Troy Taylor's History interview

G- "Yes I would."

T- "Okay."

G-"I was, umm coming home from Virginia. I went to school in Hampton, Virginia. And I was coming home and my art teacher was driving us; a bunch of, you know, college kids; and we stopped to get something to eat in Maryland. And we sat down at the table and the waitress came over to where the art teacher was and she told the art teacher that she could not serve us because the students were black, she was white."

T- "Mmhhm"

G- " And I remember saying that they couldn't do that and the art teacher said, 'Yes they can', so she got us up and we went out"

T- " There was nothing you could do about it?"

G- " Not then, no."

T- " Hmm"

G-" The restaurant was just one of those that would not serve black people."

T-" And what year was this in?"

G- " Well it had to be in '64 or '65, in Maryland."

T- " Another question, did you have any close encounters with any like Civil Rights' Acts like the March on Washington or like sit-ins?"

G- " I went to the March on Washington with umm the Lees' which was a family that I knew in Jersey. And they were going to the March and they asked me if I wanted to go and I said yes"

T- " Did you see anything? Anything that like surprised you?"

G- "Not that surprised me. I heard Martin Luther King when he gave his, you know, 'I had a dream', speech. And umm, that's all. I remember there being a whooooooole lot of people there. And we stayed until he finished and then we left."

T- " Where there like more white people or more black people?"

G- " More black people... I think"

T- "Did you see him or did you just hear it?"

G- " See him"

T-" You saw him? Did you have like... was it close or were you like all the way in the back?"

G- ' I was in about the middle"

T-  *Clears throat* ' Umm, did race play a big part, I guess you kind of answered it, but did it play a big part in the world you grew up in when you were younger?"

G- " Not that it had any exact fallout on me. I really didn't feel it until I went to school in Virginia and in the town that the school was in, they had some ... you know, where you couldn't sit at a counter to eat. And there's a tree: there's a big tree on campus. A real big tree. And it was called the Emancipation Oak and that's where they read the Emancipation Proclamation to the black people that were down there. That wasn't when I was there but that's what the tree meant. That was the name of the tree, The Emancipation Oak,"

T- " Did you learn about, like when you went to college, did they tell you about it and stuff?"

G- " Yes. And there were books and I read the books and I read the books and I went to the ummm, there was a, ummm; over by the boys' campus, boys side of the campus, there was a cemetery. And in that cemetery, they had bodies of the, umm, people who had died in a plague. Uhh, slaves and Indians who had died of a plague, so they had a lot of children in that cemetery. But I used to go over there fairly regularly, just to check out the headstones and, you know, then I started reading about the area."

T- " Did you meet any famous Civil Rights' Activists?"

G-" No"

T- " No?"

T -" Do you have any other stories that you want to share? Anything else?"

G-"Not that I... no. I really don't think... no. I know when I would go into town, in the Hampton town, I would run into some people who I felt like didn't like me; didn't like us, but nothing in particular directly relating to me."

T- " And what college did you go to?"

G- " Hampton University. Then, it was called Hampton Institute. Now, it's called Hampton University."

T-  " Well thank you very much Grami. I appreciate it."

G- " You're very welcome Troy Taylor"

Key-

G=Grami

T-Troy