Description

In this interview, Ella Pegues recalls life during segregation as she recounts her active role in the events of the Civil Rights movement. Pegues remembers the difficulty of dealing with segregation. She says she was active in boycotts of and sit-ins at establishments that would not serve blacks. She recalls being in jail a couple of times for this passive resistance, and she remembers Martin Luther King, Jr., visiting them to instruct them on how to behave. She also recounts stories of problems on public transportation. Pegues says that older folks didn't think the marches and other efforts to push civil rights would accomplish anything. She says they seemed even more excited about the successes because "they didn't know it could be done." Pegues remembers the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Afterwards, she said she felt "empty": "I didn't exactly feel angry because we had been conditioned . . . not to be angry with anything that happened." But she questions why it had to happen, especially to innocent children. Pegues describes segregation as "stupid." She says that it didn't make any sense that she could work with whites and be a wet nurse to white babies, but could not eat with whites. Another example she gives is of an old boss: "Lord have mercy! I cook her food. I couldn't come in the front door. Wasn't that stupid?" She also describes segregation as wasteful because the building of separate facilities was expensive. Pegues discusses the hypocrisy of...

Record Contributed By

William Stanley Hoole Special Collections Library

Record Harvested From

Digital Library of Georgia