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[00:00:06] Pete Cooper: My name is Philip Whannell, Pete. I'm known as Pete in Salisbury, Cooper. I'm 99 years of age. And I was born in the Salisbury area back in 1910, at a time when there were no automobiles to speak of, and no highways to run them on if there was. And we lived in the country out South Division Street way. About five miles. And it took us, if we had to come in town on Saturdays, which many farmers did, we would have to come by horse and buggy or some similar method of coming. And I often wondered if I'd heard about this item of automobiles, but as we came in town and tracks that their carriage made in the sand. Were so deep I wondered if any vehicle could possibly run over those same dirt roads. But anyhow, I was under ten because we moved to Salisbury when I was ten years old. And we had a dog whose name was Bingo, and he would come to town with us, and he'd run under the carriage in the shade in the summertime. When we got there, he would stay right by the carriage and we could go on to our or whatever we had to do. And Bingo would still be there taking care of things. So it was sort of a fond memory of those early days. But we moved to town when I was 10. I had been to Oakland School when I was nine, by the way, and that was about a mile further out than where we lived. And we were out beyond Union Church Road in that area. I have pictures here that show our family and at one time, the membership of that class at Oakland Schools, a one-room schoolhouse. [00:02:21][135.1]

[00:02:26] Bud Barclay: My name is Marion Winfield Barclay. Most people call me Bud Barclays. The life of downtown Salisbury, when I say downtown Salisbury, I'm thinking about where the bridge is, going west. Out of the county, and when you cross the bridge, the first street you would come to was Street, which is still there, known as Lake Street. At the present time, there's nothing left when you crossed the bridge other than an antique shop that is sitting where Hamer's drugstore was, and later on became the Franklin Hotel, which was our first hotel, or our first black hotel in Salisbury, which was very nice. On the east side, we had the Five and Dime store. And over top of the Five and Dimes store was a nightclub, normally- named the Zanzibar. And then at one time, it was the- Moon, Blue Moon nightclub, where we all went and kicked off our heels, and all the big-time black bands would come in through town because at that time a lot of our big-time black bands didn't have any place to go except to black places. And that time, the place was owned by Slim Marshall. Which was one of our prominent black leaders here in Salisbury. And you, go down a little further north from the Five and Dime store, you would hit a little place called The Spot, which was like a beer traveling where the older people went. And then, before you got to The Spot, we had our first black. Theater, which was named the Ritz Theater. That was where we could go, and everybody sit downstairs. We didn't have to go upstairs, but you sit anywhere you want. And of course, always a go-getter wanting to make a little money. And I was an usher there. So I think I made like a dollar a night or two dollars a night, which was big time. You could just walk, come in town, you would on the weekend, you could just walk from club to club because all of them were in walking distance, and everyone had a good time and met each other, and that was it, you know. It wasn't a whole lot of this shooting and all that kind of stuff. Every now and then, somebody might get fighting over a girlfriend or something like that, but that's all that was. But, uh, nothing serious. [00:05:40][193.7]

[00:05:46] Henry Hannah: My name is Henry Hannah, and I was born and grew up in Salisbury. Thinking back on some of my memories after you had first called me, I stood back from looking at downtown and realized how much it has changed, just a small piece at a time, but how dramatically that change is when I look back over 60 years. Thinking about downtown Salisbury as a child, I went to kindergarten. On North Division Street at Ms. Harold's school. So coming downtown was a treat. You could walk downtown from the neighborhood, and even as a youngster at times, at the time I was probably seven years old, we could ride our bikes and come downtown by ourselves. And one of the memories I have was going to the firehouse and we'd always have a group of guys on a Saturday morning and a fellow named Bunky Man was the Fire Fanatic and he would always round us up and we'd come downtown and we would go through the firehouse and up and down to look down the pole that the fireman went down to being in the basement for the old steam engine. And that horse-drawn steam engine is now on display at the new firehouse. When I go down the plaza today, I look at the second and third floor and the basements, and I think of how many of those spaces as kids. We went into and what an important part of downtown fabric it was then and if you needed a cub scout uniform or boy scout uniforms you went to the RE Powell Company and you went up to the second floor and that's where they had everything that related to, to scouting and so you could find all those things there and in most of the buildings downtown there was a basement of some sort and so by the time we got to Junior High School. We would walk from junior high school through downtown, and Read's Drug Store, which is now Channel 47 television station, was the Read's Drug Store. And downstairs, they had a lunch counter. So I can remember many afternoons that we would walk through town, go downstairs, sit and have a Coke and French fries, and then continue on home. And parents would never give a thought to that being any kind of problem. My junior high school years, I had to stay after school an awful lot, and so I would walk through downtown, stop at Read's, and then continue on. By that time we had moved outside of town and it probably was an hour's walk, but I don't think there was any worry about it. If we were going to skip Sunday school at St. Peter's Church, we could sneak out the back door of St. Peter's and come down to Doc Cabinets and sit at the counter and have a Coke. One day, while we were doing that, Father Varley from St. Peter's had gotten the idea that there were a group of us that seemed to be missing in action, and sure enough, he showed up at the lunch counter to take us back. That was the last time we skipped Sunday school. [00:08:52][185.5]

[00:08:57] Marie Waller: I am Marie Johnson Waller. I'm 98 years old, and I hope to live to 100. I was born near Laurel, rather five miles out of the town, and went to high school there. Graduated in 1930 and came in training at Peninsula General Hospital. In the spring of 31. One incident that stands out in my mind, in my nursing life, was when I was a student. And during those years, we got a half a day off a week. To go home or do whatever you wish. And of course, I always went home. Hold it in me. This particular day, I had gone home, and my ward was the black men and women's. So I was to be back at 10 o'clock. My brother was going to bring me home, and he wanted to leave earlier than I wanted to because he had heard there was a lynching in Salisbury. And I wasn't anxious to go on duty that night. But anyway, he won over me because he was a driver. There was a lynching in town, and it was one of the patients that had been admitted that afternoon while I was home. That was as nof ear as I came to witness it. And it wasn't a brave story. It wasn't the brave scene for a young girl, or a young man, or anyone else to witness. Thank you. [00:11:06][128.8]

[00:11:11] George Chevalier: My name is George Chevalier, and I'm a resident of Salisbury, Maryland, and have been, except for short interludes away at college and military, I've lived in Salisbury all my life. The Ulman Theater in the early 50s was the place to go. I mean, on Saturday afternoon, I remember where my cowboy guns and cowboy hat, and I mean, your mother would... I don't know whether Mother would even drop us off or whether we walked. We lived down in a corner of Church and Truett, and might have walked for all I know. But you didn't have any worries in those days. If somebody, nobody would bother you, you didn't t even think about it. You did not even think of it. But down at the Ulman Theater, you'd sit there, and it was all dark, and well, they had the lights on when you first went in. Cost a dime to get in. And they were always playing humor-esque. And I still have a copy of that here, humor-esque. And that was always playing. And then eventually the lights would dim down, and the curtains would roll back, and everybody would start cheering, you know? And as soon as the lights go down, the jujubis would start flying. And if you were fortunate, one of the fortunate few to get in the balcony, because it only held about 20 kids and about five across the front, if you're in the front row, well, you could see your buddies in there, and poom, you could hit them. Of course, there was the ever-present Usher with his flashlight, and he could then, you know, "what're you doin'?!" "What're you doin'?!" (laughs) But you'd have, you know, generally a cowboy movie, sometimes two, but a cowboy movie. MovieTone News uh... Cartoon the cartoons uh... A serial, a weekly serial, and that's what couple out kids coming back coming to have like Rocket Man I mean this guy remember distinctly, had a '49 Ford with this propane tank in his trunk that he'd get out and he'd strap on had all these dials and next thing you know he was flying along and (Makes flying noises) he was adjusting that and it was but you just ate it up I mean it was nothing compared to what they have nowadays and the kids have But we thought it was something, and there was only, they were all in black and white. The only difference was Roy Rogers movies were always in color, and you better get there early for a Roy Rogers movie, because they filled up fast. And the Gene Autry movies were always in sepia, which is like a brown tone. And for whatever reason, I don't know, but I distinctly remember them. That's the only two variations from black and White we ever saw. But. We had a big time. The Ulman Theater was where to be on a Saturday afternoon for a quarter. You could have a ball. That was all my allowance. I only got fifty cents, and I had to save a quarter of that for vacation. We had a vacation savings box and put a quarter a week in. So at the end of the year, you had twelve dollars and a half to spend on vacation. That wouldn't go far nowadays, but it went a long way back in those days. [00:11:11][0.0]