JEFFREY ROSS

TRANSCRIPT %u2013 JEFF ROSS
[Compiled August 28th, 2010]

Interviewee: JEFF ROSS

Interviewer: Rob Stephens

Interview Date: August 6th, 2010

Location: Shelby, North Carolina

Length: Approximately 64 minutes

ROB STEPHENS: Could I have you start by saying your full name, your birth date, and where we are right now?
JEFF ROSS: My name is Jeffrey Ross. Full name? Jeffrey Tamar Ross. My birthday is 12-21-65 and we are at Cleveland Regional Medical Center in the T.R. Harris Center.
RS: In Shelby, North Carolina.
JR: Shelby, North Carolina.
RS: [Brief discussion of contact information for interviewee] And where were you born?
JR: Shelby.
RS: Shelby.
JR: Shelby, North Carolina, born and raised.
RS: And are you married?
JR: Yes.
RS: Your wife?
JR: Tammy
RS: Ross?
JR: Yes. [Laughter] RS: Not everyone takes that.
JR: She actually uses--it%u2019s hyphened.
RS: It%u2019s hyphened?
JR: But she doesn%u2019t use it now.
RS: Okay. She had to warm up to you?
JR: [Laughter] RS: All right.
JR: It was a trial. [Laughter] So she%u2019s going to keep me. [Laughter] RS: And do you have children?
JR: No. Well, I have to say I have children--not biological, but I%u2019ve raised my niece.
RS: Is it adopted or not officially--?
JR: Nothing, just custody, never adopted her.
RS: Well, if you want they%u2019ll put her down.
JR: Yes.
RS: Okay.
JR: Dionna Allen.
RS: And what year?
JR: Well, she%u2019s twenty-one, so it would be 1980, right?
RS: No, that would be 1990.
JR: Wait, %u201990, I%u2019m sorry. God, I don%u2019t her own birthday. Erase that off.
RS: [Laughter] And did you go to high school here?
JR: Yeah.
RS: You go to Shelby, Crest?
JR: Shelby.
RS: Shelby?
JR: There%u2019s no other high school here.
RS: They%u2019re out in the county, I guess.
JR: Yeah, right, but really, we don%u2019t consider them high schools. [Laughter] RS: Uh-oh. What year did you graduate?
JR: %u201984.
RS: And did you do other education after that?
JR: Yes, at the community college.
RS: That%u2019s Cleveland County?
JR: Cleveland Community. Cleveland Community College. As a matter of fact, the lady that was standing in there, her husband is the president of Cleveland Community College.
RS: Okay. And when did you graduate?
JR: [Pause] %u201988, and then I%u2019m back in school trying to get a bachelor%u2019s.
RS: Great. And where are you now?
JR: That%u2019s Gardner-Webb.
RS: Gardner Webb, okay. And occupational experience?
JR: Let%u2019s see, I started out in this hospital in housekeeping.
RS: Wow.
JR: Environmental Services.
RS: And what%u2019s the name for this?
JR: It was called housekeeping then. Now it%u2019s called Environmental Services.
RS: Is it Cleveland--?
JR: Cleveland Regional.
RS: Regional, okay.
JR: This is the only place I%u2019ve worked since I--well, the second place I%u2019ve worked since I graduated high school. I%u2019ve worked over twenty-four years--twenty-five in March. I worked my way from Environmental Services to working for--I mean, I held so many other positions here.
RS: Do you want to give some highlights of the jobs that you%u2019ve had?
JR: Yeah. Well, there%u2019s special projects for the CEO.
RS: Okay.
JR: I worked in marketing. I was a marketing rep. I was certified in orthopedic technology, which is what I got at Cleveland Community. I was an ortho tech. What else? And then, of course, community outreach, and it%u2019s changed from community relations to community outreach.
RS: We%u2019ll do the interview agreement at the end, so you know you%u2019re agreeing let it go.
JR: And I have an agreement as well.
RS: You do?
JR: Yeah.
RS: Okay. With me? Do you have it in writing?
JR: No.
RS: %u2018Cause then it doesn%u2019t count. [Laughter] JR: It%u2019s going to be recorded. We%u2019re going to record it.
RS: An oral agreement is actually legal.
JR: It%u2019s ironclad.
RS: Okay. Do you want to do that now?
JR: No.
RS: [Pause] So I usually start out with this question. Maybe could you tell me about your grandparents? You can talk, start on maybe your father%u2019s side [pause], your mother%u2019s side? It doesn%u2019t matter.
JR: I really didn%u2019t know much about my grandparents on my father%u2019s side. I knew that my grandparents were sharecroppers and they lived on a farm that was owned by the Bridges family.
RS: Do you know which ones?
JR: No, I can just remember the name Bridges.
RS: %u2018Cause I interviewed one of the Bridges this morning actually.
JR: Oh, that%u2019s interesting.
RS: The Red Bridges.
JR: Wow. Well, I don%u2019t know.
RS: They owned a farm across the street from where the mall is.
JR: Well, this farm was off of Caleb Road. They sharecropped; I know it was very, very hard. My grandparents combined had twenty-one children. Yeah.
RS: And that%u2019s your father%u2019s side?
JR: That%u2019s my father%u2019s side.
RS: So he%u2019s one of twenty-one?
JR: He was one of twenty-one children, and I think it was a combined family. Him, his children, her children.
RS: Okay.
JR: But, they had twenty-one kids, and they literally--everything was made off of the land. Everything was done through sharecropping. My grandmother, she was so industrious. She basically--she was, I would say, the coordinator, the organizer of the home. She kept everything going. She kept the order. She made the schedules for the field time. She was the one that arranged, you know, how you%u2019re going to bale the hay, when you%u2019re going to bale the hay. My grandfather, he pretty much was taken care of. He was a hard-working man in the field, but once the work was done, my grandmother took it from there, so he was the orderer and she pretty much was the orchestrater, the organizer. It%u2019s a pretty hard life though. Just hearing some of the stories--my father was a very angry--the angry black man stereotype. I mean, he was. He watched his mother get smacked to the ground by the owner of the land, because she had been asking for more money and they were obviously not giving them the shares they had promised. She was confronting him about it, and he smacked her to the ground. My father witnessed that, so that and having to work and live, you know. My grandparents never had--and this is funny--they never had running water in the house for a bathroom until the late eighties. They had a well.
RS: Yeah, and an outhouse?
JR: And an outhouse. Until the late eighties--I%u2019m talking like, eighty--I was out of high school in %u201984--I%u2019m talking like, %u201985, %u201986.
RS: Wow.
JR: Yeah. My grandmother finally moved to the city. My grandfather died and my grandmother moved into the city of Shelby out of the country. Farming, that%u2019s all she had known all of her life. They got married when she was twelve. She was twelve; he was eighteen. That%u2019s really all I know about that experience.
RS: I thought you said you didn%u2019t know much about it [laughter].
JR: It%u2019s coming from the stories my grandmother told me, and then some of the stories my dad would tell me. I mean, they really talked a lot about--naturally, they would talk about race relations and how it was to be black, and how they were treated by the sharecroppers, and how hard it was with twenty-one kids living on a farm; and having to sleep in a room with eight to ten people, and my grandmother having to cook for all of them. So, those were tough times.
RS: And could you explain the sharecropping system and how it worked?
JR: Well, now this is based on what they told me.
RS: Well, that%u2019s good.
JR: And this is all I was told: basically, the owner, naturally, supplied the land and the home. They supplied the equipment [pause] and some of the seed for sewing and planting.
RS: You said %u201Csome?%u201D
JR: Some, not all.
RS: Okay.
JR: Not all. And then, my grandparents were responsible for working the farm, taking care of the home. You know, they lived in the home; that was their rent; they took care of the land, and they were responsible for the harvest--for planting--sewing, planting--whatever you want to call it, and reaping that harvest. Then, everything was negotiated, supposedly, up front on how much they would get once it was done and how much they would get paid after everything was done. So, that%u2019s where the controversy came in, because they were never paid what was promised. They were told it always came up short once it was sold or they didn%u2019t make what they thought they were going to make. They were always told they should be glad that they had somewhere to live, and that%u2019s where I think most of the troubles happened. It was just, for lack of a better term, shady--shady business deals, and not really operating with a high level of ethics. Based on what I was told, that%u2019s how the sharecropping system worked. Now, there was always a promise that you would own that land, because they were promised for years if they worked this land for a certain amount of years, also, %u201CWe%u2019re going to give you this property,%u201D and that never happened.
RS: (14:52). Get some lawyers down here.
JR: And the level of education--my grandmother only went to the sixth grade, and my grandfather, I think he had a third-grade education. So, farming was their life and that%u2019s all they had.
RS: Do you know if their parents or how far back they go in Cleveland County?
JR: No, I really don%u2019t. I know that my grandmother, her descendants were Indians. If you would ever see her, she was a striking woman because she was a lighter complexion African-American woman, but her hair grade was just like an Indian hair grade. Her eye color was a funny-looking green, so if you would see her, you would kind of look at her funny because it just didn%u2019t match. It just didn%u2019t fit with what you would think an African-American woman would look like, but it was because of the Indian descent that she had. My grandfather, according to what I was told, a lot of their people came from South Carolina. Columbia--migrated from Columbia to Gaffney to, not York--there%u2019s another small town there. Do you know anything about--?
RS: There%u2019s Rock Hill, but that%u2019s bigger.
JR: Yeah, it%u2019s another one--Clover.
RS: Clover, okay.
JR: Clover is a smaller town. They migrated to those places because of work: sharecropping, farming. So that was the stories I was told.
RS: Are there any other stories that they told about interactions with the owner or issues of race in that time period?
JR: Well, race relations back then were always bad, and as a boy, it was always a very negative atmosphere as it relates to race relations.
RS: Are you talking about yourself now?
JR: For my grandparents.
RS: Okay.
JR: See, my grandmother, because of her faith, she was able to move past the race issues, but my grandfather seemed to never be able to get past that. He was angry about that. He never trusted white people because of how they were treated as sharecroppers, so therefore, that was passed down to my father, who was very angry. And I can confess, at a point in his life, he was very prejudiced. Very prejudiced, and so that came from--that stemmed from my grandfather, and him being so angry as a sharecropper.
RS: Did any of your family work in the mills, that you know of?
JR: My uncles on my dad%u2019s side, they worked in mills. They worked in mills eventually, because their thing was they hated the farm. So all their kids, their goal was to get away from that farm. Almost all of my uncles, as soon as they were old enough, they got jobs in the mill in Shelby and moved away from the farm, so all of them ended up here in the city of Shelby or somewhere in one of the surrounding cities like Lattimore or Ellenboro.
RS: Was there some of the similar injustice, disparity in the mill work as far as pay goes?
JR: Now, that%u2019s something I wouldn%u2019t know. I can just tell you my uncle who worked at PPG for thirty-something years, he used to always talk about how he thought, but it was nothing he could ever--. It was only a claim; there was nothing he could substantiate; there was no proof.
RS: There%u2019s, I guess%u2026
JR: %u2026It was just a prevailing mentality of the people, that white people made more money than the blacks.
RS: Well, the circumstantial evidence would say that he was probably right.
JR: Yeah, we could say that now [laughter].
RS: It would not be shocking if he was right. The types of jobs--were they different from--? Was there upward mobility or anything like that?
JR: No, there was no upward mobility. I mean, when you went into the mill, and I always remember my uncle, especially one of them--he always talked about how they were always passed over for jobs because during that time, we all know the prevailing mentality was that the African-Americans were just not considered to be smart enough, so you were going to be passed over. And, as a second-class citizen, naturally a white person was going to get the better job before you would because it wouldn%u2019t be socially acceptable for an African-American to have a job better than a white person in that day.
RS: We%u2019ll bring it up to today later because this--so, not to categorize you, but I%u2019m doing 21st Century, so it%u2019s also about today and the future leadership. I think I may have mentioned that on the phone. So did your father go all the way through high school? Oh, no, we haven%u2019t gotten to your mother%u2019s family.
JR: No, we haven%u2019t talked about my mother%u2019s family.
RS: And that%u2019s the one you say you know more about?
JR: Yeah, yeah. My grandparents on my dad%u2019s side, it was just my grandmother--I was able to hang around with my grandmother and grandfather. My grandmother was a storyteller.
RS: Okay.
JR: She always had something if she wanted to teach you a lesson, she told you a story.
RS: Okay, you got one?
JR: Yeah, well, some of those stories.
RS: Okay, the stories about--yeah, okay.
JR: The sharecropping stories, you know, she always talked about that. She always talked about the wintertime and how they had to--it was like a two-fold thing. Excuse me, during the summertime, they were having to make sure that the crops were going to yield a harvest. They were going to have a hard time because they had to get the crops, do the sharecropping, and they had to get enough to provide for the family for the winter. For the whole winter, because that was it, so her worry was always are we going to have enough? So, my grandfather, knowing that he was going to need money for things, he would always make sure they just really put all their focus on getting everything they could out of the fields and taking it to market. My grandmother was always the industrious one. She would always hide stuff from my grandfather because she knew they were going to have to have it for the winter. It was amazing to hear her talk about how she would--when my grandfather would go into town, my grandmother would can stuff and put it up in the cellar. She would keep stuff and it was amazing to see all the stuff she would get done and how she was able to can hundreds and--she would can everything. I mean, she would name some of the stuff she would can, and I would go %u201CWow!%u201D I mean, you would can that? I mean, she would can meat. I%u2019ve never known people to can meat, but she would can meat. I was like, you know? But it was just interesting to hear those stories and to know her thought processes, and what she was thinking and how she had to do all this to make sure that the children were going to be taken care of.
RS: Yeah.
JR: She would talk about things like she would have to have this many cans because she knew--sometimes she would go in and she could sell her canned goods to get cloth, bolts of cloth to make clothes for the children. She would laugh because she would say, %u201CWell, you know, the white women just love my green beans,%u201D and I would just laugh about that she would just can a lot of green beans, and so that was just one of the stories that she would tell.
RS: That%u2019s great. So your mother%u2019s side?
JR: My mom%u2019s side was quite different. I think the origin of my mom%u2019s family was interesting, somewhat like my father%u2019s because they came through that same channel, coming from South Carolina, Columbia. Some of them, they really think, they started in Georgia and worked their way up to the Lowcountry, worked their way up to Charleston, came up to Columbia, then from Columbia to Gaffney. Then they, instead of going on to Clover, they came up to Boiling Springs. My grandfather, who I can%u2019t wait to see when we get to heaven, I want to talk to my grandfather because I admire this man--just never was able to talk to him. He was a sharp man. My grandfather that was ten of them--they had ten children--but my grandfather also moved to Boiling Springs, he sharecropped but he knew business. Yeah, he could read; he could write; he knew business, so therefore, he was very, very industrious, so he could bargain with the landowners. He could get most of everything he wanted. I mean, my grandfather, not only did he sharecrop, but he owned his own equipment. He had his own land because he negotiated with the landowners. He was the one that supplied food for people during the winter because he did can stuff. My grandmother canned stuff during the winter, put it back in the cellar. He would plant potato mounds; I just heard this story from my aunt. He was planting potato mounds and they would keep these potatoes in a mound of dirt, but that%u2019s what they would do. They would go out there and get the potatoes, just pull them out one by one and eat them.
RS: Oh, wow.
JR: It was amazing. It was just amazing, these stories, but I was impressed by the stories I hear about my grandfather even though I never met him, because he was an entrepreneur back in that day. You know, within the confines given to him.
RS: Yeah.
JR: So he took the little bit of rub that he had and he leveraged it. He leveraged it. He learned all he could, and it%u2019s amazing to me that he got so much accomplished. So, out of the Hopper family, my grandfather was the one that was known all over. He was the one that was the studious one; he was the industrious one. He was the one that really rallied the family, brought the family together. He was also a musician, so he played a guitar.
RS: Oh, wow!
JR: Yeah, and so at night, people would walk down to my grandfather and grandmother%u2019s home and either they would listen to the radio, because they were the only ones that had a radio, or my grandfather would play the guitar. He would always tell stories about where it really came from. He took pride in the music and he always talked about the banjo, where the banjo came from, and it really was not a bluegrass--. Bluegrass, that was not the first place that a banjo was introduced. We are the proud owners of that; it came from Africa. I mean, he prided himself on that, so.
RS: That%u2019s going to go in the Earl Scruggs Center right there.
JR: Yeah, I mean, those stories, after I heard all that when we were just looking into different historical facts about it. I was told stories about my grandfather and these are some of the things that I was told, so I thought that was interesting. I really admire this man so much. I just think when you look at that history, you want more and you want more. I%u2019m presently right now, with the help of one of my friends, trying to dig and get more because I only have one--my aunt is the only one left out of my grandfather%u2019s children. My grandmother is passed away and my other great aunt just passed away about four months ago.
RS: Which side is this?
JR: This is my mom%u2019s side.
RS: Okay.
JR: So my Aunt Thelma is the only one left, and she%u2019s eighty three. She has the stories, and that%u2019s where I get the stories of my grandparents and about my great-grandparents.
RS: Your great-grandparents? Have you talked about them yet?
JR: Okay, I thought we were starting with my--.
RS: Your Grandfather Hopper--.
JR: My grandfather Hopper, which is my mom%u2019s grandfather--.
RS: Okay, I thought he--but he%u2019s your grandfather. You call him grandfather and--?
JR: Yes.
RS: Your mom%u2019s grandfather.
JR: Right. I see.
RS: You can see how I was confused.
JR: Yes, I see now why you%u2019re confused. But yeah, I started from the beginning, started from them coming up to--.
RS: Okay. Okay, but you still call him your grandfather%u2026
JR: %u2026Yes%u2026
RS: %u2026even though he%u2019s your great-grandfather?
JR: Yes.
RS: Okay, got you.
JR: And so that is my grandmother%u2019s father. My grandfather%u2019s father, I don%u2019t even know who he was.
RS: Okay.
JR: Never knew his name.
RS: Oh, okay.
JR: Yeah, my grandfather%u2019s father, I never even knew his name. My grandfather never talked about him, never even mentioned him.
RS: So what about your grandparents? Were they farmers as well?
JR: Well, no. My grandparents were--they were just industrial workers. My grandfather worked in a mill--Eagle Roller Mill, right here in Shelby, one of the old mills here in Shelby. Eagle Roller Mill is where he worked. Then he had a part-time job at the tire shop--Firestone tire shop, which is right here, still there. He worked those two jobs. My grandmother worked at a laundry, Snowflake Laundry, and then she worked, ironing for people. Then after that, she worked in the dry cleaners, and that%u2019s all she did all of her life.
RS: I could go on this train all day, but how long do you have?
JR: What time is it?
RS: It%u2019s five after five.
JR: Yeah, about twenty-five more minutes.
RS: All right, then I%u2019m going to fast-forward a little bit. I do want to ask real quick: Did they ever talk about juke joints?
JR: Yes [laughter].
RS: Tell me a little bit about what you heard about juke joints.
JR: Yes [laughter]. Well, juke joints was a bone of contention in my family because my grandmother was a Christian, and my grandfather used to sneak around and go to the juke joint. But when they were young, all of them went to the juke joint. It was the meeting place; it was the social place for black people. It was a place where you sold, where they sold dollar shots. It%u2019s what we call a dollar shot. You could get a little cup of whiskey or a little shot of whiskey for a dollar, so normally, there was someone there that could play a piano or play music at the juke joint. They talked about going to the juke joint all the time. When my grandmother and them talked about the juke joint, it was always somewhere like out in the woods, somewhere far away, because the Christian people, you know, that was God-awful. You know, you%u2019re going to burn in hell if you went to the juke joint. So everyone would sneak, and my grandmother talked about changing clothes to go to the juke joint; they would put on two sets of clothes so their dad wouldn%u2019t know they were going to the juke joint. So they had on the clothes; they would put on the clothes that they were going to wear to the juke joint first, and then they would put on the clothes they were going to work in over it so my grandfather would not know they were going to the juke joint. So they would go into the woods and they would fold up their clothes real neat, put them in a place, and they%u2019d go to the juke joint. Then they%u2019d come from the juke joint, they%u2019d put their work clothes back on and go home. But it was a social place where most people went to rid themselves of the cares of the world, the problems, and they danced and had fun and drank. It was kind of like a modern-day bar.
RS: It was probably a little cooler.
JR: Yeah [laughter].
RS: But, so just in that line, because it%u2019s kind of often the juke joint is compared or it%u2019s juxtaposed with the church, so what was the role of the church and faith in either side of the family?
JR: On my mom%u2019s side of the family, my grandmother and grandfather, and my great-grandfather who I started out talking about: I gleam when I talk about it. It was huge. My grandfather based everything he did on his faith in God, and it%u2019s funny because I see now all this stuff that%u2019s coming back that you that you said that. Because my grandmother and my grandfather always talked about being a sharecropper of some type of indentured servant or anything. I mean, racial prejudice--you know, God is going to handle everything. You don%u2019t worry about white people. God will handle white people.
RS: Everybody talking about having%u2026
JR: %u2026You just do the right thing%u2026
RS: %u2026Can%u2019t go in there.
JR: You have to love people. My grandmother always talked about him and how he would always tell them: %u201CYou can%u2019t treat people the way they treat you. You%u2019ve got to treat them the way God wants you to treat them.%u201D We got this all the time as a little boy, and they got it from my Paw Paw Roy, my Grandfather Roy. Now, that%u2019s what they did on Saturday night. Now, keep in mind, on the radio, oh, they didn%u2019t listen to juke-joint music, because you were going to hell if you did that [laughter]. But he would sing songs, hymns, folk songs, really a lot. They talked about a lot of folk music. That%u2019s what they did. It was the entertainment, so faith was huge, and I tell you, they didn%u2019t veer off; they didn%u2019t. It was funny how much faith played in their lives.
RS: How about your father%u2019s side?
JR: Quite different, quite different. My father%u2019s family--how can I say this? They were very, just a hard-working family. My grandmother was the pillar of faith for that family. My grandfather, he was mean. Mean, and pretty much didn%u2019t have too much to do with church, didn%u2019t too much bother with church or church people.
RS: What denomination were they?
JR: They were Baptists. Now, my grandfather, they were Baptists, but they all converted over to the Church of God, which is Pentecostal.
RS: Yeah, okay. And do you remember growing up with them talking about--kind of within the African-American community--a class difference between Methodists and Baptists or Pentecostal, even not necessarily money-wise, but socially?
JR: Socially, the school of thought was that Pentecostal people were unlearned. They were unlearned, and it was a social thing. It was almost like a stigma. Baptist people considered themselves to be in the know. They had the way; they were the Baptists, and if you want to go to heaven, you have to be a Baptist. Methodist people were considered to be--you know, the CME people were considered to be good people, but I don%u2019t think as it relates to the social, you didn%u2019t hear that much about them. They were just good Methodist people. That was it--the Baptists seemed to have the bad reputation because they always thought they were better than the--and especially the Church of God denomination, they thought they were better than the Church of God denomination. My grandmother used to talk about that all the time--all the time!
RS: What about the AME or AME Zion?
JR: Well, AME Zion, because I learned this history when I was a boy, because the Church of God--see, my grandmother belonged to that Church of God, so ultimately, my mom was there, so I grew up in that, but my quest just to learn things, I started reading the Church of God discipline. It has all the tenets in it, so I learned through that, that the discipline that governed the Church of God was actually adopted from the old AME, because the Church of God uses an Episcopal order, which is the same order of AME.
RS: Yeah, all of the Methodists.
JR: And all of the Methodist churches, so it was the same order. Our organizations are set up pretty much quite the same. The only differences were some of their practices, because you know the Church of God really believes in the move of the spirit and the gifts of the spirit, whereas the Methodist Church naturally does everything methodical. So, other than that, the Episcopal is the same. I learned that in middle school, reading the church discipline, the tenets.
RS: I%u2019ve got that sitting in my briefcase. I%u2019m supposed to read it for a while since I joined. So for you, growing up, I guess by the time you got in school, integration, desegregation happened already?
JR: Oh, yeah, yeah.
RS: Did have older brothers or older cousins or people that went through that time period?
JR: Yes, I did. I hear people talk about it now because of my mom. They all attended, naturally, an all-black school.
RS: What was the name of it?
JR: It was Cleveland--Cleveland School. When I attended that school, it was a sixth-grade school for all kids.
RS: That%u2019s what always happened. They got high schools turned into--.
JR: Yeah, and so Cleveland School was the all-black high school, but they had, I think it was Camp, and Bethel; and John Chavis in Cherryville that were other all-black schools.
RS: Okay. And how did they talk about Cleveland?
JR: They loved it. You know, there is a population of African-Americans out there that really did not agree with integration because they could see, or they thought, their idea was that African-American children would lose in integration because they would be folded into the mix. Naturally, due to the fact that white kids received the--well, the best of books; the best of activities; the best of--well, the best of academics. African-American kids did not receive this, so they were always behind the white kids. Well, integrating them into a school where there were no black teachers--most of the black teachers were not employed during the integration. Most black kids just went over to a white teacher, so this group thought that the black student would not receive what they needed due to the fact that the overarching social stigma of %u201Cwhite was better%u201D would prevent them from teaching black children the way they needed to be taught.
RS: Were they right?
JR: I can say, partly. I can%u2019t fully agree with that. I think just interaction alone, just interaction alone has really, really helped over the years. I mean, because I would not be able to sit down and talk with you today if I would not have had interaction with my white friends.
RS: That%u2019s right.
JR: So I think that was huge because I think the key to dispelling any type of fear is to get to know. It%u2019s knowledge; it%u2019s getting to know. So, if I%u2019m in the know, if I know you, you know me and we might not come from the same place, but we have a common understanding of who we are. That%u2019s okay, and that gives us a playing field to grow and learn to respect each other.
RS: So how was you experience in the Shelby or the Cleveland County--is it Cleveland County Public Schools?
JR: Yeah, of course it is merged now, but it wasn%u2019t merged when I was going, when I was in school. My experience in school--it was a good experience. Can I say that I did not experience some racial prejudice when I was in school? No, it%u2019s sad to say, I can%u2019t say that; I did experience it. I had a fourth-grade teacher that called me nigger. So that was a tough experience, but I can say, when I look back, I had more positive experiences than I had bad experiences, because I also had some teachers that embraced me for who I am. They embraced me for who I was, and I was a pretty--I wasn%u2019t, you know, too shabby in school, so they saw that, and they really wrapped their arms around making me successful, or helping me to become successful. So, wonderful Mrs. Justice, I can remember some of the old teachers.
RS: Great name.
JR: Mrs. Justice [laughter]. Mrs. Justice was awesome, and Mrs. Whitley, I never will forget it, those are the people--man, I always say you%u2019re always standing on someone else%u2019s shoulders, and some of those teachers--. I mean, in elementary school, I only had one African-American teacher and that was in earlier grades. Her name was Mrs. Hoyle. The rest of my teachers were all white. I was bused--I mean, I went by two--no, three elementary schools, to go to James Love Elementary School, which is on the other end, the southern end of the city. So that experience was tough. I mean, some of the students--. You know, you can tell they came from homes where their parents were prejudiced. Some of them wouldn%u2019t want to sit beside of you, but once you got to know each other, with kids, all that stuff goes away. Once you get to know each other, you are more open, so I%u2019ve developed some great friends, and still today, we%u2019re all just great, great friends.
RS: And how have you seen the--I%u2019m going to have to strategize here for a minute--how would you say the schools are today? Because across the country, resegregation is happening, and it%u2019s going on--you know, the whole Wake County issue right now. It happened in my county, Forsyth County, ten years ago--systematic resegregation. Is that something that you see might happen in Shelby? Charlotte, it happened ten years ago.
JR: I can say I don%u2019t see that happening here. I think [pause] looking at the four high schools we have, [pause] and things are so different in this day and time because socioeconomics affect so much, whereas ten years ago, neighborhoods did not look the way they do now. Now, my neighborhood is pretty almost fifty-fifty black and white.
RS: Wow.
JR: Ten years ago, it didn%u2019t look like that, so I think it%u2019s going to be hard, now, for that to happen in this county. I think you%u2019re always going to have a larger population of African-Americans in the inner city, specifically Shelby High, because most African-Americans live in the city; they do not live out in the %u2018burbs. I call the %u2018burbs here Boiling Springs, you have a small population that live in the %u2018burbs, but looking at that--no, I don%u2019t see that happening. I do not. It was interesting; I followed that case in Charlotte. I thought it was just interesting to follow, but I don%u2019t see that happening here. And I can accredit that; we have a great school board here. We do.
RS: Is it pretty representative, racially, of--?
JR: I think it could be better.
RS: Okay.
JR: I think we have representation on--but can I say that board reflects our community? No. It doesn%u2019t, but I think it%u2019s on its way; it%u2019s progressing, and that%u2019s always good to see. I do think that there are open minds there, and I think it%u2019s going to get better, and I think our school system will get better. I think at one point, there was a big emphasis on race some years ago, but I think now they see that we have to focus on the children.
RS: That%u2019s what helps it. So this is not the best question, but for the time being, what do you think the biggest event between 1990 and today that%u2019s shaped either race relations in Shelby, Cleveland County?--like, my example in Forsyth County was the Darryl Hunt case. I don%u2019t know if you ever heard about that. The guy was put in jail for a rape and murder he didn%u2019t commit, so I%u2019d say that shaped race relations and the city more than anything else. It doesn%u2019t necessarily have to do with that; it could be a company coming; a hospital changing, or--. What would you say has been, if not the, then some of the most important shifts?
JR: School merger. That was probably the largest shift I%u2019ve seen in my lifetime in this county--school merger--huge.
RS: What were the effects of that?
JR: Oh, I think it affected everything from faith-based to civic to health care to--. I mean, really, I think everyone was affected by it. The political climate here was very, very rough. Because there%u2019s so many thing that--I didn%u2019t realize that so many people would be affected by a school merger, because I was for the school merger. But when you start looking at the systems that were in place, it%u2019s like, wow! And politically, [pause] I never thought people would be that passionate about not having a merged school system. I think some of it--some of the sentiments were that %u201Cyou%u2019re doing this because of race.%u201D The main school in the county has now--the population of that school is now, the majority are African-American.
RS: And before the merger?
JR: Okay, I didn%u2019t understand that.
RS: You said now it%u2019s the major--in the county, outside of Shelby.
JR: Shelby High School has had a rising number of African-Americans because a lot--number one, Boiling Springs started to thrive. It was one of the fastest-growing small cities in North Carolina, so a lot of the professional Caucasians moved to Boiling Springs, so all their children went to Crest. Most of your professionals in health care in the inner city, they lived here and their children went to Shelby, so you%u2019d have two things happening. You have a race thing and a social thing because there are two groups there, and some kids that might be in the middle don%u2019t fit into either one of those. So where do your children go? This is just the Jeff Ross opinion: So where do your children go? Do they go to the school where they%u2019re going to be a minority? Socially, they are not high enough on the social rung, or feel they%u2019re not high enough on the social rung to fit into the group of kids whose parents are doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc. So, the %u201Cmiddlers,%u201D or the middle class, pretty much went to Crest. That was when we%u2019ve had out hard discussion over what is now known as white flight, and Shelby High thus became a predominantly African-American school. Then the questions of merger popped up and there were many reasons given for it, but naturally, the public, the outcry of the public, the people, was they were trying to preserve Shelby and get some more white kids back into the school.
RS: That was the reasoning for the merger?
JR: That was not the reason for the merger, but that was the public perception that the current commissioners in place at that time had motives. One of the main motives was that they wanted to preserve Shelby High.
RS: So that was what people came up in arms?--I%u2019m assuming, and correct me if I%u2019m wrong, a majority of white people outside of Shelby came up in arms against?
JR: [Laughter] Yes. Yes. And pretty much, if you look at it, you%u2019re always going to have that. You%u2019re going to have that in any type of change, and the sad thing is that perception drives a lot of things. When the merger happened, reasons were given and defined, and they were really--I mean, there were really good reasons, and the truth is, I supported once I found out the reasons because the reasons were more financial-based than anything. We were probably one of the only counties in North Carolina that had not merged. So was everybody else wrong and were we right? You never know, but the truth is a merger was going to be good for this county.
RS: And Chapel Hill-Carrboro-Orange is the only one--there%u2019s one that hasn%u2019t, and it%u2019s for the opposite reason because the county is poor and the rich professors are in town, so it%u2019s interesting that this was flopped here.
?: Well, you had Shelby High School sitting with empty classrooms, and mobile classrooms being pulled into Crest, Burns, and Kings Mountain High School. We were one of the few counties that had three school systems.
JR: Three.
?: The city of Kings Mountain, the city of Shelby, and Cleveland County.
JR: And then Cleveland County.
?: And Cleveland County just had Crest and Burns High School.
RS: Sounds like Mississippi Delta. That%u2019s how it is.
JR: [Laughter] RS: So--.
?: And not only did you have the white, I mean, the race issue in a lot of ways, but you had the Buffalo Creek issue [laughter].
RS: What%u2019s that?
JR: Yeah, and that%u2019s another story.
RS: Okay.
?: Because of Kings Mountain and%u2026
JR: %u2026Kings Mountain not wanting to be part of Shelby. That is a huge, huge issue. Probably larger than the merger.
RS: Right now it is?
JR: It%u2019s still prevailing, yes. It is Kings Mountain and the city of Shelby just cannot mesh.
RS: And Kings Mountain is--?
JR: Part of Cleveland County. Shelby is the county seat of Cleveland County, and there is a creek that divides us. It%u2019s called Buffalo Creek, and when things happen, we call it the Battle of Buffalo Creek. The Kings Mountain school system, they%u2019ve really done well, ranked tops in the state, so they just did not want to lose that autonomy. They wanted to remain Kings Mountain school system.
RS: Okay, I have two more questions if that%u2019s all right?
JR: I%u2019m good.
RS: The first one is--it was interesting--I talked to Chris Canoutas yesterday, and I was asking him, since he is in the restaurant business, the impact of Latinos coming into the community. It was very surprising for him to say that he has had just a handful, in the years that he%u2019s been here, of Latinos coming to work in the kitchen. And in Chapel Hill, everybody--and he worked in Chapel Hill as well--everybody in the kitchen is Latino. What has been the impact of Latino immigration in Cleveland County and Shelby? Do you have any thoughts on why that is?
JR: The impact has really not been--we haven%u2019t seen a huge impact. The reason I think it is--now, the prevailing thought behind this is that most people--and this is not founded; it%u2019s just what I%u2019ve heard--most people in the Latino community here in Cleveland County are illegal, so they%u2019re not coming into the city to try to get jobs; they%u2019re not. They work on farms outside in the county; they pick apples; they pick peaches; they work in the fields. But coming into the city?
RS: Well, most of the people working in the kitchens in Chapel Hill are illegal, so I%u2019m not--I guess it could be safer in the fields, but--.
JR: Well, I have a Latino pastor that%u2019s a friend of mine, Jose Espanol. I know you guys will probably interview him and you probably could talk to him about this.
RS: I guess I%u2019ll get his name down.
JR: But Jose had a church, and I think because of the whole illegal immigration crackdown, I don%u2019t think he pastors his church any more. There%u2019s been a flight because people are naturally afraid, so they just don%u2019t come into the city unless they have to.
RS: Are the Shelby police pretty tough on immigration?
JR: I can%u2019t say that. I can%u2019t speak to that because I don%u2019t know. It%u2019s never been a problem here, never been a problem. You don%u2019t see a flood of Latinos coming here taking jobs. We don%u2019t see that. I do see a huge amount of Latinos on the farms [pause] picking peaches, the apple farms--really, lots.
RS: I forgot to ask this: Is your grandfather%u2019s property still in the family?
JR: No.
RS: No? Okay. So you%u2019re not going to be a farmer when you retire?
JR: Not going to be a farmer, sorry.
RS: So my last question actually--could you say your name real quick, so that they know who--?
PA: Pat Aycock.
RS: Pat Aycock is in the room with us. My last question is: Was there something that I didn%u2019t ask you that you wish I had, or something I left out, or something you think someone going through the Earl Scruggs Museum would need to know or want to know about Shelby or about you?
JR: [Pause] Shelby is a good place to call home, and I%u2019ve watched it grow as I%u2019ve grown from a boy to a man. It%u2019s just unbelievable the strides we%u2019ve made in race relations here. If you ever want to know a heart of any community, you just sit down and talk with its people. I think most people in Shelby can tell you we still have some things that we%u2019re working on, but that%u2019s the key--we%u2019re working on them. We%u2019re working on the race relations here. I think they%u2019re good. I%u2019m proud to say as an African-American I would want to raise my children here in Shelby. They have good government; they have a good school system; we definitely have one of the best health care systems.
RS: You%u2019ve got to say that [laughter].
JR: And we have a very philanthropic community, probably one of the most philanthropic communities in North Carolina. Case in point: my job, I get the unbelievable opportunity to represent this community nationally. Why? Because we%u2019re number one in the nation in per capita giving in United Way, right here. I get the wonderful opportunity to go tell people how we do that, and the first thing I say is because we have good community people who actually care about the community. It%u2019s not a bunch of rhetoric; it%u2019s not a bunch of meetings; and not a bunch of talk. Cleveland County, Shelby City is a great place to live. Not only that, personally, the health care system--we%u2019re not just making the community well; we%u2019re leading the community in how we, with the great things we have here in the city can help make the world better. We lead the world in the fight against cancer; we%u2019re number one in the health care system in Relay for Life. So we have a track record--our past, and we have present that could tell anybody or show anyone that this is a great place to live and that we have made so many strides in so many areas. We have a bright future ahead of us because we have great people that live here in this county. And that%u2019s it.
RS: Great. Well, thank you so much for your time, and yeah, appreciate it.
END OF INTERVIEW
Mike Hamrick, August 28th, 2010