Joe Dickson interview recording, 1994 July 01

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Paul Ortiz	Mr. Dixon, could you begin by telling me a little bit about the role that the Birmingham World played, in Birmingham and throughout the South, in the Black media during the Jim Crow era?	0:03
Joe Nathan Dickson	Well, first of all we need to say that the Birmingham World was part of a chain of newspapers that were owned by the Scott family out of Atlanta, Georgia. The World was founded by William A. Scott II, who was a printer out of Mississippi, who had migrated to Georgia, whose father was a minister. And during those times it was like a guild. The family were all printers, and they ventured off into the newspaper business. It was the Memphis World, the Birmingham World, Atlanta Daily World, and wherever you went— They had a total of 22 newspapers. The onslaught of the union, early after they had gained a foothold, caused for a breakup of those newspapers. At one time they had a larger circulation, a more larger circulation. A lot of the daily newspapers, which were White owned, the newspapers were printed in Atlanta, excuse me, for the most part, and were shipped to the various cities.	0:17
Joe Nathan Dickson	Each newspaper had a publisher. I'm sorry, had a managing editor. The publisher was Mr. Scott, who was in Atlanta, Georgia. Emory Jackson was not the first editor. There were two editors who preceded him. One of them died last year, who was Homer Coke, and the other was— I'll pen his name in later on. We think he's still alive but we doubt it very seriously that he's alive. But Emory Jackson was from Georgia. He was a graduate of Morehouse College, and then was teaching school in Dothan, Alabama. And he lost his job down there because of his militancy.	1:48
Joe Nathan Dickson	And he came on to become editor of the Birmingham World Newspaper. And once he became editor of the Birmingham World Newspaper, he also became very active in many of the activities that were going on within the community. The NAACP, the local— his fraternity. The Civic Leagues at that time were paramount. They were paramount because Negroes were not involved as such in politics. The involvement at that time was mainly toward the Republican Party and not the Democratic Party.	2:34
Joe Nathan Dickson	That was somewhat of a phenomenon within itself. And you can understand why the leaning was toward the Republican Party. Emory Jackson felt that this newspaper should be involved in the further emancipating of the Negro in the South. And you can really understand why the newspaper was used, because the newspaper was that voice that could speak without impunity to the larger community with regards to the rights and privileges that Blacks should attain, that were being denied to them through the ugly means of segregation and discrimination. Mr. Jackson began immediately to write about disenfranchisement. He felt that one of the early ways that we could reach some parity would be to obtain the ballot, and through the use of the franchise we could vote out or vote in those individuals who would be friendly to our cause. He also knew that without unity, that we could not prevail.	3:19
Joe Nathan Dickson	One of the things that he did, he was a part of those organizations but he was aloof from those organizations. Mr. Jackson believed fiercely and sincerely that— If you would notice in our newspaper creed, and if you read the masthead, "The Birmingham World is for those things, which were," I'll give you a copy of it, "which are for our people, and we are against those things that are against our people." He felt that total loyalty toward the cause was essential. There were things that he felt that this newspaper could not participate in. And if you have read some of his writings and editorials, you would notice that not only would he talk about what Blacks ought to be doing to emancipate themselves, he would take issue at editorials that were written by the Daily Press, and he would take great pains to try and explain away that difference that was imputed by those writers at the Daily Press.	4:55
Joe Nathan Dickson	One of the things that I think that it needs to be known about this newspaper, this newspaper has never made any money. This newspaper was started mainly to get the message over, to speak for Blacks, to get them to understand that they had to themselves, through education and through the franchise, move themselves from the bondage of segregation and discrimination. And as a consequence, this was the means to do it because I still spoke with impunity that the newspaper had. The newspaper, so how did it survive? It survived mainly by whatever was put into the newspaper, announcements and whatever, the people paid. There was announcement about a wedding or something that somebody had to be put in the paper, they paid that way. And the subscriptions. There were some White firms who always advertised. Alabama Power always advertised in the Birmingham News.	6:15
Paul Ortiz	Even before the '60s?	7:39
Joe Nathan Dickson	Even before the '60s, they advertised. There were some White accounts before the '60s that advertised. Even though we had the strict segregation and discrimination, there were White merchants who understood the buying, whatever buying power that Blacks had. And they did advertise, and they did not take issue with Mr. Jackson and his editorials because they've continued to advertise, even to this day. The Alabama Power Company has been one of our strongest advertisers.	7:41
Joe Nathan Dickson	We have not been as successful with other advertisers who are major players in this area. We never had it, and it's a consequence we felt that we— and we feel now that we could do a much better job with our newspapers if those advertisers were there, because that's their choice. Mr. Jackson would go take this newspaper. This newspaper was strong in Birmingham and it was strong outside of Birmingham, because if you look at some of the back issues you will see some advertisement from some much smaller towns than Birmingham.	8:19
Joe Nathan Dickson	And Mr. Jackson would go at night to the— they would take trips into these smaller towns and teach the Blacks how to organize themselves, and how to get people out to vote. They would go to smaller towns and somewhat rescue people who had been accused of murders or other acts that were trumped up against them. And so, as we moved on we find that this newspaper challenged the, well, we liked to challenge not only City Hall, but he challenged George Wallace. He challenged all of the governors of the state who felt that the status quo must remain. I think one of the greatest things that, in my lifetime that I know of, that Mr. Jackson did, was in 1948. He and Reverend Ware, who was pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, decided that when they were going to bring the Freedom Train through the South that the Negro citizens of Birmingham were not going to allow the Freedom Train to come to Birmingham, Alabama and be shown a display in a segregated manner.	8:57
Joe Nathan Dickson	Every effort was made by Reverend Ware and Mr. Jackson, and others, to stop this farce. And it was, if you may remember, it was during this time also that it was an election year. And after the episode with the Freedom Train we had what was known as the Dixiecrat Party being started. And the Dixiecrat Party, in my estimation, was the first symbol of the rebirth of the Republican Party in Alabama, because those people who filled the ranks of the Dixiecrat Party are now prominent Republicans.	10:45
Joe Nathan Dickson	So, Mr. Jackson, in that same year, went to the Democratic Convention here in Birmingham. I was much younger, but I kept up with it because I sold this newspaper, and I would read it. They threw him out. They actually threw him out. And Mr. Jackson got up and went back in and said that he was a citizen of this state and this country, and he had a right to be there. He was there to cover the proceedings as a newspaper man. And that, in my estimation, was a turning point to get some crack into the straight Democratic Party rule by Blacks in Alabama.	11:27
Joe Nathan Dickson	Mr. Jackson might be considered as a Democrat, but throughout the themes that you would note that he would always urge people to register the vote, register the vote, participate, go and vote. But he was also cautious about the kind of roles that Black leaders played. And if you would note that sometimes he would sing out a leader who he felt had breached to compromise the particular path that was being taken for the betterment of all. He would take the columns of this newspaper to point out that some boards and some meetings that were being held at City Hall are in, I imagine, in the homes of Whites or whatever. Those meetings should not have been attended to by the leadership.	12:28
Joe Nathan Dickson	He took the columns of this newspaper to say that there are some boards that were being newly, Blacks were being newly appointed to, that because the leadership position that they held, that at that time he didn't feel that it would serve the purpose of what he called The Group, for them to participate at. People throughout the country began to respect Mr. Jackson for his writings, for his steadfastness, and fighting against discrimination. He was cited in a number of times for his writings at the NNPA.	13:39
Joe Nathan Dickson	The NNPA, in the past, was the National Negro Newspaper Publishers Association, but now it was the Negro Newspaper Publishers Association. Now it is the National Newspaper Publishers Association, otherwise called NNPA. This newspaper fiercely and strongly urged the power structure to have Black policemen. Very early on. It was the feeling of the people at this paper that if you're enforcing the law, then one of the things that ought to happen is that all of the people who are represented in the community ought to be involved in it.	14:24
Joe Nathan Dickson	We fiercely urged for the election of Black city council people, because we felt that Blacks should be involved in the making of the government, of the laws that were about to govern them.	15:23
Paul Ortiz	This is from perhaps the 1930s?	15:39
Joe Nathan Dickson	From the '30s, from when he took on over. I'm reminded of a story that Dr. Gaston told me, and I don't know if you've interviewed Dr. Gaston, Dr. A.G. Gaston. You have?	15:41
Paul Ortiz	Not yet.	15:50
Joe Nathan Dickson	Dr. Gaston told me that when he was a boy, that Dr. — I mean, Professor Washington used to come to Birmingham to speak, and that Professor Washington would tell them that, "You must prepare yourself, because one day there will be Black city council people. One day there will be Black policemen." And he said they thought that Dr. Washington was out of his mind. Booker T. Washington. That's what I'm talking about. They thought he was out of his mind. They told me he said, "And you see today, boy, you see we got a Black mayor. We got Black policemen around here." And Dr. Gaston, at that time, he would tell me that he was, I guess he was 90-something. He's 102 now.	15:54
Joe Nathan Dickson	And it's still in the minds of some of our people, some things that over in the larger community it hasn't dawned on our people that these things will happen for them. And this newspaper here did everything that they could at that point in time to precipitate these happening. When we started at my college, I struggled. This was the last big, we like to call, well, the first big onslaught against discrimination.	16:44
Paul Ortiz	When?	17:22
Joe Nathan Dickson	Let me see, I left Miles in '59. When I got out of the Army in '55, we, the Alphas, the Omegas, and the Sigmas on the campus, decided that we need to do everything we could to bring about a great swell in the voting roles. So, they had a voter registration drive at Miles College because most of the people who were coming back to school had been in the Army, and they were of age and could vote. So, that was the perfect setting to start a voter registration drive.	17:27
Joe Nathan Dickson	Mr. Jackson was already involved, and he, being a member of Omega Phi Psi, that was one of the first things that he wanted to do. And when we would go to the courthouse, I mean, yes, the courthouse to register to vote, the voter registration office, the people would be sitting. The guys would sit there and there and they ask, "Boy, why you want to come here and vote? What y'all want to vote? Aren't y'all doing all right? Why you want to get bogged down in all that? You own any property? You own no property? Why you think you ought to vote?"	18:11
Joe Nathan Dickson	Then they want you to, in addition to those demeaning questions, they want you to name all of the senators, all of from here. All the members of the House of Representatives from around here. They want you to recite the Constitution, they want— or they just take you through all kinds of things to deny you the franchise. But we prevailed and we continued our voter registration drive, with the counseling and the help of Mr. Jackson at this newspaper. Mr. Jackson was the kind of professional who was somewhat freer than other Black professionals, because he could operate without fear of being fired from his job. A lot of people probably wanted to be in the struggle for freedom, but of out of fear of losing their jobs, and out of just plain fear, they wouldn't come forward.	18:45
Joe Nathan Dickson	So, we got the voter registration drive started that right on the campus of Miles College. We made—	19:39
Paul Ortiz	Which that started about '55?	19:45
Joe Nathan Dickson	About '55. '55, we started then. And then, at the same time, Fred Shuttlesworth and W. E. Sheldridge, and the others were here with NAACP, moving and pushing to try and make it better for Blacks. In 1956, Fred Shuttlesworth was at Bethel Church over in North Birmingham fighting. And you see, what you did at that time, you had Blacks who were in different neighborhoods all fighting for the same cause. Wherein today, it appears to me that those warriors who were fighting for us have become celebrities. You hear the youngsters say that the NAACP has lost its value. That's not true.	19:46
Joe Nathan Dickson	The Jewish Defense League yet survived. The ADL is there. They're doing the same thing that— but those people who are "so-called leaders", these people have not turned into television celebrities. They're hard at work fighting antisemitism. Anytime racism rises up, the Jewish community jumps right in on it. Whether it's there or not. If it looks like it's going to occur, they move in and try to fight it. But the "so-called leaders" from this side of the community, it's a different level. In the Black community.	20:48
Joe Nathan Dickson	And Emory warned against this. Emory said in his newspaper columns that you cannot allow, what he called the other side, to pick your leaders. He said that there's no way that a politician, or for that matter the minister, would be that far ahead as a leader. But in the Black community, at that point in time, we accepted the minister as a leader because the minister could also speak without having that fear of somebody pushing them back. But in the White community, ministers are not the leaders. Politicians are not the leaders. They're facilitators. Business community, the force that drives the community, that's where your leadership comes from. So, we could deal with it, and at that point in time, because these were the people who didn't have to fight. So, after we got the voter registration drive, then it became apparent to us who had been in the Korean War, and whatever, that something else was wrong.	21:28
Joe Nathan Dickson	We also, during that time, attempted to get on the police force. Be firefighters. And when I went to take the firefighters' exam, I mean, the policeman exam, there was no reason— I didn't know whether I was going to flunk the exam or not, because one, the person who was there to tell you about it, they said, "You're not tall enough. You need to be taller." There were fellas who went to take the policeman exam, they were too fat, they were too tall, they were too short. Then they couldn't pass the test.	22:44
Paul Ortiz	And what year did you take the—?	23:21
Joe Nathan Dickson	That was back in 1950, I guess it was in 1958. Well, especially around '57 or '58. There were a number of us who went to take that exam.	23:23
Paul Ortiz	From Miles?	23:37
Joe Nathan Dickson	From Miles. And then we sent Joe Macpherson, Jonathan Macpherson. He's a PhD now. Mack went to take that exam, and Mack took the exam. Mack passed the firemen exam, he passed the policeman exam, he passed all the exam, but they would not hire him because he was Black. Now, these are little battles, little struggles. Then comes in 19— Was it '57 or '58, I'm going to say when they outlawed. We were pushing so strong for rights for Blacks in this state, that George Wallace, I don't know if it was George Wallace, McDonald [indistinct 00:24:27] I don't know who it was.	23:38
Joe Nathan Dickson	In Tuskegee, Mr. Lightfoot was on the scene in Tuskegee. And they were gerrymandering Tuskegee. And the NAACP was in the mold of bringing lawsuits to stop the Jim Crow, they outlawed the NAACP in Alabama. And when they outlawed the NAACP in Alabama, I think it was a direct result of our effort. A big stronger effort here. And I now understand, because you had a larger concentration of Negros here in Birmingham. In comes the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights.	24:29
Joe Nathan Dickson	And the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights was the banner that we used to fight. They wanted the NAACP to give the name and addresses of all of the members of the NAACP so they could publish it in the newspapers. And our people would be intimidated. Emory editorialized against it in, we fought it in every amount possible, but yet they outlawed NAACP. Now, the other thing that we had going at during that time was Fred Shuttlesworth and Mr. Armstrong were trying to integrate these schools.	25:09
Joe Nathan Dickson	And in addition to that, Black women could not go into the dressing rooms and change clothes, or try on hats, or whatever. We wanted them to move those signs, those demeaning Black only, White only signs down. And what we did for Miles College, incidentally, and I don't know what you're going to do with this, when Jesse Walker was president of student council I was vice president of student council. When we began our protest, we were told at Miles College that we could not launch that protest for Miles College's campus.	26:02
Paul Ortiz	Who told you that?	26:55
Joe Nathan Dickson	Dr. Bell. Dr. Bell was president at that time. And let me tell you what he said. "I think whatever you do, I think this needs to be articulated to Blacks. They need to understand this very well." At the point in time he said it, I was so mad with him, incensed, Jesse and ourselves, we said that, "This man is an Uncle Tom. It's just a shame that he would do that." He said, "Young men and young women, I do not want you to lead not one demonstration from this campus." He said, "If you're going to demonstrate, you're not going to do it here. I have the responsibility of educating young Blacks from this campus." Then he outlined how much money he got from the conference, the CME. And then he talked about what his budget was. But the most important thing that Dr. Bell said in his pronouncement that we couldn't demonstrate from there was this.	26:56
Joe Nathan Dickson	He said, "Young men and young women, if you have decided that this is the course you want to take, that if you want to break down the barriers of racism and discrimination, all of those walls, then you've got to be prepared because it's going to be a long, tough fight. You also have to begin to accept the responsibility for educating your own. You have to accept the responsibility of being a man and standing up, supporting your family. You're going to have to accept the responsibility for civic duty. You're going to have to be prepared to go to the polls and vote, and do those things that are necessary as a citizen." He said, "Because you won't have the White man to lean back on to do it for you." And he said, "You've got to remember this, young men and young women, you can't fight and beg too." I'll never forget, as long as I'll be Black, I'll never forget that. You cannot fight and beg too.	28:00
Paul Ortiz	Was that a public address that he said—?	29:04
Joe Nathan Dickson	He talked to the students. He was talking to the students in the auditorium.	29:07
Paul Ortiz	In the auditorium at Miles?	29:10
Joe Nathan Dickson	Yeah. And we used to have chapel every day. You had to go in there and sing and pray. Course, they stopped that night, which I think is a mistake. But that was done in the auditorium. Now it's in my mind. You can't fight and beg too. And you have to deal with all those responsibilities.	29:11
Paul Ortiz	Mr. Dixon, I wonder if we could go back a little bit further, and you mentioned early on that you used to sell the Birmingham World.	29:31
Joe Nathan Dickson	Yes, yes.	29:40
Paul Ortiz	As a youngster. Can you tell me a little bit about that?	29:42
Joe Nathan Dickson	The newspaper was the way and means by which Blacks communicated with the world, the in-town world. I had a paper route. I worked for an older fellow who had a paper route, and I would help him in the evening. It was his route. And we threw the Birmingham News. But we also had access to the Pittsburgh Courier, the AfropAmerican, the Chicago Defender, the— one other newspapers. Now, in Birmingham we had The Weekly Review, we had The Birmingham World, we had The Birmingham Mirror. We had three or four Black newspapers in Birmingham at that time. And what we would do, the only way you could get some money was you had to find something to do. And Mr. Hood was a scoutmaster in Fairfield, and Mr. Hood was a distributor out there. So, we would get our papers from Mr. Hood and would sell them. So, we would get—	29:46
Paul Ortiz	When did you start doing this?	31:02
Joe Nathan Dickson	This was back, man, about '46 or '47. Yeah, '46 or '47. I was a little old boy. Little fellow then. I would walk from Fairfield, to Westfield, to Wylam, to Dolomite, to Edgewater, and Docena to sell the Pittsburgh Courier, and the Chicago — I mean, yes, Chicago Defender and the Birmingham World. So, the Birmingham World was a biweekly, came out twice a week. We would get the Pittsburgh Courier once a week. I mean, the Daily Defender, Chicago Defender, once a week. So, we'd get that paper probably on Friday or Saturday, and all day Friday evening. And then Saturday we go, we'd walk and sell that paper. And the people would be glad. People would be glad to get it because they would, this would be that means of knowing what was going on in the world.	31:03
Joe Nathan Dickson	They would be happy to see, to know that that was a Black with a shirt and tie on, that was doing something other than being an insurance man, a teacher, or a minister, or an undertaker. I remember when, I think, when Robert Weaver became a secretary of H. E. W., that was something. When Ralph Bunche was sent to the Middle East to deal with the situation over there, any prominent announcement that was made, Blacks were gleeful and they were glad to read about it. And you got it out of the Black press. You'd only make maybe a penny or two pennies for each one of those papers, but it was good money. If you saved it and did something with it, you'd be fine. Yeah, that was the situation I was at.	32:14
Paul Ortiz	And now, did you grow up in Fairfield?	33:10
Joe Nathan Dickson	Yeah.	33:12
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Could you tell me a little bit about your parents?	33:14
Joe Nathan Dickson	My father died in 1938. And when my father died, my mother's oldest sister was living in Birmingham. My mother was the youngest in the family. My dad had died. At that time, people were having what they called Eight Day Pneumonia. They couldn't do anything with it. So, he died. When he died, my mother was pregnant, had one— My youngest brother was born. My dad, I think my dad died in May, my brother was born in June of 1938. But there was a sister there that had some children. She died of childbirth immediately thereafter. And as a consequence, my mother being the youngest, she— and was in Montgomery, all those children— and she was nothing but a child. My aunt came to Montgomery, Alabama and brought my mother, and her children, and her sister's children all to Fairfield. And we lived there in Fairfield.	33:16
Joe Nathan Dickson	I was in about third grade, I think, when I came, we came to run up to Fairfield. And we enrolled at Robert— It was 61st Street School then. Miss Robinson was the principal. They were pretty strict folk in school at that time. And the teachers were all dedicated. They were interested in what you did. I can always remember, because they put me back a grade when we came up. The teaching, one of the things I remember most at state school was the teaching then was a little fiercer, and they incorporated a lot more of other things. They dealt with hygiene, they dealt with your health, they dealt with— it was strictly, strictly discipline, because I, and now I understand that more because of the environment from where we're coming from than most of the people coming from agrarian communities into an urban thing, where Birmingham was the center where all the work was when you left the farm.	34:27
Joe Nathan Dickson	In Fairfield system, we went from first grade to seventh grade. In the eighth grade then you went over to the high school, which was Fairfield Industrial High School, where I think this is one of the greater things that happened to me when we got to Fairfield. My seventh grade class, under Miss Moore, was a turning point in my life. There, Miss Moore took great pains with me. I was the best speller in the class, and one time I deliberately misspelled the word and our class lost against the other class.	35:41
Joe Nathan Dickson	And she didn't say anything, but she looked at me. When we got back to class, she brought me in front of the class and she whipped me. And she told me I deliberately misspelled that word, and that was dishonesty and was unfair, and it was wrong for me to do that. And that I was taking things for granted. She said, "You don't take anything for granted. If you going to be anything in life, you have to search and do what's right, and not do what's wrong."	36:27
Joe Nathan Dickson	Then when I got to Fairfield High School over there, this was one of the greatest things that had happened. E. J. Oliver, whose father was a teacher, who was a strong disciple of Booker T. Washington. Oliver believed, the same as Booker T., you have to learn to work with your hand as well as your head. We took trades over there.	36:59
Paul Ortiz	This was at Industrial High?	37:35
Joe Nathan Dickson	Industrial High School. They had tailoring, they had auto mechanics, they had upholstery, they had shoe repair. And then for the girls, they had home economics, they had cosmetology, whatever. So, when you graduated from Fairfield Industrial High School, you was ready for the world of work. You had two years of sitting down, learning how to do something with your hands. And you took the academic studies also. So, one of the things that you had to do before you left Fairfield Industrial High School, you had to read and outline Booker T. Washington's Up from Slavery. And in that book there's key things that you remember from the book.	37:36
Joe Nathan Dickson	I remember how Booker T. managed to get an education. He was working for this White woman who had him to clean up the dust. And when she came back, she took a rag and wiped across the top of the piano, and looked at the rag, and it was clean. And she took a great interest in Booker T., and made sure that he get an education, that he got an education. Then after Booker T. got his education, he came back and put something back into the community that he came from. So, I got that from E. J. Oliver, and I got strict discipline from Mr. Oliver. I got, from Mr. Oliver, the competitive spirit. What Oliver would do, if you made the honor roll, Oliver would march you across the stage and let everybody see you. And if you made it one time, you know you're definitely going to make it the next time because you want to march across that stage.	38:23
Joe Nathan Dickson	And then Oliver also started the Hall of Fame out there in the hall, of kids who had finished Fairfield Industrial High School who had gone on to great heights. And got started a snowball to rolling. Everybody wanted to achieve. He created that aura and atmosphere of competition for good, not competition for bad. And I wasn't a good student. I mean, I wasn't a disciplined student. I couldn't act right. I went to summer school every summer because he said I didn't know how to act right. He said until I learned how to act right said I would have to sit in that school in the summer and burn in that un-air-conditioned place. But I made the honor role. I was salutatorian. MacPherson was the valedictorian. But he said I didn't know how to act. But I know how to act now.	39:25
Paul Ortiz	One other question I was going to ask you, Mr. Dixon, did you have any acquaintance with your grandparents?	40:22
Joe Nathan Dickson	My grandmother.	40:28
Paul Ortiz	Your grandmother?	40:29
Joe Nathan Dickson	Yes. My grandmother was blind. I can remember my great-grandmother. My grandmother's mother. I can remember my granddaddy. My great-grandmother was an older woman who smoked a pipe, and they had the utmost respect. I mean, it was different, the way they would deal— they truly honored their mothers and father. They called my grandmother Ma, and they called my, it was my great-grandmother, they called her Ma, and they called my great-granddaddy Pa. We called my daddy's granddaddy Grandpapa. And my mama's, I mean, my daddy's sisters and brothers called him Papa. So, they had the utmost respect. When you look back on it, they acted as if they were afraid of them. They had complete control of their children.	40:30
Joe Nathan Dickson	The oldest child was always the one in charge. And then down the line. My grandmother was blind from the time I was born. And she was a smart woman. And I think the thing that really fascinated me more about my grandparents and my great-grandparents, was when something happened to you they always had a remedy to get you well. I remember when I was a little boy, I stepped on the fork. And you see that? It went all the way to the bone. What they did, they put some axle grease and some white meat on it. And I just kept running. If something would come up that you had a problem with, they had a way to fix it. My brother, the brother right next to me after my dad died, had Eight Day Pneumonia. Those older folk got tea, some cow tea, and made up plasters and stuff.	41:45
Joe Nathan Dickson	And they say, "If you break the fever on him, he'll live." If he go to the eighth day, he's going to die. And I remember when my father died, the day he died all of us was in the room that where he was. And they told them to take the children. They knew he was going to die. I didn't leave. And he told me that I have to be responsible for my sisters, for my— I had one sister. My sister, my mama, and my brother. And I wasn't the oldest, but he wasn't there. He said, "You have to be responsible." That's why when I finished law school, even though I could have had, I guess, much better opportunity someplace else. My mother was here, and my other brothers were here. So, I stayed here. I guess it was out of what he did.	42:54
Joe Nathan Dickson	And at that time, after somebody dies as I came to my grandfather, my daddy's dad, was that when they would bring the bodies out to the house and they would sit this thing up, something like a canopy behind it. And the people, the casket would be open there in the house.	43:50
Paul Ortiz	This would be in Fairfield?	44:13
Joe Nathan Dickson	This was in Montgomery, before I came here. So, my grandfather and myself stayed in the house there where my daddy was lying in his estate, and until the next day when they buried him. And I can remember that much of it. But with my grandmother, she was, being blind, she would— If you come in and you introduce yourself to her, and she shakes your hand, when you come back, and if she take your hand, say, "That's Paul," she could do that. That amazed me.	44:14
Joe Nathan Dickson	Other than that, there was no other contact. Because see, my grandmother was the youngest child. My mama is the youngest child. My daddy was the youngest child. So, my daddy had 11 sisters and brothers. My mama had six sisters and brothers. So, you can see it was a push way back that we would know, it would be in the declining years of our parents and grandparents.	44:49
Paul Ortiz	I see.	45:29
Joe Nathan Dickson	But my mother's sister was the oldest, and she was like a grandmother because she was the one that, we called her Mom-great, because she took so much of her time to help my mother raise us and keep us on the right road, and wanting to go to school, and try to do some things.	45:30
Paul Ortiz	Did your parents have the opportunity to get an education?	45:52
Joe Nathan Dickson	My mama told me that people at that point in time, where they were only worked in the fields, wanted to work in the fields. She said to me that when she was a little girl she used to go with her older sisters to work in the— She said, "We'd go to work in the White folks house. We'd go in and we'd cook, and we'd iron, and wash, and sew," and stuff like this. And people wasn't thinking about it, but the thing that you have to always remember was that I went to one of the first schools, high schools, that were built for Negroes in Montgomery on the side of town I live in. And that was Loveless High School. The other school was Booker T. Washington on the other side of town. And they had the Alabama State, it was State Normal School in Montgomery.	45:57
Joe Nathan Dickson	So, there was really nobody pushing education. And if you look at the structure here in Birmingham, the schools that the people attended here were schools owned by the US Steel, or if you didn't go to Parker High School, that was a school for the city of Birmingham in—	47:01

Paul Ortiz	Okay.	0:00
Joe Nathan Dickson	You had Dunbar in Bessemer. So there was really nobody really pushing education for Blacks but Blacks. The thing that was needed in Birmingham, Alabama during that time was a strong back and a willing mind. Daddy would say, "All you need is a strong back and a willing mind." So you took somebody to U.S. Steel out there, they weren't— They needed Blacks to do all that strong, heavy work out there. They need them to crawl around in those wet coal mines. Along with the opportunity, there has to be, in my estimation, some degree of encouragement, and some light at the end of the education tunnel, and I don't think it was there.	0:05
Joe Nathan Dickson	Now there were some Blacks who, I guess, managed to go on, and who socialized in a circle where Blacks were dealing with it, but my family, I don't think, at that, this portion of my family didn't. But my momma told me that her grandfather was a Methodist minister, so he surely would've known, but Black families became so fractured during that period of time, if you would notice, that there was a time that we were moving from the agrarian to a more urban society, and so what would probably happen was they start making a little money then they forgot about it.	0:53
Paul Ortiz	Okay. Did you have role models or perhaps heroes as a child that you— people you really looked up to?	1:35
Joe Nathan Dickson	I been a Republican and lot of times people ask me, "So how you been a Republican since '56?" First time I voted I think was in '55 or '56 when Eisenhower ran, because I was in the Army until 1955. I got out in '55, and then in September I started school. But that's a very interesting story about my role models, and how I got to go to school. I guess, the biggest role model I had really was my momma. Now that I think about it, it was my mother. I'm going to tell you why. My momma always pushed us to go to school. She said, "I don't want you to be like I am." She pushed us to go to school. The next role model I think that I had, that mold what I do now whenever, was a man named, I think, G.P. Parham. But the men who really molded my life was a man named Walter Fullwiler and another man named Sherman Reed.	1:46
Joe Nathan Dickson	They allow me to work in their shoe shop, throw papers and deliver shoes. I had to work. And they would teach me the right things. They would teach me to understand good music. They would teach me that I was to read, and read the newspaper, and keep up with what's going on. They would teach me that you have to come to work on time, and that you have to get the job done. And when I worked on some of jobs, I didn't— My momma picked the money up. I didn't get it, they gave the money to my momma. And she took that money and helped buy shoes and stuff for other kids. Now, as I grew older, and I went to the Army and came back, again, it came back to my mother. I had gotten a job at a [indistinct 00:03:41] hospital washing dishes in the kitchen up there, washing pots and pans. And I had the GI Bill.	2:50
Joe Nathan Dickson	I had 18 bonds that you save while you're in the Army. Momma had all those bonds, and I had the 200 they gave you, and I'm going to get the other 200. I was rich and didn't even know it at that point in time. So when I got out of the Army, I told Momma, I said, "You need to give me that money. I'm grown now, and I can handle it." Momma said, "No, boy, let me keep this money." And I just insisted so she gave it to me. September came and she said, "Joe, you going to school?" I said, "I don't need to go to school, momma." I said, "I got a job at [indistinct 00:04:21] hospital. I don't need to go to school." I said, "I'm working up there in the kitchen, [indistinct 00:04:25] hospital." She brought me in, and she sat me down, and she told me, she said, "Boy, you ought to go to school." Said, "Miles right over there, and you could make it over there."	3:39
Joe Nathan Dickson	I said, "No, momma, I got to do this job." So she kept availing on me, and I kept telling her the job, and then she sat me down, she told me, she said, "Boy, if somebody would've helped me pay my way to school when I was coming up, I would've gone." She said, "You ain't got much sense as I thought you had." And that was the key. But that wasn't the end of the story. I had to tell her that that money that I had, those bonds and all that, that I had spent that money. So she said, "You going out there today. You been out there to school like that, see about getting in a school." I'd been out there, and it was $72 a quarter. I did not have the $72. So I had to come and tell my mother I had messed up all that money. "Momma," I said, "I would go, but I don't have that money." So she had a little money tied up in a handkerchief.	4:43
Joe Nathan Dickson	She gave me two $50 bills, that gave me money to pay that tuition and to buy some books, and I had till the GI Bill started. And that was one of the saddest moments of my life. But she pushed me. She made me go to college. My momma made me go to college. And I looked around and I saw— And then the other guy, I guess, people asked me how did I get to be a Republican, and I told them that the man in our community, the Black man in our community was really doing something, and I didn't know he was Republican. I didn't know the difference between Republican and Democrats because Blacks weren't Democrats nowhere. Was Dr. G.P. Parham. He was a man who had graduated from Miles College. He had, I think, gone on to Meharry, and became a pharmacist. He had a drug store—	5:40
Paul Ortiz	In Birmingham.	6:39
Joe Nathan Dickson	In Fairfield. In Fairfield, he had a drug store, he had a store. He had built one building across the street. In that drug store, we could go in there and eat ice cream, and sit at the little soda fountain in there. And he was dispensing prescription. And then he had built a building across the street, two-story building, where he moved the drug store. It was a nice-size drug store. And he also, the post office was in there, and they had— You could buy gas right there at the thing. So I wanted to be like him.	6:39
Paul Ortiz	What was the name of his drugstore?	7:17
Joe Nathan Dickson	Parham's. Parham's Drugstore. P-A-R-H-A-M. P-R-A— Parham Drugstore.	7:18
Paul Ortiz	P-A-R—	7:24
Joe Nathan Dickson	P-R-H-A-M. Yes, his name was G.P. Parham. And then after I finished Miles, then I met someone who was a greater influence, that influenced me to stay in business, and that's that man right there, A.G. He was a man that didn't have a lot of education, formal education, but he had more insight to me and more foresight about educating youngsters. He's a man with no formal education that had spent many millions of dollars educating Blacks, who yet give to colleges and universities, White and Black, with the purpose of making more opportunities available for Black folk to get an education. Because he told me, he said, "Boy, education is the key. That's the key, boy." Even though my father died early on, there were people who have been there. But then there's one other man that had thanked him for me that, Emory was a man that I came to. I managed the supermarket, and—	7:25
Paul Ortiz	And when did you meet him?	8:50
Joe Nathan Dickson	Emory?	8:52
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	8:52
Joe Nathan Dickson	I met Emory probably when I was in high school back in probably 1940s or somewhere in there. Because at that time I was editor of our school newspaper. I met him then, and he— Let me tell you what Emory did for me. Emory understood the Negro. A.G. Gaston understands the Negro. Lucius Pitts understood the Negro. W.A. Bell understood the Negro. Mordecai Johnson, they understood the Negro. I wonder now whether a lot of our people who are so-called leaders understands the Negro. I had gotten fired down at Excel Stores, and Emory knew about it. I left Tuskegee, I was managing one of the district offices in Tuskegee. I had been living in New York for a minute. I worked at the H.C. Bohack stores as a management trainer, then I got sick and I had to come back home.	8:53
Joe Nathan Dickson	So when I came back, I went back to work for A.G., and then I ended up in Tuskegee because during the demonstrations, we had a problem getting folks to go to jail until we got all those kids involved. The people saying people went to jail over and over, so I was one of the guys going to jail over and over. So he said, "Piggies out there told me that you didn't need to get some more people. We still got a insurance company to the run that he understand— We up with it. He understands what we're doing, that we need to have some money so when they do integrate, then we'll have money to pay." So I kept going to jail, so the money— The last time they got me out of jail, Piggies came out there and told me that I need to report to Tuskegee because they had a district office over down there, and I was a youngster. I became manager of that district, did a good job down there.	9:54
Joe Nathan Dickson	So when they opened up the first Black supermarket, they needed somebody that had some inkling of an idea of how to run a supermarket, and I had been in New York and had gotten that training at the H.C. Bohack stores, so they convinced me to come back up. Now I had written to my immediate supervisor, Mr. Piggies, and told Mr. Piggies that I wanted to talk to Mr. Gaston about it. Piggies wrote me back and told me, "Don't worry about it, just leave. Just go head on." So one day I'm going to lunch from down at Excel, and I'm on that side of the street, Mr. Gaston comes out. I don't know, I guess he wants something, he comes out and comes down the street. So I'm looking over, I look up, he said, "Oh, you thought you weren't going to see me no more anymore. See, you left and went off, you didn't come talk to me or nothing."	10:38
Joe Nathan Dickson	I said, "Well, Mr. Gaston, I wrote a letter to you to tell you, and I called and asked, told Piggies," who was my immediate supervisor because Gaston believe in the chain of command, "He told me to forget about it." He said, "Yeah, okay. Okay." See, Gaston knew, he knew treachery, he knew team, and he knew what was going on because he established it, that's the competitive thing he did. I didn't know then. So he said, "Well, Joe, go in on down there and work." Said, "You stay honest." Said, "Don't you do nothing wrong. They run that thing with a board of directors, do not get involved in any of that. You are the manager of the store. That's what you do."	11:22
Paul Ortiz	At which store?	12:13
Joe Nathan Dickson	Excel Superstores. There was a Black supermarket where Black people had pooled a lot of money and thought that they probably want to go into an entrepreneurial stage. It was headed up by Reverend Joel West Marshall, he was the chairman of that board. But I was recruited mainly because of my affiliation with Miles College, and the fact that I had been involved. So Gaston told me this, and I never forget it, he said, "Go in on down there." He said, "Black folk, we need this. On every front, we need to be in the business world. That should have ought to be to feed ourselves." He said, "But, boy, I'm going to tell you something. You stay honest. You don't do anything." He said, "Because they going to fire you."	12:14
Joe Nathan Dickson	He said, "When they fire you, you come on back up here, and I'm going to find something for you to do." They fired me. Emory Jackson knew they had fired me, he sent for me. He said, "What they going to do?" Emory said, "What they going to do? They can't find nothing wrong with you. They going to say you miss supplies, money." He said, "But I know you though." Said, "I know them. I know Marsh." Marshall. They didn't think too well of Marsh. And I don't think that Marshall was so dishonest, but Marshall wanted Blacks to succeed so bad that he didn't know that babies crawl before they walk, that you pull up on a chair before after you do that. He didn't know that. In his zeal, he would do things, he would try to multiply too fast, so he fired me.	13:01
Joe Nathan Dickson	Jackson called me and he said— You know what he told me? He sat me down. He was up on the other side. That office was everything. You talking about the giant bookshelf in there. Emory had stuff this high, papers every — all over the wall. He had all of that that you had to deal with. He said, "Sit down." He sat there and he wrote a story. Oh, man. And he put it on the front page of the paper. He called Ruth Jackson who was Head of the Ruth Poro School of Beauty. She was teaching kids how to be cosmetologist. And then there was a franchise called the Poro System, and she had the franchise. He said, "I want you to hire Joe, and I want you to make him your program director for your Southern Beauty Congress."	13:51
Joe Nathan Dickson	She said, "Well, what is he going to do?" He said, "Well, let him sell aventurine." What he did, in order to keep me from going into the doldrums, and probably loathing over the fact that somebody might have thought I had stole something, he kept me before the limelight. Whatever they might have said, that I was dishonest, whatever, that I was again entrusted to go out and collect money from Negros, and stay out front. That was one of the good turning points. Because I remember I went in the shoe shop, Benny said, "Boy, you sitting with your head down." Said, "What's the matter with you?" I said, "Man, they just fired me down there at Excel." I said, "They said I took some money. I have never took—" That hurt me, really.	14:44
Paul Ortiz	What year is it then?	15:31
Joe Nathan Dickson	I said, "I never took a dime." What year that was?	15:32
Paul Ortiz	Yeah.	15:34
Joe Nathan Dickson	They started that store, this the deal, the idea and everything kind of started about '65.	15:35
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	15:40
Joe Nathan Dickson	And then I think in 1967 or '66, that's when they hired me.	15:42
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	15:51
Joe Nathan Dickson	Benny did, God rest his soul, he said, "Look, boy." Said, "If you hadn't told me they had fired you, I wouldn't have known." He said, "You got your suit on, your tie on. You got—" Say, "You keep a clean suit. Keep your tie clean. Keep your shoes shine, and keep going." He said, "Don't nobody know in your pocket what you got." He said, "You go on and find another job." He said, "That's what they always say if they can't hound you." I mean, these are guys that came along.	15:51
Paul Ortiz	All right.	16:22
Joe Nathan Dickson	And Emory, my first encounter was at 19— real sit-down, other than the newspaper at the school, to really understand where he was coming from. I asked him one time, I never forget. I asked him, I said, "Mr. Jackson." I said, "These radio stations." I said, "You have your disk jockeys, all of them just hollering and screaming and going on, and they call this one by their name, and call that by their name." I said, "Why they do that?" He says, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute." He said, "That's a marketing ploy that you make somebody, whatever, they a dicky-do or whatever." Said, "Because when you fire him, you can put another dicky-do, and the show goes on."	16:24
Joe Nathan Dickson	Emory was, in his— Do you know? This guy, if you saw him on the street, you wouldn't think nothing. His hat or cap would be backwards, his tie would be full of grease, and his shoes would be dirt over. He had on some suspenders, his shirt would be all wrinkle all up like this, and you just couldn't believe it. You wouldn't believe it. I mean, on Sunday he'd get ready and go to church. Strong religious man, but you wouldn't believe it. And to sit and talk to him, you could call off such and such and somebody, he would analyze it to a T to you. But everybody respected him. Everybody respected him for what he did. We got this newspaper. We stay with this newspaper. I tell people that we need your support in this newspaper to keep it going because Emory put a lot into this, a lot of his life into it. And Blacks don't need to always have to start over, there should be some perpetuation.	17:18
Joe Nathan Dickson	In addition to propagation, there must be some perpetuation. I tell him, I said, "We stay here." I said, "I'm not interested in making money because I probably could be in New York somewhere or in Montgomery, probably over in investment doing something else, but this is needed. This voice of the newspaper of somebody articulating the right thing is needed." We don't allow this newspaper to get tied up in politics. I don't know if you's gone through any of our editions of the paper, but what we try to do, we try to look at— Even though we supposed to be a community newspaper, we follow somewhat what Emory did, giving our readership a variety of things that happen throughout the world that they need to know about, and hopefully they want to get in, and make some degree of change with.	18:27
Joe Nathan Dickson	We don't try to sensationalize, we don't get into that. I think one of the most perfect papers in the country is the New York Times, and the way they deal with, they were, to me, the last two or three— they were awful a bit, but now, to me, they have seemed to be coming back to what they need to be. We want to just report it, put it out there. And that's things that we feel strong about, and when we feel strong about it, we write about it. If I feel strong about it, I'll write about it, and call it from the desk to the publishing, put it on the front page. Right now, I am totally disgusted with the University of Alabama at Birmingham and their hiring practices. They got 1100 faculty members and only 52 Black in this city. And I've been holding off.	19:30
Joe Nathan Dickson	I want to talk because I don't want to do anything that doesn't make sense. To me, that is unacceptable. Said a lot of people, "Well, who you?" Well, we feel that the Birmingham World is the newspaper in the State of Alabama that ought to be articulating the true feeling and the true role of Blacks in this state because it is the oldest Black newspaper in the State of Alabama, and because they have been out there, we have been out there on the firing line, taking the heat. They said, "Well, you begin to look like Emory Jackson. Now you begin to act like him and look like him." I said, "No, Emory laughing at y'all." But these are things that I learned from him, but from this newspaper. He was a remarkable man. I wish you could have met him.	20:28
Paul Ortiz	Yeah, I wish, too. Just a couple more questions, Mr. Dixon. Did you at one point work for the Birmingham Times or—	21:33
Joe Nathan Dickson	Yeah.	21:46
Paul Ortiz	Okay.	21:46
Joe Nathan Dickson	When they started the Birmingham Times, Jesse came to— It was Jesse Lewis, Clinton Moon. Clinton's here with me now. He been up in New York. So, well, Clinton's here with me now. Clinton Moon, Jesse, and me. I think I still got a little stock in that newspaper. I was to be the circulation manager and the outside advertising salesperson. That is to get the paper distributed and to get some advertising in the newspaper. I did that for about a year, and then I got a job with the Urban League. That was before the Urban League even came to town. They had a project known as Project Assist, and they needed somebody with some, who knew how to get around. What the Urban League wanted to do out of— It was out of Atlanta.	21:47
Joe Nathan Dickson	There were a lot of Blacks who they felt were locked into jobs, who had finished college, who had gone to work for the post office, and who were working as janitors, and in these other areas, and the League felt, the Urban League felt that one of the reasons that Blacks had moved up, since you say you ready to integrate and move Black folk, is the fact that— Cut it off. [INTERRUPTION 00:23:12] But what they felt was that since you— If we went to people like First National Bank, the Social Security Administration, the post offices, whatever, and you are promoting Blacks through a test system, then that we could train Blacks to pass tests. And because we felt that the only reason people don't pass tests is they don't have the information.	22:49
Joe Nathan Dickson	And I left the Times to go to do that project. And then the good part of that is, we worked so well here that we finally got the Urban League in here. And then I worked with a project with NAACP, the Minority Contractors program, and that did so well that we took it kind of statewide. But this newspaper has really done its job. It lost a little momentum when Emory died. When Emory died, think he died in '74 somewhere, and then— You see, lot of people don't understand, see, Emory didn't agree a whole lot with a lot of things that Martin did. He wanted Martin to do a lot more. He felt that Martin King was a little too trusting. Fred did also. They felt that Martin was just a little too trusting, that he needed to—	23:43
Joe Nathan Dickson	They said, "Well, you don't live here. You don't know these White folk. You go to do this because what they did—." We had the Selective Buying Campaign where we didn't put a picket on the street, we didn't do nothing. We went through the churches, and we got the Blacks to withdraw their trade from downtown. And when Martin came in, and they told us that they were going to do this, they going to do that, they took the signs down, but as soon as the rioting quiet down, they put them back. Emory was insightful. But the Times is a good paper, and we like to think that they've got a good readership. We just don't do what other newspapers do. We do what Emory Jackson did. And I don't know how we can keep it going, but we going to keep trying.	24:50

Item Info

Title:

Joe Dickson interview recording, 1994 July 01

Date:

July 1, 1994

Creator:

Dickson, Joe Nathan

Contributor:

Ortiz, Paul

Description:

Name: Joe Nathan Dickson; Date of birth: 1933-03-05; Place of birth: Montgomery, AL; Occupation(s): journalist; realtor; businessman; Residence: Birmingham, AL
Informant ID: 719; Interviewed by: Paul Ortiz.

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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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Joe Dickson interview recording, 1994 July 01

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1. Joe Dickson administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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