C., Chick, February 21, 1976, tape 2, side 1

Peter Gottlieb: How did you find out about places to stay when you were looking for a room or you were looking for maybe a lodging house or something like that? How did you find out where people had rooms for rent.

Charner C.: Well you see I almost-- when I first came here. I join, I'd joined a lodge and it was called the Oddfellows. And you get a sign. They give you a sign, and you go to the tavern anywhere, or go to a different place or a town where you don't know nobody and you throw your sign out and you see somebody there that they know what you're talking about and they come to you, talk to you. Gottlieb: So did you go to the Oddfellows Hall when you came to Homestead? Is that where you-- Charner C.: No, I came here. And I was down the street. A man came by. He thought I was stranger, but he said-- [unintelligible]. He spoke to me and I spoke to him. I gave him a sign and he signed me back and he said, Where are you, where are you from? and I told him and I told him I wanted a place to stay. And he told me where to go and even went with me. Gottlieb: Had you joined the Oddfellows in Detroit? Charner C.: Mhm.

Gottlieb: You hadn't belonged to them in South Carolina?

Charner C.: No.

Gottlieb: Were the men in this boarding house at Mrs. Brown's-- were they all people from the South who had come up here like you had?

Charner C.: I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I couldn't know, just-- but I don't think, but I think there's some from everywhere. Well, I really believe. I never did ask for that, but I'd really believe it was from everywhere almost.

Gottlieb: So they weren't all from South Carolina?

Charner C.: No, I don't think they were. I'm not.

Gottlieb: You didn't get to know those people?

Charner C.: Well, yeah, but I know them very well. But we didn't ask, I didn't ask them nothing about where they-- didn't get a chance to ask all of them why they from or nothing like that, you know, because-- see, they go-- some go, you see them once or twice and they all work different shifts, you know. Like they, they work for a 12, 12 days and all got different shifts and some going and some going. Some coming and some going all the time. You hardly ever get to-- and when they change-- the week change come, some of them they going to, you know, maybe the church or going to, you know, have the business thing like you don't see them often and next time it's work time and they won't like, like that. You didn't get a chance to. And when vacation time and when they off are going to have a day off that way, they practically most of them going to do something, you know, have some, some business or some time you didn't get a chance to--

Gottlieb: The only thing they ever did there was sleep, huh?

Charner C.: Right. Right. You didn't have too much time for nothing else. But some of them take meal and and some-- I eat in the restaurant most of the time. Until I got me a room for myself.

Gottlieb: And did you have-- did you have one restaurant that you went to most of the time.

Charner C.: On Dixon Street. Right. Most of the time, yeah. It wasn't too far from where I was rooming at. You could room or go to a restaurant and eat and things like that if you wanted to. You take meals there from wrap lunches and go to work and all. And quite a few of us went to restaurant and eat that way, you know.

Gottlieb: Why did you move from the, uh, boarding house to get your own room?

Charner C.: Well it's better. Yeah, better have-- better.

Gottlieb: There were things you didn't like about the boarding house?

Charner C.: Yes. You see in a boarding house that way-- when you, when you have a room it's-- room like-- now they put two in the room together. But when you have a room of your own, that's that's you and your key, you know. You and your key, you see, that's you. And you might have one this week or this month. It's all right. And the next, next month you might get one cussing and swearing and everything. Like, you see what I mean, right. That's right. Gottlieb: Where did you--

Gottlieb: Where did you find the room after you left the boarding house? Do you remember?

Charner C.: Dave Moore. Man named Dave Moore.

Gottlieb: That's the place you brought your wife.

Charner C.: Right. Right. Right.

Gottlieb: With Dave Moore from South Carolina?

Charner C.: I don't-- I think he's from North Carolina. I don't-- I think. Right, I think he's from North Carolina. Gottlieb: Did-- Charner C.: North Carolina. I'm almost sure he's from North Carolina because a man from down at-- he comes up here every July now and he, he passed off way ahead of me. And he had some relationship come to our church. His Grandchildren and things come to our church. And he comes up here and I have a son by the name of Dave Moore. Dave Moore is his name. He he stayed here a long while after him, but he went back his, his three sisters and things down and one brother down and it's North Carolina down there. I think it's near-- I believe it's near [??] but it's somewhere in North Carolina because that's where-- and that's where Dave Moore came from. Yeah he, he know them where he left.

Gottlieb: Did, uh, did Dave Moore have his family live in the area or did they just have other--

Charner C.: Right. He had his wife.

Gottlieb: Were you the only other roomate? Charner C.: I was the only other roomate.

Charner C.: He didn't have any children he just had a wife.

Gottlieb: Was Peach way down-- was that a Black section of town? All black people living down there? Or was it, was it a mixed neighborhood?

Charner C.: It was mixed. But there's more, more Blacks. But you see what you call them. Foreigners, too. Not, not as many.

Gottlieb: Were there any Native American White people living down there? That you remember?

Charner C.: What is that?

Gottlieb: Was there any White Americans living down there.

Charner C.: You might have seen 1 or 2, maybe. Not too many. Most of them was foreigners.

Gottlieb: When you were living up in Homestead, maybe, you know, shortly after you arrived here, did you ever notice any difference between black people who were born in the North and those people like yourself who were coming up from the South?

Charner C.: What did you say? Now, let me see what you said.

Gottlieb: Uh, did you ever notice any difference between the Black, Black people that you got to know up here in Homestead who had been born and raised up here, and those people who were born and raised in the South like yourself? Do you ever notice any difference between you?

Charner C.: Uh huh. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Could you describe them?

Charner C.: Well, the average up here were born up here. He-- you would think. You seem to think if you could get a conversation with them, having any dealing with them, that seems somewhat a little more advanced, a little ahead of you or some kind of way in the way of speaking in a way. Right. Right.

Gottlieb: Why? Why? Why do you imagine they thought that?

Charner C.: I don't know. But in conversation and in a way in actions, you know, action and in conversation effect. Right.

Gottlieb: Uh, so you felt that sometimes these northern born Black people were looking down on on the people who were coming from the South? Charner C.: Right. Did you ever hear the term Geechee used?

Charner C.: I heard that. Yeah, I heard that too. But I don't know too much about it, though. In my-- where-- the place in the South where I came from, we never heard the word Geechee until I got up in here. No, I never heard it down.

Gottlieb: I was talking to Reverend Turner and I was telling him what I was doing, and he said that he told me about that term and he said it was supposed to be people who-- people from South Carolina, you know, country people come up and they-- people make fun of them, say they eat catfish heads and things like that.

Charner C.: Well, that is from some part of the South. It is. They they supposed to be come from the South. All right. Some parts, some parts. See, the South-- all part of the South is not the same. No, no, no, no. I can tell you that right now. No.

Gottlieb: What, what, what are the differences between some parts?

Charner C.: Well. Almost just like anything else. From what I can learn, tell-- you see some of, some of, some of them talk different. You take. Most people over in the east side of the South. That's where they say most of these Geechee people from. Over that section. And the people that mostly is not Geechee is from the South. Why you call back in the West like that's Alabama, like in Birmingham and back in those places like. Yeah. And on the line where I came, I came from right below Spartanburg. You heard talking Spartanburg, South Carolina. That's where I was born just right below Spartanburg that not far, as far down as Alabama, Birmingham and back and that's not far down is that.

Gottlieb: And so people from different parts of the South speak differently.

Charner C.: Oh yeah.

Gottlieb: Did you join a church in Homestead. Just, just after you got here?

Charner C.: Um, not. Not for a while. Not for a while. I settle. I got settled before I ever joined the church, and I joined the same church I'm in now. But it was down where the old mill is now. That's where it was located in.

Gottlieb: Why did you join that particular church? There were other Black churches in Homestead.

Charner C.: Well, I got working with a, a man, young man, in fact from Mississippi. His brothers-- got two three brothers in the same church I'm in now. And by the name of Azariah Robson, was his name. And we was working together. And he says to me, he said, Why don't you-- you, you go to church? I said, Oh, yeah, I go to church sometime. I went all the time, so why don't you come round to our Sunday school? And that's where-- that was before I married, you see? And then I got to go on that. Liked the Sunday school all right and the church. The way they'd do the talk good and everything. So I joined it. St that particular time it was very good. Pretty good. Pleasant that time. Oh, so much different than Detroit and here at that time. That's night and day. Right. You know, you never see nobody in Detroit like that. Tell you got to come into church and nothing like that. Right in this 140 piling gang. This this fella was working. And myself, we was working together, you see. And so he tell me about where he was to going to church at. And I got a chance to go. Get up in the morning and go out there and went there, and joined the foreign [??] man. That's how I got started.

Gottlieb: You hadn't ever gone, gone to to a church before that time. Before he invited you to come to Second Baptist.

Charner C.: No, I hadn't. I hadn't gone to a church before. I heard them, but I hadn't went to-- hadn't went to any of them. I heard of them but-- and then to his-- it was closer. His church was closer to where I was rooming and everything. It was closer down there. Yeah. Closer.

Gottlieb: Um, You had been brought up as a methodist. Is that [Charner C.: Right] what you told me. Charner C.: Right. Gottlieb: And you joined the Baptist church. Did you, did you have any feelings about doing that in terms of--

Charner C.: Well, I'll tell you why I did that. My, my wife was a Baptist. That's why I went to the Baptist church. See. Why I went to Baptist.

Gottlieb: But you weren't living up here then when you first started going.

Charner C.: No, no, no, no. When I first started going-- when I first started going to church, I went to-- my whole family went so I didn't care to me, you know? Down home. That was down home.

Gottlieb: But I mean when you first started going to Second Baptist Church here, your, your wife wasn't living with you at that time, was she?

Charner C.: No, she wasn't. She wasn't here then at that, at that time, no. But this fella, as I told you in the piling gang, was met. That's why he went. And he invited me to come down. You see that's why. That's why.

Gottlieb: Did you like the guy? Did you like this fellow? Charner C.: Oh, yeah.

Charner C.: I liked him. I liked the church too and everything. Everything was just like he says. That's right. Good.

Gottlieb: How did, how did it compare with the, with the church you had been brought up with down in the South?

Charner C.: Well. It's a little bit different there. You see, you'd have more and you see more people here and there's more to come-- be involved in, you know, and everything. Like it was in the South. They had a young men bible class and everything-- different. You know, and everything like that.

Gottlieb: Did they have more clubs than your church in the South had?

Charner C.: Not too many. No, not too many. Just one stay thing, like, you know, just one year in the same thing. Like it wasn't like now like. At that particular time, but now-- it isn't too much different now at this age and time. But that's been all 50 years ago. What I'm talking about now, when I was down there, you see, things are different. Now, when I went back to South Carolina here last September, last September-- pass was a year ago, going on two years ago now, I was down to see Spartanburg and see my cousin. I think I told you about it before. You hear before? Well. You couldn't 50 years ago. I don't think a colored person you could. I don't think a colored person was allowed in that White folk church. Now, I went to the White folk church that Sunday I was down there. Right. And, and I met with my cousin going to the market, to the store. Two Black supermarket boss, like myself. They told me they was boss, you know. But you couldn't seen it. 50 years ago you couldn't even talk like nothing like that. You understand what I mean? What I mean, you're calling White-- everybody come to them and buy from them. You know what I mean? Right. Yeah, sure. And they was running, they was running, both running, running the shop. Sure. That's what my people tell me they was now. Two of them. I met two. Right. 50 years ago. You couldn't-- nothing like that happened. You couldn't be that. No, that would be a miracle down there.

Gottlieb: I've heard some people say now that South is a better place for Black people now than the North.

Charner C.: It might be in places I wouldn't 'spute it. I sure wouldn't. I wouldn't 'spute it. No, I sure wouldn't 'spute it.

Gottlieb: Were there a whole lot of other Black people from South Carolina in the Second Baptist Church when you were-- when you first started attending services there, do you remember?

Charner C.: Well, I don't know. I can't remember. But from my-- where I came from, there I didn't-- there wasn't any. No, of course from where I was. No.

Gottlieb: Did you ever-- were you ever aware of any clubs of Black people from South Carolina in Homestead that were formed kind of as a social club, just for just for people from South Carolina?

Charner C.: No, I can't remember that. I never heard of one. I don't know.

Gottlieb: Can you tell me about the the church groups that, that you've been active in, things like the Board of Deacons or Board of Trustees or the Missionary Society? Things like that.

Charner C.: What you want to know about them?

Gottlieb: I just wanted to know which ones that you-- that you've been been a part of.

Charner C.: Well, I'm a part of all of them now. I belong to-- yeah. The Deacon board and the men Bible class. I'm vice teacher of the men Bible class now in my-- Missionary Circle. I belong to that, and-- my wife lifetime. I joined it way before she, she died and she was a cause of me joining that because of-- see the missionary mostly around here was started with the women department like. The women department like. But anybody could join. And so since, since we were together man and wife, she said, why don't you come on and join our club, too? And I went on and joined the Missionary Club with her. And this-- was in that guild all the time. And she passed. I didn't get out of it. Just stayed, just stayed in. I pay my dues every month now. Well, I pay them twice a year now. They pay for six months at a time. And it's like that now. Paid up now until June. I don't know.

Gottlieb: What kind of work do you do in the, uh, Missionary Circle?

Charner C.: Well, you. You go around and see people. Assist them and if they need prayer, pray for them and things like that and needed-- they need some money or something like that. You get together and get a committee and get so much money to be able to help. The club like.

Gottlieb: What about the men's Bible class? What kind of thing do you just study the Bible there with a group of other men? Charner C.: Yeah.

Charner C.: And we, we. We have a-- give so much money to the Sunday School for childrens. Buying candy at Christmas time and things like that. Right. Gottlieb: Do you have an Usher's Union at your church?

Charner C.: There's not a union, but there's ushers there. There's ushers there. Yeah. There's a Usher's Union, but I don't know. I think our church got out of the union once they've been. Yeah. The Ushers Union's just like the labor union now, anyway, the Usher Union still in the valley, but-- I'm not too sure, but I think it's out of it now. They, they joined us for a long time for some reason or another. Yeah. See, they have a president. The Usher Board has a head man just like anything else, you know. And he, he attends some of these here meetings and things like that going around and I think it's something that he doesn't like in them. And so you can serve a year or so many years and then any year you can pull out. You can pull out if you want to, you know, like that. Like that. But, just, just to think about it now, I never served as an usher, but just to think about it now, I would rather be in the union. Let's look at it to me, you know, like that I would, but I don't know why. He was in for a long time, but I think he is out now on a kind of some decision I think.

Gottlieb: Do you ever belong to the choir?

Charner C.: No. I never sang with the choir. My wife was a choir singer. She was.

Gottlieb: Um, did you know anything about the The Holiness Churches in Homestead? Did you ever. You ever pay any attention?

Charner C.: They're [??]-- I don't think I've been in-- maybe 1 or 2. Maybe the whole time I've been here. I haven't been in over 2 or 3 of them churches, you know.

Gottlieb: Did there used to be a lot of them here?

Charner C.: Yeah. Yeah, used to be quite a few little small places on the corner and on different places around. Whenever they see em. Too much fuss for me. I don't condemn them. I don't say they weren't right or nothing like that, but just too much carrying on. I don't like too much fuss and things.

Gottlieb: When did you go to these, to these churches?

Gottlieb: Was it a long time ago.

Charner C.: A long time ago. And here lately, I haven't been to one lately at all.

Gottlieb: Did somebody invite you to go? Is that, is that why you went? Were you just going there?

Charner C.: Well, yes. Somebody asked me to come by and, you know, see how they carry on and all like that.

Gottlieb: Did you ever know anybody who, uh, who was a member of a, of a Holiness Church?

Charner C.: Yes, I did. They left here now, they-- 1 or 2 people did. They left here. I think they went to some part of the East. Philadelphia or Brooklyn, New York, somewhere back there.

Gottlieb: Did you belong to any other organizations like the Oddfellows-- besides the Oddfellows?

Charner C.: That's all.

Gottlieb: You ever belong to any athletic clubs or anything like that.

Charner C.: What you mean by athletic? Maybe-- what you call athletics? What you call it?

Gottlieb: Well, uh, the uh, the company, the Carnegie-illinois Steel used to have a recreation room there for, for black men. Uh, they used to have a club room in there where you could do some boxing and things like that. You ever-- did you ever participate in that in any way?

Charner C.: Well, no, but I know what you're talking about now, since that-- I know of that. Yeah, I know of that. That's right. They did that. But I never did take any part in boxing or anything like.

Gottlieb: Did you ever become an officer in the Oddfellows?

Charner C.: No. No, I didn't. Never did. Gottlieb: Do you still belong to them now?

Charner C.: No. I've dropped out since I got here, and I sent my money back for a long time and I just, wasn't able to meet them like I wanted. And I just dropped out before my wife passed away. Way before my wife passed. Well, he was a pretty nice guy. Pretty nice guy. I noticed when they were back here, they had a place down near the court where you go to him for help during depression time. And we was working 1 or 2 days on a pay like that. Go and get a-- he'd let you have a sack of flour down there. There's a place down there from the company, you know, and all. He was old steel, you know. He'd let you have some. But I didn't-- I think I got one, one sack of flour down there and my wife didn't like it, and so I never did go back. You didn't have-- It's just guilt, you know. You didn't have to pay for it. And she-- at the same time she went to work for [??] on Squirrel Hill over there. Would help me out and so we didn't-- just really didn't need it. You know how-- make up about it.

Gottlieb: So you thought Nelson was a pretty good-- Charner C.: Right.

Charner C.: He's a minister. He had a church over on the, on the North Side. Gottlieb: Yeah, Victory Baptist Church it was. Charner C.: Yeah, Vict-- right, right. That's right. That's where he died. Victory Baptist Church. Uh, our pastor, one of his buddies. I call him his buddy, the pastor we got now is a man who's almost a buddy. Reverend Bates is calling now. He's the pastor there now. Young fella like our pastor here. He's, he's got it. He's in that church there now. Victory Baptist Church. That's where Reverend Nelson died, right.

Gottlieb: Was this place where you could get food during the Depression. Was that just for Black people or could anybody--

Charner C.: Oh, no, everybody

Gottlieb: Wasn't Reverend Nelson sort of the person who was supposed to help Black people particulary. Charner C.: Right, right. Right.

Charner C.: That's what I'm saying.

Gottlieb: You, you know of any other kinds of things that he would do to help Black people?

Charner C.: No, I don't know anything else. Was involved in. That was a company, though, but he was-- be the, I'd say like a boss of seeing it. Going out or something like that. Right. The company stuff. But he was the overseer of the company. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Right. So you never got laid off during the Depression?

Charner C.: No.

Gottlieb: They just cut you back.

Charner C.: Right. Right. I always had a day on the pay. You know. Hold a check all the time. Gottlieb: Things got pretty slow, though? Charner C.: Right, right.

Gottlieb: Did you ever look for any other kind of work?

Charner C.: Yes, I did. But it wasn't. You couldn't get it. And then if you, if you got on to another job anywhere, you couldn't-- you couldn't keep that job and that mill job, too, because it'd be gone just about the time-- same that time that mill job had gone. And then that'd be. If you missed one, then you just out.

Gottlieb: Did you-- were you very interested in the union when it first got started here?

Charner C.: No, I wasn't. To tell you the truth, no. I wasn't. I'll have to say it in this way. The unions wasn't a union whenever-- until I. Not when I first started off.

Charner C.: Somebody maybe told you about that. But anyway, he made a speech at the West Field on the platform. Now, joining me, when he first come around, I was about the last or next to the last person on the job where I was working at, joined. And they said I was holding them back, you know, from getting something you know about. And after they say that I just went on and joined. But I wasn't in favor of it doing anything. But after it got in circulation and this man's name come right out. Almost told you right now. But anyway, he made a speech up there. I'll tell you what I thought about there. There was some talk that the companies would soon put them out of business, you know, and the people that were joining them and all like that, they would get fired and everything like that and they wouldn't, wouldn't take it. But after I heard him make a speak of it at West Field on a platform. He said the union-- he said he knows men in the Mill come out of the Mill now. But living now and getting a pension--