Oral History: Orlando (Adam Bennett)

Interviewer: Adam Bennett

Interviewee: Pop-Pop (Orlando)

May 11, 2015 7:00pm

AB: So, at what age did you first experience discrimination?

PP: I say about 14 or 15

AB: Do you know what happened?

PP: Oh yeah I was in the South, some white guys rolled by in a truck and hollered out the window “hey n*****” and I was in the yard doing something and they was on a back of a truck and I guess it was ten or twelve of em it was girls and guys and it was many years ago.

AB: So, what was your reaction?

PP: I holler back I holler back “hey you cracker” because that what we would say down south somebody would say something to you that’s what you would do.

AB: So, growing up did you hate white people at the time?

PP: No no no no, I didn’t.

AB: Well, how did you feel about them did you feel like they were ignorant?

PP: Well, I was raised on a farm we had our own farm so I wasn’t working under them I was working under my father. I wasn’t like the other black people in the south they didn’t like white people because they treated them wrong. No, I got along with them my next door neighbor was a white guy and we got along good, I used to go up to his house we didn’t go in the house that much, but we would be out at the barn doing things. But no I never disliked white people.

AB: So did you care what was going on at the time or did you sort of pushed it off?

PP: I didn’t care I mean I it was what I was raised into I didn't look at it as much then as i do now and it didn’t look as much different to me I didn't see much of it.

AB: Ok so, how was your teenage life from 14 till you were an actual adult.

PP: Well my teenage life was great because when I was 15 I got my driver's license my mother started me in school when I was 5 so when I was 15 my records in school said I was 16 so I got my records from school and went and got my driver’s license and my brother got a car and I started driving the car we worked in the farm and I had a really good teenage life you know I had good parents that raised us good and my teenage life was great all until I turned 18 and moved to Pennsylvania.

AB: When you came to Pennsylvania was it different from the South?

PP: I didn’t see too much difference because in the South we went where we knew we could go you know all the Piccolo Joints and we only went to black Piccolo joints and just like how you were in a town or anywhere else I was raised that way I wasn’t taught that way but when you go in a place you see water fountain white’s only water fountain blacks only I mean you were use to that and it was no other way and when I come to Pennsylvania it just wasn’t no signs so I didn’t see too much discrimination either way.

AB: Were you active in the Civil Rights Movement?

PP: No I was in Pennsylvania no I wasn’t active in it at the time when they started marchin’ and everything I was in Pennsylvania no marching was here.

AB: Have you ever had besides relationship with your neighbor any relationship with white people like a girlfriend?

PP: After I got into Pennsylvania yes yes I dated white girls yes.

AB: Would you like to explain on that?

PP: Well yea I can say that I never had like a steady girl it was like going to the club and meeting a girl and you would drink and you might go to other places. I didn’t have like steady girl that I would date you know I had a good friend that was a white girl and I had no problem with that.

AB: Did you receive “good” education growing up in the South?

PP: Well I had the opportunity to receive a good education and I had an opportunity to go to college and go all the way and my father was able to do it and the ones in my family that wanted to go to college which was only two they went and you know. It might be my fault that I got just about what I want and not just me we were living good we own our own land and everything at the part I didn’t see in having a good education. I wanted to be successful which was having fun and having a nice car and that was it.

AB: Would you say that your family created your own culture?

PP: I could say that my family created my mother and father and yea they created their own culture not too much I didn't have too much into it.

AB: Were you playing any sports, music were you doing anything?

PP: I used to box and wrestle and I was a good wrestler I never been thrown the whole while I been wrestling and it was free wrestling so there wasn’t training I trained myself.

AB: Have you ever been physically motivated to act upon a white person?

PP: Nah nah nah there was some kids that used to come around and we used to beat em up not beat em up but you know just smack em and do stuff just to get them scared and at that time their was more of us and white people would catch black guys if it were more of them. It was never nothing personal that lasted long it was over and we were through with it.

AB: Did you...you were ever like against what was going on in the Civil Rights movement?

PP: Yes I was against that, I knew that not all whites, but the whites didn’t like the blacks, but I didn’t participate in any of them because like I said earlier there were no marches in Philadelphia like it was in the South and I had left the South.

AB: Were you ever able not to do something you really wanted to do because you were black?

PP: Not really well, there are things that I couldn’t do and that I didn’t do because I was black I didn’t put myself in that position. Not really not really, I never approached anything and not done it because I was black because I had better sense not to approach it I understanded segregation in the South and in the North and that’s why I never got caught up in that.

AB: We’re going to wrap up here, but what is your whole thought on Segregation?

PP: Well my whole though on segregation is that a lot of people will look at it as black and white, but segregation is all over the world just like racism. Even in the mid-east all over the world there are segregation it’s races that hate each other races that love each other. Just now, I was looking on the news in China they still got slaver they got thousands of people on fishing ships in slavery we wasn’t the first one in slavery back in Pharaoh days in the middle east and slavery has just been around for awhile.

AB: Thank you Pop-Pop

PP: Well thank you.