Tywanna Whorley: I noticed the pictures out there that this was named something else before Green Acres. Can you tell me your name?
Charles Austin Gratton: Yeah. To go back, when I first went into business was in 1957/58. That was on 16th Street and Sixth Avenue North in other words. Right across from 16th Street, Baptist Church, diagonally across the street from where the Civil Rights Institute, on the northeast corner. There's a parking lot there now. Big two story building, and that's where I first went in business. I stayed there for three years. I really didn't make any money, but I got a lot of experience. But in not making any money I had to close down. I stayed out of business then about a year, and the place came available here on Fourth Avenue, and I located over there in '63, opened up in '63. Same name, doing the same thing.
Charles Austin Gratton: But like I say, I got a lot of experience those first three years that I was on 16th Street. So, the minute I opened my doors here on Fourth Avenue, I started making money. Not a whole lot, but I wasn't going in the hole and I could see a return. I stayed there in that location across the street, the Federal Courthouse is there on that particular spot now. I stayed there until 1970, and that's when the building were condemned and they actually were tearing the building down while I was still in there trying to operate. It was a big decision to make, whether to just close down or try to relocate in the Fourth Avenue area. My thinking was this. I had established a fairly good business, and I felt like a lot of my customers were depending on me for the product I was selling.
Charles Austin Gratton: I started looking around, I found a place two doors down from where I am now. It was vacant. It was condemned also, but a Black person owned the building, so I talked to him about it and he said, "Well, yeah. I'll rent it to you," and I had to go and do all the renovation, inside renovation, and all the remodeling, plumbing, everything. I stayed there until 1990. The city of Birmingham at that time, under the leadership of Dr. Arrington, Mayor Arrington. This Fourth avenue had always been, and these are words that he told me himself, he always have had a special interest in Fourth Avenue simply because it always have been known as a Black business district and he would like to see it stay alive. So, through the help of an agency that he formed, it's still in existence, known as Urban Impact.
Charles Austin Gratton: I think Lillian Hill works for them now, referred you to me. Their job was to help revitalize Fourth Avenue. Along with that, he helped put in effect the program known as The Land Bank Program, and how that operates is this. Through the agency of Urban Impact, they would identify a site that a merchant was in, a Black merchant was interested in, then the city would buy that property, and in turn sell it back to this merchant at a low cost interest rate, same price that he paid for it, but a low cost interest rate. They would negotiate with you and make it as reasonable as possible so you could survive. I've known cases where they deferred interest for maybe a year and a half. You just pay the principle back, no interest. I've known of cases where they would give you a real, real low interest rate, something like 2% or 3% for maybe the first two years.
Charles Austin Gratton: Then after that it'd go up to 4%, max out at six. So, the city really played a big part in helping redevelop Fourth Avenue. Because maybe what I left out was that during '63, rather when the big riot was, all of this was demolished, fire-bombed. This was done by Black people, because like I told you, remember now, this ties back in that although it was a Black business district, White people actually was operating the business. So, during the riot, Blacks in Birmingham and downtown, they knew that these business was White owned, so they just came by and threw fire-bombs and busted out windows. All of these White owners, I mean operators down here, they just closed up and left. So, Fourth Avenue was just left in a ghost town, seemed like a battlefield, war zone had been through here.
Charles Austin Gratton: There were just a few Blacks then started coming in and trying to put it back together, and with the aid from the city, we were able to get this back on track. So, now, 99% of everything in the Fourth Avenue area, from 18th Street down to 16th Street, is Black owned. Black owned, Black operated. So, that's the big difference. You don't have the crowd that we once had, being close to Civil Rights Institute have been a boosting arm, because we get a lot of tourists and we get some of that business up here. The Jazz Hall of Fame, it reopened, that have helped some. With the improvement that the merchants and the city have done to the area, people feel more safer and comfortable in coming back to this area shopping. We have, the Black merchants in this area, we have a nice percentage of White customers.
Charles Austin Gratton: You take lunch hour, it'll start maybe the next hour. I'll have call-ins from Alabama Power, South Central Bell, the banks, and a lot of these be White people. They come in, pick up the order. Let's do it. Today we have quite a few Whites that trade with us at night, and it all because of the effort that we put together to try to destroy the negative image that was projected on Fourth Avenue. Some was true, some had some validity to it, but not all of it. Merchants have said we've done a lot, by banding together we have what is known as the Fourth Avenue Merchants Association, and the board president, we meet once a month, discuss things in the area and what affecting us, and if we have any problems, we discuss that, and ideas for improving on situations, and things are looking real bright.
Tywanna Whorley: Back then, did it bother Blacks that, even though this was a place they had come, that it was White-owned?
Charles Austin Gratton: Not really. It was very few were concerned and very few that actually knew what was going on. They were so elated over the fact that they could come in the front door, and in some places they could see a Black person on the cash register. That just tripped them out. I mean, it's almost like saying they were in hog heaven. I mean, they wasn't looking any further than what they could see. They thought this was the utmost, this was the height that anybody would want, just to be able to work in a place like this, or being able to come in the front door. I mean, it was really just that. That's just the way most of us thought.
Tywanna Whorley: Do you remember any racial incidents that took place in Birmingham?
Charles Austin Gratton: Racial incidents, how?
Tywanna Whorley: In Birmingham, between Whites and Blacks that took place?
Charles Austin Gratton: Yeah. Well, I remember all of it. The racial incidents that went on back in the '60's, '59, the struggle actually started in Montgomery with the bus boycott. That was under the leadership of Dr. King. We had a movement. He also, by the name of Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, Reverend Fred Shuttlesworth was over this, I think they have a statue of him out here. I was very active in the Christian Movement. His house was bombed once. He was in it, his family, and they had made another attempt to bomb the church. But that bomb was found in time, and it didn't do a lot of damage to the church. But after his home was bombed, I took an active part in being one of the guards at night, we had to guard his house every night. I had a shift one night a week of being a guard, to look out, keep that from happening again.
Charles Austin Gratton: Prior to that, we had The Freedom Riders to come in one Sunday morning. If I'm thinking clearly, I believe it was on Easter Sunday morning, down at the bus terminal that we had on 19th Street, about two blocks up, called Trailway Bus Station. When they arrived at the Trailway Bus Station, the Ku Klux Klan was waiting on him. When they got off of that bus, they had been notified by—Police department had been notified to stay away, that the Klan was going to take care of it. They beat those Black people something terrible. I mean, some, they were on the bus, and some they wasn't even on the bus. After they beat them as long as they wanted to, then the police came in and arrested them and took them to jail. Now, this incident took place way before the main struggle started here in the city of Birmingham. Of course, Reverend Shuttlesworth, he was beaten, his wife was stabbed trying to enroll his daughter up at Phillip High School. The same high school as I told you about, I had to pass on the bus.
Charles Austin Gratton: He was jailed many times for sitting in the front of the bus. We had to ride in the back, Whites in the front. Reverend Shuttlesworth challenged that and he was put in jail many times for that. The biggest turning point of all was in '63, when Dr. King came here, and attempted to march uptown to integrate the lunch counters. They had a commissioner by the name of Eugene Bull Connor, and he was determined that he wasn't going to let Blacks cross Kelly Ingram Park to come up in town to integrate the lunch counters. So, this is when the fire hoses and the police dogs and all that took place out in the park. As much stress and force that they had, it still didn't stop a lot of this. At this particular time, a lot of the school kids had took part in it. With all that force the police department had out there, a lot of the children still broke through and made it uptown to those lunch counters.
Charles Austin Gratton: After that, Governor George Wallace, he sent his state troopers up here for reinforcement, and they circled the whole entire park, standing there with the bayonets on their shoulders. They were determined that incident wouldn't happen again, wouldn't anybody escape through. They had a mass arrest that particular night. They arrested so many school children until they ran out of space in jails, and they took them out to Fair Park and booking them in out there, at the Fair Park, holding them inside a fence. Shortly after that, I guess the next incident was when was bombing of 16th Street Baptist Church, when those young girls lost their lives. That was basically the turning point in making things better in the city.
Tywanna Whorley: In the 50's, when you heard about the bus boycott, did you think things were about to change now?
Charles Austin Gratton: No, I didn't. All I've ever known, all of my life, was segregation. As far as I was concerned, it would always be. But I had hope that it would be different. But I didn't know how it could be going about to get it changed, because it just seemed like you were up against the impossible. Along came Dr. King with the vision, and he just could see far enough to know what it would take. Even, not trying to discredit him, but I think a lot of other Blacks probably knew what it took, but they wasn't willing to pay the price. See, Dr. King knew that somebody was going to lose their life. It was going to be a lot of bloodshed, and which in most transitions that's what always takes place.
Charles Austin Gratton: Freedom is not cheap. By him knowing that, he was willing to pay that ultimate price, which eventually cost him his life. Probably other leaders that probably could have done the same thing, but they wasn't willing to take that risk and pay the price that—So, I really didn't have any hope. Everything Dr. King was doing, like I say, was attention thing from the inside, and it had my prayers and all that it would work, but actually knowing that it would, step by step, I mean you just continued to think that this was impossible to do. But it just worked out gradually.
Tywanna Whorley: Do you remember a place called Dynamite Hill?
Charles Austin Gratton: That was in Smithfield, that's where Dr. Shores was living. They bombed over there constantly. Number one is because that was the upper class section of the city of Birmingham for Blacks. That's about five blocks, four blocks from Park High School. But you had your teachers, your doctors, and your lawyers, the high upper class of Blacks, they had got real nice homes over there. They had some of the nicest—Well, the nicer homes in the city was Smithfield, known as Dynamite Hill. So, when the Blacks started talking about integrating and all this kind of stuff, equal employment and all that, so the only retaliation that the White people could see, the Klan, that was causing the most problem, they all of a violent nature. They believe in hanging and lynching and this kind of thing, bombing.
Charles Austin Gratton: To retaliate, or to scare or shock Blacks, and see Dr. Shores, he was instrumental in handling lawsuits, him being at that time, it wasn't but probably three Black attorneys in the city, and he was one of the Civil Rights lawyers. So, they figured, well, if we can scare him off or kill him, then they won't have no lawyer to represent them. So, that's why they bombed over there so much. They were trying to kill out the leaders, scare them or run them off or whatever they could do. They had constant bombings over there. So, that's why it was known as Dynamite Hill.
Tywanna Whorley: Did a lot of people move out, do you know?
Charles Austin Gratton: I don't think so. I don't recall of any action. Dr. Shores's house is still there. He stayed in the same house. He was bombed and attempted to be bombed many times. That was one of the strangest things about this whole struggle. I guess we had been in it so long, and a lot of us had been under so much pressure till we felt like that it really couldn't get any worse, it had to get better. With the kind of philosophy that Dr. King had, we just decided we didn't have too much lose.
Tywanna Whorley: When his house was bombed, did he just keep rebuilding every time?
Charles Austin Gratton: It actually wasn't completely destroyed. They would—Maybe the dynamite they were using would probably blow out most of his windows, and maybe destroy maybe a wall or two, knock a hole in the wall. It wasn't in a position where they could get enough dynamite in one section to actually blow up the whole house, because if they had it would've killed him. Some of those times when the house was dynamited, he were in there. Same thing with Reverend Shuttlesworth's house. Now, his house was a little bit different constructed than Dr. Shore's. They were able to get this dynamite over Reverend Shuttlesworth's house between his house and the church. Some of it, I guess when they threw it or placed it, some of it did go under the house, and this house was destroyed.
Charles Austin Gratton: It was a miracle Reverend Shuttlesworth got out of there alive without being inched in anymore than it was. Because that dynamite, it might have been more and it was put in a better place to do damage. So, during all of the bombing attempts in Smithfield or Dynamite Hill, those houses, most of those houses were so constructed that they would really have to almost take enough time to try to get that dynamite underneath the house to do enough damage. It wasn't close enough together. Even if they put enough out beside a wall, by the houses being spaced like they was, a lot of that force would go that way because it didn't have anything to hold it together to do a lot of damage. But they made a lot of attempts over there.
Tywanna Whorley: You said there was a church, what was the name of the church?
Charles Austin Gratton: Reverend Shuttlesworth's Church. Bethel Baptist Church. That's in Collegeville.
Tywanna Whorley: The last question I wanted to ask you. Do you see any, I guess comparing what you lived through, through the 40's and 50's, any changes now that you would like to see now, or some things that you wish stayed the same?
Charles Austin Gratton: Well, I would like to see our people as a whole start facing reality, and try to look to the future rather than being satisfied with the accomplishments that we've already made. That's the downside I should say, of a little progress. We have a tendency of being satisfied with just part of the pie, rather than going for the whole thing. Now, my philosophy is this, and I've said it many times to different people that I've talked to. It is good in a sense, but we've got to get that long range view. Most people, most of our people, Blacks I should say, they stress education, which education is good. But the bottom line, they more or less put emphasis in the wrong place. For example, they'll tell the children, say, "I want you to go to school. I want you to get a good education, where you can come out and get you a good job."
Charles Austin Gratton: They missed the point. I mean, go to school, get you a good education, come out of school and try to own a job. Not going, looking for somebody to give you a job, learn some trade in school, get in some kind of profession, and you go to own the job, not to be hired at the job. You see it's a lot of difference in standing in a pay line, waiting on a paycheck, and sitting behind a desk where you own the business so you issuing out the paychecks. So, that's what we tell our people, and they go and get these jobs, and get this education. If they going to come out to be specialists in repairing computers and technicians and all this kind of thing, well, it's all right maybe to go ahead and get a job for a continuous climb.
Charles Austin Gratton: But don't be satisfied at being that. If you go in there and learn how to work on that computer, learn how to make it, and from that, set you up with shop and start selling computers and hire some of your own people that work and service the computer. Come up the same way. But see, we get on these jobs and when we do start doing 25, 30, $35,000 a year working on somebody's job, we got it made. But when you should be shooting for with that 25 or $35,000 a year job, the knowledge that you acquire in making money for somebody else, say, "Well, I can do this for myself." But I think it ends there, when we as parents, when we tell our children to go to school, get a good education where you can come out and get a good job. Once they get that good job, that's the end of it. I think that's where we are settling right now. Of course, what I just described may be at the higher level, but you can back it on down and come down below.
Charles Austin Gratton: The better some of us have done, the more satisfied we've become, and say, "Well, you know. I'm doing well. I can pay my bills, I can do this." They don't want to go any further. This is what I see integration and equal job opportunities and all this have done for us, it has helped us to a point but then it's hurting us too because we're satisfied. We don't want to do any—Excuse me. Let see who this is. Okay. I think I was about finished with what I was saying, telling you.
Tywanna Whorley: Just one more thing. Back then, was there any businesses on Fourth Avenue that were Black owned?
Charles Austin Gratton: About three. The Magic City Barber Shop. Of course, it's been Black as far as I know, and this was probably back in the 50's, early 50's. I can't go beyond that, I was too young to know. That was one. Nelson Brothers Cafe, and what else? There probably was another one. But I know those two and that's about all come to my mind right now.
Tywanna Whorley: Okay. Because I'm trying to figure out, back then, how was it that they were able to have their own businesses? I mean, I'm sure they had to go to the city to buy them.
Charles Austin Gratton: No. It was just a few—It'll just show you how few Blacks think or look to the future. Now, there were many more that probably could have done the same thing, but that wasn't our trend of thinking. As long as we was working for somebody else and operating a business with someone else, and getting maybe a little bit of money above what the average person would get, Black person would get, we were satisfied. But these particular people that I'm talking about, the man that somehow, and I don't know how he managed to do it, at one point, somebody somewhere was renting, operating this for a White man. But this guy was thinking far enough ahead and was able to negotiate a deal with this White man and buy him out, get him to sell it to him. Well, it goes back again to, like I was telling you about the land and the house that my daddy bought over in Norwood, he wasn't financially in no shape to do it, but he took a chance.
Charles Austin Gratton: He wanted it and he took that first step negotiating with the people, the White people that owned this land and a deal was worked out. He just had faith that someday somehow he would pay for it, and it came to pass. It's not enough for us to have that kind of vision and have that kind of faith. It's not an unusual thing. They going to answer that. It's not an unusual thing. I mean, it happens every day. It's just like people go and purchases a car. They get the down payment, they don't know whether they going to actually pay for the car or not. But they have enough faith to go and put their down payment down, and take it on a monthly thing. If they pay for it long enough, one day they'll own the car.
Charles Austin Gratton: But cars are nothing, is not important. If we would use that same kind of theory on tangible things that meant something, leave the cars alone because see, when you drive that cars a loss, you done lost value on it already. You couldn't go round the block and come back and get the same price that you paid for it. But when it come down to land and going in businesses, if we would use that same principle in doing that, then there would be more Blacks in business. There'd be more Blacks doing better, there'd be more Blacks able to help other Blacks. But we don't think that way. So, that's why it's just a few of us. We put our prizes in the wrong place, and we got a system that encouraged that. You can go and buy a car, but [indistinct 00:29:02] can go and buy a house. You can go to buy a house, then you've got to have all kind of qualifications.
Charles Austin Gratton: But one thing you need to buy a car is a down payment, most of the time. So, the system is geared up to make us think a certain way, and it's just going to take somebody with a little bit more vision above the average in order to succeed. Because things have not changed a whole lot. They've changed more or less in the way things were presented. But the bottom line is still there. Other words, there was a saying that goes that, the Ku Klux Klan had pulled off his robe and put on a three-piece suit now. What I mean by that, instead of having a robe and cone on, coming out to lynch you, he took that off and threw it away. He got the three-piece suit on, but he's sitting president of the bank, loan officers in the bank, so they lynching you that way now, economically and financial and still there.
Tywanna Whorley: Did Mr. Gaston serve as a role model for a lot of Blacks here?
Charles Austin Gratton: Yes. Mr. Gaston, he done a wonderful job when you consider where he came from, and how he had to make it. He faced some of the same oppositions that I just described. But he had that stamina to stay on in there. Although he's successful and multimillionaire and all that kind of stuff, it didn't come easy for him either. I mean, he had to deal with the same type problems that I've previously described with you, but he had that determination and willpower, and he believed in himself and what he was doing. That's just what it takes for any person to be successful in whatever they do. They've got to believe in theirself first and they've got to believe in what they're doing. Along with that, you stick with it, and it'll eventually work.
Tywanna Whorley: I just want to get on record, what was the name of this place before I see on the pictures out there?
Charles Austin Gratton: It was The Silver Sands.
Tywanna Whorley: Was that similar as to what—
Charles Austin Gratton: No, no. It all together different. Silver Slipper. I'm sorry. Silver Slipper. Now, they more or less were serving dinner type foods, what some describe as soul food. It was at a reasonable price, real cheap. See, my thing is more or less fast foods. Something similar to Church's Chicken, McDonald's, things on that nature. I just have a little service counter there for them to stand and eat if they want to. But mine primarily is just takeout.
Tywanna Whorley: That was also White owned?
Charles Austin Gratton: Yeah.
Tywanna Whorley: Okay.
Charles Austin Gratton: Black operated, White owned.
Tywanna Whorley: Okay. Thank you.
Charles Austin Gratton: Okay.