John Fisher interview recording, 1994 June 15

Download
- Rights
- Limited Re-Use
  CC BY-NC 4.0
  More Rights Info
- Files (2)
- MP3 Part 1
- MP3 Part 2
- Please be patient with media downloads. They are often large files.
Share

Embed Code
<iframe src='https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4d79hk6b?embed=true' height='125px' width='100%' frameborder='0' marginwidth='0' marginheight='0' scrolling='no' loading='lazy' allowfullscreen></iframe>
Permalink

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4d79hk6b
Skip to Item Info

Loading the media player...

Files for this Item

Transcript

Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.

John Fisher	How's this going to work?	0:02
Tywanna Whorley	It's going to work fine.	0:02
John Fisher	You think so?	0:02
Tywanna Whorley	Yes. Okay. First question, what's your name?	0:12
John Fisher	My name? John Fisher.	0:14
Tywanna Whorley	When were you born?	0:16
John Fisher	I was born September 19th, 1924.	0:19
Tywanna Whorley	Here in Birmingham?	0:25
John Fisher	Here in Birmingham, Alabama.	0:27
Tywanna Whorley	You remember where you were born? If it was a hospital?	0:31
John Fisher	I was born in old, so-called Hillman Hospital.	0:32
Tywanna Whorley	Hillman?	0:32
John Fisher	Hillman, yes. It was the Hillman Hospital then, here in Birmingham. I imagine it was a public hospital. I don't know.	0:39
Tywanna Whorley	Oh. Predominantly Black or—	0:50
John Fisher	No, no, no, no. It wasn't predominantly Black. It was the only—it was the only—Charity—what you call it, a charity hospital then?	0:51
Tywanna Whorley	A state hospital? You meant university?	0:51
John Fisher	Yeah, it's university now. Yeah.	0:58
Tywanna Whorley	Can you tell me a little bit about your parents?	1:02
John Fisher	My parents? Well my father, Sam Fisher, and my mother, Pearl G. Fisher. Now, I had grandparents on my father's side. I had my grandfather. I can remember distinctly, they called him Jim, so Jim Fisher, I'll say that, and my grandmother, her name was Clara. Now, on my mother's side, I don't think I had living grandparents. I didn't have—later on, I found out from her that I didn't have living grandparents at the time.	1:05
Tywanna Whorley	Can you talk about growing up here in Birmingham?	1:50
John Fisher	Now, to what extent? I really don't know what you mean when you say "Talk about growing up." I grew up, I imagine, just like any other kid would grow up. Is that right?	1:58
Tywanna Whorley	Yeah, that's right.	2:07
John Fisher	Yeah.	2:09
Tywanna Whorley	With your parents. Where did you live there then?	2:09
John Fisher	Well, now, we are actually in—right now, sitting in this office here, I'm two blocks away from where I was living when I was born. Right across the street here. This is twentieth Street and Avenue S.	2:12
Tywanna Whorley	Okay.	2:27
John Fisher	Yeah.	2:27
Tywanna Whorley	It was a predominantly Black area?	2:28
John Fisher	Predominantly Black area. The only Whites that we had in this particular area were the Italian store owners. They owned these stores and things in here, but so far as Blacks and Whites, there was no—we were surrounded by White people right here on the foot of Bush Hill and Pike Road was White, and back here close to Ensley High School, that was all White, see, because we wasn't allowed to go to that school in a way. See, that was the Ensley High School. We had a school in the area here, Councill School back here. This was a Black school.	2:35
Tywanna Whorley	What you say, cancel?	3:32
John Fisher	Council, C-O-U-N-C-I-L-L. Councill School. That's where I started school back in back 1930.	3:34
Tywanna Whorley	Was it elementary school?	3:42
John Fisher	Elementary school, yeah. That was an elementary school. Yeah. Now, when we finished that elementary school, we had to go—there was only one high school in this town then, and that was—it's called Parker now. At the particular time when I started over there, it was Industrial High School. I started high school over there in 1938.	3:43
Tywanna Whorley	How did your parents move around, in terms of transportation?	4:05
John Fisher	Well, during those years, we was using public transportation, these so-called trolley cars, street cars and whatnot. That's the way we got around here. Back during those years, no cars or nothing. There was a car every now and then, but no one in my family had a car or automobile. Be fair about it, right here in this area, we didn't have too much in there in the line of street lights. Be fair about it.	4:13
John Fisher	You see, the street lights at that particular time, when night come, it would be completely dark here. You would find a light hanging in a block every now and then, hanging off a so-called utility pole. That was the only light that you actually had at that particular time, I mean street lights, until you went up into the town part here. When you went up there, then it was lit up because we had stores, regular dry goods stores and whatnot, as you might call it.	4:47
Tywanna Whorley	What'd your father do for a living?	5:30
John Fisher	Well, my mother was a homemaker. My father, he was a—now, how would you—he was a railroad man.	5:32
Tywanna Whorley	What'd he do in terms of a railroad man?	5:42
John Fisher	Well, he was a brakeman, switchman, as you might call it, during those—well, we have those type of occupations today, fellas out there on the engine, on these trains throwing switches and cutting cars and whatnot, putting them in their different yards and things.	5:48
Tywanna Whorley	Do you remember when you were born, was he doing that or was that after you were born?	6:14
John Fisher	No, my father migrated here from down Montgomery area, he tell me, but he brought my mother here. They married, they came here, they tell me, back in '23. I was born the next year. Well, he was doing this type of work then. He said he was determined not to do any farming. You know what I'm saying? He left the farm, come to the city. Birmingham was the city as you called it then. He left. He coming north. You had to go north. All right, and so he did that type of work all of my life. All of his life rather, until he passed.	6:14
Tywanna Whorley	You said that she was a homemaker?	7:06
John Fisher	Well, what I mean, took care of the house, that's all. She didn't do any work.	7:11
Tywanna Whorley	Were you the only child?	7:15
John Fisher	Oh, no, no, no. I had six brothers. There was seven of us in all.	7:16
Tywanna Whorley	You were the baby?	7:23
John Fisher	I was the oldest.	7:25
Tywanna Whorley	Oldest?	7:25
John Fisher	Yeah. I was number one. Yeah. My mother had—she had seven boys, no girls.	7:26
Tywanna Whorley	What were the names of the boys?	7:33
John Fisher	The names of the boys—well, my name—at that particular time I started school, I started school as James. That's the way I was, when I first started out, I started out as James, but now it got messed up. When I came out of school and went to get a birth certificate for myself, I found out that the doctor who attended my mother when I was born, he messed up the name some type of way at the health department. When I found what I was looking for, he didn't have it in James. He had recorded it in as J-N-O, the same mother and father, you understand?	7:38
John Fisher	Then he had put my name in as J-N-O period, and I didn't know what it was. I asked in the Department of Health over there. They said, "Well, no, John or Jonathan or somebody," and so, "What you want?" "Well, I'll tell you"—only thing I could think of then was John. I said, "Well, we'll just make John." You understand? They changed it right there, see? It's been changed ever since. Well then—now what was the question you asked me? Let's go back to it again.	8:21
Tywanna Whorley	About names of your brothers.	8:53
John Fisher	Oh, my brothers. Okay. That was John, Samuel, LC, Lucius, Arthur Lee, Robert Lee, TL, Theodus, and Alfred Charles. Those are my brothers.	8:54
Tywanna Whorley	Well, can you go—I guess, as much as you can remember about growing up with seven brothers?	9:21
John Fisher	Well, being the oldest, I had to act as—I tell you what. Let me say, coming up when I was coming up—I don't know what about that. What about that living condition? That living condition was kind of rough, compared to what it's supposed to be, what it should have been, you understand? Well, now we didn't know. We thought we was doing all right. Had enough. My father was working every day, bringing in, and we was eating two and three—well, mama was cooking, see? She make sure that we—she cooked that food. She was a country girl that came in here from Montgomery, and she believed in preparing that food for us, see? Well, we lived in a little house there not too far from here. That house is still there, because it belonged to my father and my mother.	9:33
Tywanna Whorley	Were you born in that house?	10:27
John Fisher	No, they didn't buy it that particular year, but they did buy the house, see? Later year, they bought that house. We weren't living at this particular area, in this particular house at the time when we were youngsters. From '24 when I was born, it took us about five years to get to that house.	10:30
Tywanna Whorley	Where were you before that?	10:53
John Fisher	Well, we were here, and then we were about four blocks away at another place. Then I remember one time we spent about three months on—I was a little youngster. I can very remember this, because we were out in—we lived in Fairfield and I could come out where we were living out there around fiftieth. I believe I think they told me that was fifty-fifth or fifty-fourth or something, and I could come out in the yard and could look over and see that old—used to be a TCNI hospital over—it's Lloyd Nolan now, see? We could see that hospital from where we were living. Now, we didn't live out that there long. We came back here to Ensley, and by the time I started school, we were in the home house. That's what they called it now, see.	10:53
John Fisher	My father went right on and he attempted to get that house after this so-called Depression. You remember that? They were talking about the Depression? But I can remember the Depression time when people would have to go—we would have to go up to this—what do you call it? The Red Cross or the—used to haul groceries. We used to go up there with a little wagon. They would be giving away—well, nobody was working then.	11:41
John Fisher	I remember my dad, he—his job was down, and the railroad was still working. He was offered a job to go to Louisville, but he didn't want to take his family and take a chance on going to Louisville. Attempt to regroup. You understand? He said that wouldn't work for him, see? So he toughed it out here, and he didn't go. They tried to get him to go to that L&N thing now. L&N, what was that, Louisville and Nashville Railroad? They wanted him in there, but we stayed here in Birmingham.	12:11
John Fisher	I can remember some hard times there when you couldn't keep heating these buildings, and we didn't have this so-called central heat and whatnot that we have now. We didn't have it. Now, it was probably out there somewhere for another group of people, but for us, understand, we didn't have it. We had to go out on the railroads and places like that not too far from here and pick up coke and stuff like that to come back home maybe.	13:01
John Fisher	Now, that was during that Depression time. I was a little boy, eight or nine years old. I can remember that real well because we would go to Sunday school on a Sunday morning. Well, we would go to Sunday school and when we'd come from church, we'd have to pull off that pair—we had had a little pair of Sunday shoes, as they called it. You understand? We had to pull that off, see, and put on your overalls and things like that and play, because we weren't going to do anything but play anyway, see? We had what you call Sunday clothes. Yeah? You've heard those terms? Yeah, that's what we had. I remember that.	13:39
John Fisher	Well, you have to get in behind me now because I think I've about run down on this thing, up until I went to—when I was a youngster, I can remember we all played in the backyard. We used to get up in the morning, we'd have to sweep that yard, clean it, and we'd play in that yard all day long, shooting marbles and doing everything. See? Me and all my friends, my neighborhood friends. I need my buddy, he old Clyde, old Clyde would do some talking. I wish I had thought of that, I'd have brought him in here this morning with me, and he could tell you a few things, because see, these fellas sit down and they can remember that stuff. When they bring it up I go, "Oh yeah, I do remember that. Yeah."	14:28
Tywanna Whorley	How were you parents able to keep—you were saying there were some hard times in the thirties. Do you remember any others? In terms of how your parents had to keep the family together as compared to some of the neighbors, what they were going through.	15:11
John Fisher	Everybody was going through the same thing. Everybody was going through the same thing. If we had a piece of bread here, well, this fella next door didn't have it, we'd give him a piece of our bread. You understand? That's the way that thing worked. See? Children and things, I can remember children coming to play with us, being in the backyard there playing, and when my mother cooked, she'd feed all those children. See? Everybody gets fed there. I can remember young men around here, some of those fellas are dead now. They would just stay around my house because by being seven—well, at that particular time it was five of us.	15:26
John Fisher	Five of us, and all the youngsters would just crowded around us, and those dudes, man, they'd stay there day and when night come, they'd sit around. You didn't have to worry about locking no doors or nobody taking anything from you, you understand? We'd lay around and sleep and laying on the floor, it didn't mean nothing. We made it just like that, see? We got about it, and sometimes we'd wake up the next morning, find some of those dudes still sitting there. Some of them still there. "You didn't go home?" "My mama didn't call me," you understand? He stayed there. We didn't care.	16:10
John Fisher	See, now, back during those times, it was kind of rough. The sanitary condition wasn't good, see? I can also remember that these fellas—at that particular time, we didn't even have water toilets, as you might call them. In some areas right here in this section of town, we had that so-called dry toilet thing, see? Well, a dry toilet was a type of toilet where you just had a little so-called outhouse sitting there. You understand? You would go in there and use that thing, and some time during the week, a man would come down through the alleys, because the thing was sitting out on the alleys, see? A man would come down through the alley and he'd have a horse or something pulling that big little tank he had, and then have it sent home behind you. Make you sick.	16:48
John Fisher	Now, you know what I believe? That was one of the reasons why the life expectancy for us Black dudes wasn't too good, see? Because if you get to be thirty-five, forty years old, you's old (Laughs). Yeah, so we had those conditions. When they put city sewers and whatnot in, I remember when they put those in. They put those in in our area, that was in 19—I tell you what year it was, 1939. See? Because I had gone to high school, and they started putting that sewer line in back there so that we could get away from that condition.	17:55
John Fisher	Our house caught afire one night. Never will forget that either. Our house caught afire, and the fire department couldn't get down to the house to put it out because the roads was all opened up. They were putting sewer line there. See? When they did get to that house, that house about—the same house about burnt down, see?	18:51
Tywanna Whorley	You know how it got started?	19:14
John Fisher	Never knew, never knew. My father worked night all the time, and he would go to work at eleven o'clock at night, around ten o'clock at night, and he didn't come back to the next morning at six, seven o'clock. We were there in the bed asleep that night, and about—oh, I guess about one thirty, two o'clock, my little baby brothers—I had a baby brother, one who died, Theodus. He woke my mother up because he was crying and hollering on.	19:16
John Fisher	She was thought maybe that he was having problems, and when that boy started crying, that whole house was full of smoke. See? We were laying there asleep, everybody been there asleep. That boy cried and my mother woke up. When she woke up, she could smell that smoke and she said she could almost see it. See? She started hollering, but when she started hollering, I immediately heard that. I jumped up. See, I was in bed myself. I jumped up and that whole fire was up here and smoke, and we were in the bed down here. I had to break a window out to get out of that house. See?	19:56
John Fisher	We had been locked up. We was locked up in there, and when we did get out, I remember some old fella was standing up out there, just standing there looking at it. He wasn't trying to look like he was trying to wake nobody up either. I found— we had to come out of a window. We couldn't open the door to come out. I knocked the window out and I—during that year, I was wearing—I was the only one in high school. We were wearing uniforms to school. We wore uniforms to—	20:39
Tywanna Whorley	Parker?	21:09
John Fisher	Parker and Industrial, yeah. After we got outside, I didn't have one pair of pants, that was just the damn uniform (laughs) and one pair of shoes. I looked at that, I thought, "My shoes are still in there, man." I broke back in that house, get my shoes, and I had to crawl out and I come out on my stomach. I got my shoes though, but that's all I had.	21:10
Tywanna Whorley	Where did your family stay?	21:38
John Fisher	Where did we live?	21:38
Tywanna Whorley	Where did your family live after the fire?	21:38
John Fisher	I tell you what, it was a room left there that didn't burn up. (laughs) We didn't lived there while they built it, you understand, while they fixed it back. They didn't do no big thing. They just do a lot of patching until they got it fixed up, and we never left there. See? Yeah.	21:42
Tywanna Whorley	Who was doing the building?	21:45
John Fisher	Well, just a handyman. I reckon you didn't have no—ain't get ahold of no contractor, we didn't—dude come along, said he could build it, let him go to work. See? Trying to get it back up. Trying to get it back up, that's the way it was. Now, that was my life up until '42.	21:46
Tywanna Whorley	You said that you wore uniforms for Parker?	22:37
John Fisher	Yeah.	22:38
Tywanna Whorley	Parker, was it a Catholic school?	22:43
John Fisher	No, no, it wasn't a Catholic school. That was the attire then back in—up until—they really just changed that dress code. I imagine that changed after World War II, but now before then, prior to then, everybody wore uniforms. See?	22:43
Tywanna Whorley	Male and female?	23:04
John Fisher	Male and female. Yeah.	23:05
Tywanna Whorley	How would you describe the uniforms?	23:06
John Fisher	Well, the boys would wear olive drab, as you might call it. Olive drab trousers, kind of brownish-looking trousers, and the girls would wear blue—I believe it was blue skirt or white dress or something like that. That's what people were wearing then. That's been so long, actually, them colors and things kind of get me messed up, but I do know we were wearing uniform. See?	23:09
John Fisher	We wore uniforms because that being—at that particular time, these high schools like—Irma. I believe that was another school, but I don't know what year, it was in—now, the only other high school that we had was in the county. This was a city school that I'm talking about now, Parker was. Now, you had your county schools. I think Fairfield was considered as a county school. See? They had a high school out there.	23:38
John Fisher	But here in the city, every child from all over this city, Black, had to come to one location to high school. See? The method, the transportation then was by trolley cars. Those trolley cars, they ran all over this city, everywhere. All from Homewood to Bessamer to out here in this section, east, west, north and south. Understand the trolley cars, everybody would come right there to Eighth Avenue, Third, Fourth Street. Third and Seventh, Fourth Street, and you would have, I imagine—what, about five, six thousand children, see? That school was over there. The graduating class being about five hundred. Wasn't nothing but five hundred students. Yeah.	24:14
Tywanna Whorley	How much was the trolley then?	25:18
John Fisher	At that particular time to ride the trolley? Well, I can remember them at seven cent. Then it went to a dime, but when I was going to school, they would give the school children a book of—you had an authorization to get you a book of tickets from the transit company, and those tickets would give you twenty rides. Was supposed to last you a month, see? You could get that book of tickets for a dollar and a quarter. See, that run about two and a half cents or something like that for a fare.	25:19
John Fisher	That was the most—and a whole lot of time children didn't have that dollar and a quarter to buy those tickets with. Then you would see a lot of children in the streets walking to go to school, go to high school. They'd leave home in the morning, five or six o'clock. A whole lot of them from way out in the outlying areas, they're trying to get in here, see, to go to school. They'd be night getting back home in the evening because they had to walk. Nobody—	26:10
Tywanna Whorley	What about you? [indistinct 00:26:41]?	26:41
John Fisher	Well, from there, to a bicycle, I had me a bicycle. People bought me a bicycle. See? It's about two miles across here to Parker to Industrial, and I had a bicycle. See? Then a whole lot of times I wanted to walk, because everybody else walked, walked with them. We had a good time walking. Yeah. That's right.	26:41
Tywanna Whorley	When you rode the trolleys, I assume they were segregated.	27:04
John Fisher	Yes. They was. They was segregated at that particular time. You had the White would get on. The school children, they put on a special car for school children.	27:10
Tywanna Whorley	Black school children?	27:24
John Fisher	Well, Blacks, yeah. Well, I really can't speak too much for Whites because there was no Whites out here. This was all Blacks. You understand? We had what you call a special. A car would be out here every morning, two or three cars, trolley cars. They're specials. They don't ride nothing but school children, and they just filled it up with school children going to school, see? Those that had tickets, the fares, to pay for, to ride it. In the evening, those same cars would be sitting out there waiting on you to get out of school. See? When you get out of school, you load up on your car. When your car gets full, that fella would take off with that car. Then another going to come up. He load that, he take off with that car going this east, west, north and south all over the city, see?	27:26
John Fisher	That was—now, the general public, that was segregated conditions there, because they're—I've known the time you had all—there were no Black operators. You know what I'm talking about? They were all White, and I have known the time when the White people that get on that car, they would be in the front, and if you had a White motorman sitting up there driving, you was supposed to get on the front and pay him and go to the back, but he would open the door and collect your money and tell you to go back to the back there, get in the back door (laughs).	28:19
John Fisher	Am I telling the truth? Yeah, well I'm telling you, that's right. I know that to be a fact. See? Sometime he'll drive off and leave you. You'll pay him, he drive on off and leave you. He ain't going to give you time to get on. See? I've known that to happen.	29:11
Tywanna Whorley	When did you first become aware of—that there was a difference, or that there was something in terms of segregation?	29:24
John Fisher	Well, yeah, well now—I've probably been aware of it—I have been aware of it all my life, but it really didn't affect me because I didn't get out there too much dealing with it. I'd been aware that there were certain things, that we had limitations. I have probably been aware of that all my life. See?	29:24
Tywanna Whorley	Did your parents ever talk to you about it?	30:07
John Fisher	Well, yeah, in a way. I don't know. Maybe—my parents—	30:10
John Fisher	I had an incident once. I got to get this over to you, let you know, because it's really—my people, they didn't just sit down and talk to me until in later years when they found out that I didn't like a whole lot of stuff that was going on. I wasn't going to take a whole lot of it. You understand? Then they had to tell me that I had to be aware of what I do. You understand?	30:19
John Fisher	Okay? Because you see, I thought, really and truly as a youngster coming up, I didn't pay too much attention to the White boy, and the White and the Black. I just knew that I didn't play with him. See? I didn't know why, and didn't make too much difference. See?	30:53
John Fisher	Later on my, I found out that these people thought they were—well, they acted in a superior way. They thought you had to be submissive to them or something like that, see? I found out as I've gotten a little older, coming into adolescence, a youngster growing up, that when we go out, all of a sudden groups of people that you just didn't be with. You didn't be with. It wasn't advisable for you to try to associate with them because you going to get in trouble, see?	31:24
John Fisher	We would try to go to the movie, but when we got to the movie, the White people would go downstairs, sit in there down in the audience, and we had a little space up in a little balcony up there. We had to go around the side, take steps and go up here. You understand, and look down at the movie. Well, that's the way it was. I thought maybe that's the way it's supposed to be. See? I ain't give it a thought. I didn't thought about it. I just said I won't go to the movie. That's what—forget about it. We had—then when I got bigger, we would go downtown and we had a movie down there. You can go in the bottom or top, see?	32:05
Tywanna Whorley	What was the name of the theater?	32:49
John Fisher	Famous Theater. The old, the Famous Theater, and then they had another one right across the street was called Frolic Theater. See?	32:51
Tywanna Whorley	Were they all on Fourth Avenue?	33:02
John Fisher	All on Fourth Avenue, but now they had another one right around the corner there on Third Avenue across from the Alabama was the Lyric Theatre, but you had to go upstairs in there because White people going downstairs. Then in later years, of course I had quit going to movies after I had an experience when I came out of service, and I just straight out quit going to movies. See? Because until I got to be my own man, and of course I had a family then, and I would take my children and we would go to the so-called drive-in that we had. I put them all in the car and we'd go to drive-in, see?	33:04
Tywanna Whorley	Where was the drive-in?	33:53
John Fisher	Well, we had two or three that—it wasn't the best of drive-ins, but we made do with it, you see? I can remember a couple of them we had on this section of town. We had one out here close around this Grand Terrace. It was the Grand Terrace Ballroom they had out there, and he had a drive-in theater there, and they had another one right here in Brighton or in Bessamer or someplace down there. I don't know the name of it, but those two. I had a family then, and had access to an automobile. Things had gotten a little better so far as transportation was concerned. Of course, the trolley cars were just about gone, see?	33:54
Tywanna Whorley	Can you tell me—you mentioned that you were in the service. When did you go into the service?	34:46
John Fisher	I went into service in '43.	34:49
Tywanna Whorley	Which arm?	34:51
John Fisher	The army. Went into the army, and I stayed in the army—at least I was there until '46.	34:56
Tywanna Whorley	Were you drafted or —	35:03
John Fisher	I was drafted. I was drafted back in '43, in May, I believe it was. Yeah. When they—I believe V—what you call it? Oh, what you call that day—	35:06
Tywanna Whorley	V-Day?	35:22
John Fisher	Not V-Day, but—	35:24
Tywanna Whorley	D-Day?	35:25
John Fisher	D-Day. D-Day, yeah, '44. D-Day '44. I think I was — I was speaking about that the other day to some people. I said, if I can remember correctly, I was in the Pacific Ocean on the ship on my way to the South Pacific, see? I was down there when they dropped that atomic bomb in '45. See, I was sitting in the South China Sea getting ready for the invasion of Tokyo, see? We were sitting out in there, out in the South China Sea, and they dropped that atomic bomb, and after they dropped it, then they turned around and rerouted us so it brought us back off there out of the South China Sea and sent us back into Manila.	35:27
John Fisher	That was our base there at Clarks Air Force Base. Then I was discharged from there. I left there—I believe it was December eighth, 1945. We made stateside on the twenty-fourth of December, but they just stopped us there in San Francisco. We didn't get a chance to see our people until January, the next month, because that's when—it was so crowded there in San Francisco back in '45, because all the soldiers was coming back, coming from everywhere, and they were trying to get them home, you know? Servicemen, rather, not just soldiers.	36:20
Tywanna Whorley	When you first joined, where were you stationed?	37:03
John Fisher	I was stationed—I went in and they accept—I went down to Fort Benning, and from Fort Benning after I was checked in there, they sent me over to Camp Rucker here down around Dothan, Alabama someplace, but I left there and I went out to North Carolina. That's where I taken my basic.	37:06
Tywanna Whorley	Your training?	37:30
John Fisher	My training, yeah, there down around Monroe, North Carolina, close to Charlotte, see? Then I left there after we'd taken our training there. Then we had orders to go to Camp Shanks in New York, but they changed our orders and told us to report to Stoneman in California. They said they pulled the debarcation, as they called that. Get you out of the United States, [indistinct 00:38:22] somewhere. Wanted to fight the war, in the war, they needed us. Yeah, we had to go, so we went on to the—went to the South Pacific, and I stayed in the South Pacific until that war was over with. See?	37:32
John Fisher	I was on several islands down there. I started out in New Guinea, and we went up through—[indistinct 00:38:48] or something or other like that, I don't know, but—and then we went into the Philippine Islands. I remember going into Mindoro, Mindanao, and Luzon, see? Up there close around Bataan where they had that death march, actually. Well, I happened to witness a whole lot of that stuff.	38:38
John Fisher	I came back home. Well, my father, he had passed. He had been dead about a year when I come back home. A whole lot of it I didn't even know, because during that time they would censor your mail, see? If it was anything in there that would worry you, then they would cut it out of your mail.	39:18
Tywanna Whorley	What kinds of mail?	39:44
John Fisher	Well, they would open all mail. See, when we were in service there during those years, they would open your mail and read it and then they wouldn't let no information get to you that would disturb you. My mother told me—I never will forget it. I came home and when I walked in, I spoke to my mother. I grabbed her and hugged her. She said, "Daddy left us." Well, it kind of worried me. I said, "What you mean, he running away?" (laughs) You understand what I'm talking about? I didn't know he had passed. She said, "No," said, "He died." I go—but see, I just didn't think nothing like that would ever happen. You know what I mean?	39:47
John Fisher	Then she told me, she said, what happened when my father passed, she said the Red Cross or something like that, the War Department, somebody come to her and told her that—well, said, "Your husband is dead." Said, "We know your son is alive now, but if we attempt to bring your son home, then we might bring your dead son." See? Now that's way it went, see? That's what she told me, see? I took it for face value. Yeah, I understood what was going on at that particular time, see? We were really into it because I was sleeping in foxholes at that particular time, right on the ground in a hole.	40:28
Tywanna Whorley	Was the army—I know it wasn't—can you tell me a little bit being in the army—	41:16
John Fisher	The army was segregated stateside. I know they were, because we were in a Black unit all the time. No Whites were there with us. Now, they attempted integration when we went overseas. They tried to mix the White—and we mixed well. I think we did well. When the war was over with, they brought us back home together. We did okay until we got back stateside. When we got back stateside, they separated us again. See?	41:27
Tywanna Whorley	What did they say?	42:15
John Fisher	No, no. It was no explanation. That's just the way it worked out. See? They worked out—they sent us—we got on a troop train. I got on a train, it was all Black. You understand? We was going two different ways now. You understand? That thing switched up just that quick.	42:17
John Fisher	Well, I imagine all the Black boys were just about it like I was. It didn't make too much difference. "Look, you don't want to be with me? I don't need to be with you either." You understand? Yeah, we can start a big fight if you want to. It'd be all right. We could do that.	42:36
John Fisher	It was a whole lot of controversy went on while we were in the service overseas. We had trouble with—Blacks and Whites had trouble. See? If you attempted to try to get together, there was going to be a big fight. I imagine the whole world was segregated. See? I don't know. We just thought we were alive. Never given a thought about, we're not supposed to be segregated, we're supposed to be together. I ain't never give it a thought. I was, well—but I do know that the Black—if you went in any of these stores, even downtown where—	42:53
John Fisher	We would go downtown and you couldn't go to the restroom. They had the big signs sitting up here, Colored and White, for water, at the water fountain, things like that. A number of times, I'd been downtown and needed to go to the restroom, and I had to—well, I had to walk fast. See? You could always go down to the train station. Right here in Birmingham, down there on Mars Avenue to the train station. You could go in there and you could use the bathroom, you could use the restroom, but you had Black and White. Black restroom, White restrooms, see?	43:46
John Fisher	If you were Black and you got caught uptown, well, you had to try to make it, if you could, back to Fourth Avenue. See? Because some of these places down here where all the Black folk was, but the Whites, they could sit down, they could eat on the mezzanine and places like that. See? All you can do is pass by and look. Got to be eating. They playing good music for them (laughs). All that kind of stuff. Yeah. Well, that's the way we made it.	44:32
Tywanna Whorley	I'm going to stop the tape there.	45:05

Tywanna Whorley	—came back from the service, back to Birmingham. What did you do?	0:02
John Fisher	Well, I had a qualification. I wanted to—I had a wife.	0:10
Tywanna Whorley	You have a wife.	0:11
John Fisher	I had a young wife. Yeah, young wife and I had one kid.	0:17
Tywanna Whorley	What is her name?	0:19
John Fisher	My wife was Mira Alice and my oldest kid, her name was Anthoneria, my daughter. Well, I came back home and—before I left, I had a little job out here with US Steel. I worked there but they would only let us work two days a week, which was very good. It was very good. We didn't need a lot of work. We didn't know what it was, no money, no way I'm saying. But anyway, I came back home from service and I had a qualification I'd acquired in service. I really wanted to go into communication. I kind of excelled a little bit in it in service and I learned a lot about switchboards and all that kind of stuff.	0:21
John Fisher	Now when I left, they told me that I could—but nobody told me because I didn't pay any attention to it. Being a young boy, I was about nineteen years old when I left, now here I am twenty-one, twenty-two, see, and I'm thinking like a man's supposed to think. But anyway, I needed to work so I went and applied for a job with a phone company through the unemployment office.	1:29
John Fisher	And those people told me back during those years, they told me now, they said, "Where was you working before you went to—" I didn't paid my job too much, that little job I had at US Steel, too much attention because every time a Black man got hired I bet he was hired as a laborer and you really didn't have a job. What can I do? Plant, a little bit. What people told me said, "Well, you just might ought to think about going back to the plant because you're not going to get a job with the telephone company as a lineman." I was a lineman. I thought, "Sure, I was a lineman." "If you're not going to get a job down there doing that."	2:10
John Fisher	Okay, well, I walked on away from that. I mean, I accepted that. Walked away from it and didn't think about it no more and so it was about two months because we was collecting that—what you call it, Mustering-out pay or something from—that you're given every—from the service, see. And so then I had an uncle, he was working for the same company. He told me, he said, "Why you working at the plant before you went to—" I said, "Yeah."	2:54
John Fisher	He said, "Why don't you go back up there? They got a job waiting on you." I didn't want to believe that. I said, "Oh man." So I got up one morning and my cousin and I, so he was working out that too, but he never went back. We all came back and serve the same time. I went up there and called my name to the fella, and he went and pulled his file cabinet over and, "Yeah," I said, "We know you've been ditching."	3:30
John Fisher	I said, "Where have you been?" Gave me a job. Gave me a job back. I had a job then and so—my time, my service went on while I was in service and longevity and whatnot, it kind of stretch out that nine. They told me, "You can get a vacation." I said, "When?" "You can get one now." I said, "Oh, well give me the vacation then, nobody just work." But anyway, I stayed there, never left.	4:02
Tywanna Whorley	What did you do?	4:35
John Fisher	Well, I went in as a material handler. They gave me a little job, really just a high class labor, that's all I was. But sort of found out I could count real fast. You understand? I can count fast, I can kind of keep inventory and everything. Well, anything rather than doing it manually because I wasn't able to do no manually, I was too little. So I stayed on that job and then that I was taking care of inventory, getting in materials and whatnot to take care of those furnaces. Well, everything in the material line, I was doing that. Then in later years, I changed jobs, decided I would go in—I went out on the railroad myself as a locomotive crown operator.	4:37
John Fisher	Well you remember you heard sometimes go by this train that ran off the bridge and went into the bayou and whatnot. Well it's a Crown comes up on that car with a boom on him and he reaches over and pick up all that stuff and set it back up on the track. Well I went in for that and I got that job. Just before I retired. And so I retired, I stayed there for forty years. I had forty years service when I retired. And I've been off from up there now for fourteen years.	5:45
Tywanna Whorley	When you came back from the service, did you stay with the practice, with Your mom or—?	6:29
John Fisher	I stayed with my mom about two, three months and then I got my wife and I. We went and found us a little house. You couldn't find no good houses, now at that time. We went and found us a little three room house, they might called it. I mean a little straight three room house. We moved off and at that time the rent was—we was paying rent only. The rent was eleven dollars a month. I couldn't hardly get ahold. It was hard to get up eleven dollars a month being fair about it, yeah. And we advanced on there. I left. I just moved right on out from that and I went, I got him. I bought my family. Well I had ten children too. My wife and I.	6:34
Tywanna Whorley	Ten?	7:23
John Fisher	Ten. Ten children. All of them living.	7:29
Tywanna Whorley	At the time when you [indistinct 00:07:34]?	7:34
John Fisher	Well we started out from a living room house. Let me see Mrs. Brown had to find another house, cause I'm filling that one up—we had children, my wife and I. My wife and I, we come along together, school children. Same year though and everything you understand? We went right on the school together and we married. She had been my girl for all our lives and my children—I have five boys and five girls. Angela, the girl that you know, she's a knee baby. She's a fourth girl and a knee baby next to the baby. Just a little older than the baby. Then all of my kids—well, I tried to do something for them that I didn't do for myself. I tried my best. I wanted them to go to school and try to better their condition. I wanted them to do better than I did. So my wife and I, we encouraged them to do all you can do.	7:35
Tywanna Whorley	When you first moved, what was [indistinct 00:08:59]?	8:55
John Fisher	You mean where did I go?	9:02
Tywanna Whorley	I mean the house that you first got, where was that terms of neighborhood? Was that?	9:03
John Fisher	That was in the same neighborhood. Right here. Right around the corner. I still have that little house round there. It's my house. I bought it. Everything was right here. Everything had been centered right here in this neighborhood. Right here. Four blocks right now from where I— From this spot here, you can go out a radius of four blocks and go around. And that's where I've spent all my life.	9:09
John Fisher	Even my wife, she's within that radius also. Of course, she passed about four or five years ago. I haven't married again. I'm not trying right now.	9:42
Tywanna Whorley	Did she work?	10:00
John Fisher	My wife never worked. She never did work. She didn't get a social security card until back— until I got ready to retire. But found out I got ready to retire, She had to have a social card then. Well she couldn't work now. We had 10 children and with those and she stayed at home and she'd taken care of those children and I worked for them.	10:01
Tywanna Whorley	So when you moved from the first house, where did you move to?	10:26
John Fisher	I moved to the next house, the house that I moved to. And then we completed the rest of our family grow. Our family increased and well the children getting grown and one or two of them married and they left. And all of them are here in the city with the exception of one.	10:30
Tywanna Whorley	Do you think there was a similarity between your parents having a big family and you having a big family? Did you want big family?	10:52
John Fisher	Well, I had no choice. I really didn't. I didn't know how to avoid it. If I didn't know— We didn't know. Well, one thing about it, what you call this family planning thing. My wife was a Catholic and all of my children are Catholic, but I'm not Catholic.	11:09
Tywanna Whorley	[indistinct 00:11:28]	11:28
John Fisher	Well, I'm Baptist. I started out and I never changed. And now from what I can hear, years back they didn't believe in certain things. So I never questioned that. I just know that I had to take care of them and well, I felt satisfied in doing it. Now that's the way that worked.	11:29
Tywanna Whorley	Where do your children go to church?	12:03
John Fisher	A little Baptist church right around the corner here. Baptist, Abyssinia Baptist church.	12:06
Tywanna Whorley	[indistinct 00:12:17].	12:18
John Fisher	A—B—Y—S—S—I—N—I—E or something like that.	12:18
Tywanna Whorley	And one hour [indistinct 00:12:23]?	12:20
John Fisher	Well I was raised up in the church in that particular church. All my family went to that church. They left. And I'm still there, but my—	12:25
Tywanna Whorley	Do you have wonder why you stayed in this area?	12:45
John Fisher	Well the reason why, of course I don't live out here now but you see everything was centered here for me because I was working here, right here. I was working not a mile from here out here, this US steel complex. That's where I was working. That was one reason why I spent my life there. Because, I wasn't going to leave the job. I had to have the job is important. So I just made up my mind to stay there and the only time I really left out the area here was after I retired. And then my wife got sick and she told me that she didn't want to live in this area anymore. I said, " Okay, let's get out of here then. All right."	12:50
Tywanna Whorley	So where are you currently living at?	13:57
John Fisher	Where do I live now? Well I'm still on the western section of the town. Yeah, I'm in Fairfield. I'm out in Fairfield. I've been out there about six years.	14:03
Tywanna Whorley	We would like to talk about, I guess just trying to live in Birmingham. The conditions in the 40s and 50s can you tell me about those and going to Fourth avenue [indistinct 00:14:32].	14:15
John Fisher	Well I don't know how to get over to that. I don't know how to give you an explanation for that. You mean how was it to try to live here? Well, I mean I don't want to sound like I'm the radical type. But look, if it took fighting and going on, if that's what you're talking about. If I had to fight, I fight. There were certain things that I never wanted to do. I didn't do them even on the job. The reason why I had to try to do my very best to try to work around as many Black people as I possibly could.	14:42
John Fisher	Because the White man, White boy, I called him the White boy. Just like he called me a Black boy. He called me. I called him White boy too and well, I never could see eye to eye with that fellow. See because I found out early on that he would tell a lie in a minute on you if it meant to hurt you and so for that simple reason, I didn't trust him.	15:29
John Fisher	I didn't and don't trust him too much. I might have got this thing. I don't trust him too much today cause he's still will tell one. See he'll tell one on you in a minute and he'll lie to your face. But I knew the condition that we were living in and I knew that there was certain things that you had to do if you wanted to, didn't want to. Then you're not looking for trouble. So if you're not looking for trouble, you know the condition, you know the custom, you know the ways. So you just go ahead on and be on—I mean look here, I'm not going to cross you. Don't you cross me. That's how I felt about it. I had a big controversy, I never would be—years ago I was a young man and I quit dealing with the—	16:03
John Fisher	It had been a known policy with us as a group of people. We start our homes, our families and whatnot. And we have a tendency to have these people make a living off of us. These insurance agents and whatnot. They'll come along and they'll call selling you little insurance. And they want to come every week and pick up the premium and all that kind of stuff. Well, I learn about it years back and number one year, I hadn't been married too long. I mean hadn't been back home too long and I had a great big falling out and I just stopped all in.	17:02
John Fisher	My wife had taken out some insurance with some of these White companies. I don't know who it was. But anyway, the fella had never seen me because I worked all the time. I worked during the day and my wife would be there, well—my wife was fixing to have a kid. I happened to be off one morning, I was sitting on the porch and this fella drove up in his car and he got out and he walked up to the porch and he just disregarded me. I'm sitting there and he said, and he come just calling her name, "Mary. Hey, Mary. Wonder where is Mary." And so I'm sitting there, didn't say nothing to him, just watching. He said, "I reckon Mary done had that baby now." And so I got up, I say, "Hey," [indistinct 00:18:38], "who you want?"	17:46
John Fisher	He said, "I'm not—". I said, "But who you asking for?" I said, "I tell you what you do." He said, "I'm not talking to you." I said, " Well, I tell you what you do, how you get off the porch." So he said, "What you mean?" I said, "Well, I said, I just asked you to get off the porch." And he stood there.	18:43
John Fisher	I said, "Don't just stand there then." I broke in the house and started banging on. I came back to the door, he was out on the ground. And I said, "Don't ever come back here again." So he left. And his supervisor came and wanted to know what did he do? He didn't do nothing. I said, "But I don't want him back here no more. Don't want none of your policy and I want you to take all of that away from here—don't bring." He said, " Well, tell me what he did."	19:01
John Fisher	And I said, "Well, he didn't do anything." I said, "I ain't got nothing to say about it." But see I knew what he did to me. He disregarded me. He didn't respect me at all and then I didn't like the way he was calling my wife. See? And so I stopped all of that kind of stuff. I didn't have none of those people to come and I went—at least I went to a Black company and got a little insurance during that time. Because back during those years, they wouldn't sell a Black no insurance. No way.	19:34
John Fisher	So a few year later on, I contacted a company where I would pay my premiums yearly and then insure my whole family and yearly premium, I sent it off. Nobody else come picked it up. They couldn't understand why I was doing that but I just didn't want that encounter never no more.	20:07
Tywanna Whorley	Was it a local insurance company here in Birmingham or was it outside Birmingham [indistinct 00:20:40]?	20:36
John Fisher	The agent's office was here in Birmingham. But it could have been an out of town company. It could have been an out town company.	20:43
Tywanna Whorley	Black owned?	20:51
John Fisher	No, what you mean? The one that I was used that I picked up later on? I picked up the Black company here in Birmingham. I picked up the Black company here. Well, we really didn't have it too. All you could buy then mostly was just a little bit of life insurance and a little small barrel insurance. That's all you could buy and when you go to talking about buying a Black man, talking about buying sixty thousand dollars worth insurance. No, you the wrong player. You the wrong ball game.	20:52
John Fisher	That didn't come about him until in later years for him to do that. But back during that time all you could—and then these people couldn't even—Black man couldn't even buy fire insurance for your—if you were renting one of these places, you call it—what you call that type of insurance now? Well your furnishes and whatnot that you had in here. Best you could buy 500 dollars worth. I don't care how much [indistinct 00:22:15], 500 and if you got a thousand dollars away, you my God, you top and that's just the way it was.	21:30
Tywanna Whorley	Was the insurance company coming to you?	22:25
John Fisher	Yeah. Booker T. Washington was the—Booker T. and Protective. They were the only—the only two insurance companies that we had here that Blacks had here.	22:29
Tywanna Whorley	How was Fourth Avenue back then?	22:43
John Fisher	Fourth Avenue. That was the only—that was a bloom. It was really blooming. Everything was going on down there and it never went to sleep, day and night. Fourth Avenue was under the place. There was a whole lot of places to go down there. But I look maybe before, prior to mine just actually hanging out. I didn't hang out down there. See I went to school over there a little bit during the war year. I mean after the war, I went to school in Gaston, had a business college. B-T-W, Booker T. Washington Business College.	22:47
John Fisher	And I went school there a little while, I went to school there about three years just, but I was going under that G.I. Bill. See that was to was supplement the pay that we were getting out of these plants and things. We were servicemen, but you had to put in time in the schools and whatnot. That's one reason why I'm in this business right today. I picked up on, I went there and I picked up on that accounting. I liked it. I was crazy about it. And so I left there and I was doing this particular work that you see in here that's going on in here. I was doing that on a small scale, very small scale. But I would just worry about it at the first of the year, getting ready for Easter, my wife and the children.	23:35
John Fisher	And I would sit down and take my pen and my coworkers and whatnot. I'd tell them, "Man, let me do your income tax for you. Fix them out for you." These people didn't know how to read and write all the men whatnot. They didn't know how to read and write. And I sit down and these fellows give me two dollars or three dollars just go ahead on, mail out his all right, and you know. And they were going downtown and to these lawyers and whatnot and these fellows was charging them an arm and a mint.	24:32
John Fisher	An arm and a leg rather. And they wind up owning money telling me, "Oh John, you all said the same thing, just go ahead on pay that." And I couldn't understand that. Looking at him, I thought, something's going wrong here. And I said, I'd do those color papers for him. Give him to 'em, I said, "[indistinct 00:25:27] I'm going to get a little bit. Yeah, I'll send that in, see how it works." It worked. [Indistinct 00:25:34] wasn't doing nothing wrong, just putting it in right. Giving it to them like it was supposed to be.	25:06
John Fisher	And so after I retired, well before I retired my children and I, had one or two kids that went into real estate. Now, little real estate office. We have a little real estate office up there. And when I retired and they said, "Daddy, we need somebody to come stay at the office cause we have to go to our jobs."	25:39
John Fisher	I said," Okay, nothing wrong with that." I believe I started doing my business up there. So I started doing my business and all the people who was coming to me every year for me to do that stuff, I said, " I tell you what." I said, "I got office over here." I said, "Y'all, come over there to my office." And they started coming and that thing bloomed from that to this. That you see here now. And this is a full blown thing. And it ain't, it's not a play thing.	26:02
Tywanna Whorley	Were there any incidents in Birmingham in terms of, you might have heard from friends or between Blacks and Whites in Birmingham like racial incidents and [indistinct 00:26:51]?	26:34
John Fisher	There was a lot of them, but nah, look here I can't recall. It was a lot of those that way. Because you Black, you said, we have falling out. 'Cause you named me, calling me a funny name, but there was a lot of that went on. That White that boy he believed in calling the Black man, nigger. I'm just being fair about it. Nigger this and nigger that. Well now the Black boy would call him a ranker neck, peckerwood and all that. You see what I'm talking about? It was going to be a fight whenever they got together. It was a whole lot of incident because he would write down those trolley cars and things. I've seen eye witness incidents. I witness—see I went through something myself as a youngster.	26:56
Tywanna Whorley	Can you tell me about it?	27:56
John Fisher	Well I can tell you. Okay, it was back in the early 40s. Back in the early 40s. I was still in school, high school and then the summer I had gotten in a little job out here, [indistinct 00:28:19] going go out there and working with an industrial painter. Doing this painting these different buildings and things. But I got on the trolley car that evening when I got off work coming home. Had to come through downtown Birmingham and transfer, get on another trolley to come out here this section time.	27:59
John Fisher	But anyway, I got on the car and when I got on that car that I was filled up with people with Blacks and they had a bar. You put a bar across these—they had just like back in this section here, a little small section. You put all the Blacks but the rest of this car here was for Whites. They had a bar put on. You had to go back in and go up, go across under this bar and you probably not. You pile up back there. Well, I got on the car and there was a White boy sitting here.	28:41
John Fisher	Now this happened to me. There was a White boy sitting here, the bar going right down the side, I'm like this. And so I sit down and the people, the Black people on that crouching, someone said, "Don't sit." And so I sit down and our knees, our legs touch but in the meantime, there was a big White fella he had on a suit.	29:22
John Fisher	I'll never will forget it. He was sitting down watching it. And so he got up and come back down. He told me, he said, "Hey, boy" he called me a boy, "Get up and move." Move where? I said, "Why you want me to move?" He said, "Get up and move. You're too close."	29:42
John Fisher	I tell, "Him to move, give me my money back one." And I just sit there and he thought maybe I was supposed to jump. But I see I didn't know. I was young still looking. I'm fifteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. But that man reached down and grabbed at me. And I came up, I hit him just hard, I could hit him right through his stomach. And he bagged up in the car and throwed his coat back to get his pistol.	30:05
John Fisher	Well, his buddy was on the car with him. These were detectives that they called him. His buddy was on the car with him and his buddy jumped up and grabbed him and said, "Hey, hey." he said, "Don't do that." Said, "That ain't nothing but a boy." So he said, "Well, boy." Said "I'm'a put you in jail." And so I said, "What— ", it didn't register, you know, what he was saying. I said, "What you mean you going to put me in jail?"	30:38
John Fisher	So he said, "I'm going to put you in jail." And so he pulled the cord for 'em to stop the car, we got down there. So he grabbed me. I said "Now, you ain't got to hold—What you holding me for?" And you know, he sort of, he talked about me, "What we need to do is give you a whooping." Now see, I'm innocent, I mean, I'm young and I don't know what's going on.	31:12
John Fisher	"I don't need to do get me a whooping. You better not hit me." But see, I didn't know no better, "You hit me—hit me, I'm going to tell my daddy." (laughs) I thought me and my daddy could stop all of that. But anyway, you know what them fellas did for me? They put me in jail. See they carried me to the jail and put me in the jail over there. But what he tried to get me and run away from him there will forget it. And I told my dad about it later on.	31:36
John Fisher	And they finally let me. I called my daddy and my daddy came over there and he wouldn't even let my daddy get me out of jail. My daddy had to have a White man to stand for—go a bond or something on me. If any White, it didn't make no—who the White man, just has to be a White man. So my dad knew an Italian fellow and he called him and the Italian fellow came running all the way with him. And they told my dad, said, "Sam, I'm going to give you this boy, you carry this boy home." Said "That boy think he good as White folks." What is that?	32:06
John Fisher	So my daddy didn't say anything. I noticed he didn't say anything to me. When we got outside, my dad told me, said, "You know what son? There times you have to take low, a whole lot of times." Said "The cards stacked against you in there." He said "I think you just as good as White folks, are better than White folks. You understand?" He said, "But I ain't, I can't say that to them and I don't want that kind of problem." Well I give him credit for being smart seller. I gave him credit for being a smart man. Whereas I would've said all kind of stuff as a youngster, young man. But I learned from that. Rather then an experience for me. I learned from that.	33:03
John Fisher	And I found out that you have to, we had to take low until you could kind of long as you, when you got your, what you call the head in the loud and mouth. You got to be easy with him, 'til you can kind of ease it out. Cause you might bite—bite you.	33:46
Tywanna Whorley	You at the time do you remember any Black leadership environment?	34:05
John Fisher	We didn't have any. No, we didn't have no Black leadership during that Bull Connor time. I remember that. I remember we had a commissioner form of government and the only, the biggest Black man I believe we had in this time. Well I don't think we had no big Black man. I can't think of no big Black man. We might have had a contractor. We didn't have no lawyer. I can't remember a lawyer back then. We didn't have any. I can't remember a doctor. Well I can, there was some dentists we had some Black dentists.	34:12
Tywanna Whorley	[Indistinct 00:34:58] on Fourth avenue?	34:56
John Fisher	Right, there around that Masonic temple building. We had some Black dentists and might have been doctor. But see by me not dealing in that section of town. But out here I can remember one Black doctor. This doctor had an office right here on this next corner, Dr. Robinson and the dentist was a Dr. Belcher. I can remember those two guys but—	35:00
Tywanna Whorley	Should ask you about that. When, your wife had the children, what hospital did you [indistinct 00:35:36]?	35:28
John Fisher	Holy Family. See this Holy Family—this was a Catholic hospital right here and it was Holy Family. But my first, second, well the third child we used this Black doctor I was telling you about, this Dr. Robinson and from then every other child we had, we used this hospital out here and that doctor—well that see you getting in later years now. We getting in the years now when the doctor become a little plentiful, the Black doctor, because we had a little doctor named Dr. Cole. I never will forget him. I think he was the doctor for the majority of my children. It's hot?	35:43
Speaker 3	It's hot. It ain't real hot.	36:26
John Fisher	You better call—I get in touch with my man. Let him come check that thing.	36:30
Tywanna Whorley	You mentioned Bull Connor, what do remember about Bull, back in those days, before?	36:41
John Fisher	Yeah. Bull Connor was here. I remember him well, he was a tough dude. He would call you a—what you call it—a nigger in a minute. You was a nigger in court. I don't care where you were, downtown, he said all you Black—if you Black you were a nigger.	36:44
John Fisher	In the early sixties, that's been thirty years ago. Just before this civil rights thing came about. I had a White lady ran into my car. I had an automobile then. I had a White lady ran into it. She came down the road doing ninety miles an hour, looked like to me, hit my car and cut that car half, in two. And I had a fellas sitting in the car with me, no, there was three fellas in the car with me. She hit that car and she hit it so hard. She cut that car half and two and the top fell down, see, and one fella sitting in the car on the front seat with me here, knocked his eyes out and he died, you understand. Knocked his eyes out. Knocked out both his eyes, it scared me so bad I didn't know what to do when I looked at him in the hospital. See, we were all in the hospital. Everybody went to the hospital.	37:05
John Fisher	But anyway, this lady flipped over on the top of her car. Her car went down the highway about seventy feet before it stopped. And she got out, her and had a little baby in the car. She said she was going to trying to get home cause she had to fix some dinner for her husband. You understand? So, but anyway, we went to court. Let me tell you what the judge told me over there. These people been dirty all their life. We went to court and I was sitting there and I, so the one the lawyers said, "Mr. Fisher", said, "In your opinion, how fast—" the other lawyer, one of the lawyers stops and said, "Hold here one minute. Ain't nobody never told me he had no opinion. But he don't have no opinion. He ain't got enough sense to have no opinion." You understand? Well, I don't know whether or not—you know, they arguing, I don't know how this going to work. But you know what the judge told me?	38:13
John Fisher	The judge told me, he said, "Mr. Fisher," said, "You got a good case. You presented your case well, it ain't nothing wrong with your case, but I just got to tell you something." He said, "I ain't going to give you no judgment on that White woman over there." You understand? Said "You don't get no judgment on that White woman." So, he just not going to do it, say "And if an airplane fall out the sky and hit you and if you was making a left turn, if airplane fall out the sky and hit you—" say, "You in the wrong." That man told me that and the lawyer, I had a White lawyer, a lawyer told me, he said, "Well, now you going before a prejudiced judge—" and said, "He don't like y'all." Well, I had to take it, didn't have no way else to go. Have no appeals or nothing. No appeal nothing. And they sued me. I had to pay for it. Sure did. Had to pay for it.	39:15
Tywanna Whorley	When you had your first children, how did you explain to them—? If segregation was still going on then, how do you explain to them about [indistinct 00:40:41]?	40:13
John Fisher	I really didn't have to because my children never—well they just never got tied up in the situation where it had to be explained to them because we were Black people and we stayed in our Black communities. And if with anything had to be negotiated between—	40:42
John Fisher	For them so far the White was concerned, then they left that, I mean that was left entirely up to me or their mother or somebody else. We'd go and do that for them. And most cases they got through that without—the only problem I had with my children, with my oldest child, I carried her to college back in 1960. I carried a little and I had to—I wasn't working. Let me show you something. I wasn't working. And when she had a little scholarship and I went out to Louisville with them, I loaded her trunk in my car and everything. And she and my wife and I, we left here one night or drive to Louisville, my wife and my daughter. That was back in 1960. Conditions was still then—there was no changes. You couldn't go to the bathroom, couldn't go to the restroom even on the highway and whatnot.	41:11
John Fisher	We got to Louisville the next morning. I left here at twelve o'clock one night. It took me all night long, get to Louisville next morning. And we got in Louisville and we carried her out to the college. And we left her there. Broke down, I was so tired, I wanted to sleep, had been on the road all night, long time. And I couldn't find a place to take a nap. My wife and I. So we went to a so-called, we asked somebody and they sent us to a so-called Black hotel on the—there in Louisville. We went in that place and I told the fella, I just need to take me a nap. He charged me, I think about four or five dollars but anyway, he put us in a room there to take a nap. And we were laying there trying to take a nap. Sure enough and it wasn't too long, the door opened.	42:29
John Fisher	When the door opened, fella walked in, looked. And so he said, " Y'all in the wrong room." I said, "What?" Boy, I woke my wife up, I said, "Wake up, get up." I said, "We got to leave here." We got up and went back and got in the car, coming back to Birmingham. Now we had to stop on the highway and try to take a nap under the streetlight.	43:34
John Fisher	And the next morning, I'm hungry trying to get here. And we didn't have no place. We could stop to eat. So I told my wife, " Well, might well get ready." I say, "I'm going to leave you in the car." I don't want to let somebody kill me. I'm going to get, I'm going to stop. I said, " When the next car pass me this morning, I'm going to drive real slow. The White man, I'm gon' follow." And I did it. That fella passed me, him and his wife. And I just got right in behind. He going to stop somewhere to eat. And then if he stopped, I'm going to stop him right behind. And I did that. And I stopped right behind. But I was surprised I didn't get a hard time, people didn't give me a hard time. I went right on in behind the fella. I told why now you sit here. Wait till I'm back.	44:07
John Fisher	And I went and them people were eating. The fact was a crowd and it was a White waitress. She met me at the door. She said, "Can I help you?" And I said, "Yes." I said, "We stopped by and I am hungry. I'd like to get some to eat." She said, "Well what would you like?" "Are you going to serve us?" She says, "Yeah" I said, " Well wait just one minute." I said, "I got my wife out here, she wanted me to eat too."	44:59
John Fisher	She says, "Well go get her." And I went and got my wife and told her to come on in. Now that was fear. It was fear. I mean I've been subject to this stuff so long. I'm knowing just about what to expect. And when of course I accepted, I went on and I adjusted real well, was no problem. I just went right on the end. If they said it feed me well because I'm not—no wild, loud fella, you don't want to start nothing. I'm just want some service, that's all. I guess. Cause I learned a lesson that you can find some of these people that won't give you a hard time, see. And then, but now there are others.	45:19
Tywanna Whorley	What next? Do you remember hearing about the bus boycott in Montgomery?	46:38
John Fisher	Talking about Rosa. What's his name?	46:38
Tywanna Whorley	Rosa Parks.	46:38
John Fisher	Parks. That Parks lady. I remember when it started. Sure.	46:38
Tywanna Whorley	Did everybody talk about it? I mean, bunch of friends talk about it?	46:38
John Fisher	Well, they talked a lot about that here and they—	46:40

Item Info

Title:

John Fisher interview recording, 1994 June 15

Date:

June 15, 1994

Creator:

Fisher, John

Contributor:

Whorley, Tywanna

Description:

Name: John Fisher; Date of birth: 1924-09-19; Place of birth: Fairfiled, AL; Occupation(s): laborer; clerical; entrepreneur; Residence: Fairfield, AL
Informant ID: 747; Interviewed by: Tywanna Whorley.

Occupation:

Location:

Format:

Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

Series:

Related Resources:

See below

Provenance:

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

Rights:

Limited Re-Use

CC BY-NC 4.0

Rights Note:

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

Identifier:

RL00170-CS-0292
5ada3f31-39f4-49c2-96ae-56c21dc9a8c7
behindtheveil
b2d5a4c5-9ce2-47a3-9480-54ab1e3bda27
ark:/87924/r4d79hk6b
b2d5a4c5-9ce2-47a3-9480-54ab1e3bda27

Permalink:

https://idn.duke.edu/ark:/87924/r4d79hk6b

Sponsor:

Sponsor this Digital Collection

John Fisher interview recording, 1994 June 15

Transcript

Item Info

1. John Fisher administrative file, 1994

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options

John Fisher interview recording, 1994 June 15

Transcript

Item Info

Related Items

John Hope Franklin Research Center

More Info & Options