Lift Every Voice - Oral Histories - Gary Bledsoe

GB: Oh, my parents are from a small town in Texas or small towns really, from Lott and Marlin and that's in Falls County. It’s an extremely--it's one of the two big poorest counties in Texas. The Brazos River runs through there. They grew up in farming families or what have you. And of course, they did as most African Americans did, they picked cotton and chopped cotton, and did all kinds of odd jobs and things to make a living. You know, my dad had to drop out in the seventh grade to help his family to make ends meet, and to work every day to help bring in revenue. My mom was fortunate enough to go through high school and go to college and become a nurse, though she worked just as hard, didn’t have the same kind of experiences with her family. But they both came from very large families.

NK: How many for example?

GB: Thirteen in my mom's side and nine on my dad's. Large families.

NK: And they came from the same area?

GB: Yes, both from Falls County.

NK: And that's where they met. Interesting. So when they tell family stories to you, what kind of family stories have you heard growing up?

GB: Oh there are a lot of stories that they tell--some good stories, stories about character, stories about conviction, stories about, “Whatever you do, hold your head up and be proud of yourself.” Mom would tell the story about how her dad would not allow them to slump after working a full day and chopping cotton and working for fourteen hours and leaving the fields to take his family home. Maybe the kids would slump or stoop or have bad posture. He would scold them, and he made sure that they always acted like they were somebody. I thought that was really a kind of a very good story. My dad liked to tell a story about how honest his dad was, and how there was a neighbor lady that had lost, that had said she lost her chickens. She asked could he come over and help her catch her chickens. When he got over to her home, she came to the door with no clothes on, and said “I think they're in here Mr. AC.” He said, “No thank you ma'am. I'll look for them out here.” But [laugh] you know, some of the good stories like that.

NK: So when they were passing on some values, do you think they were through these kinds of stories? Or through their action or?

GB: Both. There were a lot of things. They would tell some of the horrors. My dad talked about how when they had terrible time during the Depression. His dad was pretty good at maintaining things and that a white landowner just came in one day and just took all their cattle. And the authorities would do nothing and all that to help them get them back. They just took them, and the man owned them and they knew where they were and the whole thing, but not having any rights. They both would talk about the law enforcement in the community, and how many people were beaten or things of that nature. How when they first hired a Black deputy he could only arrest Blacks. He couldn't arrest whites or what have you, they didn't allow him to carry a gun and things of that nature. So there’re a lot of interesting stories. There are even stories like the hanging of the Black man in Waco, and a few years later when the tornado follows the same path as the mob that took the man and hung him, the last one to be hung, I guess in Waco. So, there are a lot of stories like that. My mom tells the story about how an aunt of hers just had her land taken away by a white male, whose family owns the property today. That’s one thing I’ve thought of, of different ways one could prove this, to be able to, to try to get the family's land back.

Disclaimer:
“Oral Narrative as History.” Students received class credit for this work, and were under the supervision of Dr. Martha Norkunas, director of “The Project in Interpreting the Texas Past.”

Every effort has been made to transcribe the audio recordings exactly. On occasion a word, or phrase, was difficult to hear and this is indicated by a question mark in brackets.

Interviewee:
Gary L. Bledsoe

Interviewer:
Naoko Kato

Date of Interview:
February 24, 2004

Place:
W24th Street, Austin, Texas

Recording Format:
Digital Voice Recorder, Olympus .dss format

Transcriber:
Naoko Kato