**Names don\'t match what was on the paper work. \-- Production
Transcripts**

**A**: \...I have one son here with me. He is a Vietnam vet.

Q: Is he?

**A**: Disabled. And uhm\...

Q: Oh, I'm so sorry.

**A**: Well\...

Q: How\'s he doing?

**A**: Emotionally\...

Q: I see.

**A**: Pretty good. Uhm\... he has two degrees but he just totally
crashed after Vietnam, after he came back\...

Q: I understand.

**A**: And cannot sustain stress so - so sometimes I know there has to
be a heaven because he deserves better.

Q: I see. Yeah.

**A**: He\'s a fine musician, an artist.

Q: Is he?

**A**: Uh\... it\'s a shame. And he\'s lonely.

Q: Yeah. I can imagine.

**A**: My other son\'s in Montgomery and he is a scientific
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. He\'s with CH2M Hill, you Mays have
heard of them and uh\... he\'s been all over the world. His specialty is
air pollution and he is the father of my three grandsons\...

Q: Congratulations.

**A**: \...one of whom finished college and, thank God, has returned
from Iraq.

Q: I see.

**A**: He went in the Service after he got out of school and one is a
freshman at Sewanee in Tennessee and one is a junior at the University
of Alabama. And they\'re good kids.

Q: Youth and government, you were talking about that.

**A**: Yes. Uhm\... so the councilors have nominated these young people.
Each year, we have a new group and we take 10^th^ and 11^th^ graders
\'cause we found 12^th^ graders, that\'s their senior year and they had
too many distractions. They can\'t uh\... and when I say schools, I mean
that every school in Dallas County, public, private, city, county,
they\'re all members, and what they learn, they learn about municipal
government and county government, why it\'s important, why citizens need
to be involved in their government. They also have projects, community
projects, that we require and they work on those. But what is perhaps
the most wonderful outcome of this each year is the bonding with each
other and that is truly what\'s behind the hours that we spend. They -
they are so bright and full of energy and interested in everything and,
to see them laughing and giggling together, a group of black and white
and I think there\'s one, perhaps, I think, Oriental. I mean it\'s just
marvelous. And what we are trying to do is have them come back when they
finish their education and bring that light back into our town.

Q: I hope they do.

**A**: I do, too.

Q: I hope they do. Let\'s cut.

\[Audio off then on\]

Q: Selma to Montgomery interviewing Mary Frances Mays. Tape 10.

\[Audio off then on\]

\<Crew talk\>

Q: So, you know, where do you want to begin? I want to know how you got
involved with this business, this and struggle for voter registration.
You\'d probably been trying to vote for a long time.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well uhm\... I was going to PTA meetings, to
Mount Zion where - where was -- the school was down there, where my
children was going to school. Elizabeth Jackson, Dorothy Henderson, Mr.
Kane, and Sara Logan. We went to a PTA meeting up to Mobile and they
asked me would I vote and I told them yes, I would go. I said, \"When is
they voting?\" They said they vote every \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ you
know, the other month. And so Mr. Kane replied to me, \"Ms. Mays, would
you go vote?\" I said, \"Yeah.\" And Ms. Jackson said, \"Mrs. Mays, you
are not afraid?\" I told her, \"No.\" I said, \"No, no, no, no.\" I
said, \"I\'m not afraid.\" I said, \"I will go vote. Who would come and
take me?" They said, \"We\'ll get a way to take you,\" and I told them,
I said, \"Okay.\" So Ms. Henderson asked me, \"Ms. Mays, you are not
afraid?\" I said, \"No.\" I said, \"I\'m not afraid.\" They said,
\"Really? We are. We got a job and we had lost our job\" and I told
them, I said, \"Well, I don\'t have no job.\" And I said, \"If you all
take me,\" I said, \"I will go and vote.\" So I did went over there to
Hang \[ph?\] with the vote and the man asked me, \"How many watermelon,
how many seeds in a watermelon? How many grains of corn on a cob?\" You
don\'t know and I don\'t know. And that\'s just the way he went. Well,
see, they was afraid they was gonna lose their job if they had a went to
vote. They know what uh\... was going on and the preachers around here
in the county there, they know what was going on but they was afraid.
But I was not afraid. So my husband told me, he say, \"You ain\'t
puttin\' your feet in your mouth?\" I told him, I said, \"No.\" I said,
\"Frank,\" I said, \"if they take me, I will go vote\" and I went to
hang with them, voted \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ peoples come in and they\-- she
asked me about this watermelon and this corn. Now, how he know how many
seeds in a watermelon, how many grains of corn, you got to count them to
find out how many are on there. So, okay, so the first meeting they had,
played right by my house where I\'m living now, Bud Elson \[ph?\],
that's the first meetin\' they had, and the next meeting they had at
Mount Gillum \[?\] where I go to church. And I went to every meeting
they had and then, next week, all these peoples come in here. I fed them
and, after the people, White people run them off the place, they moved
up there in Bala Simiss \[ph?', down at that land up there and that's
really - that\'s where they was camping. That's where they had the tent.
That's where they got the water from my well and I fed them,
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. So Mr. Woodall \[ph?\] asked me, \"Mary, you
ain\'t afraid?\" I said, \"Afraid of what, Mr. Woodall?\" \"You got that
white boy living in your, in your house\" and I told them, I said, \"You
can come and live in my house with me.\" I said, \"You know what?\" I
told him, I said, \"My mom and daddy didn\'t teach me to hate nobody.\"
So and I told him that \"You hate me, I don\'t hate you.\" I told him
just like this, I said, \"My granddaddy was a white man and my daddy is
half white.\" I said, \"I don\'t see the difference.\" And my
granddaddy\'s daddy owned that whole place up there they called Redfield
\[ph?\]. They killed him and took his land, and where this church, where
I go to ever Sunday, where all a my children, what I read and took them
to Sunday school, it was - belongs to him. But back then them days them
White peoples if you had something they didn't want you to have, they
killed him to get what he had. But one thing about it, ain\'t nothing
gonna stand but the truth. But I tell anybody I wasn\'t afraid and
stayed. I told them, I said, "one thing," I said, \"If they kill me,
they ain\'t gonna eat me.\" I told them, I say, \"If you come, I\'ll let
you sleep in my house\" and, I mean, they were there every day. I cooked
and fed them.

Q: Now, these people at Tent City\...

**Mary Frances Mays**: They done moved away and a lot of them done died.
Woman over there had babies and everything.

Q: They were there a long time, weren\'t they?

**Mary Frances Mays**: They didn't even want to... til - until they find
somewhere to go. And then so at the time where this building is now,
wasn\'t nothing but an opening there, but this is where they put the
tents up there - there. And that\'s the reason they call it Tent City.
But I fed, and all them people, I gave them where all they got their
water outta my well. Well, I\'m talking about what I did. I didn\'t have
but a one - two-room shack, three, well, two room, two on the end that
my (unintelligible) pots what I cooked and fed them out a. Now I just
got one \'cause I give my \_\_\_\_\_\_\_. And I'm living in my old house
and they was there, come every day. I cooked and fed them, whatever they
come and sit and I said, "You all wants?" And I fixed them a with
Scottie B. \[?\], Stokely Carmichael and all the rest of them. Some old
ladies, they done passed on.

Q: What do you remember about Stokely Carmichael?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh, he was - he was all right... but not like
Scottie B. So he was all right and, Bob Mann \[ph?\], he was on the
Bypass \[ph?\], but not like Scottie B. He always was on there. But
still, he liked one of my daughters but he thought I didn\'t know it but
I knowed it. He liked my daughter. My daughter was in Chicago now. He
liked her.

Q: Yeah, cause he\'s from Chicago, right?

**Mary Frances Mays**: I don\'t know\...

Q: Yeah, he is.

**Mary Frances Mays**: \...where about the man come from.

Q: Oh, I see.

**Mary Frances Mays**: But I, I uhm\... I know he liked my daughter,
Mary. When she first left, finished school and left, he always would ask
me, \"Where is Mary?\" So I asked her, I said, \"Mary,\" I said,
\"didn\'t Bob Mann called hisself - liked you?\" She said, \"Yeah,
Mama.\" I said, \"I thought so.\" She said, \"Well, your thought was
right.\" But now Stokely, he\'d come by but he always went to my cousin
Clara Moore. So that mostly where he hung out. Well, he\'d come and eat.
I did feed, you know, feed him.

Q: So now, so that \-- so you went to register the first time, they
asked you about watermelon seeds and kernels of corn, then things
changed and the federal registrar...

**Mary Frances Mays**: Had to, had to come here?

Q: Mm hm.

**Mary Frances Mays**: They come to Lawrence County?

Q: Uh-huh.

**Mary Frances Mays**: And then I went to brag the vote. That's when
federal --- when the -- the \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. That's when
I went to brag the vote. But now I went to Havas \[ph?\], over there at
Havas, and they denied me. But I said, "Thank God I did get a chance to
vote." And every time I -- time vote come up I go vote. I said, "Well I
know some gonna do right and some ain't, but I still -- I go.

Q: Well that's the way politicians are, you know...

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh, I already know how it is... cause I'm telling
you the truth, sometime I --- cause I know the other day I went over to
Havas and I told this lady, and if she gonna tell me that -- that uhm...
they're gonna have -- wouldn't land wouldn't get my son out of jail. And
I told her, I said, "Not like land selling." And I said, "I know it I
would use my \$1300." And I said, "What land selling for?" And I said,
"We'll put him on the ground." So and I told her, I said, "You know
what." I said, you all ain't right over here." I said, "Lightening gonna
strike." I said, "Havas gonna catch a fire." And I said, "The Lord gonna
let be ready and see." And she tell me, she said, "Maam." I said, "You
heard what I said. She said, "You mad?" I said, "I ain't mad about a
thing, but I'm just telling what's gonna happen." Uh-uhm... us getting
in these office, we forget who we are.

Q: Think so?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Think so, I know so. I've been around here long
enough to know. When you run around with my votes you're begging me to
just stand at my door, ringing my doorbell. Time you get into office and
walk right by me like I'm a dog, don't even speak. I don't worry about
that cause one thing about it, you got your day and I got mine. You
gonna come back and when you come to my door right now, so what you're
looking for... or what you hunting? I said, "You don't -- you didn't
know me know, why you knowing me now? You going to church and even my
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ out there and \_\_\_\_\_ side of the road to
the mailbox. Some see me and even turn their head. I said, "I guess
(unintelligible)." But I'm not leaving over there.

Q: Well gees Mrs. Mays, I mean that seems like such a harsh commentary
on things. I mean haven't things gotten a little better with Black
politicians and stuff?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well they -- well they - no it ain't got no
better. It gonna be the same way he was before he was on his way right
now. You sitting in that chair? He's coming back. He's on his way now.
It ain't change. He's still --- and he \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ by
degree. And I tell everybody he's coming. He say, "You \_\_\_\_\_\_\_?"
I told him, I said, "No, he just saying it changed. It gonna be just
like it was before." He's on his way. It's a lot of dog have, still
sneaky. It sure is. But I don't let that bother me. But just like I say,
"What goes around comes around." Once you come to me right I'm gonna be
with you right, but if you step on my blue suede shoe, I'm gonna bark,
and I bark in a minute.

Q: Well take me back a little ways now. You know, you saw a lot of
marching coming in past your house.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Who? Klu Klux Klan and everything. She saw them
and the pillowcase over their head with the flame burn, oh yeah. So many
time I wish I had the money. They sure did. And if you did any talking
they -- they get you down. And that's still -- it's still the same. It
ain't --- it ain't -- they saying it done change, but it ain't --- they
ain't change.

Q: You think the Klan is still active in the south?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah, they still active, but they sneaky. Oh
yeah, it's still here. It ain't going nowhere. They may not come out
with they pillow case over their head peeping out them hole out through
the eye, but they still there. But one thing about it, we are human just
like they are. Be a man and stand up for what you stand for.

Q: Well I remember --- I mean, you know, I think a lot of people who are
just learning this story might be surprised that Black folks did stand
up for themselves a lot.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Yeah, but there were still a lot of them got cut
down.

Q: I know.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah, I know a lot of them tried to speak up
for their self, but they -- they didn't live too long speaking their
mind. They was cut down.

Q: It was a good thing your family held together.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Yeah, it's a rough road. I tell anybody, it
wasn't no easy road. But one thing I always say, I stand up and I
believe for the right, and I don't wanna mistreat nobody. And if you
mistreat me, I'll put in the hands of the Lord. Sure as God sun shine
you gonna come back. You gonna want me to do something else for you, but
I just trust in the Lord now, turn it over in the hands of the Lord, and
keep stepping. I ain't got no animosity in my heart against nobody, and
every day of my life I get up I give the Lord thank you for the nice
sleep. Thank you Jesus that I'm able to get up out of my bed. Thank you
for going in my kitchen and fixing me something to eat. Whatever I do I
give him thanks all day long. Let me stay in my right mind. Some of my
children be calling me, mama ain't uh... - ain't you lonesome? I told
them, I said, "No." I said, "I'm not lonesome." I said, "Sometime I get
said." I said, "But I pray over it and cry over it." I says, "Things you
can't do nothing about you just leave it in the hands of the Lord." And
I told them, I said, "If I fall or fail I want you to come to my rescue.
Don't leave me out there on the limb, and don't forget about me." Well I
was a mother, 16 kids, nine boys, seven girls. Just lost one a year ago,
but all of them grown and gone, and I'm still here. Some gone to
school... some want to go to college and some didn't. And one thing
about it I had one I wanted her to be a nurse so bad. It's what she say
she wanted. She finished school, went on to Chicago. Went two years of
being a registered nurse, and when they put --- she told me, said,
"Mama, say, I'm failing you." She said when they put in there where they
--- she said, "I couldn't stand all that blood." She said, "She
fainted." Put up two years, wanted to be a registered nurse. But this
one, what I wanted her to do, but see by what I wanted to do she had to
be the one to make up her -- her mind to do it, but she -- I did not -
could say why. I say, "I don't know." I wanted her to be a nurse so bad
to - see it was seven of them girls. I didn't know. That's -- that's
what I --- I don't know why but this was something what I wanted her to
be. And I told her, I said, "Barb, this is what mama wants you to be."
And she promised me, she said, "Yeah, this is what I wanna be. When I
finish, put up two years in college." I told her, I said, "You ain't had
but two more to go." She said, "Mama, said, but when they put me in
there, in that operating room," she said, "Mama I couldn't stand it."
She said, "I couldn't stand it." Said, "I'm sorry to disappoint you." I
told her, "You the one had to read the books and not me."

Q: So now your children would be coming home for Thanksgiving?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well my baby coming home. So some just left last
week, my oldest son and my next oldest son and they ride with him.

Q: You know what I'm curious about; all those people who marched pass
your house, some of them very famous people including Martin Luther
King. Did they ever come say thank you? Did they ever...?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Some did and some didn't...cause now it was a
bunch of ladies would come, but just like I say, they come. So and I
asked Timmy and said, "Oh mama, this one done passed and this one done
passed." Melvin Todd \[ph?\], then Birmingham \[ph?\] and this White boy
stayed at -- at my house. They used to write me, but I think I was
married and everything. So -- so I ain't heard from him in a good while.
So my daughter told me. Said, "Yeah." I said, "Uh-uh." I heard from
uh... Melvin cause I asked, I said, "Do you ever hear from Theresa
\[ph?\]? No. So he used to write and told me he was getting married. So
I ain't never heard nothing else from him, but he used to write me cause
he said he was going to be a doctor. So now he used to write me and I
always write him back. And so the letter that I wrote him I ain't never
got no answer from him. So I don't know what happened to him, but he was
in New York, \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ New York -- New York.

Q: Are you cold?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Uh-uh. Haines \[ph?\] said I'm gonna get some
money.

Q: Is that what that means with your hands?

**Mary Frances Mays**: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. I ain't got nothing to do with
nobody else.

Q: They come true sometimes?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah, \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. Sure as you sitting
in that chair.

Q: Wee, well I wish you -- I hope you get all the money in the world. So
now how did it feel during this period when they were marching and
carrying on? How did you feel knowing that, you know, these people were
very serious about trying to elevate their position and trying to...?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well you what I was, you know, I was glad about
it... cause see I know I had been through and during the time I'm
traveling and all this got to go to the back of the bus. They had their
\_\_\_\_\_\_ and they had you \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ and everything, and I said,
"Lord, this ain't gonna last always." And I always used to ask my mother
when she was living, I said, "Why is it like this?" And my daddy told
me, he said, "Well White people always thought they little bit more than
-- than colored." Now the way --- he said, "But White people already in
me." I said, "And I ate at they table. Sat right there with them." But
if you put my daddy and a White man together you couldn't tell them
apart. So he \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_, 118 when he passed. He sure was.

Q: Seen a lot of history, huh?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah, seen a lot of it. And there's a lot can
be told. And the only thing I was glad when they come in for the people
to vote cause you ain't had no right to say nothing. You didn't have no
right to say nothing. And then back then you just suppose to have
nothing too much. They ain't never wanna see colored people to have
nothing too much... cause I never will remember, I never will forget the
day a man named John Kneely \[ph?\] cause we had a bunch of cow and he
wanted to know where did we get them cows from. And my husband told him,
"Where in the hell you think I got them from." Said, "We raise this and
my mama gave me cow before she died, and Frances mamma gave her cows and
said we raised them. We had cow to sell in the spring of the year. We
had cow to sell in the fall of the year. But this White man living
across the road from where I'm living now, and he asked them that. And
so he told them, said, "I ain't asked you where you get yours from. Did
you get yours honest?" I said, "I know I got mine honest cause my mother
died and left them." That's what my husband told him. But I -- I was
never scared of them, never. Never was scared of no White people, no
Blacks cause if you come to me right I'm coming to you right and I know
how to talk to you.

Q: Yeah, my grandmother used to say, you know, she used to laugh. She
used to think it was so ridiculous, grown men walking around in sheets.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well they were -- well no, this -- this what I
asked my daddy. And they said, "You know why I come?" I said, "Now
here's somebody. You can go to the store everyday, but they got these
sheets over. You don't know who is going out there." And they told me,
he said, "Don't worry about that." And they were doing this back in '34,
and '35, and '36, '37 and '38, '39, '37. Sshh...who? That road was hot
where I'm living at today, but I never let that bother me. But not there
to come bother me. It would've been a different thing cause God knows I
wasn't gonna back up. Uh-uh.

Q: So we --- this film is going to be in a facility that's not too far
from where you lived in Tent City.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well I pray God I'd be living to see this tape.

Q: Ah you gonna see it. You'll see it.

**Mary Frances Mays**: I -- I don't know cause see I'm handed in. I
could be going today, but I pray God cause I told (unintelligible) when
we met over there at the White Hall and I told him, "I pray God that
I'll be able to see what this city gonna do." Some man talking about, oh
you gonna be --- I told him, I said, "No, I'm here now. I can be gone
the next two or three minutes. But if the Lord intend for me to see I
will be here." I said, "But I'm looking for long years and everyday of
my life I ask the Lord let me live a long life. I don't know how long
you got for me to live."

Q: Well none of us do, right.

**Mary Frances Mays**: No.

Q: None of us do.

**Mary Frances Mays**: So...

Q: But your hand keeps itching. I know you gonna...

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well, oh yeah, I'm gonna get some money some way
or somehow. But anyway, so he's my husband's cousin. Her son wife had
left. So I'm living in my old house and she was living across the road.
And so she brought her two kids over there, over \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_.
And she said, "Ms. Mays." I said, "Yeah." She said, "I'm going to the
store." She said, "Keep my children til I get back." And she ain't got
back yet. So I took her children to the grandmother that evening and I
carried them. So she said, "Ms. Mays, why you \--?" I told -- I told
them, I said, "Look Melissa, these are your grand kids." I said, "But
your daughter-in-law brought them here and I brought them again cause,"
I said, "I don't want no static over you about your kids." And so the
children got on up, you ought been kept me. But I gave them back to her.
So she's soon to be a 100 years old. And I asked the Lord, "Lord, let me
live," but that woman came around just as good --- and so my son always
call me. How is Melissa? And I said - oh I said, "She is doing fine."
Well she's -- she's soon to be a 100 years old. Just like I said, I hope
more people there and they ever have over me, but I'm still living and
thank God for what I was able to do and still can do. So if you come to
my house and want a good meal, I'll fix you a good meal.

Q: I bet.

**Mary Frances Mays**: So I invite Scott in. His wife Donna -- had Donna
with me for Thanksgiving.

Q: Very good.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Yeah, well I called him and I invited him.

Q: I know he's gonna be there.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah. He gonna be there cause when he walk --
was walking, he stopped by and I told him I want to
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. So he come by then for a few minutes, you
know, and got right on back home. (Unintelligible), cause he didn't have
far to go, but \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. But anyway...

Q: Well you know, I...

**Mary Frances Mays**: Now what else -- what else you wanna ask me?

Q: A lot of young people are gonna come through this facility, you know,
the uh... the museum and such. They're gonna watch you in this film.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Okay.

Q: What kind of wisdom you gotta pass on to these kids? I mean what do
you think about these kids today?

**Mary Frances Mays**: Well I tell you in the beginning, when they took
prayer out of school, spanking. When the White and the Colored got
together, White people didn't want me to take your child, so this is
what it's all about. Man I wouldn't dare to raise no kids cause if they
were doing this when I raising them up I wouldn't be nothing but a
jailbird. These children is outraging. They don't wanna listen.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ the same way. They don't wanna listen. But I told
them I say, "You're under my roof, you're gonna go by my rules and
regulation." Talking about don't spank them. I don't need and I don't
spank them God ain't gonna give me enough to lift up if I have to spank
them. I told them, is said, "I raised 16 and I ain't killed now." Raised
three other people children from here to there. I ain't killed now. If
they got sick I took them to the doctor." I
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_. They asked me to come. So I
went baby-sit. So I wait for her. Tell that to Ms. Chloe \[ph?\]. And I
told them what she want. I told her, I said, "Look, now you want me to
come in to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ your two children, your baby." I say, "I'm
gonna tell you in the beginning, never." I said, "Now I love children.
All my children were grown." I said, "Now I love children." I said, "But
now if they got to spanking, call me all these name," I said, "I'm not
gonna have that," and I said, "I meant that." And she told me, "Mary."
Said, "No." This little girl, she about three years old, "You Black
Nigger." I said, "Bring your behind here." I told her (unintelligible)
when they come home and I told them. But one thing I can say, whatever
happen in that family I know what's going on, from the daughter done got
married and the son cause I was invited to his graduation, which was
Monday. Well -- well he went overseas. That's where he went. I know
where he --- and I said, "Lord I must've did some good somewhere." But I
was invited but I didn't go. So now I said I'm gonna get him a card and
send cause I --- Reid \[ph?\] and I didn't go on account of my legs was
swolled \[ph?\] up cause I my son said, "Mamma go." I said, "Look, my
health mean more to me than (unintelligible) to Virginia." I said, "I
wouldn't mind going." I told him, I said, "But I'm not going nowhere til
I get my leg." I said, "Man my legs swolled up and my legs hurt." I told
him, I said, "I can't \--." I said, "Nah." I said, told him, I said,
"John, will you go with me?" He told me, "Oh no I ain't got time." I
said, "See, now," I said, "I haven't got to \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
now. I don't like to travel by myself." And I used to love to travel,
but now I \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ now. I just -- I just
don't like to travel no more by myself.

Q: Well you shouldn't have to.

**Mary Frances Mays**: No uhm... but just like I said, "When I got the
invitation from him, then I thought, but I said, "Well who -- who have I
got in Virginia?" I know I could go get in a motel. And so then I said
-- I said, "Lord I got a granddaughter there and my brother children are
there, my brother-in-law next door children are there." I said, "I can
call one of them, stay with them. I'm not going to a motel." So and I
told John, I said, "John," I said, "I ain't going nowhere. Decided to g
back to the doctor this week and last week. But my swelling gone down,
my legs feel much better.

Q: Yeah, it looks fine to me. I saw you climbing them stairs. I mean
that was...

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh I uhm...

Q: Get around, huh.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Oh yeah. Just like I told the girl, she told me,
she said, "May can you still dance?" I told them, I said, "Yeah, I ain't
forgot how to dance." I told them, I said, "Yeah I can dance." Sure can.

Q: Well I hope I come --- when I come back down here for the unveiling
of this museum I'm gonna make sure they have some music so me and you
can dance.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Okay. I can dance. I sure can.

Q: It'd be a pleasure. So that's it. That's all I wanted to do.

**Mary Frances Mays**: Okay. So I enjoy it.

Q: I got your impressions about voter registration. I heard about them
watermelon seeds and the corn kernel.

\<New Subject\>

\#### End of CD 10 \####