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https://bcriohp.org/files/original/a99e75668fa6709a2efdc6e88c99b88c.jpg
9af2eb6d7a8ccc8b576be50a193f93aa
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Edward S. LaMonte
Interviewee
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Dr. Richard Arrington Jr.
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Viewer).
http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=RArringtonJr2001a.xml
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Miles College
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5.4 July 23, 2001 Richard Arrington Jr. (1 of 2) Interviewed on July 23, 2001 20010723A 4:01:13 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Jess Holdnak Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Pitts, Luscious Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor Miles College Dr. Richard Arrington Jr. Edward S. LaMonte Video 1:|12(8)|24(3)|36(12)|49(2)|61(17)|74(11)|86(6)|97(5)|109(11)|123(10)|139(17)|150(14)|163(11)|174(12)|189(4)|201(16)|214(5)|224(4)|232(9)|243(12)|255(9)|269(3)|282(7)|297(2)|312(6)|329(2)|341(8)|353(2)|367(3)|382(8)|394(7)|407(2)|418(8)|431(2)|446(11)|460(12)|474(14)|489(12)|501(3)|516(8)|529(10)|540(12)|554(7)|567(1)|578(5)|592(8)|605(2)|617(3)|630(3)|643(12)|653(13)|665(4)|679(6)|689(12)|701(6)|713(7)|739(10)|750(14)|765(9)|777(10)|791(7)|804(8)|814(2)|825(14)|838(3)|852(4)|865(4)|877(2)|888(5)|899(1)|912(2)|925(11)|938(1)|948(6)|962(13)|974(12)|985(11)|998(8)|1017(1)|1031(1)|1041(16)|1054(12)|1067(9)|1081(3)|1094(4)|1106(6)|1118(9)|1129(10)|1146(1)|1157(7)|1169(2)|1178(9)|1193(10)|1204(8)|1216(4)|1229(5)|1241(13)|1258(6)|1272(1)|1283(5)|1294(12)|1304(12)|1315(6)|1328(11)|1343(4)|1352(10)|1362(16)|1375(2)|1387(3)|1398(4)|1410(3)|1420(10)|1434(2)|1445(3)|1456(15)|1469(7)|1482(4)|1491(7)|1503(1)|1516(3)|1533(8)|1543(11)|1552(14)|1566(4)|1587(6)|1599(5)|1610(7)|1623(9)|1634(3)|1647(4)|1657(8)|1669(7)|1682(13)|1695(16)|1710(7)|1721(12)|1732(4)|1742(1)|1752(8)|1768(7)|1783(19)|1802(1)|1815(4)|1830(12)|1846(10)|1859(4)|1872(11)|1883(8)|1895(17)|1907(5)|1919(1)|1933(4)|1943(3)|1954(9)|1966(5)|1976(11)|1991(7)|2004(9)|2014(11)|2026(8)|2036(7)|2046(11)|2054(12)|2065(8)|2078(2)|2094(5)|2105(4)|2116(6)|2127(15)|2139(5)|2150(6)|2160(6)|2171(6)|2180(4)|2191(7)|2205(5)|2217(5)|2228(15)|2241(5)|2252(13)|2264(11)|2278(7)|2292(12)|2303(9)|2315(13)|2329(12)|2338(10)|2350(7)|2361(6)|2374(8)|2385(11)|2398(4)|2405(11)|2420(9)|2435(9)|2445(14)|2460(3)|2473(9)|2486(14)|2499(8)|2515(2)|2528(4)|2546(14)|2559(2)|2571(13)|2582(9)|2593(15)|2613(5)|2624(11)|2641(1)|2652(1)|2665(8)|2677(13)|2688(12)|2702(7)|2710(1)|2723(2)|2733(9)|2744(3)|2758(16)|2771(15)|2782(17)|2794(12)|2803(11)|2814(10)|2826(3)|2838(11)|2852(8)|2868(9)|2879(14)|2895(3)|2906(11)|2918(3)|2932(12)|2949(7)|2968(11)|2979(8)|2991(11)|3005(6)|3017(11)|3027(5) 0 https://youtu.be/dDZ0MBNEBlw YouTube video English 0 Introduction Introduction to interviewer, Edward S LeMonte, and interviewee Dr. Richard Arrington Jr. 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 82 Early Life and Childhood: Living in Birmingham Dr. Arrington, let’s begin at the beginning, would you talk about you early childhood, family experiences, and your growing up years? Dr. Arrington talks about moving from Livingston to Fairfield, his family history and life as a child in Birmingham. He discusses early role models, and seeing electric lights for the first time. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Blacks--Segregation ; Fairfield (Ala.) 786 Early Life and Childhood: Industrial Highschool When I finished Industrial High School, where I had studied dry-cleaning, because it was an industrial school and it offered us, what had called the straight academic program for those students who intended to go on the college. But most of the students of course were studying some trade, tailoring, upholstery, shoe repair, auto mechanics and things of that sort. Dr. Arrington talks about studying dry-cleaning in high school, his high school experience and his parents. Industrial High School Arrington family 1793 Early Life and Childhood: Living In a Segregated Society You mentioned your mother’s concern in particular about police encounters or other incidents. Were there any terrible incidents in your childhood or times when living in a segregated society was very punishing and you knew at the time? Dr. Arrington talks about his experience and knowledge of segregation as a child. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Blacks--Segregation 1974 Early Life and Childhood: Church You’ve talked about the importance of family, of high school and of the community that you grew up in that produced role models. Were there other institutions or organizations that were important in your early years, church, and civic groups, anything along those lines? Dr. Arrington mentions the importance of church in his life. Church ; Conley Bethel Primitive Baptist Church 2111 Education: Miles College I ended up going to college right here and actually two blocks from where I grew up at Miles College. And I go to college, I start as a freshman, I have no idea what I’m going to study, but as I said I knew I was going Dr. Arrington talks about the path that led him to study Biology at Miles. Biology ; Miles College 2283 Education: Graduate School And that I said, “I’m 20 years old and I just graduated from college.” And I leave Alabama for the first time in my life, I take the greyhound bus and off I go to Detroit and I married by that time too at 20 years. So off we go on the bus to Detroit, I’ll never forget it was a tearful moment, I cried, didn’t want to leave home. Dr. Arrington talks about being one of only a few black student at the University of Detroit and not having to deal with segregation or the first time. He also talks about teaching at Miles after receiving his Master's, receiving a National Science Foundation Fellowship, and applying to Ph.D programs. Biology--Study and teaching (Higher) ; Education Miles College ; University of Detroit ; University of Oklahoma 2739 Politics: Voting Were there any thoughts at all at this point in your career about public service, politics, anything other than higher education? Dr. Arrington talks about registering to vote and voter tests. Jefferson County (Ala.) ; Pitts, Luscious Voter registration 3176 Politics: The Civil Rights Movement During the time you were in college, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was handed down by the supreme court and then I guess during your graduate school years, the Civil Rights Movement, perhaps peeked and had its greatest impact. How did those developments in the civil rights arena either affect your life or shaped your thinking during that period of time? Dr. Arrington talks about his awareness and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement and in desegregation, including his children attending desegregated schools. Civic League ; Fairfield (Ala.) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ; Civil rights movement 3470 Education :Doctoral Studies 1961, I was at Washington University when he was chosen president. In fact, I first met him when I was a graduate student at Washington University and he came to St. Louis to speak to a group of Mileans, I attended that sessions and that was when I first met Luscious Pitts. L: So you taught at Miles and then went off and earned your PhD ultimately--? Dr. Arrington talks about his doctoral program. Pitts, Luscious Miles College 3628 Politics: Summer of 1963 So you left beginning your doctoral work in ’63, were you here during the summer of ’63 when the demonstrations were occurring? Dr. Arrington talks about working with Civil Rights Leaders. He also mentions George Wallace and the assignation of John F. Kennedy. 1963 ; Gaston, A. G. (Arthur George), 1892- ; Halls, Peter ; Kennedy, John F. (John Fitzgerald), 1917-1963 ; Montgomery, James ; Wallace, George ; Woods, Abraham ; Woods, Calvin Civil rights movement 4169 Education: University of Oklahoma and Discrimination But those were things that sort of stick with you, but I was Oklahoma in ’63 for three years and enjoyed it. Took 2 1⁄2 years, taught there the last semester I was there, the whole three-year period and it was basically a good experience. Socially it was, somewhat different. Oklahoma turned out to be not that different from Alabama, they had gone through a lot of litigation already about desegregation and I wasn’t aware of that, as I should have been. Dr. Arrington talks about discrimination in off-campus housing and the University of Oklahoma, discrimination at restaurants, and the history of segregation on campus. He also talks about his friendship with Professor Harley Brown. Norman, Oklahoma ; Oklahoma City (Okla.) ; University of Oklahoma Blacks--Segregation ; Discrimination in housing ; Discrimination in restaurants 4908 Career: Career in Education But was there ever any thought of going some place other than Birmingham, or did you assume and understand on completion of your doctorate that you would return to Miles College and resume your career there? Dr. Arrington summarizes his career as academic dean at Miles, director of the Alabama Center for Higher Education, and work with the Carnegie Foundation. Alabama Center for Higher Education ; Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching ; Ford Foundation ; Pitts, Luscious Birmingham (Ala.) ; Miles College 5400 Career: City Council L: So you were there from ’70 until you were elected mayor in ’79, and there was a moment of political initiation at some point during that stage, when did you first have the thought descended to you of becoming involving in politics and public life? Dr. Arrington talks about getting involved in politics for the first time, running for city council and his first council term. He mentions speaking out against the police and working with the white community. City council members ; Connor, Eugene, 1897-1973 ; Shores, Arthur D. (Arthur Davis), 1904-1996 ; Vann, David Birmingham (Ala.) ; City council members 6941 Career: Motivation for Running for Mayor Was there any thought on your part of perhaps running for mayor in 1975 at the end of your first term? Dr. Arrington say that the Benita Carter incident was his motivation for running for mayor. Carter, Benita ; Vann, David Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor 7208 Career: Leaving Miles College (inaudible) but you raised a question my leaving Miles College, what happened at Miles College was there was a search for a new president and John Monroe, who had come to Miles from Harvard some years earlier, led an effort to get me back as president and apparently had spoken with the bishop, who was the chairman of the board. Dr. Arrington talks about leaving Miles and how Dr. Clyde Williams became its president. Monroe, John ; Williams, Clyde Miles College 7549 Career: City Council Second Term Could we talk a little about the second term, your second term as a council member was 1975 to 1979, David Vann was mayor during that period of time, you mentioned that your first meeting with David had occurred during the 1971 campaign when he had forwarded some campaign funds to you, you had not met him during the period in ’63 when he was very much involved with the negotiations between black and white leaders? Dr. Arrington talks about his second term on the city council focusing especially on David Vann as mayor. He mentions some about his run for mayor against Vann's reelection campaign. Boutwell, Albert Burton, 1904-1978 ; Connor, Eugene, 1897-1973 ; United States. Voting Rights Act of 1965 Vann, David 8599 Mayor: Campaign L: Two questions before we move into your campaign and first term, prior then to the Benita Carter tragedy in the summer of ’79, your plan was to finish your second term as council member, leave politics, return to I assume a full-time career somewhere in higher education? Dr. Arrington talks about running for Mayor in 1979 and winning. He mentions financing his campaign and working with businesses in Birmingham. He also mentions some of his campaign platform. 1979 ; Bradford, Tom ; Campaign funds ; Carter, Benita ; Farley, Joe ; Gaston, A. G. (Arthur George), 1892- ; Harbert, Raymond ; Thompson, Hall ; Vann, David ; Woods, John Campaign promises ; Political campaigns 10020 Mayor: Winning First Term Dr. Arrington talks about transitioning into office and some of the issues he faced including selecting a chief of police. Davis, Willie ; Myers, Bill Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor 10946 Mayor: Police L: (inaudible) difficult to in a reasonable period of time covered 20 years as mayor, but I think there are some areas that we could group questions and thoughts on your part and I guess one of them would be to return the topic of police and you’ve talked about the professionalization of the police department a long-term process that began during your first term as council. I recall that the issue of the shooting policy was one of the kinds of important police issues that came up early in your tenure as mayor, I wonder if you could speak to that and other things related to policing that reflected your commitment to the professionalization of the department. Dr. Arrington talks about reforming the Birmingham police department. Deustch, Arthur ; Fraternal order of police ; Myers, Bill ; Police Reform Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 11462 Mayor: Affirmative Action Related to the police department and all other department but certainly more extensively were very basically was the question of affirmative action in the consent decree. At the time you entered office the question of discriminatory hiring practices was before the courts? Dr. Arrington talks about affirmative action, accusations of reverse discrimination, and his progress in diversifying the Birmingham workforce. Reverse discrimination ; United States. Supreme Court Affirmative action programs ; Affirmative action programs--United States 12366 Mayor: The Birmingham Plan I don’t know how successful it has been, but we reached a point where they started working with us rather than against us. We got the Birmingham plan put in place and the Birmingham plan, in my opinion ; it’s a significant accomplishment. I don’t think it was a productive as it could have been, because quite frankly I don’t think we ever got really the mentality among a (inaudible) minority contractors, they were going to get a set aside, but with all those rough balance, one very pleasing moment for me was one day when six young black contractors came in my office. Dr. Arrington talk about implementing the Birmingham plan and attempting to help minority contractors, and small businesses. The Birmingham Plan African American business enterprises ; Economic development 13269 Mayor: Downtown Revitalization One of the projects that David Vann had begun was the commitment to downtown Birmingham the revitalization of downtown, would you comment on your views of downtown and what your administrations did over the years on behalf of downtown Birmingham and your assessment of success or failure? Dr. Arrington talks about attempting to revitalize downtown Birmingham. He mentions projects like the McWane Center, dealings with Sloss, plans for improvements that did not happen, plans for parks and issues with recruiting business. He also talks about improvements to the 280 area including the Summit. His discussion on annexations includes David Vann's time as mayor. Annexation (Municipal government) ; downtown revitalization ; McWane Center ; Pizitz ; Sloss Furnace Company ; United States Highway 280 (Ala. and Ga.) Birmingham (Ala.) Oral History Dr. Richard Arrington Jr. discusses growing up in Birmingham, his educational career, his time on the city council and his early years as Mayor. This interview is continued on July 24, 2001. LEMONTE: This interview with Dr. Richard Arrington, Jr ; it is conducted on July 23-24, 2001. I am Edward S. LeMonte, currently Vice President for Administration and Howell Heflin Professor of American Government at Birmingham-Southern College. I would say at the outset of the interview it was my personal and professional privilege to serve as a staff member during the first two of Dr. Arrington' ; s five terms as mayor from 1979 to 1987. And during much of that time, served as his senior staff person or executive secretary. The purpose of the interview is to provide a comprehensive introduction to the life of Richard Arrington, to his public service career and also to his reflections on the Civil Rights experience, particularly at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. The interview is part of the Oral History program of the institute. Dr. Arrington, let' ; s begin at the beginning, would you talk about you early childhood, family experiences, and your growing up years? ARRINGTON: Of course, yes. Life leads on some interesting journeys and that' ; s what life has led me. I was born in what is called the Black Belt area of Alabama, a place called Livingston, Alabama, which is located in Sumter County and my father and mother were sharecropping farmers down in Livingston, Alabama. My first four years were spent there in Livingston, Alabama on the farm with my parents. My dad eventually decided to join the great movement to Birmingham to work in the steel mills. That of course, was what many of the people who were on the farms were doing at that time. They were leaving the farms because of economic conditions changing and new opportunities opening up in places like Birmingham with its vast steel mills. And so when I was four or five years old, my dad moved us to Birmingham ; and he went to work in the steel mill, so I grew up in Birmingham, out in the suburb called Fairfield. I was taught in the Fairfield Public Schools System and even did my first four years in college in Fairfield and I earned my Bachelors Degree at Miles College, which of course is in the Fairfield area. I never left Birmingham in fact until after I had finished college. It was an interesting experience growing up in that time. Race was of course a dominant factor in daily lives and shaped everything from social activities to education, and schools were all of course, segregated. There were black schools, I attended Robinson Elementary School and then from there to Fairfield Industrial High School. These were the schools for black students in the city of Fairfield. The time during that particular period, again, there was a straight emphasis on separation of the races, so I grew up not knowing very much. I had very few contacts with whites ; the law of the land in the south at that particular time was of course, racial segregation. Parks were segregated, there were very few facilities, in fact, and quite frankly the system at that time treated blacks really as second-class citizens. We lived in separate neighborhoods but there were usually the neighborhoods where there were few of public services where the streets were usually unpaved and what have you. But that was an interesting thing about it and because of the segregation laws, it kept all blacks, corralled all blacks, few which were professionals or they were teachers, doctors and lawyers. They lived in the same neighborhoods with those like my father, like where we lived, people were blue-collar workers. And so in one regard I see a positive in that ; we were sort of united frankly by race and by racial laws and so I knew everyone in the community, I knew the teachers who lived in the community, those who had the opportunities to get education. I knew at least one or two physicians who lived in the community, I knew the professionals. And so one result of segregation of blacks in the community was the fact that they had to all live in the same community and that provided some opportunity for some degree of interaction. LEMONTE: Were there any particular individuals who you would call as role models during your youth in that segregated community that you grew up in? ARRINGTON: Yes, I recall quite well. In my early days, I thought I wanted to be a physician because of Dr. W.L. Drake was ' ; The Black Physician' ; in the city of Fairfield. He handled most of the clients there in the city, and I remember Grover P. Parham, who was also a black businessman who was actually a pharmacist, but highly respected and ran several businesses here in Birmingham. There were a few others, really this was in Fairfield mainly. There were a few other blacks ; there were some teachers that I got to know fairly well who lived in the community. They were all in one sense or another sort of role models that I think inspired a lot of us. And when I think about them in conjunction with the constant counseling of my parents about what I should do in life, which was go to college. See my parents had never gone to college, my dad had only gone to the third grade in a one-room country school and all the grades were in the same room. My mom had come from a family down in Sumter County where there was some degree of education among most of the members of the family ; for example, her uncle Dr. Jones, was sort of the first presidents of Selma University. And then in her family, most of her uncles attended school or went to Tuskegee. They didn' ; t graduate, but they went there for a while. And then they came back and they taught there. And my maternal great-grandmother was also a teacher. So on the Bell side of the family, which was my mother' ; s maiden name was a, Bell. On the Bell side of the family, we had a great emphasis placed on education and also it' ; s interesting that many people. Particularly blacks coming out of Sumter County, who knew the Bells, always thought we were really well to do. I think it was a combination of the fact that most of the Bells were into education. They were teaching in some of the schools there and then gone to college. Of course that' ; s a privilege viewed by blacks whom were rural people working mainly on the farms. My great-great granddad lived on a huge plantation and they called it ' ; The Bell Place' ; . I cannot remember how many acres there were, but even to this day I meet people of my generation here in Birmingham, who are from that area and had grown up there, maybe a little bit older, but they still think that my family owned this so-called Bell Place. The truth is that my great-great granddad was three years old when slavery was abolished and continued to live there on that plantation which was owned by Ms. Lula Degraffenreid. When Mrs. Degraffenreid moved out, she let my great- great grandfather continue to live there. So he married and all of his children were born there. Each one built a house somewhere on that huge plantation. So the Bells lived there and people always thought we all did well, we owned not a square inch out there. Of course today, American Can Company owns all of that land, but it' ; s timberland but that was where I got my start. I got to Birmingham, there were things, I told people many times I have never seen, because I had never left Livingston and I' ; m only four or five years old. I had gone to the train depot a couple of times to see some relatives off. I come to Birmingham and get there at night and one of my first experiences is hearing a streetcar and not being able to see and my mom (inaudible) thought it was a train and having her tell me it' ; s a streetcar. And I could hardly wait to get up the next morning to get out on the porch to see where the streetcar was. And because we lived there in an area in Fairfield called Vinesville, right where the city of Birmingham boundaries meet the city of Fairfield. And from my home, I could see what was called a #7 streetcar that came down and turned around and went back to Birmingham and I could the #14 street car that came through there and went on down to Bessemer and that was very interesting. It was interesting for me moving to Birmingham as a young man to see electric lights up. I can' ; t recall having ever seen them anywhere in Livingston. But I knew we lived in a home on the farm where there were no electric lights. Everything, all the lights at night came from kerosene lamps. And so I got to see electric lights for the first time and each one of our three-room house my dad leased. Then we got the single electric light bulb on a cord and we kept on by hand, this is a new experience. I' ; m seeing this new technology, new forms of energy, all very exciting. But my playmates, my friends all were of course people in the neighborhood, and they were black. Even then our newspaper carrying days, I was a paper carrier early ; I was ten years old, and I got me a paper route. I had a few contacts with young whites that were also paper carriers, but we had some interesting experiences, for example, my cousin and I would like to stop in the park down in the city of Fairfield and watch the baseball games. Well it was a park for whites, but we would stop on the (inaudible) put our papers down and watch the game. Occasionally there in the park, along with some of the white paper carriers, down in the field by the station where we picked up our newspapers, we would engage one another in football games, the black playing the whites and we had great fun, but the police would come along and they would really scold us. And they really scold the blacks and that was all out of place, the blacks and whites would play together and that' ; s race-conscious people were and that was the kind of situation I grew up in. The whites I got to know, well those I worked for, once I got to be a senior and started working at a drycleaners, called Howard' ; s drycleaners, which incidentally still here in Birmingham down on 3rd ave and ninth street. And I worked there in my starting the end of my senior year in high school and I worked there for four years, almost until I graduated from college. When I finished Industrial High School, where I had studied dry-cleaning, because it was an industrial school and it offered us, what had called the straight academic program for those students who intended to go on the college. But most of the students of course were studying some trade, tailoring, upholstery, shoe repair, auto mechanics and things of that sort. And so a friend of mine influenced me, a good buddy in high school named Thomas Hardin. At the end of the 10th grade you had to make a choice of which program you wanted to study, whether you wanted to take a trade and which trade you would study. Or you were going to go to college. Now I knew all the time that I was going to college. I knew it because my parents had always said we' ; d have to go to college. And it was interesting that they would say that because we had no means, no money or anything to send people to school. My dad just worked in the steel mills and when he was not working at the plant, he was a brick mason and carpenter and he built homes. Many of them still stand out in Fairfield today. But we didn' ; t have an abundance of money ; we lived from paycheck to paycheck. I knew I was going to college, yet this friend influenced me. When this election time came up and having no counselors at the high school that I was attending, although we had an outstanding educator, this principal named EJ Oliver. I ended up studying dry cleaning, which was not my first choice. What happened is Dr. Oliver would call all the students into the auditorium and we would tell him what areas we wanted to study and we would get assigned to those particular areas. Many of us wanted to study some trades and more than a trade could accommodate the teacher. There was a single teacher in each trade, so I wanted to study tailoring. Thomas and I chose tailoring and there were so many people wanted to study tailoring. What Dr. Oliver did was that he had all of us to put our names on a piece of paper and fold it up and drop it in a hat. And so 15 people who were going to be able to study tailoring were the names drawn out. I was unlucky, I didn' ; t get tailoring and that' ; s whet Thomas and I had to choose another trade. And so he said, " ; Let' ; s go into dry cleaning." ; So I studied dry-cleaning my junior and senior years in high school. I studied dry- cleaning and basically cleaned clothes for friends of others and ours. I had only two people, although I had done fairly well academically in school, I was an honor student and obviously should have gone in the straight academic program. That would have meant more algebra and trigonometry and would have meant more than chemistry and things of that sort. But only two, maybe three people out of a class of hundred and something students who graduated went into straight academic programs of study. But anyway, from there, my friend and I graduated and we ended up to Miles College the next year as freshmen. And as I said I worked at Howard Cleaners after having done one summer of just making brick mortar for brick mason at $0.50 an hour, which was my first job. So that sort of a sketch of how I grew up--. LEMONTE: You make it clear that your parents expected you to go to college ; I take it that your family was a close-knit family. Your parents had great influence over you and what you did. Could you say a little more about your family, your siblings and what have become family members? ARRINGTON: Absolutely, one of my blessings was that we had a close-knit family. My dad married my mom when she was just 18 years old and he was in his early 20s. He was dating my mom and they were talking about marriage, my mother was 17 when her mother died of a heart attack. And of course she and her siblings--she had a brother who was the youngest of the three, her sister in between, and my mother was the oldest of the three children. So her father had brought them up and then he was killed in an accident. He was working cutting timber and somehow was killed when a large log falling on him and killed him. So shortly thereafter, my father married my mother and moved into her home and in essence raised three kids, his wife, his sister-in-law and his young brother-in-law. So he actually kept all three of them and they lived with us, or up until I left home that they continued to live with us (inaudible). But it was a close-knit family and even when we moved into the city out in Fairfield, my aunt and my uncle still lived with us, although we had just a three- room house, a living room, a bedroom, a kitchen, and a toilet eventually on the back porch, initially dry toilets out in the backyard. My uncle Bill eventually moved next door, but the family remained a close- knit family. My dad was sort of the patriarch and oversaw the entire family. And when my mom did a lot of the work of seeing my brother--I have a brother who is two and half years younger than I am. He is in high education and lives in South Carolina. But my mother had the responsibilities of seeing that we did our schoolwork or getting us enrolled in school, all those kinds of things. I can recall coming home almost daily during the week sitting on the front porch in what we call a glider. My mom taking me over the lessons, with a switch in there by her side. And with my reading or my doing the spelling and sometimes I see the kids out there running and playing, I wanted to go. Occasionally my mom is picking up the switch-hitting me because folks playing distracted me. I almost remember some of the visits made by teachers. I had a--I got up to eight or ninth grade, I had this pretty teacher, named Angelina Raye. She had a sister who taught there in the system named Mattie Raye and they were both very attractive ladies, even to the kids whose in the eight grade. But I came under Angelina Raye, who was from an area called Hooper City. I came under Angelina Raye, in her English class and I tell people to this day that every bit of the grammar I know, I learned that under her. I had never heard about conjugating a verb until I got into her class. She was an outstanding teacher and I paid strict attention to her ; she was pretty to watch but I was anxious to learn. I wanted to know and then I wanted her approval, but she would come over, she and her sister, they would do home visits quite often ; they would sit on the front porch and talk with my parents about my brother and me and about well we were doing in school. The interesting part of that story, the reason I mentioned it, is that Angelina Raye later married my brother, who played basketball in high school. My brother' ; s basketball coach, a man whose name was Rice, his last name was Rice ; and of course today his daughter is the security advisor to the president of the United States, George W. Bush. But I told Condoleeza Rice on a number of occasions (inaudible), her mother, of course she remembers that her mother knew me and had talked about me and all of that. So that was interesting, I came under the influence of some good teachers like Mrs. Raye, Mrs. Cook and I got into doing things I really didn' ; t do well, debate team and it was really a good academic experience at Fairfield Industrial High School because EJ Oliver, who some would call a tyrant, but he ran his school and he demanded that there would be emphasis on academic achievement. We completed statewide academic meets every year. In fact the greatest disappointment I had in my entire high school career was that I had never won what' ; s called a ribbon. We would go off to Alabama State University in Montgomery every year, where black high school students from across the state who were considered to be the top students in their classes and during the junior and senior years would compete in certain areas like Government, History, and English, or Literature and Writing. And of course the great honor, the thing that made everybody feel good at Fairfield is that you got a lot of recognition for your academic achievement. There was a large glass showcase and if you won a ribbon, you brought it back, kept your name on it, it was in the showcase. And all the kids who over years and years at the school had won ribbons, they were all there. So it was a great honor and of course I went off and competed in that twice and didn' ; t win a ribbon either, you win first, second, third place ribbon. And that was my great appointment and I never won a ribbon in that. LEMONTE: Was that due in part to your being in the dry cleaning tract--? ARRINGTON: It may have been, I don' ; t know the answer, but it may have been. Another way that Oliver really inspired us is that he had built on the wall, a large bulletin board with a glass door that covered it and he called it the " ; The Fairfield Industrial High School Hall of Fame." ; And the first graduate that achieved some distinction in the field would go into the hall of fame ; for example, the first Fairfield Industrial High School graduate who became a lawyer. And the first one who became a pharmacist and the first one who became a doctor and so forth and so on. And it' ; s amazing how that inspired people become everybody wanted to be in the Fairfield Industrial Hall of Fame and I left Fairfield, hoping one day get into Industrial Hall of Fame. And of course I was able to get in there, I was the first Fairfield Industrial High graduate to get a PhD degree in Zoology and so I was brought back some years later got inducted into the hall of fame. And here I am now of course and adult now, gone all the way through school and I' ; m about 30 or 31 years old, Doctorate Degree, but I was just as proud going back the Fairfield Industrial High and be inducted to that hall of fame. It made me prouder and that time when I walked across that stage to get my Doctoral degree. LEMONTE: Did Dr. Oliver sort of push you personally toward academics? ARRINGTON: No he didn' ; t push me-- LEMONTE: Particularly. ARRINGTON: He did do a lot of recognition to honor students. If you make the honor roll every semester, you were brought--he called names, in the assembly you came up. So he put a lot emphasis on that, he loved sports, but he put a lot of emphasis on academic achievement. While he gave a lot of attention to people like Willie Mayes, who was a couple of years ahead of me in school and was our hero and other athletic standouts ; He also did great emphasis to people who achieved academically and I sort of ranked always in like the top 10 of the class, I was probably number 3 or 4 in my graduating class. So I got recognition that way and then I was a thespian, I didn' ; t have any acting abilities, but I was a thespian working on properties and I said I was in the debate club and did have to debate and compete with our school against other schools in debating. And all of these things believe it not turned out to be very, very constructive activities and good activities for my development. But I still grew up in essentially a black culture and a segregated culture, didn' ; t think a lot about it at the time, quite frankly, just accepted it as a way of life. My mother worried especially about what would happen to us in relationship with police because the police were the people who kept everybody in line, in particularly the black community and the children being (inaudible) she was always worried about what kind of encounter we might have one day with the police. Although my brother and I were well behaved because my mother was a strict disciplinarian and we dared not get in any kind of trouble because we' ; d be in serious, serious trouble at home. My mom would not hesitate to give us whippings for anything we did. It was the same way about school I mean, we had to perform well in school and it was expected of us and we knew we had to do it. And so we learned that at an early age, what the expectations were, and we labored to (inaudible). It wasn' ; t that I was in any way extraordinary in terms of intellectual abilities, it was just hard work. It was that ethic that my family had and you got to get in there and do it. And it carried my right on through college, as I said, I went to college and I paid my tuition, there were no student loans or anything like that at that time. So I paid my tuition by working year round at Howard Cleaners. Worked there every afternoon at 4:00, I droved the delivery truck to about 10 or 12 branches to take the dry-cleaning out to the different branches. I was at the cleaners' ; (inaudible), I worked there on Saturdays and sometimes Sundays and then all summer long. I worked every job, I learned every job at the cleaners from firing the boiler so when the boiler man was on vacation during the summer, I relieved him and I did that and I ran the huge laundry and the man in charge of the laundry was off work and began in charge of the dry cleaning--I learned every job there, even down to the dressing machine, the area that many machines that were there. So that too was a learning experience, I became almost like a plumber, I knew how to do everything, but that' ; s how I worked my way through college. LEMONTE: You mentioned your mother' ; s concern in particular about police encounters or other incidents. Were there any terrible incidents in your childhood or times when living in a segregated society was very punishing and you knew at the time? ARRINGTON: It very punishing in a sense of that and fearful, there was great fear about what happened to blacks who according to whites or in the view of whites, stepped out of line or stepped across the line. We were fortunate that we' ; ve never had any bitter experience in our family, but we knew of people all around us who were beaten by police officers. Some were killed, whenever there was a rape of a white female somewhere in the Birmingham area, there was always some black guilty party and may not have been, I don' ; t know, but some black would pay the price and that was always a front page story, if a black was accused of having raped a white female, it was always front page but it always sent some fear throughout the black community until somebody had been apprehended and charged with that. I grew up at a time, still in the rural areas, a person or so charged, probably never got, many times never got to trial. A mob would come they would be lynched and taken that person out of jail and it' ; s still happening, even when I was in college it' ; s still happening and not that much in Alabama then as it was still happening in Mississippi and I still recall some of the victims, Parker and people like that. And because my mother taught me to love reading and so forth and I read everything, including the newspaper. But the people across the street did and I borrowed that newspaper everyday, just to read. And my dad loved to read, he didn' ; t read well, but he read the paper everyday, got the paper and he would read it and (inaudible) his words and stuff. So I grew up reading the paper daily and I was also aware of what went on and what I seen from reading the newspapers. So there was a kind of fear, but luckily we never had a direct bitter experience. I had officers stop me and say negative things, but never got to any physical encounter thank God. LEMONTE: You' ; ve talked about the importance of family, of high school and of the community that you grew up in that produced role models. Were there other institutions or organizations that were important in your early years, church, and civic groups, anything along those lines? ARRINGTON: Well the church certainly was a major institution. I remember joining the church that I' ; m now a member of, when I was six years old, being baptized a few years later and it' ; s a church I grew up in and attended regularly, worked in the Sunday school, was in the vacation Bible school. My parents were very much involved especially my mother and working in auxiliaries in the church. My mom sang in the choir and worked with the vacation bible school. And of course we were always in attendance, so the church had a significant influence in shaping our lives and helping us to shape the values so forth that we had. It was a major institution and of course I feel the black church has been one of the major institutions for blacks in this country. Much of the black leadership has come out of the black churches, colleges ; black churches started many of the black colleges. And so, yes, a lot of my values were shaped by church. LEMONTE: And you are a member of the church that you joined when you were six? ARRINGTON: It' ; s the only church I' ; ve ever-- LEMONTE: And what church is that? ARRINGTON: Conley Bethel Primitive Baptist Church in Fairfield. I' ; m what you call a foot washing primitive Baptist. We wash feet on communion Sundays and so it' ; an important institution. I ended up going to college right here and actually two blocks from where I grew up at Miles College. And I go to college, I start as a freshman, I have no idea what I' ; m going to study, but as I said I knew I was going. So I enrolled, I take the admission they had, what they call placement tests at that time in math and English and really think I did well and all her students from my high school all did well on those. They were not standardized test ; they were test put together by the faculties there, the college at that particular time. But if you didn' ; t pass the test in math, for example, you ended being placed in remedial math class, which you would spend a year but get no college credit. If you didn' ; t pass the English test, you couldn' ; t write the composition to the satisfaction of the teachers, you would end what they called sub-bang, which is remedial English. And so many of the students, in fact there were more students taking remedial math or remedial English in the freshman year and they would take the regular. But I did notice that the students who came out of Fairfield Industrial High School was me and attended Miles College just about everyone of them passed the placement exams did well, which again spoke well of what people were doing. But at Miles college I didn' ; t' ; know what I was going to, but fortunately some good teachers and some who took a special interest in us. And I remember a young teacher named Verdell Martin who taught Psychology and I remember her calling, I had taken a course with her in Psychology and I remember her calling me one day, I just happened to be passing by her office and calling me in and asking me, " ; What have you decided to study, you' ; re starting you sophomore year?" ; And I was very honest with her and said I just didn' ; t know, she says, " ; I think you got a good aptitude for science and I' ; d like for you to go and talk to Mr. Jones." ; That was the Biology teacher, a man named (inaudible) Jones. And so I did and I went over and talked to him and he suggested that I study biology or chemistry and that' ; s why I became biology major. And that was fortunate because he took an interest in his students ; he got a number of us to go into graduate school. I had no idea of what graduate school was. When he first mentioned it to me, have you thought about going to graduate school. I didn' ; t know what graduate school was and he explained and he thought he could help me get into graduate school up at the university of Detroit where he had gotten his masters degree and so he wrote the professor there and I applied there and I was admitted and I was given a teaching fellowship, teaching freshman laboratory classes at the University of Detroit. And that I said, " ; I' ; m 20 years old and I just graduated from college." ; And I leave Alabama for the first time in my life, I take the greyhound bus and off I go to Detroit and I married by that time too at 20 years. So off we go on the bus to Detroit, I' ; ll never forget it was a tearful moment, I cried, didn' ; t want to leave home. But it was also a traumatic experience for me at the university. People were wonderful there, at the university where there was maybe a dozen of blacks in the entire university, it was 12,000 students over in the biology department where I was, I was, at the time, the only black student enrolled in that graduate school. And while nobody else seemed to have thought anything about that, it stayed on my mind because I had come out of Alabama, out of a rigidly segregated society. Whereas I said, I had no social interaction with whites excepts occasion football game or baseball thing, might have happened on the streets or in the park, we' ; d sneak and did a lot, the police didn' ; t come along. So I really had no real contacts and now here I am in a setting where everybody in there in the graduate school where I am is white and no blacks. And the faculty and the students were wonderful, but even the horse played with the guys, but to me it felt strange, on weekends, hanging around as a graduated student, labs and so forth and guys get the wrestling and so forth and some white guy comes over and grabs me and started wrestling. You know, you didn' ; t do that in Alabama and it was a strange feeling. And sitting in the class rooms and the professor was lecturing decided to question people as he talked and I didn' ; t care how many times he called on my, every time he called on me, I just had to know the answer and when I didn' ; t I felt so bad, I thought I had let the whole black down, just shows you what racial segregation had done. But I think it was at the University of Detroit that I began to get some sense of self and identity and it turned out to be a very good experience. My second year there, my last year in which I received my degree, I did have another black student, a young woman named Sue Chatman came in as a graduate student and she eventually went on the dental school, in fact she practices today. She' ; s a dentist in Atlanta, so it was a good experience and of course from having gone to, I got a masters degree and came back to teach, but my professors had also recommended that I go on to work for a doctorate and so forth. All of this turned out to be good experiences. LEMONTE: You received your master' ; s degree in what year? ARRINGTON: ' ; 57 and I graduated from Miles in 1955 and then in ' ; 57 I received my master degree. I returned to Miles College and began teaching some biology at Miles College and studied--I would go off to graduate school during the summer for long time and then around 1960 or ' ; 61 I left as national science foundation fellow and went to Washington University for a year to do studying and research and then to the medical at the state university of Iowa to do research in radiation biology. Came back to the college and taught for a year after that and then was accepted at two or three schools for a doctoral program and chose to go out to the University of Oklahoma. I really wanted to go, ever since I had gotten my master' ; s, I had wanted to go to the university of Illinois to study zoology under a professor named Kudo, Dr. Kudo was one of the top people in his field. In fact, I had done my master' ; s (inaudible) a small problem dealing with small project that was related to the work that he was doing. But I was never accepted, I applied and they never accepted me. I was accepted to the University of Connecticut and I was accepted at the University of Southern Illinois and I was accepted at the University of Oklahoma. Out of the four schools, there was one other school that I applied to. So three of those schools accepted me and I chose to go to Oklahoma to work with a professor there in invertebrate zoology and we took off and went to Oklahoma. LEMONTE: So your career then prior to going to Oklahoma really was focusing you on academics, on being a researcher and more particularly I guess a teacher at Miles? ARRINGTON: My interest was teaching, I love teaching, I was secondly doing some research, but teaching at a school like Miles undergraduate institution, there was no real emphasis for me to do real research. You taught three classes a term and I enjoyed and that' ; s what I did. But of course whenever I went to graduate school, whether it was summer or what have you, I' ; d have to do research and if I hoped to achieved, ever get a doctorate degree of course I had to show that I had some ability to do a research, do some research which at least had to be at a level (inaudible) contributed something to the field. And so I kept my fingers in research areas by going to school every summer, I was very fortunate also that during that time, the federal government began to pump a lot of money into sciences. For example, when sputnik, when the Russians put the first space object into space called sputnik, out government responded by pumping a lot of money especially into the sciences to begin training people. To upgrade teachers who were teaching science. That, I was very fortunate, so I applied every summer and went away in some sort of program where we were getting graduate training. So again it was just luck as things came along. Things that I would have been able to, I was making $390 per month at Miles College teaching, had a family and there wasn' ; t much I could save. You couldn' ; t save any money, but I was able to go to graduate school every summer, because there were plenty of opportunities available through the national science foundation, but the science and math teachers and the timing was just right. LEMONTE: Were there any thoughts at all at this point in your career about public service, politics, anything other than higher education? ARRINGTON: No, I had thought of nothing except being a college teacher. There were no role models at that time in politics for me or for blacks because blacks did not have the vote except for a very small number. Blacks were essentially prohibited from voting in Alabama or they limited the number, even people who held a vast professional degrees, doctors, other doctorate degree, often times were not permitted to vote in Alabama. You went down to the board of registrars ; there were three people on the board of registrars in this county in Alabama. And you had to pass a test, an examination, whatever decided, usually in some counties it was written, but usually just answer the questions from the board of registrars. And that registrar was so determined whether or not you were qualified to vote. And the questions asked, often times were not very relevant to voting, but they would ask you things about the constitution, ask you a lot of things about Alabama, sometimes they would ask you things were actually just silly questions, telling you that you weren' ; t gonna be allowed to register to vote. And I assumed that they had a quota that they worked by for the number of blacks they would put on the voting roll. I' ; ve told the story many a times that I graduate from Miles, I' ; m 20 years, you can' ; t vote until you' ; re 21. I go off to Detroit and because in the black community there was always a push through a (inaudible). Every black community had civic leagues at that time. Today you would talk about neighborhood association, but then we talk about civic leagues. And every black community that I knew of had civic leagues working. And one of their major responsibilities and challenges was to get blacks registered to vote. And so what they would do and act, I remember this clearly, is that they circulate it throughout the black community a legal size sheet of paper with typed questions on it, both sides, that we studied when we' ; re old enough to register to vote, you studied those questions. And people in the black community studied those questions. But (inaudible) the questions and the answer to the question, we would study those in preparation for going down to the board of registrars. And of course, as I said, " ; You' ; d go down and you really had the (inaudible) of the registrar." ; I still remember some of those questions, like you know, which county in Alabama has two courthouses, so things of that sort. But people worked awfully hard I mean because the people in the civic league sort of went to house to house trying to encourage blacks to register to vote. And all during my growing up there at Fairfield, I saw this. So I grew up in a family and my dad was never registered to vote until I was in adulthood. But I grew up in a family where there was cautiousness about it. And so I wanted to register to vote, I' ; ve always wanted to, turned 21, my first semester in graduate school. Came home for Christmas, the first thing I wanted to do was go down the Jefferson County Courthouse in Birmingham and register to vote. So I went down to register to vote and this dear lady who was a registrar, sitting, it was white lady, she began talking with me, asking me about my background, in fact I was school. All of these things and of course trying to be as polite as I can be. But feeling great anxiety, waiting for her to start asking me all these questions, which I have been studying and I assumed I know the answer. I got me a bachelor' ; s degree and I know the answer to all these questions. And she surprises me, she' ; s asking me how are you doing in school and then she says, " ; Raise your right hand." ; She never asked me a single question. And there I was just a nervous wreck, wondering if I passed (laughs). But it was interesting, that' ; s the way things were at that particular time and it' ; s just interesting how things happened in your life, how people come into your life, how you happen to some places sometimes. My coming back to Miles College after I had become a (inaudible). My work as a research fellow, brought in contact with Luscious Pitts. Luscious Pitts became president while I was away and contacted me about coming back to teach at Miles College. And of course I fell under the influence of Luscious Pitts and even after I got my doctorate, he talked me into coming back to Miles College. I think I came back to Miles, I believe Luscious paid me $10,000 or $12,000 per year (inaudible). When I came back and began working there. But Luscious was very much involved in the community as a whole and encourage the students to get involved in the community. And so here I am, I had not thought about politics, or public service because I started to say earlier, there were no role models, there were no black elected officials. The only one I could think of back during that time was Adam Clayton Powell, who was a congressman from Harlem. But other than that, there were none that I knew of. And so having no role models, most of us, there may have been some extraordinary black young men and women who were thinking about a career in public service of some sort. Running for office, but most of us, I don' ; t think ever even thought about that. In fact, I couldn' ; t imagine that in Alabama there would be black elected officials period. And I really thought about that even after I became mayor. Somebody had told me that was going to happen back a few years ago, I would have said, you don' ; t know what you' ; re talking about, it' ; s not gonna happen. LEMONTE: During the time you were in college, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision was handed down by the supreme court and then I guess during your graduate school years, the Civil Rights Movement, perhaps peeked and had its greatest impact. How did those developments in the civil rights arena either affect your life or shaped your thinking during that period of time? ARRINGTON: Well, I was always very much aware of what was going on in the whole struggle for human rights, us being raised in Birmingham. I think it was in part because of family in part because I was (inaudible) and I knew that I always had an interest in civic affairs and because of the work of the civic league and early on I had joined the Fairfield civic league and attended meetings of the Civic league. So I had that awareness about what was happening. When the school desegregation of ' ; 54 decision came down, I was just watching what had happened seeing a couple of years after that, the efforts to desegregation schools here in Birmingham and the problems that were created and seeing city government fight against all forms of integration, parks closed eventually and things of that sort to try to avoid desegregation. And I think that lifted the awareness of the black communities. I think that the black communities as a whole were sort of caught up in a struggle. Now for achieving some equal treatment under the constitution, especially the night of the US supreme court in ' ; 54 and had gotten rid of separate but equal and that was longer the law of the land. I' ; m not sure we thought about it that way, but the push was on throughout the black community and eventually through civic leagues and through the black church. We were being encouraged. Encouraged to integrating, desegregate the schools, do this. So that push was a constant push, I remember I had to make a decision when I came back in ' ; 57 about my kids going to schools. Whether or not to take them to the predominately white school in Fairfield, I remember after some of the--taking them there. So that was interesting, but Luscious Pitts, when I came back and I was working at Miles, Luscious Pitts was very much involved and a lot of students were involved in movements for equal treatment of blacks here in Birmingham. LEMONTE: Let me just go back, you mentioned your kids taking--did I understand that they did go to--? ARRINGTON: We took them to predominately white schools--. LEMONTE: And they were accepted? ARRINGTON: Yes, yes they accepted them--. LEMONTE: And that was in what year? ARRINGTON: That was in ' ; 57. LEMONTE: So the Fairfield Public Schools desegregated six years before Birmingham did? ARRINGTON: Probably so, I came back in ' ; 57, ' ; 57 I returned to Miles College to teach and enrolled my son in the--what had been a predominately white school there in Fairfield. LEMONTE: With no incidents or particular problem--? ARRINGTON: No problem, maybe a dozen blacks in the school. LEMONTE: Do you have the sense that Fairfield municipal government was in a way more progressive than the Birmingham city--? ARRINGTON: Well, no, let me get my time frame right. Your question brings that back to mind, I have to go back and think about my son and the age. You' ; re right because my kid was born in ' ; 56 or ' ; 57 and so that would not have been school age, four or five years later. So it was at that time when he turned 6 years old at that time. So it was probably in ' ; 60. LEMONTE: And do you recall what year Dr. Pitts became the president at Miles? ARRINGTON: 1961, I was at Washington University when he was chosen president. In fact, I first met him when I was a graduate student at Washington University and he came to St. Louis to speak to a group of Mileans, I attended that sessions and that was when I first met Luscious Pitts. LEMONTE: So you taught at Miles and then went off and earned your PhD ultimately--? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: And that was in what year? ARRINGTON: ' ; 66. After going back and forth to graduate school and Miles to teach, in ' ; 63 I loaded up my--I applied to each school, was accepted at the University of Oklahoma. Was given a teaching fellowship there, which covered tuition there, small staffing and I was also--because even when I working on my masters, the state of Alabama was providing some money because the state had a program where blacks who went out of state to graduate school, the state would pay their difference between the cost you had to pay at the school what you would pay to Alabama, and that was their way of keeping the schools segregated. So if you wanted to pursue graduate study in a field that was not offered, say at Tuskegee Institute, then you applied to the department of education and you got admitted at some other school. You applied to the department of education and we got a check each quarter. You just simply had the business officer at the school you attend to verify what your tuition was and you sent it to the state department of education and they would calculate what the differences was and the expense and send you a check for the difference. So all while I was in school, I already took my doctorate program, which I got a doctorate in ' ; 66. I was getting that stipend from the state. And that plus my teaching fellowship stipend and they would support my family and attend school. LEMONTE: So you left beginning your doctoral work in ' ; 63, were you here during the summer of ' ; 63 when the demonstrations were occurring? ARRINGTON: Yes, I left in August of ' ; 63, I had been accepted ; I had taught summer school at Miles College. I had been involved and sort of indirectly in some of what was going on because Luscious Pitts had had me doing things like attending meetings with him, taking notes and minutes, writing up some statements that Dr. James Montgomery who was (inaudible) during the news conference or Abraham Woods or Calvin Woods and I often times wrote those up, but Luscious assigned me that responsibility. I often times wrote those up but Luscious assigned me that responsibility. I attended the meetings of some of the black leaders in the black community, like AG Gaston and the Peter Halls and the people who were considered to be spokespersons for the black community. I kept all the minutes, I was in the meetings when--I wrote up document listing the grievances of the black community which went down to the city fathers at some time. I think we' ; re now in the 60s probably and that document eventually led to decision by the white leadership to form a biracial committee. I was at the meetings when the black leaders at AG Gaston' ; s office dealt with the issue of who would sit on the committee to represent the black community. It was a big decision, it was a important time, but they did--I really think the initiative was taken by white leaders who suggested to the black group because we had submitted this list of grievances and all. And eventually they suggested that there be a biracial committee. And they named the members of the committee, both black and white. And I told the story many times that how black leaders resented that. And said Jim Montgomery who was physician and Calvin Woods was a preacher to meet with some of the white leaders to tell them that. The time had passed for whites telling blacks who the leaders were, they were going to chose their own leaders. And the white group was very apologetic about that and of course-- LEMONTE: LeMonte is speaking (in regards to pausing for a moment) ARRINGTON: Well I was telling a story that I' ; d like to tell about that particular meeting where at AG Gaston' ; s office. The (inaudible) Calvin Woods and Jim Montgomery had come back from meeting with some of the leaders of the white group and had informed them that we were going to chose our own leaders. And the white group was very apologetic, so now it' ; s left up to us because they apologized and they asked us to please inform them of the names of our representatives on that committee, there were the be 10 people named. And it was really sort of humorous to me because we got into the discussion about who the leaders would be or who the representatives would be and just to make this story short, the group ended up naming the same people. Out of the ten people, nine of them were the same people that whites had named. And the only reason the 10th person wasn' ; t named, the whites had included the name of a black female who nobody knew. Nobody knew who she was and of course she wasn' ; t in the meeting, but all the other nine that had been named were in the meeting that we were in. And everybody was lobbying of course to get on them ; nobody wanted to offend anybody by leaving them out. So they put the same nine on there--nine of the ten that the whites had named, that left really only the 10th open. And Peter Hall, who was an attorney at the time, later was to become the first black municipal judge in the city of Birmingham, but who had refused to sign that grievance petition that we sent down, of course I remembered in the meeting when I had presented it for that review. He said that he couldn' ; t sign it because I had written something in there about the injustices that we suffered in the courts and he said that he was an attorney and an officer of the court, so he couldn' ; t sign the petition. But when we were ready to get the committee, he was there lobbying for that 10th spot, he thought he should be in there and he got it. And so I always tell that story because to me even that morning I found it very humorous, I can hardly keep from laughing out when they named all the members of the committee because it was exactly the committee except for one person that the white members had named in the first place. LEMONTE: And Dr. Pitts was one of the ten--? ARRINGTON: Yeah. So it was an interesting experience for me, I' ; m just (inaudible). In ' ; 63 I am ready to go out and work full-time on that doctorate rather than trying to work during the summer and I taught through summer school and packed my family in my old white ford, had a new baby at that time, and we headed off to the University of Oklahoma. When I left Birmingham, it was right at the height of a lot of the unrest, George Wallace had become the governor, he was stumping the state giving fiery segregationist speeches, he had earlier made his inaugural address where he had declared segregation now and forever and what have you and challenged the federal government by saying he had tossed the gauntlet in the dust and so forth. And then he was also moving around places like Tuskegee where ever there were efforts being made to desegregate schools, especially now in rural areas where there were black majority, Macon county for example and so he stood in the schoolhouse door things, in high school he had done the Autherine Lucy thing. And he came to Birmingham, he made very fiery speeches. George Wallace just stirred the part of--he was a demagogue and he did a lot of demagogue. And I think helped set the stage for some of the violent activities that took place in Birmingham and had been ongoing, but stepped up some of the bombings of churches and homes of blacks that occurred. So I left Birmingham in August and went to Oklahoma in late August and of course I had only been there a short while and the tragedy of the bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church occurring. I remember hearing about that on the news first and then reading about it and calling home and talking about it. But I was in Oklahoma in ' ; 63 and some eventful times. I' ; ll never forget the day that JFK was assassinated, I was attending a seminar where graduate students from several universities and colleges there in Oklahoma came to the science association to present papers and I was at the meeting. And we had a break just about lunch and walked out in the hall and somebody had a television on and of course they were talking about the president had been assassinated in Dallas. But those were things that sort of stick with you, but I was Oklahoma in ' ; 63 for three years and enjoyed it. Took 2 ½ years, taught there the last semester I was there, the whole three-year period and it was basically a good experience. Socially it was, somewhat different. Oklahoma turned out to be not that different from Alabama, they had gone through a lot of litigation already about desegregation and I wasn' ; t aware of that, as I should have been. Before going there, I had been informed by the school that all married housing was full and they had no married housing, but the (inaudible) letter they sent out said that I was University-approved housing in the community and the University of Oklahoma is in a small college town, Norman, which is not very far from Oklahoma City, the largest city and Norman is a very special little college town, it' ; s a fishbowl kind of town. And so I wasn' ; t very aware, for someone who had grown up in Alabama and who had been following the struggle for human rights in the country, my mind was just on school. So I arrived there that day and I go to the dean of students office and I asked a young lady there--I get there late afternoon with my family and we don' ; t have any place to stay so I go there and I asked her if I may have the list of approved housing, because I' ; m going out in the community to find some housing. And she looks at me so funny and she says, " ; Excuse me a minute." ; And she goes back in the back and she comes back out and says, " ; Dean-somebody" ; --it was a lady that talked with me and so she took me back and asked me some questions about the family and but they never would give me list. Instead they put me in some housing, again that was fortunate in a sense, they put me in what was called the old navy base they had on the campus and they converted that to married student housing. And so my family and I ended up living there and I was very pleased. It was only just several weeks later in talking with a black graduate student there in the department of biology, who was from Georgia. He explained to me why I had been given the housing, while whites who had put their names on the list to provide housing, sometimes in their own homes for graduate students and it was on the approved list. While they would rent to black from foreign countries, they would not rent to American blacks. And there were a lot of African, not a lot of them, but enough, be very visible. African students, Nigerian and others living out in approved housing that the white residents of Norman, all-white city, I was told that there had been one black family that lived in Norman and I think that they, aside on the university, it' ; s probably still the same, I was back there recently. Did not accept American blacks, although I went to church at the largest white Baptist there and they welcomed us and all of that. But on housing--in fact you got three or four blocks away from the campus and it was sort of like Alabama again. The racial segregation was there. I had to experience one night, while there, I' ; m going out with three of my fellow graduate students and (inaudible) department to a very popular beer tavern that students frequented, just always there. And of course we always worked late because we taught grads and we took classes and at night, you were there doing your work or you were doing your research or setting up your lab work for the next day, classes and things of that sort. So as a graduate student in science, you know they all will tell, you stayed at the school all the time. I' ; d get up early in the morning, jump on bicycle, peddle from my housing about two miles from my department building and I' ; d stay there all day, by 5:00, I' ; d go home, eat dinner, say hi to the family and about an hour, get back on my bicycle, back over to the university, out there until maybe 10, 11:00, I' ; d come home, that was just the life of a graduate student in science. One night we had finished our work and two or three other guys says, " ; Come on let' ; s go have a beer, Dick, why don' ; t you join us?" ; I said, " ; Okay." ; So we go to this popular place on the (inaudible) of the campus and we walk in and of course it' ; s just crowded with university students (inaudible) all around, standing and all of the tables--and we finally find a table in the corner and we all each ordered a pitcher of beer because this place is famous for serving beer by the pitcher. And we said bring us a pitcher of beer, well the waiter comes back and he brings everybody a pitcher of beer except me at the table. And so one of the guys said you know where is his beer, so the guy says, " ; We can' ; t serve you here." ; Well we were caught totally unaware, we had forgotten, they have too, they were more embarrassed than I and of course they had some unkind things to say to the guy and say come on let' ; s go and we got up and went outside and the guys were so embarrassed. And they said come let' ; s go, I said well I need to go home and they were pleading with me, I said, " ; No, you guys go on." ; And I went home. But the next day I went to one of the professors in the department named Carl Riggs because he was serving on the Norman' ; s city council. And I told him what had happened and I said to him, I' ; m going to file a complaint with Oklahoma City NAACP. He called me back the next day and said, " ; Dick, I' ; ve looked into that matter and here' ; s what I want you to do. I want you get back with your friends and go back over there." ; I never did but obviously what he had done was somebody had called, I guess the owner of the place and had said, " ; Well if he comes back in here, we' ; ll serve him." ; But I had forgotten that and it was such a fishbowl, I hadn' ; t had experience like that, I went into the little Dixie, which is the southeast of Oklahoma on a field trip with all graduate students, about a dozen of us and I was of course the only black in the group, there were only three blacks students at graduate that studied Zoology at the University of Oklahoma. We get down one day after working in the field all day, we' ; re all tired and we decided as students with a little money, we' ; d splurge some. And there' ; s this popular steak place and so one of the young ladies says, " ; Let' ; s all have a steak." ; And so sure enough we walk in the restaurant and everybody' ; s very joyful and we' ; re having a good time, we had a good day in the field. And we all sat down and the lady comes over and I noticed that she whispers to one of the young ladies in the crowd and the young lady gets up from the table, walks over and then the young lady comes back and say to the rest of us, hey we gotta go back--here again I was in what was called the most conservative parts of Oklahoma, but I didn' ; t know it, as I said, it was called little Dixie and they rigidly segregated by race in the area and they would not even, the fact was that they didn' ; t even serve blacks in that restaurant period. But here I am and so this dear lady who owns the place, she doesn' ; t know what to do, she decide she' ; d put us in a small meeting room. And or course we all recognize what this is all about and so I said you all go on and of course they plead, aw Dick please and so we all went back and sat in there and ate. But that was again just how sometimes you let your guard even when you know (inaudible) you grown up in a place. So I learned a lot of things even there in Oklahoma, I think they all made me stronger quite frankly--. LEMONTE: Children in school in Oklahoma? ARRINGTON: Didn' ; t have any problems, I was so pleased about it, got to Oklahoma, my kids participated in everything, placed them in the school right there on the campus. All of the activities, my kids were very active and that was, you get (inaudible) to sleep because--you' ; re not as quite as conscious about racial restrictions once--. We were at a university setting, I' ; ve forgotten about the history of Oklahoma, even though they still have their--the professor shows me in one of the lecture rooms the area where they had roped off where the black students would have to sit. After first having to sit outside and then the students protested there about them having to sit outside the classroom. They then block the student who had been ordered to be admitted by the federal courts to the University of Oklahoma, they built an area, it' ; s a little. (Inaudible) in every building he had a class and that' ; s where he had to sit and they still had that, they longer had to sit there but they were still there in that lecture room, in the library he was given a special place in the cafeteria. And that may not--many years before I came to Oklahoma, but I had forgotten about that you know. And people were friendly and all and I had one faculty member (inaudible) I' ; ll never forget who told me my first day there and he asked serious questions about whether or not I was going to succeed, not only because I was black but because I was from the south. And he said that southerners just didn' ; t do well in graduate school and all that stuff and you know--very uplifting talk (both laugh). But I did well at Oklahoma and became the personality, a popular student at a black school. (Inaudible) what they called a (inaudible) top students, I was the first to join the biological society, I was tapped for that (inaudible). I got to be a very popular person and I was fortunate that I chose a professor named Harley P. Brown, whom I did not know at the time, he was from Mobile, Alabama and of course he still comes up, well his family is in Mobile. And he and his wife just took my family and me in, had us in their home regularly for dinner, liked to go out on weekends on field trips to collect bills and other things and they' ; d come back and take my wife and the kids and I were--and we just became apart of that family. And it meant a great deal, I mean more than I even knew at that time, but it just made me feel a part of something. While things were still sort (inaudible) in the country in particularly back in Birmingham. So well, I' ; ve been fortunate in a lot of ways over those years. And came back to Birmingham in ' ; 66. LEMONTE: But was there ever any thought of going some place other than Birmingham, or did you assume and understand on completion of your doctorate that you would return to Miles College and resume your career there? ARRINGTON: I had no commitment to that except my own personal desire. I had never thought of living any place except Alabama. Whenever I left Alabama, I always knew I was coming back to Alabama, I don' ; t know why. I had a good offer down in Florida at Tilwater at the junior college when the junior college expansion was really under way in Florida, if I had a former teacher coworker of mine at Miles College who had gone there and encouraged me to apply and I accepted to faculty there of course the pay was compared to what Miles College was paying, was just great. But I made the decision not to go there, for some reason I always came back. My brother was always anxious to get out of Alabama and not come back. The graduate school he went to, Georgia and that' ; s where he stayed, in Georgia and from there to South Carolina. Came back here and taught one year here and left, he just never liked staying in Alabama. Me, I' ; ve always wanted to stay in Alabama. I still just don' ; t see myself ever living anywhere except Alabama. I don' ; t know what it is about, but anyway, that sort of takes us up to--we have the ' ; 66--? LEMONTE: ' ; 66, you come back to Miles College to teach fall of ' ; 66, I assume, full-time teaching--? ARRINGTON: Yeah, I came back that summer ; I had little (inaudible). But I had me never flown, never been on the airplane, I really finished all my work and defended my dissertation at the end of the fall semester. So the fall practical purpose, I was finished. But the university offered me a teaching position for a semester (inaudible), a special professor teaching, so I taught for one semester. Luscious Pitts, of course offered contacted me and Miles College sent me ticket to fly me back for an interview and so I got on the (inaudible) airline in Oklahoma City for the first time, I flew. (Inaudible) education (inaudible) year. And there was a gentleman, as acting dean then, I think Randolph (inaudible) was his name. (Inaudible) gentleman who had retired and then had come to Miles teaching and I had met with him and Luscious Pitts and they asked me to come back and wanted me to direct the summer school that summer. In fact, that week that I was there for the interview, I wrote up the schedule for the summer classes (both laugh). And went back and packed my family up and came back and directed the summer school. But I had signed a contract for about $10-$12k to come back as chairman of the science department. So I came back as chairman of the science department, but I directed summer school and when summer school over, Luscious then asked me while I' ; m serving as chairman of the science department to act as Academic Dean. So for three years, I was academic dean at Miles College until I leave in 1970 to direct the consortium of black senior colleges in the state of Alabama, there was a consortium that had been formed a couple of years earlier through the initiatives of the Ford Foundation. And I took on that job and from May of 1970 until ' ; 79 when I elected mayor, I was director or what was incorporated as the Alabama Center for Higher Education, a consortium of initially eight historically black senior colleges in Alabama. And that was another good experience, additional administrative experience about a fundraising responsibilities dealing with foundations and the opportunity to interact with the faculties at eight campuses and get to know administrators in eight black campuses here in Alabama. So it was again a good experience. LEMONTE: But you loved teaching so much and had left, it was--? ARRINGTON: Yeah, I loved teaching, but I left it, I only taught one class at the university somewhere in that period, that university, I think was trying to get black faculty on or something and so they gave me a special thing, still in the catalog, I forget what they call it, but I taught on class at the university and that was it. I didn' ; t know other teaching, but I was busy during that time, it was such a good time for black colleges and it was a time, shortly after so-called title 3 programs that had been put in place for purpose of strengthening black colleges by giving grants to black colleges. Eventually it became a program for developing colleges' ; period and many today black and white schools are in there, but initially it was lenient to black colleges and provided us a source for funding for black higher education that was badly needed. And we had an opportunity to be somewhat creative. I had a certain niche I had to fill working for eight colleges, but I was able leverage that title 3 support, to get a lot of foundation support, so we had sizable grants, multi-year grants from Carnegie, Ford, (inaudible) and my responsibility, I was writing all of those grants and I was negotiating and I was traveling, especially New York, because I thought all of the foundation in the world were in New York. I was going to New York and meeting people and eventually came sort of a field worker, even though I served as director for a couple other foundations. I did field work, I visited colleges, I became a field officer and evaluator for (inaudible) education for all of the black colleges in South Carolina, and did the evaluations. So these were all very rich experiences, I guess that' ; s why I didn' ; t miss teaching. I was getting into areas and getting to interact with people all over the country, as well as the staff of the ES department of education and I was privileged enough to become one of their field workers and one of their evaluators. And that was good, one thing it meant that, you know, I could look out for certain schools and it was good for the center, I got to read, I saw what a lot of developing were doing, programs they were trying to initiate. And that certainly prompted my thinking about programs and how we are to shape them and when the Carnegie Foundation asked me to work for them and then the (inaudible) foundation asked me to do some work. Always it' ; s something that' ; s continued to expand my opportunities for learning and meeting people. LEMONTE: So you were there from ' ; 70 until you were elected mayor in ' ; 79, and there was a moment of political initiation at some point during that stage, when did you first have the thought descended to you of becoming involving in politics and public life? ARRINGTON: I had never, even in, as late as 1970, I had never thought about entering politics. In Birmingham, of course, things had obviously changed politically, the former government had been changed before I left, didn' ; t take effect after I left because they were still in litigation up until October I believe of that year. We had gotten a new form of government, mayor council form of government, eventually somewhere like ' ; 68 or ' ; 69, when one of the council members passed, the eight white council members who were left, filled the vacancy with Arthur Shores, the first black to serve on the council and some short time after, I cannot remember whether it was a year later or months later, he ran for reelection and was elected to a term. So Arthur was serving on the city council and had serving I think like ' ; 69 or ' ; 70 something like that. I hadn' ; t thought about politics because I had worked in my office downtown Birmingham, late that night I was still there, I had worked ' ; til 7,8,9 o' ; clock, someone then came in one evening and they were out looking for some candidates to run for mayor, to run for council from the black community. I was impressed because these were young black guys, a guy named Jesse Stewart and I forget the other two names, escape me right now. But just the fact that they were concerned enough about the community, they were out trying to find what they called some good candidates to run and they came and asked me and initially me to run for mayor and I said no. And then they wanted to know if I' ; d consider running for the council and I had talked with them and said, " ; Yeah, well, why don' ; t you come back tomorrow and we' ; ll talk about it." ; Thinking they wouldn' ; t come back, they came back and made a lot of commitments and I ended up running, I guess that was 1972--I' ; d have to count back--. LEMONTE: ' ; 71 actually--. ARRINGTON: ' ; 71 yeah, yeah, that was 1971. And I ran, made the run-off and was elected in the run-off at another time of transition in Birmingham, I was elected at the time that David Vann, who (inaudible) to becoming mayor, Angie Procter, and I, we were considered the new moderates because the Birmingham city council, with the exception of many (inaudible) conceived to be a very conservative council and if you can understand that fight to get bull Connor out of office and then the issues of race that still raise. I can even understand that the council, why trying to move the city forward, had to be very considerate to him, people who were elected were of course, conservative. But in ' ; 71, when the three that I' ; ve mentioned, three of us were elected, it was conceived to be a time of transition, moderates were coming on and replacing some of the conservatives on the city council and of course Arthur had been elected so my being elected was important, but not a great big issue, I wasn' ; t breaking any new grounds. I guess the greatest surprise, over David Vann was elected because David Vann had been working in the community a long time and after he had come back here and started practicing law, having went for congress and all of that. But was considered liberal and I read some of the news clippings when David ran for congress and I guess he was forced to try to defend segregation and some of things he said in his--, but he was viewed as being liberal and folks said David Vann could never be elected dogcatcher in Birmingham and he was elected to the city council with me, that' ; s how I got know David, had met his wife a little bit earlier who was a reporter for the Birmingham Post because she had done an interview with me and (inaudible) a future article on me while I was Miles College. She did what she called trailblazer interview, I was one of the persons she chose to interview so I had met (inaudible), but had not met David, had heard about him and so met him during the campaign quite frankly because he began raising money for the blacks who were running and he had his own campaign done, but one night he met me and called me aside and he called Jesse aside and the three of us and he pulls out of his wallet and gives maybe $500 to each of us or something like that. He told us the money had come from the owner of Parisian, who of course didn' ; t want anybody to know it (inaudible). (inaudible) had sent the money and (inaudible) was helping me fund the campaign of the blacks. And so I got to know David from helping him campaigning and he was elected and I was on the council because he was very bright guy and always trying to do everything, just loved taking politics and he wanted to type (inaudible) you know. And I found him fascinating quite frankly because he was very knowledgeable and we got to be very good friends. And so he became sort of mentor for me, I don' ; t think he knew he was a mentor, but I began following him and trying to learn my government and my politics from David Vann. And David was an unusual you know we got together and he' ; d come over to the house and sit down and (inaudible) pot of greens and (inaudible) green and he' ; d sit there for hours and we' ; d talk and he' ; d tell you about all of the things he thought he ought to do so forth and so on. When I was chairman of the committee on transportation communication, I was given a job of writing all of the work and doing the negotiations for the cable television franchise. Did most of it right away in my office for the Alabama Center for Higher Education 2121 building. And David would come over there ; I don' ; t know how he practiced law, because we' ; d come over there for four and five days a week. We' ; d sit there and we' ; d write stuff, what ought to be in the cable franchise and we' ; d read, bring stuff in. But he just loved the business and of course I was following him and I sort of learned from David. So that was another fortunate, great for me to get to know David Vann. LEMONTE: Can you talk more about your first campaign ; the council members were, at that time elected at large? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: And in a nonpartisan election, so people were really also independent campaigns based upon their name, their community contacts? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: How did you go about that first campaign, who supported you, what were they pleasures and disappointments that you encountered and I guess particularly thinking ahead to your several campaigns as mayor, what your experience of campaigning in the white community and gaining support within the white community? ARRINGTON: The strength of my campaign, I think was the fact that I had worked for Luscious Pitts and LP knew a lot of people and even though he had left a year earlier to become president of Payne College in Augusta, the people who knew me for example in the business community, knew me as a (inaudible) at Miles College and especially the fact the I accompanied LP from time to time and earlier days and some of these sessions, that' ; s how they knew me. And so many of LP' ; s friends, like (inaudible) Jemison and people like that rallied to my campaign and they were glad to see me run. (Inaudible) times who was a power broker of a sort at the Birmingham News at the time, even suggested to me that I let LP send the letter and endorse my candidacy and he would arrange and make sure that it was running the letters to the editor in the Birmingham News, which he did, LP wrote a very fine letter. And it was important at that time because I guess I was being seen as somebody who might win, and the FOP and few of those groups for some reason, they really didn' ; t know me at that time, I hadn' ; t gotten into my battles about police conduct and policies but they began circulating stories like, I had been fired at Miles College because I had stolen money from Miles College and it was just floating around it' ; s been some times when he would talk with me about it and suggested that I get LP to write a letter that you would run. Probably a letter to the editors and that was helpful because he wrote a letter speaking about me and saying I had fine character and all of that and how Birmingham would do well you know. And that was a big boost, plus I think we were at a time, Arthur Shores had been on the council and Arthur had not made any enemies of such, he while he was an outstanding and courage attorney and civil rights attorney and had had some terrible experiences, having his home bombed on several occasions, he was a lawyer who took Autherine Lucy to Alabama. He was still a very quiet man, he said very little and even in council meetings, he was never controversial. And I think that helped, because there were people in Birmingham, that may not have been residents of the city per se in all instances, but people who were very interesting in seeing the city continue to bring blacks into the arena of leadership. And so my ties to LP and thing so of that sort helped me to get support. And some regards while, I' ; m sure people talked about race and stuff of that sort, they didn' ; t--weren' ; t widely (inaudible) I ran a campaign, I got some support, mainly from the south side in the white community and very little support from the eastern area, which was very conservative and largely white and that was to be for quite some time. And of course I was elected, and I think people were generally, those who considered progressive about wanting the city to change (inaudible). I think the black community was pleased that another black, although some of them had some doubts about me because I was not militant, I had not been marching and this had been a city been rocked by marches and demonstrations and so forth and that question was asked, where was I and had I done. And that was basically true, I only had worked behind the scenes, I sat with LP and many of them didn' ; t even know about that. So they had mixed emotions, they were pleased that another black was on, as they felt that Arthur was militant and neither was I, and therefore that caused cause of the black community, they were not going to get a great boost because neither of us would be very outspoken. LEMONTE: Did you have a specific platform that you ran on that had major items of interest? ARRINGTON: I ran on, looking back at some of the early materials of recently as I' ; ve been trying to do some writing of my own, I ran number one promoting Birmingham and what it' ; s image and my commitment to that and had one or two other items in that area, I didn' ; t deal a whole lot with opening with anything about race relations quite frankly. There was a very general kind of platform that I had four or five points. LEMONTE: No mention of police? ARRINGTON: No mention of police, no mention of anything controversial, that I was running but there were several blacks running then, like seven blacks might have been running that time. So people were getting at least accustomed to the idea and thought that I was educated, highly educated obviously. But after I was elected and I began to raise issues, a number of things, but especially issues police policies, and the way the police department dealt with the black community. That was a very sensitive cord within the black community, and I was their first elected official to begin to speak out about that and to focus attention on it and many ways and with help of come other council members to put in place policies that began changing police conduct and it made me a strong political of the FOP, that' ; s where they saw me and but it may be the darling of the black community because police abused black citizens in Birmingham including shootings, were so rampant that every black understood that. And nobody had been given a platform such as I as a member of city government ; nobody had ever used that platform to really crusade against. Emory O Jackson had done it with his Birmingham World paper and a few other blacks, a few ministers, but nobody who had that stamp of being elected official had done it. And so I began keeping before the people and that' ; s quite frankly how I became to be a very popular elected official in Birmingham' ; s black community. When I first got on the council, I remember some fraternity brothers of mine, we had an annual dance and these were all men who were educated, some were physicians and doctors of other sorts and all of these things and teachers and I remember Clarence Mitchell, the president of the chapter coming to see me and asking me if I' ; d go see the police chief, this is when I first got on, because we were having our Christmas, annual dance during the Christmas break. And the dance was always like a 10-2 or 9-1. And it was common driving at night, the police would stop and harass you, (inaudible) coming to see me and asked me if I' ; d go talk with the police chief and explain what our organization was about and asked him to ask his police officers not to stop, I mean that' ; s how things were back during that time, and of course we started a long battle of that, other than that I became very controversial in the eyes of many people. People who were fearful about whether or not my campaign to get rid of police abuse was undermining law and order and I was antipolice. I never got rid of it frankly in the eyes of many people, but it' ; s one of the real contributions I feel I made to the city of Birmingham, was that we changed policies, we took over the years, started when I was a council member, and went on during my years as mayor, but we changed the policies totally. We professionlalized the police department that wasn' ; t very professional and I think we got rid of rampant police abuse in the city. It was a much better city for it, that was really one of the things I did when I first got on the council, and of course the news papers you know, they like to write stories. So I was a new story for them and not only the fact that I was a black councilman, but here was somebody talking about the police, so I' ; m in constant conflict with FOP about police actions and sometimes Mayor Joel sibyls and I' ; m keeping records and files and pictures on people who had been arrested and beating by police officers and of course that was juicy stuff for the newspapers. And so I got a lot of play there in the newspaper, and those were all good stories. I went and found out if it all worked out well, I just think that some people in this town of my (inaudible) so forth, whose still around, I never forgotten and can never quite see as anything except somewhat controversial because I fought for--I started (inaudible) police and then about time I was mayor, I got a bigger responsibility and I' ; m working for (inaudible) in government and trying to open doors for blacks, given promotions and all those things I got underway. And then in and out of court in those battles and so it helped shaped the perception that people had of who Richard Arrington was and what he was like. LEMONTE: The first time as council member would really redefine, it seems to me your working relationships with broader community including white, white business community and others, because I assume even at the Alabama Center for higher education, you were still functioning primarily within the black community and people out of town who were concerned about educational issues, did your network of contacts with the white community expand significantly during that first term as council member? ARRINGTON: Yes it did ; first of all, the campaign began to open up access to the white community. Around 1970, about time that white group started inviting some black candidates in, it had not had a lot of black candidates running for offices. It may have been a few people, Chris McNair had run for legislature unsuccessfully, Jim Montgomery had run the legislature unsuccessfully and LP had run, but they had very few but you know--in the early 70s by ' ; 71 more blacks get in. And when they held neighborhood forums, some of us were invited and the first campaign, a lot of places we were not invited, particularly a lot of places in the white community were not invited, but by the second time I ran because we had then gotten neighborhood associations and all of that, it was really invited to every place, but my first term, I (inaudible) I got to know people, I got to understand some issues, the zoning issues and their important, and that was a hot issue. That time I had got to know people like (inaudible) who was working to reach out the black communities to build some bridges and was using things like zoning issues, a common interest that single family areas whether they are black or white had in protecting single family housing, she was smart enough to use to bring people together and I got to know people like (inaudible) and folks like that. It opened up opportunities for me to know all the people I never would have know and so at the end of my four years, while some people were predicting there was no way for me to be reelected and columnist in two of the local papers-- because I had too controversial particularly on the police issue and of course when I was reelected with somewhat with ease, I think, even I was surprised and running city wide and got a good vote and most easily reelected to the council, which was again an indication, if you look at it, gauging how things are changing, how people are changing. Here I was a young, that time, a young council member who had been somewhat controversial, but you know I had worked on transportation and given the responsibility of committee chairman and getting the transit authority and the government making the transition from privately owned to publicly owned was working with Tom (inaudible) who was in the legislature, helping to get the (inaudible) transit authority and as I said I was working on a cable television. I worked in a lot of things, but the thing that got really attention was of course those things that tend to be somewhat controversial and that was the police issue and in a town where police were very, very powerful, you got to remember this is coming off of the Connor era where Connor is police commissioner was the most powerful politician and as a result it had spawned the FOP, that was a very, very, very in the city and here I come and probably didn' ; t fully understand and would not have analyzed it, even to the extend I analyze it now, at that time, but here I come and I take on what is essentially one of the strongest political groups in this town and that' ; s the police department which have in fact, the spokesman and the group that speaks for it is really FOP. We worked through all of that. So by the second term I wasn' ; t really and I wasn' ; t seen as anymore controversial as the early days of the police thing, I had continued that. But I had decided that that was enough of that, I had enjoyed it, it was part-time my work. I had learned, I thought quite a bit about government and how it works, but I going to leave and Rachel and I had talked about and I was not going to run for reelection. LEMONTE: Was there any thought on your part of perhaps running for mayor in 1975 at the end of your first term? ARRINGTON: None at all, none at all, ever thought about it. And we made the decision that I would not run again, I would have had eight years I' ; ve done. I' ; ve never thought about running for mayor, in fact, we took off on a vacation somewhere, Rachel and I did and that' ; s when the Benita Carter thing flared up and that' ; s the story about how I ended up running for mayor. But no, prior to that, I had never thought about it. Had been mentioned to me once and that was when the guys had come to see me the first time in ' ; 71, say they were looking for somebody, would I run for mayor, I almost laughed in their faces and then they say, what about running for council and that' ; s why ended up running for council, but no, I had not. I was sort thrust up on me quite frankly, I had not thought about until this incident came up again, police, black community tension. The death Benita Carter, David Vann trying to walk the tight rope between the black community and the white community and supporting the police and the resulting fed up in the black community over David' ; s failure the fire the police officer rather than fine, he disciplined him by giving him desk duty and what have you which led black leadership, largely black preachers, but a few others to become very disenchanted with David. But I also think at announcing that David handled poorly, when he-- everything sort of worked against at that time, I will tell. This is a hot issue caused some small rioting out there in Kingston and all of that and David just trying to run through this thick of problems and how best to handle it. So we appoints this committee which is the first we ever had that. And he appoints this special citizens committee and I don' ; t know what David had in mind, I assumed he hoped that the committee would be helpful, but the committee comes back not, unanimously, one person abstaining and says the police officers were wrong, he had acted improperly. He (inaudible) in corner and with the committee' ; s report out there now, the leadership of the black community becomes more militant about it, we got to fire this guy and of course is knowing, I can' ; t fire the guy, I don' ; t have the grounds the fire the guy. And so he' ; s maneuvering and so, when he finally decides what to do with and that was to give desk duty and he comes up with his (inaudible) and after that and David apparently had thought it through and planned it out so he drew up his public statement and he invited members of the black leadership committee to his office, that morning that he was going to make the announcement and like they came in like 8 or 9:00, something somewhere around that time. And of course they engaged David in a heated discussion in the office. They disagreed with his decision not to fire the officer and it reached upon where it was just totally unproductive and David said well I got a news conference ; he had already set his news conference to make the public announcement about what he planned to do in the case. And so they began pleading with him not go out-- ARRINGTON: (inaudible) but you raised a question my leaving Miles College, what happened at Miles College was there was a search for a new president and John Monroe, who had come to Miles from Harvard some years earlier, led an effort to get me back as president and apparently had spoken with the bishop, who was the chairman of the board. LEMONTE: Had you left at this time? ARRINGTON: Yeah, I had left--. LEMONTE: So that you left prior to the search? ARRINGTON: Right, I had left in May of ' ; 70 and I think Luscious left shortly after that, so when they began to search, I was--John Monroe and some other members formed the faculty committee and they talked with me about my willingness to accept the presidency and I said yes, but I didn' ; t the college would want to elect someone who was not a CME, not a member of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church, of course, I' ; m primitive Baptist. They went to the bishop and the bishop, I' ; m told, (inaudible) that they would consider somebody outside of that denomination. And so the faculty was strongly behind me as the presidential candidate and I submitted my name for the candidate for president. In the final analysis, I don' ; t know what happened behind the scenes, but having seen the church politics and seeing board meetings and knowing that the board is dominated by the CME ministers and so forth and that the bishop, being a very strong individual as yet, still politically has to be sensitive to what his ministers and members want. I just kind of felt that they really ready to make a break with having a non-CME as president. And so they ended selecting Dr. Clyde Williams as president and that was fine. I don' ; t know what I said about it, but my recollection is that when that happened, I had not, you know I was still at--probably still at the college, I can' ; t remember--and I know I was still at the college when Clyde was elected. Because I met Clyde on his first visit after he had been appointed, but he hadn' ; t yet come to the college, and he had talked with he and me had expressed some concern about my loyalty to--. LEMONTE: You were dean at the college at this time? ARRINGTON: About my loyalty to his administration and I assured him that I was, but I think he was concerned, since I had been in a competition to be president, that I--I was so disappointed that I probably created a problems for him, maybe with the faculty and he probably (inaudible) the faculty had been lobbying on my behalf. But I sure did work well with him. I even wrote him a letter to that effect after he left. But he never seemed really assured ; I don' ; t remember whether it was in letter or phone that the same issue was raised. And I just thought that it was better for me to leave the college at the time because I didn' ; t really want him thinking it, if I' ; d ever differ with him it was because of what had happened in the selection of presidents. And also the center was looking for somebody at that time, executive director, so that' ; s why I decided to leave. LEMONTE: But in retrospect, had you been offered the presidency, you were prepared to accept it? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: Along about 1970? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: And had that happened, I would assume that it had a group of young me come calling on your to run for city council, you might not have able to agree to their request? ARRINGTON: I would not have been as president of the college ; I certainly would have been able to do it. But that' ; s what happened their and that' ; s how I ended up in politics and I was telling the story about David and his experiences that morning. I' ; m in the office with him, he walks out of the office with these ministers walking behind him pleading for not to go out, let' ; s talk about it some more and of course, he walks out and goes out and gives a statement. Well of course, they were very angry and that leads them eventually to calling me to a meeting and talking to me about running and so forth, and that' ; s how I ended up--sort of semi-draft you call it, running for mayor. LEMONTE: Could we talk a little about the second term, your second term as a council member was 1975 to 1979, David Vann was mayor during that period of time, you mentioned that your first meeting with David had occurred during the 1971 campaign when he had forwarded some campaign funds to you, you had not met him during the period in ' ; 63 when he was very much involved with the negotiations between black and white leaders? ARRINGTON: No, I knew he was involved, I heard his name, but I was never in any of those meetings. At those high level meetings when they were having meetings like with the (inaudible) even King, I wasn' ; t even here, no I left here in August of ' ; 63, so I was never in a meeting with David at that time. LEMONTE: Could you reflect on your service with him as a council member, did the two of you emerge as political allies in some of the important issues that the city confront between in ' ; 75 and ' ; 79? ARRINGTON: Yes, I think very much so, I think David had a strong falling with five or six council members who supported his program and so things much as he did in a political sense, I was one of those, eventually David Herring was to come as a one of them. And Amina was still on the council, Arthur was on the council, so David had, during his time council member, anyway, had carved out the niches of sort of political leader of the group. He spent much of his time at city hall, even when he was city council member. We worked most of George Siebels' ; budgets and restructured departments, which the council has the authority to do. Got rid of arrangement where Cletus Boyles was the director of public work for a number of departments and council had budget time reorganized the department and David was a leader in this. And these and many efforts, and looking back, it was remarkable that George Sibyls saw that David had those votes and he really didn' ; t--I mean he fought for it, but once he lost, he didn' ; t try to fight. We had to override on one or two things. David redefined what for example, the finance chairman was, in the minds of many people fault city government, they got to be the strongest committee chairman shift there was. But before David was chairman of the finance committee, it wasn' ; t that strong of a position quite frankly, but David made it that kind of position, because David was so involved and because he loved it so much and the city stuff, he (inaudible) he really worked it, and he had a following there, so he was able to get things done. Even down to the neighborhood associations that we have today, the so- called participation program. I think a lot of the people have forgotten that Siebels opposed a proposed the first time around. In fact, I don' ; t know if he vetoed it or whether (inaudible) or if you had enough votes, anyway to turn it down. I think we lost it, Vann had proposed a structure such as we have now. Sibyls wanted something much more conservative, didn' ; t want to do as much power sharing with the people, that concept of the people very much involved in the government through citizen participation. Siebels wanted less of that, he understood the citizen participation but wanted less of it and initially fought off the effort. It was a second time the matter came before the--council came back (inaudible) for a vote that we mustered enough votes to pass that program. But Vann was clearly if perhaps the leader, the most effective elected official there in city hall during that time and of course ended up running against George Sibyls at the end of Vann' ; s first term. And Sibyls' ; first term as mayor, he ends up running against Sibyls. And Vann beats Sibyls by less than 2,000 votes, I don' ; t remember the 1100 or 1200--I think I still have a copy of Sibyls' ; letter that he wrote somebody after that. He lost, he was just crushed, but he always blamed me for his loss to David Vann, because Tony Harrison and I--Tony is a young black legislature here in Birmingham. Tony Harrison and I worked the black community through neighborhood meetings on talk shows and radio and all for David Vann. And we succeeded and pulling away from Sibyls' ; sizable black vote. By this time blacks have really become a major political factor in Birmingham. Many more blacks now and--Voting Rights Act has passed and many voters are on the role now, by that time 40% are slightly more than people on the voting rolls in city of Birmingham were black. And they loved George Sibyls, Sibyls was the first mayor who had really gone out into the black community and started attending functions in the black communities, he would go to black churches and all and blacks had never seen that, after all you know--you just--one or two people (inaudible) from bull Connor. You know get Connor, and then you move around and you get Albert Boutwell and they get the new government. And Boutwell of course was very conservative and then comes Sibyls after that. And Sibyls was astute enough to see the going political empowerment of blacks and maybe for his other interest to involve people, but he didn' ; t mind going out to black functions. Now a few years before that you couldn' ; t have done that. In fact, that was one of the issues that they would use against a candidate who got into a runoff, because we got the black vote, if you got the black vote, you were defeated in the runoff, they called it putting the black hand on a candidate. But now the Voting Rights Act has changed that because now blacks can freely register to vote and they have a large part of the population and an expanding number of them are on the voters' ; roll. So if Sibyls obviously knew this, he goes out and blacks of course are thrill, that the mayor of the city comes to black functions, he comes to black churches. And so they vote for Sibyls and the second he runs (inaudible). He had a strong black vote and he had a real hold on the black vote and we knew that the only way that David Vann could defeated Sibyls was that we had to get the black vote away from Sibyls and delivered it somehow to David Vann and that was not an easy job. I mean Tony and I really worked hard, we went to see civic association neighborhood leaders and we talked with those people and those were very, very sincere about it. I can remember some of them just asking me, they wanted to support me, because I was asking them and I was sort of popular then as a council member. And many had started viewing me as their voice down at city hall by that time. I had been doing things like, not only the police thing, but also reporting to the black community on the radio thing every week about city hall and this kind of thing. Now that perception of me is that I' ; m there a council member so to speak, even though I run at (inaudible) but I' ; m their councilman, I' ; m their voice. And I did some bonds with them, and so now I go to them and ask them to support Vann and some of them I remember, was very troubled by it and they say, I want to do what you want me to do, but are sure (inaudible). But we succeeded, we pulled about 80 something percent of the black vote for David Vann and I don' ; t think that George Sibyls ever thought that would happen and that' ; s how David won office as mayor and as I said, George Siebels never forgot that, I think he went to his grave still smarting over that. But I worked for David, that time he was mayor, I think I supported their initiative, David pushed this--my relationship with him was really a very close one. And we really never had a real disagreement, I mean we disagreed on some things, I was still pushing affirmative action kinds of things, this is before affirmative action was a big deal, policy wise, and I was pushing policies. David always got in there, he was smart enough not to (inaudible) he would sort of co-op you by giving in there and working with you and shaping it the way he thought it would work. He thought it was too radical over there and the mere fact that he kept the dialogue (inaudible) all the time, even on issues like--you know I stayed on the police, I stayed initially on parts when Sibyls was there. I got a (inaudible) Bill Meyers comes in and you know (inaudible). But even with the disagreements about police policies sometimes, Vann was a politically astute enough ; he also really had a genuine sense of fairness ; he wanted to include folks. He was always aware that we can go too fast and some people wouldn' ; t accept it, but David was always most the white standards anyway, going too fast. So I found him easy to work with and if I was trying to put some ordinance on or develop some new policy, or even having a little complaint about system who said that he and someone in the family or someone who had been abused by the police. Vann never positions himself as an opponent ; he always got in and sort of worked him, that way, he sort of kept control. So I worked closely with David and I was really sort of troubled when I decided to run against David, I like him a lot, and I was being pushed by him and then--what a lot of people don' ; t know is (inaudible) Roseman was also a major factor and when she learned I was going to learn, she was pushing me. She had supported David, but she had become disenchanted with David because she said he didn' ; t communicate well with the people and didn' ; t have the access she suggested to me when I got into the campaign that I make a part of my platform--the matter of sensibility to the mayor, because people were complaining that David was not very accessible. Particularly some of the most liberal white voters who had supported him and that are what they were saying about him. What I think was happening quite frankly is that David was so busy working the nuts and bolts and everything, he just loved, I remember Larry (inaudible) saying to me once, you I don' ; t care how well you put something together for mayor Vann, he' ; s going to do something, if he doesn' ; t do anything but cross another t or dot another I--. LEMONTE: (inaudible) was then David' ; s executive secretary? ARRINGTON: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I remember when he was telling me that, but David loved to do. I don' ; t care, you could get all of the wise men in the world to work something, you give it to David, he' ; s going to sit there and he' ; s going to go through it and say it' ; s good, but he' ; s going to change something. And I think he got so involved in that, that he didn' ; t have a lot of time. Mayor' ; s office is really demanding anyway, I mean never get a man who people think, you ought to get one after the Joe Rileys and a few others that people love and say always accessible and always out with the people, but you want to get a man who, after the first term, people think he or she' ; s a very accessible person, you can see the mayor. They start complaining after a while, how can you get in to see the mayor. So David is very busy working is what I' ; m thinking, he wants to work on everything and he' ; s putting a lot of things in place, but he' ; s not implementing a lot. He' ; s stacking up money for example, which was a real advantage to me. He comes up with all of these great ideas and he puts the money in place, but he never gets around to getting the program going. And so when I come in as mayor of course, David has gotten a lot of things in place, which you know is like for me--push the button and let it go, that he had put in place. A lot of money stacked up there to spend, projects. And I just think it' ; s because he' ; s always creative and he was always trying to put something together and it was good to this point, but maybe he ought to rework it and do. I think I had David' ; s former law partner-- LEMONTE: John Carlton. ARRINGTON: No, not join, that' ; s the other guy. LEMONTE: Stickway? ARRINGTON: Whoever first started practicing law with David, but he said David' ; s a wonderful guy, he say--I will tell you David, he seeks to be a perfectionist. David will get an important lawsuit for you and he will in, have it won for millions of dollars and he' ; ll come back and decide (inaudible) other things and he' ; ll lose (inaudible) several times. And that' ; s just the way David was, the longer you let him work on something, the more he' ; s going to fix it. He' ; s going to fine-tune it, fine-tune it, and fine-tune it. And while that' ; s good in a way, I think he got so involved that he lost some of his strong liberal white support. So when I ran against him and he had-- the white vote was frightening because John Katapotis is in there and Frank Parsons is in there, so you got three or four strong whites running. And while we got maybe it was three and we got four blacks running, but Larry Langford was expected to be a strong, but he wasn' ; t, he didn' ; t poll well at all in the black community. So the black vote gets so fragmented and David ended up with 16% or something like that. And he gets (inaudible) even out of the runoff. I' ; ve always wondered what would have happened in the runoff if David had ended up in the runoff. Here I am polling for the big black voted, polling 40 something percent of the vote, that gets me in to the runoff and Parsons is 16 point something, like 17 percent, David is 16, and John is right below David. I think John came in right behind David. But I was wondering what would have happened if David had gotten into a runoff with me. But he was out of course he ends up shortly thereafter a week later, he decides to endorse me. He comes out publicly to endorse me. LEMONTE: Two questions before we move into your campaign and first term, prior then to the Benita Carter tragedy in the summer of ' ; 79, your plan was to finish your second term as council member, leave politics, return to I assume a full-time career somewhere in higher education? ARRINGTON: Yes. LEMONTE: David' ; s assumption, I would imagine was that he would seek a second term and that you would support him which I--? ARRINGTON: I assume that was his assumption, he certainly would have had no reason to assume otherwise. LEMONTE: But there was never any thought that when his tenure as mayor concluded you would be his logical successor, that was not something that had occurred or had occurred to him? ARRINGTON: Certainly it never occurred to me and it was never discussed with me. I don' ; t know if David ever thought how long he would even serve as mayor, but because I didn' ; t have any real interest in being mayor and I enjoyed it and think I had said to some people I' ; ve enjoyed my time on the council, had a great learning experience for me in many ways. But I never wanted to do it full-time politically. It' ; s fun being part-time politician, coming over for committee meetings and attending city council meetings and then going on doing other things you wanted to do. But I never wanted to do it full-time and that was the way I truly felt about it. I did not really want to do it. And so I don' ; t really think up until maybe a week before I formally announced, because the rumor was out there then. I remember Scottie Green coming down to the church where I announced because he said he had to come down. He said he had to see this himself, he said he couldn' ; t believe I was going to run against David, I remember he said that to me that day, he was there in the crowd. But up until about a week before that I don' ; t think that David had an idea that I was going to run. He was caught up in (inaudible) and all of this debate that were still going on and the preachers marching and they do this march downtown and saying David Vann' ; s gotta go and I' ; m standing there on the city hall 19th street portico with David Vann where they had set up the microphone for the ministers to speak and when they turned the corner there onto 19th street off of 6th ave it was, David walks off and goes and meets them. And of course they' ; re shouting, the Vann' ; s must go and he meets them about a halfway the block before the city hall there on 19th street, shakes their hands and join them and marches with them. And they get up and of course they talk about him and make all the speeches and so forth. And even at that time, I had, at that point had crossed my mind that I was going to be running at all. So it happened sort of sudden--. LEMONTE: Did you tell David prior to the time you made your announcement that you were going to run against him? ARRINGTON: I really don' ; t believe I did, but I don' ; t know. It was like being swept along and something that--at the time, I sort of preferred would not have happened quite frankly. But what they were saying to me was it was time for me to run and the thing the ministers were saying we' ; ve been standing with you in all the (inaudible). Because they were talking about all the fights, the police thing and all of that and we' ; ll back you this, that and the other. And you' ; re the person and so forth and so on. I can' ; t say they did a lot of arm-twisting ; they went really, really fast in a short period of time. In fact, I agreed I' ; ll run and then I called my wife and then I to write up something for a news conference, they had call out there for later that day. So it went fast, but even in the campaign, David and I--got along well, I took a few pot shots at David by saying that I was going to be a very accessible mayor. I had two or three pointers and (inaudible) given them to me and asked me to push those points. And she was my single largest contributor in that campaign the first time. Because when I ran for the mayor, I didn' ; t raise any money, I raised 19k in that campaign the first time. And much of it was taken up from black churches quite frankly. And (inaudible) gave me $500. And she allowed her name to put out there. And that was my largest contribution by far. Now when I got to the runoff, after I got 40 something percent of the votes, the handwriting was on the walls, Goodrich and some of the corporate community came in and gave me some money, so in the runoff, I was able to raise about $30k, whereas I had raised on 19 the first time. But what I had going for me been a solidified and mobilized black vote, opposed to David having his lost his black base and really got a fragment and (inaudible) about it. It split and goes in three different directions. And as time passed, the black community developed a sort of fervent of belief that he could win, when they first started off, I think it was a lot of doubt. I' ; ll never forget that Dr. AG Gaston and Vincent Townsend, summoned me to a meeting in Dr. Gaston' ; s office one morning, shortly after I had formally announced that I was running and Dr. Gaston lectured me there with Townsend and said blacks couldn' ; t win and I had made a big mistake and so forth and he ended--and Townsend said to me, " ; Look one day you know, there is going to be a time for black." ; " ; Blacks' ; time will come or something to that substance." ; We will support you at that time, but you know, now is not the time and so forth and that conversation ended with Gaston asking, almost instructing me and he said, " ; Richard, what I want you to do, I want you to go out of here now and tell people you' ; ve changed your mind and that you' ; re gonna support David Vann." ; That' ; s what he said when I was leaving and I said, " ; Dr. I' ; ll have to think about it." ; I know I wasn' ; t gonna change and I left, I did talk with some of the ministers Jared, Woods and a bunch of them about the meeting and they said, " ; Well, we' ; re gonna go on anyway, we can win without Dr. Gaston." ; You know they were fired up and they kept folding my arms and pushing me along. So I ended up with this mobilized vote, because as I said as time went on, blacks started thinking we knew we were gonna win. And they come in and they start volunteering and I got to find something for them to do. They' ; re all fired up and they turned out to sixty something percent vote of blacks, so that what was the first time (inaudible) people would say the primary and whites were not that fired up, they were divided. And though there was a slight white majority on the voting roll, I don' ; t know where in (inaudible) there was, but on the voting rolls, 55% of the people on the voting rolls are still white and about 45% black. Whites were not really as fired up as the blacks were. So now when it hits and I got 40 something percent of the vote and I go into a runoff with Frank Parsons, who is a political (inaudible) I think, I don' ; t know all Frank had been doing, say he' ; d been running some other campaigns, but he had never run as far as I know. I think it shook things up, but it reverberated in the black community. It really fired the black community, gosh here is this candidate 40 something percent of the vote, this boy here, and oh we can win. Now the black community is truly fired up. The white community I think it sends trembles of fear through the corporate community also. And some of the people in the corporate began an effort to organize to get a strong white turn out and they did. The white vote shot up to about 60 something percent, which is a strong turn out, the black vote the first time was 60 something percent, but in the runoff, I mean, blacks were so fired up in the runoff, I get 73% of black turn out, which I think is probably still a record of a turn out in the city of black voters percentage- wise. I' ; m able to get some racial crossover from some white votes and Frank gets only less then 1% of the black vote. So I ended up winning by 2,000 or so votes over there and it was still somewhat different. The night we were waiting for the results to come in at the old parliament house, which was the headquarters for the victory (inaudible) that night, David came earlier, about time my family arrived there, my dad, mom and David and he was in there with us. And it was still sort of a choking experience. David, my friend, and I had defeated him and I remember Richard Friedman was there interviewing us and of course he writes and he wrote in his article sort of like choking up when he was interviewing him because I felt that way. I was pleased I had won, but I was sad seeing that David has lost, I really was. But yet, there was a guy who was supporting me and was there and doing things that David has always done and he was always (inaudible) to say the first (inaudible). So it was something to remember. That was an interesting night when I elected ; my supporters tore the Parliament House down (both laugh). They built my camp there, they had to stop people, they eventually closed it down, the fire inspectors came and wouldn' ; t let anybody else come into the hotel. It was interesting, I mean it was an exciting night, I came down there and the place was just jammed, I came down from the top floor suite and we had to work our way through the crowd to get up to the stage. Folks were shouting, car horns honking all over the place. The president Carter called, just when I was about to go down and greet the folks, the phone rings and it' ; s president Carter and you know he said something. And so it was a very historic time and I still remember and looking back at news clippings and stories that just bring me back those memories of that particular evening. LEMONTE: You mentioned that your total campaign cost in 1979 were between the two races, right around $50,000? ARRINGTON: Yeah. LEMONTE: Earlier, you had said that (inaudible) has conveyed some campaign money to you in a council race. Was there any business support financially in your first election for mayor? ARRINGTON: In the run-off. And (inaudible) gave me some money, but Henry Goodrich sort of put--the corporate community sort of channeled money through Henry Goodrich who brought it to me. And or either sent people and that' ; s how I got the 30-something thousand dollars--. LEMONTE: Did any members of the corporate community sit down and talk to you about their hopes and expectations for the city and attempt to gauge you as a candidate? ARRINGTON: Not at that time, the only exposure I got has been through news media interviews and forums and at the time it was sort of limited of what candidates could say. And even through the run-off, it went the same. But once I was elected, interestingly, the person to invite me to come to a meeting with the business community for dinner, in which he was host, was Tom Bradford of people, I will never forget that. I had a short-lived experience with Tom, he was, at the time on the park board and considered to be one of the most ultra-conservative businessman quite frankly. But I don' ; t know if he called me or I called him, but I ended up going to his office over there on first ave and sitting and talking with him. And he called me at some point and offered to host a dinner and invite the corporate community in and that was my first meeting and that was a very interesting meeting. Some rather frank talk went on that night about race and all of that. I remember he used to explain to me why downtown was going to be such a challenge and the fact about white behavior, once the downtown area go to be a certain percentage black. It was a good meeting. But some of those--Joe Farley was around that time, shortly thereafter, he stepped down and (inaudible) came in, but Joe Farley was around. Joe wasn' ; t very active, but he was sort of liberal among the corporate people, and had a run-off, spoken to me a couple times, but nothing of any great detail. So we eventually, (inaudible) the support in the corporate community built up, but some people obviously in 20 years, they haven' ; t came around, I mean, I had talks with people like Hall Thompson, but obviously never got any kind of support from Hall, but got support from Judy and the (inaudible) time, I got support from his son, who now runs their business. And I never got any support from Harbert, although, the next time I ran, Raymond Harbert, who was then the CEO, had succeeded his death, did a fundraiser for me up at the Summit Club. So there were interesting things like that. (Inaudible) B. Stevens, I never got him to anything--get him to come to a meeting, he just totally refused. He tried to talk to me once about some things he thought ought to be done and I asked him if he' ; d lead the effort to do it and of course he would not. So I never (inaudible) B. Stevens or that family at all in anyway, but over the years we got a good (inaudible) of corporate folks and they began helping and (inaudible) Harris came along and he was more active in reaching out. And of course eventually Leo King and he started using his influence pulls them around. But the interesting thing Barney was, he proceeded Henry as head--(inaudible) was a Vulcan Material, but he was very-- LEMONTE: Monahan. ARRINGTON: Monahan. By the end of my third year, the time when people talking about election again, he calls me and he says that some of us want to meet with you. And I said, " ; Fine." ; And he wanted to know if I wanted to come over to what is the Amsouth Bank tower. I walk over there that day ; they really had the meeting in the southern natural gas office complex. And I walked up there and (inaudible) was just about (inaudible) in the corporate community there. Few exceptions, but who' ; s who in Birmingham and they came Barney spoke and their offer was to support me, they wanted me to run again for mayor, I don' ; t know what had gone into their discussions, but I assumed that they had concluded that the next mayor was going to be black, things have changed. And we' ; ve had almost four years with this guy and some folks (inaudible). Let' ; s strengthen him and make sure we keep him in office rather having some other black, which we don' ; t know as well. And so it made a great (inaudible) worry about money and if I would run again, they (inaudible) get out and pass leaflets and all of this kind of stuff. And they did, they raised the money for all and me. Some of them John Woods, some of these got to be people I could go to. Here and there, I had a falling out with most of them, at one point or another at one time or another, but I thought overall, my relationship with the corporate community was good. I think once the corporate community saw that it was going to be a black mayor here, because it' ; s a black majority now, here in this city. Most of them decided said, " ; We' ; re going to support Arrington." ; Most of them did, even when they were still running white (inaudible) for mayor, but they knew he wasn' ; t going to win, mostly corporate folks were still giving me support. LEMONTE: Aside from the issue of Benita Carter and police, what were the topics or issues in your 1979 campaign for mayor that represented your platform and the points that distinguished you from Frank Parsons or the other candidates? ARRINGTON: Well, in the run-off, of course, I tried to (inaudible) experience that Frank had, none of that kind of experience and tried to speak of that as (inaudible). But I also set other goals ; city image was one of the things I had talked about in the campaign. Management was another thing, because of encouragement from folks like (inaudible), I talked about management style a lot and what my management style was going to be and issues (inaudible). I did have to address of course you know, the whole matter of how I was going to (inaudible) the police department, because that was still really a concern of people. And initially, I don' ; t think that anybody thought that I was going to win. Anyway, I mean until the primary and then I think that it really dawned on people and some people I think felt that if there was going to be--the most disastrous area would probably be that this guy is not going to get along, the police don' ; t like him and that' ; s going to be bad for us. I think that was--but I had not really dealt that much with the issue. But I had to answer questions about it because they had asked--no questions were asked about it. And then the FOP also had a sense in that campaign, that maybe more than other folks did--that a black might be elected and that' ; s why they got Larry and Larry was in it and they threw their support for Larry Langford for whatever reason, I don' ; t know what their political strategy was. But there was to fragment to vote or whatever, but they did. It just didn' ; t work. But we just--I talked to some about economic development, but I talked particularly about changing the city image, the management styles and things of that sort, so I talked about that. Time went by and subsequent elections, we learned a little bit more ; we put together a better platform, a more inclusive platform. LEMONTE: So you walk in as mayor in the fall of ' ; 79, you knew city hall, you knew people, but here you are as mayor, what was your sense in feeling an issue begin that experience and what kind of reception did you get from people, already in city government? ARRINGTON: Well, my feeling was one, a lot of uncertainty to tell you the truth. In fact I had thought about it sense and I wonder, for somebody who hadn' ; t city hall at all, as elected mayor, a transitition (inaudible). Secondly, but I still had that--still uncertainty but once I won I was swept up really in this whole media thing because worldwide media--I spent all my time interviewing, doing TV things, because Birmingham' ; s got a black mayor, that was big, big stuff. So much so that even I didn' ; t--it was--I started writing my inaugural address the night before the inauguration at home late that night when I finally got home, I think I had done an interview, a guy--a photographer--a reporter from People magazine had gone and they gone home with me and done some shots of the family. A lot of that stuff was what I had, I didn' ; t really have a transition team and all, I was just doing all of this media stuff. And I didn' ; t even finish my speech until I had gotten to the office that morning that I was to speak at the ceremony had set I don' ; t remember the time, maybe 10:00 or something. And I still had two or three (inaudible) I finished writing and then give it to the girl to type up. That' ; s how busy it was, but I turned the people who had been my friends first of all, particularly Nina and David who were on the council. And I began talking with them about trying to put together a staff and it was Nina who had suggested to me that' ; --take Willie Davis because he had been over in the council (inaudible) and he had some experience. And then when we decided (inaudible) decided to come--I think Tom was coming too, David was opposed to that say I was taking all the experienced staff over to that side, but Nina spoke up and of course she thought I needed her and you know--and she just let t Tom go on and so. That helped some, we came in--I didn' ; t have a whole lot of experience on putting together that staff in city government and then I was trying to--had decided that--listening to folks I had to sort of balance the staff and I tried to get (inaudible) in and I tried to get blacks on the staff as well as whites and all of that. And then I was able to get you to come (inaudible) and that' ; s what we worked on. We put together a pretty balanced staff and we got going. I mean we staggered out of the open gate and somehow we regained our balance and we kept going and it continued to be a learning experience all the way for 20 years it was a learning experience I will tell you. We learned how to do some things, we got some breaks. We sometimes have priorities (inaudible) just to get the priorities in order, but I thought we got some things done and unfortunately we couldn' ; t get some of them done without some debate, some conflict, after all it was--we came in ' ; 79 with an economy in shambles and we were concerned about that, we didn' ; t have a strong economy. But again, we were fortunate and that certain things were happening I mean the University was there and it was sort of an anchor and the economy began slowly changing and the transition into a service-type economy was beginning to pick up. Some--that helped us a whole lot and here and there we started having some success and I do think we started to administer, I do think we put in place a pretty good administration, I think we did some good things administrative wise, I think we did some good planning. I think the thing was when we started out and decided we had to start surveying and putting emphasis on retention existing businesses as well as looking new ones. I think some of those were little things, but they turned out to be important kinds of things for us. And we began to have some breaks with the economy during that latter part of that term. We still had some issues of conflict of course, the affirmative action thing was on its way and then somewhere at the end--early in the second term, I' ; m dealing with the consent decree and all of that and of those things were controversial, fight over minority participation in programs and having a fight with the associated general contractors. So it was challenging in that, because when I think going into government anyway as a chief executive is just challenging (inaudible). But we just had issues, we had things changing and we were trying to make some social changes, we were trying to build a city government that was more inclusive in trying to bring people in. We' ; re out trying to push at the same time to put in a minority participation programs. There were a whole lot of issues that made it very challenging time for us and we get into a fight right away about the police chief, so that for many people was a carry over, a bitter taste that they already had because the doubts they had about my becoming a mayor because of what posture they had seen me take as a council member and now the first thing I do is get into a fight over the selection of the police chief. So that' ; s what I mean when I' ; m talking about rocky start coming out of the gates, but some of it was a bit controversial. LEMONTE: When you took office, all of the department heads were protected under civil service. You did not have the opportunity to bring in a team of department heads of your own selection. And so you became head of the bureaucracy that was not necessarily obligated to be very responsive to you, how did that transition early in the first term go with your becoming the chief administrating officer of a very large and complicated bureaucracy? ARRINGTON: I think it went fairly well ; we had decent cooperation from some of the department heads. I think we (inaudible) the police chief, basically worked with us, but he was just caught in the middle between a man who was trying to make changes and who was not popular with his (inaudible)--. LEMONTE: This was chief Myers, Bill Myers. ARRINGTON: And Bill was just torn, I mean--and I have to say Bill as far as I know was loyal to me as mayor, I mean he really was, but you know, I was pulling on one side and he was trying to be a professional and be loyal to the mayor, as he promised me he would (inaudible) and of course he' ; s got his men who feel betrayed and so but I think Bill did right he stood there and when he--just so he could make it and he resigned. Because he just thought my policies, my style, my goals were things that he couldn' ; t continue to support, particularly at the place I was trying to go. There was some (inaudible) we got (inaudible) didn' ; t really give me any problem, but he wasn' ; t very, very active in his support. But the truth is that I met with a few of them and then I brought in you know the staff, administrative assistant, executive administration and that dealt with the other department heads and then they met. I think things that we were able to do like meet with them, begin talking about goals, knowing what' ; s going on, that constant hands-on kind of thing is what kept things moving. I think if we had left it sort of loose so to speak and had not been close and hands on where they had to talk with somebody, what was happening here today and you know we (inaudible) different story, but I think that was part of the strength of our administration was that we' ; re coming in and we get (inaudible) and one or two other people who--I think our department heads respected. And they had to deal with them everyday. And I think quite frankly some of them probably find that something that they preferred to having to deal with me on a regular basis to be very frank. But it worked out well for us, it created a kind of comfort zone for them in a different transition period and we had some early problems you know we had Willie Davis questions and I had some corporate folks would talk to me about that. But quite frankly you know after you became the chief executive some of the corporate folks worried about you, they thought we were corrupt you down there. But things went fairly well and one thing that was important in addition to what Willie brought to the job and (inaudible) to own style and ability, was also-- nobody questioned your ability and nobody questioned your integrity and they felt that they could talk with you, I mean and that--I think that' ; s important to have somebody there particularly at a time of transition where a new mayor and especially in this case, in a town where race has been a great preoccupation and everybody, you' ; re making a change, it' ; s very important that the white community, and especially the corporate community has somebody in that office that they have some confidence in. And somebody that they can come and complain to if they want to and feel that they' ; re getting a message to city hall because somebody who has some influence there. I think that was a part of why we were able to get over those humps and move things along. After a while I don' ; t think that some corporate people who never thought, who were suspicious or was always going on but, I don' ; t thing we had a lot of questions about whether you know this was an administration that was incompetent, I mean I really don' ; t and the real secret to that was that we--you and then we sort of put other people around. And you brought around--we got Virginia on and (inaudible) and you know if when you look back at it, we put some good people around there who could do their work and I think that helped us a lot and people start having confidence, especially the business community, started having some confidence in these folks around me. And that helped our administration there. One day I' ; d like to hear what you have to say, to say about all of that. I' ; ve been thinking about it and I sort of outlined some things and the manuscript that I' ; m working on, and I talk about that, I tried to get in and sort of analyze and pick a part you know, what would have think that made a difference and then you know I feel quite frankly that I was just fortunate and lucky in many ways. Started about talking about my life, things just happen because I planned-- (inaudible) because I didn' ; t know you were--I had no idea that you would ever come work in government, I mean I would have thought that you were right off. And I was talking with you about somebody and I find out that you were willing to consider it because--but I mean that was, for me it was just a lucky thing and it happened. And so I just sometimes when I think about some of the tough times and I think about all the breaks I got along the way, they just sort of fell in place somehow and it worked out well so that' ; s good, and having you there for what eight years? LEMONTE: Eight years, eight fascinating wonderful years. ARRINGTON: It was good, I thought I was going to get you back (inaudible) like that, I never told you about that conversation. LEMONTE: (inaudible) difficult to in a reasonable period of time covered 20 years as mayor, but I think there are some areas that we could group questions and thoughts on your part and I guess one of them would be to return the topic of police and you' ; ve talked about the professionalization of the police department a long-term process that began during your first term as council. I recall that the issue of the shooting policy was one of the kinds of important police issues that came up early in your tenure as mayor, I wonder if you could speak to that and other things related to policing that reflected your commitment to the professionalization of the department. ARRINGTON: And here again I have to give credit to Bill Myers, who was police chief when I became mayor. Because even on issues, really hot issues and shooting policies were about as hard as issues you could get, because Alabama at that time are still under the state of (inaudible) felon, where if a felony had been committed (inaudible) suspected that you might have committed it, under the law that officer can use deadly force against you. And that was a serious and very much flawed law, of course thank goodness, some years after we stepped out and changed the policy, the other case got to the supreme court, where you just couldn' ; t shoot folks, except under some dire circumstances, life-threatening circumstances, but you got to the situation somebody could grab your television out of your house and go running and the officer would shoot him if he couldn' ; t catch him. It changed a lot, it had a real impact on society as a whole, but I took on shooting policy early on because I thought we had to change the policy. That may have been the most divisive issue, the police things in this community and if you ever wondered to come back together or get (inaudible) have some cooperation. We really had to get the police issue under some control where it just always stays out there. It was a major issue that divided this community. And I think honestly some people (inaudible) but I honestly think we accomplished that. Even today I see people saying things (inaudible) about the police here and there on an abuse case, but I know from experience that it' ; s nothing like it used to be. We took on that shooting policy and my police chief at the time, Bill Myers, didn' ; t fight me on it. He worked with me on it, when I asked him to do the work, the surveys ; he put his folks to work on it. Now that was a very unpopular thing for him to do, especially with the FOP, but he did it and then I called together the corporate leaders at some point I don' ; t think they were at all happy about it, but some of them cooperated, we put together a committee, we looked at it and we came up with a new policy, the police union, the FOP were never satisfied with it, but just by putting in our own policy, we changed, I think the behavior really endangering lives of police officers. Handful of police officer who had been so trigger-happy and the (inaudible). We changed that ; I think also the fact that we were going to stand firm on that policy and others, I mean we implemented policies along the way that we were responsible, some before I became mayor. The simple one like, if any force has to be used to apprehend an individual, you must take that individual to the hospital (inaudible) sounds like it' ; s a little troublesome thing, but I mean it had a great impact on the behavior of the police department after a while because you got a medical trained individual. He looks at somebody and says, what has happened to him or her or what kind of injuries do they have, which is much different than somebody being thrown in jail without getting any medical attention. You also build a (inaudible) so if internal affairs (inaudible) what operators (inaudible). And the composite impact of all of those things, I think brought about some very positive changes, even with the shooting policies. Now I will tell, if the chief had not stood with us, (inaudible) if he just gotten out there and said this is not going to work and that' ; s why I still give Bill Myers his due because he remained professional and stood with me on those things. We changed the shooting policy (inaudible) that wasn' ; t good-- LEMONTE: And I think for those who want to know that story, Jimmy Franklin has done a good job of documenting it back to Birmingham book. So I think it exists as a carefully recorded story that-- ARRINGTON: I think he has done a good job of what happened then. But we' ; ve been through that and we' ; ve come in with the new chief, who ends up being a very controversial chief from the outside, but there was a product of a process and (inaudible). And the difference in viewpoints about how it ought to be done and the filling on the parts of some influential people in this community, that we were moving too fast and so forth. And I think people did the best thing they knew how to do. I think those who thought, no you know we at least got to get a police chief in here that the police officers respect and don' ; t trample their morale, eventually I' ; ve gotten to understand all of that, but again, you know we came through it, we came in with Arthur Deustch, there was always controversy, but we got some things accomplished. We became one of the few cities a few years ago that got accreditation I mean the number has increased, but there is still not a lot of accredited police departments in this country that on the accrediting association. And we have been accredited and had two or three reaccreditations visits since. I think our officers have been trained much better and I think it' ; s because we were forced--that issue was always front burner and (inaudible) we were looking for ways to do what we thought was right, but at the same time they give the people the training. So I really do think that the police reform was major accomplishment of our administration, the police reform, not without pain and problems, but it happened in a city where that was really known a terrible police commissioner, powerful politician bull Connor. And so we moved the police reform away from the common thing to--what I think is a professional department that had some problems down there, but never really serious problems relatively speaking. So I chalk that up as one of the things that we accomplished. LEMONTE: Related to the police department and all other department but certainly more extensively were very basically was the question of affirmative action in the consent decree. At the time you entered office the question of discriminatory hiring practices was before the courts? ARRINGTON: Yes, that had been a hearing or two particularly I think on police in fact, not on other departments. The NAACP in one case I believe there was some employee that might have been in parks and rec somewhere had brought that case to court. But anyway, we moved (inaudible) with the encouragement of president Reagan' ; s justice department to settle the case with (inaudible) consent decree, which was really fashioned, by the justice department. And it created more problems for us, all the issues that eventually came up about affirmative action and them somewhere around about that time, shortly or before or after the news media really made reverse discrimination a household word, I remember reading one national magazine, first big story I read about reverse discrimination and after a while I got to be a house hold word, discrimination. And so anytime they talked about affirmative action, you had that other side of the issue. I was helped with that--I kept the same law firm that David had hired to deal with that and that was Bradley Arab and we had an attorney who was pretty good working with us and guiding us on that. I was fortunate and David this too, David was able to influence the personnel board to let us have a director of personnel. It was Gordon Graham. And Gordon was very helpful and all of that because he had a background in it and he knew his way around and I think many times you know they had Gordon up there handling these issues and helping us shape the policy, somebody like who had had that same situation where we could not have had a personnel director, we still just had to deal directly with the board over there. We would have had a lot of havoc in what we were trying to do. LEMONTE: But it required the consent of the personnel board to have him-- ARRINGTON: Absolutely--. LEMONTE: You did not have the independent authority as mayor--? ARRINGTON: That' ; s correct, but just to have somebody there who knew personnel and knew how to shape policies and how the personnel management was a plus and I was pleased. And we did good I thought, we lost a reverse discrimination case and I had never gotten over that, frankly even today, I think one of the little quirks that have in the judicial system is that kind of (inaudible) of that nature. The irony of the fact that in Birmingham in Jefferson county, where blacks were truly excluded, it was really the policy they excluded all the way through the personnel board on down, in a city renowned for its race problem, that Birmingham would end up being a city guilty of reverse discrimination. And the way that went down is something that I never been able to sort of digest, but we got caught in a time when the pendulum was swinging the other way, Reagan days, new court members, the court becoming more conservative, in fact the guy who had been the attorney general' ; s office as an assistant attorney general down in Alabama had gotten on the (inaudible) court and was one of the key-- (inaudible) wrote that opinion which I had read 50 times and still doesn' ; t make any sense in which he concluded that we were guilty of reverse discrimination. I (inaudible) people that make sense, he said we were right to try to do this and right to try to do that, but in doing that we, or course violated the rights of other people. I was also disturbed about it because, everything we had done, Sam Pointer had been the judge in the district court who had looked at it. And even in the firefighters' ; case, he had reviewed every promotion, and of course he was just overruled in the final analysis on the (inaudible) and so that was a little disappointing, because we had a district judge who has said, okay, they had not promoted a single firefighter and he had looked at their records and said that was the right thing to do. By anyway, it still had a tremendous impact, I mean, it changed labor force, made it much more inclusive, we went from a labor force of 12 to 15 % black, we came in and when we left, you know about half of the labor force was black. We went from a labor force that had one black department head and I guess during our time in office, we must have hired about 14 and we ended up with about 12 when we left. We didn' ; t open up as fast, but we made a difference there. For example in the police department, I think they might have had one, may have been two women sergeants when I became mayor and when we left, women were moving all the way up to serving deputy chief, we didn' ; t but one chief yet, but we gotten a few women in the fire department, still that' ; s been a tough nut to crack. But women were largely in clerical positions back in 1979 and 1980 in Birmingham. And we promoted--we changed a lot of that, a lot of women were promoted in all departments. We didn' ; t do as well as we might have done about when the department heads, but we did get two or three women in department head positions. I' ; m pleased about that, I think--out of that affirmative action, the program under that consent decree, we were able to create the most (inaudible) wise and racial-wise the most diverse (inaudible) force in the state of Alabama, any government in the state of Alabama, I think including the state itself. That' ; s an accomplishment I' ; m very proud of. I' ; ve always wondered though, I will tell you, even while we were carrying out the affirmative action promotions under that consent decree, the one thing I always wondered about was at what point do you stop affirmative action? It always stays in the back of my mind, when I would talk with Alexander who was a lawyer over there at Bradley and (inaudible) I would raise that question. How long do we do this? Because I thought there was going to be a breaking point, at some point, I' ; m not a lawyer obviously, so I don' ; t know the legal argument. But if you say you' ; re going to correct something in affirmative action is the remedy, and I speak solely just within a city, within any organization. I guess to be a question--if you accomplish and we were accomplishing all of our goals, then when do you stop it. And of course we never--I don' ; t think we' ; ve answered the question yet, I mean reverse discrimination created some problems for us and I think they may now have paid off the last employee reverse discrimination. I know when mayor Kincaid came in, they still had several, that' ; s because we couldn' ; t negotiable settlements. Some of them wanted more, but we tried to settle with as many as we could, but the question still is, how long do you stay--does the court keep you in the consent decree and so forth. In fact I think that the Achilles Hill in the affirmative action program and that' ; s it. But that' ; s why I think America finally--society as a whole finally, we being handled with reverse discrimination and that--where I think a lot of the attitudes finally changed and opinions of some (inaudible) I may be totally wrong but even when I was mayor I was thinking about that. I even said it to Gordon a few times, you know, okay we' ; re achieving these goals now how long are going to continue to do this. And I have to admit, I was speaking then from the perspective of an administrator, he knew that there was still resentment about it because we felt we had accomplished a lot of it and we thought that if we could say, we achieved our goals, the affirmative action program just go on hiring, it would have some impact on morale and get some of the bitter disputes that were ongoing about promotions and all of that. So it' ; s just amazing that once you' ; re in a position, how it makes you-- you' ; re force to think about some things. I many times rethought the whole minority business loan program you know, you begin to sort of understand arguments whether you agree totally or not with some of the people who (inaudible) very simple question, why do you take some guy that has terrible credit and couldn' ; t do this, that other and can' ; t get a loan from the bank and then you take him and give him taxpayers' ; money and you look around you got a 60% rate of (inaudible). And yet, I mean it takes you to that point. And you had answers that were really not that simple, but I tell you, it really makes--you think about it. And now affirmative action program, many times I sat and I thought questions like that. LEMONTE: When you left office, were there still affirmative action requirements in place in city employment? ARRINGTON: Yeah, promotion goals are still in place. LEMONTE: As a matter of--? ARRINGTON: Even after the reverse discrimination thing, it' ; s still there. And I rather no--it has (inaudible) formally ended you know, there have been few cases, I mean like school cases, where the courts have finally said that schools were integrated, I mean essentially not been the most segregated (inaudible), but they ended the program. I don' ; t think they done that at city yet. I know they hadn' ; t done that before I left. Now that, you know, I think a natural question might be, you were chief executive you thought that was time you know, why didn' ; t you move to do it. I don' ; t know, I thought about it and but we got caught up in the reverse discrimination thing just wouldn' ; t go away. I would go up and went all the way to Supreme Court. I went up there, sat in and listened to the argument at the Supreme Court. The only time I' ; ve been in there. And then of course, the Supreme Court rules against us in terms of the right of these people to pursue the reverse discrimination and then we worked through that two or three years and we eventually lose and of course that was the end of it. But anyway, it just raises a lot of questions of how you deal with past injustices and how do, in some way make the solutions somewhat more acceptable to other people who were in there. And I think one way is that if you limit the times much more things can be done, I don' ; t know. Anyway, it was an interesting thing, but I think we accomplished something despite difficulties and that always happens despite problems. And I also felt that the next mayor coming in would probably be able to build a better, a stronger relationship with employees and employee rep groups, because that mayor would not have to go through some of those vice that we had to go through. I' ; m not sure that has happened at city hall, but at least that next mayor came in with a cleaner slate, didn' ; t have to fight the minority business thing, all of that (inaudible) affirmative action kind of things that ended up with people at opposite ends of the spectrum and people fighting and people feeling that they' ; ve been mistreated one way or another, passed over and all of that. So I thought, as I was getting ready to leave office, well the next mayor wouldn' ; t have to deal with a lot of that. He' ; d already be viewed and sort of pigeonholed as a person whose this way or the other. I don' ; t know how it' ; s worked out, but for Birmingham, that' ; s my question in my mind, affirmative action was the right thing to do. And I think that its overall results have been positive for us. And I believe anybody doing that analysis would probably reach the same conclusion today. And I believe Birmingham is one of the better examples, really what has happened in affirmative action, what has happened about inclusiveness of people and the labor force. And keep in mind that we didn' ; t stop just with our labor force, we reached out and well we had some debates with associated general contractors and some fights. We eventually ended up with some agreements with them. I don' ; t know how successful it has been, but we reached a point where they started working with us rather than against us. We got the Birmingham plan put in place and the Birmingham plan, in my opinion ; it' ; s a significant accomplishment. I don' ; t think it was a productive as it could have been, because quite frankly I don' ; t think we ever got really the mentality among a (inaudible) minority contractors, they were going to get a set aside, but with all those rough balance, one very pleasing moment for me was one day when six young black contractors came in my office. And they came not to complain about what was going on, but they thanked and to tell me what had happened to their businesses and these weren' ; t guys just only--one guy was a (inaudible) man, they were all in different construction trades. But they were all successful and they were thanking me, not only for what I had done, but because Auburn University was offering courses and they were taking those courses. And they were telling me how some of those courses, management courses and so forth had enabled them to improve their own skills and run their businesses and how pleased they were, plus they were asking, also part of the reason they came, for us to sponsor some other courses that Auburn had down there that they wanted. And that was a rare thing because most of the times when minority contractors came to see me, they came to complain about something that wasn' ; t going on. (Inaudible) were very good, there were six young black guys and they were really good--. LEMONTE: These were courses offered under the Birmingham Plan? ARRINGTON: Under the Birmingham plan, DCIA having arrangements with Auburn University and they sent someone in and they offered the courses. And they may still do that. But the difference was here were six young guys, number one they were young and apparently fairly well-educated I don' ; t really know what their backgrounds were, but fairly well-educated, well-spoken, who took advantage of this and there are some guys who don' ; t have that background and don' ; t have the determination and don' ; t do the work and you know they really don' ; t benefit that much from it, they don' ; t see much coming from it. But you have to keep in mind, that things like minority contracts for the first 100 years that this, the city of Birmingham, there was nothing, no business going to blacks of any degree. David started trying a program, he tried to put about a million dollars in contracts for blacks. But we really got caught up on front ; there were a lot of fronts. I' ; m not sure if we ever got rid of all of them, but we got rid of a lot of those fronts and so when we started talking about, (inaudible) talking about, well we' ; ve done 70m dollars worth of business with black firms. I would guarantee that most of that was done with those firms and very few fronts. So their accomplishments in that area--. LEMONTE: What was the origin of the Birmingham plan, and are you able to think of a moment when that came clearly forward as a (inaudible) policy possibility or did it evolve over a long period of time? ARRINGTON: (inaudible) it evolved, but it' ; s like something that hit you, I had been in and out of court with the associated general contractors, it was a losing battle every time because the state law was--without changing state law, it' ; s hard to do what we were trying to do. Even with the best lawyers trying to rewrite the city code on some things, the state law says you got to take the best bid, the lowest bid and so (inaudible) caught well, small businesses can' ; t bid, very few of them can bid. We tried everything we knew, trying to break the packages down, smaller, but that really didn' ; t work. The only thing that was going to work, the strong general contractors were going to somehow have to associate some minority contractors with them. We eventually got two or three of them that were willing to do it, but a lot of them didn' ; t, some of them just did it, just as nuisance, they did it and the people working with them didn' ; t benefit, they got that money, but they didn' ; t learn a lot of things. And then we tried the--was that the university program we tried over there, it was a (inaudible) project. I think we tried to do this sort of a case study to see what was going on, but what happened with the Birmingham plan, following the court thing, I just started thinking about it, the fact that we weren' ; t getting much visible support from the corporate community and I really sat home one night and sort of wrote up a thing about the Birmingham plan, a statement I wanted to make. I must have spoken with (inaudible) or somebody to invite the people in over there at Birmingham-Southern and said basically what I had written down and asked them to get off the sideline and get (inaudible). Surprisingly their response was positive ; there was a positive response. I don' ; t know how much they knew about what I was going to say, I don' ; t know if I would go into any details with Neal about it, except that' ; s what I wanted to talk about. But I look back up on it and say you know, they put two or three people in place and say alright, let' ; s start working it. So that was a good faith effort on the part of the business community and it allowed us to put in place the Birmingham plan. But not only, just really--out of frustration, but it came in on those fights and I thought we (inaudible) the corporate community and so that' ; s how we came out with the Birmingham plan. LEMONTE: You mentioned earlier that minority business program which really gets it at the time, two questions I' ; d like to ask to respond to, one is sort of your notion of what the world of city government properly ought to be in the economic development area, because I meet many people would say this just isn' ; t a function of city government to be worrying about business success or failure. And then the question of the evolution of the city' ; s program away from the simple loan to more complicated things, it seems to me the city learned a lot by its trial and sometimes that failure in those areas? ARRINGTON: Yeah, I think we did learn, we certainly during the loan area, we got into an area first of all we wouldn' ; t have ever been able to get into the state constitution, but with the help of the federal government and the federal funds and the attorney general' ; s opinion that said we could use federal funds for loans, but we couldn' ; t use city funds for loans. But you know we got off into that area. When the funds sort of dried up, we were fortunate because we had some good times with (inaudible) things and so we had (inaudible) repayments coming in and every year they bring back almost a half million dollars that we put into a loan pool to keep it going. We then eventually were able to become a bit more selective in how we make loans and who we made them to and we make better loans to people who in most instances ended up succeeding whereas earlier a large number of our people were failing, I mean they got money, small loans and it lasted a little while. I think they just failed, so we learned as time went along, I think that there is a role for government to play because there' ; s a broader issue of justice and there' ; s the issue of what history has been. And so I think there is a role to play and if it is a government that represents a population that has been significantly impacted by the past practices, I think the responsibility of that government is even greater to try to find out what is our proper role. I just feel today that the loan program per se which most small business including minority businesses would say is the biggest problem access to capital. I still today question the loan thing is really the role for us. I do think that stuff we do through (inaudible) to help people and to offer them training and to make sure people know how the system works. People who really want to put together a package and want to be competitive and so forth. I think all of those are very legitimate kinds of things and the better we can do them, the more effective we will be--. LEMONTE: BCIA is Birmingham Construction Industry Authority--? ARRINGTON: And I think the more effective those people are in doing that, the more successful we will be. I think you have to understand when you' ; re doing it though that, your success rate is not going to be real high, when you' ; re dealing things like contractors, particularly when there has been a history of most of the minority contractors really not being formally trained and a lot of them, it' ; s a trade they picked up. But even there were those who were except help, I mean we have to (inaudible) from how to handle books to how to do payroll, how to stay out of trouble with the IRS, but some of them were too strapped to do it and some of them just sort of threw their hands up, but there are legitimate roles to play. If I were starting over and had my choice I, wouldn' ; t totally cut out the loan program, though it troubles me some, but I would make the requirements a little bit more stringent and there ought to be some reasonable expectations at folk and succeed. If you' ; re going to put a small amount of money in something--we eventually put in place some good support mechanisms--I mean Susan' ; s program, what is that called. It' ; s an incubator type thing, I think it' ; s been one of the better ones that you would find any place and it really evolved from what we tried to do in the city and what the business community did in partnership with us. That' ; s how we got a successful incubator program for startup businesses for small businesses. So those were some successes, we tried to do things like even help minority contractors, number one to organize as a unit and number two, to understand even the political system but in one area we failed and I think even today, the city probably still funds the minority contractors and gives them a staff and three or four people. But I tried, I went to meeting myself and I tried to get them to do things like, I even once had the city put up the money for them to hire attorneys and I tried to get them to do simple things like lobbying, the associated general contractors and the other (inaudible) contracting group was making a move to change the law, about how you get your license to stiffen the exam. And I tried awfully hard to get them to--number one lobby--just bring in the black legislatures and number two to send somebody to Montgomery and they acted never get them to do it. And somebody might say that isn' ; t important, but when you look at the system as a whole and you know how it works, and you know where the laws are made and the laws tell you everything--and the government really tells you everything in this country when you get through examining it, how it' ; s doing and who is going to be certified and all. And they could never see that as a part or root of their problem and we just could do it better. But dealing with building contractors in particular is a very difficult area when dealing with minority builder contractor. I think you get a few, when we started out, we probably had one or two general contractors and when I left, who were minorities, when I left office we might have had about six of them that were doing fairly well, still operating. We never wavered a bill, you know a hugely successful minority contractor firm, say a Russell company or something, and we were never able to do that. But we had a lot of experience that I can talk to some people about what she shouldn' ; t do (inaudible) work in some instances. LEMONTE: One of the projects that David Vann had begun was the commitment to downtown Birmingham the revitalization of downtown, would you comment on your views of downtown and what your administrations did over the years on behalf of downtown Birmingham and your assessment of success or failure? ARRINGTON: I really think we overall got off to a great start in downtown. You can' ; t fully appreciate if you can' ; t recall what downtown was like in ' ; 79. Even today we didn' ; t see the long term affect of some of the things, but I look back at records and see the number of buildings that were renovated for example downtown and I look at it today, some of the renovations didn' ; t keep businesses there. Of course, they are going to lofts and things of that sort. But we did a large number of building renovation downtown addition to new construction. I think our downtown effort though was pretty good. We' ; re a long way from getting the kind of mix that gives downtown the character ; it has to have a new character. Making the transition from a downtown where retail dominated retail market, huge department stores to one that' ; s got a totally different character, especially in a town where folk had lived downtown, we had to try to go through that change. But we did a lot of things that were positive to downtown, however people measure it, I mean you look at office. How many new office buildings came downtown. We had a fair labor (inaudible) we got downtown and we negotiated and it' ; s a great leap from where we started, block 60 and the failure of block 60, we learned some things from that and we were able to negotiate and use our incentives a little bit better and to get some buildings downtown. We haven' ; t been able to change from being a workday place, but or course we got a lot of jobs into downtown and what we called the central business district. The role of Michael (inaudible) and operation new Birmingham, that road was very important in what we' ; ve been able to do downtown. I think we' ; re sort of halfway there. We started things like the McWane center ; we have not seen the full impact of that yet. One day, I' ; m still hopeful that we' ; ll complete that and that it' ; s going to anchor changes around there, hopeful (inaudible) talking with Jeffrey (inaudible) two nights ago and I' ; m hopeful that he' ; s going to succeed with his plan for the Pizitz thing. But we put in place a sort of nucleus for some good things to happen but when you think about, we did things like parking decks downtown, during the time we were in office that 20 years, it was done four or five parking decks, started down there--the last one, the bank of Birmingham, you think about the one across from the federal courthouse, we did the one behind the finance center, we did the Birmingham news parking deck, we did the second ave parking deck. That was all a part of course trying to reinforce the survival of downtown and provide the parking. But even when you look at the buildings, we fought some battles, we got the new federal courthouse, it was going to be downtown, but we got it where it is, over the oppositions of the federal judges who didn' ; t want it down there, because it backed right up to the black business district. I now see that at least there' ; s an office building going up diagonally across the street from the federal courthouse down on 4th ave. And then I forget her name, Sloss people building behind the federal reserve, that' ; s a battle we sort of lost, I mean we didn' ; t lose federal reserve, we kept them in the city but we lost them downtown, after we gave them all the help in the world to get the (inaudible) finance. But now I see Cathy and her associates, the Sloss group coming to the office complex there. I had a conversation ; just yesterday I had lunch with Elias Hendrix, talking with him about his business. And here' ; s a young black couple (inaudible) business and they were totally excited and working with people like Sloss, expanding their businesses, taking in additional kids, he was just (inaudible) we don' ; t get the--a lot of the kids can' ; t afford to go to (inaudible) learning center or to the church, (inaudible) operated by the church because it cost a lot. But there are a lot of secretaries who have kids and you know people making less money, they can get business from black and white. And now they' ; re getting involved in the actual plan (inaudible) they' ; re negotiating with them right now about the number of places they' ; re going to provide for folks in the office, I mean that' ; s a (inaudible) listening to him talk about that, I mean I really felt good about it, because people are dealing with their children and they' ; re willing to get their children and these people have done well enough that the folks who were making a big investment, developing the thing is talking with them about how we' ; re going to meet the needs of some the tenants who are going to fill these buildings and you know--can we contract (inaudible) for so many spaces. That, to me, I didn' ; t tell in all of this but to me that' ; s a message on about a lot of change in Birmingham, I mean the kids are the one of the most important things we got, you know and when you can get folks to the point where they' ; re taking them, they think they feel safe enough to put their kids in-that you got a quality enough thing. That (inaudible) who operates it in (inaudible) but they run a good one, but for Birmingham, that' ; s a message up. So I think that' ; s happening, I see an office building going up on Concord, I worry a little now about two that ought to be going up and I don' ; t know where the new administration is, where they mayor is, unfortunately we had no communication at all. No transition, you know, I was there for 20 years and then the new mayor comes in and he decides that he and his people don' ; t want to have any communication with this administration. But you know I worry about some federal things, some social security payments--(talking already in progress). ARRINGTON: Tom Williams saying that we put in place, but (inaudible) still coming together, the university' ; s impact is still felt there and when I read that the parliament house, that it' ; s going to finally be revitalized and redone. I think downtown is--they have reasons to be optimistic, though there' ; s much to be done and I think that our work over 20 years, contributed some towards that. I also think that we bought time, our work in things like annexation that we probably talked some about, and what we did to provided a source of revenue for this city and for the neighborhoods to do a lot of things, not only looking at incentives downtown and we could afford to do that because had we been so strapped for money we would have just pushing every cent there and no matter where it came from. But it gave us a little breathing room to look elsewhere ; it enabled us to maintain some services through our neighborhoods, even the older neighborhoods, the lower income neighborhoods, our people don' ; t think about that. But much of that revenue that (inaudible) services coming in from what we did out on 280 and places like that, it' ; s coming in from the Summit and HEALTHSOUTH, and Grandview and Perimeter Square, Brookhighland and those are all parts of our economic packages and we tried, mentioned though at this point, (inaudible) with downtown is that a lot of those places we tried to get--I should have tried to get Richard Scrushy downtown. But that failing and with us making our case, I think they felt, at least some obligation to try to stay within the city and they did and I think we had some successes in many cases. We didn' ; t get them downtown, I believe downtown will make a comeback, but we still got a little way to go. I think the image of downtown is still a negative one and we still got to find some ways to get people down there after five o' ; clock. And I don' ; t know what' ; s going to happen with the convention center. I think we built in for ourselves a problem and a challenge, a long time ago when we decided to put the convention center there, or when we ran the interstate right through the middle of it and while only people who were planners and other people considered themselves to be urban know ledges were quick to see what that disadvantage is, it' ; s still a disadvantage. Is there going to be dome downtown, what impact is that going to be, I don' ; t know quite frankly do not know. I think this would a positive for downtown and when I studied what had happened with domes and saw what cities had used domed stadiums to do to revitalize their downtown or some old area (inaudible) I thought it would be ideal to get one here, it would do the same, but I don' ; t think we would be able to sell people on that. The recent legislation provides some money, sort of puts it on life support for a while to see what else is going to happen with it. But our downtown is still in a position where we can achieve goals and making a model downtown, we may be decade away from doing all of that, but things are still happening downtown. LEMONTE: That was a initiative that was begun under David Vann, was it one that you and he worked on together or was one that you inherited as a mayoral initiative from him? ARRINGTON: Well I don' ; t, virtually downtown thing was a--something that--we didn' ; t work much on that together. LEMONTE: The Costa head or the Pedro Costa appointment was one that he made as mayor without a great deal of discussion with council? ARRINGTON: I' ; m not sure David made the Pedro Costa appointment. My mind may be playing tricks on me. I know when we did the 19th street project, which we hoped would sort of duplicate the Birmingham (inaudible) thing and it just never happened and the 7million dollars that we put into the project, that just went no where. I think I had come into office and I remember talking with Nina about that and I don' ; t know if David--I had talked with David at all, but I do remember him having an extended conversation with Nina about when we try to select somebody, whether we should use Costa or not and you know--her feeling at the time I remember, I say well these are people who have some faith in downtown, but at that time he had brought up all these properties downtown and she thought (inaudible) I think you' ; re, that' ; s where we ought to take the risk with people who believe there' ; s a future downtown. And I think that might have been right after David, I won' ; t say it didn' ; t come from some momentum. LEMONTE: Now I thought he had made the initial appointment, Pedro Costa and demerit that had-- ARRINGTON: You may be right. LEMONTE: And that the early report came out some time shortly after you entered office, but-- ARRINGTON: You may be right, I just don' ; t remember, but I do remember--when did we do the block 60? LEMONTE: It was early, ' ; 80, ' ; 81 I think. ARRINGTON: I thought about that many times and I just wish I had known a little bit more and I felt that maybe we could salvaged that, but we didn' ; t lose it completely, we got the bank building, I think we could have gotten more but you know we just--it was a learning experience, we paid some prices. LEMONTE: You mentioned annexation that core commitment to downtown have been balanced by the concern for the outer area, how does that annexation strategy develop and what was the rationale behind it as you undertook it? ARRINGTON: I really didn' ; t know much about that from David, or course even after I became mayor, David still spearheaded annexation plans. The first time we really gotten in a real conversation with David about annexation and began to appreciate what the policy ought to be. Of course when David was mayor and Blue Cross went to Riverchase and David cut off the city business with Blue Cross and I gotten into some conversations with him then and it got to be far arranging as things often times get to be with David talking about things like that. And he started talking about annexation and then, (inaudible) it was very interesting and he called me one Saturday and came over to the house and wanted to talk about annexing, that we ought to do this annexation, that' ; s when we were going to go out to Birmingport, with that annexation. And I was valuable to David at that point because I was at the particular time, a very visible and popular black political official there, influential. And David had come up with this scheme and he was explaining it to me about this (inaudible) and how to annex these tax-exempt the annexation had to do them. And explain to me how we could get--in most cases there were black community groups that didn' ; t have services and couldn' ; t get them from the areas. And so first when we took office it was Booker Heights to bring in all of that area, because what David' ; s plan was is that we were going to take Birmingport and make it a major industrial park and in order to do (inaudible) he always had the idea that we' ; re going to do a canal all the way downtown, we talked about all of that, but (inaudible) was the idea that he had that I thought was workable. LEMONTE: And this is was when he was in office? ARRINGTON: Yeah, it started when he was in office. And that was set if we could work successfully annex this are, he drew this thing all the way out, past Maytown and we would have all of the Birmingport, it would be in Birmingham. And while there are few warehouses and things out there now and a fair amount of stuff is shipped out on barges and so forth. It goes entirely into the Tombigbee waterway and all of the Birmingport. We could more than quadruple what was going on if we were really set a major industrial park right there on that riverfront right on the port there. And David convinced me that was what to do and so our first joint effort was to Booker Heights annexation which we lost by one vote because there were only about 50 folks to vote and they needed the services, they were in unincorporated area and they wanted some services from Birmingham and there was an all-black community and David wanted to know if felt I could convince them to come in, which I thought I could. And we hooked with a minister out there in the area and we thought we were going to--surely carry it--David said Tom (inaudible) got to the minister and lo and behold we did find out before election minister had changed sides instead of encouraging folks out there to annex, he was--Tom had gotten to him, Tom was now on the county commission and he was getting them to work against it. And they beat us, they came out like 26-25 I mean lost by one, but that' ; s where I got my initiation into with him, and then we just started talking, even when David was mayor, about other annexations, we might do. I don' ; t think we got around to another major annexation while he was still in office, but I in effect carried out some of the David plans when he came back to work-- LEMONTE: Let' ; s stop. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Dr. Richard Arrington Jr. (2001) (1 of 2)
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Dr. Richard Arrington Jr. discusses growing up in Birmingham, his educational career, his time on the city council and his early years as Mayor. This interview is continued on July 24, 2001.
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Pitts, Luscious
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor
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2001-07-23
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video
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Horace Huntley
Interviewee
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Ruth Barefield-Pendleton
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National Urban League
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
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5.4 March 9, 1995 Ruth Barefield-Pendleton Interviewed on March 9, 1995 19950309B 0:55:17 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Raines Whittaker Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Miles College National Urban League Southern Christian Leadership Conference Ruth Barefield-Pendleton Horace Huntley Video 1:|12(6)|34(7)|65(10)|85(1)|102(10)|115(9)|135(8)|148(7)|164(3)|179(6)|195(5)|208(16)|238(12)|252(9)|275(2)|288(7)|298(8)|310(10)|325(11)|342(11)|363(6)|374(10)|397(6)|411(11)|421(2)|439(18)|449(1)|463(4)|481(12)|495(15)|509(10)|529(7)|540(9)|551(17)|580(7)|590(7)|616(6)|627(13)|646(8)|657(5)|671(6)|687(3)|702(5)|715(6)|730(4)|742(10)|755(8)|770(8)|786(2)|808(2)|826(5)|840(11)|849(13) 0 https://youtu.be/ib60jaZvfuE YouTube video English 23 Beginning of Interview I am Dr. Horace Huntley. 33.516200, -86.813870 17 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute http://www.bcri.org BCRI homepage 56 Personal Background Are you an Alabamian? She is from Mississippi and has family around the south. African American families ; Southern States--History 30.366334, -88.559316 12 Pascagoula, MS 170 Background of her Parents Tell me about the education of your parents, your mother and father. Her parents came to Mississippi around 1920 where they didn't receive much formal education. African American families ; Southern States--History 277 Community Composition Tell me a little about your community, the community that you grew up in. She grew up in a mixed-race area that was impacted by the shipyard there. African American history ; Mississippi--History ; Shipyards--United States 417 College Tell me, after you finished high school, when you went off to college, where did you go to college? Attended liberal arts college and began associations with white people. Tougaloo College African American college students ; Tougaloo (Miss.) 32.404879, -90.160735 12 Tougaloo College 520 Black Community in Adolescence Before we get to Birmingham, though, let me just ask you about your Mississippi experiences. She grew up in a Black community where her mother still lives. African American families ; Home ownership--United States 552 Expectations of Black Women Well, when you left and went off to Tougaloo, what had you decided to do with your life? Encouraged by her father but with few options, she majored in English. Tougaloo College African American families ; African American women 625 Marriage after College Then, after Tougaloo, what did you do? She married after college, her husband went into the military, and they moved around. Mobile (Ala.) ; Moss Point (Miss.) ; Pascagoula (Miss.) African American families ; African American soldiers 853 Teaching in Birmingham So, then you, when you came to Birmingham in '53, did you start teaching at that time? She taught for a few years and went to Miles College for Alabama history. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Miles College African American history ; High school teachers 978 Community Activism After Wenonah, then what, what did you do? She began participation in movements through her church and people she met at Miles College, transporting students, attending meetings, and marching. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Miles College ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 African American civil rights workers ; Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Civil rights movement 1132 NAACP is Outlawed There were several events that took place between the establishment of the Movement, the Alabama Christian Movement in '56 and 1963. While still teaching, she was a member of the NAACP but membership was outlawed and grounds for firing. African American teachers ; Alabama--History ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 1238 Police Surveillance of Meetings Now another organization, the Alabama Council on Human Relations, met regularly at my church, the First Congregational Church. Undercover police would infiltrate meetings and record attendees. African American churches ; Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Alabama Council on Human Relations ; Civil rights movement ; Police patrol--Surveillance operations 1383 Organizational Make-Up What was the make-up of that organization, the ratio between Blacks and whites? She organized with many white people and with Miles College students. Miles College Civil rights movement 1432 Support of Miles College Students How did that affect Miles College? She actively assisted Miles College students in major civil rights activism. Miles College African American civil rights workers ; Alabama--History ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement 1582 Freedom Rides In '61 the Freedom Rides took place. She remembers when the Freedom Rides came to Birmingham and the attendant violence. Civil rights movement ; Freedom Rides, 1961 ; Police brutality ; Racism 1711 Selective Buying Campaign In '62 then, we get to the Selective Buying Campaign. She participated with Miles College students and others in promoting the Selective Buying Campaign. Miles College Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Boycotts--Alabama ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement 1871 Southern Christian Leadership Conference Then, we move into 1963, and of course... She organized with SCLC and was secretary of the Central Committee. Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 African American civil rights workers ; Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Civil rights movement ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference 2078 Mass Meetings and Mothering You were at all of those meetings? She balanced full time participation in the Movement and still caring for her children. African American families ; African American women civil rights workers ; Civil rights movement 2250 Involvement in the Movement You participated very fervently during the...this April and May period, you being the secretary... She was involved in a lot of activity, which was often risky, but avoided arrest. African American civil rights workers ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement 2363 Support from her Husband As you, you were so active, what did your husband say about your activity? Her husband was supportive of her involvement and occasionally participated. African American civil rights workers ; African American families 2434 Participation of Teachers and Students In Selma, one of the things that broke that Movement was...well not broke the movement, but assisted the Movement was the assistance of teachers. Teachers assisted how and when it was possible, especially when students were involved. Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement ; Teachers 2577 Church Support What church, I think we've talked about this briefly, but what church were you a member of again? Her church was very active in the Civil Rights Movement. African American churches ; Civil rights movement 2672 Water Hose Attacks Tell me, are there any recollections that stand out in your memory during this period that probably, probably stand out more than any other, than any single incidents that you remember? She recalls the police and firefighters using water hoses on people coming out of church. Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement ; Police brutality 2810 Voter Registration Work Tell me also about your activity, because I know that you were a member of the NAACP and you worked in voter registration campaign with W. C. Patten. She worked on registering Black voters and helping them so they would qualify. Civil rights movement ; Civil rights workers ; Voter registration 3029 Urban League Activity Tell me about your activity with the Urban League. She volunteered with the Urban League, where she was a secretary. African American civil rights workers ; National Urban League 3104 Assessment of the Birmingham Movement What is your assessment of the Birmingham movement? She recognizes many successes that came out of the Movement and the civil rights bills that resulted. African American civil rights workers ; Alabama--History ; Civil rights movement ; United States. Voting Rights Act of 1965 Oral History Ruth Barefield-Pendleton discusses serving as secretary of the Central Committee of SCLC after growing up and teaching in Birmingham. She also served as secretary of the Urban League. HUNTLEY: I am Dr. Horace Huntley. This is an interview with Mrs. Ruth Barefield- Pendleton from the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project. We are at Miles College, March 9, 1995. Good afternoon, Mrs. Pendleton. B-PENDLETON: Good afternoon, Dr. Huntley. HUNTLEY: Thank you very much for coming out...taking time out of your busy schedule today to sit and talk with us about the Civil Rights Movement. Before we get into asking questions about the Movement itself, I' ; d like to get a little background. Are you an Alabamian? B-PENDLETON: No, I' ; m not. I come from Pascagoula, Mississippi. HUNTLEY: Pascagoula, Mississippi? Okay. B-PENDLETON: A foreigner to the west. HUNTLEY: Well, Pascagoula, that' ; s down on the coast, is that right? B-PENDLETON: That' ; s right. It' ; s the beginning of the Mississippi gulf coast. HUNTLEY: Oh, I see. Then, were your parents from Mississippi? B-PENDLETON: No, my parents come from Monroe County, Alabama from the community of Chrysler, Alabama which is no longer in existence. But, at an early age, they left and came to Pascagoula when Pascagoula was known as Scranton, Mississippi and that was back in early 1919. HUNTLEY: I see. B-PENDLETON: So, they really...well my mother is still living at 99 years, my father died two years ago at 97 and they were married for 76 years. HUNTLEY: So, they in fact were Mississippians? B-PENDLETON: Yes. HUNTLEY: Well, how many brothers and sisters do you have? B-PENDLETON: I have two brothers and two sisters. HUNTLEY: Are they still in Mississippi? B-PENDLETON: No, one brother is in Gadsden, Alabama, another brother is in Atlanta, Georgia and a sister is in Mobile, Alabama and a sister is in Philadelphia, Mississippi. HUNTLEY: So, you guys are just scattered all over the country? B-PENDLETON: Scattered, but not too far, though. HUNTLEY: So, how do you fit in there? Were you the second... B-PENDLETON: I' ; m the youngest of the five. HUNTLEY: So, you were the spoiled one of the family? B-PENDLETON: No, the outspoken one. The youngest can always get away with more than the others. HUNTLEY: Absolutely. Tell me about the education of your parents, your mother and your father. B-PENDLETON: Well, my father' ; s formal education went to the 7th grade. He used to like to say he had his trunk packed for Mr. Washington' ; s school in Tuskeegee. But his formal education really stopped at the 7th grade when his mother died shortly...she didn' ; t want him to go to Tuskeegee because she said that she had heard that the White men were killing the Coloreds who were trying to get an education. We were Colored back then. HUNTLEY: Right. B-PENDLETON: So, he took his young bride and he left after his mother died and went to Pascagoula. HUNTLEY: I see. B-PENDLETON: Now my mother says that her education really began when her children began school. She still studies, even to this day at 99, when her mail comes, she reads it first. HUNTLEY: She reads her own mail, that' ; s great, great. What about occupations? B-PENDLETON: My father, in the early years was a truck driver for a lumber company and then he began to work for the post office in a janitorial position and he worked up to become a mail carrier. He picked up mail from sub-stations and drove them to the main post office. My mother was always a housewife. HUNTLEY: And, this is Mississippi, early 19th century, I mean 20th century? B-PENDLETON: This is early, well around 1919-1920. HUNTLEY: Mid 20s? B-PENDLETON: Now, he did not start working for the post office until I was in high school, but before then his occupation was a truck driver. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about your community, the community that you grew up in. B-PENDLETON: Well, Pascagoula is a seaport town. It was really founded by the Jesuit priests. It' ; s a catholic town, however, we were one of the few protestant families in the community and before the shipyard came there, Ingalls Shipyard, all Whites and Blacks knew each other. But then with the coming of the shipyard you had a lot of transients...you know a lot of people coming in, so it has grown to be the third largest city in Mississippi. Jackson, Meridian and then Pascagoula. HUNTLEY: What about the racial make-up? B-PENDLETON: Well, I have not lived there since I left to go to college, but the racial climate seems to be improving. You see, the coastal part of Mississippi was never as rigid in its well, the Delta, you know. HUNTLEY: The Delta is the Black belt area? B-PENDLETON: The Delta is the Black belt area and anywhere where Blacks outnumbered Whites, the climate is not good. Well down on the Mississippi gulf coast it was a little better. And then, the occupations...you know, it was better economically also, because of the shipyard. HUNTLEY: So the shipyard was really where most people worked? B-PENDLETON: Where most people worked and still do. And then, of course, you have a cannery out on Cat Island. You' ; ve got these businesses that sprang up from the shipyard. You have a fertilizer factory over on another island and of course, the fertilizer is made from poagy fish.. HUNTLEY: Interesting. B-PENDLETON: And, of course, now the industry is the lott...uh gambling. HUNTLEY: Right, absolutely. B-PENDLETON: You know, down in that area. HUNTLEY: Tell me, after you finished high school, when you went off to college, where did you go to college? B-PENDLETON: I went to Tougaloo College, Tougaloo, Mississippi. And this is on the other side of Jackson. Now Jackson' ; s suburbs has grown so much that it reaches the suburbs of Toogaloo. Now Tougaloo is just a whistle stop. The only thing there is the campus and a few families that live outside of the community. HUNTLEY: Well, tell me, how was the transition from Pascagoula to Tougaloo? B-PENDLETON: Well, it wasn' ; t hard. Tougaloo is a private, liberal arts school. It is the sister school to Talladega and to Fisk. It was founded by the American Missionary Association They came south, set up schools and churches for the children of the new freed Black man. Well, when I went to college, the faculty was predominately White. The president was White, so my association with Whites, that was the beginning...there at Tougaloo. And, of course, when I moved to Alabama, the first thing I did was to look for a congregational church. You see, Tougaloo is a congregational school. HUNTLEY: Right. B-PENDLETON: When I went to the congregational church, I met Rev. Harold Long who was the pastor there...who was also very involved in the civil rights struggles. HUNTLEY: Right. Before we get to Birmingham, though, let me just ask you about your Mississippi experiences. Prior to going to Tougaloo, you lived in a Black community, I assume? B-PENDLETON: I lived in a Black community. The home house is still there. My mother and father ran the household. As a matter of fact, it' ; s the house that I was born in and we still live in the family house. HUNTLEY: Is that where your mother still lives? B-PENDLETON: Yes. HUNTLEY: Oh, that' ; s interesting. Well, when you left and went off to Tougaloo, what had you decided to do with your life? B-PENDLETON: Well, at that time, Black people...women in particular you either were going to be a teacher, or a nurse. I didn' ; t want to be either of those things. Of course, I ended up being a teacher and uh, my father who was not formally educated beyond the 7th grade, always said that " ; you need to stand for something, stand up for something and live well, so someone will stand up for you." ; And, of course, he said Tougaloo would be the best school to go to. He first was talking about Mr. Washington' ; s school, Tuskeegee, but my principal influenced me a lot to go to Tougaloo. And, I loved it. HUNTLEY: What was your major? B-PENDLETON: My major? English...a minor in history, a minor in library science. HUNTLEY: Then, after Tougaloo, what did you do? B-PENDLETON: I married. I married my present husband. HUNTLEY: Did you meet him there in school? B-PENDLETON: No, he came to my hometown to practice medicine and he was the first Black doctor to come into Pascagoula.and I came home from college one summer and I met him. HUNTLEY: Then after you finished at Tougaloo, did you go back then to Pascagoula? B-PENDLETON: Yes. My husband went to Korea. I was in Pascagoula while he was in Korea for 10 months and then, when he came back from Korea, we went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. HUNTLEY: Okay. How long then was he in the military? B-PENDLETON: He was in the military until I asked him to retire....uh... when the Korean campaign started, they needed physicians. They gave him one month, to close his office and another week he was in California and in three weeks he was on the front lines at an aid station in North Korea, not North Korea, South Korea. He was there when the North Koreans came across the Border or came down. And, then when he came back to the states, he came later to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and that' ; s where I joined him. HUNTLEY: Well, while he was in Korea and you were in Pascagoula... B-PENDLETON: I was in Pascagoula and I taught school at Moss Point, Mississippi. HUNTLEY: Moss Point. B-PENDLETON: You know that name. HUNTLEY: Yes, absolutely. B-PENDLETON: Well, Moss Point is to Pascagoula like Mountain Brook is to Birmingham. It' ; s about three miles. HUNTLEY: Moss Point, is that not an all Black town? B-PENDLETON: Oh no, no, it' ; s not an all Black town. HUNTLEY: But, it was a rather well off... B-PENDLETON: They have a Black mayor now. HUNTLEY: Okay. Well, is that why you came to Birmingham? B-PENDLETON: No, no. When my husband came back from Korea, when he got out of the army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, he came to Mobile, Alabama to practice medicine. We stayed there about a year. Five physicians came in at one time, three were local boys and two were outside of Mobile. I call it our starvation period. So, after a year, we moved to Bessemer, Alabama and his office is still in Roosevelt City. That' ; s where I lived when we first came here. That was in 1953. HUNTLEY: Did you teach in Mobile or in Oklahoma? B-PENDLETON: No, no I, I was busy having babies. I had two. HUNTLEY: So, then you, when you then came to Birmingham in ' ; 53, did you start teaching at that time? B-PENDLETON: I started teaching the next school session and that' ; s when I discovered that you had to have Alabama history before you could teach in the public school system. I taught at Wenonah High School, but I came to Miles College to get Alabama history, and I was out there a summer, and that' ; s where I met, uh, a lot of good people who influenced me. Myrtle Blissett, who is no longer here and at that time, Dr. Bell was the president and then, of course, I met Dr. Williams President after him. But, the person who most influenced my life was Dr. Lucius Pitts. I met Dr. Lucius Pitts and, uh, I' ; m getting ahead of myself, but that' ; s how I happened to get to Miles College. HUNTLEY: Okay, so you taught at Wenonah until...? B-PENDLETON: I taught at Wenonah until my children became school age and my husband and I both agreed that that' ; s a full-time job, to be at home. HUNTLEY: Were you living in Roosevelt at the time? B-PENDLETON: I was living in Roosevelt City. HUNTLEY: It appears that we.... B-PENDLETON: I moved to Birmingham in 1958. That' ; s when I retired from teaching. HUNTLEY: Okay. B-PENDLETON: I haven' ; t taught since 1958. HUNTLEY: Is that right. We seemed to have crossed paths at Wenonah. That was my first year of Wenonah and well my first year was ' ; 57 so, ' ; 57 to ' ; 58 school year was my first year, and evidently, that was your last year. B-PENDLETON: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: So, we did cross paths. We both had ' ; 58s in mind because we' ; re from minorities. After Wenonah, then what, what did you do? B-PENDLETON: Well, that' ; s when I became active in the community. We moved from Roosevelt City to Birmingham where I live now. It' ; s the area called College Hills in Smithfield, and at that time they were calling it " ; Dynamite Hill," ; . I joined the congregational church there. My pastor was very active in the Movement. I met my close and dear friend Deenie Drew, who lives around the corner from me. The two of us... and there' ; s another friend, Mrs. Montgomery, Althea Montgomery. We would go out to Miles college and assist Mr. Jonathan McPherson who was working with the students at Miles. At that time the students didn' ; t have adequate transportation. There were not many students with cars. So, what we did, we would provide transportation for them. They, would blanket the community during the selective buying campaign. We took the students to all of the communities in the Jefferson County area. HUNTLEY: Let me ask you, let me back you up just a bit and ask you about getting involved...your initial...in 1958, when you moved to College Hills...the Movement. The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights was organized in 1956 and they started with mass meetings at that time, did you attend any of those meetings? B-PENDLETON: I went to mass meetings almost nightly. Uh, at that time, I had full time help and I had a lot of baby sitters, so during mass meetings.I never joined the Alabama Christian Movement, but every time Fred Shuttlesworth marched, I marched. Uh, they used to joke with me and say " ; Ruth, you got on your walking shoes?" ; And, it was there where I met people like Georgia Price and, and Lola Hendricks. Deenie would pick me up, or I would pick her up and we would go to the mass meetings. HUNTLEY: There were several events that took place between the establishment of the Movement, the Alabama Christian Movement in ' ; 56 and 1963. The first issue that the Movement dealt with was the issue of hiring of Black police. One of the key issues, of course was the integration of schools. In ' ; 57 when Rev. Shuttlesworth and his wife were attacked... B-PENDLETON: I remember that. No, in ' ; 57 I was teaching. Now you remember, if you were a school teacher, you could not even be a card carrying member of the NAACP. HUNTLEY: Why couldn' ; t you be a card carrying member of the NAACP? B-PENDLETON: Well, they had outlawed the NAACP here in Alabama, and I had joined the NAACP in Mobile, Alabama so I did not have to come to join, I was already a member. And someone told me, " ; Ruth, you shouldn' ; t carry that card around." ; But, I did. I' ; m getting off the subject now. HUNTLEY: No, that' ; s a good piece of the story, because in ' ; 57 if you had a card, a NAACP card in your pocket and you were... B-PENDLETON: You were subject to be fired from your job. HUNTLEY: Was that, was that simply something that was understood or did someone tell you that? B-PENDLETON: This is what...well, you know, if you taught, you would hear rumors and this is what was said. That you don' ; t carry your NAACP card around with you and I said " ; why?" ; and of course, they said, " ; well, Ruth, you know, they outlawed it." ; Well anyway. Now another organization, the Alabama Council on Human Relations, met regularly at my church, the First Congregational Church. HUNTLEY: Now that' ; s an inter-racial .... B-PENDLETON: That' ; s an inter-racial group. And, I joined that, went to several of the meetings. I can recall coming outside of the church and the policemen would be walking around the parking lot, writing down the tag numbers of the car. And that was so they could know up who was inside the church. What White people were there and these people were automatically branded communists. That is where I met Eileen Walbert. HUNTLEY: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights meetings were actually attended by police officers. B-PENDLETON: Oh yes, there would be plain clothesmen, they would come on the grounds like they would at the mass meetings. HUNTLEY: Did they do the same thing at the meetings at your congregational church? B-PENDLETON: I never knew if any of them came inside the church. They would be outside, in the parking lot. HUNTLEY: Simply..taking... B-PENDLETON: Taking the number, the tag number of the cars. HUNTLEY: How did that affect attendance? B-PENDLETON: Well, these people had to be very brave because they always had a pretty large number of persons attending. Now, I had just moved up on the hill, didn' ; t have as many baby sitters, and so, of course...I say baby sitters, my children were school age, but I guess the word would be sitters. Didn' ; t have too many of them. But when I lined up some of the sitters when I first moved up there, Angela Davis was one of my sitters. Angela' ; s sister Fania was one of my sitters. Her brother, Bennie was one of my sitters, and of course, Jamie Collins, whose sister, Addie, was killed at the 16th Street bombing, was one of my sitters. So, I had a lot of people I could call on. This was in the early years. We haven' ; t gotten to ' ; 63 because Angela was gone by that time. HUNTLEY: What was the make-up of that organization. The ratio between Blacks and Whites? B-PENDLETON: There were more Whites than Blacks. HUNTLEY: Were most of the Black people that were involved, were they your neighbors? Did they live on...in College Hills? B-PENDLETON: The Drew' ; s and no, some of them came from other parts of the city, I can' ; t think of this lady' ; s name, but I see her face right now. HUNTLEY: Right. In 1960, was the year that the sit-ins started. Of course, in North Carolina and then they really swept the entire South. B-PENDLETON: Yes. It started with students. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. B-PENDLETON: That' ; s when I came out...I was working with the Miles students. HUNTLEY: How did that affect Miles College? Was Miles involved in that at all. B-PENDLETON: Well, Dr. Lucius Pitts invited Deanie Drew, Althea Montgomery and myself to come out and see if we would could help the students because they did need transportation and we became known as the " ; den mothers" ; for Miles College. HUNTLEY: You mean he asked you to come out to provide... B-PENDLETON: To come out and see whatever we could do to help. He didn' ; t tell us to get involved, but he directed us to Dr. Jonathan McPherson. I think he' ; s still on the faculty out there, I' ; m not sure. But anyway, these were the things that Dr. Jonathan McPherson told us they needed. They needed transportation. We would drive out to Miles, pick up students, take them downtown and they would try to sit in at Loveman' ; s, Pizitz, any place that had a lunch counter. Kress, Woolworth' ; s, Britts, those were the five places. HUNTLEY: So you are suggesting there was concerted effort between the administration and the student body to demonstrate in downtown Birmingham. Dr. Pitts was behind the students 100% and the students of Miles worked diligently. Some were arrested. We would go to court with them and that' ; s when they started calling us " ; den mothers of Miles" ; . And, of course, bail bond. Dr. Pitts said, " ; you know we are a methodist school, we don' ; t have any money for bail bonds." ; But, the children...I don' ; t remember any of the students having to stay overnight in jail. They went to jail. Now this was before SCLC came into the city and then the students to work with the Alabama Christian Movement. All of these things were going on at the same time. And that' ; s when they blanketed the community, asking the citizens to stay away from the stores. This is when the selective buying campaign started. HUNTLEY: Before we get to the selective buying, because we are talking about ' ; 62 then and that becomes a really big issue. B-PENDLETON: Now I don' ; t remember these dates, now don' ; t you... HUNTLEY: That' ; s why I' ; ll throw those out to you, but in ' ; 61 the Freedom Rides took place. B-PENDLETON: Oh yeah, I remember when they came through and they were beaten up so terrible. Well, they were stopped in Anniston and then when they got to the bus station here in Birmingham, they were met by people with baseball bats and chains and it was terrible. HUNTLEY: There were individuals here who actually...I think some of them went to Anniston to pick up some of the riders. Shuttlesworth, of course was called in. He was at the bus station and some of the people went out to his church and out to his home. What do you remember about that particular episode, may be through newspapers or may be through just discussions with individuals who were involved or people that you knew? Are there any recollections that you had about... B-PENDLETON: No, what I remember most about that, it was how brutal the, uh, the White man was, and all these people were doing, were doing was riding the bus, going through the South. And, uh, they had stopped this bus in Anniston and some of the riders were taken from the bus and beaten and then when they came into Birmingham, I remember reading, and I wasn' ; t involved in this at all, but I do remember reading that there were Blacks and we were not called Blacks then, we were called Negroes. There were Negroes who met them at the station also. And, the Whites were there and there was a great confrontation. HUNTLEY: Now.. B-PENDLETON: The climate was not good at all. The climate was not good. It was a frightening situation. HUNTLEY: In ' ; 62 then, we get to the Selective Buying Campaign. Can you tell me about the organization of that? How did that materialize? B-PENDLETON: Well, the students of Miles, uh, made leaflets and we would take them to each community and they would drop packages of leaflets off at the churches in the community. They would also go from door to door, passing out leaflets, urging the people not to shop downtown and I think it was very effective. Not nearly as effective as we wanted it to be, but no one could say they did not know a boycott was going on in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: And, you couldn' ; t use the term " ; boycott," ; right? B-PENDLETON: No. HUNTLEY: That was against the law. B-PENDLETON: Selective Buying Campaign. HUNTLEY: What initiated the Selective Buying Campaign? Why a Selective Buying Campaign? B-PENDLETON: Well, there were certain things that the Alabama Christian Movement, and Rev. Shuttlesworth, they had been asking for for the past 6-7 years. And that was the upgrading of the Black people who were already working at the stores, from hiring sales persons, training for the managerial positions. Desegregation of the lunch counters, simple, basic things. Desegregation of the toilets, desegregation of water fountains. These were the things that they were asking for. Nothing that . . . HUNTLEY: Nothing really revolutionary? B-PENDLETON: That' ; s right, nothing really revolutionary. HUNTLEY: The students. . .Miles College. . .was it correct that Miles College actually had a campaign, a fund raising campaign at the time and, I believe they were soliciting funds and the city or someone. . . B-PENDLETON: They went from door-to-door as they did with the leaflets with cups and, you know, asking for donations. And, of course, I think that was relatively successful. HUNTLEY: So, then this was really when the Movement, the Alabama Christian Movement and Miles College students... B-PENDLETON: Started working together, yes. HUNTLEY: Then, we move into 1963, and of course... B-PENDLETON: Yeah, that was when the SCLC came into the city at the invitation of Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth of the Alabama Christian Movement. And, of course, the city was going through its changes. You know, we had Mayor and a commissioner form of government at that time. Three commissioners--Bull Conner, Jabo Wagner and Art Haynes was the mayor. Well, we elected Albert Boutwell for mayor and nine council men, council persons now. But anyway, uh, they could not take their seat because, Bull Conner and Art Haynes and Jabo Wagner would not move out. HUNTLEY: Right. B-PENDLETON: But anyway, uh, Rev. Shuttlesworth had invited the SCLC to come into the city and before it was known that SCLC was in the city, uh, some of the personnel of the SCLC had been in for two weeks, you know recruiting folk to work. I didn' ; t even know that they were in the city until the uh, the uh, the call went out " ; come, we need your help," ; and since I was already out there working with the students, I went down. HUNTLEY: You got involved... B-PENDLETON: I got involved with the.... HUNTLEY: Was this the beginning then of the mass meetings that would take place in April and May? B-PENDLETON: This was, this was the beginning when the SCLC came into the city. I went down when they asked for the citizens to please come, " ; we need your support." ; I went down and they wanted the citizens of Birmingham to be involved so that the White city people...citizens could not justifiably say outside agitators. So, they set up this committee. This committee, it was called the Central Committee and I was elected secretary of the Central Committee. Now the Central Committee was made up mostly of ministers because these... HUNTLEY: Why ministers? B-PENDLETON: Well, these were persons who did not have to answer to the White man. He did not worry about losing his job and then, of course, the Black ministers could reach more Black people than any other person in the community. So, uh, through the Alabama Christian Movement and SCLC, many Black ministers showed up that day. And, Deenie Drew and I were there. And, I was elected secretary of that committee, and we met in room 30 every morning. Some days, it would be in the afternoon. HUNTLEY: And, you were at all of those meetings? B-PENDLETON: Sometimes I could not. It depend...it would depend on how long my, my...the lady that worked for me could stay. She came in the morning at 9:00 and she stayed until 4:00. So, I did not leave until she was there and she did not leave until Denise and Tyree were home from school. Those are my children. HUNTLEY: Right. B-PENDLETON: And, by the time she left at 4:00, I was back at home. And then when the mass meetings started, around 6:00, I was gone again. But, between 4:00 and sometimes 6 or 7:00 depending...we did homework and things like that. HUNTLEY: Oh, so you did take the time to do the homework with the kids and.... B-PENDLETON: Oh, every night, we did homework. HUNTLEY: And then you' ; d leave there going to the mass meetings? B-PENDLETON: Go to the mass meetings. HUNTLEY: Did your children ever go to the mass meetings? B-PENDLETON: No, my children never went to the mass meetings. My children went with me to Selma. My children went with me, and with my husband and me to Montgomery and but not here in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: Not to the mass meetings? B-PENDLETON: Not to the mass meetings. HUNTLEY: Can you describe to me what a mass meeting was like? B-PENDLETON: The mass meeting was a combination of a revival, a political rally, non-partisan that is, and a camp meeting. It was very fiery, you had a lot of singing of freedom songs, spirituals...you had a lot of speech making and you would always find a.The churches would be full, every night. It did not start off that way, but, it grew and it got to the point where you could not get a seat. The churches would be full. They met at different churches. Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, St. Paul which is up the next block from Sixteenth Street, St. James, and Sixth Avenue Baptist. Sixth Avenue Baptist was over where the medical center is now. It was on Sixth Avenue. I think New Pilgrim. HUNTLEY: On the same corner as Sixteenth Street. B-PENDLETON: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: One on the north side. in fact, I' ; ve heard someone say, I think it was Rev. Oliver, he said " ; Sixteenth Street South." ; B-PENDLETON: Sixteenth Street, yes. HUNTLEY: Sixteenth Street South, that was... B-PENDLETON: You know Rev. Oliver, he was a member of the Alabama Council on Human Relations, I think that' ; s where I first met him. And, then he became a member of this Central Committee. HUNTLEY: You participated very fervently during the. this April and May period, you being the secretary. . . B-PENDLETON: Yes, but I did other things. HUNTLEY: Okay. B-PENDLETON: We made placards. We picked up people at the airports. I ran road blocks. I ran around road blocks. That is, I would pick up demonstrators, Bull Conner would block off the streets, 5th Avenue, 19th Street, 4th Avenue, so we would go around down to 13th Street and go across to 1st Avenue North, put the demonstrators out at 19th Street and they would walk down to Pizitz, to Britts, to you know...so I did more than just write the minutes. HUNTLEY: So, you were actually in the thick of things? B-PENDLETON: Yes. And then of course, they made me chairman of the Transportation Committee, so what I did, I asked my friends who I knew were not working during that time, Deenie Drew and I, Althea Montgomery, Ruth Gaillard, Willa Adams...these were ladies who were at home. Also, we asked Rhett Bradford. . . we asked them to come, bring your cars, we need transportation. People were coming in from everywhere and we had to pick them up and get them out. HUNTLEY: Were you ever arrested? B-PENDLETON: No, but I had my toothbrush with me and I carry my toothbrush with me to this day. If you look over there in the pocket book, you' ; ll find a toothbrush. HUNTLEY: You' ; re like the boy scouts, you' ; re prepared. B-PENDLETON: I was prepared. HUNTLEY: As you, you were so active, what did your husband say about your activity? B-PENDLETON: He encouraged me. He was paying for the gasoline for my car. He was paying for the food or materials, for the placards, or whatever. He went to his office every day and then at night, he would come home and he would help patrol our neighborhood. You see, we lived in, well, it was called " ; Dynamite Hill" ; at that time and it was also a target for the KKK and the men in the neighborhood would patrol that area because they were planting bombs at Arthur Shores house and the catholic church down there. And he went to Montgomery with us. He went to Selma once and when the march began, from Selma to Montgomery, he was medical officer of the day, that is, he went down one afternoon, manned an aid station all that day and night and came back the next day. He made available, bond money for demonstrators that had been jailed. HUNTLEY: In Selma, one of the things that broke that Movement was...well not broke the movement, but assisted the Movement was the assistance of teachers. Teachers finally came out. Were there ever efforts here in Birmingham, those of you who had been teachers and had associations with other teachers to get others who were still in the classroom? B-PENDLETON: Well, if they were in the classroom, they could not very well...we were not asking anyone to jeopardize their jobs. But, they supported in other ways. There were some who supported in others ways, financially. You know, they always needed money. HUNTLEY: So, the...go ahead. B-PENDLETON: And, of course, when the students of the schools came out, well that was another situation where the teachers did not discourage the students not to go. And, of course, we would drive to the campus of the schools, but we couldn' ; t go on the campus to pick the kids up. That is the children who lived way out in North Birmingham. Rev. Bevell, Rev. Andrew Young, well we called them Bevell and Andy at that time. They would tell us what school the kids were coming out and they needed to be picked up. But, some of these kids came out from schools a long distance away and they walked to Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the teachers did not discourage them as far as we know. There were some, I understand that did, but very few. HUNTLEY: Where were your children in school at the time? B-PENDLETON: At Wilkerson Elementary School. HUNTLEY: Were kids from Wilkerson leaving school and getting involved? B-PENDLETON: I don' ; t remember if any of them did. I really don' ; t know. My children did not go. They were...well there were kids as young as they were, 9 and 10 and that time. My husband was opposed to taking them out of school. HUNTLEY: What church, I think we' ; ve talked about this briefly, but what church were you a member of again? B-PENDLETON: The First Congregational Church. HUNTLEY: What was the level of its involvement? B-PENDLETON: Very active. Harold Long, Rev. Harold Long was the pastor of the First Congregational church at that time and he was very involved. And, uh, I think, I' ; m not sure of this, but First Congregational was one of the few churches where inter-racial groups could meet. The Pastor Joseph Alwinger' ; s church over on Sixth Avenue South of the Lutheran Church, they could meet there. But, for some reason I think they felt a little safer, I don' ; t know, but they did meet at my church and I understand that St. Marks opened their doors. HUNTLEY: So the congregation then was in support of... B-PENDLETON: The congregation supported Rev. Long and we have a very small congregation. And, you see, Arthur Shores, one of the lawyers at that time for the Movement, one of the lawyers, is a member of that church, and our present...the Executive Director of the Civil Rights Institute, Odessa Woolfolk, is a member of that church. HUNTLEY: So you all have a lot of rebels in that church. Tell me, are there any recollections that stand out in your memory during this period that probably, probably stand out more than any other, than any single incidents that you remember? B-PENDLETON: Well, the day, that the first time they turned the water hose on the children when they came out of Sixteenth Street Church there at Kelly Ingram Park. See every time they marched, if they were going to march to the courthouse, we marched, if we could. We would always end up at the back of the line, but we marched. HUNTLEY: Who are we? B-PENDLETON: Deenie Drew and I. We marched with the kids. And, that day, we were at the back of the line when they came out of the church and to see the water hose turned on,the pressure from the water hose, turned on those young people, well there were young and old, it' ; s heart rendering. It was terrible. HUNTLEY: You see that on film today, what do you... B-PENDLETON: It brings back... refresh memories, it really does. Uh, I can also remember a time when we were marching over to the jailhouse and, uh, over on Sixth Avenue South and Bull Conner order the policeman...oh, I get my marches mixed up sometime, but we were marching and Bull Conner order them to turn the water hose on and that day, one fireman did not turn his on and had tears in his eyes, I remember that. HUNTLEY: So, that meant that you were pretty close to the front? B-PENDLETON: Sometimes, sometimes. Most of the time I was doing other things and they needed people to do other things. HUNTLEY: Tell me also about your activity, because I know that you were a member of the NAACP and you worked in voter registration campaign with W. C. Patten, can you tell me a little about that? B-PENDLETON: Yes, uh Mr. Patten was asking for volunteers. I went down and we used the city directory to compile the voters list. We took the city directory and we wrote the names of every Black male and Black female listed. HUNTLEY: Well, how did you know who was Black or not? B-PENDLETON: The city had already done the work for us. They coded the book behind the name of White male they had a " ; one" ; , by the name of a White female, they had a " ; 2" ; . By the name by a Black male " ; 3" ; , by the name of a Black female " ; 4" ; , so all we had to do was just list the names that were numbered 3s and 4s. We wrote the names, addresses and telephone numbers and then we compiled these voter lists by communities and we would call...there were other people now, not just Deanie and myself. There were other persons helping. We would call these persons, uh, ask them if they were registered voters and if they said no, and nine times out of ten they would say no, we would tell them about the clinics that were being held to educate people to register and vote. HUNTLEY: How successful were those efforts? B-PENDLETON: It was very successful because Black people wanted that opportunity to vote and they would go to these clinics and, they were taught how to register to vote. HUNTLEY: Would this be in the 50s or the 60s? B-PENDLETON: Now this was in...this was early 60s. Now in the 50s...let me go back just a minute. HUNTLEY: Sure. B-PENDLETON: I was teaching at Wenonah High School, I lived in Roosevelt City. We had to go over to the community of Wilkes which is across the highway from Val Hallow and Midfield. We had to go across to Wilkes to register to vote. They had questions, real long list of questions. They would ask questions like who was the dog catcher in the Bessemer cut- off area and you know, things like that. And, I smuggled a list of the questions out, took it to my class, I was teaching American History. I had it xeroxed, and took it to my class. HUNTLEY: At Wenonah? B-PENDLETON: At Wenonah and gave it to my students and they took it home to their parents and the parents studied them so they could pass the test, to learn to vote...I mean, that is to qualify rather. HUNTLEY: Sure, sure. That' ; s very interesting because we all know the kinds of questions that..... B-PENDLETON: They were ridiculous. HUNTLEY: And, if you didn' ; t B-PENDLETON: If you didn' ; t know... HUNTLEY: Absolutely. B-PENDLETON: Well, that' ; s how some of my students' ; parents got the questions. HUNTLEY: Tell me about your activity with the Urban League? B-PENDLETON: Well, at that time, there was a young man by the name of Clarence Wood that was here in Birmingham, he was a Birmingham boy and he invited me down to work with the Urban League. And, or course, you know they had a different program, that is training people. We knew that if the doors were opened, that we the people were demonstrating to open, that you had to have qualified people to fill these jobs. So, that was the role of the Urban League and, I helped in whatever way that I could. I don' ; t remember all that, but I was secretary for awhile and I stopped that too. HUNTLEY: So, you have volunteered, you have really been a professional volunteer. You' ; ve helped in a lot of areas... B-PENDLETON: No, I do absolutely nothing but work with my church. HUNTLEY: You do what you want to do now. B-PENDLETON: Well, I' ; m a docent at the Civil Rights Institute. HUNTLEY: Sure. What is your assessment of the Birmingham movement? How successful? What were it' ; s accomplishments? B-PENDLETON: Well, I think that the Birmingham movement was a moral mirror for the rest of the country. I think that it was the catalyst really that. . . the results were the 1964 Voting Rights bill. True, the people in Selma, you know the crossing of the Pettus Bridge, they were instrumental in encouraging...not encouraging but making Lyndon Johnson act on the civil, on the voting rights bill, but the Birmingham movement was catalyst for the movement in Selma, that' ; s my opinion. I really think so. HUNTLEY: Birmingham precedes the ' ; 64 Public Accommodations Bill, also... B-PENDLETON: That' ; s true, that' ; s true. HUNTLEY: And, that leads then to the Voting Rights Bill. B-PENDLETON: That' ; s true. That' ; s what I mean when I say, the moral mirror and that' ; s not my words. I picked that up from someone else, some book I read, I don' ; t know. HUNTLEY: What do you think were the real issues? B-PENDLETON: Well, in the beginning, the real issues, we were just asking for basic necessity. Things that were. . . that you would expect any citizen to want. The right to sit and eat. The right to relieve yourself ; public accommodations. The right to go to whatever school you want to do to these were the things that happened and only those persons who had the, the money and/ or the education could really take advantage of these things. HUNTLEY: But, if you were Black, even if you had the money and the education,.... B-PENDLETON: That' ; s right, here in Birmingham, we didn' ; t have those opportunities. HUNTLEY: Well, are there any other things that we have not touched upon that you would just like to mention, I know that you' ; ve talked an awful lot about a lot of things, and what we' ; ll normally do is to, to look at this and we possibly. We' ; ll have a follow-up at some point because I know that in an hour' ; s time, we really. You know, I think it evokes and it stirs up some of your memories, but I' ; m sure when you get home you' ; re going to remember some other things and then we, uh we will possibly want to do this again. But, I want to thank you for coming out, taking your time from your busy schedule and sitting with us today. B-PENDLETON: Thank you for asking. HUNTLEY: Thank you very much. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=RBPendleton1995.xml RBPendleton1995.xml
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Ruth Barefield-Pendleton
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Ruth Barefield-Pendleton discusses serving as secretary of the Central Committee of SCLC after growing up and teaching in Birmingham. She also served as secretary of the Urban League.
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19950309B
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Miles College
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1995-03-09
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video
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8d4d7b6a49f06ee93558a5eadf4971f2
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Carolyn Cunningham
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http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=CCunningham1996.xml
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Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
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5.4 March 6, 1996 Carolyn Cunningham Interviewed on March 6, 1996 19960306C 0:43:15 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Raines Whittaker Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Birmingham (Ala.). Board of Education Southern University and A & ; M College Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) Carolyn Cunningham Horace Huntley Oral History 1:|16(3)|40(8)|55(1)|77(5)|91(4)|105(1)|120(3)|137(9)|148(7)|167(4)|177(12)|192(8)|205(11)|219(5)|235(17)|250(7)|271(6)|285(5)|297(8)|310(2)|326(11)|339(10)|348(9)|368(1)|383(6)|391(16)|402(10)|411(5)|425(4)|434(4)|455(12)|469(1)|485(2)|498(1)|508(7)|517(4)|532(9)|545(7)|552(2)|559(15)|571(15)|584(10) 0 https://youtu.be/2DPrsoO8CH4 YouTube video English 19 Introduction to Interview African American history ; African American women 33.516200, -86.813870 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute http://www.bcri.org Website for the BCRI 36 Family Background I would like to start by asking some general questions about your family. Brief overview of her family. African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) 236 Elementary School Where did you start elementary school? She attended Kingston Elementary and had memorable teachers. African Americans--Education (Elementary) ; Elementary school teachers 320 High School and Extracurricular Activities After Kingston, where did you go? While in high school, she also performed and was a girl scout. Our Lady of Fatima Church (Birmingham, Ala.) Birmingham (Ala.) https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Ullman_High_School Information about Ullman High School 418 Community Life during High School What community did you live in when you went to Ullman? Early experience of segregated communities. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Segregation--United States 573 Race Relations in Childhood Did you ever have any good relations with any of the white children that lived near you? A childhood experience of passive racism. African Americans--Segregation ; Race relations in the United States ; Racism 716 Occupations of her Grandparents So your grandmother worked as a domestic? Her grandmother was a domestic and her grandfather was in the military. African American families ; African American soldiers 761 First College Semester After you finished Ullman High School, what did you do? She completed one semester at Xavier University in New Orleans. Xavier University (New Orleans, La.) African American college students ; African American soldiers 29.964097, -90.107667 17 Xavier University of Louisiana 860 Music School in Chicago So after the first semester, you left Xavier? She spent over a year in Chicago while attending music school and working. African American college students ; African American women musicians ; Chicago (Ill.) 980 Return to College in the South And then you returned to start at Southern? She attended and graduated from Southern University. M College ; Southern University and A & ; amp African American college students ; America's historically Black colleges and universities ; Baton Rouge (La.) 30.526282, -91.192597 17 Southern University and A& ; M College 1082 Teaching at Ullman High School After you graduated from Southern, what did you do? She returned to Birmingham and taught at Ullman High School. African American educators African American women teachers ; Birmingham (Ala.) 1189 Memories of the Civil Rights Movement In 1961, the year of the Freedom Riders, in 1963 the year of selective buying campaigns. She attended civil rights meetings with other teachers. A.G. Gaston Motel (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama ; Civil rights movement ; Freedom Rides, 1961 1280 Reasons for Involvement in Civil Rights Why did you decide to get involved? She became involved in civil rights after experiencing racism as a child. Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights movement 1418 Civil Rights Demonstrations and Meetings You mentioned that you were involved in demonstrations. She participated in civil rights demonstrations in Louisiana and Alabama. M College ; Southern University and A & ; amp African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Baton Rouge (La.)--History ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights demonstrations 1572 Different Reasons for Joining Struggles in the Past vs. Present Why do you think there is a difference then than now? She doesn't perceive the same interest in political involvement now. Civic and political education African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Civil rights movement 1740 Perspective of Demonstrations and their Memorialization You mentioned that you witnessed the water hoses and dogs. She reflects on a memorial statue commemorating struggle against police violence. African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Civil rights movement https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Kelly_Ingram_Park Kelly Ingram Park in Birmingham, AL. 2031 Social Service Work in New York After you left Birmingham, what did you do in New York? While attending Columbia University, she worked as a social worker dealing with child abuse. African American graduate students ; Columbia University--Graduate students Child abuse--United States ; New York (City). Department of Social Services. Department of Services 2166 Joining the Military You mentioned that you were 34 years old and you decided to go into the military? She was in the military for 18 years. African American soldiers ; New York (State). Army National Guard ; United States. Army Reserve 2272 Discharge from the Military Why 18? Why not 20? She was discharged from the military for failing a physical exam. African American soldiers ; Discrimination in the military 2459 Return to Birmingham So you returned to Birmingham very recently. She teaches again in Birmingham as well as selling property part-time. Birmingham (Ala.). Board of Education African American women teachers ; Birmingham (Ala.) 2499 Concluding Thoughts Well, Ms. Cunningham I just want to ask this final question. She believes that hard work will result in rewards. African American Christians ; African American women Video Carolyn Cunningham discusses returning to Birmingham and getting involved with the Movement after attending a year of music school in Chicago. She taught in Birmingham as a young woman before serving in the military in New York. She then returned to Birmingham once more to teach. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Ms. Carolyn Cunningham for the Birmingham Civil Rights lnstitute' ; s Oral History Project. I am Dr. Horace Huntley. We are at Miles College and today is March 6, 1996. Thank you, Mrs. Cunningham for taking time out of your schedule to come and sit with us today. CUNNINGHAM: You are quite welcome. HUNTLEY: I would like to start by asking some general questions about your family . Were your parents native to Birmingham? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. Well, my mother wasn' ; t born in Birmingham. My mother was born in Philadelphia. My father was born in Birmingham. But, they both lived in Birmingham for the greater part of their young lives. They both attended Parker High School although I do believe my mother attended Ullman High when it became a high school, years ago. And, so they were part of the Birmingham way of doing things. HUNTLEY: You were born in Birmingham? CUNNINGHAM: I was indeed. HUNTLEY: Do you have brothers and sisters? CUNNINGHAM: I have step brothers and sisters and most of them are still living with the exception of two. They do not live here in Birmingham. I' ; m the only one in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: And you have recently returned to Birmingham? CUNNINGHAM: I just recently returned in October of last year. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters did you have? CUNNINGHAM: Oh, I have a number. My father and stepmother had ten in all. And, my stepmother and father had two. HUNTLEY: That' ; s a big family? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. I lived mostly with my grandmother. My grandparents reared me and brought me up as a single child. HUNTLEY: Both your parents finished high school at Parker? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, they did. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did they do? CUNNINGHAM: My father went from high school to the military and that' ; s where he remained for about 30 years, with an exception of a little time when he decided he wanted to get out of the military. He did and was at the point where he said he really liked the military and he went back in. That' ; s where he stayed. My mother, on the other hand, started a family with my stepfather and she later, in life, went back to college. She attended City University in New York City. She also has about four courses toward her doctorate degree. She is a very smart person. After having all the children she had, she decided she still wanted to go to college. She said to me that she wasn' ; t going to let me out pass her or out do her. I don' ; t have my doctorate, but she almost has hers and I' ; m very proud of her. HUNTLEY: So she is still ahead of the game? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, she is a very talented person. HUNTLEY: So, you were raised by your grandmother? CUNNINGHAM: My maternal grandmother and grandfather. And, also with my father' ; s mother and grandfather and grandmother and my father. So I had all of those people caring for me and taking care of me. HUNTLEY: Were you the only child in the household? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I was. HUNTLEY: Where did you start elementary school? CUNNINGHAM: I started elementary school at Kingston Elementary. I lived in Avondale at the time, and in order to get to Kingston, it was a matter of, I don' ; t know if you' ; re familiar with that area, but at the time there was a lumber yard. We had to travel across the railroad tracks, we called it " ; the bottom." ; Through " ; the bottom" ; , that was the lumber yard and there was the school on the other side. So, it was a matter of a little bit of travel every morning, but it was a wonderful school. HUNTLEY: Is there anything that stands out in your mind about your days at Kingston? CUNNINGHAM: Oh, yes. It was a wonderful school. The teachers were just the best. I just believe that my foundation as far as an education is concerned, started at that school. I had one teacher who will remain in my mind forever, her name is Mrs. Little. She taught me all of the poetry that I know. We had to learn poems overnight. The Gettysburg Address. There wasn' ; t a discussion about " ; Well, it' ; s overnight, you can' ; t learn it." ; She always said you can. We memorized overnight. We did everything she said. And, I just became, well everybody says I brag a little, but I just became the smartest because of her. HUNTLEY: After Kingston, where did you go? CUNNINGHAM: Because Kingston only went to the 6th grade, I went to Thomas Elementary School and, from there Ullman High School, where I graduated in 1955. HUNTLEY: Were you active in extracurricular activities? CUNNINGHAM: Sure. I was rather, I guess a little shy at the time. But, I could always perform. Sometimes they say a shy person might not be able to talk to maybe one person or two people, but they could always speak to an audience. I was a singer. I danced and recited poetry in the community. I was a girl scout it seems like forever. I was a member of Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church at that time it was over on 6th Avenue, Avenue F, they called it. I went to girl scout camp. The Johnsons used to run the girl scout camp. HUNTLEY: In Bessemer? CUNNINGHAM: No. This one was in Zion City and I can' ; t think of the name of it. But, anyway I used to go there every summer and Mrs. Johnson was over it at that time. HUNTLEY: So, you were quite busy then? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I was. HUNTLEY: What community did you live in when you went to Ullman? CUNNINGHAM: I lived in Titusville with my great-grandparents right there on Center Way. There was a cemetery there. It has now been moved and that' ; s where Our Lady of Fatima Church and the school have been built. HUNTLEY: That was a cemetery where the school is now? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. It was an old cemetery. So, I lived there with my great-grandparents and in Avondale with my grandparents. So, there were times when I lived with, it seems, everybody. HUNTLEY: How would you describe your community? CUNNINGHAM: Well Titusville was the kind of community that seemed to have been growing at that time. I recall when I was a little girl, where the projects are, there were no projects at that time. There was just a pasture . My friends and I used to walk all the way from Center Way to the pasture. HUNTLEY: Is it Elyton or Loveman' ; s Village? CUNNINGHAM: Loveman' ; s Village. We would go there and play in the pasture with the cows and all. Of course, we would get spanked because that was not where we were supposed to go, but I think everybody enjoyed going there. That' ; s what that type of community was. There was one Black store and one Italian store in that community. Both are now no longer there. And, of course, the cleaners was on Avenue F, run by a Black person. Avondale was a little bit different because there, in order to get to Thomas Elementary School, my friends and I had to travel to a White community. I remember that at that time we weren' ; t supposed to do that. We weren' ; t supposed to go through their community and they weren' ; t supposed to go through our community. So, the thing is, that when we did that, we would run very quickly through and they would throw rocks at us. I don' ; t think anybody was ever hurt. It was just that something that happened. And, when they went through our community, we would do the same thing to them. So, that' ; s as far as that kind of conflict went. HUNTLEY: They were adjacent communities? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. HUNTLEY: Did you ever have any good relations with any of the White children that lived near you? CUNNINGHAM: Well, we didn' ; t have any good relationship with the ones that lived in that little area. I think it was the cotton mill right there on First Avenue and, the people who lived in that area, I believed worked in the cotton mill. I don' ; t recall anyone having a good relationship with them. But, on my street there was a store, an Italian store, and the Italian family had three children, as I recall and we all played together until all of us started attending high school. I recall that I went downtown on a streetcar one day and I saw one of the little Italian girls, I spoke to her and she didn' ; t speak to me. Well, that just hurt my feelings. I remember I went home and I cried. I said, " ; Well, why did she do that?" ; Because, where I lived, my grandparents had a big, old house. It was a nice house right there on 42nd Street in Avondale, right up from Hominy Street Church. It was a nice area. Nice, big old houses. We had a very long front porch. So, on Sundays, or during the rainy season we would all sit on that porch and play, the Italian kids and I. Well, anyway my grandmother said, " ; Well, this is the way that is going to be. She just might not ever say anything to you, but don' ; t feel terrible because I think she still likes you, this is just the way the south is." ; I rather understood it. I never saw her again. My grandmother did domestic work and I recall when she took me to work with her, the White lady' ; s daughter always wanted me to play with her terrible toys, the dirty ones, the ones she should have put in the garbage and I wouldn' ; t do it because I had very nice toys. I told my grandmother and she started letting me bring my own toys. So, that relationship wasn' ; t the best. HUNTLEY: So your grandmother worked as a domestic? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, she did. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did your grandfather do? CUNNINGHAM: My grandfather was in the military in his younger life. He has always been a very good cook, so he was the captain' ; s cook. During that time the captain always had his private cook, so that' ; s what my grandfather did. After he was discharged from the military, he worked for Merita Bakery right there on First Avenue and that' ; s where he worked until he retired. So my grandparents always worked. I don' ; t know, my grandmother was such a budgeter. She was able to keep everything together. HUNTLEY: After you finished Ullman High School, what did you do? CUNNINGHAM: When I finished Ullman High School, I was 16 years old and I went off to Xavier University in New Orleans. I remained there for a semester, and because I was 16, not really knowing what I wanted to do, well, I won' ; t say I didn' ; t know what I wanted to do, but I didn' ; t know the best thing to do, because I wanted to join the military. And, at 16 years one of your parents had to sign for you. Now, at the time, I took the test and everything to join the Navy and I just needed that signature from my father, who was overseas at the time. He said, " ; No, you can' ; t join the military. You must go to college." ; That was a very good decision he made. HUNTLEY: Why did you want to join the military? CUNNINGHAM: I had been brought up loving the military. My father bought me the first WAC uniform as a little girl. I had a little jeep that I used to ride down the sidewalk. I just loved the military because of him. Well, I couldn' ; t join the military at that time, but years later, at about 34 years of age, I joined the military. They still had the WAC. There were two of us who where older than the kids in basic training. HUNTLEY: So after the first semeste,r you left Xavier? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I did. HUNTLEY: Then, what did you do? CUNNINGHAM: I left Xavier and still wanting to follow some other dreams, I wanted to be a singer. I went to live with my aunt in Chicago. I attended music school there and I appeared on some amateur programs. HUNTLEY: Did you ever appear on Ted Max Amateur Hour? CUNNINGHAM: No, I didn' ; t. I wish I had. But, I guess I could have been a singer, but I had to work, too, because my parents weren' ; t rich. So, the first job I got I really disliked it. HUNTLEY: What was that? CUNNINGHAM: Well, I had to get up very early in the morning and go to a hospital to work in the dietary kitchen. I do remember that the hours were long. I wasn' ; t familiar with all of the deserts, because you know they use those conveyor belts. It wasn' ; t my type of thing to do. My grandfather had already said I wouldn' ; t like the job. So I had to call him back. I was in Chicago and I called him here in Birmingham and he answered the phone. He said, " ; Well, you don' ; t like that job, do you?" ; I said, " ; No, I' ; ve got to go to college." ; I had to beg my grandparents to send me back to college. My grandmother said, " ; Well, we' ; re not wealthy, this is the last straw. You either go again, you must stay." ; And I stayed. This time they let me choose what college. Before they wanted me to go to a catholic college because I' ; m catholic, but I really wanted to go to Southern University. They let me attend there. HUNTLEY: So, how long did you stay in Chicago? CUNNINGHAM: I stayed in Chicago a year and half or two years. HUNTLEY: And then you returned to started Southern? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I went to Southern University and I graduated. HUNTLEY: What was your area? CUNNINGHAM: Speech and English. HUNTLEY: What do you remember about Southern? CUNNINGHAM: I do have a vivid picture of the way it used to be. It is not that way now. It is beautiful. But, when I first attended Southern, there were no paved roads on campus. The one thing that I do remember is walking in all of that mud during the raining season. It was nice because we had a small dormitory and it was safe. When I look back on colleges now, and the way ours were then, I can say that we lived in a safe environment, because we had everybody there. The doors were locked and we weren' ; t allowed to leave after 11:00 p.m. We had to be in at 11:00. We had to begin studying at 7:00 p.m., so there were rules and regulations. It took an act of Congress for us to get off campus at night. HUNTLEY: Was that a good experience? Did you enjoy your time you spent at Southern? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I did. Of course, Southern is situated right near at the Mississippi River and the campus sits on the edge. HUNTLEY: Have you been back? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. I returned twice. HUNTLEY: After you graduated from Southern, what did you do? CUNNINGHAM: After graduating from Southern I came back to Birmingham and Dr. George C. Bell was still the principal of Ullman High School. I remember my grandmother received a phone call and she was told that there was a job for me if I wanted it, because it was in my area at Ullman High School. I remember telling Mr. Bell I really didn' ; t want the job because I was going to California to live with my father because he had promised to buy me a car. That tells you how spoiled I was. I really didn' ; t want the job and I hung the phone up. Well, my grandmother took the phone and said, " ; She will talk to you later. She will call you back." ; After hanging up the phone she said, " ; Well, you really will have to take that job. You need to work. So, you must call him back and let him know that you will take that job." ; And, I did as she said. So, needless to say, I bought my own car, which was better and I got that job and I' ; ve been working ever since. HUNTLEY: How long were you at Ullman? When was this? CUNNINGHAM: This was in the 60s. This was 1961. I was there until the later part of ' ; 63. And, then there were times, like I said, when I came back to Birmingham and I worked. But I taught drama and English there at Ullman when I first returned. HUNTLEY: In 1961, the year of the Freedom Riders, in 1963 the year of selective buying campaigns. Do you remember anything about those two events that were taking place? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. During that time they were still meeting. HUNTLEY: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, at the motel. That famous motel that is now a nursing home. HUNTLEY: It was A. G. Gaston' ; s Motel at the time. CUNNINGHAM: At the time I never saw anything written down to say that teachers couldn' ; t participate in marches and demonstrations, but it was somewhat of an unwritten type of proclamation that you were not supposed to do those kinds of things. I remember when I first started going to the meetings, I really had to sneak. I had to say that, but it' ; s true. Later, I became more bold and I think most of the teachers who participated in all of that had a more bolder spirit. I remember going with some of the other teachers at Ullman to the meetings. I remember the dogs and the hose pipes, the water that was turned on the marchers in the park. I was here for all of that. HUNTLEY: Why did you decided to get involved? CUNNINGHAM: I wanted to get involved because of the fact that when I was a child, growing up in Birmingham, I remember the Klu Klux Klan. I lived right there in Avondale. I remember that the Klan used to wait until midnight or so, to drive through our neighborhood. You could hear people yelling turn out the lights. My grandparents would turn the lights out and we would get very, very quiet. As a matter of fact, everybody on our street. The street was just very quiet and they would ride up and down the street. I always thought that their headquarters was there at the park in Woodlawn, that' ; s what we always thought. So, I remember all of that. I remember when we couldn' ; t drink at the fountains, so I had a reason to want to get involved, because to me, it was a challenge. To me things would get better if I got involved. I had to work, so there was so much that I could do. But, as I think back, I think everybody' ; s effort helped the Movement. So, at the time, I wasn' ; t in the forefront and, even now, I have a tendency sometimes to do a lot in the background unless somebody nudges me to get into the forefront. Now, if I' ; m asked to do something, I will do it. But otherwise, I' ; ll be back there doing something. So I wasn' ; t as verbal or as seen as much as I could be now, because of my job as a teacher. HUNTLEY: Were you in the classroom during the 1963 demonstrations? CUNNINGHAM: No. I wasn' ; t teaching at that particular time. I was here during the on start of everything, the meetings leading up to that. HUNTLEY: You were not here in April or May of 1963 when the children got involved? CUNNINGHAM: No. HUNTLEY: Had you left Birmingham by then? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. HUNTLEY: You mentioned that you were involved in demonstrations. Tell me about that. What demonstrations was this? CUNNINGHAM: It was a lunch counter sit-ins in Louisiana. When I was at Southern University, we had the sit-ins at that time. The school was closed several days because students were getting involved. We were told that if we got involved in any marches, any sit-ins that we would be sent home. And, some students were sent home. I wasn' ; t one of the ones who was sent home. But, we didn' ; t have classes for awhile. So, I was involved in that. When I came here, I was involved in the mass meetings that we had and the marches and so, I was around when the dogs were sicked on everyone. HUNTLEY: So you attended meetings at 16th Street Baptist? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. HUNTLEY: Can you give me a description of what the mass meetings were liked? CUNNINGHAM: Well, as I recall they were spirited. There were speakers there. We, as an audience was asked to speak if we wanted. Everyone had a chance to voice their opinion about what they would do to help end the strife that we were facing. There were people who helped to prepare the food and there was singing. I just remember the togetherness of the people at that time and the challenges that they faced knowing how the south was at that time. That, even before the bombing, we could have all been killed at the church. A sniper could have been outside. But, I never got the feeling that people were that much afraid. I just think that they saw that something needed to be done and they did it. Now that I think about things , I' ; m not to sure if we would have that cohesive spirit now. I don' ; t know. I' ; ve been thinking about that. Because there was that cohesion among the adults and the young people. The young people were more active. HUNTLEY: Why do you think there is a difference then than now? CUNNINGHAM: Well, as I said, during that time, we really had something to fight for. We really have something to fight for now, as I see it. I' ; m wondering if others see it. If there are people who don' ; t see that prejudice still exists. That, I have travelled here and been around the United States and I' ; ve seen prejudice. I' ; ve seen where people of color have been the last hired and the first fired, or laid off. Not only, color, but religion plays a part, even as a black person. Sometimes you might be too light skinned or you might be too dark, you never know. I see a lot to still fight for, but I' ; m not sure. I haven' ; t taken a poll. I don' ; t know if the majority of the people see that there is still something to fight for. And, that' ; s why I say I don' ; t know if we have the cohesiveness. Our children are really interested in the material things in life. They are interested in the clothes with names on the back and gym shoes and boom boxes and the things that are material, wherein we were interested in an education. We saw that as a means of getting out of a terrible situation, getting a good job. I' ; m not to sure, as I talk to young people, if they see getting an education as a way out of anything and I' ; m not putting down sports, but I see that some of them feel that that' ; s a way of getting out of their situation. But, when I ask them about attending college, spending time in the library, starting their own library with the money that they are making, it seems to me if a child has a job that some money should be spent for a book for his or her own library. I still see education as a way out. But, I have a question. Am I the only one who sees that as a way out? Or, do the children really see that as a way out. HUNTLEY: Do you have children? CUNNINGHAM: I don' ; t. I' ; ve taught so many I just feel I have so many. HUNTLEY: You mentioned that you witnessed the water hoses and dogs, did that mean that you participated in those demonstrations or did you see that from afar? CUNNINGHAM: No. I was standing right there in the park and I saw all of that occurring. I wasn' ; t one of the ones who was hit by the water, but I saw it with my own eyes. And, the only time that I really became frightened was when I saw the statue and it reminded me, the statue that was just presented days ago. The statue with the teenager and the police with the dog. That reminded me of the fear, but at the time, I think it was the challenge and the fact that something had to be accomplished, that there wasn' ; t that kind of fear. But, yet, when you look at the statue, there should have been fear. It was just too much of a challenging effort. HUNTLEY: There has been some criticism of the placement of that statue in the park. What are your ideas in relationship to the statue being placed in the park and if it should have been or not? CUNNINGHAM: I don' ; t have a negative feeling about it. I feel that it is symbolic of what happened. HUNTLEY: So, you were there. Does it depict sort of the spirit of what took place at that particular time? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, it does. I think it' ; s in the right place. HUNTLEY: So you would be supportive? CUNNINGHAM: Yes, I would support it. HUNTLEY: I know there are people who were involved with the Fraternal Order of Police, for instance, that suggested that it could have a negative impact upon how the community today look at policemen. CUNNINGHAM: Perhaps so. But, it is symbolic of what took place during that time. I remember leaving the south being afraid of police. When I first went to New York City, I really was afraid of police and I was an older person, because of what had happened. HUNTLEY: This was around ' ; 63? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. And, being an older person I shouldn' ; t have been afraid of police, but I was. Now, after having stayed in New York, my feelings changed. There are precincts there. You get to know the police. The police walked through the community, so the fear left. I just think the people won' ; t really fear the police because of the statue, they might fear the police of their own experiences. Maybe their present day experiences with the police. I don' ; t think the statue would have anything to do with it. HUNTLEY: Well, I don' ; t think that he was suggesting that people would fear the police. In fact, it was just the opposite. That people would not respect the police as a result of the image it projects. Were there others in your family that participated? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. I have a cousin who played an active role as a teenager. She was one of the ones who was put in jail. So she has a vivid memory of sitting on the floor and how the jail cell looked and how they were treated, having to go without necessities. HUNTLEY: Although you had left Ullman as a teacher, at that time, if you had been there in April and May of 1963, would you have encouraged your students to get involved or what would have been your stance on your student' ; s involvement in the demonstrations? CUNNINGHAM: I would encourage students or anyone. However, in the back of mind, I know that I would give them some kind of insight into the danger involved. But, it was an effort that anyone could have stopped the students from participating in the struggle. They would have found a way anyway. And, I applaud that in them. HUNTLEY: After you left Birmingham, what did you do in New York? CUNNINGHAM: When I left here, I started working for the Department of Social Services and I have to admit that I didn' ; t know anything about welfare. There was so much I didn' ; t know. I really didn' ; t know that we were poor. And, the reason being is that I wasn' ; t ever told that we were poor. There wasn' ; t anyone in our house that said on a daily basis, " ; Well, we' ; re poor." ; And I find that if you don' ; t say that to children, sometimes they won' ; t even think about it. They' ; ll just go on with their life. And, when I left here, I didn' ; t know about welfare. There was an ad in the paper for case workers to work for the City of New York for social services. I applied and instead of being placed in social services for welfare, I was placed with children in a day care center. So, I worked for the Division of Day Care, but it was still under the auspices of the New York City Department of Social Services. I worked for them for about 12 years. As a matter of fact, I was able to attend graduate school and still work for the Department of Social Services there at the Division of Day Care. But, while in graduate school, attending Columbia University Teacher' ; s College, I worked at night for the state' ; s child abuse registry. My office was the office that accepted all of the child abuse cases coming into the City of New York. I could probably write several books about what happens to children in New York City and all over, child abuse all over, because it' ; s the same. Maybe not the same numbers, but the same kind of abuse that happens to children on the night and on the weekend and I' ; ve gone out on cases. So, I did that for a long time, also. HUNTLEY: You mentioned that you were 34 years old and you decided to go into the military? CUNNINGHAM: Yes. HUNTLEY: Why did you make that decision? CUNNINGHAM: It was a dream come true. I always wanted to join and I couldn' ; t and I forgot about it. After working for the city, then I had worked for the American Red Cross. I had all those jobs and really forgot about joining the military. And, to be honest, I saw the ad in the paper and it said, " ; Uncle Sam Wants You." ; I said, " ; Does he still want me at 34 years old?" ; I called the recruiter and I didn' ; t tell him how old I was. He said, " ; Well, come to the office." ; I went. I took the test and I joined the 42nd Infantry Division, which is called the Rainbow Division in New York City. And, the Rainbow Division has a long military history, and I' ; m proud to say that I was a part of that. And, that' ; s where I learned to be a soldier and I' ; m glad to have been a WAC, too. HUNTLEY: How long were you in the military? CUNNINGHAM: I was in the Army National Guard first. Afterwards I joined the reserve. In all, I stayed in the military 18 years. Eighteen adventurous, good and rewarding years. I never thought I actually could become a soldier because I had a background in education and not getting dirty and all of that, but I loved it. HUNTLEY: Why 18? Why not 20? CUNNINGHAM: Now, that would be another show. I spent 18 years in the military and on a weekend I went to my unit and had to re-enlist on that particular weekend, but I also had a PT test. And the stipulation said that if you do not past the PT test, you will no longer be a part of the military. Now, this occurred in Novembe.r Prior to that I had been practicing everything I had to do and on a rainy day, I passed that PT test and I was tested by one of the officers in my unit. I was soaking wet, passed the PT test and I got a call from the commander saying that my captain should not have given me the test and he disavowed the test. So, in November I had to take it again. In Novembe,r I did my very best, but I missed four sit-ups. I did 18 push-ups. I did 22 sit-ups and I did my two mile run in 23 minutes. And, at the end of the day, my captain said, " ; Sgt. Cunningham, you did not pass your PT test and you' ; ve been a good soldier, but we have to discharge you." ; So, I was discharged with an honorable discharge, but feeling very terrible that it had been a part of my life for so long and that' ; s all I received. I remember driving down the 1- 5 , crying and all of that. And that' ; s what happened. Four sit-ups, that' ; s all I needed. I wasn' ; t overweight or anything. HUNTLEY: Do you think that the decision was made based upon your being a woman, being black or something else? CUNNINGHAM: The decision was made on the basis of the fact that I wasn' ; t a male. As a female, I didn' ; t have a family. I think as a female, if I had a family, I think that would have meant something. But, I was a female without a husband and children, black and that was it. And, I did not belong to the good old boys club and that was it. On my discharge it says that I am not physically fit, but I know that I am, but that' ; s what it says. So, that' ; s the way it goes. HUNTLEY: So you' ; ve returned to Birmingham very recently. What are you doing? CUNNINGHAM: At the moment, I am subbing for the Birmingham Board of Education and also for the Catholic Diocese, I have been subbing for Our Lady of Fatima Catholic School and also the Midfield School District. I also sell property out at Elmwood Cemetery on a part-time basis. HUNTLEY: Well, Ms. Cunningham I just want to ask this final question. Is there anything that you would like to convey to whoever may view this video, you have the opportunity to do that now. CUNNINGHAM: I' ; d like to convey the thought that hard work is worth it. That, there are rewards in hard work. I' ; ve had to work hard. I haven' ; t regretted a minute of it. And, I' ; m looking forward to working hard for many years in the future. I plan to be around for a long time, because I haven' ; t finished everything that I have to do, and I know that hard work is a part of it. Also, that we are never alone because Jesus Christ is right there with us at all times and I know that he is with me. So he just keeps me going and he keeps me smiling and that' ; s important to me. HUNTLEY: You have a beautiful smile. CUNNINGHAM: Thank you. HUNTLEY: Thank you, Ms. Cunningham for coming out and being with us today. We certainly appreciate it. CUNNINGHAM: You are quite welcome, it' ; s been a pleasure. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Carolyn Cunningham
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Carolyn Cunningham discusses returning to Birmingham and getting involved with the Movement after attending a year of music school in Chicago. She taught in Birmingham as a young woman before serving in the military in New York. She then returned to Birmingham once more to teach.
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19960306C
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Birmingham (Ala.). Board of Education
Southern University and A & M College
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1996-03-06
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video
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https://bcriohp.org/files/original/c240aa3c487a83c25b07b08dd73b228a.jpg
481b819ebc7db8a14e8d439a21419ace
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Binnie Myles
Interviewee
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Kathleen Bunton
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http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=KBunton1996.xml
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Byers Hill
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5.4 September 6, 1996 Kathleen Bunton Interviewed on September 6, 1996 19960906BK 0:34:46 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Laura Benton Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Farming Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Voter registration Byers Hill Kathleen Bunton Binnie Myles Video 1:|19(8)|44(2)|65(10)|87(2)|101(4)|124(17)|152(6)|173(2)|189(4)|212(16)|234(3)|246(7)|276(10)|293(12)|317(14)|331(7)|347(5)|370(13)|387(7)|401(5)|410(11)|420(11)|437(4)|452(3)|468(1)|481(4)|498(1)|513(12)|522(11)|535(15)|549(16)|560(11)|572(4)|585(7) 0 https://youtu.be/pE83ZdDUZws YouTube video English 0 Introduction This is an interview with Kathleen Bunton for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project. Introduction to the interview Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Oral history ; Oral history project Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Oral history 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 21 Personal Background / Growing Up in Birmingham Good. I want to talk to you a little bit about your background. Discussion of growing up in Birmingham and knowing Mr. Byers. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Byers Hill ; North Birmingham ; Old Hillman Hospital ; Trussville (Ala.) Birmingham (Ala.) ; Hillman Hospital ; Trussville (Ala.) 95 Early Education So you went to school real early? Mrs. Bunton discusses her first years at school and the reason why she attended a different school than the rest of her siblings when she was young. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Byers Hill ; Hooper City ; Hudson Elementary ; Motion sickness Birmingham (Ala.) ; Motion sickness 177 Mr. Byers and Family When you lived in the area of Byers Hill and you said you knew Mr. Byers. Discussion of knowing Mr. Byers and his family when she lived in the Byers Hill area. Byers Hill ; family ; land 220 Early Education cont. / Community How many blocks did you walk to school? Discussion of elementary school experience and relationship with teachers as well as other children in the community. children ; community ; elementary school ; Elementary school teachers Elementary school teachers 316 Family Life How large was your family? How many brothers and sisters? Discussion of family size and parent's occupations. Community and school ; community school ; family ; Father ; large family ; Mother ; pipe shop ; Tarrant City (Ala.) Community and school ; Father ; Mother ; Tarrant City (Ala.) 372 Farm Life / Childhood at Home At the time we were average. My dad did a lot of farming. Discussion of childhood on the family farm. Chickens ; Childhood ; Chores ; Cows ; dairy ; Farming ; Father ; hogs ; Milk ; milking cows ; Piglets ; Pigs ; spanking ; sustainable farming Chickens ; Childhood ; Chores ; Cows ; Father ; Milk ; Piglets ; Pigs 627 Butchering Hogs / Meat Smoking No. We always had our own. During the winter months my dad would kill the hogs and we had an opportunity to observe the killing. Discussion of hog butchering process, meat smoking and farm community. butchering ; Chickens ; community ; Eggs ; Farm life ; Hogs ; Livestock ; Meat smoking ; Roosters ; smokehouse ; Sustainability Chickens ; Eggs ; Farm life ; Livestock ; Meat ; Roosters ; Sustainability 777 Community Farming and Sustainability When you look back at your childhood and you look at communities, we've had people say that there was a sense of community, that if there were others in the neighborhood that didn't have, you shared. Discussion about the sense of community within Mrs. Bunton's childhood neighborhood. Butter ; churn ; community ; Farm life ; farming ; Milk ; neighborhood ; Neighbors ; sharing ; Sustainability ; Vegetables ; Volunteer Butter ; Farm life ; Milk ; Neighbors ; Sustainability ; Vegetables ; Volunteer 849 Church Life at Mount Calvary Baptist Was your family involved in church while you were growing up? Discussion of time attending Mount Calvary Baptist church as a child. baptist ; Childhood ; Christmas ; church ; Easter ; mount calvary baptist ; sunday school Childhood ; Christmas ; Easter 901 Civil Rights Movement and Racial Issues How did you find out about the Movement when you were growing up? Discussion of racial issues encountered by parents as well as awareness of these issues and the Civil Rights Movement at a young age. christian movement ; Civil rights movement ; community ; education ; Father ; Mother ; pride ; Race awareness ; racial issues ; Social status ; white privilege Civil rights movement ; Father ; Mother ; Race awareness ; Social status 1222 Mass Meetings / Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights How did you get involved? Did you go to the mass meetings? Discussion of experience attending mass meetings and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Birmingham News ; christian movement ; Civil rights movement ; Human rights ; mass meetings ; Voter registration Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Birmingham News ; Civil rights movement ; Human rights ; Voter registration 1344 Mother's Participation in Marches and Time in Jail Did your parents participate? Discussion of her mother's time participating in Civil Rights marches and spending some time in jail as a result. Civil rights ; Civil rights movement ; family ; jail ; Marches ; Marching ; Mother Civil rights ; Civil rights movement ; family ; jail ; Marches ; Marching ; Mother 1482 Involvement in Voter's Registration / Life at Miles College How involved did you become in registering? Discussion of becoming involved in voter's registration drives while attending Miles College. college ; Miles College ; polls ; registration ; voters registration ; Voting Miles College ; Voting 1615 Frustrations About Voters Today / Importance of Voting History When you look at voting and registering then and you look at it now, trying to get people to vote, what do you think? Discussion of the frustrations felt when seeing how younger generations treat voting and the importance of teaching the sacrifices and struggles of achieving the right to vote. children ; Civil rights movement ; Civil rights--History ; history ; registration ; sacrifices ; struggles ; teaching ; voters history ; Voting ; voting history ; young people Civil rights movement ; Civil rights--History ; Voting 1831 Thoughts on Rev. Shuttlesworth and the Civil Rights Institute You mentioned Rev. Shuttlesworth and the things he did, and even the things that he's doing now. What do you think of Rev. Shuttlesworth? Discussion of appreciation for Rev. Shuttlesworth and the work that he has done ; as well as the excitement for the establishment of the Civil Rights Institute. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; children ; class ; parents ; sacrifices Birmingham (Ala.)--Maps ; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) 1973 Jefferson County School Field Trip / Closing Remarks What school was this? Discussion of the response of parents and children after visiting the Civil Rights Institute, the importance of visiting a place like the Institute and closing remarks. Appreciation ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; children ; field trip ; parents Appreciation ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Civil rights ; Civil rights movement Oral History Kathleen Bunton discusses growing up working the family farm before getting involved with ACMHR, attending mass meetings, and working on voter registration. Her mother was also involved in the Movement and was arrested for her efforts. MYLES: This is an interview with Kathleen Bunton for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project. This is Friday, September 6, 1996. I am Binnie Myles. How are you, Mrs. Bunton? BUNTON: Just fine. MYLES: Good. I want to talk a little bit about your background. Are you from Birmingham? BUNTON: Yes, I am. MYLES: In what section of the city were your born? BUNTON: North Birmingham, out in that area. Actually, we resided in Trussville, but I was born here in Birmingham. MYLES: What hospital, do you remember? BUNTON: University. At that time it was Old Hillman Hospital. MYLES: And you grew up in North Birmingham? BUNTON: Yes, it was in an area identified as Byers Hill. MYLES: Yes, in fact we found out that Byers Hill had several names, but there was man by the name of Mr. Byers or something. BUNTON: Right. MYLES: Did you ever know him? BUNTON: Yes, I knew him very well and all his family members. MYLES: What age can you go back to? BUNTON: Probably about five. I had gone to school a year in Trussville, Alabama. MYLES: So you went to school real early? BUNTON: Yes. My mother was very friendly with the principal and, ofcourse I had an older sister who attended school. She was in 1st grade. I was not old enough to go and I would cry everyday. And, the principal said, " ; Well, let her come with her." ; So, my mother let me go to school with my older sister. I had done so well that she decided to promote me. MYLES: What age were you when you started school in the Byers Hill area? BUNTON: I was seven years old. MYLES: So you got promoted to the next grade? BUNTON: Yes. The next year we moved to Birmingham, but I went to Hudson Elementary. No, I guess I was six. And, then the rest of my family went to Hooper City. I had a problem with motion sickness and I could not ride the bus. MYLES: When you were a little girl? BUNTON: Very little. MYLES: So what happened when you would get on the bus? BUNTON: I would get so nauseated, I couldn' ; t stand it, so the doctor assured my mother that after about a year I would be able to ride the bus, that was something I would grow out of. So, I went from our house to Hudson Elementary School, alone. I would never let my kids travel that far now. MYLES: When you lived in the area of Byers Hill and you said you knew Mr. Byers. BUNTON: Yes, I did. MYLES: Did he live on a hill? BUNTON: They were a large family in the community. And they were well known. When we moved there they had named it, but I learned they were named for the Byers. They were a very large family. They had a lot of land in that particular area. MYLES: When you say a large family, does it mean it was a lot of kids? BUNTON: They had a lot of children. MYLES: How many blocks did you walk to school? BUNTON: It was at least two miles from my house. MYLES: Did you go with other kids? BUNTON: There were other kids that I walked with, so I was not really alone. MYLES: But, during that time, and it' ; s not to imply in any way that you' ; re an old woman, it means that the times that we grow up, different times dictate different kinds of things. So it was more of a community, would you say? BUNTON: Yes, it was more of a community, and I must admit I didn' ; t think about it. Of course, I wouldn' ; t have had any thoughts about being afraid of something happening, like I would have that fear today. Nothing ever happened. But, I' ; m just thinking how different it is now. You just wouldn' ; t feel safe with a child that young walking that far. I wouldn' ; t. MYLES: What do you remember in elementary school? What were the teachers like? BUNTON: I remember I loved school. I always did. I always wanted to go to school. I had so much admiration for my teachers. Whatever they said was just the last word. I kind of remember how the teachers would cuddle you. Every child was almost personal with teachers and I think I sort of enjoyed that. I was from a large family and you didn' ; t get a whole lot of personal attention, it had to go around. MYLES: How large was your family? How many sisters and brothers? BUNTON: I had six brothers and I have five sisters. MYLES: Twelve children? BUNTON: Yes. MYLES: Where did you fit in the 12? BUNTON: I was number four. I' ; m the fourth girl. All my brothers are younger. I have six brothers younger than I am, so I got a chance to be momma at a very early age. MYLES: Did your mom work outside of the home? BUNTON: My mom worked outside of the home. At one time she was a lunch room manager at the community school there. I don' ; t know how she found time to do that, but she did work outside. My father worked out at the pipe shop in Tarrant City. MYLES: So when he worked at the pipe shop and your mom worked in the school, was your family considered kind of wealthy? BUNTON: No. MYLES: You were considered average. BUNTON: At that time we were average. My dad did a lot of farming. MYLES: What kind of things did he farm? BUNTON: All kinds of vegetables. As a matter of fact, he practically grew all of our food. We had our own hogs, our own cows, our own chickens. MYLES: Did you help out on the farm? BUNTON: Yes. You didn' ; t have a choice. MYLES: What was your job? BUNTON: Not one job, there were many jobs. Mainly I helped a lot with the children, among other things. But, we had so many chores to do, we had to help with all of them. We had to milk the cows. MYLES: What age were you when you did that? BUNTON: I was 12 or 13. My dad taught us at an early age. MYLES: Was it fun? BUNTON: It wasn' ; t hard. It was something else to do and, of course we made fun out of everything. MYLES: How did you make fun out of milking cows? BUNTON: Well, my brother, who was a year younger loved to have milk right out of the cows, so he would bring his glass to get the milk. I couldn' ; t drink milk like that. It would have to be real cold. A lot of times, we get together and we laugh about it, it was so much fun. MYLES: It sounds like it was a wonderful childhood. BUNTON: It was. MYLES: About the cows, did they have names? BUNTON: For some reason or another I do not remember them. I know we called a cow Daisy. Cows are very strange and very clean animals. MYLES: ·How are they strange? BUNTON: I remember we would have to put water in this tub for the cow. Daddy would tell us how we always had to wash this tub, they are very clean. Ifthey would smell any kind of odor, they would not drink. And we must have had the cleanest cow in the world. You know, as kids, you didn' ; t always want to wash that tub real clean, just put a little water in there and she would smell down in there and she wouldn' ; t drink. MYLES: So you had to go back and re-do it? BUNTON: Yes. We would laugh about it. We thought it was funny that the cow wouldn' ; t drink, but daddy had told us it had to be clean. And, so in the afternoon when he came home if that cow would consume an entire tub of water, he knew that the cow hadn' ; t had water during the day. So that meant we were in trouble. MYLES: Would you get a spanking? BUNTON: Yes. We laugh about it as we got older. We said we wouldn' ; t have a cow. MYLES: You know today we choose our words carefully when you talk about spanking because we hear so much about abuse to children, but growing up at that time you got a whipping or you got a beating. Who did the spanking? BUNTON: My dad. MYLES: With a belt, switch or hand? BUNTON: Well, it was so funny. He would always send us to get a switch. He would let us go get our switch ourselves. You go bring your switch to me. MYLES: You wanted to get the smallest one? BUNTON: Right. MYLES: Did you have to go back and get another one? BUNTON: Well, that depended on the mood daddy was in. But, he really taught us something. MYLES: Now, what' ; s the difference between a hog or a pig? Is there a difference, do you know? BUNTON: A pig is very small. MYLES: Did your hogs ever have little piglets? BUNTON: Yes. MYLES: Did you all like that? Did you play with the pigs? BUNTON: No, we didn' ; t play with them. As a matter of fact, we had to help feed them. Of course, later on they fed us. MYLES: Did they have names? BUNTON: No. We always had our own. During the winter months my dad would kill the hogs and we had an opportunity to observe the killing. Some of my brothers and sisters would kind of cry. It seemed so horrible. But, the way it was done, it was interesting to watch all the things. I kind of wish my grandkids could observe how it happen. MYLES: How do they do it? I mean the short version. BUNTON: He would build a fire under an iron pot and get the water scalding hot. They would take the water out of the pot and have these burlap bags handy. But, in the meantime, before putting the water on, they would always hit the hog in the head with a hammer to knock the hog out. Then they would take the scalding water and pour it over it and, then someone with knives would come and take all the hair off the hogs. MYLES: That was very interesting. BUNTON: It was. MYLES: And they would go on to prepare it? BUNTON: Yes, they would have to stab the hog and let all the blood drain. We had a smoke house where the meat was smoked. MYLES: Now, a smoke house, when people listen and hear this today, a lot of children and even some adults don' ; t know ; what is a smokehouse. BUNTON: Well, after they had killed the hogs and cut the hams and things into pieces, you would hang it and they would smoke it in this little house. You would have this delicious smoke taste. MYLES: Is it like anything you' ; ve tasted today? BUNTON: It' ; s not near as good today. I don' ; t think any of the meat tasted like my dad' ; s. MYLES: So everybody got together to help mom and daddy? BUNTON: Actually the children didn' ; t play a big part in that because there were other men in the community. They all aided each other. There were others who had hogs. MYLES: So you had hogs, pigs, cows and chickens. BUNTON: Yes. MYLES: Would your chickens lay eggs? BUNTON: Sure. MYLES: And you had the eggs from the hen house? BUNTON: Yes. MYLES: How many roosters did you have? BUNTON: Yes, we had roosters. I don' ; t remember the number. MYLES: When you look back at your childhood and you look at communities, we' ; ve had people say that there was a sense of community, that if there were others in the neighborhood that didn' ; t have, you shared. BUNTON: Oh, yes. There was a great sense of community. People shared with their service. They would come in and if you were doing something and you didn' ; t have to ask, people just volunteered their service. My mother gave very freely back to the community. Everybody waited for that hog meat, and milk and butter and eggs and vegetables. They just loved my dad' ; s vegetables. We just shared with the whole community. MYLES: ·You made butter from the milk? BUNTON: Of course, we had to churn the butter from the milk. We saw a chum yesterday. My husband and I were browsing through a flea market and I saw this chum. He said, " ; Look at this, it makes you want to churn." ; I said, " ; No." ; MYLES: You had your churning days. BUNTON: Yes. I often say I paid my dues. MYLES: Are your parents still living? BUNTON: No. Both parents are deceased. MYLES: Was your family involved in church while you were growing up? BUNTON: Yes, we were involved in church. My mother was very involved. My father went, but not as regular as my mother. We all grew up in the church. MYLES: Do you remember what church you attended? BUNTON: It was Mount Calvary Baptist Church. That minister is deceased. MYLES: Did you go to Sunday School? BUNTON: We did. We went to the little plays at Christmas and Easter time. We were involved in that. Of course, there were problems getting the boys to go. They were always not wanting to. I happened to be one of the ones who always enjoyed it, my sister and I. Of course, in later years they would go. MYLES: How did you find about the Movement when you were growing up? BUNTON: My parents talked a great deal about the racial problems. Working on jobs, where my dad worked. Of course, they encountered a lot of things. They would talk to us about the problems as they existed between Blacks and Whites. MYLES: Do you remember any of the things that your parents may have said? BUNTON: I They would talk about situations where there was not fair treatment in the workplace. They would often talk about how they would shop in stores and they would always have to wait and they would take the White person in front of you. I remember this particular incident ; we were in the grocery store. One evening my father had gotten paid and my mom went to pick him up, and we stopped at a grocery store in the community to buy groceries. Of course, some of the smaller kids had begun to get tired. They were restless and my dad had the groceries and was placing them on the counter. And, as long as a White face came up, they went to wait on them first. By then my daddy had just really grown tired. He walked over to the man and he said I want you to check my groceries because I want to take my family home. He replied to him, " ; Don' ; t you see Jesse, I' ; m waiting on a White man?" ; MYLES: Did your dad reply at all? BUNTON: No. He was just so angry. I had never seen my dad that angry. MYLES: What did he say, do you remember? BUNTON: This man had been known for keeping a gun under his counter. So when my dad said what he did, he went to reach under his counter to get his gun and my daddy put his hand on top of the White man' ; s hand. He came out of his pocket with brass knuckles. MYLES: Your dad did? BUNTON: Yes. He said, " ; Now, check my family out." ; MYLES: What did the man do? BUNTON: He immediately checked our groceries. And the fun thing about this, as children we were sort of getting excited. My daddy was only like 5' ; 2" ; . This man was a great big tall White man and we were real happy. MYLES: What age were you then? BUNTON: I must have been about 7 or 8, but I remember that very well? MYLES: Were you frightened or were you proud? BUNTON: I was never frightened in the presence of my parents. We had security. With my dad there... no, I was never afraid when he was around. MYLES: Do you ever remember if your dad went back to that store? BUNTON: I don' ; t remember him going back. I remember him telling us we didn' ; t have to patronize people like that. MYLES: I' ; m sure by the time you got home everybody talked about what daddy did? BUNTON: Yes. He shared with us and he told us about other situations that he had encountered on the job and things like that. So ; we were very much aware and knowledgeable about racial situations. And, of course when the Christian Movement started, we started actively participating and attending the meetings. MYLES: Do you remember anything that your mother may have said that may have possibly happened to her either going to work or at work? BUNTON: I don' ; t recall anything particular that my mother said. She worked for a short time at The Club. She was a salad maker. Other than that, she was a lunchroom manager in the Black school, so she didn' ; t have those kind of encounters. MYLES: Did she every say anything about the grand parties at The Club? BUNTON: Well, you know at that particular time you just had a place and we stayed there. She worked at night. As a matter of fact, she was the lunchroom manager during the day. She would work in the morning. And, when she left school she would go to work from 4:00 p.m. to Midnight, so it was kind of hard. MYLES: I imagine your parents would stress the importance of education to their children. BUNTON: Yes. My mother talked a lot about getting an education and not having to deal with a lot of situations like they had to deal with, that that would be helpful. My dad was a hard working man. I think he would have been content if everybody just got a job. His parents passed at a very young age, so he had to help his mom a lot. But he told us he wanted us to go to school, but my mom stressed going to school. MYLES: How did you get involved? Did you go to the mass meetings? BUNTON: Yes, Monday nights were sort of reserved for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. I learned so much at those meetings. I was so inspired by Rev. Shuttlesworth. It' ; s like he always knew the things they would print in the paper, the statements that were being made, he would tell us. He always had a lot of humor. He was saying fun things. And he would say, " ; You can expect to see that in The Birmingham News." ; And sure enough, that would be in there. But the way they would get out there and encourage members not to participate in any kind of violence, that we could not accomplish 9ur goal if we turned anyway violent. Now, if you felt like you had to be violent, maybe it' ; s best that you don' ; t attend this meeting. And they stressed that. But, that was not stated in the paper. But, if they made some little remark, or some little silly thing, that would be in the news. And, of course, they talked about jobs and the purpose. We knew the reason for this Movement. They encouraged voter registration and during the demonstrations they told us there was something everybody could do. There were people who were afraid to participate because of loss of jobs and things. And, of course, they even talked about if you' ; re not going to be a participant and you' ; re not going to do anything, you may help us by just being quiet, not talking it down. Not saying derogatory things about people who participate. These people were hard working people. MYLES: Did your parents participate? BUNTON: Yes, my mother did. My dad was not one in attendance, but he supported it wholeheartedly. So you can imagine with the whole family. But, of course, my mother was very much involved. MYLES: Did she ever do any marching? BUNTON: Yes, as a matter of fact, she did march and she went to jail for seven days. During that particular time, they would say everybody can' ; t go to jail. If you' ; re in the family, somebody has to run the house. There were other things that we had to do. MYLES: So who took care of the family when she went to jail? BUNTON: By that time most of them had grown up. But, then there were some smaller. I helped out a whole lot. My other sisters had married, but I was still home. MYLES: So when she went to jail, was that during the time that she was also employed? BUNTON: I' ; m trying to remember. I don' ; t think so. MYLES: So when she went to jail and when she got out, what did she share about her experiences? BUNTON: She told us about things that happened at night. How they would sing and how they prayed. It seemed like they had a good time. There were a lot of problems. There were people who had family members who were employed and were away from their jobs and some of those people lost their jobs. I don' ; t recall my mom working at that particular time. She talked about what they would talk about at night time and how they were treated. Of course, ' ; the treatment wasn' ; t that good at all. But, they were told things that they didn' ; t need to say or they didn' ; t do anything to antagonize the guards in the jail. MYLES: Did your mom stress the importance of voting? BUNTON: Yes. MYLES: How involved did you become in registering? BUNTON: Well, my mother and dad both stressed the importance of voting. While in college, I participated in voter registration drives. As a matter of fact, Dr. McPherson was dedicated man at that particular time. He talked to us at length about the importance of voting. And, he just didn' ; t talk about it, he believed in doing something about it. He would take groups of students in various areas and we had to work that area. I remember working the area at Smithfield Projects. How we started and how many blocks I had to take care of and go knock on these doors. At that particular time, they had a long list of questions that you had to commit to memory. I remember studying those questions so hard so I can remember the answers so I could qualify to vote. I often wonder why that was. I thought that was so unnecessary. MYLES: Do you remember any of the questions that seemed so silly? BUNTON: I really don' ; t. I just thought it was all so unnecessary. Why did you need to do that to register to vote? MYLES: You said you attended college. Where did you go? BUNTON: I attended Miles College and that' ; s where I got involved with voter registration with Dr. McPherson. There were student groups out there who participated in the Alabama Christian Movement. And, of course, at that time the Movement would go around various area, where the churches would allow them to meet. There were some churches that wouldn' ; t allow them to meet for whatever reason. I guess some of them were afraid and things of that nature and I can understand that. But, we participated a lot with voter registration and he asked that we continue that and keep encouraging other people and if somebody needs your assistance in getting to the polls. MYLES: When you look at voting and registering then and you look at it now, trying to get people to vote, what do you think? BUNTON: I think I have mixed emotions. I find myself getting angry because I know how hard it was and now it' ; s so simple, I say, " ; Why won' ; t they go and do it?" ; But, they don' ; t know about all of this and that' ; s why we have to teach our younger children about sacrifices that have been made for people to vote so that we can encourage them to vote. To let them know that this didn' ; t come without sacrifice. That people really had to go through something in order to vote. MYLES: Do you think enough students today recognize or are taught enough or exposed enough to sacrifices and really know what it means for people like you, and it wasn' ; t that long ago? BUNTON: I think that it does not make an impact upon them because they don' ; t know the story. I think they need to know what has happened. It' ; s strange how you feel about something. It' ; s so easy to take things for granted. Our children come up now, they just don' ; t know anything about hard times. They don' ; t know how difficult things really were for our foreparents. MYLES: Do you think interviews like this would help? BUNTON: Well, I think getting things on a silver platter has been more hurtful than helpful in many instances, depending on the people. I' ; m not saying that everybody has to catch it hard in order to appreciate it, I don' ; t go with that. But sometimes we have to evaluate our situation with our children and see maybe there are some things we might do for one that we don' ; t need to do for the other. So it would depend on the individuals. But, I think the more that we share these kinds of messages with them and to get them to understand us, I think it would have a great effect on them. MYLES: What did you say to your children? Do they know about the struggles? BUNTON: Oh, yes. They know about the struggles. I made sure they learned about the struggle. I wanted them to hear it from me. As a matter of fact, they think it' ; s so hilarious when my brothers and sisters get together and we start telling the stories about all the work we had to do at home. We do that because when we can give them a little chore to do and it' ; s like it' ; s so difficult for them. I can remember I would have been so thrilled if l had a bed to myself. I would have thought I was in heaven. They don' ; t realize how it was. They take all of what they have for granted. MYLES: Just like people take voting for granted. BUNTON: Yes, sure. I feel like we need to let them know it is really important. This is very important that you exercise that right to vote. MYLES: You mentioned Rev. Shuttlesworth and the things that he did, and even the things that he' ; s doing now. What do you think of Rev. Shuttlesworth? BUNTON: I think that he is a wonderful man. Sometimes I don' ; t think he' ; s given the credit that he deserves. As a matter of fact, he made sacrifices beyond. When you sacrifice your life, that' ; s all you have. And, that I know that he did. Actually he was very instrumental in getting all of this done here in Birmingham. He stood tall a long time ago. You would wonder, why isn' ; t this man afraid? If there was fear in him, you could not tell it. MYLES: When you look back at what things occurred and when you see the Civil Rights Institute today, how did you feel? BUNTON: Well, having been familiar with so much of this it brought back a lot of memories. I never would have believed that this would have been established for the world to see. Nobody could have made me believe that this would come into play the way it has. I just. think this place is very unique. You can visit other places and none of them can touch this place. I couldn' ; t wait to bring my class here. I really couldn' ; t. I wanted my class to come here, because when I first came up with the idea of having the field trip and bringing the children here and taking them over to our church, I had a lot of interest from the parents. Then the word started getting around and the numbers started dwindling. That was an experience. Even the White parents who had been so supportive changed their minds. MYLES: What school was this? BUNTON: This was a Jefferson County School. And after this experience, these parents said to me that they could feel something. They were so touched and moved by this experienced until (Inaudible). MYLES: What do you say to people who live right here in Birmingham who have not visited the Institute? What would you say to get them to visit? BUNTON: Well, it' ; s really their loss. They have really missed a lot by not visiting this Institute. But, I try to encourage people to come. After you get them to come, people would say they don' ; t want to relive that. They say, " ; I' ; ve heard what it was like and I have a difficult time with it." ; I say, " ; But it makes you appreciate so much more when you come in and see. It gives you an appreciation for all of the things that we have." ; We would go attend meetings over in Bessemer, Powderly and from here to Timbuctu and people would say to my husband and ' ; i, " ; Y' ; all going to go way out there? To that mess?" ; Black people would say this. Now, when it' ; s all coming together and, then when things started happening, those voices got softer. And, then they didn' ; t want to acknowledge that they were not a part of " ; that mess" ; at that time. MYLES: Is there something that I didn' ; t ask you that you would like to share with us before we close? BUNTON: I think you did a very good job of asking questions. But, this Institute, I just wish the entire world could see this Institute, I really do. MYLES: We certainly thank you for sharing with us today. BUNTON: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Kathleen Bunton
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Kathleen Bunton discusses growing up working the family farm before getting involved with ACMHR, attending mass meetings, and working on voter registration. Her mother was also involved in the Movement and was arrested for her efforts.
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19960906BK
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Farming
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
Voter registration
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1996-09-06
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Margaret Askew
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http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=MAskew1994.xml
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Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.)
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5.4 December 16, 1994 Margaret Askew Interviewed on December 16, 1994 19941216A 0:44:14 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department Adams, Oscar W. Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) Margaret Askew Horace Huntley Video 1:|3(14)|25(2)|49(10)|66(13)|87(5)|101(12)|114(8)|132(5)|154(11)|174(7)|187(9)|194(9)|206(15)|221(3)|231(8)|247(11)|257(5)|269(2)|285(9)|294(1)|315(7)|327(2)|348(5)|364(8)|379(8)|389(7)|403(14)|412(4)|429(5)|442(9)|455(8)|463(12)|472(15)|479(10)|499(11)|516(6)|528(13)|543(11)|558(12) 0 https://youtu.be/NVBaSwnyUTQ YouTube video English 0 Interview Introduction This is an interview with Mrs. Margaret Askew for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and I'm Dr. Horace Huntley. Interview Introduction Civil rights movement 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 64 Community, Family, and Childhood Let me ask you a general question, Mrs. Askew. First, where were you born? Askew describes her childhood, her parents, and what it was like to live in the Southside (Birmingham) community. African American youth ; African Americans--Employment ; Birmingham (Ala.) African American families ; African Americans--Southern States 424 Police and Community What about your community's relationship to the Birmingham Police Department? Askew discusses her community's relationship with the police department, including police brutality. African Americans--Crimes against ; Law enforcement--United States--History ; Police brutality--United States Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 544 Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights You were also a member of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights? Askew discusses her involvement with and attending the meetings of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. African Americans--Civil rights ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Civil rights movement ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 817 Arrest and Jail Experience But, did you go to jail? Askew discusses her experiences being arrested and being in jail as a participant in the Civil Rights Movement. Adams, Oscar W. ; African American prisoners ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Crimes against ; African Americans--Medical care ; Imprisonment--United States African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 1446 Movement Involvement: Decisions & ; Risk Well, now there was some individuals, many individuals, who were older and working and they were basically afraid to participate. Askew discusses her her decision to be involved in the Civil Rights Movement, feedback from her employer, and motivations for participating. African American families ; African Americans--Employment African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 1577 Fire Department at Civil Rights Marches 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 describes how the fire department used water hoses against Civil Rights Movement demonstrators. African Americans--Civil rights ; Birmingham (Ala.). Fire Department ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--Crimes against 1727 Church's Resistance to Involvement What church were you a member of? Askew discusses her church's resistance to Civil Rights Movement involvement as well as the actions of her church's pastor. African American clergy ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Religion African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 1839 Movement Reflections What is your assessment of the Birmingham movement? Was it successful? Was it a failure? Askew reflects on the impact of the Civil Rights Movement in Birmingham. African American youth ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Race identity African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 2049 Youth Involvement in Movement 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. Askew discusses her work to engage African American youth in the Civil Rights Movement. African American youth ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Education ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 2172 Reflection on African American Community Today 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? Askew reflects on her wishes for today's African American communities. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--History ; African Americans--Social conditions African Americans--Race identity 2502 Civil Rights Movement Lawsuit Can you just give us a brief description of what happened a couple of times in the court room, because you were involved in a number of lawsuits as well? Askew describes her courtroom experience during a Civil Rights Movement lawsuit. Adams, Oscar W. ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 African Americans--Civil rights Oral History Margaret Askew discusses being involved with the Movement through ACMHR and her church. She encouraged local youth to get involved and she was arrested multiple times. 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 the 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 he 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 Ullman 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 was 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, the 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 bonding 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 Christian 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, and 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 they 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. They 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 Company 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 to 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 than 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 something 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 on 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 the 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 something, 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 gave 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, and 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 course 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 don' ; 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 there 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 signing 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 Jesse 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 out 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, better 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. HUNTLEY: Thank you very much. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=MAskew1994.xml MAskew1994.xml
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Margaret Askew
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Margaret Askew discusses being involved with the Movement through ACMHR and her church. She encouraged local youth to get involved and she was arrested multiple times.
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19941216A
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department
Adams, Oscar W.
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1994-12-16
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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David Vann
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Black, Hugo LaFayette, 1886-1971
Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka
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5.4 February 2, 1995 David Vann Interviewed on February 2, 1995 19950202V 1:33:50 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Black, Hugo LaFayette, 1886-1971 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka David Vann Horace Huntley Video 1:|14(3)|24(5)|35(11)|48(8)|62(13)|75(1)|83(7)|101(12)|114(13)|130(4)|144(8)|160(14)|173(2)|187(1)|200(13)|215(2)|226(4)|240(1)|249(12)|260(7)|271(12)|283(2)|300(8)|310(5)|323(5)|333(10)|345(1)|356(2)|370(2)|380(10)|391(2)|404(2)|416(7)|432(5)|441(13)|450(11)|466(12)|478(6)|491(8)|500(7)|513(9)|525(17)|538(15)|554(9)|568(6)|580(12)|594(1)|610(7)|621(5)|632(9)|644(12)|655(10)|666(4)|679(14)|690(8)|703(6)|721(3)|737(4)|747(6)|765(6)|777(9)|795(4)|813(4)|823(12)|840(16)|863(9)|878(2)|892(12)|905(1)|918(6)|931(1)|944(4)|958(5)|972(7)|984(3)|994(11)|1006(10)|1019(4)|1031(7)|1048(9)|1060(5)|1077(11)|1090(10)|1104(14)|1116(12)|1127(7)|1141(12)|1153(5)|1161(5)|1171(2)|1184(8)|1196(7) 0 https://youtu.be/vSZv3JUHbiM YouTube video English 0 Interview Introduction This is an interview with former Mayor of Birmingham, David Vann, with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project by Dr. Horace Huntley at Miles College, February 2, 1995 at 2:30 p.m. Introduction to interview with Mayor David Vann 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 93 Family History & ; Childhood We want to just start today by getting a little background like, who are you? Vann discusses his family's history in the U.S. and Alabama, as well as his childhood and adolescence. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham-Southern College ; Education--Alabama Families--United States 566 Military Service (U.S. Army) So you worked your way through college. Vann discusses joining and serving in the U.S. Army in 1946. African American soldiers ; Segregation--United States ; United States--History, Military--20th century United States. Army 755 Washington DC & ; Supreme Court Experience Well after you... When you left the military the second time, what did you do? Vann discusses his experience as a law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. Black, Hugo LaFayette, 1886-1971 ; Knights of Pythias ; United States. National Labor Relations Board Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ; United States. Supreme Court 1421 Engagement with Civil Rights Movement So you were actually back in Birmingham during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Vann describes his return to Birmingham and engagement with the politics and organizations surrounding the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--Crimes against ; Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Alabama Council on Human Relations ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) ; Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Ala., 1955-1956 ; Police brutality--United States Civil rights movement 1890 Business Community Activism So Conner's action really stimulated the business community to start to figure out how can we get rid of this guy. Vann discusses the Birmingham business community's response to the Civil Rights Movement and the actions of Bull Conner. Birmingham Bar Association ; Parks--Alabama ; Segregation--United States Alabama--Politics and government--1951- ; Birmingham (Ala.) 2093 Police Department and KKK Let me ask you a question about when you talk about the Freedom Riders coming in and, of course, they were attacked. Vann discusses the Birmingham Police Department and the KKK. Civil rights movement ; Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) ; Police brutality--United States ; Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 2333 Mayoral Election & ; Birmingham Politics Because you were active in those early years, in the fifties and sixties with the Council, when you were called on by the businessmen to sort of interact between them— Vann describes his work surrounding the Birmingham's mayoral election. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor Alabama--Politics and government 3285 Public Response to Political Action How were you pictured then? Were you ever under attack as a result of the role that you played? Vann describes the Birmingham community's response to his political actions. African Americans--Civil rights ; Alabama--Politics and government ; Birmingham (Ala.) Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor 3482 Birmingham Elections Well, the election had to be a three-way election. Mayor/Council, Commission or City Manager with a run off between the top two. Vann discusses the Birmingham City and Mayoral Election. Alabama--Politics and government ; Alabama--Politics and government--1951- Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor 3635 SCLC Meeting & ; Movement Response At the same time that this was going on, something else is taking place of significance in Birmingham. Vann discusses the SCLC Annual Meeting that was taking place in Birmingham, as well as Movement responses and actions surrounding the election. Civil rights movement ; Segregation--United States ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Southern Christian Leadership Conference 3928 Civil Rights Politics, Police, & ; Leadership The Black political people had worked their fingers to the bone to change the city government, to elect a new government and I sat in on some of Boutwell's meetings with them and Boutwell had made some pretty surprising, to me, commitments to them. Vann discusses the impact of Birmingham's politics and police actions on the Civil Rights Movement. African American leaders ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--Crimes against ; Alabama--Politics and government--1951- ; Birmingham (Ala.)--Maps ; Police brutality--United States Alabama--Politics and government 4169 Influence of the KKK How did the Klan get to be so important? Vann discusses the impact and presence of the Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham politics. African American prisoners ; Alabama--Politics and government Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) 4566 Reflections on Politics & ; Civil Rights Actions David, throughout the history of the Black people in this country, there seem to be instances where seemingly what was good for Black people, was not good for the country and vice versa. Vann reflects on Birmingham politics, including thoughts on Bull Conner, de-segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century ; Alabama--Politics and government--1951- ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Segregation in education ; Segregation--United States ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) 5057 Reflections on Birmingham Community Obviously those were some very turbulent days and there was a period, a turning point, in the history of Birmingham. Vann reflects on the Birmingham community, including race relations, current-day challenges, and progress. Alabama--Politics and government--1951- ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; United States--Race relations--History--20th century Birmingham (Ala.) 5590 Conclusion I appreciate you taking this much time out of your schedule. We are going to have to do this again because obviously you have so much to say and we'll just have to do this again. Oral History David Vann discusses the political climate in Birmingham during the Movement including the role of businesses, the influence of the KKK and his time as United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's law clerk. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with former Mayor of Birmingham, David Vann, with the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project by Dr. Horace Huntley at Miles College, February 2, 1995 at 2:30 p.m. Mayor Vann, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule today to come out and talk with us. VANN: It' ; s a pleasure. HUNTLEY: We want to just start today by getting a little background like, who are you? We know that you' ; ve been around and you' ; ve been involved in really changing the whole concept of what Birmingham is about. But, let me just ask you about your parents. Tell me about your mother and father. Where were they born? Were they Birminghamians? VANN: Well, my father was born on my great-grandfather' ; s farm in the area we now call Huffman. Most of Huffman was a part of my great-grandfather' ; s--Joel King' ; s Rand' ; s--farm. He was second generation in the county. His father brought him as a baby from North Carolina in 1822 and settled in the Trussville area. My mother was from Minneapolis, Minnesota. She had a brother that was a mining engineer and came to Birmingham with a cousin and they started several businesses. But his wife died somewhere around 1907 or 1908 and my mother and her mother came to Birmingham to look after the daughter and help her brother, Walker. My mother taught school in the Birmingham school system. She taught at Ullman. She taught at Fox Lake and, at the time, my father had graduated from the North Alabama Conference College, I believe in 1902. That was the second graduating class on that campus. HUNTLEY: That' ; s Birmingham Southern now. VANN: Well, it is now, and my grandfather, Felix Vann, was in the real estate business in old Elyton and family tradition is that he and a group of Elyton businessmen raised six thousand dollars ($6,000) and went to the Methodist church and said they wanted to start a college at Owington, which was an unincorporated area north of Elyton. The Owens family apparently donated some land on top of the hill and the businessmen promised [that] if they would start the college, they would have the first building ready within a year. The argument was whether you should build a Christian college in a wicked, wicked place like Birmingham. At that time, there was a saloon on every corner downtown, about four (4) breweries. Jack Daniels whiskey was distilled on Second Avenue, I think. There were brothels up and down the railroad tracks and it was sort of like a wild-west town, still. But, they said, this is out in the country, in the fresh air, so they started and opened in 1897 as the North Alabama Conference College. They changed the name to Birmingham College about 1910 and, then, I think it was in 1918, the Methodist Church was faced with the problem of having two colleges and not many students, because the young men were all going to war. They merged the two colleges and became Birmingham Southern. Most of the history of Birmingham Southern they talk about the history of Southern University, which started, I think, in 1842. But I always thought they ought to put some emphasis on the North Alabama Conference College, because if it hadn' ; t been for the efforts of those gentlemen that got that college started, there wouldn' ; t be a Birmingham Southern College here. My father stayed after graduation. They had everything from first grade through the fourth year of college and so they had a grammar school and high school and my father stayed as principal and stayed about until 1909 and then he went down to the university and got his law degree. I believe it was two-year law program in those years. I have his diploma in my wallet. I believe it' ; s dated 1911. HUNTLEY: Did he practice law here in Birmingham? VANN: No. He had a brother that had tuberculosis and the doctor said he ought to go live in the mountains. My grandfather had become a Methodist minister after the business had started the college and that meant his children could go to the new college free. It was the first generation of my family to have a college education. I always thought that Grandpa was pretty smart to help start a college so his children could get a college education. But, they moved. The Bishop, he had my grandfather Felix' ; church at Fruithurst, Alabama in the mountains and Dad started his law practice in Heflin so he could be near his brother. Then, later, he moved to Roanoke, Alabama and I was born in Roanoke, which is the largest town in Randolph County. Wedowee is the county seat. Dad was elected Circuit Solicitor, which was the district attorney, in effect, to that era. Then, in 1931 he was appointed Circuit Judge by Governor Miller, and he died in 1934 about a week before election. He was running for re-election. I remember the house was full of campaign material. Two years later, my mother decided the best way to get a college education for her children was to move to a college town. So she picked up the family and sold the house and gave herself a little stake and moved to Auburn. My two older brothers went to Auburn. My sister had gotten married. She went to the University of Michigan. HUNTLEY: So there were four of you. VANN: There were four of us. HUNTLEY: Where were you? You were the youngest? VANN: I was the youngest, and my mother sold insurance and Reader' ; s Digest and we had a boarding house--not a boarding house, but a rooming house. We would have four or five college students living with us. But, she finally got a job with a general accounting office that audited the federal farm programs through an office at Auburn. In the year I graduated from high school, her job got moved to Birmingham and she had to transfer the Federal Crop Insurance, so I was ready to be a boarding student. I thought I' ; d go to Auburn always, you know. But mother said, ' ; I' ; d go to talk to the people down at the University [of Alabama]. Your dad went there.' ; I went down there and the Dean of Students fixed me up with one job for my room and another job for my food and some spending money. I waited on the football training table for the last Alabama Rose Bowl team. They made the pact with the Big Ten the next year and Alabama couldn' ; t go to the Rose Bowl anymore. They had been there as much as any school in the country. HUNTLEY: So you worked your way through college. VANN: Well, at the end of June, 1946, right at the end of the war--. The war was over as far as the fighting was concerned, but it wasn' ; t officially over and I thought I would be drafted in August when I became eighteen [years old], so a friend of mine and I decided to start in June. We volunteered and joined the Army. I had to have my mother' ; s permission because I was only seventeen. I spent a year and a half in the Army in the occupation of Korea. The Japanese Army pulled out and the American Army went in and set up a military government until they could organize their own government. I was barely eighteen and they made me a criminal investigator because I had a year and half of college and I told them I was going to study law. I joined in June. By October I was in Korea and I had a jeep with a driver and two-way radio and a Korean interpreter. HUNTLEY: This was at the time-- VANN: They put me out investigating cases. HUNTLEY: This was at the time that the military was just then being integrated, right? VANN: No it wasn' ; t. It was segregated and I spent a year there and I qualified for the GI Bill, which assured me that I would be able to go to law school. I didn' ; t use my GI Bill until I got into law school. I came back to Alabama and I had a job and I was the technical director of the university theater. As a high school student, I had worked with the Auburn Players in learning how to build scenery. They could find plenty of people that wanted to act, but not many people that wanted to use hammers and nails and painting to make the sets, so I did that for two years. Then I went to law school. I got called to active duty in my senior year in law school, and I went back into the Army as a counter-intelligence officer. Now it was an integrated Army, and in that three to four year period I had Black agents that worked for me. I had gotten a commission. It was sort of interesting. They came from all over the country, but if they had personal problems, they always came to me. Somehow they trusted me, as a southerner, better than they trusted those Yankee boys. HUNTLEY: How different was the military as a segregated institution than as an integrated one? VANN: Well, [in] the segregated Army that I was in, all the Black soldiers were in trucking companies or laundry companies--supply. I really seldom saw a Black soldier. HUNTLEY: But you did have Black investigators? VANN: When I went back in 1951, I had Black counter-intelligence agents that worked under me, yes. HUNTLEY: When you left the military the second time, what did you do? VANN: Well, I was about to finish my master' ; s degree in law at George Washington. While I was in the Army I went to night law school and they had a two-year program that you could go to three nights a week. I didn' ; t know anybody, didn' ; t have any tie-ups or commitments, so I went five nights a week and did the whole program in one year. But I got out of the Army in April and got a job as general counsel in the National Labor Relations Board doing appellate briefs, so I was writing briefs all day and going to law school all night. It was pretty miserable the last two months. Then, about the early part of June, Justice Black' ; s law clerk called me up and said Justice Black would like to meet me. I hadn' ; t worked for the government long enough to have any leave, but I said I could take my lunch hour anytime I wanted to. So, the law clerk came by. He had been a student at [the University of] Alabama with me and he took me out to Justice Black' ; s home in Alexandria, and we chatted for a while. My father had been a supporter of him when he ran for the Senate and they had both been members of the Knights of Pythias, so he remembered my father. After we talked for a little while, he said, ' ; Well, I' ; ve decided I want you to be my law clerk this year.' ; At the time, I didn' ; t even know I was an applicant for being his law clerk. So, just out of the blue and two weeks later I was at the Supreme Court of the United States. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I was going back to Alabama to practice law. The school desegregation case was pending, Brown v. The Board. He said, ' ; Well, maybe you don' ; t want to be my law clerk?' ; I said, ' ; Oh, yes. I want to be your law clerk.' ; I knew how the case was going to be decided. Anybody who had read Justice Black' ; s opinion knew how that case was going to be decided as far as his vote. Then, in May...a sort of issue-- We had a deal, the law clerks and the Justices--it was really made by our predecessors--that the Justices would not discuss Brown v. The Board of Education with their law clerks. We didn' ; t want to be blamed for a news leak and there were reporters all over that building every day just trying to get some inside information. The day the case came down... I never discussed it with them, and the day the case came down... I lived with him [Justice Black]. We had breakfast together every morning and dinner together every night. I drove his car, drove him to the Supreme Court building. They met at noon in those days, and just before noon I stuck my head in his office and said, ' ; Judge, anything you need before you go on the bench today?' ; And he said, ' ; No, everything' ; s fine.' ; So I said, ' ; I' ; ll think I go to lunch.' ; He said, ' ; That' ; s fine.' ; No hint, no indication of any kind that that was going to be an important, historical date. But, I went into Justice Jackson' ; s law clerk' ; s office. His name was Barrett Prettyman, Jr., and I said, ' ; Barrett, let' ; s go to lunch.' ; Barrett said, ' ; I can' ; t. My judge is here.' ; Now, that was right startling news, because Jackson had had a heart attack and had been out for at least two or three weeks in the hospital. I just said to myself, ' ; There' ; s only one reason they would bring him from the hospital. They' ; re going to hand down Brown today.' ; And I ran downstairs--not ran, but walked fast downstairs--where the law clerks had a dining room. They went through the public cafeteria line, but they had a place to eat that was private. I said, ' ; Let' ; s go upstairs. They brought Jackson from the hospital. They' ; re going to hand down Brown.' ; Several of the clerks said things like, ' ; My judge would have given me a hint,' ; or ' ; I' ; ve got an appointment.' ; ' ; I' ; ve got this, I' ; ve got that,' ; and only six of us went upstairs to hear Warren read Brown v. Board of Education. It was sort of interesting, because I was looking up and down the bench as to who was going to dissent. I mean, this was such a controversial case, surely I would expect a dissent. I looked into the face of every one of those Justices: Justice Clark, Justice Brennan, Justice Reed, Justice Burton, William Douglas. I didn' ; t expect him to dissent. I looked at Frankfurter. I thought he might, and then I looked at Justice Wright and I couldn' ; t read anything in his face. About two-thirds of the way through, well before the end of the opinion, the decision is announced. Warren read. He said, ' ; We, therefore, hold that segregation by race in public schools violates the Fourteenth Amendment.' ; But when he read it, he added the word-- He said, ' ; We, therefore, unanimously hold,' ; and everybody in the room relaxed. I saw the Chief [Justice] in the hall that evening and I said to him, I said, ' ; Chief, when you read that opinion today, you didn' ; t read it like you wrote it.' ; His big Swedish face clouded up and he said, ' ; What do you mean?' ; I said, ' ; You added the word ' ; unanimously' ; .' ; He said, ' ; I thought it was getting kind of tense in there about that time.' ; I have told that story many times, but somebody had recently written a biography of Strom Thurmond. I think the chapter was about how Strom Thurmond now has Black people on his staff. I think it was somehow...but, anyway, that story about me meeting the Chief Justice is in Strom Thurmond' ; s biography, which I thought was sort of interesting. HUNTLEY: Tell me, just for curiosity' ; s sake, something about William O. Douglas. VANN: One of the most brilliant men you would ever meet. He only used one law clerk. He had a second law clerk, but he used that law clerk to help him write books. Douglas was in constant motion. He never wasted a minute. He had something productive to do every minute. He was so smart. He would write an opinion and, then-- While in Justice Black' ; s office, we might go over that opinion through fifteen drafts. We would have a comma draft. We went through to see if we could figure a way to get rid of commas. Justice Douglas thought commas messed up the English language. Shorten sentences. Then we had one draft... Justice Black never wanted to write quotable quotes. He had a feeling that in the past, judges had written decisions and included colorful words that got established as rules of law when he wanted you to have to read his entire opinion in one piece and look at the whole thing and not be able to pick out a quotable quote. Of course, he did write some quotable quotes, but he really intentionally did not want to do that. But Douglas would just do, maybe, two drafts and out it goes. So, some of his writing, while he was a wonderful writer and an experienced writer, a professional writer, I think some of his opinions are a little unfinished compared to what we did. And, of course, his personal life was complicated. I think he married three times. But, he was an interesting... sort of taciturn. He came to dinner. When I lived with the Judge these other Judges would come to dinner, so I would get to spend the evenings with the other members of the court, in effect, which was a wonderful educational program, really unbelievable. But, Douglas was sort of taciturn. He didn' ; t talk a lot. HUNTLEY: He wrote, I believe it' ; s a small volume entitled Quotes of Rebellion, that many of the young and ambitious revolutionaries of the [19]60s and the ' ; 70s looked at very favorably, and I always wondered what kind of individual he was. VANN: Well, he was a very...you know, it' ; s sort of iffy. You saw him... He was sort of a cold personality except with people who knew him real, real, well. I think... but at the same time, he was a very warm personality and was very conscious of the problems of people and the complications of life. You know, he wrote The Security Exchange Act. He was the head of the SEC, a very complex organizational structure. There was no limit to his mental capacities. But he also had a very, really warm.... You know, I understand that after he retired he tried to come back on the Court. He wanted--he got upset and wanted to have his say. But, he made mistakes like everybody else. I think some of their early cases following Brown, particularly the Richmond case, where instead of treating the county as a whole with respect to racial segregation, they held the proper thing was to have a separate city school system, separate county school system and in the Detroit case, where the judge made his desegregation order to cover all the suburban schools as well as the Detroit schools and the Supreme Court overruled that, then it set a pattern. It really, in effect, condemned all cities of the United States to be poor Blacks in the core and the wealthier living in the suburbs around. Birmingham is not inconsistent with that. HUNTLEY: How long were you in [Washington] D.C. and when did you return to Birmingham? VANN: Well, I went there [Washington] probably in early 1952 in the Army. I spent a year in the Army and a year with the Judge and I came to Birmingham in the fall of 1954, probably August 1954, with the law firm of White, Berry, Layman, Arant and Rose, now Bradley, Arant, Rose & ; White. HUNTLEY: So you were actually back in Birmingham during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. VANN: Oh, yes. HUNTLEY: Did you have any dealings with any one that was associated with the bus boycott? VANN: Not at that time. Justice Black' ; s sister-in-law, Mrs. Clifford Durr, I knew her. Later, I became... And I knew--but I didn' ; t know anything about what he was doing--Robert Hughes, a young Methodist minister that Bishop Clare Purcell had appointed, had given a special appointment to the Alabama Council on Human Relations. He and I had been students at the university at the same time and had gone to work through the Wesley Foundation Program at the university. He went to seminary and I went to law school. He came to Birmingham shortly after the bus boycott and contacted me, and for several years I worked very closely with Bob. I couldn' ; t do probate legal work and he knew that. But, I ended up on the Board of the Alabama Council [on Human Relations] and spent many weekends meeting at Alabama State [University]. Dr. McMillian of Tuskegee [University] was on our board and a delightful, wonderful man. Joe Lowery was on our board. He had a Methodist church at that time in Mobile. He had earlier been the pastor at St. Paul' ; s in Birmingham, I think. He wasn' ; t as active. Reverend Wilson is a minister at St. Paul' ; s. I spent many hours with him. He later was the chaplain at Tuskeegee. HUNTLEY: What board was this? VANN: The Board of The Alabama Council on Human Relations. When the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People] was outlawed, we became virtually the only bi-racial group in Alabama. Arthur Shores, John and Deenie Drew-- I knew them well. HUNTLEY: Was this one of the organizations that sort of filled the void left by the NAACP? VANN: No. I don' ; t look at it in that manner. I think Reverend Shuttlesworth' ; s Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights more nearly filled...and of course, the NAACP legal research continued to work with that group. We mainly were communicators. We met and we puzzled. I would say in 1959 and 1960, by that time, we had somewhat concluded that it was going to be very difficult to make social change in Alabama until you got the power structure to take that as a program. I worked with... HUNTLEY: The business or the political side? VANN: The business side. You know, the political side simply reflects things. Very little is created in the political side, I think. First, I worked with, I can' ; t remember the minister' ; s name right now. He' ; s in Brooklyn now I think, but...Oliver, Reverend Oliver. There was a project that I worked with him on. Every time there was a police brutality incident that he heard about, he would go and take affidavits from the people that were involved, and I would reproduce those. We had a mailing list. We would send about fifty top business people in Birmingham copies of the affidavits every time we had one. The thinking was that people that lived in Mountain Brook and over-the-mountain would come to work and go home and they really didn' ; t know much about segregation. They didn' ; t know what was going on in this city and we wanted to make sure they knew what was going on. What effect that had, I do not know. I think the critical, the most critical thing that happened, that turned things around, was the Freedom Riders coming to Birmingham. The bus being burned in Anniston, the other bus coming on to Birmingham, Conner refusing to give police protection to the Freedom Riders. His minister, who is still living, I think was at City Hall personally pleading with Conner to provide police protection. Conner said, ' ; They' ; re looking for trouble. They' ; re going to find it.' ; When I was Mayor, I checked the radio tapes and there was a good five minutes between the time the first report [of violence against the Freedom Riders] came in on the police radio and the time any policemen appeared at the scene. Probably, things had been going on for five or so minutes before that. But you had this group of thugs meet that bus and beat up the people that got off the bus and they also beat up people that were simply waiting for a bus. People who had nothing to do with the Freedom Riders got beaten up just because they happened to be at the bus station. For some reason, the national news people thought that the bus was coming to the Greyhound Station. Instead it came to the Trailways Station and Tom Langford, who is still a photographer at the Birmingham Post Herald, took the pictures of the beating. One of the smarter Klansmen grabbed at his camera and he knew about cameras. It' ; s the lens that makes the picture, so he broke the lens and threw away the camera, and, of course, the pictures were all inside, undisturbed by his actions. The camera was recovered from a trash can, I think, in the alley, and the Post Herald was a Scripps-Howard paper and they immediately put that on the wire and it was on the front page of newspapers all around the world. The City had been very defensive when other people came in and criticized us, whether it be Harrison Salisbury or CBS News or any writers that came through. But, this time, their own people were beaten up. Clancy Lake, newsman from WAPI television, was beaten up. I think they broke the windshield in his car. He was parked outside. And that picture I saw around the world. At that particular time, they were having an international Rotary convention in Tokyo, Japan and the incoming chairman of the Chamber of Commerce, Sydney Smyer, was there with a group and they looked at that picture and they said, you know, ' ; We can' ; t take this anymore.' ; So Conner' ; s action really stimulated the business community to start to figure out how can we get rid of this guy. They came back and they formed a committee, a secret committee and called themselves the Senior Citizens. It was made up of top CEO' ; s from Birmingham businesses, partners from big law firms. One of our partners was a member, but not active. [There were] bankers. They started planning and one thing they saw was that if they could change the form of city government, that might be a way to get through to Conner. They asked the Birmingham Bar Association to make a study of what kind of government would be best for Birmingham. They were pushed on somewhat in that in the Fall of 1961 the federal judge, Judge Grooms, entered the order requiring the desegregation of Birmingham parks. The commission immediately said, ' ; Close the parks,' ; and they sent a message to the Birmingham Park Board to close the parks. Former Mayor Jimmy Morgan had been appointed to the park board and he didn' ; t get on the park board to close the parks. He got on the park board to build a zoo. The park board defied the commission, which had appointed them, and that was one of the most interesting things that happened. It was very rare for a city agency to stand up and just face down the commission, but the commission had a handle. The Alabama law required them to appropriate fifty thousand dollars ($50,000) a year to the parks--and that' ; s an old law, when fifty thousand dollars was a lot more money. But the rest of their money was budgeted by the city, and, so, when the park board wouldn' ; t close the parks, they repealed the budget of the park board and forced them to fire all of their employees. I' ; m told that they had concrete poured down the holes of the city golf courses so that nobody could sneak on and play a round of golf. The Birmingham Bar Association made the study and in February 1962 they recommended a change to a Mayor/Council government. They also recommended about three or four amendments to the law [so] that, if you followed their plan you couldn' ; t have had a changing city government for two or three years probably. I, frankly, thought that you couldn' ; t get it. The legislature wasn' ; t going to make changes if they were choosing sides, because Alabama politics for many years is run on what I call ' ; the law of the enemies' ; . If you don' ; t make any enemies, you can get re-elected. If you make enemies, you can' ; t get re-elected and, so, the less a public official does, the less people he makes mad. I know they say that one Birmingham legislator served five terms and never introduced a bill, left the floor at every controversial vote and got re-elected five times because he didn' ; t make anybody mad. He didn' ; t do anything to make anybody mad. He didn' ; t do anything to make anybody proud of him either, but that' ; s beside the point. HUNTLEY: Let me ask you a question about when you talk about the Freedom Riders coming in and, of course, they were attacked. In the Black communities there was the idea that the police and the Klan were one and the same. How would you react to that? VANN: Well, I don' ; t think they were one and the same, but I' ; ll say this: If I went to a meeting at the Congregational Church on Center Street, which was a place where the Alabama Council meetings were frequently held, there might be a story in the Klan newspaper next week saying David Vann was out there, and I really think there were probably informers that informed for the police department and for the FBI [Federal Bureau of Investigation]. At the same time, in fact-- [In] the famous picture of the beating, there' ; s a guy with a very close cut hair. His back is to the camera. His name was Gary. Anyway, when I was mayor, Bill Baxley and I worked in support of each other to get the Justice Department to open the files on the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and the FBI had lost all of the physical evidence. There were some Birmingham police officers that really would love to be the one that broke the case. If that Birmingham police [officer] could solve the case, that would be a great cop. And so, they worked with them. But I got to read... The Justice Department had refused to give Birmingham that evidence for years and refused to give the district attorney that evidence for years and I supposed they thought they wouldn' ; t prosecute. That might have been true if they had given it to them in 1962. But, Bill Baxley, that was the thing he wanted to do. He had promised Chris McNair he would do that and Chris' ; daughter, as you know was killed--[was] one of the four children that were killed. HUNTLEY: This is in the seventies [1970s] that you are referring to now? VANN: Yes. But, Carter' ; s Justice Department did give us files and there was an interview with this guy whose picture is in there. It was a closed meeting of a congressional committee, so it was never published. But they asked him, ' ; Is that you in the picture?' ; And he said, ' ; Yes.' ; They said, ' ; Well, why have you always denied it?' ; And he said, ' ; The FBI told me to. The FBI said if I was asked is that you--I was given a name, and I was always supposed to say, ' ; no, that' ; s William Jones' ; or whatever the name was.' ; You see, he was supposed to positively identify by another name. Of course, that case was eventually broken because the niece testified. Howell Raines, in an article in the New York Times Magazine, said that one reason that he wasn' ; t prosecuted was that the man' ; s wife was an FBI informant and they were afraid that if he ever learned that, he' ; d murder her. And, to protect their source, there was no prosecution for over ten years. HUNTLEY: Because you were active in those early years, in the fifties [1950s] and sixties [1960s] with the Council [on Human Relations], when you were called on by the businessmen to sort of interact with-- VANN: No, that really had little to do with it. The thing that gave me an unusual position was I probably knew... There really weren' ; t but three or four White people that knew as many Black leaders as I did and had a personal relationship with them. But, the way I really got involved in the whole thing was, I was the organizer for Kennedy in the 1960 campaign. John Greenah and I were in the same law firm and he asked to be given some time to campaign for Goldwater, I mean for Nixon. And, I said, if you' ; re going to do that, let me campaign for Kennedy. And the law firm, being a great institution, freed both of us to work in that presidential campaign. And they made me the organization chairman and I organized a committee in every box in the county and when the election was over, Bob Vance, who later was a federal judge and was assassinated by the bombing, mail bomb, he and I and several young people, the official party had refused to support Kennedy. And not pass resolutions, they were just hands off. And so, a group of young guys managed to take over the campaign and the governor, Governor Patterson was a strong Kennedy supporter. And so, we had the governor' ; s office and we had John Sparkman, George Huddleston, they supported Kennedy, but originally no state official wanted to do it. They would all scat. Don' ; t make enemies. That rule of don' ; t make enemies. Well, Allison was one of the attorneys in the Alabama reapportionment case and I was aware of the Bar Association study but at that particular time, we were in court trying to get the first reapportionment order in the country, which we did in June. Bob Vance and I intervened and asked the court to delay a decision to give the legislature of Alabama one more chance. Patterson did call a special session and they did pass two reapportionment bills. And, they set up a special election in August to elect the new...they had increased the Senate to 67 so there were going to be a lot of new senators elected and they had made some rather conservative changes in the members of the House. But, I think this county was going to get two more representatives or something. We got the federal court to hold those plans were unconstitutional. And, we had this special election in August, but the legislature had already called it. The court didn' ; t have to call an election because the election was already called by the legislature. I was busy promoting that. We had worked hard to get that order. We were very proud to have the first reapportionment order in the United States and we wanted good people to be elected. We had had a committee persuade what we called good people to run and I was trying to promote the vote. I' ; m riding down the road and Dave Campbell, who had a talk show in those days, came on with his morning editorial to try to stir up interest for his night program and Abe Berkowitz had been on the Bar Association committee and he had been making the rounds of civic clubs talking about changing the city government and Dave said, ' ; Well, we ought to get up a petition and have an election on it, or we ought to get behind the government we got. It' ; s not good for a city to be split.' ; And, I said, " ; He can sit up on the mountain and pontificate easily, but get a petition.' ; Glen Iris Civic Club on the southside had tried to get a petition and Mr. Conner had just sent plain clothes detectives around to pick up petitions as fast as they were signed. But I got to my office and said, ' ; You know, if I had me a petition booth across the street from every polling place, 10 days from now, when this special election was going to happen, I believe I can get up a petition in a single day.' ; We could have voting lists that are published in the newspaper. We could check people off, make sure the signatures were valid and we could send somebody around to pick-up petitions once an hour so if Conner tried to get some of them we' ; d have most of them because we would have a security system of our own. And, I called up Abe [Berkowitz] and I said, ' ; Abe, you really want to change the city government? I have figured out how to do it.' ; And, I told him briefly what my plan was. He called me back and said the Executive Committee at the Chamber of Commerce would like to meet with me at 2:00 that afternoon. I said, ' ; Well, I' ; ll be glad to meet with them, but I want to bring the president of the Birmingham Labor Council with me.' ; [He said], ' ; Oh, businessmen and labor don' ; t talk together.' ; [I said], ' ; Look, this is a big decision. If you are going to do this and win it, you' ; ve got to have both business and labor for it and I believe I can bring the labor unions with me.' ; And, I had known Don Stafford very well from the Kennedy election campaign and I called Don and he said yes he would come. So, we had this meeting in Mr. Smyer' ; s office and I outlined my simple plan. Some of the businessmen said, ' ; This is too important a thing to do in ten days notice. It needs to be planned carefully.' ; My labor man said, ' ; I been sitting here thinking, yea, why hadn' ; t we thought of this before? Let' ; s go.' ; I always think my labor man talked the businessmen into doing it. And they said we needed to get ten to twelve leading citizens that are non-controversial to head this up. I made a list of about 25 businessmen they thought fit that criteria. Some of them may have been other than businessmen but most of them were businessmen and we said we would meet the next day. Well, we came back the next day. All 25 had turned us down. They said, ' ; We' ; ll donate money, but I do business with the city. I sell cars to the city. I have insurance with the city. I have all these things... ' ; And old Smyer, he had been a Dixiecrat politician. Members of the legislature knew government on its practical side and he leaned back and I' ; ll never forget what he said. [He said], ' ; If we can' ; t get twelve silk stockings, let' ; s get 500 anybodies' ; His son and I went to law school together and went back mimeographed off this thing and it said, ' ; I hereby agree to be a member of the Birmingham Citizens for Progress. To sponsor a petition to give the people of Birmingham the right to decide for themselves what form of government is best for their city.' ; You could sign that without making any particular commitment. We mimeographed these off and gave everybody a stack of them, because we didn' ; t have Xerox. We had to run them off on a mimeograph machine. But, I then said, ' ; You know, you can talk to 25 businessmen and not get it into the paper, but you can' ; t go out recruiting 500 people without it getting in the paper. I want your permission to go to the papers, tell them what we are doing, but get them to agree that it' ; s not news until we get our committee.' ; I met with some of the editorial staff of the Birmingham News and they agreed that until we know whether you can get your committee, it' ; s not news. I went to the editor of the Post Herald, Jimmy Mills, and he gave me the same commitment. That was a Thursday. Friday nothing in the papers. Saturday nothing in the papers. Sunday the whole edition, which I can' ; t even find a copy of-- VANN: So the Birmingham News had this, I believe a front-page story to my recollection. I can' ; t find a copy of it. HUNTLEY: Sunday morning? VANN: Sunday morning. The official copy in the library has a story on an inside page. But only one-- You know, the Birmingham News, in those days, printed about six or seven different editions and I can' ; t find this one. Maybe there' ; s somebody out there...and it' ; ll turn up, so you can write. Anyway, it had my picture on the front page. [The headline read], ' ; Hugo Black' ; s law clerk when the Court wrote the school desegregation case, trying to run Bull Conner out of City Hall.' ; And, I said, ' ; You know, they' ; ve got the knife in my back and they' ; re twisting it." ; There was a telephone call and I said, ' ; Oh, here come the phone calls.' ; Well, the phone call was from one of the Republican committee people from Roebuck. He said, ' ; That' ; s a great idea. Can we help?' ; And so, all of a sudden, without any prior planning, we had the Kennedy for President people, the Nixon for President people, the labor unions and the Chamber of Commerce and the real estate board and the PTA Council. HUNTLEY: And the Republicans? VANN: Well, we had the Nixon for President people. In those days, the Republicans were a right tight knit group and their main objective was to control the patronage when they got a Republican president. They really were not very keen on letting all these strangers that just formed committees come in. So, in a sense, the Republicans at that point in time were outsiders just like our Democratic committee were outsiders to the official committee. But I had studied the election returns of the May primary and it was very interesting because for the first time that I could recall, the Black boxes and the southside boxes and the over-the-mountain boxes all voted against George Wallace together. George Wallace was unable to carry Jefferson County. And I said, ' ; If we can put those forces together--the liberal Democrats, the Republicans and the Black vote--we can win.' ; And I had that pretty well fixed. Sure enough, ten days later we put out our petition. Smyer had improved the plan a little bit. He said he' ; d print the petitions. But he printed them with snap out carbons so when you signed one you actually signed five copies. And, we needed 7,500 names. We got 12,000 in one day. Almost 12,000. I' ; m not sure anybody ever knows the full number, but... So we came from out of the blue. In one day, we had enough votes. There were almost enough votes to win the election signing the petitions. HUNTLEY: People were really excited about the possibilities then? VANN: Yeah, and we didn' ; t put petitions in the Black boxes. We wanted to stay as far away from the racial problems as we could. [Takes a drink of water.] But the Klan people came and beat up one of our labor people out at Harrison Park. They beat him up early in the day, so we got his pictures on the final edition of the Birmingham News, blood running down his face. [It was] Lloyd Davis. I' ; ll probably see him tomorrow. They sabotaged us. They had people volunteer to run booths and then not show up. We had to hire Kelly Girls. Some of the booths weren' ; t really open all day. We' ; d probably have done better if we... if they hadn' ; t done that. But that' ; s one of the tricks of politics. I then called the Mayor. I had met with him several times in that week beforehand because he had run an ad. Art Hanes had run an ad when he ran for mayor supporting a change to Mayor/Council government. I told him, ' ; We got over 11,000 names and we are going to hold a press conference for about 30 minutes and you' ; ve got really three choices. You can support us and you may be mayor of this city for the next fifty years. You can oppose us and I think that' ; s a bad political position for you to take. And, if you can' ; t take either of those, say, ' ; I' ; ll call an election and let the people decide. This is a question for the people to decide.' ; Well, the morning paper came out. [The headline read], ' ; Mayor says he' ; ll call the election and let the people decide.' ; I understand that Bull Conner earned his name that morning. He came down the hall with flames virtually spouting from his nose ' ; cause his office was in the north end of the building and the mayor was in the south end. And when the Birmingham News came out with ' ; The Mayor refuses to call the election,' ; he said he had discovered that David Vann was a communist and he didn' ; t call elections for communists. But the law provided if the mayor refused to call the election, the probate judge should call the election. It just happened that the probate judge had been in the legislature and had been one of the sponsors of the Mayor/Council Act. One of the things they did, they started attacking us because some petitions you file in the courthouse you have to pay, I think it was ten cents a name or a dollar a name. I think it was ten cents a name, and we were getting our petition free. I said, ' ; I' ; ll deposit the money,' ; and I literally raised that money walking from Second Avenue to the courthouse. People stopped me, gave me $20 bills, $10 bills and by the time I got to the courthouse, I had $750, which is what I needed. I went in to see Judge Mead, and said, ' ; Here, I brought my $750.' ; ' ; Well, the law doesn' ; t require you to.' ; [I said], ' ; Judge, I brought $750 I want to deposit with you to cover the checking of the petition.' ; And he said, ' ; Alright,' ; took it and gave me a receipt. After the election was over, he called me up and said, ' ; Are you ready to get your money back?' ; And he returned the $750 after we had won the election. HUNTLEY: How were you pictured then? Were you ever under attack as a result of the role that you played? VANN: Oh yes. People threatened to kill me. There were a lot of people making trouble for the law firm. I really had to resign from the law firm. They were very fair to me. In fact, they paid me my salary for a year after that. HUNTLEY: You had to resign from the firm? VANN: I resigned from the firm. You see, we won that election in November of 1962. The same day George Wallace was first elected governor of Alabama, the people of Birmingham voted to take me to course. And, then, I was one of a group that went to Boutwell and asked him to run. He was an outgoing Lieutenant Governor, a member of my church and a very good man. He was just part of the culture that we had and he had sponsored an amendment to the constitution to have freedom of choice on schools. But, he agreed, we had to change. And Tom King ran. Tom had run the year before. In fact, the Freedom Rider thing happened in the middle of the mayor' ; s race in 1961. And, although Tom had led the first heat, he came in second in the runoff and Hanes was elected. HUNTLEY: At this same time... VANN: Tom ran and then Conner. I ran around like a big.... We had eight speakers and I was one of them. We ran around with charts, running like a civics class, talking about here' ; s this form of government, here' ; s how it works and here' ; s this form. In the commission government there are no checks and balances. The same people who pass the taxes spend the money. Over here, you' ; ve got a council and a mayor and the council passes the laws and the mayor administers the laws. HUNTLEY: Did you go to any Black communities during that time? VANN: Look, I stayed away. I didn' ; t even dare call a Black person on the telephone, because I was sure my telephone was tapped. HUNTLEY: So then, these eight individuals never really went out to Black communities to get any... VANN: As a matter of fact, we were trying to stay as far .... That' ; s what Conner wanted to do... For instance, the first thing I did after it was clear that we were going to have a thing and I was in charge of running the campaign, I sent an ad man to both television stations to buy television time. I wanted a half-hour of television the night before the election. Both stations refused to sell me television time. They said change in the city government is not a matter of sufficient public importance to justify the opening of television time. And yet, about a week later, they both decided it was important enough for them to do a documentary. Well, the election had to be a three-way election. Mayor/Council, Commission or City Manager with a run off between the top two. And the Commission' ; s ace in the hole was to get enough people to vote for the Manager government to have a run off. And, that was our worst enemy. There was nobody in town campaigning for the City Manager [form of government]. Both television stations hired a political science professor, one from Montevallo and the other from the University of Alabama to come in to talk for ten minutes on how great the City Manager government was. At that time, most political science people thought the City Manager government was the best form of government and it is a good form of government for smaller cities, but in large cities it never really worked that well. HUNTLEY: What was their motivation in having people come and talk about the City Manager form of government? VANN: Well, I think-- I don' ; t know, but I know I didn' ; t like it because I wanted to win without a runoff and if enough people voted City Manager that would force a run off and in those days in politics for the run off you ran ads in the paper showing half of the Black people had voted at Legion Field and the Black people had voted at the Municipal Auditorium and scare all the White folks and you win the election. It was the opposite of the bloody shirt in Ohio, but it was a bloody shirt. I was.... and most people thought that if we had to have a run off, we' ; d lose. So...but it turned out that we won without a run off by about two votes in each box. If two people had voted the other way in each box in Birmingham, we would have lost. It was nip and tuck. And, then Conner.... When I' ; d go out speaking, I' ; d say, ' ; If you like Mr. Conner, elect him mayor, but we need a new form of government." ; He would, of course, say, ' ; No, I' ; ll never run for mayor. I' ; ll never run for mayor.' ; Of course, he immediately did run for mayor and there was a run off. But the run off didn' ; t help them because the Black voters had voted for Tom King. Boutwell had a few Black votes but not a lot. Conner had none. So when they were in the run off together, they were unable to use the traditional bloody shirt politics to beat Boutwell, and Boutwell ended up winning very handily in the run off. HUNTLEY: At the same time that this was going on, something else is taking place of significance in Birmingham. VANN: I think the SCLC was having a national meeting here. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. VANN: They didn' ; t want to interfere with what we were doing. They thought voting Conner out was a pretty good thing. Business people were having meetings. I had one meeting they invited me to at The Church of the Advent and that' ; s the first time I met Shuttlesworth. Shuttlesworth came in to the room and said, ' ; Oh, that' ; s David Vann. I' ; ve been wanting to meet him,' ; because he had read about me in the newspaper. They nearly had some things put together, but Conner' ; s group sent word from City Hall that if you take those signs down you' ; re going to jail and we will run a picture in the paper of Mr. Pizitz himself behind bars in the city jail. HUNTLEY: Colored and White signs? VANN: They were talking about taking down the Colored and White signs, yes. It was really pretty obvious that to make any rational resolution of our problem, Conner had to go. Remarkably, I know I had people that were my friends in the business community call me and say, ' ; David, you know you can' ; t win this thing. Please be ready to protect...be careful what you say.' ; HUNTLEY: How did you view SCLC coming in to town at the time? VANN: Really I was so busy doing what I was doing, I didn' ; t worry about it. Now, Smyer and his committee did worry about it. They met with some of them, I think and they sort of talked it out and decided not to... that they would be careful not to try to interfere with the political... You know, Black people got tired of being kicked around by politics, I' ; m sure. HUNTLEY: There were efforts by the Movement to have meetings with this, I don' ; t know if it was the Senior Citizens at that time.. VANN: Yes they did. There were some meetings. HUNTLEY: In the initial stages though, was it true that the businessmen refused to meet with Shuttlesworth? VANN: Yeah, I think they refused. Shuttlesworth was a firebrand and he no longer lived in Birmingham. He lived in Cincinnati and that sort of gave him .... They said, ' ; We' ; ll talk with the local leaders, but we can' ; t talk with you. You' ; re from Cincinnati.' ; But I know I came to one meeting with the businessmen and Shuttlesworth was present there. Fred was always eager to stir things up, and I' ; ve told him, I said, ' ; Birmingham thought you were a trap.' ; HUNTLEY: He was always eager to do what? To stir something up? VANN: To get something in the paper. HUNTLEY: Okay. VANN: We always said that he could call Bull Conner and say, ' ; Bull, I' ; m going to get on the bus at Second Avenue and 19th Street at 2:00 this afternoon' ; and Conner would come arrest him. There' ; s a newspaper story. It made Shuttlesworth a hero with his followers. It made Conner a hero with his followers. What' ; s a poor city going to do when it' ; s trapped in that kind of thing? So-- But, anyway, Barney Monahan was the president of Vulcan Materials. I know he headed up a group and they actually had some near agreement on some things and I' ; ve heard that said that they backed out. They agreed to do it and then backed out. But, they backed out because the city government threatened to use all the force it had to prevent it from happening and to arrest the businessmen. After we won the election, Conner refused... Conner and his group refused to leave office. The city commission had actually announced a week or so before the new government was sworn in that they weren' ; t going to leave office, and that gave King' ; s people a chance to.... I remember I was on a program with Wyatt T. Walker, and he said, ' ; We talked about it, and there was a lot of pressure on us to wait and let the new government have a chance to deal with this thing.' ; The President and the Attorney General, a committee of Black ministers... I heard that Andrew Young said, ' ; Why do you want to go to Birmingham? Even the Black preachers don' ; t want you to come to Birmingham.' ; And, of course, there was a problem. The Black political people had worked their fingers to the bone to change the city government, to elect a new government and I sat in on some of Boutwell' ; s meetings with them and Boutwell had made some pretty surprising, to me, commitments to them. HUNTLEY: Like what, for instance? VANN: About Black police officers and other things. I don' ; t remember the details. But, they felt they had chips on the table and that King was going to come in here and pick up their chips and claim credit for them. Some of them felt that way, I think. HUNTLEY: Who were these leaders that you met with? VANN: I' ; m talking about the Black political leaders. HUNTLEY: The political leaders here in town? VANN: Yes, the ones that had worked so hard to win the election. Here is somebody coming from out of town, to claim credit for what we' ; ve accomplished. You know, if you work on something real hard, you feel like you got an investment in it. And, actually, until the children started marching, the Black community was really split. I remember I was talking to a Black businessman. I think it was the editor of The Birmingham World. Dr. Gaston said, talking to him, and I probably talked to both of them, is the truth of the matter. But, I can remember, I think the editor of The Birmingham World, I was talking to him and he was very anti-King. HUNTLEY: Emory Jackson? VANN: Emory Jackson. He said, ' ; You know, they said they don' ; t get paid anything. Oh, yes, an expense account.' ; I says, ' ; Over at the motel.' ; [He said' ; ' ; Ooh, I' ; ll swap my salary for that expense account any day.' ; Statements like that. But then he said, ' ; Lawyer Vann, I' ; m looking out my window.' ; He said, ' ; They' ; ve turned fire hoses on children. They' ; re rolling a little girl down the middle of the street. I can' ; t talk to you no more.' ; And the minute Bull thought about getting the dogs and hoses he stopped [the split in the Black community]. Actually, strategically, that was the worst thing [Conner] could have done. In an instant, if there was any dissent in the Black community, it disappeared. Instantly, everybody was behind it. And, the interesting thing is, you know, the Sheriff over in Albany, Georgia had pretty well defeated King. When King got himself arrested because he thought he wanted to be in jail and talk from the jail, the Sheriff put up his bond and wouldn' ; t let him stay in jail. HUNTLEY: In Albany? VANN: In Albany, yes. When they arrested people, they sent them to jails in other towns and the strategy was to fill our jails and Conner just cooperated with it. Wyatt T. Walker says, ' ; This will be our last chance to march against Bull Conner,' ; and they knew him so well. They knew how he would react. I always tell people the hoses and the dogs, that was Bull Conner' ; s show. That was not our show. Conner did not speak for Birmingham at that point. He had been rejected by the voters three times in the previous six months. The Circuit Court of Jefferson County held that he was no longer legally an official of the city and he was there only by virtue of an appeal pending in the Alabama Supreme Court. HUNTLEY: Wyatt Walker obviously would suggest that Bull Conner was the best thing that ever happened .... VANN: Oh sure. Well, if you go back, the thing that really persuaded the business community that Birmingham had to change, they had to find a way, using all the skills and pressure and power they had to make change was because of what Bull Conner did with respect to the Freedom Riders. It' ; s interesting. Back in the ' ; 20s we had the largest Ku Klux Klan in Birmingham of any place in the United States. But the Birmingham business community did not support the Klan. The newspapers did not support the Klan. And, by 1932, the Klan was pretty well dead in this county. HUNTLEY: How did the Klan get to be so important? Because, at that time it was basically a fact that a person who was running for office, if they were not a supporter of the Klan, they couldn' ; t get elected. Is that true in the 1920s? VANN: I' ; m told that. And I asked Justice Black about joining the Klan. He said, ' ; Well, I joined every organization that had members of the jury. I tried jury cases.' ; And, I think that' ; s probably true. You know, they changed the form of city government in 1911 from a Mayor/Council to a Commission and the officials weren' ; t elected. They were all appointed by the governor. The first act of the new city commission was to appoint Hugo L. Black to be Recorder' ; s Court Judge of the City of Birmingham. And I' ; m told that he refused to put Black people in jail for gambling until they started arresting the White people at the country club for gambling. He said, ' ; It' ; s not right to treat one one way and the other another.' ; The only case he ever took to the U.S. Supreme Court was the Lewis case. Lewis was a Black convict leased to a mining company and an accident broke his back or some serious injury. Black represented him and got a judgment against the mining company. The mining company filed bankruptcy to avoid paying the Black man his money. Black took it to court and he lost. He lost in the Alabama Supreme Court. But, he took his case to the... informal pauperous to the United States Supreme Court. He personally took it. He got on the train and personally took his papers. And, when he got to the Supreme Court, at that time the Supreme Court actually didn' ; t have a building. It had a... it heard its cases on the first floor of the Capitol Building. If you go there today, they' ; ll show you the old Supreme Court building. The Justices had their offices at home, but there was a clerk' ; s office and the clerk refused to accept the Judge' ; s petition for [certiary]. And, the Judge said, ' ; Well, it' ; s in the rules. A pauper can bring his case.' ; He [the clerk] said, ' ; Well, yeah, but we don' ; t take those. If we ever started taking informal pauperous cases we' ; d be flooded.' ; And Black said, ' ; Well, I want to speak to Justice Samford,' ; who was the Judge assigned to the Fifth Circuit. He said, ' ; You mean, Justice, that it says here in the rules I can file this paper but the marshall, the clerk, will not accept it? He says it' ; s the policy not to accept informal pauperous cases.' ; Justice Samford called the clerk in and ordered him to allow Hugo Black to file his case. And he won his case. Reversed it and Lewis got his money. But I think those things...I really take him at his word when he says, ' ; I joined every organization,' ; because, frankly, I don' ; t think he would have been elected Senator without support of the Klan. HUNTLEY: So the Klan was in fact very powerful? VANN: Very powerful. But, between the [19]26 election and the 1932 election, the Klan had virtually disappeared from Alabama politics. HUNTLEY: If they were not supported by politicians nor by the businessmen, who supported them? VANN: Well, they made... You know, a lot of time people get to be too big for their britches. They would go into churches and make donations and make a to-do of it. Yeah, I don' ; t think the politicians supported the Klan. I think you look at the democratic government again. The strength of the democratic government is also the weakness that the public is somewhat fickle. It can change its mind quickly from one year to the next. That' ; s why we have a Bill of Rights---to protect people against those changes. The government, there are simply some things they just can' ; t do to protect the individual freedom. And that' ; s what the 14th Amendment ultimately did to protect the Black people of this country. But it took it 100 years, because in 1901 there was enough racial prejudice on the Supreme Court itself. You know the Supreme Court owed it to correct that mistake because it made the mistake. If you look back in some of the history like C. Vann. Woodward' ; s books on that period, [you' ; ll learn that] immediately prior to 1901, the Populist Party was a bi-racial party. It had Black candidates and White candidates. But the minute they took the vote away from the Blacks, the Populist Party virtually became the party of the Klan, because that' ; s where their support was. A lot of people think Cobb was elected governor of Alabama on the Populist ticket and it was stolen from him. Of course, Black came from Clay County, which was a heavy Populist area. And Populism left an imprint on our mantel that practically every successful office holder for many years was basically a Populist. As a Populist, he could be liberal or he could be conservative, depending on what the issue was. And, people look to this people to be very different. But really, Lister Hill, John Sparkman, George Wallace, Hugo Black, Bibb Graves, they all came out of the same basic political ideology. Some stressed one thing. Some stressed another. Of course, ultimately, George Wallace met with the Black leaders and said, ' ; Look, I did the wrong thing. I made a mistake. I shouldn' ; t have done it.' ; Being good Christians, the Black voters accepted his apology and forgave him when we had a chance to get a bright, young, new-- Lo and behold, Wallace, the smart politician, figured how to get a large part of the Black vote and overcome McMillan. HUNTLEY: David, throughout the history of the Black people in this country, there seem to be instances where seemingly what was good for Black people, was not good for the country and vice versa. Let me just ask you, what in fact would have happened in Birmingham if Bull Conner had not done what he did? VANN: Well, let me say that at the time I sincerely believed that we had pulled off a political miracle, that we had proved that the democratic structure can successfully make changes. And, of course, I had won a victory. You know, people used to say, ' ; There' ; s no way you can beat Bull Conner,' ; but we did. Partly, he beat himself. He did a lot of ridiculous things. HUNTLEY: The point I' ; m raising is, what would that have done for race relations in this city? Would they have been any different? Would there be changes made? VANN: Well, I think-- Let me say this: I think that that election had strange results. I think we had a decade of Black and White working together in unprecedented ways. In fact, the city was recognized as an all-American city because of the level of cooperation. One of the first things the city council did when it took power in July of 1963 was it repealed every segregation law on the books in the City of Birmingham in one sitting. And, that was essential because we had made agreements, unsigned. You know, I see a lot of historical things. This was signed on such an such date. The racial settlement of 1963 was never signed by anybody. It was announced by Smyer and by King. It required the desegregation of lunch counters and the removal of the racial signs from elevators and restaurants and drinking fountains and all those things. It required the beginning of an employment program to hire Black clerks in downtown stores. All of those things were illegal under the laws of the City of Birmingham, and Bull Conner had hired every policeman. The new government had a police department, all of whom were hired by Bull Conner. It was essential that before we began we had a sixty-day cooling off period. When that sixty days was over and the time came when we had to start actually doing those things, we didn' ; t have those laws off those books or it' ; s hard to blame a policeman for not enforcing the law that' ; s on the books. We had to get those off. And the new mayor/council had the guts to do it. We created about eleven bi-racial committees on every subject you could imagine--on taxation, recreation, schools. I think we called our school committee the Committee to Support the School Board, and Conner had appointed all members of the school board. The law firm that represented him represented the school board. So, we had to go into the desegregation of schools. I' ; ll say Reed Barnes that was a lawyer from that firm...no lawyer ever performed a professional service any better than Reed Barnes. A lot of people are unaware of it. There was never a hearing on school desegregation in Birmingham. It was done by agreement from the very first day. Until this day there has never been a hearing, I don' ; t think, because the NAACP lawyers and the lawyers from the school board have been able to work out the various steps along the way. The first desegregation was in September of 1963 and the new government hadn' ; t been in office but two months and handled the most emotional thing.... HUNTLEY: But there were also marches even after the new government was in.... VANN: Yes, yes there were. HUNTLEY: So there are different interpretations of what the agreements were. VANN: Yes, oh yes. As a matter of fact, some of the ACHMR [Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights] people tried to start them over again about ten days afterward. They put up handbills in the schools. I called Andrew Young and I said, ' ; These break our agreement.' ; Andy got on an airplane, came over, sat down. He looked at them. He said, ' ; You' ; re right. It breaks the agreement.' ; He gets on the phone and calls Dr. King. He says, ' ; This is wrong. We agreed to do something and now they' ; re...people are not going to honor the agreement.' ; King himself came. [He] got here about 2:00 in the afternoon that day and they got a group of the high school leaders over at the Gaston Motel. I was not there, but I saw it on television. King said to them, he said, ' ; Look, we made this progress to open the doors of opportunity to you and I want you to go back to school, learn your lessons, prepare yourself for the opportunities that lay ahead of you.' ; Well, they weren' ; t too enthusiastic. That sounded good, but they were young people and they thought marching was sort of fun. If you look at the pictures of the hosing, there are Black kids dancing in the hosing. It' ; s obviously.... you' ; re not going to have any standing among your peers unless you get arrested. HUNTLEY: There are also disagreements between Smyers and Shuttlesworth in terms of how they interpreted the agreements. Smyer says that one person.... VANN: Oh, yes. Oh yes. Yes. Fred-- Fred-- Fred did not want it to stop. HUNTLEY: But by the same token, Fred was raising a very serious question. He said, ' ; This is what the agreement says, but--' ; The disagreement was over how many people, how many Blacks would be hired in stores. Smyer had suggested that one person would be hired in one store. Fred was saying that the agreement was to have at least one person in every store. VANN: Look, there' ; s no doubt. As they say, the agreement was never signed. It was read by both. If you look at what King said, we would start a program of employment and we would start with at least three clerks in downtown stores. I' ; ll be honest with you. I had a commitment from five stores to put on a Black clerk. But I said when push comes to shove and they start breaking the windows of the stores, some of those folks are going to back out. And, so, I only gave three. I promised three. Dr. King knew that. Now Shuttlesworth wasn' ; t there, but I understand he had a press conference in New York. So he says, ' ; You mean you settled for three?' ; Well, I meant three in every store.' ; Well, once Fred commits himself to something, he is going to follow it down the line and he did. But King came back and stopped him. And, the children did not march again. They took King at his word. I' ; ve always thought that it was very important that the last speech that King made in Birmingham as a part of this episode in his life was a speech to the school children in Birmingham saying, ' ; We are opening opportunities for you. You need to apply yourself. You need to get ready, because you' ; re going to have better opportunities than any of the people of our race that preceded you.' ; I say I saw that on television. As to whether that tape exists any more, I do not know. HUNTLEY: Obviously those were some very turbulent days and there was a period, a turning point, in the history of Birmingham. VANN: I think it was a turning point in the history of America. A group of businessmen went and met with Kennedy. They had a fifteen minute appointment. He kept them two and a half hours. And, I believe up until that day, the Kennedys thought this was too hot an issue to raise until after the next election. But when he saw that Birmingham had made a voluntary agreement between its business community and its Black community, and had the guts to carry it out, and it wasn' ; t easy. Parisian' ; s had every piece of glass in Parisian' ; s stores broken that night. Emil Hess, bless his heart, he called every glass company in the county. By the time the sun came up, every window was in tact. There was no broken glass. Whoever did it came back to admire his work and thought, ' ; God was I in another city or something?' ; There were people-- Like the night that Dr. King was assasinated, I got a call very shortly afterwards from a Black businessman. He said, ' ; We' ; ve got to go to work. We can' ; t let the sun rise on this.' ; And we got phone calls and both the Black and White communities going all over this city during that five hour period. By the time the sun rose, we were able to announce a memorial march from 16th Street Baptist Church with special services in honor of Dr. King on the steps of the courthouse. The leaders of every denomination in this city, Black and White, met at 16th Street Baptist Church and they had a memorial march in honor of Dr. King and a service at the courthouse. This was virtually the only major city in the United States where no buildings were burned, no riots where held. You know what was happening in Detroit. They had to send two airborne divisions in Detroit to stop the protests! And you say, ' ; Well it' ; s silly. Why do they burn down their own houses?' ; Well, people in emotional states do a lot of things that are illogical. But [in] Birmingham, we had Black and White people that kept that from blowing the top off. And, it could have. I doubt if there are very few cities in the United States where Dr. King was held in greater esteem by its Black community. Those things don' ; t happen by accident. I always tell people that nothing happens unless somebody makes it happen. HUNTLEY: How would you characterize Birmingham, then, in relationship to other cities where race relations is concerned today? VANN: I think our race relations today are not as good as they were ten years ago. The two races have pulled apart in a lot of ways. The politics have something to do with it. HUNTLEY: Is that because of Birmingham being now predominately a Black city? VANN: That has something to do with it. You see, I insist that segregation was not a matter of laws. It was a matter of inbred customs. The thing that held the system together was not so much the Bull Conner' ; s. They were people that responded to something and they made a political play out of it. George Wallace knew he could go to Chicago and find people that were very strong racists that would vote for him if he would go to Chicago. He found people in Wisconsin and he found people all over the country. HUNTLEY: Minneapolis. VANN: But, what I' ; m saying is that race relations are either getting better or they' ; re getting worse all the time. It' ; s an emotion... There are a lot of emotions attached to it. It' ; s almost human nature for people that are different or who look different to be suspicious of each other, whether it be prehistoric tribes or be the middle east or be Armenia, Azhbarjhan or Croatia. You know, it takes a lot of civilization to deal with that. And, I think from 1960 on, through Jimmy Carter, whoever was President realized that to have good relations in America--race relations in America--it was very important that the President of the United States make it very clear that this is what we need to do. After that, the Republicans really set about on a southern strategy that was begun, I don' ; t think by Nixon but during the Nixon day. I think Nixon, for all his criticism, he stood well on this issue. But they saw that they needed to take the South away from the Democrats and they were very careful to actually raise racial issues and come down on what they considered to be the White side of the issue. And over and over..... And Bush did the same. I' ; m not saying they were mean spirited. I' ; m sure that they would consider me very unfair to say this was racist, but I don' ; t think there' ; s any question. For instance, I think the enthusiasm of the Bush Administration in setting up the gerrymandering of Black districts was in part a realization that every Black district would create four Republican districts by taking-- By reducing the Democratic vote in these districts, we can take over the Congress. I think a big part of taking over the Congress has very little to do with that ' ; Contract with America.' ; It was mainly that they gerrymandered the districts to reduce the Democratic office holders and increase the Republican office holders and at the same time appeal to the Black because he' ; s getting more Black congressmen. He might get-- The Black congressman will then vote his way, but lose three others that would have voted his way. The world is full of unintended results. You know, it' ; s like they' ; re building prisons. They work with everybody in prison, but they don' ; t want any education program in the prison. Well, let me tell you, young people are going to be learning something. I think we are creating crime universities. They are going to go to prison and learning how to be better criminals and the crime wave will get worse and worse and worse until we begin using prevention. One of the best prevention programs is to take these kids--and most of them will test out about the third grade because they were socially promoted but they were never able to do the work after about the second grade--and you... I worked for the program in Draper Prison where we took those kids and in two and half to three years, qualified them for a GED. We actually got some scholarship money to send ex-criminals to college. One of those earned a PhD and has done a lot of good work. But, people say, ' ; I don' ; t want to help them. I want to punish them.' ; Well, they are going to end up punishing their own families unless they approach the problem as rational. They are either going to teach them to be better criminals or teach them to be better citizens. I' ; d rather teach them to be better citizens. HUNTLEY: David, I appreciate... VANN: And this has a lot to do with the racial thing. HUNTLEY: Absolutely. I appreciate you taking this much time out of your schedule. We are going to have to do this again because obviously you have so much to say and we' ; ll just have to do this again. VANN: Yeah, I have a few more stories. HUNTLEY: I' ; m certain that you have and we will definitely get those stories on. We want to thank you for coming out today. VANN: It takes a lot of soul searching. HUNTLEY: Absolutely, you have been a leader in terms of just getting people to think. Again, I appreciate you coming. VANN: Thank you very much. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=DVann1995.xml DVann1995.xml
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David Vann (1995)
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David Vann discusses the political climate in Birmingham during the Movement including the role of businesses, the influence of the KKK and his time as United States Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black's law clerk.
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19950202V
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Ku Klux Klan (1915- )
Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011
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1995-02-02
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Washington Booker III
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5.4 January 5, 1995 Washington Booker III Interviewed on January 5, 1995 19950105B 1:10:06 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Alabama Black Liberation Front Washington Booker III Horace Huntley Video 1:|4(9)|20(7)|30(3)|53(10)|66(8)|77(1)|90(6)|101(10)|120(6)|141(7)|155(7)|174(4)|185(3)|199(1)|211(12)|228(14)|244(8)|257(5)|267(15)|281(13)|294(2)|306(17)|319(4)|330(9)|346(3)|359(3)|379(5)|390(7)|403(14)|423(8)|440(14)|450(9)|463(2)|479(11)|496(11)|509(11)|525(4)|542(15)|559(5)|576(4)|587(7)|600(13)|614(9)|630(4)|641(1)|653(7)|659(10)|668(3)|692(7)|712(9)|730(2)|744(13)|752(3)|765(10)|779(3)|789(14)|801(7)|812(3)|823(13)|839(8)|851(10)|863(15)|877(9)|886(14)|896(9)|909(12)|920(12)|931(14)|941(13) 0 https://youtu.be/vFjbjMbJOHU YouTube video English 25 Interview Introduction This is an interview with Washington Booker III for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's oral history project done by Dr. Horace Huntley at Miles College, January 5, 1995. Interview introduction with Washington Booker, III 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 62 Family History Let me just ask you, first of all, though, where were your parents from? What part of the state? Booker describes his immediate family as well as family history. African American families ; African Americans--Genealogy ; African Americans--History African American families 489 Education and High School Experience Tell me more about your education. Booker comments on his high school education. African Americans--Education (Secondary) African Americans--Education 575 Joining the Military What did you do after you left? I did the all-American thing. I joined the Marine Corps. Booker discusses joining the U.S. Marine Corps. United States. Marine Corps ; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans Armed Forces--African Americans 657 Early Encounters with Demonstrations Well prior to that, Wash, you were at Ullman during the demonstrations of 1963. Booker describes his early observations of and engagement with Civil Rights Movement demonstrations in Birmingham. African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights 831 Childhood Neighborhood & ; Community Let me ask you Wash, I sort of jumped the gun. What community were you living in? Booker describes his neighborhood and community in Birmingham. African American neighborhoods ; African Americans--Housing Birmingham (Ala.) 1260 Home and Family Life How did your life change as a child when you left that area and moved to Loveman's Village? Booker describes his home in Loveman's Village in Birmingham. African American families ; African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) African Americans--Housing 1481 Community and Police As a child growing up, Wash, what was your community's relationship to the Birmingham police department? Booker describes his community's relationship with and perspectives on the local police. African Americans--Crimes against ; African Americans--Southern States ; Police brutality--United States Police--United States--History 1605 Community Organizations In your community were there community organizations? Booker discusses social organizations available to his childhood community. African American churches ; African Americans--Religion ; Birmingham County Boy Scouts Association ; Bowling alleys ; Boy Scouts African Americans--Social life and customs 1837 Civil Rights Movement Involvement Let me ask you now about the Civil Rights Movement. I know you were involved. How did you get involved? Booker discusses his involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Segregation--United States Civil rights movement 2146 Arrest and Jail Experience What were the circumstances when you went to jail? Booker describes his experience of going to jail during a Civil Rights Movement demonstration. African American youth ; African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century ; African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights movement ; Jefferson County Jail (Jefferson County, Ala.) African Americans--Civil rights 2911 Family/Community Response to Movement Were there other members of your family involved? Booker describes his family and community's response to the Civil Rights Movement, and his perspective on the beneficial results of the Movement. African American families ; African Americans--Race identity ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights 3043 Returning from Marine Corps and Vietnam Service After the Movement, Wash, you then volunteered and went into the Marine Corps? Booker describes his experience returning to the U.S. after serving in Vietnam with the Marine Corps. African Americans--Race identity ; African Americans--Social conditions ; African Americans--Southern States ; Police brutality--United States ; Vietnam War, 1961-1975 African Americans--Race identity ; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans 3402 Alabama Black Liberation Front These other fellows, were they Vietnam veterans as well? Booker discusses the founding and actions of the Alabama Black Liberation Front. African American children--Education ; African American children--Nutrition ; African Americans--Crimes against ; Black Liberation Army ; Black Panther Party African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 3996 Interview Conclusion and Parting Thoughts Well, Wash, I think we can probably conclude. Is there anything else that you would like to add just to highlight or maybe encapsulate what Birmingham has meant to you in the years that you've spent here? Booker shares his thoughts on Birmingham and its relationship with the African American community. African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) African Americans--Race identity Oral History Washington Booker III discusses growing up in Loveman's Village, getting involved in the Movement, serving in the Marine Corps and the founding of the Alabama Black Liberation Front. HUNTLEY: Welcome, Mr. Washington Booker. Wash, what we are doing, we are attempting to really write the history of Birmingham through the eyes of people who have lived and grown up here. And, of course, you have been instrumental in the development of Birmingham and I just wanted to ask you a few questions. Let me just ask you, first of all, though, where were your parents from? What part of the state? BOOKER: Marengo County. HUNTLEY: Both were from Marengo County. BOOKER: My mother and my father both were from Marengo County. The parents on my father' ; s side, my grandfather' ; s father, came from Hale County. It appears that they came there after slavery. He had seven sons. My grandfather was the seventh. He came to Marengo County and he met my grandmother on my father' ; s side. She was originally from Bessemer. HUNTLEY: She was originally from Bessemer and then moved to Marengo County? BOOKER: Right. Her mother was having difficulties, respiratory difficulties, obviously from the industrial pollution and the doctor told my great-grandfather, my grandmother' ; s father, that if he wanted her to get rid of her problems and, possibly, live longer, that they should move from the city. He bought some land in Marengo County and eventually gave his daughters and sons a piece of land. My grandmother and my grandfather met, not on my father' ; s side, were married there. And my father met my mother there. My mother' ; s people appear to go back in Marengo County, as best as we have been able to tell at this point. The oldest, the great-great patriarch, is Lincoln Bell, whose children had children that had children. My mother is third generation from Lincoln Bell because her mother was his grand. Anyway they come from Marengo County. HUNTLEY: Were you born in Marengo County? BOOKER: Yes, I was born in Marengo County. HUNTLEY: How old were you when you came to Birmingham? BOOKER: I came to Birmingham when I was four. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters do you have? BOOKER: I have one sister. She' ; s older. HUNTLEY: You don' ; t want to say how much older? BOOKER: Yes, she' ; s two years older than me, and I was born in 1949. I was a post-war baby. HUNTLEY: Tell me about your parents' ; education. BOOKER: My father finished high school and joined the Navy. He is a well-read man. He loves books and he loves to read and listens to tapes and anything that can give him information. He has a high school diploma, but he is fairly well read which makes him educated beyond those years. My mother went to Alabama State on a choir scholarship and was there for two years. HUNTLEY: What were their occupations? BOOKER: My father worked in the plant and retired from the plant. HUNTLEY: What plant? BOOKER: In Demopolis. They pressed plywood. It was a plywood factory. At an earlier age I think he worked about ten years delivering for a store in downtown Demopolis. It was the top of the line store in Demopolis. It was called Floshins or Frozens, or something like that. I think they were Jewish, but they ran " ; the" ; store. He delivered packages for them. HUNTLEY: What about your mother? BOOKER: My mother was an orthodontist assistant. She worked for Dr. Farmer on the southside starting in the late 50' ; s. Before then she worked over the mountain. She caught the bus and went to the White folks' ; house. Eventually, she got on doing that kind of work and she liked it. She left there in the mid-sixties, walked out, I think. It appears it was around the time, not too long after, maybe about 1964, 1965 when they asked her to do the windows. HUNTLEY: She didn' ; t do windows? BOOKER: No, she left and had a quarter ($0.25), and I think the bus cost fifteen cents ($0.15), but she walked out. But she had such a reputation for doing good work that she was hired by Dr. Westbrook, who was in the City Federal Building for fifty years, and she worked for him for twenty-five years. HUNTLEY: Did your mother ever take you to work with her when you were younger? Can you remember any of those times? BOOKER: Eventually, when you work with people for twenty years, you become a unit. I won' ; t say family, but it' ; s similar to family in that you develop certain casual relationships. They would visit us. We would go visit them at Christmas time. We would go to Central Park. One of her co-workers lived in Central Park, which was all White then, and I remember one lady that lived out in, not Crestline--out like you' ; re going out [Highway] 280, and you go under the bridge out there, back out towards the water works, but not quite that far. And, we would go visit. I' ; d go to the office. They knew me. They kept up with how I was doing, where I was going to school, when I was in the service. We kept up with their kids. It was one of those kind of places. He obviously did a good job, now that I think about it, of creating a good work atmosphere, because they all seemed more like family there. Of course, she was the only colored there. HUNTLEY: Tell me more about your education? BOOKER: I got a G.E.D. [General Equivalency Diploma]. HUNTLEY: But you attended Ullman High School? BOOKER: Yes, yes. HUNTLEY: Can you tell us a little bit about Ullman High School? BOOKER: Ullman was located on the Southside. It is now part of UAB' ; s urban renewal or some other term. There was a community there. It was a Black community on the Southside. The school had been there a long time and they just came in and just took it, no discussion, no nothing. ' ; We' ; re gonna' ; close it down. Y' ; all got to go.' ; Ullman was a good school. A lot of our students went on and went on to college. They were well prepared. It was a good institution. People came out from the Southside. People came out of Titusville and went to Ullman. We had the best football time, the best basketball team in the city. We used to beat Wenonah [High School] on a consistent basis. It was a good school. HUNTLEY: And you didn' ; t graduate from Ullman? BOOKER: No, I was asked to leave. HUNTLEY: Why were you asked to leave? BOOKER: I was just so far above the rest of the students they felt like I shouldn' ; t finish. They felt I was so grown, that I should just go on out in the world. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you left? BOOKER: I did the all-American thing. I joined the Marine Corps. It was 1967. September 7th I went into the Marine Corps and went to Vietnam. HUNTLEY: What were you in the military? Were you in the supply squadron? BOOKER: Nope. I was in an infantry unit, First Battalion, Third Marines Bravo Company. I' ; d like to say that we ran the welcome center between North and South Vietnam. Our area of operation was along the border between North and South Vietnam. We patrolled that area that became famous as Asho Valley, up and down the Ho Chi Min Trail, Kantian, along the ridge-line that runs right inside of South Vietnam. Mother' ; s Ridge all the way out to the South China Sea and Kuaviet River, the sand dunes. All of that was our area of responsibility. We ran patrols, search and destroy patrols. We looked for enemy units moving in and through the area and closed in and destroyed. HUNTLEY: So you are a combat veteran? BOOKER: I' ; m a combat veteran. HUNTLEY: Well prior to that, Wash, you were at Ullman during the demonstrations of 1963. BOOKER: Yeah. HUNTLEY: Were you one of those that decided that you were going to stay in classes and you were not going to participate? BOOKER: No. We had-- My friends and I had gone down to observe what was going on downtown and had thrown rocks and ran. I remember the first day that I went to it, the march was starting from, I think it was, St. Joseph [Church]. It was all the way down on Sixth Avenue. The power company has that property now. But there was a church down there that the demonstrations left out of. At this time that' ; s where they were going on. HUNTLEY: Was that Sixth Avenue Baptist Church? BOOKER: Yes, it was Sixth Avenue North. The church was St. Joseph on Sixth Avenue North, where the power company has the property now. It' ; s where the railroad track goes across. I don' ; t know what street it is. I think it' ; s about Tenth Street, maybe Tenth or Eleventh Street, but that' ; s where the church was. And we were standing across the street facing north and the steps came out of the church and the church faced south and the people were coming out of the church and the police was meeting them in the streets. So, some people behind us threw some bottles and some bricks. They saw where it came from and they rushed into the crowd. And when they rushed into the crowd, I just fell. I fell in front of one of the police officers and he fell over me, and the brother got up. He ran and got away. And so, when I went home that day, I felt like I had really, really done something--that I had aided and abetted a fellow revolutionary. But, that was the first day. After that, we kind of kept up with it, but, to us, it was hard to come to grips with...we didn' ; t go to jail when the call out to fill the jails up with the children. We did not go at first because we had run-ins with the police on a daily basis. We knew them to be torturers, murderers, masochists, and the idea of voluntarily submitting yourself to be taken away with them was just to us-- We couldn' ; t-- It took us a while to get used to it, even though we finally decided we would go, and we went and we all got arrested and that kind of thing and went to jail. HUNTLEY: Let me ask you Wash, I sort of jumped the gun. What community were you living in? BOOKER: I grew up in Loveman' ; s Village. When we first came to Birmingham I lived on Seventh Avenue North, two doors up from Pooles Funeral Home. Pooles was on one corner. Bradford was on the other corner. Mary Strong' ; s house was right across from us. We stayed in a two-story tenement house. We had one room and my mother and my sister slept in the big bed and I slept in the roll-a-way bed and there was a common kitchen and the people had rooms in the two-story house. We stayed there until 1959. In 1959 we moved to Loveman' ; s Village where we had hot and cold running water, a bathtub and a thermostat. We moved up in the world. We moved to Loveman' ; s Village and from ' ; 59 on until I eventually went into the Marine Corps, I lived in Loveman' ; s Village. HUNTLEY: How would you describe your community? Can you describe both communities--the community that you moved away from and then describe Loveman' ; s Village? BOOKER: [House number] 1511 Seventh Avenue North. It was downtown for the most part. It was a short walk. If you walked up to the corner to where Bradford Funeral Home was, took a right, walked down a block, you would be standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street and facing across the park. And everybody who came out of Smithfield or came up Seventh Avenue came up Eighth Avenue would come down and go across the park. HUNTLEY: Kelly Ingram Park? BOOKER: Kelly Ingram Park. The park. Like there' ; s only one. Across from Kelly Ingram Park, and so I was about a block and a half from Kelly Ingram Park. The street had-- There was Poole' ; s starting on the corner of Fifteenth Street. On the corner of Fifteenth Street and Seventh Avenue there was Poole' ; s Funeral Home. John and Earnest Poole. Their father was starting to get old at that time and they were grown men and they were running the funeral home. People like Audrey Bushelon, who now runs Bushelon Funeral Home, was working for the Poole family. As a matter of fact, if you go down another block, down to the corner of Fourteenth Street and Sixth Avenue, there were houses on the south side of the street, all the way down, and we knew people who lived in those houses. And on the right side of the street, the church was on the corner right where it is now, except it was a different building, a different church. If you go farther down on Seventh Avenue, farther west on Seventh Avenue, there was the Ballot house that was owned by Ma Perkins, who also owned the Zanzibar Hotel which was right next to my house which is where the Birmingham Black Barons lived when they were in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: So you were in the heart of a lot of activity. BOOKER: Right. Mr. Parker' ; s building was up on the other corner. There were Black businesses on both corners on the south side of Seventh Avenue, but on the north side of Seventh Avenue, Vincent' ; s Grocery Store was on one corner, which was an Italian business, and Fagin' ; s Grocery Store was on the other corner, which was another Italian business. And right across Sixteenth Street, on the Northeast corner, there was a coal yard. But, Ragland Drugs, after the Ballot House, going back down from Fifteenth Street, back west on Seventh Avenue, Ma Perkins' ; Ballard House and there were some other houses. Then there was Ragland' ; s Drugs which was owned, I believe, by two brothers. But, if you were really, really, good at church on Sunday, and momma had some extra money and after you took your church clothes off and if everything was just right, we would walk down to Ragland' ; s sometime and get a scoop of ice cream, hand-packed ice cream. And that was the high point of my life. I' ; ll always remember that. But, anyway, coming back up to the corner of Fifteenth Street, there was Poole' ; s Funeral Home, and Mr. and Mrs. King' ; s home. They had a couple of girls and a son. As a matter of fact, their son still lives in Birmingham, Dan King. He' ; s an accountant or something and I think he still lives in Smithfield. He' ; s older now, but his mother and father lived in the next house. Our house was the next house. Our house was a tenement house. My two cousins-- One of my cousins, Lucy, she ran a stand in the yard, a small stand that sold drinks and sodas and stockings and pork and beans and stuff like that. My cousin, Annie, we called her Nannie, she was the landlady of the tenement house and they had the front room and we all-- People had rooms in the house. Next to that was the Zanzibar Hotel, which was owned by Ma Perkins who also owned the Ballot House and I think she also owned the Zanzibar Café, which was on Fourth Avenue. But anyway, the Barons, the Birmingham Black Barons, lived there and I would go to the store for them. I' ; d go over to Vincent' ; s for them, or go over to Fagin' ; s for them, get sodas and stuff like that for them and they would give me balls, old bats, little bitty bats and that kind of thing. Sometimes, they would put me on the bus and take me out to Rickwood Field and I' ; d sit in the dugout. I didn' ; t know then that I was with a part of history, the old Negro League, short stops and all of that. HUNTLEY: What kind of recreation did you have as a child in that area? BOOKER: On Seventh Avenue we had a wagon. Joyce Smith had a bicycle. Joyce Smith' ; s house was next to Bradford' ; s and I think she was some kin to the Bradfords. But those two houses are the only two houses left on Seventh Avenue now in that block. But she had a bicycle. We had a wagon. We got skates at Christmas--Union Hardware iron skates--and we could skate up and down the street. When that wore out, we would take an old broom and turn it upside down and that would be our horse. And, we would get a coat hanger and make a cowboy gun. I know you know how to make one. But, anyway, we would play and we would go in the back yard. And the back yard ran all the way back to the alley. Those were big lots. There was a couple of fruit trees in the backyard and then another fence. We would play back there, play cowboys and Indians and climb trees. HUNTLEY: How did you your life change when you left that area and moved to Loveman' ; s Village? BOOKER: It changed. It was a subtle change. My perception of the change was subtle and it went back and forth. It appeared to be...Initially, when we moved to Loveman' ; s Village, one of the biggest arguments my sister and I ever had was over who was going to be the first one that took a bath in the bathtub, alright. Because we had a Number Ten tub that we boiled water, poured into the tub and then put cold water in the tub and that' ; s what we took a bath in, because there was no such thing as hot water in the house. The bathroom was a room a little bigger than a closet. It had a commode that sat right in the middle of the floor and there was no light in. There was just the commode in the middle of the floor, nothing else in there. There was one sink in the house and it was, of course, on the other side of the wall from the bathroom, all the way to the back of the house. So, plus, there was a coal stove in the house. My mom would get up in the morning and make the fire in the stove and get back in the bed until the room got warm. Moving to Loveman' ; s Village, there was a bathtub. It had hot and cold running water. There was a heater, a gas heater, with a thermostat that came on whenever it got cold. There was no light that would come in. If you closed all the doors and turned off all the lights, you couldn' ; t see light coming in from the outside around the windows and through the closets. You could go in the closets in the old house on Seventh Avenue and close your door and you could see light coming in from the outside, because it wasn' ; t insulated. And Loveman' ; s Village was brick, and it was warm and it was well lit. We had moved up in the world. Of course, now, once we went to school... I think we moved in maybe July, August or something like that, and school hadn' ; t started, so we were on vacation. And so we were all wonderful until we went to school and the other kids informed us that we lived in the projects. HUNTLEY: So then you then realized that, although you were better off, you still had not made it? You still were not middle class? BOOKER: Right, we had gone and you get flashes as a child, of what the other world is like. Because for a child, you know the world is the block that you live on or the space that you are limited to. You know that there is something around the corner, but only your imagination tells you what it is around there. But, before we moved to Loveman' ; s Village, there would be times when we would go riding with somebody we knew that had a car that would take us for a ride during the Christmas season. And maybe, we would ride over through Titusville or maybe we would ride over to Mountain Brook and look at the lights and that kind of thing, and so we knew that there was something better than the house that we lived in. HUNTLEY: As a child growing up, Wash, what was your community' ; s relationship to the Birmingham police department? BOOKER: Birmingham Police Department was the occupying force in our community. It was the source of the ultimate terror. People would threaten their children by telling them, ' ; The police gonna get you.' ; HUNTLEY: What do you mean by an ' ; occupying force' ; ? BOOKER: Vietnam, we were like the policemen trying to run the bogeymen out the country. The Viet Cong were painted as the bogeymen and we were the good guys from the west, come in to save the poor ignorant savages from the bogeymen. Of course, the savages really didn' ; t want to be saved. They looked at me like we were barbarians coming in from the west. But in our relationship with the police, the police were much the same way. There was no communication other than, ' ; Come here nigger,' ; or a lick up side the head or to shoot. There was no human communications. There was no talking, none of that. They terrorized the community. It was a rare weekend passed that one or two folk, maybe, didn' ; t get killed by the police. They' ; d call you. This is what they' ; d do to you: They' ; d call you and make you stick your head in the window, right, and then they would roll the window up and get your neck like this, all the while calling you ' ; boy' ; and ' ; Nigger, where you going, nigger?' ; And, then, they' ; d hit you on your head. You were lucky if that was all you got away with. You know, they' ; d beat people to death. HUNTLEY: People were afraid of the police? BOOKER: They were terrified. People were terrified of the police. HUNTLEY: We' ; re going to get back to that when we start a little bit more about the Movement, but let me just ask you, in your community, were there community organizations? BOOKER: Yes. HUNTLEY: What were some of those organizations? BOOKER: There were clubs, the Y [YMCA or Young Men' ; s Christian Association]. There was the Boy Scouts. Every church--and almost everybody went to church, almost everybody went to church--like it was unheard of-- Somebody would go [say] if you don' ; t go to church, ' ; The devil going to get him. He going to hell.' ; What you would call the ' ; baddest' ; kids at the school, they went to church. It was really, really an exception to find a family in the Black community that didn' ; t go to church. But anyway, the church had ushers, matrons, youth programs, that kind of thing. There was the Boy Scouts. We had a Boy Scout Troop in Loveman' ; s Village. We had the Y. I was lucky enough a few years ago to go to a Y camp, because they had slots for poor kids and so I could get in one of those slots and I' ; d get a chance to go out to Camp Fletcher and played with the kids whose parents had paid to send them out there. But, anyway, it was a good experience, and I' ; m thankful for it There was all kind of organizations. There were singing groups. There used to be a thing in the Black community, in the [19]50s that-- When I was a kid, as a matter of fact, my mother sang with the Gospel Harmonettes, which was a gospel group. Churches would be packed on Sunday night because one of those groups would be coming to town, or one of the small auditoriums or the Masonic Temple and other places where they would have concerts. Then there were social and savings clubs. Later on, after Honeybowl was built and Starbowl was built, it was really two Black bowling alleys. For a while everybody bowled. That was the thing in Birmingham. If you were anybody in Birmingham, you went to the bowling alley and people formed bowling clubs and a lot of Black folks still bowl today. But, other organizations, oh, in the schools, the clubs like the ushers. HUNTLEY: Which one were you involved with? BOOKER: We had a club. Our club was called the Coachmen. We would, all of us would just kind of get together. Figured everybody else had a club, so we had a club of our own. HUNTLEY: What did you do in the club? BOOKER: We had parties and we went to other people' ; s parties, and we all wore the same T-shirts or something. HUNTLEY: Today, wouldn' ; t that be called a gang? BOOKER: No, no. We didn' ; t sell dope and do drive-bys. We weren' ; t really that tough in that, you know. You always had a few people who are going to fight or else, and they were gangs. They weren' ; t called gangs, but there was always a group of fellows that hung together that carried pocket knives and were always looking to jump on somebody. They would go to another side of town or go to a party for the express purpose of getting into a fight and cutting somebody. Yeah, there were folk out there like that. They were in the minority. HUNTLEY: These were social clubs? BOOKER: These were social clubs, Gamma Phi. HUNTLEY: Met on Sunday evenings at somebody' ; s home. BOOKER: Yeah, it was just something to do and we... Like I said, we would sponsor bus trips to Atlanta to go over to the big park and spend the day over there and go to the dance hall. HUNTLEY: Let me ask you now about the Civil Rights Movement. I know you were involved. How did you get involved? BOOKER: I knew that what was going on downtown, the demonstrations, the sit ins, I felt good about it. I felt like Black folk was standing up. You know I grew up with Step-n-Fetch It. I grew up with Tarzan movies. I grew up with Amos ' ; n Andy, where the only Black folk who were really on TV then were buffoons or lackeys or cowards. HUNTLEY: So you saw a relationship to the Movement? BOOKER: It was courage. It was courage. It was Black people standing up saying that, you know, ' ; I' ; m a human being, I have a right to go and to be treated like a human being,' ; even more so than the jobs. As a child, not understanding the demands for-- Or to be a clerk at Newberry' ; s and that kind of thing-- I understood access to public facilities, because I went down to Newberry' ; s and I would have to walk by and look at the White people sitting at the counter eating a banana split and, I swear to God, I was going to get me one. More than anything else I wanted a banana split behind that counter, because they looked so good. But you couldn' ; t go back there. You had to go over to the other side, go down into the basement and stand up at this--this almost white counter that was just as basic as it could possibly be. You could get a hot dog, maybe a hamburger. I don' ; t know. You couldn' ; t get all the things you could get upstairs at the lunch counter. And so, I felt we wanted to go there. As a child, I wanted to go there, because I saw the White kids go there. But, even more than that, it was the thought that Black people was standing up, that they were showing courage. I felt strongly-- I felt as though I had never seen a Black man talk or speak with defiance or self assurance to a White man. Not in real life. If a White man walked up, he could be twenty years old, and there could be Black folks sitting around who were sixty years old and you couldn' ; t miss the skinning and a-grinning, because that' ; s what they had to do to survive. HUNTLEY: And you saw the Movement was changing the whole thing? BOOKER: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah! HUNTLEY: Did you attend any of the mass meetings? BOOKER: Yeah, I went to the churches and sat inside. They would ask you put your pocketknife in there... and they made speeches and that kind of thing. For the most part, we would go in and we would be kind of circulating around seeing who we could see...see folks from the other side of town talking. We knew what we were going to do, and we just-- To be honest, we just really weren' ; t into the speeches. You know, we all wanted to see Martin Luther King. Once we saw him that was cool. Now, who else you see? Do you see anybody over there that looked good? Where they from? They outside? You know, it was that kind of thing. Not to say we were not serious. We were very serious about what we had to do, but we were just prepared to do it when it came time and we really did not need to be pumped. We were ready to go. HUNTLEY: So in [19]63, Wash, you were probably fourteen [years old]? BOOKER: Fourteen, yeah. HUNTLEY: So, you and your partners were ready? How would you then describe a typical mass meeting that you remember? BOOKER: Praying and singing. They would be calling it to order. Most of the time, when we got there, when we would get there, it would already be started up. Because we would kind of be walking and talking and moseying along and somebody may not have been able to get out. So, you know, when you' ; d get there, they would do the devotion, I guess. But, mostly I remember, the day I went to jail. If you ask me who spoke, who were the speakers on that particular day, I could not tell you. My mind was already outside in the streets. I think everybody else was thinking about what we were about to do. But the programs were mostly for the adults. HUNTLEY: What were the circumstances when you went to jail? BOOKER: We came out of the church. First we went in. Okay, got down there that day. We knew it was going to be a good day, because when we started off, we left Ullman [High School] and we came on-- It was a Monday. We left Ullman and we came on downtown. And the group, I guess it was about fifty or sixty of us, it may have been more than that, because it was kind of strung out and we came down the railroad track and after we got off the railroad track, we came up and came down First Avenue and turned left onto Sixteenth Street, which means we turned north and as we came up the little hill right there where Etheridge Brothers is now and the service station, as we got up to the top of that little rise, we could see all the way up Sixteenth Street, down to about 8th Avenue and we could see just a whole bunch of folk coming. We figured that they were coming from north Birmingham or coming from Carver [High School] or something like that. So we started running. Something just went through the crowd, because we coming for business. We coming to face the police, to face the dogs, to do whatever we had to do. HUNTLEY: You know, Wash, prior to that time, I can remember that if you' ; d go downtown, you would see people from other parts of town. In many cases, you were talking about some kind of trouble. BOOKER: Right, right. Those were magic times, because there was none of that . We were all in jail together and we didn' ; t fight. I mean we were packed on top of each, but we didn' ; t fight. HUNTLEY: Tell me, how did you get arrested? BOOKER: Okay, we came over the hill. We saw the kids coming from Carver. Then, as we got down to Sixth Avenue, we all just kind of got on both sides and went down on Sixth Avenue to the church and I think when we crossed Fifth Avenue, everything was blocked off from there. And we kind of made our way down and the police was rolling their eyes, looking at us, because people were coming. And as we got there and these kids got there, we looked down Sixth Avenue and there were kids coming in a big group like ours. It may have been maybe twenty-five [people], it may have been twenty. You know, when you' ; re fourteen years old, twenty people could be a hundred people. HUNTLEY: So, now, had you left school that day? BOOKER: Yeah, we left school. We snuck out of school. HUNTLEY: Let' ; s back up then. How did that come about? How did you know to leave school? BOOKER: Everybody else was going. We didn' ; t go the first day. We may have went the fourth day or the fifth day. But there had already been people who had gone who were already in jail. We had been kind of checking things out. We had been down to the mass meeting, checked that out. We had been to the demonstrations where, you know, the people had made it against the law to march. The strategy came about that we were going to fill up the jail. I think this was after they put Martin and Dr. Abernathy in jail. The strategy was, let' ; s just fill the jails up. They couldn' ; t do it with the adults because they could lose their jobs. I heard different people take credit for the idea of using the children. I heard people say that the leadership didn' ; t want to use the children and that it was some of the field workers said it, but as soon as the idea got around among the kids, it was over. We liked it and we moved on it. So, other folk had already gone to jail and we knew what to expect. We knew how it went. We knew what was going on, alright. But this was the day that we were going. It was a Monday. My mother dropped me off. I went in the school, through the school, and out to the courtyard. Other folk were already out in the courtyard. And, you know, it was already that we were going today. We' ; re going. You' ; re going, we going too. So as we started leaving the school, other folk got with us and you know, people caught up with us. We saw folk on their way to school. They turned around and we walked downtown talking, and we didn' ; t start singing until we got up near the church. We sang outside in the streets before we went in the church so we can come back out and be arrested. We just sang and taunted the police. Our favorite thing was, ' ; I ain' ; t gonna' ; let nobody turn me around.' ; And our favorite verse was, ' ; ain' ; t gonna' ; let Bull Conner.' ; It gave us a good feeling to be able to stand there and tell Mr. Eugene ' ; Bull' ; Conner, ' ; We ain' ; t gonna' ; let you.--' ; It made us feel powerful. But, anyway, then we go inside. They make the speeches. They pass the basket and ask everybody to put their pocketknife in the basket and if you got any weapons. They told us what to do, how to protect ourselves if you were pushed or shoved. They went through all that. We had heard all of these before, because we had seen other folks go. We had seen some of the first group of folks, when it was small, when the adults were going and we had seen other kids go. So we knew the spiel. We knew the routine. Like I said, we already knew, and though we were sitting there and they were making the speeches, we may have been talking among ourselves, halfway listening and halfway talking because we had already decided the plan. The plan was laid. We knew what we were going to do. They were in charge. We knew they had to make their speeches and go through their changes, but... So, we moved out. We came out of the church, we turned left and we started up Sixth Avenue. We started east on Sixth Avenue and the people at the front were met by the policemen who said, ' ; Y' ; all got to go. If you don' ; t, we' ; re gonna' ; arrest you.' ; And, then, they started herding us, and the people came in from both sides. They started herding us towards the buses and loading us on the buses because they had the buses parked there. It had become an assembly line. After that point, we had filled up not quite, but the city jail was full. Juvenile Court was full to capacity. People were sleeping in the halls. I went to the county. And when I got to the county, the county eventually became full and then they started bringing them to the Fair Park, and Fair Park got full. They filled up Bessemer and Fairfield jails, too, and some others. HUNTLEY: So where did you go? BOOKER: I went to the county [jail]. They took us there. But when they first loaded us up they took us over to the city. But at the city jail it was just like a mad house. You couldn' ; t see the police for the kids and the demonstrators. I remember this one police officer was in the back of the building, because we were outside. They just put us all out in the big courtyard. All the cells were already full and it must have been a processing center at that point. We were just outside and rumors were spreading about where we would eventually go after they figured out what the heck to do with all these little nappy headed children. HUNTLEY: How long were you there? BOOKER: At that place, we were there for about four or five hours. We talked to the police face to face because the guards didn' ; t have guns. And they were just completely surrounded. It was like folk on all sides and they seemed a little troubled about it. I guess they had never seen anything like this. Anyway, they kept us there for about four or five hours and then they loaded us back on the buses and they took us to juvenile court. At juvenile court they split us, the boys and the girls and I remember it was starting to get late in the evening and we had been going all day and we were kind of settling down, and this sister got up and started singing the Lord' ; s Prayer and we sung out there for a while. We sang Movement songs. We sang church songs. The people in the building came to the windows, opened the windows, and was looking out, and it was just really, really an emotional thing that happened. We left there that night about eight [o' ; clock]. HUNTLEY: They released you? BOOKER: No, no. They loaded all the boys. They loaded most of us because now they started breaking us down into groups and they took us to Jefferson County Jail, which was just about full. And when they put us in the cells up on the eighth floor, I believe, we were just in the hallway in the cellblock. The front of the cellblock is a big door, a big iron door, that' ; s an electric door. You go through that way. It could be either to the right or to the left, but what you immediately come into is the day room where there are two or three, maybe, long tables, alright, where the guys sit during the day and play cards. I don' ; t think they had TV' ; s at that time. But that' ; s where you ate your meals and played cards and generally sat around and did things during the day. If you go on back from there, then there are cells, and I think in this block they had four-man cells, which means they had two bunks up here and two bunks up there and a commode in the middle. And there may have been three, four, maybe five cells on back [of] this whole area. Normally, what happened was, you would put the prisoners inside the cells and close the doors to the individual cells, on the floors, in the cells on the floors, in the halls, on the tables and on the floors in the day room. They were just packed in there. We had literally filled up all the jails in the county. One thing I remember when my mother finally came and got me after five or six days, they were coming in with new boilers, new pots and new pans and stuff like that. It must have been a logistical nightmare to have to feed all of these people and take care of them. You have to remember, at this point, all the news media from all over the world was in here and everything they were doing was being closely scrutinized. Needless to say, it hassled them to no end. We were credited with breaking the back of Birmingham because at that point I believe, they-- It [the Movement] was fizzling. As a matter of fact, I think it was fizzling at the point when King and Abernathy went to jail and then the adults were afraid because they were losing their jobs and they couldn' ; t get out of jail and all kind of stuff was going on. They got everybody out of jail, but what I' ; m saying is, if you went to jail, they got your name. Wherever you worked, if you had a job, then you were through. So the grownups were too frightened to go. HUNTLEY: It was just the numbers weren' ; t there. BOOKER: Right, the numbers weren' ; t there to keep it going. And it' ; s said that the Movement would have died at that point had it not been for us [children]. And, God, it' ; s just a blessing to have been there. I think that we changed the course of human history at some point. HUNTLEY: Were there other members of your family involved? BOOKER: No, my sister wouldn' ; t go to jail for no-o-o-o-o body. She wouldn' ; t go to jail if Martin Luther King came by the house and asked her to. HUNTLEY: Did she ever go to any of the meetings? BOOKER: No, she watched it on TV. My sister was very non-confrontational. HUNTLEY: What was your mother' ; s and sister' ; s reaction to your participation? BOOKER: You know what my sister would say? [She' ; d say] ' ; See, I knew he would go down there, cause he just so bad.' ; My mother was afraid and proud because she knew that they would kill me. When we was little they used to say, ' ; I' ; d rather kill you myself than let the White folks kill you,' ; and that was a real thing. And, so, she was proud, but she was also afraid. She had told me not to go down there. HUNTLEY: Were you all members of any particular church? BOOKER: We went to Zion Hill. Zion Hill was on Sixth Avenue. It was right down from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in the next block. HUNTLEY: So even after you moved to Loveman' ; s Village you still came back? BOOKER: Yeah. HUNTLEY: Was your church involved? BOOKER: No, as a church we didn' ; t have any mass meetings. HUNTLEY: What about your pastor? BOOKER: Not to my knowledge. I really don' ; t know. HUNTLEY: What benefits did you and your family and community realize as a result of the Movement? BOOKER: The beginning of consciousness. The beginning of the awareness of self. I know the obvious things you would think would be the integration and access to public facilities, and all those things were obvious benefits. But I think the most important benefit was the self-esteem that it gave Black people. The feeling that we can do something. I think that we have never been that powerless since that day. HUNTLEY: After the Movement, Wash, you then volunteered and went into the Marine Corps? BOOKER: I was still very patriotic. HUNTLEY: When you came out of the Marine Corps, what did you do? BOOKER: I came home. HUNTLEY: How was home? BOOKER: I was different. Home was different, but I was different, too. I was a combat veteran. I had been in combat. I had fought for this country and I made the same mistakes that Black men had made since the Civil War. You are very familiar with the fact that there were riots after World War Two, because the Black troops went to France and they set with the mademoiselles and they thought they were free and when they came back here there were riots in eastern cities and cities in the Midwest. And partly, it was the attitude that they came back with--expecting that they could now be real Americans and they could enjoy all of the privileges that other American enjoyed. Of course, that wasn' ; t the case. After World War Two it was the same way. And Korea. I don' ; t think it was as bad after Korea for some reason. I guess it bears examining, but it just didn' ; t have the same kind of effect. After Vietnam, because of the Civil Rights Movement, the peace Movement, and the nationalist Movement that was afoot in the Black community, we got education in ' ; Nam [Vietnam]. We started to interact with people from up north and up east who knew about folks like Malcolm X, because you have to realize in Alabama there was a cotton curtain. News didn' ; t come in and news didn' ; t get out. We were shocked to find out some of the things that had gone on in some of the other parts of the country that we never heard about. HUNTLEY: Like what, for instance? BOOKER: Like what was happening with the Nation of Islam. We knew there was a small group of Black Muslims here. And we had heard tales about what they were doing in places like Chicago and what they were doing in places like New York, but to get news in the newspaper or to be able to look at the news on television, which is what we did, or looking at the front page of the newspaper, it wasn' ; t there. It' ; s just those kinds of things just weren' ; t reported down here. So we were behind in terms of that Movement. We led the charge in the Civil Rights Movement but the ' ; Black and proud' ; Movement, the Black revolution, the Black identity, Black Independence Movement if you will, we came late to that. And, most of us, got those kind of ideas from our interactions with our cousins from up north and some of these other places. So we came back quite militant. Plus the riots happened while I was in ' ; Nam and we didn' ; t find out about them. A lot of things were going on in this country too. I was in ' ; Nam in [19]68 and ' ; 69. There were things happening here that we didn' ; t find about until much later. HUNTLEY: You got back here in ' ; 69 or ' ; 70? BOOKER: I came home from ' ; Nam in ' ; 69--in May of ' ; 69 and I got out of the Marine Corps in ' ; 70. What I found in Birmingham when I got back, though, with my new attitude and my new knowledge of James Brown had made Black and Proud. Plus, we thought things had changed too while we were in ' ; Nam. We made two mistakes. Two things we thought had changed hadn' ; t changed. One, we thought that America had become a fair and a more just place and that Black people now shared equally in the American dream. Two, we became conscious and close while we were in ' ; Nam. We developed a camaraderie, a sense of brotherhood that we thought was even stronger back here. HUNTLEY: Now you came to Birmingham. Your buddies probably went to New York or Chicago or Los Angeles. What was your reaction when you returned? BOOKER: Police brutality was rampant here. I think it was the same kind of thing. There were people coming from the service. The old line, the old racist segregationists who were on the police department was saying, ' ; Well, you' ; re back here now, I don' ; t care where you been, who you think you is. You' ; re back in Birmingham--' ; And, so, that kind of thing was going on. The community was a little bit more militant. There was militancy in the community, and we returning Vietnam veterans brought back militancy to the community. And, at the same time, the police were becoming more repressive and oppressive. That' ; s what we ran into. I hooked up with some fellows when I got back here. HUNTLEY: These other fellows, were they Vietnam veterans as well? BOOKER: Three of them were Vietnam veterans. Mombozi was a middle class college student that hooked up with us. Doc Brad--you know Doc. Doc had come from Carolina and had been fooling around with the Movement for years and we started an affiliation of the Panther Party. It was called the Alabama Black Liberation Front. We adhered to the principles and ideology and teachings of the Party and we sold the Black Panther newspaper and we were an affiliation of the Party. Among other things, we fought police brutality by doing everything from investigating and documenting cases of police brutality when we went out into the community right on their heels. We had two offices. We had one in Roosevelt City and we had another over in Titusville in a place they called Newmongo, a little Korea. People would call. Let' ; s say the police was going to somebody' ; s house in Cottageville, kicked the door in and roughed their momma up and their sister and just kind of beat up everybody, which they would do, which was done commonly and we would get a call. We would shoot over there. We' ; d talk to everybody who was a witness. We' ; d get their story. We' ; d get it all down. And there was a young man, a young council member, who had decided that he was going to fight things. So we hooked up with him and we decided that we would go up there and meet with him. Doc would take him the information, and he would get up in the council meeting and boom, boom, boom, and he would blast them. He had the acceptability and the credibility in the community that we had been denied. They ran a campaign, a media campaign, against us. They told the community that we were a threat to the community, that we were militants, and that we were dangerous, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the information we gave him, he was able to use to bring attention to the situation. HUNTLEY: Who was this individual? BOOKER: Richard Arrington. He was Councilman Arrington then. He had his office in the City Federal Building--not the City Federal Building, but the 2121 Building. We started a breakfast-for-kids programs. We went to the merchants in the neighborhood and said, ' ; You make your money off of these people, but their kids go to school hungry in the morning.' ; Of course, we got this from the [Black Panther] Party, and we said, " ; You' ; re going to donate and give us grits and eggs and food.' ; And they said we were extorting. ' ; Hell,' ; we said. ' ; No, we' ; re just putting something back.' ; We were making sure they were putting something back. So we started running breakfast-for-kids programs and we held political education classes and we would teach the kids songs. They said we were indoctrinating the kids with our ideology, which is why the federal government eventually co-opted the program nationally and the federal government now provides breakfast for children at school who can' ; t afford it. But the concept came from the Panther Party. HUNTLEY: Around the country there were Black Panther Party organizations from Oakland to New Haven, Connecticut and there were many difficulties, physical encounters with the police. Did that happen? BOOKER: All the time. One of the first ones I can remember is when we followed the example of the Party and got copies of the City Codes and we-- When they came into our community, we would get in the car and get right behind them. And if they would stop anybody, we' ; d get out and observe. We would say, ' ; The man has rights. You have to read him his rights. You have to' ; do this, you have to do that. Of course, they would get angry. In the beginning they didn' ; t know how to deal with it. I think a lot of it had to do with just that they were really stunned because here was some Black men in Birmingham, Alabama walking up to the police saying, ' ; Look, you can' ; t do this to this man. This man has a constitutional right to defend himself against you if you violate his rights, and he has rights.' ; Of course, they didn' ; t want to hear none of that. We had one confrontation up on Sixth Avenue where a brother was selling the papers and they called the police on him. He called it in and we called some other folk and it ended up that we were all up there on Sixth Avenue armed with the police. It was diffused. It all just fizzled out. We left. They left. Nobody was arrested. There was a shoot out that was out in Tarrant City. A woman was going to be evicted and she had no place to go. We were idealists. We could not understand how you could just take a Black person-- The lady was in her sixties. She had been living there and she was renting from one of these slumlords and he was going to put her out. Somebody called us and said, ' ; Look, they' ; re going to put this lady out in the street and she' ; s got nowhere to go. She' ; s got no family.' ; So we went out to the house. I was not in the house when the Sheriff finally came, but the Sheriff came and a gunfight broke out and obviously they brought enough folk. They had fifty or sixty deputies. HUNTLEY: Was anyone hurt? BOOKER: Ronny was shot in the neck, I think. Was Doc shot? Doc might have been shot too. Ronny was shot and Jamael was shot. Mombozi didn' ; t get shot, but I think maybe two or three of the fellows got shot. Then one of the brothers named Robert Jakes from North Birmingham, they broke him and he testified against everybody else and said it was a conspiracy. I think Doc ended up with five years, Ronny ended up with five years. Ronny never served his. He left and went to Oregon. The Governor of Oregon refused to extradite him back to Alabama because he said that the judicial system was unfair to Blacks and that [Ronny] couldn' ; t get a fair trial and he didn' ; t feel like it was good. He lived there until he died four or five years ago. Doc, of course, went and did three years, I think. There was-- Oh God, I remember one night. When I think about this it sends chills. One night we were going to ambush the police simply because some idiot came to headquarters and started saying, ' ; Y' ; all always talk about what y' ; all gonna' ; do, but y' ; all ain' ; t gonna' ; do nothing. Y' ; all scared of the White folks. Y' ; all ain' ; t gonna' ; do nothing.' ; Doc wasn' ; t there. Ronny was there and it kind of worked us all into a frenzy. We loaded up our arms and set up an ambush, and it just so happens we made this guy go with us and he broke before we could spring the ambush. It would have been a terrible thing, just a senseless act of murder with no real political purpose. It would have been hard to defend in hindsight. Hindsight is twenty twenty. It would have been hard to defend. HUNTLEY: But it didn' ; t happen? BOOKER: Right, it didn' ; t happen because, he... We were set in, in the ambush, right? Everybody was. We was just waiting for the cop and he [the man who instigated things] jumped up and threw his rifle down and took off and said, ' ; Y' ; all crazy' ; and ran. So, when he ran, we all got up and said, ' ; We ain' ; t gonna' ; do this.' ; But, you know, that' ; s the closest-- I look back at that and I think that' ; s the closest-- And it was stupid. The other confrontations were when we were exercising our rights. The brother had the right to sell the newspaper but, thinking that Black people didn' ; t know their rights, that they could just buffalo this brother, you know, these officers, they approach him and tell him, ' ; Get on. You can' ; t stand out here and sell that.' ; Of course, he could. He called us. They called reinforcements. And we all ended up on Sixth Avenue. There were cases where they stopped and we stopped and there were words back and forth. I just think that they were not ready for armed Black men. They had never had to deal with this kind of situation before and it kind of threw them off. Of course, today, they have tactics and deal with it lickety split. HUNTLEY: Well, Wash, I think we can probably conclude. Is there anything else that you would like to add just to highlight or maybe encapsulate what Birmingham has meant to you in the years that you' ; ve spent here? BOOKER: I see Birmingham now in hindsight as a place where, you know, a center for change. Birmingham has produced a lot of leaders, great thinkers. People have left here, I think, and have gone to other parts of the country that the Movement produced and that we have played a part. This has been a Movement town and it is a Movement town. And I think the reason it became a Movement town is because at one point, it was ' ; the most racist place on the face of the earth,' ; is what one person said. Tough times make tough people. Growing up in a tough town like Birmingham was what made the people, the Black folk who came out of here, tough people. And I think that toughness has pushed this city forward when they were allowed to participate and their toughness has caused this city to continue to try to grow and build and move in spite of what anybody may say or what may happen, and I think it' ; s because of the toughness of the town and that it' ; s still around and it is still, to my way of thinking, one of the world' ; s great cities today and it has a bright future. Strangely enough, because of those tough times, we made tough people that are now able to build. We are not inside, not by a long shot. We ain' ; t where we ought to be, but we ain' ; t where we was, either. Hopefully, we will get ' ; there' ; , wherever that is. But the controversial thing-- ' ; There' ; is--is a place we haven' ; t identified yet as a people. I think that self-determination, the right to decide your own destiny as a people, is something, is a right, that belongs to every group of people, race and ethnic group on the earth. I think, we, as Black folk have to realize that it is right and just for us to want to determine our own destiny. To want, to whatever extent we can, to the greatest extent we can, to determine our own destiny. HUNTLEY: I appreciate you spending this time with us. You have done a tremendous job. BOOKER: I really feel like we left so much out. HUNTLEY: Yes, but we' ; ll have to do it again. There' ; s always so much left out, but you can' ; t do it all in a day. BOOKER: I think the best part of it was the part that they threw out, but that wasn' ; t our fault. That was their fault. That was the director' ; s fault. HUNTLEY: But that was very perceptive. A tough town makes for tough people. Thank you, Wash. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=WBookerIII1995.xml WBookerIII1995.xml
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Washington Booker III
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Washington Booker III discusses growing up in Loveman's Village, getting involved in the Movement, serving in the Marine Corps and the founding of the Alabama Black Liberation Front.
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19950105B
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Alabama Black Liberation Front
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1995-01-05
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Horace Huntley
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Patricia Powell Berry
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5.4 August 13, 1997 Patricia Powell Berry Interviewed on August 13, 1997 19970813B 0:42:00 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Raines Whittaker Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Seward (Neb.) Lutheran Church Voter Registration Patricia Powell Berry Horace Huntley Video 1:|16(6)|41(10)|65(16)|92(4)|111(8)|132(4)|157(7)|172(7)|185(2)|199(4)|226(8)|242(12)|264(7)|276(11)|288(2)|298(7)|325(9)|338(13)|349(9)|365(5)|377(2)|400(3)|419(10)|448(8)|474(4)|487(11)|511(5)|532(6)|551(2)|564(9)|581(5)|596(11)|614(1)|634(14)|653(1)|673(4)|688(5)|707(3)|720(16)|730(9)|739(2) 0 https://youtu.be/HxfKDYX6g7k YouTube video English 0 Introduction to Interview This is an interview with Patricia Powell Berry for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project. African American history ; African American women ; Alabama--History 33.516200, -86.813870 18 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute http://www.bcri.org The website for the BCRI 39 Biographical Background I just want to start by asking you some general questions about your family ; like background ; your mother and father. Employment and educational background of parents. African American coal miners ; African Americans--History ; African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) 303 Elementary School Do you remember your first grade? Her experiences in elementary school and transition to high school. African American children--Education African American elementary schools ; African Americans--History 631 High School What was that transition like for you, elementary to high school? Participation in high school and experiencing discrimination at businesses. African American high school students ; African American teenagers ; Discrimination against African Americans, [Mexican Americans, etc.] African Americans--Education ; African Americans--History 878 Gangs Around Town All the time between Smithfield and Titusville between the southside and Titusville. The presence of neighborhood gangs, dating, and the feelings of community. African American gangs African American history ; African American neighborhoods 1091 Social and Class Composition of School I was in what they called an accelerated class. More specifics about high school classes and the economic class composition at school. African American high school students ; African Americans--Segregation ; Race, class and social structure African Americans--History ; African Americans--Segregation ; Middle class African Americans 1257 High School Graduation and College In 1960, you graduated from high school in 1960. High school graduation in 1960 and Lutheran college in Selma, AL. African American Christians ; African American college students ; African American Lutherans ; African Americans--History ; Lutheran Church ; Selma (Ala.) 1293 Involvement in St. Paul Lutheran Church Alabama Lutheran Academy and College now it's called Concordia College, community college in Selma, Alabama. Her time in the church as a youth among the black congregation with a white pastor. African American churches African American Lutherans ; African Americans--History ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Lutheran Church ; Selma (Ala.) 33.494427, -86.827314 17 St. Paul Lutheran Church 1490 Voter Registration Work Now you also helped to register or prepare people for registration. Her work doing voter registration through the St. Paul Lutheran Church and facing racism for it. African American civil rights workers ; Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama ; Discrimination against African Americans, [Mexican Americans, etc.] ; Discrimination--United States ; Voter registration African Americans--History ; Alabama--History ; Civil rights movement ; Freedom Rides, 1961 ; Voter registration 1692 Racism and Isolation During College in Nebraska I was away in school. I was in Nebraska. While away during college she was isolated from her community and encountered racism. African American college students ; African Americans--Segregation ; Racism--United States--History African Americans--History ; Racism--United States--History ; Seward (Neb.) 40.907782, -97.098801 10 Seward, NE 1824 Siblings in Civil Rights Movement My sisters, every one of them. All of her siblings were involved in civil rights. She also reflects further on the few black students at college. African American families ; African American women college students ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States African American families ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--History ; Civil rights movement 1987 Return to Birmingham after College What did you do after you finished [inaudible]? Upon returning, she was employed as a teacher in a Lutheran school for one year. African American teachers ; African Americans--History ; Birmingham (Ala.) 2074 Marriage and Teaching What did you do after that year? She taught at and became principle of Zion Lutheran School. She also reflects on coming back to a black community after college in Nebraska. African American teachers ; African Americans--History ; Bessemer (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.) 2321 Reflection on Experiences Basically, all of that was a learning experience. Her final message on education and success. African American families ; African American poor families ; African Americans--Employment ; African Americans--History Oral History Patricia Powell Berry discusses growing up poor in Birmingham, moving to Nebraska, and ultimately returning to Birmingham. She was heavily involved in voter registration during the Movement. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Patricia Powell Berry for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project. I' ; m Dr. Horace Huntley and we' ; re presently at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Today is August 13, 1997. Ms. Berry I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to come and sit and talk with me today about Birmingham, growing up in Birmingham and the Civil Rights Movement. Welcome to the Institute. BERRY: I' ; m glad to be here. HUNTLEY: I just want to start by asking you some general questions about your family ; like background ; your mother and father. Were they from Birmingham ; both born in Birmingham? BERRY: No, my father was born in Bessemer and my mother came here from LaGrange, Georgia. She lived with her uncle and aunt at that time her uncle was working at the mine. So, they were considered very fortunate cause she was an only child. If you worked in the mine, you know, you were fortunate to do that. He came here first to work at TCI and in that area and then he sent for her. Then she grew up in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: Did he work in the ore mines or the coal mines? BERRY: The coal mines in Bessemer, you know out there. Somehow they met and got married and he' ; s from Bessemer. His people migrated from Georgia for the same reason. HUNTLEY: So, both of your parents were originally from Georgia. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: But they didn' ; t know each other. BERRY: No, cause all of them came here for those jobs at TCI and in the mines. HUNTLEY: What part of Georgia was he from? BERRY: I don' ; t remember exactly what part he was from. HUNTLEY: She' ; s from LaGrange? BERRY: Right, her folks are from LaGrange cause we went back down there to visit them but we never did go to visit his people. HUNTLEY: How much education did they have, your parents? BERRY: My mother, I think, she got to the 11th grade at Parker. My daddy he didn' ; t finish at Parker but he went there. HUNTLEY: He went to Parker also? BERRY: Both of them went to Parker. So, they decided to get married and start a family which I was the first born. They settled right over there in that area. HUNTLEY: In Smithfield? BERRY: In Smithfield projects. HUNTLEY: Did he work for TCI, also? BERRY: Daddy worked various places. Golden Flake Potato Chip Company ; that' ; s the one I remember most, that he worked for ' ; cause he used to bring potato chips home. HUNTLEY: We' ; ll always remember those treats. Did she work outside the home, your mother? BERRY: She didn' ; t start working outside of the home until after things got kind of tight and we had all these kids and she would do day work. I was old enough to keep the kids then. HUNTLEY: What is day work? BERRY: Cleaning White people' ; s houses, ironing she would take in ironing. HUNTLEY: Did she ever take you to her place of employment? BERRY: No, I had to stay home and babysit. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok. How many brothers and sisters did you have? BERRY: I had five sisters and two brothers of which I was the oldest. So, soon as I got big enough then she went to work. HUNTLEY: Oh, I see. BERRY: Then I stayed home and took care of the house. HUNTLEY: And you lived in Smithfield? BERRY: Yes, at that time I was very young. I went to Lincoln. As the family grew the apartment was too small, we were in the largest apartment they had in Smithfield. So, the family kept growing so they built Loveman' ; s Village with more rooms cause you had a bedroom downstairs and three bedrooms upstairs. I remember that very clearly and you had two bathrooms. We were very excited about that. So, they said we' ; re going to move into some new apartments and only the families that were big had all these rooms. The place was brand new and we went over there and we just loved it. HUNTLEY: That must have been exciting. BERRY: It was very exciting. We had more room than we could use. HUNTLEY: I' ; ve talked with several other people and they talked about the move from Smithfield to Loveman' ; s Village and there was a step up. BERRY: It was ; it really was cause you had, you know, Smithfield was built years before, many years before we were born ' ; cause you still had the coal bin and you had the coal stove. When we got to Loveman' ; s Village we had gas space heaters. HUNTLEY: You didn' ; t have to go out and get coal anymore. BERRY: Right. It was a step up and you had two bathrooms instead of one. HUNTLEY: That' ; s really moving up to high cotton. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: Do you remember your first grade? Where did you start first grade? BERRY: At Lincoln Elementary School, I remember that. HUNTLEY: What do you remember about Lincoln? BERRY: I remember being in talent shows and being in plays. We used to have a talent and variety show and the teachers would make us costumes and we would be so excited. Our parents would come to see the show and you just felt like a celebrity ; made you feel real good. So, that' ; s why I can relate to kids being active in programs and plays because it really builds your self-esteem cause it built mine. I just felt like a superstar. (Laughing) HUNTLEY: Especially when you dressed up. BERRY: Right. I think we were little Dutch girls and tulips and all that. I remember the teacher decorating the stage. My mother made me the apron and starched it real stiff and we had the little hats and she made the little clogs. I remember that so vividly because it was such a beautiful time. HUNTLEY: Did you have Mayday at Lincoln? BERRY: Yes, we did. I loved that too. We had Mayday every year. We wore all white, white shorts, white T-shirts, white tennis shoes, and white socks. We had to plait the Maypole, everybody knew what they had to do and you did what you had to on cue. I don' ; t remember any confusion. I don' ; t remember that. HUNTLEY: I can remember actually rehearsing for plaiting the Maypole. You had to go down and rehearse. Then on that day, that was the biggest day of the year. BERRY: Sure and your parents, sisters, brothers, and everybody ... HUNTLEY: Everybody in the neighborhood was there. BERRY: Sure was. It was a happy time. HUNTLEY: Yes, it was. How long were you at Lincoln? BERRY: I guess until the 3rd grade. HUNTLEY: Then you moved to ... BERRY: Loveman' ; s Village and went to Washington. HUNTLEY: How was Washington different from Lincoln? BERRY: It seemed to be a little larger to me. The thing I remember most about Washington was my music classes, my art classes, home economics classes and I had a teacher, I remember her she was just out of college. She was so energetic and we learned and we sang, she had an open classroom. We didn' ; t sit still all day. I remember her cause she was my first teacher at Washington. HUNTLEY: How did you get back and forth to school? BERRY: We walked every day. We walked to school come rain, come shine, come snow, whatever we walked. Even if your shoes had a hole in it your momma would cut a piece of cardboard out and put it in the bottom of your shoes and you walked to school. You can-ied a lunch at that time, you didn' ; t have free lunches, so you carried sack lunches or you had to buy lunches. You could work in the lunchroom at that time and they would give you a lunch if you were old enough but you had to be about in the 6th, 7th, or 8th grade to work in the lunch room and taking home economics. You would wash the dishes or clean the tables and you would get a free lunch. By us carrying lunches, we were considered as being poor, so we would carry our lunches but it was a treat to eat in the lunchroom at that time, or either to just buy some ice cream. Now we would stop at the store sometime when we had a nickel or dime cause when you go to the store for people they' ; ll give you a nickel or dime for running to the store for them. And you take that money and you can buy some treats with it. HUNTLEY: What I remember most about eating at Riley School, we didn' ; t have a lunch room, but I remember we would have milk and we would want chocolate milk. I remember that chocolate milk. They didn' ; t have enough chocolate milk so we would race for the chocolate milk. BERRY: You were talking about the milk when we were growing up, at lunch time if they had fish, I don' ; t remember how the rumor got out, that if you drink milk and eat fish or eat ice cream and fish you would die. So, when the children would have fish for lunch then we would wait outside and they would have ice cream we would tell them that you had fish you can' ; t eat ice cream and they would give that ice cream and milk away. That' ; s when we would get that milk and ice cream cause they were afraid that if they put it together they would die. Now, where it originated from, I have no idea. I wonder to this day how did that ever happen and how did it ever start. HUNTLEY: It was out all over town cause the same thing happened at our school. BERRY: Fish and milk and fish and ice cream. HUNTLEY: There was something else, eating watermelon and ... BERRY: If you drink anything and eat watermelon that would kill you. HUNTLEY: Yeah, something like that. BERRY: Some man drank some whiskey and he ate some watermelon and he dropped dead on the front porch. (Laughing) HUNTLEY: And the watermelon had nothing to do with it. BERRY: Yeah, that used to be a rumor. HUNTLEY: Now, you left Washington and went to Ullman. BERRY: Went to Ullman, right. HUNTLEY: What was that transition like for you, elementary to high school? BERRY: It was beautiful. I remember graduating from Washington School. It was a ve1y big to do. Everybody had the same pattern dresses. My mother had made all of our clothes. She would get the material from Newberry' ; s at that time or wherever they could get it for little or nothing, 3 yards for a dollar. So, after we graduated, we were looking forward to going to Ullman High School. We had been very well prepared so you weren' ; t afraid of your education cause you knew you were ready for that. So, you became more independent. We used to walk downtown from Titusville ; you would make your little change and we' ; d buy mascara, you know with the little brush. You would buy eyebrow pencils and lipstick. At that time they only sold you powder and we had no makeup we used powder. The only color powder they would sell Black people was called nutmeg. HUNTLEY: What do you mean the only color they would sell? BERRY: That' ; s the only color they would sell to Black people. HUNTLEY: You couldn' ; t just go in and buy. BERRY: You could not buy any other color. I don' ; t care how light you were, how dark you were Black people used nutmeg powder, they wore red fox stockings, you had no choice. You wore red fox or you didn' ; t wear none. You didn' ; t have a choice, you couldn' ; t look at the other colors and say I think this would look better on me. If you want stockings you would walk in and say I want a pair of stockings and they would give you red fox. HUNTLEY: That' ; s interesting, I' ; ve never heard that before. BERRY: You didn' ; t have a choice. HUNTLEY: Is that right? BERRY: Yeah. I think the lipstick, I don' ; t remember what color the lipstick was but see you asked for it. They wouldn' ; t go through any changes to ask you what would you like because it didn' ; t matter what you liked. HUNTLEY: So, whatever ... BERRY: The salesperson wanted you to have that' ; s what you would get. They would tell you that, they were working in department stores, five and dime stores. So, these White people at that time they didn' ; t have much more than you but, you know, this made them feel good to look down on you and to pull you down and whatever means that they could lower you that' ; s what they did. I understand that now but I didn' ; t understand that then. We had no choices. We had none. HUNTLEY: Was Ullman, we' ; re you still as active at Ullman as you had been in the elementary schools? BERRY: Yes cause the first thing I did I joined the choir and we had variety shows that we had every year. They sold tickets and we would practice for two or three weeks. I would always get in the dances, you know. The first dance we were in we had the little frilly skirts, our parents made them, it was no problem they just made whatever you had to have. Our teachers would tell them what they wanted and they were proud cause their child was on stage. So, we had little shoes and we would dance. Once you were in the variety show every year you were in it and you would approximately be with the same kids. Then I got in the choir with Mrs. Gregory White, which was a very good experience and I' ; ve been in choirs ever since then. We would sing. I loved to be in programs. Even though we were poor, it was just something I was just proud of doing. It just really built my self-esteem. It really did. HUNTLEY: In attending Ullman there was always this big rivalry between Parker and Ullman. BERRY: All the time between Smithfield and Titusville between the southside and Titusville. That' ; s why gangs are not new. The gangs have been around ever since I was a child. Southtown had a gang, Titusville, Loveman' ; s Village had a gang and Smithfield had a gang. You could not come off of your turf like when we started dating I made the mistake of dating a guy that lived in Smithfield. He walked to my house and he ran back home (Laughing) because he was off his turf. So, your safest way, your dad didn' ; t like you to date guys with cars, cars were just off limits, you rode the bus wherever you went. Then Southtown project they would ride through the alleys and they had guns, I don' ; t kmow where the guns came from, and my daddy, I remember they would tum the lights out cause everybody knew they were going to ride that night. It was the gangs and he would make us lie down on the floor, I remember that ve1y well. It didn' ; t happen over and over again but every now and then it would. The biggest violence they had at that time they used knives and switchblades that was the thing. HUNTLEY: Maybe one or two people had guns but everybody had a knife. BERRY: Everybody had a knife. You fought with a knife and it seems that they were trained to use those switchblades and how to use those knives. HUNTLEY: Practiced. BERRY: Practiced with them, right. So, you always had gangs. HUNTLEY: Just didn' ; t have the dope, the drugs that people are now fighting over. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: You simply were protecting your turf. BERRY: You were tough. HUNTLEY: In a sense you were protecting the community cause you didn' ; t let anybody else come into the community. BERRY: Right. They didn' ; t want the guys from our community dating the girls in their community. They didn' ; t date you but they didn' ; t want anybody else to date you. HUNTLEY: Right. BERRY: So, they protected what they call their turf. They wouldn' ; t hurt you. You didn' ; t have to be afraid. Your doors would be open. You could sit out on the porch all night. You could go to sleep on the porch at night. Even at Loveman' ; s Village at that time because the neighborhood was a family. Like if you had one potato and you needed two you would just send someone next door and you would get the other potato or you needed eggs, or grits, or onions. If the neighborhoods heard that Mrs. Josephine, she had about five or six children, and they didn' ; t have anything to eat, the women would get together and take food over there so they could eat. The community was just a family. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. That is a difference in then and now. BERRY: Now cause there is so much pride, if you don' ; t have, you don' ; t ask. There' ; s just too much pride. At that time we were all in the same boat. HUNTLEY: What do you remember about your days at Ullman? In terms of your instruction, teachers, principal? BERRY: I was in what they called an accelerated class. You had section A and section B. Section A and section B are supposed to be the kids that are possibly college bound. They call them the smaii kids. The average kids . . . now we took academics like biology, chemistry, and geometry, you know. The other kids were more into language arts, business, or vocational studies like they had beauty culture, they had art, they had sewing. We took those too, but they were more so into it than the academics. They had woodshop, tailoring, they worked in the lunchroom. HUNTLEY: Did they have shoe repair? BERRY: I believe they did. They were more vocational and our class was more into academics. So, they had prejudice because if you' ; re in the smart class then the children that weren' ; t in the smart class thought that you were more than they were. I guess there were five or six ofus out at Loveman' ; s Village in those classes. The majority of them came from what we call Honeysuckle Hill. One side of 6th Avenue was considered the poor people' ; s side and the other side of 6th Avenue was the more ... HUNTLEY: More well-to-do. BERRY: Well-to-do Black people like the teachers and the men that worked at TCI. Like you had a husband that worked at TCI and a wife that taught school, or nurses then they are considered to be well-to-do. So, they lived on the other side of 6th Avenue. So, about 75% of your class was from the well-to-do side and 25% would be from Loveman' ; s Village and the other side. So, we would be in those classes and we didn' ; t feel any less than they did. That' ; s one thing, I don' ; t think they made ... they didn' ; t make us feel any less. It' ; s what you knew that made you in those classes. Who you were, it was how you did your lessons, what grades you made. I remember we had geometry was the class that girls at that time, most ofus had problems with geometry. So, the boys would do our geometry for us and help us with our geometry to get through that class. HUNTLEY: In 1960, you graduated from high school in 1960. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: 1960 was the year that the movement here, of course was established. In 1956 the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights with Fred Shuttlesworth and then in 1960 college students started getting involved with the movement. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: And they did that through voter registration. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: When you left Ullman what did you do? Did you go on to school? BERRY: Yes, I went to school in Selma, a Lutheran college, I got a scholarship from a church. HUNTLEY: What' ; s the name ofit? BERRY: Alabama Lutheran Academy and College now it' ; s called Concordia College, community college in Selma, Alabama. It was a few blocks from Selma University. So, we intermingled the campuses did, the kids anyway. I was a member of the St. Paul Lutheran Church. So, my pastor was Elwain, Pastor Joseph Elwain. His father ran the school in Selma. HUNTLEY: Is that right? Elwain was a White minister, right? BERRY: Right. He was a White minister and he was totally, fully involved in the movement. Therefore his members became involved, especially young people. HUNTLEY: So, the Lutheran Church that he was the pastor of was a Black... BERRY: Yeah, it was Black and that' ; s what our membership was. HUNTLEY: And that was on 6th Avenue. BERRY: 6th Avenue right, 6th Avenue South. He had... he worked with the youth he had a youth department. We were involved in so many things with him and we learned so many things with him. His father was the president of the college in Selma, so, he was reared with Black people although he lived in Selma. The people he mostly knew were Black because his father was, what they called at that time, a missionary sent to Alabama to start schools for Black kids. HUNTLEY: You said you were involved with so many things with him and you learned so many things, give me some examples of those. BERRY: Ok, we had a youth group, we would visit White churches, mostly Lutheran churches. HUNTLEY: Here in Birmingham? BERRY: In Birmingham. HUNTLEY: This is in 1960, early 60s? BERRY: Yes, early 60s. In the 50s, we would go, he would drive ok, and we would go to Selma, he' ; d take the youth to Selma. He would take us to Illinois and different places. We were Black kids with White pastors in the cars. I remember we got pulled over in Kentucky, I believe, and the police took them to a little town, there was a little jail there. HUNTLEY: The pastors? BERRY: The pastors they took them to the jail. HUNTLEY: What about the children? BERRY: We were still in the car. HUNTLEY: They left you in the car? BERRY: We were in the car. I remember we didn' ; t know what was going to happen to them but we just prayed and he came back out. He was really brave in our sight. He taught us songs and we would just go different places. It was just as if he was a father figure to us. HUNTLEY: And he would take you to churches here in Birmingham? BERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: Black kids to White Lutheran Churches? BERRY: Yes, right, he sure would. HUNTLEY: Were there ever any difficulties? BERRY: We had no incidents at all. I think the Lutheran Church was a little more liberal. We had White ministers and it was nothing to send a White minister to a Black congregation. Right now they have a White minister, Pastor Noon and he' ; s active in most organizations. HUNTLEY: Now you also helped to register or prepare people for registration. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: Do you remember when you went to take the test yourself? BERRY: Yes, I do. They had somebody to train us for the test because they had gotten a copy of the test. It' ; s like preparing a soldier for war. They prepared us and showed us what to do. They told us when we went down to not be nervous, don' ; t look at anybody cause they would intimidate us and they didn' ; t want us to forget what we had to do. HUNTLEY: You were not to look directly at the person. BERRY: No, cause they would intimidate you. I remember looking at one White man, he was..I can see his face now, he was fat White man, he had dark hair and I could see him just as clear as day and he snarled at me. I remember that they told us not to look and then I knew then why. So, when we got there and we sat down to take the...oh, they would just throw the papers at you. They didn' ; t treat you nice, we were prepared for that, we knew it. HUNTLEY: You anticipated it. BERRY: Right, but we were supposed to be submissive, do whatever they told us to do, pay no attention to their ignorance. We took the test and when we came out, I remember coming out, and there were White people down at the bottom of the steps. I remember not looking at them, I remember just going on. We would always stay in a group. HUNTLEY: Was this while you were in high school? BERRY: It was between high school and college, somewhere between there. You know I would come home every summer. One summer I worked for my church. HUNTLEY: St. Paul? BERRY: St. Paul, right. I did a lot of different work for them, filing, running church bulletins and stuff. So, it was in between those times that I wasn' ; t in school I was at home. HUNTLEY: When you went to take the test did you take an oral test or written test? BERRY: Written test. We were prepared for the written test. We were prepared for the tricky questions and everything. So, once we took it we came back and we trained others how to take it, at St. Paul church. Then they would take them down in cars. I do remember we had some freedom workers to come to our church too. I remember that. HUNTLEY: Freedom riders? BERRY: Yes, I remember them coming to the church. HUNTLEY: Yeah, cause in 1961 the freedom riders did come to Binningham. BERRY: Yes, I remember them. HUNTLEY: There was a lot of turmoil around then. BERRY: That time right. I remember them standing with some of the people of our church. I remember that. HUNTLEY: In 1962, Miles college students along with the Alabama Christian Movement organized a selective buying campaign downtown and they kept people from going in to various stores because what they were attempting to do was to get Black people hired as clerks and in various capacities at various stores cause there were none at the time. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: OF course in 1963 was when the demonstrations took place. Were you here then or were you away at school? BERRY: I was away in school. I was in Nebraska. I got a scholarship again from the Lutheran church. My parents were poor and I knew I wanted an education and I knew I had to get it one way or another. That was just in me. If I had to go into the military, I was going to get me an education. So, I was a diligent worker in my church and they sought scholarships for me and I got scholarships from the White church. HUNTLEY: So, how long were you in Nebraska? BERRY: I was there for two and a half years. Ok, in Seward there are absolutely no Black people. We got there and I wasn' ; t used to snow first of all. There were a lot of foods that we had never eaten as poor Black people that I had to get used to eating. It' ; s just like you were in a foreign land. When we would walk down the street the little children would be hiding out and saying hey there' ; s a nigger. They only saw us on TV and they only knew what their parents told them. They would say there' ; s a nigger, there' ; s a nigger. I remember shopping at JC Penny' ; s and a little girl was going through the clothing and peeking out going nigger, come here, there' ; s a nigger. So, I looked and said BOO! and she flew. That was funny to us cause they didn' ; t know. HUNTLEY: Now, this is in Nebraska? BERRY: In Seward, Nebraska. So, the thing was not only in Birmingham, it was everywhere. We thought we were the only ones. In the 60s, Birmingham, it just wasn' ; t Birmingham. These people weren' ; t used to Black people and the only thing they knew to call us was niggers. HUNTLEY: Well, in 1963 you were in Seward, Nebraska and there' ; s a lot of activity going on here in Birmingham. How did that impact upon you being from Birmingham and seeing, I' ; m assuming that you saw it on the news and in newspapers? BERRY: Yes, I did. HUNTLEY: Were people talking about it then? BERRY: My sisters, every one of them. They were old enough and in high school and my brothers, they were all involved. So, that in terms involved me. They all went to jail. Some of them went to the fairgrounds to jail. I remember when I would come home for Christmas they would fill me in on what was going on. How my daddy was afraid that if anybody found out he was going to lose his job, cause he had to feed us. Once they got to school and walked off there was nothing that he could do, you know. Then it was to many at that particular time. HUNTLEY: All of your brothers and sisters were in it. BERRY: Every one of them that was able participated. My oldest brother, he' ; s dead now, I remember he had an encounter with the dogs ' ; cause he told me about it. So, all of us were involved. Chris McNair was a member of our church also. So, when Denise got killed I was in school and I remember Denise cause she went to our church sometime and that was a hard thing for me to take and being there on campus with all these White people. There were only five Black people on the campus. HUNTLEY: Only five. BERRY: And you had about four Africans. At that time the Africans thought they were more than the Black people. So, they didn' ; t associate with us. So, we were the only Blacks on campus. I had a hard time dealing with it at that particular time. These people treated me nicely but it was the idea that I missed my people and I wanted to be at home. HUNTLEY: Did any of your friends there ever ask you about Birmingham? Any of your White friends ever talk about it? BERRY: They never did. They only said they were sorry that things were the way they were. They couldn' ; t even begin to visualize it. HUNTLEY: The five Blacks that were there on campus, were they all from Alabama? BERRY: Yes, they were all females from Mobile ; Birmingham. HUNTLEY: So, there were no males on campus. BERRY: No Black males. The scholarships were given to the females. If you had males they usually went to the Seminary to become pastors and the females became teachers but they didn' ; t get the scholarships, we got the scholarships. It was Black females. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you finished [inaudible]? BERRY: Well, I went to work. They guarantee you a job at the Lutheran School. HUNTLEY: Did you come back to Birmingham? BERRY: I came back to Birmingham. I went to work in the country, I think it was Catherine, Alabama. HUNTLEY: As a teacher? BERRY: As a teacher in the Lutheran School. See, these Lutheran schools were set up by White people to educate the Blacks in the country, you know, in the fa1ming areas. They were White only school houses at that time which was new to me. So, that was a history lesson for me. We had a big pot belly stove, you had all the children in one room. They didn' ; t come to school when they had to pick cotton but they came later. In the meantime, the Lutheran church was building a brick school for them in which I was supposed to go ih and teach. So, if it rained to hard or it was muddy you didn' ; t go to school cause the bus, we had a school bus, couldn' ; t go up to the school so you didn' ; t have school on those days. So, I got in on a little of that history. HUNTLEY: How long were you there? BERRY: A year, but when I got in there on that part of history I thank God that I did. Then I saw how it was to teach in a one room school with the little desks with the ink wells. The public schools had those buildings like Washington school, but the Lutheran school was still in a one room school. HUNTLEY: What did you do after that year? BERRY: I came back and I got married and I worked at Zion Lutheran School in Bessemer. Later I became the principal of the Zion Lutheran School in Bessemer. The school began to grow and I began to raise my family. HUNTLEY: So, Birmingham then has been an attraction to you. Did you ever consider to not live in Birmingham or moving to other parts of the country? BERRY: The only other part of the country I wanted to live in was Denver. As a student I taught in Denver and it was an all White school. I was the only Black then. So, Denver was friendly to me they didn' ; t have many Blacks but at that time they treated Blacks differently than they treated Blacks in Birmingham. They had a lot of Hispanics there. The Blacks that were in Denver were the Blacks that were doing well. I saw very few Blacks that weren' ; t doing well. HUNTLEY: Did you student teach in a Lutheran School? BERRY: In a Lutheran School, all White. HUNTLEY: How long were you there? BERRY: About 3 or 4 months. HUNTLEY: So, that was the only consideration outside of Birmingham? BERRY: Right, was there. See, I even experienced integration there. We as a group, we went to, there were five Black girls, and we went to White churches in Nebraska and sang and they gave us money. When I think about it these people didn' ; t know what Black people was, they hadn' ; t even talked to Black people. Really we were ambassadors in Nebraska, in that part of Nebraska. We went to Omaha where they had more Blacks and they had Blacks in Lincoln. HUNTLEY: How far were you from Lincoln and Omaha? BERRY: Ok, Seward was about 35 to 40 minutes, about as far as it if from here to Tuscaloosa, from Lincoln. HUNTLEY: So, you were isolated then from any Black community. BERRY: Right. So, when I got home I loved my people even more because it just gave me a deep love for my people being in this world where there were none. There was only five ofus. So, I would be so glad to come home. HUNTLEY: So, you would come home twice a year? BERRY: Once or twice a year. Some time we wouldn' ; t. There was a White family that would put us up for short breaks, like spring break. We would come home for Christmas and we would go home for summer. HUNTLEY: So, that then must have been quite an experience for you being from Birmingham and a school in Selma and knowing the whole system of segregation as it stood. Then being sent up to Nebraska where I guess you assumed that it would be a lot different. BERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: It turned out that it really wasn' ; t. BERRY: That we were the odd man out. They treated you differently. Some of them thought we were foreigners. I remember going to the grocery store and I was getting some lemons and this little old White man asked me, " ; they don' ; t have that in your country do they" ; , you know. I began to realize how far removed from them we were. They didn' ; t know us as people, they only knew what they were told. HUNTLEY: Exactly. BERRY: I said isn' ; t this odd. HUNTLEY: We covered a lot of territory talking about your experiences. Is there anything else that we didn' ; t cover that you would like to mention before we conclude? BERRY: Basically, all of that was a learning experience. Through all the trials and tribulations my will did not....I did not lose my will to succeed. This is what I want to plant in my children. The children I teach in school, I tell them no matter where you are you don' ; t have to stay there, you have to just keep your will and don' ; t let nobody take your will from you. We were very poor, I mean poorer than dili. My daddy became an acholic and we would move from place to place in the same neighborhood therefore you stayed in the same school. We would move from place to place but I never lost my will. My aunt lived in Bessemer, she was a nurse, and she had the nicer things and just visiting her instilled that in me. That I don' ; t have to live this way that I can do better. So, we made a pact that if I go to school I' ; d help my sister and my sister would help the next and so on. Through all that and I still tell my kids in school that I was in the projects, I worked, I cleaned White people' ; s houses. HUNTLEY: So, during the summers you did whatever... BERRY: Whatever I could to make a dime. That was keeping kids. Through it all the will was still there, they couldn' ; t kill that. HUNTLEY: Well, Mrs. Berry, I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule. You' ; ve been very enlightening and very helpful for the project. We just appreciate your time. BERRY: I appreciate you having me and sometimes it' ; s nice to go back down the road from which you came. HUNTLEY: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=PPBerry1997.xml PPBerry1997.xml
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Patricia Powell Berry
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Patricia Powell Berry discusses growing up poor in Birmingham, moving to Nebraska, and ultimately returning to Birmingham. She was heavily involved in voter registration during the Movement.
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19970813B
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Seward (Neb.)
Lutheran Church
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1997-08-13
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Horace Huntley
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Deenie Drew
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5.3 January 27, 1995 Deenie Drew Interviewed on January 27, 1995 19950127D 1:03:51 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Jess Holdnak and Alexandra Smith Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Red Cross Deenie Drew Horace Huntley Video 1:|6(3)|18(13)|40(5)|57(10)|76(9)|92(17)|117(1)|136(10)|152(16)|164(7)|182(7)|191(5)|210(6)|233(4)|256(8)|275(9)|289(8)|302(5)|320(10)|331(11)|346(15)|374(11)|388(9)|407(13)|427(10)|449(13)|467(4)|493(6)|507(2)|532(2)|548(4)|560(6)|577(12)|596(12)|611(12)|629(10)|651(10)|669(1)|688(8)|708(1)|718(10)|737(11)|751(3)|764(2)|781(2)|796(5)|808(5)|820(10)|838(10)|857(13)|870(2)|880(2)|899(15)|912(4)|937(7)|956(15)|974(12)|989(17)|1004(2)|1028(7)|1050(3)|1067(13) 0 https://youtu.be/HZK9xo9VqBs YouTube video English 113 Introduction Good morning. Dr. Huntley introduces and begins the interview. African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Oral history 33.516405, -86.814553 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ Birmingham Civil Rights Institute 171 Early Life and Family I notice that you are not a native Alabamian, so can you just give me just a little of your background? Where are you from, siblings, something about your family— Ms. Drew discusses growing up in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Background ; Family Ardmore (Pa.) ; New York (N.Y.) 224 Biographical Background: Father Well, the greatest thing about my Dad, I guess, is the fact that he lived to be one hundred and four years old. He was a water boy in the Civil War and he used to tell hair-raising tales about his youth. Ms. Drew details her father's long, event-filled life. He lived to be 104 years old. Prizefighting Ardmore (Pa.) ; Civil War ; North Carolina 441 Move to New York You left Ardmore after high school and you eventually ended up in New York. Tell me a little about the transition from Ardmore to New York. Ms. Drew lived in New York City during the art and music boom in Harlem. She was close to Gordon Parks and other famed artists. Art New York (N.Y.) ; Parks, Gordon, 1912-2006 ; United States. Army. Signal Corps 703 Working for the Red Cross Well, I had made application when I was probably eighteen or nineteen years old, at the very beginning, when people were being recruited and making applications for the World War Two positions, and I was too young. Ms. Drew discusses leaving New York to work for the Red Cross in Alabama. American National Red Cross ; New York (N.Y.) ; Tuskegee (Ala.) 808 Moving South What did your friends and relatives have to say about you leaving the East Coast coming to the Deep South? Ms. Drew took a train from New York to Tuskegee on a move that most friends and family discouraged. Segregation ; Train American National Red Cross ; Tuskegee (Ala.) 1002 Living in Tuskegee Well, tell me, what was the transition like from New York City, urban and really exciting, to a little one-horse town, Tuskegee? Ms. Drew recounts her experiences living and working in Tuskegee with other young people. Assistant Field Director ; Liquor American National Red Cross ; Mitchell Airfield ; New York (N.Y.) ; Tuskegee (Ala.) ; Veteran's Hospital 1301 John Drew Is this where you met John Drew? Did you meet John in Tuskegee? Ms. Drew describes first meeting her husband, John Drew. Drew, John ; Husband Insurance ; Philadelphia (Pa.) ; Tuskegee (Ala.) 1415 Living in Birmingham Then when did you move to Birmingham? Ms. Drew helped run a candy store in Birmingham before joining/creating the Movement. Gertrude Anderson ; Nanette's Homemade Candy Birmingham (Ala.) 33.521075, -86.831679 18 Former location of Nanette's Homemade Candy factory 1624 The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Now, when you came back, I'm assuming that's in the mid-1950’s or so and prior to the development of the Alabama Christian Movement. Ms. Drew was a founding member of the Movement- continued later. Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 1678 Living in Dynamite Hill Tell me a little bit before we get into the Movement. Tell me what community you lived in at the time. Ms. Drew describes living on Dynamite Hill and helping guard against danger. Bombing ; Dynamite Hill ; Violence Shores, Arthur D. (Arthur Davis), 1904-1996 1977 Relationship with Birmingham Police This next question, then, raises another issue. What was the relationship with the community, your community, with the police department? Ms. Drew, Dynamite Hill and the Movement had a tedious relationship with Birmingham Police. She associates the police with the Klan, which were often the same. Bombing ; John Temple Graves ; Post Herald ; Violence Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) 2204 Establishment of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) In 1956 the State of Alabama outlawed the operation of the NAACP in the state, which resulted in the establishment of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Ms. Drew describes the first meeting of the Movement and the people who attended. Mrs. Plump ; Sardis Baptist Church Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 2324 Segregated Retail Stores Did you ever go into... I know there were times when Black people would go into certain stores and they were not allowed to try on the hats there. Because Ms. Drew passed as white, she had a particular power when pressuring stores to integrate. Passing ; Segregation Sears, Roebuck and Company 2591 Interracial Women's Group So, really, at the time the Movement started, you and others were really sort of ripe for that because of the things you had gone through. Ms. Drew was a member of an Interracial Women's Group before the movement began. The group prayed and organized to protest segregated stores. Interracial Women's Group ; Restrooms ; Segregation Loveman's ; Pizitz (Department store) 2783 ACMHR, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Dr. Martin Luther King But, tell me about some of the experiences that you had as it related to the Movement. I know that you knew Martin Luther King personally. Ms. Drew recalls the state of the Movement before 1963. ACMHR invited SCLC here after Fred Shuttlesworth was beaten trying to enroll his kids in a white school. Integrated Schools Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference 3096 T.M. Alexander and Company Was John able to insure the cars? Ms. Drew's husband, John Drew, insured the cars that made the bus boycott possible. TM Alexander and Company Car Insurance ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Montgomery Bus Boycott, Montgomery, Ala., 1955-1956 3188 Relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King Well, when Martin King, then, came to Birmingham in 1963, can you tell me any of the occurrences that you may remember that were quite vivid to you in how that portion of the Movement would evolve? Ms. Drew describes her friendship with Dr. Martin Luther King. Friendship King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; N. H. Smith ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 3334 Financial Support of the Movement So, I would assume, then, that, in addition to his staying at your home, you and others similar to you who had businesses actually donated a lot of money to the Movement? Ms. Drew describes how she, her husband and others financially supported the Movement though loans, donations and even putting up their own houses. Donations Bail bond agents ; John Drew 3451 Jeff Drew (Son) and the Movement How was Jeff at the time? Was he in elementary school? Ms. Drew recounts why she and Dr. King did not allow her son Jeff to demonstrate until he was 12 years old. Tom Dolen ; Tom Nolen Jeff Drew ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Ku Klux Klan (1915- ) ; Shores, Arthur D. (Arthur Davis), 1904-1996 3695 Conclusion Is there anything else we have simply not covered that you remember vividly that you think would be important for an oral history project to tell—any other things that I've not asked? Conclusion to the Interview Oral History Deenie Drew discusses leaving New York to work for the Red Cross in Tuskegee. She then moved to Dynamite Hill and joined the movement with her husband, John. They were close family friends with Dr. King. HUNTLEY: Good morning. DREW: Good morning, Dr. Huntley. HUNTLEY: How are you doing? We are here this morning with Ms. Deenie Drew. I am Dr. Horace Huntley with an interview today for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. Today is Friday, January 27, 1995. Dee, thank you for coming out and taking time this morning to sit with us to talk about Birmingham and, really, just life in general. What we are attempting to do at the Institute is really develop sort of the definitive history of Birmingham and how it evolved--how people would come in from various places and make Birmingham today what it is. We, of course would like to do this interview with you today and we are just very grateful that you decided to come out and visit with us this morning. DREW: Thanks for asking me. HUNTLEY: Thank you. I notice that you are not a native Alabamian, so can you just give me just a little of your background? Where are you from, siblings, something about your family-- DREW: Well, I was born and raised in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Ardmore is part of the main line, seven miles on the outskirts of Philadelphia. I went to school in that area. I lived there most of my life. I can' ; t say most of my life now, can I? The early years of my life. HUNTLEY: The developmental years. What about your siblings? DREW: I have a brother, Jim Baker, who is an attorney here in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: And is Jim younger or older? DREW: Younger. HUNTLEY: He' ; s younger than you. Tell me something about your parents. DREW: Well, the greatest thing about my Dad, I guess, is the fact that he lived to be one hundred and four years old. He was a water boy in the Civil War and he used to tell hair-raising tales about his youth. HUNTLEY: Now, he was born in North Carolina. DREW: Yes, Warren County. HUNTLEY: And how old was he when he left North Carolina? DREW: He was quite a young man. I would say he was between twenty-five and thirty [years old]. HUNTLEY: So, he has told you stories about the Civil War and the period of Reconstruction. DREW: How he traveled around trying to find himself and the many things that he did to make a living, including prize fighting in either Newport News or Norfolk, Virginia. According to him he was a pretty good prizefighter. HUNTLEY: Well, in his story development, tell me, did he give you any indication of what life was like during the latter part of the nineteenth century for a young Black man attempting to make it in this society? DREW: The latter part of the nineteenth century? Do you mean like about 1990? HUNTLEY: No, about the 1890s. DREW: He said it was a very, very confusing time for Black people. Of course they had nothing whatever, although some master, or whatever those people were called, willed his children land or gave land to the children that had been in slavery on their property. HUNTLEY: Was he one of those? DREW: He was among them, and as years went on, that land was non-productive as far as he was concerned. He never made any money with it. It was taken away, I guess--confiscated or something. HUNTLEY: Is that why he would eventually leave North Carolina? DREW: He left North Carolina in a quest for a way to make a living and for a better life. He didn' ; t know where he was going. HUNTLEY: And he ended up in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. DREW: He ended up in Ardmore, Pennsylvania, he says, following a lady, Ms. Joanna. Her last name happened to be Davis, too, but they were not related. HUNTLEY: So, what kind of work did he do in Ardmore? DREW: He was a landscape gardener finally. That' ; s the way he ended his life, gardening. He was great with flowers, at home and for other people too. HUNTLEY: What about your mother? DREW: Well, I can' ; t tell you very much about my mother. My parents met in Ardmore. I was three years old when my mother died and I didn' ; t ever really know her. HUNTLEY: So, then, you were reared by your father. DREW: To be sure. HUNTLEY: Okay. DREW: There was no doubt about it. He was in charge. HUNTLEY: He was in charge. Okay, good. Well, maybe we need more of that kind of rearing today. DREW: I don' ; t know whether young people would take it today or not. HUNTLEY: You left Ardmore after high school and you eventually ended up in New York. Tell me a little about the transition from Ardmore to New York. DREW: Well, I went to New York because I was transferred there. At the secession of hostilities after World War Two, the Signal Corps-- Well, of course, it can' ; t disintegrate, so that' ; s not the word-- HUNTLEY: You worked for the Signal Corps? DREW: I was working for the Signal Corps and they laid off a lot of people. They kept some people and I was among those kept. HUNTLEY: What kind of work were you doing? DREW: Personnel, and they transferred me to the New York office where I continued to do personnel work. HUNTLEY: And, you were there with the Signal Corps in New York for approximately two years or so? DREW: At least. It was so long ago now, I' ; ve sort of forgotten. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about New York. Here is-- Ardmore, I' ; m assuming, is not a-- Well, it' ; s near a metropolitan area, near Philadelphia, but coming from Ardmore to New York City, what type of experience was that? DREW: Well, it wasn' ; t so new to me because I had visited in New York all my life. There' ; s only ninety miles difference. We had a lot of family and friends in New York and I would go to New York as a very small child for at least two weeks every summer. Some times it would be two months, so it wasn' ; t foreign to me at all. Now Ardmore is not a little country town. It' ; s suburban Philadelphia, like you have Mountain Brook here. We had Ardmore, Pennsylvania. HUNTLEY: So it was really not a terribly great transition? DREW: No, no. I knew my way around New York and it moves at a faster pace than Philadelphia or Ardmore and the transition was just almost non-existent. HUNTLEY: New York at that time must have been a pretty exciting place, though? DREW: Oh, yes, it certainly was. For a young Black woman, it was just out of sight. HUNTLEY: What was exciting about it? DREW: The men, the men, the men. The 332nd, the crème-de-la-creme of Black humanity, came back to New York after the end of the war, and they all came to New York when they left Europe. I was fortunate enough to know some of them and, therefore, I met others. It was wonderful to have them back for all reasons. HUNTLEY: What about housing in New York? Where did you live? DREW: I lived on 110th Street. It was very lovely down there right off the park at that time. Now that' ; s considered slum. I had lots of friends and family that lived up in Harlem and Edgecomb, very elegant places up there, and a lot of them are still very, very well kept. These descendents of those people still live there. HUNTLEY: Many of the well-known artists were in New York at the same time. Did you happen to know of those individuals? I believe you mentioned Gordon Parks. DREW: Yes. My cousin was dating Gordon Parks for a while and we used to go with the guy I was dating. We would go out as, what do you call it, a foursome, two couples. HUNTLEY: Double dating? DREW: Double dating, that' ; s the word. You see how antiquated I am. HUNTLEY: Then, you lived in New York. You worked for the Signal Corps, but, then, you made an application to the Red Cross. DREW: Years ago. HUNTLEY: Then, you eventually heard from them. Can you tell me about that story? DREW: Well, I had made application when I was probably eighteen or nineteen years old, at the very beginning, when people were being recruited and making applications for the World War Two positions, and I was too young. You had to be twenty-four [years old] for service in European countries, and, oh, I think in the Philippines or anywhere. But, anyway, I wanted to go to Europe because I had friends in the Red Cross who were in Europe and they were enjoying themselves despite the hazards. They said I was too young. But, somehow my file was not thrown away. It was kept. So many years later they were looking for someone with personnel training and background and here I was, so they sent me a wire and told me to report to Tuskegee in five days. They told me my salary, which was astronomical for those days. They told me that housing was available. I think that I had to pay a very small amount for the housing, but I remember this well: Fifty cents a day I had to pay the VA Hospital for my food. They underwrote the rest of this, but, for some reason, we had to pay fifty cents a day. And I said, ' ; A place to live fifty cents a day and they' ; re going to issue me uniforms that I' ; ll have to wear. I' ; ll need no clothes. They' ; re issuing me a car. I can get well down there! So, yes, I' ; ll go for a year.' ; HUNTLEY: What did your friends and relatives have to say about you leaving the East Coast coming to the Deep South? DREW: They said I was a damned fool--that nobody leaves New York to move to Tuskegee. Everybody in Alabama is trying to get out and I' ; m going down there. HUNTLEY: Did that discourage you at all? DREW: It frightened me. It gave me leave... I certainly thought a lot about it. HUNTLEY: What did your dad say? DREW: Oh, my dad was adamant. He thought it was the dumbest thing he had ever heard. He told me that, ' ; You were born free.' ; HUNTLEY: You were ' ; born free.' ; What does that mean? DREW: Born free? Well, I was born without the shackles of-- I guess he was thinking in terms of slavery, since he had been born in slavery, but I think that' ; s what he meant. HUNTLEY: The assumption then was that you were born free, now you were going back to the South where black folks are not free-- DREW: And be enslaved. That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: He was very concerned about your safety as well. DREW: That was the main thing that concerned him was my safety. He knew that I was an outspoken person and he knew that I was of a strong mind, and he was afraid I wouldn' ; t follow the mores of the South and that I would get myself in very serious trouble. HUNTLEY: Well, how did you get from New York to Tuskegee? DREW: On the train. HUNTLEY: Were there any experiences between New York and Alabama? DREW: Yes. Yes. The conductor... The trains, of course, were segregated, and the conductor was trying to ascertain whether I belonged in the White or the Black part of the train. HUNTLEY: How would they do that? DREW: Well, they' ; d take a flashlight and somehow or another they' ; d say if they can look at the white of your eyes, they can determine what your race is, which they did. But, I didn' ; t move. Fortunately, I was near Notasulga and that was the next stop to Cheehaw. HUNTLEY: Okay, so you were, in fact, in Alabama at the time that this supposed test took place? DREW: Right. HUNTLEY: And you were seated... Were you seated in the Black car? DREW: I don' ; t remember. You know, when we left New York, we changed cars, I think, in Washington. I think it was Washington. HUNTLEY: Right, that would probably be the first. DREW: The Mason-Dixon Line. I really and truly can' ; t remember whether I was already in the Black [car], or whether I was already in the White one, but I can assure you of one thing: I didn' ; t move. HUNTLEY: The conductor actually had a flashlight and he shined it in your eye and he would be able to determine whether you were Black or White? DREW: There were two--the conductor and, I think, the brakeman, he was called. I guess they felt the majority would rule. I guess. HUNTLEY: But you didn' ; t move. DREW: I did not move. I didn' ; t move until they said, ' ; Cheehaw.' ; HUNTLEY: Well, tell me, what was the transition like from New York City, urban and really exciting, to a little one-horse town, Tuskegee? DREW: Well, you know, Tuskegee is a one-horse town, that' ; s true, but Tuskegee at that time had just about everything. I had a very ambitious program. The week after I arrived I had to go to Atlanta for training at the Red Cross Training Center for this position of Assistant Field Director. That training took quite a long time. I' ; ve forgotten now whether it was a year, six months, a year and a half, or eight months, but I was in Atlanta for quite a while. But, weekends I would go back to Tuskegee, and there were lots of parties and dances and it was a very social town. I guess because it is sort of isolated and... HUNTLEY: Atlanta or Tuskegee? DREW: Tuskegee. Everybody has do to everything within the confines of this little dry town. Dry. The guys would fly in the whiskey by the crates. People would give them the order, you know, ' ; Bring me twenty-four bottles of...' ; and they would fly it in, because the police looked for the cars-- the cabs-- the license tags on automobiles going in and out of Macon County, because they knew that they were probably bringing back alcohol. They would look in the trunks and they would take the whiskey and let you go on. HUNTLEY: You said that these guys would fly the liquor in. What do you mean? DREW: Well, some of them had planes that they would run and some of them... oh, what did they call him? Al-- He was from Ardmore [Pennsylvania], too. He was one of the heads of.... Anderson, Captain Anderson. That' ; s what they called him down there. He' ; s from my town. He and Gert were living there and some of them had access to airplanes or they had them. HUNTLEY: These were associated with the Tuskegee Institute and with the ... DREW: Mitchell Airfield. They would fly all over, either on some kind of mission or for fun or whatever and everybody would give them orders for.... HUNTLEY: So they would bring it back in through the air and there would be no possibility of being stopped on the highway. DREW: Exactly, exactly. We were pretty good at outwitting them, you know. HUNTLEY: Absolutely. Well, tell me. What was your social life like in Tuskegee? DREW: Oh, wonderful. I used to play a lot of cards in those days and I played cards and I went to the parties. You could party every night if you would. You were invited somewhere almost every night. And, as I say, I had a hard work schedule. We set up that operation, Estelle Trenton and me. This was an experimental thing, servicing Veteran' ; s Hospital and ours' ; was the first one in the nation. Where my personnel experience, I guess, came in handy was that we had to recruit these volunteers to work in this service. We went on.Well, we got all the big society ladies first--wives of the presidents of these different institutions, and they helped a lot. Vera Foster helped a lot--Dr. Foster' ; s wife. She was one of my gray ladies. I guess we had a couple of hundred and then we, in turn, trained them and they could do almost everything for a patient that a nurse could do. You know, the VA Hospital was and, I guess, still is a hospital for the mentally impaired and so it took a lot of training to teach them. HUNTLEY: Was any of that time associated with Tuskegee Institute? DREW: No, it was... Well, I don' ; t know how to answer that. I really don' ; t know. You see, there were the three great institutions. There was Tuskegee, of course, first and foremost. Then, the VA Hospital and, then, John A. Andrews Hospital. And to say that they were not connected would be erroneous, but to say that they were... It was sort of like Booker Washington, you know, all fingers on the same hand. HUNTLEY: Is this where you met John Drew? Did you meet John in Tuskegee? DREW: Well, I had met him briefly in New York, but he was great friends with some of my friends, and they had contacted him and told him I was coming and asked him to be sure to look out for me. HUNTLEY: The first time you met John did he sweep you off your feet? DREW: [Shakes her head to indicate ' ; No.' ; ] HUNTLEY: He didn' ; t? DREW: No. He did most women. HUNTLEY: Tell me about the first time that you met him. DREW: Well, the first time I met him, he had a bad cold. It was in the Hotel Theresa in New York. He was near pneumonia and that' ; s not a good time to meet anyone. HUNTLEY: You were not very impressed. DREW: I was anything other than impressed. I found him very vulgar. HUNTLEY: When did you and John actually get together? DREW: In Tuskegee. In Tuskegee--after I had been there a while. I don' ; t know, but, anyway, in Tuskegee. HUNTLEY: How long did you live in Tuskegee after you and John met? Did you-- Were you married in Tuskegee? DREW: Married in Philadelphia. I wasn' ; t sure... I still wasn' ; t sure I was going to live in Alabama the rest of my life, and I knew that he would always either be in Alabama or Georgia. He was committed to insuring everybody in Alabama and Georgia. That was his mission in life and I wasn' ; t sure, yet, that I wanted to do that. HUNTLEY: Were you still working with the Red Cross at the time? DREW: No, no. I had left. [Es]Stell had gone to the Orient and I had left. That was enough. HUNTLEY: Then when did you move to Birmingham? DREW: Some time in the 1940' ; s--' ; 49 or something. I lived with, and worked for and with, Mrs. Anderson--Nanette' ; s Homemade Candy. She' ; s a Black woman that had a factory. HUNTLEY: In Tuskegee? DREW: No, right here in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: Mrs. Anderson? DREW: Gertrude Anderson. She is one of the unspoken and unheard of people here and I can' ; t understand it. She was the foremost woman here. She had a factory. She supplied chocolates to Loveman' ; s under the name of-- Her name was Nanette Homemade Candies and they would buy her candy and put another box top over it with Loveman' ; s something or other. There were two candy makers here, Mary Ball and... No, there were three, and she ranked up with them. They interchanged things. She had hand-dipped chocolates and so did they. She also sold hard candy. HUNTLEY: Where was the factory located? DREW: At 508 Eleventh Avenue North. The freeway came along and destroyed the whole thing. HUNTLEY: And is that your first job here in Birmingham? DREW: Those months, yes. I opened a candy store on Fourth Avenue between, I guess, between Seventeenth and Eighteenth Street in the same block where Bob Savoy was. That was a bustling area at that time. HUNTLEY: The same block that the famous New Frolic was? DREW: Across the street. HUNTLEY: Okay. This was your candy store and she supplied you with candy. DREW: Yes. HUNTLEY: Okay, well, then, after the freeway came through, is that what ended her business? DREW: No, no. Actually, I got married and her children... Charles was a lawyer. Her children, B.J. and Eleanor, they wanted to take over the business. Charles had left Massachusetts. He re-codified the statutes of Massachusetts. He was a very brilliant guy. In fact, all of them were brilliant. Mrs. Anderson' ; s father built Sixteenth Street [Baptist] Church, Reverend Fisher. Brilliant family. Anyway, they wanted to take it on, but they didn' ; t do well with the business... So often the next generation doesn' ; t do too well. HUNTLEY: How long did you have the candy store? DREW: About a year. HUNTLEY: What did you do after that? DREW: I went back to Philadelphia. HUNTLEY: For how long? DREW: I can' ; t remember these years. I swear I can' ; t. HUNTLEY: But, you eventually came back both prior to...? DREW: John came-- John came to New York and we went to St. Simon' ; s Episcopal Church and got married and then we came back. HUNTLEY: Now, when you came back, I' ; m assuming that' ; s in the mid-1950' ; s or so and prior to the development of the Alabama Christian Movement. DREW: I don' ; t remember the date of the... but John and me were there [at the first meeting of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights]. HUNTLEY: Okay, that was in 1956. DREW: Well, I don' ; t know how I happened to be here. Oh, in ' ; 56? I was well... I was-- My child had been born by that time. We were at the opening meeting. HUNTLEY: So you were one of the founding members then? DREW: We were there. That' ; s the meeting where Fred Shuttlesworth called Mrs. Plump ' ; sweetheart' ; and she stood up and said, ' ; I am not your sweetheart,' ; and it almost broke it up. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little bit before we get into the Movement. Tell me what community you lived in at the time. DREW: I' ; ve always lived in the same area. HUNTLEY: What area is that? DREW: Well, I think...Smithfield. HUNTLEY: Smithfield. Is that near the area that' ; s called Dynamite Hill? DREW: I lived on the top of ' ; Dynamite Hill' ; , right on the top. HUNTLEY: So, when the freeway came through, that, then, sort of divided that community. DREW: It did, and it took my house and half of my land, and my husband and I decided that we would just build another house up there. HUNTLEY: So, you didn' ; t move out of the community? DREW: We just built another house on the part of the land that they didn' ; t take. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little bit about that community--the make-up of the community. DREW: Well, most all the business and professional men and families in the city lived up there. Virgil Harris, I don' ; t need to name them, but almost all the doctors and lawyers and everybody that made any kind of money had a house up in that area. HUNTLEY: Was this-- When you moved there, was it a Black neighborhood? DREW: Well, the reason, one of the reasons, it' ; s called ' ; Dynamite Hill' ; is because we integrated it. The first house I lived in was on First Street, one block away from what is now called ' ; Dynamite Hill.' ; It was a brand new little brick house and while John was in Philadelphia marrying me, the Ku Klux Klan came and burned all the doors. They took the doors from inside the house, and I guess... I don' ; t know what that was... I guess because the house was solid brick and not veneered, but they thought that it would probably burn up. So we had to put in brand new doors in the bedrooms and all around the house. HUNTLEY: Burned all of the doors. DREW: Burned the doors. You ever heard of such a dumb thing? HUNTLEY: Inside the house? DREW: Inside. They must have been... I' ; m guessing. I don' ; t know what' ; s in their minds, but they must have expected some kind of an implosion that would have destroyed it. HUNTLEY: Well, how did you react when you came back and saw this? DREW: We were furious! That' ; s how we felt. HUNTLEY: What did you do? Did you report it to the police? DREW: No. We called the builders and ordered some doors and cleaned up the mess. And I went down to Loveman' ; s and Pizitz and those stores and bought beds and chairs and put them in there. It was ours. HUNTLEY: So, they were not running you off. Did you ever think of something like not moving in there? DREW: Never. I had many scary nights and days, but I didn' ; t. My attitude was to fight back. HUNTLEY: What was scary about the nights and days? DREW: Well, almost every night some house was dynamited or burned down. I could stand in my bedroom window and look over to Center Street, one block away. Where I now live there were three three-story houses. Moncrief--a big name still in Birmingham in politics and stuff--the Moncrief' ; s lived in one of them and they torched those three houses. They were largely framed and they burned all three of them down in one night. I' ; ve never seen such a fire in my life. All three houses were up in flames. HUNTLEY: These were Black people that lived in these houses at that time? DREW: Black people were trying to buy property up there. A Mrs. Monk had bought a piece of property down the hill, like about between probably Ninth and Eighth [Streets] or Ninth and Tenth [Streets]. Somehow she had managed-- A Black woman had managed to buy that land and she had begun building and they just kept on harassing her and doing things to her. She lives.Oh, I think she' ; s dead now, but her family still lives there, although the house was never completed. But some ordinance or something must have passed because people were buying property. Dr. Elliot bought some property up there. He was an old dentist here. Arthur Shores bought property. He was living farther down in Smithfield on First Street. But everybody was afraid to build their house, because they knew what was going to happen, you know--that it would be destroyed. HUNTLEY: This next question, then, raises another issue. What was the relationship with the community, your community, with the police department? DREW: Horrible. They despised us. It was absolutely horrible. They were not our friends. HUNTLEY: They didn' ; t come in to protect and serve you. DREW: No. HUNTLEY: How would you characterize it? DREW: Well, let' ; s see. I' ; d go to Shores' ; house. When Shores was building his house, all the men everywhere around in the neighborhood would meet there every night with their arsenal. They would have their own guns and stuff. Leroy Gaylor and BeBe Core and some of the others, they were like vigilantes. They were driving around the area with walkie- talkies in those days and spotting--looking for police, looking for trouble. If they saw anything, they would tell my husband and Shores and all those people, you know, ' ; Look out,' ; and they would get the guns ready. HUNTLEY: You mean they were actually on the look out for police. DREW: Right--and Klansmen--policemen that were Klansmen. Either one. We didn' ; t know which was which, because one was the same as the other. HUNTLEY: So the police department and the Klan were very closely associated. DREW: Extremely. It was my belief that all policemen also belonged to the Klan. That was my belief. I don' ; t know that every single one did, but I believed it. HUNTLEY: Would this, then, be one of the reasons that you would get involved with the Movement--that you would be at the first Alabama Christian Movement meeting? DREW: John and me, yes, because they were calling us all the time. When we moved in the little house and-- You wanted to know, well, what did we do? We moved into our house. But, they were calling and saying, ' ; Nigger, be out of here,' ; you know, by such and such a time or ' ; we' ; re going to come and do so and so.' ; And my husband would say, ' ; Well, just come right on. I' ; m ready for you.' ; He would talk back to them. Then I wrote a letter to the [Birmingham] Post Herald in 1957. John Temple Graves was the editor of the paper and somehow or another it touched him and for at least six issues of that paper, Deenie Davis Drew' ; s name was in this, was brought up. It caused a lot of....and my address... HUNTLEY: Your address was printed. DREW: Yes, when I wrote the letter, I didn' ; t know how... I said who I was and [the address] 1112 North First Street. HUNTLEY: What did John have to say about this, your writing letters? DREW: Oh, he proofread it. John was a great grammarian and I' ; m not, and whenever I had to do anything I would always say, ' ; Read this,' ; and he would edit. He was proud of me, I think. But, the letter only said that if Birmingham would stop waving the red flag-- If the newspapers and your officials--you would have a pretty good city. That was the gist of it. That they were... The headline was, ' ; Deenie Davis Drew of this city says we' ; re waving a red flag.' ; So, that' ; s all I said, [that] if you [newspapers and officials] just stopped doing that, you know, people would get along. HUNTLEY: At that point that was a rather militant statement. DREW: In the early 1950s that was unheard of. HUNTLEY: A revolutionary statement, in fact. DREW: That' ; s right. But, of course, you know I didn' ; t know that. HUNTLEY: In 1956 the State of Alabama outlawed the operation of the NAACP in the state, which resulted in the establishment of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. DREW: Exactly. HUNTLEY: You and John attended the first meeting. Do you remember the first meeting? What was it like, those first meetings that the movement had...the mass meetings that were going on in 1956 and ' ; 57? DREW: I think we were in Reverend Alford' ; s church. I' ; m not even sure, but it was somewhere up on Enon Ridge or up that way. Was that where it was, at Sardis [Baptist Church]? HUNTLEY: Sardis, yes Sardis. DREW: I remembered better than I thought. I can' ; t tell you everybody that was there. Mostly it was ministers, but the women like Mrs. Plump and me... HUNTLEY: What was the atmosphere like? You said.... DREW: I don' ; t remember that they had guards. I' ; m sure they did have. HUNTLEY: So Reverend Shuttlesworth made a statement to Mrs. Plump. DREW: Well, we were all putting up-- ' ; Who will give a $100 dollars?' ; you know, that kind of thing. You know, you can' ; t operate without money and Mrs. Plump was a very wealthy woman and very interested in doing something about race relations. She and I worked together back before that. She admired Bryant and Mrs. Anderson, Miss Gisgham, all those old... HUNTLEY: All these were Black women? DREW: Yes. Some of them were Black like me and some of them were Black like you. But, we were already going to Burger Phillips and Lovemans and asking them to take down the signs over the water fountains and so forth. HUNTLEY: Did you ever go into... I know there were times when Black people would go into certain stores and they were not allowed to try on the hats there. DREW: Oh, I don' ; t go and put my foot in Sears, Roebuck to this day because of that. I went to Sears, Roebuck with Eleanor Anderson and I had been going in and out of Sears, Roebuck, and Eleanor had a beautiful dress and she had been looking for a hat. I said, ' ; There' ; s the hat, Eleanor.' ; I grabbed the hat and she started screaming, ' ; Don' ; t do that. Don' ; t do that.' ; I said, ' ; Try that hat on, Eleanor. It' ; s just like the one you' ; re looking for.' ; By that time, the sales people were there and they were snatching the hat out of Eleanor and my--out of our hands. And when I found out what it was about, and they gave Eleanor a rag to put on her head and then she could put the hat on, I said, ' ; Let us get out of here,' ; and we got out, and until this day I haven' ; t been in Sears, Roebuck. HUNTLEY: You have not been Sears, Roebuck. DREW: No, I haven' ; t. HUNTLEY: In forty years. DREW: That' ; s right, and they keep on writing me and telling me that I have an automatic charge account. They can keep it. HUNTLEY: Did you ever go into the places alone and were allowed... DREW: I went everywhere, because I didn' ; t know any better. See? HUNTLEY: Did they simply assume that you were white? DREW: I guess so. They didn' ; t bother me until I went in with somebody who wasn' ; t--you know. I think I told you that story about me in Burger Phillips' ; parking lot. HUNTLEY: No, you didn' ; t tell me. DREW: Well, I had been going in there for years. I usually would go shopping alone because...I still do. And, I would drive up there on Fourth Avenue and the man came out and [said], ' ; Good morning, m' ; am,' ; and he gave you a ticket and took your car and put it somewhere and you walked across a ramp, so the White ladies wouldn' ; t get wet, and did your shopping. [You' ; d] come back out and give them the ticket and they' ; d bring you your car, ' ; Yes, m' ; am. Yes, m' ; am.' ; I' ; d been doing that for years. Gene Belcher, Doctor Belcher' ; s wife, and Mina, Mina King--her husband' ; s a big surgeon--she was from out of town. She came in town to shop and I picked them up. We were going down to Burger Phillips to shop and we were laughing and happy. I drive up in there like I' ; d been driving up there all along and the boy that' ; s been parking my car, he comes over. I said, ' ; Good morning.' ; He looked at them and he asked me what my nationality was. And I said, ' ; I' ; m American. So what? Give me the ticket.' ; He runs and gets the boss, the manager, and the boss comes over and he tells me, ' ; We don' ; t park colored cars.' ; I said, ' ; I see a blue one and a green one and a yellow one. What are you talking about you don' ; t park colored cars?' ; Gene and Mina were just going crazy. They just knew we were going to get lynched or something terrible was going to happen, and I was telling them to shut up and they were [saying], ' ; Deenie, please. Please.' ; I said, ' ; Let me get to the bottom of this. I don' ; t know what' ; s going on.' ; So, he told me I had to take the car out of there and I said, ' ; Just tell me. What you are talking about?' ; Then, I found out that... HUNTLEY: Did you not know what was going on? DREW: I did not know. See, there were a lot of mistakes I made. If I had known, I don' ; t know whether I would have ever gone in there. I just don' ; t know. HUNTLEY: This was not a protest, more or less? DREW: No. That was ignorance on my part, but, then, I did protest mightily. HUNTLEY: Did anything ever come of that? Did you ever make a formal protest to that store? DREW: Oh, I did indeed. I went in there and threatened to cancel my charge account and I stayed out of there a long time. But I didn' ; t cancel, because I loved their stuff...you know, I loved it and I had this house I was furnishing and I had this... I loved it, and I didn' ; t cancel it. I took most of my business elsewhere, but I did not cancel that. HUNTLEY: So, really, at the time the Movement started, you and others were really sort of ripe for that because of the things you had gone through. DREW: And, when we were trying to do something about it. We had an interracial women' ; s group before I married John. HUNTLEY: This was prior to the Movement? DREW: Yes, and they did a lot of praying. That was never exactly my long suit, but I understood why because-- Well, there was a White woman whose name was Tatum, Nora Tatum. I know the last name was Tatum, because it was something about bread. She lived on Fifteenth Street up on The Highland. We couldn' ; t go there for her meeting, when her turn came, until her husband went to work. And so, I guess a needed... The women were scared to death. HUNTLEY: This is Fifteenth Street South? DREW: Yes. You know where Sirote is? Well just another block up. HUNTLEY: What were some of the issues that this interracial women' ; s group...? DREW: We went to... It makes you laugh now. Mostly, we went to stores. I forgot what we called that committee. I was always on it. We' ; d go to the stores and ask them to clean the ladies rooms or furnish... No, the [Black] women had no ladies rooms down there. There were no ladies rooms in those stores. I think... HUNTLEY: Like Loveman' ; s or Pizitz? DREW: I think either Loveman' ; s or Pizitz had one way down in the basement. Now, you' ; re up on the Seventh floor and you need to go and you have to go way down there. I think it was Pizitz that had it in the basement. One of them did. But, most of them didn' ; t have any facilities, and if you took your children-- I used to have to carry a little jar with a screw top on it around for Jeff. Fortunately, he was a little boy and when I would have to bring him downtown to buy shoes or whatever and he had to go to the bathroom.... HUNTLEY: So there were rest areas, rest rooms, for White women? DREW: Oh yes, sure. I' ; ve been in all of them. HUNTLEY: But for the Black women there weren' ; t any? DREW: None. Loveman' ; s probably had the nicest one [for White women]. They had a balcony up there over the first floor and they had a tea room up there, and off the tearoom was a rest room where ladies could go and sit down and chat and if they were tired. Then the toilets and washbasins were set off from that. Very nice. HUNTLEY: But, tell me about some of the experiences that you had as it related to the Movement. I know that you knew Martin Luther King personally. DREW: Very well. HUNTLEY: He would actually spend time at your home. Can you tell us just a bit about how the movement evolved, say, from the beginning of the Alabama Christian Movement until just prior to Dr. King coming to Birmingham in 1963? What was happening? What was taking place? What was the focus of the Movement at that time? Did you have any close relationships with the Movement prior to the big demonstrations of 1963? DREW: I can' ; t... The Alabama Christian Movement invited the SCLC here. At that time, Fred [Shuttlesworth] was zeroing in, I think, on schools. He had children and he was trying to put some of them in Phillips [High School], if my mind serves me right. And he was severely beaten--severely beaten with chains and all manner of things. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. His wife was stabbed in the hip. DREW: Right. That' ; s right. And that caused us to-- You know, those kinds of things just made us livid. I can' ; t tell you, because I can' ; t remember any one specific thing that caused us to invite them [leaders of the SCLC] in. DREW: More than Albany or any of those other places that you could do something, you that something can be done. I just really and truly don' ; t remember what the spark was. You may know. I don' ; t remember. HUNTLEY: Obviously, there was a necessity for the... DREW: We needed help. HUNTLEY: Right. We needed help. But SCLC needed help also, because of the Albany situation... DREW: Failure, or so-called failure-- HUNTLEY: So-called failure, and there was a national meeting, I believe, in some place in Georgia, and there was discussion of what was next. I believe that' ; s where the invitation was given to have the meeting here in Birmingham. When Dr. King came to Birmingham, when did you first meet him? DREW: Oh, I first met him...I guess we had married a year. That must have been about 1951. HUNTLEY: He initially came to Dexter [Avenue Baptist Church] in 1954, I believe. DREW: Yes, in 1954. HUNTLEY: Yes, ' ; 54. DREW: Well, then, I guess I met him in ' ; 55. When did the bus boycott start? HUNTLEY: Boycott was 1955. DREW: Well, I' ; ll tell you how I met him, and then you can tell me what year it was, because I' ; m not good at remembering years. We had been to Tuskegee to a funeral, John and me. As we were leaving there, John said, ' ; Deenie, we' ; re going to stop in Montgomery.' ; He said, ' ; There' ; s a little--' ; You know what he said, down there, calling me about getting some insurance on those buses. And he said, ' ; I' ; ve got to stop by there and see what he' ; s talking about.' ; He said, ' ; I just don' ; t know what we could possibly do, but, anyway, I' ; m going to give him [King] the courtesy.' ; And so, that' ; s when I met him for the first time. HUNTLEY: Yes, that' ; s probably 1955. DREW: All right. HUNTLEY: So then, how did you... I assume that your families then became rather close. DREW: John and his [King' ; s] father were at Morehouse at the same time. His father was quite a bit older, I mean, you know, eight or nine years older than John, but he was late going to college. They were at Morehouse together and as years went on, you know, John worked in New...yeah, he worked in New York, too--but, he worked in Atlanta and down on Sweet Auburn and they renewed all their friendships and ties and stuff, so, John knew his father very well. I guess that' ; s how Mike came to call John is because of the association between his father. HUNTLEY: Was John able to insure the cars? DREW: Oh, yes. Yes. He remembered that T. M. Alexander-- They' ; re the... I always say John was the ' ; and Company.' ; Alexander and Company ; T. M. Alexander and Company. Well, T. M. had a line straight to Lloyds of London and on the way, driving, after John found out and, you know, he said, ' ; I' ; ve got to help him. I don' ; t care. I' ; ve got to help him.' ; As soon as we got home, he said, ' ; You go drive home.' ; He went to the office. Started calling companies and asking, ' ; Would you take this? Would you take it?' ; Everybody was saying, ' ; No. No. Too risky. Too risky. Too risky.' ; And, so, he said, ' ; Well, the only thing I can do is to see if Alex still has that contact with Lloyds.' ; So, he called Alex and Alex did have and so, then, you know, we were all the same company at that time. We did finally buy out--Alabama, but, anyway, they made contact with whomever at Lloyds of London and they said, ' ; Okay.' ; They would do this. That' ; s how the bus boycott became successful. HUNTLEY: Right, as a result of John being the intermediary between King and Lloyds of London. DREW: Right, right. HUNTLEY: Well, when Martin King, then, came to Birmingham in 1963, can you tell me any of the occurrences that you may remember that were quite vivid to you in how that portion of the Movement would evolve? I know he came in a number of times prior to...in April-- DREW: Yes, he came and visited us one Saturday--he and Shuttlesworth and Nelson Smith and Abernathy.I can see these men plainly walking down that long drive with these big hats. You know, the men used to wear these big, broad brimmed hats. (laughing) HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. DREW: I don' ; t remember if that was very early in the ' ; 50s. I don' ; t remember. I think we struck up a friendship. Of course, with John it was, you know-- He already knew his [King' ; s] parents and all that so well, but I didn' ; t. And they began talking from time to time about the needs and then Mike sat down one day and asked me a lot of the same kind of things you' ; re asking me, you know: ' ; Deenie, how did you ever come to this hell hole? This is the hell hole of the world. How did you do this?' ; and blah, blah, blah. HUNTLEY: You called Martin ' ; Mike.' ; DREW: Oh yeah, yeah. I think that it was during that time that he said if they came--if they did come here to work, he asked me if he could stay at my house. I said, ' ; I' ; d be honored. Sure, yeah.' ; He said, ' ; Well, now....' ; I said, ' ; I said yes. Whatever it takes.' ; So, that' ; s how come. People would say, ' ; Deenie, how did he ever stay at y' ; all' ; s?' ; And I said, ' ; Because he asked me.' ; HUNTLEY: He actually asked you if he came would he be able...could he stay with you. DREW: Yeah, because he knew that he was going to need somewhere aside from the hotel. HUNTLEY: So, how often did he come to your house? DREW: Oh, I couldn' ; t possibly tell you that. HUNTLEY: He came many times. DREW: Many, many. He would call any time of the day or night, four o' ; clock or five o' ; clock in the morning--morning, noon or night, you know--and say, ' ; I' ; m in Europe' ; or, ' ; I' ; m in California and my plane arrives at--.' ; HUNTLEY: So, I would assume, then, that, in addition to his staying at your home, you and others similar to you who had businesses actually donated a lot of money to the Movement? DREW: Yes. YES. (laughing) HUNTLEY: Was this something that...? DREW: We even put up our properties. HUNTLEY: For any particular... DREW: For bail bond. HUNTLEY: Did you lose any of those...? DREW: John had tickets or, you know--(uses her hands to indicate stacks of cards)--He sat out there and all those people in the neighborhood and the Brewers--Doctor Hamp Brewer-- ooh, he had so much property--and they came and brought those tax cards and John would just stack them up, you know, and give them a receipt... No we never lost a penny. HUNTLEY: Do you know of any of the other people that lost money as a result of putting property up, or lost property? DREW: No, no. Now, of course, I would have known if anybody lost property. John pretty much helped... He had his hand in all of the financial dealings. He had his hand in the whole darn thing, if you want to know the truth, but, certainly in the financial dealings. HUNTLEY: John, then, was one of those individuals who, although he was not in the spotlight, he worked behind the scenes. But, in fact, he was part of the negotiations committees? DREW: He was part of it all. There was no part that he wasn' ; t part of. He is not a preacher. I mean, you know, he--didn' ; t do that. HUNTLEY: How was Jeff at the time? Was he in elementary school? DREW: Yes. HUNTLEY: Did he get out of school or participate in any of the demonstrations or anything at that time? DREW: Uncle Mike wouldn' ; t let him. Uncle Mike said, ' ; Jeff, if you ever become twelve [years old] I' ; m going to take you to jail with me and you can stay as long as you want to.' ; So, Jeff was like eight, nine, ten or eleven. HUNTLEY: So he would not allow him to until he was twelve. DREW: No. He said if we went, you know Jeff or me or John... They were shooting in our house and dynamiting and here we were heading up this stuff and we were troublemakers and we were all of that. He said there was no telling what would happen to Jeff. It wasn' ; t worth taking the chance. We used to have to hide him. Burke Marshall and Doar, all those people would know when there was going to be a bombing or a shooting or something up there. HUNTLEY: They would know. DREW: Yes, and they would call me. Tom Dolen--Tom Nolen--. There were two of those Toms. One was a Dolen and one was a Nolen, but he would call and say, ' ; Mrs. Drew, drive your car onto the back of your lot.' ; You know, we owned half a city lot. ' ; Drive it back there near the barn, where the pony used to be. Just take a pillow back there and a blanket and Jeff, because they say they' ; re going to blow up your house tonight, or they' ; re going to bomb it,' ; you know, or something. HUNTLEY: This was, I assume, as a result of a plant that they had within the Ku Klux Klan? DREW: It was Klan. It was Klan and police that-- Sometimes they would form a ring on the corner where Eleventh Avenue and Center Street--that intersection--and they would form a ring around there and there were big streetlights up above and they would shoot out all of those lights. Some of the people were dressed in policeman' ; s clothing. HUNTLEY: So, in fact, they were policemen. DREW: And my house was on that corner. HUNTLEY: That could be very frightening for you and your child. DREW: The night they made Jeff and John lie down on the ground was the worse thing that I ever went through. HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. DREW: That' ; s it. There' ; s nothing else to tell you. HUNTLEY: Who made them lie down? DREW: These same characters that I' ; m talking about. How do you know who They are? HUNTLEY: Did they come to the house? DREW: They were on Center Street. I don' ; t know whether they were trying to get down to Shores' ; house or what. I' ; ve forgotten that part of it. There' ; re some things you have to block out. And, they forced them to lie down. I think that' ; s that same night that they killed a man, so if you want to go back and find out all that, you can. There was a man killed out there near Shores' ; house. A bomb went off, so that' ; s when it happened. HUNTLEY: So, John and Jeff, then, did they come to the house, or were they coming in at the time? DREW: John and Jeff? HUNTLEY: Yes. DREW: No, they were out on the walk. We live on Center Street and Shores lives on Center Street. I can' ; t remember to save my soul. I think I blocked that out, but they had them prone and I guess as soon as the things walked away, they jumped up and ran back home. I don' ; t know. I was there, but... HUNTLEY: Some of those things you don' ; t want to remember. DREW: That' ; s right, and I got rid of it. HUNTLEY: Is there anything else we have simply not covered that you remember vividly that you think would be important for an oral history project to tell--any other things that I' ; ve not asked? DREW: I know so many stories. HUNTLEY: There are so many stories. I think what is important is that you have really given us an idea of how you came into the city, the kinds of things that you encountered that led you to get--to really be adamantly involved with the movement, and how important your family was for the movement. That is so vitally important and I certainly appreciate your taking the time out to talk with us about that. DREW: Well, if you want to know anything else, you are going to have to ask me specifically, because lots of things I have forgotten and lots of things I have made myself forget. HUNTLEY: Right. What I will do, I will... We are going to go through this material and I will probably call you and we will probably do this again some time, but I just want to thank you for coming today. DREW: Well, you are more than welcome. More than welcome. I' ; m sorry that... I' ; m really sorry that you didn' ; t start doing these things while John was alive, because he could have told you so much more. He blocked out a lot of things and we would sit down talking some time and he' ; d say, ' ; Deenie,' ; you know, ' ; Tell me what I did,' ; you know--a lot of fun things and a lot of bad things, because I would tease until the end about he and Sid Smyer taking their coats off to fight. I have to find that letter that Mr. Smyer wrote him. HUNTLEY: We hope that if you have any kinds of materials that you would like to present to us, you will. DREW: You see, they burned up the barn... When they took the house, we stored in the barn all manner of things that we didn' ; t think we' ; d need while the new house was being built. HUNTLEY: And that was burned. DREW: All kind of papers and things you know, that we.... We just had papers and things. We just had a ram full of Christmas decorations, you know--things that, you know, ' ; Oh, I don' ; t need these,' ; and darned if they didn' ; t walk. After we had moved out, somebody called and said, ' ; You' ; ve got another fire. Your barn' ; s on fire.' ; And, we got up there and it was burned to the ground and, of course, everything in it was burned--was burned to the ground. So, we lost a lot of stuff as a result of that. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=DDrew1995.xml DDrew1995.xml
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Deenie Drew
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Deenie Drew discusses leaving New York to work for the Red Cross in Tuskegee. She then moved to Dynamite Hill and joined the movement with her husband, John. They were close family friends with Dr. King.
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19950127D
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
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1995-01-27
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video
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https://bcriohp.org/files/original/859bacc6e6319c4da1fcd3e5575d8de8.jpg
cf1f3621f4f3e3928d8493cc33c6e918
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
Interviewee
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Henrietta S. Tripp
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http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=HTripp1998.xml
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Mass meetings
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5.3 April 9, 1998 Henrietta S. Tripp Interviewed on April 9, 1998 19980409T 0:54:33 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Meaghan Cash Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Slavery Mass meetings Henrietta S. Tripp Horace Huntley Video 1:|19(6)|33(12)|43(12)|67(6)|90(8)|100(7)|117(12)|125(11)|141(11)|160(7)|174(7)|187(6)|207(12)|216(10)|230(4)|242(5)|255(13)|269(11)|280(2)|306(3)|323(6)|344(9)|358(6)|376(2)|388(3)|397(7)|410(14)|417(2)|430(10)|451(4)|466(17)|481(1)|491(6)|507(5)|521(8)|543(11)|552(14)|570(7)|578(3)|600(5)|615(8)|629(4)|643(13)|660(6)|669(19)|682(12)|689(6)|699(9)|711(10)|717(6)|739(6)|751(3)|757(1) 0 https://youtu.be/_FwzvnU5peA YouTube video English 0 Introduction This is an interview for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute‟s Oral History Project. Introduction to the interview Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Oral history project Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Oral history project 33.516405, -86.814553 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ BCRI Homepage 39 Family Origins Where are you from originally? Introduction to family origins and how family ended up in Alabama Alabama ; family ; Marion Juction ; Mississippi ; slave trade Alabama ; Family ; Marion Junction ; Slave trade 274 Childhood in Marion Junction and Family life Now, tell me a little about Marion Junction. Discussion of growing up in Marion Junction, AL and home life. Cotton baling ; farmer ; home life ; Marion Junction ; Sewing ; white community childhood ; cotton ; farmer ; white community 717 Early Education Tell me about your schooling. Discussion of parents education and early education in Marion Junction Beloit ; Dallas County Training School ; Hair Crossroad ; Mud Hall ; Schooling Education (Early childhood) ; Gary Elementary school ; Lincoln High School 926 Extracurricular Activities in School Were you active in any extracurricular activities? Short discussion of interest in music and band during high school band ; Beloit ; Dallas County Training School ; Majorette ; music Beloit ; extracurricular activities 1014 Growing up as a Young Black Woman in Alabama and Sexual Harassment When I got in high school, we used to go to Marion on Saturdays. They had a, I guess you would call it a boot camp, where they had the soldiers, where they would do their practice. Discussion of experiencing segregation in high school as well as sexual harassment at a young age Blacks--Segregation ; boot camp ; high school ; Sexual harassment Blacks--Segregation ; Sexual harassment 1189 Father's Confrontations with Whites Did you ever think of telling your father? Discussion of father's confrontations with white people and mistreatment from whites confrontation ; ethics ; father ; Race ; racial issues ; Sexual harassment ; whites Race 1709 Life after High School What did you do after high school? Discusses life after graduating high school ; traveling and living in Cleveland, jobs and post graduation schooling. Alumnist beauty school ; Brickman Cafeteria ; Cleveland ; Eden modeling school ; Man power training school ; nursing ; Smithfield Birmingham (Ala.) ; YMCA 2068 Work in Voter's Registration In '60. '60 was the year that the sit-ins started around the south. In '61 was the year the Freedom Riders come into town. Discusses sit-ins and demonstrations in the 1960s in Birmingham, AL. Also talks about work in Voter's Registration and church meetings. demonstrations ; Freedom Riders ; mass meetings ; Miles College ; police brutality ; sit-ins ; Zion Hill Birmingham (Ala.) ; Hate crimes ; Miles College ; Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) 2498 Discrimination in the Workplace You, then, being the first Black person to get a job in the clerical pool at city hall. What was that like? Discusses discrimination experienced in the workplace in clerical position at city hall. city hall ; clerk ; discrimination ; racial discrimination ; traffic citations discrimination ; race ; racial discrimination 2828 Work at Fultondale High School and Marriage After I left city hall I went to work at Fultondale High School. By then I was still in college at night and I obtained my degree then. Discusses time working at Fultondale high school in attendance and discipline. Also talks about prejudice in the school system and marriage. Fultondale High School ; marriage ; Marriage ; prejudice ; Tarrant City Fultondale High School ; marriage ; prejudice 3033 Work with Young People and Closing Remarks You have been very helpful. We've covered a lot of territory in this hour or so. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us? Discusses interest in working with young people and importance of helping communities. community ; work ; work ethic ; youth community ; work ethic ; youth Oral History Henrietta S. Tripp discusses being the first Black person hired in a clerical position at Birmingham City Hall after growing up in Marion, Alabama. She attended most mass meetings of the Movement, but did not demonstrate. HUNTLEY: This is an interview for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project. I' ; m interviewing Ms. Henrietta Tripp. My name is Dr. Horace Huntley. Today is April 9, 1998. Ms. Tripp I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule, cause I know you' ; re busy, to come and sit and talk with me today. TRIPP: Well, I appreciate you asking. HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. Where are you from originally? TRIPP: I was originally born in Marion Junction, Alabama. HUNTLEY: Were your parents from Marion Junction? TRIPP: My parents were from, close to . . . HUNTLEY: In that general area? TRIPP: Yes, in that general area. My father' ; s father, my grandfather, was from North Carolina. He was born there, but he was raised up in Massaline, just close to Marion Junction. HUNTLEY: How did he . . . why did he move from North Carolina to Alabama? TRIPP: Well, during that time my grandfather' ; s father was a slave. During that time he was traded off and he moved to Mississippi from North Carolina. HUNTLEY: So, he was actually traded from an owner in North Carolina to someone in Mississippi? TRIPP: Right. Then, they moved from Mississippi to Alabama. HUNTLEY: And that story remains in your family about the movement from North Carolina. Do you know where in North Carolina he was from? TRIPP: No, that' ; s what we' ; re working on, because I am the coordinator of the family reunions. I got a lot of that, but I don' ; t have at any place that I want it. I just talked to a brother that was born in 1912. My oldest brother was born in 1910. My second oldest brother has a better remembrance. Some of the older people have passed on now. I just wish I had started to try to gather this history before my aunt, who lived out to be 101. My mother she didn' ; t live as long a life, because she had so many children. She passed on at 63. Then, my dad passed on earlier. Then, my grandfather passed on a long time before. So, nobody had thought of this. I think Roots brought on this. HUNTLEY: A lot of family when people start looking for that background and heritage. Where in Mississippi did they live? TRIPP: It was Jacksonville and Meridian. They lived in two places there. HUNTLEY: Jacksonville or Jackson? TRIPP: Jackson, Mississippi. HUNTLEY: Jackson, Mississippi and Meridian, Mississippi? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: That was rather close to Marion? TRIPP: Yeah, in that part of Alabama. I don' ; t know why they changed to Alabama. I don' ; t know why they changed. HUNTLEY: That was my next question, why they left Mississippi. TRIPP: During that time, my brother told me there was a lot of slave trade and as far as my brother knew, Robert knew, he was sold to someone in Alabama and that' ; s how he ended up in Alabama. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters do you have? TRIPP: There were fourteen, but my mother reared thirteen because one, Virginia, died a baby. So, they reared thirteen children. HUNTLEY: Where were you in the scheme of things? TRIPP: I was the knee baby, so to speak. I have a baby brother under me. HUNTLEY: So, you are next to the last? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: So, I know you were spoiled. TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: Now, tell me a little about Marion Junction. TRIPP: Marion Junction was a little town. It was segregated. My father, he did not believe in his children...all of my brothers were older except the baby brother. He did not believe in his children working on the farms for the White people. So, they all had to work at home and my father raised everything. HUNTLEY: Was he a farmer? TRIPP: Yes. He was a minister and a farmer. During those years my daddy raised like 60, 70 bails of cotton and my brothers and they really worked. Everything we ate he raised it himself, flour, I believe it was. So, my brothers had to work on the farm and do all of the work. So, what happened in that doing that my daddy was rejected by the White community. So, they wouldn' ; t sell him any land, but they leased him the land and the place, 75 acres of land for 60 years. So, he leased it and that' ; s where he raised all of his family and children there. So, my daddy said, he used to tell us that when he would take his cotton to the gin, they would make him get on the end. He had to wait on the end, because he would have more cotton than anybody. The Lord really blessed him. He would have more cotton, bails of cotton, than anybody and so, but he waited. He was still not going to let his children work out. He was determined of that and he didn' ; t. HUNTLEY: All of you worked at home? TRIPP: At home. HUNTLEY: How many boys and how many girls? TRIPP: Five girls and eight boys. During this time five of us wasn' ; t born then. So, it was the older ones. My oldest brother was born in 1910, John Henry. My second oldest brother was Robert. Next is George and then, it was a sister and then, it was three more brothers. So, it was two sisters and then, three more brothers. So, many I have to look at the list to keep up with them. They all worked and my mom would sew. She made just about everything we wore. She taught my sisters how to sew. By the time the younger group came in, she talked like there were two groups. By the time we were born my two older sisters and my other two older sisters, that is the one I' ; m next to and the one she' ; s next to, we had learned that she had taught everybody to learn, to teach everybody to sew. So, everybody is sewing now. My trade was doing hair. I used to like to do hair. My second oldest, wait a minute. Let' ; s go back, my oldest brother was a railroad worker after he grew up and liked to be a young man and got married. He got married at 18. So, he worked on the railroad and then he had a store. He started a store in his house and then, when he moved, they sold him some land on another place and he bought 125 acres of land and then he put him a store. So, his family, his children were raised in the store and he worked on the railroad. HUNTLEY: So, he never farmed then? TRIPP: Yes, growing up. HUNTLEY: But when he became adult, he worked on the railroad and had a store? TRIPP: Yes. He just had a garden. Everybody had a garden, like greens and corn and okra, small truck farms they call it. HUNTLEY: Now, did he remain in Marion, or did he ever leave Marion? TRIPP: No, he remained in Marion Junction. He retired from the railroad and he' ; s there now. HUNTLEY: What did your mother do? Did she ever work outside of the home? TRIPP: No. She was a housewife. She kept on the farm and she taught us to sew. She was a bible teacher. She was just a good mother. HUNTLEY: Did your father have a church? You say he was an Evangelist, so he traveled. TRIPP: No, for a very short time he pastored a church in Massaline, but it was very short, but he must have went all through the country. That' ; s what he was, an Evangelist. HUNTLEY: Right, right. Well, for practical purposes, the baby girl anyway, what was it like having that large of a family? Did you have the opportunity to work on the farm? Was your father still farming as you grew up? TRIPP: It was, the family, my mom always taught us to stick together, we were a close family. It was fun for me, because they kind of did everything. I didn' ; t have to cook and a lot of the things that I didn' ; t have to do the older ones had to do. So, by the time I was born my father was not into that big farming, just truck farming at this time. I didn' ; t have to work in the field. HUNTLEY: Did you ever wish that you could work in the field, or do you ever wish that you could have worked in the field? Or did you not want to do that as a child, you know? TRIPP: Yeah, well, I didn' ; t mind it. As a matter of fact, I did do it. What happened, we were raised to help people and there was a family and this family was my mother' ; s best friend lady and all of her children had grown up and left, too. Her children would come back and do the farming, they still farm because her husband wanted to farm it. He was the type of man that just liked to see a lot of cotton, corn and everything. So, my mom would let us go over and help out. So, I did get a chance to pick the cotton and the corn and all of that. It wasn' ; t like it was a requirement when my father was raising the family up. HUNTLEY: Right. That pressure wasn' ; t on you. It was more . . . TRIPP: Like helping out. HUNTLEY: Tell me about your schooling. Well, first of all let me ask you this. How much schooling did your parents have? TRIPP: My parents did not . . . my mom had a third grade education. My father had a fifth grade education. That' ; s almost as high as they went, then, I suppose, I think. HUNTLEY: During that time, particularly in the rural areas, it was rather difficult to get much further than that. TRIPP: Right. HUNTLEY: Now, your education, do you remember your first school? TRIPP: Yes, Gary School. HUNTLEY: Tell me about it. TRIPP: I do remember that school. Ms. Minnie was my teacher, she was a jewel. Gary Elementary School was the first school I attended. I got kind of moved up in a grade when I was in the first, or second grade, I believe it was. She was a good teacher. It was a little school in Massaline. Everybody was in the same school, all grades were in the same classroom. Everybody, it' ; s just amazing how quite we were. She had to teach every grade. Everybody had their books in their little section. In the winter time when it was real cold, we had a wooden heater and when it would get real cold, she would let us come around and warm up and get warm. Sometimes she would let us put our hands in our pockets. We would have our hands in our pockets when we would read, when she was teaching us to read. It was a beautiful time. She loved us. It was a loving time. Everybody obeyed and it' ; s so different now. It was a joyous time. There' ; s one thing that I got exposed to later on in years. I was not exposed to racism in elementary school, because there wasn' ; t nobody there, nobody but us Black kids. It wasn' ; t like an integrated school having being exposed to there' ; s a White school across the street, or nothing like that. They were way across wherever. I was never exposed to them, because they were never there. We had our little school and our little book that we read and we didn' ; t know then if we were to have anything else or not, you see. But we learned what we had. In later years it was different. HUNTLEY: How long did you go to that school? TRIPP: I went to Gary School until I was in the fifth grade. Then, we went to another little school called Mud Hall. Then, from Mud Hall to Hair Crossroad, where I was in eighth and ninth grade there. In the tenth grade I was in Lincoln High School in Marion. Then, from Lincoln I graduated at Dallas County Training School in Beloit. HUNTLEY: Were you active in any extracurricular activities? TRIPP: Yes, I liked the band. I liked the music, I also did like music. Mr. Hobs at Dallas County Training School let me do the drums. I don' ; t know what was so exciting about the drums at that time. I was a majorette at Marion, that was in the tenth grade. Then, I did the drums. We didn' ; t have a full band at Beloit. Mr. Hobs would let us have it in the class. We didn' ; t have bands it was a country school. It wasn' ; t like Marion. So, we would have music in the classroom. HUNTLEY: Did Marion not go through the twelfth grade? TRIPP: Yes, but the zoning, I couldn' ; t go there anymore it was something that we had moved out of the district. That kind of thing got started down there. I was in Dallas County when I went to Marion. It may be because my nieces lived in Perry County and they found out. I don' ; t know, but I had to finish at Beloit. HUNTLEY: As a young Black woman growing up in that part of Alabama, what was it like? Are there any experiences that you would share with us? Something to describe your childhood. TRIPP: When I got in high school, we used to go to Marion on Saturdays. They had a, I guess you would call it a boot camp, where they had the soldiers, where they would do their practice. HUNTLEY: Training? TRIPP: Yes. One thing I noticed was that there wasn' ; t any Blacks in that great army of young men. I used to wonder to myself why there wasn' ; t. HUNTLEY: So, there were no Blacks at the training camp? TRIPP: No. We used to stand on the sidewalk and watch them do their practice. I used to stand and watch them do their practice and just often wondered why there wasn' ; t any Black men out there. When I got to be 14, I guess that' ; s when I started working, because my mom always liked for us to work. I started working for a lady. She was sick and at that time my mom wanted me to be a nurse. So, this lady had a daughter that was a RN and she taught me how to give her mom shots, cause she had an illness that required shots. She had a son and her son was . . . she was a good lady, but her son was real sneaky and he would do things, or say things to me he shouldn' ; t say behind her back and couldn' ; t tell his mother. HUNTLEY: What sort of things did he say? TRIPP: Like, well, you know they talk about this . . . what women talk about men harassing them. HUNTLEY: Sexual harassment? TRIPP: Sexual harassment. If you want to talk about sexual harassment, oh God, I' ; ve had that since I was 14 years old. HUNTLEY: Was this a White family? TRIPP: Yes. He didn' ; t rape me or nothing like that, but he would always approach me and tell me not to tell his mother. Really I didn' ; t tell anybody, my mom either, because I knew she would make me stop working over there. So he didn' ; t . . . he would just always bother me. HUNTLEY: Was he older? TRIPP: Yes, he was older, much older. HUNTLEY: Was he grown? TRIPP: Yes, he was indeed grown up. He and his wife were separated and he lived with his mom. HUNTLEY: Did you ever think of telling your father? TRIPP: Yes, I thought about it, but I knew what my dad would do, because I knew of some confrontation that he had in Marion Junction that he would tell us about. HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. What kind of confrontations? TRIPP: When my dad raised my older brothers, as I said, they had to work at home, but he would send them to the store in Marion Junction. So, my dad had given my brother ten dollars to go to the store to get something. Well, you weren' ; t supposed to go to the store then during the week, see. You would only go to the store on Saturdays. Well, my brother said it was a Monday and my dad sent him to the store with the ten dollars. Well, they harassed my brother and wanted to know what he was doing there and what was he doing with that ten dollars. Had he stole that ten dollars. They wouldn' ; t sell him anything and they took the ten dollars. HUNTLEY: Was this the White store owners? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: And took the ten dollars? TRIPP: Yes. So, my brother went back and told my dad. And my dad went up there and there was a great confrontation. My dad told them that whenever he sent his children to the store to give them what they wanted and give them their money. So, my dad, they called him Crazy Tom, that' ; s what they called him. He wasn' ; t crazy, he just was a man. HUNTLEY: He was standing up for himself? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: He was crazy in their terms? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: So, that meant he probably got a lot of respect, too. TRIPP: He did. They didn' ; t bother him. They wouldn' ; t sell him any land, but they didn' ; t bother him because my brother . . . now my mom and dad, and I can see now why they didn' ; t tell us a lot of things, because they didn' ; t want to instill hate. They always instilled in us to love everybody, regardless of what they do to you. They never told us to hate White people, or to hate nobody. My brothers have told us a lot since we' ; ve grown up and I see why she did it. Not that we hate now, because we know that' ; s not the way it goes. But I don' ; t know why, but I do believe that' ; s the reason they didn' ; t want to expose us to all that they had encountered. So, they didn' ; t tell us. My brother told us a lot of things that they had to encounter. Like other people who worked on half. They call it working on half. HUNTLEY: That' ; s sharecropping? TRIPP: Yes, that' ; s what they call it. So, my daddy would let some people do this on his place. He was good to the people. A lot of people wanted to come work on his place, because on the White people' ; s place they would have to do . . . they would never . . . they would take their crops, a lot of their crops while they worked. Then, some of those people would beat those people. One day they were beating a man, my brother says, and my dad defended him and they hit him. He pulled that man off the horse and that was a great confrontation. HUNTLEY: So, your father was a fighter? TRIPP: Yes, he wasn' ; t a violent man or nothing like that. You just didn' ; t bother him, you just leave him alone and his children. HUNTLEY: He believed in self-defense? TRIPP: Yes, he did. He believed in self-defense and protecting his family. HUNTLEY: Were there other stories that your brothers have told you that related to race during that time? I know in certain parts of Alabama, that was Black Belt, right? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: The relationships between Blacks and Whites and one reason they would call your father crazy was because he went against the norm. The norm was to be submissive. He obviously was not submissive. So, that meant he would stand up for what he felt was right. White people, then, would look at that as being crazy because there were not, all Black men would not do that. TRIPP: No, no they didn' ; t. He didn' ; t and the fact that they hit him really touched him that morning. They said it was one morning. My brothers, they told us about, my oldest brother told us about when he worked on the railroad and how the people would do on the railroad. This man, I don' ; t remember his name, but they had to do the cross ties and he had a yell. When he yelled, you were supposed to run, but my brother didn' ; t run, cause my mom had told him and she told all of us to work and do your work and you get your pace. She told him that a many time, you get your pace and you do your pace, you work. You do an honest days work, but you don' ; t run and rip on the job. So, when he would do the yell, my brother did not run. So, this man asked him, " ; didn' ; t you hear me?" ; My brother said, " ; yeah, I heard you." ; He was real quite, this is my oldest brother. He said, " ; yeah, I heard you." ; Then, he said, " ; didn' ; t you see everybody else get over there?" ; My brother said, " ; well, didn' ; t you see me get over there?" ; ' ; Yeah, but you didn' ; t get over there with them." ; He said, " ; yeah, but I went over there, didn' ; t I?" ; I remember my brother said, he said that. He said, he looked at him and said, " ; I went over there, didn' ; t I?" ; He didn' ; t bother him anymore, but my brother said he always looked at him. He looked, but he didn' ; t bother him anymore. HUNTLEY: So, he had to deal with the railroad in that area? TRIPP: Yes, he had to maintain it by putting the coals on the railroad tracks then. They had to put the coals in the proper place and had to put them under the cross ties so when the train would run on it, they wouldn' ; t go down, or whatever. They had to care for it. I remember when we used to ride the train all the time. We would go to Marion and to Selma, on to those places when I was a teenager. I didn' ; t, my oldest sister encountered this White man, my mom said that, my sister told me later that he made an advance toward my older sister and he told my mother that if she would let her go with him what he would do for the family and all. But my mother said, " ; I don' ; t trade my daughters." ; So, he dropped his head and rode away on his horse and didn' ; t bother my sister anymore. What I' ; m saying, there was not too much confrontation because of my daddy. They knew that my daddy was not one that would tolerate it. So, we grew up separate. They had their schools. The only confrontations we had with White people were when we would go to the store. So, they didn' ; t bother us. HUNTLEY: What did you do after high school? TRIPP: After high school, my mom wanted me to be a nurse and then, she wanted me to be a music teacher. She really wanted me to be a music teacher. When I got out of high school, I wanted to go all over the country a little. I wanted to be a model. So, I traveled around. I lived awhile with my cousin in Cleveland, Ohio. HUNTLEY: Did you leave for Cleveland right after high school? TRIPP: No, right after high school I came here to Birmingham to live with my oldest sister for awhile. Then, I went there. HUNTLEY: Did you work here? TRIPP: Yeah, in the 60s, after I kind of floated around. HUNTLEY: No, I mean when you came here to live with your sister? TRIPP: No, I wasn' ; t working then. It was kind of like a vacation. I kind of stayed with her a summer. I got out of high school in 1955 and I came here. I stayed during that summer with her. I believe it was the Christmas of 1955 that I went to Cleveland to live with my cousin. She had a beauty shop. I really did hair in high school, I got some training. HUNTLEY: So, you worked with your cousin when you got to Cleveland in the beauty shop? TRIPP: Yeah. HUNTLEY: How did you like Cleveland versus Birmingham and Marion? TRIPP: I didn' ; t. I think, maybe, because she didn' ; t live far from Lake Superior. I liked the scene and I liked the lights. She had a cousin, it, maybe because of my upbringing, but her daughter was real into the fast life. HUNTLEY: Was she your age, her daughter? TRIPP: Yes. I think I didn' ; t like it. I didn' ; t like the things and places she went and all. So, I wanted to come back. HUNTLEY: So, how long were you in Cleveland? TRIPP: Off and on, like I stayed there that winter and spring and I came back. Then, that summer I went back a while. I just was really just getting the edge off, or seeing what I was going to do, or something like that, I guess. Then, I came back and I got into Eden Modeling School here. I did that a while, won a few newspaper and things, interviews in the ' ; 60s. Then, I went back again. I thought that Lois and I would kind of do this model together. I wanted her to do what I would like her to do, but that wasn' ; t her. HUNTLEY: Who was Lois? Was that your cousin? TRIPP: Cousin. HUNTLEY: Ok. TRIPP: So, I came back and then I started to work at a drug store on 1st Avenue North. I worked there a while. I can' ; t think of the name of that store. It was on the corner of 1st Avenue and 19th Street. Then, I worked at Brickman Cafeteria and at Morris and I started going to Alumnist Beauty School. I thought I would go into that. So, I finished it in about a year or two, maybe. Then, I started to work at a beauty shop and I continued to pursue my subject. I enrolled then at one of them, was at the Y. I was taking typing at the Y, because I was seeing then I wanted to go another way. I used the beauty shop so I could finish. I worked in the beauty shop and continued to go to school in the evenings. I went to . . . after I left the Y taking typing, then, I enrolled in Man Power Training School, probably in the mid 60s. I finished there and then I started working. I was still working at the beauty shop in the evenings. I took the test to get a job wherever I could get one. I passed the test and I was hired at city hall. [inaudible] traffic citation for Carters Court in 1966, August, 1966. HUNTLEY: You were one of the first then? TRIPP: Yes, I was one of the first Blacks hired in the clerical position. HUNTLEY: Prior to that, you came back to Birmingham in 1958. Is that right? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: And you lived in what community? TRIPP: In Smithfield area. I lived on 10th Street. I was living on 10th Street when the bomb went off at Sixteenth Street. I believe, then, I was probably, I think I was taking cosmetology. I had just finished one because I finished in ' ; 63. HUNTLEY: See, that happened in ' ; 63 also. It happened in September of ' ; 63. TRIPP: Ok. HUNTLEY: So, had you finished by then? TRIPP: So, I was working at the beauty shop there on Sixteenth Street and going to school at night in ' ; 63. HUNTLEY: In ' ; 60. ' ; 60 was the year that the sit-ins started around the south. In ' ; 61 was the year the Freedom Riders come into town. ' ; 62 was the year that Miles College students and the movement sort of incorporated on a selective buying campaign downtown, where they boycotted the stores downtown. Of course, in ' ; 63 were the big demonstrations. Were you involved in any of those activities? TRIPP: No and the reason is that I guess I had a little of my dad in me, because I knew I couldn' ; t take the hitting and I just knew I wasn' ; t non-violent. I admire it and I worked in the voter' ; s registration and all that, but I just couldn' ; t tolerate that. HUNTLEY: You did work in the voter' ; s registration? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. TRIPP: Well, I wanted to be a voter. They had meetings at my church. HUNTLEY: The mass meetings of the movement? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: Ok. What church were you a member of? TRIPP: Zion Hill, right down from Sixteenth Street Baptist Church and that' ; s where the voter' ; s registration was in the evening time. They taught me the Constitution and the things they asked you. Then, I went in and I passed. I learned those things and I said it and I passed. Then, I started working to help the other people to vote. A lot of them had gone down and didn' ; t pass it. There' ; s two things they asked me, what' ; s the Constitution of the United States and how many presidents. I named some of them, because I couldn' ; t remember them all and he said, " ; well, that' ; s ok." ; So, that was that. A lot of the people ...it wasn' ; t like a structured question and people would say different things that were being asked. So, we were trying to help them to remember it all. Some of the people were older and couldn' ; t remember what we were teaching. HUNTLEY: Well, I' ; ve interviewed people and they said they had questions like how many seeds are there in a watermelon and how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap. That kind of questions. It' ; s hard to prepare people for that, but you did help people prepare for answers to questions about the Constitution and government in general. TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: Did you ever attend any of the mass meetings? TRIPP: Yes. All of them. Well, not all of them but many. HUNTLEY: How would you describe a mass meeting? TRIPP: That was hallelujah time. They were spiritual. During those times I was thinking about sometime where I was working. There was so much unity and love and I wish those times would come back. During those days it was a glorious unity among people. People would tell their experiences that they were having. I never will forget when Martin Luther King was at Sixteenth Street and he was talking about Birmingham being one of the hardest cities to crack. It was the hardest city to crack. I was thinking in my mind, I' ; m not political and all that, but I was thinking we were doing fine. He was talking about the structure of the city and how hardcore it was against Blacks. And I' ; m thinking about oh, we' ; re singing and having a good time, you know. That' ; s the way I was thinking. I never will forget that' ; s the way I was thinking when he said that. HUNTLEY: So, you were thinking about the good time you were having in that gathering spiritually, rather than what was happening outside of the church? TRIPP: Yeah. HUNTLEY: Did you participate in any of the demonstrations? TRIPP: No, I did not and I saw a lot of them and I went on by it because . . . HUNTLEY: Were you on the [inaudible] and watch as they? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: What was that feeling like just to watch them? TRIPP: I didn' ; t watch it all. I would just see what was going on, but then I would go. I just couldn' ; t take it. I just could not, the hitting and the pushing and the shoving and the cursing. It was just like mad folks. The viciousness on their faces and the expressions and the hate. HUNTLEY: Was this viciousness and hate, was that from Blacks and Whites? TRIPP: No, it was from the Whites beating on the Blacks. HUNTLEY: So, that viciousness and hate was coming from policemen? TRIPP: Yes, and the dogs. HUNTLEY: So, you' ; ve witnessed it, but you couldn' ; t participate and you couldn' ; t witness very long? TRIPP: No, not very long because see, like I said, I just wasn' ; t going to take it. I guess I would have been dead. Somebody, a lady and I don' ; t know her, the lady told me, " ; baby, you need to go home." ; I think she could see something in me, I guess an expression. She told me, " ; you need to go home." ; I never will forget it. I don' ; t know who that lady was, but I never will forget it. HUNTLEY: Did you go? TRIPP: I was leaving anyway, but she was right. It was non-violent and that was one thing and I knew I couldn' ; t do that. HUNTLEY: You, then, being the first Black person to get a job in the clerical pool at city hall. What was that like? TRIPP: What was that like? I worked in traffic citations, so I had to accept tickets from the public. And the two ladies that were in the traffic citations were very negative. They talked about the sneaky and cunning things that they would do. HUNTLEY: What would they do? TRIPP: They would do things like hide, the personal things are just not fit to tell. HUNTLEY: Tell me. TRIPP: It was just, it' ; s really so bad. HUNTLEY: Is this personal things to you? TRIPP: It was like she would pass by my desk and fan her dress, you know. She knew what she had done. Then, she would look back at me like that to see how I was taking it. Then, she would hide the work. I' ; m sitting at my desk and the tickets, all the tickets that came in that night are supposed to be in the box there. There' ; s so much work you do, you' ; re supposed to get that work out. Well, I couldn' ; t find it. I spent all that time and the evening shift would come and put the tickets down on my desk and say, " ; you haven' ; t done your work today." ; I said, " ; I' ; ve been looking for the tickets all day and I asked you about them." ; HUNTLEY: This was your supervisor? TRIPP: No, she was just a worker. HUNTLEY: Just a worker? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: What was the reaction of your supervisor? TRIPP: My supervisor didn' ; t care. He believed what she said. You had no hope. There was no hope in there. A lot of times and the reason I think, I think the Lord had [inaudible]. I would cry a lot and I think that was releasing and I know that the Lord was watching me and to keep me calm and I think that was a way I would release that. It didn' ; t make sense what they did. That' ; s why I didn' ; t do the work. Then, the supervisor would come and say, " ; you didn' ; t get this work." ; I said, " ; well I couldn' ; t find it. Miriam had it hid, she had it hid." ; He said, " ; well, she said . . ." ; It was always like that, she said this or that. HUNTLEY: How long did you work under those conditions? TRIPP: I worked there from 1966, August, 1966 until August, 1971. It was like four or five years something like that. HUNTLEY: Were those conditions existing through that whole period? TRIPP: They were the same thing. I thought I hated . . . and I would say I hate them when we would go on our break. This lady, I never will forget, she came like, she was the first stenographer, she was a Black lady. She told me, " ; Henrietta, you' ; ve got to pray." ; I said, pray, for them? What they' ; re doing to me?" ; She said, " ; you' ; ve got to pray for them." ; But I learned that you do have to pray. I learned that pray keeps you out of that. I had been taught how to release, I' ; ve forgotten this course now. I learned in later years, when I went to work at the Board of Education that you have to release the pressure. I' ; ve forgotten what that course is called now, stress management. I had stress management then, but stress management didn' ; t do me good. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you left city hall? TRIPP: After I left city hall I went to work at Fultondale High School. By then I was still in college at night and I obtained my degree then. I went to work at Fultondale High school as an aide, just an aide in the vocational building. I worked there for one year. I believe it was one year, yeah. Then, I went back the next year in that department and then they transferred me to another part, to the central staff office at the building in Tarrant City at the time. I worked in that capacity and then, I was moved to another building and then, I went from there back to Fultondale High School. I think I worked in the central staff office for four or five years. HUNTLEY: Did you teach up there? TRIPP: No, I worked in discipline and attendance. HUNTLEY: Coming from city hall and the experiences that you had, how was Fultondale? TRIPP: Fultondale itself was ok, as far as treating you. As long as you did your work they didn' ; t bother you. The Board itself was prejudice. They just would not allow you to advance. You had to do the work, but they wouldn' ; t classify you so that you could make the money. It was just terrible in that area. Since I went into work as a secretary, they held me in that position. I did work like an assistant principal, but my classification changed from aide to administrative aide. Still no money. I applied several times for a secretarial position, but they didn' ; t give me that. They gave me more responsibilities, like I had to deal with parents with counseling and advising kids. HUNTLEY: How old were you when you married? TRIPP: When I first married, I was 21 years old. That was a very short marriage. HUNTLEY: Where were you then? TRIPP: I was here. My last marriage I was married 26 years. HUNTLEY: Do you have children? TRIPP: No, no children. HUNTLEY: And you are a widow, correct? TRIPP: Yes. HUNTLEY: You have been very helpful. We' ; ve covered a lot of territory in this hour or so. Is there anything else that you would like to share with us? TRIPP: Well, I would like to . . . I have worked in a lot of and I still work now in a lot of positions in my neighborhood and in the community for the betterment of the young people and other people in the community. I work on a lot of boards. I' ; m president of my neighborhood and I work with the [inaudible] program to help the young people. I tell the young people to be helpful and to help people in wherever their need is and don' ; t look for pay. In these later years parents have taught their kids you don' ; t work if you don' ; t get paid. That' ; s the wrong attitude. When I was growing up, you did work and you don' ; t take pay and you don' ; t look for pay. That was . . . HUNTLEY: Secondary? TRIPP: Right. So, I just wish now that the young people would be more helpful in the community in doing what they see is needed, like picking up paper, or cutting older people' ; s lawns, or whatever they can do to help the community. This is some of the things I do to help with the kids I work with. We keep up the park and we pick up the paper in the park. I always compensate them to encourage them and to have somebody to help me, because I can' ; t do it all. So, I just would like to say that I am glad to be a part of the history in the ' ; 60s and to see where we are now and the difference in the ' ; 60s and this 1998. I just would love for people to be more loving as they were in the ' ; 60s and to learn to work together more and to love one another. And to not be misled. Learn to value a person for who they are and to treat everybody right. HUNTLEY: That' ; s a great way to conclude. I certainly appreciate your time. You' ; ve done a tremendous job. TRIPP: Well, thank you Dr. Huntley. I don' ; t know, I just wanted to say a few things that were on my heart. HUNTLEY: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=HTripp1998.xml HTripp1998.xml
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Henrietta S. Tripp
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Henrietta S. Tripp discusses being the first Black person hired in a clerical position at Birmingham City Hall after growing up in Marion, Alabama. She attended most mass meetings of the Movement, but did not demonstrate.
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19980409T
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Slavery
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1998-04-09
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video
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Ameila Boynton Robinson
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http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=ABRobinson2005.xml
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5.3 November 19, 1995 Amelia Boynton Robinson Interviewed on November 19, 2005 20051119B 0:37:44 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham United States. Department of Agriculture--Officials and employees Selma (Ala.) Voter registration Ameila Boynton Robinson Horace Huntley Video 1:|25(10)|32(4)|42(11)|67(3)|74(11)|83(8)|91(10)|103(11)|115(4)|128(6)|143(1)|157(13)|167(7)|175(3)|181(12)|191(7)|201(13)|210(10)|216(16)|227(13)|236(10)|247(12)|255(5)|269(8)|288(7)|298(6)|305(6)|319(3)|328(13)|339(3)|350(10)|359(10)|369(14)|379(1)|389(8)|400(2)|411(4) 0 https://youtu.be/sD_TY6_mkKo YouTube video English 0 Interview Introduction I was looking forward to this day that I might come here, and the pleasure is all mine. Introduction statements with Amelia Boynton Robinson. 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ BCRI Homepage 15 Family and Childhood Were you born in Alabama? Robinson discusses her parents and early upbringing. African American families ; African Americans--Education ; African Americans--Southern States African American families 215 Early Civil Rights Work and Government Work You of course are most noted for your activity in Selma, but you are obviously pretty active even before Selma and voting rights and property ownership. Can you talk just a bit about that? Robinson discusses her job with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and her efforts in voter registration. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Southern States ; Agriculture--United States ; Civil rights movement ; Voter registration--United States African Americans--Politics and government 732 Bloody Sunday Demonstration Tell me about Bloody Sunday. Robinson describes her experience in the Bloody Sunday demonstration. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Civil rights movement ; Police brutality--United States ; Selma (Ala.) African Americans--Civil rights 1307 Voter Registration Efforts & ; Meeting Spouse So all of these things made me more determined to carry out what we started. Robinson describes her continued work for civil rights and meeting her spouse. African American families ; African Americans--Politics and government ; Schiller Institute (Washington, D.C.) ; Voter registration--United States African Americans--Civil rights 1877 Schiller Institute and LaRouche Youth Movement Now I like to travel. And he said, " ; let's go to New York to the Shriner's meeting." ; Now he wasn't a Shriner. And I said, " ; Okay." ; So we went to the Shriner's meeting and we couldn't get in the Shriner's meeting, but we were looking at the displays of the various components. Robinson discusses her work with the Schiller Institute and the LaRouche Youth Movement. Schiller Institute (Washington, D.C.) African Americans--Politics and government 2159 Interview Conclusion Well, Mrs. Robinson I want to thank you for taking your time. I could sit here and talk with you and listen to you for hours on hours. The interview concludes as Robinson describes her upcoming work and book tour. African American authors Oral History Amelia Boynton Robinson discusses how her activism began while working as a Home Demonstration Agent in Dallas County. She gives a detailed account of Bloody Sunday. HUNTLEY: Test one, two, three. Test one, two, three. Test one, two, three. Test one, two, three. Test one, two, three. Test four, five, six. Test, four, five, six. Test four, five, six. Test four, five, six. Test four, five, six. HUNTLEY: With us today [inaudible 00:01:24] ROBINSON: And I [inaudible 00:01:35] I was looking forward to this day that I may come here. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. ROBINSON: The pleasure is all mine. HUNTLEY: Thank you. Thank you. Just want to get a few tidbits today. Let me just ask you, were you born in Alabama? ROBINSON: No, I was born in Savannah, Georgia. And my mother and father, Mr. and Mrs. George Platts lived there and had 10 children and I happened to be the seventh of the ten. HUNTLEY: And how much education that your parents have? ROBINSON: Frankly speaking, my father went as far as the third grade, but he was one of the greatest mathematicians that you could find anywhere. He even stunted the people who he had... he actually tested them because he was a contractor. They called them builders in those days. And he also had a wholesale and retail wood yard. And he would have to go out and find the number of trees that he wanted and have them cut and brought to, well in the form of cord wood. And he had a daughter going to Georgia state college and he told her, " ; Now I... how many cords of wood can I get out of a tree that is 75 feet?" ; I' ; m just taking these figures. " ; 75 feet tall, maybe 33 feet in diameter and 20 feet in circumference. How many cords of wood can I get out of it?" ; And he gave her a chance to figure it out. She took it to school and then she asked the teacher, " ; Is this right?" ; And the teacher said yes and brought it back. My father said, " ; No, that' ; s not right. What you do..." ; And again, I' ; m just using figures. " ; What you do, you multiply the height by the circumference by such and such a thing and divided by the height or by the diameter and you get the number of cords that you' ; re supposed to get out of it." ; ROBINSON: He was a genius. And my mother, both of them came from South Carolina, different parts. My father from Sumter, my mother from Buford, South Carolina, and she went to school as high as the 10th grade. HUNTLEY: And so did you grow up in Savannah? ROBINSON: Yes. I grew up in Savannah. I attended the public schools there. I went to Georgia state college and I graduated from Tuskegee at that time, Tuskegee Institute. HUNTLEY: Well my wife graduated from Tuskegee. ROBINSON: Is that so? HUNTLEY: My daughter graduated from Tuskegee. ROBINSON: Wonderful. HUNTLEY: I have sown a lot of money to Tuskegee. ROBINSON: That' ; s the pride of the [inaudible 00:05:10] south. HUNTLEY: Absolutely. You of course most noted for your activity in Selma, but you are obviously pretty active even before Selma and voting rights and property ownership. Can you talk just a bit about that? ROBINSON: Well, first I came out of a family that was... my mother was an activist. She was a civil rights activist before the name came in and 1920 or 21, when women were given the right to vote, she had a horse and buggy, and she would take with her. We would go from one house to the other. She would get the women out and take them down to the registration office. And when it was time to vote, she would take them there. And she was very active in civil rights before we knew anything about it. When I graduated from Tuskegee, I was given a position, employed by the United States Department of Agriculture. And I worked with the people on the farm as a home demonstration agent, and the people were just a cut above slavery. So my work was cut out for me there, and I married a man who was a County agent and we had to, in fact, we got the people off of the farm, which of course cause us to be looked upon as disturbing that way of life. And we had charge of the 4-H club and the adult clubs. ROBINSON: Then we told them that you' ; re not really a first class citizen until you become a registered voter. And for 30 years before the mass ruining of the civil rights struggle that we had, we worked almost single handedly to get the people where they could register. And of course they did, they were 80 somewhat registered voters when we went to Selma and I ran for Congress. And during that time in 1964, before Dr. King came into Selma, there were around 1035 registered voters and the whole district of eight counties. The whites had... they were eight. Yes, a thousand somehow, the whites had 100,000 some odd registered voters. And I got some 10.7% of the votes ever cast, which meant I got votes from the whites as well as the blacks. HUNTLEY: So when you initially was the home demonstration agent for the agriculture department, were you initially assigned to Dallas County? ROBINSON: Yes, Selma is a county seat of Dallas County. HUNTLEY: So you became then, you and your husband then became outside agitators I' ; m sure. ROBINSON: Definitely so, that' ; s mildly saying it because if you were born in the South and if you have heard your forefathers or people in your family who lived on the farm, they can tell you some stories that would make your blood curdle almost of the treatment of the people on the plantations. And so we worked with people on plantations because most of the people in Dallas County lived on the plantations. And the plantation owners in most cases are those who were descendants of the slave owners, and of course they tried to treat them the same way that their forefathers treated the slaves. HUNTLEY: How did you get this job as home demonstration agent? ROBINSON: You know that' ; s something that makes me realize the importance of young people trying to walk a straight line. There was a home demonstration agent, no she was the state demonstration agent in Savannah, Georgia, she married a man who was the state agent in Alabama- HUNTLEY: Were they black? ROBINSON: Yes, and I saw her only once during the years I was at Tuskegee. Then when they needed agents in Alabama, her husband said, " ; Now we' ; ve got a tough county here and it' ; s hard to keep an agent and I don' ; t have anybody to send there." ; At that time I had graduated from Tuskegee and I was teaching at Americas Institute just a year after I had graduated and she said- HUNTLEY: America' ; s Georgia? ROBINSON: America' ; s Georgia yes... and his wife, who was the state agent when I was a 4-H club girl in Savannah, Georgia said, " ; You know, I' ; ve been watching a little girl from Savannah and I have been keeping up with her and I think she would make a good home demonstration agent." ; Now I' ; m thinking how the youth go about, and they don' ; t realize people are watching them. And from the statement that she made, I became the home demonstration agent. HUNTLEY: What were the responsibilities of a home demonstration agent? What did you do? ROBINSON: What were the possibilities? HUNTLEY: The position, what kind of work did you do? ROBINSON: Oh, I worked in the homes, teaching people scientifically how to prepare their foods, how to take care of their babies, how to clean and take care of their homes and small things like in the event that they become sick, how to direct them to the various doctors. And I was supposed to teach them gardening, but they knew more about it than I did. I was not raised on the farm, I was raised in the city. And those people taught me a whole lot and I tell people so often, I got my PHD through what the people in the rural district knew because they certainly knew more than I did. I had the book knowledge, but they had the practice. HUNTLEY: Did you live in the rural area? ROBINSON: No, I lived in Selma. HUNTLEY: You did live in Selma- ROBINSON: Because you see the County, Dallas County is 700 plus square miles. And we had to have these meetings all over the County, more than one place. So that means we had at least 20 or more communities where we worked, and we would have monthly meetings in each one of these. We had charts of the 4-H club and we had to work also with the adults. HUNTLEY: Tell them about bloody Sunday. ROBINSON: Oh, bloody Sunday. It was very cool, rainy day, well, a misty day rather than rainy. And that was because of the fact that... it started I think when I was arrested for walking down the street and I was a political prisoner and Dr. Kane and his staff went to the house and tried to strategize what they were going to do about it, because they felt that citizens were being arrested for no reason whatsoever. And it happened before they decided what they were going to do. A young man from Marin, Alabama, which was just 30 miles from us, was shot in the back and killed by state trooper. And Dr. Kane said that we' ; re going to March to Montgomery and have a conference with the governor and demand that he protect the citizens. ROBINSON: So that Sunday, March the seventh, 1965, we left the church. And Lewis, John Lewis and Hosea Williams were leading and I was second when we left the church, and a friend of mine, two women who were working feverously because my husband had passed. And we walked on through the city and there was a bridge known as Edmund Pettus Bridge that spans the Alabama river. When we crossed the river, we saw these men, state troopers with gas masks on, cattle prods and clubs. And when we got across that, we just wondered, what are these people doing? We actually didn' ; t realize why would these people were standing there? And Hosea Williams who was walking with John Lewis walked on up and the person who had charge of the state troopers said, " ; Don' ; t go any farther. Turn around and go back to your church or your home." ; And Hosea said, " ; May I have something to say?" ; " ; No, you may not have anything to say. Charge on them men." ; ROBINSON: And they came from the right, they came from the left. Some few of them who were in front came from the front and all have these State troopers began to beat the people. Now there are perhaps 700 people who left the... some of them had not even left the church, but there was a line of people marching from the church to where we were. And they started beating them. At first, they pushed me and I got up. And when I got up I saw the people running and they were beating them because we were in front... Beating them, they fell out and they continued to beat them. Some of them I saw getting up just limping away because of the fact that they had... some of them had broken bones and I saw the blood on the highway. ROBINSON: I was actually frozen. I just could not imagine human beings being treated like that. And I was stunned. And I looked around just about everybody was gone. And one of the state troopers came up to me and he said... he hit me right across the back and he said, " ; Run." ; And I just gave him a dirty look because I didn' ; t see why I should run because I wasn' ; t doing anything wrong. And the second time he hit me was at the base of my neck and I fell to the ground unconsciously. From then on actually it was nothing that I know, but having seen the pictures, having heard the different news media speaking about what happened to me, and because I was unconscious. And the horses one, I understand that they tried to run the horse over me and the horse stepped over me. ROBINSON: One guy came, and these were the state troopers, one guy came with a canister of tear gas, and began to just pump it over me. And I swallowed a lot of it, which today has changed my voice completely. And I understand that it has sealed my esophagus in such a way that I will always have an obstruction. And one guy just took his nightstick or whatever he had and beat me. Now I' ; ve seen that picture, and they used it in the flyer when I was running for office. But the fellow by the name of Bobby Gordon, it wasn' ; t one of his pictures, but he took quite a bit. And nobody tried to help me up but one or two little fellas and then they beat them. ROBINSON: So someone back on the other side, on the Selma side, who was standing and they found the sheriff Clark, and they said to sheriff Clark... and this fellow' ; s name was Anderson, Morris Anderson. He said, " ; I' ; ve heard there' ; s somebody dead over there and y' ; all send an ambulance." ; And he said, " ; I' ; m not sending an ambulance anywhere. If anybody is dead over there, let the buzzers eat them." ; And he said, " ; If you don' ; t send an ambulance over there, we' ; re going to burn this town down." ; And they sent an ambulance, picked me up and carried me to the hospital. And I was there for about 30 to 36 hours. And when I became conscious, I said, " ; Oh, what happened?" ; And they told me what had happened. ROBINSON: And of course, I mean, I experienced that. It really gave me a greater motivation, and a greater determination to fight for what we had fought for and got nowhere. What we were fighting for in Selma to get people to get their right to vote. The meetings that we have had, they are... the types of applications that they had, which were 10 pages long and 10 questions on each page. And I said to myself that I' ; m going to fight because my husband lost his life fighting for them. They didn' ; t shoot him. They tried to. They shot in the house and broke the big plate glass window. The telephone became a nuisance from seven o' ; clock in the evening until around seven at night saying, " ; Get out of town. Your house is going to be bombed. You' ; d better not be seen on the street." ; ROBINSON: And of course he had retired because of his health, which he had a number of strokes, and he lost his life because of the fact that a man came into the office to beat him. And when he... it happened that I was in his office and when he raised the cane to do it, why I grabbed the cane, but he went to the hospital for the last time and it never came out alive. ROBINSON: So all of these things made me more determined to carry out what we started ; to make every legal a first class citizen by having them to become registered voters. To this day, I continue to be motivated because we are working with young people. Young people from 18 to around 25 or 27 years of age. We are in the political field now pulling the cover off of Cheney and off of even the poor president who in many cases, he doesn' ; t know what' ; s going on. But what' ; s going on now in Washington, the group that I' ; m working with are responsible for it. We' ; re putting out millions not thousands of pieces of literature, and we' ; ve been able to expose what Cheney has done, what Libby has done and the others. So when we get through, we' ; re going to clean up Washington DC. HUNTLEY: This is the Schiller Institute? ROBINSON: Schiller Institute and this is a- HUNTLEY: Tell me how did you get involved with the Schiller Institute? ROBINSON: You know, I believe in God and though things may happen and we can' ; t understand it, it happens for a purpose. My husband and I were married for four... this is my second husband for four and a half years. The civil rights bill had been passed. The voting rights act had been passed. And I met this guy from New York city and we were on a trip. We just figured that, well, all of this is behind now, we will just enjoy life. We were senior citizens and we just put everything behind us. And we were with a friend of mine who had planned a trip to the Fast Ski, now the Fast Ski, it' ; s an Island where people are on there. Their ancestors were brought there and for a generations, they were still on this Island. HUNTLEY: Where is this Island located? ROBINSON: Beg your pardon? HUNTLEY: Where is it located? ROBINSON: This is the Fast Ski that is around 15 miles away from Savannah, Georgia. And the only way you could get there was by a boat. And she had a program in Selma known as... a radio program known as the women' ; s world. HUNTLEY: who had the radio? ROBINSON: This lady was the wife of a doctor we had there whose name was Maddox, her name was Gloria Maddox. And she asked me what I liked to go because they were going to spend the night in Savannah. And I said, " ; Sure." ; knowing that I still had a few friends who were living there. So she had made all of our arrangements with one of the captains. And when we got to Savannah, he said that all of his boats were out, but I' ; ll put you in care of a man who lives on the Fast Ski Island. And we went down to the arena and he put us in charge of this guy. And the boat was around 15 or 16 feet long. And there were six of us. And we started out, and there were certain places that I recognized because we would go down what we call down the river on picnics. ROBINSON: And we had just passed the waving girl that I spoke of in the past where the big boats come from Boston, from Massachusetts, New York, Glen into Savannah, and they would come into the river from the ocean. We had just passed that specific place when a large boat disrespecting the small craft just went through the water and the first wake or wave almost filled the boat with water, and the second turned it over. And here we were trying to... the thing about it, we didn' ; t have on life-jackets and we could not swim. And this water, the temperature was 42 degrees. We were rushed away from water all except Gloria, the one who had the program and my husband and they were holding onto the boat. ROBINSON: I saw the man who owned the boat with his head down, but he had on a life jacket. And I knew that there was no way that he could survive. And every time a wave would come, it would wash us farther away from the boat. And my husband kept on saying, " ; Are you all right?" ; And I said, " ; Yes." ; I knew he was all right because he was holding onto the boat. HUNTLEY: How were you staying afloat? ROBINSON: God sent his angels to hold me up. That was the only thing. One that was also in the boat and she said, " ; Oh Boynton, don' ; t let me drown. Don' ; t let me drown God. Don' ; t let me drown." ; It' ; s the funniest thing, I had no fear that I would drown. I kept on saying to God that I can' ; t afford to drown, I have too much to do. And I can constantly say that and I wasn' ; t thinking about what I had to do because I didn' ; t know. And who am I? A boat came about, they said it was 20 minutes. So we were in that water not being able to swim. And this is a big river where the big boats come into that river, going to Savannah. And I didn' ; t hear his voice anymore. ROBINSON: And when they began to pick us up, there was a small boat coming from the Hilton Head Island. They had these students from eight years old, 15 and they were on an ecology trip. And one of them saw us. One of them said, " ; look at that stuff in the water." ; And another one said, " ; Well, it has life." ; And then the boat came to us, picked us up and carried us to the hospital in Hilton Head Island. And the first thing I said was, " ; Where' ; s my husband?" ; They said, " ; We haven' ; t found him." ; The boat went down and he went down too. ROBINSON: Now he was an electronic technician. He lived in New York until we married. And he came down, and he brought all of this expensive equipment. And later on I asked somebody in Tuskegee to find somebody to evaluate this material that he had, this equipment. And the lady told me that, " ; I found somebody." ; And it happened to be a man whom I remembered 50 years previously when I was in school. And I said to him when he came up, " ; Are you an electronic technician?" ; He said, " ; No, the guy couldn' ; t come. And I didn' ; t want to disappoint you so I came." ; ROBINSON: We talked awhile and in the talking I expressed the fact that I was having some interior decoration done in the house, and the man had left, and he said the man had gone to Cincinnati and just left the work half done. And he said, " ; Well, if he doesn' ; t come back, I' ; ll come back and I' ; ll finish it for you." ; And he came back and he finished it. And I asked him how much it was, he said... you want me to stop? HUNTLEY: Just one second. Okay so he came back. ROBINSON: " ; I' ; m not charging you anything, will you marry me?" ; And I thought he was joking and out of the clear skies, I said, " ; Uh-huh." ; So he went on back to Tuskegee and got the ring and the minister and the license, and we were married. Now I like to travel. And he said, " ; let' ; s go to New York to the Shriner' ; s meeting." ; Now he wasn' ; t a Shriner. And I said, " ; Okay." ; So we went to the Shriner' ; s meeting and we couldn' ; t get in the Shriner' ; s meeting, but we were looking at the displays of the various components. And a guy came up to me and he started talking, and I wondered why was he talking to me instead of my husband? But I heard him when he said, " ; And we have a blueprint to put water across the Sahara desert and cause it to bloom again." ; ROBINSON: And I thought about California and how it was arid and how it had no water, and they built it up. And I said, " ; Well, if my husband were living, he would approve or something like that." ; Then he said, " ; We have now a section of the city of New York where we' ; re trying to drive drugs out of it." ; And he invited me to come to this meeting that they were going to have with the people in that particular area or community. And I invited him to come to Tuskegee where my husband and I were in charge of the tourists. And then he invited me to go to a meeting that they had in Virginia and I had never heard, with exception of what he said, I had never known anybody by the name of Lyndon LaRouche. But when he told about the program and when I heard him speak, I saw that he was political, he was an economist. And the things that he was doing instead of working with his people, he was working with everybody internationally. ROBINSON: And the program is one, just what we are doing now politically. We have pulled the cover off of chaining, off of all of the people who were backing the president, and we are exposing what' ; s happening with the wall, with the beginning of the wall. And I began to realize, when I told God that I had something to do and had nothing to do, he gave it to me and that is to work with Schiller Institute, which is the name of the organization and the LaRouche Youth movement. And I don' ; t get tired. That' ; s one thing. I like what I' ; m doing and I don' ; t get tired because I' ; m seeing the result. The youth movement is made up of young people, young people who want to do something and who want to be somebody. ROBINSON: And many of those young people have been in drugs. Many of them have been at a crossroad because they didn' ; t know what way to turn. Many of them are people from broken homes or from foster homes and they want to be somebody and want to do something. And when I have some of them come up to me and say that, " ; I was going... I was on the wrong path, I was in drugs and now I seen that it was destructive. And I have come into this organization and when I hear you talk, I feel that I can make it and I' ; m going to make it." ; And it makes me feel good. And I tell them that you give me more than I give you because you give me the determination to continue to do what I do and even give me youth because it' ; s not how I look. I feel a hundred percent better than I look. So they really helped me quite a bit. ROBINSON: And I think when I told God that I had too much, I feel as though he is actually helping me to do the thing that shows that we can' ; t lay down and die because of age. And he gives me the strength to continue to go on. HUNTLEY: Well, Mrs. Robinson I want to thank you for taking your time. I could sit here and talk with you and listen to you for hours on hours. We know that you' ; ve had a long flight and you need to probably get some rest before the event this evening. So I just want to thank you for all that you' ; ve done and all that you' ; re doing. ROBINSON: Thank you. When I leave here, I' ; m going to Oakland to a group of young people there who are expecting me. Yesterday I went to two of the universities and of course I got back rather late and sat up and talked and the fact that I had almost no sleep. I slept on the plane. And when I leave here tomorrow, I' ; ll fly into Oakland and then I come back to Los Angeles. Then I live out of Los Angeles a day afterward, and I' ; m going directly to Rome where my book has been printed in the Italian language. And they are planning on having some type of public service there. Then from there to Germany and I don' ; t know where else. HUNTLEY: So you' ; re going out on tour then? ROBINSON: Yes. HUNTLEY: That' ; s great. Again, thank you so much for your time. ROBINSON: You' ; re welcome. HUNTLEY: Hopefully I' ; ll be able to do this again sometime when we have more time. ROBINSON: Okay. HUNTLEY: Thank you so much. ROBINSON: All right. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Amelia Boynton Robinson
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Amelia Boynton Robinson discusses how her activism began while working as a Home Demonstration Agent in Dallas County. She gives a detailed account of Bloody Sunday.
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20051119B
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
United States. Department of Agriculture--Officials and employees
Selma (Ala.)
Voter registration
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2005-11-19
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video
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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English
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Lola Hendricks
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Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
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5.3 January 19, 1995 Lola Hendricks Interviewed on January 19, 1995 19950119H 0:37:47 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Laura Benton Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Lola Hendricks Horace Huntley Video 1:|12(6)|44(3)|75(3)|95(9)|111(14)|133(14)|158(5)|173(4)|194(3)|213(7)|231(4)|247(8)|262(5)|277(2)|296(10)|308(13)|325(8)|344(11)|362(3)|378(5)|400(1)|420(10)|433(6)|445(4)|457(10)|479(13)|500(4)|520(2)|543(10)|569(5)|584(10)|604(15)|616(3)|632(15)|645(11)|661(5) 0 https://youtu.be/NDAYfJ1A9IY YouTube video English 95 Introduction to the Interview As you well know, what we're attempting to do is to develop, really, a history of Birmingham through the struggle with individuals like yourself who were participants of the Movement. Birmingham (Ala.) Civil rights movement 33.516405, -86.814532 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ BCRI Homepage 113 Family Origins and Background Let me first get a little background. Hendricks grew up in Birmingham, Alabama with one other sibling, a sister. Her parents never finished school. Her mother was a cook and her father was a truck driver. Birmingham (Ala.) Personal narratives 187 Educational Background What about your education? How much education do you have? Hendricks graduated from Parker High School then attended Booker T. Washington Business College for two years where she studied Business Administration and short-hand typing. Booker T. Washington Business College ; Parker High School Education, Higher--United States 217 Work History Then you were clerical. Hendricks started out her work career as a secretary and insurance clerk with Alexander & ; Company. She went on to work for the Social Security Administration and stayed there until 1967 when she went to work with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission until 1983. She eventually returned to the Social Security Administration in 1988 and worked until retirement. Alexander & ; Company ; Clerical work ; Social security--United States ; United States. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission Federal government--United States ; Job 321 One of the First African Americans to Work for the Federal Government Well you started working at Social Security in the mid [19]60's. That meant that you were probably one of the first. Wright describes first being hired to work for the federal government and the warnings given to white workers about being fired if they opposed the integration. Work Force Integration Federal government- United States 407 Blacks Forced to Take Tests for Jobs or the Right to Vote Did you have to take a test? Hendricks had to pass a test in order to put on the register and later selected to work for the federal government. She describes how black people were subjected to test-taking for jobs and the right to vote. Many black people who passed the tests were put on the personnel registers but never selected for work. Johnson, George ; McPherson, Jonathan ; Miles College Ability testing 480 The Communities of Southside and Norwood & ; Titusville What community did you live in during the time that you were growing up? Hendricks describes growing up in the low-income Southside and Norwood communities which were all black. After she got married, she moved to Titusville which was a higher income community with a black park. She describes the occupations that the community members held. Norwood (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Southside (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Titusville (Birmingham, Ala.) Birmingham (Ala.) 646 The Birmingham Police Department What was your community’s relationship to the Birmingham Police Department? Hendricks describes the Birmingham Police Department as aloof and never around in the early years of the Movement. She states that she never saw policemen in the neighborhoods she lived in. She states that police-community relations have improved since the Civil Rights Movement. Civil rights movement ; Police-community relations Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 691 Involvement in Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights & ; Mass Meetings Were you a member of any community organizations after you grew up, particularly in the Titusville area? Hendricks describes her involvement in organizations such as the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Southern Conference Educational Fund, the NAACP. She had the role as a Correspondence Secretary for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. She describes mass meetings at Sardis and New Pilgrim Baptist churches. She says she was never fearful to be part of the meetings. NAACP ; New Pilgrim Baptist Church ; Sardis Baptist Church ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Southern Conference Educational Fund Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 839 Reason for Joining the Movement How and why did you get involved in the Civil Rights Movement? Hendricks describes a brutal story of a black man who was castrated at the hands of white men in Tarrant City. This story upset her and made her want to get involved in the Movement. Tarrant City (Ala.) Civil rights movement 889 The Treatment of Black People on Buses Hendricks describes how black people were forced to sit behind the 'Colored' board on buses in Birmingham, Alabama. Bus segregation bothered her. She wanted to be like Rosa Parks. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Parks, Rosa, 1913-2005 Blacks--Segregation 942 Role as Corresponding Secretary in the Movement & ; Assistant to Dr. King's Staff in 1963 So when you got involved in the Movement, what role did you play? Hendricks describes her active role as corresponding secretary for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, and how she was able to assist Dr. King when he visited Birmingham in 1963. Among the things she did as part of the Movement, she and her husband also filed a lawsuit to integrate parks in Birmingham in the 1950's. Her role as corresponding secretary led her to work closely with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth answering mail and gathering funds for speaking engagements he would be involved in. She filled this role from 1956 to 1963. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Corresponding secretary ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Southern Conference Educational Fund ; Walker, Wyatt Tee Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 1101 Mass Meetings, Key Speakers, & ; The Birmingham Police Department's Presence So, obviously, you attended the Mass meetings on a regular basis? Hendricks discusses the mass meetings that occurred on Monday evenings. The meetings were often lead by local Birmingham ministers such as Fred Shuttlesworth and Abraham Woods. She describes how the meetings differed from the ones held by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in 1963. She describes how Birmingham police officers attended the mass meetings for note-taking and intimidation purposes. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Connor, Bull ; Gardner, Edward ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Lane, T. L. ; Parnell (Rev.) ; Phiffer, J.S. ; Reese, Carlton ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Smith, N.H. ; Thomas (Rev.) ; Woods, Abraham Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Civil rights movement 1330 Reverend Wyatt T. Walker & ; Project C Reverend Wyatt T. Walker told me that I knew the people locally and that he wanted me out. He didn'twant me in jail, so I had to work with him directly. Hendricks worked closely with Wyatt T. Walker on Project C. She put him in touch with ministers and business people and showed him the various locations intended for demonstrations within the city of Birmingham. A.G. Gaston Motel ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Project C ; Young, Andy Walker, Wyatt Tee 1458 Tour of the Northeast with the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCLC) During 1962, during the selective buying campaign, you did some traveling. Can you tell me about that? Hendricks toured the Northeast in 1962 gathering support and funds from interested followers of the Movement who wanted to give back to the cause. She toured New York, Boston, Philadelphia, and Brandais University. Boston (Mass.) ; Braden, Carl, 1914-1975 ; Brandais University ; Davis, Angela Y. (Angela Yvonne), 1944- ; Melish, William Howard, 1910- ; New York (N.Y.) ; Philadelphia (Pa.) Southern Conference Educational Fund 1597 Family Involvement in the Movement & ; Daughter's Time in Jail Did others in your family participate in the Movement? Hendricks discusses her family's active participance in the Civil Rights Movement. At one point, her nine year old daughter was taken to jail. She describes how masses of children were kept in Juvenile during that time. Arrest ; Civil rights demonstrations Civil rights movement 1762 Church Involvement in the Movement What church were you a member of? Hendricks was a member of New Pilgrim Baptist Church. The congregation was very active during the Movement. The pastor was a secretary for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and went to jail on two occasions. Mass meetings were held at the church building. Church meetings ; New Pilgrim Baptist Church Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 1814 Benefits and Assessment of the Movement What benefits did you, your family, and community realize as a result of the Movement? Hendricks states that the Movement opened many doors that were not open to black people before in Birmingham, and it created unity among the Blacks. She would not change anything about the Movement if she could. It broke down barriers of segregation and created job opportunities for black people. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Civil rights movement 1944 White Involvement in the Movement You mentioned that there were Whites that were involved in the Movement? Hendricks talks about the White people who donated to and demonstrated with the Blacks in Birmingham. One white attorney, Charles Morgan was active in the movement as well as a minister, Reverend Lamar Weaver who sat with Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and his wife at the terminal station. Many white supporters were afraid to be too visible for fear of their lives during the Movement. Morgan, Charles ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Weaver, Lamar Civil rights movement 2038 Relationship to Angela Davis You mentioned that in 1962 you went to Brandais and you saw Angela Davis. How did you know Angela Davis? Hendricks met Angela Davis after the meeting at Brandais University in 1962. They discussed the horrible events occurring in Birmingham, Alabama, Angela Davis' hometown. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Brandais University Davis, Angela Y. (Angela Yvonne), 1944- 2085 The Betterment of Birmingham & ; Non-involvement in the Bus Rides of 1956-1958 Is there anything else that you would like to add that we have not dealt with that relates to the Movement and how it actually evolved at the time? Hendricks states that she is proud to have been part of the Movement and she believes Birmingham is a much better city to live in post-Movement. She states that she was never involved any of the bus demonstrations that took place during 1956-1958 with Reverend Shuttlesworth. Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights movement ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Birmingham (Ala.) 2165 Lawsuit to Desegregate Parks in Birmingham Can you tell me just a little in conclusion about the suit that you and your husband hadagainst the Park Board? Hendricks and her husband filed a lawsuit against the Park Board in Birmingham, Alabama. Eventually laws changed and the parks were desegregated. Desegregation ; Lawsuit ; Park Board ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Birmingham (Ala.) 2211 Conclusion to the Interview I certainly do thank you for coming out today and sitting with me. Birmingham (Ala.) Oral History Lola Hendricks discusses her time serving as the Corresponding Secretary for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in Birmingham. She organized communication, meetings and funds. She demonstrated and worked closely with Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth. HUNTLEY: As you well know, what we' ; re attempting to do is to develop, really, a history of Birmingham through the struggle with individuals like yourself who were participants of the Movement. And we' ; ll start with a number of questions, and then we' ; ll get into questions about the Movement itself. HENDRICKS: Okay. HUNTLEY: Let me first get a little background. HENDRICKS: Okay. HUNTLEY: Where were your parents from? Were both from Birmingham? HENDRICKS: No, neither were from Birmingham. My mother was born in Standing Rock, Alabama, and my father was born in La Grange, Georgia. HUNTLEY: And you were born in Birmingham? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters do you have? HENDRICKS: I have only one sister. HUNTLEY: One sister. Were you the older? HENDRICKS: I' ; m the oldest. HUNTLEY: You' ; re the oldest. What about education--your parents' ; education? HENDRICKS: I don' ; t think either one of them finished high school. Went to elementary, that' ; s all. HUNTLEY: Okay. What were their occupations? HENDRICKS: My mother was a cook, and my father worked for a coal company as a truck driver. HUNTLEY: Did she work outside of the home for other people? HENDRICKS: Yes she did. HUNTLEY: Did she live in the home for the people that she worked for? Or did she live at home? HENDRICKS: No, she lived at home with the family. HUNTLEY: Okay. HENDRICKS: She would leave us and go to work every day. HUNTLEY: What about your education? How much education do you have? HENDRICKS: I finished Parker High School, and I have two years of Booker T. Washington Business College. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about Booker T. Washington Business College. What did you do there? HENDRICKS: At Booker T. Washington Business College, I took Business Administration. We had Business Law, Shorthand, Typing, English. HUNTLEY: Then you were clerical. HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Then I assume that your occupation was in that area? HENDRICKS: Yes, it was. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about what you did, and who did you work for? HENDRICKS: Okay. After finishing Booker T. Washington Business College, I started working for Alexander & ; Company, and I worked for them until 1963, when I went into the Federal Government, and Social Security Administration. HUNTLEY: Alexander & ; Company was an insurance company. HENDRICKS: Right. HUNTLEY: And you worked there as a... HENDRICKS: As a clerk-typist and insurance writer. HUNTLEY: And then you went to work for the government. What did you do for the government? HENDRICKS: I started working in files. That was the beginning of the integration. And they were bringing us in at those very low grades. I started in files, and I worked in files for about two years. And then I was promoted to Clerk Typing and Award Typing. And after that, I worked for Quality Appraisal as a Secretary and Unit Clerk. I stayed with Social Security until 1967. I left in 1967 and went to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and worked for them as a secretary and then a Supervisor of Control and Equal Employment Technician and, eventually, Equal Employment Opportunity Specialist. So I stayed with them from 1967 to 1983. And in ' ; 83 I took a break in service because my mother got ill and I took care of her. I went back to Social Security in 1988 and I worked until I retired. HUNTLEY: Well you started working at Social Security in the mid [19]60' ; s. That meant that you were probably one of the first [African American administrative employees]. HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Can you tell me about that? How did you get hired? HENDRICKS: Okay. Yes, I was among the first to come into the Federal Government. And the reason I know that is when I started working and was promoted upstairs to Award typing, I sat in front of a White female who was very nice and she shared with me the things that they were told when they were getting ready to bring us into the Building. She said, ' ; Lola, I have no problem with people who are a different color, but some of these people here are very prejudiced.' ; And she went on to name the different people in the office to watch out for. She said, ' ; They called us together at a meeting after they started bringing Blacks in, and told us that the Federal Government was now beginning to bring Blacks on here in the city of Birmingham to work, and if we started any disruption or caused any racial encounters here, that they were going to fire us.' ; And she said, of course, that wasn' ; t received too well by many people. And, so, she told me the things I needed to watch out for and the people to be careful about. HUNTLEY: And they actually warned White people that were there if they participated in any way [in opposing integration of the work force], they would be fired. HENDRICKS: Yes, they did. They warned them. HUNTLEY: Did you have to take a test? HENDRICKS: Yes, I took a test for the federal service and passed it and was selected off the register. HUNTLEY: Were there any efforts prior to your being hired to take tests for either jobs or for getting the right to vote? Did you take any test prior to that? HENDRICKS: No. HUNTLEY: Did you know other people that were taking tests at the same time? HENDRICKS: Yes, yes. There were others who took tests at the same time particularly in the County Personnel Board. Dr. Jonathan McPherson, who is pastor at St. John in Hueytown, he passed. He was on the staff at Miles College at the time and he passed all of those tests, and he was never hired. And also Reverend George Johnson took tests to be a policeman, and he was never hired. Any number of Blacks-- HUNTLEY: They actually passed the test. HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: How did they know they passed the test? HENDRICKS: Well they got letters saying they were on the register. They were given their scores and they were on the Personnel Register. HUNTLEY: So their names simply remained on the list, but they were never called. HENDRICKS: Yes, but never selected. HUNTLEY: What community did you live in during the time that you were growing up? HENDRICKS: During the time that I was growing up, we lived on the Southside, primarily over in the area of Fourth Avenue and about Fifteenth Street South. And when I finished Parker High School we were living in the Norwood section. And, then, after I got married, during the Movement time, we lived at 842 Centerway Southwest in the Titusville area. HUNTLEY: How would you describe the different communities that you lived in--racial make-up, occupation of people there, recreation, different organizations that may have been available? HENDRICKS: Both neighborhoods were all Black. No Whites in the neighborhood. I guess you would say in the Titusville area the income level was a lot higher that it was when I lived on the Southside and in Norwood. It was very low-income people there. HUNTLEY: Southside had the low income? HENDRICKS: Right, right. In Titusville the income level from their community was a lot higher. And as far as recreations.... In the two, Norwood and Southside, there was nothing that I was made aware of as a child that was available to us in that community, but over in the Titusville area, when we moved over there, Memorial Park was available, which was at that time a Black park. HUNTLEY: Which Park was that? HENDRICKS: Memorial Park. HUNTLEY: What kind of activities did they have at Memorial Park? HENDRICKS: I' ; m not sure if they had the swimming pool at that time, but I know they had the park where you played ball, picnics and games out there on the field. HUNTLEY: And the swimming pool came later? HENDRICKS: The swimming pool I think came later...right. HUNTLEY: What about occupations in the various communities? HENDRICKS: In the Southside and the Norwood communities, most people were either maids or janitors--the low paying jobs. In the Titusville area, we had a mixture of teachers, doctors, lawyers, a lot better. HUNTLEY: Were there any steel workers in either community? HENDRICKS: I' ; m sure there were some steel workers in the Titusville area, but on the North side and South side of town, where I lived there on Fourth Avenue, there were none. HUNTLEY: What was your community' ; s relationship to the Birmingham Police Department? HENDRICKS: It was nothing during the early years. Things have improved since the Civil Rights Movement for the police department. Our relationship with the police department has improved. HUNTLEY: Some suggest that the police department was there to protect and serve. Is this the impression that you had of the police department? HENDRICKS: No, I did not have that impression, no. Because I didn' ; t ever remember seeing policemen in the neighborhood where I lived in Norwood or on the Southside. They weren' ; t around there. I guess it was a neighborhood where nothing happened where they had to call the Police or anything, but I just don' ; t ever remember seeing policemen when I was younger. HUNTLEY: Were you a member of any community organizations after you grew up, particularly in the Titusville area? If so, what kind of organizations were you involved in? HENDRICKS: Okay. I was a member of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights and I also was a member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a member of NAACP, and the Southern Conference Educational Fund. I became a member of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights after they were organized, after the NAACP was outlawed. HUNTLEY: Were you all founding members of the Alabama Christian Movement? HENDRICKS: Well, I don' ; t think I was a founding member, but I started the second meeting. HUNTLEY: Oh, I see. What was the second meeting like? HENDRICKS: The second meeting was very impressive, because it was at a time when I think that all of us who attended that mass meetings were aware that things were bad in Birmingham and it was not getting any better and that it was time for us to do something about trying to make things better for Blacks in Birmingham. The first meeting was at Sardis [Baptist Church] and this one was at New Pilgrim [Baptist Church], and we had a lot of ministers and people who were motivational speakers to motivate you to see where all the wrongs were and how we were being mistreated and we couldn' ; t get jobs and we could not go to parks and do a lot of things in Birmingham that Whites were allowed to do. So, this was quite impressive to those of us that attended. HUNTLEY: Were you afraid at all to attend the Movement meetings? HENDRICKS: Never. I never had any fear. I felt that if the bombings or shootings or whatever was going to happen, it just happened, because we were treated like we were second-class citizens. HUNTLEY: Did you hold any office in either of the organizations? HENDRICKS: Yes. In the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, I served as Correspondence Secretary for that organization. HUNTLEY: How and why did you get involved in the Civil Rights Movement? HENDRICKS: The reason why I became involved in the organization was the one thing that had bothered me since I heard about or read about in the paper--a gentleman by the name of Judge Aaron, who was attacked by some White men in Tarrant City. I was very upset about that because they didn' ; t know nothing about the man. They just picked him out and castrated him, and it just really upset me. And then when I heard about the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, it brought back that memory to me, and the fact that growing up in Birmingham, Alabama, I had been a person who would ride the bus downtown and sit behind this ' ; Colored' ; board, and I always had a problem with it, and my mother never would let me do what I wanted to do. HUNTLEY: What did you want to do? HENDRICKS: I wanted to do what Rosa Parks did--not get up when they came to move the board. And we would ride that bus and they would move that board, and we would have to get up and stand up most times. So I really thought about all those kinds of things and how we had been treated, and now was the time, I thought. No better time than now to do something about it. HUNTLEY: Was there ever a time on the bus when you were asked to move, or others were asked to move, and you refused? HENDRICKS: No, never. People always were submissive then. I asked my mother and father why were they submissive and their answer to me was, ' ; Well, we just have to stay in our place.' ; And I couldn' ; t accept that. HUNTLEY: So when you got involved in the Movement, what role did you play? HENDRICKS: During the Movement days, after I became Corresponding Secretary, I became very active and stayed very busy dealing with the correspondence for the organization. I also had an opportunity to help with setting up the conference for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when they came to Birmingham. I had an opportunity to set up the conference for the Southern Conference Educational Fund when they met here in Birmingham. I was also instrumental in assisting Dr. King' ; s staff working with Dr. Wyatt T. Walker when we invited them to come to Birmingham in [19]63. I went to Dr. Gaston to secure an office space for them, because before they came we did not have an office space. I was instrumental in getting that set up for him and putting him in contact with the people that he needed to contact in Birmingham that would help us get the direct action campaign taken care of. Then, the other things that I did-- My family and I were very active. My ex-husband and I filed a lawsuit during the fifties, which was to integrate the parks here in Birmingham, Alabama. HUNTLEY: So you were really on the front lines? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: As Corresponding Secretary, what did you actually do? HENDRICKS: Okay. All mail coming into the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights at that time-- Like I said, we did not have an office. We were operating out of Reverend Shuttlesworth' ; s church, so all the mail that came for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights was directed to his church and I would have to answer the mail involving Reverend Shuttlesworth' ; s speaking engagements or funds coming in from different organizations about supporting us or people who wanted to come to Birmingham to speak or wanting him to come to other places across the country to speak. I had to correspond and take care of that mail for him. HUNTLEY: How long did you handle that operation? HENDRICKS: I worked as Corresponding Secretary from 1956 to 1963, when I went to the Federal Government. HUNTLEY: So, obviously, you attended the Mass meetings on a regular basis? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Can you describe to me what the Mass meetings were like in the early days and, then, whether they were similar or different during the time that Martin Luther King was in town? HENDRICKS: Okay. The Mass meetings from [19]56 to ' ; 63, before Dr. King came, were meetings where we met and dealt with the local problems, the filing of lawsuits, singing and praying, and we had a motivational speaker every Monday night. HUNTLEY: Who were some of those speakers? HENDRICKS: We had speakers like Reverend Edward Gardner, Reverend J. S. Phiffer, Reverend T. L. Lane, Reverend Shuttlesworth, Reverend N. H. Smith, Reverend Parnell, out of Irondale, Reverend Thomas of Ensley, Reverend Woods, the Woods-- HUNTLEY: All of these were local Ministers? HENDRICKS: All of these were local ministers, yes. We did not have an awful lot of out-of-town ministers during the early days, because it was really the Birmingham Movement and we were just doing things here in Birmingham without the outside help. So, occasionally, we may have a visiting minister come, but for the most part we did not solicit any visitors like that. These were local ministers who would speak to us to keep us motivated on keeping the dream that we had alive at that time. HUNTLEY: How did the meetings differ in the early days versus after Dr. King came? HENDRICKS: After Dr. King came to town the meetings were very different. The meetings were on a high hyped-up session, I would say, because Carlton Reese was involved more and you had a lot more speakers at those affairs. We had so many people coming in to Birmingham to assist and they were really dynamic speakers, and they kept us in a situation where we were all excited and so caught up with the moment until we were all on a high. HUNTLEY: Were Birmingham policemen present at the meetings? HENDRICKS: Yes, they were. Detectives. Note-taking detectives. They were sitting in the back of the church taking notes. HUNTLEY: They were present at every meeting? HENDRICKS: Yes, at every meeting. HUNTLEY: What was their demeanor? Did they just come in and sit down? Did they say anything to anyone? HENDRICKS: No, they just came in and sat down, never said anything to anyone. HUNTLEY: How did those that attended the meetings react to the police being there, and how did the leaders react? HENDRICKS: Well, Reverend Shuttlesworth and some of the others like Reverend Woods-- Reverend Shuttlesworth would throw out little hints at them like they knew what their purpose was and, ' ; You all [detectives] take this down real good so Bull Connor will know what our plans are tomorrow because we know that' ; s what you' ; re here for.' ; And those of us in the audience just ignored them and acted like they were not there. We really did not care. We were not afraid. HUNTLEY: Do you think they were there partly for intimidation purposes? HENDRICKS: I think so. I think they were there so a lot of people would be afraid. It would turn some people around, I' ; m sure, but, for the most part, for the mass of people, it didn' ; t effect us at all. HUNTLEY: Did you go to jail? HENDRICKS: No, I was not able to go to jail. I wanted to go, but I did not get to go. Reverend Wyatt T. Walker told me that I knew the people locally and that he wanted me out. He didn' ; t want me in jail, so I had to work with him directly. HUNTLEY: So you worked very closely with Wyatt. What did you do for him? HENDRICKS: When he came to town, I had to put him in touch with the ministers here, the churches here, the business people here, and when he got ready to go to certain department stores and set up the ground rules for the boycotting and demonstrations, I had to take him to the various areas in the city of Birmingham to show him which stores were targeted and the libraries and things like that. HUNTLEY: So you were, more or less, his right-hand person in developing Project C? HENDRICKS: Yes, right. Project C. HUNTLEY: Are there any incidents that may have taken place as you and Wyatt rode around the city in relationship to what was happening in the group at the time? Anything that may come to mind? HENDRICKS: For when we were getting prepared to do this? HUNTLEY: Yes. Wyatt talked about making the walk from the headquarters, A. G. Gaston Motel, to various places downtown. Did you ever accompany him on those? Were there any other things that may have taken place that you would remember? What is the most vivid thing that you remember about your relationship with Wyatt? HENDRICKS: I can' ; t think of anything out of the ordinary when we were doing things because most of my work was contained there at the office giving him directives and locations where to go. So he, Bevel, and Andy Young--that group of men--went out and did the actual leg work out in the streets. I just gave them the directions for who to see, who to contact. So I really didn' ; t have any contact with him going out in the field to do that. They did that. HUNTLEY: During 1962, during the selective buying campaign, you did some traveling. Can you tell me about that? HENDRICKS: Yes. On December 1, 1962, I went to New York, Boston, and Brandais University. That' ; s where I saw Angela Davis. I went there on a tour with Reverend William Howard Melish of Brooklyn, New York, who was one of the field directors for the Southern Conference Education Fund. I was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania with Carl Braden, who was a staff member also. We went into the homes of people they had set up for us and talked to them about what was happening in the South and the struggles that we had going in our attempt to start this selective buying campaign because we felt that this was the only way to get jobs and the White merchants to start hiring Blacks. They were very gracious to us. Not only did we meet in their homes, but in most instances we spent the night there. They put us up in their homes and they sent a lot of money back to our organization after that tour. At Christmas time, they sent boxes and boxes of toys and clothes for our children for Christmas, and what I did was, after they came-- Not only did they send toys, they sent wrapping paper. Then I got a group of people together. We wrapped the gifts and toys and carried them to the Movement and they were distributed to people within the Movement who needed them for their children for Christmas. HUNTLEY: That way people did not have to go downtown to shop. HENDRICKS: Right. Exactly. HUNTLEY: Were there other tours, or was it just this one tour where you went up East? HENDRICKS: That was the only tour that I went up East. The other ones were done by the ministers when they' ; d go off and speak and preach. That was the only one that I did. HUNTLEY: Was this under auspices of SCLC, or the Alabama Christian Movement? HENDRICKS: The Southern Conference Educational Fund. I was working with them. HUNTLEY: Did others in your family participate in the Movement? HENDRICKS: Yes, they did. My daughter, at the time of the Movement, was nine years of age, and she was arrested and stayed in jail for five days. My ex-husband was arrested for riding the bus and he was in jail for about one week, I believe it was. And he also was a security guard for Reverend Shuttlesworth out at the church. He was also among the men who went to Anniston to bring the Whites and Blacks that were on the bus that was burned in Anniston back to Birmingham, and we kept two of them in our home. HUNTLEY: How did you feel about your nine year old daughter spending time in jail? HENDRICKS: Well, it didn' ; t bother me at all. We had a communication line with the person at the Juvenile, and we would call once a day to check and see if anybody was sick and how the kids was getting along. This person would give us information about her and we didn' ; t have any problem at all. HUNTLEY: Where was she housed? HENDRICKS: She was housed at Juvenile. HUNTLEY: Was there a mass of children there? HENDRICKS: Yes, there was a mass of children there. HUNTLEY: I talked with another individual and they talked about something called ' ; kites.' ; People that go to jail, they would send them a kite out--in other words, a message written on any kind of paper. Are you familiar at all with that terminology? HENDRICKS: No. HUNTLEY: When your child went to jail was she one of those who came out of school? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Can you tell me anything about that? HENDRICKS: Since our involvement was so intense, our whole family was involved. She told me because I was surprised that she went. And when I got the call that she was in jail, and after she came out, I said, ' ; What made you decide?' ; She said, ' ; Well, you all were involved and I thought if it was right for you all to be fighting for our rights, we should help, too.' ; HUNTLEY: So this was not something that you sat down and planned that she was going to actively be involved in? HENDRICKS: No, I did not ask her to do it. HUNTLEY: How did other members of your family react to your participation? HENDRICKS: They were very supportive. All of our family members were very supportive. My mother and father were very frightened about it, but they said they knew it was the right thing to do. HUNTLEY: What church were you a member of? HENDRICKS: New Pilgrim Baptist Church. HUNTLEY: What was the level of involvement of your church and your pastor? HENDRICKS: New Pilgrim Baptist Church was very involved and our pastor was Secretary of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. He, too, went to jail on two occasions, so our church is very rich with civil rights history. HUNTLEY: So, because your pastor was involved, did that create any difficulty for him with others in the congregation? HENDRICKS: Not at all. They were very supportive. HUNTLEY: So then your church itself was very actively involved? HENDRICKS: Yes, yes. HUNTLEY: Were there meetings held at your church? HENDRICKS: Yes, indeed. All the time. And the second meeting, after the first meeting at Sardis, was at New Pilgrim. HUNTLEY: And that' ; s when you got involved? HENDRICKS: Yes, at New Pilgrim. HUNTLEY: What benefits did you, your family, and community realize as a result of the Movement? HENDRICKS: Well, I think as a result of the Movement, as far as my family is concerned, it made us better individuals as it relates to knowing what we were entitled to be and what we had been deprived of. We had been denied a lot of opportunities and after the Movement started and doors started opening up for us, we were able to walk into doors that we never would have done if we had not started this. HUNTLEY: If you were in control of the Movement and could go back and change some things, what would you change? HENDRICKS: I wouldn' ; t change anything. Not anything. I wouldn' ; t change anything. HUNTLEY: Reverend Shuttlesworth says the same thing. He would not change anything. And I ask him would he change the beating that he received at Phillips High School. He said, ' ; No.' ; What is your assessment of the Birmingham Movement. How successful was it? What did it accomplish? HENDRICKS: The one thing that I was very proud of [was] it showed unity. It brought us together as a Black race, and some Whites. It wasn' ; t just all Blacks. It was some Whites. It brought us together as a community working together to break down the barriers of segregation and discrimination. Jobs for the citizens of Birmingham, the opportunity to go into the stores and shop as well as have clerks and employees hired in these stores, and the opportunity to go into schools. There were some stores at that time where you could go and buy a dress, but you couldn' ; t even try it on in those stores. So, that, along with the fact that we have policemen that we see and we' ; re very proud that they are Black, and our chief of police and our mayor is Black. I' ; m very proud of the successes of Birmingham. HUNTLEY: You mentioned that there were Whites that were involved in the Movement? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: There were local Whites? HENDRICKS: Yes. HUNTLEY: What were their roles? HENDRICKS: Well, we had some Whites who would give money, but, for fear of their life and their own jobs, they were afraid to be visible. But there were some Whites who did give money and then there were Whites who would be supportive in ways that they could, without it being known to others. We had an attorney named Morgan, Charles Morgan, who was active and was helpful to us. Of course, he had to leave the city, but he was active. And then there was a man by the name of Reverend Lamar Weaver who was active and sat at the bus station with Reverend Shuttlesworth and his wife when they sat at the Birmingham Terminal Station in the White Section. Of course, he had to leave. But there were Whites that did. HUNTLEY: Were there any Whites that demonstrated in the Birmingham Movement during April and May of 1963? HENDRICKS: Not to my knowledge. The Whites that I knew were there were from out-of-town. HUNTLEY: You mentioned that in 1962 you went to Brandais and you saw Angela Davis. How did you know Angela Davis? HENDRICKS: She came up to me after the meeting was over, and told me who she was and where she lived. And she said, ' ; I' ; m just shocked to hear all of this. That' ; s my home. I have been sheltered.' ; She said, ' ; I heard the bombs, but I had no idea what was causing that bombing.' ; And I said, ' ; Well, Angela, I hate you were sheltered, but that is Birmingham.' ; And she was really shocked to know that all these things had gone on in Birmingham. She said her mother and father kept her sheltered from that. HUNTLEY: Have you seen her since then? HENDRICKS: No, only on television and in the magazines. HUNTLEY: Is there anything else that you would like to add that we have not dealt with that relates to the Movement and how it actually evolved at the time? HENDRICKS: I am very proud that I had the opportunity to be a part of this Movement. I don' ; t regret anything that I contributed to the Movement, and I think that Birmingham-- In fact, I know Birmingham is a much better city to live in than prior to the Movement. HUNTLEY: Were you ever one of those that rode the bus with Reverend Shuttlesworth during the early stages--[19]56, ' ; 57, ' ; 58? Many people were riding the bus and riding in front of the board. Did you participate in that? HENDRICKS: No. I never did. HUNTLEY: As you said, you needed to stay where you were because of your position. HENDRICKS: Right. HUNTLEY: Can you tell me just a little inclusion about the suit that you and your husband had against the Park Board? HENDRICKS: Okay. The lawsuit was filed back in the fifties when we were filing for desegregation of buses. We were not allowed to go into the parks and let our children play like other children in the City of Birmingham. We could not go to the one on Third Avenue West, the fair grounds. Those were places that we could not enter, so Reverend Shuttlesworth brought it up in one of our meetings and I told him we would sign for that law suit and be the party for it, and that' ; s what we did. And the laws would later change and it was desegregated. HUNTLEY: I certainly do thank you for coming out today and sitting with me. This, obviously, will add quite a bit to the story of Birmingham and I hope to do this with you again, because I know you have much, much more. Thank you very much. HENDRICKS: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=LHendricks1995.xml LHendricks1995.xml
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Lola Hendricks
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Lola Hendricks discusses her time serving as the Corresponding Secretary for the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights in Birmingham. She organized communication, meetings and funds. She demonstrated and worked closely with Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth.
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19950119H
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
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1995-01-19
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Laura Anderson
Wayne Coleman
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Janice Kelsey
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5.3 March 31, 2008 Janice Kelsey Interviewed on March 31, 2008 20080331K 0:50:57 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Amelia Chase Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Bevel, James L. (James Luther), 1936-2008 Young, Andrew, 1932- Janice Kelsey Laura Anderson Wayne Coleman Video 1:|24(4)|46(1)|58(13)|73(16)|84(9)|96(5)|108(6)|121(6)|134(15)|146(7)|157(2)|168(5)|178(12)|194(9)|206(13)|215(4)|232(11)|244(14)|255(6)|265(2)|276(4)|290(8)|305(14)|313(14)|336(8)|349(2)|360(7)|375(4)|387(6)|401(14)|414(7)|423(14)|434(11)|443(5)|454(3)|466(6)|480(8)|490(12)|499(13)|509(10)|520(6)|531(2)|544(6)|568(1)|576(14)|616(8)|641(11)|650(13)|660(9)|674(14) 0 https://youtu.be/ht9X6KM5n90 YouTube video English 0 Introduction And you'll edit out the bad parts. Janice Kelsey begins her oral history interview at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, where her biography including her work with the Children's Movement and Civil Rights demonstrations in Birmingham, Alabama will be detailed. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Memory Children's movement 33.516405, -86.814532 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ BCRI Homepage 130 Biographical Background I'm Janice Wesley Kelsey. Janice Kelsey introduces herself and discusses her childhood. She mentions her parents and their occupations, as well as, her community of Titusville and the Birmingham City School System. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birth date ; Parents ; Titusville (Ala.) Childhood 183 The Children's Crusade Well, then how did cute little Janice get involved in a children's movement? Janice Kelsey discusses how she became involved in the Civil Rights movement via her attendance of mass meetings where she heard Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Fred L. Shuttlesworth. Figures such as James L. Bevel and Andrew Young encouraged her and other students to engage in a nonviolent march beginning at Sixteenth Street Baptist Church on May 2nd, 1963--a demonstration that would later be known as the Children's movement or the Children's Crusade. Demonstrations ; Mass meetings ; Nonviolence King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) 641 Arrest and Imprisonment We went first to . . . We had been told to all say we were the same age, so that we would go to the same place. Janice Kelsey remembers being arrested and taken to the county jail following the Children's Crusade march. There was not enough room at the jail, so they were placed in the Fair Park Arena. A news reporter asked her how she was doing there, and she replied, " ; I am as contented as a Carnation Cow" ; (a line that she had heard in a Carnation milk commercial). She was there from Thursday until Sunday, when her parents were allowed to pick her up. The Reverend Calvin Woods worked with the Birmingham Board of Education and courts to ensure that all students, including Kelsey, would be reinstated in school. Arrest ; Carnation Milk Products Company ; County Jail Birmingham (Ala.). Board of Education ; Woods, Calvin Wallace 884 16th Street Church Bombing Not a bit. Not a bit. I had no idea then that what we were doing would be historic in any way, or of any interest to anybody. Janice Kelsey retells her memories of the September 15th bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in 1963, and how it made her realize the seriousness, as well as, the significance of the what they were fighting for in the Civil Rights Movement. 16th Street Baptist Church Bombing, Birmingham, Ala., 1963 985 Effects and Aftermath But can you just talk a little more about your family's feelings about what you were doing, and also teachers? Janice Kelsey recounts her parent's reactions and thoughts about her and her brother's arrests and releases from jail following their participation in the Children's Crusade. She remembers that they were proud. She also remembers her teacher's lenience in letting children leave class to be involved in marches and demonstrations. Arrest ; Demonstrations ; School Family ; Reactions ; Teachers 1103 The Role of Music Okay. You've spoken to so many of the important things already. The role of music, you've touched on that. Do you want to say more about . . . Janice Kelsey asserts the important role of music within the movement. She remembers Carlton Reese transforming traditional spirituals into new songs about freedom and unity that helped empower and excite all who heard them. Freedom ; Reese, Carlton, 1942-2002 ; Spirituals (Songs) 1189 Becoming Involved with the Movement I loved your honesty up front about how you got to the first mass meeting you went to, to begin with. Janice Kelsey discusses her obliviousness to racial inequality, as she grew up in an African-American community. After the Children's Crusade, she became much more aware of the injustices surrounding her, as well as, the injustices her parents had endured. Demonstrations ; Injustices 1350 Impact and Influence of the Movement Well, tell me again how old you were during the 63 event, and then how it impacted your life after. Janice Kelsey talks about how attending her first mass meeting impacted the rest of her life. It made her much more aware of the world outside of her community, which before integration, consisted only of lower and middle class African-Americans. She also discusses her feelings about her parents shielding her from events in the movement, and how she felt about those that were not involved. Kelsey then relates the first time that she realized the significance of her participation in the Children's Crusade when she was asked to speak to a high school class about her experiences. Demonstrations ; Integration ; Mass Meetings 1815 After the Movement That was the first time when Lilly May Fincher asked me to speak to her class. Kelsey summarizes her life after the movement, in which she graduated with degrees from Miles College and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. She got married and had children, while at the same time, she began her teaching career. She was placed by the Birmingham Board of Education at various high schools. Upon visiting her old high school, she noticed many improvement from when she attended. Kelsey says this showed her the importance of what Dr. King, Rev, Shuttlesworth, and Rev. Woods endured to accomplish needed changes. Birmingham (Ala.). Board of Education ; High School ; Miles College ; University of Alabama at Birmingham King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Woods, Calvin Wallace 2110 Additional Memories from the Movement Well, I want to give you an opportunity to put anything you want to say. Janice Kelsey recounts being pulled aside with other young people at a mass meeting by James Bevel. It was he that invited them to join the movement. She also remembers her mother protesting adverse reactions to a segregation attempt at Woodlawn High School, where she worked in the cafeteria. She notes that her brother later became Woodlawn's first African-American principal. Kelsey then talks about the police and guards' behavior during her arrest and imprisonment, before mentioning that some 2000 children were arrested the first day of the Children's Crusade. Demonstrations ; Jail ; Mass Meetings Bevel, James L. (James Luther), 1936-2008 ; Children's Crusade 2744 Trying to Get Mugshot Did you ever try to get your mugshot? Janice Kelsey relates the challenge of trying to obtain the mugshot from her arrest over her participation in the Children's Crusade. Arrest ; Mugshot 2857 Family and Legacy Sometimes I think I make my husband uncomfortable when we go to restaurants because I see I can be seated before another party, and sometimes they will want to serve the other party before serving me. Janice Kelsey admits that she can still see subtle hints of racism today, even after the 1960's fight for equal rights. She remembers encouraging her children to rise above it, and proudly says that they turned out well. She also discusses her mother's community activism, and that if she had not had nine children and numerous responsibilities, she believes her mother would have participated in the movement as well. Community Activism ; Equal Rights ; Racism Oral History Janice Kelsey discusses her experience participating in the Children's Crusade on May 2, 1963. She outlines the effect that her arrest, and the Movement as whole, had on the rest of her life. KELSEY: And you' ; ll edit out the bad parts. COLEMAN: There won' ; t be any bad parts. KELSEY: I don' ; t know, Wayne. You get this old, your memory goes, psh. Say, " ; Oh, what was I trying to say now?" ; COLEMAN: Okay. We' ; re ready when you are. ANDERSON: Okay. Well, I' ; m Laura Anderson. KELSEY: Okay. ANDERSON: I' ; m glad to know you already. But I' ; ll tell you more about what we' ; re doing today. KELSEY: Okay. ANDERSON: You already know about our oral history project. And this interview will become part of that collection of oral histories. But we also have a second purpose in mind for this, which is a kiosk that' ; s going to be in the permanent exhibition after we renovate a few parts of the galleries, which I hope you' ; ve heard about. But we plan to do the physical construction of that in the fall, and perhaps have a ribbon cutting next February. KELSEY: Great. ANDERSON: We don' ; t know about that. Currently, and I know you walk through there all the time with groups who ask you to speak, when you get to the section with the television sets, where we interpret the children' ; s movement, there' ; s that drum thing that a lot of people don' ; t even know you can move. KELSEY: Yeah, right. ANDERSON: See the photos on and some mugshots and thumbprints and things. We' ; ve decided, since that doesn' ; t get enough use, that we want to replace it with a kiosk that will have some oral histories. KELSEY: Okay. ANDERSON: So there you go. That' ; s the idea. And we just want to get your story about your involvement in the children' ; s movement on tape again in a different format, for you on that kiosk. And then researchers will be able to use this for evermore if they want to reference your story. That' ; s what we' ; re doing this morning. Again, even though we know you well and you' ; re a friend of the institute, if you could just give me your full name and date of birth and where you were born, and just start talking from there for me. And I' ; ll help you along. KELSEY: I' ; m Janice Wesley Kelsey. I was born April 18th, 1947 in Birmingham, Alabama to Henry and Katie Wesley. I grew up in the Titusville area of Birmingham. I am a product of the Birmingham City Schools. ANDERSON: What was life like growing up in Titusville? What did your parents do for a living? KELSEY: My father was a laborer with Tennessee Coal and Iron. My mother worked part-time as an insurance agent for a while. For a while, she worked at Woodlawn High School in the cafeteria. But during most of our growing up years, she was an at home mom. ANDERSON: Well, then how did cute little Janice get involved in a children' ; s movement? KELSEY: Oh, I got involved. ANDERSON: And what was the children' ; s movement? KELSEY: Well, my initial interest in civil rights and becoming a part of that really didn' ; t have anything to do with civil rights. I had a friend whose mother and daughter were in the mass choir. Mass meetings would be held on Monday nights, and she would come to school on Tuesdays and talk about the mass meetings. She would say things about the good singing, about all of the ministers who could speak so well, about how crowded the churches would be. And she talked about the cute boys that would be there. I said, " ; I' ; ve got to go." ; So I got permission to go to a mass meeting, and it was everything that she had described. The music was great. Carlton Reese could do wonders with that organ. Speakers like Shuttlesworth and King and N.H. Smith, they were all well dressed and well spoken, and I was quite impressed. KELSEY: And at that first meeting, one of the ministers who looked a little different than the others, his name was James Bevel, asked all of the teenagers to meet him in the church' ; s annex. That particular meeting was held at New Pilgrim Baptist Church. We went to the church' ; s annex. He polled the audience, what schools we went to. We had a lot of school spirit, and we cheered when he called our school' ; s name. Then he went back and started asking questions. Okay. I' ; m a graduate of Ullman High School. He said, " ; At Ullman High School, how many electric typewriters do you have?" ; Electric typewriters were probably like computers are today. And I said, " ; We have one, but I get to type on it because I' ; m a good typist." ; KELSEY: And he said, " ; Did you know at Phillips High School," ; which was an all white school, " ; That they have three rooms of electric typewriters? They don' ; t even practice on those things you use at Ullman." ; That kind of got my interest rolling. He asked if any of the guys there played football at Ullman. My brother was on the football team. And he asked, " ; Have you ever wondered why your helmets are blue and white when you get them, but your colors are green and gray?" ; My brother said, " ; We always paint them the right colors." ; He said, " ; Well, why don' ; t they come in green and gray?" ; And of course, we didn' ; t know the answer. And he said, " ; It' ; s because you get Ramsey' ; s discards." ; He didn' ; t just choose Ullman. He gave lots of examples. KELSEY: But it gave me the knowledge that something wasn' ; t right with this picture. He asked if we' ; d ever looked at our copyright dates in our textbooks. And I hadn' ; t looked at a copyright date. Table of contents, yeah. Copyright date, no. He said, " ; Check that out. Your books are outdated." ; The more he said, the more I knew that I' ; m being mistreated, and I didn' ; t even know it. So he said, " ; Now if you want to do something about it, you can. Your parents really can' ; t because if they get in trouble, if they go and participate, go to jail, they' ; re going to lose their jobs. There' ; s no one to take care of you. But you don' ; t have a lot to lose. After all, you' ; re getting a second class education." ; I bought into it and that' ; s why I became a part of the civil rights movement. ANDERSON: So what happened then? KELSEY: Okay. Well, May 2nd, 1963. That was what we were calling D-Day. And we were saying, " ; That' ; s D-Day we' ; re going to go and get our freedom." ; I had attended several meetings after that initial one. We had learned freedom songs. We had been instructed that if you could not remain nonviolent, you could not participate in this movement. So on D-Day, it was on a Thursday, I got up and I was just welled up with excitement thinking about what was going to happen. We knew that if we paraded without a permit, we were going to jail. So I had packed my purse. Got my toothbrush, soap, deodorant, all the things I thought I would need for a nice overnight stay. KELSEY: And my mother sensed something was going on. They were talking about it on the radio in coded words that we' ; re going to have a party in the park. We' ; re going to turn it out, saying things like that. And we knew exactly what the DJs were talking about. My mother cautioned me. She said, " ; I' ; m sending you to school. Don' ; t you go nowhere and get in any trouble. I don' ; t have any money to get you out." ; I said, " ; Yes, ma' ; am." ; That' ; s what she needs to hear. That' ; s what I said. But I was going to school. I just wasn' ; t going to stay, because the plan was to go to school and then walk out. So I went to school and everybody was talking about it. And when we went to first period class first, and then to homeroom. KELSEY: When it was time to go to homeroom, we started walking out in droves. People were driving around the campus offering rides to 16th Street Church. But most of us chose to walk. We walked and we were singing freedom songs. And when we got to 16th Street, there were people everywhere, in the park, on the steps, in the church, all over. And the excitement just intensified. And when we went into the church, we sang, we prayed. And Andrew Young and James Bevel were in charge. They lined us up in pairs, and they sent us out, I found out later, in waves of 50. I was in that first wave. KELSEY: We joined hands, walking out in pairs singing We Shall Overcome. I got maybe a block away from the church before we were stopped. A police officer, speaking through a megaphone, told us that we were in violation of a city ordinance. We cannot parade without a permit. We could get out of the line, nothing would happen. If we remained in the line, we were going to jail. That was a very intimidating moment for me personally. A, I was not accustomed to disobeying adults, especially a white male who had a stick in one hand, a pistol on his hip, and I kind of wanted to obey him. Someone further back started singing We Are Not Afraid. That gave me the courage to remain in the line, to get in the paddy wagon, and to go to jail. Keep going? Okay. KELSEY: We went first to ... We had been told to all say we were the same age, so that we would go to the same place. I didn' ; t know it was a strategy. I just thought that was something we were doing. So we were saying we were 15, most of the girls. If you were 15, they got us from family court and carried us to the county courthouse. It was interesting to me that as people continued to be arrested, the family court was just jam packed. So they had to call a school bus to get us. Birmingham City didn' ; t have school buses at that time. So I had my first ride in the front of the bus, and I was just as happy as a lark to ride in the front of the bus. And left family court, came to county jail. KELSEY: County jail, we were fingerprinted. Mugshots were taken. And we were taken upstairs. County jail was not a really nice place to be. It was cold. There weren' ; t mattresses on the beds. There weren' ; t partitions at the commode. And there were people everywhere. And we sat around on the floor and on each other and kind of sang and prayed. Spent one night, I spent one night at county jail. The next morning, school buses came again, carried us to Fair Park Arena. Now again, I was excited because black folk did not go to Fair Park. It was kiddie land park. We could go only on Saturday nights after the fair. My parents never let us go. So going to kiddie land park, I thought it was going to be exciting. KELSEY: Well, we didn' ; t go to the Ferris wheel and all the amusement park. Went in the back. It was a building that was set up like a 4-H dormitory. There were some beds that had mattresses and linen. I got one of those. And we had lockers and nice restrooms. The floor was tiled. And so it was a much nice place than county jail. And we sat around there and talked and sang. And I knew a lot of people who were there, and so I didn' ; t feel in any way uncomfortable or anxious. In fact, a news reporter came. Rumors were floating about what was going on in the jails with the kids. And he asked me. How did I feel about being there? And there was a commercial on TV at the time about Carnation milk. And the commercial said, " ; Carnation cows are contented." ; So when he asked me: How did I feel about being in jail? I told him I was as contented as a Carnation cow. He snapped my picture and I' ; ve seen that in several publications. ANDERSON: So how long did you stay out there? KELSEY: I got out on Sunday. ANDERSON: So from Thursday. KELSEY: Thursday to Sunday. There were announcements apparently made in churches that parents could come and sign their children out. They did not have to pay, and there would be no penalty and that kind of thing. So my parents did come and get me out. Of course, we were all expelled from school. But Reverend Calvin Woods also had a daughter who was in that group, who had been expelled. And he carried the Birmingham Board of Education to court. The circuit court in Atlanta, I think it was, ruled that we had to be reinstated, and we were. So the only consequence, I think, was that they never cleared our arrest records as they said they would. That never hampered me from anything though. ANDERSON: Yeah. I was going to say. How important is that to you right now? KELSEY: Not a bit. Not a bit. I had no idea then that what we were doing would be historic in any way, or of any interest to anybody. I thought it was just such a minor role. And in fact, I didn' ; t think it bothered anybody anywhere until September 15th. And that was a really devastating time. The girls who were killed in that bombing, I knew. I had a connection with at least three of them. Denise McNair, her father used to be our milkman. Carol Robinson, her father used to be my band teacher. And Cynthia Wesley and I had become friends when she was adopted by Gertrude Wesley. And because I have such a large family, everybody at Ullman High School with that last name, Wesley, was my sibling except Cynthia. But people thought we were sisters, and so I think she was the first young person that I knew who died, let alone had been killed. KELSEY: And so I found that to be a very, very devastating thing. And I thought, so unfair, because they had not demonstrated. They were in Sunday school, and I just didn' ; t know it would bother someone to the extent that they would do something like that. ANDERSON: It' ; s probably difficult to answer the question without the church bombing in your mind. KELSEY: Right. ANDERSON: But can you just talk a little more about your family' ; s feelings about what you were doing, and also teachers? KELSEY: My family' ; s feeling, I think my mother and father were afraid for me, for my safety. I had no idea that I was in any danger, so I didn' ; t have any fear. I think when I was released that they were relieved that nothing had happened. However, by that time, my brother was in jail. But I think after the arrest and the release of the children, I think our parents were proud that we had enough courage to stand up for what we believed in and they were proud of us. Now teachers, what do you mean? What about teachers? ANDERSON: Well, did they look another way? KELSEY: What did my teachers at the school think? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Because I remember asking one of my teachers. I had a good GPA and I wanted to protect that. And somehow I know that we respected teachers a lot more then, than I think they' ; re respected today. And I had asked her, she was a young teacher. " ; Suppose some kids walk out of your class today. Are they going to fail?" ; And she said, " ; Well, if everybody walks, there' ; s nobody to fail." ; And for me that was saying, " ; It' ; s okay to do it." ; Yeah. So I think the teachers really were okay with it. They couldn' ; t say it, but they didn' ; t try to stop it. ANDERSON: Okay. You' ; ve spoken to so many of the important things already. The role of music, you' ; ve touched on that. Do you want to say more about ... KELSEY: Well, I will say that the music was ... At my church, we of course had a choir and they had robes. But the music didn' ; t sound the same. Carlton Reese had a different spin on the music or a different beat. He had taken a lot of the negro spirituals and changed the words, and they were so applicable to what we were fighting for, until it just raised an awareness and an excitement that just made us want to be a part of it. Before I' ; ll be a slave, I' ; ll be buried in my grave. I woke up this morning with my mind stayed on freedom. Those things just ... That really said how I felt. And I think the music was very important. It was a great communication tool and it was something that was just shared, I think. Everybody could feel it. ANDERSON: I loved your honesty up front about how you got to the first mass meeting you went to, to begin with. And that makes me wonder about a question I always ask people who got involved by any means, which is: How aware were you, or not aware? You' ; re about the same age as my mother, a white southerner, who was not aware of anything that was going on. But how aware were you of things that other young people were doing around the South? KELSEY: I was not aware. I was not aware. In my community, I really did not encounter people of a different race. Except, there was a store, a grocery store, in our neighborhood that was run by two white men. My father knew them. He called them by their first names. I called them Mr. Pete, Mr. Joe, because I called everybody mister. So I didn' ; t know that things were different on the other side of town. I think my parents protected us from the kinds of injustices that they had endured. Riding on the back of the bus, yeah, I knew I rode in the back of the bus, but I' ; d always ridden in the back of the bus, and it didn' ; t bother me. I didn' ; t think beyond what was going on in my world. In my world, all was well. KELSEY: And the Birmingham news may have been reporting some information, but I wasn' ; t really reading the Birmingham news. I was reading Dear Abby. And if I had to do a current events, I' ; d cut something out of the front page or something like that. But I was totally oblivious to what was going on elsewhere. ANDERSON: So when sit ins were happening, those were older people. Those were college age students. KELSEY: Those were college kids. And I had family members who were in college who participated in things like that, but at our house at dinner, we weren' ; t talking about civil rights and sit ins and beatings and things like that. My parents may have been discussing those things, but the kids weren' ; t a part of those discussions in my house. So I found out a lot of things after the demonstration, some things that my parents had endured, that I was just totally unaware of. ANDERSON: Well, tell me again how old you were during the 63 event, and then how it impacted your life after. KELSEY: When I went to the first meeting, it was before my birthday and I was 16. And how did it impact what? ANDERSON: The rest of your life. KELSEY: Well, it certainly made me more interested in what was going on around me, and not just in my immediate environment. But it made me read more, pay attention more. In fact, I think it probably made me more sensitive in so many areas, and how I' ; m treated as compared to how someone else might be treated. It made me stand up and speak up for myself and how I felt about things. It made me instill that in my children, that no matter who it is you' ; re going against, one is no better than you. I never felt that anybody was better than me anyway. But I just never had any thoughts about there was something wrong because I never had to compare myself with somebody else. And when it was brought to me, yeah, I had some thoughts and feelings about that. ANDERSON: I get that a lot about Titusville. KELSEY: You' ; ve heard a lot about Titusville. ANDERSON: No. I' ; ve heard that a lot about Titusville. KELSEY: Oh, yeah. Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah. Okay. ANDERSON: That, that world view is kind of prominent in Titusville. KELSEY: Okay. Yeah. ANDERSON: Makes it sound like a nice place to grow up. KELSEY: Absolutely. Before integration, middle class blacks and lower middle class blacks, everybody lived in the same neighborhoods, went to the same churches. And so there wasn' ; t such a marked difference economically. And so we had lots of role models around, and it was a safe environment. We used to call people nosy Nellies because if they saw you doing something, they could correct you and then tell your parents. And nothing was going to happen to them. Something might happen to you for doing it. It was really, you hear about, it takes a village to raise a child. We really had that village kind of atmosphere because we knew everybody on the block. They knew all of us. They knew our parents. And we had close relatives who lived within walking distance of where we lived. And so it really was a great place to grow up. ANDERSON: Well, given all that, how did you feel about people you knew who did not take part? KELSEY: I understood because we were told it was widely known that if employers found out that the children of their employees were involved, that they could lose their jobs. And one of my very good friends, who worked for a white family, she was domestic worker, her mother was. And the father, I think, may have been the chauffeur. And they straight up said, " ; If we find out that one of your children is involved, you don' ; t have a job with us anymore." ; So I understood why some people had to go to school, and that really didn' ; t bother me. KELSEY: Probably if my mother had known that' ; s what I was going to do, she may have made me stay at home. She may have been too afraid to let me out because our parents were protective. And so I didn' ; t have any bad feelings about people who did not because I really didn' ; t view this as a really big thing. This was something I felt that somebody mistreated me, and I can go down here and demonstrate and let folk know I didn' ; t like it.But I had no idea that it would have a global effect, and that years later somebody would want to know what I thought or how I felt about it. So I certainly didn' ; t have any feelings about somebody who didn' ; t go. ANDERSON: And yet, it sounds to me like you kind of protected your parents in the same way that they were protecting you. KELSEY: Yeah. Yeah, because I didn' ; t want them to know and be worried. ANDERSON: Yeah. At what point in life did it sink in for you that the whole world had been watching and wanted to hear now? KELSEY: Okay. When I first was aware that someone wanted to know what I did, there was a teacher at Hayes High School. Her name was Lilly May Fincher. She taught history. And she and my sister were friends. They worked at the same school, taught at the same school. And she asked me if I would come over and talk to her class about my participation in the civil rights movement. And I was totally shocked. She had a book that had that picture in it with me sitting on the floor at Fair Park Arena. I had never seen that picture. I remember exactly when it was taken and what I had said, but I hadn' ; t seen the picture. She had a book with the picture in it. And she asked me to talk to her class about it, and I did. KELSEY: And it was several little amusing things that happened during that time. I had taken my sister' ; s leather jacket because they told us it might be cold in jail, so bring a sweater or a wrap. Well, it was May so it was hot in Birmingham. But I took my sister' ; s leather jacket anyway. And she had a friend of hers that was in the service, had given her his wings, and she had them on the collars of the leather jacket. And I thought that would be right nice to take, and I took it. And when I checked out, somebody had taken it out of my locker. And for years, we just went round and round about that leather jacket that got stolen in jail. So we just kind of teased about that. And Lilly May knew about that. She asked me if I' ; d ever replaced it. No. Not yet. KELSEY: But that was the first time I had talked about civil rights to anybody out loud. I didn' ; t think anybody would want to know me and what I did. I would want to know what King said and did, what Shuttlesworth said and did, and Woods, and guys like that. But I thought my role was so minor. Why would somebody want to know that? ANDERSON: And when was that? KELSEY: That was the first time when Lilly May Fincher asked me to speak to her class. ANDERSON: Was that in the 70s or 80s? KELSEY: What year? Oh, gosh. It may have been in the 80s. Yeah. ANDERSON: So all those years, you were doing what? KELSEY: Well, I went to school, went to Miles College, graduated. Went to UAB, graduated twice. Got married, had children. I went on with life. I' ; ll tell you another thing that brought some of that back to me. When I started teaching in 1968, I first taught at Hudson Elementary. Hudson was a very large all black elementary school. I had seventh and eighth grade. And I had 12 classes that alternated on the days that they came. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, some of them. Tuesday, Thursday, some of them. And they were very large classes, 39, 40, 41 kids. But that didn' ; t bother me because teaching is what I' ; d always wanted to do, so I graduated from college. I had a teaching position. I was happy. KELSEY: The next year, 1969, the Birmingham Board was required to put a certain percentage of black teachers into white schools and white teachers into black schools. And I was sent to McElwain. I had four classes. I had no more than 25, 26 in any class. They came to me in the mornings for instruction and in the afternoon for enrichment. I had microscopes. I had test tubes. I had a lab. At Hudson, I used to go to Miles to get the things to demonstrate to show them a test tube, to show them a microscope. It was a different world. At Hudson during my lunch time, I sat in the halls to make sure children weren' ; t in the halls during my lunch period. KELSEY: At McElwain, there was a teachers' ; table, and we had coffee and toast and little special goodies. And I had a prep period where I could sit in the lounge and do my plans or visit with other teachers. It was a world of difference. And that kind of made me a little angry that, here I' ; m thinking, " ; This is what school needs to be and looks like when I went to Hudson." ; And when I went to McElwain, in the same school system, it was like night and day. Before I went to Hudson in 68, the summer of 68, I took a class at UAB. UAB was just an extension center then, and I was completing my teacher certification. KELSEY: And we took a tour of Phillips High School. I was really physically ill when I walked into Phillips to see the difference in what theirs looked like. And I remembered very clearly what Ullman looked like. I saw all of this art and marble, and it just looked like a whole nother world compared to where I had come from. And I thought, " ; Wow." ; I was their commercial art classes. We had art, but it wasn' ; t commercial art. Our vocational classes were like cosmetology and wood work. Their classes were far more advanced in the vocational areas than what we had been exposed to. So I got a firsthand look at how different things were. And yes, it made me angry and it hurt to know that all this time this has been going on, and I didn' ; t even know it. ANDERSON: And it made you think about what you had marched. KELSEY: Oh yes, it made me realize the importance of what I had participated in. And it made me respect even more the efforts that the leaders had put forth to change that because it took a lot of courage on their part. Shuttlesworth, King, Woods, those guys had to endure some things in order to get to the point where I could participate and help make some changes. ANDERSON: Well, I want to give you an opportunity to put anything you want to say. But first, I have one more question about those guys, as you called them, those men of courage. Were you aware at the time? I know you were going to the mass meetings. When Bevel was pulling young people into the annex, first question is: Did that happen at the same time that mass meetings were happening with the adults? And secondly, were you aware of how those guys felt about the children' ; s march? KELSEY: No. I was not aware of how they felt about the children' ; s march until later when I read some things. What was the first part of your question again? ANDERSON: You mentioned Bevel taking the young people aside. KELSEY: There was a point in the mass meetings after all the speaking and singing, they invited people who wanted to be a part of the movement to come down front. And generally, that was aimed at adults. But Bevel stood up and asked for teenagers to come and meet him in the annex. So it was near the close of the meeting, kind of at a time like at our church, we have an invitation to discipleship when the minister gets through preaching, you can join the church. Well, it was an invitation to join the movement. And so he invited us to go to the fellowship hall. Well, it' ; s called the church' ; s annex. But that' ; s what it really was. ANDERSON: So I think you answered it. But not even just the leaders, but the community as a whole, in the midst of all this excitement and buildup to a children' ; s march, or youth component to all this. What was the feeling in the air in the community? KELSEY: Well, the people that I was talking to were youth, and we were excited about the opportunity to get together and do something. I was not discussing what I was going to do with adults, so I don' ; t know what they were thinking or feeling. But it was like we had this thing going on and we all knew what the thing was, but we weren' ; t telling anybody who might try to stop us. So there wasn' ; t any discussion there. I would hear in church from the minister, certain announcements not about children, but about the movement. Things were said. But before I became involved, I didn' ; t think that affected me. So I didn' ; t try to pay attention to that. KELSEY: I didn' ; t really get interested until some things were pointed out to me. And then I had an interest for life. Yeah. One little note that I' ; ll share, my mother for a period, worked at Woodlawn High School in the cafeteria. And it was during the period, probably late 50s, a black student was trying to enroll at Woodlawn High School, and they hung a black effigy out the library window. And my mother took her apron off and walked home from Woodlawn High School to Titusville because she was so angry that they would make that kind of mockery out of what was going on. Years later, probably 90, I guess 97, my brother became the first African American principal at Woodlawn High School. So I was glad my mom lived long enough to know that and to see that. But just a little of my history. ANDERSON: That' ; s a great story. Are any other stories popping to mind about ... I guess it' ; s hard for me to stay focused thinking about this kiosk that we' ; re going to have. Any stories about the experience of being arrested or demonstrating? KELSEY: Nothing in particular. I remember being, as I say, intimidated by that police officer, although I was not hit. I wasn' ; t spit on. But we had been told that those were possibilities and that the only thing we could do was sing or pray. We could cover our heads. They told us how to get down and cover our heads if somebody hit us, but we were not to respond. And I knew some kids who decided they did not want to participate if they couldn' ; t fight back. But most of the folk that I knew wanted to be in the movement. That was the thing to do, and so all of my friends, almost, went to jail. KELSEY: And in jail, I didn' ; t have any fear. There was talk about homosexuality and what was going to happen to the kids. The only thing that I experienced ... Now I guess you need to put this on tape. But one of the ... What do they call them? Trustees. When it was time for me to leave, my parents were downstairs, this woman earlier in the day had commented to me about my legs. And so my girlfriends were saying, " ; Uh oh. You better not go around her because she' ; s going to get you," ; and all that. And then when my parents came, they sent her to get me, and I was a little intimidated by that, but she didn' ; t say or do anything. Just took me downstairs. ANDERSON: I never thought about it until now. But was it sort of an equal number of girls and boys who participated? I think about the call to nonviolence and how difficult that was for something people to accept. It' ; s just a stereotype, but I imagine it would be more difficult for the boys. KELSEY: Probably was. I don' ; t really remember how many boys because where we were, they were all girls. So I don' ; t know. My brother ended up at the city jail, which is in Titusville. And when he was arrested, it was raining that day. I remember them talking about having to stand out in the yard, the fenced in yard of the jail, and they stood out there a long time. And some of the women in the community made sandwiches and threw them over the fence to feed the kids. But I don' ; t remember any reference to how many there were. I knew there were a lot of them. ANDERSON: Yeah. I don' ; t know if anyone knows how many of y' ; all were arrested, how many young people participated that day. I get that call once a year at least. Exactly how many students were arrested? I don' ; t think anyone knows. KELSEY: I read somewhere that on that first day that there were 2000 kids arrested, but I don' ; t really know. ANDERSON: I think it would take a real researcher to figure that out. Somebody might do it one day. But I never thought about boys, girls. You' ; ve just really honored us by coming and doing this on tape. KELSEY: Thank you. ANDERSON: So anything else you would like to say? We don' ; t have to cut it off. KELSEY: Well, I don' ; t know. If there' ; s something else you can think of, or one of you? COLEMAN: Thinking back to the days of the demonstrations, some folks, like the incident you just relayed, some folks must' ; ve had some horror stories to talk about. KELSEY: Of course, yeah. COLEMAN: What do you remember about some of the negative things that happened to other students who were arrested? KELSEY: Well, I heard that some kids were released in the middle of the night without parent notification, and they had to walk home. And so some of the ministers who were providing protection, driving around, that they were picking kids up, carrying them home. I heard about kids who were hosed and skin broken, hair seared off their head, blouses torn, being pushed down the sidewalk with the force of the water. Heard about kids being bitten by German Shepherd dogs and having to go to the hospital for treatment. So I did not personally experience those things. But certainly, I did hear a lot of talk about people who did. ANDERSON: Anything else? KELSEY: Is that it? ANDERSON: I think we got some good stuff for that kiosk. We really appreciate it. KELSEY: Okay. Am I going to get to see it? ANDERSON: I would think so. KELSEY: Before it goes on the kiosk, I' ; d like to see it. ANDERSON: Oh, before. SPEAKER: You look good. ANDERSON: Yeah. You look great. KELSEY: Do I? ANDERSON: You must' ; ve known the whole backdrop and everything before you came because [inaudible 00:45:40]. KELSEY: Look. I matched up. ANDERSON: It' ; s a perfect outfit for that. KELSEY: Oh, wow. SPEAKER: Did you ever try to get your mugshot? KELSEY: I didn' ; t. My husband tried to get it, and they didn' ; t ... SPEAKER: They wouldn' ; t turn it. KELSEY: He ran into a problem trying to get it. And I told him I was going to try to get that because I do know somebody who got a copy of her arrest record. But I don' ; t think she got her mugshot. But I would really like to have that. SPEAKER: You should be able to get it too. KELSEY: Yeah. SPEAKER: Should be. WAYNE: We tried to get it, but they denied us getting anything on privacy grounds. They say that the individual would have to give permission that it would be released. KELSEY: Well, I' ; m going to try to do it because apparently that' ; s the kind of thing they told him. He took the marriage license and everything to say, and they wouldn' ; t do it. SPEAKER: You should be able to get your own. WAYNE: At least a copy. ANDERSON: If they know where it is. KELSEY: Yeah, yeah. Right. Well, I am going to try that because I would like to have that. Yeah. So it' ; s been interesting. And I guess the reason I don' ; t mind doing, talking about this and doing things like this is because I feel that if you don' ; t know your history, you' ; re likely to repeat it. And I see subtle ways that people try to impose the same kinds of things that were imposed on us early on. And so I guess I' ; m acutely aware that racism is alive and well. And I don' ; t hate anybody, but I don' ; t have a lot of trust without some investigation. KELSEY: Sometimes I think I make my husband uncomfortable when we go to restaurants because I see I can be seated before another party, and sometimes they will want to serve the other party before serving me. And I' ; m quick to raise a ruckus, or to get my purse and get out of there, or ask for a manager. And so I' ; ve been accused of being too sensitive. I don' ; t think I' ; m too sensitive, but I am acutely aware when somebody is not treating me fairly. And I think, I know, now when we participated, it wasn' ; t for special rights. It was for equal rights, just a level playing field. And that was not what was provided. And that' ; s what I' ; ve tried to instill in my children. You fight for what is right. I don' ; t want anybody to give you any better advantage or better opportunity, but then don' ; t deny me anything that I' ; m due. KELSEY: My children went to Saint Paul' ; s downtown for elementary school. And my daughter used to complain, it was about three black kids in her class, that she would raise her hand and the teacher would ignore her. I said, " ; But she can' ; t teach that one next to you without you hearing what she' ; s teaching. So you just sit in anyway and raise your hand anyway. Take your notes anyway." ; They both turned out pretty good. I' ; m proud of them. ANDERSON: I' ; m sure they did. SPEAKER: Did you mama, after she found out that you were in jail, and your brother, how did she take it and what happened? KELSEY: I understand she was upset. But I think by the time I was released, she was relieved that nothing had happened. And I told about people and who was there and what we did and things like that to reassure her that it wasn' ; t as bad as she might' ; ve heard. So I think she was relieved that everything went okay. ANDERSON: Sounds to me like she would' ; ve participated. KELSEY: I know she would have. ANDERSON: If she had been your age, and that she didn' ; t want to be told things because she wanted you to do it. KELSEY: I am sure she would' ; ve been, had she not had nine kids, she might still have participated. She was always a community activist in terms of petitioning city hall to get the streets paved and to get street lights in our neighborhoods and things like that. She was always very active in doing things like that. So I am certain, had she had the opportunity, she would be been a participant as well. ANDERSON: Sounds like it. Thank you again. KELSEY: Is that it? Okay. ANDERSON: Thank you again. KELSEY: Woo. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Janice Kelsey
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Janice Kelsey discusses her experience participating in the Children's Crusade on May 2, 1963. She outlines the effect that her arrest, and the Movement as whole, had on the rest of her life.
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20080331K
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.)
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Bevel, James L. (James Luther), 1936-2008
Young, Andrew, 1932-
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Horace Huntley
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Elizabeth Fitts
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5.3 July 19, 1995 Dr. Elizabeth Fitts Interviewed on July 19, 1995 19950719F 0:56:15 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Raines Whittaker Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Southern Christian Leadership Conference Elizabeth Fitts Horace Huntley Video 1:|11(3)|44(7)|72(11)|91(6)|111(4)|132(6)|149(5)|164(12)|187(6)|207(7)|218(2)|235(9)|249(2)|265(8)|281(8)|295(15)|311(1)|330(6)|345(10)|365(7)|383(17)|397(13)|419(7)|439(15)|467(16)|487(2)|502(10)|514(1)|529(18)|542(14)|554(6)|572(1)|588(12)|610(5)|623(3)|640(2)|656(4)|671(4)|688(7)|698(4)|717(9)|739(5)|759(16)|774(8)|791(5)|806(4)|817(13)|829(10)|841(1)|852(10)|874(2)|888(2)|907(1)|923(11)|936(8) 0 https://youtu.be/8C4Npbqr6sw YouTube video English 23 Introduction to the Interview This is an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Hayes Fitts for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project. Introduction to the interview. African American history ; African Americans--Civil rights--History 33.516200, -86.813870 18 Birmingham Civil Rights Institute http://www.bcri.org Website of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute 40 Biographical Background I just want to start by asking some general questions about background. Brief background about her family. African American families African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) 99 Elementary School Where did you start your schooling, the first grade? Overview of where she went to school. African American children--Education ; African American elementary schools African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) 155 Memories of Childhood What do you remember about your community at that time, just growing up in Honeysuckle Circle? Reflections on her community in childhood. African American families African American history 210 Parents' Background What kind of occupations did your parents have? Her parents worked various occupations. African American families African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) 356 High School Years And you went on to what high school? Her years at Ullman High School. African American high school students African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Ullman_High_School History information on Ullman High School 499 First Year of College What did you do after you finished high school? She attended Miles College for one year. African American college students ; America's historically Black colleges and universities African American history ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Miles College 33.480976, -86.908882 12 Miles College https://www.bhamwiki.com/w/Miles_College Miles College information 596 Getting Involved in the Civil Rights Movement So then you were here at Miles when, during the early, mid-60s, the demonstrations of '63 came along. She became involved in civil rights during college and then dropped out to participate in the movement. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Miles College African American history ; Civil rights movement 906 Mass Meetings While you were a student though, you did become active and you said that you attended mass meetings. She recalls some people involved in mass meetings and what they were like. African American civil rights workers African Americans--Civil rights ; Civil rights movement 1031 First Civil Rights Demonstration Obviously those times were some rather turbulent times. Do you remember the first time that you participated in a demonstration? Her first demonstration was influenced by her interaction with the police. Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama African Americans--Civil rights ; Civil rights demonstrations ; Civil rights--History 1155 Experience of Violence in Virginia Were you ever attacked, physically attacked or hit or beaten during the demonstrations? Someone she was with was beaten by police in Virginia. Danville (Va.) African Americans--Civil rights ; Police brutality--United States 36.585492, -79.395838 11 Danville, VA 1231 Arrested in Birmingham Looking at Birmingham, your arrest. You were arrested once in Birmingham? She was in jail for four days in appalling conditions. African American women civil rights workers African American civil rights workers ; African American women ; Arrest--United States 1529 Relationships within the Movement So, between April 1st and probably May 11th or May 12th there were demonstrations practically every day consistently. She developed close relationships through her involvement. African American civil rights workers ; African Americans--Civil rights--History 1592 Traveling the South for Meetings What were the circumstances of your travel? She traveled the south with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) doing voter registration. African American civil rights workers ; Southern States--History African Americans--Civil rights ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Voter registration 1707 Leaving College for the Movement You joined the staff and what did your parents say about that involvement? To leave Birmingham, to leave school and get involved in the Movement at that level. She had to explain to her mother that civil rights work was more important than school. African American civil rights workers ; African American families African American history 1803 First Campaign on the SCLC Staff What was your first campaign after leaving Birmingham and going and joining the SCLC staff? She went with the SCLC to Texas for voter registration. African American history ; African American women civil rights workers ; Orange (Tex.) ; Southern States--History Civil rights movement ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Voter registration 30.092829, -93.736664 11 Orange, TX 1897 Challenges of Desegregating Businesses in Texas You mentioned Danville, Virginia. Tell me about that experience because that seemed to have been, well Danville, of course, is very well noted for it's, the educational process of defiance of education in the 50s. While in Texas, she faced Black-owned businesses that only served whites. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States African Americans--Segregation ; Civil rights movement ; Voter registration 2069 Conditions of Poverty and Police Violence in Louisiana I know of the place. Tell me about the experience? She encountered Black people living in slavery-era conditions on a plantation and recalls a young girl being killed by police. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--History ; Police brutality ; Poverty--United States 29.479365, -89.687757 11 Plaquemines Parish, LA 2205 Encounter with Police in Virginia You've mentioned a number of places. And I wanted to ask you a question about Danville. She explains the conditions that led her to be in the police station where the man was beaten. Danville (Va.) African American history ; Civil rights movement ; Police brutality 2253 Experiences with the SCLC Are there other occasions that sort of stand out in your mind in terms of your organizing voter registration or whatever else may have been happening with SCLC? She mentions the noteworthy moments with the SCLC. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States Civil rights movement ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Voter registration 2308 Return to College at the Tuskegee Institute You remained on the staff of SCLC for a year and then you went back to school? She went back to school in 1964 and continued to be involved in the movement. African American women college students ; America's historically Black colleges and universities African American history ; Alabama--History ; Civil rights movement ; Racism--United States ; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.) ; Tuskegee (Ala.) 32.431172, -85.707285 12 Tuskegee University 2455 The March in Selma So you then participated in the Selma march? She participated in the Selma march and witnessed police violence. African American college students--Political activity ; Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama ; Police brutality--United States African American history ; African Americans--Civil rights ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights movement ; Selma (Ala.) ; Selma to Montgomery Rights March (1965 : Selma, Ala.) 2546 Organizing at Tuskegee How did that organization process take place on Tuskegee's campus? She participated in civil rights demonstrations and student activism while in college. African American college students--Political activity ; Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama African Americans--Civil rights ; Alabama--History ; Civil rights movement ; Tuskegee (Ala.) 2730 Personal Impact of Activism How do you think your activism impacted upon your life since then? Today she is not the same as before and sees activism differently. Alabama State University African American history ; African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Civil rights in a new era 2848 Reflections on the Movement for Today Where do you see the Movement today? Education is not helping to create a new generation of civil rights leaders. African American college teachers ; African American leaders ; University of Alabama African American history ; African Americans--Civil rights--History ; African Americans--Education ; Civil rights in a new era ; Civil rights movement 3178 Lack of History Education in Present Day But, I teach a group of students who barely know who Dr. King was. The education system is still failing Black students. African American college students ; Education, Higher--Curricula--United States African American history ; African Americans--Civil rights--History ; African Americans--Education Oral History Dr. Elizabeth Fitts discusses being on the SCLC staff and traveling around the South organizing voter registration. She left college to join the Movement and participated in the Selma march. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Dr. Elizabeth Hayes Fitts for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project. I am Dr. Horace Huntley. We are at Miles College. Today is July 19, 1995. Thank you, Dr. Fitts for driving all the way from Montgomery to be with us today. FITTS: It' ; s my pleasure. HUNTLEY: I just want to start by asking some general questions about background. Tell me just a bit about your parents. Where were your parents from? FITTS: My mother is originally from just below Montgomery in a little place call Hope Hull. Just about everybody in that area knows the Dean family. There were eight children in that family, so everybody in that area basically knows my mother. My stepfather is from Ohio, I think. I don' ; t know too much about all of his relatives. But they' ; ve been in the Birmingham area for about 47 years. HUNTLEY: So did they meet in Birmingham? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And how many brothers and sisters do you have? FITTS: I have two brothers. HUNTLEY: Two brothers? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And you are the... FITTS: I am the oldest. HUNTLEY: The oldest. Well, I know you gave your brothers a hard time. FITTS: They gave me the hard time. HUNTLEY: Where did you start your schooling, the first grade? FITTS: I did first grade at a school called Hooper City High. HUNTLEY: Hooper City. Was Hooper City then K or 1 through 12? FITTS: I think it was 1 through 12. I don' ; t even know if it' ; s still there because that' ; s been a long time ago. HUNTLEY: No. The school is not still there. The community is there. FITTS: Right. HUNTLEY: I remember we played Hooper City when I was in high school. And you went from Hooper City to what school? FITTS: Center Street Elementary. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right here in the city. Hooper City was a county school. FITTS: Right. Exactly. HUNTLEY: Your family moved from Hooper City to Titusville? FITTS: In Honeysuckle Circle. HUNTLEY: You moved up in the world. FITTS: A bit, yes. HUNTLEY: What do you remember about your community at that time, just growing up in Honeysuckle Circle? FITTS: It was a much safer place to be than it is today. As children we could get out in the street. We used to have relay races in the afternoons. Everybody watched out for everybody else. And your neighbors were just like your parents also. If they caught you doing something wrong they didn' ; t just tell your mother. Sometimes they could take the responsibility for spanking too. Or if they told your parents, sometimes you' ; d get two spankings. One from the neighbor and, then one at home. HUNTLEY: It takes a whole village to raise a child. FITTS: That' ; s right. So it was a very good community. Many of the people in that area have died out. Some of them are still there and it' ; s good to go by and wave at the older ones that you remember from your childhood. HUNTLEY: What kind of occupations did your parents have? FITTS: My mother started out doing domestic work. Then, in later years she became a monogrammer because she was a very good seamstress. She used to make all my clothing, all the drapes for the house. She worked at a shop, the Coca-Cola labels that you see, the people who work for the different franchises here in Birmingham, she would make all the labels for the uniforms. My stepfather worked for Ryder Trucking Company. HUNTLEY: Did your mother work at home or did she work for Coca-Cola? FITTS: It was similar to a laundry mat or something. They had the contract to do the labels for these different companies in the area. HUNTLEY: What did your stepfather do for Ryder? Did he drive? FITTS: No. He handled freight, the loading of the various trucks or whatever. HUNTLEY: I see. How much education did they have? FITTS: My mother, to be the smart woman that she is, never really finished high school. Being from the Hope Hull, Montgomery area, she lived on a farm and back in those days, in many instances, even if you were in school, very often you had to leave during harvesting season to assist with the planting or whatever. My stepfather did complete high school but that' ; s about the extent of his education. HUNTLEY: What about others in your community? Other occupations in the community that you lived in? FITTS: Many of the women, if I remember, were domestic workers. Mrs. Hendricks, whom I' ; m sure you' ; re familiar with, worked with the federal government until retirement, I think. There was Ms. Harris who was a school teacher. So you know there were various numbers of... HUNTLEY: It' ; s a variety of occupations in the community. FITTS: Exactly. HUNTLEY: I remember growing up on the western section of Birmingham and we thought that everyone that lived in the Honeysuckle Circle area, they were rich because you had those pretty brick homes. That was one of our aspirations, to be able to move to the Circle. FITTS: Well, we do have to, you know, we owe our stepfather a lot for putting us in that area, so we are very grateful to him for that. HUNTLEY: And you went on to what high school? FITTS: I attended Ullman High School. HUNTLEY: Ullman High School? FITTS: Yes. George C. Bell. HUNTLEY: What kind of memories do you have of your experiences at Ullman? FITTS: I still see a few of my classmates occasionally. I' ; ve not had the opportunity to come back for class reunions or whatever. But, my fondest memory is of George C. Bell, the principal. And, I guess it' ; s because I went to my senior year without missing a day because I loved going to school. If I was ill, mother would say " ; Bunny, stay home." ; That' ; s what they called me, Bunny. I' ; d stay home and soon as she went to work then I would get up and go to school. And I was supposed to get that perfect attendance record at graduation and I remember him teasing me saying you' ; ve gone this far, now don' ; t come to the last day and be absent. But it was also George C. Bell who entered me in various oratorical contests. And he would meet me in the hall and make me stand there and say my presentation whether it was the " ; Creation" ; or whatever it was I was doing for that contest. And it was George C. Bell who made me articulate and enunciate and win several oratorical contests. HUNTLEY: So you have very fond memories then of George C. Bell and Ullman High School? FITTS: Unlike a lot of other classmates of mine. Because he could be very dictatorial, tyrannical. He did not play at all. But very fond memories of him. HUNTLEY: Ullman High being on the southside of town versus Parker High on the north side, do you remember any rivalry between the two schools? FITTS: Football, yes. Football rivalry. I have a few friends who attended Parker High. Betty Gamble who is currently a captain on the police force here and her brother Ed Gamble who is in Oklahoma. I have cousins who also attended Parker. But yes, I remember the football rivalry. As a matter of fact, I think there were several fights that broke out at these football games because of that school rivalry. HUNTLEY: That was probably the number one rival in the county was Parker and Ullman. FITTS: Exactly. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you finished high school? FITTS: I came to Miles actually. I attended this university for one year. As a matter of fact, the current mayor taught biology here. He was my biology teacher here at Miles. HUNTLEY: Was biology your major? FITTS: No. Undergraduate I majored in English. HUNTLEY: So what was the transition like from high school at Ullman to college here at Miles? FITTS: It was a very easy transition for me because several of my classmates. Hazel Loretta Brown and Cleopatra Gibson, the three of us would commute everyday from the Birmingham area to Miles. And we made quite a few friends. Although I couldn' ; t play an instrument, I was part of the band. HUNTLEY: How were you part of the band without playing? FITTS: I carried a trumpet. Boss is what we used to call the band director then. He said his band was a marching band and he took pride in the fact that we were good marchers. So I was on the tail end of the trumpet section, carrying a trumpet. HUNTLEY: So, if we see that young woman on the tail end, she' ; s in perfect step but she hadn' ; t played a note. FITTS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: You say you commuted. Did you drive? FITTS: Yes. We drove. Well, Cleo drove. She was the only one with a car. HUNTLEY: All right. I was wondering if all of you had cars at that time. So then you were here at Miles during the early, mid-60s, the demonstrations of ' ; 63 came along. How in fact did you get involved in the Movement? FITTS: I remember Andrew Young and James Bevel and I think Hosea Williams came out to an assembly to speak to the students here at Miles. And, their ultimate aim was to get students involved in the Movement. They were having a mass meeting that night and we were being invited. And I can remember my fellow classmates sitting around being very, well I thought, very apathetic toward what they were saying. As a matter of fact, several of my classmates said to me that they were not going to get involved. That they felt that getting an education was more important. And, of course, I could not argue with that. I made the choice. Their apathy made me jump to the microphone and do my spiel concerning their apathy. Telling them why I thought we should participate in the Movement by attending these mass meetings and at least giving the people a chance to see what they have to say. But many of them told me that it was up to me. That I could go on and be a part of, but they were going to stay here and get their education. And for the most part, most of them did. HUNTLEY: Were there others that did join you and became actively involved? FITTS: I' ; m certain that there were because at the time I didn' ; t know everybody here on the campus, but with the group that I ran around with, I was the only one. HUNTLEY: The previous year, that was probably ' ; 62-63 school year? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: So that year, then there was a Selective Buying Campaign that Miles College students took part in. Were you at all associated with that? FITTS: Yes. I was. HUNTLEY: Can you tell me a little about how all that evolved? FITTS: Well, if I can remember, that' ; s been a long time ago. Those stores or whatever that were not favorable toward our goals and doing whatever it was we were trying to do at the time, our idea was not to buy from those stores. Of course, we all have to live, we all needed things, so selective buying meant that you dealt with those people who were for the cause that we were. HUNTLEY: And were there issues on campus that you had been involved in prior to Hosea Williams and Young and Bevill coming out? Were you active in student government. Anything other than the band at that particular time? FITTS: No. Just the band. The interesting thing is in listening to those guys, I' ; ve always been a people person, and my husband teases me now when we watch football or baseball, it doesn' ; t matter what team is playing, I' ; m always going to go for the underdog. And in my mind, as a race, we were the underdog. And if there were people out there trying to do something about it, then I wanted to be a part of it. Even though I was not involved in any, I was not a part of the NAACP. I was not a part of anything. But their message touched me. HUNTLEY: Immediately? FITTS: Immediately. And their suggestion was that we attend the mass meeting that night. And I can' ; t remember but I think it was going to be held at Sixth Avenue Baptist Church or something like that. But they invited us to attend that mass meeting and learn more about the Movement so that we could become involved. And just listening to their Movement made me want to know more. And, from that first mass meeting on, whatever I could do to be a part of that Movement, I was there. HUNTLEY: Were teachers of your supportive of your position of getting involved or do you remember? FITTS: I can remember some or the teachers saying things that you do what you want to do as long as you keep up with your studies. To tell you the truth, I found it very difficult to do both. Because once I got involved, I was totally involved. As a matter of fact, I finished that semester and I joined the Movement completely. HUNTLEY: Was that your first semester? FITTS: My first year. I finished that year. HUNTLEY: You finished the year and, then you joined the Movement? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: While you were a student though, you did become active and you said that you attended mass meetings. Can you tell me what a typical mass meeting was like? FITTS: I tried to remember some of the key players. I remember Wyatt Walker, I remember C.T. Vivian. Of course, James Bevill and Andrew Young, these guys would get up initially and we would sing the songs of the Movement, " ; We Shall Overcome" ; , those kinds of things. Then, Dr. King was not at every mass meeting because he traveled quite a bit. But sometimes a mass meeting would be conducted by some local guys or it would be conducted by Andrew Young or Bevill or whomever. And they would just map out strategies, what it was we intended to do. I don' ; t know if you remember there was a big day called " ; D" ; Day here in Birmingham where all the students turned out or whatever. But strategies were talked about during many of these mass meetings. Sometimes it was just a sermon, you know, talking about what was going on and a lot of singing and getting people involved more than anything else. HUNTLEY: Were you able then to attract other friends to attend the meetings with you and were they impacted upon in the same manner that you? FITTS: The friends that I had that were with me here at Miles, they never became a part of the Movement. Now, of course, I made a lot of friends as a result of being in the Movement, but the friends that I had, people that I called friends, were never part of the Movement. Now, I' ; ve had some friends to come up later and to pretend to have been a part of the Movement, but no, they didn' ; t. HUNTLEY: That' ; s interesting. You' ; re saying there were people who were not involved but 20 years later they were very much participants according to them. FITTS: Exactly. Yes. HUNTLEY: Obviously those times were some rather turbulent times. Do you remember the first time that you participated in a demonstration? FITTS: Yes I remember the first time. It was a very frightening experience for me. I can remember the policemen, I can remember the paddy wagons. HUNTLEY: What do you remember about the policemen? FITTS: They were very intimidating. They had the billy clubs or night sticks or whatever they' ; re called now. And they had no compassion. I think in the whole time I was a part of that Movement I only met one policeman that seemed to have had any kind of compassion. HUNTLEY: How was he different? How do you mean? FITTS: That was during the " ; D" ; Day demonstrations where one group would go to jail and they' ; d put them in jail and, then another group would start out. To the point where they didn' ; t have places to put us. They had us all at the fair grounds and everywhere else. One policeman stopped me and asked me, " ; Well, when is this going to end?" ; I said, " ; Well, do we have our freedom yet?" ; He says, " ; Well, I notice that you guys seem to have all the determination in the world, and to tell you the truth, I' ; m tired." ; He said, " ; I' ; ve worn out two pair of shoes." ; He said, " ; I wish you could have your freedom just to stop this." ; And he was very sincere about it. HUNTLEY: That' ; s very interesting. Usually when I' ; m talking with people, they don' ; t get the personal side of the police. It' ; s usually a collected image. FITTS: I see. I see. I can remember that one. The only one I remember. I don' ; t remember his name, but I do remember that one because normally they wouldn' ; t even stop to talk to you, but this one did. HUNTLEY: What kind of impact did that have on you? FITTS: Well it made me know that everybody didn' ; t feel the way the " ; total" ; police force did and that means something. If you can convert one, or get one, maybe he can do some other converting. HUNTLEY: Were you ever attacked, physically attacked or hit or beaten during the demonstrations? FITTS: The only time I can remember is when, I think we were in Danville, Virginia. I was not the one being beaten. There was a young man with me and I can' ; t remember his name now, but we had been taken to the police force and I guess the only reason I was not beaten is, maybe because I was female, I don' ; t know. But we were trapped in the elevator and the policeman used his billy club to beat this young man while we were trapped in the elevator and, then, he simply put it back into the holder and walked away, like nothing had happened. HUNTLEY: How many were on the elevator? FITTS: It was just three of us. Just the three of us. This same young man and his name still escapes me right now. But that night, I think there were two or three policemen broke glass up and down the railroad track and made him take his shoes off and run on the broken glass. HUNTLEY: Turbulent times. FITTS: Yes. We were called rabble rousers. And in any city we went into we were bound to be harassed at any given time. HUNTLEY: Looking at Birmingham, your arrest. You were arrested once in Birmingham? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: What were the circumstances of your arrest? FITTS: That was the famous Sunday, I think it was around Easter. That was the time when Dr. King' ; s letter from the Birmingham jail came out. There were so many of us. There were a lot of older women who also went to jail with us. It was not a pretty picture. We had cots, metal cots to sleep on. That bothered me. Like I say, I' ; m a people person. HUNTLEY: Where were you housed? FITTS: In the Birmingham jail. Dr. King and those were someplace else. Bernard Lee and all these guys were there. All these older women, like I was saying, were in jail with me. We had metal cots to sleep on. No mattress, just the metal cots. So our thing was, this is wrong. These people need better accommodations. There was one toilet sitting over in the corner so we had to shield each other whenever you had to use the restroom, we used our coats or whatever. But the sleeping conditions is what bothered me more than anything else. That these older women had to lie on metal cots. So what we did was, we used our coats, those of us who had our coats there, to pad the metal cots and we bugged the wardens and whoever else we could get their attention to bring Kotex. I mean, they didn' ; t know the difference. What we needed them for. So we just padded the beds with all these Kotex napkins for these older women to sleep on. HUNTLEY: How long did you remain there? FITTS: We were there four days. HUNTLEY: Four days. FITTS: Four days. HUNTLEY: And, what sticks out in your mind most are the cots? FITTS: Exactly. HUNTLEY: What about the personal treatment? FITTS: The food was horrible. I do remember that. We had some brown looking grits that were very, very runny. What I now know are powdered eggs. Very, very hard biscuits and that was about the extent of it. Nobody ever came up to really check on us, we were just there, except when we would bang on the bars in order to get their attention to get those supplies that I was just telling you about. That was the only contact we really had. HUNTLEY: What was the reaction of your parents about your involvement? FITTS: My stepfather never said that much about it. My mother was horrified. Horrified is probably not the best word. She was afraid. HUNTLEY: For your safety? FITTS: Yes. Exactly. And she had cried and she said, " ; Well, Bunny, I know you got to do what you got to do, but don' ; t expect me to sit up all night waiting on you." ; HUNTLEY: And she probably did. FITTS: And, that night when I got out of the jail, she was sitting there waiting on me. HUNTLEY: What were the circumstances of your being released? FITTS: We all had to go to court and we were fingerprinted, our pictures were taken. So, if they still have those records, I guess I have a little record downtown. But, we all had to go to court. And, if I remember correctly, I can' ; t remember that judge' ; s name. But that day we were in court and that judge had a heart attack. HUNTLEY: And died? FITTS: He died. He certainly did. HUNTLEY: And, then you guys were put back in jail, I believe? FITTS: For a time. HUNTLEY: I believe Mrs. Hendricks daughter... FITTS: Faye. HUNTLEY: ...told me about that as well. Did you know most of the people that were in jail with you at the time? FITTS: I didn' ; t know any of them. HUNTLEY: Didn' ; t know anyone? FITTS: No. I didn' ; t know any of them. HUNTLEY: I' ; ve interviewed a number of people and one person in particular suggested to me that she went to jail and she wanted to go to jail, but once she got there she just said it was terrible and she had vowed that she would never go to jail again because of the experience that she had. How did it impact upon you? Did you have the idea that you never wanted to go back jail? You would not demonstrate again because of that possibility of going back? FITTS: No. Interestingly enough, every demonstration they had, I was right there. It' ; s just that that' ; s the only time I was arrested. But I was willing to go back. Whatever it took. Whatever it took, I was willing to do that. HUNTLEY: So, between April 1st and probably May 11th or May 12th there were demonstrations practically every day consistently. FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And you were involved in many of those? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: But you were also very closely associated with Andrew Young and even Dr. King and others. Tell me about the relationships that developed as a result of your being so active. FITTS: I guess I did become very close to the administrative staff because when I left Birmingham, I went to Atlanta where the national headquarters is and that' ; s where I became very good friends with Dorothy Cotton, Dr. King, who could never remember my name, he always called me Liz Taylor, because he couldn' ; t remember Hayes for some reason. I travelled a lot with Andrew Young and James Bevill going from one point to the other. HUNTLEY: What were the circumstances of your travel? FITTS: To do mass meetings. There were three other fellows that I used to work very closely with in the Movement. We all became friends and we were called SCLC' ; s crackpot voter registration team. And sometimes these guys and I would travel together or I' ; d travel with Andrew Young and Jim Bevill to the various spots, wherever we were going to have mass meetings. Selma, we' ; ve gone as far as Texas. Now, I didn' ; t go there with Andy and Bevill, I went there with the other three guys, the crackpot team as they called us. Just to do voter registration. HUNTLEY: How did that process really begin? We know that you were involved here in Birmingham in ' ; 63. You were a freshman in college at the time. What was the link? FITTS: Dr. King used to have what he called retreats. Some of them were held in Atlanta, various places. I can remember having one in Frogmore, South Carolina. But at these retreats, it was his effort to regroup, so to speak. Make sure that he kept his movement non-violent or whatever. He even required us to have reading materials. In other words, material that would motivate us to stay focused or whatever. And it was at one of the retreats that I decided to go full force and that' ; s where I met C. T. Vivian and Wyatt Walker and all these other guys, Dorothy Cotton. I think that was when I really got to meet Dr. King, you know, to a point where I could talk to him and really get to know him better. HUNTLEY: Were you actually on the staff? FITTS: Yes. Our crackpot team was part of the staff. HUNTLEY: You joined the staff and what did your parents say about that involvement? To leave Birmingham, to leave school and get involved in the Movement at that level. FITTS: My mother did not want that. It was a struggle for her to even have me in school. As a matter of fact, somewhere down the line I' ; ll probably tell you that it bothered me that she had to borrow money for me to go to school. So I decided that school is important but this was more important to me. And I had to sit down and express to her my feelings about what I was doing. And, the fact that I thought what we were doing could make a difference, not just for me, but for the entire Black race, which was my ultimate aim. I didn' ; t know where this thing was going to go. I didn' ; t know if some of us would be killed. But I knew in my heart that I had to stay with it for as long as I could. So, in the end, she gave in. She worried a lot. I had to constantly write. She expected a letter at least twice a week so that she would know that I was all right. She knew I didn' ; t have the money to call. But I had to write at least twice a week so that she' ; d know that I was all right. HUNTLEY: This was evidently a decision that was made between, well after or during your freshman year, which meant that you would not return to school for your sophomore year. What was your first campaign after leaving Birmingham and going and joining the SCLC staff? FITTS: Well, that' ; s when Andrew Young and Bevill and Dr. King and those got together and they bought us a white van. And, in that white van it was Andrew Marsett, James Orange and a young man that we called sexy, I can' ; t remember his name now. But we called him sexy. The four of us, I think our first project was in Orange, Texas. I think there' ; s a place called Orange, Texas. Some part of Texas. Our contact person there was Barbara Jordan, the attorney, a very powerful woman. She smoked a tiny little pipe. I was intimidated by her initially. But she was our contact person. She put us in touch with other members in the community who would give us housing and a place to stay and we did voter registration in Texas. That was our first project. HUNTLEY: Was she actively involved in that or was she simply a contact person? I guess she would not have been in the legislature at that early time. FITTS: No. She was just a lawyer in that town at the time. She was just our contact person. She was not actively involved in anything else that we were doing, but she put us in contact with those people who would assist us in whatever we needed. HUNTLEY: And she did make an impression upon you? FITTS: Oh, yes. A powerful woman. HUNTLEY: You mentioned Danville, Virginia. Tell me about that experience because that seemed to have been, well Danville, of course, is very well noted for it' ; s, the educational process of defiance of education in the 50s. Were you there for voter registration? FITTS: Yes. But you know the interesting thing is, I didn' ; t find it as difficult in Danville as I did in Texas. Reason being in Texas we had to demonstrate, you know, rally the people together and, demonstrate against some of our own people. Some of our own people who owned businesses in Texas, like bar-b-que places or whatever, who catered to the White population. HUNTLEY: What do you mean " ; catered to them?" ; FITTS: Most of their service was geared toward the White population. Their feeling was these are the people with the money and that' ; s what we' ; re in business for, to make money and for the most part, they did not serve Black people. They did not serve Black people in their establishments. So these are some of the people that we had to picket in Texas, even though we were just there for voter registration. When we found these things going on, then, of course, we rallied some people together and we picketed our own people in order that, you know, that they understood where we were coming from. These are your brothers, you need to deal with them first. HUNTLEY: You had experience in selective buying in Birmingham? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Did that experience work for you in Texas in the same way that it did here? FITTS: Yes. We knew exactly what to do. We got together that night. We got our poster boards. We made up our signs and by the time we finished, they were willing to serve anybody and everybody. Because people generally were not going to cross those picket lines. HUNTLEY: So you really then desegregated eating facilities in Texas in ' ; 63? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And many of these were Black owned businesses that catered to Whites? FITTS: Exactly. Danville, Virginia was not that bad. As a matter of fact, I can' ; t remember any serious problems in Danville, Virginia. We were able to register our people. I guess the only bad memory that I have of Danville, Virginia. I had gone back to Danville, Virginia when we got the news that Dr. King had been murdered. So that' ; s the only bad experience or bad memory I have of Danville, Virginia. I have worse memories of a place called Plaqumine Parish, Louisiana. I don' ; t know if you' ; ve heard about that place but that place was horrible. HUNTLEY: I know of the place. Tell me about the experience? FITTS: At that time, it was still in the 60s. We had Blacks living on plantations there. One plantation in particular, this White guy owned the plantation. He had Blacks living in little huts like, with dirt flooring and they used the broom to sweep the inside of the house and the outside and they would cook outside in the big black pots that you probably remember, you know, doing the washing or whatever. They washed and cooked in the same pot. Well, Dr. King had to figure out a way to get these people off that plantation. And, if I can remember correctly, what they did was, they hired a helicopter and dropped handbills over onto that plantation and I can remember hearing them say that there was one old Black man on that plantation who could read. There were younger people there, but one old Black man who could read, who read that handbill and mobilized the people on that plantation and brought them out to a mass meeting. HUNTLEY: This sounds like a concentration camp? FITTS: That' ; s exactly what it was like. Exactly. HUNTLEY: And what were the meetings like when those people came? FITTS: We had some bad experiences there also. The meetings were held in a local Baptist Church. This was a time when the police force taped up their badges and rode horses into the church in order to break up the mass meetings. The badges, of course, were taped so that we could not identify who had done what. As a matter of fact, there was a little 13 year old girl killed at one of those mass meetings because a policeman, on the horse, forced her into a dead end situation and the horse reared up and caved her chest in. HUNTLEY: Now, this is all in 1963? FITTS: ' ; 63-64 time frame. HUNTLEY: You' ; ve mentioned a number of places. And I wanted to ask you a question about Danville. You talked about being on the elevator and the policeman beating the young man. What were the circumstances of your being on the elevator with that policeman? FITTS: He had been stopped on a bogus traffic situation and taken in. You know, like I say we were considered rabble rousers. I was in the car with him. HUNTLEY: But you were in the police department on the elevator and the elevator stopped. FITTS: Well, he was bringing us back down after they had done whatever, you know, that they had to do with him and they were bringing us back down. And in bringing us back down, he stopped the elevator. HUNTLEY: I see. Are there other occasions that sort of stand out in your mind in terms of your organizing voter registration or whatever else may have been happening with SCLC? FITTS: I guess I probably hit on the most prevalent that tend to stand out. I guess the thing that really got away with me most was what happened to my friend in Danville, Virginia. Some of the things that we encountered in Plaqumine Parish. Leander Perez I think was the name of the state trooper. We used to call him the head head thumper or something like that. His guys showed no mercy to anybody. But Plaqumine Parish, Louisiana. Of course, the Selma march, that kind of stands out in my mind, but I was a student again, then. HUNTLEY: You remained on the staff of SCLC for a year and then you went back to school? FITTS: Well, let' ; s see. I went back to school in 1964. HUNTLEY: In the fall of ' ; 64? FITTS: Yes. I started at Tuskegee Institute. HUNTLEY: How was that transition from being in the field with SCLC back to the classroom? FITTS: It was kind of hard initially. To get acclimated to having to study all the time. And I felt so much older than many of my classmates. I supposed because of the experiences I had had. But at the same time I realized that I did want an education and, then, it got better because we organized a group on campus that we called TIAL. The Tuskegee Institute Advancement League. And we were a civil rights organization then, also. And, I think several, Stokely Carmichael came to speak with us. Jim Farmer came to speak with us. A very good friend of mind, Sammy Young was killed in Tuskegee as a result of some of our actions. As a matter of fact we later found out that some of the White people in Tuskegee had a hit list out. Sammy Young was the first on the list, then Wendell Paris, then Liz Fitts, then Betty Gamble and a whole list of us that they intended to take out. Sammy was just the first. A very smart young man who had become a little bit too outspoken for the White populace in the area. HUNTLEY: Malcolm X came to Tuskegee just before he was assassinated in February of ' ; 65. Do you remember that? FITTS: I don' ; t remember his being there. I remember Stokely. I remember Farmer. I remember Forman. Because whenever these guys came to town, because of the little organization that we had, we were always there with them. HUNTLEY: Now, Sammy was also a member of SNCC right? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Did you ever get involved with SNCC? FITTS: No. Just whenever they would come to town. We were all in the same struggle, but to join the organization, no. I was just a member of SCLC. HUNTLEY: So you then participated in the Selma march? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about that. FITTS: It was long. It was tiring. It rained. It was very frightening again because here again the state troopers and all these people showed no mercy. I was not apart, you know, closer to the front. I was not a part of the people who really got the worst end of the situation. But, you know, you have to sympathize and empathize with what' ; s going on behind you because you' ; ve seen these kinds of things take place before so you know what' ; s going to happen. HUNTLEY: You were there on Bloody Sunday? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And you were up front? FITTS: Yes. But I didn' ; t get the beatings for some reason like the rest of them did. I escaped that. I think the only really bad thing that ever happened to me was when they had the dogs and the water hoses here in Birmingham. I got hit with a fire hose a couple of times, but no dog ever bit me. But I was a part of that. But the serious beatings and things of that nature, no I never had to deal with that. HUNTLEY: With your participating in the Selma march, were there a large group of students from Tuskegee that participated? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: That you all had organized? FITTS: Yes. HUNTLEY: How did that organization process take place on Tuskegee' ; s campus? FITTS: At that time, Tuskegee students were very interested in things of that nature. When Sammy was killed it was very easy to mobilize the students around that cause, because everybody knew Sammy. Everybody loved Sammy. So it was very easy to mobilize students around that cause. For the Selma march, It was also again very easy to mobilize them around that march. We were able to get the auditorium. We were able to sell the students on what we wanted to do. As a matter of fact we were even able to get buses in order to transport students. Dr. Foster was not necessarily in favor of. As a matter of fact, I can remember him calling us in as a group, those of us who were members of TIAL. Back in those days girls were not allowed to wear pants on campus. We were not allowed to ride in cars. You know, they had all these restrictions. So we broke a lot of things up at Tuskegee to the point where girls can now wear pants. Girls can ride in cars. Because we' ; d go in his office with our shoulder bags slung on our shoulders, wearing our jeans and our big T-shirts or whatever and we would sit on top of desks in order not to conform to what he wanted us to do. HUNTLEY: Which was not ladylike. FITTS: Exactly. Exactly. So, you know, although he was not necessarily in favor of a lot of things that we were doing, he went along with in many instances. He didn' ; t stop us. I can remember one demonstration we had, we got a telegram from A. G. Gaston, we were demonstrating. I think that was after the death of Sammy. We were all out in the streets demonstrating and A. G. Gaston sent us a telegram saying that we needed to be not in the streets but back in our classrooms. Of course, that didn' ; t stop us either. HUNTLEY: There was a demonstration at Tuskegee where students actually took over a building and I believe the trustees were on the campus at the time? FITTS: Yes. In Dorothy Hall. HUNTLEY: Were you a part of that? FITTS: Yes. Every demonstration they had at Tuskegee I was there. I was a part of it. Even when we sat in the streets. They had the policeman to stop us midway between the campus and the downtown area, we were headed to town. And we simply sat in the street until they would allow us to pass. That' ; s the time we got the telegram from A. G. Gaston. But yeah, every demonstration they had, I was a part of it. Especially if it had to do with our rights as a people. HUNTLEY: So by 1968 they were glad to see you departing? FITTS: Not really. I had mellowed out a lot. I had mellowed out a lot. I made a lot of good friends down there, Mr. Woodson, people I still hear from. My youngest son attends Tuskegee so I still get to see a lot of these people. Charles Chanier, people who were there when I was there. HUNTLEY: How do you think your activism impacted upon your life since then? FITTS: I really think it' ; s made me a better person. I still consider myself a caring person. I have a lot of friends who teach with me at Alabama State University who knew me when we were at Tuskegee. And it upsets them because I am not the radical kind of person that I was then. But, to me things are different. You have to handle things differently now. Where we could get a picket sign and go out and march, it' ; s not always expedient to do that in today' ; s situations. To me, you have to handle things a little bit more diplomatically, but you can still get the same kind of effect. But do it differently. And, this one individual expected me to be the same kind of individual... HUNTLEY: ...encourage them to be involved in the demonstrations in the same manner that you were? FITTS: I don' ; t think I' ; d encouraged them. I' ; ve always tried to allow them to make their own decisions. I do the same thing with my students now. In many instances, when there were marches or whatever taking place, because some of them know of my involvement in the Movement, they' ; ll come and ask me if they should participate. I don' ; t think that' ; s my call. I think that it' ; s their decision to make. Then, if they need information or whatever, I can give them that, but to push them out there, no, I don' ; t think I' ; d ever do that. HUNTLEY: Where do you see the Movement today. And, how can we learn from what happened during the 60s to move the Movement forward? Where are we? FITTS: It' ; s interesting that you would ask that. And I' ; m going to say something that a lot of people have looked at me very strangely for. Being an educator, I feel that in many instances, integration has hurt us. And the reason I say that is because, in my day, when I was in school, we may not have had anything but a test tube and a frog and a lab, but those teachers taught us. But many of the students that I' ; m seeing now have come from integrated situations, our elementary and high school situations. These kids have so many deficiencies. And my feeling is, it' ; s because we have so many teachers in this integrated situation who don' ; t care. They just don' ; t care. Our teachers made sure we took the math, we took the science. These courses that were going to assist us when we got to college. College preparatory kinds of courses. But nowadays, students can take basket weaving if they want to. Nobody cares. They have different kinds of diplomas you can get. And, you know, when I was at Ullman High School you got a diploma and that was it. But, now you have a diploma if you intend to go to college. You have a diploma if you don' ; t intend to go to college. You have a diploma if you' ; re in special ed classes. You see what I' ; m saying. And, to me, that hinders our students. I teach developmental courses on the college level, now. These are kids who have deficiencies in math, English and the sciences because nobody cared back here. It' ; s not that these students can' ; t do it, because if they run into a good teacher in the developmental program who spends the time to show them or assist them in getting what they missed back here, many of these students have gone on to graduate. So in that instance, I think, to a large extent, integration has hurt us. But by the same token, I wouldn' ; t change anything that I went through to get to this point. Now, I' ; ve had my knocks and bumps, too. I got a Master' ; s Degree at the University of Montevallo and in many instances I was the only little speck in the class. I got a doctorate degree at the University of Alabama, same thing. And it was interesting how, in many instances they would forget that I was the only one there and little things would come out, you know. And little prejudices would be shown. HUNTLEY: Why do you think then it appears then that you' ; re saying that rather than actually improving our status, we have, in many ways, digressed? FITTS: I believe we have. HUNTLEY: Where do you think the Movement failed? Where did we fail? FITTS: I don' ; t think we failed. It' ; s just that I don' ; t think we have anybody to continue on. We didn' ; t get all the way there. Do you see what I' ; m saying.FITTS: I don' ; t think we have any leaders like we had then. And, I really cannot see where this next leader is going to come from. HUNTLEY: Some of those same people that we talked about are still on the scene. FITTS: But they are not doing. It' ; s almost like, now I know Jesse Jackson. Jesse Jackson is a fine individual. I remember meeting him at one of our retreats in Frogmore, South Carolina. That' ; s when Dr. King turned the Operation Bread Basket over to him. But, there are too many people who are doing self-serving kinds of things to me. HUNTLEY: For instance, what do you mean, self-serving kind of instances. FITTS: Putting themselves in the political arena. It' ; s not about the race as a whole anymore. Dr. King put his life on the line for us as a people. Yes, he got a Nobel Peace Prize and he did a lot of other things. But his main focus to me was always, you know I don' ; t care about all these negative things you' ; ve heard about Dr. King, I never saw any of those things and I mean even at the A. G. Gaston Hotel, to see him take a drink. I never saw him take a drink. I' ; ve seen some others take a drink here and there. But, Dr. King would sip on his ice or whatever else. Dr. King, and I was with them for a couple of years, was always on the straight and narrow as far as I' ; m concerned or as far as what I could see. But, he was always for the people. And to me, a lot of our so-called leaders now, are not. It' ; s almost like where I can go or how far I can go to get where I want to be. But it' ; s not about the masses of the people. HUNTLEY: Do you think it' ; s necessary to have another Dr. King to come on the scene? FITTS: I think we' ; re going to have to. Because listen. Like I say, I teach on the college level. HUNTLEY: You have a doctorate degree in what area? FITTS: Well, my Master' ; s is in speech pathology. I have a doctorate in special education with a concentration in speech pathology and administration. HUNTLEY: And you are an associate professor at Alabama State University? FITTS: And I also teach at Troy State University of Montgomery. But, I teach a group of students who barely know who Dr. King was. If you ask them what SCLC is, they don' ; t know. HUNTLEY: Why not? Why don' ; t they know? FITTS: My favorite saying is, he who does not know his history is doomed to repeat it. And these students have not been exposed. I mean, they have history but it' ; s not our history, you see. They have American history. They talk about all of this other stuff. I' ; m in the process now of trying to get an African American lit. class right there on campus because these students need to know. HUNTLEY: Are you having difficulty in doing that? FITTS: Well, to a certain extent, yes I am. Because the curriculum is set and nobody wants change, you see. But, even though I teach speech, I don' ; t just teach speech. I teach speech, I teach English, I teach history. I am trying to get our students to a point where they can articulate better. Even when I go and do workshops at White schools or Black schools, I talk mainly to our Black students. Now, you know there are some White students who need help. If you need it, you take what you can from where you can, but I' ; m directing what I' ; m saying to the Black population. HUNTLEY: We have covered an awful lot of territory today and you have been very gracious in sharing your experiences with us. Is there anything else that we may not have touched base on that you would like to include in this tape? FITTS: I can' ; t really think of anything else. Except I guess I wish our colleges and our churches, I just think that there is so much more we could be doing as it relates to educating today' ; s population about what went on then and things that they can do now. Because I can envision, to me, if we' ; re not careful, we' ; re going back. You know what' ; s happening with affirmative action. And if we are not careful and we don' ; t get out there and do something and make some waves, I can see us digressing and I think we need to start with our children and educate them to a point where they can assist us in fighting for it. Because actually, our fight is more for them now. You see, I' ; m 52 years old and I want it to be better for those coming up behind me. HUNTLEY: Dr. Fitts. I want to thank you very much for coming and sitting with us today and taking your time. You have been very gracious as I have suggested and we certainly appreciate the time that you' ; ve taken. FITTS: I' ; ve enjoyed it. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=EFitts1995.xml EFitts1995.xml
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Dr. Elizabeth Fitts
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Dr. Elizabeth Fitts discusses being on the SCLC staff and traveling around the South organizing voter registration. She left college to join the Movement and participated in the Selma march.
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19950719F
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
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1995-07-19
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Binnie Myles
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Alice Wright
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5.3 November 10, 1995 Alice Wright Interviewed on November 10, 1995 19951110W 0:20:48 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Laura Benton Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 Police-community relations New Zion Missionary Baptist Church Alice Wright Binnie Myles Video 1:|21(5)|55(3)|77(6)|103(11)|124(9)|139(6)|159(7)|177(9)|195(15)|214(5)|239(8)|260(6)|285(2)|305(9)|321(6)|346(16)|358(5)|379(7)|395(10)|413(6) 0 https://youtu.be/2Ujn9vbEPNw YouTube video English 21 Introduction to the Interview This is an interview with Alice Wright for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute's Oral History Project by Bennie Miles at Miles College on November 10, 1995. Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Miles College ; Miles, Bennie ; Wright, Alice oral history project 33.516200, -86.813870 18 The Birmingham Civil Rights Insitute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute 35 Family Background We are talking about the Civil Rights Movement during some of the early years. Let me ask you this about your family. What part of the state are your parents from? Ms. Wright describes growing up in Bessemer, Alabama and belonging to a family of farmers that moved from Livingston, Alabama. Bessemer (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Livingston (Ala.) Personal narratives 172 Educational Background What about your education? Did you finish elementary and high school? Wright describes graduating from Dunbar High School in Bessemer, Alabama and furthering her education at Booker T. Washington Business College. From there, she went on to mortuary school at Jefferson State Community College and took a real estate course at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Bessemer (Ala.) ; Booker T. Washington Business College ; Dunbar High School (Bessemer, Ala.) ; Jefferson State Community College ; University of Alabama at Birmingham Education, Higher--History ; Education, Secondary--History 256 Wright's Role in the Movement & ; Donations Made to Fund the Movement How did you get involved in the Movement? Wright describes her role as a bookkeeper during the Movement. She first became involved through her employer at the funeral home, Mr. W.E. Shortridge, who was a treasurer during the Movement. She describes the mass meetings that occurred on Monday nights and the demand for her bookkeeping skills because of the continuous flow of contributions to the movement. She talks about the people such as doctors who made large donations but wanted to keep their contributions anonymous for safety. Shortridge, W. E. Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 429 Assassination Attempt on W.E. Shortridge However, they never did do anything at the funeral home but they did at Mr. Shortridge's home. Wright describes the assassination attempt on W.E. Shortridge in his home. She states that bullets were fired at his home, but that no one was hurt. This did not discourage him from fighting in the Civil Rights movement. Civil rights movement ; Shortridge, W. E. Assassination attempt, [date] 483 Bessemer Police-Community Relations How were the police during that time in terms of the neighborhood where you lived, and also were you worked? Wright describes how police relations were in the community of Bessemer. The police were always nearby but only offered lip-service. Bessemer (Ala.) Police-community relations 526 Personal & ; Family Involvement in the Movement What about your family, were they fearful for you, were you afraid for yourself? Wright states that she never was discouraged from attending the meetings or being part of the Movement. Her son was part of the demonstrations and marches. Civil rights demonstrations Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama 598 Connection to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Did you ever meet Dr. King? Wright describes first meeting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in the funeral home she worked in. She describes him as a wonderful man. She describes how other people in her church and in the community were intimidated or scared by Dr. King's presence because of bombings. Civil rights movement King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 706 Son's Experience with Voting M: Your son went to college? W: Yes, he's a graduate of Miles. M: Did you instill in them the importance of voting? Wright describes how she encouraged her son to vote. She discusses the unreasonable tests that black voters had to take in order to become a registered voter. The interviewer briefly touches on the poll tax that was enforced on black voters as another obstacle to being able to vote. Poll tax Voting 759 Police-Community Relations What was your community's relationship with the police department as you grew older? The police never came into the community of Bessemer unless a crime was committed. Occasionally, the police could be spotted patrolling the community in their cars. Police-community relations 795 Community Organization Involvement Were you a member of any community organizations other than the Movement? Wright was a member of the Voters League in Bessemer, Alabama, but she did not hold an office in it. Bessemer (Ala.) Voters League 816 Decision to Join the Movement & ; Involvement in Mass Meetings You said you got involved in the Movement because of where you worked and because your boss was involved, was it something that you saw that you really just wanted to do, or was it something, because you worked there that he wanted you to do? Wright describes her role in the movement as a personal choice, not something she was subjected to unwillingly. She talks about the Monday meetings which were normally very crowded, and talks about the presence of police officers at those meetings. Civil rights movement 869 People Arrested During the Movement & ; Parents' Concerns Did you go to jail at any time during the Movement? Wright was never taken to jail, but she talks about two influential men who were arrested during the Movement, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth and Reverend Abraham Woods. She discusses the concern her family had for her well-being as she played an active role in the Movement as a bookkeeper. Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Woods Jr., Abraham Lincoln, 1928-2008 Arrest 938 Church's Noninvolvement in the Movement What church were you a member of during that time? The church Wright attended was not active in the movement at all. She believes the minister, Reverend Ravizee, was fearful of harm coming to the congregation, such as church bombings. Bessemer (Ala.) New Zion Missionary Baptist Church 979 The Hiring of Black People as Result of the Movement Because of the Movement, what kind of benefit would you say that you, your family and your community did you realize? Wright states that one of the most obvious benefits of the Movement was the hiring of black people in roles they were never before seen working in. Job creation 1041 Personal Vision for Improvement & ; Items Related to the Movement If you were in control of the Movement and you could go back and change some things, would you change anything? Wright shares her opinion of the Movement and states that she would not have done anything differently in concern to it. In the interview she is asked if she held on to any artifacts of the movements such as the receipts from her bookkeeping. She states that she did not, but that many artifacts such as letters from Dr. King and Wyatt T. Walker were in the care of Mrs. Fred Shuttleworth. Bookkeeping ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 ; Walker, Wyatt Tee Birmingham, (Ala.) 1150 Advice to Young People of Voting Age Today, what do you think of the Movement? What do you think of youngsters today as it relates to the Movement, those that are of voting age? Wright believes that younger African Americans do not have the gratitude they should toward voting rights, because they do not think about the sacrifices it took to achieve that right. She encourages citizens to utilize their right to vote. Voting age Voting-United States 1211 Conclusion to the Interview Well, we certainly thank you for taking the time and sharing with us today. The interviewer concludes the interview with Alice Wright and thanks her for her time. Oral History Alice Wright discusses her work with W. E. Shortridge and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.She helped keeps the books and documentation for the Movement. MILES: This is an interview with Alice Wright for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute' ; s Oral History Project by Binnie Miles at Miles College on November 10, 1995. Mrs. Wright, how are you today? WRIGHT: Fine. MILES: Good. We are talking about the Civil Rights Movement during some of the early years. Let me ask you this about your family. What part of the state are your parents from? WRIGHT: Livingston, Alabama. MILES: Were you born in Birmingham or were you born in Livingston? WRIGHT: I was born in Livingston, Sumpter County. MILES: About how far is that away from Birmingham? WRIGHT: About 100 miles. MILES: Did you grow up in Livingston? WRIGHT: No. I grew up in Bessemer. MILES: How old were you when you came to Birmingham, do you remember? WRIGHT: Eleven months old. MILES: You were just a baby. WRIGHT: Yes. MILES: Do you have any brothers and sisters? WRIGHT: Yes. I have two brothers and sisters living and I have two dead. MILES: Were they born in Livingston, also? WRIGHT: They were also born in Livingston. MILES: So where do you fit in the five children? WRIGHT: I was the middle one. MILES: What about education? Did your parents have so-called " ; formal" ; education? WRIGHT: No, they didn' ; t. I think they went about the 5th or 6th grade. MILES: Were they from Alabama? WRIGHT: They were from Livingston. They were farmers. MILES: What kind of farming did they do? WRIGHT: Well, just cotton. Of course, they raised other things for their own livelihood. MILES: So, when you moved to Bessemer did they still have a garden or things like that? WRIGHT: Yes. They had a garden, a cow, pigs, and that type of thing when they moved to Bessemer in the early years. MILES: So, did you learn to milk a cow? WRIGHT: No. I never did. MILES: Did you have to feed the pigs? WRIGHT: Oh, yes. MILES: When they got older did you sell them? WRIGHT: Well, they only just raised enough for themselves. MILES: What about your education? Did you finish elementary and high school? WRIGHT: Yes. I graduated from Dunbar High School in Bessemer, Alabama. MILES: What about after high school? WRIGHT: After high school I went to Booker T. Washington Business College. MILES: How was that for you during that time? WRIGHT: It was fine. MILES: What kind of courses did you take? WRIGHT: Well, I just took regular management course such as typing, shorthand, English, that type of thing. MILES: I guess during that time, that the only place to go for a higher education, Booker T. Washington Business College? WRIGHT: Yes, at that time, back in the ' ; 42 or ' ; 43. MILES: I guess there were a lot of people who attended that school, who, as they moved up, because of being able to go to Booker T. Washington, you were able to get better jobs? WRIGHT: True. That is correct. MILES: Did you have any other schooling after you attended Booker T. Washington? WRIGHT: Well, I had taken a course in mortuary science at Jeff. State and a real estate course at UAB. MILES: How did you get involved in the Movement? WRIGHT: Well, I got involved through my employer. He was the treasurer of the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. I kept his records, the type of information when the kids went to jail to get them out on bond. I kept their weekly, monthly reports and see that their receipts and all were correct and sent to the bank for their collection. MILES: Who was your employer during that time? WRIGHT: W. E. Shortridge. MILES: And that' ; s a funeral home? WRIGHT: It is. MILES: How was that for you, keeping those books and the information that you learned? I' ; m sure even doing numbers, you had conversations and you knew some of the things that were going on, what were some of the things that they shared? WRIGHT: Well, it was like keeping up with the receipts of the week because they had meetings every Monday night and they would give contributions. And so, many people would give money and that type of thing every week to keep the Movement going. MILES: How often would people get locked up? WRIGHT: Oh, just every day. It was a very crucial time, at that time that I worked there, when Mr. Shortridge was treasurer of the Movement. It was just a daily thing. MILES: During the time, then that money was not that great and people didn' ; t get paid that much but they gave, how much money would people donate? Would it be a couple of dollars or more than that? WRIGHT: Oh, they donated quite a bit of money. A lot of the doctors in Birmingham didn' ; t want their names published, but they gave almost monthly, donations to the Movement. MILES: Were these Black or White doctors? WRIGHT: They were black. MILES: Why did they not want their names published? WRIGHT: Well, it was just crucial then. They were afraid of being bombed and the pressure that would be put on you if they found out that you were supporting the Movement. MILES: You talked about the donations and people going to jail often, were you ever afraid because you kept the books or wondering if something may ever happen to you? WRIGHT: I really wasn' ; t afraid even though we would get daily threats over the telephone that " ; We' ; re coming and bomb you," ; and " ; We' ; re going to do this to you," ; and " ; We' ; re going to do that," ; over the telephone. However, they never did do anything at the funeral home but they did at Mr. Shortridge' ; s home. MILES: What happened to his home? WRIGHT: Well, he had this attempted assassination one night and it was just the grace of the good Lord, that he was not killed. MILES: So when they attempted to assassinate him, how was that done? WRIGHT: Well, they shot at him several times and bullets went into his home where his family was, but no one was hurt. MILES: So, after that, did he decide this was too dangerous? WRIGHT: Oh, no. He was a fighter. He was a civil rights fighter. And, of course, they did have to put guards at his house, things got so tense at one time. MILES: How were the police during that time in terms of the neighborhood where you lived, and also were you worked? WRIGHT: Well, they were always pretending they were going to help you. For instance, my son Desmond went to Bessemer at, I think it was McClendon at that time, for a sit-in at the lunch counter. And, several of them were beaten and about a day after the FBI came out to get information and, this and that, but you never heard anything else from them. MILES: So it was just a lot of lip service? WRIGHT: That' ; s all. MILES: What about your family, were they fearful for you, were you afraid for yourself? WRIGHT: Well, I guess you just have to do what you have to do and I never really thought about it too much. And, of course, I used to also attend the Movement on Monday nights and I was riding with someone else so, I just forgot about it. I got used to the intimidation and all of them, the calls saying they were going to bomb you and the funeral home. You just got accustomed to it. MILES: What about at your home? Did you ever get calls at home because... WRIGHT: No. I never did get any calls at home. MILES: You mentioned that you have a son, Desmond? WRIGHT: Yes. MILES: When he was growing up, and your daughter Constance, what did they think about the Movement? Were they involved, were they afraid for you? WRIGHT: Well, my son Desmond, he marched in some of the demonstrations. At that time he was going to school at Abrams High in Bessemer. MILES: Did you ever meet Dr. King? WRIGHT: Oh, yes. MILES: When was the first time you met him that you can remember? WRIGHT: Well, when I first met him he was at the shop, the funeral home, with (Inaudible), that' ; s where I first met him. And, then, I would always see him at the Movement on Monday nights. MILES: What did you think of him? WRIGHT: Oh, I thought he was a wonderful man. I really did. MILES: Did you have an opportunity to talk with him at all? WRIGHT: Well, no more than just speaking casually. They would go into their meetings and that type of thing. MILES: When you said " ; what a great man you thought he was," ; when you saw him and was in his presence, how did you see other people viewing him? What did they seem to think of him? WRIGHT: Well, the other people seemed to (Inaudible) except some of the elder people. They were always afraid. For instance, my church, they would never have the Movement because they were too afraid of them bombing the church and that type of thing. There were some elders who was not having the same viewpoints as the others. But, most of the elders were a little afraid. MILES: What about your daughter, was she involved? WRIGHT: No. She was not involved. She did not know about the signs in the stores saying " ; colored" ; and " ; white" ; . When I used to tell her about it, then she couldn' ; t hardly understand seeing that type of thing in stores that said, " ; colored" ; and " ; white" ; . But, my son knew about it. MILES: What would he say? WRIGHT: Oh, he just thought it was awful. MILES: Your son went to college? WRIGHT: Yes, he' ; s a graduate of Miles. MILES: Did you instill in them the importance of voting? WRIGHT: Oh, yes, I did that. And, when he got of age, he went down to register to vote. MILES: When you became a registered voter, what did you think during that time of the poll tax? Did you have to take a test? WRIGHT: Yes. I just thought it was awful and the questions they would ask you were just unreasonable. MILES: Would you share with us some of those questions that they asked? WRIGHT: Oh, they would ask you " ; How many stars are there in the sky?" ; That type of thing. MILES: Things that had nothing to do with wanting to vote? WRIGHT: That' ; s right. MILES: What was your community' ; s relationship with the police department as you grew older? Aside from, when you said, " ; the police pretended that they wanted to protect you and they really didn' ; t" ; in the community where you lived. Were the police friendly? Did they come into the community? WRIGHT: No. They didn' ; t come into the community unless there was crime, but other than that you never saw them. You might see them riding around in the community in their cars. MILES: Were you a member of any community organizations other than the Movement? WRIGHT: Well, I was a member of the Voters League in Bessemer but that was about all? MILES: Did you hold an office, like secretary or treasurer? WRIGHT: No. I didn' ; t hold any office in the Voter' ; s League. MILES: You said you got involved in the Movement because of where you worked and because your boss was involved, was it something that you saw that you really just wanted to do, or was it something, because you worked there that he wanted you to do? WRIGHT: It was just something that I wanted to do. I just wanted to see, with the kids coming along, having a better life than I had. MILES: How would you describe, let' ; s say, a typical Monday meeting? WRIGHT: Well, at that time the church was usually packed and they also used to have officers there in the back to see what was going on. I just assumed that they carried that information back to their bosses or whoever sent them there. MILES: Did you go to jail at any time during the Movement? WRIGHT: No. I never did go to jail. MILES: Who were some of the people who went to jail, because you knew a lot of them because of the receipts and keeping up with the records? Did you ever talk with any of them once they got out? And, if so, what was it like for them being in jail? WRIGHT: Well, not necessarily. Some of the officers of the Movement went to jail, like Shuttlesworth and Rev. Woods and that group, but that' ; s about the extent of that. MILES: What was your parent' ; s reaction to you participating in the form of keeping the books? Were they concerned that people would know that you were keeping these books and something may happen to you? WRIGHT: Well, they were concerned because they knew at that time what really could happen to you. And, at that time, nothing was ever done about it. Someone would come and ask questions, but never know a result. MILES: What church were you a member of during that time? WRIGHT: New Zion Missionary Baptist Church in Bessemer. MILES: Is that the church that you' ; re still a member of now? WRIGHT: Yes. MILES: Was your church very active in the Movement? WRIGHT: Not active at all. MILES: Did the minister ever say why? WRIGHT: Well, Rev. Ravizee was there at that time and he was kind of an elder minister and with them bombing the churches where the Movement was holding some of their meetings, I think he was just afraid for something happening to the church, so they were not active at all. MILES: Because of the Movement, what kind of benefit would you say that you, your family and your community did you realize? WRIGHT: Well, they were hiring. You would go into the department stores and it was unheard of being any Black salesmen and that type of thing, nothing but White. I remember the (Inaudible) at Loveman' ; s, no Pizitz, where you would have to go to the basement to eat and, of course you had to stand up at the lunch counter. There were no provisions there for you to sit. Well, you can go to the offices like city hall and the county courthouse. It was unheard of even going in there and seeing Black people in those positions, as you do now. MILES: If you were in control of the Movement and you could go back and change some things, would you change anything? WRIGHT: No. I wouldn' ; t. MILES: You think everything was okay the way that it was? WRIGHT: I think they did a wonderful job. I also feel that they made quite a bit of improvement, but there' ; s still more improvement can be made. MILES: What kind of improvement would you like to see made? WRIGHT: Now? MILES: Yes. WRIGHT: Well, here in Birmingham I think they' ; ve done quite a bit for heads of departments, you know some of them being held down by Blacks, which it used to be unheard of. But I still feel that there' ; s some type of improvement still can be made. MILES: You said you kept the books during that time during the funeral home. Do you have any items that may be related to the Movement, to the development of Birmingham that you would like to donate? Did you keep any of those old receipts just for history, or anything like that? WRIGHT: Well, Mr. Shuttlesworth kept all of that, because he typed the daily receipts and who paid who even though it wasn' ; t public knowledge. He kept very good books as far as that' ; s concerned, and he kept all of that material. MILES: So you don' ; t have any? WRIGHT: I don' ; t have any. It is in the possession of his widow, Mrs. Shuttlesworth, she has that information now. Letters from Dr. King and Wyatt T. Walker and people of that nature. They would write him when they were out of the city, when they weren' ; t here. MILES: Today, what do you think of the Movement? What do you think of youngsters today as it relates to the Movement, those that are of voting age? Do you think enough young people are registered to vote? WRIGHT: Well, I think they could do better, for the sacrifice that they' ; ve had to get to vote. I feel that they really should use the opportunity. MILES: Do you think, with looking at what' ; s going on across the country, that people utilize the power of the vote as much as we should? WRIGHT: No. I don' ; t think they do, because we just have that sitting down thing. And, then, some of us take the attitude, " ; Oh, they' ; re going to do this anyway, whether I vote or not," ; which is bad. MILES: If you could say one something to encourage people to vote, what would you say? WRIGHT: I would say " ; Get out and vote, and it would really make a change." ; MILES: Well, we certainly thank you for taking the time and sharing with us today. WRIGHT: Thank you. MILES: We appreciate it and we' ; ll be talking with you a little later. MILES: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Alice Wright
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Alice Wright discusses her work with W. E. Shortridge and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.She helped keeps the books and documentation for the Movement.
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19951110W
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
Police-community relations
New Zion Missionary Baptist Church
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1995-11-10
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Horace Huntley
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Louphenia Thomas
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African American women legislators
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5.3 June 17, 1998 Louphenia Thomas Interviewed on June 17, 1998 19980617T 0:50:30 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Jessica Holdnak Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Dixon, Joe Alabama and Tennessee Coal and Iron Company African American women legislators Louphenia Thomas Horace Huntley Video 1:|31(7)|72(8)|103(5)|125(5)|136(14)|168(7)|202(10)|223(2)|252(5)|274(1)|298(1)|320(2)|344(6)|358(2)|376(4)|393(7)|410(2)|435(5)|457(6)|488(7)|515(7)|527(5)|548(3)|574(6)|586(14)|604(14)|618(5)|638(5)|649(10)|665(13)|679(1)|690(7)|701(1)|713(5)|729(7)|744(14)|758(6)|781(8)|802(15)|816(11)|835(10)|846(11)|861(10)|869(15)|885(3)|908(10)|927(10)|937(7)|945(1)|956(9) 0 https://youtu.be/xOqXSz1SRd0 YouTube video English 0 Introduction of Interview This is an interview with Ms. Louphenia Thomas for the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute’s Oral History Project. Introduction to the interview Birmingham Civil Rights Institute (Birmingham, Ala.) ; Oral history interview African American women civil rights workers--Biography ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Oral histories 29 Early Life and Family I would just like to ask you: were you born in Birmingham? Ms. Thomas describes where she grew up and her family background. Birmingham (Ala.) ; Coosa County (Ala.) ; Parents Coosa County (Ala.) ; Family history 93 Early Education Now, Coosa County, that’s where you started then your schooling. Ms. Thomas describes her early education in Coosa County at Coosa County Elementary School and Coosa County Training School. . African Americans--Education (Elementary) ; African Americans--Education (Secondary) ; Coosa County (Ala.) African American women ; African Americans--Education (Elementary) ; African Americans--Education (Secondary) ; African Americans--History ; Coosa County (Ala.) ; Great Depression 236 Growing Up in Coosa County What was it like growing up in Coosa County during those days? Ms. Thomas discusses her impression of growing up in Coosa County during the 1930's. She mentions her father and his position in the community. African Americans--History ; Coosa County (Ala.) ; Father ; Great Depression African Americans--History ; Childhood ; Great Depression 332 Move to Birmingham Now, you came to Birmingham I guess your senior year in high school. Is that when you came to Birmingham? Ms. Thomas describes moving to Birmingham and Fairfield High school for the eleventh grade. She mentions being married and having a child. African Americans--Marriage ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Eleventh grade (Education) ; Fairfield High School ; Rural-urban migration African Americans--Education (Secondary) ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Fairfeild High School 490 Fairfield High School What was Fairfield High School like at that time? Ms. Thomas talks about her experience as a student in Fairfield High School. African American women--Education ; African Americans--Education (Secondary) ; Fairfield High School African American women--Education ; African Americans--Education (Secondary) ; Fairfield High School 534 Husband and Coal Mines What kind of work did your husband do? Ms. Thomas explains her husbands work at the time of their move to Birmingham. He worked in coal mines for TCI. African American men ; African Americans--Marriage ; Alabama and Tennessee Coal and Iron Company ; Coal mines and mining ; Husband ; U.S. Steel African American men ; African Americans--Marriage ; Alabama and Tennessee Coal and Iron Company ; Coal mines and mining ; U.S. Steel 570 Education After High School Then after you finished high school then what did you do? Ms. Thomas describes her experience with higher education. She discusses studying cosmetology and opening a beauty shop as well as being president of a beauticians' organization. She mentions having a child. She talks about going back to school to be a teacher and her first job as a teacher in Bessemer State Technical College. African American women college students ; African American women college teachers ; African American women--Education ; African Americans--Education (Higher) ; Bessemer State Technical College ; cosmetology ; family ; Lawson State ; Miles College African American women college students ; African American women college teachers ; African American women--Education ; African Americans--Education (Higher) ; Beauty shop ; Bessemer State Technical College ; cosmetology ; family ; Lawson State ; Miles College 700 Voter Registration Now when you went to Miles were you a registered voter by that time? Ms. Thomas describes registering to vote at age 21 and dealing with a property qualification to register. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Voter registration--United States African Americans--Civil rights--History ; Voter registration 789 Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights In ‘56, one week after the state outlaws the operation of the NAACP, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights would be organized. Were you at all familiar with any of the ministers that were involved? Or were you at all involved in those initial stages? Ms. Thomas discusses allowing the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights use one of her buildings to help with voter registration. Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights 917 Involvement in Politics 1960's Now, you became rather active in politics in the mid ‘60's. Tell me just a bit about that. How did you get involved in politics? Ms. Thompson describes getting involved in politics in the 1960's, and running for office. She mentions being a community leader. African American women legislators ; African Americans--Politics and government ; Civil rights movement African American women legislators ; African Americans--Politics and government ; Civil rights movement 1163 Community and Business Leadership You were a community leader. T: And running a business there. I had a coffee shop there too that Miles College really supported. Ms. Thomas talks about owning a coffee shop and a beauty shop. African American business enterprises ; Miles College African American business enterprises 1229 Running for Office At what point did you decide to run for office yourself? Ms. Thomas describes running for Alabama district 39 (now 53) and winning the seat. She mentions the death of a daughter when running for a second term. African American women politicians ; Democratic Party (Ala.) ; Hood, David ; Women in politics African American women politicians ; Democratic Party (Ala.) ; Women and politics 1435 First Black Woman in State Legislature What was it like serving? Now you were the first black woman to serve in the state legislature. Ms. Thomas describes her experience in the Alabama legislature. African American women legislators African American women legislators 1504 Lawson State Funding What do you think was your most proud accomplishment? T: Well, I’ll tell you what. You know Governor Wallace has all these two year institutions, two year colleges, you know. Ms. Thomas describes getting funding for Lawson State. Education, Higher--United States--Finance ; Jefferson County (Ala.) ; Lawson State Education, Higher--United States--Finance ; Jefferson County (Ala.) ; Lawson State 1751 Experience as a Legislator Yes ma’am. Was there a black caucus at that time? Ms. Thomas describes her experience as a legislator. African American women legislators ; Democratic Party (Ala.) African American women legislators 1926 Cross Over Voting There’s a controversy now in relationship to cross over voting. Ms. Thomas talks about party politics and not liking cross over voting. African Americans--Politics and government ; cross over voting ; Voting ; Voting--United States African Americans--Politics and government ; cross over voting ; Voting--United States 2165 Change in Political Parties Over Time How do you think the Party has changed over time? In terms of what is good for the black constituency. Has the Democratic Party been good for black folk? Has the Republican Party been totally out of it as far as black folk are concerned? How do you view that? Ms. Thomas gives her opinion about how political parties have change over the years. She talks about how black favor the Democratic Party and that they should vote for what is best for the black community. American political parties and elections ; Political parties--United States American political parties and elections ; Political parties--United States--History 2331 Joe Dixon Of course you know fiery Joe will get up there and clown like everything in the middle of all of them. Really, you don’t have to worry about it. They have had to listen. I noticed just recently they made Joe a national member. You see you’ve got to get blacks in that Republican thing to see what it’s all about. Ms. Thomas talks about Joe Dixon. She mentions Guy Hunt and Richard Finley. Dixon, Joe ; Republican Party (Ala.) Dixon, Joe ; Republican Party (Ala.) 2453 Future of Black People and Politics in Alabama What do you see then as the future of blacks and politics in the state of Alabama? Ms. Thomas talks about the future of black politics and the need for political education and involvement. African Americans--Politics and government African Americans--Politics and government 2596 Mayor Richard Arrington How would evaluate Dick Arrington’s 20 years as mayor of Birmingham? Ms. Thomas talks about Mayor Richard Arrington. She mentions signing for him at the PTA when he was a child. Arrington, Richard Arrington, Richard ; Birmingham (Ala.). Mayor 2668 Maps (Metropolitan Area Projects Strategy) I don’t know whether I could just totally agree with MAPS or not. I’ll have to give it some more, you know, attach more attention to it. Ms. Thomas talks about MAPS in Birmingham. MAPS ; Metropolitan Area Projects Strategy MAPS ; Metropolitan Area Projects Strategy 2827 Administrative Positions for Women I’ll tell you one thing I’ll like to see given more consideration in this town. More administrative positions for women, you see. Ms. Thomas expresses a wish to see more women hired in administrate positions, She mentions her time on the Birmingham Regional Health Systems Agency. African American women ; Birmingham regional health systems agency ; women in administration African American women ; women in administration 3003 Conclusion I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule and come and sit and talk with me. The end. Oral history interview Oral history interview Oral History Louphenia Thomas discusses her experience being the first black woman in the Alabama Legislature and the progression of politics after her term. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Ms. Louphenia Thomas 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 17, 1998. I want to thank you Ms. Thomas for coming and spending some time with me this morning. Welcome to the Institute. THOMAS: Thank you for inviting me. HUNTLEY: I would just like to ask you: were you born in Birmingham? THOMAS: No, no. HUNTLEY: Where were you born? THOMAS: I was born in Coosa County, Alabama. HUNTLEY: Coosa County? THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: And were your parents from Coosa County? THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. Did they own property there? THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did your father do? THOMAS: My father ran a blacksmith shop. You know what that is? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: He had farmed. Where abouts he had other people working on the farm. HUNTLEY: So, did he own the farm? THOMAS: He owned the farm. HUNTLEY: Ok, so he had people working there for him. THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: How much education did your mother and father have? THOMAS: Well, they didn' ; t have...my father had a high school education. My mother didn' ; t. HUNTLEY: Did she work outside of the home? THOMAS: No, she didn' ; t. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters did you have? THOMAS: I had one brother. HUNTLEY: Was he older or younger? THOMAS: Younger. HUNTLEY: Now, Coosa County, that' ; s where you started then your schooling. THOMAS: In Coosa County. HUNTLEY: Do you remember your first grade? THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about that. What was that like? THOMAS: Oh, it was a one room building, as they called them school houses. HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. THOMAS: The teacher there was a Mr. Swindle. We would sometime walk to school. It wasn' ; t to far on Highway 231. That' ; s 231 going from Sylacauga to Montgomery. HUNTLEY: Right, that' ; s right. THOMAS: We would get on that highway to go to school. School wasn' ; t too far. HUNTLEY: THOMAS: Now did you have more then one grade in that school in one class? You mean in that building? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: In that building I think they had, if I remember correctly, it was two. HUNTLEY: Two classrooms? THOMAS: Yes, two classrooms. HUNTLEY: Now that of course was a rural community. Is that right? THOMAS: Oh, yes. HUNTLEY: And the name of the community was Equality? Is that the name of the community? THOMAS: Well now that was a little distance from where I grew up. It was on my birth certificate- I believe that Equality was the place I was born. HUNTLEY: Ok, that' ; s where the Post Office was? THOMAS: Yes, that' ; s where the Post Office was. They delivered mail out on the highway. HUNTLEY: I see and you went...that first school that you went...was that the Coosa County, Coosa City Elementary School or County? THOMAS: It was Coosa County Elementary School. HUNTLEY: And you went from first grade through? THOMAS: First grade through, it' ; s usually fifth isn' ; t it? HUNTLEY: Yeah, fifth or sixth grade. THOMAS: Sixth grade, something like that. After that I attended the Coosa County Training School. You know they had training schools, high schools weren' ; t there at that time. HUNTLEY: Right. What was it like growing up in Coosa County during those days? THOMAS: It was very nice. The whites, so to speak had a lot of respect for my father. I very well remember that. Each time that I go there I ask for some of those white folks. They' ; re all about dead now. They were very respectful of my father. HUNTLEY: This is, you grew up in the ' ; 30' ; s. This was during the Depression years, right? THOMAS: Yes, but I never did know what a Depression was. Even though I was in the country or rural area we had plenty. I didn' ; t know what the Depression was. When I came to Birmingham they were pushing those little red wagons going to the Red Cross or somewhere getting food and bringing it back. I didn' ; t know what that was when I came here. HUNTLEY: That was different for you. You had not experienced that. THOMAS: No, we had plenty. HUNTLEY: Now your father being a blacksmith. Was it his blacksmith shop? THOMAS: It was his blacksmith shop. HUNTLEY: So that would then put you in a rather privileged position then, as a family. THOMAS: Yes, that' ; s right. HUNTLEY: Then he had the farm as well? THOMAS: Yes, he had a farm. HUNTLEY: Then he, people work for him on the farm. THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: Now, you came to Birmingham I guess your senior year in high school. Is that when you came to Birmingham? THOMAS: My senior year in high school, yes. I think I was in the eleventh grade when I came here. I went to Fairfield High School that other year. HUNTLEY: Did you live in Fairfield? THOMAS: I didn' ; t live in Fairfield then, but I moved to Fairfield later. HUNTLEY: When you were going to school in Fairfield, your eleventh grade. What community did move into? THOMAS: I lived in Rising over here. HUNTLEY: Near the ballpark. THOMAS: Rickwood Park. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok. You went to Fairfield to school. Why did you go to Fairfield? THOMAS: To tell you the truth I really don' ; t know. It must have been somebody I met who was going there. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: I had a child, baby at that time. The Elliots, I don' ; t know if you know them of the city of Birmingham. You know they had their own property out there by Rickwood. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: Sam Harris, you remember him? HUNTLEY: I remember the name. THOMAS: You know he was a doctor but he died. HUNTLEY: He lived in that same community? THOMAS: No, they owned some property out there. HUNTLEY: Oh, I see. So, when you came to Birmingham in the eleventh grade. You lived in Rising but you went to school at Fairfield. So, you were there for two years then? THOMAS: Yes, not quite two years. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok, so it was like the middle of the school year. Why did you come to Birmingham? THOMAS: Well, I got married and my husband got a job here and I came here then. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok. You were married then when you finished high school. THOMAS: I was married when I finished high school. You know at that time they didn' ; t allow you to go to school if you were married but the teachers out there vouched for me to go to school for some reason. HUNTLEY: Ok. Well, how was the transition then from a rural community to an urban community? THOMAS: It wasn' ; t bad. I hadn' ; t lived just a country life per say, cause through my father I had mixed with different people you know. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: It wasn' ; t too hard for me. HUNTLEY: What was Fairfield High School like at that time? THOMAS: It was nice, very nice. You know Fairfield High School was one of your better high schools. I don' ; t know whether you remember that or not. HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am, I do. THOMAS: But your [inaudible] finished that to. HUNTLEY: Right, right. THOMAS: We had a principal there who was a good principal, Dr. E. J. Oliver. You' ; ve heard of him? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am, sure have. THOMAS: I enjoyed going to school there that year. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: That year and a half anyway. I think they bent over a little bit to let me go to school in the middle of the year. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did your husband do? THOMAS: Well, my husband worked for U.S. Steel. He had a job with them. HUNTLEY: Did he work in the plant, in the mills, or did he work in the mines? THOMAS: He worked in the mines. That was U. S. Steel wasn' ; t it? HUNTLEY: Right, yes ma' ; am, TCI. THOMAS: Yeah, that' ; s right, TCI. HUNTLEY: Did he work in the ore mines or the coal mines? THOMAS: Coal mines. It was two or three of those fellows that were from Coosa County that worked in the coal mines. They got the job here. HUNTLEY: Then after you finished high school then what did you do? THOMAS: My first thing was I had a child after that. I took a course in cosmetology. I went into the beauty field for a while. I had a shop, a beauty shop. I had a lot of interest in that. I had a very, very good business. Of course you know they have a very strong beauticians' ; organization. HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: I was elected president of that for, I think I remained president statewide for eleven years. HUNTLEY: So, you were in that career field for quite sometime? THOMAS: Yes, quite sometime. Then I went back to school during that time. I went back to Miles and finished Miles. Then on from there. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you finished Miles? THOMAS: Well, after I finished Miles I got a job. My first job was at Bessemer State Technical College. You know down in Bessemer. You know where that it? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: I was transferred from there to Lawson State. HUNTLEY: Oh, I see. THOMAS: You know how they were transferring courses and things at that time. The state was. HUNTLEY: Why did you decide to leave the beauty field to go into teaching? THOMAS: Well, you know there are such things as you can see the handwriting on the wall. That you see that you are going to need more education to become involved in some of the things that you want to do. I' ; ve always never been satisfied with status quo. I went on back to Miles and ran my beauty [shop] all at the same time. HUNTLEY: Where was your shop? THOMAS: In Fairfield. HUNTLEY: Now when you went to Miles were you a registered voter by that time? THOMAS: Yes. You could register at the age of 21. Wasn' ; t that it? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: Yeah. HUNTLEY: Do you remember when you first registered to vote here in Birmingham? THOMAS: When I first went to register to vote they told me that I had to show them that I owned $300.00 worth of property in the county. That was ridiculous wasn' ; t it? HUNTLEY: Yes, it was. THOMAS: I had to go back and get a piece of paper. HUNTLEY: Property qualification? THOMAS: That' ; s true. HUNTLEY: You had to take that back? THOMAS: Yes, back to them and I intended to vote. I went on and got it and carried it to them another time. HUNTLEY: Did you have to take the test? Was there a test given at the time? THOMAS: No, they were not giving a test during that time. They had to have that information. I guess that was to subsidize for something, you know. HUNTLEY: Well, it eliminated some people. THOMAS: Yes, it would, especially blacks at that time. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. In the mid ' ; 50' ; s, of course 1954, the Brown vs. Board of Education decision nullified the separate but equal doctrine that was the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision. Of course here in Birmingham the schools would not be desegregated for at least another ten years. Right after that, of course, the bus boycott in Montgomery would take place. Then the NAACP would be outlawed from operating in the state. In ' ; 56, one week after the state outlaws the operation of the NAACP, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights would be organized. Were you at all familiar with any of the ministers that were involved? Or were you at all involved in those initial stages? THOMAS: Yes, I let the group, who' ; s headed by...what' ; s this minister' ; s name? He was...they had a Christian Movement. HUNTLEY: Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. THOMAS: What was the presidents name? HUNTLEY: Rev. Shuttlesworth. THOMAS: No, it wasn' ; t Shuttlesworth. That was before Shuttlesworth' ; s time. Anyway, I let them use a building of mine in Fairfield cause I owned a corner there and I had an extra building besides my business building. I let them use the building and furnished them with telephones during the movement to help them get folks registered to vote. They were supplying transportation and that kind of thing. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: When they left...you know how the folks that used to come out of town to do that? HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: A lot of them put long distance calls on my phone. I say you can' ; t win for losing. Anyway I went on with it. Trying to help. HUNTLEY: Now, you became rather active in politics in the mid ' ; 60' ; s. Tell me just a bit about that. How did you get involved in politics? THOMAS: Well, I' ; ll tell you what. Living in Fairfield, they did not have a single black on the council out there. So, the people came to me who were interested in running as a candidate for a seat on the council. They asked me if I would be their campaign manager. Out there in Fairfield they had a building called the Moore' ; s Hall, kind of Christian organization. I agreed, there were seven who qualified to run. HUNTLEY: Approximately what year is this? THOMAS: That was 1969. I agreed, I told them if they all would work from one pool I would serve all of them. HUNTLEY: So, you were there campaign manager for each of those? All seven? THOMAS: Together. We used the same building. All of them worked in the same building. Out of the seven, six won. Those were the first Black council persons elected out there. HUNTLEY: So, you elected six out of the seven? THOMAS: We walked the streets. We went to churches. We raised our money. We didn' ; t spend, the candidates didn' ; t have to spend any money. We had mass meetings at churches and things like that and raising money. I got those ministers going. HUNTLEY: That was the question I was going to ask. How did you get the people out? THOMAS: The people came there. I got those ministers to help me get the people out. They supported it. Fairfield was so happy too ; you know people there were so happy that they had some blacks on the council. HUNTLEY: Now this was the first time that blacks actually served? Or was it the first time that blacks had run for office? THOMAS: No, first time they had served and elected. They had not even tried to run for office. HUNTLEY: So, this is the very first time that anyone had attempted to run. THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: You got six out of how many were on the council? THOMAS: Well, at that time I think they had, how many did they have? They had about nine. HUNTLEY: So, they were elected by district? THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: So, these seven people were not competing against each other? THOMAS: No, I' ; ll tell you what had to happen before that. Attorney David Hoods, you' ; ve heard of him back there? HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. THOMAS: We were very close friends. We districted Fairfield in order for persons to have districts to run from. We got that straightened out and that' ; s when they became. HUNTLEY: That' ; s very interesting because that then opens a door for many other things to take place. THOMAS: Yes, since then they' ; ve always had blacks on the council. HUNTLEY: Right. Why did they come to you? THOMAS: Well, I' ; ve always been involved in community things. Even from PTA days when my child was in school. I was interested in PTA then they had a Democratic little group out there and all that kind of thing. You know at that time no blacks were Republicans. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: I would always go to their meetings. I worked in the PTA. I was one of the presidents at the time. You know, stuff like that. HUNTLEY: So, you were rather visible in the community? THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: You were a community leader. THOMAS: And running a business there. I had a coffee shop there too that Miles College really supported. HUNTLEY: The coffee shop that was in Fairfield, you owned that? THOMAS: Yes. I had a coffee shop and the next building connected to that was my beauty shop. You didn' ; t go to Miles did you? HUNTLEY: No, ma' ; am but I know that coffee shop. I spent a lot of time at that coffee shop. THOMAS: You did? HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. THOMAS: That was my business. I built it from the ground. Anyway, when I said Miles supported it. The students supported it. I look around 6th Avenue a lot of times and I see a lot of them over there that used to come to my coffee shop. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: Get sandwiches on credit. One day I told Chris, you know, runs the limousine thing? HUNTLEY: Yes, ma' ; am. THOMAS: Chris, have you ever payed me for my hamburgers? He just started laughing. HUNTLEY: I' ; m sure there are some that didn' ; t pay you for them. THOMAS: Yeah. HUNTLEY: At what point did you decide to run for office yourself? THOMAS: I was in Birmingham, you know at that time. Do you remember Judge Vance? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: Robert Vance that was killed with that bomb? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: I started going to the meetings with David Hood all the time. To the state Democratic meetings and things like that. I was elected as a member of the state Democratic Committee of Alabama. Judge Vance, we were in Washington, he said, " ; Louphenia there' ; s a vacancy in district 39. Why don' ; t you run? You are always talking about women don' ; t do this, that, and the other." ; I liked him a lot -- he was a nice fellow. I told him, " ; You' ; re joking. You know women ain' ; t going to win nothing and especially a black woman." ; He said, " ; Well, you' ; ve got all the black voters." ; He said, " ; Come on and try it." ; He was president of the state Party at that time. He got me in there to run in district 39 then but it' ; s 53 now, see Newton' ; s in that district now. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. THOMAS: The Party got me in there. They didn' ; t put me in there empty handed either with no money or nothing. They gave me money. HUNTLEY: They supported you? THOMAS: Very, and they even came out and helped me campaign. Don Singleman, he used to go door to door for me over in the white neighborhood. I think it' ; s a small neighborhood in district 53, but Don Singleman and all of them helped. HUNTLEY: What year was this that you first ran? THOMAS: That was, what year was I elected, 1976 or 1977, something like that. Anyway, you know Fred Horn ran against me? HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: And Wren, you remember Wren? He was a [inaudible]. HUNTLEY: Tommy Wren? THOMAS: That' ; s right. He was one of them that ran that time against me but I won out over them. So, that was the way that was. I still was elected as a national committee person of the Democratic Party. HUNTLEY: Did you serve one term? THOMAS: Yes. HUNTLEY: Why did you decide...Did you run for a second term? THOMAS: Yes, that' ; s when Fred won. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok, Fred won then. THOMAS: Had one of my daughters to pass at that time. HUNTLEY: I didn' ; t know that. THOMAS: You didn' ; t know my daughter did you? HUNTLEY: No, ma' ; am. THOMAS: She went to church. She finished Talladega. You know all those folks up there, Talladegians, Mason Davis and all them went to school at Talladega. She joined up there. She got married and she died in ' ; 78. That was the year that I was supposed to be reelected but she died. HUNTLEY: What was it like serving? Now you were the first black woman to serve in the state legislature. THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: What was the experience like? THOMAS: Well, it was a great experience. When I went there, there were 104 whites, all male. They treated me very, very nice. I think they had a reason or else I had the personality that they really admired. Anyway, I enjoyed it. Then a lady was elected from St. Clair County. She was white. I enjoyed it. They were very nice. Very nice in helping me to understand the rules. You know the rule book in legislature that' ; s your political bible they say. They helped me a lot. Of course everybody who goes there has to learn it and I did. I gained a lot from it. HUNTLEY: What do you think was your most proud accomplishment? THOMAS: Well, I' ; ll tell you what. You know Governor Wallace has all these two year institutions, two year colleges, you know. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: They were there lined up one day and all of them -- at that time you had about seven blacks from Jefferson County serving in the legislature - Jackson, you know. HUNTLEY: Ronald Jackson. THOMAS: Ronald Jackson, Tucker, Hillard, oh, a bunch of them, seven of them. They had never gotten a dime for any of the schools here. I saw all those folks in line going to the speaker of the house. I said, what are they in line for? Some of them told me that they are getting money for those junior colleges. I said well we' ; ve got a junior college. So, I got up and got in line. The blacks told me that you' ; re losing your time. You' ; re wasting your time, you might as well sit down. I stayed in that line and when I got up there to the Speaker of the House he said, " ; come and talk with me." ; I did, later. I got the most segregated person here from Jefferson County. He could win any bill, he could push it through. HUNTLEY: Who was that? THOMAS: What was his name? He was out here in the eastern section. HUNTLEY: Oh, ok, eastern section. THOMAS: I kept on going and I would go up there and Wallace sent for me. Wallace and those folks helped me get 2.2 million dollars for Lawson State. HUNTLEY: Is that right? THOMAS: That' ; s right. HUNTLEY: So, that' ; s the first money Lawson State had received from the state? THOMAS: That' ; s the first they had ever received above the regular appropriation. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: Every school got their annual appropriation. They had never gotten a dime over that before. Jessie Lewis came into the presidency there afterwards. It got messed up somehow. I' ; ll admit that. I didn' ; t like it. Anyway, they had the 2.2 million dollars. That was either 1978, ' ; 79 bond issue. HUNTLEY: Was [inaudible] Kennedy president then? THOMAS: No, Jessie came after Kennedy. That was Kennedy' ; s last year. HUNTLEY: So, you then assisted Lawson State in receiving more money. THOMAS: I didn' ; t assist Lawson State. Lawson State hadn' ; t even applied for any money. I just went on and got that money myself. I got those white fellows to help. When I got the money all the blacks been there eight years, they said you mean to tell me that you got it. I said, yes, I did, I got it and it will be sent to Lawson State. They didn' ; t want to believe it. I said well, you all don' ; t get up and try and see what you can do. You just sit here one time. I remember Tucker trying to get some money for Hudson out there. He didn' ; t get anywhere with it. You know you got to get in with the folks that handle the money. HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. Was there a black caucus at that time? THOMAS: No, well, yes it was, but it wasn' ; t too strong at that time because you didn' ; t have as many blacks, you know, black executive officials at that time, but now you have them from Selma and everywhere. They have a good black caucus now. I' ; m not messing up this am I? HUNTLEY: No, that' ; s fine. So, you then, your most memorable accomplishment was the getting of 2.2 million dollars for Lawson State. THOMAS: Yes, I think it was. HUNTLEY: Were there other areas that you worked in that you' ; re proud of in terms of assisting your contingency? THOMAS: Well, it wasn' ; t during the time that I was there, they weren' ; t too aggressive about doing nothing too much. Your legislative groups waste a lot of time sitting, looking, talking, eating. I tell them they eat peanuts and read newspapers. Anyway, they didn' ; t promote many projects or anything for their districts. I think that, that has improved some now. HUNTLEY: Were you able to promote any other projects for your district? Did you show them in other areas that it could be done? THOMAS: Well, I talked to the people in my district to let me know if they had other things that they would like to accomplish. But you know folks don' ; t foresee what they need to tell their representatives and they don' ; t give you too much to go on, you see. They do more now then they did then. We need to as a community people and our various districts have more to ask of your representatives to do. They will not be able to sit and think of everything that you would like to have. HUNTLEY: Are you still actively involved with the Democratic Party? THOMAS: Oh, yes. I go to their meetings and things. You know they have a state Party and that' ; s about it. I don' ; t travel any more. I traveled for eight years with them on a national level. That was when Judge Vance was involved. If he hadn' ; t been killed he would have been the national chairman. All of those people had so much respect for him. HUNTLEY: There' ; s a controversy now in relationship to cross over voting. THOMAS: I' ; m not to much for that cross over voting. I don' ; t know whether you are Republican or a Democrat. I' ; m a Democrat and I don' ; t go for the cross over voting. Of course I heard Mayor Arrington say for them to go and vote. He' ; s encouraging Democrats to cross over. Now, he doesn' ; t speak for me. He speaks for Richard Arrington. He can' ; t speak for the Party because he doesn' ; t hold an office in the Party other then a delegate. I never did believe in cross over voting. I guess in this case if the people are not satisfied with what they have then they would have to go to the poll and cross over. HUNTLEY: Well some are suggesting that you cross over to help either Blount or Fob and you help to determine who the opponent of the Democrat would be. THOMAS: Yeah, I heard that too, which would be favorable for Don Siegelman. Well, if it will I will do anything to help Don. I' ; m just talking about my belief as far. I don' ; t much believe in cross over voting. HUNTLEY: So, do you think, some say that people will be confused by crossing over because if you cross over to vote Republican then you have a stake in that candidate that you vote for and then come November these black people that voted cross over may go back to the poll again and vote for the Republican. Have you heard that argument? THOMAS: Well, I don' ; t much believe they will do that. They' ; re looking at the individual. If they are for the Democratic first they' ; ll vote for the Democratic even if they did vote. HUNTLEY: So, you don' ; t think have... THOMAS: I don' ; t think that will have to much bearing on it. HUNTLEY: Some say that will give more value to the black vote. In fact if you go and vote Republican this time because it puts more value on your vote now because the Democrat will not take the black vote for granted. Some say that the Democrats are taking the black vote for granted. If there' ; s just one on one, Republican and Democrat, the Democrat simply assumes that blacks are going to vote Democratic. With really having to give the black community any real serious look. Is that... THOMAS: That has some value. You know people are kind of like this. They go for the person. So many people, especially blacks don' ; t know too much about the Republican Party anyway. Most blacks have voted Democratic all these years. So, I don' ; t know, they go by some individuals. How much that individual impressed them. HUNTLEY: You think they go by the person rather then the party? THOMAS: I think so. Sometimes they do. I' ; m strictly for party. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: A lot of folks haven' ; t been involved in party politics so to speak. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. THOMAS: And a lot of them have. I don' ; t know. HUNTLEY: How do you think the Party has changed over time? In terms of what is good for the black constituency. Has the Democratic Party been good for black folk? Has the Republican Party been totally out of it as far as black folk are concerned? How do you view that? THOMAS: Well, you know blacks always thought that the Republican Party consisted of the elites. You know how we like to stay away from that. You don' ; t have to many black Republicans anyway. Blacks have always favored the Democratic Party. Now you have some blacks. Richard Finley, he' ; s a Republican and we always talk about it. You don' ; t have too many Republicans, black Republicans. HUNTLEY: Probably have more now than we did ten years ago. THOMAS: Yeah, you have more. HUNTLEY: It' ; s a few more. THOMAS: I' ; ve noticed quite a few more. HUNTLEY: Still black folks primarily vote Democratically. THOMAS: That' ; s correct, yeah, they do. What do you think? I know I' ; m not supposed to ask you questions. (Laughing) HUNTLEY: Well, I just think that whatever anyway that the black community can [inaudible] any semblance of power. I think they need to do that regardless of what that means as far as the Democratic or the Republican Party is concerned. THOMAS: What' ; s best for them. HUNTLEY: What' ; s best for the black community. I don' ; t think anyone in the other parties are looking out for the best interest of black people. I think black people have to do that regardless of who they may encounter. Of course to date we have looked at that as being a Democratic thrust rather than a Republican thrust, you know. I think we have to start evaluating. I think it' ; s a good thing to also look at the individuals and see what... THOMAS: And evaluate the parties too. HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: That' ; s correct, I think so. Whatever' ; s best for us. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. THOMAS: Now, I' ; ll tell you what. The blacks really haven' ; t gotten into the Republican Party and pushed. We have pushed in the Democratic Party. All of us have pushed for blacks. Nobody has been in the Republican Party to really push for them. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. THOMAS: Of course you know fiery Joe will get up there and clown like everything in the middle of all of them. Really, you don' ; t have to worry about it. They have had to listen. I noticed just recently they made Joe a national member. You see you' ; ve got to get blacks in that Republican thing to see what it' ; s all about. HUNTLEY: So, you think there' ; s a need for people like Richard Finley who' ; s in the Republican Party. Joe Dixon... THOMAS: Yeah, Joe, I' ; ve been knowing him all his life. You know Joe' ; s got a big mouth. You know he' ; s [inaudible] among the Republicans. Of course Joe was always in my coffee shop, a regular, you know. You remember Rambo that was out there at Miles? HUNTLEY: I didn' ; t go to Miles. THOMAS: Anyway, I don' ; t know when Joe started with the Republican Party. HUNTLEY: I' ; m not sure when Joe began either. THOMAS: Anyway, Joe was kind of trying to push his way into some of the officers of the Party at one time, I believe. HUNTLEY: Right, until Fob, no not Fob, the previous Governor and Joe, I think, had somewhat difficulty. THOMAS: Who was the Governor before Fob James? HUNTLEY: Guy Hunt. I think they fell out. THOMAS: I never did care for Guy Hunt. HUNTLEY: What do you see then as the future of blacks and politics in the state of Alabama? THOMAS: I see a bright future for them if they would just stick to their guns. I think that, you said in politics or in a particular party? HUNTLEY: In politics, in general. THOMAS: More of them need to become involved in politics. Most of our people are lost when it comes to even general conversation about politics. I' ; ve been to club groups and things and you' ; ll be surprised the number of your school teachers. You better not ask them the name of their representative in their district. They don' ; t know. I tell them each time that, that' ; s a shame. Suppose if I was a student of yours and asked you that and you wouldn' ; t know. See, those kinds of things. Those are small things but it' ; s something that you people should learn to do. They don' ; t know their representatives in their district, no. Today just ask some of the folk over there on 6th Avenue. Who is the state representative over here in this district. They wouldn' ; t tell you Demetrius Newton. They wouldn' ; t know. That' ; s a short coming for us. HUNTLEY: Political education is so important and they' ; re not doing a good job with that. THOMAS: In our church we don' ; t have anything like that. They should understand that they should have some kind of activities committee or political activities committee in the church. Let them just generally discuss it. You don' ; t have to say what party you believe in or nothing, but I think that should go along with it. HUNTLEY: How would evaluate Dick Arrington' ; s 20 years as mayor of Birmingham? THOMAS: Well, actually I think Mayor Arrington has done an excellent job of trying to build the city. He' ; s done very well in approving the appearance in various communities in the city limits. I think he' ; s done a very good job. Now I must be fair, I' ; ve been knowing Richard since he was in knee pants. I used to sign in for him at PTA meetings because his parents didn' ; t go to PTA meetings. We all lived in Fairfield. He has done well but I think we need a change now. After you stay in a place for so long you get tired. You' ; ve accomplished what you' ; ve wanted to accomplish now let somebody else have it. That' ; s my opinion. I' ; ve got nothing against Arrington. He has his peculiarities. HUNTLEY: What do you think about the thrust for MAPS at this point? THOMAS: I don' ; t know whether I could just totally agree with MAPS or not. I' ; ll have to give it some more, you know, attach more attention to it. HUNTLEY: Right. That seems to be one of the questions that' ; s going to be coming up this summer of course. THOMAS: About the MAPS? HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. THOMAS: I know they' ; re putting out signs and so forth. It hasn' ; t impressed the community yet. Who is the man that' ; s the director of it? He is a Persian man. What is his name? HUNTLEY: Hess, Donald Hess. THOMAS: I don' ; t think he' ; s quite familiar with how to really push something over, to put it over, you know. HUNTLEY: Right. THOMAS: Maybe he is, I don' ; t know. I don' ; t really know him. HUNTLEY: It' ; s going to be interesting though. Many people look at it as being a Birmingham incentive and many whites that live outside of the city will look at it in that manner and will vote against it because of that. THOMAS: Yeah, they will. HUNTLEY: Then there are those in the city who are agreeing with the concept of MAPS because it will improve the city overall but they' ; re really concerned that black contractors and other blacks, like attorneys, are not getting the same kind of benefits out of MAPS like they should be. THOMAS: You mean they have included them up to this point as they should. HUNTLEY: Yes ma' ; am. So, those are the kinds of criticisms people are raising about it. THOMAS: They need to pay more attention to that and make some guarantees to some of these contractors and things. HUNTLEY: That' ; s right. THOMAS: I noticed the architects. They haven' ; t included Woods and Owens, not because I know them so well... HUNTLEY: I guess that' ; s the leading black architects in the city. Is there anything else that you would like to include in this before we conclude? We' ; ve covered a lot of material from Coosa County to Fairfield to Birmingham. THOMAS: Tell you what, I hope I haven' ; t talked too much. HUNTLEY: No, you have not. THOMAS: I always like to let the interviewer ask the questions. I don' ; t know of anything. I' ; ll tell you one thing I' ; ll like to see given more consideration in this town. More administrative positions for women, you see. THOMAS: You know I served on the Birmingham Regional Health Systems Agency. That' ; s an organization that approved all federal funds to the various hospitals here. I noticed in that, it was my fight always with them. They had 22 members on that board and most of them were doctors and that was wrong in the first place. You know each doctor was going to be for his hospital. You didn' ; t have any women in too many worthwhile positions. There was one other black lady on that thing. She was an instructor in nursing. She told me, she said, you know you can' ; t hardly get your black nurses and things to want to participate. I said, well, they better if they ever want to get any leadership. Anyway, I served there four years. That was interesting. They didn' ; t include too many women. HUNTLEY: That should be really looked at very closely. THOMAS: Closely, yes. Most big cities now they aren' ; t missing out on the women too much. You' ; ve got to earn that. You don' ; t push without that. You get a lot of criticism if you do in any size city. I noticed in New York the other day, the mayor of New York, I like him. He was appointing some woman to something and he was laughing. He said, if I want to stay he... HUNTLEY: He knew he had to do it. I want to thank you for taking time out of your schedule and come and sit and talk with me. THOMAS: Thank goodness I didn' ; t have a schedule today. HUNTLEY: Yes, I agree. THOMAS: I was just hoping that I would be feeling well enough to come up here. HUNTLEY: You' ; re looking good and I' ; m glad that you were feeling good today. I certainly appreciate it. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=LThomas1998.xml LThomas1998.xml
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Louphenia Thomas
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Louphenia Thomas discusses her experience being the first black woman in the Alabama Legislature and the progression of politics after her term.
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19980617T
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Dixon, Joe
Alabama and Tennessee Coal and Iron Company
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1998-06-17
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Video
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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bcriohp
Oral History
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Bob Corley
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Rodney A. Max
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Discrimination
Birmingham (Ala.)
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5.3 July 7, 2011 Rodney A. Max Interviewed on July 7, 2011 20110707M 1:05:36 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Alexandra Smith Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Discrimination Birmingham (Ala.) Rodney A. Max Bob Corley Video 1:|21(11)|44(5)|59(14)|78(10)|114(1)|131(1)|154(13)|171(9)|199(11)|228(3)|239(2)|253(12)|271(1)|284(10)|314(13)|331(3)|352(8)|374(8)|403(14)|420(9)|448(1)|477(9)|487(12)|512(10)|530(5)|555(5)|569(7)|585(6)|601(6)|615(13)|633(10)|653(4)|677(12)|690(15)|705(15)|720(9)|735(12)|763(9)|784(1)|801(5)|814(3)|832(3)|853(9)|867(3)|879(12)|904(3)|914(8)|935(12)|948(2)|966(3)|985(13)|1006(2)|1019(7)|1038(8)|1051(3)|1065(11)|1081(7)|1095(7)|1106(14)|1119(13)|1135(6)|1149(7)|1161(7)|1172(7)|1185(16) 0 https://youtu.be/PrioQo9vvDc YouTube video English 0 Introduction Okay, we're ready. Introduction to the interview Human rights advocacy 33.516200, -86.813870 18 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org The homepage of the BCRI 39 Educational Journey I came to Birmingham in 1972, after I got finished with my tour in the military. I came here for the purpose of going to law school at Cumberland School of Law. Max attended Cumberland Law School in Birmingham Cumberland School of Law ; Military service, Voluntary 33.466679, -86.791337 18 Cumberland School of Law 295 Discrimination After Law School And, I felt that I could be accepted into one of the major firms in town. I did not know anyone in town, and so, I guess from that standpoint, I could be a gamble. Max encountered religious discrimination in his job hunt after law school. Religious discrimination Judaism 18 496 Early Career It was a commercial litigation practice. Some domestic relations. Max began his career in a firm handling litigation and domestic relations. Litigation 18 541 B'nai B'rith Yes, I was affiliated with a temple, became a leader in an organization called the B'nai B'rith. B'nai B'rith gave Max the service opportunities he looked for while connecting him with a community B'nai B'rith. Anti-defamation League Judaism and social problems ; Leadership--Religious aspects 18 https://www.bnaibrith.org/ B'nai B'rith Homepage 675 Anti-Defamation League and Alabama State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights My segue was through the Jewish community. Not that I ... I did it through the Jewish organizations, but in addition to B'nai B'rith, I was involved with the Anti-Defamation League, which has a regional office, southeastern office, in Atlanta, and was active there.Then, I guess it was the early 80s, when I was asked to become a member of, and became chairman of, the Alabama State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. That happened, I'm going to say, '80, '81, '82. Early 80s. B'nai B'rith. Anti-defamation League 18 https://www.adl.org/ Anti-defamation League Homepage 1102 The Community Affairs Committee of Operations (CAC) You mentioned the Community Affairs Committee of Operations, the CAC. How Rodney Max got involved with the CAC and became co-chair Community Affairs Committee Alabama. Legislature. Senate 1214 Running for Office No. I will tell you, when I was 39 years old, I said, " ; You know what? I'd like to help in the legislature." ; Max discusses his run and loss for legislature Political office Alabama. Legislature ; Mountain Brook (Ala.) 1323 Bar Association Alternatives to Dispute Resolution (ADR) committee Within six months, the Bar Association asked me to be a part of an ADR committee, alternatives to dispute resolution. At that time, you could try cases, you could appeal cases. The evolution of case mediation in the state of Alabama Alternatives to Dispute Resolution ; Mediation--United States Alabama State Bar Association 1420 Initial Involvement with SCLC and Rev. Abraham Woods ; Formation of Coalition Against Hate Crimes It's also along about this time, I think, in the early 90s, that you become more active with some fairly controversial issues, I suppose. Through the 90's, Max partnered with Rev. Abraham Woods to form a the Coalition Against Hate Crimes Coalition Against Hate Crimes Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Woods, Abraham, 1928-2008 http://www.nationalsclc.org/ National SCLC Homepage 1672 Rev. Abraham Woods and the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights Say a little bit more to me about your impressions about Abraham Woods. Reverend Abraham Woods, who was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapter here in Birmingham, that was founded by Fred Shuttlesworth Rev. Abraham Woods and Rodney A. Max formed a lasting relationship that produced many demonstrations against human rights violations. Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights ; Woods, Abraham, 1928-2008 1894 Rodney King Say a little bit about Rodney King, and what happened with your group, in respect to that. The Coalition Against Hate Crimes demonstrated against police brutality following the Rodney King verdict. Coalition Against Hate Crimes King, Rodney, 1965-2012 2493 Oklahoma City Bombing and the Birmingham Muslim Community We'd also talked about 1995, I think it was the Oklahoma City bombing. The Muslim community in Birmingham experiences violence and threats as a result of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Max, Woods and the Coalition organized against it. Coalition Against Hate Crimes Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing, Oklahoma City, Okla., 1995 ; Religious discrimination 2728 Disgreement with Rev. Woods on LGBTQ Issues Surely, there must have been some time where you and Reverend Woods had a disagreement. Max and Woods disagreed about the approach to LGBTQ violence in Sylacauga Coalition Against Hate Crimes ; Discrimination--United States ; LGBT Woods, Abraham, 1928-2008 3084 Camp Birmingham and Peggy Sparks One of the things that you were engaged with here in Birmingham was something that's going to be known as Camp Birmingham, which I think still exists. Max and Sparks worked together to create Camp Birmingham in an effort to reduce gang activity in the Summer Camp Birmingham ; Sparks, Peggy Birmingham (Ala.) 3417 The Current State of Birmingham Birmingham was just like ... has the scars of it's past. Those scars aren't going to go away. They're still going to be scars, just like a scar if you get hurt on your body. How Max views Birmingham and its future Equality--United States Birmingham (Ala.) 3721 Unity Over Division I think, in a general way, I would say this: in this journey of trying to bring, and I'm talking about the last quarter of the 20th century, when we dealt with what happened in the 60s, now we're going into the end of the 20th century. People took the time, through Community Affairs Committee, through Leadership Birmingham, through NCCJ, they took the time to get to know one another, and break down the barriers that divide us. The necessity to unify to better Birmingham and remedy the division that has increased since 1963 Community Affairs Committee ; Equality--United States ; Leadership Birmingham National Conference for Community and Justice https://nccj.org/ NCCJ Homepage 3901 Conclusion Well Rod, thank you so much for this time and for sharing all these really important memories with us. Conclusion of the interview Oral History Attorney Rodney Max discusses his experiences with prejudice on his path to practicing law in Birmingham. He details his work ACMHR, Reverend Abraham Woods and the founding of Camp Birmingham. Speaker 1: Okay, we' ; re ready. CORLEY: Okay, all right. Rod, it' ; s good to see you, and appreciate you coming in to this, this evening. MAX: Sure. CORLEY: What I' ; d like to start with, is at the beginning, in a sense. MAX: Sure. CORLEY: Tell us a little bit about your own particular journey to Birmingham. I know you were not born here in Birmingham, but you have spent a good bit of your adult life in Birmingham. MAX: Right. Correct. Correct. MAX: I came to Birmingham in 1972, after I got finished with my tour in the military. I came here for the purpose of going to law school at Cumberland School of Law. With every intention of leaving and going down to Florida, which was my home, where my family was, in south Florida. Both legally, professionally, and civically, and personally, I fell in love with city. We decided to give it a try, and see if staying here after law school, instead of going back to my roots, was the thing to do. 30 years later, it was the thing to do. MAX: It' ; s been a wonderful journey. A lot of great people, a lot of good work in the community being done by others. I just teamed up with people to do my little share. CORLEY: You graduated from Cumberland Law School. MAX: Graduated from Cumberland in 1975. CORLEY: In ' ; 75. MAX: Correct. CORLEY: You came here in ' ; 72 to go to Cumberland. MAX: Right. CORLEY: What attracted you to Cumberland, to begin with? MAX: Cumberland was a school who looked to people who had done hard work, had been in leadership positions, and they de-emphasized the LSAT testing, which I wasn' ; t the best at. They looked more at your leadership capabilities. And so, I joined ... there were 200 people in a class, and there were other people who had been in the service. There had been people who were student body leaders, and people who were leaders in their profession. Some of them were younger, some of them were older. MAX: We went through the journey, the three year journey, together. Cumberland' ; s a wonderful school, not just teaching the fundamentals of the law, but teaching about the courtroom, teaching about how to take care of people, in addition to just the legal journey of case law. After that journey, I felt very prepared to get out there and do my thing, and chose Birmingham to do it in. CORLEY: I' ; m trying to remember, was Albert Brewer on the faculty? MAX: Albert Brewer was not on the faculty at that time. He joined the faculty thereafter, and has been an incredible asset to Cumberland, that' ; s for sure. CORLEY: Yeah, absolutely. CORLEY: You had been in the Army. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Did the Army pay for your education for law? MAX: You bet. Right. I was in the service from ' ; 70 to ' ; 72. I was stationed in a number of different forts, all in the United States, but the last base was at Fort Knox, Kentucky. I was a chaplain' ; s assistant there. By way of my military service, I came to Birmingham on the GI Bill. It put me through Cumberland. MAX: Yeah, they took care of ... not just the tuition and books, but also a stipend. My wife worked, at the time, as a teacher. Together, between the two, we were able to make it through law school. We had a child before I got out of law school. My wife had a child my junior year, and then started practicing law in ' ; 75. CORLEY: Let' ; s talk about that just for a minute. You got out of Cumberland, and you started ... you decided you were going to stay in Birmingham, rather than go back to Florida. MAX: Right. Right. CORLEY: You started putting out your resume, I guess. MAX: Correct. CORLEY: This is who I am, I want to work for your law firm. MAX: Right. CORLEY: You applied to a number of law firms in Birmingham, but you- MAX: I did. CORLEY: They weren' ; t returning your call? MAX: Well, that' ; s interesting. I did pretty well in law school, and thought that by putting my resume out with my credentials, both service and undergraduate, leadership positions I had been in, together with my ranking, that I could qualify- CORLEY: And, you ranked in? MAX: Yeah, I graduated number five in the class. CORLEY: Out of a class of about 200, huh? MAX: Yeah, about 200. MAX: And, I felt that I could be accepted into one of the major firms in town. I did not know anyone in town, and so, I guess from that standpoint, I could be a gamble. I had hoped that my resume and my background spoke for itself. But, I wasn' ; t getting any call backs. I didn' ; t understand it. MAX: I contacted someone ... I wandered over to the Jewish Community Center, and met a wonderful individual by the name of Seymour Marcus, who at that time, was the executive director of the Birmingham Jewish Federation. He inquired as to where I was soliciting, and said that I was soliciting the wrong firms, that I wasn' ; t going to get anywhere with the firms I was doing. CORLEY: Let me ask you about that. The wrong firms, and you weren' ; t going to get anywhere with the firms you had been applying to. What was he referring to? MAX: He very explicitly said, " ; You' ; re of a Jewish background, and you need to be soliciting Jewish firms, not non Jewish firms." ; MAX: I hadn' ; t put the two together, because I didn' ; t really think in those terms. I wasn' ; t active in the Jewish community at that time. With a last name of Max, who would know? Not that I was hiding it, by any means. It just was ... I was a lawyer, and I wanted to practice law, and I wanted to do good work. MAX: I did not realize that was the reason I was not getting it. His statement to me was that I need not be applying to these firms that I' ; m applying to, but rather, I needed to focus on ... I think there were three primary firms he had mentioned, maybe four, that were Jewish firms. CORLEY: When he said Jewish firms, these were firms with Jewish partners or they were founded by Jewish lawyers? MAX: Right. Yeah, there were non-Jewish people in the firm, but they were ... the founding members of the firm were of the Jewish faith. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: I took his lead on that, and very quickly, got accepted to a firm where Charles Denaburg was the head. Denaburg, Scholl, Myerson, and Ogle was the name of the firm. I ended up being with them for 19 years. CORLEY: Right. CORLEY: So, Ogle, for example, in the name of the firm. I' ; m assuming Ogle is not a Jewish name. MAX: Right, and neither was Scholl at the time. Charles Denaburg was the founder. [inaudible] Myerson was also one of the principle partners. It was a good marriage. CORLEY: Yeah, worked out well. MAX: And, it evolved. It did. CORLEY: You would say, in 1975, probably not a formal policy on the part of a law firm, but the mainstream law firms, the big corporate firms in Birmingham were not particularly interested hiring the number five person at Samford, at Cumberland? MAX: Right. That was certainly the result, and I was told that was the reason. Again, I didn' ; t associate it with that, but apparently, it was true that I was not accepted. I didn' ; t get any ask backs from anybody. I did quickly get accepted by those who were of the Jewish faith, and was able to work it through. CORLEY: You began your law career and started practicing law. What kind of law did you- MAX: It was a commercial litigation practice. Some domestic relations. CORLEY: So, not anything related, really, to civil rights? MAX: No. It was representing people who were in a business setting, dealing with companies. Whether it was construction, or whether it was business to business, or whether it was an individual, a consumer, with business. It was all ... it was not personal injury, wrongful death related. It was primarily business related. CORLEY: And you' ; re ... what about it? What' ; s your age about, at this point? ' ; 75 to ' ; 80? MAX: Let' ; s see, in ' ; 75, I think was about 27 years old. 27 years old. CORLEY: Okay, so you' ; re a young man. MAX: Yes, right. CORLEY: You' ; re living here in Birmingham. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Did you become more actively involved in the Jewish community? MAX: Yes, I was affiliated with a temple, became a leader in an organization called the B' ; nai B' ; rith. CORLEY: Yeah. Which temple? MAX: The temple at that time was Bethel. CORLEY: Yeah. MAX: That was a conservative temple. I had been brought up conservative. My wife was brought up reformed. We ended up, a couple years into that, moving over to Temple Emmanuel, which was more comfortable- CORLEY: Which is a reform. MAX: Reform, and more comfortable for my wife. Anything I' ; m going to get into, I want to assist and try to work with the leadership. I just don' ; t like being a member of anything. I like to help out. And so, became very active with Temple Emmanuel. I had been with Bethel, but I grew, and I worked through the leadership there, in ... I think it was the late 90s, ended up being the president of that temple. CORLEY: Being involved with B' ; nai B' ; rith, what would that entail? If you' ; re doing- this is extracurricular, right? MAX: Correct. Right. MAX: B' ; nai B' ; rith is a men' ; s service organization. A Jewish men' ; s service organization. Within about a year or two, I was asked to be president. I served as president for many years. We did work ... we tried to get out from beyond just doing things within the Jewish community, although we assisted much there. One most significant thing was during the Christmas period, on New Year' ; s ... on Christmas Eve, when firemen, police, other emergency personnel would have to otherwise be on duty, not that we could take their place and put out a fire, but we could assist in some of the clerical things. We could also assist by going around on Christmas Eve, taking donuts, coffee to people. MAX: We went all over the community to do our goodwill on Christmas Eve, when they' ; d otherwise want to be at home with their families. CORLEY: Yeah. CORLEY: So, here you are. You' ; re in Birmingham. How do you become involved in the larger community in Birmingham? MAX: My segue was through the Jewish community. Not that I ... I did it through the Jewish organizations, but in addition to B' ; nai B' ; rith, I was involved with the Anti-Defamation League, which has a regional office, southeastern office, in Atlanta, and was active there. MAX: Then, I guess it was the early 80s, when I was asked to become a member of, and became chairman of, the Alabama State Advisory Committee to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. That happened, I' ; m going to say, ' ; 80, ' ; 81, ' ; 82. Early 80s. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: I don' ; t know specifically how I got nominated, because I wasn' ; t a political person. I think it was through the Anti-Defamation League, that my name got brought up and accepted. When I say I joined and then became chairman, I was asked to be on the committee, and immediately, they said they need a chairman and asked if I would do it. I was going to be put in ... not only into the kitchen, but into the oven, and accepted the responsibility, and proceeded. CORLEY: Just real briefly, explain the civil rights commission. The United States Civil Rights Commission was created, I believe, in 1956 or 57, by legislation- MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Civil rights legislation of that year, and was typically designed to investigate claims on the part of individuals, usually African Americans, who had experienced something relating to their voting rights, being denied their right to vote. MAX: That' ; s right. That' ; s right. MAX: And, there were some suspicion about the commission. That was during the Reagan years, and there was a Republican chair. I forget his name, I think maybe Pennington, who was getting a lot of heat for the failure of the commission to act. I chose, whatever there was, I didn' ; t want to sit on it. I wanted to act on it. MAX: The people on the commission, at that time, agreed. We had some investigative activities, as you said. It wasn' ; t just voting rights. Back then, there were issues of police brutality, and how the government was responding to that, particularly in the city of Montgomery. There had already been an investigation by the State Advisory Committee, that was being criticized by the people in Montgomery, because it was not balanced. MAX: I said, " ; Well then, tell you what, let' ; s get in there. Let' ; s redo it. Let' ; s balance it. But, we' ; re going to write the report." ; CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: Over a number of weeks- CORLEY: So, this was shortly after you took over? MAX: Yeah. CORLEY: Okay. MAX: Within weeks. CORLEY: Does this ... I mean, this is an advisory committee. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Do you have any kind of staff? MAX: The staff isn' ; t local. They were in another city, but they were professionals who would follow our lead with the agendas. In other words, they' ; d ask, " ; Who do we need to have come before us?" ; MAX: And, we' ; d give them names of people who we thought were responsible. Responsible, responsive, to the issues. We would create an agenda, we' ; d have a public hearing. We attempted to be balanced, so that it wasn' ; t conservative or liberal. It just was. This being in Montgomery, we had to deal with the time. It was Emory Fulmer, who was the mayor. CORLEY: Mayor ... yeah, of Montgomery. MAX: There were a number of people around him, both in the African American community, and in the white community, and in the political community, and in the police community, and the city government, and in the civic community. We brought them all together, and we listened to what they had to say, and we finished the report. MAX: I committed to the mayor that he could see the report before it went public. We had issues over that. He didn' ; t necessarily like the report, but we went public. It was published, and it was taken to Washington. It was reported to the commission. We were to be the eyes and ears for the commission in our state, and I wanted them to hear what was going on. CORLEY: Does every state have an advisory committee? MAX: Yes, every state has one. Some are more active than others, some are less active. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Does a lot depend on who the leadership of the committee is in each, as to how active they are? MAX: Oh, yeah. Some may, as a matter of form, meet once a year or once every other year. If you have issues, you need to address the issues. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: What happened when I joined, we immediately took care of the issues in Montgomery, and then we quickly made an investigation of what was going on in Birmingham. And, just civil rights, generally. We had yet another set of public hearings that probably took place within six months after Montgomery. And on, and on, and on with the various issues that take place here. CORLEY: So, this was sometime in 1982, 1983, when you- MAX: Right. That' ; s right. I say that, it was the Reagan administration. It was sometime in the early 80s that I got appointed. We followed through, during the course of the 80s and into the 90s. It was by that commission, and by my leadership there, that I got acquainted with people in the civil rights community, from Community Affairs, Community of Operation of Birmingham, and a number of the other organizations that we' ; re dealing with. CORLEY: Okay. CORLEY: Just to get a time frame, you' ; re starting as the chair of this Alabama state advisory committee. MAX: Right. CORLEY: You retain the chairmanship for how long? MAX: I believe that went on until 2000. CORLEY: Okay, so really, for a period of about 18 ... 17, 18 years- MAX: It may have been 15 to 18 years. CORLEY: Okay. MAX: As you said, ' ; 83 ... I thought, it may have even been ' ; 85. It was about 15 to 18 years that I was involved with the leadership. CORLEY: Okay. So, substantial amount of time. MAX: Yes. CORLEY: In the course of that, then, you began to obviously be acquainted with other people who were involved in civil rights activities. MAX: Yep, that' ; s right. CORLEY: You mentioned the Community Affairs Committee of Operations, the CAC. MAX: Correct. CORLEY: Tell me a little bit about how that happened. MAX: I was invited one morning ... of course, they met and probably still do, meet every Monday morning at 7:30. I was asked to come report as the chairman of the State Advisory Committee, to the United States Commission on Civil Rights, what was going on, what was being done. MAX: I reported. As a matter of fact, it was not just about Montgomery, but at that time, it was about Birmingham, and had some ideas to suggest what could be done to be more affirmative. The people in the leadership, what we called CAC, asked if I would join and continue with my involvement with CAC, which I did. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: That became a journey. I was honored by a co-chairmanship a few years down the road, and did work with CAC. CORLEY: You seem to always get involved and then, fairly quickly, get into leadership. MAX: Yeah. For me, it' ; s not so much an ego thing, that I need it, it' ; s just that somebody needs to speak out and at the right time. I don' ; t mind sitting back and letting others do it, but if somebody needs a volunteer, I don' ; t mind volunteering. I have a motto, it' ; s about others. I think it' ; s Hillel who said, " ; If I' ; m not for myself, who am I? But, if I' ; m not for others, what am I?" ; MAX: My motto is others. Others gets me to be there, and if I can help, I' ; ll be glad to help. If you don' ; t need my help, and if you have others, that' ; s fine. I' ; m not running for anything. I' ; m not trying to be the governor of the state. I just want to help out the community. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). CORLEY: You didn' ; t ever really see this as a stepping stone for some sort of political office? MAX: No. I will tell you, when I was 39 years old, I said, " ; You know what? I' ; d like to help in the legislature." ; MAX: And so, I ran as a Democrat in the Mountain Brook, Leeds, Vestavia area, and just thought I could be of service in the legislature. CORLEY: Okay. So, you' ; re 39. That would have been- MAX: I was about 39. I was born in ' ; 47, so ... CORLEY: Was that ' ; 86 maybe? MAX: Yeah, it was ' ; 86. That' ; s right. MAX: I ran. I did not succeed. I' ; ll never forget ... CORLEY: Who was your opponent? Do you remember? MAX: Slaughter. Bill Slaughter. Very fine gentleman, who did good for the district, and was a very bright individual. CORLEY: He' ; s a ... you were not from Birmingham. MAX: Right. CORLEY: He was from Birmingham. MAX: Oh, yeah. Yeah. MAX: And, it was really a district that was more Republican than it was Democrat. CORLEY: Yeah. MAX: I thought if people got to know me, and I got acquainted ... I knocked on 4000 doors, and got my signs up, but if you recall, that' ; s when Baxley and Graddock had their issues on the Democratic side. CORLEY: Oh, yes. MAX: As a matter of fact, Hunt got elected Governor, and anybody on the ticket that was Republican got elected, as well. Not to discredit Bill Slaughter for what he did, because he did a fine job, and was in the right place at the right time, but the swell was anti-Democratic, or anti-anybody that wasn' ; t Republican. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: The morning of the election, knowing I was going to get beat, I went to temple. I sat in the back pew, and I just said, " ; God, I don' ; t need to be anybody' ; s Governor or President. I just want to serve. Help me with a direction." ; MAX: Within six months, the Bar Association asked me to be a part of an ADR committee, alternatives to dispute resolution. At that time, you could try cases, you could appeal cases. There was arbitration was being discussed, but nobody was mediating cases. I got asked to form the mediation rules for the state of Alabama. I did that in 1988. In 1992, it got approved by the Supreme Court. MAX: Between ' ; 88 and ' ; 92, I began mediating. People were seeing the benefit of it, and how it was working to get cases settled fairly, in a good neutral, confidential form. Next thing I know, my schedule' ; s filled up with mediation, and I let go of my client base, and began mediating full-time by ' ; 92. CORLEY: Yeah. MAX: But, what was happening, what was evolving, was my ... professionally, I was moving into the area of mediation. Civically, I was taking those same concepts, interest based resolution, as opposed to rights based, and trying to apply it to the many things that were going on in the community. MAX: In fact, talked to people about how mediation could be used in the public sector, or in the local sector. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: And, tried to apply it in a number of different instances. That merged the practice together with the civic. CORLEY: Yeah. CORLEY: It' ; s also along about this time, I think, in the early 90s, that you become more active with some fairly controversial issues, I suppose. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Or, get more involved with Civil Rights more directly. MAX: Correct. CORLEY: In particular, with Reverend Abraham Woods and with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. MAX: Right. MAX: By the early 90s, and I think it was ' ; 92, there were a series of events that took place, and I then was involved with the leadership of Community Affairs Committee, CAC, of operation of Birmingham, and would attend different functions. The one that comes to mind, initially, was when Benny Rembert, an African American who was temporarily not living at home. Some would say homeless, but was over by Morris Avenue, and was beat to death by individuals who were alleged to be skinheads. MAX: As a result of that murder, many of the civic leaders in the area of civil rights, met in the Fourth Avenue Presbyterian Church to express their outrage over this, civically. CORLEY: That' ; s First Presbyterian, which is located on Fourth Avenue? MAX: Correct, First Presbyterian. That' ; s right. Exactly. MAX: Reverend Woods was there, Abraham Woods. A number of the other leaders, not just from the Civil Rights end, but just from the civic community. I remember Operation New Birmingham was there. I remember Elise Penfield was a member of this. We all made our statements about the issue. MAX: When the cameras were finished, and the lights of the cameras were off- CORLEY: So, you were there speaking for CAC? MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Yeah. MAX: The statement was made, was that all we' ; re going, is make statements? That was made by Reverend Woods. I said, " ; Reverend Woods, no. We need to do more than that." ; MAX: He goes, " ; Well, you can' ; t just talk the talk. You' ; ve got to walk the walk." ; MAX: I said, " ; You' ; re right. Why don' ; t we meet in my office on Sunday night, after your church services are over? Let' ; s see if we can quickly put together some sort of organizational scheme to help fight against hate crimes." ; MAX: Which is what that was. We met, and we organized, and we established the Coalition Against Hate Crimes, and had members from all the different organizations that were civically oriented, that were civil rights oriented, joined it. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: It wasn' ; t to take the place of any organization. You had very active NCCJ, you had CAC, you had Leadership Birmingham. We just became a coalition of all those organizations, and we did not need a large budget, but we needed a budget enough to handle things. The question was, okay, what do we next? MAX: I made a personal commitment to Reverend Woods, and that personal commitment was that he would never stand alone when there was ever an issue involving African Americans, that it was believed that when he would stand by himself, it would look like it was just his thing. It was not just his thing, it was the community thing. And so, my commitment was I would be there, or someone else in my place, would be there to stand with him. MAX: He and I not only formed a relationship, but a friendship and a partnership. Then, there was a series of other events that led to our partnership formulating even beyond that, but that was the beginning of it. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). CORLEY: Say a little bit more to me about your impressions about Abraham Woods. Reverend Abraham Woods, who was the leader of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference chapter here in Birmingham, that was founded by Fred Shuttlesworth- MAX: Right. CORLEY: The Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. Here you are, you' ; re a Jewish lawyer. Here' ; s Reverend Woods. You' ; re white, he' ; s black. You refer to this friendship. MAX: Well, you know ... because of my profession, which is all encompassing, I didn' ; t have time to make a lot of personal friends. Between my professional work and my civic work, and my family, it was pretty much full-time. MAX: Through my civic work, I saw this particular need to join hands with him. I saw that he was out there, and that I thought that it needed some tempering. Not to be there with him every day, but when the events came up. The commitment of the coalition, and at the time, I was a co-chair with him, we were co-chairs together, that we would stand together when things would come up. MAX: Reverend Woods was a very intense individual, a great family man, did wonderful things for his family, did wonderful things for his church. In the civic community, the Civil Rights community, he was seen as the spokesman. When you' ; re the spokesman, you take positions. He wasn' ; t always necessarily balanced with his position, he always took a side that was representative of his congregation, his community, his family, and his very strong background. He marched with Reverend King and was involved with that, and he continued that. He was very loyal to that. MAX: When someone' ; s loyal to that, whether you' ; re a Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, when you' ; re loyal to your cause, you don' ; t abandon it. I never asked him to abandon it, I just asked him to open up to the fact that there were other sides and other things that we could do, other than to be staunch, and perhaps militaristic, in our approach to things. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: It evolved over time, that the question for Reverend Woods, I believe, was could he trust me? And, could he trust somebody saying that they' ; ll stand up with him, and what would happen when the first incident would occur? Would you be there with me? That was the test of time. CORLEY: There' ; s some other things that begin to happen right around that same time. MAX: Right. CORLEY: I think a lot of people maybe think that, in Birmingham, or in Alabama, or even in the country, after the 1960s, after the Civil Rights Movement, racial issues receded into the background, that there weren' ; t a lot of things that ... the Klan, for example, was very active during the 1960s, and involved in a lot of violent activities in the 1960s. MAX: Right. CORLEY: What you discovered, really, was that these issues didn' ; t just go away, even though it' ; s maybe 30 years on, 25 years later. These issues are still emerging. CORLEY: For example, 1992, I think it was, the Rodney King verdict came down in Los Angeles. MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Say a little bit about Rodney King, and what happened with your group, in respect to that. MAX: Sure. MAX: Well, it was coincidentally just after we formed the coalition. We did what we did in forming it, and we began to organize it. Then sometime in the spring, I believe of ' ; 92, is the Rodney King verdict. And, all over the country- CORLEY: Rodney King, just real quickly- MAX: Sure. CORLEY: What happened? MAX: He was an African American in Los Angeles, I believe it was, who had gotten accosted by, beaten up by police. The issue was that of brutality. CORLEY: For which Birmingham had a great deal of history, back in the- MAX: Right. Very sensitive here in Birmingham, and all over Alabama. That' ; s one of the things I was dealing with Montgomery. CORLEY: Same thing, police violence. MAX: Brutality of police. MAX: And, here it was. It was on video, and it appeared to the public that there was no question that these police officers were guilty of beating him up. And yet, that was an allegation. They were the accused. It was up to a jury of his peers, meaning the peers of Rodney ... of the police officers, to judge whether they were guilty or not. Well, the verdict came down not guilty, which is part of our justice system. The public said, " ; How could that be?" ; MAX: If that' ; s our justice system, then the justice system isn' ; t working. In many cities, especially the African American community, got up in arms. If you look at history for the moment of that verdict, and within 24, 48 hours of that, you' ; ll see that several cities had a lot of destruction. The day of that verdict, I wasn' ; t even aware of it. I was doing legal work in Montgomery, some private matter that I was involved in depositions. I got a call that I needed to give Reverend Woods a call, because indeed the SCLC was needing to march. MAX: This was when I talked earlier about when you' ; re representing a group, you' ; ve got to do things. Well, he felt, and the people of the members of the SCLC felt they could not sit back. They had to get up. If they didn' ; t, they were not acting responsibly, and they needed to march in Birmingham. I was concerned, and this was just personal, I was concerned that if they did that, there would be problems, and we' ; d end up with what happened in other cities. MAX: I' ; m believing that was either a Wednesday night ... I think it was a Wednesday, because they had church at Reverend Woods' ; church. I said, " ; Reverend Woods, do me a favor. I' ; m coming to your church. Don' ; t organize the march until I have a chance to talk to you." ; MAX: He was kind enough to wait, and he had a group of people there, and the question was, " ; Why not?" ; MAX: My answer was that if all they do is march, and it' ; s an African American SCLC march, how' ; s it going to appear, in terms of the public? Wouldn' ; t it be better for us to get our coalition together, and for there to be a march. Yes, we' ; ll march, but let' ; s make it whites and blacks. Let' ; s have the business community a part of it. They didn' ; t think the business community would join. But I said, " ; That' ; s my job. I' ; ll tell you what we' ; ll do. Give me the weekend, and we' ; ll put together that march at 5:00. We' ; ve got to get a permit, anyway. Why don' ; t we do this on Monday night?" ; MAX: Without getting into all the details, we marched on Monday night. For the first time, I marched. I had marched for Jewish causes, but I hadn' ; t marched for civil rights causes in Birmingham. But, I marched together with at least 500 other people. White, black, blue collar, white collar. There were probably more people wearing white shirts and ties in that march than there ever had been before. If you turned around and looked, and I was arm in arm with Reverend Woods at the time, look Reverend Woods. Look who we brought. MAX: It was really a victory for the community. It was a victory for the trust between the races. It was a beginning of this relationship of I' ; ll never let you stand up by yourself. I' ; ll be with you, if you' ; ll be with me. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). MAX: Obviously, there are, at times, Jewish issue or there may be other minority issues that may arise. Let' ; s just stand up together, and we can be stronger that way. This was the epitome of that. And so, it worked. CORLEY: Yeah. You had a march to protest the Rodney King verdict? MAX: It was as much to say that police need to be accountable, that things happen in community, and there' ; s law enforcement have their rights and prerogatives, but citizens have rights and their prerogatives. They should not be discriminated against in doing the police officer work they have to, be balanced. MAX: We got police officials. One in particular is Johnny Johnson, who was a police officer at the time. I don' ; t know if he was the chief. He became the chief. But, he was active- CORLEY: Just for the record, Johnny Johnson, as you' ; ve mentioned, does become police chief. MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Becomes the first African American police chief in Birmingham. MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Yeah. MAX: It was a bringing together of even that interest. Here was the police, helping support the march, not being against the march, which is what the 60s was about. And so, it was a big beginning. CORLEY: Yeah. CORLEY: Again, not too long after that, maybe another year or two- MAX: Right. CORLEY: There' ; s an event where the Ku Klux Klan announces that they want to have a rally to rededicate, I think, the Confederate memorial in Jefferson County, at the courthouse, excuse me, downtown Birmingham, at Lynn Park. MAX: Correct. That' ; s right. That' ; s exactly right. They wanted to do that on a Saturday. While they have a right to march, it was believed that is not what our community stands for. CORLEY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). They applied for a parade permit, just like you had for the Rodney King- MAX: That' ; s right. CORLEY: Right. MAX: And, it got accepted. The question was, A, do we protest their right or what do we do? I said, " ; Well, they have a right. We have a right, also. Why don' ; t we create a march of our own, but let' ; s work with the police. Let' ; s work with the government. Let' ; s work to do it in a way that is respectful." ; MAX: While there were some in the community that wanted to be there at the same time and confront the Klan, and basically have a confrontation, we chose to meet, had a number of debates over how to handle this. The Klan wasn' ; t even involved in those discussions. We had members of the community, the African American community, the civic community, the law enforcement community. How can we do this respectfully? CORLEY: And again, Reverend Woods was a part of that? MAX: Right. CORLEY: Okay. MAX: And, felt that there needed to be some form of confrontation. The better judgment was, why don' ; t we let law enforcement handle the Klan. Let' ; s trust, at this point, Johnny Johnson, I think, is the chief of police. Let' ; s trust the police to handle that, but let' ; s be there shortly thereafter. Let the police clear them out, and they do their thing, and the Klan does their thing in the morning. Let' ; s us rededicate the park to the people of the community who are for the diversity of the community. MAX: Bottom line was, they agreed with that. Arm in arm, we started at ... I think we started at 16th Street. We had a number of speeches at 16th Street around 3:00, just like there had been ... to go back that morning, I think at 9:00, the Klan did their thing, in a very, very effective and efficient way. The police monitored that. We encouraged people not to go there. We encouraged people to stay out of downtown. Basically, they talked to themselves, with the monitoring of a helicopter, and everything else was very close on top. You probably couldn' ; t even hear what they were saying. And, they did their thing, left, and 2:00 or 3:00, we all met. MAX: We met at 16th Street. We had people from all races, religions, colors. It was just wonderful. There were a large gathering, where people were told out of the morning, they came back in the afternoon. We not only gave only the speeches, but we marched, and we marched to the park. We rededicated the park to the good people of Birmingham who promote diversity. Again, another standing up together with, not only just Reverend Woods and SCLC, but all the people in leadership. Birmingham was very vibrant at the time, and a number of the civic leaders. CORLEY: We' ; d also talked about 1995, I think it was the Oklahoma City bombing. MAX: Right, right. That' ; s right. CORLEY: That occurred at the Murrah Building there, federal building in Oklahoma City. MAX: Right. Yes. CORLEY: Again, there were a lot of incidents here or there were concerns about incidents here. Tell me about that. MAX: That' ; s right. MAX: When the Oklahoma bombing occurred, within 24 hours, we of the coalition were getting contacted by individuals in the Muslim community, that they were being threatened. The statement was made that for every person who was killed in the federal courthouse in Oklahoma, there would be a Muslim killed in our community. We said, " ; That' ; s nonsense. But tell you what, let' ; s not take light of this." ; MAX: Nonsense not that they weren' ; t right, but nonsense for someone to react that way. We didn' ; t even know who did it at the time. CORLEY: But, the assumption was it was somebody who was a terrorist, number one. MAX: That' ; s right. Right. CORLEY: But, also probably Muslim. MAX: That' ; s correct. MAX: And, not knowing who it was, we just felt it was appropriate to let law enforcement, again, do their thing. But, let' ; s not overreact. In the meantime, let' ; s ... some public statement needs to be made for the Muslim community, who was attempting to just coexist in the Birmingham community. MAX: It was a wonderful lesson for me, because not even knowing who the individual was, I called Reverend Woods, he agreed, let' ; s come ... he came to my office, I think it was in the middle of a mediation. I said, " ; Let' ; s come to my office and we' ; ll make a public state. You and I, and this Muslim leadership, who I didn' ; t even know who they were, and let' ; s make a statement of let law enforcement do their thing, let' ; s stand together and let' ; s not overreact." ; MAX: We arranged this for sometime in the morning, maybe it was 11:00. Reverend Woods comes in and I' ; m anticipating someone from the Muslim community, in my mind, who am I going to see? In walks this six foot four, blonde hair, blue eyed individual who happened to be in the Muslim community, that was part of the leadership. I was ... I learned my own lesson of pre-judging, because that wasn' ; t who I thought was going to walk in the door. We formed a very good relationship with him. We spoke out about the calm that needed to be happening. Within 48 hours, McVeigh, not of a Muslim faith, but a white Anglo Saxon, was accused at that time of doing the crime, later convicted. MAX: The good news was, there was peace in our community and nothing happened. Again, it was standing up in what could have been a thread of violence, a hate crime, against someone because of their religion. It was appropriate for someone of the Jewish faith, and the Christian faith, to stand with someone of the Muslim faith, and we did. And, we did. CORLEY: I' ; m hearing you tell these stories where just about every time there was some incident, not necessarily here in Birmingham- MAX: Right. CORLEY: But, even if it was somewhere else, you worked very closely with Reverend Woods. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Under the rubric of this coalition against hate crimes. MAX: Right. CORLEY: And, stood for non-violence, stood for respect, and so forth. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Surely, there must have been some time where you and Reverend Woods had a disagreement. MAX: Well, yeah, his approach was to be relatively impulsive about all of these things. Mine was a little more deliberate and more inclusive. There did come a time when we had another hate crime that I asked him to stand up for, and that was a little more difficult for him. It occurred when a male individual, I think it was Sylacauga, was beaten to death because he happened to be gay. MAX: The coalition got a call from one of the prominent members of our community, saying that the gay, lesbian, transvestite, et cetera, members of the community were very concerned that there would be copy cat crimes committed in our community, and that somebody needed to speak out. It sounded like it was a reasonable request. I brought the coalition together, called Reverend Woods, and that was somewhat problematic for Reverend Woods. By way of his religious background, he had difficulty dealing with that issue. But, I told him the coalition stood for standing up for minorities, and I believed the gay, lesbian, transvestite, et cetera community was in need of protection, and we needed to stand up. MAX: There was an organized ... it had already been organized for there to be a meeting at the church in Birmingham, the Metropolitan Church on First Avenue North. I don' ; t honestly recall the correct name. CORLEY: Yeah, I think it' ; s actually ... I think it' ; s called the Metropolitan Community Church. MAX: Yes, Metropolitan Community Church. Correct. CORLEY: I think. Yeah, it was on First Avenue North, out near Woodlawn. MAX: That' ; s exactly right. MAX: They were having a meeting on Tuesday night to speak out against this. What was interesting was, there was protesters outside of that church against gay and lesbian issues. But, we went. The coalition went, many of the organizations went. I had a board meeting at my temple that night, but I called off the board meeting to attend. Reverend Woods did not attend, but the coalition attended. That was the thing, I wasn' ; t going to let the coalition not be a part of standing up. MAX: For me, it was a very gratifying night of seeing a room full, not just all the pews in the church, but in the aisles and sitting right by the podium, that were just ... a lot of people white collar, blue collar, of different races, who had an interest in gay and lesbian issues. We spoke out, that they too need the respect of others in the community, and let' ; s judge people based on their character, not just their color and their religion, but their own personal creed. MAX: It was a wonderful evening of coming together. I was proud of the coalition, I was proud of the many leaders. Bob, you were one of those who was brave enough to do that. It was believed to be the right thing to do, and I was just proud of those who had attended to speak out, because it wasn' ; t a popular thing to do, obviously. We did it, and I think both the community was better for it, the coalition was stronger for it, and it was the right thing to do. CORLEY: Just as a note, I think the group that was there to protest the meeting that night, is Reverend Ralph Phelps, and the Westboro Baptist Church- MAX: Oh, is that right? CORLEY: Which is mostly his family, or the members. They still are protesting at a lot of ... there was just a Supreme Court case relating to this, where they' ; ve been protesting at funerals of returning veterans. People who were killed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and basically saying the deaths of these people are caused by the fact that God hates gays and hates the fact that the United States have been open to gays, and so forth. MAX: Is that right? CORLEY: And so ... yeah, one of the families sued- MAX: Oh, is that right? CORLEY: The church, and the Supreme Court recently upheld that they had the right to protest. MAX: I see. I didn' ; t realize they were still active, but yes, that' ; s exactly right. I remember going in with their protesting, and leaving with their protesting. It was just ... when people can come together, and you can get to know people, based upon what they' ; re trying to achieve and not just on the prejudices, like what happened with the Muslim issue, with the bombing in Oklahoma, and then again with this issue. MAX: There are just some wonderful people who happen to be of a gay persuasion, or a lesbian persuasion, that are really great contributors to this community. I see so much potential here in Birmingham to use our past for future good, and that was one of them. MAX: I' ; ve left the community. I' ; ve turned my books and records and everything I had with the coalition over to the leadership at that time. I don' ; t know, at this moment, who' ; s carrying on that mission. There' ; s just a lot of good things done for adults, for children. It' ; s a better community because of those kinds of things. CORLEY: One other activity I know you were involved with, and we' ; re down to about maybe 10 minutes left. MAX: Sure. CORLEY: One of the things that you were engaged with here in Birmingham was something that' ; s going to be known as Camp Birmingham, which I think still exists. MAX: Right. CORLEY: Tell us how that started. MAX: I was active with the Community Affairs Committee. Matter of fact, Peggy Sparks may have been a co-chair with me. I got to know Peggy ... and this is, again, where you get to know people and you find the good in them, and you find what their visions are. We had an issue in Birmingham. This was probably in the late 80s. That issue was gangs. The issue was, what do we do with kids to get them off the street in the summer? MAX: This was a coming together of the chamber, a coming together of Operation Birmingham, of Community Affairs Committee, and a number of other organizations. We sat and we said, first of all, what' ; s the problem? And then, how do we approach the problem? What we realized was, there were a lot of kids who had nothing to do in the summer. To an extent, you can' ; t blame kids for getting into mischief when they have nothing to do. Their idle. So, how can we activate them? MAX: The kids that can afford to go to camp, they' ; re involved. The kids who can' ; t afford to go to camp, they have nothing to do. The kids who don' ; t have a job, what do they do? I asked this question. I said, " ; What' ; s going on in the schools during the summer? It' ; s summer vacation. Are the schools active? No? How many schools do we have in Birmingham?" ; MAX: We identified- there were a number of schools, but we identified 10 schools. I said, " ; Why don' ; t we take these schools and why don' ; t we raise both public money and private money, and create a partnership." ; MAX: Let' ; s raise about ... and, we came up with, and with Peggy' ; s help, a budget of about $200000. CORLEY: Wow. MAX: Let' ; s employ teenagers who wouldn' ; t otherwise be able to get a job. In fact, we not only employ them, but more specifically, we had them go through an interview process. We had them dress up in coats and ties, and write out a resume. We had them interview with some of the officials, so that they could be qualified, or not, for these jobs. We gave them an experience on how to apply for a job. MAX: We chose, for each camp, we had ... I think it was 10, or probably more than 10, maybe 20 counselors. We had camp counselors. They were ages from 16 to 18 or 19. We had directors who were at UAB, that were getting credit for what they were doing. We had counselors, directors, and then we ... they made minimum wage, but they earned a day' ; s living, a week' ; s living, during the summer. MAX: We brought to the camp, kids who, for $25 as a stipend, we would fund the rest of their camp. They would pay $25 and they would get a camp experience. And so, hundreds of kids came out from the different communities. The reason we had these camps all over the city, parents couldn' ; t necessarily drive their kids over to a camp, so we tried to put it in the community. Sure enough, they flocked to these camps. MAX: These camps were not only for having fun, but the camps were for educational purposes. We had reading programs, we had academic bowls. Yeah, we had the athletic contest. We would meet at the end of the camp, over at UAB, and certain camps got rewarded for what they ... we rewarded the corporate sector for their participation, named camps after those who gave a large stipend to support the came. MAX: Camp Birmingham became an activity that inner-city kids could enjoy during the summer, and we employed kids to get off the street, and you know what? The gang problem got to be put to bed. We didn' ; t hear ... I' ; m not saying they were gone, but we certainly didn' ; t hear of the mischief that we were experiencing before. MAX: That was just ... the relationship like we talked about with Reverend Woods, the relationship I formed with Peggy Sparks was an everlasting one, just a wonderful person. She brought together a team of people from the Birmingham City Schools and community education to participate, and they' ; re carrying it on to this day. CORLEY: Yeah. Let me ask you to give ... you' ; ve had an interesting perspective. You came here as a law student, 1972, less than 10 years after 1963 when Birmingham started to change. MAX: Right. CORLEY: We' ; re coming up on ... this 2011, so we' ; ll be coming up in a few years to 2013, 50th anniversary of 1963 major events. A good bit of that time, of that 50 year period, you' ; ve been in this community. You' ; ve observed this community. What are your observations about Birmingham, and the ways it has changed, and the ways it hasn' ; t? MAX: Birmingham was just like ... has the scars of it' ; s past. Those scars aren' ; t going to go away. They' ; re still going to be scars, just like a scar if you get hurt on your body. But, that doesn' ; t mean you' ; re going to be disabled, that doesn' ; t mean you can' ; t function and be productive, just because you' ; ve had an injury. And, the community suffered an injury back then. MAX: Interestingly, today, I worked with a young lady who is paralyzed from the waist down. She' ; s going to college now, and trying to be something, even though she' ; s limited to her wheelchair. Just like Birmingham was limited by way of what happened in the 60s, we' ; ve become a better community as a result of it. As long as people don' ; t just look back historically, either to the 60s or to the last quarter of the 20th century. We did some great things. For me, it' ; s always a team effort. We, you, Peggy Sparks, Reverend Woods, Elise Penfield, and so many others. And, the Jewish community, the Christian community, the white community, the black community, and the business community, corporate sector, really stepped up to the plate. MAX: Not only in Camp Birmingham, as I talked about, but in many other areas. We all need to continue that journey. The sign out front of Ingram Park, if I understand it correct, says " ; From revolution to reconciliation." ; MAX: Well, now, we need to put reconciliation in big letters. Not only we learn and actively pursue reconciliation, but we need to export it, and even bring it to Birmingham. We' ; ve done it by that beautiful institute that we' ; ve got. It' ; s not just a museum, it' ; s a living creation. In my view, not just for people to come see, to see the history, but for people to be engaged by it. I would love to see the idea of other communities learn from our experiences, learn as we do with operation ... with Leadership Birmingham, where you get bankers, and lawyers, and doctors, and people in education, and people in so many different fields, coming together and learning about each other, and going back off into the community after they finish their venture with a leadership program, go out and be community together. MAX: I think we can do that in Birmingham. I think that can be done at the Civil Rights Institute. I think that can be done on the holy ground of A.G Gaston, where A.G. Gaston Motel was, on one side and 16th Street on the other side, and the institute right in the middle. I think we can bring people to this community, not just from Birmingham and Alabama, but from many other borders where people may be in conflict, and say, " ; Why don' ; t you come to Birmingham and let us help you, not to solve your problem, but to help you learn how to get to know one another, how we dealt with our scars and become a better community, and maybe you can do the same." ; CORLEY: You would see Birmingham as a role model for how issues of conflict can be dealt with? MAX: Absolutely. A role model that now only says, see our example, but let us help you find ways to get to know people. How does Rod Max get to know Reverend Abraham Woods? How does a lawyer get to work with an educator and create a Camp Birmingham? How can bankers work with the labor? How does the lawyer work with the doctor? Typically, people would say, " ; Those people are in conflict. Those people can' ; t work together." ; MAX: In truth, they can. Why can' ; t they do that in another city in the United States? Why can' ; t they do that between Israel and Palestine? Not politically, but from their interests. Interest based relationships. It would appear to me that the banker, and the doctor, and the lawyer, and the business person, who are looking to make a better living, not just for themselves and their families, but for their community, ought to have some commonality. Maybe we can help people find that commonality. MAX: I think that' ; s something that' ; s yet to be achieved. I see the institute and the good leaders like yourself, being able to use Birmingham, and it' ; s past, to do that. CORLEY: Is there anything else, in the very brief amount of time we' ; ve got left, anything else that you think is important, you' ; ve observed, things that you' ; ve noticed, that we haven' ; t talked about? Things that happened between 1963 and the current period, that have been, you think, significant? MAX: I think, in a general way, I would say this: in this journey of trying to bring, and I' ; m talking about the last quarter of the 20th century, when we dealt with what happened in the 60s, now we' ; re going into the end of the 20th century. People took the time, through Community Affairs Committee, through Leadership Birmingham, through NCCJ, they took the time to get to know one another, and break down the barriers that divide us. MAX: I believe that it requires two things. As I said initially, I wasn' ; t going to change Reverend Woods, from the standpoint of him not being a staunch advocate for what he stood for. I' ; ll give you a quick example. Temple Emmanuel on ... what is it, 21st Street and Highland Avenue, had an issue. They had a building that was built in the early 1900s. They had an opportunity to abandon that building and move to the suburbs, perhaps closer to where more of the Jewish community was. The leadership of our temple, and I just had the privilege of being the president at the time, said no. We' ; re not leaving Birmingham. MAX: Birmingham consisted of a minority in the Jewish community. We were about 5500, men, women, and children. There are only 700 members of Temple Emmanuel. Instead of going back into a suburb, let' ; s create, let' ; s recreate, let' ; s renovate the building that was built in the early 1900s. Let people know we' ; re here, respect who we are, be active in the community, and work with community, not to isolate ourselves from the community. MAX: The decision was made to spend sufficient dollars to renovate a very old building and be a vibrant part of Birmingham, not to go to the suburbs and run from Birmingham. The lesson of that, and the overall lesson is, let' ; s respect who we are. Let' ; s respect our differences. How do we find the commonalities that allow us to make for better community? Yes, I' ; m Jewish. Yes, I' ; m a lawyer. That doesn' ; t mean I can' ; t work with someone from the Christian community, from the medical community, or from the business community, to make for a better community. MAX: I can respect you, and you can respect me. But, part of it is, getting to know one another. Last thing is, teaching that to our children, teaching that to the next generation, to get them from hiding behind their walls, and what would otherwise be their ghetto, and come out. I think we make a better community that way. CORLEY: Well Rod, thank you so much for this time and for sharing all these really important memories with us. MAX: Thank you. I appreciate that. CORLEY: We really appreciate everything you' ; ve done, the contributions you' ; ve made to this community, too. MAX: Well, thank you. CORLEY: Thanks very much. MAX: It' ; s always a team effort. It is always a team effort. If you can be a part of that team, you' ; ve been enriched by it. Thanks for allowing me to share with you. CORLEY: Sure. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Rodney A. Max
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Attorney Rodney Max discusses his experiences with prejudice on his path to practicing law in Birmingham. He details his work ACMHR, Reverend Abraham Woods and the founding of Camp Birmingham.
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Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Laura Anderson
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Annie Pearl Avery
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5.3 June 3, 2014 Annie Pearl Avery Interviewed on June 3, 2014 20140603A 1:26:02 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)--1960-1970. Freedom Rides, 1961 Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Voter registration Annie Pearl Avery Laura Anderson Video 1:|25(10)|37(5)|49(15)|61(14)|73(7)|84(12)|93(14)|108(9)|122(3)|133(1)|143(5)|154(3)|184(2)|193(3)|201(9)|211(14)|220(4)|229(13)|237(6)|248(2)|263(9)|275(14)|290(4)|302(14)|313(10)|331(15)|342(1)|348(12)|358(9)|372(1)|383(9)|393(9)|406(6)|420(9)|425(13)|437(7)|456(5)|474(6)|479(9)|489(6)|498(3)|506(7)|519(3)|530(3)|541(2)|548(7)|564(12)|578(5)|590(6)|597(3)|610(1)|618(9)|632(2)|643(12)|657(7)|665(11)|676(13)|685(11)|693(2)|702(8)|710(11)|718(7)|724(4)|734(4)|744(4)|752(8)|765(14)|773(11)|786(2)|797(3)|808(14)|817(11)|827(2)|849(5)|863(3)|869(16)|890(14)|907(6)|918(9)|944(10)|956(1)|970(2)|975(9)|984(13)|994(13)|1019(3) 0 https://youtu.be/Zid57bJBq4E YouTube video English 43 Interview Introduction All I want to say up front is that I'm Laura Anderson, and today is Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014, and I am here with the famous Annie Pearl Avery Introduction to the interview African Americans--Civil rights African Americans--Civil rights 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ BCRI Homepage 72 Childhood Segregation Experiences So, you were born here in Birmingham? Describing childhood experiences with segregation in Alabama. African Americans--Segregation ; Birmingham (Ala.) African Americans--Civil rights 241 Initial Movement Involvement They said young people were leading the sit-ins and the Freedom Ride. So, I said I wanted to go ... if they come to Birmingham, I'm going with them. Avery discusses her initial involvement and reaction to the Civil Rights Movement and to nonviolence. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Nonviolence African Americans--Civil rights 639 Early Education and Family Life Well, where did you go to school when you came back to Birmingham? Avery discusses her family. African American families ; African Americans--Education ; African Americans--Employment ; Birmingham (Ala.) African American families 782 Movement Involvement and Demonstrations in Georgia But, I left my knife at home. And, everything is history after that. Avery describes her early experience with the Civil Rights Movement in Georgia. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Georgia ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 1268 Involvement in Movement Demonstrations & ; Jail Time No, everything was history after that. Avery discusses her involvement in Civil Rights Movement demonstrations. Civil rights demonstrations--Alabama ; Civil rights demonstrations--United States ; F.W. Woolworth Company ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 Civil rights demonstrations 1760 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee So, were you there with SNCC? Yes, I was on the staff for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Avery describes her involvement with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.) Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.) 1811 Bombing of Sixteenth Street Baptist Church And, they were killed right after I got out of jail up in Danville. Avery discusses her experience of the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. African Americans--Civil rights ; Birmingham (Ala.) Sixteenth Street Baptist Church (Birmingham, Ala.) 1911 Family Response to Movement Involvement How did your family feel about what you were doing? I mean, they let you come home and rest here. Well, I didn't tell them everything I was doing all the time. Avery describes her mom's reaction to her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. African American families African Americans--Civil rights 2004 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference Yes, and I want us to talk about those places as much as you want to, but I wonder if you can tell me more about why you think there never was a SNCC chapter here. I don't think it was a SNCC chapter here because I don't think SNCC was ever asked to come in, or anything like that. Avery discusses the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Southern Christian Leadership Conference ; Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.) African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 2207 Experiences Being Jailed Well, get back to the trajectory you were on, about your life and your story, that I keep interrupting you. That's okay. It's fine. Avery describes her experiences with going to jail. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States African Americans--Civil rights 2377 Voter Registration Efforts So, why did you go to Mississippi? What was the job that you went to do? Avery discusses her voter registration efforts in Mississippi. African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; Voter registration--United States African Americans--Civil rights 2714 Experiences in Rural Communities Okay. Well, tell me about rural Alabama. Working in rural Alabama. Because, you were a city girl. You had been in Birmingham and Pittsburgh. Avery reflects on experiences in the rural Southeast. African Americans--Civil rights African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 3041 Reflecting on Ella Baker Well, can you tell me one of your favorite Ella Baker stories? About being with her- Avery shares a story of working with Ella Baker. Baker, Ella, 1903-1986 African Americans--Civil rights 3291 Current Projects & ; Lifelong Learning And, what are you doing these days? I'm telling stories. Avery discusses her current engagement with museums and storytelling, as well as learning and sharing the history of African Americans in the U.S. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--History ; Slavery--United States--History African Americans--Southern States 4284 Demonstration on Bloody Sunday And, Bloody Sunday, I was arrested on Bloody Sunday. Avery describes participating in the demonstration on Bloody Sunday, and being arrested. African Americans--Civil rights African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States 4497 Message for Future Generations What else do you want to say to people who will find this a while from now? Avery shares a message for future generations. African Americans African Americans--Civil rights 4806 Reflection on Life, Heritage, and Identity So, what I'm thinking is, that some of my people probably were part of ... they never talked about it. Avery discusses her identity, heritage, and the history of African Americans. African Americans--History ; African Americans--Race identity ; African Americans--Southern States ; Armed Forces--African Americans ; convict leasing African Americans--Race identity Oral History Annie Pearl Avery discusses her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement after returning to Birmingham at the age of 14. From trying to join the Freedom Riders to marching on Bloody Sunday, she demonstrated and was arrested in both Alabama and Georgia throughout the 1960s. Annie details her involvement with SNCC and the future of activism. AVERY: When I' ; m talking to you, should I look at the camera? ANDERSON: Um ... AVERY: Yeah, I can kind of- ANDERSON: You can look at me. You' ; ll [crosstalk 00:00:13]- AVERY: Well, I' ; ll be looking at you, but I also can be looking at ... I didn' ; t know whether you needed me to look at the camera, or not. I can be looking at you both. It doesn' ; t matter. ANDERSON: I wonder why it' ; s [crosstalk 00:00:23]- AVERY: From where the camera' ; s sitting, and where you going to be sitting, I can see. AVERY: You know I do better when I seem like I' ; m telling a story. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And, then- ANDERSON: Well, that' ; s exactly what I want you to do. All I want to say up front is that I' ; m Laura Anderson, and today is Tuesday, June 3rd, 2014, and I am here with the famous Annie Pearl Avery at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. And, we want to thank you for taking the time to come here and tell some stories. AVERY: Okay. ANDERSON: Thank you. So, you were born here in Birmingham? AVERY: Yes, I was born in [inaudible 00:01:19] here in Birmingham. I always like to, kind of, start my story off telling about when I was real young ; I think about nine or ten years old. And, I had an aunt in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania that ... her husband had passed, and she wanted someone to come stay with her. So, I ... My mother had four of us. My mother decided to share me. And, I stayed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a while, there. And then, I was back in Birmingham at 14. But, on the way up to Pittsburgh, something happened, and it really didn' ; t resonate until about three years ago, what my aunt meant when we got to Cincinnati ... that' ; s what they call the Mason--Dixon line. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And, we were the only people on the bus ... We were the first ones to get on the bus, and she say, " ; You can sit anywhere you want. So, I took off and found me a seat on the back of the bus. And, I finally realized that she wasn' ; t telling me to just choose a seat. She was telling me I could sit anywhere I want. But now, you remember now, I' ; m a little girl, and I know about all this ... not really know ... I' ; m accustomed to going to the back of the bus. But, there was no sign, or anything ; but I still went to the back of the bus, because I had been conditioned to go to the back of the bus. I realize now, I had been conditioned to go to the back of the bus. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: But anyway, I' ; m back in Birmingham at 14, and Reverend Shuttlesworth was here trying to ... he, and Reverend Billups, and Reverend Oliver, and Reverend Phifer ... all of these people. They were trying to integrate Phillips High School with their children. And, I didn' ; t get the opportunity to really meet them until later on, when the Freedom Riders came. And, I said if the Freedom Riders came, I was going to go with them, because they were young people. They said young people were leading the sit-ins and the Freedom Ride. So, I said I wanted to go ... if they come to Birmingham, I' ; m going with them. So, when they- ANDERSON: And, how old were you? AVERY: 16 going on 17. And, when they said they were coming to Birmingham, I went down to the Greyhound bus station and bought me a ticket to go to Montgomery with them. That' ; s as far as I could afford to go. So, I was going to go to Montgomery with them. And, we get to ... And, I was really ecstatic. I was excited, really excited. And, they get to Anderson, Alabama, and the bus is blown up in Anderson. And, the people are beaten. And, when they got to Birmingham, they were being beaten at the Trailway bus station, but I had a ticket for the Greyhound bus station. And, a young lady ... my neighbor ... was one of my neighbors ... she and I decided to walk down together, and she told me, she said, " ; Reverend Abernathy' ; s my uncle." ; Her name is Candace Grimes. Said, " ; Reverend Abernathy' ; s my uncle." ; But, he wasn' ; t that important at the time. You know, he wasn' ; t that famous. She was just telling me somebody that was a relative of hers was involved. AVERY: And, we get down to the bus station, and they had it roped off, police line-like. The yellow tape. So, we couldn' ; t go across ... we would just muddle around. So, finally, she got bored and left. And, by happenstance, I met a young man by the name of Wilson Brown. And, Wilson Brown was sent down there by Reverend Shuttlesworth to welcome the Freedom Riders to Birmingham. And, he was the very first direct contact I made with anyone that was in the Civil Rights movement, to know it. And, I told him I wanted to go, and I had my own ticket. I told him I wanted to go, but at the same time, when I bought this ticket, I also bought me a knife. I was going to protect myself on the bus. And, Wilson said, " ; Well, you can' ; t go because you don' ; t understand the concept of nonviolence." ; Well, I had looked in the dictionary for it, but the word was not in the dictionary at the time. So, I asked him to explain it. He said, " ; Well, that' ; s when somebody hits you, you can' ; t hit them back." ; I said, " ; I don' ; t think I want to do that." ; So, I got a refund for my ticket. AVERY: And, a couple of weeks later, at the A.G. Gaston Lounge, Wilson walks in and walk over to me, and he said, " ; How would you like to go to a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee meeting in Atlanta? And, I thought about it. I said, " ; Well, I want to learn more about the Civil Rights movement, and I' ; m going to get the opportunity to go to Atlanta. I' ; ve never been to Atlanta before. And then, I' ; m going to go free." ; So, I left my knife at home. ANDERSON: Good. AVERY: And, everything is history after that. I detoured from the nonviolent workshops, though. ANDERSON: Tell me, what do you think led you in that direction? What attracted you to what was going on? AVERY: I don' ; t know. It could have been living in Pittsburgh for so long, and being away from this. You know, it' ; s a funny thing, that once a slave' ; s been free, they don' ; t want to be slaves anymore. And, it was different in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That might have been it. To come back into a situation, you see ... That might have been what ... I can' ; t really tell you. ANDERSON: So, you don' ; t have memories from school, or from growing up, of reading things, or hearing things- AVERY: Well, I didn' ; t even ... We didn' ; t hear very much. Remember, now, the curriculum didn' ; t have a lot about history in it. And, being a kid, these things weren' ; t that important ; at nine or ten years old. And then, when I get to Pittsburgh, things changed. The kids that I' ; m playing with, they say, " ; Well, you don' ; t have to say ' ; yes sir and yes ma' ; am' ; . You respond by saying ' ; yes or no' ; ." ; And, after I' ; m there, I adapt to my environment. I wasn' ; t riding in the back of the bus. I was going wherever I thought I wanted to go. But, I don' ; t know. It might have been the shock of coming back to Birmingham at 14 ; because see, I' ; m understanding a lot of things different than I was at nine or ten years old. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Sure. AVERY: You know, being mature ... I was maturing, and these things were happening. I had to ride the back of the bus again. I' ; m saying, it was just ... you know ... I had to go through ... I guess this is probably what prompt me. It might have been that one thing, it might have been several things. But, in hindsight now, I think that, that might have been one of the things, for sure. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Well, where did you go to school when you came back to Birmingham? AVERY: I was going to Lincoln Elementary, and then I went to Parker Knight School. ANDERSON: Okay. What did your family ... oh, man. What did your family do for a living? AVERY: Well, my mother and father were separated, but then, my dad changed tires. That' ; s what he did. He was not as literate. My mother had been a nurse. Before we were born, mom had been a nurse. ANDERSON: And, how many were in your family? How many children? AVERY: There were four of us. Two girls and two boys ... [died 00:11:45]. My dad had some children that were of another union. He had two girls. ANDERSON: And, where are you, in the age of the [crosstalk 00:12:03]- AVERY: I' ; m the oldest of all. ANDERSON: Ah, okay. They all looked up to you? AVERY: Well, I don' ; t know about that. Anyway, I' ; m the oldest. Do you want me to start where I was telling the story, or do you want me to go on? ANDERSON: Well, we' ; ll pick up at the Freedom Rides again. I do want you to tell it. But, I' ; m trying to set this in a context. So, you were living with your mother- AVERY: Yeah. ANDERSON: ... when you moved to Birmingham? And, you were the oldest? AVERY: Yes. ANDERSON: You had some brothers and sisters? AVERY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ANDERSON: And, you were in Knight School at Parker? AVERY: Yeah. ANDERSON: Okay. So, you got your refund. You didn' ; t take that Greyhound. AVERY: No. Not then, I didn' ; t take it. ANDERSON: Okay. AVERY: But, I left my knife at home. And, everything is history after that. I went to Atlanta. And, when I got to Atlanta to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee conference, I met the first decent white people that I knew. There might have been some in Birmingham, but I didn' ; t know them. I met Anne and Carl Braden. I met Bob Zellner, " ; Dottie" ; Miller, Penny Patch, Bill Hansen. I met other people, like, Julian Bond. I met Jim Forman. I met Bernard LaFayette. I met several other people. Charles McDougle was who was the chairman at the time, I think. I met a whole host of people. And, Miss Ella Baker. I met Miss Baker for the first time, and she happened to turn out to be one of my mentors ; she and Jim Forman. AVERY: After the first meeting ... Actually, we got in trouble on the way back to Birmingham. We had a young white girl that wanted to meet Reverend Shuttlesworth. Well, I wanted to meet him, too, because I hadn' ; t ever met him before. You know, I' ; d heard about him, but never met him personally. And, we started back to Birmingham, and we got lost and ended up in Marietta, Georgia. And, there was a bus station ... during that time, Marietta was real small ... real small town. And, we went in the bus station to try to get some directions. And, they spotted the white girl with us. And, during that time, if you were in a mixed group, you were considered part of the Civil Rights movement. That was a signal that you were part of ... And, they wouldn' ; t tell us anything. They were really rude to us. AVERY: And, we got back in the car, and we started out again, still going in the wrong direction. And, the police was following us. So, what they did is, they charged Wilson with speeding and arrested him. Made him drive the car back to the police station. Now, the police station was only about a block away from the bus station. Now, we' ; re at this point ... There was another young man with us named Nathaniel Lee. He' ; s Reverend Nathaniel Lee, now. And, now we' ; re on foot with no car, and Wilson' ; s in jail, and it was getting dark. And, we thought about finding a black community, but we didn' ; t know where to look. In Marietta, we didn' ; t know where to look. But anyway, we got ... When I looked down the road, around the street, and I saw the bus station again, I said, " ; Let' ; s go to the bus station." ; That' ; s the only thing I knew, was the bus station. So, we went to the bus station. When we walked in, they told us we had to leave ; that we couldn' ; t stay. And, my instincts said, " ; Let' ; s buy some tickets." ; So, that made us customers. And, we had to go back ... We felt like we were going to have to go to Atlanta by bus, anyway ... back to Atlanta. That' ; s where we bought tickets, to go back to Atlanta. Not to come to Birmingham, because we were closer to Atlanta. AVERY: We called the SNCC office and told somebody what our situation was. And then, things began to happen. Things were happening, anyway, because the bus station started getting full of a mob. It filled up with a racist mob. And, in the meantime, there was three telephone booths there. You know, during that time they had telephone booths. And, we were going to take refuge in the booths. And, when we used the phone to call the SNCC office, we gave them the number of one of the phones ; so, they were calling us. But, during that time, they had a switchboard. And, the Associated Press started calling us about every 15 to 20 minutes, asking us, Were we okay? And, I guess they got that from the SNCC office, that we were there, and that we were in danger, and that Wilson was in jail. And, I' ; m almost sure that the fact that the Associated Press was calling there, was bothering these people. It probably kept us from getting hurt any sooner. Of course, if we had been there all night, we probably would have. If we had had to stay in that bus station all night, it would' ; ve been murder, because there was nothing in there but white males calling us niggers, and nigger-lovers. It just went on, and on, and on. And, they were getting worse, and worse. They had sticks and stuff. We thought we were going to get killed in there. AVERY: But, in the meantime, other things were working. They got Howard Moore, Attorney Howard Moore, and someone, I think, from Justice Department, or somebody from the State Department. They knew some ... It might have been LeRoy ... Senator Leroy Johnson, I believe was Senator at that time. But anyway, somebody made some moves, and they came there with Howard Moore to get Wilson out of jail. And, they took us back to Atlanta, and told us to wait until daylight. But, that was one of the times ... it was one of the most frightening times ... I said one of them. One of the most frightening times in my career of being a Civil Rights activist. ANDERSON: Was that the first time that- AVERY: Yes. ANDERSON: ... you really felt the- AVERY: Yeah, I' ; m saying, it was really ... they were really ... You could tell these people were not playing. They were really about being brutal. And, we had nowhere to go. Where were we going to go? ANDERSON: Well, that didn' ; t scare you away from the movement. AVERY: No, everything was history after that. I ended up in jail in Albany, Georgia. When I got back here, and I met Reverend Shuttlesworth, I met him in his pajamas. He was in his pajamas that morning when we got back. And, after that, they took me down to the ... what is that ... I think it was the Woolworths, or Kress' ; , or something ; the " ; five and dime" ; store, to sit at the lunch counter. And, I hadn' ; t quite gotten adjusted to this nonviolent thing, so. I' ; m sitting there, and this guy is going down the counter pouring ketchup and spitting on us. And, I said, " ; Well ...," ; I kind of get ... and Reverend Shuttlesworth said, " ; Come here, I want you to stand here beside me. You haven' ; t been indoctrinated enough." ; And, I stood there beside ... I said, " ; I' ; d like to go back up there." ; He said, " ; No, I want you to stand right here beside me." ; Yeah. ANDERSON: He was afraid you were going to hurt one of those guys? AVERY: Well, I don' ; t know about hurting somebody, but I really didn' ; t ... I really wasn' ; t ready for being spit on at this point. I' ; m new into this thing, so this ... ANDERSON: [inaudible 00:22:31] ever being ready. AVERY: Yeah. But, I ended up being in all of the major activities in the Civil Rights movement during the ' ; 60s. I was in Albany, Georgia. I was arrested there. I went to Americus, Georgia to help work on voter registration there. I went to ... I was arrested right here in Birmingham. And, what happened, they sent me on a decoy march. By this time, SCLC had came in, and Reverend Wyatt Tee Walker was one of my mentors. He was with the SCLC, but he was one of my mentors. And, he sent me on this decoy demonstration. I couldn' ; t figure out what was going on. There was just a handful of us. And, I think we were arrested right there were the old post office used to be. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And then later on, a larger demonstration came that was a surprise. I went on the decoy. I guess I' ; m supposed to ... we were trying to throw them off, because once we had a march and demonstrated and it was over, we didn' ; t do another one, you see. And, they were really surprised when the other one came. One of my friends had said she wasn' ; t going. She say, " ; You going to jail?" ; I said, " ; Yeah, I' ; m going with them." ; So, on the second march, she came. And, I got a feeling that ... She made the statement, " ; I didn' ; t want to be out there by myself." ; So, what I' ; m thinking is, that all of the people who were going, and she was the only one holding out, she decided she didn' ; t want to be the one that was holding out. Because, when she showed up in jail, I said, " ; What you doing here? I thought you weren' ; t going." ; " ; I decided I didn' ; t want to be out there by myself." ; I said, " ; Okay." ; AVERY: And, I was in Guest in Alabama. I tried to finish the William Moore march. I wasn' ; t there long, out there on the road. I think I was about 15 minutes, and they picked me up. But anyway- ANDERSON: How many were in your group that did that? Were you by yourself? AVERY: Well, I was the first one ... I was by myself. ANDERSON: Okay. AVERY: And then, a day later ... 24 hours, or so, later ... Diane Nash and three other young ladies, and some fellows came. And, matter of fact, one of the movie stars ... Madeleine Sherwood ... but, they bonded her out. She was the one played in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. ANDERSON: Oh. AVERY: The pregnant one that stayed pregnant all the time, in the Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. Madeleine Sherwood, I' ; ll never forget her. I think she was bonded out right away. I' ; m not sure, but I think one of the reasons is, she was white, and then, being the only person that was white, and being female, they wanted to get her out of there. You know, they don' ; t want to leave ... But, we had ... there was Diane Nash, and two other young ladies from Birmingham that were in jail with us. And then, I think there was four or five fellows. But, this is different than her being there alone. But anyway, we stayed in jail about six weeks, or so ; maybe ten. We ended up ... They finally took us to Wetumpka, the women' ; s prison, and took the men to Kilby. There was something about a threat. Somebody was ... it was a threat ... coming in and take us out ... do us in. AVERY: But, I worked in Gadsden, Alabama after that for a long time. I worked there. I was cattle-prodded there by the State Patrol, and the police. Arrested several times. I can' ; t remember how many times. And, then I was in demonstrations in Tennessee. I was arrested in Danville, Virginia several times. One of the times, I served 90 days for contempt of court. That' ; s the only time I ever served. I served those 90 days because the judge refused to set a bond, or either allow us to be released. It was two of us, and what happened is, he would sleep when we showed up for court for one of our cases. And, the courtroom was full of us, and ... Matthew Jones and myself. He later on became the director of the Freedom Singers. AVERY: But, Matthew and I were there. When Matthew showed up ... and we were out in the hall talking. So, finally, we walked inside, and the judge asleep. I said, " ; Matthew, this man asleep." ; He really don' ; t intent to hear anything related to what was wrong. So, we did what we called ... we walked right up to the podium and just fell out. And, one of the ... what they called it ... the Deputy Sheriffs, he said ... and, the judge said, " ; What' ; s wrong with them?" ; He said, " ; That' ; s what they call ' ; going limp,' ; Your Honor." ; And, he got so angry. And the lawyers could not get ... I' ; ll never forget the lawyers. It was Mr. and Mrs. Wood. It was a husband and wife attorney, that did our work in Dansville, Virginia. ANDERSON: So, were you there with SNCC? AVERY: Yes, I was on the staff for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. ANDERSON: Well, I need you to tell me about SNCC and Birmingham, because not many people talk about SNCC being in Birmingham. They talk about SCLC and ACMHR, and - AVERY: We didn' ; t have a chapter here. That was what it was. There was no chapter here, but there were people who came into Birmingham to participate. Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson. There were several people came in. Julian and all of them came, especially when the children were killed. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And, they were killed right after I got out of jail up in Danville. The project director had told me to come home and get a break, because I had been in solitary confinement for this 90 days, and on a fast. And, I came in that night, and I went in and went to bed. And, at that time we were living on 1st Street West. And, we heard the explosion. And, I thought it was Arthur Shores' ; house, because they were always blowing his house up ; which was not too far away. Because, that was the Smithfield area. And, I walked all the way up here. We couldn' ; t get across because of the police line. And, within three or four hours, or so, there were a lot of people here. Julian Bond. Several other people had came in because of the death of the children. And, it was really hurting for me. Just like I say, I had just gotten out of jail. And, the bomb was what really awakened me that morning. That' ; s what awakened me that morning. ANDERSON: How did your family feel about what you were doing? I mean, they let you come home and rest here. AVERY: Well, I didn' ; t tell them everything I was doing all the time. When something showed up in the newspaper, or something, with my name on it, some of the people who knew my mother would tell her. We weren' ; t able to buy newspapers, and subscribe to Jet, and all that stuff. But, they would tell her. And, she knew I was doing it, but I would not tell her when I was going into a situation, because I didn' ; t want her to worry about it. " ; It' ; s okay." ; She found out about it, and it happened. I' ; m okay. But, I would not tell her. And, she got tired of that and started marching and going to jail herself so she could get first-hand information, I guess. ANDERSON: That' ; s pretty good. AVERY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, she started marching and going to jail herself. I was also in Mississippi. I was in Clarksdale, Mississippi working on voter registration when Chaney, Schwerner, and Goodman were murdered. And, I ended up in Natchez, Mississippi, also. ANDERSON: I [crosstalk 00:33:21]- AVERY: And Selma. ANDERSON: Yes, and I want us to talk about those places as much as you want to, but I wonder if you can tell me more about why you think there never was a SNCC chapter here. AVERY: I don' ; t think it was a SNCC chapter here because I don' ; t think SNCC was ever asked to come in, or anything like that. I don' ; t really know for sure, except that there was no chapter here. And, there are several places where there was no SNCC chapter ; which had nothing really to do with not wanting to come. I guess, just by happenstance, that SCLC was here, and all these other organizations came in. Of course, NAACP had always been around for a long time. Long before SCLC, or SNCC, or any of this stuff. The SCLC ... But, SCLC came in, I think that was something that started out of the Alabama Christian movement. I think that, kind of, somewhere along in there, is where the SCLC came into play. And, a lot of people didn' ; t know it, that Miss Baker was, I think, the first Executive Director for the SCLC. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And, she decided to take the young people under her wings. But, I don' ; t really know, to tell the truth. I really don' ; t know. But, wherever we were, we worked together. If we weren' ; t friends, we became friends. You spend enough time in jail, and being threatened ... your life ... and you will become friends. ANDERSON: I' ; m sure. Well, tell me about all that work you did after Birmingham, when you went to- AVERY: Oh, another thing about SCLC ... SCLC was mostly ministers, too. The younger group was not ministers- ANDERSON: Oh, yeah [crosstalk 00:36:18]- AVERY: ... necessarily. That- ANDERSON: I' ; m well aware of differences between the organizations. I' ; ve always found it fascinating that there was no SNCC chapter here, and I just wondered ... You helped me by what you said. AVERY: I hope I did, because I didn' ; t ... I really didn' ; t think it made that much difference. I never thought of it in terms of who was here. But, I worked with ... I' ; m from Birmingham. I had to work here, for real, because this is my home. ANDERSON: Well, get back to the trajectory you were on, about your life and your story, that I keep interrupting you. AVERY: That' ; s okay. It' ; s fine. ANDERSON: I' ; ll just be playing with this for a minute. How long did you rest, anyway? Church got bombed, and- AVERY: I didn' ; t rest very much, except when I was in jail. ANDERSON: I can believe that. AVERY: That' ; s when I' ; d rest. When they put me in jail, that' ; s when I' ; d rest. Had plenty of rest. Wasn' ; t comfortable, but I' ; m saying, it was rest. ANDERSON: Well, I can see why you' ; d say that, but, I doubt you wanted to go to jail. I don' ; t know. Tell me about [crosstalk 00:37:43]- AVERY: Well, at this point I think I didn' ; t mind going to jail. I thought it was the thing we had to do, you know? When I was coming up, you know, breaking the law was ... But, I' ; m saying, I found out that you had to break the laws that were unjust in order to change them. And, that' ; s what I did. And, if it took going to jail, and sometimes risking my life, I had to make a decision if I was going to put myself in really harm' ; s way, I had to make a decision. And, once I made the decision, if whatever happens, happens. That' ; s about the bottom line, there. And, I think all of us did, really. Because, I was afraid, you know? But, being afraid, and then I made a decision. Well, in spite of my fear, I' ; m going to do this. And, once I decided to do it, I was more relaxed in doing it, because I had made a decision, and I knew what the risks were. ANDERSON: So, why did you go to Mississippi? What was the job that you went to do? AVERY: To try to get people registered to vote. I had been working all along with the Civil Rights movement, so I decided ... They needed people. They said they needed some people in Mississippi, so I decided to go to Mississippi. I was in Clarksdale, Mississippi first. And, I brought people from the orientation down to Clarksdale with me for the Mississippi Freedom Summer. And, after that I went to Natchez, Mississippi, where it was very dangerous there, too. Friends of mine say that, " ; You liked it hot." ; I guess I did. ANDERSON: Did you become a trainer? Were you training some of those students who came? AVERY: I had a group that I brought to Clarksdale with me, but a lot of my training was done training other people. I guess you couldn' ; t say it was training. It was also discipline, because I had gotten the discipline, especially in jail. Then, I was able to pass it on to other people. Because, I realized once we were in jail, we had all kind of problems in there, too. There are people in jail who are in here for some serious stuff, so we need to stick together. Another thing is, sometimes people would get in jail, and they' ; d break down and cry. I' ; d say, " ; If you got to cry, to in the closet somewhere and cry. Don' ; t ... " ; Because, if they found out that they can intimidate us like this, even the other prisoners will intimidate us. You understand what I' ; m saying? We had cigarettes, and sometimes people would bring things to us ; bring us stuff. And, one time we had to have money, because they were arresting us for vagrancy. And, one time people in SNCC and CORE were not getting paid, and they couldn' ; t deal with this stuff, with people doing all this stuff and not getting ... There was no way to stop it. And, they forced SNCC and CORE to pay people. ANDERSON: Who are ' ; they' ; ? AVERY: I' ; m thinking the government. Part of whoever ... because, either the cities, or whatever, they say that you to have a job. Vagrancy. We didn' ; t have money. And, we were arrested for vagrancy. ANDERSON: In Alabama? AVERY: In Alabama, and Mississippi, and Georgia, too ; and several places. This law was used ... Say, for instance, if you didn' ; t have any money, and you didn' ; t have a job ... A lot of us, after this thing came up ... this issue came up ... we would have at least $.50 cents on us to keep from getting arrested. A lot of times, we couldn' ; t stay with people, because people were afraid. Sometimes we ended up spending a night or two in the car. And, if they stopped us, and we didn' ; t have any money, they also ... even if we had somewhere to stay, we didn' ; t have any money. And vagrancy ... I think the vagrancy law is still on the books everywhere. It means if you don' ; t have a job, or can prove that you are working, you a vagrant. So, we started getting ... what was it ... $10 dollars ... The big sum of $10 dollars ... I think it was $10 dollars every two weeks, or something like that, or $10 dollars a week ... whatever. It wasn' ; t- ANDERSON: You were on the payroll. AVERY: Yeah, I' ; m saying that legally, we were on a payroll. So, the vagrancy law, they couldn' ; t use against us. Of course, they' ; d use whatever else they felt like using. Even if they arrested us for vagrancy, the lawyers would come in ... Most of the stuff got appealed. The only thing that was on appealable was that contempt of court. I had to serve those 90 days. But, everything else was appealed and thrown out later on, by the higher courts. I don' ; t have a criminal record. ANDERSON: Okay. Well, tell me about rural Alabama. Working in rural Alabama. Because, you were a city girl. You had been in Birmingham and Pittsburgh. AVERY: Well, rural anywhere was ... was different for me. The only thing about it being rural ... It was certain things I could do. I could talk to the people, and stuff like this. But, there were times when some of the people would ... and, SNCC would go out and pick cotton. I couldn' ; t deal with that cotton picking stuff. I' ; ll wash some dishes to eat, but I ain' ; t going [inaudible 00:46:16] picking cotton. I' ; m a city girl. ANDERSON: That' ; s what I was thinking. You were a city girl. AVERY: But, the people who live there is different. I' ; m a city girl. I didn' ; t change from that at all. There were some people who did some things, you know, that ... I guess it was unusual. They wanted to do it, so they did. But, sometimes we had to stay with people, and we had to help them do whatever they had to do. But, I had to help do something else besides the cotton picking, and stuff like that. ANDERSON: Well, when' ; s the first time you went to a rural community? AVERY: The first time I went to a rural community was Georgia. My folks came from a rural community ... my mother ... and my dad. ANDERSON: Where? AVERY: So, we would visit. ANDERSON: Where were they from? AVERY: Akron, Alabama. Daddy was from Alexander City, Alabama. That' ; s about it. Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Tuscaloosa wasn' ; t as rural, but it got more rural as you went into Akron, which I think is 20 miles away ... 20 miles from Tuscaloosa. And, we thought that was a big deal for us, when we were kids. I' ; m saying, it' ; s just like we went to Chicago. So, rural areas ... I wasn' ; t that comfortable with being in rural areas. But, I did what I had to do. ANDERSON: Yeah, it struck me that you have spent a good bit of time in areas like that, organizing the- AVERY: Well, I spent a time ... most of my time doing Civil Rights activists, even in Atlanta. I stayed in Atlanta for 30-something years, and I was organizing cab drivers over there. So, I pretty much stayed involved. I was in the taxi cab business, but I was trying to organize cab drivers, too. ANDERSON: Organize them around what? What issues- AVERY: Unity, and stuff like this. Bogus traffic violations, and stuff. And, I' ; m not sure I understood ... it was something ... And, this is from some older cab drivers, older people who were in the taxi business said something about there was a cab driver who ... Now, don' ; t quote me, because this could not be true. Because I' ; d never researched it, but it could' ; ve been. Said that a cab driver ran over Margaret Mitchell and killed her. If that' ; s true ... And, they haven' ; t liked cab drivers since. And, I' ; m not sure whether he was a black cab driver. He might have been. Because, the hostility was directed towards mostly black cab drivers. But, I' ; m not sure that that' ; s true. I' ; m quite sure you can probably find out whether Margaret Mitchell was ... She wrote Gone with the Wind. Yeah. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). My mother was named Melanie because of that book. AVERY: Yeah. That' ; s what I heard, now. And, that was the story. Now, whether it' ; s true or not ... I never did try to find out. ANDERSON: Well, let' ; s try to find out. Well, can you tell me one of your favorite Ella Baker stories? About being with her- AVERY: Oh, my favorite Ella Baker story is, I was trying to put something together, and I asked Miss Baker to help me. And, she told me she would not do it. So, I asked her why, because I ... you know, I got kind of frustrated. I said, " ; Well, I wonder why?" ; So, I went back and asked her why. She say, " ; You have to do it for yourself." ; And, I understand that, now. Because, if she had did it for me, I would have always been asking someone else to help me. I might not have ever did it myself, but I feel like I can do anything myself, just about. I need a little assistance every once in a while, but I believe it can be done. I might not be able to do it as well as some other people, but I' ; m saying I believe I can do it. Like, the computer. I don' ; t know ... I' ; m behind technology. I can barely deal with the cell phone, but you don' ; t hear it ringing because I ... Only thing I can do is answer and call out on it. If someone texts me, they just in trouble. If you got a message for me, if it' ; s important, I won' ; t get it. But, anyway, I' ; m working on that, too. Now, I might not be able to do as well as some other folks, but I might be able to get the basics. ANDERSON: I believe it. AVERY: I know how to erase calls off of my cell phone. ANDERSON: That' ; s good. AVERY: But, it took some time for me to do this. It took a little time for me to do this. Yeah. ANDERSON: But, you aren' ; t afraid. AVERY: No. But, I' ; m saying, Miss Baker ... the fact that she would not help me ... I' ; m glad she didn' ; t, now. I' ; m glad she didn' ; t. And, I also thought that she had to be a pretty strong person to do what she did, especially ... And then, the male chauvinists, and stuff, they never gave her credit for a lot of stuff. She was around before SCLC ever came about. When I met her, she had probably already dedicated, maybe 25 years of her life to Civil Rights. ANDERSON: What do you think she would say about the commemorative events that we' ; ve all been pulling together, and celebrating, and focusing on for the last couple of years? AVERY: It' ; s not over yet. And, I remember her saying something. You know, you got to agitate, agitate, agitate, because it' ; s not going away. Injustice is not going away. And, that' ; s something that stays with me. ANDERSON: How does it influence what you' ; re doing these days? AVERY: Well- ANDERSON: And, what are you doing these days? AVERY: I' ; m telling stories. I' ; m at the Ancient Africa Civil War and Slavery Museum in Selma. During the week, I' ; m there at that museum from 1:00 to 5:00, and I' ; m there telling stories. And, I' ; m telling stories about what I did, but I' ; m also learning something there. Because, I knew very little about Africa. I' ; m not a historian. I knew very little about Africa. I knew very little about the Civil War. But, I' ; m learning a lot of things, because there are a lot of historians that do come through there. And, then, I' ; m having to learn everything ... when I take the people on the tour, I have to know certain things in order to be effective when I do the tour. It' ; s not perfect, but then, there are people who ... historians, archeologists, anthropologists, that' ; ll come through there, and I' ; m learning a whole lot from them. It' ; s just like being in school, too, at the same time. AVERY: It' ; s more exciting ... Now, also, be over at the Voting Rights Museum there. But, I' ; m more excited about being at the Ancient African Slavery Museum, because I was a part of the voting rights ... all the stuff that happen at the Voting Rights Museum, I knew just about all the people that were involved. I knew Jim Lawson. And, he was the one that taught Martin Luther King about nonviolence. See, all of this stuff I know, and I knew the people. But, what I' ; m learning at the Ancient African Slave and Civil War Museum, I' ; m having to revive a whole lot of things in my mind. Regroup, because there' ; s a lot of things that I didn' ; t know. And, there' ; s one thing that I' ; m trying to work on now, it' ; s a project. Slavery by Another Name. Convict leasing. ANDERSON: Those vagrancy laws. AVERY: Yeah, but I' ; m just finding out, see, that they were doing ... this was something they did all the time. And, not only that, I wasn' ; t aware of the Slavery by Another Name ... of being re-enslaved after the emancipation. So, I' ; m working on a timeline to go up in the museum, there. Because, after emancipation, you don' ; t hear about it. Everybody talk about anything else. But, there was something much more brutal, and much worse than what happened before the emancipation. Because, what I' ; m seeing is, that if a person paid $200 dollars for a slave ... if you hurt yourself, they might want to see about it. But, convict leasing, it was some ... that was some terrible stuff. It was worse than the chattel slavery. I guess that' ; s what you call it, chattel slavery. It was worse, because there was no human element in that at all. You hurt? Keep on working. You had to meet a quota, it don' ; t matter. Living in their own feces, and germs, and ... it had to be rather ... And then, people dying from ... what is it ... tuberculosis. And, the fact that a lot of these big companies were involved in that. AVERY: Now, they don' ; t want to acknowledge it. They said, " ; We didn' ; t do it." ; But, they got rich. I found out that a whole bunch of people got rich off of this. People we wouldn' ; t even think about got rich, and are very prominent today. And, the fact that they don' ; t want to acknowledge ... See, you' ; ve got to first, admit that there' ; s a problem, or there' ; s been a problem, because that alone ... that many years of the convict leasing laws ... retarded our progress. We began to do better during reconstruction, but then, when the convict leasing ... I' ; m saying, that just retarded and ... just set everything back so many years. Up until, what was it, in the 1929 ... somewhere in there ... where somebody became really concerned. And, also the fact that ... see, President Roosevelt, I understand ... See, that' ; s because I' ; ve been reading. I read a book every month, and sometime when I run into something like this, I have to put down the other book and go to read ... One book I was trying to read was How the North Prolonged, and Profited, and Promoted Slavery. Okay? So, I had to detour from that to do this. And, it was kind of hard for me to read that, because it' ; s hard to believe that a human would do this to another human. AVERY: And another thing is, it happened ... I was born in 1943, so some of this stuff pretty much had to been going on around then. My mother was born in 1911. She was born into some of this, and I don' ; t hear my people, older people in the family, have not talked about this. And, they had to know, but if you were in Alabama, or Mississippi, or something, you had to be aware of this. And, the putting people ... and, trickery, too. The deception that went along with this. And, the plantations, and stuff. The people who made money. I mean, a lot of money. The cotton farms. All these people who made a lot of money. And, I think there was ... seemingly, there was a couple of white guys who got some stuff done to them in the re-enslavement, and that' ; s what drawed somebody' ; s attention to ... Because, see, the thing about this is, if Chaney had been murdered, and nobody murdered but him, he' ; d just been another dead black man. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: If Jimmie Lee Jackson had been killed, and there wasn' ; t Reverend Reeb, or Miss Viola Liuzzo, they' ; d just been some dead black people during that period. Because, there was several people among ... Reading about Senator Hurst who killed Mr. Herbert Lee. And, the only way I knew about Mr. Herbert Lee, they were talking about him at my first SNCC meeting. They were talking about Mr. Herbert Lee, who had just been murdered. It was 1961. At first SNCC conference I went to. And then, they were talking about Clyde Kennard, who tried to enter the University of Ole Miss before Meredith did, and was arrested for stealing a sack of chicken feed, and stayed in jail for years before Dick Gregory finally raised money to get him out of jail before he died. Now, I' ; m thinking about all the people that we don' ; t know about. I' ; m saying, why would a Senator be involved in murder? Senator Eastland was, too. AVERY: The thing is, there was no consequences for these people, and that' ; s the reason voting is so important. Because, if it' ; s somebody you get in there, and you really don' ; t like them, you need to get them out. And, the only way to legally get them out, and to get them out the right way, really, is to vote them out. But, these people didn' ; t feel any fear about doing this stuff. There was no consequences for them. Black people weren' ; t voting in Mississippi. What difference did it make to them? These people weren' ; t voting. Who they care? They had nobody to be accountable to. And, that' ; s the reason they were so bold. But anyway, I hope I' ; m not talking too much. ANDERSON: No, it' ; s good. And, you' ; ve gone in the right direction that I wanted for closing. You know, what ... Today' ; s Primary day. Who' ; s voting today? AVERY: Yeah. Well, the thing about this is, it took a very long time before our people got to the point where they didn' ; t have fear of just walking in, trying to register. It took the Justice Department ... they had to literally come in and take over some of these places. But now, they got all kind of other ruses and other gimmicks- ANDERSON: [crosstalk 01:06:53] new things every day, aren' ; t they? AVERY: And see, my position is, that everyone should be allowed to vote, if you' ; re a citizen in the United States of America. If they' ; ve committed crimes, and you paid your dues, and they allow you to come out in society, you should be allowed to vote. Because, you paid your dues. Now, I' ; m not saying they ought to let everybody out, you know, because some folks ... [inaudible 01:07:27] can' ; t let them out. But, I' ; m just saying that this is ... But they include them in the citizen ... when they do the ... they include these people for taxes, and several reasons. Why can' ; t they vote? I have nothing against them if they want to vote in prison. You' ; re still citizens. But, with all the justice supposed to be ... And, we shouldn' ; t have to have things to go vote. You shouldn' ; t have to have IDs, and ... it' ; s something else, you know, in the back. They had to have an ID years ago, for the reconstruction. They had to have Freedmen' ; s papers and some other mess. It' ; s been one thing after the other, and don' ; t mention the blacks. I' ; m saying, it was like, you had to either ... you had to own property. That was one of the criteria. ANDERSON: And pay a poll tax. AVERY: Pay a poll tax. Be educated. And, when I say be educated, you had to repeat parts of the Constitution. And, guess how many bubbles was in a bar of soap, and how many marbles was in a jar, [inaudible 01:08:55]. I' ; m saying, this is ridiculous. It is not quite the same thing, but the ruses that are being used, and the gimmicks that are being used, are being used for the same reason. That' ; s it. The same. The bottom line. You being used for the same purpose. That' ; s to derail a vote in their favor, whichever. ANDERSON: I' ; m so glad that you are just still doing what you do. AVERY: Well, I' ; m still registering people to vote. I' ; m still doing all kind ... I' ; m still marching. Well, put it like this, I' ; m not marching. I' ; m going to demonstrations [inaudible 01:09:43]. And also, I was at the March on Washington. That was ahead of Poor People' ; s March. March on Washington. Yeah. There' ; s so many things that ... sometime I forget. But- ANDERSON: And, you' ; re living in Selma now. You didn' ; t come home to Birmingham, you [crosstalk 01:10:08]- AVERY: Well, really, I' ; m kind of still living in both, really. But, what happened is, I can' ; t afford to travel. But, in Selma I can see all the people that ... some of the people, like Julian, and other people. All those people come into Selma. And, I can see my friends that I used to work with. And, I can also meet other people that I didn' ; t know, because I don' ; t ... I didn' ; t know a lot of people who were in the areas where I worked, because if I didn' ; t live with them, I wouldn' ; t have known them. Like, I' ; m just getting to know some of the people in Selma who was there in 1965, but I didn' ; t live in Selma. I was Project Director for Voter Registration in Hale County where my people live. My aunts, my great aunts and stuff, live ... in Hale County. Yeah. AVERY: And, Bloody Sunday, I was arrested on Bloody Sunday. I happened to been the only person that was arrested that day. The police and I were having a physical disagreement. It was just one of those unusual things that I just happen to been arrested. And, actually I think it was a godsend that I was arrested, because I probably would have been hurt very badly, too. And, I remember them having me in jail on the 2nd floor, and I could hear people screaming, and all. And, I thought it was echo coming from the river, or whatever, but it wasn' ; t. It was people trying to ... they were beating the people all the way back to Brown' ; s Chapel and to the church, see. But, this is what I was hearing. In hindsight, when I got ... did I realize ... I kept hearing all this noise while I was in jail, and when we start talking about it, and you' ; re talking about people being beaten back to the church. And, I realized, geographically, where the church ... because, you see, I didn' ; t live in Selma. All this stuff was vague ... very, very vague ... later on. But, the fact that I could hear these people, that' ; s where the noise was coming from. It wasn' ; t coming from the bridge. It was coming from people trying to make it back to the church. AVERY: And, Peter Hall bonded me out of jail. Attorney Peter Hall. Out of his own pocket. I was the only one ... I guess he was rationalizing when he said, " ; She' ; s the only one in jail, so I' ; m not coming back down here to bond nobody out." ; So, he went on in his pocket, and bonded me out, because I wasn' ; t but one person that was locked up that day. ANDERSON: Did you want to be bonded out, or did you want to stay in there? AVERY: I didn' ; t think about it. Because see, that come from after doing this for a while. See, when you go to jail, you' ; re not supposed to think about when you' ; re going to get out. ANDERSON: So, you didn' ; t know that he was going to bond you out? AVERY: No, I had no clue. ANDERSON: Okay. AVERY: I had no clue. ANDERSON: [inaudible 01:14:00] AVERY: And, all of the times I went to jail, I didn' ; t worry about getting out. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: Whenever I got out, was whenever I got out, and I had to make myself at home inside the cell. I think the first time I went, I ... I kind of had to adapt, but I knew wasn' ; t nobody coming soon. And, the reality of it is, the more I kept going, the more I knew there wasn' ; t people ... it just ain' ; t going to happen just like that. You might stay in for days, and months, or whatever. ANDERSON: What else do you want to say to people who will find this a while from now? AVERY: I would say that ... to keep fighting against injustice. And, to ensure voting rights for everyone, and justice for everybody. And, it can be done in several ways. You don' ; t have to be a activist to do it. You can be a lawyer, or whatever ... a school teacher. But, whatever you' ; re in, if you see injustice, try to do something about it. Because, silence is a way of saying you agree. Yeah. ANDERSON: Well, thank you very, very much. AVERY: Oh, great. ANDERSON: You' ; ve got a lot of stories, yet, to tell. AVERY: Yeah. ANDERSON: If you ever want to come back and tell different stories, you would be most welcome, but I don' ; t want to keep you all [crosstalk 01:16:21]- AVERY: No, I' ; m fine. I' ; m fine. ANDERSON: Good. AVERY: Because, you don' ; t ... you know ... I always got stories because I' ; m always seek ... I' ; m curious, too. See, I' ; m always looking for something different. And, people come in the museum ... There was one guy, a white fellow came in, and his great-grandfather was killed in that Fort Pillow Massacre, I believe. It was the [inaudible 01:16:58] the Nathan B. Forrest. It was the Union soldiers, and all predominately black, but there were a few whites. I think it was a couple of whites in there, too, at this. And, he said that his great-grandfather was one of those people that was murdered. ANDERSON: There are details, and details ... and, that' ; s my big battle, here, as we memorialize this movement ; even as it' ; s still happening. AVERY: Mm-hmm (affirmative). ANDERSON: Details get buried. AVERY: Yeah. ANDERSON: And, I don' ; t like that, so- AVERY: Well, it' ; s going to be ... I' ; m saying, this stuff is going to go on for years, and years. What I see is, that some of the people don' ; t want to talk about it. And, when I think about where my husband was born, in Rigging' ; s Quarters here. That was probably ... and, I just thought about that, that it was called Rigging' ; s Quarters. ANDERSON: Where was that? AVERY: That' ; s what it' ; s called. It' ; s out, like, going toward ... going past north Birmingham, and going out 31 down to the right, down in there. Where the mines, and stuff, was. And, that speaks volumes, because that Rigging' ; s ... the fact that they call it Rigging' ; s Quarters means that it probably was one of those places where they kept some of those convicts. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: You know? Otherwise, why would they call it a Quarters? That' ; s what it' ; s been called for years and years. And, Tennessee Coal and Iron, United Steel, and all those folks, were involved in this. That was some cruel mess. Pratt. And, I didn' ; t realized ... I' ; m just saying that, by reading about it, and reading specifics. And, you know, some people say, " ; Well, I saw the movie." ; Well, the movie' ; s not going to be- ANDERSON: It doesn' ; t have those details. [crosstalk 01:19:36] AVERY: Details. It don' ; t have details. ANDERSON: It doesn' ; t. AVERY: I want details. ANDERSON: It' ; ll make you, maybe, feel something, but then you- AVERY: Yeah. ANDERSON: ... got to go read the [crosstalk 01:19:47]- AVERY: Read the details. And, that' ; s what made me think about ... because that' ; s right over the hill, here. It' ; s right in the middle. Pratt City, Ensley. ANDERSON: Full of- AVERY: So, what I' ; m thinking is, that some of my people probably were part of ... they never talked about it. The only thing I remember my grandfather is, I asked him about something that was wrong with his arm. And, he said it come from hard labor. That was the only statement he made about that. Nothing specific, or anything, except it come from the hard labor. And, by me being a child asking, I didn' ; t know about all this other stuff. And, my great uncles, and stuff. If I had known what I know now, I could have asked them some questions, just so I would know first-hand some things that happened. Because, all of these people were probably, somehow or another, connected with this. If they were living in the area, they had to be. It was so dominant. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: They couldn' ; t walk the street. But, I also understand something else, too. I understand why our people were always encouraging our young men to go in the Army. When they got a certain age, they wanted them to get away from here. ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: And, that was a way to get out of this, by going in the Army and never coming back south again. Of course, everyone wasn' ; t able to leave. You know, people left. There was one lady that came into the museum ; she and her husband. And, she said ... she asked me, she said, " ; Why didn' ; t they fight?" ; With what, you know? With what? They did fight. Some people did. I' ; m saying, there were probably people who fought this thing and died, but fight ... And, I see from the middle of the 1400s, up to 1775, before the American Revolution, that that' ; s when we lost most of the most important things that we needed to have some identity. Some real self-identity with Africa. We lost knowledge of our culture, we lost knowledge of our language, and the biggest thing was the connection. AVERY: Because, it was like I explained it to this friend of mine that' ; s white. I explained to her ... her great-grandfather was Winston Churchill. But, she can go to Europe and visit her folk. I can' ; t. Different people in the family will be named after some of those folk. My name is Annie Pearl. It wouldn' ; t be Annie Pearl if my people had known about Africa ... if they could have remembered that. It was no longer prevalent, anymore. There' ; s some people who remembered coming in from Africa. There might have been some people who did. There were some people that came in after the American Revolution that might remember, or either might remember some of their people, or just before the emancipation, or whatever. ANDERSON: [inaudible 01:24:16] AVERY: Yeah, they could have remembered, but what would my name be if my folk could have remembered? Because, right now, I' ; m named after two aunts. I' ; m named after Aunt Annabel and Aunt Pearl. But, their names would have been something else. It wouldn' ; t be Annie Pearl. And, that' ; s what we have now. We have people who are looking for identity. Our people right now are looking for identity. And, some people are getting educated about Africa, and stuff like this, but if I went to Africa, who am I going to visit, in terms of visiting. You know, you figure you going to visit your aunt, or going to visit some of your relatives. ANDERSON: You' ; re a few generations away from that now, huh? AVERY: Yeah, I' ; m just saying, who would I visit? ANDERSON: Mm-hmm (affirmative). AVERY: I might be able to find out which region I came from with DNA, because DNA is powerful. But, I wouldn' ; t be able to find out who my aunts, and who my ... Now, President Obama can, because he was born in another era, you see? And, I- ANDERSON: You never stop learning. I' ; m turning this off. AVERY: Okay. I hope you did turn it off. ANDERSON: No, I haven' ; t. AVERY: Oh, okay. ANDERSON: But, I just thank you. Thank you. AVERY: Yeah. But- This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Annie Pearl Avery
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Annie Pearl Avery discusses her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement after returning to Birmingham at the age of 14. From trying to join the Freedom Riders to marching on Bloody Sunday, she demonstrated and was arrested in both Alabama and Georgia throughout the 1960s. Annie details her involvement with SNCC and the future of activism.
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Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (U.S.)--1960-1970.
Freedom Rides, 1961
Civil rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham
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2014-06-03
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BCRI Oral History Project Collection
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Interviews collected as part of the general mission of the Oral History Project
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Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
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Oral History
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham
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Oral History
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Malena Cunningham
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Annetta Nunn
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5.3 December 13, 2006 Annetta Nunn Interviewed on December 13, 2006 20061213N 0:51:29 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department African American women Civil Rights movements--Alabama--Birmingham Birmingham (Ala.) Annetta Nunn Malena Cunningham Video 1:|18(9)|33(12)|49(13)|65(7)|81(3)|100(2)|116(3)|133(12)|151(7)|170(15)|185(10)|201(7)|218(7)|236(1)|250(13)|263(7)|280(3)|293(7)|310(12)|322(4)|335(1)|352(9)|364(2)|380(12)|395(3)|408(9)|423(6)|436(13)|453(4)|466(9)|482(13)|497(7)|508(2)|521(13)|534(7)|546(6)|560(3)|573(1)|586(1)|601(13)|619(5)|639(1)|652(17)|666(1)|680(3)|695(7)|706(13)|721(11)|737(12)|750(13)|762(16) 0 https://youtu.be/F1PyRYYcpi4 YouTube video English 0 Introduction to Interview Hello, I'm Malena Cunningham here with Birmingham police chief, Annetta Nunn, for the Female First series to learn more about African American women who've become first in their field. African American police chiefs ; African American women ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department African American women--Interviews 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 22 Early Family Life & ; Childhood I was born here in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in the Ensley area. Nunn describes her early upbringing in Birmingham, including her experience with family members and her early career ambitions. African American families ; Birmingham (Ala.) African American families 141 Childhood Memories of Civil Rights Movement You were born in 1958, so you grew up ... You were very young during the Civil Rights Movement. Do you remember any of that, and the police brutality, the black and white footage that's so famous here in Kelly Ingram park of the dogs and the water hoses, the bombing of the church? How much of that do you remember, and did any of that influence your life as a child? Nunn recalls her childhood memories of the Civil Rights Movement. She also describes experiences with racism as a child. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--Race identity ; African Americans--Segregation ; Racism African Americans--Civil rights 333 Decision to become a Police Officer You said when you were 14, that's when you knew you wanted to be a police officer. Did you express that to your parents, and then, with the Bull Connor era, and with folks maybe not being comfortable with the police department back in the '50s and '60s, what reaction did you get from your family when you told them you wanted to be one? Nunn describes telling her parents that she wanted to be a police officer, as well as her early perceptions of women in the police force. African American families ; African American women ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 440 College and Early Experiences in the Police Academy So, tell me about your college years. You left what high school in Birmingham? Nunn describes her high school and university experience as well as an early internship at the Birmingham City Jail. African Americans--Education ; African Americans--Education (Higher) ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 576 Experience as a Female, African American Officer Were you in a class with other black female officer candidates? Nunn describes her experience as an African American, female officer, including challenges she encountered while advancing in her career. African American police chiefs ; African American women ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Sexual harassment of women--United States ; Women police chiefs African American women ; Women police chiefs 930 Advancing in Career How quickly were you able to climb the ranks through the police department? Nunn describes her career and promotions in the police department. African American police ; African American police chiefs ; African American women ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Women police chiefs Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department 1006 Balancing Career & ; Family Being a police officer is a demanding job, it's also a dangerous job when you add on the beat, how were you able to have a career, and then also be a wife and a mother? Nunn describes how her faith, family and friends allowed her to balance her career and family life. African American families ; Police chiefs ; Women police chiefs Women police chiefs 1209 Becoming the First Woman Police Chief for Birmingham Well, in 2003, you made history when Mayor Bernard Kincaid appointed you the first woman to be police chief for the city of Birmingham. You weren't the first black, Johnny Johnson was the first African American. What was that like for you to have been named the first woman, and to make history in doing so? Nunn describes her personal reaction to becoming the first woman Police Chief for the City of Birmingham. African American civic leaders ; African American leadership ; African American police chiefs ; African American women ; African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Women police chiefs Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Women police chiefs 1829 Career Reflections & ; Legacy Think back to 1980 when you had that internship at the Birmingham jail, could you have ever imagined, or did you ever imagine then that, you will one day be running the entire department? Nunn looks back on her career and how she would like to be remembered. African American leadership ; African American police chiefs ; African American women ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Women police chiefs African American leadership 2045 Memorial Service and Singing In 2004, three of your officers were gunned down in the Ensley community, and we saw something about you publicly that we had not seen before at the memorial service, you sang. Are you now known as the singing police chief? Nunn discusses how three officers were killed, and the response to her singing at the memorial service. African Americans--Music ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Law enforcement African Americans--Music 2218 Sources of Leadership Inspiration Well, the last thing I want is to ask you is, what do you think have been the biggest inspirations in your life to get you to where you are today? Nunn describes individuals who have influenced her life and career. African American families ; African American leadership ; African American police ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Civil rights movement ; Shuttlesworth, Fred L., 1922-2011 African American leadership 2715 African American Community Response to Work You talked about Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who probably even wondered when he was going through what he did in the '50s and early '60s, of being brutalized by police, his church and his home bombed, and being in jail, if he would not only ever see a black person on a police force in his lifetime, much less the chief of police being an African American woman, what kind of reaction do you get from older blacks in the community who lived through that brutality, and now they see you as heading up the police department? Nunn describes her personal experiences with community members' reactions to her being the first female, African American Police Chief. African American civic leaders ; African American leadership ; African American police chiefs ; African Americans--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Birmingham (Ala.). Police Department ; Civic leaders--United States African American civic leaders Oral History Chief Annetta Nunn discusses her path to becoming the first female chief of the Birmingham Police Department. CUNNINGHAM: Hello, I' ; m Malena Cunningham here with Birmingham police chief, Annetta Nunn, for the Female First series to learn more about African American women who' ; ve become first in their field. And thank you so much for joining us today chief Nunn. Let' ; s start from the very beginning, if you' ; ll tell us about your background, when and where you were born, the youngest, oldest of how many children, that sort of thing. NUNN: I was born here in Birmingham, Alabama, grew up in the Ensley area. I was born, was 19th, 1958. And I said, grew up here in Ensley. I' ; m the middle of five girls. My parents always wanted a boy, but my mom stayed after the last girl, that was it. So, I' ; m the middle of five. CUNNINGHAM: What was that like growing up in a family of five girls? What were your goals and dreams and aspirations? NUNN: Well, the age difference is so great. I mean, my oldest sister is 64 years old, and the baby is 40. So, we had a little space between there, but it was great. I guess, growing up I was closer to the ones that was closest in age, but we got along very well. We had our fights like any other sisters did, and sometimes we even ganged up on each other, two against two, because the oldest had moved out by then. But some of my goals and aspirations, like any child, we wanted some of the things we saw that the other children have, but unfortunately, parents couldn' ; t afford it, but they did the best, and we grew up pretty well, stable family life for the most part. At the age of 14, I decided that I wanted to be a police officer. I went through other careers. There was a time I wanted to be a race car driver, a truck driver, and I even wanted to be a nun. I am nun now but a different kind, but since I have two children, you know it' ; s not that kind. NUNN: But, I' ; m not Catholics, so I never knew why I wanted to be a nun. I guess The Flying Nun was on at that time, and they looked pretty good. But at 14 I wanted to be a police officer because of some of the things that I saw going on in my neighborhood. Sort of like we have crack houses now, we had illegal whiskey houses in the area then. And, unfortunately, we saw some police officers that were taking bribes not to bust those houses. And I decided that' ; s not the way it' ; s supposed to be. That' ; s not law enforcement. I want to help my community. So the best way that I could do that was to become a police officer. And also, I like helping people. So, we could mold the two together. CUNNINGHAM: You were born in 1958, so you grew up ... You were very young during the Civil Rights Movement. Do you remember any of that, and the police brutality, the black and white footage that' ; s so famous here in Kelly Ingram park of the dogs and the water hoses, the bombing of the church? How much of that do you remember, and did any of that influence your life as a child? NUNN: Well, a lot of it I don' ; t remember because I was young, but I know that there were things that were going on. So, we lived in Ensley, we rarely came downtown. I don' ; t have, really, any memories of coming downtown Birmingham. We' ; d go to South side to the doctor' ; s office, and that was about it. I do remember there was a time they were coming through with the wagons. The caravan was coming through, and we all heard about it, and as little children, I mean, we wanted to see the horses. And they actually camped out in a church that was probably three blocks from my home, so we went there to see that. And I remember seeing some things on television. And other things that happened, and I didn' ; t realize until I was older exactly what it was, which was the time that, probably, children were leaving school, even though I was very, very young. We were told that something else was happening, and, " ; They were going to come and get you." ; , et cetera. NUNN: And it was actually the children leaving school to come to Kelly Ingram Park, and in that area doing the demonstrations. So, I remember seeing some footage on television, and when Dr. King died, I definitely remembered that, because I think I was about 10 years old then. So those things I do remember. Things happened, I think our parents kept us from some things, but my mother even told us as we got older, a store that was in downtown is within, which is not as ... It' ; s dead right now, but it' ; s on the way back. That was the hustling and bustling area, because most of the people were coal miners, and that community catered to coal miners. And being very fair complexion, my sister was too, my mother was there in one of the department store shopping, and she walked away from my sister. She was there playing with a little young white child, and they were playing together. And then when my mother walked up, and the lady realized that my sister was actually a black child, she pulled her child away. NUNN: And so, children learn those behaviors, and that' ; s the worst thing about it. We can play together until we learn that, hey, we' ; re not supposed to be together, because there are these taboos. And even as an ... I wasn' ; t an adult, I was a teenager. I think I was in college, and when we moved into an integrated neighborhood, and one of the children, I mean, they were in love with my baby sister. I mean, he was a little white boy, and he loved her. He even hid in our doghouse, because he didn' ; t want to go away. But he walked up to my mom one day, and there' ; d been no problems, he was sweet little boy, and he told my mother ... He called her by her first name, which was one thing that caught us off guard. And he called, he said, he said, " ; You' ; re a nigger." ; My mom said, " ; What did you say?" ; And he said it again. And she asked him, she said, " ; Do you know what that means?" ; He said, " ; No, ma' ; am." ; And then she explained it to him, that that' ; s just a derogatory term for a dirty lowdown person. NUNN: And he had been outside playing, and his hands were dirty. And he started looking at himself like, " ; Is that me, because my hands are dirty? So we know that people learn those things. Children are not born with it, they learn it from adults. CUNNINGHAM: You said when you were 14, that' ; s when you knew you wanted to be a police officer. Did you express that to your parents, and then, with the Bull Connor era, and with folks maybe not being comfortable with the police department back in the ' ; 50s and ' ; 60s, what reaction did you get from your family when you told them you wanted to be one? NUNN: I don' ; t know exactly what age I was when I told my mother. I was still in high school. But she' ; s always been supportive. Although my mother grew up in what we call the country, and migrated to Birmingham, she worked over the mountain for her family, I believe was blacks that she worked for that family. But she never taught us prejudice, she never taught us racial hatred or anything like that. She always taught us that, to treat people like you want to be treated, you can achieve whatever goals that you wanted to achieve as long as you worked hard, and believed in yourself, and kept God first. So, when I just wanted be a police officer, I received her blessings. I knew it worried her, probably, but she never communicated that. I knew I was in her prayers, and, to this day, I mean, she' ; s always been supportive. CUNNINGHAM: So, by the time you were 14, or in high school, that would have been the early ' ; 70s, were there women in the Birmingham police department at that time? Do you know? NUNN: I think the first ones may have been coming in, but they were like, neat maids, or working in Juvenile Services, which most departments when they first started accepting women, that' ; s where they were. They weren' ; t in patrol. So, in the early ' ; 70s, I believe that' ; s when women started to come in. I never saw one, but, that was always guys, but that' ; s just what I wanted to do. CUNNINGHAM: But that still didn' ; t deter you. NUNN: No, that' ; s what I wanted to do. CUNNINGHAM: So, tell me about your college years. You left what high school in Birmingham? NUNN: I attended P.D. Jackson-Olin High School in Ensley. And I graduated in 1976, where I went to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. I was there for three and a half years, and was scheduled to graduate, and I had started to take an internship program at the Birmingham City jail. So, I would migrate a couple of days to the university, and worked here at the Birmingham City jail, and I took the police test while I was working at the jail, and that would have been ... I took the test in 1979, and I was notified in February of 1980 that I have been accepted into the academy. So I actually had to quit school, because by that time I was taking basketball at UAB, because I only needed one hour to graduate, and I graduated from the University, and the police academy two weeks apart. CUNNINGHAM: Wow. So, did you get your degree in criminal justice? NUNN: Yes, a degree into criminal justice in 1980. CUNNINGHAM: What was it like that first job working in the jail? NUNN: As an intern, I mean, it was great, because I was getting paid. That was the most money I' ; d ever made, but we were interacting with prisoners. We were watching the prisoners, everyone except those that were charged with felonies. The regular police officers did that. But it was interesting, because I ran into people that I knew from the neighborhood. One of the things you had to notice that, you treat people like you want it to be, and some were there, and they definitely needed to be there, and some of there through mistakes. But at that time, they had GED programs going into jail, and there was some they were struggling with their studies, so we would offer assistance to them, and then place them back in their cells. And, I always try to treat people like I wanted to be treated, as humanely as possible, and it' ; s paid off in the long run because, we can' ; t remember everybody we interacted in the jail, but I have run into individuals that were in jail, on the street, and they' ; ll come up to me and say, " ; Well, you know I was in jail." ; I' ; ll say, " ; So, how did I treat you?" ; Say, " ; Well." ; I' ; ll say, " ; Okay, good." ; Because you never know who you' ; re going to run up on. CUNNINGHAM: Exactly. So, when you finished the police academy, was that about 1980? NUNN: Yes. CUNNINGHAM: Were you in a class with other black female officer candidates? NUNN: Yes, we were actually hired ... City of Birmingham was under a consent decree, and actually still under consent decree, I guess we' ; ll come from under it soon, to hire more minorities. So, I always tell people I fit two categories. On my class, we started out with nine people who we ended up with seven. They were four women and three men. They were four African Americans in that class. As I was saying, I fit two categories, and I tell people now, I do believe in affirmative action, it' ; s not lowering any standards, it' ; s just making sure that you' ; re qualified, that you can achieve those goals and get in. And after that, when I was promoted to sergeant, I guess I was one of the youngest people to ever be promoted. Three years within the job, I was promoted to sergeant, and there was a lawsuit filed by the Fraternal Order of Police on behalf of one of their members, because it said that we were only promoted because we were minorities, and because of African Americans, and we were not qualified. NUNN: We had to give depositions, and it' ; s one of the things I tell young people now, you think you have time to play around when you' ; re in school with your grades, but you don' ; t know where they' ; re going to show up. Because those records were entered into the depositions, because in fact, they were trying to prove they were not qualified, didn' ; t have the education, et cetera, but, in the end, it was proven that we were overqualified for the position, because we all had college degrees, and done well in school, et cetera. CUNNINGHAM: How did that make you feel to have that challenge, your background, your credibility, your abilities challenged, and to say that you were only given the job or promoted because you were African American? NUNN: Well, it makes you angry, because you know that you are qualified, that you have a sincere desire for this position. And nobody knows everything. I know that I was young in the department, there' ; s still things that I had to learn. I mean, there are still things that I' ; m learning now, but I knew that I was just as qualified as anyone else. And, to say that I was only given a position because of my race, or because I was a woman, I mean, it' ; s a slap in the face. CUNNINGHAM: So, you would have been promoted to sergeant, what, about 1983, 1984, and how old were you then? NUNN: Should' ; ve been at 24, I believe. CUNNINGHAM: I' ; m sure there were some older man, particularly older white men under your command, how were you able to get their respect and be treated as a sergeant and not as a woman? NUNN: Well, even during the promotional interview, that was one of the questions that one of the supervisors asked, how would I handle when I have a problem working with men who were older, more experienced? I said, " ; I wouldn' ; t have a problem. They might have a problem, but I wouldn' ; t." ; I was going to do what needed to be done. And there were those who would try to trick you, because they knew I was young, bring up situations that they already knew the answer to, to see how you would handle it. But I will say that, one of my greatest supporters during my first promotion was a white sergeant that had normally worked the internal affairs, which most officers hate. They don' ; t like you working internal affairs, because that' ; s their job investigating police. NUNN: Sergeant Harry Yeager, he knew some of these things were going on, and he went to them and told them, " ; You don' ; t do things like that." ; And if he saw that there was something that I can improve on, he would tell me. So, he was one of my greatest supporters. CUNNINGHAM: We often hear that in the police department, there' ; s a good old boys network, and a lot of times, the female officers, and even the higher ups may be sexually harassed. Did you have to deal with any of that in the department, and how did you handle it if you did? NUNN: And sexual harassment is ... Of course, there were things going on because there weren' ; t many women, but my training officer who happened to be a black male, he' ; s one of the deputy chiefs now, Jerry Todd, he told me on the training car, he said, " ; You' ; re young, black female," ; he said, " ; people are going to approach you ..." ; And he didn' ; t say sexually, we knew what he was talking about. He said, " ; They' ; re going approach you." ; He' ; s saying, " ; How you handle that first encounter will determine what you have to deal with within this department." ; Shortly after I was released from the training car, and I can now ride with other officers, or ride by myself, I was riding with another officer who happened to be a white male. And he said, " ; We could go up to the water tower and do something." ; The water tower was an area on the beat where there was a storage tank, a water storage tank. It was secluded, we would have to drive up and check for people who parked and people like to go up there and have sex. So, we' ; d have to patrol there. NUNN: And he said, " ; We could go up there and maybe do something." ; I said, " ; Yes, we can go up there, but only one of us will come back, because I' ; ll shoot you if I have to." ; And nobody ever approached me after that. So, I' ; m sure they spread the word. So, I didn' ; t really have to deal with any of that type of overt harassing behavior. Now, in assignment, things like that, I often felt that, even some of the ideas that you put forth, or some of the things you wanted to do, or actions you took, had a male done that, it would not have been questioned. Even now I feel that way sometimes. The issues that we' ; ve had involving tasers or patrol rifles, that some of them were here when I assumed the position, some of them male or departments that surround us have, they are headed by males, they haven' ; t had to deal with those issues, but I have, and I feel that sometimes that' ; s the reason. CUNNINGHAM: How quickly were you able to climb the ranks through the police department? NUNN: I think I came through pretty quickly. I was promoted to lieutenant in 1991, I believe it was, captain in ' ; 95, deputy chief in 2000, and chief in 2003. Part of the reason I believe that came through so quickly, well, as I always say, I was qualified for the position. I really was never seeking promotion. They had to encourage me to take the first promotion. All I wanted to be was an officer. So, what I tried to do was always geared toward improving the department and helping others, and even trying to bring others up behind me. So, I think people in key places noticed that, that I was not a backstabber, or trying to put anybody else down. And, one of our former chiefs, Chief [Doych 00:16:26], when he came in, and he was the only one that' ; s ever headed this department from outside. He was from New York. NUNN: A lot of people left under his administration, a lot of supervisors. So, a lot of vacancies were created that had been ... I mean, maybe have been stagnant before as far as promotion, but there were a lot of openings, so it created opportunity for you to move up quicker. CUNNINGHAM: Being a police officer is a demanding job, it' ; s also a dangerous job when you add on the beat, how were you able to have a career, and then also be a wife and a mother? Talk about that, because I' ; m sure a lot of women struggle with balancing career and family. And then, you putting yourself in the line of duty and in danger on a regular basis, how were you able to handle that? NUNN: First of all, I always say is my faith in God. When I talk to recruits, I tell them, " ; You believe in what you want to believe in, I' ; m telling you what works for me." ; That' ; s number one. Because you do have situations, you do have stresses that can just blow your mind. So you have to have a stabilizing force, and that' ; s been number one. The support of my family and friends has been the second thing. I have had issues and still have issues. When I was married, my initial plans was to work for the police department for three years, go to the FBI, but I' ; m married in between time and I didn' ; t want to do a lot of traveling, which probably would have had to do, so I decided to stay. So, there was a time when, after I had children, when I first had them, I was then a detective division, which made it a little better, because you had, sometime, normal working hours. But if you had to work over, or called out, and, if my husband was working a different shift, I had my family that I could call and pick up the children, do certain things. NUNN: You get called out at night ... There was only one time that presented a problem, because I actually had to put my son in the car and drop him somewhere else, because nobody was at home. So, you do have those things to deal with. And maybe even had to take them to community meetings. They will be studying in the back of the community meeting while I was doing what I had to do. But having family definitely helped. It would have made it almost impossible had that not been the case to assume certain promotional positions. CUNNINGHAM: I would think that you' ; d have to be a strong person to be a police officer. How were you able to, I guess, turn some of that strength off and go home, and be a wife and mother? NUNN: Sometimes they might have debated it, whether you turned it on. But, you have to realize that the job is the job, and home is home. And, even now, I tell people that, " ; In this line of work, I am the head authority figure." ; But while I was married, I' ; m not married right now, and I was at home, I looked to my husband to be the head authority figure, because my marriage was based on biblical principles, and that' ; s it. It' ; s not a subservient role, but it' ; s just what I believe in. I had to, sometimes, force myself to turn it off with my children, because seeing things that happen in the neighborhood, that happen to children, and you know how they' ; re exposed ... I had two sons in an urban environment, they are at risk, even if they' ; re not doing anything, they' ; re at risk. I had to remind myself that they are children, they want to do certain things. They want to go certain places. You have to let them be children, and pray for them, and pray that they make it back safely. And, I still have to do that, because my youngest is 16 years old, and now he' ; s driving. CUNNINGHAM: Well, in 2003, you made history when Mayor Bernard Kincaid appointed you the first woman to be police chief for the city of Birmingham. You weren' ; t the first black, Johnny Johnson was the first African American. What was that like for you to have been named the first woman, and to make history in doing so? NUNN: To me, I was just still Annetta Nunn, Annetta Watts Nunn. So, it was a bit overwhelming, because, I often tell people, you had Gladys Knight and you had The Pips. I was always comfortable being a Pip, being in the background. But then, all of a sudden, I mean, you' ; re out there. I was actually in federal court on a case during that time that I was promoted. And when I came back to my office, I mean, the office was filled with flowers and congratulations, and I was getting different things, and actually had three different celebrations of that, and a lot of things were going on, because they said, " ; You are the first, you just don' ; t realize it." ; I said, " ; Well, I know I' ; m the first, but I' ; m still just me." ; So, it was a little overwhelming, but, I mean, I enjoyed it. I see it as a chance for me to represent Birmingham in a positive light. NUNN: And even now, when I go to different conferences, and some people still don' ; t realize, even some people in this area don' ; t realize we have a black female as chief now. " ; Birmingham? Birmingham, Alabama?" ; I say, " ; Yes." ; And, one of the jokes with, and I say, " ; We still have dogs, we still have hoses, but now we use them only for law enforcement purposes." ; CUNNINGHAM: What role do you think, or do you see yourself as a role model for other women, particularly, in the police department, who may have never thought that a woman could ascend to the position that you have? NUNN: I do see myself as a role model for men and women. I see it as a source of inspiration that, if you think that something is impossible, nothing is impossible, but you have to be prepared for it when that opportunity opens up. You have to remove all excuses for someone not to give you that position, and that doesn' ; t just start the day the position becomes open. It' ; s basically, is a lifelong process. And I stress that with young men, young women. I enjoy speaking to them, coming to show them that, " ; Whatever it is that you want to do, that you can do it if you prepare yourself." ; So, I do see myself as a role model, and that' ; s why it' ; s important when I' ; m out in public, or in private, or wherever I am, that I realize that I am representing young women in Birmingham area. CUNNINGHAM: With a woman heading the police department in the largest city in the state, has it changed the atmosphere of the town inside of the police department? Is it less of a good old boys network? Has any of that changed at all with a woman leading the way? NUNN: I think it has. I think there have been some improvement. People who have known me throughout my entire career, men and women, they know that there are certain things that I accept, that I don' ; t accept. And so, if there was maybe some things that were going on, either they stopped doing it, or they' ; re hiding it better. So, I think that has changed. Even the disciplinary process, that was one of the biggest gripes when I came in, that it was unfair, in that, some people were treated differently based on who you know. I try to be fair with everyone. That doesn' ; t mean that we' ; re going to gloss over what you do, but we do try to take into account the severity of what you' ; ve done, your past record, and what we' ; ve done is similar instances. So, we do try to be fair, and I think that' ; s going a long way. NUNN: They also know that if they come up with an idea, and it' ; s implemented, that I will give them credit for it. So, I tell them, " ; What you do makes me look good. We represent each other." ; CUNNINGHAM: One big controversy, unfortunately, during your tenure this year, and then in 2005, and 2006, has been the skyrocketing murder rate in the Birmingham area. Of course, you as police chief are not responsible for murders, but how do you get a handle on crime, and get people to realize that this is wrong and try to stop this? NUNN: That has and still is one of our biggest challenges. In 2004, we had a 17 year long in the murder rate. And the next year, I mean, it did skyrocket. Unfortunately, we had some multiple murders. And what we have done is tried to look at some of the common things in the environment, or the person' ; s background that were murdered. We actually did a prevention type bookmark that we hand out at different events, showing people that if they follow certain tips in a prevention mode, that your chance or the likelihood of you being a victim of a crime, any crime, especially homicide, lessens. If you are not involved in drug activity, associating with people involved in drugs, you know your domestic partner those you interact with, do they have a temper? You hanging out in areas that are known to be drug areas, so high crime areas where we do a lot of enforcement, then your chances of becoming a victim escalate. But if you are avoiding those type of activities, then it decreases. And we can usually show them that that' ; s what' ; s happening. NUNN: And, unfortunately, still not listening to it. So that' ; s one of our biggest challenges. So we' ; re seeking to work on a new campaign to make it even more public, to get that information out where people will see it on a continuous basis, and when we speak on it, we do it, and hopefully even put it on the website. And, just as you do preventing fires with the fire alarms, it' ; s the same way. This is an alarm, avoid. If you see these things going on, you need to avoid those, and make them more aware. CUNNINGHAM: How does it make you feel as a person knowing that, this is your city, this is where you grew up, and you' ; ve seen a major change in the city during your lifetime, and particularly, in your tenure in the police department? How does that make you feel? NUNN: It makes me feel great that we have made a change. When I go to some conferences, people ask us, they talk about diversity. We even get surveys coming to the department about diversity in the department, but they are looking for African Americans as a diversity. I say, " ; I don' ; t have that problem." ; I said, " ; I need to get more white females in the department. That' ; s my minority." ; So it makes me glad that we have changed, but some of the things that I' ; ve seen come along with the change is not only within our department, within our community, it saddens me, because we are one of the most important sites, even though we didn' ; t get a stamp. We are one of the most important events that happened during the Civil Rights Movement, and the people that died for the freedoms that we have, and we don' ; t take advantage of it. We live in communities that once we couldn' ; t live in, and now we trash them. We attend schools that we once couldn' ; t attend, and we destroy them. There are job opportunities that are available that once we could not apply for, yet we fail to prepare for them. NUNN: And I know people say, " ; Well, poverty leads to this." ; We' ; ve always lived in poverty, but there was just an expectation that you would not fail, that you were representing those who came before you, so you could not fail. But I just don' ; t see that now. We don' ; t even know our own history. And, that' ; s one of the things I also try to teach wherever I go. We' ; re engaging the faith community that' ; s going to help us, because we got to make a change from the inside out, and that was what turned the Civil Rights Movement around, the faith community led that. So we' ; re going back to the faith community and doing that again. And, it gives me the opportunity to use the painting that McDowell did, because there are religious leaders on there, it points back to where we came from, that I' ; m here because of them, and so I have to pave the way for those that are coming behind me. NUNN: And if we don' ; t know our history, then we will repeat the mistakes of the past. And I think if we can get that history back where it needs to be, it' ; s not blaming anybody, but it' ; s realizing the mistakes that were made, and it' ; s also realizing that it wasn' ; t just black people involved in the Civil Rights Movement. There were many different people who came together, and changed, not only Birmingham, but the nation and the world, and we can do that once again. CUNNINGHAM: How much pressure do you feel being the first female police chief to make sure you do the job right so that it opens the door for other women to have that opportunity? NUNN: Well, I felt a lot of pressure coming in. And not only myself, but I spoke with Chief Ella Cummings, who' ; s the chief in Detroit. We ran a women' ; s conference in Los Angeles, and this was the same thing that she said, that our greatest pressure we felt coming into office was that, no matter what happened, if it would have happened no matter who' ; s in office, whether male or female, that we would be blamed because we were females. It wouldn' ; t have happened if you didn' ; t have a female in there. So that was our primary concern. Second concerns, which are not only affecting us, but male chiefs as well, is the economy, the way the economy is going right now. A lot of the funding is going toward Homeland Security. It used to come to local law enforcement to fight on the home front. NUNN: And one of our former Secretary General said at a conference, that home front is not safe until the community is safe. And so, as those resources are taken away, we see things starting to happen ; our personnel being deployed, we have staffing shortages, and that' ; s making it even even worse. So, these are some trying times for law enforcement across the nation. CUNNINGHAM: Think back to 1980 when you had that internship at the Birmingham jail, could you have ever imagined, or did you ever imagine then that, you will one day be running the entire department? NUNN: I never imagined it. Never thought about it, never even wanted it. As i said, I was encouraged to take my first promotional exam, and I got to where I like. I said, " ; I like this, telling other people what to do." ; So I started to take others. But I never envisioned myself as being the chief of police. I' ; m grateful to God that I am here, because I feel that He put me here, and I' ; ll be here until he' ; s ready for me to leave whenever that He is. And when I' ; m not in this position, I' ; ll still be working to improve my community wherever I am, and hopefully it opens the way for others that will come behind me, even if they don' ; t want to be chief, to at least open their mind to think that, " ; I can do this, even if I don' ; t want to. I can do this." ; CUNNINGHAM: What legacy would you like to leave behind as having been the first African American woman, police chief of the largest city in Alabama? What do you want people to have known about you, or remembered about what you did in that position? NUNN: Well, I' ; ve always said one of my prayers is that, when I go out, I want to go out on a good note. I want to leave things better than they were when I came. And I think, within the department, that has happened. I think, within the community, that is happening, and it is happening. Always have my naysayers, but people know that I' ; m out there, that I' ; m not only just talking, but I' ; m physically out there working, doing some of the things that I asked them to do. One of the things I tell my personnel, I don' ; t ask them to do anything that I wouldn' ; t do myself. That' ; s why when we had taser, I had to get tased, because I told them, I would ask. " ; We don' ; t have to do that anymore now, though." ; But I want them to know that, remember me as being a first, being one that was a chief that led by example, that led according to the directions of God, that showed that you can have a Godly life, that in a police environment, that you don' ; t have to be nasty, that you don' ; t have to use physical force against everybody, that you can communicate, you can bring those skills that are usually seen as female skills, although they are not. A lot of males have them, they just don' ; t like to show them. NUNN: The ability to communicate, the ability to get people to collaborate, to work together, not caring who gets the credit, but to get things done, I would like them to remember me as doing that, and spreading that, not only within my department, but within the community and the surrounding municipalities as well. And, always maintaining my integrity, and keeping God first in my life, and making time for family. Because we tell recruits and people in the community that, " ; This is our profession, but don' ; t ever let this be the only thing that you do. Have something to do outside." ; And, I do a few things outside. My time is pretty tight, but I do try to do things that are not related to police work at all. I don' ; t hang out with a lot of police people, may have wanted to, but have a separate life so that you can maintain the balance. Sometimes it' ; s imbalanced, unbalanced, but you try to maintain it as much as possible. CUNNINGHAM: In 2004, three of your officers were gunned down in the Ensley community, and we saw something about you publicly that we had not seen before at the memorial service, you sang. Are you now known as the singing police chief? NUNN: Well, one of the local writers has referred to me, tongue in cheek, as the singing nun. It was a derogatory article, because I was singing in a vigil that we were having after stuff, all off that. And they said I needed to be doing something else besides singing. But, that' ; s my title now. I' ; ll accept that. And, 2004 was a bad year for me. I call it the year from hell as far as the department. We had people that were within the department that were accused of crimes. We had these three officers killed. We had some unfortunate police shootings. They were high profile. So that was a pretty tough year. And during the memorial service, I debated about whether to sing, because that was the first time I had sang outside of a church environment. But, the Sunday before those services, we were going to have four different services that week, and it was tough. And I knew that, from going to other funerals, when you hear Amazing Grace on the bagpipes, and when they play taps, that' ; s what always gives me. And I said, " ; Lord, how am I going to make it through these services? I got to be strong for everybody else." ; NUNN: And that Sunday, at church, I sang, The Center of my Joy by Richard Smallwood. And it was like a quickening, I would say, of my spirit. I just felt stronger. I said, " ; You know what? I' ; ve got the spirit now, Holy Spirit. I can make it through this." ; And the song that I sang at the memorial service, I' ; d just been singing that all the way up to it. I' ; m determined to walk with Jesus. And as I was sitting there, I said, " ; I want to share this with them" ; . So, I did. And one of the brothers of, I believe it was officer Chisholm, officer Chisholm' ; s birthday was the day of the last memorial service, and his brother came up to me afterwards, and he said, " ; We buried my brother yesterday," ; he said, " ; but this day was a better day for me." ; He said, " ; I' ; m glad you all did this, and I' ; m glad that I came, because now I feel strengthened. And I appreciate you for sharing that with me." ; And and that' ; s what was important about it, strengthening others. And that' ; s what music does for me. Some people drink, some people smoke to handle their stresses, music is my way of coping. CUNNINGHAM: Well, the last thing I want is to ask you is, what do you think have been the biggest inspirations in your life to get you to where you are today? NUNN: I' ; ve had several. First of all, I put my mother, Mrs. Aeneas Watts. My mom' ; s 81 years old now, she' ; s still my biggest inspiration. She told us we could do anything we wanted to, and she modeled the behavior that she expected from us. And my father, even though he had a totally different personality, he still gave some good advice. He' ; s been dead now over 20 years. Reverend C.J. McNeal, he was my pastor of our church for 52 years, and he gave good solid advice. He loved young people, so he made opportunities for young people. One of the things that he told me, two things, and I still remember to this day, and they helped me, and I share it with people when I' ; m doing disciplinary hearings as well. He said, " ; Whatever job you have, you learn everything about it to be the best, so that when they begin to lay people off, they' ; ll keep you, because you know more." ; He said, " ; Even if it' ; s picking up a piece of paper, you do it better than anyone else." ; NUNN: Second thing was, he said, " ; If you argue with people, you' ; ve got two fools. If one shuts up, the other one soon will." ; Another source of inspiration, Chief Johnny Johnson. He was doing things that I didn' ; t realize he was doing until later. Sending me to, or asking me did I want to go some places? The FBI' ; s National Academy, he was the reason that I went there, and some other things that he had done for me. And he was grooming me for this position. And I tried to do that for others. Some of them, they won' ; t take advantage of training opportunities, and I' ; m trying to, " ; Go ahead and see. Try it." ; So, he' ; s a source of inspiration. And my children, they are a source of inspiration for me, and right now, my granddaughter. She' ; s two years old. And, when you asked the question about family, I should have brought that up, because people tend to see police as not human, we' ; re not affected. Since I have two teenage sons, he' ; s 20 now, but we deal with the same problems. NUNN: When, at the age of 17, when my son was a senior, and he' ; s come to tell me that I' ; m going to be a grandmother. I was like, " ; This got to be a nightmare." ; But now, she' ; s one of the greatest joys in my life. And things are difficult, I go by. You see a smile, you get a hug, somebody that just not that demanding, they just want you for you, and that helps. CUNNINGHAM: Does either of your sons, or do either, then want to follow you into the law enforcement profession? NUNN: No. My oldest wants to be an attorney. I guess that' ; s sort of law enforcement, but he said he wants to be an attorney. He may teach school first. The youngest, at first, he wanted to be a basketball star. He does play basketball. Now, he wants to be a welder, because they want planning to put him in the apprenticeship program, so he decided that' ; s what he wants to do. I said, " ; That' ; s your choice. I don' ; t force into you into it." ; But, hopefully we' ; ll have some that want to be law enforcement officers in the future. CUNNINGHAM: Can you see your granddaughter one day being a female police chief of Birmingham? NUNN: With the outgoing personality that she has right now, I can see her being anything that she wants to be [crosstalk 00:40:31]. CUNNINGHAM: Would you like to see her follow in grandmother' ; s footsteps? NUNN: It would be nice if she would. I actually have a picture of her with my hat, and it' ; s like she' ; s saluting. We' ; re going to use for our recruiting poster for police. So, it would be nice, years down the road, to see her to be an officer, or to be the chief of police here in Birmingham. But I don' ; t want to force my views, and what I want them to do on any of them. Be what you want to be as long as it' ; s lawful. CUNNINGHAM: Okay, very good. Thank you. Did we go an hour? Speaker 3:[inaudible 00:41:15] That' ; s fine. That' ; s excellent. CUNNINGHAM: Very good, very good. Thank you, ma' ; am. Say, I learned a lot sitting here talking to you. Your birthday is just two months before mine, I didn' ; t know we work ... CUNNINGHAM: We are back with more of our conversation with Birmingham Police Chief, Annetta Nunn, and you wanted to talk more about the inspirations in your life that led to where you are today. NUNN: Yes. One that I left off was Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth. I definitely didn' ; t want to leave him out. I never really had the opportunity to meet him until I became chief of police. Maybe I was deputy chief the first time I met him. I' ; d heard about him, had seen him on television, and I had the chance to actually talk with him. I remember the first time that I met him, they were having the black car dealership convention here in Birmingham, and they had a program. He was doing a book signing, and he was speaking at 16th Street Baptist Church. And after it was over, members from the institute needed to get him back to his hotel, but they had to also open the institute, the gift shop back up. So they were trying to get him back, I said, " ; Well, I' ; m getting ready go home, I' ; ll take him." ; NUNN: And, they introduced me to him, and he looked at me, he said, " ; The chief of Birmingham." ; , he said, " ; If the chief had looked like this when I was coming up, I wouldn' ; t have mind going to jail." ; And, get a chance to talk to him firsthand about some of the things that he went through, it just makes you appreciate him and others even more. And, someone that' ; s right here from this area, we appreciate all of our civil rights icons. There was Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and all of those, but he was here. One of his big pushes was to get black people on the police force just in our own communities, and it took years, 10 years later, for it to finally happen. So, he' ; s a source of inspiration. And I still have conversations with him now, and try to meet him when he comes back to the city, and to spread his message in ... For someone to go through as much as he went through, and he' ; s never been bitter. Now, that' ; s a fete. NUNN: I mean, they tried to blow him up. And I use him in crime prevention as people say, " ; Well, I' ; m afraid of getting involved in my community, because this may happen, and this may ..." ; I say, " ; It very may will happen, but think of those who were involved in the Civil Rights Movement. If they had say that, I would not be where I am today, and you would not be where you are. So, we' ; ve got to get involved. We' ; ve got to make it for those younger people that are coming behind us." ; And, those members of our department, we try to let them know about some of I, because they' ; re young. This is the generation Xers. We don' ; t have this special patch of police that we grow people from. Chief Johnson used to always say that, " ; They' ; re your children, and if you don' ; t teach them about what happened, they won' ; t appreciate the interaction, or understand some of the interactions they will have with older citizens in Birmingham, because they remember back when. In their eyes, you' ; re still a police officer no matter whether you' ; re black or white, and how you interact with them will determine what they think about us when they leave." ; And, we always say we have to get the public trust. What we do affects that. NUNN: Our biggest complaints within that we receive against police officers, is not use of force. That' ; s the smallest number of complaints that we get. So, think how we' ; ve changed over the years from the ' ; 60s, that used to be a major complaints, use of force. But it' ; s the least amount that we get now. The biggest one is attitude, and people perception of our attitude. So, the way that we ... Again, those communication skills, interaction, collaboration, they come to play on how we affect, and we can learn from those who came before us. CUNNINGHAM: You talked about Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth who probably even wondered when he was going through what he did in the ' ; 50s and early ' ; 60s, of being brutalized by police, his church and his home bombed, and being in jail, if he would not only ever see a black person on a police force in his lifetime, much less the chief of police being an African American woman, what kind of reaction do you get from older blacks in the community who lived through that brutality, and now they see you as heading up the police department? NUNN: I' ; ve actually had some of them, they just start crying in front of me, because they are ... They say, " ; We' ; ve never thought we' ; d ever see this when we were going through this." ; Or they want to just give you a hug, and they wonder, " ; Can I hug a chief?" ; " ; Well, sure." ; And, it makes me feel good, because I do represent what they fought so hard for, and that keeps me going. I mean, there are times when I tell them, " ; I wanted to say take this job and shove it." ; , because you get people on the direct opposite side. They' ; d say, " ; Now that you are there, you don' ; t know where you came from, you should do this, and you should do that." ; I had a lady tell me that ... She was not older. She was a middle aged lady. And she was saying, " ; Well, if some of police officers' ; relatives were killed, maybe you all would react differently to violence, and maybe you can then figure out how to stop it." ; I said, " ; Ma' ; am, I' ; ve had a brother-in-law that' ; s been killed in this city. I had a cousin that was killed. I' ; ve got some officers that one has two of his brothers have been killed. One recently had his nephew murdered. That' ; s just a few. So, we are affected. We don' ; t want to see it happen." ; NUNN: And later on, she said, " ; Well, maybe if you were out in the community more, and going door to door talking to the neighbors." ; And I said, " ; Ma' ; am, this day that I' ; m talking to you started at 6:30 AM." ; I said, " ; Now it' ; s nine o' ; clock at night, and I' ; m here at a meeting with you. So when would you like for me to fit that in? I mean, there' ; s only so much that I can do. I' ; m the representative, but we have to have community support, and have to have you taking this message out." ; And some of the older people, they understand. One of the minister' ; s, I think he' ; s in his 80s, when we were going through the issue about the assault weapons, there was a meeting at his church. And he said, " ; You know," ; he said, " ; I was here during the civil rights struggle." ; He actually played in the Negro League. He said, " ; I was in the military." ; He said, " ; If you sent me to the military today with the same weapon that I took back then," ; he said, " ; I wouldn' ; t go." ; He says, " ; So now you' ; re going to ask police officers to go with something that the criminals don' ; t have, they have something better, and you' ; re going to put them out there." ; He said, " ; You' ; re all crazy." ; NUNN: So, we do get a lot of support from those who have been there, and who understand. So, I think in that light, we owe them that respect by the way we act, the way we interact, the way that we treat them. Because sometimes, we don' ; t treat our elderly citizens, especially in this country, the way that we should, and we owe them a great debt. CUNNINGHAM: Do you sometimes feel maybe you' ; re stuck in the middle between the folks who say to you that they never thought they' ; d see this in their lifetime, you being a police chief, and then the younger people who have no sense of history, and don' ; t even understand what you represent? NUNN: I do. So, I see myself as, hopefully, a bridge that can show how the ones who support me who went through the civil rights struggle, I can now show the younger people through history that this is what they did, this is what you should appreciate, and this is a standard that you have to maintain. You may not have any money, but Mary McLeod Bethune didn' ; t either when she started a college. Dr. Gustin didn' ; t either when he started his business. It can be done, but you' ; re going to have to learn. You' ; re going to have to make sacrifices. Too often now, I see that people don' ; t want to sacrifice for anything, they just want it now. And I often use that, I call it my Black History Month message. It was entitled, " ; Have we turned the dream into a nightmare?" ; using Dr. King' ; s, I Have a Dream speech, and contrasting it to where we are today. NUNN: Now, things that he warned us about, and even tying it in with the Bible in saying that, with the children of Israel, and say, " ; When you go into the promised land, and you have those houses that you didn' ; t build, those wells you didn' ; t dig, those trees you didn' ; t plant," ; he said, " ; don' ; t forget me, that I am still the Lord your God." ; He' ; d roll it to the Civil Rights Movement. " ; When I bring you into the promised land, and you can live in houses you didn' ; t build, jobs that you couldn' ; t get, you can now buy clothes anywhere you want to, don' ; t forget me." ; And when we do, we see what happened. He promised that it would happen, that we' ; ll be in turmoil. And that' ; s where we are now. So, again, that bridge, to get people to see that we' ; ve got to go back to what brought us where we are, and improve on that. And that' ; s not saying we have to do the exact same tactics. We got to allow our young people to do the things that they do today. Too often we want to do the same thing over and over, and they get bored with it. They' ; re into technology, let them use their technology to bridge the gap, to bring our history forward, to improve on it, or if there' ; s a new method of doing something, let them have a shot at it. NUNN: I say, " ; As long as it' ; s not illegal, immoral, or unethical, let them have a shot at it." ; And get them on board. And I think, one of the main complaints they say is that, " ; Nobody listens to us. They tell us what we want, and what we should do, but nobody ever asked us." ; And, you ask them, they will definitely tell you. CUNNINGHAM: Okay, thank you very much. NUNN: You' ; re welcome. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
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Chief Annetta Nunn discusses her path to becoming the first female chief of the Birmingham Police Department.
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Horace Huntley
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Mary E. Streeter Perry
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5.3 January 14, 1998 Mary Streeter Perry Interviewed on January 14, 1998 19980114P 0:49:41 BCRIOHP Birmingham Civil Rights Institute Oral History Project Collection bcriohp BCRI Oral History Project BCRI Oral History Collection Indexer: Emily Reynolds Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 African Americans--Politics and government--20th century Mary E. Streeter Perry Horace Huntley Video 1:|9(7)|54(8)|77(6)|98(4)|111(10)|124(12)|138(13)|152(15)|179(12)|192(9)|214(13)|232(3)|249(10)|264(15)|288(14)|315(5)|334(4)|358(10)|380(1)|398(5)|413(6)|434(5)|447(10)|459(12)|479(3)|493(14)|510(13)|530(5)|546(18)|562(2)|574(2)|589(1)|602(9)|614(11)|631(14)|647(11)|657(6)|667(2)|676(14)|698(9)|729(4)|732(16)|745(6)|761(2)|779(4)|793(15)|809(13)|816(1)|825(9) 0 https://youtu.be/E-Dfx0bgDqg YouTube video English 0 Introduction to Interview This is an interview with Mary E. Streeter Perry ; I’m Dr. Horace Huntley presently at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. This is an interview for the Oral History Project ; today is January 28, 1998. 33.516200, -86.813870 17 The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute https://www.bcri.org/ The homepage of the BCRI 57 Upbringing & ; Grade-School Education Were your mother and father from Birmingham originally? Details of early education and family life in Alabama. African Americans--Education (Elementary) ; African Americans--Education--Southern States ; Birmingham (Ala.) ; Family life African Americans--Education--Southern States 411 College Education and Early Work Experience What did you do after you finished Parker? Perry describes educational experience and early career. African Americans--Education (Higher) ; African Americans--Education--Southern States ; African Americans--Employment African Americans--Education--Southern States 523 Initial Movement Involvement How did you get involved in the Movement? Details on initial personal involvement with the Civil Rights Movement. African Americans--Civil rights ; Civil rights movement ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement African Americans--Civil rights 727 Repercussions from Movement Involvement Were there any repercussions as a result of your involvement in the Movement at the University Hospital? Perry describes how she was fired from her job following her arrest. African Americans--Civil rights ; Arrest--United States ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights 765 Demonstrations, Arrest, and Jail Time Do you remember the first time that you demonstrated? Details regarding involvement in Civil Rights Movement demonstrations (including demonstration at Woolworth's), arrest, and jail time. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--Southern States ; African Americans--Segregation ; Arrest--United States ; Civil rights movement ; F.W. Woolworth and Co. ; F.W. Woolworth Company Civil rights movements--Southern States--History--20th century 1147 Voter Registration Efforts Were you a registered voter at the time? Perry describes her participation in voter registration efforts. African Americans--Politics and government--20th century ; Voter registration--United States African Americans--Politics and government--20th century 1192 Family & ; Community Response to Movement Engagement What was the reception that you received at home once you released from jail? Perry describes her family's reaction to Civil Rights Movement engagement and arrest, as well as their support. African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century ; Civil rights movement African Americans--Civil rights--History--20th century 1313 Non-violence Education Trip and SCLC You had the opportunity also to go to Dorchester (sp?)? Perry describes a trip she took with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference where she learned about peaceful demonstrations. African Americans--Civil rights ; Civil rights movement ; Nonviolence ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference African Americans--Civil rights 1392 Living in Chicago Now, you were dismissed from your job at University Hospital. Where did you work after that? Discussion of moving from Alabama to Chicago, Illinois, and continued activism and awareness of Civil Rights Movement after relocation. African Americans--Civil rights ; Chicago (Ill.) ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 African Americans--Civil rights 1940 Political Involvement There are the occasions where some Blacks that found that you were from Birmingham and they look at you different than they would if you were from New York or Chicago or some places? Political involvement in Chicago. African Americans--Civil rights ; Chicago (Ill.) ; Committee to Elect Harold Washington Mayor of Chicago ; United States--Politics and government--20th century ; Voter registration United States--Politics and government 2076 Progression of the Movement So, the Movement, then, in your mind, body and soul, has gone from Birmingham in 1961-62-63 to Chicago in the 90s and you sort of epitomize that Movement. Migration has always been a key issue in the history of Black people in this country. Discussion of the progression of the Civil Rights Movement. Affirmative action programs--Law and legislation--United States ; African American youth ; African Americans--Civil rights ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 African Americans--Civil rights 2288 Reflection on Movement Leadership What do you think were the emphasis of the leadership in the Movement at that time? Discussion of experience with and opinions on leadership and Civil Rights Movement progress. African American leadership ; African Americans--Civil rights ; Black Panther Party ; Black power--United States--History--20th century ; Chicago (Ill.) ; Southern Christian Leadership Conference African American leadership 2610 Vietnam War In 1963, ’64, SNCC was going on record against the Vietnam War, against Americans being in Vietnam— Opinions on Vietnam War. King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 ; Vietnam War, 1961-1975--African Americans Vietnam War, 1961-1975 2672 Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Assassination We all grieved from Dr. King’s assassination, why do you think he was killed? Remembering the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Assassination--United States ; King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968 2783 Movement Long-Term Impact Do you think that there has been any, I guess—any other things that we experience that were positive that we—just a feeling of victory that we felt during the Civil Rights Movement? Has any of that impacted up on us in the 70s, 80s and 90s and going up the 21st Century? Reflection on Civil Rights Movement and on personal opinions on its impact and influence over time. Affirmative action programs--Law and legislation--United States ; African Americans--Civil rights ; African Americans--Education ; African Americans--Employment African Americans--Civil rights Oral History Mary E. Streeter Perry discusses growing up in Birmingham, including attending Booker T. Washington Business College, before getting involved with the Movement. She was a part of a sit-in at Woolworth's, voter registration efforts and SNCC. After her involvement in the Movement in Birmingham, she moved to Chicago and became politically active. HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mary E. Streeter Perry ; I' ; m Dr. Horace Huntley presently at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. This is an interview for the Oral History Project ; today is January 28, 1998. Mrs. Perry, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule and really, while you' ; re on vacation from Chicago, to come to sit and talk with us about your activities in the Movement. As you said, you slept, ate and drank the Movement at that time as a young person ; so, we' ; ll be very interested in getting into that. But, before we get there, let me just raise a couple of questions about you and your family. Were your mother and father from Birmingham originally? PERRY: Bullock County. HUNTLEY: Bullock County, okay. Were you born here? PERRY: I was born here in Birmingham, Alabama. HUNTLEY: How many brothers and sisters did you have? PERRY: There were five of us. HUNTLEY: Where do you fall in that? PERRY: I' ; m in the middle. HUNTLEY: Right in the middle. PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: Okay, so you had the best of all worlds, huh? PERRY: Yes, I did. HUNTLEY: What neighborhood did you grow up in? PERRY: Smithfield. HUNTLEY: Smithfield. How much education did your parents have? PERRY: My mother--they all went to elementary school and at that time, they couldn' ; t afford to go to high school or beyond that, so--. HUNTLEY: Both your mother and your father? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did they do? PERRY: Domestic ; my mother was a housewife and my father worked for the steel mill here in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: Did your mother work outside of the home? PERRY: No, she worked in the home because at that time, mothers were at home raising children, taking care of things at home. HUNTLEY: Did you know what you father did in the steel mill ; what kind of work? PERRY: He worked in the nail department, making nails. HUNTLEY: Those days of growing up in Birmingham, you know, many people look at a person who lived and grew up in Birmingham as being somewhat of an aberration because you grew up in such a repressive society-- PERRY: Sure. HUNTLEY: What was that time like for you? Let me just ask you about your elementary school days. Do you remember your first grade, where you started first grade? PERRY: Oh yes. HUNTLEY: What school? PERRY: It was Lincoln School and it was very exciting to me as a child because you assumed that all the other children go to the same process you go through ; home, church, school, your community comes just in that order. And, you' ; re taught to respect each area and to love, to care for, to nurture you for future development. HUNTLEY: Where did you live in Smithfield? PERRY: At the time, we lived in 8th Avenue. In fact, we were a block away from Lincoln School at that time. HUNTLEY: So, you didn' ; t have far to walk to school? PERRY: I didn' ; t have far to walk. HUNTLEY: Okay. From Lincoln School, where did you go? PERRY: Parker. It was Parker Annex at the time. I think it was director and faculty at the school at that time. HUNTLEY: Parker, in those early days was termed the ' ; Biggest Negro High School' ; in the world. PERRY: Oh, it was. It was very exciting ; it was academically exciting, there were so many activities the children were involved in at the time. We were taught to be involved in school activities, which were, again, part of your development. HUNTLEY: What kind of extracurricular activities were you involved in? PERRY: I was in the band. I joined the Gymnastics, I was into--the classroom activities, I was a secretary, I was a treasurer, and it was very exciting and I was into--went to all the games and there weren' ; t any drugs involved or anything like that at that time. So, we were considered very normal children in normal activities in school. HUNTLEY: Do you remember any gangs at Parker or in your community? PERRY: Oh no. At that time, we never heard of anything like that. We didn' ; t have to worry about gangs, drugs, and killings. It just wasn' ; t in our era, thank God it wasn' ; t. HUNTLEY: You never heard of the knives that were carried? There was something-- PERRY: Well, that were times when boys would get into those fights and little scuffles, but is was nothing like it is today. No, we didn' ; t have anything like that. HUNTLEY: How would you say Parker impacted upon you in terms of your development? Were there individuals that you remember that had an impact on your development? PERRY: Everybody had an impact because we were like a family at school. School was home away from home and you were treated that way, you were respected that way and you were educated that way. So, everybody knew everybody, respected everybody ; the teachers were like moms, dads and so was the principal of the school. So, there was that close communication, understanding, love and respect. HUNTLEY: Do you remember any particular teachers that would have more influence on you than others? PERRY: My principal, Mr. R. C. Johnson. He was bigger than life and he really impressed me. He was my father away from home. So, what he said was ruled, law and we all abided by it and I remember him to that day, he really impressed me. It' ; s been the leadership at school that followed me all through life. HUNTLEY: What did you do after you finished Parker? PERRY: After I finished Parker, I went to Booker T. Washington Business College, which was an extension of high school, of course, it added onto my education experience. HUNTLEY: What did you major in? PERRY: Secretarial Science, which was consisted of Typing. HUNTLEY: What did you do after that, did you go to work? PERRY: I worked and I was going to school and shortly after that, the Movement came. I was very active and participated and I started working at University Hospital. I got involved with the Movement, lost my job at University--. HUNTLEY: Before you get there, let my try to direct the traffic a little bit. You went to Booker T. Washington ; what was your first job after Booker T. Washington? PERRY: I worked as a waitress. HUNTLEY: Where? PERRY: It was a little--in the Black community, I can' ; t recall-- HUNTLEY: Was it in the business district ; the 4th Avenue Business District, near the school? PERRY: No, it was more near Parker. HUNTLEY: It was in Smithfield? PERRY: It was in Smithfield. Because at the time, we couldn' ; t get jobs at Woolworth' ; s and there were no McDonald' ; s and so, we got jobs where we could. HUNTLEY: How long did you work there? PERRY: Up until about, I think about a year and a half and I went to the University Hospital and was employed there. HUNTLEY: How did you get involved in the Movement? PERRY: We heard about it by word of mouth, of course, at church and all that. We were very interested, like, all of the kids and we wanted to do something for our community. We were very excited about Dr. King coming to Birmingham. Of course, we already had the Alabama Christian Movement and they merged together to do what they had to do. I went to the mass meetings. HUNTLEY: How would you describe a typical mass meeting? PERRY: Oh, it was packed. There was singing ; praying, Dr. King and his staff would speak about desegregating the public facilities at that time because everything was of course, you know, not integrated. So, what we had to do to was solve those problems at that time. We were so excited, the children were all motivated. In fact, they were all getting out of school to join the Movement. Everybody was joining the Movement-- HUNTLEY: Now, you' ; re already out of high school, right? PERRY: Oh yes. HUNTLEY: Were you at that time, working at University Hospital? PERRY: Yes, at that time I was working at University. HUNTLEY: How did that conflict with your involvement with the Movement and you working at University? PERRY: Well, like I said, I was so excited. I just automatically joined the Movement and we all signed up and went to 16th Street Baptist Church to learn how to demonstrate and what to do and what not to do. The dos and don' ; ts--how risky it was and how we had to be nonviolent. Dr. King always said that if you felt that you couldn' ; t handle the nonviolent aspect of it, not to join. But, we weren' ; t afraid, most of us. Those who were fearful didn' ; t join of course. I was so excited, we didn' ; t care about that, and we just wanted to do something for our community. HUNTLEY: Were other members of your family involved? PERRY: Yes, my brother and I have a little sister who was involved. HUNTLEY: What did your parents say about your involvement? PERRY: They were nervous and scared like the rest of the parents. HUNTLEY: Did they raise any questions about your not participating? PERRY: Yes. There was some controversy, a lot of arguments about it. But, we knew what we had to do. It was very important for us at the time to do, to participate and to do something. HUNTLEY: What was the training that you received? PERRY: Well, it was very educational, I must say. We were taught to be nonviolent, if someone was to attempt to be violent against us, we had to group in, get close together, protect each other, not to say anything, but to just demonstrate, carry our signs in a nonviolent manner and walk and talk in a nonviolent manner. Just to protect ourselves, of course, the staff was close by to help us and assist us. HUNTLEY: Were there any repercussions as a result of your involvement in the Movement at the University Hospital? PERRY: I was fired from my job. HUNTLEY: What was the rationale? PERRY: Well, they found out I was in jail, I went to jail and of course they immediately fired me without every getting rehired if I participated in the Movement. If they had anything to do with Movement, they would not be rehired. HUNTLEY: Do you remember the first time that you demonstrated? PERRY: Oh yes. I was at a sit-in counter at Woolworth' ; s and we had to sit at the counter and there so many booths. It was quite interesting they were all so motivating to us because we felt assured that we would take it, we weren' ; t afraid of anything. We' ; d sit at the counters and we would sit like 30 minutes, then the White people walked around and wouldn' ; t serve us, they would call us ugly names. So, after about 30 minutes, we would move and another group would come in and that process continued. HUNTLEY: Were you ever arrested? PERRY: Yes, I was arrested. When I demonstrated in front of Love' ; s Department-- HUNTLEY: This was not at the sit-ins? PERRY: I was arrested during a demonstration, picketing. My brother at the time was demonstrating in front of Pizitz Store. With my group, the police came up with the paddy and asked us if we had permits and we said no and they put us in the paddy wagons and we sang songs of praises all the way to jail. HUNTLEY: How many were in your group? PERRY: There were approximately, I would say 20 to 25 people. HUNTLEY: And, they put all of you in the same paddy wagon? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: It was rather crowded in there. PERRY: Oh yes. But we managed. HUNTLEY: What was going through your mind when all of this was happening? Why do that at that time? PERRY: We were doing something positive and that it was going to help our community for future generations as well as at that time. That' ; s what made us so excited. HUNTLEY: Were there other friends of yours, close associates of yours that were with you when you were demonstrating? PERRY: There were a few neighbors and friends of mine that I knew. We were all close communities and everybody got involved. HUNTLEY: When you went to jail, was there anyone in jail with you that you knew from your immediate surroundings like school or from your neighborhood? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: So, you knew most of the people that were in jail with you? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: What was jail like? PERRY: It was a wonderful experience. HUNTLEY: Jail was a wonderful experience? PERRY: Because, we knew why we were there and that' ; s what made it wonderful. We had an opportunity to learn about an experience we never experienced before. We got friendly with the prisoners. We stayed in the group as we were taught. HUNTLEY: The prison authorities didn' ; t attempt to separate you? PERRY: Oh no. The women were in the prison with the women and of course, the men with men. HUNTLEY: Where were you housed? PERRY: We were housed actually in prison downtown. We just started having church service, singing, praying and of course, the inmates joined in with us. It was a wonderful experience, very, very, very enlightening. HUNTLEY: Were there any efforts to make you be quiet? PERRY: No, we weren' ; t brutalized or--they respected us and we followed the rules and regulations so, we didn' ; t fear anything. HUNTLEY: How long were you there? PERRY: I was there two days and one night. Dr. King would come out and check on us and we could see him through the window and he would holler and ask us how we' ; re doing. HUNTLEY: So, it was very memorable occasion? PERRY: Yes it was. HUNTLEY: Do you remember the food? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: How was it? PERRY: We ate out tin plates, one tin cup and one tin spoon. We had something that looked like grits, something that looked like soup, we couldn' ; t tell. We ate out the vending machines, potato chips, peanuts and candy. HUNTLEY: So, you had money? PERRY: We had a little bit, nickels, quarters and dimes with us. We just couldn' ; t eat the food, it was--that was the worst experience right there. HUNTLEY: So, the food was the worst? PERRY: Was actually the worst experience, yes. HUNTLEY: Do you remember when you were released? PERRY: Yes, the day that I went to jail, we stayed that night and the next day, we were released that following evening. Reverend Billups and Bernard Beatey (sp?) came to get us out of jail and we immediately went to the mass meeting at 16th Street. HUNTLEY: So, you didn' ; t go home? PERRY: No, we went directly to the mass meeting. HUNTLEY: What was your reception when you arrived? PERRY: Oh, the church was packed, choirs singing, standing ovation and everybody applauded when we walked in. We sat down front and different ministers would get up and we had the experience of expressing our experiences in jail. It was very exciting. HUNTLEY: Sound like you wanted to go back. PERRY: It was one of the most exciting times in my life and if I could do it all over again, I really would. HUNTLEY: Were you ever arrested again after that? PERRY: No, I wasn' ; t arrested again. Of course, I participated making signs, answering phones and just doing what ever they needed me to do and then later on, work in voter registration. HUNTLEY: Were you a registered voter at the time? PERRY: I wasn' ; t quite, age wise. HUNTLEY: What did you do in terms of voter registration? PERRY: Well, at Thurgood CME Church, which is now relocated, but at the time, it was close to all the funeral homes and we would sign the community up and everybody would come out and sign up and we' ; d show them how to fill the papers out and then they were given free transportation by anybody in the community who could volunteer and including funeral homes, they would offer their services to give free rides to anyone who wanted to go down to the courthouse to registered. HUNTLEY: What was the reception that you received at home once you released from jail? PERRY: Well, my parents were relieved of course and they were happy and I explained to them what I wanted to. So, after that, they accepted what I wanted to do and without any arguments. HUNTLEY: Was your brother arrested? PERRY: No, he wasn' ; t arrested and he continued to demonstrate, but, he wasn' ; t arrested. HUNTLEY: After your arrest, you have become a veteran then. How did your peers relate to you as a result of your activities? I' ; m sure there friends who were not involved in the Movement, how did they relate? PERRY: To tell you the truth, the ones that I saw and ran into, they immediately wanted to join the Movement. You see, the children had to because the parents had to work. So, everybody couldn' ; t go to jail and this is what Dr. King said, " ; The children have to do this." ; We were willing and as well as able to respond to the call. HUNTLEY: Were there--many--in interviewing other people, many of them have suggested that the children were very actively involved and participated during this breached period, say from the beginning of May until for about a week or so. But, activities after that then sort of dwindled. Was that your experience as well? PERRY: No. HUNTLEY: Was that level of involvement, did that continue? PERRY: No, the children were very active through the whole times of the demonstrations, it was very active. We went from the demonstrations with into the voter registration. HUNTLEY: Had the opportunity also, to go to Dorchester (sp?) PERRY: Dorchester (sp?) Simon(sp?), yes. HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. PERRY: There was busload of us, volunteered to go to Dorchester to learn more about the Movement, to learn about Gandhi, who started the Movement in India and had classes of course. I think we stayed like a day or two, of course everybody had to get permission from their parents and it was a wonderful experience. We really learned a lot about the Movement and of course we were very excited about learning about Gandhi and how his movement got us motivated. HUNTLEY: Did you join the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights or SCLC? PERRY: I joined SCLC. HUNTLEY: Did you work with them in any other city, other than Birmingham? PERRY: No, I did not. Because I lived in Chicago and there' ; s not an office. HUNTLEY: Now, you were dismissed from your job at University Hospital. Where did you work after that? PERRY: I moved to Chicago. I followed some relatives to find a job and to go back to school and to get myself ready for my future because I felt that I did something that would add onto to my education that would help me along in life. So, I felt very good about it and I still feel good about it. So, I moved to Chicago and found a job and start taking classes and working and going to school. I would come home whenever I could to visit my family and I think I didn' ; t come back until my father got sick and he was so sick, I just dropped everything. HUNTLEY: You were away for 10 years? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: How, then, would you compare Chicago with Birmingham? When you first arrived there, was this the first time that you had been to Chicago or had you been going? PERRY: Yes. HUNTLEY: So, how was that transition from Birmingham to Chicago? PERRY: Well, they needed what we did. They needed--it was very different. HUNTLEY: How do you mean, different? PERRY: Well, I noticed that the young people, they didn' ; t have what we had here, the close knit families, the motivation to work together for the betterment of your home, family, community, period and it was desperately needed and of course, I couldn' ; t single-handedly do it. But, that' ; s the first thing I notice, how divided the Black community was. HUNTLEY: Did you get involved with Dr. King came to Chicago? PERRY: Yes I did. I participated in demonstrations, I didn' ; t go to jail but I did demonstration. HUNTLEY: How were demonstrations different in Chicago than Birmingham? PERRY: It was very much more powerful because there were different circumstances, you have people who really didn' ; t understand our plight because they were born and raised there. The Blacks were so divided there ; it' ; s not the close communication like it should be because it' ; s a larger city, perhaps. At the time I felt that all Black communities were alike and it was not. It was just the opposite. HUNTLEY: So, did that create a problem for you? PERRY: I was disappointed, very hurt. HUNTLEY: Did you every consider coming back to Birmingham? PERRY: Well, I considered, but the jobs were so plentiful there, much more here for the Black community and I felt if I stayed a little bit longer and made a little more money and of course, I was helping my family at that time. HUNTLEY: What kind of work did you do? PERRY: Oh, I did clerical work. I was mostly attracted to the departments where I worked, in fact a couple of them closed. But, that was interest at that time and still is. HUNTLEY: Well, Chicago being much different from Birmingham and when Dr. King came to Chicago, he made a statement. That he had never seen the viciousness on the face of the people in Alabama and Mississippi that he witnessed in Chicago. You had mentioned earlier that you were not afraid, here in Birmingham you were demonstrating, because you knew that it was for something that was gonna benefit the community. Did you have that same sense of a struggle when you demonstrated in Chicago? PERRY: Yes, I did. HUNTLEY: What about the PERRY: The violent aspect? HUNTLEY: Right. PERRY: I wasn' ; t afraid personally, but, I was afraid for the children who were not familiar with what they were doing. They really didn' ; t' ; have a sense, they just wanted to do something because Dr. King was there. But, I don' ; t think they were prepared because there was no environment comfortable enough that would understand what they were doing. HUNTLEY: In Birmingham, the demonstrations never really went into White communities per se-- PERRY: Yes-- HUNTLEY: But, in Chicago, the march went to Cicero. PERRY: Right, they were a racist community. HUNTLEY: And that is when he talked about the differences in how it impacted upon him as a person and being afraid and if you view the film, you can see the fright in his face and in others' ; faces as well. It was a different world in Chicago. PERRY: Still is. HUNTLEY: Still is? PERRY: Yes. Because you have people coming from all over the world and they don' ; t understand nor do they care about the plights of the Black community. So, this is where the violence comes into play. HUNTLEY: How did the Movement prepare you for your life in Chicago and beyond? PERRY: It made me a strong person. It made me face life better and the reality to accommodate myself with the world around me, no matter where the people come from ; you have to learn to live with other parts of the world. It educated me to handle myself in situations that I might come across that would encounter prejudice in particular. I think I' ; ve done quite well. HUNTLEY: You said that if you had the chance to do it all over again, you would? PERRY: I would, I would do it all over again and I' ; d like to add that I' ; m kind of disappointed that our Blacks don' ; t have a sense of pride and I blame that part on the parents. I want the whole world to know what we did, because we had an impact on the world and we didn' ; t realize it at that particular time and I' ; m very extremely proud of it. The world has copied off us and with the children and their children the future generations to not forget where we come from, particularly our ancestors because if it wasn' ; t for them, we wouldn' ; t be here to do what we had to do. Each generation have to play a part and be proud of your community and not to forget where you come from, where you are now, so you can go on with your future and know where you' ; re going. So, I want the young people to really, very seriously participate in their communities, to be a positive impact no matter where you are and what part of the world you live in, you' ; re still part of the Black community and not to ever forget where you come from. Where you' ; re from is very important because if you don' ; t know where you come from, you' ; ll never know where you' ; re going. HUNTLEY: I know Northern cities or Western cities or wherever you meet people and you tell them that you' ; re from Birmingham, Alabama, what has been the reaction? PERRY: The Black community of course, they' ; re interesting and very proud. I expressed in the White community while I' ; m in Chicago and the fact that I was part of the Movement and they gave me sort of the half smile and which is okay because I want the whole world to know about what we did in Birmingham, so I continue to carry the message. HUNTLEY: There are the occasions where some Blacks that found that you were from Birmingham and they look at you different than they would if you were from New York or Chicago or some places? PERRY: Occasionally, but I got my most positive results from the Black community. In fact, I joined Harold Washington since I been there. I' ; ve even went to some community leaders' ; party for Harold Washington and Judges at a party and it was very interesting and they were all very proud of the fact that I was part of the Movement here in Birmingham. HUNTLEY: Tell me about the Harold Washington party. PERRY: Harold Washington was THE MAN, of course you he died tragically a few years ago. They wanted to memorize him in as many aspects as they could. So, they organized this Harold Washington party, to be part of the permanent part of the Black community, it was very exciting to be in. Everybody was very cordial, something like here, but not on a vast scale. I feel it should have been, but-- HUNTLEY: So, you worked with voter registration, anything else? PERRY: I helped the political parties, worked with different mainly Black offices. HUNTLEY: Are you still working with that group? PERRY: Not as active as it was initially, but I' ; m still part of the Harold Washington party. HUNTLEY: Judge Penchman(sp?) just ran for an office. PERRY: Yes, he did. He didn' ; t win but you can' ; t keep a good man down. HUNTLEY: You know his daughter lives here. PERRY: Oh really, I didn' ; t know that. HUNTLEY: So, the Movement, then, in your mind, body and soul, has gone from Birmingham in 1961-62-63 to Chicago in the 90s and you sort of epitomize that Movement. Migration has always been a key issue in the history of Black people in this country. PERRY: It' ; s a part of me for the rest of my life. HUNTLEY: And you would like for everybody to know that and know what it has meant to you? PERRY: Yes, what it was meant for our communities in the future. HUNTLEY: Where are we now in relationship to the Movement of the 60s? PERRY: We' ; re not where we should be. I think that everybody should take a part and revitalize our community to the point where we can change the laws to benefit us. We can practice those laws to benefit us, to better our communities because things are not getting, in a sense they' ; re getting worse. They want to get rid of Affirmative Action, I think that' ; s a terrible mistake ; it would hurt us in our community. I want our leaders to be leaders like Dr. King, Rev. Walker and Rev. Shuttlesworth. If we can find leaders like that in our younger generation, it really would help our community. I can' ; t see whey that can' ; t be done. I can' ; t see why young people don' ; t really have an interest in that area like they should, to make a national impact, a national statement. I hope that is something that can motivate them to want to participate in their communities because I' ; m so afraid that other people from other parts of the world are just gonna come over here and just take total control and take all our jobs. HUNTLEY: What were the successes of the Movement? PERRY: Affirmative Action, every aspect of the community, period, there were jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. You could go to the school you want to. Everything opened up publicly and I' ; m very proud of that because it makes me feel that our works was not in vain, our efforts--even though some of the scars are there--one of the things that hurt me the most Dr. King was killed, it hurts me now to even talk about it because it just devastated our community. He was a parent to all of us as well as our leader and -- HUNTLEY: What do you think were the emphasis of the leadership in the Movement at that time? PERRY: To show courage, intelligence and to show that we were educated people, we have a beautiful history and we' ; re the first people here on this earth. We have attributed everything to mankind and we have not reaped the benefits of our contributions to this country and to the world. We should be recognized throughout the whole world of a Black people, what we' ; re about, who we are, what we represent, what we bring forth and we' ; re still the most brilliant people in the world. And if nobody appreciates us, we should appreciate ourselves. HUNTLEY: Were there any mistakes made during the time from the perspective of our leadership? PERRY: There weren' ; t enough leaders. HUNTLEY: Not enough leaders? PERRY: Not enough leaders. HUNTLEY: What could more leaders have done that was done? PERRY: Well, if they had the leadership that we were brought under, it would have spread worldwide. HUNTLEY: You don' ; t think it spread worldwide? PERRY: Well, it did, but SCLC would have been all over the world. HUNTLEY: You' ; re saying SCLC should have had more leaders? What about the other organizations such as SNCC or CORE? PERRY: Oh sure they contributed, but I was such a part of SCLC, I' ; m not dismissing their contributions. If it had been more leaders, we could have changed the whole world to a better place to live. HUNTLEY: Now, you mentioned Dr. King, Fred Shuttlesworth, were there other people that you looked upon as being leaders? PERRY: Oh yes, Reverend Gardner, Wyatt T. Walker, Dorothy Cotton, Annie Young, Reverend Charles Phillips-- HUNTLEY: What about-- PERRY: Many local leaders-- HUNTLEY: What about national leaders like Stokely Carmichael? PERRY: Stokely Carmichael, oh yes. Of course, Malcolm X. HUNTLEY: There are different areas of the Movement and the nonviolent direction action, of course, was led by the SCLC. PERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: Then, you had the college students that were led by SNCC. PERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: Stokely Carmichael and people of that nature and then of course, you did have Malcolm X and others. The Movement sort of escalates in the mid-60s and you' ; re in Chicago and the Black Panther Party is organized. How do you view that with your background, coming from Birmingham and having your experiences with SCLC and when you get to Chicago, you say that SCLC are really that active in the urban center-- PERRY: I think they should have merged ; they would have been more powerful, more positive and generating more. More community activities and participation would have been great. HUNTLEY: You don' ; t think that they were searching for different things? PERRY: I think they were searching for the same thing. I think we would have been more powerful--when you' ; re--together we stand, divided we fall, we can' ; t afford to have any kind of division in our communities, we just can' ; t afford it. HUNTLEY: How did you view the whole concept of Black power? PERRY: I think it was a good thing all the way around. But, it could have been more powerful had they merged. HUNTLEY: In 1963, ' ; 64, SNCC was going on record against the Vietnam War, against Americans being in Vietnam-- PERRY: It was a terrible mistake. HUNTLEY: Dr. King did not agree with them at that particular juncture or he did not publicly agree with them. By 1967 though, he did come out against the Vietnam War. PERRY: Right. HUNTLEY: How was that viewed by you and people in your particular area? PERRY: Well, we agreed with Dr. King. Of course it was a terrible mistake, it was a terrible time, it was unnecessary. HUNTLEY: What was a terrible mistake? PERRY: Getting involved in the war, period. Our men getting killed, for what? There were a lot of Black communities hurt by that war. HUNTLEY: We all grieved from Dr. King' ; s assassination, why do you think he was killed? PERRY: Because of all the wonderful things he did. HUNTLEY: Why would he be assassinated for the wonderful things? PERRY: Jesus was assassinated, so, Dr. King was assassinated and Malcolm X. At that time when the Black community tried to do something positive, your life is automatically on the line. I think we take a risk on your family as well. They understood this and accepted. He knew and he often talked about the fact that one day he might get killed and it happened. I can' ; t elaborate because it' ; s just too-- HUNTLEY: Where were they day you heard of Dr. King--? PERRY: I was in Chicago-- HUNTLEY: Do you remember where you were when you actually got the news? PERRY: Yes, I was with my other relatives there. HUNTLEY: I was in Minneapolis at the time and it was in the evening like 5:30, 6:00 when we received the message and I think most people can probably remember exactly what they were doing when they got the news and not believing it. That created a real difficulty for the Movement as a whole and some say it actually ended the Movement. The Movement actually ended as result of that, would you agree with or not? PERRY: Yes, I do. HUNTLEY: You think the Movement ended with the death of Dr. King? PERRY: It shouldn' ; t have, but somewhat, it did. HUNTLEY: Do you think that there has been any, I guess--any other things that we experience that were positive that we--just a feeling of victory that we felt during the Civil Rights Movement? Has any of that impacted up on us in the 70s, 80s and 90s and going up the 21st Century? PERRY: I think so, jobs. Doors opened up and public doors opened and that was a wonderful thing and it still is. This is why I' ; m so afraid of Affirmative Action is going to be destroyed because it would cripple our community and our efforts. I think the Black community should press the Government and we should also fight for Affirmative Action. HUNTLEY: Do you think we' ; ll do that, collectively? Do you see that we' ; re doing-- We' ; ve gone from Smithfield to Lincoln School to Parker Annex through Parker High School all the way to the Southside of Chicago. Is there anything else that you would like to include in this tape before we conclude? PERRY: Well, I hope what I said will encourage our people to continue the struggle for our communities. If we don' ; t, we won' ; t have a community. It is very vital, it' ; s a matter of life for us to survive. It is a matter of life for us to continue educating our children. We must continue fighting for our rights. We must continue working together, collectively as a community. We must be better people so our homes can be better, our schools can be better, and our communities can be better to, to better the whole world. I think we can do that if we really set our minds to it and I' ; m really reaching to young people to please work in your communities. HUNTLEY: I want to thank you for coming back home and sitting and talking with me today and maybe we' ; ll get a chance to do this at some later date. Because, I know that you' ; re gonna continue to pass this word ; I can feel the spirit as you talk. PERRY: I do it all the time. HUNTLEY: I can tell that you do. PERRY: Thank you. HUNTLEY: Thank you. This material is property of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. video This material is available for educational and research purposes only. Permission for commercial use will not be granted. For publication information, please contact archives
bcri.org. 0 http://bcriohp.org/ohms-viewer/viewer.php?cachefile=MESPerry1998.xml MESPerry1998.xml
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Title
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Mary Streeter Perry
Description
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Mary E. Streeter Perry discusses growing up in Birmingham, including attending Booker T. Washington Business College, before getting involved with the Movement. She was a part of a sit-in at Woolworth's, voter registration efforts and SNCC. After her involvement in the Movement in Birmingham, she moved to Chicago and became politically active.
Identifier
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19980114P
Subject
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Civil rights movements--Alabama—Birmingham.
King, Martin Luther, Jr., 1929-1968
African Americans--Politics and government--20th century
Date
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1998-01-14
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video