Shelbyville

If you don't mind moving forward a little bit in time to--back perhaps to the 1950s and the incident on the bus.$$Oh yeah (laughter), yeah, let's see that might have even been after the '50s [1950s]. I was living here [Atlanta, Georgia], and you see there's a trestle right up the street there, and as far as the buses would go would be at that trestle and we were at that time having trolleys, you know the thing controlled by the trolley up there you had to get out and change that trolley to go back in the other direction, so by the time it got out here I would be the last one on there and usually I'd been sitting, when I got on it was crowded and I'm sitting on that side seat, and but when the old trolley man got off to change his trolley and jumped out the front door and I jumped right out behind him. And I was always going to town on--a friend and I caught ourselves having a day off, so I think Tuesday was our day off and I'd just go, and we just go 'cause our day off--and we bought, we'd buy things you know. And my husband [Albert Berry Cooper, Jr.] would always try to kind of keep up with what I'm buying, and by the time we got down here if he beat me home he's down there to see whether I got off, walked up with (laughter), and so I was gonna beat him home that day and I jumped off the trolley right behind the wrong man, though my old man wasn't on there that day, there was a young man on there and so he looked up and said, "Nigger get back on that bus and go out that back door!" (Laughter) See you got on the front, but all black folks had to get out the back door no matter how crowded, you gotta find your way to get out that back door. I thought, what, I'm down on the ground, feet headed this way. I thought, you and who else gonna make me get back on (laughter) you get on that--oh no, I got my feet headed this way, I'm, and I'm trying to beat my husband home (laughter). Anyway, you know any other lady, any lady would have just walked on, but I'm walking on home, now he telling me, "You get!" I thought, I said, "Look, my husband be driving along here in a few minutes." I said, "He catch you meddling with me he'll beat your head to a pulp." (Laughter) He jumped on that (unclear) (laughter). So you felt better doing something like that than you did walking on home after he done told you twice, "Get back on that bus, go out that back door" (laughter), and the next incident that got me, we had about--they tell me now we weren't paying but a nickel I think. You get on there and you could ride all the way down to Rich's [Atlanta, Georgia?] from Davison's [Atlanta, Georgia]. I don't remember how much it was, but when I got on, it was all full. There was that one seat there and the man sitting this way, you know, right behind the driver and there was that seat there. He's sitting there with his feet up on that seat, that side seat. So, I'm looking all around everywhere and didn't see any place, so I thought when I sat down he'd just move his feet, but I sat down and he said, "Nigger don't sit down in front of me." I said, "Oh you great white man," (laughter) and I got up and I said, "you sit there," you know, then he'd be sitting in front of me. "Oh, baby come on back here you can have my seat," all the colored folks you know sitting all the way back, "you can have my seat." I said, "No, let him move. He don't want me sitting in front of--" (laughter), so no he ain't gonna move.$That [Gate City Day Nursery Association, Atlanta, Georgia] went on and on and did well, and then they asked me to come on the committee to make plans for a black Girls Club. And the man who was head of the YMCA [Young Men's Christian Association] called us together for that. So one friend who was on this board of Gate City with me, we answered that call and they--all these projects were getting up, apartments were just getting started, so there was a Grady Homes [Atlanta, Georgia] place over there. We took on a--the girls, you know, being left at home alone and getting attacked and all that sort of thing, we took on, I took on this auxiliary and we organized and finally got things going. We were into the United Way, not, that what used to be the, what did we call it first, not United Way, but it was--what was the organization that you could get all these help from? Community Chest, maybe (simultaneous).$$(Simultaneous) Community Chest.$$Well anyway we got in touch with different people and a Mr. [Walter H.] Kessler who ran the Kessler department store [Kessler's, Atlanta, Georgia], was one of our board members. He gave us the first one thousand, I believe he gave us eleven hundred dollars to qualify to get into the United Way, and then he and his son served, we all would be on that board and we did everything. I'd bring the little girls out here and have graduation parties for 'em and they went from--first out of elementary school. We didn't have all of these middle schools and everything then. And my chapter of The Links [Incorporated] would give me gifts for--and make gifts for them as they graduated. That went well for the longest, then they decided they'd make us integrate. White women built a club out there on Donnelly Avenue. So, when they made us integrate and we went out there, well they took all their white girls away, you know, so (laughter), and they had--the women always said when they got all these things going if it got going and we took in men or white women and all that, they'd take it away from them, they'd lose all the credit, so sure enough they got in there and somebody would have the--a president of a bank or something, president of the Grady Homes [Community] Girls Club [Atlanta, Georgia]. Well, when they made us integrate they fussed, now who gonna be the executive director, should it be white or colored. We fought and fought and we finally got a lady to come down here from Chicago [Illinois] to be president. She didn't know anything about what all that was about, so of course they had to let her go on back about her business, so then we had no fight any longer, the white woman would take it and we learned after it was all settled that it was--the woman who took it was the wife of the man who'd been running the Boys Club all the time. So, you know that was a national thing, Girls and Boys Clubs [sic. Boys & Girls Clubs of America]. It wasn't the Girls Club, a black girls' club. So, when we knew anything, they had joined. It's not Boys Club and Girls Club, it's Boys and Girls Club, so of course then they, nobody was using this building out here on Donnelly, they had us going over to a little place over there on Edgewood Avenue, so tight over there, no parking and I thought well--and then we had a white man president of all of it, so I gave that up, but we had put on some wonderful programs for those girls. But, I gave that up, and the other woman who had worked with me, I had brought her in, she worked for the gas company, Gladys Powell was her name. I think she's out there, and she came in, you know we taught those girls a lot 'cause we were in one to one with them, and I'd say I'd bring 'em out here, bring 'em out here to Mozley Park [Atlanta, Georgia] and we'd put on carnivals and I, well we did everything to raise a little money. That's when my husband [Albert Berry Cooper, Jr.] would fuss about I wouldn't be at home at night. I'd go have a party and I got to chaperone that and so (laughter), but those are the things that I'd spent my time doing.