Interview with Dr. Lynn Ray Ellison, November 22, 2021

MAYFIELD: Today is Monday, November 22, 2021, and we are in Texas City, Texas at the Parks and Rec meeting room in the Nessler Center. This is Theresa Mayfield, the Local History Librarian with Moore Memorial Public Library. I'm working on the African American Oral History Project, initiated by the library to aid the African American community in building their historical narrative and to fill in the gap of the historical record. Today, we have the distinct pleasure of interviewing Dr. Lynn Ray Ellison, a man well-known in Texas City and a long-term member of the community. Dr. Ellison, thank you so much for being here today and thank you for taking time to share your stories. So, in spirit of this interview, I'd like that if you could introduce yourself, starting with "My name is and I was born in--" and then just tell us a little bit about yourself.

ELLISON: Okay. My name is Lynn Ray Ellison. I was born here, in Texas City, in 00:01:001941. Out of six brothers and two sisters. I was the first one  that was born in a hospital. Most of my other brothers and sisters, in front of me and behind me, were born by midwives, because the only reason for that, is that the hospital wouldn't take in many of the African American, and I don't want to use the term, quote/unquote, colored people at that time. So, Dr. Twidwell, an Anglo doctor, he's the one that saw to it that my mother went to John Sealy, and I was born. Uh, out of six of us. Bruce, deceased. Buster, deceased. I'm living. Jack's living. Uh, Sherril is deceased. Terry's living. Charles's living. And then a sister, Gail, --she's deceased. And a sister living named Gertie in Texas City. Both of my parents are deceased. My father came here in 1914. I'm sorry, let me correct that. He came in 1924. He was sixteen years old 00:02:00and he had one dime in his pocket. He was picking cotton down  near Wharton, but he wasn't from Wharton. He was drifting with the cotton picking. And they told him, said they were hiring, quote/unquote, again, a term I don't like to use, even today, they hired colored labor in Texas City to build Monsanto, Pan American, Carbide, Sid Richardson, the sugar refinery, and where the ship blew up at. And he got on a old Model A. A Model A was an old type car that they used like a truck. And he came into Texas City, got off on Sixth Street. Didn't know anybody. Went to the cafe there. He asked a man in there, Black Cafe, they called it, "Could I do some work for you for room and board, uh, till tomorrow?" Mr. Beamer Crecy, he told me this in later years, he was an older man when he was telling me this. He said, "Well, I got some wood to cut and some dishes to wash. Do that and I'll feed you and I'm going 00:03:00to  send you down the alley to Miss Mattie Cole and tell her to put you up for the night. And you come up here early in the morning, I'm going to send you out on the waterfront, and you tell Stickian", who is Jay William's grandfather, who used to be park director, director, "to put you to work". And that's how it all started here in Texas City.

MAYFIELD: What, what were your parents' names?

ELLISON: My parent's name, he was known as Ned Ellison by the local Black community. But his real name was B. M. Ellison. My mother's name was Ruby Ellison, Rhem. My mother came out of Fayette County, Plum, La Grange. My daddy came out of, I guess, Lockhart, Luling, Lockhart, Caldwell County. They, they met here in Texas City. Because after, well, in the thirties, when people began to drift from the rural areas to a place with a lot of business, and they could make more money, prior during agricultural work, you'd make 00:04:00fifty-five cents a hundred pound of cotton you'd pick. Supposing you pick 300 pounds of cotton that day, that's just three fifty-five cents-es. And so, when they would go back to East Texas, when they would go back to Central Texas, and when they would go back to Brazoria, Louisiana, and all those places, they'd bring in another brother, and he's the oldest son of several other children, to Texas City. Now, why would they bring them to Texas City? Because they were making two-fifty an hour. That's a long ways from thirty, fifty-five cents for a hundred pound. And in that they all knew that work was hard. Keep in mind, there was no automatic machinery. The machinery would go from your pipeline here, to the Lowry center over there. Men did it with a shovel. It wasn't nobody, one man sitting up there on an electric thing [Ed. note: machinery], working gears. Oh, oh. If it was raining, they did it. If it was cold and raining, they did it. And most men that came here, and got established, they had five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten children, or 00:05:00more. A good friend of mine, that's going to do an interview later, Miss Swan, Daisy, eighteen of them, and then uh, Mr. Spry, Blue Wilson Spry, with both his families, there were thirty-four. And they came in here. And so a lot of the older boys didn't get a chance to work. I mean, they didn't get a chance to go to school. They had to work in order to make ends meet. And so that's how it started. My daddy could not read or write until my oldest brother got in the sixth grade and he learned. Bruce, Bruce learned him how to write his name. And he always said, if, when I learn how to read and write, I'm going to make sure that every one of my children get an education. Now, out of the six boys, five of them finished college.

MAYFIELD: Well, we'll talk about college in a little while, too. I want to make sure that we do press upon that. Right? 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: We will talk about that. Um, so, you had eight kids in your family.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Uh, what was your family's economic circumstances? You--

ELLISON: Well, my father always was the worker. He always had a job. Believe it or not, we only rented for a small period of time on that end of town. I start off being raised on 1st Ave South. Matter of fact, an old replica of the house next door still stands, now. I pass through there all the time, every day. I can still, in my mind, tell where everything was.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON:  Because believe it or not, when I was growing up, I was the paper boy on that end of town in 1950-51. And um, we always had what the average Black family had. My mother was a domestic. Sometimes she would walk from that end of town, all the way to where you see Food King is, to clean up. And she had a family there too. I lived no further from the school, here, where the parking lot is right over there. No further from the church that's over here at the back of, uh, Nessler Center right here. So, we were all living very 00:07:00close  to each other, and our teachers, our pastors, all our friends. I could tell you I lost a good friend, James Elroy Lee. Uh, they're having his funeral this weekend in Arlington. You come by to my front door and his back door.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: And we all were like that until we got seventeen and finished high school. I went to college; he went to the Army. He never came back to settle in Texas City. We were both on the same seat the day when Texas City blew up seventy-four years ago. And I was telling his wife, look right here on his head, right here. I said, "He got an implant of a piece of steel that they wouldn't take out seventy-four years ago." 

MAYFIELD: They wouldn't take it out?

ELLISON: No, they didn't have the, they didn't have the necessities to take it out, I mean, they didn't have the equipment to take it out. And he lived all that, until the other day, with that piece of steel right here in his head.

MAYFIELD: So, you had, you, you know, you lived with your parents and your brothers and sisters. What about your aunts and uncles, or grandparents?

ELLISON: Well, I didn't know my grand--my mother's mother died in 1926. My dad can't give me uh, uh, a date when his mother died. He 00:08:00knew his mother got sick down in Peach Creek, Luling, Lockhart. They took her away and he never saw her again. So, actually, this was prior, this was in the early 1920s. So actually, he was raised by older sisters. Because his dad would go off to West Texas to pick cotton to try to save money to come back for his children in Lockhart. So, he went off one time and never came back. I don't know if he got sick, or where he was, or whatever the case was. So, the older sisters that I know, which were Aunt Myrtle, Aunt Goldie, and Aunt Beulah, they migrated into Austin, which is not very far from Luling and Lockhart. And they started working for a rich white family. And I'm going to use the term white since we doing an interview. Um, a rich white family, the Cottonwoods. And from there, they got on as domestics. And Beulah got a job at Breckenridge Hospital. It's still standing there, which she worked forty-eight years before she 00:09:00retired. And  Myrtle got a job at another hospital, and another got a job at uh, Anderson High School as a domestic that they worked on, for years. Now my Uncle James' brother and them, they came into Austin. One went to Corpus [Corpus Christi, TX) and one stayed in Austin, in the military. Now my mother and them, their mother died in nineteen--my real grandmother died in 1926. My grandfather Emmett Rhem, he married another lady, and he had seven children, which my mother was one of them. My mother was the fourth one. My mother was born in 1917. My grandfather was born in 1892. His wife was born in 1894. Okay. Now, they were out in Fayette County. I looked all of this up in the first census the United States had.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And that was the 1920 census. I've done research on all of this stuff. And uh, so, they were so getting along with the new wife, and she 00:10:00had  one little boy that was part Hispanic and part Black. Leonard. He got killed in, um, Amarillo, way back in the day. Somebody said they pushed him through an elevator shaft. And then, uh, uh, they came here to Texas City. Four people and four girl, uh, uh, uh, three sons and four girls. And that's where they all got out and married from. My mother met my daddy in '35 and married in '37. Aunt Bertha met her husband, a Garby, [R.B. Garby] here, because he was originally from here, and he was in the army. They moved to Fort Worth. Aunt Mozell and Aunt Estell, they had children already from the country they came in, and people said, "Let's go to California." They're hiring women in California because the war had just now started. All the younger men are away at war and the other men left behind are too old and they're hiring women to work in the ammunition factories, and those industries that you can get a 00:11:00good job. And they  went to California. Matter of fact, I talked with my first cousin the day before yesterday. He was fourteen when he left. He's eighty-nine now, and we talked. He gave me a lot of history. He asked him things about Texas City that I can't tell him, but he remembers as a fourteen-year-old boy. He hasn't been back here since '46 or '47.

MAYFIELD: So, you said you lived on First Avenue South, um, where was your, uh, neighborhood located, like if you can give me a grid, of.

ELLISON: Well, when they platted out Texas City, quote/unquote, the colored and the Black people, no term I use, the part of Texas City, when it, when it was incorporated in 1911, platt, p-l-a-t-t, was, was located, twenty-four, was located for Black people. It was a ten-block radius. Bay Street, excuse me, Bay Street on the east was the boundary line. Texas Avenue, that same Texas Avenue right there, was a boundary line. Tenth Street, Tenth Street, 00:12:00not  Tenth Avenue, Tenth Street was the boundary on the west side. Now, from over there, there was, Second, Third, Fourth Avenue in between that time where 502 families lived. First, we started off living on First Avenue South. We worked, we, we would kid people. Daddy got a lot, bought a lot, 550 dollars. Where they just took down the same house that I pass every day, right now, when I'm up. And they, um, they built, he had, uh, what they were building then, what they called in those days, is a term, I don't know if you ever heard the term, shotgun houses.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: So, he built the house that had two bedrooms, a bath, a living room. And that's where we was, right there. The explosion almost tore it up in 1947. We went through droughts there. We went through the storms in the forties there--

MAYFIELD: Well, we'll talk about that too, coming up.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: We've got lots, lots, um, lots of different things to discuss today. Um, so what was the racial and economic make-up? You said, uh, a 00:13:00lot,  there was over, how many did you have, 500 families living--

ELLISON: 502 families that lived in that, that boxed-up area.

MAYFIELD: Was it just African American families that were living in that area?

ELLISON: Correct. Now, on the, (coughs) excuse me. On the, uh, whew, boy, I, don't know what that is [Dr. Ellison talking quietly to himself]. Uh, on the west side towards the bay down there, there was a lot of low-income Hispanic people lived in that area, which we were all were good friends. We were not enemies. Billy Delgado, Pie Saragoza, Aaron Beattie, Guzman, and all, we all grew up together. We all grew up. But we didn't go to the same school. They went to the white school, which they caught h-e-l-l going there. They didn't go to the Black school. We all went to the Black school. Booker T. Washington right there, they tore it down.

MAYFIELD: So, you said, h-t-l-l? What it, what was the name of their school?

ELLISON: I said they caught h-e-l-l going to the white school.

MAYFIELD: Oh, caught. Oh. I see. (laughs) Okay. And so, yes, you went to Booker T. Washington because, that school, uh--

ELLISON: Was the only one that you was going to go to.

MAYFIELD: And so, it, what, what grades were in Booker T. Washington?

ELLISON: At that time, (clears throat) to be, to begin, the school back on that end of town, it started in churches. And then from churches, they brought in a professor--uh, Professor Sanders, what Sanders Center is named after. And um, somehow or another, some money got appropriated and they started building one long building, elementary building. But matter of fact, we were opening the school when they had the explosion in '74 [1947 Texas City Explosion]. The Reverend, uh, Reverend Sanders [Ed}, but Professor Sanders named the building, the school, it was just the Texas City Colored School, he named it Booker T. Washington in 1935. Mr. Vincent didn't come in till 1947 after the explosion. And the first eight grades, now people in the tenth grade, and eleventh grade in high school had to go to Central in Galveston. The lady they just named uh, an elementary school out at, in La Marque, Sarah Giles, Sarah, Sarah  Giles, she was raised right in that area over there too. She 00:15:00went to Central to graduate because we didn't have a high school. The first graduating class of Booker T. was in 1954. And out of the six people that graduated, seven that graduated, only two live now. I talk with Maurice and uh, in Indianapolis. Matter of fact, he'll be here next week. And he's eighty-seven. The first queen they had, Eleanor Williams Foreman, she lived in the mansions and uh, she's about eighty-six, eighty-seven. That was the first four-year graduating class of 1954. There was only seven of them at that time, and all of them have transitioned except for two, those two.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Matter of fact, Maurice say he was setting up in his living room. My daughter, my granddaughter is the, is the, uh, six and noon anchor woman on KRAN 3 TV in Indianapolis. And so, she was talking about Black history and Juneteenth last year. She said, "Well, let me get my grandfather, he can tell you." So, I was in my barn, loading hay. And they come out there and hook me 00:16:00up  and we're talking and everything and I was telling them about it and all that kind of different stuff. So, to make a long story short, Maurice was up there, he was in his living room, and up popped me on the six o'clock news. [Mayfield laughs] He thought, what, there is something wrong here. How is he all the way up here? But anyway, that's the, that's, that's the way life goes. Um, we came here. This is home. I'm writing a book from whence we came. I'm in the fourth chapter because I'm running across pi--, I'm using a lot of pictures in my book.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. So, um, did your neighbors, um, have a lot of social events together?

ELLISON: Well, basically, everything was centered around the church. They drugged our old building from the north end of town that the people up here were not using. And they put it down and that was the beginning of Sander's Center. And uh, that's where, that's where our recreation was. Our recreation was in the church. Playing basketball in school. We always had a 00:17:00good team.  Baseball. Football and things. When we had football games and baseball, you couldn't even move. Every Black person you knew was there and, because they had a son or grandson down there. Now, can we talk it straight up? Coming, coming way I, how they treat us, our children, help is coming now on what I want to say. Okay, we was so good, but all the books we got and all the uniforms we got was from the old Stingarees. And we didn't have nobody to really stand up and say "Wait a minute now, these old books?" I still got a lot of books with names in them. I remember, I used to tell uh, Rocky Sharper, "Hey man I have one of your books." I don't even know what it was about. I used to have Rip Rafferty [Ed. Ripley] used to have Ford Agee. Those were the people that turned out to be prominent here in this town. And so, uh, they began to, to satisfy the quote, unquote the colored school. They gave them everything they could. Giving them more to keep them away. They keep them away.

MAYFIELD: To keep the, to keep the segregation?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm, to keep the segregation where you would.

MAYFIELD: We will be hitting on that conversation shortly. Um, where did you attend church?

ELLISON: I, I was first, I was born a Methodist.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: My father was a Methodist, Galilee Methodist Church. Reverend Perryman was the pastor. The reason why we went over there, Perryman stayed right across the street from us. The principal stayed right here. The school right here. Everybody was together. You knew everybody. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And Mrs. Perryman was a first-grade teacher. So, he would talk to my daddy. My daddy always had a quell for Black people who were smart and educated. He always said, "I want my boys to be like that." He came in one day, and this is what he told our, I heard him tell mama, "They hired a colored fellow that's showed up today, he could push a pencil like a white man." Now, when he said that he was talking dialect, if you know what I mean by dialect.

MAYFIELD: No. What---

ELLISON: Dialect is tone of talk.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: That uneducated Black people talk.

MAYFIELD: And so, you said that your, you grew up Methodist, but um--

ELLISON: And then, after Methodist--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --I, believe it or not, it wasn't a religious matter, all our friends and buddies were going to Barbour's and First Baptist. All of our classmates and friends at Methodist were a small congregation of older people. And we were just unhappy. So Mama said, she called Daddy, "Ned, let them go where they want to go." And we started going to Barbour's Chapel. So I was baptized in Barbour's Chapel under Reverend J. H. Scott in 1951. He had a son and a daughter, Ethel May finished in '54, J.W. finished in '55. They both went to Howard University.

MAYFIELD: Well, so you went to Barbers and uh, uh it seems that religion, uh played an important role in your community. What influence did the church have on your--

ELLISON: The church had all the influence because that's where you got all your information. When the preacher stood there and, and the political leaders from the north end of town come in there, they always talk with the  00:20:00preachers. When we needed, gravel on the road, one of them said turn it into asphalt. You know what our gravel was? Old oyster shells that they had down on the dike and stuff that children couldn't run and play in. They'd cut their foot off, you know. But it wasn't no paved road. It was just like a country on that end, dirt roads and everything. You, see? At first, we had, didn't have sewage and water. And then, you had to set your, you had to set your buckets and things out and a man come through with his horse and sled and stuff. And that's the way he picked up, just like the trash man did. The way we picked up during that time.

MAYFIELD: So, you're saying that the church helped--

ELLISON: The church was the center--

MAYFIELD: --with the roads and helping get uh--

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: --sewage and your--

ELLISON: Yeah. If you had a strong pastor, that was not docile to the situation. I don't want to use the word docile, that's not the word I want to use.

MAYFIELD: Docile?

ELLISON: Docile. D-o-c-i-l-e. Because that's not the word I want to use.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Because many of them, many of them, was um, were just 00:21:00docile  to it. They didn't have the backbone set up to, to really fight. I'll show you when we're going to get to the case of Mr. Barnett in just a minute. 

MAYFIELD: Well, so, um, which pastor, um, in your mind, stands out to you the most, that you remember?

ELLISON: I had three of them. 

MAYFIELD: Three that stood out.

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: First of all, Reverend Perryman. When we were in the Boy Scouts. Because he was the first one to set up Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts at the church still standing now. That's the only church there now, that's still standing. Somebody bought it and couldn't do nothing with it. Okay, and then you had Reverend J. H. Scott, the Baptist minister, F. M. Johnson. Reverend F. M. Johnson (coughs) he was one of the first Black people integrated when they did the Memorial Park. Over at Memorial Park, if you see a picture of it, he's the one that you, he's the Black person that you see in the picture. 

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Reverend J. H. Scott. And then, uh, when I had, uh, that street, First Avenue South named Martin Luther King down there in 1977?

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Everybody's dead in the picture but me. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: You see. But all of them, all of them stood together because there was some people, every time you thought that they were with you, every Monday morning you saw they were in a mass of telling what was going on down there. You know, it was just like that. Not everybody.

MAYFIELD: Some people though?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Where was that church located? What was the address of that church? Do you remember?

ELLISON: Yeah. They were all on First Avenue South.

MAYFIELD: Oh, okay.

ELLISON: Uh, um, Bar--Old Barbour's Chapel was at 801--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --First Avenue South. First Baptist was at 818 First Avenue South. You could walk right down the sidewalk to both of them.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Before they put the sidewalk down there, the women coming to church on Sunday, when it was raining. Do you know what galoshes are?

MAYFIELD: Yes. 

ELLISON: Galoshes?

MAYFIELD: They go over your shoes.

ELLISON: Yeah. They would have their galoshes on and their parasol walking on the edge of the old dirt road to keep them. But they, they were coming anyway. They were coming by the droves.

MAYFIELD: Did the church have any social groups for young people?

ELLISON: Yeah. We had, uh, we had BYPU.

MAYFIELD: What is that?

ELLISON: At the, uh, uh, uh, BYPU, uh, Baptist Union, Training Union for young kids. They had, uh, they sold different things. We had carnivals and socials on a big lot right by, next door where Barbour's Chapel used to be. They would take and they would, uh, we called them snow cones, but they called it glass eggs. We would go the icehouse on Sixth, right here.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Get a fifty pound, there wasn't no refrigerator, you got an icebox, and you covered it with a burlap sack that potatoes or something came in to keep it from melting down. And they would shave it. And then the lady would know how to make a round ball. And they made the syrup. So, they sold snow cones, five cents a ball. They sold pickles. They made their own pig feet that they sold. They sold fish dinners where the fish still had the tail and the head on it. People would buy it like hotcakes. They sold, uh, barbeque plates and all that. That's how they raised their money. And then they would go to 00:24:00the, the, the places of entertainment, and fill the cafes, and the dives, and the clubs. And they would, they'd see the, they'd see those old sisters coming, those missionary sisters. I don't care if they were drinking and almost drunk, you'd seen them show respect.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Now, you know they weren't doing anything, put this in Church for me and my friend. I'm coming next Sunday. You know, and before she got to the church, she probably had more money than they were going to collect-- 

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: --at church. 

MAYFIELD: But--

ELLISON: And that's how they did it.

MAYFIELD: But that's--

ELLISON: She wasn't getting a fifty-five-gallon drum, not a water cooler, not a thing that you, uh, uh go to the water drink fountain, but put ice in it where you have water at church.

MAYFIELD: But, um, that's how they raised money for the church. But, but what, what about the young people in the church? Did they have, um, any programs for young people in the church?

ELLISON: Yeah, they had programs, such as, like I said, we had swimming programs.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: We would go to camp at Camp Karankawa, and Camp Strake in Houston. Everybody in Texas City, especially a Black person, could swim because they built a swimming pool. We all learned how to swim in that 00:25:00swimming  pool when they built it in 1950.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: So, every time we went off to camp, we won everything. When we went on the dike, the dike was not near as long as it was then. It was just a little piece off of the dock there. And we could win everything. We had Mr. Sam Coverson who was good. We had Buster Griffin, who was good. He was our Scoutmaster. And we had Mr. Pomeroy Coleman. Mr. Coleman had his leg cut off in the explosion, uh, during that time. Um, and, uh, we, we had, they would take a little trip to, uh, the beach trip. A beach party. Twenty-five cents a load, Pan American bus. We'd go to West Beach. At West Beach, we'd have a weenie roast and everything. The old matrons and things would be with us. That was the kind of stuff that we did. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And then, after football games and things on Friday night, uh, no, we played on Saturday night because the white school played on Friday. Do you know where our stadium was?

MAYFIELD: No. Where was your stadium?

ELLISON: You see where all them busses, I know you pass down where all them school busses are at don't you?

MAYFIELD: On the back side of uh,---[Ed. note: ninth Street]

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: --the high school? Hmm, hmm. Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Yeah. Well, that's, that's where the football stadium was.

MAYFIELD: South side of-- [Ed. note: Texas Ave]

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: That's where the whites played, and the Blacks played.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: That's where our football stadium was. Where everybody who played, played. Hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, you went to Book T. Washington and, uh, and where was the school located?

ELLISON: It was located in the 700 block of First Avenue South, uh, uh, Second Avenue South. I lived in the 800 block right across the road from it.

MAYFIELD: So, so, it was like a hop, skip, and a jump, right there.

ELLISON: Yeah, I could hear the bell ring and run right out the door. Same thing about the fellow we going to bury today, he run out the door too.

MAYFIELD: Now. So, the racial and ethnic, um, and economic mix of the school, was, was, just Black, stu--, um students, or did you have any other students there?

ELLISON: We didn't have any Hispanic. We just had all Black students.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: I've got to tell you though, the Hispanic students went to Texas City, --

MAYFIELD: Texas city, Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --they were called the old Dragons, but they caught the  00:27:00devil going there. They had nowhere else to put them.

MAYFIELD: You said that for school events, you had a lot of sport, sporting events for school.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Any other kinds of events for school?

ELLISON: We had sporting events. We would go to Prairie View to participate in state events, and singing, and typing, one act play, um, all of those types of things. We had the basic things, but it was all, it was all on the, uh, integrated side. We had everything, uh, track and field.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Literary --------(?)(?). I went in typing a couple of times. I went in one act play one time. 

MAYFIELD: What was the name of your play?

ELLISON: Uh, Death Takes a Holiday.

MAYFIELD: Death Took a Holiday?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Ah.

ELLISON: I remember it like it was yesterday.

MAYFIELD: Can you give me a couple words?

ELLISON: (laughs)

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: I'm like Lefar Burton. Oh, my goodness, I wish he was here. He was talking about, uh, things that were happening in life but actually, that was just a metaphor, Death Takes a Holiday. But if you flip it 00:28:00over,  you're meaning something else. That we were having so many problems on the state, local, and national levels, but afterwards, I'm about to use African American people, that was not the word then, but he wished that Death would take a holiday. Emmett Till was killed. Me and Emmett Till was the same age when he was killed in 1955. When he, when they shot him, well when they, didn't shoot him, but he came down from Chicago to visit his grandfather in Mississippi, and a lady claimed he did a wolf call at her. (whistles)

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Now you know, she really rescinded from that seventy years later and said she was lying on her death bed and here this boy's been dead ever since he was twenty years old. And he would have been my age, eighty years old.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: You see, this is some of that. That's what I'm talking about Death Takes a Holiday.

MAYFIELD: So, that's the play that you did--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: --that yours--, hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Somebody wrote it into a play.

MAYFIELD: What was your favorite subject in school?

ELLISON: Social studies and history.

MAYFIELD: Social studies and history?

ELLISON: We had a good teacher. Wilfred Baugh, A. B. Beavers, Tom  00:29:00Dickson, [Ed. note: Albert Dickson], Thomas Freeman. I mean they; those are the people that lived heavily in the segregation, in the teens, twenties and thirties. Now, they were teachers.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And they went to college, and doctors, people with doctorate degrees. Uh, Dr. William H. Jones, Dr. Kirk, Dr., Dr. [Ed. note; Reese], uh, uh, Dr. Berbano. Yeah. Good people. Good men.

MAYFIELD: Makes you happy to say their names?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: Ellison.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: They say, Ellison, track was on in my mind, baseballs on my mind (laughs)

MAYFIELD: They were trying, like, to get you involved in more studies.

ELLISON: Yeah. Get me more--

MAYFIELD: Right but you---

ELLISON: Because I wanted to go and play baseball. I was good at baseball. They called me Boudreaux. And Mama said, "No, you going to college. You going to Austin." Almost didn't go. All the way to Austin, I sulked. Seventeen years old. When she got there, she opened the door and said, "Get your stuff out." She said, "Now that I got you here, you can go in any direction you want to go in. North, south, east, or west. I did my job." I stood there. Finally, 00:30:00I  looked up at the building to go in the dorm. My roommate and friend that we met, his daddy was a big-time man in Clarion College, [Ed. note: Claflin College] but he was coming down to tell them to go to school. And he was coming out of the door, and me and him came out and he said, "Well, that's just the two of y'all here right now. Y'all want to be roommates?" And that's been a sixty-five-year relationship. We still call each other. He lives in Pflugerville, right outside of Austin, now.

MAYFIELD: What school was that?

ELLISON: Huston-Tillotson College. It's Huston-Tillotson University now.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Matter of fact, I'm bringing a lady in to speak to the president when we have our Martin Luther King program in January.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: We were the first group that Booker T. Washington Ex's when they had a Martin Luther King program in Galveston County in 1986. Since that time, everybody else started. We started right there on, at Mount Para Rev. Sham Johnson's church.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And we, we like him because, when his church blew down, the mayor of Texas City, Jack Goddard, he spent his personal money to help build it back.

MAYFIELD: Oh. Who was it? Who did that?

ELLISON: Jack Goddard. He was the mayor before Emmett Lowry.

MAYFIELD: Oh, Jack Goddard. Okay. So, he was, during the explosion, he 00:31:00wasn't the mayor.

ELLISON: No. Trahan was the mayor.

MAYFIELD: Yeah. Trahan was the mayor.

ELLISON: My aunty that I knew as a grandmother, was there. And then, (laughs) to show you how things go. Their mother just died less than ten years ago, so she was a real old lady. So, Chuck Doyle came to me and he said, "Lynn, uh, both of these grown men in town, ---------(?)(?) say there was lady that raised them, you know how they did, domestic, and they're trying to see whatever happened to Eva Wilson." See, Eva Wilson? That's my aunty.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: And I took her up, well, she was dead too, herself.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: And man-to-man talk couldn't get rid of that let me tell you. You come to Kansas City; you can have anything you want because your aunty raised me. 

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: Yeah. Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Lots of good feelings about her.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, um, other than sports after school, Uh, what other, uh, what 00:32:00other activities did you do after school?

ELLISON: Well, I had a, uh, fifty-five house, regularly, that I threw the Texas City daily paper, The Texas City Sun. I would go where the, uh, I know you know where the museum is on Sixth Street.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And the next place to it, --that was the Texas City Sun. You'd go in the back and get your papers. I would get my papers. I had my route. And it'd take me about an hour to run. I did that until I got big enough to start playing football. And then I didn't want a paper route no more. And then I would go right there where U-Tote is on Sixth Street. Now, one thing I can say about white people, they, they'll buy a paper, they didn't care who they bought it from. They were going to buy a paper in the evening when they come from work to read.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: But they would run us off from the front of it. We couldn't sell papers in the front with the rest of the white boys. So, me and Adolf Jaramillo, which was a Hispanic kid, my best friend. He, he died here a while back. Oh, my goodness. Um, we would get right by the edge of the hedges and when they would start getting off work from Monsanto. All the people coming in. The post office was right there, they'd get their mail and stuff. We would run 00:33:00in  there and they'd give you a nickel for the paper and we'd run back around the corner. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: (laughs) Just hiding out in the corner.

ELLISON: Yeah, Yeah.

MAYFIELD: When you see people, you ran out there to give, uh, huh--

ELLISON: --Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: There you go.

ELLISON: Me and him took the --------(?)(?) I bet we were sixty years old and still talking about that, oh. Yeah, he was a good fellow. God, ---------(?)(?).

MAYFIELD: Oh! So, in our, when we actually had the, our pre-interview, you mentioned something about the Negro National Anthem. What was that?

ELLISON: Lift every voice and sing, until earth and heaven ring, ring with the harmony of liberty. By James Welden Johnson. Ah, I said that, wait a minute. We have, you know, every morning, right there in that yard, over there. There's, there's no yard, it's a school now. When we came out, we'd raise the flag, ------(?)(?) Scouts. And we would sing The Star-Spangled Banner by Francis Scott Key. Then we'd do the American Creed. Then we would sing the Negro National Anthem. And then we would sing, uh, then we'd go into 00:34:00the  room. We did the Lord's Prayer. You could do the Lord's Prayer then. And we did all of that, right there. So, every kid, I know especially, every Black kid, he knew, my age, he knew "Lift Every Voice and Sing," the negro, know word for word. He know the American Creed. He know the Preamble, "We the people of the United States", he know the words in the uh, the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, and they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable Rights, among them are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." This is being attacked now, because of the things happening now. You see, they want to reflip things back like they used to be a long time ago. And I don't see that. I just don't see that. People worked too hard and died--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --for that. I remember soldiers coming in from the war, fighting in WWII and, and, and acid being throwed in their face. And they got on a military uniform. 

MAYFIELD: They're African American and they had acid thrown in their face?

ELLISON: Acid throwed in their face because they were coming back to these southern towns.

MAYFIELD: Oh, yes. There's been, there's been a, a number of  00:35:00documented stories about, um, that kind of, uh, attack on African Americans, on Hispanics, um, after they come back from--

ELLISON: That's what happened to George Foreman, you see. You know, you, I don't know if you ever seen a picture of uh, the three track runners holding their gloves up? You ever see that picture? In the '68 Olympics? 

MAYFIELD: No.

ELLISON: They protested John Carlos. Carlos stripped and all the protesting for what happened. Well, anyway, George Foreman got in the ring the next day and he won the Olympics, this was the 1968 world championship. And he took a flag and he bowed to all four corners. Came right back to Houston the following week, where he was from, and they wouldn't let him eat downtown, nowhere. They put him back in his place.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: Now, he can't live that down. He very seldom talks about it. Every now and then, he's about to get passive, because there's no commentator that can remember, old as he is, that can bring it up.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. But when you talk to him in person, I talked to him one time at Sam Houston State University. He had a granddaughter graduation. Nobody knew who he was standing there, but me. 

MAYFIELD: George Foreman, the boxer.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. The boxer.

MAYFIELD: Well, I know what he looks like. Um, and I'm, I did not hear that story. Um, so, you went to Huston-Tillotson, you said?

ELLISON: Yeah. Huston-Tillotson.

MAYFIELD: Um, what were your college aspirations?

ELLISON: My college aspiration was to finish school and be a coach. And I wanted to play baseball. See, I went off to two Major League teams to try to make it on pros. I was right here in Houston when the Colts, before the Astros name, before, they were the Colt .45s.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: When they was right there on the Gulf Freeway, the mayor of Houston was mayor Roy Hofheinz, not the son, but the daddy. When you see him, when he drove up, he had a cigarette in his mouth that long. And he had 00:37:00a  chauffeur. He had all that kind of stuff. That was a segregated time. Black men driving, get out and open the door, and everything. And they kind of--well, anyway, there were five cuts you could make before they would move you on further to another team. And I made it through the first three. But the fourth and fifth ones, I didn't make. Although, I was a junior in college at the time, that was in 1960. At that, '61, yeah. Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, you didn't make the cut, so what happened, then? What--

ELLISON: Well, it was just, well, they would, they put up the numbers, I was in the first go-round, made it. Second go-round made it. Third go-round made it. But when the fourth would come, I was not in it. And then I went with the New York Mets in Tyler, Texas. Same thing there. At that time, there were a lot of Cuban players. Not Dominican, but a lot of Cuban players were coming to the United States. And they were good.

MAYFIELD: I think even Texas City had some Cuban players.

ELLISON: Yeah. Tony Taylor, Lester Witherspoon. I knew them all. I 00:38:00was  a little boy running balls. I remember our Little League coach would bring us to the game. When they hit foul balls over the fence, we'd run to it and bring it back to the snack stand and they'd give you a, a snow cone. Did all of that.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: Bone Sanders was the manager here.

MAYFIELD: What was his name?

ELLISON: Bone Sanders.

MAYFIELD: Bone Sanders?

ELLISON: He ran all the, --he used to run all these service stations right over there where Dairy Queen used to be.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: We looked forward to that every year. Then all the bats they would break in the ball, they gave them all to, boys loved to get a broke bat. I'd take it, my daddy would bring some tape home from work. We'd tape it. 

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: And we'd be over there in the vacant lot playing ball. See, we played baseball just like kids play basketball in vacant lots.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: We played baseball.

MAYFIELD: Every way, how, however way you could--

ELLISON: --But we didn't use a ball. We used a tennis ball.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. (laughs) That could pop pretty far, Yeah. Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Yeah. Over, over Mr. James', top of Mr. James Williams' house was a homerun.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: And that was a good distance. But man, we did it though. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Well, you didn't get anywhere near their windows so that, that would be good.

ELLISON: Yes.

MAYFIELD: Um, so, so, education is extremely important to you. How  00:39:00many degrees do you have and where did you receive them?

ELLISON: I have, uh, uh, uh B.A., Bachelor of Arts of Business from Huston-Tillotson University. I have a M.A., well, M, uh, M.Ed. from Texas Southern University, masters. And a doctorate with a collaboration from Texas Southern and St. Edward's University.

MAYFIELD: Saint?

ELLISON: St. Edward's University.

MAYFIELD: St. Edward's University.

ELLISON: When you go on out I35 in Austin and you see it sitting on the hill way back there.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Because I had a lot of stuff I could use. I had been in office, um, for a period of time, that I could use in my dissertation and stuff to write in. Then I went before the, uh, 80th Texas legislature and uh, I wrote a proposal to have all the African American schools that were closed due to segregation--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --names like Booker T. Washington, George Washington Carver, all them names were wiped out. They only kept the name of the school of the town that you was in. Texas City High School.

MAYFIELD: Okay. I see--

ELLISON: --La Marque High School. You didn't see nothing, like I said, Booker T. Washington, anymore.

MAYFIELD: Like a special name for the school, hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: But, there was some places that kept their special name. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Because all them. I'm not going to call the school name because I don't want to be libel for it. But where I, the first time I did anything integrated, I was the teacher and the coach. From my days in high school, college, all the way up, I was in a segregated situation as far as education was concerned.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: So, I was the teacher in this school district, and they had to start integration, after, after uh, Brown, Arthur Brown vs the Board of Education Topeka, Kansas, where a little girl had to walk all through the stockyards and railroads-- 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --to go to school and there was a school right there. Thurgood Marshall went before the United States Supreme Court. He faced the United States Supreme Court, thirty-one times, he won twenty-nine decisions. And, but it was, at fifty-four to sixty-seven before Texas City finally integrated. And that's where all that suit come in, when we were ---------(?)(?), and we, 00:41:00uh,  why'd it take them that long? From 1954 to '67. That's thirteen years. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: A lot of people are still balking about how the federal government held their ground. Every school district, these little country schools in towns, they had to use federal money. And they would go withdraw federal money from them if they didn't integrate a school. So, just like everything else, they started using a wiggly map. Here we go, integrate at a grade a year. We aren't going to do a whole ---------(?)(?).

MAYFIELD: That's what Texas City did, right? They started with, um, their senior year. Is that correct? That the twelfth grade first, and then they kind of worked their way back. Is that right?

ELLISON: Yeah. Let me tell you something. I called people, when I knew, we was going to have this thing here today. I called three sets of people last night. One, C. D. Evans, he lives in Allen, Texas. Hazel Jones lives outside somewhere. And then I called Faith Parker who live over here. And every one 00:42:00of  them gave me a different story about Texas City integrated school. But it all boils down, unless you was a fair athlete, you were treated like h-e-l-l. You was treated like s-h-i-t 

MAYFIELD: If you weren't a good athlete, then, that was it, for, the regular student. Is that what you're saying?

ELLISON: There was a lady, and I'm not going to call her a name. Her daughter was brilliant and smart. She was in the Key Club and all those clubs, running around with the other girls that was not Black. And one day, it was pouring down rain, and her mother drove up, in a, what a SUV, RV, whatever you call it now, and she picked up everybody out in the rain but her. They tell you all these stories.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: I mean, they're not lying. They're not lying.---------(?)(?) I can get my sister say the same thing ---------(?)(?).

MAYFIELD: What did she say?

ELLISON: She said the same thing. They'd tell you the same thing. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: They won't put up in no credit, No courses, worth anything. They won't put them in automobile stuff. And you had them children that were burning, burning the world up. As far as, uh, Dr. Dottie Jones, and all those people; "Hey baby", we came out of the school that those people saw to you to learn. I used to watch over there and "oh my goodness" the professor got that strap, and I'd be trying to count down to where he would, what word, my word was going to be. But I made sure, (laughs) that I used to tease him till he died. (laughs) I say, "Okay, if Howard Rollins' spelling word, my word should be cattle kingdom." God dog! I got down there and my word was, was a hippopotamus (laughs).

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: He missed his word (laughs) and she was spelling out in your head. Pow! Pow! (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: That's when they can do it. Now you know why they cut the whoopings?

MAYFIELD: Why they cut out the whoopings?

ELLISON: There were no Black people, no, no Black teachers coaching the white kids.

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: That was the main thing. And I'm coming straight from the shoulders.

MAYFIELD: Right, because you started integrating not only the students, but also the teachers came as well. Well, we are going to get into integration. I want to talk about that. Um. But, let's talk a little bit about your friends and interests. Um, what did you do other than, you know you told me you did sports, you, um, you had your paper route, but with your friends, what did you do with your friends?

ELLISON: Well, we played, when we got large enough, we started playing football. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: It wasn't a certain thing that you had ninth grade team, a tenth-grade team. If you were good enough, you played varsity. We started running track. You know, we played Little League baseball. And then, there was something like Boy Scouts that we would go on camping trips and stuff like that. And a few of the kids started slipping off swimming and they got drowned down there in the blue hole.

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: And then they built a pool there. And wondering why they built a pool because they built a pool here first.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And they, they didn't want the Black kids coming to that pool.

MAYFIELD: Oh, I see. What was the blue hole? What's the blue hole?

ELLISON: It was a man that lived down in a dump and took care of things.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And they had, there was a big water hole right down where those pumps are.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: I don't know if you've been on Skyline Dr. --

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --all the way to the end, but right there. So, they just really named it after Mr. Blue. His name was really Spry.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And they just named it after him. A lot of kids slipped down there and swim. Looked like every time you slipped to swim, somebody got drowned.

MAYFIELD: Oh, that's a shame.

ELLISON: We were getting ready to play a Little League Baseball game in West Texas City, which was La Marque then. And we couldn't play it that evening because the little Teague boy and two other brothers, before they came to the park to play ball, they went over there in a rice field right behind, it was kind of Memorial Hospital. And little, one of the Teague's got drowned.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: Hmm.

MAYFIELD: That's a shame.

ELLISON: I was coaching in El Campo when, um, my quarterback, Marvin Poindexter, big rain came, and he would go over there by the freeway and jump off and swim. He jumped off and got pinned down. They thought he had run on down the river, but he was right there where he jumped off at.

MAYFIELD: Oh, goodness.

ELLISON: Drowned. Hmm, hmm. I never cared that much for water. I've been around it all my life.

MAYFIELD: Uh, who was your best friend growing up, then?

ELLISON: Well, we all were friends. Homer Lee Rollins. He died in '97. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Sonny Lee just died the other day. Earl King died in 1952. He was the one that, uh, his daddy drove off the Dickinson Bayou and it killed him and his three sisters. Their house is still standing. You go down there now; you see that house standing on that corner right across my old school campus. Some people have bought it. You see chickens and everything running from it. Because the house is grandfathered. As long as they don't pull the light meter and the water meter, they can't do nothing about it.

MAYFIELD: Hey, what are you ta--, what do you mean? Ta--what are you, what are you, what are you, what does this mean?

ELLISON: What I mean by, as long as the house is sitting there--

MAYFIELD: Uh, huh.

ELLISON: --there's not but nine functioning houses there now. And as long as the house got water and lights and don't change. Don't pull the meter 00:47:00out  or cut it off, because once you cut off the water or the gas, the city's not going to redo it. You lose the, you lose the grandfatheredness of it.

MAYFIELD: Okay. So, you can live in that house right now, but if you change the, --you said the water or the, the, the electric. Or if you take it out, then, there, that house could, the city's not going to support--

ELLISON: Uh, mmm.

MAYFIELD: --it any longer?

ELLISON: No.

MAYFIELD: And why is that?

ELLISON: That was the law because they changed the zoning.

MAYFIELD: Oh. 

ELLISON: We have zoning in Texas City.

MAYFIELD: Oh, so there's no more houses over there.

ELLISON: Unh, um.

MAYFIELD: Oh, I see. Yes.

ELLISON: You got to, if you're going to build anything, it's got to be something like a welding shop, light fabrication, uh, that type of stuff, pertaining to the plants. 

MAYFIELD: Okay because they don't want to have any more houses.

ELLISON: They want all the houses where they just can't off and run the people off. 

MAYFIELD: Oh, right. But they--

ELLISON: Or if a storm come and blow off, you're not going to get a loan to rebuild nothing.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: So, they came up with a good idea that was, most towns didn't have. They said, we're not going to build no projects side by side no more to cause the rent to drop. We're going to get these vacant lots and 00:48:00we're  going to build these scattered sites that you see these houses, these scattered sites. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Keep the people spread out. Because nobody that had valuable land wanted to sell for no projects. Colored were going to kill their prices; other people tried it on them. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Well, I said, where I lived now, there was not a colored. That was all--. Well going through when I was in the office, we couldn't go from Highway 146 to Highway 3 because you were going through Kohfeldt property. And Kohfeldt property city wasn't going to give you, city no right-of-way. But somehow or another, Emmett Lowry worked out a right-of-way to take you right by where the golf course is all the way to Highway 3.

MAYFIELD: That's north though, right, the golf course?

ELLISON: Yeah. Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They was trying to get the man regroup you out there.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: And after the explosion, the only land that Black people could buy was in Hitchcock, Dickinson, or West Texas City, which was La Marque. That's what started South Acres. I know you've heard of South Acres. Prior to that, you couldn't come across Texas Avenue and buy no land.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: Uhn-uhn.

MAYFIELD: Well, um.

ELLISON: I'd say that Texas City had peculiar integration. They, they, it was integration to a point just as cruel, and just as rough as anything else, but they used money to soften the situation, to, to help you move on. You know what I mean? I don't know if you understand what I'm talking about.

MAYFIELD: So, they gave you money to leave?

ELLISON: Not money to leave, directly. But they helped you to buy lots somewhere else, just to throw you out there naked, if I was to use that term.

MAYFIELD: Uh, right.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: But they wanted you out of Texas City?

ELLISON: Yeah, well, you didn't have nowhere else to go. All that at the end was tore up with the explosion.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: You had nowhere else to go. Unless you could go to La Marque. In 1969, the people in La Marque, on this side of the highway to the, to past ------(?)(?), they went to sleep in La Marque and woke up in Texas City. 

MAYFIELD: Oh, right. I heard about that. What can--

ELLISON: (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Do you know that story?

ELLISON: Yeah. I know the story. The story was, they was building the, uh, integration that came and it, and all the Black people lived in 00:50:00South  Acres in La Marque. So, right then, they all had to come to Texas City High School. They didn't want that. But wait a minute, now. We've got to stop this thing, here. We're going to claim up from Thirty-first Street right here, all of Thirty-first Street back, go to La Marque. All those kids that was doing all that for La Marque, they was living in Texas City, had to go across the street to La Marque.

MAYFIELD: (laughs) Because that's right, because the way, in night, because I, they, -well from my understanding of the story is that it was almost like clandestine at night, where they went to the judge and had them sign off, so that they could--

ELLISON: Yeah. The midnight judges.

MAYFIELD: Yeah.

ELLISON: Yeah. Yeah. And that's what happened.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And so, this is, this is, this is where it happened. And what they did to sweeten the pot, they gave them Carbide as a tax entity.

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: See that, because, uh, La Marque was just, uh, what you'd call a bedroom community. The biggest thing in La Marque was the school district. Same as like Hitchcock. Hitchcock don't have no industry. The biggest thing is their school district. People all come out of Galveston to go to work 00:51:00and  everywhere else and that's why those places just didn't have strong tax bases. But here, we have five or six tax entities. We had the sugar refinery. We had the dock. We had the sea train. We had Monsanto. We had Carbide. Sid Richardson. The tin smelter. Amoco. Amoco Chemical. All of that stuff.

MAYFIELD: Stone few, Stone Oil, I think too was over there. Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Yes, Stone Oil. Hmm, hmm. Bay Area Oil.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Matthews Oil. All of them. We had all of that. That was good money. 

MAYFIELD: So, in La Marque, they gave them, uh, Carbide.

ELLISON: Carbide, tax, tax entity.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Well, La Marque government had to grow some kind of way.

MAYFIELD: All. It gave them an opportunity, right? The families to--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: --uh, um--

ELLISON: But the kids had to go across the street instead of coming to Texas city High School.

MAYFIELD: Right. 

ELLISON: They went to La Marque High School.

MAYFIELD: Right.

ELLISON: They didn't want that fluctuation of about 500 new Black kids coming in there.

MAYFIELD: So they--

ELLISON: They gave them that to satisfy the leaders.

MAYFIELD: You played high school; you played football in high school. Um, what sort of entertainment did you have in Texas City, uh, for kids? Uh, was there movie theaters, was there like--

ELLISON: --Well, um, we would go to the movie on Saturday. Texas Theater, which was segregated. That's the reason a lot of people my age don't like to go to the Showboat. We went to the Showboat, it was segregated. They'd throw flour on us and everything else. Get out, we don't, negroes don't come here, blah, blah, blah. And all that kind of different stuff.

MAYFIELD: So, you couldn't go to the Showboat? No. Okay.

ELLISON: We went to the Texas Theater. Texas Theater. You want to know where Texas Theater is. If you know where Mt. Paran is, down on Texas Avenue, it was just right across the road from it. You go right there and through the side door. We had to go through the side door. 

MAYFIELD: Was it, was it, um--

ELLISON: It was segregated.

MAYFIELD: It was segregated?

ELLISON: Yeah. White people went to that theater, but it was the only theater that Black people go to. It didn't cost but nine cents to go in. And we mainly went on Saturdays to see westerns.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Hop-a-long Cassidy, Lash LaRue, Cisco Kid, Tom Mix.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Those kind of people. Uh, saw movies and things. And you saw Tarzan and jungle pictures and stuff like that. But we couldn't come down and go to the Showboat. See, the Showboat they had ice cream parlor in there and you get your popcorn and all that kind of stuff. So, a bunch of kids got ready and go down there and integrated. And it was a little light commotion and stuff, but they all kept it under quells.

MAYFIELD: Well, when you had integration, could you go to the Showboat if you wanted to?

ELLISON: It was one of the last ones. It held on for as long as they could. When they had integration, right there, you come up on Sixth Street from out of our neighborhood--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: There was Pickwick's Cafe, Arnold's Cafe. And they still didn't want to serve you. Still didn't want to serve you.

MAYFIELD: How long did it take, do you think, for that to change?

ELLISON: It just took a period of, uh, emancipated, took a gradual period.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Because, like I said, from 1954, the schools didn't finish  00:54:00integration here until '67. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: That's thirteen years that they tried to maneuver and find ways to, to offset it, but they needed-- Texas City, so much, did not. But they, everyone around them needed, uh, the federal money. That's what the school district I was teaching in, they didn't want the general integration. 

MAYFIELD: Um, but Texas City, didn't need the money, but they did it sooner than other school districts. Isn't that correct?

ELLISON: Well, yes, they finally, I guess somebody was Christian enough to say, well, we're going to have to do this thing one way or another.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: You got to keep in mind, now, all these schools that you see these names of these people, they were the ones in charge. The block of the Levi Frys, the counselors, and, and uh, uh, uh, all those people were the people that were in charge.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, Hmm.

ELLISON: You see their names on schools, and buildings, and stuff.

MAYFIELD: Yes.

ELLISON: They were the people that were in charge.

MAYFIELD: Were there any places in Texas City that you know people met for gossip or political discussions?

ELLISON: Well, the only place that you were going, if you were going to hear it across the foyer, you heard it at church. Uh, you heard it in the NAACP meeting, which was very, they were very particular in what they did. The people did some talking in the barber shops. The beauty parlors. And then in the places of entertainment and stuff like that, they never did talk of politics.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: They were listening to music and drinking beer--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: ---and stuff like that, those that went. 

MAYFIELD: Um. So, did you have a favorite place, a favorite restaurant, that you, did you like to eat--

ELLISON: Well, I washed dishes in there, ---------(?)(?) restaurant myself. I washed dishes at, uh, at uh, Pickwick's. Uh, that's the only job that they were going to give you, wash dishes.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Um, and then too, um, the cook at those places, he did the cooking for the white people. They came in the front. And then the Black people still had to come around to the side and take their orders, but when he got caught up with that, and you maybe set around for an hour. There's a lot of 00:56:00different  things, but yeah, eventually that began to wear thin because money became money.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: You see what I mean? The Black people coming up there with money just as much as and more than the other people--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --because they was running the business off. Why do you think gentrification took off in these neighborhoods? When these real estate companies start opening up selling to the Black people across the highway and then tax paying, those people started moving out? People that owned them proves that. Oh, getting out of here. Started running. Started, started, they started buying in other different places. So, realtors come start setting the prices high. Okay, we can't stop them from buying, there'll be a suit, so we'll just set the prices high where they don't want to buy it.

MAYFIELD: So, they were forced to go someplace else.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Did your father, did he have a car when you guys were growing up?

ELLISON: We always had a car. We always had a car. We always had a place. We al--I can see. We never hardly rented because my daddy was very, 00:57:00my  daddy worked two or three jobs.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: I never went hungry a day in my life. I always had paper and pen to write with. Like I said, my daddy was not a versical man of letters.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And he would set there with you at the table. My oldest brother Bruce, who's buried on Twelfth Street and Austin now, he learned Daddy how to write. And oh, he was so happy to learn how to write. I can hear him, "Oh, my boy is smart."

MAYFIELD: Did your father teach you how to drive the car?

ELLISON: My daddy taught me how to drive.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: I guess he shouldn't have, because one night he was asleep and I pushed it out of the driveway, went off and had a wreck in it.

MAYFIELD: (laughs) You had a wreck?

ELLISON: Yeah! (laughs) 

MAYFIELD: (laughs) The first time?

ELLISON: (laughs) I had to push it back. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: He come out there, "Ruby, Ruby, what just happened to my truck. It's all wrecked on the side." And Ruby went, "Yeah, I know what happened to it. One of these boys, that did it. Bruce and Lynn." You know. (laughs) Bruce was three years older than me. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: You got in a little bit of trouble from your dad?

ELLISON: Yeah, I got in a whole lot of trouble.

MAYFIELD: Uh, huh.

ELLISON: Because Mama, it was always the uh, mother did the raising in  the home because the man was working.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: He was working. See, my daddy didn't drink or smoke. He had eighty years old. I never did drink or smoke in my adult life. Never had.

MAYFIELD: Just take after your dad?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Never did have. You'd see him sometime take a pipe and put that tobacco he used all the time, Sir Walter Raleigh, Granger Rough Cut. And there was another one, that he put in his pipe to smoke. That's all.

MAYFIELD: So, when the car broke down, where did you take it to get it repaired?

ELLISON: Roger's and Jacob's.

MAYFIELD: Roger's and Jacob's?

ELLISON: Yeah. Right there on Texas Avenue. Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Was that a, a African American, um--

ELLISON: It just took business.

MAYFIELD: They just took business. Didn't--

ELLISON: And, and his price was, you had a Black price and a white price. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Oh, oh, oh, oh.

ELLISON: You had a Black price (laughs) and a white price.

MAYFIELD: Oh, okay.

ELLISON: So, you got, you got the Black price.

MAYFIELD: So, um, growing up, um, how old were you when you got your first television?

ELLISON: About six.

MAYFIELD: About six years old?

ELLISON: We got it from Bras-Tex right (laughs) on Texas Avenue.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: My daddy did part time work at Bras-Tex and there was a television he repossessed. "Ned, you're going to put a tube in there, give me fifty dollars and you can take it home and you all can, your boys can watch it." You know, on Friday nights, our front room, because we knowed most everybody in the neighborhood the second they saw that television, it would be about fifteen or twenty people in there watching the wrestling.

MAYFIELD: Wrestling?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Every, everybody liked wrestling, even though it was Miss Luella, oh, my God, be a hundred and something years old. Be a hundred and twenty if she was living now. She loved the wrestling. Come over and watched the wrestling.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: Everybody had to be quiet in, in somebody else's house. And she liked all those old wrestlers at the time, Lou Thesz, Paul Boech, Wild Red Berry, Prince Miava, oh, my goodness, I can remember them all --------(?)(?) just loved the wrestling. Until they, --they were actually really wrestling, but then they turned it into entertainment later on, you see -------(?)(?). And Mama would make stuff, that's why I have, everything I have here, I have is free. Even the stuff we had, ain't nobody pay for nothing. We 01:00:00got  that free. That came from the days that mama, --------(?)(?) she would make the popcorn balls, take part of them to the park, give them to your buddies, give them to your friends. Uh, don't sell none? No! You give it to them. So, that's the thinking that's been handed down to me; handed down to me. My mama and me used to get up, you know, I won twelve city elections. Most everybody running against me was a Black person when there was another position they could have ran for.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: But they all wanted to take down the political giant. I don't know where that train of thought come from.

MAYFIELD: Take, take you down, right?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Was your--

ELLISON: None of them proved nothing though taking down a political giant.

MAYFIELD: Did your mom, was your mom alive when you were involved in politics?

ELLISON: Yeah. Mom, my mama was eighty-five when she died in '02.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: My dad was ninety-nine when he died in '09.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: He was near a hundred. Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Mama used to come to the polls and she would have water and sandwiches and everything, and everything. Even when I created all these Little League Football teams you see around everywhere, because they had the, uh, Texas City Rebels over here on this side, playing right there where that Catholic church is.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They only took the best--, best Black boys and all these little Black kids didn't have nowhere to play. So, I established in the mid '74, Texas City, Twin City Rams, Texas City-La Marque. And uh, um, that's what we did.

MAYFIELD: So, you--

ELLISON: I was teaching school in Galveston at the time, and I had a little Hispanic girl in my class. Her mother and them had five snow cone trucks. So, she told me one day, "Mr. Ellison, we got a truck we want to sell." And I bought it. And that's how I would pay for the referees. And uh, and the field they give us. The city did, uh, make a field for us. That's how I would pay for the referees.

MAYFIELD: You sold the snow cones?

ELLISON: I put Mama up in the truck. They would make hotdogs, Frito pies, snow cones, and pickles. And they would sell out. Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: She sounds like an amazing woman.

ELLISON: Yeah. Mama was uh, uh quiet. She would sit there, and she was watching everything. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. Not just watching, but supervising--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Watching everything and, and--

MAYFIELD: And--

ELLISON: --and uh, and that kind of stuff.

MAYFIELD: Interactive, like, um, she seems like she had, you know, uh, um, a wonderful influence on you.

ELLISON: Well, she did. I, um, like I said, I would always tell her, I said, I appreciate you for bringing me to that door and putting me out, because, maybe I had, what if it wasn't meant for me to be a ball player, not on the professional level.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, um, we were talking about, s--, earlier, you know, the disaster. Um, but, you know, I'd like to kind of get into, sort of health and safety part of our uh, oral history. So, for your neighborhood, did you ever have to lock your doors?

ELLISON: No. Actually, we slept in the summertime, with the screen door and the front door open. I mean, the, the door window was open, but the screen door was closed--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --because of flies and things. Nobody in our era had air conditioner.

MAYFIELD: Uh-uh.

ELLISON: And um, when we stopped doing that because the people around here in the town started noticing the screens in the doors started, something was eating them up. That was all that pollution from the plants. Because, keep in mind, there was no OSHA at that time. At night they would discharge all of that stuff. And we were right underneath the plants.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And so, it all fell. You'd come out in the morning; it looked like someone had sprayed your car with ashes. That's all of the byproduct they turned out on the people.

MAYFIELD: So, black soot was everywhere.

ELLISON: Gray soot. Like a gray ash soot --

MAYFIELD: Gray ash.

ELLISON: --everywhere. Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: The acidity ate the screens off the walls and everything. And people would get, a lot of people have died that lived. They're not much older than I was many years back and doctors told them they all had cancer of the lungs and this kind of thing, here. Said I wasn't a smoker, I was in a plant with all that stuff. Then a little bit later, there had been several attempts, but they never wanted to pay the money to remove the people out from down there. They wanted the property, but they wanted, didn't want to pay anything. I never could understand why rich places like British Petroleum and them 01:04:00didn't  want to go ahead and pay the money and move the people. If that, that plot of land out there by that golf course, if they wanted to do any further--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Kohfeldt didn't want to sell because they said it was too pricey on what people wanted to s--, wanted to buy it from him. And uh, so people just did like they did until they came up with a plan to get them out of there. They got them out by gentrification, when people died, a lot of them hadn't paid taxes since, uh, Hurricane Carla in '61. They eventually took the property.

MAYFIELD: So, the government repr--, um, so, like the city took it over again?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Right. They weren't allowed to uh--

ELLISON: Rebuild anything.

MAYFIELD: --to rebuild or anything. Well, um, the disaster in 1947, uh, played a huge role, I think, in that as well. Right? Because a lot of the houses were damaged, um, after the explosion.

ELLISON: Well, they were able to build the houses and things back, those that wanted to stay. But people thought, why you stay here, you're a fool to stay. I always told them; our daddy will stay here, and it tore up this place like shelling. Just like somebody had dropped a bomb right in the middle of the thing. There were Daisy and them stayed; Daisy and them stayed there close near that park where that, where that ship blew up. 

MAYFIELD: And Daisy said that she was like, that, that, they lived s-- , very close,

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: -- and that, um, she ended up, uh, like her parents ended up at, at Wallace, Camp Wallace.

ELLISON: Camp Wallace out here.

MAYFIELD: Um, during the disaster, what happened with your family?

ELLISON: Well, we were at school. I was in the first grade.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: A kid, from, from the very, very, ---------(?)(?) he was in the first grade. I can remember Miss McClure, God bless her soul, she's been dead a long time. She um, boom! We were all, --windowpanes, roofs, buildings shaking. It was 9:05 when it went off that morning. We had just came in from doing our routine I was telling you about "The Star-Spangled Banner" and all that stuff--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --we were sitting down to have to do spelling. And then we 01:06:00go, it was already on our desk when we came back because somebody was designated to do it. We had a carton of orange juice if you wanted, or a carton of chocolate milk, or a carton of white milk. Either one you wanted. You couldn't get all three of them. And she'd let you drink your juice, and somebody come along, old Raymond Williams, he's still living down there. Not down Avenue, but over here. And uh, he picked up a, a carton and this windowpane and Miss McClure, she didn't know if she was running, hollering, and screaming and she said, "Go home! Go home! Go home, everyone!" And I finally got out of the building to go home with Sonny, he was bleeding all in the head. And I was running. I remember Mama coming across the ditch. And she was asking "Where's Bruce? Where's Bruce?" There was just --only two of us over at that school at that time. And uh, then come Bruce out of the ditch all muddy and stuff. Finally jumped the ditch to get to the house.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And people were just running loose and wild. They had three theories about this. They thought that the world's coming to an end because a lot of Black people were very religious, see. They figured the world would eventually come to an end. Not me, I don't know. And then they had um, said 01:07:00that  the Japanese were attacking from dropping the atomic bomb on them. And then they said, another third one they had that. Because you know that right after that, after they dropped the atomic bomb over here, on Japan. The Japanese were trying to sabotage uh, this plant that made baby formulas in Illinois. If they could put poison in the baby drink because there was, there was a certain kind of Carnation cream had a baby formula. And all the babies would drink it because you know, it was like a monopoly, there wasn't a whole lot of it. And they could poison all of them at one time, it would be a big lick. But that--

MAYFIELD: But they di--, that didn't happen.

ELLISON: --that didn't happen.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. So, um, your mom catch, uh, catches up with you and your brother and your other brother. Right?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: So, the three of you, so, what happens after that.

ELLISON: Well, we went by the house, and um, she had, she had run out of the house and left a, Skeet wa--wasn't quite started school. That's 01:08:00what  we called him, Skeet, his name was Sherril. He hadn't quite started school. And Gert hadn't quite started going. She grabbed them two, and we started running in the streets, with her just like everybody else was all in the street just running like you see on these television programs, like you see them now man just busted and going on. Nobody knew what was happening and just running, running here and there. And uh, finally we got on the back of an old Motel A truck and went towards, uh, out here at Camp Wallace.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Did you stay in Camp Wallace?

ELLISON: I stayed there about two or three days.

MAYFIELD: What was it like there?

ELLISON: Like a old army camp is set up. They had food, ambulances. That's all you see all day long was helicopters and ambulances coming to Texas City.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Emken and Linton, if he didn't get rich, he got rich later because they, they had bodies stacked down there with tags on them because they could not identify, and stuff. And all kind of them, Frank Sinatra and them came and got people to donate money and stuff. Because the way the word went out, word went out on the airways, that Texas City was totally 01:09:00destroyed.  Everybody dead. And people that had people in Texas City, they were trying to call and get through and you know the telephone system was not, was not like it is now.

MAYFIELD: Well, they were on strike at that time. The telephone--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: The telephone operators were on strike at that time. I think they came off of being on strike, right?

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Just for that, that, the explosion. Was there any other, um, disasters that you recall growing up in Texas City?

ELLISON: Well, there was a number of smaller disasters. In the forties, there were always storms because we didn't have the protection, nor did we have the levy. You just had to ride out the storm or the hurricane. Oh, man, they would tear the roof off or windows off and everything else. And then you had to rebuy it back from uh, Chapman-Brown's Lumber Company, Hoffman Lumber Company, Bowman's Lumber Company.

MAYFIELD: Oh, lumber companies. Ah.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Buy it back and rebuild again because there were no restrictions. And um, then I saw Hurricane Carla when it all 01:10:00flooded  down off that end. Water had never been in your front yard, all of a sudden it was over your windowsill. Hmm, hmm. They had to move all of the people out of where we, where we built that park at, the African American park.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: There was a school right there. That's the only place they would evacuate the Black people, right there.

MAYFIELD: They, you'd go to the school?

ELLISON: Well, that's, you know, then, so, it started coming under water, so they had to bring in these army trucks, trucks called amphibian. You could drive it when the water was down and when the water was up it would float like a boat. And they moved all the Black people out to Sam Houston Coliseum in Houston.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: That's where they stayed for about a week and a half until the water subsided.

MAYFIELD: So, did you stay in the same house after that, or did you rebuild someplace else?

ELLISON: Well, no. We stayed in the same house. Our daddy just built that house there in '46--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --when we came back from California. And he uh, him and Mr. Arthur, Mr. Arthur Miles, he was a, he was a, he was a local uh, a carpenter 01:11:00and  he rebuilt it. I remember when we were sleeping on the floor on pallets and things till we got it situated. But Mama wanted to move. But he said, "Ruby," that's what he called her, "Ruby, I'm closer to my work. I don't want to have to worry, you know, I, I can go right there through the back end, because I've still got to work on the waterfront and dike."

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And so, we never did move.

MAYFIELD: So, you had the disaster in '46, [Ed. note: '47] Carla in '61. Was there any other, um--

ELLISON: In the, in the fall, in the forties they had the storms, those bad storms. The reason why they seemed bad storms, because the weather forecasting and, and uh, preparing for the storm wasn't as good as it is now. People were wet and sanitary conditions were bad and all that for, for uh, two or three weeks, some of them longer, and they were catching all kinds of diseases and stuff.

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: So, somebody had to come in and do something. So, things started improving from that. 

MAYFIELD: So, what did you do when someone was ill or injured? What, where did they go?

ELLISON: Well, the ambulances would pick them up like cord wood. The uh, live and the dead. If you were dead, they would bring you to right there where the Heritage uh, right in front of the old post office.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And that's where you'd put on the, where you were tagged. Because my uncle was tagged, uh, Uncle Arnell. He had blown off way working there. And he was all covered in oil and grease and stuff. And he wasn't breathing. And he was down stacked like cord wood. His name was on him because some of them still had their identification in their pockets and stuff, you know.

MAYFIELD: Oh, you're talking about the disaster.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: They um, but what if you were just sick? Like say, you, you had the flu--

ELLISON: You were basically, you were basically-- 

MAYFIELD: --or something like that?

ELLISON: You were basically on your own.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: If there wasn't an old remedy, uh, Three Sixes, uh whatever the old people made in those days. A lot of people didn't go to the doctor 01:13:00in  those days. They made old remedies with herbs and, and roots and, and stuff like that.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Uh, it seemed to work with some of them. Some of them, you know, I guess after the person died, they said it didn't work. 

MAYFIELD: So, you didn't have to, you didn't go to a doctor's office when you were younger.

ELLISON: Yeah, we went to Dr. Twidwell's office. He was the only somebody that would take in Black people.

MAYFIELD: Oh, so Dr. Twidwell did. Because he was the--

ELLISON: Leonard Twidwell.

MAYFIELD: --that he is the one that, um, helped you, like you, (laughs) come into this world, right?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Dr. Leonard Twidwell.

MAYFIELD: Okay. And how did you get to his office?

ELLISON: Excuse me. Right straight up Texas, uh, right straight up, right straight up Ninth Street to Eighteenth Avenue. He lived up on Eighteenth. He lived in the heart of white town, and he had his office on the side of his house. And he didn't care about integration and segregation. He took care of who come.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And he would come down into the Black part of town. He had about Black, --about five or six Black kids he named that if they still 01:14:00living  they'd be eighty years old or plus. Jack Royce, my brother, Benny Smith, William Carl, and somebody else he named. He, he named them all.

MAYFIELD: He named them?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: How's that?

ELLISON: He delivered them. 

MAYFIELD: Yes. So then, he decided to name them?

ELLISON: Yes. So, they would name them, name them his decision, they named them in his honor. Yeah.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)Well, that's interesting.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Well, um. So, you said that you, uh, um, you, did your mom do all the cooking, um, in your family? Did you ever, uh, go places?

ELLISON: No. Very seldom. Mama did all the cooking. We couldn't eat at nobody else's house.

MAYFIELD: You couldn't eat at anybody else--

ELLISON: That's a Black custom. 

MAYFIELD: Mmm.

ELLISON: If I go across the street to Sonny's house, Miss Lee's cooking and things, and uh, my Aunty calls, "Ruby, those boys ---------(?)(?)." Not one of mine, my brothers and sisters are all busy. You didn't eat at anybody else's house because you had all the food you wanted.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Yeah. Over here, you don't go over to anybody else's house to eat.

MAYFIELD: What about shopping? Where did you guys go? Where did 01:15:00your  mom shop for food?

ELLISON: Well, Mom shopped at Pick & Pay.

MAYFIELD: Pick & Pay.

ELLISON: It's down in there. The building now, but it's Robco building now. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And, uh, Pic-N-Pac, and then there was another one, Murphy Grocery. Murphy would let you have a bill and they would come in and pay him on Friday because all through the week you could get food, you know.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: But he had this thing that he would do to you. He would pad up your bill.

MAYFIELD: Oh. Add a little extra money for himself in there?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Well, he's the owner.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Same thing about Hightower. He had a bill, he had a, had a store right there on Texas Avenue, right next to where Busbee's old building is right there. You would come in and he was good. And people were good. When they got paid on Friday or Saturday, they'd come in and pay him. Where your bill may be seventeen, eighteen, twenty dollars that week, it may be twenty-five. That's how he made his money. 

MAYFIELD: And, and everyone knew that was part of the deal, so they were okay with it?

ELLISON: No, that wasn't part of the deal, but they was just okay with it because couldn't, they couldn't do any better. They didn't want 01:16:00to  cause no rift. 

MAYFIELD: Mmm.

ELLISON: Because it would be difficult for them to do this.

MAYFIELD: Hmm. I see.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. It's a way of life. It was a custom of how you had to learn to live. 

MAYFIELD: What were some of the African American owned stores in Texas City?

ELLISON: Well, --

MAYFIELD: You said--

ELLISON: --you had, you had Gary's Grocery. His daughter was in my class. Now, she's still living in Houston. You had King's Grocery.

MAYFIELD: King?

ELLISON: K-i-n-g, King's.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Um, he was the one that drove off Dickinson Bayou and killed him and his three children.

MAYFIELD: Oh, that was him? Oh, I see.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Then you had Mrs. Clara's, uh, a little uh, a little grocery store. You had William's Groceries. You had Mrs. Hunter's Grocery. Those were basically grocery stores.

MAYFIELD: You had a lot of grocery stores.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Then you had uh, Wise Adam Barber Shop. You had uh,  Malveaux's Barber Shop, Jackson Barber Shop, Johnny Martin's 01:17:00Barber Shop. And then you had beauty places. People had, had, uh, beauty parlors on the end of their house. They had little shops. They'd run their own shops. 

MAYFIELD: So, how often did you guys eat meals together as a family? Is it--

ELLISON: --All the time.

MAYFIELD: --something like

ELLISON: --And breakfast.

MAYFIELD: --you'd do every day, or--

ELLISON: No, no, no, no.

MAYFIELD: --because of sports, or whatever, you'd have to--

ELLISON: No. You sat down and you ate supper, or whatever you what to call it, lunch at school, and breakfast. It was always like a family gathering then. All this other stuff, ---------(?)(?) is modern time. Everybody come in the kitchen and go.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: It wasn't like that. We all got our homework at the same table.

MAYFIELD: You guys would eat, eat dinner, then do your homework--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: --around the table?

ELLISON: ---------(?)(?)

MAYFIELD: What kind of things would you talk about as a family?

ELLISON: Well, it, it was mainly about lessons though. Bruce was the oldest. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And he could always help out with, with learning your  01:18:00arithmetic, learning your nouns, your pronouns--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --uh, your decimals, how to conjugate a verb, how to diagram sentences. All of that stuff. Hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, it was more educational sitting around the table.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Yeah. It was all educational stuff. 

MAYFIELD: Well, I wanted to talk a little bit more now that we, we sort of touched upon it here and there throughout our interview, but um, civil rights in Texas City. Um, so what was it like during this time period to be African American in Texas City? 

ELLISON: Well, it was a touch and go type of thing. We had NAACP here. C.C. Robinson was one of the leaders. And I guess he talked, when the legislation was passed, the other part of town said okay, they passed a bill, we're going to change. But they didn't. So, when we begin, begin to ask about 01:19:00certain  things on the changes it begins to cause a little friction, you know what I mean?

MAYFIELD: So when you wanted to, to um, have, um, --

ELLISON: You wanted the cafes integrated.

MAYFIELD: You wanted to go--

ELLISON: You wanted the restaurants integrated.

MAYFIELD: Right.

ELLISON: You wanted the movies integrated. You wanted schools integrated.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And it wasn't happening fast enough. Keep in mind, 1954 to '67, that's fourteen years. Okay. You got to go through town at certain places. When you go in a store, even at the doctor's office, being in the Beeler-Manske Clinic right there and now, you walk in the back of the place.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And that was to be treated. You don't know what they were treating you with. Um, the people that are worried about taking shots now, --

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: You don't know what Black kids, or other minority kids were taking shots in those days. If they were going to kill them off or make them sick. 

MAYFIELD: Oh, you were worried, you felt, like threatened when you went to a doctor's? Were you worried about--

ELLISON: Not really threatened, but you didn't know. People are worried and raising the Dickens now about shots and things, --

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --but they didn't know if, if somebody wanted to kill you or mess you up real bad--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: -- it could easily happen then, when, when hatred was all over the land. I don't know if that kind of hatred is the same kind of hatred it is now, you see. Because that's one of the things, okay, many people thought, even Black people thought, Black preachers and things thought, was all, was all will pass, the Civil Rights Act in '64, okay everything will be copasetic tomorrow. I can go down there and sit up at Agee's at the, uh, stool and eat ice cream. You know who owned Agee's don't you?

MAYFIELD: Who?

ELLISON: George Fuller, those people. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: George Fuller?

ELLISON: Yeah. He works for the city. You've seen him. He was a little bitty. He was a little bitty boy. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. So, were there um. I mean, during that time, you know, you see it across the United States, you have different sit-ins, these different kinds of protests. Was, was that happening in Texas City? Because I have a, I, I kind of hear, um, sort of these bits and pieces, but I was kind of curious if, if, that was happening in Texas City. 

ELLISON: Well, not on a major scale. 

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: I'm, I'm, I'm going to be correct. And, and the reason for that, it came from the leadership. And it came from your parents, because 01:21:00they didn't want to get in no big trouble at church and big trouble. Certain people from the other side of town talking to the leadership in the Black part of town, telling them don't do this, that, or the other. Be patient. We're going to do this for you, and that. We're going to do that for you, and all that kind of different stuff.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: But then, uh, beginning, it was taking so long, things began to crop up, but not on a major scale. And they never did have big fights at school and stuff, but there was some stuff. They would always play Dixie at school. And uh, confederate songs, and all that kind of, and the Black kids got tired of it.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: So, they all ran and set on the floor, you see. And so they started putting them out of the school.

MAYFIELD: What do you mean, putting them out of the school?

ELLISON: Expelling them.

MAYFIELD: Expelling African American kids, out of school?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. That's how my brother, and my brother is seventy-one years old. That's how he came to live with me. I was teaching school down in El Campo.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They put him out of school if he had a little fuzz underneath his chin, or a mustache, if he had a belt buckle, if he had taps on  his shoes. They put him out for all kinds of reasons. You ought to hear the stories. 

MAYFIELD: I haven't, I haven't heard any of those stories. 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: I did--

 ELLISON: You need the right people and tell them.

MAYFIELD: But, well, did, I was talking on, when I was talking to Daisy, she mentioned, that, um, Mister Henderson--

ELLISON: We were not a part of that end of it because we were gone.

MAYFIELD: Because she was younger than you at that time.

ELLISON: No, she was older.

MAYFIELD: Oh, she was older?

ELLISON: Daisy's, Daisy's eighty-two years old. She's older than I.

MAYFIELD: Oh. I guess, right, couple of--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: -- a couple of years. Um, but she reme--, but my one recollection is that there was a sit-in that Mr. Henderson pulled some children out of school. 

ELLISON: Yeah. Johnnie Henderson.

MAYFIELD: Did you hear about that?

ELLISON: Yeah. Johnnie Henderson?

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Johnnie came. When Johnnie came to town and took over--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --there was, he, he, he reversed the, the cause. Okay, we're going to sit-in and strike and demonstrate if you don't do it. Because we've got the law on our side. The federal law. And so, they tried to desist him, but he  wouldn't give. So, all they really tried to do, they did some 01:23:00undercover work, and they got him a good job in Austin trying to get him back, get him out of town.

MAYFIELD: Did he stay in Austin?

ELLISON: Well, he started working for the labor union.

MAYFIELD: Oh, okay.

ELLISON: Because, uh, at first all the jobs in Texas City were union.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And then wanted to take away the union. They'd give you more money, but it wouldn't give you no benefits. You work all your life on a non-union job, and you retire, you ain't got no retirement, you ain't got no Medicare, I mean, no, uh, um, hospitalization, uh, you know, that just wasn't right.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: You see, you, you had to fight for that. See, Johnnie was a little bit more married to people like, um, I'm not going to call her name because his daughter, Brenda, was in a club with me. Every week, he would come to the Marathon and tell them what all the Black community was going to do. And then that, and that, then there, then there was a part of the situation that --------(?)(?) back. Mr. Bonner filed suit about, uh, about  integration here.

MAYFIELD: Well, Mr. Bonner is, that's when he, went up against Texas City, right? When they--

ELLISON: Yeah. Winfred H. Bonner.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. They fired him from Texas City?

ELLISON: Well, eventually, they did.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They had to convince them to fire him because he was the only professor on the faculty. As a professor, he got orders from somebody else. 

MAYFIELD: Mr. Vincent?

ELLISON: You see what I mean?

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Mr. Vincent didn't straight out and do it, but he got his orders from a higher source.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Get rid of them, they don't care what kind of way. I went to his funeral, too. He was my teacher, too.

MAYFIELD: Yeah. He was your history teacher, is that correct?

ELLISON: Yeah. I went to his funeral on um, it was in '95--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --he had gone on back to Georgetown. Matter of fact, he was on the board, he was on the city council in Georgetown. You know how they eulogized him? The outspoken, direct Winfred H. Bonner. What was on his mind that was wrong, he told you. And see, Texas City wasn't used to that. Sometime  they, uh, people are used to when coming from that integration, segregation thing, a yes sir man, yes sir, yes sir--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --dog, yes sir captain. He'd come up to you and talk to you and, and, and treat you like you were a boy. You know, why are you going to call a grown man, are either you're real old, or they call you uncle? That's, that's, that's just abuse. Or either you're a minority, he'd call you poncho, or cisco, or uh, I said, man, that's, that's, that's very abusive. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. This is what Mr. Bonner did?

ELLISON: No, no. Mr. Bonner called it straight out.

MAYFIELD: Right. Right.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. He said, we want the same thing other kids got.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: We want the same thing other teachers have got.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I was in a situation, in a school, where I was first working. I was in the first set of teachers that went to integrated school up there. I told you this before. I was, the first thing I ever did at a school integration, I was a teacher. Part of that time, when the schools were integrating, they were firing all of the Black teachers in, in those surrounding areas. And everybody else had their contract, but all the Black teachers were gone. And I don't know  the names of the places, because I don't want to be libel for 01:25:00naming these places, because they don't want this to come back up again, after all these years since it happened. But uh, we didn't have no contract at all about till 1967. Till the man, who was very smart, I worked with him, um, cherish him to today, although he's been dead ever since '86. He called in the federal government. His school district was working off a half a million dollars of federal funds. And, and they were threatened to lose those federal funds if they didn't go with integration. 

MAYFIELD: So--

ELLISON: And we got to school one morning. I'll never forget, I met a friend, but I call his name because he was just like a teacher. I was, Mr. Boyd. "Hey, hey, hey Coach, you better go in there and check out your box. All our letters are in there to be fired". But when we opened up the letters, we were being rehired. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Oh. (laughs)

ELLISON: They got smart, because they didn't want to lose that half of a million dollars of federal funds.

MAYFIELD: Right. No.

ELLISON: And they sent down Eighteen Avenue, they called it Health, Education, and Welfare. They sent down a team of people and the old  superintendent. I'll never forget, I saw him many years later at a reunion 01:26:00out there. He talked to me; you know. Don't I know you from somewhere, and I said, no, I don't think you do. And uh, I just kept walking. But anyway, when he got a letter from the federal government that they were coming down to investigate, he beat it over there to the Black school. You'd see him walking around trying to tell the teachers what to say when they got there.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: (laughs) I can tell you all kinds of things that went on. You just have to know that. You had to, you had to be it to know it.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Now, you could tell me things that happened, whatever race you are. And you, I'm listening to you, but I have to be it to know it to get your feeling to know what it is that you're talking about. 

MAYFIELD: Yes.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: I see. Um, did everybody in the community, um, want segregation, do you think? Uh, uh desegregation in the African American community?

ELLISON: There was a small group that wanted things to stay like it did. But the young crowd was on the rise.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They wanted better books. Better--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: There couldn't be better teachers. Teachers didn't need to be better themselves. We had no microscopes. I'd never looked through a microscope to study a one-cell animal. No uh, paramecium, --

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --no uh, uh, uh, uh, amoeba. Uh, nothing! How am I going to go to college in the lab, biology lab, and do biology work, and never had nothing--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --to do that with. How am I going to type? There were no computers or typewriters. And we had a bunch of used typewriters they sent from an old school down there. How are we going to teach spelling when you open up the spelling book there is stuff written all over the pages from Texas City High School, 1951-52 and all that kind of different stuff? This is what you had to compete with. 

MAYFIELD: So, the younger crowd, the younger, the younger generation, I guess, really wanted um, --

ELLISON: They wanted betterment. They wanted; they wanted the same cards to be dealt to them. And then too, when they got that, and they were sitting in their classes, here we went to the situation, I've been telling you what I  heard last night and the night before last. The teachers treated 01:28:00them so dirty. If you were not a star athlete--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --you got treated like you were dirt. They did everything to expel you, expel you, or put you away. If you got in a fight down in the hallway with somebody else that was non-Black, you got sent home, but the other person didn't. 

MAYFIELD: I mean, if expelling all these students, I mean, if, if, if, if the amount of students in the, in the school is dwindling, I mean, don't they lose then, federal funding. Because, don't you have, but, what, don't they want to have, you know, more students in the s--, in the schools, I mean--

ELLISON: Well, they, they, like I once again, Texas City was not so much involved in uh--

MAYFIELD: Oh, because they had money.

ELLISON: They had money. If you look at that, if you go back and do research in the fifties and sixties, you'll see a certain percentage of the, the school tax base come from--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --come from the plants and things. So, they had adequate money. But they knew that they couldn't just sit still like they were an oasis  01:29:00by themselves. They had to make a move to do something. And they thought if they make a small move, they could satisfy the right people and things would stay status quo. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: But some of the older Black, and I'm saying it, Black people wanted to stay ---------(?)(?) because they were told by white people, let it, don't bother, it, it would work out, itself out. I, I. They would swallow all of that. Because some of them came around to our houses trying to tell your parents, they don't need to go to school up there, ---------(?)(?) and this that the other day they ain't going to teach you nothing. Yeah, that was somebody told them something from the other side. Maybe you got to promise on, maybe a paved road, a blacktop road. You know, you just have to know this stuff.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: See, all this comes from years of research and living. And I lived this. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I lived on both sides of the ledger. I lived in the segregated side and integrated side.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Yeah. And I'm not talking hatred. I'm just talking straight out history.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Texas City history. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. That's what we're asking. Um, so, the communities  as a whole, I mean, that, we're not talking younger 01:30:00generation, but what did desegregation do to communities? Um, did they--

ELLISON: At first, um, I hear what you're saying. They divided. But sports brought them together.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And I, I'll say this here, one hundred percent, those that went into sports, I know where I was, before the schools integrated, the Black school that won state. I mean that, everything. The other school, the white school, had not won nothing. They had like a two win, ten loss. When all those Black boys went over there, Henry Henderson, Rayfield Hatton, Alvin Barnes, they won state the next year. Those people forgot about that stuff. They didn't, they didn't, they won! Sweeney did the same thing. They forgot about it!

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I don't know if, you're not old enough to remember this.  There used to be a, a Black football player for the University of Houston. 01:31:00They called Elmo Wright. He used to dance in the end zone when he caught a pass. When he was at the high school down there, Sweeny hadn't won a football game the whole year in two years. And when they closed down the Black school, George Washington Carver in Sweeny and went to Sweeny High School, the Black boys, they won state. Now, they wanted all the Black boys, but they didn't want the Black coach. 

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: He was, he was interfering and causing problems. So, they wanted to offer, give him a job at a junior high, and Big Chilly was All American in Prairie View. Played with the Green Bay Packers--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: --and they wanted to give another man take over all this product, which he did and he got all of the fame and glory.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: That's the way it was.

MAYFIELD: What about voting. How old were you when you first voted?

ELLISON: Eighteen years old. I got uh, I was telling my best friend the other day, I said, "Man, I got a", uh, uh, you know because I'm redoing my house too, I ran across a voter thing, "your mother just ---------(?)(?)  vote for being 1963 (laughs)." He said, 01:32:00"---------(?)(?) I haven't, that's true." Because uh, uh, we did voter registration. When I was elected, we went through the whole neighborhood and we, we had everybody vote. Eh, everybody registers. I don't care if they come here when I didn't vote at all, here's the list, your name ain't on here. You're not going to no penitentiary. You're not going to no jail. There ain't nobody going to pick you up and nothing like this here. And everybody came out. Everybody came out. And they would tell me, ah, Lynn, you ain't going to win nothing. You can't beat them big, rich, white people. 

MAYFIELD: Oh, when the time came for you, when you were vo--, when you were, uh, running for city government.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Right? Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: You can't beat them city people. This man run both sides; Dale Butler and them.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Oh, you can't beat these people, man, what're you wasting your time for? (laughs)

MAYFIELD: And then you won.

ELLISON: I won.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Yeah. There stood the elephant, up in the room.

MAYFIELD: (laughs) So, in your, uh, a commissioner for how many terms?

ELLISON: Twelve.

MAYFIELD: Oh, long time.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: When was the last, when was your last um, time in office? What was your last year?

ELLISON: 2001.

MAYFIELD: 2001. 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Well, I'm going to have to take a look at that list later on. I want to see all the work that you did. Um, --

ELLISON: And that was just from the nineties when Chuck came in. From the nineties to 2000.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: See, prior to that, you know, I served uh, thirteen years with Emmett Lowry.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And then he died. D. D. Haney came in and served one year. Because he was still working like Dedrick is doing now. Yeah, D. D. Haney was working at NASA. And you can't run Texas City coming in here at 4:45 in the evening from your job because the city job wasn't paying nothing. And so, uh, the election of '90 came in, D. D. Haney still was going to run for mayor, and Chuck had to leave out of being mayor because he couldn't be. I think they told him; I may not be correct on that. They said he couldn't be in on the city  projects because there would be a conflict, excuse me.

MAYFIELD: Conflict of interest?

ELLISON: --conflict of interest with him and his banking. The city deposits and all that kind of stuff.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: So, he went off the commission and came back in '90. Mmm. I think Chuck was telling me, we talk all the time, he served twenty-nine years, I served twenty-three. Emmett Lowry served longer than Chuck, about thirty years. Those are combinations between mayor and commissioner. I was just straight commissioner.

MAYFIELD: You were straight commissioner.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. But nobody knew if I'd be elected mayor at that time. I had to catch the whole, I had to be like Rip Van Winkle, I had to catch everybody asleep. (laughs) You know the Catskill Mountains in New York?

MAYFIELD: What's that? The Catskill Mountains in New York?

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Yes.

ELLISON: Yeah. Well, I had to do that, pull an old Rip Van Winkle, supposedly went up in the Catskill Mountains and went to sleep. When he went to sleep, King George III was the king of England. When he woke up, George Washington was the first president of the United States.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: And he didn't know what was going on. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Just a bit of history. I'm, I'm, I'm, winding up now. I'm winding up right now.

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: I made a living talking.

MAYFIELD: Uh-oh.

ELLISON: Mama would tell me all the time, "Lynn, Lynn, don't go on and on and on."

MAYFIELD: (laughs) Well, so, you, you first voted, um, in 1963, is that correct?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: And so who were some of the important leaders in your community? Other, we know that the church leaders were very important, correct? 

ELLISON: We always had a lot of people--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --to run for stuff that they couldn't win in an open election.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: P. D. Wisby, Doc Butler, Charles Brooks, David Porter, and never could win in open races. There were just too many. It was just, it, it came down that you, you block voted. White voted for white. Black voted for Black. Wasn't enough Blacks to offset it. 

MAYFIELD: Mmm, I see.

ELLISON: Until the lawsuit was filed. Johnnie Henderson and all our names on the lawsuit. We filed that lawsuit. 

MAYFIELD: What happened after that lawsuit? 

ELLISON: And we won it. That's how they went to four member districts. 

MAYFIELD: So, that's how that, you had the two districts, where--

ELLISON: The four districts.

MAYFIELD: The four, that's why you--

ELLISON: And they all got caught in the same district because they lived in the same part of town. So, Emmett couldn't run green anymore. Because he was caught in that. That Emken Linton wanted to run before he was caught in it, and he had to get out. And some other people had to go out or you go out and run against each other. You, see? They can't come to my part of town and run. I couldn't go to their part of town and run. And that's what happened. The lawsuit won out.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: So, they had to change the government. There had to be two commissioners at large and four districts. District I- West Texas City, District II - right here, District III - which I had, and District IV.

MAYFIELD: How many districts were there before all of this?

ELLISON: Just two. 

MAYFIELD: Just two? 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Where were they located?

ELLISON: (laughs) They were at large.

MAYFIELD: Oh. 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Anywhere.

ELLISON: Anywhere. All over.

MAYFIELD: Okay. Okay.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. I mean everybody all over could vote for you. Black people could vote for white people if they wanted to, when Black people running.

MAYFIELD: So, um, but then, so, what year was that, um, where it went to, from two to four districts? 

ELLISON: Well, actually it was the suit, I'm thinking, I may be off a year. I've got to think, I'm still not clear of all the ---------(?)(?). Uh, '75 was when it was filed. It would have been straight for the '76 election, but it wasn't. It didn't happen in the '76 election, somewhere like that. 

MAYFIELD: Can you tell me what role women played in the civil rights movement?

ELLISON: Who's that?

MAYFIELD: Women. What role did women play in the civil rights movement?

ELLISON: Women like Miss Clara Butler and them, they'd set up voter registration. People in the churches, the mission, uh, the Herons of Jericho, uh, the Lord's People, uh Our Ladies of Calathea--

MAYFIELD: Our Ladies of Ca--?

ELLISON: Calathea.

MAYFIELD: Calathea?

ELLISON: Yeah. They were like mission, --uh, religious group of people.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They set up voter registration, pass out literature. If you  vote, some of the things you that you could do. As, uh, elected 01:37:00legal things to vote for. A lot of people were doing domestic work for these people.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And they figured these white people were going to fire them.

MAYFIELD: They figured they were going to fire them?

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Did they fire them?

ELLISON: Some of them did. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: You see what I mean? Because they were going to infringe on, on their rights in the way they was always doing it.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: This has always been your boss--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --let's say you working for, now you going to come in and you want to sit at the same restaurant counter they were at. They didn't see it that way. Their frame of --their frame of mind wasn't that, wasn't that liberal. I don't give a shit, excuse me, ---------(?)(?) I don't care what they say.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They, they were not that liberal. Some of them were. 

MAYFIELD: What did the churches play as far as their, what was their role in the civil rights movement?

ELLISON: If you had a good preacher, --

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --a strong preacher, he was gung-ho and, and then for it. He did everything positive. But if you had a banana slip preacher, with uh,  with no backbone, then you were just, it, it was the worst thing 01:38:00that uh, as a, as a segregated person. The person on your side was working against you because he worked two ways, on your side and his side.

MAYFIELD: What was a strong preacher? Who, who was considered a strong preacher during that time?

ELLISON: Well, you had to have people like J. H. Scott, F. M. Johnson, Rev. Perryman.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: And what churches were they part of?

ELLISON: Barbour's First Baptist and uh, Methodist Church.

MAYFIELD: Okay. Was there--

ELLISON: Let me throw Rev. Sham Johnson in there because he was a Rev. Sam Young. He was a city worker--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --too, at that time. That's the reason Jack Goddard helped him build his church when he, when he, when he tore it down from that storm. And because he give consideration(?)(?) he started preaching. Hmm, hmm. They'd give them credit to both. A lot of them, they stood their ground. D. N. Benford.

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: He's still preaching now, seventy-five years later. L. B. Brown. I, I cut my teeth on the old, old Ovide Duncan tales. Uh, Henry, man back  in the sixties when we were marching in Houston. Oh man, a lot 01:39:00of them and they know things that would get them. They didn't quote them. I heard my grandfather many times say, "Well, I come here to die. I'm going to die somewhere." My uncle had just came in from war in 1952. He had a brand new '52 Cadillac. Stopped in Cameron, Texas to fill it up with gasoline. Wasn't but nineteen cents a gallon. Had on his army suit. Old fellow worked at the service station come out of there with nothing Black, spit tobacco on it, and rubbed it with his hands and went "Get out of here, nigger. You ain't going to buy anything." And he pushed my uncle down and with his army suit on and everything. By the time Everett got out to the country to where he lived, my grandfather came back. He had a, he had a Winchester in the door of his car, he had a .45 on his side and said," I want that tobacco cleaned off. If you don't clean it off, me and you both going to Hell." And this is a true story. "Me and you both going to Hell right  here in this, in front of this place." 01:40:00Meaning, he's going to blow his brains out till they blow his out. 

MAYFIELD: Your grandfather came back and threatened the--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And it just so happened that my grandfather was well known in the country. By this time, somebody had ran down to the high sheriff, old Carl Black, um, in Cameron. And he come running out, "Emmett, Emmett! Don't do it! I'll take you in! Don't start nothing, Emmett!" That was my grandfather's name. "Don't start! I'll take you in." My grandfather said, "You better tell him because I swear, I'll kill him. I came here. He ain't going to do my boy like that."

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: He said, all these days are over with. I remember that, plain as day. As a little boy, they're telling this story and I'm sitting there listening. Guess I was listening for a reason. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. What about--

ELLISON: Whole lot--

MAYFIELD: What about the NAACP, um, did, was there a chapter in Texas City?

ELLISON: Oh yeah. There's always been a decent chapter. I know the young lady working over there now, Barbara Anders, her son's a lawyer. Back in those days, Mr. C. C. Robinson was over it. Then Johnnie was over it. Miss Clara  Butler was over it. Mr. P. D. [Wisby]was over it. And that 01:41:00kind of different things.

MAYFIELD: So, you had women running the NAACP and men also, right? I mean of course, men, but there was also--

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: --some women who were running it as well.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. And other than the NAACP, were there any other sort of political affiliations, or organizations that you belonged to during this time period in Texas City?

ELLISON: Well, you had your Masons.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: It was a religious organization at that time, but it didn't fool too much with politics. With your women, you had the uh, Herons of Jericho, My Lady, Our Lady of Calathea. Then there was another one, I can't recall the name right now. I see it, but I can't recall the name. They did it, but they tried to keep it, it's the only thing that Black people at that time, and I'm Black too, I don't mind saying it. They were, they were too spiritual in thinking that the Lord was going to straighten out everything. You know, maybe so. But  we're still waiting, you know. And type of thing. They didn't 01:42:00want to, well, I've seen people that had people killed by other people, ---------(?)(?) I'm not worried about it. The good Lord will take care of it. Well, that's your belief, that your son lay down, shot by a policeman in the stomach in the ditch and you can't move him--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --till they come after dark, then you can finally move the nigger. I'm going to get straight now, and that kind of thing. You knew all that, heard all that as a small kid sitting on the porch, or the garrison, what you call a porch, and the older people talking. I'd hear the old people run the kids off, "go out in the yard and play." Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: So, it had an impact on you.

ELLISON: Yeah. Hmm, hmm. I heard that. Then Mama would tell us these stories. Mama would set there and tell us these stories. We sat at night in the house. I remember riding the bus from Texas City right there at Sixth Street all the way to Waco, standing up because there were no seats for me to sit down on, on the back of the bus. And all the seats were empty on the front of the bus. And this old lady was going to Waco, Marlin, or somewhere, and she saw me  standing there. And I kept on, I was tired. I kept on. The bus 01:43:00was not air conditioned. Old green bus, Texas Bus Line. And she kept on seeing me, almost fall off to sleep. The lady took me, sat me in her lap because, you know, she was right on the borderline of the seats. Went down in that traveling thing, a traveling thing was they carried fried chicken fried in a shoebox.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Carried cookies, crackers, and summer sausage and lunch meat, in the, in the preserving jar. They had chipped ice and poured a little water on it because the ice will melt and fill the jar back up. And she gave me that and set there and nursed me like I was her grandson. I was nine years old. And when we got there, my grandfather waited at the stop for us to get off. And all the white people get off first, and then we got off. And she said, asked who, she didn't but see but one man there, and she said, "Son, are these your,---------(?)(?)" and I saw Papa Rhem, and he told her and everything. Tried to pay her, but she wouldn't, she wouldn't uh, she was a  religious lady. So, that's something, they, it was a good deed she 01:44:00did, but it's still called religious, because religion was going to change everything right there and now. Mmm, I guess they died though. Maybe some of them, maybe they all are in Heaven together. I don't know. 

MAYFIELD: Well, um, Martin Luther King also had a bit of a religious, sort of, um, connotation to some of his, um, speeches though, correct? 

ELLISON: Yeah. He saw a vision. He was a visionary. He saw things that eventually was going to happen. Even the night before he said uh, before he was assassinated, he said he had been to the mountaintop. He looked over and saw the Promised Land. And uh, people can see visions. I never heard him spoke a word that killed and to destroy, and all of that.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Hmm. And that's the reason why really, he had problems with um, he had problems with Malcolm X, he had problems with the Gonzales group, SNCC, he had problems with the Black Panthers, because they were violent. Eye for  an eye. And tea for two. They weren't going away no sic, uh, uh 01:45:00German Shepherds on them and water hoses and push old women from the church that were walking, trying to walk and integrate things with them. You hit them with a hundred-pound pressure water hose. You know they can't take that. So, it never got straight. There is the picture they've been trying to find of a policeman in Birmingham, Alabama siccing a German Shepherd on a young kid, about ten years old. And nobody never came forward to claim that picture of--[Ed. note: policeman sending the dogs to attack]. Well, the fellow wouldn't be a little boy now, because he's about 10 on the picture and that's been fifty-five years ago, so he'd be at least sixty-five years old. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: But nobody claimed it. I'll show it to you next time I see you. I got; I got all this stuff at home.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm.

MAYFIELD: Where were you when Martin Luther King, um, died? 

ELLISON: It was Thursday, April the fourth, 1968. I was getting ready  to go to a roping. 

MAYFIELD: To where?

ELLISON: A roping. I roped.

MAYFIELD: A roping?

ELLISON: Yeah. I roped. I roped cattle. I roped, uh, calf roping at the time, during that time. I was twenty-seven years old. Knew it like a book, because I wrote a speech, and I gave in El Campo. And, and, uh, they said, you can't give that speech here. Everybody's going to boo you. I couldn't hear a soul say not one word. But anyway, I was getting ready to go to a roping when then, when the, when the news flashed. When the news flashed. Sure was. I had missed seeing him by seven days. 

MAYFIELD: What do you mean?

ELLISON: Well, I was, uh, when he, when he came through Austin--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I, I would, I missed him, you know, missed the gathering. But I did see one of the dirtiest people in the world, J. Edgar Hoover. He was the one that was whi--white capping and printing all that them bad things on him, saying it was Black people that was doing it. But it was J. Edgar Hoover. Uh, I remember when Lyndon Baines Johnson came down to school. Now he was a big  politician. He just, he was just a power struggle. If you was 01:47:00with him, he was going to look out for you. If you wasn't, he was going to run you over. I met him. Hmm, hmm. But now, J. Edgar Hoover, he was the one that did all that wrong stuff. Yeah. I remember the day that um, ---------(?)(?) what was his name? Um, the voter's rights person, was shot with that deer rifle as he was getting out of his car. Oh, my goodness, I guess they had the answer. A fellow shot at him, Byron Beckwith, [Ed. note: Medgar Evers, field secretary with the NAACP was shot and killed by Byron De La Beckwith in 1993.] shot him. He crawled with a bullet hole in his back big as a bucket through his back door. Oh, my goodness. I, gosh--

MAYFIELD: That was on, that was something that you saw on the news?

ELLISON: Yeah. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. And uh, because he was from Jackson, Mississippi.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Matter of fact, I had a lady that was going to come with me today. She's from Jackson.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: She'd never saw all that right in Jackson because Jackson was a, almost like a, like South Africa's apartheid town. It was ninety percent  Black, but the two percent white ran it. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm.

ELLISON: You know one of those kind of towns in South Africa?

MAYFIELD: So, when did people from, uh, my understanding is that um, folks, if they lived south of Texas Avenue, they couldn't really live north of Texas Avenue. When did that start changing, where you started seeing more, um, African American families--

ELLISON: Well, the people would, uh, --

MAYFIELD: -- living north of Texas Avenue?

ELLISON: Well, I had a friend, matter of fact, talked to him the day before yesterday. He lived right there on that corner of, uh, because his, his grandfather was an older man at that time, and he was a servant for, um, I think the Moore's, M-o-o-r-e-s. You know who I'm talking about.

MAYFIELD: From the library? The Moore's?

ELLISON: Yeah.

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: And um, old man Caldwell was like the servant. He lived in the quarters right behind; they had a place for him and everything.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Well, when Clarence, grew up with me, Clarence told me the other day,  November sixteenth, he made eighty-five. He's still living. We 01:49:00talk all the time. And uh, he moved with his grandfather. They would let him move with his grandfather, when, because they, all of them barracks and single houses and one-room shacks was all torn down from that explosion over there. So, they start opening up a few houses on First and Second Avenue South, you know--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --right across Texas Avenue. And Black people started buying them because they saw, started seeing the migration to Hitchcock and Dickinson, and you know, moving away from Texas City. But they didn't want them coming, you wasn't coming to Eighteenth, Nineteenth, San Jacinto, Mainland Drive. All in the loop, nope, that was out. Matter of fact, all across, uh, the loop, it was just like prairie. Wasn't all them houses built there, see. And so people started moving out. Why do you think the Davison Home is right where it is right there?

MAYFIELD: Why?

ELLISON: If it, if it could have been historical somewhere else, moved and restored and stuff, it would have been gone. But do you think the Davison's, that there was, that there was Black people living all around the  Davisons when they were living there? When Texas City was being founded and all that? No! All of that, that was your, that was your uh, 01:50:00well-to-do, affluent white people neighborhood. That's what that was.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: As well as that church right there on that corner, that big historical marker? 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: All them Black people live around that? No. That wasn't there. That was an affluent white neighborhood. I mean your most affluent.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Neighborhood. Right there. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I saw two men came in one time when I was down by the park, and they were talking to me. They grew up there. They were ---------(?)(?) much older than I was. And they were telling me a lot of different things about how they used to walk to school, take the uh, Wolverine uh, the high school, the white high school that they went to, and how it all changed all around. Sitting right there ---------(?)(?). Yeah, that's where that was, because I didn't sell papers no, across town and throw papers no more than going to the post office. My route was in the Black end of town. 

MAYFIELD: What years do you think that started where, you started seeing more hou--, people um, coming across Texas Avenue and living?

ELLISON: Well, after the Civil Rights Act of '64, and the Voting Rights Act of '65, the mid-sixties, when laws began to come on their side--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: You have to keep in mind that a lot of people that study enough history, it was actually the Thirteenth Amendment that freed the slaves. It wasn't the Emancipation Proclamation. The Emancipation Proclamation just freed the slaves that was held in the Confederate territory that was fighting the Civil War. And every state that was not in the Confederate territory. But when the Thirteenth Amendment was added in 1865, then you had the Fourteenth Amendment that made negroes first class citizens, and then the Fifteenth Amendment, the right to vote, that's the one that killed the horse. Oh, we can't give these people the right to vote. We are going to come up with some laws. If you owned property before the Civil War, you could vote. If you, if  you, uh, ---------(?)(?) if you could read or write, you could vote. If you could do all these things, then you could vote. All kinds. Then they came up with a poll tax. Research the poll tax. Not every Black person wanted to pay two-fifty for a poll tax to vote.

MAYFIELD: Why did they have to, um, pay two dollars and fifty cents?

ELLISON: Because they put this stigma on them, and know they wasn't going to vote, just like they doing now with the lines and things, now. They don't' want you to teach race, uh, culture in school anymore. About the Ci--, about the slaves and all that, but then they're going to teach about George Washington?

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: They're going to teach about very little about Abraham Lincoln, they got to tie the slaves in. They're going to teach about Thomas Jefferson. They're going to teach about Alexander Hamilton. They're going to teach about all that other stuff. Who did the Constitution, who did the Declaration of Independence. They're going to teach that, but no, we can't teach no slavery. Because I can't handle the sadness when you're talking about slavery.

MAYFIELD: So, they had the poll tax because they would, it would make it more difficult for you to raise the money sometimes in order to register to vote.

ELLISON: And you paid that, paid two- fifty for a poll tax when you  could buy a bucket of syrup, biscuit and flour to feed your family and stuff.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And they knew there'd be a cut in that. 

MAYFIELD: So, how did the African American community uh, I mean, what was the discussion around the tax then. Like, you had people going door to door, um, saying that you need to vote regardless, correct? And so, families just had to figure out how to--

ELLISON: Well, they tried to say, We'll help you raise money. We'd have a fish fry. We'd have a barbeque. We'd have association. Association is when everybody get together and they sell different stuff, uh, pickles, cucumbers, all that kind of stuff like--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --plate food. And we'll help everybody out that, that didn't want it. Now everybody, a lot of people couldn't afford it because they were working every day. Work was always plentiful in Texas City. Back in those days, if, if, you didn't live around in Texas City to have no work because the work was there. Not like you could go, but I can't find any. Yeah, you can find a  labor job, from shoe shining, to washing dishes, the, the dock or the waterfront, you find a job. Tony Elders [Elder Service Station] and all 01:53:00those places, you found a job. You found a job. It was right there for you. More than you were ever paid when you got out of the army. Sure is. You found a job because the job's there for you. ---------(?)(?) you were lazy. And very few people, you didn't lay around the street with no job. If you laid around, you laid around your house or somewhere, you understand what I mean--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: --because, if you out through the day down there drinking wine and uh, sitting around playing dominoes, well, you didn't see that. 

MAYFIELD: Like--

ELLISON: You had to work.

MAYFIELD: So, all the families were working. All the fathers were working.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. Most of them were working. 

MAYFIELD: Okay.

ELLISON: I'd say ninety percent of them were. If your daddy was uh, handicapped or something from the war or something, uh, or sick, because when Black people got sick in those days, they always put two diseases on you. Uh, you either had a stroke or you had the TBs [Ed. note: Tuberculosis]. They never did say that you had a heart attack or had cancer or nothing like that. The only two things we had put on them.

MAYFIELD: Those are the two things?

ELLISON: hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Well, I think that we're um, kind of at the end of our questions. Uh, do you have any final thoughts? Or is there anything else you would like to share on topics that we haven't touched upon that you want to make sure we mention?

ELLISON: Well, I'm, I'm going to say this here in my conclusion, my closing. I've been here, basically all of my eighty years. I've had the opportunity to work and live here on the integrated side and the segregated side. I've had the opportunity to come across and work and help to move Texas City forward. I knew how segregation was when I was a kid growing up, eight, nine, ten, eleven, education, church-wise, and so forth. The only church that Black people went to during segregated times was the Catholic church, which is that church right there.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: Now, because Father Delany was his name, he uh, brought the Boy Scout troop over there and, and he could do more because he had more resources. And he didn't care. Warren Jones, that was a part of Parks and  Recreation, he was working there. Then Jonathan, [Pomeroy] he 01:55:00began to bring the kids over because they could go places. We could go canoeing. We could learn swimming and all that kind of things. I've seen both people on both sides of that. I've see good white people here in the city of Texas City. I've seen good Black people that did all they could under the restricted circumstances that they had. I, I won't trade nobody for my teaching because my Black teachers taught me from the Black perspective. Uh, of, of how and think it's going to be. I wish Dr. Jones was living now. Because he was saying how things were going to be. Ellison, you're not going to know how things are going to be fifty, seventy-five years. I said, oh, Doctor, it couldn't be too much different than that, there will always be that thing. Well, it is, but it's much better. You see, you've got to educate yourself.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: You've got to educate your children, your boys and girls. When I was down and my daughter was working on her nursing R. N., she would say, "Daddy, Daddy look me in the face. Just open your eyes every now and then. I got you." She said, you paid for a lot for me to get an R. N. I got  you. I got everything I'm doing. And so, then I relaxed, and it 01:56:00didn't hurt me so much. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: She come down there -------(?)(?), (laughs) Yeah. (laughs)

MAYFIELD: What um, can you tell me a little bit about your children?

ELLISON: Yeah. I have eight adult children from thirty-two to fifty-six. 

MAYFIELD: Thirty-two to fifty-six. So, what is the, fifty-six--

ELLISON: The oldest one, Lynn, --

MAYFIELD: Yeah.

ELLISON: --he's a heavy equipment operator.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: The next one, Phyllis, she's a schoolteacher. You'll see her, if she'd walk in here, she looks just like me.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm.

ELLISON: And then, the third one, Johann, she's a procurer [Ed. note: in procurement] with Aetna, uh, Aetna insurance. Ebony's an R. N. Uh, uh, Angela, she's a retired military person. If you ever go to Katy, she owns a big place just like, uh, uh, Sanders, I mean uh, well, like Sanders Center, a work-out place.

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: And uh, um, and uh, uh, then Ebony, hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I hear from them every day, every morning, just about all  eight of them. But there are five of them that I normally hear from. 01:57:00"Whatcha' doing?" I say, "I'm sitting in the living room. What's the matter, you can't get up?"

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: I say, "Yeah, I can get up. Justin, yeah." Justin is a very good boy. Yeah, Justin's got his own truck, and he went to Texas College and stayed in East Texas. And he does logging and stuff like that, yeah. "Dad, I want you to know, I'm going to give you four or five more years, then I'm coming to get you." Oh, man, you can't take me to all them, them dark woods back there. ---------(?)(?) (laughs)

MAYFIELD: (laughs)

ELLISON: I tell everybody, no, I'm going down with the ship in Texas City. I, I--

MAYFIELD: Hmm, hmm. 

ELLISON: I did not see the ship, so I'm going down with it. And like when John Paul Jones said, when the British were bombarding him, and they thought they had him and they was getting him with those cannon balls, waiting on him to sink, and the British captain called out for his sword to surrender, John Paul Jones drew it and said, "I have not yet begun to fight."

MAYFIELD: Oh.

ELLISON: (laughs)

MAYFIELD: Thank you so much, Dr. Ellison, um, I just want to say that, uh, it's been, um, wonderful listening to you speak today. And um, just wanted  to say that, uh, I appreciate you taking time to um, be a 01:58:00part of our, our oral history project. And, um, that, that this concludes, uh, our, um, stories with Dr. Ellison and thank you so much.

ELLISON: Well, I thank you again. And I appreciate what you are doing, the City of Texas City is doing. You're hearing it from three perspectives. From the African American perspective, from the Anglo-American perspective, and the Hispanic perspective. And I guess we ought to look at another perspective at that time, uh, Vietnamese and Indians were not prevalent here as they are in the population now. And I will bring a clean book with all the deeds, a lot of pictures and things that show the history of Texas City. And I think you'd do a good job where people can actually see it and then after we do it like that, we need to redo our museum side out there to predict all that.

MAYFIELD: Mmm.

ELLISON: Hmm, hmm. 

MAYFIELD: Well, I'll have to talk to the museum. Well, thank you so much Dr. Ellison.

ELLISON: Thank you.