Pinkie Shortridge Interviewed on February 10, 1995

HUNTLEY: Good morning.

SHORTRIDGE: Good morning.

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mrs. Pinkie Shortridge. I am Dr. Horace Huntley, today is Friday, February 10, 1995 and we are at Miles College. I just want to say again, good morning to you and welcome and I'm glad you could take time out of your busy schedule to come out and talk with us.

Obviously, what we are doing is attempting to develop profiles of individuals who have been instrumental in the development of Birmingham and particularly, the development of the civil rights movement. I know that you and your husband were very much involved in that, so again, I want to say thank you for coming out and sitting with us this morning.

SHORTRIDGE: Glad to be here.

HUNTLEY: First what I'd like to do is just to get a little background. Tell me a little something about your parents. Where were they from?

SHORTRIDGE: My mother was born in Livingston, Alabama. My father was born in Mississippi.

HUNTLEY: So, your father, was he a farmer?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, he was a farmer.

HUNTLEY: So, he had his own farm. Where were you born?

SHORTRIDGE: I was born in Kewanee, Mississippi.

HUNTLEY: Kewanee, Mississippi. And how old were you when you came to Birmingham?

SHORTRIDGE: Ten years old.

HUNTLEY: Ten years old. So, do you remember much about Kewanee, Mississippi?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we would go back there about once a year to visit my father.

HUNTLEY: So, in visiting back in Kewanee, you really never left, then. You went back periodically, so you still had friends and relatives there?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we didn't have too many relatives there.

HUNTLEY: Is that right?

SHORTRIDGE: No. We'd just go back to see my father.

HUNTLEY: I see. How many brothers and sisters do you have?

SHORTRIDGE: I have only one sister.

HUNTLEY: Is she older or younger?

SHORTRIDGE: She is younger than I am.

HUNTLEY: What about your parents' education? How much education did they have?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, my mother finished Parker High School after she came to Birmingham. She left Birmingham and went to New York. She attended college there and she received over twenty degrees, including degrees in nursing and decorating.

HUNTLEY: So, your mother was rather active?

SHORTRIDGE: Very active.

HUNTLEY: Maybe that's where you got your activism?

SHORTRIDGE: I don't know about that. My mother also did private duty work.

HUNTLEY: So, she actually lived in New York for forty years.

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, she lived in New York for forty years. One of her grandchildren had been injured, and she took care of him for about 25 years.

HUNTLEY: What about your schooling?

SHORTRIDGE: I finished Parker High School. I then went to Booker T. Washington Business College. Later, I attended Jeff State Mortuary Science. I have also taken classes at Birmingham Southern. I need about four more quarters before I can finish Birmingham Southern, if I ever go back.

HUNTLEY: So, you are a chip off the old block?

SHORTRIDGE: I don't know about that. It's something to do.

HUNTLEY: What kinds of work have you done?

SHORTRIDGE: Like what?

HUNTLEY: When you finished Booker T. Washington?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, I worked at Booker T. Washington in the insurance department for about twenty years. After my husband died, I took over the business.

HUNTLEY: And that business is?

SHORTRIDGE: Shortridge Funeral Home. That was in [19]64.

HUNTLEY: So, you are a funeral director?

SHORTRIDGE: Right.

HUNTLEY: When you were growing up, what community did you live in?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we lived in a shotgun house in Avondale. We lived there until we moved to Ensley on Eighteenth Street and we bought a house from Mr. Pritchett, who was a well-known musician here in Birmingham. They moved to New York.

HUNTLEY: So, how would you... Let's look at the two communities. Avondale community...what was the make-up of it?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, there were nothing but shotgun houses in Avondale, and Ensley offered a better living condition in a sense.

HUNTLEY: What kind of occupations did the people have in the two communities?

SHORTRIDGE: Well in Ensley, it was mostly TCI, Tennessee Coal and Iron.

HUNTLEY: Steel mill?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, steel mill.

HUNTLEY: What about in Avondale?

SHORTRIDGE: Private home, most of it.

HUNTLEY: Did you have any people that worked in the steel mills from Avondale, 00:07:00like maybe Sloss?

SHORTRIDGE: I had an uncle who worked in the steel mill that lived in Avondale, and that was the reason we moved to Ensley, to be near his job.

HUNTLEY: Were there men in the community that actually worked at Sloss?

SHORTRIDGE: I don't know, because I worked at the hospital.

HUNTLEY: What hospital?

SHORTRIDGE: University Hospital. I worked in Central Supply for years.

HUNTLEY: This was before or after...

SHORTRIDGE: At night.

HUNTLEY: While you were working at Booker T. Washington?

SHORTRIDGE: No, while I was in school. That was before I started working.

HUNTLEY: I see. What was your community's relationship to the Birmingham Police Department?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, at that time, it was just a police department. Bull Conner, we 00:08:00all knew him and ....

HUNTLEY: Why did everybody know Bull Conner?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, I guess because of his reputation, especially with respect to Black people.

HUNTLEY: Was the relationship between the police department and the community one where the

SHORTRIDGE: community looked at the police as being there to protect and serve the community?

I guess, in a sense. Yes.

HUNTLEY: But, in another sense?

SHORTRIDGE: No.

HUNTLEY: Can you give me some detail?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, when we moved to Ensley, it was altogether different. That's when I met my husband. So, he was very active in different organizations and 00:09:00civil rights and I think his family had a confrontation with the police department back then.

HUNTLEY: What kind of confrontation was that?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, one of his sisters had a confrontation at a drug store there in Ensley, and I believe the whole family got involved.

HUNTLEY: What actually happened?

SHORTRIDGE: I believe they said the man who ran the drug store slapped her. She later moved away and that's when my husband became very, very active.

HUNTLEY: Is that what got him involved as a result of that incident taking place?

SHORTRIDGE: In a sense, yes. I think he was at Howard at the time--

HUNTLEY: He's a ... tell me about his educational background. Did he finish from Parker?

SHORTRIDGE: No, no. He went to private schools. His whole family did. He went to Selma University and he left there and went to Howard University. He had a sister who finished Tuskegee and his brother finished Wilberforce. He had another sister. I think she finished Alabama State. She married Dr. E. J. Oliver.

HUNTLEY: Oh, is that right?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. They didn't have any kids and I don't know how long they stayed together, but they are divorced now.

HUNTLEY: Dr. E. J. Oliver was a legend within himself.

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, in Fairfield.

HUNTLEY: So, your husband, then, was he originally from Birmingham?

SHORTRIDGE: He was born in Pratt City. I have a picture of the house where he was born. It was a three-room house.

HUNTLEY: So then, his family was rather well off?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they were really from Montevallo. They had a lot of property there. I think they sold some of the property to Montevallo College, where the school was built. He has quite a few relatives there in Montevallo now.

HUNTLEY: You became actively involved in the civil rights movement. Why? Why did you become involved?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, my husband was active, and I would go with him. He made all of the arrangements for each Monday night for the meeting for the Alabama Christian 00:12:00Movement for Human Rights.

HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about his involvement even prior to the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.

SHORTRIDGE: Well, there was so much that he was involved in.

HUNTLEY: Was he involved with the NAACP?

SHORTRIDGE: He used to be president of the local branch here--the NAACP. The Masons, the American Workers, everything you could name, he was in it.

HUNTLEY: So, he has been a very active person?

SHORTRIDGE: Very active. He was also active with the Scottsboro boys.

HUNTLEY: Are there any specific incidents that you remember that sort of stand out in your mind that took place prior to the development of the Alabama Christian Movement? Was he involved in voting rights?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh yes. I think he set up two or three places. At that time, it was 00:13:00hard to vote and he would have classes there at his place teaching people the fundamentals of how to vote.

HUNTLEY: So, he was involved in many phases of what was taking place with the movement.

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, that's right.

HUNTLEY: In 1956, when Alabama outlawed the NAACP from operating, what happened then?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they organized the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Reverend Shuttlesworth called a meeting and my husband was asked to come. Reverend Shuttlesworth was president, Reverend Gardner vice president, and 00:14:00my husband was treasurer. They would meet every Monday night at different churches, not all the churches.

HUNTLEY: Why not? Were there some churches that were--?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they were really afraid, I think.

HUNTLEY: So, you attended the mass meetings on a regular basis?

SHORTRIDGE: Every night, to be with him, because he needed somebody to go along with him.

HUNTLEY: How would you describe a typical meeting of the movement in those early days?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, it was great. It was great, the religious side of it. You would forget about what would happen on the outside. Every night we would have a dynamic speaker and it was just... something would just go through you. I mean, 00:15:00I can't explain it. And Reverend Shuttlesworth was really the man for the job, not to be seen, not money wise. He was a dedicated man. He didn't worry about the money. He didn't worry about doing anything but making it better for everybody in Birmingham. I admire him.

HUNTLEY: How were those meetings set up? When you'd first start the meeting, what would happen?

SHORTRIDGE: They would start with a prayer. The meetings got so large that they had to have two detectives come out every Monday.

HUNTLEY: Two White detectives?

SHORTRIDGE: Two White detectives would come out every Monday night and we didn't worry about nobody bombing the church because the two detectives were there and they enjoyed it also.

HUNTLEY: Is that right? Why were they there?

SHORTRIDGE: I guess to see what was going on. They had to take a report back to City Hall.

HUNTLEY: So, they were basically there to spy on the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Absolutely. They were there to spy on the movement.

HUNTLEY: Did you go to jail?

SHORTRIDGE: No, I didn't go to jail. We got the people out of jail. We were out raising money trying to get them out of jail all times of night. We had over four thousand students and different ones in jail. We were the ones that had to 00:17:00go to the bonding company, my husband and I, to get these children out of jail and whoever was in jail. But we had to try to get some money, too.

HUNTLEY: Where did you do most of your fund raising?

SHORTRIDGE: He would write letters, go to different states to funeral directors and raise money. He would go to different organizations that he belonged to and tell them that it was necessary, that we've got to have the money. It takes money to do anything, so that was his job.

HUNTLEY: Did he assist in finding the attorneys that would help with the legal part of the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. Well, I think Shuttlesworth had the first case and I don't know what happened, but something came up and most of the lawyers here turned him down, so he had to try to find lawyers from somewhere else. So, he got a lawyer from Jacksonville, Florida to come in to associate with some of the lawyers here to try to get things going again.

HUNTLEY: Why did those that were here decide not to work with the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: I'm not too sure, but I think money was involved. They wanted a certain amount of money for this and that, and the organization didn't have it.

HUNTLEY: There was a need for... they... If you had a lawyer from out of town, then there's a need for a local lawyer to work with that lawyer....

SHORTRIDGE: You had to get a local lawyer to participate.

HUNTLEY: Was that difficult, to find someone here to assist?

SHORTRIDGE: I think we finally got attorney Demetrius Newton. I'm not too sure now, but I think he joined in with the lawyer from Florida, yes.

HUNTLEY: Are there any? Were there ever any attempts to stop you and your husband from being involved with the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we would get so many calls. He had. My husband had been active so long, he had gotten accustomed to being harassed and we had to park our car 00:20:00so many inches from the sidewalk or we'd get a ticket. Just so many things happened. It really didn't bother him and he finally got a permit. They gave him a permit, but after everything had gotten so rough.

HUNTLEY: What kind of permit?

SHORTRIDGE: A pistol permit, because he would be out late at night.

HUNTLEY: Were there threats on his life?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, many times. They called him the brains of the movement. So they would call there and say, I know this. We got letters that were written to the FBI and things like that. We never heard any more from it.

HUNTLEY: Were you ever attacked--you or your husband?

SHORTRIDGE: No, we were never attacked.

HUNTLEY: Do you think that was because of him having..of him carrying his pistol 00:21:00with him?

SHORTRIDGE: I think so, but they finally lifted his permit. They said, they. At the movement one night, they said his coat was up and they got a glance of his pistol and that next day they sent out and took his permit. One or two days after that, they tried to assassinate him.

HUNTLEY: What happened? How did they attempt to assassinate him?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, he had planned to go to a meeting that night and we asked him not to go. We had gotten so many calls that night. He said, 'Well, let me go out and lock the car up.' He said, 'You want a ride?' I said, 'No, the baby's not feeling too well,' so I stayed home. So he decided to stay home, too. So, when 00:22:00he went out to lock the car up and started back in the house, he said this car passed down Nineteenth Street real slow, turned around and came back up and started shooting. He had gotten back up on the porch when they shot about three or four times and he fell below the brick wall, and the door... The front door was a French door, you know, with the glass in it, and I was sitting right there in front of that door with the baby in my lap, talking on the telephone. We heard the shots and the first shot knocked the telephone out of my hand. The 00:23:00baby fell to the floor and I fell to the floor. The other shot hit the mirror over the chair I was sitting in. It didn't break the mirror, didn't hit my child, didn't hit me and did not hit him. So, you know there's a God somewhere.

HUNTLEY: It knocked the phone out....

SHORTRIDGE: Knocked the phone out of my hand onto the floor and I started yelling for the other part of the family to come up, and nobody got a scratch on them.

HUNTLEY: Was this the only time that you were attacked?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. We called the police department. They came out and checked and said, 'We'll get back with you.' We didn't hear any more from them.

HUNTLEY: You never heard anything else?

SHORTRIDGE: No. So, my husband filed a report with the FBI and we didn't hear any more from them.

HUNTLEY: So, were there any indications that he was going to be attacked that night?

SHORTRIDGE: No.

HUNTLEY: Were there any calls?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we had.We would get so many calls.

HUNTLEY: So, they became rather routine?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. We didn't think too much about it. Well, we had guards too.

HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about the guards.

SHORTRIDGE: After the attack, the men from the movement volunteered to take shifts to come out and sit around the clock. We built a little room on the front porch for the guards to stay in, so they stayed in that room at night to try to protect us.

HUNTLEY: Were they armed?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, they were armed alright.

HUNTLEY: And they...they were there all night?

SHORTRIDGE: All night. Some would come on around eight o'clock and stay until 00:25:00around eleven o'clock. Another shift would come around eleven o'clock and stay until that morning.

HUNTLEY: You lived on the Bush Hills?

SHORTRIDGE: No. We lived on Nineteenth Street, the home house.

HUNTLEY: Your home was never bombed then?

SHORTRIDGE: No. It was never bombed.

HUNTLEY: What about other people whose homes were bombed? Did they have the same kind of protection that you had?

SHORTRIDGE: Reverend Shuttlesworth? Oh yes, sure, right...

HUNTLEY: Reverend Shuttlesworth and people that lived all along...

SHORTRIDGE: Right, because a lot of the guys who worked for my husband, they would help guard Reverend Shuttlesworth.

HUNTLEY: So, then, there was a need, a real need, although this was a non-violent movement, there was a need for....

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they said that my husband was violent.

HUNTLEY: Your husband was?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. Well, that's what they said about him.

HUNTLEY: Well, he must have been a man, then, that...since he really never participated in the marches himself...

SHORTRIDGE: No, no. Reverend Shuttlesworth made him the standby person. When he got into things, that's who they would call. He would be the one to see about the money and see about those who were in jail, see about lawyers and try to get those...whoever's in jail, try to get them out of jail.

HUNTLEY: So, he was one of those that needed to be free to do his work?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. Doctor King used to call him 'the connection man.'

HUNTLEY: Why did he call him the 'connections man?'

SHORTRIDGE: Because all he had to do was just call my husband and he could 00:27:00connect him with anybody.

HUNTLEY: How well did you know Doctor King?

SHORTRIDGE: Very well.

HUNTLEY: When did you first meet him?

SHORTRIDGE: We used to go to Montgomery and attend all the different meetings where he would be speaking. And, you see, Doctor King was an Alpha. My husband was a diehard Alpha.

HUNTLEY: An Alpha man?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, Lord, he loved it.

HUNTLEY: So he and King, then, were rather close?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. A lot of the judges and things that he went to school with at Howard University, well, they were all involved in the movement. And so, he had Doctor King speak to the National Funeral Directors Association and just got them involved and they would give nice sums of money to the movement.

HUNTLEY: What was your husband's role with the National Funeral Directors?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, he was once the national president.

HUNTLEY: Were they active in terms of supporting the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Very much so. They had to be.

HUNTLEY: How do you mean, they had to?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, he was a guy that... He believed in freedom. He tried to instill in them that you've got to pay for it, and they believed in him, so they were very supportive of whatever he asked them to do. They would try to do it.

HUNTLEY: When you got married, you married Mr. Shortridge...

SHORTRIDGE: In [19]58.

HUNTLEY: In 1958. What was the attraction?

SHORTRIDGE: I don't know. I was about 33 or 34 years old when I got married. I was working at Booker T. Washington [Insurance Company] and had a lot of friends who had gotten married and they were having problems. I always wanted a guy who was a man, you know what I mean--who was intelligent, nice to his family, who knew how to get things done, in a sense, and is concerned about people. They called my husband a missionary, because he devoted all his time in trying to help the less fortunate people, the boys and the girls... money wise, in school 00:30:00and all those kinds of things. He had been doing it all his life and somebody told him that he should have been seeing after his business and that's what somebody told him. He said, 'You should be there, trying to see after your business instead of running around here seeing after everybody else.' But, that was his... That's what he liked. As a missionary-- He went to see-- I think President Kennedy had the... I don't know if it was the movement or some organization... They all went up and had a conference with Bobby.4 I don't know if this time the girls were bombed at Sixteenth Street [Baptist Church], but they had a delegation to go there. They had asked for them to come up and he was one of those...

HUNTLEY: Part of that delegation?

SHORTRIDGE: Part of that delegation, ... No, when the school-- Autherine Lucy--

HUNTLEY: Was he involved in that?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, Lord, yes. Anything that went on-- Well, she used to visit us a lot, Autherine Lucy.

HUNTLEY: So, your husband, then, he was several years your elder.

SHORTRIDGE: Very much so, but he was a gentleman. Age didn't mean anything. He was the type of person I was looking for.

HUNTLEY: I guess there were probably others that were sort of looking for him as well. How did you happen to...?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, I was a little quiet girl working hard and I guess he...

HUNTLEY: Saw something in you.

SHORTRIDGE: I guess so.

HUNTLEY: Your children-- You had how many children?

SHORTRIDGE: I have one daughter.

HUNTLEY: Your daughter, was she... Well, she was really too young to,....

SHORTRIDGE: Yes. She was about three years old when all this happened here in Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: How did other family members react to your participation in the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, there was a lot of police brutality. They didn't care for my husband too much. He was on that police brutality long before, you know, up on Sherman Heights and different ones with letters in the file now where he would write letters to different ones about police brutality and this and that. He had just been a part of it for a long time.

HUNTLEY: So, he precedes, then, Richard Arrington?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, yes. He's a jewel.

HUNTLEY: You know Richard Arrington started to take on that idea of police brutality.

SHORTRIDGE: That's why I admire Doctor Arrington. He said one thing when he got on the council. He worked on that police brutality.

HUNTLEY: Did he consult with your husband?

SHORTRIDGE: No, I think-- Let's see-- [19]64. My husband was dead when he [Arrington] really got active. But, he said one thing: If he didn't accomplish anything else, he was going to stop these policemen from beating up the Negroes. After he got in office and got on that council, it was kind of rough at first, but he stuck with it. They gradually started listening to what he was saying. 00:34:00So, the Birmingham-- What is the Birmingham Police...this organization they've got?

HUNTLEY: The Fraternal Order.

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, they were rough. They were real rough. But, when Arrington hired...what's the police chief's name?

HUNTLEY: Johnny Johnson.

SHORTRIDGE: No. No. The one before him.

HUNTLEY: Deutch.

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, Deutch. I loved him. He had a rough way to go and he stuck with Arrington and he stopped. You name me... I bet you can't name over three policemen, I mean three persons, that had been beat up by a policeman after he got in office.

HUNTLEY: So you're saying he worked closely with Arrington to see that the police force...?

SHORTRIDGE: He worked with him. He had a rough way to go, and I admire him. And 00:35:00anytime that the Birmingham police was turned off... If the police don't like you, you're doing a good job.

HUNTLEY: The Fraternal Order of Police didn't like you--

SHORTRIDGE: Didn't like...

HUNTLEY: Deutch.

SHORTRIDGE: No. They didn't care for him too much.

HUNTLEY: Why? Because he was not supportive of wrongdoings?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, because he didn't allow any beating up of the Black men during the time he was in there.

HUNTLEY: So, then, the Birmingham police had a reputation for...

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, yes. They had a reputation...killing and beating them up. When Arrington got on that City Council, that was one project he really worked on. I 00:36:00admire him.

HUNTLEY: You know, one of the first issues raised by the movement was that of there being no Black police.

SHORTRIDGE: That's right, and that's when they started looking at Black policemen when the movement got started.

HUNTLEY: Do you know of any of the things that were taking... I know you know of them, but things that were taking place during the first days of the movement when they were trying to integrate the buses? Are there any incidents that you remember during that time?

SHORTRIDGE: I'm trying to see. There's so many things that happened. My husband, they would call him if they got in jail. He would be the one that would have to go bond them out.

Shuttlesworth didn't worry about any money, because he knew he would borrow it or do something, you know, get them out of jail, whatever needed to be done.

HUNTLEY: He always led that portion of the movement, any time that there were those who were in jail--

SHORTRIDGE: That's, right. My husband-- Shuttlesworth, he didn't... Only thing he was concerned about was making it better for everybody. He didn't care about any money, Shuttlesworth. He was a leader. He was a preacher. You couldn't push him to the side.

HUNTLEY: How would you...?

SHORTRIDGE: My husband paid all the bills. Every month he would give the movement receipts on what was spent. He had a CPA [Certified Public Accountant] to come and do the books once a year.

HUNTLEY: What about the relationship between the SCLC [Southern Christian Leadership Conference] and the Alabama Christian Movement during the times that... in 1963, when they were raising money?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, at that time, I think that my husband... I think he thought that if the SCLC came in they would have the money to help get the people out of jail, but they soon got that. That wasn't any problem. Doctor King was the same as Shuttlesworth. They didn't worry about money. They knew the Good Lord would take care of it. He did.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever go out with your husband to raise funds? I know he went out...

SHORTRIDGE: You mean at churches?

HUNTLEY: At churches and away to different cities--

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, right.

HUNTLEY: Where would some of the places be?

SHORTRIDGE: New York, anywhere the funeral directors would meet. They would have a spring meeting and a meeting in the summer and that was when he would write letters and let them know. And he would have it on the agenda, the funeral 00:39:00director's agenda, 'A Night for the Civil Rights Movement.'

HUNTLEY: So that was an integral part of anything that he was doing.

SHORTRIDGE: Any part. The Alpha Fraternity. Nationally, he would go to all of his meetings. Everything that he belonged to. He belonged to everything you could name.

HUNTLEY: Did any of your friends or relatives ever question why you were so active in the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: No, because they would enjoy it too, when they got a chance to go. He had a sister that would stay there with the mother at night. But sometimes we would take her.

HUNTLEY: So, the movement, then, was sort of...was what you were doing in relationship to your business. But the movement seemed to have taken up quite a bit of your time now.

SHORTRIDGE: Well, we would go every Monday night and we would go everywhere trying to raise money, writing letters, to different organizations, different clubs.

HUNTLEY: What would you-- If I asked you the question, 'What did the movement do for the community?' what would be your reply? Was it a positive influence or...?

SHORTRIDGE: They had a positive influence on going to vote. They encouraged people to think about the election, read about the election and they tried to educate the people to get up and go vote. If you don't know how-- They would have workshops, several workshops, in trying to teach people how to go vote and how to stand up and be proud of your race. Regardless of what color, you are 00:41:00somebody. That is what Shuttlesworth taught and this is what Doctor King taught...'I Am Somebody.'

HUNTLEY: Were there ever any relationship with progressive Whites during this time?

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they had quite a few Whites.

HUNTLEY: What kind of associations did they have? Did any Whites ever come to your house, for instance, to have meetings with your husband?

SHORTRIDGE: No. No. They would meet at the office, if they would. They never did come to the house.

HUNTLEY: But there were associations with them?

SHORTRIDGE: I think so, but I'm not too sure. But I'm sure it was.

HUNTLEY: Is there anything else that we have not covered that would be of interest to the people who are interested in the movement?

SHORTRIDGE: Oh, the time the children...when they integrated the schools-- Let's see. Well, my husband furnished transportation to take the kids to West End High School, and that wasn't an easy job to do. Two of the guys who worked at the funeral home would be the chauffeurs. Before they would get a block to the school, eggs and everything else would be thrown at them.

HUNTLEY: These were men who were actually paid by your husband to chauffeur the kids back and forth to school.

SHORTRIDGE: Out of his pocket, right.

HUNTLEY: And this is at West End High School when they started to integrate.

SHORTRIDGE: West End High School, any school.

HUNTLEY: And the other schools as well?

SHORTRIDGE: Yes, if they needed a ride. But he would see to them at West End and Ensley High too, I believe...if they needed a ride, because most of them needed a ride because they were afraid for them to try to walk or anything like that.

HUNTLEY: Well, I know that you are planning to donate to the Institute your papers from your husband and we are really excited about that, because we know that there are a lot of things in there. Eventually we want to see something that can be used for public consumption. Some kind of publication will, hopefully, come out of that material.

SHORTRIDGE: Well, they've been kept. He had a scrapbook. All the clippings from the Birmingham News-- He kept a scrapbook with all those clippings and things for those who came along behind us to see it wasn't easy. It was just putting 00:44:00your life on the line.

HUNTLEY: Okay. Mrs. Shortridge, I certainly appreciate your taking time out of your busy schedule. I know you are still running your funeral home and other kinds of activities. You are still involved in many things, so, again, thank you again for taking the time out, for coming out and spending the time with us this morning.

SHORTRIDGE: Thanks for inviting me.