Danielle: Ready?
-: Okay. Now where were we?
Danielle: You were telling us about your first job.
-: Oh, well, I worked for Drainage District 7.
I worked with electrician...
Drainage District 7 and I worked there
and then I decided a longshoreman was a good job.
And I tried that. I was a union member for local 1175.
And then I decided I would look for a better job.
So I went to work for U.S. Steel.
It was a cannon company...
off of Highway 87.
I worked there from 1968.
And then the refineries were hiring
and I put an application in and I got hired.
I started Texaco December 4th, 1969.
And I went there as a laborer and I moved myself on up.
I became the first Black carpenter supervisor,
which was at Texaco and the name changed to Star Enterprise.
And then it changed to Motiva, which I worked
in engineering services as a safety coordinator
and follow the contractors on new projects.
Dealt with a lot of contractors and a lot of money.
So they offered an incentive in 2002.
I was 58 and a half and I took the incentive and retired.
Oh, well almost, what? 15 years now. Almost.
Danielle: So let's start with your,
after Lamar University or maybe you start
with Lamar University when you were taking
those welding courses and then your first job, how was that?
Especially racially or in terms of the dynamics at work,
what were some of your experiences like there?
(laughs)
-: That's funny you would ask.
Well, there was a situation such as
Black bath house versus white bath house.
Colored water fountain versus white water fountain.
That existed.
The only thing I laughed about, was the fountain sits next
to each other, but the water came out the same spigot.
But that's the way it was.
Danielle: And when was the first time you noticed
those types of differences, or that Jim Crow?
-: Well, I mean, when you're hired on you could see the,
I worked in the grease plant when I hired on
and they had a colored water fountain
versus a white water fountain.
I was told that the years before that,
few years before that, that the white men had a bath house
but the colored men couldn't bathe in the same area
so they built another bath house for Blacks.
Of course, over the years, that changed
as time went on.
Equality.
That's it.
Danielle: And you started this job in '66 which is after-
-: '69.
Danielle: '69.
-: Texaco.
Danielle: Okay, which is still
after the Civil Rights Act.
-: Yes.
Danielle: Did you ever think about those things
or did you ever hear about people
maybe challenging that system?
-: Well, I'm sure some people challenged it
and then things got somewhat better
far as jobs is concerned, I guess.
Blacks starting to move up and getting refinery jobs
and getting better pay,
but we didn't have a whole lot of problems far as
the other cities such as riots and stuff of that nature.
I think the transition was somewhat smoother
than what was happening in the California,
New York and all these other areas.
Eladio: And were a member of the Oil Workers Union also?
-: I belonged to the, at one time before I became supervisor,
to the the Local 423, all unions.
Eladio: But not the Local 254? The all Black local?
-: No, my dad probably was when it had all Black local.
Yes. My dad probably was involved in that.
Matter of fact that hall was on...
At the time, it was Texas Avenue, is a church now,
Mount Sinai, that was their hall.
Had y'all been introduced that that was the Black local?
Okay. Yeah.
Eladio: Haven't seen it, though.
-: It's easy to get to.
I'll share that with y'all after this over.
Danielle: Okay. And so you became a longshoreman
and you were involved in the union at that point.
-: Yes.
Danielle: What was that job and that experience?
-: We worked on the docks. We loaded ships.
We loaded from fishmeal to (indistinct), to palletize sacks.
Long hours, good pay.
But the job wasn't regular, like my wife said
so I had to reach out for something different.
Danielle: Did you have any or experience any
racial issues while you were doing
that job as a longshoreman?
-: Well, our local itself was a Black local, local 1175.
It wasn't integrated at the time.
The whites had their local, we had ours.
They had one was 1175, which I belong to.
And they had one was 440, which was on Seventh Street.
Ours was on Texas, not far from where I told you
the union hall for the Blacks that work in refinery,
it's on the same street.
Matter of fact, the building is still there,
the longshoreman building.
Danielle: What about while you were working?
So your locals were separate, but when you were
actually working, were you together with white workers,
or even Mexican American workers or were you separated?
-: Well, it depends on what you were doing.
Sometime it would be, it depends,
the head man or who you work for would be a Black man.
He worked, he'd have some communication with the white man
but as far as us working on the same ships,
I don't remember of that nature,
but basically when we worked on the ships
it was either all Black crew
or it wouldn't have really a integrated crew.
And if it was, they had one part of the ship
and we had one other part of the ship.
So there never wasn't nothing in the mingle in there.
I'm sure that later on, after I left in 1968,
things maybe got better because I think they merge it.
There's a hall off of Proctor Street
that I think everybody works out of.
Didn't follow it a whole lot after that.
After I got the job at Texaco.
And so when they hired me they told me I had a lifetime job,
but that wasn't necessarily true either
because there's a lot of guys that hired on during the time
that I hired on, they was in the 1984 layoff,
which they lost their job.
Matter of fact, I had a cousin,
he was a Vietnam three term veteran.
He got hired after he got out of the...
Marines and Texaco hired him and he worked there
almost 14 or 15 years, I guess.
And he was in that layoff in 1984,
which was really upsetting for him.
But God is good, so he got him a job with the city
and he retired from the city and he's a veteran.
Served his country. He was kinda upset with that.
And I could understand why.
Danielle: So you mentioned him being in the Vietnam War.
Was that something that affected you
and the community significantly at the time?
Did you have other family members
who were involved in the war?
-: Yes, my brother-in-law.
I had a brother-in-law was in the Marines also,
but as far as being affected,
I would say that I tried to go to service.
They wouldn't take me.
And you say, well, what's happened?
Well, Kennedy was the president and he exempted married men
with children from going to the service.
So I tried to sneak in, but I was gonna go
to the Air Force, but the Air Force caught it.
So they wouldn't, I even went to New Orleans
to try to sneak in.
They wouldn't let me in, so.
Danielle: So you really wanted to be a part of-
-: Well, I wanted to go to the Air Force
so I could help take care of my family.
Danielle: And you mentioned things going on
around the country, racially, racial issues
around the country, protests.
You mentioned that earlier.
Was that something that was on your mind a lot
when you were working or in your childhood
or it's something that your family may have talked about?
-: Well, like I said earlier, as far as rioting
and all of this nature, I've heard that this have been maybe
before my time, they had a riot in Beaumont or whatever.
I don't particularly remember nothing of that nature,
but for my era, we didn't have all that.
We just basically kind of transitioned
in a modern or minor era.
'Course, you can always feel the effect
because the pay is not the same, attitudes are not the same.
It's just, you can tell.
I mean, even if, when I worked at Texaco
you could tell the difference in the pay.
The white man always made more than what the Black man made.
I'm talking about in the supervision area, to some extent,
but on an hourly basis, craftsman, whether he was white
or Black, whatever, they got to pay the right, the same,
they got to make the same thing.
Danielle: So you have a little bit of a unique experience
from a lot of people because you were
a supervisor and a Black supervisor.
-: Yes.
Danielle: Can you share some of that information?
Maybe you can talk about the differences between-
-: Well, I've worked all with different groups of people.
It didn't matter whether it was Black or white or Mexican.
It didn't matter, I just treated people the same
that I want to be treated.
I had a demeanor that my yes was yes, my no's was no
but I analyzed that I tried to be fair with everyone,
and they had a lot of respect for that.
Danielle: And so you never faced any issues?
-: Oh, yeah, the issues, you know.
I had one incident that I would,
I'd like to share that when I became a supervisor,
I had a job over a contractor that was cleaning tanks.
I can't remember the name of it yet right now
but the rules say that if you're cleaning a tank
you're supposed to have people in the tank and
then you have to have a man outside watching the hole.
So I went on this job one particular day
and I was looking for people, but it was kind of cold.
I didn't see nobody outside.
So I went and I looked in the tank,
everybody inside the tank.
I said, "Oh no, y'all come on." I said come on out of here.
I said, "Don't you know that the rules, safety rules,
you've got to have somebody outside the tank?"
"Oh, it's cold."
I said, "Well, nope."
Then the foreman was over the job
for this contractor came over.
I immediately told him he had to leave the plant, get out.
He told me you can't do that.
I said, "Well, you'll see."
So I call security
and I will say this, management at Texaco,
they backed me a hundred percent.
So that was a great experience
that I wish I wouldn't have had to do.
But you gotta do what's right for the safety
of your people regardless of color.
Eladio: So you supervised white people as well.
-: Yes.
Eladio: Did you ever feel like there was any animosity
from white folks, with you being their supervisor?
Did you get pushback ever?
-: I got respect.
They knew I wasn't a play toy
but as far as them challenging me, I mean
whether it was a color issue or not
there's always gonna be a challenge
whether you colored, white or whatever
but you just have to handle it to the best of your ability
which I think I did because I didn't have any problems
other than minor problems and I knew how to solve them.
Because if you ask them whether or not
did they have some resentment, I'm sure they did.
I'm sure.
That's the same as if I would have
some resentment against them.
Because a lot of things they may have done
may have not been right.
And a lot of things that I've done
maybe have not been right.
But I tried to do it to the best of my ability with respect.
Danielle: So do you have any other experiences with that?
If you'd like to share?
Because you were a supervisor for quite some time, right?
-: Yes.
Danielle: So were there any other instances
where those issues came up at the workplace?
-: Oh, no, I mean, after you set your standard
on what you gonna do the contractors respect that.
Working at a refinery is a big business
and they try to do things, everything,
correctly, to a certain extent.
They don't play games.
It's a situation where you have to do your job safely.
I hit the road.
That's about the bottom line. It's a good paying job.
But they want you to do the job as safely as you can.
Eladio: I was just gonna follow up.
So did you ever, I kind of asked this before,
but did you ever observe instances
in which Black workers tried to fight segregation
on the job in any way or tried
to fight some of these inequalities?
Are there moments where people did that?
-: Of course they would try to...
At one time, I guess all Black men were just
considered laborers and they wanted to get paid more, too.
So they want to get the insulating jobs,
the pipe fitter jobs, the painters jobs, the craft jobs.
We had problems with that, then they start training
and you had to pass tests to get a job.
And then you went on a seniority basis.
You bid on jobs. Yeah, I've been through that.
Eladio: Did people try to do
that collectively or just on their own?
-: I'm sure some collectively, when the unions merge,
that they tried to work on that.
Eladio: Were there any leaders among
African-American working people
that you respected or you knew-
-: Yeah, Arthur Guidry. Arthur Guidry was well-respected.
Eladio: Why?
-: Because he was our City Councilman,
first Black City Councilman, one in that area,
he may not have been the first
but he was a Black City Councilman, a good entrepreneur,
a good man, very respected.
Very knowledgeable.
He was a good man, Arthur Guidry.
Didn't know his own strength.
Eladio: How about in the unions?
Were there any African-American labor leaders?
If you remember.
-: Arthur probably was one when he was in the union,
but he became a supervisor also.
He worked in the yard department.
Eladio: We heard the other day about
some really long strikes that happened out
at some of these refineries, all through the seventies.
Did you have any contact any of those?
-: I worked one. Eight months, 12 hours a day,
seven days a week, nothing nice.
But it happened.
Eladio: So as a supervisor, you had to go
and work and get the job done?
-: Yeah, we all had different jobs that we would do.
I worked on the loading rack.
Danielle: Do you remember what year
that was, that strike?
-: He might have it better than I do it.
It was in the seventies, late seventies.
Maybe even the eighties because they had the lay off in '84.
So this might have been in '82, '83. Yeah.
Eladio: Do you remember what the strike was about?
-: It's a variety of things. Basically, wages and benefits.
Eladio: How did you feel about it? How did you respond?
-: Well...
I was off, one, when I was a union man,
I was off for four and a half months.
I just had built a new home in 1960...
Let me see, in 1979.
And strikes are not fun. You don't have no money coming in.
You have to go try to find you a job.
And you still a good union man, which I was
at the time when I was one.
I went out and found me a job.
I worked for the fair store as a shipping clerk.
And Bobby Ellis is a guy that I worked for.
He knew me very well and knew what a quality guy I was.
He hired me to work during that
four and a half, five months strikes
to help out with my responsibilities.
I was building a home, I think, in that era, too.
House note still come.
So...
good thing I saved some money.
(laughs)
So we made it through it.
Danielle: So you had experiences both striking
and then working at the refinery through the strike.
-: Yes.
Danielle: Do you wanna speak to some of those things?
Like how, one, you must have been,
you were a supervisor later on, you worked
through the strike, but before, what was your position then?
Can you-
-: I was a carpenter in the carpentry department.
I started off as a laborer in the grease plant
but I was a carpenter.
I beat it on the job and became a carpenter
in the carpentry department.
And after that they had some issues where they had to hire,
I mean, get Black supervision or whatever.
And I became the first Black carpenter supervisor
in that department.
Eladio: As a union man, was it difficult when you had to,
when you were told to cross later on? Cross the picket.
-: Oh, I wouldn't cross the picket.
Eladio: But as a supervisor,
did you have to work a strike?
-: Yes. Yes. Yes. Well, my position changed.
I changed from hourly and a union man to a company man.
And if you just had to say how you felt about it,
of course I don't like to see nobody on no strike,
you know, we all got livings to make
and I just didn't have nothing to do
with the negotiations and stuff of that nature.
But as far as my feelings is concerned
I felt for everybody that wasn't going to work.
And if I could have helped anybody, if they would've came
to me I would have been more than happy to help them.
Because my nature is that even though we on the same job
and you union and I'm not, I just have to do something
because of the fact that I'm not union anymore
and that's my job, and if I didn't do it,
I was gonna get fired, so I had to do what I just had to do.
But as far as me having...
feelings for the other guy, sure I did
and I would help if I could.
Danielle: And did you ever help anyone or did you-
-: Of course. Yeah.
Danielle: Do you want to speak about that?
-: No. I don't wanna speak about that.
Danielle: Okay.
Eladio: That sounds tough.
-: That's not something you talk about.
And I can understand where you coming from. I can let him-
Eladio: We just wanna learn about what-
-: Yeah, but I mean, you learning a lot right now
because you can read in between lines that,
hey, I'll give you an example.
You know, at work you play dominoes at lunchtime basically.
And we used to play dominoes when I was a union man.
When I became a company man, not that I wouldn't
or didn't want to feel like playing,
but my demeanor changed.
Not that I didn't wanna play.
It's just that I didn't wanna,
I want to show an image of being who I am
and what I am and still feel good about the situation.
I carried a different title, and I wouldn't say
that I'm more than anyone.
It's just that I want to get the respect.
And he said, "What do you mean?"
Well, you know, some of the stuff you're not,
I don't want you to say such as, you know,
people leave the job...
before they're supposed to.
People get caught in the bath house before they supposed to.
You know, you say, but Joseph, would you turn them in?
And you know, they give you time off.
Well, my demeanor was, even though I worked in supervision
'cause they had some people, all these big general foremen
say, well, Joseph go down there, anybody you catch,
give him some time off.
Joseph wasn't gonna do it.
I don't want you to say this, but Joseph wasn't gonna do it.
What I would rather do is let them know ahead of time,
say, "Hey, now listen. Today, tonight,
y'all don't go down to that bath house
'cause there's gonna be somebody down there.
Get y'all some time off."
Danielle: So basically you had a position
of a little bit high power and you help them
in ways that they wouldn't have been helped otherwise.
-: Well, yeah because, you know, the system is, you know,
a lot of things is not...
You know, it's hard to say you the same all the time. Huh?
But if you believe that you are,
my reason for saying that is how could I take what he say
about you until I find out about you or vice versa.
So I always believe in,
a lot of people say, well, Joseph's not no good.
A lot of people say Joseph's a nice guy.
So you don't know nothing about the book
until you do what?
Danielle: Read it?
-: That's right.
Eladio: So can I ask one other question?
So you mentioned Arthur Guidry
and I wondered if you had had any involvement
with, like, political participation
with trying to get people to register to vote
or to turn people out to vote.
Did you ever get involved in politics in that way?
-: Well, I...
As far as getting people out to vote, I mean,
we were talking on the job and stuff of that nature
and knowing that it was our responsibility
and they had some groups in the neighborhood,
Amos Evans was part of the...
people in the community that dealt with a lot
of Black issues and stuff of that nature.
Very good, fine gentlemen.
But as far as in NAACP,
have I ever been to meetings of that nature?
Of course, I wouldn't dare tell you I had not
because I have, but then too, you know as time goes on
and you're not having a whole bunch of problems,
so sometimes you went, sometimes you didn't go.
It depends on what the issue was.
And like I said, it didn't have a whole bunch of issues
other than some of the people, older people
can tell you about because me, I'm still a baby.
Eladio: When you went to that NAACP meeting,
what did people talk about?
What were they, what were some of the issues back then?
-: Well, you talking about pretty long ago.
I'm not sure, I'm thinking it was more like equality,
more like getting voting, more like getting people
on the city council, more like getting better jobs.
Stuff of that nature. Get Black representation.
'Cause when we started out there wasn't very much
Black representation in the upper jobs
such as supervision, such as general foreman,
such as different phases of refinery and city work.
Eladio: Do you remember any of the leaders
of the NAACP here locally?
-: I just, Amos Evans.
Eladio: Anyone else?
-: Well, could have been, I'm sure, several other more,
but I'm just looking at, let me see...
Reverend Ransom Howard was involved.
He was a pastor at First Sixth Street.
There's a street called, Raymond Scott.
And we have a city councilman that came from Louisiana.
Trying to think of his name.
He's on the city council now.
Bae Lewis. You heard that name?
Eladio: No, but this is very helpful. Thanks.
-: He's on the city council now.
And I think Scott, Raymond Scott, Jr.
is on the city council also.
Danielle: So back to what you were saying about
maybe warning other workers on the job.
Did you do the same for Mexican American workers
or white workers, too?
-: It wasn't no color barrier. I did it for the older ones.
I didn't do it for color. I did it for who the person was.
It didn't matter what color.
My dad told me long time ago, you respect a man
for who he is, not no color, and that's been my bond.
He told me, he said they got good white folk.
They got bad white folk.
They got bad black folk. They got good black folk.
That's the truth.
Danielle: I also wanna ask about women at your jobs.
When were women hired more in your line of work
and what were some of the experiences that-
-: Women were hired basically, they was hiring them
all the while, I guess but they got a majority
of them hired in the late seventies, I imagine.
Late seventies, early eighties
because a lot of them was laid off in '84.
Danielle: A lot of women particularly laid off in '84?
-: Yes, yes.
Danielle: Were there any issues that came about.
-: I guess the refinery was downsizing.
At one time we had over 5,000 employees.
I mean, you couldn't find a parking place.
But then after years and years of study
I guess the refinery decided, okay,
well, we gonna move this way and they downsized.
Danielle: Were there any specific issues
that you saw women, especially as a supervisor,
that women faced in your line of work that you noticed?
Did they ever come to you about
any issues or anything like that?
-: Well, no, they were union people
just like the men and they made the same price
of what the men would make
and it depends on what classification they was.
They had to do some of the same things.
Hold watch. I don't know.
Craftsman. (Indistinct) department, different phases.
Some were insulators. Depends.
But like I said, they were, the issues came up
and they hired them, then they had this cutback
and they had to, they was like the last hired and what?
The first, what? Fired or laid off, yes.
Danielle: We're any of them in upper management?
-: Oh, I'm sure, the ladies that worked in upper management,
they basically stayed to some extent
because they were more experienced,
had been there a long time because, you know,
they're just like your field right now
and you, you're gonna get you a good job
when you get out of here.
But the but is your educational background, okay?
These ladies that worked in the office,
they still there because they were hired at an earlier date.
Like I told you, I was hired in 1969.
They had some ladies hired there, '65, '66.
Young girls, not all of them with a college degree.
Basically a year or two year course in what you call...
management or secretary work.
Danielle: So they did, those women who were actually
able to save their jobs, did specific types of work
that only women did at the time?
-: Yeah.
Danielle: Okay, were they white women or were there
women of color? -: It was a mixture.
Danielle: So some Black women, Mexican American women?
-: Yeah.
Danielle: Okay, and throughout different positions
at your job?
-: Yeah. Some worked as the clerks in the storehouse.
Some work as secretaries in the payroll department.
So they worked for different engineers as secretaries
or whatever they had to do for us
that engineers was concerned.
Some work for the plant manager, assistant plant manager.
Yeah, they kind of mixed it up.
At one time, it probably wasn't like that,
but integration brought on a difference.
Danielle: And you never heard of any experiences,
maybe negative experiences or even particularly positive,
that women experienced at your job?
-: Well, I'm sure they happy, some of them probably
still work there because, may have some black women
have over 40 years there.
And old enough to retire but hadn't retired.
Just fortunate I took a shot at it, 58 and a half.
Danielle: So they can't retire?
It's harder for them to retire now?
-: Well, you know, there's no, I'm sure, you know,
just 'cause you have age to retire
that don't mean you have to,
so maybe they choose not to retire.
I'm not retired either, but I'm retired from my job,
but I still have something I do.
I work three days a week with children
from kindergarten to third grade to make sure
they can read, write and count.
Do Experience Corps from nine to two.
But I'm not doing it now because we finished up in April
and my wife want me to stop.
She said, "You need to stop."
I told her I'mma do it one more time, one more year.
If I get something out of just sitting there
for 30 minutes trying to show a young kid
how to read and write and count.
And when they see you at ATB.
"Hey Mr. Joseph, how you doing?"
And then you got them for those 30 minutes
and you really showing them what they need to do
and they get something out of it, it makes me feel
that I'm doing something for the children.
Danielle: What about your wife?
What type of work did she do? -: She was a lab technician
and she worked in the school district.
She worked at a Texaco Research.
Danielle: And did she ever tell you
about anything good or bad that was particularly interesting
or something that she faced or dealt with at work?
-: Well, being a lab technician, that's on a different level.
They do a lot of testing of products
and stuff of that nature.
I'm sure she probably could say a lot of things that maybe,
but basically her job was to see and get tests right
for whatever they were doing
but Texaco research closed down
so they letting somebody else do that now.
So basically she'd been not working since,
as far as research, since he was 50,
so that'd been over 20 years ago.
And I'd rather not talk about that cause she's not here.
Danielle: Okay. What about your church?
It seems like, and you went to, you've been a member of
Sacred Heart. -: Sacred Heart.
Sacred Heart Church, it's over 100 years old.
Danielle: Do you wanna tell us more
about the church and your experience with-
-: Oh, the church is a wonderful church.
It's on the West side, it's right next to Lincoln.
I went to the school that's right across the street from it.
Of course it was the Lincoln High School.
It's the Lincoln, I guess the Lincoln,
they got the name back.
It was...
What's the high school name here?
Y'all could tell me that. What's the high school name?
Eladio: Jefferson?
-: No, no.
It's gonna come to me, I'm having a senior moment,
but anyway, the church I go to is on Washington
and it's right across the street from the school.
The school had lost his name.
Memorial, Memorial Junior High,
but it's now returned back to Lincoln,
which I thought they shouldn't have never
changed the name anyway, because Lincoln was the,
we had a lot of great athletes come from Lincoln High School
and I can name a few, from Aaron Brown, Leroy, the Leopolds,
McKyers, Joe Washington Jr., you name it.
It's more, a matter of fact,
I think we have the most professional football players
in this golden triangle than any other state there is.
The mayor is my classmate. Deloris Prince.
Judge Donald Floyd is my classmate.
The first Black judge in the Beaumont, whatever.
And I still hold the most home runs hit
at Lincoln High School in a single season.
And I graduated in '62 and I'm finished.
(laughs)
I'm through.
I'm good.
Danielle: Okay. Okay. So you wanna stop?
-: Yeah. Danielle: Okay.