Vernelle Brooks Jones and Charles Brooks - Becoming Contractors (clip)

Charles Brooks: My grandfather and my father, they started out as subcontractors and they used to do a lot of work for like JP Co. Force Security Builders. They even did some framing for Tate Construction. In the early 70s my father ended up obtaining his contractor’s license and that is when they decided to go in business for themselves as general contractors, so they stopped subbing for people, and they started doing their own work and advertising for their own business. I joined the company; I’ve always worked for them. When I was a little boy, I was out playing around but in high school in the summertime I always worked with them. After I got out of the military in ’86, I joined the military and I got out in ’86, and that is when I joined full time. I really only got to work with my grandfather two years before he passed away in ’88 and then it was just me and my father and my grandmother. And then as she got older she kind of retired because she used to answer the phone and then it was just me and my father. like I said we did several, a lot of work, most of the work is around here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro. We did some work in Durham but mainly most of the work was right here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro.

Vernelle Brooks Jones: And I can remember when dad, this was before he opened Brooks and Son. I can remember a lot of the local residents would call on him because back then a lot of Blacks didn’t have money, they couldn’t afford a lot of things. And so, dad was well known and would do work and say you could pay me later and things of that nature, just pay me what you can. And that was to me very thoughtful.