Frank Stevenson | Interview 1 | April 29, 2003

EHRLICH: This is an interview with Frank Stevenson on April 29, at his home in Richmond. So, let's start out at the beginning. Where were you born?

STEVENSON: I was born in a small town, Lake Providence, Louisiana.

EHRLICH: What year were you born?

STEVENSON: I was born on May 8, 1924.

EHRLICH: Who was in your family?

STEVENSON: My mother had seven boys and two girls. All those are living now, except two. One of our sisters had passed away and one of our brothers; the rest 00:01:00of them still living.

EHRLICH: What was it like where you grew up?

STEVENSON: There was nothing but just a lot of farming, that's what we really knew about. Lived on a farm; my daddy had purchased his own land. He had what we call, about forty acres of land that he had purchased himself, that he was buying, so along with his seven sons and two daughters, that's what we did. We farmed our own land. We had a lots of fun--we thought we did. We raised everything, practically, that we needed.

EHRLICH: Like what?

STEVENSON: We raised mostly cotton. We raised corn, and then we went to the 00:02:00gardening part; we raised all types of stuff as far as gardening was concerned. Most anything that you could name. Sugarcane; we had watermelon; we had all types of vegetables that we raised on the farm. We raised everything--my dad did, most everything that we actually needed. I tell this a lot of time to peoples, and they laugh. They can't really believe that we grew stuff like straw, that my dad really made his own broom. He would pull this-- he made his own broom. We raised tobacco, and he had a way of wrapping his tobacco and cutting it, and then making his own chewing tobacco. Then you could take it and make cigars; he was a very smart all-around man. That's why he could raise the 00:03:00family the way he did. He had his own little mill set up to where the other farmers around him would raise a lot of sugarcane, and they would bring all their sugarcane over to him, because he was the one who made the syrup. So he had a mill set up to where his boys could take the sugarcane when it got put out there. They would stick it into the mill, and a little horse would take it like a merry-go-round and go around, and then the juice from the sugarcane would come out into the bucket. Then we would pour it into--the boys would do this--we 00:04:00would pour it into a little cooker, where he was. He would just stand there with his little cauldron , cooking, and pouring it backwards and forward from one to another one. When it comes out, it will come out to be the sugarcane.

Now, a lot of farmers didn't have money to pay for these activities that were going on. So what they would do, they would let him make the syrup. They would go and say, "Okay, we'll give you a third of the products that's coming out." They'd be put into a wooden barrel and he would make two barrels for them and he would take a barrel. Two barrels for them, and he would take a barrel. A lot of people who wanted to take all the sugarcane away, they would probably give him 00:05:00give him a pig, two pigs, instead of giving him the sugarcane, so they would get all the syrup. He would have the little pigs and raise 'em up to be grown hogs, or whatever. He also had a mill that they would do likewise by taking the corn. He could shift the mill from one thing to another one. He could make the coarse mill, he could make the lighter mill like you would get out at the store today. He could cut it down to where you would make grits, whatever. Then he would work that too, by the thirds.

EHRLICH: So did you grow up doing a lot of that work, too, helping?

STEVENSON: Sure, sure I did. All the boys would be right there.

EHRLICH: What about the girls?

STEVENSON: They would all be in the house with the mothers all the time. So he would make that. He would also take the broom straw and make the broom for peoples the same way. He could even make flour. Take the wheat that people had--we would grow wheat, too--and he would make flour. All this kind of stuff that he would put into barrels and things, and he would just save it for the winter months. All the summer months, we'd do the farming. The wintertime come, well, there's no work to be done. But he would store all this. He would raise all these pigs and things. Other farms be raising pigs, too. So what we had on our farm was--

[tape interruption]

EHRLICH: We're back on.

STEVENSON: We were going like that, and then he'd get all these different things with the corn and the meal, and whatever. Then the time would come around for farmers. It would start getting cold and they would start killing up the hogs and getting their meat and things together. The way they would do that, they would get four or five different farmers, and they would say, "All right, we're going to kill hogs at Brother Stevenson's house today." They would come over, and then their wives would come over with them. What they would do, they would say he was going to kill five or six or seven hogs that day. They would all come in to help to kill five or six hogs that day. All the wives and everything would help cleaning the chitlins, the same thing they do today. The chitlins, they 00:08:00would take care of all of that part during the day. Then they would take the meat and cut it up, what you might today call salt pork. Salt the meat down, that they're going to put up for the winter, salt pork. The rest of it would be fresh meat, put that away by some way of salting it down. They'd smoke a lot of it. Then the rest of it, which was fresh meat, they would give away lots of it to neighbors who didn't have it. That's the way that he would take care of all his kids. Then after awhile he'd get his shotgun and go to the woods everyday, hunting or whatever, killing squirrels or rabbits or whatever.

EHRLICH: What kind of schooling did you have?

STEVENSON: We had a long ways to walk to school. I finished the seventh grade. After I finished the seventh grade, I left home.

EHRLICH: You left home at seventh?

STEVENSON: After I finished the seventh grade, I left home. I went to work.

EHRLICH: Can you tell me a little bit about what school was like for you?

STEVENSON: What school did I go to?

EHRLICH: Yeah, what was it like?

STEVENSON: The school was actually a small school that went to the seventh grade, as I recall. It was in a little building that actually was in the church, and my dad was the pastor of the church. It stood up, just there, a building for the school. They would have the same teacher out there to teach school up to that 00:10:00level. Actually, the teacher was living with my dad and mom. They gave him a place to stay, and they would teach school up to that grade. That school, after you got up through seventh grade, you had to move out to go to Lake Providence school. That was the little town.

EHRLICH: Lake Providence?

STEVENSON: Yeah. That was the little town, and they had a high school called Lake Providence High. The kids who wasn't able to go there; if, for some reason, they couldn't walk that far--they didn't have buses and things--they would try to move downtown with some relations and then keep on going to school.

EHRLICH: So what was your story? You ended up going just until seventh grade, 00:11:00and then what did you do?

STEVENSON: Oh, I left home. I was big enough then to leave home. The war had started.

EHRLICH: How old were you?

STEVENSON: What was I then? You've got me kind of confused. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen years old, something like that. I left home and I went to New Orleans, the largest city. I started working in New Orleans. I was doing some café work, working in the shipyard. Working in the shipyard, but doing such things as cooking and carrying food out to the shipyard, different warehouses or whatever. There would order their food before noon, and I would go to the warehouses and take their names, whatever they wanted for their lunch. Then I'd come back to 00:12:00the cafeteria and give this to some of the people who work in the cafeteria. They would fix that amount of lunch. If I had twelve {people taken care of,} I'd take it back to them.

EHRLICH: How did you get that job? How did you hear about the job?

STEVENSON: How did I see about it?

EHRLICH: Yeah, how did you get that job?

STEVENSON: When I applied for it, I knew that they was hiring.

EHRLICH: Even though you were only fourteen years old?

STEVENSON: Yeah. Went to work; they would hire you. Actually, they didn't care too much whether you were going to school or not if you were black. They didn't care in the first place--if you were black--whether you were going to school or not. The black school would always turn out anyway, before the white school. 00:13:00They would turn them out early anyway, so they could go out and work in the fields.

EHRLICH: You mean, turn them out early in the year?

STEVENSON: Yeah. White school would be continued, but they would turn the black school out because they wanted the kids to go to work on the farm or whatever. My dad had seven boys. Lot of times these white guys would have very big farms and they didn't have enough people to take care of these farms. They would even come to my dad and ask him to let us work for them one or two days of the week.

EHRLICH: They would actually come to the house?

STEVENSON: Yeah, they come to the house. If he agreed to that, they would send a truck out on those days and pick up not only my family, but any family that was around that had black kids that wanted to work on the farm, they would go to 00:14:00work. So the same thing was when I went to New Orleans. They didn't care about how old I was. All they want you to do is work. If you was black, they was not interested in you going to school.

EHRLICH: So that was an expected thing, for you to just go right to work?

STEVENSON: Yeah. So I went to work there, like I said, in the cafeteria. I worked there until I got tired of that, then I heard they were making more money in other places. I left and went to Texarkana, Texas.

EHRLICH: Were you all by yourself?

STEVENSON: No, I had some brothers there. I had two or three brothers who was working there, and they had told me that whatever you were working at, how much money they were paying. I had two older brothers there. I went to Texarkana, and they found a place for me to stay in a little room with them, sometimes. Sometimes I stayed with people that they know. Very nice people, you know? Then 00:15:00I got a job there working, something like an Army base. There was a place where they had to make the shells, stuff for the Army. They made this stuff called TNT; high explosive stuff.

EHRLICH: What was it called?

STEVENSON: TNT. I think they still use that now. It might be named something else, but it was high explosive stuff. When you go there, you had to be stripped. Couldn't have any matches on you; couldn't smoke or nothing. They were making these little tents underground. They weren't completely underground, but it was built like it was underground. When you look at it, it just looked like--from a distance--it just looked like some hills. Because it would be 00:16:00probably some dirt over the top of it, and grass was growing up on top of it. Just in case if somebody come across it, they wouldn't know what this is. So I went to work there. I guess I was only putting up signs, sayings on boxcars, loaded, ready to be shipped out. "Explosive." When these cars get ready to move. From there, I started working on the railroad. The railroad got put in. It was pretty hard.

EHRLICH: That was in Texas?

STEVENSON: Yeah.

EHRLICH: And how old were you then, do you think?

STEVENSON: About eighteen, I guess.

EHRLICH: And what was working on the railroad like?

STEVENSON: It was rough. It was tough. I had a boss; he had a little cart. He'd 00:17:00be taking you to work, and he'd stop before he got to work. He'd get off the cart and come around. You was riding on the flatbeds, most all the blacks. He'd say, "Everybody feel okay?" Yeah. "You're sure you feel good?" Yeah. "You feel like working. Okay." He said, "Because there will be no stopping, there will be no talking, there will be nothing. You will be out there to work, you hear that?" This is what they would do. You get out working out there--[laughs softly] It was so funny. This one black guy, I'll never forget this. He was a great big tall guy, weighed about 300 pounds. I think he had about one teeth in his mouth. And the boss, he's standing, he was a white guy. He had one blue handkerchief in one pocket, red handkerchief in the other pocket. You seen these 00:18:00pocket handkerchiefs. Now sometimes, they wear 'em now for fun. Now they're real nice. I see a lot of kids wearing them, bandanna-style. They're blue, and some of them is blue and some of them is red and white. So he had 'em in his pocket like that all the time. And this guy, he'd be telling you how to walk, don't stumble. They had this kind of thing, that the young people never would know. You go with the rail, one man on this side, one on this side, and then they'd catch the rail like this. Bring it up, and then you got one, two, three, four, about six men carrying one rail. He'd be walking in front of you, talking all the time. Telling you some story about "We sent for your daddy, and you come. No grown men here." Every time you'd lay one rail, he'd say "You got the wrong rail," and you got to turn around and go back. You had to stay there and do that 00:19:00all day long. You take a lunch break, sweat just popping off of you. Then you had to carry what you call "creosote." These were the ones you lay the rails on. This stuff has got to have that tar that stuff on it to keep it secure to wood. You'd be carrying this stuff on your shoulders, and this stuff was hot, burning you. It's already going to burn you without the sun being hot. You had to carry those first, and lay it down, and then you come back and you go to putting the rails down, using a sledgehammer. To nail these rails down, you had to be exactly sure where you was hitting it, because that was two-- that's two people hitting this rail. You was trying, so every time you go up and come down, he had just hit. You get your hammer out of the way so he could hit it. You had to make 00:20:00sure it got hit about three times before it got pinned down on both sides. Keep banging it, one forward and one in the back of it. That was a tough job.

EHRLICH: Were the workers mostly black?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah.

EHRLICH: All black?

STEVENSON: Most all black. So I stayed on that job for a while, then they had all blacks doing cement, carrying cement in great big wheelbarrows, building cement buildings. Sometimes you had to go on a two-storey or three-storey building. [pauses] I seen the guys get so tired that their eyes just turned white. They wouldn't let you go out of there, because once you was inside the gate, the boss would lock up the gates. You couldn't go out. If it got late, 00:21:00they said they started the building, they have to finish it. If it got late, the boss would get somebody and send them out to get some hamburgers, come back in with the hamburgers, allow you thirty minutes to sit down and eat. I saw some guys, they get so tired. They start up to the second floor, there'd be another guy standing, reach up to hook the wheelbarrow, they help pull you all up 'till you get on the second floor. But there was no such thing as you get too tired; unless you fall down. Got completely dark; didn't have no time set to stop. Stopping time was when your building's finished. So I finally quit that job.

EHRLICH: Where did the other workers come from, do you think? Were most of them from small southern towns, like you?

STEVENSON: Southern towns, yeah.

EHRLICH: They were coming up for the work?

STEVENSON: That, or the war, yeah.

EHRLICH: How did they hear about the war work?

STEVENSON: How did they hear about it? Well, they knew people was talking, telling them about the war broke out. They were wanting people to work over there. They was begging for peoples to work. And all these hard jobs, they were glad to see blacks coming out, because that's what they were counting on, for all these hard jobs. You would hear about they was hiring in this city or hiring at this time, they would go. A lot of places, it was almost like slavery. We had heard about it, but we didn't know about that. But there was white people coming out, looking for blacks to go. And they would pay your way. If they didn't pay 00:23:00your way, they would take you to where the job was actually hiring.

EHRLICH: So they'd come out to the small towns and actually either pay your way or drive you out there.

STEVENSON: Yeah. Not just towns; come right out on the farms. That's where most of they was living. Most of those didn't care. I didn't get away that way. We had our own farm. But they would come out on the farms and get these people, take them to work. Well, sure. Because we were black, because we were working on these farms, even my dad's farm, like I was saying a minute ago, the guys who would take us out on the farm, we was only making fifty cents a day. Making fifty cents a day.

EHRLICH: So what were you making on these other jobs?

STEVENSON: Well, you got away on these other jobs, you'd be making more money. I don't know; probably making a dollar, two dollars a day, sometimes three dollars 00:24:00a day. We thought it was making big money. It wasn't that kind of money. They put you on these wheelbarrows, they put all the blacks on the hardest jobs. It was just almost like slavery time. Then I left that job, left Texarkana, came to Barstow.

EHRLICH: Where's Barstow?

STEVENSON: Out in the desert, on the edge of California. That's right around San Bernardino, down in the sand desert.

EHRLICH: Do you remember how you heard about Barstow?

STEVENSON: Yeah. My oldest brother had went in the service, and they had sent him out to Barstow. He was down in a camp. They had an Army there, quartermaster 00:25:00camp for the soldiers, and then they had a camp there for the sailors, so he was there.

EHRLICH: Which brother?

STEVENSON: My oldest brother, Roy. He's still living. He's in Hayward now, but he's in a home. He had one of his legs taken off. He's doing about as well as you can expect right now, because he's ninety, ninety-one years old.

EHRLICH: How old are you?

STEVENSON: I'm seventy-eight. I have a birthday coming up next month, on the eighth.

EHRLICH: So what did you do in Barstow?

STEVENSON: When I got to Barstow, then I started to have it kind of easy then, because I wasn't doing too much hard work. I started working then for the 00:26:00railroad company, but I was just only driving trucks around. Driving trucks was all right. But then my brother was in the service, they started hiring people to do some day jobs inside the camp, where he worked. They was loading and unloading ammunition. Shipping and stuff would come in, maybe a load of stuff would come in today, and that same order might be ordered out to be shipped overseas tomorrow. So that's what that camp was doing. So they had to do it so fast, all of the soldiers weren't doing that. They started hiring civilians. That job wasn't too hard, either, but there were not too many blacks in there.

Then I went to San Bernardino. I had enough nerve to go to San Bernardino. I knew where the union hall was. I protested that they were not hiring blacks. It was a good job, but they wasn't hiring blacks, just whites, almost like in the South. I protested that. I didn't want to go over my step at the time. I liked the job driving trucks for the railroad in Barstow. But one day I was in the truck--after I protested they gave me a truck. After I protested, a guy drove up and he was in an Army vehicle. I'll never forget; he was really loud. Well, I said he was white, but I don't know what kind of white. German or Irish, or 00:28:00something. I'll never forget; really, really nice looking guy, the way he was dressed in his uniform, had a nice hat and everything. I thought, who is this guy? He got out some papers and went up to my boss. He asked him "You got a guy working for you by the name of Frank Stevenson?" He says, "Yeah." He said, "May I speak to him?" "There he is, right over there." I was scared. What was happening? He came over and he told me that they had got the word from the union hall that I protested about the job. He said, "The reason why we haven't hired anybody black is because there ain't nobody come by--black--and asked about it." He said, "I'm proud of you for doing this." He said, "You know anybody who want to work?" and I start trying to name off. He said "I know that you probably like this job that you is on." He said "Your older brother's out there in the 00:29:00service, but it would look bad on your part if you went and tried to get people to stand out there and you don't want to protest it. To make it look good, you're the one that should make this move." I thought about it for a couple of days, and I did it.

EHRLICH: What was that new job?

STEVENSON: Oh, it was just loading and unloading shipping and handling.

EHRLICH: So you took the job?

STEVENSON: Yeah, I took the job. About a week after I was there, I was foreman. Head of everybody.

EHRLICH: Frank, when you say you protested, what did you say? Do you remember what that actual experience was like when you went in to the union hall?

STEVENSON: What did they say?

EHRLICH: What did you say, and what did they say to you when you went in there?

STEVENSON: I told them that I heard they was hiring, that I had a brother out there and he had informed me that they was hiring but they wasn't hiring blacks, and where I could go and protest it, and if I wanted to do so, I could go to that union hall and protest. I said, yeah, I want to do that. I said, I'll do it. I was doing it for others; I wasn't really doing it for myself. The job I had was a really good job, the one I had, because at that time they was rationing gasoline, and you had to have certain stamps to buy a certain amount of gasoline at a time. When we was driving the trucks, I didn't have to do that. I could get gas when I was getting ready for that truck and I'd take the gas out of the truck and put it in my car, or whatever. I liked the job. But I protested, it came through and that guy came right straight to me.

EHRLICH: Do you remember walking into that union hall and protesting?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah.

EHRLICH: What do you remember?

STEVENSON: I remember walking in, and the guy asked me what do I want, or what was I looking for. I told him, so he just asked me to have a seat. He said, "I have somebody to talk to you." I guess it only took about thirty minutes, and the guy come out and asked me to come in the office. I told him what I had heard, what was happening out there on the base. He didn't give me that many words, he didn't get too much, but he said "I'll look into this and I'll get back with you." I asked "Are you going to get with me, or with the people down there?" He said, "I'm getting in touch with them, and once I get in touch with them and talk with them, find out what this is all about, I'll get back in touch with you." I never seen him again, never talked to him. I guess it didn't even 00:32:00take a week, almost, before this guy came out. He told me they had heard about me protesting the job, wanted to give me the job. Then I just started giving work to other blacks that were there and they was getting hired, took, because there wasn't too many blacks there in the first place, except for the ones who were in the service. But the ones who was there and wanted the job, they got it. I stayed there for a long time. Then I decided I was going to come out here. I came out here to visit. I came out here in 1944 for Christmas.

EHRLICH: To visit your brothers?

STEVENSON: Yeah. My brother was still in Barstow, then I had one brother here, in North Richmond. I came out to visit him and just see what everything was like. But I had every intention of going back to Barstow. I got here and with the money I had in my pocket, I start to spending money, having good times. I went to all the big layouts and {inaudible} they were going over in Oakland. They were on Seventh, on Seventh Street in Oakland.

EHRLICH: What was there?

STEVENSON: Clubs. There was a club by the name of Slim Jenkins, and that was the big one. So I went there, and I start spending money, and I get a big table up 00:34:00front and then, then I was saying, I got broke. [laughs] I got broke, and I had to find a way to get out of here, so I had to get a job to get away. At that time in Richmond, they had two shipyards. Had one over there on 14th Street, and had one out a little bit further on Tenth Street. So I decided, well, maybe I'll get a job and get some money make my payday, and then I can go back to Barstow. I started looking for a job. I didn't want to work at the shipyard. I was kind of funny about working with a lot of peoples. I was always kind of being off to myself, not being around a lot of people. So anytime you walk out there, said 00:35:00you wanted a job, the shipyard would take you. They was taking anybody that they could get their hands on, was at the shipyards. And here, in Richmond, you couldn't walk on the streets. You had to have a job somewhere. You couldn't walk down the streets like these guys are walking down the streets now. You were walking down the street during the daytime, the cop would stop you and call you over. "Come here," and "Where you work? You don't work. You don't work? Okay." They get your name, where you living. "They hiring at the shipyard. They want men at the shipyard. You either work {or get men to work?}"

EHRLICH: So the police would tell you that.

STEVENSON: They would take your name, your address and everything. "We going to check on you." They was checking on you every week. "Don't let me catch you in the street again." Without a job, you going to jail.

EHRLICH: Was that just black men? Or do you think that was everybody?

STEVENSON: That could have been everybody, but I know for sure it was blacks. They wanted you to get a job. I knew that all the time. They didn't have to worry about me getting a job, because I wanted a job. But I didn't want to work at no shipyard.

EHRLICH: You didn't want to work at the shipyards? Why?

STEVENSON: I don't know. I just never did want to work at the shipyards. I don't know. Too many peoples or something. What had me really confused with the shipyards, there was too many people here coming in working at the shipyards that didn't have places to stay. The government hadn't gotten together on furnishing homes for people to live. They was just flocking in there, trying to 00:37:00work in these two shipyards, and some of them, they had a theatre on Sixth and Macdonald, and then they had a Chinese restaurant called {The Lone Star?} right across the street from it. That's where most all the blacks would go and eat, and most all the blacks would go to this theatre.

EHRLICH: What was the theatre called?

STEVENSON: I was thinking about it the other day. I said "I'm going to try to think of this theatre's name," I had a guy trying to tell me the name and he couldn't remember it either.

EHRLICH: Where was it?

STEVENSON: On Sixth and Macdonald. Right on the corner of Sixth and Macdonald. They stayed open twenty-four hours. Every night, they stayed open twenty-four hours. A day. Stayed open all the time. And what would happen is, all the 00:38:00peoples who didn't have places to stay, especially blacks who didn't have places to stay, they would go out there and work for so many hours, then they would go to work ten hours, then they would come back, then they would go to this theatre and eat, and then they would probably order some food to go. They would go and pay 25 cents or 35 cents--while the war was going--to go in the theatre that was open 24 hours. They would look at the pictures just like you sit there and look at your TV until they went to sleep. They would go to sleep, and wake up in time enough to go back over across the street, eat breakfast and go to work. Go back out there to the shipyards. That's where they were living, in the theatre, find a place, whatever they could find, to take a shower or whatever. That's where they was actually living. I seen that. I didn't want no parts of that.

EHRLICH: So you saw that happening and didn't want that to be your life. Was that pretty much black?

STEVENSON: Yeah, oh yeah. Pretty much black. So I remember, what I did, I was looking for some other place to get a job. I see the sign on Nevin, right off of Sixth and Nevin says Ford, hiring. And I thought, well, when I was a kid I was working for a {Mexican} guy in Louisiana and he came out with a brand-new Ford. I says "Where'd you get the car from?" and he was telling us "I seen this car being built. I ordered it and stood there and seen 'em build it." I thought, boy, that was one of the greatest things I ever heard. I wonder if I'll ever see something like this. And when I see that sign, I thought about it. [phone rings] 00:40:00So I went into this office, and I asked the guy who was in there with me and he says, "Yeah, we hiring." I says, "What does you do? You make cars, for real?" He said, "Yeah, we make cars, but right now during the war, we don't make cars." He said, "We put together jeeps right now. Now we make jeeps, and the other part of the plant is taking care of cleaning tanks from overseas." The wounded tank that come in from overseas, the crippled tank. On the battlefield, maybe they been shot up or something, they bring 'em back in there and mechanics would do their mechanic work. My job was to help take the wheels off. You would call it the wheels, like those great big old wheels that go around.

EHRLICH: Like the tread?

STEVENSON: Yeah.

EHRLICH: Off of the jeeps?

STEVENSON: No, off of the big tanks.

EHRLICH: Off of the tanks.

STEVENSON: They would take them off, and they would come in macked, all big like that. You take them off and bale them up. We had a whatchamacallit, we would take them over like that, then we would drop them in a barrel of acid. We had to let them stay in this acid. That was a good job, that. You could sit down the whole time they was in that acid, maybe a whole hour, hour and a half, or whatever. Most of the time it was probably about two hours. Go back and pull it out, slide it out of the little housing that they had it set up for, then you would take the hose and just shoot water on it. Everything would come off of it. Clean. Real, real, real, clean. We would clean it like that, then we would take 00:42:00the spray gun and spray, repaint it real pretty and black. We would bring it out and stack it, and get it ready for the guys to put it back on. Later, put it back on to the jeep [tank]. Put it back on to the jeep [tank]. Then we had to take the jeep [tank] out in the day--

EHRLICH: Was it the jeep or the tank?

STEVENSON: Tank. We had to take it out to the bay and see if it was running right, if it was floating right. We'd have to take the jeeps out there, too. We had some of them, what they call "floating jeeps" that we made, too. You could put them in gear and run on land, and when you get to water you put them in another gear and it floats, like a ship. We had to take that out, too. So you wasn't able to smoke at the plant, at all. So what we'd do, that's where I'd get 00:43:00a chance to smoke in the bay, run these big floating tanks in the bay, running around in the water and test them. Got a chance to smoke, bring it back and then we'd have to set the guns on it, put a cross on the wall and set it, so that you know that it shoot directly, that it hit the target, whatever, pole, tree, set it like that and set everything--it'd be ready to go.

EHRLICH: So your job was to work in the plant, and you'd clean those treads?

STEVENSON: Treads, yeah.

EHRLICH: But you'd also test drive them out into the bay.

STEVENSON: Yeah, and then we set the guns, too. We had to set the guns. That wasn't too hard, because they'd have a great big thing on the wall, like a cross. [indicates the shape] Just like a cross, and then right in the center 00:44:00there'd be a dot, made right in the center. That same thing would be on that tank gun. Big cross on that tank, right on the barrel of that gun. But then you had to set it. Once you get it set, you screw it down. Somebody would be on the inside: "Hold it! Hold it! Set!" And you'd be right on the money. You had to be there, because that gun was made to be set like that for any machine, and you wasn't missing it. So we used to do that. We set that up, and mark it ready to go. We'd take it out in the lot and set it up. Then they would ship it off. Put it on a train and ship it off.

EHRLICH: And they were tanks that had come in from battle?

STEVENSON: Yeah, had come in from battle.

EHRLICH: Then they'd go back out again.

STEVENSON: Back out again.

EHRLICH: Was there an assembly line for working on them?

STEVENSON: The assembly line was working on the jeeps. The assembly line wasn't working on the tanks. The tanks would come out, let it roll right off the wheels. It would just stay over there and wait until you rolled it back on.

EHRLICH: So the jeeps were on an assembly line.

STEVENSON: Yeah, they come right off the assembly line, like the cars.

EHRLICH: Who moved? Did the jeeps move along and the people stay still?

STEVENSON: Yeah, same as they do today with automobiles.

I stayed there, and I was going to get ready to leave. I stayed there two weeks, and I wasn't getting but a dollar an hour there.

EHRLICH: Let me first ask you, who were your coworkers, working on the tanks?

STEVENSON: Who was they? There was so many.

EHRLICH: Were they black, white, mixed--

STEVENSON: Yeah, everybody was with.

EHRLICH: Any women?

STEVENSON: Oh yeah, they had women too. We didn't have a lot of women, but we did have women. Black and white women. I don't know, did you meet Mary [Mary Newson, interviewee]?

EHRLICH: Oh, yeah.

STEVENSON: Mary was somebody I met when I went there. She was there. And then, another lady--

EHRLICH: But she didn't work on the tanks.

STEVENSON: She didn't work on the tanks. I think she worked on the jeeps. She was on the inside. We was working tanks outside the building. She was one of the ones who stood still on the lines.

EHRLICH: The line moved, and she stayed still.

STEVENSON: Also, when they started making automobiles, she worked standing still, too. I know she was working. I think she was working in the seat department, after.

EHRLICH: So you were saying you weren't going to stay for very long.

STEVENSON: No. I was going to leave, after I made the first payday. It was funny. I think I was under the car, fixing a flat. I see two gentlemen walk up--"Who's that walking? Shoes shined--" and he says "Good morning." "Good morning." He said, "Do you know anybody by the name of Frank Stevenson or Allen Stevenson?" "Yeah." "They live here?" "Yeah, they live here." He said, "Well, where's Allen?" I says, "Allen's at work." He says, "Where's Frank?" I says, "I'm Frank." "You Frank?" "Yeah." He says, "Well, come out from behind the car. I want to talk to you." So I went to the car, a great big car, see. He says, "You came out of Barstow, right?" "Yeah." He had a book in his hand. "We want to know where you're working at now." I said, "Ford Motor Company." "Why you not 00:48:00working today?" "I have a flat on the car. Once I get through, fixing this flat, I'm going to be at work though." "Oh." And he said, "And you are Frank." Yeah. "You registered for the Army?" "Yeah."

EHRLICH: Wait, he asked what?

STEVENSON: Registered for the Army.

EHRLICH: Oh, registered.

STEVENSON: "You sign up for service?" "Yeah." "When's the last time you heard from them? Have you heard anything?" "No, I haven't." "Did you notify them that you were leaving Barstow and coming to Richmond?" "No, I hadn't notified them." And he said, "Big mistake, FBI. Do you know who I am?" "I see who you are, now." 00:49:00"Did you know you broke the law, leaving Barstow without notifying your board that you were leaving? They don't know where you are. They looking for you. I didn't know that. He says, "Well, be sure to check." That other guy, he said "Well, you should have knowed it." He says, "We're going to allow you to do things right. Turn around."

EHRLICH: Where was this happening? Was it just out on the street?

STEVENSON: Yeah, I was in North Richmond, on {Truman?} Street.

EHRLICH: So you were just out fixing your car when this happened.

STEVENSON: Yeah. He said, "You got a coat or anything you want to get?" I says, "Why?" He says, "You got to go to downtown Oakland to straighten this out." Oh, man. I says, "Yeah, I'll get my coat." He says, "Ah, you can't go by yourself. 00:50:00Put your hands behind you." Oh man, "where am I going?" He says, "You have to go down to the jailhouse to get this straightened out." Well, they did. They took me--it was the first time I ever went to jail.

EHRLICH: How old were you then? Roughly. You were about--

STEVENSON: Probably about nineteen, or something. So they take me downtown, and I think they set up bail. After they set bail, my godmother heard about it, she come got me out. I didn't know what bail was. I says, "What is bail?" "A thousand dollars." I said, "A thousand dollars?! What? I never heard tell of a thousand dollars. I never would get a thousand dollars. I'd be here for life." He says, "Yeah, if you don't think you can get it, what's going to happen to you 00:51:00is they'll probably get you out to the sub without even training, anything. Put you on the front line for what you did." I was scared to death. [laughs] So anyway, they later come got me out. It was on Friday, and I come back home and I got a check. I had to pay all the money, got to leave and go back to Barstow. When I got back, they made you sign up for the duration of the war. The duration. That means you got to stay with the company until the war is over. I signed up for the duration, I got my check, and that's where I was working. So I went back to work for Ford. Stayed there thirty years before I left. Stayed on 00:52:00there thirty years. After I had stayed that long, there wasn't any going back to Barstow. I had lost that job then, after going to jail and come out and had to work another two weeks before you get another paycheck.

EHRLICH: So let's talk a little bit more about what it was like, working at Ford. What else can you tell me? Were you in the union?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah, you definitely had to be in the union. When you go there, you're automatically in the union. The UAW-CIO union. They would take the union dues automatically out of your paycheck, to make sure that you remembered to pay. One of the first things you get by is paying the union dues. We was in the union. When I started work I went in, and pretty soon one evening I was working in the {flat} and a guys says, "Well, we going to call you to be examined." They 00:53:00did. They gave me a call. Went to San Francisco--I failed the test. [Phone rings. Tape interruptions]

EHRLICH: Examined for what?

STEVENSON: For going in the service. Had to have an examination before. You had to be examined. So, bad back. I failed the service. Man, I was glad then. Okay. "But don't give up on it because we might call you again. We going to have you go to the doctor and look at that back, and we'll give you another call." And then about a week after then, I walked outside the plant and there, a guy riding a bicycle was hollering "Extra! Extra! Read all about it! The war is over!" 00:54:00What?! "The war is over! The war is over! Read all about it! Extra! Extra!" Man, we walked from here to Tenth Street. I started home, and down Macdonald you couldn't get across Macdonald. People down Macdonald had tied cars together, ropes and things. It was all into liquor stores, people were sitting on top of cars, drinking, bumper to bumper, going and coming, screaming, going in stores--you couldn't get a car across there. The only way you could get across, you had to walk across. The war was over. Boy, I was glad I didn't have to go in the service in the end. That's when I kept working at Ford, after then. Thirty-three years. I had a job back then, and I was afraid if I go back to 00:55:00Barstow and start working for the service, maybe they'd be laying off people since the war is over. So I stayed at Ford. I decided I'd stay at Ford the next two or three years, then I'd go home to Louisiana, stay there. That never occurred. I got in with the fast crowd out here, and then they started moving all kinds of ways. Wasn't no way I was going back to Louisiana then. So much was going on.

EHRLICH: This would probably be a good time for us to take a break and then hear more.

EHRLICH: Okay, so you were going to say some more about the union.

STEVENSON: Yeah. I always thought the union was really, really great, because if 00:56:00it had not been for UAW-CIO union, I never would have made 30 years, not with Ford. Ford was awful rough to work with. We stopped doing work for the Army and then start back building cars. They would really talk to you rough. If you missed any days or something like that, they were really on you. One of the guys told me, one day he said, "We don't want to hear all the stories about it. We want you to come to work. We don't want to hear the story about something happened to your momma, or your momma died." That was fighting words with me, right there. [laughs] You know, they'd say all kinds of things like that. And they would work you. You had a job to do when you was on that line. It's a whole 00:57:00lot better now from what I seen when I look at some of the movies, the way they make cars now. The union had to be standing by you for you to take that kind of stuff. So many times I had to go with on things that I was saying to the boss or whatever, and ask for it to be said to him, and the union would really fight for me, because I was quick to say something to somebody. I guess I shouldn't have said that. The boss called one night at the meeting, "Hey, who put that car on the line like that?" And then another guy, "I didn't! Hey, that guy right over there, he put it on there like that." I said, "Nigga, you should have [inaudible]. It got to go the water chest." Okay, that's not my job, driving them off the line, I was just helping out, that's all. My job is to stand here 00:58:00and do the number work. He says, "I don't care whose job it is. You put it on there." He says, "My wife can drive better than that!" Oh, he shouldn't have said that. I said, "Tomorrow night, you better bring her with you, because--"[laughs] The next morning, they were waiting on me until I get there. "I want to see you in the office." "I can't come in the office unless I have a representative." He says, "Who's your representative?" I says, "Somebody from CIO union." I says, "Give me a steward to bring in there with me." I had a good friend who lives in Detroit now. His name is Ben {Gross} "Send Ben in." Then the union comes in and fight for me, you know.

EHRLICH: So did he go in with you?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah. He would always come in. I wouldn't go in unless I go in with a union guy. He's something like an attorney for you. You call for them 00:59:00[inaudible] when you go in and play it by yourself, trying to speak for yourself. Or you'd take a lawyer with you. And they stood for so many great things, the UAW-CIO. I find that a lot of other unions really follow after UAW-CIO union. We were really strong at that time. I'm sure they're not as strong now as they was then, because when they went out for something, they said we going out for that, we're going out on strike, we're not going to come in until we get it--they meant that. It was that, or that's all. We went out on strike ask for something, we got that or we don't come back. We didn't care who it hurt. And the union was trying to give all their workers something, a check, some kind of money every week. Every week, they would give them a certain amount 01:00:00of money or some kind of food vouchers to take care of them, to take them over this hump.

EHRLICH: You mean when they were out on strike.

STEVENSON: When we was out on strike. They would go so far as to help you with the home, if you run into some kind of problems or something like that. I thought they were awful, awful brave. Because the last strike that we had was so bad, I thought we would never get that. We don't want that thirty years and out deal.

EHRLICH: What did that mean?

STEVENSON: First when I went in Ford, they used to tell you you had to be 65 years old, is retirement date. You had to work so many years and be 65 years old before you could retire. UAW said, "No, we're going to go for thirty years and 01:01:00out." I thought, we'll never make this one. Didn't make any difference how old or how young you were, when you got thirty years in you retire. We did that. So many people followed after us on that, that thirty years and out. Not no 65 years. I think I got ready to retire right after I was about 50 years old. Retired, on account of when they say 30 years and out, believe me, I was on the top of the list. I had been 29 years and about eight months. I think that the contract went through in probably November, and my time would have been up on January 4. The boss come around and see all the guys whose time was up within 01:02:00six months, can start working with somebody. Give him somebody to take your job, and you can go. And I was number one. The guy come around there and asked me, "When do you want to go?" I tell the truth and I says, "Right now." He says, "You can't do that." [laughs] "As quick as you break somebody in on your job, you out of here." So I got out two or three months later. That was the UAW-CIO union. I really speak up for them.

EHRLICH: What else do you give them credit for?

STEVENSON: Whenever the company tried to overwork a person on one job, he 01:03:00thought they was overworking him, they would take care of something like that immediately. They would bring you into the office with you and your boss. If they was being prejudiced on the job; that was going on there. Some places on the job, they wasn't hiring blacks. They had told me before I went to Ford, that Ford wasn't hiring blacks at all. There wasn't but a few blacks there when I first went there. But then they start. UAW-CIO come in. They wasn't hiring blacks to paint and they wasn't hiring blacks on what they would call electricians, and all that kind of stuff. We weren't able to get into that kind of stuff.

EHRLICH: So they were saving the blacks for the harder jobs.

STEVENSON: Yeah. Wasn't no such thing as blacks being a foreman or nothing like 01:04:00that. But the UAW broke up all that even before I left. They started blacks to doing any type of work that they had available, that blacks could do. So before I left there, blacks was all over the place doing anything that they was qualified to do. I give that credit direct to UAW-CIO. They did that.

EHRLICH: What about race relations, tensions between the races?

STEVENSON: Oh yeah, same thing. I would call that race relations right there. After the hiring, you'd get in there and you couldn't get the type of job that you was qualified to do. That was racism. But they actually broke it up. The UAW broke that up. If you showed that you was qualified to do the job, it didn't 01:05:00make any difference. You got that job. They see that you got it. They only went by when you was hired, who had the most seniority on the job, or whatever. So it didn't make any difference; if you had the most seniority and you qualified, didn't make no difference whether you were white or black. You got the job. I thought it was great. I still think they are great, because they give us such a good retirement deal. I go to the hospital now; I don't have to pay no money to go to the hospital. Blue Cross/Blue Shield pays for it. That's the kind of insurance that I have. If I go to a doctor of my choice, then I have to pay for 01:06:00office visits. But this is what I have: I have the rights. Every year I get a paper saying I can transfer from one to another. I can be on Kaiser this year and transfer back to Blue Cross next year, either one I want to be on.

EHRLICH: Did you have health insurance the whole time you were at Ford?

STEVENSON: Yeah.

EHRLICH: From the day you started?

STEVENSON: From the day I started.

EHRLICH: And that was because of the union.

STEVENSON: Blue Cross/Blue Shield, John Hancock life insurance--I still have all that. From the very day that you start up until the day you die.

EHRLICH: What about health and safety issues on the job?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah. They were right on top of that.

EHRLICH: Tell me about that.

STEVENSON: Sometime back, even the union probably didn't know about some of 01:07:00these safety things we should have had, we didn't have. I would have to say that it was just that people in general thought that they didn't have these kinds of stuff. After they came out, was brought up, the union recognized they should have it. [inaudible] You supposed to have, hearing aids, they found out that in some place in the plant that you were walking on cement daily, so many hours a day walking on the cement. You wear your regular shoes working, and they say that no, you should have on safety shoes. They went on with the company so long with that until they set up a shoe store right in the plant. They made it so if you didn't have the money, you go down to the shoe store and put in the bag 01:08:00whatever number you had, and they'd put shoes on your feet. Then they'd take it out of your check.

EHRLICH: You mean the union made that happen?

STEVENSON: Oh, yeah.

EHRLICH: Was that during the war?

STEVENSON: This was after the war, but that was the same union. Still working. But they made to see that all these things happen. The hearing aid, the noise and everything out of your ear, the safety glasses: union. See that the company give you corduroys to work in, if you worked in a dirty place, you got to go in the morning and put your corduroys on, pull them off in the afternoon, throw them into the dirty pile, the company cleans them, bring them back, you get a clean pair. Some people get a clean pair everyday, because of where they working at, some people get a clean pair twice a week. But the union see that these 01:09:00things happen. I really recommend that UAW-CIO union, even right up to now. I go to the drugstore today, I don't care what kind of medication the doctor orders for me to have. The medication might cost forty dollars, fifty dollars; I get it for five.

EHRLICH: Do you remember the union being involved in anything going on in the community?

STEVENSON: Yeah.

EHRLICH: What kinds of things?

STEVENSON: They was all in the community. They was helping a lot of peoples of different walks of life.

EHRLICH: Can you remember specific things that the union was involved in?

STEVENSON: Not right off, right now. It'll probably come to me after a while. But they was; I know they was involved in a lot of community work. Like Mary, 01:10:00she was involved in a lot of community work like that, community work. She was one of the head people who would be helping in something like that. But they was involved in everything. I have a lot of literature from the union that would have shown it, but I don't have it with me right now. I don't know where it might be at, but they show what they really was involved in. They still are. They still are, today. They still send me literature on what they's involved in, what they are fighting for. Whenever time come up for voting, I gets the literature from them instructing you--they don't make you, but they instruct you how to vote, who you should be voting for and what these characters are doing for you, the reason why they're asking you to vote for them. They got people 01:11:00right there in the White House. They got senators there; they got people there, too, seeing what's going on in the White House, seeing what problems or what this guy is trying to get voted for. They give you a record on him, what did he do, what he voted for last. He was discriminating against certain things the union was calling for. There it is, right there in black and white, which senators that you see, don't vote. That's the kind of community work they been doing. They still doing this. When time come around for the election, we get the whole booklet on everybody who's running and what they're running for. If they don't have anything against you and you is running, they just mark it off, vote 01:12:00anywhere you want. That's the kind of great things that they are doing today. They got people right up there, too, right along with them, walking the floor right now, checking on every senator, every governor, especially in your state.

EHRLICH: Do you remember the big strike in '46 in Oakland?

STEVENSON: Was it at Ford?

EHRLICH: It was a whole union strike. Do you remember that? It was in Oakland.

STEVENSON: Well, I don't know that I was striking. I don't know.

EHRLICH: When was your strike?

STEVENSON: Let's see. I don't know what year that was. Way back when. Ours would come up about every four years. But if there was a big strike in Oakland, about 01:13:00something else, I don't know that we'd be involved in that. We were just involved in the UAW-CIO.

EHRLICH: Anything else to say about the union?

STEVENSON: Every union have its own. We would support the other unions, though, because we want to make sure that if somebody offers, any union would tell you not to cross the picket line of another union on strike. Another big union was out on strike or something, they would tell us not to cross the picket line. Don't cross the picket line.

EHRLICH: So anything else to say about the unions?

STEVENSON: No, as of right now that's about all of it. But I really wanted to get down to say about Richmond itself when I came here, I think Richmond, as far 01:14:00as I'm concerned--I hope I'm right on this--had one red light. That was on Tenth and Macdonald. Then they had one large, real nice hotel, and that was on Tenth and Macdonald, on the right hand side. They still there. We couldn't go there. This was in Richmond; blacks could not go into that hotel. They wouldn't allow you in.

EHRLICH: Was there a sign on the door?

STEVENSON: No, but they wouldn't let you go in. They wouldn't put that sign out there, but they would turn you back.

This whole city police department, fire department and all businesses like that, 01:15:00was all in Point Richmond. Wasn't nothing uptown like you see all this stuff uptown now. Everything was down in Point Richmond. Fire department, police department, all that was in Point Richmond. In North Richmond, police and everything had to come out of Martinez. You'd be in North Richmond, you might call police in the morning, he might show up about twelve o'clock, one o'clock in the daytime. [laughs] That's the way they would operate. The police department in Richmond was just allowed to go so far to the North Richmond line, and they couldn't cross. The same thing over there; they wouldn't cross to go on this side to help out, either.

EHRLICH: Where did you live?

STEVENSON: I lived in North Richmond. I lived in North Richmond for a long time. 01:16:00I lived on Fifth Street. I lived on the Alameda, I lived on Truman, two or three different place that I lived in North Richmond.

EHRLICH: What was it like in North Richmond when you first got here?

STEVENSON: Well, it was something else. You couldn't hardly believe, because there was one street in North Richmond--actually, that was where the clubs was. That would be on Grove Street. Within about a three or four block area was all the clubs. If you didn't put in a reservation today on a weekend, you couldn't get in because it would be so crowded. You couldn't get in. You wouldn't believe if you see the place, you wouldn't think no, nothing like this ever happened. 01:17:00There would be so many people on the streets at these clubs, you wouldn't be able to even get in, especially to get in and have a table, like in the clubs now. You'd have to put in a reservation a week ahead of time because there'd be so many people. We had so many peoples that come through here and went on to the big times, like {Leonard Cracken}. We had some big time peoples that come through here, bands or whatever.

EHRLICH: So what were the clubs like?

STEVENSON: They were nice clubs. They set up nice clubs and everything. Dancing, drinking, and on Sunday evenings they would have talent shows start at three o'clock in the afternoon. You could go to talent shows or you could go to where they played music from about three o'clock 'till about six, and then you had to 01:18:00go out. You go out and you had to pay to come back in for the night show.

EHRLICH: So do you remember some of the bands?

STEVENSON: Oh yeah, whole lots of bands. I saw all of 'em, I guess. Trying to remember some of the names. Some of the greater names. They had some bands that {Alley Joe Harlem?} B.B. King been here, {Alley Joe Harlem}, Cab Calloway, then we had one that's playing right now, I can't recall the name. One gal by the name of {Cardella}. I think she died, the last I heard.

EHRLICH: What was her name, {Cardella?}?

STEVENSON: {Cardella}, yeah. Then there was another famous, famous black girl you used to see dancing all the time with the short dress on--I can't recall the 01:19:00name. I would like to recall the name of her, because she went on to be great. She still is.

EHRLICH: When you stop trying, it'll pop in your head.

STEVENSON: Even her picture is on some women's{stockings}.

EHRLICH: That's all right. It'll come to you.

STEVENSON: Yeah. It'll come to me, that's right.

EHRLICH: So did you used to go to the clubs?

STEVENSON: Oh man, I was one of their top customers, especially on weekends. Went out of one club, into another. Stayed in the clubs. Stayed in the street, on account of I loved the street life. I guess I stayed home with my mother and father when I was young. We didn't do nothing but go to church all the time. So 01:20:00I guess when I got free, go where you want to go, I went there right into the clubs. I guess I stayed into clubs like that for years before I decided to go back to church. I guess now I been back seven or eight years now, I been back into church.

EHRLICH: So when you were going to the clubs, you didn't go to church.

STEVENSON: Oh, no. No, no. I respect the church that much. I see a lot of people do that, but either one or the other. I won't play around that way. I was telling one of the members about that the other day. When I was in the street, I wouldn't walk across the church yard with a cigarette in my hand. If I was drunk, I wouldn't do that. I'd throw it away or I'd walk around. That much respect, I was taught that. So I kept that. I didn't go to church; I stayed in 01:21:00the street until I got ready to return to church. I'm back in the church now; you won't see me out there.

EHRLICH: So in the clubs, who was in there? Who were the clientele?

STEVENSON: Who was in the club?

EHRLICH: Yeah, was it mostly black, was it mixed, was it men and women?

STEVENSON: Yeah, black.

EHRLICH: All black?

STEVENSON: At that time, yeah. If you see somebody in there white or something or even a Mexican, you know something was going on wrong there, because it wouldn't last too long. There was a lot of bad stuff was going on.

EHRLICH: Like what?

STEVENSON: Prostitution and whatever was going on. A lot of playboys. Now, if you see a white girl in there, it belongs to one of those guys. You would stay, 01:22:00hands off. You wouldn't mess with her. They would make sure that you didn't do it, unless you wanted to get hurt. But other than that, you didn't see a crowd of mixed white and black. It was mostly all black.

EHRLICH: Would you go there with women? I mean, would people go there on dates?

STEVENSON: Oh, that's what it was all about. That's what all these people would be coming for. People from the Army camps, soldiers and everything. On the weekend, everyone would be rockin' in there. Come there to date those girls that came. They used to have some beautiful women. Beautiful women, out on the street. That's exactly what it was all about. The street would be crowded; man, you couldn't hardly walk. Within that four or five blocks there, you could get 01:23:00anything that you wanted.

EHRLICH: Drugs?

STEVENSON: Drugs, anything that you wanted, you just name it, it was there.

EHRLICH: When you say within three or four blocks, what were the blocks? Where was it?

STEVENSON: That's where the clubs was.

EHRLICH: Yeah, where was it?

STEVENSON: On Grove Street. Right in that vicinity, you could get anything that you wanted. That was the type of place it was.

EHRLICH: Do you remember what kind of drugs there were?

STEVENSON: Mostly they was using marijuana then. Never heard harder than marijuana, because marijuana was a bad drug, then. They didn't have too much of that hard stuff like they have now. It was mostly marijuana. If they was using any of the hard drugs, some of the guys you would see using a needle and whatever, but even their own people, down there. We--blacks ourselves--was down 01:24:00there. They was low-rated. They would actually try to stay out of the way of me and others. They didn't want to be around us.

EHRLICH: Wait, who didn't want to be around you?

STEVENSON: Blacks that were using. At that time, they didn't want to be around people like me, just going into clubs and drinking or smoking weed. They wouldn't come up around you. They would do that--they would be out somewhere else. That was kind of outcast among our own people.

EHRLICH: What about relationships between blacks who had come from the South and the local blacks?

STEVENSON: None.

EHRLICH: None, meaning--

STEVENSON: Wasn't no difference.

EHRLICH: No difference. Once you got here, it was the same?

STEVENSON: We didn't even know too many peoples that really came from here, that 01:25:00was here all the time. Most of them, the majority, come from somewhere else. So somebody who was here all the time, it better be right, because they was outdated. They was overwhelmed. Most of us come right from the South.

EHRLICH: Do you remember violence in the clubs?

STEVENSON: Violence? Oh, yeah.

EHRLICH: What do you remember?

STEVENSON: They had fights and they was less than wise, some kind of stabbing, but not like now. They didn't have that kind of stuff. You'd be surprised how many people would be mixed and drinking and smoking that much, didn't have some kind of fights all the time. Like now; they can't go to a club now, somebody get killed before it even start. But you didn't see that somebody step on somebody's 01:26:00shoes and then a fight starts; you didn't see that. Peoples, they was out there, but they respected each other. They gave respect to each other. There wasn't a lot of violence then. They didn't have a lot of policemen trying to be there, be doing all this kind of stuff. Every once in a while they would go for a raid, to try to stop the marijuana. I seen the raid where they shut the whole North Richmond down. They had policemen, they had MPs, they had sailors, they had women--

EHRLICH: Were you there?

STEVENSON: Yeah, I was there!

EHRLICH: What did you see?

STEVENSON: What did I see? What happened when they did it, they had all the streets that go into North Richmond blocked off with soldiers, sailors and 01:27:00everybody. They had MPs with the guns and everything, policemen. They know how many entrances they had, how many places you could get out of. They blocked all them off. Then they was standing, rest of them. They had a time to where they would bust all of the clubs down at the same time. They had women policemen to search the women. Everything was shut down at one time, break in, and bam! Here we are. They would search you, but they would say "Everybody in here that has a job, show us something that you have a job, and you out." I can remember good--I was one of the first ones searched. But I was working, I was working for Ford. It was on Friday night and I had my check stub. I give it to the policeman--here's my check stub. Then they had a card where they would say "We 01:28:00need a your green card." You were free to go out of the club, go anywhere you want to go, go past the barriers, come back into North Richmond, go to any club you wanted, go in if you wanted to. But you didn't want to go in there because there was too many people being searched and going to jail. But you had a card. They gave you a free card to go. So I was out there doing different things like everybody else but I had that job, so I get away for free. All right. [laughs] If you had a job, you could walk on out. Yeah, I got caught; I was one of the first ones that got caught. They would search, and you would hear all the knives hitting the floor, ding, ding, ding. [laughs] Guns and everything.

EHRLICH: Really.

STEVENSON: On the floor, yeah. Everybody getting rid of 'em, cause they know you going to be searched, that you'd be caught and go to jail. So just get rid of them. They say you going to be searched, you hear the knives and everything hitting the floor, fall on the floor. But other than that, the violence was not near like it is now, nothing like that. Sometimes they take the girls to jail, they'd be taking money off of somebody, they would go to jail. Something about them, like that.

EHRLICH: You don't remember there being a lot of violence on the streets.

STEVENSON: No, I know there wasn't, like it is now, shooting and the police running all the time, picking up somebody. We didn't have that.

EHRLICH: Did you have any white friends?

STEVENSON: Any white friends? Oh, yeah. I had a lot of white friends. I have one; I was just been trying to find my way right now to find him, to see where he is. I had him living with me. That was before I got married to her, but I only just got married. I got married about 70 years old. I used to live alone, but I had a lot of men friends that was out of homes didn't have nowhere to go.

EHRLICH: This was during the war years?

STEVENSON: Yeah. You would be surprised. My buddies had all the names and things, and they come through here, I give them a place to stay and help 'em to get on their feet. A lot of them stole lots of stuff from me, but I still 01:31:00survived. I always said, "The Lord will provide for you if you believe in him," you know? Lots of peoples. There wasn't not just one or two. A lot of peoples. And this white friend of mine, his name is {Mike Shannon}. He lived with me for years.

I used to run a grocery store. This black lady he was living with, they jumped on him, her and her daughters. They had cut him up and everything. He knew my brother, and he had run out in front of the store and {fell} to a policeman. He said, "You got to go to the hospital." He says, "No, I don't want to go to the hospital." He says, "Well, you're going to have to go to the hospital to get somebody to tape you up, so we taking you to the hospital and jail." So I came 01:32:00out of the store and I asks the policeman if I could take care of him. They said, "You better be proud of this man. We going to let you go with him. We know him; we going to let you go." I had somebody working at the store and I brought him here and got him all taped up. That guy stayed with me for years. He just left here about four years ago. He left because he got in some sort of trouble with dope dealers. He left and he went back to San Francisco somewhere. Usually he'd call me on what these Irish people call--what day they have?

EHRLICH: St. Patrick's Day?

STEVENSON: St. Patrick's Day. On my birthday or on St. Patrick's Day, I don't care where he was, he'd call me. I don't care whether he was drunk, or what--he'd call me. He went overseas a couple of times, working. I don't care 01:33:00where he was, Mike would call me. He haven't called me in four years, and I kind of halfway think he's passed away. He said he didn't have nobody living but his dad, and they didn't talk or nothing. But when you said white friends, I had two later friends--white--living with me.

EHRLICH: Any during the war years, or are these more recent friendships?

STEVENSON: After the war, I had friends. I had two later friends--white--living with me.

EHRLICH: Will you tell me a little bit more about housing during the war years, what that was like? You told the story about the theatre.

STEVENSON: It was poorly. Then I think the government kind of stepped in and they built these apartments over here. First of all, these weren't here. They 01:34:00built the place called Canal--

EHRLICH: Canal.

STEVENSON: --over by the bay, a little bit farther down off of the end of Cutting. That was Canal. They built a lot of apartments for all the peoples. Then they built another one uptown a little bit further, called Seaport. They put a lot of housing in there and that was called Seaport. This was Canal. Canal would cover most of the peoples who didn't have houses. The government come through and just start building houses and giving them places to stay. They started building that, then they build this place here, but this place was after the war. But Canal and Seaport were the ones that were taking the peoples off 01:35:00the street that were working during the war.

EHRLICH: Do you remember seeing people living on the streets?

STEVENSON: Oh yeah, that's what I'm saying. There were a lot of people living on the streets that had nowhere to go. {Bigger} hotel hold a lot of 'em. This big movie [theatre] hold a lot of them, just staying in that movie.

EHRLICH: Do you remember them staying in other places besides in the movie house? Were they sleeping in parks?

STEVENSON: Sleeping in the movie?

EHRLICH: In the movie, that we know, but any other places you remember seeing people living?

STEVENSON: You didn't see too many people sleeping in the street, but some people would help them. They had houses, would take them in. You didn't see too many people laying out in the street or something like that. But there was a lot of people homeless around here.

EHRLICH: What was your living situation when you first moved here?

STEVENSON: Mine was good. I was living with a lady on {Truman} Street. She had two sons and you know, I worked my way through life like that. Even from the time I was in New Orleans to Texarkana and to Barstow and also Richmond. I try to tell a lot of young people this story. Even when I was in New Orleans, when I got off from work the lady I was living with, she used to stand out on the streets in the evening when it got hot and make snow cones and sell them to the kids. It was a good deal. I was working at this place in the shipyards and honestly, and meat would come in, hams would come in, big old cow legs would 01:37:00come in and everything. It would turn dark on the end where you cut meat, and the guys who'd be cutting that meat sometimes would cut it like that and leave that much of meat. They would have new hams and I'd pick it up, wrap it up and take it home to the ladies. When I got home I would go outside and I would let her go in the house, and I would start selling snow cones. Then when I go in, I would help her wash dishes, help her keep house and she would stop me from paying rent. I didn't have to pay nothing for food. When I went to Texarkana it was the same identical way. I want to tell this whole story but I can't yet. It was later right here on Cutting I moved in a little house in the back. This 01:38:00lady, she was living upstairs. She had arthritis and she couldn't come downstairs and pick up her mail or nothing like that. Somebody had to come by and do it. I was working for Ford, when I was working the early shift, I would go in early in the morning and set up the place. I was called the "set-up man." When I get off it would be about twelve o'clock in the daytime. I'd go to her house and I'd start cutting her flowers, trimming her lawn, picking up the mail and take it upstairs to her, keep her from coming downstairs. I didn't know none of these things was fixing to take place, though. Then one day her son came. She had two sons working at Standard Oil. They go in there and they say "Mom, who's cutting the lawn and keeping up the flowers?" She said, "The young man who's moved in back there in the back, for rent." She say, "He brings my mail up."

EHRLICH: He said what?

STEVENSON: They brought the mail up to me, and everything. They said, "You been paying him for cutting the magnolias?" "He never say anything like that. He just do it." The son came out. He said, "Mom never pay you anything for keeping it up?" I say, "No, she don't have to pay me for that." I say, "When I come in, I don't be doing anything, I just do it. I'm living here, too." He said, "When's the last time you pay rent?" I said, "Yesterday." He said I told him how much I paid and he said, "Okay, I'll be right back. He went back inside and asked how long I been living there, guy came back and wrote me a check for the time I been living there, paying rent. He said, "You can stay as long as you want to and never pay another penny."

When I bought this house right here, I was living there. I didn't want to move. 01:40:00I just bought this house as a mistake, almost. [laughs] I met a friend somewhere in a bar and he was a real estate man. He asked, "{What, you ain't got no home?}" "No, I ain't got no home. I don't need no home." He asked me one night, "You know, there's a home coming up for rebate or something." He said "This lady's got taken out as an unfit mother and the man's got the home. The man passed away and the son, he's too young to take the home. What they do, they sell the home and put the money in the bank. Then, when he get 21, they give him the money." He said, "You put your name into for fifty dollars." He said, "They look the names over and the best qualified person, that's who get the house." I 01:41:00said, "Oh man, really?" I gave him fifty dollars. I was sitting in a bar. Then the guy called me and he asked me to come to his office and sold me this house for 14,500 dollars. And I didn't want to move, because I was staying free. That's what I was trying to tell the young one, how I actually worked my way through life working for Ford but not paying rent while I was living there. They sold this other place and I moved. I worked my way through.

EHRLICH: And the housing situation was very, very bad, but you worked it out.

STEVENSON: I worked it out. It was bad, but--

EHRLICH: Did you have friends who couldn't find housing?

STEVENSON: I had friends who couldn't find housing when they come here. They was looking to live with somebody, you know. Some sleep in cars. They would be out on the street, but some of them slept in cars.

EHRLICH: Do you have any memories of rationing in the war years?

STEVENSON: The rationing? Oh man, yeah, I know all about the rationing. I was saying way back, I mentioned about the gas when I was in Barstow. Gas rationing--everything was rationed. Women's stockings rationed, sugar was rationed, wasn't much all that wasn't rationed. So much stuff. Every time you go downtown, so much stuff was rationed that you see a long line, you got out of the car and got in it because you know it was something rationed that you know you could possibly get, you see? You had to have stamps for everything. People started to change that stamp around on the sugar stamp in place of being something else on there. Cheat on the stamps with the sugar, cheat on the gasoline with the stamps, get gas you wasn't allowed to buy. It all depends on 01:43:00how far you had to drive to work, backwards and forwards, different places where you thought you had to go, you would tell them and they would give you the stamp accordingly to the A stamp, B stamp, truck drivers got a T stamp. They got more than anybody else. But then we have a tendency of going out to the truck driving place if you wanted to be a cheater like I was [laughs] and talk with these truck drivers and buy stamps off of them. They sell you some of the T stamps. A T stamp would get you a whole tank of gas for one T stamp. An A stamp, you only get about five gallons of gas.

Tires were rationed; you couldn't buy tires. You just had to do the best you can. When my brother lived in Louisiana, he was going on a bumping tire. But his 01:44:00wife was having a baby right then and he said "I got to go sometime away." He said he made it as far as Texas with that bumping tire. He said he had a flat, it blowed out, and some guy sold him another tire. He say he put the thing on, he say when he got to where he was going in Louisiana, the tire blowed out in the yard.

EHRLICH: One thing you didn't tell me was when you came out here from the South, how did you get here?

STEVENSON: When I come out, I came on a bus. Girl, you talk about a tough time in {tear,} I was coming on a train. I was supposed to come on a train; I had a fare to catch the train. Same thing, I tell you I come from Barstow? I got to spending too much money on a goodbye thing. I ended up I didn't have the train fare. I said I don't let nobody know I did that. So I went in a bus station and 01:45:00asked how much it was for a bus ticket from Lake Providence to Barstow. She told me how much the ticket was and I said okay. I bought the ticket and I look at that morning, everybody loading on that bus, the bus driver was saying the next little town is Freeport, Louisiana to {Louis}, Louisiana. I hand him my ticket, and we kind of rolling. I take it like that and I almost rolled on the ground. He said "Where the hell you going, nigger out of the woods?" So he read the ticket and anyway, long story short, I got as far as Dallas, Texas. I stayed in 01:46:00Dallas for a day and a half, maybe two days because they was calling out "Servicemen first."

EHRLICH: What men first?

STEVENSON: Servicemen. Men in the Army and in the service supposed to get on the bus to travel. No room. "Servicemen first." I had to stay there and I didn't have enough money right then. I paid my ticket, I getting hungry, I ain't got no money in my pocket. So I went upstairs, me and another guy. I don't know who he was, I just met him. Go upstairs to the desk upstairs, and I ask if you trade around ticket and then we go back home. You can have the rest of it. He said "What happened?" So he told me "How long you been here?" He said "Okay." So on 01:47:00the mic he called a guy and he come upstairs and wrote on our tickets. He changed it and give us a yellow ticket. They called on the mic when that bus rolled up, "Yellow tickets first. Yellow tickets first." That bus come from Dallas, to--what's the next town next to the town next to Mexico? El Paso. Go all the way to El Paso. I stayed on a bus from Monday morning till Friday night, 8 o'clock because that's how long it took me to get from Louisiana to Barstow. When I got off the bus in Barstow, it was 8 o'clock Friday night.

EHRLICH: And then how did you get to Richmond?

STEVENSON: Oh, I drove to Richmond once I got into Barstow and was working there.

EHRLICH: You got a car and drove from Barstow to Richmond.

STEVENSON: Drove from Barstow. I was on the bus traveling from Monday morning at 7 o'clock until about 8 o'clock Friday night, how about that? I was riding on that bus and in some of the little towns I got to, there was so many peoples in those little towns. Now what were these people doing out at two or three in the morning? I didn't know they was traveling. All these buses was there and people was traveling, they stayed there for a while. They keep recalling these buses, calling them off, calling them off. Wasn't nobody there, but all these people still coming in.

EHRLICH: These were all the people coming to work?

STEVENSON: No, I'm talking about people traveling from one town to another. So many people on Greyhound buses, they come into these little towns, not that many people was working. That many people was traveling.

EHRLICH: Do you remember it being really crowded in Richmond?

STEVENSON: Was it crowded in Richmond? In spots. Where I went to, it was crowded. [laughs] In North Richmond it was crowded. It wasn't completely crowded because there wasn't nothing over here. Like around here, just a few houses. Weren't nobody living in here but whites, and even in Richmond they didn't care for no blacks coming on this side of town. From Macdonald Avenue across over here, you couldn't move over here and you wasn't wanted over here. They couldn't stop you, but the way they would look at you, the way they would treat you, you didn't want to be over here. If you come to this town and you was asking somebody directions to a store and they was white, they would direct you to North Richmond. "I think you would want to go to North Richmond." We had a lot 01:50:00of that type of stuff right here. Not only here, but the same was in Reno.

I went to Reno and during that time too they would tell you at the larger clubs "I think you'd be more comfortable if you went down on the outskirts." They had a little club. You could play a penny if you wanted to. But that's where all the blacks would be. That's where they would direct you to go, but they wouldn't tell you that you couldn't stay. But Richmond was the same way. They just want you all in one spot over in North Richmond. That's where they want you to stay.

EHRLICH: So we only have a few more minutes left and I was wondering if you could say--you've talked a little bit about the war ending, if you could say a little bit about what you remember after the war ended, those years. How Richmond changed, or if you remember changes.

STEVENSON: Did it change? Yeah, it changed. Changed dramatically because as far as the different treatments going on. Everybody just spread out everywhere. It changed. Really changed.

EHRLICH: How?

STEVENSON: They don't have all that kind of stuff because of racism. Richmond was prejudiced. They were just as tough as it was in the South. You couldn't go to a hotel, motel. If there was a hotel you wanted to go to, you couldn't go in it. On this side of town, they didn't want blacks on this side of town.

EHRLICH: When the war ended, how did Richmond change?

STEVENSON: People started moving anywhere they want to go. Blacks started moving over this way and then a lot of whites started moving out. Same thing is going 01:52:00on today. They move out, move up in the hills, blacks move on up in the hills with them so there ain't anywhere for them to go except stay still. They changed. I guess they don't have no alternative but to change because they allowed the blacks to move anywhere they wanted to go. So that really changed. [inaudible]. They're doing the best they can do, but we're going to have some kind of prejudice, I don't care where you go now. They going to have some kind of prejudice. Even now, at this time, mostly all Mexican peoples are moving in every chance they can get. You watch the blacks themselves. "Where these 01:53:00Mexicans coming from?" Now they sounding prejudiced. They going to be prejudiced all the time. They wanted to move in with them, now they see them coming in, "What? Where these people coming from? They moving in every house." So what? They your people. Like you said about me, I had just as many Mexican friends or white friends as I had black. I ain't seen no difference. Couldn't nobody tell me nothing, you know? When they moved in right there--they're Mexican--I went over there and welcomed them for moving in, asked them if they needed the help, they needed to move some stuff to the garbage, showed them them where the dump was. I moved some of the stuff to the dump. I told the gentleman, "I can't go another time, take my truck move it yourself, bring my truck back." You go and 01:54:00ask them right now, they say, "That's the best man in the world, right there." The momma right there, if she see me go and raise the hood on the truck right now, she say, "Go and see about him." It all depends on how you want to live. How you watch yourself, first.

EHRLICH: That's probably a good place for us to end, because the tape is almost over. Thank you so much for this interview.

STEVENSON: Thank you for coming.