Interview with Venus Jarrell, October 7, 2022

Breeding: Okay, today is October the 7th, 2022. I am here with Mr. Venus Jarrell. I'd like to thank you, Mr. Jarrell, for giving me the opportunity to interview you. I've known you for a while in passing. I can't say I really know you, know you, but I've seen you at different events. Often, I'll see you at the flea market. Sometimes playing your instrument, which I learned that you go to various churches. So again, I would like to thank you personally and also on behalf of the University of Georgia Oral History Program. So we've gone over the paperwork, I gave you the informed consent, and also the oral gift--I mean the gift agreement. 00:01:00So I'd like the interview to go in this fashion. I want you to first say your name, then I want you to spell it. Then I want you to take me to your earliest remembrances of growing up, up until today. Also if there's anything you know about the Bottom and Hot Corner. I'd like to hear about that as well. So, would you say your name for me?

Jarrell: My name is Venus Joseph Jarrell, V-E-N-U-S, J-O-S-E-P-H, J-A-R-R-E-L-L.

Breeding: Okay, I was going to ask you to spell it, but you beat me to it. Alright, tell me who your parents were, or are.

Jarrell: Okay. My parents is Hosie 00:02:00Jarrell, Hosie Jarrell at the time, and Venus Jarrell. Venus Alvin Jarrell and Hosie Jarrell. Hosie Jarrell, main name was Hosie Daniel. Those were my parents.

Breeding: Okay, what was your birth year? Don't tell me your birth date, but your birth year. What year were you born?

Jarrell: 1946.

Breeding: 1946. Okay, now tell me your story. You can start with your earliest memories.

Jarrell: My earliest memories is that I was up at, uh, on Broad, West Broad Street. Up there by the Farmer's Market and where the Extension Service and the old, uh, State Patrol office used to be up there on Broad Street. I was born in 00:03:00a house right there. And, uh, let me go back to my parents.

Breeding: Okay. Go ahead.

Jarrell: My parents, uh, Venus Jarrell and it was Hosie Daniels Jarrell, they divorced when I was young. So, but-- I don't remember him, because he left after they got the divorce, and my mother married again my stepfather, Columbus Washington. And that's who I really remember, and I grew up with, is my mother and my stepdaddy.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: But we was in that house up there on Broad Street by the farmer's market, and-- That was my grandmother's house, my mother's mother, Sadie Daniels, and my grandfather was George Daniels. We was living with them in that house. And I 00:04:00can remember back then, it was like a farm. We had cows, we had chickens, we had hogs, we had animals. As I can remember, the city limits was on this side of Hawthorne, coming down the hill. What I mean by that, if you are where Mount Pleasant is on that part of Hawthorne, we was in the city limits. But if you went across the other side of Hawthorne, you was in Clarke County. Athens wasn't consolidated then. You was in the county. But I remember that, and I remember we had, we didn't have no electric lights, and we didn't have water. 00:05:00We had well water, and we had a out house outside. And down the hill, now where farmers is that sell furniture and all that, was the spring. We went down there, and I can remember, I was about eight years old or seven or eight, or something like that, somewhere in there. And my job, we had, was to take the calf and some of the cows down to the spring every day. And every evening, I had to go get them. They was teaching us the work. They was giving us chores then. And I can remember a couple of times, my grandmother was always around. We called her, her name was Sadie Daniel, 00:06:00but we called--she kept all of us cousins. Of my mother and them, it was, I remember nine of them. So she had--. She had four, five brothers and four sisters back then. And so--

Breeding: That was your grandmother?

Jarrell: Huh?

Breeding: That was your grandmother? Or were you saying--

Jarrell: My grandmother had them. That's right.

Breeding: Okay. Okay.

Jarrell: My grandmother had them children.

Breeding: Oh, okay. When you say the four or five, are you saying your brothers and sisters, or they were your cousins?

Jarrell: They were my mother's brothers and sisters.

Breeding: Okay. I got you.

Jarrell: They were my mother's. My mother had five brothers and had four sisters. All us cousins ended up at the day at my grandmother's house. She kept us. We didn't go to daycare. Well, we 00:07:00did. We didn't go to daycare, and people kept us. All of us ended up at my grandmother's house. My grandmother, Miss Sadie Daniels, didn't work.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: But she kept us during the day. She cooked, and she washed clothes. She did all that kind of--. She was a housekeeper. So all us cousins growing up at her house, we were close. All us knew her.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: All of us together. I'm the only child. I don't have any sisters and brothers.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: So I grew up with cousins.

Breeding: I got you. Where did you go to elementary school?

Jarrell: My first school was West Broad Elementary School.

Breeding: And how long were you there?

Jarrell: I was there from the first grade until the--first through fourth grade. And in the fifth grade, 00:08:00there was--they built Lyons Junior High out by the airport. And, uh--. So, we went down to West Broad and caught the bus, and I went out to Lyons Junior High two years. That's--I was in the fifth grade then.

Breeding: Well, wait a minute. You said you all caught the bus?

Jarrell: Them two years.

Breeding: Okay. But, uh--

Jarrell: But the years before that, I walked to school from Broad Street down there to West Broad.

Breeding: Oh, okay. Okay.

Jarrell: I walked. Because we lived on Broad Street, and so I just walked down the hill. We walked to school. In elementary school, I walked to school.

Breeding: Now, at Lyons Middle, you say--

Jarrell: Lyons Junior High, they didn't call them middle then.

Breeding: Okay, Lyons Junior High, you had a, you caught a bus, was it off--

Jarrell: At West Broad. I walked down to 00:09:00West Broad, caught the bus, and they transported us out there.

Breeding: Okay, was it all Black then?

Jarrell: Yeah, all, from all my school year was all Black.

Breeding: Okay, so you were first through fourth.

Jarrell: I was at West Broad.

Breeding: West Broad Elementary.

Breeding: Then five and--

Jarrell: Six.

Breeding: Six.

Jarrell: I went to Lyons Junior High.

Breeding: Lyons Junior.

Jarrell: And the--

Breeding: Seventh.

Jarrell: I came back, we came back to West Broad in the seventh grade for some reason. Came back to West Broad in the seventh grade. And in the eighth grade, through twelve, we went up to Athens High Industrial School. That's where Burney, it turned into Burney-Harris, but that's Athens High Industrial.

Breeding: But when you were in school, it was all Athens High and Industrial?

Jarrell: In high school, yeah.

Breeding: Tell me, 00:10:00I'm sorry, go ahead.

Jarrell: While at Lyons Junior High, that's when I met Dr. Walter Allen and got in the elementary school band. I was ten year, Dr. Allen was the band director for the high school at Athens High Industrial. But during that tenure, he established the elementary school band too. At Lyons Junior High. At North Athens, all the Black elementary schools, he went around and started elementary school band.

Breeding: Okay, Walt Allen Senior.

Jarrell: Senior.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Dr. Walt Allen Senior.

Breeding: Dr. Allen.

Jarrell: Dr. Walt Allen Senior.

Breeding: So is that where you got your love for music because--

Jarrell: That's where I got into band, school band, elementary band playing clarinet.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: How many instruments do you play now?

Jarrell: I play most of it. I also took piano lessons that 00:11:00 year.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: When I was ten years old, I also took piano lessons. I play most woodwinds.

Breeding: Okay, because I--

Jarrell: Reed instruments, saxophone, clarinet, but the two years I was at Mississippi Valley State, I was a music major.

Breeding: Okay, hold on before you go to, we still gonna stay in high school, then we're gonna go to college.

Jarrell: Okay.

Breeding: Were you in a band when you were at Lyons Junior School?

Jarrell: Yeah, I was in the elementary school band. Dr. Allen had started elementary band at different schools, but he had the elementary band and the Athens High Industrial School band.

Breeding: Okay, and the Lyons Junior School, the fifth and sixth grade, he had that--

Jarrell: Elementary, but I was at Lyons Junior, but he was teaching at other schools too. But he formed an elementary school band too.

Breeding: Okay, 00:12:00I got you. So now let's go to Athens High and Industrial. Tell me about your band experience there. Did y'all play at football games and that type of thing?

Jarrell: We played at all football games. We played at the Christmas Parade, Dr. Allen, the state band festivals for the Black people, in that day we were segregated, was at Fort Valley, the state festival. You know when you go to the festival and compete against other bands like Washington, Highwater, Winder, Augusta, Macon, it was at Fort Valley. So every year he would take the high school band for the competition, but he would also get a bus for the elementary school band, although we weren't in competition. He was exposing us to that before we got there. He had 00:13:00a bus for us to go every year too. So I started going to Fort Valley every year too for that competition.

Breeding: So you already knew what college life was like at least for a couple of days every year from middle school on.

Jarrell: Yeah, we went to Fort Valley every year with the band, that's right.

Breeding: Okay, did y'all stay the night or basically it was a day trip?

Jarrell: We came back that day.

Breeding: Okay. Now, are there any other memories you have other than the band during any of those time periods?

Jarrell: Yeah, I got on the track team.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I wasn't the top track folks, but I ran the 880, the half a mile, the 440, and the 880. They call it something else now.

Breeding: 400 meters and 800 meters.

Jarrell: I ran them, but I wasn't 00:14:00the top runner, but I stayed on the track team because there was a trip every year.

Breeding: Oh okay.

Jarrell: We went to Fort Valley too.

Breeding: Oh okay.

Jarrell: So I went to Fort Valley with the track team too, at least two years. I think it was my 11th and 12th grade year. I think that's what it was.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And I was also-- In the 4-H club, Mr. and Mrs. Traywick, I don't know whether you remember them or not.

Breeding: I don't.

Jarrell: But Mr. and Mrs. Traywick, they was the director there, and we went to Dublin.

Breeding: Well, wait a minute. Were they white or Black?

Jarrell: They were, this all Black.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I didn't experience no white back then. I went to Black school system from elementary to the high school, Black school system.

Breeding: Well I know a lot of times when you had agencies back then like a 4-H or whatever.

Jarrell: Back then it was everything was all Black.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I graduated in 1964 remember. 00:15:00Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: So we didn't have, we had Black. I hadn't experienced white nothing.

Breeding: Okay now before I got, before I made that statement you were talking about your 4-H experience and sound like you were ready to say something else.

Jarrell: We went to Dublin, Georgia. I remember we went to the 4-H state. They had different things to go, and we went on a field trip. They took up the Lookout Mountain in Chattanooga, Tennessee. When I was in about the 8th or 9th grade.

Breeding: I'm sure that opened your eyes because I remember going in my younger years and I was like my goodness.

Jarrell: Yeah, we went, and like I said, we made the band trips with the band, Atlanta Schools. We played Washington High, Price, all of them in Atlanta. We went to Macon, Valley Hudson. 00:16:00We went to Augusta, Lucy Laney, all of them. And we played somebody in South Carolina one of them years. Because Dr. Allen is from South Carolina.

Breeding: Oh, okay. I didn't know that.

Jarrell: Yeah. He's from South Carolina.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: He just been here a long time.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: Uh-huh.

Breeding: Now, the Black band experience, even today, if you want to see a performance, people dancing, music right on time, everybody on the same dance, on the same step. I think of Lucy Laney High School. But even during this day and time, if you were to go to Birmingham, Alabama, that's the one I'm familiar with because that's where my dad is from, you would have a middle school band with 120 kids in it, and they literally outmarched the 00:17:00high schools around now, here, couldn't even, on a scale from one to ten, and they probably would be a two compared to the performances that they put on.

Jarrell: Well, I grew up with all Black, remember.

Breeding: No, this was all Black. I'm just saying, even today, Lucy Laney, you're looking at a performance.

Jarrell: I know.

Breeding: So how, the reason I even interjected that, how were the performances--

Jarrell: We were the same way.

Breeding: Oh, so y'all could still--

Jarrell: We grew up with Black band directors. I didn't grow up with white band directors 'til I got in the Army Band.

Breeding: So what you're saying, y'all stepped.

Jarrell: Yeah, we danced. Hey, Herman Sheats.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Who started Sheats Barbershop.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: This before I got to high school.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: He was the band director. I mean, he was the drum major.

Breeding: Herman Sheats.

Jarrell: Herman Sheats. I was looking, 00:18:00I was still in elementary school. I wasn't in high school.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And during the Christmas parade they would leave Athens High Industrial, come down here by Hill Chapel. Herman Sheats would come down off of there, do a split going down there. Herman Sheats would entertain them all the way down to the Christmas parade downtown. It's about where it is now.

Breeding: You know I've interviewed Herman Sheats' wife and daughter. They didn't tell me that. I'm going to have to call and ask them about it.

Jarrell: Yeah. But it was others. But he was one of the profound ones I was looking up at when I was younger.

Breeding: Well, you know, the band experience. In fact, there's a joke. If you get a band scholarship to a historical Black institution, that's better than a football scholarship. 00:19:00Jarrell: It is! Let me tell you where I see that at now.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I see it, I looked at this past Friday, no Saturday.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: When Georgia was playing.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I looked at Prairie View and uh, who was it? Prairie View and uh might have been Texas Southern, two Black schools. I look at it every Saturday and Friday.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: And I see the band. In the Black experience, you go get your refreshment before halftime.

Breeding: That's right, when the game's going on.

Jarrell: You look at the bands during the halftime.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: Yeah. Now, I went to Mississippi Valley.

Breeding: That was my next question. Go ahead.

Jarrell: Now, we basically didn't do the dancing and stuff like the rest of the school. All the rest of them did. All of them. All of 00:20:00them did. But we did traditional marching like--. But we did all the formations and making stuff. We were the first all-Black band to march in the Rose Bowl parade in Pasadena, California, New Year's Day, 1965.

Breeding: Okay. What was that experience like? Now, I have to ask you this. I've seen, especially high school now, you have a school like Lucy Laney and then you have the typical band. I can't imagine what the Black kids feel like watching that. I would imagine they feel cheated, because it's in our spirit, I think, to perform like that, just like dancing. 00:21:00Now you have some white kids and Hispanic kids can do the moves like we do now, but during my generation in high school, I mean, it was entertainment watching, you know, them trying to dance.

Jarrell: Right.

Breeding: So back during, so like you talked about the Rose Bowl. How did you feel as a Black student watching the white bands there that had all of the prestige.

Jarrell: We didn't watch them. We was in it too!

Breeding: But I'm just saying, knowing that they were there.

Jarrell: No, we was honored. We was, we had a good, we was number three band in the nation.

Breeding: Okay, compared to all of them.

Jarrell: Yeah, Florida A&M were always them rattlers with them hundred steps a minute was always number one now. Even back then. Now they did, so, I hate to say it like this, Michigan State is at number two. 00:22:00But they tried to pattern after Florida A&M back then. But we were number three. We were the number three marching band in the nation. That's how we got to go to the Rose Bowl. Although we didn't do, we, the band itself, we did all the formations and all that. But our drum major and all them majorettes and all them other folks, they did all the dances, so we still had it.

Breeding: I got you. Yeah. I got you.

Jarrell: Although our band director, Russell Boone, I think he was from St. Louis, but this man was one of them.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And see, the other thing is, is that, I'll say this, the state of Mississippi, the government and all them.

Breeding: Mm-hmm.

Jarrell: During that time, they didn't want us to integrate with them, but they gave us money to be taught separate 00:23:00 though.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: They did. Like the Southwest, we in the SWAC.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: We in the SWAC down there. Now, Jackson State, Southern, Alabama, and them, Prairie Review, that school I told you.

Breeding: Mm-hmm.

Jarrell: So, it was, I always experienced even going there, because the campus was nice and new and all, but we were honored, man, because we were first. The other thing, on the way out there, well, we wasn't flying, but we went in about four or five continental trailways. We ate at Holiday Inns all the way out there. We went in Carlsbad, Cave in Carlsbad, New Mexico. When we got out there, we marched at Disneyland, and we got tickets to the game. We were first class, man. So, we didn't-- we didn't even have time to look at Jackson. We knew we were just as good as them.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: Yeah. See, 00:24:00but we had a top band, though. The band would have been the football team. People was all over the country going to Mississippi Band.

Breeding: Right. Okay, I can visualize that.

Jarrell: It was the spirit. Our band director out there, Dr. Russell Boone, his philosophy was, "If you go anywhere, go first class. If you don't go first class, don't go." Remember all of them, remember the whole Black experience from here to college and all that. They were teaching us to be the best, the same way. So I got, that was a step up from what I got here. That's when Dr. Walter Allen sent us all over there. Dr. Allen had connection with all them places.

Breeding: Well, you know, that's one of the philosophies I grew up in. In fact, you had to be twice as good to get half a chance.

Jarrell: It was here, 00:25:00too, at Athens High Industrial, but it continued at Mississippi Valley.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: It continued. We went through a unique time at Mississippi Valley.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Yeah, we did. We wasn't looking at them. We were cutting up ourselves.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: Now, do you think that experience, you used the term Black experience.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: And I use that, I mean, I know it, I see it. In fact, I went to the University of Georgia. I wanted to go to Clark Atlanta, but they didn't offer me any money.

Jarrell: Right.

Breeding: And then plus, there were just too many pretty girls there. I didn't think I'd make it.

Jarrell: I hear you. I hear you.

Breeding: So, and I can imagine being in the band. So, the point I was getting to, that Black experience, do you think you would be the same person you are now if you had gone, 00:26:00let's say, to Mississippi State instead of Mississippi?

Jarrell: Well, it wasn't going to no Mississippi State.

Breeding: No, I'm saying if you had.

Jarrell: No.

Breeding: Okay, let me phrase it this way.

Jarrell: No, I know what you're talking about. I wouldn't be the same. I'm a proud, look up, look to your left up there, at them things up there, and look at that whole shelf. Look at this whole, and I got boxes of all this stuff that I done picked up at the flea market over the years. But this ain't nothing. This is my little display.

Breeding: Okay, and hold on, I got to tell the people who are listening what he's showing me is some very fine artwork. Now I collect artwork as well. And this is some, this is artwork that people 00:27:00with finances would have in their homes. Very well detailed. And so basically, what you're saying to me, you're keeping the experience alive, even in your home.

Jarrell: Yeah, I'm trying to pass it down to my generation in time.

Breeding: The next generation.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: But I'm a very, I know that our heritage is from Africa. I'm proud of that.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I know that what I grew up in and what you grew up in. All of us in the 60s and all that, we grew up in the Black experience.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: And that you can be anything you wanna be, if you're willing to work for it. And all of that, and not only did they tell us 00:28:00that, we were growing up in it and didn't know it. I didn't go to, I grew up in Black school, I didn't have no white instructors. I didn't have none of that. Elementary school, high school, college, all Black.

Breeding: Well, let me ask you something. With your musical experience, there's another gentleman when I see you. In my mind, I see him. And when I see him, I see you as well. And there are a couple of others. Benny Robeson. He's, I see him more in the schools. I think I've seen you, like I said, at the flea market playing instruments. And I noticed people would gather around you. And I had to gather to see where you were hypnotizing people or something with the music and making them buy from you. But the point I want to, the question I have for you, have you been 00:29:00in the schools recently, the public schools here?

Jarrell: I haven't been in recently, in the last. What, maybe five years or something.

Breeding: Well, let's say when you were there, how would you compare that to your experiences when you were

Jarrell: It's integrated. Let me go on. We got to go on to the Army, and then when I got out the Army, I came back and went to Athens Tech.

Breeding: Okay, well, we'll go ahead.

Jarrell: See, we got to get to the, well, the reason I'm saying the Army is that I dropped out of Mississippi Valley got married and I didn't finish. But I had done went, you know, like I said, we went to the Rose Bowl, and then we toured Arkansas, Louisiana, high schools and that in our concert band. We had a famous band at Mississippi Valley. But when I got drafted into the Army, six months later, 00:30:00I went to Fort Benning. And you know, Vietnam was going on, that's what they drafted me for, to go fight in Vietnam. So I took basic training at Fort Benning. On the test, I scored high on the clerical, so I was going to be a supply clerk, like at the post office or something like that, to supply a quarterman with the combat engineer.

Breeding: Was at the highest Blacks could get.

Jarrell: Huh?

Breeding: Was that the highest Blacks could get during that time?

Jarrell: Mhm-mhm. Blacks was getting up there. Blacks was getting up there.

Breeding: Okay. Well, continue.

Jarrell: During my era, Blacks was up there.

Breeding: Yeah. Continue.

Jarrell: But, but, but, let me tell you, and they sent me to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. And that's where I was going, the whole unit was going to be for a while, and then going over to Vietnam. I was there two days, and I found out that they had a band. And I went and tried out, and auditioned for the Army Band. 00:31:00And two days later, they cut me some orders. I was in the 399th Army Band at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. And the point I'm making there, that stuff that Dr. Allen taught me from fifth grade to twelve, and them two years that Russell Boone and Mr. Horne who was my private clarinet, I was playing clarinet, the instructor. We had all that in college. That stuff stood up. And I got in, I immediately got in the Army Band on clarinet. When I was five months in the Army, I was in the Army Band.

Breeding: Well you know what that reminds me of?

Jarrell: Dr. Allen was in the Army Band.

Breeding: Oh okay.

Jarrell: What that reminds me of, Alex Haley said he wrote love letters all during the war. So you played music also.

Breeding: That's what I did.

Jarrell: After five months I was in the Army Band.

Breeding: I 00:32:00know that made you happy.

Jarrell: I had to take another year though. They drafted me, that's two years. To get in Special Services, I had to take another year, which was cool, which was cool. So I really did three years. I stayed at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri for eighteen months. In my last eleven months I went to Germany. And I was in the 399th Army Band at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri. I was in the 84th Army Band at Fulda, Germany, which we traveled all over. Different places. We always got on the bus going somewhere to play.

Breeding: Yeah, I was going to ask you, where are some of the places you've been to?

Jarrell: Over there? Well--

Breeding: Well, before Germany.

Jarrell: Huh?

Breeding: Before you went to Germany. I want to know about Germany, too, but--

Jarrell: I was at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, which we was in Missouri up there with St. Louis, 00:33:00Jefferson City, all them different places. When the governor, or the assitant, we played for military events like Veterans Day. Like Memorial Day, we would go to different places and play, and all that kind of stuff. When they were campaigning for office, we would play for them, all that kind of stuff. Plus, we played graduations for basic training and all that stuff for the military, too.

Breeding: Okay, one question, what year was that?

Jarrell: 1967.

Breeding: Okay, how were you treated? How many Blacks were in the band?

Jarrell: Probably at Fort Leonard Wood, they had two bands, probably about eight or ten.

Breeding: How were you treated when you went to these different events? And I asked because I look at, listen about 00:34:00the Jackie Robinson story and basically eventually his teammates joined him in protest, they said you're going to treat Blacks fairly.

Jarrell: But see, that was the era before us. Our era, we didn't experience all that.

Breeding: So basically, you could eat at a hotel.

Jarrell: Anywhere.

Breeding: And during that time--

Jarrell: Even with Mississippi. We stopped at Mississippi Valley State. We stopped at Holiday Inn. Although we got out of Mississippi, we went through Dallas, and we went through New Mexico and all that kind of stuff. We stopped at places all along then.

Breeding: And were treated fairly?

Jarrell: Mm-hmm.

Breeding: And I think of, you know, Dr. King, what was he killed, in '68?

Jarrell: In Memphis.

Breeding: In Memphis.

Jarrell: I was in the Army then.

Breeding: But still, during that time frame--

Jarrell: There was some of that going on, but for some reason, I didn't see it.

Breeding: You think because of you being in the military?

Jarrell: The time was changing. 00:35:00Yeah, military, the military had something to do with it too, but even at Mississippi Valley, it was going on in Mississippi, but you know, when you're young, and you're eighteen, and you're away from home, it was going on then. But for some reason--

Breeding: That wasn't something you focused on?

Jarrell: Uh-uh. And for some reason, with the band, they treat musicians different. They do. Musicians can go anywhere. They treat musicians different. They still do. That's just like, I ain't famous like all these folks, Jay-Z and all that. But when people talk to me, and when I play, it's a whole different thing. They treat entertainers different.

Breeding: Well, you know, when I mentioned about being at the flea market and you're playing, you know, one time I sat on a table and 00:36:00just watched and looked like everybody, different age groups and genres, stopped and talked to you, so you may have a point there.

Jarrell: I know! Music, the other experience I had when I went to Germany in the army band over there, and we played a NATO show. A lot of different military bands from Europe, the Dutch band, the Holland band, the Spanish band, all of them. We played a NATO show in Arnhem, Holland, in two weeks. And then the show moved to Brussels, Belgium the next week. At that time, it was like a football show. Like we would play our show for America and the others, they would get out there, march, do what they did. At the end, all of us got together, we 00:37:00practiced, and covered the whole field and did the show.

Breeding: I bet that's, I've never seen that even on television.

Jarrell: I got pictures, I'll show you, I know. And then, but I had to start playing in clubs a little bit before I went over there. I started playing saxophone in the Army Band, that's what I forgot to tell you. I was just playing clarinet before that, and I auditioned on the clarinet, got me to all that. And then I started playing clarinet and saxophone. So after that NATO show, all of us were, we would get in, change clothes, civilian clothes, go down to the jazz club, spend the night at the jazz club, all night, with all these musicians from all these other countries who played jazz and all that too.

Breeding: Now, have you ever-- I don't want to, I got a question for you but I don't want to take you away from Germany. So well, have you ever played for some of the 00:38:00quote unquote great musicians here? I know like James Brown were to come to town from my understanding, they pull musicians from, have you ever played with any of the--

Jarrell: Alpha Cooper. When I got out the Army in 1970, Alpha Cooper had them had done been around with all them, playing for all them Percy Sledge, Clarence Carter. He was in that set. Marva Whitney, she was a part of the James Brown show. But they broke up, her and one of the managers, and he asked me did I want to go on the road with them. I went for a few months with Cooper.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And uh, and when Betty Swann and them came to town and all that kind of stuff, the Grains of Sand, we played behind them. Yeah, we done did all that stuff. But when we was on the road getting back to 00:39:00Marva Whitney, most times we went to Florida. We went a lot of different places because at that time Georgia had the alcohol room on Sunday. So the band, you went out. We went to, we played, and playing behind her, we played behind Major Lance. And if you don't really know it, Major Lance is kin to Lance Barber's daddy.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Yeah, we played behind different folks like that.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Even with that band, but band, when I got back here and guy came up, we had a wreck. I said, "Shoot, I'm coming off the road. I ain't going home and get a job." We had a bad wreck. In Adel, Georgia. We had done got somewhere past Valdosta. We was on 75. We took a pole off the exit sign, went down to fifteen feet embankment and turned over three times.

Breeding: Anybody killed?

Jarrell: Mhm-mhm. We didn't get, God was looking. Didn't nobody get hurt. But it totaled the van, and we had to catch the cabs and stuff to Florida. 00:40:00But nah. But I saw how people get killed on the road.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: So I brought my butt home.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And got, you know.

Breeding: Okay. Now, was band life what they call a fast life?

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: Okay, so you get involved with that and--

Jarrell: That and drugs and all that. When I came out the army, I was hooked on drugs, man.

Breeding: Tell me about that.

Jarrell: Well, I'd already been drinking and stuff, you know, before I left here. When I got to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, in '67, started smoking marijuana and all that. Went to Germany, she fell off the cliff, son. Anything that they told me would get me high, I tried it. Hashish, smoked hashish the whole year. Like, they marijuana, I don't know about now, but back then, they didn't have the leafy marijuana, but they had the form where they processed it in the hashish. We smoked hashish the whole year. Might have some opium in, 00:41:00took pills, took LSD, all that kind of stuff, for a whole year.

Breeding: How did you stop? How did you stop?

Jarrell: Well, that's another story. But anyway, I got back here in 1970, went on the band, worked at Westinghouse. When I told you I was coming out the road, I said, "I'm going to get me a job." So Westinghouse, which is Spire now, but it was power partners and all. I worked out there three years, but I was still high, but I managed to do it. I was out there a month, and I got the half a joint of my finger mashed off of one of them machines.

Breeding: Ooh.

Jarrell: But anyway, all that kind of stuff. I rocked on, and after I worked out there three years, and I think I just didn't go back one time. But you know they fire you anyway. You're still fired. But and then I got a job driving a truck, a one 00:42:00-ton truck for Marble company. It was right below Dubose and Johnson on Chase and all that. But I did that for a year. And I kind of liked driving the truck, and delivering plumbing stuff. But, and I was back and forth to Athens Tech. I started going to Athens Tech, too, in 1970. At first, I took a couple of quarters of drafting, but I decided I was going to switch to marketing and management. So I switched to marketing and management. In and out, and in and out, and then I left that job after it got slow driving the, I liked driving that truck. I learned a lot. But after it got slow working in the warehouse, I couldn't deal with that. That racism and all that stuff came up then. So, but I said, shoot, I'm going back to Athens Tech, I had the GI Bill.

Breeding: Okay. Now what year was this, when you said all that racism is starting to come up?

Jarrell: 1973, then. 00:43:00But it was coming up anyway. The racism been here all the time, but I'm talking about on the job.

Breeding: Okay. I was just thinking back when you were saying, but I think you clarified that, when you were saying that in '67, you didn't experience racism, but you were in the band.

Jarrell: I saw it with the rest of the past.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I'm changing that. Let me get over here.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I did see the racism. I saw the racism in the Army. I was just in special service.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: Yeah, I saw it.

Breeding: Saw it, but didn't have to experience it.

Jarrell: And they tried to do it with us, but you know I know how to rise above it by that time.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: It was there. Racism always was there. But I'm just talking about, you was talking about like what, not in my travel and all that other stuff.

Breeding: Oh, okay. I got you.

Jarrell: Not in that kind of stuff. But in 00:44:00the promotions and the rank, we had a first sergeant that was Black at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and naturally, he experienced more than we did by him being over white folks and all that, Sergeant Smith, and all that, and all that. But the time I went in the army, I mean, Blacks had their roles. There were lieutenants and captains. There was all that stuff. But if it was just a few of them, you'd see one or two, you know.

Breeding: Okay. So I'm glad we got to that. I'm glad--

Jarrell: I always saw racism. I don't-- because I see it now.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: I always have seen it.

Breeding: Look, I want to go back to high school in Athens. I understand from my other interviews the Klan was very active around here.

Jarrell: Oh, yeah. Okay, let's go back to that. I forgot to mention all 00:45:00of that. It was Black and white. You had to go to the back, whites, Black, color, back door, that's how we grew up. The Blacks had to go to the back door, or anything, the Varsity, anywhere, anywhere the whites were concerned. They had a Black, they had to go to the back door, and all that kind of stuff. When Charlayne Hunter and all them came, that was in '61, I think it was '61. But we marched at the Varsity, too.

Breeding: That was going to be my next question.

Jarrell: We integrated the Varsity and the Dairy, because I was part of that. We met at Ebenezer Baptist, because, you know. That was all over the country, they had different people's schedules, and it was here, Reverend 00:46:00Malick. Reverend Malick was the pastor of Ebenezer Church back then, and he was a probation officer too. He was in, but yeah, they organized us. We met, and we marched, and we were part of the movement back then.

Breeding: There is a, I saw it on YouTube, it's called If We Choose, were you were part of, it talked about integrating the Varsity, and I tell you, the attorney--

Jarrell: We were part of SCLAC and all that stuff.

Breeding: Right, SCLAC.

Jarrell: That's what we were part of.

Breeding: Okay, okay.

Jarrell: Just like everywhere else, all over the country, we were part of all that.

Breeding: Now, what's the, during the demonstration, what's the worst experience that you had?

Jarrell: I didn't have it like the rest of them had. During the demonstrations, 00:47:00we went to the Varsity, well, we were headed down Broad Street from Ebenezer West, and they brought the paddy wagons and took us out to the stockade, and you know the stockade can't hold nobody.

Breeding: That's where the fair is, the stockade?

Jarrell: Uh-uh, out there where the transit buses is.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: That little, that was the stockade. That's the old stockade there, and they took us out there, and they filled up quick, and the group I went in, I wasn't even in the stockade, they just had to lock the gate on us. It was so many. It was too many of us. And they, let's see. They let us out. I got--

Breeding: How long were y'all ever in there?

Jarrell: Not a whole day. Because they couldn't hold them.

Breeding: Yeah, I have a--

Jarrell: But it was a few of them. A few of them they kept two or three days that they had to negotiate with. I 00:48:00forgot who that was right now, but it was two or five, maybe ten or something like that. It couldn't hold them.

Breeding: Well, I have a cousin from Birmingham, and he told me that he had figured it out. He said what he would do is tell his mama, "Look, don't worry about lunch, but I'll be home for dinner." And she's like, "Well, where you going?" He said, "Jail." And what would happen, they'd pick up so many, they had to let the ones out.

Jarrell: That's what I'm telling you.

Breeding: Yeah, that's the way it was.

Jarrell: My mama was scared. My mama had done told me, "Don't do it." But I did it anyway. Because that's what was going on. You know. My momma had done told me not--. My momma worked there, and my stepdad worked at the porch over there. But she had done--. And we had done moved from up there to Magnolia at that time. We moved in Magnolia. I forgot about all that in 1956. We had done--.

Breeding: We can go back through.

Jarrell: But anyway, my 00:49:00momma had done told me not to do it, but I went anyway. And the thing was, she didn't have to come get us out of jail, because they couldn't hold us nowhere. And they had us--. Like I said, by the time I got out there, they just pulled the gate closed. On the yard. It was too many of us. Yeah, they wasn't prepared for all that. But the Klan did show up around. I have seen them in hoods and different stuff up there around the Varsity, and different places like that. But for some reason, I haven't seen the incidents, but I know people that have them, though. I knew people that had them on either Magnolia and Colima, where the Edwards Building is now, or Evans Street. I remember the Klan had came down through there, and Officer Billups and Harold Wade, he just died. They were shooting back at the Klan. 00:50:00Breeding: Oh, the Klan was shooting at the police?

Jarrell: Mm-mm. At the folks in their houses. These guys in the community.

Breeding: No, you said the police was shooting at the Klan.

Jarrell: Officer Billups was at his house then. He was at home.

Breeding: Oh, okay. Okay.

Jarrell: He lived on Evans Street, right down the street from the Edwards Building. And across the street. I ain't personally came in contact with it, but it didn't happen. I ain't had no incident. For some reason, I don't know, God just done blessed me. You know, it's been all around. Even with the, that's just like going in the Army. I was drafted in the Army, but I ain't fight. I ain't been shot at. I was in there three years. God took me through all that stuff. That's all I can attribute it to.

Breeding: See, one question now that we've gone back. Hot Corner, the 00:51:00 Bottom?

Jarrell: Hot Corner. Hot Corner first.

Breeding: All right.

Jarrell: Okay. I remember when a lot of Blacks had businesses on Hot Corner. I went to Dr. Hiram. She was a Black dentist. When I was young, she pulled one of my teeth. I forgot how old I was. I forgot all of that. But Dr. Hiram, she, and there was over there on that side by where the Morton Theater was, over in that area. Mack and Payne was over there, down on Hot Corner back then, in the era. Chief Lumpkin, them offices and all of that, they was part of that. Let's see. Ray Ware, he owned the building next to the Morton Theater, yeah, the Black guy, Ray 00:52:00Ware. My stepdad had me, I used to go clean it up. He owned that whole building. It was like the Morton or something. Back then, they used to bring shows, and all those stars used to come to the Morton. But it was all kind of businesses down there, on Hot Corner. I can't remember all of them, but it was a lot of businesses was down on Hot Corner, during that time when I grew up. And the Bottom--.

Breeding: Now, let me ask you, when you go to the Bottom. I've heard some people refer to it as the Black bottom, as if I just called it the Bottom.

Jarrell: That's the same thing. Black folks live at the bottom.

Breeding: Okay, that's what I was thinking, but they said, I said, well, the bottom. They said, No, you mean the Black Bottom. And I'm like, are they two different places?

Jarrell: Not that I know of.

Breeding: But it was almost like I was giving them disrespect by not calling it the Black bottom. Go ahead.

Jarrell: Kind of back-- I had an aunt living in there. 00:53:00Kind of down there, by Bethel Homes, going down through that way where the trains stay, and all that, and going on out to Water Street, they call it MLK, and all that now, all that part of it.

Breeding: Now, what went on there?

Jarrell: The Bottom was rough, a rough area to live in, that I remember.

Breeding: Okay, because doing the interviews, what I am hearing, that you had Hot Corner, which basically was a Black business district.

Jarrell: That was a business district.

Breeding: Then you had part of the Bottom where people would just congregate.

Jarrell: Right. It was a place where people lived, though. You know--

Breeding: Well, they lived, but out-of-towners would come.

Jarrell: Yeah, they'll go there now. My aunt that lived in the Bottom drank a lot and cussed a lot, and they would fight, all that stuff. People congregated. But they had a good time, 00:54:00too. Like you said, it was a spot.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: They made it a spot, like the block.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: You know, the block is a spot. You know.

Breeding: It has a culture with it.

Jarrell: Yeah. That's right.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: That's what the, I had one of my aunts live in the Bottom.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: That's why I ain't going to say no more about that.

Breeding: Well, we'll leave that as it is.

Jarrell: But, where it was then, all us kids, we would go in, like I said, now if you go from one section to the other section, you had to fight them all, and they'd rock you, but for some reason, I was a musician. I always have been able to go anywhere. I was in Rocksprings Homes all the time, 'cause that's what I want to tell you about.

Breeding: Talk to me

Jarrell: In Rocksprings Home. Back during that time, Rocksprings, Broad Acres. There was the two Black ones, 00:55:00Black didn't live in Parkview back then, because white folks, that was the project for white folks back then.

Breeding: Parkview.

Jarrell: Parkview, yeah.

Breeding: Okay, now how about Pauldoe?

Jarrell: That wasn't here.

Breeding: Okay, keep talking.

Jarrell: I'm talking about when I came up.

Breeding: Right, right.

Jarrell: I'm talking about growing up.

Breeding: So Pauldoe wasn't even here.

Jarrell: Pauldoe, Nellie B, all them, they was the new, I saw them when I came back from the Army. I wasn't even here then. They built them in the 60s. But Broad Acres and Rocksprings, families moved in them then. And a lot of reasons they moved in them back then is because in the Black community, a lot of us didn't have, like I told you, we didn't have running water in one of them houses we had. We didn't have heat. We didn't have all that stuff in there. So, some of the families, the parents and 00:56:00their kids, moved in there to have a better living thing. They had heat. They had running water. They had all that stuff. But they wasn't like you see them today, 'cause them parents supervised all them kids. Aaron and them, all them people, they lived in Broad Acres. I was in Rocksprings Home every day, 'cause that's where our Black YMCA was. That little building in the middle, that was the Black YMCA. That's what that was back then. The Samuel Harris branch of the YMCA, that was the Black--. We didn't do nothing with white folks back then, that's what I'm telling you. And I was over there all the time, 'cause I like, you know, sports, and I got to know the families and a lot of the guys over there, and in Broadacres too, all that. But see, me being over there all the time and being a musician, I could go anywhere, 00:57:00go over on Third Street, over the river, because they know I played the piano. They treat musicians, but other guys, they got the sort of leg, they're going to get in a fight if you go over territories and stuff.

Breeding: Um.

Jarrell: But anyway, I learned at the YMCA. I learned to swim when I was about twelve. I took swimming lessons.

Breeding: Okay

Jarrell: Our Black swimming pool was in New Town, Riverside. You ever heard about it?

Breeding: Talk to me.

Jarrell: It was in, our Black swimming pool was in Newtown. We had one pool for all Blacks. I used to walk from Magnolia over there every day to swim and walk back home. Yeah, I learned how to swim when I was--. But I went through the Y and I took swimming lessons. Penn, Mr. Penn, he was one 00:58:00of the lifeguards, the lady, but he also taught us how to swim, too. He was a veteran. I learned like that. And I learned how to skate. I got some skates, I learned how to skate in the street, but I perfected it on the sidewalk when they built, redo the sidewalks in Broadacres and all that, we go all over there and ping pong and all that kind of stuff, softball, basketball, all that kind of stuff. But I was at the Y. I loved going to the Y. I liked music, too, but that and, I didn't know at that time that all that, that I was going to be working at East Athens Community Center.

Breeding: Okay. I didn't know. Talk to me.

Jarrell: I was the assistant director. East Athens Community Center, Thomas Allais was the superintendent of recreation. 00:59:00And after I had finished Athens Tech out there, by the way, he from up there by where the church is, his mama, my mama, all of us from Brooklyn. We call that Brooklyn, Hawthorne, all that. But anyway, I had finished in. I had asked about some of them jobs, and they had jobs on the CEDA program.

Breeding: I remember CEDA.

Jarrell: That's how I got, I got a job six months, temporary, at the East Athens Community Center in 1976 in the summer.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And so they kept me on. And so once they keep you on, I was part of Athens, the city of Athens, then, it wasn't Athens-Clarke county. So I worked there for a couple of years, and I got promoted to assistant director at Bishop Park. And I went out there two years. I was the assistant. I was the rec leader. Well, at first, I wasn't even with the county. I was just on CEDA. And then 01:00:00I was a rec leader at East Athens Community Center. And then-- I went to Bishop Park, and I was one of the assistant directors, assistant community service director. And after two years, everyone called me, because the assistant director, Lars Huff, he had left and went out to Memorial, and he asked me would I come back over there.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. And I had got promoted, so I agreed to transfer back over, so I transferred back in 1980. And I worked at East Athens Community Center for twenty-one years.

Breeding: That's where I kept seeing you.

Jarrell: That's where we met at.

Breeding: That's where I kept seeing you.

Jarrell: I was the assistant director over there at East Athens Community Center. Uh-huh. I worked over there twenty-one years, and then my last eight years, they did a move. They moved a lot of 01:01:00us around, and they moved me outside in Sandy Creek. I did my last eight years at Sandy Creek, but I was already assistant director.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: See, a lot of that stuff, I got all my training, basic training, at East Athens Community Center. I can tell you all kinds of stories about over there, about the Black community versus the white community.

Breeding: Talk to me.

Jarrell: Okay. At--

Breeding: Hold it. Before we do that. When they made this big move, what I have seen, especially during integration in the schools. They would move somebody, let's say you were a principal of a high school. You basically were going to be moved out and be possibly a principal at a junior high school or a middle school, but chances are you were no longer going to be the principal somewhere. You'd be assistant principal somewhere else. But the school, the 01:02:00white principal, whatever school he came from, no matter what building they used, was always the principal. So when they made that shake-up, was there any change in position?

Jarrell: They did it different. They did it different.

Breeding: So they kept it straight, so if you were--

Jarrell: They couldn't take your position.

Breeding: All right, well, we're good. Let's go on now to--

Jarrell: But let me tell you about it, though.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: It's still a click to it.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Everett Heard was like a superintendent over recreation. Him and this white lady. What they did, they couldn't take his position and his money, but they moved him from there and made him a specialist. Not a super-- He was over all of them, but they made him a specialist out in the supervisor realm, but like he was over the media, and that's when he got a chance to do Grand Slam. He's 01:03:00here. He's proud with it. But that wasn't their intent though.

Breeding: I got you. I know you, it has been, over the years I've noticed.

Jarrell: But he didn't go down. He didn't go down, but he was a supervisor though.

Breeding: He stayed even.

Jarrell: His pay grade stayed even.

Breeding: His pay grade stayed even, but he did not have the same responsibility.

Jarrell: That's right.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: They put him out where he could do, because he knows how to do a lot of media stuff and film, and you know how he did, and all that. But he was innovative enough still to get Grand Slam. That was on him. See, he had that stuff in him. He was a unique person in there.

Breeding: Right. I remember him.

Jarrell: Yeah. But I was with him at East Athens Community Center until he got over there. That's where I got my triangle with him and Pete Flanagan.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. And, because, see, they went to Southern, Everett and Pete, Southern in Baton Rouge. 01:04:00And I went, all of us was in the SWAC. I went to Mississippi Valley, and it's a lot of us went. But, when, now, they moved a lot of us around, and like you said, they did that. When they moved me out, Sandy Creek Park, they couldn't, I still had, I had to be the assistant director. Ain't no way they could put me. I was assistant director already, anyway. I was assistant director at Bishop Park, at East Athens, and then them last eight years. So I was next to the head man all the time.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. Now, you know how it is, they're going to try you to see what kind of person you is.

Breeding: What you, what they can get away with.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. But see, my thing, I had already been over there, East Athens. And I done worked at Bishop Park two years from '78 to '80. So I had already 01:05:00had a thing. That was my first time working with them, with white folks and all that. And plus I had about, what, I had twenty-one years. I had more seniority than all of them, too, along with all that. So I wasn't, and I done been in the Army, and I didn't, I ain't living that none of that. But the other thing is, is I started keeping reference at Bishop Park back then. You know, I learned it in marketing management, remember. But I put it into action that whatever go down, like a calendar, the day's thing, I'm writing it down on the calendar.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: Whether it's that, this, whether it's the event or the place, or whether it's something with employees, or whether it's what. And the other thing is, even with every normal profession, we evaluated employees before the county to start doing.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: We did all that stuff over there at East Athens 01:06:00before they started doing it. So I got a jump up. That's an ice maker I got, isn't it?

Breeding: No, I just thought when you move, I thought I saw a shadow.

Jarrell: Okay, I'm sorry. But anyway--

Breeding: No, I thought I saw a shadow. That's why I did that. Go ahead.

Jarrell: But anyway. But let me get back to East Athens.

Breeding: Now, you said when you were, there was some things you could tell when you're talking about the Black community or white community?

Jarrell: Oh, that's what I'm getting to now.

Breeding: Oh, okay. Go ahead.

Jarrell: That's what I'm getting to now. In the old days, when it was city of Athens, Lonnie Dickinson was the boss. They wouldn't give us the money then, but the thing we needed to do for the community, we had the freedom to do it. You know.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: But then, we would come up with stuff. They said, like I could come up with some stuff, or he would come up with some stuff, they said. 01:07:00And they said, well, that's a good idea, ain't it. Said, but we ain't got the money. That's how they channeled the money stuff away from there. But now, I done worked at Bishop Park and came back to East Athens. Well, the money was flowing at Bishop Park. I had experienced all that kind of stuff, and I'm keeping records of all this stuff. You know.

Breeding: So Bishop Park basically was the white community, and East Athens was the Black community.

Jarrell: Let me go back a little bit. Model City, when Miss Corene Neely and Miss Miriam Moore and all them, they worked for that Model City thing.

Breeding: Are you saying malls?

Jarrell: Model City.

Breeding: Model, okay.

Jarrell: They worked for, they tapped into stuff like that and brought that to Athens, 01:08:00Clarke County to get money for the Black community. They worked their home thing. They worked to do that. And Virginia Walker, and all that group that worked together. They worked together to the end. And Miss Bonnet, Barbara Bonnet. It's a group of them. They worked for years like that. Definitely, you see the Miriam Mobile. Definitely, you see all that stuff over there. Them folks worked for all that stuff.

Breeding: You had to have somebody like Michael Thurman to fight to make sure it happened.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. He was up higher, yeah. But they kept working. But, but--

Breeding: No, no, no, no. The point before you move on--. No, you go ahead. Go ahead.

Jarrell: The money that they got to build East Athens and Lake Park from all that federal, that federal money to enhance inner cities and all that. At first, they were just doing it up north in places. Miss Molden and Miss Needham, they tapped into 01:09:00that stuff from here. And they brought that money down to Athens and Clarke County. Guess what happened? They took the bulk of the money and built Bishop Park. Because, see, they had to send it through the government. Even though it'a coming through them, the conduit got to be a government.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: And that's why the white folks, although, and they built us a hub. And they built Bishop Park with that money. That was a fairground. The fair used to be out there then, where Bishop Park is. But anyway, they did that. When I went to East Athens, they had, yeah, we had the new building. We didn't have no insulation in there. We didn't have that wood floor then. We had the concrete floor, the base floor, the wood floor, and they had them painted. We didn't have no 01:10:00insulation nowhere. We just had concrete.

Breeding: So they gave you the bare minimum?

Jarrell: Huh?

Breeding: Y'all got the bare minimum?

Jarrell: We did have a swimming pool, but we're supposed to have that land all out there. We're supposed to have ball fields, tennis courts. What they would do, they would send a plan up and get the money, and when it come to the government and him, they reduce the plan, and they come out with the actual implemented plan, the implemented plan.

Breeding: Okay, I want to ask you, if a person was writing a curriculum, for the schools, for the community, or whoever, the church, whoever was going to teach it, and you had to name call, what names would you have on there? I know you mentioned Walter Allen Sr., you mentioned Ms. 01:11:00Neely. Go down the list for me.

Jarrell: Howard Stroud.

Breeding: All right, start from the beginning. This is your list.

Jarrell: My list--

Breeding: Would be.

Jarrell: Well, it'll be all my teachers though.

Breeding: Start naming.

Jarrell: It'll be all the Black teachers, Ms. Diggs. This at West Broad. This at West Broad Elementary.

Breeding: If you know first names, say them as well.

Jarrell: I can't think of all of them.

Breeding: Well, we'll look them up. Go ahead and name.

Jarrell: Ms. Jones. I'm going to start with them first. Ms. Jones, she was my first grade teacher. Ms. Diggs, Ms. Alfred, James Alfred's mama. I'm going blank. It's a lot of them, man. I have to come back to West Broad. Out at Lyons school would be Ms. 01:12:00Neal, and she ended up being Ms. Jones, Ms. Clemmons, and then. Let's see. I don't want to get to high school yet, but I'm trying to think of West Broad. Ms. Freeman was the principal. Ms. Freeman. By the way, my mama went to West Broad, too.

Breeding: Oh, okay.

Jarrell: She got a whole other list today. Ms. Burney, who Burney-Harris is a member of. She was the principal when she went. And all that. But, and then when I got to high school, there's a whole bunch of them. Professor Edwards was the principal. Doc Robeson. Mr. Troutman. Mr. Roberts. 01:13:00Miss, she was Miss Hope, but she married [unintelligible] later. Her, Miss Nonley. I look at my yearbook. All of them, all the Black experienced teachers, when I look back at it, all of them was like that. But the thing, too, with that versus integration, we had our own.

Breeding: Do you think integration helped or hurt us?

Jarrell: It hurt us that way, in that we had our own. And like you said, once they moved them, they moved them down. That's when a lot of them quit in Athens. A lot of them retired and all that because they weren't going to be at that position was no more. But the teachers, the second-hand books and all that, that didn't hurt us. We didn't know that. That didn't hurt us because we had second 01:14:00-hand books, but we had teachers that were teaching to be our best and to give us everything. But the other thing was the community. The teacher and the parent and the churches, they were one. You better not go home talking about this teacher did this and this teacher did that. You got to whooping before you got out what you got to say about them.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: We had discipline. We lost discipline. And that's the main thing for us. The discipline, the teacher, my mama and them knew the teachers on Magnolia. A lot of teachers stayed over there. But even if they did stay over there, the community, they were respected.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: But they could whoop our butt, too. I got plenty of whoopings in school. I got plenty, and other plenty at church, too. I got plenty of whoopings. Look, and I remember, I was in high school, Doc Robeson. 01:15:00He said, "Look like you're going to have to take the thrashing." He said, "I'll give you a choice." He said, "Two days out of school or three licks." I said, I had to take the three licks, I don't want my mama to hear nothing about that. (laughs) We lost, man.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: Yeah, because our community, that's the biggest part. We were, all that oppression, and all that back door, and all that, but they were working to give us the best. And all the Black teachers in the whole experience were pushing, and all that stuff on the inside of us, man.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: It still is. And then, it still is. My adventures through Athens-Clarke County, but like you said, now, I learned a lot in marketing management. And once I started record keeping, see, that didn't, I'm going to tell 01:16:00you some incidents. One time, Lonnie Dickinson said, we was always getting in hot water because they didn't want to give us nothing over East Athens. We would kind of go out and get the grass. And I was always in there with them because I was the assistant director. And I got records and stuff too, see. And one time, well, the first how it got started is when I left and I went to Bishop Park. And for some reason, I was, it was a Black lady out there, Carolyn Carr. I don't know whether you remember her. She was like,

Breeding: What was the name?

Jarrell: Carolyn Carr. I ain't going to be writing this down. I'm just telling you this. But anyway, I was assistant director. It was a park manager, assistant park manager, and I was the assistant community center director. So I was the lowest of the directors, but I was one of them.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: He came to me, and he said, "When it rained, put this rug." I don't know why 01:17:00they had a shag rug down in the gym. You know, you needed a water mat. But at that time, they had a shag rug. He came to me one time and said, "Venus, when it rains, take the rug down, because it's slippery," and all that kind of stuff. Then I said, "Okay." I wrote the memo down. I didn't tell him this. I wrote the memo down, put it on the park thing there. See, I got the record keeper. But I know some shit was going to come. I did it to save my butt. I'm out here with these--. This crazy--. C.C. was the director. Crazy as whatever. But then the white--. And I put it on his desk, too. And I put a copy. That's my file. I started that out there. So he came back about a couple of months later, and he said, "Venus, this is Bob. 01:18:00He's the head of the Recreation and Parks Department." So Venus said, "I came out here one time, it was raining," and said, "They hadn't took the rug down," and said, "I came back the second time in these days." I said, "Come on upstairs." We went upstairs. I got that memo off my desk, and I showed that thing to him, where I put it down, dated it, all that. I still do that, all that kind of stuff. Shit, he had to walk his way, he had to change his mind. So that's the last time he came to me for some stuff. But how it played out is when I went back to East Athens, we ain't got no heat. Them units, the heat had messed up.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: And they don't want to buy them units up top. And they coming in there with thermometers. Talking about the thermometers, say it then, we got jackets on about to catch the flu. Man, we done went through all kind of battles, man. It's different battles. But this time, when we get out there. I'm meeting, and 01:19:00him and Tom, they were still living then. But I'm always out there with them, because we're ganging up. While they're talking, I'm looking, and then while I'm talking, he's looking.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: You know we got this strategy going. And then the Black folk, they played it up, too. They said, "If you go to Venus, if you go to the bathroom, Venus will write it down." But all that played into my hand. And then Lonnie said, "The boss tell us," he said, "Y'all got a bad attitude." One time, he said, "'Cause when the maintenance workers come, they don't come to y'all. They go straight and do the job." They ain't got nothing to do with that. But I came out with it then. I said, "I was out at Bishop Park, and they did the same thing." I dealt with that. And then--

Breeding: And that helped you. I know I used to carry it.

Jarrell: Yeah. I do that. But let me tell you this other thing. One time 01:20:00he told us, he said, he was all the way hurt. He said, "Well, I told y'all this, and I told you this." I said, "Lonnie." I said, "No, you didn't, Lonnie." I said, "Because I got it wrote down."

Breeding: This is the head of--

Jarrell: This is the head man over at Recreation. He backed down.

Breeding: Well, keeping record--

Jarrell: Look, I didn't have it wrote down. I'm a bluff at that. But the fact that I wrote stuff down all the time, they wouldn't challenge it.

Breeding: Well, I tell you, I used my ending years of school teaching, it was a hit party, I would say, out for me. So what I used to do is keep a recorder where you could see it right there in my pocket so they never gossiped around me, and they never tried to say anything. In fact, one of the directors, they got her too, they brought her in to take care of people. But I'm not going to go on that story, but the bottom line, she said, "Oh, it is true you carry a recorder." 01:21:00I said, "This one right here don't have any batteries in it, but this one that I have right here, I always keep batteries." Now look, I'm going to switch gears.

Jarrell: But I'm going to tell you one thing else about this, but it helped in other ways too. It helped that when I had to look back and say what date did it come up with the report. That's the main reason I was doing it, but it did that too. I wrote it down. I had them calendar books, the day we did it, the day we, because you're going to forget that stuff. Then when I got any kind of report, I can go back and formally do that.

Breeding: And pull it.

Jarrell: All that.

Breeding: Now, I'm going to go back if we can.

Jarrell: Okay. I can go back.

Breeding: We did this list, and you said all of the teachers. You gave me some last names.

Jarrell: I got some favorites

Breeding: Hold on. And we'll go back and look at the yearbook. But now just people in the community, give me some names that if we were doing Black people from Athens that need to be studied 01:22:00and learned from. Give me some names. We talked about Howard Stroud, Miriam Moore. So go in that category.

Jarrell: Dr. Allen.

Breeding: Dr. Walt Allen.

Jarrell: Dr. Walt Allen is my main mentor.

Breeding: All right, keep going.

Jarrell: The next one is Mr. Stroud. But now this is when I got up to high school.

Breeding: No, just give me a list.

Jarrell: Okay.

Breeding: It doesn't have to be in high school. There's no kind of order.

Jarrell: No kind of order.

Breeding: Aaron Heard.

Jarrell: Aaron Heard, Pete Fair.

Breeding: Keep going. Keep going.

Jarrell: Michael Thurman, Keith Heard. Let me think. Let me keep thinking. Oh, even back then to, there was old, golly, George Hester, even some of them wasn't on our level, but they still did what they did.

Breeding: No, I'm just saying somebody that needs to be studied.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. Oh, uh-huh.

Breeding: It doesn't have to be somebody on the level. In fact, 01:23:00there are people that go to work, do a good job, and just observing them puts something in your spirit to do good.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. Even Reverend Larry Fulton, them mama, Mrs. Joseph B. L. Ford and Mother Ford, we were nextdoor neighbors all the time.

Breeding: Keep going.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. Miss Shelton. A lot of teachers lived there last week. Mr. Holston, Mrs. Jackson.

Breeding: Okay. Now, we're going to get a yearbook and look at those teachers. You said all of them need to be on that list.

Jarrell: Mm-hmm.

Breeding: Okay. Well, look. I'm going to switch gears.

Jarrell: Go ahead.

Breeding: Okay. One last thing.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: And it's hard for me to believe we got this far in a discussion and we have not mentioned this.

Jarrell: What?

Breeding: I know you as a person that plays in a lot of churches and with your music, or take music to the church.

Jarrell: Uh-huh.

Breeding: Give me some of that experience.

Jarrell: Number one, 01:24:00I grew up in the church. My mother, I had to go to church. It was no ill. But most of us did back then. But even if the parents didn't make you go, your aunt or your uncle who were in church, they going. You know, but I grew up at Mount Pleasant, Brooklyn. I grew up in that church. Even before I knew I was there, I grew up there. My uncle, my mother's brother, Gold Daniel was a deacon. My uncle's brother J.D. Daniel, mama's brother, was a deacon. My uncle W.D. Daniel was a deacon. My stepdaddy was a deacon at New Grove in Jackson County, up there by where South Jackson used to be. You know where that is?

Breeding: Right, yeah.

Jarrell: Turned right into that church right there. Now, I've been going to that church all my life, 01:25:00too, because that's my stepdaddy church. When the car moved, I've been going to both of them churches all my life.

Breeding: Now, you played music in--

Jarrell: Yeah, I'm going to get to that, but anyway, I raised up in the church. The church is in me. When I came back out of the army, I started playing in the church. At first, it was playing solo and stuff like that in the church.

Breeding: Where?

Jarrell: Mount Pleasant.

Breeding: Mount Pleasant, okay.

Jarrell: And then when I was at Mississippi Valley, I'm a music major, so I can transpose music. I can look at a song, and I can transpose that from the major key to a different instrument, and I can be playing the song and go back at what I'm playing and 01:26:00still write it down.

Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: Uh-huh. But anyway, I used to get, people who played in elementary school and all that, that they knew how to read music. And I could transpose stuff for them to play for specialty stuff, Christmas music and Black History music. I did that at East Athens and at Mount Pleasant.

Breeding: Okay, so East Athens, Mount Pleasant.

Jarrell: And other churches, some too. And remember that me and Dr. Farmer and Robert T. and a lot of us used to get together and play to read music.

Breeding: Talking about Tommy Farmer? I mean not Tommy Farmer, Willie Huggs. Right.

Jarrell: But I also done played piano. I didn't stay in the book as long on piano, but I learned to read music on piano too. But I stopped taking lessons, started going to Y, my mother whooped my butt. 01:27:00But then I played piano for a lot of other churches. But by, I forgot what year. I just, I always have played saxophone on solo and at East Athens and got other people. I always have done that. My grand, I got a grandson, Dominique Bradford, my oldest daughter's son. He been playing keyboard behind me for over twenty years where we put together some stuff and I played for banquets. You probably seen me did some of that stuff too.

Breeding: Right.

Jarrell: And all that stuff. But the last time we played, we played for Fred Smith and them a couple of months ago, that thing there at the Lyndon House. But I started playing my saxophone too with the church choirs a few years ago. That's what I do. I play every Sunday with Mount Pleasant. But I play other stuff too.

Breeding: Now, I gotta, and I'm gonna respect 01:28:00your time, when we started setting up the time to go for us to set up the meeting, or the interview.

Jarrell: I gotta go somewhere.

Breeding: You said you had to go somewhere, so I'm gonna, I'm telling you--. I know you put that clock up there for me. I'm just kidding. I know you didn't. But my last question to you, well, two things. The first thing I'm gonna ask you, is there anything that we haven't covered that we need to? And the second thing, did you look in the mirror today?

Jarrell: Yeah, I look every day.

Breeding: All right, now you looked in the mirror today and you saw yourself. I can tell how you coordinated. I imagine--

Jarrell: I shave every morning. Never dreamed I'd be doing that.

Breeding: I imagine you did look in the mirror this morning, but I ask you that for this reason. When you looked in the mirror, you saw a familiar face. But let's imagine you looked in that mirror. And you saw about ten kids 01:29:00looking back at you, instead of yourself. What advice would you give them?

Jarrell: Stay in church and listen to your parents and get a good education.

Breeding: You must have already thought about it. That's good and clear. Is there anything else we haven't covered that you'd like to add?

Jarrell: I guess I'm going to have to look back at them yearbooks and stuff like that for them folks. Oh, God is good. I can look back over all my career, my ventures, where I am today. I got two daughters. I got a son. I got two grandsons. Great-grandsons. I got two great-granddaughters. 01:30:00I got about six or seven great-great kids. I can see God, and I can see generations, and I can see how spirit from my grandmama, I knew my great-grandmama. I forgot to tell you about that, on my mama's side. I can see how that the spirit from them comes down from them, and it comes down to them, and it comes down to them, but it's God really and do the right thing and reach out. When I get up every morning, I thank God for being here, and I step out there and do something.

Breeding: Okay

Jarrell: Yeah, you don't catch me here, bud. I step out and there's something I got to do that day, and I'm grateful. I'm grateful though, and one thing, 01:31:00I didn't finish Mississippi Valley State. Mississippi Valley, yeah, State College then, University now. I went out to Athens Tech. I got a two-year marketing and management degree, but what I learned to do is stretch that degree. That thing, you know, once I got the degree, I got to get out there and put it into action. My thing is putting it, that's where I'm at with a lot of stuff now. It's putting it into action. All this computer stuff, putting it into action, man. Man, I ain't bought no computer and all that, and I got one at ten. Like I said, online, I keep up. I could have been, the reason I didn't take no job in there, because I was assistant director with it. Come on, I'm going to take a job for it. And then I had the opportunity to work with the county, my own folks, most of the time. I was at Sandy Creek, but even when I'm 01:32:00out there, I got a chance to do stuff for folks that they wasn't going to get done for by them other folks out there.

Breeding: I got you.

Jarrell: And the most time I value is at East Athens, in the East Athens community. I see them folks now, they grown and all that. The greatest thing is when they come up, and I'm going to tell you this. I was using psychology back then. You know, I was out in the Army. Number one, I wasn't scared of none of them, and no way, because I'd have been out in the Army. So I would end up in the jail. The little boy would end up in the jail, come back up there, talk a lot of that stuff. I said, "Cuz, you're that bad. You need to go join the Army. They're looking for folks like you." This American was tripping, man. But see, I always, but I was thinking, and I always called them, I called all of them, cuz. But that was my communication spot with all of them. They call me, cuz, now. But I 01:33:00don't care where they at. That's how I get to them. But now, I'm going to stick on them rules now. I don't want to pull all of them out. But everybody's going to put people out, too. Heard had that. He had the system set up. But I just came up in it, and I was a management, too. Him and Pete made it in business administration itself.

Breeding: I got you

Jarrell: And I managed it, so all of us came together on that stuff, see. And the whole thing was to meet the needs of the community. That was the whole thing. And we gave it our best. And we had to go beyond--. See, when you're working in the white thing, I hate to say it like that, or you go to them white schools, you got to work with the international. But in the Black system by itself, you got reigns. You ain't got no, you ain't got no barriers.

Breeding: You can do what you have to do to get the job done.

Jarrell: Yeah, and I've been able to do--. The 01:34:00other thing I forgot to tell you about, I ran Strong Day Recovery for sixteen years.

Breeding: What's that?

Jarrell: Recovery Unit, it's a halfway house for chemical-dependent men, eighteen and older. I ran that. Richard, Joseph Reed started that stuff. Breeding: Okay.

Jarrell: I did that. See, that was, outside of my--. After thirty years, I was assistant manager twenty-eight of them, with the county. And then I ran Strong Day Recovery. That was my management too. So, I'm in recovery. That's what, I'm still in recovery. I'm, look at me now. But I got, I got, God bless me, man. I got two jobs because of that. I worked at Charter Winds Hospital part-time for eight years, and then I ran this recovery thing sixteen years. So 01:35:00God good, man. But I've been able to use what I--. It ain't what you got, it's how you use it.

Breeding: And we're going to end it on that?

Jarrell: That--

Breeding: That was very good.

Jarrell: That's what I'm talking about.

Breeding: Say that one more time.

Jarrell: It ain't what you got, it's how you use it.

Breeding: All right. Well, I want to thank you again for the interview, and I'm looking at the clock for you.

Jarrell: Yeah.

Breeding: Because you said you had a meeting to get to, and we set up this meeting to make sure that we had enough time.

Jarrell: That's right.

Breeding: So again, I thank you. Personally, and on behalf of the University of Georgia Oral History Project, and many years from now, people will not have to wonder what Black people went through by somebody else's story, because you've given them the insight, a looking glass into the past.

Jarrell: Thank you, sir.

Breeding: Thank you.

Jarrell: Thank you.