Interviewer(s): A. Gardner. Berwick, LA

Affiliation: University of Arizona

Pierre Jackson is an African-American male in his early 60's. He was recommended to me by his former boss at Texaco, Bill Williams. In the years prior to the possibility of Blacks working in the oil fields, Pierre was a shoe-shiner at a local barber shop. He was well known by many around town, and when the time came for Texaco to start hiring Blacks, they brought him in. He wasn't willing to directly address the difficulties of being Black in the oil field. He knew most of the fellows he worked with from his days at the barber shop, and he notes that he didn't go out there to start trouble - he went out there to work. He also was injured on the job, and although some of his friends tried to talk him into suing the company, he didn't. He provides a description of the conditions of this work in the early 1960's for various contractors and yards in the Morgan City area, and loading mud offshore. We talk a little bit about what it was like managing roustabouts as a black man, and we also talk about the quality of labor that worked at the plant in the later years. He also describes the difficulty of being a family man with an oil field schedule.

Pierre Jackson was born in 1934 and raised in the greater Morgan City area. He worked at a barbershop and in a variety of capacities related to the oilfield prior to his employment with Texaco in 1967. Once employed with Texaco, he worked at the Bateman Lake plant and then moved to company's new cyrogenic plant in 1973. He was promoted several times and was a member of the local union. He was one of the first African-Americans to work in the oilfield.