Dr. James T. Montgomery

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Dr. James T. Montgomery for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project. I am Dr. Horace Huntley. Today is September 22, 1995.

Thank you Dr. Montgomery for taking time out of your schedule and allowing us to come into your home to talk with you today.

MONTGOMERY: I'm only too happy to see you.

HUNTLEY: Thank you. I just want to start by asking some general kinds of questions on your background. Tell me a bit about your parents. Your mother and father, were they from Birmingham?

MONTGOMERY: My mother, I'm sure was born in Beatrice, Alabama. I think my father was born in Belleville. Someone asked me the other day about this I couldn't think of Belleville. But to the best of my understanding. But they both were native Alabamians.

HUNTLEY: Where is Belleville and Beatrice?

MONTGOMERY: It's somewhere between here, near Greenville, Alabama. It's below Montgomery. And, of course, Atmore is near the coast near Mobile. That's where I 00:01:00was born.

HUNTLEY: You were born in Atmore?

MONTGOMERY: In Atmore, correct.

HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

MONTGOMERY: Well, originally I had three brothers and two sisters.

HUNTLEY: Where were you in that group?

MONTGOMERY: I was number four. I had two brothers and one sister older than I was. And, then, I had one brother and one sister younger.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about your parent's education.

MONTGOMERY: Now, my mother went to the 8th or 9th grade I believe. She really came up to Miles, here in Birmingham where they had a high school program. I guess this must have been in the early teens of the 1900s. And she had taught in elementary schools somewhere near Beatrice and Belleville areas. My father, to 00:02:00the best of my knowledge, finished the 3rd or 4th grade.

HUNTLEY: What kind of work did your father do?

MONTGOMERY: As a youngster my father was a very good farmer. He had farmed down at Atmore, Alabama. I can remember even today the very large watermelons that he used to grow. Of course, I think they were the largest I've ever seen in my life. We lived in Atmore until I was the age of 10. When we came to Birmingham, he went into the grocery store business. He had really been in the grocery store business before then in Brewton and Atmore and other places. But, we came to Birmingham in 1936 and he and one of his brothers had a grocery store in Homewood where they worked and lived and did business until their deaths. One died in 1960 and Uncle Charles, who was very important in my life, died in 1966.

HUNTLEY: So you lived in the Rosedale area?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. I went to Rosedale High School.

HUNTLEY: Tell me what was Rosedale High School like? What do you remember about it?

MONTGOMERY: Oh, that's a very interesting question. Rosedale High School was a very small school. It really went from grade 1 through grade 12, but it was called Rosedale High School. We didn't have over 400 or perhaps 500 students. There were only 38 students in my graduating class, but we all knew each other. There were not that many kids who lived in Rosedale proper, so the kids really came in on the bus from Oxmoor or Mason City. From Overton and they made up over half of the student body. Because that was the only school that the Jefferson County School System at that time had on the southside. They may have had 00:04:00Wenonah at the time. I remember they had Hooper City on the northside. I remember going there for the ball games and that sort of thing. But it was a small school where everybody knew everybody.

HUNTLEY: What about your community? How would you characterize the community of Rosedale?

MONTGOMERY: Well, it was the usual poor, basically Black community where nobody had really spent a lot of time getting much education. Nobody went to school much past high school level. Many did not get that far. I believe by the time my oldest sister finished, I believe in 1936 or '37, her class was about the first that began to go to college out of Rosedale. I was told by one my teachers, and I have no proof of this, that my sister, when she began teaching school in the middle section of Alabama was the first person at Rosedale who had started 00:05:00teaching school.

And she had done that after finishing junior college at Miles College. But, my uncle happened to be principal of Rosedale High School. I don't know when he started but he was their when he retired in 1966. It was a small school. It was intimate, we all knew each other and we knew the teachers very well. I cannot say it was a very good school in terms of what you learned, because when I arrived at Morehouse as a freshman in 1943, I found out that we had not learned very much.

HUNTLEY: What was the transition like from Rosedale to Morehouse?

MONTGOMERY: Very difficult, particularly during the first semester. I remember coming back home at Christmas time and a friend of mine, I went to Sunday School at Bethel AME Church. And a friend of mine asked me how I liked college and I 00:06:00told him I didn't like it very much. The reason was when I arrived at Morehouse we had kids who came from Chicago, came down from Philadelphia and New York. They were so far ahead of us. I was supposed to have been a good student at Rosedale. I had A's that were stretched from Loveman's below downtown all the way back to Rosedale. But I didn't have much knowledge. I can remember not knowing the difference between who and whom. I thought you went by sound. I don't use it correctly all the time even now, but I know the difference. But, I didn't know the difference before going to Morehouse. So it was a big leap. But the big leap probably was the first semester.

HUNTLEY: How did you overcome that?

MONTGOMERY: Working hard. I always knew what I was in college for and that's the thing that as I look at the young generation I worry about. I always knew that if I didn't want to do a good job for myself, I thought I at least owed it to my 00:07:00parents and particularly to my mother who was dead. She was so interested in education she had just almost burst out. She wanted us to learn something. To go to school and to have opportunities. And I thought even for James T, I should have done it for my parents. It made the first semester rather difficult. I went to Morehouse on a scholarship. Now it wasn't a lot of money, but the first semester tuition at Morehouse at that time was $40. That's not your room and board, that's your tuition. And I had a scholarship that covered the first semester. That's the only semester at Morehouse when I did not make a B average. And it wasn't renewed the next semester because of that. Later I got other scholarships at Morehouse, but that's the adjustment I was talking about. It was not easy. It was difficult. But, by the second semester and, then, the second year, what the kids from Chicago, Philadelphia and New York had above where we 00:08:00were, the playing field had begin to level.

HUNTLEY: Were there others from Rosedale that attended Morehouse?

MONTGOMERY: Not at that time. I think I was the first person from Rosedale High School to graduate from Rosedale and went to Morehouse. Subsequently, there was a judge, I think in Selma, James Ferris who was at Rosedale and went to Morehouse after I did. There was a doctor who was the head of cardiovascular or neurosurgery, I'm not quite sure now, at Meharry who unfortunately passed several years ago, named Todd, who also followed me to Morehouse 3-4 years late.

HUNTLEY: At what point did you decide that you were going to medical school?

MONTGOMERY: Well, I don't know whether I decided to go to medical school or circumstances decided for me to go to medical school. I always wanted to study law. As I said to you before we started the interview, I had an uncle who 00:09:00discouraged me from doing that. He felt the future was not very bright for Black lawyers in 1943. What actually happened was, I was deciding between getting drafted into the army or going to school. And I decided to take pre-med and to go to medical school hoping that this would enable me not to have to go into the army. That's exactly what happened and once I got into the area I began to enjoy science. Although, as I said to you before the interview started, in my early life, social studies, politics always interested me more than medicine.

HUNTLEY: So after you finished Morehouse what did you do? Did you go right into medical school?

MONTGOMERY: No, I did not. It takes money to go to medical school, even in 1947. 00:10:00I finished Morehouse after having been the area and I came home. I worked at Parker High School where I taught biology and chemistry from 1947 to 1949. This was one of the most rewarding periods in my life. I learned more from the kids whom I taught than they probably learned from me. It gave me a chance to learn more about people and about their lives. Because although none of us had anything in the old days, my life in some ways had been more blessed than their lives.

HUNTLEY: When you came back after Morehouse did you live in Rosedale?

MONTGOMERY: I lived in Rosedale until I got married in 1950. At that time I began to live with my wife's grandparents and my wife, of course, out in 00:11:00Woodlawn. I lived in Rosedale up until 1950.

HUNTLEY: Now, this is a period, in the 1950s Birmingham was a place that was totally segregated. You had gone off to Morehouse, you had come back, now you were teaching. Now you would decide upon what you would do for the rest of your life. Why medicine?

MONTGOMERY: Well, the decision for medicine was made at Morehouse. I had done pre-med. I had finished with a B.S. degree with a major in biology and I knew I wanted to go to medical school. I had applied to medical school earlier and really got accepted to medical school three times before I went. It was not because I didn't want to go, it was because it took money to go and I didn't have any.

HUNTLEY: Where were you accepted?

MONTGOMERY: Meharry once and Howard twice. I was also not accepted at Meharry 00:12:00one year. I will always remember that. I was a senior at Morehouse and there was a good friend of mine named Beck. And Beck's father had taught pulmonary disease in the Department of Internal Medicine at Meharry for maybe 15-20 years. If I may say, I had done very well at Morehouse as a student. And while we were waiting to hear from medical schools, one morning we received a telegram from Meharry which stated, "Please let us know if your father had finished Meharry." I was just fuming because Beck also got the same telegram and I thought that was very unfair for Beck's father, who taught at Meharry to get a letter saying "Let us know if your father finished." I didn't know what my father going to Meharry had to do with anything. And I cannot type, but I remember sitting down and typing a letter with my pecking two fingers, on somebody's typewriter to 00:13:00Meharry, telling them my daddy didn't know there was a school named Meharry.

HUNTLEY: Was that when you were not accepted?

MONTGOMERY: Right. I was accepted by them the next year. I was accepted by Howard twice during this time I was teaching school at Parker High School.

HUNTLEY: Was Beck accepted?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. Beck was accepted.

HUNTLEY: Did he go?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. He went to Meharry. Now, whether he went that year or the next year, I can't remember. But he was accepted.

HUNTLEY: So you would eventually go to Howard?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. I went to Howard.

HUNTLEY: How would you describe Howard when you had arrived? You had gone to the big city of Atlanta?

MONTGOMERY: Well, Atlanta and Birmingham we thought was almost the same. Not in size but the same level as metropolitan areas go at that time. But, of course, you probably know by now, that Bull Conner and his bunch made a decision that they didn't want Birmingham to grow too much because they didn't want to lose control of this city. There were people in Atlanta, the editor of the Atlanta 00:14:00Constitution, I think his name was Ralph McGill, and the mayor named Hartfield at the time, I think made a decision to make Atlanta a progressive city. I think that's when the idea of Atlanta, the city too busy to hate, during the 1940s was started. They began to work and make Atlanta a much better city and they succeeded, of course.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about Birmingham prior to you going to Howard. You were now here, you had taught for a couple of years and Birmingham was a rather rough place as far as race was concerned.

MONTGOMERY: Everything, as you probably already know, was totally segregated. Now that didn't seem like it was a difficult problem and I'll tell you why. We had never known life any other way. It wasn't that we didn't want it, but we weren't like Ronald Reagan, who said, "Before we knew we had a race problem." We 00:15:00always knew we had a race problem. But Birmingham was totally segregated and it was an accepted thing. We accepted riding in the back of bus. We accepted the fact that you may go downtown to buy clothes and in some stores they didn't want you to try the clothes on. We accepted second class citizenship then because we didn't know what to do about it. We wanted to do something but I don't think anyone knew what to do about it and stay alive.

HUNTLEY: Were there any efforts to organize voter registration or any other efforts that may be worked to change that status quo?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. Voter registration is not a new thing, and I will talk to you about that after I got back home later on. But, it was not a new thing. I can remember my uncle, whose name was B. M. Montgomery, who had worked to get Black people registered to vote in Homewood, as long as I can remember. Even when I 00:16:00was quite young. Now, another fellow who died recently, named Morris Benson, who was also very helpful in trying to get Blacks to register to vote. There weren't many of us. There were so few of us that I can remember when I was teaching school and the candidate who was running for office came up from Rosedale down to Homewood to see me personally and ask me for my vote. There were very few voters in my community at that time.

But, there were efforts on the part of people to get registered to vote. People may think that the whole effort started in 1963 or '59. It did not start then. It started way back there. But there were so many restrictions that it's very difficult to break down the walls that they had put up and people really were afraid to do anything because your life wasn't worth anything and fear had a lot to do with it. But there were efforts made to get people to vote and I can remember Emory Jackson worked on this sort of thing in Birmingham as long as I can remember and other people had worked on voter registration. There was a 00:17:00fellow down at Parker High School named Henry Williams who used to take the teachers down there to register them one at a time and he was surprised to hear of the number of teachers who were not even registered to vote.

At that time we didn't have the trouble they had in Selma where someone bothered you about registering to vote, it was just that apathy. There was that feeling by many people that "They don't count your votes anyway." And people bought that sort of thing. You see, the White man sold us a bag of goods and we bought it lock, stock and barrel, without a doubt.

HUNTLEY: How was your transition then from Birmingham to D.C.?

MONTGOMERY: It was not very difficult. After going to Morehouse I had learned how to study and I had learned how to approach subject matter because Morehouse had done a very good job for me and I'll always be grateful for that. Out of all the institutions I have been, I'm more grateful to Morehouse than the other institutions really because they took me from Rosedale, where I didn't know the 00:18:00difference between "who and whom" and did teach me the difference between the two. But going to medical school was not a difficult thing, not at all. The only thing that happened that was difficult my freshman year was that I got ill and I had an infection in one of my kidneys and I was very ill during that freshman year.

I had to decided between dropping out of medical school or staying in. I did not have anything in mind to go back to, so I had to fight it out. At the end of my freshman year I had a kidney removed. The infected kidney was removed at the end of my first year which was in 1950. Academically it was not a difficult thing. I really was inspired. I remember standing up on the steps at Howard University in 00:19:00September 1949, and I remember there were three or four Jewish boys in the class, very fine fellows. One of them, by the name of Copeland was standing behind me and we were taking the class picture and he said to me, "James, may I call you James?" I said, "Sure." He said, "I want to tell you something." He looked around and saw mostly Black people there, in my mind at least. And he said, "I might not be leading this class when this thing is over, but the person who is leading will know I'm breathing down his neck." I decided that afternoon that the only place he was going to finish was somewhere behind me. And, of course, he finished a long way behind me. But those kind of things inspired me to do the best that I could.

HUNTLEY: That's an interesting comment because you are suggesting that there were Jews in your class at Howard and even today, people are talking about Black institutions being segregated.

MONTGOMERY: They have never been segregated. There were White people, one of the 00:20:00White fellows that came down to Morehouse when I was there, between '43 and '47. And although they were doing studies or there to learn or writing books, they were there and they were enrolled as students at that time. There were always some contact between the kids and Georgia Tech and other White schools in Georgia and Morehouse and Spelman. But the meetings always took place at Morehouse or Spelman, of course. You didn't meet at the White institutions. But there were contacts at that time.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever consider not returning to Birmingham when you finished medical school?

MONTGOMERY: Not really. I had people in Kansas City, Missouri trying to encourage me to come to Kansas City. I had some other people in Gary, Indiana who tried to encourage me to come there by the time I was finished with my residency at Homer G. Phillips in St. Louis. But, I had really always thought of 00:21:00coming back home to be honest with you. It was made much easier for me than for most other fellows who were in training along with me and let me tell you what the reason is for that. I had married a very wonderful young lady, my wife Althea Palmer Montgomery at the end of my freshman year. If I had to tell people away from Birmingham, fellows at least, when they're in profession, what I think about young professionals, particularly fellows, away training, is that they often marry some young lady that wants to live somewhere else. And I suggest to anybody who don't know, you ought to marry, live where your wife want to live.

HUNTLEY: To solidify the relationship?

MONTGOMERY: Well, it just makes for more peace and harmony. Since you asked me that question, I can tell you about an incident which occurred to me while attending the American College of Physician meeting in Boston. one of my former professors, named Dr. Kelly Brown, one of the best diagnosticians I've ever 00:22:00known, saw me in Boston and he said to me, "Montgomery, you getting through with your training now". I was doing some work in cardiology at the Beth Israel Hospital in Boston at that time.

HUNTLEY: What year was this?

MONTGOMERY: This was in 1957. I met him at this meeting and he said, "Montgomery, where are you going to practice?" I said, "I'm going back to Birmingham." He said, "Now, I thought you had some sense." I still remember that. But I always planned to come back home, really.

HUNTLEY: That reminds me. As I was finishing graduate school, people were asking me, "Why Birmingham? Why would you go back to Birmingham?" So I can understand that. You returned to Birmingham in 1957. Alabama had outlawed the NAACP from 00:23:00operating in the state in 1956.

MONTGOMERY: That's correct.

HUNTLEY: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights had been organized to fill that void in 1956. I believe it was in December of '56 that Fred Shuttlesworth's home was bombed and the Alabama Christian Movement was looked upon as rabble rousers at the time.

You are coming back into this atmosphere. There's only one place really that you can actually practice, right?

MONTGOMERY: That's correct. I've always been very grateful for the bridge that helped me across and that's what Holy Family Hospital did. Had there been no Holy Family Hospital, no matter what I wanted to do, I could not have come back to Birmingham. You cannot go off and spend eight years of your life in medical school and residency, go off to Harvard and spend the better part of a year in 00:24:00cardiology and decide I'm going back and now I'm going to practice in a hospital. You have to have a hospital to take care of sick patients. And Community, Holy Family later became Community, but Holy Family gave me that opportunity and I'm very grateful for that.

HUNTLEY: How did you relate to White physicians at the time?

MONTGOMERY: When I came back to Birmingham the only White physician I knew was one who had treated me once or twice, Dr. Essie F. Harris, Sr., had been my family physician, but for some reason this fellow had treated me once or twice and he was the only one I knew, a Dr. Bill Robinson. I did not know any other White physicians at the time. Now, I began to meet them because there were White physicians who practiced at Holy Family Hospital. They all were in general 00:25:00practice and they were admitting patients, mostly miners, UMW patients to the hospital.

HUNTLEY: Were all of these Black patients?

MONTGOMERY: All of them were Black patients. But the White doctors always took care of 90% of the Black patients first. At that time there was no choice, because there were very few Black doctors here.

HUNTLEY: How many Black doctors were here when you returned?

MONTGOMERY: Nine or ten. We stayed at the number for ten years.

HUNTLEY: So if you had a patient with a particular problem, a specialized problem, did you send those patients to other doctors.

MONTGOMERY: As I was saying, you asked me about my relationship with other doctors. There were White doctors who always would come out to Community Hospital in consultation for a neurosurgical problem or not to much for medical problems because, thanks to the Lord I can take care of most of those myself as 00:26:00a certified internist. But there were neurological problems and what I knew of those who came out there, also the radiologist there, were White physician. The neurologist, Dr. A. C. Young, I mention his name because he was one of the people who recommended me. I really needed five people to get into the medical society. And others like Dr. H. Russelcoft who died recently, very fine men.

My contact with a White physician in this direction. There was a Dr. Stanley Kahn who was out there every Wednesday seeing UMW patients as a consultant. And, then I began to learn more and more through their coming out to the hospital to do consultation work in some of the specialty fields.

HUNTLEY: Although Black doctors could not practice at the white hospitals, Black patients were admitted to the white hospitals.

MONTGOMERY: Oh, yes. They always admitted Black patients in the usual segregated, undesirable quarters.

HUNTLEY: Were there efforts on the part of Black doctors to eventually become part of the staffs of other hospitals?

MONTGOMERY: I don't think any effort much was made. In all honestly, Dr. R. C. Stewart had some kind of prejudices to delivering babies at Carraway Methodist Hospital. To the best of my knowledge he was not on the staff as a staff doctor. Dr. Bullware had worked with him over at Sloss field clinic where they delivered a lot of Black doctor's patients. That was long before my time. And he had gotten some right to come in and deliver some of his complicated patients over at Carraway. But nobody, to my knowledge, that tried to become a member of an active staff, or even an associate staff member, prior to 1963. About 1960 or 00:28:00'61 we talked about it a lot in the Black medical society.

HUNTLEY: Was that the Black medical society?

MONTGOMERY: That was the Black medical society. It was affiliated with the national medical association. But the (Inaudible) district had been here for years. Dr. Bryant and that group had started it a long time before I came. I guess when I was a young fellow. Anyway, we talked in the (Inaudible) district about trying to--integration was in the air at the time, it was in the early sixties. And we talked about all of us deciding to go and apply all together to the medical society. And we talked about it at CME for about two years and nothing happened.

HUNTLEY: What do you mean nothing happened?

MONTGOMERY: Nobody really applied.

HUNTLEY: Why did no one applied?

MONTGOMERY: I can't answer that because I don't know. I can only tell you what happened when I applied.

HUNTLEY: Let me just ask you this before you tell me when you applied. When you had the discussions of everyone applying, was there ever a part of the 00:29:00conversation that said we're going to apply on this particular date or was it sort of left in the air for one to decide?

MONTGOMERY: I think it was mostly discussed like a lot of things and nobody really came to any conclusion about what day we were going to do this. I know it was mostly in the discussion phase. Because what actually happened, early or late '61 or '62 there were these White physicians whom I knew, one of them I remember was a specialist in thoracic surgery. I remember him telling me on the elevator at Community Hospital, I think it was still Holy Family at that time, that "We want to get you and Robert Stewart in the medical society, but the time ain't right yet." And I listened to that for about six more months.

HUNTLEY: What did he mean by "the time not being right?"

MONTGOMERY: Well, like everything about integration, the time has never been right until you either force your way in or someone like Rosa Parks sit on the bus and go to jail. It has always been the time is not right, wait a while 00:30:00longer. Go back to church and sing some more, pray some more and wait.

HUNTLEY: What was your reaction when he said the time was not right?

MONTGOMERY: Well, I told you I waited another five or six months. And at that time I decided it was time to apply to the Jefferson County Medical Society and that's what I did.

HUNTLEY: Was it necessary to have sponsors at that time?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. It is my understanding that prior to 1960s, and I cannot prove this, that they used to have to have two people to recommend you for membership. But when I applied, you needed five members to recommend you. Now, when this started I cannot guarantee it one way or the other. I do know I was just told this. You have to have five people who are members of the society to recommend you for membership. And I was very lucky to get four. I must have written 25 letters to people that I had learned, who had came out to Community Hospital to 00:31:00work, who knew of my qualifications and knew whether or not I was a qualified physician or not. And most of the people backed off. They explained to me how they got burned when they spoke out for integration or something in Boston or "Please don't ask me to do this."

Now, I understood what their problem was. I never told them that. I said, "Well, if you can live with yourself, you go ahead." But I knew what the problem was. They had to live in Mountain Brook and I didn't. But luckily, four physicians out that 25 wrote letters almost immediately, within a month or so. But then, I needed the fifth one and nobody came forth. I called them again and they said, "Jim, please don't ask me to do this." And there was a Dr. Casey who was chief pathologist at the Baptist hospital group at the time. Montclair was at Highland at that time and at West End Baptist, which is now Princeton. And he was in Russia on a sabbatical where he was doing some research or working with them in 00:32:00their programs and did not come back to Birmingham for about six months after I applied. My letter was on his desk when he got back and he called me the same day. He said, "I'll write this letter today." And that was the fifth person that I needed. Several months later I was called in by the credential committee for an interview.

HUNTLEY: This then opened up the possibilities of you practicing in other "white" hospitals?

MONTGOMERY: Not really. That's another step. In a way, though, it might have opened it up. I remember I went over to University Hospital to talk to them about coming to the Grand Rounds. The Department of Medicine had Grand Rounds every Thursday morning and I talked to a fellow named, Wally Fromeyer, who later became a very good friend of mine. I asked him, "I want to come to Grand Rounds." And I even agreed to sit in the back, which is something I had never 00:33:00done voluntarily before. And was very nice and courteous, but no. After that time nobody had thought you would get to integrate a white hospital staff.

But, a few years later, I got certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine where people eagerly sent letters. These same people who refused to send letters to the medical society, because these letters were being sent to Philadelphia. And after I had passed the American Board of Internal Medicine, I wanted to become a Fellow in the American College of Physicians. That's the next level of accomplishment in your specialty field. And, as a result of that, before I could call these people for recommendations for the American college of Physicians, they called me. "Jim, could I recommend you for the American College 00:34:00of Physicians".

There were people who were just unable to in their own minds to recommend me for the local medical society one or two years earlier. But, after I had been recommended to the American College of Physicians, I became associate member in 1964. Anyway, I went over and they were going to have a regional meeting of the American College of Physicians in New Orleans, Louisiana. I received a letter concerning this. I called the hotel in New Orleans and informed them I was a Black physician and informed them that I was going to the regional meeting and wanted to know if that was going to be any problem for me? And they told me, "We'll be happy to have you come to the meeting, but we will ask you to take your meals in your room."

So I would never go and take meals in my room, not in 1964, I would have taken a room in '57 if they had asked me. Anyway, I went to talk to Wally Fromeyer, who 00:35:00was chief of medicine at University of Alabama School of Medicine at the time. One Saturday afternoon after I had finished with my patients in the office, while sitting there, I wanted to see what he felt about this. I told him what they asked me to do and I wanted to see exactly where he was coming from. He said to me, "Jim, I don't think I would go under those circumstances. Why don't you wait until next year when they have the meeting in Atlantic City and you won't have that problem there". So, while I was sitting there talking to Wally Fromeyer, I said, "Wally, when am I going to start practicing medicine in this hospital?" And, to my surprise, he said, "Jim, when are you going to apply?" And, from that time, there were no obstacle. I applied and within a month or two when they went through the credential committee, I was admitted to the staff and received an appointment as an Assistant Professor of Medicine.

HUNTLEY: This is in 1964?

MONTGOMERY: In '64.

HUNTLEY: And you're the first Black physician to make application and that 00:36:00application being accepted at that point?

MONTGOMERY: To my knowledge, that is correct. I'm not to sure if anybody applied before. As I said before, we accepted a secondary status. When I went to talk to Wally Fromeyer that afternoon, I wasn't talking about me. My thinking wasn't to the point that they're ready to let me come in here. I was thinking about my sons who wanted to practice medicine, your sons and anybody else's son who might want to come one day and practice medicine at that institution. Somebody had to begin to knock on the door and to my surprise, my knocking opened the door.

HUNTLEY: So how long did it take before you were accepted at other hospitals?

MONTGOMERY: Well, let me tell you about that. University Hospital was the only one I think was really willing to take a Black physician on who they could not find a way to find him not well qualified, by training, by board certifications, or by becoming a Fellow in the American College of Physicians. The other hospitals were standing back and waiting. I know the Baptist group in particular 00:37:00and Baptist West End Hospital at the time is now Princeton, they had said that they would not take any Medicare patients. They were saying "No, we're not going to do that." Because Medicare had said, you had to integrate your staff, your doctor staff, integrate your patients. And first they weren't going to take any money. But they found out that the White patients had the same color Medicare cards as the Black patients. And they always understand the bottom line. They have no problem with that. And, they called and asked me to join their staff.

HUNTLEY: Baptist did?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. Princeton did, which I did. I had patients there for maybe a ten year period. And, after I got on Princeton's Hospital staff, you automatically get an appointment to the courtesy staff at Montclair, the other hospital which opened about that time of the next year.

HUNTLEY: What about your experience at East End?

MONTGOMERY: Well, now the East End thing was very interesting. I never did apply 00:38:00for staff privileges there. But there was a doctor, I think his name was Dr. Trucks. I'm not a hundred percent sure about the name. He called me about '64 or '65 and wanted me to come out and apply for that staff. Now, East End was out on 66th or 67th Street, I believe. It was totally impossible for me to go all the way to Ensley, where most of my patients were, back to University and then all the way out to East End. I would never get to the office. And I told him I couldn't do that. But I did ask him at the time, I said, "Tell me something. What is the situation there? How many Black patients do you all have?" And he said to me, "Jim, we don't have any."

I said, "You don't have any?" I said, "How did that come about?" He said, "Well, we made a gentlemen's agreement, we just wouldn't admit any Black patients." I laughed. I said, "Well, you might have made an agreement, but no gentlemen would make such an agreement." But I did get Dr. Joseph Samuels to go out and apply to the staff, because I thought to get all the many hospital staffs integrated with 00:39:00at least one or more Black doctors was very important. And, to the best of my knowledge, he did go out and was admitted. But Medicare did more, and the federal government about integrating hospitals than any individual. The only hospital that did not wait for Medicare to say that you had to do it, to be honest with you was University.

HUNTLEY: So, University was the ahead of everyone else?

MONTGOMERY: They had very good people at that time, at the top of the University Hospital staff. Dr. Joseph Volker, who was head of University, Wally Fromeyer, who I said later became a very good friend of mine, was chief of medicine, Dick Hill, was the dean at the time, I believe. I can't remember the Administrator at that time, but they were forward looking. They saw the future coming.

HUNTLEY: Was this because most of them were from out town?

MONTGOMERY: That might be part of it. I do know that, I don't know where Fromeyer came here from, but he went to school in Cincinnati, I believe. And, Dr. Volker, of course, had come down here from Boston. I don't know where Hill 00:40:00was from, but Hill had gone to school at Harvard. Now, whether he was a native Alabamian, I really don't know. But that thing works two ways. The person who comes down, either he brings his ideas with him, if he gets to work on them immediately, it helps. Usually, what he does, is get into the confines of their thinking and he is sometimes worse than the people who have been here all the time. That was my experience, at least.

HUNTLEY: That's very interesting. So you are saying that, in many cases, it didn't matter whether you had a Northerner to come in, because the Northerner actually accepted the mores?

MONTGOMERY: He assimilated very well into the conservative culture. I have another word for it. But, the conservative culture, he assimilated into.

HUNTLEY: You wouldn't want to share that other word, would you?

MONTGOMERY: Not really.

HUNTLEY: Tell me, this period, as you said it was a very, very interesting period, and I know that you had some relationship with the other things that are 00:41:00happening in Birmingham with the changing of the guard, for lack of a better term. Can you tell me about your relationship to the Movement itself?

MONTGOMERY: Well, I was not a going to church every Monday night member of the Movement. I supported the Movement financially, I supported the Movement in every other way that I could. Fred Shuttlesworth and I had been at Rosedale High School as students together. He was three or four years ahead of me, of course. But, we had known each other for quite some time. I became Fred Shuttlesworth's physician and his family physician in 1957. I was always interested in things political. I think I told you earlier that as a youngster I was more interested in the social and political structure thing, than I was in medicine or science.

That might have remained all of my life. (Inaudible) now, between a good 00:42:00political discussion or a football game, as much as I like football, I'll probably watch the political discussion, or tape it, one way or the other. But, I got interested because I always thought that things could be better. And, I always thought that I was in a unique position, as a Black physician, who only depended on Black people, to do what I could to help make life better in the community, not just the hospital and the medical schools. Now, in 1964 I believe, I got interested in voter registration and there had been plenty of people working on voter registration for years. But, to the best of my knowledge, only about 9,000 Black people registered to vote at the time. And we started, well, what actually happened is that some money was coming over from Atlanta to help with voter registration in Birmingham. I don't remember the organization name, right now.

HUNTLEY: Voter Education Project?

MONTGOMERY: VEP, correct. They were going to send some money over here, but they did not want to send the money with the present makeup of the organization, to be honest with you. So Arthur Shores and Lucious Pitts, and one or two other people encouraged me to go to the meeting and try to get elected treasurer of the body, which I did. They elected me treasurer of the local project, and I began to raise money locally and we got the money from the Voter Education Project into Birmingham, because they wanted to be sure the money was going to be used for voter registration. Our reputation was fairly decent and they would know that if it was sent for that, I would do my best to see that it was used for that.

We went to work with the help of a lot of other people. And, between 1964 and 1966, I think the number of registered voters in the Black community grew to about 64-66,000. And, that's why I ran for the legislature in 1966. I had no 00:44:00idea I could win. But, I thought that once we got 66,000 people registered to vote, they had to have somebody to vote for. That is why I decided to run. I never knew I was going to Montgomery. Although the sign said, "Send Montgomery to Montgomery." But, I never thought I was going. I still think that people needed a reason to go to the polls, and they did in large numbers, back in 1964.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about the run for Montgomery.

MONTGOMERY: Well, that was an interesting experience, but was it exhausting. You had to go out to every community, to every church meeting and make a speech. And since most of them were raising money to help you run for election, they wanted you to put money into the pot at the time. It was a very interesting experience. I enjoyed it, because I've always enjoyed things political. But, it was 00:45:00difficult to practice medicine and run for office.

What happened, actually, I made the runoff. I had about 43,000 votes, I believe, in the county wide. And the fellow who won the seat, a fellow named Henry Lee in the runoff, he died. After he died, one morning about 5:00 or 5:30, a good friend of mine, named Miss Washington called me and said, "You know Henry Lee died this morning?" So she thought, in 1995 I'm sure I would have been named for that position as I was the next higher runner up. Instead, they had another election (Inaudible) $78,000 to keep from naming me to that number 10 spot I was on of the legislature agenda, and people naming me as the nominee of the democratic party. They spent another $78-80,000 and had an election which I did not run it, because I was about full of that. I had about all that I could 00:46:00handle. I did not run in the election after he died.

HUNTLEY: I want to just mention a few events and a few individuals and if you would just, off the top of your head, give me what comes to mind. Freedom Riders, 1961?

MONTGOMERY: They made a great contribution to this area, and to the whole effort of integration and civil rights without a doubt. They suffered actually, because many of us are Johnny- come-latelys to the civil rights movement. But the Freedom Riders were not Johnny- come-latelys...the benches and Carolina were not Johnny-come-latelys. Really. They were not.

HUNTLEY: Selective Buying Campaign?

MONTGOMERY: It was very helpful in Birmingham. If things were not very helpful, go and interview Richard Pizitz, he will tell you. At least he told me really how they got the message very quickly that if people would not spend money with 00:47:00you, you will stop and look and see what you have been doing. I remember that campaign locally very well, because my wife was deeply involved in it. She had worked with the kids out at Miles College. She and Mrs. Pendleton and Mrs. John Drew and some others. But she had worked with that and I know they would go and haul the kids downtown to carry the signs and to help with that. I remember having to buy my son, who was two years old I believe at the time, my youngest son, a suit to be in Attorney Shores oldest daughter's wedding.

I remember I had to buy it in Chicago when I was up their studying taking post graduate courses. It was very effective. You stop the money. Adam Clayton Powell used to say something that I still remember very well. He says that "We always thought that the White man was at his worst when the White woman was involved." But Adam said that "if he has to decide between his wife, his daughter and his dollar.: He said, "Susie, you know now you grown." And I think there's a lot of 00:48:00truth in that because they never forget the bottom line actually.

HUNTLEY: Demonstrations of '63?

MONTGOMERY: They made all the difference in the world, really. And that was not an easy thing to get going in Birmingham whether you know it or not. There were people who was against this. My good friend, (inaudible) Jackson, was against it. He was talking about the failure that Martin Luther King had made in Georgia. Other powerful people were not pushing it that much although they worked, maybe some of these lawyers to get them out of jail and did their legal thing. But they were not pushing it very much, because they thought they were outsiders.

HUNTLEY: Is that why you think they were not in favor of the demonstrations?

MONTGOMERY: They were not in favor in my mind for two reasons. Number 1, two or three people were the people that the White power structure called all the time. 00:49:00And I think that position they had put them in, that everything that come (inaudible) come through us made them kind of want to push the other people away. And I think that was the reason because the whole thing at that time was these outsiders go home. Martin Luther King go home.

Abernathy go home. Walker go home. And we met one day shortly after they came to Birmingham. My wife and I were invited down to A. G. Gaston building on the second floor and we had a meeting. The room was just full. And there was a big debate about whether or not we would support this movement that Martin Luther King was bringing in here or not.

And there were people saying, "No, we making progress." Preachers and non-preachers and other people. "We don't need them here to do this." And, if you pardon me for saying it, I remember standing up saying, "What the hell y'all talking about?" I didn't believe what I was hearing. I said, "We aren't doing 00:50:00anything. We don't have enough people to vote, every counter downtown is segregated, every hotel is segregated, everything is segregated. What are y'all talking about.

HUNTLEY: Were there others at the meeting that supported your view point?

MONTGOMERY: Yes, there were a few. But more, many more people began to support it as we went along actually, really. Because after we had that meeting I remember it was the next day that I was asked to join the Executive Committee. They didn't call it the Executive Committee, but it was the committee that was making decisions about the demonstrations and that sort of thing, I remember.

HUNTLEY: Was this the Alabama Christian Movement?

MONTGOMERY: No. The Alabama Christian Movement had started the whole movement. It was a combination of SCLC and the Alabama Christian Movement. Now, there would not have been any demonstrations or success in Birmingham without the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Fred Shuttlesworth, in my mind, has done more for civil rights in this town than anybody, any single individual probably has ever done in any town. He put his head on the block. He got 00:51:00stabbed. He got cut. I remember going to see him after he went to Phillips High School to take his kids down there.

He had been to the hospital at University, but he called me and wanted me to come out and check him and his wife, medically, and I did. And I'll never forget this because I checked Fred and Fred's head was as hard as steel. Fred was an amazing man. And let me tell you why I say that. Fred would go out and demonstrate, go down and get beaten and cut and you checked Fred's heart rate, it was 60. His pulse rate was just perfectly normal. And he was just built for this thing. Most other people would have been shaken and their heart rate would have been running away, but not Fred.

HUNTLEY: Is that right?

MONTGOMERY: His wife said something to me very cute that day about when we were integrating the schools, she said, "I'm mad." I said, "What are you mad about Mrs. Shuttlesworth?" She said, "When I go to meeting Monday, I can't show where they stuck me." She got stuck in the buttocks with the knife. But I remember 00:52:00that. But he was really meant for this sort of thing. And, Birmingham, not just Blacks but all people in this area owe Fred Shuttlesworth a great deal, without a doubt.

HUNTLEY: The power structure for a long time wouldn't deal with Fred.

MONTGOMERY: Well, that's why David Vann came into being a very important person in my mind. The power structure didn't want to deal, but the business community again wanted to do something to stop the demonstrations to help Birmingham, because if you help Birmingham, you help their pocket books. That's what it comes down to. Fred Shuttlesworth, Martin King and a group of other people and David Vann, who was the person, the conduit from the White community, were able to really work out a settlement. They got the demonstrations stopped. They got the lunch counter signs down and many other things down actually, the hotels and 00:53:00all. And that's why I give David a lot of credit. I remember seeing David Vann sitting on the floor with tears in his eyes because he really loved Birmingham and he didn't want this city just completely burned or torn up.

This was during the time we had the bombings and the hotel/motel got bombed, A. D. King's home got bombed actually. We got threats and that sort of thing.

HUNTLEY: Can you comment on the use of the children in the march?

MONTGOMERY: Had the children not come into the march, the march would have stopped. The success wouldn't have come because most of all the folks that were willing to go to jail had already gone and when A. D. King came in that meeting that afternoon, in Room 30 at the old A. G. Gaston Motel, he said, "Well, we think the kids at Carver High School want to join." And we had a big discussion about that. But that was the thing that broke the monkey's back.

HUNTLEY: How did that discussion go? Were people in favor?

MONTGOMERY: Most of the people at that level, who were there were in favor I 00:54:00think of what else could be done. The people who wanted to go to jail were in jail and the segregation bars was still up. Bull Conner was still there saying, no, no, never. He was saying never that George Wallace had taught for years. And, I don't have much opposition to that, but that had the greatest possible impact to really break the walls down because they had kids locked up at Fair Park in large numbers. And, I had many patients who told me even twenty years later that "I was at Fair Park." That really broke the monkey's back, without a doubt. And the next thing that helped break the monkey's back was Bull Conner thought the way to resist this thing was to get into his tank and say, "No, never. I won't move an inch." All he had to do was get out of the streets and let them march. But that thing was so built in him that I got the right to 00:55:00control this thing.

HUNTLEY: I was going to ask you to comment on Bull. How would you characterize him?

MONTGOMERY: He was a typical White politician who thought segregation would keep him getting elected. He did not want Birmingham to do much growing because if it got very large he could no longer keep control. He did not want anything progressive to take place and he wasn't by himself, he had a lot of followers. A lot of followers, really.

HUNTLEY: The bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church?

MONTGOMERY: I'll never forget that day. I was out at Holy Family Hospital that Sunday morning. And one young lady in the business office said to me, "They have bombed 16th Street Baptist Church." I was just sick. I was so sick, I bet my family was down at St. John's AME Church at Sunday School probably. And I 00:56:00remember coming home after seeing my patients at the hospital and it was that day that I decided, "Well, it's time for me to get the hell out of here." That was exactly my thinking. And I started talking to a friend of my from Morehouse whose father-in-law had just passed in Toledo, Ohio and thinking about going to Toledo, Ohio to practice medicine, because I thought that was just too much.

But, you get your anger up and then you stop and think about the thing that, if we don't stay, who stays, really. And that begin to dissipate. Not some of the fear and worry about the thing did not go away. But that brought probably more national and international help into Birmingham at that time. There had been a lot of help, of course during the time of the demonstrations to get people out of jail. The UAW had sent a lot of money in and the NAACP had done a lot of work to help get people out of jail. But I think that the death of the kids was the 00:57:00thing that really brought the weight of the whole thing down so Lyndon Johnson and that group of people could do something about what was going on.

HUNTLEY: Were you ever involved in any inter-racial groups that met prior to '63 for the purpose of discussing the issue of race in Birmingham?

MONTGOMERY: I don't know. We discussed it, but I don't remember any organized effort to discuss it. Other than what Fred and the others had done through the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. I told you that we had discussed the problem in the medical society, but I do not remember any big efforts. Although there were groups meeting. The Alabama Christian Movement was meeting and I had been in some other meetings, really, but I don't think we thought we were going very far. I remember when the movement came here, the SCLC and the Alabama Christian Movement started the march.

There was a fellow who spoke to us at some banquet we were having at L. R. Hall Auditorium. He was saying, "We told them just to wait a while, we were going to work this thing out." He came from Mobile, some college down there. I don't remember the college right now. It was a catholic college in Mobile. He came up here saying, "You ought to hold back." It's always this "Wait 'till next year" attitude. There was a lot of that. But there were people working hard, mainly through voter registration and through the courts. You know Arthur Shores and his bunch and Thurgood had gotten rid of Democrats holding Blacks out from voting in the primary. They said that was their private thing. And all those efforts evolved and led to the other things that we were able to do later on.

HUNTLEY: You and your wife were both known to be supportive and to be active. Did you ever receive any threats?

MONTGOMERY: Only one night someone called my home. I lived on Lincoln Street about four or five blocks from here. And they said, "Tell that nigger doctor 00:59:00we're going to bomb him." But that was the only threat we would ever receive. I never told my wife this, but I got notes at the office saying, "Nigger you better go back to practicing medicine (Inaudible). But I don't know, during the 1960s it was an interesting time to be alive and we knew there was danger. It wasn't that we didn't bother about danger, but everybody was in danger if you were Black unless you wanted to take the position that I think these folks are fine and we ought to stop bothering them.

And, that was true of many things. The people who really helped a lot I think were the Baptist ministers. I never thought the ministers in my church, except one or two, I'm A.M.E., really made much of a contribution to this thing. Sam Davis was very active. The late Rev. Sam Davis, actually. And, I remember my uncle by marriage, Rev. Lamar he worked with the Movement. But that was not a whole lot of working on the part of the ministers as far as I knew in the A.M.E. 01:00:00church. The Baptists ministers mostly led this thing.

HUNTLEY: How did your involvement in the Movement impact upon your practice?

MONTGOMERY: I'm not sure it had much effect one way or the other. I never forgot one thing although I was interested in integrating hospitals and integrating medical societies and getting kids into medical schools was one of the things I'm most proud of, that I was lucky enough to help do. But I never thought that, I never forgot that my main responsibility first was to my patients. So, I (Inaudible) help the patient. I think practicing the best medicine you know how takes the patient load for you. Now, I did find myself involved in taking care of members in the Movement. Fred Shuttlesworth and his family were patients of mine. When Martin Luther King was here in jail, they asked me to come to see him and treat him, which I was happy to do because Martin and I had been at 01:01:00Morehouse together. But, I don't think, in the general practice, was impacted by the Civil Rights Movement.

HUNTLEY: Were you personal friends with Martin Luther King?

MONTGOMERY: Oh yes.

HUNTLEY: Were you in the same class?

MONTGOMERY: No. He finished in '48 and I finished in '47. Someone asked me, who came to interview me a few years ago, what I thought about Martin at Morehouse. I never would have thought that Martin would have turned out to be the person he turned out to be. I never would have thought that. There was nothing about Martin that impressed me that here was a man whose life I think would have been touched by the hand of God. I really never thought that. But, I was very happy to be able to go to the jail house, which I went in Bessemer and up here to treat him and support him in every way that I could. But I knew him very well, but you won't see me out waving, "Ask me about Martin Luther King," that's just not my nature, but he was a fine person and did great things that everybody knows.

HUNTLEY: Throughout your career, you've been very active and involved, and, of course, on the threshold of change in the profession, as well as with the Movement. If I would ask you if there may be one or two periods in your life that sort of changed your perspective on life around Birmingham, what would those be?

MONTGOMERY: Well, I think the first (Inaudible). When the bombing occurred with the girls in '63, I remember also talking to a friend of my named Dr. Matori, who is Professor of Surgery at Howard, who encouraged me to come back to Howard to teach internal medicine. And, by this time, I was also applying to integrate the hospitals and that sort of thing and I just thought to myself that it seemed 01:03:00to be much better for me to open some doors here than to go back there, that would have been the easier way it seemed to me. And, I remember sitting down doing some work on that the last time they bombed Arthur Shores home, I believe. I just thought what happened in '62 really had a great impact in my life because I wanted to help make things better, not just in medicine, but in the community if I could.

And, I think that had a great impact on my life. After that time, the activity was just continuous process. We always had trouble between the police and the Black community. I remember in '69, Lucious Pitts called me. He was president of Miles College. He said, "The Sheriff is beating up some woman and her son and something." And we went out to meet and do something about this. And out of these meetings we had, on a Sunday morning I remember, after I had gone to the 01:04:00hospital to make my rounds, led to the formation to the Community Affairs Committee, which I was one of the founding members of. I served as its General Co-chairman to '78 to 1980. But the

work that we did there with police community relations was very important to me. It took me two years eating breakfast every Thursday morning with Mel Bailey and Jimmy Moe to get them to agree that they didn't treat Black and White people the same way. I met and ate those grits down at Britland's every Thursday morning. But they finally admitted that maybe you have a point there.

I think things began to improve somewhat in the police department at that time. Jimmy Moe was old and had been a segregationist all his life. I don't think he could do any better than he was doing. I always thought that Mel Bailey was young enough at that time to have done better, but just didn't want to do any better. But it's been a kind of continuous process. I can't think of any 01:05:00particular point other than that. Because I think that the early 60s when we begin to feel that we can make a change, we can get in these doors, I remember the night I went to be interviewed at the Jefferson County Medical Society about becoming a member. The fellow asked me "Had you planned to sue us if you don't get in." I said, "Sue you, why would I have to do a thing like that?" But I was going to sue them if they had not taken me.

There had been a suit in North Carolina that had not been successful. And, had I not been successful, I was surely going to sue them, because the ball had began to move and you can't stop the ball when it's moving. If you do, you just get run over by it. But Fred Shuttlesworth said something to me back in the early 60s that I never will forget and I mentioned this to my sons perhaps 100s of time. He said, "Doc, everything we're going to get we have to get in the next 15-20 years. Because the way history goes they're going to start turning this thing back." And, he was only off by 10 years.

HUNTLEY: Very prophetic.

MONTGOMERY: Yes. Very prophetic. I'll never forget that. Because you see what's happening in Congress now, they're busy trying to turn everything back and it didn't start, it just reach a point where they got control in '94, but they been working, trying to turn it back every way they can. And what bothers me mostly about that is that we, as a group of people, I'm talking about Black people, now, don't understand enough about this to know that you got to keep pushing that ball. In fact, you know when I first worked to get the kids into medical school, I wrote to Dick Hill who was then dean.

HUNTLEY: This is at UAB?

MONTGOMERY: At UAB. S. Richardson Hill later became president. And I wanted to know, they had increased their class enrollment from 90 to 100. This was in the 60s or 70s, I can't remember the exact date. And I asked him, I said, "Dick, I 01:07:00want to know how many Blacks are going to be in this class?" They only had one Black in the previous class. That was after Sullivan and Dale had already been in school there. But they were then going back. And he said, "Jim," in a very nice letter, "No, we don't have any Blacks in this class." And that's when I asked them, "We need to sit down now and try to find a way to get qualified Blacks in the University of Alabama Medical School." And, we met in Joseph Volker's office.

Joe Volker, Wally Fromeyer, Dick Hill and some other people. Then we formed a committee that would spend all of its time looking for qualified Blacks to enter the medical school here. And they asked me to write out a plan that I thought would work to help this. Now, they were always very helpful, I'm not going to take that credit from them. They were, they were very helpful at UAB. I asked them, I said, "The first thing I want you to do, we have a 100 places, I want you to save 10 slots open for Black people." And to my surprise they said, "We 01:08:00can do that." I was almost shocked at what my experience had been in the past. You know some of the things you don't get because you don't go and ask for them really. And they agreed to hold ten slots and we got to the place where we could get 9-10 people admitted.

During a 3-4 year period I remember interviewing every single Black student who applied for medical school there. I did this all on my on time. Everybody else, of course, was on salary from the University except me. Actually, that's all right, I didn't mind that. But I thought that this gave me a great opportunity to try to open the door and see that the doors would never be closed again at the medical school. And we would get the people admitted, and I must be truthful, 90% of the people I thought ought to be admitted, got admitted. There were many who I did not think was ready to go to medical school. And I didn't go 01:09:00on record of recommending somebody I thought wasn't going to be able to do the work there.

They would tell me, "Doctor, I was working in civil rights." I said, "Well, you can't show me that on this transcript, here." And I think it's a good thing to be in civil rights. But if you are going to school, you've got to get prepared to go to school. If not, you just go there and they get you out before you get there. But we worked this thing for 3 or 4 years and the committee was never dissolved, they just stopped meeting. They had thought they had done enough I think. And that's often the case. They felt they had made these few concessions, now that's enough. That's what they are talking about affirmative action now. All of a sudden, it's enough. Yet, the doors that are still closed. There are glass ceilings which are still there. But, of course, we've done enough.

HUNTLEY: Did you actually practice until 1984?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. The office was open for the next four years, I did some things. 01:10:00But, I was not active on a day-to-day basis after 1984, but I was keeping the office open because I had a son who was coming out of medical school and doing his residency at D. C. General Hospital. And he final came in and took over what was left of the practice.

HUNTLEY: Is he here now?

MONTGOMERY: Yes. He moved from North Birmingham where I had been, where the two of us had been for about 35 years, I guess. He moved out to Princeton Professional Building recently and he's here now, doing very well. He's my youngest son. I have an older son who is an attorney and he's a partner in the law firm, whose main headquarters is in Boston, but he's in the Washington, D.C. branch and they are both doing very well, thanks to the Lord.

We've been blessed. With children, my wife and I have been blessed.

HUNTLEY: This has been a great revelation. You've also been on the threshold of many of this era of change. You've contributed an awful lot. Is there any other 01:11:00thing that we have not touched on that you would like to just mention in this interview?

MONTGOMERY: I think you have mentioned most of the things. The things that I was most happy with was first being able to help open the hospital doors so no Black physician would have to one day be disqualified, he cannot practice here anymore. Opened the medical society, of course, where when you open one door, several doors usually open. I was very happy about the work we were doing at CAC because I think that police brutality is not as bad in Birmingham now as it is in Los Angeles, California and I've been very happy about that.

That was a constant working struggle, really. And several other things. I think that during the time that -- do you remember the Bonita Carter incident? I was one of the people on that panel and I think that the Bonita Carter incident 01:12:00defeated David Vann and helped the mayor get elected really. I was on that panel. I was very proud of getting four Blacks and four Whites to come up with an answer that they had never heard of before. I remember that night when I came back home, they had called me. Dick Arrington called me and said, "How did you get them folks to say that?"

HUNTLEY: What did they say?

MONTGOMERY: Well, that this was unnecessary. That there was no reason at all for him to shoot this girl in the back and there was more to it than that, but I don't have the statement right in front of me. But, to get them to come to that conclusion was a major accomplishment whether you know it or not, here in Birmingham. And, it was a committee equally divided between Blacks and Whites. I walked in the meeting that night and I looked around and saw that "M" was the last letter in the alphabet on the committee and I decided that maybe I'd let all these people give their ideas about what we ought to do first. So that gave me a chance to kind of get a statement that they could accept together in my 01:13:00mind. And, low and behold, again, they accepted it. But these things had helped make some changes in the life whether it was the medical school, opening the doors of the hospital, helping with voter registration or helping the community any way I could. These things have been very important to me in my life.

HUNTLEY: Who were the other people that were on the committee?

MONTGOMERY: I don't remember them all. Rev. Gardner was on there. Rev. Sam Davis was on there. Rabbi Graffner was on the committee. The fellow who was superintendent of schools at the time. He's been down in Louisiana and Maryland as superintendent. I can't think of his name, right now. And there was a fellow from Bromberg, a fellow from UAB was on there, he was teaching history at the University of Alabama. It was a well known in town.

HUNTLEY: But you had four Blacks.

HUNTLEY: Four Blacks and four Whites, yes. We had hearings there for about a week or ten days. I think it helped put the wheels in motion because I think that's when Vann lost his support in the Black community. And I didn't know that all his support was in the Black community until then.

HUNTLEY: Dr. Montgomery, I want to thank you for taking this time. You have been very, very helpful and I'm sure that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is very appreciative.

MONTGOMERY: Well, I'm only to happy to do it and the best of luck to the Institute and to you.

HUNTLEY: Thank you sir.

MONTGOMERY: Thank you.