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EDDIE McCOY:

What about stories? Did anybody—teachers tell you about Rip Van Winkle or anybody?

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

Oh, yes. All them things, uh-hum.

EDDIE McCOY:

Huh?

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

Yeah, we did. We had the same thing you all had. Of course, it was told to us more freely and more understanding.

EDDIE McCOY:

Uh-huh.

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

And they just took time.

EDDIE McCOY:

Uh-huh.

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

And we had to read all them books like Huckleberry Finn and all that. We did all that kind of stuff.

EDDIE McCOY:

When you was in school?

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

At Fairport, yeah.

EDDIE McCOY:

Where did you get your books from?

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

I don't know where they got them. We didn't have no new books like the white folks. Charles [Gregory] told me, said, "Well, they didn't give us no new books until a long time after that." I think we was—I think I was teaching when they was still giving these old books. You know, the white people's used—.

EDDIE McCOY:

Uh-huh. I had them.

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

Uh-huh, yeah. And then they'd send them down to the blacks. And Mr. [Gregory] used to go up there and tell them, "I don't want this old dirty, nasty book. I want some clean books." And so, we haven't been so long, you know, [got to where] I could get the clean—get new books.

EDDIE McCOY:

Yeah, it was about the '70s.

SERENA HENDERSON PARKER:

Uh-huh. I reckon so. We still had those old books.