(Vernon clearing throat)
Daniell: I'm Daniell Grevious with the oral history,
I'm sorry,
TCU's Civil Rights in Black and Brown Oral History Project.
Today is June 24th, 2016,
and I'm here with Mr. Vernon Durden
in Beaumont, Texas.
Hello, Mr. Durden.
-: Hello Daniell.
Daniell: Thank you so much for talking with us today.
I like to begin by getting your birthdate,
and having you tell me where you were born,
and then maybe some background information
about your parents.
-: Okay.
I'm Vernon Durden,
I was born in Beaumont, Texas,
September 9, 1948.
My parents we're from
a little country town called Evergreen, Texas,
but they moved here to Beaumont.
My dad was an entrepreneur,
and he taught me a lot about everything.
I really think my dad
was probably be a hundred years before his time,
because he understood the impact
of discrimination and segregation
on the capacity for us to be successful,
and what the barriers would be.
So he had a grocery store,
the only neighborhood grocery store,
and my dad was considered the mayor of the area.
Anyone that wanted a job would come to him for references,
he would get calls from all kinds of people.
A very interesting story is,
my dad gave us all three part names,
none of us have a nickname.
He understood that your name
was the most powerful thing you have and to protect it.
So you should be referred to in reference
by the thing that you hold dear.
So we all have three part names,
Interesting story I was alluding to was,
they had a grocery store,
vendors would come by and we'd be in the store,
and then occasionally they would call us nickname.
You know how people call kids nickname?
"Hey Jr."
"Hey Sonny."
Or whatever.
Now, every instance,
my dad would would stop them
no matter who they were,
rich or poor,
black or white,
whatever.
He said,
"Hey, my son's name is Vernon.
If you refer to him, refer to him by his name."
That was pretty profound,
because it gave me
the respect for my own name, such that,
now I worked very hard to protect it,
as I do when I mentor younger folks.
So I get them back to,
he was the mayor of the community.
The bus pass right by our house,
the city bus,
and you may not know this,
but blacks could not sit in the front of the bus,
you know about the Rosa Parks story,
so when we were allowed to sit on the bus,
there was a sign,
have you heard that story before?
So the sign and it had colored,
and you had to sit behind that sign.
You had to get on the bus
and whenever someone was sitting,
push it back behind the the nearest white person,
and sit behind that sign.
So my dad wouldn't allow us to ride the bus.
He would not allow us to relegate ourselves
to second class citizenship.
So the movies, the barber shop, all those places,
even though they were long distances away,
you had to walk
or ride a bicycle.
The bus pass right in front,
and the bus stop was less than 30 yards
from our house.
Other people rode the bus and all,
but this is kinda one of the lessons
my dad taught me about being proud and being respected.
My mom was a homemaker,
who wouldn't allow,
I say allow,
that's not a good term,
but she didn't work outside the home.
I had three brothers
and three sisters,
so there's seven of us.
We each had to work in the store
to learn business.
At the ages of six and seven,
we were already working in the store,
selling, receiving money,
and making change.
Cutting, weighing food and meats and all.
You're probably too young,
both of y'all are probably too young,
but he bought in bulk.
He bought hundred pounds of rice,
we would actually weigh up rice,
a nickel's worth of rice or dime worth of rice.
He also bought beans in bulk,
we was weigh up beans in bulk and things like that.
It kinda give me a perspective
of how things have changed today,
everything's already done for you,
everything's already packaged for you.
I think it's good in a way,
but I think it causes us
to lose our entrepreneurial spirit and creativity
around what you can actually produce.
In my dad's backyard
we had a little garden
where we raised peas and okra,
corn.
I live on a farm now
where I have a little small garden
and raise some things myself.
So like I mentioned earlier, my dad,
I really feel like a hundred years before his time.
So as you would know,
when the receipts of the week or few weeks
were collected in money,
he would take the money to the bank,
and I would follow him to the bank,
or he took us to the bank,
and most small stores,
the neighborhood stores in those days,
everything was in the store.
So there was a counter behind which you work,
and on the other side where all the customers were.
So I recall one day
when I was probably about 10 years old,
he took me on the other side of the counter.
He said,
"Okay, I'm gonna take you to the bank,
and I'mma let you deposit the money."
We actually went through the whole process
of me depositing money,
and I can remember it like it was yesterday.
He said,
"Okay now, you're gonna be in line,
and you're gonna walk up and you stand in line,
and you stand there with the money
until the teller says, 'May I help you?'
And then you give them the sack of money,
and you watch them count it out.
They're gonna give you the receipt back."
He said.
"I want you to look at the receipt
and be sure it's this amount of money."
He already has an amount on it.
"I want you to look at that."
But the key thing he said was,
"I don't want you to leave that counter
until they say thank you."
I was so small,
I walked and put bag up there,
I can barely see the counter.
(phone ringing)
I need to kill this.