Peterson, Bernice

Name of interviewee: Bernice Peterson

Name of interviewer: K’mari Greene

Date of interview: March 17, 2026

Location of Interview: Durham, North Carolina

K’MARI GREENE: Hi, I’m K’mari Greene, and it is Tuesday, March 17th, 2026, at 12:21 PM, and I am interviewing Miss Bernice Peterson. This project is primarily focused on the historic Fayetteville Street Corridor Local Historic District, and the bounds of that are north at Umstead and south along Nelson, centered along Fayetteville Street. The neighborhood in a much larger context is often referred to as historic Hayti. The purpose of this interview is to preserve the stories of those who shaped the Durham and Fayetteville Street community as we know it today. 

There are no right or wrong answers, so please share only what you feel comfortable discussing. We are especially interested in your memories, perspectives, and hope for the future.

K’MARI GREENE: And my first question, Ms. Peterson, is what is your full name and year of birth? 

BERNICE PETERSON: My name is Bernice Aljene Fowler Peterson, born November 30th, 1935.

K’MARI GREENE: And were you born and raised in Durham? 

BERNICE PETERSON: Yes.

K’MARI GREENE: And can you talk a little bit more about the city that you grew up in?

BERNICE PETERSON: Okay.

BERNICE PETERSON: Being the eldest daughter, responsibilities were always placed on me, from tending the six babies, running the household, cleaning, cooking at a very early age. Mom and dad worked, and their demands were passed down to me. They told me what to do, and I had to follow through. My sisters and brothers thought I was very mean and controlling. I was angry as I felt that I never had a childhood or a teenage life.

BERNICE PETERSON: After graduating from Hillside High School in June 1954 and attending North Carolina College, now North Carolina Central University, I received a two-year certification in Commercial Education and Secretarial Science. I worked downtown for a well-known civil rights law firm to pay my tuition. This law firm included attorneys C.O. Pearson–Conrad–Conrad Pearson, Hugh Thompson, Billy Marsh, Floyd McKissick, and Eugene Gaston. All these attorneys are now deceased.

BERNICE PETERSON: I finally realized just a few years ago that all the past responsibilities made me a leader, and hopefully a better person. Developing these skills enabled me to attain top-secretarial positions at IBM and the U.S. EPA. I worked a total of 60 years in various secretarial and administrative positions. I finally retired from IBM in August 1992 and at EPA in 2014, working at each for 20 years. I worked at North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company and helped unionize employees before leaving in 1972.

K’MARI GREENE: And can you tell me about your childhood home before it was torn down and what the neighborhood around it was like?

BERNICE PETERSON: Okay. I think I got something about it.

K’MARI GREENE: You can just talk about it. If you want to.

BERNICE PETERSON: My childhood at 504 South Street was located at the corner of South and Proctor Street. It was a few blocks from what was known as “The Bottom” at that time. “The Bottom” received a very bad reputation because the teenagers in our area were our protectors.

BERNICE PETERSON: For example, I had a sister who worked at Duke, beginning at Whitted School–that’s a middle school at that time–and I worked downtown on Chapel Hill Street–down from the post office–and in the wintertime, when it became dark very early, the bus stop closest to our neighborhood was on Main Street at Kress. So, we had to get off the bus there and walk about four or five blocks to our home place; and we were walking through the neighborhood of very expensive homes where the whites lived at that time–and the big oak trees on the sidewalk, and we were–as we left the bus stop–walking from Main Street to South Street. There were white men coming into our neighborhood, harassing us during that time when we were walking from the bus line, and these were all female–we were all children–and they would drive down hooping as though they wanted to attack us.

BERNICE PETERSON: So, we finally told the teenage boys in our neighborhood what was going on, and they said, “We’ll solve that problem.” So, with the trees being as large as they were, they were able to hide behind trees with bricks, sticks, and rocks, and when those men would harass us, they would throw bricks at their cars.

BERNICE PETERSON: That’s how “The Bottom” got its bad name because those men did not want to report what they were doing–their activities–so, they just said that they were attacked by some Black teenagers. But we did not have, as far as keys to our doors, no keys to a door, some homes not even screens to the window. We were really safe in that neighborhood, and I wanted to put this on record because I’ve heard so much negativity about “The Bottom”. 

BERNICE PETERSON: My childhood in the neighborhood was much fun.

BERNICE PETERSON: I attended W.G. Pearson High School beginning in 1941, and it–it was more like family. I knew all of the–from the first grade to the sixth grade–most all of the children, because we came from the same neighborhood. Our teachers, some were very good, some I really didn’t like. But the ones I really didn’t like, I soon learned that they saw something in me that I did not see in myself, and they wanted to emphasize what talent that I did not recognize. And as I grew up in my grades, in middle school, we were the first class that was at Whitted School. We were the first class to go from Whitted School to New Hillside, as we then knew that, and at Hillside, I was captain of the softball team. I played softball from sixth grade through marriage and delivery of my first daughter, Sharon–and that was more than 20-some years–and we played in the fast-pitch league, and I ceased my playing when the slow-pitch league came in. I was a member of the National Honor Society in high school. Played varsity basketball. We were the champions of the Eastern North Carolina district. My coach was Carl Easterling. I played with the famous Missouri Arledge; her name was Missouri Arledge Morrison. She passed away a few years ago, and she was our center, and I played guard, whereas the guards would retrieve the rebound, bounce the ball three times, and throw it over center because we only played half-court.

BERNICE PETERSON: I went on graduating from high school in June 1954. Then I enrolled in North Carolina College that following fall, and I was enrolled as a special student. And it was not known at that time that that program existed until Billy Marsh, one of my attorneys, knew the head of the commercial department, carried me there–I think his name was Dr. Lincoln–carried me there; and I was then enrolled as a special student, and I was the only one at that time that was enrolled under that classification, and I stayed there. I did not have a full load under that program, but I had English and typing, and my English teachers, first year did very well academically. My second year, I met Dr. Farrison. Dr. Farrison was the author of our textbook, and he constantly told us, he wrote: “You get A, and he gets A for writing a textbook. You get B for teaching”, and the only thing that a class member would get would be a C or a D. *laughter* I got a D. *laughter from others* But in front of me sat Julius Chambers. On the next row was John Baker, football player. John’s fingers were so, so big in my typing class [laughter] they did not fit the keys. So he sat up there and looked. He only learned the home row at that time, but he passed the course because he had to play football, and they knew before he came in there that he didn’t come to learn to type; and I was typing at that time, 125 words per minute on a manual typewriter. So my typewriter teachers told me, “I can’t teach you anything.” So, but I remained in the class, became the teacher’s pet, and ran all the teacher’s errands. So, that worked out well. 

BERNICE PETERSON: And in my job there with the lawyers, we had cases that were heard by the United States Supreme Court. One was Brown versus the Board of Education in 1954, and the other one was civil rights from ’54 to like ’57. 

BERNICE PETERSON: The civil rights movement started in Durham, North Carolina in 1950, and that was two years, I’m thinking, before the Greensboro sit-in. The difference between those two were because the Black powers that be here in Durham did not agree with the movement that Dr. Moore and his six teenagers did with the Royal Ice Cream Company. They thought Durham was not ready for that type of controversy. So, therefore, it wasn’t very well known, but the Greensboro city was supported by the entire city–when I say that, the entire Black community, from the top to the bottom–and that was why they were much more famous than the Durham city.

BERNICE PETERSON: My work at North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was a learning experience where we had 78 women on one floor. Desks back-to-back, all ages, all sizes, all personalities; and it was not too pleasant because you never knew who was jealous of whom, lot of gossip. Management did not help because they had their favorites too, and during that time–we were located downtown on Parrish Street–you could walk in the receptionist area, and you saw mostly well-dressed light-skin people. When you were touring where the actual work was done, you see more darker persons, but that was the way of time, at that time. Making impressions. you know.

BERNICE PETERSON: My first job at IBM, I was, I started at the bottom as a stenographer and worked to the very top as an administrative director in manufacturing, supporting the manufacturing supervisor, and we had three shifts totaling about 5,000 employees, and IBM at that time had one contract to manufacture all IBM computers, and I was there when we rolled our first computer off our line. It was huge, maybe fitting half of a desk, whereas when I left in 1992, things had really changed and advanced, and computers were very small, then we had terminals, smaller computers on our desk. That was the best job I ever had. 

BERNICE PETERSON: I was good at being an administrator there. I had six secretaries reporting to me, and they were white, and that was–didn’t like me being their boss–but one good thing about it, they were not in my building. They were in off-site building, so I did not have to interface with them daily, and my first meeting with them was, “I’m not a person that’s going to stand over dictating what you should do. I’m going to tell you this: you do what you want to do, do what you can get away with. I see nothing, I said nothing. The only requirement I have from you, each of you, is to, when my manager, who is the supervisor of manufacturing, needs something from your area, I’ll let you know, and I’ll let you know when I need it, and I don’t accept any delays or any excuses.” 

BERNICE PETERSON: And I had one secretary come to my desk who used to send me all kinds of emails that could be interpreted any kind of way, and she came to my office one morning to tell me I did not reply to her emails, and I told her, “Yes, I do. The ones that need to be considered for a response,” and so she said, “Well, I’ve been in the military, and I want you to understand, I don’t choose my words too lightly. I’m raw.” I said, “Well, thank you for your service in the military.” I said, “But right now, I’m a three-star general, and you better get the hell out of my office.” *laughter* She turned around, and I reported her to my manager, and he supported me. So, I did not have any more problems with her.

BERNICE PETERSON: So, I kind of figured that if you communicate to people what you want them to know, in certain situations and circumstances, and be truthful and realistic, that you won’t have any problems, and I have had a very, very good life–when I say good life-varied life.

BERNICE PETERSON: After retiring from IBM in 1992, I took a course in medical terminology for two years, and as a result, in graduating from that program, I became a certified medical claim adjuster, and I worked for a health organization processing claims for an additional two more years, and I started from the bottom at that facility–was called Health Source–and when they went out of buisness, I then went as a contractor to U.S. EPA for another 20 years in the air quality department. That was another great job because it was a senior citizen program, and it was established really to teach or give experience to mostly Black females in the office environment; and we started off with a salary like $7.50 an hour, and every year without having to compete, we were given an increase of 50 cents an hour for each year we stayed at EPA. But when you maxed out at your level–there were three levels– when your maxed out on your level, then the pay increased, but the responsibility always increased, too. So, you had the opportunity to stay where you are and have fun and feel free, because the age started at age 50. And as far as I was concerned, I knew my assignment, which I worked with engineers in the industrial department started there, and it was really, lot of steady work. When I arrived, I was busy. Even at the end of the day typing reports and presentations, and sometimes overtime; and depending on the time that we had to report to D.C. and reports had to be sent for signing by a time, we had to work to make sure the report was there by the signing. So, that increased our workload too.

BERNICE PETERSON: But also, I had an opportunity to move over into the manufacturing area, and my manager at that time, at IE, told me, “you don’t need to go over in that area,” and I asked him why, and he said to me, “because you don’t want to work with those folks,” and I replied to him “if it weren’t for those folks over in manufacturing, that you and I would never have a paycheck.” So I disagreed with him, and he disagreed with me. So, I went on to manufacturing, and as I said, that was the best job of my life. Started from the bottom, and ended up being the administrator, so I had management support and we had about 53 shifts. Total of about 50 first line managers, and the good thing about that, first line manager couldn’t sign my paycheck or my personnel papers. Only my manager, who was a supervisor, could do that. So, the way that I would go down the hallway–and sometimes I did it on purpose–I walk heavily anyway, and those floors, they vibrated–and I walked, even when I was going to a manager’s office, every manager on that row would stop to hear me coming, and they wanted to know which office I would go stop in. [laughter] So, that was one way of kind of getting back at those that I did not want [laughter] to be too friendly with.

BERNICE PETERSON: So, we had a lot of activities at IBM. I made more in one week being employed at IBM than I made in 15 days at North Carolina Mutual, and it depended, on the Mutual pay depended on the calendar. Whether it was a total of like 15 days. The most you could take home were less than $100 in those 15 days every two weeks, and out of that, there was insurance premium payment, lunch; and it was so low of pay that we decided to form a union, and I was secretary to the Union, and then I had access to everybody who was eligible for union, to what their base pay was per hour. And I was really surprised, because the secretary to our department, who had been there more than 30 years or more, was only making $3.03 an hour, and I was making even less, like $2.60 something an hour, and union was voted out, and that was when I went to IBM. Between going from North Carolina Mutual, before going to IBM I knew that the electric typewriters were on the horizon, so I went to Durham Tech at night. I didn't tell anybody. Went to Durham Tech at night to to learn how to type on the electric typewriter, and I finished top of my class because I had a mission, and that worked well.

BERNICE PETERSON: My community life at church, it seemed like we were in church every Sunday all day long: from Sunday school, 11 o’clock service, BTU at 6 o’clock, and again service at 7 o’clock. Mom sang in the choir. Dad was an usher. This was at Mount Vernon Baptist Church. Dad was an usher, and Mom would sit all seven of us across the front row, and she told us, “You sit there, and you better not move,” and we knew we better not move. My brother Grover one Sunday, acted up. Mother came out of the choir stand, carried him behind the church, pulled down a branch off the tree, and we heard him screaming. But when he came back in, she said, “You better not cry.” He was huffing and puffing, so we knew that we would get the same thing.

BERNICE PETERSON: We had a children’s church, it was the first after our new pastor came in, E.T. Browne, and his wife, Rosa Butler, who was on staff at Central. They created children’s church at Mount Vernon Baptist, and we were the first ones to be members of that children’s church, and as we grew up to be teenagers, they had a teenage choir, senior choir number one, senior choir number two. Then that was a mass choir, and I was old enough to sing at every one of them, and I'm now a member of mass choir, and I now find that after the pandemic, I have not been back to sing because it seemed like my voice has changed and I could talk much more than I could sing, and I felt more comfortable not getting in the choir stand.

BERNICE PETERSON: During, at Mount Vernon, we had Girl Scout troops, the Brownies, the Juniors, and the Cadets. I was the troop leader for the Cadets, that’s the teenagers then, I think, from 14 to about 17, and we went on a trip to Disney World by train. That was my first train ride, and it was the first train ride for most of our troops, and we had a wonderful time there. 

BERNICE PETERSON: And we also went to Hershey, Pennsylvania, to the shopping area and in the Amish country. So we had a very active Girl Scout troop. We sold more cookies than any other group in North Carolina at that time, and we were awarded a weekend at one of the campsites, and when we arrived, we found that it had been assigned to a white troop, and they wanted to put us back down in the woods, but then we would not adhere to that. So, we packed up–those who had unpacked–packed up and came back to Durham. Then we got a better look at the the Girl Scouting program during that time, and we found that they wanted us that, there's a Black troops to do and represent Girl Scouts more than they did the white, so therefore we kind of, we pulled out of the pines of North Carolina and started our own little group in Mount Vernon Baptist, which was not associated with the Girl Scouts of North Carolina.

BERNICE PETERSON: Is there anything else you want me to say?

K’MARI GREENE: [Laughter] Do you want to talk about your research about your family’s roots in Africa?

BERNICE PETERSON: Yeah.

K’MARI GREENE: You can just talk about it.

K’MARI GREENE: There’s a lot of research. 

BERNICE PETERSON: I started researching my family history in 1970, I think, from 1790 through 1990. I researched my family history. I found that my family came from Senegal in Africa. Senegal was located as the closest spot to the United States of America because it juts out, closest spot in Africa close to the continent of North America, and I found six generations of our family and recorded its history from the 1800 and 1900 census. The first generation was George Fowler–and the second generation–George was born in 1832. The second generation was Pettigrew Fowler, which was 1865, and my third generation was James Floyd Fowler, born 1890, and the fourth generation were my parents, and the fifth generation was me. So, therefore, I’m only five generations away from slavery.

BERNICE PETERSON: North Carolina did not look as–on the map–as it did then, because all of the colonies were not, at that time, established. As I go back looking at Senegal, its location is the furthest west of any country in Africa. It lies at the tip of the great bulge of Africa that sticks westward into the Atlantic Ocean. Its capital, Dakar, is closer to America than any other city in Africa.

BERNICE PETERSON: The ship landed with my ancestors in Louisiana. Louisiana and North Carolina was the greatest slave markets it was in America. So, they were shipped from Louisiana to Wake County, on the farm of surname Fowler Farm. That’s where we get our name from, and that was in 1770, and as we go through the years of my research, there were some gaps seeming like, that I could not understand, because I knew the area was called Fowlers Crossroads in Wake County, close to Zebulon, North Carolina. But I found that I was in the right area, but to fill the gap, those were the name of the farms, because I was thinking that that it was a road, but it was a plantation, and it was called Fowler’s Crossroads, and adjoining that was three other parcels of land with different names. If its the same farm, each parcel was name differently. To reflect back to my findings, this land was given to a friend of one of King James’ friend’s charter, they would call it, and it included land from the Virginia border all the way through the Georgia border, that was one plat of land. Lately, it was broken up to include South Carolina too. So that was one of the things I had a question about until I really found out a few years ago that there was another document in the computer regarding the history of this property, and it was written by Christian Dutton on August 9, 2021, which somewhat clarified my records, and it was the eighth generation of the Fowler, this was the white Fowler family, can trace their origin from Joseph Fowler from England, who settled on the land back in 1743, almost decades before Wake County was even officially established as a county.

BERNICE PETERSON: The land was settled by Joseph Fowler consisted, as I said, three major farms, which were referred to as the Dr. Fowler Farm, then the Homeplace Farm, and then the Fowlers Crossroads Farm, and it remained in the family ever since. Now we find there that I told my family members in a meeting that “I had brought you from Africa to the front door of the existing Fowlers Crossroads descendants, and they are still the Fowler descendants, present day. So, I’m not going to go any further. I’m turning this family history over to your generation.” That is, my daughter’s generation, and let them do what they think they need to do for the family, and I did all of this research and all because I wanted to leave my family with something that most families don’t have, and it worked out great. Most of this has been documented through the Congress of–the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C

K’MARI GREENE: What do you hope younger generations understand about the history of Fayetteville Street in Durham?

BERNICE PETERSON: I really hope that they recognize how important that neighborhood was, and our neighborhood was, because Blacks were thriving with their own businesses. We had everything we needed. We did not need to go downtown, did not need to go to any white grocery stores. Everything in our area, Hayti, was, especially Pettigrew Street. I worked on Pettigrew Street. There was every kind of business that you could even desire, that which was desired and undesired. We had the donut shop. There was the Regal Theater. There was the hotel. There was drugstore, Dr. Garrett’s Drugstore. There was restaurants. Even had Scarborough Funeral. I worked next door to an insurance and bonding company called Enterprise Realty, which bonded out the Royal Ice Cream Company participants, and there was the Green Candle, which was very well known. Grocery stores, all these, were everything that we ever needed to survive as a Black, and they cooperated with each other and complemented each other, and I never heard any disagreement between them because their businesses were very varied, and they complemented each other. 

The Fayetteville Street clan, comprised mostly of residents, occupied by the quote “professionals, Black professionals” of North Carolina Mutuals, colleges, professors, all the way down to the doctors, teachers, all the way down to where Food Lion is currently, and the Mutual Heights had not been built during that time. So, Fayetteville Street had been recognized as a quote “Hope Valley” in the Black race. Their ideas were on the higher level than the average Black person because all from Pettigrew street were a lot of little alleys and poor people. All of us were poor but we didn’t know it, but at the same time the Fayetteville Street crowd, seeming to me, looked down on us, because being so poor– bus fare was only 10 cent from Central to Downtown Durham. I couldn’t afford to do that, so–my 10 cents–so I had to walk from Central to Parrish Street every day, and shortcut through Hillside Park. But I survived, and those who looked down on the lower people, we had professionals that grew up in our neighborhood. Like Dr. Bass, he’s now deceased, Emmanuel Jones, he’s now living, and they went to dinners. Dr. Bass was a dentist and Emmanuel Jones, and he still is, he doing partials and all of the teeth work–dentures. So, we had everything in that neighborhood that we needed, and it was at night–Hayti at night–kind of rough, and that was because, if you think would think how Black men are treated now, it was worse then, and that was the way in the area, that they could kind of feel comfortable and release themselves. When I say that, emotionally, because they were the ones who partook alcohol, you would see men and women staggering up and down the street, but it didn’t bother anybody, and then there were no serious crimes at all. No shootings, no cuttings, but you might see somebody throw a brick or a rock. That was the extent of your disagreement, but the next day, after they sobering up, they still good friends. 

Nowadays, there’s no telling. Those were the difference in the times then and the times now, and as I shared earlier, we did not have keys to our front door. Our doors were always unlocked. Nobody ever bothered us. That was a safe neighborhood, and there comes a time when I needed some support and some of the activities that we needed, there was somebody always ready to help us. For instance, we needed a sponsor for our softball team. That was Amos Funeral Home. That was some of the, Doctor Garrett’s drug store, and some of the restaurants that combined would help us. If they couldn’t help us with the money, they would fee us, and North Carolina Mutual finally was our last sponsor for the team that I had played on.

BERNICE PETERSON: Anything else?

K’MARI GREENE: What changes in Durham have been difficult or concerning for you, if any at all?

BERNICE PETERSON: I did not hear you.

K’MARI GREENE: What changes have been more difficult or concerning for you in Durham?

BERNICE PETERSON: Working for what?

BERNICE PETERSON: Just changes in general.

BERNICE PETERSON: Oh. I have seen many changes in Durham from segregation up until openness. When I say openness, after many demonstrations and with the legal process, Durham had to open up. I remember going downtown there was always “white” water fountain, “colored” water fountains. There was one company, one store, that was owned by Mayor Evans then. It was called the “United Department Store” that would serve Blacks, but there were no seats there. You had to stand over the counters and eat, and this was before the demonstrations started. That was the only spot we could go and eat, and they had the greasiest hot dogs, and he would place the bloomer counting right there at the hot dog stand, and as the customers stand eating hot dogs, there were more grease on the bloomers than it was on the hot dogs. But he never stopped serving us, and that was before all of the demonstrations downtown.

BERNICE PETERSON: Yeah, I remember going to church on Sunday and we decide as teenagers, we decided that we were going to demonstrate. So, we went on to Howard Johnson, didn’t like the practices of the Howard Johnson restaurant chains where it’s located now, where Rooms To Go is. We were sitting on the bank, and here come a fleet of Duke Power Company, sheriffs, and other vehicles to take us all to jail. So, the ones who didn’t escape were placed on the bus and filled the jail up, and the ones after the jail capacity was filled, they put the remainder of us, including me, out in the baseball field there called El Toro Park now, cross from Barne’s Feed Store. It still existing now. So, anyway. When we were released, we realized that no warrants had been issued in our name and no paperwork done. We decided that we going to escape the park. So, we tore down some of the planks that were fences, plank fences, tore those down, and escaped with the song, “Free at last, free at last, great God Almighty, we are free at last.” So, did not feel that the city was trying to locate us because they had no documentation on us at that time.

BERNICE PETERSON: Anything else?

K’MARI GREENE: What would honoring the legacy of this community look like today?

BERNICE PETERSON: It is being refocused. Urban renewal came through our neighborhood and took nearly all of our houses. The homeowners were paid what the city thought they–little or nothing–for their property, and there were many court cases, which the homeowners lost, including my parents, and the expressway runs through that property now. Now, I understand there are some focus being made on that area, and that organizations have resurfaced trying to find the history and how they could revitalize what’s been left, and that’s a great change, and I understand too that they’re making focus on the Fayetteville Street corridor, and [unclear] big houses are now dilapidated. Some of them have been torn down. Some of them are still standing, but I’m thinking they’re trying to revitalize that area, and bring it, maybe up to some standing. So, that’s some of the changes that I’ve seen, and you would not recognize then from now. 

Right now, there is a higher crime rate, especially around that trail and around Cornwallis. I remember when Cornwallis was built, the project, and the residents were from our old neighborhood, and it was safe. But now, I was in a meeting this past Saturday where the president of Cornwallis Project says, “there’s shootings in the morning, shootings in the afternoon, shootings at night, 24 hours,” and they are trying to get volunteers from outside, or anywhere, to come in and help them with programs for the younger people, and the city is attempting to help, but they don’t feel that they are getting enough resources from the city. The policemen were there. The policemen said that they’re staff is really short, now they can’t be everywhere. But I’m thinking that Cornwallis is trying to clean up its name and its reputation, to make that environment very comfortable and lived in. Where we’re at now, is very, very, very slow in doing that.

K’MARI GREENE: My last question is, why do you think documenting family and community history is important?

BERNICE PETERSON: Repeat that again louder.

K’MARI GREENE: Why do you think documenting family and community history is important?

BERNICE PETERSON: Well, families make up the community, and it is important for the family and the community to cooperate and be kind and loving to each other. When we came up, everybody came to our house. It was more like a community house, and for the teenagers and the adults, in the morning, the ladies of our community would come and sit on our porch and listen to the radio, those stories that used to come on, and discuss that for half a day, and we were the first ones to have a television, and my dad, when Joe Louis would box Maximilian, as I can remember, Dad pulled the television to the window so the whole community could see the fight. If anybody in our neighborhood needed something, somebody had it. If you needed a cup of flour, Mother would say, “Go ask Mrs. Evelyn for a cup of flour,” we would get flour. If you needed sugar, you got sugar. If you needed anything, somebody in the neighborhood had it. Babysitting was not a problem because all the children belonged to the neighborhood. We played in the street. We did not have any problems.

BERNICE PETERSON: As the teenagers grew up, my mom had passed away, but my daddy, who worked at the American Tobacco Company, would come home, and he demanded respect for his household and respect for anyone who came there. So, the teenagers would gather every morning at our house, clean up, wash the dishes, make sure that the yard was clean, and then they would play cards all day. When daddy came home from work, most of the time in the Spring, he would go fishing, and we never had any problems with teenagers, and they knew to respect our household  and there was no fighting, no cursing. Drugs were not on the horizon then. If you slipped to smoke a cigarette, you were doing good. So, that neighborhood growing up was, as I’ve always said, good, safe, and enjoyable.

BERNICE PETERSON: If you did not have enough clothes, there was somebody who was giving away clothes in the neighborhood when their child had outgrown, and the parents that worked at the American Tobacco Company, who were making just a little bit more than the ones who were doing domestic, they would buy their children much prettier, up-to-date clothes, and when their children outgrew it, they were hand-me-downs to somebody else. So, that was one of the ways we survived that neighborhood. We took care of ourselves, and it was one of the most disciplined neighborhoods. Everybody was your mama and your daddy, and if you did anything that they witnessed, they told your parents, and of course, you will be disciplined, because then, whatever grown people say, mom and dad believed it. 

K’MARI GREENE: And that’s it?

BERNICE PETERSON: That’s it.

K’MARI GREENE: Did you have anything you wanted to add? 

BERNICE PETERSON: Not that I know of. 

K’MARI GREENE: Okay.