Interviewee: Deborah Lynn

Interviewer: Leslie Norman

Place of Interview: Panera Bread, Elizabeth City, NC

Date and Time: April 28, 2014 8:20pm

Description: Deborah Lynn is an Elizabeth City native that grew up in the city during the Civil Rights movement. Ms. Lynn was very active in the movement from an early age and her community shaped her awareness. Ms. Lynn participated in marches as young as seven years of age. This heightened consciousness led Ms. Lynn to protest segregation in her high school years and through college. The fall of her senior year at Elizabeth City State University, Deborah Lynn decided to help charter a new organization on the campus. She along with twelve other brave women became the chartering line of Swing Phi Swing Social Fellowship Incorporated at Elizabeth City State University. Ms. Lynn brought an organization that marked the identity change of consciousness from the Black Power Movement of the 60’s and 70’s. By denying the European assimilation, that the other sororities purported, Ms. Lynn helped blaze the trail for this new Afrocentric sisterhood on the campus.

Transcript:

NORMAN: This is my interview with Ms. Deborah Lynn on April the 28^th at 8:20 in the evening. So, I guess we can start off with some simple questions- Oh the interview place is Panera Bread by the fire place. Um, some icebreaker questions are, what was, what was your, I guess, your childhood like growing up in the Civil Rights Movement?

LYNN: Oh, I don’t think we necessarily had a Civil- Oh we did! You know, um, mm, You know as far as the Civil Rights um we were, you know, the typical story that you would hear, you know, on the news where the adults, um there were, there were different teams of adults that did different things. You know as far as they did the organizing other adults you know did their work because they had to be protected. And any of, you know, the Alabama movies, and stuff, that you see, some people had to go to work and they couldn’t really be, um, you know, so militant and vocal because they had to have, they had to make a living. And um, but then there was still that same type of profile because the children did the marching. And as kids, you know we, we knew that, you know, we were organizing, that we were gonna be at a certain place at a certain time. And there’s even, um, and we protested. You know a lot of different things from- I can remember my first march uh, along Southern Avenue. I don’t know what we were marching for, we didn’t have to know, But that was just our job. That’s, we meet there and you walk, you know. I didn’t know what was going on up front but we knew that it was about, um, a movement. You know as a kid I think my first my march was about uh ten or eleven. And then it didn’t happen that often, it came in spurts. And then, for instance there was this guy, what’s his name, Ben Chavis. He was a part of the Wilmington Ten. And, uh, so therefore he was you know um… And so my pastor, of my church, you know he would gather us up, uh the kids up, on Saturdays. And he took us to this deep, deep church somewhere, I had no idea where it was. But Ben Chavis was there speaking. And we had to go- And I guess they had to, it had to be kind of like a secret location, where this uh, political activist who was on trial, you know, that was gonna be on trial, part of the Wilmington Ten. So, everybody, I mean our whole life um as kids you know we didn’t know the, the long term implications of what the community was exposing us to. But uh even as small kids on up until teenagers. For instance, one of the Groove brothers and I, Jim Spence, by the time we got out of high school he and I you know ended up in the newspaper protesting separate water fountains, and loading stuff at the bus station downtown, we were there, it was just him and I. I don’t know how we got to be the one’s protesting, you know at the bus station. So, you know, it was like any other place. that was a part of your role growing up. You just did it. Um is that what you mean how we were, what did we do during Civil Rights? How we participated as people. How we listened to speeches and everything was underground.

NORMAN: That was good. Um. That basically covers the ‘what was your personal contribution to the movement?’

LYNN: Oh I don’t know if I had personal- other than, you know, just doing or being there. We knew- and we would go to meetings and stuff. You know during- you know cause there were always some organizers coming through town and stuff like that. And I don’t know if they were university affiliated, or how they got to town, I wasn’t in the, um, me nor nobody I knew or my family was in the… And I don’t even know how I got the message that these meetings were taking place. And that- I should..

NORMAN: But you knew that you were there.

LYNN: Yeah I ended up being there. I can’t remember, I can’t tell you how, you know, how the drum- I can’t remember I read the drum signals as to how to be there and where to go to you know and stuff. But everybody, yeah that’s what we did.

NORMAN: Um, Being a student at ECSU, did you face any racial tensions in the town once you got into the college?

LYNN: UM…

NORMAN: Any more then-

LYNN: No. We really didn’t have to deal with, uh I guess you what as a kid I didn’t deal with it you know. And I didn’t realize I was looking at it from a kids perspective, but I’m sure, um, because the people were strange to me. They weren’t in my world at all. They meant nothing to me. And I saw, um, from my child’s perspective, I saw ofays as being, uh I saw the ofay as being my servant and the servant to my parents. Because um, they ofay pumped my gas, pumped the gas into my parents car. The ofay um served us at the restaurant. The ofay packed the grocery bags. The ofay were the cashier and I saw it as a child and ofay was on the television, but other in my real life- Oh and we had, for instance, um, an ofay only had, had a window of time that they could come through our neighborhood. And that was on Saturday mornings between nine o’clock- like if you had an insurance man and he would come to collect his policy. And then there were a couple of sisters that were peddlers, couple of ofay sisters that were peddlers and they could come but it was always between nine and twelve, and that was their window of time. So as a kid, you know who loved, you know her world, her black world; um I saw them as being just placeholders in the world. But on the other hand, from an adult standpoint, I didn’t realize how my parents were restricted. My parents should have had a job at the grocery store, bagging or being the cashier. Or should’ve had a job at the, um, gas station in the mechanic and pumping gas. Or my older brother, or something like that. So, um, as a kid I really didn’t, and then I didn’t have to deal with them, I didn’t have to deal with them in my world at all. I felt so wonderful! and we were all brilliant. In our, what they called segregated schools, we were all brilliant. And um I think that’s the one thing that really messed me up. I will never appreciate Brown v. Board of Education. I will never appreciate that.

NORMAN: Did more harm than good?

LYNN: It diluted, you know, our- and we didn’t really have to- also as a kid we didn’t have to go outside to the ofay’s store. We had everything, we had our total, total, total economic base. And I think- but by the time I grew up, um the ofay in Elizabeth City government had created this, um, what they, I think, was early form of eminent domain. Where they could come in and take your property and because the city had certain plans for it. And they wiped us all out. They took our whole, we had our whole economic system. And they needed to do that so that we would have to spend our money with them. So, um, so that was, I think, that was the biggest part. It has never been replaced. And I don’t think we will ever, ever, ever recover. You know and the, you know, little brown girls and brown boys growing up now, um when they walk past their stuff they have no idea and we’re talking- we didn’t have to go out of our neighborhoods to buy anything.

NORMAN: Anything? You all were self-sufficient?

LYNN: Mm-hm. And we had healthy communities. We didn’t, we didn’t have get in the car to drive someplace to get something to eat. You walked and it was right there. Where there was a whole variety of restaurants, the works. So. And then they came up with some line like a said earlier form of eminent domain where if you could bust up their economic system- where they’re making this money, we want their money, so we’ll destroy their economic system, and they’ll have to bring their money to us. And so here we are now, in Panera Bread-

NORMAN: Right

LYNN: Instead of being in our own neighborhood, like were, we could’ve had any choice of very, very, nice places to be, that you would have been happy- we both would have been happy to be at. In our own neighborhood. Uh, any place like, um near North Carolina State and all the preppy places, we were the model when I grew up, where I was born. And… Where I grew up here in Elizabeth City, you would never know it.

NORMAN: You wouldn’t.

LYNN: No, no.

NORMAN: You wouldn’t. Not to look at the… (gestures generically around)

LYNN: Nothing, Right

NORMAN: Anything. That leads me, I guess, to the next question. What was the atmosphere like for you as a student at Elizabeth City State.- it was University by then right?

LYNN: I, yeah, well, yeah it was. I think so, I think it was Elizabeth City State University. My diploma said- my diploma was the one year that it had University of North Carolina at Elizabeth City. And…

NORMAN: The only year that they had the named it like that.

LYNN: That they did that. On my diploma. On my diploma. But otherwise, you know, it was still black. We did have, I did have one white teacher. Oh we had, we had, um a really great, un group of… and I think they were- we had some Italians, and Jews and West Indians, East Indians. and these people, I understand, had been pretty much ostracized from a lot of, um, a lot of the other, you know dominant schools because of their views and because of their race and so on. But when they came to us at Elizabeth City State University they were really, really, brilliant. So we got a really, you know, they were our um touch of diversity. You know even though we were black and they blended in… I only found one guy that I thought was creepy, a creepy undercover redneck, you know that I had to deal with. He was creepy.

NORMAN: Ok, this gets into I guess kind of whatv I wanted to speak about, was… Why did you decide to help bring Swing Phi Swing, the organization, to Elizabeth City?

LYNN: I think kind of I wrote it up there (gestures to a sheet of paper with notes she brought for me) and you can read it someplace else when you get a chance. Actually it wasn’t, I didn’t know, you know, grow up, we knew the other, um Greek organizations and so on and they were all good. And they were all, you know, white gloved and bougie and stuff like that. And, uh, they were sweet and they had their, you know debutants and all the European, you know, assimilation type activities and thoughts. And that was your goal, you know, um that’s what it took, you know to assimilate and be a black woman. And then, like I said, most of the guys, the Grooves that um came to us, or came to me anyway invited us and they talked about Swing. And some of them were, most of them were from parochial bloodlines, so I knew them and so they invited us to come and we said ok, you know, we’ll go with you and, um, and they were the older guys. So I just went to the meeting and then I said well ok, Cause I’m still good for an adventure (laughter) Still good for an adventure, you know ‘we’ll see what it’s about’, you know. ‘I’ll just see what it’s about. It’s only whatever, whatever’. And so um we just got in line and we said ‘ok we’ll just do it, we’ll just do it.’ It wasn’t that we knew anything about it. But there’s one girl her name was Kim. I mention that there and she kind of, you know, was really, really, worldly. And, you know, she knew about everything from every- about everything that we didn’t know about. And so, you know, we listened. And then like I said it was the language that was very, very, different. Mm, the Swahili. And you know just being Afrocentric. And that was a really good feeling to do that. Because I hadn’t really had any other place to discuss, or use, or even participate in an Afrocentric. Because at that time we really weren’t sure how, whether or not it was going to pay off to be a vital part of our lives, Black Consciousness. We really weren’t sure how that would filter down. It might have been good for big city folks and A. Trot Brown, and the ones in Oakland and the Black Panthers. But then you were also seen as suspect. You know, suspect or militant and then you were always going to be targeted if you were too, you know, militant. That’s how, what we saw on TV. And of course our leaders at the time were on TV whether it was Martin Luther King, or whether it was Malcom X, they were always being challenged. And I was, I was always confused. And plus and I was um, James Baldwin was sort of my private mentor, because I read everything, you know, with him from the time like seventeen, started at seventeen. He influenced me with all of my original racial biases. So then when swing came along I was like ‘ok, I’ll just do this.’

NORMAN: Ok. How was- You know, considering that Elizabeth City had at that time all of the Divine Nine, Black Greek Lettered Organizations had been charted on the campus. How was swing received by the students; Greek and non-Greek, the faculty and administration?

LYNN: But I think everything was suspect. I don’t think, I don’t remember any discouragement, anywhere. And we were kind of self-conscious when we would, uh, cause you had to walk through campus in line and so on. So I think we might have been self-conscious, because here we were on display, in a line, and didn’t even know, we weren’t even sure of what steps we were taking. And then we were self-conscious because we were like a novelty on the campus and we still had to come in and we still had to do this. But I don’t remember any resistance or I don’t remember any rudeness.

NORMAN: Wow, so different from now.

LYNN: Oh really? Ok. I don’t remember any of that. No I don’t

NORMAN: That is all of the questions that I have written down. But I would ask. Did you envision Swing at the magnitude that it is today? You know. Or even the University or the city itself. Like the changes-

LYNN: No. I’m disappointed with the city, and it breaks my heart because our economic center was just so wiped out. And, um, So I don’t mind expansion, but what they changed was the dynamics of our black community. And I don’t like the idea and I’m disappointed that, um, that the people who have always lived here didn’t kick and fight- I thought we were always very, very, smart, and very, very, brilliant. And, uh, they didn’t find a way to stop it from happening. I don’t know if you can stop Jim and Jane Crow from nothing. But it kept on going, kept going.

NORMAN: Well I thank you for the interview sister.

LYNN: You are welcome.

SUGGESTED READINGS:

Manuscript Collections:

University Archives, Elizabeth City State University, Elizabeth City, NC

Swing Phi Swing, ms box GU-311 Greek Organizations 1953- Present

Lynn Deborah, Typed notes, April 28, 2014