Matewan Oral History Project Collection
Sc2003-135

Johnny Fullen Interview

Becky Bailey: This is Rebecca Bailey for the Matewan Development Center. Six o'clock in the evening on June the 6th, 1990. I'm interviewing Mayor Fullen for the Matewan Development Center. The first thing I'd like to ask you Mayor Fullen is if you would give your full name for the record.

John Fullen: Johnny W. Fullen.

B: Okay. And, when were you born Mr. Fullen?

JF: (laughing). I have to laugh. I knew she didn't know we were in here. Did you? (speaks to wife) Any...okay. What was the question?

B: When were you born?

JF: I was born February second.

B: In?

JF: 1946.

B: Okay.

JF: Right next door. That used to be the hospital.

B: Okay.

JF: I guess it was called Matewan Hospital at that time.

B: Okay. And, could you give us some information on your family background here in the community?

JF: Well, we started when the first one hit Matewan. Okay?

B: Okay.

JF: My grandfather, let me see, he came to Red Jacket...what we call Red Jacket now. But back then I'm...I...I'm pretty sure, I'm not mistaken, it was called Hunters, West Virginia. 1896. He was probably fourteen...sixteen...about sixteen years old. And uh... from...let me see...he'd went to college in Virginia. And he came here from uh...he came...left Virginia and they went to Keystone, West Virginia and then he went...while he...what little bit of time he was out there, he went to school at Mahary...what's called Mahary Medical College then, it was kind of like a prep school. You didn't have to go the twelve full years to get the medical degree and all that. He had a year or two of that but he never did practice it, he didn't finish it. His family came here. They came up to Hunters which was Red Jacket, as I told you earlier. Then he came down into Matewan about '97. 1897...'98. And uh...he worked with uh...at that time, probably the founding father uh...R.W. Buskirk who's the Buskirk building, R.W. Buskirk Sr. He worked for him for a little while and then he started working for E. B. Chambers. And uh...he was pretty sharp, you know. And at the turn of the century, they had a lot of uh...people coming here from uh... Italy and Hungary and Spain. Different (people) you had moving into this area. An uh...he uh...for some reason he...he caught onto those languages pretty quick. And uh...he worked for those people for awhile. And then, in 1911, uh...around 1910...'11, uh...he opened up the Matewan Dry Cleaners. And not too long after that he opened up what they called...what you probably read in the book "Thunder in the Mountains", the Dew Drop Inn Restaurant. Well, that was his. But by that time, which was 19...1916, I think, he married my grandmother who was Mary...Mary Brown, who just died here May the...May the 8th, 1990. She was eighty-nine. Almost eighty-nine when she died.

B: Okay. Did uh...did your grandfather have both of these businesses at the same time?

JF: Yeah. He ran that uh...he had the...the cleaners, like I say. I can remember the calendars that he used to have uh...it was established in 1911. And...oh...say nine...around 1917 and '18, I think, he put in that restaurant. And uh....they were located in what is known as the McCoy building up there where the Chatterbox is now. But it was a wooden building at that time. And from there they um...well they had that...they had those businesses. And he uh...at that time, you know, he picked up...they started out, seemed like to me, from what he used to tell me and I've heard other people...he'd... he'd go up the creeks, you know, in a horse and buggy and pick up dry cleaning. And...and then I can't remember the exact year but the first vehicle was in this area, they brought them around here. There was about five or six. I think the Chambers family bought one, the Buskirks, and my grandfather; wasn't too many. And not long after that, the first car dealership came into this town.

B: Who were your grandfather's customers? Did...did he serve all the different communities?

JF: Every...yeah...he...what he did and see, the people around his age and our age are gone, but people forty-five and fifty... forty and on up, they remember him. They...they served uh...that part of Kentucky over Buskirk and over McCarr, down the road... down going towards Williamson, up to Phelps, Kentucky, over in Delbarton. They, in fact, at one time, they had a place in Delbarton, also. And they had a place in Gilbert but they didn't work it; they let someone else run that. And they...that was just ...they had the dry cleaning was the main businesses, you know. And then later on, what happened, you know, with that they had the...1920 when they had the...the Massacre. That's where my grandfather actually was standing there, witnessed some of that stuff, you know. And uh...maybe a month...a few months later, you know, it was pretty rough around here at that time. He uh...he talked to some of the people here in town and uh...he felt that his life was in danger so he left uh...I'd say close to 1921. He didn't stay too long and he went to a place called Saltville, Virginia. That's where my grandmother was from. Went back down there and he opened up a dry cleaners there. He didn't stay too long and his friends...E.B. Chambers and them, they...they asked if he would come back to Matewan. But, they thought everything was over. So what he did...he went back...he came back out here and he reopened in the same building uh...the McCoy building and around 1925, you've probably seen pictures you've heard about the Matewan fire. Well, they were the ones in...in the building when that happened. A little boy was burned...burned up. And right after...not long after that, he uh...he located um...he started buying property, you know. He bought over across the railroad tracks. Now where's... where apartments building...apartment building is. He put in a dry cleaners over there. And uh...he had then, later, he bought uh... some property off of R.W. Buskirk, Jr.; which I've got the deed in there. I think he paid four hundred dollars for that property out there next to the creek; Mate Creek as it comes under that crossing ...railroad overpass. And uh...he bought...what he did at that time, Mate Creek was...that part of town was level with the creek...so what he did...he uh...got some men, they blasted that mountain over there where those apartment buildings is and brought that over there and built that up to where it's level like it is today. And uh...over there is where he built uh... what a lot of people around here always referred to as "The Big House"...the home that we were raised in. And it was a big, nice, fourteen room home and two baths but he also opened up the Matewan Curtis Club at that time. That was in the '30's.

B: And what was that?

JF: It was a club.

B: Okay.

JF: Yeah.

B: Like a night club?

JF: Restaurant and club, yeah.

B: Okay. At this time um...in the '20's and '30's, at places like...at his place like the Dew Drop Inn and this club, were they...was it a segregated club?

JF: No. Now his wasn't. But there was places that a lot of blacks didn't go in. But the racial relationship around here was...was a little different. Because, I happened to always said that the reason for that was uh...they...ninety percent of the people worked in the coal mines and they worked inside that mountain and they were paid the same wages. They didn't write these contracts where blacks got less than whites. And I...I...I've always felt that had something to do with it. And also, at that time, you had a lot of foreign people come over here and they mixed and mingled together. It's uh...I can't really pinpoint the uh... why the relationships around here...they were never...was really that bad, that I...that I can remember...I can remember my grandmother and them telling me that. Like the Klan, back in the '20's and '30's would march, but they didn't march against the black, it was maybe the uh...a husband steppin' out on his wife. Things like that...you know. But, you know, a couple of summers ago now, we had the Klan apply for a permit to march here.

B: I didn't know about that.

JF: Yeah. Uh-huh. And I...what I did...I knew I had to take it to the council and we discussed it and the council members wasn't for it. But we were scared of denying them their right. So we had ...a group of citizens got together, business people, and they uh...we got ahold of the Klan Watch and they told us we're servants of the Klan and stuff like that. Me, personally, I felt it was directed at me and it was two or three people that uh...I felt was behind it. And one was...well, I can't give his name cause I can't really prove it, but I said a couple of things on the street around him and I let him know that uh...that was the only way he could probably get...get at me but uh...I felt it was...I don't...I don't think it had anything to do with me being married to...who I'm married to. I think it was more than that uh...and uh...but they didn't march. I put a...a bond (on them). I said they had to have a hundred thousand dollar bond to march just in case of some damage. So they didn't show up, but it wouldn't surprise me if they'd try again, you know. But, as far as back then, uh...I'd say there was racial prejudice. But if...for some reason this area... this...this town it...it...it's always been a little better or different. Because to this day, people make comments about how Matewan...it's it's...it's just so much better than uh...other parts of this county when it comes to race relations and a good example is, you know, the...the building up where they're remodeling, the blacks got that contract, you know. Which you probably know. And there's another black guy that was born and raised here in Matewan, lives up Red Jacket now. His name was Bobby Horton. He's contractin' now with the Corps (Army Corps of Engineers). And me and Dan Moore and uh...Robert McCoy, we were the ones turned him on to the Corps. I told him what to do, what he had...had to do. I took him to meet the West Virginia Housing people and he's now... he's building homes in the...down at the subdivision in Williamson. So...it's...it's just really it...the relationship is different but you know, you know, like, I know there's a prejudice there, you know. But back then, as far as their place, my grandparents' place was uh...their places was never segregated or anything, although you did have a large black population...to where you could have survived if it was but uh...they just uh...I guess, by him being the first black here, I think he was the first, there was uh... one or two other men came, then there was a lady that came and uh...she uh...she ran a little place here in town that, you know, sold liquor and stuff like that uh...she died a very, very wealthy lady here in Matewan and she was accepted totally too.

B: Was that Aunt Carrie?

JF: That's her.

B: Okay.

JF: Uh-huh. (laughing) And her...she was very close to my...my grandfather...very close. In fact, when he died, uh...we would not let her know. She was in bad health at that time, but we...we just made a point not to let her know. And uh...her place was... place was never segregated either. But, now, they say back then when you went to Williamson, you have what they call Third Avenue, where the blacks had their clubs and ho...(homes) and everything, and then you had your other parts of the town that.. .that the blacks did not mix and mingle. But up here it was totally different, you know.

B: Uh-huh. It...it sounds as if your grandfather moved back and forth between the white community and...the black community.

JF: Oh, he did...well, there's some people that...that the older, they're gone now, one, Miss Reams that died in D.C. here last week, she said when she first saw him, she was a little girl and she didn't know what he was, you know, said he had straight black hair and he wore it long...had it in a pony tail, you know...and he used to joke and say, "Well, I'll be black today" and stuff like that and he...he went...he went to places where other blacks couldn't go but, because he was here so early and he was in business, I guess people had a respect for him, you know, I don't...I can't pinpoint it, but it's...it's hard to explain really.

B: How long did he live. When...when did he die?

JF: He died in nineteen...he died April 3rd, 1964. He was...he was eighty when he died.

B: After that time, was...was...how...did you ever talk to him, was he aware of the Civil Right's Movement? Did he ever express any opinion of that?

JF: Oh, yeah. When I was growing up, see, we never did hear anything about black history or anything and he would read to me and tell me about Marcus Garvey, who started the Back to Africa Movement and my grandfather was very...he was definitely against that because he said that uh...it was takin' blacks back over there here it was a diff...(different)...puttin' them in a...a totally different culture, you know. And uh...he made me aware of the Harlem Congressman, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and his daddy and...Um...he told me about um...well I can...I can't really remember it but... when it happened...but he told me about people like Rosa Parks and Martin...well, Martin Luther King. We all, you know...and Ralph Bunche was probably one of his favorite uh...people that he talked a lot about.

B: Uh-huh. Do you remember any of the things that he would say about some of the leaders or what he thought about the movement, I mean, did he...being in such a special area, did he...but did he see the need, for say, the rest of the...the country?

JF: Well, he...yeah. He was for all that but his biggest thing was and I guess it rubbed off on my grandmother, he...his cliche' was "you get a college education, and that's something they can't ever take that away from you. Nobody can take that away" and that was his biggest thing for blacks uh...the first little black grade school up Red Jacket, uh...he had a hand in on gettin' it formed. When Liberty High School was...at first, I think it was called Dubois High School...after W.E.B. Dubois uh...a group of black...at that time, you had a...you had six or seven black doctors alone in Williamson...and he was friends with one of them that came out here early named Dr. Whitico and they talked to us about starting a black high school. I think it was around nineteen...early '20's. I...I don't really know and he felt an education was the way out, you know.

B: Uh-huh. So, it sounds...if there being black doctors even back there at that time, that the...the black communities seemed pretty self reliant.

JF: Oh, you know, you had your...like in Williamson, alone I mean you had drug stores, you had your own businesses, and they didn't have clothing stores and anything like that but uh...back then, they had uh...they had a lot, I mean, you know...

B: Okay. I...I guess the...the next um...question that follows is some information about your early life. Where did you go to school and...and..?

JF: Let me see, I grew up right here and uh...I can...I tell you how adamant my grandfather was about the black movement...

B: Okay.

JF: He uh...see...I...I can barely remember the...going to a black school, seem like to the fourth or fifth grade. In fact, I could've went to the white school we could have all, you know... they already had integration, but he just...they did not want to see that little school closed but, you know, after you go so far then the only black high school was in...down Williamson, you know, so we went to Matewan. And...where I had an advantage, or people in my family, see, everybody in Matewan, which we had a large population, not like now where all the houses washed away and everything. See, we knew everybody. Back then all the teachers was from... basically lived around here and, you know, I mean, me personally, I can't complain about my schooling, I mean, you know, the big thing now, you hear a lot of prominent blacks saying that uh... integration probably set blacks back...A lot because a lot of blacks...your outstanding black students, you know, they...they never get to be valedictorian or salutatorian, they never get prom court...uh... homecoming queen and stuff like that, but me personally, uh...I mean I really had uh...I had a real good upbringing but a lot of the teachers knew me from a little kid and they watched...they were tough on all of us you know...I mean, if we acted up in school, they didn't only get on to us, they stopped by the cleaners and told on us and stuff like that. But we were never really any problems. We never caused any problems.

B: Okay. So you were raised by your grandparents, then?

JF: Uh-huh.

B: Did you have any brothers or sisters?

JF: From day one. Yeah, I got a sister in L.A. named Mary. She's ...she teaches. She taught here for a few years and she's been out there now, uh...I got a brother that lives here, teaches...I got another sister that taught here but she teaches in Kanawha County now. I got a sister that uh...works at the hospital. I got another sister here that's not...she's not workin'.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. So you were all raised by your grandparents then?

JF: Uh-huh.

B: Okay.

JF: Well, me, the day I was born, they took me and named me after him see....His name was John Wesley, too.

B: Okay. Now, did you start out as a teacher here in...in Matewan?

JF: Uh-huh.

B: Okay. Where did you go to college?

JF: I got my A.B....I got all of it from Marshall University.

B: Okay.

JF: Well, one year I went to Pikeville...College, you know. That's where I met that woman settin' back there. (laughter) I don't know if that's good or bad.(laughter)

B: Okay. The...the lady behind you I...I know is your wife, you say you...you met her. When did you all meet and marry?

JF: I met her 1968 in Pikeville College.

B: Okay. And I...I know I just cut off the tape to ask you um... you have an interracial marriage and I was wondering how that went over in this community?

JF: Over...well in Pikeville, now, it was problems. I was over there on a basketball scholarship and I met her like early in the year, maybe a month after school in uh...before the season started and uh...the...the coach, I've always felt that he held that against me. Two or three teachers over there held that against me. And that's when I transferred the next year to Marshall. She was a junior that year when I met her...But see, I had all...I had enrolled...went to Pikeville and uh...I was going to transfer to another college but I got drafted in the service...and when I came back, I went back to Pikeville and that's where I met her and we... there was racial problems there at that time. We had problems but uh...around here, it's been amazing. I did not think we could do it. I mean, before we married and moved here, there was a lot of interracial dating and stuff but uh...you know, I never did hear many people make comments but I always felt it was a...a difference...on a different economic scale of people. I...I felt that it was basically someone that nobody black wanted or someone nobody white wanted. That was about the best way I could put it and uh... I told her, you know, if she wanted to come here from Columbus and we'll try it and when we came here, there was one or two teachers that tried to stir up something and uh...my friends here shut 'em up quick and my grandmother was in good health then and she knew a lot of people and she made her calls and she got hot and buddy, she'd call and she made peop...(people) she reminded people that... particular, one board member, that used to be in business in Matewan, and, for some reason, when he was in business, the business people didn't like him because he didn't live here in town and he didn't mix and mingle but, my grandmother and grandfather liked him they went to the business community and kindly had them to open their arms for him and he went on and made us a very..he ...in fact, when he died a couple years ago, he was a multi-millionaire. And when she came here to teach, my grandmother called him and told him it's time...it's pay back time. That's what she told him and speaking had to repay his dues, you know, and I mean he paid it more than, you know, he set it up and he said...he...in fact, he sent word to the board people in that office that she'd teach or else and she got a teaching job and it's...we haven't had any problems. None. (Wife speaks - Mr. McClain?) Well, I told her about that but I felt that was directed at me...(Wife speaks - I think we got..we got one phone call that I can think about, that was probably some kid...) Some little girls at the pool when I was managing the pool,...(wife speaks - that's been) ...been tough on them...(wife speaks we've been at here eight...will be nine years in December we bought this house, but I...It was...this finishes my eighth year...(Wife speaks - I..course I...I guess I don't know whether it surprised...maybe I just expected for everything to go alright, I don't know, I don't think John did), but I...but she's adjusted to this town better than me really. Although this place has been good to me, me personally, I would never have came back...In fact, if it wasn't for my grandmother, I wouldn't have, you know and, then when I came back from college I had my mind set on law school and we still had the cleaners but, during the time I was in the service, the guy that worked for them for years was running it and he just about...he didn't do anything and because my grandmother was so tied to that dry cleaning, he didn't get the complaints, she got them. She just told him to close it and when I came back, I guess I was here about a year and I...well, when I first came back, I took and...I took the law exam, I did pretty good on it but I felt that was racial. I felt that was racial. I felt that's why I didn't get in because uh...(wife speaks that would have been only what?)...early '70's. There was about middle '70's. There's six or seven of them down there now practicing law that I knew that uh...they just knew the right people, which that's good, you know, but that uh...as far as us having any problems, I don't know of any. I don't believe I could go anywhere and be treated any better than...(wife speaks no, and you know I taught in the public schools right down here. Junior High and the High school right here locally where kids are not just from Matewan. They're from Beech Creek and they're from Varney and they're from Thacker and they're from Pigeon Creek, you know, they're from all over and)...and another thing too... (wife speaks - I really didn't have any...I don't know that a kid said anything to me)...another thing that's kindly a little off limits uh...in this county, it's a known fact, if you're a superintendent, for some reason, their wives never get promoted. They always stay a classroom teacher, maybe get to be a principal uh...she is a dean of exceptional students in this county so uh...that has a lot to say, really, for the county (wife speak that's the only one they've ever had...(laughing) what... what...what) I don't know how long she will stay but (wife speaks yeah, for...uh...I do everything nobody else wants to do in the Special Ed office and...we've been out of the county most of the day)

B: Great. Where did you serve when you were in the service?

JF: Let me see, at...my basic training was Fort Knox...Then I had that advanced medical training, you know, you take your test...and I scored, and I don't know what it would be now. My I.Q. was like one...wudn't nothin' to brag about...one...one twenty-two, one twenty-one...and you had to have at least one eighteen to get in the officer's candidate school to become an officer and uh...when my basic training was over...which was six weeks, I think, I was called in to the colonel, the Battalion colonel and, out of my platoon, it was three of us and we were offered to go to that. And this real old black sergeant at that time was ready to retire. He told me not to. He said," I'm gonna tell you what they're gonna do with you." Said, "they gonna run...said they watched you in basic training and they checked...checked your score." For some reason I was always picked the platoon leader, the this leader. I don't know why, you know, but uh...he told me, he said what they'll do, they'll send you through officer's candidate school. You'll come out a second lieutenant and they gonna send you straight to Vietnam and your chances of coming back is very slim and for some reason, I listened to him but I always wanted to be an officer. Well, after that, they...they...they checked my scores so they asked me did I want to go into some advanced medical trainin' which was operating room procedures, so I said yes, but, that...at that time, it was get...beginning to get to be basketball season at Fort Knox and some of the NBA players was there...

JF: Well the ball team, you know, who had big money, they put them on a six month thing at a time, you know. Six months and let them out to play ball. They were there and we'd shoot ball a lot, well, after he talked to me, then they sent...they tried to keep me at Fort Knox for that training. (tape cuts off)

B: Okay. They sent you for training.

JF: Yeah. They tried to keep me at Fort Knox for that training but Fort Knox didn't really have that advanced medical training, so what they did, they sent me to Fort Sam, Houston, Texas for it and uh...I...I played on their...their base team and uh...had that advanced operating room procedures and then I got my orders for Vietnam. Well, I came back home. I didn't tell my grandmother and them where, you know, where my orders was for and I flew back to... to uh...Oakland, California, and then I went to uh...the night I was leaving on the boat to go, I told them I was going to uh...I don't know what I told them...where I told them I was going. I told them we was goin' out on a boat but I didn't tell them Vietnam and uh...I think we were on water for seventeen days. Didn't see any land. One on those days was maneuvers. That big ship just circled. And uh...and it's...I think it was actually, maybe, a sixteen day thing but uh...by that one day waste that we were on the seventeenth day, then we saw Diamondhead in Hawaii, well, we got in Hawaii, they let us off that day. Told us to be back and uh...now, I can't remember if I got uh...then this little thing... this I should remember. I think I tried to call home from Hawaii, but I couldn't get through, but I went back to the boat, I think it was 2500 of us on there. Maybe thirteen or fourteen of us was called out and our orders had been changed for Tokyo so they let us off in Tok...(Tokyo) in Okinawa, was it was called and I spent the rest of my time there, but I got extended a year because of the Vietnam War was so bad and because of my training and another reason I was extended, I've always felt was, my time to come back was right in the middle of basketball season. And uh...I...I stayed over and played basketball and I came back...I came back here and some people knew I was back in town, they asked me to play in the independent basketball tournament with them that night and I went and played and Pikeville College had had a real good team that year. They'd won the conference championship. Well, my team played their... played this team. It was uh...sponsored by...by a funeral home up there at Phelps and we was sponsored by, used to be W & E Chevrolet Sales and we beat them guys and they had just won a big conference championship. And uh...guy I grew up with was a star on that Pikeville College team. And uh...he was uh...we played against them and we beat 'em and uh...seemed like to me I scored probably forty points, well, one of them guys went back and told that coach at Pikeville that I was back home, that he ought to try to recruit me, but at that time, I had been exposed to some big time schools and uh...a coach at University of Nevada Las Vegas, Jerry Tarkanian, was coaching at Long Beach State and he had a scout to come to Tokyo and scout...they's about eight of us. I could have went there. Marshall University, at that time, was interested and a school in Texas, and I don't...I don't think it's still the same name, called Pan America University, they were after me. But my grandmother, who had a big influence, talked to me to go back over to Pikeville and that's when I went back over there and met Sue. Then I transferred after one year over there to Marshall and I finished up at Marshall in May of '72. (C.B. radio interference) And I've been teachin' ever since. I've been in the school system ever since.

B: Okay. How did you come to be mayor or were you active politically from...?

JF: Well, let me see, I guess it was always something that uh... my grandfather played a little bit of a political game. He could have...back years ago, they wanted him to run for council or get involved. But, he never would mix business and politics he said he...and he didn't like...didn't want to mix it. I mean he participated and contributed and stuff like that but he had some run in with some pretty heavy political figures, you know. Uh...you had uh...Bob McCoy's uncle, whose name was John McCoy... Uh...he, you know, he knew us from a little kids growing...when we was born really and I was kindly one of his favorites around here, you know, and uh...he was on the school board when I came out of...our of uh...college and I'd say this is probably the most racist thing I can remember about Matewan, my sister Mary and myself graduated from college the same year and uh...you had a couple of local people that said, didn't want me teaching at Matewan High and they ...they used...they said they was some racial remarks made and John McCoy said, "He'll teach there or else, "you know, and he was on the board and got another man that you've probably seen him on the street a lot named T.I. Varney. And he was a political figure and they, you know, they just kindly, they liked me. And they got me a...involved so I ran for the uh...town council and I lost by one vote...The first time and uh...there was a little story behind that and I'm gonna tell you to.

B: Okay.

JF: A man named Andrew Crockett, he died here recently, worked in the house in the election...and some people told me he marked my name off the ballot. They saw him do it and that's why I lost and that put a bitter pill in my mouth towards him and I tell you what hurt me the most about it was, when he came to Matewan, he was a young boy in his...in the '20's, he was probably five or six years old. His mother got off that train with him and his sister and they didn't have any place to go and my grandparents took them in and they fed them and got his mother a little old rinky-dink job. The best they could do, and they clothed him up 'til he was a grown man and then he pulled that on me and my grandmother let him know about that too.

B: Uh-huh. Hum. So, do you think...was it a political difference...?

JF: Who, Crockett? No, he's just uh...probably a jealousy you know, knowin' that uh...probably thinkin' things had been...I'd been brought up...but...privileged or have a little bit better, you know. Although, there's a gap, what, he was seventy-seven, seventy-eight when he died, you know. But uh...that was kindly uh...that put a bitter taste in my mouth. It stayed there too.

B: Uh-huh. What year was that?

JF: '75. Cause, the next election was the flood of seventy...' 77, when they had the flood and there wasn't even really any tickets out there but they had a...they had an election but nobody was interested in that. And then in '79, I ran...and I was the leadin' vote getter of everybody that ran. '81, I was re-elected to council member. '83 I was re-elected as council member. '85, I was re-elected but then, in April of '85, Robert stepped down and moved out of Matewan. And uh...I was appointed and I was...in April, then, June...June, I won. In '85. As mayor, I was re-elected in '87. Re-elected in '89 and it will be the last time, too. As of right now, I know I won't run again. I just...I really want to see the flood wall and uh...I mean, that's the key for us, you know.

B: Uh-huh. What kind of um...problems do you deal with as mayor? I mean I know you have a full time job, otherwise.

JF: Well, you know, right now, you...our biggest thing we been fightin', tryin' to get a flood wall for the last, I don't know, long, long time. An...what's really hurt us with that is been the...the Army Corps of Engineers just take their own good time about doing everything. In Matewan, in this area, we were considered second for a flood wall and uh...first, the...the first plans for Matewan was what was called you...which you've probably heard, the Big Ben cut through. Which would have flood proof Hatfield Bottom. Then, we was going to get the wall from Mate...for the town, the Mate Creek. We was gonna have a relocation site up Sulfur Creek. Well, when the Corps got ahold of it, they did away with the cut through and by doing away with that cut through, that left Hatfield Bottom unprotected. Then the Corps did away with the relocation cite of Sulfur Creek then they did away with the Mate Creek project which is the upper end of town and it's been one battle right after the other and I've been fightin' it for the last four or five years. That's the biggest battle we've got because, you know, with...with the flood wall, we're protected. The community has a chance to grow and that right there has been my biggest battle. That's been the biggest one. I had to bring in Senator Rockefeller, Congressman Rahall, and I got a telegram from Senator Byrd to make the Corps of Engineers put the Mate Creek project back in. And uh...now the...where Hatfield Bottom was left out was when they did away with the cut through, there's an imaginary line that the Corps drew out there that said, no...Hatfield Bottom wouldn't be protected. Which Hatfield Bottom is incorporated in this town and we've been fightin' that. In fact, we was in Washington about a month ago and that was one of the main concerns with the Development Center and myself gettin' that back included, you know. If you notice, we've got a sidewalk project going down there. See, and originally, that was supposed to have been for all of Hatfield Bottom, but by the time we got through payin' engineer's fees and administrative costs and stuff like that, I mean, we got $221,000 grant. We only had about a hundred and forty-four thousand to spend on concrete work. But I've already put in for another $499,999 and the reason for that figure is, if you...if you put in for half a million, the town's got to come up with a certain percent of matching money. We don't have it so we're puttin' in...we've already put in for another grant to complete that sidewalk project and take it all the way down to the Matewan ...the Matewan uh...clinic. What I'd like to do in the process is build maybe one or two rest areas along the way uh...do some uh...beautification. Put some nice street lights that you... that they have in downtowns where you...you know, where the... right on the sidewalk you know. That's what I want to do with that. If I can get that. Get this flood...and get this flood wall actually started...I'd be happy.

B: What do you think of the idea of...of Matewan being a historical tourist site. Do you think that if the flood wall...if the flood wall would have to come before that and then, what do you think of historical tourism? Do you think that would work?

JF: I'm one-hundred percent for it. I never...you now, I grew up and I never did understand why people didn't talk about the Matewan Massacre and why it didn't capitalize on their history. I never could understand that. But, now, my grandmother always...she would keep things...she would tell me, you know, I swore I'd never tell. And, I'd say, what, twenty years ago, you didn't talk about that Matewan Massacre. I'm talkin' about just twenty years ago and you just did not talk about it because there was still a lot them around here that uh..was..uh...connected. You know, families and ...and people just didn't talk about it. It was just something they, you know, my grandmother would say now "Johnny, so and so said he actually did this that day" said "now you know my husband saw that". But you can't go out and tell that" you know and...but, like I was talkin' to Danny Moore the other day. We should have started this stuff fifteen, twenty years ago. See there's a lot of people, and I think that you've talked to a lot too, I'm not sure. I think there's a lot of people that's tellin' things that's stretched the truth. I know...I know one person got a big write up, that did not even live here then. And I...I know that for a fact. And there was others. Now John McCoy, he was maybe four or five years old when this happened and uh...he grew up and he knew about it. His family was in town and they knew. There was a lot of people that he said...that he's heard quote things about what happened that day. He said they wasn't nowhere around. So they don't know. That's the only thing bothers about all this. But, you stop and think, with my grandmother's death and Miss Reams, you see, Miss Reams was eighty-four. She was probably a ten or eleven year old la...(lady) girl then. Now Robert Allara's mother was about the same age them but see, my grandmother was nineteen in 1920. You know, in...when the shooting actually happened, uh...she was in the cleaners and she jumped up next to the wall in the corner and when they stopped shooting, she was worried about my grandfather and she walked up the street. I mean, she actually walked out there, and one of the Baldwin- Felts detectives, now you know that scene in the movie where the detectives run up the side ...track, well, that detective ran by...by her cleaners there. And said uh...he asked her...he said "what's the best way to get out of here?" she said "split the creek" but you know she know...she told me not to even...not to say much to 'em...about it. Now there was a re...correspondent or reporter from Time Magazine. She came here one day and my grandmother was pretty ill then. We brought her over and she'd talk a little bit and then she'd be quiet and then she'd talk, wouldn't she? (speaks to wife) And...but she was sharp enough to where she just did not want to tell it. Yeah.

B: Hum. So, did your grandparents ever express any opinion on the...on the people that were involved...?

JF: Oh, yeah, very adamant. There's one today, I hate him because I know he threatened to kill my grandfather. And he's a very prominent man in that massacre.

B: Um. Who would that be? (laughter)

JF: Sid Hatfield.

B: Okay. Well, see that's...when we ask questions, we're not trying to stir up trouble, it's just we've gotten a very different view of him. We get a different view from different people.

JF: Uh-huh. The funny thing, he was nice, but uh...you know, some people just...see what happened that day, there was a Senator White here, you've heard of him, and his wife was Mrs. White. She was a school teacher and she taught up Red Jacket and the way she got to work, she rode up with my grandfather. And then he'd pick her up and come back because it was an all day job back then, pickin' that dry cleanin' and as though...he was... they were really close people, but that day, he was out there waitin' on 'em to bring some dry cleanin' down on the train because he had a lot of communities and that train stopped at every one of 'em and when he...they were out there that day but, my grandfather knew something was gonna happen, he'd been told and when the shooting started, he grabbed Miss White by the arm and they went in the basement of the Hatfield building and Senator White grabbed the luggage and followed them. I'm pretty sure that's the way it was. Well, right after that, different people was told that John Brown, that was my grandfather's name, John Brown (unintelligible), he knew, you know. Now, some older people around here, there was a slogan, cliche, whatever you want to call it, that uh...someone suppost (supposed) to have made it, John Brown better leave Matewan before sundown, or something like that, you know, uh...there's a man lives in New Jersey now, you know Louise, the black lady, all right, you don't know her, you haven't met her. Her uncle can uh...his name in Leonard Marshall, he was here a few years ago and uh...his daddy and my grandfather and them came out here together. Leonard is eighty some now and uh...I can't remember that slogan but he can tell.. .he....he...but you...you prob...(probably), you could never get with him, but he knows that saying and uh...I can remember years ago, my grandfather tellin' me that was the sayin', slogan, or whatever you want to call it, but, I had forgotten about it until Leonard came out here and we...he was talkin' to me one day and he said, "Did they ever tell you?" And I...I said, "You know, I'd forgotten about that". That was the...and...and that came from... suppost (supposed) to have came from Sid Hatfield. Huh? (wife speaks - they did leave.) They left. They went to, like I told her earlier, they went to Saltville, Virginia. Opened up that dry cleaners and E.B. Chambers and quite a few of 'em ask him to come back.

B: Was something specific that um...it's..it's kind of hard to... to get out of people. Did your grandparents ever mention which side of the street it actually started on? Was it on the river side or on the railroad side?. We tried to figure out by numbers if nothing else which side we think it actually started on.

JF: Well they, well, he was out back there. Well, we call it back, it was the front street and uh...he was on the side of the buildings was where he was because, they used to be a big two story house over there. That little old building down below my grandmother's apartment there. That big two story house or they say there one or two shot guns come out of those windows. One on the... two on the building one or two up in the hills. Different places. One or two of them came...just came runnin' out of businesses. Yeah. But, I don't know, that right there now I've never really thought but I know he was standing on this side of the track right in front of that uh...the Hatfield building. Now, if you notice them old pitchers (pictures), that wooden McCoy building, there's about five or six canopies. The first one was the Dew Drop Inn. And then next to it was that res... (restaurant) the cleaners. And, so really if you...I haven't really thought about, but if you think, you know, he probably just came right out of the door to get the cleanin' and go right back in.

B: Okay.

JF: There not long after that, that man was killed settin' on the...in front of the Urias Hotel. The Hatfield man. Well see, my grandparents had a little garden over back out...over there and uh...Sid Hatfield and a couple of people come by and ask my grandfather had they heard a shot and my grandfather told him "no". He said well...I think it was Anse, wudn't it, Anse Hatfield said well, Anse Hatfield was just killed. My grandfather said he and my grandmother just looked at each other. And uh...see, Anse Hatfield was the one that took those Baldwin-Felts detectives in and they stayed at the place, you know...

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Was something um...I...I'd like to tell you is, I was working on a project this semester and I was looking through old issues of the Williamson Daily News and uh...it mentioned in the paper that they...someone was...the...I guess the special prosecutor was trying to get your grandparents to be witnesses for that...

JF: Yeah. They went to uh...the...now, the time my grandfather uh...was in...uh..I started to Roanoke, huh...was in Saltville, the New York...it was either New York Times or New York Post or something' sent a reporter down with an offer of ten thousand dollars in 1921 for him to tell what he knew and he would not tell.

B: Uh-huh. Hum. Did they ever tell you who shot the mayor?

JF: (laughing) Yeah. I can't say. I swear I can't say.

B: Okay.

JF: Now I have a rifle and a pistol that was, if I'm not mistaken, I think the pistol was pawned to my grandfather that was used. And I think that he bought the rifle just for keep. He just bought it...off of someone but, the pistol was pawned to him and the man never did come back and get it that was used in that. I've got that.

B: Uh-huh. Some of the um...the other people that I know were involved in the massacre, we've been trying, you know, to find out information about them, um...was people like, say, Reece Chambers. Did...did your grandparents ever mention anything...?

JF: God, yeah, they lived right next door to him. He uh...he lived over there in that big two story house. That was his house.

B: Okay. What did they think of...of him?

JF: Well, he was just...he was a tough customer, was what he was, but see, I can't say much about him. He saved their life. See, when they came back from Virginia, and there was still people thought he came back to talk. The McCoy building burned and they burned uh...Reece Chambers came runnin' across the railroad tracks shootin' in the air. And it woke them up and he was hollerin' "John, Mary, get up, John, Mary, get up." And there was uh...now, let me... let me back up a little bit and I'll tell you why I'm leadin' up there. In 1924, my grandmother's cousin came here from Princeton. Her name was Gae... Galetha Brown. She got off the train. Her husband had left her. She had three boys...Dave, Curtis, and I don't remember the...the young one. They were three, two, and one year old and they took them in and they raised them and those boys, well, this was 1924. The mother, Gae, the night of the fire, jumped up...well, the day of the fire, the two boys, oldest ones, from what my grandmother said, they had been aggravating my grandfather to take them to Lobata to go down there and play with some kids they knew and he took them and came back and then that fire that night, that car that you see in that pitcher (picture), that was their car that you see burnt in that fire. That was their car. But that...the night of that uh...fire, Reece Chambers, and everybody called him Uncle Reece, I guess you've heard that, too. My grandmother, she talked like she say'd Uncle Reece Chambers, when he was hollerin' for them, he hollered, "Mary, John, Gae, get up, get up, "and he was shooting. My grandmother got up and stepped out of the window on the ledge...My grandfather, there was a Hungarian that lived there, and I can't...I don't know the name but uh...one of the boy that my grandparents raised, Curtis, lives in Williamson. He can tell you the names...uh...got him and he stepped out on the ledge along with my grandmother. My grandfather tried to get to Gae and the little boy and he couldn't and Gae hollered, said, "I got the baby, I'm goin'." And she dropped that baby and that baby burned up and Gae ran up into the mountains up behind this big house over here and the Persingers lived in there then and they was some kin to the lady that owned this house that we bought this off of. Miss Reams that just died... you've probably heard about that. Well, and, my grandmother jumped out. It was two stories, and she jumped out and my grandfather jumped and the Hungarian guy jumped but my grandmother got the breath knocked out of her. And she went to her grave with a bruise on her thigh, outside of her thigh from that fall but my grandfather went back and crawled under that fire and dragged her, you know, pulled her from under it and uh...that. ...that little boy...that little baby got killed in that fire and uh...and that was all because they thought he had come back to tell. And my grandma...mother said he said then, he said he wudn't goin' any place. Nobody's gonna run him off and uh...John McCoy's daddy told him that if they could pinpoint who had done that, they'd kill him right on the street. But uh...there was tales that who had burned it down but, you know, they could never prove it. Yeah. Reece Chambers you know, like I say, he was considered...he was their friend. (tape cuts off)

B: We've had a couple of people say that um...Reece Chambers eventually lost his mind?

JF: He did. My grandmother told me that.

B: Did she say anything about...?

JF: I...she said the rumor was that...that...that shoot out bothered him...scared him. Made him think things, and he would, she said that, he would get up in the night shootin'...They'd have to wake up and grab the boys and get up against the chimly (chimney), cause see, eventually, they built their home, their first home right next to his. And uh...he lost his mind, that's why.

B: Uh-huh. Hum. Okay. Did your grandparents ever say what they thought of when uh...Sid Hatfield and...and Ed Chambers were... were murdered? Did they ever make a comment about that day or...or that event?

JF: No, she just talked about uh...no, she just said they were killed on the courthouse steps, you know, she never did say too much, you know.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. What...what did they have to say about the Burgraff family? I know some people have pinpointed um...one of the Burgraff brothers was the man that killed Anse Hatfield.

JF: Well, one of them, they...it...the one that was on trial, they knew him well and some of his family still lives around here and they know them well and uh...they were pretty close to them. The... a lot of the...the...their big beef was with the one or two right here in the middle of town. They wudn't...there was uh...they were very close to Charlie Kiser, who just died here recently. Pauline Roberson's father. Uh, Ben Mounts, his son preached my grandmother's funeral so you know that they were very close to him. Clare Overstreet was the postmaster. He married into the Chambers family. They were close to him um...there's some more of them I can't...Hallie Chambers. Hallie Chambers I...If I'm not mistaken, he died over there in my grandparent's club's parking lot. They were very close to him. I can remember him comin' over to their...their restaurant and sittin' around talkin'...

B: Uh-huh. What about Isaac Brewer? We've heard his name...

JF: I heard the name but I didn't...I didn't know much. I didn't...I can't remember her saying very much about that.

B: Okay. If you don't mind, I'd like to go back and...and ask you, do you remember some of the things that they would say about Charlie Kiser because I know he was a...he was an important organizer for the union?

JF: Just he was a big union man and uh...the...you know what the most I...I remember them talkin' about, his wife was Swedish or what was she? Huh?

B: From Luxembourg?

JF: Yeah, and uh...(wife speaks she was German) German or whatever. She would come to the cleaners and set and talk to my grandfather cause he could speak that junk...and uh...they...they knew each other very, very well. And they liked him. I mean he was...they considered him a very close friend, really.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. What about Ben Mounts? I interviewed his daughter and...and he sounded like an interesting character. His nickname was "Wild dog" or something.

JF: Something' like...I knew that he had a...there was something, see you're saying some things that I'm beginning to remember uh... you know, they were real close, I mean, I can remember him standing around over the cleaners talkin' and he walked up and down the railroad track when I was growin' up all the time, he lived at Blackberry City and he'd stop there on the track and...and...and talk with my grandmother and if my grandfather didn't come outside, he'd holler until he come out and then they'd talk and I can remember bein' real small and my grandfather would walk me up the railroad tracks like on Sundays. We'd talk with Ben Mounts, yeah Ben Mounts, and people like that but it's...I don't know any particulars, you know, anything...

B: Did you ever hear him singing, because his...his daughter, Ruby, said that he would sing a lot. That people in Blackberry could hear him all over Blackberry singing.

JF: Hun-un.

B: Okay. Maybe you were older by then. Um...what did they say about Clair Overstreet? Did anything stand out?

JF: Nothing. Not a thing. They said he married into money. (laughing) That's all I've heard her say (his grandmother).

B: Okay. When I interviewed Jenny Grimmett. She said one of the reasons that Aunt Carrie's place was so popular was that Aunt Carrie knew everybody that went in, but when they left, she didn't know anybody or anything.

JF: That's right. She kept a lot of secrets.

B: Okay.

JF: That's right. I mean, and everybody went there and you talk about mixin' and mingling and interracial junk goin' on.

B: uh...huh

JF: It went on and nobody touched it. Nobody. And the odd thing about it, her place was right next to city hall, the jail. (laughter)

B: Um...I...I've heard...Jenny Grimmett said that...that she was something' of a bootlegger.

JF: Big time. You better believe it. That was her business.

B: Uh...huh So, I guess, being next to city hall, the police looked the other way.

JF: That's right honey, she knew the right people. She was here longer than anybody else and well established and she was connected to the right families. Now, that's what it was.

B: Okay. Um...I've...I've heard that um...some people in the black community wouldn't want more information to come out about Aunt Carrie. What's your opinion on that? Do you think that there was anything to hide about her or her business?

JF: No. She didn't hide anything. I never heard anybody in the black community say too much. I mean, uh...Miss Carrie is what I called her. Her friends was all white. Her major friends was white. That's why she had the connections she had. She didn't have any kin. Wudn't it, her husband was killed...In her place, a... constable hit him over the head with a gun.

B: Uh-huh. Now, we've had...we've had some people say that she had uh prostitutes in the place. Do you know if that was true?

JF: I've heard that too. I've heard that too.

B: But it just sounds like that was the kind of place anything that somebody wanted, you could get it at Aunt Carrie's was the thing that I've heard.

JF: Uh-huh. Yeah. But uh...the thing about it, you never had trouble there. None. You know, places like that, you would think there would be fights and stuff, but you didn't have it.

B: Uh-huh. Could you give me a physical description of her? Did you ever hear anybody describe her? We've never had one.

JF: Yeah. She was a little, short, dark skinned lady. Crippled. Very, very short. She's crippled.

B: Did she have a...a limp or..?

JF: Yeah. Had a...had a limp.

B: Did anybody know why? I mean...

JF: I don't know. Seem like to me, my grandmother said she was born that way. Said because..see, she was here before my...my grandmother, if I'm not mistaken, might have been about the fifth black in Matewan. My grandfather was first. Then there was a man they call Frank Bennett. And there's a guy that lived with my grandfather named Joseph Capples. They called...everybody called him Dad. In fact, older people around here called him Dad Brown, but his name was Joseph Capples. Venchie Morrell, you...you talk to him...he...if...if...if you ask Venchie, the man that lived with John and Mary Brown...What was his name? He'll call him Dad Brown. Uh...you had Frank Bennett, Joseph Capples, Miss Carrie, and then my grandmother.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. What, I know in the movie, it's represented that blacks were brought in as scabs.

JF: Uh...I don't agree with that. In fact, when I first saw that, I told Sue, that one scene where they jumped on them blacks...I never heard my grandmother say that. Not, as far as Matewan goes. Now, it could have been outside of Matewan at some other place. But, back at that time, blacks and everybody else was welcome cause they was openin' up all them mines.

B: Uh-huh. So there...there were actually blacks probably workin' at that time that were already here cause, and...and the mines... is...is that what your..?

JF: I'd say there was...there was a few. Not many.

B: Um-hum. Okay.

JF: But there was a bunch that came in here though. I mean, they used to be loaded with blacks around here.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. I know one of the...the issues that has been making headlines here lately is, within the black community, the... the whole idea of hierarchy based on paleness of skin or darkness of skin, was there that kind of hierarchy in this area?

JF: I'd say years ago, I'd say that uh...yeah, that, to a certain extent, that...that has a lot to do with it now too. I think that's comin'...I think that's comin' back too. I think racism is coming back. And I think that's because of Ronald Reagan. Philosophy on Civil Rights and stuff.

B: Okay. I noticed on...on your table here you have a copy of... of Huey Perry's book...

JF: Yeah.

B: They'll cut off your project. What do you think of that? I know...

JF: I think he hit it...he knew what he was saying. (laughing) From what I know, I think he's, you know, he's pretty accurate. That's my second book of that. I bought that book first when I was in college and I don't know what happened to it. And when it first came out in early seventies, I bought it. Bought it then and uh... Paul McAllister and Robert McCoy and myself went to Charleston to a bookstore and we were looking and Paul found the book and that was the only one they had. So I told that guy to order...to try to find me one. It was six, seven months ago. And I think last month, we went up and got it. He called and told me he got it.

B: Uh-huh. What um...I...I...I've heard, I haven't read the book yet, but I...I've heard that um...T.I. Varney didn't come out looking too good.

JF: No. But you tell him that, and he tells you, he says it's not true.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Would you care to comment on...on any of the uh...political problems that the county's had, say in the last twenty-five years, I mean, that's what...?

JF: Oh, I think the problem with the county is just, you...you got one party, that's the Democrats, and they split into factions and they fight like dogs and that's why we've got the roads we've got. That's why we don't have any respect in Charleston and uh...we're not gonna have it until it changes. We need two fac...(factions), two parties and not two factions and then what they do, they get together and they wheel and deal and play their game. You can't believe any of them. Nothin' but a bunch of liars. And uh...I don't know...I don't know what it'll take to change it. I really don't know because you...you really...your Republican party is non-exist ...(existent). It just not...it doesn't exist. You got a hand full of them and uh...then they get together and play games with the Democrat. One of the two Democratic factions and uh...that's why we got...that's why this area is in the shape it's in. You know. All of them should get together and start demanding. Cut through these mountains and blow these mountain tops off and build roads, but they don't do it. They look for a leader. That's our problem.

B: Has the um...I know in other areas, say in my home state of Virginia, there was a lot of problems, um...with...with black voter registration. When do you..do you know...?

JF: Well, you got such a small population around here now, but I think they...I think on a whole, they...they...they vote. Yeah, they...I think they were very active this last one. They...they were very active, I mean, they...they were,(clears throat) they were active in the...they were wanting certain schools board members and uh...they were upset with the State Senator Chafin because he...he...he supposedly...they say he doesn't know them on the street. They say, now, he knows you but uh...he doesn't know the rest of us...stuff like that.

B: Uh-huh. Are you the uh...first black mayor of...of Matewan?

JF: Uh..in..in any town in Mingo, yeah. But now, we have a black elected county official. John Hambrick. He's uh...circuit court clerk. Or county court clerk. I get 'em mixed up.

B: Uh-huh. Have you become the De facto voice of the black community?

JF: No. (laughter) I make a point not to do that.

B: Okay.

JF: I make a point not to do that. I don't want to do that. Uh... uh...in fact, a lot of white politicians tries to uh...lead me that way. I'm like your governor. (refers to Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia) I don't want to be led a certain way. I want to be myself. I make a point, really, when I'm with blacks, I'll make... I'll set back and I'll say things, but I let somebody else do a lot of it...do the talkin'. But a lot of them do turn to me and call me and wantin' me to do this and do that. I played a big role in this Martin Luther King uh...holiday bein' signed. I went up and signed that with the Governor's. About eight blacks...I was one of them. Make...this make it really a legal holiday. And in the past, the legislature kind of left a little gray area there, where it was kind of left up to the uh...government to do what they wanted to, you know, but now it's legal. It's a holiday. We have to take it.

B: Yeah. How does the um...do you...since I know your un...uncomfortable speaking for the black community as a politician, but how do you think the black community feels about it's potential now that people are talking about the revitalization of the area economically?

JF: Well, they look...the problem uh...the blacks was really in the...the history, blacks has capitalized with the union name, unions. And uh...that's what they uh...they want...they want to see things happen, but they want to get a piece of the action. You know. And uh...I think, on a whole, they...they like this. They like what's goin' on in Matewan. A lot of them will walk up and say I'm so proud you doin' this, you know. You know, it's not me. It's like I tell everybody, uh...at...me bein' mayor and bein' black, man, I'm lucky because, listen, I couldn't ask for anybody better to work with me than Danny Moore. And uh...the business people in Matewan and...and they can say what they want to about when Massey Coal, those individuals that works down there at Rawl Sales have been great to me. Arch Runyon. Ben Hatfield. Don Blankenship. I ask them for a...to patch this road in Matewan last summer...they didn't patch 'em. They paved 'em for a hundred...cost a hundred thousand dollars and, as far a gettin' cooperation and help, I couldn't ask for anything better.

B: Uh-huh. Let me...(tape cuts off) I ask you questions like that because um...especially in...in labor history, but in all types of history, Blacks tend to end up being the pawns in big games and in decisions like that and how do you...the current labor troubles, I mean how much a part of the problems between union and non union and...and current economic difficulties do...are blacks treated as a group? Courted by one group or another?

JF: Well, the thing is here it's...different thing about it is, you haven't got that population to where they will...they really have to court one or the other. It's a very small...there's a very small black population around here now. A lot of them are retired people that has retired from union mines so they are pro-union. And then, you got very few blacks around here work in the mines now. Very few. I...I say there's not ten or twenty. Really. And as far as up this way, not too many. Not hardly any really.

B: How...how big would you estimate the size of...of say, the... the black community at...at its largest in this area? When would you...when would you think that would have been?

JF: Oh, thirties...forties. Seem like to me, people told me they start leavin' in the fifties. When Red Jacket Coal Company sold out to Island Creek. That's when they started leavin' and it was a...it was a big population. I don't really know.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Well, um...I guess that the last subject that we've been tryin' to talk to people about has been the floods. The...the...the damage caused by the floods here in town. Um...I know you've already said that the flood wall was a very important thing to you. Um...what kind of devastation did the...did the floods cause?

JF: Really, I can't...I can't really find a word for it. It just totally just...it just destroyed the community. It destroyed the fabric of the community because it took away your businesses, your tax money, it just...another thing, it took the people and their families that had been working to make this community something. They just left and it, you...well, look at the upper end of town. There's not any population up there now. It's shifted and um...to me, you got to have roots in a community and really want to see it grow. You know, and I...I think it's took those people away. A lot of them, you know.

B: From what we've gathered there, the floods of, say, '77 and '84 weren't the first floods it's...it's been a...a flood-plagued area.

JF: Oh, gosh. I can remember...'63. '57. I remember those two. But '77, now, I'm gonna tell you, that was something' to see. That thing...that water was, I never seen anything like it. I mean, that water, I mean it warped the railroad tracks. Train had to stop up there. Didn't move for days. They had to come in and do work and you could stand over there at my grandmothers' building ...Or stand over there on the hillside and...and watch houses and trees hit that bridge and they'd pop and crack all night long and we saw houses, yeah, we watched houses just come up off their foundation, go out in the middle of the river and just go under, crumble.

B: One older lady that I interviewed said it was a hundred-year-flood. That's what she called it. Did...did you all talk about it in...in that term, then?

JF: That's what they say. Yeah, I've heard that. That...I've heard that. I don't really know what they mean by that, to tell you the truth. But I do that uh...the...the way the Corps label was there a hundred-year-flood, it's...it's not likely to happen for another hundred years and stuff like that but...I've heard that comment, yeah.

B: Uh. Well, I think we've...we've talked about a lot this evening.

JF: Uh-huh.

B: Is there anything else that you'd like to say that I've asked you about?

JF: No. Not that I know of. I...I pretty much covered everything.

B: Okay. Well um...one thing I would like to ask you other than that just on...on the end here, are there people in in the black community that you think should be interviewed as part of this project to give it a well rounded focus?

JF: I'm tryin' to think uh...I'd like to get someone that you... that...that's gonna tell you truth that was...that's been here long. Now, Louise, if you could get her.

B: Okay.

JF: Uh...she's been in Matewan quite a few years and she, her family was one of the first to come here. Um...That's about it. There's a few that's moved away from here that would be ideal. Now, one I really want you to talk to and I was gonna get him in here this year, he died uh...he's the oldest boy that my grandmother and them raised, Dave...Uh...in fact, we talked last year about him. He was gonna come back in and come over and let you interview him. That's...I can't think of anyone that I could go back and really know and tell ya, tell ya. If I could get Curtis up here, Dave's brother...I'll try to talk to him in the next few days and he can tell you about growin' up in Matewan. I mean, he, they grew up...I mean, whites that grew up with them did not have what they had. I mean, they were just brought up special. They had everything. My grandparents was successful and they were Miss Carrie's favorites. They were her little babies. She bought them a car when they was about sixteen Dave tore it up. She bought 'em another car. My grandparents bought them a car when they got old enough to drive so they wouldn't have to...back then, the blacks that rode a bus didn't have a bus to ride to Liberty High, they had an old truck with a canopy over it. They bought, my grandparents bought Curtis and Dave a car.

JF: I mean they were just privileged....and for...those times, that's special, you know. But, if I can get ahold of Curtis...he pretty much listens to me. He'll do what I say most of the time, you know. I'll...I'll talk to him, okay? How long you gonna be here? Just a week?

B: I'll be here ten weeks just like last summer.

JF: Okay. I'll talk with him then.

B: Okay. Well, let me go ahead...Thank you.

JF: Yeah. (tape cuts off)

B: We were talking off tape about the uh...Glen Alum robbery and...and you say you...your grandmother told you an interesting story about that.

JF: Well, what she told me was that uh...when that happened, the word was that it was blacks that had done it, some dark skinned men. But I...after they got the posse together, that's the exact word she used, and they got on their horses and got on the trains and they went up...they found out that it was uh...I think they were Italians. And uh...they were killed. I don't even think any others was brought into, to jail. I'm not sure. But she said that uh...back then, in Glen Alum, you had a, you know, coal mining. You had a large black population. In fact, there was a little black... there was a black elementary school over there at that time.

B: Uh-huh. There was an Italian supposedly here in town named Rock that was also a...

JF: Rock Numera, something like that.

B: Okay.

JF: Yeah. Now he might of...there was tales, too, about him bein' associated with that. Which you probably already heard. And he was killed standing uh...there was a big two-story white building It's ...it's torn down now, on the other side of the underpass. He was shot standin' up the uh...porch, I think. Uh...and there was always tales that that was the reason he was killed.

B: Uh-huh. Okay.

JF: Now he was a good friend of my grandfather's, too.

B: Your grandfather probably could speak Italian with him.

JF: Well, he could speak most of that stuff...that...and that had a lot to do with him uh...uh...you know, bein'...bein' able to do what he did. And he uh...it...he could speak a bunch of those languages. Now, I don't really know. I can't really speak English that well but now he could really uh...uh...he could speak 'em. I can remember, when I was small, people would come in...come to the house and come over to the cleaners or something to see him, that'd been away, that was Italian, or whatever...I'd just stand there and listen to 'em. They'd just be talkin' and, you know, very little English was spoken, you know.

B: Uh-huh. Hum. I was wondering. I...I...I know my mother grew up in a coal camp and she learned how to cook some dishes that obviously was...was a result of the different ethnic groups mixing. Did...did...did you grandmother pick up anything like that? Did the different ethnic groups bring a, you know, did they bring food or anything?

JF: No. She could cook but it was, I...not...not like that, I mean, she...She...she spoiled me on cookin' but not none...none of the ethnic. But uh...

B: Okay. I know one thing um...we were talking about off tape that ...that made me think of...of a rather important question since um...you know, we've talked about your political career. What do you think about some of the problems that the black communities facing nationally with...with...with um...drug addiction and...and the violence of...of young black males? Do you consider yourself a role model for young black males? I know...

JF: Well, let me tell you what...I think it's funny. Williamson Elementary uh...see, I work out of a central office. I have filled in as a principal up at Williamson Elementary.

B: Uh-huh. (coughing)

JF: Those little black kids loved me. Love it when they see me.

B: Uh-huh.

JF: And I can't walk the streets in Williamson now, they walk up...I don't care when or where, they holler, you know. They'll call me Mr. Principal or something like that, you know. I guess I am, really, I...a lot of them uh...you know, Yeah, I...I guess I am.

B: Uh-huh. What do you think, if...if...you had to say, one or two things at most, what...what do you think is the biggest challenge or problem for the black community, say nationwide or even locally?

JF: Education. I'm gonna just hit it nationwide. Okay? I think the blacks has totally gotten away, Black males, from education and I think they need to get back into it. And I think that blacks and, between thirty-five and forty-five years. I think they have really had a lot of opportunities, as far as education, because, comin' out of the Civil Rights movement, a lot of money is out there but there was a lot that didn't take advantage of it. And I...I think that they need education and...and your drug situation is bad...bad. And there's a lot of experiments goin' on now and especially I was readin' one the other day. Over in D.C., there's a group that's tryin' to uh...in fact, one of the schools in D.C., they ...they puttin' all the young, black males in that school. And they got black males teachin' it...and they're not necessarily, uh...graduates with a teachin' degree. They're successful black males that's come in and teachin'. To give these people a role model and I think...I think that's great and I think they need to do that. But I don't know on what scale, how large a scale because really, what your doin', you're bringing back segregation to a certain extent.

JF: But I...I think that uh...uh...black role...male role models, man, we need them bad.

B: Okay. One question that's the flip side of that is, did your grandparents ever talk about how far back it was to slavery it was in your family? Did they ever talk about uh...?

JF: My grandmother said her mother was a slave...and was born into it I think. Yeah. And uh...down in Virginia where she... where they ...she came from Saltville, there was this plantation and uh...the family was all mixed up...Ninety percent of them about my complexion. Straight hair, green eyes, you know. I don't know if Thomas Jefferson had any of us but...(laughing) He had his share of them. From the history books but uh...uh...I think they died out. They left that land they owned down there was left to them by uh... foreign slave...and there was another one down there named Stuart, I think, a big slave owner and uh...my grandmother's...my grandmother's mother was the darkest person that I've ever seen in my family. She was the darkest but my grandmother's father was half white. Now, my grandfather, he uh...how was that. His mother was Indian and black and his father was white. And uh...now, I never did hear him talk about bein' a slave. I always. I think that he was kindly...his mother was born a free slave. I think. That's the way it was. And uh...never did hear him talk that much about it. I mean, they were kindly...they was a little different because uh...when they came to West Virginia, they always were runnin'...had a little boy in the house and kind of like a little feedin'... place to feed people and they did that in Keystone, he said...When they came to Red Jacket, they did that. He left his parents in Red Jacket and he came into Matewan. So, I never did hear him talk anything about that.

B: Okay.

JF: I don't think so. (wife speaks - his parents were very obedient). Their step-father and his mother was very obedient.

B: Uh-huh. Do you know where his family had come from in Virginia?

JF: They were from Appomattox.

B: Appomattox.

JF: And uh...he said when he was a little boy, he'd go where Lee surrendered. He was tellin' me about that.

B: Uh-huh. Do you think that possibly he could have been named John, after John Brown of Harper's Ferry fame?

JF: Don't know. I don't know. I often thought about that but, I just thought, you know, it was funny there was John Brown then there was, you know. I don't I don't really know.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Well. Well. (tape cuts off)

JF: Did you do Rex? Didn't you do Rex Harmon last...did you?

B: Yeah. He was a fascinating person to talk to.

JF: Yeah. His uh...now up there where he lives at Newtown. Years ago, they used to say blacks couldn't go up there. My grandfather went up there all the time. Dry cleanin' and stuff. We...you know, Rex Harmon could probably tell you about that but uh...he uh...someone told me you had interviewed him now. I said, you know, he can tell her a lot.

B: Uh-huh. Okay. Okay. He was...he was one of the most interesting men that...that...I...I think that I talked to.

JF: Well, see, he's been here all the time. Born and raised there. I think he went away. He told me he went to Detroit and worked one...some...one time but he came back, you know.

B: Uh-huh. He..he had um...really interesting story about Cap Hatfield.

JF: Yeah, well he knows. Now, he has helped me politically, too. When he, in fact, when I got this job I got now, it was... it was... it was several different people but Rex made a strong pitch. He was a Democrat committeeman and he made...he made special trips to Williamson that...To say things to help out. He's one of my favorites. I like him. His...his health is bad now. (wife speaks he's had a rough year, probably, since you was here) Yeah. He...he's lost a leg, I think, now and, when I was in the hospital last summer, he come down for therapy and he'd make a point to come see me and he couldn't hardly walk. Yeah.

B: Hum. Okay. The um...the last question that I...I'd put you back on here to ask you about was, the uh...1919 flu epidemic.

JF: Um. When my...like I said earlier, my grandmother had a sister that lived in a little community called Nolan. And she died from that. And they took her body back to Saltville, Virginia and buried her.

B: Did you grandmother ever say anything else about that epidemic.

JF: Well, she was talkin' about...it was really bad. It was a lot of people around Matewan was sick at that time uh...I can't really remember what all she said but she...I tell you one thing she told me, a lot of people got together and helped out. A lot of people. They helped each other out with it. It's just like a lot of other things back then. Like the first bridge. Have you heard the tale about the first bridge?

B: Not really. No.

JF: A group of business people got together and uh...some coal company owned a swingin' bridge somewhere. And they...they went and got together and uh...uh...bought that...put that bridge, connectin' Buskirk and Matewan. Just a lot of other little things like that.

B: This seems to have been a pretty self-reliant little community.

JF: It was...it was nice. I...when I was growin' up. It wasn't as much filth and uh...it blew my mind when I got outside of Matewan, travelin' up and down these hollers how dirty it was. I mean, it wasn't dirty and uh...it was all the trash and garbage and stuff. It's more garbage and stuff now and we work it tryin' to keep it out of Matewan but it's just every time I turn around, garbage cans are full of junk, overflowing and it's just not like it used to be and then you...now you can't just get people to do things. They'll sue you and, you know, it was just different. And we work and work and work and I worry about the filth and garbage but there's nuttin' I can do, I mean. Why, the bank gave us ten thousand dollars about three months ago and went and bought a dump truck just to help this, I mean, well, Danny Moore did...you know, it mean you...like I say, you can't beat the... the help that I've had, really. Another thing um...you take that Development Center, I mean, if they didn't have faith in me bein' mayor, I mean, you would have had the Development Center but knowin' that I back it one hundred percent, you know...And...and they got faith in me, you know, and I'll, I...there's people that don't agree with it and I let them know what I think about them not agreeing with it cause I'm one hundred percent for it, in fact, I'm more than that. It... it thrills me to know that we got it and what we're trying to do... I love it.

B: Hum. What do you think of the idea that...when people say, well, the problems that Appalachia faces today are because all the people that had pluck or fight gone and that only...the only people that are left are people that wouldn't...wouldn't work when there was work or...?

JF: I don't agree with that. I...but on numbers now, there's not enough of us out here battling and we would like for more people to get involved but they won't. I don't know. You know, then you got this union, non-union thing now. It's tough now. It's...it's a big, big thing right now. I mean, it, and you know that's not good. But I...there's a lot of fighters still here, you know, we want to see things better. But I tell you, it gets tough. It gets ...you get worn about from it. I get runned to death sometimes.

B: Uh-huh. Um. I understand that. Okay. Well, for the last time.

JF: Okay.

B: Thank you. (laughing) (tape cuts off)

Matewan Oral History Project Collection