Interviewees: The Reverend Luther Coppedge and Mrs. Christine Coppedge

Interviewer: Dr. Kelvin Spragley

Interview Date: May, 12, 2015

Location: Raleigh, N.C.

Length: 01:09:42

Audio Excerpt

Kelvin Spragley: Today is the 12th of May and I am here with Rev. and Mrs. Coppedge. This is the oral history project on school desegregation in Franklin County, North Carolina. The purpose of this project is to record and transcribe interviews with individuals who have direct knowledge of events that took place during the late 1960s when the public schools of Franklin County, North Carolina were desegregated. The Tar River Center for History and Culture Foundation and the committee members who have volunteered to carry out this project hope that the transcribed interviews and the public program to be held at the conclusion of the project will add to our knowledge of these important events and help to strengthen our community by fostering better understanding among all people.

Thank you for participating in this project. Please read and sign this agreement so that your interview will be available for research. Before beginning so, read carefully and ask any questions you may have regarding terms and conditions.

[Transcript suspended until 00:03:25]

Rev. Coppedge, what is your birth date?

Luther Coppedge: April 25, 1928.

KS: Wow. You just had a birthday.

LC: Yeah, yeah, eighty-seventh birthday.

KS: And where were you born?

LC: I was born in Nash County.

KS: Nash? I’m originally from Edgecombe County, in Whitakers.

LC: Mm hmm. I only lived there for three years though, before moving to Franklin County.

KS: Okay. How many years have you been in this community right here?

LC: Right here, in this house, well, it would be forty-six years. We moved here in 1968, the 11th of–

Christine Coppedge: September.

LC: –September.

KS: Okay, so 1968, and I’m forty-six, so, yeah, forty-six years. That’s right. Ms. Coppedge, your birthday?

CC: 6-9-31.

KS: And where were you born?

CC: Nash County.

KS: Nash County also, and been living in this community the same number of years, of course.

CC: Correct.

KS: Your occupation?

LC: Well, I was a farmer before entering the ministry.

KS: Okay.

LC: And entered the ministry in 1959.

KS: 1959. [Whistles]

LC: Yeah, my wife and I married in the spring of 1949 and we farmed with my parents for that year, in 1949 – we were sharecroppers – and then the next three years, two years in the home with my father then the third year we moved on our own.

KS: Okay.

LC: We were sharecroppers for one year and my father discovered a vacant farm and told us about it, and he said, “I’m going to help you all buy your farm if you want it,” so we decided that we’d do that. That was in 1953.

KS: 1953?

LC: Yeah. So, we–.

KS: And that was when you got your own farm?

LC: Yes.

KS: And you, Mrs. Coppedge, did you work during this?

CC: No.

KS: So housewife during those years?

CC: That’s correct.

KS: Okay.

CC:I tried to get a job [Laughs] in public work, but no one would hire me because we were [00:06:30 fiddling with their certification] mess.

KS: Ah. Okay. And, as far as education goes?

LC: Well, I graduated from high school in Franklin County, Franklin County Training School, and when I entered the ministry in 1959 I went to night school in Goldsboro for four years, two nights a week.

KS: Oh!

LC: I thought that’s about all I would do at my age because I was, you know, thirty-four years old at that time. So one of my minister friends said, “Well, you need to go to Shaw.” I said, “Well, you know, I’m married and I have a son. I can’t go to college.” “I’m going to help you,” he said, and, I’m going to tell you–. I had four churches, by the way,–

KS: Wow.

LC: –at that time, you know, one Sunday per month.

KS: Yes.

LC: He said, “And I’m going to ask the churches to help you,” and he did that. So I was able to enroll in Shaw University in the fall of 1963.

KS: Okay.

LC: I was a fulltime student there for three years until my father passed away and then I had to go part time.

KS: Okay.

LC: So I graduated from Shaw with a bachelor’s and then I went and got my master’s, and–.

KS: At Shaw also?

LC: Yeah.

KS: Okay.

LC: Then – what was it? – about 2004, the night school that I went to, they gave me an honorary degree in 2004.

KS: Wow!

LC: Mm hmmm.

KS: So you have your honorary also. Is that an honorary doctorate?

LC: Yeah.

KS: And that was in 2004?

LC: That’s correct.

KS: Okay. Mrs. Coppedge, education background?

CC: Well, I was busy at home rearing my son, thanks to him. I told him I wanted [Laughs] to go to college. He said, “No, I want you to stay here and raise our son, and I’ll do that,” so then I was just a homemaker all the time, reading, writing, and studying at home.

KS: Yeah. Well, you wrote two books.

CC: [Laughs]

KS: Okay. The public schools that you attended were in Nash County?

CC: Yes.

KS: Okay.

CC: Nash County Training School.

KS: Nash County Training School. Again, I’m from Whitakers, so I know the whole area. My parents went to Bricks.

LC: Yeah! We used to sing at Bricks School.

KS: Yes.

LC: When I was singing in a quartet.

KS: Okay.

CC: [Laughs]

KS: So, I know that area very well.

LC: Mm hmm.

KS: Phillips High School, which was an all-black high school at that time too.

LC: So you’re not far from Wesleyan.

KS: No. No, sir. No, sir. Wesleyan College, a stone’s throw away. Well, okay, we are going to–. Oh, and you had one son to pass.

LC: Yes.

KS: We’re recording everything and everything is going to be transcribed, so once it’s all typed up you all will receive a copy of the transcript so that if there’s anything that you don’t want in it you can tell us to scratch it out and we’ll make sure that that doesn’t get printed.

LC: Okay.

KS: So feel free to speak freely, as everyone else has, to your comfort level, based on the questions, and I look forward to this.

LC: Okay.

KS: Okay, and so, thinking about segregation in Franklin County, give me a general idea of what life was like during that time period, during segregation, for both blacks and whites.

LC: Well, we lived about twenty miles from Perry High School, where our son was attending. He started that school in 1956. Well that was twenty miles one way; that means forty miles round trip. Well Edward Best High School was just about three miles, less than three miles one way. So we thought, you know, that it would be helpful for him and us, and then we knew that white schools were better equipped than black schools because we could tell that from the transportation, you know, the buses. We’d always get the second, you know, used buses, and they would get new buses. So we wanted our son to go to that school, to Edward Best School.

KS: It was all white.

LC: Yeah. So when we applied–. Well they came out with something, “freedom of choice,” so, “If y’all want to remain in your school, then that’s fine, but if you want to go to our school, fine,” so we chose to go to their school. That’s when we started receiving threats and phone calls, asking us to stay in our school, and we refused to do that and then they start burning crosses at our driveway.

KS: I read about that in the newspaper.

LC: Yes, put tacks everywhere. I ran out over the tacks and had flat tires. It was just a miserable thing, you know, for no reason at all, we thought, because the Supreme Court, you know, had ruled in 1954 that they should desegregate, and that was then, what, ten years after that.

KS: That’s right.

LC: So it took us about two years to get our son in school, two or three years, after we applied.

KS: There were bomb threats to your home?

LC: Yeah, and they shot into our home.

KS: Shot, yeah. I read that in the newspaper also.

LC: Yeah, we still have one of the dressers where they shot over my head while I was in the bed,–

KS: [Whispers] My God!

LC: –and my wife and son–. It was on a Christmas Eve night.

CC: I wrote about all that in the book.

LC: Yeah, she wrote about this in the book.

CC: Every bit of it.

KS: [Whispers] My God!

LC: And I’m asleep, because I had preached twice on that Sunday and I was tired.

KS: Yes.

LC: So she came in and called me, and I’m asleep, and when I woke up she said that somebody shot in the house.

KS: You didn’t wake up?

LC: Yeah, when she woke me up.

KS: I mean but when the shot?

CC: No.

LC: No, I didn’t hear any shot. I was asleep.

KS: [Laughs]

LC: [Laughs] But I smelled the gunshot, you know, the–

CC: Gun powder.

LC: –gun powder, when she called me. She went to the door and opened the door and there was a car down there. I think they were waiting to see, did it hit us, you know, so when she opened the door they pulled off.

KS: You never found out who?

LC: No. Well, we called the police. The policeman came out and he told us that he knew within six men who did the shooting, so when they came out to interview us on the TV I told them, I said, “Well, the sheriff said he knew within six men who did the shooting,” and he called me a little later, “Luther, if I’d known you were going to tell that I never would have told you.”

KS: [Laughs] So he didn’t like the fact that–

LC: He didn’t like–

KS: –you said it on TV.

LC: –it that I told them, told what he said. So, it was–. You know, we lived there at that home for, what, about four or five years before we moved to Raleigh, under those threats. The SBI came out, told us to sleep on the floor because it was so dangerous, and we slept on the floor to watch TV for two years or more.

KS: Slept on the floor.

LC: You know, when we watched TV.

KS: Yes.

LC: We were just afraid because it was within inches of me when he shot over me.

KS: How was your relationship with whites during that time, then?

LC: Well, before that time it was very good.

KS: It was very good?

LC: Very good, because I rented some of their farms so I could have something extra to go to Shaw with, and the white men that I was with would let me use the tractor and use it on my farm.

KS: Oh!

LC: That’s the kind of relationship we had, and that very man came to our house when they were shooting and said, “Well, I heard that y’all got your son going to a white school, and if I were you I would just take him out, I just wouldn’t let him go, because I’d hate to see something happen to you.” He sat in the car with me for, what, forty-five minutes, at my house, trying to persuade me not to do it. I told him, I said, “Well, you know, I can’t do that, because we just think that his education is worth more than giving up now.”

KS: Yes.

LC: He said, “Well, I hate to see them do that. I’ve heard them talking about you around at the store.” You know, white folks used to go to the store every night,–

KS: Yes.

LC: –and sit around and talk. I had–. We just had good relationships.

KS: Did you keep a good relationship with them after?

LC: No, no. Soon after that–. I used to borrow money in the spring, with which to farm?

KS: Yes sir.

LC: And I noticed when I applied the next spring for the money they wouldn’t let me have the money. So, I figured that was the reason, but he gave me excuses, you know. I used to have credit with a clothes cleaner in Spring Hope and I’d been getting that on time, on credit, so I went back there and he said, “No, Luther, I can’t let you have it.” I said, “Why?” He said, “Well, I just decided that I’m not able to do that anymore.”

KS: That was the only reason.

CC: Mm hmm.

LC: That was the only reason.

KS: [Sighs]

LC: So we had repercussions.

KS: Yes.

LC: Now, our next door neighbor was white. Well, we were surrounded by whites because we were the only blacks that owned land right around there. But our next door neighbor was [00:18:53]. They didn’t show that. If they did, we didn’t see it.

KS: Okay.

LC: We were, I considered, close friends, because–

KS: Close friends?

LC: –when a storm would come up his wife would come over, “Christine! I’m scared of the thunder and lightening. [Laughter] Come over here and sit with me.”

KS: Okay.

LC: So, Tine would go over and sit with her, you know, until the storm was over.

KS: Sure. Okay.

LC: But when the integration started they would be out at the road talking. We lived about, what, a hundred yards from the highway.

KS: Okay.

LC: And when she would see the car pass she’d get ready to go in the house. She was afraid–

KS: Sure.

LC: –that they would identify her with us.

KS: Yeah, a white person who was associating with black people during that time.

LC: Yeah, that’s why, and you know they–.

CC: Don’t forget your voting.

LC: Yeah, and the voting, you know.

CC: Don’t forget that. [00:19:54]

LC: I took people to the voting poll to vote and they didn’t like that. I went to a counting, you know, when they were counting the votes one night, and I was the only black person there. That was at Edward Best, and that was before we started.

KS: Okay. And they had no problems with it then?

LC: Yeah, they didn’t want me there then.

KS: Oh, okay.

LC: So one of the white men, the registrar, took me aside and said, “Luther, I know your parents, your parents and my parents [00:20:29 were such good friends], and your daddy would turn over in his grave if he knew that you were taking this stand.” I said, “Well, let him turn over.”

KS: [Laughs]

LC: That’s exactly what I told him. That’s exactly what I told him.

KS: “Let him turn over.”

LC: “Let him turn over in his grave.”

KS: Because you knew better.

LC: Yeah, I just–. You know [00:20:47] at that time.

KS: Yes.

LC: And, you know, in retrospect, and my wife said the same thing when we got up here, she wasn’t afraid but she said–.

CC: I wasn't.

LC: When we got up here, she said, “I’m frightened now, but then I wasn’t afraid at all.” It was a frightening time, you know, if you really took it seriously.

KS: Yes, sir. Mrs. Coppedge, at any point in time were you afraid?

CC: No, not at all, there.

KS: Why do you think that you were not afraid?

CC: Well, because, the first thing, my son wanted to go to this white school. It wasn’t really, truly all of our idea. He told us, said, “Mom, I want to go to college when I get out of school, and they just do not–. The black school is not equipped with the things that I need to make good grades.” So I said, “Well, are you afraid?” He said, “No, I’m not afraid.” I said, “Well, we’re going to support you. Whatever you want to do, we’ll stand back with you.” So, he said, “Well, that’s all I want. I want your support. I’m going, if I have to go by myself, because I want to make a man of myself.”

KS: Okay. Okay. Well, all right. You kind of responded to this question: how did you feel about the public school that your child attended in comparison to the white schools? There were big differences between the schools?

LC: Yes, big difference.

KS: What kind of differences, just as parents at that time, did you notice?

LC: Well, the physical plant was different, you know. The [white] schools just looked a whole lot better, and then the facilities, the school buses, and it looked like the environment and the campuses, they weren’t kept up as well; so we could see just by looking at it that their school was just much better. It was sort of like it was when I was going to elementary school in Franklin County. I walked for two miles one way and went by a school that was, you know, that was a brick school at that time, and I went to this three-room school.

KS: With a wood heater?

LC: Yeah, with a wood heater, and with a pump out in the yard.

KS: A pump out in the yard.

LC: Yeah, so it just was, you know, altogether different.

KS: What are your thoughts on integration before all of this took place in Franklin County, I mean what were you all’s thoughts about what was going on in the area, in the country, as it relates to integration period?

LC: Well, you know, segregation, first of all, it’s just humiliating. I don’t know anything that–. You know, I’m sort of like Patrick Henry, who said, “Give me liberty or give me death.” Discrimination is one of the worst experiences that I’ve ever had. We just ate at a place that we were turned down. A couple of weeks ago I just go in there, you know, right now, and sit right in the middle of everything.

KS: [Laughs]

LC: Yeah! So I ordered food there one night before, you know, when it was segregated, and he said, “Well, you need to go around to the window.” I said, “Well, is it any cheaper at the window?” [Laughter] That’s the word I asked him, and he said, “No, but we don’t serve colored here.” Well, I had to go, because I was hungry. Then the Murphy House in Louisburg–. Do you remember the Murphy House?

KS: Well, I don’t remember, but I knew where it was.

LC: Well after church one Sunday we went in and sat down at the counter and they wouldn’t serve us, so we insisted that they serve us. That was sort of the prime, you know, there. So, they brought us a sandwich, and I ate mine, my wife ate hers. [Laughs] Boy, within a couple of hours she was sick as a dog. I had to take her to Duke Hospital. The doctor said, “Looks like you’ve eaten something poison.”

CC: That’s right.

LC: Mm hmm, she was sick as a dog. I had to carry her to Duke Hospital that very night.

KS: So your food had not been contaminated?

LC: Well, no, I didn’t notice anything wrong with mine.

KS: Oh my.

LC: But that’s the only thing–

CC: For twenty-eight days.

LC: –that we attribute it to.

CC: I was there for twenty-eight days in Duke Hospital.

LC: Yeah. That’s the only thing we can attribute it to, but of course they didn’t own that, you know. Nobody owned that.

KS: The Murphy House?

LC: Mm hmm.

KS: Was the hospital at Duke segregated at that time?

LC: Yeah, I think so.

CC: I don’t–.

LC: I think so, you know.

CC: I think it was. I mean I–. I think it was.

KS: Because I know it’s a private hospital.

CC: Uh huh, but I think it was, though.

LC: I think it was segregated too.

CC: But what they said, when you asked them, you said–. Well, you tell him.

LC: Well, I asked what was wrong with you.

CC: When they asked you, why was I sick, and he asked you what did I eat, and you told him, so he said it must have been deadly poison, because actually he said, “She has ptomaine poisoning.”

KS: [Whispers] Oh, goodness.

LC: Mm hmm.

CC: So I was unconscious, really.

LC: Yeah, it was–.

CC: And I was throwing up stuff, green.

LC: Yeah. If she hadn’t gotten to the doctor she probably would have died.

KS: Whew!

LC: Yeah, those are the things that we went through, and, you know, they were devastating, really, but we didn’t–. We didn’t take it as something that we weren’t able to handle. I thought the Lord preserved,–

KS: Mm hmm.

LC: –preserved our lives, and I still attribute it to that right until this day.

CC: May I interject? I want to say, when you went to the school to register and vote, at Edward Best, at that time I didn’t have a coffee pot, electric coffee pot. So, I had ordered an electric coffee pot and it came that particular day, so I just took it on with me up to the school to vote, and I left the coffee pot and the letter that they sent me with it in the car, but we didn’t lock the car. So, when I came back out, they had taken the letter out of the car and put it up in the tree, right there at the door to go into Edward Best School, and carved “KKK” beside of it. I asked Rev, I said, “Where is the letter?” So I looked up, and there it was in the tree, so I got it out of the tree and we got in the car and came on back home.

KS: Now, why you all were fighting to desegregate, get your son in an integrated school, Edward Best, I read that there was, in Franklinton, a group of blacks who didn’t want integration.

CC: Mm hmm, there was.

KS: You all remember that?

CC: I do.

LC: Yeah, we heard of that.

KS: Did you, either one of you, ever talk to those folk, or talk to people in general who thought – black people specifically – who didn’t want integration and who were opposed to you all trying to integrate, like the people in Franklinton who did not want it?

LC: No, we did not encounter that too much because, like I said, we lived surrounded by white people.

CC: Well, Harold did.

LC: Yeah, they didn’t tell us, though I do remember our son saying that some of them, you know, the second year that he was in school, that–. Was it the second year or after he had gotten out of school? But anyway, they didn’t particularly want–. They didn’t really think that it was necessary for him to integrate school.

CC: They told him–.

KS: Now these were other blacks?

LC: Yeah.

CC: According to Harold, they told him, [Angrily] “You’re the cause of us being here anyway.” I’m saying it the way he said it. “If it had not been for you, with your black,” something-something,–

KS: Mm hmm.

CC: –said, “We wouldn’t even have to be here.” So, one morning, I think it was on a Monday morning, he said he got on the bus and some white kids were eating an apple, so they threw the apple core back there to hit him in the back of the head and it struck the girl that went with him. It was my son and Alice Clanton. They were the only two who went to school together at that time. So, the apple hit Alice, so Harold said he looked back and saw who it was, and the white boy called him a nigger. So when they got to the school he got ready to get off of the bus and this white boy pushed him and knocked him out of the bus, and his books fell on the ground. So then Harold jumped up – he was strong as he could be – he jumped up and he was really fighting the boy, and then boys come crowding around, according to Alice and Harold. I didn’t see this, but they told me that. So Alice was afraid that they were going to double-team on him and hurt him so she ran in the principal’s office and told the principal that they was out there fighting. So the principal came out and he wanted to know, you know, what was really going on, so she said she tried to tell him what went on, and the boy was lying. The boy said, “He hit me,” and all this kind of stuff, so Harold said, “I didn’t. I didn’t.” So he told the boys, he said, “I want y’all to come into my office.” Harold and them went in the office. So, what he did, he expelled the boy, according to what Harold had told him, because Harold had people who said that Harold was not at fault.

KS: And the principal was white.

CC: Mm hmm. So, he expelled him and told Harold he was on probation, and if he heard anything else from him he was going to expel him too. So then his homeroom teacher, the English teacher, Ms.–. What is the lady’s name?

LC: Griffin, She flunked him in English so he could not graduate with the high school class, because he was the only black that was there. So he had to come to Needham-Broughton up here and finish summer school. The teacher called me and said, “I’m just curious. I want to know why he is here, because this boy’s smart,” said, “He doesn’t even have to study and these other kids, they study hard and still can’t do nothing, and I want to know what he’s doing here.” So, anyway–.

KS: Is that a teacher of color who called and asked you all that?

CC: I don’t know. I think she was white.

LC: No, I think she was white.

CC: She sounded white anyway.

LC: Yeah, she was white.

CC: So, anyway, Ms. Griffin, long story short, I knew that she was doing something prejudiced to him there because she would send the report card home and she would say that she’d demand perfection from him, and she had grammatical errors on there that I picked up myself. So I sent the card back to her and I had my comments on there. I said to her, I said, “You are demanding perfection and you have a grammatical error on yours, so actually you got to be perfect yourself before you can try to make anybody else perfect.” Those were the words I said, and sent it back to her.

KS: And this was in the early ’60s.

CC: Yes. So, anyway–.

LC: About mid ’60s.

KS: Mid ’60s?

LC: Yeah.

CC: It was a lot going on, you know, with him, but actually she sent a book home. I never will forget the book, because, I mean, I taught my son too, at home along with me. So anyway, she sent a book home for him to read. I never will forget the title: To Kill a Mockingbird.

KS: To Kill a Mockingbird.

CC: So I asked Harold, “Let me see that book.” Harold came home crying. He said, “She wanted me to make a report on it and every time I get to the part that said ‘nigger with the big thick lips and white eyes’ and all this kind of stuff, on the ship,” he said, “The class would just laugh and laugh.” So he said, “I can’t do this. I’m not going to do this.” I said, “Okay, I’ll go up there. We’re going to see the principal.” So I went up to the school and I said to him, I took the book with me, I said, “Sir, no disrespect, but what is it about this sixteenth century book that is educational to children? We’re having enough problems now.” I said, “If you send that book, or the homeroom teacher send it back here, I’m going to burn it up,” I said, “Because there’s nothing educational about it, and I’m not going to have it in my home.”

KS: And what grade was he in? Was he in high school at this time?

CC: Mm hmm.

KS: Okay.

CC: He was in the eleventh grade.

KS: Okay.

CC: So, he said–.

KS: And what high school was this?

CC: Edward Best High School.

KS: So Edward Best was a high school at the time.

LC: Yeah.

KS: Okay.

CC: So I said to him, I said, “I’m not kidding. I’m not kidding with you.” I said, “I’m going to burn it up.” Well, he said, “Miss, we don’t have the funds to supply the library.” I said, “Well, if you don’t have the funds, don’t send that here.” I said, “And I mean that. I mean what I say.” So he said, “Well, I don’t know what we’re going to do about it.” I said, “I don’t either, but don’t send it back home for my son to read.” So, anyway, the next parents and teachers meeting we went to, I went in the library to see what was there. They had cleaned those shelves and put more books up there, mighty quick. They said they didn’t have any money, but I made them take them down, I said, “Because, honestly, every one you send–.” I said, “These sixteenth century books, ain’t nothing educational about them.”

KS: Now, there weren’t that many black students at the school at this time either?

CC: Nobody but Harold and this girl.

KS: So just two?

CC: Mm hmm.

LC: Yeah, that’s all.

CC: And she dropped out. Well, as a matter of fact, she didn’t drop out; she went back to Perry School that she was attending.

KS: Which was the all-black school.

CC: Mm hmm, and I asked her, I called her, “Alice,” I said, “Why did you go back?” She said, “Well, I didn’t have any friends and nobody was there but Harold and myself, and I didn’t want to be around men all the time, a boy all the time. So, actually I was lonely all the time, and I decided I would go back where my friends are.” So then that left Harold there completely by himself.

LC: Yeah, it was–.

KS: That had to be tough on him.

LC: It was tough. It was tough.

CC: But he wouldn’t give up though.

LC: No, it was tough. You know, it was,–

KS: Especially at that age.

LC: –but we didn’t realize that it was really that tough. It wasn’t till we look back, you know, in retrospect.

KS: And there were at this time too – because there had been boycotts and all of those kind of things, well poisonings, people’s wells getting poisoned, but they were starting to move some of the black teachers into some of the white schools. Did he ever have, during high school, a black teacher?

LC: No, he didn’t ever have a black.

CC: No, he didn’t have a black teacher.

LC: No, there wasn’t a single black.

CC: There wasn’t a single black teacher at Edward Best, not one at that time, but later on,–

LC: Yeah, later on.

CC: –maybe a year, after the HEW got on them and told them they had to hire these teachers as well.

LC: Yeah, token then, token, because–.

CC: And so then, after they found out that the federal government was going to cut off the funds, then they decided they would hire some black teachers.

KS: How–? I want to ask this. I have an idea of how you all felt, but the people around you all, black or white, how did they feel about the whole process?

LC: Well, the black people wanted to go, because we had about ten or fifteen families apply to go.

KS: Okay.

LC: But we were the only ones that lived on our own farm, so when the land owners called their tenants, the parents, and told them, said, “If you don’t take those children out of school–.” Or withdraw the application. They hadn’t gone to school; just applied.

KS: Okay.

LC: Said,–

CC: Just a moment.

LC: –“Well, you’re going to have to move.”

CC: You’re not quite correct on that. It was sixty-five parents who really did apply for their kids to go to school.

KS: At Edward Best.

CC: Uh huh, and then that’s when it came in that they told them if they didn’t take the children out of school that they were going to have to move off their plantation.

KS: Like the sharecroppers.

LC: Yeah. Yeah, sharecroppers.

CC: So they tried their best to make us take Harold out but they couldn’t do nothing to us because we had our own farm, our own home, our own land, in other words.

KS: Yes.

CC: So they couldn’t do anything to us. But all of those parents took their kids out because they were sharecropping.

KS: Because they needed a placed to stay.

CC: Right.

KS: What was the scariest–? I know the gunshot was scary. What were some other scary moments for you, for you and the family, during this time you were supporting integration?
[Interruption; break in recording]
So, I was asking you, what were some other incidents that occurred because you all were supporting integration?

LC: Well, I was doing a lot of revivals during that time, as well as in school, so I would come in on the weekend, you know, to see where they had burned a cross, knowing that I was away and my son and my wife were at home. That was frightening.

KS: Yes.

LC: That’s one reason we came to Raleigh in 1968. See, Harold entered college in the fall of 1968 at Elizabeth City State, so I was afraid to leave her there alone, so that’s when we–. Well Harold enrolled in Elizabeth City the last of August in 1968 and we moved here the 11th of September, that very year. We had already made arrangement. You know all that summer in 1968 it was turmoil but that’s when Dr. King–.

KS: Yes.

LC: We took Harold to the funeral of Dr. King.

KS: Oh! You went to the funeral.

LC: Yeah, we went to the funeral, and stood in line on that Sunday night from 9:00 to 3:00 in the morning to view the body.

KS: Wow.

LC: Then we stayed on campus the rest of the night and attended the funeral that next day, and drove back after the funeral.

CC: [00:42:58 That’s another–.] [Laughs]

KS: Okay.

LC: [Laughs]

KS: Okay, yeah. When you look back on it, on everything you all dealt with during the integration of Franklin County Schools, what were some positive things that you all think happened, and then some negative things, as a result of the integration taking place?

LC: Well, we could see that some of our counterparts, you know, began to sort of feel a little better toward us. We could see a little improvement. It was a gradual improvement. So that’s encouraging, you know, and it’s still encouraging, even today, even though we look like we’re going backwards, but we have still made some progress. A lot of people say that, you know, criticize our President, but I still say that he has done a lot of good with what he had to work with, like what Thurgood Marshall said. They asked him when he left, you know, and he said, “Well, I did the best I could with what I had to work with,” and that’s what we did, with what we had to work with. We see some positive results, and no regret that we had to go through it, although it was sad, you know.

KS: Sure. Positives, negatives, about the whole process?

CC: Well, as he said, I can see some improvement; I really can, but not enough. I’ll put it that way. It’s not enough by no means. I say that because, some of the jobs that the people were really trying to get, the good is I see that the white people were hiring them, but the bad part is black people, they didn’t get the job first. The white got it first and then you stand in line for second. They got it but the white was hired first, and that’s the way I see it when we were there, and I thought, in that respect, I would say negative and positive.

KS: There were some boycotts that went on. I remember reading about one in 1963. Do you remember the boycotts that were going on in Franklin County?

LC: Yeah, I remember them.

KS: I interviewed one other gentleman and he was saying that his well had been poisoned. Did you know anyone whose wells had been poisoned?

LC: Yeah, I remember–.

CC: Rev. Dunston.

LC: Yeah, Rev. Dunston, S. C. Dunston.

KS: Okay.

CC: Ours wasn’t poisoned but they killed our dogs, killed the cats, put sugar in the tractor, and then they were sitting beside the highway, waiting for us to come by, in a little – I say in an isolated area, [00:46:31 they call themselves.] A whole lot of stuff they did, I tell you, but a lot of it I have–. It’s written in the book. [Laughs] But anyway, we had enough problems. We had, I tell you, a whole lot of problems, with the crosses burned. You already told him, about the crosses burned.

LC: Yeah. Dead frogs thrown down at our driveway.

KS: Dead frogs.

LC: Yeah.

KS: You said that Harold had no black teachers.

LC: No, no, he didn’t have any black teachers.

CC: None.

KS: So overall his experience with the white teachers while he was at Edward Best High School, I know the one English teacher who made it difficult for him to graduate, but besides that, how else did the teachers treat him?

LC: Well, his horticulture teacher told me–.

CC: [00:47:33 Alfort]. I think his name was [Alfort].

LC: Yeah. He told me one day, “I had no problem with Harold.” That’s what he told me. He said, “He was a good student in my class. I had no problem with him.” Those are the words he told me.

KS: Okay.

LC: And when Harold came back home from college he went to Edward Best, you know, just sort of – that’s his alma mater, you know.

KS: Yeah.

LC: But the principal wouldn’t even let him come back there. So I didn’t think of it because I was so busy. You know, I was still in school. I would have–. I called him but, you know, he wouldn’t let Harold come, wouldn’t let him stay; told him he had to get off the campus.

KS: And he was a graduate from–.

LC: Yeah.

CC: And then when he finally got his diploma the principal still wouldn’t send it, so Harold wanted to go to college and Harold said, “I got to go to college and I can’t keep waiting for my diploma.” I said, “Well, I’ll call him.” So I called him up and I said, “Sir, if that diploma is not here in a week, I’ll see you in court.” I said, “Because my son wants to go to college and you are hindering him from going to college in the fall.”

KS: He was the first black student to graduate from Edward Best.

CC: Mm hmm.

LC: Yeah.

CC: But actually yes and no because he didn’t march with the graduation class.

KS: Well he was the first to earn a diploma from there anyway.

CC: Right.

KS: Okay. He didn’t march with his class but he earned the diploma.

CC: Right.

LC: Yeah.

KS: Okay. Looking back, how do you all think this integration experience affected you? I mean, has it affected you going forward, in your relationships with whites in general, or blacks who seem passive because they don’t really understand what you all went through to make certain things happen? How has this experience affected you in general?

LC: Well, I think, you know, basically it’s positive, but some negative as well. I still think the majority of black people appreciate what we did.

KS: Okay.

LC: It’s like a church, you know. I retired from my church in Franklin County, stayed there forty-four years. All of them were not perfect supporters but the majority of them were. So, you know, you’re going to always have some.

KS: Yes, sir.

LC: But–.

CC: You had a minority, a few who said–. When Harold would tell them, “Listen, we opened the door for you. We helped you get your job. If I hadn’t done what I did you wouldn’t have no job either.”
“You ain’t done no more than nobody else,” that’s what they said.

KS: That’s what they said to you.

LC: Yeah, a few said that, you know.

CC: “You ain’t done no more than anybody else,” and I had a brother-in-law to tell me that.

KS: Really?

CC: [Laughs] I sure did. So I had to tell him–. Everybody says that I’m outspoken. Well, actually, I say when I speak you can bet your bottom I know what I’m talking about.

KS: [Laughs]

CC: So I told him, I said, “You know what? You’re a policeman. You didn’t get that job until this integration came about.” That’s what I told him. [Laughs] So, he said, “I didn’t know that.” So then when I wrote the books I made sure to get it in his hand, to see what we really went through. Then he had to beg my pardon. He said, “I didn’t have no idea.” I said, “Maybe you should keep your mouth shut until you really know what you’re talking about.”

KS: Oh, my goodness. I cannot wait, at some point, to get copies of these so I can read them. Looking back, what would you all say about the process that was used to integrate schools? I know that the school board and the superintendent, the teachers, you know, having interviewed other people they have different views and perspectives; the NAACP and the federal government, all of those groups coming down: how do you all view the process of integration in Franklin County?

LC: Well, I think it was very slowly but I think it was a progressive thing. You know, the “freedom of choice,” we chose to ignore that, and the NAACP supported us. Julius Chambers was our attorney and we didn’t have to pay anything. He took the school board to court and won, if you read it.

KS: Yes.

LC: You see where he won.

KS: Yes.

LC: Well, that took about–. Well we were in court for, what, a year or two, you know, back and forth. I spoke to the chairwoman of the school board one day in a meeting. I said, “Good morning.” She said, “Well, what’s good about this morning?”

KS: [Laughs]

LC: She said, “Y’all are taking us to court. Is there something good about that?” I said, “Well, I just wanted to speak to you.” But, you see, that’s the way they felt. But I thought that it was a process that–. It was a legal process; we weren’t physically fighting one another, and that–.

CC: [Laughs] She thought so.

LC: Yeah, she thought I was really fighting her.

CC: The good thing about it, she was still alive.

LC: Yeah, but, you know, they had to pay. It was twenty-some thousand dollars that the school board had to pay, the lawyer fee.

KS: [Whispers] Wow.

LC: Mm hmm, I saw it. I read it in the paper. So, that’s something that–. Then the Justice Department came in. The Justice Department came from, what, Washington, or New York?

CC: Washington.

LC: Here, and ate with us one day.

CC: No. That was Chicago.

LC: Chicago, yeah.

CC: Chicago.

LC: He just let us know, he said–. He came here, not too many years ago, from there to ask us how was it getting along in Franklin County, and did we want to release it.

CC: I’m not going to ever release it.

LC: We told him no. We–.

CC: Never. Never, as long as I’m living.

LC: So that was before the Supreme Court, you know.

KS: Release?

CC: They want to take–. They really want to take the release off of them–

KS: Oh!

CC: –because, when we took them to court, so now–. They said things are fine now. Integration is going and all this kind of stuff. But it’s not completely going like it should, and that’s why I’m not going to ever sign anything. As long as I’m living they’re going to be under that law.

KS: Yeah, I know Franklin County–

CC: Yes.

KS: –is still under–. Is it for integration and voting?

LC: It’s for integrating–.

CC: Well, it’s just–.

LC: It’s for integration.

CC: Yeah, it’s integration.

LC: Yeah, because voting, the Supreme Court voted that down, what, last year, right?

KS: Yes.

CC: It’s integration.

LC: Yeah.

KS: Okay.

CC: So they came to see if we wanted to lift it from them. I said no, never.

LC: Well, because–.

CC: Because I don’t see where they are, you know, doing all that good now. It’s like, I’m hiding behind something. It’s not real, what they’re doing. They’ll tell you yes and then behind your back they’ll say no, and then you can see little things that they are doing, you know, that you know that they don’t mean it, and I’m not going to ever do it, never, as long as I’m alive.

KS: And you feel the same way?

LC: I feel the same way. When I retired from the state as a chaplain–. I was a chaplain for twenty-four years, but I retired and then I subbed, as a substitute teacher, for three years around here, and I could see then that, even in Wake County, that integration is still not in the heart.

CC: It's not.

LC: It’s on paper–

CC: It’s not. That’s exactly what I’m saying.

LC: –but it’s not in the heart, and, you know, you can tell that from white churches. It’s just not in the heart.

CC: Excuse me–.

LC: You know that.

CC: Excuse me. May I interject? May I?

LC: [Laughs]

CC: May I? [Laughs]

LC: Okay.

CC: One thing, I’m thinking in terms of this Alice Clanton, the lady that went to school with my son, the girl that went to school with him? Her sister, they live across the street from me. Her sister’s name is Dorothy Clanton. When she graduated from high school she wanted to go to college so she said she didn’t have the money to leave home so she said, “I would like to go to Louisburg College,” so I said, “Well, if you want to do that we’ll go over there and see,” because at the time, you see, the integration, we was trying to make them do this. So we went up there, took her to Louisburg College up there, and they denied her.

LC: Mm hmm, they sure did.

CC: They wouldn’t let her come in.

KS: And this was in ’68?

LC: This was about ’63.

CC: '63.

KS: Okay.

CC: So she said, “Well, I don’t want to be walking around here. I want a good education. I’ll tell you, I want to teach, and from that I want to do anything I want to do in the educational field.” So she said, “I’m going to go to New York.” So she went to New York to live with her sister and some, I guess a millionaire or somebody, that she went to work for in the kitchen, cleaning and all this kind of stuff, and those people–. She was so smart. She was a very smart girl.

LC: Yeah, very smart girl.

CC: They sent her to college. They sent her to college.

KS: In New York.

CC: In New York. So she graduated from college and she just retired from teaching, I think it was last year.

KS: Not down here?

CC: No, in New York.

KS: So she didn’t come back here to work.

CC: No, she didn’t.

KS: Okay.

LC: Yeah, she was smart.

CC: Smart as she could be.

LC: Yeah.

CC: I’m telling you, she was very, very smart; intelligent girl.

KS: Is there anything else that you’d like to add that I may have left out, that I might not have asked, that you’d like to share about your experience with integration, Franklin County Schools, all these years later?

CC: Well, I tell you, it’s not very much I can really say about them now since we’ve been up here about forty years, so I really don’t know exactly what’s truly transpiring down there now, because the people will not tell you anything. They won’t say anything to you, and the only news that I get from down there is listening to the radio and television.

LC: Well, from my perspective, I think we can sort of read, you know, from our legislators, the trend that’s not only in Franklin County but that’s in Wake County, Johnston County. The head, and that’s the legislators, they perpetuate segregation.

CC:Of course.

LC: And that’s the reason the laws are being passed, you know, the private schools. See, they’re going up now, requesting Wake County with a hundred and some requests for private schools, charter schools, and regardless of what they say they don’t get the education that they would get in the public schools, the majority of them. And the minorities, they’re just token and they don’t get–. They come out, you know, with private school–. You can listen to them talk and tell that they’re not trained. Now, am I right about that?

KS: Yeah.

LC: Yeah. I listen to people who graduate from private schools, and some of them are on the air, you know, sports particularly, and they’re not educated. So those private schools are, you know, they’re gaining leaps and bounds. Now they’re taking four thousand two hundred dollars of our taxes.

KS: Mm hmm, the vouchers.

LC: Yeah, the–

CC:Yes, yes.

LC: –vouchers, and, see, our property tax, you know, went up, right here on this house, over two hundred dollars last year, and the legislators cut tax on the corporations and raised it on us, and then food, you know, has got a tax on it, so we’re paying for those–

CC: Private schools.

LC: –you know, for [01:02:34].

CC: Yes.

KS: Oh, yeah.

LC: We’re paying for that. So, that’s the reason I say that I don’t know what it’s going to take to convince the heart of people.

KS: Yeah.

LC: I know the Lord can do it but, you know, my mother said, when we started integration – and she was afraid for us. That was in about ’62 or ’63. We wanted to go then. She said, “Luther, let me tell you this.” She said, “What you going to try to do?” I said, “Mama, we want equality.” That’s what I told her.

CC: She said [01:03:16] [Laughs]

LC: She said, “Well, Luther, it’ll never happen.” That’s what she told me.

CC: You’ll never get it.

LC: So, my sister-in-law said, “Well, Luther, I don’t know how many truths your mother’s told, but that’s one of [them.]” [Laughs]

KS: That it will never happen.

LC: That’s what my–. And it looks that way, because it’s like they’re trying to turn the clock back, you know?

KS: Well, there are definitely a number of examples where it definitely looks like that.

LC: It does look like that. But I still don’t think–.

CC: But you can’t give up.

LC: I don’t think, though, that we have–. I still think we’ve gained.

CC: Yes.

KS: Yeah.

LC: Yeah. I think it’s worth it, what we’ve been through.

CC: Absolutely.

LC: We should not have had to go through it but I would rather go through it again than to go back.

CC: Well, in the interview, when the lady came from Chicago, and she asked me, said, “Christine, would you do it again?” I said, “Yes! I’d do the same thing over again.”

LC: Yeah, I would.

KS: Okay.

CC: And I would.

KS: [Pause] Well–.

CC: And it’s not really, you know, for me; it’s trying to help everybody–

KS: And future generations.

CC: –who really wants to be helped. Yes.

KS: Yes.

CC: Yes, I would do it again.

LC: Yeah, you–. See, now I don’t know what position you hold.

KS: I’m a history and education professor and I was just promoted to division chair at Louisburg College, and I’m probably, if not the first, one of the first blacks to hold that position.

CC: Okay.

LC: Well, see, you wouldn’t be there either.

KS: That's right.

LC: [Laughs]

KS: And my parents and grandparents were sharecroppers also. I grew up on a farm in the eastern part of Edgecombe County. We grew tobacco.

LC: Near Tarboro?

KS: Near Tarboro, that’s right.

LC: Yeah, I know. I used to sing down in that area.

KS: So, I have had similar conversations with my grandparents and my parents about that time period too, so I too am thankful for the fight.

LC: Yeah. Yeah, it just makes life better.

KS: Yes.

LC: You know, if we had been in Franklin County today, and I’m not boasting, but I doubt we would have a house like we’re living in now, so that’s the positive side. It’s heaven compared to what we were on the farm.

KS: [Laughs]

LC: It’s the vestibule at least–

KS: The vestibule at least.

LC: –of heaven [Laughter] to what we had on the farm.

KS: Sure.

LC: Yeah. I used to draw water, you know, and heat it to wash pots, and for my wife to wash, every week, but I don’t have to do anything now but just turn a faucet.

KS: Turn a faucet.

CC: They called me a “smart nigger,” that’s what they called me, but I don’t care, you know. I remember when my mother was coming along. She took in washing, she took in cleaning hog chitterlings, drying up lard and all this kind of stuff for white people, and then she would get paid with old clothing from their kids, and I said then, I said, “Let me tell you something.” When I watched my mother do all this stuff, and then this white lady, she thought I was going to do the same thing. She said, “Will you wash for me?” Well, I was at home, because he chose for me to stay there. [Laughs] That was his choosing. So I washed for her a couple of times. So she would pass me in the street because his mother and father, Rev’s mother and father, didn’t live far from us and she was sickly, and I would do the washing and I would walk over to her house to help take care of her. So, this white lady, she would come by and she knew who I was because I was washing for her, and she wouldn’t pick me up, [Laughs] go on down the street, and I was walking on by, so I said, “I’ll fix that.” I said, “Now, if I’m not good enough to ride in her car, then I’m not going to be good enough to be washing her clothes.”
So, [the next time] she came up to get me to wash, she said, “Are you going to wash?” I said, “No, I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” [She said,] “Why?” I said, “I told you why. I’m not going to do it.” So she took her little clothing, took them on back with her. [Laughs] Because I thought about, when I was growing up, that’s what they did to my mother, and I said, “I’m not going to be the epitome of my mother. I’m not going to do that.” I said, “This is a new day,” and I said, “They call me ‘nigger’ anyway,” I said, “Now I’m a new nigger.” [Laughs] That’s what I said. [Laughter] I said, “I’m not going to do it.” So they said I was uppity and called me “nigger” and all that kind of stuff. I don’t care. I will not be used by anybody, I tell you that. I don’t care who it is. I’m going to treat you right and if you don’t treat me right, I’m sorry.

LC: You know she let my church people know that. [Laughter]

KS: That’s the first lady. [Laughter] Well, if it’s okay with you, Rev. Coppedge, I was asked if I could get a picture. Is that okay?

LC: Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.

CC: Wow, with this head thing on my head? [Laughs]

KS: Are you–? Well, I could just get his.

CC: Okay. That’s fine.

KS: Are you sure?

CC: Yeah.

KS: Okay.

CC: That’s good.

KS: All right. [Camera clicks] One more. [Camera clicks] Got it. Okay, it is 2:31 on the 12th of May, and this concludes the interview with Rev. and Mrs. Coppedge.

END OF INTERVIEW

Transcriber: Deborah Mitchum
Date: June 28, 2015