INT: Tell me about that.
WB: Well, when I was over-- 'fore I went overseas, ah, we would buy the Courier on the weekend and sometime the Chicago -- The Chicago Defender. Well, we would buy them on the weekends and, ah, read them and enjoy them, pass them around to the family.

INT: Why did you like to read those papers?
INT: We liked to read them because it was about us, the black people. And we didn't have that paper in the South. So we got them through the mail and enjoyed 'em to the fullest.
INT: Tell the story about when your father tried to start a movie theater.
WB: Well, my father bought the, ah, films and the projector to make pictures. And, ah, he couldn't get no license to open up a buildin', so he decided we'd work 'em from the schoolhouse or the church. And at that time the South was so Jim Crow, we weren't allowed to even show them.

INT: What do you mean?
WB: Well, they told 'em if he was gonna play with the camera -- I mean the projector in his pictures, "Just do it in your home and forget about tryin' to show 'em to others."

INT: Who told him that?
WB: These were the people that control the -- the blacks. See, I was on a plantation farm and on this plantation, they'd tell you mostly when to get up and when to go.

INT: And if you didn't do it?
WB: If you didn't do it, you just had a hard time with the ones you'd been workin' with.

INT: Tell me about getting the black papers again.
WB: Well, we got The Pittsburgh Courier and The Chicago Defender through the mail. We would have 'em mailed in and whoever was distributin' 'em, we would distribute 'em out.

INT: What part of Alabama was this and when?
WB: Well, this was in, oh, when I was a young man. It was in Taladagua, Alabama. And, ah, I was workin' like in the city at a filling station and, of course, our, ahm, bein' in the city -- in the town of Taladagua, it was like the city to me, you know.

INT: What did you do with the paper after you read it?
WB: Oh, after we read the paper and was through with it, we would pass it on to others.

INT: Why?
WB: Because they didn't have one. See, some of us were able to buy a paper, some wasn't.

INT: So for each paper, more than one person might read it?
WB: Oh, yes, definite. For ever paper we bought, I would receive, we would read it and then we would pass it on to the family.

INT: Why were you interested in reading it?
WB: The paper was passed on because we all liked to read and learn about what others were doing in the other part of the country.

INT: What were the white papers saying about black people there?
WB: Well, to tell you the truth, ah, the white papers, I mostly read the comics and that was just about the end of it, because we wasn't interested in what they were doin'. There'd be stories about what was goin' on in the city or -- which didn't concern us. You know, we'd just read the comics and go about our business.

INT: Did the white papers ever have anything about black people?
WB: At that time, no. At that time, the white people never wrote anything at all about the blacks.

INT: Nothing?
WB: Nothing.

INT: Why didn't black Southern papers say the same thing that the Courier was saying?
WB: Well, we didn't have black Southern papers.

INT: Why not?
WB: I don't know why not -- I mean why not. They just wasn't trained black peoples in the South.

INT: Could a black paper in the South say the same things that the Courier was saying?
WB: If we had a black paper in the South, I doubt that you could write like the Courier could write because they censored everything we did.

INT: Why?
WB: Because of the censorship of the South towards blacks. They just didn't want you to get a foot -- a foot in the door in any way.

INT: How did you know that?
WB: Well, if you were there and had the treatment and saw like we saw as kids, you would know they just continue to tryin' to keep you pushed down and back.

INT: Did you get the Courier in the Army?
WB: In the Army we would have the Courier mailed to us by our families and we were always glad to get it 'cause we could see what we was doin' back in the States and what they were sayin' about the soldiers on the front.

INT: Did the Courier ever make you mad about what they said during the war?
WB: When we got the Courier when I was overseas, ah, to us, it was like lettin' us know which way we was headed. We was fightin' for our country. Sometime we'd wonder why. And then again we would read the Courier and we'd say, "Well, we're makin' progress because we see things that we're doin'." Like Tuskegee, we had a group of flyers and they begin to bring them out in the front. So they did go to the front lines and fight. This was a -- a base they had at Tuskegee.

INT: How did you feel when the Courier arrived when you were overseas?
WB: Well, when we saw somethin' like that, it makes you feel good.

INT: Why?
WB: Because we saw that the black man was helpin' win the war, or was winnin' the war. You take the outfit I was in, they found out who we were, black outfit, and they stayed away because they didn't last long when they came in. It was a gun battalion.

INT: Who would send you the Courier?
WB: My sister and my brothers, they would send me the Courier and they sent us magazines.

INT: What'd you do with the Courier after you read it while in the Army?
WB: Oh, after I finished readin' the Courier, I passed it on to a buddy in another gun position. And we passed 'em from one to the other'n.

INT: Why?
WB: It was something good. Readin' the Courier, home front. And always good news.

INT: Could you tell me what it was like in the army?
WB: We had a captain that came into our outfit just as we were gettin' ready to go overseas and he was from Texas and he told us he didn't like the Army, to start with, and we was goin' overseas, and he didn't like niggers. And we asked him to come and go with us because we had his name already written. And before we left for overseas, which was a couple of weeks, he was out of the camps. He left. Captain Kline, I believe, was his name.

INT: He just left?
WB: He left.

INT: What did you mean by you had "his number"?
WB: Well, I mean we're goin' to bust him, we're goin' to waste him, you know, get rid of this cat. I mean he don't like us and we're fightin' for him, too, and with him?

INT: Why was the Courier popular Down South?
WB: The Courier caught on in the South because it was, ah, very liked by the black people because it was about blacks. And, ah, we looked forward to that paper. And then when I got overseas, they mailed it to me.

INT: Is it true that the Courier could write more freely?
WB: That's true.

INT: What do you mean?
WB: Well, see, in the South at that time the blacks just -- he couldn't speak up. If he spoke up any kind of ways, like for himself or what he wanted to do, which was makin' a progress, it just didn't work. In other words, he -- he was censored.

INT: So the Courier could ...
WB: The Courier could write -- ah, speak up bolder than we could -- could have if we'd have had a paper. We didn't have one.

INT: Did the papers give you hope?
WB: Yeah. Now, see, when you read the Courier or see the Courier, you can see what people was doin' in the East. It would give you hope that "One day I'm goin' to be able to do a little somethin' for myself." And when the war was over with, I came on back here and got me a job on the railroad. And I stayed there for 35 years.

INT: Were there other black papers that you got Down South?
WB: Not that I know of.

INT: Did the Defender come Down South?
WB: Yeah. The Chicago Defender, I read it in the South and The Pittsburgh Courier. The Pittsburgh Courier was the most popular one in the South where I lived at.

INT: What was your impression of Pittsburgh from reading that paper?
WB: Pittsburgh was a city that -- the Courier caused me to head straight to Pittsburgh when I come out the Army to look for a better job.

INT: Why?
WB: Because I figured I could make it here.

INT: Why?
WB: Ah, I read the Courier. I see that people was doin' things and could read about it or publish, put it out where others could see it. So when I came out of the service, I came to Pittsburgh. We used to have a club -- a choir, they called it the Music Lovers. And, ah, we'd give our concerts over Oakland and, ah, the Courier always carried our program, pictures and all. And I liked that. I have some pictures.

INT: Would you subscribe to the paper?
WB: No. Well, you had people's down there would just buy 'em and get their customers and sell 'em, you know.

INT: Did they sell 'em on the street?
WB: No. From house to house. See, I was livin' in the country, so it was always from do' to do'.

INT: How did you get the paper Down South?
WB: We got The Pittsburgh Courier through the mail and it was sent to us by a bus or train each week. And we was like agents and you would sell these papers to customers, you know.

INT: How'd you get it?
WB: If you was the agent, you would get the papers and you would deliver to your customers.

INT: This is rural?
WB: This is rural. Of course, maybe in the city you could pick 'em up at the barber shop or beauty shop, 'cause that's about the onliest business we had.

INT: But where you lived, what happened?
WB: Door to door. You would pick your papers up and you would deliver 'em to your friends, the ones that ordered 'em, just like we used to order our clothes by mail and it comes right to your mailbox.

INT: Same for the paper?
WB: Same for the paper.
(END INTERVIEW)