Interview with Elizabeth Jones, History 150 Spring 2023, conducted by Mason Jones, March 27, 2023.

Overview

After World War II, Black Americans began to fight more vociferously for their rights, leading to the birth of what we now know as the American Civil Rights Movement. Many events such as the murder of Emmet Till, the  Brown vs. Board of Education supreme court case which overturned segregation in schools, the Montgomery Bus Boycott, and the Greensboro Sit-In received national attention,shining a powerful light on the racial discrimination in America. Some empathetic White people began to participate in protests, supporting equality for all. Nearly 20 years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, banning employers from discriminating against applicants on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, or natural origin. This was a step in the right direction but there was still more work to be done in order to change the thinking of racist Americans.

Sometimes it is difficult to believe just how recent the events of the civil rights movement occurred. If you have American grandparents or even parents born before 1970, they were likely born into a world where black people and minorities did not have rights. My mother, Elizabeth Jones was born into the southern United States in the early 1970’s. She does not shy away from sharing stories about seeing racism all around her. She speaks about the difficulties of having parents who expressed racist views, who were strongly opposed to her marrying a black man. I am glad to see the progress this country has made when it comes to eliminating racism, however we must never forget the horrific events of the past.

Biography

Elizabeth Jones was born in the summer of 1973 in South Carolina. She grew up in Texas before traveling down to Auburn, AL for college. After college she moved to Northern Virginia where she met her future husband, who was black. She faced backlash from her family but ultimately decided to marry him and have two children. Now, Elizabeth works in Northern Virginia in the criminal justice system.

Racial tensions in the south date back to the days of the Atlantic Slave Trade, the forced transportation of millions of African people from their homelands in Africa to the Americas and other parts of the world to work as slaves. During the time of slavery, the southern economy depended heavily on the labor of enslaved Black people. Even after the Civil War ended slavery, segregation laws were enforced in the southern states, which kept Black people separate and unequal from white people in many areas of life, including education, housing, employment, and voting.

Although the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s helped to dismantle many of the legal barriers to equality, racism still persists in some areas of the South. Factors such as social and economic inequality, political polarization, and the perpetuation of stereotypes and biases in media and popular culture have contributed to the ongoing problem of racism in the region.

Much of the older generation of adults were raised with racism as a part of normal day-to-day life. Changing an entire region’s culture takes multiple generations and unfortunately, the south is not there yet.

Transcript:

Mason Jones  0:00  

Okay, today I’m lucky enough to be joined by my mother, Elizabeth Jones, I’m going to be interviewing her on some of the social changes she picked up on and notice growing up in the South, and then moving up north to Nova, or Northern Virginia. So first of all, I just wanna say thank you for doing this. And I want to just give you an opportunity, just kind of talking about yourself a little bit who you are, where you’re from, what you’re up to now.

 

Elizabeth Jones  0:28  

Who I am is your mother. Just to confirm and clarify. Tell me again, what you want me to who I am where I’m from. Yeah, just a little bit about yourself. I grew up in Texas, moved to Virginia in 1987. And have been here with the exception of leaving for college, and a year after that, that I returned to live in Texas. That Good, good enough? Yeah. All right.

 

Mason Jones  1:00  

So um, just start off wanting to ask, you know, what, what kind of like were the roles of your parents? And would you say there was definitely a gender component within that?

 

Elizabeth Jones  1:14  

Yes, Nana and pops were very gender stereotypical. Pops worked outside of the home. He was the main one who worked. Nana didn’t work until I was a well, I was in high school. She was a teacher initially. And then she gave that out when she got pregnant with Philip. And then stayed home and raised the children kept the house did all the cooking, cleaning all the errands, pops worked outside of the home, supported the family financially and took care of the yard and all the stuff around the house. So very stereotypical.

 

Mason Jones  1:54  

Okay. Um, so, you know, would you say that kind of went along with the traditional gender roles in the South? Would you say it differed a little bit, it was pretty much how it was for everybody.

 

Elizabeth Jones  2:08  

Yeah, that’s how it was in the South. That’s how everybody was expected to behave. And most people conform to that. And if you didn’t, you stood out.

 

Mason Jones  2:17  

Did you kind of like, do you, now that you’ve spent the majority your life in Virginia, do you still consider yourself to be like a Southerner at heart?

 

Elizabeth Jones  2:26  

wholeheartedly. I was born and reared mostly in the South. That’s where I got most of my. I mean, that’s my upbringing. I’m 100%. Southern. You don’t get rid of that. And I still consider Texas to be my home. Even though I don’t know that I’d want to go back and live there. Now. That is I go there and I feel at home. So yes, I’m through and through always will be a southerner.

 

Mason Jones  2:52  

Okay. And you said you moved to reston Northern Virginia in 1987?

 

Elizabeth Jones  2:57  

Yes, technically, it was Herndon, though.

 

Mason Jones  3:00  

Excuse me. What were some like, you know, cultural differences you kind of picked up on earlier if you could kind of speak to that?

 

Elizabeth Jones  3:08  

Well, there was much more diversity in Virginia than there was in Texas, Texas was predominantly white, there were a significant number of Hispanics, specifically Mexicans who had crossed the border into Texas. And then there was also a significant Vietnamese population because they were coming over as refugees. And Nana pops, his church helped out with a lot of that. And so there was a decent amount of Vietnamese that I grew up with. When I got to Northern Virginia, much more diversity. I walked into South Lakes High School and sang all the signs were written in like five or seven different languages. And that was not what I was used to in Texas, Texas was English and Spanish. Came here to Virginia and there was I mean, Farsi, Arabic. I don’t even remember all the languages. So much, much more diversity. Culturally, also, everything here just based in Northern Virginia was financially motivated. That’s mainly what everybody cared about how much money you made or how much money your parents made, what kind of car you drove. namebrand clothes, it was just very, very different. The south, people are friendly, everybody speaks to each other. This is a predominantly transient area, a lot of military a lot of people come in for an assignment and then leaving. Friendly as it was in Texas.

 

Mason Jones  4:40  

Okay. And you said you went down to Auburn after you graduated high school. Was that kind of like a challenge going back or did you kind of just feel at home I know you grew up in Texas, but just going back down to you know, Alabama, still the south I can assume a lot of the the values and whatnot. Were are similar to Texas.

 

Elizabeth Jones  5:02  

Very similar and Nana’s family was from Georgia pops this was from Alabama. So I grew up going and spending a lot of time in Georgia and Alabama my entire life going to Auburn, there was a sense of comfort, a sense of familiarity, just in knowing I mean I, Nana and pops went to Auburn, Uncle Philip went to Auburn. My dad, I went to Auburn, I was third generation. So I grew up smiliar with the campus. So that aspect of it was really nice. I knew no one other than my brother, that was scary. Also, you are going back to a place where the diversity was very obviously missing. It’s predominantly white, a small percentage of black or African American. And it’s an agricultural school. So there was actually a lot of students from India and other countries that would send their students over here to learn agricultural processes and take that back home. Okay,

 

Mason Jones  6:07  

and and so after going back to Auburn, you ended up back in Northern Virginia, what kind of contributed to you coming back up here and choosing to stay here long term.

 

Speaker 2  6:18  

First and foremost, I was poor, I just graduated college, I didn’t have a job and Nana and pops’ house was free. So that was my main motivating factor. It’s also sort of what I became familiar with at a during high school. I mean, there’s a there’s a hugely formative years. There is a sense of comfortability in Northern Virginia, because it’s what you’re used to. I love the diversity, I love the access to everything. There was also a lot of job opportunity in the Northern Virginia area. That’s pretty much what drove me back. And then once I got here I mean you blank and before you know what you’ve been here most of your life. And it’s it’s noticeable. To go back to Texas again, I still love it, I still feel comfortable, I still feel at home there. But there are certain things that you can’t get outside of the Northern Virginia area that are really important to me, just the diversity, the fact that you can hit the ocean, you can hit you know, skiing, there’s a ton of cultural, all that stuff in DC, you can be in the mountains, everything is super close, you have access to a variety of different foods, a variety of I mean pretty much any culture you want to know about you have access to in Northern Virginia, and I’ve really grown accustomed to that and like it.

 

Mason Jones  7:32  

Okay, so you know, kind of changing the topic but also kind of carrying along the cultural changes. You notice specifically in the diversity area, you did end up marrying a black man had two black kids kind of what was that? Like? And did it present any challenges for you? Is that something you kind of pictured yourself? You know, what was that like?

 

Elizabeth Jones  7:55  

So it was definitely not I think what what what was expected of me. However, the funny thing is, is it never occurred to me that it would really be an issue, because I was not raised to have any biases. Or any prejudices. I never saw Nana or pops display any of those. Now, Nana’s hometown is still very segregated. So yes, you recognize that when you’re there. Man, I had a black nanny. There were black maids who helped who we grew up with. I always just considered them part of the family. They were always there. Phillip and I, I mean, I was just as attached to them as I was to my Nana data. So yeah, you saw things but those values were never taught to me never instilled in me. I’ve always dated across the races and ethnicities. So I don’t think it was necessarily a shock to Nana and pops. But do I think that they would have chosen dad? Absolutely not. But also I don’t think that me Mom Pop Up would have ever chosen me for dad. I mean, that just wasn’t really what either of the parents wanted. It definitely presented some challenges. I think man and pops needed time to not necessarily accept it but I think they were looking more at how this was going to be viewed by the rest of the family. The reality is Nana had family members who had been to K K came meetings and had been members of the kk k, obviously not like she was an only child. So it wasn’t like her parents or anything like super close, but that is a culture that Nana was raised in. So I think there was concern about how my Nana was going to take it. My Nana did not take it well. She did not speak to me for a year. She told Nana that she was a horrible mother and a horrible daughter for letting this happen. She told me I was going to be ousted by everybody in the family. Now I mean you know that that didn’t actually happen. And everybody kind of came around and then Nana had my Nana had to come around to. But I think it was very, very difficult for her to accept it. And then actually, when I told mom and my mom and dad that Mark had proposed, and what they would, you know how they felt about that, they told me that they would have been more comfortable if I had brought if I had been a lesbian or had brought home a Jewish person that blew my mind, never knew that they felt like that. So it definitely broke the mold. But it’s not something that I ever considered a normal for me, and I’m not, I don’t subscribe to a lot of the Southern belle traditions, and things that were expected as of me being raised in the south.

 

Mason Jones  10:51  

Okay. So, you know, kind of coming back to the whole, you know, coming to Northern Virginia, but now that you’ve, you know, spent time here, what are some things that you’ve noticed, kind of as progressive ideology becomes more and more widespread and accepted thing? What are some changes you’ve seen, from from, you know, that perspective.

 

Elizabeth Jones  11:15  

So based just on my personal experience, and my professional experience, because I work with youth in this area. Because of the diversity of this area, and the fact that there’s a lot of racial and ethnic intermingling, only within Northern Virginia, you go 20 miles in any direction outside of Northern Virginia, and it is not the same. But there are so many multi racial, multi ethnic kids in the area. The thing that I have noticed the most is that like things like the national census, and the options that people are given, are so antiquated and are not, people are not given the opportunity to accurately reflect who they are and how they feel about themselves and all the cultures that they represent. So even though there’s huge diversity, there is much more acceptance of different races and different ethnicities mingling together, you are still very much expected to be one of the limited categories that the federal government in the US Census allows you to be. For example, you have to choose one race, most of the time, oh, I think maybe now you might be able to choose multiracial in the system that I work in you were when I first started in 97, it was black, white, or other. That was it. You didn’t get to be anything other than that. And it was 100% based on quite frankly, to be blunt. If you’re being chased by the police, what do you look like? What are you What am I shouting out for them to follow? And that’s why it was black, white other. So that’s gotten a little bit better, but it’s still really limited. Also, other is a pretty freakin disrespectful term, I don’t consider you or Sadie to be others. I don’t consider other children who are multiracial to be others. I think that’s just an awful term. So as much as it’s progressed, there’s still a lot of limitations that exist.

 

Mason Jones  13:22  

Yeah, it’s funny that you bring up the now you can be more than one race, it was always, you know, white, black or other on the papers that I had to fill out, you know, in school and being young, I didn’t really know what to put, you know, being half white, half black. But now you go and I can be you know, half black, half Korean, it gets very specific. It’s not even just Asian, it’s, you know, each subcategory within everything like that. All right. So you obviously had two kids in Northern Virginia raise two kids and No. Did it matter to you whether or not like we grew up with traditional Southern values? Or was it more of just you’re going to let us kind of develop around what we grew up around? You know, it’s very, like you said, very diverse, very open, very understanding, like, it didn’t matter whether or not we had that, that southern route within us.

 

Elizabeth Jones  14:14  

So I think the good aspects of the Southern culture I think, you those have been instilled in you, it’s what you grew up with and going to see, you know, visit relatives and it’s what Nana and pops kind of cultivated just some of the traditions, but the negative side of it now I’m perfectly content to leave that in the South. I don’t, I don’t really know. I mean, I want you guys to have part of it. But as much as I subscribe to being a Southerner, I want like, this is my life. This is my experience. I want you and Sadie to have your own. And the reality is, your experiences your reality is entirely different from the reality that I I grew up in, it’s entirely different from the reality that dad grew up in. I want you guys to have your own experiences. I want to help guide you through them. But I don’t want to tell you how to feel how to think. I want you guys to make those decisions for yourself. There’s just totally different parameters. And when I was growing up, I can’t. I can’t give you guys like it or tell you what to think, what to feel and how to be based on the options that I had. Because you have so much more available to you. I don’t want to shortchange you.

 

Mason Jones  15:30  

Yeah, it’s, you know, I think you’ve definitely instilled a lot of the more the vernacular type, you know, I’m Yes, ma’am. No, ma’am. Yes, sir. No, sir. Everything you know, and it catches a lot of people off guard. They don’t really, you know, hear that too often nowadays, especially from a 19 year old college, you know, Guy

 

Elizabeth Jones  15:49  

Yeah, and you guys speak to adults, you know, you guys learned how to to actually talk and have a conversation. And that is something that has been pointed out by multiple adults throughout your life more so you than Sadie. But I mean, from the time you were really little all the way up until till now. And you guys also where we ended up especially just talking about our cul de sac now, I mean, you had next door, you had two kids who were half white, half Pakistani across the street, you had half white half, I think. Ecuador. Yeah. You had bobbins Sue? Who he was white, she was Qur’an. You have Cavell and Joanne patellas. Eastern European. You have Bernice and Dan Bernice is I think, Oh, shoot. I just totally went blank. What is she? She’s not Filipino?

 

Mason Jones  16:51  

I don’t actually know. All right, I just totally, we had a lot of diversity on the blog.

 

Elizabeth Jones  16:57  

There’s a ton of diversity. So for you guys, you you saw a reflection of yourselves and all these little kids that you were running around with?

 

Mason Jones  17:05  

Absolutely. You know, yeah, even even little stuff. Like I say, y’all, everything is y’all.

 

Elizabeth Jones  17:10  

Yeah, that’s me that I got you to do?

 

Mason Jones  17:14  

Yeah. Um, so, you know, just kind of to round things off, are you would you say that you’re proud of your roots and coming from the south? And, you know, I like you said, how, you know, you don’t subscribe to a lot of the negative ideology associated with Southerners. But you know, overall, would you say, you’re proud of it?

 

Elizabeth Jones  17:32  

I am. And I think that shocks people, I think it shocks people to know that I am a, a southern or somebody who was raised in the south, somebody who still subscribes to a lot of traditional Southern values. But then I came out of that, and I married a black man, I have multiracial kids. And I’m pretty liberal and progressive for a southerner. But absolutely, I’m proud of it. But I also want to very much differentiate, there is Southern culture that is much more encompassing than racism and the Confederate flag, the South brings and represents a whole lot more than that. And that is predominantly what people associate with the South. And is much as there are still a lot of negative things in the south, when dad went down there. With me the first time, he didn’t understand why I differentiated those two, and he kind of got to understand it. I’m sure we still have some differing views on all of that. But he did acknowledge that there is a culture way deeper and way beyond. Like my southern roots, I’m not proud of the Confederate flag, I’m not proud of racism, I’m not proud that we’ve fought to maintain slavery, that’s not what I hold on to. It’s all the positive stuff, the family, the being friendly to everybody, the slower pace of life. Just taking or being aware of like, just green space, you know, grass and fields and trees, because you don’t have that here. There are so many things about this out that I am really proud of, and I definitely am not going to let go up. But I don’t subscribe to all that negative stuff. I don’t support that.

 

Mason Jones  19:11  

Yeah. So you know, just to piggyback on that, considering, you know, you consider the south home, what are some things you you know, do now to stay connected to I know, you have, you know, decorations or whatnot, which is, you know, whether it’s staying in touch with family members decorating the house, carrying yourself a certain way. You know, what, what are some things you do to stay connected?

 

Elizabeth Jones  19:32  

It’s harder now because the entire family is deceased. So it’s up to me and y’all and then the only other people who have immediate family or are still living or Aiden and Brennan. So my focus is more like staying connected to my friends that I still have in Texas. Making sure or are trying I think to improve the relationship with Aiden and Brennan and hopefully Trying to bring the two of them back closer with you guys and closer with me, because that’s all we have. And Dad’s side of the family is much larger, much more boisterous. And as much as BMR very much wanted to instill in y’all. Y’all are black, yellow, black, yellow, black, y’all so white. I don’t want you to I don’t want my part in that to get lost in in being the minority and what you guys are exposed to. So that’s important for me.

 

Mason Jones  20:30  

Okay, well, thank you so much for doing this. It was really insightful. You gave us a lot, a lot of good bits and pieces. I really appreciate appreciate you for doing this. I love you. Thank you.

 

Elizabeth Jones  20:41  

Love you too. You’re welcome.

 

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

 

Bibliography:

North vs. south: Cultural and behavioral differences in the US. (2020, September 17). Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://infotracer.com/resources/north-vs-south-us-cultural-behavioral-differences/

Ravita, R. (2017, October 1). Oxford Stories Column: North vs. south – a cultural divide? Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.hottytoddy.com/2017/10/01/oxford-stories-column-north-vs-south-cultural-divide-2/ 

Bendix, A. (2016, February 25). Report: Southern working women experience the most gender inequality. Retrieved March 27, 2023, from https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-25/report-southern-working-women-experience-the-most-gender-inequality 

Reflection:

Reflecting on the transcription process, I made the decision to leave the names of my relatives in the interview, despite their poor past behavior. I am a firm believer in “Family over Everything.” Members of my family have taken the steps necessary to move on and improve on their past self. The issues regarding race ended and everyone was able to call each other family. I am not proud of my family’s past, but I would never shame them when everyone has moved on. I am grateful for the lessons that I have learned throughout the process of completing this project.