INTERVIEW WITH WILLENA CANNON
INTERVIEWER:
Okay. Are you recording? Ready to go? Could you please, um, first start out by
stating your name and today's date?WILLENA CANNON:
My name is Willena Cannon, today is October the 9th, 2019.
INTERVIEWER:
And Ms. Willena, do you mind telling me what your profession is?
WILLENA CANNON:
Oh my God (laughs).
INTERVIEWER:
(laughs).
WILLENA CANNON:
Um, I've actually worked a lot with housing ...
INTERVIEWER:
Hmm.
WILLENA CANNON:
... I worked a lot with counseling, with, uh, Neighborhood Youth Corp, drug
addiction, so I guess it's all of those things.INTERVIEWER:
Those things. And Ms. Willena, where are you from, and could you tell me a
little bit about it?WILLENA CANNON:
I came from a very small town in South Carolina, it was so small, I think we had
about four lights, four cops, 7,000 people, dogs and cats, everything included, (laughs) it's a very small, um, farming town.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Um, probably 35 minutes from Myrtle Beach, so it was kind of towards the coast.
INTERVIEWER:
(laughs) All right. What prompted your move to Greensboro?
WILLENA CANNON:
To go, uh, I was a student, A& T.
INTERVIEWER:
And what did you major in while you were at A&T?
WILLENA CANNON:
Actually I came here to major in psychology ...
INTERVIEWER:
Hmm.
WILLENA CANNON:
... and like today, students try to investigate what, um, universities offer, I
didn't do, we didn't do that then.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
So when I came here, not only did A&T didn't have a major in psychology, they
didn't have a minor, just some classes. So I'm here, already in school, so I figure out, "What am I gonna do?" And then I say, "Well, I was the captain of the basketball, girls basketball team for two years, and we went to state championship for three years straight, maybe I'll go in physical education." Only to find out it was health and physical education.WILLENA CANNON:
The health part with kinesiology, and all those courses, had me up a lot of
mornings (laughs) 'cause I, then later I found out that, um, physical educati- health and physical education major once they're completed in nine credit hours from premiered students, so that was pretty ... more than I bargained for.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
It was more than sports, but-
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... I got through it.
INTERVIEWER:
Well, first I wanna say I congratulate you on that, for getting your degree, um,
question, with you attending a HBCU during that time period, what was life like for you?WILLENA CANNON:
Um, actually the school was stricter than it is today, uh, we couldn't go off
campus, and when you did you had to have maybe 10 other students with a, a dorm counselor, each, each dormitory had a senior person, and they had a dorm matron in there, so all of that was different, and places that you couldn't go to eat, like for instance, um, we when we got here in '61, Woolworth, you could go to that, but that was about the only place.WILLENA CANNON:
Um, they had a K&W downtown on Davie and Market Street, the A&T students had to
go behind the building, where the garbage cans, and order something through the windows, and walk down the street and eat it. So later in '63 we fixed that, but that's what it was like when I got here, and, um, the food wasn't the greatest at A&T.WILLENA CANNON:
Well, I think none of the colleges, but ... and the racial thing was the same
thing that I left at home, which even as a child I had a distaste for it, not know what it was about, actually, um, I had the wrong idea, I thought the reason the racist stuff, and the problem was white people, which made me hate all white people, at least that was my perception, and so that's what I came (laughs) for to all-black school, and went to an all-black school. We didn't have the integration we have now.WILLENA CANNON:
So that's where I landed. S- so when A&T started, um, I think in 60, 1963, Jesse
Jackson was the head of, the president of student body, that body said, "Hey, let's finish the job, they did Woolworth, let's finish." So we aimed at K&W, and Carolina Theater, so that was great, we ... if you can imagine, A&T student's body was a little over 5,000 you got to imagine all the students was in jail but 49, a lot of A&T students don't even know that, they knew about '60, and they know about '69 when they, they shot up Scott Hall, but can you imagine the whole student body, and I had a brother here, was a year younger than me in a class.WILLENA CANNON:
He, he was one of the 49 that didn't go, and we had one class together, a
psychology class together, the professor gave me his grade, which was A+ and I was busy courting at that time, I had a C+ he gave him the C+ and gave me an A+ and ask him why w- (laughs) why wasn't he in jail with the classmates, but it was, it was a good thing because actually the, the community came together, the churches, um, they got money together, and, and they put, um, catering service wherever we were. I was in a old polio home ...INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... that they had closed and they didn't need anymore, and we ... about me and
200 other students was there, they had some at the, the County Farm, I think they had some in, um, Gibson beer, I know they had in High Point, because that's where I went the first day I was arrested, they took us to High Point, and then they brought me back to Greensboro the next day, but we had students all over.WILLENA CANNON:
And I think they tried to get us out of jail, and we refused. I know in ... out
to the building, the, the hold, old polio home, they pulled us out and I remember crawling back to the police legs, we didn't want to leave until they integrated us places, and, um, they finally, I think after two weeks, they did.WILLENA CANNON:
Oh, Doughty got a letter from the state telling him to write a letter to all the
students, wherever they were in jail, and say, "If you don't come out of jail, you will be expelled from A&T, and you never could come back." So we said, "Oh, Doughty's with us, they, the state just got him saying it." So nobody moved, nobody got put out, (laughs) and they finally relent to serving.WILLENA CANNON:
I remember when the buses brought us back, we made the buses take us down to
Davian Market, and we went through the line, they were ready to serve us, nobody had money, we didn't have money like students of today (laughs). So we said, "Well, now we gotta go figure out how to get money so we can come back down and deal," but it was a great, um, victory that we ... and it really, it, it released some of the years of the, um, racial, racism that had worked on me, it was like something just happening, so I felt really great to the point that I went home Thanksgiving, and forgot that the Dairy Cream was a place where white students gathered, had a flattop, a ji- a gi- a, a DJ on top that played music.WILLENA CANNON:
So if you were black, you just drove up there, the curb hop would come and you
give your order and you leave, while they sit there, some, um, gonna go in, and sit in their cars, this is whites, blacks could not go in there. Okay, now to be honest, um, my mother asked ... I was going out with my brother and his girlfriend, and my mother asked to, us to get, um, her a milkshake before we go. So when we got there, I went in there and get it, I honestly forgot that you weren't supposed to go in there, so I ran in there, and oh my God, realization hit me really hard.WILLENA CANNON:
Oh goodness, I'm not walking out of here with my tail between my legs after all
that fighting in Greensboro, so (laughs) I asked, "Are you gonna wait on me?" They didn't say nothing, meanwhile the music stop, and we sit there, so I got really blazing, I went to the phone, dropped a dime in it, that's what it was then, and call the police, they recognized that I was (laughs) black, they told me they didn't have nothing to do with that man's place, and I need to get out of there, so hung up, sit down, and to have something to do I ... in my purse I had, um, a little booklet that you take notes in class, I started writing my sister a letter, what was happening, knowing I would not mail it, but it gave me something to do while I'm sitting there waiting.WILLENA CANNON:
Meanwhile, these cars on the outside, circling the building, riding round, and
round, and round, so I said, "God, I know what the pilgrim must have felt like when they ending, um, was ..." But I sit there and kept on writing, it gave me something to do. Then they call the police, I look around, two police men, highway patrolmen, (laughs) they walk behind me, went back to the kitchen, and I could hear some of the thing, not much, uh, they said, "No, we can't do that, no she must be planted, it's that Martin thing."WILLENA CANNON:
So I'm hearing pieces, and later I'm here to tell you today, the reason while
I'm here to talk to you, is because they thought I was, uh, planted there with Martin Luther King, what they did would so-called big niggers like me, big pants, whatever, bi- with a big idea, they take you in a swamp, and drop you in water, and nobody ... then people would be scared to ask about you.WILLENA CANNON:
My grandmother whispered all the time, and I didn't know why, and you needed ...
if somebody like that was lost, you, you didn't go around asking questions, um, because you got lost, so that's, that's what ... usually that what would happen had they not believed that I was planted, and I'll tell you how it happened, it was a spur, (laughs) it was a spur of a moment.WILLENA CANNON:
So the cops left, they never said nothing to me, and when they left, all these
people just circling around they left, the DJ came down, so what was left there was the people to work there, me, the DJ. I looked around and my brother was gone, he drove up, and a, the cop came in and said, "That man want to talk to you." Like, "What did I do?" What you ... he went two blocks away at Augusta, he said, "Are you crazy? They gonna hang you, you better get away from here."WILLENA CANNON:
So I still got my little pride, I stick my foot in the door, lean in and said,
"Okay, I'm leaving now, but I'll be back here tomorrow, and maybe you will decide to s- to serve me then," and I walk out and get in the car. As far as I'm concerned, that's it. I left there with my little dignity, and that was over with. Okay, that was on a Friday night, came through the ser- on the way home, I had passed by the, near King all the time, the place was dark and closed down on a Saturday night, this is, "Wait a minute, oh so they think I'm coming back?"WILLENA CANNON:
So then I, (laughs) I run and tell some of the people that I graduated from what
had happened, so we're just talking about, you know, they felt this b- they were scared, some of them, but saying, "Hey, let's see what happen, let's watch it and see what happen." So, the next night the year in the past they sent this black preacher to my house, and we was raised that you always respect whatever they say, and listen to them, so you couldn't disrespect them.WILLENA CANNON:
So he, this preacher started talking to me about Cain, and Abel, and how the
blacks was cursed, non which I wanted to hear, but had to just dutifully, respectfully listen to him, and then on and on he went, and then finally he left. So I ran to see if people was riding by there to see if it was open, when I got there my friends was inside, they were serving them, they decided, (laughs) so I was home, I didn't have nothing to do with that part, they were being served in everything.WILLENA CANNON:
So my mother asked me to leave earlier, (laughs) I left there Thanksgiving Day,
because they were so nervous, and they had a right to be because I was safe back at A&T, but my family was there, and they did retaliation, but, uh, at that time, this, um, this was past '63 and, um, Martin Luther King was really busy with all of that, so they looked at this as a part of that, and they didn't bother my family or me, but that would have been why it got real quick. I would have been an example to anybody else who got big-headed, and thought like that, so that's, that's the way they, that was that (laughs).INTERVIEWER:
First, I just wanna say, I wanna tell you I'm proud of you, and I'm p- I'm sure
you heard that throughout your life, but you being as strong as you have been, when you (inaudible) interviewing you made it so that we're able to do stuff like this, so thank you.WILLENA CANNON:
I can ... but it was really the circumstances that pushed through, and I guess
from here and the struggle with A&T, I didn't have sense enough to be scared there (laughs). So, I gave you that background so you could see why I ended up with this, because another incident, before I went to school, I was nine years old, and I guess you saw that in the book, where, um, black man was going with a white woman, and that happened a lot there, but the runts they got exposed, the white woman would holler she was raped and all of that kind of stuff, and they would ... the black man would disappear, and nobody would talk about it.WILLENA CANNON:
On this occasion, this woman didn't. She did not, uh, they caught them together,
she did not holler rape, she was in love with this black man, and unless ... when I saw her, she had blood all over this, um, um, and I don't know what happened to her to this day, but I know they was beating her with, uh, rocks and all that kind of stuff.WILLENA CANNON:
The black man, it haunted me all of my teenage lives and actually they know 'til
I came to A&T, I actually cried out one night, but they put him in a old barn that was fre- falling down, so it wasn't a barn that they'd used at that time, they needed to get rid of it, they put him in and then locked the doors, and fix a way he couldn't get out of there, and set it on fire, and I could hear him hollering, piercing scream, and then silence, and the barn burned down, and the sheriff came out and said that wasn't his business, and he left. He didn't stop nothing, people couldn't do nothing.WILLENA CANNON:
So this is rage in me that I (laughs) couldn't do nothing with, so in of them
times like going in to here, going to stand in front of K&W, that was feeding that, to deal with the Dairy Cream, that was feeding that, so actually, um, before we went over and met there, we met in China Grove, and confronted the cha- the clans, I guess you heard about that, and they were there backed up with guns, and all of that, but they ... from the demonstrators, so that fair debt, it was kind of like, um, this whole getting back at the ... what they did to this man in my mind.WILLENA CANNON:
So stuff like that can give you courage, it keep you from being frightened, or
you don't have sense enough to be frightened, either way you wanna look at it. It felt like I was getting back at them, I wasn't afraid of them at all, and they looked like they were frightened of the people, which I've heard later the FBI use to to taunt them with, how we backed them up in there.WILLENA CANNON:
So, when I came to A&T, one night I scared my roommates out of their loving
mind, I was screaming 3:00 in the morning, "Bloody murder." I relived that situation with the barn, but that was the only time, so I think doing ... once I got busy fighting back, that got lost, or I didn't have another episode, so that's what I bring that to know, wanted to struggle actually, um, at the A&T experience, I, um, got married, had a child, went to Charleston, started working, but I kind of kept on what was going on at A&T.WILLENA CANNON:
So I heard about this person, Nelson Johnson at A&T, was a vice president of the
student body, and stuff they were doing, the A&T students were still fighting, and struggling the whole, and, um, filling up the student bo- the s- City Council to help matters in Greensboro, if the citizens were doing, um, trying to get something done, they would help go down and, and support that struggle.WILLENA CANNON:
So, I kept up with that, and then finally came back to Greensboro, and started
working with Neighborhood Youth Corp as a counselor, and find out about the poor people's organization, um ...PART 1 OF 4 ENDS (00:21:04)
WILLENA CANNON:
Find out about the poor peoples organization, um, with, um, Nelson Johnson and,
um, also had (inaudible) University, with Howard (inaudible 00:21:13), so I got in involved with that, that was like something I could do with the poor peoples organization, first they had, uh, story hour, for children in, um, a garden. So that gave me, uh, an opportunity to deal with my son, with that. Meanwhile I went through a divorce. My husband became an alcoholic, and went to D.C. and I was here, so, I got involved with the struggle with that and although I worked with poverty program, I dealt with Neighborhood Youth Corps for Drug Action Council. Those programs allowed me to work in the community at the work. I would go do community organizing as I was, um, if I was working with Neighborhood Youth Corps, a lot of my, um, clients came from those communities that I was working in.WILLENA CANNON:
And most of them was housing projects, like, um, (inaudible 00:22:17), um, what
is it, Clearmount, (inaudible 00:22:26), any of them, I was known because I was working in them, from Neighborhood Youth Corps, visiting my clients but also organizing for whatever that was going on in your community. And a lot of, um... So during that time, we formed something called Revolutionary League. And we got a lot of youth involved, I was running the youth part for a while. And that was working wonderful for me, it was all black, so how did I get to (inaudible) with a mixed group.WILLENA CANNON:
During this time we, we got really involved with the, um, struggle in Africa.
The, um, what would you call it. At that time, a lot of companies was investing in the apartheid, and (inaudible) University was sending people over there to, uh, South Africa, with the idea to help fight and Mandela and them crowd, the ANC, said we don't need, we got enough fighters. You in the belly of the beast, that you need with that. So when we did, um, African Liberation Day, every year, the first year we did that, we organized black people to go to D.C., 75,000, and now that don't mean nothing but that was like 5,000,000,000 today, all these people going there, fighting for Africa, when we were told that they were people you don't deal with, these savages, all of that stuff was coming off...WILLENA CANNON:
So we was standing up with them. And, um, I need to say, Mike Nathan, one of the
people that was killed, gathered a lot of, um... He was a doctor, a medical doctor, he gathered a lot of medical supplies and shipped there every year. He got doctors all over the country to give, um, supplies and they would mail them to that, so that, okay, so doing that, we were doing a lot of the, um, really coming to, um, together with Africa and what it means to be from Africa and ancestors, all of that. To the point I named, all of my children have African names, Kwami, Kweali and Imani. And so we were involved in that period with all of that.WILLENA CANNON:
So, um, then come Nelson talking about this white group in Chapel Hill that
wanted to work with us. Oh no. You can't trust white people, they come in to invade this, to stop this, to turn it around, to take it over, that was my view. And I didn't want no part of it. And, um, I got voted down, so my thing is I'm coming in it anyway and be able to pull them out when they see what's happening, and keep my eyes on what's happening, and people met, we studied, we talked about what we was happening, started a class system, that was the first eye opener for me.WILLENA CANNON:
Then we talked some about the underground railroad, so there was white people
involved in freeing slaves and all of that, so you begin to see, and then there was some black people in the country who had made it. That acted like they weren't black no more. So this class system was answering all of that for me. And then I began to see people sacrifice that didn't have to, these medical doctors, they didn't have to deal with any of that so I become, they said, hey, and learning. And that's one phase of my life I never will for- regret. It was learning who the enemy, who, what this whole system was about, the slave trade, all of that. So therefore I didn't have to pass on to my children the hatred of another race. Misinformation and not seeing who your allies, and all of that.WILLENA CANNON:
So not only that, to me, um, CWP was cl- it was the closest to a Christian
organization as you wanna get. People cared about one another, we learned how to criticize people without criticizing your essence, but a deed that you have from this culture, that you needed to get rid of because it could help hurt the struggle. So you wanted to get rid of that, so you learned how to deal with that, and people had your back, they proved that from how they dealt.WILLENA CANNON:
It was, today, a lot of those people are still my friends. I will have Sally and
Paul, they come and stay with me about every year, we go to the beach. People of that, did that kind of work, (inaudible) the third, still doing it. Some of them are doctors, lawyers, but wherever they are, all over this country, they're still doing that kind of work and you'll hear some of that doing the 40th anniversary. So that was what bought me there that day and you knew instinctly once you were there, it was really weird, because there was no police there. This was in Morningside, one of the places in Greensboro that is never without a cop, even three o'clock, four, in the mornings, always police there because there was... It was a place too packed with people and you get people of (inaudible 00:28:51), there was always how they'd mishandled things and sometimes needed the police, and the police a lot of times started stuff with people.WILLENA CANNON:
But anyway, getting back to CWP. The, the people that you see was killed, was
doing great work with the labor movement. It wasn't about the Klans, it was the labor movement, and this is in, um, the early '70s, that you could see poor white people who were still, this culture was still telling them, you're better than blacks no matter what you don't have. Meeting in the kitchen, and, or the houses of poor blacks, and vice versa, that just didn't happen back then.WILLENA CANNON:
But they were getting, their comrades was teaching them the system too, the
class system and how they take you, white person, give you five cents more than the black person, but they're exploiting both of you. And how maybe you can get two dollars more if you come together and fight them. And then they taught them, um, they had a union, and most of the time the union, (laughter), was a joke because it was somebody the company put in there to work for the company.WILLENA CANNON:
So these comrades, Jim Waller, worked to be the president of the union. He got
in there, they fired him because they found out he lied, um, he never did, well, he didn't lie, he didn't write down that he was a doctor, a medical doctor, he was a pediatrician. And that was another thing convinced me that people wanted to help. Because here's this doctor, a successful pediatrician, he couldn't take no more clients he had that many. And he chose to leave that to come struggle. And I asked him about that one day and he said, he looked at it this way, that he had an office as a doctors office, but on the way there there was a hole, and people coming fell in the hole and broke their leg or stepped in the hole and broke their leg and had to come to him to be, to have it fixed.WILLENA CANNON:
So he looked, leaving his office going to work to fix the hole so that people
wouldn't have the broken leg. So that's how he explained to me why he left and got involved in that. And you have to admire that even today. So this is a learning period for me. But they were so successful, if Cohen Mills would show you their records, you could look at the accidents and the way they went down you could tell that they were in there then.WILLENA CANNON:
And then after the killings, you can see where the accidents went up, actually,
an A- a brother from Africa was, was caught in one of those things that usually grabbed your arm and snatched it off, he was caught up in it and it squeezed him to death. They had that in the paper. That was, would've never happened if (inaudible) those people been in there. And instead of Cohen Mills wanting to take their money to make it safe, they were so greedy, to make all the profits, that they put less than they could to make people safe. And they wanted these people out of the way, out of there, because the union was successful.WILLENA CANNON:
And the system, (laughter), police, they help sometime, because I got a niece
that's a policeman and I know all of them are not bad, but the way the system is set up is to protect the Cohens and people like that, and... And we know that. I'm not saying the Cohens did that, but I will say this on camera. Who benefited from that death more than Cannon Mills, because that's where Sandy was working, Cohen Mills, that's where Bill and, um, and, um, Jim was working. (inaudible) was working with the, the, um, Duke, I believe it was the cafeteria workers or the, the housekeepers over in Durham, he graduated cum laude. He was a Hispanic, so the party had every race of people in the United States in it. I'd gone to meetings in New York, slept on the floor with Chinese I never seen before, but comfortable, we talked about work and all of what we was doing.WILLENA CANNON:
It was, it was wonderful, it was really wonderful to know people all over the
country that you could go to their houses, meet, we're doing the same things. So that's a part of my life I will, I will cherish forever. So some people say, well, you're, sorry you was in the communist party, I've learned since then communism is not the way, neither is capitalism. You see what it's doing today and it gets worse than all of that, so, I want to put that but that whole, um, organization I was a part of and I was happy to be with that.WILLENA CANNON:
And after these killings, uh, right here you can see where they was trying,
actually, they didn't put the p- they were actually choke, they were trying to break his neck and I knew they would do that and could get away with it and said he was acting all wild and he, he was all, and he got hurt through the struggle. They were good for that and they would've gotten away with that. So my thing was, you don't see it, but there was a lot of black men around. They didn't like what they seeing, but they weren't moving but they were fussing, but they weren't doing anything. So I knew I had to do something to get them moving, so my thing is, I'm gonna jump in there and try to help Nelson, they're going to stop me, and they're going to hang, (inaudible 00:35:24), these black guys then started getting involved and then they had, had to let him go.WILLENA CANNON:
And that b- the people, the, the guys who (inaudible 00:35:37), get involved and
have a whole thing that they stopped it. At least they stopped with him. And they arrested both of us. And I asked them on the way there, why are you arresting me? The police said, well, we'll think of something, we'll know something by the time we get you there. And, um, so then they was talking, one of them was a, uh, white female policeman and a black, the car I was in, and she started talking about how some children had gotten killed. I'd seen Jim, I'd seen all the five that before I got arrested, but Sandy, I didn't see, Sandy was behind the building, and I'll talk about that in a minute, dead behind the building.WILLENA CANNON:
So I didn't see any children, but she started talking about some children got
killed, Imani's there, my oldest was there, was then my sister had my two youngest (inaudible 00:36:41). So I didn't know what, what... I'm feeling stressed now, not knowing this, on the way to jail, can't find out. So they didn't take me to jail, they took me to the city hall down in a basement, and I knew it was FBI, came in to ask me what was my name, a whole mess they go through. I said don't ask me that, you know what my name is. Then they started asking, well, do you know who did this? So I said, what you asking me for, you know who did this, you helped them.WILLENA CANNON:
So then, something said don't talk to them, you shouldn't have got you talking,
so they started asking all kind of questions and I wouldn't ask, but I was so scared that they would prompt me to ask, I started thinking about my childhood, the Klan, that stuff that happened, so they were, I could hear them talking but I wasn't even focused on what they were saying. And the next thing I knew, I don't know what happened, I knew I was stressing about the children, but then I lift my head up, there was a clock in there, it was five o'clock.WILLENA CANNON:
So I've blacked out, didn't know it, I was thinking and then I lift my head up
and saw the time, and I saw a mirror, a glass that flashed, so I knew it was a two way mirror. So as soon, as soon as I sit up, they came in. And they said we're going to let you go, so they did, then I tried to find out where was folks and then I found out, I knew all who was killed but Sandy was also... What we found out later, when you got people shooting in a crowd like that, nobody, all them community people was there, none of them got hurt, none. It was only CWP people. They had a list, who to be killed.WILLENA CANNON:
And it's like if you're a Klansman, you've got a picture of Sandy, so you see
Sandy, you watch to where you can get, she ran behind the building with some children, that's what Sandy did. So she peeped to see what was going on, just ahead, they shot her right through the eyes. So if you're watching where she's going, she peeped, then you shoot, and that's what they did. They did that with every, every last one of these people that was killed, was leading the struggle and making great strides with black and white labor organizers and hooking up with them, so, and during that time the labor organizing was still going on from where...WILLENA CANNON:
So we was trying to hook up with all of that and this was going on, so this was
a dangerous piece of work and they had to do something and that's what they did. And they used, people says, and I want this to be clear, it was a struggle between the Klans and the communists. That is not true. It was a labor movement, and if you look at it from slavery, they used the Klans to do it, before slavery was supposed to be abolished, they did it themselves, they just hung you.WILLENA CANNON:
But then after that, supposedly so called free, they used the Klans to do their
dirty work. So that day, I want this to be clear, we wanted to, to have, um, a conference on the labor movement and during that time, the Klan started popping up again, even they had one Klan in a field, and the news media were showing that, like a big thing. So they was getting media, you didn't have to do a lot of stuff, just show them burning a cross and they...WILLENA CANNON:
So people saying what's happening with this stuff, because when I was working in
the community, why are these people coming up with this Klan stuff again? So the labor organizing was really rising and moving really good, we needed to have a conference to talk about the labor movement work, and how the Klans was fitting into that. So we passed that leaflet to these different communities all over for the whole weeks leading up to November 3rd to the conference, and we planned to start it with Morningside, Morningside is here, come down Lee Street, go into (inaudible) over here, you have this moving stage which is like a flatbed and you got amusement on it, loudspeaker talking about it and doing chants and all that going through, so people would follow it and remember it. So we're leaving out of there, coming through (inaudible 00:41:59), leaving (inaudible 00:42:01), going through Hampton Homes-PART 2 OF 4 ENDS (00:42:04)
WILLENA CANNON:
(inaudible 00:42:01), going through Hampton Homes, then going through Smith
Homes, and right on the other side of the Smith Home was the site of the conference. So you're going to these places, dragging people with you, reminding people 'cause you're (inaudible) lifting that, but sometimes people forget on Saturday mornings.WILLENA CANNON:
So that was the whole reason, to go through those and then have the conference
start at 12:30 or 1:00. But the Klans met us at the starting point, and that's where the shooting started.INTERVIEWER:
So et me ask you i- I know you just went through and gave a basic, like, where
things were. Um, but is there any way you could kinda set us up where it would be today? So I'm from Greensboro, so I know exactly where you're talking about, but for anyone that watches this that's not, um ... Lee Street is now Gate City Boulevard. (S. Smith 00:42:57) Homes is near Freeman Mill Road, which is the major highway, or, you know, try to give context, people (inaudible) know where that's at. So would ... (inaudible) you said they're other side of Smith Homes, were they right there, um, by Florida Street area? Where Florida Street is now, or further up South Elm and (Gene 00:43:18)?WILLENA CANNON:
You're talking about the ending?
INTERVIEWER:
Yes, ma'am, where that was (crosstalk 00:43:21)-
WILLENA CANNON:
It was a church there, that's no longer there.
INTERVIEWER:
Okay.
WILLENA CANNON:
It was on the corner of Freeman Mill Road and Florida Street right on the other
side of that.INTERVIEWER:
Okay.
WILLENA CANNON:
And it was a small church, which, um, we found out later that we wouldn't be
able to use, anyway. The, the FBI visit them two days before that, and they didn't know how to tell us, so they took that away.WILLENA CANNON:
So all of this, was the FBI showed them how to do guns. Louis, Louis Pitts, the
lawyer, got information that'll actually show you that. There was, um, footage that a TV got showing the cop name- They call him Rooster, his code name, was watching the Klans on a h- It was on a house on, um, (Randanman) Road.INTERVIEWER:
Yes, ma'am.
WILLENA CANNON:
A house that Klans was there. Cops, I mean, cars was there. They took out guns
out of that house, put it in the trunk of a car. You ... At, at that time, and maybe still now, you could carry long guns, but you had to have them display on the back ... You see people with trucks with the (inaudible) guns crossed. You had to have 'em like that. They had to be seen; you couldn't hide 'em.WILLENA CANNON:
So, once the cops saw them put it in the trunk, that was ... They had reason,
right there, to stop the Klans and stop that. They watched it. The ... like you said, you didn't know my- Morningside. A lot of people here in Greensboro didn't know how to get into Morningside, the way it was. You had to be here. The Klans didn't know how to, so Rooster led them right in it, to the mouth of it, and moved off, and the Klans came in and did their dirty work.WILLENA CANNON:
They made ... We never had guns at a rally or a protest when we marched, and we
didn't have any then, but the, the city made sure we didn't have guns. They made Nelson sign a thing saying we wouldn't have guns. And you had a legal right to have them as long as they were showing, but they ... So you can see this whole thing planned with the city involved it, but the most telling things was that there were no police there.WILLENA CANNON:
They met with Nelson. They knew what it was. They had, um, parade permit which
tell you where it is. There's no cops in Greensboro, Black or white, didn't know where Morningside was.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
'Cause they all had been in theres at some point. And remember, I was telling
you, people live there tell you there has never been no instance, no time, that there wasn't two or three cops there at all times.WILLENA CANNON:
And, during this time, after the shooting's going on, a (inaudible) white female
cop came in, not to deal with us ... She didn't know anything about us. She came in to deal with a domestic situation. They told her to leave the area. They wouldn't let her deal with us. She'd had to leave the area. She was ... That was just before the shooting or during the shooting, I'm not sure, but they made her get outta there. She had to leave Greensboro, and one of the stud- uh, TV studios, got her statement, and she had to leave Greensboro.WILLENA CANNON:
I don't know what happened to her, and Louis Pitts will know some of that, what-
a little bit more on that, but the fact that they got her out of there, and she didn't know why she was supposed to be going to this fight or how- domestic situation, violent, and she had to leave. She left.INTERVIEWER:
(inaudible) this is be kind of a two-parter, loaded question for you. First, I
know we've gone over what's happened, what happened November 3rd, but could you take us back to the moment right before the shots were fired-WILLENA CANNON:
Oh-
INTERVIEWER:
... and all hell broke loose, literally.
WILLENA CANNON:
Okay. I was not there. Let me explain that.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Remember, I told you we was coming out of there and coming down Lee Street?
INTERVIEWER:
Yes, ma'am.
WILLENA CANNON:
Okay, Lee Street, also you can come off the highway.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Straight down Lee Street, right? What we had, people coming from Chapel Hill,
from Raleigh, from Durham, from Orange County, different places, didn't know the starting place, because, again, it was too much hard for people who live here, and somebody coming out of town, never been into Greensboro, would never find that.WILLENA CANNON:
So I'm explaining why I wasn't there. Over here, on Windsor Center-
INTERVIEWER:
Yes ma'am.
WILLENA CANNON:
... is right off of, is facing Lee Street.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Joyce Johnson, Nelson's wife, and I was told to station there so, when people
come in, they'll have parking there. They could park there, and we had place that people could gather, and, when they leave out of Morningside, coming down Lee Street, all of that could join in.WILLENA CANNON:
All the people coming from wherever, out of town, get off on Lee Street and come
down. It's Gate City Boulevard, now. But we were there to keep that going-INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... 'til they come.
INTERVIEWER:
Yes ma'am.
WILLENA CANNON:
Okay, um, uh, my I had my daughter and my son there. My daughter was supposed to
be with my sister. She came to Windsor Center to tell me she came to pick up my daughter. I told her my daughter was ... and my son ... was in Morningside with the rest of the people.WILLENA CANNON:
She didn't ... She lived here, but didn't know how to get in there. So I leave
this situation, go in there, um, and pick up my daughter and they all see all these people they know. They just saw a few people at m- um, Windsor Center, so they saying, "This ain't gonna be much." But they saw all these banners and people gathering and, uh, the flatbed of moving on stage, and all. It was a sight to see.WILLENA CANNON:
So she said, "My husband is right around the corner. Let me go get him and show
him this." So we go on the corn- Willow Road, pick up her husband, go back in there. When I go back in there, everything- all hell broke loose. Um, the Klans was running. People were dying. She said, "Oh, let's get out." I jumped out. She grabbed my daughter. I mean, my daughter was with her from the first time. They go ... They left, left me. I went running up to Nelson, and where's that picture?WILLENA CANNON:
Where? Over there. I joined Nelson over there, with him, put Jim head on my ...
His eye ... He was still alive, you could see. And then you could see life go out of him. And (inaudible) some blood on it. I eased his head down and left, 'cause ... to see others. And, trying to find out what's going on, going to different ones. I saw Sam- saw Bill. So that's why they didn't have the picture with me (inaudible) him, but we saw Jim die.WILLENA CANNON:
And then, I'm going to different sites, seeing people. And then I hear Nelson.
He's in this chain thing, telling 'em ... He's saying, "Yeah. They did this. This was a setup. They ..." You know? And telling people what happened. There was no policemen here. So it, it was going on, letting 'em know the Klans and the police, all of them worked together, and this happened.WILLENA CANNON:
And so I told you about that. So that's how I came to be on the scene, and, um,
it was over with. Actually, I looked down the roads when we came in and could saw one or two Klans on the ground. Most of them that did the shooting left, got away. Police ... These police was nearby. They wasn't a part of the, the letting 'em hold it. They came in, and, of course, they stopped the Klans, and, at, at that point, the policemen that was on the deal couldn't release 'em, not with ... You see what I'm saying?INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
The contradiction (laughs) when the ones that didn't know it and the ones that
knew it. So that's ... So I wasn't there at the shooting, but what I was told, and you will see, the 16 minutes that the Klans came in and people started pointing at the flag, but the lead car came in, and you- we got a picture where the guys put a gun out and shoot. Once he (inaudible) did a shot in the air, people jumped out of the ... The Klans jumped out of the car, got in his trunk, got the guns, and started looking at people, pointing, and, and they were, they were pointing at certain people. You could see them, n- They weren't shooting randomly in a crowd. They were pointing to ... Got Jim. Got (inaudible 00:53:09).WILLENA CANNON:
So that was happening, people in that community were saying that, "Oh, they were
putting ... picking at certain people" to deal with that, so then the cop came in and the ambulance, and we was the only two arrested, and I think two or three Klans or whatever, like that.INTERVIEWER:
Um, as a mother, myself, you had mentioned your feelings when that white police
officer had told you that some children were killed. What was going through your head in that moment?WILLENA CANNON:
Chil- all the children, but my son, too. Um, I know he was there. My sister had
my youngest son and my daughter, but my young ... And he's like me. He's not afraid of nothing. He was ... So I was thinking of him, but there's so many other children. So it wasn't like just mine.INTERVIEWER:
(inaudible 00:54:05).
WILLENA CANNON:
What children? Was it mine? Was it anybody's children? And I think, maybe, my
mind might have drift back to that, and that might have been why I just fainted or blacked out.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Because I don't, I don't remember. I don't know how you black out. I just
remember thinking and then, the next thing I knew, I was ... Lift my head up and saw the time was just (stuck 00:54:29).INTERVIEWER:
And-
WILLENA CANNON:
So my ... It was a lot. It was stress. It was stress for my child and other children.
INTERVIEWER:
This whole interview, I could not even imagine what you went through-
WILLENA CANNON:
Yes.
INTERVIEWER:
... and I've sat teary eyed behind the camera here, listening to you.
WILLENA CANNON:
Yes.
INTERVIEWER:
Um, one question that I would really like to, love to ask you is, what was the
media coverage like following the massacre? Because we know how Greensboro, and any city, for that matter, has different demographics, different areas where it's either predominantly Black or pretom- predominantly white, and, sometimes, at times, they'll report on things in different ways.WILLENA CANNON:
Okay. The first day ... And I think Nelson and 'em may have it, or have pieces
of it ... The first paper the next morning was "Massacre."INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
That's what the paper ... Went all the way across that. It said people from
Raleigh came down, FBI, whatever ... Changed it to "Shoot Out." So that's where ... "It was a shoot out. Klan and the communists got together. There was two groups, they're from out of town, came to this, uh, chose this place in this Black community to have a shoot out." There was one person had a pistol, shooting in the air.WILLENA CANNON:
She couldn't even shoot 'cause, I mean ... I was raised on a farm. I could
shoot. If I'd of been there and had a gun, somebody ... I could have killed somebody, but, um, we didn't have guns, and they had ... But, when she shot up in the air, that was the "shoot out." And (inaudible) these people with these high, powerful. Some of them had made it to, um, semi or automatic and all of that.WILLENA CANNON:
So the media put the truth out there. It was changed to be that. The first night
... And I forgot her name. She was a Black TV personnel. Oh, God. That's what age'll do to you.INTERVIEWER:
(inaudible 00:56:39).
WILLENA CANNON:
And I may think of her name, but she was very progressive.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
She took us to the studio and gave where we could tell our stories, some of the
stuff I'm telling you now. Some of it we didn't know; we learned later. But s- talked about it, and she ... After that, the media were biased. "It's these communists and them, and the Klansmen coming to fight." The, the work we was doing, where ... None of that was mentioned. It was downplayed. It was just a, "These groups came from out of town."INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Okay? I came from out of town, hoo, when I was 18 to go to A&T, but I'm ...
Lived here. All my children was born here. At the time, I owned a house here. So, I mean, I didn't come from out of town, and, uh ... So the ... It was ... The, the media, a lot of people, reporters knew, and tried to put stuff they- that they saw. They saw nobody was (there 00:57:53), they saw ... And they would tell you. It got where, if you were there as a report, you didn't get to talk no more as people in your organization, they put there, who had the line.WILLENA CANNON:
But it was ... Some reporters, it was hard for them to follow that line when
you're there, and witness it firsthand. But the ... You were ... You got a job, so if you couldn't get past that, you got so- signed to something else. You didn't deal with that.INTERVIEWER:
I'm gonna pause real quick, let you know we have 22 minutes on this SD card left.
INTERVIEWER:
Okay. Um, so then, real quickly ... You've told us so much, and we are, we are
so appreciative of it. And I, and I think I have a gist of why you got into activism based off of your long history and your, your experiences. But, with activism today, what are your views on it as far as civil rights and the activism within the community today, following the massacre? I don't even know if I worded that correctly or not (laughs), but-WILLENA CANNON:
The ... Um, actually, it's coming back. Things had gotten better, and not gotten
better, but ... For people, like our la- la- um, talked to you about when I first came to the A&T. Of course, none of that happened now, so the urgent and the, the thing to fight was not quite there, but people still did things. They still fight police brutality. Once you get into that, you just don't stop with that, so, um ... I remember talking to some students at Bennet. And one of the people saying, "Well, what kind of guarantee we can have that you don't get hurt, that you don't get ... or go to jail?"WILLENA CANNON:
Absolutely none. I mean, there's no guarantee to that. And some of them have
illusions that things are cer- a certain way. But there's no guarantee. The slavery didn't have no ... When they were running away, they had no guarantee to ... We didn't have none, and there's none today. And they will try to stop you any way necessary.WILLENA CANNON:
Blackball you, take your job ... But the students in a un- unique way to lead a
lot, like I was a student. I didn't understand, when I'm standing in the way, trying to (inaudible) integrate a place, why didn't this mother with her childrens ... Why didn't she participate?WILLENA CANNON:
Okay, I understand that now. She had a (inaudible 01:00:42). She had two
children. I didn't have no children. I didn't have no job, other than studying. And, uh, if I had a side job that wasn't like I had nobody depending on me for their life or no s- So I understood that. So students are in a unique way to do stuff. And, during that time, the student and the community was hooked together.WILLENA CANNON:
They made sure the FBI, the (inaudible 01:01:09)- A&T now is kind of like a
plantation, all off from itself, away from the community. That wasn't like that then, so that's the difference I see now. But there are students that's activists, very active. Um, at the time when I was a student, (Dowdy) had to be a certain way, but we knew he was behind us and with us.WILLENA CANNON:
That's not so with the president of, of A&T now. He don't want none of that
foolishness, and I know that. He wants (laughs). So some of that is happening now, and a lot of that wasn't then. Some of it was then, but it's ... Um, it's amazing how students can organize, and let me explain that. This Me Too thing ... I was talking to some students up here, and they're talking about organizing a rally downtown, 5:00 today, and it's 2:00. How they gonna get the leaflets and get people? (laughs)WILLENA CANNON:
Social media. I went down there. There was over 500 people down there. We're
talking about in hours, organiz- organizing. So that is a way. What I learned was they call you, or text you, and told you what was going on, for you to name all your people, send them stuff, have them to send stuff, so the stuff ballooned. That's wonderful. That really is wonderful to deal with that.WILLENA CANNON:
Um, I think it's moving where you're gonna see it wide open, and Trump is
helping that, and the Republicans. Um, people are scared now. They don't know where this country's going, and they have right to be 'cause, right now, Trump is being-PART 3 OF 4 ENDS (01:03:04)
WILLENA CANNON:
Right to be, because right now Trump is being corn- and I don't want you to
think no mean if you got rid of Trump, everything be okay. He's just a symptom of the thing. It's been there. Um, and it... The part of the government that's not working is the one that's supposed to check him, Mitch McConnell and all. That's a dangerous- got us at a dangerous place now. And I would say to white people, and by means- no means all white people, I'm just talking about the few white people that's behind Trump. Especially, if they were dealing with make America white again, you need to forget that. We don't get up and deal with the situation, Russia will be leading it. It's leading Trump now. It will be leading this country. And people say, and I used to too, "How did German people let Hitler to come to power? How did Russian people let Putin get to where he is now?" Guess what? We're on that road. We're on that road. People halfway scared. How the people gonna deal if we impeach?WILLENA CANNON:
You see this... There's no question about him being wrong and all that. This
whole game about process. That's what they want you to get fuzzy and all of that stuff with. This is a time for people to learn, unfortunately don't know how the government work. Guess what? Immigrate- people that immigrated here recently, they could tell you how it works, supposed to work. But a lot of the people that was born here don't know the three branches of government and how they operate and all of that. So, if you don't know that, I mean, ignorance of the system is costly.WILLENA CANNON:
So, I, I see that. And if we get through this, they should teach that again. How
the three bran- I learned that. They don't teach that in high school now, the, the Congress and the this and how you... I make sure my children know, but a lot of children don't have that and a lot of people don't. They think Trump can do what he wanna do. When he said the Second Amendment gave me the right to do anything I want to, a lot of people believed that. They said, "Well, he, he got this Second Amend-..." They don't even know what the Second Amendment is.WILLENA CANNON:
So, that's a danger. Great opportunity, but danger. And people are seeing that.
Uh, I was looking at the news this morning. The polls show more people now wanting this impeachment than ever. The real danger now is that Trump is feeling cornered and the kind of person he is in our system, will lead him to do something, anything. He does not care what this country gets hurt by if it will take the focus off of him and focus on that.WILLENA CANNON:
And he'd be with war with Iran. Iraq was bad, and we lost a lot of people with
Iraq. But Iran is no Iraq. We will lose a lot. We can beat Iraq. I don't want you to think that we can't put them down, but we will suffer a lot, a whole lot of human lives on both sides. More than we did with Iraq. So, this is kind of where we are now. And actually, um, people was wondering why, uh, Pelosi didn't deal quicker. Do you know why?INTERVIEWER:
You play your cards right and you, you wait it out. You don't make-
WILLENA CANNON:
Well, the one, the one- the thing that peop- she saw-
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... at that point, not now, but earlier-
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... this country was right. Could- a civil war was possible. Um, but Trump has
done so much now, people are scared of what he's doing and with the other countries asking them and all of that, they... 'Cause some of Republicans now, 18% said he should be impeached. It was no percent. So people are scared of what he can do. That's the opportunity that you can go here and that's why Nancy started with that. But before, um, you have a lot of militia-INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... with guns stashed a lot of places.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
That will be with the Republicans. And the Democrats kind of had nothing but the military.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
But you got a lot of the, like, militia, you got a lot of that in the military.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
So the question was, where would the Generals fall to? Right now, with what
Trump is doing, the Generals would fall with the Demo- well, they would fall with the law.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
And they would put it down. They would put the militia down. So, it's safe to go
with, um... I'm sorry. They would put it down and we- and Nancy Pelosi see that, and she's proceeding.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Now she's not calling it a full blown, because there are some Democrats who just
did skim by in a place that voted for Trump. She's trying to save them and that's why she's not calling for a vote. She don't have to call for a vote. But that's what they using now, saying it's not the right procedure. But you can call for a vote or you- she can decide. She has the pow- the power to call, which is what she did.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Now to actually do the impeachment, she'd have to call for the vote, but she
just asked Wayne Curry.INTERVIEWER:
Yeah.
WILLENA CANNON:
So, a lot of people don't know that. But anyway, right now I think people are
ready to get involved, feeling a need to-INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
... and I think the beloved community is seeing more students getting involved
and figuring out how they, how they can get involved.INTERVIEWER:
With the anniversary coming up of the massacre, it's going to be the 40 year
anniversary here in November, what is one statement you would like to leave the younger generation that will watch this? Well, what would you want them to know or to do, um, in the future?WILLENA CANNON:
Get involved. And one way to get involved here in Greensboro, if you're a
student and don't know what's going on in Greensboro and, "How do I get involved?" The first place I would come to on Wednesday at this church, the beloved community, which is housed upstairs, have a round table at 12:00. It's 12:00. You can bring your lunch and eat your lunch, but if you have a problem that you want to get involved, bring that and ex- and, and share that. But if you just a student and wanna know what's going on, come sit. There's people who'll bring what's going on, what's happening. You can get involved with that.WILLENA CANNON:
One of the things happening now is Marcus Smith and how the police hogtied him,
lied... The, um, chief lied about it. Not got no mistake. He lied and said the man just died. He wouldn't tell them about hogtying him or... And that's what- the, uh, coroner said he died from being hogtied. And other things was in there, too, but if he hadn't have been hogtied, he wouldn't have died. And they called it a homicide.WILLENA CANNON:
And right nowadays, um, they've been pushing for that, the black and white
people, Hispanics, all go up to City Council talking about firing the chief. Well, he finally said he's, um, he's, um, retiring the 31st of January. So, he sees the handwriting on the wall. But students can get involved in that. A number of them can support the people in the City Council. I mean just stand and listen. Once you start that, you can get involved. But, and then study, find out what's happening. Ask questions, but do critical thinking. Don't follow this, what- not even what I say. Check stuff out for yourself, and think. Don't... 'Cause there's a lot of stuff out there.WILLENA CANNON:
If you don't know the Second Amendment, learn that so you can explain that to
people. But actually get involved, find out what's going on, and take it from there. Once you get involved, it leads you to more and more and how to do and how to get other people involved. Go vote, because this is going to make a difference.INTERVIEWER:
I've got a question. Um, we've got about eight minutes left, but what are kind
of those moments in Greensboro's history that you've experienced, that you feel are kind of untold or just washed over?WILLENA CANNON:
The student movement. They do parts of it. Let me tell you, A&T was a leader of
the Civil Right Movement for the youth and the students. If A&T came out, if... Central didn't even know what was going on. They came out, too. Winston Salem came out, Gramling... That they had to put A&T down. Like I told you, if A&T found out like this Marcus Smith, they would have the City Council full, all in the hallway, the, the fire people would be there to, to- because of the crowd. Anything happened in the city, A&T supported it through their bodies.WILLENA CANNON:
And in the '70s, early '70s, A&T was slowed with heroin. FBI put people on
campus with that. So, you had a fighting machine. They got involved. People like (Stokley) came back and all of them came and, and, um, spoke. When I was there, we had people come and we always would discuss what's going on in this, and you spoke, or what should the A&T students do? How should we get involved in that? It was always how to do. That's what was happening, and A&T led that.WILLENA CANNON:
And that... I worked for Drug Action Council for awhile. There was 21 students
as, um, clients, hooked on heroin that we had to help try to get off. I remember going to A&T to the student union, the one that they took down and put a new one up. And I cried, because under one of the stairways was a student tied all up, cooking heroin in a spoon, shooting it in, right there and looked at it. And it's like, "Oh, my God." So you know, the FBI- the student movement that can move students, to move... Oh, and incidentally, and, and I need to... They was black students. But Gilford College, some students, progressive students from UNCG would try to deal. So, students was moving into that. So, you got a student lead like that and the white people trying to figure out how to get involved in that, too. That's dangerous for a system.WILLENA CANNON:
So they put that down, and that's one thing that I wish they would know the his-
that history, and how that happened. Because I was working with the Drug X Council at that time and could see that happening.WILLENA CANNON:
So when the students came from under that, that community stu- student body
relations was broken. The leadership of, of fighting was broken. Students was talking about getting big jobs and big houses and big cars and what would get them to do. And there's nothing wrong with that, because we did that too, but was also talking about making the world better and how we can get, get involved. That part is- was missing when A&T got from under the drugs.INTERVIEWER:
We have six minutes. Quick question. Um, one of the key takeaways I've gotten
from this interview with you as you started out, that you used to hate all white people, until later on through your different experiences, you realized that it wasn't necessarily race- one race was the problem. It was classes. I mean, you talked about how the CWP helped, you know, say, "Hey, if we all come together, you know, we're all cogs in the clock, basically. If we stop, they can't do what they're trying to do at the top."INTERVIEWER:
So one thing that I wanted to ask is with integration. Do you think they were so
afraid of integration, be- was it because of the possibility of race mixing and just integration as a whole? Or do you think they were afraid of it, because of the fact that they knew if everybody got together and was on the same page, that we could take down the people at the top?WILLENA CANNON:
All of that. One, one of the things they needed, when you- when a few people
rule a country, they have to have the people divided.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
And it can be divided by race. White people, you're better, you've got white
privilege. Black people, this is your place. Okay, you white, you're thinking about your privilege. You don't think about what they got and what they doing too much, 'cause you've got a little bit.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Okay, black people are trying to fight you, because you own them. You've got a
division, you can rule, even though you... The, the, the top people are the smallest. So, you learn how... And I'd say a few people. There's hundreds of thousands of people, but how can they, millions and millions of people, how can they rule? That's how they do it.WILLENA CANNON:
So, integration helped that. Um, giving you white privilege, better. If they
can't... They don't want equal nothing, because what are they going to have to keep you divided? That's, that's, that's... Yeah. The question is that, both of them. They don't want you to get together and see how you can make things better. They want to keep you, you feeling that you're better than somebody else, that'll you'll hold onto that and not join somebody else who is lower than you, because you don't have to. You've got a little bit of privilege. But meanwhile they... You don't have all what you could have if you got together with people.INTERVIEWER:
One other question, me and Trina, we were walking around prior to the interview,
and we were talking about, um, gentrification of black neighborhoods. Kind of like what they've done around here in this area, where, you know, some big company or someone with a lot of money will come into predominantly black neighborhoods or predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods, neighborhoods that are pretty cheap to live in based off of the demographics. Try to buy up, tear down homes, build things up, and overprice them. What do you think about gentrification within the area around these areas, that were kind of a part of the area that the massacre occurred in?WILLENA CANNON:
A lot of times they want those places. They... And then when things get so bad,
that help people rise up. So you, you do some things too, to keep that, so you can say things are a little bit better. Like, like I told you now, the way students had to deal with it when I came here is much worse. So, you wanted to make changes, but then students now, they got really nice... Because you see A&T and student union and they can do things and all of that. So the, the urgent to struggle is not sharp.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
So you do stuff like that. And gentrification is, they want this area back.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
It was completely white. Then the whites left and went out.
INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
Now they coming back. They want us gone. They want us gone from this church, and
they can't do anything yet with it. But I mean, we probably could sell it for $1 million, this area in here.INTERVIEWER:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
WILLENA CANNON:
They... But this is right where we need to be at and, and what we are dealing
with. But, um, the thing about making America white again, they can forget that. You can go, you can go to Walmart and see white women with mixed babies and black women with mixed babies and all of that. So, the, the mix is going to be the predominant. And nothing that Trump can do... He even talked about sending some of us here legally back. I don't know what he's talking about it. I'm here legally, because I was born here. But he didn't make no stipulation. He said he may send some people who live... He ain't talking about no white people he's sending legally.WILLENA CANNON:
But anyway, he- they, they can forget that in this fight for a good country with
everybody equal, have a good life. And defeat knows that's really living health to hog.INTERVIEWER:
Well, we want to thank to you so much for taking this time to sit with us and to
share your wisdom and your experiences. Um, and for us to be able to capture it on film for generations to come, to be able to see, we really, really appreciate that.WILLENA CANNON:
Okay.
INTERVIEWER:
And we appreciate everything that you've done for not only the community, but
for just the human race in general.WILLENA CANNON:
Well, we all... To me, I would tell young people, you don't have a free ride.
That's another sh- to answer the question, you have an obligation to do something to this world and make it better before you move on to another life of what- before you die. You need- you have an obligation not to come and just partake, but make it better whatever way you can. That's an obligation. Not a right.INTERVIEWER:
Thank you.
SPEAKER 1:
Thank you so much.
WILLENA CANNON:
Let me ask you this. Can I talk?
SPEAKER 1:
Yeah.
WILLENA CANNON:
Can-
PART 4 OF 4 ENDS (01:22:37)
This transcript was exported on Sep 30, 2020 - view latest version here.
Willena Cannon (Completed 03/22/20)
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