Initial impressions of Durham and its offerings for African Americans
Turner briefly describes her initial impressions of Durham, North Carolina, when she first arrived in 1924. Having lived in several other thriving southern cities, Turner recalls her initial disappointment in the layout of Durham, noting that there was little to do from the standpoint of public activities. While Turner eventually grew to enjoy Durham and its offerings, she believed a strong tie to the Baptist faith among African Americans in the community largely inhibited the range of social activities deemed acceptable.
Citing this Excerpt
Oral History Interview with Viola Turner, April 17, 1979. Interview C-0016. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) in the Southern Oral History Program Collection, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Full Text of the Excerpt
- WALTER WEARE:
When you first hit Durham, did you see it as a kind of stifling
- VIOLA TURNER:
Oh! I was leaving every. . .the first year I was here, I was leaving
every month, and then for the next six or seven years, I was leaving
every year. I had never lived in a place so small. They had nothing that
I'd been accustomed to. Even my home town, Macon, was an old city with
wide, lovely streets down the middle of the city, with beautiful stores
on both sides. And your pasttime, when I was a child, your mother and
father would walk on Sunday evenings to show-window shop, as we called
it. Looking in the different store windows. That's when I was growing up
as a kid. And that was still the thing that you would do in Little Rock.
My boyfriend and I would go downtown in Little Rock and look in the
pretty stores and shops, just like you walk on Fifth Avenue. And I get
to Durham. They've got two blocks, about two stores. Oh! I didn't think
there was any way I could survive in Durham. I didn't like nothing about
- WALTER WEARE:
Was there a kind of aura of what E. Franklin Frasier talks about Durham
as being different from other cities where there was a middle class,
because it had this old, Puritanical middle class. Was he right about
that? Could you pick that up?
- VIOLA TURNER:
Well, I didn't then. Probably it was a long time before I did, because
all I reacted to was the physical Durham. Nowhere to walk, nothing to
see, nothing pretty. The streets were funny and cut up. My whole
reaction was purely a physical thing from a certain type of city life.
Even Jackson, Mississippi was a pretty, Southern town. I hadn't been
anywhere but Southern towns, so that was my idea of beauty. And this was
horrible. But I can understand what he's talking about because, you see,
the mainstays of this town, black and well into the white group, too‚ÄîI
think I'm correct about that. They were a church-going people.
Their religion was stern. In other words, Bess got
put out of the Baptist Church, and came to the Methodist Church, I
think, because she played cards. I know it was either playing cards or
dancing. When I came to Durham she was in the Methodist Church. She died
in the Methodist Church. But she had been a staunch Baptist Church
member and got put out of there either because of playing cards or
dancing. Mr. Spaulding would have died if any of us had danced in the
building on Paris Street‚Äîany of those sort of things. That was just a
way of life. All of the outstanding men, the older ones, like Mr. Avery,
Mr. Spaulding, Mr. John Merritt, Dr. Moore, they were all good church
men. They were the mainstays of their church‚Äîof the White Rock and St.
Joseph's Church. Now, except for Mr. Avery, bless his heart. I never
knew a thing about him. And when I say ‚Äòknow‚Äô, I don't know anything
about any of these men, this is a story. But he's the only one of them
that didn't seem to enjoy everything else about life. Like a little
drinking and girls and corn liquor, and all that sort of thing. But no
dancing and no cards, no nothing. So that was a way of life. And anybody
who removed from that, they were the ones that were living in sin
[laughter] . And these rascals were having
all sorts of love affairs, from what I've heard. When I got here, there
was, ‚ÄòSee that over there? That's so-and-so's daughter.‚Äô ‚Äò;Gee! She
looks just like so-and-so.‚Äô ‚ÄòWell, her father's so-and-so.‚Äô That's the
kind of thing they were doing. That's what a lot of church folks seem to
be engaged in. That sort of living. And yet, they're strict on the young
people about dancing and playing cards and things like that.