William Malone interview recording, 1995 July 18

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Doris Dixon	Mr. Malone, could you state your full name and date of birth please?	0:03
Tom Malone	I was born the 10th of March, 1914. My name is William Thomas Malone.	0:15
Doris Dixon	Where were you born, sir?	0:25
Tom Malone	Monroe County, about a quarter mile out of Eastern Cotton Plant here.	0:28
Doris Dixon	Okay.	0:38
Tom Malone	You pass the place as you come 17 coming this way, or did you come around?	0:38
Doris Dixon	I came around 40 down this way.	0:43
Tom Malone	Oh, you come through?	0:45
Doris Dixon	Right, but I think I know where you're talking about. How long have you lived Cotton Plant all your life? How long did you live out there?	0:46
Tom Malone	Practically all my life. I won't say all of my life because I spent about three and a half years in the Army, and I went to visit several times, stayed a while. Most of the time, I've been right here in the Cotton Plant.	0:57
Doris Dixon	Were your parents farmers?	1:21
Tom Malone	Sure was. My father was, first he was a school teacher. That was before I was born. After that, he farmed.	1:28
Doris Dixon	Did he always own farms?	1:40
Tom Malone	Sure did.	1:40
Doris Dixon	How many acres did he have?	1:40
Tom Malone	54.	1:40
Doris Dixon	How did he come to hold 54 acres?	1:40
Tom Malone	Well, I'll tell you. I guess I helped pay for it because I tell you it was there when I was born. I was born there, and I don't know what he out of debt when I got big enough to work or not. Anyway, I was raised out there. I went to school right across the road here. This road, see it, laundry, that white house sitting over there, that was part of the campus.	1:55
Doris Dixon	Oh.	2:26
Tom Malone	That I went to school to. Here's the lady with my dinner. Could you let her in too?	2:27
Doris Dixon	Okay. What do you remember about out there? What did it look like?	2:37
Tom Malone	It was just a farm. At that time, nothing but farmers. A lot of houses out there, a lot of people. Some share cropping, some rented the land.	2:43
Doris Dixon	You said there were a lot of people? Were they Black and White or all Black, all White?	3:05
Tom Malone	There was some Black, but it was mixed. Some Black and some White, mostly Black.	3:12
Doris Dixon	Are there still a lot of people out there today?	3:19
Tom Malone	No. Not too many out there now.	3:23
Doris Dixon	What happened?	3:23
Tom Malone	Well, these big farmers rented all the land and drove the little farmers off the land and use tractors now to farm it.	3:28
Doris Dixon	Okay. Do you still own your father's?	3:53
Tom Malone	Sure do. I still pay tax.	3:54
Doris Dixon	How many people lived on the farm with you?	4:06
Tom Malone	Say what?	4:09
Doris Dixon	Who was in the farm house with you?	4:10
Tom Malone	Oh, I got one of my cousins.	4:12
Doris Dixon	Out there now?	4:14
Tom Malone	He was still out there. I got the renter out there.	4:18
Doris Dixon	Okay.	4:20
Tom Malone	He just worked the land.	4:21
Doris Dixon	I meant when you were coming up, how many people? Was it just you and your parents?	4:25
Tom Malone	That's all, and my brothers and sisters.	4:31
Doris Dixon	Okay. Okay. Tell me something about your mother.	4:34
Tom Malone	You want to know her name or something like that? My mother's name was, she was Eugene Scott before she married. After she married, she was Eugene Scott Malone. My father's name, they called him Joe. Joe Malone. I had so many brothers and sisters, you don't want nothing about them. It was some as close and some I didn't see. I mean, they died before I was born or when I was a baby and I don't remember much. I remember some of them, some of them I don't. It was, wonder how many brothers and sisters I had? 18 brothers and sisters. Now, that wasn't by the one woman now. It's two wives. All of them dead now but me. I don't have a brother nor sister living.	4:42
Doris Dixon	What do you remember about the house you grew up in?	6:24
Tom Malone	House I was born in was a six room with a hall down the middle. Of course, you don't know nothing about no halls. I think it was a living room, two bedrooms, kitchen, and dining room. At that time, we didn't have no indoor facilities. Of course, you don't know nothing about that. A pump. I guess you see them out going through the country. No washing machine. Pump the water from the pump to water the cows and horses. Then we had the milk cow, we'd milk the cows. One time, my daddy run a dairy, small one. He used a buggy, didn't have no car at that time because cars weren't available or he wasn't able to buy one.	6:27
Tom Malone	Been so long, I forgot just about all that happened back then.	7:57
Doris Dixon	You say your father owned a small dairy?	8:15
Tom Malone	He run a small dairy. He never heard of a buggy. You seen the pictures of them I guess. He run a small dairy around here. Brought the milk from out there and delivered it to around town here.	8:24
Doris Dixon	He rented from someone else? He own it or?	8:31
Tom Malone	He owned it and several cows. Six, eight milk cows.	8:35
Doris Dixon	He owned them too?	8:41
Tom Malone	That's right.	8:42
Doris Dixon	How long was it operational?	8:42
Tom Malone	The milk dairy? Oh, three or four years.	9:19
Doris Dixon	Do you know when it started or when it stopped?	9:19
Tom Malone	it's been so long because my father died in 1940. I can't remember. That's been 55 years ago.	9:19
Doris Dixon	It was before 1940.	9:20
Tom Malone	Mm-hmm.	9:20
Doris Dixon	What about your mother? What kind of things did she do around the farm?	9:20
Tom Malone	She was just a housewife and garden. She raised a flower garden in the garden. A flower yard I'd say in the garden. She didn't pick no cotton nor chuck no cotton that I know of.	9:20
Doris Dixon	The children, what kinds of chores did they have to do?	9:43
Tom Malone	Who? The children help her in cleaning the house and they picked cotton and chucked cotton.	9:46
Doris Dixon	What did you like about working on the farm?	10:03
Tom Malone	When I was working, I liked it good. My main thing was chucking the cotton. That was me and my brother, the one that's younger than I. We chucked the cotton and the one that's older than I am, it takes a little over two years different in age than mine, he plowed because we didn't have no tractor at that time. He plowed, and my brother and I chucked the cotton. We used cotton scythes to pick the cotton. You might have seen or heard your mother or grandmother, great-grandmother talk about cotton scythes. You don't know nothing about them. You used a wagon and mule to bring the cotton to the gin.	10:14
Doris Dixon	What gin did you take your cotton to?	10:58
Tom Malone	I've forgotten about back then, but later there was a farm with a gin.	11:03
Doris Dixon	It was a what?	11:07
Tom Malone	Farm with a gin.	11:07
Doris Dixon	A group of farmers owned it?	11:07
Tom Malone	Mm-hmm.	11:07
Doris Dixon	Were they Black or White?	11:21
Tom Malone	They was White.	11:21
Doris Dixon	Was there a bunch of Black property owners back then?	11:21
Tom Malone	There was quite a few. Quite a few Black owners back then. I couldn't tell you how many because it's been so long.	11:31
Doris Dixon	Did they have any gins or stores?	11:42
Tom Malone	Oh, yeah. There was two or three Black stores here in town. There was, I guess you heard, since you've been here, have you heard of Dark Corner? At that time, had a theater, Black theater down there and it's a Black gin down there. Owned by Black. It's been so long, that's about as much I can think of right now.	11:49
Doris Dixon	That's fine. Let's go forward some. You said you went to school over here?	12:30
Tom Malone	Cotton Plant Academy.	12:32
Doris Dixon	Cotton Plant Academy. What grades did you go there?	12:33
Tom Malone	I went to 12th grade.	12:36
Doris Dixon	Over here?	12:36
Tom Malone	Sure did.	12:36
Doris Dixon	Did you finish the 12th grade?	12:45
Tom Malone	Well, I was a dropout, three months finishing. My brother was supposed to stay at the home and take care of my mother and father. He got burned up.	12:48
Doris Dixon	There was a fire?	13:02
Tom Malone	Mm-hmm. That throwed me to have to quit school to take care of my mother and father.	13:05
Doris Dixon	Were your parents sick?	13:23
Tom Malone	My father was well over 65 or 70. 65. My mother wasn't that old, but she was a weak woman I would say. I wouldn't say she was that sickly, but she was weak. Back in those days, a woman have six or seven boys. They tell me that back then, it make a woman weak. My mother was seven sons, no girls. Of course, he and his first wife had some girls. It would make my mother their stepmother but they didn't know no difference because they was young. When you tell a child that's your mother, they don't think about step or nothing like that. They thought of my mother, that they was their own mother. My brother, my oldest brother, that was his stepmother. One day, somebody asked him, told me that's my brother, his name was Luther. "Luther, that's your stepmother?" He'd curse a lot. I won't say what he said because it's bad word. "No, that ain't my stepmama. That's my mama. Mama done just as much for me as he did Tom." I never will forget that.	13:30
Doris Dixon	She didn't make any difference?	15:12
Tom Malone	They didn't treat their stepchildren, no they didn't make no difference. When my mother got sick, the hospital here in Brinkley, we carried her over to the hospital, and I was working every day. My sisters knew I was working. You know what they told me? They said, "Thomas, you're working every day. We don't want two sick people here. Mama's sick in hospital. You go home and get you some rest." I knew I could work every day and go to hospital and stay all night and go back to work the next day. "Tommy, you go home and get some rest, and we'll take care of Mama." They'd stay there all night. I'd go every day after I go there to see her, but I'd home and go to bed so I could go back to work the next day. "Thomas, you go home. Mama's sick and don't want two sick people." They'd stay there all night long with their mama and my mama until she died.	15:15
Doris Dixon	When did she die?	16:27
Tom Malone	She died the 13th day of October 1958.	16:27
Doris Dixon	Where were you, you said you were working every day, where were you working at that time?	16:40
Tom Malone	Called the Southwestern Veneer Plant. About a quarter of a mile.	16:48
Doris Dixon	Southwestern?	16:48
Tom Malone	Southwestern Veneer.	16:50
Doris Dixon	Veneer?	16:51
Tom Malone	Yeah. Veneer plant.	16:52
Doris Dixon	What did you do for that?	16:57
Tom Malone	What'd I do? I'd run the clipper. I clipped veneer. Different length for them to make paneling.	17:00
Doris Dixon	You said you were at the Southwestern Veneer Plant?	17:09
Tom Malone	That's right.	17:09
Doris Dixon	You were one of the clippers?	17:19
Tom Malone	I run the clipper.	17:19
Doris Dixon	You said-	17:20
Tom Malone	Clip veneer. That's right.	17:20
Doris Dixon	Was that your first job?	17:28
Tom Malone	Well, no it wasn't the first one. When I first went there, I helped get the load and put in the van. Used tong to clip the load on each end, and I stuck the, I forgot what the [indistinct 00:17:55] and bring them to the saw. They'd saw them different length and put them in a vat to peel the bark off of them. Then, we'd put them in the machine, and make veneer out of all of them, out of the logs.	17:32
Doris Dixon	How many years were you at Southwestern Veneer Plant?	18:22
Tom Malone	20.	18:24
Doris Dixon	20 years. Where were you before that?	18:26
Tom Malone	Plowing a mule.	18:30
Doris Dixon	Was this your first job outside the farm?	18:35
Tom Malone	Sure was.	18:39
Doris Dixon	The time you finished farming, were you doing both the same time, or how did that work?	18:47
Tom Malone	I wasn't farming at first. My brother was doing the farming at that time.	18:55
Doris Dixon	Okay.	18:55
Tom Malone	I think we didn't need both of us out there, and he was doing the farming. I'd help out when I could. On the weekends, I didn't work on Saturdays and I'd help him on Saturdays. Maybe when I get off from work or felt like it, I'd help him because I'd work seven to four and I'd maybe have an hour or two to help him when I get off from work, if I wouldn't be too tired.	18:55
Doris Dixon	When did you start working at Southwestern? What year was that?	19:46
Tom Malone	1952.	19:48
Doris Dixon	Okay. Before that, you were farming full-time?	19:48
Tom Malone	That's right.	19:48
Doris Dixon	When you were working there, you would help out on the weekends.	20:01
Tom Malone	That's right.	20:03
Doris Dixon	Okay. Was there a union at Southwestern?	20:07
Tom Malone	Not when I first went there. Before it was over, there was a union. I even forgot the name of it.	20:10
Doris Dixon	There was a union somewhere between '52, and did you retire?	20:18
Tom Malone	'72. No, it went out of business.	20:22
Doris Dixon	Were you a member?	20:29
Tom Malone	Sure was. I forgot the name of it.	20:31
Doris Dixon	Was it hard getting the union there?	20:44
Tom Malone	Yes, it was but finally we got it in. Back in those days, [indistinct 00:21:04] don't get me wrong, we call them White, I have to because they didn't want nothing to help the Negro out at that time. They didn't want it for us, but we finally got it. You taking the union, the boss man have to abide by so many union rules too. I don't know what they do now, but back then they did.	20:49
Doris Dixon	What did you come to the [indistinct 00:22:02]?	22:00
Tom Malone	Which?	22:00
Doris Dixon	When did you come to the town of Cotton Plant to live? When did you live here in the town?	22:02
Tom Malone	Come out here?	22:05
Doris Dixon	Yeah.	22:13
Tom Malone	When I married. My second marriage. That was in '74 or five. I've been here about 10-11 years.	22:14
Doris Dixon	Before that, you were still living?	22:27
Tom Malone	That's right.	22:30
Doris Dixon	Okay. You probably came to Cotton Plant pretty frequently. Every day?	22:30
Tom Malone	Well, sure did.	22:39
Doris Dixon	What did it look like back in those days?	22:39
Tom Malone	Oh, it was big. It was pretty good-sized, a lot of stores here that was there because we had two, I think it's two banks here at one time. We had two drug stores here and two, three doctors here.	22:49
Doris Dixon	Were any of those owned by Blacks?	23:03
Tom Malone	Black owned one or two cafes here. I think there's one Black store here at that time, right here in the town.	23:03
Doris Dixon	Where were the gathering places?	23:43
Tom Malone	Which?	23:45
Doris Dixon	Gathering? Where did people congregate or gather together?	23:46
Tom Malone	Well, they had two or three cafes here by color, and had a place here they called the Silver Slipper.	23:53
Doris Dixon	Silver Slipper?	24:00
Tom Malone	Went straight on down this street.	24:04
Doris Dixon	Okay.	24:06
Tom Malone	They had a pool hall here. At one time, of course I never did go to it because I'd got whooped if I had went, had a gambling house here.	24:19
Doris Dixon	They were owned by White people?	24:37
Tom Malone	Colored.	24:37
Doris Dixon	Okay. Was Cotton Plant segregated?	24:49
Tom Malone	Say which?	24:51
Doris Dixon	Was Cotton Plant a segregated town?	24:51
Tom Malone	In some ways, yeah. Back long years ago. Of course, at one time here, they didn't want the Colored fellow to have a car to park on Main Street. That's been quite a few years ago.	24:54
Doris Dixon	You couldn't park your car on Main Street.	25:25
Tom Malone	At one time, sure couldn't. Wasn't very many Colored had cars. There was two or three that had cars here.	25:27
Doris Dixon	How many people protect themselves against violence, I guess racial violence?	25:42
Tom Malone	Oh, our men would fight them, whoop them, if they could. Sometimes they'd get whooped, sometimes they wouldn't. Mostly Colored people know not to raise no ruckus as you could say. They didn't get into it too much.	25:53
Doris Dixon	Do you remember any times when they did get into it?	26:20
Tom Malone	Oh, yeah. One or two fights around here among the Colored and White, but they been so long ago I forgot who it was now. They done pretty good because you take the big land owners down here, they wouldn't let you do too much because they wanted their farming people to work. They couldn't put them in jail, they'd go up there the next morning and get them out. Sunday, get in jail on Sunday, Saturday night they get out Sunday so we could go back on the farm Monday morning to work. That's just about all I can remember.	26:25
Doris Dixon	Where did you go to church?	27:36
Tom Malone	I was born a Baptist, Ash Grove Baptist Church.	27:42
Doris Dixon	What was different about those services than today's services? How are they different?	27:55
Tom Malone	Oh, wasn't too much different. They just, they stay in the church longer then than they do now. The preacher would preach longer. I don't know. Sometime I think the preachers are, now don't get thrown by those young preachers. Some of them don't live [indistinct 00:28:38] preacher, the one we got down near here. He just comes, stay about two to three hours, and go on back home. Back there then, they'd have prayers, they'd have Sunday school, preaching service, 11 o'clock service, and night service. They don't have no night service here now. It'd have Monday night prayer service back then. Now, here don't do it. They may do that in the city, but they don't do it.	28:02
Doris Dixon	Yeah. They do it some places in Memphis.	29:14
Tom Malone	They do? They got baptizing pools now, they didn't used to. Back then, we went down, I guess you heard of the [indistinct 00:29:34] around here. We went down baptizing and baptized down in the woods back then. Of course, I was baptized down in the muddy [indistinct 00:29:48]. I guess they got mud religion now.	29:27
Tom Malone	Back then, it looks like the people was more together than they are now. Sometimes, I think the youngsters over there don't care nothing about that, his next door neighbor. I don't know whether they that way in Memphis or not. Sometime, they may not be that. This may be my thoughts. Again, I could be wrong in this. I believe that why the people of today are so far apart, prosperity. Sometime, the people make more today in a week than we did, than my father did in a whole year back there then. I say some make as much in a day. I imagine they gets $15-20 an hour by now. You know what I got when I was working?	30:09
Doris Dixon	How much?	31:33
Tom Malone	When I first started working, I got 65 cents. You know when I quit working how much I got?	31:45
Doris Dixon	A couple dollars?	31:47
Tom Malone	A dollar 75. That's common labor now. When I got to max when I worked on the green thumb a while. I got to call my neighbor then was three dollars and a quarter I believe. Up until then, them 20 years I put up down there at the mill I call it, I got 65 cents when I first started. When I quit, I got $1.75. I mean, when it quite me because it went out of business. I guess if I had got as much as how the people they get now, I guess I'd have a fit. I know I would have. Of course, now don't get me wrong, things are higher now. You could buy more back there then with a quarter than you can for $25 now. Almost. What you pay for five stick of gum now, there's five in a package. You used to get it for a nickel. Cost you a quarter or 35 cents now, don't it?	31:47
Doris Dixon	Something like that. People, when you say prosperity, do you mean everybody prospered, or do you mean divisions are called, different people prosper more than others?	33:05
Tom Malone	Prosperity as a whole, because the people of today, to mine, I could be wrong, might be so far apart. You take it some of us, Black and White, and get a dollar in their pocket, we don't know each other. I guess that's, I don't know where it's going the people of your age or not. It might be some that get more hours than you, turn their back when they see you coming. They see you coming when you get close to them, they turn their head. Some you've been knowing all your life don't know you.	33:15
Tom Malone	That's been quite a while ago, I went to some girls was [indistinct 00:34:04] I don't know they all had a good pair of shoes on. There was four or five of them. He turned around and went to St. Louis. Their mother kept them in St. Louis. I knew them, and they knew who I was. I went on to St. Louis on a visit. I saw them, and when people your age are out, you see them, you know them, you want to speak to them. These girls act like they didn't know who I was. I said to myself, "You all need to go out to the country because the city done ruined you." I called them city tricking. Got this city and I got a good pair of shoes to put on, they don't know you. I knew them, but after they act like they don't know me I didn't know them either. That's the reason I said prosperity ruined the people.	33:59
Doris Dixon	People pretty much, you were coming up later into the '30s and '40s and even into the '50s we didn't have much.	35:08
Tom Malone	No, we didn't have much. Sure didn't.	35:16
Doris Dixon	How did they survive?	35:29
Tom Malone	Well, things were cheap back then. At that time, you could take up at these stores and pay for it in the fall. That's where most of them lived. Back in one time, they had with food stamps now a days, coupon books that they called them back there then. Give you a coupon book, you trade out of that just like you trade out of your stamp books now. You go to the store and get what you wanted. They'd go get, if a big family gets it, according to how you went, how many trades. If it's a big family, you have to go every week but if you wasn't such a large family you go maybe twice a month to trade. Good enough to last you two weeks or a month. You back to that, and that coupon book give out and give you another one.	35:34
Tom Malone	Sometimes, because they trade on credit they called it. They trade now on credit sometime now I guess and pay for it pay day. Back there then, you pay for it, you say on credit, you pay for it in the fall of the year. The farmers did. Sometimes, the farmers would come out with some money sometime and put.	36:54
Doris Dixon	What was the difference between some years you'd make some money and some years you didn't?	37:30
Tom Malone	Say which?	37:33
Doris Dixon	Why would you make some one year and not make some the next?	37:37
Tom Malone	Well, they had sometimes we'd have a drought wouldn't make as much on the farm. Have a drought, stay dry for two or three months, and cotton and corn wouldn't make as much.	37:40
Doris Dixon	Could you get loans back in those days? They have a?	37:59
Tom Malone	Yeah, you could get loans. Some people did. Sometimes you could pay off that loan, some of them would pay it off fall, sometime they wouldn't get out of debt, have to pay it off the next year. The farm stayed on charging interest on that loan or didn't pay off you had to pay that you didn't pay that year, pay next year. The interest just go ahead up. They just keep charging it on that you owed and than you borrowed the next year. I'd call it double interest.	38:03
Doris Dixon	Now, if you were sharecropping or renting, did you get a loan from the land owner? Is that what you mean?	38:51
Tom Malone	Yeah.	38:58
Doris Dixon	What about people who own their own?	38:58
Tom Malone	Oh, they'd have to borrow a loan.	39:02
Doris Dixon	From the bank?	39:04
Tom Malone	Yeah. From the bank or some of these stores where they give them credit because they wasn't able to carry themselves, some of these stores would furnish them and pay the store off the fall of the year.	39:05

Item Info

Title:

William Malone interview recording, 1995 July 18

Date:

July 18, 1995

Creator:

Malone, William Thomas

Contributor:

Dixon, Doris

Description:

Name: William Thomas Malone; Date of birth: 1914-10-30; Place of birth: Cotton Plant, AR; Occupation(s): agriculture; farmer; laborer; Residence: Cotton Plant, AR
Informant ID: 1079; Interviewed by: Doris Dixon.

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Language:

English

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Behind the Veil

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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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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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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: 108
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William Malone interview recording, 1995 July 18

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1. William Malone administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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William Malone interview recording, 1995 July 18

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