Segregation oppresses blacks, but Magness does not blame whites
Magness recalls segregated Lincolnton. He remembers busloads of white students passing black students walking to their segregated school and a black man losing his job for drinking from a white-only water fountain. He does not blame anyone for segregation, and reasserts his belief in keeping his head down and avoiding conflict.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Leroy Magness, March 27, 1999. Interview K-0438. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- MICHELLE MARKEY:
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Well, what would you say have been some of the biggest changes around
here in your lifetime?
- LEROY MAGNESS:
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I'd say the schools when they integrated. You mean through
the years, is that what you're saying? Yeah, I guess the
schools.
- MICHELLE MARKEY:
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What were you thinking when desegregation occurred?
- LEROY MAGNESS:
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What did I think about it? Well, I guess I didn't think about
it as much as some people because I wasn't in school and when
they started going, they had a little trouble at first, but I
don't think it really amounted to much.
- MICHELLE MARKEY:
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What was the trouble specifically?
- LEROY MAGNESS:
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Well … I don't know … like I told you,
maybe one or two of the whites and a couple of the blacks
didn't see eye to eye on something - schoolchildren. Yeah,
schoolchildren. I don't think any grown people were involved;
I don't really remember. But I do remember hearing something
about some of the schoolchildren getting into a ruckus, but they got it
straightened out pretty quick and there wasn't any bad
results out of it. I think some of the NAACP offices went and
straightened out some of the black children, but I can't say
about any of the white children or who looked after them. They did get
it straightened out so it wasn't too bad.
- MICHELLE MARKEY:
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Do you think desegregation was worth it?
- LEROY MAGNESS:
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Well, some are discussing it now, but I don't really know.
What they're saying is that is wasn't equal and
that the blacks weren't getting what they were supposed to be
getting. I know back when I was in school, my
mother and some other ladies - we didn't have a principal
connected with it; but we didn't have a bus to ride home. And
they had some children down at the other end of the county who
didn't have a way to get to school, so I think they finally
bought an old bus to transport the children up here to school. And I
think one of them might have been in my class. And I don't
mean any harm for saying it because you couldn't help it and
I couldn't either, but these buses were running up and down
the road hauling white children and some of the black children had to
get to school the best way they could. Now I don't know whose
fault that was and I'm not laying the fault on anybody, but
it wasn't exactly right - you know that too, don't
you? I'm not putting the fault, unless it was the state,
because it was segregated. I know a black fellow who worked at a mill
around here. They say he did it for devilment, but he went and drank out
of a white fountain, and they fired him. In the courthouse, they had
restrooms for blacks, water fountains for blacks, restrooms for whites,
water fountains for whites. But like I was telling you, you might meet
somebody tomorrow or the next day who would say, ‘I went and
got some water out of there, I did this… ’ but I
didn't force myself to do anything about it, and maybe you
say I'm chicken and maybe I am, but I won't admit
to it because I just don't like to get in hassles about
things. I don't like to do that. And that's
the way I've tried to tell my boy, not
to get in things when you don't have to get yourself in
trouble. Even now, out on the highway, me and my wife are out there
driving. I'll be doing the speed limit which is 45 or 55 and
somebody'll be behind me and they're just
dissatisfied because they want me to break the speed limit. And I just
hope that we'll get to a place where they can go around me so
I won't have to deal with that. I know that some fellows got
in a fight right down here at Gastonia. Man was driving a truck, and he
said he was pushed out off the highway, and he got off at a ramp and the
man followed him home, and they got in a fight. So you don't
know when you're right or when you're wrong now.
So I just don't like to get in things like that. And when I
say something, I want to be honest and tell the truth about it, and they
can believe it for what it is. If the truth hurts, now I
can't help that. That's just the way I am. I
don't want to be involved in certain things. Because I love
my family, I love my wife, I love my children, my grandchildren, my
neighbors, and I try to love my neighbors in other families. I
don't want to go around here with someone shooting at me,
because you can't tell what people will do to you know.
Just like Charlotte. I don't go to Charlotte. I went to
Charlotte one time several years ago because I wanted to see about
getting me a suit. I went to the store and went in. But then I came out
and my wife said, ‘Where's your suit?’
And I said, ‘We're going
home.’ I'm scared of Charlotte. Yeah,
I'm scared of Charlotte.
- MICHELLE MARKEY:
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What scares you about it?
- LEROY MAGNESS:
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They've got so much hell raising going on over there
wouldn't you be afraid? I'm afraid of it, and I
don't mean any harm telling you. I'm scared of
Charlotte. I don't go, not by myself. I go with somebody
else. It shouldn't be that way. Just people have got so mean.
They'll take your car. I heard people bumping cars with folks
over there. Man down the street said someone bumped his car.
I don't know what it's coming to. What do you think
about this 2000 millennium? I was talking to a white lady who I used to
work for last night. The way she was talking last night, it's
scary.