Alva Pearson, Anita Pearson, and Pauline Mansfield

00:00 My name is Pauline Mansfield. I'm 66 years old today's date is August 31st in Atlanta, Georgia and my relationship to my partners. Anita Pearson is my cousin and I joined a valve is also my cousin.

00:20 My name is Alva Pearson. I am 30 years old today is August 31st 2013 and we are in College Park Atlanta, Georgia. And my relationship is my cousin Winnie or Pauline Mansfield and my mother Anita Pearson.

00:41 My name is Anita Pearson. I'm 66 years old today's date is August 31st.

00:49 2013 we are in College Park, Georgia outside of Atlanta and my relationship to those in the room or my cousin Pauline Mansfield and my daughter Alva Pearson.

01:07 Need you know, you have such a wonderful life and it shows in your personality and I'm sure a lot of that comes from where you where you grew up.

01:18 Tell me a little bit about matches Orangeburg, but your little community and why the people out of that Community to seem a little different they seem to come from some idea. Idyllic storybook kind of life. Is that true? It really is actually I really am until I got older I didn't realize how lucky I have really been growing up in the kind of neighborhood environment kind of peaceful coexistence that I did. I guess it age 8 the family moved or my father built our first home in

02:10 A neighborhood and they put that Billy had been established yet cuz we were really the first home on this road and it was Whitaker Parkway and over the years. There were eight homes that were built on this this road, which is now a bustling Parkway, but then there it was a dirt road and there were these eight families and those eight families became we were eating each other's family and we did things together and

02:50 Most of the families represented families of Educators and fact of one of the homes was the home of my high school principal on both sides were teachers at my high school one was a home of a a family where the mother works at at the college with my mother work.

03:16 So they would just get a Kinect we were connected to each other and some of us actually had been church members over the years. I've grown up with them and my church, but we could all knew each other but never until we'd all come together had established a relationship that we had. So growing up we were in and out of each other's homes. We had picnics together in the Summers. We went to the beach together. We the parents parented all of the children and if you do outside of that neighborhood, it was kind of a turbulent time. It was a time of a the sixties and the civil rights movement and a time of marching. I came from a town where we had two black colleges and during those times the

04:16 Church out of which I came became an established place where Martin Luther King and in came to town and a group of young people were trained in Civil Disobedience. And the pastor was very engaged very socially active and Surround Church became a centerpiece in the Civil Rights Movement. It was a really fascinating time. It really was.

04:52 And I was in high school at the time but

04:56 My friends and I were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. So it became a part of of what we did on a daily basis. Were you involved and I was I was not only was I involved but my father was an entrepreneur had his own business. He had an insurance business at the time and was becoming an established realtor. And so because he was an entrepreneur the threat of his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement, you know, did not threaten his business that kind of made did not his business. He was a he was a a person who was free to operate on his own and those people who work for the state government who were teachers and all they had to be really careful about their involvement because it could threaten their jobs, but Daddy being a businessman, you know was was freedom.

05:56 Come involved and so he did and again our church being involved and my friends at all. It was just again, and I really interesting time with looking back on it.

06:12 Objectively

06:14 Do you feel that you were so isolated that your view of the real world was a little tainted?

06:24 Oh, I don't think so at all. I can remember there was.

06:31 There was a time recently when we all I guess maybe I like it. Remember how many years ago ever. Do you remember?

06:40 3 years ago it was that Aunt Janie one of the the parents of the Rogue passed away and I want to say 2003 maybe 2002 for we all got together and I've always been a child who like to be in the middle of adults probably cuz I was an only child and I didn't really have people my age to play with so I figured if I sat quietly they talk and learn about their business this particular night my mom and some of her buddies from the row birthday Howard and Paula.

07:28 Harris and Rose Edwards remember who else that's why I can leave and her sister Karen Griffin, Karen Middleton Griffin. We were all there talking and again, I was sitting on the floor amongst these women talking about their youth been reminiscing and I had the idea to interview them about where they grew up attending Savannah College of Art and Design and was a film and television major and had to a senior project and I wanted to get into documentary filmmaking and I thought capturing my mother's story as well as the people who lived on but they affectionately called the row the dirt road just now functioning Street.

08:28 Would be a great story to tell because one of my main questions was growing up in the time of civil rights movement. There's some people who are angry and still hold that resentment in their heart of of what the country did to Black Americans at the time and my question was how did you all fair and come out to be such well-rounded good-hearted open-minded people. And so that was the question that started the story of the row for me. And so I interviewed all these people as well as

09:11 Couple other people can't remember names right now in the community who were active in the Civil Rights Movement. We went to Trinity United Methodist Church home, but I learned a lot I learned about the Orangeburg Massacre which occurred in 1969 ate the last three young men were killed during a riot after trying to integrate one of the bowling alleys there and Ashley going to the Martin Luther King center today. One of the young men was mentioned in the young people who were involved in civil rights movement and who gave their lives there was Henry Smith.

10:01 And there were two other boys one with Who Bore Middleton last name, but was not related. And now there is a stentor name for all three of them on the campus of South Carolina State University. So I have learned a lot and I think it's important for young people to take the time to sit down and talk to their Elders because there's a lot of information that resides within that they may not even know that they have because they haven't talked about it before and what I got out of the road, which I didn't really have a row. I had a girlfriend who live down the road. So I rode my bike to meet everyday, but from what I got from interviewing the families of the road was that it created a safe environment for these young people to grow up and I don't think

11:01 They had the fear that maybe some other young black people at the time had because their families were entrepreneurs and it gave them another opportunity.

11:18 And the family is protected each other like mom was saying and they and they grew up together and create a good memories and I think that helped them to become the people that they are today that whatever America was saying that they were or was trying to portray them to be lesser than their parents did everything they could to let them know that that was not the truth and that they could be anything that they wanted to be and because they had ties to Claflin University and South Carolina State University. They had access to things like pools which most black people didn't have and

12:02 That educated parents my mother's mother Bernice. Brian Middleton was a librarian and I know she always correcting me when I miss my mom sister Karen Middleton in Griffin and her brother Kenneth Middleton who still lives in Orangeburg South Carolina and is a prominent real estate agent. And so I've just learned a lot for me. I learned better about history when I can connect a face or name or person and see it through their eyes and makes it real and not just a story that you heard or something that you've learned in history class.

12:51 So Mom told me a little bit about the role and what it was like growing up in their house and

13:01 Remember one of the stories. She told me was one girl like to watch soap operas and they would run they would try to get her out of the house and she wouldn't go into her so from Frewsburg so they had to pull her out and my Aunt Karen who was who is 12 years younger than my mom always wanted to go and they try to make her stay in the house and she would be upset because she felt like she can do whatever they were doing. And so it gave me a good sense of community and this is just my perception on things. I think that integrating was important for me growing up to know that I could compete with other races was important and I think it carried on that same tradition of letting kids know that they can do whatever they whatever they set their mind to but one thing I'll I'll say that I think that we might be missing now and I can't say this for everybody.

14:01 That sense of community that the roads seem to have had when growing up. No because I don't know we were we were truly intermingled. It was like one big family is supposed to eight separate families and we were in and out each other's homes all the time. I think all the time about the things that I learned from one next door neighbor Gillespie who who lived actually came from Walterboro actually small town outside of Walterboro South Carolina called Collegeville, and she was an outstanding cook and she taught me how to cut a roll and cut collard greens and it was a small things like that the kids we played outside all the time. It was just wonderful in the parents. We put you out in the middle of the day and they come on this Sunday.

15:01 It sounds like there was just no fear. It really sounds so storybook. But almost kind of unbelievable in a black experience from the black experience that I I know can you name all eight of the children who were in The was it just all the girls who were friends on the road with back there were two boys on the real one was my brother's name. All of them one was Rose.

15:38 And she was she went to the Pearson family and and is now a rose next door were to two girls Bertie Howard and and Michelle Howard and actually Bertie and I have been pooping so close still four years and you know what I moved and I Live Now in the Raleigh area, but she had been there for years and lived in Chapel Hill and around Durham. So when I move to Raleigh in 1987, my daughter album was at that time around for years old and Bertie Rena day care center in Chapel Hill. And so it was just such a blessing to be able to know that while I transition and got myself ready for work cuz my

16:38 When was in the Army and while he had a position to go to I had to figure out how we get myself professionally settling in that area, but she helped me with childcare with with Alvar and we've remained just type type type 4 years and and still are in contact with each other and she has always she returned home about I guess almost 10 years now with her parents became ill and but she loves still I think the triangle area and stays a remains a subscriber to Rolly's local paper. So she's the person who keeps in touch with me about what's happening in Raleigh, even when I miss out something from those kinds of things would girls next door to to them was an older guy. That was the Harpers and their son was probably in a 10-15 years older and he

17:38 Actually was away to college by the time, you know, we were settled in the area. But but the the parents his parents still kind of helped parent us is well and his mother was a seamstress. So there was a lot of interest in learning how to sew and her teaching us to sew and teaching us to cook and she was a teacher and so was the father who was when the industrial Ed instructors, mr. And mrs. Harper and then we live next to a right next to us again with a glass piece and the Gillespie's had two daughters Evelyn and Doris and Evelyn has been in Philadelphia for ages now and we have maintained contact. She actually was very involved in the in the

18:38 Sale and development and promotion of black art and actually began.

18:48 Going from hotel to hotel is so you. Can you see these these things on TV, you know about the art sales promoting black art in the major cities and then they developed a sales business so that you mail order business so you could purchase black art from them and then at some point they continue making contact with artists all black artists across the country and had this big art show in Philadelphia every year at Temple University. And so I can I can remember having gone there a couple of times. In fact in the most recently in the last 3 years or so and it it was just a phenomenal showing the kids would come from public schools to to the show a temple. So she has not moved to Savannah but I maintain contact with her and her sister who is still in the in the

19:47 Philadelphia area just outside of New Jersey to them were the Kweli girls and one of the whaleys is actually lives here in Atlanta. She's now Tony Whaley Miller and is a pretty well-known dentist here in Atlanta in Atlanta area. And I think she says she specializes in child Dentistry. If I'm correct her her sister Paula remained at home and I was a teacher and had been in state Administration in education in South Carolina.

20:31 And Paul and her husband now or in Florida and and tell me again in Atlanta Let's see we had the whale is the Gillespie's the Harper's the Howards of the middletons Rose Pearson the smalls. There was a Emmanuel Smalls whose mom was a teacher and Emmanuel was was adopted and so he was one of the young boys who was brought into effect. I forgot about him is a third male and they live in the first house on the road.

21:18 When he and my brother used to get into all kinds of devil.

21:25 In Greensburg has his own business and actually loves doing cars. He he likes to

21:38 Upgrade and redo old Automobiles and so he's got a lot of really neat antique cars and lastly there was a Faneuil Badger who's who live with his grandmother and I think he came from a large family of children, but he can't he decided he wanted to come live with his grandmother. And so he and my brother can who's not realtor in Orangeburg and my sister I think cool.

22:10 Alva mentioned earlier at any rate my brother and 8th Annual Badger and Emmanuel where the three boys of the road and Sophia laughing all the time now because those three guys are just just get along so well with women, but they had an introduction to having to make a way for themselves all these girls and so they met they negotiated their way and remain really good friends enough to to the girls in and protected them all through school to talk about these people. I can see them because I've met them over the years and the one thing that came to mind was your dad Arrow Middleton.

23:00 Made a way to take the role to Santee. And so it was almost like the road was recreated in a way on Santina tell me about how that happened in am I right did he take the road? Cuz I remember the Whaley girl's parents had a explain how all that he'll I'm not really sure about how all of it happened but South Carolina by Design know well, maybe he was maybe the road where your dad built the house and people followed him was kind of happenstance. What happened was that I'm through through the association South Carolina State's a property became available for for blacks to purchase on Lake Marion and they were limited number of lots and I

24:00 Sure, you know how widespread the the opportunity became but I'm sure I can see my father saying to his neighbors. You know, we've got a good opportunity here. So how you know how many of you might want to come along and take advantage of this and so what actually happened was it made available recreational places off of Lake Marion for us to just really enjoy each other and it was just a phenomenal place and we still have that place at Santee so many people from the road actually actually was the how it works and at least until those those were the only two family just those two but they were on both sides of us Dells on on Whitaker Park, but you created even though they were another roll created.

25:00 How many houses with Santi probably about 15 or so? I mean Granite they did that way in the 80s 80s then what other African-American might have been doing them community at the time but it did off offer us a another opportunity specialist grandchildren actually in making the row my crew and I stayed at fancy to save someone but it was a great opportunity for us through my friends. I have become an outdoor person. I have suffered with allergies for years or so when I was a kid being outside and was not the fun thing to do, but I had an adventurous little white girl friend down the street.

26:01 He was kind of like that all over again for us. We were out riding bike which I quickly learned does not work. Well on your grandfather took you a lots of boat ride. Is that something that you hit done before and kind of help to take my fear of the water away and actually it also open the house for my father's side of the family which were very tight the Pearsons for his family to come down because my mom and my dad Alfonso Pearson and Anita Pearson attended South Carolina State University and so did my dad's brother Willie Pearson and his wife Betty Scarborough Pearson. And so they still follow South Carolina state so during homecoming weekend, we used to go down and use the house.

27:01 It also helped to bring two sides of the families together which sometimes can be confusing cuz people don't know where one family start. No one is actually funny story my cousin Nigel Pearson who played football for South Carolina State University for 4 years and is now coach for the school when he went to school there. It was a gift an announcement was made that he chose South Carolina state to attend cuz he gone to Duke and some other places, but he kept it home siding with South Carolina State University. They actually listed him as Earl Middleton's grandchild. He's not together.

27:59 So

28:00 I don't know. I think the role and and all the

28:07 Things that left behind kind of help to create and reach out to the the generations that are that are now. I know you guys all stay in touch every time mom goes home when we go to Trinity United Methodist. We all see each other and my aunt Bertie is who I affectionately call my party mom cuz she threw several parties for me when I was a child. So I Associated her with fun and parties and just getting to know everybody else and their children which created new connection for me because well my parents had me a little older older than me. So I created another opportunity. What was really a a

29:03 An interesting Venture was getting ready for Elvis film. You know when she sat with us that day and we were all there for Roses mom's funeral funeral was when she asked everybody from the road but most of us over there and album was just sitting there quietly listening to the conversation, but then she was the one that pulls the question. You know, how could you all with all the things that we're going the end of the marches and you weren't treated well and you couldn't go to fast food places and either you couldn't try on a hat in the store and all those things you've been mistreated. So, how could you have had such a life? I mean, I hear your story to your and I hear that you had such a good time. How could that be in them? So that she decides to kind of put that in the form of a film. I think that she wanted to research on her own. So what she decided to do was to go to each of these folks homes where they live now.

30:02 And to actually interview them and spend some time with them and posed a set of questions. So we did that. We went to Rose Pearson Edwards home in Ohio and we went to Evelyn Gillespie Red Cross is home in Philadelphia and we had a small gathering at Santee and invited those that we in a could not get too. So Michelle Howard Harold came home of Paul Whelan call Le Fleur De Lis came home. Emmanuel Smalls came from Greensboro, and we had a gathering at Santee where she brought all her equipment and in in a continue the interviews and the questions.

30:58 And then she had

31:01 Her sister student friends and documentarian folks come from the College of Art and Design and they spent time in Santee and then went into Orangeburg and filmed from the church and interviewed with Cecil Williams who had documented so many of the things that happened in the Civil Rights Movement. He's a noted photographer in Orangeburg and has really taken some very serious pictures an in-trinity when there were marches when there were meetings and that kind of thing. So it's a very well that was so proud of her the night way. He was interviewed with some of the other people and

31:58 Brothers named Gloria, Gloria Rackley who was the teacher who passed away a few years ago just recently and she put her job on the line to protest and to speak up against the the unfair treatment of black people. I think she actually did get fired of lost having a cause. I kind of feel it it gave me a sense of

32:38 Community and unity and that people are willing to put their jobs on the line because a sense of

32:48 Community and creating a future for the future Generations was more important than self which is something that my generation I'm guilty of to work a little self-centered that meant something to me that there was a cause I hated that both had to go through that because I just you know, thank that that's not I just can't see people doing that to other people are hurting each other. So let me ask you something. Did you and interviewing all these people separately? Was there a thread that you saw in each conversation that said the same thing about how they felt about growing up in that kind of environment.

33:41 It's not so much the words but there was a sense of contentment. I think from everybody. I didn't of course like for bertie's 40 Howard's father. He was principal of school so they could not be as active in the movement if they wanted to be because you know that was in poor his role was important being a black principal of a school, you know, that doesn't really happen that often so they could not be as active. I think at the time as they wanted to but I never heard any anger out of anyone. I never heard any resentment and I really think that was because of that community.

34:23 And I just think that there was a sense of contentment and everybody when you feel the same contentment lie, I think so. I think there was a again today. I mean hey now have you create in your life. Now you had that been that was obviously a beautiful thing, but you now have your own daughter you had your own family. I know your your military wife, but when you settled when you and Alice settled

34:56 Did you want to create that same kind that I absolutely did I just think you did that?

35:04 I think I I think we attempted to and I think we did that by establishing friendships with groups of people and because the schools are now in a