McLean County Museum of History

Keep the Heritage Alive!

Robert Gaston - Tape 2 - 1988


Narrator: Robert Gaston (about his Barbershop)
Interviewer: Mildred Pratt
Date: June 21, 1988

MP	Today is June 21, 1988, and I am talking with Mr. Gaston about his business. (bell rings as door is opened) Mr. Gaston, would you tell us the name of your establishment? What was the name when you started it?

RG	Gaston's Barber Shop. Today it's called The Upper Cut.

MP	When did you change the name?

RG	We changed the name in 1973 when we moved to Normal.

MP	Do you remember why you changed the name and how you?

RG	Well, we just wanted a new name. We were just sitting around one night, and we said Gaston's Barber Shop is fine, but let's try and put a little something.

MP	a little pizzazz in it.

RG	Yeah, let's put a little pizzazz in it because we have other names like Shears and The Clippers. So we said Upper Cut, and we put a fist up there for an emblem. But, we pointed it at the head.

MP	Yes, so that fist was symbolic of the Black Movement, right?

RG	Yes, that also.

MP	Now, when you got started- what year did your business start? It started in Bloomington, right?

RG	Yes, in 1960.

MP	And where was it located?

RG	Located at Center and Grove Street in Bloomington, Illinois.

MP	Tell me how did you get started? I mean where did you get the money for the building to set the business up?

MP	And he got the job that you wanted?

RG	Yes.

MP	What was the job?

RG	Well, it was a job that's a production specialist. I always had done production work and ordering. Well, I was a leader of the team for a long time, and I was supposed to get the job of production specialist. I'd been told through several sources that I would no doubt get the job. Somehow I didn't, and I was told later through a source, a white source, that the reason I wasn't hired was because I was Black and at that time they just wasn't putting Blacks in that position. So I got a bit bitter about the whole thing, and I'd put a little money into the savings program and other-I had money saved in the credit union. And I just went home one day, and I was really disgusted because I was having all kinds of problems with white folks at that time at the plant because they wanted me to sit there and teach someone else the job that I was supposed to get. And I didn't like it. So I just quit, and I took my resources and went to barber college. I was cutting hair in the first place at home because with seven sons that's what I had. I had to learn to cut hair because it was too expensive to take them the barbershop.

MP	And you learned the basic skills yourself?

MP	Back then you were about the only barber at the time, Black barber, cutting hair?

RG	No, there was another shop at that time. And, I decided-the man was getting old at that time. You know, way up there in age. So I decided I would go to the barber college, and when I came back to town I tried to go into business with him, and he wouldn't accept me. He said he didn't want anybody. You know how some people are narrow-minded. He was thinking I was going to take business away from him. He didn't realize I would be an asset to him. He was getting old and if I was cutting hair, he was going to get money from every head I cut. He didn't realize that. But anyway.

MP	Where did you do to barber college?

RG	Peoria Barber College. After he didn't let me in, I decided to open up a shop of my own. So that I did down on South Center Street.

MP	How did you get the building?

RG	Well, there was an old building at that time-the urban renewal hadn't gotten around to all the buildings, tearing them down at that time, and rent was reasonable. There was a fellow I had bowled for that that owned the building, a fellow by the name of Stamms [114 North Center]. He had a men's clothing store downtown, and I went down and talked to him, and he just told me to move in.

MP	This was a white gentleman?

RG	A Jewish fellow, yeah. He said, "Just move right in and go ahead and fix the place up. You don't have to pay no rent for six months." You know, something like that. "Fix it up any way you want. I'm not going to spend any money on the old building, but if you want to go in and do this, okay." So it was probably going to be going down anyway. I was sure they had it in urban renewal plan, but it was maybe off four or five years. So I figured, you know, I could get started, which I did. I went in there and I got started. It worked out pretty well for me. And they finally moved me out-urban renewal did, and I moved to up on the square, Bloomington square, right next to Osco's up on Center Street. And I stayed there about.

MP	You rented that building?

RG	Yeah, well, I rented the one I was in previously too, but you know, they just gave me a lot of time.

MP	You didn't have to pay much rent then?

RG	Right, and I moved down on Center and Washington, and they eventually moved me out of there. They tore the building down and put a new building in there. Snyder did, the developer around here. They put that new building down there so I had to move, and that's when I moved to Normal. My first stop in Normal was right across the creek from Steak 'N Shake on Main Street in that old building there. And I stayed there about three years, and some one bought that building so I had to move again. So, at that time I moved down on Kingsley there and stayed in that building for about five or six years, and then the cleaners bought all that back in there, and they moved me out of there. So I'm here at this place, and that's been since 1960. That's been twenty-eight years ago.

MP	Yes, so you rent this facility?

MP	Any members of your family involved in the business in any way at all?

RG	Yeah, my son, Gary runs the whole thing now.

MP	When did he begin to get involved?

RG	Let's see now, he and Frank Suggs's son when they were going to high school, they worked in the business. They shined shoes down on Center Street. After he got out of school, he went to college for a year and a half, I suppose. And then he decided he wanted to be a barber. He got out of college and went to barber college instead and became a barber instead. He's been in the business now for over ten years. And my daughter is also a barber. She worked with me for a short time-one of my girls. But she lives in Texas, now. She's an industrial engineer down in Texas.

MP	So then, who helped with you books? Did any of your family members help you with your books?

RG	I keep my books myself.

MP	All right. I know why you started the business. Now, did any other members of your family have businesses? You know, you said you decided to go into business for yourself. You'd kind of started out cutting hair because of your sons, but were there any-was like your father or any uncles involved in business or any of your other relatives in business?

RG	Way back?

MP	Yes.

RG	Well, according to all reports that I have one of my-according to my family report A.G. Gaston is supposed to be an uncle of mine.

MP	Now who's he?

RG	A millionaire, A.G. Gaston is supposed to be an uncle of mine.

MP	Now who's he?

RG	A millionaire, A.G. Gaston in Birmingham.

MP	Is he the one who has the insurance?

RG	Yes.

MP	Oh is that right?

RG	That's what I hear, but I've been to his place, in fact, with old relatives of mine. I never knew the man, you know. I guess back in those days down in Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia families got split up and separated and all that. I didn't even know him. I was thirty-seven years old when I went to Birmingham for the first time. I drove one of my uncles down there, and I saw the man, but I didn't know him. And he said he was related to me.

MP	Oh, he said he was related?

RG	Yeah.

MP	Did he say how?

RG	Well, he was supposed to be my father's uncle. That's the way I got it, I don't know.

MP	Well, he would probably know.

RG	According to the uncle that took me down there who's deceased at this time from Chicago-he was a retired man out of Chicago at the postal service. I drove him down to New Orleans, and we went down through Birmingham, and he told me, "I'm going to take you by one of your great uncle's places. He's a big business man down here." Which I didn't even know a thing about the man. So we went by and stayed at his motel.

MP	So he owns the insurance company business, and he also owns a motel and real estate?

RG	I guess he owns everything down there.

MP	In Birmingham?

RG	Yeah, I guess so. He's supposed to be related to me according to what I know. I heard but I don't know anything about it. My mother never said anything to me about it, but my uncle out of Chicago told me all of this, you see. Whether it's true or not I don't know. We have the same name.

MP	Usually they know. These older people, they know how the relationships go.

MP	Well I think, I want to go back to kind of see if there are some other things that motivated you to kind of go out on your own.

RG	The thing that motivated me is the fact that I got tired of being pushed around, and it's just a matter of race with me. In fact, I sit here in my barbershop, and I preach to these kids every day that they should try to do something for themselves. I keep telling them, "You can open any kind of business you want to. If you don't have the expertise, there's always people available that you can get. You surround yourself with people that have the expertise to do certain things." I say, "I can take you to a city right now that I know of where you can go down there and you can find shoe cobblers, cleaning and pressing people-anybody that can run you any kind of service, and they're walking around without a job. You can hire those people and bring them and put them in here. And you can learn and watch and learn from them. But, you can also own the business without doing any of the work. Have people here to do it for you."

MP	That's right.

RG	I keep preaching that to people, and I think I made a couple of people have been successful so far because I've had some of them come back and tell me that they were listening to me, and they took heed to what I was saying.

MP	And they went ahead and did that.

RG	They went ahead and did it. In fact, there's one boy right here in town now who's got a pretty nice business here, lucrative business in the nutrition field-Larry Strong. I don't know, you probably know Larry.

MP	I don't think I know Larry Strong.

RG	He went to ISU. I thought you might have ran into him. He was thinking about leaving here at on time, and he kept listening to me preach around here about if you know how to do something go ahead and try to do it. You are young, and you have plenty of time. If you fail, you can try somewhere else or whatever.

MP	That's right.

RG	Try something else if you can't win at one thing. So he went into this nutrition thing, and he's doing wonderful.

MP	Is that right?

RG	He's doing fine. His picture is in there on the wall.

MP	I did not know about that. That relates to one of the questions I have. And that is since you've been in business,, do you know of any organized way in which Blacks try to help each other in business? Now you're doing it as an individual. You're trying to motivate young Blacks, but do you know of any kind of organization?

RG	No, not off hand. Only thing that I know is that the cities have been receiving monies to promote-you know, to help Black people.

MP	Bloomington and Normal?

RG	Why sure. They get money but somehow or another, I don't know what's going on. I think this fellow across the street running Robinson's got money off the city a couple of times.

MP	That's federal. That's the federal minority business, I guess.

RG	Yes, the money is for that purpose, and a lot of these Black people don't take advantage of that.

MP	Or they don't know about it.

RG	Or they don't know. I don't know what it is. I guess they don't explore all these things. You try to tell them, and they are backwards. You know how some of these people are.

MP	Yeah, I understand. I understand what you are saying.

RG	And I'll tell you another thing. They get discouraged when they go in these places and try to find-get information, the people in there discourage them themselves.

MP	They could definitely withhold information from them. That's right. You're right. Absolutely. Now, you have-the only employees you've had in your business are family members, is that right? Pretty much?

RG	Well, yeah. I've had a couple of people that wasn't family at one time, but they were here only a short time. I had one girl, in fact Gloria worked for me-Hursey. She worked for me for quite a while until she got married. In fact, that's the way she came here. She came here to work for me.

MP	Would you tell me how your business developed and grew? For example, first you had people coming to your home, you said. Did you ever feel that you had to market your business, or everybody knew this was the place they could come to get their hair cut?

RG	Well, you know, at one time Bloomington was so small that everybody knew everybody else Black. All the Black people knew each other. So advertising wasn't really necessary.

MP	And you really had no real competition did you?

RG	No, I didn't have any competition. In fact, there's only one Black legitimate barbershop in town at this time, and that's this one.

MP	That's what I thought.

RG	So, it wasn't really necessary for me to do all these things. Of course, I have bought ads and advertised, and every time someone comes down with a book or organization or something that's doing something, I always buy an ad.

MP	But you don't really have to do it.

RG	I don't have to do it because the business is already established, and everybody knows where I'm at and that I'm here. Word of mouth has gotten around over the years, and it's no problem.

MP	Do you have any white's who come here?

RG	Yeah.

MP	When did you begin getting white's, Mr. Gaston?

RG	Well, I've been getting whites ever since I opened. In fact, I have a white schoolteacher that teaches in Heyworth that's been coming to me ever since I opened for twenty-eight years. Mr. Irvin is his name.

MP	Oh, is that Francis Irvin?

RG	Francis. Francis has been coming to me for twenty some years, and I have a couple of white ministers and, in fact, we just got done cutting a young white kid's hair. We have all kinds of people coming. I don't know, but these white people-I don't know where you're going to use this thing at. Do you want me to be as frank as possible?

MP	I want you to be frank, Mr. Gaston.

RG	Well, since we're a Black barbershop, Kaleidoscope and these retarded or mentally handicapped people-I guess the white barbers don't care to be bothered with them-so they bring them all here.

MP	The white and the Black?

RG	Whites and the Blacks. Yeah, they bring them all here. In fact, we just had one go out of here, and they're going to bring another one down pretty soon. And they are mentally and physically handicapped.

RG	Yeah, because we're Black, I guess, they figure we're hungry, we'll do anything. I mean they're not that bad. Some of them are kind of destructive maybe while you're cutting hair, but you can usually calm them.

MP	There's no major problem.

RG	There's no problem. And they're people, too. That's the way I feel. Somebody's got to do the job. You understand what I mean. I care as much about them as I do about anybody else.

MP	Yes, they're human beings. Now, did you have to learn any special technique to cut white people's hair?

RG	Yeah, you have to learn in barber college.

MP	So you learned that in barber college?

RG	Yeah, right. But, actually it's much simpler to cut their hair than it is Black hair.

MP	Is that right? That's interesting.

RG	Because it just hangs, and Blacks are curly and tangled.

MP	Yes. Let's see. You don't have to tell me anything about your profits unless you want to, but maybe we could do it comparatively. Could you compare your barbering business with any other barbershops? And do you think you do well in comparison.

RG	I'll just answer that "yes."

MP	All right, that's good enough. What problems have you had in operating a business, Mr. Gaston? I mean for example, have you ever had-well, just let me leave it at that. What problems have you had?

RG	Actually, I haven't had any problems that I can think of. I mean I would like to know exactly what you mean when you say problems.

MP	Let's say, have you ever needed to get a loan for your business for any purpose.

RG	Well, the first time I moved, I didn't need any money because urban renewal moved me. So they paid the bill. They gave me enough money to move and rehabilitate and everything else. But, the second time I moved I. (tape is turned off)

MP	So we were talking about any problems you had with you business, and you were telling me a little bit about the money situation.

RG	I really never had any financial problems because when I opened the first time, I had saved money. I hadn't saved it for that purpose, but I had the money saved.

MP	But you had-a part of your value was to save.

RG	Yeah.

MP	That's what we're interested in, too.

MP	And, also, you couldn't move. You were at a level you couldn't go up further.

RG	They boxed me in. I guess they thought I'd be happy just working in an office with white folks. But, that wasn't the point. If I could do something else. I was glad that happened because that gave me an opportunity to branch out on my own, and I've been the happiest person in the world since then. I've met a lot of my friends who've retired since then, and they come around boasting about their retirement, and they look ten times older than me.

MP	You've always been independent, right?

RG	Hey. And they look ten times older than me because, you know, when you work in a big corporation like that, if you do 100they want 110[]. If you do 110[], they want 120[].

MP	The pressure is there.

RG	I know because I worked there. And there was always pressure. In fact, a lot of nights I went home, and I would lay awake at night wondering if I forgot to do something that I should have done. And it would worry me until the next morning. Sometimes I couldn't even sleep.

MP	A lot of stress.

RG	Most of the people that I knew who worked there had ulcers.

MP	So you had no problem with money, but you were saying that one of the banks offered you. That's interesting.

RG	Well, when I got ready to move, they gave me ten grand. They said, "You need any money?" And I said, "Yeah, I could use some money.' I said, "I'm going to move my place." "How much do you want? Well, about ten or fifteen [thousand]?" You know they started it off for me.

MP	So you just moved it on.

RG	Well, you know, the guy told me I could have anything I wanted. That was very unusual for a white organization.

MP	Why do you think they did that then?

RG	Well, because they owned the building that I rented uptown. When I moved uptown, well several of my boys had went on little ventures this and that and the other, and they needed money. So when they got ready for their money, the bank wouldn't let them have it unless I co-signed. Well, I did co-sign for two or three of my kids to do different things. And some of them failed, and when they failed, I paid it off. And they knew that I would do these things. And they told me, "Well, you know, you take care of all your business, that's one thing we say about you, Mr. Gaston. You don't owe us a dime, and none of your kids because you paid all of their bills. So you can have anything you want here." Which they did. They gave me ten thousand dollars. And I moved out in Normal, and my business got so bad that I got to a place where I couldn't make my payments. Now that's a fact.

MP	Tell me, why do you think, what happened there? There were all the college students there. Was it the place, the location?

RG	I think it was the location because the people from Bloomington wouldn't come to Normal. Several of them got arrested and this, that, and the other. And they didn't want to drive in Normal, and I lost all of the Bloomington business, and there was very few people that came out there to get a haircut from Bloomington. And the Normal kids, well, there wasn't too many of them at the time.

MP	That's true, there weren't many.

RG	And the whites, there wasn't too many of them.

MP	And the majority of the Blacks lived in Bloomington.

RG	So, frankly, I had to sign bankruptcy which I did. I filed bankruptcy. But, the bank didn't know that. I filed it one day, and the next day they sent three people out to my shop. I was about three months behind in my payments, and they wanted to know what was going on. They come out and they looked my shop over, and they looked at me and they says, "Now, you know we're awfully sorry." See I lived in that building. I had a business in that building. And they said they were sorry they put me out of business. That's why they let me have the money because Snyder who was one of the principals over there in the bank wanted that space to put that new building on the corner there. So they moved me out. And the guy said to me, "Well, you've always paid your bills. You always seemed to make a lot of money and this and that and the other, and it's probably our fault that all this happened, and I'll tell you what we're going to do. The ten thousand dollars that we loaned you, we're going to wipe off the books. You don't owe us a dime." People's Bank did that for me. Now, that's the honest to God truth. You know what I told them. I said, "You know, I'm so glad you did this because I filed bankruptcy this morning." They said, "You didn't have to do it just because of us. We're just going to wipe it off the books." They actually did that.

MP	That's amazing. I think that should be known.

RG	Yes, I think so. Ten thousand dollars is a lot of money. Of course, it probably doesn't mean anything to them, but for me it was a lot of money, and at the time I wasn't making any money so they just wrote it right off the books. The vice-president of the bank came to my shop, and he told me. "Well, Mr. Gaston, you've always been a good man, and you've always paid your bills and paid all your kids' bills. We knew something was happening to you here. We didn't know what it was." And when they came in back in that little place down there, I didn't have any business all the while they was there. I just had nobody come in. And they was around there for three or four hours, and they just saw me and my son sitting there. And they said, "We're really sorry about this and that ten thousand dollars, you'll never hear from us again because we're going back and wipe it off the books.

MP	Why did you move to Normal? Was that about the only building that was available?

RG	That was the only building. (customer comes in and tape is stopped)

MP	Could you tell me why you think business kind of dropped off when you went to Normal? I don't know if we got that on tape.

RG	I think we did.

MP	Would you say that was about the major problem you had with the business?

RG	That was the biggest problem.

MP	No problems with license?

RG	No.

MP	Did you have any relationships with other Black or white businesses?

RG	Do I have?

MP	Have you had since you have been in operation?

RG	Well, frankly there haven't been any Black businesses, only the man across the street-maybe my son around the corner. Then, I have another son that's opening a place right down the street here.

MP	Oh, what is that?

RG	He's opening up a computer store. He and his wife. They have one in Peoria, and they're opening one up here.

MP	Oh, that's great. Were you ever a member of the chamber of commerce?

RG	Yes.

MP	Are you still a member?

RG	No, I was on the board of director of the chamber of commerce.

MP	Would you begin by telling me when you first joined the chamber of commerce, the conditions under which you did?

RG	Oh, at that time we had a young man by the name of Nate-I can't think of his last name. He worked for the city chamber of commerce. At the time, he was also going to ISU, and I can't think of his last name.

MP	And this was a Black?

RG	A young Black man.

MP	He was on the chamber of commerce. He worked for the chamber of commerce you say?

RG	And at that time, they didn't have too many members, and they were trying to recruit as many people as they possibly could. So they hired him and he got all the Black businesses at that time or people that were anticipating going into business. He got Garrison's Plumbers, and he got me in. He got Richard Bell. I mean everybody that was in business, and maybe the two taverns. They had two bars at that time, and he got them. And they were all probably in the chamber of commerce, and they put me on the board of the chamber of commerce, but I can tell you a story that will blow your mind of how I got on the board of directors of the chamber of commerce. And that was when urban renewal bought my home down on East Street where the library is located at this time in Bloomington, me and my wife bought a home in Normal on William Drive. I tried to get it financed through Bloomington Federal, and they turned me down. For what reason, I don't know. So I went to Lincoln Savings and Loan, and they immediately just took it, and they bought the house for me.

MP	You went down to Lincoln?

RG	No, there was a branch office here at that time. But, what happened is, three years after I bought my home, I was living in Normal. The president of Champion Federal came into my shop one day and got a shoeshine, and he got up on the stand, which I knew him personally because I've worked at a country club as a bartender, and I knew most of them guys at that, you know. And he came into the shop, and he got a shoeshine. I think my son was shining his shoes, and he and I was having a conversation. He was telling me that if I needed anything, why come down there and they was an equal opportunity loaner and all this stuff. So I told him, "That's strange. I was down there three years ago, and I couldn't get a loan." He said, "Well what do you mean?" And I said, "Well, I was in there"-my son is a witness to this of he was shining his shoes. I said, "I was in your place, and I had four thousand dollars and urban renewal had fifteen thousand they were going to pay on the house for me, and you people refused to finance it." And he said, "You must be wrong." He almost called me a liar to my face, but he didn't. He didn't go that far.And I said, "I'm telling you, and that's a fact of life." And I said, "If you don't believe it,"-I even told him the person that interviewed me and the one that I filled out an application for, and they were the ones who turned me down. I guess he went back down there and found out that I told him the truth because I never heard anymore from him for six months.

MP	That's very interesting.

RG	Six months later, he called me up on the phone one day. He said, "Bob Gaston?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "This is Craig [Hart] over at Champion Federal-Bloomington Federal at that time." I said, "Yeah, what can I do for you." He said, "I just submitted your name-I seen you're a member of chamber of commerce-I just submitted your name to the board of directors. If we could get you on there, would you accept the position?" I said, "Yeah, I'll take it." That's the last I heard of him. I knew what that was about. I knew that was because he had told me that I didn't apply at his place, and he was trying to.

MP	And he felt guilty about it.

RG	Yeah, he felt guilty and-why me of all people?

MP	That's right. That is very interesting. And so you decided to accept.

RG	Yeah, and through that acceptance I went to Bloomington Country Club two or three times to dinner. You know they have the annual dinner there. I was probably the only Black that ever set down and ate because I used to work there, and a Black couldn't go out there and do anything. And while I was there, Bob-he used to be a lawyer for ISU-Bob [Lenz], I knew Bob. And Bob was at the dinner that night when I went out there-he and another guy that run Bloomington Physicians by the name of Stevenson. And they knew me, and they came over, and they started chatting with me and talking to me. And these old rich white folks was there, and they kept looking at me. That wanted to know what I was doing there. I wasn't supposed to be there unless I was working. Me and my daughter, Jewel, went. My wife was sick so I took Jewel with me. They kept insisting that I had to be Charles Morris. I told them twenty times that I wasn't Charles. Simply because they saw me and Bob Lenz together talking and Bob Lenz and Charles was in business together at that time so that kept insisting that-they'd say, "You're Charles Morris."

MP	That's the only Black person around who could be there, right?

RG	That might be there maybe through Bob Lenz. I doubt whether he'd ever been there. Maybe, I don't know. But they knew that Bob Lenz and Charles Morris were good friends, and I guess Bob was in the country club place all the time but in the.

MP	chamber.

RG	No, I don't know whether he was in the chamber of commerce or not, but what I'm trying to say is that he was not a member of the Bloomington Country Club. He used to go out there to Bob's home all the time. They were frequently together because I'd seen them at several different functions at that time. You know they owned some houses out there-co-ed houses, and they called them slum landlords. They both got rid of that stuff right away. You was probably there at the time. But, that was how I got to go to the country club, and I got to rub shoulders with this Craig Hart, that's his name, over at Bloomington Federal. And, he never did come out and apologize to me, but I could also tell that he had it on his mind. But he never said anything about it. You know some men never apologize for anything.

MP	So as to help him get off his guilt.

RG	That helped him cool his mind, I suppose.

MP	I wanted you to tell me something about any kind of interesting experiences that you remember since you've been in business. You were saying some important personalities?

RG	Oh, I just happened to mention-that this kid asked me about that ball player in there and I told him.

MP	Oh, Brock.

RG	He parked right in front of my place because they were having him up here at this baseball clinic all day, and he just parked in front of the shop here. I got to talking and I chatted with him for awhile. He went up there and signed autographs all day. But, there's been so many things happened to me here in this barbershop. I've had all kinds of white people come in here, "rednecks" and everything else. You don't want any of that there, do you?

MP	I think it would be interesting. You mean they would come to your barbershop to ask you cut their hair?

RG	Well, yeah, when I first opened a barbershop on Center Street, that had always been a white folks' street, and I moved in over there in their territory. And I had the barbershop open and I was taking care of business cutting people's hair, you know- Black people-and this white man came in. He just looked like a typical bum or redneck or farmer or whatever you want to call him. He came in, and he had a sack in his hand, a brown paper sack. And he walked in, and he looked at me and he sat in a chair, and I didn't say anything to him. I just kept on working because I thought maybe he wanted a haircut. And he opened up his sack, and he took out a big bottle of wine and started drinking wine and sitting there and took his coat off and took one of his shoes off and crossed his legs and sat back in chair. So I said to him, I said, "Hey, I don't mind you being in here. If you want any kind of service, I'll render that too, but you can't drink in here." And he looked at me and said, "What do you mean, Boy, I can't drink in here?" I said, "Just what I said." He said, "You don't tell me what to do. This is my street. This is Center Street. I do what I want in here." I said, "If you don't put that bottle back in that sack, and sit up like a man and act right, I'm going to throw you out there in the middle of the street." And he said, "Boy, you don't know who you fooling with Boy, do you?" There was a guy in then by the name of Roosevelt [Rozell] Samuels. He lives on Willow Street in Normal. I was cutting his hair, and he had to take me off of that man.

MP	That did it.

RG	Yeah, he told me, "You're going to kill this man." I threw him out in the street. So about two days later there was a guy standing out there. They was supposed to be bad white folks, right next door to the union hall where all these white laborers and all these rednecks and everything hung out. And there was a tavern right there. A guy got killed there a few days earlier. Some guy shot him out there in front of the place. It was all whites you know. I was right on the corner, and they were right next door to me. So they saw me throw this white guy out of there. So this one guy, I guess he says, "I'm going to find out if he'll throw me out of there." About three days later, he come in there drunk with his bottle, and he sat down. Well, his brother was badder that he was, and he run the union hall. He was an organizer over there. So, he come in and pulled the same thing on me just about. So I grabbed him. First of all I knocked him down, and I picked him up by the seat of his pants and threw him out into the street. Then a car almost hit him, and I had to drag him back to keep the car from hitting him. Somebody ran in and told his brother-supposed to be the baddest (unintelligible) in town-and he ran out there. Somebody said, "'Nigger' done throw'd your brother out in the street there." He ran out there, and he looked at me, and I looked at him, and he said, "Oh, my brother must have been drunk." He said, "He must have bothered Mr. Gaston because Mr. Gaston don't bother anybody." And he went back on in.

MP	That's interesting.

RG	He didn't know who had throw'd him out. The man said, "'Nigger' done throw'd your brother out of the barbershop." He looked and saw it was me, and he said, "Well, I don't think Mr. Gaston don't bother nobody. My brother drinks all the time so he must have done something to him." He didn't say nothing to me, and I didn't say nothing to him. I just went back into the shop.

MP	Because he didn't want to get thrown out. (laughs)

RG	Well, I don't know. I don't know whether I could have thrown him out or not, but he didn't try it. But, I would have tried him if necessary. Another thing that happened-there was a lawyer, one of the crack lawyers of Bloomington at that time. His name was-Thomas. His name was-he used to be a high schoolteacher, and he became a lawyer. Thomas-I can't think of his name, but he lived in Normal. He owned everything out there on Main Street.

MP	I know the one you're referring to.

RG	He died recently.

MP	Thompson.

RG	He and I was pretty good friends. He always talked to me, and I always talked to him. I think he did two or three things for me in my lifetime maybe. Made some things a little bit easier for me. Worked out some red tape, you know. Where somebody was probably trying to give me a bad time, he'd take care of it. I could call Thompson and say so and so and that would be the end of it. I'd never hear about it again. So, he came down the street one day, he and this Black boy that worked for him. They were walking down the street. I guess he had the-he parked his car right down the street because he owned property down there. He parked his car on that lot because he had an office on the corner of Front and Center, and there was a lot he owned on Center right past Center and Grove, right past my shop past the union hall and the tavern. And there was a parking lot, and he owned that lot so that's where his employees parked and also himself. So he had a case over in court for one of the baddest men in town. Something about a divorce, him and his wife, and this guy frequented this tavern next to me, you know. They were all laborers and all, rough and tough people. So when he walked down to his car he brought this Black boy with him for protection because he knew this guy had made some threats on his life or something. Threatened to beat him up or something. So Thompson comes down through there with this Black boy.

MP	Chester Thomson.

RG	Chester. That's right. I don't know why I couldn't think of it. Chester comes down through there with this boy, and they was walking along the street and somebody hollered in the tavern and said, "Here comes Chester with a 'nigger'." So this bad dude ran out there and grabbed Chester. When he grabbed Chester, the [young man] run across the street and grabbed two bricks, and he ran back across the street. And the man had his back to him, and he had Chester up in the air like this up against the wall of my barbershop. The [young man] ran back across the street with these bricks, and somebody said, "Look out, I think he's got a brick. He's getting ready to hit you." So he turned Chester loose and turned around and looked at the [young man], and he let Chester go all the way down. And he turned and the [young man] stood there.

MP	With those bricks. (laughing)

RG	You know, and backing up the whole time with two bricks. And this guy was so drunk he was trying to walk to him and staggering up to him and he backed him clear across the street. He almost got hit by a car, and the he threw the bricks down and ran and left Chester there by himself. And the guy come back over there and started manhandling Chester. Well, we was sitting in the shop, me and I don't remember who else was there.

End Side A.

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