Oral History Project: James Jones jr. By: Haniah Jones

Transcript:

Me: Hi, my name is Haniah Jones Today is May 8 2015 at 5:13 pm, and I am here with my great uncle and former Marine James Jones. Why don’t you start off by telling me what countries you served in as a Marine.

James: Uuh, Italy, and uh the states, and I went to Germany and uh, I’ve been to Pakistan, Vietnam, uh Neoplen. Theres also lots of countries, Like ive been to morocco, and um...I’m thinking if I missed anything (mumbles to self) Yea I don’t think I missed any.

Me: Ok, um how would you define race and discrimination

James: How would I define race and discrimination?

Me: Mmhm

James: In relationship to what

Me: Like just umm, like i guess just with with the things that you’ve experienced, or what you know uh personally

James: Ok, that’s an easy one. Um, race became an issue when i first went into the service, just being from the North, you know Philadelphia and New York. I really didn’t um come into problems until I went into the military and I was stationed down south. And then when I was stationed down south, places you would go, you would see signs that said you know “White” and “colored” um and a there were places you couldn’t go because of your color

Me: right

James: You could go, you know, you couldn’t go to the movies. Uhh, you couldn’t go to certain um stores. You couldn’t go to certain drive in’s. And there were always signs that said white and colored. You couldn’t even go to the bus station. Uh, when you went to buy your ticket, they sold tickets on one side for colored and on the other side for white folks.

Me: right  

James: You couldn’t go into the, the uh, cafeteria that they had in the uh bus station to buy a sandwich or something, you couldn’t do that! And discrimination, they’re just certain places that you couldn’t go, or you didn’t go or they wouldn’t allow you to go in. Like when I was stationed in (cough cough) excuse me. When I ?was stationed in Germany, there were clubs and bars that you couldn’t go in because uh, the white service people didn’t want you in their bars. It wasn’t necessarily the German people, it was American GI’s that didn’t want you in their clubs. So they wouldn’t let you in so they had bars for you know GI’s that were colored and white GI’s. And you know you could go into the different clubs. And discrimination is basically when theyre were places that you could and couldn’t go and it was all based on the color of your skin.

Me: Right ok um,

James: Ok?

Me: Mmhm, so, what made you join the Marines?

James:Um (laughs) you’re gonna laugh at this but I fell in love with John Wayne ok?

Me: Mhm

James: And I had saw some movies that he played in and he was a marine. And uh, I wanted to travel, I knew that Marines traveled quite a bit and I liked their dressful uniform.

Me: (laughs) Ummm. do you ever wish you could be um, when you were stationed in the marines, do you ever wish you could another race so that your life could be easier

James: No. I’ve always wanted to be me. I didn’t want to be somebody else just to get by. I got by being me. Um, I was fortunate in that I was respected being me. I didn’t have to pretend to be somebody else I was just me and I was respected by that.

Me: So other than the signs, you never had like any physical altercations with like white

James: With race

Me: Yea with like..

James: Yea mhm mhm. Uhh I had a guy that I was stationed with and the 3 of us, there were 3 marines. We were selected to go some place for special duties. And there were 2 white marines and me. And one of the white marines uh, where we went um there were only one of the individual rooms but it was a tourist unit. And they only had 2 rooms. 2 of us had to room together. And since we were all corpses at the time and uh the senior corper, we were gonna let him have the room by himself but this one guy went up to this other guy and he said he didn’t want to sleep in the room with me. and he asked the other guy would he mind sleeping in the room with him. And uh he said no he didn’t have a problem with that. And he told me what the guy had said and I said it ain’t no big deal, I knew he was like that um so I, didn’t sleep in the room with him, he didn’t sleep in the room with me. That’s one incident that happened. But yea there were people in the military who didn’t like me because I was black and I understood that because of where they were from and how they were brought up. My biggest problem though when I was in uh when I was in bootcamp niah, um and that was in south Carolina and this was way back and I was, I was 17 years old which was 1954. And uh, there were a lot of guys in boot camp with me who were from the South and there were only 5 black guys in my, in my particular boot camp. And 4 were from Philadelphia, the other guy was from Buffalo New York. And uh when we got to boot camp, our drill instructor he said he was not going to tolerate anything about race, if he heard anything, anybody say anything about race, they were getting kicked out. Um so even though people wanted to say things and do things they didn’t do it because they knew they would get caught.

Me: Yea that’s good

James: Ok

Me: Um, was your, so did, when you were younger like was your educational experiences like similar to your marine experiences? Like in school was it the same way or was it different?

James: Um, no my school friends were the same. I went to school in, I went to Catholic school in New York. And I went to an all black catholic school from Kindergarten to 8th grade. Ok?

Me: Mhmm

James: All of the nun, all of my teachers were white, I had no black teachers. And in my first year of high school was also in New York. And uuh, it was funny becaue I went to highschool that I went to in my first year was an attic of another high school which was very popular but you had to take a test to get into that school. And a lot of people wanted to get into that school that I wanted to go to. So we had 3 annexes in the city that you went to your freshmen year. And I went to one of the annexes, St.  Thomas my first year. And uh I noticed something funny, I never realized there was so many different types of black folks. OK, and what im saying is that in my class, i  had black puerto ricans, i had a couple cubans, i had a couple people from the west indies, i had a couple guys who came from across the big sea, the big river, uh, north africa, and uh…let me see if i missed anybody. I don’t think i missed anybody.

Me: Are you familiar with the stories of, of um, the Lunch counter sit-ins, the murder of Emmett Till

James: Yes

Me: So when you hear about those like wha-what emotions go through your mind, how do you feel?

James: It’s-it’s funny that you ask me that. When I was stationed in Italy, I was in Italy when Emmett till was killed. The duty that I pulled in Italy, we pulled a duty of 2 Marines in Italian Cabinary.  The Cabinary is a officer of Italy. One night we were on duty, me and anither Marine, the other marine on duty was a white Marine who, we fought in Italy together. He was from uh, Washington D.C. We were on duty until like 2 or 3 o clock in the morning, you know we were just in the building. So we were just talking like we do a lot. and this cabinary he had a  little um folder a little bag that they wore on their side. And in the bag he pulled out this paper. And he unfolded the paper and it was a picture of Emmett Till of course the paper work was in Italian. And he asked me how I could serve in the military for a country that did something like this. ok? So I was 18 or 19 at the time and obviously I couldn’t explain it to him like I could now, how I could do that. So basically what I said to him was everybody wasn’t like that. Ok, yea it was wrong, i definitely don’t like to see stuff like that. but it’s nothing i can do to change it.

Me: Um let’s see did you ever like when you went back home, did you ever i guess fear the life of you know your siblings that just for the simple fact that they were black, they could be killed at any time like did that ever like cross your mind like at all.

James: That something could happen to them?

Me: Yes, just for the simple fact that they were black during a time like this.

James: Yes it did, um not so much the girls ok, but my cousins and stuff like that the boys, the males. The policemen right there in Philadelphia were uh, very racist, even the black policemen. And they treated black males differently. I got hit a couple times by Philadelphia policemen. I got arrested a couple times by Philadelphia policemen for doing nothing. For just being, as the expression goes, “for just being black”

Me: Do you believe that children in today’s society, today’s century take the opportunities that they have now for granted?

James: Yes, yes I get upset sometimes when I realize that the opportunities that you guys have and the opportunities that were not available for people say my age way back when. That, that that bothers me that the young folks today don’t take advantage of the opportunities but it’s not everybody but I would say most of them don’t take advantage of the opportunities.

Me: Yea, your nephew here is a perfect example (laughs)

James: Yea, I was getting ready to say that, I was getting ready to say that. And its a shame. And yes, your brother is one that uh, I was so glad when I heard that he was going to drexel and all that. But while he’s in school up to this point, he still not taking all the advantages that’s available today based on his ability to do the things he can do. You know what i’m saying?

Me: Yup, sure do.

James: Ok but yes that was a good question, I liked that question

Me: Yea I, I personally, that’s why I asked the question because I know that children today, in today’s society are so disrespectful and do not take advantage of opportunities given to them now. And I just wanted to make sure that like I wasn’t the only person that felt that way.

James: No, you're definitely not the only person niah, you’re definitely not the only person. I mean I feel stron-, very strongly about that. I mean I see kids now and young folks you know who I know that aren’t taking advantage of the things they’re available to, and it hurts me to see that because the advantages weren’t there before. but they’re there now, there is no excuse now, none whatsoever.

Me:Um, this is just a follow up question, do you think like the things that are happening now like the Brown case and Trayvon Martin case, do you think this is a repeat of what’s been happening in the 1950’s?

James: Uuh...yes! Things have never really gone away. This is my personal feeling now. Things have never really gone away, you know they changed some and they’ve gotten better but things aren’t really gone away as even though its not as open as it was before

Me: Mhm

James: You know, its still there.

Me: What do you think it will take for, or do you ever think that there will truly be no racism like ever if at all

James: No, no, I won’t live to see it, you won’t live to see, your children won’t live to see it. I think it will always be there

Me: Sad to here but, I agree

James: (laughs) ok (coughs)

Me: Well thanks for sharing your stories with me

James: No problem, anytime. I have nothing else to do but share stories