Mabel Murray, Jannette Dates, and Iantha Tucker

00:02 I'm Mabel Lake Murray. I'm 86 years. Old. Today is Wednesday, May 12th, 2021. I'm in Baltimore City, Maryland. My conversation. Partners are Janet Lake dates. I am the Lake Tucker. They are my two sisters.

00:21 And high. I'm Janet Lake dates and I'm Eighty-Four years old and I am in Baltimore Maryland and the name of my conversation partners are Mable Lake Murray and iantha Lake Tucker and they are my sisters.

00:42 Hello, there. I am i n thought you Elizabeth Lake Tucker. I am 81 or today is Wednesday, May 12th, 2021. We are located in Baltimore city, but I live in Columbia Maryland, the name of my conversation partners are Mabel Jan and I am i n. Number three in the list of sisters.

01:11 Okay. Well now

01:16 I'm Janet like dates as I said, and I am here with my sisters and my sisters and I had thought that it might be interesting since we are in That 80's for other people who might be interested in the history of some of the things that are happening in our society today. And in the past decade, interesting to know, some of the things that we have lived through enjoyed had problems, with try to tackle, just some history. So we wanted to share a little bit about growing up in Baltimore, jr. But it was a lot of segregation and then there was what they called desegregation, which, and we're not sure what we've got now, but it's neither one of those. So,

02:16 But I do want to say one other thing. There is another sister who is 25 years. She's been divorced and he remarried and she is our sister as well. Weatherford is her name.

02:40 Pulling up in Baltimore was a very, very interesting experience. As we, as when we started, my sister, did mention that we lived in the segregated Baltimore. When you went downtown, you could go to the market that you wouldn't stop in any stores. I remember, once going into a store with my mother when she wanted to buy a hat. I remember one time when she wanted to buy a hat and the person told her where you can try it on and my mother said, well, how am I supposed to know? She said I'll try it on for you, and if you not remember our mother, she was a thief 11. She was Dynamite. She was, she was a pistol. A little Fireball. Absolutely. I'll try it on for you. Remember. She said,

03:35 How I know how I'm going to look. If you try it on and the lady said, she said that's all right. Just keep that. And then she turned around and we left. She was one of those people who define segregation as much as she possibly could. If you remember that. Yes. She said, what if you'll recall, they had four stalls? Then for the first, what? Stars? Were marked? White white, white colored?

04:15 And my mother came out and mothers have told us, she said, Maple you go in this one. You go in that one, aren't you going this one? And I'll go in the one that says, and the maid who was always there to make sure that nobody broke the rules that I am to. You shouldn't do that. Now. I know you remember that because she lived up the street from us and they label. You go in here while you go ahead. Go ahead. I'll go. If you remember we were too scared of said, hurry up just in case they call. Those are the kinds of things that I do. Remember, the time we walked at the Howard Theater and they had the red, she was sitting out there in the Marquis little coming from the library.

05:15 We would want to go to see this movie and we went to the window to ask a woman. What time is the next show? And she told us we couldn't come in because me, and then we went home and told Mother, what she said, the whole thing to us because somehow she had in some way. She had a feeling that was going and it was she was excellent and what she did and they can talk to my friends. I said don't believe them. Then no white people. We haven't seen any way. You would be Siri one day. They just saying that to make us too hard at work or water on played in and of itself. So, we never really had to encounter anybody of A different race unless we did go to someplace different.

06:15 Right around the corner. Light Street.

06:20 You know, at that at those ages, we really didn't have to encounter other people. But I remember one time I went to the library and I was a young teenager and on my way home. I was hungry. So I stopped at this white coffee pot place because it was on the way home and I went in and I ordered something a crack or some cookies, and some soda or something. And of course, black people are always working behind the counter and the lady said to me. Oh, you cannot sit in here and eat. You have to take it out. And I so, I went and sat in front of the window, and ate my food, and drink my from from the fact that, you know, she didn't allow people to do things to us. That would reconsider.

07:20 Yeah, but you interesting remember when we were going to school. I don't know if you remember the story. Now the Mother and Daddy. Remember mother and daddy told School Lakewood talking about the other ones, you know, Lake area.

07:39 They told us that there was some other five Great Lakes. It was and daddy said, don't believe everything they tell you in school, you know, they made life simpler for us, even though that it was extremely difficult for them because if you will recall, they couldn't even find decent work. Daddy started all his own business. Again, every time he needed a job. He picked it up and started doing it. And somebody said, what are you doing now? And then he told him, I'm thinking about when he went for a war and he was only there for a few months and then the war ended and mother said, the reason the war ended.

08:38 Yes, I remember the pies in the hot dog. Place like Lexington Market and he was setting up every night and all the veterans. Cuz the veterans when they came home from World War II, could not take advantage of the same opportunities that they gave away or Carpenters or something, and he learn how to do that. And then he, of course, he load up those cleaning shops and has Rye in the divorce. Was that mother had. These ideas about setting goals for us and pushing us to do, and taking us on trips. So that we'd see some other things and other ways of living and all that, but I think she got

09:38 Even though we were in an area that was totally blacked. It was mixed in terms of incomes. And so, she saw doctors and lawyers and teachers, children, afro lived up the street from us. Yes, and they were being raised in a way that she wanted her children to be. So she uses their from seeing them as ideas for how she would rear us, which meant you would get to do dancing lessons and piano lessons Girl, Scouts life. And even if you had to walk miles and miles and she would just say, let's go and you'd walk for an hour. But if you remember, she used to pick up the children up, as we left. Yeah, that's when we went, when we went to, when she took us up to the Y on Madison Avenue for dance lessons. She picked up the gym. I don't know, and I can't remember where he picked up children on the way who will go up there with us.

10:38 Drop them off on the way back home and go to the lady. Who did the piano lessons made the best cake. Oh my God, and we can always smell them and she couldn't give them, give them give us any because she was making the sprinklers, this Friday. She was giving them the other people making them for other people, so she couldn't give any of them to us. But, you know, I I think some of them. Some of the major things. I remember, I remember when we were, when mother went to school, she decided that she was going to get her high school diploma. And so, she went to school at night at Booker T. And then when she would, when she had to, she would take us with her and we would be there for the graduations and that she made all our clothes she made.

11:38 Yes, she made everything for a picture for graduation where we had on those coats and two or three years later. She finished because she had to drop out cuz she know she had children. Then she went back and did it and great example for others, you know about Pennsylvania Avenue. I remember that vividly but then after, after we finished College ourselves while we were still in college, I do believe she started doing substitute teacher.

12:38 And when I was, when I was teaching at Morgan, I was having dance programs and stuff, and she was teaching, she would bring her classes to bring them on the bus from Baltimore to Morgan to see my concerts in the morning cuz I used to do more in concert for for school kids and she would bring all these children in to see the shows. I was just going to make sure you have a job, no matter. What is so important about traveling. I mean, doing all that when I was in school in in New York. She brought a group of children to New York and I show them how to ride the subway and we did the one of the lines. I can't remember which one because they were going to Radio City.

13:37 But the subway went over, ground becoming became an L. So, are they were really fascinated by them and then it went back down into the ground and then we had Radio City so they could go in to see the show, but you know what? I remember mother taking us on trips with from our house in New York stopped at every Howard Johnson's and eat hot dogs or ice cream, but we forgot to buy gas.

14:13 And the car. So and I remember the time we was driving to New York and Uncle James said, asked us to bring water because and we thought it was something was wrong with the water up there. So we had this big, big, I was sitting with my legs over top of the Avenue Road in New York to give this water done James, we get there and we found out that all the games just like,

14:52 But, you know, remember, we used to have to pack them when we went to New York. We had to have her a jar in the car. So we could wet because there was no place to stop on the roads. Remember that? And we had to take food before they opened up for Howard Johnson's. Open up. We just we just took the roller thumb the bridge George Washington. Turnpike. Oh, yeah, we had to ride across on the ferry at 1.

15:52 SMC was crippled. He couldn't walk up all the steps and I would say you can't walk up all those steps and children and they said we're going to put you in the back of the theater. We always thought the shows with him. But when I went back up to New York Hospital, I said to Uncle, James said to me, what would you like to do? I would go up, you know, two to the Bronx, the Empire State, Building and the and the Statue of Liberty, and he said, he's been living in New York. Like 25-30 years. He had never met, but he's okay.

16:52 Get me some other pictures and I found a picture of them that we had pretty good lives. Oh, yeah, all three of us have documents that it was not really interested in because he was he told me that his stories about how when he was a little boy. His father was a preacher somewhere in the South and West Virginia I think is where they were initially and then he got a job preaching in Annapolis. So he took the family to Annapolis and grandmother and the four children with

17:52 Play, then he would go to various places and preaching, then come back. And he went to Baltimore this particular time and Daddy. And one of the little white boys, who is his age. Somehow managed to burn down the farm and he came running home to tell his mother that that it happened, and he was kind of scared. And she was here more than he was. Because she figured those white folks who come on in. And burn. We're going to come and get him and do something awful to him. So, she told everything they had in the Branch Road, which is in Glen Burnie, and we had a fireplace in that house. And we always watch daddy like cigarettes while using a piece of paper. So, one day,

18:52 Longs for us, one of the match. And I took a piece of paper. I didn't know you're supposed to roll it and handed it to him. I was handing it to him in my dress, and this is the arm and my whole dress caught on fire. And I ran out there with my dress, on fire, rolled me over in the dirt and saved my life. And then mother decided that we we had to go to we had to go to Providence hospital because that was the only hospital for black people. So we have to get the bus and go all the way into Provident Hospital you and my arm in a sling anyway. And they told her she was going on because the line was long and it was

19:51 And they said, well, you have to bring her in here every day, and that is exactly what she did. We got up every morning. She put our clothes on. We got on a bus or something. I don't care. I don't know how we got there. We got to Provident hospital and that's when we moved back to Stricker Street, and it was from Stricker street that we moved to the projects. So I just thought I would give you a lawyer. I didn't know about that. You know, that I named you right when I was five and you and you were crying and I picked you up and your head was hanging down like that. And we're at the top of the steps. And how do I get my baby without killing my other child, but then she was with you and in the wrong direction.

20:51 Pushdustin trying to make sure one of the stories that I remember. You're talking about, is how other kids could play in 28910 block of night, but that was not what she allowed us to. That was when it was, that was during the time when the parents would allow the children to come out from 9 in the morning until noon.

21:13 And then it noon they would take them inside, give them lunch, make them take a nap, get them dressed up in the afternoon clothes and they will come back outside around 3 or 4, when they can stay out till 8 or 9 mother said

21:30 You could be in the bed at 8 or 9. So when they went in to eat that lunch with when they came back out, we were going in, you know, so that's kind of set us aside from them. So they found some friends to a different to what we're all doing. So I'll see what we all did. In-N-Out careers, you know, and my mother-in-law helped us if they had not helped us. There's no way that I sure didn't would have been able to do as well as they've done in my opinion, but in addition, one of the things that I did,

22:30 What's the trying to meet the goals and mother had said? Okay, so I said to her when I was coming out of high school then I wanted to be a journalist, you know, and she said you can't be a journalist right now. You going to be short a star that the only place you go. If you're a journalist and you black as they are for, when they ain't got no money Lord and but I had been a detective of the newspaper of the Douglas Gloria. I've been added in Chief of the yearbook. I mean, I was just into writing and I think partially that happened. Because when we were going to Pratt Library to the children's library of the Librarians there who were only white cuz he was off, you know, there were no black Library, a little white lady was so nice and she would say to me. I've got the best book for you this week. You're going to love it and mother would have us with a problem.

23:30 Are you home every every time every Saturday, but we get a new pile every Saturday. So, but I think I got a real love for books and for writing from having that experience, you know, and then change it to actually be a journalist was kind of instill to make us both with people who wrote. And so I didn't do that. I then went on. She said you can become a teacher and then you can do whatever you want if you want to be a journalist after that, so, I went to Compton and I followed you cuz you were as having already and you will listen to her. And so I just have a choice, so I went to top and also and then started teaching in the Baltimore City, Public School System, then Janet. And I decided that we were going to

24:30 You can either get a master. So he had to do something about getting some certificates, or something every year, and we said at a white school, cuz up until then, we had didn't all black situations and hadn't competed with white students. And one of the things we can.

24:55 You know, we have something we were smarter.

25:11 I knew it was more than some of those. I'll let you know, maybe not as smart as an elementary school have been to the major schools. They had degrees from places like Columbia and back in those various fields. That was no place for them to work. So they became teachers and so they told us and they were fabulous. They were absolutely fabulous. And that is where we became interested in things like dance up for the most part in elementary school. If you remember, I used to dance for everything. Yes.

26:11 Every kind of thing they had where you were on the stage. I was on the stage dancing on Madison Avenue, right? And I danced there. I took dance lessons in there or stole. It was quite evident to me.

26:36 They decide to have school 122 which was the first school built for black children. Going to be in the office for when they decide to have a marching band. I decide to be in the office. I went down to mr. Snowden, who was in charge and he said, what do you want to do? I said, I want to play but saxophone and he gave me. I was this tall and it was backed all he said. I don't think you can do that. Do that. Do the first black major at Baltimore City. Every time, my mother your mother. My sisters were all right there.

27:36 Mother was right there.

27:44 I did not succeed without either.

27:57 Yeah, right.

27:59 So I just kept in a thing happened to me. I thought I was the only one I was in a choir choir. Choir choir had and then she kept trying to eliminate and she said, okay, now this group stop now, this. And then I saw her zeroing in on me and how did

28:34 Do not do not let the sound come out. No sound, could not do it. That's fine. I said, I wasn't to go from that, you know, the situation and how physics behind fizzics variance was what changed my life. Because the assistant superintendent for the Baltimore City, Public School System with a white woman, and I guess it is about that time.

29:34 And I took a course with her Jan and I and she asked me to stay after class one day after I done presentation, which is a little bit. And so she said they were starting up something that they were going to be doing where it was a precursor to public television and you'd be teaching on television and she wondered if I'd be interested in doing that. And I said, you know, I have maternity leave at that point because I was pregnant with Karen. So when I cut off, when I went back and I'm okay. Just finished this. Okay, so so

30:26 I started teaching on all three channels, you know, ABC NBC, CBS all through channels and social studies history and so forth, but it opened up opportunities. Because then later on they asked me if I would do commercial television, so I did and then I stopped doing that because I did something, that may be upset. I left Karen, so I said, I can't do. This is too many things going on, too many.

31:06 Bouncy balls. So then I went back and I went out to Morgan. And so that's and I was at Morgan for 11 years before you, okay? Yes. I decided I had to not follow you to anymore because I was being followed you in elementary school and Junior High School. And so when they integrated desegregated high schools, I went to Weston High School because I said, I'm not going to Douglas and follow them again. And then, when you two went to coppin to teach my said, I definitely nursing. And then when I was enticed to return to Baltimore by my two older sisters who came to New York and talked me into coming back to Baltimore.

32:06 I went back to Morgan and I got my BS, my masters and all that stuff. And then I went back to New York to get my dog wet was where I needed to be anyway, because I love, I love New York to. But, you know, the one you said what, you said to yourself, you said, I can't sing and I can't dance. And then I came back to Baltimore and toy.

32:39 The teachings.

32:41 When you was talking about not being able to sing or dance when I was on the Commission on Aging and we were talking about the various illnesses and, you know, they kind of skipped over black people when they're talkin about things, you know, so, when they got the diabetes, I wasn't. I said, I have that. And so they said something. So I said, what, why do my doctors to come in and talk about me and my diabetes? And that is what they did. We were all over. After you get whatever the place is over there, where they have crazy people. But anyway, I am, you say. So all of my doctors came, they came doctor smoke came about the eyes, and the other doctors came in well, and I'm underrated. So, when I finish my, you should go downtown and become a candidate for Miss, Maryland. Senior America.

33:41 Downtown Baltimore. And actually, I like the way you talk and that is exactly what happened. They said, can't sing. I can't dance but I can talk for hours and told everybody what was going on, you know, and then we got serious and then all of a sudden they turned around and said, Aunt Mabel Murray is Mrs. Merrill Lynch, Maryland, senior, America, 2005. And down there I get up on the stage. That was absolutely hilarious to Las Vegas and I was in the final show, but I knew I wasn't going to win that one.

34:41 Why was fun to do so many different things have happened in their lifetime backtracking computer? I mean, my phone and saying that in Texas, they have now passed a new deal, eliminating, the discussion of race racism, in schools schools to slavery, when they did not accept us as being human being, and therefore, they could do whatever they wanted you and then going so far back and

35:41 Just so disturbing for me. Young people are not going to let that happen.

35:50 And they've already put it out of the governor's already signed. That there is a United States government. There is a president of the United States. Congress. There are people in positions of power that can do something. If they don't, then that's another story. But I I I just have faith that they do not want the kinds of things that can happen in this Society. It's not just with black people who are young, who would not stand for some of this. There are many people from other communities. Yeah. Yes. There are people who are not going to sit back and say it's okay. You can put us back to where we were going to make any noise. That's not going to happen to know. One of the things I think that makes it so

36:50 Now, it's Arizona and Texas and Utah in Indiana is it's like all of a sudden people have discovered that there is a country called Switzerland, where they are. Usually there's nobody there. That's not, you know, in diverse, you know, and so let's see if we can't get there for you can't get there and you simply can't do it. And I don't see us allowing it to happen. To tell you something we came from, we will not fight back and that's one of the things that she said we keep having to begin again.

37:50 You got to stop lying about the fact that we got this beautiful democracy, but we have never worn white control of everything. And there are not going to be people going to sit back and say it's okay for that to her because I'm taking us back. I remember the lighting the candles on the lights at night, Andre Hill Avenue, where the guy had to walk from Dru Hill Park that was before my time, but it was

38:36 Going from there to where now you can sit in your car and turn on the lights in your house. 25 miles away. You know, that things are not going to revert to where they were there, going to be things that we're going to have to go back and straighten out again. And things were going to have to make sure people understand. We will not stand for but it's not. It's not going back to bed. So I know that you're worried and that is why we talk to each other every night on the telephone, or the bicycle to make sure we are safe and sane as we can be, and that we're looking out for each other. But instead he has said

39:19 We've got to have this rage in order to have the fire under us to move and make sure that we don't go back again so much fire.

39:40 Running for office.

39:43 I don't eat the most important thing is, we don't have the knees.

39:50 I couldn't hold the sign up, but we do have the money. So we keep sending out money.

40:08 I'll have to move in with the thought it might have been a joke.

40:25 Yeah, I know. You're not you're not alone. Oh my God, I think it's been fun. But Emily. I said that's just what I'm giving you so much for being with us today and encouraging us. And I saw you laughing at us periodically, but that's okay. And did you feel that you want to have a question to pop in from time to time?

41:03 See, I told you they were all stalkers.