Joel Buchanan Archive of African American History: http://ufdc.ufl.edu/ohfb

Samuel Proctor Oral History Program

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences

Program Director: Dr. Paul Ortiz 241 Pugh Hall PO Box 115215 Gainesville, FL 32611 (352) 392-7168 https://oral.history.ufl.edu

AAHP 499A Rafe Johnson Interviewed by Ryan Thompson on June 26, 2017 3hours and 1 minutes | 93 pages

Abstract: In this interview Rafe Johnson gives and account of growing up in Jonesville, Florida with his grandparents. He talks about his encounter with the Ku Klux Klan as a young child with his grandparents. Once his grandparents died he went on to live with his mother in Gainesville, Florida and went to school with to A.Quinn Jones Elementary School and Lincoln High School. At an early age he became involve in the numbers system which is also known as cubing. He also shares his experiences of growing up as a black man within the city of Gainesville. At the age of nineteen, Johnson joins the United States Navy and recalls his experiences within the military system. Once out of the military, Johnson settles again in Gainesville, Florida.

Keywords: [Gainesville, Florida; Jonesville, Florida; United States Navy; A. Quinn Jones; Lincoln High School]

AAHP 499A Interviewer: Ryan Thompson Interviewee: Rafe Johnson Date: June 26th, 2017

T: Today is Friday, June 26th, 2017. My name is Ryan Thompson from the Samuel

Proctor Oral History Program at the University of Florida. I’m here at the home of

Rafe Johnson in East Gainesville. If you could just say and spell your name

please.

J: Yeah, my name is Rafe Johnson spelled R-A-F-E, J-O-H-N-S-O-N. That name is

my father’s name also. My mother is Emma Beatrice Fisher. We lived in – I was

born into a midwife here in Gainesville, Florida. As I grew up and got around the

age of three or four, maybe five years old, I went to live with my grandmother in

Jonesville, Florida. Soon after moving to Jonesville with my grandmother and

grandfather, she passed away. My grandfather was doing what I’m doing today.

He was raising me pretty much by himself. My mother left me out there because

my granddaddy needed some company. Him and I, we did some great things

together. He had a big farm. He was share cropping with the local farm persons

around that area. Didn’t make a whole lot of money. We got some of the crops

and some of the vegetables and stuff that was attributed from doing the farming.

But anyway, my grandfather was a really good man. He took time out to give me

some insights on sometimes some social issues that I didn’t recognize at the

time because I had no insights about society. Through some of the experiences

of being with him, I particularly learned about racists acts. During that time, this

was the early… well the late [19]50s, early [19]60s and I was out there. Persons

hadn’t yet – segregation was still a real prominent thing. Through traveling about AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 2 the rural neighborhoods, we would encounter incidents of sometime mild racist conditions, but my granddaddy always managed to work through it without persons getting hurt. Called upon an occasion, a couple of them, where we were traveling and it was a bridge. We didn’t have a car. We used a horse and wagon.

As we were crossing the bridge, we got about halfway a guy pulls up in a car,

White guy. He told my granddaddy. He says, “Back that wagon up, nigger.” My granddaddy he didn’t get insulted or get off the handle about that. He just told the man say, “I think it would be easier for you to back that car up than it is to back all these, this team of horses and this wagon. So this man didn’t not take stock in that at all. He was adamant about making sure my granddaddy backed up the wagon. Well, here’s where sometimes you have to take things in your own hands. My granddaddy always had a four-ten shotgun, a riffle. He had a derringer with the trigger guard cut out and hang it in his back overall pockets and a .44 pistol under the seat. Well I knew that because he taught me what these weapons was hunting and doing different adventures. So the guy ran up to the wagon. My granddaddy pulled that big .44 out. He told him. He say, “Open your mouth.” [Laughter]. He put the barrel of the gun in the man mouth. The man eyes – his face got flushed. His eyes got big. He ran back to that car [Laughter].

He hurried and backed that car. Well you know, that was just an incident that it worked out well. No one got hurt. We had another occasion to where some of our relatives and they were stealing chickens and watermelons. It wasn’t like today where you can steal all these valuable things. They were stealing chickens and rustling cows, which was still a bad thing. Anyway, the Klan came and they put a AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 3 big cross in our yard and lit it. My grandma had passed, so nobody was but me and my granddaddy. He was sitting in the yard. The horses came thundering up.

They done lit the cross up. It was burning. My granddaddy say, “Son, close all those shutters.” Our house, the widows were held out by stick, but he had gun ports in each little window. Ran through the house knocking the sticks out the window closing them up. I got back to the door I’m like “Wow.” These people got hoods on. They on horses and they circling the house like wow, wow. I’m excited.

I’m like overwhelmed by this. I never seen nothing like that in my life. So my granddaddy said, “Boy, hand me that rifle out here.” I gave my granddaddy the rife. He laid it across his lap. Then, the one guy came up and he said, “Albert” – that was my granddaddy name – “You know where those boys are that’s been wrestling my cows, stealing my chickens and watermelons?” Gran said, “I have no idea. What you talking about? The only person I got here is too young to do any stuff like that.” He said, “Well Mr. Bob if you really looking for them.” How my granddaddy knew who this man was on that horse. I come to know that as I got older. It’s voice recognition. He said, “Mr. Bob, I got nothing to with it and nobody taking nothing. I don’t take nothing. The key to the whole thing was Mr. Bob and the rest of the crew knew my grandfather was a crack shot. When I heard my granddaddy say, “Now, two things can happen here. You can leave my property and go on about your business or somebody can die here today. Now y’all choose which one of y’all want it to be first.” Everybody really pulling up on the horse reigns. The horses stumbling back a little bit [Laughter]. I’m standing in the door. They went to stumbling back a little bit. So finally, they made a good AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 4

decision. It wasn’t no need for nobody to die that day. Even though, this was not

something that they should’ve been doing to us. You know, they shouldn’t have

been doing that, but it was that era. It was that time. That went on and happened.

But as I grew, I learned, you know, how to somewhat set myself with what

society had to build. I just hadn’t had other than those realistic instances of what

how overt this was. I did not realize how in place racist acts was until I grew and

got older. Then, my grandfather passed. Then I moved back to Gainesville with

my mother. Well, my daddy left. He was gone. He was a great guy. He worked

for Joe Peters Glass Company which is now Shay’s Glass Company which was -

I think they probably moved, but it was right there behind Krispy Kreme off 13th

Street. They were there for years. I even went in at one point as an adult and

talked to the guy. One of the guys, the owner of Shay’s, he remembered my

daddy. That was years down the road. Coming back to Gainesville…need to go

to school, so I went to A. Quinn Jones Elementary. We lived right across the

street from the school.

T: This was right near the campus of the University of Florida?

J: A. Quinn is close to… well, it’s not that far.

T: Okay. It’s off 8th?

J: It’s off 10th Street and 7th Avenue. So it’s relatively close. You could, you know,

they done built all kinds of apartments over that now that you could walk from

there to the University of Florida or either ride a bike. It’s just like right around the

corner. But anyway, growing up there, we were definitely impoverished. We were AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 5 definitely broke. I used to always ask my mama. I would say, “Mama…” You know, there was this… I think they got offices there now. Some of the buildings been torn down. They replaced our, what we called the “Smith quarters” has been replaced with a professional center there now right on the corner of 10th St and 8th Avenue. It’s still right across the street from A. Quinn Jones. But anyway,

I was going to school there and we were doing bad. Sometimes we get up. We didn’t have food. My mama would cook grits and she’d bake some bacon. Then, take the bacon and crumble it in the grits and feed us. Because she would always say we had to have something on our stomach to go to school with. My first year I didn’t fare too well. They held me back in first grade, which I didn’t understand how they were doing that because I thought I did everything that the lady, which I seen her yesterday. Her name is Mrs. Hill. She still living. She works at the Friendship Baptist Church Giveaway. She was there yesterday. That was my 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Hill. I still see her today. Yeah. She still living. Well we keep going and going and going. Finally, I get to about fourth grade and there was a guy that came from Chicago. His name Mr. Ronald Selly. He owned a corner store on 10th and 6th Ave or 6th Place. I used to go down there with my little pennies and stuff, and get my little cookies and come home. So one day, he was getting overwhelmed by the kids coming in stealing stuff from him. So he asked me he said, “Boy, I’ll give you fifty cents a day if you come and watch these kids from stealing me blind.” [Laughter] I said, “Okay.” I went home told my mama. She said, “Okay, boy.” I’d go down there as soon as school out I’d rush to the store and be on post. “Y’all ain’t stealing no honeybuns today. Y’all not AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 6 stealing no cookies today.” Now my neighborhood kids wasn’t too fond of me.

They didn’t like that at all because they’d be killing me. They’d been robbing the honeybun stand crazy. They wasn’t too fond of me for that. But I, you know, I bought – somedays I’d leave the store and they already be waiting for me outside. So what happened, Mr. Ronnie used to stop to walk me when I’d leave the store when it was time for me to go. He walked me halfway to where I get passed all the kids and I’ll go home. That’s how I – He helped me with safe passage. Because them kids were going to whoop me up, and I did get into some fights now. Oh man, I got into some terrible fights behind being-- but I worked there for Mr. Ronnie all the way up until I went to seventh grade. I worked with him for a number of years. He used to always make sure we had food. That was a resource because he would have the neck bones, the pork chops, and the bacon. He always fed me. Whatever he ate, he fed me. You know, he made sure that I had a meal in there when I … He say, “Well I made that some stuff he come from Chicago with. You know. You make some food and he would always feed me. He was good about that. I loved that man. But anyway, time went on and I couldn’t work there no more. My mother was still having hard times of course. My uncle lived in Jonesville, which was my mama’s brother. He had a moonshine still out in Jonesville. My uncle used to bring the shine over there to my mama house. I ain’t know what it was. I just thought it was water in a big jug you know [Laughter]. My mama said, “Boy, come here” said “I can’t lift the jug but we got to get this in these bottles right here, and I need you to take this stuff around here for Mrs. Maddie.” We called her “Mrs. Black Maddie” because she AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 7 was real dark and always wore a wig and it never was on her head right. I guess

I thought that was pretty funny she kept her – I don’t know if she ever looked in a mirror because I could tell from just looking at her the wig was on wrong. I go to my mama. She said, “Alright boy.” I had a little red wagon. She said,” Boy, get these three jugs taken them around there to Maddie.” Well you know, people hauled kerosene in those same type of jugs. You put shine it was just a little bit clearer. Shine is a little bit clearer than kerosene. The police station was right there were we lived. You know, 6th street, 7th Avenue, 6th Street, the police station is right there. The old, old police station. That’s some brand new stuff they got there. But anyway, the police ride right by you because they didn’t have that many. They didn’t have that many. They police just ride by. They only had maybe one or two Blacks working. So I pulled my wagon on down the road go to Mrs.

Maddie house, give her the shine, and she’d give me the money to go on back home. We ran that for a long time. We made our own home brew and stuff. You know like how I was saying about bootleg houses, so my mama started with a bootleg house. At the same time, we were running a Chinese laundry, which we had a nurse of somebody who my mama had did some work one time. Gave us a washing machine. One of those old kind if you messed around and get your arm stuck in that roller. Your arm going all the way up in there. I don’t see how peoples wouldn’t get crushed in that roller. You know what I’m saying [Laughter].

Because it had some pressure to because you pushed the clothes through there to rung the water out. We had our Chinese laundry set up in the backyard. We had students from the University of Florida that came over to bring there AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 8 underwear like whites and socks and stuff like that. Most of their others clothes they probably took to the cleaners but they say boxers and t-shirts and stuff they brought to us. We had one policeman that brought his clothes, but we had a conglomerate of people bringing clothes and every day we out there doing the

Chinese laundry. My mama had clothes lined from here to yonder, and we be hanging clothes out, taking them in. I iron clothes pretty good right now because I used to have to help her if she didn’t feel good or wrists would be hurting from – because we didn’t have electric iron. We had a metal iron that you had to put in front of the fireplace to get the iron warm, and sometimes that sucker would get real hot so you had to get a cloth to put round it, you know, get a moist cloth put round it. Then, you ironed with it. Aw man. That was an ordeal. Don’t let it touch you! Because boy, when I touch it, it going to take the skin off. Just like that. That was pretty grinding, a pretty grinding business, but we survived. We made, you know, you might pay seventy-five cents for your load a wash. Another person might pay fifty cents. Another person might pay a dollar but we getting that all during the week. Somebody is always coming to pick up clothes so we always got a little work going on. Well, you know, times grew. Then, the numbers game came to Gainesville. Well, it was already here basically. Just that, me being a youngster I did not know about it. My mother was approached by-- which was her boyfriend at the time. He was a - and today I would call him a gangster because that’s what they was. You know, they was gangsters, but you know, I just thought he was a nice man with a bunch of money. He always drove a Cadillac, so he AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 9

had encouraged her to start selling the numbers. That’s where I came in to play,

and I was about nine, eleven, twelve years old.

T: So you were born in [19]52?

J: [19]52.

T: Okay so this is close to the earlier [19]60s?

J: Yeah, right. Yeah, exactly.

T: Okay.

J: We start selling numbers. Well, I had to start going around to people’s houses to

pick their numbers up, so I learned to count really well because people, no matter

you a kid or not, they’ll try to cheat you. [Laughter] I mean, I only got cheated a

few times. Because I came home and my mama told me that she got to replace

that money that I didn’t get from them people I went to. That wasn’t a pretty sight,

so I learned to count real good. If you gave me, I’d count them numbers up. You

better dime up, five up, five cent there, ten cent there. When I get to the bottom,

I’m adding all that all then I’m going to add it again to make sure you gave me

your two dollars and twenty-five cents for these numbers. I go back home. Then

Saturday afternoon, they would throw the number, and they always said the

number came up cuba. Which I have today to really discern whether that was

true or not. There was this White man Mr. Haynes. He owned the store on the

corner of 5th Avenue and 8th Street. He always put the number up, him and Mr.

Fisher. Mr. Fisher owned, this is coincidence, his name coincided he had a fish

market. You know, Mr. Fisher was something else, and Mr. Haynes was too. Mr. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 10

Haynes had the Black police, which was Sergeant Lewis., and he was a bad

man. He killed five people, five Black men here in Gainesville over a ten year his

law enforcement time. Killed five Black people. Circumstances never happened

to him. Nothing! Nothing happened to him. He continued to do what he did.

T: Was he kind of a pariah in the Black - ? Was he sort of like…?

J: Yeah.

T: Okay in the community?

J: Yeah. Because if you didn’t do what he say, boy you was in trouble. If he came

up to you, gang wasn’t a big deal but there was some. Couple of little boys, you

know, fourteen, fifteen years old call themselves “Oh yeah we just that and we

this or that,” Sergeant Lewis wouldn’t have it. He come up on the corner and he

see bout three four guys standing on the corner. He say, “Boy, when I come back

around here, y’all better give me that corner.” He say it just like that. Don’t be

there when he come back because he ain’t no talking. So I knew if when they get

out at night, they can beat everybody. He was a big man, now. He wasn’t no little

guy. He was a big man. He was probably like six three, a good two-something. If

he got out that car with that nightstick, you better be trying to get somewhere,

[Laughter], because you going to get hurt. So he had a reputation of controlling

the Black community, in a sense. Everybody knew Sergeant Lewis. If you got

something going on, you say, “I’m a call Sarg”. Boy, they’d straighten out pretty

quick because no one wants to see Sarg show up at they house and they aint got

they things in order. Because either somebody was going to get beat pretty bad AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 11

and everybody might go to jail, so you don’t want to see Sarg. But anyway, Mr.

Haynes had his wife working in there. She worked there for years and years. As

time grew on, you know, I was enterprising in to the business of selling what they

called the “Grit Paper.” Came out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Well, I got the first

batch. I did okay, but then I had to send them some money, which I thought was

like man I’m working too hard to send these people this money.

T: It was a newspaper?

J: Yeah, it was a newspaper called the “Grit Paper.”

T: Okay.

J: Yeah, that ain’t in production no more. Been gone for years. Then, I also was

pretty good at doing that, so I got another bundle of papers from them. Well, one

day, there was this guy. He was blind. He was at our house. It was my last paper.

So I came in the door and I had been out selling. Man, I had sold all my papers

but that last one. I ain’t know the dude was blind, but I said, “Man listen this my

last paper. Man, will you give me thirty-five cents for it?” My mama looking at me

like “Why you messing with that man right there?” He gave me – he had my

mama had done got some money from him so he told her to give me the thirty-

five cents out the money, the change he had back. So he gave me, I got the

thirty-five cents. When he left, my mama said, “Boy, did you know that man was

blind? How he gone read that paper?” [Laughter]. I said, “I ain’t know he was

blind.” I’m just trying to sell my paper. Well, I don’t know what I could say this was

my first act of not cooperating with returning the funds, but I kept all that money. I AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 12

said man I’m not sending these people a dime. I’m keeping this money. I’m going

to the movies, eat popcorn – popcorn and the movies cost fifteen cents. Popcorn

was ten. So for a quarter, I can get in the movie, eat popcorn, drank snow cones

and all that. I had plenty of money to do everything [Laughter], so I wasn’t giving

them that money. So I went out of business. Well, the numbers game was still

going pretty good. I still had a pretty good little niche in that, so I was getting

money every Saturday for that. Of course, I worked for Dr. Smith. He owned the

quarters where we lived at, our house and all that. His wife used to come down

and inoculate us with a flu every year. Eyes was as dry as the Dead Sea when

Mrs. Smith come up because I know she got them long needles. I didn’t like

needles at all, but it was a good thing she was doing. She started my mama to

collecting the rent since my mama lived in the neighborhood because sometime

she come down there people wouldn’t even come to the door. They ain’t got that

five dollars or four dollars whatever the weekly rent was they ain’t have it. They

didn’t come to the door. She sent my mama to come collect the rent money.

That worked out pretty good. Some we had some altercations with some of

people. Had some of that, but it overall worked out. We got inoculated every year

against, you know, other than having to go to the health department to get

vaccinated. That’s mine right there.

T: Oh yeah.

J: I got a vaccination. It left a scar. Today, it don’t do that. You know, they go in now

and get the shot. They just give them a shot. They don’t do that, but years ago,

some people’s arm was like this. Some people arm was worse. Yeah, you can AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 13

tell the era people come from if you got that scar on you. You know what I’m

saying? Anyway, I’s went on and I went to high school.

T: Did you go to Lincoln?

J: Yeah, I went to Lincoln High School.

T: So that must’ve been sort of the last…?

J: No, I went there from seventh grade. Segregation still hadn’t changed now. I

went there in like [19]64 or [19]65, [19]66 or [19]67. Maybe [19]66, I can’t

remember exactly when I started there. I know in seventh grade. So, segregation

was still… Bad thing about what was happening at Lincoln High School was that

GHS, Gainesville High School, that’s where the new books went first. Lincoln

High School got the books from last year because, you know, you look in your

book and see somebody named Sarah Jane. [Laughter]. This book been used, or

you see… find, look through a book for a page when you’re doing a lesson and

that page gone. That’s some use. Not intentional molestation of the book, it was

just some use, and they were secondhand books. Here we are, you know, you

trying to some science. Well, you get down to the formula and it’s not there

because half the page gone. The teacher got to go to the blackboard and you got

to try to write it down and all man. You got to be something. So, I went seventh,

eighth, ninth grade. Well, let me see what grade I almost got to now. I got bought

ninth grade. I told my mama I said – because we lived on Eighth Street and

Eighth Avenue- I said, “I’m not going to keep getting bussed wayover there to

Lincoln High School when GHS right up there.” I said, “I’m not going to keep AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 14 doing that mama,” She said, “Boy, you going to go up there and you going to get killed.” I said, “No, I’m not. Them people can’t do nothing to me for coming to school. What they going to do to me for coming to school?” She said, “Son, it just don’t work like that. They ain’t ready for that yet.” Well, I think two students already that were ahead of me, Billy and Ricky Williams, had already integrated

GHS on a trial basis or something like that. Segregation was still in place. But, they was super smart kids. I mean they came from - there was only three kids in that family. Mama did hair. Daddy was a pastor, so they had good incomes. You know, pastors make good money even today. You know, hair salon you make good money even today. They had good incomes, so they parents were behind them. So yeah, they went to Gainesville High School. Well, came tenth grade, I said “Man, I’m going to GHS.” When the cards, they sent a card around choose what school you want to go to. I wrote GHS on mine myself. I ain’t wait on my mama tell me. Here we go. I get up inside the school. My mama said, “Boy where you going.” I said, “I’m going to GHS.” “Okay.” I gone up to the school. Well, it wasn’t that we were received really badly. It’s just that people wasn’t sociable. It wasn’t sociable. It wasn’t like really accepting that the word “Nigga” came out a lot. “What those niggas doing here?” That came out a lot.. But if you had stamina and me I had internal fortitude, I wanted to be where I was at because I felt in my mind I was going to get a better education than I was getting where I was at. That was my main focus for saying I wanted to go because I want to learn something.

I’m not learning crap over here at this school man. This stuff old, antiquated man.

These old books. These people got brand new books. When they give you a AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 15

book, ain’t nobody name in it. It’s your book. You got a book. It’s got all the pages

to it, so I went, went, went. Finally, we got to I think it was 1970, [19]69, [19]70

when they decided to start desegregating the school about [19]70, so actually I’d

already been at GHS already about a year and a half now. I already been there,

so I had acquired some White friends. Actually, I had a girlfriend at the school by

then and it was Shelly Roberts.

T: And that was a White student?

J: Yeah, yeah. She was a White Jewish girl. Our relationship came about in a

precarious way. You know, we was always rough housing, you know, in the

bathroom different White boys. We fighting all the time, but when you come out

the bathroom, everybody look like you got a bloody nose. You clean it up before

you get out. We in the bathroom tearing it up sometime. I’m taking about in the

bathroom. You know, don’t get caught in there by yourself now. You get stomped

in the bathroom [laughter]. But most of the way people got in there, they were in

there smoking. Smoking cigarettes. I had picked up the habit of smoking but I

couldn’t buy cigarettes because I didn’t have no money. So actually what I was

doing in there, tell the truth, I was in there taking people cigarettes and taking

they money because I ain’t have no money. I’ll go in there, catch me one of them

boys, and jacking them up on the wall. Shake them down. Take they cigarettes

and his money. Dare them to say something about it. Said “Because next time I’ll

catch you, you know what’s going to happen.” You know, extorting these kids.

But, I didn’t realize that was what we were doing. I didn’t realize that. I just looked

at it as a situation where I could get what I wanted when I need it. Plus in my AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 16 neighborhood, we were already little mini gangsters. We were already doing little stuff that my mama definitely did not agree with. She didn’t agree with some of the stuff because she would tell me she say, “You know you running with that boy Ike and Robert, Juke and Red them, they going to get you in jail.” I said, “Oh mama ain’t nothing going to happen. We good.” Sure nuff, 1971, [19]70 summer got out. I graduated in [19]71. Okay so that year came by. That summer, we had graduated from school and let me get it right here because I remember my friends were standing on 5th Avenue. My buddy Robert, he was one of those guys that his family had a nice property and all, so he had a car. We out like summer two o’clock in the morning. Hanging out, smoking weed. We on that sunshine. We all crazy. Robert pulls up and says, “Hey man, y’all know where we can get a lick done?” I said, “Ain’t nobody got no time for that foolish. Man, we got money. We got what we need. We got plenty weed.” So Robert, who was a slick New York. He came down here. He was on heroin when he got here.

[Laughter] He seem to do all the like. He died in prison. He ended up dying in prison. They gave him one hundred twenty-eight years. Been about thirty or forty years ago. He ended up dying in prison. Anyway, we all get in the car, and we go out on the University of Florida campus. We go to Diamond Village. Went to

Diamond Village. I had just got my driver’s license, so Robert backed the car in.

We all, me, Robert and my friend Lonnie, we sitting in the car. I saw Robert when he got that gun but hey that’s on Robert. We don’t understand the ramifications of criminal acts. We don’t understand until the District Attorney start to break the elements of what you did down into little increments. That’s when you get the AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 17 blunt of that’s happened. You say, “All man that ain’t got nothing to do with him.

He going to do his own thing. He the one trying to drive.” I heard something go,

“Pow!” We sat there for a minute. My buddy say, “Man Rafe, crank the car up” I said, “Why me? Y’all can drive. You can drive” He said, “No we ain’t got no license Rafe. You the only one that got a license.” I said, “Okay.” I crank the car up. We came around the University of Florida Police Department somewhat I think it’s still in the same area. We came up the road. Then, we came right back out to 13th Street. We came back around. We went down the curve like by

Shands. We came down that back road, where the dentistry part is. At that light, we turned came around. Then, we came back around and we went through

Diamond Village. There, I saw the guy laying on the ground. I said, “This fool done shot somebody.” Well, we saw him he had the hood of the car up. He was trying to take the battery out the car. That’s what he was doing. He was going to take the battery and sell it. Come on man. This is senseless thing. He didn’t have to do something like that. I hit. He said, “Man, you going to get Rob.” I said,” No,

I’m not picking Robert up! Better get away from him,” I say, “That man just shot somebody back there. I ain’t finna hang around here to wait on him.” So we leave. My friend talk me into making one more circle. Lonnie. He wasn’t even loyal to these guys. “Man, you got to go back. You got to go back. You can’t leave him man.” “Yes I can!” But with the pressure from him and little Bob, he was like nodding out so he ain’t really care. His heroin had kicked in. He didn’t even care. I pulled back around that same road to come back to 13th Street where the University of Florida Police Department is. The streets were blocked AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 18

off and guns everywhere. What! People got us out the cars. Back then, they had

the old county jails that was over there off of Depot. Took us to the old county jail

and interrogated us like all night long. I was so glad to go to sleep, but I ain’t tell

the nothing! I ain’t tell on me for sure! I knew better than tell. I said, “Man, I did

not have nothing to do with that. You can get your phone book out, beat me with

the phone book all that there, but it ain’t going to come to no results but what I

just told you. I ain’t have nothing to do with that.” So now, they put us on D-block,

which was up stairs. Hot! Its summer time. I spent fifty-four days up there. We

had lots of altercations among the inmates. You know, us and we were young

and there was old harden criminals up there.

T: Was the jail segregated?

J: Yeah. Definitely. Yeah. They didn’t put no… The White guys was on C. The

Black guys on D. Simple as that. Yeah. What they used to for us, they come

down because it gets too hot because it wasn’t air conditioned up there at all.

They had some pretty good food. The food wasn’t that bad. You could live off of

it, especially Sunday Dinner was great because they had some Black people

cooking in the kitchen. Sunday dinner was great. Man, big ole pot of mashed

potatoes, baked chicken, collard greens, bread, you know, good cold drinks.

Sunday dinner was good. It went on. I had a good instructor from Santa Fe.

Because Santa Fe used to be where 23rd and Main Street. Santa Fe had a

school over there back then for the heating, air conditioning and mechanics. I

was going to the heating and air conditioning program to learn heating and air

conditioning through that school year. There was guy there named Mr. Leopold. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 19

He was really… he was a midget. He had been a midget wrestler and he used to tell me all about his escapades. Sometimes I do it because I’d learn all these little tricks from him. Sometimes a person grab me I’d take the little finger and bend it back. They going to turn you a loose. He told how to take your hand. You put it right there in the wrist like that and press it. People going to turn you a loose. You know what I’m saying. He taught all these little tricks to us, but Mr. Leopold was a great man. He ran his own air conditioning company. He encouraged me to be a follower of that particular field. When he found out I was in jail, he came down there. He thought his clout and all could get me a little freedom: like get to be a trustee or something while I was in there. Came down there, the people said,

“Hell naw. You ain’t going to be no damn trustee. We ain’t putting no nigga out there as no damn trustee.” They only put people out there that was winos or alcoholics or something like that that was in them tanks overnight and then sobered up. That’s who cleaned and mopped the place. You had a gangster charge you wasn’t getting out there. But, here’s where the racists act come in at even in the jail. Now, there were two White guys that came all the way… they robbed they way all the way from Texas to Florida. Now, Mr. Leopold came and asked the jailers to allow me to be a trustee. They made them two jokers trustees. Now, they had been armed robbers. I mean ain’t no getting around.

They was straight armed robbers. So what they did, they plotted and planned.

They worked out there like the… At the same time, they procured them some scissors, some shears. So they cut the mesh that was at the front of the bars and the jail was old so the bars were right there. They just kept banging on them until AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 20

that mortar broke. They did another one when that mortar broke. They put them

back in so you couldn’t see it. Finally one day, them jokers left. They actually left.

I don’t know if they ever got caught to not, but that was the racist end of how

things were done. They would put two direct criminals, which again is somewhat

in place today. You know, guys do some atrocious stuff and come out a lot better

than my nephew who robbed a lady for thirty bucks. You know what I’m saying?

Anyway, those guys got out. Finally, my friend got caught. John Robert, he got

caught. He turned himself –

T: Oh so he wasn’t caught the night…?

J: No! No! They didn’t catch him that night.

T: Did the guy die?

J: No he didn’t die. The guy didn’t die. That was fortunate. Because if he would had

died, we would’ve had a murder case. They definitely wouldn’t had let us go. It

panned out, I was in jail for about fifty four days. Robert said we had nothing to

do with it. He wrote statement to that effect. So I had already signed up for the

Navy because I had did it on that delayed entry program during my school year.

So I was looking at as I’m getting to be deported for what I’m considering is the

escapade of my life. I’m finna get this aboard to go where I really want to go.

Because I really wanted to – there used to be a sign down that said, “Uncle Sam

Wants You!” Right on the court house, now they got a statue there that they

trying to make them move today. In that same spot that sign that said “Uncle AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 21

Same Wants You!” was sitting on that corner. They got a Confederate statute up

there they called him –

T: Old Joe.

J: Yeah. Yeah. I was down helping them protest about a month ago, maybe a little

longer. I was down there. I got some pictures on my phone of it. Anyway, that

sign was there. It looked the guy was staring right at me every time I saw it. I say,

“Well this for me then. I’m going.” That’s when I went and found out about all the

programs and talked to the people. They signed me up. “I’m ready to go.” Now

I’m in jail. Come on. How am I going to realize what I need to do? Again, Robert

he you know, gave the statement to the State Attorney. We had nothing to do--

which we didn’t! Except for go out there with him. We ain’t pull no trigger. We

ain’t do nothing but ride around the car so you going to convict four people for

one incident, which we were godly blessed not to have had that happen because

they could’ve done it. They could’ve done it. They had mechanisms in place. I

guess God didn’t want them to do that to us, so fifty-fourth day I walked out of

there. I learned a lot of other skills through all the other criminals that I spent

these fifty-four days with because they were car thieves. They were pimps. There

was car hustlers and dope dealers. You know, all types of inmates corralled up

with us. We were like eighteen, man. These guys been out here doing all kinds

of, you know, all kind of stuff. You know, when we go to the day room, which was

the only place we could go to, you know, get out of the cell, they sitting around

talking about they escapades of what they done. Your ears right there. You

listening. “Oh we made this much money. I stole seventy something cars and AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 22

sold them made this much money.” That kind of stuff. You know, they talking like

that. The guy got the women coming and pimping these women from the

business school in Orlando. Girls. So he got these women coming all the way

from Orlando bringing them…Because back then, you could bring food to the jail.

Now, you can’t even think about that because I think these White people came

up with this thing here. The lady baked a cake. Well, she didn’t put the bullets in

it until afterwards. She baked the cake with the gun inside of it. [Laughter] That’s

what she did. So they got this big red police; he greedy as hell. He always want

to eat some shit that somebody brought. And boy, he done seen this ole pretty

ass cake. Well, he had to have some. This big greedy ass guy cut in the damn

cake. Cut right on top of that gun and she took the bullets… After the cake

cooled, she took the bullets and put it in there. She put icing around it [Laughter].

That’s the last time people got food from outside that I know of because I got out.

I think somewhere the system had to change because people… I see people put

saw blades in the plates. You know of hacksaw blade?

T: Yeah.

J: There was this one guy. He had did a robbery. He was trying to get out so bad

because he know he was going to get thirty years. He had put the hacksaw up

his behind. That’s how he brought it in. Now, I couldn’t imagine doing that. I could

not imagine doing that. That’s real deal desperation. If you insert a hacksaw in

your behind to do something with, that’s real desperation. He in there at night on

the floor just sawing on the bar. He take the little dust, throw it in the toilet, and

flush the toilet. He was cutting. He was cutting. Well, the bar was about that thick, AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 23

a good couple of inches I would say. He had cut about halfway through sand

finally came time for him to go to court. He ended up going to Rayford anyway,

you know what I mean. He didn’t get his opportunity to get out. But I moved on.

From that point, I went to Jacksonville for the induction.

T: So the Navy never said… well I guess you never got charged so?

J: No! Never got charged. Plus, I did really well on the exam. You know, Navy exam

is difficult than the Army exam. Yeah. I don’t know how they do it today, but the

Navy from my understanding prided itself on somewhat of intelligence. You know

what I’m saying. It ain’t like they just going to take any Joe blow and say come on

in here man and we going to let you operate this missile system. They ain’t doing

that. You got to have some intelligence level to pursue being a part of the United

States Navy, which was of interest to me. The fact that I was going to get away

from Gainesville. I was going to get to go see a lot of places, which was aborted

on into my leaving basic training, which I talked about on another CD that we got.

T: On Telling Gainesville?

J: Yeah on Telling Gainesville, we talked about that. My tour went on. There was

some atrocious things going on that I didn’t realize that my opportunity in the

Navy was going to be so aborted. So undermining. So torn down by – because

again like I talk about, there were people from all over the United States:

Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Tennessee, Virginia, everywhere. Well racism was

still an avid activity. I mean unless you walked around with your head down and

said “Yes ma’am”, “Yes sir,” “No ma’am,” “Yes ma’am” all that. You know, you AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 24

could probably get by. Those people you were working for they took care of you.

But don’t be one that was an eye-to-eye man. You was an uppity-nigga.

T: Wow.

J: Yeah. That’s the way it was looked at because when Emmitt Till got killed, which

Emmitt Till got killed in Mississippi, he was about fourteen. They said he looked

at a White woman. That was it the allegation. That he looked at a White woman.

We today never know what aspired to the point where they killed this boy, but

that’s what happened to him. They killed him. I recall back when that incident

happened when we would go up town, me and my mother, and a White lady

would be approaching us, she would put her hands over my eyes. Now, I’d be

shaking my head like what, come on mama what. But I didn’t understand the

implications of what had with Emmitt Till. How dynamic that was overall to White

society. Because you know, White women was in this protected arena of “Hey

well don’t let them niggas fuck with you. We going to kill them. That’s it we going

to kill them. They out of here.” My mama told me when we get home. She say,

“Boy, next time we uptown and I put my hand up, don’t you move my hand.” I

said, “Okay mama.” But at the same time, I’m not understanding the ramifications

of what she talking about. But it was a fact that, I didn’t know that Emmitt Till got

killed for looking at a White woman, so she was shielding me. Because she was

saying, “I’m not going to let them kill my son for the same reason.”

T: This was in downtown Gainesville?

J: Yup! AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 25

T: Wow.

J: Right downtown where the courthouse is today. Right there where Old Joe

standing at. Because they had a lot of – in there where the brick area is over

there, there was a lot of stores that catered to like Badcock’s. Badcock been

around a long time. Badcock good to the Black people today. You can go to

Badcock’s and get some credit. A Black person could go over there and get

some credit. You want some credit? You can get credit at Badcock because they

good to Black people. Because Black people help made Badcock’s. Because that

was about the only place that you could get some furniture from. You wanted a

chair. You could get no chair from Walker Furniture up there on that corner.

Walker was exclusively uppity people. People with money. So, when we needed

a table or chair, we would go down there to Mr. Badcock, the man who originated

the place. Talk to Mr. Badcock. “How much could you afford a week?” A dollar,

whatever you could afford, Mr. Badcock bring out some tables and chairs out

there. You know had to paying them. Then had another guy came by called

Palm Furniture Company. He’s combined with a truck full of furniture. If you

needed pots and pans and sheets and linens and all that kind of stuff. He had all

that on the truck. He was a one stop shop. He mostly came through the Black

neighborhoods. You needed some sheets you can get him, pay him. He come

by, and put your name in a little book. You pay him. He marked the payment in

the little book.

T: Was it a White guy?

J: Yeah. Yeah. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 26

T: Wow.

J: And he was well received in the Black neighborhood because it meant that you

could get something without a lot of hassle. He coming every week. Every

Saturday, he’s going to ride through the neighborhood. You know what you done

got from that man. You paying. You can get some more stuff from him. Back

there, we used to mend pots. Like if the pot got a hole in it, you could buy a little

thing and you could put it in the hole, screw it down, and mend the pot and it

won’t leak. So you save your pots so you won’t have to keep buying pots. So

yeah, that was a great movement for Black people, particularly in my community

and communities in the Outlands. Because he did not just not come in what they

called “Smith Quarters,” he went somewhere of everywhere else too. Yeah.

T: And he wasn’t charging exorbitant credit?

J: No! No! You could afford the stuff that you got. If you didn’t pay that man, you

was just... the people in the neighborhood would get mad with you. You didn’t

pay him. You know them women; they talk. You know [Laughter]. You what I’m

saying. “So and so didn’t pay last week and you know we need that man to come

by here. We don’t need him to stop coming by here because she didn’t pay.” So

they would get together and talk to her and say something if she need some help

or whatever they could do to kind of get her back in good standing. Sometime

they would talk to him. You know, let them know she might just had a baby or

whatever and didn’t have no money. He might say “oOkay, I’ll let her go for a

month till she can get back on her feet.” “Get back to work or whatever she was

doing to make money to pay me.” And so it was good. That was a good thing that AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 27

was going on. I wouldn’t say fraternize with the Black women as much as the

insurance man did. You know, the insurance man was one of those guys that if

you didn’t pay him well him in another way. He would come by if you didn’t have

it he would say, “Well, work it out now.” He would tell the women. I done heard

him talking to women like that.

T: Like sexual favors?

J: Yeah! The insurance man was terrible. He was terrible. He was this guy he used

to always do tricks with a coin. Get the kids attention and come put the coin all

behind his ear, pull it out, behind his hand all that kind of stuff. Kids loved that

kind of little stuff man.

T: He was doing like life insurance?

J: Yeah. Life insurance because health insurance wasn’t thought of. It was like you

want to have something to help with your burial. Like, I have a life insurance

policy. Now, I’m paying an exorbitant fee for it, but I got one. I got one because I

know I got to have it. I go out of the way to pay my life insurance every month

now. As I moved along in the Navy, things were so too the point where I didn’t

see myself staying after all the incidents I ran into of racists acts. It was just overt

sometimes. You know, you get called a “nigger” right to your face.

T: Even coming from Gainesville, it was still a level of shock to it?

J: Tell me about it. I’m thinking about this organization is supposed to be like place

where you can go… It wasn’t even… Gainesville High School wasn’t even that

bad. You know, there was a lot of, I’m sure, families whose kids were from a AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 28

racist background. I’m sure it was. Sure it was. There was a lot of fights at

Gainesville High School based on racist acts. Never forget one time there was a

guy named David Deeds. He used to always bring a Confederate flag and put it

on the flag pole at the school, and put it up. So one day my friend, James Young,

Mom’s Kitchen – they now defunct and out of business which I can’t understand

how the city of Gainesville tore down a historic building like that. Just tore it

down. They didn’t make a monument out of it like they doing the Cotton Club

over there. When Mom’s Kitchen was the grinding force of the center of the Black

community here for feeding Black people and giving you good food at a good

quality price. White people came there too. Mom’s had White people coming in

there long before they went other places like Mama Lowes and all that. They

were coming to Mom’s Kitchen. Ma’s had some great food.

T: What neighborhood was that in?

J: That’s on 5th Avenue and… right on the corner of 5th Avenue and 10th Street.

T: That’s right around where you grew up once you moved back to Gainesville from

Jonesville.

J: Yeah. Because A. Quinn Jones right down the street. It all came about, Mom’s

them being there, through again Mr. Ronnie’s store got burned out and there was

another guy Mr. Jordan who had another store up on 6th Avenue and 12th Street.

He got burned out. Then, the store where Mom’s kitchen was at, we called it a

“Rockfront.” It got burned out. Then the cleaners across the street got burned

out: the Royal Cleaners, which used to steam my clothes. That’s where I took my AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 29 clothes to get them cleaned at, and they did a wonderful job. And the Mr.

Hendrix’s furniture store, which they got a little park there now, that used to be a furniture store. They got burned out. It all stemmed from a group called JOMO from Orlando, Florida. A guy named Jack Dawkins came to Gainesville and taught people how to make Molotov cocktails, including me. I can’t say I wasn’t a part of that. Jack Dawkins came and he sat up a regime of local guys. We also had guns. Guns was involved. We were marching up and down our neighborhood, and we dared the police to come because it wasn’t that many police. At that time, they didn’t like a slew of police like they got today. They didn’t have that many. The only police that could come in our neighborhood was

Sergeant Lewis. That’s the only one. We ain’t letting no more police coming because they get snipered the minute they turned the corner. Somebody shooting at them the minute they turned the corner. Pow! Pow! Pow! They getting out of there and they going back. The only person they was seeing down there was Sergeant Lewis because they knew…he already killed three four peoples.

We were kind of afraid of him anyway. He come down and kind of corral things up. Sometimes he see us. It be about fifteen or twenty of us. We be dressed in like military, not the fatigues, but we had our own uniforms and boots. There was a house. It’s off of 8th Street. They done built some new houses there now, but it’s before you get to University there on 8th Street. It’s in that area. Matter of fact,

I went to a friend of mine house there this morning talking with him. They... We had a meeting place there. We would go there and have rallies and all that. Plan the night’s event. What place we were going to destroy and all that and so on. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 30

Overall, what really happened, now, Mr. George, he wasn’t such a great guy.

You know. He would mark the books up on you. You went in there and got some

bacon and some eggs in there from him. He gone say you got more than what

you got because he writing it in the book. Called it “The meat and bread book.”

He writing it in there. You know he’s going to absorb you a little bit. So he wasn’t

a good guy. Mr. Ronnie kept things straight. You got a dozen eggs that’s what

you paid for; a dozen eggs. He was a clean cut kind of guy. The guy that owned

the Rock Front I never really knew him that much because I worked for Mr.

Ronnie and his store. I was pretty good. I always got good stuff. We had food

and that the little minis that little kids get, candy. He would give me a bag candy

to take home to my sisters and brothers. I was good, so I never knew that guy.

But anyway, Mom’s Kitchen used to have a place on the corner of 12th and 6th

Avenue where they would sell fish sandwiches. That’s where they started at. His

daddy Mr. Franks and Mama Lula that’s where they started. They would have

fish sandwiches and after people done came, they turned into a little juke.

Everybody was having fun hanging out, and so they grew. Finally, they acquired

that place, the Rock Front store. They moved in there and opened Mom’s

Kitchen. I helped move some chairs and tote some stuff around there to move

them in that facility. Matter of fact, I’m friends with the family members till this

day. Me and George and James and Earl. Earl got a barber shop on 5th Avenue

and… Well it’s near the end of 5th Avenue where Caribbean Queen is.

T: Fades and Fros? AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 31

J: No. He was a little further up. You got to go past the colony , the blunt center.

Right past blunt center is Earl Young’s barbershop. Yeah, I remember when he

opened the doors to that and all. Anyway, you know, I’m still appalled at the fact

that no one did anything to secure that legacy of those people. I don’t know

whether they family aborted it along the walk or not, but it got aborted.

T: I still see sign up at one of the houses down on the…

J: Yeah, it’s on the side of the house.

T: Yeah.

J: Yeah. That’s her son George. George lives there. Yeah, I moved on. Again, I

used to talk about David Smith. He decided… He was telling me, “Man you

bought time you nineteen, twenty years you’d be thirty-nine. You’d already be at

twenty years and you could do something else. But through all the bashing and

all of the racist’s overtones and over all of the racism I suffered, I said, “Man I

can’t do this. If it’s like this here, I can’t imagine if I go someplace else. Man, I

can’t do this for…” You know, they wanted to re-enlist for another three, four

years.

T: You sign up for three years?

J: Yeah I had three years in the military. And I said “Man I can’t do this. I have to

get out of here. This driving me up the wall. I can get away from these people,”

because on the ship, you can’t get away. I mean, I can’t get away from you. You

live up right there. You don’t like me. I wake up in the morning I see you and I

know you don’t like me just cause of my skin color. I ain’t did nothing to you. Just AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 32 cause I’m Black, you don’t like me. C’mon man. I mean I internalize that to be so asinine. I really did. At the same time, it grew me callous. Until I started to rationalize to be… Again, I’m talking to Mr. Smith. I started to rationalize that it was not, and he used to tell me that, “It’s not in your best interest to be racist.” He used to tell me all the time. “It’s not your best interest.” He would show me by not allowing people who perpetrated racist acts upon me to succeed. He would show me that. It’s not good because those people got aborted. They got reprimanded.

They got just what they needed because he knew the military Code of Justice front and back. You stomp your toe and you didn’t get it right. He going burn you.

I seen him do people just because he didn’t like the way they treated me, so I knew what he was talking about had grain. It had salt. It had matter. I tried to-- even though my Black counterparts they were always, “Fuck them crackers.”

[Laughter] You know what I’m saying. It was always, “Man I don’t like them crackers man.” They were always saying stuff like that, so you had bombardment from both sides. If you going to take, the only ground you can take is a neutral ground. What he was saying to me that it does not benefit to be, even from a

Black point of view or from a White point of view, to be of a racist mentality like

“C’mon man, I don’t like them people man” just because. And I took that and internalized. Start to do…and it had to come from… You know, I used to listen to

Martin Luther King his speech. His speech “Don’t judge me by the color of our skin, but by the contents of my character.” What I started to do in order to be neutral, I take people one on one by they character. See, then I don’t have to be prejudice. Your character will give you away every time. You ain’t got to worry AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 33 about it. If you a lying ass person, soon or later you going to tell damn lie that’s going to flaw you out. It’s going to bring you right out. You going to say, “Oh yeah, I did say that.” But that’s not true, so now, okay. Another occasion comes up and you come up some more crap. “Oh man, I was supposed to be over there man but I wasn’t there man. I was around the corner. I was looking and I saw…”

You know. Now, you got some more crap. Your character’s, now, starting to come into question. Are you a real person or are you a lying person? Now, you can start to see the difference. That’s what I do. Rather than pre-judge a human being and say, “Aw man, I don’t like them White people.” I’m meeting everybody.

Then, I go from there. I’m going to meet you and I got lots of friends from all kinds of walks. But I received them based on the character foundations that they present to me. Now, you going to get a whole lot of chances to bombard me with your bullshit. [Laughter] You not going to get a whole bunch of chances to do that. I’m going to kind of say, “Listen buddy...” I got some friends just like that but you know I keep them at a distance, but I don’t say, “Oh, I hate him.” I know his character. When he comes to approach me, I say, “Oh boy, here we go.” “How you doing man? Everything all right?” I remember one of partners the other day.

He been a friend of mine for years, but his character is flawed. But I don’t treat him fucked up because his character’s flawed, I just receive what he talking about and move on. The other day, I ran up on him and he say, “Boy, I just hit a lick for eight hundred dollars. I had a shotgun and I jacked it off and fired the rounds.” I said, “Really? You really did that?” This is a guy that don’t even need to do this. His family Jewish; they rich. Why would you be doing that? That tells AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 34

me right there that there was something wrong with that information that he was

giving me. I didn’t bat him down and say, “Oh man, you lying like a mother--”

[Laughter] I didn’t do that. I just took what I always had in my mind a character

that this person is. That he likes to pretend to be in this gangster arena. That’s

apart of having that stigma. In order to survive and keep that quality of where he

thinks he’s at that at alive, he got to come up with something. You know, you

can’t be a gangster and don’t do nothing. You got to have something that you’ve

done.

T: You saw that from the inside.

J: Yeah [Laughter]. You got to have something to, but that’s where I found myself,

you know, learning how to deal with people.

T: And David Smith, you talk about this on the Telling Gainesville. People can get a

lot more detail about your time in the Navy by listening and watching that. Smith

was an officer?

J: No, he was a first class petty officer.

T: Okay. This is when you were stationed in Pensacola?

J: Yes. I was on board at USS Lexington. I had altercations with different persons

and so on and so on. We got to the point where I had went and told the Chief that

the guy who was the tool shed operator had called me a “nigga.” Told chief so.

Chief gave and told me to a little, put me on another little crew had me working

and doing some other shit. I probably was sandblasting that damn asbestos shit,

but luckily for me I ain’t get nothing from that. You know the Navy ships all that AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 35

they talk about it on T.V. now that asbestos was a big deal onboard those

carriers in the ship…in the shipyard.

T: Was it usually the Black enlistees who got those kinds of…?

J: Yeah, yeah. If you worked anywhere around that shit, you could get it. That

asbestos ain’t got no color line on it. You worked in the bilges all that kind of shit.

Around them turbines and all that. All that old shit coming off them turbines. You

could get it. A lot of White guys were down in that turbine room. You know. We

called it the bilges cause it was always mud that deep down there. When they

punish you, they used to put you in the bilges to work. Yeah, that’s how the Navy

onboard the ship would punish you. Send you to the bilges and you be looking

like a mud man. You couldn’t tell who was Black and who was White. You

couldn’t tell because everybody was muddy. You got that oil and that gook and

stuff that’s down there where that engine right at, man. You couldn’t tell who was

who basically. Somebody wipe they forehead or something. So yeah [Laughter]

okay. Y’all thought that was burgess. Oh okay man I see you. You go like that.

Yeah Mr. Smith, he um…chief finally made his resolution that he was going to

send me to work in another arena. That’s how I go to come into the company of

Mr. Smith, which until this day I am glad that I had the opportunity to run into that

human being. Before that, I think that I would have had been obstructed from

having a really clearer view of society and social issues. I think he helped me to,

again, pinpoint how, along with again some input from theories that Martin Luther

King had, of how to not be one of those people. How to stand on the ground of

neutrality when you meeting human beings. Don’t prejudge, you know. Saying, AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 36

“Aww man I know that… Man, he ain’t going to do right.” You ain’t even gave him

a chance. You know I’ve seen some people do that and come out to be that the

guy was the best guy they could’ve run into, but they had already sabotaged his

character by just looking at him.

T: It sounds like you had a lot of anger at that time, which I imagine that a lot of

young men from kind of your station and… it was common.

J: When you’re poor…you know you’re poor, you’re being battered by barriers to

success because one was in the Navy they would tell...Well you know you had to

take tests to get ratings in the Navy. If you’re going to be third class you got to

take a test about that specific area that you’re going to work in. They will tell you

that the rating is closed. They ain’t taking no tests out. [Laughter] What you going

do about that? You don’t know that the test has not been closed. That’s some

shit they telling you. These upper echelon people, your first class and your chiefs

and shit that’s running around there. The only Black chiefs or first class that you’d

probably run into was in the kitchen. They worked in the kitchen. They was the

people that fed the ship. You find master chiefs doing that shit. Making the roast

beef and potatoes and shit for you. But, any other categories it was a rare

occasion to find a Black person doing something of a I would use the word

quality. You know like working on radios or you know working on the jets or

something. You know what I’m saying. They had the Black people catching them

damn hooks and shit. They in there getting killed by unhooking that jet from that

fucking… damn… arresting gear. The runners had to go out there while that jet

still burning and unhook that hook because the jets don’t just stop with brakes AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 37 now. Ain’t no brakes. It got brakes but if you don’t catch that arresting gear wide right there, its bad news. Its bad news because he done powered down. You only got so much feet in front of you… Our ship was on nine hundred fourteen feet long., so you only got so much distance to land and stop. I’ve had some really tragic occasions that I witnessed. You know. Sometimes I do have nightmares about these issues even today because if you ever seen a man dying, literally see a human being dying, that’s not something that you can forget. I don’t care what PTS doctor you go to. You know you have to cut that part of your brain out to remember that. I mean come on. People can tell you that you know they got all these advice and all these little entities of things that, but there is no way that you can take that picture of that human being. Your eyes took that that picture. You see this guy. Now, I’m watching this guy. He missed… he caught the arresting gear, but he didn’t catch it good enough. His plane swerved. Went over into the catwalk and over into the water. Well, we were all behind the island because that’s where there the start crew, which is where I worked on, we up there anywhere from ten to twenty hours a day, six to seven days a week. Sometimes we totally exhausted. When the plane went in the catwalk. We all, you know, we heard the siren go off and all that. We all get up to see what done happened.

There was the plane. Then next thing you know, it’s just hanging there and after a while they just fell over into the water. Well by that time, up to the side and I’m looking right at the canopy, there was this man I could see. If you press your fingers on a piece of glass, you could see the blood go out your finger. I was that close to this man. I was that close to him. Looking right down at him like that. I AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 38

could see his palms of his hands, you know, the tips of his fingers turning white. I

knew that he wasn’t going to live. That jet sink faster than a rock. You know how

many tons that thing weight? He ain’t finna come out and he couldn’t get the

canopy open. That’s how he went to his grave. Yeah. That was a… that was just

one incident of human life I watched get lost. That’s just one incident. You know,

you try to… When you come out and get back to your regular life, you don’t

realize how traumatic of an effect that had on you. You know what I’m saying.

People out here, you know, they killing all the time. All kinds of arenas they killing

all the time. In this instance, you got to categorize the death of this person

differently. It wasn’t… he was in service for this country. I was in the service for

the country at the same time, so I could have easily been one of those same

humans that went over the side of that ship. Those people that always

threatened about throwing somebody over the side of the ship could’ve threw me

over. I could’ve not made it back. You know, you take that type of death and you

put in in a different category but you don’t forget it. I don’t care how many doctors

you go to, how many people you see. Your mind is, you know…You know ABC’s

right?

T: Mhmm

J: You know your ABC’s all the way to Z. Can you ever forget them? [Laughter]

T: No.

J: You can’t forget them. If I could tell you, “Well we going to stop the ABC’s right

there. We going to stop at C.” Who going to tell you that? When you know better. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 39

You know that shit goes all the way to Z. So, you know, people have all these

scientific views of how to eradicate Post Traumatic Stress and how to, I guess,

some people claim they can get rid of Post-Traumatic Stress, which to me I tend

to not have a whole lot of confidence or faith in that. Because I know me. I still

see this guy. I can see him just as clear as day. You know what I’m saying? I can

see others that I know have gotten killed that I viewed watching it happen to

them. Not only there but I even got some traumatic views of people I walked up

on that had got shot right on the street. How they was tossing and turning back

and forth. When the ambulance got there, they took him to an area that they

could get a medic out by the jet copters. When I seen the helicopter flying slow, I

know that person dead. But, I watched him laying there, bleeding and got shot.

You know. I’ve seen it from both areas. That to me was tragic, but it didn’t have

the same connotations as it was when I saw this person, who was…we were in

congruent in the same type of situations. I wasn’t in that situation with him. I

didn’t go on and rob no body with him. [Laughter] He did. I don’t have no

comradery with them. This person, even though he was an officer, I was in the

same facility. Same type of things. Those same things could have happened to

me. Yeah, that bothered me quite a bit. Still do, I mean, I can’t get past that.

T: That’s interesting in the service there’s still that human element of comradery

through all the differences that you described a barrage of racism and also from

your Black colleagues –

J: Yes. Well, yeah man. You had to find yourself again, your own vehicle. You had

to get in your own vehicle. Because if you got with the Black guys, they got all AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 40

kinds issues. You go with the White guys definitely already got they kind of

issues. You can’t just ride in both cars. You have to find your own. That’s what I

think I’ve done. I moved on and I got out came back to Gainesville. My mother

had passed, so I didn’t really have nowhere to stay. I was staying with stepdaddy

and his girlfriend.

T: How’d your mom pass?

J: She had bone marrow cancer.

T: That was when you were in the service?

J: Yeah, she died… I had about sixty days left. I was supposed to get out August. I

got out July the 23rd. This was a few days early. I was in New Orleans and the

chaplain and them came and got me and said, “You need to go home.” My

sisters and them kept that from me. They knew wouldn’t have stayed if I knew my

mother was that sick.

T: Oh they wanted you to get like an honorable –

J: Yeah they wanted me to make my tour so they didn’t tell me They didn’t even tell

me until I got here: Gainesville. I went to see my mama. They say well they done

brought her from the hospital because ain’t nothing else they can do for her. I

watched my mama die right there on the bed in our living room. I watched her

take her last breath right there myself. I was sitting right there next to her. That

was tragic because my mama was only forty-nine.

T: Wow. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 41

J: That was young man. I ain’t have no, you know, like some people have family

ties that are really significant that, you know, your Uncle Joe ain’t going to let you

down. Joe gone be there and Aunt Belle going to be there. You know. She ain’t

going to let you down. Well, I didn’t not have a foundation of having those factual

basis in place for me.

T: Your family… Were you grandparents in Jonesville still alive?

J: Uhn-uh. My granddaddy, I watched him die on our front porch.

T: Wow.

J: He sat down one day in a chair and he didn’t wake up. Sitting there and was

nodding. We thought he was sleep. He was dead.

T: That was before you got back from the Navy?

J: Oh yah, that was long way back. He died pretty much right after I came to

Gainesville to start school. He was eighty-eight years old. He died pretty much so

after I got to come to start A. Quinn Jones.

T: Remind me about your father. Sorry if I forget.

J: Well my father, he was a guy here in Gainesville that had a skill. He was a

glazer. That’s how he worked with Joe Peter’s glass. They had a furnace and he

could take a little tube and put the glass on the end of it and blow all kinds of

objects. He would make shapes and make those things right there.

T: He was maybe a glass blower? AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 42

J: Yeah, he was a fan… he made a good living. He made a great living but he was

a sporter. That means I say that he was a guy they would highlight you know

what money would do. I think back then he was making about a hundred fifty

dollars a week.

T: That was good money

J: What! [Laughter]

T: Okay.

J: That was great money. My daddy came to the house. He had a brand new car

every time. Cars didn’t cost a lot. You know you could pay nine hundred dollars

for a new car. You know I used to go to by the show on [Inaudible at 01:20:15]

look at the sticker and it would say nine ninety-eight some stuff like that for a

brand new car.

T: Sounds like a toy these days.

J: Yeah man. If you get anything, I think Toyota the cheapest one I heard of was

ten grand. They got from DeLuca Toyota. But no, you could buy a car back then

for a little of nothing man. So my daddy kept new cars, and he was always was

sharp dresser wearing Stacey Adams shoes. Stacey Adams was always one of

those icons of Black men. Black people pretty much built… I would say it was

some of the central point of Stacey Adams coming up because my granddaddy

had Stacey Adams, but he had the kind that had the lace all the way up here.

The really old kind. That was kind of a staple Stacey Adams clothes and all

because you could order them through a magazine. You don’t have to go to the AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 43

store to get them, so they don’t give a damn what color you was then. They just

sending you some things out knowing you can pay for them when they arrive.

Then after a while they quit sending stuff COD. so you had to pay for it before

you got it. You know what I’m saying. Because people would get them and don’t

pay on it [Laughter] so COD went out of whack. But yeah, he was a real clean

guy man. He was like a lot of women liked him. He was a womanizing kind of a

person. You know.

T: So him and your mom were separated?

J: Yeah, yeah. They were separated way back but he would come, you know, and

see me. He used to come by the house because we were right. It’s a little ole

neighborhood. I mean it ain’t like you was like in New York and come way down

here. You was right round the corner man. My daddy had a heart attack, so he

couldn’t work for Joe Peters anymore. And so, he started driving safety cabs.

Safety cab was almost defunct down there right now. They got about two cabs

going. Back then, 5th Avenue was a real energetic-- I mean a lot of life. 5th

Avenue. I mean it was like this happening. All the time.

T: Kind of like the main street?

J: Yeah. 5th Avenue was like “wWhat?” It was going on, on 5th. If you wanted to do

it, you could go on 5th and do it. As a teenager coming up, they had a place

called Sarah’s. They used to have a jazz quartet and that’s where my likening for

jazz started because I used to sneak in there because it would be dark. You

know those jazz place smoking reefer. They used to call it “guage” back then, but AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 44

they were smoking reefer. So all the joker be in there, they be high. They be

high, so that place was dark. They aint paying no attention who coming in. I go in

there sit way in the back. They had a guy named Fat Poppa used to play the

drums in there, and then they had a couple other guys playing saxophones and

keyboards and stuff. Man that jazz just be playing man. I been smoking me a

joint too now. I’d sit there smoking me joint. I acquired a liking for jazz. Because I

had to determine what type of music it was. No body taught me. We knew rhythm

and blues: James Brown, you know, Al Green, and Lightening Hopkins. You

know them kind of people. Little Red Rufus and that kind of stuff. Those were the

kind of what they call “shindigs” my mama and them used to be talking about

going to. That’s they kind of music they be playing. That’s all I was, you know,

knowing. When I went in this place and started hearing this jazz, I was kind of

like “Man that’s real cool.” Then the guy take the saxophone and just go off on it.

I’m talking about he be down in that saxophone. Then after the while you come

out that stupor [Laughter], man was saying “Yeah we gone take a break. We

going to take break.” Oh okay, break time. Yeah, you better sneak out because

you going to start milling around they going to be “Boy, how you get in here? You

know you ain’t supposed to be in here.” So you got to ease on out the door, and

go on about doing what you was doing. That was my affiliation with picking up on

jazz.

T: Did they have people tour through there like from Chicago and New York?

J: They would have different entertainments in there from time to time. The family

called the McKnights owned that facility. The lady name was Sarah McKnight. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 45

Matter of fact, her son married one of my first cousins. Bobby McKnight married

my cousin Elizabeth. Yeah. My mama’s brother daughter… he married her. So

yeah, I kind of, you know, getting of what my mama called getting out my britches

now, starting get like you know I’m going up on the Avenue all the time hanging

out yeah man. That kind of grew and grew, and –

T: Can we... I was just curious before we got back to when you finished your tour of

the Navy. The organization JOMO, I never heard of them –

J: Yeah, yeah.

T: What was like the ideology of the group?

J: The idea was to… One, it was a destructive outfit to begin with. JOMO was Junta

of Militant Organization. Militant means what they talk about in El Salvador and

Bolivia inside –

T: Guerrilla?

J: Yeah, that’s the connotation of JOMO right there. Jack Dawson I’m sure since

long past. That organization –

T: That’s like a Pan-Africanist--?

J: Yeah we wore dashikis and all that all the time. Matter of fact, I got an original

dashiki myself. I got the original print and all that. Its old, but I still got one.

T: So he would come up to Gainesville and kind of recruit?

J: Yes, and mobilize the neighborhood against the White people coming into the

neighborhoods and taking over and buying this and buying that. You know See AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 46 now, if you go into 5th Avenue now, a lot of White people own property there now.

You go up and down 5th Avenue… Matter of fact, an ex-policeman Larry, which… me and him know each other because I lived in that area coming homeless plight. I moved into that neighborhood which was not really good for me and my son because it was drug ridden, but it was convenient to get where I needed to go and not having a vehicle; everything was kind of central. I could get to the VA.

I could get to the hospital. I could get to the stores. You know, but my son really never stayed there with me. He used to stay down the street with Ms. Carter, which we went by her house yesterday to see. He spend some time but all the other kids had gone to different areas with they parents and stuff. But anyway, she got killed in my second on sought of being homeless. But I’m a go back. I got back to Gainesville I went to I started to go to Santa Fe. On 83rd built, they had built a new one because I went to the Thomas Center too back in the initial. I went there and I took the… They gave me a fireman exam. So I’m a Navy guy.

When I don’t know about fire, we fight fires everyday even simulated ones. They make up some fires. [Laughter] Because a fire’s a bad thing on a ship, that’s a bad thing now. They make up fire. They make up people getting hurt and all that.

You go to do CPR and all this good stuff, so you get a well-rounded training on a continual basis of how to fight whatever kind of fire come up. A jet drop you ain’t putting it out with no water. Jet fuel ain’t going out with no fire. You better have some foam. Smother that thing that’s what you need, so they got to bring out these foam machines and foam that thing down before that jet go Ka-boom!

Then, you got a real fire going on, so they teach you that. I went up and took the AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 47 firemen’s exam. It was about forty people. Well, only three of us passed. Three people got picked out of that, but unbeknownst to me, nepotism was a big part of the City Of Gainesville. They have somewhat eradicated that now. I don’t think they completely got rid of it because if you look at the GRU crews you see how many Black guys going up them poles. All you have to do is pass by a GRU crew anywhere. If you see a Black guy on a piece of equipment, boy, I mean he earned it. Because you won’t see it. I still see City of Gainesville of having a lot of work to do. Now, they have, you know, the city manager that they got… I saw a picture of him. He looked Black, but I do remember when they did have a Black city manager, Mr. Paul White. They caught him snorting cocaine up in there in his office [Laughter] Got rid of him. Paul White was something else. Fraternized with the women and all that. Got rid of Paul White. That was the one Black man that they had. Then they had operations manager that was Black when I was there working for the city. Then the police chief became Black, which we got a Black police chief now. You see what I’m saying, but he’s not well respected among the peers from what I could see because he got some cowboys out there. You I talk to him because Tony Jones when he was going to the University of Florida taking criminal justice over there. He used come to the print shop to have his work

Xerox and printed and stuff the little papers he had to turn in and stuff? I did that for him. He ain’t forgot it. When he see, he know me. When he see me, he now exactly what I did. Okay? Tony Jones. But um, I’ve talked to him just like you and me sitting him Ryan. And I say to him, “Man, you got some gangsters on the street because I run into them.” You know what he told me one day. He say, AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 48

“Rafe, I know it,” he say, “But you know I’m working on it.” You can’t just take this

White guy job and threw him away from allegedments. You can’t do that. You got to have some concrete allegations. Now just here about a month ago, I’m at some friend’s house. Police can pulls up. I had gotten out of my car to walk to the trunk of the car, and the car stopped in the midst. They didn’t pull up in the drive way. They stopped side of the road. He said, “Hey, you live over here?” So that got my attention, so I walked to the car and said, “No, I don’t but I do have a residence in Gainesville.” I said, “So what’s the problem officer? Well, why would you want to know whether I lived over here or not?” Well, this that and the other.

We chit-chatted about that. I said, “Well, you know, y’all probably got some problems that y’all need to be looking at yourself because I just passed by the police department and there’s a veteran cop up there talking about the corruption and all the stuff that y’all got going on within your department.” They ain’t think I’d bring it to them like though. [Laughter]They hurried up and eased on down the road. Forgot all about why they wanted to talk to me, you know what I’m saying, when I brought that up to them. You got a guy standing out there, “He just a…” I say, “No he’s a veteran cop just like you. Why was he out there with a sign talking about the internal corruption that goes on in the City of Gainesville Police

Department? Give me an answer about that.” They eased on. That would get you going. They forgot about all what I was talking what they wanted to talk to me about. The harassment element of probably what they was going to do ended when they found out that I wasn’t a stupid ass person that they reached over and grabbed. So they eased on. That was just a recent incident man. Recent. Like I AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 49

say, I talk to Mr. Jones and I always tell them in a private communication, “Ay

man, you got some bad boys out there. Got some bad ones.” They just pop up

and you don’t get them. You don’t get them, but they doing what they do. I used

to have when we became homeless…After time went on and I came back to

Gainesville here, I didn’t graduate from Santa Fe. I went to a year or something

out there -

T: But you passed the test?

J: Yeah, I passed the fireman test. I went down there. Them people had me go to

the oral review board. Right there on Main St, where it’s at now by St. Francis in

that same building, went in there the only Black guy they had was Bernard Beaty.

He was a fireman. He was on the oral review board. I go through. I could tell

them anything they wanted to know about a fire. I could do CPR. I could do all

that, but I did know with the nepotism that they had already picked one of the

cousins of the person that was there to work. All they was doing was exhibiting

the job to the outside so that the shadow would be casted. That’s all they was

doing. So from there, a week went by. Bernard lived in Gardenia where I lived at

over off of Northeast 8th Avenue and I think about 18th Terrance. That’s where we

lived at Gardenia Gardens. I was staying there with one of my sisters. I seen him

one day about a week later. I said, “Man, what happened? I know them boys ain’t

know what I knew. They ain’t been in no military. Them boys just came off the

street. You know what I’m saying.” He say, “Rafe, I’m going to tell you the truth.”

He said, “They already had it picked out. You wasn’t going to get it anyway.” I

said, “Man, that’s tragic.” That right there knocked me out of a career I could’ve AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 50 enjoyed doing in civilian life because I had the skills to do it, so I didn’t get that. I end up, the way I got in with the city, I started to work as a mail courier for interoffice mail through what they called the Cedar Program. Three dollars and thirty-five cents an hour or less. Three dollars and ten cents an hour. Yeah, I stayed at the Place Apartments over there off of right across from the campus.

Used to be the Place Apartments right across from Tigert Hall where the art gallery is. They done put brand new stuff there now. Saw the place gone. They done put brand new stuff there now. I stayed in one of them apartments. So, I did the mail. There was a guy, Mr. W.W. Browning. He was about to retire. He was sixty-five, but he wasn’t going to retire until he got sixty-six. He had colon cancer.

They had took out some of his colon. He was an alcoholic. He liked the Wild

Turkey because every day he came in he was shaking like a leaf of a tree but he was a supervisor. He ain’t have to do nothing but sit up and read the paper all day. You know what I’m saying? That’s what he did too. Sat up and read the paper day, and go to the window and talk to all the ladies that came by from the different departments and knew him from the years he had been there. He established the print shop, Mr. Browning, he established. Well there was another guy, Dawn Lee from Columbia County. Now, that’s not a good county. You got three of the most racists counties from the statistics is. You got Polk County number one, Marion County number two, Alachua County number three,

Columbia and Taylor county on down. So Columbia County is not a great place to be caught. Not me. I don’t want to be in the dark over there in Columbia

County. You might think I’m a deer or something. I ain’t trying to get played like AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 51 that out there. So those counties out there ought to make sure…Now, not to say that there’s not that same element in other counties, which it is. Those have been the ones that have raised the biggest red flags that I’m giving you today. So,

Dawn Lee was from Columbia County. His daddy worked at the Marion County newspaper place, so he taught his son how to print. I was just watching Dawn print all the time. So I asked Mr. Browning. I said, “Mr. Browning, how much does he make an hour?” Because Dawn wouldn’t talk to me. Mr. Browning say, “Get the bulletin paper. It will tell you how much he make.” So I got the paper ready.

He was making five dollar and seventy-four cents an hour. Now, I’m making three ten. That’s a nice little raise for me. I told Mr. Browning one day, “Man I want to be a printer.” He say, “You do?” I said, “Yes sir, I’d sure like to learn how to do that.” My guise was I want to get that job that pay five dollars and some change an hour because that would help my life. So he say, “Well, I’ll tell you what. You can take your lunch hour. You can’t do this on city time. Not going to do it on city time…” People was doing all kinds of shit on city time, but he was giving me these directives. People going off the coffee breaks and driving city cars and doing all kinds of crazy. They still probably doing it. I see city cars everywhere now. It ain’t nothing they just colored different. I still see city cars. You see them going through the hamburger stand and all that to the restaurant park the trucks and stuff. You still see them doing that. You out there on 75. [Inaudible at

01:38:34] Don’t know where that damn truck is. You know what saying. You know all them trucks ain’t got no GPS and all that shit in them. See so, anyway,

Mr. Browning told me say, “Ill teach you” He started. Every day for lunch I stand AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 52

by that machine and man. I had to keep a different set of clothes because he

have me clean the machine up so Dawn would have it ready for when he come

back from lunch. I only had thirty minutes a day to mess with that machine. Did

that for a year and a half. Until one day, he say I’m going to give you your first

job.

T: Were you getting paid when you were doing that?

J: Unh-uh. I wasn’t getting not a dime but my three dollars and ten cents. I was

doing that for a year and a half during my lunch hour. One day he say, “Well you

know, I’m going to retire now. Sixty-six years old,” he said, “I’m going to tell Wes.”

Mr. Wes Montgomery, I think his last was Montgomery too, but I know his first

name was Wes. He would say, “I’m going to tell Wes that I want you to have my

job Rafe. You know I ain’t never did nothing for a Black man in my life but watch

them get hung on the courthouse square. I’m finna be moving on and the last

thing I’d like to do is I want to help.” That was one of his last types of well I’m

seeing so much injustice done which he had to have seen –

T: So he was a White guy?

J: Yeah he was White. Dawn was White too. Peewee went on. I got the job. Now

guess what? Dawn became the supervisor. But what Peewee had taught me, he

had taught me well. We only had one machine. I used to crank that machine up

and let it just run by itself. I got good in there because I wanted to be this person.

I got so good until I could just stock the machine up. Job done. Job done. Dawn

would be sitting back with the newspaper now. [Laughter] You know what I’m AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 53

saying. Working my Black ass to death up in there, but it didn’t matter because it

was easy work. All I’m doing is putting this paper in this machine, setting this

plate up on it, inking up the machine, putting the PH balance in it, turning it on,

get the suction right, and the shit’s done. Now, I’m making five seventy-four.

Starting to come up. Then, we moved out to 39th Avenue. Then, we got two

machines, so Dawn hired another guy to help print. Now, I’ve been working there

five years. Dawn want to put this guy over me. Here come the crap. This where

the crap come in. So I’m working, Dawn and them start opening their own

company up using city material to run their jobs. Yeah, right in the shop. They’ll

stay there after work, and do whatever print jobs he had from the outside for

themselves. They run the city stuff. Yeah, that wasn’t cool. Because I’ve been

there all this time and doing all this shit. Working like hell. Now, I done bought a

house. I bought my first house over on Southeast 8th and 4th Avenue from a man

named Mr. Phil Gaino. I acquired that property through the fact that while I was

working for the city I got a Florida real estate license.

T: Wow. You doing a lot.

J: Yeah, I got a Florida real estate license now. I went Rodgers Real Estate School

which is located on 13th Street and 23rd right before you get to 23rd, right across

from Adam’s ribs and all that, yeah, dollar general store. Mildred Rodgers was

my instructor, ad that was a whole nother series of stuff. Because when I went

there, it cost one hundred forty dollars. That was a big class of people. Well, after

everyone got left she said-- because it was only three Black people in there: me

and two girls. One of the girls worked in the housing department for the city. Mrs. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 54

Rodgers say to me, “Sir, can I speak to you?” I say, “Yes ma’am.” She said, “You

know sir, this is going to be a real rigorous, highly intense course for eight weeks.

Now, do you have a family?” I said, “Well, yes.” But I didn’t because you know,

my son was with his mama. He come on the weekends or when I had an

available time to hang out with him. He was younger than Akil is.

T: So this was the late or mid [19]70s?

J: No this was in…I got my license in 1981. I went to the court of flags and got

license. You had to wait a year to go down and take the test. I think I took the

course like around [19]79, [19]80 somewhere in there. Then I had to work in the

business for a year. I worked for Mrs. Rodgers and them. My point being was

this. She asked, “Do you think you can accomplish this course?” I said. “Well how

long have you been teaching it” She said, “Well, I’ve been teaching this course

about twenty years.” I said, “Well if you been teaching it that long. I think I can get

through this course.” She was questioning my ability which for one, that kind of

got under. You don’t talk to me like that like my brain is not good. Don’t do that.

Don’t play with my brain because you don’t know how good it is. You know. Don’t

play with it because it will come alive on you and do something where you say

“He knew that. How he knew that?” You know what I’m saying?

T: Do you think that she had that conversation with other people in the class?

J: No! Absolutely not! It wasn’t but three Blacks in there. Everybody else was White.

She ain’t stop none of them going out the door. But here we go. Going to course.

Class getting thinner, thinner, thinner! Every week somebody ain’t coming back. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 55

I’m steady coming because every night I went home I read that book religiously. I

read that book. I read it. So I knew it backwards and forwards. Came time for the

end of course exam. Her husband gave the exam, Mr. Dick Rodgers. His name

was Richard. Mr. Rodgers gave the exam. Day the exams come back, “Well

everybody she going to tell you if you all passed.” He started out call out the

White guy he made a ninety-seven. She call out another White gut he made a

ninety-two or something like that. He said, “This next guy I’m going to have to

change my course. Now, Mr. Rafe Johnson, will you stand up? This guy made

the third highest grade in my class. I’m about to change my course.” He was still

playing you know. He was just playing, but he was making it like. Yeah, I made

the third highest score on the end of course exam, you see. Then I worked for

them doing different little stuff. Picking up real estate signs and being active to

keep my tenure running so I could take the state board. Well Mrs. Rodgers

daughter had went down there six times.

T: And didn’t pass?

J: Didn’t pass! Okay [Laughter] She might have been done got her license now by

now. I went to the state board; the Court of Flags in Orlando, Florida, and man,

that test was tough. The test was three hours long and they asking questions like

“Farmer Brown bought this property from Sister Jackie and Jackie didn’t have

this. Then she crossed the rabbit with a duck, and the duck took the money and

ran.” All this kind of ole crazy stuff on the test man, and the paragraph this long.

You have to read all this garbage and sort out what the right answer is. You only

got four. So boom, I do that. Pass. Come home one day, thing came in the mail. I AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 56

got a seventy-one. I didn’t get a super score because my old lady started to be

promiscuous about different issues and doing different stuff. She had distracted

my concentration from being able to study like I wanted to. You know how

sometimes you have an outside agitator. You just can’t concentrate, but I still

passed first time. Now, it’s time to take the brokers course and get me a broker’s

license. I started to work for American Realty. I went over to them with a guy that

worked with the city, and we all was doing pretty good. But I couldn’t sell no

houses because of the times. I started doing property management for the office

and I was doing really well. I started a landscape company, and my broker gave

me all the equipment. All he told me to do was he wanted me to do his yard and

didn’t charge me. He bought all the equipment because he was rich. Riding

lawnmower he had he already had that. The peripherals was nothing a hundred

twenty dollars here and a hundred forty dollars there. It was nothing. Rakes and

hoes you could get anywhere. He set me up, so I was doing all these properties

because he we had a monopoly on our listings of yards that needed to be cut. I

got them all. I was making all this money. That year I know I made fifty grand.

Because I made twenty something thousand working for the city, and I made

another twenty-five thousand working in the real estate business doing properties

with my lawn business. Then I started my own novelty company at the same

time. I made another ten grand doing that stuff I do right now. I show you one of

my cards?

T: I got the J.J. Entertainments? AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 57

J: Yeah! Well see, I was doing that business back then. This is not new. It’s just

revamped and wordy that’s all. I was doing that business –

T: What did you call it back then?

J: It was Balloons And Novelties Company.

T: And now you call it…?

J: I got to look on the card again.

T: I just know the email.

J: It say Glow Entertainment and Novelty. That’s one of my cards right there. I don’t

have no help. I don’t have money to webpages and all that. I’m coming from

really a low end of things to come up. Again, my son was born, Akil, and his

mother was on opiates.

T: Opiates?

J: Yeah, opiates.

T: Okay. Prescription medicines?

J: Yeah but she didn’t get them prescribed. She bought them off the street.

T: Like Oxy?

J: Yeah like Oxy’s and Percocet’s and all that. When he was born, they had

checked him and that’s what had happened, so they gave him to me. But I had to

fight because by then I had this horrendous criminal history. You know, from the

checks and going to federal prison and that. Being locked up in all these different AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 58

towns: Jacksonville, Miami, Ocala, Tallahassee. I’ve been in jails in Court City. I

been in jails all around the state of Florida at different times carrying out my

trade. You know what I’m saying? The old way of doing business is jail.

T: Can you talk about how because it sounds out at this point. Where are we here

when you were working these three jobs? You were working as a printer for the

city, then you got the landscaping, then you go the real estate. That puts us at

about the mid-[19]80s or so?

J: Yeah about [19]85 and I was in the Army Reserves too at that time. I was doing

weekends in the Army Reserves too. I was getting a hundred twenty-three dollars

a month from them. So I was really doing well. Okay, and then here comes the

racism. On my job, Dawn done started to put this other guy over me. Well now,

he’s coming out giving me the jobs to do and he doing what he want to do, and

also doing the work for them. He ain’t got time to help me really do what the city

want. He doing what they need, but I’m in the Union. So I go to Mr. Wes and I

say, “Man listen, I can’t take this man. I’ve been here longer than this guy. They

over there doing what they want to do and they give me all this other work to do

and I ain’t getting no help.” Dawn always complaining about the work not getting

out. Well, the work ain’t getting out because they doing what they want to do in

the job.” Mr. Wes went over there and raked them through the coal, so now

Dawn get vindictive. He get vindictive because he think like I told on him. That’s

what he’s saying that I told on him. But it was wrong what they were doing, and

they were treating me like shit. Now, they get rid of the other guy because they

find out the dealings with they own little building and got rid of him. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 59

T: The city did?

J: Yeah. But Dawn stayed around because he was in the Union, and him and the

union president were like that. So the Union president salvaged his ass out of it.

Anyway, they got this lady in there that didn’t no shit about printing. Told me to

teach her. She came from Alachua General Hospital running shit on little copy

machines and shit. She didn’t know about nothing no ABDix360 or no multi-lift

machines, how to burn them cameras or burn them plates. Dawn would be

reluctant to try to show me anything because he wanted to keep that hand. I say

he’s from Columbia County. He was something else. He was a master at that

bullshit that he was doing too. Anyway, he got the girl in. She had this beautiful

rear end. White girl too. I said “Damn she built pretty damn good.” You know

what I’m saying. Dawn got to liking that rear end of hers. He started cheating on

his wife with her. Now comes the problem, he got to get rid of me now because

she ain’t got a permanent job there. She’s on probation. In order for her to get

that job there, she got to get on permeant. They can’t have but one permeant

person. Now, here comes the bullshit. Dawn would be the person that kept the

time of when you came in and when you left. Well, here’s my big point. I always

had the key to the door to let everybody in. Every morning if I wasn’t there you

couldn’t get in. I was the turn key guy. I couldn’t be late. I never was late to work,

but Dawn construed it on my sheet that I was tardy three times in one month and

the city fired me.

T: Wow. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 60

J: Yeah. That’s how he did me. He did that. Now I got a new car. I just bought this

house. My only other constructive enterprise I could go to was to go sell real

estate which selling real estate for me wasn’t good. Everybody and they mama

had real estate license back then pretty much, still do today. Now I’m losing stuff.

Getting behind on my car payments because I ain’t get my check no more. I ain’t

getting that nice paycheck every two weeks now to pay my bills with: Car

insurance, house insurance. You know all these expenses I got. I can’t pay them

no more, so things started to crumble. I lost my house then they repossessed my

car. Things just went all to hell just behind that.

T: Your kind of own your own family wise?

J: No. Well like I said, I don’t have those ties. Particularly, my family members are

all struggling just like me. You know because they came from the same mama.

The same poor set up. You ain’t have no body help to say “I’m a give to five

grand to go out here and make your life out of it,” or to help you, or you having a

problem how much you need to get out of that. I ain’t have nobody doing none of

that kind of stuff. You know there some families you get in trouble and say, “I

need six grand Pop.” “Well boy I’m tired of digging you out of shit but meet me a

bank tomorrow. I’d get the damn money.” I wonder if this shit happening no more.

That’s the kind of conversation that some parents having with they kids who done

fucked up. I hadn’t fucked up. This social structure had fucked me up. The social

structure of how things really worked. This man done lied. Now I’m in the Union.

Him and the Union president are together. I paid dues all this time. The Union

president didn’t speak one word to help me because he was from Columbia AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 61

County too. They ain’t help me at all. I wasn’t supposed to lose my job over

there. No. I’m out in the street. I lost everything. Start doing some drugs. Started

hanging around because I lost everything you know. I ain’t got no place to go.

You can’t go to you sisters house and say, “Oh let me stay here two-three

months until I find a job.” They struggling too. They got to feed you…I’m on my

own. I go and get in streets and start doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Start messing

with women taking them to the truck stop out there on 75 because when they go

out there they going to make so much money. I’m going to get a percentage of

that every day, but that still does not cover, you know, a viable living. It don’t do

that. That money there don’t do that. Now, I had a couple more cars. People

came and repossessed them too because I hadn’t finished paying for them. I

done lost down to nothing man. I had one car and I was using it to drop these

girls out there on the truck stop with and getting a little money. That didn’t last too

long. Finally, I end up in court. End up in the newspaper, said I was “White

slaving and pandering the women” that’s how I got in court to the point where the

judge told me he was gone either give me twenty-five years if I didn’t leave

Alachua county.

T: That was Yon?

J: I forget which judge it was, but it was one of them dirty motherfuckers up there.

They were dirty man. It was one them. Anyway, I ended up leaving. I went to

Jacksonville.

T: Did you know anyone in Jacksonville or was it was the nearest…? AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 62

J: What I knew, my uncle had a gas station over there but he was dead. His old

lady name was Ophelia. I knew where she lived at. I’d go to her house, but I

wasn’t staying there. I went there in the streets. I stayed at a place called Trinity

Mission. Then I stayed at place called New Life. Then I worked for a place called

Personnel Pool then got me a little nest egg of money. I stayed at the mission I

didn’t have to pay. Then I got me a room. Then I started in the streets there

because that’s what I know. Jacksonville is a huge place and the bus system

didn’t run that well. I didn’t have no vehicle, so the only resources I could have

was the immediate crap that went on around me; drugs, whores, this and that,

gambling that kind of stuff. I started at a little pool hall. One night I met this girl

who was already a night person doing what she do, she ain’t have nowhere to be

so I took her with me. She started going out making money. I started queuing her

money. Kept going and going until I had about five or six of them doing that

because I would take really good care of them; as far as, when I got money, I

would make that they had clean clothes, food, all the little amenities that women

need like feminine stuff. They ain’t really give me no problem until maybe one of

them went off and got high. Somebody sold them some drugs. Then, I’d have a

problem because they would spend all the money with whoever that person is. In

most instances, they always came back and they realized the value of having

someone to the point that they had someplace to come back to. So I basically

just managed the situation like a business. You come make sure I get money to

pay the rent here. I’m going to show you = when I paid it. There was the receipt

of the rent paid so you can still come in this door. You go back and look in the AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 63

refrigerator. At some point, I’d tell one of the girls go back there and cook a meal

so once everybody get in they got something to eat. That was, you know, like

comfortable for them. It worked well for a good little while. Times went on before I

left here. I met this guy named Robert. He was in the check cashing business.

One day we was out at the Stammer’s Shopping Center and there was this truck

this carpet company that had the windows down. Robert peeked up in there and

saw the carpet company’s checkbook. He ain’t take the book. He just tore pages

out of the back of the book. Akil!

U: What are you talking about?

J: Outside. Anyway, he tore pages out the back out the book. We went around and

he was cashing them. With that criminal activity that done happened, I had to

leave because I knew sooner or later that was going to catch up with us. Get to

Jacksonville was cool with me. I got over there and I go to … The women

business got kind of shady there, and I met these guys that were stealing copper.

They were robbing different facilities for the copper. I got in on that team and we

took a lot of copper and made a bunch of money every week. I’m still leaving in a

room. I don’t know nobody really, but these criminals I’m working with. We

always just throwing away the money that we get all the time.

T: Just getting…?

J: Yeah getting high and all kinds. Messing with and paying the women that we

prostituting with and all that. You know just general messing the money up.

T: Can I ask what the big drugs were at that point? AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 64

J: Yeah well crack was a big deal. Crack was like abundantly prevalent everywhere.

T: Strong in Jacksonville?

J: Yeah, goodness. I had incident where a guy that was a big crack dealer. They

called him “Pork chop.” The police came and he hid the crack somewhere and

somebody found and stole it. They ran in my building where I lived at. All of the

sudden it’s somebody knocking on the door. Bam! Bam! Bam! “Open the door!”

I’m saying “Who is that?” I open the door. Guy put a gun in face. “Where my stuff

at? Where it’s at? They say you got it in here.” He came in started tearing my

room up. Pouring out all my flour. I had my flour stuff in a jar. Flour, you know,

looks like cocaine. He dumped all the flour all out on the floor. Throw my stuff out

everywhere. I said, “Man what’s wrong with you?” He said, “I’ll blow your head off

man.” I said “Wow!” He said, “Everybody come out that room.” So I came out. He

start saying, “Listen. I’m a shoot somebody if somebody don’t tell me where my

stuff at.” I said, “Well listen man, you going to have to shoot me in my back

because I’m going on my porch because I don’t know nothing about where your

stuff at and I ain’t have nothing to do with it. And so, if you going to use that gun,

you’re going to shoot me in the back. Simple as that.” I went out on my porch and

sat down. So he came out and said, “Man you seem like the guy that pretty much

know about this place right here don’t you?” I said, “I don’t know all these people

in here but I know I ain’t have nothing to do with what you talking about.” He said,

“Well, I’m going to go in and search everybody.” Well the guy who had took it

was in the last room in the building under the mattress. They found when he was

tearing up the room. They tore they room up on purpose and hid the guy under a AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 65 mattress. [Laughter] So he go back there, they go through and search. They don’t find him the first time so they leave. They went out the back door, but they came right back through the front. There was this guy coming out of the room and man… He beat that guy so bad. It was blood on all the walls up and down the hallway man. He beat that guy so bad about that. That was the arena that we were traveling in. I didn’t have no opportunity other than to make money so I started hustling with people selling dope here and there. Went jail. Kept doing stuff so I have an extensive record in Jacksonville for being arrested for uttering forged instruments, possession of cocaine. I got a record like that over there. I try to say all the time that I look back on it, but I’m not proud of it. It’s just my survival mode in place. I couldn’t find no decent job. I’d catch a break corner up there where the people take you out and let you work for a day. Then you’d have to wait a whole week to get paid for that day. During the rest of the days, you still need money. What we call the underground mechanism worked to where you could have money in your pocket. It’s not something I brag about and say, “Aw yeah. I’m really made. I was out there doing this and that.” No. I have no pleasure in that at all. I have no pleasure in looking at the lives of the people who were ruined. No pleasure in it at all. I really look at in disgust because, you know,

I have family members and sisters and brothers. One of my sisters was overran by crack cocaine too at one point. She now has a bible business in Gainesville, and been doing well for the last seventeen years. I say that yeah those times were bad, but you can overcome situations. Times moved on, I came to

Gainesville. Got incarcerated. Went to federal prison for – AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 66

T: Oh for your check cash thing?

J: Yeah for all the check cashing stuff I had did -

T: Well so they took you in on racketeering?

J: Yeah you see. I printed my own check. I never had a bad check because what I

would do is I’d go down to the bank and the trashcan by the counter where you

throw that voided check away? They put that garbage bag outside on the street.

At night, I’d come down with my partner in the car and grab all those bags like

the garbage man throw them in the-- I’d go home and take a big ole sheet and

dump all those garbage bags on the floor. Then I’d go through and find you

voided check. I’d paste it back with some scotch tape. Then I’d get on the phone

and call the bank. Tell them, “It’s Mr. Johnson’s garage and I had a client come in

and they wrote me check for $792.50. I’m wondering if that check was good

ma’am?” Yeah the funds are sufficient.” I said “Oh okay.” I know he got seven

hundred fifty dollars in this account. [Laughter] Then I’d do some more of them

and call them up. Well, we had a source where we could by check paper for the

paper company in Jacksonville: big sheets of it. I know I could cut that paper

down in eight in because I was cutting paper for the city. I’d have me a paper

cutter. I’d cut the paper. Cut it down to eight and a half by eleven. I could out two

checks on each paper. Then, I’d sit down at night and have me a nice bright light

and some white out and all that. Then I’d write out all the stuff. Take it and Xerox

it till I got a beautiful sheet. Then I’d take that check paper then take it to a copy

center, and I’d Xerox that information. Well, all the people care about is there

account number. They don’t care what bank on there. They don’t give a damn AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 67 about what company on there. They don’t care if you work for Checker’s. Your check say three hundred forty-five dollars, that’s where they going to go, but what they care about is that number at the bottom. Now I know I don’t put your number on this check. I cut it out. Put it on there. Paste it up. Xerox it, white it out. Did everything so it beautiful. Then I take it. Give me some boys to sit there and listen. Give you $100 out this check and make it out with about six hundred dollars. Take them to the store I say, “Don’t buy cigarettes. Go in there buy some food. Don’t just go buy a carton of cigarettes and try to cash a check. That’s a giveaway.” I say, “Go in there. Get some groceries. Spend thirty bucks.” They go do that. Come back. Go to the counter. Cash the check just like that. Because they run that number, that number clear. You get paid just like that. I did that at

Winn-Dixie chains, Publix chains, and Albertson’s chains. I think Albertsons went out of business or whatever. I put some of the mom and pop store completely out of business because I’d take twenty grand in a week from them. When they go to get money to refurbish the store with the products, they find out that all the checks that cashed were bogus. We be looking for places to do that at to get cash real easy. This seafood joint had opened up and they had this sign that say

“We Cash Checks.” Boy, we were cheering. [Laughter] “We going to have a seafood fest in this place.” I get about eight people send them up in there.

Everybody getting crabs and lobsters and shrimps and all that. The man is happy because he just opened this place up. He selling all this seafood. Come to find out two weeks later, that banner was down. They had to take it down because AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 68

couldn’t cash no more checks right there because we hit them for about two

weeks straight.

T: Then you just made sure you weren’t there?

J: Yeah I was there, but I be in a car somewhere. See, when I bring the people, the

instinct of a person if something goes wrong is to run back to where they think

you are. I would park one place then I’d move to another. So if something goes

wrong, the guy come out looking for the car. You better hit it buddy [Laughter]

because I’m not there. I’m watching, so if everything go right then I’d get out

there and walk out and let them say “Aye! Aye! Aye! I’m over here.” Then, they’d

come get in the car. I’d get my money. Pay them. I do about three places. I go

home with somewhere like twenty-seven hundred dollars. Something like that. I

did that about four days out the week. You know, you get addicted to that. That

became an addiction for me too. Having money like that. I used to tell people I

got a money tree in my backyard. When I had my crew going down the street in

Jacksonville, I’d say to them, “Look up in that high-rise.” Because I was a

motivational guy too. I had to be in order to encourage people to an illegal act,

and I encouraged a lot of people to do illegal acts. I’d say, “Look up there man.

Now you can imagine that guy that’s up in that high-rise. He makes about one

hundred twenty or one hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. But guess up, you

riding with a guy that doing the same thing.” [Laughter] You know, I would have

school for people to teach how to cash checks and all that. That’s where all this

criminal realm, the conspiracy and running the criminal enterprise come into view

when you do stuff like that. That’s an elaborate congregation of putting things AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 69

together to get your entity done. The federal government frowns on that.

Eventually, I came out of Jacksonville. Came back here. Ended up in Gainesville

going to federal prison. Judge Maurice Paul sentenced me to thirty months. It

wasn’t bad. You know. I went to a federal prison camp where I met doctors,

lawyers, everybody from all walks of society, and they still going there. Don’t

think they ain’t. You just don’t hear about them in the newspaper or watch them

on T.V. As a matter of fact, Gordon Liddy was in federal prison along with the big

drug guy that came from Columbia. They was cellmates. Gordon Liddy was in

the Watergate. You know you meet all them kind of people. You meet the

mobsters. I met some mobster guys there. They all have bodyguards. In order to

talk to one of the Don’s or one of the Capo’s or whatever they was, you’d have to

get past the security because they had security guards, They have they own

security.

T: Other prisoners?

J: Yes. They have they own security. A guy that would come to they cell every

morning and get them. Take them to breakfast. Everywhere they went that whole

day those guys be with them so nothing happened to them. Nothing. One day, I

was so broke in federal prison. There was this guy named Manny. I went to

Manny and I said. One of the guards said, “Whoa!” I said, “Man I just want to talk

to Manny.” Manny was this guy. He always went around giving away M&M’s and

Sara Lee cakes. You don’t get that in prison. You can get the M&M’s, but you

don’t get the Sara Lee cakes. He had a case about two or three under his bed.

How you get them in here? If you kind of a good guy or something with him, he’d AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 70

give you some Sara Lee cakes kind of like “You’re cool with me.” I told him, “Man

listen, I’m doing bad in here. I ain’t got no money. I ain’t got no family sending me

no money. Man, I need some help.” He said, “Listen, go over there to B-Dorm tell

so and so and so I said let you put whatever you want on my sheet. You can

spend about two hundred dollars”. I went in there and spent about seventy

bucks. [Laughter] Yeah, then I had Mr… oh he was from Miami. He was the

president of Nations Banks. I can’t think of his name right now, but he was there.

He was my bunkmate. He had took six hundred million dollars, but he was

scared to death while he was there.

T: Because of the environment?

J; Yeah, it’s a highly tense environment. Now don’t think because you in that prison

camp that you couldn’t get shanked or couldn’t get hurt. Uhn-uh. Don’t think that

for one minute.

T: Where was this?

J: It was in Jesup, Georgia. You couldn’t think for one minute that you weren’t

subject to getting hurt. Couldn’t think that because the violence was always

there. It was just the matter of when you brought it out of somebody. Anyway,

being his roommate I kind of like got some other goons and said, “Hey listen. I

got this guy man he scared, but he’d take of us if y’all…” Because they were way

bigger me. I had to get some goons [Laughter]. I said, “Y’all help me take care of

him. He’ll take care because he got money all on the compound because he real;

rich.” They said, “Who is it?” I told him who it was. They said, “Okay man.” I went AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 71

back and told him. I said, “Listen, you ain’t got to be sacred about nothing around

here. Everything going to be all right just take my word for it. What you going to

need to do, I got two you need to help besides me.” He start helping. He tell me

what his commissary thing was so I get my boys straightened out. He ain’t got

nothing to worry about. That’s how I made a living in there by banker come in

that’s scared to death shaking in his shoes man because he ain’t never been to

prison. I picked one of them out when they come in a there green uniform. I say,

“I’m going to go holler at them and see what the deal is with him.” Let him know

he going to be all right as long as he play the game. Come under the umbrella

with me and my goons over here. He going to be all right aint nobody going to

bother him. I go pitch my spiel to him. You know what I’m saying? They be

talking about “Where you get this?” “Where you do that?” What do you want?

“What do you need?” I say We need this.” “We need that.” It went on like that

until I got out. I got out of there. I moved to Miami.

T: Okay, what time?

J: That was 1998. I went in the county jail in [19]94. Went to federal prison in

[19]95. I got out in [19]98. I had procured a spot in Miami, Florida. I had went to

Miami on the prison bus. I only been there one time in my life, and I thought it

was just a beautiful place. I went to Miami. I had met a friend in federal prison,

Jean Francois who had introduced me to the lady who I went and started living

with. I had started going to Wolfson campus, which that’s where I graduated

from. I graduated from Miami-Dade College down there in 2000. I went under a

prison reform program, so I’d have to pay for it, which was good because they AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 72

don’t have that around here. You get jail around here you ain’t got nothing to do.

Down there, they got a place called Transition, which the guy I got in touch with

while I was in prison through the lady that was there. She got the numbers and

all that and gave it to me. I called the transition place while I was in. Letting them

know I’m coming to Miami to have me some work lined up, which they did. They

have me a little job working at Denny’s. First, I went to work with Joe Gambiano,

Italian mafia guy. Picking up dead people. That’s what we were doing. I worked

with him for about six weeks. The last job there was decomposed body. I couldn’t

take it because the enzymes got in jacket because I had to wear suit and tie to

go out to your house. Your granddaddy just died in the bedroom over there. You

don’t want somebody coming in looking all crazy talking about getting your

granddaddy, so you had to look it pretty sharp. Sometimes I picked up about five

bodies a day with Mr. Gambiano.

T: So it was a legitimate business of picking of dead people?

J: Yeah, that was a legitimate business, but at the same time, he was burning

people in Lantana too for the mob. [Laughter] They finally busted him, Joe

Reaper. Him and his son finally went down to the feds. You know because he

had an incendiary in Lantana, Florida. That’s where he took bodies to have them

incinerated with people who couldn’t get buried. We would take van loads of

frozen bodies up there, stop them to them old things and roll them into the

incendiary. Well, you don’t know rather this is one of them people they sent down

from Chicago or not. You don’t know. This ain’t no lost family member. This

somebody they done killed, and sent down here in them freezer trucks .They AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 73 finna incinerate him so nobody know what happened to him because Joe was in that type of business. I quit that working for Joe. I didn’t know what I we was going to do, so I start doing little miscellaneous stuff. Working at pro-player stadium so on and so on. When I went to Miami-Dade, this guy sat in front of me.

This Spanish guy, he started having problems with English so he would always when we had breaks say, “I don’t understand.” I say, “What about you don’t understand? I’ll show you.” I started showing him. One day I said, “Man, I’m so broke. I don’t know what to do.” He said, “No, you don’t need to be broke. I talk to you after break. I talk to you.” So I went out. He started telling me about the limousines business. Then he told that he only going to tell me about it because

I’ve been so good to him in that class that he’s getting good grades in the class and he’s really appreciative. He already drive limousines for a private family making real good money. He took me to Royal limousine. Introduced me to the guy. First, I had to go through all the licensing and stuff, which I didn’t have money. My friend Jean François was in prison with me had got out. He was now cleaning yachts like you do houses, but he cleaned yachts. He got paid real good money doing it. He financed me to get the licenses and all that. That’s how I got.

My other friend took me out to Royal Limousines and got me in a limo car. Took me out. When he came back, the guy says, “He ain’t never drove a limousine. He is not taking my ninety thousand dollar car. No way!” [Laughter] I said, “No sir.”

He say, “I’m going to start you in one of them Sudans over there. I start working over there for Royal, going to school at night, you know what I’m saying, and I’m making about six or seven hundred dollars a week. Oh man, that was great AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 74

money. Sometimes my check be eight hundred so on nine hundred dollars a

week. Now that’s good. That’s was making good money. I worked there for about

three or four months until me and the guy went to Super Bowl [19]99. I been to

two Super Bowls and one National Championship. I go to Super Bowl [19]99.

Royal Limousines, Mr. Perez doesn’t want to pay me. He want to hold my

money, but he don’t know how legally minded I am. I went down to small claims

court. Filed a small claim on him. Went to court he lost. Took him the paper and

he still don’t want to pay me. Then, I filed against the bank where he keep his

money at. You know the bank ain’t gone play. They don’t want you touching

around where they money at. They made him give me-- He owed me seven

hundred sixty-eight dollars. They took it out his account; called me up and gave

me my money.

T: Wow.

J: Yeah. They called me down there to get it. From there, I went to work for a really

redneck guy out of… I don’t know how he got to Miami. He was from Louisiana,.

He was so strict man until like you was like you was in the military. I was like

“Goddamn, this motherfucker something else here. I don’t want to work for him,

but I’m making eleven hundred now.”

T: What was that business?

J: Limousines. I was in the limousines business after that the whole time. I never

did nothing else after that. I was in the limousine business because that was the

only way I could make some money. I started to make elven hundred, twelve AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 75 hundred a week. Now, that’s really good. I’m working my buns off now. I’m sleeping in the car. I’m hauling lots of people, but my family at home, the lady that took me in, they starting to live better because I’m bringing in this money and they could do different stuff now. She ain’t strapped to just crying about paying the rent. She literally be crying because she didn’t have the money for them rent.

Now, I’m “boom” one week. Rent six hundred. I could give her six hundred dollars and I still got six hundred dollars cash in my pocket, which was really good. Then, me and him fell out. I had a car accident, not in his car, but in mine. I got hurt. I had a couple of jobs to do. He call me up while I’m laying on the stretcher talking about “When you coming in?” I said, “Man I’m in the hospital.”

He say, “I don’t care. When you coming in? “I said, “Man, I’m strapped to the gurney in the hospital.” This fool still talking about come in. The guy that had hit me was drunk. He ran from the scene, which was a crime. Crime victim fund came. They gave me fifteen thousand dollars because that was a criminal act that happened to me, and well, I prosecuted the guy. He paid me fifty-two hundred dollars. While I was in the state attorney’s office, this guy from Louisiana call up and tell me, “Are you coming to work today?” The attorney took the phone. I said, “This man on the phone. You need to tell him what time it is.” She said, “No, Mr. Johnson is on official business today.” He said, “I don’t give a goddamn what he doing. He better get his ass in here.” She said, “This is the state attorney. I’ll send the police out there.” He said, “I don’t give a damn about y’all coming out here” and slammed the phone down. I said, “Now see lady, that’s why I was telling you I didn’t want to come down here. Because now, I done lost AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 76 my job.” She said, “Well sue him.” I said, “Sue him! I don’t know nothing about suing nobody.” Sure enough. Go on, I tell my old lady I ain’t got no job now. The funding finna quit till I find another company. Well, I read the contract him and I signed continuously. She say, “What you going to do?” I say, “I’m going to do what the lady said. I’m going to sue him.” I went down. Filed my papers. This building is like nine stories up in Coral Gables and all those prominent attorneys up there. One of those guys come the first day I went to court. I was sitting out there. I was dressed in like you came. I just had on a shirt. The guy says, “Rafe

Johnson.” I look this sharp guy standing up there. I say, “Yeah, I’m Rafe

Johnson.” He say, “You can’t win. You got no merit and your case is frivolous.” I said, “Oh yeah, well I’m going to let the judge tell me that when they call me in there. That’s what I’m going to do, sir. I don’t know who you is.” He said my name is “Michael” somethings that’s what he told me. We go in there. It’s a Spanish judge. She say, “Mr. Johnson, I read your complaint. Did you do anything wrong?” I said, “No ma’am, I was in a car accident and I could not get to the job because I was on a gurney in the hospital.” She says, “Okay. Can you within twenty days tell me what happened?” I went home wrote up everything, filed it, and we had another court date. When we came back, she told the lawyer… I brought the contract showing her where he did not give me reasonable time. He was supposed to give me a three day notice. He did do that. He fired me instantly. She said that you have to answer this complaint. Boy, that lawyer stood up like he had went crazy. [Laughter] He couldn’t believe that lady telling him he got to--He just told me my case had no merit, it was frivolous, and had no bounds AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 77 for any compensation. Sure enough, time went on, I was in the shower. I had found me another company Aventura Limousine. Oh, I was making great money over there. I went from like twelve hundred from sometime nineteen hundred or twenty-six hundred because I’m dealing with all these entertainers now. They had Music Express West and Music Express East, and it was nothing but entertainers. I been with Suge Knight, you know, with Death Row Records. I done had Suge. He do just like they said. He wear all that red just like they say.

He a gangster just like they say. Smoke a big old cigar anywhere he want to. In the car, he blowing cigar smoke. I just let the thing up try to keep as much from getting up where I was as possible. But yeah man. When all that went away, I got the phone call. I went there I told the man, “You know, you told me I couldn’t win.

But guess what, we both won.” I said, “Give me my check.” I snatched the check out of his hand. I said, “Now, you getting paid by him, so you won from him. Right now, I got his check” [Laughter] He said, “Wait a minute, you have to sign the release form.” Because I was in and out the door man. That was one of those times. Still, I’m moving on along. Then, I worked for Aventura for a long time making a lot of money. I was with Justin from NSYNC, you know, Denzel

Washington, Lenny Kravitz. Me, Denzel and Lenny Kravitz we riding around

Miami Beach. This is where entertainers have problems with racist acts, too.

Lenny Kravitz lived in this exclusive place, dated area. He told us we me him and

Denzel were riding around in the car. He said, “You know I can’t even come out my house and walk around the streets without getting messed up by these policemen? I was walking down the street the other night. They police pulled up AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 78 on me. Come over here. What your name is? My name is Lenny Kravitz. Police made a joke like, “If your name Lenny Kravitz, my name is Richard Nixon.”

[Laughter] They say, “What’s your social security number.” They run his social security number and come to find out that is Lenny Kravitz. These people out here trying to apologize. Him and Denzel were talking together about how they run into these because Denzel’s son was at the time was seventeen. My son was seventeen. I was taking Denzel to his private jet at Signature Airport on that particular occasion. He had spent the weekend at Lenny Kravitz house. He was getting ready to go home. They just wanted to take a conversation ride around before he left. They were talking about how the racist acts happened, particularly

North Miami Beach Police. They were terrible. They’re terrible with racist acts.

They really are. They do some appalling things on Miami Beach. You won’t think that because you think “Oh that’s Miami Beach,” but boy don’t get caught up in the mix over there. One night I had picked up…oh what’s this boy name… I took him to the Bentley Hotel there…I been with so many of them they names missing. Anyway I picked him up at three in the morning because his flight kept getting delayed. I was tired. Ready to go home. I loosen my tie. I’m speeding. It’s three in the morning. I’m hitting that nigga [Car noises] I’m getting it going down

5th Street there. Going on around comeback up the road to get to my house.

Police pull me over. I get out. I’m in a suit and tie and everything. I said, “What’s the problem? I’m just trying to go home.” Police ain’t even said nothing. He walked up to me took my head and Bam! Slammed it against the car. He said,

“Now, did I get your attention?” I said, “Yes sir, you got my attention.” He said, AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 79

“You came away from that light man. We heard your tires squealing.” I said,

“What? Y’all heard my tires.” I guess they were standing on the side of the road or something. Some kind of way they said they did it. Anyway, the guy took me, put me in his car, turned the engine off, and rolled the windows up. This in

August. I got on a suit and tie on. He let me stay there for an hour in that car. I was drenched in sweat. He came took the key. Hit the back window button. Let the windows down about that much. He said, “Now you done came to your senses?” I said, “Yes sir. I sure have.” He said, “If I let you out of here, you think you can take that car and go home and drive safely?” I said, “Yes sir I sure can if you let me out of here.” Sure enough, he opened the door. Man, I was wringing wet because I had a suit jacket on. You know you got to wear black. It was a terrible ordeal .Yeah, but hey. I was making this great money with this company man. Then, along comes 9/11, nobody riding planes so business went down. If I made three hundred a week, I was doing good. It went from sugar to shit as they say. Now, me and my old lady get on bad terms because the finances ain’t like that, so I move out. Move with another lady. Finances ain’t good. Now, they all kick me out, but my son, my oldest boy, she let him stay at the house because he had came down and had graduated from Miami Central. 95th and 17 that’s where my oldest boy graduated from. She let him stay. The she told him when he came up here to Gainesville, and I got into this binge with these criminals because that what I know. End up getting on the train with these gangsters guarding the dope holes and all that kind of stuff. End up going back and forth to jail for miscellaneous crap. Watching people get killed all the damn time. Finally, I AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 80 ended up becoming completely homeless there. I was sleeping on this lady property. I call her now from time to time, Mrs. Jones. She be talking about,

“Yeah I remember when you was sleeping in my backyard under the tree. And I sent them people back there to cut the tree and you told them, you better not cut that the tree down.” [Laughter]Because I needed that tree for shade, it be so hot.

Yeah, I was sleeping in that lady backyard, man. Life had gotten just that bad.

But you never know how all this stuff get connected to incidents of earlier things that happened to you. You never know because I found myself each time I had a disaster of some sort, I end up in a drug arena. I lost my house and I ended up in a drug arena in some illegal acts. I found myself being in there. I start looking at that. I’m saying you know maybe…It wasn’t even no maybe. It was a fact. I was just ducking trying to get out of this struggle because I had been where I should be. I been making good money. I been making a good living. I been living a good life. Now, here I am, back in this arena again: drugs and whores and all kinds of criminal activities going on. Subject to going to jail back and forth. Now, I got a criminal history in Miami, like that. Finally, my nephew got killed up here in

Gainesville. He was a gangster up here and he got killed, my sister’s son. She call me and she say, “I want you to come to Gainesville because I want you to help me with my business while I’m in mourning about my son.” I say, “Okay, I’ll come up there. You have to send me the money.” She sent me the ticket. Mrs.

Jones, who I was staying on her property, drove me to the bus station. She say,

“I’m a take you. Get you off my damn property. Can’t get rid of you any other way. I’m going to take you.” [Laughter] She took me too. She gave me some AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 81 clothes and she took me to the bus station and she gave me twenty dollars to have on the bus. She did. I talk to her now; I’ve been talking to her for the last ten years. I’ve been gone now about right at ten years. I got her in my phone right now. I could call her up and talk to her right now. She will always bring that up. I will telling her about my progressions from where I was the day I left there. When

I got here, I stayed in the house my nephew had gotten killed in. Well, I worked for my sister. She couldn’t pay me a whole lot. Well, she didn’t pay me a whole lot, so she had me strapped in there. I was going to go back to Miami, but I didn’t have no place to go there. I was already homeless. I ain’t have nowhere to go.

Start working. Then my sister start talking about she wasn’t going to pay the rent anymore. She wasn’t going to pay the cable bill no more. I said, “Well you ain’t paying me enough to pay it.” She said, “Well I’m get you a room someplace and you go on your own.” I said, “Okay.” She got me a room over there by the old

McDonalds where the new Publix is. There a blue rooming house on the corner around if you come out by gator beverage and the new McDonalds. If you turn between the new McDonalds coming back towards 8th Avenue you will see the big blue house with the rent sign in the yard. I went to Mr. Osborne. He wanted eighty-five dollars a week for the room, so my sister paid him. I went out and found job at “On the Boarder.” Started working there. I’m staying at Mr. Osbornes for about five months then an altercation came up there. There was a White guy that lived next door to me, a young guy, and he was buying cocaine from the

Black guy down stairs. Well, he had got credit for it one time. That Friday I came home from work. I got my beer and my little room. I seen him and he had a black AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 82 eye. I said, “Man, what happened to you?” He said, “That nigger down there he hit he upside my head and did all this and that,” I said, “Well man, the best thing you could do is to go in your room and leave that man alone if you owe him.” He was, “Fuck, you ain’t got a goddamn thing to do with this. You need to take your ass in your room.” I said, “Thank you.” I opened my door and went in my room.

Next thing I know, I hear some rumbling, rumbling, rumbling. I stay in the room now. Rumbling. This dude done took a box cutter and cut this guy up with it. Two hundred stitches. Cut him up with a box cutter. Blood all on the walls. Mr.

Osborne come on Sunday. He an ex-policemen. He come knock on my door.

“Hello Rafe. What went on here Friday night?” I said, “I don’t know. I was in my room.” He said, “C’mon now Rafe. I can tell you the kind of guy that knows what goes on around here.” I said, “Man, I be up here sitting in my room. I told that dude to go in his room. I don’t know why he got all messed up.” He said, “Well okay.” That was Sunday. My rent was due Monday. I paid him. Tuesday he put an eviction notice under my door. Yeah. Now, I ride that out. I even took him all the way to judge’s court room. Went in the courtroom and all that because I remember the eviction procedure. I did plenty of it in Jacksonville. I was well astute about how to drag it out. Stayed there about another month and a half and didn’t have to pay. When I went to court, the judge said, “I want you out of there today.” Now, I’m definitely homeless. I got put out had nowhere to go. I went and stayed in the park at Wilhelmina Johnson Center which is on 10th Street and 5th

Avenue, right in that area. I went stayed…It was winter time too. It was like

October going into November. Colder than I don’t know what out there. I was out AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 83 there about a week sleeping on the bench, but still going to work. I go to work get me some clothes. I change clothes. Go to St. Francis get me shower. Change clothes all that. Go to work. Still working and getting paid. My girlfriend-- his mama had a friend who had, we didn’t know she was getting evicted. We go stay with her next thing we know she getting put out so we got leave there, so we back homeless again. Oh my goodness, but I’m still working. I done saved some money though because I ain’t got to pay nobody. I got about two three hundred dollars saved up out of my pay and I got a paycheck coming. This lady, who I was telling you about the window open out and I could sit out on the roof and listen to the people to the police and all the activity that went on around that corner there. She saw me one day and she say, “You looking for a room?” I said,

“Yeah, how you know? I’m looking for a room.” She said, “Well, I got one available.” I said, “Well, thank you. When can I move in?” She say, “You got to give me a three hundred dollar deposit.” I said, “Okay, I got that. I’ll be up there

Thursday to give it to.” I came over there Thursday. I gave her three hundred dollars and she wanted a hundred a week, so I gave her four hundred dollars.

That’s what I gave her. Moved in me and his mama. We staying there, staying there and staying there, but he wasn’t born then. The city came and did a dilapidated dwelling that she had. Now, she pay for me to go to another rooming house. Move in there. I’m there about three months. The code enforcement people come by. I’m getting back on track. I’m getting my clothes pressed again.

Getting clean. Hanging out, you know, me and his mama. He still wasn’t born yet.

Me and his mama still living together moving on. Next thing I know the code AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 84 enforcement came by there and said that this house supposed to be boarded up.

You notice on the news now they saying they not going to board houses up in

Gainesville. They going to put this clear shield over the window, so the police can look in the window. Well, that house was supposed to be boarded up, but he had people living in it for the last six-seven years, Mr. Carl Rove. He was from Rove

Construction. That was his…I was going to say criminal name because he was a crook for sure. But anyway, he came by and the code people came. He tried to fix up. Then they told it was going to cost him sixty grand to put that fire stuff in.

He said he ain’t doing that. Everybody can just move. “I ain’t paying no sixty grand to do that.” He told us, “Well, if you don’t move, I’m taking the doors and

I’m cutting the electric off. If you don’t like it, go to Three Rivers, so I went to

Three Rivers. The lady told me, “He can’t do that. Take this letter to him,” so I took the letter. I had went by code and got all the violations. It was about that thick and gave to the lawyer. She say, take that letter to him. Bet not take no doors. Bert not cut no electric off. Sure enough, I stay there for about another five months while she suing him for dilapidated residence. There’s a thing where you can sue the landlord, but you can only get the amount of the rent that you pay per month, three times that. We were paying right about five hundred month to stay there, so it was about fifteen hundred. One day he called me up and said, “I want you out here. What’s it going to take to get you out of here?” I said, “Give me nine hundred dollars and I’ll leave.” Got the nine hundred. Moved over there on 5th Avenue right in front of Fletcher’s. Bad move. Jokers start swarming my house with drugs and drugs everywhere. I can’t get rid of them. They got they AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 85 guns and all that just taking over. I stayed there then “On the Border” closed.

Lost my job. Now, I ain’t got no income except for unemployment and they taking forty percent of that for child support. I couldn’t believe it. They were killing me, so I’m only getting a little bit of money. The rent was four hundred fifty dollars.

The light bill was running three hundred, so I needed seven hundred dollars every month just minimum. My baby was born now. I had done went through

Parenting for Strong Families and battled with them and got him. He living with me just like he living with me now. He was living with me ever since then. That baby right there been with me all his life. He was five months old when they hand him to me. Next thing you know, the lady said, Mrs. Lewis which was the owner of the house, I had been living there about a year and a half or so, she said her family member wanted the place. Well, it wasn’t that. I just couldn’t pay, so she wanted us out of there. Finally, she did an eviction. Me and that boy right there we were sitting on that curb together. Sheriff had came and put us out the door. I had moved all my stuff into apartment next door, stuff I wanted to keep, unbeknownst to the guy who owed that apartment. He didn’t know I had moved all that stuff in there until he went there one day and then the neighborhood told him who stuff it was. He came around Mrs. Carter house and found me. I start paying him, you know, twenty-five dollars a week to let my stuff stay in that apartment. Me and Akil, we were sitting on a curb. My baby was looking up at me, and I was looking at him. He don’t know what done happened. He don’t know that we out on the curb. He was playing on the sidewalk. He was sitting on the sidewalk just playing. I was saying “Boy you just don’t know. Me and you we AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 86 out the door. We ain’t got nowhere to go tonight.” I start calling these agencies.

My son had some friends, his auntie, Mrs. Carter. My son went and told Mrs.

Carter that we had got evicted. She said, “Well tell that man. The baby can come down here, he got to find him somewhere to go.” I said, “Okay, as long as my son get out these streets.” Akil start staying with Mrs. Carter from like two years old.

He love her to death right now. He just asked me to take him by there yesterday to see her. “I want to go to Mrs. Carter house,” because she cater to him too much. She go get the soda. She gone get everything because he will try that on me in here. “Daddy I want so and so.” I say, “Man, you better go to that refrigerator and get what you need.” Mrs. Carter would go and do it for him. For months, that was October, it took me about two months. And come to find out my sister from Philadelphia come. She say, “Rafe, you know, they got that Veteran’s

Program for housing. The Secretary of Veteran Affairs just signed this new thing that’s going to come out in July 1st and you can get one of them places and move in. Well, that was November, so I had to wait a while. I’m doing pillow to pole. He staying with Mrs. Carter. I’m sleeping anywhere that I can sleep. I go down to St.

Francis take a shower. I go find a vent somewhere to laid down and sleep on it. I did that that whole time. Finally, I went to Thomas Center told the lady I was homeless. She say, “You a veteran?” I say, “Yes ma’am.” She say, “Wait right here. I’m going to get somebody to come out and talk to you. What you need to do is you need to go find a place to stay.” I say, “I do?” She say, “Yeah you do.

You need to find a place to stay. We will get everything done.” I came back up the next day or so, and sure enough, they had got all the paperwork straightened AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 87 out and here I go. I moved. I went and found an apartment, which was in that bad neighborhood I’m talking about. Got that apartment. I didn’t bring Akil down there because Mrs. Carter had him so long now she didn’t want to let him go. She didn’t want him to come down. She wanted him to still stay with her. He sleeping in the bed with her and all that now. He about the only little baby down there. She was keeping and keeping him. Well, HUD VASH came through. Now, I’m not homeless anymore, but I don’t have no income. I’m broke. I applied for the pension fund from the government. My case manager swore I wasn’t going to get it. She was so adamant about it that she took me to look for jobs. I got a job. I found one at a place out there in the mall. They went of business eventually, but it was a company parent business of Brinker International, who I had worked for before for “On the Border.” I went to work there for about three weeks. There was a guy who just moved on my porch. He was homeless. He just moved on the porch. I’m trying to tell this guy “you can’t just come up here and live on the porch, man. You can stay a few nights, but you can’t just move in and, you know, now you want to come in the house and take a shower and all of that?” I said,

“Come on man, I’m barely here myself, so how I’m a let you in, but you can sleep on the porch, man.” One day, he started come up, start getting up, start doing stuff, start having money, but he was still homeless, so he still stayed on the porch. I didn’t have too much for dealing with that. I see he was trying to do a little bit better so that was helping him. He was like I’m getting helped. One day, we got into it and I had on a pair of western shoes. One of the metal chairs that had legs on it like this. He pushed me and my boot got caught under that chair AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 88 and cracked my ankle. Now I lose my job because I can’t go to work. Now, I’m back to zero because they was paying me eleven dollars and hour at the place I was working at, which was good money. I’m washing dishes in there. Eleven bucks an hour, c’mon man, that’s pretty good for washing dishes. Anyway, I lose that. Then all kinds of other little incidents went to going on. Finally, I found out I had Hepatitis C. I knew that all the time, but it started to get worse because it was one of things like they say you got to get something done about it, or it’s going to kill you. Doctor said, “Okay, we going to put you in the treatment thing for Hepatitis C. Well, back then, my boy hadn’t came out. It hadn’t came out. I wanted him to come out until I had stayed there a couple of years. I had moved and came about four years later. By then, my ankles had swole up to this big. I was in terrible, terrible, terrible shape, but I got my baby. I’m worried something’s going to happen to me. I guess none of these people nothing to save my life then somethings gone happen to me. I’m gonna die. That’s an inevitable thought. You know. I’m going to be out of here. My sister-in-law, which has since passed, her sister had Hepatitis C. She call me. She say, “Rafe, you seen T.V?” I say, “No.”

She say, “They got a cure for Hepatitis C.” I say, “They do?” She say, “Yeah, it’s on T.V.” That was in December. I hurried up and went out to the hospital. Hurried up went to see my doctor. I said, “Listen, I find out they got something that’ll cure

Hepatitis C.” She say, “Yeah, I’ve signed you up for the program already.” I said,

“Okay. Great.” I started taking the HARVONI. I think that was March. They waited until I was sober, clean. No alcohol. No nothing. They ain’t going to give it you because they test you before they start this. I’m sober, sober, and sober. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 89

Nothing. They started giving me the HARVONI treatment in March. I took it

March, April, May, June, and then I start seeing results. My stomach went down.

My stomach was like…this big because your liver causes that. My ankle was swollen. Then I see how HARVONI was working. I say, “Well my god. They got a miracle drug here for real.” This the first time I seen something like this you know when they eradicated polio in this country years and years ago. How they got it in other countries so it’s still on the face of the Earth. Next thing I know, I went and they took my blood, and I was Hepatitis free. I was clean. Hepatitis gone. Then, they did a blood transfusion. I tell my sister that “They must’ve gave me some young people blood because boy I got lots of energy.” I ‘m ready to do a marathon. I’m ready to get it. I felt, you know, good, vibrant. You know, didn’t have this sluggish feeling. Felt great man. Moving on, that same June I decided I been a property owner before. One of the incentives was I had just got an increase in my check and the Veterans Program was fixing to take over half of that back just to pay rent. They wanted me to pay four hundred seventy-two dollars for an apartment based on my income that I’m getting now, which is I’m barely making it with the money I’m getting now. Now, you want me pay five hundred bucks towards rent, so I say versus me buying a place to stay. I say,

“What do I have to do?” I went to the housing program. I went through the SHIP program. Got the SHIP certificate for ten grand. Did that, but they say that my credit’s terrible. I need to get it fixed. While I was in the SHIP program class, a lady stood up and said,” I used Lexington law to get my credit straight.” I call

Lexington Law up. They say, “You a veteran.” I say, “Yeah.” They gave me a fifty AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 90 percent off first month then the regular fee the next couple of months. I start paying them and my credit score by that was June, July, August, and September.

It start to go up. My credit score start going up. I say now it’s time to approach a buyer. Somebody to get me in a house because my lease ending too at the same time. My lease was ending in November of that same year. My lease was ending with the HUD VASH. I’m saying I got to get me a house and get out of here before my lease ends. Okay. I call up the listing they had gave me at the SHIP program. Called one man from Bank of America. He probably should’ve never been on that list because he downtrodded me right away. Then, I called a lady named Juanita Bowels from Wells Fargo. She say, “Come on in!” That was good news to hear. I went in. She say, “What you going to need is your light bill, your phone bill, and your cable bill. Showing that you been continuously paying those for however long.” I been religiously paying. You know you better pay the light bill. GRU will clip you just as quick, so I been religiously paying that. My phone had never been off and my cable had never been off because I religiously pay those three bills every moth. It showed a couple years of continuity in that. Now, she say, “That’s all you need then. You need someone to say that they gave you a gift of funding.” I got my girlfriend Tracy to write me a letter that she gave me a gift of five hundred dollars, which that’s what they say I needed. We went from there. The process went on and on. It came down to this man that owned this property right here, Mr. Hover. This is a great property because I own from that front out that to the whole big backyard in the back. It’s huge back there too. It’s like a one bedroom apartment on that other side over there. This just the den AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 91

here and you can see the living room is huge. There’s a bedroom tight there

that’s not even used. My son is on the other end. I put him at because you see

how rambunctious he get. [Laughter] Anyway, we was going and going. Come to

find out, it got to be some glitches here and there. One was the man was saying

that if the loan didn’t clear and for some reason or another the loan kept getting

delayed. I had to get divorced. That was one issue because I was married to this

Jamaican lady in New York. We been separated for seven years. I had to do my

own divorce, so I did it. Went down got divorced and all that. Got that paperwork

in place. Then the packet moved forward again. Here come the next glitch. They

take my VA packet. It’s supposed to go to Orlando. I mean to St. Pete. Well no, it

did go there. St. Pete sends it to Atlanta. Atlanta sends it Washington, D.C.

Reasoning, they say I was incompetent.

T: Wow.

J: Yeah that’s what I said too. What kind of government mix up they got here? I’m

incompetent? Way I find out, I call my local congressman, Mr. Yoho, and his

assistant, Mr. Dave Hill. I say, “Mr. Hill I got a problem. I’m supposed to close on

this property in the next two or three days. If I don’t get this closure done, the

man’s going to take the property off the market, and I’m going to be done lost a

really good place to move me and my family.” He said, “Well, I can’t call

Washington for you Rafe.” I say, “What you mean? You working for the

Congress. You can’t call Washington for me and talk to them people and find out

what they doing?” He said, “No, I can’t do it.” I call the realtor lady and said, “Well

I tried. He say he can’t do it.” At the same time, he did it. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 92

T: Oh!

J: Yeah. Because come to find out and how this happened I don’t know and I’m

amidst of it today. The real estate lady they done approved a loan for this house

a day before we was supposed to close. The day before! The day before the man

was supposed to take it off the market. All this done occurred. The day of the

closing Mr. Hill call me he says, “Well Rafe, I’m a tell you. The reason they had

your packet down there…” This how I found out they was talking about I was

incompetent. “…They think you’re incompetent to handle your own affairs.” I say,

“Man, you got to be kidding me. I talk to you all the time. I talk to Mr. Yoho all the

time. I come in that office over here. Do I look like I’m incompetent?” [Laughter]

“Well that’s what the problem was.” But I ain’t tell him I had already been

approved. I ain’t even give him that gust of get up. I didn’t say nothing because I

said when I hung that phone up “I’m already approved.” I’m finna get my house.

That was exciting to end up here where we are right now. It’s been a long quest.

A: Your phone ringing.

J: Akil.

T: Amazing all that you’ve made it through.

J: Yeah, it was a long ride.

T: Oh man, you’re still on it too. You’re going strong. You know you got your health.

Got a beautiful son.

J: Excuse me. AAHP 499A; Johnson, Page 93

T: Yeah sure thing. I’ll pause it.

[End of Recording]

Transcribed by: Kelly Richardson July 1st, 2019

Audit-edited by: Sandra Romero July 18, 2019

Final-edited by: Sandra Romero May 19, 2020