Barbara Collier
Clip 2—Getting the Switch
AH: Was the church a big part of your life back then?
BC: Oh yes. We went to church every Sunday, every Sunday. If it wasn’t here at Baldwin Chapel it was somewhere. And it was like, okay, we lived on Leonard Street. It was three, four churches on that same street. Every black family went to church every Sunday. And if you didn’t see them, most times they went by to check on you. That’s just the way it was back then. Because see, a lot of families didn’t have TV. So we went to church, went to school, played outside. We didn’t have stuff like video games back then. And this lady right here, if you did something wrong—I don’t even know if you know what a switch is, but you had to go find one. And I was wondering in this picture why I had my hands down like this. She probably had popped them. [laughs] I doubt it, but maybe so. But we had a lot of fun, lot of fun.