Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

LEI~IS~C)~~ 11:1:42
the church. I always thought that he. . .and a lot of people.
Hawes: Did the churches have anything to do with politics?
Lewis: No, no . . . politics was never talked in church.
Politics are discussed more in places now. You went down
the recreation building you couldn't discuss politics there.
Like if you say here and I hear polities there - really
shouldn't be, but i t's done. I mean, I don't mean that to
be nasty . . . I don't go for that, but in those days that
wasn't done, see. Oh, the men got on the corners and dis-
cussed and walked out and talked among themselves and they
had their political campaigns. And of course as always
there was always booze to be given outtlaughsl.
And I worked in the neighborhood here and old Sharkey
used to be down in the 23rd precinct. Used to stand down
there by Jake Fair's store, that's by. . .below the school
there and I worked in the neighborhood and Sharkey said,
"You voted yet?" "Nope," I said, "1 ain't going to vote un-
less you get a drink." Sharkey said, "I haven't got a
thing." Well, I was working - I wasn't going to drink any-
way, "Well, don't: talk to me about voting; if my vote ain't
worth a drink, it ain't worth it." I went on down and walked
around and come back up through there and Sharkey standing
there and he called me over and said, "Come on down the
alley a minute, J got you a drink! " Ilaughs] He didn' t
know I was a Republican, as far as that goes; 3 got a kick
out of it. Of course, personally, the farthest thought from
my mind was a drink because I was working. The two of them