Edward Gardner interview recording, 1994 June 22

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Paul Ortiz	Reverend Edwards. Could we start by having you tell me where you were born and a little bit about the community that you came from originally?	0:06
Edward Gardner	I was born in Lowndes County, 1907, on the Robinson Plantation, and my family was located there on the Robinson Plantation. And I stayed there until I was about, I guess, 14 years of age. And I came to Birmingham and quite a boy, and I got engaged in the struggle here in the city of Birmingham in the '50s with Reverend F.L. Shuttlesworth. You heard talk of him?	0:15
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	1:17
Edward Gardner	Uh-huh.	1:17
Paul Ortiz	A little bit. I don't—	1:17
Edward Gardner	Yeah. Well, he was one of our prime leaders here during the '50s and '60s here against segregation and discrimination. And I became his vice president in the struggle. And we started out here in Birmingham with everything segregated against us. We had nothing that we could walk in as human beings and be recognized. And so we tried to get the leaders of Birmingham to agree to volunteer, disband segregation, but that didn't work.	1:20
Paul Ortiz	And when was that?	2:14
Edward Gardner	That was in the '50s and the '60s when we actually got started here in Birmingham. And we had— Well, practically all our leaders at City Hall was segregationist, wasn't no Negro was doing anything up there, but Johnny Torah worked there. And we had man by the name of Eugene Bull Connor, who was the head of the police department. And he was a rough man to deal with. And well, the men of the power structure was quiet because they thought that Bull would be able to carry out his plan, but he didn't do it because the Negros got together, and those who didn't get together was quiet. And so we went on and 4,500 people went to jail, and stayed there five days, and got out, and many of them went back again. And this was the only way that the judge said to us, we could prove that we were segregated against by trying to get in these places and see where we'd get arrested.	2:14
Edward Gardner	And so we did. We went in and got arrested, and we checked every segregation orders on the city book. And when we had checked it all out, and then we filed a class action suit against all the segregation orders that Birmingham had on his book. Well, when you come trying those people, 4,500 people, the lawyer tried to get them to try them as individual, so they said they wasn't going to do that. And so what we did was to get Dr. Martin Luther King and Shuttlesworth and tied all those people to Shuttlesworth and Martin Luther King. And we went all the way from the Circuit Court and in the court in New Orleans and on to the Supreme Court, and this is where we got the verdict, and all the segregation orders in Birmingham was outlawed by the United States Supreme Court.	3:41
Edward Gardner	Well, before that, Dr. King went to Washington to talk with John F. Kennedy, our president at that time, and asked him to ask the Congress and the Senate to pass the most Civil Rights legislation for the South. And President Kennedy told Dr. King, he had no intention of asking the legislation body to pass any more Civil Rights laws because he was planning on running for the second term. And if he would do that, it would be against him running on the second term for President of the United States.	4:57
Edward Gardner	So King told president, said, "Now Mr. Kennedy, if you have no idea of asking the legislation for any more Civil Rights laws for the South, I'll have to go back and tell them what you said, and then we will write our Civil Rights laws in the streets of Birmingham." This is what happened. Dr. King came back and told us what he said, and we organized the people of Birmingham and those who came from other states, that came in here.	5:54
Edward Gardner	And we had a drive called Love and Nonviolence. And we said to those who couldn't take it, don't get in the march, because we couldn't be on both sides. We couldn't be for violence and be for nonviolence too. So we had to stand by what we said, and we had few that did not obey. We let them stay in jail, and we kept that down to minimum. And so when the president saw that Mr. Connor had his fire trucks and his fire department on Fifth Avenue trying to drown the children, that's what he's trying to do, but he wasn't successful in doing that. And had the dogs out there biting the people. Then Kennedy went back, and got on there, and made a speech to American citizen that what's happened in Birmingham just couldn't work. And therefore he was asking the legislative body to pass some more Civil Rights laws to curb the action that we had here in Birmingham under Eugene Bull Connor.	6:32
Edward Gardner	But what Mr. Connor didn't understand, he thought by putting the dogs on the Negro, that he would scare them and run them back home. But the more violent he got, the bigger our crowd got. And so Mr. Connor found out that he had lost the battle. And so when the Whites found out that Mr. Connor had lost the battle, then they turned against Mr. Connor and got him out of Birmingham, and he went on to Montgomery and become the president of Public Civic Commission. Well, he stayed down there a while, then he came back to Birmingham and went to the fourth or the fifth floor in the county, in the— What building that he went? Well, anyway, I think it was the county building on the fifth or sixth floor and had a stroke, and that stroke put him in a wheelchair until he died.	7:55
Edward Gardner	So this was part of our struggle here in Birmingham. And many lost their jobs, many lost their homes, many lost their cars, and many had to pull their children out of college because many of them lost their jobs. But we were determined to go through irrespective of what it cost us. And this is why Birmingham is quiet now.	9:04
Edward Gardner	See, we had a White citizen council. We had the Ku Klux Klans and all that crowd, and they had paraded for quite some time. But we had a governor, Big Jim Folsom, who was our governor, and he stood out against them and gave orders if any Klan would come to your house with hoods on, shoot and ask question later. And that quieted them down because didn't have the support of the government of Alabama, but they did many things. They bombed our churches, bombed our homes, and here this is called Bush Hills, and now Negros wasn't allowed in this area, and they wasn't allowed on College Hill, just across from Birmingham Southern College. All that was strictly White area, see?	9:29
Edward Gardner	Well, when Negros start to— When segregation was outlawed from the standpoint of where you could live, then Negros started buying on College Hill and started buying on Bush Hills, and then the Whites started moving out. So this is where we stand, a few Whites still in Bush Hills, and a few Whites that still on College Hill. So this is what actually happened in Birmingham, Alabama.	10:28
Paul Ortiz	Reverend Edwards, you moved to Birmingham in 1921. What was life like in Birmingham during the '20s?	11:04
Edward Gardner	Well, it was bad because the fact remained segregation was so stout here until— On the transportation at that time we had street cars and the motormans of those street called would move the board. They had the White and Colored on the boards on the street cars, and they would take the board and carry it, and leave about, oh, I guess about two or three seats there. And they would even take the fares of the people and leave them standing up there on the bus line. And the operators who operate the car, they were armed with pistols, see? And so if you go beyond that board, they would stop and call the police and have you arrested, see?	11:15
Paul Ortiz	Could you tell me a little bit about your parents, the influence that they had on you as a child?	12:27
Edward Gardner	Well, yeah, my parents' influence they had on me as a child was to not to join bad crowds, and stay away from those things that cause trouble, see? And taught me to be honest and work for a living. And those principles grew up in me. And even today I've been pastoring one church now soon to be 40 years.	12:35
Paul Ortiz	Bethel Baptist?	13:08
Edward Gardner	Mount Olive Baptist Church. Mount Olive Baptist Church.	13:10
Paul Ortiz	And you've been pastoring that church since?	13:16
Edward Gardner	Oh, I guess 1947. On August the 6th. I was called to that church.	13:18
Paul Ortiz	1947. And you talked about the influence that your parents had on you. It was obviously a very strong influence. What about your grandparents? Did you know your grandparents?	13:31
Edward Gardner	Yes. They were highly religious people.	13:42
Paul Ortiz	Did they talk ever about what it was like? Did they talk or did anybody you knew, any elders in the community talk about what it was like to live during slavery times?	13:47
Edward Gardner	Well, I didn't hear too much about that because most— Hold on.	14:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	14:10
Edward Gardner	No, I didn't hear too much from them about slavery because the people that were with me in those days were those who didn't experience it, and so they couldn't say anything too much about it, see?	14:10
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember stories that they would tell maybe about their upbringing perhaps? Do you remember what kind of people they were? Did they live with your family or did they have a separate—	14:42
Edward Gardner	No, my mother had her own house down in Lowndes County. Well, I was raised in a front room, in a kitchen. There's two rooms. And so we used the front room as our bedroom, and we used the kitchen. We made pallets, and that's where we slept.	15:01
Paul Ortiz	It was basically a two room house.	15:31
Edward Gardner	A two room house with a tin top to it.	15:33
Paul Ortiz	Did you have brothers and sisters?	15:36
Edward Gardner	Yeah, I had— Most my brothers passed away except one brother who's still living. The rest of them passed away.	15:40
Paul Ortiz	Did you go to school in Lowndes County?	15:54
Edward Gardner	For a short while in Lowndes County, in grammar school. I came to Birmingham and went to school here, and finished high school, and I went to Birmingham Baptist for college, and until I became a pastor the way I am now.	15:57
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh.	16:21
Edward Gardner	Mm-hmm.	16:22
Paul Ortiz	When you were going to grammar school in Lowndes County, how many months out of the year would you go to school?	16:22
Edward Gardner	Well, we had to— See, we had to get out of school. We had to work. I don't recall how many months, but it wasn't too long. It was a kind of short term school.	16:31
Paul Ortiz	Okay, so you were living with your mother?	16:56
Edward Gardner	My mother.	16:57
Paul Ortiz	And were you— It was on a plantation basically?	16:59
Edward Gardner	Yeah, on the Robinson Plantation.	17:04
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	17:04
Edward Gardner	Yeah.	17:04
Paul Ortiz	Do you know how long that plantation had been there?	17:07
Edward Gardner	Oh, from years, years. Pete Robinson and his sons inherited and carried on until finally the people start leaving, and the plantation where they used to raise cotton. Cotton was a number one thing during those times. And many of us were share croppers, and so we had to give half what we made back to the Robinsons, and that's way we survived.	17:11
Paul Ortiz	Did you have situations— Did you have problems with the Robinsons when you would attempt to settle with them? Did they—	17:45
Edward Gardner	Well, my grandfather usually handled that part of it. When they operated then, they would take up— They had a commissary, and they got their supplies from the commissary. And when time to settle up, they would pick up all that stuff they got during the year, and then they would get half the product from the crops, and if you made enough to pay out. And my granddaddy never did pay out. He always came out short. And at that time he wasn't allowed to keep no book. They kept the book and whatever they said was on the book, he had to pay it.	17:58
Paul Ortiz	Now, can you spell that? The Robinsons were R-O-B-I-N-S-O-N?	19:01
Edward Gardner	Uh-huh. Robinson. That's right. R-O-B-I-N, S-O-N.	19:08
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	19:12
Edward Gardner	Mm-hmm.	19:12
Paul Ortiz	And so as a young boy, you started working quite early in the field.	19:15
Edward Gardner	Quite early, sure. Quite early.	19:21
Paul Ortiz	How old were you when you started?	19:22
Edward Gardner	Well, I was about— I guess around about 12 years old.	19:25
Paul Ortiz	And how did you come to move to Birmingham? Did you have family in Birmingham or did you—	19:36
Edward Gardner	Well, I had here in Birmingham— My mother had a sister here in Birmingham, and her sister invited her to come to Birmingham. And we got enough fare, we didn't have no furniture to bring, and we stayed with her sister until she could get a job and make enough to rent a house for— At that time my mother had about five children. I was the oldest one. And we stayed with her sister until we got able enough to get a house ourselves.	19:43
Paul Ortiz	When you were in Lowndes County, as you were the oldest one, what were your responsibilities around the house and—	20:41
Edward Gardner	Well, I was there to help my mother. My father died when I was nine years old. And so I didn't have no father to look to, nobody but my mother.	20:51
Paul Ortiz	Were there other people in the area that knew your family and that had some kind of interaction with your family?	21:10
Edward Gardner	Oh yeah. We had a close-knitted family there. We all lived there together there, and we worked together. And so we didn't have any internal trouble. People were friendly and we had, I think, a pretty nice situation there.	21:21
Paul Ortiz	Which church did you attend as a child?	21:47
Edward Gardner	Attended the Mount Olive Baptist, then Mount Olive Baptist Church Cafe. That was in Lowndes County.	21:50
Paul Ortiz	Mount Olive Baptist.	22:02
Edward Gardner	Mount Baptist Church. We call that place where that church was located Cafe.	22:06
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Can you spell that?	22:15
Edward Gardner	Huh?	22:17
Paul Ortiz	Could you spell that?	22:17
Edward Gardner	I don't know how they spell it. I don't pay too much attention to it.	22:20
Paul Ortiz	But it was a town?	22:22
Edward Gardner	No, it's a country. Country place where the church was located.	22:24
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay.	22:28
Edward Gardner	Uh-huh. In Lowndes County.	22:29
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	22:29
Edward Gardner	Mm-hmm.	22:30
Paul Ortiz	What was that church like?	22:34
Edward Gardner	Well, it was— You mean congregation wide?	22:37
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	22:41
Edward Gardner	Well, we had a nice crowd there. Well, on Sunday morning, my grandfather carried us to church, and in his wagon. He would hitch up his wagon on Sunday, put chairs, and we would go to church, and stay there until time to come back home, see. And the time we got back near night because the church was a long ways from where we lived.	22:42
Paul Ortiz	And you moved to Birmingham in 1921, was there any particular event that led your family to move to Birmingham?	23:20
Edward Gardner	Well, things are pretty rough there on the Robinson Plantation because we saw no room for improvement. And my mother was in touch with her sister here. And her husband had a pretty good job with the L&N Freight House, and he was making pretty good living at that time. And so she had two children. And so we stayed there until our condition got better where we could rent our own house.	23:30
Paul Ortiz	I have one more question about Lowndes County. As a child, do you remember what race relations were like in Lowndes County?	24:12
Edward Gardner	Well, the Whites had their church and Negros had their church. It wasn't no mixing up, nothing like that.	24:23
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember any— Was there any Ku Klux Klan activity?	24:33
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, yes. Well, we had on the Robinson place, I recall one of the sons on his plantation, he would ride across the plantation with a Winchester across his saddle. And the people lived in fear because the only way you get away from that place you had to steal away by night because he had a close watch during the day. He would ride over the plantation, and check out who was there, so forth and so on.	24:42
Paul Ortiz	Did your family have to steal away at night to leave?	25:27
Edward Gardner	No. When that crowd died out, then things come getting a little more favorable for people leaving because, well, where they operated then they had a mortgage on your family. Everybody belonged to plantation, and so you just couldn't walk off. You had to slip off.	25:31
Paul Ortiz	Did you hear stories about people who had slipped off?	26:03
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, yes. My uncles, all of them slipped off, and came to Birmingham.	26:06
Paul Ortiz	So you were about 14 when you came to Birmingham?	26:16
Edward Gardner	Yeah, somewhere along there.	26:24
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Did you start going to Industrial High School then?	26:25
Edward Gardner	No, I started going to night school for a while, and then I went to Industrial, now called Parker now. That was Industrial. For a fact that's the only high school we had here at that time when I came to Birmingham.	26:31
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh. That must have been— Was Industrial High School a different kind of school than you had been used to?	26:53
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, because in the country, they're very poor, very poor, run down school buildings we had with their own potbelly stove and so forth. And that was the condition.	27:02
Paul Ortiz	Did you have to buy your books at school at Lowndes County? Did your mother have to buy?	27:25
Edward Gardner	Yes. Yes she did.	27:30
Paul Ortiz	So Industrial High School was a much different kind of school.	27:33
Edward Gardner	Oh, much different. Much different. Much different.	27:38
Paul Ortiz	What did you think about Industrial High School when you were going there? What kinds of subjects did you take?	27:40
Edward Gardner	Well, well see, for a long time we had the leftover books from the White school. See, we didn't get no new books. We got the leftover books, and until we got rid of segregation, then all the books then become new books. But for many years we had got the leftover books from the White school and we had separate warehouses. The Whites had a warehouse and the Negroes have a warehouse, and they would bring those secondhand books from the White warehouse and bring them to the Negro warehouse, and those are books we got.	27:50
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember Mr. Parker?	28:34
Edward Gardner	Parker? Oh yes, I remember Dr. Parker.	28:36
Paul Ortiz	What kind of person was he?	28:46
Edward Gardner	Parker, I don't know. Was he mixed with Jewish or what? But Parker looked like a White man. See? And he was over the Industrial School for at least when they changed it to Parker when he got there. It was Industrial before he got there.	28:46
Paul Ortiz	What did the students think of him? Was he popular, unpopular?	29:04
Edward Gardner	Well, he was here. Well, in those times you had Uncle Tom, and Parker was a tip top, tip top Uncle Tom. See he would train the young girls to be maids in the White people homes, and that's what his height— heights of his ambition. And he was very popular with the segregationists.	29:14
Paul Ortiz	What was your first job in Birmingham?	29:39
Edward Gardner	My first job in Birmingham, I worked at American Bakery, 28th Street and Avenue— Yeah, Avenue E.	29:47
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember how you got that job?	29:58
Edward Gardner	Well, I got that job. I went there and worked part-time for no salary until I got hired. I stayed there nine years at American Bakery. And I left there and went to Ward Bakery, was on First Avenue and 16th Street.	30:01
Paul Ortiz	And did you start working at American Bakery maybe about 1925?	30:33
Edward Gardner	Somewhere along there.	30:37
Paul Ortiz	Middle '20s.	30:37
Edward Gardner	That's right. That's right.	30:38
Paul Ortiz	And then you worked there for nine years.	30:40
Edward Gardner	Uh-huh. Nine years.	30:43
Paul Ortiz	What kind of—	30:44
Edward Gardner	Operating elevator.	30:45
Paul Ortiz	Okay. At both places?	30:46
Edward Gardner	No, no, at Ward I was on the oven baking bread.	30:48
Paul Ortiz	Okay. What kind of clientele would go to American Bakery? What kind of people would go and— Oh, was that a warehouse?	30:58
Edward Gardner	No, no, the American Bakery we made crackers and cookies, same bake kind.	31:07
Paul Ortiz	Okay, so people would come there and buy—	31:13
Edward Gardner	No, they would ship the stuff.	31:16
Paul Ortiz	Oh, they would ship the stuff. Okay.	31:17
Edward Gardner	Yeah, they had shipping.	31:17
Paul Ortiz	Okay, I understand. So did you begin at some point to take— Did you take any kind of religious schooling or—	31:24
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, at Birmingham Baptist Bible College. Well, it was Birmingham Baptist College, but it's now Birmingham Bible College now.	31:33
Paul Ortiz	Uh-huh. And when did you begin that?	31:41
Edward Gardner	Well, that was in the '40s, I think it was to be exact.	31:44
Paul Ortiz	What caused you to make that decision to go?	31:55
Edward Gardner	Well, I was brought up religiously, and my heart and mind was turned in that direction. And so I've never been a worldly man, and I've always stayed around the church. And so it wasn't no hard job for me to switch over because I was leaning in that direction. And so I've spent my life in the church. So now I'm soon to be 87 years of age, and I was from a young boy up, I stayed with the church.	32:00
Paul Ortiz	When did you meet your wife?	32:37
Edward Gardner	Well see, I met my— my first wife, I met her— Let's see. I think I met her in the '30s I think it was. But anyway, we stayed together 47 years, five months and 11 days, and she passed away. So this wife here now is my second wife.	32:40
Paul Ortiz	Did you meet your first wife in church or—	33:13
Edward Gardner	At church. We met in church, 23rd Street, Baptist Church South.	33:16
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember who the minister was or the pastor or 23rd Baptist at that time?	33:33
Edward Gardner	Reverend J.L. Thornton.	33:37
Paul Ortiz	And what would you do, say in the '30s and '40s when you had spare time? Did you go to restaurants or movies or—	33:45
Edward Gardner	Do I never was too much of a movie goer. Very little time I spent in that direction.	34:06
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	34:14
Edward Gardner	When I wasn't on my job, I was at home.	34:14
Paul Ortiz	So you graduated from Birmingham— It was called Birmingham Baptist College?	34:19
Edward Gardner	Birmingham Baptist College.	34:26
Paul Ortiz	And what kind of training did you receive there?	34:29
Edward Gardner	Well, I received the religious training and also a academic second education. We had a combination, see? So I didn't finish Industrial. I went to Birmingham Baptist Bible College and finished my high school work there. And then started with religious subject.	34:33
Paul Ortiz	Okay. And then you began preaching at Mount Olive Baptist Church in 1947.	35:00
Edward Gardner	That's right.	35:08
Paul Ortiz	How did you come to preach at Mount Olive?	35:09
Edward Gardner	Well, the pastor of that church was called to another church, and I was living in that area. But 23rd Street was where I served as a licensed minister. They invited me to come and take care of their service because I lived about a block and a half from the church. And so they asked me to take care of their services until they decide who they want to be that pastor. And so I accepted the invitation, and I went there on the first Sunday in July 1947. And had on the 6th of August, they called me as their pastor, so that's where I am now.	35:14
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember what your first sermon was on?	36:12
Edward Gardner	Yes, sir. My first sermon that I preached there 47 years ago was "if He abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask what you will." And I talked about love and told them how they must stay with the Lord if they want God to bless them. And they must love not only Black folk, but got to love White folk too.	36:15
Paul Ortiz	That must have been an awesome responsibility to take on as such a young man.	36:44
Edward Gardner	Oh, it was quite a task. But being raised by with a God-fearing mother, it wasn't hard for me to adjust myself and to present myself as a decent young man in that congregation.	36:50
Paul Ortiz	Do you remember other pastors and other churches in the 1940s?	37:12
Edward Gardner	Oh yes. Oh yes. I remember quite a few pastors, and a lot of them passed on. There's only few left, and I think I'm about close to the highest one now that they've been to one church. Yeah, that's the only church I've ever had, just Mount Olive Baptist Church. And I didn't change. And when they tried to get me to come to other churches, I told them that I had a future there of helping people, and I wanted to stay with it. And I did.	37:21
Paul Ortiz	Who are the typical member? What would the typical member be like at Mount Olive in the 1940s?	38:02
Edward Gardner	Well, I had— All of are dead now. I had Deacon Stewart, Deacon Bill, and Deacon Bogan, and oh, there's quite a few names I can't recall now. But they were very fine men and stayed with me there until death.	38:12
Paul Ortiz	What kind of work did they do?	38:37
Edward Gardner	Well, some work at the steel plant and different— Some work in the mines. And some was cooks and just different jobs they would work on.	38:39
Paul Ortiz	Sounds like you had a working class congregation.	38:52
Edward Gardner	A working class congregation, that's right. And we built two new buildings, and paid for both of them. Is where we are now. We paid for that one, what we're in now.	38:55
Paul Ortiz	And as a pastor, did you have an insight into the conditions that they lived in, in their work life and in their community? Did you see— Would you go out and make visits?	39:08
Edward Gardner	Oh yes. Yes. In Woodlawn where my first pastoral work was, most of my people live in that area. Most of them within walking distance of the church, and until the highway came through there and split the congregation down the middle and scattered them all over the city. I don't know where. A lot of them, I— I lost contact with a lot of them because some moved on the outskirts of Birmingham. But for many years we were all there together, see? And—	39:23
Paul Ortiz	What year did that highway come through?	40:03
Edward Gardner	How's that? Oh, I guess about— Let's see. I guess it's been where we are now, we've been there about, I guess around about 15, 20 years ago.	40:05
Paul Ortiz	And did that highway go through the Black areas?	40:30
Edward Gardner	Oh yeah. Went all through there. It split and wiped out our congregation. See we were on the north side of Woodlawn, and our church was on 64th Street, north of Woodlawn. And my home was between 62nd and 63rd street where I lived. And all in that area around there was members of the Mount Olive Baptist Church, and all their children. But when the highway came through there, it just left a few houses, and those people got scattered everywhere.	40:34
Paul Ortiz	What highway was that?	41:17
Edward Gardner	Huh? A US highway, let's see, I think it's 59.	41:18
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	41:23
Edward Gardner	Uh-huh, 59. And—	41:23
Paul Ortiz	That must have been a hard experience.	41:30
Edward Gardner	It was. See the new church I had built there on 63rd Street and 3rd Avenue North, I was there eight years. And in the eighth year the highway came through there, and we had to move, see. In fact, they bought the church, and we rented the church for a while, but that time ran out, and so we had to leave. And I bought a place in Kingston and this is where we're located now.	41:33
Paul Ortiz	Oh, okay. Before I interrupted you with that question, you were telling me about what you would see as a pastor when you go out and make home visits in the '40s.	42:05
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, uh-huh. Yeah. I would go around to visit the homes and got acquainted with their families. And so I just had a nice lineup as it relates to our membership because it is a walking distance. And I would just park my car, and walk through the community, see. And I became a well known pastor. And so I had a friendly congregation, and a nice congregation.	42:19
Paul Ortiz	What were the needs and the concerns and the issues that affected your congregation as you went out into the community and you talked with them? What were their concerns or their needs?	42:57
Edward Gardner	Well, yeah, not all those people in that area wasn't a member of our church, see. The parents and sometimes the children had strange ideas on those other things, you see, but they were very loyal. And what I would ask them to do, they would do it, see. But a lot of them didn't have much in life, see. And I had some was close up, so this was the way the community operated back in that time, see. But in a large sum, I had most of the people were headed towards our church.	43:15
Paul Ortiz	Did people in your congregation ever talk to you about working conditions? Living conditions?	44:13
Edward Gardner	Oh yes, yes, yes. See, I became the Civil Rights leader in our church and in Birmingham, Alabama. And wherever they were working, have complaints, we would talk to the heads and see what actually was going on.	44:23
Paul Ortiz	The heads of—	44:42
Edward Gardner	The heads of the— Well, now we were dealing with the superstores and other areas, wherever the complaint was, we would go and talk with those persons who was in charge of that business.	44:43
Paul Ortiz	Who are some of the people that you talked with?	45:00
Edward Gardner	Well, we had to talk with the Brunos who started with one store, and now he's all over Birmingham now. And I knew Bruno when he was quite a boy down on East Avenue and Charles Street, and Bruno started his store with— his daddy came from Italy. They were Italians, and his daddy had $800, and Bruno got $800 and invested in a store. And they come— And then he borrowed money from the government to build other stores, and he paid that money back and come and spreading out, he's coming building stores. And now he's a big stock company now. He became chairman of the board.	45:02

Paul Ortiz	Okay.	0:04
Edward Gardner	Some years ago he had a heart attack and I think he retired now. He just living off his income now. And the other Brunos are carrying on.	0:10
Paul Ortiz	But you had to talk to him about— What was it about discrimination?	0:22
Edward Gardner	Well, Bruno were afraid to hire Negro cashiers, see? Because of the Klan element. And they were Italians, and the Klansmen didn't like Italians, you see? But they came here and set up the stores, and they credit Negro. And they got the Negro business, see? They began to grow quite extensively, see? And they did many things to curb that progress, but they had— White didn't trade with them. The only people that trade with them was Black folks. But he built up an empire, and they saw that they couldn't stop him. They used to call him dago. But when Bruno got up to went building his empire, it Mr. Bruno now, see, because he built up a business that couldn't be ignored.	0:27
Paul Ortiz	So were you trying to get Black people jobs?	1:49
Edward Gardner	Oh yeah, we got them jobs. We had to picket the stores.	1:54
Paul Ortiz	Was that in the '50s?	2:00
Edward Gardner	That was in the '60s. That was in the '60s. We had the Brunos, then we had the A&P, and we had the Liberty Supermarket, and then other private enterprise we had to deal with. So A&P, they left Birmingham and Bruno already took over. He was the biggest operator we got there now.	2:02
Paul Ortiz	What were some of the other businesses that you had to go to talk with about—?	2:40
Edward Gardner	Well, we had to talk with Liberty. That was another Italian crowd, out of Memphis. They came and set up three stores here, two in Birmingham— Let's see, two in Birmingham and one in Bessemer. And so we had to get them straight on hiring Negro. See, only thing Negros could do was janitorial work, but never cashiers. But we got them straightened out. We had to picket them, and we got them on the way up and they started to hiring cashiers, and that business become growing too. A&P was kind of stout, and they didn't want to hire Negros, see, but we had to force them to hire Negros. And so that business coming falling off and Bruno took over. So A&P had to close up and get out.	2:48
Paul Ortiz	During the '40s and '50s, were there any kind of interdenominational organizations that you belonged to or that you knew of?	4:07
Edward Gardner	What you mean by like Mason or something?	4:19
Paul Ortiz	No. Organization, perhaps an organization of pastors or ministers?	4:24
Edward Gardner	Oh yeah. We have ministers conference. We have the Birmingham Baptist Ministers Conference. But during those time, we couldn't hardly get much support from the ministers. Just a few of us came out.	4:30
Paul Ortiz	Why was that? Why was it—	4:50
Edward Gardner	Well, they were afraid that they would be bombed, see, and well, I got a threat I had 24 hours to live, but I stood my ground and stayed here, because the fight we were in, we knew we were right. But you could go downtown there at Pizitz and buy a thousand dollar fur coat, or buy $300 or $400 suit of clothes and come on down the cafe and get put in jail. And so we had to break that up. And so we got it fixed now here in Birmingham. You eat anywhere you want, you got the money.	4:51
Edward Gardner	But that time, Mr. Gaster, who was our millionaire, couldn't go to Joy Young. He had to get out the window. They didn't care how much money you have. If you're Black, you just had to get back. And so we went up against that. And so we got all those eating places desegregated. And you go out to the airport, you couldn't go in that restaurant there. And we had to file a suit against them and got them straightened out. So now they've closed the restaurant down. Yeah, you want stuff you get now, you get it on the plane.	5:40
Paul Ortiz	Now you were present at the founding of the Alabama Christian Movement.	6:27
Edward Gardner	No, Shuttlesworth was the President.	6:33
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Well, but I mean, you were present. You were there.	6:35
Edward Gardner	Oh, oh yes, yes. Yeah. Oh yes, I was there. I was there the first night, 39 years ago.	6:38
Paul Ortiz	What led up to the founding of that organization?	6:44
Edward Gardner	Well, what led to the founding of the Alabama Christian Movement, it were right when the NAACP was outlawed by John Patterson. And for eight years. They outlawed the NAACP on June the 4th, and the Alabama Christian Movement organized June the 5th. And so I guess it was a providence of God that this thing happened, because the fact remain, the NAACP at that time wasn't fooling with small issues. And this is why we had the problem with small things, and we had to organize on the local level to deal with local problems. And this is what we did. So John Patterson said when we organize Alabama Christian Movement, he said it was a NAACP with a new name. Well, it might have been, but we had to do it, because we had no other outlook but to do that, because for eight years, NAACP couldn't write no memberships or nothing.	6:48
Paul Ortiz	When you say that the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights was founded to deal with local problems—	8:01
Edward Gardner	Yeah, definitely. Local problems.	8:09
Paul Ortiz	Versus the focus that the NAACP had.	8:10
Edward Gardner	That's right.	8:14
Paul Ortiz	What was the difference between the two focuses as you—	8:15
Edward Gardner	Well, see, the NAACP at that time wasn't dealing with the segregation in the stores and things of that kind and dealing with bus riding and all like that. So it become a local problem. So we had to have local people to handle local problem, because now when we get these cases, we would send for the officers and lawyers of the NAACP to defend us in court. But now after that, well then the local worker left our hands to do. And so that's what we had to do. Because for a long time, NAACP was dead as a doorknob here in Alabama.	8:18
Paul Ortiz	Were there Black church leaders or other leaders who opposed the founding of the Alabama Christian Movement?	9:07
Edward Gardner	Oh, yes, yes. We had quite a few Uncle Toms was billing against it. The fact remain, they had organized another organization called the Birmingham Betterment Association. No, the Jefferson County Betterment Association. But the people who were heading that organization was Uncle Toms. And we knew they were. And so we couldn't trust them.	9:16
Paul Ortiz	Who were some of those people?	9:42
Edward Gardner	Well, most of them gone in now, they had heading that organization, but it didn't do nothing because they had the wrong folks heading it. And so when we organized Alabama Christian Movement on June 5th at the Sardis Baptist Church, that organization went on out like a light, because the people that had no confidence in the leadership, so therefore they had no problems.	9:43
Paul Ortiz	If you had to pick one or two key congregations or churches in the early years of this struggle, which ones would you say were the most important in terms of the leadership and the congregation?	10:14
Edward Gardner	Well, the Bethel Baptist Church of North Birmingham, where Reverend Shuttlesworth was pastor was one that stood up and others followed. But Shuttlesworth was the one who was bombed and put 12 sticks of dynamite to his parsonage where he lived. And that bomb tore that parsonage all to pieces and his [indistinct 00:11:03] pulled up and his hip pocket was burned by the blast from that bomb, but he didn't get a scratch on him. And he came out that house with the intent to ride the buses the next day. And he did.	10:30
Paul Ortiz	So Reverend Shuttlesworth was really the local leader.	11:21
Edward Gardner	Oh, he was the local leader. No question about that. He was the one that took some daring chances. Yeah.	11:25
Paul Ortiz	Did you have a personal relationship with him?	11:33
Edward Gardner	Oh yeah. I was his vice.	11:38
Paul Ortiz	What did you think about him? What kind of—	11:45
Edward Gardner	Well, we had to have a man like Reverend Shuttlesworth, because there were so many that we couldn't trust, you see? And many of them, it was too easy to be bought out. And when you do that, you just set the whole thing back. And they tried to buy me and Shuttlesworth out, but we wasn't for sale.	11:47
Paul Ortiz	Oh, how did they try to—	12:16
Edward Gardner	Whatever you want, you can get it. Blank chick and so forth like that. But no, see, once you sell, you're no more for sale.	12:19
Paul Ortiz	You're sold.	12:31
Edward Gardner	No more for sale. So there was a principle involved. Segregation, discrimination was wrong, and we wasn't going to agree to it. And therefore we filed a lawsuit against every form of segregation in Birmingham. And won every case. And when we went on to the Supreme Court and the city lost, the city had to pay all that cost. So they had to pass a 1 cent sales tax to keep them from bankruptcy.	12:32
Paul Ortiz	Was there ever a point during that struggle— I mean, there must have been terrifying at times.	13:00
Edward Gardner	It was. It was. It was.	13:05
Paul Ortiz	Did you ever have second thoughts about being involved?	13:08
Edward Gardner	Well, no. It is a fact, when you know you're right, you lose your fear. I lost my fear. And I said, if I had to die, I'd rather die here. I wasn't going to New York. I was still here in Birmingham. And did. I got called that I had 24 hours to live if I was to stay here in Birmingham.	13:12
Paul Ortiz	When was that?	13:46
Edward Gardner	Oh, that was in the '60s. In the '60s. But I paid that no attention, because I knew what I was doing was right, and I told the people who that I was leading, that there's so many died for nothing. I said, "Now it's time for some of us to stand up and die for something." Because segregation, I said, now I had nothing to do with my color when I was born. I had nothing to do with that. God fixed it. And just the way I came into the world. But now to segregate me because my skin was dark, that was wrong. And all those segregation laws they had on the book, we got them all. And Birmingham became a normal city again. Birmingham was abnormal.	13:47
Paul Ortiz	Did things change after Reverend Shuttlesworth left for Cincinnati?	14:46
Edward Gardner	No, because he was gone 13 years, and I carried on the organization. For 13 years. And he would come about sometime once a month, sometime twice a month, then go on back to Cincinnati. But the daily activities, the organization, rest in my hand and I had many person to come and tell me what to do, how to do it, and they didn't live here. I said, "No, you don't do that here. I live here and you don't come from somewhere else and tell me what to do, and you going back where you came from. No. You go on back where you came and do that there, but not here."	14:53
Paul Ortiz	Who were some of those people?	15:35
Edward Gardner	Well, some of them belonged to that student nonviolent group there.	15:36
Paul Ortiz	Oh, the Student Nonviolent Committee?	15:41
Edward Gardner	Yeah, that's right. That's right. And those fellows had wild ideas, but when the trouble came, they were somewhere else. And so I kept the thing so I could handle it. You can't come here and take over leadership here and you don't live here. So I kept that at a low margin.	15:42
Paul Ortiz	So you saw them as outsiders.	16:07
Edward Gardner	That's right. Outsiders, see. Wanted the publicity. But you see, this thing was greater than publicity. This was a life span here we was dealing with, and you can make the wrong mistake and ruin the whole thing.	16:10
Paul Ortiz	What kinds of wild ideas did they have?	16:28
Edward Gardner	Oh, they had to coming here to turn on the water downtown, throwing fire bombs in the stores. I said, "No, we're not going to do that. And then if you do it, you going to jail and that's where you going to stay. We're not going to do that. No, no. We can't destroy the job and hope you get the job. You can't do that." And so we had fellow came here, I guess you heard talk of Stokely Carmichael. You heard talk of Stokely Carmichael?	16:30
Paul Ortiz	Yes.	17:02
Edward Gardner	He with the Student Nonviolent Coordination group. Well, he had some wild ideas. And him and Dr. King couldn't make it, so Dr. King told me he couldn't use his idea. He said, no, love and nonviolent was the wrong way. And he said he got to match fire with fire and all that kind of bullshit. So Dr. King said, "No, not going do it." He said, "I may lose my life, but I'm going to lose it for thing that's right." And he did. They tried at best to get him not to come, not to go to Memphis, but he went on to Memphis, and that's where he made his last round.	17:02
Paul Ortiz	At the sanitation worker strike.	17:44
Edward Gardner	Sanitation worker strike. That's right. And even getting ready to go to Memphis, they had trouble on the plane. He had to get off that plane and got on another plane. But he went through all that and went to Memphis. Now, he wasn't supposed to been at that place that he got killed. Somebody invited him. He's supposed to been at the hotel in Memphis. And someone invited him to come down to this place. And quite a few question marks about that thing, because he came out on that platform Jesse Jackson and Abernathy were standing inside of, and the question hadn't been yet understood why they called him up there from that hotel in Memphis to stand there on that balcony. And he was killed on that balcony. And Dr. Abernathy and Jesse Jackson was standing inside, see. And Ray— What Charles Ray, what did you call his name? Ray, the guy that killed Dr. King.	17:47
Paul Ortiz	Oh, James Earl Ray.	19:07
Edward Gardner	James Earl Ray. Yeah, James Earl Ray. See, now Dr. King wasn't too concerned about a whole lot of publicity. He was concerned about getting the job done, and a lot of those fellows was traded about publicity, see, they wanted appear that they were doing great wonders, wasn't doing nothing but talking.	19:08
Paul Ortiz	I've heard a lot of different accounts about the strategy that was employed in Birmingham around the Children's Crusade. Were you involved in that strategy, when the children began marching from the downtown area?	19:29
Edward Gardner	Well, that was [indistinct 00:19:58] Day. I guess that's the day you's talking about. We had the big demonstration. See, we had 45 days demonstration and 75 nights of a mass meeting. And we had a fellow with WIN Radio at that time, I think it was, by the name of Tall Paul. Tall Paul was the one put it out, invited all the school children to meet at Kiddingham Park, having a big celebration there, and they were invited.	19:56
Edward Gardner	But this was the day we were having the show down, whether we survive or whether we die. And we had the town organize four corners. We had a group coming from the west, we had a group coming from the east, we had a group coming from the south, and we had a group coming from the north. And that crowd was to get into Birmingham around 5:00 and tie up everything. While they were watching those children, at the Kiddingham Park, that crowd got in town, and those who out of town couldn't get in, and those was in town, couldn't get out.	20:38
Paul Ortiz	And so the strategy was to get downtown.	21:24
Edward Gardner	Get downtown and tie up the town, see. And we had emergency meeting that night with the merchants and with the businessmen who lived in Mountain Brook and all like that. But those men who lived in Mountain Brook didn't live in— didn't vote in Birmingham, and wasn't too much help they could give us that the help that we needed, because they were in Mount Brook. See? But what they wanted to do was to quiet the demonstration and then work later on it, see? But we couldn't do it. We had got to the point that something had to happen and we just couldn't wait. And we had waited for years and years and years. It was like when I filed a suit against the University Hospital, they tried to get me to back down and take the president and the vice president out of the city.	21:27
Edward Gardner	Well, if I took those men out of the city, I wouldn't have had no city. And so I said, "No, not going to do that. Not going to do it." So I said to Mr. Boker, I said, "Mr. Boker, how long you been here over this hospital?" He said, "I've been here eight years." I said to Mr. Magnetti, "How long you been here?" He said, "I've been here 10 years." I said, Now, "Mr. Cody, you had eight years to work on segregation here and Mr. Magnetti, you had 10 years to work on segregation. And either one of you didn't do anything. Now you want me to take you out of the suit?" I said, "I couldn't do it, couldn't do it." I said, "If I take you all out the suit, I have to leave Birmingham. I'm not going to do that." I said, "This is the case before Judge Grooms and let him tell you what the next step."	22:31
Edward Gardner	And so Judge Grooms ruled against them, and so they had to desegregate the hospital. Well, the Christian's Hospital, they said they wasn't getting no federal support. And I knew they wasn't telling the truth, because all the buildings that they were building have federal money. And so the federal man came on behind me after I sued the University Hospital and said to them, they got 45 days to set the house in order. If they didn't, they're going to take all the patients out of the Christian Hospital and put them in the University Hospital, because university had met the requirement. And they had to desegregate. Had Negros downstairs on those steam pipes.	23:23
Paul Ortiz	You spent many years involved in the struggle for human rights in Birmingham.	24:13
Edward Gardner	Yes.	24:19
Paul Ortiz	What was it that motivated you through all of those years?	24:19
Edward Gardner	Well, what motivated me when I became pastor of our church that I'm the pastor now, I would go to the university and had to go to the garbage route to get in the hospital. And when I got in the hospital, I had to stay there and wait till they got through hauling all the freight before I could go up to see my sick members. And so then I went to the courthouse. They had Whites here and Negros over there, and the judge was so nasty. They were just as nasty as they could be. And to use that word nigger. See, nigger don't apply to color. Anybody can be a nigger if you low down, see? And so I had to file a suit against the Jefferson County Circuit Court, and I filed suit against them and got the verdict in Judge Grooms' court.	24:22
Paul Ortiz	Now, the hospital you mentioned earlier was the University Hospital?	25:28
Edward Gardner	Yeah, University Hospital. Okay. Yeah. University Hospital. You see at the University Hospital, they had a seven foot wall there, and Blacks on one side, Whites on this side. And segregation was all through the hospital. But when I filed that suit and Judge Grooms ruled against the university and they had to desegregate that hospital, they did it one night around 12:00 while all the patients was asleep. And they changed those beds and put a Black man next side a White man, and put a Black woman next side a White woman. And when they woke up next morning and looked up there and saw that, some of them left. Wanted to be dismissed. And so they dismissed them. And some of the doctors and some of the nurses quit. But they hired more and kept going.	25:33
Edward Gardner	And so Dr. Boker invited me back over there to the hospital to inspect to see that he met the requirement. So I went over there and from 10:00, I stayed till about 3:00 that evening to inspect all their transaction that they had made there. And so Dr. Boker told me, he said, "Reverend," he said, "Now I knew it was wrong to maintain segregation at this hospital, but I was afraid of those rednecks and those Klansmen." That's what he afraid of, those Klansmen, see. "And therefore, I was afraid to make that move because I was already getting calls not to do it, see." But when the judge ruled against segregation and discrimination at the hospital, they had to comply. And so he told me, he said, "I want to let you know, I was glad you sued me, because I didn't have the courage to do it. I didn't have the courage to do it."	26:38
Edward Gardner	And so when we desegregated that hospital, he invited me back over there to big steak dinner and thanked me for suing, because he was wrong to do what he was doing. But that was the staple at that time. And any man didn't follow, he didn't stay at the institution, see. They got him away from there. But when the courts ruled, that was it. That was it. And they had to fall in line. And the Baptist and the Catholic hospital was standing out. They said they didn't use federal money, but we knew they was using federal money, and so we said, "No, unless you desegregate this hospital, we going to put a picket line all the way around St. Vincent and then we coming to put a line around the Baptist."	27:57
Edward Gardner	And so, but when University fell in line, the government center man told them 45 days, if they didn't change their practice, they going to pull all those patients out of these Christian hospital and put them in University. And that brought them to their knees, so they had to desegregate. So that's the way that thing turned out.	29:08

Item Info

Title:

Edward Gardner interview recording, 1994 June 22

Date:

June 22, 1994

Creator:

Gardner, Edward

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Edward Gardner; Date of birth: 1907-09-29; Place of birth: Lowndes Co., AL; Occupation(s): minister; Residence: Birmingham, AL
Informant ID: 755; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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Minister

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English

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Behind the Veil

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

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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.

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behindtheveil
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Edward Gardner interview recording, 1994 June 22

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1. Edward Gardner administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Edward Gardner interview recording, 1994 June 22

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