Interview with Howard Monroe Fitts, Jr....Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South Interview with Howard Fitts, Jr. Durham, North Carolina Interviewed

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Interview with Howard Monroe Fitts, Jr. June 8, 1994 Transcript of an Interview about Life in the Jim Crow South Durham (N.C.) Interviewer: Paul Ortiz ID: btvnc03013 Interview Number: 317

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Interview with Howard Monroe Fitts, Jr. (btvnc03013), interviewed by Paul Ortiz, Durham (N.C.), June 8, 1994, Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South Digital Collection, John Hope Franklin Research Center, Duke University Libraries. Behind the Veil: Documenting African-American Life in the Jim Crow South An oral history project to record and preserve the living memory of African American life during the age of legal segregation in the American South, from the 1890s to the 1950s. ORIGINAL PROJECT Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University (1993-1995)

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Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South

Interview with Howard Fitts, Jr.

Durham, North Carolina

Interviewed by Paul Ortiz

Unedited Transcript by Victoria Haas of TapeScripts+

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1. Ortiz: Dr. Fitts, I wonder if you could tell me where you were born and when you were

born, a little bit about your family background.

2. Fitts: Okay. I was born in Greenville, North Carolina in 1921. Actually, my native home is

in Wilson. The reason I was born in Greenville was that I had an uncle who was a physician.

Then my mother went there for delivery. And so, all my growing years were in Wilson. I

left Wilson in 1937 to go to college. And after graduating from college in 1941, I was in

Wilson working with the public schools for a brief period. And from there to the military

service. And I spent three years in the military service. I returned from that and did graduate

study at NC Central. I worked for about three years in public health over in Chapel Hill.

And from there, I went to graduate school in New York and came back to Durham and

worked at NC Central. That's where the major portion of my professional career was spent --

on the faculty of NC Central.

3. Ortiz: What was it like to grow up in Wilson during the 1920s?

4. Fitts: The 1920s, growing up in Wilson, my recollection of things, I had impressions as a

little child, but the major recollections centered around the Depression. You see, the

Depression in 1928, '29, '30 -- those are periods that I do remember. My father was a school

teacher. He worked for the rural school system. So was my mother. But even with their

teaching, there were some difficult times. And one of the things that I have very clear

memories of is that my father used to assist them at the Welfare Department to make baskets

of food for people who were very needy. And it was more or less volunteer but in doing so,

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they also gave him baskets. And there were a lot of other things I remember about the

Depression. I remember some people who seemed to have lost everything. Some Blacks

who had accumulated property and had built nice homes and they just lost them. And the

experience was too much for many of them. They didn't live long after. There were some

who were suicidal. At the time I didn't know who committed suicide and who died natural

deaths but I remember a number of people were so affected by the losses and the severity of

the Depression that they did not live long. It was quite an interesting time. My father always

rented the house. He always wanted to own one and he wasn't able to really purchase a home

until I went off to college. And that was when we were really coming out of the Depression

in 1937, '38. And things were getting better. He was able to buy a car, I guess, around 1936,

'35 or '36 when he got a -- I don't know what they called it then but it was something like a

bonus from the Army. People who had served in World War I got some relief, something of

a bonus at the time. And that's when he was able to buy a used car. But things like that I

recall.

5. Ortiz: In Wilson, what side of town did you live in?

6. Fitts: Well, Wilson was the typical -- in terms of the railway track dividing the community.

For the most part, Blacks lived on the eastern side of the railway track 'though all the

populations did live on the western side of the railway track. But generally, the White

population lived west of the railway track and the Black population lived east of it. And

that's where we lived with our schools in that section. There were no schools that we

attended on the other side of the track. I guess that was somewhat characteristic of the whole

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region there, particularly those styles on the Atlantic coast line such as Rocky Mount,

Wilmington and some of the other towns like Federal, etcetera.

7. Ortiz: Can you tell me something about the Black community n the east side of Wilson?

Do you remember Black owned businesses, institutions?

8. Fitts: Yeah. Well, I guess that was another crisis situation. There was a Black bank there in

the twenties. And many of the Blacks deposited their savings in that bank and the bank went

under. And in going under, a number of Blacks suffered great losses. There were other

businesses that Blacks had. Main Street was the main street that ran through Wilson and on

East Main Street, on the eastern side of the railway track, was a formidable business area.

Two pharmacies that were owned by Blacks and funeral homes in that area. Pool rooms, of

course. Some other -- taxi businesses. So, those were the kinds of businesses that were in

that area. One Black owned a theatre that had done well. A theatre, a ballroom and office

facilities. And there were several physicians who had offices on East Main Street. And so,

yes, there were Black businesses. I know that there were people who owned property and

had what we called rental houses then. But as I think of it, I don't remember any of them

having an office that they operated. I don't know what they operated from. But those were

the kinds of businesses that existed in the area. I understand that there had been a jewelry

store but I don't recall anything about a jewelry store in that area. I do know in another town

where a Black had had a very successful jewelry business. But not in Wilson, that I know of.

9. Ortiz: Do you remember, going into the twenties and thirties, the quality of medical care in

the community?

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10. Fitts: M-hm.

11. Ortiz: Where did people go?

12. Fitts: Okay. Everyone in those years depended upon the private practitioner who made

home visits. So much of the service for people who were really ill took place in the home.

And the physician visited the home setting. They had offices and they did treatment and

examination and so on in their offices. We had a hospital. I really would like to know how

that hospital was established. I know the name of the persons who established the hospital

but it was a sizeable hospital. I presume it must have thirty to forty rooms in it, which

operated, insofar as I recall, from early thirties -- I don't know how early really -- but it

closed down about the early forties, maybe '46 or '47. That was the hospital to which Blacks

were taken. They did whatever surgery or whatever procedures they were able to do at that

time.

13. Ortiz: How was it staffed? By Black doctors and nurses?

14. Fitts: It was staffed by Black doctors and nurses. It was serviced, of course, by White

specialists who were specialists. I don't know ... The only specialist I recall in the thirties

were -- well just about everybody did surgery then. I think any doctor did whatever surgery

he chose to do. There were some who were supposed to be more skilled. But we had -- we

didn't call them ophthalmologists then; they called them eye, ear, nose and throat specialists

who would come in to do things. And I don't recall any other Black specialists working in

that area. But the hospital was heavily used. A major problem in that area [LOUD buzz on

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tape] ... tuberculosis. Tuberculosis was devastating through those years. It took families

away. It caused death among young people who had much promise or who had great

aspirations for things. And they would be sent away to sanitariums. My first recollections of

where they would be sent would be Ashville. I'd known any number of people who were

sent to Ashville until they got to be terminal and then when they were terminal, they'd bring

them back to the families. I know some friends whose parents or sisters or brothers died in

their ambulance on the way from Ashville to the area. Beyond that, if there were some

highly technical things that people needed medically from Wilson, they would bring them to

St. Agnes which was a Black hospital associated with St. Augustine's College in Raleigh

itself. And then, if they were veterans, there were Black V.A. hospitals [LOUD buzz on

tape] ... time. And I remember because my father assisted veterans to get into the hospital.

He knew how to do the paper work and the and so on. But even veterans would have to

go that far away for hospitalization. And, of course, they got better hospitalization than the

other people would have gotten in the local hospitals. And so there were segregated

hospitals.

15. Ortiz: What were some of your earliest childhood memories, growing up in Wilson?

16. Fitts: Memories about growing up? Or memories related to racial relationships or what?

17. Ortiz: How about just growing up?

18. Fitts: Just growing up? Well, some of my early childhood memories were that we attended

schools. We always looked forward to school and that's where we developed friendships.

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Church was pretty strong in our lives. Some churches had very good youth programs for

Blacks. These were Black churches, of course. The Black churches at that time were, of

course, the Baptist, the Methodist, the Holiness, Free Will Baptist. Then we had a

Presbyterian and there were no Catholic churches in my early years. But those churches --

and just about everybody went to Sunday School. It was sort of the routine, as much a part

of your life as going to public schools were for most of us.

19. Dirt streets. We had dirt streets. Excitement came to us when the police would chase

bootleggers. [laughs] I have very vivid memories of bootleggers being chased around the

streets by the police in their fast cars. And there was a lot associated with the making of

whiskey and the selling of whiskey. It was nothing, of course, that would compare with the

drug scene today. But it was quite a business among Blacks. Those were Prohibition days

and, of course, that made very definite impressions on kids growing up. But we were in a

tobacco town, which means that for employment a large number of people worked on the

farms. In fact, the large proportion of Blacks in the county were in the farming areas and

they were tenant farmers. And they experienced some real difficulties in that the largest crop

was tobacco. They worked that crop during the spring, summer and late summer months.

The growing, the harvesting of it, etcetera. If the landlord was not a very conscionable

person, it was better for his benefit to have a family tenant living on his farm until he got his

tobacco crop in. And then find reason for them to move on, or he'd not need them. And so

you had a lot of rural people who moved from farm to farm with the season and with the

temperament of the farm owner. If they lived in town, a number of them lived in town but

would hire themselves out to farmers, particularly during the harvesting. Just about all of us

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as kids worked on a tobacco farm in the fall until the school season, prior to the school

season, such as in some areas they did with the cotton. We didn't have that much cotton, or

at least I didn't get involved with it. We worked in the factories in August and heads of

households could work in the factories in August and receive formidable income. In January,

once they'd gotten the tobacco in and gotten in the to be shipped to Durham or

wherever the cigarette making plants were, they were out of work after Christmas. And that

created considerable hardship there was no employment for large numbers of people. And

that was when they would have to turn to the welfare or do other things to support their

families. And at that point, you had a number of them being put out of rental houses and

trying to find some place to live. So the economy related to the tobacco farming and the

seasons and what happened with that. In fact, it was very interesting. My father, as I said,

was a teacher. The schools were eight month schools so if he didn't go to summer school and

generally, he did go to summer school to improve his certification, etcetera. By the end of

July, he was back home and going to work in the tobacco fields. He would help to harvest

tobacco. And then he would work in the tobacco factory when it opened. His job was to

make the large barrels in which tobacco was stored. It's my understanding that his income

was better in the factory than it was as a teacher but the period of employment was so short

so it did not benefit him to give up teaching to work in the factories, although he could

increase his income that way. There area lot of other things naturally I can recall about

growing up. But I didn't know whether you wanted me to relate it to some specific focus.

20. Ortiz: Do you remember in your childhood days having white playmates?

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21. Fitts: Okay. I lived in a neighborhood where we were not near any Whites and so I didn't

have White playmates. I knew some people who lived in neighborhoods that abutted White

neighborhoods and they did play with the White kids. To what extent and how intimate they

became, I can't tell. I don't know, during my childhood days. But our neighborhood was so

compactly Black and so all of my playmates were Black.

22. Ortiz: Was there a time during your childhood, your adolescence, can you remember

incidents surrounding race relations?

23. Fitts: Oh yeah. I have often times tried to see if I could recall any specific, whether it was

traumatic or just impressive, incident. And I don't recall any one. It's probably a meshing of

a number of them. But I think the first one that I do recall was that my father was with a

number of organizations, church organizations and so on. And so, very often, he'd have to

get his programs printed. And on one occasion, he sent me to the printer's home and the

printer must have lived twelve blocks or more away from where we lived. And I took the

thing up and went to the door and asked for the printer. And some of the family and all were

on the porch. And they just called back in the back to him. I think they called, "Daddy,

there's a darkie out here to see you!" [chuckles] That was one of the things that I remember.

That sort of struck me then. Other things I remember -- I belonged to the Presbyterian

Church and we had a minister who took interest in youth and he had taken some boys out to

an area just out on the outskirts of town. And he was a man who did not accept abuse easily.

And he resisted things that he considered abusive. We were told that they were near

someone's farm and the people didn't like his response and they kicked him. And that made

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quite a furor around that they kicked Reverend Douglas. That's a thing that I remember, that

has stuck with me. I remember at times going with my dad to the Superintendent's office on

occasion. Well, my dad was sort of a formal type person. all the time. Very formal.

And in those times, a male who was a school teacher, the Blacks called him "Fessor". And

most of the people called my dad Fessor Fitts. That's amusing. Not Mr. Fitts. But I noticed

when we would go to the Superintendent's office, the secretary who generally ran things,

who was a lady there, and she would call him Howard. And I remember that. It struck me

that when he got up there, he was Howard and he was not Mr. Fitts or Fessor Fitts or what

have you. Things like that. Naturally, I remember going up into the balcony of the theatre.

And the thing that sort of troubled me as I became older was that such practices as those were

sort of accepted as the way things ought to be. That's that way it is so you fitted into the way

it is. Now there were some people who did not. And my dad was always working for

change but he respected the customs and so on and he fell right into those customs. I never

heard him discuss much about mistreatment and so but he always was promoting NAACP.

He was very much at risk in terms of his job and other things by belonging and collecting

memberships and other things. He took great risk as far as getting people to vote. But he

was never one who was very vocal and showed anger. My mother showed more anger and

frustration of the racial situation than he did.

24. Ortiz: So your dad was involved in the Wilson NAACP?

25. Fitts: Yeah.

26. Ortiz: Did he have any contact with G.K. Butterfield?

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27. Fitts: Yeah, they worked together. In fact, I guess Daddy was there before Dr. Butterfield

came. See, that's an interesting thing too. Dr. Butterfield could do more because he was an

independent dental practitioner. Most of the other people who were in were sort of had

certain kinds of obligations with the White power structure, or just Whites in general. And

they could do things to a point and if Mr. Harring or somebody else called them down on

what they were doing, they either had to run the risk of losing jobs or not being able to get a

loan at the bank or having their mortgage called in or whatever else happened to them if they

didn't discontinue what made them unhappy. And I'm sure that was the case with my father.

He was a public school teacher and at any moment, the Superintendent -- but not necessarily

the Superintendent -- the secretary could call him in and let him know what he had to do and

could not do. And so Dr. Butterfield could be more of a spokesman than others because he

didn't depend on them. He was certainly subject to pressures that could be brought by the

White community but being a dentist ....

28. Ortiz: Dr. Butterfield started with the NAACP in the mid to late forties?

29. Fitts: I would think earlier than that because well, I sold The Crisis Magazine as -- and that's

how I learned to count money a little bit -- as about a nine year old. I was born in 1921 so

that means that in 1930, the NAACP was having inroads in the community. And my dad had

me out selling The Crisis.

30. Ortiz: So there was a chapter by that time?

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31. Fitts: Now, whether it was a chapter ... There was a chapter before the forties, yes. There

was a chapter before the forties. Whether they were very active or not, I don't know. But I

do know that they raised funds for the suits and those kinds of things in the thirties, yes.

32. Ortiz: Interesting. I had another question relating to that. I talked to Dr. Butterfield's son a

couple of weeks ago. He told me a very interesting story about a situation that happened in

one of the schools in the Black community in -- his guess was the 1930s. And this situation

involved a Black school teacher who was slapped by ...

33. Fitts: I'd say that was the twenties.

34. Ortiz: It was the twenties.

35. Fitts: I would think it was the late twenties or very early thirties. As young G.K. says, he

had to guess about it. But I too have heard the story. And if it had happened while I was

growing up in the thirties, I perhaps would have known about it. Now let me give you a sort

of tie to it. I said that there was a Black bank there. The bank was operated Mr. Reed and I

don't know who else. His name was ... what was Reed's name? Nevertheless, he headed the

bank. At the time of this incident about which I was told, and which G.K. was told, Mr.

Reed was a school principal. I remember the bank in the early thirties, which means Mr.

Reed had discontinued being a school teacher and now was devoting his full time to the

bank. And I think the bank went broke in '32 or '33, I would guess. So I would suspect that

that incident happened about 1928, '29. I could find out. I'd be interested in finding out

myself.

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36. Ortiz: But Mr. Reed was the Black ...

37. Fitts: Mr. Reed was the Black school person, I'm told, who reported, I think, the lady to the

Superintendent. I don't know what the situation was. I'm fearful of getting into it because I

don't know the facts. The upshot of it was that Mr. Reed was seen as someone not standing

up for what Blacks needed and someone who got the lady in trouble, got her into the

difficulty, so that when the man slapped her -- now what Mr. Reed did after that, whether he

took a stance or tried to smooth things over, I don't know. But the man, the Superintendent,

to the extent that I understand it, did slap her. And some incident happened in the Baptist

Church and a man I knew beat Mr. Reed up. Mr. Lucas beat him up there at the church, and

I think threatened to kill him. But all of this was ...

38. Ortiz: Now who was Mr. Lucas?

39. Fitts: Mr. Lucas was a Black person who was, I guess like many others, very unhappy about

whatever Mr. Reed did in the situation. And it may have been that they were having

discussion in a meeting or something in the church. It's my understanding that Mr. Lucas

attacked Mr. Reed and, I believe, threatened to kill him or may have gone to get a gun or

something else. But I'm going on stories that I heard as well. My father never talked much

about it and it may have happened before he even got to Wilson. So I'm saying it was

beyond the thirties. If so, it was very early thirties. I can get someone who can give you

more accurate information on that.

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40. Ortiz: That would be interesting because I know Judge Butterfield mentioned afterwards

just a lot of interesting things that happened. He said that the Black community, from what

he was told, actually ... after the Black teacher was slapped, there was a student strike and

they actually set up for a time a different school.

41. Fitts: That may be. I don't know. I cannot say that that happened or didn't happen. From

what I gather, it was more the adults into it. I don't even know that there were students

involved. But when Butterfield came along, that was when students really got involved.

Him himself did, the judge you're talking about. He himself. But from what I suspect, this

was mostly an adult issue and that they felt that Mr. Reed had done things he should not have

done in that situation. But there are persons who are close enough to that situation to tell

what happened.

42. Ortiz: Interesting. Maybe I could get ...

43. Fitts: I was thinking of giving you a phone number to call.

44. Ortiz: Oh, we can do without that. How about could we talk about your family life, I guess.

Do you remember your grandparents?

45. Fitts: During my lifetime, I had a grandfather who was my maternal grandfather, and a

grandmother who was paternal grandmother. They did not live near us. We lived in Wilson.

My grandfather lived in Warrington; that's the famous Warrington. My grandmother, who

was my father's mother, lived out from Warrenton in Littleton, out in Warren County. So my

contacts with them were on visits to them or their visits to our home. Most of my intimate

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relationships with family -- of course with my mother and father and my sister. There were

four of us. The aunt whose husband was a physician in Greenville, where I told you my

mother went for me to be born. We maintained very close family ties. In fact, they had one

daughter and because they thought that the school system and some other factors were better,

that daughter lived with us to go to public school and went home on weekends. But from

perhaps the seventh grade on she went to school with us. Prior to that, she went to live with

an aunt in Baltimore and went to school in Baltimore. And so, even in those days, there was

a concern about quality of schools and people did lots of things. I had an uncle who,

Raleigh, who moved his wife and children to Washington so that they could go to school,

though they lived in Raleigh.

46. Ortiz: Did you see your grandparents often? Or do you remember any interactions, any

stories they might have told you?

47. Fitts: No. My grandfather, I saw him so seldom and he died when maybe I was thirteen or

fourteen, but for him, I was just another grandchild and played on his knee a little bit. But

that's all. I wasn't in Warrenton that much. My grandmother used to visit us in the summers

and while my parents were in summer school, I would go to live with my grandmother in the

summer. So I had much more time with her. And she never really talked about slavery but I

think she was a very small child when emancipation came along. But she didn't talk about it

at all. She was very much attached to a White family that owned the farm next to her farm.

And they would call her Aunt Jane, you know, to imply intimacy, affection, etcetera. And

she would spend a lot of time there. Sometimes they would come over to her house. For the

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bit of time that I was with them in the summer, I don't remember them being there very

much. Her son who operated the family farm didn't like the head of the household, the

Wilson that was the White family. He didn't like him at all. And they had lots of disputes

about property lines and who was crossing what. They had lots of disputes on those things.

There was one story about the Wilsons. My dad had -- that was before he was married -- he

went to school in Elizabeth City, at Elizabeth City State. I would guess that this must have

been post-World War I times, 1919, 1920. I'm told that the train -- that was how they got

around. My family didn't have any car. That he'd gotten off this train up in Norlina which

meant that he had maybe six miles to go to get to his house and he would walk that. Some

Black had committed, was thought to have committed some crime. I don't know what it was.

But a Black male. And when my father got off the train, it was in the neighborhood. There

was a mob and they were taking him in and I guess he was on the suspect list as well as

someone else. And it happened that this Mr. Wilson who owned the farm next to my

grandmother's farm, was there and rescued him. And I remember that kind of story about the

relationship; that he did rescue my father from possible harm with the mob.

48. Ortiz: What kind of education did your parents have? You mentioned your father went to

school?

49. Fitts: Both of them had what was called a "Normal" education which was teacher training,

two years teacher training. I guess my mother had more. She went to school at Charlotte. I

don't think she ever had a baccalaureate degree but she was prepared for elementary

education and that's what she did. I've never seen any diploma or anything. I guess I should

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look to see if there's anything like that around. My father had gotten a two year teaching

degree, normal training, at Elizabeth City. And thereafter he did summer schools and he

went a number of places to summer school. But he never got a baccalaureate degree. He

missed moving up. He was a rural principal of maybe a six, seven teacher school. And he'd

been in that size school. And then the school was being transformed into sort of a union

school and because he didn't have his degree, he was not given the principalship and I think

that was a real blow to him. And he became a principal of another rural school. And

eventually a teacher in a union school.

50. Ortiz: Who was responsible for the discipline and child raising?

51. Fitts: Well, both my parents were ... naturally, we were with my mother more -- my sister.

Now my sister's two years younger than myself. We were with our mother more than we

were with our father because my father, in addition to his teaching, he did carpentry work

and I told you he worked in the factories. So he was gone a good bit of the day. So most of

the discipline was left to my mother. And there were rare occasions when she reported my

misdeeds to him and he did his whipping. So did she. They used switches. And so I had as

much respect in terms of being obedient, all of that, to one as much as the other. Both of

them were responsible for disciplining us. I guess my dad tried to put on a more severe act

than my mother, but I don't know that he was any more severe. He attempted to be stern.

52. Ortiz: Now you have two sisters.

53. Fitts: One sister.

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54. Ortiz: One sister. Were you born close to each other?

55. Fitts: Two years apart. She's two years younger than I am.

56. Ortiz: What kind of relationship did you have with her?

57. Fitts: Well, being that close, two years apart, we just grew up together as playmates and all.

Being a male, of course, with a little sister, I didn't want to be bothered with her. And as we

got older and I was in the groups of boys, I didn't want her tagging along with me. And even

when I went to college, I was unhappy that they ended up sending her to the same college

that I was at. I just didn't want to be bothered with a little sister, so to speak. We had our

disagreements and all but my mother had really taught me never to strike a girl. So I never

got into real fights with her, although she took advantage of that sometimes. She'd take

advantage of it. But I never got into any real fights with her.

58. Ortiz: Who was responsible for things like budgeting and household decisions in your

house?

59. Fitts: My current house or then? [laughs]

60. Ortiz: When you were growing up.

61. Fitts: When we were growing up, that's a point of interest. I think my father would like to

have been "head of the household" but I think my mother, as far as clothing for the children,

selecting furniture for the house and other things, gave much more thought and attention to

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those things and therefore planned and worked those out. I don't ever know of anything

where he turned over his money to her nor where she turned over hers to him. I think each of

them had their independent bank account. But I think that there were occasions in which a

refrigerator was bought and it was billed to my father and he paid for it. On the other hand,

there were times when a washing machine or so was bought and my mother had it in her

name and she paid for it. Not giving a lot of attention to how they managed things, that's

what I recall. But they sort of together but yet independently did things together. I think my

father planned for how to pay for the house and so on. And I think as far as what

expenditures they did on the education, my education and my sister's education, I think my

mother did most of that. My father did the household things. And I think that was always

the case, that he felt that he was responsible for the household, so the utility bills and others,

so far as I know, and the rent because they paid rent for years. I think he took the major

responsibility and accepted what my mother would contribute. But they had no set

requirement of her. And she was a rather ... she wasn't all that independent but she and her

sister were a little more independent than most women at that time. Yeah. They had a

greater degree of independence than other women at that time as far as relationship with

males goes. For example, one of the best examples which always I find it interesting to

reflect on was when they were married, my father was a Baptist and he'd always grown up in

his rural Baptist Church. My mother belonged to the AME Church, which is the same church

as St. Joseph's here. When they came to Wilson, and that was before I was born, I'm very

sure that my father moved directly into his Baptist Church and that in that Baptist Church, he

assumed a lot of responsibilities, being a deacon, other things and the Superintendent of the

Fitts -


20

Sunday School. I gather that my mother did some affiliation with the not-so-active AME and

not-so-strong AME church in Wilson. When we were born and ... [End of Tape 1, Side A]

62. [Begin Tape 1, Side B]

63. Fitts: Okay. As I was saying, when my sister and I got to be of age that we should be

involved in Sunday School, my mother, I'm certain, made the decision that we would go to

the Presbyterian Church because they had a very strong youth movement. They had a very

progressive well trained minister and his wife and they had good Sunday School and other

programs for youth. Now I am sure that there must have been some very serious moments in

our household. I was too young to know. But my dad, strong Baptist, lifetime Baptist,

Superintendent of the Sunday School, with his children going down the block to the

Presbyterian Church! I don't know how my mother pulled that off. But that's something that

after I got older and I looked at it, I did go to his Sunday School from time to time. But I was

a guest there; I was not a member. But I think that shows you some of the kind of

independence and stance that my mother would be inclined to take. It was true the Baptist

Church was one where there were generally always problems with factions. One faction

supporting the minister and another faction anti- and all of that. So I think she was able to

argue from that position that their factions were not good in the church. But to me, that was

a significant thing in our family. You were about to ask another question?

64. Ortiz: Oh yeah. I was just thinking about the neighbor . I'm kind of interested in

relationships. Do you remember relationships that your family with neighbors? Did you

have an active community?

Fitts -


21

65. Fitts: Well, I think I told you my father was community oriented. And not only had he been

involved with and stayed involved with the NAACP, but he was very much involved in

getting people registered to vote -- which was a definite no-no for a school teacher. He was

with the various church groups. But he also provided leadership for what was then the

American Legion. And the American Legion at that time was needed for Blacks because

Blacks were not getting the benefits, whatever benefits that should have come to veterans.

Many of them were just too ... lacked the knowledge to know what they were entitled to.

And so our house was one that I can remember veterans coming in and out as though my dad

had had a law office. But what he was doing was helping them get pensions when they were

entitled to, getting into the hospital, and other things. He was very early on helping with

labor unions, which was a no-no. And he helped with that. So, he was pretty well known in

the community because of his interests and involvements. My mother certainly was with the

PTA. She was a teacher with the schools. She was with the PTA. But she worked with the

church groups. And then later in life, was a very strong member of a garden club which was

sort of a social group but did other things. So there was considerably community

involvement. And there were lots of family friends. My father was a Scout leader and did a

lot to get boys involved in scouting programs and so on.

66. Ortiz: Now the American Legion, was there a separate American Legion?

67. Fitts: Oh yeah. Everything was separate. It was nothing that both Blacks and Whites

belonged to at that time together. You were either a subordinate group, you know. In fact,

there's some kind of title that the American Legion had at that time which was really the

Fitts -


22

Black unit. It was sort of like Unit B of the American Legion or something like that. But no,

they was not together. Each community had a paid service person, sort of like a social

worker or whatever, to service veterans. And he was available to them but he was very glad

that dad took a lot of the things that needed to be done. I think Dr. Butterfield was active

with that too. But you ask about community life then, there were a lot of things, mostly done

through the churches, for youth and for socialization of people. And I guess the church was

the main means for socialization of people in our community.

68. Ortiz: You mentioned your dad was active in labor unions. Do you remember the type of

labor organizing that ....?

69. Fitts: Yeah. I guess it was some off shoot of AFL-CIO but it was tobacco workers. And

most of the organizers came out of this area, Durham. But they would get into a community

and would need to be able to reach the workers and people like my dad who knew most of

the people around town were able to help them make contacts and keep from being run out of

town. Because they would run them out of town too. The factory people didn't want the

unions organized. Didn't want them to belong to a union. Now much of this came about in

the forties -- the union work. In '38, '39, there was a female professor at Central who did

much in terms of going out in the community. She wasn't a sociology teacher; she was a

biology teacher. A Dr. Young -- I don't know, you may want to seek some information on a

Dr. Young. I can't remember her first name, but there would be records of her as in addition

to her work as a teacher, she did a lot to go in eastern North Carolina to try to get the tobacco

workers organized so that they could benefit from what the unions do.

Fitts -


23

70. Ortiz: Do you recall ... and I'm thinking here about entertainers, people like Marian

Anderson, Paul Robeson -- do you recall any of those figures?

71. Fitts: Yeah. All of us knew them. We knew them from the radio, you know, like the kids

today know from tv. But we knew them if they got national attention. We knew them from

the radio. And there were occasions when they would get them down to a city like Raleigh

or somewhere else and the people would come from distances to hear them. Now in the

college days, for the Lyceum Programs, you got them. The colleges got people of that

stature to come for a Lyceum Program. And that was beneficial. Even the orators. They got

all of those. And someone mentioned to me just recently when Sam Proctor spoke at the

installation of Chambers as Chancellor at NC Central, and he looked around and he didn't see

many students there. And he said, "This is regrettable because Sam Proctor is perhaps one of

the last noted Black orators as such." Mordecai Johnson, Howard Therman, that order. But

we were exposed to them. And from time to time, the small towns would somehow arrange

to get them to make appearances in their communities. But they were our heroes.

72. Ortiz: And I mentioned them because I think there were two interesting events that

happened in the late thirties at Marian Anderson's concert Robeson becoming the first

persons to do an entire public performance in Black Spirituals. It was very interesting.

73. Fitts: Well, we'd go even further back than that. I was trying to remember, I guess one of

the first to really get attention on Broadway who ... I can't think of his name. Did the

dramatization of the creation. Do you know that? It doesn't come to me now. Maybe it will

in the course of the conversation. But that was one of the things that the Black teachers did

Fitts -


24

try to make us aware of people who were achieving. And some of my colleagues at Central

and around didn't believe that I had a course in Negro History in 1934 in a public school.

And it was the initiative of this teacher who had the interest and the principal approved it.

And we had a course in Negro History. But most homes had books about that: they had

Carter G. Woodson's Negro History, they had Paul Lawrence Dunbar's Poems and some

cultural things that they attempted to provide.

74. Ortiz: There was a visit by Walter White ...

75. Fitts: Oh, White. Yeah.

76. Ortiz: Did you remember him?

77. Fitts: Well, I remember him visiting Wilson and the whole region, yeah. I don't remember

exactly when. But was it a matter of investigating an incident, is that what you're referring

to? Or coming as a speaker or as a promoter?

78. Ortiz: I think more coming as a speaker. I know I've been looking at the school conditions

at that time.

79. Fitts: I guess he was coming as a speaker and promoting the NAACP, and promoting

community organization for the cause. You see, by the time Walter White had been on the

seen, I think it was even after that, that we were beginning to get suits for school

equalizations. They were not school suits for integration or anything. They were suits to

improve Negro schools.

Fitts -


25

80. Ortiz: And there was a suit filed also for ...

81. Fitts: There may have been. By that time, I was away. I'm pretty sure that they must have

filed a suit in Wilson because they filed them all over in '48, '49. But that was the thing to

do, to file those equalization suits. Because the court was enforcing the requirement that the

schools should be equal. So you had to get on the scene and you filed suits. That was '48,

'49. My growing up days did not have to do with equalization schools but getting schools.

Getting the county to provide schools for public education. And the things of great interest

were that of getting equalization of teachers' pay. That was a big issue in '36, '35 and further

to get equalization of pay for teachers, because the pay discrepancies were clear. There was

nothing to be ashamed of insofar as the powers to be were concerned.

82. Ortiz: And were your parents involved in that?

83. Fitts: Yeah.

84. Ortiz: You mentioned selling The Crisis. What other types of information ... well, in other

words, were there any sort of types of newspapers in particular in the Black community?

85. Fitts: M-hm. The paper that was most popular ... would you like one of these? ... was most

popular in our community was the Norfolk Journal and Guide. That was the paper out of

Norfolk as the title implies. It was the Norfolk Journal and Guide. Then there was the

Pittsburg Courier which was a relatively popular paper. The Afro-American -- is that the

name of the paper out of Baltimore? Yeah. Those were the papers that were pretty well

Fitts -


26

subscribed to. And lots of my friends sold those papers. And those were the means to keep

up with what was happening to the Negro population.

86. Ortiz: A lot of things were happening in the late 1930s. I know going through some of the

Pittsburg Courier articles, a lot of really exciting things were happening in Chicago. Did any

of that ... Reading those papers, did that affect the community in Wilson?

87. Fitts: No doubt it must have had some positive influence on the aspirations of people there

and may have been incentives for actions on the part of people in the community. I don't

know of any one incident. But you see, those were lynching times and we were pushing to

get anti-lynching legislation, to get other federal things we couldn't get from state-wide.

They were also pushing for elimination of the poll tax. As I recall, those were big issues

through my teen and early years. And the just the right to vote and the elimination of the

required quoting the Constitution, all of those kinds of problems. Now there again is where

my dad took chances because he would take people to get them registered. And that was

something that was frowned upon.

88. Ortiz: Were there Black people that voted before that?

89. Fitts: Yeah. They permitted a few Black people who asserted themselves and who did have

some degree of literacy, a high level of literacy for that matter because they required all kinds

of things. But there had to be the effort to get others who were not literate to want to register

and vote. And sometimes it was a fearful thing to go before a Registrar whose property you

Fitts -


27

lived on or who had some power and influence over your existence. So those were problems

that I was able to get some notion of but not experiencing it myself.

90. Ortiz: Well, one of the things that Judge Butterfield mentioned was that when his father

came to town, he was actually asked by several of the White citizens he wanted to register to

vote, but it was more of a kind of coopting. In other words, if he agreed to vote for

the right candidates then he could register. Do you remember that?

91. Fitts: No, I find it believable because the matter of Blacks being registered was decisions

that Whites held. It was not a right that you could demand though you may have attempted

to demand.

92. Ortiz: So you leave Wilson, graduate and you leave in 1937?

93. Fitts: '37.

94. Ortiz: And then, where do you go from there?

95. Fitts: Where did I go to school?

96. Ortiz: Yes.

97. Fitts: Okay. When I graduated from high school, I guess I was fifteen and about to become

sixteen. We had eleven grades then and I'd gotten off to an early start in school. I wasn't that

adept a student but I'd gotten an early start and continued. And so my hopes were to go to

the Presbyterian college, Smith. That was where all my friends from high school were going.

Fitts -


28

And I guess my mother, rightfully so, recognized that I was quite an immature kid and

perhaps going right into a college was not the thing for me. So she sent me to a junior

college. And I would guess you've heard of the name Charlotte Hawkins Brown in terms of

study. She established a preparatory school up in Sedalia. It was a high school and

eventually she added the two year college part. I went there sort of as a buffer to going to

college where I would have more freedom and exposure to all kinds of people. And it was a

very interesting experience and we can talk a long time about that. You may want to talk to

someone about Palmer Memorial Institute in Sedalia. A lot of the people from here, who live

here, sent their children to Palmer Memorial Institute. And her effort was to develop

students culturally. We had to learn which eating instrument to use at what time, how to sit,

hold chairs for the ladies, to do all the kinds of nice things that I didn't think was overdoing it

but I think were important in terms of cultural development and being able to function in a

variety of settings. For this history that you're doing, I do think that some attention should be

given to what that school was like. There are a number of people here who can tell you if

you want to take ... Margaret Goodwin. That's Bill Kennedy's sister. And Bill Kennedy went

there himself. The recently retired President of North Carolina Mutual. Dr. Watson's wife,

Constance Watson. Mickey McShaw. Those are some people who could tell you about

Sedalia. And I think my mother wanted some of that for me as well as recognizing that I was

not really ready for a four year institution with people a bit older than myself. So I went

there the first year and it was a very beneficial experience. And then the next three years, I

went to school at NC Central. So those were my college days.

98. Ortiz: What was NC Central like back in ...

Fitts -


29

99. Fitts: 1938?

100.Ortiz: '38.

101.Fitts: NC Central was in 1938 Jim Shepard's school. [chuckles] Jim Shepard was the

founder, President and really the Board of Trustees, whatever -- it was his school. At that

time there must have been 400 or so students. And I'm told that the thought was that he'd

like to keep it at about 500. Well, I can understand that in the sense that he wanted to

manage everything. There were good teachers, people who had been well prepared in

universities all over, including some European universities. Most of the people there were

there for teacher education. If they weren't there for teacher education, they were there for

medicine or something. When I came out of high school, if you talked to a male in the south,

in this region, in terms of our exposure -- a Black male, in terms of our exposure, he had only

two careers. One was teaching; the other was medicine. And those were the careers. Now

true enough, there was preparation in agriculture at ANT and rural kids knew about that, that

you could go there and become an agricultural extension agent or a home agent or something.

Relatively new was the Library Science offering at NC Central. So that was new. And then

the Business Department. That was something that Black kids in high schools had not been

exposed to very much in terms of what was business. And they were just beginning to add

typing courses to the high school curriculum and things like that. But before that time, when

I came up, there was not a typing course offered anywhere or anything related to that. So,

the options were limited. We had a goodly number who did get out and get into medical

school and others who got other exposure once they got out of college. But one of the

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30

noteworthy things about NC Central was that the State supported it as a Liberal Arts

institution. And they were willing to support teacher training institutions. ANT was land

grant; that's federal for agricultural extension but the State supporting a liberal arts college

was something within itself. All the students, for the most part, lived on the campus in

dormitories. They had very strict requirements about what time you were in the dormitory

for the females. You ate as a family group in the dining room. They didn't have cafeterias.

There were inter-collegiate athletics which was a strong aspect of the program. There were

efforts to provide cultural experiences. I mentioned about the speakers we had. There had to

be a vesper program every Sunday which had its religious focus. And those are some of the

things that I recall about it.

102.Ortiz: What was it like moving from Wilson to Durham? Did you find yourself doing

different things, learning different things, in terms of being in a new town?

103.Fitts: Well, when I came to Durham to go to college, most of college life was campus

focused. I would suspect that of the students who were in my generation coming to Durham,

where the largest -- which they'd studied about and which had been told about all over the

country, the largest Negro owned business in the world was here. North Carolina Mutual.

I'd be willing to gamble that out of our students at that time, that sixty percent of them didn't

know where the North Carolina Mutual headquarters was located. That there was just that

much ... They knew Mr. Spaulding because Dr. Shepard would have C.C. Spaulding down to

speak at our programs. Maybe some of the other officials. They didn't do any banking. The

kids didn't have any bank ... We had no bank account. So they didn't know anything about

Fitts -


31

the Black banks. They understood that there was some Black banks somewhere around. But

to know about Durham, there wasn't a lot that the students learned unless some of them

worked at Duke Hospital, as they did, as orderlies or something. Those were males. Females

didn't do anything off campus. So, I guess the exposure to the big town for Black students,

and most of us were from rural North Carolina and rural eastern North Carolina, was when

we would come down here on Main Street to shop. That was exposure to ride the bus down

the Main Street and go to the Carolina Theatre or the Center Theatre and sit up in the

balcony. That was about the exposure. Again, sixty percent of them probably never set foot

on Duke's campus during their four years here. And they may have heard some noted

professor of Duke speak on the campus, someone from the School of Theology. They knew

how to get to the bus station and to the train station. So, where you saw the contrast in the

towns was when you went to the shopping center or the other things like that. I doubt if they

knew ... well, I know that I didn't know much or anything about the political activities in

Durham at that time. And very little about what social life was like among Blacks.

104.Ortiz: Now you received your degree in 194 ...

105.Fitts: one.

106.Ortiz: '41. And where would you go from there?

107.Fitts: Okay. In 1941, you see, the war in Europe had begun. '38, '39 things were very bad.

But when I came in 1941, the draft was in place. They were already drafting people for

military service. And I had a teaching certificate but I knew that I was going into the Army

Fitts -


32

and I didn't particularly have much enthusiasm for teaching. Nevertheless, my father got me

a job teaching right away. [laughs] That summer, when I got out, I went to work in Federal

at a USO. Ft. Bragg was growing and growing and growing then. So I worked at the USO

that summer. And by the end of the summer, my father called me and said that I had a job

and they made me principal of a four teacher school -- which meant I taught and kept the

records. And I was very high on the draft list. So, I made it through to the fall of 1942. And

that's when I was drafted into the Army. And I did three years of military service. North

Africa, Europe and the Philippines. It was my first exposure to really traveling anywhere. I

guess the extent of my travel through those years had been to Washington and Baltimore. I

don't think I'd even been to Atlanta at that time. I traveled in North Carolina. But I got an

opportunity to travel and went directly to the west coast military training. I got to see North

Africa.

108.Ortiz: What was that like? -- Traveling and going to North Africa?

109.Fitts: Well, one of the things that you would know was that this was my first experience of

not being in a segregated society, to go to California and being able to go on a pass and not

having to worry about ... Well, not being as conscious of whether or not this was a place that

Blacks could go or couldn't go. And all my years here, I knew where I couldn't go. I knew

what I couldn't do and where I could sit on the bus and all of that. So that was quite ... a very

impressionable experience to be able to sit where I wanted to sit on a bus, and to not have

anybody look at me strangely if I got into what might have been an out of place position or

activity or something. And so it was an enlightening experience to be in California. To go to

Fitts -


33

a lunch counter in Los Angeles and order my lunch or sandwich or something and the waiter

would tell me that the gentleman down on that end of the counter paid for it. Well, I didn't

know whether he was doing it just because I was Black or because that was what they were

doing for soldiers. So it was part of it. But that's an experience I would not have had here.

So that's part of what you're asking me, I guess, in response to what you asked me. We were

still in segregated units. And we had White officers. But all Black soldiers. There were lots

of ... That was my first time to really be exposed in terms of being intermingled with a large,

very large group of illiterate persons. I'd come up in the neighborhood where I grew up, in

Wilson, you just went to school. It was automatic. Poor or what, you went to school. And

the truant officer didn't have to do very much to keep you in school. And so most of the

people I knew how to read and write and do all those things. But when I was drafted and

taken to Ft. Bragg and then put on a troop train to California, I was with five, six hundred

men or more and out of that number, I doubt that there were more than forty who could really

read the sheet of paper that you have there. They'd come off the farms, the rural places in

South Carolina, Alabama, etcetera. And that was a traumatic experience for me to be on the

troop train where you're very closely tied in. The fellow I shared the bunk with had

gonorrhea. And I didn't really know what gonorrhea was then. But he sort of let me know

that he was having this problem and saying that it was gonorrhea. All up and down the line

there in our car, they were shooting dice. Well, that was a new exposure to me. Fellows in

college gambled but the little gambling they did, they played poker or something. I didn't

ever seen them rolling dice. And there were knives. They would threaten each other with

knives. They were looking for opportunities to buy alcohol and it was quite an experience.

Fitts -


34

110.Ortiz: Was there a lot of ... I mean, did some of it revolve around race, race relations?

111.Fitts: These are all Blacks now.

112.Ortiz: Okay, the company is all Black.

113.Fitts: This is all Black. A Black group. But, a Black group so handicapped in the sense of

not having just pure literacy. My first job in the Army was to teach fellows how to sign the

payroll. They had to sign the payroll to be paid. The Army wasn't supposed to be taking in

people who did "X"s. But that was all most of them had done before that time, was put an

"X" and the person took care of it. So my first job was to teach them how to sign the payroll.

And that was a real exposure to disastrous effects of rural Black/White relationships in that

there was no effort to see that most of these kids had received education. Most of them were

strong and muscular because they worked. They worked on farms. They worked in the

lumber mills. They worked everywhere. That was what they were brought up to do. And

that was about the height of their aspiration. But after exposure to fellows who would

threaten to cut each other every moment and who were finding the joy of getting a drink or

being able to get to the prostitute and so on, I got to know them a little better and it was

admirable that some of the values and attitudes that many of those fellows had irrespective of

their upbringing and their exposure. I found some gratification in things. For example,

there's one fellow whom I still remember. His name was Subry. Somewhere in South

Carolina. Subry couldn't read a bit but he learned to sign his name. But when we would go

... We were in French speaking countries, we were in Italy where they spoke Italian and we

didn't have that much German in Germany, but Frank Subry learned to communicate with

Fitts -


35

people in the settings where we were camped faster than the officers did. Yeah. He just

somehow had a knack for learning to communicate and it was amazing what some of those

fellows could do with such limitations. They also had a kind of attitudes towards Whites.

Whites were boss. You know, they looked at them as boss men. That's what they had been.

They'd owned the farms where they worked. They'd owned the lumber mills where they

worked. And the sheriff had been on them and so on. And they saw Whites as boss men. At

the point where they were willing to disagree or rebel, then a total rebellion. It wasn't a

matter of say arguing for a point or getting a position on a point. It meant when they ... as

best I perceived it, when they got to be anti what the White man said, that meant they were

ready to go all the way. They were ready to kill if need be. And I guess this is what some of

their experiences had been in those areas. That when they bucked those White men, that they

knew that they were possibly going to be lynched or going to be put in jail and beaten to

death and all of that. So, when you make your move, you make an all out effort. [chuckles]

Now that kind of exposure, I had not known in Wilson and Durham and so on. And that kind

of mindset, it was really something. I guess I should have made notes on some of the kinds

of amazing things that I learned with these groups of fellows. Many of them were very

religious. that way. Okay. Well you asked me about my leaving this area, going to

other areas and those are thoughts that came along as I traveled. For example, the

commander of our unit was a White man; he was a major, Nevin. And he came from a

family that does furniture. White furniture company. He told all of his officers, and all of

his officers were at that time White officers, that they had to keep the Nigras (and that's what

he called them -- the Nigras), that they had to keep the Nigras busy. And that the Nigra

Fitts -


36

would do anything a White man told him to do if you told him forcefully. And to some

extent, to some of those fellows, that was right. He knew what he was talking about. And it

very much bothered a young officer, a young Captain Williams, I remember very much. It

very much bothered him. He'd come through VMI or some military school. And he had all

the principles about how you discipline and how you train. And here his superior was telling

him just to order people around; don't try to do anything. And in fact, well, I guess this gives

you an idea, I was a corporal and then a sergeant. And he wanted me to become a platoon

leader, a non-commissioned platoon leader. And I told him that I couldn't be a platoon leader

because I was not forceful enough. The fellow who preceded me was very forceful and they

respected what Sgt. Rollins told them to do. He just commanded everything. And so here

Capt. Williams was asking me to move into that position. And I told him I had no aspirations

to do that. But I would want to get some other things that were available to us at that time

but not that. And different from what the major, the commanding officer was, he was saying

that that's not leadership, being able to command and force, use forcefulness. That leadership

is when people will do things because they have a particular attitude with respect to your

leadership, to your commands and to your requests and so on of them. And I had not at that

time had any community courses or any courses on that. But it impressed me that this young

officer was trying to use the things that he'd really learned in theory and so on in contrast to

what the southern White colonel was telling him to do. But that shows you

something of White/Black relationships. We went to California. We were out at San

Bernadino. The first thing that this colonel from the south, from Neder, North Carolina, said

to us as a troop -- he gathered the troops, he gathered his whole battalion together and he, in

Fitts -


37

so many words, said, "Now you Black fellows, you can do certain things here in San

Berduas, it was called, but there are things here that you, places that you can go and so on.

But you know your place." In so many words, that's what he said. "You know your place.

Don't get out of place. Don't get out of line." And that was quite something. He called the

whole battalion together and said, "Even though you're in California, you can remember

where you came from and what you did, or have to do where you came from." And that was

the difference.

114.Ortiz: So he was trying to re-create the order of the South.

115.Fitts: Yeah. Order of the South, that was what he was trying to do. And as I understand, he

went so far as to try to get the officials of San Bernadino to try to establish such procedures.

116.Ortiz: Jim Crow?

117.Fitts: Right. For his troops. There weren't that many Blacks in San Bernadino anyway, as

residents. And here we got a whole host of them coming in.

118.Ortiz: What kind of unit was it?

119.Fitts: It was a labor company. It was a quartermaster labor. In other words, these were the

persons who were to load the trucks, move things, do labor, physical labor. It was a

quartermaster labor company. [End of Tape 1, Side B]

120.[Begin Tape 2, Side A]

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121.Ortiz: So, Dr. Fitts, you were talking about your experiences on the troop train going to

California and coming in contact with African American people who came from rural areas.

122.Fitts: Yeah. Well, I don't know that this was necessarily typical of rural areas. It was just a

collection of people that had been thrown together through the draft. And, evidently they

sorted out this group of oh, maybe six hundred or more men, out of which a very few were

literate. I don't know how they decided to group ... Well, I do know how they decided to

group that together because these men, in the opinion of the Army I would think, were more

useful for physical labor than anything else. And so they were organized and placed so that

they could be trained for what is known as the quartermaster corps where they would be

doing labor things, physical labor, and would not have to be involved in technical things such

as artillery or the kinds of things like that. And so it was quite a shock for me to be with such

a large gathering of men who had had such limited education and such limited experience

outside of their rural settings. And I perhaps was telling you about some of the things they

did on the troop train such as shoot craps, as they call it, and some fights and other kinds of

things like that. I guess that was where we were. And this kind of traveling, getting to the

west, altogether new for them. There were interesting things to observe. 'Though many of

them were illiterate, they learned very rapidly. I may have mentioned that when we ... and

this is skipping ... that when we got overseas in Europe and in North Africa, when we

were in Algiers and Tunisia -- those parts of North Africa where the language was French,

that many of these fellows learned to communicate in their way with the populace faster than

officers. [laughs] They were just that capable. And it's amazing to think that for the

education they had and what opportunities they had that they could still acquire things in

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39

such a short time such as this. And so I guess that was how we were into this conversation.

I've forgotten just what led us to it.

123.Ortiz: Now, you disembarked from the troop train in California. Where was the post?

124.Fitts: The post was not far from Oakland, California. It was Pittsburg. Pittsburg,

California. This was a training area.

125.Ortiz: And now what were you specifically being trained for at this time?

126.Fitts: This was a quartermaster unit and for the most part, they were taught how to drill,

how to handle a rifle, shoot rifles, and to do things of labor. For the most part, just discipline.

That was primarily the purpose of the basic training, to get discipline. I think I may have

mentioned that there were so many of them who did not know how to sign their names for a

payroll that one of my first assignments was to help them learn to read and write and

particularly to help them write their own names. And again, as I said, some learned very fast;

for others it was quite difficult. And for the most part, I could teach them how to print and

that was sufficient for the payroll. But that was the shape of things with them. They didn't

have a lot of social graces. [chuckles] And so when the people from the USO would come

out, they functioned pretty well but it was sort of crude relating to these young ladies that

mothers had gotten together to come out to entertain the troops. There were some interesting

encounters.

127.Ortiz: Like what kind of encounters?

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40

128.Fitts: [Laughs] Well, I think some of the fellows were pretty fast in approaching in the

young ladies for an intimacy much further than the USO groups had planned for them.

129.Ortiz: Now the people in the USO coming out, were they White or Black?

130.Fitts: A mixture.

131.Ortiz: Mixture.

132.Fitts: Primarily Black groups though for our group because at that time the Army was

segregated. We were an all Black unit. And so for the most part that came to our section of

the camp came from some of the Black churches or USOs that were in Black neighborhoods

designed to work with Black troops. And there were some Whites in the groups because out

there at that time they were in the same schools and had their social relationships. And so

they were there.

133.Ortiz: Was that unusual for you? I mean, coming from Wilson?

134.Fitts: Yeah, that was unusual for any of us coming from southeastern U.S.

135.Ortiz: Do you remember what kind of impression that made upon you?

136.Fitts: Well, upon me? I guess I was impressed with the freedom of movement, not having

to select what restaurant I went to or having to be sure that I didn't get into a place of

business or whatever as I roamed. The city where I was was San Bernadino. And we'd get

passes and go to San Bernadino. That was Riverside, Los Angeles area. And I guess that

Fitts -


41

was one of the things that I really appreciated, not having to worry about getting on a bus or

what cab I call or what have you. But that I could move with a kind of freedom that I didn't

have here. I didn't have even in the northeast when I would go in the Baltimore area,

etcetera, or New York. But you had to be somewhat cautious of where you wanted and

accepted.

137.Ortiz: Was that freedom of movement something you sensed right away?

138.Fitts: Indeed. Right away. In fact, I can remember a very definite impression. I was in

something like a soda fountain shop somewhere in Los Angeles. I don't know whether it was

South Central or ... I've forgotten where it was in Los Angeles. And I was in my uniform,

eating whatever I had, and when I found out, the waiter told me that the gentlemen

somewhere else had paid for it. And I didn't see the gentleman or anything. He just saw me

as a soldier. And I don't know whether he saw me as a Black soldier or not but as a soldier.

He paid for it and disappeared. And that kind of thing, it gave you some satisfaction to

appreciate it. And incidents like that gave me a good feeling about Los Angeles. In fact, I

considered the possibility of moving back out that way when I got out from the Army. I was

in the San Francisco area as well.

139.Ortiz: Now was this early ... was this around 1941?

140.Fitts: Yeah. '42. This was '42. I went into the military service in '42 and went directly out

there.

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141.Ortiz: Do you remember the kind of rhetoric that was used by the U.S. government to fight

the war, you know, as a war to defend democracy against the Nazis?

142.Fitts: M-hm.

143.Ortiz: Do you remember that having any kind of effect or have you thought about that kind

of ...

144.Fitts: I really didn't. Black newspapers would pick it up and that and it was discussed and

all. But I don't recall that I had any deep feeling. I guess I had been led to believe that things

were just better here. And that this was the way it should be. And that in spite of the

deficiencies etcetera that this was still a better situation and certainly we wanted to change ...

to prevent any kind of change such as ... the stress was on dictatorships and prosecution of

people and those things, we wanted to prevent. And all the talk about freedom, well, in a

sense, we had freedom. Nobody told us that we had ... for example, that I had to stay in

Wilson all my life. I could move anywhere I want to, all over the country. While much of

the news that we got other places during war time was that people were pretty much

regimented in terms of what the dictator or the powers that be thought. So, when you look

back on it, you wonder if the irony of it was such that it would affect you but I don't recall

having such feelings.

145.Ortiz: But it was almost as if the way the rhetoric was framed, it was around issues of a

dictatorship rather than issues of race ?

146.Fitts: M-hm. Dictatorship or denial of freedom, so on.

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147.Ortiz: Now you're trained to be part of the quartermaster unit

148.Fitts: Right.

149.Ortiz: And you went to Algiers and Tunisia. What was that experience like?

150.Fitts: Well,

151.Ortiz: That would have been in '42?

152.Fitts: '43 by then, I guess. '43. M-hm. That was really a new culture, a very interesting

thing. When we arrived in Iran which was the place where we arrived, here we saw people

dressed altogether different from the way we had seen people dressed. Mostly the Arabic

people had on pantalones and loose hanging clothes and certainly there were the French who

were there with the European type dress and so on. But seeing most of the Arabic people

with different forms of dress, hair style and modes of living, it was just an interesting setting

to see. And then, as Black troops, we were accepted anywhere where we wanted to go. I

think I told you -- going back to Black troops, I think I told you about ... I may have on that

tape, about how they, the commander of our unit gave us a speech when we arrived in

California, not long after we were in San Francisco, saying to us in a sense that you're going

to have more things that you can do and places to go here but remember who you are and

remember ... I think I mentioned all of that before. Well, here we were in North Africa and

there was not that kind of concern and we could go to any of the restaurants or any of the

nightclub like things that we had. Some places were off limits because there was

prostitution. And then places like Casbahs were off limit. I've never been in a Casbah. I can

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44

imagine why they were off limits-- prostitution, gambling, crime, Black market, all other

such things. Much of our fun things were provided by the USO. There were USO clubs all

around. In the USO clubs they would have the orchestras, the combos and sometimes local

groups, but for the most part, Army bands, etcetera. And then hearing that, I guess the other

part too, I tell you, was as you walked the streets, hearing a different language. That, of

course, took some adjustment too. But now you were not in a familiar setting. You were

hearing languages that you didn't understand and you recognized that you were in a foreign

setting.

153.Ortiz: Now you said you really had an expanded freedom of movement. But did the Black

troops mix with White troops in this new environment? Or was that ...

154.Fitts: No, because they were still separate units. Such as you had Duke here, NC Central

there. You had whatever our outfit and whatever the White outfits, they may have been in

nearby areas and all but they were altogether separate troops. Now, when they were off on

passes, sometimes they'd get together. But then, they'd get into fights. I never experienced it

but some of the fellows would say that the White troops had tried to get the females not to

have socialization with Black troops and that they had all kinds of descriptions of what Black

troops were like and so on. I never really discovered that that happened but I can well

imagine that it did. We'd go to the same USOs though. Where the ping pong was played and

other things like that. I didn't frequent bars too much myself so I don't know what happened

in the bars and nightclubs. But I know that there were fights.

155.Ortiz: Were the USOs in Algiers segregated?

Fitts -


45

156.Fitts: No. All USOs were open to whoever came. Now, let's see, I've been to USOs in

Africa, Italy, France and I forget the one in Germany. And sometimes because of their

location, I think, USOs were frequented more by Black troops in contrast to White troops,

depending upon where the USO was located and where the troops were located. But then in

the cities like in Marseilles or some of the other cities, you ended up in the same USOs, as

best I recall. It's getting to be pretty distant for me now. As best I recall, we ended up in the

same. There were some Black USO workers, very few at that time, Black females, and so it

was a treat to see a Black female, American Black female. Now, in Europe and in North

Africa, occasionally you'd see females of some of the French colonies and then the Algerians

were all shades and colors and what have you. And Tunisians likewise.

157.Ortiz: And you said that you went to Italy and then later France and Germany. Was your

unit assigned to the ... I don't know ...

158.Fitts: Let me explain. As I said, a quartermaster, which did mostly labor as related to

equipment, supplies and so on. Some quartermaster company units were trained and worked

as ... what would you call them, anyway, the people who unload ships. What do you call

them here in this country?

159.Ortiz: Longshoremen.

160.Fitts: Longshoremen. They were trained that way, to handle primarily ships. And others

were trained, as my outfit for the most part, trained to handle what we call ration dumps.

These were areas where food, canned foods, what have you, were shipped in from the ships

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46

as they were brought to wherever the sites were. And then distributed to the various troops

wherever they were. We did that kind of thing for the most part. We handled the distribution

of foods and things like tents, some medical supplies, some other things. Then there were

special units which handled ammunition. But see most of us was labor and you didn't need

to have a lot of skills to do this. And so that was what my outfit did for the most part. Some

were truck drivers, transported food, people, what have you.

161.Ortiz: Now you, I mean, I would assume that relatively speaking you were very highly

educated compared with most of the ...

162.Fitts: Compared with the troops, my education did exceed those. I had gotten out of

college. So I was given jobs like ... Well, I was first of all what was called a Staff Sergeant

which was responsible for a number of men. And my job with them was to see that they

were assigned responsibilities to do other things. Now, the other people who had as much or

approaching or just above high school education, were assigned as company clerks to keep

records, etcetera. Then in the matter of distribution of supplies, there were people who had

to handle the supplies and keep up with the quantities and the filing of information. So there

were responsibilities like that. Some of the people worked in the offices, etcetera. But I was

always with troops and I liked that. I was given the opportunity to be what was called the

First Sergeant, which would be the non-commissioned officer in charge of all the troops in

my outfit and I didn't prefer that.

163.Ortiz: How would you describe your leadership style?

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47

164.Fitts: Well, interestingly enough, I was small, as you can see. At that time I probably

weighed 130 to 140 pounds. Many of the fellows that I was with, as I may have told you

here, were accustomed to people using force. You spoke harshly and you commanded and

told them what to do, etcetera. They were accustomed to being forced. And the superior

non-commissioned officer just above me, he was known to carry a knife. And it was known

that if things got out of line, he was going to cut somebody. And so they feared Sgt. Rollins.

And they did things for him much out of fear. And he was very forceful with them. And I

was next in command to him. And then when it came time ... For disciplinary reasons, he

was transferred. And so the officer in charge wanted me to take his position. And I told him

I couldn't take it because these men were accustomed to doing things out of being forced to

do them, a real authority. And I said I couldn't operate; I didn't have authority like that and

couldn't command it. And if it came to just a physical matter of who's going to do what,

indeed, I couldn't manage that. And he talked to me and he said, "People will follow you

because of their regard for you; not because you are powerful and an authority. But because

of what regard they have for you. And that you have to deal with them in that way, out of

respect, instead of ..." And that's what happened. I was able. It was rather amusing. I don't

know whether this came up or not. But they called me Sgt. Trouble. [laughs] they

called me Sgt. Trouble because I did persist. If there was something to be done, I persisted in

saying that we must do it. And we'd go ahead and do it. And when they were lagging and so

on, I'd call their attention to their lagging. But it was more saying that this must be done, is

what we have to do, etcetera. So I was troublesome, [laughs] not a powerful sergeant that

. And I guess that was it, that they had a regard for me which respected the fact that I

Fitts -


48

was the sergeant, that I was in charge and that they had to, were expected to do whatever was

required for them.

165.Ortiz: Now did your position of leadership mean that you had to put a distance between

yourself and the troops that were under you?

166.Fitts: See, I was non-commissioned. The commissioned officers were required to do that

kind of thing. And I guess it still is, that you have to make a distinction. You've got to salute

the commissioner officer. As a non-commissioned officer, no. You weren't supposed to

fraternize in a number of ways with them, you know. It wasn't the staff sergeant or first

sergeant when they went out on passes. Weren't supposed to be going with the private and so

on. But that was disregarded. To that extent, they weren't supposed to have that kind of

fraternization. But beyond that, there weren't that kind of restrictions. If we wanted to, not

necessarily want to ... For the most part, the sergeants, corporals and non-commissioned

officers slept in a tent separate and apart from the regular troops, the non-commissioned

people. But in most occasions, I was with regular troops in tents and housing where we

were. But there was supposed to be that kind of distinction.

167.Ortiz: But then would you say that outside of your leadership role, that you had a good

relationship with rank and file troops?

168.Fitts: That my relationship with the rank and file was what?

169.Ortiz: Good.

Fitts -


49

170.Fitts: Oh yes. I think it was good. M-hm. I enjoyed it.

171.Ortiz: As you moved along, obviously, into the European campaign, did you see changes in

... The Army was so segregated.

172.Fitts: The Army was still segregated. Right.

173.Ortiz: So did you see any changes that were occurring as, you know, the war progressed in

terms of race relations? In other words, were things as far as race relations

174.Fitts: Okay. In my opinion, for what I saw during the war in my just about two years in

North Africa, Italy and southern France, the race distinction was there because the troops

were separated. However, the encounters for the most part were with fellow Americans. I

think Whites and Blacks sort of felt that we were fellow Americans in a foreign setting. And

I think that there was that kind of identification with each other. As I said, there were times

when they'd get into brawls, usually at some nightclub when Blacks were with White

women, or some drinking place that there'd be some brawl, some encounters like that. Or

somebody'd bump someone on the Rue de la something else, in some place they might bump

at each other. But for the most part there was a kind of identity, I think, of fellow Americans

here to fight a war, etcetera. But I couldn't see ... The only movement in the direction was

that I think they recognized with all these Blacks not on the front, what else , and the

Blacks did seek to be a part of the infantry and a part of the fighting forces. And so they

began to open up opportunities for those who wanted to go to the front, so to speak, to join

outfits that were fighting, with the infantry, cavalry and so on outfits. And some fellows

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50

from our outfit who were sort of impatient with the kind of roles we played did join fighting

units. And most of the ... There were some all Black fighting units. There was the 93rd

Division and so on, which were in areas near us. But most of the Black fighting units, as I

understand it, went to the Pacific. I ran into some of my friends who were in the Air Force,

the 99th Pursuit Squadron, and so on, in North Africa and in Italy. And they were fighting

units. But that was all Black. But there was the opening up of Black troops to go with the

infantry during the time near the end of the war. Well, during the time that Germany was

doing its second confrontation with some degree of success.

175.Ortiz: ... the Battle of the Bulge?

176.Fitts: Bulge and all of that. Yeah. They were taking troops from us then during that

period.

177.Ortiz: Were you in France during that?

178.Fitts: I was in France during that period.

179.Ortiz: When that battle commenced, I understand it caused quite a stir.

180.Fitts: It did. Except, you see, I was in southern France, just near the Alps. In a place called

Vassou. Most of the Bulge went toward Belgium and toward ... what would that be? East,

going toward England and in that direction. So we got some of the overflow from it but

really were not seriously affected by the Battle of the Bulge. Now, if it's exposure to most

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51

sides, it was on invasions when there were bombings of the invading troops. And I don't

remember any of us being hurt by a mine or anything. But there was that possibility.

181.Ortiz: One more question from those war years -- you mentioned that some of the other

troops would do things for entertainment that you would kind of shy away from or you ....

182.Fitts: For example, this place Vassou which was ... what would that be? Northeastern

France. I'm getting the directions all caught up. Near Swiss border, near Leon, you probably

know. Grenoble. No, it wasn't near Grenoble. Leon and some other places. It was in a

very, very quaint mountain town and we were stationed there for quite awhile. And we

would have socials at ... we really didn't have a USO there but some kind of place. We'd

have socials there. And if we were serving food and chocolates, the people would come.

And so I had some social life. I was dating a young lady and I'd visit her home and so on and

was received well in her home. In that way, we had social life. Now, there were

opportunities to go to the houses of prostitution and to cities where it was much more wide

open than in Vassou. But there were contacts with residents of the places, not always that we

were moving. So often we were never were in a place long enough to develop any kind of

relationships like that.

183.Ortiz: Now that's interesting because, I mean, there have been some documentations

suggesting that at one point the U.S. Army was ... I might be mixing World War II with

World War I. But suggesting to the French citizenry that Black troops were

184.Fitts: risky and

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52

185.Ortiz: Right.

186.Fitts: Okay. I think I said earlier that in some places that they were told that soldiers had

discouraged people from socializing with Black troops. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure that was

true in some of the places that we went. But now, say in this city, Vassou, our unit was the

unit there. There was not another White unit. We kept prisoners and we did other kinds of

things in that area. And there was no effort to discourage that. In fact, the officers did what

they could to promote socialization by enabling us to have these events, etcetera.

187.Ortiz: So was there a lot of inter-racial relationships, socialization in France?

188.Fitts: Now mind you, I speak from the experience that I had but I'm not sure what happened

in larger areas such as Paris and some of the larger cities. But yes, say, if a French man

worked somehow in connection with our unit, say that he was there as an interpreter or if he

were used to do some other things that he might have had skills, he might take some of the

troops, soldiers, to visit his home. That kind of thing happened. He would invite them to

visit his home. Or if there were other encounters that enable a kind of contact between

families and troops. And some of them visited the homes. Otherwise, most of the contacts

were in the nightclubs and houses of prostitution. What were they called? They weren't

called houses of prostitution. They were called something else but that's what they were. So

most of the socialization was like that.

189.Ortiz: Where were you stationed by the time the war was ending?

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53

190.Fitts: By the time the war was ending, I was in Marseilles. We had come in on the invasion

of southern France and we were in the Marseilles area. And when the war ended, I was

shipped from there to the Philippines. Most of the soldiers with me, except some who were

married and had dependents or for other reasons had accumulated sufficient points -- they

used a point system to score as to whether you went back to the U.S. or you remained in

Europe or were transferred to the Pacific. The war in the Pacific was, of course, going on at

that time. And here I was single, no dependents or anything and no age factor. So I didn't

have sufficient points to give me the opportunity to go back to the U.S. and I was shipped

from there with other troops to the Pacific. We went down through the Panama Canal and

we were really out, not far beyond the Panama Canal when they had begun to do the

bombing of Hiroshima. By the time we got to the Philippines, the war was over.

191.Ortiz: Do you remember having impressions of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

192.Fitts: Well, I was glad something was ending the war. I was concerned about what this

bomb was all about. See, all that we knew was what we read in the military papers, the

newspaper Stars and Stripes. We weren't receiving other papers. And what we heard on

radio was what we heard through the military radio. And so I was mystified by it but like

other troops, I was glad that something was ending the war. I didn't know how many people

were killed or permanently injured.

193.Ortiz: So it's 1945 and the war in the Pacific has ended. Do you remember what your plans

and aspirations were at that point?

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54

194.Fitts: To get home. [laughs] My plans were to get home. When I got out of the Army and,

as I said, I had a college degree. I had a teacher's certificate. I had taught public schools.

And I didn't think I wanted to continue public school teaching. I didn't know. And, in fact, I

was offered a job in December. That was the December that I got out. I was offered a job

which was considered a decent job as a teacher in a high school in my area. And my father

was a teacher before me and he loved education and teaching. And it surprised me that he

sort of discouraged me from taking a job that I could have very well used. And so I came

back here to North Carolina Central with the idea that I would take chemistry and see what

my chances were for getting into medical school. Now I had at least what they call a

refresher course to see what the opportunities were then. I had no fixed idea of occupation.

And when I got into school here that spring, I was exposed to the new program in public

health that was being established there. And it interested me and I had an appropriate

background for admission. And that's how I got into public health education. That they had

established a program of public health education. And I got into that right here. And that's

how I got into this career.

195.Ortiz: Who was directing that program?

196.Fitts: Who directed it? A lady, a Dr. Lucy Morgan. It had come about through the work of

Dr. Shepard who was President of North Carolina College for Negroes, through his work and

I think the Dean of the School of Public Health, who was a Dr. Rosenoff. And some other

people in the southern region who felt that they needed Black workers in public health. And

Dr. Shepard was one who believed in expansion and so for his school. So they established

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55

the program which was conducted by the staff of the School of Public Health. And there was

also a certification in public health nursing at the same time. And that's how I got into it. I

was in the second class of that group.

197.Ortiz: And what were you planning to do with ...

198.Fitts: Well, that degree to prepared you to work as a public health educator with a health

agency, whether it was an official health agency like the Health Department or whether it

was a voluntary agency such as -- at that time we had the Tuberculosis Association, Cancer

Society. The Heart Association wasn't all that strong then. But there were those kinds of

associations that you could be employed with and if you had a teaching certificate, you could

also be employed as a teacher of health in schools. And with a master's degree, you could be

employed as a teacher of health at the college level. I was glad that I got the experiences

with the Health Department when I worked in the Health Department in Chapel Hill for three

years there.

199.Ortiz: And then that's after you received your certificate?

200.Fitts: Well, no it was a master's degree. See, the Health Education unit was a master's

degree. Well, nursing was a certification. They already had to have their nursing

preparation, which was generally the registered nurse preparation. And then they became

certified as public health nurses.

201.Ortiz: And what were your primary responsibilities at Chapel Hill?

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56

202.Fitts: I was a part of the local public health department. My responsibilities were to work

with community groups, in that time Black community groups because that was what

expected -- that I would work with Blacks. Work with Black community groups to discover

what kinds of health problems they had and to try to deal with those problems. Now health

problems that they had then would like environmental things, standing water places,

improper means of disposing of sewage. Those are the kinds of health problems -- Traffic

lights. Things that related to better living. In addition to trying to get them as groups to deal

with their health problems, there was the effort to get them to do the routine things that we

knew needed to be done, such as having the children immunized, such as taking advantage of

the pre-natal clinics. Such as -- at that time we promoted x-rays. And that was a great effort.

Tuberculosis was a problem. So you tried to get everybody x-rayed at least twice a year.

Immunizations, I mentioned. Now to try to get them to do those kinds of things, then I was

to work with the schools to help them improve their instruction about health, or to at least do

health instruction to help them establish lunchroom programs and to do environmental things

in the school. So it was quite a full job. It was an interesting experience because we worked

in the Health Department where there were doctors who were examining people and who

were making certain prescriptions, etcetera that people should follow. And there were nurses

who were assisting doctors. There was the environmental specialist who was going out

inspecting wells and describing how septic tanks should be laid. And here we were, people

who didn't render a service. And we weren't very well accepted by Health Departments right

off because we didn't render any service such as they did. They didn't do anything to the

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57

and now I've lived to see the health education hailed as the major thing that health

departments should be doing. It's been a gratifying experience to see that acceptance.

203.Ortiz: That's interesting. And this is in the late forties?

204.Fitts: This is in the late forties, correct.

205.Ortiz: So you were in a really neat position to really see the environmental material

condition in African American communities.

206.Fitts: Right. And everything were in a pretty bad state of affairs.

207.Ortiz: Pretty bad state. What were some of the things that really stuck out in your mind at

that time, and were any of those conditions new to you? [End of Tape 2, Side A]

208.[Begin Tape 2, Side B]

209.Fitts: Okay. Having grown up in Wilson, which is a rural eastern county, I'd been exposed

to all kinds of things. For example, there the big thing was that many of the people were

sharecroppers who lived on farms where tobacco was the major industry. And when the time

came to harvest the tobacco and they'd gotten tobacco in and tobacco sold, and when the

factories in that area closed, there were people in the months of January, February that had no

employment. And their incomes hadn't been enough to enable them to save to carry them

through the difficult cold months. And so people really suffered and you had people moving

from farm to farm. And those in town moving from one rental house to another because they

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just couldn't pay the rent and the landlords would put them out. There were even times when

they would tear up houses they were living in to heat, to keep themselves warm. But at that

time most of the heating was with wood and coal. We didn't have the oil. And so I'd seen all

of this. And I'd seen families where one person got tuberculosis and then another member

and then another member and you'd have them dying off. But some of my peers who had

whooping cough and ended up with pneumonia or something and dying. And even some

who died of diphtheria. I don't remember a lot who died of diphtheria but there were some of

those problems. So when I began to work, to go right into the neighborhoods and into the

homes, I saw these kinds of things, the real situations. And there were people who couldn't

get medical care, who had no family doctor. And there were not clinics to the extent that

there are today. Most of them who got to some kind of clinics, if they had no family doctor,

would come over to Lincoln Hospital to whatever clinic they had. Or to Duke to whatever

clinic they had which was primarily for the training of the students then. And so they would

get into those kinds of clinics. And getting medical care was quite something. Chapel Hill

was highly able to support a Black doctor. We ended up getting one there. One of the

programs that one of my predecessors worked with, and I don't know that we got into this ...

One of my predecessors with the Health Department worked with was that a group of people

over in Person County -- I mean Chatham County -- that's Pittsboro and the area -- and her

work with them, trying to help them discover what their community problems were. When I

say community problems, the largest group. They said that they thought they needed a

farm agent who could help them with their farming. They were a rural county. Well, the

county commissioners who should be involved in supplying them with one, they wanted a

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Black farm agent, said to them that they would help pay their portion, A&T State University

which was the land grant college, which also was involved in providing extension education,

said that they had some money to pay for the support of a farm agent, but the county

commissioners said they had nowhere to house them, they had no office anywhere to house

them, so they couldn't have one. So this group got together and they're working on other

things, road improvement. They'd done a lot of things. They built a place to house a farm

agent. A nice little brick building. But in building it to house a farming agent and a female

home agent, they also made space for a doctor. And they were able to get arrangements from

a Black physician who eventually came to Chapel Hill to put in hours of time at the places in

Pittsboro. And that was some of the kinds of work that health educators did. You asked me

about health educators. Now, this was a White health educator who did this. And they were

very receptive to this White health educator. And, of course, she was one that had no racial

difficulties or anything and was able to develop leadership within the group to do these

things. And there was very interesting encounters, etcetera, with Whites and Blacks during

that period. At that period, we were beginning to have some resurgence of Klans in the area.

My landlady used to worry about whether I was ... my work with the NAACP or something

was creating too much problem. And if I stayed out too late at night, she'd wonder if I'd been

accosted by some group [chuckling]. And here's a real joke, Ortiz. As I said, my landlady

was worried about whether I was making some people unhappy, etcetera. My fraternity over

here at North Carolina Central was, during an initiation -- this was not long after I had been

on campus. I had become affiliated with the graduate chapter but not long after I'd been on

campus for a period. In their initiation of a group, they required that the inductees march to

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Chapel Hill to get my signature. There must have been about five or more. [laughs] What

those fellows did, they rented themselves a truck and stopped the truck then at the lower end

of Franklin Street and got out with their lanterns and start marching up the street. And the

policeman, I think, at first found out what they were so they had sort of a police escort. I

don't know how many but it was a sizeable number. And here, my poor landlady wakes up at

two in the morning with these people out in front of the house with lanterns. [laughs] They

almost had me moved out of that house! I wasn't there. I was away that weekend. And here

she had to come to the door with these lanterns at two in the morning and the Klan was

acting up. So she was so sure that that was what it was. It upset her so 'til she threatened to

have me moved. But that was the times, the kinds of things that were going on. I was even

amused. We would have visitors -- Yale, Harvard, all the schools of public health come in to

Chapel Hill. And European, other visitors as well, to observe the work we were doing. And

most of the meetings with rural people had to be at night because they were working or either

they were working over here in the Veterans' Hospital or some other places. And we'd go to

the PTAs or the community meetings at nights. And sometimes, our visitors, I'd take them

with me. It wasn't advisable for me and a White female to be roaming around in the woods

in the rural areas of Orange or Chatham or Person County at night. But the lady I worked

with, she and I would go together and I think they got to know people who might be

observed and know us. But the most amusing thing was we had a young lady from the

Philippines who was over. She was supposed to go out with us. So one of the White persons

asked if it was risky for me to take her with me and I was real amused at that because she

was about as dark as I was. [laughs] But people were cautious about these kinds of things.

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And some of those places I went, I couldn't eat because they had no Black restaurants in

small towns. And if I wanted to eat, I'd have to go in the back door and ask for sandwiches

and so on. And I guess I should have had enough pride not to do that but I did it. Some

other people who worked with us wouldn't do it. They had too much pride to be treated that

way.

210.Ortiz: So what would they do?

211.Fitts: They'd go hungry. Until they got home, you know. This was like at lunch time, like

you and I talking now and if it's lunch time and we'd want to go out to get something. You

could go in; I would have to go to the back door. Either or you go in and bring something

out for me and we'd eat here in my office. Those kinds of things were problems with race

relations then.

212.Ortiz: And you mentioned there was a resurgence in Klan activity.

213.Fitts: M-hm.

214.Ortiz: You also mentioned your activity in the NAACP. I wonder if you could talk about

that.

215.Fitts: At that time, there was the effort to bring about equalization of schools. All the suits

were for equalizing schools. This was before 1954. And NAACP chapter in Chapel Hill had

lots of support from students and some faculty were a part and there was real problems in the

sense that Communists were frowned upon. And so, there were Communist people in

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NAACP. I can remember one very famous person if I could recall the name who was from a

distinguished family, the Haines family or something in Winston-Salem. But he was a

flaming Red, so to speak. And he created disturbances all around. And I can remember him

in our meetings. And most of the things that he ... One of the persons I can remember very

well in our NAACP meetings when we were trying to make approaches such as trying to get

Frank Graham who was President of the University of North Carolina to do things and to

make peaceful persuasive kinds of approaches, these persons were advocating that we do

some very disruptive kinds of things. He says when a baby is born, that it comes into the

world yelling and screeching and that's the way he gets attention. And this is what he was

advocating. And so there was quite the advocacy for some more militant things than were

being done then. But I was a member of the NAACP at that time. My boss, who was the

Health Director, was concerned about it too. And he cautioned me that with my involvement

not to use the name of the Health Department. Not to use my role as an employee of the

Health Department in my work with NAACP. School teachers couldn't belong. If they

belonged, they kept it with some secrecy. And other people couldn't because their employees

or the people who owned their houses they were living in could deal with them harshly and

they would deal with them harshly. So my job was a little independent and then I was a

single person and I was able to do more in that way. Well, with these efforts for

equalization, equal pay for Blacks and all the kinds of things in the schools ... At that time

here in Durham, Durham High was the model school. Hillside was supposed to be a model

school for Blacks but the discrepancy was so great and the fight there was to provide all the

kinds of labs and equipments in Hillside that you have in Durham High. The effort in Chapel

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Hill where I was to at least make it a high school. You had a high school in Chapel Hill.

Then you had for the Blacks grades from like fifth grade on all the way through the twelfth

grade in one small building. So we were trying to get changes on those.

216.Ortiz: What kinds of tactics did the NAACP use?

217.Fitts: It was a matter of going to court, threatening to go to court. And that was about the

major thing, to try to get it into the court.

218.Ortiz: What did you think of people who advocated for militant strategies at the time?

219.Fitts: What did I think of them?

220.Ortiz: Yes.

221.Fitts: At that time, I was for pacifist type things. But I'm sure that that was needed and had

its impact. That the more militant things had some impact. But I was not one who was for

more militant things in '48 and '49.

222.Ortiz: So you saw ... Would it be correct to say that you saw kind of this ... well, I don't

know if it was called the civil rights movement at that time, as being able to accommodate

different strategies?

223.Fitts: Mostly what?

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224.Ortiz: Being able to accommodate different strategies? Was there room for maneuver in

that way?

225.Fitts: Well, you had the leadership at the national office for NAACP and such spokesmen

then at that time. That was Walter White had just gone in and then Roy Wilkins was the

Executive. And they could make the speeches; they could appeal to the President and to

others and get national news about how wrong things were and how they needed to be

changed and that we fought this war to make democracy real and using all those kinds of

things. And people, local governments, some were more inclined to be a little more liberal

because that was true. That here we'd had the war and all the things that we'd advocated and

we'd gotten better treatment for minorities in Europe and foreign countries than they were

getting here. And so there was some leeway and some effort to make adjustments and the

acceptance on the part of many who just thought that Blacks were second class humans and

so let them be second class humans. Let them ... Feed them and treat them nice but that's all.

And so at the national level, you were getting quite a lot of publicity and many court suits

and so on for change and you were beginning to get some militant types of things. At the

local level, people were less afraid to be identified as a part of NAACP and so you were

getting more activity, more movement and there was a stir to bring about changes. Truman

had integrated the Army and these things were cited and were used. And so there was

appearance before county commissioners, Black groups coming and asking, demanding that

paved streets be placed here, that recreation centers -- those kinds of things didn't exist. So

what we were for getting was recreation center, better housing, better streets, improved

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schools. There was so much deficiency until the integration thing something over that you

....

226.Ortiz: You were just trying to get some services.

227.Fitts: Trying to get services and to be accepted as real citizens who had rights and police

brutality, Black policemen in, Black firemen. There was a fight for so many things like that

until the fight for opening up and integrating things was a little later to come.

228.Ortiz: So we're still then in the late forties, early, early fifties. How did the county

commissioners respond to these delegations?

229.Fitts: They might sometimes treat it with courtesy and then at other times act they weren't

there. It was sort of like being benevolent to you. At that point, they didn't depend that

heavily on the vote of the Blacks. Now we were beginning to get some Blacks on the school

board in about '49. I don't remember any Black elected official in a governmental thing.

Yeah, we were beginning to get one or two council people on city councils. But the county

commissioners had rural populations and that was much harder to break than were the city

councils and city aldermen for elections, etcetera. This is a recollection thing; I may be off

on it. Did I answer your question?

230.Ortiz: One other question I'm particularly curious about is you mentioned that there were

Communist members of NAACP.

231.Fitts: M-hm.

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232.Ortiz: This was obviously a time of some sense that Black people were pushing for change.

233.Fitts: M-hm.

234.Ortiz: And it was also a time that the cold war was really firming up and people like, you

know, McCoys called before the

235.Fitts: Yeah. This is McCarthy era when ... or just before the war and right after, being a

Communist was considered a very criminal and something that was very anti-American.

And so be labeled a Communist enough to put you into a very, very untenable kind of

position. And the idea that McCarthy and others spread was that this was a part of the

Russian effort to gain control of the U.S. and that everything must be done to stifle and to

destroy the sale of such . You know, the Communist sells. And it made it so that here's

a group for change, here are Blacks a group for change. Certainly there was some alliance

there in terms of the kinds of change that were needed, changes that were advocated and

needed. But if a Black group could be identified as being led by Communists or being

Communist, they would say it's the Communists. That Blacks are satisfied. They're not all

that disturbed about it. It's the Communists that are creating this kind of thing. And Paul

Robeson, other Blacks who had been identified with social revolution like this-- they were

just about ruined. And so, for some people, and most NAACP people, the effort was to be

sure in local communities that the NAACP was acting on its own and that the changes that

were being sought were changes that Negroes, as we were then, wanted and sought. And that

we were not being pushed up to revolutionize things because we were a part of a world

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conspiracy as a lot of the politicians make it appear and used it very well to gain votes and

support for their causes.

236.Ortiz: So would you say that in a sense anti-Communism could be used as a tool against ...

237.Fitts: It was very much used. Yeah. They wanted to label you Red. They wanted to label

Roy Wilkins, anybody who advocated those changes, they wanted to say was Red or had

some influence by Reds or was being paid for and supported by Reds, as they called them, by

the Communists.

238.Ortiz: So you, I mean, in the local NAACP chapter here or at Chapel Hill

239.Fitts: or here or wherever. But Chapel Hill is more exposed because indeed there were

young students who had no reluctance to be identified as Communists.

240.Ortiz: Black students?

241.Fitts: No. There weren't any Black students at Chapel Hill. [laughs] Yeah. There weren't

any Black students. But they had to be reluctant to the extent that they could be brought,

criminal charges could be brought against them as being ... what's the term? Anti- ... What's

the term when you want the -- sedition?

242.Ortiz: Sedition. Unamerican.

243.Fitts: M-hm. All those kinds of things could be brought against them and they could be just

about disenfranchised as well as imprisoned. But, for the most part, there were any numbers

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of students here -- I imagine some at Duke and so on -- but they had their units. And the FBI

and others knew them and could identify them. And they were brought to court for various

things. I regret I can't recall the name of the man who was really the leader in this state and

really one who worked very hard. The other part, which I've not mentioned, which was a

part of the North Carolina context of things, was employees in the textile, furniture and other

industries here in North Carolina -- these groups were not just Communist groups but other

such groups were trying to organize them into unions. And that was quite something. And

they had great union fights here during that period. Over in Henderson, Henderson was

almost ruined as a town by the fights between the efforts to unionize. I can't even recall the

name of the industry there. But it was quite something. And in the Piedmont and going

west, even pre-war days, they had had great disturbances with the efforts to unionize labor.

So there was that tie in too with the Black causes and the whole milieu of change coming

about, post-war change. And there were some great disturbances.

244.Ortiz: So you had to really operate within more of a ... it sounds like a constrained ...

245.Fitts: Constrained in terms of not ... of making sure that what we as NAACP people,

members, and Black leadership was after was pure democracy, democratic things that we

were entitled to -- and not things that were growing out of the Communist efforts and not as

though we were being led by the Communists. Otherwise, if the Communists weren't there,

then we would be pleased with our lot. The times were pretty bad in the sense that here Dr.

Frank Graham, who was a scholar of scholars and indeed a strong advocate for democracy

and so on, he was assigned to the Senate. You may know of this but he was assigned to the

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U.S. Senate in somebody's seat who had died I believe. Someone who had died. And Kerr

Scott was the Governor. And he assigned him to the Senate. And he, Graham did very well

because he knew government, he knew how to function in the legislature and so on. And he

was defeated when it came time for election by a man in Raleigh, an attorney who's name

was Willie Smith. And what Willie Smith did was have a picture of Frank Graham sitting at

a table, I think, with a Black person. And that defeated him. Said, "Here's somebody

we're trying to elect for Senate. He's socializing with Blacks." And they put a little Red on

him; you know, put the Communist party into it too. And to me, that was just, I guess,

embarrassing that our state which was supposed to be a progressive southern state -- it had

the label of progressive southern state at that time -- would put somebody like Smith in the

Senate purely on the basis that he socialized with Blacks. That gives you something of the

setting of the times too.

246.Ortiz: It seems that I've read that there was always ... that the struggles that the NAACP

were involved in, different chapters, it was a struggle and many of them actually in the

deeper south would be banned.

247.Fitts: Yeah.

248.Ortiz: I know the NAACP in Alabama was banned. And the State's excuse was that it was

a Communist organization.

249.Fitts: Right. I'm trying to think of the name, the term that you use when you're trying to

unseat the government and have no regard for the Constitution.

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250.Ortiz: I'm kind of hazy on this but there was a major convention -- it seems to me it was a

NAACP convention in Durham around 1945. There was some major gathering of African

American people, considered leaders, who made a kind of a proclamation that called upon

the authorities and used the ... you talked earlier about the feeling that, you know, we've

fought this war to defend democracy and Black people fought alongside White people and

that there should be some kind of equalization in services and so on and so forth. I was

wondering if you had any knowledge of that?

251.Fitts: I don't. You see, I came out of the Army in December of 1945. That was the end of

'45 and at that time, I was in the Pacific. And I don't recall other than I think it was about

that time that ... no, they hadn't. I started to say they had begun to bring suits against the

school board to equalize schools. But I don't think they'd done it that early. So, I don't know

what that would have been about.

252.Ortiz: Okay. I think it was something called the Durham Manifesto or something ...

253.Fitts: Could have been. I can't help with that. As you know, Durham was a place where

there were more independent Blacks and could do much more of that kind of thing than in

other cities. Even Charlotte or some of the other cities where the Blacks were either

dependent upon their jobs as school teachers or their jobs as working for some very wealthy

family or other things whereas there were more Blacks here that didn't depend and could not

be sanctioned by a White power structure person. So things like that could happen in

Durham where they may not be able to happen even in Raleigh and some of the other places.

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254.Ortiz: And moving into the fifties, what were you doing in terms of your occupation?

255.Fitts: Okay. I was with, as I said, this district health department, going over in these

various counties from 1948 to 1951. In '51, I left the job so that I could go to work on a

terminal degree. I decided that that's what I could do. So I can't get the timing right but

somewhere in the period, I was here at NC Central for a semester, a quarter. They had

quarters then. I was here in school for a quarter. During that period, I became ill. I had

some problem with my eyes and for about the next four months, I was in the Veterans'

Hospital, mostly in Richmond, Virginia. From '52 until the spring of '54, I was ... well, from

the latter part of '52 really, late in '52, I spent at least two years in New York in school. And

came here to work in the spring of '54, summer of '54. And that's when I worked at NC

Central and was there until retirement. So I was working in Chapel Hill through '51. And

then '51 until the end of '52, I was here in Durham and then hospitalized, etcetera. And then

late '52 until spring of '54, well not until the winter of '53, I was in school.

256.Ortiz: So now, did you come back to Central to teach in public health?

257.Fitts: Yeah. M-hm.

258.Ortiz: What was the ...

259.Fitts: Can we take this up time or ... I would like to stop now and ...

260.Ortiz: Certainly.

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261.Fitts: And if you want to, I don't mind continuing at another time. Is that all right with

you?

262.Ortiz: Okay. I mean, if your schedule ...

263.Fitts: Yeah. I do need to stop now. [End of Interview]

264.[Interview resumed another time]

265.Ortiz: Okay, Dr. Fitts, I wonder if we could start again with a question I had from our prior

interview. And that is what were the main motivations for you to go into the field of public

health?

266.Fitts: Well, it was a matter of exposure really. I had come out of the Army, having

completed college before I went into the Army without really knowing what I wanted to do

as a career. I was certified to teach and I had taught public school. So when I came out of

the Army, I came back to NC Central and just took some general courses, which I call

refresher courses. And at that time, I learned about a program that had just begun which was

attempting to prepare Blacks to work in public health in the southern region. And having

exposure to that and being impressed with what it was about, I got admitted to the health

education program, graduate unit there. And that's how I got into it. I was naturally

interested in social service kinds of things anyway. And it was a real outlet ... .

267.Ortiz: Do you see any ... Was there a connection between the work you were doing in the

field and your ?

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73

268.Fitts: Well, I got involved in NAACP long before that. My father was a public school

teacher and ran great risk in Wilson, North Carolina, a rural community, with being an

NAACP promoter. And one of the first kinds of experiences that I'd had at doing something

that brought in money was selling The Crisis. I sold Crisis when I was maybe nine years of

age, The Crisis Magazine. I went around distributing them, I think we sold them for fifty

cents or less an issue. And that's how I got to know about the NAACP. Through my father's

involvement. And then my own exposure to it. So I was an NAACP member before I got

into my own career.

269.Ortiz: So it was a natural

270.Fitts: Right. But the kind of work gave me opportunities for working with NAACP and

other social reform kinds of activities, being in the public health. In fact, I remember my

Director -- I worked for a public health department. And I got involved with some of the

school suits. At that time they were suits to equalize schools, not desegregation. And Dr.

Godlin called me aside one day and he told me that he knew about my work in school

desegregation and so on and that for some people was creating problem.

271.Ortiz: Which county?

272.Fitts: That was in Orange County; I was working in Chapel Hill. And he said that as long

as I did it as though it were not part of my job, he'd have nothing to comment about it or

nothing to say. But to try to see if I could keep it separate from what was seen as my natural

work. In community health education, the whole effort was to involve people in bringing

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about change, primarily in their environment and their practices on the basis of what they

saw as problems. It wasn't all that easy to keep those two things separated.

273.Ortiz: Was there a

274.Fitts: To work with NAACP or to work with community health?

275.Ortiz: To work with community health.

276.Fitts: It was challenging, indeed. I had to learn a lot about working with people. I had to

learn a lot about communities. I really didn't know much about community dynamics,

having graduated from high school at just fifteen and into college and from college to the

Army almost. I hadn't gotten to know what communities were like and nothing about

community dynamics. So I had a lot of learning to do. But it was indeed challenging to try

to get people together and to get them to focus on things that'll make changes in their lives.

Most of them saw me as somebody who was out trying to get them to get blood tests for

venereal diseases or someone who was out to get them to get x-rays. At that time, we were

promoting x-rays as a means of early detection of tuberculosis. But to get across to them that

we were concerned about their employment, housing conditions, and how they kept their

house . Those things was the difficult ones. It was easy for them to understand if there

were a special thing we were promoting like getting the children or getting their

animals vaccinated for rabies and so on.

277.Ortiz: So were people suspicious

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75

278.Fitts: No, no. I had no problem. No, no. They were suspicious of me at all. This was real

community organization, promote well being. I was well received. Now, surely some of the

power structure people would about somebody in the health department getting groups

organized to come before the city council or come before the county commissioners, making

a petition. Now you can see where that kind of problem would arise. If we were working

with people in that way, they had a little problem with seeing that as clearly a health

problem. We were going before them to get them to do something about extending water

lines or to do other things like helping them to organize and to know these were things they

could do. That was questionable by some of the officials, yes.

279.Ortiz: Do you remember any throughout the years

280.Fitts: Yeah. I began working in public health in Chapel Hill in 1948. And I worked there

to '51, three years.

281.Ortiz: And so you

282.Fitts: Well, petitions was just a small part of it. There were many other things. People

who'd worked before me had done that. Actually reaching people and getting people to feel

that they could make some changes in their status, life status, etcetera, was the real problem.

283.Ortiz: How did you feel about the outcome programs,

284.Fitts: Well, there were some things that were successes and then there were other things

that just didn't work. And it depended upon what you did with people related to their own

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interested, related to what they wanted and needed. I was fortunate to have followed in

public health a lady who was the health educator prior to me and who was from , who

was very effective in working with rural groups. She had worked with this rural group in

Chatham County, over here at Pittsboro and so on. They'd done a number of things. The

biggest thing, of course, is that they had gotten themselves a building in which they could

house a Black farm agent. That was what they wanted. And they'd gotten the county

commissioners -- I may have gone over this before -- the county commissioners had

indicated that they couldn't hire a Black farm agent because they had no place for him to

make his office. So they just to build one themselves. And therefore were given the

farm agent, and working with the state institution, cultural institution, which was ANT

at that time.

285.Ortiz: So they might

286.Fitts: Part of the money for the paying of the salary but the construction of the building was

something that the local people did. Yeah. And then, in addition to that, they were able to

build a space for a medical doctor and they were able to get a doctor to come in certain days

of the week, so many hours a day. Well, I followed working with the same group of people,

and at that time, we were promoting the use of DDT and other things for insect control in the

building of sanitary pit privies. And there were measurable things that we did, as a matter of

fact which we could say were major accomplishments. Likewise with that group which

already had its own style and independence by then, decided that they wanted to have a

county fair. And they put on county fairs. And I was able to work with them and I think that

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fair still goes on. They bought property. Did everything to having a county fair to which the

farmers could come and bring their exhibits and the school children could participate. It was

a very satisfying experience. So that's an example of, you say, satisfying experience.

287.Ortiz: During those years, how much contact did you have with your

288.Fitts: My parents were there during those years and so naturally, I went home. I didn't stay

for any length of time but I was home for a visit, or if I was on vacation two weeks or

something like that. But it was so near proximity and such that I could go home over night or

any weekend.

289.Ortiz: Did you see changes in Wilson during those years?

290.Fitts: Well, I'm trying to see how to put this. Wilson had been fortunate in many regards

and in others very unfortunate. But it had all ... during my childhood years, we were always

able to have Black physicians, naturally with the health aspect. And we were always able to

have Black physicians. We'd had a Black hospital. And that was dwindling. That was

something that was fading out and maybe it was appropriate that it did. But then, they got

other kinds of community service kinds of personnel that render services in the community,

the agricultural extension agent, they built more schools, and they got a bit more

diversification of employment. You see, being a tobacco town, employment was around the

growing, harvesting and redrying of tobacco. And I think I told you in previous discussions

that by January, many of the laboring people were in serious difficulties in that they had no

employment. And the rental houses they were in, they had to move from them, continue to

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move because they couldn't pay the rent. And getting social services that they needed was a

problem. And so with the early fifties and thereon, they were able to attract some different

industries. There was a the hospital for treating people with tuberculosis. That was

employment. There was a ... I can't think of the name. A popular animal feed stuff plant --

Purina thing. And some other kinds of things that were coming in that gave more year round

kinds of employment. Thus that made for improvement. And people were making requests

and demands for elimination of segregation. And Wilson was pretty well organized for that.

Through the years, they brought about a number of changes, including getting more Blacks

elected to public office and even state office, etcetera. In fact, they had to file a suit to assure

that Blacks got elected to certain offices. And the suit relates to what we're into now in terms

of developing political districts, etcetera.

291.Ortiz:

292.Fitts: M-hm. Yeah.

293.Ortiz: I wonder if can you talk a little bit about your courtship

294.Fitts: [chuckles] Maybe she needs to be here to hear it. M-hm. I met my wife when both

of us were in school in New York. She was there working on a master's and I was there

pursuing a doctorate degree and that's how we met. She was from Louisiana and I was from

North Carolina. I think after a year and a half or so of courtship, we were married. And

that's it. I was quite mature. I was thirty-

295.Ortiz:

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296.Fitts: No, just five years. Which is supposed to be pretty good.

297.Ortiz: So did you ... Oh, I guess you received your doctoral in public health?

298.Fitts: No. I received my doctorate degree in education, health education is the area of

emphasis that certain schools provided degrees in health and health education, which is

different from physical education. Most of the schools with education, if you were interested

in health, you ended up going into health and physical education. I went into health

education which is separate and apart from . I had already gotten a master's in

public health through the program here. my terminal degree is in health education, a

doctor of education with health education the area of concentration.

299.Ortiz: After you were married, what did you

300.Fitts: [chuckles] That's an interesting one. The person who had established the program

here in public health education who was chairman of the Department of Health Education in

the School of Public Health in Chapel Hill. At that time, the school was separate. And she

had established the department over here. And we used the same professors from the School

of Public Health. They would commute to teach us, and we'd commute over there for some

things. She was trying to get more of us -- I was in the second class that had come through

with the master's program there. And so she was trying to get more of us involved in staffing

and so on of the program here. And she tried to follow my progress when I was away

studying. And when I had completed my course work and all, I was offered a position here

in the department of NCC. It was amusing since we talked about matrimony. My wife was

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already teaching at Southern University. She's in the School of Business. She was with

machine . And apparently they appreciated her very much so they were trying to find

the means to offer a position there so that they could keep her. And we chose not to do that.

And even later on, there were some efforts to get us to come back to New Orleans. The

school where she worked was Baton Rouge but since they had a branch in New Orleans,

there were efforts to coming back there. But North Carolina was so far ahead of most states

in terms of public health, in terms of health education, it was an ideal arrangement for

anybody who's in health there because we had a separate department of health education. We

were not imated to being in the Physical Ed department or the in the School of Education.

And that was ideal and it was the envy of most people across the nation. We had an

independent department. So I knew that that was what I would have preferred. And that's

the kind of situation ...

301.Ortiz: So this was in the mid-fifties?

302.Fitts: This was in the mid-fifties. It was begun in '46. I came for the second class ... No, it

was begun in '45. Because I came through the second class and got my master's degree in

'47.

303.Ortiz: What was North Carolina Central like at the time ?

304.Fitts: North Carolina Central at that time was considered the preferable of the publicly

supported Black institutions. It seemed to have had advantages over most of the public

supported Black institutions. I guess much of it had to do with the vision of the President

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who was the founder, James Shepard. I should think some of it had to do with its proximity

to Carolina and Duke and, again, to the effectiveness of the President with the state

legislature. He was considered an effective politician and he was able to get facilities and so

on that some of the other schools couldn't get. He was also noted as being one who could use

the leverage of separate institutions to get allocations to NC Central that others seemed not to

be able to utilize as well as he could. Because there was considerable leverage. There was at

that time a about separate but equal opportunities and equal facilities. And there was

some effort to bring about equalization. What had happened all up to that time was that any

time Black students got interested in a program or something, they'd almost try to establish

that program at a Black institution. That's how they got the law school here. Rather than

admit Blacks to the law school in Carolina, they built the law school here. Library Science,

some of the other special schools. They built them here or at ANT or somewhere so that they

would not have to admit Blacks to the White institutions. And some of them were provided

for rather well, none comparable to what existed elsewhere.

305.Ortiz: What were your initial experiences as a teacher at North Central? There seems to be

quite a professional public health and

306.Fitts: It was. That was something that I had to adjust to because the freedom of being out

in the field and working with people in their own settings, and not being restricted to four

walls or something was something I appreciated. But then you get involved in the lives of

students. And seeing students grow and working with them to develop their aspirations and

so on. That brought about some satisfying experiences as well. And then there were indeed

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scholars at Central. I was not among the scholars but there were scholars. And to have

opportunities to join sessions with them and to see them in action and so on was rewarding

also. To be a part of a growing institution had its reward.

307.Ortiz: Could you in any sense in any way attribute North Carolina Central putting

things

308.Fitts: I don't know about anything new but the whole matter of civil rights itself was an

evolving kind of activity. You know, you built on what had been achieved and you go in

whatever directions indicated. I think in Durham there was the leadership available who

could effectively use the court system and to relate to national activities that progress was

being made. At one point, for example, I talked about the fact that President Shepard

capitalized on the segregated system by getting things and allocations that were needed.

Well, there was criticism of him for that in the sense that our goals should be that of breaking

down the walls. And the editor of the local paper, Willis Austin, was one who advocated

breaking down the walls. Don't accept second rate education or substitute for the real thing.

And a lot of that was occurring then, how best to use this. And I remember the first students

-- they set up a doctoral program at Central, a doctoral in Education. And many of the first

students were scorned because they were seen as pawns in the practice of the White power

structure.

309.Ortiz: Where did you stand on this?

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310.Fitts: I was opposed to it too because there it was very clearly the typical ... the doctoral

program was set up to keep Blacks out of the university. And so I was opposed to that.

311.Ortiz: Was there a change in your attitude over the years? Do you think that that

kind of move?

312.Fitts: Well, I'm not sure I've got the question. Let me see if I can say in my case. In my

case, coming up on the NAACP and all the other things, and having been one who had to go

to the back of the bus or couldn't use the regular restroom or couldn't use the regular cafeteria

and the school system was so different from what we had, I was one for eliminating

segregation all together. And that was the goal as far as I was concerned: elimination of

segregation. There came a time in the movement that some of the people were saying, "Let's

do our thing. Let's have our own thing and forget about desegregation." And that created

real turmoil for me. I know that whatever we had, we wanted it strengthened indeed. And

that's my position now. That if they're going to be something that's called a Black institution,

then let it be a Black private institution, no public funds established to promote however

great a Black and separate institution. There are some now, of course, it's obvious they

would still like to see that kind of thing done. But I have no changed from the original, and

that's to eliminate segregated practices all together.

313.Ortiz: So do you

314.Fitts: Yeah. But here in Durham -- I don't know how much you've gotten of this. In

Durham, the organization that has done more to have an impact on issues relating to

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Black/White, to denial, discrimination and so forth, has been the Durham Committee on

Affairs of Black People. The NAACP has maintained, and I have been perhaps one of the

major persons to secure memberships, promoting memberships in it, but from the 1950s --

say around 1956 or '57 on through, my focus has been for Durham, on getting memberships

to support the national office and to support what NAACP does nationally, not what it does

locally.

315.Ortiz:

316.Fitts: It's an image that is seen and is publicized locally. But the greatest impact in my

opinion has been what's done with the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People.

And most of my energies have gone to work with that group.

317.Ortiz: What is ... In your opinion, what was the relationship between Durham

318.Fitts: The relationship has been good except as with any other organization some

individuals have gotten some notion of a turf kind of deal. Mostly on the NAACP side. And

so the leaders of the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People have learned to work

with those individuals, being a part of whatever goes on. The strength of NAACP in local in

no way compares to the resources of the Durham Committee on Affairs of Black People.

The strength, the know-how, and so on in no way ... The NAACP has to protect its non-

partisan status and that creates some problems in how it works with the Durham Committee.

It has to be a non-partisan organization and Durham Committee, at various times, can give

the appearance of being quite partisan, although we say we aren't. And so, the Durham

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Committee is needed when there are issues that relate to getting over into what the

Democrats versus the Republicans, and so on do. From getting people out to vote and stuff.

319.Ortiz: Well, I know you have a busy schedule. So I guess that we should wrap up. If you

had to make an autobiographical statement about your experiences, your very rich

experiences in living through the Jim Crow period, being one of the key people who

320.Fitts: I wouldn't say one of the key but a very involved person.

321.Ortiz: Very involved person. What kind of statement would you like to

322.Fitts: Well, I hadn't thought of that. I have thought of the fact that sure, I have lived

through some very exciting times and have had the opportunity to see some changes come

about that surely weren't anticipated. Some things came faster than I thought and others

came much slower than I thought. But it's been a very exciting time and a time for anyone

who wants to be involved to have the opportunity to be involved. I guess that's it.

323.Ortiz: Okay. Well, thanks a lot.

324.Fitts: Thank you.

[End of Interview.]

Documents

Interview with Howard Monroe Fitts, Jr....Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South Interview with Howard Fitts, Jr. Durham, North Carolina Interviewed