You would do what?

IH: Talk to the animals about it.

WH: You would talk to the animals about what you were going through.

IH: Mm hmm, because it seemed like, you know, the way they were looking at me, they could understand. You know, because they were looking straight at me and just listening to everything I said and more or less taking it in.

WH: They weren’t judging you; they were just going to listen to you.

IH: Right. They listened to everything I said. [Laughs]

WH: [Laughs] That’s beautiful, Ira. So, you think that–. If you look back at your experience of growing up in rural Kittrell, that area of the county, you must have learned a lot of lessons of persistence and perseverance.

IH: Right.

WH: And they have treated you well in your professional life and your personal life and your religious life? How would you say that, as a grown man, reflecting back on this trial by fire that you went through?

IH: I’ve been thinking about that. In fact the last, over a month now, going back to the Olives again, Mr. Bill Olive, his widow, Mrs. Eve Olive, she invited me to go to this class at Duke University. I don’t know if you’re familiar with Pauli Murray?

WH: Yes, mm hmm.

IH: Okay, the first class was mostly about her, and I went to it and enjoyed the class about her, and then we started talking about other civil rights things that happened during that period of time. It was a series of four classes and I was able to make three of them. In fact Mrs. Olive and her neighbor, Nancy, after that first class that they attended, they never went to another because they just wanted to get me acquainted with the people so I could go to the classes.

WH: Okay.

IH: Very interesting, how things were for black people. The last class, I remember this–. I can’t believe this, because this was after slavery when black men were free. That’s when they started arresting black men for trumped up charges, put them in jail, and work them for free. This rich man in Alabama had this coal mine. He had this prison built right there at his coal mine, had the prisoners dig a tunnel under the prison to the main tunnel going into the coal mine. It took them awhile to get it constructed and get everything going but after they get everything going, got the process going, the prisoners would leave their prison cells at 3:00 AM, go down in the tunnel under the prison, into the coal mine, start work, return to their cells at 8:00 PM, get a little rest, a little food, and wake up at 3:00 AM the next morning, seven days a week.

WH: So, education opened up some reality and insight to what was really happening.

IH: Right, because, this series at Duke, I’m learning things that I didn’t know about my own people and stuff, and meeting people in the class. Just like, there’s a judge in the class, a lady judge in the Durham area, and I didn’t know she was judge until the last class. She spoke up about what she saw in one of the Durham courtrooms, just traffic court. This police officer arrested this black man for running a red light, and the way he talked about it – this was her speaking – the way he was talking about it you’d think he done ran a red light and plowed into another car and injured somebody. But when they showed the film from the dash camera this man is riding up [00:58:54 ? Circle] and when he’s in the intersection the light don’t even turn yellow till he’s just about cleared the intersection. The policeman pulls him over anyway and starts talking to him in a not favorable manner, they get in a little altercation, he throws the man to the ground, and the man hits his shoulder on the ground and injures himself. The man gets a traffic charge and resisting arrest and all kinds of charges, and the judge says anybody could see that if anybody needs a charge it’s the policeman. He needs a charge.

We’ve been talking about all this police stuff, and “Black Lives Matter,” and it’s a lot of white Duke students, you know, privileged kids that’s in these classes, and I told them about my experience of going to school here in North Carolina. They couldn’t believe that would happen, that they would separate me from my classmates like that in the school and not let my parents join the PTA and stuff. They said, “How did you make it through that?” I said, I don’t know, I guess praying, and God, and my family, and the few white people there who helped me, and I guess I got motivated to stick it out after being there, despite the challenges, because, just myself right now, I don’t think I could do it. I don’t think I would have the will to do it, especially if I was alone, but if I had others of the same race–. You know, if you have a buddy you feel better.

WH: Mm hmm. Ira, it’s 2015 and you’re talking about an experience that you know to the exact day, August 28, 1968. That’s forty-seven years ago.

IH: Right, come this August 28 it’ll be forty–.

WH: Forty-seven years ago. How do you–? And you’ve been right in Franklin County; although you’ve been working in Durham, you’ve come back. How do you view the process of school integration in Franklin County, when you look back at it and see where we are today?

IH: I look back at it–. Okay, as I grew, got older, and learned more, I’m looking at it more favorable than I did at that time. But I still have those issues with what happened to me, you know, why would that happen in America, home of the free, home of the brave, you know, the melting pot of the world, equal opportunity and all that. Why would that happen in America, because, like I said, my grandparents, they struggled, and were one of the few black families that owned their own property, and I still own the farm. It’s a small farm, around fifty acres, and I still own it. I don’t farm now because after the tobacco allotment was [01:40:43], you know, you can’t get anybody to even tend the land, so there’s a few fields still open but it’s mostly grown up in trees. But I still own the property, and proud to own it, because it was my parents’ and grandparents’.

WH: Now, you and Audrey don’t have children. What’ll happen to that little farm with all of that lifetime of memories on it?

IH: Well, Audrey’s sister has kids, and there’s some kids on my mom’s side of the family, you know, her cousins and all got children, and they got children, so it’s going to be in her family or my family one, or possibly it might be even in my close friends’, the Olives’, family, because we’re just like family. I stay with them at times, me and Audrey both. They invite us for the weekend.

WH: That’s with Susan Olive.

IH: Right, stayed with her many a time, because when her kids were born we became very close friends with her and her kids, and her children, especially her children, you know, couldn’t do without them.

WH: What do you think–? You’ve got a lot of confidence for an African American man that rose up on a small tobacco farm in Franklin County. Now your friends are a lawyer, a lawyer in Durham.

IH: Right.

WH: Where did you–? Did having gone through what you went through in desegregation, is that part of where your confidence comes from?

IH: I think so, you know, the confidence to meet people and meet the challenges, because I remember, okay, when Susan Olive would ask me to dinner, you know – supper, she called it “supper” sometimes – she said, “Ira, why don’t you come by for supper? You ain’t seen the kids in awhile...”

WH: That’s wonderful.

IH: Yeah.

WH: Well, we’re at about an hour here, so that’s about what we want to talk about, about the time we want to spend with this interview. Ira, it’s been wonderful talking with you. Is there anything, when you look back at this – because we’re going to have an audio record of this and hopefully in the fall of the year we’ll have a public meeting – is there anything else that you’d like to address, anything that–? I’m wondering where your interests are today. What are your interests today?

IH: I’m interested in – I call it [01:05:06] human relationships. Like I said, I’m taking these classes at Duke and plan to take some more, on how it is in America now for African American people with different movements, you know, “Black Lives Matter.” In fact in some of those classes some people from their organization was there, you know. We’re trying to make it better for everybody, no matter what the race is. This is Duke and they’re trying to be inclusive and make people understand that no matter what your skin tone, your race, your language, everybody’s the same, deep down everybody’s the same, and just make people understand that it’ll be a better world for everybody, you know, if you can eliminate poverty. Racism promotes poverty and ignorance, well, you know, for myself, not wanting you to get an education. If I hadn’t got that high school education I would have never got the job with the Department of Transportation, and at the Department of Transportation it got to the point you’re going to have to have a college education to even be considered to get a job, and some engineering training. I mean, I would have been left out and wouldn’t be able to work there and learn what I have learned and, myself now, what I do, the engineers can’t do. They ask me to take care of it because they’ve got the book learning but they don’t understand what it takes to do it in the field, how to get something done, because I get these plans they draw up, say a new signal light going in, and they get all these measurements, this and that, and I look at it and I say, “Man, it’s not going to work. I’m going to have to improvise here, and I’ll just write down what the actual measurements are and get it back to you, so it’ll be late and all. But you people need to come out to the field. You could learn something.” But they don’t like to do that, you know. [Laughs]

WH: So, you still have an interest in politics, you still have an interest in human relations and–

IH: Right, I’m interested–.

WH: –race relations, so, what–?

IH: With politics, you know, of course race, as a Democrat, but I consider myself an Independent because North Carolina used to be dominated by Democrats, for over a hundred years Democrats ran the state, but you see now it done changed, and a lot of people say, for now, they blame the Republicans for a lot of things that’s happening in North Carolina, but a lot of the things happening is–. If people are blaming just the Republicans they need to blame themselves, because there’s a lot of apathy. People don’t vote, and if you don’t like these people that’s doing this, from the dogcatcher to the President, if you don’t vote, I don’t think you should complain about it. You should vote, and there’s enough people – African American or no matter what your race is – enough people to elect the person you think should be the best for the job, because–.

WH: I would guess that you would say, just because we have an African American President, that we shouldn’t rest on those laurels.

IH: No, because it’s not like I thought at all, because it seems to be more turned to–. This is my point of view: I think there’s more racism out there than there was before he was President because the country seems to–. It’s taking it out on the regular people but they can’t really do it to him, you know, because he gets threats and all like that but a lot of that stuff don’t really get to him, so I see the general public, as far as being black, they’re taking the brunt of the stuff that’s really aimed at him, backlash.

WH: Right.

IH: Yeah.

WH: Ira, it’s been a joy talking with you. I find you to be a humble man, and a man of power, but not necessarily a lot of financial power. You seem to be a power of family, of community.

IH: Right.

WH: How would you describe yourself, in closing?

IH: Okay. I just say, yes, I still consider myself a farm boy, born and raised in Franklin County, and lucky enough to attend Franklinton High and graduate, and lucky enough to still be living, still live on the same farm, got a decent job and good friends, and had the pleasure of meeting you, Mr. Will Hinton.

WH: [Laughs]

IH: I consider you my friend, meeting you, and for you to invite me for this project, I feel privileged to do this and for people to recognize where we came from and to be part of the process, and the people before me enabled me to be part of the process to attend the school. Of course, back then, I didn’t want to go. You know, fear is a big thing, I imagine, in most people’s life. Fear keeps you from getting through what’s good for you, a lot of times, you know, just that you’re afraid of something, this, that, or the other, don’t matter what it is. But you got something that can overcome it, you know.

WH: So your grandparents, and your mother, and your father, who you barely knew, you’d say that they really wanted Ira not to be led by fear.

IH: Yes, of course.

WH: [They wanted you]–

IH: Right.

WH: –to believe in yourself, that you could go places you didn’t think you could go.

IH: Correct. [If I could change one thing] about the past, when I did go to school, I wish my mother was accepted in the PTA. That bothered her, I could tell. When she would talk about things at my school, that would bother her because she felt like she had no part in my high school education by not being able–.

WH: She wanted to be in the PTA but they wouldn’t let her in the PTA.

IH: Right. They said they would but, after all was said, she wasn’t accepted, so she just let that go, and I said, “Mom, let that go. I’ll be all right,” and I was, so.

WH: But your mom, she certainly lived until 2009, eighty-nine years old, and you must have made your mama mighty proud.

IH: And she made me proud, just being my mom and just being there. I think I was fifty-five, fifty-six years old, somewhere in that neighborhood, when she passed, and to be with me and to give me guidance all through that, because she never more or less lost her faculties. She still was the same, still knew me and still knew the right from wrong, and gave me advice all the way up to the end.

WH: Well, Ira, it’s been my pleasure. Thank you very much for coming in this afternoon. Anything else you’d like to say?

IH: My pleasure, Mr. Will Hinton, and anything else that comes up with this project that you could include me I’d be proud to do it. Like I said, I’m still living here in Franklin County, even though I work in Durham, and a pleasure to meet you and to do this interview, sir.

WH: Thank you, Ira.

IH: Thank you, Mr. Hinton.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcriber: Deborah Mitchum

Date: July 3, 2015