Nanny Leah Washburn Interview 3

 GEORGE STONEY: Okay, I want you to start when you first went down on '34 you were going to the picket line. Could you start that story again?

NANNY LEAH WASHBURN: Well, uh, I went down, I caught me a trolley and went on to the picket line. See, my sister was working there. I mean she was a-picketing. But what the time I'd be off would be on account of my children and the condition, you know, that the house was in without food, so that's why I wasn't on the picket line every hour, and I went on, and I got off the bus. There's a man that wanted me to come by his house, and he'd go to the picket 00:01:00line with me, and so I –- I hid a Daily Worker in my bosom, you know, and when I went, when I went on there to his place, I found out that he wanted to use me, and I –- I didn't go for that, and so I asked him was you coming on down to the picket line. Said yeah, he'd be down right away, so getting back to the paper, you know, I seen it wouldn't do for me to let him have the paper that I 00:02:00was, you know, distributing, or would have distributed it to him if he would've been a person that I felt like it ought to had it. So I found out what he wanted, and I went on to the picket line by myself, and there I stayed, and when we, you know, picket all, all them, them hours, and I got a lady, when they broke up to -- would she let me go to her bathroom, and she -– her and her husband, and they said yeah, and it just, you know, a little piece, one [exposition?], you know, houses they lived in. I went on down there, and I come on back. I come on back. I thanked her for, you know, being so nice, and I come on back to the picket line, and it just about finished up, you know, they's 00:03:00all going home, and as I's a coming up, got about the side of where we's a-picketing, and the polices grabbed me and my sister, and when they grabbed me, they nearly [ruined?] my arm, you know, bruised it, and put me in the paddy-wagon, or whatever you call them, and carried me and my sister (break in audio) down to the resting –-

GEORGE STONEY: No, I don't like hand cut-aways. [Inaudible] Okay, all right. Now start with they put you in a paddy-wagon.

WASHBURN: And my sister, my youngest sister, she's working there, and was in the strike, too. And put us in the Big Rock Jail. You know where that used to be? Well, the Big Rock Jail, that's where we stayed 74 days. We had to stay there, 74 days of that, and hadn't committed a crime, no more than you had, and you didn't know us. So there's a lot of stuff, you know, we carried on, tried to teach the prostitutes, you know, to not -– you know, to throw theyself away and get in jail like they did, and selling their body, and so on. Well, we had to stay there a pretty good long while. Seventy-four days in the 00:05:00Big Rock is hard, so what we did, you know, we -– we got –- had to gather -- get her -- some lawyers, and we got two Afro-American lawyers. We got –- I got Mr. Benjamin Junior Davis and Mr. John Gere. So they liked to blowed up in that jail when that -– that was going on, but such as that had to come, you know, so we didn't care, we didn't pay no attention, we wasn't scared, neither one of us, and she's still living, but she's not in good health. She's in a home. Her name was Annie Mae Leathers. Well, we stayed there, and Benjamin 00:06:00Junior, and Mr. John Gere, they just couldn't take it, to that jail, two white women having black lawyers, Afro-American lawyers, but we had them just the same.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about blacks in the mills? What did they do in the mills?

WASHBURN: Well, there's a very few in there. They didn't have too many -- I can't remember in our section, they didn't have any. Here's all the cotton mills, they weren't working no black people, except, you know, to clean up, and to mop, and to sweep some of their filth.

GEORGE STONEY: What did you feel about that?

WASHBURN: I felt just like I do today. Some of us white people can -- can clean up as well as we can't. I didn't -- I don't like nobody having to do dirty work, but you have to if you're keeping house, or so on. But I -- I don't want to put it off on all the black people.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about Angelo Herndon?

WASHBURN: Yeah, we talked about him to different ones.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell me about Angelo Herndon, but use his name.

WASHBURN: When we'd use his name?

GEORGE STONEY: No, when you talked -- tell me about Angelo Herndon, but say, "Let me tell you about Angelo Herndon."

WASHBURN: Let me tell you about Angelo Herndon. Now Angelo Herndon, and Mr. Otto Hall, and I don't know how many, and a lot of Jewish people, they come -- 00:08:00they had an organization, but I can't remember the name of it. The Jewish people had an organization, but they'd come in there, and they seemed to be so pleased, you know, to see the Afro-Americans and see my mother -- and her an elderly woman and all, talk -- but they was, I'm not going to try to hide it -- they was a little ugliest thing went on at the table. My mother fixed Mr. Otto Hall and all of us a good meal, and Angelo Herndon and so forth. Well, when we sit down there, my daddy -- this is something I shouldn't bring out maybe, but if it's in my heart I know -- my daddy, he spoke out and said he wasn't 00:09:00used to eating with people like that, and my brother Archie [Olean?] Leathers, he -- he was working the harvest fields, you know, and learned us a lot, and he just grabbed my daddy and give him a kick in the back, and, you know, put him off away from the table. And I guess that kind of broke him from some of his prejudice. Some you can't get it out of him.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell me about -- talk about the Ku Klux Klan.

WASHBURN: Well, you -- I haven't told you about -- he when my husband was 00:10:00took out, but later years I got married to him: Walter E. Washburne. He -- he carried a -- he carried a -- well, first I'll say this: the WPA had let Walter have a lot of land, you know, that anybody could get it, you know, that could stand up and sign for it. And this black minister, he -- he didn't have a thing, nothing to eat, no nothing. Didn't have no church or nothing. So he went to -- he went to work, Walter did, dividing the land he had, let him tend that to raise stuff -- foods and stuff, and then the little boy, the little boy 00:11:00got sick, he -- the Afro-American son, I'll say of the preacher. He was a preacher. He got sick, and had to be carried to a doctor, and so Edith and Mulder had a car, a little truck or something. They carry him down to [Orbin?] Avenue to Doctor Jackson, and he treated us poor people -- I been to him, carried my son, too. He's a very good man, and he -- he went ahead and -- and treated the little boy and everything, and he found out he needed circumcising, and they had to keep a-bringing him back until he got better, so after that the 00:12:00Klan took Walter out, and this minister, Afro-American minister, and beat him nearly to death. He never did get over it. Now, my husband, when I got married to him, he was an electrician. He could do wonderful work with electrics, you know, and his wife was an Indian woman. She's very lovely, and she wrote for -- against the black church. You know what that is, don't you? The black church. When she wrote against them, and we all were in sympathy with her, and she had to be -- Walter had to be taken in, and you know, it's bad for him to 00:13:00stay out there -- they might have got him and killed him and all, and my mother took him in and kept him, and took care of him until he got well. And -–

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about the Roosevelts?

WASHBURN: The Roosevelt administration?

GEORGE STONEY: Mm hm.

WASHBURN: Well, I'm not too well-read up on Roosevelt, only what he -- what, you know -- about what he put us through. What I mean, say in the WPA days, and the electric, and a few things like that. I don't know as much about him but -- for me I don't trust any of them. I don't trust any of the moneyed, the wealthiest people, but they did -- Roosevelt done a lot better than a lot of the 00:14:00others, and his wife, too.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you ever write them?

WASHBURN: No, but when I got into that writing, you know, we used to keep -- when Walter was living, we kept the road hot, and kept the Congress and the Senate appointments for me and Walter and this and that and the other, and about the wars, and so forth. We was really busy all the time.

GEORGE STONEY: But you never wrote Mrs. Roosevelt or -- or Franklin D.?

WASHBURN: Thinking?

GEORGE STONEY: Did you ever write the Roosevelts yourself?

WASHBURN: Well, we went -- we had to -- we wanted more -- we went -- we made 00:15:00appointments with the Congress and Senator, and especially about wars, you know. We talked on wars, and that's about it.

GEORGE STONEY: Now could you talk about Elizabeth Gurley Flynn?

WASHBURN: Well, I associated with her some.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you say, "I associated with Elizabeth Gurley Flynn"?

WASHBURN: I -- I don't remember what all we associated about. Let's see. Gurley Flynn was in the Communist Party, wasn't she? Well, I knew her, and -- 00:16:00see, we didn't have money to go down there. That's where she had to have went and seen and talked. According to what little I know, I think Gurley Flynn was a good person.

GEORGE STONEY: But you don't recall picketing with her or going to meetings with her.

WASHBURN: Beg your pardon?

GEORGE STONEY: Did you picket with her or go to meetings with her or anything like that?

WASHBURN: You mean Gurley Flynn?

GEORGE STONEY: Yes.

WASHBURN: I don't think so. I want the truth -- all I'm telling you. Nothing but truth.

GEORGE STONEY: Now you -- you've been political all your life.

WASHBURN: Yes, I have. My mother -- my mother was -- was really a political person all her life -- and especially after she got married and had children, she wanted to teach them, and she's the instigator that I inherited a lot of my -- you know -- things. She had a good head on her. Everybody might not think she did, but she really did.

GEORGE STONEY: Could she read and write?

WASHBURN: Uh, yes, she could read and write, but not too good. But she is a great hand to save all the clippings of the [devilments?] going on in the newspaper and Ku Klux and so forth, the killing people and so on.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell -- you told me a story about how your parents 00:18:00saved a black woman once. Could you tell that again? When the mill got uh -- said that the blacks were going to get to you?

WASHBURN: Well –-

GEORGE STONEY: Start to tell that whole story.

WASHBURN: I remember that. You know there's in East Point, Georgia, they were a little place, I guess it's still there -- I don't know -- called Clark's Cove, and those people in Clark's Cove was all Afro-Americans, and they were -- they were shooting, hanging all the black people over in there. That was just a little piece from the Elizabeth Cotton Mill where my sisters worked, and I'd carry them lunch, carry them their lunch, breakfast, and that -- that woman, my 00:19:00mother's friend, she -- she was -- she happened to break loose from Clark's Cove and come over to my mother's. I guess you'd call it about a half a mile. Might have been a mile from East Point to where we lived in Elizabeth House. And they come around, the superintendent at, you know, the superintendent sent somebody around to warn everybody that lived there, they had to come in the cotton mill that night, by -- before dark, and that woman that my mother had 00:20:00there, you know, she told her. We had to obey the rules, you know. We thought we did. I guess they'd a killed us if we hadn't. We had to all -- the children and babies and all had to go in the cotton mill and stay all night -- and when it got dark, this woman, I think her name was Minerva. She -- my mother's friend -- she, you know, got there just a minute or two before dark, and my mother, you know, told her to just keep quiet, and so on. She had done told her 00:21:00about what -- how they was killing them and hanging them over there. So what happened -- the man come around, or maybe it's done told that once, but anyhow, we had to go to the cotton mill that night, babies and all, children. We went to the cotton mill and stayed down there practically all night. And my mother had Minerva, I believe is her name, had her when she left that night to go to the cotton mill, she told her, says, "Now you get in this closet here, and don't you dare to get out, because Minerva, you'll get killed." And she knew she would, because they's killing them up at Clark's Cove (laughs). So that's what happened.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. Stop for just a moment. Now.

JAMIE STONEY: It's rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

WASHBURN: My shortness of breath's causing me being so slow.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

WASHBURN: My blood pressure's so low, so the doctor said.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay, you want to tell me the story again?

WASHBURN: Concerning the having to go in the cotton mill. Well, the man come around to give orders to everybody to go in the cotton mill that night before dark, and we had to do it. So my mother said, or either be run out, and that's what happened. My mother had one hid in the closet. She hid her in the closet, you know, when we left, and so we went to the cotton mill. I remember it as well 00:23:00as if it's today. So we stayed down there all night. No food. So we stayed -- that wasn't just our family, that was everybody in the village was a mile long. Well, that's about all I –-

GEORGE STONEY: No, you see, what we don't know is that the woman was Afro-American, and that they were threatening that if you didn't get into the cotton mill, the Afro-Americans would be after you. That's what, you see, when you tell the story, we don't know that, because you just say "one," but you don't say that she's Afro-American. Could we dare try it again?

WASHBURN: Well, you want me to say that -- tell like it was?

GEORGE STONEY: Yes, uh-huh. But be sure that you say that Minerva was an Afro-American.

WASHBURN: Oh yeah. Didn't I say it?

GEORGE STONEY: No, no, you didn't. Okay, try it again, Jamie.

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

WASHBURN: Well, my mother had to go in the cotton mill, and she -- she had an Afro-American in her house, one of her friends -- and I'd like to say this, too, that my mother was prejudiced with no nationality, no Jewish, Italian, or nobody, not the Afro-American -- well anyhow, we had to stay in the cotton mill all night, and my mother had left that Afro-American in the closet. She was very 00:25:00anxious to get back. And that's about all I can say, but –-

GEORGE STONEY: Now, why did the -- why did you have to go to the cotton mill? What reason did they give you?

WASHBURN: Well, the reason they said we'd have to go to the cotton mill, that -- that the -- that the Afro-Americans was coming in and kill us all, and the babies, too. Is that enough?

GEORGE STONEY: Yup. That's it. That's exactly what I wanted (laughing). Okay, thank you.

WASHBURN: Did I get it?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, you did. Yeah. Now, Jamie, I'm -– (break in audio)

WASHBURN: I was looking up something else. Is that funny or suspicious in me of keeping this?

GEORGE STONEY: What is it?

WASHBURN: A pencil.

GEORGE STONEY: A pencil?

WASHBURN: It's a pencil -- pen. You wanted to see it, didn't you?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.

WASHBURN: That's what I got the -- sign the Rosenbergs' petitions -- let the people sign them with that --

GEORGE STONEY: I see.

WASHBURN: Ethel and Julius. That's when I got in jail again.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, tell us about being in jail again.

WASHBURN: Well, I'll tell you. The police lived right close to my sister had owned a house, and that house was Leo Frank's uncle -- and it was a very 00:27:00wonderful house, built solid. And this, this police, it was there, lived down on Pryor, and it was just on the corner where my sister's house was -- across the street. And I -- my sister and I were going up Pryor Street, and getting petitions, trying to get petitions signed to save the lives of the Rosenbergs. And this -- this old man, it was a police, he is -- he is considered very vicious to everybody I ever heard speak of him -- but he arrested me, but he didn't arrest my sister. Now I mean a different sister. Minnie. Minnie was my older sister than this one that stays with Nellie, or did till she put her in a 00:28:00home. The one that was in jail with me. Anyhow, he put us in jail for petit-- for getting petitions signed to save the life of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, and I don't know of anything could be any vicious-er than that.

GEORGE STONEY: How long were you in jail that time?

WASHBURN: I don't remember how long I was there. We didn't stay in there as long as we did before -- when we's in the [Strack?], but old Worcester, he's not living today.

GEORGE STONEY: You've outlived most of them, haven't you?

WASHBURN: Yes, I have. I'm not worrying about that part of it. I'm just worried what I -- what I've done to try to help humanity, regardless of what 00:29:00they are -- Jewish and Greeks or Afro-Americans or what.

GEORGE STONEY: Do you think you've done enough?

[inaudible]

WASHBURN: No! You don't never do enough.

[inaudible]

GEORGE STONEY: Do you think you've done enough?

WASHBURN: No! Not at all, I ain't done enough. I might be doing little things you don't know nothing about (laughs). No, I'm not as stout as I have been. I've been a stout hussy.

GEORGE STONEY: Are you still a member of the Communist Party?

WASHBURN: Well, in my heart, but I don't know nothing about the Communist Party, how it's a-going now. I haven't since I left Douglasville, that's been a quite a while. Now as far as I'd like to read the paper, and get the 00:30:00paper, but I don't know where I'd land at. I don't get the Daily Worker. It used to be the Daily Worker, but it's the Daily World now, unless they've changed it back.

GEORGE STONEY: What would you like to do next?

[inaudible]

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.