Tywanna Whorley: —came back from the service, back to Birmingham. What did you do? 

John Fisher: Well, I had a qualification. I wanted to—I had a wife. 

Tywanna Whorley: You have a wife. 

John Fisher: I had a young wife. Yeah, young wife and I had one kid. 

Tywanna Whorley: What is her name? 

John Fisher: My wife was Mira Alice and my oldest kid, her name was Anthoneria, my daughter. Well, I came back home and—before I left, I had a little job out here with US Steel. I worked there but they would only let us work two days a week, which was very good. It was very good. We didn't need a lot of work. We didn't know what it was, no money, no way I'm saying. But anyway, I came back home from service and I had a qualification I'd acquired in service. I really wanted to go into communication. I kind of excelled a little bit in it in service and I learned a lot about switchboards and all that kind of stuff. 

John Fisher: Now when I left, they told me that I could—but nobody told me because I didn't pay any attention to it. Being a young boy, I was about nineteen years old when I left, now here I am twenty-one, twenty-two, see, and I'm thinking like a man's supposed to think. But anyway, I needed to work so I went and applied for a job with a phone company through the unemployment office. 

John Fisher: And those people told me back during those years, they told me now, they said, "Where was you working before you went to—" I didn't paid my job too much, that little job I had at US Steel, too much attention because every time a Black man got hired I bet he was hired as a laborer and you really didn't have a job. What can I do? Plant, a little bit. What people told me said, "Well, you just might ought to think about going back to the plant because you're not going to get a job with the telephone company as a lineman." I was a lineman. I thought, "Sure, I was a lineman." "If you're not going to get a job down there doing that." 

John Fisher: Okay, well, I walked on away from that. I mean, I accepted that. Walked away from it and didn't think about it no more and so it was about two months because we was collecting that—what you call it, Mustering-out pay or something from—that you're given every—from the service, see. And so then I had an uncle, he was working for the same company. He told me, he said, "Why you working at the plant before you went to—" I said, "Yeah." 

John Fisher: He said, "Why don't you go back up there? They got a job waiting on you." I didn't want to believe that. I said, "Oh man." So I got up one morning and my cousin and I, so he was working out that too, but he never went back. We all came back and serve the same time. I went up there and called my name to the fella, and he went and pulled his file cabinet over and, "Yeah," I said, "We know you've been ditching." 

John Fisher: I said, "Where have you been?" Gave me a job. Gave me a job back. I had a job then and so—my time, my service went on while I was in service and longevity and whatnot, it kind of stretch out that nine. They told me, "You can get a vacation." I said, "When?" "You can get one now." I said, "Oh, well give me the vacation then, nobody just work." But anyway, I stayed there, never left. 

Tywanna Whorley: What did you do? 

John Fisher: Well, I went in as a material handler. They gave me a little job, really just a high class labor, that's all I was. But sort of found out I could count real fast. You understand? I can count fast, I can kind of keep inventory and everything. Well, anything rather than doing it manually because I wasn't able to do no manually, I was too little. So I stayed on that job and then that I was taking care of inventory, getting in materials and whatnot to take care of those furnaces. Well, everything in the material line, I was doing that. Then in later years, I changed jobs, decided I would go in—I went out on the railroad myself as a locomotive crown operator. 

John Fisher: Well you remember you heard sometimes go by this train that ran off the bridge and went into the bayou and whatnot. Well it's a Crown comes up on that car with a boom on him and he reaches over and pick up all that stuff and set it back up on the track. Well I went in for that and I got that job. Just before I retired. And so I retired, I stayed there for forty years. I had forty years service when I retired. And I've been off from up there now for fourteen years. 

Tywanna Whorley: When you came back from the service, did you stay with the practice, with Your mom or—? 

John Fisher: I stayed with my mom about two, three months and then I got my wife and I. We went and found us a little house. You couldn't find no good houses, now at that time. We went and found us a little three room house, they might called it. I mean a little straight three room house. We moved off and at that time the rent was—we was paying rent only. The rent was eleven dollars a month. I couldn't hardly get ahold. It was hard to get up eleven dollars a month being fair about it, yeah. And we advanced on there. I left. I just moved right on out from that and I went, I got him. I bought my family. Well I had ten children too. My wife and I. 

Tywanna Whorley: Ten? 

John Fisher: Ten. Ten children. All of them living. 

Tywanna Whorley: At the time when you [indistinct 00:07:34]? 

John Fisher: Well we started out from a living room house. Let me see Mrs. Brown had to find another house, cause I'm filling that one up—we had children, my wife and I. My wife and I, we come along together, school children. Same year though and everything you understand? We went right on the school together and we married. She had been my girl for all our lives and my children—I have five boys and five girls. Angela, the girl that you know, she's a knee baby. She's a fourth girl and a knee baby next to the baby. Just a little older than the baby. Then all of my kids—well, I tried to do something for them that I didn't do for myself. I tried my best. I wanted them to go to school and try to better their condition. I wanted them to do better than I did. So my wife and I, we encouraged them to do all you can do. 

Tywanna Whorley: When you first moved, what was [indistinct 00:08:59]? 

John Fisher: You mean where did I go? 

Tywanna Whorley: I mean the house that you first got, where was that terms of neighborhood? Was that? 

John Fisher: That was in the same neighborhood. Right here. Right around the corner. I still have that little house round there. It's my house. I bought it. Everything was right here. Everything had been centered right here in this neighborhood. Right here. Four blocks right now from where I— From this spot here, you can go out a radius of four blocks and go around. And that's where I've spent all my life. 

John Fisher: Even my wife, she's within that radius also. Of course, she passed about four or five years ago. I haven't married again. I'm not trying right now. 

Tywanna Whorley: Did she work? 

John Fisher: My wife never worked. She never did work. She didn't get a social security card until back— until I got ready to retire. But found out I got ready to retire, She had to have a social card then. Well she couldn't work now. We had 10 children and with those and she stayed at home and she'd taken care of those children and I worked for them. 

Tywanna Whorley: So when you moved from the first house, where did you move to? 

John Fisher: I moved to the next house, the house that I moved to. And then we completed the rest of our family grow. Our family increased and well the children getting grown and one or two of them married and they left. And all of them are here in the city with the exception of one. 

Tywanna Whorley: Do you think there was a similarity between your parents having a big family and you having a big family? Did you want big family? 

John Fisher: Well, I had no choice. I really didn't. I didn't know how to avoid it. If I didn't know— We didn't know. Well, one thing about it, what you call this family planning thing. My wife was a Catholic and all of my children are Catholic, but I'm not Catholic. 

Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:11:28] 

John Fisher: Well, I'm Baptist. I started out and I never changed. And now from what I can hear, years back they didn't believe in certain things. So I never questioned that. I just know that I had to take care of them and well, I felt satisfied in doing it. Now that's the way that worked. 

Tywanna Whorley: Where do your children go to church? 

John Fisher: A little Baptist church right around the corner here. Baptist, Abyssinia Baptist church. 

Tywanna Whorley: [indistinct 00:12:17]. 

John Fisher: A—B—Y—S—S—I—N—I—E or something like that. 

Tywanna Whorley: And one hour [indistinct 00:12:23]? 

John Fisher: Well I was raised up in the church in that particular church. All my family went to that church. They left. And I'm still there, but my— 

Tywanna Whorley: Do you have wonder why you stayed in this area? 

John Fisher: Well the reason why, of course I don't live out here now but you see everything was centered here for me because I was working here, right here. I was working not a mile from here out here, this US steel complex. That's where I was working. That was one reason why I spent my life there. Because, I wasn't going to leave the job. I had to have the job is important. So I just made up my mind to stay there and the only time I really left out the area here was after I retired. And then my wife got sick and she told me that she didn't want to live in this area anymore. I said, " Okay, let's get out of here then. All right." 

Tywanna Whorley: So where are you currently living at? 

John Fisher: Where do I live now? Well I'm still on the western section of the town. Yeah, I'm in Fairfield. I'm out in Fairfield. I've been out there about six years. 

Tywanna Whorley: We would like to talk about, I guess just trying to live in Birmingham. The conditions in the 40s and 50s can you tell me about those and going to Fourth avenue [indistinct 00:14:32]. 

John Fisher: Well I don't know how to get over to that. I don't know how to give you an explanation for that. You mean how was it to try to live here? Well, I mean I don't want to sound like I'm the radical type. But look, if it took fighting and going on, if that's what you're talking about. If I had to fight, I fight. There were certain things that I never wanted to do. I didn't do them even on the job. The reason why I had to try to do my very best to try to work around as many Black people as I possibly could. 

John Fisher: Because the White man, White boy, I called him the White boy. Just like he called me a Black boy. He called me. I called him White boy too and well, I never could see eye to eye with that fellow. See because I found out early on that he would tell a lie in a minute on you if it meant to hurt you and so for that simple reason, I didn't trust him. 

John Fisher: I didn't and don't trust him too much. I might have got this thing. I don't trust him too much today cause he's still will tell one. See he'll tell one on you in a minute and he'll lie to your face. But I knew the condition that we were living in and I knew that there was certain things that you had to do if you wanted to, didn't want to. Then you're not looking for trouble. So if you're not looking for trouble, you know the condition, you know the custom, you know the ways. So you just go ahead on and be on—I mean look here, I'm not going to cross you. Don't you cross me. That's how I felt about it. I had a big controversy, I never would be—years ago I was a young man and I quit dealing with the— 

John Fisher: It had been a known policy with us as a group of people. We start our homes, our families and whatnot. And we have a tendency to have these people make a living off of us. These insurance agents and whatnot. They'll come along and they'll call selling you little insurance. And they want to come every week and pick up the premium and all that kind of stuff. Well, I learn about it years back and number one year, I hadn't been married too long. I mean hadn't been back home too long and I had a great big falling out and I just stopped all in. 

John Fisher: My wife had taken out some insurance with some of these White companies. I don't know who it was. But anyway, the fella had never seen me because I worked all the time. I worked during the day and my wife would be there, well—my wife was fixing to have a kid. I happened to be off one morning, I was sitting on the porch and this fella drove up in his car and he got out and he walked up to the porch and he just disregarded me. I'm sitting there and he said, and he come just calling her name, "Mary. Hey, Mary. Wonder where is Mary." And so I'm sitting there, didn't say nothing to him, just watching. He said, "I reckon Mary done had that baby now." And so I got up, I say, "Hey," [indistinct 00:18:38], "who you want?" 

John Fisher: He said, "I'm not—". I said, "But who you asking for?" I said, "I tell you what you do." He said, "I'm not talking to you." I said, " Well, I tell you what you do, how you get off the porch." So he said, "What you mean?" I said, "Well, I said, I just asked you to get off the porch." And he stood there. 

John Fisher: I said, "Don't just stand there then." I broke in the house and started banging on. I came back to the door, he was out on the ground. And I said, "Don't ever come back here again." So he left. And his supervisor came and wanted to know what did he do? He didn't do nothing. I said, "But I don't want him back here no more. Don't want none of your policy and I want you to take all of that away from here—don't bring." He said, " Well, tell me what he did." 

John Fisher: And I said, "Well, he didn't do anything." I said, "I ain't got nothing to say about it." But see I knew what he did to me. He disregarded me. He didn't respect me at all and then I didn't like the way he was calling my wife. See? And so I stopped all of that kind of stuff. I didn't have none of those people to come and I went—at least I went to a Black company and got a little insurance during that time. Because back during those years, they wouldn't sell a Black no insurance. No way. 

John Fisher: So a few year later on, I contacted a company where I would pay my premiums yearly and then insure my whole family and yearly premium, I sent it off. Nobody else come picked it up. They couldn't understand why I was doing that but I just didn't want that encounter never no more. 

Tywanna Whorley: Was it a local insurance company here in Birmingham or was it outside Birmingham [indistinct 00:20:40]? 

John Fisher: The agent's office was here in Birmingham. But it could have been an out of town company. It could have been an out town company. 

Tywanna Whorley: Black owned? 

John Fisher: No, what you mean? The one that I was used that I picked up later on? I picked up the Black company here in Birmingham. I picked up the Black company here. Well, we really didn't have it too. All you could buy then mostly was just a little bit of life insurance and a little small barrel insurance. That's all you could buy and when you go to talking about buying a Black man, talking about buying sixty thousand dollars worth insurance. No, you the wrong player. You the wrong ball game. 

John Fisher: That didn't come about him until in later years for him to do that. But back during that time all you could—and then these people couldn't even—Black man couldn't even buy fire insurance for your—if you were renting one of these places, you call it—what you call that type of insurance now? Well your furnishes and whatnot that you had in here. Best you could buy 500 dollars worth. I don't care how much [indistinct 00:22:15], 500 and if you got a thousand dollars away, you my God, you top and that's just the way it was. 

Tywanna Whorley: Was the insurance company coming to you? 

John Fisher: Yeah. Booker T. Washington was the—Booker T. and Protective. They were the only—the only two insurance companies that we had here that Blacks had here. 

Tywanna Whorley: How was Fourth Avenue back then? 

John Fisher: Fourth Avenue. That was the only—that was a bloom. It was really blooming. Everything was going on down there and it never went to sleep, day and night. Fourth Avenue was under the place. There was a whole lot of places to go down there. But I look maybe before, prior to mine just actually hanging out. I didn't hang out down there. See I went to school over there a little bit during the war year. I mean after the war, I went to school in Gaston, had a business college. B-T-W, Booker T. Washington Business College. 

John Fisher: And I went school there a little while, I went to school there about three years just, but I was going under that G.I. Bill. See that was to was supplement the pay that we were getting out of these plants and things. We were servicemen, but you had to put in time in the schools and whatnot. That's one reason why I'm in this business right today. I picked up on, I went there and I picked up on that accounting. I liked it. I was crazy about it. And so I left there and I was doing this particular work that you see in here that's going on in here. I was doing that on a small scale, very small scale. But I would just worry about it at the first of the year, getting ready for Easter, my wife and the children. 

John Fisher: And I would sit down and take my pen and my coworkers and whatnot. I'd tell them, "Man, let me do your income tax for you. Fix them out for you." These people didn't know how to read and write all the men whatnot. They didn't know how to read and write. And I sit down and these fellows give me two dollars or three dollars just go ahead on, mail out his all right, and you know. And they were going downtown and to these lawyers and whatnot and these fellows was charging them an arm and a mint. 

John Fisher: An arm and a leg rather. And they wind up owning money telling me, "Oh John, you all said the same thing, just go ahead on pay that." And I couldn't understand that. Looking at him, I thought, something's going wrong here. And I said, I'd do those color papers for him. Give him to 'em, I said, "[indistinct 00:25:27] I'm going to get a little bit. Yeah, I'll send that in, see how it works." It worked. [Indistinct 00:25:34] wasn't doing nothing wrong, just putting it in right. Giving it to them like it was supposed to be. 

John Fisher: And so after I retired, well before I retired my children and I, had one or two kids that went into real estate. Now, little real estate office. We have a little real estate office up there. And when I retired and they said, "Daddy, we need somebody to come stay at the office cause we have to go to our jobs." 

John Fisher: I said," Okay, nothing wrong with that." I believe I started doing my business up there. So I started doing my business and all the people who was coming to me every year for me to do that stuff, I said, " I tell you what." I said, "I got office over here." I said, "Y'all, come over there to my office." And they started coming and that thing bloomed from that to this. That you see here now. And this is a full blown thing. And it ain't, it's not a play thing. 

Tywanna Whorley: Were there any incidents in Birmingham in terms of, you might have heard from friends or between Blacks and Whites in Birmingham like racial incidents and [indistinct 00:26:51]? 

John Fisher: There was a lot of them, but nah, look here I can't recall. It was a lot of those that way. Because you Black, you said, we have falling out. 'Cause you named me, calling me a funny name, but there was a lot of that went on. That White that boy he believed in calling the Black man, nigger. I'm just being fair about it. Nigger this and nigger that. Well now the Black boy would call him a ranker neck, peckerwood and all that. You see what I'm talking about? It was going to be a fight whenever they got together. It was a whole lot of incident because he would write down those trolley cars and things. I've seen eye witness incidents. I witness—see I went through something myself as a youngster. 

Tywanna Whorley: Can you tell me about it? 

John Fisher: Well I can tell you. Okay, it was back in the early 40s. Back in the early 40s. I was still in school, high school and then the summer I had gotten in a little job out here, [indistinct 00:28:19] going go out there and working with an industrial painter. Doing this painting these different buildings and things. But I got on the trolley car that evening when I got off work coming home. Had to come through downtown Birmingham and transfer, get on another trolley to come out here this section time. 

John Fisher: But anyway, I got on the car and when I got on that car that I was filled up with people with Blacks and they had a bar. You put a bar across these—they had just like back in this section here, a little small section. You put all the Blacks but the rest of this car here was for Whites. They had a bar put on. You had to go back in and go up, go across under this bar and you probably not. You pile up back there. Well, I got on the car and there was a White boy sitting here. 

John Fisher: Now this happened to me. There was a White boy sitting here, the bar going right down the side, I'm like this. And so I sit down and the people, the Black people on that crouching, someone said, "Don't sit." And so I sit down and our knees, our legs touch but in the meantime, there was a big White fella he had on a suit. 

John Fisher: I'll never will forget it. He was sitting down watching it. And so he got up and come back down. He told me, he said, "Hey, boy" he called me a boy, "Get up and move." Move where? I said, "Why you want me to move?" He said, "Get up and move. You're too close." 

John Fisher: I tell, "Him to move, give me my money back one." And I just sit there and he thought maybe I was supposed to jump. But I see I didn't know. I was young still looking. I'm fifteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. But that man reached down and grabbed at me. And I came up, I hit him just hard, I could hit him right through his stomach. And he bagged up in the car and throwed his coat back to get his pistol. 

John Fisher: Well, his buddy was on the car with him. These were detectives that they called him. His buddy was on the car with him and his buddy jumped up and grabbed him and said, "Hey, hey." he said, "Don't do that." Said, "That ain't nothing but a boy." So he said, "Well, boy." Said "I'm'a put you in jail." And so I said, "What— ", it didn't register, you know, what he was saying. I said, "What you mean you going to put me in jail?" 

John Fisher: So he said, "I'm going to put you in jail." And so he pulled the cord for 'em to stop the car, we got down there. So he grabbed me. I said "Now, you ain't got to hold—What you holding me for?" And you know, he sort of, he talked about me, "What we need to do is give you a whooping." Now see, I'm innocent, I mean, I'm young and I don't know what's going on. 

John Fisher: "I don't need to do get me a whooping. You better not hit me." But see, I didn't know no better, "You hit me—hit me, I'm going to tell my daddy." (laughs) I thought me and my daddy could stop all of that. But anyway, you know what them fellas did for me? They put me in jail. See they carried me to the jail and put me in the jail over there. But what he tried to get me and run away from him there will forget it. And I told my dad about it later on. 

John Fisher:  And they finally let me. I called my daddy and my daddy came over there and he wouldn't even let my daddy get me out of jail. My daddy had to have a White man to stand for—go a bond or something on me. If any White, it didn't make no—who the White man, just has to be a White man. So my dad knew an Italian fellow and he called him and the Italian fellow came running all the way with him. And they told my dad, said, "Sam, I'm going to give you this boy, you carry this boy home." Said "That boy think he good as White folks." What is that? 

John Fisher: So my daddy didn't say anything. I noticed he didn't say anything to me. When we got outside, my dad told me, said, "You know what son? There times you have to take low, a whole lot of times." Said "The cards stacked against you in there." He said "I think you just as good as White folks, are better than White folks. You understand?" He said, "But I ain't, I can't say that to them and I don't want that kind of problem." Well I give him credit for being smart seller. I gave him credit for being a smart man. Whereas I would've said all kind of stuff as a youngster, young man. But I learned from that. Rather then an experience for me. I learned from that. 

John Fisher: And I found out that you have to, we had to take low until you could kind of long as you, when you got your, what you call the head in the loud and mouth. You got to be easy with him, 'til you can kind of ease it out. Cause you might bite—bite you. 

Tywanna Whorley: You at the time do you remember any Black leadership environment? 

John Fisher: We didn't have any. No, we didn't have no Black leadership during that Bull Connor time. I remember that. I remember we had a commissioner form of government and the only, the biggest Black man I believe we had in this time. Well I don't think we had no big Black man. I can't think of no big Black man. We might have had a contractor. We didn't have no lawyer. I can't remember a lawyer back then. We didn't have any. I can't remember a doctor. Well I can, there was some dentists we had some Black dentists. 

Tywanna Whorley: [Indistinct 00:34:58] on Fourth avenue? 

John Fisher: Right, there around that Masonic temple building. We had some Black dentists and might have been doctor. But see by me not dealing in that section of town. But out here I can remember one Black doctor. This doctor had an office right here on this next corner, Dr. Robinson and the dentist was a Dr. Belcher. I can remember those two guys but— 

Tywanna Whorley: Should ask you about that. When, your wife had the children, what hospital did you [indistinct 00:35:36]? 

John Fisher: Holy Family. See this Holy Family—this was a Catholic hospital right here and it was Holy Family. But my first, second, well the third child we used this Black doctor I was telling you about, this Dr. Robinson and from then every other child we had, we used this hospital out here and that doctor—well that see you getting in later years now. We getting in the years now when the doctor become a little plentiful, the Black doctor, because we had a little doctor named Dr. Cole. I never will forget him. I think he was the doctor for the majority of my children. It's hot? 

Speaker 3: It's hot. It ain't real hot. 

John Fisher: You better call—I get in touch with my man. Let him come check that thing. 

Tywanna Whorley: You mentioned Bull Connor, what do remember about Bull, back in those days, before? 

John Fisher: Yeah. Bull Connor was here. I remember him well, he was a tough dude. He would call you a—what you call it—a nigger in a minute. You was a nigger in court. I don't care where you were, downtown, he said all you Black—if you Black you were a nigger. 

John Fisher: In the early sixties, that's been thirty years ago. Just before this civil rights thing came about. I had a White lady ran into my car. I had an automobile then. I had a White lady ran into it. She came down the road doing ninety miles an hour, looked like to me, hit my car and cut that car half, in two. And I had a fellas sitting in the car with me, no, there was three fellas in the car with me. She hit that car and she hit it so hard. She cut that car half and two and the top fell down, see, and one fella sitting in the car on the front seat with me here, knocked his eyes out and he died, you understand. Knocked his eyes out. Knocked out both his eyes, it scared me so bad I didn't know what to do when I looked at him in the hospital. See, we were all in the hospital. Everybody went to the hospital. 

John Fisher: But anyway, this lady flipped over on the top of her car. Her car went down the highway about seventy feet before it stopped. And she got out, her and had a little baby in the car. She said she was going to trying to get home cause she had to fix some dinner for her husband. You understand? So, but anyway, we went to court. Let me tell you what the judge told me over there. These people been dirty all their life. We went to court and I was sitting there and I, so the one the lawyers said, "Mr. Fisher", said, "In your opinion, how fast—" the other lawyer, one of the lawyers stops and said, "Hold here one minute. Ain't nobody never told me he had no opinion. But he don't have no opinion. He ain't got enough sense to have no opinion." You understand? Well, I don't know whether or not—you know, they arguing, I don't know how this going to work. But you know what the judge told me? 

John Fisher: The judge told me, he said, "Mr. Fisher," said, "You got a good case. You presented your case well, it ain't nothing wrong with your case, but I just got to tell you something." He said, "I ain't going to give you no judgment on that White woman over there." You understand? Said "You don't get no judgment on that White woman." So, he just not going to do it, say "And if an airplane fall out the sky and hit you and if you was making a left turn, if airplane fall out the sky and hit you—" say, "You in the wrong." That man told me that and the lawyer, I had a White lawyer, a lawyer told me, he said, "Well, now you going before a prejudiced judge—" and said, "He don't like y'all." Well, I had to take it, didn't have no way else to go. Have no appeals or nothing. No appeal nothing. And they sued me. I had to pay for it. Sure did. Had to pay for it. 

Tywanna Whorley: When you had your first children, how did you explain to them—? If segregation was still going on then, how do you explain to them about [indistinct 00:40:41]? 

John Fisher: I really didn't have to because my children never—well they just never got tied up in the situation where it had to be explained to them because we were Black people and we stayed in our Black communities. And if with anything had to be negotiated between— 

John Fisher: For them so far the White was concerned, then they left that, I mean that was left entirely up to me or their mother or somebody else. We'd go and do that for them. And most cases they got through that without—the only problem I had with my children, with my oldest child, I carried her to college back in 1960. I carried a little and I had to—I wasn't working. Let me show you something. I wasn't working. And when she had a little scholarship and I went out to Louisville with them, I loaded her trunk in my car and everything. And she and my wife and I, we left here one night or drive to Louisville, my wife and my daughter. That was back in 1960. Conditions was still then—there was no changes. You couldn't go to the bathroom, couldn't go to the restroom even on the highway and whatnot. 

John Fisher: We got to Louisville the next morning. I left here at twelve o'clock one night. It took me all night long, get to Louisville next morning. And we got in Louisville and we carried her out to the college. And we left her there. Broke down, I was so tired, I wanted to sleep, had been on the road all night, long time. And I couldn't find a place to take a nap. My wife and I. So we went to a so-called, we asked somebody and they sent us to a so-called Black hotel on the—there in Louisville. We went in that place and I told the fella, I just need to take me a nap. He charged me, I think about four or five dollars but anyway, he put us in a room there to take a nap. And we were laying there trying to take a nap. Sure enough and it wasn't too long, the door opened. 

John Fisher: When the door opened, fella walked in, looked. And so he said, " Y'all in the wrong room." I said, "What?" Boy, I woke my wife up, I said, "Wake up, get up." I said, "We got to leave here." We got up and went back and got in the car, coming back to Birmingham. Now we had to stop on the highway and try to take a nap under the streetlight. 

John Fisher: And the next morning, I'm hungry trying to get here. And we didn't have no place. We could stop to eat. So I told my wife, " Well, might well get ready." I say, "I'm going to leave you in the car." I don't want to let somebody kill me. I'm going to get, I'm going to stop. I said, " When the next car pass me this morning, I'm going to drive real slow. The White man, I'm gon' follow." And I did it. That fella passed me, him and his wife. And I just got right in behind. He going to stop somewhere to eat. And then if he stopped, I'm going to stop him right behind. And I did that. And I stopped right behind. But I was surprised I didn't get a hard time, people didn't give me a hard time. I went right on in behind the fella. I told why now you sit here. Wait till I'm back. 

John Fisher: And I went and them people were eating. The fact was a crowd and it was a White waitress. She met me at the door. She said, "Can I help you?" And I said, "Yes." I said, "We stopped by and I am hungry. I'd like to get some to eat." She said, "Well what would you like?" "Are you going to serve us?" She says, "Yeah" I said, " Well wait just one minute." I said, "I got my wife out here, she wanted me to eat too." 

John Fisher: She says, "Well go get her." And I went and got my wife and told her to come on in. Now that was fear. It was fear. I mean I've been subject to this stuff so long. I'm knowing just about what to expect. And when of course I accepted, I went on and I adjusted real well, was no problem. I just went right on the end. If they said it feed me well because I'm not—no wild, loud fella, you don't want to start nothing. I'm just want some service, that's all. I guess. Cause I learned a lesson that you can find some of these people that won't give you a hard time, see. And then, but now there are others. 

Tywanna Whorley: What next? Do you remember hearing about the bus boycott in Montgomery? 

John Fisher: Talking about Rosa. What's his name? 

Tywanna Whorley: Rosa Parks. 

John Fisher: Parks. That Parks lady. I remember when it started. Sure. 

Tywanna Whorley: Did everybody talk about it? I mean, bunch of friends talk about it? 

John Fisher: Well, they talked a lot about that here and they—