Download - Interview with Flossie Fuller Branchcomb
http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/behindtheveil
Interview with Flossie Fuller Branchcomb
August 8, 1995 Transcript of an Interview about Life in the Jim Crow South Norfolk (Va.) Interviewer: Mary Hebert ID: btvct08120 Interview Number: 885
SUGGESTED CITATION
Interview with Flossie Fuller Branchcomb (btvct08120), interviewed by Mary Hebert, Norfolk (Va.), August 8, 1995, 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)
COLLECTION LOCATION & RESEARCH ASSISTANCE John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture
at the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library
The materials in this collection are made available for use in research, teaching and private study. Texts and recordings from this collection may not be used for any commercial purpose without prior permission. When use is made of these texts and recordings, it is the responsibility of the user to obtain additional permissions as necessary and to observe the stated access policy, the laws of copyright and the educational fair use guidelines.
Branchcomb
1
Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South Interview with FLOSSIE BRANCHCOMB [DOB] August 8, 1995 Norfolk, Virginia Mary Hebert, Interviewer Hebert: I usually start by having you say your full name and
tell me when and where you were born.
Branchcomb: My name is Flossie Fuller Carothers Branchcomb.
Hebert: You were born in Norfolk?
Branchcomb: I was born in Norfolk, Virginia, in the Campestella
[phonetic] section, to a family, Benjamin and Susan Fuller. I
was number ten of seventeen children.
Hebert: What type house did you live in? How did they find
room for all seventeen of you?
Branchcomb
2
Branchcomb: Well, basically, we had a pretty large house, as
far as a large family goes, at that particular time. We had
four bedrooms on the second floor and four rooms downstairs,
which included a kitchen, dining room, living room, and an extra
small room where we had extra eating space.
Hebert: Did your parents own the house?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: You mentioned before we started that your father helped
to build the shipyard here?
Branchcomb: The NOB Supply Center.
Hebert: What's the NOB?
Branchcomb: Naval Operating Base.
Hebert: So he helped to construct it?
Branchcomb
3
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Was he a contractor or a laborer?
Branchcomb: He was more or less a laborer. I think he started
working there in approximately 1916 or '17.
Hebert: Did he ever tell you what it was like to work for the
federal government?
Branchcomb: Well, my father wasn't a complaining-type man. He
never did a lot of complaining around us. However, he did tell
us about getting in contact with the different nationalities
coming aboard the base on the different ships, which was very
fascinating to me. He spoke mostly of the Nigerians and the
Ethiopians. He never complained about Jim Crowism, which we
know was entailed there, but he never complained about it to us.
I think he more or less kept us sort of safe from that type of
conversation.
Hebert: Did he try to shield you and the other children from
it, do you think?
Branchcomb
4
Branchcomb: Very much so.
Hebert: Did your mother work?
Branchcomb: My mother didn't work.
Hebert: She was busy at home with the children.
Branchcomb: Yes. Yes. She was very busy. However, my father,
to help support the family when he was not working, he would go
around the neighborhood getting plots of land that wasn't being
used or wasn't probably their property, but nobody knew who it
belonged to. He would get the man in the neighborhood to plow
it and he would grow vegetables all over the community.
Hebert: Would your brothers help him with the vegetable garden?
Branchcomb: Yes, my brothers and my sisters. We had to get up
early in the morning and take buckets of water with cups, and
water each little plant and nourish them as they came along.
Branchcomb
5
Hebert: What kinds of things did he grow?
Branchcomb: Corn, butter beans, collard greens, all types of
greens, string beans, sweet potatoes, you name it, all types of
vegetables. In the back yard, we had a very large back yard, my
mother had the condiment garden, which would be parsley and the
rhubarb, and the radishes and sage and all types of spices.
Hebert: Would they sell the vegetables or was it mostly they
were grown to feed the family?
Branchcomb: No selling at all. It was to feed the family and
to share with the neighborhood.
Hebert: Were you expected to do chores around the house?
Branchcomb: All the girls had the chores, primarily on the
inside of the house, and the boys had the chores on the outside,
including cutting the wood, keeping the yard clean, keeping the
woodhouse clean, and washing the windows on the outside. Girls
had the inside, doing the floors and the windows and the sills,
and carpets, and the washing, and the ironing, dishwashing and
Branchcomb
6
carrying on.
Hebert: Did you ever take outside jobs--the children--to help
out with the family or to support the family?
Branchcomb: Well, when the boys got about fifteen, they could
work delivering groceries at the grocery store, or carrying
papers.
Hebert: Did they all go to school? Did they all get a high
school education?
Branchcomb: All of them had the opportunity to do so. I don't
think all of them graduated from high school, because a couple
of my brothers were drafted into the service.
Hebert: For World War II?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Where did you go to school?
Branchcomb
7
Branchcomb: I started out at R.A. Tucker, in Campastella.
Hebert: I haven't heard about that.
Branchcomb: It was a little four-room school at one time. I
started there when I was five, and we'd leave there and go to
Berkeley, called Abraham Lincoln. That was in Berkeley. That
started the fifth grade. While they were doing that, while we
were there, before I was even there a year, they were building
Oak Leaf Park, and Diggs Park. There was a school they were
building on the Oak Leaf Park side. This is where they were
building the new school, R.A. Tucker--the new school.
Hebert: So you went to the old R.A. Tucker.
Branchcomb: I went to the old R.A. Tucker. By the time the
school term was up, the new school was not built, so we had to
go to Abraham Lincoln in Berkeley for part of the fifth grade,
until the new school opened. We left Abraham Lincoln and came
back to the new school.
Hebert: Did you have to walk to school?
Branchcomb
8
Branchcomb: We had to walk. Between the old Campestella
section, and the Diggs Park and Oak Leaf Park section, between
old Campestella and Campestella Road, there was a gouged-out
place. We called it a branch--go down in the branch. Gouged
out were two or three big ditches. We'd go down into this
little gorge and cross these ditches, and come up out of it on
the other side to get to the school. I mean, there was snakes,
there were frogs, and everything down in that gorge. I've been
chased by snakes. Yes, and we've had projects, where we went
down and picked up buckets of tadpoles to take to school.
Hebert: What about when it rained and those gorges filled with
water?
Branchcomb: We just had to jump.
Hebert: You jumped it?
Branchcomb: Jumped ditches. Jumped across the water.
Sometimes we would land, our feet be all muddy. Scared, too.
Branchcomb
9
Hebert: When you were at the four-room school, R.A. Tucker, the
old one, did it have the wood-burning or coal-burning stove?
Branchcomb: Yes, wood-burning stove.
Hebert: Did the children have to bring the wood in for the
stove?
Branchcomb: No, they had a janitor to do that. Toilets were
outside, and snakes all around that, too.
Hebert: It was a fairly rural area at that time, where there
were still some wooded areas around it?
Branchcomb: It was branch-like wooded areas around on the back
of it, but the community, it was a small community, Campestella
was. It wasn't rural, but it wasn't big city-like, either.
Hebert: So it wasn't part of Norfolk at that time.
Branchcomb: Yes, it was Norfolk.
Branchcomb
10
Hebert: It was part of Norfolk?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: I'm just getting used to everything being separate and
then being all joined again.
Branchcomb: Well, it started, I guess, south side of the
Campestella bridge, that ended where South Norfolk started,
which was at Berkeley Avenue.
Hebert: Who lived in the Campestella area? Was it a mixture of
social classes and people of different occupations, or was it
laboring classes that lived there?
Branchcomb: There were laboring classes. Some were from
Campestella Road to Berkeley Avenue, primarily blacks. From
Campestella Road back toward Fort Plant [phonetic] was what you
called Newton Park. They were whites.
Hebert: How were the neighborhoods divided? Was there a street
that divided the two neighborhoods?
Branchcomb
11
Branchcomb: I think primarily that was Campestella Road.
Hebert: That divided the two?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: When you were at R.A. Tucker--I'm getting back to you
going to school again--what were the teachers like? Were they
strict disciplinarians?
Branchcomb: They were quite strict disciplinarians, just the
same as our neighbors were, for each other's children. They
were very good, firm teachers. At that time they had the
privilege to spank your hands with a long yardstick.
Hebert: Did your parents find out if you got punished at
school?
Branchcomb: Then we'd get punished again at home.
Hebert: Was that the same if a neighborhood parent punished
Branchcomb
12
you?
Branchcomb: Yes. Yes. If a neighborhood parent would tell one
of our parents, "Well, I saw James (or John) over in the such
and such today, and I got on him and I spanked his butt," then
we'd get another butt spanking when we get home.
Hebert: So they always told the parents?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Who did you play with when you were growing up? Were
there children in the neighborhood?
Branchcomb: There were plenty of children, because at that time
there were several families in the neighborhood who had very
large families--fifteen or sixteen children. There were
children all around, all the time. We used to play up under the
house. We'd get clay and make clay dolls, and dry them out
under the house, play stores and used leaves for different
things like fish. We used a fig leaf for something and the
other big leaves for other vegetables and fruit. Picked acorns
Branchcomb
13
and make clay dolls. Because my parents couldn't afford to buy
a whole lot of toys for all those children, so we'd make our own
games and give plays at the end of the week. Get dressed up and
open the windows to hear the piano playing and the children
performing.
Hebert: You always put them together yourselves?
Branchcomb: We put the plays together ourselves.
Hebert: After you went to Tucker, which school did you go to
again? You went to Oak Leaf?
Branchcomb: Well, after R. A. Tucker, the four-room school,
Abraham Lincoln, which was fifth grade. We were there for the
fifth grade.
Hebert: Then where did you go?
Branchcomb: By that time, the new R.A. Tucker was built.
Hebert: You went back.
Branchcomb
14
Branchcomb: Went back to R.A. Tucker, which was built on a new
site at the end of Oak Leaf Park on the corner of Bricker Avenue
and Campestella Road.
Hebert: Was that closer to your house?
Branchcomb: No, it was farther away.
Hebert: Where there any white schools in your neighborhood that
you had to pass to get to the schools that you went to?
Branchcomb: No.
Hebert: After the new R.A. Tucker was built, was it furnished
with new books and new desks and things like that?
Branchcomb: Mostly, I think. I think so, mostly because it was
such a much larger school. So naturally we had to have more
books, so they had new ones and old ones. It was a mixture of
old and new books.
Branchcomb
15
Hebert: How many grades did the new school go to?
Branchcomb: It went from the first grade up to sixth grade.
Hebert: Did you go to Booker T. Washington?
Branchcomb: After that, I went to Booker T. Sometimes we had
to walk there.
Hebert: There wasn't a bus?
Branchcomb: We had school buses, but sometimes you couldn't
afford to buy the bus tickets, which we called punches. Then we
had to walk.
Hebert: So there was no free bus service that the school board
provided?
Branchcomb: No, no free bus service.
Hebert: The buses that went to school, were those like the
school buses we know now--yellow school buses?
Branchcomb
16
Branchcomb: Yellow school buses.
Hebert: But you had to pay for your ride.
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: How much did a ride cost?
Branchcomb: Boy, I can't remember. I can't remember how much
it cost.
Hebert: But sometimes you had to walk because your family
couldn't afford?
Branchcomb: Correct.
Hebert: Were there many of you in school at the same time, from
your family?
Branchcomb: Yes, quite a few. Oh, boy. Seven or eight, maybe,
at the same time.
Branchcomb
17
Hebert: How did your parents afford school supplies--books and
pencils, paper, clothes, things like that?
Branchcomb: Well, my mother did sew a little bit, and my aunt
used to send down some things from Jersey to help out. My dad
was a very good provider, so he always made sure that at the
beginning of school that everybody had some supplies. We would
get shoes Easter and September. School things in September, and
sometimes we'd get a few things at Christmastime in the clothes
line.
Hebert: Would your mom sew a lot of your clothes, or did she
sew to sell?
Branchcomb: No, she would sew for us. And we had hand-me-
downs. Well, by the time my older sisters began to do a little
work, some of them worked, as we call it in the white folks'
houses, and the white folk would give them clothes and things,
they would bring them home, also. A couple of my sisters would
go up New York to work for some Jews, and they would always
bring back a load of things. That helped out.
Branchcomb
18
Hebert: Would they just go to work for the summer?
Branchcomb: For the summer.
Hebert: Did you ever do that?
Branchcomb: No.
Hebert: I've heard that there wasn't a cafeteria at Booker T.
Washington for a while, and that people had to buy their lunches
from places surrounding the campus. Was it like that when you
were there?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Who would you buy your lunches from, or would you bring
your own lunch?
Branchcomb: Well, I had to bring my own lunch, because my
mother and father, they couldn't afford to give us our lunch
money, so we would bring maybe a jelly and biscuit, or peanut
Branchcomb
19
butter in a biscuit. Or sometimes, if we were lucky, we would
get baloney in some light bread, and an apple or something like
that.
Hebert: What did your family do for fun?
Branchcomb: Oh, boy, we had a lot of fun. We had table games,
hopscotch for the girls, all types of outdoor--jump rope,
double-dutch during that time, even. Like I said, we created
our own programs and had programs that everybody looked forward
at the end of the week. I most likely would get the kids in the
neighborhood together and get some things and tie things around
your waistline and open up the window. I would try to pick a
tune on the piano and play the songs, and they would do dances
out on the edge of the street, which was grassy. We lived on a
short hill, so they were able to do their things on that little
hill. My dad would always make sure the lawn was beautifully
groomed so that it looked real nice. The neighbors all around
us would be sitting on their porches and watching and clapping
for us. We did a lot of things--BB bats [phonetic], playing
marbles, singing a lot, a lot of things we did.
Branchcomb
20
Hebert: What kinds of songs would you sing, songs that your
parents had taught you, or you picked up on the radio?
Branchcomb: Mostly songs from school and songs that my parents
had albums or records--78s.
Hebert: Did you have piano lessons? Did someone teach you how
to play the piano?
Branchcomb: We had an old piano that wasn't really in good
tune, and my mother sacrificed for me to take lessons. But this
was a fact, that the piano wasn't tuned properly, I couldn't
take the lessons very long, because my piano teacher, Mr. Lucas,
said that I was picking up music by ear and trying to bring the
music back. When I'd go back for my lessons, I would remember
how it sounded before I left his house, then I would pick it up
from there, and he knew that I was doing it by ear.
Hebert: And not learning to read the music.
Branchcomb: Right. So I had to stop.
Branchcomb
21
Hebert: Did your love of music continue?
Branchcomb: My love of music continued. As a matter of fact, I
was glad when the time came when I got way older and I was able
to purchase a piano myself, but I never did go back and take
more lessons. However, I was able to do a few things by ear. I
did it mostly to entertain myself. [Laughter] I pick on it now
and then. I love music.
Hebert: Were you in the band or in the Glee Club in high school
at Booker T. Washington?
Branchcomb: No, I wasn't fortunate enough to have
transportation to get all those places. I think I was more
academically inclined. I was in the National Honor Society.
That came out as an honor student, but I wasn't fortunate enough
to go to college.
Hebert: Did you get offered a scholarship?
Branchcomb: Didn't know anything about scholarships.
Branchcomb
22
Hebert: Did anyone get scholarships?
Branchcomb: Sure.
Hebert: I've heard that some of the wealthier children got
scholarships.
Branchcomb: The wealthier children and the children who were in
the know, as we called it. My parents were not in the know as
far as what benefits that were out there, and I was naive. I
was very, very intelligent, but I was naive.
Hebert: Do you regret that, not being able to go?
Branchcomb: Oh, yes. After that, I wanted to go into the
service.
Hebert: What did they say about that?
Branchcomb: Well, my brother was in the Navy, and my other
brother was in the Army. My mother and father wrote my oldest
brother to tell them about my desire to go into the service, and
Branchcomb
23
he wrote back and said, "Don't let her go. It's not the place
for her." So I couldn't go.
Hebert: So what did you do?
Branchcomb: What did I do? I didn't know really what to do. I
took on a little job, but it wasn't a job that was really
worthwhile. I was cleaning house. I worked at Jonah's, at the
dress shop a little bit. Like I said, I was so naive, I ended
up like a lot of young people today. I met a young fellow who
was way above my head and showed me what life was about, and I
ended up getting pregnant.
Hebert: You got married?
Branchcomb: Later--a little bit later.
Hebert: How did your parents feel about that?
Branchcomb: Very badly, but they knew I was shy and naive.
Hebert: How did you support your child?
Branchcomb
24
Branchcomb: Well, the dad went into the service. He sent some
money home to help out. Like I said, I continued to do those
little jobs.
Hebert: How did segregation impact your life, the Jim Crow laws
and those things? Did you come into contact with those on a
fairly regular basis?
Branchcomb: Even going to Booker T., from Campestella to Booker
T., we had to go through an all-white neighborhood, and the
white kids used to throw rocks at the bus as we were going
through. That was my first encounter, to really experience that
type of thing. I don't think I ever really took it really to
heart until I really got up in my adult life.
Hebert: How would the children on the bus react to having rocks
thrown at them? Would they retaliate in any way?
Branchcomb: Some of them would. Some of them started taking
rocks aboard the bus so they could throw back. But it was a lot
of cringing among the girls, of course.
Branchcomb
25
Hebert: So the boys were mainly the ones who threw the rocks
back?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: What happened when you walked? Did you have to go
through that neighborhood also?
Branchcomb: We had to go through that neighborhood to walk, and
it was fearful. It was very fearful. I've never encountered
anybody attacking me or anything, but we have heard of kids
being attacked.
Hebert: Would you travel in groups?
Branchcomb: Most of the time in groups. But if we were late
getting up and had to go alone, it was very fearful, because
here we had to walk across the bridge, and I was afraid of
heights over water. I would walk that bridge and turn my head
toward the traffic, walking, to keep from looking into the
water. I still don't like going across a bridge with a lot of
Branchcomb
26
water. I don't like it, but I do it.
Hebert: I don't think you can avoid it living in this area.
Branchcomb: Can't avoid it. No.
Hebert: Were there any teachers at Booker T. that influenced
you and that you really admired?
Branchcomb: Oh, yes. In my fifth grade, there was Mrs.
Matthews. She was Elizabeth Collins, and she married a
Matthews. She was very kind and sweet, and was very patient
with all the children. One thing in particular that I remember
about her, she would take us for walks and teach us about
nature. We went out behind Oak Leaf Park, and she found a nice
spot out there where she saw a spring. It was in that spring
where she saw the man she was to marry. It was something down
in that spring. She saw herself and it was a man there. I
don't know--don't ask me how it happened, but she cried, and she
turned around and told the whole class about it. Then about a
few months, she was talking about getting married.
Branchcomb
27
Hebert: So she met him after that?
Branchcomb: She met the man after she saw a shadow of him in
that spring. Then she married him. She was a very good-looking
lady and very jolly. She was just an outstanding teacher. She
influenced us. My cousin and I were able to visit her home, and
she would even help us in whatever area we were weak.
Hebert: Did teachers take an interest in their students'
education, their progress? When you were in school, do you
think they were interested in how their students did and helping
them to do better?
Branchcomb: I think they were more interested then than what
they seem to be now, and they had big classes also. They had
twenty-five, thirty students, but due to the fact that the
parents were more concerned at home about the children and their
progress and their behavior and their morals, I think it made it
a lot easier for those teachers to handle the children. Even
when I was seven years old, I had an accident with a rusty nail
stuck in my leg, and it became poisoned, and I was out of school
for two months. That teacher sent lessons home to me for me to
Branchcomb
28
keep up with my homework while I was recuperating. When I went
back, I had to take a barrage of exams, had to learn a lot of
poems and things while I was at home, and when I went back to
school and took that test, and recited all those poems that I
had to learn, then I passed along with the other children. I
didn't even fail. But now I hear that if a child is out for two
months like that, I don't know if they'll send the lessons home
to them so that they can keep up and pass just the same.
Hebert: So you were allowed to pass.
Branchcomb: I was allowed to pass.
Hebert: Did you mother help you with your lessons?
Branchcomb: Mostly my sisters and brothers.
Hebert: Were your parents educated?
Branchcomb: No. My mother only went to the third grade. I
think my father was fifth grade.
Branchcomb
29
Hebert: Were they from the Norfolk area or did they move here
from somewhere else?
Branchcomb: They were from a section called Princess Anne
County, which is New Light section, with is now Virginia Beach,
close to the area where CBN University is. All of that was my
parents' land, around that area.
Hebert: They owned land down there?
Branchcomb: They owned that land down there.
Hebert: How did they lose it, or how did they give it up to
come here? Did you ever hear?
Branchcomb: I think it was their ignorance, tax, not knowing.
It was their ignorance.
Hebert: Did they ever tell you about what life was like when
they were growing up?
Branchcomb: Well, that was what you called country. We said it
Branchcomb
30
was "down the country," during that time, so I guess they were
mostly farming. My mother was one of ten children.
Hebert: Did you ever know your grandparents?
Branchcomb: I knew my grandmother on my mother's side. I never
knew my grandparents on my father's side.
Hebert: Would your grandmother tell you what it was like when
she was growing up? Did she tell you stories about when she was
a child?
Branchcomb: Yes. Yes. When my grandmother was a little girl,
she and her parents--her mother and her father were from Serra
[phonetic] County area. They broke up for economical reasons
and the grandfather, her father, took some of the children, and
her mother took some of the children. She happened to be one of
the ones that her mother took and came this way, and the father
stayed up in that area. Then my grandmother was raised down
there and continued her family from there. So it was like
Indian territory, and they were part Indian. They were from the
good Indian tribe, and the other family was run out of the area
Branchcomb
31
by some of the bad Indians.
Hebert: So she told you about that.
Branchcomb: That kind of stuff, yes. Other than that, it was a
lot of farming going on.
Hebert: Did your father tell you why he came here? You said
they lost the land.
Branchcomb: Well, not my father.
Hebert: Your grandparents.
Branchcomb: My grandmother.
Hebert: Your grandmother lost the land out in Princess Anne
County? I'm switching topics again. You said that they owned
land in Princess Anne County.
Branchcomb: Well, the land, actually, I think, when my
grandmother died, I think one of her sons took over. As I can
Branchcomb
32
recall right now, I just got word just a couple of months ago
that some of the land is still being negotiated, because the
younger son was able to turn over, before he died, some of his
property to his son's wife and their children. Another one of
my mother's brothers took over part of the other land, and he
divided it among his children. But we just didn't worry about
it because--
Hebert: You were here.
Branchcomb: Yes. That was right here in Virginia Beach.
Hebert: And you all were up in--
Branchcomb: No, we were here. We were in Campestella, which
wasn't very far.
Hebert: I've heard a lot about Church Street. Did you spend
much time on Church Street, shopping, going to restaurants,
those kinds of things?
Branchcomb: Yes, a lot of shopping on Church Street, because
Branchcomb
33
that's where the five-and-dime store was, Allshow's [phonetic],
and Del Snyder's [phonetic], and there were entertainment
places.
Hebert: What type of entertainment? Dance, ballrooms,
vaudeville shows, those kinds of things?
Branchcomb: American Legion Post, private clubs, drugstores
where they had malt shops, things like that. You had your
modern art studios where the Booker T. had their class pictures
and all made.
Hebert: Movie theaters also?
Branchcomb: Movie theaters. We had the Ritz. The Ritz was in
Berkeley, which was close to us. You had the Regal. I remember
some more. I can't recall the name right now, the movie
theater. There were about three or four on Church Street.
Hebert: Would you all go? Did you have enough money to go to
the movies?
Branchcomb
34
Branchcomb: Most times my mother would give us, sometimes,
money on a Saturday to go down to the Ritz Theater in Berkeley.
It only cost a nickel to go.
Hebert: You all would walk there?
Branchcomb: Yes, we'd walk there. That wasn't very often,
though. We didn't go very often.
Hebert: What about after you became an adult and started a
family of your own? Would you go to some of the theaters and
stuff like that also?
Branchcomb: Yes, I would go. I would go at night, and sometime
on Sunday afternoons. I would go to the club and dance, of
course. We loved dances. Sometimes my mother would even give
what we would call a social at the house on a Friday night. She
would charge a nickel for everybody to come in and she would
serve hot dogs and drinks and would allow us to play records and
dance.
Hebert: Sort of like a house party?
Branchcomb
35
Branchcomb: House party.
Hebert: And so she charged a nickel to get in?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Would she sell the hot dogs and the food?
Branchcomb: She would give them away.
Hebert: It was part of that cover charge.
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: How long would that thing last, until late into the
night?
Branchcomb: Until about eleven o'clock.
Hebert: This was when you were in high school?
Branchcomb
36
Branchcomb: High school.
Hebert: So your friends would come over?
Branchcomb: Yes. But as an adult, yes, we went to Church
Street, where a lot of the entertainment was, because for those
who did not have transportation, you'd get the bus and go. But
if we had friends who had transportation, sometimes we would go
to Virginia Beach.
Hebert: Where in Virginia Beach would you go? Seaview Beach,
Ocean Breeze?
Branchcomb: Well, during the summer, yes, we would go to
Seaview and to Ocean Breeze. Ocean Breeze was there before
Seaview. Not too long after, we lost a brother and a cousin to
drowning at Ocean Breeze. Later on they got Seaview, but we
would go to the beach to go to the clubs, also, which we had
Lill's Grill, Garrett's and Big Dick's, the chicken place, a
whole lot of places that you could go. Jack Holmes had a place
and we would go to his place for dancing, the Blue Room and all
different places that we would go and dance.
Branchcomb
37
Hebert: These were all out on the beach?
Branchcomb: All in the Virginia Beach area. All up and down in
different areas.
Hebert: What kind of music would they play?
Branchcomb: Played mostly rock and roll and blues, rhythm and
blues, and sometimes they would have DJs in and sometimes they
would have performers to come in. They had the Town Club down
there where they would have the big-time people come in--Arthur
Pressock [phonetic], Ruth Brown and those people, Diana
Washington. Then we had the big civic center that they just
tore down; we would go there a lot.
Hebert: They'd have live entertainment there?
Branchcomb: Specials. Yes, live entertainment and dances.
Hebert: Where there any places for African Americans coming
into the area to stay, like hotels?
Branchcomb
38
Branchcomb: Yes, Bonnie McEatchen [phonetic] had a beautiful
hotel on Church Street. That's where they stayed; most of them
stayed right there.
Hebert: You mentioned that you had family up North. Would you
ever visit them, your family up North?
Branchcomb: Nope, we never did, but my aunt would come down
here from Jersey. She was from up north. The rest of them, my
mother's sisters and brothers, are right around here. A few,
like I said, down the country, and had one sister live in
Campestella, one lived in Norfolk. I say Norfolk, but she
lived--it was in Norfolk, we would call that Norfolk. For some
reason, we called Campestella Campestella, and once you get
across Campestella Bridge, we call that Norfolk, but it was all
Norfolk.
Hebert: It's how the neighborhoods were defined.
Branchcomb: Right.
Branchcomb
39
Hebert: I've heard a lot about African-Americans not being able
to try on clothes at the clothing stores, or hats or shoes. Did
you ever experience any of that?
Branchcomb: Well, we could try on the shoes if we had little
footies. We could try on the hats if we put a little cloth or
something over our heads, due to the fact that we had to use
grease in our hair, because our grade of hair is different. If
we did try them on without putting something over it, the grease
would get on the hats.
Hebert: And it was your hat, and you had to buy it.
Branchcomb: Yes. But if you didn't have the money, what are
you going to do?
Hebert: What about clothes? Did you ever have that problem
with clothes?
Branchcomb: I never had that problem about trying on clothes.
Hebert: Did you shop mostly along Church Street, or would you
Branchcomb
40
go to some of the shops on Granby and on Main?
Branchcomb: Yes, I would go to Granby Street.
Hebert: Not Main.
Branchcomb: Church and Granby. I would shop on Church Street
whenever I could find what I wanted there, but then there were
nicer--I can't say that Antel's, and Smith and Wilson, and
Rice's were any nicer than Allshow's, but they had a different
line of clothing that I cared for, and I would go there and
layaway. You put a dollar down and a dollar a week, so having a
little job working like that, you could afford to do that
occasionally.
Hebert: Did you live with your mother after your child was
born?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Did you work in the shipyard or the Navy yard?
Branchcomb
41
Branchcomb: Yes, I began working in the Navy shipyard in 1969.
Hebert: Was that unusual for a woman to work there at that
time?
Branchcomb: Well, let me get back a little ways. I got married
the second time in '61. As you know, Norfolk has been a
transient town for military, especially sailors. I happened to
marry a sailor that I met here in Norfolk, and he was getting
ready to go to Puerto Rico.
Hebert: So you married a sailor?
Branchcomb: Yes, and we went to Puerto Rico and got married.
We had two children while we were there. After two and a half
years, he was being transferred, so we came back this way, and
we decided to buy a home. I had another child. I worked for
GE--General Electric--for a couple of years, and I came home and
then I took the apprentice test for the shipyard. I began
working there in August of '69. I was an apprentice welder.
It's a four-year program training you to be a journeyman in the
Branchcomb
42
trade.
Hebert: Was that an unusual position for a woman?
Branchcomb: Whew! It was very scary. I had never experienced
anything like that in my life. It wasn't my choice. I didn't
choose that as a trade; it was chosen for me after I got there.
Hebert: By whom? By your bosses, your superiors?
Branchcomb: By the people in the public relations office.
Hebert: In the public relations office?
Branchcomb: Not public relations, where you first enter the
shipyard.
Hebert: How did you adapt to it? How were you treated by the
male workers?
Branchcomb: Well, starting off, it was weird for them to see us
Branchcomb
43
women coming into the work force, because there had been women
there before during the war, but since then, after the wartime,
then there weren't too many women in there, except in white
collar. So this being a blue-collar area, it was very strange,
and they were watching and swore we weren't going to make it.
So when I got my hands-on training, I was scared, because
there's fire, you get burned. It was weird. It was fearful.
For a long time after that, the men, they looked down on
us. They looked down on us because they didn't think we
belonged there. They felt like we were taking a man's job. So
a man could be in there on that job, but here we were women.
But we had to, because economically, we had to survive just like
anybody else.
Hebert: You had families.
Branchcomb: Yes, to help support.
Hebert: Did they try to push you off of the job? Did they make
it miserable for you?
Branchcomb: Yes. Yes, they did make it miserable. It took a
Branchcomb
44
lot of will power, a lot of strength to stick it out. We had to
do ten weeks twice, of academic training at Tidewater Community
College. In that time, I passed all the academics. As a matter
of fact, I was on the dean's list. That still wasn't enough. I
got hands-on experience as I began to work. There was two of us
who were put into the welding program at the same time--two of
us ladies. Of course, I was the older one, and Eloise was about
18 years old; she was just out of high school.
[Begin Tape 1, Side B]
Branchcomb: She was just out of high school, and I was about
37, 38 years old. But we studied together and we worked
together, and we were able to succeed and excel in doing what
had to be done. A lot of times officials would be walking
through and they'd watch and see just how we were doing. They
were shocked that we were doing so well. As a matter of fact,
some of the most tedious-type little jobs that had to be done,
we would find them giving them to us to do. But when it came
time for promotion, they didn't want to consider us.
What I did, I decided to apply for promotion once my
training period was just about up. I decided to put in an
Branchcomb
45
application for promotion to see just how it would come out, and
I put in for supervisor. I came out as highly qualified. I was
shocked, because I was just coming out of training, although
I've had the hands-on work experience. So I made highly
qualified. That was in '73.
Hebert: Did you get that job?
Branchcomb: No. No, I didn't. I didn't expect to, either. I
let it go by. Each year, as the position opened up, I would put
in for all different types of positions, and it seemed like I
was just passed over on everything. I couldn't understand why,
because they had a negotiated agreement in the manual that
stated that 95 percent of all the promotions were made from
apprentices, ex-apprentices. That's the way the program was set
up. But as it turned out, I had to end up fighting for a
promotion after I tried so long. I got serious, I really wanted
to get a promotion now. Everybody else were getting promotions
and moving right on, and I'm still back there.
Hebert: People who were hired after you?
Branchcomb
46
Branchcomb: Yes. Hired after me.
Hebert: Do you think they expected more of you because you were
a woman? Did they scrutinize you more, check your work more
closely?
Branchcomb: They refused, because I was a woman, yes.
Hebert: So you didn't get the promotion because you were a
woman? Do you think that was part of it?
Branchcomb: It was because I was a woman and because I was
black, too, I believe.
Hebert: So most of the people who were promoted were white men?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Did you belong to a union while you were there?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Branchcomb
47
Hebert: Which union?
Branchcomb: Metal Trades Council.
Hebert: Did they help to fight for the role for women who
working, help to fight for the advancement of women?
Branchcomb: They had to fight for everybody, the advancement of
everybody. They had to fight for any cause that arose that was
questionable.
Hebert: You eventually did get a promotion?
Branchcomb: After I put in a discrimination complaint. What
happened, I put in a discrimination complaint and it took five
years, but I won it.
Hebert: Did you retire from there?
Branchcomb: I retired, yes.
Hebert: Did you get any more promotions after that one? Was it
Branchcomb
48
easier to get them after you filed the complaint?
Branchcomb: Not really. Not really. Like I said, I entered in
1969. I filed the discrimination complaint in 1978. I won the
complaint in 1983. So it was a fourteen-year period. By that
time, I wanted to become proficient in supervising, in which I
became very proficient. I put in for other promotions, was
passed over. I didn't file any more promotional complaints, but
I had to file complaints against upper management for things
that they had done that was not really right toward me. I speak
toward me. So by the time I became very proficient in
supervising and management, they offered me to take another
management thing that would take about four years.
In the meantime, I was doing the duty of a general foreman,
and I was safety coordinator for 800 people in my shop, as well
as managing. I was still supervising between thirteen and
eighteen people, while taking care of all the safety meetings
for my whole shop, about 800 people at the time.
But then I got to the point where I said, "Why should I put
in for more promotions when I'm getting older and I will not be
able to go down in the nuts and bolts with the people and all
out on the ship going around the areas?" I knew I was getting
Branchcomb
49
older and I would hope one day to retire. So I wouldn't put in
for promotions again.
Hebert: You mentioned that you filed other complaints. Were
you being harassed by some members of management?
Branchcomb: Yes, yes, especially the shops that I was
assisting. I was supervising welders, and welders have to
assist the sheet metal workers. Yes, I had to file complaints.
I was successful in getting things done through my complaints.
Hebert: So working in the shipyard was a difficult job for a
woman to have to do, with the harassment.
Branchcomb: It was very difficult in dealing with that, if you
wanted to get ahead. Yes. It made it difficult. But if you
didn't care, didn't mind, you just wanted to be passive and just
work and work and work and work, and just do that little bit,
just do what they say do and that's all, it's a different story.
Branchcomb
50
Hebert: But you wanted to get ahead.
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: How did the civil rights movement impact the Norfolk
area? Did things change quickly here? Did a lot of legal
segregation disappear without much of a fight? Do you remember?
Branchcomb: They had to put up a fight, because I remember
James Gay, when he was at the counter, the eating places, trying
to desegregate the eating places in Norfolk, I remember all of
that. So it was a fight put up. We had quite a few people who
joined up in organizations like Jesse Jackson's Operation Push,
which I became a member. We worked and we traveled along with
him some. We definitely put up a fight with them along with
them.
Hebert: What was Operation Push?
Branchcomb: People United to Save Humanity.
Hebert: What time period was this?
Branchcomb
51
Branchcomb: Well, I joined in 1972, so I think Jesse Jackson
organized it somewhere in the mid- or late sixties.
Hebert: Were you ever a member of the NAACP [National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People]?
Branchcomb: Yes.
Hebert: Did you ever refuse to do business at, say, Woolworth's
or a store because they had segregated lunch counters or didn't
serve African Americans?
Branchcomb: Of course. Of course. Whatever the organization
made a decision on, of course I followed it.
Hebert: Where do you think you got this impulse from? Did it
come from your parents--this impulse to fight, to change things?
Was that something that your parents gave to you, or teachers?
Branchcomb: No, because my parents were very strong Christian-
background people. I don't think they thought seriously about
Branchcomb
52
these kind of things. As I got older and I became an adult, and
I began to see things happening, I began to read a lot, and I
would watch TV and see these things happening, that gave me more
incentive that I'm somebody.
Hebert: Are you talking about Birmingham and Montgomery?
Branchcomb: All those things. Martin Luther King [Jr.] and his
push to get things right, his putting his life on the line for
me. So the least I can do is to just do what I could do to help
out, help the cause.
Hebert: Is that something you taught your children, also?
Branchcomb: Yes, of course.
Hebert: Did you learn anything at all about African American
history when you were in high school? Was that something that
they taught? Did they teach you about George Washington Carver
and Booker T. Washington?
Branchcomb: Yes, we had a course called Negro--I think it was
Branchcomb
53
some kind of Negro history course that we took. We learned a
lot about Benjamin Bannister, George Washington Carver, and, of
course, Booker T. was named after Booker T. Washington. Ralph
Bunche. There were quite a few that we learned in that course.
Hebert: Did your children attend integrated schools? Was that
important to you, or did they attend the schools that you had,
like Booker T. Washington and those schools?
Branchcomb: Actually, I preferred my children to attend
integrated schools so that they could get some knowledge about
the other cultures of the world. It just so happened that my
older children, they did get the opportunity to do so.
Hebert: Did they ever tell you how they were treated at those
schools? Were they ostracized? Were they treated badly by the
white students?
Branchcomb: Not too badly. Occasionally they would have a few
remarks about things that were going on, but they weren't
treated too badly. They never had fights with white guys. One
thing that comes to mind that I remember, my oldest daughter,
Branchcomb
54
she went to Cradduck [phonetic] here in Portsmouth, which was
all white at one time, but became integrated through the system.
There was a young little fellow who liked her, and he was
white. He rode his bicycle over to our house, and the boys in
the neighborhood--we lived right out in this neighborhood. We
were living in the other house. They were sitting out. I was
sitting on the stoop, and he was on the bike and they were
talking. Here come the neighborhood boys, came and told him he
had to go. [Laughter]
Hebert: But there weren't any problems within the school?
Branchcomb: No, not within the school.
Hebert: Those are about all the questions that I have. Is
there anything that I haven't covered that you want to talk
about, that I've left out, that you feel is important to add to
this interview?
Branchcomb: Well, only that I hope that things don't turn
around and go backwards, because I do believe that what Martin
Luther King has done, what Jesse Jackson is still trying to do,
Branchcomb
55
and a lot of our other interested black leaders are trying to
do, if the system breaks down, then all this that has happened
in the past will be in vein.
Hebert: And all the gains would be lost.
Branchcomb: The gains would be lost, and people will go back to
not understanding each other. I've seen a lot of things happen
to me. I have seen things change even from the time that I
worked in the kitchens and cleaning house and keeping white
children has changed immensely, in that right now, I have a
little job, I started working after my retirement keeping a
little baby, a mixture of a Jew and Caucasian. The man was a
prominent dentist in Virginia Beach. He just wanted somebody to
come in to help with the baby and to keep the baby happy. The
baby was two months old. That baby will be two years old next
week, and that baby loves me. That baby knows no different. I
mean, she comes to me when she won't come to her other
grandmother and other people. She doesn't want them, she wants
me. She'll tell them, "I don't want to go with you. I want
Flossie."
So I know that it's a shame that some people won't get the
Branchcomb
56
chance to know that it's not the color of your skin that really
matters, but it's what's in your heart--it's the content of your
heart. I enjoy so much working with this little family, and
they've got another little girl, also, and they both love me
dearly. I think the whole family loves me, and I just enjoy
working with them now. I don't mind doing anything they would
ask me to do. It's so different from back in the other days.
Hebert: What was it like back then? Were you not treated well
by the families? By the children?
Branchcomb: Well, the job, a lot of dirty work.
Hebert: Were you required to go in through the back door of the
house rather than the front?
Branchcomb: Yes. Also, you would eat out of certain dishes for
lunchtime and things like that.
Hebert: How did you feel working for white families when you
had your own child at home and you had to leave your child?
Branchcomb
57
Branchcomb: Economics. Making some money to help support my
family.
Hebert: So you were doing it for your family.
Branchcomb: Doing it for my family. Now I'm doing it because I
want to do it, and I enjoy it. It makes a difference. I'm
married again for the third time. This is my handsome, loving
husband, here, Charles. We've only been married eight months.
[End of recording]