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Willard and C. Toland (L) C. Toland Willard

Willard and C. Toland (L)
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Participants in The Conversation: Being Black in California, a collaboration between StoryCorps Griot and I've Known Rivers: The MoAD Stories Project.
Done
Conversin' with the Elders
by Willard and CToland
September 2008

Wilard B. Smith, 81, talks to his brother C. Toland Draper, 86. Two friends discuss their friendship that spanned more than half a century. They discuss life during the 1930s and both the good and not so good times. "Back then, we didn't have a swimming pool we had a swimming hole. The worst day at the swimming hole was a Wednesday, I'll never forget, my dear friend, Roy Cooper, got hung up in some brush in the bottom of the hole and drowned." He moved to California from Shreveport, Louisiana a week later. They discuss life in California, the difference between black folk then and now and their hope for future generations. This is true wisdom from the elders.


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