Ignorance is bliss at an under-resourced black school
Moore's all-black high school lacked resources, but because she and her classmates did not know white students were better off, the school's decrepitude did not bother them. She believes that once blacks discover this kind of inequality, they overcompensate, such as with flashy clothes.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Vennie Moore, February 24, 1999. Interview K-0439. 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
- BRIAN CAMPBELL:
-
Now, from what you remember of this school in Davidson, how involved,
what was the connection like between the school and the rest of the
community, the churches and other people in town, did people help out a
lot in the school?
- VENNIE MOORE:
-
Yes, yes they helped out a lot, as much as they was able. A lot of things
we didn't have, but at that time we didn't miss
it. We didn't miss what we didn't have. Because,
that's just like anything else. If you don't have
it, you don't miss it, if you don't know what it
is. Like I heard a preacher say you don't know where
you're going if you don't know where you come
from. So, that's about like, we didn't know what
y'all had all the time, until we worked and found out. A lot
of things y'all, I mean the whites had, some of the whites,
that we didn't have, but we didn't know about it,
so it didn't worry us. We didn't think about
it.
- BRIAN CAMPBELL:
-
Like what kind of things?
- VENNIE MOORE:
-
Like maybe a raincoat or galoshes or skates or a bicycle. Now, most black
children love bicycles and most of them had old piece of bicycles, but
they didn't get a new bike every year. Music, or something
like instruments. To get to go to ballet school or music school. We
didn't know nothing about that. A lot of people think that
clothes, a lot of black people think that clothes make you. A lot of
black people buy unnecessary clothes, but I found out that white people
don't. I found that out. Now, Mrs. Bernard, she was the rich,
rich one I worked for, and I worked for rich
people in New York. I worked for Jews in New York that was rich. And
they had clothes, but they had sufficient clothes. They
didn't have clothes to put on just for show. And
that's the difference I see in black and white about
dressing. They go to extremes about dress.
- BRIAN CAMPBELL:
-
Why do you think that is?
- VENNIE MOORE:
-
Because they never had it. I think that's it,
>cause you never had it. I know right now, I used to be one
of the finest dressed women in Davidson, because I didn't
have it. That's when I was working in New York. But, right
now I just have what I need, and since our clothes got messed up in the
fire, I got three suits - a black one, a white one, and a blue one, and
I got another skirt and blouse, and that's all I got now. I
just change up from one thing to another. And I don't want
too much more. I got a coat, a nice Sunday coat - I call it a Sunday
coat - and a nice everyday coat. I don't want too much more
where at my age, now, I just want to look decent when I go out.