Johnnie L. Smith Interviewed on May 4, 1995

HUNTLEY: This is an interview with Mr. Johnnie L. Smith for the Birmingham Civil 00:01:00Rights Institute's Oral History Project. I am Dr. Horace Huntley. We are at Miles College and it is May 4, 1995.

Mr. Smith, I want to thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to come and sit and talk with us today. Welcome.

SMITH: Happy to.

HUNTLEY: Thank you. I just want to start by asking some general questions about you and your family and your upbringing. Are you from Birmingham?

SMITH: I'm from Birmingham, now, I guess.

HUNTLEY: Yes, sir. But where were you born?

SMITH: I was born in Butler County.

HUNTLEY: Butler County. And how long did you live in Butler County?

SMITH: Well, I was born and reared there.

HUNTLEY: And you came to Birmingham about 1919 and then you went back to...

SMITH: Right, I came into Birmingham around 1919 or 1920, somewhere along there.

HUNTLEY: You were born in what year?

SMITH: I was born in 1900.

HUNTLEY: So that makes you --

SMITH: July the 5th, 1900.

HUNTLEY: That makes you 95 years old?

SMITH: Right.

HUNTLEY: I need to know the secret. After we get off, I want you to tell me the secret.

SMITH: Well, I tell you, it's a good one.

HUNTLEY: It's a good one?

SMITH: It's a good one, yes.

HUNTLEY: Can you tell me a little about your family? Did you have brothers and sisters?

SMITH: Yes. I have -- it was four boys and three girls.

HUNTLEY: Were you the oldest?

SMITH: I'm the youngest.

HUNTLEY: You were the youngest?

SMITH: Yes.

HUNTLEY: Tell me a little about your parents.

SMITH: Well, my mother and father, you know, I don't know anything about their 00:03:00marriage or their fellowshipping but I know he and my mother were good providers for their family. We never worked under the sound of a White person's voice in our lives.

HUNTLEY: So your family owned their property?

SMITH: Well, my daddy, after he and my mother married, he bought a place for twenty-five cents an acre. He bought a hundred and seventeen acres for twenty-five cents an acre. Well, back in those days, I learned that those White people didn't allow Colored people to buy land. I don't know whether you ever 00:04:00heard that or not?

HUNTLEY: I heard it. Yes I have.

SMITH: Well, you didn't know whether it was true or not.

HUNTLEY: Right. But he did, he was able to buy land?

SMITH: My daddy was the type of man who believed in the Lord and the Lord would take all fear away from him. And that's what he did and he just pushed those kind of things aside and went ahead on and did what he -- all he wanted to know was it right.

HUNTLEY: So, was he a farmer?

SMITH: Farmer. Yes he was.

HUNTLEY: What did he farm?

SMITH: He raised cotton, corn, peanuts, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, made syrup. He would never kill under eight hogs. He killed around eight hogs or maybe nine. 00:05:00It depended on how well his family was accumulating, you know. So he was a great hand on looking down through the scopes of time and trying to put another piece of bread there for another mouth.

HUNTLEY: Did he have people outside of the family working for him?

SMITH: No. Just his family. Well, he had one man that -- people in those days had -- they didn't have a home, no where to stay. And if they could slip away so I'm learning, I did learn that they could slip away from over there way over yonder somewhere and go over here and kind of hide out.

HUNTLEY: So you had a person like that that lived on your father's farm?

SMITH: Yes. Well, he came over there and I was -- he stayed with my father long enough for me to grow up and get acquainted with him.

HUNTLEY: Did he have a family?

SMITH: No. He didn't have a family. But he was a quiet young man when he came. So sooner or later when he left my father, he married and he had a very nice family and he went away and I had just got kind of acquainted with him and he went away.

HUNTLEY: Did he buy himself property when he left your father?

SMITH: Well, I didn't know the history of his life. But he came back. He came back when I was just about grown; I was around 15 or 16 years old.

HUNTLEY: Tell me, what was it like growing up in Butler County, Alabama.

SMITH: Well, I'll tell you what it was like back in my day. I called it peace and happiness because I didn't know anything else. And you made your life about what you wanted it to be. It's not too much different then than now because you see some people now. They live, like nothing ever bothers them. Look like they are not ever in a bad condition. And I learned the ways and means on that is 00:08:00just the way you manage.

HUNTLEY: Tell me about your childhood. What do you remember about your childhood in Butler?

SMITH: Well, my childhood days my daddy and mother tried to teach me the difference in right and wrong which is with me today. If I did wrong, my mother would -- she would set them dates down. My father wouldn't. He would just strike a match on a piece of cotton with kerosene in it. He would get on you right then and there. But my mother would put them up. She sometimes, would get up as high 00:09:00has a dozen.

She would catch you in the belt so you couldn't run, you know. Of course, it's going to be pretty warm standing there, you know. And she would whip you for every one of them. She would talk to you and whipped you for this one and then tell you the next one came up she would tell you about that. She whipped you for every one of them. (offenses)

HUNTLEY: Today that would be child abuse, yes?

SMITH: Yes. That's right. But it was good for us. I never been in jail in my life and they didn't allow us to fight. Of course that was kind of a hard job to keep us down from fighting because we'd fight but if they got the news then you would nobody.

HUNTLEY: You first came to Birmingham when you were 17. You stayed in Birmingham 00:10:00for a brief period and then you went back --

SMITH: Oh, I stayed in Birmingham about three or four years.

HUNTLEY: And then you went back to Butler and then at 26 you came back to Birmingham?

SMITH: Right. I went back one day in early in January 1922

HUNTLEY: Tell me about that. When you came to Birmingham the first time, why did you come?

SMITH: Well, I came because it was a man lived not too far from us.

HUNTLEY: In Butler County?

SMITH: In Butler, yes. And his family and my family, brothers and father and all of them, we was very close, they moved to Birmingham and their name was Savannah Golson. And they moved to Birmingham. He had some young men. They was up with my older brothers. My older brothers and them was very good friends. So during the 00:11:00homecoming at their church, they came home for the homecoming and , he came over, just like he always had been doing -- came over to visit with us while he was down and he told me, he asked me did I want to go back home with him.

I told him, "Yeah." And I said, "But I know my dad won't let me go." He said, "I'll talk with him and see." My daddy, he asked my daddy to let me go back with him. You know, we would take care of him. My daddy said, "I don't know about that. I'll have to think about it." But sooner or later, my daddy, along with my help, agreed to let me go and I went back up there to stay. And I stayed with them.

HUNTLEY: What did you do when you came to Birmingham? Had you finished school down there?

SMITH: No. I hadn't finished school down there. You know, we just only had a 00:12:00three months school. And I didn't finish school down there, but we had a night school here in Birmingham and of course, I didn't take too much about it right at the present time because I was coming into contact with things I never seen before and it was between me and the schooling.

HUNTLEY: Well, when you first got here, did you work?

SMITH: No. My fellow friends took care of me. Then, I got a job with a place they called -- a company they called Cement and they made coke and they unloaded cars. There would be four men to each car and, you know, they would drop the 00:13:00doors down here at the bottom and then the men would get in there and take them shelves and try to break it loose and when it started breaking loose, they had a way they could break that a loose and could start it to going -- that stuff would shoot out there before you know it.

Well, I had to learn that. They would be through with that car. There were on tourneys and gone to the next car. And I'm over here scuffling trying to get my side broke loose. So one fellow, he was nice enough to show me how to do it. He said, "First thing you do is you, put your shovel down here, center into the door at the bottom and just work your shovel like that, you know." And he said, "It will go on down through that loose coal and it got down there and it'll break the bottom loose. When you break the bottom loose the rest of it was going to come out. So it wasn't long before I learned it.

HUNTLEY: Did you stay on that job then until --

SMITH: Well, I didn't stay too long. I had a lot of friends from home in the plant working for U. S. Steel. That's where I wanted to go, with them where they was. So I didn't stay over there too long.

HUNTLEY: After you left there then did you go to the plant?

SMITH: I went over to the plant to get a job. And it would be all the way from 300 to 400 to 500 people standing around out there waiting to get a job. The employment man would come out on a car platform and he would look over the crowd, you know, and they were hiring men then not less than an 180 from that to 200 pounds. Because they didn't have the convenience to have things with machines like they have now.

Back then they had to have big men -- strong men to do that type of work. And he looked over there and here I'm sitting over there looked like I just got through eating breakfast or somewhere, just got through playing in the sand or something, and he named me. He named me "Babyface." Looked all through there and after he spotted me and I found out he knew me, I'd stand behind somebody else and thought I could get in through lump sum.

When he called,"I want 150, 200, maybe 300, I would get a chance to go in with the crowd. But that opportunity never did present itself. And he always -- he eventually he came down to me. He said, "Babyface, come here." I would stand back. I wouldn't accept my name he give me. So different ones would say, "No." 00:16:00And then somebody would point to me and he would say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, him. Come here." So I went up there.

He said to me, he says, "Now listen." He says, "You just cannot do this work and I'm not going to hire you to come out here and get hurt." And he said, "The only way that I'll hire you is your parents would be in a condition so that they'll need your assistance and your help and they come dependent on you and we might give you a little light job like that. But otherwise, I ain't going to hire you." He says, "You just loosing time coming up here." I said, "Lord, have mercy." It was so bad to hear that. And so, all right. I accepted it and went on. But I would still go up.

I didn't go up every day but I would go up. So sooner or later I went up one day. He looked over and said, "Hey Babyface, glad to see you. Got something for you. Come here." Oh, man. You ought to have saw the crowd behind me, you know, 00:17:00following me up there. I went on up there. He said, "Go on in my office and sit down. I'll be in there a minute." So he stayed on there. He come in. I was wondering to myself what on earth had he found for me. And it was a cooking job. You see, they had what they called strikes of which I didn't know what they was talking about, a strike. Well, --

HUNTLEY: Work stoppage?

SMITH: Yes. Right. And this was out here on a mining camp at a place they called Brookside. And the company had a mine out there and they had a little -- what they called a little wild cat strike. And the men were going to work on. The company didn't pay something like that too much attention then. And the company, what they used, back in that day, they used soldiers for their protection.

They put them soldiers out through them woods around their plant and they would 00:18:00keep down orders. So, I went out there. I didn't know anything about no strike or nothing. I went out there and they had a place for me to stay and the employment man wanted to know could I cook. I said, "Yeah, I can cook." He said, "Well, Babyface, if you can cook, you got a job. They want a cook out here at Brookside."

Well, I had hung around my mother long enough to learn how to cook a little bit. So I went out there.

HUNTLEY: You were not aware that there was a strike at the time?

SMITH: Oh, no. I didn't know anything about a strike. I went out there and I stayed. I stayed from the latter part of August up until Christmas and my superintendent was named Henderson. Old man Henderson came around and checked up 00:19:00on the fellows from Edgewater, Bayview, Docena, Number Eight, Number Two, from all the mines the company had to break this strike.

Just reach up there and get so many here and so many there until they come out there and break this strike. So, he said come out there and I was in there working. So I had two helpers. All I had to do was season and fix the food and my two helpers when I put it on, they seen about it. And all I had to do then was to just look over it once and a while and I stretched out. I had it pretty nice. I was just lonesome.

HUNTLEY: So how long did you stay?

SMITH: I stayed out there about four months.

HUNTLEY: Then what did you do?

SMITH: Well, he came out and told me, he said, "Now, Smith, if everybody goes 00:20:00home to their family, "we're going to shut down the beanery and you can go home." I say, "Okay." I just prayed everybody went. And man it was about two dozen families that stayed. They didn't go. Then he came around to me and wanted to know from me what did I want to cook. I told him, I said, "Get me a half a barrel of turkeys and a half of a barrel of hens and mix them up."

So I cooked the turkeys and the hens for those that stayed and fixed dinner for them. Well, only one day for Christmas with the company, you know. And I stayed there and fixed that for them. And he told me, he said, "Now quick as everybody get back and get everything back to normal, I'm going to give you a horse and buggy and let you go to Birmingham and spend the day. See the company didn't 00:21:00have cars and trucks like they have now.

They had horse and buggies. So, I was looking forward to that. Man, it went on and the assistant was named Ross Black.

Mr. Black was a very nice man. He comes around one day about two or three weeks after Christmas and whispered in my ear. He said, "Listen, don't build your hopes up so high. I know you want to go." And I turned and looked at him with my face full of frowns. I didn't know what he was going to say. But he told me, he says, "Mr. Henderson ain't going to let you go, but don't tell him I said so." I said, "What?"

Well, the Southern came through there in the morning about 9:00 o'clock coming in from wherever it was coming from. And so I said -- one of those boys was 00:22:00named Val and the other was named Willie. I said, "Well, I'm going to put breakfast on y'all." And I said, "Y'all take care and I'm going to Birmingham this morning." They said, "Well, when you coming back." I say, "I'll be back this evening." So I put dinner on and everything and I went out there and got on the Southern.

But when I went through those scopes of woods up there -- I had to go through a scope of woods. They went -- those fellows went to hollering and they called them "black legs." They went to hollering and say "Hey, look out. Here we got one." Talking about me. I just kept walking just like I didn't know what they were talking about. Which I didn't know in a sense. And I went on. So they cussed around me.

After I got up before I turned down the hill to go down to the little station, 00:23:00they cussed around me and asked me and said, "What, you been over there to the mine?" And I said, "Yeah." And the thought came to me immediately. "What you doing over there? You know we on a strike?" I said, "I'm not working over there." I said, "I got a cousin live over there. I'm just down here visiting him." I said, "I'm from Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania."

They said, "Oh, well, one said, "Hey, look at his hands. You can tell whether he work in the mine or not." Well, my hand was in the water, you know what they look like. They looked at my hand, "Oh, let him go, he's all

right." I went on. I said, "I got to come back, now because I left my luggage there." "Whenever you get ready I'll tell all of them, just let you through." I said, "Thank you." So, I went on through.

Went on and came back and when I got back -- I got back at supper time. Mr. Henderson said to me, heard them all hollering, "Oh, here the cook, here's the cook, he's back." He came to the door out of his office and looked at me and got 00:24:00my attention. And he said, "Where you been?" I said, "I been to Birmingham." Who told you to go?" I said, "You." He said, "I didn't say when." I said, "I see you wasn't gone to say when, I said when."

HUNTLEY: How long did you stay after returning?

SMITH: Oh, well, after I got back. He told me, he say, "You stay here until the morning. Don't let the Southern leave you in the morning. You ain't got no more job here."

HUNTLEY: Oh, so he fired you?

SMITH: Yes. Fired me. I said "Okay, thank you." I didn't care. Because I had -- wore these money belts. I didn't have nothing out there to spend my money for and they was paying me $7.00 and something an hour.

HUNTLEY: Seven dollars and something an hour?

SMITH: An hour. That was what they were paying me.

HUNTLEY: Is that right?

SMITH: And I had a money belt on brother and it was fitting me pretty tight. Do you hear what I am saying. And I didn't -- it didn't make me no difference because I could go on to Birmingham from Birmingham on home if I wanted because I was looking at my daddy's smokehouse and it was just looking like a army's packing house. And I sit looking at the crib and there was corn in there. Go to the mill and get some meal. There was a lot full of cows out there -- milk. And I said, "What have I got to worry about?" I said, "I don't know how much I got around here, I'll go home."

HUNTLEY: So you went back to Butler?

SMITH: I went back to Birmingham.

HUNTLEY: Back to Birmingham?

SMITH: When I went back to Birmingham -- got back up there they had a little light blow over up there. Work had slowed down. Didn't amount to a whole lot. It wasn't cutting off anybody but they weren't hiring anybody. But I could afford to walk around awhile without hurting. So I went on back and so Miss, the lady I 00:26:00was staying with was named Miss Willie. Miss Willie, she always called me "Boy." "Come on in here, Boy."

She says, "My same ruling is good, stand good." Well, she didn't allow it -- it was about four of us staying there. And she didn't allow us out after 9:00 o'clock. If you out after 9:00 o'clock, you didn't get in. So, that meant that we had to be pretty well on the alert, you know, getting in and out. So that was her rule and she made us abide by it.

HUNTLEY: So how long did you stay in Birmingham?

SMITH: Well, when I came back then, I came back in -- they had a place down there on 17th Street they called the Riverside Cafe. You go down there at 00:27:00Riverside and you get a cup of coffee for a nickel and you could get a breakfast for fifteen cents, more than you could eat. Well, that was just twenty cents. So, I was on my way down about 9:00 o'clock.

The next couple of days down to Riverside to eat, somebody is coming up Avenue "F" towards Pratt City and they saw me crossing Avenue "F" on 17th Street and they hollered, "Hey cook, hey cook." I stopped and wait until they got up there. "Strike's over. Go on out -- if you want to work in the mine, go on out to Docena to wherever you want to go.

They are transferring us all to -- back to the mines we want to go to." So I didn't go to breakfast. I just went right on down to Avenue "F" and went on out 00:28:00to Hampton Slope out there. The man who worked there said, "Well, where did you want to work?" He didn't ask me where I had been working. He just asked me where I want to work and then what my name was and I told him old man Henderson didn't get a chance to put a red "X" on my card, so it was in the box just like he had hired me, you know.

And he looked and found my card. I told him, "Hampton Slope." He said, "Well, you can come out this evening if you want 3-11." I said, "How about day?" He said, "Well, you can have day if you want it." So I said, "Well, I'll be out in the morning." So I went on and left there and went on by the doctor.

HUNTLEY: So you actually worked in the mine?

SMITH: In the mine, yeah. I worked in the mine a while and old man Will Schaeffer was my mine foreman.

HUNTLEY: So how long were you in the mines?

SMITH: Well, I was in the mine around about two years.

HUNTLEY: And then after the mine, then what?

SMITH: After the mines, I'll tell you what happened. Probably I liked the mine 00:29:00so well until man, I just loved it, I just thought once that was an awful thing to be in the mine -- all that -- everything on top of you. You down there in that hole, but after I got down there and learned everything about it, I loved to be in there. And I stayed down there for about two years and I didn't say this is it. I'm going to make it here. Well, on the tenth right in the mine, it was a new mine, they had turned off rooms, you know. The tenth right --

HUNTLEY: This is the tenth right turn?

SMITH: That's a tenth. That's a room. You turn off tenth right.

HUNTLEY: Yes.

SMITH: After they got up in there a piece, they run into a vault. A vault now means -- here's the coal, and this here, this sheet right here is a rock, it 00:30:00goes right straight down in dividing this coal from here on the other side. Now, on the other side I don't know how thick this will be. This can be 15 or 20 feet thick.

HUNTLEY: You don't know how thick it is until you get in there and start --

SMITH: Right. Right. And then what they do, they come there, people that, take those scopes and things and tell you just exactly what to do. Well, what they had to do, they had to go shoot this rock and you know, it was about 15 or 20 feet through, if that thick and they shoot it through and that coal comes up on the other side of this rock. On the same level it was over here. And they shoot this rock out the way and get it out the way and run right back into the same coal on the other side.

So old man Schaeffer give me the job of furnishing them people a car to load that rock in, which they would load a car a day. And I had a mule, took mules in the mine. And I had a mule, I would go by the lot every morning and get my mule. I'll go up there and I just lay out there on the pile of clay they had there to make dummies out of there and stay there from the time I'd get there in the morning until quitting time. Take the mule and would never hitch him up to a car.

HUNTLEY: Were you a member of the UMW?

SMITH: No. They didn't have that then.

HUNTLEY: The UMW was not in the mines?

SMITH: No. They didn't have those union and things. That wasn't in existence then. So had an old foreman over us -- had about 15 or 20 men. Had about -- had an old foreman there, his name was Larry. He lived out there in a place they called Heartspat. And old man Larry he was one of them you know. He would come 00:32:00by there and see me laying out there. "You get up off of that pile of clay and come on out here and get a shovel and get in the gang and go to work." I looked at him and laughed at him.

I said, "If you hold your breath until I shovel some rock out there, I don't know what will happen to you." And stretched back out. Well, it would make him so angry he didn't know what to do. So old man Shaeffer told me, that was my boss, he said, "Now, I'm your boss. You do what I tell you to do. You go by the lot and you get your mule and you are responsible for that mule until you put him back in that lot."

And he said, "Now, you take care of that mule out there and all you got to do is take care of that mule and when they load that car, pull that car, you give them an empty back. You ain't got nothing else to do. All right, if you got anything else to do, I'll tell you." Well now what more did I want to hear.

All right. So he just kept picking at me. One White fellow in the gang. He just kept picking at me. "Let Mr. So and So drive that mule." I looked up; you know and lay on back down myself. So he got this White fellow come up there one day. He had a sprag. A sprag is a piece of wood about that long you stick in a wheel to lock it, if it's running too fast, the car was rolling too fast. All right. And he had a sprag and he-- The mule was named Old Dick and the mule. Well, the mule didn't take no punching.

You messed around with him. You run out of there and hit that main slope and them motors on that main slope out there just like that hauling the coal from the different rooms. What you call "gathering coal." And they would get in that coal and them motors out there running just like that, you know. Because they ain't expecting nothing like that -- no mule -- because we had a certain hour to 00:34:00carry them mules to the lot. The motors done quit running.

And I said, "That mule is going to run out of here, go out there and get killed." And I said, "It's going to be up to you, not me." So he went back and told old man Larry. And old man Larry came up there and jumped on me, you know. And I told him, I said, "Man, you don't know what you are talking about. You don't know who you're talking to." And I say, "You're losing time." And I said, "If you want to talk to anybody, you talk to Mr. Shaeffer and leave me alone." He just kept a mouthing and I just got up and took one of them sprags and give it to him upside his head.

HUNTLEY: Was this a Black man or a White man?

SMITH: A White man. And I knocked him out, you know. So, when I did, I blew my lamp out. I laid back down on the pile of clay. Directly Mr. Shaeffer came through. Old man Larry was crawling around in the dark trying to find his light. 00:35:00His face was bloody and so old man Shaeffer said, "Lord, have mercy. What's the matter with you, Larry?" "Smith, hit me." "Smith, hit you? What he doing hitting you?" About that time I knocked my light on and come out. I walked up there where he was.

"Smith, what's happening here?" I told him. He said, "Larry, what you doing interfering with him? Is you his boss?" He said, "Well, I'm going to have to send y'all both to Pratt City to see Mr. McCord." That was the general over the mines, the general foreman over the mines. So, old man Larry wanted him to squish it. He said, "I'm willing to squish it if you --" Well, he said "No. I can't do that. Taking too much on my job. Something happen to you -- you got to go to the doctor." He say, "Something happen to you, that'll be my job, I can't do that Larry." He went on and Mr. Black, we went over there and he give us both 00:36:0015 days a piece.

HUNTLEY: Fifteen days off?

SMITH: Yes. And it was against the law to fight in the mine, he told us. He said, "I ought to send both of you to jail." But he didn't.

HUNTLEY: Well, Black men were fired for much, much less than that -- than fighting a White man. And you hit a white man and knocked him out and you were not fired?

SMITH: Sure enough.

HUNTLEY: And there were never any repercussions from that?

SMITH: No. No. Mr. Black came to me -- he was Mr. Henderson's assistant and he came on up and he came up from Brookside and they made him assistant to old man Shaeffer. And old man Black, he still knew me from down at Brookside. He came to 00:37:00me, he told me, he said, "Smith, you know what?" I said, "No." He said, "You got 15 days and I don't want you to come back into the mine. Not in this mine, no how." He said, "Because some of them may pick at you.

And if they pick at you then you going to do the same thing again." I said, "Well, I don't know nothing else to do." I said, "What you bothering me for?" He said, "Well, that's what I know and that's what you don't understand how to push it off, if you can. But you are going to go for it." And he said, "I just don't want you to come back here because they'll pick at you and you'll get black-balled for good." He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do." He said, "I'm going to get you a job at the company."

HUNTLEY: This is in the mill?

SMITH: Yes.

HUNTLEY: So that's when you left the mine and went to the mill?

SMITH: Yes. I went on to the mill.

HUNTLEY: Tell me then, where were you living at the time?

SMITH: At that time?

HUNTLEY: Yes, sir. When you went to the mill, what community were you living in?

SMITH: Well, when I went there, I was living on Avenue "K" and 20th Street in Ensley.

HUNTLEY: Were you married at the time?

SMITH: Yes, I was married then.

HUNTLEY: This is probably what, in the 30s and 40s?

SMITH: Well, this was up there around in the 40s.

HUNTLEY: Were you involved in any community organizations at the time?

SMITH: Well, not at that time. That particular time I wasn't. And when I got involved in that is when this fortified union commence, you know, holding meetings and giving the opportunities and showing the company how to come. They 00:39:00had been robbing laborers and what the laborers didn't have no opportunities and no privilege and the least little thing. Most anything your foreman could get you fired.

HUNTLEY: This was the United Steel Workers of America?

SMITH: Right. And I said your foreman could get you fired and could get you fired. You just don't have nothing to stand on, but said, if you joined this fortified organization, what you called the CIO, they said, we put up a fight and we see how come they firing you and what they are firing you about. And they are going to have to start paying y'all. They ain't paying you right.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever join that organization?

SMITH: No. No. I never did join the CIO.

HUNTLEY: Were you a member of a union?

SMITH: I was a member of the company union. I never did join CIO.

SMITH: But I attempted to because Howard Strevel was the, what do you call it?

HUNTLEY: District Rep?

SMITH: Yes. District Representative. And he and I got pretty close together and so I, you know, I wanted to know all I could about it and he give me the address of the top man. It was kind of backed up by the Federal government and he give me the top man's --

HUNTLEY: Did you know Asbury Howard?

SMITH: Who?

HUNTLEY: Asbury Howard?

SMITH: Yes. I had a talk with him.

HUNTLEY: He was probably the top Black. He became vice president of the steel worker organization.

SMITH: Yes, yes.

HUNTLEY: So when then did you get involved in the Movement?

SMITH: In this Christian Movement?

HUNTLEY: Yes, sir.

SMITH: Well, I got involved when Rev. Shuttlesworth, he organized that. Fred Shuttlesworth and they had had one meeting. They met every Monday night. And 00:41:00Edward Gardner lived -- I lived on the southside where I'm living now. And he lived on the north side on the same street as Edward Gardner. Edward Gardner was a minister.

So he came over -- they had had one meeting and that Monday, the Tuesday following that Monday night meeting, he came over to my house and talked with me and told me, he says "I want you to go with me next Monday night." I said, "Where are you going?" He said, "Well, we might get something good going." So I went with him down to New Hope. Herman Stone was the pastor of New Hope Baptist Church right there across from Sloss' blast furnace. New Hope Baptist Church used to sit there.

HUNTLEY: That's where the meeting was held?

SMITH: That's where the meeting was held that night. That next Monday night. Right there, just below the Birmingham Water Works. That's where the church was sitting.

HUNTLEY: Well, how did that meeting impress you? Were you impressed by it?

SMITH: Well, I went over there with him. And there were so many people. About two churches in one. And after the service and everything, he called Fred and told Fred he had a man here that he wanted to introduce to him that would make us -- he was -- Gardner was the vice president and Fred Shuttlesworth was the president. He said "This one will make us a good man. Somebody you can depend on."

And he said, "I want to make you acquainted with him." And he said, "But he don't -- you got to go straight for however long with him, because he don't like 00:42:00no liars and this, that and the other. Just tell him the truth whatever the nature of the case may be." He say, "That's just the kind of fellow he is and he said, if you be truthful to him, he'll work with you." Okay. Well, like about 15 or 20 preachers, they all gathered around me and was talking to him. "Man, this is the man, we want him." And they put me to work, you know.

HUNTLEY: What did they have you doing?

SMITH: Well, advertising. Advertising what they were doing. Such as -- see I worked out at the plant. All right. I could tell the fellows in the bathhouse what was going on. See. I could tell them. I said, "I think that this is something that is closer than I've ever seen for the Black race to come 00:43:00together." And I said, "I think it would be nice for every Black race it is -- every Black face it is to go join this and put ourselves together and I says, I believe we can make something out of it and have more strength."

So I went from there and so I was in most everything they had. There executive boards and the different meetings. I was on one of the finance committees and oh, I was in all of it. And it wasn't no end to the money. I don't know what them folks was doing with all that money.

HUNTLEY: So it was plenty money --

SMITH: They got some of that money ought to be in circulation and some of it not. They would take up four and five thousand dollars every Monday night. I'm telling you the truth because I was one of the finance committee and helped count the money. I know it was there. So we went on and on and on.

HUNTLEY: Did you recruit people to come in and get involved?

SMITH: Well, you know I'd tell them. And a lot of people that knew me would come in just because I was in it. You know, how we was, we as a race of people and I still think we still has a part of that now. We kind of go a piece with you and then we start and want to hesitate and wonder if it was right. And if we are wrong, we're going to start something and if we're right we're going to start something. See, I think we still have that attitude.

HUNTLEY: Right. Were you involved when Bethel was bombed -- Shuttlesworth's home was bombed?

SMITH: Yes. I sure was. Of course, I was there and they had this fellow lawyer, Billingsley.

HUNTLEY: Orzell Billingsley?

SMITH: Orzell Billingsley, yeah. He was their lawyer, one of their lawyers. So the law was standing out there and Orzell walked up and so after --

HUNTLEY: This is at the church, after the bombing?

SMITH: After the bombing, yeah. This is his house, now.

SMITH: And the law is telling him, "You can't go in there." Orzell looked around and said, "Who can't?" He kept walking. They looked at one another and said, "Who is he?" Well, with him doing what he did, you know, he was scared to look back at him and kept walking. So they knew that there was a little bit behind him, you know, as an authority. And so it went on from that, you know, and then I was well on my way when later on they had bombed the church that he pastored. 00:46:00This old White fellow, he had a lot of dumb

SMITH: Because this -- they had men around the clock at the church watching it.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever participate in that?

SMITH: No. I never did go into that part. I always had something, look like, just a little there. In the way of giving advice, things like that.

HUNTLEY: Did you participate in demonstrations?

SMITH: Oh, yes.

HUNTLEY: Did you march?

SMITH: Marched too.

HUNTLEY: Were you ever arrested?

SMITH: No. I never was arrested. Me and Edward Gardner, Edward Gardner was the vice president. Neither one of us. And a lot of the arresting was made, I was -- it was my advice to Shuttlesworth, I was in the executive board meeting and that's where we would set up the plans for things like that to happen. And I said to Shuttlesworth, I said, "Now, you quit running ahead of your committee. You work with your committee.

You don't run ahead and take things and charge. Y'all make your plans here, then you leave here and going on out there and you take it in your own hands and do what you want to do just because you the president." I said, "No. No. No." Well, 00:48:00we went down there to the high school there in Woodlawn. Well, at that time, see these White folks had everything against us was in violation when it come down to right.

You couldn't -- you had to set on the street car, board sitting up there behind you. You couldn't sit behind the board. Well, now all you had to do was just let one go in that streetcar and sit behind the board. Just one. He done violated the law.

HUNTLEY: Blacks couldn't sit in front of the board, right?

SMITH: Blacks had to sit in front, Whites behind it.

HUNTLEY: No. It was just the opposite, right?

SMITH: Yes, yes, yes.

HUNTLEY: All right. Whites sitting in the front of the bus?SMITH: No. The Whites behind the board, the Blacks would be in the front. All right. They did it that way, I guess, well, either way it could work. But anyhow, them conductors would 00:49:00move that board. Then they would make you get up, ask you to get up and to give your seat and they would move the board above you. That would automatically make you have to move because you in violation if you sit here above this board. And each date had a way and if they didn't do nothing but stop this street car and going to telephone. Call the law and have the law to meet him.

HUNTLEY: Did you ever participate in those? Would you ride the bus in front of the board?

SMITH: No. I never was in that condition. I never did it. But my advice on that was, just one. One would make a case. You see, one sit down, he going to arrest 00:50:00him. Well, y'all he wanted to carry the court. When he carried to court then the court would hand down the decision, who is right and who is wrong. You see, that's the decision that we had to make on those cases.

HUNTLEY: Did other members of your family participate?

SMITH: My family?

HUNTLEY: Yes.

SMITH: No. I didn't have anyone. No I didn't have any personally one. I had a brother, he lived 1302 Avenue "L" in Ensley and he didn't interfere with it at all.

HUNTLEY: What church were you a member of?

SMITH: I was a member of Moore Presbyterian.

HUNTLEY: Was your church and your pastor involved in the Movement?

SMITH: No. At that time, he wasn't. Because when Shuttlesworth's house and church and everything got bombed, the church didn't get bombed, this fellow, 00:51:00this White fellow going to bomb the church. He's going to bomb it at the change of each shift. This man was coming on and letting the fellow off that worked from 3-11 and he's coming on from 11-7.

And this man was going to bomb it between the change. And he came up the road with his dynamite and it was lit. Them fuses was lit off. And it was pushing him so close, he had to throw it down. And when he threw it down, he threw it down in the street and he run. And when he ran it knocked a hole in the street, you could sit half of the church in it. He was going to carry it away from there, if he had of gotten to the church with it.

HUNTLEY: Well, you then served basically as an advisor for the Movement and to Shuttlesworth?

SMITH: Oh, yes. Right.

HUNTLEY: Did he normally take your advice?

SMITH: Oh, yes. Well, my president was kind of on the hard head side. And the result that he felt for and when he went down to the high school at Woodlawn, they was going down, the committee was going. It was about five or six of them was going down there.

HUNTLEY: This is Shuttlesworth that's going to the high school?

SMITH: Yes, down to the high school in Woodlawn. Well, they had a certain time they was going to meet there. And the place that they had Shuttlesworth waiting, he just went ahead on about an hour ahead of time and when the crowd had got there, they done had whip Shuttlesworth with a bicycle chain and sent him to the hospital and he's gone to the hospital when the rest of them got there.

HUNTLEY: Was this when he was attempting to get his children into --

SMITH: Well, no. That was to breakdown the segregation in the school. All of that was, and so, in that, that was some of that proof that I had with what I was trying to telling him about not abiding about what had been said in the executive board.

HUNTLEY: Some of the other events that took place, were the sit-ins, the Freedom Riders who came into Birmingham, there was a selective buying campaign, a boycott of the stores downtown --

SMITH: The worse we had was, we all called him "Bull" but his name was Eugene 00:54:00Conner. He was the mayor down there. And the city ought to have went broke because he ordered so many pistols. Everybody, every White face he could find to wear one of them guns, he'd give him a gun.

HUNTLEY: Whether they were police or not?

SMITH: Yes. Trying to break this--

HUNTLEY: The Movement?

SMITH: The Movement up. We had a nice Bible class at our church and Professor Mackum, Dr. R. C. Mackum's brother, he was the teacher. He was our Men's Bible Class teacher and he said that, I thought he said we could be a great help to 00:55:00this program that's being had. And we sat there and listened and what he said and we said, "Let's go down there and talk with Eugene Conner and see just what, we need to kind of listen at what they said the law was." And so we did. Was about five or six of us went down.

HUNTLEY: And met with Bull Conner?

SMITH: Yes. And we went down there. We didn't get a chance to talk. He told us that, you knew he did all the talk, Bull Conner told us he knew what we was down there for, but he had all the preachers under control himself. Around in his office, that high on the wall was stacks of whiskey. All kinds, all sizes. And 00:56:00he said to us, he said, "You see all that, them crates down there?" We said, "Yeah." He said, "That's whiskey." He said, "Now, all your preachers, I got them under control. They do what I tell them to do." And he said, "When he come in here and make a good report, I give him a fifth. And when he just say something, I give him a half of pint."

HUNTLEY: So that's the way he was saying he controlled the preachers?

SMITH: Yes. That's what he was carrying on against the Movement. All right. We sat there and we couldn't get in a word edgewise. He told us, "We were losing time to come there and try to hear him and what he was going to do, because he had the preachers himself." He said, "He may preach to y'all at 11:00 o'clock." 00:57:00But, he said, "Monday morning he be here. He's going to report here."

HUNTLEY: Did you believe that?

SMITH: Well some of them did. Not all of them did, but some of, yes. But, anyway, eventually as time passed on, you know, it showed where he stood and what he stood for. And eventually didn't get elected back as a commissioner here in Birmingham.

SMITH: Then this man, this man down here, who was it that got elected in Montgomery? All right. He gave him a job over the utility program that's in 00:58:00Montgomery right now. And he gave him a job down there, this man did. All right. I, at the United, with a fellow they called "Zacarello," he was a Diego, but Zacarello was a rich man. He had plenty money. And he set up a program for the senior citizens and in that program it called for us going to Montgomery and places like that to see about what we could do for the senior citizens because 00:59:00the senior citizens had they problems such as they sickness, they husbands, something like that go to the hospital, that was a big bill.

Well, we would take that bill up, go to the hospital, sit down and talk with the doctors and the head there and show them these here are senior citizens and whatever you have it today, they are the cause of it, whether it's good or bad. And if it hadn't been for them, it wouldn't have been this and wouldn't have been that. And they done got old now and what you going to still look for them to come up to date on paying as much as you and I?

HUNTLEY: Let me take you back just a bit. What do you remember about the demonstrations in '63 when Dr. King came into Birmingham?

SMITH: Well, Dr. King came here, when he came here, once he came here and they 01:00:00was intending to kill him here and N. H. Smith who was the pastor of New Pilgrim, him and Herman Stone, I know them two, but it was about four of them got an army car, that's the only way they got King out of here without him getting hurt. They had a trap set up for him. They got an army car and got him away from here. They rode with him until they got him to safety.

HUNTLEY: Were you part of the advisory board or executive committee during the '63 demonstrations when all of the children were arrested out at Kelly Ingram Park and 16th Street Baptist Church?

SMITH: Yes, yes.

HUNTLEY: What were the highlights of that time?

SMITH: Well, the highlights on that program. All of what I just said, foresaid, 01:01:00a while ago. All we needed was just one to go in there and it wasn't a law. There was not a law. It was what these folks wanted form themselves. The White folk wanted for themselves. And they said to you and I it was a law, it was against a law. That's what they used on us. All right.

Now, when you, that's they law, just like marriage. They say it's against the law to marry a White woman. All right. So when King got into it, got himself into it and found out all of the ways and means that they had set up for and against the Black race, then he said the best thing he could do is go to Washington, D.C. and find out what's on the book up there.

Then Johnson was the President of the United States in Washington.

He goes up there and didn't call Johnson up for appointment. George Wallace in Montgomery, he had been calling Johnson trying to get appointment to get to Washington because he wanted to put what he was putting down in Montgomery, he wanted to get it to Washington, D.C. and get it going.

Johnson wouldn't look back at him. Wouldn't even talk with him.

Martin Luther King and he didn't even ask to have an appointment. He went up there and all he done was got in the right place and asked and told them who he was and he wanted to see the President. They got the President word and the President said, "Bring him on in."

That news flashed right back to Alabama in Montgomery in seconds. George Wallace 01:03:00blew his top. He said, "How did Johnson recognize a Negro before he would him?" Johnson come right back on him, and told him, over the air, told him, he said, "If you had had something to offer like this Black man had, I would have recognized you."

HUNTLEY: What do you think was the contribution of Birmingham to the Movement? Overall civil rights movement?

SMITH: Well, I think it was a great asset to us here. Because, you know, at that time that I was coming along up here, you know these Whites, these old police, you know had these old big clubs on they hips and things. They didn't mind, 01:04:00before they'd say good morning to you, they'd hit you. Well, when they hit you, you didn't have sense enough to say nothing then. But so, in that, they took all that power away from them.

They was in violation of the law. And coming back to this point for I didn't quite get through but when King went up there. And when Johnson, he got to Johnson, he told Johnson what he's there for. He said, "I want to see the book, to see what you got on here for us and against us." So he told his secretary, Johnson did, "Take him around and let him see what he wants." And he didn't wait until he got through to seeing all of it. He flashed it over the air, King did. He said, "Man, who you want to marry?" He says, "Its agreement between you two."

HUNTLEY: Well, these obviously were some very turbulent times and we have covered a lot today. Is there anything else that you would like to add that we have not dealt with that stands out in your mind that's related to the civil rights movement?

SMITH: Well, I would love to see the churches; I'd loved to see these preachers getting in the harness on what thus saith the Lord. Be honest. Quit trying to run it his way. Quit trying to carry in the way that he would benefit from it, not the people and not the Lord and Savior Jesus would be pleased. I talk about that right now. When I get an opportunity to do, I talk about that now. I says, 01:06:00"If this charity begins at home and will spread abroad." And I say, "Here you start it, here you start it and you start, ain't long before it took a hold."

HUNTLEY: That's right. Well, I certainly appreciate you taking the time out today to come and sit and talk with us. You have been quite a help to us. Let me just ask you one other question. Do you have any items that are related to the Movement or to the development of Birmingham that you would like to donate to the Institute? If you do have, we will be more than glad to talk with you about them.

SMITH: Well, now, I don't call myself a wealthy man, but what I do name myself, 01:07:00I'm blessed. I'm blessed. And all of my blessings he has give to me; I have a very nice wife. She is very nice to me.

HUNTLEY: She has taking good care of you.

SMITH: And everything that I profess to have I give it to her. Everything that I want her to enjoy life and she knows the difference between right and wrong and she knows the wrong side and she knows the right side. And so, that's my state of it. Now, if I didn't have somebody like her, then that's a good thought, that's a good thought. I would be happy to set down and communicate with 01:08:00somebody like you and see just what, how much help could I be along that line.

HUNTLEY: We certainly do appreciate it. As I said, you have been quite a help to us.

And what we are attempting to do is to get the real story of Birmingham. And the only way we do that are from people like yourself. Thank you Mr. Smith for coming out.

SMITH: I appreciate it.