University of North Texas Oral History Collection

Interview with Harve King
Interviewer: Michele Glaze
Place of Interview: Denton, Texas
Date of Interview: February 10, 1992

Ms. Glaze:
This is Michele Glaze, and I'm representing the University of North Texas Oral History Collection. I'm speaking with Harve King this morning, February 10, 1992, at his residence here in Denton County. I am talking to Mr. King about his remembrances of his days as a student at the Fred Douglass School here in Denton.

Mr. King, could you tell me your full name, your age, birthplace, date, and your parents?

Mr. King:
My full name is Harve Dillard King. I was born in Farmersville, Texas, in Collin County. I came to Denton when I was thirteen years of age to go to the Fred Moore Colored High School. My father was Paul Lee King, and my mother was Minnie Lee King.

Ms. Glaze:
Mr. King, could you give me the date of your birth and how old you are at this moment?

Mr. King:
I was born on April 13, 1920. I'll be seventy-two on my birthday, which is next month.

Glaze:
You mentioned that you arrived in Denton when you were thirteen years old. Is it safe to say that you came in 1933?

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
Could you tell me why your family chose to move to Denton?

King:
My total family didn't choose to move to Denton, Texas, in the early years. From Farmersville, Texas, we moved to Shepherd's Ranch in Plano, Texas. My father was a sharecropper, and my father and mother had separated at that time. So, I was about ten years of age when we moved from Farmersville with my father to Plano, Texas. My mother came to Denton at that time. I didn't go to school in Plano because this was during the summer, and I decided that I wanted to come to live in Denton with my mother. So, I left my father in Shepherd's Ranch in Plano and came to Denton when I was thirteen years of age.

Glaze:
How many children were there in your family?

King:
Eight children. Four boys and four girls.

Glaze:
Where did you stand in that [order]?

King:
I was the youngest of the eight.

Glaze:
How many of your brothers and sisters came with your mother and yourself?

King:
None with me because all the others had already moved to Denton with my mother. All those who were living at that time were already in Denton with my mother.

Glaze:
I think I missed something. Your parents moved to Shepherd's...

King:
My father.

Glaze:
You were with your father, and then you came and joined your mother. Is that correct?

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
When did your mother and the rest of your brothers and sisters move to Denton?

King:
I would say that was about 1930. I came in 1933. In 1930 my mother came to Denton, and then from that point some of my brothers and sisters were living in different places. That's when the brother next to me, Herbert was at Shepherd's Ranch with me and my younger sister. The three of us lived with my father in Shepherd's Ranch, but my sister and my brother left before I did -- maybe a year or six months before I did -- to come live with my mother in Denton, Texas. Now, the others... I had a brother who was deceased. I had another brother who lived in Houston, Texas. They were grown and married. I had a sister. She was here in Denton, and my older sister was here in Denton. Jessie Mae and Paul were deceased. My oldest brother and my third sister were deceased. So, in Denton were my two sisters, Bessie and Laura, and Christine moved here. My brother Herbert came before I did. He ran away (chuckle) from Dad and came to Denton.

Glaze:
(Chuckle) You mentioned that your brother ran away.

King:
Herbert's the one next to me. He lives in Oklahoma City now.

Glaze:
Why did he run away?

King:
He and my father didn't get along, and I think he was about fifteen or sixteen at that time. He and my father didn't get along, and he wanted to be with Mother. That's the main reason.

Glaze:
How did your mother support herself and her children?

King:
Well, my mother was a professional cook, a maid.

Glaze:
Where did she work in Denton?

King:
She worked at the University of North Texas. It was a teachers college then. At the University of North Texas, she was a cook at Oak Street Hall, I guess, from the time she came to Denton until her death. But then she was doing other maid work -- cooking and cleaning for people other than the University of North Texas.

Glaze:
How many of your brothers and sisters that were in Denton lived with her and also worked?

King:
All of us, really. My oldest sister, Bessie, who now lives in Seattle, Washington, also worked at the college.

Glaze:
What did she do?

King:
She was a cook, and my sister next to her did day work. My younger sister, Christine, didn't work. She had a handicap. She didn't work. Just my brother and I went to school, and we mowed yards and whatever we could find to do to help out.

Glaze:
When you said your sister did day work, can you tell me exactly what that means?

King:
Well, that's cleaning, ironing, washing for people.

Glaze:
Private families?

King:
For private families, yes. All up and down Oak Street.

Glaze:
Your sister Christine, you said, had a handicap. What was her handicap?

King:
Well, we always thought that she had polio. I guess as long as I can remember, when she was two or three years of age, on her left side... her left hand and her left leg... she dragged her left leg, and, of course, her left hand was sort of crimped like that (gesture), and we thought it was polio. But when she passed away in San Antonio in 1969, if I can remember, we had an autopsy, and they found that she had a brain tumor. That was the cause of it. We always thought it was polio, but she had a brain tumor -- the results of typhoid fever. When she was a young girl, a baby, she had typhoid fever, and that's what burned her brain. That's what happened to her.

Glaze:
How many members of your family had typhoid at that time?

King:
I don't know whether it was typhoid fever or not, but all I can remember is... being the youngest, I didn't know quite what was going on. I know that some of them, they would bathe them in vinegar. That was the cure, I guess, for fever at that time. I just remember they would get in a tub -- one of those big tubs -- and they would put vinegar in it and bathe them in the vinegar.

Glaze:
This is your brothers and sisters you're talking about.

King:
Well, the only one I can remember is my sister. I mean, I never did have any kind of a fever, but as far as I know, she's the only one that they did this for.

Glaze:
You mentioned that you were from Farmersville.

King:
Yes, on a farm.

Glaze:
Can you tell me where it is, approximately, and how it compares in size to Denton? In other words, back at the time that you moved from Farmersville, by way of Shepherd's Ranch, to Denton, how did it compare?

King:
Well, actually, Denton, McKinney, Plano, and Farmersville -- those four cities that we knew about -- were approximately the same size. Maybe Farmersville was a little bit smaller than Denton, but I would say Denton at that time may have had 15,000 people. Farmersville may have had 5,000 or 6,000. So, in terms of size, that's the comparison. In Farmersville, if you take [Highway] 380 going east, you get to McKinney, and you make a ninety-degree turn going east. In about eighteen or twenty miles, that's where you find Farmersville. Actually, McKinney, Plano, and Farmersville (gesture) form a triangle just like Dallas, Fort Worth, and Denton.

Glaze:
I see. What was the ratio, perhaps, of African Americans in Farmersville as compared with Denton?

King:
Denton had a few more. At that time, Denton had a few more blacks than Farmersville. Percentage-wise it was about the same... maybe 5 percent, 10 percent. That would automatically put more blacks in Denton than in Farmersville.

Glaze:
Surely. I would like talk to you a little bit about your economic situation with your mother having the majority of the children with her and working as a cook. What was your economic situation?

King:
Well, it goes a long way back. Now, when we were living in Farmersville, we all worked together -- all of us, which was ten -- and we had a grandfather with us, eleven, my mother and father, twelve, thirteen. So, that was about thirteen people in the family. Now, I'm very young at that time, so I don't remember too much. I know I'm six years of age, and we would go from Farmersville, Texas, to a little town about... it was eight miles going toward Plano from Farmersville -- Copesville. Now, we would leave Farmersville and go to Copesville during the week and pick cotton. This was all the family. We would pick cotton, and, actually, I remember the name. It was on the farm of Mr. Gamble. We would stay there in a little ol' hut, and we would all pick cotton during the week.

On Saturday we would come back to Farmersville and spend the weekend there, where we would live because we had a little shack -- a house -- in Farmersville. We had a house, a four-room house. That's where all of us lived -- in that four-room house -- because our means of income at that time... I think picking cotton was twenty-five cents a hundred [pounds]. Of course, during the summer and spring months, we would chop cotton and chop corn and do that sort of thing.

Glaze:
When you say you chopped cotton, tell me what that means exactly.

King:
Chopping cotton only means weeding. You have a row of cotton, and then you come up... weeding and thinning cotton. You would cut the weeds out and thin the stalks of cotton that would grow. If you had four or five on one stem, one root, it wouldn't get a good quality of cotton if that one root had to support five or six stems. So, you'd leave maybe two or three of the strongest stems there and cut the others off. So, it was thinning and actually weeding. That's what chopping cotton means. The same way with corn.

Glaze:
At this time, you said you had a grandfather.

King:
Yes, I just do remember my grandfather was Grandfather Samuels. My mother was a Samuels before she married my father. Her name was Minnie Lee Samuels King. But it was Grandfather Samuels. God, I remember him as... I don't know what old would be in those days. If he was forty or fifty... he was older than that. I bet he was sixty, between sixty and seventy, as I remember, but that was old to me in those days. He did live with us, and, actually, they came from Honey Grove, Texas. That s northeast of Farmersville. Honey Grove is where my mother came from. In fact, my father and their family -- my mother and father's family -- came from Honey Grove, Texas.

Glaze:
You mentioned that you had a four-room house in Farmersville. This is something that you owned. Is that correct? Did you own the property?

King:
Yes. Yes, we did.

Glaze:
How much land was that house on, and what did you do with the land that it was on?

King:
You mean in terms of now?

Glaze:
No, I mean at that time.

King:
It was just enough room for that little old four-room house to sit on. I imagine it was twenty-five by twenty-five [feet]. Now, wait a minute. It was bigger than that, as I remember. At the [north] side, it was maybe a hundred feet across. That was the north side, and as we went back east it narrowed down into a triangle and almost to nothing at the south end of the lot. But it was pretty long, as I remember. Of course, our house was beside a railroad track -- the railroad track going from Greenville up to Paris, up that way, and down to, I guess, San Antonio. But it was right in the back of our house (chuckle), and when the trains would pass, the dishes would fall off the shelves (chuckle). We would run out and look at the train. That was our entertainment. We always waited for the trains to come along because that was something to see. That really happened. I imagine it was as close as here to that fence there, which would be thirty-five, forty feet from our house -- the railroad track.

Glaze:
The land that you... your lot... did you grow vegetables?

King:
We didn't grow any vegetables because, actually, you see, in what we called sharecropping, we got plenty of vegetables in Copesville where we worked. They gave my father an acre of land. Well, they let him use an acre of land down there, where he could plant vegetables and food for us to live on. And, of course, he'd bring those back to Farmersville and live on those -- beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and things like that. That's how we lived when we were picking cotton in Copesville.

Glaze:
What did you do for meat?

King:
(Chuckle) Rabbit hunt. Rabbits and squirrels. There were chickens and, of course, hogs. We raised hogs and chickens, and that was our chief... we didn't buy any meat at the store.

Glaze:
Right. You said you raised hogs and chickens. Were those at Copesville or Farmersville?

King:
Copesville. Mr. Gamble would allow my father to have his hogs among the others, you see, as part of the deal.

Glaze:
When you were sharecropping, you raised hogs as part of the deal. I presume you had the cash crop of cotton. What else did you raise that also belonged to Mr. Gamble?

King:
Well, actually, cows, horses, pigs -- all kinds of livestock -- chickens. Everything belonged to Mr. Gamble, but he would allow my father... in with his, say, fifty pigs or hogs, he would maybe give my father one and say, "This is yours," and, of course, when we'd kill hogs, he'd give this one to us. The same way with chickens. If he had a hundred chickens, maybe in a year's time he'd give us a dozen chickens. If we got, say, three dozen eggs a day, he would probably give us a dozen. Actually, it was very little money that we got in terms of cash money. That was the way we were paid.

Glaze:
How well were you able to eat and live in that type of a situation?

King:
During that time, we lived pretty good because we always had a pot of beans with some hog jowls, and that was it. Some eggs and crackling bread, pig's feet, chittlins. You see, we ate pretty good on the farm -- better than we did when we all moved to Denton. That's when it was really hard.

Glaze:
How was your situation here?

King:
Destitute. That's just the word I come up with. Horrible. Inhumane. Degredating. You see, when we came to Denton, primarily my mother was the breadwinner because all the rest of us were trying to go to school, except my oldest sister, and my oldest sister had five daughters herself. When my older sister moved to Denton, she stayed with Mother for a while with her granddaughters, but then my sister moved to a place of her own, so that put her out of the picture altogether in terms of family.

Glaze:
And income.

King:
Well, yes, and income. So, Mother was the main provider for me, my brother, my sister Christine, my sister Laura, and, of course, there was some grandchildren... Willie Eugene Willis, who my mother raised and was my dead sister's son. He was just like my mother's own child. He stayed with us. So, you see, that was the family, and at the time, I can't think, but some more people stayed with us. In and out there, my nieces and my nephews staying with my mother, who she provided for.

Glaze:
So, this is mainly extended family that stayed with you?

King:
Yes, this is extended family that was staying with us. But, you see, Mother was the main source.

Glaze:
Now, this is at the peak of the Depression that you're talking about.

King:
Yes, 1933 -- that was the peak of the Depression.

Glaze:
How did your situation compare with the majority of the black families in Denton?

King:
I would say perhaps not quite as well because, you see, the other people -- the other minorities in Denton... see, Mother's the newcomer. Mother is the newcomer to Denton, and she's not well established yet. So, she didn't have as many contacts. She was the only contact with a white family where we got our source of support. But now, Erma...

Glaze:
You mean Erma Peace?

King:
Yes, she was a Bell. Now, the Bell family, in terms of average, they were above average in terms of black Americans in Denton, Texas. The Hills... have you ever heard of the Hills? They were there, and, I think, the Peaces were there. The reason for this... now, in Denton at that time, compared to today, they were the black professionals, such as the doctors and lawyers and professors in the black society now. They worked at the CIA -- the College of Industrial Arts -- TWU. They were cooks. They worked at North Texas. They were making ... (chuckle) if you were making a dollar a day at that time, that was good money for blacks during that time. But also there were other accesses that they had. They had food and so forth. So, you see, we were newcomers, and we didn't have that contact. The other members of the family were working for white people. Therefore, there was more contact and hand-me-downs. They would get... (chuckle) I remember I took a kind of test when I was a kid growing up. And [there was] a question on the test: "What color are bananas?" I said, "black."

Glaze:
(Laughter) Bananas?

King:
Yes. Yes. What are you laughing about? If that had been standardized in my culture, that would have been the correct answer. The whites would have failed that test because the bananas that I got were the ones that had rotted in the kitchen where my mother worked, and she brought them home. So, they were black when I got them. I didn't see any bananas in the store. I didn't go to the grocery store, you see. So, that's the conditions, and that's the discrepancy between I.Q. and... I answered that question correctly in my culture.

Glaze:
Yes. What kind of food did you end up eating here in Denton? In other words, how did she manage? How did she provide?

King:
Well, the basic food with me... now, some of the other blacks eat a little differently. For our family, it was beans and cornbread. We would still go out hunting. You see, it was primarily out here, this way.

Glaze:
Now, when you say "this way"...

King:
This way. Any way you go. Actually, where Selwyn School is now, we used to go rabbit-hunting out that way. Going toward McKinney, we used to rabbit-hunt out that way. Where the lake is, we'd hunt rabbits or opossums. Opossums and sweet potatoes. And it was that kind of food that supplemented what we had -- what we could buy. Actually, some of the people would raise hogs... some of the blacks would raise hogs, and we would get some of that. They would share with us.

Glaze:
Could you give me a comparison of how the black families were able to survive during the Depression in Denton compared with, say, Farmersville?

King:
Basically, the same. I would say that, in comparing Denton with Farmersville, in Denton they were a little bit above the standard of living in Farmersville because in Farmersville it was primarily living off the fat of the land. What I'm saying, by raising hogs, chickens, your own garden, you had that type of survival. But in Denton you had the colleges, you see.

Glaze:
How much slack did those colleges take up as far as cushioning the brunt of the Depression for blacks?

King:
Well, that was it. That was it! If it had not been for the employment opportunities of both the colleges, it would have been bad. I would say 60 percent or more -- now that's just off the top of my head; I have no accuracy on that -- worked at the colleges. Whereas you didn't have those colleges in Farmersville. The chief income was farming. But you did have a little construction here in Denton, and Denton began to grow quite rapidly with construction and so forth. But in Farmersville they didn't have that construction because Farmersville is primarily a farming community, agricultural community.

Glaze:
Now, this is a little of what we were talking about, but you mentioned construction. What can you tell me about the WPA and any of the New Deal projects here in Denton during the Depression?

King:
I know that they had the CCC camps. That's what we called public works or the CCC camps. I think they had one someplace in McKinney. I don't remember too much about here in Denton, because, probably, it depends on what age they were hiring. I think you had to be about sixteen, so I didn't get in on that. But I think in McKinney they had those projects. But that did help. As I can remember, some of the blacks here in Denton did take part in the CCC camps. That's what we called, as I remember them, public works. That's how I remember. But even in those days, I think maybe the whites got in on those jobs more than the blacks because I don't remember, in growing up, too many of my peers participating here in Denton in those kind of projects, in that kind of work.

Glaze:
I know I spoke with Oliver Clark. He mentioned that he had worked with the WPA here in Denton, and then he went off to Waco with the CCC camp.

King: Yes.

Glaze:
There were several others. Lawson Smith, I believe, was one.

King:
Yes, Lawson Smith. Of course, Oliver was maybe two or three years older than I, I think, but it was in Waco -- McKinney and Waco -- that they had the CCC camps, but not too many, as far as I can remember, were black young men.

Glaze:
You said McKinney. McKinney had a black CCC camp? Is that what you mean?

King:
I don't know if it was black. As I remember it, I don't think they were designated as black or white. I think they had CCC camps, and, of course, you applied to go, and you were admitted on the basis of your application. But at that time, maybe more blacks may have been there than whites, which maybe they were. I don't quite remember.

Glaze:
(Chuckle) A little shaky on that point.

King:
Yes, because really with me from thirteen, when I came to Denton living with my mother, I worked with my mother. Sometimes Mother would work for... let's see. I believe it was Mrs. Shepherd, Mrs. Ben Ivey, the Russells. My mother and sister were working for those people -- the Ben Iveys, the Russells -- and she [his mother] died in the home of... she walked in the back door of... she wrote children's books. She lived on Oak Street. Do you know where the Ben Ivey home is on Oak Street? Ben Ivey home?

Glaze:
Basically.

King:
There's that red house. Okay, the Taylors, Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, she worked for them. I remember distinctly that we would walk from where we lived over to Mrs. Taylor's house. At 6:00 in the morning in the summers, Mother and I would put out a washing on a little rub board. Mother would use the rub board, and I would build a fire for that. While she was working for Mrs. Sharp and these people, I would be there and do some work in the yard. She would get me some yard work and sometimes scrubbing the floors and waxing and cleaning the woodwork. I would be involved in that. That was a livelihood, working with my mother. I didn't get to the CCC camp and involved in that.

Glaze:
You mentioned that you walked from where you lived. Where was it that you lived?

King:
It was East Oak Street. When I first came to Denton, we lived on Hickory Street, right by the Methodist Church there on the corner. Erma's church... where Erma goes to church. [St. James African Methodist Episcopal Church] They'd go to church there. It's on the corner of Hickory and... I forget the name of that street that runs that way. The Nixes and... we lived two doors...

Glaze:
Oh, that wouldn't be Hickory. That would be Oak.

King:
Yes, Oak. I'm sorry. That's Oak. I'm sorry. That's Oak Street. I think it was 1108. I remember that. That was when my daddy was giving me instructions on how to get there.

Glaze:
That was near Oak and Crawford then.

King:
At 1108 Oak Street. (Gestures) Here was the church, here was the church parsonage, and here was our house. That's where we lived. Later on, we lived on North Wood Street, but that's where we lived. From there out to... actually, it's almost to... I can't remember my streets, but the one going this way (gesture) close to the University. Actually, it was two blocks down from Oak Street Hall on the left. That's where my mother... Mrs. Sharp, I believe, that was. Mrs. Sharp... she wrote children's books. That was her work, and that's where my mother passed -- in her house.

Glaze:
She was going to work there, and she passed?

King:
Yes. My sister Bessie took her to work one morning. Mother got out of the car and said, "Bye, Bessie." She went in and got inside the door and collapsed. She was dead on arrival at the hospital.

Glaze:
What year was that?

King:
It was in 1968 -- January 12, 1968. Mother was seventy-three at the time she passed away. And it was strange. That night... you see, no one was living with my mother at that time but Bessie, my oldest sister. All the rest of us had gone. We were gone. Mother said, "Bessie, get me my box." Her box was where she put all of her receipts and papers and insurance policy. She said, "I want to take a look at it." Bessie got it for her, and she said, "Now this is where it is, and everything is in there when you all need it." That night before she passed away.

Glaze:
She must have had some inkling.

King: Or whatever. She passed. Where I built the fires under the old black washpot was next door at the Taylors -- in that house. I was very resourceful when I was coming up. Actually, I grew up with the work ethic. When I was too young to really work in the fields, when my daddy was plowing and I was about six years of age, he would... the old mule would get up, and the plow... if you've ever seen any of those old metal plows, it threw the furrows back, the dirt back, and he would say, "Son, just take those and throw them back over here." (gesture) I'd just get behind him, and I guess that's how I got my muscle. [Flexes muscle]

Glaze:
(Chuckle) Oh, that is a muscle!

King:
I've always been active, but, you know, I had that work ethic. Even though I didn't have to do that, he'd just have us doing things like that. So, I grew up with the work ethic. Just like now, I still have my landscaping business. I love work, and I could always find something to do. (Chuckle) I'd be walking down the street, and I'd see a brick with some dirt or some leaves in somebody's yard, and I'd go up and [raps on table] knock on the door: "Ma'am, could I... " (Chuckle) I must have come to Denton first between twelve and thirteen because I remember getting the last twenty-five cents from my mother to get my hair cut. That's the last money I ever remember getting from my parents.

It was tough, but looking back on it, I have no regrets. Really, I don't. That's just the way it was, and I'm sure that some blacks, even at my age, in my generation of blacks, would not like to publicize some of the things that happened to us. Not only was I born in Farmersville, I was born in the middle of a cotton patch on my mother's cotton sack, and a white woman, Miss Lottie Yeary, who lived next door to me, right there (gesture)... when I moved back to Denton in 1970, Mr. and Mrs. Lottie Yeary lived in that house right across the street. She was the one who put the first diaper on me when I was born in the middle of a cotton patch on my mother's cotton sack.

Glaze:
You mean your mother was picking cotton?

King:
My mother was picking cotton in the field. Well, actually, the next day she was still picking cotton. In those days, I guess, having babies was like cooking beans -- just that simple. That's the way it was done in those days, and, see, they had midwives. That happened to me. That's where I was born. Fifty years later, the man that we were picking cotton on his farm, fifty years later, I moved right beside him in Denton in 1990.

Glaze:
Wonderful.

King:
Of course, I'm digressing a little bit, so you may want to cut this. Actually, when I was considering coming to Denton... I came to Denton first in 1969, looking for a place to stay, when I was hired at the University [of North Texas]. I came looking for a place to stay, and, of course, I got around to looking at this house. Well, Mr. Yeary... and I didn't know this when I was looking for the house and bought this house. I didn't know that Mr. Yeary lived over there.

Glaze:
(Chuckle)

King:
But he was curious, too. (Chuckle) This colored man -- and I was the only one out here at that time -- was moving next to him. So, I guess he really wanted to know who it was, and I met him. I think I saw him out in the yard or he saw me, and we met. We hugged, and we kissed. "Hi." "Hi." "Where's Paul?" "Where is Minnie?" "Where is Herbert?" Oh, we were just like family, and the word got out that "there's a colored man moving into our neighborhood." They were around with petitions. They had petitions here to sign who's against a colored man moving in our neighborhood. They really did that, and I'm not going to tell you who was behind it either, but they don't live too far from here (chuckle).

Glaze:
What year was that? In 1970?

King:
Nineteen sixty-nine. I bought the house in 1970, but I was looking in 1969. I finally bought it in 1970. Oh, yes, they were curious, you know. See, that's what happened in 1969, so we're not too far from...

Glaze:
I'm not terribly surprised.

King:
We're not to far from him. Actually, I think they took it to him [Mr. Yeary] to sign, and, oh, boy! He told them, "I've been knowing that young man since he was born. In fact, my wife put the first diaper on that boy."

Glaze:
(Chuckle)

King:
"I 'd rather have him here than some of you people. I mean, he really... oh, boy, he told them off. He sure did, because he knew me.

Glaze:
Well, let's get back here. I wanted to ask you a question. This has been very interesting. As far as the educational background of your family, how much education did your parents have?

King:
None. Well, you want it formally, so I'll answer it formally. (Chuckle) It depends on what you mean by education. You mean schooling.

Glaze:
Yes.

King:
You see, I consider schooling and education two different things.

Glaze:
Okay, how much schooling?

King:
I think my father had the equivalent to three years. The third grade -- formal education -- schooling. I think my mother had the equivalent of six grades of formal education.

Glaze:
Where did they get their schooling?

King:
Back in this county where I said they lived -- Honey Grove -- back there in those days, I think. They got a little education back there then, but that's it.

Glaze:
What about the schooling... I know you had a lot of schooling.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
The rest of your family. Can you tell me a little about your siblings' -- and then your education -- schooling?

King:
I'll start with my oldest brother, James. Now, the two oldest were a half-brother and sister. Their father was a Williams. My mother was married to a Williams once upon a time, then my father. James -- he's deceased now -- had no formal education. Now, Bessie, who's my half-sister in Seattle, Washington, went to school in Dallas, Texas. I think she was living with father, and she had maybe an eighth-grade education. Then Laura... they only had the tenth grade at Fred Moore Colored High School at that time. I think she finished there, and the next oldest, Jessie Mae, died early, so she only had a sixth-grade education. Then there's Christine. Christine had training. She did finish high school with a GED, but that's even after she was grown. She had some nursing training, but no certification.

Glaze:
They had nurses training?

King:
Yes, nurses training. Well, vocational nurses training in San Antonio, Texas. She was grown. But then there was my sister Laura in California. She is a vocational nurse. She's had that training. Then it comes to my brother in Oklahoma City. We're the youngest, now. He has a college degree.

Glaze:
From where?

King:
Texas College in Tyler. Me? (Chuckle) I've been to about every school in the United States. In my field, there's not a course that could be offered in any university in the United States that I haven't had in my field, which is educational administration. I got my bachelor's degree from Tyler, Texas, same as my brother, with a major in sociology. Then, of course, my secondary education, my master's, is at Prairie View A&M College, which is in educational supervision. Then all my graduate work has been strictly in educational administration from Prairie View, the University of Texas, Southwest Texas State University, Columbia University in New York. That's where I got my training, not my education. I got my education in the middle of that cotton patch. But that's where I got training. That's me. You know, I've been involved in that type of work all my life.

Glaze:
When you were in school at Fred Moore... at that time it was Fred Douglass. Is that correct?

King:
Yes, and then they changed it to Fred Moore.

Glaze:
When you were going to school at Fred Douglass and your mother was supporting all of your brothers and sisters, what kind of encouragement did she give you? I mean, you're talking [about] parents who had no education, siblings who had relatively none, and then suddenly you and your brother -- you especially -- are like super-achievers in the educational line, or the schooling line. How did that come about?

King:
Well, you see, that's why I have to make a great distinction between schooling and education. That's how I would avoid whippings. Everybody would get a whipping from my father but me when something went wrong. I knew how to get out of a whipping, because my father -- even he -- was interested in formal schooling. When we lived in Copesville, they didn't have a black school in Copesville. And, of course, we were young and picking cotton at twenty-five cents a hundred, so we couldn't make much of a contribution. I've never picked two hundred [pounds], and this is why Christine, Herbert... the three youngest were still with my father in the days that I mentioned. We would get up at 6:00 in the morning and walk to school in Farmersville. That's eight miles down a railroad track, not the highway. That was a shortcut, coming down the track. So, we would walk eight miles to school in the morning, and when school was out, we would walk eight miles back to Copesville, and it's 4:00 or 5:00. But in the summer, there's a lot of daylight, so then we would get our hoes or cotton sacks or whatever and work or feed the pigs.

So, my father was interested in education. He wanted us to go to school. And let me say how I got out of whippings. I was very, I guess, bookish. I don't know where I got that from. I guess it came because my next to the oldest brother, Paul... he was named after my father, Paul Lee, Jr. I saw him die. He was double-jointed. Oh, you talk about muscles! He was so strong. He could pick up one of these railroad railings -- just pick it up. Where it would take five or six men to do it, he was that strong. That was one of his problems. He strained or overworked his heart, and he died of heart failure. Because there was no doctor available, he died because he had no ambulance to come. He died right there, and I saw that.

Glaze:
How old was he at the time?

King:
About twenty. Paul was twenty at that tine. In baseball, I've seen him catch a ball from left field and throw it. Say a guy was on third base tagging up to come on home. I've seen him take a ball and catch it in left field and throw that ball to the catcher. They had cotton mill catcher's mitts -- stuffed with cotton seed. It wasn't made out of pure leather. Sometimes they would sew them together with some material. That's the way we'd make some of our ball gloves and catcher's mitts in those days -- stuffed with cotton seed. He threw that ball, and that guy caught that ball, and that stuff just blew all over the place. He burst that mitt with that ball. He could have been a Jackie Robinson. Anyway, I guess that inspired me, as I can see it now. I said, "I'm going to be a doctor." I think I believed that, because when I went to college, I was going to major in pre-med. But I think that inspired me in terms of trying to be somebody to help.

Let me go back to your direct question. I get distracted. Now, what was your question about? Schooling, and what did we do?

Glaze:
I was curious as to -- and I think you've pretty much answered it -- your coming from a family who had very little schooling, even your older siblings, and how it was that you were so inspired.

King:
It was handed down. As I say, we had to go to school -- the four younger ones -- myself, Herbert, Christine, and then Laura. Laura went to school here, so the four of us... now that's getting into 1934, 1935, and black people, generally speaking, are becoming a little bit more aware that formal schooling is a necessity. Herbert and I were pretty close together. In fact, he's three years older than I am, but we finished high school together the same year. I was promoted from the first grade to the third, and I was promoted from the fourth to the sixth -- I remember that-in Farmersville.

Anyway, when everybody would get a whipping because something happened and nobody would admit it, my daddy, in order to get the right person, would whip everybody. (Chuckle) Oh, yes! And I would always be last. I guess they always said I was the pet of the family. I was really my daddy's pet, because when he would get to me, I'd be sitting down with a book and pencil and paper in front of me, and I would look up, and I'd say, "Daddy, could you wait until I finish doing my homework before you hit me, please, sir?" (Chuckle) "All right, boy." Yes, I'd do that. I don't know if it was how I'd negotiate the system or what, but I knew that he would go to sleep, and the next morning he'd forgotten about it. (Chuckle) So, that's how I kind of got by with it.

I was always studious. I've always studied and gotten good grades. I guess I was a professional student all my life. When I would finish this program at the University of Texas, in order to try to get more, I'd go up to Columbia University. Then I'd finish something up there, and I'd come back down to Southwest Texas State University and get certification in counseling and guidance. I've always been studious for some reason.

Glaze:
All right, let's get to Fred Douglass per se. When you came at twelve, almost thirteen, years old, what grade were you in? And in walking into a strange school, how did that compare with what you had just left?

King:
You see, I went to school in Farmersville. I think I was in the sixth grade when I left Farmersville. I didn't go to school in Plano, because we went there in the summer. So, I didn't get a chance to go to school there. When I came to Denton, I think they put me in the seventh grade because of the way I was talking and so forth and because I had no records. (Chuckle) I didn't bring any records with me.

I remember Miss Ammons. I think that was around the fourth-grade level or something. I was in her class and stayed a day or two, and she told the principal, "Professor Moore, he doesn't belong in the fourth grade. He's higher than that." So, I think they put me in seventh grade, and that's where I think I started my work here in Denton, Texas -- in the seventh grade.

Now, you talk about inspiration! That brings up the difference between integrated schools and segregated schools, and that goes all the way up to the college level. The motivation that blacks... I think we were more motivated to get an education than the students are today. It wasn't based on economics, necessarily. You see, today it's based on economics, but then it wasn't based on economics. It was based on self-esteem mostly. This is what we want to do as an individual -- go to school, no pressure. The difference are the teachers. The teachers wouldn't let you fail. They would follow you home -- oh, yes -- to see that you went directly home. One of the teachers would take this group of girls who lived on Solomon Hill, and that teacher would walk home with them to see that they got home okay -- to see that there was no fighting and fooling around. So, actually, you must do it, and the teachers would see that you did. They would feed you. If you got hungry -- they had sack lunches, too -- they would share their lunches and things with the underprivileged children. Actually, in those days, our teachers were such role models that we wanted to be good for them. So, that is the difference. The teachers took a personal interest in each child. I think that's the major difference.

What real purpose the so-called "black schools" and "black colleges" serve today, I'm not so sure. Of course, with the economy and with the world like it is, let's face it. I don't care how good or concerned the teachers are at Texas College -- and I'm not going to tell you that cheaply either because -- you'd be surprised at the number of people, even in my generation and those younger, that finished Texas College, where they are today. In other words, going to black schools doesn't necessarily mean that you're not going to get as good an education. You see, there are two ingredients that go into the so-called education that we see today. First, it's what you are as a person. Next is the academic side. That makes up the total education. You see, in my day that's what made me (chuckle) probably in the top 1 percent of the administrators at the University of North Texas. It's not the academic training that I got -- even though I can give you a book answer for probably every problem that would come up in administration -- but it's that individual, that self, that ego. You see, when I came to the University of North Texas, I said to myself, "I'm going to be the best." That's just me. I'm going to be the best. At least I'm going to try to be the best in anything that I do, and certainly as an administrator. Of course, if I hadn't been one of the best, (chuckle) I wouldn't have lasted seventeen years over there.

Glaze:
Right.

King:
So, you see, it's motivation.

Glaze:
So, what you're saying is, there was little comparison between Fred Moore and Farmersville schools?

King:
Little comparison?

Glaze:
In other words, could you tell me, breaking it down... in other words, how different was Fred Moore School, Fred Douglass School, from your school in Farmersville?

King:
No difference. In Farmersville, you had two rooms. We only went through the eighth grade in Farmersville. There were only two rooms. I think from the first to the fourth was Miss Tillie Woods. Tillie Woods was my teacher. Then, (chuckle) old Professor Douglas. He was crippled. Old Professor Douglas taught from the fifth to the eighth. Two rooms. But, see, what we did, it was plain old reading, writing, and arithmetic. That was the curriculum. None of this science. It was strictly reading, writing, and arithmetic -- the three R's. That's what was taught in Farmersville -- only. See, that wasn't book learning; that was plain old, "Go to the board. Here's your problems for today."

In Denton, when we got there, the difference was that in Denton we did have the hand-me-down books from the white schools. That's where we got our books. I don't think I ever saw a new book at Fred Moore Colored High School. It was books that were handed down. The only difference then is that we did have, I think... and that may have been the reason that I got a little bit more interested... they had physiology. We read out of books, and we had geography. Now, I don't remember too much geography in Farmersville. But then we had some history here in Denton. All we would do is read. I remember that you wrote in a book -- up in the high school level now. Of course, they had a good program in math, but no science, and I wanted to be a doctor. I never saw a test tube in high school. So, we would read. We knew history because we would read it. You'd read a chapter, and then you'd explain it. Of course, in physiology, we would read it and tell about the parts of the body and so forth.

Glaze:
I was going to ask, who taught physiology?

King:
Professor Moore, mostly.

Glaze:
How many students would be involved in physiology? Was this something that you could select to take, or was this something that everybody took?

King:
(Chuckle) You didn't have any electives in high school when I was going to school. There were no electives. Everybody took the same thing. We had the English. You had your math. When they changed it to the twelfth grade, then you had to include all of those subjects. We had the math: geometry, trigonometry. English, you always had that. We always had history. That was it -- English, math. We had history, and our science was that physiology, and, of course, the girls had homemaking. Finally, the boys could take homemaking. But, you see, there can actually be science in homemaking. Homemaking could be considered a science. (chuckle) But, those were our subjects.

Glaze:
You mentioned history. I was curious about Carter G. Woodson...

King:
Yes, Carter G. Woodson.

Glaze:
... who had started Negro History Week back in the 1920s.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
Now you were going to school in the 1930s. What did you have in Denton that might have reflected the Negro history or Negro History Week? Anything?

King:
Nothing specifically in terms of the curriculum. Now, of course, the black teachers taught us about George Washington Carver, Sojourner Truth. They taught us that out of their experiences, you see. So, we did learn it that way. It wasn't in the textbooks, but they would teach us that themselves, you see, the struggle and so forth. They would teach us about Tuskegee Institute. They would teach it.

Glaze:
So, you did, then, have some contact.

King:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes, we learned about black history because, you see, had we not, I wouldn't have had the background about the blacks' contribution to America. I wouldn't have learned it out of the textbooks, because they did have it per se in that way. When I was going to high school, there was no mention of a black person unless it was a slave or something, but not their contributions. The mass-produced shoe was invented by a black man -- the shoes you've got on. A black man had that patent for the soles of a shoe. But you don't learn those things out of books. You pick those up, and, of course, we would read. There was no library that I know of. In high school I never saw a library.

Glaze:
What did you generally do for reference material?

King:
Books. What do you mean by reference? We didn't know what any reference material was back when I was in school. Reference?

Glaze:
Where did you go to look something up? Where did you get books?

King:
From the white high school. Nothing but book learning.

Glaze:
But what did you have other than textbooks?

King:
Nothing. Book learning. That's all we had -- book learning, and that is why I'm saying that book learning is not worth too much. That's all we had -- book learning. What do you think would have happened to my generation if we had had access to all the other information and knowledge? I'm prone to think that that was deliberate. They didn't want us to have that knowledge and information. If they did, don't you think they would have provided it for us?

Glaze:
What was the overall attitude like in Denton as compared to, maybe, where you came from in Farmersville as far as overall acceptance of the black population?

King:
Same. The only difference is some of it may be covert and some of it may be overt. But I think in Farmersville, it was more overt in terms of blacks in that community. This is just your place. This is just your place. It was just understood that I had to say, "Yassa" to a sixteen-year-old white boy. And that is true. When I was six or eight years old, I had to say, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to a sixteen-year-old white boy who was the son of the man who owned the farm we worked on. We asked Daddy, "Daddy, why do we have to say, 'Yes, sir' and 'No, sir' to James? We're almost as old as he is." He said, "Son, because his daddy said you had to do it." He was training us -- training us, you know. I said, "Let's move, Daddy. Let's go to some other place." He said, "It would be the same there." See, you have no place to go. If you move from this farm to that farm, you're going to be treated the same. So, there's just no place to escape. We had no choice. If we didn't do it, he would say, "You, boy, get off my farm!" That's what would have happened to us. So, in those days, it was overt. They'd call you names. They'd tell you, "Come here. Do this, 'n*****.'" Well, in Denton a little later on as we go, see, you're outgrowing that. You don't do it overtly. In Denton it was the same thing, but it was more of a covert thing, you see. Actually, in Farmersville, you could be there in front of a lot of whites, and one of them would call you that name clearly, but, you see, in Denton (chuckle) they wouldn't call you that among a group of people because you had proof, witnesses.

Glaze:
So, everybody had to maintain their image.

King:
Right, so, that's the only difference. Now we do have civil rights, which makes discrimination illegal. It's illegal, but no act is illegal until you get caught. It's not illegal if you don't get caught. (Chuckle) All right? It's not illegal if you don't get caught. So, actually, today we have a recourse. In my day, if you'd hit a white man for anything -- I don't care what -- you would have been lynched. But now if they do it, you can pop him upside his head, and at least you go to trial and (chuckle) be tried by a jury or something. That's one difference. I can say it's not as bad because here you can go to hotels and restaurants and that sort of thing. But I'm still talking about as a folkway, as a custom. There's still almost as much racism in Denton, Texas, now as it was in my day. Now they can't do it legally, but in their homes and places, at the Lion's Club, and this, we are still sometimes treated that way. That's why I'm so bent on, (chuckle) "You can't discriminate against me." That's the way we're going to have to do it. You have Martin Luther Kings, but I say that in Denton, Texas, you're going to have some Harve Kings. (Chuckle) No brag. If some white guy would treat me unfairly, there's some white men I can go to and say, "Do you know what that guy did to me over there?" More than likely, they'll get a call: "Do you know Harve King?" Wait a minute. I can show you some letters right now. I've got one right over there (gesture) from some outstanding men in Denton, saying, "Harve, we want you to know that we appreciate the contributions that you are making to this community, the contributions that you have made to the University of North Texas." I've got one from a banker and some more saying, "Harve, we appreciate you," and saying, "You are a very special person." I've got that right there that I got in the past month. I got it from the mayor. What I'm saying is, if you had some Harve Kings -- and I just use Harve King -- or an Alton Thibodeaux, or I could use some Erma Bells, Peaces, you know, that we live... we have a certain level of education. We have morals. How are they going to discriminate against you? So, we've got to rise above the projects.

Glaze:
The project, meaning the housing project?

King:
Yes. If there were no blacks living in the projects, living in the community, you see what I'm saying? A lot of people can't go to the bank and borrow $25,000, and that's a form of discrimination. Now there's whites that can't do that, too, but it's more prevalent in terms of blacks. So, what I'm saying is, if we rise to a certain level, there would be less opportunity to discriminate against us. You see what I'm saying? And that's how we can eliminate discrimination. You wouldn't dare discriminate against me. You wouldn't dare because I could get me a lawyer. I may not win, but I can put your name on the street on the front page of the paper. (Chuckle) I'd get one of these banks, and I'd have your name on the paper right near the office.

Glaze:
I understand what you're saying. However, let's kind of get back to what we were saying in regard to...

King:
I'm only going to speak when you ask me a question.

Glaze:
(Chuckle) I'll bet.

King:
All right. Okay.

Glaze:
No, I'm teasing. Okay, we had talked a little about the classes, and you said you had never -- as far as science -- seen a test tube or anything. And the women had the homemaking.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
What facilities were there for shop or an equivalent of homemaking for the boys?

King:
In my day there was no facility for shop. In my high school days at Fred Moore School, there was no shop. Now, there was a reason for homemaking. There was a reason for homemaking, and I'll let you figure that one out.

Glaze:
Training the maids and the cooks.

King:
That was part of it. Why would they not provide a shop for the boys the same as the homemaking for the girls?

Glaze:
That I don't know. I'm going to have ask you.

King:
(Chuckle) Oh, yes, you do know. Yes, you do. But that's it. And, of course, actually in those days, the major income for blacks was TWU [Texas Woman's University] and North Texas. Cooking was a job. So, actually, that sort of treatment makes good common sense. "Let's teach these girls how to cook." They were willing to provide that because of the supply and demand of these types of services.

Glaze:
I guess what I'm looking at is -- as far as shop -- were there not some of the men working as janitors and handymen in and around the campuses and the homes? Why would they not have supplied shop?

King:
That's what I'm saying -- the demand in the community wasn't great. I remember that some of us were given jobs cleaning up the building. I know (chuckle) we had outdoor plumbing.

Glaze:
At the school?

King:
Yes. We had no indoor plumbing when I was in high school.

Glaze:
What was that like?

King:
Ugh! It was an outdoor toilet. You know what an outdoor toilet is -- with the moon cut. (Chuckle) I remember Professor Moore. It was getting so full and bad that -- it was about a four-seater -- then he had us dig a hole beside it. The same size. Then when we built it, we'd cut a tunnel to let it go into this one to go over here (gesture).

Glaze:
But that would be open?

King:
No, well, you've got the building. You've got a building, of course.

Glaze:
But what I'm saying is, if you dug a hole and made a trench, what siphoned off of one side into the other? Was that just left open?

King:
Well, you put a top on it.

Glaze:
Oh.

King:
You put a top on it and still have those four seats on top. It had seats on it.

Glaze:
I see. Okay. So, there were four seats for the girls and four for the boys.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
Ultimately, they would have had to empty that, would they not? Who did that?

King:
Well, in those days, (chuckle) I specifically remember in Farmersville, "Shorty" -- we called him "Shorty" -- did it. He was a little short man. We'd say something nasty about him: "Get out your can! Here comes the man!" We'd say that, you know, kids, jokingly. But he'd have a wagon, and he'd have some fifty-gallon drums. He would go around the city -- especially the black neighborhood and, I guess, the white area -- and he would take it, carry it, and he'd take it off to the dump someplace. Evidently, I think at one point, they put in lime, and that's how they tried to destroy something, eat it up. I remember that. I don't remember the wagons in Denton, but I'm sure, even before my day, that's what they did. I think they now have some kind of chemicals that would rot or keep down the smell and so forth.

Glaze:
But still, I would imagine that that was a fairly nasty area, given as many students as you had.

King:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Glaze:
Where was that located in relation to the school, physically?

King:
Here's the building, (gesture) which in my day was nothing but a four-room white building. In fact, they took it down. Did you see it or have a picture of it down at the park?

Glaze:
No, I heard that it went down there.

King:
Somebody should have it. Alice Alexander [daughter of Professor Fred Moore and a long-time teacher at the school] should have a picture. But it was just a framed four-room building. This was facing that street here (gesture). This is the front.

Glaze:
That's Robertson?

King:
Yes, right back here. Maybe the same distance as to that house (gesture) up on the top of the hill. That's where it was -- the outhouse.

Glaze:
About 150 feet?

King:
Yes, 150 feet. So, that was our restroom. Ours [boys] was here on the left side. The girls' was over here (gesture).

Glaze:
So, it was on the back lot of the school, and the school faced Robertson.

King:
Yes, that's right.

Glaze:
Sort of back up that hill? Did it go up the hill?

King:
Yes. Oddly enough, the homemaking department was between the two. (Chuckle) Flies would come in.

Glaze:
In the homemaking department?

King:
Yes, they had the opportunity.

Glaze:
And that's where all the food was.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
Which gets us to the word "food," which brings us to lunch. What did you do for lunch?

King:
Nothing. In my day there was no such thing as lunch.

Glaze:
You didn't get to eat at noon?

King:
No. Unless Mrs. Ammons or one of those teachers let us have a nickel, and we'd buy a candy bar or a Snicker.

Glaze:
But you had an hour for lunch, right?

King:
Not as such, no. We'd have a recess. We'd have a morning recess. We'd have a noon recess and then the afternoon recess -- fifteen minutes, an hour, fifteen minutes. But the recess and lunch, that was for us to play ball and that sort of thing, but not [to] eat. There were times, in the homemaking department, that Miss Hodge looked after us. She'd have a great, big pot of beans and things, and she'd let some of us come in and eat at that time. But in terms of going home for lunch, some of them may have gone home, especially those who worked at the CIA who could present a pretty good meal. But there was nothing to bring. What would you bring? A cup of beans and cornbread? That was all that you had. In my family there was no such thing as lunch. We'd have breakfast and supper, we called it. We didn't say "dinner." In my vocabulary, there's no such thing as dinner. It was breakfast or supper. You'd eat something in the morning, whatever you had, and then in the afternoon when Mom got off of work, she would bring us whatever she had... to bring it home. Some leftovers, whatever we had to cook. That's what we had for supper.

Glaze:
What time did your mother get home?

King:
Mother got home around 5:00 average, I'd say, when she got off from work at the college. See, my mother was the cook, and she didn't have to serve the food, so she'd cook it and leave it. She got off at 4:00 or 5:00.

Glaze:
I had heard sometimes that the kitchen staff would be able to bring food home. What kind of things could she bring besides black bananas?

King:
They were leftovers -- beans, the old bread, sometimes other fruits. Anything that they cooked. Spaghetti, meat balls. Anything that was left over that they didn't want to prepare for the next day, that was too old to use. Any of it could be brought home, so they would bring it home.

Glaze:
How often did she bring food home?

King:
Everyday, something. Had it not been for that, we wouldn't have been able to survive. That's why I'm saying that the difference in white people today and back there... I guess white people and black people were closer together than they are now. In those days, white people, even though it was "Yassa," they kind of considered us a part of the extended family. I know with my mother, they knew what we were trying to do. They knew me, trying to go to college and so forth. They would say, "Minnie, here. Take this home to your kids." They would automatically give, deliberately knowing what they were doing, to help feed the kids. So, that's why I say it was kind of better in those days than it is now in terms of companionship and humanity -- that sort of thing. Almost every day she would bring something home. Sometimes that would be the only thing that we would have for supper, if it was enough. Maybe some of it she would warm over, and, then, of course, she had a chance to supplement sometimes from other sources.

Glaze:
Back to lunch. You said that that was time when you played ball. Tell me about playing ball -- where you did it. What'd you do?

King:
There was not but one place to do it. I've probably got some grass burrs in me now. Okay, here's the school (gestures). Here's that railroad track that comes in front of the school.

Glaze:
Okay, that's down by Robertson.

King:
That's it. We played in front of the school. The girls were on this end and sort of on the side, and the boys would monopolize the front. During football season, we would play football. We practiced football. We played high school football, and that's where we would practice.

Glaze:
When you said the girls played on the side, was that up Mill Street?

King:
Yes, Mill Street and that way. There was a little something in the back. The girls played there, but the boys occupied most of the front. During the baseball season, we played baseball. During basketball season, we had some goals out there on the ground, and that was it. Sometimes it was supervised; sometimes it wasn't because you didn't need too much supervision. We knew (chuckle) if you got in a fight... of course, Professor Moore was always looking out the window. Many of the teachers stood and looked out the window, but mostly we supervised ourselves. I remember very few fights or something. We just didn't do it. We knew better.

Glaze:
How many boys would play ball at the noon hour?

King:
Well, most of the boys who were on the athletic teams. It was structured football; it was structured basketball. The other boys who didn't participate, they were over here (gestures) someplace doing their thing, whatever that was. We had some room on this side, too, for the boys, and those were the ones not engaged in athletics. They were doing something else. They were pitching horseshoes or something.

Glaze:
How many boys would be in..in other words, what percentage of the boys were on athletic teams?

King:
Ninety percent. Ninety percent of the boys, maybe a hundred. You see, sometimes you would have several teams. There were four teams, and what you would do, you would rotate. The first one who would score would be out, and the next team... so, that's the way in basketball. We would have two teams playing, and when you lose, you're out. When I was in high school, we had thirteen boys on the varsity football team. That's all. That's all the boys that were available. When I graduated, there were six people in my class -- four boys and two girls.

Glaze:
That was what year?

King:
Nineteen thirty-eight. There was my brother, I.D. Moody, and Clarence Nix, and there was Ernestine and Susie, the two girls. I was valedictorian.

Glaze:
So, you graduated before Mrs. King [Eleanor Woods King] did.

King:
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. She didn't graduate until, I think, 1940 or 1941. I graduated a little ahead of time. I was seventeen. I graduated with my brother. He must have been about nineteen or twenty when he finished. So, I graduated a little early. Oh, yes, I finished two years before. She finished in 1940, I believe, because we married in 1941. Yes, about that time.

Glaze:
You said about 90 percent of the boys were engaged in sports.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
The 10 percent that weren't, how were they treated? How were they considered? [Mr. King dangled his hand back and forth] You're shaking your hand like "yuk." (Laughter) What do you mean?

King:
I don't mean it sexually.

Glaze:
No, I don't take it that way.

King:
But, I mean, that as far as the he-men...

Glaze:
The machos.

King:
The machos. They were just there, you know. They were just there. Not treated any differently, but they just were not a part of the rough-and-tumble. See, we were the rough-and-tumble guys, but they just sort of stood back on the sidelines.

Glaze:
Were they treated like nerds?

King:
Oh, no. We didn't know anything about that in my day. They just were not in our group. But we'd try: "Hey, guy, come on! Come on!" But we didn't treat them... because, you see, in my day we probably didn't know what that was. We never experienced marijuana and that sort of thing. Never experienced it. It wasn't there. So, they were treated fairly, and, as I say, they were so scarce. When I talk of boys, I imagine we had a hundred boys because I imagine there were two hundred kids in school. I really don't know. Not many over two hundred.

Glaze:
Are we talking about from...

King:
From first grade through...

Glaze:
Through the twelfth.

King:
Right. So, I'm saying that you start with a lot of them in the first grade. By the time you get to the fifth or sixth grade, you have lost 60 percent of the boys. You see what I'm saying?

Glaze:
At fifth and sixth grade, they've already dropped out of school?

King:
Oh, let's say seventh grade. So, how many high school boys do you have? You've got twenty-five or thirty high school boys. That's why we only had thirteen football players.

Glaze:
Tell me about your football team. What did you play, and who were some of those people?

King:
We were very athletic, very competitive. That's just the way it was. We played Paris, Gainesville, Sherman, McKinney, Denison, and we had the nerve to play Booker T. Washington High School in Dallas (chuckle).

Glaze:
How did the size of that compare to you?

King:
Well, they only beat us "seven t'six."

Glaze:
What?

King:
(Chuckle)

Glaze:
They beat you what?

King:
You see, they beat us 70-6 before they asked us...

Glaze:
Oh, no (laughter)!

King:
... before they asked us what the score was. We said, "Oh, it's a pretty tight game, just 'seven t'six.'"

Glaze:
Oh (laughter), you just kind of slurred it together, and it didn't sound...

King:
Yes, they beat us. I played halfback, but we had thirteen players, and I'm on crutches. So, I played safety. I just got way back. There was a safety on crutches, so we would have eleven men on the field, and that's how I played. This is true.

Glaze:
Why were you on crutches?

King:
Because I got hurt. I got my ankle twisted. I got hurt.

Glaze:
How long were you playing ball on crutches?

King:
Just that...

Glaze:
Just one game?

King:
Yes, just that game. I didn't play the next two or three games. In fact, we were district champions. You've heard of Tennyson Miller? I'd like to take you where he is. We called him "Coach." I was thirty-five years of age, and I was in the Army, came out of the Army, you know, in college, and I met him for the first time since high school. I was trying to smoke a cigar, and when I saw him... [quickly puts his hand behind his back] He said, "Oh, boy, you're old enough to smoke now." But, no, you see, you wouldn't be caught smoking in front of one of your teachers when I was in school. That's the difference. That's the respect. That's the thing that we had. I played basketball, football, and ran track in high school. You had to do all of those; you didn't have different teams. Every kid who was an athlete played on every team. We didn't have baseball. Track, football, and basketball were our three major sports in high school.

Glaze:
You mention basketball, and yet I heard that you had no cement. What did you do for... the basketball?

King:
The ground. We had hoops. We'd go someplace at the high school and borrow some hoops.

Glaze:
Are you speaking of the white high school?

King:
Oh, anywhere we could get them. More than likely they came from... and, they may have bought us something. I'm not saying they didn't spend a penny. Now, they had to spend some money for teachers, maybe toilet tissue -- if we had it -- brooms. They spent a little money on us. They probably even gave us some. You see, the black culture and the white culture had a good relationship. Now, Tennyson Miller was very aggressive. He cared for us. He would go to the white school and talk to the other coaches and say, "Do you have any old rims?"

Glaze:
Any old what?

King:
Rims. Basketball rims, we called them -- goals.

Glaze:
Were they words that you used at that time?

King:
Yes. Some of the words, when we get together, we use now -- making fun of.

Glaze:
Well, throw me one. What are you talking about?

King:
He "hiddid" it. "Man, he really 'hiddid' it!"

Glaze:
"Hiddid" it?

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
Like he...

King:
Hit the ball hard. He "hiddid" it. Let's see another one -- "Killingflo."

Glaze:
What does that mean?

King:
"Where you guys, going?" "Man, we're going to the 'killingflo.'" Dancing.

Glaze:
Killing floor?

King:
Killing, K-I-L-L-I-N-G F-L-O-O-R. "We're going to the 'killing floor,'" we called it -- dancing.

Glaze:
I see.

King:
"Stone fox."

Glaze:
Okay, what is that?

King:
A beautiful woman. And the "eagle fly."

Glaze:
Okay, when you get paid?

King:
When you get paid. (Chuckle) When you get paid. Let's see... "HNIC." (Chuckle) You'd better be careful. "HNIC."

Glaze:
I don't know that one.

King:
"Head N***** In Charge."

Glaze:
(Chuckle)

King:
"Who's that guy?" "Oh, man, he thinks he's 'HNIC.'" We would use a bunch of them. Those were some of the things that we used. That was just our language in those days.

Glaze:
It was your slang.

King:
It was slang, yes. "Went to the 'wolfing tree.'" "Oh, don't pay attention to that guy. He's just 'wolfing you.'" It was lolly-gagging. That's the same thing -- just talking.

Glaze:
So, the "wolfing tree" is just where you lolly-gag?

King:
Yes. (Chuckle) That's our culture. It's English, but it's just the way that we do things.

Glaze:
Okay, now let's see. We were talking about your teams, and you said that the athletes played on all the teams.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
As far as track, where did you practice?

King:
We're improving now. Actually, when I first started out, we still ran around this area.

Glaze:
Around the school?

King:
Around the school.

Glaze:
On the grass or on the street?

King:
On the grass. When Professor Miller came... "Coach," we called him -- Coach Miller. I call him "Coach" now. When he came, they went to the... I don't know if it was the county or the city, but down in the park where the old building was -- the Fred Moore Park now -- with this grader, they had us grade a track. They had us grade that off, and, boy, we thought we were in high cotton. We got a track now even though it was still dirt.

Glaze:
(Chuckle)

King:
I guess, during my last two years, we'd go down to the park, and they had a football field in the center. That was our high school stadium or football field and track field. That's what happened. The city or somebody permitted us to use the county grader to do that. That's what we did.

Glaze:
Who coached the track? Did Tennyson Miller?

King:
Tennyson Miller. He is the only coach that I knew in high school. I wasn't involved before him. He's the only one that I remember. I got my high school participation athletically under him. See, we wanted to walk like him. He was kind of crippled. Well, not crippled, but he had a stiff leg. I think he broke it in high school. We'd get behind him, and we'd... [demonstrates the walk] Oh, yes, and try to walk like him. We'd try to talk like him. We called him "The Black Bear."

Glaze:
"The Black Bear?"

King:
Oh, yes. Behind his back, now: "Here comes 'The Black Bear." But he was loved. Oh, my goodness, we loved him. We worshipped that man because he was something else. He was something else. He was like a father to all of us. He was a father. He would feed you and whatever. But you didn't do any wrong because he'd get you and because of the respect that you had. That was discipline. There's no such thing today. You can't discipline anybody, even in elementary school. You've got some methods, but, see, that's the essence of America. That's the only way that America is going to become as it should be -- self-discipline.

Glaze:
The desire to do. Is that what you were saying? The desire to be?

King:
Okay, I'll accept that word. I'll accept "desire." "Determination." That would be a similar word or "committed to be." But that's it. "I'm not going to live in those projects for the rest of my life. I'm going to get out of here. I can't do it in a day, but eventually I'm going to be out."

What did I do the other day? Yes, I was in the post office. I had bought a book of stamps, and I went to the table to stamp my letters, and there was a full book of stamps right beside me. I'm looking around. I said, "Huh." I got almost to the door, and I said, "No, I can't take these stamps. I can't do that." I took them back and turned them in. Somebody else would have gotten them -- I know that -- or the person may have come back after them, but they probably would have been gone. But I just couldn't take them. Me, take some stamps? For five dollars? No.

I'm saying it's just something within that says, "Hey, do unto others," and that's it. All this religion and stuff is all right, but there's not but one religion in this world: "Do unto others as you have others do unto you likewise." That covers everything. If we had that, all killing would cease. You see what I'm saying? Now I'm not going to say I'm not going to save my life. Say you've got a gun and are going to shoot me. In self-defense, I may repeat. I can't run over an animal in the street -- a dog, even a snake. I can't run over a snake. If I see a snake in my yard, I may kill it, but if it's not threatening me in any way, no. I'm saying that's the utopia of our society.

In our day, there was discipline instilled by teachers and the community. Every adult person in your community was your parent in my day. They could come out and spank you. If they saw you doing something wrong, your neighbor could come out and spank you, and it would be all right. But most of the time, they would say, "I'm going to tell your mama on you! I'm going to tell your daddy on you!" That was it. It was community discipline, and that's what happened.

Glaze:
Speaking of discipline... we're kind of hopping around, but that's a point I'd like to talk about. You said that there was a great deal of self-discipline and sense of respect.

King:
Yes.

Glaze:
What about the actual discipline? How common was that, and what methods of discipline did some of the teachers use?

King:
It was as common as it needed to be. In terms of discipline that warranted punishment, it was rare. But when it did happen, you would be punished, and in my day punishment was corporal punishment. You would get whipped with a board. Even in Farmersville, oh, my God, I was in the fourth, fifth grade there, and I remember a boy and I outside and had done this. [Assumes boxing stance] Fisticuffs.

Glaze:
Put up your fists.

King:
Yes, getting ready, and Professor Dagler (gesture), that's all he did.

Glaze:
Just crooked that one finger.

King:
That's right. We went inside. He didn't say a word, and he had a belt. He was left-handed. Three licks apiece. We were afraid, especially in those days, of our teachers, too. We feared our teachers. And that's what's wrong today. Kids have fear of nothing. In life to be successful, a successful person has to have something to fear. I don't mean to be afraid of, and I don't mean fear in terms of my life, but fear of losing a job. Why I tried to do such a good job wherever I went was the fear of being fired because being fired from a job was one of the worst things that could ever happen to me. In my marriage, (chuckle) I try to be a good husband because I fear divorce. Divorce, to me, is a form of failure. You made a commitment to do something, and you didn't do it. You failed, just like anything else. That's the difference. Discipline is basically fear. I would say 75 percent respect, 15 percent fear, and whatever that other 10 percent was. It was respect.

Glaze:
As far as the teachers, when you were at school, who were the most strict disciplinarians?

King:
In terms of Coach... of course, he was the coach, but that was in terms of athletics. I was only in school in Denton under Alice Banks [Alice Moore Banks Alexander] at that time, Eva Hodge, Ammons, Professor Moore, and Miller. Now, we did have Alcorn... that was the guy, Alcorn. He tried to be football coach. In fact, he had a fight with Isaac Ross. Isaac Ross wouldn't have fought Tennyson Miller. Those are all the people I had in school. Alcorn only stayed one year. Those are the only teachers I had.

Glaze:
Did you have Alice as your teacher?

King: Yes.

Glaze:
She was the one that had your first grade? I mean you started in the seventh...

King:
Oh, no, no. For some reason, I think they sort of tried departmentalizing, or it may have been that... because actually she taught first grade. I didn't have first grade under her, but I think she had a special class or something after school. She did some special work, and I think that's how I got with her. She was probably the kindest because she was so close. She was so young. She was young. Some of the girls, especially in high school, considered her as one of the girls. She was the kindest. Mrs. Ammons was a mother-type. Mrs. Hodge was the most stern. Then, of course, Professor Moore did discipline by... what? He was so refined, and we had so much respect for him. That was his key to discipline-the respect that he commanded. Of course, he sort of left it up to Coach Miller. The tough cases, he would turn over to Coach Miller. So, that was it.

Glaze:
Then what did Coach Miller do?

King:
Shoot, he'd bust your behind if need be. Of course, Professor Moore would let him make that decision of what kind of punishment you got. Sometimes Coach Miller -- most of them were athletes -- would actually say before you, even on the campus, "You get out there and run until I tell you to stop." He gave us very