C., Harvey, December 2, 1973, tape 2, side 1

Harvey C.: So then that makes them look back at that too. He looked at that slip and say, Here, now, when you have a trial, the trial board, now they go so forth to the union office. Then they go downtown to the trial boat. They have you down there. Well, now you must reduce these slips. And with the former's name on it, it issued it. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Yeah. Do you remember if there was this one specific problem that the people who would come up from the south would wouldn't stay here very long. They'd just go in the mill, work a few days or a week maybe, and then they'd be gone again.

Harvey C.: Well, I don't agree with you too. Hardly. I'd say they would come and go, but 60% of the people came. They stuck with the jobs.

Gottlieb: Uh huh. There wasn't that much turnover.

Harvey C.: That's right. Was that much turnover? Because the floaters, they wouldn't. Maybe the transportation wouldn't bring them in. But his idea whenever you regardless to the transportation taking you in you was under a 90 days civil. If you didn't come up then they could tell you what you want to go back where we come from or if you have any other place and they had it fixed, you couldn't come back. They sent them home.

Gottlieb: And that was within a period of 90 days. That's right.

Harvey C.: If you kept them over 90 days, he was a certified employee. And of course, something could turn up. But you don't you didn't know where you was employed after the 90 days up until the 90 days was over. So, as I say, uh, 60% of the people that came from the South, they stayed. I can tell you that they are dead and gone. They came from Virginia, different parts of the state. It's a good family. He died here. He retired from the mill. Uh huh. Uh, they are, uh uh, uh. Savages. They paid. They are basics. They Alexander's. They are, uh, uh, doses. I can name them, uh, by the hundreds that came here by their self and sent back and got the family, and they died in the mill. At least the retired. And then they passed on after that. But what I mean to say, I'll say that 60% of the people came here during the transportation. They stayed. Yeah.

Gottlieb: And I met some of them. I talked to them.

Harvey C.: Yeah, they stayed. The floaters come in. Maybe someone figured they paid their way back and they would get a few dollars maybe to eat or they'd give them a little something. And other than the transportation back. But I'll say at all of the ones that come from different parts of the world, the United States, 60% of them stayed.

Gottlieb: What is your impression on where most of the people came from in the South? Did they come from Alabama during those years around the first year that you were here? They come from Alabama or most of them from Georgia or most of them from Virginia.

Harvey C.: Well, I'll tell you it not making a survey, but I think that most black people, the majority of the black people from the South come from the state of Virginia.

Gottlieb: Because I've read in one study that was done back in those years that most of the people that this person surveyed was from were from Alabama and Georgia. Now, most of the people that I've met have been from Virginia. Um, Mr. Blake and Joe Gaiters are from South Carolina. That's right. And you're from Alabama? That's right. But all the rest of the people just about have been from Virginia.

Harvey C.: That's right. That's what they say. That what I mean, the one that really stopped, I'll say Virginia State. The state of Virginia had more people because now here was the idea. Maybe further down, like Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, uh, was kind. You couldn't get away when you wanted to, you know?

Gottlieb: How come?

Harvey C.: Well, they. It was just like someplace I read about here. Some parts even yet in California to take those farmers, take them out there, and they couldn't get away. Now, that's reading to say, I think that Virginia was always free now. All right. If you couldn't get back home and didn't have. Well, what I mean, you didn't have transportation getting back home, you'd have to depend on someone else. But if you had your transportation, then you would be all right. So what I'm trying to say, they most of the people came from Georgia and Alabama and Mississippi. They had some way of meaning, of paying, of getting the way out. Because if it got out and says a bill going north, they going to come in that evening, say, lock up your barn and take up this or the other. When it was coming down to the fact it was a little harder to get out. But if you didn't have to tell someone, then you. Yeah.

Gottlieb: So you think that the white people, in other words, and the Deep South tried to keep black people down there? No, they didn't try.

Harvey C.: They kept them down. They did keep them say.

Gottlieb: So it was harder for them to get away. That's right. That's right.

Harvey C.: That's right. I know one case. I was down south and I had a cousin. He wanted to come here. He lived about 20 miles from our home. And. He would tell you if you take me. He says, I'll get up like I'm going to feel and I'll meet you in Montgomery. Uh huh. He says, I won't leave Troy. He says, I can't leave there because you don't know where you're going. Yeah. So I take him here. But he met me in Montgomery. See.

Gottlieb: Because he had to run away.

Harvey C.: In a way. Yeah, because the first place. Now, maybe it'd have been here if he'd had the means. But after making his attempt to run away, he didn't have anything to bear the expenses. See, that's what was tied up. Yeah. Yeah, that's where the trouble. So it. I said, Now I'm sure again you always was more free than any other place. So, as I say, the most of the people came up. I know they Fullers up there, all of them up there. They even have a little piece of land somewhere down there in, uh, uh, Augusta, Georgia. We was talking about three weeks ago about it. What I'm saying, I still say 60% of the people from the south, Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, uh, they had some means of getting here. So then that's that's the story about.

Gottlieb: Now when you were when you first came to Homestead and began working in the mill and was living with your family down here, what kind of things did you like to do for spare time, amusement or recreation or something like that?

Harvey C.: Well, uh, I was, uh, working with Nelson. I was in charge, uh, with Betts and my brother, what they called their homestead softball team. We had something going on. Football or something? Yeah, down there. And the gym down there, they were training to box, so I was always busy.

Gottlieb: Oh, I see. So. So you were working with Nelson Recreation? That's right. Did you say that was softball?

Harvey C.: That's right. Yeah. See, we had softball team and they they jackets and whatever they wore it said the homestead steelworks softball.

Gottlieb: So you would organize this just for black men? That's right. You would organize men who were working in the mill.

Harvey C.: That's right. That's right.

Harvey C.: That's right. Gottlieb: What fields did you use to play there? Were there.

Harvey C.: Places? Well, we was very well. Uh, now we went all around the areas. We went down through Lawrenceville, the North Side, Bethel Park, Uniontown, Braddock, McKeesport, different places and played games with them.

Gottlieb: I see you remember a man from Braddock named Earl Johnson?

Harvey C.: Yeah, he was the man. Same as Nelson, you know. I know what I'm talking about. Sure, I know. I know. I know. You know now, huh? Well.

Gottlieb: Mr. Moorfield first mentioned to me Earl Johnson and a man named back at Duquesne.

Gottlieb: And you knew all these guys? Yes. And at each place, these men would be doing things like setting up recreation center. That's right. The softball team.

Gottlieb: Why did they want to do that kind of thing specifically?

Harvey C.: Well, it was kind of like the steelworks was probated so much money to try to get the black people recreation something to do instead of saying in the street in the evening. So you didn't have to be a steel worker, naturally. Maybe your father was or something like that, but you could be just a young boy. Teenagers coming up, going to school or something like that. They take them all in there. They was on good behavior.

Gottlieb: And and the was there a problem with with black people standing around on corners or, you know, doing something that the company didn't want to see them do? Is that why they started this?

Harvey C.: Well, they company was trying to protect. They had some good men, black men working in the mill. But what they was trying to do to show that there was in spirit with the color and also they keep the young youths off of the streets.

Gottlieb: So that's the that's how you spend a lot of your time.

Harvey C.: Now, you joined the center and they give you a card. See what I mean? Now, you couldn't walk in there and take over. You had some means of the boys wanted to take a part in whatever it was. We had drummers, we had music and so forth. We only didn't have the softball team. We had boxing. We had every thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, Johnson, we always met together and went out for dinner. Oh, I see. Yeah.

Gottlieb: Yeah. Where did you meet?

Harvey C.: Well, say for Nelson, I would go over and he's going to quit work. Yeah. Then I would meet him. We'd go out for dinner and maybe we would have a beer or something and sit down and talk. Also, after Nelson got to be minister, we didn't bother too much with him, but Earl Johnson was a big man there in 18. Oh, yeah. Oh.

Gottlieb: Did you did you tell me that you joined the church clock memorial? Just about the same time that you came to Homestead. You joined right away. That's right. Do you remember if the if either Clark Memorial or Second Baptist asked would come and ask black people from the South to join them? Did they make any efforts to get black people to come to church? No.

Harvey C.: All right. Here, here, here, here, here would happen. Now, of course, my dad and brother had you, Johnny. That's funny. With Second Baptist comes to Kokomo, but whenever you come in, it was somebody like Nelson or somebody just like Johnson would tell you. If you don't have no church home, there's new hope, brother, or his rankings and so forth. That's the way they would tell you to start with so you wouldn't be around. Well, I never heard of no church. Right.

Gottlieb: Was did most of the people who were new to Homestead, who had just recently come up from the south, did most of them join Second Baptist, in fact, or.

Harvey C.: Well, it was I'll tell you it was. I'll tell you what they liked.

Say at that time.

Harvey C.: Second Baptist was underdog to Kokomo. Yeah.

Gottlieb: In what sense?

Harvey C.: Well, Kokomo was always had some bodies of leaders in that church with bachelor's degrees. Second Baptist didn't have it. A lot of the people come in, not like the guys like Mel Goodes. You read of it? Yeah, I've.

Gottlieb: Heard of him.

Harvey C.: You've heard of it?

Harvey C.: Yeah. All right. His daddy was a deacon in my church, Kokomo. Oh, man. Good. Yeah, they have a farm. Drove there. He was downtown. They sold that out. And he's over on Frankstown there somewhere. Didn't have a real estate brother that lives out there in Homewood. And they have one brother's automobile salesman. I see. I see. So, as I said now, that's like him. That's like Adkins. That's like Joe Mayfield. Yeah. When they came here, they went to Clark and more. I can tell you, two out of every three, it's dead and come from the south. They united with Clark and more.

Gottlieb: They came here and Clark Memorial was considered a better a church with a better off congregation. That's right. I see. And Second Baptist was considered a poorer congregation. That's right. Did did the people who belong to Clark Memorial look down on the people who were coming up from the south in any way?

Harvey C.: Well, no, they would make you work. And I was organized. I don't know why I can get into so many things. I was organized in 1920, the earliest part, to sponsor the strangers. They come in in the morning. Yeah. I would talk to them, make them welcome, and tell them they were free to see. Now, if you are a member church, you don't have no trouble of getting in the church. What you call you join on watchcare. See? Yeah. See now, just like I did from my church. But you join independent a letter. They don't say, Well, you got to get your letter. You can join watchcare your opinion, your letter. So that's why a lot of them if they was okay. And they didn't have no trouble getting in there because all I had to do to get in touch with my sister and my brother in law and he was the deacon of that church. So they fixed send it right in. See.

Gottlieb: Did were some of the migrants from the south also joining storefront churches?

Harvey C.: Yeah. Oh yeah. But now we will figure this. Now we only got one church out of the storefront, that Second Baptist that started on Sixth Avenue in Storefront. Oh, Reverend Mobley. Oh, I see. See, now, that's why I said a lot of people looked at them back. We. You may run into them, but they are sanctified people, Your Holiness. They are not classed with the Baptists, people like elders, even. They don't. But I mean, they in turn you have to catch them going to the worship because they got a little small place, but they are welcome at our door. Oh, see what I mean? So to show you, that's why the only church that I know survived, they went ahead, they come up and named them and. All right. But Second Baptist started out on Sixth Avenue. And then when they bought a church, they bought a church that been served by the white people on the corner of Fourth and Amateur Street. See, I know I was around here.

Gottlieb: Do you remember when Second Baptist got started? Actually. That's right. You were here when it actually got. That's right.

Harvey C.: He was working in me or Reverend Morton was. J.d. Morton was working in the mill, and he started this store front.

Gottlieb: I see. Did you say his name was Em? Modern.

Harvey C.: J.d. Morton. Modern? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Gottlieb: I hadn't heard how it actually came about that it began, so I wanted to get that. That's right. Yeah, He was he ordained or anything, or did he just start it on his own?

Harvey C.: Well, I'd imagine now, I couldn't tell you what he was ordained. He have to be. Now, the Baptist people, whenever you get a church. Uh huh. And the Baptist ministers agreed to it. They ordained you right away. So he got ordained before he. He might have started that church for a week or two or maybe 3 or 4 months. But he had to be ordained.

Gottlieb: Was the were there. Well, why didn't why didn't he just join Clark Memorial? And did he have some reason for going off on his own? Well, there are too many black people here.

Harvey C.: But no, I do think that, uh, he had the idea that he could. It was enough space, probably where he figured. But in the way of it, a lot of times those people come up. I don't know. It was money proposition that you figured you could make a few dimes on the side or whatever, but that's a lot of time with these little churches comes in and they start. But as I say, Second Baptist, uh, made good. Yeah, they're second to none. Uh huh.

Gottlieb: Was Modin was Modan had Modin come up from the South recently himself? Yeah. Do you know where he was from?

Harvey C.: Well, I guess Reverend Modin had to come from Virginia. He did? Yeah.

Gottlieb: Okay. And do you remember the year that Second Baptist began?

Harvey C.: No, no, no, I don't.

Gottlieb: I could find that out, I think, easily enough of I just went over. I know they probably. They have their records.

Harvey C.: Oh, yeah, they have the records. Oh, they have the records. See, our church started out in 1904. Right. And it had.

Gottlieb: Been around quite a while. Oh yeah.

Harvey C.: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. See, when they started, I don't know if my recollection back I wasn't here but they didn't start no store front. They started in a church. Right, Right. Okay. So, uh, but Reverend Morton Baszler that church until he died, he passed Second Baptist, Eddie Morgan.

Gottlieb: And now they're over here on East 12th.

Harvey C.: That's right. That's right. Uh, they had a couple of preachers, and one was Perkins. He was just about dead when he come in. But they have a young kid now. There is educated and he's real religious. Uh, Donald Turner. That's right. That's his name. Yeah. Oh, I can tell you, as I said before, maybe I might not explain it, just that it should be. But I can give you a good idea of what it was and where they been.

Gottlieb: Yeah, that's exactly what I want. That's right. Yeah. Uh, you said that your family left Homestead in 1927. That's right. Why did they leave?

Harvey C.: Well, uh, a better job. Oh.

Gottlieb: When did they go to Detroit, did you say? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Your father and mother and everybody.

Harvey C.: And my brother and his wife. They all went to Detroit.

Gottlieb: And were they. Did they then work in US steel there?

Harvey C.: No, no, no. Uh, my brother got into the Secret Service. Oh, wait, My father got a job with the contractor was here. And now, if I might say it, my dad was educated. He was about a handful of the Negro. The black people came from the Deep South, that he had an education, and he, uh. This man came here, and they built one part of the mill. And they got him. The secretary. That's the way he started when they went to Detroit. They made a place and he went and got him a home up there. And that's where he passed. That's why he went.

Gottlieb: So they never went back to Alabama?

Harvey C.: No. No.

Gottlieb: But what was happening with the farm? Did you go down to visit your old place in Alabama regularly once you were living in Homestead?

Harvey C.: Oh, yes. I've been been going there practically. Well, it might have been some sickness or something, but practically every year, every year you go down.

Gottlieb: Oh, yeah. Was there a certain time of year that you would go down?

Harvey C.: Well, usually we'd go down when the lay by the crops. Oh, I see. The last. The last of July and into the middle of August. See, that's when the harvest. And then they have the big church meetings and they have the homecoming with the different people from the South. That's usually the time that you'd like to go down.

Gottlieb: Were you always able to? Did the company give you time to go down?

Harvey C.: Oh, yes, they did. Oh, yes. See, now what I hear was the catch. Now. I was fortunate to have good health.

Gottlieb: Now you can just go on from what you were saying. Right? Yeah.

Harvey C.: All right. Now, uh, I didn't take no days off during saying, You see, when you come to be a supervisor in the United States Steel, you didn't lose any time. If you was off six months, you got paid for that six months. Then if you taken the six months, you, the company would let you come back and work one day in the second half and you could take the other six months off if it was up with the company. See what I mean? Now what I would do, I would save my, uh, uh, vacation. See, your supervisors always had 4 to 5 weeks. Right. And of course, she was contracted by the year. If you perform the duty, you was good for the year it was no say why you come in late this morning or where you was all that was in the management of the supervisor.

Gottlieb: That's it. So in other words, you got just about a paid vacation.

Harvey C.: That's right. Or got a paid vacation. Okay. Yeah, I got a paid vacation.

Gottlieb: And you used to take it just about that same time every year so you could go back. Did you did you like to go back and help them do the work?

Harvey C.: No, You didn't. Didn't have to do anyway. See, that's why I went at the at the lay by time. Did all the farms. That's right.

Gottlieb: That's right. I forgot you had told me so that the crops were growing and there wasn't that much you had to do. That's right.

Harvey C.: They everybody would take off the last two weeks in July and the first two weeks in August. That's why they could all visit one another and go see, that's the time that I'd like to take. Because if you went down there during or through March to the 1st of July, they was all down at the harvest farming. Right.

Gottlieb: And did your entire family go back? No.

Harvey C.: No, not the whole entire family. That's at the time we would go now. I might. You seen my wife? Young wife. That's the baby there Now. He started going and he was now I always went down. Then me and the boy that's in Akron, Ohio. Yeah. 354 Turner Street. Akron, Ohio. Yeah. We always went down because he's in conjunction. That's my brother in law's brother. Son. My brother in law. Son. And the boys in charge is the youngest boy down there now. His name is Shepherd Bank. So it was always keep it safe. So, uh, but every year, more or less, I've been going down. Have somebody passed? I'll go down whenever it happened. Yeah, but that's just there and back. Yeah, but I usually when I go down, take the last of July and the 1st of August, make it to around two weeks or two and a half weeks, something like that.

Gottlieb: Did you uh, so you, you still know quite a few people down there. Oh, yeah. And you kept up your time. Oh, yeah.

Harvey C.: Oh, yeah.

Gottlieb: Uh huh. Do you when you first left home and went to Birmingham and then to Chicago and then came here, did you were you ever homesick for for a Union Springs? Did you miss it?

Harvey C.: No, I didn't. I didn't make it because the trouble seemed that I was always could meet somebody that talked to somebody would like to talk. I was never lonely. Yeah, right. I've been in places and somebody walked up and grabbed my hand and said, Look, like I know you, boy, oh, man, Look like I know you. Oh, I said, perhaps so Get to talking. Well, if I didn't know you, I know you now, and so forth. So I was pretty well, the only thing that that I was worried about when I was in the army, that's when I wanted to go home. Come home.