Katie Burks | Interview 1 | December 29, 2015

DUNHAM: This is David Dunham in the lovely home of Katie Burks on December 29, 2015, for the Rosie the Riveter/World War II Home Front Oral History Project. We usually start at the beginning, so what is your full name and date of birth?

BURKS: My full name is Katie Rebecca Moore, at that time. But I'm Katie Rebecca Burks now.

DUNHAM: And when and where were you born?

BURKS: Birmingham, Alabama.

DUNHAM: What year?

BURKS: Nineteen twenty-five.

DUNHAM: Can you tell me a little bit about your family history?

BURKS: Well, my mother had seven kids. The house was very small, but we were very loving. Whatever we had we had it divided with each other, and then we started to school at {Cameron?}.

DUNHAM: Now, where did you fall with your seven brothers and sisters?

BURKS: I was the second.

DUNHAM: Did you know either of your grandparents?

BURKS: No, I know my foster grandparents who adopted us as their grandchildren, which was good, because my mother--her mother died when she was thirteen years old. She had to stop school to work in the laundry to help take care of her brother, and then after she got married, my sister Vivian. And then she helped take care of her own brother, sending him to school and took care of him, but the job she had--working at the laundry.

DUNHAM: And your father?

BURKS: My father, he worked most times as a janitor at a Jewish family, and they were very, very nice to him and to us. And my uncle worked at Mr. Winters' a drugstore. And when Mr. Winters got through, he willed the drugstore to my 00:02:00uncle. And that's where my uncle was till he passed. And he was living with my sister Dorothy.

DUNHAM: The owner of the drugstore was--who was he?

BURKS: Mr. Winters. He passed away.

DUNHAM: Was he an African American man?

BURKS: No, he was a white man.

DUNHAM: Was the town where the drugstore was, was it mixed?

BURKS: To a degree. It all depends, because we lived in {Klein's?} Grove and on here it was a white guy with a store, and he lived there. And then if you went over to this side there was another white guy with a store, but their kids all mingled with each other because they was in a black neighborhood.

DUNHAM: Were the schools segregated?

BURKS: Yes, they were all segregated.

DUNHAM: So what was it like going to school at that time?

BURKS: You was used to it, we loved it, we had our own whatever, whatever, 00:03:00whatever. Yeah, we never did live too far from the school.

DUNHAM: It was walking distance?

BURKS: Yes. Now, when I went to high school I was twenty-six blocks from school, but I walked them!

DUNHAM: That was quite a walk then.

BURKS: Well, I could have rode for five cents, but the bus was so crowded, by the time the bus got there I was already at school.

DUNHAM: What was school like? Do you have any teachers you particularly remember, or have any favorite subjects?

BURKS: All our teachers was black, except--if you were not going to college you still had to take those college credits, just in case you had the opportunity to go you already had them. So before I came here I was going to be a teacher, but after they asked--Boeing needed some people, and when would you like to go? 00:04:00There was six of us decided we would like to go the farthest away from home as we could go, and Seattle was it. Because quite a few of them went to Detroit, and quite a few went to New York. We wanted to go the farthest away, and we were looking for something like working on the railroad, especially getting into something I guess.

DUNHAM: Why did you want to go the farthest away?

BURKS: I don't know. Because we hadn't seen that part of the country. The teacher always talked about Oregon, Oregon, Oregon Territory, Oregon Territory. [laughs] So we never really heard about Seattle. So we wanted to come to Seattle.

DUNHAM: Well, before you came out here what was it like growing up, especially during the Depression a lot of those years?

BURKS: We were blessed, I guess, because we had what you call the welfare, and they would give you a slip to give to the rent man that says you can't pay the rent. And they would give you vouchers where you can go and get your groceries, you know. And then they would give you one where you could wear shoes or 00:05:00dresses, or what--so we were pretty well blessed so far as the South. I think President Roosevelt, I think, started that.

DUNHAM: With the New Deal programs.

BURKS: And then when I got here and talked to some of the people--they were from Wyoming and different places--they didn't have that opportunity. They were Caucasian.

DUNHAM: Interesting. So your school was completely segregated, but you said you did play with--socially you did play with white children? Or did you not interact with them?

BURKS: Not in my neighborhood. We lived near them, and we played with them so far as going to school, but no, all of ours was black.

DUNHAM: As far as the white man willing the store to your uncle who worked there, was that unusual then?

BURKS: Oh yeah, they were nice. They were friendly.

DUNHAM: Okay, but was it--how did the community feel about that, I guess? Was that any problem for the white--no?

BURKS: No, no, see because if we lived on Avenue H, the white people started on 00:06:00the next block, on I. And see, the ones lived on that they did, but we lived on this side.

DUNHAM: Yeah, what did you do for fun when you were a kid?

BURKS: I went to church most of the time. I was in plays; I did singing with a group.

DUNHAM: What church did you go to?

BURKS: Sixth Avenue Baptist. And what you see in there now, it's Sixteenth Street Baptist. That's the one where they bombed those kids. Well, our church was made exactly like theirs, but one was on the North Side and one was on the South Side. We went to Sunday school, we went to BYPU [Baptist Young People's Union], eleven o'clock service. We were always in the church, always doing plays, doing singing or something. And we had a club after church, and we had a lady that would look after us at these meetings.

DUNHAM: What kind of club was that then?

BURKS: It was from the church. And we weren't allowed to chew gum, eat candy. 00:07:00Guys couldn't wear their hats in church. They had to be very polite to their elders. They didn't talk back to them.

DUNHAM: What was a typical day like for your mother when you were growing up?

BURKS: My mother was a stay-home--she washed, she cleaned house, and she made sure that we got to school. And when we got a little older she did the washing for my dad and the boys, but the three girls had to do their own washing. That was me and my sister Dorothy. And if they wasn't clean, we had to take them off the line and wash them again. So it was pleasant.

DUNHAM: And what was your home like in terms of--now you have modern conveniences. What was it--?

BURKS: Oh yeah, yeah, there was big old tin tubs that you took a bath with. You heat the water, put the water in the tub and take a bath. And the washing--I 00:08:00used to help my foster grandmother. She had this big tub on the outside of her house {______?} flowers, and she boiled her clothes, and then we washed them and hung them on the line.

DUNHAM: And as far as toileting did you, what kind of--did you have in the house?

BURKS: Did we have what?

DUNHAM: A toilet? As far as a toilet, was it--?

BURKS: Oh, ours was on the back porch. You go out of the back door, and the toilet's around the back door. They improved since I left there, but that's the way it was when I was there.

DUNHAM: When you were a little girl did you have any particular thing you hoped to be when you grew up?

BURKS: Yeah, I wanted to be a schoolteacher.

DUNHAM: Oh, that's right. You did say that.

BURKS: I teach now, but not in a school. I am an instructor for the School of Ushering.

DUNHAM: For the school of--

BURKS: Yeah, teach them how to take up collections, seat people, how to treat the guests when they come into the church. And we have--did some for auditoriums 00:09:00that came here from New York, but their type of ushering was different from our type of ushering.

DUNHAM: Oh, how so?

BURKS: Well, it was more a theater background what they did, but we learned a lot from that.

DUNHAM: You said in high school--did you do any working outside the home while you were still in school back in Birmingham?

BURKS: Yeah, sometimes I did housework for--you know, clean up for somebody to help out. See, when I was going to high school we wore a uniform, and the money that I made I would buy my shoes, my uniform, and so forth.

DUNHAM: You had to pay for your own uniform?

BURKS: Yes. And your own books too.

DUNHAM: What was it like doing that kind of work?

BURKS: It was nice. The people was young, they were nice. Most like--one family was a Jewish family. They were nice. And another family, they were looking for a house--they were all Caucasian. So I rode in the back with the little boy with 00:10:00the ice cream. So if the sun was too hot, I wouldn't go back to that job no more. So I would go to another one, and I had one at night. My dad always would come to get me, because he didn't want us out at night. So that was--it was nice. And then see when school started--I had to go back to school, so I couldn't work there.

DUNHAM: Can you say a little more--to our imagination it must have been very tough, growing up, particularly African American at that time, but--

BURKS: No, it's just--if you're used to something and they come to you--it's just ordinary. You don't worry about it. You don't think about it!

DUNHAM: But when you said your dad didn't want you out at night--

BURKS: See, I worked at some of those houses where I cleaned it was at night. So he didn't want us, want me, to walk home at night, so he would come and meet me.

DUNHAM: Right, because he was worried for your safety.

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Did you ever have, you or other members of your family, have some 00:11:00difficult encounters with white folks?

BURKS: I had one cousin, she was an instructor. She was over at the high school finding jobs for them. They had to call her Mrs. Evans. They had to respect her or else she wouldn't answer.

DUNHAM: Teaching--she was teaching at a white school or a black school?

BURKS: She was at a black school, but she had to be in an encounter with the white school to find jobs for the black kids.

DUNHAM: Interesting. Was there anything else you'd like to share with us about growing up in Birmingham at that time, in the twenties and thirties?

BURKS: I know--there was a high school for black, high school for white. They changed our bus schedule, so we went thirty minutes later than the white high 00:12:00school, because they were always in an argument.

DUNHAM: There was a question of fairness around that then, I assume?

BURKS: Yes. And then sometimes on Christmas parades and different parades at night, well they think they could have gotten in front of us, but my little cousin wouldn't permit. Just didn't want to {____?}. So it was just about as bad on one side as it was on the other. [laughs]

DUNHAM: So there were some tensions there.

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: Was there violence, or even lynchings, that you knew of?

BURKS: Not that I knew of, see because when you're little they're not going to tell you everything, and you're not going to be involved in it. So you actually--because I went to visit one of my friends, she lived in a little town. She said, "Take the bus on the next street." I said why? She said, "Because the 00:13:00white kids will throw rocks at you." But see, where I lived they didn't do that. It was out in the neighborhood where she was.

DUNHAM: Another part of Birmingham?

BURKS: Well, you call it a little town from Birmingham.

DUNHAM: Had your family, your grandparents, been in that area as well?

BURKS: I think my foster grandparents--I think they was quite wealthy to a certain extent, and when the banks went--you know, when they, on one morning you had a--

DUNHAM: In the Depression, yeah.

BURKS: --the banks went away? Well, she lost her money that way. So she moved over on the South Side, so her wealth wasn't as nice as it was then, but she still had the same friends. Most of the time the friends would be doctors--black doctors, black lawyers, and black schoolteachers.

DUNHAM: What was health care like when you were growing up? Did you see a doctor?

BURKS: No, we was pretty healthy, because the parents in those days they know what to give you instead of pills. I didn't like castor oil. [laughs]

DUNHAM: Castor oil? When--did they make you take that?

BURKS: Yeah, but my mother gave me some castor oil once, and I didn't want to take it. I threw it out of the dresser. I was too dumb to know that she's going to find it. [laughs]

DUNHAM: Oh yeah? Then what happened?

BURKS: Oh, she gave me some more.

DUNHAM: Was that a preventive thing?

BURKS: Yeah, that's for cough, colds. We never did have, really, coughs and colds, because we had tea and certain foods we ate that would help. I don't think I ever remember taking a pill coming up. We had a free clinic that you could go for your shots, for--where you go for your measles shots and stuff like that. But they always give you preventive medicine.

DUNHAM: What types of things did you eat growing up?

BURKS: At that time I didn't like fish, but I'd eat just--oh, my favorite was beans and greens. It still is! [laughs]

DUNHAM: Did you learn to cook when you were growing up?

BURKS: No. I didn't lean to cook until I got to Seattle.

DUNHAM: What was high school like? The war started; do you remember where you were when you heard about Pearl Harbor?

BURKS: Yeah, that was December 7, I think. Our history teacher has been teaching us all along about December 7, I think it was. And at that time it didn't dawn on me because I didn't think, possibly, that anybody would attack America. I did not. So by that time we were in high school, going to dances, having recess, that any of us kids think too much of it until they said that--Pearl Harbor, I think it was. And then they asked who wanted to go to work for the, for--and when we came to Seattle we missed the train. We were standing on the platform talking, my mom and all of her friends. They had someone at the dormitory to 00:16:00pick us up, take us to the dormitory in South Seattle I guess, and you went in there, they locked the gate. They had soldiers to guard the gate while we were in there. And the weekend you could go and stay until 12 o'clock, but you had to have a chaperone. You didn't leave that dormitory unless you had a chaperone.

DUNHAM: Who were the chaperones?

BURKS: They were white.

DUNHAM: White women?

BURKS: White women.

DUNHAM: Because it was all women in your dormitory?

BURKS: Yes. They had a dormitory for men, but we were all here. And we were all--

DUNHAM: And was the dormitory segregated?

BURKS: No, not really, because we had girls from Texas, Oklahoma, all southern and then all the western, and we were over there. But when we went out it was segregated, because we went where the black soldiers were.

DUNHAM: Where was that? Where were the--?

BURKS: The chaperone--we went to Spokane.

DUNHAM: Oh, all the way to Spokane.

BURKS: We'd go out with about five or six chaperones in there, and we weren't allowed to let--the boys were not allowed to get on the bus when the dance was over. We were not allowed to dance close to each other because the chaperone was there. And if you didn't go by rules and regulations they could send you back to the state from which you came.

DUNHAM: So did that happen to some of your friends?

BURKS: One girl, and I think she was from Arizona.

DUNHAM: What had she done, do you know?

BURKS: She just didn't want to come in on time.

FUKUMOTO: Did white women have chaperones too?

BURKS: Oh sure!

FUKUMOTO: So that was just the era. Women had chaperones.

BURKS: Yeah, that was the rules and regulations.

DUNHAM: So strictly to and from USO dances? Or was that the same if you were 00:18:00going to civilian areas?

BURKS: Oh, we didn't go to civilian area dances at that time while you were in the service--only Navy, Marine, and Army.

DUNHAM: Were you dating at that time?

BURKS: My boyfriend had gone to the war, and I went to Seattle.

DUNHAM: So your boyfriend was back from Birmingham area?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: And so when did you meet?

BURKS: In high school. His picture is there [pointing to a photo].

DUNHAM: Oh, that's right. I'm sorry. So what was dating like back in Alabama?

BURKS: We used to go out in groups, yeah.

DUNHAM: You weren't engaged, though, before he went away to war?

BURKS: No.

DUNHAM: And what branch of the military did he join, and what did he do?

BURKS: He went to the Army.

DUNHAM: And what was he able to do? I know there was still segregation in the military, so it was--

BURKS: I think he mostly did Germany and France.

DUNHAM: Oh, he did go over--served overseas?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Were you able to correspond with him?

BURKS: Oh yeah, and there was a lady from Germany said her boyfriend was killed in the war, and she would tell me all about Germany. I don't know, I just felt sorry for her for some reason. But at that time shoe ration--ration, sugar was rationed, butter was rationed. She didn't care for any of that. She gave me all of her stamps, so I got sugar, butter--her name was Irma.

DUNHAM: Did you give her anything in exchange, or she just didn't want--?

BURKS: No, she didn't want them.

DUNHAM: Well, that's nice.

BURKS: At smoke period--she didn't smoke, neither did I, but we would sit on the steps at lunchtime, and we just talked to each other.

DUNHAM: This was at Boeing here?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Was she African American?

BURKS: No, she was a Caucasian. She was German.

DUNHAM: She was from Germany?

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: How had she gotten to Boeing, do you know?

BURKS: I don't know. I really don't, because when we went to Boeing a lot of the men had to go into the service, so we had to take the jobs they were doing. So I was a mechanic. She was a mechanic too.

DUNHAM: Was she fluent in English?

BURKS: Her English was fluent. You know, I could kind of understand what she was saying, but you can tell when a foreigner's spoken to you.

DUNHAM: So she had broken English, strong accent.

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Well, back in Birmingham, before you came to Seattle, how did you find out about the opportunities to work elsewhere?

BURKS: One of my friends said, "Katie, they take an application, you go someplace--just go." I said, "Okay, I'll go!" [laughs] My mother didn't mind, but I had a hard time with my father. It was another lady that I could go to, to come back, I said, "Mom, she said if I could go, she could go." She go to her 00:21:00mother and said, "She can go if we would go." So that's how we got hooked up with each other.

DUNHAM: And you had to come up with quite a sum of money though, is that right?

BURKS: No, only fifty dollars.

DUNHAM: Was that required by Boeing, or was that just--?

BURKS: Evidently by the government, because that's when I got my first Social Security card. And then they made sure you had a chaperone when you were out, they made sure someone met you when you got there.

DUNHAM: Did you have a chaperone on the way out? You came on the train.

BURKS: No, no.

DUNHAM: And did you come all the way on the train?

BURKS: All the way on a train.

DUNHAM: What was that like?

BURKS: Exciting. The first time we'd been let alone on a train. And see, it was six of us girls, not all from my immediate territory, but we were all from Birmingham.

DUNHAM: What do you remember about that journey out west?

BURKS: Oh, the conductor was extra nice to us. I guess because he--a lot of the soldiers on that thought Washington DC was the same as Seattle, Washington. And 00:22:00when we told them it took us five days to get here, they didn't want to believe us, because we took that long route through Montana. All the way around, it took us five days to get here.

DUNHAM: That was a longer route than you needed to take, is that right?

BURKS: Yeah, we took the long route. [laughs]

DUNHAM: You wanted to see the country, is that it?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Did you stop places and get to see it?

BURKS: Any time when they stopped you could go out and get coffee, a sandwich, like that. And one time we did it coming, we stopped--or that was after the war. We had a straight cut.

DUNHAM: And was the train an integrated train? Or how was it situated?

BURKS: I think it was a segregated train. A lot of smoke.

FUKUMOTO: How did you convince your dad to let you go out west? I would assume that he wasn't really happy, right? Didn't want you to go that far, but how did 00:23:00you convince him?

BURKS: How did I do what?

FUKUMOTO: How did you convince your daddy--how did your daddy finally say, "All right, go ahead"?

BURKS: They changed our zip code, and I said, "Oh Daddy, we're not going to use that zip code again." He said, "Why?" I said, "Because they'll change it, and I won't be living here anymore." So he said, "Okay, go ahead." And my mother said she had taught us all that she knew, and she knew that we would do according to what the Bible and what she said to--she wasn't worried about us because she knew. And one of her friends gave us a little Bible that said St. John. I read that Bible every night until I said, well, maybe I'd better get a bigger one of my own. And they wrote us all the time, we called each other on the phone. I never got homesick till Sunday, always got homesick on Sundays.

DUNHAM: Because you missed your church?

BURKS: And my dad came out a little after. And we was going to show Dad the 00:24:00town. Dad had gone to Canada, everywhere, by himself, while we were working at Boeing. And then my mother and my younger sister came out later.

DUNHAM: They moved out? Or they just came to visit?

BURKS: No, they came out to visit.

DUNHAM: Was that in part because of--you were making pretty good money and able to help with that?

BURKS: Yeah, because I sent money home. Every payday I sent home money to help my mom and my sisters and brothers.

DUNHAM: How much more money were you able to make at Boeing than what you could have made back home?

BURKS: When we first started, if you worked a second shift you got eighty-two cents an hour.

DUNHAM: What's the best you could have made back in Birmingham at that time?

BURKS: Well, see we were in training most of the time, and we were only getting sixteen dollars a month for the training. And see, I never really had a regular job in Birmingham.

DUNHAM: Best case, in Birmingham this was a lot, lot more than you could have made there.

BURKS: Yeah, most of them went in to be nurses, nurse training, and stuff like that. We left before we got that age, I think, because yeah, because that 00:25:00eighty-two cents was good too. You were able to save, pay your rent, buy your food.

DUNHAM: So you went straight to the dormitories, where you were guarded. Then what was the initial training period or application? Had you already applied to Boeing?

BURKS: Oh yeah. We had morning duty. That means you clean up the restroom or you did the dishes, or you had afternoon duties where you clean up the restroom. In between, I took mechanic, and it was so cold in July I almost froze. And every time they would look for us for the afternoon--we weren't used to cherry trees. We'd be all out in the cherry tree eating up the cherries. [laughs]

DUNHAM: They were good. So I'm curious that I hadn't heard about this cleaning duty that you had.

BURKS: Oh yeah, you cleaned the restroom.

DUNHAM: Was that all the new women? White and black women?

BURKS: No, everybody had a duty to do. And you were there for two weeks.

DUNHAM: And you got your training in between doing that.

BURKS: Yeah, yeah.

DUNHAM: You had a choice of choosing mechanic or something else? Or did you take a test?

BURKS: I don't know, because they just had me down for mechanic, and most all of them went riveting. My sister and I went to mechanic, but all the rest of them went riveting. I guess they'd send you where they needed you.

DUNHAM: Did riveting and mechanics, did they make roughly the same?

BURKS: No, the riveters--I'd say the riveters filled the hole where the mechanic had drilled them, but some of them were in layout loft and different things, but you had to take Blueprint.

DUNHAM: Had to take what?

BURKS: Blueprint, Boeing Blueprint. So I took Blueprint I, and then when I got upgraded I took Blueprint I and II. And then when I got another upgrade I took 00:27:00Blueprint III.

DUNHAM: Were those classes provided by Boeing, or did you have to pay for classes?

BURKS: The first one, it was provided by Boeing. It wasn't very much.

DUNHAM: What was it like doing this new job when you first started it?

BURKS: We were so busy learning each other, enjoying each other, talking about each other's country. I didn't even know what an outer house was.

DUNHAM: What--a what?

BURKS: An outer house.

DUNHAM: What is that?

BURKS: Where they go to do their business in a little house outside from a regular house. And my supervisor told us about that one.

DUNHAM: What was your supervisor like, and what was the makeup of the rest of your crew?

BURKS: I've always had real good supervisors. I was born outgoing, talked a lot, laughed a lot, so I could get along with anybody. I had one supervisor, he'd come around--I work and he'd come around, and I'd go--"You look so mean." I 00:28:00said, "Boss, don't you come around this corner unless you're going to smile." [laughs]

DUNHAM: Did that work? Yeah?

BURKS: Yeah. [laughs]

DUNHAM: We've heard sometimes that men were particularly rough on women, to begin with, and then also, certainly, that there was racial challenges at times with whites and blacks, and particularly whites coming from the South. So what about--?

BURKS: Well, in my area most of the men was going to go to the service. There was one guy, we called him Black Market. He would go and buy all the candy and come back and sell it, and if I'd do his work he would give me the candy!

DUNHAM: You could do your work and his work in the regular shift?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Was he a mechanic also?

BURKS: To tell you the truth I don't know what he was. All I saw was he was selling candy!

DUNHAM: [laughs] Well, what work were you doing?

BURKS: He was supposed to have been a mechanic.

DUNHAM: He was supposed to be a mechanic. He never did his work?

BURKS: Sometimes. I think he mostly was an alcoholic.

DUNHAM: Oh, I'm sorry.

BURKS: He was real nice.

DUNHAM: Did the supervisor know you were doing his work too?

BURKS: See, you do--a certain hour you have to do your work, then the plane moves down and another crew gets in. See, by the time he comes out our work is already done, they give you so long to do it. And if you're a fast worker you can do it.

DUNHAM: So if you weren't doing two people's jobs, then did you just have break time? What did people do with that free time if they had extra time?

BURKS: Well, you really didn't have, because you had to sweep the place up, clean it up.

DUNHAM: Which shift were you working?

BURKS: I went in on second shift.

DUNHAM: So swing shift?

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: What hours was that, like--?

BURKS: I went in at 4:00 and out at 12:00 at night. And then I finally went to day shift, and that was 7:30 in the morning to 3:00, I think.

DUNHAM: When you were working swing shift what did you do when you got off?

BURKS: Oh, sometimes we'd go to the movie, sometimes we'd stop and get chili beans, and sometimes we went to work. And before I went to work in the morning, and afternoon, I'd always go to the movie. And I would see every--I Walked with [a] Zombie, all them scary pictures, I'd go see them. You can't even get me to see them on TV now! And then I'd go to work.

DUNHAM: Why did you like those movies back then?

BURKS: I don't know. I Walked with [a] Zombie, you know that one?

DUNHAM: I'm not sure I know that one. That was a particular favorite?

BURKS: She was a regular lady, but the zombie would suck her blood out and she would become a zombie. [laughs] And the Draculas. All those pictures. I went by myself.

DUNHAM: You went by yourself to those?

BURKS: I went before I went to work, then I'd go to work.

DUNHAM: So that was your little break before work. And the movies then had the 00:31:00news reels and that type of thing where you would get news of the war and all that?

BURKS: Oh yeah.

DUNHAM: How else did you get news? Did you read the newspaper, listen to a radio?

BURKS: About coming to Boeing?

DUNHAM: No, just for news and information.

BURKS: Oh, I was just doing something before going to work, because there was six of us living in the house. Two of them worked day shift, and the other two all worked second shift.

DUNHAM: Was this still in the guarded house? Or was that just for a short period of time?

BURKS: No, that was after we left that. Before you go to a house they had to investigate that house and make sure it was decent enough for a single girl to live in.

DUNHAM: Who would do that investigation?

BURKS: Oh, somebody Boeing had hired.

DUNHAM: What was the first place you lived outside of there?

BURKS: We lived on Fourteenth and Jackson. We also all was a member of the YWCA and they had good councils too. We had teas and parties there. I should have had 00:32:00that picture of that.

DUNHAM: Oh, we could look later, but yeah, and see--

BURKS: Where the guys would come that didn't have nowhere, and we would serve them coffee and tea and we would dance with them. And they liked for somebody to talk to just about their hometown. And I did meet quite a few guys from Birmingham in Seattle.

DUNHAM: Who were not necessarily--not in the service but who were--?

BURKS: They were in the service. Because I got off the bus one day, and the fellow said, "Don't I know you?" I said, "No, you don't." He said, "Yes, you do. You live on Fifteenth." And I said, "Oh, you know me?" And he said, "I went to your high school!" And so that's how I got to see him again. And at the USO you met a lot of guys from your hometown. All they want to do is just talk about their hometown.

DUNHAM: So I know you said just Sunday you got homesick.

BURKS: I don't know, I always got homesick on Sunday.

DUNHAM: What were you homesick for? What did you miss?

BURKS: My mom, my family and everybody. I'd call them up, and I'd write these long letters.

DUNHAM: What would you share in those letters?

BURKS: How I missed them. How I missed my church, how I missed my friends, and I would tell them all the things that I was doing in the work and everything.

DUNHAM: What were some of the other things you were doing here?

BURKS: Oh, here in Seattle?

DUNHAM: Yeah.

BURKS: We had dancing. We took up crocheting, knitting, and different things we wanted to.

DUNHAM: Now, what was the racial dynamic like here? I know it had been very segregated in Birmingham. Maybe more integrated here but still segregated in ways, yes?

BURKS: Well, when I first got here white people was the only one doing operation of elevators. They were doing all of that. And we did have a picnic plan to go 00:34:00to Juanita Beach. And when we got there--we had already made a reservation, everything. So when we got there they told us they didn't have no room. We knew why they did it, so we came on back to the Y, and we had our party there. We used to go from Seattle to, through, across the Atlantic, five cents a head, and the car we were in was so full he said, "Full Load." And we only paid forty-five cents for all nine of us. We got there and we went airplane riding.

DUNHAM: Where was this?

BURKS: Going over Atlantic folding bridge is what we called it, see, and they had on Sunday where you could go riding just for joy, and when you and the pilot was the oldest one on the airplane.

DUNHAM: Wow, so that was fun I take it.

BURKS: But don't ever go first, because you've got to sit there and wait till everybody else go.

DUNHAM: Oh, that's why. Okay. Did you go first?

BURKS: I went first.

DUNHAM: And were the pilots African American?

BURKS: No, he was white, but he'd do these dips like that--and sometimes he'd take his hands off, and he'd say, "Who's driving the plane? Who's driving the plane?" Trying to get you excited, but they were real nice.

DUNHAM: What would that cost?

BURKS: I think we paid about five cents for that too, and it was fifteen of us going. And I was sitting there, waiting as fifteen peoples go up and come back, so don't be the first one to go. [laughs]

DUNHAM: All women? Was it all a group of women?

BURKS: Yeah.

FUKUMOTO: That's fun.

BURKS: And the guy that took us, he was a man, because we left the Y and went across, you know where the folding bridge was, like that--you had to pay a toll to go on it.

DUNHAM: Did you live at the Y? Or the Y was just a place that had services?

BURKS: Some of them did, but we lived with a housemother.

DUNHAM: What was it like when you moved in with the housemother?

BURKS: I never did go with the housemother. I already had a council where we 00:36:00were going to live, and see, it was six of us in one house.

DUNHAM: You were on your own, the six of you.

BURKS: Yeah, more or less, yes.

DUNHAM: So you had freedom to do whatever you want at that point? You didn't have a curfew or anything like that?

BURKS: Well, if you've been trained, you're not going to do anything that you haven't been trained to do. And the housemother used to cook for us, but we wouldn't eat, so she'd shout.

DUNHAM: Why wouldn't you eat what she cooked?

BURKS: We ate out. And the church we went to, we would have to get the bus, a transfer to go to Mt. Zion, so one of the ladies found a house about, a church about five blocks from our house. We walked there, and the pastor and his wife was just like our mothers, they really looked after us, and we've been at that same church ever since.

DUNHAM: What were the differences in the church here from the church back home, aside from missing your family and friends?

BURKS: It was about the same. My church back home was such a huge church, and the one here I went to wasn't. But now we've done our church three times.

DUNHAM: Did it have a choir, and did you sing?

BURKS: Yeah, at home the young peoples could sing but not usher. I always wanted to be an usher. So when I came to Seattle they didn't have any ushers, so the same people who sang in the choir was ushers. So when we started ushering they went back in the choir.

DUNHAM: Your one sister was working at Boeing with you, is that right?

BURKS: My what sister?

DUNHAM: Did you have a sister working with you at Boeing?

BURKS: No, she came with me.

DUNHAM: She was a mechanic also?

BURKS: Yes. She was what you call a layout. She'd get the paper, and she'd lay out where it should go. And see, when we'd get a blueprint, the layout--sometimes we have ADCN or DCN. ADCN is already involved with the drawing. DCN, you're going to work it but it has not been put on the drawing at 00:38:00the time.

DUNHAM: What exactly did you do in a given day at your work?

BURKS: Oh, I read the blueprint, I'd drill holes, I laid out or--and I assembled things.

DUNHAM: You assembled the parts of the plane.

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: Did you enjoy the work?

BURKS: Oh yes! And I used to rout it, with a big old router, with a drill in it, and you could go around the {_____?} like that. That was fun. You'd drill a hole--you drilled the hole, but the riveter reamed the holes up more, so the buckle on the other side can buckle the rivet they're putting in.

DUNHAM: Right, so you did the first part, and then they did that.

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: Were you working by yourself, or were you working in tandem with, working together--?

BURKS: More or less at first by myself, but I always was teaching somebody else that came in later.

DUNHAM: So you were a quick study and doing other people's work even.

BURKS: That was when I first went to Boeing, but after then you made it to be a B mechanic they gave you a certain job. And then when I made it to be a A mechanic, I wanted to go on day shift. And the supervisor didn't want me to leave the shift, so the day shift said go down and put in for a transfer. I went down and put in for a transfer. I had had that supervisor before. He accepted me. So when I went to the other job he says, "What shift?" I say, "Oh, day shift." But the lady that took my job, she quit, because she got tired of him saying, "Katie could do this. Katie did this." She said she told her one day, "Let Katie do it," and she quit. See, though, that was a mean supervisor. I wasn't doing no more than she could have done, but he wanted her to speed up 00:40:00what she was doing.

DUNHAM: Because they missed you, because you were fast. Was this still during the war?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Why did you want to switch to day shift?

BURKS: I think that's more because of my church work and the other ladies. See, we was at the YWCA, YWCA.

DUNHAM: But did you make less on the day shift than the swing shift?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: But it was worth it to you--

BURKS: But we worked quite a bit of overtime.

DUNHAM: You did? Okay. So how did the overtime work, because didn't the shifts--?

BURKS: You got ten cents an hour more.

DUNHAM: Did the shifts overlap? But there was room to still be working--

BURKS: No, not unless you was working overtime, because you had about thirty minutes in between.

DUNHAM: But if you did stay and work overtime did that overlap with the swing shift?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: There was room enough for you all to be working?

BURKS: Oh yeah.

DUNHAM: How did you go from being a B mechanic to an A mechanic? You were evaluated?

BURKS: Yeah, you were evaluated, and then you had to stay there so long, and then you had to do a good work. And you've got to be high on the seniority.

DUNHAM: How long did it take you to progress, to move up?

BURKS: About six months. But the lady that I took her place, she went higher.

DUNHAM: What kinds of challenges were there doing this work or dealing with folks?

BURKS: There was always someone to teach you their job before they leave, so the ones that's already been there know that job, they will teach you that job before they leave. And so when somebody's going to take your place, you've got to teach that person, and if somebody's working with you, you've still got to teach that person.

DUNHAM: Did you ever have folks that you were teaching who didn't really take to it?

BURKS: Only one, yeah. And I told the supervisor that I had taught him how to do it, and he said he'd do it the way he wanted to do it. I said, "I left him alone." So the supervisor had a meeting. He says, "When I'm not here, Katie's it, because she's been trained for that." So we all got along--he was kind of an elderly guy. He worked on the first bench, and he was kind of set in his ways. You know how that goes. He was too old for the service, I guess. And he stuck to himself. He didn't bother nobody.

DUNHAM: But did some of the men give the women a hard time sometimes? They didn't say the word "harass" then, but there were older men/younger women.

BURKS: No, because I always had a smart word to tell them back.

DUNHAM: Like what would be an example of that?

BURKS: Oh, one guy told me, he said, "You'll holler if they hung you with a new rope." I said, "Not if they hung you first."

FUKUMOTO: So you were quick. [laughs]

BURKS: And there was one supervisor. We were sitting out in the sun. He rubbed my leg. I said, "Uh-uh. Unhand them brown legs." And he was an Indian--oh, we got to be such a good friend, him and his wife. Always have something to say back, then they won't get smart no more. They didn't tell me no dirty jokes either, because I wouldn't allow it. I didn't tell dirty jokes, and they wasn't going to tell me any.

But always say something nice to them and always have a smile, a laugh, and you'll always get along with a person. Even if you know what it mean, but still you don't say it. I went up to the engineers one day, and he says, "Oh, here comes Sunshine." I said, "Don't you ever call me Sunshine again, because that's what the white folks call black folks in the South. You're so black you're like 00:44:00the sun. You shine." So he said--and I told him, he said, "No, Katie. It's so dull up here when you come up here you're just like a breath of sunshine to us." Well, then that settled that. Because if you don't know what they're thinking or what their meanings are, you've got the wrong interpretation.

DUNHAM: I had not heard that that was a negative. Were there other things that people called you or others?

BURKS: One guy asked me what did I want him to call me. I said, "Oh, just not too late for dinner will do me." And I keep going.

DUNHAM: Well, I imagine because of your style you didn't have problems or fights and all, but were you aware of fights and things sometimes?

BURKS: Only one lady. She didn't want to have lunch with blacks. And all the people that I'd been eating with, the lady that her granddaughter's named after me, she said, "Well, she don't want to eat with you." I said, "Good, because I'm 00:45:00reading anyway." And finally she got married; I went to her wedding. And it was kind of funny. She got married to this guy. He took everything she had in the house. She was an engineer. She came through there, and she took his toupee off and stuck it down in the glue. [laughs] We had fun! Every month we had a birthday club, where you bring a cake in and everybody eats cake.

DUNHAM: Did you have entertainment? Lunchtime entertainment or anything like that, bands come in? I know down in shipyards they had that kind of thing.

BURKS: Oh well, at Boeing that never was any shipyard.

DUNHAM: I just wonder if they had similar activities, or did they have like sports leagues or that kind of thing. Did people participate in that stuff?

BURKS: Yeah, now my sister worked at a shipyard.

DUNHAM: Oh, oh, she did?

BURKS: Yes. Eva Vassar, and you probably know Josie Dunn?

DUNHAM: Yeah, we're going to meet with Josie Dunn this afternoon, and Eva Vassar we did an interview with a few years back.

BURKS: Now, her niece is Lou Ann Charles.

DUNHAM: Right, the two of them were together. Are you related to either of them?

BURKS: Lou Ann Charles is a godparent of them two kids up there. [points to picture on the wall] And my husband was her best man when he got married. And she and I, when we go to all those states you see back there, we're always roommates. And her son picks me up, takes us to the airport, pick me up, bring me home after my husband--so we' re just like this, Lou Ann and I. We belong to the same United Church Ushers, and we're just always together.

DUNHAM: Did you have a sense of patriotism doing this kind of work? Or what was the notion of that?

BURKS: Well, I came because of going away from home, and to do money.

DUNHAM: A better opportunity.

BURKS: Yes. And I would like to talk to the lady--we had lady soldiers too that was lonesome, who would go dancing. They just want you to talk to them, and I just loved to talk--I worked at the USO quite a bit.

DUNHAM: Yeah, how did you get involved with the USO?

BURKS: They asked for volunteers, and we'd have chaperones. So by working in the afternoon, I went in the morning. We'd drink coffee and we'd sit there. And then one time--you could tell, on New Year's Eve everybody would be on the floor dancing. All at once the floor got empty. Everybody's going downstairs to pray. The old year out and the new year in. I'd say it was something we didn't forget. So many they wanted to do is just dance and talk. And I did dance with a guy from New York. He was a dancer. I didn't know it. So I went on the floor with 00:48:00him--if I'd known he was that good a dancer I don't think I would have went, but anyway, I kept up with him. [laughs]

DUNHAM: What kind of music?

BURKS: Oh, we had jitterbug, old time--just old time. But ballet dancing, all of it. And if you didn't know it, somebody would teach it to you. And don't say "I can't dance, I don't do that." They just take you--the chaperone wouldn't let you refuse, in the first place. So you got up, and before you knew it you were doing it.

DUNHAM: What was the deal with the union when you came? Did you join the union right away?

BURKS: The union didn't want you to join the union. We paid three dollars a month; we had to go down to the union hall to pay it.

DUNHAM: They did or did not want you to join?

BURKS: You didn't join the union, you just paid their dues.

DUNHAM: Because you were black?

BURKS: Yes. So as one guy, and I think his name was Stallsworth, that's--his 00:49:00daughter is my goddaughter. And then they stopped us on paying the dollar and a half. The white people was mad, because we was working without paying union dues, and they had to. Then we joined the union, if you wanted to. So I wanted to, so I joined the union.

DUNHAM: What was the difference of being in the union or not being in the union at that time?

BURKS: You got the same difference. The union had to represent you whether you paid or not, at that time.

DUNHAM: Was that a fight along racial lines, to be full members?

BURKS: I don't know. That was going on before we ever got to Seattle.

DUNHAM: During the war, were there ever any work stoppages or strikes?

BURKS: Because of the union?

DUNHAM: Or--yes, just because of conditions or--

BURKS: They had a strike that lasted a long time. But some of us, at first we 00:50:00were okay because you saved a little and you needed the rest. But if it got too long, you were ready to go back to work. I was always ready to go back, because I had a lot of fun at work.

DUNHAM: Was that long strike during World War II, or was that later?

BURKS: That was about the end of it, because when World War II ended in New York, in Europe, it wasn't the same time that it did it on the West Coast. And when it did it on the West Coast, everybody got in their cars, went downtown, blowing their horns and everything.

DUNHAM: For V-E Day or V-J Day?

BURKS: Yes. In '45 we all left the plant. Some of them went back, and you had to be called to come back if you were needed.

DUNHAM: So you were let go right away after--

BURKS: Well, and the plant just went away. And they came back as they were called.

DUNHAM: So what did you do then? That must have been a hard transition.

BURKS: I worked in a children's home for a while, and that was kind of hard too. Because sometimes a little girl would go, and her little brothers would stay. 00:51:00And I said, "Aren't you going to be sad that you left?" She said , "No, they left me once." And sometimes a little girl would be there, and her grandfather would come to see her, but she didn't want to talk to him. And that kind of hurt me for her family, not wanting to talk to each other. And they had a lot of apple trees. The housemother that took care of the kids was nice.

DUNHAM: Was it much less money that you could make then?

BURKS: I was recommended by the YMCA. I keep these MCA, and it's YWCA. And the lady that was going to take the job, she had gone to Canada, but her job had phased out before, so that made me--I could leave earlier.

DUNHAM: But was it similar salary to what you got at Boeing? Or was it a lot less?

BURKS: No, no. Nobody paid as much as Boeing. I did work at the laundry for a couple of times.

DUNHAM: How did you adjust to making a lot less money?

BURKS: Well, a lady taught me, she said, "When you get your paycheck, put it in the bank. You do so much for your rent, so much for your food, and so much you save. But as long as you've got the money, you're going to spend everything you've got. Put it in a--save it." You know, at a bank. She said, "Now, if you don't have it in your hands, you will save it." And that's how I started saving.

DUNHAM: At Boeing did they pay in cash or check?

BURKS: Oh, they paid every two weeks a check.

DUNHAM: Oh, it was a check. Sometimes I've heard of cash payments, so I wasn't sure. Did you live many different places, and was it challenging to find places to live?

BURKS: No.

DUNHAM: I know a lot of places there was still housing covenants and red-lining and that type of thing.

BURKS: Well, they were all government--but the first house we lived in, the man, Mr. West, the Japanese had gone to the war. They let Mr. West have their house 00:53:00and their store. We stayed in the house where Mr. West stayed, and when the Japanese got out of the concentration camps they got their store back, but I don't think they wanted the house back. But at that time my sister and I had moved, and I wanted the government housing. [cell phone ring tone in background]

DUNHAM: Do you need to check the phone, or is it okay? Speaking of that, did you know any Japanese Americans or Italian or German Americans?

BURKS: There was one little fellow. His name was Michael. My son was named Michael, so I adopted him. He was a little Japanese guy, and he'd go around and I said, "If you don't go to work, you'd better stop playing with these girls." "Okay, Mama." [laughs]

DUNHAM: Where did you meet him?

BURKS: And he used to ask me all the time, "Why, when walk down the aisle they walk like this, and when you walk down the aisle you walk like that?" I said, 00:54:00"Because I've got a girdle on and they don't." It was just something--him and I could talk. And we would go swimming.

DUNHAM: Was this at Boeing? Or where was this?

BURKS: It was at Boeing.

DUNHAM: So it was a Japanese American guy who worked at Boeing?

BURKS: Yeah, he had been to the concentration camp.

DUNHAM: Okay, after the war. So after the war you met.

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Did he ever talk about his time at the camps?

BURKS: Yeah, he said, "We were eating margarine, and they were eating butter."

DUNHAM: Well, speaking of eating, back to the transition from Alabama to here, were there foods that you missed and couldn't get here? Or how did you adapt to that?

BURKS: Well, our house--the food is always the same. Our housemother cooked the same food that we ate in Birmingham, and down to the market--they didn't know 00:55:00you ate greens. Because my doctor said they weren't any good. And the guy down the street, I used to get greens from him, about twenty-five cents, a big bunch, all at once his went {____?}. Then he started at the market, then he would ask you how would you cook those greens when you got it, because they'd never heard of collards. So we ate about the same food that we ate in Birmingham.

DUNHAM: What did you mean when you said the doctor said they weren't any good?

BURKS: My favorite doctor. I love him more than anything. He said there wasn't no vitamins in it.

DUNHAM: In collard greens?

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: But you kept eating them.

BURKS: Yes! Sure.

DUNHAM: The doctors aren't always right.

BURKS: That's right. Well, I guess they hadn't studied about it, and they really didn't know. Because we didn't know what take a pill was. We ate vitamins in our food.

DUNHAM: Did Boeing have its own health care on site if there were injuries and accidents?

BURKS: Yeah, and at Boeing we took a lot of--put a fire out. And we took how to see if your ears is working, and they put you in a little booth. They gave you all that.

DUNHAM: They tested everything. What did you say about a fire?

BURKS: How to put one out, you know they had these kind of things.

DUNHAM: Oh, they showed you. Did you ever have to do that on the job?

BURKS: No, but we practiced it quite a bit.

DUNHAM: Did you know of folks who got injured or even died on the job?

BURKS: No, I don't think so. I saw one have epilepsy fit once.

DUNHAM: Oh, an epilepsy seizure?

BURKS: Yes. He was only out about five or six minutes, then he comes back like nothing ever happened.

DUNHAM: But that was the first time you'd ever seen that? When you came to work, or before, had you heard about FDR's Executive Order 8802 banning racial discrimination?

BURKS: Yeah, that was in the union.

DUNHAM: At the beginning of the war, yeah, so before you came to work. I wondered if you heard about that or also about the Double V campaign for victory, for civil rights, here and abroad, over fascism, which was a--

BURKS: No, not really, because when we were studying in school you were more or less interested in getting out, getting your degree, going to college. So other things like that really didn't--be bothered with a teenage girl.

DUNHAM: Did you feel like you were breaking barriers as an African-American woman working at Boeing and doing this type of work?

BURKS: No, I really didn't. I really didn't.

DUNHAM: Looking back on it now and knowing that you were among the first women to do that?

BURKS: Because I just thought they needed somebody and I was available. But I enjoyed it, and the more peoples you meet the more you learn and the more you're interested in. Because the same Caucasian I had during the war, if they haven't passed on, I still have those same friends.

DUNHAM: If they had--

BURKS: Yes, a lot of them have passed. And in my cell phone--a lot of their children, their grandchildren, we're still calling each other. From the war.

DUNHAM: Well, that's very nice. Did you--but some of them didn't start out as friends.

BURKS: No, no.

DUNHAM: It took quite a bit of time to get there.

BURKS: And there's one lady, her name was Donna, her mother passed. She was Caucasian. And I said, "Okay, you don't have a mom. I'll be your mom." She still calls me momma. She lives in Montana.

DUNHAM: That's sweet. So after the war, how long before your eventual husband 00:59:00came back? Did he come straight here, or how did you reunite?

BURKS: No, he went back to Alabama. And then he came here in '46, and we got married in '46.

DUNHAM: So you had been waiting for him. Or did you do some dating in between?

BURKS: Well, when you've got a boyfriend you've just got to--he's there and I'm here. And you're so busy working and trying to help the family back home and going to church, and all of your friends you have here--but I was the first one in our group to get married. Some of them was already married and their husband went. But some of us were not.

DUNHAM: Did your other friends around here--were they dating? And what was dating like at that time?

BURKS: Really, we wasn't dating. [laughs] We were--just go, with a chaperone, go to church, go to work.

DUNHAM: You had chaperones all through the war?

BURKS: Yeah, through the war, yeah.

DUNHAM: Did you get engaged soon after he--?

BURKS: Well, more or less before he left we knew that some day we would get married.

DUNHAM: So you got married in '46 here in Seattle?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Was he planning to move here, or how did that go?

BURKS: I think he was more or less planning to go to Philadelphia, but I didn't want to go to Philadelphia. So I stayed in Seattle.

DUNHAM: So was that a negotiation?

BURKS: [laughs] I just wouldn't go to Philadelphia!

DUNHAM: So if he wanted to be with you, he had to come to Seattle.

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: And he wanted to be with you, obviously. So what did he do here in Seattle?

BURKS: He worked at Bethlehem Steel. And he was a craneman at Bethlehem Steel. 01:01:00Now, him and Josie Dunn's husband worked together.

DUNHAM: That's good to know. So what were things like after the war?

BURKS: Well, after the war--

DUNHAM: Here in Seattle. There had been a lot of jobs and opportunity with Boeing and all, and so--

BURKS: You know, in the South you know what prejudice and segregation is. And when you come north you don't know what is or what happened, because it's got two faces. One they put on like they pretend and no, they don't. So you know what they're like--you go on with your own life and just let it ease on in with it.

DUNHAM: But here, so you never knew when the prejudice might crop up?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: So in what ways did you--?

BURKS: That's when you go to some restaurant there's a chance they didn't want you in there, because they wait on you last or they didn't wait on you. I didn't have the money to go to the restaurant anyway, so it didn't bother me any, 01:02:00because I didn't go in there. So what you've got to know--and always respect peoples with courtesy. Now, when I got to see out--they had a sign that says White and one that says Black. Okay. Most of the time I didn't go, because I went to the bathroom before I left home, and I could stay downtown the whole day and didn't have to go. So that part didn't bother me. And then sometimes you meet some of the sweetest people that would talk to you, that would help you on the bus, and were just nice to you. So you figure that's the way God wanted it to be. So I'm still getting along with them.

DUNHAM: So the segregated bathrooms were just--were downtown, or were they also at work?

BURKS: No, they wasn't at work. No, they were just downtown in public places.

DUNHAM: Since many whites were used to that, and things weren't segregated at work. Did some of the whites have--were they unhappy about that? And did their 01:03:00prejudice come out there, particularly if you had southern whites or even whites from here?

BURKS: I know sometimes when you're getting ready to go try on a dress or so, they had different waiting rooms where you went to try the dress on. But then those signs eventually came off.

DUNHAM: Yeah, how long did that take here, for those signs to go away?

BURKS: Oh, about six months or more it must have been. I didn't pay that much attention because I didn't go downtown that often.

DUNHAM: What about through the years finding housing and/or buying places?

BURKS: That was a difficulty too, because your red-line district--certain places are the real estate would sell you a house, certain ones they won't sell you a house until you know--. But I told them I didn't want to go the other side of Madison. I want to stay on this side of Madison. So the white people in this 01:04:00area was moving out, so you could move in these houses. So they had what you call "burn, baby, burn," and all the white folks moving out and colored folks moving in. Now black persons can't move in here; it's too high. The property tax is too high. So they either got to go to Auburn or else they've got to go to Federal Way. Somebody always wanting to buy your house, always.

So he asked me, where would I go if I sold my house, or would I leave? I said, "Abbey View." He said, "Where is Abbey View?" I said, "Haven't you heard? That's the cemetery." [laughs] See, a lot of us, my church members went to Abbey View because the representative from Abbey View came to your house, and they made a policy, you go in that one, like Martin Watson. A lot of them go to Martin 01:05:00Watson because of that insurance. But see mine's went to Abbey View. So my whole family has got a plot in Abbey View. That was in '62.

DUNHAM: Is that when you moved here too?

BURKS: Yes. I've had it remodeled more or less.

DUNHAM: Yes, well it's lovely. In between those times, between the war and '62, did you live many different places and was it challenging?

BURKS: No, another town, no. I never left Seattle to go to another town.

DUNHAM: So this neighborhood has changed--

BURKS: Oh, definitely.

DUNHAM: --significantly.

BURKS: Because it was all mostly Japanese or Chinese. And I think the Japanese had this house when we got it.

DUNHAM: What is the makeup of the neighborhood nowadays?

BURKS: Let me see--there's a black, there's a black, there's a mixed, there's a 01:06:00white, there's a mixed--that's all on this block. See, over there there were houses, right there in the front of the water? Okay--all of those houses had to be moved out to some other place or either rebuilt, because that was housing. Now there's a park over there.

DUNHAM: Oh, just on the other side where the park is.

BURKS: Because of that.

DUNHAM: So you were fortunate not to be--when was that flood?

BURKS: When was that, '67?

DUNHAM: Oh wow.

BURKS: Well, everybody--the government paid for new refrigerators, new freezers, new electric--all that stuff, and to fix your basement where the water came in. So we were all lucky on that. Now, back over in that area, one lady got killed, remember, on the flood, because she couldn't go back up because the water was so full--well, they just finished that project about last year I guess.

DUNHAM: Did you hear of the community of Vanport during the war, down between Vancouver and Portland? It was wartime housing.

BURKS: I think our--Mr. Taylor, that's at the University of Washington?

DUNHAM: I'm not sure. It was a community for the shipyards down there.

BURKS: Oh, well see he put out a tape about that. There's three tapes of them, and it's three of them, and I paid eighty dollars for the three, and I have all of that for Portland, Oregon, Seattle, and all of the places and how they were segregated.

DUNHAM: They had a big flood in '48, I believe. So you didn't hear about it at the time, but you've learned about it since.

BURKS: I know when I went to University of Washington and Dr. Taylor was speaking, and he recommended--I mean he didn't recommend, but all of the blacks that had worked during the war, he had us stand, and they all {___________?}.

DUNHAM: Yeah, because there were struggles and challenges in that.

BURKS: A lot of them came from Portland to Seattle, because Seattle was doing better than the ones in Portland.

DUNHAM: Seattle was--at least relatively more progressive, I guess, was the case.

BURKS: I think Boeing was paying more than they were in Portland. Because Boeing has always been a melting pot as far as I'm concerned.

DUNHAM: How long before you returned to Boeing after the war?

BURKS: Five years.

DUNHAM: So they called you?

BURKS: No, some of the ladies that lived in, the woman that lived in--the woman that was out there in Seattle said they were hiring, so I went out and they hired me under my maiden name.

DUNHAM: Because that's the name you had been there before?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: They would not have hired you under your married name?

BURKS: Well, they probably would have, but they were looking up the record. And so when they found the record they said okay, and then I guess if I hadn't have 01:09:00had a record, then I would have had to go through everything everybody else had.

DUNHAM: What did you return as? The same position you'd left, or was it different?

BURKS: Our scales was different to a certain degree, so you still started at the lower but they were making more money than they were.

DUNHAM: Right. So you had to go back to a--you were a mechanic again?

BURKS: Yes.

DUNHAM: But had to go back down to a lower level?

BURKS: Yes. But it didn't take no time for me to come back up after I had been a mechanic, and so--

DUNHAM: And was it very similar work then, or did it change much?

BURKS: Let me see, I was kind of working semi-assembly.

DUNHAM: What kind of planes?

BURKS: And I think the work that I did when I went back was better, it was easier than when I left.

DUNHAM: Because it wasn't as pressured, as much? Or how was it easier?

BURKS: The type of work, the type of work. We'd make smaller parts when I went back, and you just read the drawing and see how it's made and put it together. 01:10:00But when I left I was working these big {_____?} up on the second floor, and you used routers and different things.

DUNHAM: Since it wasn't as challenging was it still as much fun?

BURKS: It all depends who your supervisors are and who you work with.

DUNHAM: How were your supervisors and your coworkers when you came back?

BURKS: I had real nice supervisors, because they came, just like I did, they came from the floor, as you call it. And they gave upgrades themselves, so they'd know how things went. But now they don't. Because those supervisors they got now, so I'm told, they have not gone from the bottom up. They get them from these--

DUNHAM: They bring them in as supervisors.

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: So did you run into that through the years, some supervisors that you had a harder time with because they hadn't come up?

BURKS: One, and I think he must have been a Jewish--he used to make all the 01:11:00ladies cry because they didn't keep up with the work. I didn't go to the bathroom and sit on the floor and talk. I did my work, and I did it good and fast. And you had an inspector inspect your work before they'd buy it. So if your work is always good and you're always on time, and everyone's on time--I went fourteen years without being absent or tardy. I would have gone longer, but one of the supervisors passed and we went to his funeral in Renton. We checked out, we checked back in. I was {adapted?} because I wasn't there, whereas at the other jobs they wasn't. And then the general supervisor, I got along with her. And one of the presidents of the board, was married at one time to the lady that her daughter's named after me. So when I went to her wedding--he had retired, but he had been one of the vice presidents. Now, one of those pictures up there 01:12:00is the president they had when they left Seattle to go to Chicago. I think I got my thirty-year pin from him. Now, he's the only picture up on the wall there. So when we got ready to go, all the guys put their dessert in front of me. They had champagne, but I wouldn't drink any champagne, but they gave me all their dessert. And I was the only lady at the party at the time.

DUNHAM: So when you came back in '50 did you work straight through? Or did you other times--?

BURKS: I worked straight through.

DUNHAM: Did you continue doing the same type of work all those years? Physical, mechanical?

BURKS: On the same basis, yes.

DUNHAM: Did you ever become a supervisor or wish to become a supervisor?

BURKS: No, no. I heard I was up for it. I wouldn't have taken it anyway, but no.

DUNHAM: You wouldn't have wanted to be a supervisor anyway?

BURKS: No. Because a lot have refused it too, because it was kind of--

DUNHAM: Because what?

BURKS: They were kind of stingy--well, not stingy, but something that they 01:13:00wanted them to do that they didn't think they wanted to do it. So they wanted to go back to the bench, as you call it. And they were good workers and they stayed till they retired.

DUNHAM: I see. Were there African Americans or women who did become supervisors?

BURKS: Yes, one used to live up the hill there, Olly. She was a supervisor--and a lady that I knew there too, she retired. She was a black supervisor too, a woman supervisor. Yeah, quite a few of them.

DUNHAM: Is there anything else about the war years that we didn't cover that you'd like to share?

BURKS: No, it was different--

DUNHAM: That I didn't ask you about?

BURKS: It was different, and a lot of the supervisors were just as new as we were, so far as making it with other people. And I learned a lot during the war 01:14:00about peoples from Wyoming and the southern whites, because the Wyoming, Montana whites, I thought they talked just like the southern whites, because they had that {______?} you know. But if a black person talked they knew who we were. And I wasn't too familiar with that {______?} used to have.

DUNHAM: So they talked similarly? But culturally they were different from the southern whites?

BURKS: Yeah.

DUNHAM: Like how so?

BURKS: Kind of a {______?}-type voice.

DUNHAM: Did they act differently too?

BURKS: No, we had a lot of questions to ask. We had a lot of questions to ask each other.

DUNHAM: What kinds of questions would you ask each other?

BURKS: I know one family, they were Caucasian. They worked for Caucasians, but when they would give him the food they ate, they would save the food and take it 01:15:00home and feed the family with it, and we never had to do that.

DUNHAM: Because you had food at home.

BURKS: Yeah, yeah. Welfare gave us stamps to go get food, stuff like that.

DUNHAM: So that comparison of those poorer white families from the Midwest.

BURKS: And the cold weather that we--in Birmingham we didn't have. Sometimes we had real cold weather, sometimes we didn't. But their cold weather seemed to have been a lot worse.

DUNHAM: Was one of the things you liked about Seattle, ultimately, the climate, because it didn't get so hot?

BURKS: At first I didn't like it. I didn't like that cold weather in June, but I got used to it.

DUNHAM: And now you like it?

BURKS: Oh yeah, I love the rain.

DUNHAM: Have you gone back and visited Alabama much?

BURKS: Oh yeah, I just got back in May. I went to my class reunion.

DUNHAM: Oh congrat[s]--wow!

BURKS: I got the crown. I got the corsage for living the farthest away from 01:16:00Birmingham and the longest one that had graduated from that high school, so I was very much honored.

DUNHAM: Many of your former schoolmates--

BURKS: They used to, but the ones that actually lives in Birmingham, they don't come to our class reunion. It's the people that's away from Birmingham that mostly come, and they are very nice to you. And they was taking pictures, and I went to buy my pictures in there someplace, and he said, "Your picture's paid for." I said, "I haven't paid for it yet." He said, "It's paid for." So a lot of things they paid for just because I was farthest away and thought enough to come down there. And besides, I spent two days with my brother and his children.

DUNHAM: Who are still there.

BURKS: Yeah, and one lady that lived in Birmingham--Birmingham, she lived in Seattle. She was in the hospital, so I went to visit her in Birmingham. She passed away eventually.

DUNHAM: So how has your hometown changed over these many years?

BURKS: Oh, quite a bit, quite a bit, quite a bit. Peoples are so much nicer, and they kind of tickle me in a way, "Can I help you ma'am?" I'm not used to that now. And they look at my driver's license, and my driver's license is different from theirs, and they wanted to look at it for a long time, Washington State license.

DUNHAM: How much of your family still lives there?

BURKS: Oh, I have sister-in-laws, I have nieces, nephews, one brother--no, I have three brothers there. Quite a few of my family is there. And a lot of nieces and nephews.

DUNHAM: What types of things are they doing now?

BURKS: Oh yeah, one is in the medical business. Most of them work in an office doing other types of work. My brother was in the bakery for a long time, and 01:18:00that's the one that's still there. His two nieces, they take care of their dad just like he's a king. Everybody used to say they wanted to give him his food when he was in the hospital. So my sister asked them, "Wouldn't you like for them to swallow it for him too?" [laughs] The fun you have, the little jokes they tell, it makes you laugh. Laughing is a part of the healing. You don't find too many peoples up here laugh.

DUNHAM: Well, looking back, how do you feel that the wartime work, this opportunity to do so-called men's work during that time influenced your life?

BURKS: It taught me how to meet people, how to get along with people, not to always think of myself but think of some other people. What would you feel if 01:19:00you were in that? Sometimes I'm on the bus, and if I see somebody crippled I offer a prayer for it. I say what would happen to me if God hadn't let me live as long as I have, and let me live and do the things that he wants me to do? And if an organization--every time I look up somebody's calling me, and I do my fifty-a-day Red Cross little kids. I send donations to them twice a year. But this year I only sent one, because I have been quite ill with my foot, that I couldn't wear a shoe. And so I didn't get around to do it as much as I would like to have done. But come next year, if God's will, I will. But if I came up with something this year, and as soon as you turn your back you've got stacks of them just like that. They want more donations, because that call when you were here--they wanted me to give something that I'd already given.

DUNHAM: What would you most like future generations to know about the World War II period and your experience in it and what we can learn from it?

BURKS: First I would like to know, in talks with this generation--everything they say and do is not right. They're not looking at the right side of the thing. They want to do what they want to do, not because it's right. And I tell you it's a new generation--it might be a new generation, but the same principle that you've got to go about. You've got to think about the other person sometimes before you think about yourself. And always be willing to help somebody, because you never know what position you're going to be in before you leave this world.

DUNHAM: That's very wise. Before we close today is there anything else you'd like to share with us today about your--?

BURKS: I enjoyed you calling, and I definitely enjoy Cindy with Women in Trades. 01:21:00She's so loving.

DUNHAM: Yeah, can you talk a little bit about what it means to be recognized there, recognized by Boeing and Cindy and the Women in Trades?

BURKS: Yes, I think it was an honor. I really think it was an honor, for Boeing to have us to come, the union how they gave us that dinner, and we go up to the senior citizens and have the bus ready, and it take us there and it bring us back and all the food they gave us. And to think of us, trying to make up for when they wouldn't let us in the union, and how they're doing that. And I think so much of Cindy for doing Women in Trades and the magazine every year. She has a magazine, and I think I must have been in the one about three or four years ago.

DUNHAM: The calendar? Yeah.

BURKS: And I buy one every year. And those people that has been in the calendar, they're so related to each other--not in body and spirit, but related because we came from the same Women in Trades.

DUNHAM: Right, right. Well, thank you very much. It has really been an honor and a privilege to hear your--

BURKS: It's an honor to have you here.

DUNHAM: --stories, so thank you again.

BURKS: Yes. A pleasure.