Charlotte Billups Jernigan

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mrs. Charlotte Billups Jernigan for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project. I am Dr. Horace Huntley. We are at Miles College. Today is June 14, 1995.

Thank you Mrs. Jernigan for coming out and sitting with us today to share your story of the Civil Rights Movement with us.

JERNIGAN: I'm very glad to be here.

HUNTLEY: Let me just start by asking some general questions about your background, about your family. Where were your mother and father from?

JERNIGAN: My mother's name is Almarie Stevens and she's from Irondale, Alabama.

HUNTLEY: Irondale?

JERNIGAN: Yes. She was born and raised there. And that's just a little suburb of Birmingham. My father was born in Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: All right. Then, were you born in Birmingham?

JERNIGAN: I was born in Birmingham also.

HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters do you have?

JERNIGAN: I have three sisters. I mean I have two sisters, Alicia Francine and Helene Renee.

HUNTLEY: Where are you in that group?

JERNIGAN: I'm the oldest.

HUNTLEY: You're the oldest. So you are the one that had to take care of the rest of them?

JERNIGAN: Yes, I did.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about your parents' education. How much education did they have?

JERNIGAN: My mom went to Irondale Junior High School and then on from there she did a little bit of studying and then she went to LPN school when she and my 00:02:00father married at the age of 35. She worked as an LPN and retired as a LPN. Daddy was a graduate of Booker T. Washington Business College.

HUNTLEY: Did he go to Parker?

JERNIGAN: No. Daddy went to school in Gary, Indiana. I'm not sure of the name, but he graduated from high school there.

HUNTLEY: Is that right?

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: Who was he living with there?

JERNIGAN: His uncle and aunt. He only went there for the high school portion. I think he attended the regular public schools here in Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about your education. Tell me about where did you start elementary school.

JERNIGAN: First, I started, which was here in Birmingham, North Patterson, which changed to be Henry C. Bryant Elementary. Then from Bryant Elementary I went to Hayes High School. From Hayes High School I went to Cleveland to Cuyahoga 00:03:00Community College and after Cuyahoga my family went to Chicago and I went to a community college there, which was YMCA. I also have attended Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri and the Conservatory of Music in Chicago.

HUNTLEY: So you are a musician?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I love to sing. And, after military life I came back loving to do something, I went on to Booker T. Washington Business College and I got into data processing.

HUNTLEY: So that's your occupation?

JERNIGAN: No, not exactly. At the time I was wanting to study something else and I worked in it a little while before breaking down with my illness.

HUNTLEY: What community were you reared in?

JERNIGAN: In the Woodlawn community which is on the northside of town?

HUNTLEY: Sort of eastside.

JERNIGAN: Eastside. Yes. By the airport. I was raised up by the Birmingham 00:04:00airport. There was a nice Black community there and that's where I was. It was in the Woodlawn, Groveland area.

HUNTLEY: How would you describe your community?

JERNIGAN: It was an all Black neighborhood, completely Black. You knew each other. You went over each other's house. You played what we called like in a circle, which our house faced everybody. And you played, you went to school together, you caught the bus together, it was a completely Black community.

HUNTLEY: What kind of occupations did people have that lived in your community?

JERNIGAN: Most of the people were, some of the women were like housewives and most of the men were like blue-collar workers with the exception of my dad and a couple of others. Daddy was the type that he might have been a little bit blue-collar but he went on to try to pursue himself to further jobs, like in insurance and he was in the ministry. And, also he worked with the Movement, the Birmingham Christian Movement.

HUNTLEY: What was your father's name?

JERNIGAN: Rev. Charles Billups.

HUNTLEY: Rev. Charles Billups. So he was very, very active in the Movement?

JERNIGAN: Very active in the Movement.

HUNTLEY: Yes. What do you remember about your high school days at Hayes High School?

JERNIGAN: My high school days were quite different from a normal high school person. I had to travel with my father wherever they went, like to the rallies or whatever. So it was like high school there for school, back home, in the car. Going with him to rallies or whatever and when they were planning to have those meetings and planning what they were going to do about boycotting or whatever.

HUNTLEY: Let's just sort of back up just a bit. Talk a little about your father because you are referring to your father and you are going to the rallies and going to the meetings. We know that Rev. Billups was very, very active in the Movement. He was really just as active as almost anyone else in the city. As a 00:06:00person being so active and you being his daughter, tell me what impact did it have on you to have to be involved? Because you really didn't have a choice as little kids.

JERNIGAN: I didn't have a choice. We were his children. There were a lot of things happening. The bomb threats. Constant, ugly telephone threats. Riding up to the house saying things or throwing things on the porch. And that made us have to be involved with him as if we were in it and working it too.

HUNTLEY: Do you ever remember a time in your life when your father was not involved in the Movement?

JERNIGAN: I do not remember a time that he was not involved. This was a everyday, seven day a week process of getting in the car with him, when we had to. He could not leave us at home. His thing was "not to leave us at home." So 00:07:00that would impact on me to like to really learn how to be like an overseer, grow up fast. My childhood was like, I wouldn't say, shattered, but I was pushed to learned how to be mature.

HUNTLEY: And you being the oldest, then you had to sort of oversee the rest of the children?

JERNIGAN: Right. Make decisions that I didn't think I was going to be able to make.

HUNTLEY: How did that impact upon you in your life as a high school student?

JERNIGAN: As a high school student I became very quiet. I was a little bit angry. Disgusted sometimes.

HUNTLEY: Why were you?

JERNIGAN: Because I missed out on a lot of things. I would come in and try to tell the students about certain things and I didn't know how to tell them. In high school a lot of the teachers there were trying to avoid being in the Movement, so they would start doing little ugly things like saying, "Why is your daddy going to get us in trouble?" And "We're not going to be getting out 00:08:00there." Little things like that. Then there were a lot of them that went along with him and they were very protective of me. A lot of them tried to understand and help me through that high school period of time with my subjects.

HUNTLEY: There were times then when you had assignments and there were many times when you probably had difficulty in completing those.

JERNIGAN: Right. I can tell you one story. I had a biology teacher and she gave me a "D" because I went back and I knew that I did not do the exact projects but I did study, so I did a couple of collections and an experiment of my own, and she said, "That's just not good enough." But I was trying to tell her I did that because we used to have to go and sit with daddy at the Gaston Motel and wait for them to go in and out of those meetings and that was like 10:00 o'clock at night when we would take my mom to work. We would get back home at 6:00. And we were trying to get homework in a car, under a streetlight, well the motel light. 00:09:00And I could not prepare things or study like I wanted to. But I did do good on that project, but she just didn't want to accept that.

HUNTLEY: Can you give me a description of the typical day in your life as a child during the period - the height of the Movement with your father being so active? What would you do in the morning and how would that impact upon the rest of your day? What time would you leave home in the morning, what time would you get back?

JERNIGAN: There were specials. At that time there were special buses that could come to the community to take you to high school. So we would get up like 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning, catch that special and get on it. That's a full day at school. Daddy and them would probably tell the kids that we were going to go on these marches or whatever and they might come and get kids. School might be out at 12:00, or it would be a regular day but when we got home like 3:00 or 3:30 00:10:00our time started. We had to start getting our lesson, prepare ourselves because we knew we had to leave with daddy that night. So you missed out on a lot of things.

HUNTLEY: So you would simply anticipate practically every night going with your father?

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: And you were going to the mass meetings?

JERNIGAN: To the mass meetings and to sit in the car while they were upstairs at the motel planning those meetings.

HUNTLEY: "They?" Who are you referring to when you say "they?"

JERNIGAN: It was my daddy, Martin Luther King, Rev. Shuttlesworth, Rev. Vivian, Andy Young, Rev. Smith and all the community people that got themselves involved. This involved deacons, people that had these blue-collar jobs that wanted to work with the Movement. Rev. Abernathy, Rev. Gardner, some of the meetings were even held at his church sometimes.

HUNTLEY: Right. Now, when you attended the mass meetings, I've gotten different kinds of descriptions of what they were like. As a teenager, how would you describe a typical mass meeting?

JERNIGAN: Well, since I'm a music type person and I'm creative, oh, they were very exciting, exhilarating, moving. But I was frightened. Because the people were dogmatic about what they were going to do. I knew they were dogmatic, because like I say, we saw them at the motel planning and they would come out and take those breaks and they would be talking about what they were going to do. And when they were in there and the choir would get to singing and people were actually shouting and say, "Yes, we are." This is women and men and they were involved. So yes, I was very exhilarated about the rallies but at the same time, I was kind of tired, kind of angry because I knew I had to come off a little bit of that "high" because I was thinking about my homework because I was very young. And, then, the other part I was always made to sit by some more 00:12:00children if their parents were there and my own sisters and my cousins and we would stay in line. We would stay on the bench. The other thing about the rally. After everything was over and all the people were gone, we were still there to maybe 1:00 and 2:00 maybe 3:00 in the morning.

HUNTLEY: Why were you still there?

JERNIGAN: Because the men that were involved decided to keep on talking about what they were going to do and making plans and they would stay sometimes in Rev. Smith's office until 1:00 or 2:00 o'clock in the morning. Or either at 16th Street just talking on the steps and we're still sitting in the car, or we're sitting on the steps. We're sitting on the sidewalk. We're doing everything.

HUNTLEY: Did you understand this? Were you understanding of what was happening?

JERNIGAN: Yes. A little bit. Because there was one time when that was going on, sometimes they would come up and talk to us and say "How you all doing tonight?" And you know, kind of explain to us what was going on. And we would have morning meetings and daddy would sit us down and say "You know what, I don't know how 00:13:00far this is going."

HUNTLEY: You mean family meetings?

JERNIGAN: Yes, with my father and he would tell us "This might be history. This is for your benefit. We are moving on. I will not have a child of mine coming up like me and that's why your daddy is out there."

HUNTLEY: Tell me about your mother. What was she doing?

JERNIGAN: My mother was a very quiet person but very intelligent. She stood by my daddy real good. She helped write out things, corrected them and she would say, "Charles, you don't say it like that, you do it like this." And she would help him with certain things. But at the same time my mother had a hard time because she was about one of the only wives that really worked as far as a regular job.

HUNTLEY: She was not just a housewife?

JERNIGAN: That's right. She became a nurse at the University of Alabama which then was Hillman Hospital. And every time something would happen with the Movement, "All right nigger Billups. I know you ain't going out there with your nigger husband." And they would give her pink slips, the works. She was working 00:14:00with intensive care babies, they might give her the worse ones. "And you are going to stay here until your job is done, I don't care if you hear anything about your husband, you will not leave." The day that those young ladies got bombed from 16th Street, they had people down there identifying and everything. The first thing that came to mom. "Nurse Billups, I dare you to go downstairs. You are going to get fired. I know your nigger husband is down there." She said, this is how she was talked to from the head nurse.

HUNTLEY: You said she called her "Nurse Billups?"

JERNIGAN: Nurse Billups and nigger. They did use those words quite frequently and with her.

HUNTLEY: And for the White nurses they always called them Miss or Mrs?

JERNIGAN: No. They always called her nurse.

HUNTLEY: I mean for White nurses?

JERNIGAN: Oh yes. They had to call them by their names. Mrs. so and so or whatever. Dr. whoever.

HUNTLEY: Your mother, did she normally work night shift?

JERNIGAN: She normally worked night shift. She was working the 11:00 to 7:00 shift. So that meant she had to be there like 10:30. So that's when we would leave out at 10:30. She would want to be there about 10:30 to get there 30 00:15:00minutes before time. She was a very prompt person. She knew her job well.

HUNTLEY: So then as you all were attending the mass meetings, she basically was at work or preparing to go to work?

JERNIGAN: That's right. And she would tell my father, "All right. I know you are just taking them with you to go work with me, but you are going to take them back home." He would say, "Yes." But he knew he was going to detour and take us on to a mass meeting or either we were going to go to Smith and Gaston Motel.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about that experience. After the meetings, and then there would be a meeting after the meeting by the leaders of the Movement, your father being one of those. Other children who had actually participated in the mass meetings, they were now able to go home, and you were still out waiting?

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever have the experience of just talking with Dr. King or any 00:16:00of the other ministers?

JERNIGAN: Oh, yes. That's what was so memorable. And now that I'm 45 years old and I look back at that and I say we were just treated like ordinary people and holding conversations because you are youth. And you know you are going to give people respect. We already thought they were something, like really tops. But not in the manner that I thought history was being made and all this other stuff was going to come about and books would be written and everything. But, we had a chance to sit down at the table with them and others and eat snacks. And, one time we were there during our lunch time. We went one Saturday. But this was like a every night thing. And they would even bring, because at the motel you could smell the food just cooking. And they would tell them to bring stuff out to us. And, then, in return sometime they would tell us to come in there and eat with them. So we got a chance to sit down at what I called a "Feasting Table" and eat with these people while they are still talking about the plans they are going to have for the Movement. The ones that they accomplish. The ones they 00:17:00didn't accomplish so well. I got a chance to see them really cry about something that didn't go well.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever remember them leaving and going to a demonstration and returning after that demonstration?

JERNIGAN: When they would have several of the demonstrations, especially when they would get the children, go to the high schools and the children would come from Parker and Hayes, whatever. I did not go. I would go back home. Because we knew we were going to be leaving that night. We would come back. And after one of those nights when all of those children got put in jail, a couple of people got hurt or whatever, like I said, we would come back and we would get a chance to see them on a balcony, leaning against the balcony saying "Man, that was just a little bit too much." And the children were down there. And I actually saw them cry. Then I actually saw them be a little happy about something that did go through.

HUNTLEY: You had mentioned earlier something about the blue-jean suits?

JERNIGAN: Yes. Of course you know we are youth. We are 12, 11, 10. You have got to find something to make it kind of comical because you are going through so many changes. So when they decided to wear those blue jean suits, they were some spiffy folks but we are going to start calling them the Blue-jean Brigade because they were all just dressed up as if they were in the military. I mean they had their stuff starched and everything. And we said, "Oh, well yeah, there goes the Blue-jean Brigade." We would even holler it out the window. Because like I say, you are youth then. You are going to do something that you don't have no business. So when we would see them we would holler out the window, "Oh, well, there goes the Blue-jean Brigade." I can remember the suits that they wore. And once when I went to the museum down at Atlanta and I can remember that 00:19:00suit very well that Martin Luther King wore. And I used to really like seeing them -- after I knew what they were doing they started explaining, so I used to like to see them doing it because it stood out. And it was like their uniform. They were wearing them to let them know this is what they were doing to represent their Black men working for the Black people and it was just amazing.

HUNTLEY: I normally ask a question about the relationship between the Birmingham Police Department and the community.

JERNIGAN: Oh wow. I would say the police department didn't like us at all. We were total outcasts. There were several days that we would be riding along in the car with my daddy and they would just stop us. I was wondering why and how. How did they even know it was our car? But I found out in later years they had marks on the cars. They knew what was going on. They would stop to get my daddy out of the car, give him a ticket. Take it back. Give him a ticket and take it back. That kind of thing. And this was like sometime at night, during the day. We could even be going to the grocery store and he might get stopped. So they were not nice at all.

HUNTLEY: Did they ever come to your house?

JERNIGAN: Yes. One night daddy had been to a mass meeting and the police 00:20:00department was out there then talking about how much noise or whatever. Anyway, he touched the collar of one of the policemen and so they say he was insubordinating an officer. So they decided to come to the house and get him. So they come in about 10 or 11 of them. They knock on the door and knocked the screen door down and come on in like "this my house," and come on in. My mother was at a mission meeting. You know, then you used to go from house to house. She was at a mission meeting and they had to call her to come back up the hill. In that timing they had took him out, threw him up against the car. One of them standing there is taking my sister's Zero candy bar and she bit him. She bit the policeman.

HUNTLEY: She bit the policeman?

JERNIGAN: Yes. And he got up to kind of do his hand and hit her and he said, "Kill me first before you hit my child." And they said my dad went up and got my mom and brought them up the hill. But my sister, who is Helene Renee, went out fighting, thinking she could fight those 11.

HUNTLEY: Did they arrest her?

JERNIGAN: No. Just kind of pushed her back and my daddy, that's when he said, "Take me, do whatever you want to me but don't hurt my children." We were having dinner. Daddy had come home that night and we were sitting down as a family and we were having dinner and they just rushed right in. And, at the same time, the neighbors said, "Oh, Lord. You're fixing to get us killed." "Oh, my God."

HUNTLEY: Who were they referring to?

JERNIGAN: People in our neighborhood referring to daddy. And at that point, a lot of people in the neighborhood didn't want to babysit us. So that's why we had to be carried with him.

HUNTLEY: Why did they not want to babysit you?

JERNIGAN: Because they thought probably the policeman would come in the neighborhood and bother them too.

HUNTLEY: So they were afraid to even be associated with you?

JERNIGAN: Right. Some of them were very cooperative and some of them were very low down. I hate to say that word, but they didn't even want to hear about the Movement. We were outcasts. "There goes that Rev. Billups and he's going to get 00:22:00us in trouble."

HUNTLEY: What kind of relationship then did you have with children your age?

JERNIGAN: I had friends. And they liked me. But it was like still I was maturing a little bit more than them and it was like I was talking about things that they weren't even thinking about.

HUNTLEY: Were there any of the children in your neighborhood or in your school that was involved in the Movement?

JERNIGAN: Yes. Whenever they would say about "Come on and let's go boycott," a lot of them would go. A lot of them would go back home. It was not a time to go back home from school. I saw that inside stuff. A lot of them did go. They went and they cooperated. But a lot of them would go back or make up any excuse. There was one other time, the night that daddy got beat up. He was working at Hayes Aircraft at the time. And, some kind of way he wanted to take a shower and 00:23:00he said this is how it started. So the showers were all filled where the Black people would go, so he went on over to the White side.

And from my memory I think he said they waited about a week later. But anyway there was a neighbor that he rode with and what they did, they picked him and the neighbor up. They blind folded both of them but they let him back off at his house.

HUNTLEY: Let the neighbor off at his house?

JERNIGAN: Yes. And this man lived like five doors down from us. And they took daddy off which was right where the mall -- because I even get cringed when I go to Eastwood Mall now. When it was woods then and that's where he got beat up. The Klu Klux Klan or the Citizens Council took him there and beat him up. Chained him to a tree and beat him up. But what I looked at was this man was five doors down, knowing me and mom and all of us in the house and he did not come and tell us anything.

HUNTLEY: So, when did you find that your father got beat up?

JERNIGAN: Daddy crawled to the highway and do you know, a policeman was there to 00:24:00pick him up. And it was like, y'all through doing what y'all doing to this nigger, and took him on to the hospital and Rev. Smith followed from there and he told momma what had happened. Of course that was a shock to me. That stunned me too. Because when he finally came home I just saw all these marks on him and everything and he was still telling us.

Something like what Christ did. "Forgive them, they don't know what they were doing." And I was saying, "How?" And I was in fifth grade then and that really shocked me. I was angry at a point all of my life that I wanted to fight. Like now, I told you I had been in the military. If I had a M-16 like I learned how to shoot then, I would have used it with no problem. Oh, yes. I probably would have used it. I was just that angry because I didn't know how to tell anybody what I was feeling.

HUNTLEY: Well, what do you remember as a result of that and in your returning to school did your teachers talk about it? Did your friends know?

JERNIGAN: I had one teacher that was very good to me and the other school counselor, Mrs. Helen Heath.

HUNTLEY: This is at Hayes High School?

JERNIGAN: Hayes, yes. And I would go in Mrs. Heath's office and just sit straight like this and tears would just be rolling down my face and that's her way of even listening to me. She understood. Then there were other people, neighbors who really knew daddy and they were involved like Mrs. Radney. She kind of stuck behind us and some of the neighbors and other ministers when we practically at times stayed over Rev. Smith's house with Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Hendricks. Folks like that. These were our nurturing people. So when you really wanted to ball up and cry and me, I was always the loudest and when I cry and I really get mad, I tear up things. I would say these people were kind of able to calm me down. But I could not control it. When I really got tore up, I was tore 00:26:00up. I mean I was a young shouting girl and 10 and 12 years old and I always shouted or whatever.

HUNTLEY: Always very emotional?

JERNIGAN: Yes. And even then I learned how to hum Dr. Watts to keep me out of trouble.

HUNTLEY: To do what?

JERNIGAN: To get me out of trouble and stop from maybe cursing or saying something ugly. Because they were really on to you about these older people and you are supposed to take your place. But then, at a point where you were just angry you say, "I want to do something about this, I'm angry, I don't like what's going on."

HUNTLEY: Now, you, and your siblings were never arrested?

JERNIGAN: No. I was never arrested but we was always in and around it. We had the involvement. Like when they said they were going to Selma or Cullman or something like that, we're in the car and we're getting the experience of them actually going in there and we standing up there like nuts and they are going in there. And they are going into the back getting sandwiches and stuff and hear 00:27:00them calling "We don't serve niggers and no nigger children." I didn't get that involvement by going inside of jail and being locked up or nothing like that. But I saw them doing this and saw the experience. It was hands on that I can't explain.

HUNTLEY: Well, you had an experience that others didn't have because you were actually there.

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: And you actually saw it.

JERNIGAN: Yes. I saw them slap somebody. Talking about, "We don't serve nobody, get your nigger butt out of here." And if this was not on tape, I'd say a couple of other words they said. "And you can't talk, you ignorant. We don't even want your money." And I saw them do that. I mean it was nothing for daddy and Rev. Vivian and them and Rev. Smith to stop at some store and they knew that Black people were not suppose to be in there. And they go there and say, "We are going to get y'all a hamburger."

HUNTLEY: How did you feel about that?

JERNIGAN: I was frightened. I was really frightened because I was frightened for my dad.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever wish that they would not do that?

JERNIGAN: Sometimes, yes. Because I was frightened. A lot of times I thought it was the boldest thing to do but a lot of times I was frightened because they were cruel. When one White person -- it's not no one White person that comes after you, they bring the group. Where one Black man might stand there, that's what I learned, he might stand there and you know, like accept so many slaps, but they got to bring their group with them to get what they want to have going. And even though, I saw, the White women that used to be behind the counters and it realized that they stayed no more than in the projects and they weren't even educated and trying to -- you know I saw that and that's what really got me.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about the Easter's and Christmas' that you couldn't go to the stores.

JERNIGAN: Well, I must tell you we will learn why Jesus was here, because daddy said it wasn't our birthday and we weren't going to by anything out of those stores because they were boycotting. So you know how you see all the little programs, like the dolls and this, that and the other and we might get something 00:29:00but it was very much after Christmas at some other store. He frequented Atlantic Mills a lot. But we didn't get anything on that day and no Easter. Forget it. Because that meant going and buying something and trading with people that did not want to trade with you.

So of course, you know, you see all the little people going out with their dresses on, which I loved the silk organza at that time and the stand out slips and everything and the little flowers in their hair. And we had to wear this and dress up in this and it was like, "Gosh, I don't want to get up and say my Easter speech in this dress." And then my feet, I hate to put this here. I have bad feet. I am flat footed and it's like Parisian's and Pizitz were the only stores that sold those good shoes, but no, no, no. We had to pick other stores because he wasn't going in that store. So guys used to be just walking behind me 00:30:00and say, Oh, knocked-kneeded Charlotte and her two left feet." And I would be up at the house just crying. But I knew what was going on. But it was like a child then, I could not take that.

HUNTLEY: There was an experience when you were in school when you had a project to do?

JERNIGAN: Yes, and getting ready for something. One of my teachers was a sewing teacher -- home economics. She told me she was going to give me an "F." And she knew what was going on. I mean these teachers knew.

HUNTLEY: She knew that your father was --

JERNIGAN: She knew that daddy was involved because my daddy was one of these parents that came, talking about parents don't go to PTO or whatever, oh, he stayed at the school. Every other day. He was preaching about something, about the kids and the youth. "Y'all need to come out of here and pay attention." I mean he was at the school. All right. She knew that. And she told me -- my project was to make a jacket, dress coat and a dress, you know with a jacket and dress, whatever with bound buttonholes and everything, which is very hard. So I 00:31:00said, "I cannot get my material which you want me to get from that place, my daddy is going to have to get it from somewhere else." My aunt from out of town even offered to send me the material in the mail. She said she didn't want that, she wanted the kind that was right there at Pizitz. So I went down there and I got it anyway.

HUNTLEY: Now, this is at a time when the boycott is going on?

JERNIGAN: Right at the heat of the boycott. And Charlotte goes in there and gets linen material, I don't think I like linen anything today. For some reason it bites me. Because I got a whipping. That evening I got a whipping.

HUNTLEY: How did he find out that you had gone?

JERNIGAN: Because he saw the material and the tag from the store.

HUNTLEY: How did he approach you?

JERNIGAN: Oh, I got a whipping. All right.

HUNTLEY: Did he talk with you?

JERNIGAN: Yes. He cried. He cried real bad afterwards. Because I guess he was thinking now that I'm grown and he was thinking of all they were going through and this woman made my child. But he went to the school. And my daddy was a very bold person and he confronted her. And even to this day when my children was 00:32:00going to school, something I didn't understand, I learned from that. I would go and find out, "Why did you do that?

You put pressure on this child." And out of all of that, I still really didn't make a good grade because she had something against us. She just didn't go along with the Movement or nothing. She aggravated me. She told me I didn't know how to dress and all that.

And then, after that my teeth were messed up at the same time, so she was one of them that made me started doing things knowing what was going on.

HUNTLEY: You were affected by an illness that you really didn't understand at that time?

JERNIGAN: Yes. Now, they have found out I have Lupus. And Lupus is a connective tissue disease. Then I was having headaches, losing my hair, bizarre attitude, just sick. At night, tired. Then we didn't know. We didn't find out I had Lupus 00:33:00until I got into the military. But when we looked back at the same symptoms, and, then, I was really getting sick. I would get fevers, cold, constantly stayed in the women's advisor at high school, having to be sick and brought back home. And daddy used to have to leave from where he was and come get me and take me back home. I ran low blood, everything, but I was sick. And, then, all of a sudden I would get well. That's how Lupus is. So, now it has crippled me.

HUNTLEY: When did you go into the military?

JERNIGAN: I went in the military in '75.

HUNTLEY: What branch?

JERNIGAN: Army.

HUNTLEY: What did you do in the military?

JERNIGAN: I was clerk, which you do a little bit of everything as far as paperwork. I was a Morning Clerk. You keep up with all the records of your 00:34:00company and battalion. At the same time, me being Miss Creative, I would always be singing and some kind of way one of the officers heard me singing and I got picked for that -- to sing with the army for about a year and a half. I was always doing something. And that part I really much enjoyed because I got a chance to really perform in what you call in front of people of all nationalities. And to feel good about it, daddy had always told us to respect nationalities. Because in the Movement it was many nationalities there. Black, White, Indian, Chicano. I mean they were there. Oriental.

And, then, I went to the army and saw the same thing. And being able to perform and do that in front of them. But you know when I was in the military, every 00:35:00time they would play the Star Spangled Banner, I would break down and start crying. And the guys would ask me why. I'd say, every time I see you and knew the way they even do you all now, I cannot forget those days behind. So one morning, while in the military, I had acted like I was in church. We were doing the Star Spangled Banner and I decided to shout. So one man said, "Out of all of my years in the military I've never seen a woman get down on the floor and shout." And I was shouting then too. And, then, I could do a high "C" soprano and everything. It was like I knew about the passed and knew what was going on until I just got involved with being in the military and seeing these people and looking at them. And I said, "Uh-huh. Now, I'm matching everything up. I see how they make rules overnight. I see how they do things and how they say you can do it and you can't."

And, then, while I was in their choir, I remember one Sunday, my captain, he was 00:36:00from Czechoslovakia. And, in the army everybody is prim and proper in church. And they say, "We're having church, and we're going to talk about." So I did Precious Lord as if I was down here at New Pilgrim again. So when we were going out of the church, his wife had just come and she could not speak any English. She said, "I don't know, but God Love, God Love." And they said, "Don't never let Charlotte sing or be over nothing, because she is going to have the whole roof."

HUNTLEY: So you didn't just have chapel?

JERNIGAN: No. They were trying to learn at that time how to integrate women with men. So I told them you are going to have to do that. I said, "That's what's important. You are going to have to let women be with men on these floors. And, then, you won't have all these problems or anything." And I had a lot of confrontations with Whites. Real bad. And what I would do to get out of trouble, 00:37:00they would say, "Let Charlotte come down here and help us, because she is going to start humming one of those Dr. Watts, and that comes from slavery. That is true.

HUNTLEY: What do you mean "humming Dr. Watts?"

JERNIGAN: A charge to keep I have, a God to glorify and Father, I stretch my hand to thee, no other help I know. You do that and a Black person, they're going to move. They're not going to ask you anything. I never got an Article 15 or whatever. And, if a Black guy got in trouble, I would knock on his door and whispered to him, "Please don't do that." I even, not really lied for anybody, but there was once where a Black guy was going to get in trouble -- this White girl said he had took her money. And I said, "She gave it to you, you took it, but why did you take it?" But, at the same time I went and I stood up for him and I knew how to do it from my experiences in the past. I said, "She gave it to him and she took it. She gave it to him. He does not need to get an Article 15." 00:38:00So they would always say whatever goes on, call Charlotte Jernigan, she'll help you. I thought she was going to start humming one of those Dr. Watts and they are going to leave all of us alone. So that was some of the experience that I had in the military.

HUNTLEY: Let me back up just a bit. 1963 in Birmingham was sort of the highlight of the Movement with the demonstrations and, then, finally with the bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church. Do you remember that?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I remember that. We were home that Sunday. Thank God we didn't go anywhere with daddy. When they said they had bombed the church, he went immediately down there. There was a sad feeling. I felt as those there was a dark, dark, dark shadow over Birmingham and it wasn't going to move. That hurt me too. That was about the hardest thing I ever heard of in my life. And, then, 00:39:00to know these people who were involved and that was their child.

HUNTLEY: Did you know the children?

JERNIGAN: I didn't know them, per se, close, close. But you probably had seen them or talked to them, but not close. But, I new dad and Chris McNair was kind of close there. Because he was always doing photography. And what got me about that, like I told you once before, when they brought those children to the hospital for identification, they went up there and they got momma immediately and said, "Your nigger husband is downstairs, and you ain't going down there." And this is like, how did they know who she was?

That's why I try to tell people, you got to read between the lines. Never think you can get by with anything, these folks know sometime when you went to the bathroom, so don't play with it. I tell people that now when they say, "I got it 00:40:00made, I got it made." When they want you off that job that you think you got, they will get you. They are already writing everything down. I mean, I learned that from that. Because they didn't know exactly, I thought who momma was, but she said they immediately came up there and told her, "Don't you go down there. Your nigger husband." And this is on a professional job. This is the University of Alabama.

HUNTLEY: What is your most memorable remembrance of the Movement?

JERNIGAN: What just sticks in my head?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

JERNIGAN: Both times, when my daddy got beat, slammed up against the car, When he got beat up and had to come home.

HUNTLEY: Wait a minute, "slammed up against the car?"

JERNIGAN: You know when I told you they came to the house?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

JERNIGAN: And being at that motel and sitting there and getting out of the car and being told not to get out of the car. It was like in jail. It was a horrible feeling.

HUNTLEY: Sitting in the car, waiting for your dad who was inside trying to prepare for the Movement?

JERNIGAN: Right.

HUNTLEY: And he is trying to liberate Black people, but by the same token it appeared from your perspective that you were imprisoned?

JERNIGAN: Right. And I was told even then, "You're in charge." That meant, if anything went wrong I would get fussed at. The most memorable time comes when I was 13. I used to like to see the Freedom Riders come in because these were college students and we were 13, 14 and 10 years old and we're looking out there at the people passing by and they would come over to the car and talk to us. Bring us something from out of the kitchen or whatever. And there were a lot of racists then. And, then, the most memorable time is knowing that this was so 00:42:00important is meeting all those ministers. They had reached their plateau and made a contribution back. Men such as Martin Luther King. Rev. Shuttlesworth, Rev. Smith.

HUNTLEY: N. H. Smith?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I saw them as young men, and I have had a chance to see them get old. And, for some reason when I look at them, they kind of still look like that person. They still look like those people that we had to mind. I got a chance to see that strong Black man from looking at that. I mean, I saw them up and down. I saw them plan out something and really work it because I could see him working it and they would go out the next day and they would really do it. And it is kind of comical now, but one of the funniest things was when me and my cousin decided to fight outside of the car. We didn't want to sit in the car that long. 00:43:00And so we decided to come on the outer side of the car and she shook the car. We had a Ford then. And she shook the car and first, who we called Pot bellied, he came down first and he said, "Aren't you all Billups children? Aren't you supposed to be in that car?" We said, "No, we ain't getting in this car. Not tonight. It's too hot, we tired." He said, "Okay. I guess I have to go get him." And after that Rev. Smith comes down and he tries to stop us. And, then, here comes Martin Luther King.

And if that floor of that ground could have broken up. Because he was a soft speaker but yet a stirring person. "What's wrong with you young ladies, how are you all doing tonight?" And we were trying to figure out what to do next because we were so embarrassed. He said, "I think I'm going to go up there and get Billups and tell him he needs to come down and attend to you all. You all are kind of tired." So he had them to go in and get us some ice cream and after that 00:44:00it was a good break. And he sat there and he talked to us. And, this wasn't one night, this was every night almost. And, I'm sitting there and I see the people when they were really excited and I then I would go to schools and one little girl said, "Let me touch your hand, the hand that touched Martin Luther King." And I told them they were just ordinary men. They didn't want no praise. All they were about was for getting something done for their people.

And that's pretty much what they told us. But that experience really sticks with me and I get tickled how we just got embarrassed by this man. He didn't embarrass us, he thought it was kind of funny. And, in return, I liked those times, which I missed, because you understood that world and I liked to hear what was going on and I liked to keep up. And, when daddy got killed and 00:45:00everything, in Chicago, like that. Daddy exposed us to a lot. We got a chance to meet people, eat with them. Go to their homes and see people in different places. I've seen people where they started out with nothing who were in the Movement and they are doing well now.

HUNTLEY: Let me just ask you -- you were never arrested. But when the buses finally desegregated, you did ride the buses. Can you tell me anything about that?

JERNIGAN: Now, that's when I did my thing, on the bus. While the buses were being boycotted they would make you pay, in front and walk around to the side. So me and --

HUNTLEY: They would make you pay in the front and walk to the side to get on the bus?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I used to get bus tokens and bus cards. So this particular day we get on where Sloss Furnace is now. We are fighting on the bus because we didn't 00:46:00want to get around to the back because when we got back there, I was bold then and go up and hit folks and come on back, because they didn't know. These silly White people would be sitting up in the front standing squashed, trying to keep from sitting down with people and didn't want you up there. We used to do some silly stuff. We even moved the signs around a couple of times. But, at the same time we'd hit and fight. And, then, there would be people on the bus, Black people would say, "I'm going to tell your daddy on you."

HUNTLEY: Who would you hit and fight?

JERNIGAN: White people, the White kids. Because they were on there getting ready to go home too. Sometimes they had to catch that bus.

JERNIGAN: So one day, this was we were going because I told you we used to have to stay with my grandmother sometimes when it was just necessary, unless we could not go with daddy. So we got on what you call 17 Irondale. And you know, then they had the bus, what's that little thing, when you are changing from one side of town to the other?

HUNTLEY: Transfer.

JERNIGAN: Transfer. Me and my cousin, which was a guy and the young lady cousin we had got on. We told them we weren't going to pay our money and go around to the back. So we got in the front. So I was good and strong then. I bumped and I pushed and I knocked folks down. I even tied a White girl's hair up on the thing you hold on. I tied her hair on to the thing and dared her to move. And I tied it tight and I said, "Don't you say not one word." I said, "I'm going to kick you." I mean I was just that -- I said, "This is the time to take out my anger."

HUNTLEY: And this is Rev. Billups daughter?

JERNIGAN: Yes. So we get on the bus and the bus man just fussing at us so one day he decided to get us. "Where is your transfer and I want your bus card. I 00:48:00want your D-A-M-N bus card." Me and my cousin tore up the bus card and we ate it and swallowed it. Right between where they called like the gap between Gate City and going into Irondale. I know you all have seen it. It's where the train track is. You know Lawson Field is over from there now. Well, right there is the change over from Birmingham and we had to "Well, that's all right. I'll never let you off the bus." So this man decides to ride us all over by Eastwood Mall and back again. When we got back around to Irondale again, I said, "Man, I fixing to mow your head right here in this thing for holding me." "I'm going to call the police." I said, "You might as well call him, what more can you do to me?" So my cousin preceded to kind of take his head and stick it out of the window.

HUNTLEY: The bus driver's head or his head?

JERNIGAN: And we left him there.

HUNTLEY: Or his head, because he was embarrassed?

JERNIGAN: No. No. We put it there. My cousin put it there.

HUNTLEY: Oh, you put the bus driver's head through the window?

JERNIGAN: Yes. And he left it there. Then when they integrated the buses they 00:49:00decided they were going to get on the bus and we could get on the normal way, but they didn't want to sit by you. So the White kids, especially from Woodlawn, they decided that since Woodlawn was all white, then they put their books down in the seat and I just shoved them off to the floor. "You can't sit here the book can't sit here." I would take my leg and put it up on the thing and I said, "You know you better not put it on my leg. No way." And, then, even then I started hollering, singing Dr. Watts. Because I always liked to sing anyway. Another young lady I had to do her the same way. She decided, she called me a bitch and, "you all don't need no rights no way." And she was coming from--but she was coming from there. Her parents on the same level as everybody else. "You all don't need anything. You all don't even take baths or nothing like that." I said, "Well, I tell you what, sister, we don't take baths -- I'm going to show you how you supposed to take a bath in a shower." And I tied her hair up. I loved to fool with that long hair. I tied her hair up on the things you hold on 00:50:00to. I tied her hair up on there. And, some years back when you used to have the football games and the TB games?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

JERNIGAN: Now, that was a sad experience for me. I was a little girl then. I think I was about 8 or 9.

HUNTLEY: At Rickwood Field?

JERNIGAN: Yes. And there was no where to sit on the bus. I was so tired. And I fell getting on the bus and daddy sat me down. He moved the sign and a man came back there and slapped him.

HUNTLEY: What was his response?

JERNIGAN: He slapped him back and he said, "My child is sitting here and she is going to sit down." He said, "She's hurt herself and she is going to sit down. So you might as well go on and beat me right here. Oh boy, that really got me.

HUNTLEY: So what you were doing then, when you got in high school, you were remembering those kinds of experiences?

JERNIGAN: A lot of us. A lot of the stuff that I would see them do, like going to those places outside around Birmingham going to get lunches and stuff like 00:51:00that, and I remember that. I mean just seeing my daddy go talk about. You know, he would try to get -- you know how you would go into regular business and stuff and they knew them. And they would call them all sorts of names. And it's like, I don't know. I hate to say when I got in the military a little bit and got a chance to really learn how to shoot and I said, "Lord, please forgive me." But you know what I used to learn. I shot those 425 meter targets thinking about the 60s and my drill sergeant said, "How did you do that?" And all I could think about was when they was beating up people. But I learned, I still, out of all of that I still learned how to love. I learned how to balance out my anger.

HUNTLEY: Now, your family moved from Birmingham to Chicago during the time that Dr. King was marching. Can you tell me just a bit about that?

JERNIGAN: Yes. When daddy, they went out to Cicero, they hurt them up real bad.

HUNTLEY: Now, he had moved to Chicago?

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: Had he moved to Chicago specifically to get involved and sort of lay the ground work for Dr. King?

JERNIGAN: Right. He and others were the first ones to move there.

HUNTLEY: Then eventually Dr. King would come and they would have the march through Cicero and the Chicago movement would take place, Operation Bread Basket?

JERNIGAN: Yes.

HUNTLEY: But he had been one that laid foundation for it?

JERNIGAN: He and others.

HUNTLEY: Yes. Jesse Jackson I remember.

HUNTLEY: Right. And that's when I remember -- I met him one time I think in Birmingham, but that was when I really got to meet him was when I got into Chicago and I realized then he was just 27 years old. And that really gets me too. That's when I got a chance to meet another set of people and these people were a little bit younger than them and they were dogmatic too. So daddy was up 00:53:00here. And what I did -- I was told that we needed a rest, so I didn't move completely to Chicago with the family. I lived in Cleveland for a little while and went to school and then I later on joined them. And I got involved with Fellowship Baptist Church and everything with Rev. Evans and everybody. It was just like being here at home at New Pilgrim. So that became another big home setting for us. And movement going on again. It's just that I'm a little older and can see things a little bit clearer. But we attended then Operation Breadbasket every Saturday morning. But then it was because we kind of wanted to. That was a good history information when we realized what was going on. So that was a like a joy to go there even though it was still dangerous.

HUNTLEY: Were you in Chicago during the Cicero march?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I was there. I was there. I always commuted back and forth. Sometimes I was there and daddy came home all swollen up and everything and that's when Martin Luther King got hurt, too. As a matter of fact they did them 00:54:00real bad. And what hurt me about that. This was supposed to be in Chicago and I was able to come back to Birmingham and telling them "They had been worse than we are." I said, "They're are not even allowed in certain parts of the town." And then I realized people were right in Chicago that had never even been to the beach. They were living right there in that ghetto. So that was a down break for me. They hadn't even attended some of the best schools. They were in the ghetto and you talking about welfare and hunger, it was horrible, than it was here in Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: So your father was very active in Chicago as well?

JERNIGAN: Yes. He was very active. And I got a chance to see the Black Panther movement, the Disciples. All those kids. They are talking about gangs now, we saw them then.

HUNTLEY: But your father though was killed.

JERNIGAN: In Chicago. Yes.

HUNTLEY: Can you tell me anything about that?

JERNIGAN: All we know, they found him and as far as I know it was on the southside in Hyde Park. We do not know what happened. But I do know when the 00:55:00Movement started quieting down and people started reaching out, he got a job with National Tea Company. And remember now, daddy only had a degree from Booker T, but he was always doing something and he wound up with one of the top jobs. And even then, he first started off in personnel and he started going around in these ghettos and stuff and hired people, you know, teaching them how to take the test and everything. And, then, after that he moved on up. But there were a couple of people there that told him, "You moving too fast." Even this is in Chicago now, and "You still a nigger." And they were saying we don't know how you are getting this far and you got a bull shit degree. Just talking and we even got a chance to see that. But anyway they found him dead and they worked with it for awhile and, then, they didn't work with it anymore.

HUNTLEY: You never found out what happened?

JERNIGAN: No.

HUNTLEY: How would you evaluate the Movement? What benefits do you think were 00:56:00realized by you, your family and the community as a result of the efforts that your father was making?

JERNIGAN: You mean, what do I feel now? Was it worth it?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

JERNIGAN: Did it accomplish anything? Yes. Definitely. I look at things -- the work was done, the foundation was laid, it was worked for. It's almost like when somebody gives you the book. They wrote it for you. They put it there in front of you, but you got to open it. Okay. So it's like, here it is. We were just like little slaves then. They went through their part. Somebody else went through their part and these people went through their part, now you take the book and open it. But I look at it as even some of the people, not mainstream in the Movement. Some of the people, not in the Movement, but kind of when they saw 00:57:00the things was all right, just went on and sat down. They figured out that "We ain't got to go no further." So that made people kind of scatter themselves and started doing things like I've got it made and not keep working with the program and looking for somebody to work with it and it's already been laid. Any young man, any young woman could get up and take over from where it left us. So it did benefit. We are in school. We are studying books. We are taking some people for a different thing.

Because now, those same strong men and strong men who are even stronger now, I feel if they work with it now, can get out of here, they can clean up these neighborhoods. It's not hard to do. You now if you clean some White people up, you can clean these kids up. All they want is you just talk to -- listen to them. And you tell them. People are not telling them. They got their jobs and they didn't tell them how it happen. Because I've talked to children and they don't know nothing about what went on, some of them. I know I have always given my children step by step and if my daughter was here now, she would tell you. 00:58:00And the result of it as far as daddy's thing and his immediate family, my daughter attends the University of Alabama. She has traveled abroad and studied. She writes well and very out there. She is going to try anything. She is dogmatic. She has been in the reserves. She wants to do it. She is headstrong.

My son, he's headstrong. They are both in school. And one of the most important things, my children know how to read and write. And I mean read and write with intelligence. They know how to deal with people. If my son or daughter were here, I'm talking about the benefits from that, they would be able to hold you this same interview and talk to you and I think that is worth more than -- you know, like when daddy said, "How many went through?" But when he sees his own grandchildren made it. He has two more in North Carolina, Kara and Robert. And 00:59:00Robert is a straight A student in North Carolina where we know that's still White folks and he's making it, he's roughing it. My little niece gets in, I mean they try everything. I mean from cello to talking, dancing, studying. They are not afraid to get on a bus or train, airplane by themselves and go.

So in result I see my daddy, his dream really being fulfilled, you know, because they are out there. His four grandchildren, if he was back here and he could see them, I always tell my mom, all four of them, all four of them would always be in trouble because they know how to point their finger and say, "I'm going to do it and I'm going to be in it." So that result makes me feel good. You know, the other result, I'm glad even though I have my illness with Lupus I cannot go and meet every rally meeting or whatever now, I would love to get involved, but what I do is tutor and my tutoring is called motivation. I tell you to bring your 01:00:00child to my house. I cannot go up the steps. I attend Sardis now and where we have tutoring, you have to go up some stairs at the Family Life Center. I cannot make it up those stairs. The children come to the house. I have opened my house up to that. They come there. I teach them little artwork. I make them stand in the mirror and talk to themselves and say I'm somebody and their name. I teach them how to read and I motivate them that "Yes, you are going to get your biology and yes, you are going to get that history. Because, if you don't you are wasting air time."

HUNTLEY: You have obviously experienced an awful lot. There were times when you sat in the car and you were upset with your father. There were times when you were riding with your father and Rev. Smith and others and you saw them ostracized. You saw your father slapped on the bus, you saw your father beaten. 01:01:00If you had the power and you could go back, what would you change?

JERNIGAN: I could not change -- I would not change the way they tried to conquer what they were conquering. I would not tell my daddy, "Don't do it." I would tell him, "Keep on." No way I would say, "I'd rather be at home with my dolls, my favorite dolls and going out with this little guy down the street or having the little parties." No. I am so glad that God let me have that experience. I didn't say man. I said God let me have that experience to see that because I would not be the person that I am today. And no I wouldn't change anything because I got a chance to see life as it is.

HUNTLEY: Well, finally, this has been a great afternoon. I've learned so much. 01:02:00Is there anything else you would like to add that we have not dealt with that was associated with the Movement?

JERNIGAN: Yes. I would like to add that I'm glad I was able to contribute something to the museum and hope even further things. I hope I will be able to be called upon when they have groups there and I can come down and talk to the children. I love talking to children. I hope I can continue to be invited to schools to give one-on-one talks like I've done. I'm doing that now too, with Black and White kids. There was one I did and a little White guy came up to me and he hugged and he said he was not intending to be in the group. I said, "You will not, you will come and be with me." I'm going to have the kings on each side, Black and White." At the end, that poor child wanted to take me to the cafeteria and sit me down, he treated me like I was a queen. He said, "Lady I 01:03:00ain't never seen no lady like you before." Because I was hugging them.

I told them I didn't care if they didn't have on deodorant that day. We were all going to hug and I make them hold hands and clench each other after my presentations and I would like to keep that up. The other thing, people who have the time and the knowledge, I want them to come back out. Now, I didn't tell you to conquer the world, but contribute what you can and make sure it's from your heart. There is still a lot of hurting people out there. There's a lot of things, people do not understand what's happening. And it's not that I feel that we are going to lose it, it's just going to turn into something that we don't understand. And I would always, I don't care what happens to me, I've had two children, and I've been married. I had one and I wasn't married, but that did not make me sit down and say, "I can't stand that Black man." No. And that Black woman == I've written a poem and I'm getting ready to try to get a copy of it, 01:04:00called "Black Men Strapped to Your Back." And what I'm saying in there, he's the king, he can do some stuff, he gets bitter, he acts a fool, he might even be abusive.

This can be your brother, this can be your son, your father or your uncle, but he's strapped to your back. The Black woman's back. Because when a Black woman can look in a Black man's eyes and I've learned how to do that. He can be an executive, street cleaner or whatever and you can look at his eyes and you can tell way back that way he's still kind of hurting. And you don't even have to say nothing, you have eye contact with him and he might come and lay his head in your lap and everything. You don't have to say nothing. Because you are going to work as much as you can. This is what I saw the Black women doing during the Movement -- you are going to work as much as you can to still get him up that morning. That's how my daddy made it and others and put that suit back on and that blue jean suit back on and say, "I'm out there again, because I can come back to who?"

You know -- the Black woman. So I made up a poem called "The Black Man Strapped to My Back." Not saying he's weak, I'm talking about carrying him in this love and understanding way. Until the day I die, I will never put down a Black man. Never, ever. No matter if he's in that prison over there, over here doing this, because all of us are doing things we got no business and it hurts when they are doing it. But I will never and I hope I never have to live that down because that was something I learned even when I paint or whatever -- I still draw groupings of men. I mean Black men making it. He can do some stuff and I wish somebody could really point out that to him. I feel like a Black man could go out there, if he needed a house, if he could go to the woods and chop down some trees, he'll build his family somewhere to live, because I saw them make something out of nothing.

And I saw that and I'm glad I had that experience and I hope that I can always 01:06:00push that on with my son, anybody. Even when the garbage man comes by, I ask him, "Do you want some ice water?" And then I see somebody working for the telephone company. "Hi, how are you doing?" The same thing. And I thank God for that personality and the personality that he put me in and regular teach me how to be like that. Even though I'm crippled -- I am in constant pain every day -- I was not this size. I was a small person but I'm still learning how to love.

HUNTLEY: You are obviously a treasure. The institute is serving as a repository for any items that you may have. For instance, your father may have papers that he left or anything like that. If you have things of that nature, we would very much appreciate you getting in touch with us.

JERNIGAN: Well, I've already donated some pictures and a couple of pictures with them in groups and also some pictures of him when they were doing some marches 01:07:00right here in Birmingham and other places. We had a bad fire before the Institute opened and we had a lot of memorabilia. So it's like what we are getting now is what we had to scrape up. And how I got some of those articles, my aunt in Cleveland, Ohio kept a lot of articles and she sent them to us. Now at home, I'm trying to write up but some time, right now it's painful when you write these things out. You got to stop and start. I hope one day to come out with a book. I hope one day for one of my paintings or several of my paintings to be hung there in the Institute telling of my story. I'm doing one now with the blue jean suits on some canvas. And it's real blue jean material. And I hope one day, those can be, which I know it's going to be appreciated because these children will get a chance to see what really happened.

HUNTLEY: Well, Mrs. Charlotte Billups Jernigan, thank you very much.

JERNIGAN: I really appreciated this and I praise God for this opportunity.