Interviewer: So was there any kind of conflict between umm if you were at a theatre, between the different black and white communities? Benham: No, it was separate. We'd prefer to get our popcorn and drinks, or then we brought our own food. I remember opening our bag and smelling it there in the movie theatre.
But there was never really a conflict at that time. Interviewer: And was there any kind of, I guess, maybe not conflict or any kind of real conflict if someone in the black community went to the white neighborhood, or went to the white area, um..
Benham: Yeah, there were conflicts at that time. I remember my mother had some friends, um, so they had to be in their thirties, had gotten to our educations, and what did they do back then? Would they lynch you, right, Jim Crow, segregated. And I think they had a lynching in Lufkin back in the forties or thirties.
I can't remember exactly, but I remember my mother's friends saying they had to leave and they would go to California. That they would leave Lufkin, and plus the Ku Klux Klan was very dominant back at that time, I remember them marchin'- Interviewer: Wow.
Benham: - in Lufkin and burning crosses. Interviewer: Wow. Benham: I saw a cross that had been burned. My mother took us to the home, because I think that the first black police officer- I am really not sure, because I was so young, to see the remnants of the cross they had burned. It was still smoldering. Benham: Well, I remember seeing the Klan march with their hoods. Interviewer: And what kind of- what did your mom or dad tell you about those kind of experiences and people?
