>> This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Lorenzo Wallace on Friday,
December 12, 2014, at
the Sturgis Library at Kennesaw State University.
And Mr. Wallace, do you agree to this interview?
>> Yes, I do.
>> Could you please state your full name?
>> Lorenzo Alexander Wallace.
>> And when and where were you born?
>> I was born at
150 Chestnut Street Southwest, Atlanta, Georgia.
That was in 1919.
>> And tell me a little bit about your family.
What were your parents' names?
>> My father was named Edward B. Wallace.
He was a physician.
In fact, he was a surgeon.
And he delivered all of his five children except
the youngest who was born the same day he passed in 1925.
>> And your parents attended Clark College?
>> That's correct.
>> Which is now Clark Atlanta University.
>> Yes.
>> And so your father was a physician,
but passed away in 1925.
So what did your mother do for a living?
>> Well, my mother was just a housewife until he passed.
And after he passed,
she had to go to work and she was
a insurance agent for the Pilgrim Insurance Company,
which at that time was a small black insurance company,
I believe it was on Fraser Street.
I'm not sure what part of Atlanta,
but it was on Fraser Street in Atlanta.
>> And what was your mother's name?
>> Birdie Florence Wallace.
Well, her maiden name was
Birdie Crolley Wallace, C-R-O-L-L-E-Y.
Her father, my grandfather,
was a Methodist preacher.
In fact, he was one of the founders of
Warren Memorial United Methodist Church,
which is now located on Lowery Boulevard.
>> So your mother had to go to work
and she was raising five children on her own?
>> Correct.
>> So do you remember that as
a difficult period or were you not
aware of those difficulties?
>> Well, I'm aware of the difficulties
because all of the five children,
those that were of age had to
go to school and come home and certain duties you had.
Some cooked and some did different household duties.
>> So what hobbies did you have as a child?
>> As a child,
I was trying to think of well,
I just played with the neighborhood kids.
We played different games, football,
and things like that,
but it was just a matter of playing
with the neighboring kids.
>> And you were growing up in
the 1920s, 1930s in Atlanta.
So it was a segregated city based on color.
So did you have any interactions
with white people at that time?
>> Not too many.
In going to school,
most of your teachers were Afro-American,
but the superintendent of
the school system at Atlanta School System was white.
I was trying to think of the name,
but I can't think of his name right now,
but he was famous as
a superintendent of the public schools.
But it was strictly segregated,
though, the black schools and the white schools.
>> And where did you graduate from high school?
>> I graduated from Booker T.
Washington High School in 1937.
That particular high school was founded in
1924 with Professor Charles
L. Harper as a principal.
And he remained principal
for I think it was about 20 years or more.
But it was the only black high school
for blacks in Atlanta at the time.
So if you went to high school,
you had to go to Washington High.
>> And where was it located?
>> It was located on what they used to be C Street.
And later changed to White House Street.
But that was off of well between
Honor Street and Beckwith Street
in the Southwest Atlanta.
>> And you said your mother worked for Fraser Insurance?
>> No. Pilgrim Insurance Company
which was located on Fraser Street.
>> That's right. And so that was
an insurance company for black clients.
And so another one would have
been Atlanta Life Insurance Company.
>> That's correct. I was
trying to think of what they used
to call those companies.
They had nickel and dime policies.
And I think most of the policies
was 10 cents a week or something like that.
Well, you had the second accident policies
and the death policies.
And I don't think the death policies
paid but about $50 on death.
But in those years,
everything was low key.
You could buy a dozen of eggs
for 10 cents a penny piece, things like that.
I remember well how reasonable things were,
but people weren't making any money.
Some people were making let's
say $8 a week or something like that.
And what really brought
the fact of mind that things had increased.
Before my mother passed at 94,
I used to try to help take care of her
and I'd go to the grocery store for and
she would give me $5
and give me a long list of
things that she needed from the grocery store.
And she'd always give me a five or $10 and say,
bring me some change.
But anyway, I'd have to
spend about 40 or $50 to get what she had.
And then when I brought it back,
she said, where's my change?
[LAUGHTER] So that was comical.
>> So do you remember life
and social activities on
Auburn Avenue at all during that time?
>> Yes, I do. Auburn Avenue
was quite a Metropolitan street.
They had night clubs and black businesses.
And one of them was like you just asked about
the Atlanta Life Insurance Company and
the Citizens Trust Bank were
a couple of the main businesses.
And they had a building,
let's see, Odd Fellows Building.
There was a club located upstairs in that building,
well, it had different entertainment places.
And then they had a place down
the street called the Top Hat,
which was on Auburn,
and there was another one the Poinciana Club on Auburn.
The first Black daily newspaper was located on Auburn,
Atlanta World, they called it.
At any rate, it was quite a street for Afro-Americans.
That was where they used to have different clubs,
used to have dances at
the clubs there like the Top Hat club.
>> Did you attend those dances?
>> Yes, I did. And they
were quite enjoyable at that time.
Well, that was all we had,
all the places we could go.
Now, I remember the Fox Theater,
which is still in existence.
You could go there,
but you had to climb steps that looked like they were
almost sky high and you sat in
the balcony and so most of us didn't go.
>> So it was a refusal to go to
a place where you had to be segregated?
>> Right. That's correct.
>> So you graduated
from high school and attended Morehouse?
>> Yes.
>> Can you tell me
about your years at Morehouse? What did you study?
>> Well, I went to Morehouse in 1937 and that was
the first year that
Dr. Benjamin E. Mays became president.
Well, he didn't become president until 1941.
So my class was
the first class to graduate under his tenure.
Well, I studied economics
and I had a minor in mathematics.
And when I finished in 1941,
it was hard to get jobs for Blacks then,
either you had to be a school teacher
or a preacher or something like that.
There just weren't the jobs available for Blacks.
But I had taken a lot of
government exams and the first job
I got was with the War Department.
Well, it was as a messenger.
I think it paid 1,200 a year.
And I remember that being in
that quartermaster office of the army which was
located in the Hurt Building,
which was on Edgewood Avenue.
And I was the only Black in
that office and I saw how they treated me.
And that was during the time of World War II with
a compulsory draft for
all males 18-26 years old.
And so when they got ready to draft me,
I noticed how they had
treated me in that quartermaster office of the army.
And I said, I'm not going into the army.
And at that time,
President Franklin D. Roosevelt had
just signed a proclamation
that the US Marine Corps had to desegregate.
It was the last military facility to desegregate.
So I said, well,
I'll try the Marines.
So when they drafted me to ask me where did I want to go,
I said, I want to go to the Marines.
Well, that was in October of 1941.
Well, they left me alone until July of 1942,
and then they called me in.
But they were building
a special camp for Blacks to be trained into the Marine.
We didn't go to [inaudible] We went to Montford Point,
was the camp where
they had just built for Blacks to be trained.
And that's how I got into the Marine Corps.
>> Well, let's go back a little bit to
the Army quartermaster at the Hurt Building.
What were the attitudes of the folks in there about you,
what was the treatment you were facing?
>> Well, there were
different promotions that would come up and they
would never consider me but they
would consider a folk who had come in behind me.
And some of them I had given some training to.
They would promote them but they never promoted me.
>> So you arrived at
Montford Point in was it the summer of 1942?
>> It was July 1942, yeah.
>> What did you find when you got there?
Was it built? Was it not built? What did it look like?
>> When I got there, they had built a lot
of I guess I would call them huts.
They had a lot of huts in the land
and they started with the first platoon.
I believe it was 40
in each platoon and they went on up 1,2,3, so forth.
But anyway, each platoon
was there for the first platoon,
the second platoon, the third platoon,
were housed in these huts.
They were large enough to have cots
for 40 people.
When we first went there,
they had the white drill instructors and gradually,
they would promote someone
from the black race to be a drill instructor.
Well, that's how we started out.
And of course, they had
other activities that they
would train you for different,
well, rigors that you went
through learning to be a marine.
But as things went along,
they promoted Blacks to
do the jobs that the Whites had done.
>> How intense was the training?
>> It was very intense.
Well, the drill and the marching wasn't that bad,
but then they had different maneuver training,
I would say like jujitsu and things like that.
I can't remember exactly what went on,
but different rope training and training you
how to protect yourself and how
to defeat others and that sort of thing.
>> Did you make friends with
your fellow soldiers, fellow trainees?
>> Yes.
>> Do you remember anyone in particular?
>> Yes. I remember
there was a fellow named Charles Gillbo.
He was from Evanston, Illinois.
We became very close friends.
And there were others.
Well, you had to form friends with the fellows who you
were associated with every day and
went through difficulties with.
It's just a matter of
it was the same way you just had to be friends with them.
>> And you said this friend of yours from Illinois,
he would have been coming to North Carolina,
which is a more northern state to a more Southern state?
>> Yeah.
>> So did you go off base with these guys?
Did you ever leave the base?
>> Yes. We would go on what they used to call at Liberty.
Now, a lot of weekend Liberty,
you could go to different cities located around there,
which was Wilmington, North Carolina, Greensboro,
North Carolina, Goldsboro, North Carolina,
different places nearby cities.
You could catch a bus and go to
those cities for the weekend and they
had what they call the USOs and those different cities.
>> Is that entertainment?
>> Yeah. You could go for entertainment.
>> What sort of entertainment?
>> Well, mostly,
they had food and refreshments for you
and different things like that.
There wasn't a whole lot of stuff going on.
>> So when was your training complete?
>> My training well,
the first group of platoons,
they call them the 51st defense battalion.
And I guess our training went on
for just about a year, almost a year.
And that 51st defense battalion,
you learn how to take care of things
mostly other units would
go in and take a place and defense battalion was
a outfit that held that territory to
keep people from coming back
in like that 51st defense battalion.
Now, we were sent overseas,
we went from California from Camp,
my memory is not too good on some of the names,
but we went from San Diego,
California overseas and the Weetock
which was in the Marshall Islands.
And I remember going over,
we were on an aircraft carrier,
and at night, they would make us go down,
you had to go down into the ship there and
it wouldn't let you up or anything like that,
but it was a lot of maneuvering
and they just had to be careful
because the Japanese were
still bombing ships and things like that.
>> Did they not want noise on deck or activity on deck?
>> They had some activity,
but at certain times when
the radar had found that there were Japs,
planes in the area,
they'd make you go down in
the bottom of the ship with no activity on deck.
>> So when you landed in Weetock
on in the Marshall Islands,
what did you find on the island?
>> We found most of the palm trees had been cut off where
the Navy had with
their big guns had just blown
everything on the island down.
And I didn't see any live Japanese,
except we saw a few dead ones.
Every now and then,
you could run into a boot or something with a leg in it,
but they had really
just cleaned that island off with the big guns.
And we went in
with this as a defense battalion and there were
other folks that went in
the Air Force with some planes on
the island and there were some Navy people on them.
And we were there just to maintain the island in
case the Japs tried to come back in there.
But they never did.
>> What were your day-to-day duties then?
>> I was with a radar group and
my main duties were the power plants.
And in fact, they sent me
from Weetock in the Marshals to the Ellis Island,
which was a small island in the English group called,
well, the particular island I went to was Nukufetau.
But it was the Ellis Island Group and I went over
there and to maintain the power plant
which supplied all the electricity for that island.
And that was what I did over there.
But before I went to that island,
I was on Weetock and the Marshalls,
and my duties there were just to well,
I was with the power plant,
but someone else was in charge of it.
>> Who was that?
>> I don't remember exactly.
I know it was somebody from the Navy was in charge of it.
>> So you would have been working with people
that you hadn't trained with before?
>> That's correct.
>> And how did you get along with them?
>> Well, we
got along fine after we got to know each other.
But I remember one specific case.
I was with this radar group and we would study together.
And Black Marines and several,
I believe, it was Navy Group would work
with us to maintain the radar system.
That's to detect anything that would come in.
Anyway, I remember one White fella from Kentucky.
Now, we would get together and study together on
some radar maintenance and and they would
have beer in canteen cups
and stuff and then they'd pass it around
and everybody would take a drink or something.
And this fella never would.
But eventually, after he got to know us,
this fella from Kentucky told us
that his parents had trained
him that blacks were no
better than dogs and not to associate with them.
But he had to associate with us in that group.
And he said, when I get back home,
I'm going to tell them that
you all are just like anybody else.
You're just as good as any Whites that I know.
They had, his parents,
had just trained him that way.
So that was enlightening.
So things like that happen.
>> And on these islands,
what facilities were you sleeping in, eating in?
Were you in huts,
did you get larger barracks?
What was that situation like?
>> Well, it was mostly huts.
There were several, there would be many huts.
And you had to sleep in facilities,
but there was always somebody else around mostly.
Now, when I got to the Ellis Island,
I had a place all by
myself because I was right there with
that power plant and
my living space was right next to that big power plant.
>> What things were you doing in the power plant?
>> You just maintained the facility.
You had to change the oil in it and all that thing.
Different mechanism you had
to be sure it was running correctly and that thing.
>> You said that the Japanese never
came back to these islands that you were on.
>> Right.
>> But were there ever air raids,
were there ever moments where you felt in danger
like there was maybe bombing coming in
or were you fairly removed from the fighting?
>> You were removed from the fighting,
but there was always that chance that the Japanese might
come back and you had to be alert to that,
but I guess we were
just blessed that they never came back to that area.
>> So how many months did you spend
first on the Marshall Islands
and then on the Ellis Islands?
>> I spent about four or five months on,
we talk in the Marshall Islands before they sent me
to this Ellis Island group that was looking for tail.
And I spent about eight months over there more
before they called me back to
the Marshall Islands and
there was an island called Perry,
where they would discharge people from.
And then they sent you to Perry,
and that was a maneuver
there that they got you ready to go back to the States.
>> So do you remember hearing the news that
the first atomic bomb had been dropped on Hiroshima?
>> Yes. That was about the time when I had been back
on and are we talking to
Marshall Islands about six months.
That's when we heard about that.
And after that, they said the war was over and they
started maneuvering to get us back to the states.
You had to have so many points
to get out those who had been
in longer than others were maneuvering out first.
>> How did you earn points?
Did it help if you were married,
if you had children, those things too?
>> I don't remember about that.
I know it was your length of service.
And I suppose it had a lot to do with who you are.
Whether you were married, I imagine so.
I wasn't married at that time,
so I don't know,
but I think that had a lot to do with it,
but I just don't
remember exactly how those points were given out.
>> So of those years you spent in the Pacific,
when you think about that military service today,
what stands out the most?
What are you proudest of?
>> Well, I'm just proud that I
was able to be [NOISE] in an outfit
that were supposed to
protect certain territory.
And I'm also proud
that I didn't have to do any real fighting
because there were so many people
who did the fighting
and didn't survive and that sort of thing.
>> So you returned to
the United States in early 1946, correct?
>> Yeah. In December of '45.
>> And you were discharged from the Marine Corps.
What did you do after the war was over?
>> Well, many years ago before that,
I had taken the Postal Service exam
and they had called me while I was in the service.
And so when I got out of the service,
they had me at the top of the list and I went to work for
the Postal Service and I started out as a mail carrier.
And after a short time,
I became a clerk inside of
the post office and eventually,
I was able to get on the train.
At that time, the train was carrying mail,
and they had male clerks who
sorted mail on the trains between different cities.
And I was appointed
to what they call the Chat in Atlanta.
That was a line
running on a railroad
between Atlanta and Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And I did that for
about nine months to a year,
and I had taken a exam for
the regional office and they called me from
that position as a railway postal clerk
into the regional office,
and I started out as,
I don't remember what they call it,
but I was making out payment issues
for the railroad companies and for
Hale-Mail and they promoted me from that to
, what was it?
I'm not quite clear on my memory about it.
>> Become transportation planning officer?
>> That was later. Anyway,
I had had several positions before I
became a transportation planning officer.
But in 1971, I believe,
when Nixon was voted president,
he made Winton Blunt from Alabama his postmaster general.
And that was the time when they went
from 15 regions over the United States.
I was in the Southern regional office.
They downsized, and called it
a quasi postal service, the regions.
And [NOISE] the Southern region,
which was over four states, Georgia,
Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina,
moved to Memphis, Tennessee,
and it was over nine states.
And at that time,
I was a transportation analyst and
they transferred me to Memphis, Tennessee.
I either had to retire at a reduced annuity,
I'll go to Memphis.
So I went to Memphis and spent
three years over there and got
my annuity up to something I could live with,
and I retired in 1974.
>> How did you feel about moving to
Memphis from Atlanta where you'd always lived?
>> I didn't like it,
but it was one of those things.
My wife stayed in Atlanta and I used to
make it back at least every other week for the weekend.
Sometimes I made every weekend back in Atlanta.
But it was just a case of
getting my annuity up to something I could live
with, and I retired.
And for a while,
I moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee.
And I had a little beauty products business
going where I was supplying beauticians with.
[NOISE] And I did
that for a few years until I
left Chattanooga and moved back to Atlanta.
And that's when I went to work
for the Georgia State Senate under Governor Zell Miller.
At that time, he was the lieutenant governor and he
was the lieutenant governor of the State of Georgia,
was also the president of the Georgia State Senate.
And I went to work with them under him.
And I did it for 23 years.
The last four years I was a sergeant at
arms of the Georgia State Senate.
>> So you were first a doorkeeper?
>> Yes.
>> And what did that involve?
>> [NOISE] I was on the front door there.
I was involved in letting the right people
in and out of the front door
and keeping the wrong people out.
>> Who were the wrong people.
>> Well, anybody who just wanted to come in
the Senate just to gag around.
>> So you'd send them up to the balcony?
>> Right. That's correct.
>> Do you remember any personalities,
any politicians during that time,
political change in Georgia in the 1970s?
>> Yeah. You had some real powerful services in that day.
One was, let's see, Clover Kid.
I think he was over the rules committee where he
was the one who if a bill came before the Senate,
it had to go through him and he
would put it on the docket.
He was a powerful senator.
There were others who had a lot of clout.
And during the time I was there,
they had, I
think it was about two or three black senators.
And by the time I left in 2010,
they had about 12.
So things were moving in the right direction there.
They were getting better all the time.
>> And so you said you retired from there as
Sergeant at Arms only four years ago?
>> Yeah.
>> And how old were you at that time?
>> I guess I was 92.
>> So can you tell me about your family?
When did you first marry?
>> Well, I have been married more than once.
The first time I married
was right after I got out of the Marine Corps.
That was in 1946.
And that wife and I had one son.
I'm trying to think of a year.
But anyway, we were married for
32 years, and we divorced.
She got tired of me.
So that was when I moved to Chattanooga,
and I was retired then,
say from the Postal Service and I
had a little beauty products business going.
And I stayed there eight years and came back to Atlanta.
And I married again in,
I believe it was '88.
I'm with that wife now.
She's 87, and I'm 95.
>> What is your son's name?
>> He is Lorenzo A Wallace Junior.
>> And where did he go to school?
>> He went to Hopper High School in Atlanta.
And then they tried to give him
a full year paid scholarship to Morehouse,
where he didn't want to go there.
He wanted to go to Yale.
So he went to Yale.
And he finished Yale,
and then he went to Harvard and got an MBA,
and he worked for Price Waterhouse,
then he worked for City Core Bank in New York,
and then he started building houses.
Started under John Wheeler who builds houses in Atlanta.
And he went from there to something else.
But anyway, he's at the Gas South at present.
And he says he'd be ready to retire in six years.
[LAUGHTER]
>> How did it make you feel to see
your son go to Yale and Harvard?
>> Made me feel real good.
I [NOISE] was surprised that that's what he wanted to do,
but I tried to
make it possible for him to do what he wanted to do.
So I was very pleased.
>> Tell me about this medal
that's hanging from your neck.
>> This medal was authorized by
President Obama in 2012.
And they had a big deal,
where it was presented by some general in Washington.
I think Obama was supposed to be president,
but something else came up and he didn't make it.
But anyway, it was a medal
that he authorized for the first Black Marines.
When they started letting Blacks joined
the Marines between 1942 and 1949.
That's who was eligible for the medal.
And I didn't learn about
the medal until after they had gone to Washington.
In fact, they had a list of who was to
go before I got authorized.
>> So you didn't attend the ceremony in Washington?
>> I didn't attend the ceremony in Washington.
I attended a ceremony here in Atlanta,
some banquet that was given where they had
a black general who was
the main speaker and he presented the medal.
>> So Mr. Wallace, how do you think the South
has changed since you were a child?
>> It's changed by leaps and bounds.
It's quite a different place altogether.
[NOISE] See the most of the things that
happened to me were
before the civil rights movement in the '60s.
And we have changed the whole climate.
And things are still not perfect,
but they are a whole lot better,
and they're just quite different,
say like black and white from the way things used to be.
>> How do you think the Montford Point Marines
contributed to the larger civil rights movement?
>> Of the Blacks into the Marine,
the Marine Corps as a whole outfit,
thought that the blacks could
not function in a very good manner.
And after they got in,
and they found out
that they could do just what anybody else could do.
It's just a a matter that man is a man.
Also, a woman is a woman.
I mean that, regardless to race,
you can do whatever your [NOISE] character lets you do.
So that changed the whole climate of things,
and it's just a better outfit now.
>> Why did you agree to talk to me today?
>> Well, I would just like for,
if this does any good,
which I hope it will.
It will be an influence on
helping young Blacks to progress,
and make good choices.
If I've done anything at all,
it is worthwhile, I'd like for them to know.
>> Well, thank you for talking to me today,
Mr. Wallace, and we'll end there.
>> Well, it's been quite enlightening and I wish I
could have remembered a lot more than
I have presented today,
but I did the best I could.
>> You've done a wonderful job. Thank you.
>> Thank you.