1992OH01.18 Ellis
Frankfort’s Craw Oral History Project
Interview with James B. Ellis
August 7, 1991.
Conducted by James Wallace
© 1991 Kentucky Oral History Commission
Kentucky Historical Society
Kentucky Oral History Commission
100 W. Broadway ( Frankfort, KY 40601
502-564-1792 ( (fax) 502-564-0475 ( history.ky.gov
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should be corroborated with the original audio recording if possible.The following interview is an unrehearsed interview with
James B. Ellis for "Frankfort's 'Craw:' An African-American
Community Remembered." The interview was conducted by James E.
Wallace in Frankfort, Kentucky, August 7, 1991.
[An interview with James B. Ellis]
ELLIS: Yeah, boy. Now, they made more money off of these
stones . . .
WALLACE: You mean after they tore the building down?
ELLIS: Tore that building down, more money than what they
gave us for the building. Now, I wished I had that . . . that
paper. I meant to save it where down here . . . I forgot where
it was . . . they . . . they told what to build it out . . .
build . . . these . . . now, these are limestone. I mean, these
stones were put up . . . old man Brooks, Tom Brooks, was a
contractor way back there.
WALLACE: Wasn't he a black man?
ELLIS: Yeah, a black man, yeah.
WALLACE: When did they build that American Legion building?
Do you have any idea?
ELLIS: Oh, gosh, I don't know. I'll tell you one thing
about it. I do know this. When we bought that building there .
. . Mr. Brooks . . . Mr. Brooks . . . Mr. Brooks and I, uh, I
forgot the other fellow's name, but, anyway, what they . . . what
they did, they condemned the American Legion up there for having
them dances, you know, up there [laughing] on the third floor,
see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And, uh, so, they condemned that building, I mean, so
they wouldn't have any dances on the third floor. But, anyway,
when we bought the building, we had it checked out and there
wasn't nothing . . . there wasn't a durn thing wrong with it.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: So, you're saying the city condemned that building?
ELLIS: They . . . well, somebody condemned it because, I
mean, they . . . they wouldn't allow them to have dances up there
on that third floor.
WALLACE: That was probably one of the better buildings down
there.
ELLIS: Oh, my gosh, it was, yeah. That was a three-story
building. That was a beautiful building. Down here, they had a
drugstore.
WALLACE: Yeah, the People's Pharmacy was . . .
ELLIS: People's Pharmacy, that's right. Dr. Underwood. I
was administrator of Dr. Underwood's estate when he died. I
still got the plaques up there I'm going to give the Methodist
Church there. And, uh, when we bought it, after we bought it, we
. . . "Red" Yancy ran it for . . . or put a restaurant down
there. Then, we rented it to this Mr. John Davis for a barber
shop over here.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And we used the second floor for . . . for our part
and the third floor which we had dances, you know.
WALLACE: When did the American Legion get that building, do
you remember?
ELLIS: Oh, let's see. Gosh, I'd have to look . . . if I'd .
. . if I'd known all of that, I could have . . . I've got all of
that stuff somewhere. I . . . I . . . back in there. I'd have
to pull it out of the closet back out there, all of that thing.
I think . . . um-mmm . . . gosh.
WALLACE: After the war?
ELLIS: Yeah, because . . . let's see, because I remember
when I went . . . yeah, it was after . . . wait a minute. Yeah,
it had to be after the war it was because I remember when they
was having . . . they used to have, you know . . . well,
but you know how it is, little fights, you know, up there. So, I
came out and I told them, I said, you make me Sergeant-at-Arm,
I'll break up all of this fighting. Man, everybody . . . I think
everybody meeting [that] night wanted to make me Sergeant-At-
Arms. [Laughter]
WALLACE: At-Arms.
ELLIS: Well, I was in the Marine Corps, see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, I'd had Judo and all of that stuff, you know,
and now you have to have . . . which I did, broke it up, all
right. The first guy, I threw almost through the durn door. And
I told him, "You're going to have to pay for it." Yeah, they'd
have . . . on a Saturday night, they'd have a bunch coming up
there, you know, and want to get a little rough.
WALLACE: These are American Legion members or just other folk
coming in?
ELLIS: Out . . . outsiders.
WALLACE: Outsiders coming in.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: So, you served in World War II, then?
ELLIS: World War II, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you, Mr. Ellis. Are you a native of
Frankfort?
ELLIS: Yeah. I was born . . . well . . . I'm . . . I'm . .
. oh, sure. I was born in Woodford County, but, uh, I lived in
Frankfort all my life, see. My dad was . . . my dad is, uh,
right here in Frankfort. And my mother came from Woodford
County. She was a Lampkin.
WALLACE: Okay. When . . . when were you born, then, sir?
ELLIS: 1912, January 6, 1912.
WALLACE: What was your mama and daddy's name?
ELLIS: Well, my mother's name was Roseanna Lampkins.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, she was Roseanna Ellis.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: My dad's name was James Ellis. See, I'm named after
him.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, then, as far as your father and mother, uh,
what . . . what employment or what line of work was your dad in?
ELLIS: Well, my dad . . . well, he was . . . mostly he was .
. . did, like, chauffeur work . . . but when he was in the war .
. . well, you see, when he was in the war, he was a mechanic and,
uh . . .
WALLACE: World War II or . . .
ELLIS: World War I.
WALLACE: I.
ELLIS: So, I think he hit his eye or something like that.
But, anyway, it affected his sight. And when he came out, why,
he . . . oh, he was in . . . oh, gosh, he was in school . . .
see, the government schools.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And, uh, when he came out, you know, that braille . .
.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He had . . . he was the first director of Mayo
Underwood band, high school band. He directed it.
WALLACE: And he had . . . he had a loss of vision?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: But he was the band director?
ELLIS: Band director, yeah. He was band director. And he .
. . oh, he played many times, saxophone, most all of . . . I put
. . . see, I had . . . during the time, I had gland troubles, and
I wanted to blow and they wouldn't let me. So, I had to get on
the drums, they put me on the drums.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: That's my dad's picture right over there on the far
part.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: A handsome man.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Did he get a teacher's certificate or did he go to
college to get trained to be a teacher or band director?
ELLIS: No. When he was . . . as I said, went blind and the
government schools, that's where he went and taught them all
there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And, then, he came back and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, came back here, yeah.
WALLACE: When was he teaching at Mayo-Underwood?
ELLIS: Well, he didn't . . . see, now, I . . . I . . . the
way it . . . it was, there was him and Mr. Johnny Spencer's
father. Johnny Spencer's father was . . . he had a shoe shop up
there on Broadway, Spencer's [Benjamin F. Spencer and Son] shoe
place.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: So . . .
WALLACE: A black guy?
ELLIS: Yeah, a black guy. So, he . . . him and my father,
they organized the band there. So, the principal, who was W. S.
Blanton, told us if we would play six . . . if we could get six
pieces for the commencement, he would give us a big dinner and
all of that. Well, shoot, we had 12 pieces . . .[Laughter] But
we was right there, yeah.
WALLACE: Was that the first commencement at Mayo-Underwood?
Is that what . . . what you all were working for and getting
ready for?
ELLIS: Well, yes. That . . . that was . . . see, I was the
second class to graduate from there, '31 [1931].
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah. The first class was '30 [1930].
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah, we played for them, all right.
WALLACE: So, you probably . . . you probably went to the
Clinton Street School, then, while you were growing up, didn't
you?
ELLIS: I sure did, yeah, yes, indeedy. My aunt taught
there.
WALLACE: What was her name?
ELLIS: Marie Ellis; Marie.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Marie Ellis.
WALLACE: Well, she's still with us, isn't she?
ELLIS: No, she died. She's dead. She . . . she taught
there for about . . . oh, she taught . . . I think she taught 20
or 30 years, something like that.
WALLACE: Who is the Ms. Ellis that's up . . .
ELLIS: That's my . . . that's my mother.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Okay, I knew . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Getting a little mixed up. Well, let me ask you. Do
you have . . . do you need me to be out by a certain time?
ELLIS: No, no, no. There ain't no certain time. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Okay, very good. Was your mama employed, too? Did
she work or stay home with the youngsters?
ELLIS: You know, I never . . . that's . . . that's the
onliest thing. I never . . . I never . . . I never . . . I don't
remember my mother. The onliest thing I remember that out in
the country that she whooped me good when I threw a rock and cut
my cousin . . .
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And I went in the house and my uncle and all of them
trying to get me out; and George said, "I . . . I ain't going to
let them touch you." Shoot. [Laughing - Wallace] As soon as I
come out of there . . . [laughing] oh, boy. I . . . I can
remember that whooping, but I can't remember her face. She would
never have a picture. She didn't like pictures.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And that's the onliest thing I regret that I don't .
. . I don't have no memories of her. I don't know. Nobody had
no pictures of my mother. And, uh . . . but, uh, I remember that
beating she give me. [Laughter] Yeah, I remember that.
WALLACE: Well, when . . . when your family moved to . . . to
Frankfort or when you all came to Frankfort, where did you first
live to your remembrances, your earliest place?
ELLIS: Wilkinson Street.
WALLACE: Whereabouts on Wilkinson?
ELLIS: 515 Wilkinson Street. That's where that . . . I
think that's right . . . right in there, right in there where
the, uh . . . let's see. I can give you a little idea. Let's
see. Mero Street is there. Wilkinson . . . that . . . that
hotel is just about where we was in.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay. You were on the river side or on the
other side of Wilkinson?
ELLIS: We was . . . we was on the other side, on this a-way.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: See, when the '31 [1937] river came up, why, we were
pretty high and, uh, the water would come up, not getting off the
top- . . . not getting away from that, but the water would come
up all the time. And . . . and . . . and as kids, you know how
kids are. We . . . we didn't know. We wanted the water to come
up, see, because we didn't have to go to school and, then, we'd
play around in the boats, you know.
WALLACE: Oh. You all . . . you'd make rafts or something and
play around . . .
ELLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: . . . or get in a boat and . . .
ELLIS: Well, we'd get in a boat and ride with some of the .
. . and they had this fellow they called Dee Ellis, a white
fellow. And, uh, he lived across the street from us. And he was
. . . well, I called him a river rat. [Laughter] He was always
on the river.
WALLACE: Yeah, fishing or whatever.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, fishing, see. But, anyway . . . but we
didn't have sense enough to know that that water was affecting
families, you know, every time it comes up. And in the Bottom
right there, that sewer down there, you know how . . . you know
how the place got called Craw, don't you?
WALLACE: From the crawfish would get stranded.
ELLIS: Crawfish, that's right, that's right. That's the way
it got called Craw. [Laughter] When the water would go down,
there was a lot of crawfish right there.
WALLACE: Did you see them? I mean, . . .
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, Lordy day, yeah. That's where . . . that's
where . . . that's where the word Craw came about; yeah.
WALLACE: What's your earliest remembrances of the Bottom;
anything leap to mind? The earliest thing you can remember as a
child.
ELLIS: Well, I can remember [laughing] down there somebody
getting killed about every week down there in that Bottom.
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Oh, really?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Was it a violent place?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah. I remember around there . . . you know,
when you got . . . when you got people like Fallis and those
around in there . . . there was this fellow they called "Black
Diamond." That was a great, big black fellow. I mean, "Black
Diamond", he was just about the color of that thing there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, boy, he was, shew . . .
WALLACE: He was a rough . . . a rough fellow?
ELLIS: He was a rough character, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: I have never heard anybody mention "Black Diamond"
before.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: That's the first time.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Was he, uh, a former prison inmate or . . .,
ELLIS: No, no, no. I don't know how in the world they . . .
that's the onliest thing I know. I knew of "Black Diamond", but
he was . . . now, "Black Diamond" . . . there's another fellow
named Jess Alexander.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Now, those fellows, the kids didn't have nothing to
worry about. No, nobody is going to bother no child when they're
around. They were really good like that.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: I remember Jess Alexander, he packed a . . . he
packed a . . . it looked like everybody packed pistols down in
there. [Laughter] Had a big old .38 or something swinging on
him. But, they . . . they were very . . . they were very kind to
children, you know.
WALLACE: So, this would have been . . . these fellows would
have been around there in the late teens [1910s] or twenties,
[1920s], around there?
ELLIS: Well, yes, it's . . . it's around that time because I
remember when, you take that '31 [1937] flood came up. I
remember him going around and telling people to get out, you
know. Well, the '31 [1937] flood . . . the flood had never
gotten in our house.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: We had a high. But that '31 [1937] flood, now,
that's when my . . . that's my son right there. He's a doctor in
Minnesota now.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And a surgeon. And [laughing] so, anyway, we brought
him out when he was just one-month old.
WALLACE: Oh.
ELLIS: His mother had him in the boat. And we came on down.
And my mother was up there on [inaudible] up there on . . . she
was living on Hill Street.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: So, we got out at Hill Street and walked and it was
dry. We went in that house, and not over three hours we was in
there, they had water, and we had to come out of there. They
took us out in a flat boat. They came and got us. We come out
in the winter in a flat boat and came on up to the State House
steps, got off out there, walked on across there. That was the
only thing dry. And Mr. Gershman, he said, "Come on over here
and stay here awhile." I said, "No, I've got an uncle up on the
hill and we're going on the hill. Thank you very much." And we
went on up on the hill. And, uh, my family stayed up there.
And, uh, I came on back down. And, uh, I was . . . well, I was .
. . and they appointed me as . . . John Fallis's son was the
magistrate, and he appointed me as a deputy . . . well, uh,
anyway, a peace officer.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And I remember in the boats and going after them
before they fall in. I remember people coming in there and we
got in a boat going around the prison . . . the old prison was
down there then.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And I remember that, uh, [inaudible] and I told them
I was in charge of those guys. We had them pump rifles. I said,
"Now, look, we don't want to shoot none of these, but you put
yourself in that water and you won't get out." They can't go
nowhere. We'll round them up the next day. I said, "I don't
want them shooting none of those convicts." All right. The next
day, some of them, they were scared.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And some of them guards down there did shoot them
because I know down there the ambulance would bring them out. We
set up a camp right up on the hill up here.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, uh, they took them up there and bringing them
out. And that's when that prison got moved from there.
WALLACE: So, some of the prisoners stayed down there overnight
until the next day when you all could come back and get them? Is
that what I'm hearing you say?
ELLIS: No. I was trying to get them all out of there.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: The next day, yeah. We did get most of them . . .
the rest of them out of there. And the National Guard come . . .
and, see, the Guards wasn't that quick, see. So, [laughing] we
had to be there until they'd get there. Boy, I was sure glad to
see them, too, because, man, I'm telling you. It was raining
that night and we was going around there and you could see them .
. . you could hear them shots inside, them guards in there. That
was wrong. They was jumping over walls, nowhere they could go,
nowhere they could go.
WALLACE: They just didn't want to drown.
ELLIS: No, that's right. Sure. They didn't want to drown.
WALLACE: Let me ask you a little bit about, uh, your home.
Can you describe your home growing up, uh, down on Wilkinson
Street, that home, what it looked like?
ELLIS: Yeah. It was . . . gosh, I wish I'd . . . I've got a
picture of it somewhere I . . . yeah, I'll find it sometime and
give me your number and I'll call you if I can find some pictures
you can come back now.
WALLACE: Okay. I'd like to look at them.
ELLIS: Yeah. Uh, well, okay. There, now, I had a . . . a
brother, now. We grew up . . . well, mostly my . . . my chores
was . . . I had to, I guess, clean . . . no . . . yes, I did. I
had to clean the house and get up the coal. And Cass, he had to
have it, too, see. But I had such a temper as a little boy, I'm
telling you. I . . . I . . . one time, I threw a lump of coal
down and cut his head and, boy, they liked to beat the stew out
of me. [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Is this your brother you're talking about?
ELLIS: Yeah. My aunt, the schoolteacher, as I say, she'd
always tell us, "I'm going to skin you alive if you wait until
you get in that bed." Now, I'm going to tell you. This is the
God's honest truth. We had a hen called Red.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: She was scared of chickens. So, Red was a pet. And,
so, one night, Red would fly up . . . our rooms was on the back
here and I'd open that window. And when she was going to whoop
me, I'd put Red in the middle of the bed. And she come back
there and she went, "Oh, Lord." She opened that thing and she'd
holler and she'd fly. [Laughter] Yeah.
WALLACE: Keep that hen by you.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, I had Red. And my other auntie with us
there, you know. See, three aunties raised us. That's Clara and
Marie and Aunt Charles. Aunt Charles was a trained nurse. She
came out of Boston College. And the Simms up in Midway, they
sent for a . . . for a nurse for their children. And they didn't
know whether she was black or who. So, they sent her down
because they knew she was from Kentucky. So, they hired her and
she stayed there for about, I guess, six . . . 60 years till she
died. And that's the reason why that . . . do you know Libby,
Libby Jones?
WALLACE: Yeah, sure.
ELLIS: Well, now, she nursed all of them. And Libby . . .
Libby . . . when my wife died, Libby was in Frankfort. Libby
just went with me in the family car. We consider her family just
like she considered us family and things. And, uh, and I
remember when Aunt Charles was so sick that Libby's mother and,
uh, she was, oh, she was here. . . she had come down and I
remember down there and she'd come up and bring that oxygen up
there with her and she'd sit up there and Aunt Charles, I
remember her just as plain.
WALLACE: What was your aunt's last name, Aunt Charlotte?
ELLIS: Ellis.
WALLACE: Ellis.
ELLIS: Mary Charles Ellis.
WALLACE: And, so, she was the nurse for the Lloyd family?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. Well, not the Lloyds, the Simms, see.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: The Simms . . . see, Libby, Libby's mother . . .
WALLACE: Was a Simms?
ELLIS: . . . was a Simms and she married . . .
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: . . . a Lloyd.
WALLACE: Lloyd, okay. A. Y. Lloyd, isn't it?
ELLIS: Yeah, A. Y. Lloyd. That was . . .
WALLACE: I didn't know her mamma was a Simms. That's what
threw me off.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, a Simms, yeah, yeah. And Bassett, he
married . . . he married into the family, see.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He married one of the other . . . Bassett . . . you .
. . you . . . Bassett . . . you remember Bassett was the
commissioner of, uh, police here at one time during, uh, I've
forgot whose term that was, but now he's up at the racetrack up
there. He was . . .
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: He's on the board up there. Oh, I think he was sort
of head up there at Keeneland.
WALLACE: Well, you were going to describe your home for me,
and I got you off on another subject.
ELLIS: Yeah. Well, the home, the home was a two-story
building like . . .
WALLACE: Was it frame or . . .
ELLIS: A frame building. We had . . . we had a hall like
that and we had . . . we had . . . you come in and there's the
front room, dining room and the kitchen, almost similar to this.
Then, we had an upstairs. We had an upstairs, and my room was in
the back. We had a bathroom, a little bathroom, and had a little
hall out there on . . . on the right.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Had that big stove that set . . . you know, had those
stoves, coal stoves . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And we had a warm, what they call a Warm Morning or
something. But, anyway, it'd just keep the house just good and
warm. But, uh, that's where it was then.
WALLACE: Did you all own your home or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, owned it, yes.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And, then, that's when they came in there and they
wanted to give us . . . they robbed them people over there, to
tell the truth about it. A lot of those people, they . . . in
other words, they told us, "Okay, if you" . . . "All right, we're
going to let you buy back property on the hill." Of course, they
never did.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And you know good and well nobody could touch that
land down there now, price. And a lot of those people . . . Ms.
Johnson, Steve Johnson, take that lady. Now, that . . . I know
that just worried her to death till they finally died. And they
owned their property, but what they gave them, they couldn't get
. . . $8,000 wouldn't even start. They had a comfortable home
there. I mean, there wasn't no . . . it wasn't no, uh, slum
either.
WALLACE: Okay. That's the term that I have heard used in
relationship to the Bottom; that it was a slum. Is that a fair.
term or an accurate term?
ELLIS: Well, what they're talking about as slum is what they
wanted . . . it was the slum that was right in the Bottom.
WALLACE: Okay. Clinton and Washington or . . .
ELLIS: Right in that Bottom.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Now, our house wasn't no slum and some houses on
Wilkinson Street wasn't no slum either.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah, but, but, uh . . . in other words, when they do
that, you know, I was looking this, they include everything if
they wanted to get that thing cleared. And, uh . . .
WALLACE: So, you think the whole area was unfairly
characterized as a slum . . .
ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: . . . just to get the thing . . .
ELLIS: Sure, it was; sure, it was; sure, it was.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . . since we're on this subject, let
me switch over and talk a little bit. Do you remember how you
found out about the urban renewal project, who told you or if you
read about it or did you go to a public meeting?
ELLIS: Well, I went to them meetings . . . [laughing] yeah.
WALLACE: Tell me about those meetings, what happened?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. Well, they . . . they . . . they . . .
oh, they had meetings, you know, and they were . . . oh, they'd
try to whitewash you. You know how they do those things. And
they're going to promise you this and that.
WALLACE: What were your promised . . . what was the community
promised?
ELLIS: Promised that . . . all right. "If you go along" . .
. all right, "You're going to be able to buy back in a certain
area . . ."
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . which we never were allowed to.
WALLACE: So, you could . . . once they redeveloped it and
built housing, you could come back in and buy homes?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But that never did
happen; never did happen.
WALLACE: Did a large number of . . . of blacks in the
community turn out for these meetings?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: What kind of issues were they raising with these
officials? What kind of questions do you remember hearing from
the crowd there.
ELLIS: Well, you know, John Buckner, he owned a lot of
property around there, you know; and, uh, and, let's see, John,
John, yeah, it was John Buckner that owned a lot of property.
Well, he tried to fix up his property. Of course, I . . . I can
give you a little idea now. You know around here on, uh, Second
Street? You know those apartments there?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, now, that was some of John Buckner's apartments
and next door here, next door was his and next . . . or across
the street was his.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, see, when he died, well, and when his wife
died, and, uh, you know how that is when you come right down to
your in-laws. Well, she come back here from Chicago and sold
and, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, now, that's the way it was back there then.
John Buckner and his property. Well, now, they accused John
Buckner of going along with them, you know. [Laughing] You know
. . . you know how people are.
WALLACE: You mean local area residents . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . accused John of . . . of siding with the . . .
ELLIS: Siding with them, see.
WALLACE: . . . city officials?
ELLIS: But that . . . that . . . that wasn't true. Of
course, [laughing] I . . . but, uh, but, you know, when people do
something in a mind, it's hard to get it out of their mind, see.
WALLACE: Well, one of the . . . it's interesting you said that
because one of the things I'd heard is that this urban renewal
project really split the black community.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I mean, it divided people.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Is that . . . did it really do that?
ELLIS: Yeah, so much it did. It didn't divide me because I
told them I was . . . "I'm going to fight the people, I'm going
to try [laughing] to take you to court." See, a lot of them
people, they didn't have money to take these people to court.
Well, I was just lucky that I had some lawyer friends like Leslie
Marsh and Louis Cox, all of those guys, see. And . . . and, uh,
well, it's just a matter of just knowing who you know and knowing
you're respected.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: They respect me. I respect them. And they knew that
. . . that's . . . not getting off. Like, see, when I had my son
going to, uh, school up here. Well, he finished Kentucky State
up here. Okay. Well, now, times was hard, you know. And, so,
I've forgot now who was running. But, anyway, I was working at
Noonan's Grocery then, and they came down, one politician, and
asked me, says, now, . . . I . . . I said . . . I said, "Now,
I'll tell you. I'll be for them, but I can't come out." I said,
"My job, you know how it is." And I told the next guy that. So,
he said, "Well" . . . one of them said, "Well, I'll tell you
what. When he gets in, I'll get your boy a job", and he was in
school. Both of them told me that. I said, "Okay." [Laughter -
Wallace] I'll play in that fog just like they're playing it.
So, well, when they did . . . when they won, he come down and
told me and he did. He give me . . . give my son a job at night
down here on the Highway Department. And, uh, he worked there
and he finished up there. Then, when he went away to school,
college, well, when he come . . . come back, he said, "Daddy, you
got anything lined up for me?" I said, "Yeah." We had a state
job lined up, and, uh, then they had a recreation job, two jobs,
see. They knew good and well how hard, you know . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . he was working. So, that worked pretty good
that way. But, uh, on this other part, though, they . . . they'd
have these meetings, and I've forgot this fellow's name there;
oh, gosh.
WALLACE: One of the white guys?
ELLIS: Yeah, they own- . . . oh, uptown there. He was . . .
WALLACE: Charles R. Perry or . . .
ELLIS: Wait a minute, now.
WALLACE: . . . Frank Lewis.
ELLIS: No. One of the guys had a store up there. What was
his name?
WALLACE: Paul Judd?
ELLIS: No, no, no. It wasn't Paul.
WALLACE: Oh, John Gerard?
ELLIS: No, no, no. It wasn't him. Gosh, I can't think of
his name. He's dead now.
WALLACE: Oh, Maurice Scott?
ELLIS: Scott.
WALLACE: Yeah, Maurice Scott.
ELLIS: Right, right, right . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . yeah, there's where we had a lot of trouble
with old Maurice Scott . . . [laughing] yeah. Maurice Scott,
that's the one.
WALLACE: You say you had trouble with him?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, you know.
WALLACE: What . . . what . . .
ELLIS: He was trying to explain that stuff, you know, that
way, man, and Jack Robb was on the, uh, on the urban renewal, uh,
thing, you know. Jack Robb is a black guy.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: He was the undertaker here.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Jack was very, very good. And they accused Jack of
some things, which he didn't . . . Jack . . . Jack helped us out
a lot, I'm telling you.
WALLACE: In other words, some people accused him of siding
with the whites to exploit the . . .
ELLIS: Right, yeah, yeah. But that wasn't true; shoot.
But, uh . . .
WALLACE: Well, some of the residents got up a petition, got
signatures and . . . and tried to block the project. Do you
remember a petition being circulated or signing anything or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, I do remember that. That . . . that . .
. but that never did work.
WALLACE: I think they hired some attorneys, too. A guy by the
name of Julius Knippenberg and J. S. Carroll were hired.
Somebody said the residents, they weren't wealthy, but they
scraped up some money.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: What happened with those?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I mean, did anything come of it?
ELLIS: I don't know. I didn't contribute to that anyway.
But, uh, but I, uh, I was . . . I was against that part of it
then because I was thinking we could negotiate something better
than that.
WALLACE: Well, didn't the appraisers come into your home and
do . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, them . . . them . . . them crooks. [Laughter]
That's the reason I went to court over the [laughing] that other
thing because of that jive. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Well, did . . . what, they just came in and didn't
even look around hardly?
ELLIS: Oh, they appraised your property. You know, good and
well, my goodness, shoot, you know, come down and appraise that
property.
WALLACE: What did they appraise the American Legion building
for? Do you remember what they were going to offer you all on
it?.
ELLIS: Yeah. I think they offered us . . . let's see, what
was it? Uh, $19,000 or something. I told them, you . . .
[laughing] I said, "You guys must be drunk or something."
[Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: You couldn't build that kind of building for
nineteen [thousand], not back then.
ELLIS: 19,000 . . . when the Georg- . . . [laughing] when a
man bought it to tear it down, it was worth more than that.
WALLACE: The building materials themselves.
ELLIS: Yeah. And all of that stone. Man, shoot, boy.
WALLACE: I could see they got you pretty hot.
ELLIS: Oh . . .
WALLACE: I guess the same way with your house, too.
ELLIS: Yeah. Well, when they come . . . when they come down
there to the house to do that, shoot, uh-uh, you . . .
WALLACE: Was this the same house that you . . . that you'd
grew up in?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: So, you lived in the same place your entire life.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, un-huh. Then, we bought this house over
here. We, uh, got enough money out of that, see.
WALLACE: To come over.
ELLIS: To buy this house and have some left over. What they
offered us first, we wouldn't have nothing; shoot.
WALLACE: Well, what, uh . . . when did you all leave the
Bottom? When did you actually relocate over here to Murray?
ELLIS: I think we've been over here now about 30 years, I
believe, now, 20 . . . it's almost 30, I believe.
WALLACE: Sixty-one [1961] or '62 [1962]?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Sixty-two [1962] was a big flood. You all . . . were
you still over there in that last big flood? A lot of people
left.
ELLIS: No, no, no, no, no. We've been over here, it's been
two . . . let's see, there's been two floods since . . . that
flood, I've forgotten now what flood it was got to my back door,
about like that coming in back there.
WALLACE: Then, '78 [1978] was a big one.
ELLIS: Yeah. I think that's the one it was, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, do you know of any black resident in the Bottom
that was involved in the planning for this urban renewal project?
I have never [had] anyone tell me that they knew of a black who
helped plan the urban renewal project.
ELLIS: Well, the onliest one I know on that board was Jack
Robb. That's about the onliest one they had on there, yeah.
WALLACE: Robb. And Jack wasn't actually an employee . . .
ELLIS: No, he . . .
WALLACE: . . . until '65 [1965] . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, right.
WALLACE: 1965.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Did you have any direct dealings with any of the
urban renewal officials? Did you work with Frank Lewis or
Charles Perry or, uh, oh, Maurice Scott or Jack Rhorer or any of
those people?
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: Did they ever come out to your house and try to
explain what they were doing and why and . . .
ELLIS: You know, you know, the onliest thing those guys
would do, just like you said, they . . . which I . . . I didn't
agree with because I've seen some of them come down in that
Bottom appraising property and I just . . . I just don't think
they appraised it right.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, they were really supposed to do three
appraisals with . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . three independent . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . appraisers . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . and, then, to take the average of the three . .
.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . and I don't think . . . you know, I've . . . I
found copy of the first appraisal done by a man by the name of
Crabtree from Lexington in 1956, but I've yet to find the other
two appraisals.
ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: Was your family eligible or even interested in public
housing? Would you all have been . . .
ELLIS: Oh, no, no, no, no.
WALLACE: Low-interest loans, federal-backed loans were
supposed to be available for people like yourselves to purchase .
. .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Did you all apply for anything?
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: Or do you know of anybody who ever even got any of
those?
ELLIS: No, I don't. Uh, I know after the . . . after the
flood, why, a lot of them evidently must have applied because
they started building up, you know, on the hill there.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: So, . . .
WALLACE: And you think some of that money went up . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, where did people . . . where did the black
community . . . when . . . when they were forced out of Bottom,
did they tend to relocate in any one area of Frankfort or did
they scatter or . . .
ELLIS: Well, they . . . they were . . . all right. Here's
what they did. They had the, uh . . . well, let me see. They
had Douglas . . . the Federal Housing projects, you know.
WALLACE: Sutterlin Terrace?
ELLIS: Yeah, Sutterlin Terrace and, uh, I'm trying to think
if they're down there. Leestown Terrace and another . . . I know
. . . I know Sutterlin Terrace was one. They relocated some of
them up there.
WALLACE: Yeah. They built Riverview over there at the base of
the hill.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Fort Hill.
ELLIS: Right, right, yeah.
WALLACE: But that wasn't open until '67 [1967].
ELLIS: That's right. But, uh, then, uh, yeah, you're right
on that.
WALLACE: And as far as where the blacks went . . .
ELLIS: Well, okay. There on East Main, uh, as you go down
in . . .
WALLACE: Langford?
ELLIS: Langford Avenue, yeah.
WALLACE: Missouri and . . .
ELLIS: Missouri and all down in there, see. My daughter,
she built down in there, and, then, her mother, her mother built
down in there, too.
WALLACE: Well, that . . .
[End of Tape #1, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #1, Side #2]
WALLACE: . . . people help you all find this house? They were
supposed to try and help find relocation housing. Did any . . .
did they offer any assistance at all?
ELLIS: They didn't help us. We found this house our
ownselves.
WALLACE: Self.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Okay. That's what I sort of thought.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Do you know how this project originated? Why . . .
why did people suddenly decide the Bottom needed to be cleared
out?
ELLIS: Well, I don't know how that came about. Uh, I really
don't know. But, uh, I think the main thing, what the Bot- . . .
cleaning out is what's about it, it was about the . . . the main
problem was with about down there, I can remember years ago, now,
getting back to something. I can remember years ago, they came
down and asked us if we would support a flood gate or floodwall
or something out here on Holmes Street, if I'm not mistaken. It
was a bond issue or something, and we supported that thing. They
said if we support it, they were going to build a floodwall down
there in the Bottom to protect the Bottom.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And I went around and, I mean, I always had messed in
politics forever since I was so high. I went around and got a
lot of names and people, and that's where it voted. That's where
we voted to have it. I mean, that passed right down there for
that thing. They never did give us a floodwall down there.
WALLACE: So, after all of that work you went to . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Do you remember when you . . . was that in the
thirties [1930's] or forties [1940's] when you were working on
that thing?
ELLIS: Well, that . . . that . . . that was . . . that was
before . . . that was before the thirties [1930's].
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah, see, because I was a teenager. Shoot, I was
going around . . . [Laughing]
WALLACE: So, this is the late twenties [1920's], then?
ELLIS: Yeah. That was before then because I remember . . .
I remember Ms. . . . Ms. uh, Ms. Noonan's dad was on the City
Council then. They had 12 councilmen, what they called 12
councilmen then, see.
WALLACE: Before a city commission came in?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. They had 12 of them. And, uh, they . .
. they promised us if they . . . if we'd help them to vote that
thing, you know, all right. Down in there, that's where it
passed, right in that Bottom. That's what we called . . .
precinct down there was Wilkinson Street precinct then.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, then, that precinct, why, we . . . we . . .
that's what carried it, yeah.
WALLACE: So, after all of that work . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. But they . . . they never did . . . they never
did get that, uh, . . . and, see, when the flood came up . . .
kept coming up, that's when they came around and going to get
this floodwall, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And after that '31 [1937] flood, then, oh, brother,
yeah, that's . . . that's when everything happened. They're
going to relocate everybody out of there; yeah.
WALLACE: Let me ask you. When I started reading about this,
the original urban renewal plan was just to include the heart of
the Bottom, right there at Clinton and Washington. It wasn't
going to get up on Hill Street. It wasn't going to affect Mayo-
Underwood. It wasn't going to mess with any of that.
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: But it suddenly got bigger and bigger . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Why . . . why did they change the scope of it?
ELLIS: I wish I knew that myself.
WALLACE: Because I know of some people, and these are other
people that have talked to me, that said several elderly people
relocated up onto Hill Street thinking that they were out of it.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: And . . . and, then, they had to move again.
ELLIS: Right, that's right; that's right.
WALLACE: You know, two times.
ELLIS: Yeah, that's right.
WALLACE: And nobody has really been able to tell me why they
kept expanding the project.
ELLIS: I don't know. You know how . . . you know how
politics is when they get . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, get going.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, let me switch . . . I really . . . I'm
interested in urban renewal, but I'm equally interested in . . .
in the remembrances you have as a young man growing up in the
Bottom, any . . . any remembrances that you might be willing to
share. Uh, your education, uh, as a youngster, uh, when did, uh
. . . you went to Clinton Street [School], if I understand you
right.
ELLIS: Yeah, I went to Clinton Street, yeah.
WALLACE: Was that broken down into grades like first through .
. .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: How . . . well, how . . .
ELLIS: Well, Clinton Street [School] was first on up till
the twelfth.
WALLACE: Oh, one through twelve?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, one through twelve, yeah.
WALLACE: What kind of facilities did they have there at the
school? Did you have a gymnasium and library and, uh, all of
those kind of things?
ELLIS: Yeah. We had, uh . . . well, we had what we call,
uh, . . . gymnasium, well, we had it up on the top floor, see.
It wasn't much, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, you know, we had a big old round thing out
there, a fire escape thing, you know. The kids, we used to love
to get . . . jump in that thing and slide . . .
WALLACE: Slide down. [Laughing]
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, slide down it, see. But, uh, the main
thing I'd go [to] . . . Nickel's . . . you may have heard of
Nickel's Bakery. We'd pass there and . . . and, oh, man, that
man could make some of the best pies and things.
WALLACE: Was that over on Clinton Street, uh, right between
Lewis and Ann?
ELLIS: It was right . . . I'll tell you where it was. It
was right . . . it was on Mero. That's . . . you know where the
Methodist Church is?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, that house next door, that's where the bakery
was.
WALLACE: Yeah, I know exactly.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: The house is still standing.
ELLIS: Yeah. The house is still standing there.
WALLACE: The bakery has been ripped down, the ovens are gone.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Boy, I'm telling you. We . . . I
used to get up and just go early and stop by and get me a pie and
we'd go up and play ball, see, before the class, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Down at Clinton Street [School]. We had some good
times there at Clinton Street [School] there.
WALLACE: That was a brick school, wasn't it, or was it frame?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Brick?
ELLIS: Brick.
WALLACE: Three-story or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, three-story brick.
WALLACE: Were the teachers all black?
ELLIS: Yes, they were.
WALLACE: And the principal . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. He was black.
WALLACE: Was there a black school board as well? Did . . .
ELLIS: No, no, no, uh-uh.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: No. Professor Mayo was the principal out there at
Clinton [Street School]. I never will forget that. And, uh,
and, then, uh, when he . . . when . . . he . . . when he retired
and died, W. S. Blanton was principal and he had a wife, she
taught the eighth grade. And, uh, you know how kids are when
they're in the eighth grade and somebody . . . Ms. Blanton was a
great big woman. And somebody had put a tack in that woman's
seat. And . . . [laughing - Wallace]
WALLACE: Oh, no.
ELLIS: . . . this girl, Clara Wright, was always a
goody-goody. Oh, she hollered and screamed. Ms. Blanton stopped
in mid-air, boy, and, I mean . . . and I didn't have nothing to
do with that durn tack.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: She come down that aisle and grabbed Johnny Spencer
and took him in the office. Boy, I was [laughing] . . . boy, I
stood there looking out the door [laughter] afraid she was going
to get me. [Laughter] Boy, she come back. She grabbed my
cousin, Charles. He was from Chicago. He had been living with
us here, Charles Russell. Took him in there, and, then, she come
back and got me. Oh, my goodness. I said, "Ms. Blanton, I
didn't do nothing." She said, "I knew it." And Mr. Blanton come
in there, and I'm telling you, ooh-wee. Boy, I thought that man
was going to kill us in there. [Laughing - Wallace] And I tried
to push them up there. I said, "Well, if I could get last, he'll
be tired when he gets to me but it looked like he got stronger."
[Laughter - Wallace] And, then, my aunt taught school up there,
see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Oh, Lord, and, then, I got another one when I got
home, and I tried to tell her I didn't have nothing to do with it
and I honest to goodness [I] didn't. I didn't have nothing to do
with it.
WALLACE: But you still got whooped . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . double for it.
ELLIS: Yeah, I guess because I was into some things, you
know.
WALLACE: Did you have a reputation for being mischievous?
ELLIS: [Laughing] Yeah, because I liked to shoot them wads.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: Oh, spit-wads?
ELLIS: Yeah, spit-wads. We'd tell this old boy . . . he'd
come this way and we told him we was going to get a slick. So,
he got a slick that day. And he sits up front. And, oh, we
liked to have wore his head out. [Laughter] So, I guess she
figured I was in on that deal. [Laughter - Wallace] But I,
honest to God, I didn't have nothing to do with that. [Laughter
- Wallace]
WALLACE: Well, did you all have a wide range of subjects like
you'd have separate classes for music and for math and for . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, we did.
WALLACE: Did they have a pretty large student body there . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . a couple of hundred or do you remember?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah. Mayo-Underwood . . . I mean . . .
WALLACE: Clinton . . .
ELLIS: Clinton, yeah. We . . . shoot, yeah. We had a . . .
and, oh, well . . . well, we had another . . . and the one thing
I remember being in is the choral groups . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Debating team and, uh, oh, we . . . it was real . .
. it was real neat. It was real nice out there.
WALLACE: Where did you all get the books and supplies? Were
they hand-me-downs from the white school system or was there
money given . . .
ELLIS: No. We had to buy . . . you had to buy your own
books, see, each year. You'd have you a slip and you'd go up
there . . . I've forgotten now where we'd go to this store and
get them books.
WALLACE: But you had to pay . . . your family had to pay for
them.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you had to pay for them.
WALLACE: Yeah. There were no . . . no free textbooks or
anything like there are today.
ELLIS: No, no, no, not then there wasn't.
WALLACE: No.
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: Well, when . . . when you got, uh, back from school,
what . . . what kind of things did you do for recreation as you
were growing up; I mean, fun things when you're on your own time.
ELLIS: Well, I'll tell you what, now. Like I told you about
they took this lady's house down there, Ms. Johnson.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: We'd go down there and play ball, you know, and you'd
go . . . and, Hill . . . Hill Street is right there and we'd play
. . . . where we was playing ball down there, uh, rubber ball and
all like that. And she'd be up on that porch and, believe me,
she'd referee and . . . and if she'd say . . . somebody call you
out and she'd say, "You're out, you're out." You just as well to
forget it and . . .
WALLACE: Don't argue. [Laughing]
ELLIS: Yeah. There ain't no use hollering you're out or
else you go home. That's right.
WALLACE: So, you all played ball right in the streets then.
ELLIS: Yeah, right in the street, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, do you remember a place called the sandbar?
ELLIS: Do I?
WALLACE: You . . .
ELLIS: Shoot, are you kidding? I was . . . I was manager of
the Red Devils and never did win a game until I went to
Shelbyville. They'd put lights down there on the sandbar . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And we got eight teams and . . .
WALLACE: These are all black or white . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, all blacks, eight teams down there. And we'd
have a big crowd down there. And I had the Red Devils. I was
managing . . . I had white pants and red jackets and red caps,
called the Red Devils. We couldn't win a game no way down there.
[Laughter - Wallace] So, I got a bunch up and we're going to
Shelbyville . . . got a game down in Shelbyville. So, we went
down to Shelbyville, and, oh, man, we had more people following
us to see us lose a game going down there. [Laughter - Wallace]
That was more crow- . . . and, so, we went down there and we beat
Shelbyville, yes, sir, beat them that night. Oh, man, they
couldn't believe it. We just went over our heads, balls, running
back catching them, throwing them out [laughter - Wallace] yeah.
WALLACE: Well, let me ask you. When . . . when was this
league in . . . functioning? Was it in the twenties [1920's] or
the thirties [1930's] or . . .
ELLIS: It . . . let's see. I believe it was around . . .
let's see. Let me see. It was in the twenties [1920's] or
something, coming up there.
WALLACE: You would have still been a teenager . . . or late
teens [1910's] or early twenties [1920's], then, right?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was . . . yeah, it was something
like that, yeah, because, I mean, the Coleman boys, all of them
was there, yeah. And I remember they put the . . . they had a
wading pool down there, too, you know, on the side. You know,
the city put that down there. In the story telling you about
that now. Okay. When they had, uh, put the park out here, it
was Juniper [Hills] Park.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, what they wanted to do, they wanted to drain
the water out of the park. [Laughing] They didn't want to leave
it for the blacks, you know, to come out there. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Yeah. I've heard this one. You could come swim on a
Friday and they . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . were supposed to drain the water on Saturday.
ELLIS: Drain the water, yeah, yeah. So, I happened to be on
. . . on the committee. The mayor appointed me on the committee.
So, we met. And [inaudible] was president of Schenley
Distillery. He was on that committee. And we met discussing
this thing, you know. And, so . . . so, I came up, I said, "Mr.
. . . Mr.," oh, I forget his name. I said, now, let me tell you
fellows something. I said, "Now, if you ever come by" . . . I
told him plain. "When you come by, you look on the right and
look at that wading pool down there and you see . . . what do you
see down there, black kids, white kids, all playing having a good
time in the wading pool." And I said, "What I'm trying to say is
this. Let us leave them alone and work their own problem out."
I said, . . . and he agreed with that. And that's where it
started. Cost me, doggone it, my big mouth. My . . . my
daughter, you know [laughing] had an old swimming suit.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: So, I . . . I had to buy her a swimming suit; and,
then, money was scarce. So, anyway, I remember Mr. Gershman
said, "Don't worry," said, "You pay me on time here for that
swimming suit." And, I mean, they went up there, didn't have a
bit of problems, no problems ever since. And that girl that was
drowning, I don't know how in the world she was drowning up
there. That . . . I forget that girl's name, uh . . .
WALLACE: Several people have told me that story.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: She . . . she was a good swimmer, too.
ELLIS: She was a good swimmer there.
WALLACE: When would this have been, 19- . . . fifties
[1950's], sometime in the fifties [1950's]?
ELLIS: Well, umm, doggone I . . . I . . . I just can't
remember the dates on that, but, anyway, but that's the way it
came about.
WALLACE: I didn't realize they had a wading pool down on the
sandbar.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, we had a wading pool down there,
yeah.
WALLACE: Well, that eight-team league that you were telling me
about, was that all local men . . .
ELLIS: Local, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . playing in that?
ELLIS: And they was good. Man, that Comer boy could throw
that ball underhand as fast as I ever seen a ball.
WALLACE: Was this hardball or softball?
ELLIS: Softball, but he could throw it, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Boy, I'll tell you that. That's like when I was in
the Marine Corps. We had a guy come in that could throw that
ball like that; umm.
WALLACE: Well, as far as recreational kinds of things, uh, did
you participate in . . . in church or any church-related
activities that . . . what kind of . . . which church did you all
go to?
ELLIS: Corinthian Baptist Church.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Right here.
WALLACE: That . . . that was a beautiful church on Mero.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: That was gorgeous.
ELLIS: Yeah. I was trustee. I'm . . . I'm still a trustee
down here at church, and, uh, the Men's Day. I'm chairman of
Men's Day. That's coming up September the 29th.
WALLACE: Well, as a youngster growing up, holidays, what kinds
of things would happen on your . . . your birthday or Christmas?
Uh, what . . . would they do special things, your folks and . . .
ELLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: . . . your family?
ELLIS: Well, yes. Now . . . now, my . . . my aunties, as I
said, they raised us, see. And my dad was blind, and they raised
us. And, uh, on . . . now, taking an instance. On my birthday,
it ain't no big occasion or anything like that. They'd have cake
and ice cream and I'd have some of my friends in, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, uh . . .
WALLACE: And that kind of thing.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Christmastime, was that, uh . . .
ELLIS: Well, Christmastime, there was, oh, I don't want to
talk about Christmas. Oh, gosh. I never will forget, uh, you
know how you're small how the people will tell you, you know,
about Santa Claus coming . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, me and my brother, we . . . I'd say, "Oh, man,
I'm going to bed early so Santa Claus will come [laughing] with
his stuff." So, anyway, the worst thing I ever did do was look
out the window and Willie Miles lived across the street and I saw
him packing this bicycle across the street to our house. And I
said . . . I woke up the next morning and I saw that bicycle down
there, see. And I said, "Cass, that bicycle is [not] from Santa
Claus." "No," Cass said, "Santa Claus left it." I said, "Yeah."
I said, "Cass, come here." I said, "Now, I saw Mr. Miles bring
that bike in." Cass told me, "Well, Santa Claus left it over
there and he was busy, you know."
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And Cass was older than I was, see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And I . . . well, I believed that until I . . . one
day looked up over his fence and saw my presents up there,
climbed the fence. [Laughing] That was the worse thing, I'm
telling you.
WALLACE: Sort of ruined your faith in Santa Claus.
ELLIS: Yeah, that's true, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, as a young person growing up there, did you all
have your own automobile or what kind of trans- . . . did you
have to . . .
ELLIS: No, we had . . . the only one that owned an
automobile in town was Jack Robb because he had a . . . because
he was the undertaker.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: His dad was an undertaker.
WALLACE: So, what did everybody else do, just ride bike or
walk or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, that's what they did, yeah.
WALLACE: Have horses or was that . . . horse days were . . .
ELLIS: Well . . . well, I can remember when the . . . up on,
uh, Main Street, Robb's stable and some of them was right up
there, see.
WALLACE: St. Clair and . . . oh, okay. You're on Main Street,
oh, okay.
ELLIS: Right on Main Street up there by . . . do you know
where the, uh, do you know where the, uh, State National Bank is?
WALLACE: Sure.
ELLIS: You know that place next door to it there?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, that used to be, uh, his stable there and his
undertaker place right there.
WALLACE: This is not where they had the cable TV had its
offices there on . . . no, I'm thinking on Ann Street.
ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: You're talking around the corner on Main.
ELLIS: Right, right. See, because the interurban used to
come down there and turn around at the old, uh, old hotel there
before it burned down, see. In other words, I remember when we
was kids, we would go up there and I never will forget that time
we went up there and . . . and, uh, we didn't know he had that
body up there, see. And, so, we went up there, man, playing.
Somebody . . . somebody went over there and looked and, man . . .
saw that man in there dead, oh, man, we flew out of there.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: Somebody had been murdered or . . .
ELLIS: No, no. He was . . . a body, see. That was Robb's
undertaker.
WALLACE: Oh, you . . . they had him on . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. They had him laying up there, and we'd
go up there and, you know, we was playing around there and saw
it all. And, boy . . .
WALLACE: Scared you all and you fled.
ELLIS: Yeah, flew out of there. [Laughter - Wallace] Yeah,
see. And . . .
WALLACE: Well, one of the things and this is sort of off the
track, but it's . . . it's something I've noticed. It's awful
important for a person to have a nickname. It seems like almost
all of the black kids and boys and girls had nicknames.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Did you have a nickname?
ELLIS: "Buddy".
WALLACE: "Buddy".
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: How did you get the nickname "Buddy"?
ELLIS: My brother couldn't say brother, so, he said "bud"
and "bud" kind of just came that way.
WALLACE: Stuck with you?
ELLIS: Yeah, stuck with it.
WALLACE: Yeah. Well, I just . . . I've heard all of them like
"Corn Puddin'" Chiles and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, that's right. [Laughing]
WALLACE: And "Shineboy".
ELLIS: "Shineboy".
WALLACE: "Uncle Do" or "Doughbelly".
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Or "Squeezer" or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . "Black Diamond" would be one.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: That used to be one. Just very interesting.
ELLIS: Well, see, now, they're not nicknames. They'll put
that to me on mail, James "Buddy" Ellis. Even down at . . . you
may have seen it in a thing. I'm . . . I'm co-chairman for Jones
here in this county. And it says James "Buddy" Ellis.
WALLACE: That "Buddy" has stuck.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: It stuck.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, one of the things a lot of people have told me,
and you can confirm or deny it, is there was a sense of
neighborliness down there, a closeness amongst . . . well, whites
and blacks.
ELLIS: Oh, it was. Now, that . . . now, you hit the core.
It was over there; it was. You could . . . you could go and
leave your door open, and, boy, nobody would come in there
because I remember we were asleep, anyway, and somebody must have
come around our side. We had a side there. And Dee Ellis, the
white neighbor across the street saw it. Shoot, he come out
there with that shotgun. I heard that shotgun going off.
[Laughing] He said that fellow went over that back fence there
flying. [Laughing - Wallace] He was just going to cut through
to go around.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: What he was doing, he was cutting through. It was
cold [Laughing]
WALLACE: He wasn't intending to do no mischief.
ELLIS: No, that's right.
WALLACE: He was just . . .
ELLIS: Just cutting through, yeah.
WALLACE: So, Mr. Ellis was looking out after you all.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah. People was just like that, see,
just watch over each other, you know.
WALLACE: Well, did whites and blacks . . . like if . . . uh,
live next door to each other or even in the same apartment
buildings or . . .
ELLIS: Well, Dee Ellis . . . I remember Mr. Dee Ellis lived
across the street from me, and, uh, Ms. Eva Cox lived next door.
And, uh . . .
WALLACE: That's . . . that's a name I've heard a lot.
ELLIS: Yeah. This other woman here lived . . . Emma Miller
lived right on the other side here. She was a woman, she . . .
she was a seamstress. She was real good. Ms. Eva Cox, boy, she
was . . .
WALLACE: She was . . .
ELLIS: Oh, she was a whiz on them race horses. She loved to
play them races.
WALLACE: I've heard so many stories about Ms. Cox. She would
take the baseball cards around, too.
ELLIS: Yeah, sold baseball cards.
WALLACE: You could bet on a . . . she did the race horses and
she could get you hooked up if you needed to get hooked up with
somebody. She was a . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing]. Well, you know who brought them
baseball cards . . . I brought them back here from Chicago,
brought them back a nickel. "Frenchie" [LaFontaine] and them
didn't have them yet. And they finally evidently . . . I was
selling them for a nickel, you know, and pay off so much.
Finally, they got some of my cards one day . . . and they wrote
off and got . . . and that's where they started. And Eva Cox,
too, in this town.
WALLACE: So, you introduced the baseball cards to Frankfort?
ELLIS: Yeah. I come back here from Chicago with them, yeah.
WALLACE: The way it's been explained to me, and this might be
wrong, is that you'd pick two teams. And if they had the
combined score of the two . . . if they won and the combined
score was the highest, then, there was a pay-off.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Is that the way it worked?
ELLIS: Well, goes this way. They started calling it, like
what you'd do, you'd have on here like Chicago Cubs, New York
Yankees and you'd get tickets . . . you'd get two tickets. And
if they got the highest score . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, yeah, you'd win.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, the story on Ms. Cox is if somebody got to
winning too regular, she didn't go back . . . [laughing] to . .
. she wouldn't go back to that house . . .
ELLIS: No. She was good, you know. She was . . . that
woman was so darn good. She gave us our first sled and our first
bicycles.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
ELLIS: I never will forget it. Yeah, yes, indeedy.
WALLACE: Well, when you talk about Bottom, can you sort of
tell me what the geographic boundaries of Bottom would be? What
area was considered Bottom, in your opinion?
ELLIS: Well, what I consider the Bottom was the area, it was
. . . see, this is . . . this is Washington Street right here and
this is Mero.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: That's your Bottom right there.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: That's the whole area, you know, coming right down,
coming down here. And, you see, that house is not no slum.
WALLACE: No, not at all.
ELLIS: See, that . . . now . . . now, some of the houses
coming up here are kind of run-down.
WALLACE: Down.
ELLIS: But from here on back, you've got restaurants and . .
. and . . . and, oh, gosh, let's see, a pool room on this side .
. .
WALLACE: George Taylor whiskey store?
ELLIS: Yeah, whiskey store, un-huh. We had a chance to buy
that and wouldn't get it. I mean, you know, get the thing, I . .
. I thought I might want to get . . . .[Laughing]
WALLACE: You mean the American Legion had a chance to buy it?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, see, and they wouldn't take it.
WALLACE: Well, Sam Schiller had a junkyard down there.
ELLIS: Yeah, Sam Schiller. Sam Schiller was very nice, too,
yeah. He had a junkyard . . . the junkyard was up . . . up sort
of from here on the . . . on the left.
WALLACE: Ahh, yeah.
ELLIS: Okay, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, would the residents down there, would they have
resented the use of the word Craw? Did they not like to be
referred to, say, as Crawbats or residents of Craw or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, they resent that a lot, yeah. Newshounds
picked that up, you know, and put that hat on them.
WALLACE: Now, who . . .
ELLIS: They didn't.
WALLACE: I just wondered because I made the mistake of using
that term with, uh, Ms. McClain . . .
ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: And she pulled me up short real quick. She said, "We
don't use that term." [Laughter - Ellis] Because I didn't know.
I was . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . using what I thought was correct. Uh, let me
just keep . . . as far as . . . what was the first job that you
took?
ELLIS: First job?
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, I'll tell you. Let me see. I drove for Dr.
Underwood.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: Yeah. That's the first job I ever had.
WALLACE: Just chauffeured him?
ELLIS: Chauffeur him, yeah.
WALLACE: When was he practicing in Frankfort? Was that . . .
ELLIS: Oh, gosh, that was . . . gosh, that was way before
the flood. And Dr. Underwood, you know, we'd go sometimes. He
wouldn't have enough money to pay me because the people wouldn't
pay him. And he'd go down on, like, Saturday nights. And I
remember he'd go . . . you'd have all, say, down there, all
whites and sometimes they'd give them fish, come and eat. Doc
would go in there and I'd go in there and sit [laughing] right
there and eat, you know, dinner there. And, uh . . .
WALLACE: So, as a form of payment, they'd . . . they'd feed
him a fish . . . fish dinner from . . .
ELLIS: Well, they'd give him some fish, you know, like that.
WALLACE: Fish, yeah.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Like a . . .
ELLIS: And he would . . . and when his son came here and I
told them, well, now, he said, "No, you've got to live here,
Buddy." Says, "I'm just . . . I don't think somebody can just
write that off." And I was, ooh, gosh, a CD and not only that, I
think that was about $60,000 owing and, then, the Pithian, the
Knights of the Pithian owed him, see. That's the lodge. He was
the supreme keeper of records and seals with the Knights of the
Pithian, see.
WALLACE: Knights of Pithian?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And they owed him?
ELLIS: Oh, Lord, yeah, way back, shoot, man.
WALLACE: And he just wrote all of that debt off?
ELLIS: Yeah. He told them . . . he told them, "Nah, you've
got to live here." So, he just wrote it off.
WALLACE: So, in driving for him, did you help him as far as
with patients and things like that as well as just getting him .
. .
ELLIS: No, no, no, no, no. I'd just drive him there. He
was always scared of dogs, you know. That's the only thing I
would help him with, tried to run the dogs off.
WALLACE: The dogs off.
ELLIS: [Underwood would say] "Get that dog over there."
[I'd say] "Oh, Doc, he ain't going to bite, Doc." "He's got
teeth, hasn't he?" [Laughter] Yes, I remember them words Doc
would say. See, Doc was a big politician, Republican, he was.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And I do remember Governor Sampson before he got to
be Governor coming down to his office there. I remember that. I
said, "Doc, why was you talking to the Governor?" He was writing
his inaugural speech for him. Doc was very smart.
WALLACE: So, Doc Underwood wrote Flem Sampson's inaugural
address?
ELLIS: Yes, siree. And I don't give a durn who disputes
that, that . . . well, now, that's what Doc told me what he was
doing. So . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . that's the only thing I can go by.
WALLACE: Well, it sounds like you have been connected with
politics a lot yourself.
ELLIS: Oh, I have. I'll tell you something about that.
Yeah, I was a Republican then. So, when I went to get a job over
here at the state, well, oh, Mayes was the commissioner then.
And I went in there and Mayes, yeah, I knew Mayes. And he said,
which party. I said, "I'm a Republican." [Mayes said,] "Oh, my
God, you're going to have to change over. You're going to have .
. ." I said, "Well . . ." [Laughing] So, I changed . . . that's
when I changed over to being . . .
WALLACE: Democrat.
ELLIS: . . . Democrat, see. But, then, after I was offered
the job, I wouldn't take the job.
WALLACE: Was it highway work or . . .
ELLIS: Well, it was . . . yeah, it was something. I think
it was in the, uh . . . I've forgot now what department it was
in. I didn't want it. But I never . . . when I was in service,
they, uh, Nunn and that bunch, that's when I changed over, see,
for a job. And I told my wife, I said [laughing] "Tell them if
they'd get me out of this service, I'll take that job."
[Laughter] I was overseas, then. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Well, how did you . . . how did you first get
interested in politics? You said . . . at one point, you told
me, you said, "I've been in politics since I was this high."
ELLIS: Yeah. Well, it was . . . well, through Dr.
Underwood. A family doctor, he used to come down and play
checkers with us when we was little kids, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And help . . . and just he knew the family and he'd
come by. Well, if he come by . . . my aunt was sick. He'd come
by and he'd just sit there and he'd play some checkers with us,
you know. And, shoot, we get . . . get to know him real well.
WALLACE: So, he introduced you to politics?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, did you ever work the polls or . . .
ELLIS: Oh, Lord, yeah. [Laughter] Are you kidding? I
worked in Chicago. Wait a minute, let me tell you about this one
now. My other auntie in Chicago, and I went up there and I
stayed up there about ten years . . . [Laughing] So, I was
working the polls over there. So, I happened at the same time
and these guys sitting in a car, said, "Hey you, come here." I
said, "Hey" . . . I said, "Yeah, do you want to vote for him?"
"Throw them things in the sewer." I said, "Oh, no, I'm getting
paid $10 for these." Boy, that's the first time I ever seen a
tommy gun in my life. That guy picked that thing up. Said, "I
said throw them in there." I said, "Yes, sir." Shoot, I threw
them in there. That . . . my politics up there was over.
[Laughing - Wallace] I said, "No, uh-uh, no." She was a
precinct captain, my aunt was, see.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: She was . . . she was a police lieutenant, see. Boy,
she was rough. She was a big sister there. And I remember a guy
tried to . . . when we . . . when I got to Chicago another time,
a guy had grabbed her pocketbook. Shoot, he didn't get nowhere
back there. She took that shoe off and was hitting him left and
right. [Laughter] And the police come . . . Earl come up there
and, uh . . .
WALLACE: Rescued him.
ELLIS: Flashed that badge there. [Laughter] Took him on.
[Laughing] I bet he won't try that trick no more.
WALLACE: When were you up in Chicago?
ELLIS: Oh, I was in there . . . let's see. I
let's see. I was in Chicago in 19 and 30 [1930], '35 [1935].
Let's see. When was I there? I went up there in '34 [1934];
yeah, '34 [1934].
WALLACE: Thirty-four [1934].
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And you were up there up until around in the
seventies?
ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
WALLACE: Ahh. Well, did, uh . . . you said, uh, you worked at
. . .
ELLIS: No, I came on back here . . .
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: . . . afterwards, see. Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, you talked about Will Castleman [William S.
Castleman]. They said he was a political powerhouse.
ELLIS: He was. Oh, Will Castleman, yes. Them guys would
get in trouble and he'd call uptown and like that. I don't know
how he did it.
WALLACE: He could get people of jail or . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . could he get them a job, I guess.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, that's right, a job, yeah.
WALLACE: Could fix things, I guess, if you got in a . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . in a scrape.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: I've heard that Thomas "Black Cat" Graham had some
political connection.
ELLIS: Not too much.
WALLACE: Much.
ELLIS: No, no.
WALLACE: A guy by the name of Pallie Thomas [Powell Thomas]
ELLIS: Pallie Thomas. Yeah, Pallie Thomas and . . . yeah.
He worked . . . he didn't have much. The onliest guy that had a
little connection was . . .
WALLACE: Castleman [William S. Castleman].
ELLIS: . . . Castleman, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, how did he develop all of those connections?
What . . . where did he get his power from, I guess, is what I'm
. . .
ELLIS: I don't know. I really don't know that.
WALLACE: Well, did you ever go to any of the rallies, the
political rallies they used to have down in the Bottom?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Can you describe one to me, if you remember any of
them?
ELLIS: Yeah. I remember them, yeah, but I . . . that's the
reason why I . . . those type of rallies, I never did appreciate.
I mean, you go to them rallies. See, back there then, there was
whiskey, you know. You ain't going to buy my vote with no
whiskey.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And, uh, things there like that, see. And guys would
come down and they'd think you was going to vote for them. It's
different nowadays. Uh-uh.
WALLACE: So, you think . . . what you're saying is they'd go
down there and set up a platform and make some speeches and pass
out whiskey . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . hoping to get . . .
ELLIS: Well, you know, during . . . during the time, that's
what . . . that's what . . . yeah, and you'd see a half pint
pass here, you know . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . or something like that.
WALLACE: Yeah. I remember one fellow, Jo Beauchamp. I don't
know if you . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, I know Jo Beauchamp.
WALLACE: He said when he was a little . . . he couldn't have
been more than 12, he said they packed him into a car and drove
him out to a polling place and he signed and he never saw a
ballot. He said, "I ain't never saw no ballot." And they gave
him a dollar . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and, then, shipped him out of there. His
cousin told him he voted nine times for the same guy [laughing]
at a precinct.
ELLIS: Yeah. That's when they had these, uh, uh, ballots,
you know, what you're voting on. There was a lot of . . . a lot
of crooked work on that stuff down there. Those type of ballots
. . . yeah.
WALLACE: When you had the ones that, uh . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Different ballots for different parties, you know.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. You could just write there on there.
See, if a guy give you a ballot . . . yeah, I know . . . I know a
many a-times on Wilkinson Street when I was down there working
the polls, yeah. I never did try to offer nobody no . . . but .
. . but I've told them, I said, "Okay, now, you go in there and
vote for them and, then, you go over there and see that fellow
right over there."
WALLACE: Yeah. And he'll take care of you.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Well, that's . . . you know . . .
ELLIS: All of that is gone . . . all of that kind of stuff
is gone now.
WALLACE: Yeah. You can't with the electronic balloting . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . it's almost impossible.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. Don't allow . . . don't allow you so
many people at the poll there now, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm. One of the things I heard was that there was
a political club down there of, uh, influential people that sort
of made sure that things went right during an election. Is that
accurate, would you say?
ELLIS: [Laughing] No. There wasn't nobody . . .
[End Tape #1, Side #2]
[Begin Tape #2, Side #1]
ELLIS: John Fallis got killed that night. That was set up.
Yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. Everett . . . Everett Grigsby killed him.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And the story I've heard is that the local police
officials and maybe political officials got tired of messing with
John.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And decided to . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . to take him out of the picture.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Uh, that's all I've got really on politics. But did
you ever run for elective office yourself?
ELLIS: Yes, I did.
WALLACE: What did you run for?
ELLIS: I ran for the, uh, commissioner of the, uh, well . .
. [Franklin] on the county commission, see, you've got a . . .
you have a city on that.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And I ran in the city. Well, I ran as an
independent, and I got beat by the lady that's on there now. I
got beat by 165 votes.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: So, you . . . that was just the most recent election,
then, isn't it?
ELLIS: Yeah. Well, no, that was in, uh, oh, gosh. That was
in. I should have brought some cards down there and show you,
but I . . . oh, I really had a good campaign going, yeah. I had
. . . I had good support. Mr. Marcus backed me a lot, Mr.
Elliott Marcus, and the Grad Club which I'm a member of. They
had supported me.
WALLACE: It seems so hard for a black to get elected in this .
. . "Tubba" Marshall ran, George Taylor ran . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, there's a lot of them ran.
WALLACE: And John Bucker, I think, ran one time.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Why is it so hard to get the blacks to unite?
ELLIS: I . . . I think I came as close to ever winning the
thing. And, then, then, I was told if I would run again that I'd
almost win it, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: But I had gotten a job up at Kentucky State College
then.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: And I wasn't going to . . . see, I'd have to give
that up to run. But I wasn't going [laughing] to give that job
up to run for a dad-blame $6,000 job, see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And that was crazy . . .
WALLACE: Economically . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. Now, it's more than that, see. But, uh, we
got a guy running now that's, uh, Derrick Graham, he's running
for city commissioner.
WALLACE: Oh, really?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Derrick Graham?
ELLIS: Derrick Graham.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: And, uh, I appointed Derrick as, uh, precinct captain
of [inaudible]. I told him, I said, "Now, you're . . .," as I
said before, I'm co-chairman of Jones' campaign. And I have
seven counties under me which most of them are cities. And I
told him, I said, "You come there" . . . and, like, we had a
meeting before down there they made Jones . . . I mean, Derrick
had gotten his campaign. I asked him, I said, "Now, Derrick, I'm
not going to press you, but I think it'd be advisable if you stay
on there because you got . . . you may get some good backing out
of this and you may have a chance to win the [Frankfort] city
commission, you see." And he's got a durn good shot at it, I
think, yeah. He teaches school at city, on Second Street down
here.
WALLACE: Ahh. Is he a black guy?
ELLIS: Yeah, a black guy, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. That's interesting. I'll . . . let me turn
this off for a second.
[Interruption in Tape]
WALLACE: Well, let me . . . let me switch you back on to this
little visit.
ELLIS: Okay.
WALLACE: As far as when you were growing up, did your aunts
permit you to date? I mean, what were the . . . to take a young
lady out. Was that permitted or . . .
ELLIS: Well . . .
WALLACE: What were the rules and regulations when it come to
it?
ELLIS: The rules and regulations, be back in that house
[laughing] by eleven o'clock. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, where did a young man take . . . I mean, you
probably didn't have a lot of money. Where would you go?
ELLIS: Tiger Inn.
WALLACE: Tiger . . .
ELLIS: I'm going to tell you about Tiger Inn.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: I didn't have any money. I'd go down there and I'd
be sitting down there drinking a Coke, you know how it is,
drinking a Coke and just laugh out loud. Atkins would [say],
"All right, boys, get on out of here." [Laughter - Wallace]
WALLACE: Is that true?
ELLIS: Yeah. See, Tiger Inn is a place where . . . right
down from the school where . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . and here I am out on the outside and my rival,
old [inaudible] is in there, I mean, he's in there sitting down
in [laughter] my spot. And it's cold outside [laughing] so I'd
go on home. Yes, boy, I'll never forget that.
WALLACE: Just because you laughed, he . . .
ELLIS: Oh, laugh out loud. He'd . . . and, see, you know,
after a ball game or something, there'd be things like that and
you just talk a little loud or something, he'd say, "All right,
let's go," just like that. [Laughing]
WALLACE: He didn't permit a lot of carousing and rough-housing
. . .
ELLIS: No, no, no, uh-uh.
WALLACE: . . . and any of that kind of stuff.
ELLIS: Uh-uh. He sure didn't.
WALLACE: Well, I've heard a lot of good things about Tiger
Inn. [Laughter - Ellis] The place to meet.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And be with your friends and listen to the jukebox.
ELLIS: I'll tell you something else. Mr. Andrew Marshall
just died. He had a daughter, a good looking girl, see. And . .
. and he wouldn't let nobody . . . because everybody was scared
of Mr. Marshall, you know, and that old shotgun. And Tiger Inn
was right here and Mr. Marshall lived up there and could look
down. And when you'd get right here, nobody would go around that
corner and talk to his daughter. They'd stay back here [Laughter
- Wallace] see. Afraid Mr. Marshall was looking at them.
[Laughter] Yeah.
WALLACE: So, Marshall lived above the Tiger Inn?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. No, no, he could look over in that part.
WALLACE: Oh.
ELLIS: He could look down.
WALLACE: Could look down.
ELLIS: And Tiger Inn was right here on the corner. There
wasn't nobody come around that corner . . . [Laughing]
WALLACE: Because he'd see them.
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughter] Boy, he wouldn't allow nobody
right now. He wouldn't allow nobody to date his daughter.
WALLACE: Sounds like parents were really strict.
ELLIS: Oh, they was, gosh, durn.
WALLACE: I heard stories where the mammas would come into
Mayo-Underwood and stand up in the balcony . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and watch their daughters on the dance floor.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. If it would, there wouldn't be a lot of
this durn shooting going on now.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: It would be more strict now.
WALLACE: One of the things I . . . I had heard. Every once in
a while, they'd have a band come into Mayo-Underwood . . .
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: Smoke Richardson.
ELLIS: That's right, Smoke Richardson that's right. Yeah,
Smoke, that's right.
WALLACE: Big . . . it was a pretty nice size, ten- fifteen-
piece band.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And formal dances.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Do you ever remember attending anything like that?
ELLIS: Yes, indeedy. Had a big time there. [Laughing]
WALLACE: I imagine you dressed up in your best duds . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and . . .
ELLIS: That's right. Smoke Richardson, yeah.
WALLACE: Long ago, long ago. Uh, do you . . . how many
children do you have, just the two or . . .
ELLIS: Well, I have, uh, I have . . . let's see. I have one
by another girl.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, in other words, that happened . . . that ain't
on tape, now, is it?
WALLACE: No, I'll turn it off.
[Interruption in Tape]
WALLACE: Was that just a home that they turned into a
hospital [Winnie A. Scott Hospital]?
ELLIS: No. It was a hosp- . . . I don't know. All I know
it was a hospital then. Now . . . it's a home now, see.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Well, what they had there, the, uh . . . that's where
both of my children was born right there. Yeah.
WALLACE: Who . . . who delivered them . . .
ELLIS: Dr. Underwood.
WALLACE: Dr. Underwood.
ELLIS: Yeah, Dr. Underwood. Yeah.
WALLACE: Do you remember Dr. Berry at all?
ELLIS: Oh, Lord, yes. Dr. Berry, now I'll tell you
something about Dr. Berry. See, Dr. Berry . . . well, that's all
right about that because everybody knows Dr. Berry drinked a lot.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Okay. He was a heck of a surgeon, okay. All right.
Well, when this boy got cut or something down there, I took him
around to Dr. Berry. Dr. Berry come in there and his wife, you
know, she was very smart, too. She was a pharmacist. And, uh,
Dr. Berry, [said] "Hmmp, I ain't . . . that son-of-a-gun still
owes me." And he wouldn't do nothing. So, I said, "God dang it,
man." [Berry said,] "I'll tell you what to do." Okay. So, Ms.
Berry and I, I sewed him up. And Ms. Berry sewed him up.
WALLACE: He refused to treat him because he owed him.
ELLIS: Yeah, yes, siree. [Dr. Berry said,] "Oh, no, get him
out of here, I ain't" . . . and Ms. Berry said, "No, no, the boy
was cut bad." So, he told me what to do, and I did it and it
look like it was . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . and that boy, I'm telling you, that boy . . .
that boy had a pretty . . . a pretty job there. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Did it make you think about being a surgeon yourself?
ELLIS: Yeah. But that's the way Dr. Berry was, now. And
another time when "Pigum" that was the guy. He was a barber. He
got shot. And, uh, I was off that day. So, I went around and
Dr. Berry . . . I'm going to drive Dr. Berry to the . . . to the
hospital. And I was flying up through the Bottom, wouldn't stop,
blowing the horn. Dr. Berry said, "What in the hell are you
going to do, try to kill us all here?" I said, "No, I've got you
over there to that hospital" [Laughter]. I was taking him to
Winne A. Scott Hospital. I got him over there all right. But,
Castleman [William S. Castleman] was the one who shot him, see,
and I wasn't . . . I wasn't about give Cas [William S. Castleman]
a straight shot at me. [Laughter] That was . . . [Laughter]
Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, I had heard that . . . now this . . . the death
of Dr. Berry was attributed to the fact that he got into a
dispute with an individual.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: May have been intoxicated at the time, and he went to
get a pistol and came back and was shot.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And some people have said Castleman [William S.
Castleman], others have said, no, Will didn't shoot him.
ELLIS: No, I don't think Will Castleman [William S.
Castleman] shot him. I never did find out who did it.
WALLACE: Yeah. I had heard that Dr. Berry was an excellent
surgeon . . .
ELLIS: Oh, my God, he was. I think, uh, somebody went to,
uh, New York or something for something and they asked them, "Is
Dr. Berry in Frankfort?" And they said, "Yes." "Well, you
couldn't get a better surgeon in this world than Dr. Berry and
you come up here."
WALLACE: Yeah. I heard a lot of good things. Let me ask you
this.
ELLIS: Well, I'll tell you. Dr. Berry, my wife . . . okay.
A ruptured appendix and my little boy was running in there and he
was pulling things. Ms. Eva Cox come over there. And I was
driving for Dr. Underwood. And Dr. Berry came there and operated
right in my home on her appendix.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. It's just so hard to imagine a day when a
surgeon would come into your own home. [Laughing]
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, we talked about . . . you know, you all owned
your house, but there was a lot of people that rented.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Do you remember any of the landlords like Dulin Moss,
or old Charlie Duvall or, uh, the Rufus [Ruperts] family or any
of those people?
ELLIS: Well, I think John Buckner owned a lot of property.
WALLACE: Yeah. I had heard he owned. But he kept his
property up now.
ELLIS: Yeah, he did.
WALLACE: There was some . . . some that did not keep their
property up.
ELLIS: Old Dulin Moss, he was . . . [laughing] that Dooley
was something else. You know, I . . . I always wanted to be a
lawyer, see, and I'd sneak off from school and go up there in
court, police court. And old Judge, uh, Judge Franklin, I
believe it was, [said to Dulin Moss] "I ain't going to tell you
no more, shut up." [Laughter] I sat back and the only thing .
. . I couldn't help but laugh and they'd run me out when I would
laugh . . . [Laughter] Oh, that Dooley.
WALLACE: You say you wanted to be a lawyer as a young man?
ELLIS: Yeah, I wanted to be a lawyer, yeah. I always wanted
to be a lawyer. I always could . . . I always could [laughing]
convince people on things, you know. I went [inaudible] Junior
College. I spent one year up there in, uh, in police . . .
police hall in Chicago. But, uh, it just . . . it was a big
thing then. The money wasn't there and I came out and went to
work to put my brother through . . . I helped to put him through
college. He went on to . . . he was a minister, see, and, uh,
then, he papered . . . oh, in, uh, a paper, you know, publisher,
down in Hoptown [Hopkinsville, Kentucky].
WALLACE: He published a paper, a newspaper, in Hoptown?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: What was the name of the paper, do you remember?
ELLIS: Lord, I don't remember. No, not a newspaper, but a .
. . what do you call that thing, like, uh, you know, printing all
of that stuff . . .
WALLACE: Oh, like a printing company?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: What was your brother's name?
ELLIS: Cassius.
WALLACE: Cassius.
ELLIS: Yeah. My son is named after him Cassius Marcellus
Clay Ellis, III.
WALLACE: I have some friends in Hoptown [Hopkinsville,
Kentucky]. I'll have to ask them about . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . it and see if they remember. Did you and your
brother have to contribute to the family income to make ends
meet? Did you all get part-time jobs or something to help?
ELLIS: Well, no, because in the meantime, my aunt, like I
said, was teaching, see.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: And, uh . . .
WALLACE: She had a good job.
ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm. And the other aunt, she come down
sometimes from uptown.
WALLACE: Let me ask you. I'm . . . I'm going on a long time
here. I don't want to take up too much of your time, but, uh,
did you participate in the NAACP chapter here in town?
ELLIS: Yeah. I joined it one time, yeah. I [laughing]
haven't paid up . . . I haven't paid my dues for a good while,
though.
WALLACE: Do you remember when they had the Brown versus Board
of Education decision that desegregated the schools?
ELLIS: Do I remember? Yeah. My . . . I had to march in
that thing. My daughter was one of the participants. Sandra,
she's just like me. She was just right in there. And I remember
Reverend . . . I forget that Reverend Richardson . . . no, I'm
not sure . . oh, gosh, I can't think . . .
WALLACE: Not Hutchison, was it?
ELLIS: No, no, it wasn't Hutchison, no. This was a fellow,
a little fellow. He . . .
WALLACE: James Richardson?
ELLIS: I done forgot who he was now. But, anyway, we'd
march. I remember . . . I remember we'd march over to . . .
here's a funny thing. We'd go over here, you know, and I
remember when old "Jeep" . . . I call him "Jeep" had 500 [Cecil
Powell] [inaudible] you know. Powell says, "Hey". He called me
"Jeep", and I called him "Jeep". [He said] "Why don't you come
on in and have a coffee?" I said, "Look, Jeep," I said, "Now,
you know good and well . . . and when you let all of my people
come in there and sit down and have coffee, I'll come in and
drink one coffee." I said, "Not . . . I don't want it to be just
me."
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And that's the way . . . that's the way it was, you
know how it is when people know you.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Well, you're all right. Uh-uh. And I remember in
Frankfort Drug Company [laughing] come in and sit down to be
served. They're going to serve me. They wasn't going to serve
nobody else. I said [Laughter], "No, I don't want it."
[Laughter] And the . . . I remember that thing . . and see, we
used to have a Capital Theater. We had to go up . . . we called
it the old roost.
WALLACE: Yeah, in the balcony.
ELLIS: In that balcony up there, see.
WALLACE: That Capital Theater, yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah, Capital Theater. And had a Grand Theater, too,
there. So, we couldn't . . . when we was talking about we
couldn't go to the theater only on matinee on Saturdays because
that's the onliest time they'd go . . . that's the onliest time
we have to be home getting our lessons see. And we enjoyed that,
going.
WALLACE: A special treat to go to the theater then.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah. Get a bag of popcorn. [Laughing]
WALLACE: So, you all attempted to get to the theaters as well
as the restaurants and businesses to allow you all . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: When would this have been; during the Martin Luther
King time, in the sixties [1960's], or before . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. It was during that time. You know, Martin
Luther King came here and marched.
WALLACE: Yeah. Ms. Holmes was telling me about that . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . that she helped work on it. Did you meet and
talk to him?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: What was your impression of him? I'm curious.
ELLIS: Well, I thought . . . I thought [laughing] he was a
very wise and smart fellow, yeah. That's just like when, uh,
when, uh, Jesse Jackson came here, uh . . . well, Ms. what's her
name called me up there. I may have that letter in my room
thanking me for getting him a commission, you know, a Kentucky
Colonel thing. And I said, "Well, don't worry about it. I'll .
. . I'll see that you get one." So, I called up Drex Davis.
He's a friend of mine. And Drex got it sent on over and, uh, we
presented it to him. I think I've still got the letter where . .
. back down there where he was thanking me for . . .
WALLACE: Getting the Colonelcy.
ELLIS: Yeah, for Jesse Jackson.
WALLACE: Ahh. When you went into the service, you were in the
Marines, is that . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . correct?
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Did you volunteer or were you drafted or . . .
ELLIS: Well, then, you know, the draft was on.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And, okay. You go down to Louisville. They examine
you. Okay, all right. You go in that room and they examine you.
And I've forget how many of us went down there that day. Oh, you
know, white and black, all . . . we all together went down,
singing . . . oh, we was singing on the bus until we got near
Louisville. As we was getting near that draft board, everything
got just as quiet. [Laughter] You could hear a pin fall.
WALLACE: People nervous, I guess.
ELLIS: Yeah. So, we went in there and . . . so, Mr. Marsh
on the hill, that physical guy, you know. And I remember just as
plain when we was going through there and I was looking on my
list and, shew, there wasn't nothing on there low down now. Oh,
boy. And old Marsh, he was writing and all of these guys . . .
so, I guess I must have been about eight back and this guy
[said], "Is James Ellis, Jr. in here?" And I said, "Yeah, yeah."
[He said] "Come up here." Oh, heck. I said, "Well, fellows," I
said, [laughing] I said, "I'm going to tell this man I'm going
back to my doctor and whatever it is wrong here I'll have it back
there." So, I went up there. And he said, "Sit down here, Mr.
Ellis." I said, "Yes, sir." The first thing he did is he said .
. . I said, "No, I ain't nervous" [laughing]. You know, I guess
you . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And he said . . . I said, I started talking, I said,
"Well, sir, I've got a good doctor back in Frankfort. Anything
wrong with me, when I go back there, I'll . . . I'll . . . I'll
get the doctor to fix it up." He looked at me. He took that
stethoscope and listened. He said, "I've got some bad news to
tell you." I said, "Well, I know it." I said, "I'm going back
to the doctor here." All at once, I saw that son of a gun get
down there and [it] said approved. Man, I said, "What's this?"
He said, "That means you're physical fit. You can go." He said,
"When you go down there, any branch down there you want to join,
you can join. They'll all be . . . they're all going to be after
you." I said, "Great." [Laughter] He said, "I ain't never seen
nobody glad to get in here." I said, "I wasn't glad to get in
here, I was just glad there wasn't nothing wrong with me."
[Laughter] So, well, went down there in the Army and Navy. And
when the Marines come out there with all of that dress blue on, I
know, oh, [laughter] that suit got me. And, then, after that
suit [got] me, I said . . . Lord, Lord, I wished to the devil I
could find that letter I wrote back to my wife. That would be
something you could put in your thing. [Laughter] I wrote that
letter. I told her . . . Senator Cooper was a good friend of
ours, see, the family. And I said, I said, [inaudible] "You see
if you can write Senator Cooper and tell him. He's got power in
Washington. See how much power he's got to get me out of damn
thing. These fools are crazy." [Laughter]
WALLACE: They didn't realize that training was going to be
like this.
ELLIS: No. [Laughter] Heck, no, man. I said, man, we
would sit in there sometimes and talking about the DI [Drill
Instructor], said, "We're going to kill that fool. If that fool
ever gets on a ship, we're going to throw him overboard."
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Overboard. [Laughter]
ELLIS: And don't you know exactly after we got out of boot
camp, we got up a collection and give that fool a present.
[Laughter - Wallace] Yeah.
WALLACE: For putting you all through eight weeks or twelve
weeks of . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . [inaudible] hell.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Where did you ship out to, which . . . which theater
did you go to?
ELLIS: We left Norris Island down there. All of the Marines
came into, uh, Hawaii, over there . . . every . . . six . . .
Marines was stationed in Hawaii and they'd ship out from there
when they were going on.
WALLACE: Where did you see action?
ELLIS: I didn't see any action. I was supposed to be in a
non-combating outfit, see. I was in the air. And my primary job
was guarding them fields, you know.
WALLACE: Ahh, guarding airfields.
ELLIS: Yeah. Airfield man. And sometimes . . . they'd
tickle me. The guy that said, "Yeah, I've got some of them war
jobs, you know." Yeah, man, I was so tired. Said, "Them Japs,
they can't hit nothing." [Laughter] Shoot, I said, "When I'm
over there, I ain't taking no chance." I'm going . . . yeah.
[Laughter] Oh, boy.
WALLACE: So, when did you . . . you came back in forty . . .
ELLIS: Forty . . . '45 [1945].
WALLACE: . . . '45 [1945] you were out.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And you came back to Frankfort then?
ELLIS: Yeah, umhumm.
WALLACE: Why did you come back to Frankfort? A lot of the
vets went north.
ELLIS: Well, that's when . . . and, see, and I came back
from Chicago. I married my wife here.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah. So, I came back here.
WALLACE: Well, let me . . . I have just a few more things,
and, then, I'll leave you in peace. [Laughing - Ellis] I hope
I'm not being too much. Do you remember . . . I've got some
business names, and we've already talked about Tiger Inn . . .
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: . . . and Robb's Funeral Home. But do you remember
"Frog" [Huston K. Woods] Wood's Grocery?
ELLIS: Sure, "Frog" Wood, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Can you describe it for me?
ELLIS: Well, "Frog" Wood's Grocery was right on Wilkinson
Street . . . well, one of them . . . well, he had two groceries.
Now, he had one on Wilkinson Street and that was down from my
left, my house down on the left.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And the other grocery he had was on, uh, across from
Tiger Inn.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah. Right there.
WALLACE: They said he used to hang rabbits outside in the
wintertime . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Somebody told me his family was . . . when they came
here, they didn't have hardly . . . they started with just two
bushel baskets.
ELLIS: Yeah. Old "Frog", man, he got on . . . shoot, that
Bottom land, I think he owned three or four houses and, uh, oh,
he'd pack a roll of money like that all the time down there. And
I said, "Man, you're crazy. Somebody is going to bust your head
open, you know. Why don't you go bank that money?"
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: What was his real first name? It wasn't "Frog", was
it?
ELLIS: No, it wasn't. I [laughing] can't remember his name.
They got some nicknames they put on us.
WALLACE: Is that right?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Some people die and you never . . . it took me a long
time to find out "Shineboy's" real name.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Forever. Pollard or Pollo, Johnny Pollo? I've
forgotten what it was. Somebody finally knew it. But Alonzo
Lewis's [Alonzo A. Lewis] Grocery. Do you remember Alonzo Lewis?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah. We dealt . . . that's where Alonzo . . .
see, when . . . we dealt with Alonzo Lewis. That was on
Wilkinson Street, Wilkinson and almost down Wilkinson and, uh, I
forget the name of that little side street down there. And, uh,
he had, I think, two boys or three or two boys, something like
that, Alonzo Lewis. And whenever you'd pay the bill off, well,
he'd always give us . . . well, I always like to go down there
when you paid the bill because he always give us something.
WALLACE: A little treat for the kids?
ELLIS: Treat, yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: So, he'd let people have credit or pay on time?
ELLIS: Right, on credit, yeah.
WALLACE: A lot of people have told me it was important to have
credit.
ELLIS: Right, right.
WALLACE: You had to almost to get . . .
ELLIS: Right, that's right, because people just didn't have
the money, you know.
WALLACE: Triplett's [Eugene P. Triplett] Grocery.
ELLIS: Triplett, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: St. Clair and Mero.
ELLIS: St. Clair and Mero, right.
WALLACE: Nell Sullivan had a grocery, Sullivan's.
ELLIS: Yeah, Sullivan's, un-huh.
WALLACE: Uh, Bryant's, Bob Dreyer.
ELLIS: Yeah. Bob Dreyer.
WALLACE: Most of these were small places, weren't they?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And not . . . not a lot . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Just produce or . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: . . . just odds and ends or something.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: The Kozy Korner.
ELLIS: Kozy Korner [laughing] yeah. Yeah, Kozy Korner, that
was . . . [Laughing] That was down in the Bottom.
WALLACE: Now, why are you laughing when you say Kozy Korner?
ELLIS: That [laughing] Kozy Korner. I hadn't heard that
name for so long, I'd remember it, see.
WALLACE: Was that Will Wren's? Did he run that?
ELLIS: Yeah, Will Wren, Kozy Korner.
WALLACE: Well, was that just a sandwich place or was it a
joint . . .
ELLIS: Well, it was a place where he'd have, you know, like
beer and sell sandwiches or something like that. There were so
many of them durn places down there. Gosh, durn it.
WALLACE: What are some of the other ones you remember?
ELLIS: Let's see. I remember "Tubba" Marshall had a place
over there on the corner. I forget what he called that thing.
And, then, the, uh, he had this place up here called the, uh,
Castleman's place, you know, back there, it was a bar. And I
forget what they call that, but that was real nice.
WALLACE: Haydon's Beer Garden? Is that . . .
ELLIS: That was real nice back there. See, he fixed that .
. . of course, they had money to fix that up, see, and had a
lounge and all right there. It was real nice. And they'd have
people . . . they had this band that was playing there called
the, oh, what did they call that band? Those boy were good and
they'd come in from Lexington. And they'd have a lot of people
come in.
WALLACE: Castleman [William S. Castleman] run that place or .
. .
ELLIS: Will Castleman, Castleman, yeah, Castleman.
WALLACE: Was he running it for some white dude or he . . .
ELLIS: Evidently he must have because, man, that was . . .
that place was fixed up too good.
WALLACE: Too good.
ELLIS: Yeah. And, then, upstairs, there was another place,
see.
WALLACE: Ahh. Was that 99 Club upstairs?
ELLIS: Yeah, upstairs, yeah. That was a nice place, too.
That was nice.
WALLACE: What was that like? Do you remember?
ELLIS: Yeah, I remember, yeah. That was the first time I
ever got drunk. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Was that the 99 . . .
ELLIS: Drinking gin . . . no, vodka, vodka.
WALLACE: Vodka.
ELLIS: Yeah. See, I was in there. Yeah, I didn't know what
vodka was and I just . . . all of the boys drank that. God dang,
man. That stuff hits you . . . hits you later, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Ummm.
WALLACE: Yeah. Do you remember Maggie Knott?
ELLIS: Yeah, sure, Maggie Knott. yeah.
WALLACE: She was involved in cooking for the place.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And Bob . . . her husband, Bob Knott . . .
ELLIS: And Bob Knott. And, see, there's another little old
place down there, a little sandwich shop right next to this
thing. I forget that guy's name, oh, that ran that place. Oh,
gosh, he's the one that, uh, mmm . . . I remember somebody was
talking about he hit them with a big old stick or something.
WALLACE: Oh, Thomas Jefferson.
ELLIS: Yeah, Jefferson.
WALLACE: Yeah, yeah.
ELLIS: That's right, yeah, that's right, yeah, Jefferson.
Had that little old place right there.
WALLACE: Was that right beside Castleman's [William S.
Castleman]. . .
ELLIS: Umhumm, right beside it.
WALLACE: . . . and the pool room?
ELLIS: Yeah, right at it. A little ole bitty place.
Hamburgers, he cooked some good hamburgers in there now.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: I heard that Bixie [Benjamin] Fallis and him got into
. . .
ELLIS: Yeah, that's right. That's who he hit, yeah.
WALLACE: He took a big old shovel and smacked Bixie [Benjamin]
over the head . . .
ELLIS: Right, that's right. That's exactly right. Well,
you're sure getting enough . . . you're sure getting the history
on this thing. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Did you . . . do you know the story behind that
fight?
ELLIS: No, I don't.
WALLACE: Bixie's [Benjamin's] wife was a white girl, and . . .
his first wife. He was married twice.
ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: She was down there and she was supposed to be a woman
of questionable reputation, okay.
ELLIS: Un-huh.
WALLACE: And the story goes that she claimed some blacks
insulted her; made sexual overtures to her or something. She
went home and told Bixie that and he came down there ready to
kick some butts. And that's when they got into it. But the real
story . . . now, I heard this . . . now, there's a black woman 80
years old told me this.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: She said, the white girl was strutting her stuff down
there and saw some black guys and said, "Hey, you niggers want my
white meat." And they said, "No." And she got insulted that she
was rejected by some blacks.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And rushed home and told this lie to Bixie [Benjamin]
and got him to come down there and . . . they said some real
violence nearly got done there and people were going to shoot,
you know, get into a shooting kind of thing. But that's what I
heard on that story.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Do you remember a little laundrymat called the
Suds-n-teria?
ELLIS: Yeah, sure.
WALLACE: Who owned that, do you know?
ELLIS: Mmmm . . .
WALLACE: Was Buckner in on that or . . .
ELLIS: Mmmm, now, let me see, Suds-n-teria. That was right
on Mero Street, too. Suds-n-teria. Yeah. I don't know who
owned that durn thing.
WALLACE: What about "Shineboy's"? Did you ever eat over at
his place?
ELLIS: Yeah, "Shineboy". Yeah, old "Shineboy" was a pretty
good cook.
WALLACE: They said he was a pretty tough customer.
ELLIS: Yeah, he was. Yeah, he liked to play cards, poker.
And he luck . . . he'd luck them guys. Boy, he'd bet that big
money, you know, run them little . . . little guys out of there.
He'd get a big pot up and get a bit pot and he'd come out of
there with $50. And the guys, they ain't going to come around
here, they ain't going to call you.
WALLACE: Let's see. I've got the names of some prominent
black professionals and businessmen. See if any of these ring a
bell with you. Dr. Biggerstaff.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, Biggerstaff. He's dead, Dr. Biggerstaff,
yeah.
WALLACE: He was a dentist or . . .
ELLIS: Dentist, yeah.
WALLACE: When was he practicing? Do you remember when he had
his . . .
ELLIS: Well, I don't know, but I'll tell you one durn thing.
I do know this. When I went there and, uh, let's see. Anyway,
he pulled back there. Boy, he . . . I thought I was dying. Oh,
boy, it hurt. And I had to go back. I think I must have been
one of his first patients when he got in town. And, then, he
kept on and finally got that bone. You know how you break a
tooth off out of there, but, boy, I never did go back no more.
WALLACE: [Laughing] He did you a serious hurt when he got
that tooth.
ELLIS: Yeah. And that's the reason I didn't like dentists.
Oh, boy.
WALLACE: I'll tell you. Do you remember Dr. Darnell? He . .
.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . used to go down and work in the Bottom a lot.
ELLIS: Yeah, Darnell, yeah, yeah, that's right.
WALLACE: The story I heard on him was a poor white guy, uh,
didn't have enough money, you know, to go to a dentist. He had a
bad tooth. And he saw Darnell on the street and said, "I need
this tooth pulled." And Darnell told this guy to go get a pair
of pliers and pulled that tooth right on the street. [Laughter]
I heard that from Goebel McCoy, Goebel, a white guy. What about
Dr. Withers? Do you remember Dr. Withers?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He was a dentist. Dr. Gay.
ELLIS: Dr. Gay, oh, yeah. Dr. Gay . . .
WALLACE: Were all of these physicians practicing about the
same time that . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . Dr. Underwood was?
ELLIS: Yeah, it was. See, you take Dr. . . . one time,
man, there was a lot of black doctors here. Dr. Gay, Dr. . . .
let's see that other one wasn't. I'm trying to think during the
war time that examined, Dr. . . what was his name?
WALLACE: Washington?
ELLIS Washington, yeah, Dr. Washington.
WALLACE: Yeah. I've heard of him. He was during World War
II?
ELLIS: Yeah, World War II, Dr. Washington and Dr.
Biggerstaff were here at the same time. And, then, there's Dr.
[inaudible] was here, see.
WALLACE: I've never heard of him.
ELLIS: Yeah. Dr. [inaudible] see is from Shelbyville. He
come up here and practiced. And there was Dr. uh, Dr. oh, gosh,
what was that fellow's name. He left here. Gosh, what is that,
Dr. . . . had his wife up here. She was up to the college there.
She was on the faculty up there.
WALLACE: Oh, Dr. Holmes, B. T. Holmes.
ELLIS: Well, no, not him, but the other one. They had
another one here that was on the faculty. This guy was good. He
left and went on to Louisville. He had something about a spot on
his lung and he went down there and got cured, and, then, he went
into that . . . like . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: He was a good doctor. I can't think . . . and he's
got a son now that's . . . oh, used [to be]. . . our family
physician.
WALLACE: We did have a large community of physicians here.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Have we ever had many black attorneys here? Do you
remember any of them?
ELLIS: I only remember one, but Charles Hanson didn't stay
here that long. Charles Hanson, uh, his father was a dentist
here.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And Charles Hanson was the first black legislator in
the . . . in the Kentucky . . .
WALLACE: General Assembly.
ELLIS: . . . General Assembly, yeah.
WALLACE: And he practiced briefly here in Frankfort?
ELLIS: I don't know if he practiced. I don't think he did.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: I'm not sure. I can't be sure of that.
WALLACE: Let me . . . I've got some other names here. This is
a white guy, George Taylor. Do you rem- . . .
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, George, yeah, I know George Taylor well.
WALLACE: He owned a liquor store, right?
ELLIS: A liquor store.
WALLACE: Or the whiskey store.
ELLIS: Yeah. And his son is out there now, you know,
Taylor's Liquor Store. He runs that out there on, uh, East
Frankfort now.
WALLACE: Well, the story I heard is that Charlie Duvall set
George up.
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: And got . . . got him launched in the whiskey
business.
ELLIS: That's right, that's right.
WALLACE: And, then, George would, uh . . . or not George, but
Charlie would provide the beer and the pop and the liquor for all
of the joints down there, I guess.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Is that pretty much accurate to your remembrance?
ELLIS: Well, I don't know about all of that, they providing
all of that for the joints. Evidently I would say . . .
[End of Tape #2, Side #1]
[Begin Tape #2, Side #2]
WALLACE: . . . someone was running an operation that was owned
by Taylor/Duvall at one point.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And, you see, I don't . . . to me, most of these
people are dead and gone.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: I mean, there's nothing sensitive about it, to me.
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: But I've had people . . . do you remember Estill
Smith?
ELLIS: Estill Smith?
WALLACE: Yeah, a white guy.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, Estill, sure.
WALLACE: I called him to talk to him and he said, this is
history, I don't want to talk about it.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: So, a lot . . . they're probably . . .
ELLIS: I think Estill Smith worked for . . . worked for one
of them, if I'm not mistaken.
WALLACE: I think Estill ran the Peachtree.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: For a while.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: He bought it or had the liquor license. Thomas
Spalding had it before him.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: But, uh, for some reason . . . you know, there must
have been pay-offs and things like that going on.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: But I'm really not interested in getting at that . .
.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . because that's . . . I don't want to put people
on the spot. Do you remember Antonio Papa, the ice cream man?
ELLIS: Ice cream man? Are you kidding? You better believe
it. Yeah, bought a nickel cone, oh, boy. He lived right on . .
. he lived on Mero right next to Dr. Underwood.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: They said he used to have a push cart he . . .
ELLIS: He had a push cart first, and next he got the . . .
WALLACE: Horse and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: And a lot of people speak very highly of Antonio
Papa. They said there was another Italian guy down there with
ice cream, too, but I've never heard his name. Do you have any
remembrances?
ELLIS: No, I don't.
WALLACE: What about Thomas "Black Cat" Graham? That's a name
I've heard . . . or I talked . . .
ELLIS: [Laughing] Yeah.
WALLACE: His son, I talked to Jimmy, and Paul is looking after
Anne and she is not in good shape right now.
ELLIS: Yeah. I know she isn't.
WALLACE: But Jimmy came out and said, "Well, I guess you'd
have to call dad a hustler. He was a hustler." [Laughter -
Ellis] But they said he could pitch baseball . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, he played baseball, yeah, oh, yeah.
WALLACE: He played in . . . for the Frankfort Merchants, I
think was the name of that team.
ELLIS: Yeah, he played for Frankfort Merchants. They was a
hard ball team.
WALLACE: Yeah. Mike Deakins. Do you rem- . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, Mike Deakins, yeah.
WALLACE: Now, he owned the whiskey store . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . before Taylor or Duvall or the other guys.
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: Alex Gordon.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, Alex Gordon, yeah.
WALLACE: Do you remember . . .
ELLIS: He was a big old fellow. [Laughing] Yeah, I know
all of them people. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Was he a violent man? Was Alex . . .
ELLIS: Not . . . not . . . I wouldn't say he was a violent
man. You know, anybody that wants to take their property, they
get a little violent, you know.
WALLACE: Well, he started out, somebody told me, as a grocery
store operator.
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: And, then, eventually wound up having a sort of a
joint or a saloon kind of operation.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Uh, his . . . his daughter is still around here,
Patsy Harp, Patsy Harp.
ELLIS: I don't remember his daughter.
WALLACE: Did, uh, let me switch over here. We've talked about
. . . Charles Chiles, "Corn Puddin'" Chiles.
ELLIS: Yeah. He was a barber.
WALLACE: A mischievous barber from what I've been told.
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing] He was a good barber all right.
WALLACE: And we talked a little about Jack Robb.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: An entertainer . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and a leader. I think people . . . people
would say he was a leader of the black community, wouldn't you
say?
ELLIS: Yeah. Yeah. Jack was all right, yeah. Jack
organized the Grad Club. So, I'm a charter member of the Grad
Club. He organized us. We have our own clubhouse out here on
the . . . out here on . . . well, it's off of Holmes Street.
What do you call that street up there? I forget now.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Have a nice clubhouse. Two-story brick building,
already paid for and everything.
WALLACE: They said the Grad Club has done a lot of good over
the years.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: A whole lot of good, buying athletic equipment and .
. .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . now scholarships and . . .
ELLIS: I was . . . I was . . . I was primarily serving down
there when Gus Johnson had it, at the ballgames. We'd work them
ballgames on the door. And Ms. . . . as I said, Ms. Louella
Johnson, the lady I told you about, her son played basketball and
he was very good. She'd get up there and she'd [yell] . . .
"Shoot it! Shoot. Shoot. Shoot, and get up there." So,
finally, we just gave her a lifetime pass to the ballgames. She
was so . . . she'd sit up in the crowds and we'd hear her say,
"Shoot! Shoot!"
WALLACE: Yeah. [Laughter]
ELLIS: Every time he'd get the ball, she wanted him to
shoot it. [Laughter] Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: They said "Tubba" Marshall used to go and take a big
cow bell.
ELLIS: Yeah, that's right.
WALLACE: Beat that cow bell.
ELLIS: Cow bell, right.
WALLACE: But he was supposed to officiate, be a pretty [good]
. . . college officiate . . .
ELLIS: Well, he did, yeah, he did up there on the hill.
WALLACE: Said he was a big fan.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Uh, let me see. Earl Tracy.
ELLIS: Earl Tracy, yeah. Yeah, I know Earl. Earl . . .
Earl . . . Earl was a fellow that . . . well, I don't know, come
to think about it. Earl, wasn't nobody paying much attention to
Earl. See, Earl was kind of a . . . oh, I don't know. I don't
know how you'd explain it, how you'd put it there. But he never
did do too much work in the community and things like that.
WALLACE: He had his own cab company, if I remember right.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: And, uh, may have been active a little bit
politically. I don't know if he really was that active. One of
the things that is an interest to me about you is that you are .
. . you know all of these politically important people. I mean,
senators and . . .
ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: How . . . I mean, how did you get connected with all
of those, just . . .
ELLIS: Well, well, Senator Cooper has got connected to my
aunt, see. She worked at the Shacklefords, Shacklefords. And
Cooper tried to go with Shackleford's daughter. That's the way
that came about.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: So, he was always [at] the house courting . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and got to know you.
ELLIS: Yeah. That's right. Yeah, that's the way that came
about. And he, uh, I know when my son . . . well, you know, back
there, you had to apply for a scholarship, which wasn't but
$2,000. And you had to put up a house [laughing] and had to get
your insurance and . . . if you pay it back, for each year you
pay back, you don't have to serve in that community, you know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: That's a new rule on scholarships.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: So, when he wanted to go into surgery, I told him, I
said, "Son, look," I said, "You can't" . . . I said, "When you're
. . . going in", I said "you can't fail or flunk because we
haven't got the money to put you back in school." He said, "Dad,
I'm not." And, so, he studied hard and came out and, then, he
said he wanted to go into general surgery. I said, "That's five
more years." And, so, I said, "Okay, if that's what you want,
we'll try to help you." You know, they don't give you much when
you're in general surgery.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: So, in the meantime, when he was down there this way,
he said all of these girls go down to meet these doctors and
marry them. So, that's where he met his wife.
WALLACE: Wife.
ELLIS: And, uh, married. And, uh, when he got out of, uh,
got out of the . . . he had to go down there to St. Louis and do
his intern work in that general hospital, and, boy, he learned
how to [inaudible] [laughing] because, man, they was coming in
every . . . yeah, the police was bringing them in there, you know
. . .
WALLACE: Shot up and cut up?
ELLIS: Yeah. So, he paid that. So . . . in fact, I got him
a car. I paid $150 for a durn car and it cost . . . and Pete
Flynn's and them had a garage next door. And doggone it, it cost
me $250 trying to get this thing fixed up so he took it to St.
Louis with him. So, when he . . . when he was getting ready . .
. when he got ready . . . after he went from there, the Army was
going to get him for two years. So, he wanted me to come and get
that thing. So, I took a boy down with me. We had these vice
grips on the durn thing . . .
WALLACE: To drive it. [Laughing]
ELLIS: Steer it back, you know. Vice grips. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: So, got that thing, I'm telling you. The police
tickled me down there. They said, "What is that?" I said,
"That's my vice grips" [laughing], and he said, "Well, wait a
minute," you know. He said, "I've got a friend." He went and
called this guy and this guy was a mechanic. He came down there
and set that thing up with some kind of a . . . said, "Now, this
. . . now, it . . . now, it won't stop on you no more. We've set
it up now." Said, "I won't charge you nothing." And, so,
brought that thing on back here to Frankfort. But, then, he went
on from there to five years of residency and came out. So, he's
doing all right now. He's teaching surgery . . .
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: . . . in the University of Minnesota and he also . .
. he has a clinic down there and he's . . . the governor
appointed him on that, uh . . . oh, I forget what you call that
board that oversees all of the surgeons, you know.
WALLACE: Sort of like a licensing board or a review board or
something like that.
ELLIS: Yeah. He's chairman of that now. Yeah. So, . . .
WALLACE: Do you feel like when you all left the Bottom and
moved to this area that . . . that you all did any better
economically or that there was anything positive that came out of
leaving the Bottom and moving to a different area?
ELLIS: No. The onliest thing [laughing] . . . the onliest
thing I miss from the Bottom, just like you said, the closeness.
These people over here, one guy over here is unfriendly. My
goodness. I'm telling you. I don't care if you're coming . . .
if you're coming . . . if you're coming in your house at twelve
o'clock, you'll see somebody peeping out the shades, you know,
and, uh, like that. And it wasn't that way over in the Bottom.
You'd come in any time you wanted to. And they'd watch out for
you. It's just a matter of . . . well, you can see over here how
they've broken out . . . well, they've fixed it up now over here
next door . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . like broken windows down here. Yeah. But, uh
. . .
WALLACE: A lot of people have told me that some of the things
that are happening over here, violence and gambling on the
streets, would never have been permitted in the Bottom.
ELLIS: That's true, never was, no, sir. And, now, when
you're talking about "Black Cat", those fellows, when you come
down . . . you see a lady walking down that street, man, shoot,
they get out of the way.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Down here, you've got to be down on the street up
here. They ain't going to move, no, siree.
WALLACE: Yeah. I know. I've heard. I'm not looking forward
to going, [laughing] but let me run a few names of joints by you
and see if you have any . . . I think my guess is you probably
didn't have any contact with these places. But, the Blue Moon.
ELLIS: The Blue Moon was across the street. No, that was a
white joint over there and I never did go in there.
WALLACE: Sky Blue.
ELLIS: Yeah, Sky Blue, no.
WALLACE: Peachtree.
ELLIS: Yeah. That's . . . the Peachtree [laughing] I know.
I've heard of them. I mean, I know where they were.
WALLACE: But blacks didn't really frequence those places?
ELLIS: No, they didn't . . .
WALLACE: Tiptoe Inn.
ELLIS: Yeah, Tiptoe Inn.
WALLACE: Les Humphrey, I think, had it.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Uh, the Stagg Bar. That's an old, old place.
ELLIS: Well, I don't know nothing about that, Stagg Bar.
WALLACE: Forrest Moore's Liquor Store.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, Forrest Moore, yeah. That was up there on
Broadway.
WALLACE: Yeah. Now, he catered to both black and white.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah. Well, what he had in the back, the blacks
would go back there, and the front, you know, because this boy
named Henry Mack worked for Forrest Moore for a long time, come
in and go to school and never did finish. And, finally, he went
on back and finished college up here and got his degree.
WALLACE: Umhumm. I'm trying to track Henry down. If you ever
see him, I'd like . . . he was one of the names given to me as
somebody I ought to.
ELLIS: Un-huh, yeah.
WALLACE: And he's a hard . . . I've tried to get him a lot.
We've talked about most of, uh . . . well, there's a few black
places. Silver Slipper.
ELLIS: Yeah, Silver Slipper, yeah.
WALLACE: Where was that, do you remember?
ELLIS: Yeah. I'm trying to . . . I'm trying to place that
Silver Slipper. I know . . it gets me all right. Now, you're
talking about somebody that can remember a lot of that stuff.
Henry Mack probably could because he worked more . . . he's got a
good, good, good, good memory.
WALLACE: Yeah. What about the White Spot? Does that strike
you as a . . . the Playhouse Inn.
ELLIS: No.
WALLACE: That was . . . now, Henry Ellis . . . I thought they
were kin to you all, Henry and Margaret. But, uh . . .
ELLIS: No, they're a different Ellis.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: They come from Shelbyville.
WALLACE: Uh, some of the owners of these places had really
char- . . . sort of colorful names. "Twenty Grand".
ELLIS: "Twenty Grand", yeah.
WALLACE: Did you ever talk to him or have any dealing with
"Twenty Grand"?
ELLIS: No. I remember "Twenty Grand". No.
WALLACE: His real name was Harvey Sarven.
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Harvey and Grace Sarven.
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing]
WALLACE: His wife used to smoke cigars.
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Tell me about John Fallis. We talked a little bit,
but the tape wasn't on. Do you . . . do you remember meeting him
or talking to him?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: What did he look like, what . . .
ELLIS: Well, John was a tall fellow and, uh, . . . I thought
he was a very nice fellow, very nice. He always did respect . .
. now, you're talking about somebody out walking down the street.
Them people wouldn't be out here gambling when the women come
down. No, siree. He'd tell them in a minute. And, see, John .
. . of course, John was a bootlegger, and, uh, pop bottles. You
know, we'd try to give pop bottles . . . kids because he'd give
us nickels for them bottles, see. And that's what he'd pour his
whiskey in, see, and sell that whiskey . . .
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: . . . see, in them bottles, see, for a dollar a
bottle, you know.
WALLACE: You told me a story one time when he . . . some
people were threatening you or something and he looked out after
you all kids? What was the story?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah. Well, what we had done, we was playing on
the street and some guys come down from uptown. They was
probably half drunk. "God damn it, get out of the way, boys",
and raised that foot to kick and John Fallis said . . . had a
pearl handle pistol. I remember looking right at it, looking at
the barrel of it. See, I scooted on out of the way. He said,
"You kick them and you'll be laying there." "Oh, Mr. . . .
Charlie, I didn't mean no harm." He said, "Get on back uptown,
don't want to see you down here." And them guys, I mean, they
hauled, bunk, right on out of there. He was just like that.
Yeah.
WALLACE: Was there any black person that was sort of the
equivalent of John Fallis, a man that everybody sort of feared
and respected? Was there anyone that fell into that category?
ELLIS: Well, Jeff Alexander was the man that . . . that. . .
that nobody messed with. He was quiet, packed that .45 and he
didn't say much to nobody, just like that. And nobody was going
to bother . . . what I liked about the times, nobody bothered no
children down there or nothing like that. You'd see somebody
coming in and want to swing on something, kids or something, he'd
come, no, you don't do that.
WALLACE: Was viol- . . . was Bottom a violent place? You make
it sound like there was a lot of violence. Did you ever witness
any acts . . .
ELLIS: Didn't I just say the black children down there once
a week. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Did you ever see any acts of violence yourself, sir?
I mean, witness . . .
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, I've seen . . . I've seen some fights, fist
fights.
WALLACE: But no shooting or knifing . . .
ELLIS: No shooting, but they . . . no, but, then, maybe
you'd hear of somebody getting shot, you know, like that, see.
I've been on . . . driving, like I told you, I drove . . . with
the doctor to the hospital with "Pigum" when he got shot. I
wasn't . . . I wasn't . . . I was pushing on that gas going
through. I didn't know because somebody told me it was Castleman
[William S. Castleman]. And I said, "No, I don't believe that."
I said, . . . and I saw Castleman [William S. Castleman] standing
up there, and, boy, I shot through there, man. [Laughter -
Wallace] Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: But I've also heard that Bottom, on a Saturday night,
was the place to go.
ELLIS: Yeah. Oh, there was everything going on on Saturday
night. I mean, it'd just be full. Every place down there would
be . . . some would be jumping. The American Legion upstairs,
we'd have a dance going and down in the other part. That's where
we had . . . you know. You'd have a . . . yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: If you could . . .
ELLIS: Nothing like . . . nothing like now, see. But, see,
people . . . they wanted to have a good times without fighting.
[Laughing]
WALLACE: Without the violence.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Umhumm. I've heard that you could . . . you could
drive down the street there at, say, like Clinton and Washington,
the intersection, and hear the music coming out from the places .
. .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . without ever having to go inside.
ELLIS: That's right, right.
WALLACE: After you'd get past . . .
ELLIS: The House Rockers, that's who I was telling you that
about used to play down at the Garden, you know . . .
WALLACE: Yeah, House Rockers.
ELLIS: The House Rockers. Boy, they were good, too. Young
boys.
WALLACE: Yeah. When was this, in the fifties [1950's] or . .
.
ELLIS: It must have been around that time. They were good.
They come here from Lexington. Now, they were good. Oh, they
were good. And I'll tell you another thing. Back there was
Summer Girl. I don't know if you ever heard about Summer Girl .
. .
WALLACE: No.
ELLIS: That was a boat they had here, and that Summer Girl
used to go up all the time, see. And people would come and hire
Summer Girl from Lexington and come here. And, uh, I remember
when Lexington come here with what they call . . . what they call
a Shoe-Shine Picnic every year.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And they'd bring a band and they'd . . . Homer Duncan
used to have a picnic out there and it'd wind up and, then,
they'd go up on . . . on Summer Girl boat. Ah, that was a big
time. [Laughing]
WALLACE: Was that blacks and whites or all black shoe- . . .
ELLIS: All blacks.
WALLACE: All black.
ELLIS: Shoe-Shine Picnic, they called it.
WALLACE: A Shoe-Shine Pic- . . .
ELLIS: Shoe- . . . Shoe-Shine Picnic, yeah.
WALLACE: Shoe . . .
ELLIS: From Lexington there. People around there. That was
a big time then. They had bands there in the Bottom. Boy, we'd
go in . . .
WALLACE: Was that a yearly thing, happened every summer?
ELLIS: Every year, every year.
WALLACE: Well, who got it up? Was it Lexington?
ELLIS: I don't know . . . Lexington, Lexington, see. That
was . . . Shoe-Shine. It's a big club up there, see, that they
have. And, see, oh, pit here at Hoge-Montgomery, we had a big
ballpark out there. And one time, the, uh, New York Giants and I
forget who else played out there. I took some pictures that
time, and, uh, I was came . . . coming back, and I remember
[A.B.] Happy Chandler stopping his car there; a state police car
in the front and he stopped his car and said, "Son, where are you
going?" I said, "I'm going to town." He said, "Well, get in
here." He said, "Where do you get off?" I said, "I get off
right down here at Tiger Inn." I wanted to get off there because
everybody was standing out there, see.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: And just let me out. I said, "Thank you, Governor,
thank you a whole lot, man, thank you. [Laughter - Wallace]
"This guy said, "You know the Governor?" [I said,] "Yeah, man, I
know the Governor, what's wrong with you?" [Laughter - Wallace]
And they couldn't dispute me, see, 'cause I'd done got out of his
car. [Laughter] Yeah. Oh, boy. [Laughter] With girls, I was all
right.
WALLACE: When those guys came to play, was "Happy" still
governor then or, uh . . .
ELLIS: No, "Happy" . . .
WALLACE: . . . maybe he was Baseball Commissioner.
ELLIS: No, Happy . . . "Happy" was the governor then.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, that would have been '55 [1955] to '59
[1959] . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . his second term.
ELLIS: Yeah. I took a picture of it. I have some pictures
around here somewhere. I don't where they are now with some of
the Giant players coming out, you know.
WALLACE: Yeah. That was a slick trick on your part.
[Laughing]
ELLIS: Yeah, boy, I'm telling you, now, shoot, I . . .
WALLACE: Let me . . . I . . . I keep dragging on and on, but I
do have . . . do you remember Anne Graham?
ELLIS: Oh, yeah.
WALLACE: Seamstress.
ELLIS: Anne Graham, yeah, yeah. That's Paul's mother.
WALLACE: Yeah. She was supposed to have worked at the Kathryn
Shoppe for . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah . . .
WALLACE: . . . ever, I guess.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Ladies would go to her to get the dresses, white and
black . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah . . .
WALLACE: Supposed to be able to sew . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, she could, yeah.
WALLACE: What about Mamma Bryant?
ELLIS: Mamma Bryant. Now, wait a minute, Mamma Bryant, Mama
Bryant. I . . . I know Mamma Bryant. I just can't place them
right now; Mamma Bryant, Bryant.
WALLACE: Raised Anna . . . Annie Mae McClain. Supposed to be
a cook, was a fabulous cook.
ELLIS: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Chicken was her speciality.
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: You could . . . you could confirm something for me.
They say that used to be they'd have festivals. They'd hang a
light off the front porch and if . . . if a woman had cooked up
extra and she wanted to sell it, you'd go to the house and you
could . . . is that right?
ELLIS: That's right. Ms. Twymine and them had a place, a
little place, right on Mero Street, just a little place. And
they used to make, oh, what do you call it, souse, souse, souse,
souse sandwich; and, boy, they could really cook up a storm. And
I remember going over there sometime. I'd . . . I'd save up my
money just to get a souse sandwich. [Laughing] She sometimes .
. . during when I was coming up, why, I had a wagon and I'd go
haul ice, you know. People would pay me. I'd go to the ice
plant down there.
WALLACE: Fred Sutterlin's ice plant?
ELLIS: Fred Sutterlin's, yeah, and they'd pay, you know, a
dime and get something like that. And, boy, back then, a nickel
and dime, that's a lot of money, see, yeah; because I remember
when, uh, when I first started . . . when I . . . when I was
making $7 a week sometimes . . . and Fincel's [Fincel Brothers
Meat Market] had a meat market down in the Bottom, and we could
get a big roast down there for about $.25, and I'd get a nickel's
worth of potatoes and a nickel loaf of bread.
WALLACE: That was John Fincel's place, wasn't it?
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, shoot. And they had a big place uptown,
you know, where they had something. But they had one down there,
too . . .
WALLACE: In . . . in the Bottom.
ELLIS: . . . in the Bottom, yeah.
WALLACE: Where was that place in the Bottom, do you . . .
ELLIS: That was right off of, uh, that was right off of, uh,
let's see. That was off Mero.
WALLACE: Okay.
ELLIS: Yeah, coming right on down like coming around to my
house, yeah.
WALLACE: What about Ida Howard? Do you remember Ida Howard, a
white gal?
ELLIS: That name sounds familiar, but I . . . I . . . I
can't place it.
WALLACE: Maggie Harris.
ELLIS: Yeah, Maggie Harris, yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: Yeah. I guess a woman of somewhat questionable . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . reputation.
ELLIS: Yeah, Maggie, yeah.
WALLACE: The Eight Mile House.
ELLIS: Eight Mile, I've heard of that.
WALLACE: Yeah. Uh, let's see. Eva Cox we talked a little bit
about. Anna Mae Blackwell, a white gal, friend of John Fallis's.
ELLIS: Umm, I don't . . . I can't place her.
WALLACE: Julia Miles.
ELLIS: Julia Miles, sure. They lived right across the
street. That Willie Miles was her husband. I was talking about
bringing that bicycle out.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: That was her husband.
WALLACE: The story I heard on Julia was that she was very
articulate and the city had taken . . . used to have a dump,
didn't they, right down by the river?
ELLIS: Umhumm.
WALLACE: And they took the dump out and they were going to put
it back in, and Julia got up at some hearing and said, "You know,
we're coming into your house, cooking and cleaning, and you want
us to come in here cleaning and you're going to put this dump
back in our backyards again." And she really argued against it.
ELLIS: Well, I'll tell you about the dump. Okay. I was
involved in that again. I got a petition up and, uh, what's his
name was a fireman, captain of the fire department. He got a
petition up. I got 600 on my petition signed and he got around
about 600. We came before the City Commissioner and presented
our petitions to them. And they acted like they didn't want to
do anything. So, I said, "Okay." So, we took it to court on
them.
WALLACE: Ahh.
ELLIS: We took it to court. That's the way we got them
whooped out, that dump got away from down there.
WALLACE: Ahh. So, that's how the dump got moved out?
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: You took them . . .
ELLIS: Right.
WALLACE: Do you remember which judge heard your case? Was it
Meigs or . .
ELLIS: No, it was, uh, oh, wait a minute, oh, gosh, what's
that guy's name, darn it, shoot. I can't think of that bird's
name. But, anyway, [laughing] we had a good argument. I told
them . . . I told them on that stand, I said, "Well, you can take
my rifle down there and stand up there and shoot them big old
rats running around there and shoot them." I said, "Now, we
don't have to listen to this stuff." The County Court [Day] was
bad enough when they got them moved away from down there. See,
the County Court [Day] used to be down there. Bring them horses
and manure all in front of your house and all of that stuff. We
finally got them whooped away from there. My aunt . . . my aunt
was the one in that because I was too small for that.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: But they finally got the County Court [Day] moved
away from there.
WALLACE: Yeah. One lady told me she remembers them driving
herds of cattle and pigs and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, all of that stuff.
WALLACE: Right down Wilkinson Street.
ELLIS: That's right.
WALLACE: And, uh, . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Like you said leave the droppings everywhere.
ELLIS: Right, right.
WALLACE: Cause all kinds of problems.
ELLIS: Boy, I'm telling you, if you only know. [Laughing]
At nighttime, you'd have to cover it up.
WALLACE: Because of that smell coming up . . .
ELLIS: Oh, boy, yeah. If it wasn't that smell, it was the
distillery smell, that old sour mash.
WALLACE: Mash coming in.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Well, see, and that's the thing that . . . I haven't
heard where there were many black distillery workers or workers
at the hemp factory; that those jobs were pretty much closed to
blacks early on.
ELLIS: No. That's wrong. My uncle . . . my uncle was one
of the straw bosses down at it. He worked at . . . he worked at,
uh . . . well, no, he worked at Old Taylors. Now, I don't mean
Old Taylors . . . yeah, it's Old Taylor, out here in . . . where
. . . you know, Millville, out that way.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: Yeah. He worked . . . all . . . all of my people
worked there. I mean, my . . . on . . . on my mother's side.
WALLACE: Blacks did work at the distillery.
ELLIS: On my mother's side, right, and had good jobs.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: Because he was a, uh, he was a, uh, what do you call
it, chief taster or something. I don't know.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And, then, when they left . . . then . . . then he
left there and when that closed down, they hired him down to, uh,
Schenley.
WALLACE: Umhumm.
ELLIS: And that's where he . . . yeah.
WALLACE: I'm glad you corrected that because I've been led to
believe that the factory work and work at distilleries and the
hemp plant was sort of closed to blacks.
ELLIS: Uh-uh.
WALLACE: But that's not the case. What about Dorothy Wright?
Do you remember Dorothy Wright?
ELLIS: Yeah. I do remember Dorothy Wright. Let's see, now,
Dorothy Wright, yeah. She was married to, uh, to, uh . . . she
died. She was married to, uh, oh, that Wright boy, he remarried
over again.
WALLACE: Louise Evans. She's a gal who has left the
community. I don't think of them has seen her. Bessie Anderson.
ELLIS: Oh, Bessie Anderson, yeah. Well, Bessie Anderson,
yeah. She's . . . she's dead now.
WALLACE: Yeah. Nannie Oliver. The story about Little Willie
Oliver.
ELLIS: Oh, Little Willie, [laughing] yeah.
WALLACE: Had to take Little Willie to the workhouse. I guess
Nannie was bootlegging or something down there . . .
ELLIS: Yeah. [Laughing]
WALLACE: . . . and got caught. And that's another thing that
. . . bootlegging, apparently, was a way to make good money.
ELLIS: Well, it was, I'll tell you. And I'll tell you
something else about that. The time that I remember when they
raided down . . . down here and Robert Chiles, I believe it was,
oh, I forget this woman's name. He had on . . . he had this big
old thing on a cart, pulling a wagon down the street, and he had
the whiskey on his wagon and his dad was up there trying to find
[him] and here he was pulling it down the street. [Laughter -
Wallace] And somebody [said], uh, "Get away from here, man."
Anybody pulling it up . . . [laughter] passing right by there.
[Laughter]
WALLACE: And he was pulling the whiskey wagon . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah.
WALLACE: . . . with his youngest child?
ELLIS: Yeah, a young child. We was all young down there.
We was out there [saying], "Hey, man, what are you doing, what
have you got there?" "Get away, man". [Laughter]
WALLACE: Hauling the evidence away while the police . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, hauling the evidence away. And they never did
hear of him. I'll tell you who it was. Who was that, that
man . . . what was that woman's name? Gosh, durn, I can't think
of that name, man. But, anyway, she was the one he got . . .
said, "I'm getting paid for this" . . . [Laughter] I said, "If
that man catches you, you're going to get paid." [Laughing]
WALLACE: Yeah. "Pap" . . . "Pap" Samuels, uh, Alice Samuels'
daddy.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Apparently he did . . . he did a little bootlegging
himself and got caught. And one of his little children or
grandchildren said, when are you coming back. They were hauling
him out.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: [Samuels] Said, "I'll be back in the spring when the
roses bloom." [Laughter - Ellis]
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: He was going to do 60 days, I guess, or something.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: But, uh, one of the gals I talked to said that, uh,
the police knew that they were bootlegging. I mean . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . whites would come down, she said, to her house
and they'd buy . . . she'd have sandwiches . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . and home brew for them, and . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: During prohibition and . . .
ELLIS: Well, the thing is the city police . . . but . . .
but the ABC guy . . . I mean, not the ABC, but the . . . what do
you call them guys when . . .
WALLACE: The Revenuers?
ELLIS: Revenue guys, yeah, come there. But I notice . . .
you may have noticed there was a tree up there on Washington
Street and they had a picture of that tree where a guy was
bootlegging out of the tree. Selling . . . out of a tree.
WALLACE: No. I hadn't . . . [Laughter]
ELLIS: Yeah. I forget who that was down there.
WALLACE: You mean, he kept his stash inside . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, in that tree, yes, selling out of the tree.
They never did get him. [Laughing - Wallace]
WALLACE: The thing I sort of like about it is people don't . .
. didn't seem to pass judgment on you if you were involved in
something that might be . . . well, like a woman was making money
. . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . maybe, they didn't seem to judge you . . .
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: . . . for that.
ELLIS: Well, you know, they tell a story . . . this ain't no
story, though, this is the truth. You know, right up there on
Washington Street and people coming down there and going up to
the church and have to stop there. And these . . . these . . .
these guys, the bootleggers, they'd run out there . . .
[Laughter]
WALLACE: Oh, sold their whiskey.
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: On their way to church? [Laughter]
ELLIS: So, man, that's the way . . . that's the way . . .
that's the way it got raided one Sunday. And I heard about the
raid, see. So, I closed that American Legion because we wasn't .
. . we wasn't selling no whiskey, but . . . but, anyway, selling
beer on Sunday is against the law. So, I closed up and "Tubba",
he saw me come out of there and he closed up. So, he said it
wasn't but about five minutes and I got home, man, here come,
shew. Boy, they, revenue guys, police was raiding all around
there in the Bottom.
WALLACE: I heard that Henry Mack . . . this may be the same
raid. They was up on the second floor and they was gambling, and
the police surrounded the place and they were letting five guys
come down at a time. And, uh, it may have been . . . it may have
been Sam Parker slipped out a side door into the pool room and
grabbed a pool cue and was pretending like he was playing pool
[laughter] and they ran in there and grabbed him and drug . . .
drug him out. [Laughter] But was . . . was there that much
gambling going on down there?
ELLIS: Well, there was petty gambling, you know, and
dollars, nickels, dimes. It wasn't nothing . . .
WALLACE: No big stakes.
ELLIS: Tell you about Sam Parker, you know. Sam drinks.
So, one time, Sam was going up the hill and . . . and . . . and
the police put the light on Sam and stopped him. Sam got out of
the car, walked on back and opened the police door and got in the
police car before he could say a thing to him. [Laughter]
WALLACE: Just got in the cruiser with him. [Laughter]
ELLIS: Sam said they knew he'd been drinking, so, heck fire.
But, boy, they told me . . . see, I belong to the Fraternal Order
of Police, see. [Laughter] I was . . . when it first started
off, we had what we called the auxiliary police force here and I
was on that. There was about 15 of us, and we trained and, oh,
we trained and trained. And Marvin Rutledge, he was the chief.
He was a former state police. Well, I can show you a picture
here. Let me see here. So, [laughing] . . . and when I get up,
I have to get that leg, get a little . . .
WALLACE: Yeah. I stand myself. My back gets down if I sit
too long.
ELLIS: Yeah. I think I got that picture right here. I'll
show it to you here. I was on there for, oh, I guess, about 25
or 30 years.
WALLACE: Where are you? That . . .
ELLIS: Right there.
WALLACE: You were a . . . a Frankfort . . . what does it say
on the patch there, the Frankfort Auxiliary Police.
ELLIS: Well, that started off auxiliary and, then, went on
into the county force.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah. I was Sergeant on that there, and, then, I
finished up I was . . . I finished up on the . . . Captain on the
auxiliary . . . I mean, on the county force.
WALLACE: Who is the other black gentleman there in the . . .
ELLIS: We don't have no other black one on there.
WALLACE: That fellow there. Oh, is he a white guy?
ELLIS: Yeah.
WALLACE: Oh, he looked dark. I couldn't . . .
ELLIS: All of them is white.
WALLACE: You were the only black man . . .
ELLIS: Yeah, yeah, I was the onliest one on there. Well,
that's not all of us, see. No, that was just . . . we . . .
that's just . . . you know, we was up there when took that
picture, see. The rest of them hadn't gotten there yet.
WALLACE: Ahh, okay.
ELLIS: Yeah. So, we had . . . we had a good outfit. And
all the main thing about it . . . every time that we'd get a
city, see, they'd want to switch our uniforms and we switched
some of theirs because we didn't want to be botched because some
of them city boys wasn't right then.
WALLACE: Yeah.
ELLIS: That's what we heard, see. And, so, we didn't want
to be associated with those guys.
WALLACE: Well, some of the . . . and this is like people like
Wilhelm and Haydon and some of those fellows were rough. I mean,
. . .
[End of Interview]
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