Helen Johnson and Corinne Lindsey Interview 1

 JUDITH HELFAND: I want you to tell me your earliest memories of Homer Welch being in the house where the meetings were taking place.

HELEN JOHNSON: You talking to me?

HELFAND: I am.

JOHNSON: I remember being with his daughter Deenie and --

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, uh, Homer Welch.

HELFAND: I was best friends with Homer's daughter Deenie—

JOHNSON: I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

HELFAND: Its ok.

JOHNSON: (inaudible) didn't learn very well. Um

CORINNE LINDSEY: (inaudible)

JOHNSON: You ready? You ready?

(laughter)

JOHNSON: I was best friends with Homer's daughter Deenie, and usually she and I were in the other part of the house playing paper dolls when the meetings were going on. But we could hear a lot of --

LINDSEY: Talk a little louder.

JOHNSON: We could hear a lot of loud talking and -- but we really were so young that we didn't know what was going on except there was a meeting and it was usually held in the kitchen.

HELFAND: Now can you talk about Homer as a leader? I'm sure you had some idea of Homer as a leader and what Homer was trying to do at the time and the union.

JOHNSON: Well, I didn't really realize it so much then as I did later, because, as I say, we were about 9 years old when this was happening.

GEOGES STONEY: Ok let's start all over so that you can tie that whole answer in with the thing you said before.

JOHNSON: Ok.

GEORGE STONEY: That the meetings were going on you they were talking about union but you didn't know where it was all—

[break in video]

JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: Ok.

HELFAND: Ok.

JOHNSON: When the meetings were going on with Homer and the different people that was striking, his daughter and I were usually in the other room playing paper dolls and we really didn't know what the meetings were all about except we heard loud voices and a lot of commotion going on, but we were oblivious to what was really going on.

HELFAND: Now I'm going to jump, but years later you said you found out something about what was going on, right?

JOHSNON: Right.

HELFAND: So I guess there was a big silence in between, is that right?

JOHNSON: Yes, because we were so young at the time that we didn't know that -- that Homer was the, ah, union leader and --

M1: Let's, let's just do that again, you just put your arm across your microphone.

JOHNSON: I'm sorry.

M1: That's alright.

JOHNSON: At the time the meetings were going on with Homer and the different people that were striking, we really didn't realize what was going on and it wasn't till many years later that I realized that he was -- it was a cause that he was very, ah, into, a crusader, if you will, that I began to appreciate what he did at the time. But at that time we were just children.

HELFAND: Ok, now I'm gonna-- Now Deenie told me that there were certain 00:03:00things that were just never talked about.

JOHNSON: Right.

HELFAND: And in fact this could be the first time that this is all being talked about in a long time. The fact that he was a member and leader. And so there's a big silence here and I wonder if you might want to talk about why.

[break in video]

JOHNSON: I think the reason that the cause wasn't talked about by Deenie or by her father, Homer, was her mother kept a strict silence on that. And there was a lot of people that didn't agree with what was going on. They'as a lot of people that did agree with what was going on and so she kind of sheltered her daughter from all the violence that later erupted, but at the time we were just children and it wasn't until later that we began to talk about. Still don't talk about it too much, because, ah, I don't know. I think her mother wanted to 00:04:00shelter her from any -- anything of -- that happened later with the trial and all.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about the trial.

JOHSNON: I know very little about the trial except that my mother and daddy, being best friends of Homer and Leolyn, went to Talladega to -- Daddy was to appear there as a character witness for Homer. And that was his main purpose in being there. And, of course, he thought he was a wonderful man, as we all did, and that was the reason he was there at the trial.

[break in video]

HELFAND: Could you tell me, your mother must know about the trial and what took place and why he was put in jail. Could you talk to us about that?

LINDSEY: Well, no, 'cause I didn't go. I had relatives up there and they wasn't going to put me on the stand, just my husband. So I didn't know what was 00:05:00said or anything.

HELFAND: You being 9 years old when you were best friends and in the house during those meetings, do you remember when Deenie and Homer and Leolyn left and moved to Alabama for the first time?

JOHNSON: Yes, I do.

HELFAND: Could you talk about that and what your perceptions were of why they were leaving?

JOHNSON: Well, I really didn't know that they were leaving --

GEORGE STONEY: Just, just start again and say

JOHNSON: I really didn't know why Homer and Leolyn and Deenie were leaving Hogansville, except I knew that I was losing by best friend for a while and they were moving to Gadsden, Alabama. But the union movement was on, which I didn't know much about. But they moved to Gadsden when they left Hogansville and she was in the fifth grade.

HELFAND: The other day you were talking about cotton mill people and you and that there was a difference. Your family didn't work in a cotton mill at the 00:06:00time. Could you for someone-- I don't know too much about what Hogansville was like at the time. Could you describe to me the differences and how you understood them?

JOHNSON: Well, ah, they was the town people and there were the village people, and my father had a business in town, had told us that we were to be friends with both the village people and the town people. And it wasn't only because of his business. That was the type man he was and to this day I still have friends that lived -- they no longer live on the village, but they've all gone on to much better jobs and all, but I still have friends there that lived on the village and then I have friends that lived in town. And so I never -- I never felt the difference. But the townspeople and the village people felt the difference. You felt -- you knew that they did. You knew that they did.

HELFAND: You told me that –- yeah, yeah—you explained to me

[break in video]

JOHNSON: I know I said that. Yes, I said that, but I said if it hadn't been our bread and butter, he would have still been the same way and I'm the same way today.

GEORGE STONEY: That's very important, but he, my father.

JOHNSON: My father—

GEORGE STONEY: Start (inaudible)

JOHNSON: Ok, ok. My father said that, yes, this was our bread and butter, to be friends with the people on the village and the people in town, but I'm saying today that, still, he would have felt the same way if he had not had a business there. We were always taught to be nice to -- to both sides. And so I never felt the difference. But the people -- I live in the country, but the people that lived on the village and the people that lived in town always felt the difference. They told me they did.

GEORGE STONEY: I wonder if your mother could tell you about what went on between Homer Welch and your father. Could you tell your daughter that now?

LINDSEY: What went on with them?

JOHNSON: What kind of friendship they had.

[crosstalk]

LINDSEY: Yeah, (inaudible) and Homer, real good friends, good friends. And just the best, I'd say, the best of friends. And, ah, his wife and me were -- I don't think I've ever had a friend like her. She was a real good friend and he was a real good friend to my husband.

GEORGE STONEY: Now one of the things that we keep finding everywhere we go is that people seem to be ashamed to talk about these old times and unions and so forth. Could you tell Judy, who's not from the South, why this might be true?

JOHNSON: I really don't know why it was true that the union and Homer's organizing and that sort of thing would be, ah, hard to talk about, but in those 00:09:00times it was. And even today, as you say, it's hard to talk about it. But, ah, to me, ah, I felt that Homer was ahead of his times, that he was a -- I don't know how to put it -- crusader for what he felt was right. And, ah, you just didn't find men like that back then like that. And I feel like that, you know, he's a very honorable man to have done what he did, to have risked so much in those days, criticism and even his life, you know. He had to literally run for his life at certain times. And, ah, I feel like that he's a hero. I always called him my second father and his wife my second mother.

HELFAND: Um—I need a sec.

[break in video]

HELFAND: -- the man you married, his family, who you married into and the sides they might have taken and the sister-in-law's involvement and if you grew up hearing about -- you know, if you heard about this (inaudible).

JOHNSON: I really didn't, because when I married, I really didn't hear about Homer and his organizing the union from my sister-in-law. They were -- as you say, it was talked about very little. I just happened to have seen the papers in those days when the Fort Mac incarceration, or whatever you call it, was going on. But it was never discussed. I don't know why, but it wasn't.

GEORGE STONEY: I wonder if your mother could tell you about it? Could you tell --

HELFAND: Or maybe you could ask your mom questions that you never -- are there things that were going on back then that you still don't quite understand that you want to know about?

JOHNSON: I doubt if my mother understands what was going on with the union and Homer and the, ah, strike.

LINDSEY: I didn't.

JOHNSON: Because the main thing that we were concerned about, the friendship we had with the Welch's, and really they weren't that involved except my daddy stood up for Homer all the way even to the point of losing some of his customers for a time. But they came back later.

LINDSEY: They kind of criticized my husband for letting them use his truck at that time. But, ah, he lost a lot of the customers, but it didn't worry him.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you see any of the people on the trucks? Tell Judy about it.

LINDSEY: Uh uhm. No, I didn't.

JOHNSON: No, we didn't. We didn't.

LINDSEY: I only saw it on the newsreel in the movies, in the movies.

M1: Just a—

[break in the video]

GEORGE STONEY: -- the movies and seeing that in it.

JOHNSON: Well, I think it was Pathe News. It would just show what was happening in the, ah, strike thing. And, ah --

M1; let's start again on this sentence please.

HELFAND: Ok.

M1: (inaudible)

HELFAND: Also (inaudible) is going to straighten out, I guess you went to the movie theatre in Hogansville?

JOHNSON: Uh-huh. No, not in Hogansville. We didn't have one then. It was in LaGrange.

HELFAND: So if you could explain we went to LaGrange, we went to the movies. I guess you went during that time and you saw it?

JOHNSON: Yes.

HELFAND: Tell me as much as you can with as much detail as you can.

JOHNSON: Well, I just remember seeing that -- that Homer, my girlfriend's father, was the organizer of the union and what was going on with the strikers and the Fort Mac thing and the -- being a kid, I just didn't -- you know, didn't think much about it one way or the other. It was only later that I began to 00:13:00realize what he was trying to do. You know, like I say, he was a maverick.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about going to the movies and seeing the newsreel. Let's start back—

HLEFAND: And the newsreel.

GEORGE STONEY: And the newsreel. Start back and say, "Well we didn't have a movie house in – we didn't have—

JOHNSON: Ok. We didn't have a movie house in Hogansville, so we went to LaGrange to the movies. And when the news came on, the Pathe News, that's when we saw what was happening in Newnan and Hogansville and really saw more than, than we knew what was going on at the time in Hogansville.

LINDSEY: That's right.

JOHNSON: Because of the strike. We saw the incarceration of the people and this was happening, you know, and still being a child, I was awed by it, but, you know, I didn't really know what was going on much. Didn't understand it, because my father wasn't involved in the union, but he was Homer's best friend. 00:14:00And so we just accepted, you know, what was going on was good because it was Homer.

GEORGE STONEY: Now we were talking -- we were talking with a newsreel man today who photographed some part of that strike. And he said that the newsreels were -- his instructions were to always get things that looked violent because that's what the public wanted. Would you talk about that?

JOHNSON: I could talk about what went on with Homer and the strike in a way, but in another way I was too young to understand what was going on. I just remember seeing a lot of scuffling and people being marched off into, ah, the different places of incarceration, you know, and I didn't put much attachment to it because I didn't understand it. I was too young, 9 years old. You know, I 00:15:00didn't understand it. I was waiting for the cartoons to come on, to be honest.

HELFAND: Could you tell that story again, I wasn't quite clear whether you were watching these images in the street or you were indeed in a movie theatre.

JOHNSON: No, no I—

HELFAND: Ok so if you remind that you're in a movie theatre –

JOHNSON: OK.

HELFAND: You're waiting for the cartoons and here comes this—

JOHNSON: Ok. When I was in LaGrange at the movie house, because we didn't have one in Hogansville, the Pathe News would come on and it would show the strike, what was happening with Homer and the strikers. And I was -- I was interested, very interested because it was someone I knew, but I was waiting for the cartoons to come on because I was too young to put much attachment to it, you see.

HELFAND: So you saw Homer in the movies?

JOHNSON: Well, in the background, yeah. I knew it was him because we'd heard all about the strike and everything.

STONEY: Could you tell us how the audience responded?

JOHNSON: Well they were alright.

GEORGE STONEY: Start, start – When, when—Just we saw Homer, other people we knew up there, about how the audience responded.

JOHNSON: Ok. When we saw Homer in the movies and the strike that was going on, ah, I don't remember the audience responding badly. I just remember them like I was, just taking it in stride, another newsworthy story. And, as I say, we were waiting for the cartoons to come on, being 9 years old.

M1: (inaudible)

HELFAND: I guess this was when the strike was already over? Do you think this was when the strike was on?

JOHNSON: It was probably when the strike was on because, ah, we later had a movie house in Hogansville, but until then we had to go to LaGrange to see a movie.

HELFAND: Do you think your mama was with you?

JOHNSON: Oh, always.

LINDSEY: Always. We used to go ever Saturday and sometime during the week.

M1: How much did the movie cost?

LINDSEY: Di-- a nickel, nickel. (laughs) Nickel.

M1: Was it the (inaudible)?

LINDSEY: It was a nickel.

M1: Was that a lot of money?

JOHNSON: Was it a lot of money? Yeah, it was a lot of money. When you paid for three different fares, that was 15 cents! (laughs) Four's 20 cents.

HELFAND: Can you remember which movie you went to see?

LINDSEY: Probably Shirley Temple, I guess.

JOHNSON: Well, no. The movie? I don't remember the movie at the time. I was just 9, but there was a movie at Three Points and one at LaGrange Theater. That's probably where it was. And then there was one called Five Points. Three Points, Five Points, and LaGrange Theater are the ones I remember going to see.

HELFAND: Did this newsreel frighten you? Did it look like Homer was in danger?

JOHNSON: Yeah, it did, but, like I say, it was almost like a story, that we weren't aware of what was really going on. My parents and Homer never talked about this much, I don't believe. Did they, Mama?

LINDSEY: Uh uhm.

JOHNSON: They didn't talk about what was going on because I'm not too sure Dad was pro-union, but he was pro-friend, you know.

HELFAND: What do you think Homer was? I mean you've been to that mill village?

JOHNSON: Yeah.

HELFAND: Did you grow up walking over there and going over there?

JOHNSON: Oh, I'd go over there to spend the night with friends, yes.

HELFAND: Talk about the mill village. Talk about the conditions and all that you saw and, if you could, lead me into what you think Homer was working for.

JOHNSON: Well, I think he was idealist -- I think Homer was an idealist. I think he saw that something that needed to be rectified -- the working 00:19:00conditions and the low pay and long hours -- and when the union organizers came in and wanted someone that could stand up for 'em and be a party to -- to what they were working for, he was their man because he was a leader, definitely a leader.

STONEY: Well, the reason we're pushing so hard is because we've just been talking with a lot of people over in Hogansville and in East Newnan, who say that nobody was for the union except trash.

JOHNSON: That's not true.

LINDSEY: Uh uh.

STONEY: Well, talk about that.

JOHNSON: I don't -- that's not -- the fact, ah, that people say that no one was for the union except trash is not true, because I knew many people that were unionized then, because of Homer Welch, that were fine people, as fine as you'd 00:20:00ever find anyplace, who was not trash, no way. It was something that had been long overdue. The child labor should have been done away with years and years and years before that came about. And when this started out, it was for good, just like women's right to vote. This was a -- something that should have been handled long time before it did in 1934. They just had to find the right man to do it, and Homer Welch was the right man to do it. That's the way I feel.

STONEY: Maybe your mother has something to say about that.

LINDSEY: Yeah, I agree.

STONEY: Well, could you tell Judy why you agree?

HELFAND: Well, you know what? You were just telling me about the conditions in the mill and that's because you knew them first-hand, that that's why you agreed with Homer. Maybe you could talk to your daughter some about that.

LINDSEY: Well, I don't know. I've just about told you everything I know. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Tell your daughter.

JOHNSON: Tell me.

LINDSEY: Well, I -- what was I talking about?

STONEY: Tell her about working in the mills and why you—

JOHNSON: At 10 years old.

HELFAND: Well you could ask your Mom.

JOHNSON: What was it like at 10 years old to have to go to work in the mills --

LINDSEY: Scared to death.

JOHNSON: -- and stand on a box?

LINDSEY: Scared to death.

JOHNSON: Makes me mad right now to think about it. You know, I could be a Homer Welch, feminine, you know? I don't like it. I don't like the fact she had lost her childhood doing that. I don't like it.

LINDSEY: Well, he -- there was more than just me.

JOHNSON: I know, but you're my mother. (laughter) You know? I just think the conditions were awful, that children who were that young had to lose their 00:22:00childhood over working in the mill. And I think that what Homer did was long overdue, long overdue.

LINDSEY: I think God sent me a good man to make up for all that. Really do.

JOHNSON: But you don't think that you should have gone to work at 10?

LINDSEY: Naw, I don't. And he said he'd get me out of that place, too, and he did.

JOHNSON: I know it.

LINDSEY: That's the reason I got married at -- I loved him and all that, but he -- he pushed it so. I was really too young to get married, but I did. Some of the neighbors said, "They won't be together -- won't live together two months." We never separated and we never -- (inaudible) I don't say we never had a fuss, but nothing like that ever.

JOHNSON: You don't want to lie at 85, Mama.

LINDSEY: Huh?

JOHNSON: You don't want to lie at 85.

LINDSEY: No! (laughs) Do you remember us separating or anything when you was growing up?

JOHNSON: No! No! No! You said you never had a cross --

LINDSEY: No, I didn't say that. Everybody has fusses. I didn't say that. (laughter)

HELFAND: Listen, do you know how this strike -- what the outcome of this strike was?

JOHNSON: I really don't, but I think that it was successful, wasn't it?

LINDSEY: I don't know.

JOHNSON: The strike was successful, wasn't it? People did get, ah, ah, less hours and more pay, didn't they?

STONEY: It was very unsuccessful.

JOHNSON: It was unsuccessful. I see.

STONEY: What happened was that when the NRA came in, it reduced the hours and raised the wages.

JOHNSON: Right, but it wasn't because of the strike?

STONEY: And then the manufacturers started speeding machinery.

JOHNSON: I see.

STOMEY: And then the union was formed to try to do something about that. And when they struck, then the manufacturers came down on people very rough. And 00:24:00they never were able to form a union. They tried many times after that, but they never were able --

JOHNSON: The textile people were never able to form a union. I didn't realize that.

STONEY: At very few places, till this day.

JOHNSON: I see.

STONEY: And the whole South became pretty much an anti-union place because the employers came down so hard on people in Hogansville and all over the place. They were scared to death.

JOHNSON: Uh huh. They were scared to strike.

STONEY: That's right.

HELFAND: And it's this fear that makes us so interested in Homer Welch. He had a lot to be afraid of and he still stood up.

LINDSEY: That's right. That's right.

JOHNSON: As I say, he was a crusader.

STONEY: And your father.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

STONEY: Because, you see, very few middle class people, business people, for 00:25:00example, dared to defy --

JOHNSON: Right.

STONEY: -- the mills. That's why we're so interested in your father and in Homer, because over and over again, we get history records these were irresponsible people that started this, they were trash. Just this morning the newsreel man said that --

[break in video]

JOHNSON: That's not right.

STONEY: So, once more, could you tell us about that difference, that what you saw in the mills -- you must have been conscious as a child of what was going on in the mills.

JOHNSON: Yes. Yes.

STONEY: Could you just talk a little bit, both of you, about what you knew about it?

LINDSEY: You never was in the mill, was you?

JOHNSON: I know, but he's talking about the friends I had. In the '30s and early '40s, before I graduated in '42, there was a distinct difference between 00:26:00the town people and the mill people. And you felt that. You just knew that there was a little clique in the townspeople and the mill people didn't want to have anything to do with the townspeople. And, ah, it was, ah, very obvious, and I felt very uncomfortable because I had friends from town and the mill people. And, ah, I always liked to call myself a peacemaker and I made sure that I kept my friends on the mill village. And it wasn't because of Daddy's business. I still, ah, feel like that I, too, am sort of a crusader. I like a cause that I believe in. I still believe right's right and wrong's wrong, and I still have those same friends that I made in my early years on the mill village and I still have the ones I made in town. And I think I could join the 00:27:00diplomatic corps, really, 'cause I -- I -- I feel very strongly about people's rights, the mill people and the townspeople.

HELFAND: I've met some people who are downright ashamed of having had anything to do with the cotton mill.

JOHNSON: Yeah.

LINDSEY: I know a lot of 'em like that.

HELFAND: Talk about that. Could you talk about that? Repeat my sentence and –

LINDSEY: Well--

JOHNSON: People that are ashamed.

LINDSEY: Yeah, I've heard people talk, "Don't tell nobody I've worked in the mill." I never have felt that way about it. It's a -- they worked 'em too hard and paid 'em too little money and all that, but I never have been to where I was actually ashamed of it.

JOHNSON: This is right, though. There was a definite thing there about working in the mill. There really was. Can't get around it. People wanted to get out of that situation. If you remember "God's Little Acre", how bad they wanted to get off the farm and get to the mills and then they wished -- wished they hadn't got to the mills 'cause that wasn't where -- where it was at. (laughs)

HELFAND: Do you know of how your family came to work, how your mama came to work in the mill and come off the farm?

JOHNSON: No. I just know what she's told me, what she's told me.

HELFAND: What has she told you?

JOHNSON: She just told me she went to work at the mill as a child really. She told very little about it, but she's told me enough to make me mad that she had to work as a child and stand on a box to work. And, ah, that made me furious to 00:29:00think -- the child labor thing I think was awful.