Alex Eugene Washington Sr.

Alex Washington Sr., my grandfather, was born in Sunshine, Arkansas. And Sunshine is an unincorporated, less than 500 person, little town in the southeast corner of the state. It's in the delta of the Mississippi River. My grandfather married Hazel in 1942. They moved to a city called McGee, Arkansas and ran a taxicab company. They had a store, my grandmother did hair. My grandfather would also travel weekly to Hot Springs, over a three-hour drive, because they had bathhouses there. 

Bathhouses were where people went because they didn't have plumbing in the late 1800s, early 1900s. It was free and publicly provided to bathe but segregated. The porters and others who worked in the bathhouses were typically Black and would perform a range of services to make sure those facilities operated properly. My grandfather did that. He’d drive all the way up and then come back and be with his family.