Question: Yolanda, can you give me a brief background first of what it was like growing up in as a young person of color in Athens, GA.

Answer: Well, my father, John Henry Barrow, was in the US Army, he served in WW II as an ammunition driver. His father died when he was eight years old, he was an only child. So at eight years old he took on the responsibility of helping his mom survive. Later he, joined the army as a way of making sure his Mom was taken of. While on leave he met my Mom, Eristine Moon and he said he talked to her father, Lorenza to get permission to court her. My mother was a kindergarten teacher. They later married while he was still in the service. He bought his Mom a home on Waddell Street and his new wife moved in with her. They had a son John Henry, Jr. and four years later I was born. My mother and father loved each other and they loved us. I never saw them fight or talk ugly to each other.  My father learned a trade afer getting out of the Army (brick masonry) that has been passed on to my brother and my brother's son. My mother and father were honest and hard working people and they passed that on to their children. My little sister Brenda was born four years after me in Tampa, FL. My father was out of the service by then but had a brick laying job in Tampa.

Question: And you, what do you recall about segregation in Athens. GA?

Answer: Well, as a kid I didn't really know too much. I just knew I loved to run and play. I liked to play ball, skate down this real steep hill at the end of Waddell. I would ride my bike down it too and once ran into a telephone pole. I was such a 'tomboy' that I would just get up and go right back to what I was doing. I was happy and it appeared that all the kids on Waddell were happy too.

Question: When did you realize that whites and blacks were separate?

Answer: As I got older (between 1965 & 1969) and started to go out some to dances at the Rockspring YMCA... we would be walking and white people would throw things at us from their cars and yell out such things as ''nigger you better get off this street, etc. And on weekends we would walk down to the Dairy Queen or Varsity on Broad Street they (the counter people) would take our order but would always give the white patrons their order before us. There were bathrooms for the ''colored''  which were always very dirty as if no one ever cleaned them and no tissue. It was the same way at Kresses Five & Ten downtown.

Question: And the marches?

Answer: I believe I was in the tenth grade ... maybe eleventh. A minister, Rev. Hudson from Ebenezer Baptist Church on Chase Street came into the classroom and asked if there were any of us who wanted to sign up to help make this a better world for our people and be treated better. And since I had witnessed first hand the name calling and throwing of objects out of cars... I raised my hand without any thought of it.

Question: What happened next?

Answer: We were instructed to meet at the church that following Saturday morning. Rev. Hudson told us what to do. He said to march up to the Dairy Queen and from there to the Varsity singing, "We Shall Overcome''. He told us if any fight break out to run back to the church. We were given signs saying things like,'''Freedom Now.''

Question: What happened when you reached the area?

Answer: We started singing and marching back and forth, then after a while a big truck pulled into the Varsity parking lot. They got off the truck one by one and were all dressed in white sheets. That's when it hit me, they were the KKK and I said to myself, ''oh hell, I fixing to die'' but at that same moment something came over me and I began to sing louder and march higher knowing that in some small way I was standing up not only for my race but also for the opportunity to live equal in a country that my father fought for.

Question: Did you ever go to jail?

Answer: Yes, one time we went into the Varsity and were instructed by Rev. Hudson to lay face down side by side and not move. The white patrons were spitting on us, kicking us, calling us niggers and to get out. Finally, the police came, carried us out one by one and locked us up. There is so much I could tell you, but in essence this is the way it was back in the sixties.

Question: Did you all ever fight back?

Answer: We were kids and sometimes the boys would get so fed up of the spitting and rock throwing that they would throw rocks back and fights would break out.

Question: Did you ever fight back?

 

Answer:  I wanted to but I tried to do like the pastor said and go back to the church. Once my cousin Connie and I got tired of people throwing things at us when we were walking home one night so we went and got some eggs out of my mom's refrig and threw them at passing cars and ran away. We really took a beating.

Question: The white people beat you?

Answer: No, my Mom when she found out we had thrown all her eggs away.