Nettie Flemmon

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mrs. Nettie Flemmon for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's oral history project. I'm Dr. Horace Huntley we're presently at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Today is June 5, 1996 at 2:00p.m. Ok, would you state your name and your birth date.

FLEMMON: My name is Nettie Flemmon, oh, you mean my married name?

HUNTLEY: Yes ma'am.

FLEMMON: My birth date is August 4, 1918.

HUNTLEY: Where were you born?

FLEMMON: In Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: Where were your parents from?

FLEMMON: From Wilcox County.

HUNTLEY: Wilcox County?

FLEMMON: That's where they were born. Eventually their brother brought them here 00:01:00to Birmingham and they were reared here in Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: Oh, they were reared here in Birmingham?

FLEMMON: They were young children, the oldest brother taken over as a father for them after the death of their daddy and mother. The daddy would tell the oldest son to see after the children after their death. And he did that, my uncle did that and raised his two brothers and two sisters.

HUNTLEY: So, then your mother was small, so, she really was like she was from Birmingham.

FLEMMON: Yes, she was small, they were small children when their parents died.

HUNTLEY: Was your father also from Birmingham?

FLEMMON: No, my father was raised in Wilcox County, but see I didn't never know my father till I got 21 years old. I was 21 years old when I seen my father and 00:02:00I had four girls.

HUNTLEY: Is that right? Did he stay in Wilcox County?

FLEMMON: No, he left when he was a young man and came to Birmingham. You know how boys in the country will leave and come to see people they know in town and stay awhile and then finally he left and went up to Michigan.

HUNTLEY: Oh, ok, so he left Birmingham and went to Michigan.

FLEMMON: That's right and that's were they resided the rest of their life, in Detroit, in Muskego.

HUNTLEY: But your mother stayed here?

FLEMMON: My mother remained here until a later year then she went to Detroit to find her brother and that's where she decided to stay in Detroit after she met her brother. She lived there for 28, she worked there for at the [inaudible] 00:03:00laundry for 28 years.

HUNTLEY: In Detroit?

FLEMMON: Yeah, and then she stayed there for 32 years she lived till death came and took her away. In 1981, my mother died.

HUNTLEY: Oh, ok, and she died in Detroit?

FLEMMON: Yes.

HUNTLEY: You were grown when she left her going to Detroit.

FLEMMON: Oh, yeah, I had my family. I was married. I married at the age of 15. Then I was a mother of 13 living children beside I had a still born. Then I had a small miscarriage, that would have been 15 children. I raised 13 children.

HUNTLEY: You raised 13 children. How many boys and how many girls?

FLEMMON: I had, um, it was 8 boys and 7 girls, but the still born, you know.

HUNTLEY: You now were raised up on the north side or the south side?

FLEMMON: I was raised up over on the north side.

HUNTLEY: When you were born, you were born on the south side?

FLEMMON: I was born on the southside, but they moved from over there and moved back over on the north side. I recall back in the 20s is when they moved back over on the north side.

HUNTLEY: So, that was before you started school then.

FLEMMON: Yeah, I was a little girl at that time.

HUNTLEY: What school did you go to?

FLEMMON: Thomas, I got to the 8th grade. Then me and my husband married young.

HUNTLEY: Was he at Thomas too?

FLEMMON: Yeah, we all attended Thomas school.

HUNTLEY: Is that right? So, tell me what it was like growing up in Birmingham in 00:05:00the 1920s.

FLEMMON: Well, it was pretty rough. It wasn't no roads then, but we made it. We made it. You know the old Sloss Furnace, lots of men came from down home and got jobs over there at the Sloss France and worked over there. They worked them pipe shops.

HUNTLEY: What kind of work did your mother do?

FLEMMON: My mother was a domestic worker. She worked at the laundry, she worked at the Number Eight Bottling Company a long time ago. Just from one job to another. Then she decided to leave Birmingham and go north. Most of the colored 00:06:00people would do better up north, they would leave and go north, to Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland.

HUNTLEY: Why did you decide not to go up or did you ever go north to live?

FLEMMON: To live? No, we just remained here. This was our home and we had a lot of children, we couldn't go. Where could we go with all them children? People didn't have no room for us.

HUNTLEY: That's what kept you from going cause you had...

FLEMMON: I was confined with my family and I had to stay with my family.

HUNTLEY: Right. So, if you didn't have any children or that many children...

FLEMMON: Probably I may have left, my husband probably would have to, but after we got stuck here with a family we decided to make Alabama our home.

HUNTLEY: What community did you raise your children in?

FLEMMON: Well, I raised them right around ordinary people. In the community over there.

HUNTLEY: Was it Collegeville?

FLEMMON: No, just over here. Most of them were born on the north side where I was raised at until we moved in 1949. We moved to Titusville, out there at 106 and my husband had a house built. The man drawed the plans up and made the house too small. So we had to get another house out there in Collegeville. They were raised over there in Collegeville, in 1951 we moved, October 10th, out there in Collegeville. So we raised them up there. They attended school there at Hudson School and Carver High School. Some went over to...the chose the high school they wanted to go, so they went to the other [inaudible]. They just chose the 00:08:00school they wanted to go to.

HUNTLEY: Do you remember the Depression?

FLEMMON: Why sure, 1928, '29,'30, and '31.

HUNTLEY: What do you remember about it?

FLEMMON: I don't remember it was a Great Depression at that time. People was..it was a depression all over the world. Hoover was the President and it was tough. They had soup lines and they had milk, white milk was given to poor people, milk for their children to feed the children. Up there on 26th Street and 2nd Avenue, the White Dairy was up there. Bessie Roth's Bakery would give the poor people bread.

HUNTLEY: Your family was a large family, no, you were an only child.

FLEMMON: I was an only child. My mother worked and mostly I worked with my mother in the White folks house. After I got out of school, I had to go help my momma go set the table and help her prepare their food, breakfast and supper for the evening you know.

HUNTLEY: How did the depression affect you and your mother, your family?

FLEMMON: Well, my mother worked all the time and it really didn't strike us as hard as it did lots of people. My mother was a smart woman and she believed in work and she worked and made an honest living. We never had to get on no kind of help.

HUNTLEY: She was always able to find a job.

FLEMMON: My mother was always able to find a job and she always kept a job. She would work.

HUNTLEY: And you... when you got out of school and got married what did your husband do? What kind of work did he do?

FLEMMON: He went into business. He was working with a colored man at the time then.

HUNTLEY: Doing what?

FLEMMON: He was selling, the colored man, was selling coal and ice. An old man, they called him Bear John on 28th Street and 5th Avenue, he had a place there, a colored man. My husband started working young as a boy working for him. He went to school and he worked in the evening for this fellow and sold coal for him on 00:11:00a wagon and sold ice until he got able enough to get him a truck on his own and then he started business for himself.

HUNTLEY: Is that right? That's what he did from then on.

FLEMMON: From then on that's what he did. Raised his children from his own self-employed, he was self-employed. My husband was a very industrial man and he had a business mind about him. You know what I mean?

HUNTLEY: Right.

FLEMMON: After they put him in the army he still came back to that same job. Worked a little while at the Turner Station when he came back from the army.

HUNTLEY: Did he go overseas?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah. Stayed over there two years. South Pacific, that's where they were stationed.

HUNTLEY: Was he in the army or the navy?

FLEMMON: He was in the navy.

HUNTLEY: My father was in the navy.

FLEMMON: I had two boys that were in the navy and I had two boys that were in the army, but they all got honorable discharged. My husband just recently died February 14th this year.

HUNTLEY: You then?

FLEMMON: I was a housewife, I took care of the children and I seen after them. I worked sometime, part-time, at that time you could go and leave the children and they were in safe hands, but now it's a different time we're living in.

HUNTLEY: You can't do that anymore.

FLEMMON: No, people aren't as close. The mother was more dedicated to the children's safety than they are today. We took care of our neighbors children. 00:13:00We seen after them, if they tell the children and leave them in our hands. We would keep the other children just like they were our own children. They would mind us and obey us while their parents were away. We were poor people and we had to work and they had to work, but they left their children in protected hands that their children would be safe when they got back off their job, cause when they would go to work at 6 in the morning and would get off late in the evening, and stayed there all day. They had to take care of other people's children and they couldn't come home until a certain time until the people returned from work to see about their children. Sometime that would be dusk to dark. You know all day long. Some of them would work there and come home during the day and go back at a certain time between 1 and 2 o'clock in the day to be 00:14:00there at their house to prepare their supper. You know.

HUNTLEY: So, the children were always in safe hands, cause the neighbors would help.

FLEMMON: That's right. We looked out for our neighbors. We were concerned about other folks children. They had mother's who had children, they would be mother's for other peoples children as well as theirs. We were lovely people, we watched and seen after your children.

HUNTLEY: Well, before the movement got started what was Birmingham like?

FLEMMON: Well, it was real. You know how it was... it was [inaudible], segregated, you know all of it. The Black man had a hard way to go. It was kind of bad for Black folks. When White people had more freedom than we did, you know we didn't have no freedom. The only freedom we had, we'd go to church come back 00:15:00home sit in the yard or the front porch.

HUNTLEY: Were there any incidents that you remember that happened in your family that was related to the way the status quo in Birmingham treated black people? Were there ever any times when policemen, that your family or people that you knew were involved with the police at all?

FLEMMON: Police officers?

HUNTLEY: Yeah.

FLEMMON: No, lots of people had trouble, but seemingly though we didn't have no, we always tried to live by the law and obey the law. You know how it was, the White people had the privilege, beating up colored people and doing what they wanted to do to them. I remember when I was quite young a lady her husband was beat up over there in [inaudible] by some White people and killed, you know shot 00:16:00and killed a man.

HUNTLEY: Who shot and killed a man?

FLEMMON: Some White people went there and shot him one day in the morning they told me and killed him, Mr. John Henry. His name was John Henry and they just had the privilege to come to your house and beat colored men up, drag them out of their house, you know.

HUNTLEY: What did the community do?

FLEMMON: They couldn't do nothing but keep quite. That's all they did, they had color. The White people didn't believe what the colored people would say. They couldn't talk cause they were afraid. You know they were afraid.

HUNTLEY: You could take care of your children and take care of your neighbor's children when there was nothing else involved, but when the White people were involved you didn't have any say.

FLEMMON: No, we always told our children obey, be obedient. That's what we told 00:17:00our children and that's all we could tell them, you know, then if anything went on they couldn't talk about it, they just kept it on a low profile.

HUNTLEY: You didn't encourage them in those early days before the movement when they got on the bus to sit in the front of the bus or to....

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, we asked them to cooperate with the system, you know, we never tried to keep them away from it, because you know, we couldn't. Cause if they've seen other children going, they're going to join them to.

HUNTLEY: Did they ever ask you any questions about segregation?

FLEMMON: Are you talking about my children?

HUNTLEY: Yes ma'am.

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, they asked me questions. I told them. They asked me lots of times why they couldn't go certain places.

HUNTLEY: Like where?

FLEMMON: Well, to the ball game with the Whites. I told them we wasn't allowed to go there we just had to stay where they put us over on our side. We had ball games but the children played in the neighborhood in the field. Played ball in the afternoon, but they could never go to a ball game or couldn't go to a theater. We had one theater, was the Famous Theater, [inaudible] , but they had a Vaudeville theater you know the colored people could go to them but such as these other theaters they couldn't go. They didn't allow Blacks to go. They did have one theater here I think it was the Pantava, sometime they let them go upstairs, they had to go way upstairs. That was during the time I believe when 00:19:00Bull Conner was, what was he...

HUNTLEY: He was the police commissioner.

FLEMMON: Police commissioner, Bull Conner, he was real cruel you know to Black people.

HUNTLEY: Now when the movement started how did you get involved with the movement?

FLEMMON: Well, I just made up my mind that I was going to go with them and join them and try to help them out. If it took my Sunday's I just started and said well, I've got to go out here and represent my children and so I just decided I 00:20:00would just cooperate and get involved with the movement. Reverend Shuttlesworth was the only person whom we had to speak out for us at that time. You know it was rough, but he had the courage to go out there and face whatever obstacle.

HUNTLEY: Were you involved when they first got started?

FLEMMON: No, I wasn't involved when they first with the integrating the bus, you know, cause I just had to be at home with the children. Later years we joined up with him when he was integrating the school, gotten involved with that and all of that.

HUNTLEY: Was your husband involved?

FLEMMON: Well, yeah, he supported it. He marched.

HUNTLEY: Did you attend the mass meetings?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, rain or shine we were there.

HUNTLEY: Tell me what a mass meeting was like.

FLEMMON: The mass meeting was beautiful. It was beautiful. People loving everybody and everybody knew everybody and everybody would just get together and get ready for their movement meeting. They were there on time and they were there. They would go there and help do what they could to help the spirit of the movement. They would go there and pray, sing and pray. Then they would have preaching, the preachers would preach the gospel and everybody would give an amen to what he was saying and people would just pour in and they just begin to 00:22:00meet, get ready for the Monday night movement meeting.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever have any problems in getting to the meeting? Or when you left the meeting?

FLEMMON: No, nobody bothered me. Some of us had to walk, but we would get there. We never had no trouble, but that was just me. Some other people were having trouble, but I never had any trouble.

HUNTLEY: Did you participate in the demonstrations?

FLEMMON: All the time.

HUNTLEY: Do you remember the first time you got involved in a demonstration?

FLEMMON: Well, I'll tell you I got involved with the movement going into the mass meeting and then when they started the picking these places that break down 00:23:00the barriers we continued to join up with them. Those who were leading the marches, we would join up with them.

HUNTLEY: Tell me what it was like being on a march?

FLEMMON: It was something, it was really something that you just couldn't get away from it. It would just draw you and you would see, it was a spirit they had, that they were just going to look up, but it was wonderful. Now we was in the demonstration when they started opening up the lunch counter. When I went in 00:24:00there, but there were other children that was joined in. We couldn't go and get food like other people we had to go to the back door. Men at this time had money, but they had to go to the back door, to get food out of the cafeteria.

HUNTLEY: Just because they were Black.

FLEMMON: People were in there cause you know, cause all White people were in there. We couldn't go in there to eat a sandwich or nothing.

HUNTLEY: Were you ever attacked during any of the demonstrations?

FLEMMON: No, I wasn't ever attacked, no.

HUNTLEY: Did anybody ever....

FLEMMON: Kick me or anything.

HUNTLEY: Pull a gun on you.

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, I had two guns pulled on me at Pizitz while we were walking. See eleven people went to Pizitz there. They were there in the morning when they 00:25:00opened up and they weren't expecting those people.

HUNTLEY: Were you one of those?

FLEMMON: I wasn't there to march, but I escorted them there to the store.

HUNTLEY: So, you escorted them to the store.

FLEMMON: Yeah, I had a station wagon and they got in my station wagon from down there on 5th Avenue and that's when we were on 5th Avenue across from Gadsden Motel. I carried them up there and they were arrested.

HUNTLEY: So, you usually drove people to various places.

FLEMMON: Yeah, I did that. Hauled them around to different places, wherever they had to picket. We'd put them out with their picket signs. Then I would go on 00:26:00back and park my car.

HUNTLEY: Were you ever arrested?

FLEMMON: One time, when we were marching with Tony Wren, 63 days I think we were marching with a casket.

HUNTLEY: What did the casket represent?

FLEMMON: Well, the police men were shooting the Black men, black boys so bad and Tony Wren was trying to show the White man what they were doing and we toted the casket, I think, it was 63 days here in the city of Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: Everyday for 63 days?

FLEMMON: The casket?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

FLEMMON: We had a reaper on the casket, I think the first time the casket was a paste board box made like a casket and then somebody got one at Miles college 00:27:00and brought us a wooden box casket. So, Ms. Delta Brooks she put a reaper on that casket. And we marched all up and down the streets, you know all over the town with the casket. The White folks got so mad, boy, he was talking real bad to us about that casket. We kept on marching. At Loweman's I had a gun on me when they had those two White boys and that colored boy down there in Mississippi, when they killed them. The lady come up here from Mississippi, she throwed a gun on me at Loweman's, but they put her car in cause Rev. Oliver was over the line and they pulled her car in to the city down there to the city yard 00:28:00and she was there that evening talking to the police officer and he told her she had to go down to the city hall.

HUNTLEY: Why did they pull her car in?

FLEMMON: They pulled it cause they found the gun she had. See, she throwed it on me and put it back in her car.

HUNTLEY: Why did she point the gun at you?

FLEMMON: Well, she was just mad cause we were out there picketing.

HUNTLEY: This was a White woman?

FLEMMON: Yeah, White, two coming from Mississippi.

HUNTLEY: They were coming up here to shop?

FLEMMON: That's right coming up here from Mississippi.

HUNTLEY: I see.

FLEMMON: She told me, she ought to blow my brains out, but they got Rev. Oliver to over see our line and he checked out everything to see if all was well and so they pulled their car in. And she asked the police officer how could she get her car and he told her to go to city hall and talk to the authorities down there.

HUNTLEY: So, you were very active in the movement.

FLEMMON: Yeah, I was active all day long if they were marching. Lots of times I was out there by myself cause they were marching and someone had to leave and go and leave one person out there till some more come.

HUNTLEY: You mean you were left out there alone?

FLEMMON: Yeah, by myself, but I marched right on. I kept the faith and kept going and soon they would send someone that could get some more marchers to come up. Some would march alone and some had to work and then they would come out and march. I stayed out there trying to keep the line going. I marched from the city hall to the county court house. We marched up the government street, Calvin Woods and all of his children would come and help.

HUNTLEY: Were any of your children involved?

FLEMMON: Yeah, I had some children, they would come in the evening and march after school.

HUNTLEY: Were there efforts, did you participate in any of the efforts to recruit children from the schools?

FLEMMON: Why sure during the time when 1963. We recruited children because we went round and sang songs, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference came in here and the children hear singing and they decided they would just, we heard on the radio a guy was talking, we had the radio. See Jose Williams down from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference come here to help us in this demonstration. We couldn't do it by ourself we had to have some help.

HUNTLEY: What schools did you go to?

FLEMMON: Well, we went to Carver High School, we went to Ullman and they had different marches going to different schools getting the children prepared to come on in down to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. They sang and the children wouldn't stay on the school grounds. They were leaving and there was nothing the teachers could do. They couldn't hold them. So, they marched on down there from the school to Sixteenth Street. They had marches on the highway to protect them children to keep people from running through there with cars, you know some of the White people are kind of mean and would do anything to try and stop the march. Weren't none of them hurt because we had good marchers. We had Rev. Podem 00:32:00and Rev. J. H. Callaway, they helped me to bring the children from Collegeville on down to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. They would march on the highway.

HUNTLEY: Did any of your children ever leave school to demonstrate?

FLEMMON: They only left school when they started the demonstration. They were at school and then they came off the school premises. They had went to school, but the minute they heard the singing they just joined on in with the other students and they went to marching.

HUNTLEY: What did you feel about that?

FLEMMON: What?

HUNTLEY: What were your feelings about your children leaving school?

FLEMMON: My feelings were real good, cause they had to do what they had to do and I couldn't stop them and I wasn't gonna hinder them cause they never laid a 00:33:00day out of school, but they went to school. When ever they said they needed these children they just decided to leave the school. I didn't try to prohibit them from going.

HUNTLEY: What were the discussions like at home about the movement, since you and your children and husband were involved? Did you ever talk about the movement at home?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, we talked about it and then we cried over it and we prayed over it. Oh yeah, it was a big one that you just couldn't shake off. After they [inaudible] was straight we just didn't hold our peace cause we know we had to do something that helped cause we were a part of it. It was concerning about us so we joined in.

HUNTLEY: Then your activity in the movement was real supportive so you were one of those that transported people from different places to help them get to a place to demonstrate.

FLEMMON: Yeah.

HUNTLEY: I know some people that did that they were sometimes approached by policemen.

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, I was approached by policemen. The day Hubert Humphrey came to Birmingham, one of the police officers on the motorcycles he wanted to put me in jail for some reason, I hadn't broke the law. The marchers were going, they were in my station wagon, they were going to the airport.

HUNTLEY: To meet Humphrey?

FLEMMON: To meet Hubert Humphrey coming in on the plane. So they wanted Hubert Humphrey to go out on the front. So, he told them that he had some friends on 00:35:00the back and he wanted to go out the back, but the national guard moved. So, they had national guardsmen all up there in the woods and up on top of the buildings, you know, to see that we would be safe and wouldn't be harmed by the other group of people. So, we got a chance to see Hubert Humphrey when his plane come in we were back there on the airport road waving.

HUNTLEY: So, why did the policeman want to arrest you?

FLEMMON: Well, they wanted it stopped. So, if they stopped me with my station wagon full of all of those people they would stop the march, but they didn't stop it, cause we still went on to meet Hubert Humphrey downtown at the motel. 00:36:00We still picketed down there.

HUNTLEY: Why were you picketing?

FLEMMON: Well, they told us to picket to let him see what was going on. And he seen what was happening.

HUNTLEY: So, you were demonstrating to show him what it was like in this town?

FLEMMON: That's right. They wanted to him to go out in the front of the airport but he told them no, I got some friends in the back and want to see them. Rev. Shuttlesworth and all were back there. We were out there with Rev. Shuttlesworth, they knew what time the plane was coming in.

HUNTLEY: So, he knew you all were there.

FLEMMON: Yeah.

HUNTLEY: So, that's what he was referring to when he said he had friends.

FLEMMON: Yeah, yeah, so, we all got out there during the time when the plane was coming in and landed and we were there, see. Then we followed the escort back to downtown.

HUNTLEY: Did you get a chance to meet him?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, my baby she shook his hand, she got a chance to. He talked to a lot of us.

HUNTLEY: Did he come to any of the meetings?

FLEMMON: I don't recall about the meeting or not, but anyway we got a chance to speak to him.

HUNTLEY: What is the most important issue of the time that you remember, like any events that took place that stand out in your mind about your participation and your involvement in the movement?

FLEMMON: Well, the most important issue was when we were really marching around 00:38:00with that casket in Birmingham. Them days, you know, to show the world and the world did see what was going on. That was very important cause so many of our young Black boys were getting shot down and nothing would be done about it. And Tony Wren decided he was going to demonstrate and show up and he carried us all up and down alleys all down and the police were on the motorcycles and he said follow me. He took us all up and down the alley and all around.

HUNTLEY: Did you....

FLEMMON: Oh, I'll tell you another evening happened. The night we came out of St. James Baptist Church down back down there in Smithfield and we went to Liberty Market there was on 5th Avenue they had a shooting as we got up there they shot a young colored man.

HUNTLEY: Who shot him?

FLEMMON: A White man shot the man. He was shot accidentally, we left the church coming up there to picket and they shot this colored man as he was going over to the Shoe City to get one or two of his children some shoes. He accidentally shot 00:40:00him, a White fellow shot him.

HUNTLEY: Accidentally shot him?

FLEMMON: Yeah, but they thought they had done shot Rev. Shuttlesworth, but he shot the wrong man. The poor man was going over there to buy some shoes for his children.

HUNTLEY: They shot him intentionally and thought he was Rev. Shuttlesworth.

FLEMMON: Yeah, and that really disturbed the people real bad, upset them.

HUNTLEY: What did the people do?

FLEMMON: He's probably out today wherever he is, I didn't know the guy, we just had left the church and they said well, we are going up here to Liberty and picket a while.

HUNTLEY: After the shooting, that's what you all did was to picket? Did you get cooperation from people that were going in the stores?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah, they cooperated. Some shed a dime too. Then they had another 00:41:00incident down there one night, a colored man was in the store and he was talking to his wife and a police officer come in there and talked real bad to the colored man and him and some of his relatives them they started confusion there at the cash register and he asked his wife, he said, he called her some sweet name, and said you got what you want and so they thought he was talking to that White woman. And boy, they had a big fight down there that night, jelly, and the cashier burned some stuff and they were throwing jelly down there and they had a 00:42:00big one.

HUNTLEY: Who was throwing the jelly?

FLEMMON: Just the people started fighting down there. The police officer.

HUNTLEY: Was this at Liberty?

FLEMMON: Yeah, down there downtown at Liberty Store. They had a big thing down there. People were running and hollering scared the police were going to shoot, you know. In fact, they drove the man's wife out of the store and they beat the man up, too. Sent him to the hospital, oh, it was terrible.

HUNTLEY: Were you a registered voter?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah.

HUNTLEY: Do you remember when you registered? What was it like when you registered?

FLEMMON: Oh, it was tough when I went there and registered. They asked you all them questions and some of them I didn't even know. About the military service and all of that, you know. Old man Briar, he was down there at the time, he was tough. He tried every way he could to keep me from getting registered to vote. 00:43:00He tried to put every block he could in your way.

HUNTLEY: Did you pass the first time?

FLEMMON: Yeah, I passed it.

HUNTLEY: And did you know other people that had to go back to take it?

FLEMMON: Oh yeah. Many times they were turned down and they went back. They didn't get discouraged they just kept on going till they got it right, you know. They just did that to keep the blacks from voting, that was before the voting right bill was passed in 1965. Then after they passed it, it was easy then, much easier for them to go in there, than it was for us.

HUNTLEY: Did you participate in any other demonstrations outside of Birmingham?

FLEMMON: No, I couldn't go. I had the children. I had to stay there with the children, but we just did what we had to do here. My children, two of my 00:44:00children, they went to the demonstration in Washington, D.C. to that march with Dr. King. I still had to stay here in Birmingham cause all of us couldn't go cause we didn't have the money to send all of them. We had to pay their way.

HUNTLEY: Do you remember when the Freedom Riders came through?

FLEMMON: Yeah, I remember.

HUNTLEY: Were you involved at that time?

FLEMMON: No, we were still with the movement, but we didn't get in there with the Freedom Riders.

HUNTLEY: What about the morning the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed?

FLEMMON: Oh, yeah, that was a terrible time. Talking about the water hose and the dogs, yeah, we was involved with that. I didn't ever get down there in time 00:45:00for them to put water on me. At the time I got ready to go down there it was all over with, but I'd seen it on the TV.

HUNTLEY: What about the Sixteenth Street bombing that killed those four little girls?

FLEMMON: That was terrible.

HUNTLEY: Do you remember that morning?

FLEMMON: Yeah, I remember that Sunday morning cause I was over there at Bethel's Church over there in Sunday school when they had that bombing. It shook us. The Sunday school teacher that was teaching us, he got a call that Sixteenth Street Baptist Church had been bombed. That was a critical day. Sad day, terrible about them children.

HUNTLEY: What do you remember about it?

FLEMMON: I don't know who had the heart to do it, but they did it.

HUNTLEY: They did it. That morning you were in Sunday school.

FLEMMON: I was at Sunday school, we was at church, all of us were at Sunday school.

HUNTLEY: So, what did you think was the significance, how important was what was happening with the movement for Birmingham? How important was the movement?

FLEMMON: I think it was very important for the people to get involved and to try and make it better for all people, you know, for all people, cause most of the people was under a depression and there was a press and the movement just made it better for people to come together and unite together, you know. They 00:47:00couldn't come together before the movement, they had to be separated, divided, you know.

HUNTLEY: So, you are saying the movement then brought people closer together.

FLEMMON: That's right, brought them close together.

HUNTLEY: Although you had previously said that neighbors were real close to each other cause they would take care of each other's children. So when the movement came along this even made them closer?

FLEMMON: Closer together, they got more close together and began to get more love for each other and had their mind made up to get ready for the movement, the meetings, mass meetings. They would be calling me up and want to know if you're going to the mass meeting, and some didn't have any rides and those that did would say you can go with me. Some would walked cause you could walk then and no one would bother you.

HUNTLEY: What church were you a member of?

FLEMMON: I was a member of New Pilgrim Baptist Church at the time then. When they had the great march over there at New Pilgrim Baptist Church, you see they go round to different churches, the movement. See, I was originally a member of the Tabernacle Baptist Church.

HUNTLEY: I know New Pilgrim was ministered and a lot of people were involved. Was Tabernacle involved in the movement, was the pastor?

FLEMMON: No, they weren't involved because most of those people had jobs. You know how that was they didn't take an active part, like they wanted to, cause of their jobs and they had families to see after.

HUNTLEY: What about the congregation at New Pilgrim?

FLEMMON: Oh, they were very active people over there. They were just the type of people that believed in and they just had the spirit of wanting to be free.

HUNTLEY: Do you think it had something to do with their leadership?

FLEMMON: Why sure it had something cause some of the preachers were non-violent and they had to use non-violent people.

HUNTLEY: So, some of the ministers then would decide they were not going to be involved?

FLEMMON: Why sure, lots of them didn't take an active part until things got better, unlike when the heat was on, they played it cool. When the heat was on they wouldn't come out there, Rev. Shuttlesworth was out there and he had some cooperation with some strong men, you know.

HUNTLEY: Rev. N. H. Smith was real active.

FLEMMON: Yeah, he was one and Rev. Phifer, and Rev. C. H. George and Rev. J. W. Pruitt, and Rev. Frankie Lane.

HUNTLEY: What about Rev. Porter?

FLEMMON: Well, I didn't know Rev. Porter at that time real good. He was quite young, but he got involved, you know. It had to take something to shake lots of people up to get them woke up. I think the bombing, when they bombed the Gaston Motel, you know, that kind of shook them up, they thought that night when they had that big thing down there, you know. Then they kind of got the courage that they were gonna take a stand, you know. And stand as men and brothers together. 00:51:00They got them in, but it took something to shake them up, wake them up, you know.

HUNTLEY: Yes, yes.

FLEMMON: Lots of them said they were violent and they would fight and they said I'd fight. That kept lots of them away. They didn't need nobody there that would mess up.

HUNTLEY: Is there anything else that we have not talked about, that you would like to share with us that relates to the movement?

FLEMMON: Well, the only thing that I can honestly say is that the foot soldiers went through lots of storms here in the city, walking trying to get the people to wake up. You know, they had foot soldiers. Then lots of people cooperated 00:52:00with the movement, but they couldn't come out openly, you know. We understand, cause when you got to do what you got to do you can't just come out like you want to but you wouldn't and then you would take turns to help support it. Lots of people didn't get out there and demonstrate it, but they supported it.

HUNTLEY: Financially?

FLEMMON: That's what I'm talking about, and spiritual.

HUNTLEY: Were you able to participate cause your husband was an independent business man?

FLEMMON: That's what it was cause I was able to walk out there because nobody was his boss, yeah. You understand? When you got your hand in the lion's mouth you got to....

HUNTLEY: Ease through there.

FLEMMON: I was able to do lots of things for some that were unable to do what I 00:53:00could do and I went out there in good faith, but there were lots of good people in Birmingham that did well. They supported it very well. Financially. I give them credit. Now, all the people wasn't with us, but all of them wasn't against us.

HUNTLEY: You never got all to be for or against.

FLEMMON: That's right. Some went and some stayed and died in the wilderness.

HUNTLEY: That's right.

FLEMMON: So, that's the way it is. You got some that will cooperate and some won't cooperate, but they were still with us. I give them credit, they really supported the thing we were involved with. It probably wasn't every time the 00:54:00meeting was going on, but they sent that money. They money come from different churches, you know what I mean. Different churches cooperated. Lots of churches they were afraid that they were going to be bombed and all of that. It was quite natural, you know. Everybody don't have the same spirit about life. They are not as strong maybe as other would be. You got to have faith to walk out there amongst them mean folks, you got to have God in front to lead and guide you. And keep you from getting angry cause we went through lots of bad things. Them foot soldiers went through something, but they was able. Them guys, some of them 00:55:00White guys, they were rough on us walking out there with them signs. The signs is what made them so mad, so angry. Just to read it, they couldn't take it so they would say some harsh things, but we took it. We took it, told them God Bless Them and we went on. It wasn't no easy going out there, I can tell you that.

HUNTLEY: Took strength to be able to do that.

FLEMMON: Yeah, and you had to pray to. See what I mean about the prayers about the people praying gives us strength and we prayed to and that gave us double strength. So we made it.

HUNTLEY: Mrs. Flemmon, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and talk with us and you've been quite helpful.

FLEMMON: Well, I hope what I said will be beneficial to you and others, I hope.

HUNTLEY: I'm sure it will be.

FLEMMON: I hope.

HUNTLEY: This will all be housed here at the institute.

FLEMMON: Yeah.