Margaret Askew Interviewed on December 16, 1994

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mrs. Margaret Askew for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and I'm Dr. Horace Huntley. Thank you, Mrs. Askew, for consenting to sit down with us today to give us information that you have about 00:01:00the development of Birmingham in the Civil Rights Movement. Let me ask you a general question, Mrs. Askew. First, where were you born?

ASKEW: I was born in a little town they called Prospect, Tennessee out from Nashville, Tennessee. I usually tell people Nashville, Tennessee, but originally my birthplace is Prospect, Tennessee.

HUNTLEY: How old were you when you came to Birmingham?

ASKEW: Oh, off and on and when I came to stay in Birmingham, I was about twelve years old, twelve or thirteen. But off and on I stayed in Birmingham and Tennessee.

HUNTLEY: You had relatives here?

ASKEW: My mother was here and most of my relatives was in Tennessee.

HUNTLEY: I see. So you stayed with other relatives in Tennessee and then when you were twelve you came to Birmingham?

ASKEW: Yes, that's right.

HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters did you have?

ASKEW: I have seven, with myself makes eight. My mother had eight children.

HUNTLEY: Where were you in the line of the children? Were you the youngest?

ASKEW: I'm the oldest.

HUNTLEY: You're the oldest! Okay, so then you had a lot to do with the others growing up, I assume.

ASKEW: I hope so.

HUNTLEY: What about the education of your parents?

ASKEW: Well, my father, he could just write. He loved music, but he and my mother divorced when I was a kid, when I was real small.

HUNTLEY: And your father was a bandleader?

ASKEW: Yeah, he played instruments. You can say he could play practically anything.

HUNTLEY: Was he in Tennessee or in Birmingham?

ASKEW: No, in that time-- He was born in Tennessee but during my teenage years 00:03:00he lived in Wheelington, Virginia1 and that's where he organized his band during my teenage years. That's all I knew. He left Tennessee because he said he wasn't gonna' chop no cotton and so that's where he took up, in Virginia.

HUNTLEY: Did he have another job as well, or was he just a Musician?

ASKEW: No, he worked at a cleaner's part-time too.

HUNTLEY: Okay, what kind of work did your mother do?

ASKEW: My mother worked, did housework, here in Birmingham for the whites, Miss Davis-- Catherine Davis.

HUNTLEY: Tell us about your education, your background in terms of education. I know you went to Lane [Elementary School].

ASKEW: I went to Lane Elementary School. I graduated from Lane and then went to 00:04:00Ullman two years and from Ullman to Parker High School.

HUNTLEY: And what kind of work did you do after you finished high school?

ASKEW: Housewife. I was a housewife, mostly, after I finished high school, with eight kids.

HUNTLEY: Oh, with eight children. I see. Your mother had eight children and you had eight as well?

ASKEW: That's right. Un huh.

HUNTLEY: What community did you live in?

ASKEW: Southside.

HUNTLEY: How would you describe the south side of Birmingham as you were growing up? What kind of community was it? What kind of people lived in your community?

ASKEW: Southside was the warmest community you'd want to know about. We loved each other. We all knew each other from 18th Street to the Southside viaduct. We 00:05:00was a loving community.

HUNTLEY: Now the Southside viaduct is where?

ASKEW: It's on Sixth Avenue--that viaduct just before you hit, go into, Titusville. Even though Titusville is on the south side, this is our community of the Southside I'm talking about.

HUNTLEY: The viaduct just below the Jefferson County Board of Education?

ASKEW: Yeah, that's right. You're right. You know about the Southside don't you? Yeah, we were a close knitted community. It wasn't like children didn't have anything to eat, because you could eat at anybody's house, anybody's home. They [neighbors] treated our children just like it was their children, you know. And, 00:06:00the children at that time--they call it harassment now--but, at that time, if they did something out there in the street, they would get a spanking and when they got home they would get another one. But now, they don't do that.

HUNTLEY: What were some of the occupations of people living in your community?

ASKEW: Well, we had schoolteachers. We had plumbers. We had postal workers, an ice cream parlor, grocery stores. That was all in our community. And churches; don't forget the churches.

HUNTLEY: What about schools in the area?

ASKEW: That's right. Lane School was in that area and Cameron School was in that area.

HUNTLEY: What about your community's relationship to the Birmingham Police Department? Was there any relationship at that time? I'm speaking now prior to the Movement.

ASKEW: Oh, well the kids was afraid of the policemen at that time.

HUNTLEY: Why were they afraid of the police?

ASKEW: Oh, they would beat them. They [policemen] would have a, what you call it, a club or strap in their car or something and they was afraid of policemen. Because no matter what the age were, at a time, if a policeman saw one of our children, maybe not in our neighborhood, they would pick them up and give them a good whipping. Policemen would do that.

HUNTLEY: For any particular reason?

ASKEW: No reason at all.

HUNTLEY: Just harassment?

ASKEW: That's right.

HUNTLEY: So then, would you suggest that the police were not in the community to protect and serve?

ASKEW: No, the kids called them the 'Bucket of Blood'. They had red cars and the children called them a 'bucket of blood.' 'Here come the Bucket of Blood'. They had cars that had a cat on it, a black cat. They called him 'Black cat 13' and some of those policemen was nice. I have to give them that credit, because I was at the Bonding Company and I know some was nice, but there were some up there that wasn't too nice, not to blacks.

HUNTLEY: You worked at a bonding company. Can you tell me a little about that?

ASKEW: No more than I had to clean up, do some cleaning up.

HUNTLEY: What bonding company? Who was the individual?

ASKEW: H & M Bonding Company. His name was Wendall Dowdy. I worked at his 00:09:00bonding company and at his home.

HUNTLEY: You were also a member of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights?

ASKEW: That's right.

HUNTLEY: How did you get involved with the group?

ASKEW: My mother-in-law, before she moved to California, she started us going to the Christian Movement with her. I think they moved that church, it's not there now, but it was a church.

HUNTLEY: On the Southside? Sixth Avenue? Was it Sixth Avenue Baptist or Sixth Avenue--?

ASKEW: No, it was north. I think her church was on the north side. I think it was Sixteenth Street. It wasn't the Sixteenth Street [Baptist] that the children got bombed at. It was another, and she started me to going to the meetings, some meetings that they used to have and to that church some Sundays.

HUNTLEY: What did you first remember about the mass meetings of the Alabama 00:10:00Christian Movement? Why did-- When she started you to going, why did you continue to go?

ASKEW: Well, I was interested in elevating our children. My children in that church, they was called Little Sunbeams, Sunbeam Band, and we was at that church at that particular time. They was trying to do something for the black children. They was talking about getting better books for them and other things that the blacks needed that were supposed to be in a school that wasn't there. And that's why I got interested, because I had children too.

HUNTLEY: Well, describe to me what a typical mass meeting would be like.

ASKEW: Well, the mass meetings that I have been able to attend, it's religious, 00:11:00and the biggest part is they tell about the conduct and the mistreatment of the blacks and try to get that straightened out where blacks would be able to do things that needed to be done, not because the whites make them do it. Like if they wanted to be a clerk or a doctor or lawyer, they could be that here in Birmingham. I know some kids that was qualified to do. Even my daughter, when she came from Hawaii, she was qualified to do things that other people, you know-- But that's way up in the line, but that's what I was speaking of. That 00:12:00they be able to walk in places where they can be served and not pushed back in the back room and that could drink out of a fountain that don't say 'white' or 'black' and that they could walk the street without being harassed by a policeman. And there were a lot of things like that the children wanted, too. They wanted to elevate themselves. They want to be considered as another man or woman or human being.

HUNTLEY: Now at the mass meetings, it's also evident that there were policemen--white policemen--that attended the meeting. Why were they there?

ASKEW: They mostly was there to find out our plans, what we was gonna' do, where we was gonna' meet next, and what they should do to us if we step out of line. 00:13:00They was there to find out, they wanted to know where were we...and then Dr. King would tell them where we was gonna' be. Dr. King was the kind of person that would welcome them. He didn't care about them knowing that he was trying to straighten out the system in Birmingham. He would let them come in. We wasn't doing anything wrong and they was there, in other words, to keep the blacks in check.

HUNTLEY: But, did you go to jail?

ASKEW: Five times.

HUNTLEY: Five times. What were the circumstances? Do you remember the first time that you went to jail?

ASKEW: The first time I went to jail, it was uh--I was leading Al Hibbler.2 That was the first time going to jail. I led Al Hibbler up by the Greyhound Bus 00:14:00Company and there was my first time of meeting Mr. Bull Conner up there by the Greyhound Bus Company, and that was my first encounter with him.

HUNTLEY: Did you have the honor of being arrested by Bull Conner himself?

ASKEW: Oh yes, the group of us was arrested and one of the girls, I think her name was Hattie, her foot was closed up in that steel door on the paddy wagon and we was hollering for him to open the door so she could take her foot out of it. And, uh, we went to the City Jail and when they did let us out, ooh her ankles were so large. And that's when Matron Williams had some kind of medicine 00:15:00to give her, which I told her, 'Not me. You might poison her.' They should have carried her to the hospital and that's where she went, to the hospital.

HUNTLEY: You also mentioned that when you went to jail, there were efforts made by the matrons in the jail to give shots to those of you who were arrested. Can you tell me a little about that?

ASKEW: Well, everybody that was arrested-- I guess it was a routine of the jail, because it was very few whites that went to jail. Now I'm sure they weren't given any shots, but uh, they gave everybody [black] that was arrested shots I guess because they thought we was nasty and had diseases. The matron was giving shots with the same needle. She didn't change no needle.

HUNTLEY: Each individual was being injected?

ASKEW: Each individual was given a shot with the same needle--no change, no more 00:16:00than refilling it. And I and uh Marie Pettyway and Louella and Miss Adams, we refused to take the shots because we told them we was under our doctors' orders.

HUNTLEY: Now, was that when they took Mrs. Adams out and interrogated her and she returned? Can you tell me a little about that?

ASKEW: Well, this was another day we was arrested--another week we was arrested--when they came up and got Willa, I think that's her name. I'm hoping I'm not saying the wrong name, but anyway they came and got Miss Adams and they asked her why did she want to be white. And said, 'This nigger think she's 00:17:00something because her husband is a lawyer.'

HUNTLEY: This is Oscar Adams' wife?

ASKEW: That's Oscar Adams' wife. And [the policeman] said, 'We're gonna' show her.' Said, 'Her husband ain't nothing.' Said, 'We're gonna' show her.' And they carried her from us into some other place. I don't know where it was, but when she came back, her clothes were ripped off and everything. She was crying. But I don't think they-- I think they just-- because she would have told it if-- I don't know what they did, but I think Oscar had a suit in against the City for manhandling his wife. If he didn't, he should have, because they really manhandled her.

HUNTLEY: Tell us something about the food you received while in jail?

ASKEW: Hmm, we got some white bread, fried white meat and some syrup.

HUNTLEY: Now you were in jail at least once for at least five days. Is this all that you had to eat?

ASKEW: That's about it. They weren't feeding us. And, they told the inmates, they brought the inmates in from the laundry and told them that we niggers was the cause of them not being able to go to the laundry and eat and, 'Now go in there and beat those niggers' you know what.

HUNTLEY: These are white inmates?

ASKEW: No, these were black inmates that was locked up for a crime that they did 00:19:00on the street. They was already in jail. They told them to go in there and when they came in, razor blades was coming out from the hem of the dresses, and razor blades was coming from everywhere. There was one inmate in there I never will forget. Her name was Emma Lou and she was one-legged and she came out the hem of her dress with some kind of a weapon that was long and sharp. She said, 'Iif any one of y'all SOB's touch these workers, you got to answer to Emma Lou.' And Emma Lou protected us while we was up there, because she said if it wasn't for us half of them wouldn't be in jail now. And so, after that incident, we didn't have any more trouble. They went to jail, and nobody bothered them. They cut off 00:20:00the inmates' privileges, but they didn't care after they found out really what we was there for.

HUNTLEY: Did they segregate the men from the women?

ASKEW: Oh yes, they did.

HUNTLEY: The women were in an area and the men were in another?

ASKEW: Yes, the women were one place and the men were in another area.

HUNTLEY: I know one of the things that happened consistently was that during trying times, people would sing. Was that part of the regimen while you were in jail at any time? There was a woman named Lou Ella?

ASKEW: Lou Ella Givens, she could sing.

HUNTLEY: Can you tell me a little about it?

ASKEW: Well Lou Ella was singing one of our civic movement songs and she could really sing and one of the guards told her through a mike or intercom or 00:21:00something, said, 'Shut up, nigger,' and she continued to sing. And he said, 'Nigger, didn't I tell you to shut up?' She didn't shut up, so he came up and got her and carried her to another room which consisted of air and heat. They put her in a room that was so hot that she could hardly breathe. Then they turned the water on her. And the next morning when Lou Ella came back to us in the cell, she couldn't talk. She could not talk, and she would sing, she could really sing. She was one of the Christian Movement, she was in the Christian Movement Choir.

HUNTLEY: Was she the only one that was singing at the time that wouldn't stop?

ASKEW: Yeah, she was the only one at that time that was singing.

HUNTLEY: Did anyone else in your family participate to the same level that you did during the demonstrations?

ASKEW: Only one other, my daughter Juanita. She was taken to the City Jail.

HUNTLEY: And at that time, she was a teenager?

ASKEW: She was a teenager in Ullman [High School].

HUNTLEY: Was she suspended from school? Or did she leave school?

ASKEW: She left school and they didn't march, but they got their diploma. They weren't allowed to march.

HUNTLEY: Tell me, in my research Atlantic Mills comes up a number of times. Can you tell me anything about Atlantic Mills and the efforts there to get service?

ASKEW: It was a like a department store.

HUNTLEY: Where was it located?

ASKEW: It was located on the north side.

HUNTLEY: On Eighth Avenue, I believe?

ASKEW: Yeah, and it was almost in the midst of the black neighborhood and we was trying to get people to stop buying. You know, we didn't want them to buy anything out [of] the store. This particular time, we were inside the store to try to contact some blacks that was in there and try to pull them out and, you know, just tell them that we are not buying anything, we just come in to help the blacks to get a better education and all, and some of them left. I left--me and the children--in the paddy wagon.

HUNTLEY: Arrested again?

ASKEW: Yes, I left in the paddy wagon again because they said we was causing a riot.

HUNTLEY: Well, now there was some individuals, many individuals, who were older and working and they were basically afraid to participate. You worked for a white man at the bonding company. How, why, did you make the decision to get involved although you were also working? Your livelihood was dependent upon a white individual as well.

ASKEW: Well, my decision was my children and the other children. I used to work at the school a lot. I was the president [of the Parent Teacher Association] one time and then I was the secretary. I was with my children until my last child graduated from high school.

HUNTLEY: So you were real active in the PTA?

ASKEW: Yeah, I just never missed a meeting, I never missed a concert that they 00:25:00gave at the schools, you know. And I just got to thinking and I say, 'Well, the books my kids use are no good, half of the pages are torn out, no backs on them or anything like that,' and I say, 'The only way we're gonna' get something done for all our children, regardless, is to get out there and get arrested for it. Boycott them.' I had heard this pastor, I done forget his name, talk about how the only way we was gonna' get something done is to just pull the workers for whites, the buyers from whites and then we can get something done. [The pastor] said it will work.

HUNTLEY: Well, what was your employer saying about your participating in the movement?

ASKEW: Well, my employer said that he wouldn't have too much respect for me if I didn't try to help my people.

HUNTLEY: Oh, he actually told you that?

ASKEW: He actually told me that.

HUNTLEY: I know that you participated in the marches. You probably would have something to say about the way that during the marching, how the fire department used their water hoses. Can you describe any of that?

ASKEW: Yeah, we was at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and I think it was Reverend Shuttlesworth. I forget what pastor it was, but there was a child lost, 00:27:00and we carried this child to the end of the corner to send her to Wyatt T. Walker who had a whistle and so he could find her people. Well, when we went to the corner, we got the child across the street and told her where to go. Wyatt T. was coming the direction we were in and we told her where to go and about the time I turned to go up the step, I think it was Reverend Shuttlesworth who turned to go down the step. But, anyway, they turned the hose on him, the fire department did, and he just splattered like he was a piece of paper.

HUNTLEY: That was Shuttlesworth.

ASKEW: And he fell to the ground and we had to rush him. One fireman, one white fireman, I'll tell you exactly what this fireman said, 'cause I heard it. He said, 'I will be damned if I could do another human being that way,' and he laid down his hose and walked off. That was one man that did respect Reverend Shuttlesworth and the other blacks with what they were doing.

HUNTLEY: So that was obviously unusual to see a fireman put his hose down?

ASKEW: It was unusual, and I never did get to find out whether they hired him back or not, but he walked off.

HUNTLEY: What church were you a member of?

ASKEW: At that time, I was a member of Tristone Baptist Church.

HUNTLEY: Where was that located?

ASKEW: No, I was a member of Calvary Baptist Church on Center Street. I was previously a member of Tristone but my mother got real ill and she wanted us to go to her church and we thought that she wasn't gonna' pull through and she had a slight heart attack so we joined her church to please my mother. We all went to Calvary Missionary Church.

HUNTLEY: What was the involvement of your church and your pastor in the movement?

ASKEW: Well, uh, they didn't want no parts of it. The deacons didn't want any parts of what we was trying to do. I carried some brochures out to them. They didn't want me to bring no papers or anything in there with anything with the civil right movement on it. You wouldn't believe it. The first time the golf 00:30:00course was integrated I saw one of our deacons on it.

HUNTLEY: So he took advantage of it?

ASKEW: Yes, they'd taken advantage of it. I looked and I said, 'One of my deacons is on the golf course,' which he was one of the ones that said we couldn't bring those papers inside. So I don't know how the other churches took it. I only know about my church.

HUNTLEY: What is your assessment of the Birmingham movement? Was it successful? Was it a failure?

ASKEW: It was successful for a limited time. It's not too well now because we 00:31:00don't have total integration. I'm just repeating what one of the pastors said. He said, 'They just gave us a pacifier.' They're pacifying us now. And what hurts is that so many of our people are doing just what the whites want them to do, that is to mistreat their brothers and sisters, to talk down to them, the white collar blacks, those that have the construction company and especially some of the clerks. I had an incident at UAB [University of Alabama at Birmingham] Hospital. I was up there with a friend of mine and it was a real, real old lady and an elderly man. He had brought his wife to the hospital and 00:32:00there was a black clerk where you fill out the applications. And this black lady was up there, her and her husband, trying to fill out the application. Well this girl filled out most of it but they asked her to sign her sign name and she made an 'x', and this here clerk said, 'Is that the best you can do? You can't make no more than an 'x'?' And she said it out loud. And I stepped up and I say, 'It must be the best she can do, because she did it.' And I said, 'I want you to know that when you were in school, think about the years that she wasn't and couldn't go to school that she was trying her best to make it to the stage she is now,' and I don't think the other blacks had too much trouble with her 00:33:00signing things. But some of them now is awful. They think they got a job. They don't respect the poor. They don't respect. They give so many, many dollars to different organizations which consist of mostly whites, when some of our black organizations, where our children are, that needs it, some of our schools now are not up to par. We need our black colleges. Some of them need help. They need money. I notice in golf, they give a tournament for the whites to help, and I don't see why some of our men can't do that. You know, give a tournament like 00:34:00Jesse Lewis used to give them.

HUNTLEY: You are a golfer by the way, right?

ASKEW: Oh yeah, yeah!

HUNTLEY: You know, I failed to ask in one area. I know that you were instrumental in helping to get the children in the movement in May of 1963. Can you tell us a little bit about that? How did that process work?

ASKEW: It was fine. It worked fine. The children, I tell you, the children of the South side is with anything they think is right. Not only my children, but other children of the South side. We trained our children that way.

HUNTLEY: So what did you do to get them involved? I know that there were actually individuals, were you one of the individuals that went to the schools?

ASKEW: Yeah, I went to the school.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about that? Did you talk with the principal?

ASKEW: I talked with Mr. Bell and he said that there was no way that he could see himself letting the children get involved in that because it would mean his job and some more jobs. Some of the children saw us in there and saw us in there talking with Mr. Bell and I guess whoever that boy was, or the girls, that saw us they went around and told the other children in the school that the civil rights movement was out trying to get them out to help break up segregation. And I think that's the reason the children...now we was hollering out there, we was singing and they knew the civil rights songs.

HUNTLEY: You mean, you were singing?

ASKEW: Singing, 'We Shall Overcome.'

HUNTLEY: Outside the school or in the school?

ASKEW: No, outside the school. We didn't disrupt the school. The children came 00:36:00out of the school and then we marched downtown, all the way downtown.

HUNTLEY: Is there anything else that...any other question I haven't asked you, or something else that you would just like to include in this that we may have overlooked that could highlight what the Movement was about and how it actually impacted upon the lives of people?

Anything else that you would like to add?

ASKEW: Well it's not too much that I would like to add, but I would like to say the blacks need to sit up and take notice of what is going on now. After the death of all those people that tried to get us a proper education, better homes, 00:37:00better houses, better pay, don't let them be laying there, don't let them die in vain. Do something now to help the schools. There are a lot of them out there that can help the poor, the schools, the [housing] projects. You never know what goes on in that project until you have a chance to visit them. Now, I had a chance to visit them during the campaign and it's pitiful the way those people live in the projects.

HUNTLEY: So you are still active. You've been active in the movement for a long time.

ASKEW: I was active until the Good Master told me to slow down some, but I'm gonna' still be active. I'm going to civil rights.

HUNTLEY: What organizations were you involved in?

ASKEW: Well, I was in the Southside Planning Committee, the NAACP, AARP, and the school.

HUNTLEY: The Alabama Christian Movement?

ASKEW: The Alabama Christian Movement, yes.

HUNTLEY: And you were a member of SCLC?

ASKEW: That's right, I called Rev. Woods. Recently, I haven't been to the SCLC meeting. I went to the NAACP meeting because I feel like a meeting is not supposed to NAACP doesn't start a riot. They try to help prevent them, and I think that's the reason why I prefer being active with them [more] than with the SCLC.

HUNTLEY: Okay, Mrs. Askew, I certainly appreciate the time that you've taken out of your busy schedule to come over and talk with us, because this kind of information is so vitally important because most young people simply have no understanding.

ASKEW: [They] don't know nothing about what their parents went through.

HUNTLEY: And what we are hoping to do at the Civil Rights Institute is to develop the real history of what happened in Birmingham and of course, you would be a very prominent part of that and again, I say thank you for coming out here.

ASKEW: Thank you for letting me speak to some of our children out there, let them hear some of this in the high schools in the colleges and do something. Do something for us. Don't let us slide back where we were.