Etta Mae Zimmerman and Leona Parham Interview 3

 JUDITH HELFAND: --organizing when all this started?

ETTA MAE ZIMMERMAN: I don't remember.

HELFAND: You just told me in the kitchen!

ZIMMERMAN: But it -- I know it was in September, when we went down --

LEONA PARHAM: Thirty --

ZIMMERMAN: Let's see.

PARHAM: Was that in '30, or '29?

GEORGE STONEY: It's 1934.

ZIMMERMAN: Thirty-four. Started somewhere first of the year. Two men from Atlanta came down here to organize. But I can't remember their names. But we were among the first to join.

PARHAM: I can remember what went on but I don't remember dates.

HELFAND: Well tell me what went on.

ZIMMERMAN: Well we met at city hall, we met at city hall, upstairs. And these 00:01:00men said they were going to buy a lot over here on the corner of Askew. But we never did have no deed to a lot. But they left here, taking what money that they had collected. I wish I could tell you the name but I can't, I don't know their names.

HELFAND: Well tell me about joining up.

ZIMMERMAN: We all joined when they first started to organize --

PARHAM: Well they just asked us if we would like to join the union.

ZIMMERMAN: I mean the ones that were in the union. But now there -- everybody was not, been approved by everybody. Because our next door neighbors didn't even approve it. Mr. Anders watch-- I mean Mr. --

PARHAM: McCra-- McCurry.

ZIMMERMAN: McCurry. Watched the house and he reported to the office everything 00:02:00he knowed to report. Mr. -- I mean, we called him Grandpa Johnson. He watched the house and he told everybody we was having union meeting. They never had a union meeting at our house. We had the meetings upstairs at city, city hall. But they -- these men -- weren't supposed to take in anybody except people that worked in the mill. But they threatened some of the merchants that if they didn't join they was going to lose their trade. Leona's father-in-law run a grocery store. They threatened him.

PARHAM: He wasn't my father-in-law at that time, though, I was not married.

HELFAND: You told me just before that it was exciting, you were young girls.

PARHAM: Oh yeah.

HELFAND: Tell me about that.

PARHAM: Well, it was just, uh -- when the group got together, just young people like to have fun, you know. We didn't do anything other than just, you know, enjoy each other's company. We didn't have cars like we have today, to go off on picnics and things.

ZIMMERMAN: Just being [inaudible] [ashamed?] being a member of the union. When we come back from Atlanta, no, because I was fighting for something I believed in. If you belong to the union back in them days, you'd get more raises. And you, [U.S. Rubber?] had lots of mills up north, and if they hadn't we wouldn't 00:04:00have got the raises we got in pay.

STONEY: Could you tell me how much you paid in dues? And how long you paid the dues?

ZIMMERMAN: I think it was about $2.50, wasn't it? Or $2?

PARHAM: [inaudible] about $2.50 or $3 for membership, I'm not sure.

ZIMMERMAN: Yeah, when we joined, but --

PARHAM: I don't remember. A lot, a lot of money for us then.

ZIMMERMAN: Not but once. Not when we joined, it was.

PARHAM: Yeah.

ZIMMERMAN: But not every month.

PARHAM: No, it's not -- I don't remember the [overlapping dialogue; inaudible]. Somebody else paid mine; I didn't pay it.

ZIMMERMAN: After the -- most of them left the union. Me and Lovella was still paying dues. But I said if they put those people out in LaGrange, I wasn't going to pay it no more. And I didn't. They did put them out. They tried to organize 00:05:00at Callaway Mills, and they put some people that joined it out on the street. That's when I quit paying dues. But now those men didn't stay here long. They just come here, got it started, elected officers. And one boy that was our secretary, they got him to quit the union, he got an office job. Harry Barton got an office job. I don't know what he --

PARHAM: In other words, they were bribed.

ZIMMERMAN: You can't --

HELFAND: Who bribed them?

PARHAM: Well --

ZIMMERMAN: Officers of the --

PARHAM: The mill company bribed them.

ZIMMERMAN: You mean the ones that were working. [overlapping dialogue; inaudible] Officers of the -- overseers.

PARHAM: I'm not sure we -- was you in the U.S. Rubber?

ZIMMERMAN: Sure, it was U.S. Rubber. In '30.

PARHAM: At that time?

ZIMMERMAN: They took it -- March 18th. I mean, we moved back here March 18th. Thirty-one. But now they didn't organize, organize the union till '34.

STONEY: Had you heard anything about unions before then?

[overlapping dialogue; inaudible]

PARHAM: We had heard our father speak of the union -- (break in audio)

STONEY: Okay, could you tell me again about how you first learned about the union?

ZIMMERMAN: [inaudible] reading the paper. Coal miners. And some of them --

PARHAM: Railroad workers.

ZIMMERMAN: Railroad workers. And some of them had organized, but not in the South, that I don't know anything about. A lot of them was organized up north. Papa read out whether you wanted to hear him a lot sometime.

STONEY: How did your mother feel about this?

ZIMMERMAN: My mother died at fifty.

PARHAM: Our mother wasn't living when -- during that time, I mean she was --

ZIMMERMAN: She [inaudible] coal miners. For the first time.

PARHAM: Yeah. But my mother was not a -- she was not a politician. Our daddy 00:08:00was. And uh, back then I think mothers were more or less [inaudible] of the children. That was their job. Looking after the house and the children. The men did the politicking and running the business.

STONEY: And yet there were a lot of girls -- women -- in that flying squadron that went over to Newnan. Why was that?

PARHAM: Well, that was for everybody.

ZIMMERMAN: They went down to picket, early that morning. (overlapping dialogue; inaudible)

PARHAM: Because they were workers in the textile plant. And they are -- they didn't just organize the men, they organized everybody that you could organize. So we had that right.

ZIMMERMAN: We went down to picket. We was down there when the truck come from LaGrange, Georgia.

STONEY: Did you have any weapons or anything in your hand?

PARHAM: Oh, we might carry a stick or something once in a while (laughter). I don't think we carried any weapons that anybody could have been hurt with.

STONEY: Could you say that again?

PARHAM: I said "We didn't carry any weapons that anybody could have been hurt with." We didn't take guns, or knives or anything like that.

STONEY: Well now, one thing I noticed when I watched the pictures is that you people seemed to be so cooperative with the soldiers, you weren't fighting them or anything like that.

PARHAM: Well, when they said "Go" [overlapping dialogue; inaudible] That was from the top.

ZIMMERMAN: But we didn't know where we were going either.

STONEY: Were you surprised?

ZIMMERMAN: Little bit. But we wasn't close to the Army camps. We was way on up where they kept the trucks, things like that. Wasn't no barbed wires, all that took effect after we got up there.

STONEY: But when you were picketing and then the soldiers came along, how was that explained to you?

ZIMMERMAN: They just told us, "Get on that truck."

PARHAM: They wanted to arrest [overlapping dialogue; inaudible]

ZIMMERMAN: They wanted to show us they were just little old boys. Mostly. Young men.

PARHAM: Well they had a spokesman along with them.

ZIMMERMAN: I didn't see one.

PARHAM: You was too busy talking.

ZIMMERMAN: Somebody that was driving the truck, of course. But them little old -- the little old boys --

PARHAM: They were old enough to have been in -- you call them little old boys, but they were old enough to be in the National Guard. They were really young, young boys.

ZIMMERMAN: And we didn't see many soldiers while we were up there because we weren't near the soldier camp. We was up where they kept the trucks. There wasn't no -- wasn't nothing but a big old barn out there. And -- but it was a wide-open space, they couldn't put all them men up behind barbed wire. But all them posters [inaudible] the barbed wire was strung after we caught up to them. But they slept on the ground that first night. Army blankets.

STONEY: And where did you sleep?

ZIMMERMAN: Little old cot you couldn't turn over on. Might have been a soldier cot.

PARHAM: Well, I'm sure you slept on what the soldiers usually sleep on, because that's where they got it from.

ZIMMERMAN: It was just a frame was a -- kind of, a little bit like a hassock.

STONEY: How did you change clothes in that week?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, we had a place screened off in there. But didn't have enough [inaudible].

[overlapping dialogue; inaudible]

ZIMMERMAN: I guess they sent all of them some clothes. But now they were from LaGrange, Hogansville --

PARHAM: Sargent.

ZIMMERMAN: Sargent. [inaudible] all over those place. But the women there from Sargent, one of them was lots older than we were. But now we wasn't there but one day, and I mean we went that night and the next day they brought that woman there to be with us.

HELFAND: What did she do? Who was this woman?

ZIMMERMAN: She gave us orders. How to behave.

HELFAND: Like what? What were her orders?

ZIMMERMAN: (Laughs) Some of them -- somebody -- some of them minded her like 00:13:00schoolchildren, some of them didn't. Some of them liked to talk to them guards, we were -- they changed guards around the clock. I didn't --

PARHAM: You know somebody in command, somebody [inaudible] --

ZIMMERMAN: But now, as far as the soldiers, Captain Bell was the only man we saw. But he come out -- there were some men come out there.

HELFAND: Did you continue to talk to each other about the idea of the union while you were in the camp?

ZIMMERMAN: Talked about a little of everything. Had songs. We entertained ourselves.

STONEY: Could you talk about the songs that you sang again?

ZIMMERMAN: (Laughs) I told you. Part of them was Army songs, part of them was -- just -- you ever heard the song "Old Black Joe"? We didn't --

PARHAM: Patriotic songs.

ZIMMERMAN: Sang "Don't Fence Me In," "Old Black Joe," I can't think of that other one, country song. And we sang a few religious songs. But we, that woman was nice to us. But she'd tell you what you could do and what you couldn't do.

STONEY: Do you remember her name?

ZIMMERMAN: I wish I did. I told you [inaudible] -- if the Rainwaters had that, why didn't you read it?

PARHAM: Yeah [inaudible]. She might have.

ZIMMERMAN: Didn't you tell me the Rainwaters still have that article?

STONEY: But they didn't have the name of the woman who looked after y'all.

PARHAM: That's what I was fixing to ask.

STONEY: Yeah.

ZIMMERMAN: I don't think I told you the other day, either. But that woman come down [next door?]. Captain Bell talked to us before they brought -- before they 00:15:00took the trucks out. I think it was about 3 trucks -- I mean 4 trucks in that barn, I called it. And they closed up that end of it and opened. And when we had meals, we went out with our little canteens, went back inside to eat. But they, they were cooking meals out under the trees. We ate [inaudible].

PARHAM: You mean they didn't cook them in the mess tent? I mean in the -- well they didn't have one. Headquarters tent.

ZIMMERMAN: No, they cooked them in the open. Cooked them in garbage cans.

STONEY: What did you eat?

ZIMMERMAN: Well, they had beans, potatoes. I don't remember too much meat, it 00:16:00was mostly vegetables. It was probably what they serve the soldiers, far as I know. But now we didn't see the soldiers. Captain Bell brought two officers out there one day, but now they didn't have anything to say to us. He just brought them (laughs) brought them out there and showed, showed us to him I guess.

STONEY: Do you remember a lawyer coming out there to help you?

ZIMMERMAN: He didn't talk to us. Because Captain Bell, Captain Bell's wife taught school up here years and years after that. After my niece went to high school.

STONEY: There was a lawyer named Joe Jacobs whom we talked with who said he went out there to try to do something about the situation. You don't recall him.

PARHAM: Do you remember seeing one or hearing one?

ZIMMERMAN: No lawyer talked to us. Captain Bell talked to us the night we got 00:17:00there. And he said he was going to get us something to eat.

HELFAND: Did he tell you why you were there, for what purpose?

ZIMMERMAN: Sure. For breaking the law, he said. But we wasn't trying to --

PARHAM: You were on someone else's premises.

[overlapping dialogue; inaudible]

PARHAM: Actually you were, were breaking the law. Whether you knew it, whether you did it knowingly or --

ZIMMERMAN: I can see now where we were wrong. But we were doing what we was told to do. We went to Rockmart, Sargent's, and Newnan, and where else?

PARHAM: [Manning?]

STONEY: Now what was it like -- you went over to those other mills, didn't you?

PARHAM: I went, I believe it was twice, I went. [Inaudible] every time a truck 00:18:00left. But I know I went over to --

ZIMMERMAN: Now we didn't go on a truck. We went in cars.

PARHAM: Yeah. But I went to Sargent. And I went to --

ZIMMERMAN: You mean you didn't go to Rockmart?

PARHAM: I don't remember going to Rockmart; I really don't.

ZIMMERMAN: They put -- (laughs) they were going to run us off with hose pipes. They got up on top of [inaudible] -- strung out a hose pipe (laughs). But we went to [Moreland?] --

PARHAM: I certainly wasn't there.

ZIMMERMAN: Some of them people tried talking [inaudible] to us. We just didn't pay no attention to them.

STONEY: How did you feel riding that truck?

PARHAM: It was fun. We didn't go to -- we were young people, just enjoying whatever they do out there.

ZIMMERMAN: We didn't go in a truck when we went to Rockmart, or Sargent's either.

PARHAM: We did when we went over to Sargent, Etta Mae.

ZIMMERMAN: I didn't.

PARHAM: Well, you might not have. But Homer Welch went out and bought a -- a big --

ZIMMERMAN: Homer Welch drove a car, my dear.

PARHAM: Well he went out and bought a hoop of cheese, you remember? You don't remember hoop cheese, I'm sure. But that's what he did, that's what we ate. He bought a hoop of cheese and a loaf of bread, that's what we had for lunch.

HELFAND: How many of you were there?

PARHAM: I don't even remember but there were enough to go all the way around there at least I imagine in all about 20, 25 people.

ZIMMERMAN: I don't know whether it was that many or not because [inaudible] supposed to had picketed the next, I mean the next day before. We didn't picket every day.

HELFAND: You were picked up two weeks into the strike, so you had two weeks to do this organizing. How many times did you --

ZIMMERMAN: Two weeks?

HELFAND: Didn't you?

PARHAM: Every day.

ZIMMERMAN: Oh goodness no. We'd been organizing --

PARHAM: They went someplace just about every day.

ZIMMERMAN: But we was organizing more than that two weeks. Them men stayed down here about a week and a half. But we never did hear from them.

STONEY: Did you ever hear the term "flying squadron"?

ZIMMERMAN: Not except --

PARHAM: I've heard the term, but I don't think --

ZIMMERMAN: In the army.

PARHAM: -- it applied to the union. I don't think I had heard it then.

STONEY: I ask because that's a phrase you see in a lot of the newspapers of the time, and I wondered.

PARHAM: Mm hmm. Yeah.

STONEY: But that wasn't -- wasn't a common phrase at that time?

PARHAM: No, I don't think so. There's a lot of phrases came out, that have come out since that time.

HELFAND: Could you describe to me, step by step, you know you get in the truck, and then you go, you get out. Could you tell me how that works, because I don't know.

ZIMMERMAN: Nothing except we didn't know where we was going but we found out when we got there.

HELFAND: I mean when you went to go to these different mills.

ZIMMERMAN: Oh.

HELFAND: Can you tell me that, how that worked?

ZIMMERMAN: Well we just all met down there at the mill. But now we did go in cars, most of us. Leona said -- (inaudible)

PARHAM: -- or three times we went in the truck. I don't remember whose truck it was. But they did use that truck several times, Etta Mae. There was not enough cars to transport everybody.

ZIMMERMAN: I don't know why. (inaudible)

HELFAND: And when you all got to your destination, tell me about that.

ZIMMERMAN: We just all got out. Yeah, we did have [sticks go to one of them to come out?] -- sticks. You see that picture, you'll see some of them had sticks.

HELFAND: And what would you say when you got to the mill?

ZIMMERMAN: We just wanted them --

PARHAM: -- come out --

ZIMMERMAN: -- close the mill down.

PARHAM: And a lot of them didn't want to do it.

ZIMMERMAN: No they didn't. None of them did.

PARHAM: Many of them wanted to do it, to tell you the truth.

ZIMMERMAN: We didn't get nobody out nowhere. But that's the rules that the men taught us.

HELFAND: So you'd never done this kind of work before.

PARHAM: No. Huh uh. More like a picnic and --

ZIMMERMAN: But Roosevelt did encourage everybody to (inaudible).

PARHAM: I was young enough then that I enjoyed everything.

HELFAND: You mentioned Roosevelt.

ZIMMERMAN: Roosevelt was our -- he followed Hoover.

HELFAND: And what did you get in the mail yesterday?

ZIMMERMAN: A picture of Roosevelt signing Social Security into law in '36, wasn't it.

PARHAM: I just told you I didn't remember.

ZIMMERMAN: Well he signed that in '36, we started Social Security in '37.

STONEY: Okay, one more thing now.

ZIMMERMAN: It's him and his son.

STONEY: I wonder if you'd tell us once again the story about the Zimmerman coming over from Germany?

ZIMMERMAN: Well you know, I'm kind of like the man that come down here and get the job, get a job. They asked him where he was born, he said, "I don't know." No, he told them where he was born, they said "Well when was you born?" He said 00:24:00"Well, I don't know because I was quite young at that time." (laughter) Hey, you don't mean that speaker's on. Oh my goodness. I better watch what I'm saying.

PARHAM: It's been on all day, Etta Mae. Practically.

STONEY: Tell us about that story, about the man coming from Germany.

ZIMMERMAN: Well, I'll tell it like it was told to me because that was a long time ago. Said he was a 14-year-old boy and he was going to steal his way across the ocean.

PARHAM: I know your [legs are ready to break?]. Why don't y'all just (inaudible).

ZIMMERMAN: But he was a stowaway. But he got hungry. And he trying to steal him something to eat. But the captain caught him. He was going to make the little boy (inaudible) the rest of the way, I have no idea how close it was to America. 00:25:00But there was a farmer on the ship. He said, "Can I pay the boy's way?" They told him yes. So he paid the boy's way over here, but he worked on the farm with him for seven years to pay his way over here. And I guess about, I don't even know how many years, I mean generations later, my brother struck up with a man going to Birmingham on the train. And he said he didn't know for sure but he believed it was that boy's brother. Because he told a story about that, about like, I mean told a story about his brother leaving home.

PARHAM: We do know there were two.

ZIMMERMAN: There was two boys came over.

PARHAM: Just didn't know where they went.

ZIMMERMAN: That man lived to be 107. Next one lived to be 104. And my granddaddy was 94. But now that, farther back than that, that was my granddaddy's granddaddy. My great granddaddy.

PARHAM: It was your granddaddy's great-granddaddy.

ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

STONEY: Now, and you people are going to be living to the next century?

ZIMMERMAN: I hope not. I might be dead tomorrow. That's something we never know.

STONEY: I think you people are built to last (laughter).

PARHAM: I think I am.

HELFAND: Did you, I just -- you know, I'm not sure I know, but, where you worked in the mill, what you did?

ZIMMERMAN: I worked in the spinning room.

PARHAM: I did too.

ZIMMERMAN: Slowest job in the mill. But if you ever got -- if you ever went to spinning you couldn't go nowhere else.

PARHAM: I didn't work as long as she did. I came out at 1940 and uh --

ZIMMERMAN: I worked until '63.

PARHAM: I had a new job, raising my family.

ZIMMERMAN: But I went to work at East Newnan, Georgia at the age of 14. Supposed to be 14 ½ but I've got a card in there to show I was just 14. Lot of people didn't know there was a labor law in the 20's. I worked eight hours in the mill, until dark in the fields. My mother told me I started going to the mill when I was nine years old. Mama told me that when I went in there to go to work, "You better wear your shoes, all day. If you don't, I'll know about it." So I wore 00:28:00them all day. But when I come home at 3:00, I throwed them up on the front porch and went to the field.

STONEY: Okay. I think that's fine. Anything else?

HELFAND: I guess we should (inaudible) -- that story, about --

JAMIE STONEY: We don't have any more tape in the house. So I gotta go out to the truck.

STONEY: No no, I think that's --

HELFAND: Okay. We're done.

STONEY: Okay?