00:00:00HUNTLEY: This is an interview for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral
History Project. I'm interviewing Ms. Henrietta Tripp. My name is Dr. Horace
Huntley. Today is April 9, 1998. Ms. Tripp I want to thank you for taking time
out of your busy schedule, cause I know you're busy, to come and sit and talk
with me today.
TRIPP: Well, I appreciate you asking.
HUNTLEY: Yes, ma'am. Where are you from originally?
TRIPP: I was originally born in Marion Junction, Alabama.
HUNTLEY: Were your parents from Marion Junction?
TRIPP: My parents were from, close to . . .
HUNTLEY: In that general area?
TRIPP: Yes, in that general area. My father's father, my grandfather, was from
00:01:00North Carolina. He was born there, but he was raised up in Massaline, just close
to Marion Junction.
HUNTLEY: How did he . . . why did he move from North Carolina to Alabama?
TRIPP: Well, during that time my grandfather's father was a slave. During that
time he was traded off and he moved to Mississippi from North Carolina.
HUNTLEY: So, he was actually traded from an owner in North Carolina to someone
in Mississippi?
TRIPP: Right. Then, they moved from Mississippi to Alabama.
HUNTLEY: And that story remains in your family about the movement from North
00:02:00Carolina. Do you know where in North Carolina he was from?
TRIPP: No, that's what we're working on, because I am the coordinator of the
family reunions. I got a lot of that, but I don't have at any place that I want
it. I just talked to a brother that was born in 1912. My oldest brother was born
in 1910. My second oldest brother has a better remembrance. Some of the older
people have passed on now. I just wish I had started to try to gather this
history before my aunt, who lived out to be 101. My mother she didn't live as
long a life, because she had so many children. She passed on at 63. Then, my dad
passed on earlier. Then, my grandfather passed on a long time before. So, nobody
00:03:00had thought of this. I think Roots brought on this.
HUNTLEY: A lot of family when people start looking for that background and
heritage. Where in Mississippi did they live?
TRIPP: It was Jacksonville and Meridian. They lived in two places there.
HUNTLEY: Jacksonville or Jackson?
TRIPP: Jackson, Mississippi.
HUNTLEY: Jackson, Mississippi and Meridian, Mississippi?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: That was rather close to Marion?
TRIPP: Yeah, in that part of Alabama. I don't know why they changed to Alabama.
I don't know why they changed.
HUNTLEY: That was my next question, why they left Mississippi.
TRIPP: During that time, my brother told me there was a lot of slave trade and
as far as my brother knew, Robert knew, he was sold to someone in Alabama and
00:04:00that's how he ended up in Alabama.
HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters do you have?
TRIPP: There were fourteen, but my mother reared thirteen because one, Virginia,
died a baby. So, they reared thirteen children.
HUNTLEY: Where were you in the scheme of things?
TRIPP: I was the knee baby, so to speak. I have a baby brother under me.
HUNTLEY: So, you are next to the last?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: So, I know you were spoiled.
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: Now, tell me a little about Marion Junction.
TRIPP: Marion Junction was a little town. It was segregated. My father, he did
not believe in his children...all of my brothers were older except the baby
00:05:00brother. He did not believe in his children working on the farms for the White
people. So, they all had to work at home and my father raised everything.
HUNTLEY: Was he a farmer?
TRIPP: Yes. He was a minister and a farmer. During those years my daddy raised
like 60, 70 bails of cotton and my brothers and they really worked. Everything
we ate he raised it himself, flour, I believe it was. So, my brothers had to
work on the farm and do all of the work. So, what happened in that doing that my
daddy was rejected by the White community. So, they wouldn't sell him any land,
00:06:00but they leased him the land and the place, 75 acres of land for 60 years.
So, he leased it and that's where he raised all of his family and children
there. So, my daddy said, he used to tell us that when he would take his cotton
to the gin, they would make him get on the end. He had to wait on the end,
because he would have more cotton than anybody. The Lord really blessed him. He
would have more cotton, bails of cotton, than anybody and so, but he waited. He
was still not going to let his children work out. He was determined of that and
he didn't.
HUNTLEY: All of you worked at home?
TRIPP: At home.
HUNTLEY: How many boys and how many girls?
TRIPP: Five girls and eight boys. During this time five of us wasn't born then.
00:07:00So, it was the older ones. My oldest brother was born in 1910, John Henry. My
second oldest brother was Robert. Next is George and then, it was a sister and
then, it was three more brothers. So, it was two sisters and then, three more
brothers. So, many I have to look at the list to keep up with them. They all
worked and my mom would sew. She made just about everything we wore. She taught
my sisters how to sew. By the time the younger group came in, she talked like
there were two groups. By the time we were born my two older sisters and my
other two older sisters, that is the one I'm next to and the one she's next to,
00:08:00we had learned that she had taught everybody to learn, to teach everybody to
sew. So, everybody is sewing now. My trade was doing hair. I used to like to do
hair. My second oldest, wait a minute. Let's go back, my oldest brother was a
railroad worker after he grew up and liked to be a young man and got married. He
got married at 18. So, he worked on the railroad and then he had a store. He
started a store in his house and then, when he moved, they sold him some land on
another place and he bought 125 acres of land and then he put him a store. So,
his family, his children were raised in the store and he worked on the railroad.
HUNTLEY: So, he never farmed then?
TRIPP: Yes, growing up.
HUNTLEY: But when he became adult, he worked on the railroad and had a store?
TRIPP: Yes. He just had a garden. Everybody had a garden, like greens and corn
00:09:00and okra, small truck farms they call it.
HUNTLEY: Now, did he remain in Marion, or did he ever leave Marion?
TRIPP: No, he remained in Marion Junction. He retired from the railroad and he's
there now.
HUNTLEY: What did your mother do? Did she ever work outside of the home?
TRIPP: No. She was a housewife. She kept on the farm and she taught us to sew.
She was a bible teacher. She was just a good mother.
HUNTLEY: Did your father have a church? You say he was an Evangelist, so he traveled.
TRIPP: No, for a very short time he pastored a church in Massaline, but it was
very short, but he must have went all through the country. That's what he was,
an Evangelist.
HUNTLEY: Right, right. Well, for practical purposes, the baby girl anyway, what
00:10:00was it like having that large of a family? Did you have the opportunity to work
on the farm? Was your father still farming as you grew up?
TRIPP: It was, the family, my mom always taught us to stick together, we were a
close family. It was fun for me, because they kind of did everything. I didn't
have to cook and a lot of the things that I didn't have to do the older ones had
to do. So, by the time I was born my father was not into that big farming, just
truck farming at this time. I didn't have to work in the field.
HUNTLEY: Did you ever wish that you could work in the field, or do you ever wish
that you could have worked in the field? Or did you not want to do that as a
child, you know?
TRIPP: Yeah, well, I didn't mind it. As a matter of fact, I did do it. What
00:11:00happened, we were raised to help people and there was a family and this family
was my mother's best friend lady and all of her children had grown up and left,
too. Her children would come back and do the farming, they still farm because
her husband wanted to farm it. He was the type of man that just liked to see a
lot of cotton, corn and everything. So, my mom would let us go over and help
out. So, I did get a chance to pick the cotton and the corn and all of that. It
wasn't like it was a requirement when my father was raising the family up.
HUNTLEY: Right. That pressure wasn't on you. It was more . . .
TRIPP: Like helping out.
HUNTLEY: Tell me about your schooling. Well, first of all let me ask you this.
00:12:00How much schooling did your parents have?
TRIPP: My parents did not . . . my mom had a third grade education. My father
had a fifth grade education. That's almost as high as they went, then, I
suppose, I think.
HUNTLEY: During that time, particularly in the rural areas, it was rather
difficult to get much further than that.
TRIPP: Right.
HUNTLEY: Now, your education, do you remember your first school?
TRIPP: Yes, Gary School.
HUNTLEY: Tell me about it.
TRIPP: I do remember that school. Ms. Minnie was my teacher, she was a jewel.
Gary Elementary School was the first school I attended. I got kind of moved up
in a grade when I was in the first, or second grade, I believe it was. She was a
00:13:00good teacher. It was a little school in Massaline. Everybody was in the same
school, all grades were in the same classroom. Everybody, it's just amazing how
quite we were. She had to teach every grade. Everybody had their books in their
little section. In the winter time when it was real cold, we had a wooden heater
and when it would get real cold, she would let us come around and warm up and
get warm. Sometimes she would let us put our hands in our pockets. We would have
our hands in our pockets when we would read, when she was teaching us to read.
It was a beautiful time. She loved us. It was a loving time. Everybody obeyed
and it's so different now. It was a joyous time. There's one thing that I got
00:14:00exposed to later on in years. I was not exposed to racism in elementary school,
because there wasn't nobody there, nobody but us Black kids.
It wasn't like an integrated school having being exposed to there's a White
school across the street, or nothing like that. They were way across wherever. I
was never exposed to them, because they were never there. We had our little
school and our little book that we read and we didn't know then if we were to
have anything else or not, you see. But we learned what we had. In later years
it was different.
HUNTLEY: How long did you go to that school?
TRIPP: I went to Gary School until I was in the fifth grade. Then, we went to
another little school called Mud Hall. Then, from Mud Hall to Hair Crossroad,
00:15:00where I was in eighth and ninth grade there. In the tenth grade I was in Lincoln
High School in Marion. Then, from Lincoln I graduated at Dallas County Training
School in Beloit.
HUNTLEY: Were you active in any extracurricular activities?
TRIPP: Yes, I liked the band. I liked the music, I also did like music. Mr. Hobs
at Dallas County Training School let me do the drums. I don't know what was so
exciting about the drums at that time. I was a majorette at Marion, that was in
the tenth grade. Then, I did the drums. We didn't have a full band at Beloit.
Mr. Hobs would let us have it in the class. We didn't have bands it was a
country school. It wasn't like Marion. So, we would have music in the classroom.
00:16:00
HUNTLEY: Did Marion not go through the twelfth grade?
TRIPP: Yes, but the zoning, I couldn't go there anymore it was something that we
had moved out of the district. That kind of thing got started down there. I was
in Dallas County when I went to Marion. It may be because my nieces lived in
Perry County and they found out. I don't know, but I had to finish at Beloit.
HUNTLEY: As a young Black woman growing up in that part of Alabama, what was it
like? Are there any experiences that you would share with us? Something to
describe your childhood.
TRIPP: When I got in high school, we used to go to Marion on Saturdays. They had
00:17:00a, I guess you would call it a boot camp, where they had the soldiers, where
they would do their practice.
HUNTLEY: Training?
TRIPP: Yes. One thing I noticed was that there wasn't any Blacks in that great
army of young men. I used to wonder to myself why there wasn't.
HUNTLEY: So, there were no Blacks at the training camp?
TRIPP: No. We used to stand on the sidewalk and watch them do their practice. I
used to stand and watch them do their practice and just often wondered why there
wasn't any Black men out there. When I got to be 14, I guess that's when I
started working, because my mom always liked for us to work. I started working
00:18:00for a lady. She was sick and at that time my mom wanted me to be a nurse. So,
this lady had a daughter that was a RN and she taught me how to give her mom
shots, cause she had an illness that required shots. She had a son and her son
was . . . she was a good lady, but her son was real sneaky and he would do
things, or say things to me he shouldn't say behind her back and couldn't tell
his mother.
HUNTLEY: What sort of things did he say?
TRIPP: Like, well, you know they talk about this . . . what women talk about men
harassing them.
00:19:00
HUNTLEY: Sexual harassment?
TRIPP: Sexual harassment. If you want to talk about sexual harassment, oh God,
I've had that since I was 14 years old.
HUNTLEY: Was this a White family?
TRIPP: Yes. He didn't rape me or nothing like that, but he would always approach
me and tell me not to tell his mother. Really I didn't tell anybody, my mom
either, because I knew she would make me stop working over there. So he didn't .
. . he would just always bother me.
HUNTLEY: Was he older?
TRIPP: Yes, he was older, much older.
HUNTLEY: Was he grown?
TRIPP: Yes, he was indeed grown up. He and his wife were separated and he lived
with his mom.
HUNTLEY: Did you ever think of telling your father?
TRIPP: Yes, I thought about it, but I knew what my dad would do, because I knew
of some confrontation that he had in Marion Junction that he would tell us about.
00:20:00
HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. What kind of confrontations?
TRIPP: When my dad raised my older brothers, as I said, they had to work at
home, but he would send them to the store in Marion Junction. So, my dad had
given my brother ten dollars to go to the store to get something. Well, you
weren't supposed to go to the store then during the week, see. You would only go
to the store on Saturdays. Well, my brother said it was a Monday and my dad sent
him to the store with the ten dollars. Well, they harassed my brother and wanted
to know what he was doing there and what was he doing with that ten dollars. Had
he stole that ten dollars. They wouldn't sell him anything and they took the ten dollars.
HUNTLEY: Was this the White store owners?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: And took the ten dollars?
00:21:00
TRIPP: Yes. So, my brother went back and told my dad. And my dad went up there
and there was a great confrontation. My dad told them that whenever he sent his
children to the store to give them what they wanted and give them their money.
So, my dad, they called him Crazy Tom, that's what they called him. He wasn't
crazy, he just was a man.
HUNTLEY: He was standing up for himself?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: He was crazy in their terms?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: So, that meant he probably got a lot of respect, too.
TRIPP: He did. They didn't bother him. They wouldn't sell him any land, but they
didn't bother him because my brother . . . now my mom and dad, and I can see now
why they didn't tell us a lot of things, because they didn't want to instill
hate. They always instilled in us to love everybody, regardless of what they do
00:22:00to you. They never told us to hate White people, or to hate nobody. My brothers
have told us a lot since we've grown up and I see why she did it. Not that we
hate now, because we know that's not the way it goes. But I don't know why, but
I do believe that's the reason they didn't want to expose us to all that they
had encountered. So, they didn't tell us. My brother told us a lot of things
that they had to encounter. Like other people who worked on half. They call it
working on half.
HUNTLEY: That's sharecropping?
TRIPP: Yes, that's what they call it. So, my daddy would let some people do this
on his place. He was good to the people. A lot of people wanted to come work on
his place, because on the White people's place they would have to do . . . they
would never . . . they would take their crops, a lot of their crops while they
00:23:00worked. Then, some of those people would beat those people. One day they were
beating a man, my brother says, and my dad defended him and they hit him. He
pulled that man off the horse and that was a great confrontation.
HUNTLEY: So, your father was a fighter?
TRIPP: Yes, he wasn't a violent man or nothing like that. You just didn't bother
him, you just leave him alone and his children.
HUNTLEY: He believed in self-defense?
TRIPP: Yes, he did. He believed in self-defense and protecting his family.
HUNTLEY: Were there other stories that your brothers have told you that related
to race during that time? I know in certain parts of Alabama, that was Black
Belt, right?
TRIPP: Yes.
00:24:00
HUNTLEY: The relationships between Blacks and Whites and one reason they would
call your father crazy was because he went against the norm. The norm was to be
submissive. He obviously was not submissive. So, that meant he would stand up
for what he felt was right. White people, then, would look at that as being
crazy because there were not, all Black men would not do that.
TRIPP: No, no they didn't. He didn't and the fact that they hit him really
touched him that morning. They said it was one morning. My brothers, they told
us about, my oldest brother told us about when he worked on the railroad and how
the people would do on the railroad. This man, I don't remember his name, but
they had to do the cross ties and he had a yell. When he yelled, you were
00:25:00supposed to run, but my brother didn't run, cause my mom had told him and she
told all of us to work and do your work and you get your pace. She told him that
a many time, you get your pace and you do your pace, you work. You do an honest
days work, but you don't run and rip on the job.
So, when he would do the yell, my brother did not run. So, this man asked him,
"didn't you hear me?" My brother said, "yeah, I heard you." He was real quite,
this is my oldest brother. He said, "yeah, I heard you." Then, he said, "didn't
you see everybody else get over there?" My brother said, "well, didn't you see
00:26:00me get over there?" 'Yeah, but you didn't get over there with them." He said,
"yeah, but I went over there, didn't I?" I remember my brother said, he said
that. He said, he looked at him and said, "I went over there, didn't I?" He
didn't bother him anymore, but my brother said he always looked at him. He
looked, but he didn't bother him anymore.
HUNTLEY: So, he had to deal with the railroad in that area?
TRIPP: Yes, he had to maintain it by putting the coals on the railroad tracks
then. They had to put the coals in the proper place and had to put them under
the cross ties so when the train would run on it, they wouldn't go down, or
whatever. They had to care for it. I remember when we used to ride the train all
the time. We would go to Marion and to Selma, on to those places when I was a
00:27:00teenager. I didn't, my oldest sister encountered this White man, my mom said
that, my sister told me later that he made an advance toward my older sister and
he told my mother that if she would let her go with him what he would do for the
family and all.
But my mother said, "I don't trade my daughters." So, he dropped his head and
rode away on his horse and didn't bother my sister anymore. What I'm saying,
00:28:00there was not too much confrontation because of my daddy. They knew that my
daddy was not one that would tolerate it. So, we grew up separate. They had
their schools. The only confrontations we had with White people were when we
would go to the store. So, they didn't bother us.
HUNTLEY: What did you do after high school?
TRIPP: After high school, my mom wanted me to be a nurse and then, she wanted me
to be a music teacher. She really wanted me to be a music teacher. When I got
out of high school, I wanted to go all over the country a little. I wanted to be
a model. So, I traveled around. I lived awhile with my cousin in Cleveland, Ohio.
HUNTLEY: Did you leave for Cleveland right after high school?
00:29:00
TRIPP: No, right after high school I came here to Birmingham to live with my
oldest sister for awhile. Then, I went there.
HUNTLEY: Did you work here?
TRIPP: Yeah, in the 60s, after I kind of floated around.
HUNTLEY: No, I mean when you came here to live with your sister?
TRIPP: No, I wasn't working then. It was kind of like a vacation. I kind of
stayed with her a summer. I got out of high school in 1955 and I came here. I
stayed during that summer with her. I believe it was the Christmas of 1955 that
I went to Cleveland to live with my cousin. She had a beauty shop. I really did
hair in high school, I got some training.
HUNTLEY: So, you worked with your cousin when you got to Cleveland in the beauty shop?
TRIPP: Yeah.
HUNTLEY: How did you like Cleveland versus Birmingham and Marion?
00:30:00
TRIPP: I didn't. I think, maybe, because she didn't live far from Lake Superior.
I liked the scene and I liked the lights. She had a cousin, it, maybe because of
my upbringing, but her daughter was real into the fast life.
HUNTLEY: Was she your age, her daughter?
TRIPP: Yes. I think I didn't like it. I didn't like the things and places she
went and all. So, I wanted to come back.
HUNTLEY: So, how long were you in Cleveland?
TRIPP: Off and on, like I stayed there that winter and spring and I came back.
Then, that summer I went back a while. I just was really just getting the edge
off, or seeing what I was going to do, or something like that, I guess. Then, I
00:31:00came back and I got into Eden Modeling School here. I did that a while, won a
few newspaper and things, interviews in the '60s. Then, I went back again. I
thought that Lois and I would kind of do this model together. I wanted her to do
what I would like her to do, but that wasn't her.
HUNTLEY: Who was Lois? Was that your cousin?
TRIPP: Cousin.
HUNTLEY: Ok.
TRIPP: So, I came back and then I started to work at a drug store on 1st Avenue
North. I worked there a while. I can't think of the name of that store. It was
on the corner of 1st Avenue and 19th Street. Then, I worked at Brickman
Cafeteria and at Morris and I started going to Alumnist Beauty School. I thought
00:32:00I would go into that. So, I finished it in about a year or two, maybe. Then, I
started to work at a beauty shop and I continued to pursue my subject. I
enrolled then at one of them, was at the Y.
I was taking typing at the Y, because I was seeing then I wanted to go another
way. I used the beauty shop so I could finish. I worked in the beauty shop and
continued to go to school in the evenings. I went to . . . after I left the Y
taking typing, then, I enrolled in Man Power Training School, probably in the
mid 60s. I finished there and then I started working. I was still working at the
beauty shop in the evenings. I took the test to get a job wherever I could get
00:33:00one. I passed the test and I was hired at city hall. [inaudible] traffic
citation for Carters Court in 1966, August, 1966.
HUNTLEY: You were one of the first then?
TRIPP: Yes, I was one of the first Blacks hired in the clerical position.
HUNTLEY: Prior to that, you came back to Birmingham in 1958. Is that right?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: And you lived in what community?
TRIPP: In Smithfield area. I lived on 10th Street. I was living on 10th Street
when the bomb went off at Sixteenth Street. I believe, then, I was probably, I
think I was taking cosmetology. I had just finished one because I finished in '63.
00:34:00
HUNTLEY: See, that happened in '63 also. It happened in September of '63.
TRIPP: Ok.
HUNTLEY: So, had you finished by then?
TRIPP: So, I was working at the beauty shop there on Sixteenth Street and going
to school at night in '63.
HUNTLEY: In '60. '60 was the year that the sit-ins started around the south. In
'61 was the year the Freedom Riders come into town. '62 was the year that Miles
College students and the movement sort of incorporated on a selective buying
campaign downtown, where they boycotted the stores downtown. Of course, in '63
00:35:00were the big demonstrations. Were you involved in any of those activities?
TRIPP: No and the reason is that I guess I had a little of my dad in me, because
I knew I couldn't take the hitting and I just knew I wasn't non-violent. I
admire it and I worked in the voter's registration and all that, but I just
couldn't tolerate that.
HUNTLEY: You did work in the voter's registration?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: Tell me about that.
TRIPP: Well, I wanted to be a voter. They had meetings at my church.
HUNTLEY: The mass meetings of the movement?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: Ok. What church were you a member of?
TRIPP: Zion Hill, right down from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and that's
00:36:00where the voter's registration was in the evening time. They taught me the
Constitution and the things they asked you. Then, I went in and I passed. I
learned those things and I said it and I passed. Then, I started working to help
the other people to vote. A lot of them had gone down and didn't pass it.
There's two things they asked me, what's the Constitution of the United States
and how many presidents. I named some of them, because I couldn't remember them
all and he said, "well, that's ok." So, that was that. A lot of the people ...it
wasn't like a structured question and people would say different things that
were being asked. So, we were trying to help them to remember it all. Some of
00:37:00the people were older and couldn't remember what we were teaching.
HUNTLEY: Well, I've interviewed people and they said they had questions like how
many seeds are there in a watermelon and how many bubbles are there in a bar of
soap. That kind of questions. It's hard to prepare people for that, but you did
help people prepare for answers to questions about the Constitution and
government in general.
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: Did you ever attend any of the mass meetings?
TRIPP: Yes. All of them. Well, not all of them but many.
HUNTLEY: How would you describe a mass meeting?
TRIPP: That was hallelujah time. They were spiritual. During those times I was
thinking about sometime where I was working. There was so much unity and love
00:38:00and I wish those times would come back. During those days it was a glorious
unity among people. People would tell their experiences that they were having. I
never will forget when Martin Luther King was at Sixteenth Street and he was
talking about Birmingham being one of the hardest cities to crack. It was the
hardest city to crack.
I was thinking in my mind, I'm not political and all that, but I was thinking we
were doing fine. He was talking about the structure of the city and how hardcore
00:39:00it was against Blacks. And I'm thinking about oh, we're singing and having a
good time, you know. That's the way I was thinking. I never will forget that's
the way I was thinking when he said that.
HUNTLEY: So, you were thinking about the good time you were having in that
gathering spiritually, rather than what was happening outside of the church?
TRIPP: Yeah.
HUNTLEY: Did you participate in any of the demonstrations?
TRIPP: No, I did not and I saw a lot of them and I went on by it because . . .
HUNTLEY: Were you on the [inaudible] and watch as they?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: What was that feeling like just to watch them?
TRIPP: I didn't watch it all. I would just see what was going on, but then I
would go. I just couldn't take it. I just could not, the hitting and the pushing
and the shoving and the cursing. It was just like mad folks. The viciousness on
00:40:00their faces and the expressions and the hate.
HUNTLEY: Was this viciousness and hate, was that from Blacks and Whites?
TRIPP: No, it was from the Whites beating on the Blacks.
HUNTLEY: So, that viciousness and hate was coming from policemen?
TRIPP: Yes, and the dogs.
HUNTLEY: So, you've witnessed it, but you couldn't participate and you couldn't
witness very long?
TRIPP: No, not very long because see, like I said, I just wasn't going to take
it. I guess I would have been dead. Somebody, a lady and I don't know her, the
00:41:00lady told me, "baby, you need to go home." I think she could see something in
me, I guess an expression. She told me, "you need to go home." I never will
forget it. I don't know who that lady was, but I never will forget it.
HUNTLEY: Did you go?
TRIPP: I was leaving anyway, but she was right. It was non-violent and that was
one thing and I knew I couldn't do that.
HUNTLEY: You, then, being the first Black person to get a job in the clerical
pool at city hall. What was that like?
TRIPP: What was that like? I worked in traffic citations, so I had to accept
tickets from the public. And the two ladies that were in the traffic citations
00:42:00were very negative. They talked about the sneaky and cunning things that they
would do.
HUNTLEY: What would they do?
TRIPP: They would do things like hide, the personal things are just not fit to tell.
HUNTLEY: Tell me.
TRIPP: It was just, it's really so bad.
HUNTLEY: Is this personal things to you?
TRIPP: It was like she would pass by my desk and fan her dress, you know. She
00:43:00knew what she had done. Then, she would look back at me like that to see how I
was taking it. Then, she would hide the work. I'm sitting at my desk and the
tickets, all the tickets that came in that night are supposed to be in the box
there. There's so much work you do, you're supposed to get that work out. Well,
I couldn't find it. I spent all that time and the evening shift would come and
put the tickets down on my desk and say, "you haven't done your work today." I
said, "I've been looking for the tickets all day and I asked you about them."
HUNTLEY: This was your supervisor?
TRIPP: No, she was just a worker.
HUNTLEY: Just a worker?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: What was the reaction of your supervisor?
00:44:00
TRIPP: My supervisor didn't care. He believed what she said. You had no hope.
There was no hope in there. A lot of times and the reason I think, I think the
Lord had [inaudible]. I would cry a lot and I think that was releasing and I
know that the Lord was watching me and to keep me calm and I think that was a
way I would release that. It didn't make sense what they did. That's why I
didn't do the work. Then, the supervisor would come and say, "you didn't get
this work." I said, "well I couldn't find it. Miriam had it hid, she had it
hid." He said, "well, she said . . ." It was always like that, she said this or that.
00:45:00
HUNTLEY: How long did you work under those conditions?
TRIPP: I worked there from 1966, August, 1966 until August, 1971. It was like
four or five years something like that.
HUNTLEY: Were those conditions existing through that whole period?
TRIPP: They were the same thing. I thought I hated . . . and I would say I hate
them when we would go on our break. This lady, I never will forget, she came
like, she was the first stenographer, she was a Black lady. She told me,
"Henrietta, you've got to pray." I said, pray, for them? What they're doing to
me?" She said, "you've got to pray for them." But I learned that you do have to
00:46:00pray.
I learned that pray keeps you out of that. I had been taught how to release,
I've forgotten this course now. I learned in later years, when I went to work at
the Board of Education that you have to release the pressure. I've forgotten
what that course is called now, stress management. I had stress management then,
but stress management didn't do me good.
00:47:00
HUNTLEY: What did you do after you left city hall?
TRIPP: After I left city hall I went to work at Fultondale High School. By then
I was still in college at night and I obtained my degree then. I went to work at
Fultondale High school as an aide, just an aide in the vocational building. I
worked there for one year. I believe it was one year, yeah. Then, I went back
the next year in that department and then they transferred me to another part,
to the central staff office at the building in Tarrant City at the time. I
worked in that capacity and then, I was moved to another building and then, I
00:48:00went from there back to Fultondale High School. I think I worked in the central
staff office for four or five years.
HUNTLEY: Did you teach up there?
TRIPP: No, I worked in discipline and attendance.
HUNTLEY: Coming from city hall and the experiences that you had, how was Fultondale?
TRIPP: Fultondale itself was ok, as far as treating you. As long as you did your
work they didn't bother you. The Board itself was prejudice. They just would not
allow you to advance. You had to do the work, but they wouldn't classify you so
00:49:00that you could make the money. It was just terrible in that area. Since I went
into work as a secretary, they held me in that position. I did work like an
assistant principal, but my classification changed from aide to administrative
aide. Still no money. I applied several times for a secretarial position, but
they didn't give me that. They gave me more responsibilities, like I had to deal
with parents with counseling and advising kids.
00:50:00
HUNTLEY: How old were you when you married?
TRIPP: When I first married, I was 21 years old. That was a very short marriage.
HUNTLEY: Where were you then?
TRIPP: I was here. My last marriage I was married 26 years.
HUNTLEY: Do you have children?
TRIPP: No, no children.
HUNTLEY: And you are a widow, correct?
TRIPP: Yes.
HUNTLEY: You have been very helpful. We've covered a lot of territory in this
hour or so. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us?
TRIPP: Well, I would like to . . . I have worked in a lot of and I still work
now in a lot of positions in my neighborhood and in the community for the
00:51:00betterment of the young people and other people in the community. I work on a
lot of boards. I'm president of my neighborhood and I work with the [inaudible]
program to help the young people. I tell the young people to be helpful and to
help people in wherever their need is and don't look for pay. In these later
years parents have taught their kids you don't work if you don't get paid.
That's the wrong attitude. When I was growing up, you did work and you don't
take pay and you don't look for pay. That was . . .
HUNTLEY: Secondary?
TRIPP: Right. So, I just wish now that the young people would be more helpful in
the community in doing what they see is needed, like picking up paper, or
00:52:00cutting older people's lawns, or whatever they can do to help the community.
This is some of the things I do to help with the kids I work with. We keep up
the park and we pick up the paper in the park. I always compensate them to
encourage them and to have somebody to help me, because I can't do it all. So, I
just would like to say that I am glad to be a part of the history in the '60s
and to see where we are now and the difference in the '60s and this 1998. I just
00:53:00would love for people to be more loving as they were in the '60s and to learn to
work together more and to love one another. And to not be misled. Learn to value
a person for who they are and to treat everybody right.
HUNTLEY: That's a great way to conclude. I certainly appreciate your time.
You've done a tremendous job.
TRIPP: Well, thank you Dr. Huntley. I don't know, I just wanted to say a few
things that were on my heart.
HUNTLEY: Thank you.