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Pace: I dont know what's the reason that I know that I have immunity may
have occurred, but I know that you're seeing more of them on like
advertising for companies and things. There's, I'm noticing a few women and
I'm noticing some children. Still, I think it's improving, some, but not
near as much as I think it should. But in accordance with the number of
products that we use.
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Speaker1: How about the TV shows, you know, like black shows that they
have on now?
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Pace: Well, now they have. And I can't say too much because I'm not a TV
watcher. I'm a radio listener. Speaker1: Right. Pace: In fact, my eyes
don't get much. And I'm not I'm not a story lady or a movie lady. But I
don't say I'd rather. Listen to things that are worthwhile. So I don't know
too much about the shows and who are in them. Now, some of these people who
are who turns on the TV in the morning and turns on when they go to bed and
when they go to bed at night, but know more about the shows than I do. But
I know they have something they call The Jeffersons and. Speaker1: Yeah.
Pace: And then they have, what is it, Redd Foxx. Speaker1: Yeah. Sanford
and Son. Pace: Yeah. Sanford and Son. And they have another one now. What
is that other one with that good time, Dad. Speaker1: Yeah. Pace: Yeah. But
I can't think of, of most of them. I know they, they are very popular with
the people. They. Yeah. Because I got to go on and see The Jeffersons. I
got to go on and look at this and that and they, they keep up with them.
But now and I don't know the movies. I don't know just exactly what what's
the name of God? I think I read was it that Diana Ross is going to be in
something else? I believe I don't I don't see that now, but I read that a
lot. You know, she played the part of. Speaker1: Billie Holiday. Pace:
Yeah. Billie Holiday. Speaker1: Yeah. She was in another one. Pace: Yeah.
She, like, I read something. She was-- Speaker1: She was another. Yeah.
Mahogany. Pace: Yeah. Speaker1: Yeah. Speaker1: And, and Diahann Carroll,
she was on a long time on television. Speaker1: Oh, yeah. Pace: Yeah, yeah.
But these are superstars, you understand? Speaker1: Yeah. Pace: Yeah they
are. And, uh, some, uh, I. I can't think of it, but there may be, I did see
another man, but I've forgotten his name now. They said he was going to
play a part. I read that in, uh, in one of the newspaper column, but I
can't think of who the names are.
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Pace: But they are breaking through cause we know. Never say he's been.
He's an outstanding style to these people. So I think they're breaking
through there that somewhat. But it took a long, long time and I think it
still should be more. But this is the same thing as I was telling you about
businesses. You know, when you just don't have the money to push it, you
see the way you got a lot of your black singers out there. The Motown
brought them out and you got a company itself where you can you have the
money, you can do that. You can do so much better than if you have to go to
somebody else and wait for them to you haven't got go train. You have to be
superb for them to turn out white person, but black person you have to be
very outstanding. Yeah, I mean, triple outstanding.
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Speaker1: Definitely they have. That's my mama. That was on too. But yeah,
the lady that was on it was like from Philadelphia. They said she was like
a, um, you know, the show. I don't know if it's even still running.
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Pace: I noticed that on I noticed that on Hollywood Square they used in
Black Saturday. Speaker1: Yeah. Pace: Yeah, I noticed that. I look at that
occasionally and I and most every time I look at that somebody on that on
there.
Pace: Yeah and then there's another nice looking fellow I forgot what his
name is he's on that program where they give away all that money uh, you
know where all of them be on the panel. I tell you, I look at it so many I
can't think of the name, but I know he got his name on.
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Speaker1: Yeah they look like they're trying to promote Jay Jay from good
times because he's on a lot of those panel shows and.
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Speaker1: They used to be one Adam Wade, but they took that off. Musical
chairs. But I think that was the first time they ever had a black MC.
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Pace: Oh, yeah. That was from Pittsburgh. Yeah. Yeah. He used to go to
church, you know. Speaker1: Oh, yeah? Pace: Yeah, that's what I heard. One
of the women's things she taught him in Sunday school. That's what I heard
her say when he was coming out with that. And you know, I never did get to
see him.
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Speaker1: It didn't stay on that long. Pace: Oh, yeah. Speaker1: It didn't
stay on long at all. Okay.
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Speaker1: Because you remember when Nat King Cole had his first show you
know. It didn't last without him because the staff wouldn't pick it up.
See, that was before Martin Luther King time. And they wouldn't the
commercials, you know, the people that responded [inaduble] because he was
a black man. That's what I think now he could carry if he was living today.
But it wouldn't take it to him and it had to go off because they're not
accepting it. They said they was going to pay for national hookup, so they
were going to go all over the right side of the country.
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Speaker1: What do you feel about Black's participation in the
bicentennial?
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Pace: Well, now I can't speak about everybody. I don't want to speak about
myself. For me, because I've been training, he's very little. To me, I
don't I don't see of course, I know people are trying to write different
books to call me and they're writing something about history. But to me, I
don't think these 200 years, uh, that we don't need a couple. You know, we
have we are doing something. But most of that 200 years we've done very
little. You know what I mean? It's just been in the last maybe the last 15,
uh, maybe 10 or 15 years that we've made any progress to mountain and not
that black people haven't, haven't got a history, but in the Bicentennial,
I don't see why we need to be so excited about it.
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Speaker1: Let me see.
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Pace: I can say this, that we that we came here from Chicago in 1936. And
we settle on the North Side. And in September of '37, we moved over here
and went to the Hill District. Speaker1: Right. Pace: And we had a store
there at 2346 Centre. And then went to 20 to 30. But that was more the
residential area there. That's in the Rock Valley. Speaker1: Right. Pace:
And we found this building here. And this was heavy commercial then right
near the corner. And so we moved into this store in 1945. My husband was
then well, and maybe then he wrote a range print and published music. And
we get a mail order business, a very thriving business, because he could do
all those things to sell. It was a one man's job to get the writing, to get
the arranging. He get the printing and he get the publishing. And we could
get along because he could do all that stuff. We didn't have to hire him
right after him. And he's been here two years and he was sick three of
those years before he passed away. And of course, I'm just I'm operating
now on the music thats left. They had already been us over 150 songs and
I'm having other writers, but I only handling their religious stuff. I
don't have anything that's not religious. Speaker1: Right. Pace: And I had
a lot of books, song books for churches. Books for summer schools. And
ministries and everything. [inaudible]. So I just called it my own little
store. But it keeps me busy. And not only do I sell music, I have more
problems than I do selling music. So I call this the social agency. And I
do most social work here than any social agency in town.
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Speaker1: Can you elaborate on some of that, too? Because I heard you
talking about that earlier.
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Speaker1: Yeah see, I have people who come here and who call me for all
types of complaints from trying to get them out of jail to trying to get
houses and to try to get a problem solved. And that's daily. Like you heard
the woman call me about the the clean up and everything. And I said one
time, I wish I had kept a record of different people that I had helped, not
just just to record how many had come in. They will go to a social agency
and leave it and come here because they wouldn't get an answer. That's
anything I can do. She can tell you here they come in and I'll call up
right while they're here. And if it's anything can be done, I will try to
get it done for them. But I said, we have so many agencies up here that are
supposed to do this work. Who have phones that are paid for by either
United Way or the government or something, and I have to use my personal
phone, private phone to make calls. Sometimes I make three and four calls
for somebody up there. And most of the people, they don't have anything.
Some of them don't even have a dime to give me for the call. I've gotten
more people in homes and houses when I was trying to get into a place to
live, taking them. And just every you mentioned the problem. It hasn't been
none that it isn't hardly a day that passed by that somebody don't come
with some kind of problem concerning them personally or the community. And
they call me from [inaudible] to Wilkinsburg. Speaker1: Wow. Pace: That's
right all over the city. The time they call me, I don't know who they are.
They say, Miss Pace, you don't know me, but. At this point-- [phone
ringing].
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Speaker2: Oh, that's nice. The citizens Committee--
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Speaker1: Thats right this is my phone to my business back here, see? And
this is the citizens Committee for those people I know. So that's what I
do. And I have done that for all these years. I've never gotten one penny,
not $0.01 for nothing that I have ever done here. For all these years I've
worked, I've never gotten a dime. I told them I'm a volunteer of the
country. That's right. There were a few times I get car fare paid once in a
while. I get my car fare paid, but I do try if I'm getting older and I
often tell the people I said to my minister the other night that I was
going, he said, You can't stop. I said, I'm going to have to stop doing so
much. I've been I've been, uh, going, uh, uh, so many times. Some time
every day I post, you know, she come in, I'd be closed. I close the store
and go down to take care of it. You come here many times and I shut up. I
told him the other day, I said, I'm going to be out of business. You're all
going to have to feed me because every time I turn around, I close and go
into a meeting. And but but the thing you have to do it because in in these
different meetings and different boards, if you don't be there to know
what's going on, you're going to be left out. Now, I was on the family
Service board for six years, family and children's service. And, uh, my
after six years, you rotate off and, uh, uh, we had a meeting Monday.
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Pace: Now we brought on. I'm trying to get, I was trying to get some
strong black people on the board. We have, uh, some decoration, but I just
mean sitting up there for decoration. But you don't say nothing. I call
that decoration. Uh, but now we brought on [inaudible] Harris' new wife,
she came on and Yvonne Foster from KDK, brought on board their young women
and [inaudible] Haley. And anybody at the universities out there, too. I
don't know if he may be at Trinity. I forgot what he's at Trinity, but he
said one of them and he came on as a board member. But they are what you
call the upper middle class. That's what they call themselves. Speaker1:
Yeah. Pace: And I believe in some grassroots people being there because you
if you're not out there working with it, you can't speak for it. And you
got to be right on down with it like I am here. And I told them when I was
going off, I said, you know, I hate to leave because I have nobody to
represent me here when I go. And the director said, Mr. Pace, you know,
you're going to be down here and you're going to be gone. I said, That's
the only way we're going to get represented. I'll have to just call in down
here. But what they did do, uh, they left me. I still will work with
committees and I will know in these committees what is going on in the
board through the committee. I'll know what's going on because the
committees work out these things and take them back to the board. And that
I will know by still by remaining on a committee, I still know what's going
on. And I do hope that these people are going to speak up. But you see, I
was able, being a representative from the Hill, I was able to tell them
about the problems of the hill because I live here, right. See the other
people that are there, none of them live here. They might know, but I know
directly about it when I see it every day. And when they would go to cut
money and cut a program, I say don't cut the Hill because, you know, we
need that up there. Cut out that where they got plenty money. But I'm not
there to say that I won't be there to say that. So several of them said
we're not going to forget. I said, I hope, but maybe when you don't hear my
voice sometime its pretty loud, you might you might really forget about it.
Because one of the men that's left there said he was at a meeting and said,
the people said, what are we going to do now that Miss Pace is leaving that
board? I told him I was here. I would go. So I hope that they will, you
know, continue to carry on with. That is why I go to a lot of meetings,
because I want to know what's going on. And the only way you're going to
know what's going on is to go to that meeting and see what's going on.
Speaker1: Right. Pace: And then you're informed first hand and you know
what's going on. And through going, you meet people that can do things for
you. Because even with my work in that church and with the board I met a
man who I was able to get the black churches here $32,000. That's right,
32,000 cash dollars. I gave them to 6 black churches. Each one of them
except one. Each one of them were my own church. Well, I couldn't give
every church but each my church. I got 10,000 of them. And, uh, uh, and,
uh, another church. All of it. I got 5000 new light. I got 5000 Christian
Tabernacle. 5000 and a little trick out way out in Westland. I went out
there, and they was in such a bad condition. I got 5000 for them. And then
John Wesley at John Harohalli I mean Herron Avenue 2500. I got this all
through a man that I met by working on a ward that worked at a bank. And
they had crossed. And he says that person who decided to give the money
from his to the churches and he asked me to name. And I'm still working on
that man now. They won't give. No, they don't. They don't give they don't
give no more to churches now. All the foundations and everything. They cut
it out. Now the only way, but not when they give this. You have to use it
for either rebuilding, I mean for some specific something that you can use
it for no current expense of the church. You have to use it. Now that my
church is completed, we even though we are in debt, they can't give me
anything directly to help pay off the mortgage.
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Pace: But he said to me to make a list of some things we need in the
church and bring it down to him. So I've got a long list of things that we
need in the church, and I need too much in my church and I'm going to take
it down. He thought he was a he was a executive vice president of
Pittsburgh National, but he's retired now. But he's a lawyer. And but he
still has the connection. You know, these people have stayed there for
years. You got the connection. Speaker1: Right, what's his name? Pace: His
name is Ferguson. Speaker1: Ferguson. Pace: And now and I want to show you
what's what people think now on this board with me that I worked with him
at one time. We had two ministers there. But when he got ready to give the
money to the churches, he asked me the name the church, didn't he? He
didn't ask me. And see, we all went this far. I know, but I'll tell you, he
won't. They won't give. That's what I'm saying. They won't give you direct.
But now what? See, we went in a new building and he knows this. And because
I presented him our figures and what we were paying and I asked him if,
give me $5,000 and I asked him for another 5000. And he said, you know, I
gave you 5000. I said, Yes, sir, but I'm in dire need. I said, we've got to
raise a certain amount. So he said you go back and write me a letter with
what you have and what you need. So I went back to the minister and got a
statement. And I wrote that to him in less than a week. I had $5,000.
Right. I got a statement of what we needed. We had to borrow. We had to
borrow. We have to borrow. Well, but we were building them. You understand?
Now we built. So he said, I can't give you nothing of money but we in a new
church that we need many things. Because when you have to when we burn out
by fire and lost everything, there's a lot of things you need. So I'm not
going to get all of these things, but I'm going to make a long list. And I
told him that I was when I come down to see you, I'll tell you what we need
worse. Now you have to make a whole lot more stuff. Like when you go, I
won't get everything, but I'll tell them this. If you got to cut something,
don't cut this down. And so I told him yesterday, Monday, when I was down
there, I'll call him and I'll go to his office, to his law office, and
we'll go over the list and I'll get it typed out and tell him what we need
and say. Now, whatever you can give me from this now, he won't buy the
stuff. He'll give me the money, but I have to bring it. He told me to bring
a price and when I bring the thing, bring what? The cost. So what I listed,
I have to go round and check because they they follow behind you, you know,
and I'll have to go round and check approximately what the cost is. And
when I give it to him I'll have a cost of a total. Give whatever you can
get off there I appreciate it because it's just a gift.
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Speaker1: Right. Pace: That's right.
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Pace: So whatever you can get. But this is the connection that I get by
going to these things. I never would have known this man. Had I not been on
this board. So this is what you. And then when I go on board, the one thing
I never deny that I'm a church person. They know that. I tell them that in
front. I say, Now you all keep me running and I have to go to church to get
strength so I can battle with you. And I come from the Lord, and you all
have to help me with my church. And they have given me when I asked for
contribution, they have been most gracious, all of them. Some of them are
not church conscious at all. One man said to me one day, he said, Miss
Pace, I don't give anything to the church, but I know if you earn it, it
must be something good and I will give you $25. That's right. And they do
that these white and that's, that's the way. But it's how you carry
yourself when you're with these people. Now, you can't be a phony. You got
to be real. And and this is what you have to do. And I said, well, now
here's an envelope. You all know I got to you all take up my time. I got to
have some money for my church, put me something in here and and not I don't
think I've had in the whole time I've had over three people refuse me. Last
year when we went in this church, we were going in a new church. We went in
in June and we were doing a souvenir book and getting money for that. And I
think those people gave me over. I'm just asking different ones. I got over
$1,000. Okay. We raised on that anniversary. On that anniversary. So over
11,000 last year and we just closed down. I just closed out the 91st
anniversary. That was the first Sunday in May. We had it there. Now, we
didn't work so hard this year because we've been fighting so hard on the
people. But we raised 5500 and something. And we just the small church,
we're not a big church and that's something every Sunday, but that's why I
work with it. And I told Reverend Peterson, you can't quit out there. I'm
going to quit. But I told him, I said, you see, I can't quit. I'm going to
quit. But see, I have to. But you have we we you have to know how to deal
with people together. And I have never seen the church. This was the 91st
anniversary. And I said, now I just like for some last year I asked them to
give $100 and I had 20 some people give $100. And this year I said, Well,
I'm not going to ask you, but I just hope somebody in here will give $91.
And at the 91st anniversary and we had eight people give $91 and I don't
know how many, we had to give 50, but I had eight people to give me $91 out
of the church. So when you know how to do it. That's right. I had three
brothers and each one of them brothers gave me $91. And they all were men
except one. I had one woman give me $91 and I had one man give me $100. And
he wasn't even a member of the church. He did join that a Sunday, but when
he gave me the $100, he wasn't even a member.
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Speaker2: Can you elaborate on your religious beliefs or participation in
the church?
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Speaker1: Well, I as I told you on this front, I'm the daughter of a
Baptist minister. Speaker1: Right. Pace: And I came up in a very strict
religious home in the South at the time when I came up as a child, that was
certain things we were not allowed to do at all. If you were supposed to,
in fact, rather you had become a Christian person or not, if you belonged
to that minister, you didn't do certain things because you were the
minister's daughter. I was brought up where we didn't cook on a Sunday. My
mother prepared all of the food on Saturday because Sunday was the Lord's
day. I had to go to Sunday school every Sunday. And you prepared your
clothing and everything was ready before midnight because my father said
after midnight we'd gone into Sunday and you would take your bath, you
would do everything, lay out your clothing. So when you got up Sunday
morning, you would eat, but it would just be mom would have her and you
could warm it over. But no big cooking. Soeaker1: Right. Pace: You never
was allowed to press a piece or anything on the Sunday because that was
against the rules. You wouldn't do that because this is the Lord's day.
This is the way I was brought up. And even today, now, sometime I do cook
on a Sunday. Sometime I have people and sometime if I get in a in a first,
I bring down a dress or frankly, I'll put up a board and press.
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Speaker1: But something says to me every time that I do that you shouldn't
do it. You weren't brought up this way, and I very seldom do it. It's got
to be an emergency for me to do that. And they say, You want to train? I'm
in the habit of preparing on Saturday night what I'm going to do. And I
don't cook no big gets on Sunday. The only way I would cook it would have
to be somebody would come in. But for me as to do it, that's I cook least
on Sundays than I do any day in the week because I've been taught that this
was a day that not that I don't practice my Christianity every day, but
this was a particular day that we gave to the Lord. And my father believed
in this and my mother in every way. And they lived out in front of me and
they they went they they went themselves to church and to Sunday school and
to this. And they didn't say, you got to do it now. I'm going to stay at
home like many parents do now. Or they say you go or they if the child
don't want to go, they say, well, you don't have to go. I have to go. And I
was brought up that way. And now today I don't get to go to church if I'm
not feeling well. What to do? Sometimes I can go look like I've lost the
whole week because, because I just feel that I ought to be a part of it.
Now I'm a Baptist by choice, but I go to all denominations. I serve all
churches. I don't just work in my church. I work in all churches. When you
heard this woman call me on the phone, but you this is another church I'm
going to serve in another group of people. On next Sunday. I'll go to the
north side, to a methodist church. On the first Sunday in June, I go to
another church. I got I work in any church at any denomination. I'm a
Baptist by choice, but I go to all churches. Yeah, because I don't think
it's the particular church that you belong to. It's the belief that you
have because people say the church, but the church is within me and you
see, we only go to a building to worship. And if you haven't got something
that's inside of you, you just it's just the sound of brass in a temple
because that's only a building. Speaker1: Right. Pace: You I can do just as
much out there as I like living on the street as I can in a beautiful
building because people are watching you as an example of what you do every
day, not because you dress up and go to church on Sunday and then you come
out here six days a week and you don't do nothing those days. That's just
you're a false prophet. See, the reason I can be respected in this
community, I don't just do this [inaudible]. I do this six days a week. I'm
the same today that I'll be on sunday. I might have on some different
clothes, but other than that, I'm the same person and I practice the same
thing on Sunday. I practice every day I come up here and that's what so
many people do. You dress up and you go Sunday. But then when you come out
Monday, same people looking at me. Monday, they look at me Sunday and
you've got to try to practice what you preach. And I try to be good to
people. Now, that woman you see just walking in, she comes in every day
with whatever problem. Sometimes when I come and I say, Could I go
somewhere? Every day she comes in, you know, she's had problems with her
daughter. She's had problems with this. And she comes in, she goes to work,
she works in a school, and she's gone to work now. But that's an everyday
occurrence. She come in here, Miss Pace you got to call this man. I said,
Why don't you call him? Oh, he won't listen to me. He'll listen to you,
call him up, tell him so on and so on and so on. So and this is everyday.
Sometimes when I go home, I take a couple of pills. I've listened to so
many people problems, you know, and then but sometime I realize this, that
sometime when you have a problem, you have to talk to somebody.
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Speaker1: And so many people don't have anybody they can talk to. And this
is why a lot of people go to start. Speaker1: Right Pace: You got to have
somebody you can talk to. If you can just talk it out or get to say
something and get it out of your system. And this is what people has got to
realize. And they pay a big money to go to a psychiatrist and you don't do
a thing. But they do. They let you talk, isn't it? Speaker1: That's it.
Pace: And you pay all that money and you just sit there and talk to it. You
just let them talk to them and see if they can get to somebody that they
can just pull out and just talk and talk and they ain't got the money to go
pay psychiatrist. They can talk to them and they get some relief. And
that's what you got to realize. Sometime when people come and if somebody
comes, I got to talk to somebody and then they got to let up. Because when
you just stay by yourself, I've heard people call up on a talk program and
say, Oh, I'm so despondent, I don't have anybody. I'm here alone and I'm
just looking at the wall and I don't have anybody to talk to. I'm ready to
blow my stack.
00:28:02.000 --> 00:29:14.000
Pace: But you see, I get active in something. Do something. And when you
get home, you're tired of something and you go to sleep. But some people
who don't do nothing, they just stop and think and look at the wall. Well,
I don't do that. I don't have time. I'm busy doing something all the time.
And when I get home, I'm tired and I'll sit up and read the paper or
something. And then I go to bed and I go to sleep and wake up the next
morning. But so many people don't do nothing but just sit and wait. I read
a woman called me saying I'm sick and this is all I have to listen to is
this. And you see, you can get your mind. So then go on with this till it's
in the mind. And if you just get up and get some of that off the mind,
you'll find yourself going. Some mornings I don't feel like I should get
up. And I said, Well, Lord, you know, I got to get up out of that store.
Get up out of this bed. I get up on the floor and go and wash my face with
some cold water. Some people say, you feel that and don't pity yourself.
That's the worst thing in the world. You can do it. Just lay down and pitty
yourself and say, well, I can't do this, I can't Do that. Get up and try to
do the best that you can. Thats the way I feel about life.
00:29:14.000 --> 00:30:14.000
Speaker3: Okay.
