Horace Huntley interview recording, 1994 June 27

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Stacey Scales	Well, I'll just start off by asking where you're from, your name, and how long you've been in the Birmingham area.	0:04
Horace Huntley	Okay. I'm Horace Huntley. I was born here in Birmingham, lived here for first 18 years, and after finishing high school, I joined the military, went to the Air Force, spent four years there, and after that I lived in Minneapolis for two years. After being there two years, I decided to go back to the University of Minnesota and from University of Minnesota to Syracuse University for the masters and the doctorate at University of Pittsburgh. And meantime, I taught one year at University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, which was formerly Maryland State College, it was a Black school. And after finishing a doctorate at University of Pittsburgh, I returned to Birmingham. So, I've been back in Birmingham now. I was away for 15 years, and I've been back now for 18 years.	0:11
Stacey Scales	Were your parents educated or your grandparents?	1:09
Horace Huntley	Well, my grandparents were not. My father and mother finished high school, and both were from here in Birmingham. Both lived here. Both were born here in Birmingham, but they were separated, divorced, in fact, before I started first grade. So my mother— I actually lived with my mother and my grandmother, so we— Actually, I have a brother and a sister, but we also had two first cousins that lived with us. So, it was five of us.	1:12
Stacey Scales	In the house?	1:56
Horace Huntley	In the house.	1:57
Stacey Scales	How did that work out?	1:58
Horace Huntley	It worked out fine. We didn't have much room, but we didn't know that we didn't have a lot of room at the time. People always talk about how poor we were, and I guess we were, but at the time, we didn't know it because we did basically what we wanted to do. I guess our world was rather limited, but we had what we would consider a normal childhood, people talking about there being a lack of a man in the house, although my uncle was there in the house, didn't have a father there, but I'm not sure that we were "deprived" of very many things.	1:58
Stacey Scales	Who made the decisions for you?	2:49
Horace Huntley	Well, my grandmother was the ultimate decision-maker. My mother worked as a licensed practical nurse at West End Baptist Hospital, and my grandmother worked in— She was uneducated, she was illiterate. She couldn't read, but she was the smartest person I had ever known. In fact, she in fact was my role model because she's a very strong person and she was very, very well respected. Although she worked in White folks' kitchens and homes for a long time, she probably made three dollars a week, but she sent two of her daughters to college, one to trade school, and sent her son to trade school off of $3 a week. You wonder how does she do that, but there's a lot of ingenuity with people during those times.	2:51
Stacey Scales	Could you describe the neighborhood?	4:00
Horace Huntley	Yeah. Neighborhood was— Looking back on it, our streets really were unpaved streets. It was a economically, it was probably on the bottom rung of the totem pole. It, of course, was a predominantly Black neighborhood, although there were Whites that lived in— on the opposite street from us. When I was growing up and before I started the school, my best friends were White. We played together every day, but when we started to school, of course, they went their way and I went my way.	4:04
Horace Huntley	They went to a Catholic school and I went to Riley Elementary School, and we still played together after school. But of course, over time that divide is developed simply because of race. But in those initial years, it was very obvious that we didn't really take into consideration the function that race played because we played together. They ate at my house. I ate at their house, I stayed at their houses, they stayed at my house. We were very close, in fact. But, of course, my grandmother worked for that family. She would wash for that family periodically, and she would also babysit for them.	4:58
Horace Huntley	But it wasn't— where the children were concerned anyway, it wasn't a superior/inferior type situation where one felt that they were better than the other because all of us basically did the same things. As I said, it was a poor neighborhood in terms of economics, but it was a neighborhood where people got along, you didn't have to worry about locking houses. Everyone knew everyone else. I don't remember, not a single time though, we had a break-in in our immediate neighborhood, and I guess we did have locks on the house, but there was no big thing, because many times at night, we didn't have air conditioning, so we'd leave the doors open and the windows open and everything. So it was a situation where we didn't know what we didn't have, so we didn't miss it.	6:00
Stacey Scales	Did your grandmother ever have any stories about segregation or anything that came down, maybe even from slavery times?	7:12
Horace Huntley	Well, yes she did. She had one story that was real interestingly, is that she talked about— I believe it was her grandfather, maybe her grandfather who lived on this. She was from Eutaw, Alabama in Greene County. And she said that on certain plantations, for instance, in what we call in the country, most of the people related, although they had different certain names, but she had suggested that her— Well, my grandfathers, folk who were Scarboroughs, they lived on this particular plantation and I guess obviously doing slavery.	7:20
Horace Huntley	Brothers were sold away to different plantations. So once they sold away from those plantations, they acquire the names of that particular plantation. For instance, you may have a Scarborough that is sold from the Scarborough plantation to the Wheels plantation, although that is still a Scarborough. Now you a Wheel. So we come into the 20th century, and the Scarboroughs and Wheels are related, but we are not certain how closely related, because actually those are brothers' children.	8:11
Horace Huntley	And so what it is done for us— and I'm sure that this is sort of typical of that antebellum period, is that you have people who, of course, did not know their relatives. And although they may be a Smith or a Jones or whatever, they in fact could very well have been blood brothers. So today in our society, we have different people in our community here who have the names from Eutaw. And we know that we are related, but we are finding out that we are much closer related than we had initially thought. I remember my grandfather coming here from Eutaw, spending some time with us. And what I remember most about him was that he— And it was fascinating cause I was a child and he knew all of the various names of the trees, and he knew different kinds of plants and what we'd call now roots and herbs. And he would tell you what you could use for different kinds of things.	8:50
Horace Huntley	And it was just fascinating. And I just vaguely remember him because I was very, very small, probably maybe first grade or second grade or something. But I remember him coming and visiting. But he passed on before I was probably in the fifth grade or so. The stories that I remember most though, were from my mother when she started to work at Baptist Medical Center. At Baptist Medical Center, the Black nurses were directed to come into the building in the back.	10:02
Horace Huntley	White nurses, of course, would come in the front. The White nurses were called Mrs. and Ms., and Black nurses were always term nurse. My mother was always Nurse Mason, that was her name. They were not allowed to enter the front doors. And my grandmother— and of course, Black patients were placed in the basement. And both my grandmothers, on my mother's and father's side— the story is when I was born, I was born here at Hillman Hospital here on the university campus now, this University Hospital. And, of course, Blacks would come in the back.	10:49
Horace Huntley	The story in the family is that these two Black women in 1942 in December 5th, rather than going the back door, they wouldn't go in the back door. They went in the front door when they came in to see me. Of course, we were in the basement, my mother and I. But this is a story that's been passed down that these two Black women, my maternal grandmother couldn't read, but my paternal grandmother could.	11:43
Stacey Scales	Paternal grandmother could read?	12:17
Horace Huntley	Right. And my maternal grandmother could not read. So they said that they both would simply use the excuse that they couldn't read is why they were going in the front door. Of course, that was not it. They simply decided that day they were going in the front door. And they did. The mini story is that they had been told about occurrences in Birmingham during the segregation era. And many of the occurrences that I remember rather vividly, my grandmother always suggested that I needed to be put in control of certain— I was the oldest child. So what she would do, she would always have me to pay all the bills.	12:22
Horace Huntley	And the way we paid bills at the time, we didn't have checkbooks, we had cash money. And I would go downtown and actually go from the power company to the electric company to the various company. And I remember downtown going into certain buildings, if you had to go upstairs, as a Black person, you'd have to ride the freight elevator, couldn't ride the passenger elevator. And I remember sort of writing a little depiction of what it was like. I would get on a bus out in my community, of course, and ride in the back of that bus getting into downtown. I would go and pay all of the bills. And then if I got hungry, I would go to say, New Bears or Chris' and buy a hotdog. But I couldn't sit at the counter, I would have to, in fact, stand at the end of the counter to receive my hotdog or my drink or whatever, and then go out on the street to eat it.	13:23
Horace Huntley	And, of course, you're very much familiar with the Colored and White water fountains. After I paid all the bills, mama normally would give me an extra 50 cents or something when I'd go to a movie. I could either go to the Lyric Theater, which was an integrated theater, integrated in the sense that Black folk had the balcony reserved for— We went to the balcony and Whites were sitting on the main floor. And I think that's one of the mistakes that segregation has made is because when we would go to the Lyric Theater, we'd go up in the balcony and we would throw water and stuff down on the people down, and then we'd head out and run over to the Fourth Avenue District, which was the Black district. And there we had, when I was grown, we had three movie theaters, we had the Carver, the Famous, and Frolic.	14:31
Horace Huntley	So, we'd spend a lot of time over there. I'd go to the Carver Theater, the Famous, very rarely went to the Frolic. The Frolic was sort of run down. And we always said the guanos were in the Frolic. But what I remember most about going to the theater was something with the popcorn.	15:29
Stacey Scales	Oh yeah.	15:52
Horace Huntley	It was some delicious popcorn. But after I'd finished gone to the movie, we'd come home. I mean, come back to Second Avenue, catch the bus, and riding the bus home many times, you would pass by fairgrounds. And, of course, fairgrounds was for White only.	15:53
Stacey Scales	Where was that?	16:20
Horace Huntley	That was on Third Avenue West. It's still in the same place that it is now. Third Avenue West in the Five Points West Area. We passed there— Yeah, we'd never could go. There was one day when the state fair was there that we could attend. But my grandmother was a proud old Black woman. She said if we couldn't go every day, we would never going to the fair. So we never got a chance. I never got a chance to go to the state fair. And now we had little carnivals that would come to our community periodically, but never got to the state fair. The first time I went to the state fair was in St. Paul, Minnesota. I was probably 22 or 23 years old. And I had the time of my life because I rolled everything. I bought everything. And I was sick as a dog when I finished. But it was like giving a child a piece of candy. And because it was something that I'd never been able to do and I was able to do it.	16:21
Horace Huntley	The other thing that was significant to me is something very simple was to be able to ride in the front of the bus. We had never been able to ride in front of the bus. When I left here, I was 18 years old, and when I joined the military, I went to North Dakota, but, of course, that's very near Canada. So, we went to Canada one weekend. The very first thing I wanted to do was to get on the bus and sit in the front. And I did. You look back on that, and you find out to see how seemingly unimportant that is today. But that was very, very important for me at the time. So, I went all the way to Winnipeg, Manitoba, to be able to sit in the front of the bus for the very first time.	17:35
Horace Huntley	Now, don't want to give the impression that we were totally controlled by segregation, because there were times when we would get on the bus and we would move the board from one seat to another if there was not a place to sit. Now there would be people on the bus. Many times that was said, "You shouldn't do that. You shouldn't move that board," because they knew that we could get in trouble. The bus driver could stop the bus. He could come back and ostracize us. He could call the police or whatever.	18:27
Stacey Scales	Did you ever get caught?	19:02
Horace Huntley	Well, there was one time when the bus driver told me to move— not to move the board. And I moved it anyway and sat down in the seat. I didn't sit in front of the board, but I did move the board. And he ran in rave, but he didn't do anything. But there was another time when I got on the bus and there was several other young Black guys got on the bus at the same time. And we lived in different communities, in joining communities. And many times there were problems between my community, and you know how young people do. When we were at school, we were good friends then as a certain part of the year when we had to have a little fisticuffs, but anyway, we got on the bus. I was on the bus when they got on.	19:05
Horace Huntley	When they got on, they took the board and threw it out the window and told the bus driver, "Don't stop the bus till you get to Powderly." And it was probably 10 of them.	20:08
Stacey Scales	Was it the Powderly neighborhood?	20:17
Horace Huntley	It's the Powderly neighborhood. And so I'm on, I'm from Riley now. So, I now have to make a decision. when they get off the bus, whether to get off with them and possibly have to run home because they would probably run me home or whether I should stay on the bus because I knew the bus driver was going to call the police, and then they probably would've taken me. So, I had the decision to make. So, my decision was to get off with them and run, but I didn't have to run that night. They were very cordial. And so I walked from Powderly to Riley, which was probably two, three miles—	20:20
Stacey Scales	They threatened the bus driver?	20:56
Horace Huntley	Yeah. They told him, "Don't stop the bus until you get to Powderly." And he didn't stop the bus. They threw the throw board off of the bus. So, there were times when younger people would challenge the status quo in that manner. There were times when the buses would be crowded and you'd pay your money in front and walk around to the back to get on. And I've seen people, once they paid their money, bus driver would take the money and then he would pull off and they would still be outside. They would never get on the bus.	20:57
Horace Huntley	So, there was some real situations where segregation was concerned. We think about recreation, for instance. Initially, we had one swimming pool for Black people in the city, and that was in Ensley. And, of course, I lived in Riley, so we'd have to catch—	21:40
Stacey Scales	What year is this?	22:16
Horace Huntley	This is probably 19— between '55 and '60. And we'd have to catch the bus in Riley, ride the bus downtown, transfer and go over to Ensley. And then after we finished swimming, we catched the bus back to town, transfer again, and then back home. But there was a swimming pool. It was in Midfield, which was right across from us. It was not in Birmingham, but it's a suburb of Birmingham. But it was a White swimming pool, and there was other White swimming pools all over. Of course, we couldn't go to those swimming pools. And of course, when the courts suggested that all the recreation facilities must be desegregated, rather than desegregate, Birmingham closes all of the parks and pools. And from what I understand, they said at the golf courses, they actually put semen in the hole rather than allow people to play golf out there.	22:17
Horace Huntley	I do know in 1960 or '61, when the Southern League was desegregated, what Birmingham and Atlanta were to do to integrate their teams, integrated meaning having one Black player on the team, rather than having that, Birmingham decided to disband their team, Atlanta elected to get a Black player. And I think that, in fact, resulted in eventually the Braves being in Atlanta rather than in Birmingham.	23:26
Stacey Scales	Could you tell me about the Black Barons?	24:00
Horace Huntley	Yeah. Well, the Black Barons were obviously a big hit here for Black folk because that was the main attraction. But you see, there were other teams— company teams around the city. For instance, Sloss would have a team, Wenonah would have a team, East Thomas would have a team. And many of them were supported by different companies such as US Steel or CIPCO. Well, we played every Sunday. I remember going over to Wenonah, we had a team in Riley and you'd go to what we call the school yard. It's where the old school was that burned. And then they built a new school. But we would go to the school yard, that was the baseball field, and had baseball games all day Saturday, all day Sunday.	24:04
Horace Huntley	And I mean, very, very competitive. Of course, from those teams, you would get one or two guys that would be contracted by the Birmingham Black Barons. And of course you had the Black Barons, and then you had the Barons, the White Barons. Oh yeah, yeah. You had the White team and then you had the Black Barons. And Willie Mays, of course, played with the Birmingham Black Barons.	25:04
Horace Huntley	They were, of course, very competitive. I do remember we played baseball out in a little field, what we call the pasture. We made our baseball because we didn't have any city facilities. We made our own baseball fields, and there were a couple White guys that would come out and play with us. Not on our team, but just a pickup game. We looked at those guys as being what we would term the liberals. But most of those wouldn't come out to play with us. But they couldn't—	25:34
Stacey Scales	They'd game against the Blacks and the Whites.	26:18
Horace Huntley	No, we never had a game between Blacks and Whites. See, I left in '61, and that was, in fact, we've been against the law because see, in Birmingham, it was against the law for Blacks and Whites to even play checkers together. Yeah, man. That was on the books. That was an article that you may be interested in in The New York Times, probably New York Times by Harrison Salisbury, 1960 or '61, that —	26:21
Stacey Scales	Salisbury?	26:48
Horace Huntley	Salisbury. And it depicted Birmingham as being totally segregated society. And, in fact, Birmingham sued the New York Times for publishing that article on Birmingham. Of course, they didn't win, but they did sue. But it talked about everything on the sun being segregated from taxi cabs to schools, to hospitals. Even in the public library, there was a book of black rabbits and white rabbits. And because of segregation, they took that book off of the shelf because they didn't want anything black and white to meet.	26:51
Stacey Scales	So what library did Black folks use there?	27:46
Horace Huntley	Well, we didn't have a library out in the area where I lived. There was a bookmobile that came through, and that was from the public school. We could not use the downtown libraries. In fact, I never went to a library until I left Birmingham. I had never gone to a library. Trying to think, I assume that there were Black branches of a library in Titusville. We had one in Titusville and one at Smithville, one on North Side and on the south side of Birmingham. But in the main, we didn't. As a young kid though, I remember how excited we would get when the Bookmobile would come to our communities. I guess during the summer it may have come once a week or so.	27:51
Stacey Scales	So you would buy the book copies?	28:53
Horace Huntley	No, I guess we would check them out. I assume we didn't buy them. And I guess the next week, we returned them. I really don't quite remember.	28:58
Stacey Scales	Do you remember Dynamite Hill?	29:13
Horace Huntley	Yes, I remember Dynamite. I didn't know anything about Dynamite Hill as Dynamite Hill, but I knew that there were a lot of bombings in certain parts of Birmingham. I only learned that it was called Dynamite Hill later. But I lived outside of Birmingham. In fact, when I was growing up, we were in the county, now the area's in the city. So much of what was taking place in town, we would hear about it, but I was really not that intimately involved with it.	29:16
Stacey Scales	How long have things changed since?	29:55
Horace Huntley	How have they changed?	30:00
Stacey Scales	Yes.	30:02
Horace Huntley	Well, on the surface, you can see a lot of change because it's very obvious that when I was growing up, a Black man would not be sitting in this office here at the University of Alabama. But by the same token, you would probably have— And well, let me just take it this way. We talked about the buses, about the restaurants, about restrooms, about the water fountains, all of those things have changed. That's not a difficulty anymore. The ways that Blacks are viewed to some extent has changed also. But I still have to look and see where Black folk are positioned now. And I think economically, there are many of us that are much better off than we were then, but I think there are probably more people that are worse off than we were then.	30:03
Horace Huntley	So all those things have changed in one sense, and another sense, they've changed for people in, say, the middle and upper-income brackets. But for those people who are poor people, things have not changed at all. I never really remembered, of course, when we were growing up having the problem, what we call the homeless today, you didn't see that. So something is happening that was not happening at that time. Although that was supposedly a much better society. We are supposedly have more resources. Those resources though, are not being utilized to the advantage of the masses of people. In fact, that's what it appears to me.	31:04
Stacey Scales	So back in your community growing up, or even after then, was there a time where the community had a crisis and people had to participate?	32:04
Horace Huntley	Well, I think the Civil Rights Movement epitomizes a crisis where people had to get together. And that was based, of course, on the apartheid system that existed for so long. So people had made decisions that things would change, but even then, it was not all of the people. There were still people who opposed Vincent, Martin Luther King, coming to Birmingham. Black people that opposed him coming to Birmingham because they said he would come in and stir up trouble. There were those who in fact benefited from apartheid or segregation. But there were also those who I guess genuinely felt that you couldn't push. You had to let things change naturally on their own. And as Martin Luther King said, "Time is neutral." It is neither positive nor negative, and things will remain the same unless someone does something about it. And that's what he was coming in here for.	32:18
Horace Huntley	But what most people are not aware of is that although King was sort of the focal point of the movement, the movement leader here in Birmingham was Fred Shuttlesworth. He invited Dr. King and SCLC to come in because in 1956, when the NAACP was enjoined from operating in the state of Alabama, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights was organized to fill that vacuum. And between 1956 and 1963 when the demonstrations took place, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, that really laid a foundation. And if that foundation had not been laid, probably what happened in '63 probably could not have taken place in the same way that it did.	33:23
Horace Huntley	But Birmingham becomes pivotal in the whole civil rights movement because some would suggest that Albany, Albany, depending on if you're from Georgia, it's Albany of Georgia, was that was a loss for the movement. I'm not so sure that that's true, but that is the way it has been viewed. So the next—	34:10
Stacey Scales	A loss?	34:31
Horace Huntley	A loss for the Civil Rights Movement because it suggests that this sheriff there was a non-violent sheriff. He was not a bullcunt. And he arrested people, but he didn't beat them. He didn't put the dogs and the water hoses. So the suggestion, and again, I'm not so sure this is true, is that SCLC did not win that victory that they needed. So now the next campaign, of course, would be Birmingham. So Birmingham becomes very pivotable because if you lose here in Birmingham, then you probably lose everywhere all over the South. But if you win Birmingham, just as I believe why Walker said, "As Birmingham goes, so goes south." And with the kind of preparation that the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights had, Birmingham was ripe. And it was open, and, of course, it was successful, and it would lead to a number of other victories. But it was very hard-fought struggle because the movement between 1st of April and 12th of May, it was a sustained movement.	34:31
Horace Huntley	And it even continues after that. But Birmingham becomes very, very pivotal. But the point is that the movement really is— The foundation of the movement is laid by Fred Shuttlesworth and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights that established here in 1956 to fill the void that the banner of the NAACP from operating the state left.	35:57
Stacey Scales	Were there any women's movements that—?	36:25
Horace Huntley	Well, women played their prominent role in what was happening with the Alabama Christian Movement and with the SCLC?	36:30
Stacey Scales	Did they have any of their own organizations?	36:40
Horace Huntley	There has been a number of Black women organizations here. Let's see, the Women's Federation, Federation of Colored Women's Club, I believe is the name, since the turn of the century. Although they have not been as visible as say, SCLC and Alabama Christian Movement. But some of those same women that were involved in that struggle, I mean, in the development of those clubs, and those were basically civic clubs, they were not "civil rights" clubs or civil rights organizations. And there were, of course, I guess on the foundations of society would be the church. And, of course, Black women have always played a very leading role in the church, although they've gotten little recognition for that. But women have been in the forefront, although in the background—	36:45
Stacey Scales	In life, church— how would you say your values came down generation to generation, and are they the same?	37:52
Horace Huntley	Don't quite understand. You mean the values that—	38:01
Stacey Scales	Values that maybe your parents had and your grandparents had.	38:04
Horace Huntley	Oh, okay. Right. Yeah. The church played a prominent role in that. Of course, when I was growing up, it was just understood that you were going to church. I mean, that was just a given. On Sunday, you were going to church. And, of course, the values that are generated from that experience that were passed on from generation to generation. For instance, my grandmother, she was a very strong worker in the church in the Primitive Baptist, that's what they were.	38:07
Horace Huntley	And the Primitive Baptist was basically a rural congregation. And I remember, I was taking her to Eutaw to go to foot washings. Now after we become more urban in the Baptist Church that I grew up in, we didn't wash feet. I guess that is that sitting that we are generating now. But nevertheless, the kinds of values that are developed in the church that passed on and church just became a given part of our society. And that has been passed on through generations.	39:04
Horace Huntley	Some have gotten away from that. And we don't have that. The church has been really one of the few institutions that Black folks have been able to control in a sense. I'm not suggesting now that we have not been impacted upon by Whites in our churches because obviously, we have. But what I am suggesting is that at least this is a place where we didn't have to have someone looking over our shoulders and we could develop that institution from our own perspective. Although that perspective becomes a Western perspective after generation.	39:59
Stacey Scales	You mentioned earlier that you traveled, for your education, north? Could you compare maybe the Jim Crow you experienced there to Birmingham or the South?	40:54
Horace Huntley	Okay. Yeah. There was an incident that's very vivid. I remember when I first went to Minneapolis, Minnesota, and Minneapolis looked upon as the ultimate of the perception. Anyway, our perception, that is God's land because you don't have any racism there and everybody's equal. The first week that I was in Minneapolis, I didn't know a single person in town, so I didn't know the city, but I was just out of the military and had been married a year. So I was trying to find an apartment so that my wife who was graduating from Tuskegee would meet me in Minneapolis. So, I would go to the various community if they had a newspaper and looking for an apartment.	41:10
Horace Huntley	And each time I'd go in place say, "Well, we'd really like to have you, but we just don't have anything available." I said, "Well, it's right here in the paper." They said, "We've already rented those." So I said, "Well, let me do this." I decided to call this particular apartment before I went. And so having I got the owner called him, talked with him. I said, "Look, I'm looking for an apartment and blah, blah." And he said, "Well, there is one available. Is that this address? And that was in the paper." And I said, "Well, are you sure this this available?" He said, "I'm sure it is available. Just go by and see the caretaker and he'll show it to you and you'd be able to get it." So I went by and sure enough, the apartment was available and I was getting ready to pay my deposit.	42:07
Horace Huntley	And he said, "Wait a minute before you pay your deposit, let me go and call the owner to make sure that it's still available." So I said, "Well, fine," because I just talked to the owner, I knew that department was available. So he came back and he said, "Oh, I am so sorry. We sure would like to have you here. But I just talked with the owner and the owner said that he rented the apartment yesterday," but he went and told him that I was Black.	43:02
Horace Huntley	So he told me that— But I knew that I had talked with the owner 10 minutes earlier and he didn't recognize that I was Black. So if I had had the ability to start a riot right there, I would have in that apartment. And so from that point on, what I realized is that the kinds of problems where race is concerned was not limited to the South. It's all over the nation. And what I did, I found out that there was an area where Black folk lived.	43:28
Stacey Scales	What area is that?	44:07
Horace Huntley	That was in South Minneapolis, a portion of South Minneapolis and a portion of North Minneapolis. That's where Black people were basically housed. So I went to South Minneapolis and found an apartment, but I didn't know about that. Before, I kind of just thought that you could go any place in Minneapolis you want and just get an apartment, but you simply could not do that.	44:08
Horace Huntley	So that was my first encounter really with that kind of situation outside of the South.	44:30
Stacey Scales	How about in school?	44:37
Horace Huntley	In school, I went to the University of Minnesota. At the University of Minnesota, there were 40,000 students. Out of the 40,000 there were 87 Black students. I did not have a Black student in a class of mine until probably I was a junior. But we started an organization called the Afro-American Action Committee. At least it was started. And then I met some people that were involved with it. And then I got involved and we then started lobbying for— This is in '67, '68, '69, started lobbying to have a Black student conference on campus as well as developing a Department of Black Studies.	44:48
Horace Huntley	And we had all kinds of difficulties in doing that, but we eventually did get the department. But what happened is, eventually, when we met with administration, and it was during the time right after Dr. King was assassinated, we wanted to develop a scholarship program for Black students to increase the number of Black students on campus. We wanted to have the Black student organization develop a national student conference and want development of the African American Studies Department. And we got each of those eventually. But the only way we got them, we took over the administration building, we held at the administration building, then we negotiated and finally we agreed to all those things.	45:40
Horace Huntley	So the next year, I think we increased, so maybe 130, 140 students. And eventually, we maybe had a total sum, some maybe 300 Black students on campus. And that was something else. But those are—	46:39

Horace Huntley	I remember in one of my American history classes, I had a friend, a guy that I got to know. His name was Mahmoud Elkhateeb. He was a philosopher, a historian. And I had never really studied Black history before. I'd read a few things, but never really studied. And he would go to various community centers in North and South Minneapolis talking about Black history. So I got to be very good friends with him and he became my mentor. So at the University of Minnesota, I was taking American history course. And this very noted historian of the American experience covered Black history in about two minutes, I guess. And it was a big class, probably three, 400 students in the class. This guy, he didn't like students. He didn't talk to students. If you wanted to talk with him, you had to talk with his graduate assistant.	0:02
Horace Huntley	So he didn't like Black students. And no one ever challenged him because everyone was afraid of him. So he was lecturing and this particular day, he talked about Black folk and he talked about slavery. And then I raised my hand, and nobody ever did that in his class. And he never did acknowledge. So I stood up, and he still didn't acknowledge me. And then I "politely" got his attention. And he said, "Yes, can I help you?" I said, "Well, you covered Black history in about two minutes." I said, "Are you going to talk anymore about the history of Black people in this country?"	1:11
Horace Huntley	He said, very arrogantly, "Well, is there more?" And I said, "Well, you're the professor. You should know that there's a lot more." He said, "Well, I was not aware." And I said, "Well, I don't really appreciate how you covered it." He said, "Well, do you think you can do a better job?" I said, "Absolutely." And so we had a little give and take and everybody else was just stark because this has never happened in Burkehoffer's class before.	1:52
Stacey Scales	What's his name?	2:23
Horace Huntley	Burkehoffer. Professor Burkehoffer. Never will forget him. And he said, "Well, I'll give you equal time." I said, "Well, does that mean that I'll have the rest of the term to straighten out what you are missing?" See, this is during the time of rebelliousness. And we had decided that we were going to raise a lot of issues. And he said, "Well, I'll give you a class period." So I went to Mahmoud and we talked about what I need to do. So I had John Hope Franklin and looked at a couple other things and presented a lecture. And after the lecture— No, first he was going to try to intimidate me.	2:24
Horace Huntley	He said, "Well, when you give this lecture, I'll have my graduate students here and some of my colleagues will probably come in also to listen to you." I said, "Well, do you think you can get WCCO," or whatever the TV station and we could get Williams Arena and [indistinct 00:03:23]. And he didn't like that very much. So anyway, I presented the lecture. And after the lecture, I asked— He said— Because everybody was— They really didn't know anything about any of the things that I was talking about. So afterwards, I said, "Well, how did I do?" He said, "Well, you did good." Well now I'm getting bigoted and thinking that I'm about to get him. And I knew that was good. I said, "Well, since it was so good, can I allow that to serve in lieu of my final exam?"	3:06
Horace Huntley	He said, "Oh sure." And I should've gotten an A out of the course. And he gave me a C. But that was an experience. That was really my first experience in terms of trying to instill Black history and culture into American history, into those classes at the University of Minnesota. And after that, once you start doing that, then you start raising issues with a lot. And then, eventually— I was a history major at the time. And we got the department, the Black studies department. So myself and one other sister. We consider ourselves the first graduates of an African American studies degree in the country. And that wasn't many more if that were. But we may have been the first. We were one of the first or two of the first. So that was a real—	3:59
Stacey Scales	Were there many other students— were they inspired by your—	4:58
Horace Huntley	Yeah. Well, I was just inundated with people coming and talking with me about what I talked about and how I had called Burkehoffer down. But see, I didn't really know who Burkehoffer was, that he was a very eminent historian. All I knew that he was very arrogant. And I was a little bit older. I was out of the military. I was 24, 25. So I wasn't afraid of him. And as a result of that, there were others then— We started to have the meetings of the Triple AC. And we would actually read certain books and we'd come to discuss those books.	5:03
Horace Huntley	And we eventually would get Mahmoud to come to the campus to offer a course in history. And in developing the department of African American studies at the time, as a student organization, we had quite a bit of input on who would be able to come in and who would direct the programs. We were in fact on the search committees. So we had quite a bit of say into how the department would evolve. So that was probably a highlight of my career. Just getting that done over those probably two years or so. My last two years.	5:48
Stacey Scales	What year was that?	6:39
Horace Huntley	This is from probably '68 to '70. I graduated with a degree in Afro American studies in 1970.	6:41
Stacey Scales	Did your family ever talk about African American pride or history?	6:51
Horace Huntley	Well, my grandmother always talked about pride in being Black. She was phenotypically Black. She and I were probably the darkest people in our family. But she's the leader of the family. So she sits here. And my aunts and my mother, they were lighter and they would always tease us. But you're Black like Mama. But teasing us in a way to make me proud of being darker than the rest of them. And I remember after I started to read and going to college and all. I would come back with certain books and my grandmother were more receptive of what I talked about than my mother, my mother's generation. But my grandmother and I, we'd sit down and we'd talk for hours about it. But my mother's generation, they basically didn't want to hear it. They didn't want to talk about it. And that was rather interesting.	6:56
Stacey Scales	Why do you think that was?	8:06
Horace Huntley	Well, Mama probably had seen— Obviously, she saw more hard times and she understood better what I was talking about. She understood better what the people had written about. My mother's generation— Basically, what they did was try to make a living without raising certain issues. And my grandmother probably raised more issues. That's the only thing that I can attribute it to. I remember when I started reading Malcolm X autobiography the first time. And my grandmother and I, we had great discussions about it. But my mother didn't want to hear it.	8:08
Stacey Scales	Did your family have any type of way they protested on their own, a way of protesting Jim Crow?	8:49
Horace Huntley	Yeah. Well there were a lot of little ways. I remember once we had something called white label. It was a milk company that had "white" in the name. And my grandmother thought they had said this is— She misunderstood and thought they had said White man's milk or something like that. So she stopped buying that brand of milk. We didn't participate—	9:00
Horace Huntley	Well, my leaving here early in '61, it was prior to the demonstrations. So I didn't have the opportunity to participate because I was gone. But Mama, she would question— I remember there was a White man that would come through who was selling vegetables. And we'd always buy from him, from anyone else that would come through. But I remember my grandmother, she would always get to arguing with this old White man about the vegetables and fruit. And some people would say, "You shouldn't argue with that White man." But Mama would always argue. And she sort of led the community—	9:43
Stacey Scales	Is your grandmama Mama?	10:39
Horace Huntley	Mama, yeah. I called her Mama. I called my mother Dear. My mother wasn't like a sister, but she was— I looked at Mama as being my mother. My mother was a little bit high elevated than a sister. But she was not quite the mama at that time. But Mama, we would go to the grocery store and we didn't have the supermarket. At the neighbor grocery store. And they were owned by Whites. But Mama would get anybody told. We always say, "Mama, get them told." But she wouldn't take anything off of anybody, whether he's Black or White. And I never saw her lose face or lower head to anybody.	10:40
Horace Huntley	And everyone knew her. They called her Miss Annie. And when Miss Annie was there, she was fair. But she would not accept any indignities from anybody. I never saw that happen. I did see it with my paternal grandfather once when we were on his wagon once. This was when I was real young. And this White man came up and called him a boy. And I remember asking him, "Grandad, why that man called you a boy?" And I don't remember what his reply was. But Mama carried herself in a way that no one would ever even attempt to do that.	11:37
Stacey Scales	Did they ever speak to you of your father?	12:19
Horace Huntley	Oh yeah. I knew my father. I knew him.	12:21
Stacey Scales	You haven't said very much so—	12:21
Horace Huntley	No, he didn't live with us. He lived in Michigan. He left here when I was, I don't know, probably before I started school. But he would come home— So his mother lived here and I knew her. And I would visit her and spend time with her. But Daddy really never spent much time here. He was always working. He was a welder. He worked for General Motors in Lansing, Michigan. And we would— I'd talk, see him and always hope that he and my mother would get back together. But of course, that never happened. He would come home ever so often.	12:26
Stacey Scales	Did you ever travel in your younger days?	13:24
Horace Huntley	No, never did. Well, she took me to Lansing when I was a baby.	13:25
Stacey Scales	Your mother?	13:30
Horace Huntley	Mm-hmm. And they were supposedly getting back together, but it didn't work out. So we came back home. But I only went to Columbus, Georgia. And as a boy scout, my scout master was a railroad man. And he— we went to St. Louis, Missouri on the train. Those are the only places that I ever remember.	13:30
Stacey Scales	Do you remember sitting on the train?	13:57
Horace Huntley	I just remember sitting in. I'm sure that it was a segregated situation. But I don't remember anything about that.	14:00
Stacey Scales	Do you ever remember traveling on the highway in the facilities, you know?	14:08
Horace Huntley	Yeah. Yeah. We traveled between here and Columbus, Georgia. And I always remember my uncle— My uncle and aunt lived in Columbus. He would drive down 280 and going down 280 through some of the smaller towns, the Klan, in many cases, would be sitting there and they would stop the car. They would be taking up donations or whatever.	14:13
Horace Huntley	And I always remember that they would never say anything to us or never do anything. They'd always just say, "Go ahead. Go on boy." Or something like that. But we were never accosted by them. But I do remember that we always, in going to Columbus or going to Tuscaloosa or to Greene County, we'd always take a lunch. Because we obviously couldn't stop any place to eat. But we always did take a lunch. It was usually in a big brown bag. Yeah.	14:43
Stacey Scales	Well, I really don't have any further questions. If you have anything you want to add at this point?	15:20
Horace Huntley	No, I think we've covered about practically everything that I—	15:27
Stacey Scales	Appreciate the interview.	15:30
Horace Huntley	Okay.	15:31

Item Info

Title:

Horace Huntley interview recording, 1994 June 27

Date:

June 27, 1994

Creator:

Huntley, Horace

Contributor:

Scales, Mausiki Stacey

Description:

Name: Horace Huntley; Date of birth: 1942-12-05; Place of birth: Birmingham, AL; Occupation(s): educator; Residence: Birmingham, AL
Informant ID: 759; Interviewed by: Stacey Scales.

Occupation:

Educator

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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

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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.

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Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

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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.

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RL00170-CS-0329
60e8dbf1-6b3c-471d-944e-f7eadf4e51d4
behindtheveil
6d13b562-9073-4b03-a2d9-4ce6036aec54
ark:/87924/r4765nq2f
6d13b562-9073-4b03-a2d9-4ce6036aec54

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Horace Huntley interview recording, 1994 June 27

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1. Horace Huntley administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Horace Huntley interview recording, 1994 June 27

Transcript

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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