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INT: Talk about sending your husband the Courier.
RH: Ahm, the Courier was running some program
where they'd, ah, encourage you to, ah, subscribe for the
paper and send it to the, ah, soldiers, and I thought it was
a wonderful idea. And I got in the program and started
sending it to him. And, ah, apparently he enjoyed it,
'cause he kept askin' for it. (Laughs)
JH: Yeah, when I received it, I read it mostly in
the evening and -- and then after reading it, I passed it on
to the other men in the, ah, my company.
INT: What section would you read first?
JH: I -- I hit the sports section first.
INT: Why?
JH: I love sports.
INT: Did you like getting the Courier and why?
JH: I -- I loved, ah, receivin' the Courier
because sometime, ah, ah, pictures of my family would be in
there. And I'd read about -- and I'd read about them.
INT: Mrs. H., did you ever send him white papers?
RH: No, I didn't send him white papers. I just
sent the Courier because it told about what was going on at
home. I mean keeping him in contact with what he left
behind so he won't feel totally out of existence. It was,
ah, a means of keepin' contact, you know, sort of, ah,
adhesiveness.
JH: Oh, like I'd receive it and
get, ah, enjoyment out of reading what was goin' on back here at
home.
INT: Mrs. H., did you fear that sending the paper
to him might be disturbing because of the militancy?
RH: Oh, no, because I already knew that he knew
what was going on and he was learning how to deal with it.
And, ah, I didn't think it would irritate him in the least
bit. At least it would give him a sense of feeling that it
was bein' brought out in the public, to let them know what
was being done that was wrong.
INT: How did you feel?
JH: Well, I real-- I really didn't have any
feeling about it because I knew that -- that I could
overcome it.
INT: Now you would pass it on to some others.
JH: I sure did. Ah, I didn't have to pass it
along to some of the other guys. All I did was lay it on my
bed and they would pick it up and read it. And then -- and
it'd go from barrack to barrack.
INT: Why?
JH: Because the Courier was a very interesting paper and it was mostly about
what was goin' on back here in this country.
RH: Sort of keeping them in touch.
JH: Keepin' in touch, you know, what we were
doin' back -- what you all were doin' back here in the
States.
INT: Mrs. H., tell me what you'd do every week.
RH: Well, I'd get the paper and after I got two
or three of them, I would put 'em in a special envelope that
they had for shipping overseas and then I'd send them to
him, because it was -- it was an expensive thing and, ah, I
was struggling back here (Laughs) with my little jobs tryin'
to keep up, ah, my end of the -- the -- because, ah, we --
we just didn't have a lotta money. That was simple.
INT: But you still did it.
RH: Oh, yeah. Well, it was -- it was -- it was
something that -- ah, I did it for him. I did it for my
youngest brother. It was just something you did so that
they would keep it, feel -- have a feeling that they still
belonged back here and the Courier would give them that with
the information of what was going on around here and quite -
- I mean since they'd been in the city for such -- so many
years, they were familiar with -- with the, ahm, people whom
they wrote about in the Courier. And, of course, ah, ah, it
-- it sort of uplifted them. It was a means -- I mean you
did everything you could to make them feel that they had not
been just cut out of life back at home. And the Courier was
one of those -- one of those means of doing it.
INT: Mr. H., talk about selling the paper in the
period from 1932 to 1936.
JH: I sold the paper in my father's church in 19-
- from 1932 to 1936. And it was somethin'
for me to do, you know, because sometimes I didn't ... I
was, ah, uneasy in church not havin' something to do.
INT: How would you get the papers and what would
you do?
JH: Well, ah, they would deliv-- deliver the
papers, ah, to -- to my home and then I would take 'em to
church and after the church service I was standin' at the
door and sellin' it to the people after they -- as they
leave the church.
INT: What would you say to sell the papers?
JH: Well, now, I'd be holdin' the paper up and, you
know, "Courier! Courier! Courier!"
INT: Mrs. H., tell about how you were curious
about the people who worked at Courier.
RH: Well, ahm, they came around to the churches
and P.L. Prattis was one of the main ones that came to our
church. And he'd tell us about, ah, the stories that the
Courier ran, to begin with, and about the earlier days here
in Pittsburgh.
INT: Did the Courier help to mold a black
community in Pittsburgh?
RH: Yes, they worked with the black community ...
JH: (Overlap) Oh, yes, they did.
RH: ... very well. They encouraged education.
They worked with the -- ah, within the
churches. They worked at the YMCA and the YWCA and they
worked with community organizations to instill drive for
better -- to -- to do better among the blacks.
INT: What did they say?
RH: The people in the community would say -- they
learned about this situation that
existed. They learned about the colleges or -- and they
discussed - they -- ah, like, for instance, it was through
the Courier that we got to -- to know a great deal of our
black history as it was being developed then because we
couldn't get that kind of information through the white
newspapers. Like the things that were going on in the
colleges and, ah, the thing that our black
artisan -- artists were doing. And, ah, for -- ah, one good
instance, I learned about the man who, ah, ah -- well, I
think he created blood plasma.
INT: Talk about the fact that people in the
community talked about reading the Courier.
RH: Well, the reason why people referred one
another to the Courier was because that was the only place
that you could really learn about what was going on in your
community, the black community, that would help you, that
was good for you, that was of interest to you. And, ah, it
kept you in touch with your own people. And I think that's
very important. It, ah -- it wasn't that we were so
divided, but it was just that, ah, whereas, ah, without the
newspaper, we couldn't turn on the radio or -- or -- or
anything else or use a white newspaper to know what we were
doing and what -- what -- what's happening in our group.
JH: Did the Courier also publish what was goin'
in the different churches?
RH: There you go.
JH: And we would learn about what maybe my dad's
church was doin' or what some other church was doin'.
INT: What do you think happened to the Courier
and other black papers?
RH: Well, let's say what's happened in life,
period. I think that, ah, it's just, ah, the need for --
ah, for that kind of close contact seems to have lessened,
let's put it that way. We are now able to pick up a
newspaper and sort of read something about what we're doing, -- and what's
going on in our area. And we no longer have the drive to do
for ourselves as -- as the Courier -- as the drive was when
the Courier came along, to -- to prove to the world that we
can and we will and we do. And I think it needs to be
revised.
INT: Talk about your experience in the segregated
Army.
JH: Well, it wasn't -- it was horrible and yet it
was not horrible because we didn't pay any attention to it.
We went on about, ah, servin' our country and doin' what
we -- we were trained to do in the -- in the service. Ah,
that's ... one of the things that, ah, made us
outstanding in the service.
RH: Well, my reaction was when I -- the first
camp that I lived on, they had a -- a street dividing the
whites and the blacks, the ammunition being on the white
side, (Laughs) and, ah -- but the, ah, white soldiers at
this camp appeared to be as, ah, segregated almost as -- as
the black soldiers, primarily because they came from the New
England area.
INT: Mrs. H., talk about your experience of the
Jim Crow Army.
RH: The experience of -- ahm, or the Army with me
was -- was just devastating because it was a first time I
really came in contact with prejudice. And, ah, to realize
that this was a -- a group who were supposed to be
protecting a country and still they had segregation in
there. It was just, ah, more than I could tolerate. It was
almost unbelievable to me that the government, ah, would
allow, ah, that sort of situation to exist and yet expect
these men to protect the country.
JH: When -- when they were organizing the
Tuskegee Air -- Air Men, I was going to school at Tuskegee
and they were -- they were fighting to try to -- to get, ah,
black men to -- to train and become pilots. And there was a
fight there.
INT: Mrs. H., why were you interested in news
about Africa, Haiti, other black people around the world?
RH: It sort of made me feel that we were, ah,
more than just, ah, ah, a segment of the United States. And
it was good. I mean everybody else knows about their
heritage, where they came from, what sort -- what their
culture was. And this was giving us a chance to know that -
- that we did have a culture, we did have a beginning, and,
ah, I think that is quite important. Gives you a feeling of
security.
INT: Mr. H., talk about getting into the white
company for a day.
JH: Oh, right after my induction in -- right --
right after I got inducted into the service, they shipped
us, ah, to Camp Pickett. And there at Camp Pickett, they
had -- had put my name into a white company and I was the
only black there. But I got along pretty well with -- with
those, ah, men. But I knew something was wrong and, oh, about
a couple hours later they come and told me and they
transferred me to an all-black company.
(END INTERVIEW)
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