Interview with Geneva Blasingame, July 12, 2013

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LAURA DUVEKOT: This is the First Person Project interview number 14. I am Laura Duvekot. I'm here with Rene Donnell. And today I am talking with Geneva Johnson Blasingame. We are in the Bob Short Oral History Studio inside the Richards B. Russell Library's Wilson Oral History and Media Gallery at the University of Georgia Special Collections Libraries in Athens, Georgia. The date is Friday, July 12, 2013. Okay, Ms. Blasingame, thank you for being here. I guess we'd like to start by asking you about where and when you were born, and then just tell us about your experience here in Athens.

GENEVA BLASINGAME: Okay. My name is Geneva Johnson Blasingame, and I was born in Athens, and we called it then Barry Camp. It's over there on Fourth Street. Then we moved over here on Lyndon Row -- and we called it Linnentown 00:01:00-- when I was two. And it, where it is now, it's in the midst of the University of Georgia, but it was on Baxter, off of Baxter Street, round Cloverhurst, between Peabody, which was all a Black neighborhood, Finley Street, which was all a Black neighborhood, Newton Street, which was all a Black neighborhood. We was home owners. And we stayed there, and I was raised there until I was 18. In between there, we all came together. We were a family, and we helped one another, and it was a good rearing that my daddy and mama gave us. Daddy worked at the University of Georgia fine arts building all my life until he retired.

DUVEKOT: What did he do there?

BLASINGAME: He was a janitor.

BLASINGAME: Mama worked at Snelling Hall, and which he served. They called my daddy Snowball. Call my mama Mama Carey. So we could walk from Lyndon Row, and it was always a path that we could go to to Lumpkin Street and go over to Snelling Hall to see Mama if anything came up. Course she would give us something to eat, to bring home to the rest of the kids. It was eight of us, which now is only six. At that time, when we would stand in our Black neighborhood, which we owned, we all -- the children, we went to school. We walked to some school, Reese Street School, where I started at once, you know, time for me to go to school. And we walked from Lyndon Row to Reese Street, which was on -- going up Hope, and it was on the corner Reese and 00:03:00Church Street. From there we cut our way, walk back home. Then we start growing up. Then we had to go to East Athens School, which is a whole different thing. But while we was in this community right here, between Lyndon Row, Finley Street, Peabody, and on the other street, now Finland Street would go all the way out to the tree. It owned itself. It still own itself. But that was all Black neighborhood. We all own our home there. In 1962 they started building -- we started -- University of Georgia start doing things. And in 1964 -- '63, '63, excuse me, that's when they started pushing the Blacks out. My daddy, 00:04:00who, like I said, worked at the fine arts building, they had a meeting, everybody who owned a home, which, practically everybody except maybe one or two who rent from somebody, but we own ours, and then they had them a meeting. When he came home -- see, my daddy was six-feet-five, tall, strong man, and he took care of all eight of us, never no relief or nothing. And he had tears in his eyes and Mama asked him. I remember. What did he say? You know, you couldn't sit and look in your parent's face, but we still listened when we didn't supposed to listen. You know how that goes. And he said, "They said we got to move." And Daddy told them he didn't want to. They told him, "Snowball, you have -- do not have a choice to move." So what they did, they took our home. And it was a small house up there on Peabody. They sold that to Daddy and gave him about 00:05:00-- I don't know how much money they gave him, $2- maybe $300, from what I understand and put him where I am now living in a house.

DUVEKOT: Can you tell us more about what that house was like and what the --

BLASINGAME: What I was living in?

DUVEKOT: Mm-hmm, the houses in that neighborhood before?

BLASINGAME: Oh my goodness. Now, our house, it was eight of us when we first moved there. As a little girl, I remember we had a bedroom, a living room, and a kitchen. Daddy build -- we had a outdoor toilet. And do you all know what that is? Okay.

DUVEKOT: An outhouse.

BLASINGAME: Outhouse. And an old man used to come and had to inspect that and all. But then Daddy built a bedroom, a bathroom, and a back porch and a garage to that house. At that time, my oldest brother, he had left and went to the Army. Another brother kind of moved next door to Ms. Gertrude Clarke house, who had a mansion because it was only her and her sister. So we took care 00:06:00of one another. And the next house, it had two sides to it, so it housed two families. The house next door to that was homes on up the street. Do you want me call them out? I could, but you all don't have enough time. Okay. Now I'm going to go on around to Church Street. All this went all the way up on Cloverhurst to Lyndon Row, round Lyndon Row, Church Street. All this was not paved, but down Cloverhurst it was paved. But where the Black people, we live, it was not paved. All around Church Street was not paved. You come down Peabody, that was not paved, and up Finley Street. Baxter Street was paved, but when you jumped over to Finley Street on the other side, it stopped being paved. Newton Street down at where the Holiday Inn and stuff is now and Parkview Apartment, it 00:07:00was not paved. That was all Black, all the way to Broad Street. And the community -- Union Institute, well, that's the one that children from the country had to come to Union Institute, right in this community, and go to school.

And in the meantime, people like us and the lady next door and next door, we would take the kids in through the week because their parents didn't have no way to get them up here no more on the weekend. And our parents would take them in, and they would live with us until their parents came and got them on the Friday night, took them home. Brought them back Sunday night, after church of course, and that's the way we lived. We took care of one another. But that was our home, our community. That belonged to us, but we had no choice. We had to move.

DUVEKOT: Earlier you were describing how your yard was set up and how you grew all those things. Can you elaborate on that some?

BLASINGAME: A garden-- we had collards, corns, watermelons, cantaloupe, cucumbers. The cucumber was down there. We had a brook at the end of our property, and the cucumber was down there. Oh, we had squash. They stayed, but Daddy planted -- my Daddy was a wonderful -- he had a green thumb. And he would plant all these cucumbers and squash, and then the okras. They were there, and everybody's -- we called it a stream then. You all call it a brook now, but then it was a creek. So, you know, we had different things for everything, do what it had to do. But let's see, we had turnip salad. Oh my lord, Mama made us soap. We made our own soap. And in the morning at 5:00, Daddy would get all us up, the ones that could go work the garden. He would turn on his headlight to his car, so we could see how to work the garden. We had to work that garden 00:09:00before we went to school. Come in the house, make sure your feet were clean, wash up, and go to school. Now, the front year -- we had a yard on both side, we had to keep it clean. You didn't grow grass then. Mama and Daddy made birch brooms. And we cleaned our front yard and side and the backyard with that. But where the garden stopped at and start; children couldn't walk in them. No more than to work it.

But we didn't go hungry. We had butter beans, snap peas. We didn't go hungry. We didn't have to really buy anything. I remember they did let Dad, at the time, get a hog. His name was Porky, but once we -- Dad killed the hog. We couldn't eat it so because it was a pig. And we went down the country. My mama's brother had stuff down there, so we went and got stuff there.

DUVEKOT: That was it. Did you have a garden in the house where you moved after?

BLASINGAME: That we could garden? No, I been -- see, Mama and Daddy moved in that first, and of course they've gone now. Daddy died in 2004, and he was 94. Mama died 2007. She was 100.

DUVEKOT: Oh wow.

BLASINGAME: And they had a garden when they first moved the house over there in 1964. But since I've been there, which has been 10 years at the place I am now, no, I don't have a garden, but I have flowers.

DUVEKOT: How has the view from the front door of the house that you just moved into, how has that changed since you moved in there in the '60s? Or is the neighborhood kind of the same?

BLASINGAME: Well, when Mama and Daddy moved over there, course, I was there for about a year, the neighborhood, that was teachers. There were 00:11:00professionals. There was janitors like Daddy, and there was people that worked there, over to Snelling Hall, like Mama. She worked on the line and was a cook. And there was all different walks of life. But now, yes, it has changed. Next door to me now, I got a professor that works over here at the University of Georgia. Because of my age, he cut my grass for me. And the next -- girl next door, you know, she live there. And she's -- with these two -- on the one -- this side white -- that side white. In front of me, the people have died out and the lady who lived kind of down the street. It has changed a lot since Mama and Daddy first moved over there. It was the place to be. And it was a nice street. And then it got off, but now -- but, Lord, it has gotten back.

DUVEKOT: You mentioned being close with your neighbors. Did a lot of people that got displaced that were -- that moved in the 1960s move into the same 00:12:00neighborhood together? Did you keep in contact with any of them?

BLASINGAME: We are still in contact with the one that's still living. And we are a family. Whenever anybody meet one another, we see one another as sisters, the ladies, and we see a guy, that's our brother. We stay in contact. We know where everybody is from -- the lady stayed next door to me, Ms. Gertrude Clarke, all of them dead. All the old ones are dead, so we are the generation that's living now. My Mama's generation, all of them gone. So now we are the generation, my age. Six to eight -- the oldest one that I can remember that's living is my brother. He's 80 years old. So that's how it is, but we still, we stay in contact. We know where everyone is, and then we just love one another. It's a family that -- that's a bond that can't be broken. You can't do anything with it.

The most heartbreaking time, it was as children we thought we was going to be there. But I think, I guess, I'm reflecting back when everything 00:13:00really start breaking up, when Union Institute stopped being there. The buildings was there for a long time. And the professor house was there. But then the school, nobody went there anymore. We still took a shortcut going through there, but nobody went there, so I think that's when it --

DUVEKOT: What year was that?

BLASINGAME: That was 1962 or '63.

DUVEKOT: Okay.

BLASINGAME: I'll go with two being there when it, yeah, two. And that was -- like I said, we could walk up Peabody and go in the back and go through Union school yard and end up on Baxter Street. And then we'd go on.

DUVEKOT: Since you grew up in segregated times in Athens, what did you guys do for extracurricular activities? Like, what'd you guys do for fun, or 00:14:00where'd you guys hang out? Was it just where everyone hangs out now or separate?

BLASINGAME: Let me tell you something. When we was young, Mama and Daddy went to work. You didn't go out the yard. On Saturday, that was the day to clean up. I mean, you went to school; you came back. And in the summer -- and in the cotton-picking time, so we could go to the fair and help Mama, you know, because the university door was closed down. And so when time to pick cotton, we had to go with Mama to help pick cotton, even as little children. Now, I was a little child, but I had a baby sister that was born right over here at 123 Lyndon Row. She's dead now. And Mama would take us to the field with her when she picked cotton when she wasn't working over here at Snelling Hall. And she'll put a sheet out, a cotton sheet, and she'll sit the baby on it. And I was the one that see about the baby. But my brothers would help Mama pick cotton. Daddy still was at the fine art building working. But when I grew up enough, like I 00:15:00think I was about nine years old, they would give me a sack, and I had to start picking cotton. Just to help Mama out. And he was giving us $3 a hundred. A hundred pounds of cotton was $3. And we would take the little money that we make out of cotton we'd pick and put it on Mama's sheet, and then at the end of the day he would give Mama the money. And she would stop at, it was the grocery store on the corner of Baxter and Finley Street, and then she would stop and give us -- a little bag of cookies was a dollar -- not a dollar, a penny. And then she would take the rest of the money, and we ate. And she bought whatever she wanted. She did what she wanted to do with.

I remember Daddy used to get up at 5:00 in the morning on Saturday morning, and go to the place called a kurd market. We call it now the flea market, but it was very exciting times if it was my turn to go. Because I could get up and go with Daddy and Mama. And we would get shoes, brown shoes. You all call 00:16:00them something else now, but we called them brogans then. They're like them old army-brown shoe. And you couldn't tear them up. And that's what we got to wear to school. And then we got the black and white shoes they call rock and roll shoes back then. We got those, and Daddy got them from the kurd market. We called it a kurd, K-U-R-D, market. And Mama would -- on Saturday morning was our outing time if we was good. I had a sister named Marie. She's still living. She's 77. She would take me on Saturday on Clayton Street. That's where all the Black people went town. It was their time to go to town. Town is downtown-- Clayton Street where all the shop was: Kress's, McLennan, the Diana shop, all the shops. And we stayed there all day long. And then we'll walk our way back from Clayton, down Lumpkin. Then we know to cross the street down on 00:17:00the corner of Lumpkin and Baxter, go up Baxter, go around Cloverhurst, and then we was home, 123 Lyndon Row. But that's all the time you had to hold your sister hand.

DUVEKOT: Did your family belong to a church?

BLASINGAME: Oh, Lord, yes. My -- oh, yeah. Daddy was a good deacon at Arnold's Grove Baptist Church that's down in Oglethorpe. And I was baptized at Saint James Church on Lexington Road in a creek. And they were real, real -- oh, yeah, we had to go to church. Even after we got a certain age, we had to go to church. My daddy was real active in church. Mama was too. Mama was a Methodist, but after her and Daddy got married, she start going to his church, which was a Baptist, but she never did change over. She stayed a Methodist, but she went with her husband. They were real loyal to the husband back then, very obedient. 00:18:00 Oh, Jesus, and she was a good Mama. We had the best Mama in the world. All the ladies were ladies over there, and they was real respectful, and if they saw me do something, let me tell you, they had permission to spank my hinder parts. And when Mama an 'em came home, ooh, boy. The same birch broom that I swept the yard with sometimes you got a whooping with. (laughs) But it was a good time. We had running water. We didn't have to have a well because we was in the city. So we didn't have to have a well. Not over there, off of Cloverhurst, on Lyndon Row, right in the midst of the university. And they took it. Yeah, I suppose they did. Well, I said, they took it. They made us move-- and we didn't want to. Nobody wanted to move because we were set up. And I miss it until today.

DUVEKOT: I'm sorry. You said that you only lived in the house that 00:19:00you moved after that for a year? Is that when you got married?

BLASINGAME: Oh, yeah, I got married. I have five children. I'm a mother of five, and I buried my baby in '93. He died playing basketball in college, burst of a heart. He died of a massive heart attack, that was my baby.

DUVEKOT: How old were you when you got married?

BLASINGAME: I was 18 years old when I got married. Had a baby when I was 19, and I had my last baby -- I had Carolyn, Terrance, Mika, Eric, and Percy was my baby. That's the one I buried in '93.

DUVEKOT: Can you tell us how you met your husband?

BLASINGAME: I met my husband, my first husband, on a dare.

DUVEKOT: Oh, a dare? Like to hear that story, please.

RENE DONNELL: (laughs) Yeah.

BLASINGAME: Well, my girlfriend was going with this guy's best friend, and, 00:20:00 you know, the guy was kind of macho, you know. The lady was at him, "You can't get him." I said, "Yes, I can." And I got him. And I married him. And he died. And he's dead now. And that's when I married Percy's daddy, my baby's daddy. So I met my first husband on a dare. But Percy name was Percy Eberhart and then not Percy Blasingame. It was Everhart. But he went to Clarke Central. He was a good baby. He was seven feet tall.

DUVEKOT: Oh, wow.

BLASINGAME: Yeah, that was my baby.

DUVEKOT: Kind of backtracking, after you finished high school -- did you finish high school?

BLASINGAME: Sixty-four.

DUVEKOT: Okay. Did you go to college or anything?

BLASINGAME: No, I had a scholarship, but I was in love. I had a scholarship to Albany State College. I played the flute.

DUVEKOT: Really?

BLASINGAME: Yeah.

DONNELL: Do you still play?

BLASINGAME: I sing. But I don't play anymore. I played it for five 00:21:00years because, see, high school started in the eighth grade back then. And our Daddy bought me a brand-new flute from Baldwin music-- I remember.

DONNELL: Is Albany State College now Albany University? Do you know?

BLASINGAME: I didn't keep up with it.

DONNELL: Okay.

BLASINGAME: I didn't keep up with it. I guess so. I wouldn't really know. But about Linnentown over here, this Black community we were raised in, it was a dry cleaner over there, Chokes dry cleaner. Then it was the Dairy Queen. We called it the Artie Girl. It was Legion Pool is -- where Legion Pool is now, see, we could go down there. We could skate, we could clean the pool up, but we couldn't get in the water. And when the band got ready to practice, University of Georgia, they practiced in the field over there. We had to stand on this hill -- it was a hill then. They shaved it down -- and look at the band, but 00:22:00we couldn't go out there on the field, not while the band were playing. But when they left, you know they'll make a mess, we could go clean it up. And then they'll give us a nickel. And we thought that was some money then. But it was -- it's fine. It was fine. That was the way it was. But it changed, praise God. I did demonstrate, -- (laughs) -- that was a good time.

DONNELL: Can you tell us more about that?

BLASINGAME: The demonstrations?

DONNELL: Yes, please.

BLASINGAME: Well, okay. We was in -- I was in high school when it started up.

DONNELL: So early 1960s?

BLASINGAME: In the '60s, when Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Homes came over here, and they -- Ron Hudson came, and he -- we started. Martin Luther King spoke. They came to Athens, but he didn't because his life was threatened. And so, they went to Oglethorpe and got Oglethorpe -- Oconee County -- Oglethorpe, Madison County, Madison, Georgia. And they got all the people to come up here when we was demonstrating. We started demonstrating. It was organized 00:23:00because it was a peaceful time, but there were some people that didn't have to be peaceful. And I was in the crowd that was peaceful some time, but then I also wanted to be in a crowd that just sit and didn't move. And then they went and got those people, and they brought dogs up here, you know, to sic on us and stuff. And they called us derogatory names and everything, but we marched. I went -- we went to jail, and they put us in the place out here, a boulevard, that was a jail then.

DUVEKOT: How big was the crowd of demonstrators that you were with?

BLASINGAME: It was huge. Like I said, it was people from Oconee, Oglethorpe. They went and got the men, white men, and to make us -- you know, get us and to scare us. And it was scary, and then they got dog --

DUVEKOT: You were a teenager, right?

BLASINGAME: Yeah, and they got dogs, and I always have been afraid of dogs. And so it was scary, but Varsity, we use to couldn't go into Varsity. Let me tell you about that. We used to pay our money, give somebody our money 00:24:00right there at the door, tell them what we want Mama made us stop. Go to the side, they had a slot they would push the food through. You couldn't go in the Varsity when it was downtown. It was downtown on the corner of College and Broad Street there. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

BLASINGAME: Right there. See, before it moved up on there on Broad Street, on up the highway. We couldn't go into Varsity. We couldn't go into drug stores. The man at the drug store corner of Lumpkin and Clayton, he took all the seats out of his drug store because he didn't want us in there.

DUVEKOT: Is that the Horton's drug store?

BLASINGAME: Yes.

DUVEKOT: Oh, that's where I get my-- the stuff for my pharmacy.

BLASINGAME: Well, you know, he was not -- I guess he dead and gone to meet the Lord and repent and everything, you know. But that the way it was. But we -- I would demonstrate because I knew that one day I was going to have children and grandchildren and nieces and nephews. I said, uh-uh, this is not going to work.

DUVEKOT: How long were you in jail? (inaudible)

BLASINGAME: My daddy came and got me about 15 minutes later. (laughter) Because he came --

DUVEKOT: Were they proud?

BLASINGAME: No, we wasn't in jail. They didn't put -- we were locked up, but they didn't put us in jail. They put us out there in the yard. And they had it fenced in. We called it the bull pen. That's what they call it too. And I heard my daddy say, "Where my baby?" I said -- (laughs) I said, "Here I is, Daddy." (laughter) He came. He said, "Didn't I tell you?" I said, "Yes, sir." He said, "Didn't I tell you not to do that?" I said, "Yes, sir." But you didn't say lies around your parents. You didn't say fool. You didn't say curse. You didn't say uh-huh and uh-uh. Yes, sir. Yes, ma'am. No, sir and no, ma'am. I said, "Yes, sir." So he got me out. Course, next day I was downtown demonstrating again, and he just saw me and didn't say a word. And he didn't bother me no more. So it came out pretty good. But they never did bother us over there. All the things that was going on with Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, they 00:26:00never bothered us. I could walk home from up there. There was a little canteen. After we grew up, we could go there, you know. And so I was supposed to have walked home with my brother, but he was cold to me, and I was impatient. But I walked home down Baxter Street by myself, walked down Finley, hit Cloverhurst down the bottom of the hill, which was one little old light, and it was a scary thing, and ran on home. And they didn't say a word. We saw the whites; they looked out at the students. It wasn't the students, guys. It was the outsiders. That's what -- but they were pretty nice too. They didn't bother us. I think because they really, you know -- Daddy, they called him Snowball and Mama, Mama Carey. And they knew that we -- everybody over there in that little vicinity mostly worked for the University of Georgia. The ones that didn't work in homes, you know, did private duty, cleaning up -- maids and stuff. My 00:27:00brother worked for Mr. Elwood Grocery in the A&A Bakery. You all remember that?

DUVEKOT: Mm-mm, where was that?

DONNELL: Mm-mm.

BLASINGAME: Honey, it was down on Lumpkin Street, the best pastries in the world. But it's gone now.

DUVEKOT: I'm sad I missed it.

BLASINGAME: You missed something good. They had real doughnuts then. They had real fruit bar. They had complete array of food. Oh, my Mama could cook the best in the world. Yeah, it was pretty good.

DONNELL: What kind of jobs did you have? Well, like, your whole life. Like, you know?

BLASINGAME: Okay, I worked at sewing factory, and at the sewing factory they had -- we had to use different bathroom. There was the first -- five bathroom was white, and they had two Blacks. And you couldn't -- but I worked at the sewing factory, and then after that I worked at the poultry. I always have done factory work because I like it.

DUVEKOT: Where were the factories?

DONNELL: Where -- yeah, where were they?

BLASINGAME: Lyons Textile Mill was right here where the Classic 00:28:00Center is now.

DONNELL: Okay.

BLASINGAME: There was a sewing factory, hence some garment was down in the basement. And the other factory I worked at was Westclox/General Times out there by ABB -- power partners out there. Remember that? Okay, now I had a good job at Gibson Discount Center. I was in shipping and receiving up there. And I was good at it. And another kind of job, I worked Stein Mart. I was in shipping and receiving. I was over there. My best job I loved was Creation Windows. We made windows for airplanes and big vans, when the van was huge. Remember them big vans, Winnebagos and things? We used to make windows and stuff for that.

DONNELL: Where was that located?

BLASINGAME: That was out there off the Cleveland road, Huntington Parks, down in there, in that area, you know. Now, my daughter, my oldest child work 00:29:00for the Miracle Medical Association. And I got another daughter, got a good job in Florida. She -- my oldest one live in DC. My other daughter -- I made them leave Athens to get a good job, get a good education, a good job. And Carolyn went to school over there, Georgia, and she finished up there in DC. And she has a good job. Mika didn't go to college, but she's a computer expert. It just a gift. I have another son. That's Terrance. He does sheetrock work. He's the best finisher there is, and he has been doing it since he was eight years old. You know, we just work. I hung sheet -- well, I hung sheetrock for seven years. I did sheetrock work for seven years. I like that old stuff. And I got another son who's in college. He's 44, but he went back to school. And my baby who passed, he was about to become -- put Athens on the map, become -- he was going for the pro. Magic Johnson, Charles Barkley had wrote him, and they wanted him to tryout with them. But he had a heart attack. I had just take him -- taken 00:30:00him back from spring break on a Sunday. Monday he had died. That was in '93.

DUVEKOT: Earlier when we first showed you this 1950 map, you got a little emotional.

BLASINGAME: Yeah.

DUVEKOT: Can -- is there anything else that you haven't shared with us that kind of sticks out to you?

BLASINGAME: Yeah, I miss my home. I feel like we didn't -- I feel like, you know, like, when kids leave home, look like they would just say, "Okay, I'm ready to leave," but we were forced out. I miss my home. That's part of me, part of me still over there, but I don't see nothing that belonged to Black people. But I do see everything of the white houses, white people houses over there. Just telling the truth. Up there on Peabody, all those houses was there, Hall street round Cloverhurst. I remember this little old lady house, little, old white house, and it's still there. But you don't see nothing, nothing 00:31:00that belonged to us. Even the little branch that ran in the back of our property, they got it covered up. So it's really -- I was riding over here. The guy that picked me up, John, I almost -- I got so emotional. I got feeled up, and I didn't know I was going to do that. It hurts. You don't want that taken from you. I don't have anywhere to show my children where I raised up at, nothing. Even where I was born at, it still got all the -- the chimney is still there, over there on Fourth Street. Because it's a historical spot. But where I was raised, I was two years old when we came over here, but you see nothing. So that's why I got -- it feeled me up. That's my house right there, 123 Lyndon Row. That's our house. We lived right there. And on the corner right there where they paved, where it was paved at, you know, there was these other people that live. But we -- but when it came to our vicinity, we couldn't pave 00:32:00it. But when they had the games, all the students and all the people that came to the University of Georgia, they parked up there and told us to watch their cars. Even said, "Watch our cars for us, and we'll give you a nickel when we come back." And we watched those cars. Nobody didn't mess with those cars. But the next day when the University of Georgia got through with the game -- that's before they built this beautiful place they got now -- we would go there and walk those benches and pick up Coca-Cola bottles in a crate. They was glass bottles then. And you got a penny a crate. So you really had to hurry up and fill it up. So we all went over there, and we made money. We came back home and gave it to Mama and Daddy. Everything that we had, we gave it to our parents. We didn't save it to ourselves. If they want to give us a penny or two, we got it. Of course, we saved our little pennies and went to the fair. They gave us free tickets back then. At school, you got free tickets. Kids got a free 00:33:00ticket to go to the fair. But then, when you get in, you had to have your own money for your little ride. Wasn't but a nickel or something. It was pretty nice. So we did what we had to do. It seemed like a hard time to you guys, but we did what we had to do. The best time, we could pull our door up, just pull the door up when we went church, anywhere, and then we come home, just push it over. Nobody didn't break in, do something now, wasn't no disrespectful children or nothing. Maybe one broke out every once in a while, but they straightened up because the father was in the home. I don't remember any single parents.

DONNELL: So would you say your overall experience in Athens has been -- or how would you describe your overall experience, your life here, for your life?

BLASINGAME: Find it horrible. It wasn't good for Black people back then. And it's not good for them now. But it's what you make out of it. I trust in God; I know him. I know I give my life to Jesus Christ, and I'm doing fine. But I wouldn't want my -- I told my girls to leave. I told all my kids to leave and do better because you still -- we're still in a box. But we can get out of it better than we ever have. We got opportunities. And maybe we had one then, but I didn't see it, the way I was coming up, you know. It is what you make out of yourself.

DONNELL: Well, we only -- we have, you know, just a couple more minutes. Is there -- I mean, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us, any memories that you really want to share?

BLASINGAME: Lord, there's so much. I get home, and I'll probably say, 00:35:00"Well, why didn't I tell them about this?" All I can share is the lady next door Mama and Daddy, how hard they work. I seen them. Car wouldn't start, I seen them walking. They work in the cold. We had to meet Mama sometime in Snelling Hall, would give her food to help feed us. There were so many of us, and we would meet her sometime, go through the woods, and then we hit Lumpkin. Mama be coming across Lumpkin, and we all go through the woods. Don't care how cold or hot it was, nobody never bothered us. And we would come across Cloverhurst into our house when we go home. That's when the car wouldn't run. But most of the time when Daddy got off from work at 5:00, Mama got off from work, like, from 7:00 to 7:00. And he would go, stood out there, like, 6:00 till whenever she got off, and bring her home.

But they always would give her food to feed us, whatever was leftover. And we thought that was wonderful. It was. But then they stopped doing that 00:36:00and start throwing it away. They wouldn't give them no more. They stopped. And they start throwing it away. They said that university had new policy not to give food away anymore. And so they stopped.

DUVEKOT: (inaudible) policies.

BLASINGAME: It made it a little harder on Mama and Daddy, but we survived. That was life. I have no regrets. I've been raised in Athens. Course, I could have left whenever I got ready, but my roots are here. My roots are over there, 123 Lyndon Row. My roots are right here in Athens. And my roots now at 1550 Eastborough Street. And this is Geneva Johnson Blasingame. (laughter)

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