Introduction to Interview

Pearl City is an African American Community located in Boca Raton between Northeast Tenth Street to north of Glades Road between Dixie and Federal Highways. Today, Pearl City is one of Boca Raton’s designated historic districts.

This interview is one in a series conducted from 1984-85 by sociologist Dr. Arthur Evans of Florida Atlantic University. The information gathered from these interviews information concerning Pearl City go the Boca Raton Historical Society’s website www.bocahistory.org, select the Boca Raton’s History page, then select Spanish River, Vol. 15.

Irene Demery Carswell and Archie L. Carswell Interview on Pearl City – 1984 – 1985

Biography

Irene’s parents, Will and Belle Demery, although originally from North Carolina and Georgia, moved to Boca Raton from Deerfield, FL in 1912. Will sharecropped with a white farmer by the name of Frank Chesebro for many years on a farm in the present area of Florida Atlantic University. Belle did domestic work as well as hand packing vegetables such as string beans, green peppers and tomatoes for market. While in high school Irene earned 23 – 35 cents a hamper picking beans on weekends.

Irene grew up in a family of eight boys and six girls. The large family lived in a two- bedroom house with a tin bathtub and outside toilet and pump. She attended grade school in Pearl City, Carver High School in Delray Beach, and has lived in Boca Raton since her birth in 1919.

Archie came to Boca Raton in 1942 as a soldier serving on the Boca Raton Army Air Field. He arrived by train and lived in barracks on the base near the railroad tracks. His first assignment upon arriving was tearing down the Japanese huts left from the Yamato Colony as well as a water tank that he remembers looking like a piece of art. He met Irene during his stay here and they knew they were meant to be together for life. On June 8, 2008, they celebrated 60 years of marriage.

Topics of Discussion

Earning a living, provision of food and caring for family Description of the family’s living facilities Description of a day at work in the fields, particularly at Butts Farm Living facilities for the black workers at Butts Farm

1 History of the black school and a description of a school day The establishment of Pearl City and the building of homes Recreation: fishing, swimming, playing in the yard with other children, parties and dances at school, box suppers Black owned businesses The founding of Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church and Macedonia A.M.E. Church Policemen of early Boca Raton, particularly Chief Hugh Brown (Brownie) The building of Dixie Manor for black soldiers’ housing Archie’s arrival in Boca Raton with the Army How Archie and Irene met Medical care, funeral facilities and burial sites for blacks Courtship among the young people Opportunities for young black people today Increase in value of Pearl City property and the fight by the citizens of the community to retain their land Archie and Irene’s move from Pearl City to an integrated neighborhood.

Interviewer: I (Arthur Evans) Archie Carswell: AC; Irene Demery Carswell: IC

I Could you tell me when you came to Boca Raton?

IC My parents came to Boca Raton in 1912, as near as I can recollect. They moved here in 1912 from Deerfield. Originally my father was from Florence, North Carolina and my mother was from Georgia, and they moved, as I said, moved here from Deerfield to Boca Raton in 1912. Their first child that was born in Boca Raton was Sarah, who lives now in Orlando. She’s been living now in Orlando for the last 18 or 20 years.

I Do you know why your parents left North Carolina and Georgia?

IC My father left Carolina, I understand, when he was about 12 years old and he met a man that he called, at that particular time, Poor Boy Dad. I don’t know his real name. All I ever could remember was Poor Boy Dad and he met my father on a turpentine place, whatever they call it, and he had taken him under his wing, this older man, and he was with this man for all those years and years, as I’m told. And he met, my father met my mother, in a place by the name of Chipley, Florida.

I That’s north?

IC No, that’s west of here. Where does Chipley sit from here? Chipley, Florida?

AC Northwest.

2 IC Northwest, that’s on the west coast of Florida. There I think they were married and between them, their marriage, they had seven children.

I Now when they came, what was so attractive about South Florida? Why did they come here, why didn’t they go to say [Inaudible]?

IC Well, there at the time I imagine it was a little farm work. There wasn’t anything more than farm work there and they probably, like most people who were black, migrated from Georgia or came down to the east coast for beans. You know, farm work and pick beans. My father, he farmed here at a small, a very small farm and he shared cropped with a man by the name of Chesebro for many years.

I Where was that farm?

IC That farm was here in Boca Raton.

I What landmark was it near? Like I’ve only been here for five years. If I was looking for it today, where would I go?

IC Okay you, at that particular, the first farm that he farmed was over by where the university is. All that was farm land in there, the university area.

I That was the Chesebro farm?

IC Right. He had put a farm over in that area. Southwest, no -- North Second Street, they had a farm. Chesebro had property up there and Mr. Chesebro, in the area where the university is now, he had farm land over in there. He also had farm land over where the Boca Raton Hotel and Club in Royal Palm area; it was farm land in there too. And he farmed over there and my father share cropped with him for many years and then afterwards in the later years he became a gardener, a personal gardener around the home and caretaker.

I In his later years?

IC Right, right.

I What did your mother do?

IC My mother, she done domestic work and she worked in the farm with packing. At that time they were hand-packing beans, hand-picking beans and peppers and tomatoes; and all these vegetables had to be packed by hand. What I mean by packed by hand, they had to use the farmers, whoever picked them would bring them into a bin and there they would grade them out. Tomatoes, they would wrap each separately and they would call it tomato paper, and it was packed in . . . well, we called them hampers or crates. And this is the way they

3 done all the bell peppers at that time, which we call now green peppers. They too were packed by hand, even the green beans was packed by hand. They were picked by hand and also packed by hand. And my mother done this for several of the small farmers like Mr. James, she done it for him; and Mr. Dolphus, Lois Dolphus’ father; and several of the white farmers, she would pack their vegetables for them.

I Now when you say beans, see I’m from Baltimore and when we say beans we talk about lima beans, blackeyed peas. Are you talking about string beans?

IC Yeah, string beans and we call them, nowadays they call them, we call them green beans.

I Yeah.

IC But at that particular time it was string beans. Well, they raised some lima beans here, but not many. Most of the beans were string beans and he raised a few peas, but more green beans than any other beans.

I Would you say that was hard work, as far as the back was concernned? I know I couldn’t stay out there and pick those beans.

IC No. No it wasn’t, because I picked a many a bean in my life; I would not stop until I helped myself through high school. Coming home from Delray, we couldn’t go to school if it wasn’t [inaudible] year. So when I graduated from the ninth grade here at the elementary school here in Boca Raton, I was moved to Delray to high school. On Saturday I would come home and I would go and pick beans, and this would give me extra spending money in school. I lived with my sister in Delray, this same girl that I showed you the picture of. Then I didn’t have to pay out any board or anything, just to help pay for my utilities and stuff that I had to use in school and my clothing.

I Do you remember the price of what you would get paid?

IC Of course! If they considered you the best picking we would get approximately 25 to 35 cents a hamper. Which was a bushel.

I That was a lot of money back then?

IC That was a lots of money, it was. ‘Cause I could buy myself a pair of shoes for $1.98 or $1.50, no kidding! And I could take $5.00 and buy myself a pair of shoes, a skirt, a blouse, easy.

I Did you have any brothers?

IC OH, yes. There were six boys.

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I And how many girls?

IC No, I take that back. It was eight boys and six girls in all. Now how this came in about the six girls and the eight boys, my mother was married before. But I was grown before I ever even knew that it was two sets of us. Because my mother and my father married when her first children were very small and they all went as same in the family, because they were my mother’s children; we all had the same mother but some of us didn’t have the same father.

I How many lived in the house at the same time?

IC We’ve had -- you wouldn’t believe this, but we’ve had nine housed to live at home.

I How big was this house?

IC The house wasn’t very big; we only had two bedrooms. One small bedroom and one huge room that had several beds in this room. We had a dining area and a kitchen, and an outside toilet and pump. You know what I mean by the old fashion pump?

I Uh huh.

IC We had a wooden stove, no sink. We had what you called a dishpan to wash dishes in, and this was a huge pan that you’d wash dishes in.

I Right. Did you take a bath in that pan too?

IC (Laughing) No, in the tin tub.

I Oh, you took a bath in a tin tub?

IC Right.

I Now this was back when? Could you give me an idea about when?

IC This must have been about in the ‘30s.

I Now, was there electricity in the homes here?

IC No, no, no. We could see at night by kerosene lamps.

I How about the rest of Boca Raton?

IC They were the same.

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I How about the whites?

IC All the whites had some electricity. Now I can’t tell you just when electricity came in to the whites or when it was put into Boca Raton; you might could find that out from some back history.

I So, the whites had it before blacks though?

IC I believe so. Well, when my parents moved here in 1912 I don’t think there was any electricity period, in Boca. But the whites did get it before the blacks, and then when we did get electricity in our house. Wwe had an old open bulb hanging down from the ceiling, and that was big. It was just the matter of pulling that string and the light came on. We had a wooden stove. I had gone to high school and my mother was still cooking on a wooden stove. And we had one of the fancy ones in later years; this is the one that had the water reservoir on the side; it had a warmer. You’d cook your food and put it up above, and that’s what you called a warmer. And she did all her baking and everything on this wooden stove.

I Did you eat good?

IC Well, we had a lot of fresh vegetables. We had lots of fish, and we had -- my mother raised her own chickens, and up until I can remember . . . . .

I She raised her own chickens? In the city?

IC She raised her own chickens. It wasn’t the city; it was out in the country. Even downtown Boca Raton, it was all woods.

I Did the whites that lived here, did they raise animals too?

IC Yeah, everybody. Anyone that wanted to raise chickens, they could raise.

I How about hogs?

IC Yeah, they had hogs too; my parents, they raised their own hogs and chickens and ducks, right in the backyard.

I If you had chickens you had to have a place to . . . ; if you had hogs you had to have a place to put the meat, right?

IC OK. My Dad had a smoke house. Once a year when it gets cool, like it is now, they would kill hogs. All right. After they killed the hogs the neighbors would come over. Everything was neighbors; you done everything. If you were taken sick the neighbors would go over and cook and wash and iron and do for one

6 another. But getting back to the hogs, my father goes out in the back yard; my mother had a great big huge back yard with the chickens. She had the chicken coop and had the place for the chickens to lay their eggs at, and we gathered our own eggs. And we once had a cow, and my mother would milk the cow and make the butter, right here in Boca. When my father would kill hogs, lots of the men would come over and the ladies would come over; and they would kill the hogs and we’d butcher him and cut him up and everything. Then he would give the neighbors so much. And my father had what they called a smoke house. Have you ever heard of a smoke house before, where they smoked meat?

I Yeah, but would you explain it?

IC Okay. He had a very small smoke house and this is where he hung the meat up to cure.

I Did other people have smoke houses too?

IC Well, some others did. He used oak wood. You make a side like, and you dig a hole, and it would make a side; and say that it would get so full of smoke so it would cure the meat with the smoke and with the heat. It would cure the meat. You salt this meat down first.

I How long would it take to cure a ham?

IC Come on now.

AC Well I never cured it like that. You know, where we came from I seen it cured in a regular factory.

IC Well, I couldn’t say exactly how long it would take for him. But I can remember . .

I A couple of months?

IC . . . him keeping this, well I’ll say at least a month or more. I can remember him having this little smoke, and I can remember him how he would have to keep that smoke going. It was a built in, and it was just a little straight. Have you ever seen a outside house?

I Yes.

IC Well, it was buit something like that. And he had a door that you could go in and he had racks so that you could hang the meat, the slabs of bacon. What they called at that time a whole side of bacon, they’d call it a slab of bacon. The hams, they would cure the hams. Okay, the ribs and most times they’d take the pork chops and all that. Well, to get really Southern, they’d have the chitterlings and all of this and they’d take a lots of what we would call at that time, the scrap

7 meat, they’d grind it up and make some homemade sausages out of it, a sausage meat for patties. But the ham and the side meat, you know, was always cured. And that was all that. No electrical refrigerations. You had an ice box with maybe a 50 pound piece of ice, if you could afford a 50-pound piece for maybe about 10 cents or 15 at the most. And most times it was surprising how long a 50 pound piece of ice would last in a ice box. You would store fresh meat in there and it would keep, butter, eggs. . .

I Did they have like an ice man come around?

IC Yes, they did. What was the last one named?

AC George.

IC George, the last ice man that came to deliver ice to us into Boca Raton, which is Pearl City, was named George and he, his ice house was in Delray.

I I’ve always wondered how did you get your ice in the summer time?

IC They delivered it the same way. It’s a surprising how God and nature have taken care of man over the period of years.

AC Because they’d come in huge blocks, each piece about three feet wide. He carries a ice pick with him. And if I wanted to get some he could chip off 25 or 50 pounds. And If you’re not home you would just leave the door unlocked with the money on the top of the ice box. . . . every 3rd or 4th day, or something.

IC In this ice box, the top of the ice box, is where you put the ice. Now when Archie and I got married in 1943 we had a fancy one because ours was divided at the top and we could pull our door open this way. Swing it open almost like an electric one. And we took 50 pounds of ice in ours, which we only had to get about once a week, wasn’t it? And it would last in the summer. . .

AC Yes. Once you get the box cold then the ice wouldn’t melt as fast. You bought a box and got it cold and then you wouldn’t have to buy your ice but twice a week.

IC I think maybe in the summer time we got it twice a week and in the winter when it got cooler, we only got it once a week. We wouldn’t have to buy it but once a week. The insurance man would come with these little penny insurance, life insurance, and he’d leave your book on the wall or wherever. You’d leave the door open and he’d go in; he’d mark his book and leave the others up there on the wall.

I You mean you would give him a penny?

8 IC No. I just call it that because you would be taking out $250 insurance policy and it would take about $300 or $400 to bury someone. And I just called it penny insurance because it takes a fortune for insurance today.

I Do you think a lot of people at that time were concerned about that, having burial insurance so that they could be put away.

IC Well, no. Well I tell you, most everybody had Woodward Insurance. I think they was concerned, very much so.

I I was reading a book and this man was talking about blacks and insurance. Well the first insurance many blacks ever bought was burial insurance; this was even before health insurance. To make sure that if they died they would be buried.

IC That is true.

AC Years ago when we tried to get hospital insurance you could get it, but your amount was less; and at that time it was a big thing but now it doesn’t pay much. Life insurance is somethng they would sell you; they wouldn’t sell you health insurance. It was too big of a risk for blacks.

I So they wouldn’t sell you anything higher than that?

AC No sir, we still have that same policy right now.

IC Getting back to burial policies, you’re right about that. This is about the only thing they could get was somethng to bury you with.

I This farm, Chesebro farm, Butts farm, what was these like? If I were to see these farms, were they where people lived, or their families lived there, or what? Or was it a place where people would go to work and come back home, or what?

IC On Butts farm, they lived out there. We would go out and pick beans out there, but we would come home ‘cause we lived in Pearl City. The truck would come out and pick up the bean pickers or whoever working on the farm, and drive them to the farm.

I When this truck came out, did they have like, a foreman or head guy that point people out -- you, you, you? Or did they have regular people they would pick up?

IC No. They had regular people they would pick up and they had a driver from out to Butts farm or any other farms; out of Butts, out of Delray, and Jones out of Deerfield. They would come in and pick up people, but you had no one to say,

9 “You, you, you”. You went and worked for whoever you wanted to. It were three trucks there and whatever truck you choose to get on, you got on it.

I So it was your choice then?

IC Right. They would take you and they would bring you back.

I What truck did most people want to get on?

IC Well, it depends on who had the most prestige. Who could tell the best story of who had the better beans to pick.

AC The farmer who had the best beans, that’s the one you would get on.

IC Like for instance, if we were out to Butts farm we would know about what we would be picking in the next day. OK. Usually what they try to do was get you new beans, beans that haven’t been picked, in the morning; and then in the afternoon they’ll send you to maybe a second or third. You don’t get many beans out of second and third, see. Where you make your money is, if you’re picking beans you’ll have to get the first picking. But they pick those beans about three times.

I So if you got on the truck, you’d be hoping for the first picking?

IC Right. Everybody did but sometimes they might put you in a second. So, you never know; you never know if you’re going into a first or second. But, on Butts farm we knew the foreman out there. It was so many peoples out there, it was hundreds of peoples picking beans out at Butts farm; and each group of people, maybe about 25 peoples in a group and maybe not that many, would have a foreman. For instance, if I’m picking and you’re a foreman and Archie’s a foreman, you got these different groups of people, see. You take them through; let’s see, how would I explain this? You had a group, or, I say you got an acre. There was hundreds and hundreds of acres out there at Butts farm, and if you had an acre and I had an acre and you got a group of people that you’re the foreman over, you just see that the beans are picked. ‘Cause when those beans are picked and the hamper’s filled, which is a bushel, there is mens that come around to check that hamper. They take it out on the end, they give you what they call a ticket.

I When you say check the hamper, what do you mean by it?

IC Checking the hamper means that they press down on those beans and see if you have racked the beans in the hamper and it’s not a solid hamper. You can stand beans up on end and you don’t get the correct amount.

I Did a lot of people try that?

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IC Of course, I’ve done it plenty times. (Laughter)

I Have you ever got caught doing it?

IC Of course.

I What happened?

IC And when they mash the beans down to level it off they make you fill the hamper back up where it’s supposed to be. But in the meantime…….

I Suppose my beans were filled with a whole lot of things that aren’t beans?

IC No, they won’t do that. They can always tell. They’d take their hands and dig down in the beans. I This is the foreman?

IC Yes, that’s the foreman.

I Now, the foreman is black or white?

IC Black.

I Do you know any of the foreman’s names?

IC My favorite one was, . . . uh, uh, what’s his name, Willie Mae’s husband?

AC Douglas. . .

IC Jackson. Douglas Jackson. He was one, and then Richard Evans. He ran the store out there at Butts farm..He also was a foreman at one time.

I What was in this store?

IC It was a grocery store.

I For the blacks?

IC Yeah, this was out at Butts farm and this was what they called Butts quarters. Meaning that everybody that lived out there worked on that farm, and Butts owned all of those houses that they stayed in.

I I’m 33 years old; I got a lot of gray hair in my head, but I’m 33 years old. Now I’m just coming to this place here. What I’m trying to get to is what would a house on

11 Butts farm look like? What would that place look like? All I see now in Boca Raton is your house, my house, etc. What would it look like?

AC Some of us would call it a shotgun house, this is just a straight house with the rooms. The front room would be the living room, there might be a bedroom, a kitchen. Thee were no more than three rooms. No more.

I How about the bathrooms? People shared the same bathroom?

IC No, they had a long outside bathroom – a toilet. It wasn’t a bathroom, it was a toilet; and this consist of a round hole with buckets underneath. There was a man that cleaned these every so often and he kept some kind of chemical in there. But they had to be emptied and it was someone by the name of John; I can’t think of his last name but I think his first name was John. It was, because we called him Uncle John and he took care of that. You know where Butts farm was at?

I People keep telling me out there near Town Center somewhere.

IC Right.

AC Do you know where the turnpike . . .

I Yes, I know where the turnpike is.

AC All the way back, in fact, I think some of the corner street . . .

AC Have you ever seen some orange trees as you’re going out to the turnpike? Before you get to the turnpike, you know these gorgeous homes on both sides of Glades Road, all that was Butts farm from the turnpike all the way back up to Town Center.

AC What this road is called that you turn off now, where Butts quarters used to be?

IC Military? No, Powerline. You know where Powerline was?

I Yes.

IC Well you take . . .

AC As you turn right off of Glades Road . . ..

IC Well, Powerline run right out at Glades Road. Okay, but you see there’s another road, a highway that’s been cut right on across. Well, that is the way you went down to Butts farm and down in the quarters.

12 AC And the quarters was sitting on your right.

IC All of the quarters were sitting on the right. You go about a ¼ mile down that same road and to your right is all these quarters in there, and that is where hundreds of people stayed out there.

AC On each side of the road was a bean field.

I But the people in Pearl City didn’t stay there?

IC No.

I People in Pearl City got on the truck and came over there?

IC Right. The Dolphus’, the Fountains, the Demerys, the Spains, the Jacksons.

I Another question. What about the schools?

IC We had, Mr. Alex Hughes was the first person to intercede in getting a school here for the blacks. I can’t remember the year, because he moved here after my parents did and my parents moved here in 1912, and he moved here after my parents. He interceded in the little Methodist church right there, and he also interceded in getting a school for the blacks because there was no school here at all. And it seemed to me that they first had school, I believe, in the Methodist Church until they built a school here. And that school sat right on, it was on 11th Street.

I Do you remember the name of the school?

IC Boca Elementary, and then they changed the name to, what was that one over there?

AC Well, the one that was here when I came here was sitting on the corner of Old Dixie and Glades Road, down here just north of Palmetto. They called it Roadman.

IC` They changed that to Roadman. That was moved, because you see where that old house is?

AC Yeah, I don’t remember. . .

IC Okay, the school was right next to the small Methodist church on 11th street and then it was moved to Dixie Highway and Glades Road. Glades Road wasn’t there; it wasn’t a named road at that time.

I What was it called?

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IC Just a old rock road. It didn’t even have black topping; it wasn’t anything but rocks.

AC It did have a name, but I can’t recall it.

IC I don’t remember that name either, until they black topped it and then named it Glades Road. This is where the school moved from over on 11th Street to Dixie Highway and Glades Road. It was named Roadman at that time.

I Alex Hughes was important in terms of getting schools. Was he also important in terms of getting teachers?

IC Well, I don’t know about that because he could have had something to do with seeing that they had a teacher. Now, I don’t know the first teacher that they had here. Maybe Henry James, he could have maybe told you who the first teacher was, because he’s much older than I am.

I A school day. Here I am, I’m going to school. What do I expect?

IC Well, the most happiest days of my life to me when I first went to school, I can remember . . .

I Do you remember any of your teachers’ names?

IC Yes, I do. Mrs. E. W. Ashley, that was the meanest woman in the world. She’s the one that caused me to graduate and go to Delray High. She wasn’t mean, she was strict. You just had to get your lesson and she was the one teacher in the school and had about 52 students, and she had from first grade to, from primer to ninth. Another teacher I knew by the name of . . .

I Did they get spanked then, at school back then?

IC Yes, they did. Not only spanked, they got a palmetto rod.

I Rod?

IC Yeah. Have you seen the palmettos?

I Palmettos?

IC No, the ones like out here in the back with the big prong leaves.

I Okay, yeah.

14 IC Okay, they would cut those and they would dry them out and they would take that sticky part off, and that’s what you got your stingin’ by. Mrs. Ashley had a strap that she used, which wasn’t bad. It didn’t kill ya’. But, yes, we got spankings.

I How long would school last, a school day?

IC A school day last from 9:00 to 3:00.

I ‘Til three?

IC Uh huh, and everybody stayed in. She went from one class to another while she would have an older kid in the higher grade to listen to the primers read. She would give them work like addition, 1 and 1 is 2, etc., and then she would do the other classes. We’d have so many minutes, a half an hour or whatever with the class, and then she’d give you work to do. She had it real organized. Not any of the kids went lacking. They all learned under her.

I It was hard teaching back in those days.

IC It was. You had to hear so many different types of people. And we had kids coming from what they would call on Glades, right out Glades Road and 2nd there; they called it Sugar Hill. She had kids walking from Yamato to school here in Pearl City. She had the kids from over on the west side. She had kids from over on the east side and kids from Yamato.

I They didn’t have a bus or anything?

IC No. They had to walk.

I Did the white kids have a buses?

IC No, they could go to their school because it was right here and the parents, I guess they had cars and they probably dropped their kids off. And the elementary here, right across the track right across from Palmetto, that’s where the school was.

I What was Sugar Hill?

IC That was where a few black people lived over there in that area, and that’s right on Glades Road and, is that Second Avenue?

AC I think it’s Fourth.

IC Fourth, yeah. You know where the little church sit at?

15 I Yeah.

IC Used to be blacks stay in there.

I Did they own that land?

IC No, I don’t think they did.

I Did you know any people when that land was there? Any names?

IC Yes, the Jacksons lived there, the Fountains, Lillie Bell Evans; did she tell you where she lived? Green lived on north side of Glades and 4th, Lee Dolphus and (?).

I She didn’t say there.

IC No, not there. Where?

I Well, I thought she said in Delray.

IC No, I mean when she was here, when she was growing up. Did she tell you where she lived?

I No.

IC Okay, she lived over there by the university. That’s where they first lived and then they built a home over in Pearl City here and they moved over there.

I But your father, when he came he was in Pearl City, right?

IC In Pearl City. They first bought; they were the first ones that got to buy property over here.

I Your father’s last name was what?

IC Demery.

I I run across that name a lot.

IC Yeah.

I What about recreation and clubs? What did you guys do for fun?

IC Clubs?

I Recreation or clubs?

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IC We didn’t have any clubs. Our recreation was fishing. We done a lots of fishing. And then the kids would play . . .

I Salt water or fresh water?

IC Both. Fish and game was plentiful. You didn’t have to have a reel and shrimps and all of that stuff to go fishing. You could use what they called a small crab, fiddlers, and you’d use a cane pole. I didn’t know what a reel and rod was until a few years ago. You used the cane pole no matter where you went fishing at, in the ocean or anywhere. I fished in the ocean with a cane pole and we used steel line on these poles. In the salt water that’s what you used, you used the steel line; in the fresh water you used a regular line. All we done was, my mother did a lot of quilting, I can remember that; we kids played in the yard, we made our own fun. My brother, he’d make -- if he could find an old wagon or something, he could always make something out of it. We’d play a lots of softball in the sand lots.

I What happened when you got older – about 15 or 16 years old?

IC The same thing.

I The same thing?

IC The first movie that I went to was in high school in Delray, and that was the most exciting thing I had ever seen in my life.

I Do you remember the name of it?

IC No, I don’t. In my mind, I can visualize it my mind but I can’t remember the name of the movie. It will probably come to me.

I Did you all have any dances or parties?

IC When I was in high school.

I In high school?

IC We had, this was before I graduated from elementary school out of Boca, Mrs. Ashley, she would give little school parties for us. And we did have a few little dances. Oh, and the most interesting thing they would have, have you ever heard of a box supper?

I No.

17 IC Well, this is boxes that the ladies would fix with food, and the men would buy these boxes. This was at one of the parties that they had. This was one of the recreational parties that they had. The men would buy the box, maybe for about 50 cents or 75 cents at the most. And then, for instance, if I made a box and you liked my box, I had this box all decorated with crepe paper and etc. And sometimes there’d be big boxes and little boxes; and they had fried chicken and potato salad, maybe some collard greens or some homemade rolls, or make a cake. You put enough for two people in this box. Okay, whoever box you bought, for instance if you bought my box, you and I would sit and eat whether I was maried or not. If you bought my box I had to sit and eat with you.

I Would people get jealous about that?

IC No, it wasn’t nothing to get jealous on.

I You’re just sitting and eating that box?

IC Right. A lot of the men would like to buy Mrs. Rob Parker’s box because she’d always fix a big box and had it beautifully decorated, and she was a wonderful cook. That was about the whole thing; everybody was trying to get that box. And what they would do, everybody name or whoever was sponsoring it. For instance, I’m sponsoring it; I would go around to the ladies and get their name who was going to fix a box. Then I would also go to the mens and see if he wanted to buy a box. And if he wanted to buy a box he would write his name next to the person whose box he was gonna buy, whether they were married or not.

I The thing was, the men were gonna buy the box that had the best food?

IC Right, right.

I So if nobody bought your box that meant you had to brush up on your cooking?

IC Foks down here [inaudible] because it was such a small community and such a few people, this is one of the recreations I can remember back now that they had.

I How about black owned businesses, were there any black owned businesses back then?

IC Years later there was a black lady here by the name Mrs. Miller, had a very small grocery store. And then after that, the next little restaurant was ran by Collin Spain, who is Lois Martin’s first cousin.

I What kind of restaurant did he have? Just everything?

18 IC Well yeah, I would say soul food.

I Where was that?

IC It was right where Tom’s Place is.

I He sold out to Tom?

IC No, his brother did. His brother sold that property to Tom. In fact Tom started out in their building. All in it the next little store was run by Mrs. Miller’s son-in- law, which was Willie Wright. And that’s it. And he had a grocery store and that’s when he started selling beer and he had a place there for us to dance at. And that was during the war.

I What about illegal businesses, because it’s hard . . .

IC Like moonshine?

I No, that’s part of it, but it’s hard for Uncle Sam to tax it. Like doing hair in people’s houses a lot.

IC Oh yeah, well, I’ve done that.

I It’s not illegal; it’s illegal because they’re not able to tax it. Did you have a lot of those kinds of businesses?

IC Sure, everybody straightened hair, as they called it in those days, with a straightening comb; ‘cause I done many many people’s hair myself. And it wasn’t at that time considered illegal.

AC No, it was survival.

IC Yeah, survival. It was survival.

I I don’t mean to say it was illegal. I mean the government would say, well you know . . . I meant the people making lots of money off it and not reporting it.

IC Just like moonshine. They made a lots of moonshine, of course.

I How about drinking, where did blacks go to the bars and stuff like that?

IC They didn’t have a bar.

I What happened then?

19 IC That moonshine, they’d drink it at home. Walk up and down the streets, I guess, and stagger all day in sand; ‘cause I can remember when they put streets through Pearl City. That hasn’t been a hundred years ago either.

AC Sure wasn’t; they still wasn’t here when I came.

IC During ‘42.

I You came here in ’42? OK!

AC The only one that was pave through here was the Old Dixie. Pearl City’s streets were sand.

I What about the church?

IC Well in my years, I think you know that my parents (Will and Belle Demery) were two of the founders of Ebenezer. And Elick (a.k.a. Alex) Hughes was the founder of Macedonia A.M.E. And Ebenezer (Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church), my father and mother (Will and Belle Demery) was two of the founders, which it was Mr. & Mrs. Rob Parker and Mr. & Mrs. Miles Jones. And the minister that first was there was Reverend Dolphus. What is Reverend Dolphus’ first name? It was Lois’ (Lois Dolphus Martin) uncle.

AC I don’t know.

IC And it grew from him to many others.

AC He was the first one.

IC He was the first pastor here.

I Some people say, well, with blacks the church is more than just a place for worship. What they mean by that is that it’s a place where people go and meet people. It’s a place to get suppers. It’s a community, it’s a place where you go because without your lights at that time, you couldn’t go anywhere else.

AC I worked for the fields. That’s the way it was.

I So was that what characterized the churches?

IC At that particular time, yes. Because there wasn’t really anything else to do like on Sunday. And you’d get up and the kids went to Sunday School. Most of the time the parents went with them and you’d stay to 11:00 service. It just wasn’t anything and you did meet people because a lots of the people, maybe, the ones that lived on the east side like the Judsons . . . You know where Publix is out here?

20

I Yeah.

IC Well they was blacks lived all over in there. And they, the Judsons, lived over there and we would only see them here because it wasn’t at school time; this was the summer time. We’d only see them, maybe, when they come over to church, or either if we all get together and go fishing. And I went fishing on every Saturday when my brother went.

I You said blacks lived over there; did they own the land?

IC No, they didn’t own that land.

AC The Clarks lived over there.

IC Yeah, the Clarks lived over there, and like the Fountains and the Jacksons, they all lived what we called Sugar Hill. They would come on like Sunday afternoon and we’d go maybe to the beach. Or maybe we would just meet up and they’d come over to my house, or either we’d go to their house. It wasn’t nothing to walk those distances. It was just like going out in the yard, you know.

I When I was a little boy, I used to love Sundays after church ‘cause that’s when we ate. My mother didn’t cook on Saturdays; she didn’t cook nothing on Saturdays.

IC Yeah, my mother baked a lots on Saturdays. ‘Cause she made all the cakes and bread and pies and all that. She did a lots of baking on Saturdays. But we ate. I’ve been an eater all my life; I don’t know why I’m not big as a house. My mother, if she got hungry late at night, she’d get up and cook. It didn’t matter to her. If she could find a stove, she’d cook and I would be the one to get up with her; out of the house full of children, I’d be the one to get up with her.

It really was at that time growing up in Boca Raton or Pearl City, which ever, it was something that you had to live with and you didn’t know nothing different. It wasn’t any different for you because time hadn’t changed then. This is the way everybody was living in this particular vicinity. I had a cousin that lived in West Palm Beach and my mother would take us; I think I must have been about 8 or 9, and my sister and me, I guess she was about 6, and my younger brother, he probably was about 4. And when she taken us to West Palm Beach to visit our cousin up there they had this beautiful home; and I had never seen a home with electricity in it, and neither had I seen a home with an inside tub. And we went to the bathroom a hundred times, I think, before we left there!

I You were just amazed?

IC It was amazing, you know. This was the first time I had seen an inside tub.

21

I What about the relations with the whites in Boca community with blacks? How were things, were you tense?

IC No. It was really really good because until . . .

AC It was good because then a policeman was [inaudible] (Laughter)

IC That was before Brownie came here; that was the first policeman here. This one way before he ever come here they didn’t have no police. Blackman was the first policeman.

I Blackman?

IC Blackman.

I So this was the police chief?

IC He was the police chief, just the one. There was nobody but him; he was everything. The police, the chief, the everything.

AC Wasn’t the majority of Pearl City afraid of the policeman when I came here, Brownie?

IC Brownie? Yes!

AC See, I don’t know how long he had been here . . .

IC I was grown when Brownie came here. See, we didn’t grow up with no policemen in the first place, and when I came home to Boca Raton the only one was Blackman. They may have had one before that time, but for the white and the blacks getting along together, to me they got along fine.

AC Brownie thought we wasn’t suppose to be around, what they called white town, after dark.

IC This is later years during the time, because Brownie came in just before World War II, and this is happening when he came.

I There was no problem if you got caught down in white town after dark, was there, no problem?

IC No. ‘Cause if you got caught, there was no lights to see by and it was too dark.

I But if you had been there though?

22 IC If I had been caught, no.

AC Now, if Brownie had really caught you he would have ask you what was you doing there.

IC But this is before Brownie came. What I’m trying to say is he just wants to get Brownie in here.

AC Well this is what I’m talking about. I think from ‘42 on back, we can consider that back then, from ‘42 on back.

IC ‘42 up; now ‘42 back would be ’41 and ‘40. Okay.

AC Right. So I say I don’t know how many years Brownie was here when I came here in ’42. But I know they swell my head about how he used to come down there [inaudible]. That’s what got into my head, when I knew the policeman.

IC But they ain’t swell it right.

I No, go ahead.

AC You started to ask who straightened it out; I was going to tell you that a soldier was the one straightened out.

I He beat Brownie?

AC Yes.

I You say they warned you about Brownie. Who?

AC There was so much talk among the civilians that I would be around out there. They’d say, ‘Don’t let Brownie see you do this or do that.” I was a soldier, see, and I wasn’t afraid of no enemy.

I And you were coming from where?

AC This was when I’d come out on recreation and be around Pearl City there, amongst the civilians that wasn’t in the army.

I So, where were you when you came to Boca Raton, in the army? Where were you living, on the base?

AC Yes, on the base.

I Were there any blacks living in town – like soldiers?

23 AC Not when I was there. They built them a place, you know where Tom’s Place?

I Yeah.

AC You know these buildings across from Tom’s?

I That’s the projects.

AC Yeah, that was for the black soldiers, but I had left there when they built that. And when I got out fve years later that was there and the soldiers were there then. And the white barracks, you know where the City Hall is?

I Yeah.

AC You know that building right in front of the City Hall?

I Uh huh.

AC That’s where theirs were. That’s where the whites were.

I When you came here to Boca Raton, what did it look like to you?

AC Oh, when I got off the train, the train backed in north Boca up here and it backed in the switch up there, and all I could see was woods and bushes. And one of the guys told me that they were going to send me down there to clean up all these wood and bushes. So, I didn’t know where they were going; so finally they backed on down further and I saw some warehouses and I saw some barracks. And then when we got in there, we got off the train and then they assigned us all to a barrack. And then after they assigned us to a barrack, then they split us up in platoons and put a sergeant over a group. And then while he was here, they just started from there.

I What did you do on your time off?

AC [Inaudible] Well getting’ back to the army, my first detail in there and it’s always stayed in my mind; and it was something out there that I had to do, but I did it against my will. I was reading today, I got another article about this Japanese colony place over there. Well, I in a detail; Lt. Barnes was the [inaudible] that finished demolishing this colony place.

Well anyway, the only thing was left there and that’s when they started building the base there after they put the Jananese out, was a water plant and some Japanese huts. On my duty, and we were under Lt. Barnes at the time, he was more into us finish tearing down the huts for the water tanks. All I had to do ‘cause I was the driver of the truck, I had to pull up to the huts and I would pull it down with the truck. What I was looking at was a piece of art to me; looked like a

24 piece of art to me, this water tank. If we could just unmanly take it down and save it for future things, it would have been a piece of art of beauty. And that stayed in my mind ‘cause that was the first thing I had to do when I came to Boca in the army; and it always stayed in my mind and it happened to come up in the paper. And I can still see that tank when we were pulling this tank over, this beautiful work that had been done. So I just can’t get that out of my head ‘cause it was one of my first duties.

IC Not me!

AC Not long after that, that’s when I went out on recreation, He invited me out; he said, ‘’Let’s go to Pearl City.” I said, “Where in the world is Pearl City?” “Right over there.” He had been out the night before but I couldn’t see nowhere to go in the woods. So I took him up on his offer; I said, “Okay” so he had met a few of them. He had met her and Hattie, that’s Willie Mae Fountain’s sister. So I go on over there and he and I went on over to Willie Mae Fountain’s. Irene was sick. Hattie says, “Let’s go up to see Irene. She is sick, let’s go up there.” So I said okay and we walked back up two or three houses there and she was in there suppose to be sick. And I walked in and she was a sick something

I & IC Laughing

IC “Oh, come on! Don’t put that in the book!”

I So when you court you just went to church, is that the only thing?

IC Oh, no.

I So when you did court, where did you go?

IC Ft. Lauderdale. And the buses would take you there for recreation, the Officer’s Club, over the Field, and what they call that, the USO.

AC Yeah, the USO Club.

IC The USO Club and being at that time, it full of the restaurants and bars in Delray and West Palm Beach, Ft. Lauderdale and Deerfield. Everything was open then for the blacks.

AC The base movin’ here by then.

I So that really changed things?

AC Yeah, it changed everything.

25 I Did the attitudes began to change within the base? Did people start to look at the world a little differently?

IC Yes, because there was more money and, not a great deal but much more than we had ever seen, and people could buy a car or some of them built homes, some of ‘em remodeled their homes. And it was just better all the way around than what it was.

I Would you say they had more options?

IC They had more options.

I They may have still needed Butts and all the other people, but they didn’t need them as much as they used to?

IC No, because so many persons, even myself, I think I picked beans about a couple times after I med Archie. Other than that I didn’t have to pick them any more because I worked a little on the base for quite awhile, and then got tired of working on the army base and then I decided I wanted to go into domestic work. And I went into that and started cooking and here I am, almost ready to retire. This is really when it opened up.

I Was Brownie or Brown . . . ?

AC Brownie.

I Was this the same time he stepped in?

IC Right.

I I was talking to some more people like Lois Martin and she didn’t have too many kind words to say about Chief Brown.

IC No, he wasn’t a nice person, not at all. He was just mean. He was a red neck, OK? Put that in the book; he’s dead now.

AC One thing, too, what happened to the soldiers . . . see, when you meet him you’re supposed to reach up and grab your hat. He was going to make the soldiers pull their hat off, and they said they didn’t pull their hats off to the General. What was they going to pull their hat to him for?

IC You know at that time, too, there wasn’t nothing that was integrated. Nothing at all, and this was another time he sent a soldier away from here because [inaudible] Brownie kept picking at him and picking at him. Well, it wasn’t that sent him, but they sent him back to Jersey, I think. But this particular soldier that beat him up, that time he deserved every bit of it, and he wasn’t . . . he was just

26 mean and he didn’t like black people. In fact, I don’t think he liked too many whites. He was just an old . . .

I Was he a big guy?

IC No. Brownie wasn’t as heavy as you are, but not much taller.

AC He was quite tall.

IC But he wasn’t much as heavy as you are. He was just a little old mean person. With a very nasty – he wore what they called that “Ten Gallon”. Yeah, it was a Ten Gallon hat with his chest stuck out. “I’m the boss and I run this city.” This is the way he was.

AC Yeah, he called it his city.

IC Yeah, it was his city.

I Blacks were okay until they became aggressive, or something like that; then you started worrying.

IC They never called anyone by their name; it was boy or nigger or auntie or uncle. An older black lady was auntie and an older black man is uncle. And this is the way he was. He wasn’t nice at all.

I All right, moving on. What about death? Well, first of all somebody has taken sick. First thing, I’m sure people did before you’d take them to the hospital, would be to try some of your home remedies on them.

IC What hospital?

I Was there a hospital? I thought there was something called Pine Ridge.

IC Pine Ridge in West Palm Beach?

I Yeah, there’s nothing hear in Boca, I mean.

IC No. Delray either. Boynton either. West Palm.

I You had to go way up there if somebody got really sick.

IC Ft. Lauderdale, West Palm and Miami.

I Where in Ft. Lauderdale?

27 IC There was a Dr. Mizell in Ft. Lauderdale that opened a hospital up and that was just before World War II. The only hospital was in West Palm Beach and there wasn’t one here until the army came here and then they had a hospital on the army base. That was mostly for the soldiers and their wives. And the doctors, wasn’t any doctors here in Boca. It was Delray and Pompano. What was the one name in Pompano, Wing?

AC No, Wing was in Boynton. One in Pompano and one in Delray.

I Did they come to see you at your house? Did they make house calls or did you have to go to them?

IC You had to go to them. But there wasn’t a doctor in Boca Raton, nor a hospital. The nearest hospital was in Palm Beach. The first person I had seen dead that died was our neighbor’s daughter. Her name was Ula Mae and she died very young. Now I don’t know what she died from or anything. But that was the first person that I had seen that ever died, and I was very small then. I must have been about 10 years old. She was very young.

I Have you ever seen people or do you know of any stories of people who were really sick and went to the doctor and died because there were no doctors? They were really sick and needed to go to the hospital.

IC Well, I imagine I can’t see myself because I don’t recall seeing anyone sick, but I do remember them going to Pompano to the doctor and Delray. But I didn’t know where the hospital was.

I How much would the doctor cost?

IC Oh, anywhere around $2 or $3, if you had it.

I And if you didn’t, they’d just bill you?

IC They’d bill you and put it on the book. No, they didn’t send no bills out. Just whenever you got it you were honest, and always paid. Most doctors knowed the people that could pay and those that couldn’t pay Everybody was honest; as soon as they got it they would get it. Even if it was 50 cents a week or a dollar, whatever. They’re honest enough to pay. And the doctors knowed this.

I Well now, a person got so sick that they died. What did you all do? As far as the person that would have to take care of this body. Back in the earlier days, what would you do?

IC After he died?

28 I He’s dead now and I’ve got to get the body where they did the embalming. How would I go about this?

IC The only person that I can remember was Ula Mae. Seems like to me they carried her body. When I went in that room over there to see her, they had her body laid out in the living room. OK. Now the only undertaker that I know of was Coleman. Undertaker Coleman. He’s dead now. He had a place in Delray; he’s a black guy. He first started out in Delray and he was in Delray for years; and he also had an undertaker parlor in West Palm Beach. But his name was Coleman and his son, and it went from him to his son and from his son to his daughter-in- law. She is still running it now in West Palm Beach. But that’s the only, at that particular time, he was . . . because he buried my grandmother.

I If he was the only one, he must have stayed busy?

IC He did.

I There must have been a lot of money too?

IC Well, yes. At that time it was a lots of money, because he was pretty well off. It was a lots of money. And then after that I can’t think of any other undertakers but Coleman, because he was the only one in Delray; and he was taking care of Delray, Boca, must have been Deerfield, and West Palm Beach and Boynton. Because my grandmother lived in Boynton and she died in Boynton and he taken care of her.

I I remember I was nine years old when my grandmother on my mother’s side died, and I remember they used to put the body in the house for a few days. Did they do that back then?

IC This is when I seen Ula Mae’s body in that house. But I don’t know how long it stayed there because I was very small. But I must have been around nine or ten years old myself at that time; but I do know this is where I seen her body at in the house, and that’s what they called a cooling board, or something in that order. And she was dressed when I remember seeing her. I don’t think she was embalmed. I don’t think they embalmed then.

I Did Coleman [inaudible].

IC I don’t even know who had her body. I really don’t. And I don’t think that as far back then as that was, I don’t believe [inaudible]. I don’t think so.

I The funeral was arranged; where were the people buried?

IC Delray.

29 I Now, this a black cemetery?

IC Black cemetery. My mother and my father are buried there. My brother, Eddie Albert Demery, was the first black person to be buried in Boca Raton cemetery.

I Where was that?

IC What street is that? You know where the mausoleum at?

I Oh, that one over there, that’s Fourth.

AC Yeah, that’s Fourth Avenue

I Somebody told me that there was another black burial where they buried blacks over there near where the garage, or something.

AC That probably was when the army came in here.

IC That was white.

AC That was white?

IC That was white! The Kramers, right off of Glades and Second. That was a all white cemetery.

AC They were supposed to have dug all the bodies up and replaced them when the army came here, because . . .

IC And they brought a lots of them over to this cemetery.

AC That field that used to run from Palmetto Park south to . . . . .

IC . . . to Yamato, on the other side of Yamato. Boca Teeca, almost all through Boca Teeca.

AC Yeah. [Inaudible]

I In that army base, was there a lot of blacks raised there? Did they own this land and lose it when the army came here, or were they just squatters?

IC To me, I think they were squatters. Did you ask the Fountains if they owned their own land?

I They said they owned their house.

IC Where they are now?

30

I Yes, I think the baby sister, she’s 51 years old; she’s the one that’s living with them now.

IC Right. But they had lived in Sugar Hill before they moved there. I don’t think they owned that land.

AC No, because what happened others told me about; when they moved from over there, they said you all used to stay across the track. But they moved the house over here.

IC Who?

AC Reverend Gray (?) They moved it over there with logs.

IC Well I don’t know anything about that.

AC Well, he told me they moved that same house over there, and what happened, they were selling lots over there and they had bought two. And that’s when they started selling in Pearl City and they found someplace to buy. But they were living other places around across the tracks over there, like Sugar Hill and other places. Then they started selling lots and they started buying, and then they moved to Pearl City. That’s what he told me all the time.

I When somebody would die, did they go around the community to take up a collection?

IC They have, yes.

I What about courtship? I know we touched on it just for a second. Not necessarily your courtship, but courtship of people who were courting. I know one of the Fountains said their daddy was strict. They couldn’t do nothing.

IC Yeah, we’d sit on their porch or they’d come sit on ours. I was born right down the street; you’ve seen where it is. I was born on the north side of the street. You see that little new home was built right across the street from me. This was my cousin; he’s dead now, but his wife is still there. Then the next one over in there, there was a little small house there and a vacant lot; that’s where I was born at. We had one big mulberry tree in the yard, and they’d either come to my house or we’d go to their house and sit on their porch, or come and sit under the tree.

After we were in high school and we wanted to maybe sneak back up to Delray, they had a place up there you could go in there and ?? There was a boy by the name of Isaiah Brauns that lived in Delray, and he was the boyfriend of all the girls ‘cause he had a car. He was my boyfriend, Willie Mae’s boyfriend, and

31 whoever boyfriend. Sometimes he would come and get us. He was the only boy who would come and get us and take us to Delray. All the parents was very strict on their kids; there wasn’t anything to do. And yet, I don’t know why we had to be so confined, because because there wasn’t anywhere to go.

I There was more going on in Delray than Boca, right?

IC Oh, much more.

I Why’s that?

IC Because it was more blacks. And then, that’s where the high school was; and they had more black high school teachers and they were more up to date than the elementary. They had better homes, and a little better churches.

I 1912 -- you’re thinking about retiring then and you’ve gotten to the point where you’re looking back on all this. First of all, I want to ask you as you look back and you see these young blacks in Pearl City or in Dixie Manor, you look back at these people. What do you think about them as compared to how you look at the blacks today?

IC As for some of the blacks in those areas, 15th Terrace and Dixie Manor, I wish that I could sit down and talk with them, tell them some of the things that I came through in the same era, in the same era where they are today. Try to better them to get an education, be independent so that they can support themselves without waiting for charity. Because we do have a lot of young people over there that are not trying to do anything to better themselves; and I think that in this day and age, the blacks have a better opportunity to upgrade themselves and feel that they should get more involved, more so in getting their education first. And they can get involved in their community, try to help those that we see there just like themselves, upgrade their schools. We have a great deal of young people over in that area that just seem to don’t care.

I Do you have an opinion on that, Mr. Carswell?

AC Yes, I’d go glong with that too. The young peoples of today, they have everything as far as a better education which we didn’t have back in our tjme. I would encourage them to try to get all they can, because they’re going to need it. Because nowadays you just have to push a button; you don’t need an education to push a button, but not for long. They seem to think the world is going to come tomorrow; they just want everything handed to them now. So when it comes tomorrow they’re going to want it as it is today. Stay in school.

I OK, I have one more question. I look at Pearl City and I read the literature and I see all these whites and developers that want that land, but the blacks have held that land since 1912. Why? What has made them hold that? Most

32 people would sell. If you came to my house and said, “Look, I want to buy your house and I want to give you all this money,” I’d say, “I’ll take it” and move some place else. What is it about that land; why did those blacks still hold onto it?

IC Number one, in 1912 until now the blacks seemed to have just been together and everybody who had just bought property there seemed to be as one and want to live in that vicinity. Just last night they defeated this man who had all this money; he paid $30,000 for some property.

AC I think that was maybe $300,000.

IC I mean $300,000 for some property, most of them office buildings in the black neighborhood, and wanted it rezoned. We defeated last night because, if he had built this office building, he would have had to block off that part of the street. He would have more cars in that neighborhood and they didn’t want it. If they got that particular office bulding built there, $300,000 for the property, and they would have built those office buildings there and they would have owned the Cadillac Apartments. And he would have torn that down or redid it and would have made it into office buildings.

So they didn’t want it and they stuck together. And they defeated him last night, him with all his money, and he got up and spoke about it. He didn’t say more than one word or just a few words; he let us know that he was a very rich man. And he felt that the City should let him rezone it just for him, because he’d never asked the city for anything and felt that the city [inaudible] a few of the homes, ‘cause we still have quite a few of old old settlers there.

And as for me moving over here, I felt like I had made a great step when we bought this property. And yet, I was leaving home. And I’m still in the same town or city and I felt like I was moving way away from Boca Raton when I moved out here. A part of me is still over in the Pearl City area. And we still own a lot over in there on 15th Terrace [inaudible.]

I You moved out, but yet you are still part of the church and everything?

IC Right.

I I wonder what the blacks were saying about you then. I’m from Baltimore and I’m from the ghetto, and here I am in Boca Raton.

IC We got ridiculed when we moved over here. We thought we were rich. The rich Carswells, and here we are working day and night, and had put our last dime on this house to make enough down payment so that our payments wasn’t that much. But we were called the rich and we moved over into the white neighborhood. I guess there was racoons and ‘possums and rats and squirrels and everything else was running around out in these woods when we

33 moved over here. As you know, all peoples the blacks and the whites both, I’ve worked with them for years and years now; and they ridicule their people just as our people ridicule us.

I But you didn’t have any trouble here.

IC No. We’ve had wonderful neighbors, wonderful neighbors on both sides. The whole neighborhood. We’ve never had any problems. We’ve had some kids come by, and they broke a light or they’d tear up the mailbox, not only mine but anybody’s. They just messed up my neighbor’s on Halloween night; he had just put up a new one and they sprayed paint all over it for him. And one night she came over here crying; the kids had taken shaving lotion and sprayed it all over her car, all over her door. These were little kids things. [Inaudible] now I understand that when the Rich’s built, they’re black, the lady across the street wanted us to get a petition up, but no one signed it. Now she’s the nicest person you’ve ever met. I keep her tree stripped of limes.

AC [inaudible] most of us … family too and we got ties together. And then there’s another segment; some that live in Boca, they have to live in Deerfield. [Inaudible] … to come back … In fact, one just moved back yesterday [inaudile].

IC Now you take Edna Alsberry, she just bought a home in Deerfield and moved out last week. She couldn’t afford a home here in Boca so she bought a home and she moved to Deerfield last week, I mean last month. So, therefore, lots of people who want to live in Boca Raton can’t afford to live in Boca Raton.

AC Because there’s a couple that live where Tom built; there used to be some houses in there. They moved to Deerfield so they could find someplace to buy. So now they’ve found a place to buy in Delray, so they moved to Delray. They couldn’t find anything here that they could afford. It is a very valuable area east of the railroad track.

IC We really couldn’t afford over here because all these homes out here now runs at a hundred and some thousand dollars. If we hadn’t bought the property when we bought it, I know I wouldn’t be one to put that kind of money up. Especially with Boca Raton being the city and town that it is; with all these millionaires you see this little black neighborhood right in the center.

The guys down at the zoning last night, he told this man, Moore his name who own the property, saying that how they had surveyed this for over two years, the whole Boca. They didn’t zone that, that was zoned as residential and not as commercial. Being that he had this money he thought maybe they could be just a pushover. It was surprising how many blacks was at that meeting there last night, and before too. It was surprising how many; it was more turned out last night than it was before, the first time. And they all was just looking; I guess they

34 said, “Where in the world did all these black peoples coming from?” I was glad, though, that they did turn out and I was happy that he was defeated.

And just as you say, just in that one little circle there and the few they has spread out, because most of the people has come in with IBM or the University, like that.

I Were they happy, the people in Pearl City, to see Tom’s come in?

IC Yes and no. Some was and some wasn’t. Some had their little say so’s.

I I know Mr. James didn’t. He wasn’t mad at Tom’s as much as he was about people parking on his grass and stuff.

IC Well, I think there was a little bit of jealousy there with that too. Because, even when he put the wall up to [inaudible] see all the cars, he had to say something about the wall. There is some jealousy, no matter what, when people are trying to strive. He’s taken nothing and made something out of it, which I think the owners of the first place, they could have done the same thing. If they had put a little more effort, they could have done the same thing he done.

I That was the Spains?

IC Right.

I They had a restaurant too?

IC Yeah, they first owned this one.

I Was their restaurant catered to blacks or whites, the Spains?

IC Oh, it was all black.

I But Tom’s catered to the whites.

IC Everybody.

I Most of them would stand in that long line.

IC You know why, I’m not going to stand in no long line.

I I know why, ‘cause I’ve eaten that stuff all my life. Where do you cook?

IC I cooked for a party, just a lady. She’s in the hospital now; she’s very sick. She’s been there two weeks today. I take her food out to the hospital; in the afternoon I take her dinner out there. I take it out for the evening. I fix her lunch and her

35 sister-in-law take it out there for her at noontime because she’s not eating the hospital food, and I don’t too very much blame her.

I Do you cook for the whole family?

IC It’s no family now, just her.

I She’s not doing too well?

IC No.

I I read in the newspaper about Delray. It’s always Delray and the police. The black’s Delray police. In Boca Raton you don’t see that. I mean there are problems; they’ll come and they’ll arrest somebody once in a while. But you don’t have that animosity that you do in Delray. I wonder what accounts for that?

IC It’s more blacks up there.

AC There are more black business places.

IC They have different people there. They have migrants there from different places for the Florida winter season; they have a lots of different bars and what have you. And the most that is really having run-ins with the polices are the uneducated ones. They do have problems there with the policemen here recently. I haven’t heard the whole story and why some of these things came about. But one thing about Delray, they do have some blacks on the Council, City Council in Delray and on different boards. You take Mr. Livingston (?), he’s a councilman. [Inaudible] I read that there was lots of black people at the bars. Dope has a lot to do with that too.

I But they also have dope in Boca Raton too.

IC Plentiful, yeah.

I But they don’t have that problem with the police.

IC They don’t have that problem.

I Maybe it’s just the numbers. The number of blacks?

IC Maybe so.

I They have more black businesses in Delray?

IC Yes, they have.

36 AC You got a very small number of blacks build out there when we lived there.

I Now there’s another church that split off from Ebenezer?

IC Right. Friendship Missionary Baptist Church; it was split from Ebenezer.

I When was it split, do you remember?

IC He celebrated his 33rd anniversary. It was 33 years ago. He’s been the only pastor they’ve had at that church.

I That’s in Boca too?

IC Yes, that’s in Boca too on . . . right next to . . .

I Is that as large as Ebenezer?

IC Yes, but they’re not up in their membership.

I Then there’s another one called New Macedonia?

IC [Inaudible]

I And there’s another Holiness Church somewhere?

IC I don’t know anything about that. Now that sits right back of our church.

AC That used to be 9th Episcopal Church, and I don’t know whether they bought it or not. But anyway, I think they’re out of Delray.

I [Inaudible]

IC It’s been there for about three, two or three or four years.

AC Oh, they’ve been there for several years. I know it stayed empty for a long time.

37 Introduction to Interview

Pearl City is an African American Community located in Boca Raton between Northeast Tenth Street to north of Glades Road between Dixie and Federal Highways. Today, Pearl City is one of Boca Raton’s designated historic districts.

This interview is one in a series conducted from 1984-85 by sociologist Dr. Arthur Evans of Florida Atlantic University. The information gathered from these interviews was used for the compilation of “Pearl City, An Analysis of the Folk History” by Sharon Wells, The Spanish River Papers, v. XV (1986-87) and the book Pearl City, Florida: A Black Community Remembers, by Dr. Arthur S. Evans, Jr. and David Lee (1990).

For additional information concerning Pearl City go the Boca Raton Historical Society’s website, www.bocahistory.org, select the Boca Raton’s History page, then select Spanish River, Vol. 15.

Archie L. Carswell Irene Demery Carswell Interview on Pearl City: 1984 – 1985

Biography:

Archie L. Carswell came to Boca Raton in 1942 as a soldier serving on the Boca Raton Army Air Field. He arrived by train and as a black soldier lived in segregated barracks on the base near the railroad tracks. His first assignment upon arriving was tearing down the Japanese huts left from the Yamato Colony as well as a water tank that he remembers looking like a piece of art. He met his wife, Irene, during his stay here and they knew they were meant to be together for life. When WWII ended Archie traveled back to Boca Raton and he and Irene were married. They made their home in Pearl City and Boca Raton and on June 8, 2008 they celebrated 60 years of marriage.

Topics of Discussion:

Boca Raton Army Air Force Base in Boca Raton; Basic Training; Work assignment at the Boca Club; Segregated life on the base; Introduction to Pearl City and the residents; Recreation; Employment for the black community during WWII; Urban League and NAACP; Purchasing a home outside of Pearl City; Property inside Pearl City; Finding work after the war: Boca Raton Hotel & Club – laundry, kitchen, greens keepers for golf courses, caddies; Chesebro’s farm; Recreation & food for the table: fishing and hunting; Education for blacks; Alex Hughes and the Pearl City School (later named Roadman School); Alex Hughes Park; Archie’s reminiscing of army training.

1 I: Interviewer: Arthur Evans AC: Archie Carswell IC: Irene Demery Carswell

Special Interview because of Archie’s knowledge about Boca Raton with respect to the Air Force Base and other issues regarding civil rights.

I: Now Mr. Carswell, when did you come to Boca Raton?

AC: June, 1942.

I: 1942. Now where were you coming from?

AC: I was comin’ from Albany, Georgia.

I: Albany, Georgia.

AC: Not Albany, but Ft. Benning, Georgia.

I: Now why were you coming to Boca Raton?

AC: I was being shipped here by the Air Force and Army.

I: By the Air Force and the Army?

AC: Right, I was in the Air Force.

I: Did you enlist or were you drafted?

AC: I was drafted.

I: Now this was your . . . was this right after basic training, or . . . ?

AC: No, I came here and took my basic training here in Boca.

I: So, was this the first trip away from home?

AC: No it wasn't. You see, I was in New York when I was drafted and I had to go back home to get my examination before I was all drafted into the army. I was in New York at that time and I got my papers to report to the local board. So I reported to the local board and about a month after that they called me and sent me to Ft. Benning, Georgia. And from there I was shipped here to Boca.

2 I: Do you remember the train ride?

AC: Well, the train ride, wasn't very much to remember about the train ride. Your mind was wonderin’ where were you going, you know. Because when they put you on a train or plane you never know where you're goin’. So my mind was just wonderin’ where was I goin’.

I: So you did not know that you were coming to Boca Raton?

AC: No, I did not know where I was goin’. They never tell you where you're goin. There be one in the bunch have all the orders and the papers and when you get where you're goin’ then he present the papers to the headquarters when you get there. And that's when you know where you're goin’, when the train pulls in to put you off.

I: So you arrived in Boca Raton?

AC: Right.

I: Was that your first stop?

AC: First stop.

I: Okay. So you get off the train and then what happens?

AC: Well, I get off the train and you report to your company what you were being shipped to, which mine was 1928 quarter master they called it then, attached to the air force. When I got there I was in the 1928th attached to the air force; and my first duty after I got here was takin’ basic trainin’ which was goin’ on hikes and maneuvers down here out from Ft. Lauderdale.

You'd spend a week or two weeks in the woods in tents down there; then you’d take rifle trainin’ on the parade ground and you have to stand on inspection down on a Saturday morning. And if you were eligible you'd get a weekend pass or you’d get a pass off on Sundays; and if you’re not eligible you had to stay around camp. Then after basic trainin’ I was assigned to a job which was over to Boca Club over here.

I: You mean the army or the air force assigned you to a job in the Boca Raton Club?

AC: Right. See, I was workin’ for a car lot and I was drivin’ for him but I was drivin’ a truck and my job was to meet the train at the station. Do you know Boca Station?

I: Yes.

3

AC: Well, that's why Boca Station means so much to me now. I hope they will keep it and not get rid of it, see, because I spent a lot of time there back and forth from the club and back there, see. My duty was to pick up the cadets as they come in, transport ‘em to the club, and when they graduate I would take ‘em back to the station and see that they get off from the station. Then the new recruits that come in, I would take them over there and I would take their personal things back to the train station and put them back on the train and send them back home. And that was my major job. Well, I lived on the base but I worked over to the Boca Club because, you see, the army taken that over during the war.

I: Did they . . . was the army segregated?

AC: Yes, it was segregated. Each mens had, the blacks had their own barracks and their own area and the whites had their own barracks and their own area. And we had all our sergeants and corporals and that, all were black; everything but the lieutenants and captains, they were all white . . . segregated.

I: You say, now how about the jobs? What was the difference between the black troops and white troops in terms of what they did?

AC: Well, mostly, unless you was training for to fly or something like that, which they didn't have any black flyers at that time, you know. Congressman Davis at that time, he was made … got to be a general later on, but he was the one to establish all black flyers. But at that time the black and the white did the same thing, only they just was all segregated. They took the same trainin’ and they did the same thing, only they just did it to themselves. The white did theirs and the black did theirs. But still you had the overhead was all white.

I: Do you remember the first time you went to Pearl City?

AC: Yes, I remember the first time. I was introduced to Pearl City by a soldier friend of mine. He had been out to Pearl City the night before and he had met some peoples in Pearl City and he asked me the next night to come go with him to Pearl City. And I said, “What's Pearl City?” and he said, “A little place over here out from the base.” And I agreed to go along with him. And I went over there with him that night, and I don't regret I went.

After that, that's where we would go was Pearl City when we had time off. Either we'd catch the bus and go to Delray or Ft. Lauderdale or somethin’ like that. But then I began to like Pearl City because I found that all the peoples there were so close knit, you see. If one hurt, the other one hurt. If one need somethin’ the other one, you know, would go to their rescue. So it was all, I just fell in love with Boca Raton . . . Pearl City . . . after going out and meetin’ the people.

4 I: How many black soldiers would you say were in Boca Raton at any one time?

AC: Well, it was a squadron of 250 at one time and then besides the 28th there was the 69th aviation squadron. See, I was in the 69th but when I got here … I was shipped here as a 69th, but when I got here they transferred me into the 1928th. And the 28th meant truck squadron. The 69th meant the aviation squadron. See they'd still stay in the aviation squadron, but they had a certain duty to do around on the base at that time; but the 28th, well, they drove trucks. They hauled supplies for the base. This is what the 1928th was.

I: So most of the time when the black soldiers would get off they would come down to Pearl City?

AC: Right.

I: What did they do when they came there?

AC: Well, they had some of those dance places there; a couple dance places, one Willie White and the other one was Collin Spain's place. There where the office space used to be, where the barbecue place is.

I: Tom's.

AC: Tom's Place. And they would meet out there and the girls would meet out there. And they'd dance and drink the beer and had a good time; then back to the camp. Back out the next night, if you could get out, and do the same thing. That was our recreation. And see, they had a truck, you know, and bring ‘em out; and it would come back about 11 o'clock at night and pick ‘em up and take ‘em back to camp.

I: Oh, so they, the army, sort of encouraged that in a way? They supported it by picking you up with a truck and dropping you off?

AC: Right. Droppin’ you off wherever the truck go. You had to be ready when the truck come back by because they had MP's out, just like policemen, see. And when the truck gone and you're out the MP's pick you up, see, and take you in and probably take your pass for the next night or a week or something like that, and you couldn't come out anymore.

I: What attracted you to Boca Raton? After you got through with the army, why didn't you just go back to where you came from? Why did you stay here? Because a lot of men did go back to where they came from.

AC: Yeah, and I suppose it’s due to marriage and due to I liked it in Boca too; and kind of I liked it the way I was treated when I was a soldier here. And my

5 wife's home was here so I came back here to live after I came out. It wasn't my intention, but I did because I loved Boca.

I: You said you liked the way you were treated then?

AC: Uh huh.

I: You mean by who?

AC: By the peoples in Pearl City.

I: The blacks in Pearl City?

AC: Uh huh.

I: Now, what did the air force base mean to the people in Pearl City as far as jobs? Did people there work?

AC: Sure. That was most of the major jobs for the men that wasn't working at that time, or either that they were working and they stopped doing what they were doing and got jobs out there. You had farmers out there, you had some out there that helped cook, and some worked in the officers’ mess and some worked in the officers’ headquarters. They had them all over, see, and most of them had jobs out there in the air base.

I: Did it pay good? Better than Butts Farm, I mean?

AC: Well, I'm quite sure it was, because Butts farm you had to work by piece work, you see; you get paid for what you did. See, in the army they had a regular scale. Now if it rained, you couldn't work out at Butts farm; but over there the rain didn't stop you from working. So you made more.

I: So, do you think most of the people would have rather worked for the army than for any place else?

AC: Well, that was about the only thing going ‘round here at that time, except farming. So they were glad that the army did come in, see. That would give ‘em something to do.

I: Well, what about the Boca Raton Hotel and Club?

AC: Well, see, the army had taken that over. They did have a laundry over there and they had a mess hall over there. And you had jobs in the laundry and the mess hall, those that wanted to work in the mess hall and the laundry. 'Cause I ate all my meals over there; I didn't have to go back to the field until night, in the afternoon.

6

I: When did the base close down?

AC: It closed down the latter part of '47 and the early part of '48. I re-enlisted to get back home from overseas, and they said if you re-enlist for three years you would be stationed any place you want to be stationed. And so I re-enlisted to be stationed back at Boca here, but they didn't tell me at the time that the air base was breaking up, closin’. So when I re-enlisted they sent me home, and they sent me everywhere but Boca.

First thing I reported back to Ft. Benning; in fact I got a month’s furlough. So when I reported back to Ft. Benning they sent me to Camp Lee, Virginia; and from Camp Lee, Virginia they sent me to Ft. Louis, Washington; and from there Camp Jordan, Washington which was right in Washington. And that's where I spent a year out there for that three years.

I: Now, were you married then?

AC: I was married. So then they came up and said all those with a certain amount of points that wanted to get out could get out; and I said, “Well, that's me.” I made one of those years and I said, “You can have the other two” because they didn't station me near home or where I wanted to be stationed.

I: What was it like to be a soldier in the army? It was Boca Raton. I'm thinking about on the one hand here you've got the United State's uniform on, and then on the other hand there are still places that you can't go and eat in Boca Raton. I'm reminded of Joe Louis, for example. Joe Louis goes out there and knocks out Max Smelling, comes back to the United States and still can't get a hamburger. He's the one that’s defeatin’, knocking out the Nazis now, and he can't even get a hamburger. How did it feel to be a black soldier here in Boca Raton? Or did those things matter?

AC: Well, not until you went oversea, over there you know; and then you knew you was in Uncle Sam's army there. And over here when you was raised up like that, you know, and then had to go into the army; it didn't seem so bad. But when they take you out of the United States over there to fight a war over there, then that's when you began to feel it. And when you come back, you know, and face this again you say, “Now I've been over there to help save this country and now I come back here and I can't even go to this place.” So that's when it really comes out.

But long as you're here it doesn't matter because you're livin’ like you've always lived anyways. But when you go over there, you know, and they don't have any segregation over there where you go over there, but they still had segregation in the army over there. But as far as when you go out for recreation you could go any place you wanted to go.

7

When you get back to your base you were segregated again, so this is where it really stood out at and this is when you really begin to feel it. So, this is when you come back home and start doin’ something about it.

I: What do you know about . . . when did this guy, Chief Brownie, come on the scene? Do you remember when he first came here?

AC: No, I just heard about him when I got here and I just hoped that I would never have to come in contact with him.

I: Was this after the base closed or was it . . . ?

AC: No, it was before. After the base got here it kind of cooled down a little bit, see, simply because of this incident that happened to him and this soldier that night. He stopped this soldier and the soldier didn't pull his hat off to him to talk to him; so after then he kind of all got a little mellow. After that then he had someone else, a policeman, with him. You know, he used to be by hisself all the time; not by himself, he used to be the only policeman until they got another one in. Boca started growin’ and policemen started growin’.

I: Were there any organizations that started out for blacks? NAACP, Urban League, anything like that, back then that you can remember?

AC: I'm not sure. Urban League, I don't think was goin’. The NAACP was goin’ before the Urban League because I became a member of the Urban League and I worked along with the Urban League quite a while. Then after that they got a local NAACP branch here and Deacon T.W. Williams, he was the president. At that time there was a local NAACP and I worked along with him and I became Vice President in the local NAACP; and, I worked with it as long as he was able to go like he and I used to go.

‘Cause we used to attend all meetin’s, regional and the local meetin’s, and he and I would run the NAACP for a while. I can't think how many years now. But he got kind of old and he couldn't do like he used to do; so he kind of gave it up and then they got a new president and a new vice president. Now the local here in Boca is combined with Delray, and I think Pompano and Deerfield. So I worked with that up until Deacon William couldn't go anymore.

I: What kind of things did you do?

AC: Well, we went to any disturbment or unrest here in Boca. We would look into it and then we would report back to our headquarters, which was in Delray at that time; and they would take it from there. And Boca has always been a place that doesn’ like all headlines, you know.

8 So one time it was an unrest up in Pearl City due to the policemen, and they had a march here too; and Boca didn't want, you know, headlines about the march and about the unrest. So while we were still over the NAACP then, so Alan Alford, he was the City Manager or City Mayor, one; but anyway, he got some of us and asked us if we would come down to the City Hall and talk. So we went down because he had heard about the NAACP was going to investigate what was happening up in Pearl City area at that time; but they didn't want, you know, NAACP comin’ into Boca. Not Boca Raton, because they didn't want that kind of publicity, see.

So, we went down and Alan Alford asked us if he organized a Community Relations Board, would we serve on it? And so we told him yes. He said, “So you’ll have some recognition up in Pearl City so when an unrest come they can bring it to the Community Relations Board and then they can investigate it and turn it over to the City Council. And City Council will do something about it.”

So Alan Alford organized the Community Relation Board, so I served on that. And I became Vice President of the Community Relation Board and I served on that for quite a many years. It wasn’t until I retired from that and received a certificate for serving on the Community Relation Board for so many years. There was a lady Mayor at that time at the City Hall.

I: Who, Dorothy Wilkins?

AC: Yeah.

I: She's a Commissioner now.

AC: Yes, she’s the new County Commissioner.

I: Did you think that the blacks here have been given, uh . . . treated fairly?

AC: No, definitely not, because it was very hard to buy any property outside of Pearl City. Because me and my wife was buyin’ a lot right behind the hospital over here; and we had paid for the lot and all we had to do was to sign the deeds for the one who was sellin’ it. So we were dealin’ with a lady named Miss Florence, and when we went back to pick up the deeds for the lot, well, there was a man in there and he says that the man wasn't goin’ to sell the lots one by one. He was gonna sell them by the package, so we can't sell them to you.

So, the only way they had us was that we hadn't signed the deeds. And after then the lady, this Miss Florence, she come back and said, “Now if you had waited and come back when I was here, I could have gotten the lot for you. But you come back and I wasn't here, and they wasn't going to sell you the lot.” So we had it investigated. You’ve heard of Hasting? He was a lawyer . . .

9 I: Yeah, he is a judge. Judge Hastings.

AC: He was a lawyer then, so we taken the papers down to him.

I: He was in some trouble a few years ago.

AC: Yeah, uh huh.

I: Well, he wasn’t in trouble; he got out of it. He wasn't guilty.

AC: Right.

I: So maybe he was in hot water for a while.

AC: So we taken the papers down to him and he looked them over. He said, “There ain’t but one thing wrong is that he hadn't signed the deed. Had you paid for it?” We said yeah, we had left the money there, over $3,000. And he said, “Well, if he hadda signed it I could do somethin’ about it, but he didn't sign it. But I'll tell you what I can do. If you want the lot I can get it for you; I know how to get it,” he said. “I can get a fellow that could go up and buy it for you.” And I said, “No, if I can't get it legally I don't want it.” So we just let it go.

And so then, finally, a break start comin’, here and there, here and there. And if it come up and you got the money, you go and jump for it because it was very hard to buy anything outside of Pearl City. And now, at that time too, wasn't many people able to buy out of Pearl City, especially land and homes, because they couldn't afford it.

I: When you bought out here, do you think the reason was because most of this was woods anyway, and people weren't planning on living out this far?

AC: No, I tell you what happened there too. You know, it was a black fellow goin’ to FAU out there, and he was workin’ with a contractor and he said, “Well now, I can draw blueprints and if he can make money off of me, I can make money off of myself.” So he broke from this contractor and went to buyin’ land hisself, you know, (I guess he got it through this man or through somebody else) and started out building homes. And his wife, she could draw blueprints too, see, so she would draw the blueprints and he would do the building.

But, anyway, I think he built one or two homes somewhere around here and then he bought this lot over here and he wanted to build over there. And he went back to FAU to get his final. Then he found out that they wasn't goin’ to let him build or something, so he got angry and got my friend over here, Molly and her husband, and asked them if they wanted some land; and they told him yeah, and so he went and sold it to them.

10 But they didn't want him to sell it to no black. But, anyway, he had got Formatted: Indent: First line: 36 pt this; a black lady in New Jersey wanted to sell this, so some kind of way he bought this. Then he told Rich he had another, some more lots he wanted to sell, and did he know anybody. Rich said, “Yeah, I think I got a friend.” And he said, “Okay, then have them to meet me down to the title office down there and tell them, ‘Don't go in, wait outside’.” So he beat us there, you know, and he went in and he signed the deeds, and when he come out he said, “You all can go in.”

So we went in and we signed the deeds too, see. So we signed the deeds Formatted: Indent: First line: 36 pt so we had the property, see, but I don't guess the lady know who he was goin’ to sell them to anyways. So he sold it and he left here, he and his wife, because they give him such a hard time. So this is how we got this.

I: So, I guess after the air force base closed. How far did the air force base extend? I know FAU well; was it out as far as Sugar Hill?

AC: Yeah, that's where I used to stand parade every Saturday . . . at FAU. See where that big concrete thing there? Where the concrete at?

I: Yeah.

AC: Well, that used to be the parade grounds. It went in from Palmetto Park Road south to Yamato Road, didn't it Irene, or farther?

IC: Farther. The firing range was on Yamato. It went out to Boca Teeca.

AC: Yeah, the firing range was on Yamato Road.

I: You mean all of Boca Teeca?

IC: Yeah, all in Boca Teeca was the firing range.

AC: No, uh uh.

IC: Yeah, it extended past Yamato.

AC: Yeah, it went past Yamato.

IC: But not the whole of Boca Teeca?

AC: No, not the whole of Boca Teeca. Just the rim of Boca Teeca; south rim of Boca Teeca. That's where it ended at. And it went far east as old Dixie and far west as Seaboard Railroad.

11 I: And where is Seaboard railroad? Where is west? Is that near . . . out there near my house?

IC: Yeah, the next track over.

I: So that’s the Seaboard. Now, what’s the one on Dixie Highway called?

AC: East Coast Railroad.

I: East Coast and Seaboard? So there’s two railroads.

AC: Yeah, two railroads.

I: Okay, I got it now. But if you go out that way there is Boca Teeca; there’s a lot of places that have private homes out in that area. Are you saying blacks weren’t allowed to buy out there?

IC: Well, they wasn’t sellin’ to blacks, nowhere.

I: Was it against the law to sell to blacks?

AC: No. Just like you own a lot of land and you want to sell it. Okay, well up in the Pearl City area and up in Lincoln Court used to be called Richards Subdivision; and they changed it from Richards Subdivision to Lincoln Court. And they changed it from Lincoln Court to 15th Terrace. Okay, well now that’s a new addition to Pearl City from the project up to 15th Terrace.

Well, this man, he had owned this land up there and he was willin’ to sell to the blacks because that was the black community, you see. And he cut ‘em up into small lots, you know, and sold ‘em to the blacks; but then to get anyplace out from there, wasn’t nobody willin’ to sell to blacks. See, we own a lot up there now is 42 feet, but they won’t let you build anything on it.

I: Did you do that? You own your own property up in there?

AC: Right. In fact the house we're selling up there now is on a 42 foot lot. And back in that time you could build on it, see; but they changed the city code, you know. It has to be a certain size before you can build on it.

I: So it's just a empty lot?

AC: Just a empty lot. It is next to the house that we used to own, so if we ever want to sell it . . . The only way you could build on it, you have to go down to City Hall and put in for hardship. “It’s the only thing I can afford and the only place I can buy. And it’s the only place I can live, all I can afford.”

12 And then they would take it through the building housing authority, or whatever you call it. And they would talk on it, see, and then let you know can you build on the hardship on it, and you might build on the hardship on it.

I: Did blacks lose property when the Air Force came here? Did they lose a lot of properties? Can you answer that?

AC: No, I don't think so because when the Air Force came the one's that were livin’ over there, they didn't own that property then. They was just what you'd call squatters at that time over there.

I: Like in Sugar Hill, places like that they didn't own?

AC: No. Squatters, they would call it.

I: So after the Air Force Base stopped functioning, then what did the blacks do then who worked on the base? Where did they go?

AC: They were out of a job so they had to find jobs around Boca and then the city started. Boca had grown a little bit; then the city started hirin’ and then most of them worked for the city.

I: What did you do when you left the service?

AC: Oh, I came back and I started working at Brown's Bar on #1.

I: Brown's Bar. What did you do there?

AC: I was a porter there, Brown’s Bar.

I: Brown's Bar? Is it still there?

AC: It's still there, but it's Big Daddy's now.

I: Oh, a liquor store now?

AC: Yeah, liquor store now.

I: Okay, I think I know where you're talking about now. I'm not a drinker so I don't know, but I think I've passed it.

AC: Yeah, you passed it on #1 there where the two stations sits on one side of Palmetto. You know where the two stations sits on each side of Palmetto on #1?

I: Uh huh.

13 AC: Well, Big Daddy’s sits south of that.

I: And you were married then?

AC: Yeah, I was married then.

I: And how long did you work there?

AC: About two years.

I: How did you feel about the job, did they treat you alright and everything?

AC: Oh yeah, because the two fellows that owned it they were Jews, see, and their mother . . . or their dad, was dead. Well, their mother just died about a year ago and, you know, she took me as a son, and I had to go by and see her every so often up until she died; and if I didn't go by she'd wonder what had happened to me. I'd walk in and she'd hug and kiss me up until she died. Yes, she sure did.

And I find out that peoples with little money are more open than those that is all rich, you know. They got more feelin’ and sympathy, and don't care who you is.

I: So after you left at the end of two years, then what did you do?

AC: Oh, I stumbled upon what I'm doin’ now. Because, see, they was widenin’ Federal Highway and they had to set all these buildings back, so my job came to an end. And the meantime my wife was workin’ for the Diacel’s from Ohio during the winter when they come down; and this particular summer they had went back up and they left their yard man to take care of the yard while they’re gone. And the policeman down there named Angeletti told a lie on the man, see, and the Diacel’s fired him. They didn't wait to come down, didn’t let him work until they come down to find out whether it true or not. So they fired him and they wrote Irene and asked her reckon I would be willing, you know, to take over the job until they got down here and work out something.

My job hadn't opened back up, see, so I said I’d try it. So I took over the job and Irene was already workin’ for them six months out of the year, so they wanted to know if we’d work full time. So I looked at the travel in it and I said well I’d probably get to travel, so I said yes; and that's where it began, right then. So we've been doin’ this kind of work ever since.

But when they got down, it wasn't what he thought it was said because he would buy beer and leave beer there for him to drink. Because he didn't believe in waterin’ his lawn in the daytime, at night; so he had to go over there and water at night, see, and then go back. So he took his friend over one night and while they were waterin’ they were just sittin’ out, you know, and havin’ a bottle of beer

14 because the guy had left it there. Then Angeletti, the policeman, drove in because he checked houses along the beach, you know, and saw them there and wanted to know what they were doin’. And they told him and so he . . . didn't he arrest them, Irene?

IC: Arrest them? Yeah. He carried ‘em down . . . and put ‘em in jail.

AC: No, but what I mean, he let ‘em drove the car home, see, and that's where he messed up at, see. Let ‘em drove the car home and, uh, say, well if he was drunk why did you let him drive the car home. So he messed up, so he tried to get me messed up down there too, you know.

He come around checkin’ one day and tellin’ me about what kind of parties he have sometime, and wanted to know if we could get together and have a party; and I said, “Well, I don't know.” He said, “Well, do you drink?” And I said, “Yeah, I have a drink once in a while.” He said, “Well, maybe we could get us a bottle and sometime we can have a party”; and I said, “No, thanks.”

He wanted to get me to have a drink and get me down there, you know. Ain’t no tellin’ what he might do. So I didn't take him up on it ‘cause I didn't trust him, ‘cause I knew what he had done to Frank, see.

I: So. I guess when you got out of the service, uh, what jobs were available to you? Did you finish high school?

IC: No, I didn't finish high school. I had just got into high school; I didn’t finish.

I: But you could read and write, so no problem there. What jobs were available? Some people say it didn't really make any difference back then; even if a black had college education it still was only so high he could go, back in those days. What jobs were there available for a young man like you just getting out of the service? There were a lot of things you could do and you know you could do it, but what was available?

AC: Well, at that time you took what came, you know, and then work yourself up. Back then you could always work yourself up. If you didn't have a fact about it doing my job that I have now, which rubbin’ shoulders with millionaires everyday and you'd be surprised the many of them that don't have a third grade education. So, if they made it, you know, you could make it too.

And I look back, your forefathers, and my father, and my wife's father and some of the older people that I met when I came to Boca that couldn't read and write; and I can take you into Pearl City now and show you some work that some of them did on homes over there, that couldn't even read and write.

15 So, at that time you live with the time . . . what it takes to survive at that particular time, you have it. If you don't have it, you gonna survive some kind of way. You go on until it goes up, then you got to have what it takes to survive at that time. Food wasn't any problem, not here, because you had the access to all the ocean, you had the access to all the canals, and you had the access to . . .

I: What does that mean?

AC: Well, like it wasn't built up, see. You could go on the beach anywhere you wanted to and fish.

I: Do you like to fish?

AC: I like to eat fish.

I: Oh, you don't like to fish?

AC: No, uh, uh; I fish a little bit.

I: Your wife like to fish?

AC: Oh yes, she could stay out there all night. So you had the access to all the salt water canals, to all the fresh water canals; you had the access to the bean fields, you had access to the mangroves that growed, the coconuts. So food wasn't any problem. If you like wild game, you could go out and kill your own wild game. I used to hunt, right over here where we're at now, birds and things.

So at that time livin’ wasn't any problem, but just that you wasn't plannin’ on gettin’ rich overnight. And a job, you could always find somethin’, and you were always looking for somethin’ to do. It’s just like it is now, like in Miami; they got ‘em on the street and people come by lookin’ for someone to work. Well, it used to be the same way in Pearl City. They would come by and say, “Do you want to go to work?” “How much you payin’?” And they'd tell you how much they're payin’, and they'll wait on the next man if they ain’t payin’ the right thing.

The millionaire would come down over here at the club, see, and that’s the time they didn't have the golf carts. The boys would go over there and they would go around and pick the bags; they'd come back and they'd have $10 or $12. And that was big money at that time for a day; and they'd go over there every day, see, and do that; and that's what some of them made a livin’ off of. Off of caddyin’, see. And each man would have his regular caddy; he'd go out golfing every day, see.

I: This was at the hotel?

16 AC: The hotel, Boca Hotel & Club.

I: What other jobs were there at the hotel for blacks?

AC: Oh, there was in the kitchen, and they still had the laundry over there too. They do their own laundry over there. And then they had the . . . just like they have men over there now takin’ care of the greens. When I was in the army I used to stop by, which was against the rule; but I broke the rule and picked some of ‘em up on the way over to the club, you know, and take ‘em to work in the mornings, see. And even my wife, she was workin’ over there near the club once, and I'd pick her up ‘cause we wasn't married then, but I'd take her to work.

So the big thing before the army was the club over there, see, for the men . . . golfin’. All of those that weren't takin’ care of the green, was the young men were takin’ the bags around for the golfers. See, it wasn't that many people here, blacks anyways. So they could kind of pick what they wanted to do, as many jobs as were open at the club over there.

Then some, they called it Chesebro; some used to work for a man named Chesebro. I don't know what they done, but . . .

I: He had a farm, didn't he?

IC: Farm.

AC: Farm?

IC: Uh huh.

I: So why is there such high unemployment now? Why is the unemployment so high now for black youths? They claim there’s no jobs out there.

AC: They out there.

I: Are they sayin’ there's nothin’ out there I want to be?

AC: Yeah.

I: Is that what they're saying? There might be jobs out there, but I don't want to do those.

AC: They're out there but they just . . . see, I look back and just say, “I wish that I had the opportunity that they have today.” But we didn't have that opportunity that they have today. Because even when you was goin’ to school, you wasn't gettin’ the best at that time; but you were gettin’ an education, because you was gettin’ leftovers. I don't know if it was like that where you

17 came from, but they'd let the whites use the books first and when they finished with them they'd pass ‘em on down to the black schools. And if the page tore out, you had to skip that page and go on to the next one.

I: Well, I know that was really true. See, I was born in Baltimore; so that wasn't a problem in Baltimore because, see, Baltimore has always been a place where you could go to any school that you want to. As you go south it gets pretty rough for blacks. Like you say, we got second hand everything then; at the same time it demands parents help them work to keep the house, or something like that, and help to feed the family. Especially people who lived on farms back then.

I knew that being raised in the city, those were things that I didn't have to confront. I guess you farm kids, farm black kids, had it rough just tryin’ to get to their school. A lot of people, younger people like myself, you meet an older person and they'd say, “I had to walk to school four miles” and we'd go, “Ha, ha, ha!” “But you know those were some long blocks.” “Ha, ha, ha!”

That's about all I had to say unless you got anything you want to add.

AC: No, I can't think of anything important I could add.

I: I was really trying to understand the air force base a little more. The change that it brought about in Pearl City, and then when it left did it change the area again for the better or worse? Because when it left, it obviously meant there would be less jobs available.

AC: Yep, and you'd take some of them that was workin’ these jobs went back to what they were doin’ before, or they were retired. See, most of them were older people and they were retired, so they didn’t have to actually look for another job. They just went on and retired and that was it, and it just left a new generation then. After the army most of the young fellows ‘round here was probably just coming back out of the army or were still in the army when they left. Some of them stayed in the army too, you know, they made a career out of it. Made 20 years.

I: Did you know Alex Hughes?

AC: Yeah, I know Alex Hughes . . . real well.

I: I think he had a lot of connection with the Chesebros.

AC: He did because he had a job; the man wasn't even here. He had a job up until he got where he couldn't handle it. Right down there on Old Dixie, all he had to do was to keep the leaves roke up from around under some trees down

18 there . . . mango trees. And they'd send him a check every month. He was quite a fellow too.

I: He pushed really hard for the school too, Roadman’s School?

AC: Yeah.

I: Didn't he, Mrs. Carswell?

IC: Pardon?

I: Didn't Alex Hughes push real hard for the school, Roadman’s School?

IC: Yes, it was named Roadman’s. After it moved it was local elementary, and after they moved it they named it Roadman. See, it was moved from 11th Street over to 12th Street. And it was on 11th Street when I went to school. It sit right where the Goddard’s, Jimmy Goddard who you tried to talk with, home is built now; that’s where the Boca Elementary School . . . and he intercede in that, Alex Hughes, in getting that school for the blacks.

I: He was well respected in the black and the white community, wasn't he?

IC: Very much so. The park, the little park there, is named after him. Our club, we had a club at that time, Young Women’s Progressive Club; and they wanted a name for the park, so we sent in Alex Hughes’ name. And, so, they named it Alex Hughes (Hughes Park) after Alex Hughes.

I: Now, which park is that?

IC: That sits between, you know where Florence Fuller Daycare Center, over by 2nd Court? Well, it's a park over there. It's right by Florence Fuller Daycare Center Child Development centered in this park right in there, and it's named Alex Hughes. And it’s right in there.

I: Hmm. Well, I'm through. This is a short interview tonight; we didn’t take up three tapes.

IC: I was thinkin’ . . . thought I could think of somethin’ else about the base. But, I can’t think of anything else.

Yeah, I do know. We takin’ my trainin’ of an abandon ship over at the Boca Club and jumpin’ off the high divin’ board over there. That was quite somethin’.

I: You dived off the board?

19 AC: Jump off; ship abandon, you know. It's like, if you're goin’ oversea and you get torpedoed or somethin’, your ship want to sink. You have to take trainin’ on how to jump off.

I: So did you jump off the high diving board?

AC: Yeah.

I: You didn't like that?

AC: I didn't like that. No.

I: A lot of people don't like heights.

AC: Well, it was alright the first, second, and third one, you know. But when you're fixin’ to graduate, that last one up there don't seem like you're ever goin’ to hit the water.

IC: I didn’t see Jacqueline Harvey, Henry’s sister. She live in Delray now. (Mrs. Carswell gives address of Henry James’ sister to the interviewer.)

I: One last question, then I’ll leave you alone forever and again. You talk to these people's children who have lived in Pearl City, and a lot of the children have done very well. Why?

IC: Yes. They have.

AC: I guess it's because of environment. You know, it could be because you don't have the environment around Pearl City and Boca as you have in the other cities and towns. And everybody around in Boca and Pearl City was close knit too. If you hadda taken the black out of Pearl City and, say, moved them to Pompano or Delray or somethin’ like that, then you could see the change. But to get to other environment, more environment, they would have to leave Boca and go to Pompano or Delray, see, to get in the different environment which you don't have here. So I can see that kept their minds, you know, on other things.

I: Even the blacks in Pearl City are different from the blacks in Dixie Manor. I mean, the children have gone to college, very successful. Considering all the stuff that we talked about, about discrimination . . . very successful. But we get the blacks in Dixie Manor livin’ the same pattern as the blacks in Pearl City; in fact it's just a matter of crossin’ the street. But I'm just tryin’ to figure out why is that. Do you have any comments on it?

IC: The only thing there that I can see is that Dixie Manor hasn't always been a Dixie Manor, and that was really built for the soldiers and their wives. And after that then the people began to migrate in from different places, even Georgia and

20 all around different places. And there wasn’t much difference in Dixie Manor and Pearl City. It’s just the matter that that was built specifically for the soldiers and their wives when World War II broke out; and then they built the Boca Raton Air Base here.

So I don’t see where the children in Dixie Manor had accomplished all that much. And long ago so . . . the majority of the kids that were raised up and around in the Pearl City area which was across the street.

21