00:00:00ANDREW AVERY (AA): [talking about his teaching at and principalship of Bell-Dixon School
near Climax, Georgia 1923-25] the first two years the 6th and 7th grades and we hired a
high school teacher to teach the 8th and 9th grades, but I was principal of the school. I had
the job of either being janitor or seeing that the school was clean, seeing that the wood
was brought in, seeing that the water was drawn out of an old cistern and brought in, seeing
that the basketball, and they never had seen a basketball at this school, and I never had seen
but one and didn't know a thing about playing or anything. But the boys had heard of it, some
of the nearby schools having basketball and they put in on me and said let's have basketball. And
00:01:00I said I don't know anything about basketball. Some of them were bigger than me, you know, a
whole lot bigger than I was, and, but I said, but they said, but Mr. Avery we'll help you, well help
you, we'll have a club. And I said well first we've got to, ah, to get, ah, we got to get something
where are we going to get the money, to do that is going to take a lot of money, where are we
going to get it? But we'll, we can get it somehow or another. I said well, we can get it if you boys
will work on your parents and we'll bring them to this school house for programs. I said, we'll get
the money, I know how to get the money. And then, we'll do it, we'll do it. So, we announced one
night that we would have a box supper and a beauty contest. And we sold about a hundred
00:02:00dollars worth of boxes, they'd bring boxes to put food in them, don't you see? And then we had a
beauty contest and sold a cake for a hundred dollars. And we had the money, cause things didn't
cost so much then, don't you see. We had the money to buy the suits and to put up the goals and
that was about the major thing. We had to do all the work, building the court and things like that.
And I said, now, there's something else I... well I had already told them that, but I said now, I
repeat, now before we spend any of this money, that you boys are going to do what I say do,
when I say do it, like I say do it. I said I'm not going to tell you to do anything I don't do. And I'm
going to ask you to do nothing that I don't do. But to do everything in this ball business like I do it.
00:03:00I said you can beat me, you beat me ringing goals and things like that, but you won't beat me
with the technics of the thing, because I'm going to study the rule book, and I'm going to...
[Pause - microphone scraping]
AA: I.... I plan to give you, and I mean for you to follow this plan, plenty of physical exercises.
They say, oh Mr. Avery, we have plenty of that at home, we have on the farm, we walk to school,
and we have, getting wood, and we do this, that, and the other on the farm. And I said that don't
00:04:00make any difference what you do on the farm, I said we going to do this here. We're going to run
a mile every morning at recess. Oh, we couldn't do that, we'd fall out. I says, well, I says, would
you go back to beingwhat we'd started at, that you do nothing that I won't do myself. If I will lead
you in these races a mile at the time or two miles, as the case may be, however much time we
have, will you follow me? Oh boy, yeah, we will follow you! They just felt like they could, they
could really put it on me, don't you see? So make a, you know, make a, they didn't mean to make
a joke out of it, but at the same time they just felt like doing it. But when I got started out, they
00:05:00never caught me. They tried as hard as hard as could be, but they never could quite catch up
with me. And I won their respect, don't you see? And when the whistle blew and they were in line
[hits mic], excuse me, they were in line and whenever any other suggestions that I made, they
were standing around me, listening to me. They loved me.
[Pause - cut to new interview]
AA: ...was called the daddy of the free school books system. Because I made a statewide report
of one hundred and fifty-nine school systems and found out just how many books they needed
and how many of their pupils couldn't afford to buy books. And we got the school book law
00:06:00passed where that every child would have adequate school books. I was always opposed to tax
on beer or any kind of alcohol substance. But the only way we could get the free school books
was by accepting a tax on beer. Dr. M. D. Collins, our State Superintendent of Schools, was a
Baptist minister and many of the people told him that we were getting tainted money because we
were getting beer taxed. He would reply by saying, Taint enough!, Taint enough! so we
endeavored to go further and get a teacher retirement system and I played an important part in
00:07:00that, and when the bill was finally called up for passage I was called to the Speakers stand by the
Speaker of the House of Representatives and the vote was cast unanimous for that bill.
[Pause]
AA: [providing commentary as part of his movies are shown] Sewing, first aid, and many other
things common to young people of that age were carried on at this institution. In this picture you
will see the nurse as she administers first aid. [pause] And here we have the health department
00:08:00facilities where the old-time x-ray, and other instruments that they had to check with in those
days. These were the days of Dr. Ford. Some of you will remember him and you will see him in
this picture. As we come to it, there is Dr. Ford by the table reaching across the table fixing to
vaccinate a boy. Some of you people are old enough to remember that. And then they had their
00:09:00own stove wood, no electrical facilities to cook with. They'd cook with their own wood stove, and
had their heat with their own facilities that were derived from the wood fire.
[Pause]
INTERVIEWER: In your film that was done on the blacks, the Negro film, you had
some shots of the hospital that was just a black hospital. Tell me about where
it was, and where it was started, and what happened to it, and...
AA: The Griffin Hospital was for... essentially a Negro hospital, it was down on
00:10:00Broad Street, North Broad Street and it still stands there. It's just across the street from the old
American Legion place and the IGA place. I don't know what it's used for, I think part of it is now
used for a parts department. I don't know what the other is used for. But at one time it was one of
the finest hospitals in the country. People came from many, many sections to visit that hospital.
And Dr. Griffin, who built it, got a lot of compliments form people in many areas about the
hospital.
INTERVIEWER: Do you remember what year that was?
AA: I don't know just what year. It may have a plaque on it that will tell you
what year, but it in was the early 1900s when it was built, something around 1920s.
00:11:00
INTERVIEWER: And the hospital lasted as a black hospital until when?
AA: It was continued until, oh, I'd say until approximately 1960. I'm not sure
of that date, but in all probability it was around 1960, 1965, something like
that, when it was discontinued.
INTERVIEWER: You had at the beginning of that film -
AA: Now let me say this - that prior to that time we had the Riverside Hospital and the Bainbridge
Hospital. The Riverside Hospital was over there on the river, overlooking the river, just north of
George Danielss office there, I don't know whether you've ever seen it or not, but it's gone now.
The Bainbridge Hospital was down here at the present location of the post office. And we had for
00:12:00years, we tried for years to get a centralized hospital but we couldn't do it on account of we had
two of those kind of hospitals. And Dr. Griffin decided he'd build another one and then in later
years we finally got a bond issue and got the Bainbridge Memorial Hospital and that [inaudible]
did away with Dr. Griffin's hospital and the others too, don't you see? The others where, well they
hadn't almost completed around, the people who had organized them and had so, professionally
used them had either past away or had retired. And then the younger doctors, of course, went to
Bainbridge Memorial Hospital, as for both black and white.
00:13:00
INTERVIEWER: Dr. Griffin, was he, is he related to Marvin Griffin at all?
AA: Dr. Griffin is a Negro. Yeah, he is a black doctor.
[Pause]
INTERVIEWER: Let's talk for a while, in the 30s and I guess during the war and
things like that. People of the county got together through the church a lot,
didn't they? For the church suppers and for certain events and was it like
because it was an agricultural community where it was around harvest. Can you
just talk about the times when the community got together and how they, you
know, enjoyed themselves and shared and...your film shows a lot of community
church suppers and things like that.
AA: Well, actually, they got together, they didn't have, as a rule, they didn't have any kitchens and
00:14:00things like that. Like in those days when we began to build them. But most of the time, we had
what was an old-time church and school picnics on the ground, and sometimes they were right on
the ground, for hundreds of yards, don't you see? Tables all spread on the ground. But often
times they would get wire and stretch it, get a roll of wire and stretch it and put it on the table and
most of the scenes we have, we have some scenes where its right on the ground, but most of the
scenes we have are on tables. And you see people going up there, getting their food, and going
away. And that was one of the biggest ways they got together. And yet back in the good old days
00:15:00people were neighbors, they visited one another. I remember many times that people would come
to our house from far away on their ox car, or mule and wagon, or buggies as the case might be
and come there at ten, eleven o'clock and that was the old time which was two hours slower than
what we have now. And we would get out and run down two or three or four chickens depending
on the number of the crowd, don't you see and somebody would be dressing the chicken and
getting them ready for the pot and somebody would be picking blackberries or scratching Irish
potatoes, don't you see, for dinner, or getting cabbage or beans or something to meet the needs
of the situation. The company who came in just jumped in and helped the host, don't you see, do
00:16:00it. And those were the good old days, when you knew everybody, and you loved everybody. And
you could appreciate a living at that time.
[Pause - audio gets cut off or is too low to be legible]
INTERVIEWER: ...up in the next county is called Vada, isn't it?
AA: Well part of it's in this county, most of it's in this county, and a little bit in the other county, but
there's just a little bit in both counties, [laughs] don't you see? And I lived between Vada and the
river, Flint River, back in the woods back over there about half way between Vada and the Flint
River and I walked to Vada many, many times and the Flint River many, many times. As a matter
00:17:00of fact, I walked to, when I got a chance to go, the only time I ever got a chance to go to high
school was one time and I walked across the river to Pine Hill School, you don't remember that, it
burned here some three or four years ago. But it was one of those large consolidated schools
and I got the chance to go over there. It was approximately 15 miles across the river from my
home. And I had a boy friend who would put me across the river and he'd come back and put me
across. And of course, I stayed over there part of the time during the week. But on the weekends,
I'd come home, all I'd have to do is just drop him a card or if I didn't drop him a card I'd tell him
from one time to other, we didn't have any telephone, tell him from one time to the other what time
00:18:00to meet me. And he was always, he never missed a time, and the owls would begin to screech
late in the evening and we would hear we would hear funny things all along the river shore but if
there's one thing for sure, I could see Jack as he was coming with his little boat to meet me. That
was great. [Note: his friend Jack was Jack Martin who lived between the Avery home and three
Flint River.]
INTERVIEWER: Do you have to go? Do you have to go?
UNKNOWN: Well, it's getting on 12.
INTERVIEWER: Now I just want you to tell me about yourself Mr. Avery, I want you
to tell me, where you were born, and a little bit about growing up and going to
school and what you've done, just now briefly, what you've done in your life.
What you've done with the schools and with the peanuts and just tell me a little
00:19:00bit about yourself.
AA: Well that's such a big story, I won't have time to tell you all of it. I was born on December 3rd,
1901, in a little log cabin in the northeastern part of Decatur County. After I got to be about two
years old, we moved to another little log cabin farm and rented it and from there we moved to the
present site where we're living now to another little log cabin and my daddy purchased that from a
negro named Jack Gaines and we lived in that log cabin until my daddy could haul enough logs
00:20:00to the mill to get enough logs sawed to where we could build a home big enough for all of us. But
we lived in that house for several years with just one open fireplace, no stove. We cooked and ate
on the fireplace. And we had, I believe we had an extra room, but most of us stayed in the same
room and ate in the same room and lived in the same room for some years before we built a little
frame home. And when we built that, just about the time we built that, I was somewhere around
four, five, six years, I don't remember just how many years but I do remember seeing the beautiful
00:21:00and shining and sweet face of my lovely mother in that little log cabin as she came smiling with a
big pot of a chicken pie to put on the table for us that she had cooked on the old stove. And I
remember how we went into it. And I also remember how one morning in that same little log cabin
by - [cuts off, repeats] one morning in that same little log cabin by our little morning table, all of us
sitting around, ten or twelve of us youngsters sitting around, and my daddy sitting around at the
00:22:00head of the table. And we had, I think we had one little pone of bread and one little cup of grease
for breakfast. That's what we had been having many times but it was giving out. And I can see my
daddy now as he sat in his chair with his head down after he had eaten. I don't know, I assumed
that he was talking to the Lord, and after a while he got up and said [inaudible] I'll have something
for your supper. And he went and hitched up the old wagon and pulled out to Pelham [a nearby
00:23:00town in Mitchell County] and he came back quicker than I thought he would come back or any of
us thought he would come back but he went there and back and when he came back he had a
big old side of white meat and a sack of meal and a sack of flour and some sugar and coffee that
he had talked the Hand Trading Company into letting him have until he could make his crop. And
we did our feast and it was just one of the hard times that we had.
00:24:00
