Interview of Lillie Davis

1.1. Session 1 (May 6, 2008)

Stevenson

Good morning. I'm conducting an interview with Lillie Davis on Tuesday, May the sixth [2008]. First I'd like to ask you when and where you were born.

Davis

I was born in 1915 in New Bern, N-e-w B-e-r-n, North Carolina. My family was there for three days. My father was a brick mason, and he passed, so wherever the company sent him to write up contracts to build brick homes, if you travel through North and South Carolina you will find that most of the homes are brick, the original ones, so for five years we lived we lived in Washington, D. C.

Stevenson

I see. And if you could tell me more, tell me about your parents and your grandparents.

Davis

Well, now, my grandparents on my mother's side, her father was African. He married a Seminole Indian. On my father's side, his mother was white. She married a Cherokee Indian, so that made my father a half-breed, and my mother a half-breed, and I'm carried by both tribes as a quarter Indian, and I have received money from the Seminoles twice, and they told me to live a little longer, I would get some more. They're still in court with Florida for taking their property.

Stevenson

I see. In terms of your grandparents, what state would they have been in?

Davis

North Carolina.

Stevenson

Okay.

Davis

And they were from Scotland, Scottish background.

Stevenson

I see. What was your grandparents' occupation?

Davis

Land owners. They came and bought up a lot of land in America, not just in North Carolina, but all through the South. That's when they used to segregate certain areas for the Indians, for the colored, and for the whites in those different states. So segregation goes way back.

Stevenson

I see. Now, you mentioned that your father was a brick mason--

Davis

Brick mason, and a foreman of the company.

Stevenson

Would it have been unusual for African Americans to have this occupation at that time?

Davis

Impossible, impossible. You were either farming, housemaids, yard men, gardeners, couldn't even have been a butler in those days.

Stevenson

I see. And around what years was that?

Davis

Oh, this goes way back in the--whenever the English and the Scotch came to America.

Stevenson

I see. So you said it would have been almost impossible for an African American to be a brick mason. How was it your father was able to?

Davis

Because his skin, he was white, took after his grandmother.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

Took after his mother.

Stevenson

Okay. So you mentioned that your father, I guess when you were quite young, your father had passed.

Davis

No, he didn't pass until I was about seventeen years old.

Stevenson

Okay. Maybe you could tell something about the town you grew up in as a child.

Davis

Washington, D.C., mostly. That was his home base, and he and my mother separated when I was twelve, and her home state was North Carolina, and when they went to court when I was five years old, when the first separation came along. The court asked me which one I would live with, and, you know, I was in love with both of them, so I just turned my back on them in court, and the court placed me with my mother in North Carolina. They wanted me placed in North Carolina because that was her home, with a Baptist minister and his wife, a colored minister, and his wife died a year later. She was a teacher, the old-fashioned kind that taught primarily through the fifth grade, and I went to school with her for a year. And when she died, I was given an examination by the court, and I was placed in a boarding school in the third grade, at age six.

Stevenson

Okay. Maybe you could tell me in detail about your boarding-school experience.

Davis

Oh, the boarding school? Many people don't realize that there were schools built for light-skinned coloreds.

Stevenson

Really.

Davis

The white missionaries' churches built churches, our schools and so forth. The boarding school, the first one I went to, I think it was in Edgecombe, North Carolina, and then part of my grammar school was in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I think I was eight years old when my mother became ill. And the boarding school had white missionaries as well as colored teachers, and their families were not allowed to live in the white neighborhoods, because they taught in colored schools in the South. So we had, as we say, mixed-class students in those private schools, and when my mother became ill, one of the white teachers said, "You are going to visit your mother." She used to bring fruit and homemade bread and cakes and all of that to the school, and I would refuse to go see her. But when she became ill, that's when the missionary decided, "You are going to see your mother. She's ill." So she took me to visit my mother, and we sort of made up. So I was in boarding school through the seventh grade, and then I decided to--started in high school in Washington, D.C., and then my mother became ill again, so I decided to do my last two years in North Carolina where she was.

Stevenson

Okay. I'd like to backtrack a little bit. I'm intrigued by the idea of having a boarding school, you said, for light-skinned black children.

Davis

Oh yes.

Stevenson

What was the--

Davis

Light-skinned colored people, those near white, like me. Our worst enemies were black people. They called us mixed, see. "You mixed people." But what they forgot is, even the black one has some white blood, because all of the slaves' women that their old master had, had children by him, and when they remarried, some of them had light-skinned, some of them had black children. And, of course, their children intermarried and so forth. You're mixed with a little of everything.

Stevenson

So having these schools for the light-skinned children, was it a way of insulating or--

Davis

They're getting you away from the criticism and all of that that you would get when you made a visit home, and so forth.

Davis

I see. And the name of the school?

Davis

Do you know I can't remember the name of the one in Edgecombe, North Carolina? There was one in Raleigh, and I forget where the other city was. I had all of my school records, the junior college and so forth, and all of that in my garage, and in 1985, were you here in '85?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

When we had that heavy rain?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

Well, it went through the garage and soaked up, and I had put a lot of things in boxes out there, and they got soaked.

Stevenson

I see. So in terms of your school experience there at the boarding school, could you tell me a little bit about your interactions with your classmates, maybe if there were any teachers that were memorable, whether they were memorable as a good or a bad experience?

Davis

Well, what I liked about the colored teachers there, they were brought there so that they would lose some of their prejudices that they had against their own people, as well as whites. So it worked very well, and it was a wonderful experience when you get to like all people, and Indians, because we had a few Indians in our schools--

Stevenson

Interesting.

Davis

--before they moved them. See, the Cherokees, I think were moved from North Carolina, I forget what year, but some of them were still there. You know, America has a wonderful history.

Stevenson

Yes, very much so.

Davis

The early part of it.

Stevenson

So in the school, so you said that there were African American teachers that were brought in to sort of change their way of thinking.

Davis

Right.

Stevenson

Did you have any, or are there any particular interactions with any teachers that you can remember in particular?

Davis

Well, no, because I was a straight-A student, so all of the teachers liked me, both white and colored. See, I was out of junior college. I'd had three years, no, two years, and then I started teaching, and I didn't like teaching so I went back to college, so I had three and a half years, and I came to California when I was seventeen years old, at my eighteenth birthday, because my father had died. My mother was still alive. She didn't die until '57.

Stevenson

I see, okay. I'd like to go back. You said that you were placed with a Baptist minister and his family, and the town? This is in North Carolina?

Davis

Tarboro [North Carolina], where my mother's home--Tarboro, T-a-r-b-o-r-o, North Carolina.

Stevenson

Okay. So could you tell me something about, okay, so you were in boarding school for a while, so you probably--do you have any recollections of the neighborhood in Tarboro?

Davis

Tarboro had two distinct neighborhoods, white and colored, and the few Indians that were around lived in the colored neighborhood. And in Tarboro there is the Tar River that separates Tarboro from Princeville [North Carolina], and Princeville across the river is lower, and most of the homes over there are owned by colored, and when the floods used to come along, they would be inundated, and had to move and all. And one of the hardest floods they had was when [James Earl "Jimmy"] Carter [Jr.] was president, and he went to look over the area, the Virginia part that was underwater, and North Carolina. The white people were trying to buy up all the property over in Princeville after the water went down, so Carter put an end to that, and got money, loans and so forth, so that people could rebuilt that lived over there.

Stevenson

Okay. Again, about the boarding school, I know that all of the children were light-skinned, but even given that fact--

Davis

And the missionary children. You see, they were white.

Stevenson

So were there any tensions among the students at all?

Davis

No.

Stevenson

They got along pretty--

Davis

That's one thing. As they say, being a Christian school in the old-fashioned Christian type, you love everybody, so there was no tension whatsoever.

Stevenson

And what grades did the boarding school cover?

Davis

I think it was the first through the seventh, but when I went there I think I started in the fifth. I think I had two years there, and then the junior college after I graduated, because I went to Washington, D.C., because my father was ill. So I actually had three years and the quarters. I had one more quarter, so I went to school in Washington, D.C. at a colored school there. You see, they had colored schools in Washington.

Stevenson

So was it a colored school for just fair-skinned, or for all?

Davis

For all.

Stevenson

In Washington, D.C. Do you remember the name of that school?

Davis

No, because it was in those papers.

Stevenson

Oh, I see what you're saying, yes.

Davis

And it is no longer in existence. And even the hospital that I worked in in Washington, D.C., and that's when I think, what was it, the March of Dimes first came into existence, and Mrs. [Anna Eleanor] Roosevelt came into the Children's Hospital where I was working in the diet area, but I wanted to get back in school and become a dietician, and with her help I was able to. And as I say, some people are disturbed by what some people say, but I took refreshments up for the children, and when she came in and looked around she said, "Where are all the darling pickaninnies?" because that's what they used to call colored children. I said, "Oh, I'll take care of that." So I went over to the colored ward and got a double chair, and had them bring me some plain gowns, and picked two of the blackest ones I could find to take over, and a white nurse wanted to push. I said, "No, thanks. You didn't take them over in the first place, so I will push the chair." So when I pushed the chair near Mrs. Roosevelt, it was time for the cake cutting, and they had put the knife in the little white-hand child that was sitting on her lap. She reached over and put the colored kid on the other side of her lap. She took the knife out of the white hand, put it in the little black hand, put the little white hand on top of that, and both of her hands on top of the children's', and that's the photograph that went into the paper.

Stevenson

Very nice.

Davis

So she asked me later did I like my job, and I told her I would like it better if I could get into the dietetic classes. And she said, "Well, why can't you get in it?" I said, "They don't allow colored." And she said, "Well, you're damn near white." And she looked to the kids and she said, "That's an adult word. I don't ever want to hear you say that." So it was with her help that I got into the dietetic classes there, and you get the same degrees that you would in college, so that's where I got my two years.

Stevenson

Okay. And I have another follow-up question about the boarding school, in terms of the curriculum that you were taught. Did they have black history?

Davis

No. Oh, I'm sorry. High school, yes, the high school.

Stevenson

But not the boarding school?

Davis

No, no, the boarding school, no. You'd get it in high school. And I have tried through Church Women United to get not just black history, but the history of all nationalities that built America, white, black, Indian, Spanish, Orientals, and all of that, and we had some books printed up with the history of their backgrounds and their contributions to America, like I think it was the Orientals that built the railroads and so forth, and those that built the housing and so forth. What each had contributed was in the book, but the hardest fight we had, the education system, could not get them into the high schools here as a part of the curriculum. And I said, "That's crazy. You go to the middle states, you go south and you go east, there is black history, Spanish history, Indian history all over, but not here in California.

Stevenson

Okay. So you said that the boarding school went up to seventh grade, and so after that you went to high school?

Davis

Yes.

Stevenson

What was the name of the high school, and where was it located?

Davis

Tarboro High School was its name, Tarboro High School. It is no longer in existence, but one of the things I remember, they tore the old one down and they built a new school, but they did not put in restrooms inside. They built the new white school, and they built the colored school. The white school had their restrooms inside. Ours were outside, and so one of the teachers said she wouldn't care if the toilets on the outside were plugged. They were flushing, but outside, and so she had us take all the screws--remember the old desks that had the writing, the top part?

Stevenson

Right.

Davis

We took all the screws out, put them in the toilets and clogged them up, so then they had to build some new toilets inside, make an addition to the schoolroom so they would be inside. So it's amazing the things I look back and laugh about that I remember in my life. And speaking of segregation, most of my mother's friends were white. She was a very good cook, and she used to bake breads, cakes, rolls, and so forth, and they used to come to the house and pick them up. Then one year I used a large doll-baby carriage, and I used to fill that up with the bread and cakes, and I would take it around. So then a place became vacant in the colored neighborhood, and it was the white--and also in Tarboro the tobacco auctioneers, that's where tobacco was segregated and so forth, and judged, and all of them participated in helping to get this place built, because my mother used to prepare lunches for them.

Davis

So when people talk about the difference in the North and the South and segregation, and I ask different ones, "Well, what do you know, what happened in your area during segregation?" But they don't have the good things that I can tell them about, what the whites did to help in our schools, the help my mother got, and other people. They also provided buses for the colored kid when the storm damaged the new school, and so we had to cross the river to go to a school over there, they provided buses for us. Then I think it was 1947, the year before I was to get married to my husband, and I visited my mother to let her know I planned to be married in Tarboro, and she lived just up from the river that used to rise, and so forth. And I said, "Now I'm going to Wilson to visit my husband's family, so I'm going to walk down to the bus." And I said, "The thing I dislike is I have to sit on the back of the bus, and that's segregation." But I said, "The urge to meet my husband's," former husband's, "family, is stronger than my prejudice and so forth." And my mother laughed and she said, "Don't they put anything good in your paper in California?" She said, "When the black soldiers came back after the war in '45 and '46, they said they weren't sitting on the back of buses anymore," so the buses had been integrated in many areas in the South that people had no idea about. And so my mother said, "No, you don't need to call a taxi if you don't--." See, I was going to call a taxi and she talked me out of it, and she said, "Use the bus, because the bus is integrated." So I said, "Well, that's good to know." And I saw white people get up from their seats and give two colored women--one had a baby in her arm and was leading another child--a couple got up and gave their seats to the colored lady and her children. So you find some good everywhere.

Stevenson

Right. Yes, why do you think those good stories were not more publicized?

Davis

People don't want to read--good news does not sell papers or magazines. It's always the bad that sells. It's amazing.

Stevenson

Okay. Something else I'd like to find out. At what age as a child did you become aware of the concept of race and skin color, do you remember?

Davis

Well, I can go back to before my parents separated. My mother, as I said, when we would go to the markets, you know, always had to go to the back doors and so forth. And colored kids--did I say colored kids? They used to spit on me because I was mixed. It's amazing the things that happen from your own race, colored race.

Stevenson

So your bad experiences had mostly come in connection with other blacks, as opposed--

Davis

Right. Even in Washington, D.C., the, I don't want to call it hatred, but that's what it really was. There was a different society there, what they called the light-skinned society and the light-colored people. They didn't have anything to do with each other, right there in the capital, Washington, D.C., and we all lived in a segregated area. It's amazing about segregation, not only in neighborhoods but in people, because when I read history my question is, why did the Indians fight each other? That's something to think about.

Stevenson

Yes, it is, yes.

Davis

The different races, why did they fight each other? Over territory, where they could live, and it was always mostly where there was water, the ones that wanted to live closer to water. It's amazing.

Stevenson

Could you tell me a little bit about what role religion played in your upbringing, in your early upbringing?

Davis

We'll say both my parents belonged to the Methodist church, my father and my mother, even before they separated. And then, as I say, with him staying in Washington and her going to North Carolina, she joined the Methodist church there, so I grew up in the Methodist AME [African Methodist Episcopal] Zion church. And our church school, they had church school for children, and bible study and all of that, classes for the kids before services, activities for children after the service and so forth, and as they say, well, when I was twelve, then I joined the Methodist church where my mother belonged. So I was a Methodist, and then when I went to Washington, D.C., to live, I joined a Methodist church there. So when I came to California in 1937, I guess I'd been here about--I was going to the Methodist church in Santa Barbara. That's where my first job was, in a hospital there, and the job that I had was through the graces of Mrs. Roosevelt, who helped me. Then after two years there I moved to Los Angeles in '39, and was so surprised about the segregation here in Los Angeles. Colored didn't live in this neighborhood where I am now. And, in fact, most of the colored lived on the East Side of Los Angeles. But I'm one of those that is curious to go around neighborhoods and look, and then I found just a sprinkling of light-skinned living in a little further towards Arlington and so forth.

Davis

And then I got to Arlington, and there was one colored church, a Baptist church. I guess they bought it from a white congregation, so that's why they happened to be in that area, in a few scattered houses and all. Then when I got to Arlington I was looking around, and the lady that was with me, she was the color of this chair, and so a white man came out and said to her, "You can't live in this neighborhood. It's an all-white neighborhood." I said, "Oh, I thought I left the Mason and Dixon line on the East Coast." He cracked up on that. See, that gave him something to think about.

Stevenson

Yes, definitely. Okay. Going back to your high school experience, in terms of your curriculum, was there any college-preparatory curriculum, as it were? Were there people that would encourage you to go further in your education, higher education, at the high school?

Davis

The white teachers. Yes. And I spent a couple of semesters in--I went through summer school. That's why I was able to get my teaching credential when I was seventeen and all. I would go with her two summers, and I went to summer school. See, for three years I went to summer school, and that's why I was able to graduate at seventeen from the high school in Washington, D.C.

Stevenson

So you had a teaching credential you said at seventeen.

Davis

And I tried teaching in North Carolina, but that was not what I liked. I liked food preparations better, so the experience that I had in the diet section--and when I came to--even though I worked in the diet area in Washington, D.C., when I came to California I had to get a California license, and here again, as I have taught children in my church, "Keep your mouth shut. Answer only questions that are asked you by different people," especially, you know, the light-skinned kids and all. So they said, "Well, why?" I said, "Well," I said, "I found out." I said, "My heart sank when I found out I had to get California credentials, because they were not taking colored in the schools here in California in 1937." In fact, it was nearly the fifties before--I think the late forties and all, before--the middle forties. But anyway, the kids said, "Well, what did you do?" I said, "Oh, well. I just decided to go on and see what would happen, so I got in line at U.C. Santa Barbara, and I said, "Thanks to the Lord there was a lady in front of me who was Irish," and her name--she was Scotch and Irish, Telifero is her name. And so then I handed in my application to the person. He looked at me and he looked back at the lady, because I was even lighter than she was. So he said, "Oh, you must be Scotch and Irish, too. No, you're lighter than she is. You must be Spanish." I smiled. I [unclear] kept my mouth shut, so that's how I was able to get my--and a six-week course I did in three weeks, to get my certificate to get the California license. So you have to learn along life's way when to speak and not to speak.

Stevenson

Okay. Going back to your upbringing, in your home, the family that you were placed with--

Davis

He was a Baptist minister, and his wife was a teacher.

Stevenson

Yes. What emphasis did they place on education?

Davis

Well, with me going to school with her every day, they both stressed that I go to school, and he said, "Now, she's going to teach all classes, so stay with her when she changed classes," so that's how I was able to go from, as they say, five to my sixth year of through the third grade. In fact, I knew some of the fourth and fifth grade, but because I was only seven years old at the time that I was placed in boarding school, going on seven, they wanted to place me in the third grade, because they knew I would catch hail Columbia from the kids.

Stevenson

Okay. So once you graduated from college, you had your teaching credential, where did you go from there in terms of your education?

Davis

Well, as I said, the three colleges I went to the first two years, and then the third year in Raleigh, a year and a half in Raleigh, because I had three and a half years when I came to California. So then as I say, Washington, D.C. is where I, as I say, had to get my high school diploma to get back in the colleges there. See, I lived with my father, and every other summer I would have to live with my mother in North Carolina, so that's why I chose the schools in North Carolina, to be closer to her, because she was not well, so I wanted to be closer to her, because my father being a brick mason traveling all over, he could come and visit me wherever I was. And then when school closed and in winters, I always went back to Washington, D.C. with him.

Stevenson

Comparing Washington, D.C., with North Carolina, what were the differences?

Davis

None whatsoever. Segregation. I never could understand why the capital of the United States was so segregated, houses and schools, stores. In fact, you'd go in a big store, like one of the coats that I brought to California, I had to go in another section and all, and the lady with me, and I'll say she was darker, and there was somebody following us, and she said to me, "Why does she follow me, but she doesn't follow you?" I said, "Don't even think about it. I'll tell you later."

Davis

And my mother always said, "I don't care how hungry you are. You're not to go in any kitchen and get any food in these white cafeterias and restaurants. You come home and eat. You stay hungry until you get home." Oh, and they had water fountains in North Carolina and through the South, and they had white for the white people, and colored for the drinking fountains out in the parks and so forth. And my mother said she happened to see a white man drink his water from the fountain, and take his big dog over and let his dog drink out of the fountain, the colored fountain, and so she told me, "You don't drink out those fountains. Stay thirsty until you get home."

Stevenson

So your mother taught you some principles and values in terms of--

Davis

Right, right.

Stevenson

--protesting against segregation, or resisting it?

Davis

Oh yes, and my father, because he resented the fact that he had two homes, and I am the only child that survived out of seven children. The flu epidemic, the 1918 flu--I was born in '15, so it got the first three boys, and then in '15 I was born, and three boys after me, none of them survived the second year, like miscarriages and so forth.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

As I say, from both sides of the family, they believed in high principles. And my father worked--there was a lady that owned a park in Washington, D.C., and she gave it to the city, provided that on the other side of that park colored could live. Isn't that something?

Stevenson

Interesting. What was her name?

Davis

I can't remember her name, but if you look through history books and so forth. And I laughed at that, because when I came here, I found out that a former slave woman owned a lot of property downtown here. You read that history?

Stevenson

Right. [Bridget] Biddy Mason.

Davis

Mason, Biddy Mason. It's amazing the histories that you run into from different states. Now, where did she get all her money from? Have you ever thought about that?

Stevenson

Yes. She was a self-made woman. I mean, she was born a slave, bought her freedom.

Davis

But her master saw that she got an education, and taught her, and he also provided money for her to make her start in buying this property. I'm trying to remember what movie that was, with Clark Gable, and I can't think of the colored actor that was in that movie. In the paper the other day, he came from somewhere near South America, but anyway, he was talking about growing up with segregation in his own country, and then coming here, finding it worse here than it was in his own country, and he, too, was saying about the things he had to learn about the difference in races and where to live and so forth. It's amazing, but this is a wonderful country. In all the travels, Europe and Asia and the islands, and I never could get into Africa, because I was traveling in--my husband died in '77, and my first trip overseas was in '78, and I liked what I saw over there in Asia and so forth, and in Germany. That's when, as I say, Carter, when I asked him to work on segregation in Israel so that we could visit the Holy Land, and then two years later I was able to visit the Holy Land. So I like travel, and I've been through all the states, and that's where a lot of these different spoons you see from the different states, and people who have come from some of the islands have brought me spoons, and I used to have cups. In fact, all of this from the forty-eight states, and then that '84 earthquake broke all of them. Those fell off and broke up, so I still have a few left, so those you cannot lift. I have them anchored.

Stevenson

Maybe you could tell me, you mentioned that some opportunities were made possible by Eleanor Roosevelt for you. Maybe you could talk more about your impressions of Eleanor Roosevelt.

Davis

Well, as I say, with her sitting and reaching for the--you know, asking me about the colored pickaninnies and so forth, and then when she sat down and they had the white child on one side of her, and then she reached and got the colored and all, and sat it there, and placed a spoon in the little black hand, and the white over that, and her hands, that said a lot. And the letter, she wrote a letter to the school, to the hospital, and that's how I got into the classes. I had mentioned to her that I planned to come to California, and she said, "You will find--," she, too, was telling me, "You'll find the same problems there that you have." And she wrote out another credential for me, so that if I had a problem getting a job and so forth, so I used that to get the job at the hospital in Santa Barbara.

Stevenson

What do you think made Eleanor Roosevelt so receptive to the needs of African Americans and other people of color at a time when that was not usually the case?

Davis

Well, first of all, I would say she loved God. She was a real Christian. And when you are a real Christian, that says a lot about you and your life, and how you treat people around you, and she didn't like the way a lot of people were treated. And her husband, Roosevelt, he tried to break segregation there in the capital, but he found out that those southern whites were his worst enemies. It is amazing the prejudices that still exist among people in the world, I'll put in the world, because I've found it overseas in different countries over there, like China, an imperialist country, how they treated their own lower-class people. I saw women over there with their toes and so forth, you know, what they used to do--

Stevenson

Bind?

Davis

--put their toes and bind them, cut them off and bind their feet and all. Well, they couldn't walk on their own. They had to have help, someone to help them walk. And you learn from each country you go in, in Asia and Japan and all, and I found Japan was the most, I would say, up, coming along with segregation and so forth. They were first in line to try to break the caste system and so forth, even over there. So it's amazing in the different countries. I look at Hong Kong today and see how it has changed. I've been in and out of Hong Kong six times, because after--let's see, when did I go back? I was traveling overseas every other year, and then I would do a state here the next year, and in 1965 I became national vice president of Presbyterian Women, the first of color, and in the magazine there--I laid those out there because there's an article in one about the first colored lady, and when they were turning and looking at the thing they said, "Well, where's the lady? Where's the colored lady?" And then one here in California. See, there's the group of us, the national executive committee, and I darkened my face that day. I said, "I'm going to darken my face so they will know that one of us is on this committee."

Stevenson

Here?

Davis

Yes. So I used--and [unclear], my roommate, she said, "Why are you using that brown powder?" I said, "Because there's an article about the first colored, and I want them to see a colored face." And she cracked up. And she helped me do my hands and my arms and all. It's amazing. Even in the [American] Red Cross, and I got that at the meeting a couple of weeks ago. I've been with the American Red Cross here over forty-some years, and they said they meant to give that to me two years ago, but they got misplaced in back of the truck and so forth, where they carry their surprises, supplies. So I told them, well, good to get it now.

Stevenson

Okay. So going back to your college years, you mentioned going to several colleges. What was your goal, and what was your career going to be?

Davis

Well, as I said, at that particular time, teaching. But even though I had been to the diet classes and so forth, and would you believe I couldn't stand the sight of blood?

Stevenson

Oh, I see.

Davis

That's when I decided, well, food service is the best place. And I have donated to the Red Cross eight gallons of blood. Fortunately, I never had any childhood diseases, and I started donating blood right after the war. You remember, the Red Cross did not take blood from colored and Indians until after World War II? So it didn't bother me that they didn't take it before, because I had donated my first donation at seventeen. I had to get permission from my father. No, I got it from my uncle. I had to get permission to donate to someone in the hospital here, because I was seventeen and my father was dead at that time. I was able to donate, and it was to a white person. And it went from my arm--they weren't using the bags then. They just put the needle in your arm, and you were in a bed pushed right next to the patient. It just flowed from you into the patient. So from then on--and I have a rare factor in blood type O. That's why I was frequently called, so I used to donate about five times a year. You can donate every fifty-six days. So it's good to be able to help people.

Stevenson

Yes, it is.

Davis

People in need, if you need blood and I have it. And my doctor, who retired last fall, he said if he gets ill and needs blood, he wants me to come and give him some of my blood. He said, "You've got two kinds of Indian, white, and African, and you've never had diseases." I have an immunity that whatever that immunity is, I'm glad of it. I got in bed with my niece, little cousins, husband, couldn't catch a thing.

Stevenson

Okay. So after you finished your college--and by the way, I know you said you went to U.C.S.B. What were the other colleges that you attended?

Davis

Well now, they didn't know who I was and what I was.

Stevenson

Okay, in U.C.S.B. So what were the other colleges you attended?

Davis

I can't think of the name now, but Wilberforce [University] was one, and I can't remember what state that was in, and I'm trying to think of the one--they had funny names. And then as I said, with them being gone now, it's amazing.

Stevenson

And so at Wilberforce, what was your course of study there?

Davis

It was still wanting to be a teacher.

Stevenson

So it was still teaching.

Davis

Teaching, yes, teaching. I really didn't get into the food until my last year.

Stevenson

So at Wilberforce, at that college, how did you find your--

Davis

I'm trying to think of the name of the one in Winston-Salem [North Carolina]. Why can't I remember that college name?

Stevenson

So at Wilberforce, how was your college experience there--

Davis

Very good. Very good, because I was an A student straight through college work. I was determined, if I'm going to study and be something, then I have to make A's. And at that time there were no scholarships available back in those years, you know, for coloreds and so forth. So as they say, fortunately there was a white family that took me into Connecticut, the teacher that I stayed with and went to school there, and they took care of me during two summers to get me out of high school and all, and they provided me with a little money to get into college. So as I say, it's amazing, along the way the Lord provides. That's the way I look at it, and I'm glad I was brought up a Christian, because I look at children today when I'm watering out front, and they come home from school, and some of the kids in the neighborhood told the others I had those books about the blacks who had made contributions, and I asked one--there was a crash at the corner, and I said, "Can you tell me the name of the man that invented that light there?" Took him two days, but he went to the library and he found out that it was a colored man. And I said to him, "And I want you to tell me who named the streets in the capital of Washington, D.C." And he got two or three buddies that was going to the library with him, and so I gave them the books I had on the different--and I said, "I want you to realize what we as a race contributed to America, what the Orientals contributed, the white man, the Indians, and all. It took all of us to build what we have and enjoy today."

Davis

And he was saying someone told him--the mother found out that I was one of the first to move in this area, and next door Kelly Williams [phonetic], and my husband worked at Golden State Insurance Company, and when houses were up for sale, my husband sent me to talk to the owner, which I didn't like, and I told the owner then and there. But he knew I was mixed, you know, and all, and he said, "Well, it doesn't bother me." So he said, "Yeah, I want to meet your husband." And so when he met my husband, he thought he was from some foreign country, brown, you know, and all, with his straight hair and all. And I told him, "No, he's plain, plain American. We're just plain American." So we were the first two, back in 1948, to buy, and it was two years later before, working with the city on restricted covenants and so forth, that we were able to get another two families in further down. One is Spanish, and that family is still in that house down there.

Davis

And then there was one--I forgot what the lady across, she was German and I've forgot what else. But she didn't like the way they were segregating, and, of course, my next-door neighbor was German. Well, he hated the idea that colored were moving, so he used to put a sign, and that driveway had a division in between, and he used to always put the for sale sign up. His sister taught school in Orange County, and she said, "Please don't pay any attention to my brother. He's just an old-fashioned German Nazi." I told her, "He doesn't bother me." I said, "You see, it doesn't," I said, "because when I come in with my car I knock the sign down." And when I go out I would always curve and knock it down before I went out in the morning. And bless his heart, I guess it was about a month later, I was watering on the side of the house, and I had lilies there, what they call the Calla lilies, and oh, he was just so upset. He came over and grabbed the hose out of my hand. "Don't you even know how to water?" I said, "You have a better--?" So he was turning the thing to make it softer. "You're going to kill them. You're washing the dirt away." He gave me a, "Hmm," and went back in the house. I came in and told my husband, and he cracked up. And his sister came over. She was laughing, and she said, "Thank you for not paying any attention to my brother." So the doorbell rang a little later, and who was at the door but the brother. I found out he was a chemist, so he brought me some of the cologne that he was making. He had a chemistry thing in the basement. So it's amazing. From then on he took his sign down, and they lived there--I think it was three years later that he died, and she let me handle the sale of the house.

Stevenson

Okay. This would be a good--[End of interview]

1.2. Session 2 (May 21, 2008)

Stevenson

Good morning. I'm continuing an interview with Lillie Davis on May the twenty-first, 2008. First I have some follow-up questions from last week.

Davis

Okay.

Stevenson

Could you tell me about your experience with segregated railroad cars when you were young?

Davis

That's laughable, because I was, as they say, much lighter then, hadn't been out in the sun, and when I first came to California they thought I was Spanish. But as a kid I was much lighter, and the conductor used to take me around with him. You see, with my parents separated I would be traveling the car from Washington, D.C., to North Carolina where my mother was, and the conductor would let me go around with him collecting tickets, and they used to tease him, say, "You know that's your child," and so forth. "Take that sign off her," because, you know, the colored car and all, we had to wear those. But I got accustomed to that between Washington and North Carolina off and on, and when I was twelve years old, that's when every other summer I would have to spend with my mother. My father's home base was Washington, D.C. So that was a lot of fun, and I began to see a few changes.

Davis

Colored could not go to the dining room, and so they used to bring food for sale through the colored car, and so forth. And finally, I think I was about fifteen was the first time I noticed that when I left Washington and was going to see my mother, at that time I didn't see them coming through with cold drinks like they used to, and back then we could go to the dining room, and they had a certain white area, and a colored area.

Stevenson

I see. Okay. Could you also tell me about recognizing your mother's employer at a Ku Klux Klan rally?

Davis

He was, would you believe, the chief of police? And the Ku Klux used to put on their robes and parade every year, supposed to scare us and keep us in our place and all. And when he came by, he was heavyset. Even with the robe and the hood on I recognized him, and I ran out and I took his hand and said, "Hi, Mr. Berry." And he tried to shake me off, but I held on and marched right along with him and the Klan men, and everybody was just clapping their hands and laughing. And he gave up the Klan, decided the chief of police should not belong to the Klan, and he stopped the parades. There was an area in Tarboro at that time for picnics, and it had the white and the colored sign. They were right next to each other. So then they took the signs down, so anyone, white or colored, could go and have picnics out there. It was right off the river, and you could go swimming.

Davis

And speaking of swimming in the river, on Sundays when there were baptisms there used to be a white minister and a colored minister, and they would stand close to each other, and if anyone was too heavy for one to handle, they helped each other. They would turn and the two of them would hold on and baptize the people. So things like that never get in the newspaper, good news. So that particular area of North Carolina, I saw the changes and the things that were coming down, the signs they used to have up for the colored neighborhoods, they took those down. I forgot what year it was, but I remember Carter was the president at that time when they had the heavy flood from the Tar River, and Tarboro is on one side, and there is a--you cross the bridge and the area is lower, and that's called Princeville, P-r-i-n-c-e-v-e-l-l-e (sic), and most of the homes were owned by colored in that area. So some of the realtors were trying to buy up that area after the flood, and Carter put a stop to that. He visited the area and was looking around, and he got loans for the people to rebuild and clean up their homes and so forth.

Stevenson

I see. Okay. Could you tell me about your mother's experience with voting?

Davis

She paid what they call poll tax, but she was never allowed to vote. Now, they would go to the polls and they would supposedly let them vote, but then they would throw the ballots away. The ballots were never counted, and that went on I forgot what year. I think that changed about 1941, up until about 1941 before they were allowed to vote.

Stevenson

So were there other requirements besides the poll tax? For instance, did they question them about the Constitution or any--

Davis

Oh, they asked questions and so forth, but that's one thing I liked about the schools in the South, different. I didn't come to California until '37, and I noticed they were not teaching history, not just black history but Oriental, all those nationalities that had contributed to the making of the United States, and they had all those different--the Japanese, the white, the Orientals that built the railroads and so forth. But you see, we were taught all of that in the regular schools. We tried to get--I joined Church Women United, and we tried to get that on the school curriculum, and up to now no luck. Can't get the school system to bring that into their teaching. But I think if you're going to have history, it should be about all nationalities who have contributed to the well being of building this nation.

Stevenson

Okay. Next I'd like to ask you if you could tell me a little bit more about your mother being a midwife.

Davis

Well, that's interesting. With her being colored and a midwife, when they would get too many patients at the white hospital, even though it had a white and a colored section, my mother would be called to come and help the doctors with the births and so forth, and I was allowed sometimes to go with her, and could watch natural childbirth and so forth. And that's a good education for young people, especially if you're trying to teach your younger, say from ten years up, about sex. My mother wanted me to know all about how babies are formed in the body from the cells from male and female, and then she wanted me to see actual birth. Believe me, after watching that I didn't want a boy to come near me.

Stevenson

So would that have been unusual, would your mother have been unusual in wanting you to be educated about sex during those years--

Davis

Right, right.

Stevenson

--when a lot of parents wouldn't want that.

Davis

The neighborhood at that time had home meetings about once a month, and she used to go there and encourage the other parents, and tell them about childbirth, and she had some photographs from the hospital and so forth, about how long some women were in labor, you know, the suffering and so forth. And you could see the photograph of a mother in pain and so forth. And then as soon as that child is born, the expression on that same face, the smile, and reaching to hold the newborn. And some of the youngsters used to say, "Well, wasn't she still in pain?" And my mother said, "You forget all about the pain once you hold the newborn child."

Davis

So would most women have used a midwife for delivery at that time?

Davis

Right, right. Yes, especially the colored, because there weren't that many doctors available.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

And no colored doctors back in the thirties and early forties in that particular area. In fact, I don't even think they had any colored nurses. I think it was around '40, '40-something before they even had colored nurses, even in the colored section, working.

Stevenson

I see. Could you tell me about your experience in D.C., when you had applied for a job and discovered that one of the requirements was, "Light-skinned only need apply"? Could you tell me something about that?

Davis

Well, it irritated me when I used to read that in the paper, about light-skinned only, and so I decided to answer the ad, to go. I answered the ad and I said to the whatever, the employees, "What are the black people supposed to do? Are they supposed to starve? I want to know why you don't want to hire black people, because they need jobs just like the light-skinned people. It isn't fair to have certain jobs just for light skins." So that was cut out in the capital, in Washington, D.C. It's amazing. But someone has to speak up.

Stevenson

Yes. Okay. Can you tell me about your husband's occupation at that time? This would be after you'd come to California.

Davis

He worked in insurance, for insurance companies. He had worked writing up colored for insurance in a lot of the white companies before he came to California. Then he decided that he would try to get a job at the colored company, which he did, and they started writing up policies for colored people, and that was what he was doing at that time, in Santa Barbara. Then when I first met him it was in Santa Barbara, and he was coming to hospitals and so forth, informing them, their workers and all, about insurance and so forth. Then when I moved down here in '39, I met him at a community meeting, met him again.

Stevenson

And the name of the company he worked for?

Davis

Golden State Mutual Life Insurance Company, and the home office is at Adams and Western, the big building you see there, right across from St. John's. You know where St. John's is?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

Right across the street is that big building. That's the insurance company.

Stevenson

Okay. Last time you started to talk about the restrictive housing covenants. I'd like you to talk more about that. In particular, when you came to Los Angeles, what was the situation when an African American tried to buy a home in certain areas?

Davis

Well, now, as I say, in Santa Barbara there were three distinct neighborhoods there, white, colored, and Spanish. And as I say, they thought I was Spanish at that particular time, so I didn't have any problem getting a place there. So when I moved down here, I was going around looking for an apartment, and the only apartments available in 1939 were on the East Side of this. Now, this particular area where I am now, that was all white, and just about the other side of Main, Main Street and going further, all of that was the colored area. Then I was looking for an apartment, and I happened to be on Adams [Boulevard] and Arlington [Avenue]. There were some homes for sale, and some for rent, and the friend that I had with me, she was very black. Some man was on the porch, and he ran out and he said, "Well, you can't get a house in this area. This is an all-white area." And he said, "But you're Spanish, aren't you? You'll be able, but she won't." And I said, "Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I'm not Spanish. My birth certificate says colored."

Stevenson

And what was his response to that?

Davis

He couldn't believe it. But anyway I said, "In our race, if you have mixed parents," and I said, "Both my grandparents were mixed." And I mentioned to him then that on my father's side, his mother was white, and she married a Cherokee Indian, which made him a half-breed, what they called a half-breed. And then on my mother's side, her father was African, and he married a Seminole Indian, so I'm carried by both tribes as a quarter Indian, and I have received money from the Seminoles twice. And they told me, "Live a little longer, might get some more." As you know, they are still in court battling Florida for taking their territory, so every now and then they get paid off, and the courts allowed them more money since the area's already occupied and so forth. It's amazing, some of the rulings in this country. I've traveled all around Europe and Asia and a lot of the islands, but I wouldn't trade any of them for the United States.

Stevenson

Okay. Could you tell me about your involvement in helping to strike down the housing covenants, your involvement in trying to strike those down?

Davis

Well, it was very hard. Certain areas, as I said, it was very, very hard, and like where I am now, this was all white. In 1948 I was getting married, and we were looking to buy, and my, as they say, to-be husband happened to be driving through the area looking around, and he saw the for sale sign on this house, and where the apartment is, the house next door. So he said he wanted me to come and talk to the owner and so forth, and we were able--he thought again that I was Spanish with the jet-black hair and so forth. In fact, I'll show you the photograph before I got too brown and started staying out in the sun, and I took some treatments.[Note: she goes off mic, and when she returns her volume is much lower.]

Stevenson

Okay, so this picture is when you first came to California. Very nice.

Davis

That was when I moved down here, and I had started taking some treatments to get darker in Santa Barbara, with the help of the doctors. I worked in the Children's Hospital up there, and at that particular time you could get injections as well as creams and so forth, and some of the doctors said, you know, they didn't want to get involved. I guess they figured if something happened you might sue them. I told them, "No, I'm just tired of being mistaken for Spanish," and I would show them my birth certificate that said colored. And then when I would show them a picture of my father they used to crack up laughing, because he looked just like any other Caucasian, and my mother looked more Indian. She looked more Indian than she did colored. It's amazing.

Stevenson

So were these treatments something that other light-skinned people were doing at the time, for the same reason?

Davis

Some, you know, would do that. And would you believe--I'm trying to think where I was when I was talking to some lady on a bus coming home Monday about segregation, and I said, "Segregation for light-skinned coloreds wasn't just the segregation of housing and whites and so forth." I said, "But the worst segregation we had was from black people. Black people did not like light-skinned colored." And in Washington, D.C., there was a certain area where we lived, and there were only light-skinned. They would rent to light-skinned colored, but not to the darker people, in the capital.

Stevenson

Interesting. Okay, so--

Davis

So then here, when I discovered it was just as bad here, and we had what we called block clubs, and when you have a block club, and we had the LaSalle, what we called the LaSalle/Normandie [Block] Club, because this was not taken into the Harvard Heights group, and in Harvard is where they stopped for the Harvard Heights group, and then across, I forgot what they called the area across Washington, but the three groups got together, and we went to court, and we'd go to some of the meetings, housing, and we would take notes, and then we would go to the courts and the judges would listen to--they would have a certain time that you could talk to them about concerns of your neighborhood. Then LaSalle, they decided to enlarge the historic area, and from the freeway to Normandie, down to Pico and up to Western, this particular area is called Harvard Heights.

Davis

And this house is a historic home, built in 1903, and I found out a lot of things that I would like to do I can't do, like I wanted to, where I have those things hanging, I wanted to extend that and put a sliding door that I could put food on the little shelf, and not bring it out in the dining room, but they won't let me cut through the beams.

Stevenson

I see. Okay. When you and your husband were looking at this house initially, when it was for sale, tell me about speaking with the owner and how that went.

Davis

Well, as I say, my husband sent me, because he's brown and all. And as I say again, he thought I was Spanish, and I didn't say a word, because I found out, as I say, when I had to get a California license in 1937, I had to get that license to go to school in Santa Barbara at U.C. Santa Barbara, and you know, colored were not--even here in Los Angeles it was the mid-fifties before colored were going to U.C. So I learned from that experience to come and talk to the owner, and when he mistakenly thought I was something else, I decided, I said, "Well, I may as well tell you I'm not Spanish, and my husband is brown." He was having problems with his family, and wanted to sell the house. He said, "Have your husband come in."

Stevenson

I see. And were you the first black family on the block or in this area?

Davis

Yes, and next door, because the house next door was for sale. Orientals owned that, and Kelly Williams worked at the Golden State where my husband worked, and he looked just like any other Caucasian, but he was colored. So we bought about the same week, in June of 1948, and for about a year and a half, no, nearly two years, we were the only two in this particular area. I can't remember the exact year, but the freeway came through. See, the freeway took in the West Adams area. They already had a historic area. Those older homes?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

And we all went to court to try to keep that freeway from coming through, but it takes money. You have to have money to fight things in court like that, and, of course, we didn't have that kind of money. So the freeway came through, and it took out so many of these beautiful historic homes, going through.

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

And it was originally supposed to go down Venice.

Stevenson

The freeway?

Davis

The freeway. And the businesspeople got together, and you see, business has money, so they were able to keep them from coming down Venice--

Stevenson

Interesting, I never knew that.

Davis

--and then they had to pick another area.

Stevenson

So this was the second choice. I see. That's interesting.

Davis

So this was the second choice for the freeway.

Stevenson

So when you first moved in, what were your relations and interactions with the neighbors?

Davis

Well, believe it or not, as they say, or I guess as one person put it, when something has happened and you can't change it, you learn to live with it. But as I say, the only problem I had was the German next door. But his sister taught school in Orange County, and she told me, "Please, ignore my brother. He's a dyed-in-the-wool German Nazi." It took him putting his sign up and all of that, and it wasn't until three weeks later that he saw me watering the plants that the gardener had put in, Calla lilies and some other plants on the side, and I had the hose. I was pregnant at the time, and tired. So I had the hose, and he couldn't stand my washing the plants down, so he came over and grabbed the hose. "Don't you even know how to water correctly?" I said, "You know how?" So he cut it down to a drizzle, and gave me a hmm with his shoulders, and about a half hour later came back, and that's when he brought the perfume. He had a chemistry lab and was making perfumes. And he never put his sign up anymore. They say, you learn to live together. It's amazing how you have to learn to live together in a country with so many nationalities. Not only were colored not allowed in this area, Spanish could not come, Orientals. It's amazing.

Stevenson

So basically, any non-white was not allowed. I see.

Davis

No, no non-whites.

Stevenson

Okay. At the time that you moved here, what was sort of the border, the street where blacks and also other groups could not buy past? Because I know you mentioned Main Street, but at the time you moved here what was it?

Davis

Well, on the East Side, Central Avenue and all, Central Avenue up to Pico in that particular area. That was all colored. Then there were no colored going that way, and there were a lot of beautiful homes, but then the big business came in out on Jefferson Boulevard, and put that big factory out there, and they bought up a lot of the beautiful homes near Rodeo, and put in that tract when that housing tract was made--

Stevenson

Village Green?

Davis

--they took in a lot of the beautiful homes, put in the apartment houses and homes for rent, and we could purchase homes in that particular area. So we used to call that across the track. In Arlington, we called Arlington the track, because at one time you couldn't rent or buy on the other side of Arlington Avenue.

Stevenson

So in terms of striking down the housing covenants, it seems that the way they were struck down was maybe family by family, just like you buying this home.

Davis

Yes, but mostly block clubs had a lot to do with it. The block clubs would go down to the Housing, and they would have those open forums and so forth in spring, and I'm trying to think. I went to get--what do you call the thing? You build a home and you have to have the--what do they call those that the carpenters use? Anyway, when I went--the license in the tracts, and when I was asking about the Harvard Heights tract and so forth, the lady claimed she couldn't find the books at the library. So I was tired and I was getting a headache, and I finally saw one man coming through, and I said, "Could you tell me who is the head of this map department?" He said, "Oh, I am." I said, "Well, would you please tell me why I can't get a map of Harvard?" See, they were thinking of taking all this area into the Harvard Heights, and making this a historic area, and I was telling him about it. He took me right back to the counter, went in and got the books that the lady said that she couldn't find. It's amazing, but you just have to ask the right people, or the head of certain corporations about things, to get an answer.

Davis

Then we encouraged the members of the block clubs to go to the city when they would have these meetings discussing neighborhood problems and so forth, and that made some changes, see, when more people start coming to the meetings. And at one time USC needed more property, and they were trying to use the courts to condemn part of this area so that they could buy it up, and we found that out and went to court about that. So I think they bought up 35th Street, and Jefferson. I don't think they came past Jefferson at that time. The court wouldn't let them buy up anymore across Jefferson, going north. So it's amazing what you have to go through for changes.

Stevenson

Yes. Were there any attorneys working with any of the block clubs?

Davis

Oh yes. We always had, what did they call them? The block clubs, some of the attorneys that lived in the neighborhoods, they would always come to the meetings, and then if something needed to go to court, they were the ones that would fix that up for us.

Stevenson

I see. Any in particular that you can remember their names?

Davis

No, I can't remember. One councilman that's running right now, can't think of his name. Is there any mail on that table there? You see any mail? I think my cousin picked it up. But one of the councilmen at that time, and I think he's a lawyer and so forth, and he was head of this particular--this was the Eighth District at that time. It is now the Tenth District. When they took in Normandie, down to the freeway and up to Pico, so it became the Tenth District, but when we bought here this was the Eighth District.

Stevenson

Okay. Maybe you could tell me something about your career after you came down to Los Angeles, what direction your career took at that time.

Davis

Well now, I had worked in the hospital up there, Children's Hospital. When I came down here, I found out I could make more money taking care of private patients who were ill and needy, and had problems in diet and so forth, and so I decided to do that with some of the wealthier people. That was much better than just a, say, nine-to-five job and so forth. So I did that for several years, up until, let's see. I got married in '48, and I worked, I got a job--that's what that city job was. But anyway, it had to do with housing and so forth, and there I think I worked for one year, and then when the war--let's see, when was it? I worked at North American Aircraft [Aviation] during the war, and I was able to get into the inspection department. Here again, color made a difference, because they weren't hiring any colored for the inspection department, and they were having problems with finding someone who could read the blueprints and so forth. And so I said, "May I look at it?" And when I read it and went with it into the plane, I could point out the parts that needed to be repaired and all, so I got into inspection.

Davis

Then I asked why they didn't hire colored. And he was so surprised when I had my birth certificate, I showed him my birth certificate, and he said, "Colored?" I said, "Well, I had half-breed parents on both sides, so they had to put something down there. They couldn't say half-this, half-white, half-Indian, half-African, half-Indian, so they just used the word colored on the birth certificates." But it's amazing the changes, the things that you have to go through, and a lot of the hearings, if there were too many people with problems, when the city was having a lot of the hearings, they would cut down on the time. Then that's one thing I admired about the councilmen in our districts. They would protest and say, "This is supposed to be a three-hour, and we will be here. You may close it down, but we're not moving out of these chairs." Some other committee, they wanted to use that room, and he told them, "We're not leaving this room until the three-hour period is up." And so they would have to continue the meetings. But isn't that something?

Stevenson

It is. What type of hearings were they?

Davis

These were hearings on property, street cleaning, sewer problems, water. At one time the water pressure was very low in this particular area, and LaSalle, if you notice, is a wide street?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

That's where the trolley used to turn around, right here on this street, down to twentieth. There were railroad tracks and all that. That was the end of the line.

Stevenson

And that was the trolley, not the Red Car?

Davis

No, not the Red Car, just a trolley that came in the area. Those tracks were taken up after we moved here in '48. I think it was '50-something that they came and broke and took all those tracks out, repaved.

Stevenson

So needless to say, was it rather noisy when the trolley was going through?

Davis

Well, they tried to keep the noise down as best they could, because they didn't try to do the whole street at one time. They just did certain areas, like from the corner, maybe about three houses past here, and they would work taking out one line on this side. See, there was a lot of drilling to get those tracks up, and they didn't want to run everybody crazy at one time, so they--and so you learn. You know that it's going to improve the neighborhood, so you can put up with noise. You know it's going to be better.

Stevenson

Okay. I wanted to backtrack and ask you, when you came to Los Angeles, did you observe segregation in other sectors such as employment--you've already talked about housing--education?

Davis

Education and in employment? As I say, some of the stores, but even in hotels that hired help to clean, most of those were light-skinned. They wouldn't hire black people, and so we had to, as they say, through our block clubs and so forth, work with the city so that they do something about hiring and all. I'm trying to think. Two ladies were turned down on Wilshire, I forgot whatever that place was, and I went over. At that time they needed a secretary, and at that time I knew shorthand and all that. See, in my high school and my junior college they taught shorthand and foreign language, and you didn't graduate from high school unless you had two foreign languages. Even in North Carolina and the colored schools in Washington, D.C., you had to have those foreign languages and so forth. So it's good to know those things.

Davis

So as they say, I've always been one, if there's an obstacle somewhere I want to find out about it. My curiosity. You find out a lot when you're curious and go to the meetings and sit in, even though you couldn't speak. But you can sit there and listen and take notes, so that when you had your own meetings in your area, you can bring up things.

Stevenson

Let me ask you this. Do you think the preference for light skin in hiring only added some of the tension between light- and dark-skinned?

Davis

Well, there's always been tension. As I say, my worst enemy growing up were black people, because they used to call us different names and so forth, bastard children and so forth, because if you had white blood in you they thought, you know, it wasn't through marriage, and so forth. So as I say, my worst enemies were black people, believe it or not, even in going to school. In grammar school, I didn't go to a colored school until I was--let's see, my parents had separated and my mother was ill, and I was in a boarding school, and these boarding schools were built by the white Methodists for light-skinned colored and so forth, and I was in high school at that time. I went to visit my mother, and two of the girls decided to pick on me during recess. And you know, you get tired of people picking on you and spitting on you, so I just turned around, and she was heavier than I am, but I grabbed her right by her throat, and wrestled her down and was strangling her, and it took two teachers to come out to pull me off her. [laughs] And she became a friend after that, and stopped the others from picking on me in the high school there.

Davis

But it's amazing what the black race has had to go through in America, and the slave mothers, the women, slave women always had children by the white owners and so forth. So what can you do but try to work for the better? Better conditions.

Stevenson

I see. So going back to your employment at North American Aviation during World War II, could you talk a little bit about the impact of the war on day-to-day life, and anything else you'd like to say?

Davis

Well now, as I said, there were certain areas that they were not hiring, only certain areas for black people, but then as I say, I just happened to be able to read the blueprint and so forth that they had that particular day, when they were looking for someone to read blueprints and all, so that's how I happened to be hired. And as I said, as I tell children, "There are times when you keep your mouth shut." Again, they thought I was Spanish. That's how I got hired and all. You had to carry a photograph of yourself, and always carried the one before I started getting my skin darker, the lighter one. That's what I always had for my identification during the war at North American and all. So it's amazing what you have to do to get into certain positions. Does that kind of answer?

Stevenson

Yes, that does.

Davis

Partially?

Stevenson

Partially. If you could say a little bit about, in terms of the impact of the war on your day-to-day life; were there any rationing or those sorts of things as a result of the war?

Davis

Well now, during the war I remember rationing and all, and at North American they would pass out the coupons for the different people, and so I would pick up coupons, like even though I didn't need them, but I would pick them up so I could give them to someone in the neighborhood that could use them, because at that particular time I was living on 37th [Street], near Exposition [Boulevard], and that area was becoming more and more colored were moving in during that time, and also Spanish. A lot of Spanish were moving into the area, and Orientals moving, so that became, what did they call it, Little something, forgot what the name was. But anyway, it had about five different nationalities living and moving into that particular area. So that helps, when other groups move in. That has an impact on the area, even in the markets and so forth. See, a lot of the hirings, they started hiring more colored and more Orientals in the market, because here again, commercialism, they want the money, so they wanted people to come and shop, so that's why they would hire. And the only jobs that were open to mostly Orientals or colored were janitorial, even in the hotels and so forth, and then a little later the maids and so forth. As I say, I guess some of the white people find better jobs, so when jobs are open they had to fill them, so they had to fill them with some of the Orientals and light coloreds and darker people. But it's amazing what you have to go through employment-wise in this country. Employment and housing, they have been the largest obstacles not just for colored, but for any non-white group.

Stevenson

Maybe you could tell me what you observed at that time about any bias in terms of the education of African American children in L.A., what's now L.A. Unified School District.

Davis

Well now, I would only get--like some of my choir members were teachers, and from what they would tell me when I would ask them different questions, so I would get a little information from the teachers themselves about schools and so forth, so that was about the only way that I could get information was, as I say, through the teachers that I knew. And when they enlarged, as I say, the block clubs was another area that you could get information.

Stevenson

Okay. Maybe you could tell me something about the significance of Central Avenue, particularly the business and entertainment district, when you came to Los Angeles.

Davis

Well now, I moved down here, as I say, in 1939, and that's when I was looking for an apartment, and that's when I discovered looking around that we could not move, you know, west of--well, this particular area was all white. So I was just driving at that time, and went on down to Arlington looking around at places up for sale, just to see what the neighborhood was all about, but there weren't any colored, because most colored were over on the East Side, and this didn't really open up really until I guess it was the fifties, just about the fifties things began to open up, and more non-whites were moving into the area.

Davis

Then the church on Jefferson Avenue, Trinity Baptist [Church], when they were building at that time--see, they are close to Arlington, and they were having problems. But then other churches went in with money and so forth, so that they could buy that property and build that church. Then the church that I belonged to at Third Avenue and Jefferson, that was a white Presbyterian church that we bought back from them. There were no colored churches in that particular area, and so with the help of the Trinity and the people that had helped them, that's helped us buy the church at Third Avenue from the white congregation. They wanted to sell, so they needed money, and we were able, with the businessmen like my husband and the other insurance man and other colored businessmen, we were able to get a loan so that we could pay cash. And so you see, cash money can take you a long way. So we were able to pay cash, and here again the insurance company--I'm trying to think of the white company they were working with at that time. It's another big white insurance company that they got loans through, and they were able to get loans for people to buy.

Stevenson

So since the white congregation was willing to sell, did that mean that they were moving, white residents were moving west out of the area?

Davis

They needed a smaller church. That congregation was small, and as I say, more people were moving in the area and not joining. Like at Third Avenue, when we bought that church we went up to nearly 2,000 people, and mostly what they called light-skinned colored and so forth belonged there at that particular time. But with death and so forth, and the neighborhood changing, you see, it's mostly Oriental. And we built a unit right at Arlington and Jefferson, and do you know there's only three colored families in there? And through the Housing Department, and at that time different ones in the church was putting up money, and I had given them five hundred and some dollars to build that place and so forth, and then we found out that they would not have any colored on the housing, which was really our fault for not having--and Oriental let the people the in the valley, the Orientals and all know about it, and that place filled up with Orientals. And we have three black families that lived there, at Third Avenue and Jefferson, in the big building that we owned.

Stevenson

What could you tell me about, at the time that you came to Los Angeles, about the Central Avenue business district, which was pretty vibrant at that time?

Davis

Very, very.

Stevenson

And what can you tell me about that?

Davis

Well, the business was very good over there at that time, and the hotel, I can't think of the name of the hotel right now.

Stevenson

Dunbar?

Davis

At the Dunbar Hotel, a lot of the colored musicians used to come and perform, and the amazing thing was how many white people would come to the concerts. When [Cabell] "Cab" Calloway [III], his brother had an orchestra, he used to come through there, Dorothy [Jean] Dandridge and all of those used to perform over there at that hotel, and what's the famous pianist that died, and his daughter, she sings now. I can't think of his name, but he also invested money in that particular area, to try to get people to move further away from the area. So the comedian, I can't think of his name, but anyway, and the musician, a pianist--but it's amazing when people pull together, two or three people that are making money, like the musicians were making at that particular time, and when you put money together to get projects going, that helps a lot. That's when the race, we have to learn as a race, we've got to help each other. We've got to cut out this discrimination in our own race about the blacks not liking the light-skinned and so forth. It's amazing how things have to happen to get rid of prejudices.

Davis

And as I said, the man on the bus on Monday, I was telling a lady about when I was looking for a house and so forth, and I said, "Our worst enemies were colored." And he said, "I hate to tell you, and I happened to be one of them in my younger days." He was talking about how he disliked light-skinned people. And I asked him, "Well, why?" He said it was just some habit that they had at that particular time, never did find out the reason. It just was something that was going on, and he wanted to be a part of it. So it's amazing, racially. And as I said, I've traveled overseas in Europe and Asia and a lot of the islands, but I will take Los Angeles. And my spoon collection that you see, that's from the different places where I have been, and I wanted to put that spiral staircase in. The city would not let me, because this is a historic home. And I said, "Well, it's on the back of the house." And usually, for years the inspection for rentals, see, I have two rentals, they would just go in the rental places, but they never bothered about coming downstairs, so I went ahead and had that put in, and I had to go to Pomona to buy it. You couldn't buy it in Los Angeles County. So my cousin drove, and the salesperson, evidently seeing a lady buy something, he probably thought I didn't know how to put it together and so forth, and he lived in Inglewood, and he was married to the lady that was Egyptian and something else and all, and when she came in and she saw King Tut and the wife up there, she never left the dining room. She started looking at all the spoons from the different countries, and was interested in why I like to travel.

Davis

And I told her, well, it goes back to childhood, when parents separate, and fortunately I was put in a boarding school, because would you believe at age five I refused to live with either parent? I loved both of them, so how can a five-year-old child make a choice of father or mother? So I turned my back on them in court. The judge just threw up his hands, and that's when they placed me with a colored minister in Tarboro where my mother lived, because they knew eventually they were going to have to have me spend time with her and my father, when they got things together. And living with that minister for one year, a Baptist minister, and his wife was a teacher, and I went with her to school, and by age six she died, and here again the court had me, and they gave me an exam. So at age six I was placed in a boarding school in the third grade, and that's when most kids start school in primary. So I was out of high school and then college and all of that by the time I was seventeen. I had my first college job, as I said, trying to teach school, but I didn't particularly care for that, and so that's why I wanted to further study to become a dietician and all, with the help of Mrs. Roosevelt, that's how I was able to get into the classes at the hospital in Washington, D.C.

Davis

And I say not letting words bother you. When she said, "Where are all the darling pickaninnies?" Well, that's what we used to call colored children. I told her, "I'll take care of that." So I went and got two, cleaned them up and brought them back in time to cut the cake for one hour--I think that's when One Hour For Sharing something first started, way back then, and the nurse put one little white girl on her lap. And I rolled the chair up to her where the two kids were, and she took one and put on the other side of her lap. And the nurse had put the knife in the little white hand? She took the knife out of the white hand, put it in the little black hand, and put the white hand on top of that, and then put both her hands, and that was the photograph that went into the paper, with her with those two kids.

Davis

So she asked me later, "Do you like what you're doing?" I told her, "I'd like it better if I could get into the dietetic classes here," and all. And she says, "Well, why can't you?" And I said, "Well, they don't take colored." She said, "But you're damn near white." And then she realized the word she'd said in front of the kids, she said, "Now, that's an adult word. I don't want to hear that from any of the youngsters," and so forth. By that time they had brought more children in, white and colored, and all. So it was quite amusing the way she told them, "That's an adult word. You don't use that, only adults use that word." And two days later the hospital had a letter from her to admit me to the classes. And when she found out that I was coming to California, she wrote up some other credentials, and she looked in and believe it or not, there was a hospital where I could have worked--I did, in Santa Barbara, and here in Los Angeles.

Davis

But I found out after coming to Los Angeles I could make more money taking care of private patients. I started doing that in Santa Barbara. I call that millionaires' town. There are a lot of millionaires living still in Santa Barbara, and it had three distinct areas, white, colored, and Spanish, all separate areas. But most of the whites were, I called it in the hills, and that's why I really moved from there. After that big rain they had, and it washed out the highway going from here--I think it was called 15, and a lot of the houses--and the house that I was in, taking care of the patient at that time, and she belonged to the Spreckels sugar company. I was taking care of her diet and so forth, and the house was shaking, and it was up on a hillside. I ran down, and part of the house is up, and a part of it going down the steps where the children's' rooms were, so I ran down to get them, and I snatched them away from the window. Naturally, kids like to look out the window to see what's going on. As soon as I snatched them, and they told their mother, "She slung us under the bed," the window cracked, so that's when I decided, I am leaving the hillside Santa Barbara, and moving to Los Angeles.

Stevenson

Okay. I think that would be a good place to--[End of interview]

1.3. Session 3 ( June 11, 2008 )

Stevenson

Good morning. I'm interviewing Lillie Davis on June 11, 2008. First I'd like to ask you about traveling to different states with your husband and following the Negro League games, if you could tell me something about that.

Davis

Well, if there was a game, and I was trying to think of the name of the pitcher that he liked, the colored pitcher, and I've been trying to think of his name all morning, and I can't think of it. And, of course, by the time [Jack Roosevelt] "Jackie" [Robinson] got in there, whoever that team was playing, that's where we would have our vacation, and we would drive across the country at that time. We had a station wagon with a bed in the back, and we would drive a day and a night and we would alternate driving. No one would ever drive at night over two hours while the other one was taking a nap, and then we would exchange and drive like that, and then the second night we would go to a lodge to stay. At that time, I'm trying to think of the name of the lodge, but it has a little boy standing on the front with a lantern? That was the only one at that time that we didn't have problems with.

Stevenson

I see. Maybe you could tell me about a couple of the memorable games or memorable teams.

Davis

Well, St. Louis when [Leroy Robert] "Satchel" Paige was pitching, that was quite a game. And if you think people got up when it started raining, no, sat right there in the rain until the ninth inning and all. I happened to have on a raincoat, and then I had a cape, a rain cape that I could put around both our shoulders or over our heads, and, of course, I had to stay there and endure that to be in. So I really enjoyed, well, I've always enjoyed traveling. I think I was--as I said, my family traveled to North Carolina from Washington, D.C., and that's where I was born in, was it New Bern [N.C.]? But we were only there for three days and from there my father passed. He was as white as any other, with the white mother and a Cherokee Indian father. The only thing he had from his father was black hair, beautiful black hair. So it looks like I've been traveling all my life, love traveling.

Stevenson

Maybe you could tell me, what was the significance or the importance of the Negro League teams at that time?

Davis

Well, it's because they had such a hard time getting on a white team that, as I would say, that was Satchel Paige and one other that worked so hard on that, so by the time Jackie Robinson came along it looked like everybody could sort of relax, that they had gotten one in, and I can't remember how long it was before we got a second, but at least, as they say, that broke the camel's back.

Stevenson

Right. That's right.

Davis

It's amazing the things we have gone through to get where we are today, and I just turned off the news, and someone was talking to our hopefully incoming president about making history, and then another one came on from, was it South Carolina, South Carolina or Georgia? New Orleans, and he was saying he just couldn't see, what did he call them, the hardnosed whites voting for a colored man, even though he's half white. Isn't his mother?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

His mother is white, so news today is quite interesting politically, and I'm just hoping that he would use the woman as his vice president, hopefully.

Stevenson

One question I have--so you went to quite a few of the Negro League games. Any women on any of the teams?

Davis

I don't remember any women at all, no, because was that '60 or the early seventies? I know it was way back. I think it was either the bottom of the fifties or the early sixties, but I don't remember any women. Even when the Dodgers were coming here I don't remember. Remember, they played at the Coliseum?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

And I don't remember any women on teams.

Stevenson

Could you tell me something about providing housing for some baseball players?

Davis

Oh, upstairs I have two units. In the front is a one-bedroom unit, and the back is two bedrooms, and, of course, I have taken over two of the rooms, because I got tired of footprints at night when I go to bed and all. But I can't remember his name. It was a white player who was married to a colored lady, and at that particular time the hotels were not like they are today, so someone called me and had remembered that I had a vacancy, and I said, "Well, send them over." So by the time the game was played--and I liked when he said, "When we come through again, throw the tenant out if it's rented." I said, "Well, I can always put you up in the hallway," and he laughed. I had a different sofa, and that one used to pull out and could be a twin bed or a double. So once when they came through his wife slept there, and he pulled the other one apart around in here and they pulled the table over so they had private rooms. But it's nice. You meet nice people everywhere. I found that out in my travels. I did tell you I've been to Israel three times.

Stevenson

Yes. Okay, I'd like to hear about your trip to Little Rock when you went to see the high school--

Davis

Oh, yes.

Stevenson

--and you met some youth who showed you around. Maybe you could tell me about that trip.

Davis

Oh, yes. Well, we parked just I would say about a half a block from the school, because there were a few little demonstrations going on, and the kids parked their car right in back of us, and when they saw the California license, that's when a boy came over with some money in his hand to send to his aunt. "How far are you from Bakersfield? I want her to know that I'm not taking part in that." So they were coming there to protect the colored students.

Stevenson

And these were white youth?

Davis

Yes, white, white youth. And then they decided to take us through the school, and they showed us through the school, and then we went over to see the new colored school that had been built. It was padlocked. Colored would not use it. I'm trying to remember the governor at that time. Bless his heart, I thought he was going to have a stroke out there. [laughs] Oh, and then my husband having ulcers I needed some milk and half and half, and so I was looking around to see if there was a colored store in the neighborhood and all, but I didn't see one, and when we went into the store I think some Jews owned it, and a colored boy came through the front door and they both ran to hug him. They had sent him--that was their adopted son, and they had sent him to California, and he had just finished high school here and had gone back there, and they were introducing us to him and so forth. So I told them, "Well, things are picking up," that he could come out there and get a good education. And I said, "One of these days these schools, in spite of the marches or the Ku Klux Klan and all," I said, "they will be integrated one of these days, and it won't be too long."Then in the sixties, that's when we had all the demonstrations and so forth, and after that things began to change. So America, I love it.

Stevenson

Could you also tell me, one particular trip I think you took to Mississippi, and you were looking for coffee.

Davis

Right.

Stevenson

You can tell me about that trip.

Davis

Right. We had planned to go to a park, but we didn't see any, because the parks were segregated at that time--to heat food. And since we couldn't find the park, I decided to just go to some other places, especially where they had the window service, and when I went to the first one it was near midnight and she was out of coffee and practically ready to close up, and she said, "But I don't want you to think I don't want to serve you. I just don't have coffee." So she told us to drive three miles, to watch our mileage and then to the right we would find another place. And she called ahead. She said, "I've called ahead." So when we got there I had my coffee pot when I got out, and the clerk says, "Oh, there's the California couple that wants some coffee." He was very nice. He said, "You sure you don't want to come in and sit down and drink?" I said, "No, we don't want to start any trouble." He said, "No trouble." And I was surprised to look through--in those days they had the rope that divided the white and the colored side.I'm trying to think where it was on that same trip that I needed something and we went to see if we could pick up a lunch, sandwiches and so forth, and the man happened to have been an insurance man himself, and I was telling him my husband had just retired and he was thinking about retiring as he was in insurance, and bless his heart he said, "Come on in." Now, he's the one that removed the sign, the white and colored signs. He said, "After all, this is my place." So he sat down and had a conversation with my husband all about insurance. We were there for about forty-five minutes. I think I drank a cup and a half of coffee while they were talking. But it's nice to know that there are good people everywhere, wherever, regardless of whatever the states are.But my surprise as a youngster and growing up in Washington, D.C., was that the segregation in the capital was what surprised me. It's supposed to be a free country and all, but that was just like being in the South. It had neighborhoods, white and colored, and some of the eating places, if you wanted to eat you had to go to the kitchen area. And my mother always told me she didn't care how hungry I was, "Don't ever go in a kitchen. If you can't go through the front door, wait until you get home." That's why she told me about, "Don't drink out of the colored fountain." And I think I told you I saw the white man go to the white fountain and get his drink, and he brought his dog over to the colored one and let him lap, so I guess my mother knew what was going on.

Stevenson

Yes, she did. Okay. Then I don't know the details, but you had another experience while traveling in Texas.

Davis

Let's see now, Texas. Oh, yes. We needed some place to get lunch and to stay overnight, because we were both tired. I guess this was around 7:30, and we were asking there, and this particular place, believe it or not, he had a colored section and a white section, and you could come in and sit down. So I was asking about where we could find a place to stay, and he mentioned this place with the little boy out front, and that was about the only one at that time, and it was not far from there. He gave us directions how to get there. They had parking and everything. So there were some nice, even in traveling across the country. Fortunately, we were able to run into the nice people.

Stevenson

Right. And what part of Texas was that?

Davis

Amarillo [Texas]. Yes, Amarillo, Texas. Let's see. How close is Mississippi to Texas? Because I know we were going South, and that's where I needed to go to the restroom. I looked out and they had them outside, and it was a hot day, and my husband was getting some gas. So I told him, I said, "I'm not going out there in the grass to go to the bathroom, so I'll just have to hold it until we get to another place." And the clerk said, "Ma'am, go right through the front door," and the ladies took me to the restroom in there. So as I say, nice people everywhere. And I always told my husband, "God is so good. He leads us to the good ones." And that's nice to know about states.

Stevenson

It is. It is. And as you've pointed out in our previous sessions that those stories never make it to the news.

Davis

Oh, no, the newspapers? Oh, no. Good news? Because in '47, did I mention to you that I went to visit my mother the year before I was to get married?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

And calling a taxi? And she said, "When the soldiers came back after the war, they said they were not sitting on the back of any more buses." But that did not make the newspapers.

Stevenson

No, not at all. Okay. I'd like to talk about--we're bringing it back forward after you've come to Los Angeles. Could you tell me what trajectory, I guess you would call it, your career took? And what were some of the first employment positions that you had?

Davis

Well, fortunately, I worked in the food section of hospitals, and as I say, I had the interview in San Francisco and Santa Barbara, and I was telling you Mrs. Roosevelt got for me and helped me get, and she was the one that helped me get into food-service classes in Washington, D.C. So when I left Santa Barbara, I knew that I could go to one of the hospitals and sign up, because I found out I could make more money taking care of private patients and just working in the hospital. So I worked in the hospital here. It is no longer--Children's Hospital. I worked there part time and then I would have private patients, and it was the housing that I had problems with, because at that time colored were not allowed to live west of Arlington, and I was on Arlington looking for a place to stay. That's when the lady that was with me was that color, and the man came out and told her, "You can't rent over here."And as they say, I wasn't as brown as I am now, because I used stuff to get darker. I got tired of being mistaken for Spanish. [laughs] And I was just amazed that here, all the way across the country, from the East Coast to the West Coast, segregation here, and most colored lived in South Los Angeles at that time. I think I finally got an apartment on 51st Street, East 51st, and that was a newly built apartment, and at that particular time the owner was colored, and he had bought the property there. He had problems where he wanted to make it all colored, because the one that was torn down mostly whites lived there, even on the East Side. Isn't that something?

Stevenson

It is.

Davis

So it's amazing the changes that have gone around. And like this area here was all white up until 1948. The owner at that time was having family problems and he just wanted to sell and get away, so it didn't matter. So here again, he thought I was Spanish, and I didn't tell him any different. No use making problems.

Stevenson

Right. Okay, so you said that one of your first positions was working with food service, and then you worked with private patients?

Davis

Taking care of private patients.

Stevenson

Could you tell me more about what you did in that job?

Davis

Mostly preparing their food. They were on special diets, even though they had a regular cook and so forth, so my particular at that time (I wasn't married at that time) and I got housing. I stayed on the places as I took care of the patients. Most of these were wealthy patients, and I even got a car.

Stevenson

Tell me about that.

Davis

Had transportation provided to get around, because naturally these were in different areas and I wanted to go where some of my people were. And bus service at that time had not changed. As I was telling someone, the children in my church, the Lord kept my mouth shut. And one said, "What do you mean the Lord kept your mouth shut?" I said, "Well, let's see now." I said, "Let's go back to 1937," and that's when I told you I had to get some California credentials, and I needed another semester of college so that I could get a license as a dietitian. But since I did not finish the fourth year. I'm trying to remember how that was stated. Well, anyway, license, but it had to do with diet, licensed diet work. So it's amazing how things go on, but as I say, the Lord provided a way, and the kid said about keeping my mouth shut, I said, "Well, the Lord put the lady in front of me who was named Taliaferro, and when the lady saw Telfair she thought I was Italian like the lady, and she said, 'Oh, no, you're lighter than she is. You must be Spanish.'" The kid said, "What did you do?" I said, "I smiled." I said, "The Lord kept my mouth shut." And another kid said, "Well, I would have said, 'No, I'm colored.'" [unclear] said, "And she wouldn't have gotten in school either, so she's right about learning how to keep your mouth shut."

Stevenson

Exactly. So after you had the position working with private patients, what other positions did you have over the years as a dietitian, I guess?

Davis

Well, just in a hospital and private patients, and then I married a man [Cecil E. Davis] who had had surgery two years before we got married, so I married my patient.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

And I worked three and a half years. He wanted me to stay home all the time, so I told him, "I'll stay home after we get the house paid for." But then it's boring just being home all day, especially when he didn't come home for lunch. That's when he used to come home for lunch, as a claims adjuster for Golden State [Mutual Life] Insurance [Company]. He'd just put the dog in the car and we used to ride around with him to visit the different people. But then he got promoted and they sent him to train other insurance men. He went up in the San Francisco area, and they sent him to Texas and all of that, so I said, "Well, I've got to do something to break the monotony." So that's when my friend was telling me about [American] Red Cross work and so forth.

Stevenson

Before we talk about the Red Cross, for the record your husband's name was?

Davis

Cecil E. Davis, D-a-v-i-s.

Stevenson

Also for those people listening to your interview, if you could tell them a little bit about the significance of Golden State Mutual Life Insurance?

Davis

Well, that was the only insurance that colored could get at that time from a colored company. At that particular time, their office was over on the East Side, so the salesmen used to walk the streets to visit the homes and all of that. Then when they built the one on the corner of Adams and Western, what they called the home-office building there, that's when more of us were living on the West Side, and that's when my husband used to go to the different homes. Also he was stationed at one time in Pasadena and visited the colored families over there to sign them up and all, so a lot of changes have taken place, good things.

Stevenson

Okay. Before we start talking about the American Red Cross and your involvement, long involvement with the Red Cross, I have a last follow-up. You talked a little bit about belonging to a block club and how the block club was very instrumental in advocating for the needs of the community. How and why were the block clubs started?

Davis

Well, I'm trying to think back. I can't remember the exact year, but I know it was in the fifties and all. We started the Harvard Heights--LaSalle was not a part of Harvard Heights at that time, and it belonged to the West Adams group, so that's why we started the block club here, and we used to meet in different homes, so we would really get to know each other. We used to have picnics in the summertime in backyards, like people that had large yards like mine, and then on several occasions we used the park up there at school on Vermont, going up Vermont. That got our area past Washington, so our area went up to Pico, because we had quite a few colored living on Norman Avenue in those apartments and so forth which are now mostly Spanish.So the block club turned out very nice. I started out as vice president and then I became secretary, and I was looking at all those minutes that I have out in the garage that I just won't throw away, because you never know, you might want to look up something from a certain year. One of the things we found out was USC needed more space, and the pastor of my church at that time was Reverend [Hampton Barnett] Hawes [Sr.] He lived on 35th near Jefferson, between Jefferson and Adams, and his house was taken over by that group. You know how they talk to the--he was renting, and then he bought the house from the owner. But at that particular time I don't know what the clause was, but anyway when they had to get the white first owner when USC was trying to enlarge their area, but he didn't win, and so he lost his--had to sell his home and move out over there.And we found out that--and I was on a committee, can't remember, but anyway it was some neighborhood. You see, having a block club you go to the meetings when they meet downtown, and I found out that USC was trying to buy up to Washington Boulevard. So then we wrote letters to inform the different people in the area what was going on, and we invited some of the officials in USC to come to our club meeting and speak to us about why they needed such a large area to expand. I've forgot exactly what the mileage was at that time, but I know I used to walk from here, my husband and I when we went to the ballgames over at the Coliseum, just for the exercise and all. But it's amazing. But when they found out the problems that they were going to have, they decided to use Adams Boulevard, and you see, being in the Adams group at that time we informed all the people on Adams.The thing about it is when they bought some of the historic homes, they tore them down, and during that particular time Harvard Heights was getting ready to include LaSalle down to LaSalle, the freeway, and up to Pico as a part of the Harvard Heights group. You go down to the law library and the historic places to find out, and that's when I found out--well, the owner gave me blueprints and everything. He built this house and several others in the area in 1903. That's when the house was built. It was just upstairs. Then in 1923 is when he added the den and the kitchen and back porch to extend down here to make a little unit for a family. Then in 1943 I think it was, is when he took in a part of the front porch--see, the porch used to go all the way across and curve around and all--and built the front unit, so he extended the living room up there, and that's why my living room is so long, because that took in part of the front porch.So when we came, he gave us all those papers and all, in case we had problems, and I'm trying to think what I was trying to do. Oh. The steps needed to be repaired, and that's when I went down to get a permit and found out that this was a historic home, and they sent someone from that department to come out and check and so forth, and I found out that I could not change anything. The steps would have to be just like the original. You can't change anything on that side of the house, the front or the other side, but on the back you can do whatever you want. Even inside here, when I put in that spiral staircase I tried to get a permit to do that, but this being a historic home they would not allow it, so I went to Pomona and bought the steps up there, and fortunately the sales person lived in Inglewood, so he stopped by to see where I wanted to put it. He was looking at the measurements and so forth to be sure I had measured right, to cut through the floors. So he said if they come out to check--fortunately, they don't come down the stairs. See, while I'm renting upstairs, but would you believe twenty-three years, they never came and checked the two units upstairs?

Stevenson

Interesting.

Davis

And all of a sudden after twenty-three years, they finally started checking the two units upstairs. So while I had him here I closed the door, that door, and just had him look around down here. Then I opened that door and took him on out the kitchen way. I closed the other door so he couldn't see the spiral staircase down in the basement and all, so that way the housing unit doesn't know that I have that spiral staircase.

Stevenson

That's interesting.

Davis

Oh, and they wouldn't let me cut through the kitchen wall. I wanted to cut through that wall and extend from the cabinet in the kitchen, see, like that there? I wanted to put it all the way up to the window to serve food, with sliding doors, and cut through the structure. It's nice to know there are safety rules. Even in the basement the four by fours down there are embedded on bricks with cement around them, and as the cabinet man said, "They don't build houses like that anymore." He was asking me about the earthquake, and I told him the only thing I have from the earthquake in '94 are little cracks up there, so I told him when I repainted I just repainted over it, because what I wanted--oh, the city wouldn't let me put up, what do you call that? I call it cottage cheese--

Stevenson

Acoustic.

Davis

--you know, that they blow on there?

Stevenson

Yes, the acoustic ceiling.

Davis

I have to keep the ceilings the same. I said, "Oh, well, such is life." You learn a lot when you try to change anything around the house.

Stevenson

Another question. Could you tell me about your involvement in the local Civil Rights Movement?

Davis

Oh, as they say, my husband and I marched. When they had the march downtown and they were marching back East and all, they had marches here down at the City Hall area and all. I was amazed at how few colored people went down there to march. So we got our block club interested, so the second time there were more, and even a lot of the white in the area went down and marched with us, and that always amuses people when they see the whites join with the colored to improve things, so you can all improve if you work together. It's been interesting in this neighborhood.

Stevenson

So these marches, they were in support of marches going on down South?

Davis

Mississippi and so forth. Selma--

Stevenson

Montgomery?

Davis

And the last one they had when Martin Luther King--wasn't he killed right after a march, or just before they were to have one?

Stevenson

The garbage-workers' strike.

Davis

Yes. So after he was killed and so forth they had another march here. And the funniest thing about the marches, a lot of the stores downtown were only hiring whites, and they didn't start hiring colored until a few of the marches downtown. They even had white janitors and white maids for cleaning and all that, so I think two of the hotels were the first to start hiring Latino and colored. It's amazing how things start, and as one minister who was preaching, he said, "Well, you go back to Jesus' time. They weren't marching, but at least when they heard where he was, how many came from different areas to gather." I think he was preaching about the sermon on the mount and how they came from different areas and different groups. That's how they learned how to respect each other, when they saw different ones. "Why are you here? You're not so-and-so, and so why are you here?" It's good to ask questions, but it's like a lot of them were curious about Jesus, good thing we have curiosity or we wouldn't have any changes, so I'm glad to be a part of the, as they say, changes and so forth.

Stevenson

So you certainly saw many of these same changes here. We talked already about them striking down the housing covenants, but what other changes did you start to see, say, in the fifties and as we get into the sixties?

Davis

Well, as I say, a few colored being hired in some of the stores and cafeterias and so forth. And not only mine, but Church Women United, we tried to get black history into the school system. Never did, never did, for some reason, and we had five teachers working with us, but we could not get black history, not just black history. As I told them, "We don't want to get black history, we want to get the history of all the races that built California," like the Orientals built the railroads and different Orientals in the agricultural industry and so forth. Who was it, my cousin asked me when she was here--when we bought up in Val Verde, that used to be a colored area and then homes were built around there, and that was during the era of segregation and so forth. We were even working--my church used to have picnics up there, and then we got two or three of the white churches to join us in the picnics up there, so it's amazing how you get another group to work with you, and that was one of the first areas where segregation was broken was up there at Val Verde. It had a swimming pool, remember, it had a picnic area, swimming pool, baseball diamond and all.

Stevenson

Yes. Maybe you could say a little bit about Val Verde for people that aren't familiar with Val Verde and how African Americans locally started buying up there.

Davis

Well, they couldn't build where they wanted to here in the Los Angeles area, and Val Verde isn't that far, especially if you were working and drive back and forth. It wasn't that far from Los Angeles and San Fernando, where some of the jobs were at that particular time. I was just amazed, because I couldn't believe it when I first went up there. But then I said, "Well, you may as well," because some of the swimming pools, we couldn't go in swimming pools here in Los Angeles, and so there was the big swimming pool up there, picnic grounds and so forth, so you know, you get tired of having to bump your head to go places and have different activities, so Val Verde at that time was very well used, and it wasn't until, let's see, my husband became sick in the early seventies. I think we went up there up until about '73, but the last four years traveling back and forth, and so I rented my place in Val Verde--would you believe it--to a white lady. [laughs]

Stevenson

That's interesting.

Davis

Because she got a job in a hospital and school. She was in food service and so forth, and she would plan the meals in the schools and the hospitals and so forth and work with the dietitians and all. She lived up there, and I didn't sell it until, let's see, I rented to her--I think it was '79 when I sold it to her. See how things change? We paid $850 cash with the one room and kitchen, and it was a fifty-seven by seventy-five lot and had an outhouse outside and all that. We put plumbing inside and extended--we closed in, got a permit to close in the front-porch area, so we made like a living room on half of it and a kitchen on the other, and then divided the other big room, which was eighteen by twenty-some feet, twenty-six, into the living room and a bedroom, so that's how large the place was. Then we were closer to the street, and that's when the county was widening the streets up there, and they came up to one foot to our front gate and so forth, and then they wanted us to move our front three feet back. We only had about three-and-a-half feet from the steps there.I'm trying to remember the name of the councilman for this area. In fact, he was white, and he grew up in this area, and he belonged to a colored church, had a beautiful singing voice. He used to sing in the choir and all, and he happened to be the councilman in that district up there, supervisor at that time. So he visited up there and all. He found out that the county did not notify owners that they were enlarging the streets, and so that's what saved us. The county, as he said, did a boo-boo. [laughs] But that was put in the paper up there, "The county made a boo-boo." It's amazing. But I like that area up there, and some time my cousin and I plan to drive back through there to see--and most of that area now is Spanish, so it's amazing how it went predominantly colored to now predominantly Spanish.

Stevenson

Yes, it is.

Davis

Because they had problems buying in certain areas, and so they bought homes up there and built. So one of them works with the Red Cross, and he wants me to come up to see his home. I told him, I said, "I'm going to surprise you one weekend," and since I don't have my car I told him my cousin would be driving with me. So he said, "Good. Bring your cousin on a Friday night and spend the night and look around," so we plan to do that. I had a cocker spaniel at that time, and I would always put the cocker spaniel in the yard before I went out, because there were snakes around, and the man that put in electricity, he happened to come by and I had a small snake in a shovel. "Kill him, kill him!" I said, "No." I forget the name of him, but I said, "This is the one that will run rattlesnakes away, so you don't kill these." So I was just taking him to put him over in the bushes further away, and he grew up around the place. Yes, he grew up and from that little rascal about that long, he got as long as from the end of that table here.

Stevenson

Big snake.

Davis

I don't blame the rattlesnakes. I wouldn't bother with him either.

Stevenson

Okay. Maybe you could tell me about the start of your involvement with the Red Cross and how that's evolved over the years.

Davis

Well now, that goes back really to--let's see, because my husband was ill and he died in '77, and a friend that worked with the Red Cross, colored, and she just died a month ago. I read that in the Red Cross, and she had worked over fifty years, colored, with the Red Cross. At that particular time she got me interested, and she said, "Remember that you came over in the sixties and used to help me with the--," they needed a typist, and so in '64 I would go over and help them with the typing and so forth. So from '64, and then I liked watching what they call--they have the people donate blood. They go to get refreshments. They have to sit for at least fifteen or twenty minutes and drink some fruit juice and eat a little bit and all, so I decided after my time was up when I was vice president--I was national vice president of Presbyterian Women from '64 through '67, so after that was up in '67 I decided to get more involved, and instead of typing we used to write up the histories, so I did that for a while.And then as they say, we would fix the bags, little bags. We used to put all the labels and things on that, and we did that for years until, oh, I guess it was just about ten years ago when some national law that only paid staff could put the tags on the little bags.

Stevenson

So what was it about the Red Cross that appealed to you in terms of becoming involved in the first place, but also continuing your involvement?

Davis

The people who donate blood. It's a different type of people. I call them caring people. You care about others, so you give your blood to help, so that was the thing that impressed me, how many people would come out. More people were donating blood then than donate today. Well, with the changes and changes in business and neighborhoods, a lot of those people are not in the area or have died off or so forth. But you take a person that's coming in--oh, and when I first started with them, would you believe when I first started donating blood, I've forgot what year it was, but they weren't taking blood from colored.

Stevenson

And what year?

Davis

Until during--would you believe it was during the war?

Stevenson

During World War II?

Davis

Yes.

Stevenson

So before that they didn't take--

Davis

No. And some article was in the paper about a white soldier that was bleeding profusely and he needed some blood, and the only person that they could find--and he happened to have a rare factor. See, I have a rare factor in blood-type O, and the only person they could find was a colored soldier, and he said he didn't give a damn what color they were, he just needed some blood. And then that particular soldier started--but the Red Cross involved all those years, asked them why they discriminated on blood when all the blood is the same red blood. "Why are you discriminating?"

Stevenson

What was the answer?

Davis

They started letting all races donate. So I've donated over eight gallons just with the Red Cross, but I've donated in hospitals. See, with that rare factor I have, and the supervisor that helped me up in Val Verde and all, when he got sick he needed blood, and I found out he needed blood, so I went to the hospital and donated for him. So it's amazing when you meet people, you never know how involved you're going to get with that particular person.Oh, and then another thing, like I was telling my cousin, they were trying to get colored people to help. See, up in Val Verde at that time there were a lot of farms going. There were orchards and also growing vegetables, and they were trying to get some colored to help them in the fields, but they couldn't. The colored wouldn't work in the fields.

Stevenson

Not at all?

Davis

No. No, no. I've been up there when they go around in the station wagons calling, and different people trying to get men to work in the fields. No, so that's when Latinos started coming in. See, they had to get the Latinos to work in the fields, so when my cousin said somebody bumped her car, and she mentioned something about, "Dumb Latino didn't look where he was going," and blah, blah, blah. And I said, "Don't get on the Latinos." I said, "Remember, they're the ones that came in to do what our people refused to do--"

Stevenson

Exactly.

Davis

--"work in the fields?"

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

So I said, "Now, remember." And, well, the stigma, the slave stigma.

Stevenson

Right. Do you think that has a lot to do with it?

Davis

It had a lot to do with that, why they didn't want to work in the fields.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

So I told her, I said, "Well, you see, we got so we didn't want to do certain things." Housework, a lot of colored women wouldn't do housework anymore, and that's when the Latino women started doing the housework and all.

Stevenson

Yes, that's sort of the case now with Latinas, Hispanic women filling most of those positions now.

Davis

Right, right. Yes. And as I say, when you refuse to do certain things that have to be done, they will find a way. So something I was answering yesterday in the mail about the question asked, "Should Latinos who worked in this country and go back to Mexico, should they get Social Security?" Well, if they work here all those years I feel they should get Social Security. They work here all of those years. My cousin, she's the opposite, so we have more fun, and I always tell her, I say, "Do you realize how prejudiced you are?" "Oh, that's not prejudice." I said, "Oh, yes, it is." I said, "That's prejudice." I said, "You can't be that way." I told her, I said, "Well, there's one thing I can say about the Latinos, they're some of the nicest people I know." And she said, "What do you mean?" I said, "Well, I can get on a bus and there can be two black men sitting up front where they're not supposed to be, for senior citizens and all. They don't get up and move." I said, "But if there's a Latino man up there, he gets up and gives me his seat." She said, "Even today?" I said, "Even today, honey."And then when I was going over to her church and I had to get the bus on Vermont, and I had a bandage on my ankle at that time, so I was just limping a little bit, so when I got on the bus there was no place to sit. That lady bus driver just stopped the bus and she said, "Everyone on these front seats that's not a senior, would you please go to the back?" And there were other seniors out there needed to get on the bus. So I said, "Well, thank the Lord. Good people everywhere." And it amuses me. I come in from a Bloodmobile, maybe I've been on Figueroa, and as soon as I get on the bus somebody wants to get up and give me a seat on that Normandie bus. A couple of weeks ago I had been on Wilshire [Boulevard], just from Wilshire. I said, "Oh, but I'm only going down to Normandie." "Well, you can sit down." So there's nice people everywhere.

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

Nice people everywhere.

Stevenson

Maybe you could tell me, when did they start having the Bloodmobile? Around what years did they start having it?

Davis

Bloodmobiles, that goes back to the history of the Red Cross, because they've had Bloodmobiles just about ever since this country was founded, because, see, the Red Cross, they were working overseas before it started here in America, so I would say since the beginning of America there's always been a Red Cross. Then in Los Angeles, going back to Santa Barbara in '37, I know there was a Red Cross up there then, and when I moved down here there was Red Cross.

Stevenson

So they've always had Bloodmobiles. They don't look like our modern Bloodmobiles. They were using them in Europe, and so they probably just were in a different form.

Davis

And when I went to Canada, I saw some of the older models like that, that they're still using.

Stevenson

What do those look like?

Davis

It looked like the old-fashioned, I call them open wagons. Some don't have a top on them, they just have the seats on the sides. Then they had one at Exposition Park up there, and it had a patient laying in the middle of the floor, a model of a patient, how they used to carry the patients to the hospital, just lay them on the floor in those particular wagons. So a lot of modern changes today.

Stevenson

So over the years since you've been involved with the Red Cross, you've largely worked with the people that give blood--

Davis

Yes, donations.

Stevenson

Have you volunteered with the Red Cross during any of the disasters that we've had locally? I'm thinking about, I don't know, maybe the breaking of the Baldwin Hills Dam [Reservoir] or during the two earthquakes that I can recall, I don't know, maybe '71 and '94. Have you been involved in other capacities?

Davis

In '94, the earthquake, I went downtown to work in a hotel. I've forgotten what hotel it was. It's one of the taller ones, and they cancelled that, and then we went to the school ground to work, and that was in the '94 earthquake. Then I also went to another school ground in North Hollywood at that time, because I still had my car at that time and all. Right now I just work in the downtown close-by area, but I used to go all over when I had my car, to Culver City and East Los Angeles schools, and I liked working in a school with the students and some of the community places. They still go in a lot of the schools.I'm trying to think where I was on the East Side a couple of weeks ago. It was on Grand Avenue near--I can't think of the name of that hospital, but anyway, it's like they have a school, a community center and all in that one big place on Griffith Avenue. It's just before you get to Western. So that was a nice Bloodmobile there, and the building we were in is where the hospital was, and we could see different patients that were in the wheelchairs. They rolled them around and let them look at the people donating blood, and one man who had received three pints of blood, he was throwing kisses to the people on the table that were donating blood, "Thank you, thank you." He said, "I wouldn't be in this chair today if I hadn't gotten some blood." So it's nice to know that people appreciate things and people donating. Of course, with him with whatever his illness is, he can't donate because he needs blood and so forth, but it's nice to see that people appreciate things like that.Oh, and the other thing that the patients, the volunteers, he said, "You mean you've been doing this how many years, some forty years? You're not paid?" I told him, "Well, my pay is coming looking at all the people that are donating blood."

Stevenson

Right.

Davis

Just being around people like that, it's a good atmosphere. So as they say, good people everywhere, and if we didn't help each other where would we be today? We have to help one another.

Stevenson

Yes. Over the years of your involvement with the Red Cross, have you seen more people of color become involved as volunteers?

Davis

Oh, yes. Oh, yes. They had very few when I first started out, and right now you see not only colored but Spanish, because the Spanish girl brought me home. Did she bring me home, or where was I going? I had to go somewhere on Jefferson. Oh, I was picking up some clothes that I put in on Jefferson, so she took me down there to pick up my clothes and brought me home and all. There are fewer right now than there were two years ago, and I know one of the nurses, I think the head nurse was asking her, since she goes in Orange County and so forth, and she said, "Remember, colored are outnumbered by Spanish now because of neighborhoods." They're moving in neighborhoods, so that has cut down on a lot.

Stevenson

Right, the demographics.

Davis

But more and more Spanish and especially those in college. I like the college kids that come in and donate and also work. Before I go home I've got to give a pint of blood. I've got to keep everybody healthy. [laughs] So as they say, racially it depends on communities. I never thought that the colored race would be outnumbered by the Spanish.

Stevenson

Yes. It's an interesting way the demographics have changed.

Davis

I was looking in the paper, I think it was last week, how low our percentage is there compared to the Spanish. I said, "Well, can't blame them. America is a wonderful place to live." And I've traveled overseas in many countries and all, and I wouldn't exchange where I am to live over there anywhere. My shock was the earthquake in China. I just couldn't believe it. I've been from one end of China to the other. I had three whole weeks in China and just to look at that devastation in that big place--who was it I was telling? I said, "Well, I don't like to read Revelations too often." And she said, "Why?" I said, "It scares hell out of me. I see the things today that are happening that are mentioned, and I happen to have jotted down that particular scripture about earthquakes and so forth." My friend called me back. She said, "Thanks but no thanks." She said, "I see what you mean about the latter days." It speaks of the latter days and so forth and earthquakes in diverse places. So I told her, I said, "Well, we could be living in the latter days." And I said, "We'd never know, but I'm glad to be here. I'm glad I have traveled in the different countries to see how other people in the other countries are. It makes you appreciate America. I know why so many people want to come to America."One of the changes I was telling her about that the first time I went to Hong Kong was 1965, and that was when I saw people on those boats. They used to live on those boats out there, and tuberculosis was very high at that particular time. And I said, "Now, I didn't get back to Hong Kong until '80-something, but then it was such a joy to go down on the riverside and even some of the boats which they used to take, and all that has been cleaned up." To see the changes over there, and I said, "Change is everywhere."

Stevenson

Okay. One last question before we close this session. Could you tell me if there have been problems over the years of your association with the Red Cross in terms of having enough people of color donate blood?

Davis

Well, yes, because they have sent some of the officials have visited different churches. Now, Trinity [Baptist] Church has Bloodmobiles.

Stevenson

Is that Trinity Baptist?

Davis

Yes, on Jefferson, and I'm trying to think of the other big one. But anyway, they are using more churches now, and that's because they went out and tried to get--and the funniest thing is when they have them, even when we had the one at our church, would you believe more Spanish came in and donated?

Stevenson

Because of the neighborhood.

Davis

Because the neighborhood has changed. Yes. And where did we go on the East Side that was on a Sunday, and a part of that church was being used, a Bloodmobile that particular Sunday, and they do this on Sunday because after church a lot of people. They have two services, the eight-thirty service and eleven o'clock service, with Sunday school in between, so a lot of the people who go to the church services donate blood. So it's good, but you have to get out and go in the neighborhoods because of the changes, to have more Bloodmobiles. Now we don't have a Bloodmobile, a place. Red Cross used to be right up here on Vermont between Pico and Olympic. It isn't there anymore.

Stevenson

Really?

Davis

Been gone. It's way out. Then the other closest one was on 3rd, 3rd and Alvarado I believe it was, something like that. That isn't there anymore. It's out on the West Side.

Stevenson

So that would make access difficult.

Davis

And then they moved the blood. You see, the one that they had on Vermont is the one that used to test the blood. That's in Pomona now. They moved that all the way up to Pomona. So it's amazing, that far away. I went up there one Sunday. Let's see, what did we go up there for? Oh, someone from my cousin's church, she belongs to the First Baptist Church at 8th and Westmoreland, and one of the soprano soloists was singing up there, so she wanted Ann to come up. So Ann said, "Would you like to go?" I said, "Why not?" Speaking of paid soloists, she can't understand why my church does not have paid soloists, and I told her, "Well, fortunately, we've always--." Well, I guess it's the system. I told her the system itself--I don't know of a Presbyterian church nearby that has paid soloists. But now like last Sunday our choir, a lot of our people have died out. Well, we're an older congregation. See, I'm ninety-two, and no one is joining right now. People are joining what I call the holy rollers.

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

I went to the one at Olympic and 2nd Avenue, that big church there. I think they have 2,000 members, and as I told her, I was on my feet more than I sat down. They have you standing up, shaking hands, go around shaking hands with people, go tell a neighbor how you were blessed. "Has the Lord blessed you today? Go tell a neighbor how you were blessed." You know, it's nice to go to different churches to see how others worship.

Stevenson

Yes, it is. Right, very.

Davis

And I said, "They dance up and down the aisles and so forth." I said, "We choose what we like, but I grew up a Methodist." I told her, "Even the colored Methodist church that my mother belonged to in Tarboro, North Carolina, they had dancing up and down the aisles on certain Sundays." But not just what we would call regular dancing. These were mostly professionals and not the regular dances that we do. But anyway, it had to do with the scripture on David dancing outside the temple, and they say, "Well, we don't have room to dance outside on the sidewalk." And then they used to bring another person that was in our church that went to Oakland, a pastor. He became a pastor, and he brought his young people down, and they were dancing up and down our aisles, and, of course, some of our stiff-necked members were upset. So I took my shoes off and I got up, and a couple of others got up, and we danced right down the aisle with the kids.

Stevenson

Okay, that's a good place to stop. [End of interview]

1.4. Session 4 (July 11, 2008)

Stevenson

I'm continuing an interview with Lillie Davis on July the eleventh, 2008. I have some follow-ups from our last session.

Davis

Okay. Let's see what they are.

Stevenson

Okay. Could you talk a little bit more about when you first came to Los Angeles, about what the restrictions were on public accommodations such as swimming pools and that sort of thing?

Davis

In 1939, yes, I came down here from Santa Barbara, and I was working in the hospital up there, and I had a job waiting for me here, and finding accommodation was only one area, the East Side. I just happened to have a car at that time, driving around, and I went to Arlington Avenue and got out, and I saw some for sale signs, and a lady with me, my friend, was black, real black. And some white man came out and told her, "Oh no, you can't live in this neighborhood. It's a white neighborhood." And so I said to him, "Well, I thought I left the Mason and Dixon line on the East Coast." I didn't expect to find this in California, and it was that way for quite some time. I think it was the church at Second Avenue and Jefferson that decided to buy--well, they were on Arlington where I forget what the name of the church is, at Cimarron. But they moved down across--no, it was on the opposite side of Arlington that they moved, and they were the first of color to move over there.

Davis

So then we had a little neighborhood committee that got together to go and visit city hall about restrictions and so forth, and I think the apartment I got was on 42nd Street, two blocks over from Central at that particular time. It wasn't until really the forties that things got a little better. As I said, this house I'm in now, I was one of the first of color to move here in what was known as the West Harvard Heights, the Harvard Heights area today. At that time I again was mistaken for Spanish, because I was much lighter and the hair was black, and I really didn't understand why my husband-to-be said, "You go and talk to the man." He was brown-skinned, and then a friend of his that worked at Golden State [Mutual Life Insurance Company], he looked like he was white, so he went next door to find out about their for sale sign, and we moved in within a week of each other, and they thought he was white and I was Spanish. That was 1948. And now the neighborhood is predominantly Spanish.

Stevenson

Yes, so it's gone through many demographic changes over the years.

Davis

Right, right.

Stevenson

Okay. At that time in the late thirties, forties, if you wanted to go use, say, a public swimming pool, what was the situation there? What were the restrictions on using things such as public swimming pools?

Davis

A certain day. They had a certain day for Spanish, and a certain day for colored.

Stevenson

I see. Now, I've done a little bit of reading. I know sometimes they would make that specified day the day before the pool was cleaned. Is that true?

Davis

Oh yes, oh yes, that we heard about.

Stevenson

Now, what about going to the beach?

Davis

Now, the beach, I wasn't very interested at that particular time, but there were some restrictions even at the beach. Manhattan Beach, and I'm trying to think of the name of the one going towards San Diego, they had certain days and certain areas for the colored, and also for Spanish, both colored and Spanish. I'm trying to remember when the march on Selma, Alabama, can you remember what year that was? Wasn't that in the fifties?

Stevenson

Late fifties maybe, mid-to-late fifties?

Davis

You'd be surprised how many people of color, and Spanish, went down to city hall. We had a nice demonstration down there, because a lot of the areas here were still restricted. Like out in the San Fernando Valley, you couldn't buy a home out there, and as late as '65, because I was a national vice president of Presbyterian Women from '64 through '67, and I had an invitation from a couple of the churches in the valley, and it was raining that particular day, and I had to park three blocks from the church--I'll be right back. [Tape recorder turned off.]

Stevenson

Okay. You were speaking about the march that was held here in support of the one in Selma, and you said it was at city hall.

Davis

Right, downtown. We shocked the civic leaders by coming down, and we let them know that we were happy that most of California--and that's what shocked some of the leaders, about "most," because I said to him then, I said, "Well, if I wanted to buy a house nearby, I couldn't buy a house--," I'm trying to think, further down Compton at that time. Remember, we were not living in Compton?

Stevenson

That's right.

Davis

Long Beach was out of the question--

Stevenson

Exactly.

Davis

--Hollywood, and I'm trying to think, going from Third Avenue out to Orange County, whatever that first--but just say Orange, County, we couldn't buy property, or rent. Even if you had a good job in that area, and wanted to rent a room or an apartment nearby, [unclear] until you came back home. Impossible. And it's amazing, you think of the United States, and as I was telling someone that I was speaking to at that time, even in the sixties when I was vice president, I said, "Well, you look back at our country, the segregation we had here and so forth." I said, "It does not compare with overseas." I had been to Hong Kong. I think the first time I was in Hong Kong was '64 I believe it was, '63 or '64, and to just see people out on the street ill with tuberculosis, living in ships on the water out there because there's no housing and so forth, renting little boats, and they called them the boat people at that particular time. And work, finding work was just about impossible, because the industries in those countries were not like they are today, and not only in Hong Kong, but then in '78 I went back to Hong Kong again, and I'm trying to think where I went in Asia. Let's see, I know I went to England, but I came back through Asia, two different places, and here again, at that late date there were people out on the street sleeping with their sleeping bags and so forth, poor housing, jobless. We think things were bad here during the depression. It does not compare with the bad conditions in other countries.

Davis

Really, the only country at that time where I did not see people in the street, I think it was Sweden. I think Sweden at that particular time, and let's see, parts of Germany. They had the wall up, and so we couldn't go past the wall, and so forth. But they had a tough time in Germany after the war. But then when they took the wall down, I was back over there again in '78, '80, and every other year I went to a couple of states here, and overseas visiting different countries in Europe and Asia and the islands and so forth, and didn't get into Australia. A storm came up. I was on a ship from Canada, one of those tourist boats, and it wasn't built for storms, so they had to return, and they let us stop long enough to just step off the boat and step on the land, and back on the boat. But it's amazing how comparing all the countries I visited, I wouldn't trade any of them for Los Angeles, California, the U.S.A.

Stevenson

Okay, one last question on this subject. As compared to the South, at that time did they have the signs at the public restrooms "For Colored Only"? Did they have those here?

Davis

They had those, and the reason I remember this so is because my parents separated when I was five years old, and then at age six where I was placed, the minister's wife died, who was a teacher. I had been going to school with her every day, and she taught first through the fifth grade, so I was to take an exam, and they placed me in the third grade at age six in North Carolina, Tarboro, hoping I would make up with my mother at that particular time. But just being upset with both parents, I didn't let her come near me until I was eight years old. Then at age eight--I'm trying to think of the city; I can't remember the city--but there were schools for light-skinned colored people at that time, and I was much lighter then than I am now, and as Mrs. Roosevelt said, "Damn near white." [laughs]

Davis

As they say, I remember a park and going swimming in the river, there were just certain days that the sign--they had a white sign and a colored sign, and that sign didn't come down until--I'm trying to think who was president at that particular time. But anyway, there was a flood in the Tar River, and the city is right on the Tar River, and the government naturally had to come down for help and so forth, and they started working, building better, and that's when some of the elected officials noticed these signs. Then they visited the theater, and there were certain days for colored and certain days for white, and the balcony, even in the churches, some of the churches they visited, if colored went to the church, you sat in the rear.

Stevenson

I see. Do you ever remember seeing any of those signs after you came to California?

Davis

No. No. Those signs came down, I think it was the late seventies when I went back. I think my mother was ill at that particular time, and I went back to see her. No, I'm sorry, it was 1947, and I didn't see any signs. Let's see, I was going to get a bus to visit my husband's relatives thirty miles away, and my mother said, "Why in the world would you pay taxi fare, when you can go right down on Main [Street] and get a bus?" And I said, "It's been a long time since I sat on the rear of a bus." And she said, "When the soldiers came back from the war, some of them got back just before the end, 48 and so forth," and she said, "those who came back early in '47, that's the first thing they worked on, integrating train and bus." But things like that did not get into newspapers. Isn't that strange? And I thought about that, just reading about the senator that just died, from North Carolina?

Stevenson

[Jesse Alexander] Helms [Jr.]? Jesse Helms.

Davis

He tried to keep everything restricted, and only to find out he had a colored family and colored children and so forth, that he supported.

Stevenson

So was that Jesse Helms or was that Strom Thurmond?

Davis

Well, Thurmond and Helms.

Stevenson

So did Helms also have a--

Davis

Yes.

Stevenson

--a black family? Oh, okay, I didn't know that.

Davis

Oh yes.

Stevenson

Interesting, interesting.

Davis

It's amazing about our leaders.

Stevenson

Okay. Another question, sort of a follow-up. This is a question I've asked all the interviewees, is about their recollections of the Watts rebellion of 1965. The first question I'd like to ask is, what was your perception of what the causes were?

Davis

Well, the causes were so deep. They go back to segregation, the restrictions, job restrictions and so forth, and schools not being in those particular areas, and there were just so many reasons, housing and you name it. There were just so many reasons for that, and it wasn't just there, because I was going on a--I'm trying to think. I couldn't catch a bus right here on Normandie Avenue. This area was restricted, all the way up to Arlington. We could not go out of the area, and for some reason I wanted to go out to U.C. for something, but we couldn't--I think for three days this area was restricted.

Stevenson

That's interesting. Even though you weren't geographically close to the center, it was still restricted.

Davis

Right. Well, fires were set up on Western Avenue at a market. I'm trying to remember what the other store was, near Western and Washington. But there were about three places set on fire.

Stevenson

In the '65 one?

Davis

Yes, in this area. So that's why this area was restricted. I wanted to go to church on Jefferson and Third Avenue, and I asked the guard out there if I could call a taxi to pick me up somewhere on Arlington, from Washington and Arlington, if we could go that way. No. And I'm trying to think where my cousin was living at that particular time, and she was visiting and looking. Anyway, as far as a Spanish neighborhood up above Olympic, that far up--

Stevenson

Yes, that's quite far north.

Davis

--were restricted areas. So it's amazing how far reaching something that happens in one area, how it affects different areas of the city.

Stevenson

Okay. So were you involved in any of the--there was a quite far-reaching response to all of the needs. You mentioned housing, education. Were you involved in any of the response afterwards?

Davis

Yes, because we started neighborhood block clubs, and at this particular time LaSalle Avenue belonged to the Adams District, and it wasn't taken over by the Harvard Heights until they became an historic area, and interviewing--and this happens to be a historic home. I can't paint my house without getting a permit, and it has to remain the color it is. I can't have yellow and orange like some of the other houses, and even then, as they say, even now. I was telling someone that yesterday on the bus when they saw the sign, the West Harvard Heights area, and she said, "That's the first time I've seen that sign." I said, "Well, there's one here, and they're going to put one down near the freeway at 20th, because from 20th back from the freeway, all the way up to Pico, and Normandie and Western, all of this is the Harvard Heights area, historic area."

Stevenson

So you were telling me about what you were involved in after the rebellion.

Davis

Oh yes, the block clubs, and we registered with the city. The city had certain councilmen in certain districts and so forth, and the councilmen used to come to our block clubs.

Stevenson

Do you remember the particular councilman that came to the one you were involved with?

Davis

The first one we had, he became a senator, and he was white, and I can't remember his name. But I know in some of the historic things I've been trying to get together after that, when this was number, as I said, the Eighth District at that time, and then when this was taken over in the Tenth District, that's when we had the first colored councilman in this area. I've got all that in my notes, and I was looking for that yesterday.

Stevenson

Yes, because I remember [Thomas] Bradley being a councilman in Tenth.

Davis

Right, right.

Stevenson

But I don't know if he was the first one. He may have been.

Davis

It seemed to me there was one before him, and I've been trying to remember that name.

Stevenson

I see. Okay. So this actually segues nicely into my next question.

Davis

Oh, before we go to that, I wanted to tell you also how good it was to have the block clubs, because at that particular time they were next door to me, and we went to court to try to keep them from tearing down three houses and putting up that apartment house, and the one at 20th and LaSalle. Then we also went to court about the freeway. The freeway came through here, and I can't remember just what year, but this area at that particular time, since it had been an all-white area, it was like a country-club area. And for some reason the freeway was supposed to go down Adams, but the Catholic churches on Adams got together from the East Side to the West Side, and they got money enough to take them to court about the parishes that would be destroyed and so forth.

Stevenson

Right, right. They had clout.

Davis

So that's when they decided to come through, and, oh, the beautiful homes that were torn down. See, as I say, this is a historic home, even though being in the West Adams District at that time, West Adams was not as restricted as the Harvard Heights area, so we didn't have the clout that we would have had if this had been the Harvard Heights area. And it wasn't until I think it was 1970, and the last building was at 20th and LaSalle, that was the last building, because at that particular time--can you imagine someone coming by and offering me three million dollars for my home? And another one came by, said he'd give me five million if I would help him, and they wanted to buy the two houses next to me, and two houses, one that was made into an apartment, coming right around the corner across the street.

Stevenson

So these were developers?

Davis

Yes. Developers wanted to put in more apartment houses at that time. It's amazing. Then right up to about, I think it was '73 before we finally--in fact, I used to go to the city community meetings and so forth, and Harvard Heights always had someone to go, so four or five of us from the area here were always at the city meetings. When you take your complaints there, they get tired of the same complaints all the time, and would you believe USC was trying to get this area declared--let's see, what is it when the government takes over--

Stevenson

Eminent domain?

Davis

Yes, because they wanted to build, would you believe, apartment units this far from USC? It's amazing, the things that have happened.

Stevenson

Okay. In the sixties, early sixties, we were seeing the first African Americans in local government, people like Lindsey [phonetic], Bradley, and others. Could you tell me whether you participated in any of their political campaigns, if you had any interactions with any of them?

Davis

Oh yes. We went to--they had community meetings, you know, in all the areas, and we would go to the meetings to find out how they were going to improve this particular area and so forth, what we could expect from them. It's amazing how many people from the area that attended city hall. I"m trying to think. They had a large room there, a conference room we used to meet in, but then they had to move us to a larger area, so many of the community people were coming to their monthly meetings. That's what it takes if you want to get something done in your community. You have to go to their meetings and let them know how you feel about certain things.

Stevenson

I see. Any particular of the councilmen that you dealt with?

Davis

Well, just about all of them, because as I say, they would come to our meetings, and I'm trying to think of what's his name? If he couldn't come, he would send someone. That's about three councilmen back, I'm trying to remember who that was, that he wasn't coming to our meetings. Let me see. That was about three councilmen, and at that particular time we had been taken over by the Harvard Heights group. We got that sign back, they took the sign back, a traffic sign about the left turns and so forth. They took those down, and would you believe it took us three years to get the sign put back up there at Western and Washington? Takes a long time.

Stevenson

It does.

Davis

And even going to--see, I still represent this area, because I think there's only three of us that attend the Harvard Heights meeting regularly, and that's the lady that owns the house at 20th, and then one that lives in the apartment just before Normandie on 20th, about three of us. And next door, he used to go. He's a retired policeman, but he got a job change after he retired and all, and I had to wake him up July the Fourth to come out with his gun, because I had called the police, and the neighbors across the street were shooting firecrackers, and I was at the door. See, if I stand at my front door, I can see the fireworks over at the Coliseum, and two of their firecrackers exploded right at my step. So I went out and waved to them, and one came up and I said, "You go across the street." And I said, "I'm letting you know I just called the police, so go across the street. Don't stand on my side of the street," and all, and I think they shot something in his yard. I called on the phone and he was sound asleep. I think he had taken some kind of medicine, and he said he didn't hear all of that. But anyway, he finally came out with his badge on, and went out and talked to them. That's when they had to stop. But isn't it amazing? And, of course, they are Latinos, and one of them when I was watering Wednesday, he came over and he was sitting on my step, and I said, "No, you don't sit on my step." I said, "You were shooting firecrackers over here, so you don't sit on my step anymore. You tell your wife with the two kids, they don't come over and sit on my front step anymore." But there's one lady over there, she's very nice. Because my cousin asked me once, "Why do you let the Latino lady sit down there with her children?" And I said, "Well, driving by in the evening, maybe people think she lives here, that this is their home, and seeing children and so forth, the house won't get robbed." I told her, "You have to think about certain things like that."

Stevenson

Oh yes, definitely, definitely.

Davis

So I said, "No," I said, "you can't let your anger stop what is for your welfare."

Stevenson

Okay. So there were several councilmen in this district. Would either of the councilmen that you dealt with have been either, David Cunningham [Jr.] I think was in this district--

Davis

Yes, yes, he was.

Stevenson

--and [Nathaniel] Nate [R.] Holden was another one.

Davis

Nate Holden?

Stevenson

Right.

Davis

Yes, I was trying to think of their names.

Stevenson

If you could tell me a little bit about the interactions of your group or your block club with them.

Davis

Both of them were very helpful with the block clubs, because they knew the block-club members would come down to the city hall meetings and so forth, and when they know that you are active in community affairs and so forth, they are very helpful. So they were very helpful. And Bradley used to live, when he was going to law school, over on I think it was 35th or 36th Street. Anyway, their home was in that area over there, and at that particular time I was living on 37th Place, 37th near a couple of blocks up from Normandie and all, and the two of us used to be running for the bus on Jefferson at the same time. He said, "And where are you going?" I said, "Well, believe it or not, I am helping some of the city committees, and they need help, you know, from the different areas." And then I said, "Also, I am helping the Red Cross in some of their things they have in the community."

Davis

But I didn't get really involved deeply with the Red Cross until '64, and I used to be able to just walk from here when they had the building right there on Vermont. I worked there, and when I first started, they needed a typist, so I was typing up some of their papers for them. Then I noticed the refreshment area, and different churches would prepare sandwiches and so forth to help the Red Cross at that particular time, and then they needed someone to help in the blood-donation area. I'm trying to think when I gave them--I know at one time, would you believe the Red Cross was not taking blood from us?

Stevenson

Right, I was aware of that.

Davis

And just before they changed, I happened to go by and was tested, and with blood type O I have some rare factor that they needed for patients, and so that's when I started regularly donating blood. So I have donated eight gallons just with the Red Cross, but at different hospitals and so forth. Fortunately, I've had no childhood diseases, and as they say, the doctors say, "That's a blessing." And with the rare factor, and even the councilman that we had at one time, I donated blood for him in a hospital. I happened to go to some meeting--oh, I had a place up in Val Verde. My husband had emphysema, and we bought a place up there to go in the summer and on his vacations and so forth, for the fresh air, and that's before they built that big playground thing up there, which became commercial. Can't think of the name of it right now.

Davis

Then just below that area that used to be vacant, they made that parking area, and that brought in smog even up at Val Verde. See, Val Verde, I can't remember just when it went on the books, but even in the fifties, '56 when we bought the place up there, it was still a colored park at that area. But there are a lot of homes a lot of people bought up there for the fresh air and all. But now it is predominantly Spanish.

Stevenson

Interesting.

Davis

And two of them work on the Red Cross like I do, bloodmobiles, and live up there, so as I've told, one Friday I'm going up and spend the weekend, just to have a chance to look over. I still have the mineral rights for the place I owned up there. The lady that bought it decided that she wasn't interested in that, and I found out she was a salesperson anyway, and so I just signed over to her, so that whoever bought the house would have--and she said, "I will sign over mine when whoever buys the place they're building up there," because she said, "I'm in the business of building and all." So when I went up there and met the family once, and all, she asked me did I get a letter from them two years ago. I told her, yes, I did, and so they may be digging up sampling, and if they sample on your property, you get about forty bucks each time they come and take a sample. So it's amazing the good things you can get involved in.

Stevenson

Since we're on the subject of Val Verde, my perception of Val Verde is that it was sort of similar to some of the places where African Americans went back East to vacation. I know that--

Davis

Well, it was a national park. It was a park, city, county park for colored, a colored park, and there was an entrance on--you go in from 126 Highway into the park, and then going up on, I think it's the one you use to go to Bakersfield, whatever that one is, you can then go on that particular end, in and out. So it had two entrances, entry and exits. Couldn't have one because of fire, the restrictions and so forth. But it's a nice area up there, beautiful. I enjoyed it up until--you wouldn't believe this. When we bought the place, the family was having problems, and I happened to hear at one of our meetings someone that had been up there looking around, but this was smaller than what they wanted, so they gave me the name of the person who wanted to sell at that time. So when I went up I said, "Well, all we want is something for weekends." It was a room that was one big room, eighteen by twenty-two, and a front porch, with two outside toilets. [laughs] So we paid $850 cash for that place. When I sold it in 1990, I got 4,000 cash. That's how the area changed up there. Unbelievable, and I still have mineral rights. As I say, I've been blessed.

Stevenson

Had you had an opportunity over the years to interact with Mayor Bradley during his--

Davis

Oh yes, oh yes. As I say, he visited our block club right here in my home, and then we met with another block club, let's see, three block clubs. I'm trying to remember where we went. It was, oh, the school up here at Pico and Normandie? We needed a larger place at that time, and so we asked the school about using their gymnasium room, and they said, "Any time, any time the community wanted." There's one thing I liked about the minister. I visited that Greek church. I like to visit different churches, and when I told him that when I went to Greece I always liked to go to the churches to see how they compare with the churches in America, and if the white missionaries overseas visit them, and all. So interaction is better, as they say, to have a block club, and we're still on the books, even though this was taken over by the Harvard Heights group, whereas Adams-LaSalle is still listed and is still on the books. And every now and then I get a mailing from the city about some changes and so forth in the community, which I go to the meeting downtown, get someone from Harvard Heights to go with me. It's good to keep up with what's going on in your neighborhood.

Davis

See, we had to go to court about the corner. Now, there used to be a market area right on the corner up here, and they wanted to sell it to a liquor store, whatever, and it was going to be another market with a liquor store. So we had to go to court, and I had to write--I was secretary of our block club at that time, and I had to write a letter to Sacramento and so forth, to let them know what was going on. Then when I went downtown and asked for the blueprint for the area, do you know they lied to me, a lady, and said she couldn't--now, just to show you what money will do. They had been down there in case someone came about that property, not to let them know what their intentions were, and to let them know it was still on the books as a residential area. But see, even though it's commercial facing Washington, what they wanted to do was to put the opening on LaSalle, and that's why we were fighting the area, because that's not supposed to be in the area. It's amazing how you have to fight.

Stevenson

Yes, it is.

Davis

But it's keeping an area up. And one thing about belonging to a group like Harvard Heights, see, we have a policeman that comes to our monthly meetings. Sometimes there's two of them, and we stay on them about patrolling. See, we get good patrolling here, not just up to midnight. Like it used to be they'd come through maybe at midnight and take one look, but from between midnight and six a.m. in the morning there are several police cars coming through the area, and that's how we were able to get rid of the gamblers that were sitting on the front of the building at 20th and LaSalle, and then I don't know if I mentioned to you that someone snatched a baby--

Stevenson

No.

Davis

--from a lady sitting out there, and they wanted money from her. And fortunately, someone from the block club was leaving his home on a bicycle, and he saw from across the street what was going on, and he saw the car they got out of, and so he wrote down the number, the license number, and called the police. Then he came and stopped here to let me know what was happening down there, and then I called the police. So with them having two calls, that got them out here quickly. And fortunately, this was at the time before they moved as far out as they are, for the Tenth District. See, they're all the way out to Pico. You know where that is?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

And they used to be close by.

Stevenson

Yes. So it's just enlarged considerably, the district.

Davis

Right.

Stevenson

What were your perceptions of why Mayor Bradley was so successful during his three or so terms?

Davis

Well, just knowing him, the individual that he is. Now, like a lot of elected officials, and someone said at my church, I forgot who it was that came to our church for a neighborhood meeting and so forth, that met at our church, and I said, "It's good if the councilman can't come, that he sends a representative to see what the needs are for the community." With Bradley, he saw that there was someone at all of the community meetings, and then he used to come to a lot of the meetings himself, and he visited a lot of churches all over, not just this particular area, but all over the city, the white churches and all. And as I say, if he found out some area was having problems, you know how some people walk the street with their signs and so forth?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

He was out there with them. So he was a very personal, family oriented man, and community-oriented, and people, his love for people in his community, in his city. He corrected us once when we said community. He said, "City," and pointed toward downtown. And I had him laughing. I told him when I first came to Los Angeles, I moved down here from Santa Barbara in '39, and the tallest building downtown was city hall. I told him I go out on my porch now and I can't even see city hall, from all of the taller buildings and things that have gone up. I've seen Los Angeles change, and it has really changed downtown.

Davis

And now I still, as I say, go out on bloodmobiles, and some mornings if my arthritis bothers me, I just decide that I wasn't going to catch--now, the bus has changed schedule, so the bus that I get here on Washington, it turns on Broadway, and it stops at Venice. So I have to get another bus on Broadway to go on down to city hall and so forth. So one morning I just decided, you haven't walked this area in a long time, and I was early, and I just like to walk and so forth. It tickled me, some man came along, Latino, he said, "Ma'am," he said--he was walking behind me--he said, "I notice you're walking by yourself." And I have a little bag that I keep the purse in, and the schedule and the newspaper and so forth. So he was telling me there had been some purse snatching. I couldn't believe it, on Broadway?

Stevenson

On Broadway.

Davis

And I said, "How far up are you going?" And he said, "I'm just stretching my legs." And he said, "I'm going up to," I think, "Olympic." So he said, "When you get up as far as Olympic, you'll find more policemen in the area," and I saw three police cars up and down the street as I was walking on down to Temple, because I was going to city hall, and I just decided Arthur [phonetic] needed a walk, and that's what the doctor tells me, "Walk." I told him I do, and I said, "And I water the front and back. That's a nice walk, dragging the hose."

Stevenson

Okay. Another question I wanted to ask is what your perceptions were of some of the groups in the political arena here that sort of fell outside of the mainstream, and I'm talking about groups like the Black Panthers, the Nation of Islam, in the sixties; what were your perceptions of those groups?

Davis

Well now, I was sorry, well, I was worried. The word worried is why they were the way they were, and as I explained to some of them even at that particular time, that California had changed, you see, from the time that I had been here. But I said, "You haven't changed. You're worse than some of the white race in some of your ideologies and so forth."

Stevenson

Right.

Davis

And as they say, one of the leaders, well, you see, that got them thinking, and I don't know if you were here at the time, but they started putting some ads in the [Los Angeles] Sentinel paper at that particular time, and, oh, some statements that they were not as bad as people thought they were, and how they were changed in their ideologies. You see, they had to make some changes to get more of us to try to understand them and their ideologies. It's amazing how, as I asked someone, with the way this country had grown, and we as a colored race, the freedoms and things that we enjoy today, and I said, "And think back. It wasn't just Abraham Lincoln that got us free." And I said, "Many of the owners of slaves had children by so many of the slave women, that they had to work to make things a little better for their mixed children."

Davis

See, people don't realize that. You know, when they start thinking, they think it was just the president and certain committees, but it took people. It took neighborhoods and all of that to get us where we are today. And just look at the restrictions there were for foreigners coming into this country, how those restrictions--see, that had an effect on those committees. So when one good thing happened in one area of your city, and your rules and by-laws and so forth, it affects other organizations and so forth, and you have to change every day. And I laugh, and I was telling someone at church, going on my bloodmobiles I said, "Very seldom do I see a lady bus driver." But that particular morning--and I said, God put her on the bus, and the bus was filled up front, you know, for senior citizens and people, and there were three people with crutches waiting to get on the bus, and younger people were sitting on the seats up front. So the bus driver asked them to move back, and they wouldn't get up. Do you know, she cut the engine off. She said, "I'm not moving until you move." So she had all of them look at the sign above their heads, and she made them move back, and I tell you, the bus was really full. You could hardly move. But she got the four of us on the bus, and I think at Vermont it happened to be five, I think, that got off the bus, and they were going to the school up there, and that loosened the people who were standing up a little bit. Then I noticed she was on the phone, and she was asking some bus, I think, that was following her, to make it ten minutes earlier or something, to pick up.

Davis

And the reason is a lot of drivers are using the bus now, because of gas prices. But yesterday's paper, and I meant to keep that in case my cousin didn't get a chance to read it, and see, she drives--she works at Northrup, and she lives two blocks from Vermont on I forget what that street is up there. See, she found out the hard way, where she moved from she was paying $700 a month two years ago, and they did not have whatever--I can't think of what that is, when people move, like I have for my renters, that I have to give them a certain amount of money to help them, if I ask them to move, to leave my place, but then I have to help them with their rent, you see. But she happened to be in a building that didn't have that.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

And so she's paying $1,000 a month for a one-bedroom apartment, and she's shaking her head because five years ago I tried to get her to take the one bedroom upstairs, and that's a nice-sized living room, kitchen, nice-sized bathroom, big bedroom, but there wasn't room for her queen-sized bed and her dressers and so forth. So I asked her, "Who's sleeping in the bed with you?" because she's not married. She regrets many a day that she didn't--and she couldn't understand, "You only rent that for $500 a month?" I said, "I rented at one time," and I said, "I was helped. I didn't have to pay high rents. And I don't rent to younger people. I rent to someone at least over forty years old, see. And I said, "I stopped," and I said, "I had to do that because I rented to a lady with a two-year-old child, and on the porch up there--I happened to come out my gate to do something, and the child was swinging on that outside thing, not on the--but down, had her feet down, where she would fall on the ground. So I had to ask that lady to move, but you see, I didn't have to pay her. I had a good reason for her not thinking about the welfare of her child. And see, I have to report that to the rental agency, so I was able to get her out without having to pay. But as I told my cousin, someone helped me. I'm retired, I've got enough income that I don't have to worry about it.

Davis

Fortunately, as I've said, my husband was twelve years my senior, and when we were getting married he wanted to buy a single home. I told him, "You're twelve years my senior. I hope I outlive you. I want some income property," and that's how we happened to buy this, to have some income, because I didn't work very much, and at the time I was working, I didn't belong to unions and so forth. I never did care for unions, even when I worked at North American. I worked out there for a while, and I was in the inspection department. They thought I was Spanish again. That's when I was using color to get brown. I got tired of being mistaken for Spanish, and I said, that's not fair to my African grandfather and my white grandmother. But it's amazing the things you have to do to--well, you try to help people, because I was helped.

Davis

And like I was telling kids in my church, "Learn to keep your mouth shut. Don't give answers. Let somebody ask you a question, but don't just give them information without them--," I said, "without your activities and jobs you may be looking for and so forth, answer questions." And they said, "Why?" I said, "Well, when I first came to California, I had to get a license, a California license to work in the hospital, because I only had three and a half years of college." I had to go to school, and in 1937 Santa Barbara, UC Santa Barbara, now what year did they let colored in? Wasn't it in the fifties?

Stevenson

For University of California?

Davis

Yes.

Stevenson

Well, actually are a couple, there were a few in the twenties, but very few.

Davis

But up there it was pretty close to '50 before Santa Barbara, and you see, Santa Barbara, the type of city it is, I called it Rich Man's City, so that's why they had restrictions and kept them the way they did up there. Even Latinos had a hard time getting licenses to open a restaurant up there at that particular time. I'm trying to think of the movie actor, and only because he was an actor at that particular time was he able to open up a restaurant there, and then he had his brother take over. He was married to some white actress, and I can't think of his name now to save me. But anyway, such is life. But you've got to have, as I told the kids, "You keep your mouth shut." I said, "I wouldn't have been able to get to UC Santa Barbara to get the extra credits I needed to get a license to work. So people assuming--." And I said, "When I had an extra job," somebody in my family needed some money, and different ones were putting in, and I happened to know of a company that had an ad in the paper, and would you believe that ad was "light-skinned coloreds only"? Isn't that something?

Stevenson

That is something.

Davis

Yes. And it happened to be a temporary thing, so that's why I took it at that time, to help the family. I think some one was having some type of surgery that their insurance didn't cover. And speaking of that, today did you read in the paper about so many--I think it was AARP that was not covering the areas that they used to cover, how they have stopped? And then something was in the paper about, was it taxes, city taxes that were cut back? Isn't that something?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

Can you believe that in America today?

Stevenson

Yes, it's interesting.

Davis

I still think we're in a depression right now. Someone happened to mention that we were approaching. I said, "Approaching? I think we're in it."

Stevenson

Yes, I believe we are.

Davis

Look how many people are losing jobs, that are being laid off, and how do they make it? They still have to eat, and groceries are going up, still going up.

Stevenson

Okay. I have one last question for this session.

Davis

Okay, dear. Okay.

Stevenson

You talked about the '65 rebellion. What differences do you see between that event and the one that happened in '92, and I'm specifically talking about what were the differences in the people that participated in the rebellion, the issues, that sort of thing, because I think there are some major differences.

Davis

[19]55, I'm trying to remember. I'm trying to remember when the trains actually stopped segregating. I think it was in the fifties, in the fifties then, and I'm trying to think where I was going. Oh, my mother died in '56, and I had to go back to her funeral, and I was telling someone I resented the fact that once--and Chicago still had restrictions on train, and I couldn't get a plane ticket out of there. I had to use the train, the colored section from there to get to Washington, D.C., because I was supposed to get a ride with some relatives, but because I couldn't get there on the date that I was supposed to get, I had to ride the segregated train from Washington, D.C., in 1956, and this is what people didn't want to believe, the capital, to Raleigh, North Carolina. I looked back and I said, "I couldn't get angry." And they said, "Why?" I said, "Becuase God was in the plan." I said, "When I got to Rocky Mountain--," see, the train didn't go through Tarboro, where my mother lived. I would have to get a bus, you see, and the buses at that time were not integrated, like the bus out of Tarboro. See, all the buses did not integrate, but it just happened to be that particular line that the colored soldiers said they were not going to ride on, that's why it was.

Davis

And when I was waiting for the train to come, I heard--no, I saw a placard, "Lillie Davis." And I said, hmm, somebody's got my name. He was white. Then he put a T in it when he came around the second time, "Is there a Lillie Telfair Davis here from California?" And I held up my hand. He says, "Good. I'm your driver. I'm taking you to Tarboro." That's where my mother--and this is some doctor that my mother used to work for, just to show you how things worked. My mother used to work for him, and when he got sick, he helped my mother get a license to become, I forgot what they called them, what was the title they used, but not having nurse's training, whatever that title was if someone was ill and needed like a nurse, and a couldn't get one, then she could go in and do certain things, except she could not give injections, and that was the one that sent the car to pick me up, one of his white friends to pick me up so I would not have to ride the segregated bus. And you know, you appreciate that. That same man, when I went to buy a new white dress for my mother, because the one she'd been saving through the years, you know how white turns yellow-looking? I bought a new one, and I don't know how in the world he found out that I had been to the store, and that was his brother that owned the store, just to show you how things are and all, and about, "Janey's daughter from California is here getting a white dress for her mother." He said, "No, she isn't going to pay for that."

Davis

I went to get programs made for the service and so forth, and I said to my mother--and that same family is the one that opened up the cafe that my mother had, the cafeteria. She used to have, they called them tobacco auctioneers would come to her place, and it was right on the dividing line from white and colored area, so they knew that if they went there they could get some good cooking, good meals and all. So it's amazing how God works, if you take time to notice the help you're getting, and there that was that white family helping me all through. Then at the service in the church, my mother, as I said, had taken care of so many families with their, what do you call it when they have births at home, when you don't have a doctor?

Stevenson

Midwife?

Davis

Midwife, yes, midwife, that's what she was. I knew I'd think of the word. She had been a midwife for so many white families that I was amazed. When I looked back in the church, the church was half filled with white people, a colored Methodist church, and I couldn't believe it, and many of them went right on to the cemetery and all, and that's the day I made up my mind that I would be cremated. A storm came up and the grave was filling up with water, and where in the world they found the buckets from, but they had to get the water out of the grave, because the box where the casket was to go into was getting water in it. They had to get that water out of there so they could put the casket down, and I knew that by the time they put the casket down there some more water was in the box. And here the new white dress that Mama was buried in and all of that, wet, and I said, now, to think of the money that was put into the ground, no. That's when I made up my mind on cremation, and when I came back, I sold my husband on cremation, and when he died in '77, his ashes were scattered out in the ocean. There used to be a funeral place right up there at Harvard and LaSalle. They were the ones that handled that end, and they called me, the ashes, to see if I wanted to ride in the plane to see them scatter the ashes. I said, "I'll take your word for it." But they used a camera so I could see [unclear] scattering the ashes. So the good things that happen, you know, you appreciate things like that.

Stevenson

Okay. [End of interview]

1.5. Session 5 (August 27, 2008)

Stevenson

Good morning. I'm completing an interview with Lillie Davis on August the twenty-seventh [2008]. I'd like to spend this last session talking about Westminster Presbyterian Church. Could you tell me when you first joined the church, and what attracted you to this particular church?

Davis

Curiosity, and when I tell people that, they can't believe it. But I had planned--I was a Methodist when I first came to California, A.M.E. [African Methodist Episcopal] Zion, and I was visiting a friend who was ill on 36th Street, and I lived on 37th [Street] near Denker at that time, so when I was walking back to go to Bethel A.M.E. Church, the door of the Presbyterian church was open, and there was a Caucasian in the pulpit. Curiosity. I said, what is he doing in our neighborhood? This is back in it was either '39 or '40.

Stevenson

So that would have been unusual?

Davis

So curiosity carried me into the church, and I was just so pleased with the service, and the ushers, the way they greet you, shake your hand, take you to a nice seat and all, and I was going to sit near--"Oh no, you don't want to sit this far back. You want to go up front." So I started singing the hymn, and a lady near came over and she said, "I like your voice. I'll pick you up Thursday night." I said, "Thursday night?" "Choir rehearsal." I said, "Oh, but I'm a visitor." "You don't have to be a member." So that's when I started singing with the choir, I think in '40, not '39. That's when I moved down here from Santa Barbara. I think it was '47; no, it was '43 when I joined that church, yes, actually 1943 when I joined the church, because I knew it was during the wartime and so forth. And I found the congregation to be such nice, friendly people.

Davis

And I had walked to church, because I lived on 37th and I was only going to 36th and 35th, so no use driving. They wouldn't let me walk home. I was carried home by one of the church members, and when people are that accommodating and friendly, it gets to you.

Stevenson

So what was the name of the minister when you joined the church?

Davis

Reverend Hampton Hawes [Sr.], and he was the pastor of that church for some, I believe, fifty-one years, a long, long time, yes. And when I got married in 1948, I was married in his living room, because I had been married before, and that didn't work out after three and a half years, with alcohol and gambling and so on.

Stevenson

The Hawes family is a prominent Los Angeles family--

Davis

Oh yes, oh yes.

Stevenson

--and he has a very famous son.

Davis

And his son, his son became our next pastor.

Stevenson

That's Hampton Hawes, Jr.?

Davis

Hampton, the musician.

Stevenson

Right. And that was Hampton Hawes, Jr.

Davis

Right. It's a prominent family.

Stevenson

I see. Could you tell me a little bit about the history of the church, in terms of when it was founded and by whom?

Davis

Well, now, that I know is one of the oldest colored churches in California. But now, the book that I had on the history of the church, in '85 when we had all that heavy rain, it damaged the roof on the garage, and that box of things got soaking wet, so that you couldn't even read it. You know, when it gets into the ink and it starts running, so I lost the history there, but it is one of the oldest colored churches in Southern California, not just Southern California, California itself.

Stevenson

Is it true that Westminster Presbyterian was one of the first to have a multi-ethnic ministry?

Davis

Yes, it goes back there to Reverend Hawes. When we bought where we are now in the present, at Third Avenue, see, we were at 35th and Denker when I joined the church, and now we're at Third Avenue and West Jefferson, and we bought that from an all-white congregation who happened to be Presbyterians.

Stevenson

I see. Could you--I think you said a little bit about it before, but what exactly the story was behind buying the church from the white congregation?

Davis

Well, at that particular time, colored were not living on the, what do you call it, west of Arlington, and Trinity was very close to it, near Cimarron [Street]. Then when all that came up, and we were trying to purchase the church and all, Trinity--I'm trying to think. They got two other congregations to join them, and they wrote up a nice protest and so forth, and I mean, the white congregation, they were all for selling the church, because we had no problem with the sellers. It was just people in the neighborhood who didn't want--but with our petition and a little demonstration, walking up and down the street for a couple of weeks or so--

Stevenson

So what were the specific objections?

Davis

Well, for some reason, all of that was a white community, and they knew that with a colored church coming in, and whenever houses were put up for sale or for rent, that meant the neighborhood would begin to be integrated.

Stevenson

Right, so that was the real issue, yes.

Davis

Right, because you see, as far back as '39 I was so surprised when I was looking to move from Santa Barbara down here, and I was looking for an apartment, and as I say, I was much lighter then, and I had colored, dark lady with me, and when we got to Arlington here this white man came out and said to her, "Oh, you can't rent in this neighborhood." So I turned to him and I said, "May I ask why?" I said, "I thought I left the [Charles] Mason and [Jeremiah] Dixon Line on the East Coast. I didn't know I would find it coming to California." But my surprise when I came to California--I had a job waiting for me in Santa Barbara at a hospital there, and I think I mentioned to you Mrs. [Eleanor] Roosevelt helped me in getting the job and all. And they had three distinct neighborhoods, white, colored, and Latino, so when I was looking for a place to live they thought I was Latino, and so I kept my mouth shut, and that's what I tell kids in my church, "Keep your mouth shut. Don't ever give information. Only answer what is asked you." And one of them said, "Well, why?" I said, "Well," I said, "believe it or not, when I went to the interview," because Mrs. Roosevelt had never put in the nationality in the letter when she was helping me find a place, "they thought I was Spanish." And with a name like Telfair, that's different.

Davis

And as I was telling them, I had to get a California license, because I'd only had three and a half years college, so UCSB [University of California, Santa Barbara] in '37, you know, it was in the fifties before colored were even starting to get into the colleges there and here in Los Angeles. And I said, fortunately, I said, God was in the process. And I said, the lady in front of me, when they asked for her name it was Telefaro [phonetic]. And then when she saw my name, Telfair, she said, "Oh, you're Italian, too. Oh no, you're lighter than she is. You must be Spanish." I smiled. And the kids said, "You didn't say anything?" I told them, "No. I just smiled." I said, "You don't give information. You just answer what is asked of you." So that's how I got the job working there.

Stevenson

Okay. Well, going back to the church, I read a little bit about the church, and I know that there are a lot of service through outreach projects, meaning that the church plays a very active role in the larger community.

Davis

Oh yes.

Stevenson

Maybe you could tell me a little bit about how involved the church has been in the community, whether that's in the local Civil Rights Movement, or whether, you know, things having to do with housing, education, maybe you could talk about that.

Davis

Well, when we moved there in--I forget just when it was that we moved there, but a lot of the congregation, naturally it was an older congregation, was dying out, so we decided we would do some what we called Evangelism Walks. So we went out as couples to visit the people in the neighborhood, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, all the way to Tenth Avenue and back over to--I forgot just how far we went back, Santa Barbara and all of that. Then we went north up to, what's the street just before you get to Western [Avenue]?

Stevenson

Let's see. Before you get to Western there's, what, Gramercy, there's--

Davis

Because we happened to buy property there for our pastor. Our manse is just this side of the freeway. So with all of that walking, we were able to have a lot of newcomers join the church, and at one time we had about 1700 members, just about 1700 members. So we look back today, the neighborhood is now predominantly Spanish right up to the church, on Third Avenue, Second Avenue. I think the house right next to our parking lot on Second Avenue, across the street, is Spanish. The neighborhood has really changed, like my neighborhood here, see. My husband and I, when we bought this house in '48, and next door was a single home, and Kelly Williams worked at Golden State like my husband, and when they thought he was white, he didn't tell them any different when he was living, and he happened to mention when we were planning to get married, and my husband was looking for single homes. He said that always made him laugh, because my husband was twelve years my senior, and I said, "I plan to outlive you, so I want some community property, rentals and so forth." So that's how we found out, and then he had me come and talk to the owner and so forth.

Stevenson

The Evangelism Walks, so the purpose of the Evangelism Walks was to bring in--

Davis

New members, members, members.

Stevenson

Okay. Getting back to the role of your church in the community, when you joined the church in the forties, what were some of the needs in the community, and how did the church become involved in addressing the needs in the community at that time?

Davis

Well, now, the community house that was built right across the street, the library and all of that, we have a hand helping with that and getting a park. That little park that's there, we were involved in that. Then we had church members who were on different committees of the city, because I was on a housing committee at the time that UC was trying to buy more property. Do you know they tried to get this area condemned?

Stevenson

That was USC?

Davis

USC, so that they could buy more property. And our pastor, the manse was on 36th, 35th Place. That was taken over. They did buy up some of that community. But at least we kept them from coming and buying out this community. And as I was saying to different ones in my church, "Get involved. Get on some of the committees for the city. Find out what's going on. You'd be surprised what's going on in your own community." Then we formed the LaSalle-Normandie Block Club, that was way back and all, fifties, early fifties, and that went down to the freeway and Arlington, Pico, and so this particular area at that time was under what they called the Adams District, West Adams District, and LaSalle was not taken over until Harvard Heights in its history and so forth, and they went around the communities and found out there were historic homes. See, this is a historic house, and there were two more in this community, so that's when they decided to extend from Harvard down to Normandie up to Pico, so from Pico, Normandie, up to Western, that's the Harvard Heights area of today.

Stevenson

So the church did encourage its members to become involved in their community, to see what was going on?

Davis

Oh yes. It was the church that really got most of us interested in getting on committees for the city and so forth, find out what's going on in your city, not just where you live. Find out. I'm trying to think. I think he was a dentist, one of the first ones to graduate from USC.

Stevenson

[John Alexander] Sommerville?

Davis

Yes. We had a demonstration when he was trying to get in there, and they didn't want to take him, so we participated in a walk all the way down to city hall and so forth.

Stevenson

Right, and didn't his wife [Vada Sommerville] also attend?

Davis

Right, got the two of them in there. So from then on things were easier. Then there was another--I'm trying to think of who was the third one, but anyway, we were trying to encourage the college students and especially in the music department. It was easier to get into the music department and all, and Emmanuel Church, they were integrating their choir, talking about integrating their choir at the time, and someone that joined their choir was a student at [U]SC. So when you have help like that right in your community, it means a lot. So as they say, we've come a long way. People don't realize that today.

Davis

And I speak to the kids coming from church, and I have given them Church Women United. We tried to get, let's see, colored, Oriental, Latino and all that language in the school district, you see, and trying to get Spanish and all that through Church Women United, but we were never able to get the education department to include that. I told them I couldn't understand it, because I graduated from a high school, and my first graduation was from Washington, D.C., with my mother ill and all. That's when I left the high school in Tarboro, where I was visiting her. Every other year I had to live with her after my parents divorced when I was five years old, so I had two high school graduations, one from Tarboro, North Carolina, and one from Washington, D.C. So it's amazing. And also the eleventh grade at that time, see. So then we worked to get the twelfth grade into the southern schools, so that makes a difference. See, when you first went to college, you really got what would be the twelfth grade, and back in those days my first year--because I was amused. I told the teacher, I said, "This is what I had in the twelfth grade in Washington, D.C." It's amazing the changes that have come.

Davis

But I'm still amazed at the educational system here in California, because they really should have the history of all who participated in building California. The Orientals built the railroads, that should be in there, the highways and all. So I said, well, let me see. Housing, farm lands were taken over by Koreans, see, trying to get all those languages into the school system. As they say, we don't give up. Evidently, every now and then that comes up in the Harvard Heights meeting.

Stevenson

Why do you think it's still such a problem making history inclusive of everybody's contribution? Why do you think that's even still an issue?

Davis

Well, right now we were discussing this. We don't meet during the two months, so we will start meeting again in September. But have you received any information trying to get you to vote for English as the original language?

Stevenson

I haven't. I'm in Inglewood.

Davis

Well, you see, I've been on a committee, and I have contributed to that committee since the Harvard--what was his name that was head of the district here? I can't think of his name right now. But we've been working, trying to get that done, but now that the Spanish--have you read lately where they're trying to get the Spanish as an official language?

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

So you see, you kind of put things aside and work on those committees to keep English as the official language, and not adopt a second language as official, because once if that goes through, you know, they were going to make that, because they are outnumbering, as they say, the English-speaking people.

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

So you have to be aware of that. It's amazing the committees and things that you should be involved in with your government, because you need to know what's going on next door, because next door could be up the hill.

Stevenson

Okay. Going back a little bit, in the forties and even in the fifties, were there still public accommodations in the community that African Americans and even other groups couldn't frequent?

Davis

Oh yes. Oh yes.

Stevenson

And did the church become involved in any of the efforts to protest that?

Davis

Yes, yes. And we had marches and all of that. And even up, see, from '64 through '67 is when I was national vice president, and I got invitations to speak all over California and Nevada. And at that particular time, Joe Louis wanted to build a hotel up there for colored.

Stevenson

Where was this?

Davis

Las Vegas.

Stevenson

Ah, Las Vegas, okay.

Davis

Do you remember when he was in his heyday? So I wrote him a letter and I told him, "I am speaking at a church up there. I will be up there for three days, so I would like to have a conversation with you." He couldn't quite understand what I said in the letter. I said, "You're building a hotel for colored is the worst thing that could happen to us," and I underscored us. So anyway, when I had a talk with him, and I had three other white friends with me. Let's see, one was on a city--I forgot what it was, some committee in Las Vegas, and that's when they started working on breaking the racial things up there in the hotels. See, even Sammy Davis, Jr.--

Stevenson

Right, I was thinking about that.

Davis

--used to have to get a room. He couldn't stay in a hotel. So when I was invited, I wrote a letter to the lady and I said, "Well, now, I know I am not even going through the process of trying to get a room at a hotel. I want to know, where am I to stay?"

Stevenson

And where did you stay?

Davis

With the person I wrote to.

Stevenson

I see.

Davis

And the church, or the pastor said he never knew the end of a service that was going to be a walk, and this happened to be on a Wednesday that I spoke at that particular church, and so after speaking about integration and so forth on housing, and I let them know that I had met with him about building a hotel, and I got other groups to write him not to do that, that he would be hurting integration, and please. So it's amazing how you can draw, and through Church Women United you can get a lot of help if you want walking demonstrations and so forth. So we only had one walk in Las Vegas. And would you believe we had a walk in Glendale, right here in Los Angeles?

Davis

See, in the forties you couldn't rent over there. It's amazing the things--you have to get out in the street and protest if you want to enlarge your communities, and housing has always been tough for us coming west, because I asked someone, I said, "How many colored people had wagons and were with the wagon group that came to California?"

Stevenson

Yes. The Los Angeles founders, I think, were half were of African ancestry.

Davis

Right. And even right here by the sea, where they had the sign in North Hollywood it was a little stream or something, and they had signs there for swimming, white and colored, like they did in Santa Barbara, white, and certain days colored could swim in the pools or the streams and so forth. It's amazing how things like that--and I laugh because I tell them about Tarboro, North Carolina, where my mother lived when I was growing up, the year when I was with her after I was eight years old and all. And I said, the baptisms on Sundays in the Tar River, a lot of people used to go and stand on the bridge to watch baptisms, and the white congregation would be here, and the colored would be here. And the reasons they were that close together, if one pastor was baptizing someone that was too heavy for him to dip--now this goes back, way, way back in the thirties. People can't believe that, but those ministers would each dip, baptize the heavyweight people. So I said, well, and then they also helped get rid of the park. See, there used to be a park, and colored couldn't have picnics and so forth near that river. So it was the white minister that got the community together to get rid of the sign, so that anyone who wanted to use the park could use it.

Davis

And I tell them, I said, "Unless you have lived in certain areas, you won't believe it," I said. "But where my mother lived," I said, "coming from Midcity area, the business area, and you get to a certain street, that's where the pavement ended and the streets were not paved, sidewalk or the street in the colored neighborhood, and it took five years, the committee five years working on that same committee to get--." And it was the school district, see, the colored school principal and the teachers and all that finally got the people together to start working to get pavement on the streets, because when the rains would come, and they have some pretty bad storms, that's why I never liked having to go to my mother, thunder and lightning, and she had lightning rods on the house. Well, what does that do to a kid? Doesn't that make you more afraid of lightning? So it's amazing, but I'm glad I've lived through so many changes here in America that I can say at least I participated, had a part in it.

Stevenson

Okay. I was wondering if you could tell me about the different roles, positions you held in the church over the years, and also tell me about being, was it vice president of the national women's section?

Davis

As national vice president, and I was on World Relief and Emergency before that. See, I used to go to the national meetings. Quite a few of us used to go to the national meetings wherever they were meeting, in St. Louis, Connecticut, Baltimore, Chicago. It was different places. There were always some of us going to the meetings there. Then I started working with the American Red Cross as a volunteer in early 1967, so over some forty years I've been with them. I think I showed you in the den all my activities with them and all. Let me see what other committees I was on. Treasury, I was on a treasury committee before I became vice president there, and not too many people--that's what they used to ask the colored ones that attended the meetings on the East Coast and all, why so few came from California. And I said, "Look at how many women." I said, "Not many women are blessed like I am." I said, "My husband didn't want me to work." I said, "But when we got married in 1948, I don't like debt." And I got--what do you call those insurance policies, things you take out and after twenty-some years you get paid off? Well, you see, I had that. I took that when I was back East and all, and so with that and my continued working and doubling payments on this house, we paid for this house in three years and three months. We paid that off. See, Golden State for my husband, they were so unhappy that we paid that off so quick. But I never did like debts, and I never did like a lot of debts.

Davis

And then another thing I got involved in with people in my church--look at that. And so when I had that notarized, I showed it to different ones in my church, because in some of the convalescent homes, when I saw how people were not really cared for, I knew I never wanted to go in one of those, and after I had that registered and so forth, I showed it to different one in the church and the community things, and I said, "When you go to convalescent homes and so forth," and I said, "That's why--," and I told them like I have home care here [unclear] be putting in a hospital, I said, "I have no children of my own." See, you have to think of that. See, I lost two of my children, but I had a stepdaughter and all, but you have to think about your health. So what good is the house if it doesn't help you if I become ill? And, you see, I can get what they call that second mortgage thing that would take care of me. So you have to think about all things like that, and on committees.

Davis

And then on volunteering committees and all. Let me see where the outside of this particular magazine cover, this is the American Red Cross. See, I show things to people. I got different ones not only in my church to give some time to the Red Cross, but some of the other people, and like some of the people in my church that had good singing voices, I told them to get involved when the choir goes and sings in the community, things like that, come with us. So I believe in trying to get people involved, and I had help from this choir director. I can't think of his name right now, why in the world I didn't write his name on there. But he was our choir director, and as a musician, see, his choir in Pasadena, he was the director for a white church and also a musician himself, played a horn and all that, and so he got people interested in integration and so forth.

Stevenson

What was his name?

Davis

Raines, Earl Raines. I know you've heard of him.

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

Earl Raines. I knew it would come to me. Then I belonged to the Las Madrinas Club. It's the mothers of the AKAs and all, and I also belong to the Edna Hammett Porter Music Club, involved in that. I believe in involvement. What do I see that has to do, in case you want to look over a little of that from my life story and all. I wrote that up for him. He was on some county--he's a doctor.

Stevenson

Right, yes, I think I saw that one.

Davis

The medical, yes. So next thing I knew, this was in the San Bernardino paper, and the lady from a magazine, he let her read. But she said, "I want to know more about your life after you first came to California and moved here and so forth." So anyway, I've had a lot of fun on different serving on committees, and I try to get other people interested in serving on committees. Just be, as I say, church mom, get on committees.

Stevenson

Exactly. Could you tell me a little bit more in depth about your role as vice president of United Presbyterian Women in terms of what you were expected to do in terms of your duties and so forth?

Davis

Well, in the absence of the president I presided at many of the meetings, and at the national meetings I presided at two. I was one of the presiding officers for general assembly meetings of our church when I was vice president, and became the national vice president of the United Presbyterian Church. So I'm trying to think of her name at that time. She worked on some county, and was trying to get integration. She, too, was trying to get integration in the communities and schools here at that particular time, and I've forgot what they called that. But anyway, something came out in the paper recently, you know, about colored, about there should be reimbursements?

Stevenson

Reparations?

Davis

Yes, reparations, and anyway, she spoke on reparations at our national meeting, and after she spoke and questions came up I said, "What could you do with the small amount of money?" I said, "If you're going to ask for money, ask for money for education, housing, employment. Those are the areas where more people, the money could do more." And like we still had colored only a lot of farms at that particular time, and you know it was hard to get loans. Farmers, even white, had problems, so if you're going to ask for money, you get big money and then put it in different committees. They can help people who need help. So as they say, I don't mind asking. May not get anywhere, but you can still ask.

Stevenson

Okay. What in the church's doctrine specifically mandated that the church become so involved in these social issues, you know, such as integrating the schools and so forth?

Davis

Well, now, the Presbyterian church has always been more involved than some of the other denominations, and our pastor, Jim Jones, was on a city committee, and that was one of the photographs that got wet. He was on one of the city committees here as a pastor, and he was the first. He was light-skinned, and they couldn't believe the photograph that he was colored when he got on that city committee. He was on a housing committee and that city committee, and I forget, about three different things he was involved in. So when you have help like that from Christians, that means a lot. I don't know why it is, but different committees for the city and the county, they pay more attention when a minister gets involved into the--

Stevenson

Yes.

Davis

The thing I liked about our pastor, when he went to the city meetings he always wanted some of us to come. Five or six of us were always at some of the meetings when they would have their meeting, so they could look out and see some colored faces at these meetings. I'm trying to remember something they were doing, trying to get rid of the committee that Howard Jarvis started, and I was so surprised when I went to the courthouse that day, when we went to that committee, and they're still trying to get rid of it. But I've been paying in it years and all, so it means a lot when you've got a big name on a committee that helps your neighborhood; it means a lot. And then when you can be seen participating in marches and so forth, it may be a few, but work your way to the head of the line, so that if pictures are taken they can see more than just white faces. So that means a lot. So I've seen many a change in this city since I've been here, since 1939.

Stevenson

Let me ask you, what was the church's response to the '65 Watts rebellion?

Davis

Well, in '65 when the fires and all that were burning and so forth, and the way they had it in the paper about Watts, and so we had to write letters to let the [Los Angeles] Times paper know that the riot was more than Watts. The West Adams community, and they burned a market at Third--let's see, what is that street right off--St. Andrews. St. Andrews up there, they burned the market there, and then they tried to burn down the bakery that's right there, 18th Street, 18th and Washington [Boulevard]. Then there was another place on Gramercy, and so when we got in touch with the Times, we let them know West Adams area was not Watts, and stop putting in the paper about the Watts riot. It was a city riot, with the Latinos and so forth involved, and all of that. But you see, they didn't write up much about the Latinos.

Stevenson

No.

Davis

But they were right out there helping. They were just as in it, especially those that lived in nearby communities. See, a lot of Latinos were buying into this area at that time.

Stevenson

And so this was the '65 or the '92?

Davis

It's '65.

Stevenson

Interesting.

Davis

And you see down on is it Pico [Boulevard] where the sign is for Latino area? I'm trying to think where that sign is. I think there's one at Olympic [Boulevard] and Normandie [Avenue] for the area, Latino area. And then I've forgot, someone brought me home from one of the Red Cross--oh, I waited that day for some reason. I think my hip was bothering me or something, and one of the nurses said, "Oh, you shouldn't catch a bus to go home today. I'll take you home," so I waited for her, and there happened to be some Chinese here from China, and they wanted to see neighborhoods. So we took them to see the Spanish-speaking neighborhoods and the Greek neighborhoods and so forth. They just couldn't believe it. Then she told them, "I'm not taking you directly to the station. I want you to see the communities." And so she took them all over to USC, to let them know that it was in the fifties before integration really took place, and then took them through--they couldn't believe it, coming from China, you know, that there was segregation like that in this country, and so forth.

Davis

So I said, "Well, it's amazing." And when I told them about my three weeks in China and all, and I said, and how well I was treated. Like I told some--I gave different reports, that we could learn a lot from the Chinese school system that I visited schools, eight- and nine-year-old musicians playing harps, blowing horns, violin. "Eight-year?" I said, "Yes." I said, "They don't have an age limit. Parents start teaching their children in the homes the minute they start speaking." And I said, "The reason they teach them so many other languages, when they graduate from high school and want a job, if they want to work in the hotels, see, the embassies over there in China, they take foreign languages and start in what we would call grammar school." And they get jobs, and they have to learn the languages.

Davis

So one kid, I called him a kid, I was sitting next to him in the theater, and he was telling me during the intermission how many schools he went to, and he spoke five languages, five languages, and he wants to be a diplomat when he grows up. He didn't like his own structure of his own government, and that's the thing he wants to work on. See, when he gets old enough to be able to get on some committees, he wants to change the structure of China. What amused him was when I was going around with our group, and some of the school kids would be with us, and even in China we went by homes that, say, the house is over there, and then in front of the house you wonder why there's a little bridge. There's a bridge and there's a little trench there. They didn't have bathrooms, so they had to come out and stoop over that stream. So we decided to meet with the diplomats from America, the ambassadors, and, "You're over here. Why can't you do something, work with the health department to get rid of these streams?" which they did with the help of our tourists getting involved over there. So we were fortunate to get rid of those toilets in front of the house, because that heat over there is much different than the heat here.

Stevenson

It's very, very humid.

Davis

When it is 104 over there, one day I didn't even get off the bus, the air-conditioned bus. I said, "No, I don't want to have another nosebleed with my sinuses." And I mean humid? You're wet, start walking and you're wet and all that, and then you go in the air conditioning and you sit there and you've got the wet clothes on, you catch a cold. So you have to learn how to take care of yourself in areas like that. The thing that really bothered me, I had already looked at things here. My dishes, "made in China," made in China, and even at that particular time in the eighties, see, I went to China in '84, industries that were moving. And something was in the paper and on the news yesterday about moving your industries to China, how it hurts the labor unions here. You see, they're trying to get rid of labor unions, so they have products and things made over there. So I told someone, I said, "Well, I'll look at my cupboard and I look at the back of my dishes," and I said, "I only have a few things that don't have "made in China."

Davis

And I'm trying to think, that memorial plaque in the back of you with the soldiers, I'm trying to remember if that's made in China. And I told them, "Only the blue willow china that I have," and that was given to me when I was first married in '39, and that's the only thing I have in my dishes that was not made in China is the blue willow set, which was made in England.

Stevenson

I see. Could you tell me a little bit about your involvement and your church's involvement with children and youth, and I'm specifically talking about particular social problems like teenage pregnancy, drugs, gang violence, those sorts of things, and what the church response--

Davis

Well, now, right now we are not doing anything, and with the new lady minister, see, we have a lady minister. She happened to be in the car when I went to the birthday party and all with one of the church members, and I can't think of the name of the little place, but it's going the other of Compton and going a little further. What do you call that, Waner Park or some kind of park out there. Well, anyway, I had a chance to talk to her about getting some committees and things started in our church, and I said, "I notice the first thing you notice is how few children are in our church." And I said, "One of our music directors got rid of the young man who was working--he was head of the gospel choir, and he didn't read music. But all he had to do is hear something and he could sit down and play it on the piano. Then he would teach that to his group. And you don't find many people with a music ear like that."

Stevenson

No.

Davis

But anyway, when she got rid of him, the young people in our church were upset, and we had a lot of young people, and that was some fifteen years ago, and we haven't been able to build up children to join. Well, mostly colored people that are joining churches today, they go more to the Apostolic. They like the, I call it jazzy music and so forth.

Stevenson

Mega churches?

Davis

Yes. And as I told someone, I visited the church there at Second Avenue, that Apostolic church. They have nearly 2,000 members.

Stevenson

Wow.

Davis

And you don't go to sleep in that church. They've got you up on your feet doing something, shaking hands with the people next door to you, and I like the way the pastor said it. "Walk out in the aisle, across the aisle. Shake hands with people over there. You're from a different church, let them know what's going on in your church. And do you have [unclear] on your church, and if you don't, why?" See? Discuss with your church why. But ever since we got rid of that music director, Douglas Gibbs, and I go to his concerts, my cousin and I, when he has them. But ever since we got rid of Douglas Gibbs we have not had young people in our church that he was able to bring in, not only to sing in his choir but to get them into the church school and all of that. So you need people who are interested in things like that. And then in this day and age, not too many colored people are joining Presbyterian churches.

Stevenson

Why do you think that is?

Davis

Well, they like, I think, more activity in some of the other churches, because even Emmanuel, which is a white church right up here on Wilshire near Vermont, when I went there last year on the third Sundays when our choir doesn't sing, I like to visit other churches to see what they are doing, and they were having problems getting younger people in that church to join the Presbyterian church, and the thing that's keeping them today is they have a Korean group that meets there for services and activities during the week, and a Spanish group. That's what's keeping their church door open. And at one time we had the Seventh Day Adventists meeting at our church on Saturdays, and then during the week they had like a little church school. So it's amazing what churches are having to do today to keep their doors open, because people, well, what they say--I think one young man called our church service staid, s-t-a-i-d.

Stevenson

Right.

Davis

I said, "Explain that to me. What do you mean?" He said, "Only hand clapping I heard in this church today, a few people were clapping their hands when you sang that gospel song." I said, "Well, that's what young people want, you know, gospel music and something." Like the group that came to our church from--young man that grew up and became a minister, and he has a church up in Oakland, and he came down and brought some of his children with him. They danced up and down the aisles, and some of our older members got up and walked out. Yes. So I got up and I started dancing with the kids down the aisle. Somebody told them, "You won't believe it. Lillie's in there dancing up and down the aisle with the kids."

Davis

Well, now, the last meeting that I went to at Purdue University, the national meetings, we were discussing dancing in the church, see, dancing in the church. But like we were talking, it isn't the dirty dancing that goes on. There are certain types of dance. So we've had some professional dancers in our church, one of the member's daughter belonged to a dancing group that goes around dancing in churches, and so she would bring them occasionally.

Stevenson

Yes. Now, do they call that praise dancing?

Davis

Yes, the praise dancers. So as they say, you only read about David dancing outside the church, but as I told them, I'll bet you David danced inside the church sometimes. And like I tell them, "I have a question I want to ask God if I make it to heaven. I want to know if Cain's wife was black," because, see, God had to punish him for killing his brother, and where did the nations, how did the nations develop? You go back. I have an ancient Bible that goes back about the development of the different races and how long ago and how few countries they were in.

Stevenson

Well, let me ask you this. Do you see Westminster Presbyterian doing anything different either to boost the membership or to bring in more children and youth?

Davis

Well, now, that's what we're trying to do with the new minister we have, the lady minister. I was talking to her when we were in the car and I said, "Well, now, a lot of people don't have nerve enough to tell you to your face whether they like something." I said, "But I don't like the way that the service that we have after communion, taking up the offering--." See, she is among those who changed that. I said, "But I want you to know, here's one old-fashioned Presbyterian," I said, "and I've been a Presbyterian since back in the forties," and I said, "the offering has always been before the sermon." And I said, "When you hear a good sermon, and you're sitting there and different thoughts going through, and, see, you write down a few notes that you want to look up and so forth," I said, "I don't like that broken. I don't like that spirit I have broken right after that with them taking up money. If we're going to give you some money, let me give it to you before the sermon and all." So she said, "I hate to tell you I'm on the committee, and I'm guilty." I said, "Well, there are a lot of people that don't like it, but they don't have the nerve to come to your face and tell you." And I said, "I'm not going to name, but I can tell you twenty-five people if I call names." And I said, "If you notice, our congregation is going down during the summer, because people are traveling." Like last Sunday I think we only had thirty people. But there were some downstairs preparing the repast, about five or six. But very seldom do we have over fifty people in our service, and then you think of having thousands of people.

Davis

But you see, that group in the Westminster church was started by light-skinned colored, see? Most of the people in it were light-skinned. And I had a white missionary couple that I worked with, and they were over in Lebanon, you know, working over there and so forth, and they visited my church and so forth, and fortunately they helped me. When I told them I was right there in Israel, and I wanted something from Lebanon, see, I have the smallest spoon somewhere stuck here, the smallest spoon I've ever seen came from Lebanon. One of them happened to be in Israel at the same time, and we were talking to the soldiers at the border. See, there were the Israeli soldiers in Lebanon, and if you just looked right across there was a nice little shop, and I said I would like to have something to take home from different countries. Like I have things--these spoons came from different countries where I've been overseas, and the forty-eight states I've been in here, and all fifty states now, and that's a fifty-state rack up there, the big one on the wall. And so the soldiers decided they would let me walk with the--and another lady came. We called her, and they let us go to the little shop over there. And I had some gum, and what was it I gave them, peppermint candy and all, and they were just laughing, and we were thanking them, you know, for being gracious to let us cross, go across and come back. And we told them, "You can hold our--," what do you call it when you travel?

Stevenson

Passport?

Davis

Passport, "If you want to hold our passports till we come back." They just looked at them and let us go over there and do our shopping, and I did my Christmas shopping. I got pins, spoons made in little pins, the men keychains and things like that I got from Lebanon for my Christmas gifts for my family members. They just thought that was something so different. I told them that when I travel I like to bring things back from the different countries, and I had cups mostly from all of the states, and I used to have them around the top. But the '94 earthquake, the house, it didn't shake, it jerked. It did a heavy jerk and it threw cups, broke up a lot of the cups, so those up there on the two levels, they're stuck. You can't pick those up. Someone was looking, and looking at the half cup, and, "Where in the world did you get a half cup?" I said, "New York City." My husband used to say just give him a half cup of coffee, so after I had been to a meeting back there I happened to see, I bought that little brown one on the end and I gave him a half cup of coffee. He cracked up.

Stevenson

Okay. Is there anything else you'd like to add to interview before we close?

Davis

Well, I can't think of anything. You've asked me about my travel and all. Do you have anything about my collection, my spoon collection?

Stevenson

Yes, we've talked about that. Yes, we've talked about the American Red Cross, we've talked about the church and your education, so unless there's--

Davis

And what is the other one that I worked with, the Lung Association, I worked with them.

Stevenson

We've talked about that, yes.

Davis

So I think we've just about covered--

Stevenson

Okay, all right. Well, thank you very much.

Davis

--just about covered it all.

Stevenson

Okay. Well, thank you very much for this interview. [End of interview]