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]