Full Text of the Excerpt

CLIFF KUHN:

What were the schools like in Swepsonville?

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

Really, they had two groups of people. They had the country kids and the village kids.

CLIFF KUHN:

What was the difference?

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

I don't know. I didn't know it until since all my children have been out of school and I worked with one of the boys that went to school from the country. Well, mine went from the country, too, till the eldest one was fourteen, and he must have been about the seventh or eighth grade. But they never said anything about it, or if they did I didn't remember it. But anyway, this one man said that the kids from Swepsonville thought they were better than the ones from the country because they dressed better. Said their parents had a payday every two weeks, and said our parents have a payday in the spring when they sell their grain, and one in the fall when they sell their grain or tobacco or cotton or whatever they have. And said the country kids--well, I knew that all the time--didn't have new clothes every week or two. They got theirs twice a year. And said he always felt like the ones from the village looked down on the ones from the country, because they didn't have as many new clothes.

CLIFF KUHN:

Did you feel that as a kid, growing up in the country yourself?

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

Not until the last two years I went to school.

CLIFF KUHN:

How old were you then?

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

I quit when I was eighteen.

CLIFF KUHN:

So you went through high school.

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

No, I lacked two years. Our school was consolidated, and we had to go to another neighborhood, and that school just wouldn't accept the other schools that were bussed in. And it looked like they felt like, "This is ours. Keep your distance."

CLIFF KUHN:

Was this all in south Alamance?

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

No, that was in Orange County. If you drive back and forth to Chapel Hill, you know where the schoolhouse is, White Cross. I don't know what they use it for now, but there hasn't been any school there in years. It's not far from the road, but you don't see it till you're right in front of it.

CLIFF KUHN:

The other kids looked down on you because you were from the country, or just because you were ...

JOSEPHINE GLENN:

They were from the country, too, but they just wouldn't accept the other schools. I don't know why, but they just didn't.