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Allt, _COPY WITH THE mum COMMITTER
Forms to be Filled out for Each Interview FOLKLORE
tled aftle-C-41
NEW YORK
FORM A
Circumstances of Interview
STATE New York
NAM OF WORKER Clerance Weinstock Ralph Ellison
ADDRESS 110 King Street
DATE May 1, 1939
SUBJECT My People Made The Truckin Business
1. Date and of _mterview
2. Place of interview
Harlem Labor Center, 125 Street, N.Y.C.
3. Name and address of informant
A heavy -set Negro man of light complexion. Appearently in his
late forties.
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in
touch with informant.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanyinL you
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Labor hiring room. Benches, chairs, Posters: "Black and White Unite."
Bunch of bananas with caption, "Stay In Your own bunch, Or You'll get
Skinned". Card tables. A row of large windows looking down upon
streets below, alive with cars, street oars and people.
(Use as many additional sheets as necessary, for any of the forms, each
bearing the proper heading and the number to which the material refers.)
FORM C
Text of Interview (Unedited)
STATE New York
NAB E OF WORKER Clerance Weinstock Ralph Ellison
ADDRESS 110 King Street
DATE May 1, 1939
SUBJECT My People Made The Truckin Business
a.
FOLKLORE
NEW YORK
My people made the trucking business. You see all these
companies around here? We made em. We even built the buildings.
Some of the fellows whats big shots now, used to go round with
wheel barrows. Now they got trucks; they're big shots. We helped
em get where they are and now they dont want to look at us anymore.
They dont want you. Its the same thing everywhere. Now take the
worlds fair. They had us draining and fillin-in out there, working
in all that filth. They got us when they wanted to get it ready
and now the dirty work's done, let me see you go out there and get
something. Let me see you:
Same thing, all over. Just take the truckin business. Ifs
a handler. I've been in this business since 1898. Our people made
that business; made them warehouses. N when they got it made they
didnt wont us. Its just like a man makin steps. You make the business
and ask for a raise. Well, they got to pay you. Thats two steps.
Then things go long n you got to get a union. Thats the third step.
A nd right there's the step they kill you on. Now theyd rather give
2.
the work to somebody else. They dont want to pay you that good money.
N aint much you can do about it. You see that picture up there in
the wall? "Black and "White Unite". Them hands is clasped together
in the picture, but here its wide apart. Always squabbling. Caint get
together. Thats really the way it is.
I been in this business forty-one years. Sometimes I get
tired and leave it n get me a family. But dam it: I was tellin my
wife the other day, the last time I did it I believe it changed my
luck, Folks connected with this dam Oxford movement. Just a lot of
dam talk. Its just like you sittin here talkin to me; just a lot
of questions. Made me so tired I quit the job. She was always askin
me questions. Always wanted to know my business, Made me tired as
hell. But I finally go so I could talk to em like I wanted to n I
told her it was just a lot of noise. The Oxford movement, hell!
She asked me all my business, just everything, trying to get in my
business. Talking bout the Oxford movement. Just trying to get in my
business; thats all. So I said 'You ask me all these questions, so Im
goin to ask you: How many times do you go with your old man a night?'
That stopped her. Hell yes I told her. Thats just what I told her.
Shes tellin me somethin about Buckman. lien, what'd he do: He couldnt
get along with his parish, so he beats it to England to do some more studyin.
Then he had some goddam dream about Christ on the cross n writes back here
hes very sorry n everything, that he was wrong. So he starts this Oxford
movement. And all the suckers, they fall fothis dream. So he goes
back to England and gets a big building and she tells me about this
vision. Hell anybody can have a vision and then say $5900,000. N these
suckers fall for it. Made me sick askin all them questions. N they talk
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about Father Devine. Now there's a man whose doin somethin. Talking
about the work of Christ dont cost nothin. Hell, you get these big
buildings and these coal bills n light bills get to comm n in n you
get all them people travelin round with Buchman —why he had seventeen
people come over with him last time —who you thinks payin for all
that? The vision? Tellin me about visions. Hell my luck aint been
the same since I worked for them people. Ever since I worked down
there my lucks been bad; aint had a thing to do. Theta the reason
I dont have no faith in man. I been around all this stuff too much!.
It dont mean nothin. The unseen spirit up yonders alright. Get on
your knees and get in touch with him. But man? Man aint nothin.
Thats the reason we caint get nowhere down here with this union;
man aint no good.
Sure, theres some good. Some is alright. What did God
say about em being all mixed up. He said Let em mingle together,
I'll seperate the goats from the lambs. How many times you ate
goat thinking you was eating spring lamb?
Yes, I believe in visions. lye had em myself. I was living
down town with a family an seen the wamans husband who'd been dead
six years. Her boy was sick n seen him too. He came and stood in
the hall between the two rooms n said "Im going to take three rooms.
You can come on if you want to" The boy was a kid twenty-two years
old n he heard im too. A few days later the boy was gone, dead.
Dreams come to me all the time. I get fore -warnings
whenever somethings about to happen to me. I know just when and
4.
how. Hell, you have am too. All fellows do; they just forget
when they wake up.
I had one last night bout what this meeting
was for this morning.
a lot of the fellows.
right.
They the
N I think things'll be alright for me n
Things we been warkin on oughta came out
Things would be alright if it wasnt for these Irishmen.
ones causing the trouble. You know that. I'll tell you
bout the Irishman. What makes em so dam onery is that they been
slaves to the English. Couldnt even hunt
crops and it all goes to the king.
running over their own land. Caint
Everything goes to England. N dont
a bird out of a cage, a canary bird
Caint
plant
on their awn land. Raise
even shoot the hares thats
corn except by permission.
let him get over here. flee like
thats been in such a small place
he couldnt feel himself. He gets over here and gets a little land n
hes gone. He dont know you. You know thats right. You caint get
along with him. Hell. They the ones whats causing all the trouble.
You just have to get an Irishman down n beat the shit out of him; than
hes the best friend you got. You couldnt have a better friend than a
Irishman you knocked the hell outta.
I had a warnin one time when I was working. I had a piano
bout to lower it out of &window on a pulley. N when I started dawn
stairs to let it come, samethin said "You better not let that dawnt"
So I runs back up stairs an looks and the dam piano was hanging there
by a strand.
The dam rope was coming apart n it was just hanging
there by a few strands. Now if I hadnt listened to that warning, me
n six or seven other men would have been dead. I have dreams all the
time. I dreamed about my grandfather who had been dead thirty-three
5.
years who I'd never seen n I asked my mother the next mornin n she
said yes that was the way he looked.