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| Narrators: Merlin Kennedy and Beulah Kennedy |
| Interviewer: Dr. Mildred Pratt |
| Date: February 2, 1986 |
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| Side A |
|
| MP |
It's February 2, 1986. I'm speaking with the Kennedys who live at [address omitted], and Mrs. Kennedy is going to introduce herself. |
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| BK |
My name is Beulah Kennedy. I was born here in Bloomington in 1923. I live at[address omitted]. |
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| MP |
You were born in Bloomington then? Would you tell us about your education and your employment and history? |
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| BK |
I went through Bloomington Public Schools through high school and a year and a half at ISU.
Later I was employed at the hospital which I worked at for about fifteen or twenty years off and on.
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|
| MP |
Which hospital was that? |
|
| BK |
Saint Joseph's. |
|
| MP |
What was your position there? |
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| BK |
Nurse's aide. At one time, they didn't even hire Blacks for nurse's aides. Would you believe that?
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|
| MP |
Is that right? When did they begin to hire Blacks? |
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| BK |
Let's see. It was probably after the war. After the Second World War, they started hiring Blacks.
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|
| MP |
How did you happen to get that position? |
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| BK |
I knew they were hiring. I needed employment. My husband was in the services, my first husband.
And I went up and applied for a job, and I got it. In the meantime-I had four children, and one
of them got sick. And so then I had to quit for awhile. Then I went back after she died, and I
worked there for three or four more years until I was hired at GE in [19]55.
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|
| MP |
What position did you have at General Electric? |
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| BK |
Machine operator. |
|
| MP |
You said you attended ISU. What year was that? |
|
| BK |
1943 and [19]44. |
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| MP |
At that time did ISU permit Black students to live in the dormitories? |
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| BK |
No. |
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| MP |
Would you tell about that? |
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| BK |
There was one Black girl that lived in the dormitories and that was because she was passing for white.
She was from Chicago. Otherwise, they found housing outside in private homes.
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|
| MP |
Where those Black homes? |
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| BK |
Yes they were mostly Black homes. Right. Some of them were in Bloomington, and some were in Normal.
And they had no place for a Black person in the dormitories on campus.
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|
| MP |
What about hiring? Were there Blacks employed at ISU at the time you were there? |
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| BK |
No. |
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| MP |
Not to your knowledge. |
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| BK |
No Blacks were hired working on campus during that time that I was there. Plus that they had Spring
Prom every year. The Blacks had their Spring Prom and the whites had theirs. (a loud ring or whistle)
|
|
| MP |
Was there any friction between Blacks and whites as you remember when you were going to school?
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| BK |
Well, not really because the only contact we came in with them was in class. That was it.
I remember once I was in hospital. They did put Blacks and whites together in the hospital.
That was only because we were from ISU. In the hospitals they had Blacks with Blacks
and whites with whites. That was it.
|
|
| MP |
Would you talk about other aspects of discrimination or segregation during the thirties
and forties in Bloomington? You said there was discrimination in the hospitals.
They were separated. What about restaurants?
|
|
| BK |
Definitely there was. You either ate in the backroom in the kitchen or you took your food out.
That was it. You did not eat in the dining area in the restaurants here. Another thing,
employment for Blacks was almost nil unless you worked in the kitchen or done menial labor.
And that's the reason a lot of the Blacks after they graduated from ISU or Wesleyan, left
Bloomington. So they could get better jobs than Bloomington offered them.
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|
| MP |
You said they worked menial jobs? |
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| BK |
Working in somebody's kitchen or cleaning somebody's house or being a chauffeur for somebody.
Something like that or yard work. That was what was really offered in Bloomington at that time.
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|
| MP |
Was there a chauffeur's club? Do you know anything about the chauffeur's club? |
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| BK |
No, I don't. |
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| MP |
They said the people in Bloomington who were chauffeurs were organized, and I was wondering about that.
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| BK |
I don't know anything about that. |
|
| MP |
Was there any kind of an organized way by which Blacks were hired to work
in domestic service? There was no organized system for that.
|
|
| BK |
No. |
|
| MP |
You went to the Bloomington Schools and there was no discrimination
in the schools when you attended Bloomington schools?
|
|
| BK |
You could feel it - I mean the way the people felt. Even as a child, you could feel,
"Well, you're Black. This is it," you know. It was definitely there. You could tell
it with the way the teachers reacted and the whole bit.
|
|
| MP |
But you attended the same schools though? |
|
| BK |
Yes, we did. |
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