Vivian McCoy interview recording, 1993 June 02

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Bill Crumpton	Carolina, who's going to tell us about her experiences during the Jim Crow era. First we'll start off by, I'll ask you, are you originally from Durham?	0:01
Vivian McCoy	Yes.	0:11
Bill Crumpton	Could you describe your neighborhood for me?	0:14
Vivian McCoy	Oh, my neighborhood? Well, it was the first neighborhood we were, I lived in a Black community, but in the back of me were Greeks because during the early '50s and the '60s, foreigners were not allowed to live in predominant White neighborhoods because they were considered as minorities also. So a block behind me where I lived were Greeks, couple Italians. This was a Greek neighborhood and that expanded all the way up to the downtown area. Which is like Dillard Street where the plasma bank is located now. Which is once the old bus station.	0:20
Bill Crumpton	Yes. Do you remember your grandparents?	1:02
Vivian McCoy	Only on my mother's side. My father's parents were deceased before I was born. My grandfather on my mother's side was deceased before I was born. But only person I remember is my grandmother.	1:06
Bill Crumpton	Okay. Do you remember your parents telling you anything about your grandparents, where they were from, what sort of work they did?	1:21
Vivian McCoy	Well, my grandfather, who was Richard Allen, was an AME minister and a college professor. He had a lot of history books that I read when I was a child that my grandmother kept locked up in a trunk, that was her prize positions. My grandmother was a housewife. She never worked because by being a minister, he traveled from city to city, so they moved around a lot. Exactly what city he is from originally, I couldn't answer that question. I do know that he was one of the organizers at AME church during those years. Because if he was living he would be over 100 and some years old, probably 120, something like that. Because he was 20 years older than my grandmother and she was his second wife.	1:28
Vivian McCoy	On my father's side— I have no pictures of my grandparents on my father's side, which is the McCoys. My father is a Cherokee and he came from the tribe, the Cherokees from the Clarkton area. That was part of the Cherokees that did not participate in the Trail of Tears to walk to Oklahoma. They separated. Once they left the tribe, those particular Cherokees, once they left the tribe, they did not go back.	2:15
Bill Crumpton	You were telling us about your grandfather on your father's side being a Cherokee.	2:49
Vivian McCoy	He was a full-blooded Cherokee. His mother was half Mexican and half Cherokee.	2:59
Bill Crumpton	Okay. Do you remember what sort of work your parents did for the most part?	3:08
Vivian McCoy	Believe it or not, my grandfather on my father's side ended up being a minister. So I have ministers on both sides.	3:13
Karen Ferguson	Can I ask a few questions? I just wanted to go back because you talked — Is your grandfather descendant of the Richard Allen?	3:23
Vivian McCoy	Yeah, see, that's a question because I don't know who his father was.	3:32
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	3:37
Vivian McCoy	But according to my aunts, and this is oral history again, according to my aunts, he was. But we don't have documentation of such. But according to my aunts, he was.	3:37
Karen Ferguson	You had talked about growing up living among Greeks, how was that growing up as a child? Did you have friends?	3:50
Vivian McCoy	Yeah, well we had White kids that come in our neighborhood and play. So it was nothing strange to see the Greeks and the Whites playing together. See the problem itself is that when you're kids, you grow up, you play with these White kids when they become a certain age and their parents start teaching them that, that's a nigger. You can be the best of friends with them from age five, I'd say, up to 10 or 11, when they become teenagers and such that hatred is taught at home and then you have a separation of that. These kids have been in your house eating with you and it's just like you are no one else but an average human being, but then they learn the hate and the difference in the races and that they're supposed to be superior from their parents.	3:58
Vivian McCoy	That doctrine starts at an early age with them. So that that's usually happened. Most neighborhoods in Durham were like that. There were areas where it's predominantly Black, but near little side streets or back streets, there were Whites, Greeks, Italian and Chinese because the same thing was the Chinese, they didn't allow the Chinese live in White neighborhoods either.	4:41
Karen Ferguson	The other races that lived among the other groups, ethnic groups that lived in among you, did they feel akin to Blacks? Or did they feel separated in some ways?	5:05
Vivian McCoy	When you're kids you don't think about that. We never thought about that. So I never asked that question. As they got older, they moved away because that street eventually start in the late '60s start becoming predominantly Black. Then it moved further up the streets and it still became Black.	5:11
Karen Ferguson	Growing up, what did you and your friends do for fun?	5:32
Vivian McCoy	Well, one thing I stayed out of the sun, that's for sure. I can't stand the sun now. We played a lot of sports. Now, it was not a lot of young girls in my neighborhood when I was growing up, mostly guys so we did a lot of playing ball and stuff. We played with dolls, but that was never my cup of tea. One of my best friends was a young guy that loved to read. His key thing was every morning take a word out of the dictionary and we used it all day long. But we always read because my parents read all the time. So you do pick up the habits of your parents. They always had a book in front of them.	5:36
Karen Ferguson	One last question, how did your parents meet since your father was a Cherokee, how did they meet?	6:14
Vivian McCoy	That's a good question. We never asked that question. I do know that they were living in the same city, I guess in one of the areas when my grandfather was moving from city to city, and that's how they met. That's basically all I know.	6:21
Karen Ferguson	Did your father join AME church? You said he became a minister?	6:38
Vivian McCoy	My father was Methodist.	6:42
Karen Ferguson	Methodist. Okay what got him [indistinct 00:06:47]—	6:44
Bill Crumpton	Okay. You said your father was a Minister, did your mother work outside of the house?	6:50
Vivian McCoy	My mother was a licensed barber, one of the first female barbers in the state. Also my mother was one of the first Black nurses that Duke Medical Center hired.	6:56
Bill Crumpton	So she was a barber first—	7:06
Vivian McCoy	And then she became a nurse—	7:08
Bill Crumpton	Became a nurse. Do you remember going anywhere else in the Black community while you were growing up?	7:10
Vivian McCoy	Well, we knew everybody in the neighborhood. I mean, you knew everybody. When you're a child, back then you knew every street in the neighborhood. You knew practically everybody in the neighborhood. You knew the good guys, you knew the bad guys.	7:21
Bill Crumpton	Did you shop in Hayti area or did you shop—	7:34
Vivian McCoy	Yes. Well it was a predominant self-sufficient neighborhood. It had everything that you want to find out in the shopping center. So the Blacks patronized that Black neighborhood. Everything was there.	7:37
Bill Crumpton	This was in the 1950s?	7:48
Vivian McCoy	It was in the '50s and the '60s. Then urban renewal I think came in through the '70s.	7:53
Karen Ferguson	I had another question. Could you describe your mother, did she ever tell you any experiences about her being the first barber and the first nurse and things like that?	7:57
Vivian McCoy	Well, yes, by being one of the first female barbers in the state—	8:07
Karen Ferguson	When about what time period?	8:15
Vivian McCoy	What time period? Let's see, I was approximately maybe six, seven years old as far as I can remember back as far as her being a barber. When she started, now this might have been before then. Well she was teased by other women by being the only female in the barbershop. "It's a place for men to hang out." However, she had more customers than the male barbers and she cut all the children's hair in the neighborhood. And my mother was militant in her own way.	8:15
Karen Ferguson	Did she have a shop?	8:50
Vivian McCoy	No, she didn't have her own shop. She worked in a shop with two other barbers. The owner of the barbershop was Mr. Holloway and where we lived she could walk to the barbershop. She only worked in the barbershop on the weekends.	8:51
Karen Ferguson	Did she ever have male customers that would see her and be surprised that she was a barber and come into the shop and be surprised she was working there?	9:04
Vivian McCoy	Occasionally, however, once she became a barber and established herself, she had no problems because her clientele was higher than the male barbers in the shop and they gave her the utmost respect in the barbershop. So in that shop particularly, you didn't hear the downright home men conversation because she was there. Then if a conversation as such would take place, then the other men in the shop would stop it.	9:11
Karen Ferguson	Do you know why she decided to become a nurse?	9:36
Vivian McCoy	It was offered free and she took advantage of it.	9:39
Karen Ferguson	The training was?	9:41
Vivian McCoy	The training was free. It was by— I can't remember if it was Duke or the state, but it was free. She took it.	9:42
Karen Ferguson	What time period was this?	9:50
Vivian McCoy	Let's see, as long as I can remember my mother was a nurse. So yeah, so as long as I can remember.	9:58
Bill Crumpton	Did your mother work at Lincoln Hospital at first or did she go directly—	10:06
Vivian McCoy	She went straight to Duke. She only did staff duty at Duke for a year. One of the problems, my mother was very outspoken, like I said, sort of militant. They treated the Black nurses, it was about 25 of them I think so a few of them are still living. They treated them like dirt. The Black nurses could not use the bathroom on the floor where they worked. They had to go all the way in the basement to use the bathroom. So that meant that you could not drink liquids, not even water, during the time span of an eight hour shift unless you do it between your lunch time because you didn't have a bathroom accessible to you. And of course you know if a Black person up the floor over five minutes they going to try to jam them up. She decided after a year this was not for her and she did private duty until she retired from nursing.	10:11
Bill Crumpton	You were describing Hayti as self-sufficient while you were growing up. Could you tell me something about your school experiences? How your school was set up?	11:07
Vivian McCoy	Oh well I went to all segregated schools but I was militant at an early age. I had mouth at an early age. I guess I came out talking.	11:20
Karen Ferguson	Oh I have a question. You talked about your mother being outspoken, what kind of values did your parents instill in you?	11:30
Vivian McCoy	Well my mother and father, we were always taught you can do anything that you want to do, you can go any place you want to go and you can have the best in life that you want to have. I do know that I took chances sitting in the front of the bus a lot I think—	11:39
Karen Ferguson	As a child?	11:57
Vivian McCoy	As a child.	11:57
Karen Ferguson	Did you ever get in trouble because of that?	12:00
Vivian McCoy	I learned to cuss at the early age, which is I can say is really bad. My parents did not cuss. They never figured out where I learned how to cuss. But no, I guess because I sit there and the driver never said anything to me. By the time I got to high school where you could sit anywhere you wanted to sit on the bus, but as a child I was challenging. I distinctly remember that Cress' department store downtown on Main Street, which is now BB&T Bank, had a Black water fountain, a White water fountain. Well I always went to the White water fountain. It didn't say Black per se, it said Colored and White. I always went to White just for the hell of it. No one ever said anything to me. I'm sure I got stares and stuff. But I was small then, I couldn't care less. I'd just try it out.	12:04
Karen Ferguson	Did you have a group of friends that when you were a child that y'all would do these things? Or were you as outspoken as one of the men?	12:56
Vivian McCoy	No, I had some outspoken friends too. Believe it or not, we are still friends to this day, we don't see each other as often, but we are still friends. Some of those same friends were the ones that participated in the demonstrations and got involved in civil rights with me at the same time.	13:02
Karen Ferguson	In fact, I guess Bill was talking about Hayti. What kind of things cultural, did you have any things for fun or social activities do you remember as a young child?	13:19
Vivian McCoy	There was a theater that everybody attended on the weekends. It was two, it was a Regal Theater, I don't remember the other one's name. That's where everybody congregated on Saturday, the kids. There was the recreation center in each section of town, the city had their own recreation center. We had E.D. Mickle because in North Durham, the section of town I was from, North Durham, we had E.D. Mickle. So there was club meetings there during the week.	13:29
Karen Ferguson	I'm sorry, what is E.D.?	14:01
Vivian McCoy	E.D. Mickle, I don't remember the guy's name but his last name, it was named after the individual. But that was just the name of the recreation center.	14:05
Karen Ferguson	Oh recreation, got it.	14:11
Vivian McCoy	So everybody had clubs at each recreation center that was located somewhere in the Durham area. The main one that we attended on Fridays and Saturdays was the recreation center on Fayetteville Street. Now I can't even recall the name of it, it'll come to me. Then we had a Black/White YWCA and we to that and Girl Scouts and that kind of stuff.	14:12
Karen Ferguson	I know that some about the neighborhoods in Durham— kids from the parents from Mutual and all of this, did they all get along together? The kids from the different neighborhoods?	14:38
Vivian McCoy	Well you got to remember now, they still practice segregation among the race. If you were high yellow — I'll give you a good example. One of my older sister, not the oldest but one of my older sisters, was an honor student from grade one through the 12th and she was never permitted to join the National Honor Society and she was just as light as anybody else. But she came from North Durham and they considered the elite Blacks lived in the Hayti Fayetteville Street area. So therefore she never made it. But soon as she went to A&T in less than three months she was put on the National Honor Society and at A&T University. So that happened a lot.	14:48
Vivian McCoy	The thing was Durham was considered a Black bourgeoisie city due to the fact that you had so many educators here. I think we had the largest number in the South East, it was considered the Black bourgeoisie of the South, we had a lot of educators here. You had Black-owned business, North Carolina Mutual Mechanics and Farmers Bank, Mutual Savings and Loan. I think there was another Black-owned small insurance company. So these people that lived in that area were considered, Fayetteville Street area and the surrounding street, "the elite," because you had the teachers and the principals and the lawyers living in that particular neighborhood.	15:38
Vivian McCoy	So it wasn't based upon salary, it was based upon the fact that you came from a different section of town. However, those people who were worked in the factories made more money than the people did at Mutual Savings and Loan or Mechanics and Farmers Bank, or North Carolina Mutual. I remember when the secretaries of North Carolina Mutual only made $50 a week. The reason why I knew, because Floyd McKissick told us. He said, "These women spend all that money on their clothes, they only made $50 a week." But you would've thought they were making a million dollars. But they did make a difference at North Carolina Mutual based on color also.	16:24
Vivian McCoy	So the yellow ones got promoted faster than the dark skin ones. And that's really sad. But it was there and it was very visible. The teachers in the school system did the same thing, if you were yellow then you had it made and then you were supposed to sit in front of your class. I had an incident when I was late for a class one day coming to an English class and I was late. Of course, now this professor was extremely light, she could pass for White. I was coming from chemistry and when I came in her classroom, she asked me why I was late. I said, "Because we were doing something in the lab." She asked me, "Why you taking chemistry? Well you shouldn't even be taking chemistry." I said, "The same damn reason everybody else taking chemistry."	17:00
Vivian McCoy	So right then I was sent to the Dean's office of course. But it was there, she wanted all the little yellow ones to sit in the front row. I never sit in the back of the class, that's not my thing. You can't learn sitting in the back always, especially when you got 32-35 kids in the class.	17:50
Bill Crumpton	This was in high school?	18:07
Vivian McCoy	This was in high— Oh it was practiced in junior high. Not so much in elementary. But you begin to notice the difference when you were in junior high and high school that the color of your skin made a big difference with the professors. It really did.	18:09
Bill Crumpton	So color was the basis of the teacher's favorites in the class?	18:24
Vivian McCoy	You got it.	18:27
Karen Ferguson	Was it among students also or just really the teachers?	18:28
Vivian McCoy	Well some of the students that were high yellow thought they were better than other students. Yes, you did have that. But generally on the whole it was ignored. You didn't have that much problem with the students, it was the professors that initiated that separatism and your favoritism based upon color. The students themselves didn't really do that.	18:33
Bill Crumpton	Do you recall the names of the schools that you attended?	18:54
Vivian McCoy	Do you think I am 99 years old and I cannot remember that? I went to East End Elementary School. I went to Whitted Junior High School, which is now the home office of Operation Breakthrough in Hillside. See, you had two schools here. You had Durham High, which was White, which is now going to become the magnet school and Hillside, which was Black. There were no Black county schools because the Blacks population— well there was one Little River High School. I'm going to back that up. Little River High School, which is now an elementary school out here in Roxboro past old farms. Was a high school. That's right. Then [indistinct 00:19:41]. There were two. It was two Black high schools in the county and one in the city.	19:00
Bill Crumpton	Did you attend college after high school?	19:46
Vivian McCoy	No, I worked with the Civil Rights organization for a while. Then I went into Vista and I worked for the government. When I was working for the government, I worked with welfare recipients. I taught electronic mathematics for two years. Then I came back here and went back to school, in and out of school. I'm a student that loves to go. And I wanted to travel. The reason why I wanted to travel, my mother had five, well there was six of us but one of my brothers passed even before I was born. She was pregnant— That maybe fourth child I think? Yeah, in that time. Yeah, maybe fourth child because I was the sixth. So the fourth child, she lost my brother. My brother got killed by a truck when she was pregnant with the fourth child. What was your question?	19:54
Bill Crumpton	I was asking did you attend college after—	20:50
Vivian McCoy	Oh okay, yeah. But it was something else was in the back of my mind I was going to answer that.	20:54
Karen Ferguson	You can talk more about — Because we didn't get to really talk about your brothers and sisters—	20:56
Vivian McCoy	It was something else—	20:56
Karen Ferguson	—who lived in your home with you.	20:56
Vivian McCoy	Oh well yeah, maybe it'll come back to me. Well, at my mother's household you had to go to college. There was no such thing as you were not going. So that was a no-no. So that decision was not made for you, you didn't make that decision, decision was made by my parents. But I had my brother who went to A&T. When he graduated, moved back to Durham. He was, by his neighborhood, was elected to be a police officer. He had a degree in mechanical engineering and he ended up being a cop because the neighborhood wanted him to be a cop. He was one of the first cops with a college degree, be they Black or White.	21:03
Vivian McCoy	Because the chief of police at that particular time, I don't remember his name, I think my brother said had sixth or seventh grade education, something like that, the chief of police. When he would write his reports for incidents, the chief of police could not read it because he couldn't see about the terminology. So he asked him to simplify it. In his own little militant way, he refused to do it. Because he felt like, if he's the chief, he's supposed to be able to read and comprehend what I'm writing.	21:52
Bill Crumpton	How many other brothers and sisters did you have?	22:20
Vivian McCoy	It's five of us living.	22:22
Bill Crumpton	So there were total of six children?	22:24
Vivian McCoy	Total of six and five are living.	22:26
Karen Ferguson	There's other questions I wanted to get to, Bill, can you talk to — We wanted to ask you, what role does the church play in your life and in your growing up life?	22:28
Vivian McCoy	Oh well we went to church every Sunday having a minister for a father. But my father is the best father any woman or man could ever have because my father was a liberal, he realized that you had to have a teenage life. He did not preach religion to us. We were not forced to join any particular church. All of us belong to different churches. His philosophy was you get your religion on your own and you join the church that you want to join.	22:38
Karen Ferguson	Did he have a church?	23:08
Vivian McCoy	He had a church even before I was born. So my father became a minister between the ages of 20 and 23 or something like that.	23:12
Karen Ferguson	What was the name of his church?	23:20
Vivian McCoy	Well when he retired, he retired from McCoy's Temple. I think he was there for 42 years. But he had pastored several churches in between those years. But he was the most liberal. I used to get questions from other kids, "Your father's a preacher, do you have a problem with him being a preacher?" I said, "No, he's my daddy." I didn't look at him as being "preacher." He was my father and that's the way I looked at it.	23:23
Karen Ferguson	Did you get any other treatment from your friends growing up or from your teachers from being a minister's daughter?	23:57
Vivian McCoy	No, my friends were crazy about my daddy. He was so fine the girls came just to look at him. I'm not being conceited but he is still fine today at 86. So no, I always had girls coming to my house, they were looking at my daddy. That was it. No, I had other friends that had ministers for a father.	24:02
Karen Ferguson	Yeah, you better —	24:21
Bill Crumpton	Okay.	24:21
Karen Ferguson	Could you talk more about your father? Did he teach you about his Indian heritage—	24:27
Vivian McCoy	No—	24:30
Karen Ferguson	Or did you grow up—	24:30
Vivian McCoy	No.	24:30
Vivian McCoy	For years he wouldn't answer the questions. But being a person that liked to read, I read as much as I could about it and asked questions from my aunts who had no Black features. His sisters had no Black features. The first time, as a child, went down to Clarkton we stopped at this little store, asked my fathers, said, "Where are the Black people?" There were no Black people in that city, it was only Indians and Whites. So at that age then I start picking up things, then I started reading about it.	24:33
Karen Ferguson	Did he tell you why he chose to be—	25:10
Vivian McCoy	It was safer for us not to be labeled as half breeds. I mean Blacks didn't even accept half breeds. So it is best not — He was a smart man. That was the best way to do it. I have no regrets about him doing that. It probably was best for us. We didn't have to be hassled or be called names because we were.	25:13
Karen Ferguson	Could you describe your home? What type of home—	25:38
Vivian McCoy	It was wild. We had five people that out-talked each other. All of us. I come from a very talkative family. My mother was a little dominant in her own way. My father was quiet, but he'd get angry just like anybody else. But he was more controlled. We had a very noisy household. We fought just like other sisters and brothers did. We always had games to play. We spent many nights in the floor playing games and stuff. My mother would play ball with us. We were very active. Like I said, my mother would pack us up and travel. See we traveled. My mom pack all of us up and we'd be gone.	25:41
Karen Ferguson	Where did you go?	26:33
Vivian McCoy	Anywhere my mother felt like going. My mother loved to travel. So I don't even know how many states I went to as a child. I can only count the ones I can remember as an adult.	26:35
Bill Crumpton	During your travel, do you remember any incidents due to segregation?	26:44
Vivian McCoy	Yes. I had an uncle that lived in New Jersey that didn't have any children so I was like a substitute child and I spent a lot of my young days around him. He took me once to a skating ring in Newark, New Jersey. When we got there I couldn't go in because I was Black. Of course, I will not use the choice words he used, but I felt it there. Then as I got older and the more I went to visit him, I realized that racism was dominant in the North and they tried to cover it up. Whereas in the South you knew it and you knew where it was. Where they pretend in the North, just look at Boston.	26:50
Vivian McCoy	Boston had more problems with integration of schools than Alabama as far as the violence is concerned. You got grown adults turning over buses? So the North tried to hide it and tried to give you the feeling that it was totally integrated. If you listen to Bill Cosby and some of his old tapes he'd say uptown folks would come downtown and see how downtown folks live and go back uptown and try to emulate. That's what the north was. That was my perception of the North.	27:30
Bill Crumpton	Do you remember any incidents in the South as well as the North?	28:06
Vivian McCoy	As far as what?	28:08
Bill Crumpton	As far as Jim Crow, not being able to—	28:10
Vivian McCoy	Yeah, going to places you can't be served. Go in the back doors to restaurants, having to sit upstairs in the theater, not being allowed to sit downstairs, having to come in separate doors just to go to the movies downtown. You pushing there were no hotels but we had a Black hotel in that Hayti area but there were no "open facilities" for integration anywhere when I was growing up. Everything it was, "Black here or White there."	28:14
Karen Ferguson	What did your parents teach you about White people? What did they teach you to do in situations like that? Or what did they say?	28:46
Vivian McCoy	I mean we were so will-strong and we were so mouthy that we picked up the vibes from her, she didn't have to say anything. Because my mother would sound you out big time. So living in that atmosphere, you picked it up, you didn't have to ask questions how to do it. Of course she talked about it, but the thing is that you were there in the household so you saw what her reactions would be so you imitate your parents.	28:55
Bill Crumpton	What was her typical reaction to discrimination?	29:22
Vivian McCoy	It depends on what was going on that particular point. If she was in a department store and you waited on a White person first and she's standing right there and she was next in line, she'll let you know it. I mean loud enough for everybody in the store to hear.	29:30
Bill Crumpton	Were there any more examples of her reaction to being discriminated against?	29:46
Vivian McCoy	Yeah in the hospital as a nurse. She had an incident where a White patient called her Auntie, they love to call Black people Auntie. So in the process of doing something for the patient, when she got close to her she said, "Grandma, are you ready for your medicine?" So that stopped that, she didn't have to hear that anymore. So that word of mouth passed around that she was not— My mother was real light, mother was real light. So that word passed around that she didn't take no shit. That was it.	29:52
Bill Crumpton	Do you think because of her complexion she was chosen to work at Duke?	30:23
Vivian McCoy	No, it wasn't based on none of that. It was based on application and the process. My mother was smart. See I didn't have to worry about no tutor or anything like that because my parents were smart. I'm not being conceited, I'm just saying in math and science you couldn't touch my mother. So she was smart. Well no, because one of the ladies darker than her bag, they went through that program. So it wasn't based upon — It was application and I think they gave them some type of test and see how well you passed the test and that kind of stuff.	30:28
Karen Ferguson	You made the decision to not go immediately from high school to college, what did your parents think about that?	31:01
Vivian McCoy	My mother raised hell.	31:11
Karen Ferguson	What things did she do?	31:11
Vivian McCoy	I was ornery. I'm sorry, I was ornery. I was arrogant. But she got over it.	31:12
Karen Ferguson	What do you think — I think of that time period, the students being so—	31:26
Vivian McCoy	Well I was so involved in civil rights that my mind was really concentrated on one thing and that was civil rights. Once you get, you got to remember we were real young, we were like 14 years old when we got started into this. When you started at that young age, it's instilled in you and when you have someone like Floyd molding you into that mold that someone has to do this, someone has to fight for rights, it becomes your whole life and you obsess with it and it stays with you. I wasn't the only one, a lot of students felt that way. Some of them are lawyers now, some of them are doctors now. But when you start an early age, it's like a tennis — If you start your child playing tennis at an early age, by the time they get 20, I mean they could beat anybody.	31:26
Karen Ferguson	What gave you the courage to face that [indistinct 00:32:26] and participate?	32:19
Vivian McCoy	Well, I guess because of Floyd McKissick. Well I told you on the other tape about the club that we had and how he approached us and how we became members of the youth chapter of the NAACP. He was such a father figure that everybody just went with the flow with Floyd. Whatever Floyd said was right as far as we were concerned. So we never thought he would lead us astray or leave us to do something wrong. So we just followed Floyd. He represented the father figure for everybody, not that we didn't have fathers, but he was that other father figure and the young people respected him. When you get that kind of respect, students will do what you want them to do and that's what happened. Then when you're working on voter registration drives at 13 to 14 years old, you can't even vote, but you are out there helping these people. So it's good to do those things.	32:28
Vivian McCoy	But as far as fear, if we were afraid, we wouldn't have never participated. So fear never came across. Then you got to remember the church played a large role into this too because all our meetings were held in churches. Reverend Swan, who is deceased, open up St. Joseph Church so that we could meet there before demonstrations. We had our regular meetings there and we had our mass meetings there. So it was always that thing, we always had this little circle song and prayer before we'd get on a picket line and these type of things. And it is your belief in God and your home training and then following Floyd. But fear, I can't remember, if I was afraid, I don't remember. I'm pretty sure there were times when I was afraid but it just didn't sink in.	33:21
Karen Ferguson	You mentioned Mr McKissick being a role model, do you have any other role models?	34:15
Vivian McCoy	My best role model was my father. Okay? When I say role model, for him it's because he was a role model for everybody in that youth club. Not only for me, for everybody in that youth club. He took more time and interest in young people than anybody else in the city. You got to remember that some of the bourgeois, let just give you an example. Some of the bourgeoisies, now I'm going call their names on this tape, their children were too good to participate in the demonstrations. One of the guys that was on the city council had finally got, well he could pass for White, but anyway we were going to picket his house. So we was some bad kids now. But he wouldn't allow us to do that. But you had some of the so-called bourgeoisie cross the picket lines.	34:21
Vivian McCoy	There was a division there with some of the Blacks but not a large division. It wasn't large enough to notice because if we say demonstration, look at the people you would bring in. The church would be packed every time we had a mass meeting, standing room only. You can go downtown on a Sunday if you had a picket thing going on right after a mass meeting, you talking about several hundred people going downtown, anywhere from 300-500 people going out at one particular time. So the older people at first were afraid for the youth, afraid of violence. But then we won them over.	35:07
Karen Ferguson	You were so young when you started, did you get a little notoriety among your schoolmates and things like that?	35:47
Vivian McCoy	I had a professor that called me, what did he call me? He called me the newspaper woman. Then he started calling me the Civil Rights lady because I read the paper before I went to school every morning and I read all the time. I didn't read fiction. And the librarian could not keep the— And I was reading history, political stuff. Never wanted be a politician, I just wanted to read all I could read about this. No, I just read everything I could get my hand on. To me that was enlightening and even today, I still like to read. I don't take the time to do it.	35:53
Karen Ferguson	Your family— were they involved in with you when you were young too? Or were you kind of a—?	36:34
Vivian McCoy	In the civil rights movement?	36:39
Karen Ferguson	Early when you were young.	36:41
Vivian McCoy	Oh are you referring back to civil rights? No, I scared my parents. They didn't rest when I was doing all this. My father would sit out on the porch and wait until I come home, don't care how cold it was. He never told me he was afraid until I became an adult. He never told me he was afraid for me, never. But once I got involved, he knew there was no stopping me. Because I was just that way. They knew what I was doing and they knew what I was doing was right.	36:43
Vivian McCoy	So yeah, the whole neighborhood was participating of all these youth. So no, I never got any flack about participating. But I didn't know that they were afraid for me. I guess every parent was afraid during that particular time when the kids were out there. I mean because we picketing seven days a week and we went through being arrested. I think my mama tried to bond me out of jail one time. That stuff— wouldn't let it go. So you know. But I think the average parent was afraid because we stayed going all the time.	37:15
Karen Ferguson	That's all the questions that I have.	37:49
Bill Crumpton	I think it about wraps it up. Unless there was any particular incident or something you wanted to relate to?	37:54
Vivian McCoy	Well you got to remember that all of us went through hell, even though we didn't realize we were going through hell. The youth during that time. All the time our life was in danger. And I guess the fear just didn't ever hit us. And you're traveling, going from city to city. We all know how it feels to have water holes and some guns drawn in your face, that type of thing. Even when it happened — The funny incident with me was that I got arrested in Fayetteville, and let me just tell — I told you about that with the wig and stuff. I'll never forget that. I went to jail and the lawyer said, "You cannot say you were Jane Doe." When they arrested me I told them my name was Jane Doe. I guess they were trying to figure, how does young women know to come in here and say her name is Jane? That's from reading.	38:08
Vivian McCoy	But there were a lot of closeness. Those people that you participate with during the demonstration, they would become part of your family. That's your extended family. It's like everybody cared about everybody else. When one person got arrested, everybody cared about that particular individual. It was so much love that I think that's what kept us together. It was a love and out of concern for each other and the fact that we were trying to do something right.	38:59
Karen Ferguson	Okay.	39:31
Bill Crumpton	Thank you Mrs. McCoy.	39:34
Vivian McCoy	You're quite welcome, young man.	39:35

Item Info

Title:

Vivian McCoy interview recording, 1993 June 02

Date:

June 2, 1993

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Description:

Name: Vivian McCoy; Date of birth: 1943-07-11; Place of birth: Durham, NC; Occupation(s): health services?; Residence: Durham, NC
Informant ID: 323; Interviewed by: Bill Crumpton and Karen Ferguson.

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Health services

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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: 328
71e1f2fc-5e97-45c9-87b8-488f93195865
behindtheveil
btvnc03024
ark:/87924/r4z896w3h
cb8c1f10-61e1-4679-b84a-aa83637c1278

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