Herman Dozier

MYLES: This is an interview with Mr. Herman Dozier for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project. I am Binnie Myles. We are at Miles College and today is April 16, 1996 at 2:00 p.m.

Mr. Dozier, did you grow up in Birmingham?

DOZIER: Yes, I did.

MYLES: Where were you born in Alabama?

DOZIER: I was born in Pratt City at the hospital there on the Southside.

MYLES: How long did you live in the Pratt City area?

DOZIER: From the time I was born until, I think I was the age of five.

MYLES: And then you moved?

DOZIER: I moved with my mother to the Smithfield area.

MYLES: Where did you go to school as a youngster? Do you remember any of your situations during school time?

DOZIER: Yes, I went to South Pratt. When we moved to Smithfield I started going to Lincoln Elementary under Professor R. C. Johnson. I remember Lincoln very well because he used to have us bring bricks to school.

MYLES: Bricks?

DOZIER: Yes, the students had to help build the walkway. The kids would bring a brick to school every day. And, I would also at Carrie Tuggles up under Professor Winston.

MYLES: When you brought the bricks to school at Lincoln, did the older men put the walkway in or were the children allowed to assist?

DOZIER: No. The adults built it. But it was a project that Professor Johnson wanted the kids to do to say "I helped. I did this." I noticed, I've been back to visit and the sidewalks are still there.

MYLES: Is your brick still there?

DOZIER: I hope so.

MYLES: You are a part of history then. Then you went to Tuggle?

DOZIER: Yes.

MYLES: How was Tuggle for you?

DOZIER: It was okay in a way. But, like now, you can't whip the kids in school. Wimp, we called him Wimp. He had a way of whipping us when we do wrong.

MYLES: Was that the principal or the teacher?

DOZIER: Yes the principal.

MYLES: What was his name?

DOZIER: Professor Winston. He would line you up and he would go down the line with a little strap and I used to hate that. So, I didn't care too much for Tuggle.

MYLES: So, does that mean you were a very active little boy?

DOZIER: Yes, as all kids are, but I think I was a little more than some of them.

MYLES: And, then you left Tuggle, where did you go then?

DOZIER: When I left Tuggle, I went to Parker High. Well, from Parker Annex and, then from the Annex to the main building.

MYLES: Do you have any recollections of things that happened while you were at Parker? Of course, that was during segregation.

DOZIER: Oh, yes. I guess I was more active in the athletic field. I was a track runner and also a football player for Parker.

MYLES: What about when you would play ball and football and, I guess the games were at Legion Field?

DOZIER: Yes.

MYLES: What about segregation then? Did you notice anything any different -- a lot of things that were different as it relates to playing ball and the crowds and traveling back and forth?

DOZIER: Well, for one thing I noticed we could only go to Legion Field at certain times. When the Whites are using the field, Blacks could go, but they 00:04:00would have to sit way up top. You couldn't sit down at the bottom where you could really see anything. They would let you come in and you would have to stay there until you were ready to leave. The Whites would go out one way and you would go out the other.

MYLES: Why do you think they did it that way?

DOZIER: You know, I used to wonder about that and I asked my parents about it. My grandmother, whom I love very dearly, she told me this is something that the White man feels that he is inferior.

MYLES: That the Black male was inferior?

DOZIER: That the Black man was inferior compared to him, yet and still Blacks had to go into the Whites home and work for little or nothing. I couldn't understand all this until I grew up. I grew up into this system where you could lay down at night and wake up and hear a bomb go off. Someone's home is blown 00:05:00up. Some Black person's home. I never had the opportunity to see the Klan's in their sheets until I was older.

MYLES: Let's go back to -- we were talking about parents working for the White man or White families. You were telling me that your mother worked in downtown Birmingham.

DOZIER: Right.

MYLES: What did she do?

DOZIER: She was an elevator operator at the Brown-Marx Building.

MYLES: Did she ever tell you any of the stories or situations that would happen or conversations that people would have when they would get on the elevator? Because, of course, her being an elevator operator, they probably thought that she didn't count because she was a Black woman.

DOZIER: I don't know. My mother was a very strong Black woman and she never tried to discuss anything to me unless someone would ask. Other than that she very seldom would discuss it. But, she always told me whatever I do, to hold my 00:06:00head up. That I am somebody. I loved her for that. No matter what I did, she still loved me. She worked hard, I'll grant you that. She worked very hard in order to put me in school and take care of me because my father and my mother wasn't together, so I was reared by my mother for a while. And, then I went to stay with my father later on in years.

MYLES: So, did you ever overhear any conversations when you used to go to the Brown-Marx Building if you went to the work with your mom or went to visit her down there -- conversations that some of the White passengers on the elevator would have.

DOZIER: I can recall one year my mother came home and she was very upset. I asked her about it. She was saying about how Whites were calling the other Blacks "Niggers" and this kind of upset her very much. I was wondering why. She 00:07:00said, "Don't worry. Just remember they will call you these names. That don't mean you have to be what they call you." I said, "What is the word 'Nigger'", because I wanted to know.

MYLES: What age were you then?

DOZIER: I think I was around 8 or 9.

MYLES: And you didn't know what that word meant?

DOZIER: I knew what they would call me, but I didn't know what it really meant and why. She explained it to me.

MYLES: What did she say?

DOZIER: That when they first brought us from Africa as slaves that had found the Blacks. There is a river that runs through Africa, called the Nile. And, at that time the White man couldn't say 'Nigger' he said, 'the Niger'. And, it went from 'Niger' to 'Nigger'. And, these things she taught me and as I grew up, then I started reading books, because my aunt, who was a school teacher used to bring 00:08:00me books and she would explain different things about it.

And, this is why, as I grew up, then I knew who I was, even until today.

MYLES: What about the community where you lived, where you lived in Smithfield -- do you recall anything about the Movement or things that happened in the neighborhood, the NAACP or SCLC or church gatherings or hearing adults talk about anything?

DOZIER: In coming up at that time, the SCLC was not in the focus at all. In the neighborhood that I grew up in, the Whites would say a second-class neighborhood, but it was a lot of doctors and teachers, principals all in that area.

MYLES: But for the African-American community that would have been a very affluent community?

DOZIER: Oh, yes. I recall Dr. Plump, Dr. Belgium, Professor Johnson who lived 00:09:00directly across in front of us. A lot of schoolteachers. My aunt, who taught school and her husband was a principal. So, I grew up in a pretty tight family.

MYLES: Do you recall any meetings or NAACP gatherings in the community where those people in the Movement?

DOZIER: Well, if they had it, I didn't know anything about it at that time.

MYLES: When you grew up and as you finished high school, did you continue on and go to college or the military? Did you go to work then?

DOZIER: When I come out of high school, I was already involved in the Civil Rights Movement at the time because I had taken a trip to Chicago with my cousin. And, on my way back, instead of coming back to Birmingham, I was going to meet a friend of mine in North Carolina, which was Greensboro. That's where 00:10:00they had the sit-in at the lunch counter and I happen to be there in the restaurant on that particular day. I was sitting there also, when they arrested everybody that was sitting there. They had asked everybody to move and the young college kids didn't move, so I didn't move either.

MYLES: So you were sitting at the counter also?

DOZIER: I was sitting at the counter, so when I went to jail with them just as well. When I got out, I left and went back to Birmingham. I was telling my mom what had happened.

MYLES: How was that day for you, sitting at that counter? Were you afraid when they took you to jail? Share with us what that was like.

DOZIER: It was sort of a frightening thing because I had never been involved in anything like this. The first thing they came and told us was "Nigger, didn't the White woman tell you to get up?" Well, I didn't say anything, but the young man who spoke said, "Well, I paid my money and I think if I pay my money, I'm 00:11:00able to sit anywhere that I pay my money. She took my money." He said, "Yeah, she may have taken your money, but that didn't mean for you to sit here." And, he asked us to leave so no one moved, so they snatched us off the seat and instead of walking us, they drug us out the door. What we called going limp and, they carried us to the jail house there in Greensboro, North Carolina until one of the NAACP lawyers got us out.

MYLES: So was it overnight or several hours?

DOZIER: No. I think I stayed in there 1 or 2 nights, if I can recall.

MYLES: Were you frightened while you were in there?

DOZIER: Oh, yes.

MYLES: What kind of treatment did you get?

DOZIER: I knew what the White man was doing to the Blacks at that time. I had heard so much about Blacks, in North Carolina and what had happened. Sure, I was afraid. I would be a fool if I said I wasn't.

MYLES: So, when you got out, what happened then?

DOZIER: Well, when I got out, I returned to Birmingham. But, when I returned to 00:12:00Birmingham, Birmingham was heated up. When I said 'heated up' with Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. He was trying to integrate Phillips High School with his kids. So, I joined in with Fred and we walked to Phillips High School, although we had rocks thrown at us and Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth was beaten, I saw him beaten merciful with chains, kicked and drug. But, that didn't stop him because, I have to give him credit, the man had guts. He was determined to not let them turn him around. He continued to go until they accepted his kids into the school.

MYLES: What age were you about that time?

DOZIER: I think I was about 17.

MYLES: So, is that how you initially got started with the Movement, you were in Carolina and just happened to be sitting at the counter?

DOZIER: That, and when I came back to Birmingham Fred had his thing going. Well, I have a cousin that lives in Montgomery. Montgomery had the bus boycott going on. I, and some more friends of mine went to Montgomery to lend a hand any way we could. That's when we started doing the pooling, hauling people from one place to another because that's when I first heard Dr. King speak. I didn't know who Dr. King was and that's when I first heard him speak. I said to myself that this man here is a great man. Now, I don't know why I said it, but I did. And, I listened very carefully to what he was saying when he was telling the people not 00:14:00to ride the buses. If you have to work, walk or carpool.

Well, at that time the police in Montgomery started stopping every car that had Blacks in it hauling them home, harassing them. And, so, that didn't stop them because they said if we can't ride, we'll walk. But, a lot of the elderly guys there continued to carry people to and from in their cars. So, I left after that and went back to Birmingham and I stayed in Birmingham for a while until the bus boycott was over. Now, once that was over, there was a gentlemen from SCLC, Dr. Randolph Blackwell, he's dead now. He was one of Dr. King's advisors. He and I were talking and he asked me how would I like to join the group. At first, I 00:15:00really didn't think anything about it, in that sense. So, he kept talking to me. And, finally I said okay. And, the first place that he sent me was to Coretta King's home town in Marion. That's where I started on the voter registration drive.

MYLES: You said that you had heard Dr. King speak and you knew then that he was a wonderful person. What was his speech like? What was he talking about?

DOZIER: It was just a speech that I had never heard before. The tone of his speaking sort of goes through you. It's the way that he was speaking. I had listened to a lot of ministers speak, but never like this. I don't know, the man 00:16:00had something that could go through you. Either it would make you move or you would have to leave.

MYLES: So, what did your mom think about all this involvement?

DOZIER: I didn't let my mother know. When my mother found out about that, I had been involved in the Movement for five years.

MYLES: How did she not know? I mean if you were going to meetings, doing different things.

DOZIER: When they sent me to Marion, my mother didn't know I was going. I just told her that I was getting ready to leave town. And, I went to Marion. When she saw me again, I told her because I had on a uniform that one of the guys in the Movement had made for SCLC. A young man by the name of R. B. Cottonreader. He had made a jean outfit with a hand on the pocket, white and black. So, I had the outfit on when I came home. My mother thought I was in the Air Force because it 00:17:00was blue. When I finally explained to her, she said, "Lord, my son has gone crazy." But, I explained to her what was going on and, I think going to Marion really opened my eyes because I saw things in Marion that I had never seen before in my life.

MYLES: Tell us about some of the things that you saw in Marion.

DOZIER: Well, number one, where I was staying. The lady was paying a large sum of money for a little shack that she was staying in. Where you could look through the roof and see the sun or see the moon at night when you were lying down. And, it really hurt my heart to see this. And, as I went through Marion and saw how a lot of Blacks were living, all of them weren't living the same, but yet and still to see those who were really in poverty, that changed my whole life all the way around. And, from then, I gave my life to the Movement.

MYLES: Did it make you feel sad and angry and hurt and helpless and all those emotions?

DOZIER: Yes. That's why I worked as hard as I did to try to get our Blacks registered to vote. We brought in the federal registrars to Marion and we started registering the Blacks by the hundreds.

MYLES: What reason do you think some African-Americans give for either, well, definitely not being a registered voter and, then those that are registered to vote, that don't vote?

DOZIER: Wait a minute. Repeat that again now?

MYLES: What do you think about people that are registered to vote and they don't vote? And, then African-Americans who are not registered to vote. Do you think that's okay or do you think that we all should be registered voters and use the power of vote to make a difference in things getting better?

DOZIER: I wonder about some that is registered and don't vote. And, I worry 00:19:00about the ones who have not registered. And, as far as power is concerned. Yes, the voting rights has a lot of power because I talk with people that haven't registered. I've had people to tell me, "Well, I'm not going to register." And, I said, "Why?" They said, "Because I don't see anything I'm going to get out of it." I said, "That's the problem right there." You see, I look at it this way. If you don't register, then you have no voice. But, if you register, then you have a voice to speak and say who you want to do this and who you don't want. You have that power. That's what it's about. Because we have fought so long for our Blacks to become registered. But yet and still there are some that are too lazy and to trifling to get up and go where it only takes a few minutes. In and 00:20:00out. We go in department stores and stay all day shopping for this White man's good, but yet and still we can't go for two minutes to the polling place. It's something wrong. But, yet and still, those who don't vote, whatever comes along, any of the goodies, they are the first ones that got their hand out.

MYLES: When you were growing up and you look back at the Movement and the way things were. You talked about the Klan just a little bit, but do you look back at some of the things that you went through and say, "Boy, I don't know how I did that." And, share with us the one situation that you mentioned about getting your leg broken.

DOZIER: You know, I look back at that quite a bit. A lot of them say you shouldn't look back.

But, sometime I look back in order for me to realize where I'm going. And, 00:21:00looking back and seeing what the situation is in the 90s, I wonder was it worth what we were doing compared to what's going on now. And, right at this moment, we can't put this on the Klan. We can't put it on nobody but ourselves. You see, when they took religion out of the schools, then they started hurting the Blacks.

MYLES: You think religion kept us together?

DOZIER: Religion kept us together. That kept our families together down through the years. This is what kept us together -- the churches that we have throughout this country where the Black religions did this on their own. They didn't ask the White man for nothing. They did it. Our Black colleges. This is why we were out there struggling in order for the young child to be able to go to school so he can have an education and he can become anybody that he or she wants to be. 00:22:00There's nothing out there that we can't be.

MYLES: What about the Klan and your involvement when you got your leg broken.

DOZIER: Oh, boy. What can you say about the Klan that one doesn't know about. I've had a bad experience with the Klan, that's true. You see my leg was broken by the Klan where they put my leg on a curb and had one of the state troopers jumped upon my leg and crushed it.

MYLES: What age were you when that happened?

DOZIER: I was in my 20s.

MYLES: What reasoning did they give for doing that?

DOZIER: Demonstration. They were saying that we were agitators. We were in Grenada doing voter registration drive in Grenada, Mississippi with Dr. King. In fact, we were marching from Memphis, Tennessee. On the James Meredith. You see James Meredith was shot on Highway 51. SCLC, at that time, was about to fold, 00:23:00but behind the shooting of James Meredith, that brought SCLC back together. And, so, Dr. King sent for the marchers to come from Memphis. Well, I was in a group that we called the "Death Squad." It was 15 of us. We were the first 15 to go in any town before anybody get there.

MYLES: And you just went into kind of just see how things were?

DOZIER: Right. But when we marched down Highway 51, we went through a little town Grenada. Well, in Grenada Dr. King spoke. This is the first time I saw a Black woman, she said that she didn't know how old she was. Dr. King stood on a statute downtown in the park and the lady said, "I been here all my life and I don't know how old I am." She said, "But, they say I'm ??" and she called her 00:24:00number. She said, "But that's the first time I ever seen a Black man touch that statue."

MYLES: Really.

DOZIER: And, Dr. King stood on the statue and preached. Now this was a very scary night for me because we all stood around Dr. King on the statue also. And, the Whites had gathered by the thousands.

MYLES: And you didn't know if something was going to happen?

DOZIER: That's right. And, Dr. King, when we left Grenada, we went to a little place called Greenville, Mississippi. That's where the man that killed Medgar Evers was from, and he was there that night when Stokely Carmichael spoke. He and Stokely had a fight. They locked Stokely up. But, Dr. King said that "I'm going to send some back to Grenada." He said, "I'm going to let Grenada be the home base."

MYLES: What about looking at the Movement then and looking at it now, do you 00:25:00think that are any things that should have been done differently? Or, did everything go fine?

DOZIER: At the time, everything -- the Blacks were showing the power during that time. And, to look at it now, we have forgotten from which we came because so many have the jobs now, sitting behind the desks, in an air-conditioned building, soft cushioned seats. We have forgotten how we got there and what it took to get there.

MYLES: So you don't think people are taking (Inaudible).

DOZIER: They are not taking it (Inaudible). Because right now, there could be someone out there that need help. We are so big now that we ride in our cars and we will pass all by that person who really need help, because we don't want to 00:26:00be seen with that person.

MYLES: What about today with the Movement? Do you think anything should be done different?

DOZIER: Yes, I do.

MYLES: What?

DOZIER: We need a true leader because if we don't our Black sisters and brothers are going further back than they have ever been in history.

MYLES: Do you have any idea of who that person could be, in your own opinion?

DOZIER: No.

MYLES: Is it something that you would like to tackle for yourself?

DOZIER: I am a spokesman for the Movement in my own way. But to tackle what Dr. King did, I don't think that I could fill his shoes. It takes a mighty, mighty 00:27:00strong man to fill his shoes. From what I have seen that man do, although in the Movement we did the same thing in a sense, he just did a little more. As we say, he was another black Moses. They don't come too often. Right now, we have a bickering amongst ourselves.

MYLES: Do you think that's what keeps us...

DOZIER: This is what's keeping us divided right now because nobody knows who they want to look up to because we have gone too many separate ways. Before Dr. King was killed, I was at a meeting once and everybody was saying that they would never be involved in certain things like going to Washington and working. 00:28:00And, who was the first one -- Andy Young. He became one of the ambassadors.

MYLES: But others don't feel that way?

DOZIER: No. And, so Jesse went his way with Operation Bread Basket, which he went from there to PUSH. Hosea Williams going his separate way. Abernathy is gone.

MYLES: So it's just so divisive?

DOZIER: It gets out there.

MYLES: Do you think it will have to be a new person altogether?

DOZIER: It got to be a whole new structure of SCLC in order to bring it back because right now we have organizations all over the United States and nobody is doing nothing.

MYLES: What about memorabilia or anything that you had left from the days of sitting at the counter or coming to Birmingham or in Montgomery, do you have any mementos, any papers or objects that you've kept all these years?

DOZIER: I had, my mother was keeping them for me, but after the home was blown up, a lot of my stuff was misplaced. In fact, I was talking to my mother about it the other night because she was at church when the house blew up and everything was destroyed. So, the only thing I have left now, a friend of mine has a book with a picture of me in it. That's all.

MYLES: But you have the memories?

DOZIER: I have the memories in here.

MYLES: And you shared that with your children?

DOZIER: Yes.

MYLES: Can they believe?

DOZIER: Well, at first a lot of them didn't want to believe that I was working for Dr. King. They were very curious. But, after talking with them, and, then some saw me on TV. They said, "I saw you on TV or I saw you in Dr. King's march." By that, they started drawing closer to me. But, my own kids I have 00:30:00taught them from babies up what was really like for the struggle and what we had to do in order to make it better for them and I like I tell my daughter, because I have all girls. I tell my daughter to stand up, be a woman, have a strong mind and a will because you can do anything that you want to do.

MYLES: And you have the world to do it?

DOZIER: That's right.

MYLES: Is there anything that I didn't ask you that you wanted to share before we close out?

DOZIER: Well, I guess, it's so many things that I could go on and on with the Movement. I realize I lost a lot of my friends that was in the Movement -- they've gone on. I could name them. Leon Hall, Lester Hankerson these people were real close to me. Lester was killed. Leon died. Lester was the young man in 00:31:00Grenada where the state troopers beat Lester unmerciful, broke his arm, cracked his skull and they put us all in jail in Grenada and blood was running out of his body like wild fire. We tried to talk to the sheriff and everything to let us get out. And, I told the sheriff, I said, "If you just let us out, we will leave Mississippi and never come back."

MYLES: But they wouldn't do it?

DOZIER: They wouldn't do it, but that wasn't the point. All we wanted to do was get Lester out of the jail. We knew that we weren't going to leave Mississippi because we were there and we had a job to do. But, they refused to let us out. They carried us all to Parchment Prison. They put each one of us in a car a piece and they took all the kids that were with us and put them on a cattle 00:32:00truck with all the manure and stuff in the truck. They just threw them in there like cattle and they carried them to Parchment. We stayed there until Washington sent orders for them to turn us loose. Now, that was a moment that I never will forget because it was a sad moment, because a lot of people got hurt.

MYLES: What would you say, in closing, to youngsters today about not just voting, but being involved and being involved in a positive way?

DOZIER: What I want to say to a lot of young people, which I try to do everyday is to tell them to stay in school and get an education. Because standing on the corner will not get them but two things: jail or hell. This is why I begged them to stay in school because the opportunity is there. If you don't want the 00:33:00teacher to teach you, then you need to leave the school because this is what they are there for -- to teach you so you can learn. It's up to you, whether you want to learn. There is no excuse. And, I say to all my Black sisters and brothers, please stay off the corners, stay in school, mind your parents and you'll have a better life.

MYLES: Well, we certainly thank you for coming out and sharing with us today, all this great information.

DOZIER: Thank you very much.