Collins Hinton interview recording, 1994 January 27

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Paul Ortiz	Okay. Now, Mr. Hinton, can you tell us about when you were growing up, the year you were born, your family, and the recollections you have?	0:01
Collins I. Hinton	I was born in 1912, and my name is Collins I. Hinton, nickname Joe. I was born in Wake County, North Carolina, out from a little place they call Auburn, a little village.	0:10
Paul Ortiz	Where—	0:32
Collins I. Hinton	Near Springfield Church.	0:32
Paul Ortiz	Just out of curiosity, where did you get your nickname?	0:34
Collins I. Hinton	My daddy gave me my nickname. He nicknamed all his children. Her name is Dog. Every one of us had a nickname. My daddy gave us those nicknames. I'm named after two of my uncles, Collins and Ishmael.	0:37
Paul Ortiz	What were your earliest recollections as a child? What were the things you that you remember?	0:56
Collins I. Hinton	I think— I'm saying I think I remember my daddy, but they say I don't because I was two years old when he passed. But I think I remember him, because he was out on the porch and my brother that's a little older— I'm the youngest boy, and my brother that's little older than I am, two years older or [indistinct 00:01:26], he and I were trying to lacing our daddy's shoes. He said, "Danger—" Because now, I told you every one of them had a nickname. They called him Danger. So he said, "Danger can lace those up there but Joe can't," and I remember that. That's the beginning of my early knowledge of my father.	1:03
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember working when you were a kid? When did you start working in the field?	1:56
Collins I. Hinton	Oh, early.	2:02
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:02:06] was big enough to walk.	2:06
Collins I. Hinton	That's right. Real early. I guess that was one of my problems, that I was working too early. But I worked real early in the field, and plowing when I couldn't hardly see over the handlebars so to speak, the plow bars, and chopping cotton and corn, putting in [indistinct 00:02:26]. Picking cotton. I remember I feel like I couldn't pick much cotton. I had a brother, who is deceased now, he was really a cotton picker. He could pick five and 600 pounds of cotton per day.	2:09
Speaker 3	Good Lord.	2:44
Collins I. Hinton	That was Bradwell. I was a little kid but I said, "Now, if he can pick five—" I was always egotistic and had some mind to do something. A competitive mind, that's the word I was looking for. I said, "If he can pick 600 pounds, I ought to be able to pick a 100," because I wasn't picking but 50 and like that.	2:49
Collins I. Hinton	My mother had told us, she said, "All over 50 pounds—" She had it in the age and my two sisters underneath me and I, we all over 50 pounds, we picking not our own cotton but picking out for somebody else. See, we'd go and get paid for that. She said, "You have all over 50 pounds you pick," and that was for us. The ones up above us, I think it was 100 pounds, and then on up as the age went up. She'd give—	3:08
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:03:37].	3:37
Collins I. Hinton	— us extra. So, that 200 pounds and on up. Anyway. I followed him that day and he picked on my row to help me along. I told him I want to keep up with him. He helped me. He had two rows, and he'd sometimes pick my row to keep up with, and I wound up picking 200 pounds of cotton that day. That was happy to me and I enjoyed that. That was the beginning of my early childhood. At 13, if that's where you want me to start now, at 13, like I told you, I always was working.	3:37
Collins I. Hinton	My brother, the one a little older than I am, the farm we lived on, the barn had a sawmill on there. One of my brothers that supposed to work in the sawmill when he was grown, he didn't show up that Monday morning. And so, my brother and I had to go down there and get what they call slabs, some fodder, the waste material from the sawmill. They told us that, "One of y'all had to do the chipping of the lumber because we don't have nobody to do it, so we can run off this stuff." And so, I went to chip the lumber. That's when I had the accident and lost both my hands.	4:18
Collins I. Hinton	Now, we were on this man's plantation. This all happened on his plantation. Well, the people I remember told my mother what to do because my daddy was dead, told her what to do. They took her to Raleigh to see two lawyers. I mean, see some lawyers, see. They went to get, they were supposed to have been the best lawyers in Raleigh. They were White. Didn't have no Blacks. There was White lawyers. Supposed to have been the best in Raleigh so to— [indistinct 00:05:31] were Douglass & Douglass. I remember that name. When the trial came up, she didn't get anything and they threw it out. We found out later that Douglass & Douglass was the White man's lawyer.	5:03
Speaker 3	It ain't funny, but they do things like that.	5:52
Collins I. Hinton	And so, we didn't get a penny. My mother didn't get nothing. Like you said, it ain't funny, and in another way it is funny because knowing now like I know now— Didn't get a thing. But I'll say this much, he did let us stay on the farm. We could stay there as long as we wanted to stay. He did do that. He was a pretty fair White man. I'll say that overall he was, but that was one of the things that happened.	5:54
Collins I. Hinton	Well, I don't know if it's true or not but it's just rumored that's the reason he died, because he mistreated us. Neuse River Bridge. He ran off over Neuse River Bridge and drowned about a year after that.	6:29
Paul Ortiz	Do people think he might have committed suicide?	6:43
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. Uh-huh.	6:47
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:06:49] probably broke.	6:49
Collins I. Hinton	No. No, he wasn't.	6:52
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:06:53].	6:52
Collins I. Hinton	Absolutely no, no. He didn't drink. I know that to be a fact.	6:52
Paul Ortiz	He wasn't about to take any liability for your accident.	6:58
Collins I. Hinton	That's right. But he did do some little things for me, and sometimes he'd go to Clayton. We lived between Clayton and Auburn. He'd go to— Well, see, it ain't funny now but— I mean then but now. See, his brother-in-law had a big store there. Suede Barber and Dwight Barber. His sister married one of them. Sometimes you'd go down there and they had some old clothes that they couldn't sell, so he could bring me a pair of pants or something like that and give them to me.	7:01
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	7:35
Collins I. Hinton	But cash money, they wouldn't give anything. Like I said now, we stayed there as long as they wanted to stay on that farm because usually when you do something like that, they just send— You had to go. Especially suing him. Overall, they were pretty fair people.	7:37
Speaker 3	Today, you'd have owned half that farm. If you sued, you'd have owned half that farm today, if not all of it.	7:59
Collins I. Hinton	Oh, yeah. They had a big farm and had a lot of tenants. We weren't the only ones on there.	8:05
Paul Ortiz	Now, what were their names?	8:11
Collins I. Hinton	Poole. AJ Poole. That was his name but the farm belonged to Arcana Poole. That was his daddy, and then it just handed down to the family. And—	8:12
Paul Ortiz	And—	8:23
Collins I. Hinton	Go ahead.	8:24
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I'm sorry. I was going to ask you a totally different question. Do you have something?	8:25
Collins I. Hinton	No, go ahead.	8:29
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Now, did your parents originally come from Wake County? Did they move real quick?	8:33
Collins I. Hinton	My parents were born and raised in Wake County.	8:38
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	8:45
Collins I. Hinton	There was my father and my mother. My mother was a Hinton and married a Hinton. My grandfather on my mother's side was from the plantation over here on 64. He was the son of a slave, and his mother worked for the Hintons, whose plantation that was over there. The landlord, I'll say the landlord, his mother, instead of going in the field and working like the rest of them, she was working in the home. One of the maids, I think, or whatever you used to call them. That's when the landlord got to her and had my grandfather, who was— You wouldn't have known him from being White, but he was just like a White man.	8:45
Collins I. Hinton	You can see that in my mother right there. Look over there. You see that picture there? From that farm all the way down Neuse River to Smithfield, the Hintons owned that farm down there, owned that land. My granddaddy owned— He must have given it to him. I don't know how he came in possession of it. He had a big farm out there where but I guess they might have given it to him. I don't know. But his name was Ruffin Hinton, and he had about 23 children. He was the father of about 23 children. He was married twice. That made a big family.	9:49
Paul Ortiz	To say the least.	10:36
Collins I. Hinton	Okay, you can ask me another question if you want to—	10:43
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	10:45
Collins I. Hinton	— and I'll go from there, unless I'm talking too fast for you.	10:45
Paul Ortiz	No, no. No, that's great. Now, you left off when you were 13. Where did you go from 13 as far as education?	10:48
Collins I. Hinton	Around 13, I finished Springfield High School. Springfield, not High School, Elementary School. I'm sorry. Elementary School. During that time, when one finished elementary school, in order to go to high school, they had to take an examination. If they passed the examination, then they could be admitted to high school. And so, the Blacks had to go to Method. That's a community. Now, it's a community in Raleigh but it was all incorporated at one time. It was a separate village. In that village was the Berry O'Kelly High School. That was a Black school founded and operated by a Black man, and was the only accredited high school in the state of North Carolina and in some of the other states that Blacks could attend.	10:57
Paul Ortiz	What was the name of that school?	11:59
Collins I. Hinton	Berry O'Kelly. B-E-R-R-Y, O', Kelly, K-E-L-L-Y.	12:01
Paul Ortiz	OK. He was a Black educator?	12:08
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm.	12:13
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what he did?	12:14
Collins I. Hinton	You said was he a Black educator?	12:15
Paul Ortiz	Mm—hmm.	12:17
Collins I. Hinton	No, no.	12:17
Paul Ortiz	No.	12:17
Collins I. Hinton	No, uh—uh. No. What was your question, now?	12:17
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what he did as far as occupation?	12:21
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. See, he came from Chapel Hill to Raleigh and he was to seeking employment. In Method, Mr. Woods had a store. He hired him as clerk in his store, $12 a month. But he secretly saved up some money and eventually he had enough that Mr. Woods gave him a share in the store, or sold him a share in the store. Then, when Mr. Woods moved back West, he transferred his store over to Mr. O'Kelly. Mr. O'Kelly owned the store, and after that, he had a post office there and also the Southern and Seaboard Railroad mine, they built a side track there, and that's where the shows and things— Now, I use that word shows and things.	12:25
Collins I. Hinton	When they'd go to the state fair, the train used that track during unloading and they'd stay there awhile at the fair. He acquired the property of about 12 acres, and that was the site on which the school was built. He got in touch with Mr. Newbold, who was in charge of education in North Carolina at that time, and Mister— I know his name. He was a philanthropist. Lockhart. No, that ain't right. What's that man's name? He was a philanthropist, anyway, and they built the school.	13:31
Collins I. Hinton	Lockhart was a superintendent. I can't think of the man's name. Can't think of his name right now. It went from a grade school to an accredited high school, and that's where I took— Now, I went there to take the exam. That's where the exam was held for the county for Blacks. Not Whites, but Blacks. You were talking about all the Blacks over there now, all the way through whenever I said somebody [indistinct 00:14:44] be White it involved Black.	14:17
Collins I. Hinton	We had to go to Method to this school to take the examination to go to high school. I had already had my accident. I had a girl they had admitted that would do the writing for me. So, we did. I did the test and I did excellent on the test exam. We lived out in the country. I don't know how, but one way was that Mr. O'Kelly found out about me, and he came to my mother and told her that if she would let him have me, he would see that I got an education, and then I could be on my own. It was a boarding school. I went there for four years.	14:46
Paul Ortiz	What years were you going to O'Kelly?	15:41
Collins I. Hinton	From '27 to '31.	15:44
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember when that school was founded?	15:49
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. 19— You got me right there. I got it in there. I'll get it for you or whatever.	15:50
Paul Ortiz	Okay. That's a very interesting story. I don't know if anybody has— Do you know if anybody's written about that school?	15:54
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm. We got something going right now about it.	16:10
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:16:13] going over.	16:12
Collins I. Hinton	We got a thing going on right now. I'll tell you about it afterwards.	16:13
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	16:17
Collins I. Hinton	Ask me later on. Let me get through this.	16:18
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	16:19
Collins I. Hinton	Now, where were we at? That then was 1927, '31?	16:20
Paul Ortiz	'27, '31.	16:22
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. I went to school there for nothing, but let me say this: he was very energetic and demanded you had to do something. He didn't believe in nobody not doing anything. What he did, I don't know if you can— I might get tears because when I talk about this it comes. I told you he had the post office. Well see, the boarding school had a girls' dormitory and boys' dormitory, and underneath the girls' dormitory in the basement was a dining hall and a kitchen.	16:27
Collins I. Hinton	I don't know if you know, but boys used to have a big bag that they used to carry the papers in when they'd go around and deliver papers. You remember? You remember? Do you know anything about that?	17:03
Speaker 3	Like paperboys.	17:14
Paul Ortiz	Paperboys.	17:14
Collins I. Hinton	Paperboys. They used to have a big bag they have on their shoulder, had the papers in there and throw them. He got me two of those papers bags. I had on my shoulder— I had to go to the post office twice per day for the mail to bring from the post office and carry it to the school. That was my chore. Then, I would be called down there. There was a lady working in the store. It's really wonderful. The lady who was working in the store and in the post office, it was all in the same store, she would give me something to eat sometimes or something like that.	17:15
Collins I. Hinton	Also, when there was a special delivery, that's the word I was trying to get, she'd always see that she'd try to save them for me so that I could take them to the school, and I'd get 10 cents for each special delivery. See, during that time you'd get 10 cents for each special delivery. I had that little 10 because I didn't never have no money, and that's the way I got my little money. While I was at Method, he arranged for me to go to college, and I went to college for four years, I graduated, and I didn't have to pay a penny. That's how I got my education.	17:56
Paul Ortiz	I'd like you to tell me about your college experience, but before that, was it a big change for you to come? I mean, you're coming from out of Wake County and then you're changing schools. Well, what was it like?	18:36
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. It was rough but a lot of others were there and I met a lot of people, and they were very friendly and nice. One thing, most of them would flock to me. I'm not being egotistic, but a lot of them flocked to me because I could help them with their homework. They allowed me to go in the girls' dormitory at certain hours and work with them on their homework. And so, I made a lot of friends and everything. They took care of me.	18:48
Collins I. Hinton	For the things that I needed to be done personally, I had guys that did it for me, and they were glad to do it because I took care of their homework at school. Right? I belonged to some of the clubs that they had there, all the different clubs, and I was the president of the class for the four years that I was there. It really wasn't much of a change for me, to be honest about it.	19:24
Paul Ortiz	When you were in high school, did you have other Black role models during that time?	19:56
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm. One of them was my was math teacher, and that's why I became interested in mathematics. Another one was my science teacher, and I became interested through him in science. So when I went to college, I majored in mathematics and chemistry.	20:04
Paul Ortiz	Tell me about some of the [indistinct 00:20:33]—	20:32
Collins I. Hinton	While I was at high school, I did earn a scholarship but I gave it to another boy because I already had my arrangements with Mr. O'Kelly. And so, I gave it to another one of the boys there. He went to college and he became a doctor, but he got killed in a plane accident. Okay. What was your question?	20:33
Paul Ortiz	I was just curious about it because obviously you were getting an education and did— Do you remember at the O'Kelly School, did they— What were the kind of books that you read?	20:59
Collins I. Hinton	At that time, as far as history is concerned, it was European history. Also during that time, Carter G. Woodson had put out a Black history book, and we studied that. I'm trying to think. He was— Bunche.	21:15
Paul Ortiz	Ralph Bunche?	21:40
Speaker 3	Ralph Bunche.	21:40
Collins I. Hinton	Ralph Bunche. Ralph Bunche.	21:48
Speaker 3	Let me interject something here, Joe, just because I'm sure he might be interested. Back then, National Negro History Week was very, very, very important. Very important.	21:48
Collins I. Hinton	Well, Carter G. Woodson was the one that started it.	22:01
Paul Ortiz	Okay, yeah.	22:05
Collins I. Hinton	There was another guy.	22:05
Paul Ortiz	How about—	22:08
Collins I. Hinton	I'm trying to think of— He was a professor of English at Shaw University. Well, he put out a book. He became a critic of the English language and they recognized him, except I can't think of his name to save my life it seems. It might come to me after a while.	22:08
Paul Ortiz	How about Du Bois and Booker T. Washington? Did you read—	22:25
Collins I. Hinton	Well, I got their books up there.	22:29
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	22:30
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. I used to teach Black History. That's what they called it. Sometimes they called it Black Studies.	22:32
Paul Ortiz	As a student, do you remember any of those? For instance, did you read Up from Slavery as a student?	22:39
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm.	22:45
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember any reactions that you had from that book? Was that something that—	22:47
Collins I. Hinton	Well, I wouldn't say there actually was reactions. Yeah, I read it but at that time it didn't faze me any.	22:54
Paul Ortiz	I was kind of interested because there's— In history we're told about this. There was a debate between Booker T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois.	23:06
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah, I read that.	23:17
Paul Ortiz	Yeah. I was just kind of curious if—	23:19
Collins I. Hinton	Yeah. Before integration, this is my personal saying, that I felt that it was wrong. I'll be honest with you, because I could see that a lot of the Black teachers, still, we were going to lose them. A lot of the Black principals, we were going to lose them. A lot of the Black presidents of universities or colleges, we were going to lose them. And it happened that way.	23:22
Speaker 3	The Black morals and the Black family disintegrated an awful lot.	23:47
Collins I. Hinton	We got this now in the schools where we have White teachers. The Blacks don't take on to that, and they are not particularly interested in learning from their teachings. I'm saying this from experience. A lot of the White teachers don't want to teach Black students. I was in the school— I'm going to jump a little bit, then I might come back since I'm talking about that thing I just pointed out.	23:55
Collins I. Hinton	I taught at Auburn, New York. I was born in Auburn, North Carolina, and I taught in Auburn, New York. I was teaching in an institution, one of the maximum prisons. That's using the simple words. In that prison, in the wall— There was a cemented brick, a cement wall all the way around. Inside of that, they had a school just like any other school building. It went from K-1 to K-12 inside of the school. That's first grade to the 12th grade. Inside that school, that's where I taught the guy you're talking about, Malcolm?	24:30
Paul Ortiz	Thomas X.	25:13
Collins I. Hinton	Thomas X. Oh, it was a White teacher in there. He was supposed to have been teaching math. That was my pet subject. That's why I went in that prison, to teach math because I was crazy about math. I had prepared myself for math. When I took a civil services job and I had been to— There's a lot I can say but I'll try to get to this right now because if I don't move— I had a lot of experiences.	25:14
Collins I. Hinton	I went to this school to teach math. I had passed a civil service exam. I passed that. When I went, I was living in New York City at the time, and that brings up something else that I had out of there. But anyway, let me get with this prison right now, then I'll get back. I'll be backtracking some of this stuff.	25:45
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	26:12
Collins I. Hinton	This guy was teaching math and mostly everybody in that prison was Black inmates. He would sit up and just have a math book, and then he'd have another book inside that math book. If the supervisors or somebody would come around, they'd see the outside that said, "Math." See what I mean? But he was reading other books. Then, when I was to teach physics— See, you have to have a math background in order to know physics and to learn it. Then the guys couldn't learn no physics because they didn't have the math background because he hadn't taught them. They were sending them in to me to teach physics, for them to teach them physics.	26:13
Collins I. Hinton	I had to complain. I didn't want to. I don't believe in ratting. I had nothing like that, but I had to complain. Well, I couldn't teach them physics when they didn't know no math. See what I'm saying? And so, I told the principal, I said, "I can't teach these guys no physics," I said, "because they don't know any math." Then they complained. The inmates complained and said, "Yeah, because Mister—" They called his name. I'd like to call it there but I couldn't think of it right in there. So, "He's not teaching us any math. He doesn't do anything but sit up in there and read books."	27:07
Collins I. Hinton	They explained that, but they didn't get rid of him. They didn't get rid of him. They had another teacher for the math to teach math. Smitty, that was his name. Smitty stayed there. Before he started teaching, he was one of the guards and he'd sit up there in that tower and studied, and went to school at night and got his degree, and then he became a teacher. He didn't care nothing about none of those inmates, and he won't teach them nothing. You see what I'm saying?	27:39
Collins I. Hinton	That happened in a lot of the regular public schools, the teachers not teaching them, and then a lot of them ain't learning anything. Getting back to myself is I have come in contact with a lot of problems but I have overcome the most of them in one way or the other. This was my first trip to New York, but when I went to New York to stay, I took a mini course at Duke University in prosthetic and orthotic education. When I was taking this course, some doctors from New York University and Veteran's Administration in New York were there. They were one of the teachers.	28:15
Collins I. Hinton	He told me, he said, "If you come to New York," he said, "I'll give you a job." I said, "Give me a job?" He said, "Yeah. I said I'll give you a job, see that that you get a job." He said, "You know enough about prosthetic and orthotic education, and also you have prothesis. You can teach a lot of the ex-GIs and the other people how to deal with them." I said, "Okay." So then, I went to New York and sure enough I got— He lived up to his word. I got a job teaching at NYU.	29:09
Collins I. Hinton	While I was there teaching, they said, "Let's try something. See how far can you go." I said, "I'm game. I'm for that." I applied for a teacher certificate. You had to pass an exam in New York City to teach in the schools. I don't care what kind of certificate you have, you had to pass an exam. They said, "Let's try for the public schools." They told me where to go and all, to the Board of Education. I went there to take the exam, and they told me it wasn't a race thing. This was a handicapped thing. They told me, said, "We don't hire handicapped teachers in New York City." They said, "If you have a prosthesis," they said, "we don't hire you."	29:48
Collins I. Hinton	I went back to New York University, where I was working. He said, "Let's try something else." He says, "We're going to work on that. Let's see what would happen." They sent me to a doctor. This doctor examined me. Everything that he questioned, that he asked and everything that he wanted me to do, I could do it, even write on the blackboard. I could write, and I could write on the blackboard and all of that. He wrote this up and he gave it to me to take back to the Board of Education. So then, they gave me the exam.	30:41
Collins I. Hinton	In other words, they called it going in the back door, that's what. They gave me an exam, and then they had to. When I took the exam and passed the exam, then I was certified teaching in New York City. Like I said, sometimes you just get fed up with things. I had to do all this to teach, and now I don't want to teach in New York City. I don't want to teach in the public schools. I went down to the state building. I can't think of the name of that state building. I know the address and all. I used to but [indistinct 00:31:54] and I used to go down there every day to look up on the board and see what was available otherwise. And so, I did.	31:17
Collins I. Hinton	The White fellow, he came out one day and he says, "I noticed that you come down here looking and looking." He said, "What you looking for?" I said, "I'm looking for a job." I said, "I want to get into institutional work." He said, "Come in my office." He had his office in that building. He said, "Come to my office." I went there. He said, "I'm going to ask you two questions." I said, "Okay." He said, "Are you a Democrat or are you a Republican?" I said, "I'm a Democrat." He said, "well, now, if you'll change to a Republican," he says, "I guarantee you'll get the job you want upstate New York."	32:02
Collins I. Hinton	I said, "Okay." Because something told me— I hesitated, rather. He said, "Now, when you do that," he said, "you come back and let me know saying that I'll do it." I went out there and I got to thinking about it and I spoke to somebody else after I got back home uptown. They said, "Well, when you go behind that curtain, they don't know how you vote." I said, "Well, okay." I went back. I said, "I changed," or whatever. "I did it. I went to the place and changed my party."	32:39
Paul Ortiz	Voter registration.	33:08
Collins I. Hinton	And 10 days from then I got a letter, "Report to New York." It was Auburn, New York for the job, the interview. Well, I went up there for the interview. Okay. I said, "That man's really working."	33:12
Paul Ortiz	What year was that?	33:27
Collins I. Hinton	That was in '60. '64, I believe it was. 1964.	33:29
Paul Ortiz	So, it was after President Kennedy was assassinated.	33:33
Collins I. Hinton	No. Yeah, yeah. It was right in there. Yeah, because I was in— That's right, somewhere in that neighborhood. Anyway. Something told me— You know you have intuition sometimes. It told me, it says, "You better carry everything you got when you go up there to this interview." So, I did. I was dressed. In my handkerchief pocket, I had my certificate to teach math in an envelope, and I had that in my prosthesis, and to teach science. See, I had a degree in science. And so, I had that up there in my pocket.	33:38
Collins I. Hinton	When I went in the office and presented my credentials, the man says, "That job just fell." They were lying. He said, "That job just fell," because I was Black. They didn't want to hire me. They wanted nothing in that school but Whites because mostly everybody in there was Blacks and they could treat them like they wanted to. I'm being honest, telling you the truth [indistinct 00:34:40]. There was those prisoners, if you want to call them. We called them inmates. They could treat them like they wanted to.	34:17
Collins I. Hinton	He said, "But we got a science field open, a position for a teacher." I reached up there and threw it on his desk. He opened it up and looked at it. The man did just like that. He was White. He did it like that. I went down there. Now, they gave me a science— Honestly, with you and everybody else, I never heard of that science before. I finished high school and college, but I never heard of that science before. That was Earth science. It wasn't going long then. The Earth science just wasn't in the curriculum. They just threw this on the teacher, Earth science.	34:48
Collins I. Hinton	When I went in that Earth science classroom, it's just like if you were to come in this house right here now at night and it's dark in here. You don't know where no switch is in here to turn on the lights. That's the way I was when I went in that classroom, but I ain't giving up. I'm not giving up. I went back home that night. I had my room then in Auburn. I went back to the room that night and I looked in the telephone directory.	35:27
Collins I. Hinton	I said, "Ought to be something here." I didn't know, so I looked in— I saw where it says, "Community college." I called the community college and asked them did they teach Earth science? They said, "Yeah." I said, "Do you have a course going in the evening?" He said, "Yeah. We got one from 7:00 to 9:00, that's it." I went and rested for that Earth science class, and what they taught me at night, I taught it in the day.	35:53
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:36:17]. You got it done.	36:17
Collins I. Hinton	Yep. I stayed there until I retired, but I had different problems [indistinct 00:36:26] problem with. If you want to hear some more problems, now.	36:20
Paul Ortiz	Okay. How about if we could just backtrack a little bit back to your college days? Where did you go to college?	36:31
Collins I. Hinton	I was afraid you weren't going to ask me that, and I'm noticing when you were talking back there just now, you named all the colleges but my college when you were talking about something that you were doing with Central and a different one. I'm an Aggie, A&T.	36:37
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	36:50
Collins I. Hinton	There it is up there, in that front area on that pin up there. I went there in 1931 and graduated in '35. If you want to know about my school background while I'm into it, then I went to University of New York at Buffalo, and then I came back to A&T. That's where I got my master's.	36:50
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember any teachers at A&T? Margaret Faulkner, does that ring a bell?	37:24
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-mm, and I don't think any of them who are there now were there when I was there.	37:32
Paul Ortiz	And so, at A&T, you basically studied science and math and things like that.	37:38
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm, and parliamentary procedure and business. I studied that, a course in business, with natural history, and then I took French. This is a funny thing, what I'm going to say now, to me. I took French and Spanish. Well now, I dropped the Spanish because I found myself trying to master two foreign languages and I was mixing up on both of them. So, I dropped the Spanish and kept the French. Now, I wish I'd have kept the Spanish and dropped the French because I come in contact mostly with— That brings me back.	37:42
Collins I. Hinton	Maybe you don't want to hear all of my old stories, but that brings me back to a thought that I had. When I was still in New York City and a friend of mine and one of my sisters, we went to Canada. And so, we were over in Canada and we got lot. We were in Montreal. There was circle there, different highways going off. When you go around this circle, you can go this way to hop on the highway, or you go that way. Different highways kissing off from that circle.	38:36
Collins I. Hinton	We kept going. I couldn't get out of there because I was trying to go to— I can't think of the name of the other place. I know it better than anything. Anyhow. We couldn't get out of there. I was trying to find Highway 9, something. I asked the guy. He came out there and he started rattling off French. My French wouldn't rescue me to save my life. It wouldn't rescue me to save his life. I did catch the word neuve, meaning nine. So he told me where I was going to go, Highway 9. He want back in the restaurant and got a girl, and she came out there and started rattling off that French with me, and I couldn't get it together.	39:14
Collins I. Hinton	My nephew was with me. Chucky, you remember Chucky? Chucky was with me. I said, "Chucky," I said, "if I get a map," I said, "I know I got sense enough to get out of here." Chuck and I, we're down on the floor with this map. I'm mapping out how we're going to get out of Montreal to go where we wanted to go. What's the name of the other place up there? I can't think. Anyhow. The lady says, "Where do you want to go," in English, [indistinct 00:40:22]. This White lady says, "Where are you trying to go to?" Oh, I was trying to get back to New York. That's what it was. I'm now thinking— Well, I was trying to get back to New York.	39:58
Collins I. Hinton	We had done left that circle and had gone up further up into Canada, got up in there where they weren't speaking nothing but French. We came back and went around that circle again. This time, I was down there with this map. She said, "Where do you want to go?" I said, "I'm trying to get back to New York City." She said, "Wait a minute." She said, "I got a map here. I just came from there," and gave me that map. I will not lie. That was a happy time to hear somebody speaking some English at this time.	40:33
Paul Ortiz	What was A&T like in the '30s?	41:03
Collins I. Hinton	Well, when I first went there in the '30s— Mm-mm. No, I didn't go there in the '30s. Oh yeah, '30s. I'm sorry. See, previously, it was all—boys school and my class was the first class that admitted girls, in '31. It was just a few girls there, but the atmosphere was very good and the social life was wonderful, and we had some excellent teachers and professors. I joined the fraternity and I enjoyed it. Still, that's one of the national meetings that we had of my fraternity in Indiana.	41:09
Paul Ortiz	Well now, which fraternity is it?	41:54
Collins I. Hinton	Kappa Alpha Psi.	41:55
Speaker 4	Hello?	41:59
Collins I. Hinton	What is it? Oh, come on in. You're welcome. You're in your brother's house.	42:00
Speaker 4	Oh, ain't that something. Thank you. The gift is all finished. I didn't [indistinct 00:42:11].	42:06
Paul Ortiz	When you were at college, now, did you have any— How do I say this? Were you interested in music, theater, sports, any of those things? Did you have any of those—	42:15
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm. We had to take courses in music, but as far as music itself is concerned, I wasn't interested in it, but I was interested in sports. I was on the track team, but that was about the only sport that I could participate in. I did pretty good representing but there was some faster guys than me out on that track team. Then, it was difficult for me to keep my balance because of my leg. That was the main thing I was interested in. I did have a lot of social life. I think when she came back in here just then, when she was talking about college, because she was always after me about money when I was in college. She sent me money when I was in college.	42:36
Paul Ortiz	Did you have sports heroes or musicians you really liked, singers?	43:28
Collins I. Hinton	During that time?	43:39
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, during that time.	43:40
Collins I. Hinton	Well, you're talking about on the campus? We had a band and one of the guys in that band I really liked him, well, and his music. Then, well, the other bands that would come around at that time, during my time, like Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington.	43:42
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	44:03
Collins I. Hinton	Noble Sissle.	44:03
Speaker 3	Chick Webb.	44:04
Collins I. Hinton	Chick Webb.	44:05
Paul Ortiz	Who was that, that A-Tisket, A-Tasket? Who was it—	44:07
Collins I. Hinton	That was Ella Fitzgerald.	44:07
Paul Ortiz	Ella Fitzgerald.	44:07
Collins I. Hinton	Ella Fitzgerald.	44:10
Paul Ortiz	You were really into that kind of jazz music?	44:16
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm.	44:18
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	44:20
Speaker 3	That was during what was called the Big Band Era.	44:20
Paul Ortiz	How about, say, in track? Any national heroes that you have [indistinct 00:44:36]—	44:28
Collins I. Hinton	I left out something that was my main thing. Let's drop the track. Debating. I was on the debating team. That was my thing. We won the tri-state trophy. South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia. There was South Carolina State, North Carolina State A&T, and Virginia State, Virginia. We won the tri on the debate. When you win it twice, you keep it. It becomes permanent property of that particular school, and we won it two years. It's uptown at A&T somewhere now among the trophies.	44:36
Paul Ortiz	What would you debate about? What were the main—	45:15
Collins I. Hinton	Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm thinking about Gottman now. That has been quite a while ago. I can't remember now.	45:21
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever debate about racial issues?	45:28
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-mm. No. We didn't have that. Around that time, that wasn't an issue at all because, see, the racial issues mostly came in the '60s. This was in the '30s.	45:32
Paul Ortiz	Okay. When you left A&T, what did you do from there? Now, you went to New York?	45:47
Collins I. Hinton	Mm-hmm. I taught at— Not immediately.	45:52
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	45:52
Collins I. Hinton	No, no, no, not immediately. I worked here in North Carolina in Wake County. I taught adult education in Auburn, and actually in different homes. I'd go into people's homes and— Like a couple. I'd have a certain time I'd have to go there and teach them how to read and write, and I taught a lot of people, Black and White, that— I was surprised. I'm being frank about it. I was surprised to find out so many Whites that were illiterate. I think I spoke about it when you were interviewing her about it, going to vote. See, all that, that's when I was teaching, and I taught him to— Then, I opened up a business, a service station on Garner Road, and I kept that for about five years.	45:57

Paul Ortiz	You mentioned voting earlier, that you tried to vote. Can you tell us that story again, where you tried to vote and the registrar asked you to read the Constitution?	0:04
Collins Hinton	Yeah, he asked me. No, he said, "Explain the Constitution." Well, see, I weren't stupid that way. I don't mean to be— Like I said, he could [indistinct 00:00:30]. I was pretty clever. So when he asked me to read the Constitution to his satisfaction, I couldn't do that. How can I reduce something to your satisfaction, because it ain't going to never satisfy you if you don't want it to. You follow what I'm saying? So they said, read the Constitution to my satisfaction. I said, "I can read it and explain it but I can't— " I told them now, I said, "But I can't explain it may not to your satisfaction." So I read it and I said, "Now turn paper around." They turned it around, and I read it upside down. But see, I could read upside down just as fast as I can straight forward.	0:16
Collins Hinton	And the reason for that is because when I was in elementary school, after I was in the accident, they had these benches with a desk behind, if you know what I'm trying to say. And I would always turn around to read, because the girl behind me would turn the pages for me to read when it's time for my time to read, and I learned to read upside down. And so it wasn't no problem. So I read the Constitution upside down and forward, and he said, "Well, that doesn't satisfy me." One of the other fellows says, "You can't do [indistinct 00:01:42]." He said, "Well, wait a minute." Said, "I'm going to ask him something in some of the phrases in here."	1:08
Collins Hinton	And that's one thing that I remember that they asked, said what is meant by the exto facto law. I said, "Exto means outside and facto means to make." I said, "So the law that was made at a certain time before the thing happened." That was the simple answer, and that was true and that wasn't right. But see, I knew that from Latin, you know what I mean? They chose the Latin word, thought I didn't [indistinct 00:02:21], but see, I knew that from Latin. So that's when the man told him says, "You can't do [indistinct 00:02:25] with Joe." Says, "You got to let him go." But he said, "But I ain't going to let him register and vote." So that's when I went to the— Told you a while ago, now I can't think of. Oh boy. Attorney General.	1:48
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Attorney General. That was in 19—	2:44
Collins Hinton	The 1936, I believe it was. Yep. 1936.	2:48
Paul Ortiz	Were there any other Black people voting?	2:55
Collins Hinton	No, no. Not at that poll. I put it that way. This was a little village in Auburn. But it was still in Wake County.	2:59
Paul Ortiz	So it was kind of—	3:09
Collins Hinton	Like I said, I told them they wouldn't be on the voting the next year. So we had a lot of them [indistinct 00:03:18], and one of them got some time for that. Because they padded the register somehow, and when they checked it out, they found out that people couldn't even read and write, they had signatures on there and it was wrong.	3:12
Paul Ortiz	White people?	3:36
Collins Hinton	All of it was white, yeah.	3:36
Paul Ortiz	Was it kind of dangerous to go and to try to register to vote? Did you feel like—	3:42
Collins Hinton	No, I didn't feel like it was. No, I really didn't have no— See, I lived around not too far from the store, and I was in and out that store. It was at a store. I was in and out that store all the time. And in addition, that's where we did all our trading, at that store. I had had a big account there every month 'cause I was working and I always get ahold of everything there and then pay it when I got paid. So I knew all the people in there and they knew me and all. I really felt very safe like that. And the sheriff was there too. He was sitting over there. But that don't said he could go protect me. But I did feel secure. And that's when they said, "Can't mess with Joe. He knows what he's doing." But they wouldn't arrest him.	3:49
Paul Ortiz	Was there a kind of defining moment for you to make you decide to register? For you was it a political act or was it just something that you—	4:39
Collins Hinton	I felt like it was because I had that right, privilege, that I want to do it. I want to exercise it. And I wasn't the only one. It was two or three more of us that had finished college, but they didn't— We lived in that area and they wouldn't let neither one. We knew we were doing it ourselves. Just [indistinct 00:05:09] one arrested and if they turned one back, they had to turn all three of us back, and accept the one, we felt that they accept the three of us. So after they wouldn't accept me, the others— They didn't accept neither one of us. They felt I knew more about it than they did.	4:49
Paul Ortiz	Were you involved at that time in any other Black organization that was concerned about voting rights?	5:33
Collins Hinton	No, I wasn't at that time. I joined NAACP later on. And I'm a lifetime member of that now. [indistinct 00:05:53].	5:43
Paul Ortiz	What year did you join the NAACP?	5:51
Collins Hinton	I think that was— I don't know. It was way back.	5:58
Paul Ortiz	'40s.	6:02
Collins Hinton	No, no. I became a life member when I was in '60s.	6:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	6:09
Collins Hinton	But I was a member before then.	6:11
Paul Ortiz	So now, when you were doing adult education, were you working for the county?	6:16
Collins Hinton	I was working for the—	6:32
Speaker 3	State.	6:32
Collins Hinton	No. At that time they had a program, it was a government program called the Works Progress Administration. And they had one of the subsidiaries of that program that they had teachers to go out and teach people that were illiterates. And my pay came from the government.	6:32
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember how, I think you mentioned earlier before we were talking, that there was some white resistance to this, to the teaching you were doing.	7:03
Collins Hinton	That was the farmers, that was those landlords that I was teaching the tenants how to read and write and keep their own accounts. And they resented that.	7:17
Paul Ortiz	So they didn't want Black tenant farmers to learn how to—	7:38
Collins Hinton	No, they didn't want them to learn. 'Cause see, they were getting all the money.	7:43
Speaker 3	If you dumb and ignorant and can take everything you make, you never—	7:48
Collins Hinton	If you farm and make good farm crop, they find some way that you owe them all that money. Then they come up— It ain't funny, but you laugh, they come up out of the— Young person, but I knew about it, because I knew about my mama. And they go down and say, well, call her Aunt Julie. That was her name. Say, "You didn't quite come out. You owe me so and so." Said, "But I tell you what I'm going to do, show you where my heart is. I'm going to give you $150 to buy your children some clothes." And we done all eight or ten of us done worked all the year for a hundred dollars.	7:53
Speaker 3	That's what it boiled down to. You see, a lot of Black people who were undereducated, they didn't know any better. They'd say, "Oh, Mr. So-and-so, he's not a bad man."	8:34
Collins Hinton	'Cause I can go to him and get so and so and so.	8:50
Speaker 3	Yeah. Anytime I— Well, my God.	8:50
Collins Hinton	If he got drunk— I just used the word drunk, didn't have to get drunk, but violated the law. I guess that's a better word. If one of his tenants violated the law and arrested him, all he had to do was call up there and say "Turn him loose." They didn't say "Turn him loose." Say, "Turn that nigger loose. Let him come on home and go to work."	8:52
Speaker 3	That's it.	9:10
Collins Hinton	That was it.	9:11
Paul Ortiz	So it was a system where— We have some documents, we have some oral testimonies back in that period of time. People have always wondered, well why or how did the Black tenant farmers view white owners? And one thing I hear you suggesting is that they were being kept in a state of ignorance. They were being kept purposefully unaware of writing and arithmetic. They didn't know that they were being cheated. Is that what you're—	9:14
Collins Hinton	That's it. No, they didn't. Didn't have no records or nothing. They didn't know how to keep records, and therefore they had to accept his word, but they didn't want to.	9:54
Speaker 3	And punitive actions one way or the other was always taken if you questioned the word of the white man. Question his word or authority, and brother you had to move. You had go. You disappeared. Sometimes even out of state, away from around that county or neighborhood.	9:59
Collins Hinton	Then sometimes, you lived on this man's farm and then you had to move. When you go looking, the other man go ask you why did you have to move or why you looking somewhere to stay. And the only time that they would take you, in spite of the fact that this man let you go, only way they take you, maybe you had a big family, number one. And number two, you had turned out some big crops.	10:22
Speaker 3	See, the more kids you had, they figured the more bales of cotton you could get in. The bigger the farm, more kids, the bigger the farm. More money rolling his way.	10:46
Collins Hinton	It's almost comparable to the welfare. The more children a woman had, the more money she can get from welfare. You see what I'm saying? And now on the farm, the more children they had and the bigger crops you could produce, and the more money they were taking in.	10:57
Speaker 3	The only thing was, there was no such thing as welfare for Blacks back then.	11:16
Collins Hinton	Nothing like that was—	11:19
Speaker 3	It was for whites, believe it or not. Not for Blacks.	11:21
Paul Ortiz	So when you began teaching literacy and mathematical skills, it was kind of risky. Did you—	11:26
Collins Hinton	No, at that time it didn't bother me. I really didn't think about the risk that was being taken. Only thing, the risk that I might would fear as to see, I might have to go in one of the houses that they owned for the tenant to stay in, and they could bar me from going there to that house. But for as doing anything to me, I didn't feel like I was insecure.	11:37
Paul Ortiz	So you never felt that you were in danger?	12:07
Collins Hinton	Mm-mm.	12:09
Speaker 3	I believe, Paul, really what it boiled down to is that you were born and grew up and lived this life, so it was really, the ever—present danger was always there, but after a while, you just born in this situation. You just live with it, and you just ignored it. That was that. It's like Hispanics out on the West Coast, the whites have always given them a very, very hard time. I mean, rough time. And you live under that, you have to find, it's almost like water on the duck's back.	12:11
Paul Ortiz	Now, working for the Works Progress Administration, how did you— I mean, you were obviously thinking about politics during this period of time. You tried to register to vote, you had that experience. What do you think of FDR?	12:55
Collins Hinton	Well, he was one of the persons that started the Works Progress Administration. I thought that, my personal opinion, but I thought he was one of the best presidents we've had.	13:13
Paul Ortiz	And you registered—	13:26
Collins Hinton	I changed back.	13:29
Paul Ortiz	Okay. You changed back before that. You were kind of a trailblazer, because you registered Democrat.	13:30
Collins Hinton	I was a Democrat, and I always was. And like I told you, after I came back home, this is home, I came back, I changed back to Democrat. And I'm a registered Democrat.	13:36
Paul Ortiz	Was that, do you think, because of your experiences in the Works Progress Administration, or because of—	13:49
Collins Hinton	Well, I felt like at that time, that the Democrats had done more for Blacks than the Republicans.	13:58
Paul Ortiz	Was that a popular or unpopular decision in the Black community among the [indistinct 00:14:21]?	14:12
Collins Hinton	It was a popular decision. In other words, if you were Black, you were a Democrat. You didn't have no Black Republican. Let me tell you something. I told you, I've had a lot of experiences. When I was in Auburn, I went there as a Republican. But my heart, I was a Democrat. So I was on the school board, that thing up there behind the school board. Only Black that ever been on that school board, and only one since then been on that school board, because I was a Republican, and Auburn is a Republican city.	14:20
Paul Ortiz	Now, this is Auburn, North Carolina.	14:53
Speaker 3	New York.	14:56
Collins Hinton	New York. Auburn is a Republican city. That's why this man, when he told me I could get the job, because he was a Republican. He send me up there and I'd get the job. And I was sitting in my living room like now, my wife and I was sitting there one day like we sitting in this den, and white guy came there and he says, introduced himself, came in, he says, "They having a Republican convention in Miami this year."	14:56
Paul Ortiz	[indistinct 00:15:32].	15:30
Collins Hinton	Yeah. That's when it was. Said, "And we want you to be a delegate." I said, "I ain't no Republican, I'm a Democrat." He grabbed a little paper, got up, didn't say nothing else, walked out.	15:32
Collins Hinton	Yeah, sure did. But that's how I got on that boat, because I was a Republican. See, there it is a political thing. And I stayed on there for five years and they tried to get me back on there, but I wouldn't do it because I had too many irons in the fire at that time, so to speak. But I did make some progress while I was there on the board. And got Black Studies in the curriculum and got some Black teachers there and Black assistant principal. And one of my classmates, God bless the dead, he's dead now, I was searching for Blacks, because I thought about him. He had just retired in Virginia, and so I called him and told him what I wanted, so he came in, was interviewed, and they hired him.	15:49
Paul Ortiz	And this was during the '60s.	16:38
Collins Hinton	Mm-hmm.	16:40
Speaker 3	But see, what we just talking about, you got to bear in mind, this is a little small upstate town in upstate New York. Now, in upstate New York, there's very little difference between that and the South. Those where he was, was predominantly white. Upstate New York is predominantly white. Not that many Blacks live throughout upstate New York, here in Buffalo, Rochester, the kind of regionally good sized cities. But New York City and upstate New York are totally two different environments. When you move out of New York City, move upstate, you're dealing with strictly Republicans. Those white guys up there, they don't want nothing to do with you, don't want to know you, don't even want to know you exist. That's it.	16:42
Collins Hinton	And another reason you don't find as many, excuse me, Blacks that way as you do it in downstate is because of the weather. Auburn and Syracuse, they're not far apart, but you find that they're between two big lakes and between the Finger Lakes,, and you don't get nothing but precipitation.	17:34
Speaker 3	That one was serious.	18:05
Collins Hinton	And that's why when I retired, that's why I was back there before—	18:07
Speaker 3	Where Uncle Joe lived up that little town, this time of the year [indistinct 00:18:18] you walked down the sidewalk on this side, you can't see the other side, because snowbanks piled so high.	18:13
Collins Hinton	That's true. Bay. I was calling Bay. I thought Bay was [indistinct 00:18:35].	18:24
Speaker 4	He's going up [indistinct 00:18:36].	18:34
Collins Hinton	[indistinct 00:18:39].	18:34
Paul Ortiz	I'm thinking now, you were talking about FDR and the Democrats. How about other, thinking of other specifically Black political leaders during that era? People like A Philip Randolph, Paul Robeson. Do you remember having any— March on Washington movement?	18:38
Collins Hinton	One of the great persons around that time that I admired was Lieutenant Oxley. He was a Black, he was greatly— He was the one that influenced me a lot, too. And he used to talk to me a lot. He'd see me on the street and he'd stop and talk to me and tell me about things to do and what not to do. And he came, he was in that group.	19:02
Paul Ortiz	I don't know much about him. Was he involved in politics?	19:26
Collins Hinton	Mm-hmm.	19:33
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And party politics or just— I'm sorry. Was he like a national leader or a local leader?	19:33
Collins Hinton	National.	19:46
Paul Ortiz	Was a national.	19:48
Collins Hinton	Mm-hmm. Lieutenant Oxley. I can't think of his initials or first name.	19:51
Paul Ortiz	That's interesting. We've got that. That's a gap in my history, I know.	19:58
Speaker 3	I believe that the most influential Black person during that era, during the '40s and so on, late '30s and '40s, was A Philip Randolph, because he headed the Black Pullmans Union, and those trains could not run if they struck.	20:02
Paul Ortiz	So when you went up to Albany, when did start teaching—	20:28
Collins Hinton	Not Albany.	20:33
Paul Ortiz	Oh, I'm sorry. Auburn. I'm thinking—	20:34
Collins Hinton	Because Albany is the capital.	20:38
Paul Ortiz	Right. When did you start teaching in the institution? Can you talk a little bit about the people you were teaching?	20:38
Collins Hinton	They were prisoners but we called them inmates and no, we had to change that. We called them residents. Okay. Residents. That's what they called them. Some of them had maybe elementary education, some of them didn't. And we taught them so that they— Let me back up a little bit. In the state of New York and in the city of New York, they had what they called a regency program. They have certain required courses one had to take in order to graduate from high school. And so that's what I was teaching, those regency programs, I mean courses. And some of the guys got their diplomas while they were in there. Some of them went, got their college degrees while they were in there. That's one thing that I noticed North Carolina seemingly doesn't have anything like that here. Now the professors from Syracuse University, from— What's that ag place, school? Agricultural School.	20:52
Speaker 3	Oh wow. Cornell.	22:11
Collins Hinton	Cornell. Thank you. That's it. Cornell, comes up from Cornell and Binghamton.	22:13
Speaker 3	Ithaca.	22:18
Collins Hinton	And Ithaca. They come there in the evenings and teach a course. And all just the same school that I talking about I went to. Auburn Community College. I forgot the name of that system, but they had a system in there where they could stay at that place and teach them stuff like— I didn't know the name of it. And teach them guys different courses, and didn't have to to come into prison. But it would come up on the screen.	22:22
Paul Ortiz	Prison release or?	22:54
Speaker 3	No, [indistinct 00:22:57].	22:55
Collins Hinton	Mm-mm. I can't think of the name of it now, but I—	22:56
Speaker 3	I don't know what I'm going to do, talking about I can't think of the name of it myself. Work [indistinct 00:23:05]?	23:01
Collins Hinton	Any rate. No, I ain't talking about prison work. I'm talking about this was somehow they had it so that—	23:06
Speaker 3	It's audio visual teaching.	23:09
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. So they're inside.	23:12
Collins Hinton	And then at times they come inside in the classroom and teach them, and they got their degrees. Some of them's doing well. But see, they had a vocational department there. They taught vocational education. They taught dentistry. They taught radio and TV, plumbing, carpentry, masonry. I can't think of all of them right now, but anyhow, they had all of the schools in there. A lot of them guys came out of there and got good jobs, and they followed it. Some of them messed up. There was one little— Art. I knew it was something like art.	23:18
Collins Hinton	One guy, that boy, he was excellent in art, and it was a lot of other them don't misunderstand. I'm talking about one particular one. And he came out, they gave him a job in Florida overseeing art in one of the facilities. Like I said, he come back to New York every so often, started stealing and breaking in and he got busted. But he had a good job. Recidivism is bad on a lot of them. That's what people talking about now. That they think they should keep him in there.	24:14
Speaker 3	Give that theory a serious defense, I feel like that you forfeited your [indistinct 00:25:01].	24:55
Collins Hinton	So, but getting back to who you talking about, you remember Son of Sam? You heard of him? He was in there. I've been in contact with all the rough, would've been tough guy, Son of Sam. You heard of H Rap Brown?. He was in there. Used to talk to them just like I'm talking to you now. Just talk to them just like I'm talking to you now. They was just like you and me. Only thing, they get out there and mess up. I can't think of all them guys' names. Black Panther. And I'd sit down there, I used to raise sam with them guys. But they liked me. They were crazy about me, and I knew it. But ain't one thing about it, don't tell no lie. You don't lie to them, you their friend. And they figured it out. Then I wouldn't lie to them.	25:01
Collins Hinton	And they would look out for me. They'd tell me, said "Don't come there. Don't come to work tomorrow. Give an excuse. 'Cause we gon' raise hell." That's the word they used. And so I wouldn't come to work that day. But they didn't want me to get hurt. And I could walk through the yard by myself without a guard. With them white guys, they better not come through by themselves without a guard. They'd jump them in a minute.	26:01
Paul Ortiz	Were the people like H Rap Brown and people who were involved in the Panthers, were they a different kind of people, did you find, than others?	26:31
Collins Hinton	No. Uh-huh? No. They were the same. Just like any the rest of them. And they'd come and we'd sit down and talk and I'd ask them why they'd do things and all like that and why different things. And they would tell me, and I say "Sometimes," I say, "You must have been just like a whirlwind." You seen a whirlwind, you know what I mean by whirlwind? I said, "You like a whirlwind. Whirlwind come by, and you got caught up in it. And just then put you and brought you in here because you committed some crime or something."	26:41
Collins Hinton	They agreed that they really didn't sit out and [indistinct 00:27:18] out for all that. And like I said, about 15 X— 15 X were getting a check every month from somebody. Now, that I don't know who it was, but he's getting a check on account of he being involved in killing Malcolm X. But he couldn't keep that check. You can't keep but so much money. And he wanted me to get the check and deposit it and keep it for him till he got out, but I don't want to get messed up in nothing like that. That'll get me killed. No, sir.	27:14
Collins Hinton	He wasn't the only one. A lot more them racketeers. They just had confidence in me. A lot of those racketeers was getting money, and they want me to take the money and keep it till they get out. But I wasn't going to get involved in none of that mess.	27:52
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever teach or know any of the other— Were there any other Black Muslims that were in the—	28:05
Collins Hinton	Yeah. When you say that, that's what the most of them— See, they had different facets. And they called themselves the 15s, the Muslims, the Black Muslims, the Sunni Muslims and the— Oh, a lot of different names. That's what calls them [indistinct 00:28:34] sometimes, they get against each other.	28:12
Speaker 3	Up in New York, there's a group that's not known, not even in New York that well. I would say maybe in my age bracket they're known around New York City very, very well. They're very strong, very, very powerful. They're called the Five Percenters.	28:36
Collins Hinton	That too. Five Percenters in there.	28:55
Speaker 3	They would hurt you.	28:56
Collins Hinton	They was the Five Percenters. I couldn't think of them.	28:57
Speaker 3	They would hurt you.	28:59
Collins Hinton	The Five Percenters was in there.	28:59
Paul Ortiz	Now, what was the Five Percenters?	29:00
Speaker 3	They were, originally they started off with the Muslim. But the Muslims weren't straight ahead enough for them. In other words, their focus was, we can't talk to this white man, ain't no citizen trying to deal with it. Let's get on with the civil war. Let's get on to war. To heck with all this talking, jaw jawing. It don't mean nothing. Look at the Indian. The Indian jaw jawed talked to him, and look, what, where the Indian now? The Five Percenters was strictly, let's get it on. That was it. Bottom line. Let's get it on. Let's kick some butt.	29:02
Collins Hinton	That I've said about the Muslims that you asked me about, talking about them. See, they wanted me to join the Muslim faith, and I wouldn't do it. They gave me the Quran and told me about what I— How I had to handle it and how to do it. I took it. That's the Quran is the Bible, so to speak. That's what they call it. I kept that. I took it, told me I could never put it down below my heart. Got to stay up above your heart all the time. And then I carried it home, I put it on the floor. They didn't know. 'Cause I'm going home. They in the prison. They don't know what I'm doing. But any rate. So to show you how much faith and confidence they had in me, they wrote to Elijah Mohammad, who was in Chicago, and told him to hire me.	29:45
Collins Hinton	I got a letter from Elijah Mohammad and Wallace. See, I know about them guys. I know everybody, 'cause I [indistinct 00:30:48]. Wallace is the one that's in charge in that sense, [indistinct 00:30:50] old man dead. And they wrote me a letter and asked me to come to Washington. I mean Chicago. And teach the Muslim faith. But see, I can't— Well, I can't say I can't. But a person doesn't want to do something against his will. I'm not going there and teach against my philosophy. See what I'm saying? That's what they want me to do. Because my philosophy was tearing down theirs.	30:42
Collins Hinton	Just like I told you about Malcolm X, when he came back and found out all of them [indistinct 00:31:25] was doing, it was against his will, then they killed him. But see, I couldn't go there and say I don't believe in science and this and that. I believe when a man's dead, he's dead. They talking about he sleep, he go wake up again. You see what I mean? I can't go for— I mean, that's not in me.	31:21
Speaker 3	I don't think so. I don't think he's going to wake up no more.	31:49
Collins Hinton	You understand what I'm saying? Talking about sleep, he just resting, go wake up again. Now see I can't teach that, because that's not my faith and I don't believe in that. That's why I wouldn't accept the job. But then, I didn't want to go to Chicago anyway. Okay.	31:52
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what were some of the— Now, you're in New York from the '50s, right?	32:10
Collins Hinton	Mm-hmm.	32:17
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember signs of segregation during that time in New York?	32:19
Collins Hinton	Mm-hmm.	32:25
Paul Ortiz	What were some of those signs?	32:26
Collins Hinton	Well, you find that all over, because in the stores in different places, even up and down 125th Street, one of the main streets that's in Harlem where most of the Blacks hung out, you find that there. But can't think of the name now, it's just been so long. But anyhow, they started telling them they had to hire some Blacks in those stores where they—	32:29
Speaker 3	Bloomberg's was one of the major ones that [indistinct 00:33:00].	32:56
Collins Hinton	They got to hire Blacks in them stores. Especially on 125th Street, now, but in the other stores. So what they did— And let me tell you what they did. They hired some Blacks in different stores, token Black in different stores. But the token Black was just like you. If you understand what I'm saying when I said it's like you. It was so white that you didn't know that they were Black, you know what I'm saying? But to say what they want to say it, they hired the whites, the Black whites so to speak, or however you want to name it. So that you couldn't tell. I'm not sure, now. This what I'm not sure of, but I think I'm right. I think it was Malcolm X, but I'm not sure. And so I'm not going to say it was, but when I finish saying what I'm saying— So he went in these stores, I think it was Malcolm X, told him, said— It wasn't Malcolm X? Who was it?	33:00
Speaker 3	Adam Clayton Powell.	33:58
Collins Hinton	That's who it was. I knew it was one of them guys. Said, we want to see Black. When we walk in here, we want know who we looking at. We want to see Blacks.	33:59
Speaker 3	Adam Clayton Powell was the man.	34:09
Collins Hinton	I knew it was one of them. I couldn't think of who it was, but—	34:11
Speaker 3	I'm not talking about a man that I just knew on the news. I've shook his hands. I've marched with him in Harlem.	34:15
Collins Hinton	Yeah, that's what it was. He said, "Get all these yellow people out of here and put some Blacks in here. When we walk in here, we want it to look like Africa."	34:23
Speaker 3	He was the man. That man has picketed in Harlem. And he got it to the point, he said, "If you can't— " These were the words he used. "If can't no nigga drive no soft drink truck or beer trucks in Harlem, then you can't come to Harlem and sell beer and sodas here." Soon, they started hiring Blacks on them trucks up there.	34:30
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, we talked to a Black truck driver who drives in New York, and pure Adam Clayton Powell.	34:51
Speaker 3	Sure. Adam Clayton Powell, he didn't just be a spouse. His church, you could go in his church, he ran an unemployment office in his church. If you needed law services, you could get a lawyer through Adam Clayton Powell's church. The man was the truth. The man was nothing but the truth. He put his money where his mouth was. He put his life on the line out there. You hear me?	34:58
Collins Hinton	I got to get out of here. I'm not denying it, but let's get through this, 'cause I got to go too.	35:26
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	35:26
Collins Hinton	My wife is waiting on me now.	35:29
Speaker 3	God, sure is. Y'all got to go.	35:31
Paul Ortiz	Well should we wrap up, because I needed to fill this out.	35:33
Collins Hinton	Okay. Bay. Bay.	35:37
Speaker 3	[indistinct 00:35:42] Y'all being interviewed, not me.	35:42
Collins Hinton	Bay. Okay. Okay, go ahead.	35:45
Paul Ortiz	Are there things that we missed that you'd like to kind of fill in? I mean, episodes, experiences during those years, especially during this time of segregation?	35:52
Collins Hinton	I'm trying to think. No, I don't think. I think I about covered everything that I can think of right now. Yeah, because I think I've told you about all my horror stories and truths that when I was in college, that wasn't a segregated thing. But I couldn't keep up with those professors. They went so fast in that lecture thing. You know, I guess. You know how they do it like that. So I asked one of the professor if they would allow me to have a tape recorder and record that lecture. And that was one of the things. So I got me a tape recorder, and I put it on the desk and hit record. You have to get permission from a person to do that.	36:10
Collins Hinton	You can't tape nobody's word or message or anything without getting permission, because they can sue you. So that's why. So each one of them granted me that privilege. I'd take the recording, and my wife— That was in grad school, and my wife would, during the day, she would listen to it and type it off, and then I could take that and study, and that created a problem. But it wasn't a bad problem, 'cause everybody in my class wanted to come in and use it and listen to it, which was all right. Because I didn't really see where I came in contact with any real problems where segregation was concerned.	37:04
Paul Ortiz	What are some changes that you've seen since those years?	37:54
Collins Hinton	I don't go for the integration, in that it doesn't make sense to me that you got to bus a child from here across two or three schools to go here just to say that they got a ratio of certain number of Blacks and whites. That doesn't make sense to me. All these buses run up down the road, spending taxpayers' money for gas and all that and the upkeep, and you see them towed and out. It's really pathetic. That's the way I look at it. In addition to, you don't have the teachers. Just like right now. We got a case in an NAACP. The teacher down in Ghana, they got her for— Said she abused one of the children. But see, she's Black. The principal's white, and the rest of them in there's white, and she's been laid off since back in December. She's not working. She's not working in the school, waiting for this case to settle. But she's not teaching. Those things, to me, giving somebody too much power. And see, they need to put the corporal punishment back in the schools. They've taken that out.	37:59
Speaker 3	See, another thing now, because Joe was trying to tell you also, is that when the integration came along, it didn't hurt the white man not at all. The white teacher never lost a single job. All Black teachers did. 90%. I believe, now, I may be a little high, but I would say estimate, but let me cut it down a little. I'd say a good 75% of all Black teachers throughout the South, their job.	39:24
Collins Hinton	Okay. What else? That it?	39:57
Paul Ortiz	Unless you had something to add.	40:03
Collins Hinton	I didn't know whether you had a question you wanted to ask or not.	40:05
Paul Ortiz	What?	40:07
Collins Hinton	Do you have a question to ask?	40:08
Paul Ortiz	I think I just about covered it.	40:11
Collins Hinton	Okay.	40:12
Speaker 3	Yep.	40:12

Item Info

Title:

Collins Hinton interview recording, 1994 January 27

Date:

January 27, 1994

Creator:

Hinton, Collins Ishmael

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Collins Ishmael Hinton; Date of birth: 1912-05-18; Place of birth: Wake Co., NC; Occupation(s): health services?; Residence: Raleigh, NC
Informant ID: 336; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

Occupation:

Health services

Location:

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-1999

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Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

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Interview number: 319
210e1065-0988-44c8-b7fb-50ad6c98c52a
behindtheveil
btvnc03015
ark:/87924/r4cr5st45
588a56ea-b787-4ec0-9bac-b2b21ed05eae

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Collins Hinton interview recording, 1994 January 27

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1. Collins Hinton administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Collins Hinton interview recording, 1994 January 27

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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