Eugene Owens interview recording, 1995 August 11

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Eugene Owens	I was born in Chicago, Illinois on the 21st of March, 1919. I'm king of Spring.	0:02
Blair Murphy	And could you tell me a little bit about the neighborhood you lived in?	0:13
Eugene Owens	Well, I was born in Chicago, and then moved to Seattle, Washington at age about three. And of course, I've got a lot of this already written up if you want it, and you can take excerpts out of it, whatever you want.	0:17
Blair Murphy	Okay. At what age did you move to Washington?	0:43
Eugene Owens	Hm?	0:44
Blair Murphy	At what age did you move to Washington?	0:46
Eugene Owens	Around three.	0:50
Blair Murphy	At three. Okay.	0:51
Eugene Owens	Mm—hmm. And I was there I guess, until about seven or eight. My mother died while I was there. And my father, I never saw him after we left Chicago anymore. Mm—hmm.	0:53
Blair Murphy	Okay. Where did you move after you lived in Washington, Seattle?	1:08
Eugene Owens	Then when my mother died, she sent a letter to my mother. It came back to her deceased, or then she inquired and found out that I have a brother and a sister. I found out that the two boys were in an orphanage. And so, she— And my sister was with my grandmother. And so, she took steps to get the two boys to be sent to Minneapolis, Minnesota.	1:11
Blair Murphy	Okay. And that's where you were raised?	1:43
Eugene Owens	That's where I spent my adolescent years.	1:45
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	1:45
Eugene Owens	And of course, there was my Aunt Esther and my Uncle Lawrence. My Uncle Atley took my brother, and Aunt Esther took myself, only after I made the statement to her that, "You don't want a little boy you never saw before." They had both seen my brother when he was born, but they hadn't seen me. And so, that's the reason why she took me, I guess.	1:52
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm. And what type of community did you live in with them?	2:20
Eugene Owens	Beg your pardon?	2:22
Blair Murphy	What type of community did you live in with your aunt?	2:23
Eugene Owens	Well, it was a regular neighborhood, just a regular neighborhood I would say. Nothing spectacular. Just a regular neighborhood.	2:29
Blair Murphy	It was an all Black community?	2:41
Eugene Owens	No. Not all Black. No. There were a lot of Swedish people there.	2:44
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	2:53
Eugene Owens	In Minneapolis, Minnesota. No, we didn't [indistinct 00:02:57] Swedish people.	2:53
Blair Murphy	And did White and Black people live nearby each other?	3:00
Eugene Owens	Yeah. Yeah. This is in Minneapolis, Minnesota.	3:04
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	3:07
Eugene Owens	And of course, there, your race was not too noticeable, and I was too young really for to pay too much attention to the race factor, you know.	3:08
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	3:30
Eugene Owens	But I'm not saying it wasn't there, but I don't recall it there. I recall it more afterwards.	3:31
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm. And you went to school in Minnesota as well?	3:38
Eugene Owens	Yes. Yes. I went there, what? Elementary, and junior high, but I never graduated from either one of them, because my— I got into a little bit of a problem, I believe it was there. I forget whether it was in elementary school or not, but anyway, I do know that I did get in a bit of a problem, and I decided that I would go ahead on and hit the road. So I started hitchhiking, and I hitchhiked across from Minneapolis to Seattle, Washington. But of course, I found many prejudiced up in Montana. Butte, Montana, I couldn't get a lift. I couldn't get a ride. They wouldn't pick me up.	3:44
Eugene Owens	So I had to hop the rail. And so, I became a hobo, which you're not worried about my life. I mean, per such, but my sister was still in Seattle, so I went there and lived with her.	4:50
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	5:08
Eugene Owens	Not with her. My uncle Gene was going to take me over. I could do no wrong for one month. After that month, I began to do wrong every day. So I just had to hightail it out of there. I had already successfully hitchhiked across with a little excursion from Montana to Spokane, Washington on the rails, and so I then decided well, I'll go on down to Hollywood. So I went on down to Hollywood, and was picked up there, because they didn't want no really young boy running around Hollywood. So I was in a detention home there, and caught— I had the Scarlet Fever there.	5:11
Eugene Owens	And of course, I learned one of my greatest lessons, I believe. A lot of things happen in life, but I learned one of my greatest lessons about values on what it is that you attain in life, because for some reason or other, I've always been doing a lot of things, but they used to make beaded bracelets and rings and you name it. They had all kinds of them so I saw a youngster down— Every day, a certain hour, you had to sit beside your bed in the detention home. And so I saw this fellow down on the end, and saw he was working on beads, so I asked could I go down there? And this is after I'd just gotten there.	5:59
Eugene Owens	And this guy— Could I watch him, you know? And the guy said, "Yeah." And the guy's down there. He said, "You know [indistinct 00:07:02] Here, go with me." Well, it turned out that what he was doing was making this bracelet for one of the officers of the detention home. When I took over, for some reason or other, they took a shine to me, and they made messengers out of you. When you became a messenger, you were in charge of a table. You began to get some authority. Well, during the period of time that I was there, I went from the lowest one to the highest messenger.	6:54
Eugene Owens	And out on the field, my name, Owens— Well, Jesse Owens was pretty popular in that time, and so I don't know whether the people were allowing me to lap the [indistinct 00:07:56] or not, because I was top dog, you know?	7:39
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	7:57
Eugene Owens	But after I got tired, winded, I'd already lapped the field one time with them. The officer told me— This is another officer, recreation officer, told me to run after them and push them up. Push them up. Well, I was tired, and so I told him, I said, "Shoot, I'm tired man." And he said, "I told you to run." So I started walking. He said, "I told you to run after them." Shoot. I [indistinct 00:08:36] with it. So he said, "If you don't run, I'm going to snatch that kerchief from your neck." Well, that was your authority. All right. I said, "Shoot, the heck with this." So he snatched it. Immediately I learned a lesson.	8:00
Eugene Owens	I had to get back in line. I had to no matter— I was a has been, and I guess the good lord, that's one reason why Scarlet Fever was somewhat of a savior for me, because by having Scarlet Fever, they notified my aunt in Minneapolis, and she wanted me to come out and be sent back. And so, that was— She was my liaison, so to speak, in my life.	8:48
Speaker 1	Mm—hmm. They sent you back with Scarlet Fever, or waited until you were well?	9:21
Eugene Owens	No, after [indistinct 00:09:26]	9:25
Speaker 1	Oh.	9:26
Speaker 2	How old were you then?	9:26
Eugene Owens	Well, I guess I must have been about 11 or 12.	9:28
Speaker 2	Hm.	9:34
Eugene Owens	Something like that, maybe 13. Mm—hmm. And I must have been about 13, and so when I— From then on, I got the— Every summer, my brother knew that he wouldn't want to see me around, because I had done it once. So I just went ahead on and kept traveling, you know what I mean? I'd been to the West Coast, so from Minneapolis, I cut out and went to the East Coast, New York, and then cut back down by Iowa, went on back down that way. So I don't know if this is doing you any good in—	9:34
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm. This is—	10:11
Eugene Owens	I'm just rattling off.	10:11
Blair Murphy	No. I'd like to know. So you just every so often, you would just leave home?	10:25
Eugene Owens	Well, I was the liaison between my brother and my sister. I told you, I didn't graduate from elementary school. Likewise, when I got in junior high, my brother had gone into the 3C, Civilian Conservation Corps.	10:28
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	10:49
Eugene Owens	So I wanted to go where my brother went. He was my older brother. And so, I got in the 3Cs and was in the 3Cs, so when I got back after spending about a year and a half or thereabouts it the 3Cs, then I didn't want to stay any longer, and so I left. My Aunt Esther wanted me to stay longer, but I couldn't take it out in the woods anymore, you know.	10:49
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	11:21
Eugene Owens	And so, I left and went to Cleveland, Ohio. And my sister was in Cleveland, Ohio. At that time, my aunt had taken her. You remember my mother died, you know.	11:22
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	11:33
Eugene Owens	And so, my grandmother I guess, had gotten depressed, so my aunt— My mother's sister took her. So I stayed with them, and went— [indistinct 00:11:45] go back to junior high. And I was too old, so I went over to John Hay Commercial High, and so I spent some time there. And of course, I never graduated from there either, because while I was there, I received a letter from my brother, who was in Minneapolis, but I received a letter he was down in Washington DC. But he had driven somebody, a [indistinct 00:12:15] fellow down there, chauffered, you know.	11:33
Eugene Owens	But apparently, all along the way, this guy had been making some bogus checks, and so when they got down there, they caught up with the guy, but that kind of left my brother high and dry down there. So I left John Hay High, and went on down here to see if I could help him out. And it looked like we were both going to get stuck there, so I decided well, I'd better get on back up. Now, that's when the Jim Crow hit me, because they used to have those chain gangs.	12:18
Eugene Owens	Now, I hitchhiked across the United States, but [indistinct 00:12:54] I wasn't going to go get out in the road down in DC, trying to hitchhike. And so, I was working for Nailer Seafood Restaurant, so I got my fare, went back to Cleveland. But instead of going back to school, I checked with my uncle who worked at the foundry plant, and asked him could he get me a job out there, which he did. So then, I sent my brother a non negotiable bus ticket for him to come to Cleveland, Ohio, which he did. And he stayed there the rest of his life.	12:49
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	13:33
Eugene Owens	I mean, he just worked there. I don't mean he didn't never move out, but he didn't.	13:35
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm. So then, what'd you do?	13:40
Eugene Owens	Well, when I wound up— Let me see. Where was I?	13:40
Speaker 1	You were in Cleveland.	13:40
Eugene Owens	No.	13:40
Speaker 1	Yes you were. You said you were at the foundry.	13:40
Eugene Owens	Oh yeah. Okay. Well, let me see. What did I do?	13:40
Speaker 1	That's when you went down and joined the service?	14:06
Eugene Owens	Joined who?	14:06
Speaker 1	The service.	14:10
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm. Went to Columbus?	14:14
Eugene Owens	Well yeah. I was going to become a pilot, but people were talking about, they were using the Blacks as cannon fodder. You know what I mean. They were just sending them to the front lines. So they wanted me to come back for a check on my eye, and I never went back.	14:22
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	14:39
Eugene Owens	But then, I was— During the war in '41, when the war started, and they were drafting the fellows, my draft number was 1501, and of course in Seattle, Washington, I had— My mother died while I was in the hospital, because I had been run over. Hit and run driver. And so at any rate, when I went down years later to enlist, or answer the draft, I'd had a compound fracture of the left femur here, and right leg. So I have a scar there, and indentation where infection had set in. And so, the guy said I was 4F. For a while, being 4F— This is back when they first started equal employment opportunities.	14:39
Blair Murphy	Hm.	15:50
Eugene Owens	And I feel that I had been guided. My mother died at an early age in my life, but my grandmother— After she died, my grandmother refused my left shoe three times down to her [indistinct 00:16:11] method of telling it. Remember, surgery— I went under ether. Surgery didn't really start until what? About 1860 something. And so, he offered my left shoe to my grandmother. Three times, she refused. Now, I believe I've been blessed, because let's face it. I would not be sitting up here as a retired military if I had no—just one leg.	15:51
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	16:44
Eugene Owens	And so, what your parents do for you and how they do it— You know, I mean, I don't know why my grandmother came up to Chicago and took my mother and the three of us to Seattle. And of course, they gave my father a chance to be away and never come down there, but of course I never really enjoyed being around my granddad, because he'd already raised five and let us know he didn't want three more. And he made life miserable. And that's the reason why my brother and I would be running away most all the time. He was rough, and if I smelt his tobacco— He was a chef on a train. So when he'd come in, I just knew something was going to happen, and—	16:46
Eugene Owens	But to make a long story short, or shorter, I went down— I got a job with the Wage and Hours Division, so was serving, and that was just as a mail clerk or something or other. And then, I received that draft, and I was refused and made a 4F. So then, I went back to Minneapolis, and I felt kind of ashamed to be around there. I'm 4F, you know, in Cleveland. So I went to Minneapolis, and there went out to the New Brighton ammo depot, and there, they— I was watching a fellow, the inspector as he was messing around with the 50 and 30 millimeter cartridges. And he said—	17:33
Eugene Owens	He saw I was interested, so he said, "You want to learn this?" And I told him, "Yeah." Now, this is when equal employment was just coming into being, and so they made me a sub inspector. So when I left very shortly after that— Back then, you had to have a work order. A work release. You couldn't just run from one job and run over to the other job without getting a written permit to leave one job and go to the other. So that's what— I took mine and went on back to Cleveland. When I got back to Cleveland, I was going to go to work, and I went down to the employment office. They said, "Well, you don't belong here."	18:32
Eugene Owens	"What do you mean I don't belong here?" Well, because I'd been at the Wage and Hours Division, Civil Service, and Civil Service in Minneapolis at the New Brighton branch, now they sent me out to the Cleveland Fisher Bomber Plant.	19:24
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	19:48
Eugene Owens	And so, I went out there for an interview, and Mr. Whiting, I think his name was, he interviewed me, and he intimated that well, they really didn't have any openings for what I had been doing. Well, I told him, well, I didn't know anything about these cartridges until I got out there. And I would like an opportunity to— I'm being messy, like young folk sometimes do, you know? Pushy, you know. And I felt that I could probably learn whatever it is. I would like an opportunity to do it, or to try.	19:50
Eugene Owens	So he said, "Well, we'll take it down." So I called back, and [indistinct 00:20:43] I check with some of my friends to find out whether they had done anything out there. And so, they said, "Yeah, they've hired some new inspectors." This was for an inspector job. And so, I went back there, and I confronted him. I said, "Is it because I'm Black?"	20:34
Speaker 1	Colored.	21:05
Eugene Owens	Colored. Yeah. You know. We didn't use the word Black.	21:06
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	21:10
Eugene Owens	And he said, "No. No no." He said, "I'm going to get— And you can come back here. I'm going to give you a chance on the next one." So I called out to the bomber plant, to some folks I knew out there, and I asked them. I said, "Are there any Black inspectors?" I said, "What do they do?" Because I wanted to find out before I got out there. "They just walk around. We've got a stamp or something or other, and they stamp an item," or something like that.	21:11
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	21:43
Eugene Owens	So I told them, "Well, don't be surprised—" I said, "Do they have any Blacks?" And they said, "No. Mm—mm. No." And they walk around in suits, you know. So I said, "Well, don't be surprised if you see one out there," and sure enough, I was— I did become the first Black Army Air Force Procurement Inspector at the Fisher Bomber Plant in Cleveland, Ohio. I was there for about 18 months. Then the war ended, and of course I was sent to Boleo, California, and there I worked in the sheet metal shop.	21:43
Eugene Owens	And the war ended. So then, I went to work for the Oakland Army Base, and Walgreen's drugstore at night.	22:27
Blair Murphy	Hm.	22:40
Eugene Owens	And my brother came in off the ship. He was in the Navy. And any monies that I had saved, I was trying to treat him.	22:40
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	22:53
Eugene Owens	And so, we wound up— And he wound up being treated, but then he told me they were deactivating the ship. So then, we got hung up there in California, and I then left there, California. We decided to go back up to Seattle, where— You know, the first place where my grandfather— And went up there, and looked like we were— Where I could get jobs before, now you couldn't get a job, and I wound up just working as a houseboy and a yard boy. The only jobs you could get. Shoe shine, you know, or waiter, or something like that.	22:53
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	23:36
Eugene Owens	And all the glamour had gone out, you know?	23:38
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	23:41
Eugene Owens	So over the radio, I heard them announcing the military, if you would come back in, we would give you a rank higher, one rank higher than what you had before. And so, I had not been in, but I decided— Something told me to go down there and check it out. And so, I did. And once again, they sent me to 4F line. I said, "Well, wait a minute. What do you mean four— Why 4F?" They said, "Your leg." So I told them, "Heck, if anything, I had more problems with this leg than with this leg," and I hopped up and down. He said, "Well, come on in." Well now, that's how I got in the military.	23:41
Eugene Owens	So in the military, here's where I first found out, really found out about the Jim Crow. That was in Seattle, Washington, and they sent me from there down to Fort Jackson, South Carolina.	24:29
Blair Murphy	What year was this?	24:48
Eugene Owens	Beg you pardon?	24:50
Blair Murphy	What year?	24:50
Eugene Owens	That was 1946.	24:50
Blair Murphy	Hm.	24:50
Eugene Owens	And down there, while in route on the train, while we were in the northern section, you could eat anywhere on that train.	24:54
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	25:05
Eugene Owens	But when they began to near that Mason—Dixon Line, they told us about what the facts of life and the way they did things down south, and so we wound up going down there, having to eat back of a curtain. And when we got off the train, here was a Colored waiting area. And I mean, it was— Up north, I hadn't been all that bleak. It wasn't that obvious. But down there, immediately you knew that there were certain places you couldn't go, things you couldn't do, even though you were in the military.	25:06
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	25:51
Eugene Owens	And so, all during my military career, which I had 20 years, we went— I was sent overseas to Okinawa. First, I went to Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and there, I wound up as a draftsman. I took an engineering course, and was sent overseas to Hawaii. Not Hawaii. To— Where was it?	25:57
Blair Murphy	Okinawa.	26:29
Eugene Owens	The Philippines. But I never did stay but overnight at the Philippines, because they had us scheduled to go over to the rock, which was Okinawa. And that was during the occupation forces in '47. So I spent while I was there— Being a draftsman, the officers— The first thing when the truck came up, an officer stuck his head in there. "Where's the draftsman?" And of course, I started— There was two of us, so we started our drafting training, and worked there. And why all the officers were looking for the draftsman, because they were authorized to bring their families over if they had quarters. Well, they were authorized a quonset hut, but they needed the vacant quonset hut to have a floor plan on it so that the local Okinawans could build according to our floor plan.	26:30
Eugene Owens	Well, they needed a draftsman in order to do that. Well, that's what I did, and I became the chief draftsman for the outfit. And while doing that, another phone call— I mean, another radio call came, and they were talking about, if you come up here— We were looking for people to come up to audition for broadcasting. And well now, I didn't want to do guard duty because they had a lot of habu snakes, which were very poisonous on Okinawa. And so, I went up there for the interview or audition. And so, Lieutenant [indistinct 00:28:32] he says, "Well, what do you really want to do?"	27:44
Eugene Owens	And I told him, "I just wanted to program maybe once a week," and stuff like that. He said, "Well, we can't use you part time. We want you full time." Oh my god. I'm chief draftsman down here. And I said, "I don't think they'll let me come." He said, "Oh yeah, they'll let you come." This is a White fellow, and he had talked to Colonel Federoff, a White officer, who had apparently intimated to him that if he could find anybody in his outfit that could qualify to broadcast, that he would let him come up.	28:37
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	29:18
Eugene Owens	So sure enough, Colonel Federoff called me over to his house, and I had done some drafting work for him as well. Matter of fact, I made him wait until I got the drawings done right this time, because the other fellow that went over with me, the draftsman, he let the Okinawan or the workmen arrange quite a bit there. He had let them have the original drawing. Well, a rain or two and a bit of mud, and the drawing was zilch. So I made him wait until I could get my drawing reproduced, and then I kept the master and so forth.	29:20
Eugene Owens	So he said, "Corporal, yeah. I'm not going to stand in your way." He said, "I think it'd be a good opportunity for you, so go ahead on, and we'll work with you on it." And so, sure enough I went up to the radio station, and I became the [indistinct 00:30:15] as a young fellow. I can say that now. About 18 months, I spent there, and broadcasted. But in broadcasting, it was not like in the barracks. In the barracks, everything was Black, you know what I mean, or Colored. But up in the broadcast station, it was interracial. But—	29:57
Blair Murphy	Were you treated well?	30:47
Eugene Owens	I have always been treated well, because I guess I demand a certain amount. I give, but then I demand. And of course, I have never had too much problem with people.	30:48
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	31:01
Eugene Owens	There are some people— If I can't get along with somebody, they've got to be real rough.	31:04
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	31:08
Eugene Owens	Now, if you're real short with me, I can clam up. You know.	31:09
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	31:16
Eugene Owens	So anyway, I went ahead on and— Back in the States, I decided that— At Fort Bliss, Texas, and that's where I really hit it. I mean, you couldn't even go to the BX. The Blacks or the Coloreds, the military, they had their own little sub places where they could go. We weren't even in the barracks with the— We were in some tents. I would say they were about a square. You could have four beds in them.	31:17
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	31:55
Eugene Owens	And so, they were— That's what they— And then, I didn't like the idea of this sergeant. It was a one White officer. But the sergeant would come running around early in the morning, with a tin can, you know, of a garbage can, the lid, blamming on that. Well, that's a heck of a way to be awakened every morning.	31:56
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	32:20
Eugene Owens	So when my reenlistment time came up, I was ready to get the heck out of it. So he said, "I don't care where you enlist, you're going to be right back here. So you might as well go ahead on and reenlist here." So shucks, I took my [indistinct 00:32:39] and went on back to Cleveland, Ohio. When I got back there, circumstances, I found out I was better off in the military than to be out on the avenue, because of job wise. So I went on back— But I tricked them this time. Instead of enlisting back into the Army, I switched over, and went into the Air Force.	32:21
Eugene Owens	And so, I wound up my career in the Air Force. And of course, my wife and I talk about discrimination. I got married in '50. And of course, when I came back, it was '48 or '49. '49. And we were sent to Bermuda. We were supposed to go to Europe, but we were sent to Bermuda, and wound in— When I got to Bermuda, my wife and I were among the first Colored ever military to be sent to Bermuda. They had a standing agreement with England that they would never send any Black. I say Black, but any Colored troops, to the island. And the reason being, the island is 99% Black, and in 1950, very prejudiced.	33:08
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	34:14
Eugene Owens	And you talk about couldn't go. You couldn't go anywhere in Bermuda unless it was strictly a Black area.	34:16
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	34:25
Eugene Owens	And so, even the broadcasting was very messy. So I had been broadcasting on Okinawa. So I had some transcripts, some large records. So I carried them down to the radio station in Bermuda. And I left them there for the guy to check as soon as he could. So I called him back, and he hadn't checked it yet, so I told him that the base, Kennedy Air Force Base, that they, Colonel Merrill and the rest of them kind of felt that this would be a good community relations type of a program for Bermuda.	34:26
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	35:18
Eugene Owens	They had no Bermudians, none of them. Nobody. They didn't even train them. There was no schooling for them to learn broadcasting.	35:18
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	35:28
Eugene Owens	So what my wife and I did, we went around to the different indigenous stores, and the Black little stores— See, if we went to the big stores like JC Penny's or Montgomery Ward or something, they would dictate to us— They'd take the whole slate, and then they'd just dictate to us what the program was going to be.	35:29
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	35:53
Eugene Owens	But instead, we went around to the small Colored stores, Black stores, and I told them that if they would buy— This was after duty hours. If they would sponsor a 15 minute segment on the broadcast, because we had to get sponsors, that I guaranteed that I would train a local Bermudian in the art and technique of broadcasting, and that we would leave the broadcast in the hands of a Bermudian.	35:54
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	36:28
Eugene Owens	So for two and a half years, this is what we did, and we had all kinds of Bermudians coming up there on the broadcast. And of course, there again, it was still an isolated— Any celebrities, Arthur Ashe— I mean, not her, but the girl. Althea Gibson.	36:30
Speaker 1	Althea Gibson, yeah.	36:53
Eugene Owens	Jamie Bivlen—	37:00
Speaker 1	James Edwards.	37:00
Eugene Owens	James Edwards, the movie star. When they came to the island—	37:04
Speaker 1	Charles dEzert.	37:09
Eugene Owens	Huh?	37:10
Speaker 1	Charles dEzert.	37:10
Eugene Owens	Yeah. The champion boxer? They appeared on the broadcast. And so, what happened is that when we left or got ready to leave finally— Now, you a young person, and you seem to be very with it. I don't know what your terminologies are nowadays, but it was— We had plenty of people, but then there was— A person has to have a certain charisma, a certain drive about them, for you to just— You could have a lot of people working with you, but then you'll say, "Well, I don't know. It's not too good to leave them in that hand or in that hand, or in the other hand." No matter how they really wanted or themselves, an individual to do it, you have to have something going.	37:10
Eugene Owens	And so, finally we got one fellow came in, and we're getting ready to leave the island within about a month or two, and he was a motorcyclist, and he had [indistinct 00:38:26] But he had a brother. His brother had just come back from Canada or someplace.	38:11
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	38:34
Eugene Owens	Remember, I told you, he couldn't get training in Bermuda.	38:35
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	38:39
Eugene Owens	But he had left Bermuda and went over to Canada and came back, and so the work that my wife and I had done for those two and a half years, we had a full slate of sponsors.	38:40
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	38:54
Eugene Owens	And so, we turned the broadcast over to them, and to him. And I told him, "It's okay with me. You don't have to continue training, but you do have to continue to broadcast." Well, the individual did just that. And I don't know if he— I don't think he continued the training very much. Well, some of them though— Remember, the station was lily White. About 10 years later— This was in '50. In '62, I took a round— I was still in the military, and I took a hop to Puerto Rico, Bermuda, and back to Langley. Well, we stopped overnight in Bermuda.	38:55
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	39:46
Eugene Owens	And I saw this fellow. Now, we're good at this. He intimated that well, he didn't— "You know, I wasn't one of your group." Now, he's the one I left the broadcast with, but he wasn't one of the group. "So I have some pictures, and I'll show them to you." So I sent him a picture. And there he is, standing up there on the sideline while I'm talking with the program, getting ready to leave, and talking with them, a couple of different people.	39:47
Eugene Owens	So that made me kind of angry, that he didn't want to appreciate or show— I'm not talking about— I didn't want him to bow down to me, but at least— My wife and I had spent all that time setting up the program.	40:25
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	40:45
Eugene Owens	We left it with him.	40:46
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	40:47
Eugene Owens	Well now, at that time, 12 years later, he was— I don't know if he still had the program going, but he was assistant manager of the station and owned stock in the station.	40:48
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	41:04
Eugene Owens	And of course, they had TVs going there, a couple TV stations, and actually you travel there at 20 miles an hour in Bermuda, and this fellow, the one fellow that had been one of the workers with me on the broadcast, was driving his cab, and so he had a radio in his cab. So he had to call base out military, and let them know that I was en route back, because they had had me on the air.	41:09
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	41:39
Eugene Owens	And so, when I came on back to the States. Well now, to make a real long story short, last year— Was it last year, dear?	41:40
Speaker 1	Hm. No. Was it August before last, yeah.	41:57
Eugene Owens	August before last—	42:01
Speaker 1	Yeah.	42:02
Eugene Owens	My daughter was down at West Palm Beach, Florida. She just happened to accompany her friend, who is an attorney, to Bermuda for a bit of a rest, you know.	42:02
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	42:16
Eugene Owens	And when she got there, I had mentioned to her to see if the station was still going. So she asked the cab driver, [indistinct 00:42:33] you know, still there? He said, "Yeah." He said, "Why you want to know?" She said, "Well, because my dad used to work there." He said, "What was his name?" "Eugene Owen." "Gene Owen?" And he's driving the cab. "Music as you like it." See? Well, that was a big surprise. It was a terrific surprise to my daughter, because 40 years later, and they still remembered you.	42:18
Eugene Owens	Well, that was only because of the work that my wife and I did in training. We were training the local Bermudians. Matter of fact, military jumped me because the Leopards Club had invited me to speak, and I spoke, and I told the Bermudians that you may not have it on a piece of paper, but you can go down here to your library and study and get— Because that's the main thing, is you get it that way. Well now, military, you're not supposed to do that.	43:04
Eugene Owens	You're supposed to take anything you're going to say, a speech, and hand it to them, and then they'll read it over, scratch on it, to keep the masses straight. See, but the reason why we were sent to Bermuda was because of integration of the military. And so, that was the main reason why I was scheduled to go over to Europe, but they had switched us over to Bermuda. So when we came back to the States, from then on— Integration has been a terrific boon to the masses, whether they like it or not.	43:41
Eugene Owens	I was a sergeant in Bermuda, and officers, if they were Black, when they came to Bermuda, they would look us up for us to kind of chaperone, and take them around, because of the military, because of the prejudice—ness. In Bermuda, the Castle Aba Hotel, the Bermuda Inn, and quite a number of them, the hotels, they were so prejudiced there until a light skinned doctor, Singleton, from— I think he was from San Diego, California. He and his wife had a room in the Bermuda Inn, I think it was, and they were looking out and getting ready to set their tennis. [indistinct 00:45:38] out at the tennis courts, you know?	44:35
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	45:39
Eugene Owens	And all that kind of stuff, getting their swimming trunks lined up. And a knock came on the door. And they told them that they couldn't stay there. Now, they had already paid, and he was a doctor.	45:40
Blair Murphy	Mm—hmm.	45:59
Eugene Owens	And he was all set, and was [indistinct 00:46:00] And they referred him to me, being a broadcaster. And so, we made— There wasn't much we could do about it, but he said well, he wasn't going to— The Imperial Hotel was the only hotel for Blacks.	46:00

Eugene Owens	— going to inquire with a couple of the people and see what they had done. I had given her a few names. And so the fellow that we had left in charge, Walt Stasco, the White guy, he had died, and I think—	0:08
Blair Murphy	What about Wilmont?	0:23
Eugene Owens	Jerry Wilmont had gone to Canada or someplace to work, but the fellow we left in charge who had become assistant manager at the station is now a top member in Parliament in Bermuda. And so when we talked with him, he has invited my wife and I to come to Bermuda, and when we come there to let him know in advance, he's a politician. Because when Gene Owens comes back to Bermuda, there's a lot of people that apparently still remember me. And so he wants to be showing and cash in on votes for the next session.	0:26
Eugene Owens	But I imagine, I'm just being facetious, but generally when a politician— Remember this is the same individual that indicated that he hadn't been a student of mine, but really when I look back, he hadn't been a student of mine. But he had come back and said— We had already done all the leg work for him, and we were well known throughout the entire [indistinct 00:01:51]. The stations are only— You can be all over the island in two hours.	1:23
Eugene Owens	See? But so naturally I was real shocked back then, but I was the first Black announcer writer on Okinawa in 1946 and '47, '48. And when I got back during the war, I was— Well, prior to that, I'd been the first Black Army Air Force procurement inspector at the [indistinct 00:02:37] plant. And then we made use of the training we got on Okinawa to help the Blacks in Bermuda. And I feel very pleased that we were able to do something in that order. But we've done things here as well. I have a US patent on a multiple sound routing system. Right now we have the family tree, and let me know whether you've seen a tree done up in this fashion. Did you see the tree?	1:56
Blair Murphy	No.	3:25

Item Info

Title:

Eugene Owens interview recording, 1995 August 11

Date:

August 11, 1995

Creator:

Owens, Eugene

Contributor:

Murphy, Blair

Description:

Name: Eugene Owens; Date of birth: 1919-03-21; Place of birth: Chicago, IL; Occupation(s): army officer; Residence: Newport News, VA
Informant ID: 964; Interviewed by: Blair Murphy.

Occupation:

Army officer

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

Behind the Veil: Documenting African American Life in the Jim Crow South interviews, photographs, and project records, circa 1864-2011, bulk 1990-2004

Series:

Related Resources:

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Provenance:

The David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library acquired the Records of the Behind the Veil Oral History Project from the Duke University Center for Documentary Studies in 1997, 1998, 2000, and 2002.

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

Copyright for content created by the Behind the Veil project is held by Duke University and made available to the public using a Creative Commons Attribution / Non-commercial (CC-BY-NC) license.

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-1324
321146a0-0dca-4ba7-839e-e1e999449f27
behindtheveil
3f69e42b-b446-4b73-bcef-7694414e1d70
ark:/87924/r4736zb32
3f69e42b-b446-4b73-bcef-7694414e1d70

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Eugene Owens interview recording, 1995 August 11

Transcript

Item Info

1. Eugene Owens administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Eugene Owens interview recording, 1995 August 11

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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