Allen, Robert

              
ORAL HISTORY OF ROBERT ALLEN
Interviewed by Chris Albrecht
Filmed by Rick Greene
Significant Productions
November 3, 2005
Transcribed by Jordan Reed
 
MR. ALBRECHT: Alright, well as you know, we want to talk to you about your early memories of Oak Ridge and so forth, but before we do that I’d like to know a little bit more about your family. You said your mother worked here. I don’t know if there was anybody else. Tell me about your parents, what they did, that kind of thing.
MR. ALLEN: Well, my name is Robert Allen. My mom she was a, well, like sort of a maid in the huts part, where she would clean up the women huts and the men huts. You had two sections of huts there, for the men and for the women. They had them separated, before she brought me out here, I was born up there in Lafollette, TN. My grandmother and grandfather didn’t want her to bring me out here, but she did anyway. We had to have a badge to get in the gate and I think you had to have one to get out of the gate. But she brought me here, put me in school, that’s how I started living here in Oak Ridge.
MR. ALBRECHT: Do you remember what year it was that you came down here?
MR. ALLEN: I think it was about ’44, ’45, somewhere along that line. I’m not sure, but I was about 10 years old. I was born in 1935, so I think I was ten years old. She put me in school and I got to meet a whole lot of more people, kids around here, that were here before I got here.
MR. ALBRECHT: Where did your mother live? What kind of living accommodations did you and your mother have?
MR. ALLEN: We had a hut and it had three beds in it. It had something like a stove in the middle over there, where you use coal to heat it up and everything like that. They had something like some shuttle flippers, or flappers, or whatever you call them on there that you could let air in, or close it to keep out, and stuff like that. That’s what everyone in the hut apartments had. Which you had family huts for family people, then you had flattops for family people or single people or something like that. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Okay, so you lived with your grandparents for a while before your mother brought you down.
MR. ALLEN: Yes, sir.
MR. ALBRECHT: How did you feel about that? How did you feel about your mother being away and staying with your grandparents?
MR. ALLEN: Well, she told me she was going to come get me. But I had been withmy grandmother so much, every time she’d move, I’d move, too. She’d go out in the field; I’d be there right behind her. Papaw, well he was alright, but he had some strict ways, staying out of the apple trees, out of the cherry trees, but you could get back in the apple trees because the limbs would hold you. The cherry trees, the limbs would break. They are littler than the apple trees limbs. But he always said this is going to be all yours one of these days. I said I don’t think I want it. (Laughter)
MR. ALBRECHT: Let’s see, you said you were 10 years old. Tell me a little bit about your life before you moved to Oak Ridge. You just told me a little bit about following your grandmother around and so forth. What kind of things did you do? What kind of chores did you have? Were you in school?
MR. ALLEN: I was in school and we just walked to school because it was right over the hill there. And chores, well, the only thing I would do was just go try to help my maw. We had to go down the hill to get water out of a spring and bring it back to the house up there. Drinking water, well, everybody up there went down there to get their water. A friend of mine stayed across the hill over there. We would slip off and go to the swimming hole. Well, everybody up there went to the swimming hole. Black or white, they all went there and swam together. In school, we had basketball on a dirt court. That’s where I learned how to play basketball on that dirt court. When I came out here, most of the boys didn’t know anything about basketball, but I did because I learned up there watching the older fellows. We youngsters would get out there and play ball. When the older fellows got ready to play a basketball game, they had to go to the white gym and play basketball over there. I enjoyed living up there, really did, while I was there.
MR. ALBRECHT: How did your life change when you came to Oak Ridge to live with your mother then? As far as the school and what you did with your time, how was life different in Oak Ridge?
MR. ALLEN: Well, we had more places to go, from the huts, to the family huts, to the flattops, and in the flattops, they had a recreation center there that all the Black kids went to. We had softball teams; they had a pool hall in there, Ping-Pong tables, and card tables. We played all that, see. We just went from one part, section of town to the other sections of town. Then you had buses running all over Oak Ridge that you could pay a little dime or something like that. We would just get on and just ride all over Oak Ridge.
MR. ALBRECHT: Tell me about school. At Oak Ridge, where did you go to school and what do you remember about your teachers?
MR. ALLEN: We went to, I say the first Scarboro School; I call it the first Scarboro School. I believe its UT farm now, I’m not for sure if it’s UT farm, but it’s going out toward Carbide Park out there. And that is the first school that I went to when I came here. We had a school bus that picked us up in the morning and take us out there, and then come back in the afternoons and take us out there. That’s if we didn’t want to walk. On nice days, we would just walk from out there. My teacher was named Mr. Officer. His wife, Mrs. Officer, she was the principal out there and they were real nice folks, but they want you to get down and do your lessons. It was really enjoyable on out there at that school there, before we had to change and go to one in Scarboro Village out there.
MR. ALBRECHT: Were your teachers, were they Black or white or both?
MR. ALLEN: They were just Black. Just Black teachers.
MR. ALBRECHT: Any special memories you have about the school out there at Scarboro?
MR. ALLEN: The only thing I had good memories of was we had a basketball gym in the school there. We would get in there and play basketball. Those that didn’t know how to play basketball would get the ball and want to hold it. You got to pass it around, Man. Come on. (Laughter) Give it up. It was real nice growing up right there on that part there. Then we had to change, seemed like things changed too when we got over in Gamble Valley. I call it Gamble Valley, but it is the Scarboro Community Center. Everybody call it Gamble Valley mostly. Then we got over there and it seemed like we just settled into that part over there. 
MR. ALBRECHT: When you lived with your grandparents up in Lafollette, it was obviously on a farm. You talked about the cherry trees and apple trees, and so forth, you had chores; you had to go get water and so forth. How did your life change when you came here? Obviously, you didn’t have apple trees and cherry trees to worry about.
MR. ALLEN: That’s right. Didn’t have that to worry about. It was just really different. I had more fun here after I got to know the other kids, the boys and girls my age. We would run around, go here, go there, and get in a little mischief, but nothing real bad.
MR. ALBRECHT: What kind of mischief did you get into?
MR. ALLEN: We messed around with the guy that would be drunk. We would do things to them. We’d mess with their cars a little bit, but not too much. Flatten the tires or something like that, not too much. (Laughter)
MR. ALBRECHT: You told me that the housing, you lived in a hut. Was it just you and your mother in the hut?
MR. ALLEN: Yeah, just me and my mother. Of course, the rent wasn’t that high, $6, $7 for rent. That’s all we paid, $6, $7 rent. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Was the $6, $7 a month?
MR. ALLEN: I believe it was just about every week, or something like that.
MR. ALBRECHT: Was there a big difference from what you could see as far as you lived in a hut that was you and your mother. What about the white people? Were they living in huts? What kind of living accommodations did they have compared to what you were in?
MR. ALLEN: Well, to tell you, I don’t know. I actually didn’t see that many of them. We went on over to the other section of town, where the Turnpike is now. I’d go up through that away, you would see more white people than you would, than I would, you see, because they had the bus terminal across from the hospital at that time. Right down over in that section was a bus terminal, and you could go in there. You had more white people than Black people then.
MR. ALBRECHT: What do you remember from those days as far as how were the, how were you as part of a Black family treated compared to the whites. I’m driving at the whole segregation issue and what they might have had that you didn’t have. What can you remember about those kinds of things.
MR. ALLEN: To tell you the truth, I just never gave it a thought. I really didn’t. I wasn’t too old to even hardly know what was going on. Just having fun, that’s all we were doing, having fun.
MR. ALBRECHT: You were just a happy little boy.
MR. ALLEN: That’s right.
MR. ALBRECHT: What else about your home life stands out in your mind? Typically, you think about when it’s time for supper, Mom cooks supper. You couldn’t cook; you didn’t have a cook stove in your hut. Where did you eat? Tell me about that part of your life.
MR. ALLEN: Well, they had a rec hall. They called it a rec hall, right there besides where my mom and I stayed at and many more of them. They would serve meals, sandwiches and stuff like that in there. They had a pool hall in there too, but we couldn’t go in it. They had a recreation part back in the back where we could go back there. You could get sandwiches there. They had another building right down below it and it was ran by white people and you could go in there and get you a meal. Well, you could buy anything, you could cook on them, and they had the skillets where they could cook on the big thing. They cooked on that. You could go down there and buy you a meal. Buy clothes and all that stuff in there too. Plus they had a barbershop there, right there, they had a beauty parlor, more little things that people needed if they needed it.
[Sirens going off]
MR. GREENE: We got some major interference going on.
MR. ALBRECHT: That siren kind of overpowered this. As soon as the sirens go on we’ll start again. It sounds like more than one, too. 
MR. GREENE: Yeah, it just totally overcame everything there, so.
[Sirens ending]
MR. ALBRECHT: It’s good now, I assume. Let’s back up, just tell me again. Just start talking about the cafeteria and you were talking about buying clothes and stuff.
MR. ALLEN: Yeah well, they had the cafeteria where you could go in there and buy food, or hot meals. You could buy clothes, and they had it to where you could buy groceries too, and stuff like that. Plus, the barber shop, the beauty parlor, and another little place I don’t know what they did in it too much because it’s kind of blank there. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Now you mentioned people having skillets and stuff, and cooking on those stoves in the huts. Do you remember your mother cooking dinners in there?
MR. ALLEN: Yeah, I remember cooking dinners in there. A lot of times she’d say you need to go out and get some coal were we can fix a fire in there. They had something like another big house there which they had coal ends in it, then they had bathroom stalls in there, and then they had a place for them to wash at, and a place for them to take showers at. My mom would take me out there late at night. “You get in there. There’s nobody in here. You go on a take your shower while there nobody in here.” Well, see, wasn’t no men suppose to be in the house, but since I was a kid they didn’t say nothing.
MR. ALBRECHT: That makes sense. What kind of meals do you remember your mother fixing?
MR. ALLEN: Fried chicken, maybe some kind of greens, something like that. I was just sort of particular about what I ate a lot of times. During the time I was with my grandmother and grandfather, the preacher would come to the house. We kids would have to sit out there and wait until they got through. He done ate up the best parts of the chicken. So I fooled him one Sunday and I just took the whole platter, and carried it out on the back porch. Papaw came out there and got it, set it down, he went out and got some more cherries, and he said you kids get on up here. And that broke that up. (Laughter) She could cook a little bit, but she wasn’t too great of a cook. But you eat what you get, that’s the way I look at it.
MR. ALBRECHT: What did you like best? Did you like your mother’s cooking, or did you like the cafeteria food?
MR. ALLEN: Well, sometimes I’d rather have a sandwich than her cooking, but you know. You get onto it. After you have your sandwich, you may want some more a little later on, so you just go get that instead of going to buy a sandwich. 
MR. ALBRECHT: That’s about like a kid, you know wanting a sandwich instead of whatever Mom’s cooking for dinner. What else can you remember about your life in Oak Ridge that would be interesting to share.
MR. ALLEN: Well, I know after we moved out of the huts, over to Scarboro Village, we were standing over on Houston. There’s a street over there named Houston. We was going to school over there. And we were getting the basketball team together. And we had some good boys that played basketball. We’d get on the bus and go up in Lafollette and play basketball, Morristown, Knoxville, Rockwood, we would just go all over and played basketball. The kids really enjoyed that. We had this community center out there and we would go in there and shoot pool, play cards, play tennis, or either go in the library and study. We had a basketball court out there and a softball field out there and we would play basketball until the coach come out there and say, “Well, time to go home. You got to go to school tomorrow.” And the softball team, we would play each community around here in Oak Ridge, Woodland, Highland View, and all of them. We all just played each other in softball. It was real nice. The man over the community center was the basketball coach, and he let you know right quick you don’t stay out late. You be grounded for a few days off the basketball team. That kept us in line. I was getting a little bit older then and we never did hang out too much later at night. Well, we’d sneak in a beer if we could get it. After I got 16 years old, I got in the Air Force. My mom signed the papers and I went in there for 2 years. Now, see that jumps on up to the ’50’s then. When I came out I just went on started back to school.
MR. ALBRECHT: How old were you when the war ended? Do you remember when the war ended?
MR. ALLEN: Was that in the ‘40’s?
MR. ALBRECHT: Yeah. It was ’45. 
MR. ALLEN: I was probably 10, I guess. Yeah, I think I was 10.
MR. ALBRECHT: Did that have much of an impact on you? Was that something that you thought about?
MR. ALLEN: No, I didn’t think a thing about it. I didn’t think about it because I figured, “Well, we’re here in Oak Ridge. We’re safe.” At least, I think we were safe. I didn’t pay too much attention to it. Still young and everything. The only time I had some thoughts about anything was when Kennedy got killed, the assassination, or whatever. That kind of hit me a little bit right there. The rest of it, I just take it one day at a time.
MR. ALBRECHT: How old were you when Kennedy was assassinated? It was what? ’63?
MR. ALLEN: Oh, let me see, I guess I was 20… Let me see.
MR. ALBRECHT: That was after you got out of the Air Force.
MR. ALLEN: Yeah, I was just in Air Force a couple of years. I was 18, got out in ’53. I was probably 20 something years old then, something like that.
MR. ALBRECHT: What was I going to ask? Oh, when you were living with your grandparents and your mother was down here working, did she get home often to see you?
MR. ALLEN: She would try to get up there on the weekends, which there was another man from up around Lafollette who worked down here, too. She could catch a free ride with him up there and a free ride back. She tried to make it every weekend. If she couldn’t make it, she made some kind of way to call and let us know that she wouldn’t be coming in.
MR. ALBRECHT: So you never really felt that separated from her. You saw her a lot.
MR. ALLEN: No, I really didn’t. Although after that it seemed like we were inseparable because once I got down here to Oak Ridge and got with her, well I was just about with her the rest of her life. After she got where she couldn’t work anymore and had lost one of her legs, I was still there looking after her and everything like that. She passed away a couple years back. I stuck beside her, through everything, I stuck beside her.
MR. ALBRECHT: You were a good son. Rick, any questions?
MR. GREENE: I think and he’ll give you an answer, Chris, when you start talking. You can look at me now. I think you already answered this; it’s very similar to a question Chris asked about when the war ended, did you remember. I was going to ask knowing that the atomic bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima was partially built in Oak Ridge, I’m sure it was a big news story, but being ten I don’t know if you remember, but do you remember where you were when you heard the news that bomb had been dropped? And if you do, how did you feel when you heard it, knowing that it partially came out of Oak Ridge.
MR. ALLEN: Well, I felt a little relief because I said that atom just stopped the whole war, and no more people would be getting killed, and stuff like that. I just praised the Lord that it was over with. It don’t seem like it ever gets old. Not the wars at least, they just seem like they just keep on, and keep on, and keep on. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Back to what Rick was asking, do you remember where you were when you heard that word that the bomb had been dropped.
MR. ALLEN: I can’t recall. 
MR. ALBRECHT: You were probably living with your grandparents at that point, weren’t you?
MR. ALLEN: Maybe I was, maybe I was, I’m not sure. Maybe I was. You said that was ’45? 
MR. ALBRECHT: Yeah.
MR. ALLEN: I could have been out here. I’m not sure. I don’t recollect.
MR. ALBRECHT: It doesn’t matter, if you don’t remember. What other stories or anything that you would like to share with us, that you think would be good for us to hear?
MR. ALLEN: Well, one thing for sure, right over there where the Civic Center is at, they use to have a movie theater there and two or three more little stores right around there. We would all just flock to that to go to the movies. See, I use to do that when I was small up around Lafollette because it didn’t cost maybe 10 or 15 cents to go to the movies. That’s the same it was right around in there. We enjoyed going in there and horsing around and going on. Yeah, that and a few more things. I just, that Skyway over there. We would go to that. You could walk right in the back part of it, because all the cars had the front, we just walked to the back part of it. Oak Ridge was really a lot more interesting than Lafollette was because it just had more places to go and more things to do around here. That’s why I enjoyed it, all my whole life, I really enjoyed living here. I went to Lafollette on Sunday. My daddy’s brother, he passed away. He was the last one on my daddy’s side. I just looked at the place and it’s just growing up with weeds and everything like that. There are not many Black people up there because there is no work for them. All the young folks are gone and the older ones are still there. They aren’t going anywhere. They just depend on the checks they get, and stay there. I couldn’t go back there and live for nothing in the world.
MR. ALBRECHT: This is home.
MR. ALLEN: This is home and I love it. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Good. Excellent. I want to thank you for coming out and talking to us.
MR. ALLEN: Well, I wish I could be more precise and everything like that.
MR. ALBRECHT: Every story we get is another gem. Seriously, you have been real helpful. We appreciate it very, very much. If there are, you know, if over the next few weeks, if all of a sudden there you say there is another story I forgot about or whatever. Let Valeria know, or let me know, or let Rick know. We’ll probably be doing this sort of thing again sometime in the future and if we need to we’ll get you again.
MR. ALLEN: Well, if I think of anything, I’ll tell her.
MR. ALBRECHT: Very good. Excellent. Excellent. Did you have anything else?
MR. GREENE: No.
MRS. ROBERSON: I was wondering if his grandparents or his mother taught him about segregation because there were things you could do and things you couldn’t do. Like he mentioned going to the movies, when did he go? Did he ever see any white kids, or were there nights for the blacks when you could go to the movies?
MR. ALLEN: In Lafollette, you had, up there where I was born in Lafollette, you had two separate parts, the white people went to one side and we went to the other side. But we were young and everything, and we didn’t pay it no attention. All we wanted to do was get in there and see the matinée serial and stuff like that, shoot ’em up westerns. That’s all we wanted to do. Get in there and do that. After we had been in there half the day, we go on up to the swimming pool.
MRS. ROBERSON: Do you remember seeing white only signs?
MR. ALLEN: No, I don’t remember seeing no white only signs. I don’t remember seeing any.
MR. ALBRECHT: Valarie also asked if did your mother, or grandmother, or grandfather try to tell you these are things that you cannot do because you are Black, this is a white’s only type thing. Was there any of that that you remember?
MR. ALLEN: No, the only thing my grandmother and my mother taught me, you have respect for your elders no matter what color they are. Black, white, you say, “yes, ma’am,” and “no, ma’am” and “yes, sir” and “no, sir” to Black and the white. That is what they taught me. Respect your elders and so I did that. For many years, I did that. Which up there when I was coming up and if you were out in the streets doing something wrong, you shouldn’t be doing wrong, any old person had a right to tan your tail, and then you would get home and you would get another one. You think about two whooping’s in one day, don’t need that. Yeah they taught me you respect everybody, no matter what color they are, you respect them. That’s what I do.
MR. ALBRECHT: Very good lessons.
MR. ALLEN: Yes. I carry that right in the store, with me down the BI-LO, I respect them quicker than I would these kids with their pants falling off them and stuff like that. I just hate it, but there isn’t nothing I can do about it. So, I just stay away from them. The older folks I talk with them, carry on with them, and respect them, yes ma’am, yes sir, and stuff like that, which I’m 70 years old my own self, but they still, “Well, you’re still young yet.” I enjoy it and appreciate it. 
MR. ALBRECHT: 70 years old, I wouldn’t have guessed that.
MR. ALLEN: Yeah. 
MR. ALBRECHT: You seem younger than that to me.
MR. GREENE: I was sitting here when he was saying he was born in ’35. I was going my math is not right because he’s 70 years old. There is no way.
MR. ALLEN: Yep, I’m 70 years old.
MR. ALBRECHT: You look fit as a fiddle.
MR. ALLEN: I appreciate that. Although now, I had use to drink quite a bit. In my young days, I use to drink quite a bit. I’d get out and drink, carry on, do some gambling and everything. I got sick and it scared me. I haven’t had a drink in 40 years. Not a cigarette either. My doctor told me to leave the booze alone. Said, “You’re not an everyday drinker, you’re a weekend drinker. So that’s why you still got some liver left.” I don’t bother me. I never do think about it. I drink too many Coke-Colas and Pepsi-Colas. (Laughter)
MR. GREENE: We got about 5 minutes if you got anything else. That’s where we are.
MR. ALBRECHT: Valarie, anything else?
MR. GREENE: Ok, any last statements from anybody?
MR. ALLEN: Well I’d just like to say that Oak Ridge is one of the nicest places I have been to live in here. I really do love the place. Appreciate the people around us and everything like that because seems like people here are more like family to us and stuff like that. So.
MR. ALBRECHT: Very good. Thank you again. Thank you so much. 
MR. ALLEN: My pleasure.
MR. ALBRECHT: We appreciate you sharing with us. It is very important to us and I think it will be, hopefully we can tell a real good story once we get, get all the folks heard from. 
MR. ALLEN: Well, I hope you get all the stuff you’re trying to get. 
MR. ALBRECHT: Thank you for your time coming down here today. I know everybody’s time is valuable.

[End of Interview]