Alexander Rivera interview recording, 1995 June 02

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Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah.	0:01
Mary Hebert	Would you please state your full name and date of birth?	0:02
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Alexander McAllister Rivera, Jr. And October the 4th, 1913.	0:05
Mary Hebert	Where were you born?	0:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Born in Greensboro, North Carolina.	0:10
Mary Hebert	Did you live there most of your life?	0:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, I lived there until I left to go to college. Yeah, I lived there all my childhood. Yeah.	0:34
Felicia Woods	So, do you remember where you began to go school?	0:37
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Five or six, I don't know.	0:48
Felicia Woods	And you went up until which grade in high school?	0:48
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I completed high school in Greensboro, North Carolina.	0:57
Felicia Woods	Okay. Did they go up to grade 12?	1:00
Alexander McAllister Rivera	12. We had 12 grades.	1:02
Mary Hebert	How did you come to live in Durham?	1:14
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, well, I have lived off and on in Durham. My mother died when I was young. I was two years old when my mother died, and my grandparents lived in Durham. And so, I was immediately brought here until my father remarried. And so, I lived, before school life in Durham, before I went to school at all, I lived in Durham with my grandparents. And then, when I graduated from high school, I went to college at Howard University in Washington DC, and this was during the Depression.	1:16
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And about my second year, my money ran out. And so, I started working with a newspaper, the Washington Tribune newspaper, and it was during this time that I got an offer from Dr. Shepard, Dr. James E. Shepard, who was a founding first president of North Carolina Central that was then North Carolina College. And he offered me a scholarship if I would come and organize a news bureau here. And so, I thought that would be a good opportunity for me to complete my education, and so I came, and that was in 1939.	1:53
Mary Hebert	How did you know Dr. Shepard? Did you know him?	2:48
Alexander McAllister Rivera	That's an interesting question. My father's a dentist, was a dentist. He's deceased now, and my father was Dr. Shepard's dentist. My father started practice in Durham, North Carolina, and shortly after he started, he moved to Greensboro. So, Dr. Shepard used to come all the way from Durham to Greensboro to have his teeth worked on by my father, and of course, when I said all the way, it was an all-day trip in those days, from Durham to Greensboro.	2:53
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so, after I got to know Dr. Shepard. Today, we would've been calling him Uncle Jim, but in those days you didn't take that license, and he was imperial type man anyway, and it had been very difficult to get close enough to him on the Jim. But we were just that close. So, the interesting thing, as I said, to tell it all, my father was not pleased at all with the fact that I had dropped out of school in Washington, but he wasn't able, at that time, to do much about it because I had two sisters and they went in college.	3:31
Alexander McAllister Rivera	So, they felt that I should work and because they were not in a position to work. And in those days, you had no federal funds, no state funds, and you made your money by working in the summer and going to school the winter. So, when the funds ran out, you were just out. And so, Dr. Shepard and my father had a little conspiracy, and it was through their agreement that I was offered this position back here.	4:23
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The interesting thing about it was that he asked me to come here to organize. Not only he told me he wanted me to head up the office of the news bureau, and when I came here, I found out they didn't have one. So, I said, "I must have misunderstood you, because I thought that you wanted me to head this new bureau." He said, "No, you misunderstand me. I want you to organize one." So, it was then I realized that all of this was a cooked up scheme between my father and Dr. Shepard. So, now you know it all. So, that's how I got here.	5:02
Mary Hebert	Was your father one of the few African American dentists in Greensboro?	5:47
Alexander McAllister Rivera	At that time, he was the only.	5:51
Mary Hebert	What about in the surrounding area? Was he the only one in the general vicinity of Greensboro?	5:54
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. Yeah. Shortly after he started practicing, they came to Greensboro, another dentist, Dr. George Simpkins came, but to start out, he was the first one, which meant that he treated people from, he asked the question from around, and all these people, these farmers would come in who couldn't pay or would come in with produce and animals and eggs and everything to pay for it. So, I remember that part of it. Yeah.	6:01
Mary Hebert	So, they would barter for dental work.	6:38
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, for dental work.	6:43
Mary Hebert	You had mentioned that your father cooked up this scheme with Dr. Shepard to get you back in school. Did he push your education the whole way through?	6:44
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, we understood that we were to finish college. I mean, that was from almost birth, we understood that. I mean, it was never any question, but I had two sisters. I had one here and one at Fisk University in Tennessee. And so, we were all in college, but this was a terrible time, financially. I mean, the old Depression, it was people like Vanderbilts were jumping out of windows and things. I mean, it was terrible.	6:51
Mary Hebert	How did the Depression affect the Black community in, well, you were up in DC at the time, but here in North Carolina, do you have any sense of that?	7:25
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, I have a sense of it. They had Blacks, fortunately, as far as the Depression was concerned, were easy to make it, because they had less to lose. I just got through saying that the Vanderbilts were jumping out of windows, because they were be millionaires. They were losing fortunes. Blacks didn't have a fortune to lose. They were rock bottom to start with, and they knew how to, what we call, to make do. And you learned almost culturally, as a race, you learned to make do with what you had. And you didn't complain and carry on about it. You prayed for more and worked hard, and that was about it at the time.	7:36
Felicia Woods	Let me ask you, you mentioned two sisters. Were there other family members in the home where you grew up?	8:27
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Mm-mmm.	8:32
Felicia Woods	So, it was the three of you and your dad?	8:32
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And mama. See, my daddy remarried, and so I had a stepmother. So, that's when we moved back to Greensboro, when he remarried. And so, I had a sister. She was one year old when her mother died, and then I have a half sister.	8:36
Mary Hebert	What kind of work did your grandparents do? Your father was a dentist. I mean, was he also professional?	8:52
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, you're getting into a whole lot now. My great-grandfather was the first Black undertaker in the state of North Carolina, and he was in Wilmington, North Carolina. In 1898, they had the riot of Wilmington, the Wilmington Riot of 1898. This was the beginning or head of reconstruction, and all over the country, not just in North Carolina, but they were having these riots. You see, after the Civil War, to embarrass them, to punish the south, the victorious north turned over the cities, the administration and the cities to Blacks.	9:04
Alexander McAllister Rivera	So, Wilmington was one of those that everything in the city was run by Blacks. I mean, the judges and postmasters and everything was run by Black. Well, it was doing just what the north wanted to do was them bashing them. So, they decided around 1898 that they'd been punished enough. The south had been punished enough. There was an election called the Hayes Tilden election. You familiar with that, huh? Well, the Hayes still in election, one of the agreements was that this was over and we're not going to punish you any longer, and from now, you can take over.	10:09
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so, the south and these other places didn't want to take over gradually by voting. They wanted to take over right now, and the only way to do it was to riot. And so, those people who were in responsible positions, they were giving them a chance to leave, those people who worked in media jobs and factories and so forth. A lot of them were killed, and enough to let them know that their rule was over. So, my grandfather was an undertaker. He worked not with his father, he had an establishment of his own because he couldn't get along with his father. So, they broke off in the heck. So, he had a business by himself, and when they had the riot of 1898, the Wilmington Riot of 1898, he was told to leave immediately.	11:01
Mary Hebert	So, he was warned to leave rather than—	12:08
Alexander McAllister Rivera	To leave. Yeah, he was one of those, yeah, rather than killing him, he was told to leave. He didn't leave immediately. The first night he stayed in the graveyard, the cemetery. Well, that was familiar territory with him being an undertaker. He was home free. So, of course, he ran and he spent the night down in the cemetery. The next day, of course, when things had calmed down a little bit, he was able to leave. So, he left, and then he brought his family home to Durham.	12:17
Mary Hebert	So, he was married at the time?	12:39
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah, married with grown children, just about grown children.	12:49
Mary Hebert	Did the whole family have to leave, even his children?	12:51
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Yeah, everybody, the whole family.	12:54
Mary Hebert	Did he remain an undertaker when he got here?	12:56
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. He tried to. He never got over the horse carriage era. All of his big funerals in Wilmington were horse-drawn. He got here, he just never could make the transition from horse-drawn to automobile. And so, he was afraid here. He just couldn't make the transition.	13:00
Mary Hebert	Was your father—	13:33
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He started and tried to here, but he just didn't do it. When my father started working with him, his father and son—	13:38
Mary Hebert	As undertakers?	13:43
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, but that started in Wilmington. They had an agreement. They had an agreement that there would be no whiskey left in the undertaking [indistinct 00:14:01]. One day, when my father went, there was a keg of whiskey there, and he told his daddy, he said, "I thought we agreed that there would be no whiskey in here at all." And he says, "Yeah, I know we had the agreement," he said, "but don't you forget that I'm your father." So, from there on, my father said, "I'm leaving and we are not going to be mutually respected and on the same level." He said, "I'm leaving." So then, he left and went to Howard University and took dentistry. And that's how he got—	13:44
Mary Hebert	What was the whiskey all about? [indistinct 00:14:38]	14:34
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Okay, yeah. It's just somebody had come by then, and it was not illegal in those days. Somebody just, "May I leave this here for safekeeping or something," just left a keg of whiskey. Nothing illegal about it, but my father was against it, and he said that they had this agreement when they went in the business that they would have no whiskey on the app premises.	14:38
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And see, in those days, an undertaker, one of the biggest things he had to do, they made the caskets by hand. The undertaking establishments usually was a cabinet shop, and they did a whole lot of work on the caskets themselves. And back in that back area somewhere, somebody left this keg of whiskey that my father—But he left and went to Washington and went to Howard University. Now you got that background, I guess, huh?	15:13
Mary Hebert	Yeah. Yeah. What was Durham like when you were here? Do you remember much of Durham when you were here as a child, the neighborhoods, those kinds of things? Or do those memories come from when you were older?	15:47
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Both.	16:07
Mary Hebert	What was it like when you were [indistinct 00:16:11]	16:09
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Both. I don't remember that, but the impressionable stage for me was the big business success of Durham, and it meant for a type of living that I had never seen before. Big cars, big homes, chauffeurs, this type of thing, and where they had, I mean, big cars and where they had at least two of them. And in those days, women didn't drive automobiles. That was unladylike, and they didn't smoke even. But so, if you had a car for your wife, you had to have a chauffer for her. And so, where I had been in Greensboro, where I'd been before, I mean, this was not the case.	16:11
Alexander McAllister Rivera	But here, all these people here had the various businesses and there were a lot of them around here, because the Blacks had learned how to organize businesses, and it seemed like every time they turned around they were organizing another one. And they were very successful because one would support the other, and, I don't know how familiar you are, they had interlocking boards, and they could have a board meeting, they wouldn't like for me to say this, but they could have a board meeting of four or five businesses without opening the door, opening or closing the door. It's just changing seats at the table.	17:26
Mary Hebert	So, you mean several people owned several businesses as a corporation type thing?	18:29
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, they're all corporations, but I'm saying, yeah, they were all corporations, but the managerial administration part of it was controlled by the same people. And so, if you had a meeting of one board—	18:29
Mary Hebert	Now you can start talking.	18:58
Alexander McAllister Rivera	If you had a meeting of one board, I'm saying without opening the door, you could just change. Now we're going to have a meeting of this other board. So then, the chairman of that committee would move to the head of the table, but ostensibly, they'd be the same people.	19:01
Mary Hebert	So, the same people controlled most of the wealth within the city?	19:20
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Most of the businesses, yeah. There was never any great wealth. The North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, by virtue, being a mutual company. The stockholders were the people who owned the insurance policies, unlike a stock company. A stock company, then they would have shares, and you could get power. There was no way to get rich. You made a lot of money, and they lived on good salaries, and the salaries were larger than other salaries around, White or Black.	19:23
Alexander McAllister Rivera	But the one thing I think that saved them was the fact that these were not stock companies. They were mutual companies, almost all of them were mutual companies, and it's just the opposite from a lot of other places. The Atlanta Life Insurance Company was a stock company. North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company was a mutual company, and I remember one day I was in Winston-Salem and Mr. Sparlin called me to come back here immediately. I was a newspaper man then, and I said, "But I'm busy."	20:16
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He said, "Listen, come back right now because I'm in trouble." So, I got back over here and a magazine had written him up as one of the 10 richest Black men in America, and he said, "Now this is an indictment," he said, "because there's no way for me to be one of the richest Black men in the nation because I've been on salary ever since I've been here, and the only way for me to have been rich was to have stole something." That's the reason why he wanted me to come back immediately and write this correction, rejection, or whatever.	20:50
Mary Hebert	And you did that?	21:23
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah.	21:25
Felicia Woods	You mentioned newspaper man. Was that your first job?	21:26
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, of any consequence. See, when I went to Howard University, I was on the yearbook staff of my class, and I was writing for the class and taking pictures and carrying these two. A newspaper company was also a publishing company. So, we'd carry our stuff down to this newspaper company, and they were publishing the yearbook, and they saw the material that I was bringing in, the writing and pictures, and then when I gave out the money to go to school, they asked me if I would like a job, and I said, "Yeah, I need a job." So then, that's how I started as a newspaperman with the Washington Tribune. I started out taking pictures and writing, and I was one of the first, one the early Black photojournalists in the country.	21:31
Mary Hebert	How'd you get interested in photography? Was that just—	22:33
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I don't know, it was just part of it.	22:37
Mary Hebert	When did you start taking pictures? Was it in Washington?	22:39
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, professionally, and I mean, everybody was taking some snapshots. No, but professionally, that's when I started with the yearbook.	22:42
Felicia Woods	I was just going to ask, were you interested in photojournalist career, maybe in your teens or before then?	22:56
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Not that I remember. No, of course, there was nothing available to me to suggest that that would be a career—	23:07
Mary Hebert	What did you major in at Howard?	23:14
Alexander McAllister Rivera	—at that age. History.	23:15
Mary Hebert	History?	23:17
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Because none of these schools had journalism at the time. They have some kind of creative writing or something over here now, but full-fledged journalism class, they didn't have them, because there was no outlet. There were no opportunities.	23:19
Mary Hebert	Was there a Black-owned newspaper here in Durham?	23:40
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, the Carolina Times.	23:43
Mary Hebert	You mentioned before we started that you got interested in civil rights when you were in your teens?	23:52
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah.	23:58
Mary Hebert	In the thirties?	23:58
Alexander McAllister Rivera	This was a case here in 1930, Judge John J. Parker was nominated for the United States Supreme Court, and my father considered John J. Parker a racist. And he was determined to defeat him, if he could. Well, that was almost unheard of. It was even more difficult because the Black leaders, especially those who were heads of educational institutions, felt it imperative that they support Parker because they were afraid to go against him.	24:06
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so, it meant that my father was out there virtually by himself. But Walter White, that's the man, and Walter White was executive secretary and a friend of my father, and my father contacted him and told him that Parker should be defeated. And he asked him, would he work for him, and he said yeah. So, they started working to the defeat Parker, and it got real, real nasty, and it got rough. We had to string lights in our backyard for my father's safety.	25:09
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And this is the time when Walter White and members of the NAACP came to Greensboro to discuss this case, and I was in my teens. There was no place for them to stay, no hotel, no anything, no place to eat or stay. So, they all stayed at our house. So, at dinner and around, I heard all the conversations and I wasn't in the battle, but I was in earshot of it, so I could hear what they were talking about. And Lynn, for the first time, I actually saw strategizing people, making plans, and so forth for this, and to get the feel of the importance of this.	25:56
Alexander McAllister Rivera	This was 1930. And James Shepard, I've already told you, was one of my father's closest friends, and they almost broke up, broke friendship, because Jim Shepard was for Parker because he was trying to run this school, and he needed his support and the other White support and money and so forth, and he felt they should go along, and my daddy said, "I'm very sorry Jim, I can't go with you." And they had some difficult times, but their friendship was strong enough to overcome this, and the friendship lasted.	26:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	But the first thing I remember was Walter White, who came down, executive secretary. He's the Whitest Black man I ever saw in my life. He had blonde hair, blue eyes, blonde mustache, blonde eyelashes, and when he came in and he was going to live there in the house, I was a little afraid because I thought that he might be passing, might be an imposter.	27:36
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I couldn't understand, in those days, why a White man would want to pass for Black, and he certainly didn't have to. He married twice. The first time he married, he married a Black woman. Second time he married, he married a White woman, but he could've done anything he wanted. I never seen anybody as White as that in my life. And they was White too. But at any rate, this is the beginning. You asked me about the beginning of this.	28:10
Mary Hebert	You said that it got really nasty when your father was opposing Parker. What kind of things happened?	28:35
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, well, my father was threatened physically, and he was threatened ostracism by the Blacks.	28:44
Mary Hebert	Did people boycott his business?	28:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. Well, it would've been difficult because he was one of two dentists there, and no, the ranking five Black was supportive of him. It was those who had some ax to grind or felt that they needed to support them because of the positions that they have. But here, it's an interesting thing. About a month ago, Julius Chambers, who his chancellor of North Carolina Central University, won the John J. Parker Award, and I knew he didn't know the background, because it was 65 years ago and Julius Chambers is not 65 years old.	28:56
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so, what I did, I wrote him a letter, and I congratulated him on receiving the award, but I also gave him the background of much of what I have told you. He's sent this little brief letter that I wrote to Julius, and I sent him the documentation so that he would, I'll give you a copy of this if you want.	29:49
Mary Hebert	Yes, please.	30:19
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And, of course, the letter is confidential, but at any rate, John J. Parker was defeated by one vote. This was the first major national success of the NAACP. The NAACP was about 20 years old at this time, 1930, it was about 20 years old.	30:19
Mary Hebert	Was there a chapter of the NAACP in Greensboro?	30:41
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah.	30:43
Mary Hebert	So, your father was active in the NAACP?	30:43
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, but you see, here's the thing about if you don't understand the NAACP, a lot of people contributed, teachers and all, but they would not ever let it be known that they did. They would send money, but they didn't want a membership card or anything that would divulge the fact that they were a member of NAACP. To be a member of NAACP could have caused a loss in their job, or some reprisal. Yeah.	30:44
Alexander McAllister Rivera	So, what I'm trying to say to you is there a whole lot of people who were members that nobody ever knew they were members, and my father was different because he was self-employed. He was a dentist, and nobody could hurt him, and he got a lot of his strength from the fact that he was, and the Blacks knew that he was fighting their cause. And so, they would support him, even in doing that dentistry. But they used to have a joke around in Greensboro that said that the old doc would your mouth wide open and the telephone would ring, and he'd say, "I'll be right back," and he'd leave you with your mouth open, and he's fighting these racial battles.	31:24
Mary Hebert	Yeah.	32:08
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah.	32:09
Mary Hebert	So, he fought him all of his life, I mean?	32:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	All of his life until after the Depression. He moved. He said down the way, he lost property and everything, and he said, "Now, if I got to start over, I'm not going to start over in the south. I'm just not going to start over." So, he started looking around and found that he was going to New York, and my mother, being South Carolinian, she was from Florence, well, Florence and Charleston, all around.	32:13
Alexander McAllister Rivera	But anyway, she said she didn't want to live in New York City and she didn't want live anywhere that she didn't have a little garden and a porch. So they found a house in Yonkers, New York, and that's just about 14 miles by New York City, and that was close enough. Anyway, so, he moved to New York.	32:48
Felicia Woods	Do you remember what year it was that your father moved?	33:28
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. What year it was he moved?	33:28
Felicia Woods	Mm-hmm, to New York.	33:28
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Middle thirties, that's best I can put it.	33:28
Mary Hebert	You mentioned that he lost his property. Did that have anything to do with his opposition, departure and that [indistinct 00:33:35]	33:28
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I think the Depression just got it.	33:35
Mary Hebert	It just got it.	33:40
Felicia Woods	The type of race that your father ran against Judge John J. Parker, what type of race was it?	33:40
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, he didn't. Parker was nominated for the United States Supreme Court.	33:47
Felicia Woods	Okay.	33:53
Alexander McAllister Rivera	This was no race, but Parker was nominated, and you have to read the story, but to get the nomination, you have to get a certain amount of votes from the legislation, that is the United States Congress, and that's why this is so important, that they were able to convince the United States Congress that this man should not be in the Supreme Court.	33:53
Felicia Woods	So, that's why your father opposed him?	34:28
Alexander McAllister Rivera	My father opposed him because he felt that he was a racist. John J. Parker had made some statements. Yeah.	34:31
Felicia Woods	Now, I know you told us that your father opposed Parker.	34:52
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Parker?	34:58
Felicia Woods	What type of steps did he take to oppose him?	34:58
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Contacting NAACP.	35:00
Mary Hebert	What was the campaign against Parker? Did they write letters to senators?	35:01
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Telegrams, letters. A lot of this is—Oh, yeah.	35:09
Mary Hebert	Okay. So, these are all letters that were sent to all these senators.	35:29
Alexander McAllister Rivera	That's your background material.	35:33
Mary Hebert	Okay.	35:33
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Is he going to do it?	35:33
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:35:44].	35:49
Mary Hebert	What kind of steps did your father take to oppose the White power structure, say, in Greensboro? It seemed like he was active in opposing segregation in any way that he could. Did he instill that in you, this opposition to the system of segregation?	35:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He didn't do it within any program. I got it from just being at home, and in among it, observing it.	36:05
Mary Hebert	Would he do any specific things like not drink out of the Colored-only water fountain?	36:20
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, because my father looked White, and except people who knew him, would not know who was drinking out the fountain to start with. But he just fought any kind of discrimination, and he was always doing it, any kind of injustice, and that's racial injustice, any kind of discrimination. So, I lived among this, lived in it, seeing as I was telling you, people from NAACP, they came down and always stopped at the house, and they just felt that was an open door for them.	36:26
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so, I heard it all, but nobody encouraged me. I don't think my father actually wanted me to bother with it because he realized how much that would take away from your life, normal life, and things that you want to do. So, he never encouraged me to do it. I just was in it all the time.	37:12
Felicia Woods	Would you describe the neighborhood that you grew up in?	37:40
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I grew up in a neighborhood near Bennett College. It was a quiet residential neighborhood. Across the street from me was a church. On one side, there was vacant property that was owned by us or there was nobody close on that side. We had a neighbor on the other side who was just a friend. But it was nothing unusual, just a quiet residential neighborhood.	37:47
Mary Hebert	Who were some of the other NAACP leaders in Greensboro? Or is it all in here also, in this article?	38:34
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Not in that fight, because he was almost alone in it.	38:44
Mary Hebert	Were there any ministers involved in it or churches involved in opposing Parker?	38:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I don't remember, but I'm sure there were. I'm sure there were because he had grassroots support. He did not have the support of the establishment, so to speak.	38:54
Mary Hebert	So, he had, say, the support of the farmers and the sharecroppers.	39:12
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. And teachers and all. I mean, even those people who could get hurt, he had their support, but they weren't out singing "We Shall Overcome."	39:15
Mary Hebert	Right.	39:27
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No.	39:28
Mary Hebert	Not in 1930s.	39:28
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. No. They were hoping to overcome, but they weren't obvious about it.	39:29
Mary Hebert	Now you came back to Central in—	39:37
Alexander McAllister Rivera	1939.	39:41
Mary Hebert	Two years later, World War II breaks out. Were you involved in—	39:42
Alexander McAllister Rivera	41.	39:45
Mary Hebert	41.	39:45
Alexander McAllister Rivera	On that Sunday, [indistinct 00:39:58] 1941, we were returning with the football team from Columbus, Georgia, and somebody on the train said that we'd been attacked. So, it really didn't dawn on me the seriousness of it at that time. But that whole football team, virtually the whole football team, was disbanded and went somewhere, and they were drafted. And those who came back to school, came back to school, it was about 45, 46. Some of them on the GI bill, which was one of the first governmental educational bill that they had and so forth.	39:52
Mary Hebert	Were you there drafted?	40:59
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. I left here and went to work in Norfolk, Virginia for the Journal and Guide newspaper and—	41:00
Felicia Woods	I apologize, what was his name of the journal?	41:13
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Journal? J-O-U-R-N-A-L, Journal and Guide, G-U-I-D-E newspaper.	41:14
Felicia Woods	Newspaper?	41:19
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Mm-hmm. It was a highly-respected newspaper. It was mainly in North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia.	41:21
Felicia Woods	How were you made aware of that job between [indistinct 00:41:42]	41:40
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Look, I had job offers. I never had a resume in my life. I never had one. I've never applied for a job, none. But, from the time I was in school here, by virtue, see, by me running a news bureau, all of the newspapers and magazines got releases and pictures from us. So, they knew the work that we were doing here. So, I was always getting offers, and I had a falling out with Dr. Shepard. He told me that he was going to put over me a man with a PhD, a Dr. Charles Ray. He says, "I'm going to appoint Dr. Charles Ray head of the news bureau." Well, for a university, the more people that you can have heading up departments with PhDs, the bigger your school is.	41:42
Alexander McAllister Rivera	So, I said, "Well, I'm not going to work. I mean, you can appoint him." I said, "But first of all, I don't plan to sit in and do the work and have some PhD sign his name to everything that I do." I said, "I'm not going to take that." He told me, "Oh, you would like him," said, "he's a perfect," said, "I just knew that y'all would get along perfectly." I said, "Well, we might, but I'm not going to work here." So, that's the reason I left, and he was exactly right because Charlie Ray and I became the best friends we could possibly come. So, you can ask my wife, so I went on to the Journal and Guide to work.	42:52
Mary Hebert	I need to flip this tape over.	43:34

Alexander McAllister Rivera	It was a good thing that I did because when I was working for the German guide, the Navy decided that they were going to open up a office of intelligence list, this ONI, Office of Naval Intelligence, two Blacks. But I didn't know this and somebody had recommended me.	0:02
Mary Hebert	Oh.	0:32
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I'm on my porch. Policeman came up and arrested me and I didn't know for what. I said, "What is this about?" I was carried to the police station and carried straight through and in the back of the police station there was a conference room. Then is Nathan Brass was sitting in there and I was introduced to them and the commander took one look at me. She raised her nose. She said, "He'll never do. He'll never do." I told the commander, I said, "Now listen, I don't understand what all this about. Now what is it, I won't ever do—I never knew about. What is this?" I said, "You got to explain. You owe me this to explain to me." He said, "Well, I told the recruiter that I wanted a nondescript negro." I said, "Well, if you talking about what I have on, clothes and whatnot," I said, "Look, I'm about as nondescript you can get."	0:35
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I said, "None of this is tattooed to me. I can wear anything you want wear. I can come down and do just what you want, but I want to know what it's about." Then he started—Got little interested and he started talking and he said—Talking about my background out there, that time I'd had two years' law training. He says, "Well, we'll think about it. I'm not going to say no." I got a—Sitting on the porch again, these policemen came back. This time they carried me to the Navy base, went out the Navy and his name was Glass, Commander Glass. I went out there and Commander Glass says, "I found you interesting." He said, "I'm rethought my position and we want to hire you." Then I was carried in the Naval Intelligence and Norfolk Naval Base. There I spent the duration.	1:53
Mary Hebert	What kinds of—Was that a segregated unit or was it integrated?	3:00
Alexander McAllister Rivera	What?	3:03
Mary Hebert	The—	3:03
Felicia Woods	Naval—	3:03
Mary Hebert	—Naval Intelligence.	3:03
Felicia Woods	—Intelligence program.	3:03
Alexander McAllister Rivera	You never know. It was integrated. I did know, but I wasn't supposed to know. But they also brought in a close friend of mine. We got together and we admitted to each other that we had been hired. But it was integrated.	3:03
Felicia Woods	Integrated, okay.	3:11
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Naval Intelligence was integrated. My goodness. All over the world. But that was the first time they brought some Black men in.	3:11
Mary Hebert	Oh, I know you might not be able to go into what exactly you did, but what were some of your duties as a Naval Intelligence?	3:12
Alexander McAllister Rivera	It was undercover.	3:46
Felicia Woods	Undercover.	3:48
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Undercover.	3:48
Mary Hebert	Would you go out into neighborhoods?	3:48
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Anything—We watched—We listened to conversations and usually, especially in parties and people drinking and they had an expression in those days, "Loose lips sink ships." You ever heard it?	3:50
Mary Hebert	Mm-hmm.	4:11
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Loose lips sink ships. We were listening to people with loose lips talking and especially in on any party affair where there would be Naval people. See, if the Naval person says, "Well, I got to ship out tomorrow." That's a no-no, just saying, "I've got to leave tomorrow." Because anybody who's smart enough will find out what unit you're attached to. They know right then and there that your unit is going out tomorrow. They know what ship it is, how many people on it. Just by saying one thing, "Well, I got to ship out tomorrow." Just by saying that one thing was enough to involve a whole ship. Well, could be more than that. Could be a fleet. Because the ship would very seldom go by itself and war time. Those are kind of things, listening and observing and anything, any little bit that you could pick up. I reported directly to Captain Glass.	4:12
Mary Hebert	Okay. I was reading some of the information that Paul gave us on your background and there was something in there about you working for the Pittsburgh Courier and traveling through the south.	5:24
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I was supposed to do North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia. But I did all over the world with them.	5:34
Mary Hebert	What about the issue of lynching and weren't you doing some kind of—	5:39
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I covered the last lynching in South Carolina. That was Earle Warren and I covered the last lynching in Georgia and that was Isaiah Nixon. I covered the last lynch attempt in North Carolina and that was a boy named Buddy Bush in Jackson, North Carolina. Those are the last that I covered. But I was involved in a lot of—	5:47
Mary Hebert	How did these communities treat you as an African-American photojournalist coming into the community to expose the lynchings that were going on over these in these communities?	6:34
Alexander McAllister Rivera	They had no idea.	6:34
Mary Hebert	Was your life threatened?	6:38
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Not—I was in threatening situations, but I never had anybody to put a gun to me and say, "This is it." But I've been in some very tough situations.	6:40
Mary Hebert	What kind of situation?	6:50
Felicia Woods	Can you describe them for me?	6:50
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, in the Warren case in Greenville, South Carolina, I went to the judge's chambers to present my press pass in order to get court passed and whatnot. The bailiff came to the door and said, "What do you want?" I said, "I need some, my court passes and whatnot." "Who are you?" I gave him my press pass. He snatched it and slammed the door. I didn't know whether to ever expect to see him again or my pass. I guess about 10 minutes—It seemed longer, but I'm sure it wasn't long. About 10 minutes, he came back and said, "The judge wants to see you." I went in to see the judge, very nice fellow. George Martin, he said, "This is a very difficult case." He said, "I'm going for a conviction." He said, "I'm going to need your help." He said, "This is a bad situation." Thirty-one Texas cab drivers had lynched this guy, Warren. I give you the wrong name, correct that. I don't know why I say Earle Warren, Willie Earle. Willie Earle.	6:57
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He said, "Thirty-one taxi cab drivers killed him, took him out and lynched him." He said, "Now, in South Carolina the law allows anybody being held for murder to have their next of kin with them." He said, "Now, in this court down here, there are going to be 62 people." He said, "Now, they're not proud of what they did. And so they don't want any publicity about it." They say, "When they see you and see that camera around your neck, they're assuming that you can use it." They said, "Now, I couldn't be responsible no way in the world for me to give you protection, you'd be responsible for you. And so I'm going to ask you to sit in the balcony." I said, "Oh, no." I said, "Oh, no, I can't do that." He said, "Now, I asked you." He said, "Now I'm going—I know you want conviction as much as I do."	7:02
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He said, "I'm just asking you." Said, "If you think about it—Think about it." He said, "Now, it's going to be dangerous for you. It's going to be difficult for me with you sitting down there, just sitting down there." I went home and I was with a fella who had covered the Scottsboro lynching. I don't know whether you ever heard of it, the Scottsboro lynching case, one of the early cases. I said, "Man, can you imagine the judge asked me to sit upstairs in the balcony?" He was telling me that this might as tense is. I said, "I don't see anything tense here." He said, "Let me tell you one thing." He said, "Tension here is worse than I've ever seen it." Then I became frightened because I said, "Well, if I don't know it if I don't feel it, I'm supposed to be hurt."	9:39
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Then I went back. He said, "You better sit in the balcony." Said, "For your good. You sit in the balcony." I went back the next morning and I told the judge, "Yes, I would. I would sit in the balcony." Then I had got in a room with a lady whose husband had been under [indistinct 00:11:15], very nice place, nice house and everything. But I was referred to her from here. The next morning when I got up, she said, "Look, he didn't tell me that you were covering this lynching case."	10:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I said, "Yeah, I'm with Pittsburgh Courier. And I thought you knew." She said, "I'm here by myself, I'm a widow woman." And says, "I don't know what they would do to me if they just knew that you would staying here." Said, "They'd burn this house down with me and you both in here." She asked me to leave. The next morning I had to leave. I didn't have a place to stay or anything. The preacher there who was also chairman, NAACP. He said, "Well, come on over to my house." He was by himself. He wasn't married. That's where I ended up. That's where all of us stayed. All the newspaper people stayed at his house.	11:25
Alexander McAllister Rivera	It was in the summertime, I forgot the month, but one day I was sitting up at the typing before a window like [indistinct 00:12:19]. He came in and said, "Boy, are you crazy?" He virtually snatched me away from the window. He said, "Look," he said, "You going get killed sitting up there in front of that window." He asked me about being in [indistinct 00:12:33] and he made me move.	12:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	On Sunday, he asked us to go to church with him. I said, "No." I said, "I'm going to take this time to rest. I'm just tired." I said, "You go ahead. I'm going—If you don't mind, I'm going to rest." When he packed his briefcase, I saw him put a pistol on top. I said, "Is that the only pistol you got in this house?" He said, "Yeah." I said, "Well, I'm going with you, because I'm going with that pistol." We went to church with him, but to show you how—he is a minister. He preached on his sermon. In his sermon, he told them to go to Sears and he said, "I want everybody to go to Sears and buy a gun." A minister preaching that kind of—Talking and stuff.	12:37
Mary Hebert	This was the 1950s.	13:11
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Huh?	13:12
Mary Hebert	This was in the '50s?	13:12
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, '48.	13:33
Mary Hebert	Forty-eight.	13:33
Felicia Woods	Forty-eight.	13:33
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Forty-seven or '48, Willie—The other one was 47, I think it was, '47 or '48. I have.	13:37
Mary Hebert	Why was Willie Earle lynched?	13:43
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He was supposed to have said something to some White girl and didn't do anything but attempted to make a date or something that somebody said that he did. But that was the situation.	13:46
Mary Hebert	In the other cases wasn't something—	14:05
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Isaiah Nixon?	14:05
Mary Hebert	Something like that?	14:05
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. Isaiah Nixon voted.	14:05
Mary Hebert	He voted?	14:05
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Isaiah Nixon voted. Buddy Bush, the one that almost had a lynching was in Jackson, North Carolina. He said something on the street to some White girl on Saturday afternoon they were in the street, going to the theater. He was supposed to have said something to her. I covered another case, the Mack Ingram case, I forgot the exact date of that. But all in the same timeframe, Mack Ingram was convicted in two courts, the municipal court and the Superior court. He was convicted for leering. Now leering is an old English word that means to stare, but he didn't say anything because he was across a field. This girl said that he leered at her. He was across a field and he was convicted in two courts. It wasn't until we got a letter from Thurgood Marshall NAACP, the court had asked him to send me over to Yanceyville. This was in Yanceyville, North Carolina. I went over there. Sure enough we found that he had actually been convicted in two courts. Once it got hit the national press, we were able to expose the irony of this. He was freed.	14:11
Mary Hebert	Do you remember the name of the preacher in the Willie Earle or the church?	15:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I'd have to go back to—See, everything—I know I sound careless, but everything that I've done is either in the Library of Congress or one of these libraries. The library I do, it's all in those back papers and I'd have to go back. I didn't—When I was doing the work, it was just a job, a day by day job. When the job was over and the day was over, then I'd look for something—A drink or something to do. I have to point out, it was just—I didn't have any idea that I was involved in any historic episodes at all.	16:01
Mary Hebert	Now obviously you traveled a lot for these cases and the whole issue of travel for African Americans in the south was a difficult one. Did you have to stop at the side of the road to sleep? Would you find places to stay everywhere?	16:43
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I would never—Sure. Now, the Isaiah Nixon case, this brings up the—I had a Roadmaster Buick. When I left here, I was dressed as a chauffeur. Kept right in that cross, I'll save it forever because it saved my life. I was dressed as a chauffeur, chauffeur cap, little black bow tie. Wherever I wanted to stop at a filling station or anything, I was accorded all privileges because in the situation I would channel, I was working for some White person, they would assume. Where they would've denied me had I been in dressed otherwise, "Come on in, what do you want? blah, blah blah. Okay. Blah, blah." But they treated me—Now another trick that I used to use if I was afraid and I'm driving down the highway and I saw a White hitchhiker and he'd stop and I said, "Come on, come on." Now everybody knew then that I was working for him. He was hitch-hiking, he didn't even have money enough to ride. But just the scene, they would assume that I was driving for him. See? I would do that as a safety measure in a lot of times.	16:56
Mary Hebert	Did you do that every time you were out?	18:42
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, not every time, but just sometimes. But when you got to your destination, you always filled up with gas. When you got to your destination, where you were, you do not know how fast you're going have to leave and whatnot. The first thing you do before you do anything, make any contacts at all, fill up with gasoline. You'd get a good running start, as good as you can have. But now Isaiah Nixon case, this was the closest I've ever came to death. I'll just tell you about it. When I got to the little town, I met a man cleaning off front of his house. I asked him if he'd take me up to—If he knew Isaiah Nixon, he said, "Yeah, I know." I said, "Will you take me up there?"	18:45
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He says, "You can't get up there in that car." I said, "Well, will you take me out there?" "No." I said, "Well, I'll give you $25 to take me out there." He said, "Okay. He'll take—I said, "You'll take me." He took me up and this was between—It's very eerie. Between the where the pine trees are being bled for rosen and the buckets are hanging on the tree. You ever see that sight? Where it'd go up, it's winding like this. It's just room for a car to go up.	19:34
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I went up to the opening, clearing the house up in the clearing. The mother was there with little children and I interviewed her, took pictures of them, took pictures of children, talked to them.	20:29
Alexander McAllister Rivera	This fellow who took me up there was just waiting. We left and we made this turn and got back down in this turpentine neighborhood. There was a car waiting there full of Whites. Well, I just knew it was up then. I said to this guy who took me up there, I said, "Who are they?" He said, "One of them's the high sheriff," said, "I don't know who else." Talking under his breath. The guy who he said was the high sheriff came around, said, "Who is this?" He knew him. Said, "Who is this you got with you?" He said, "He came up to see about funeral arrangements for Nixon."	20:46
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Now I had not told him to say that because I didn't expect to have any problems. We didn't come up with any escape alibi at all. They told us to back up and carried us back up to this area that we just left. Well, I didn't expect anything. We hadn't come up with any concoction or any escape. They told us to stay in the car. This guy who was a high sheriff went in the house and I said, "Well, I guess—I don't know what to think now, sure enough." The kids are out there. In those days, they had a little flash bug by the size of [indistinct 00:22:13]. We used to call them peanuts. They had little flash bugs. I had shot a lot of pictures around there. As you shoot the bugs, you just throw them away. They're all over the yard. The kids were playing with them and all around this car. People were sitting there. These little kids said, "When the man took my pictures," said, "and the light went off," and said, "I got scared." They said, "Child, what did you do?" Blah, blah, blah.	21:29
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The guy came out the house said, "You can go now." Now here—I don't know whether they are just letting us down where those trees are or actually letting me go. Because I don't know what they said in the house. I got back down to my car and the nearest town from where I was, was Atlanta, not coming back home. Because I told you about having a full tank of gas. I headed for Atlanta. Because that was the nearest big town.	22:40
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I headed for Atlanta and I went straight to Bishop Fountain. He was the bishop of my church. I went straight to Bishop Fountain's house and I was nervous as I could be. When I got there, I rang the bell. He came from the door, Bishop Fountain, he's known me because I cover a lot of stories. But he looked at me, he said, "Yes?" I said, "Bishop Fountain." He said, "Yes?" Then all of a sudden, he says, "Alec," he says, "What in the world is that you got on?" Talking about my chauffeur cap. I'd forgotten I had it on. Then he said, "Come in here." I told him what had happened and whatever the nearest I ever came to actually meeting my maker, I think.	23:10
Felicia Woods	What city was that in Georgia, do you remember?	23:59
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, it was in the country. I had to find out what it is. I got to check some notes I have upstairs. It was out in the country. Newman, I think. Newman. Close to Newman, Georgia. I'm not sure. I'd have to check that. I think it's Newman, Georgia.	24:11
Mary Hebert	How much longer do you have?	24:31
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I don't care. Am I talking too much?	24:35
Mary Hebert	No, no, no. I just didn't know if you had something planned for later today or in the next—	24:36
Felicia Woods	Thirty minutes.	24:42
Mary Hebert	When did you come back to Durham to live?	24:47
Alexander McAllister Rivera	After the war.	24:51
Mary Hebert	After the war?	24:51
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, immediately after the war, I went to work for the Pittsburgh Courier. That's when I was-	24:53
Mary Hebert	Right. [indistinct 00:25:00].	24:59
Alexander McAllister Rivera	—started then. This was—See, I married in 1941 and I married a girl whose parents live right here. All of them are dead. My first wife, her name was Hazel. She's dead. Her mother and father are dead and all that. This—I'm a party of one. I was in and out of this very house. But I came back here and after the war, and it was in 1974.	24:59
Mary Hebert	Still working.	26:15
Alexander McAllister Rivera	They came back. I was over here and they kept coming, "We know we want you to come back to work. We know we can't offer you what you could get and what we would like to pay, but we don't want you to come back." I said, "Well, you haven't made an offer yet. You don't know what I—" We was playing, captain, his teasing. They made me an offer. I said, "Well, I don't blame you for being ashamed, but since I'm as close I'll see how it works out. We'll try it for a while." That was 1974.	26:15
Mary Hebert	Since I've been here, I've heard a lot about the different Black neighborhoods within Durham. Could you describe some of those to me? I'm really not sure of exactly which ones they were and where they were located and what the people were like in them. Do you know much about that?	26:26
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The first would not be a neighborhood, it would be a business district. The first would be the business district, which was as a North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company is the mutual savings and loan company. They were on Parrish Street.	26:45
Mary Hebert	Paris?	27:02
Alexander McAllister Rivera	P-A-R-R-I-S-H, Parrish. Parrish Street.	27:02
Mary Hebert	Were those businesses owned by—You've talked about the interlocking—	27:16
Alexander McAllister Rivera	They were—	27:21
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:27:22].	27:21
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Now that street across of the—Oh, well, they can give you the bank, the Mechanics and Farmer's Bank was three businesses on there. After the bank holiday was over—You remember that? That was under Roosevelt. Under the bank. When the bank holiday was over, the Mechanics and Farmers Bank was the first bank to open of all the banks in the—It was the first bank to open. As far as the business establishment was concerned, they got the reputation of being the soundest bank in town. They got a lot of White business, especially Jewish business, a lot of it.	27:23
Mary Hebert	That bank had White business people dealing with them and had White depositors and those kinds of things?	28:18
Alexander McAllister Rivera	They did, but they got more. After the bank holiday when they were first to open. See, they got more then because they figured that it was solid bank. Others were struggling. This bank—The first day they opened right up full of money. But that financial district was called the Black Wall Street.	28:22
Felicia Woods	Black Wall Street?	28:46
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The Black Wall Street of U.S.A. because of the business. Now when you leave there, the next district—The next—You start getting into typical Black businesses. That would be restaurants and drug stores, barber shops and beauty salons. Those coming on, those things.	28:47
Mary Hebert	That's one where the freeway runs now, isn't it?	29:24
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, beyond it. Before the freeway. Before for the freeway and after. Both. Because the freeway wasn't there.	29:27
Mary Hebert	Right.	29:37
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The freeway just cut—	29:38
Mary Hebert	Cut through.	29:41
Felicia Woods	Cut through.	29:41
Alexander McAllister Rivera	—cut through it. But that district was called Hayti. There was another district that you almost never hear of that it was behind a little area behind the Wonderland Theater. Wonderland Theater. It was a district house—A neighborhood there that was called Mexico. Now Mexico was tough. You didn't have no policeman would go in there by himself. I mean, none. I don't care how brave or crazy he was. He wouldn't go in there by himself.	29:41
Mary Hebert	Were they juke joints and those kinds of things?	30:36
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Everything.	30:41
Mary Hebert	Did many people live in that neighborhood?	30:41
Alexander McAllister Rivera	They had residences. But you had all types of—Now you didn't have any dope. You had had bootleg liquor, but you didn't have dope. But you had some gambling, bootleg liquor and some prostitution and especially down in Mexico. But it was rough. Then of course now, Hayti stopped at Enterprise Street and would be about Enterprise and Fayetteville. Then you had from there on down, Fayetteville Street was where all of the big enterprising families live. Where all of them down Fayetteville Street.	30:51
Mary Hebert	The people who have owned businesses in the Black business district would've probably lived in this neighborhood?	32:03
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah, from here back.	32:13
Mary Hebert	Okay.	32:14
Alexander McAllister Rivera	From here back. Now my father-in-law was principal of school. Before coming here, he was president of Kittrell College. They would give you an idea of what type did you have here?	32:14
Felicia Woods	Excuse me, what was the name of that college?	32:25
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Kittrell, K-I-T-T-R-E-L-L, Kittrell College, which is in Kittrell, North Carolina. It was a AME school. African Methodist Episcopal School.	32:32
Felicia Woods	What is it a college?	32:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Kittrell College.	32:56
Felicia Woods	Was it a liberal arts college? Do you know?	32:56
Alexander McAllister Rivera	It was liberal arts because it didn't have any vocation. That's about it as far as the districts.	33:03
Mary Hebert	What about The Bottoms? I hear that The Bottoms, too.	33:23
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The Bottoms was over—Not in this area at all. It's northwest. In northwest, there was some all residential and those were where a lot of the people lived who worked at the tobacco factories. We had tobacco factories and hosiery mills where a lot of those people lived. But they was over in the northwest section. It was—People don't call it now, but it was called The Bottoms as the people referring to it.	33:32
Mary Hebert	Did you go out and photograph everything?	34:22
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Almost all my photography was for the school and the businesses. I had no interest in the sociological side of it. I mean, and pictures. I just never had any interest in taking pictures of people. First of all, they couldn't buy the picture then. As I said, I knew they were there. There's some things that, my own attitude was didn't need to be preserved for posterity. I guess I should have. Looking back over it, I would have. But I didn't.	34:26
Mary Hebert	What kinds of pictures did you take? Was it of people of buildings? I haven't seen much of your work and I just want to—Could you describe some of that?	35:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, virtually all the pictures I took were for the newspaper story that I was doing. Illustrate the story. When you go down to the library, you'll see something down there to get an idea of the kind of stuff we took.	35:23
Mary Hebert	Were you involved in the civil rights movement here in the '50s and '60s? Did you become active in that also? Did you just cover it as a reporter?	35:41
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Just as a reporter. That was my involvement.	35:59
Mary Hebert	Now I was reading that you took photos of the sites for the Brown case. Did you go to all the different cities and communities that were involved in the Brown case like Summerton, South Carolina and those other places?	36:01
Alexander McAllister Rivera	You might know and you might not know. The case that was really involved was not Brown. It was the Clarendon County School System.	36:22
Mary Hebert	The Briggs case.	36:44
Alexander McAllister Rivera	The Briggs case. You know about that.	36:47
Mary Hebert	[indistinct 00:36:50].	36:47
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, that was the pivotal case. The Briggs case. That was the case that Thurgood Marshall was on. Thurgood Marshall was not in the Brown case. The Brown case was handled by Jack Greenberg. Now what happened was—All of this stuff that you see, they almost never mention Briggs, never mention Clarendon County. But that's the way it all was. That's where—You see, Judge—We were in the Clarendon County case when it started—When the people in Clarendon County asked the school officials for a bus, they didn't even ask for a new bus. They asked for a bus. Just a bus to transport the kids to school. They were told, "If you want a bus, go out and buy one." Then that's when stuff hit the fan. Because the Blacks got angry. They said, "Well—" Then they got in the NAACP. NAACP said, "Well, we're not going to ask for no bus." Then they started out asking for a school equal. They were asking for separate but equal. That's how it started. Separate but equal. One morning Judge Julius Waring called Thurgood Marshall into his chambers.	36:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	We were sitting in the courtroom, didn't know why he was calling him. Thurgood Marshall came out of the courtroom and Thurgood was a big guy. He was always full of life. But he came back and he didn't have any smile on his face. We didn't know what in the world that judge had told him to put him in that move. Thurgood came around a group of lawyers and said, "Judge Waring told me he did not want to hear another separate but equal case." He said, "I want you to bring now a frontal attack on segregation." Well, the NAACP was planning to do that somewhere in the future, but they weren't planning to do that that morning. The NAACP was meeting in Boston and so Thurgood Marshall had to call Roy Wilkins to tell him what the situation was. Roy Wilkins was [indistinct 00:39:46], everybody was.	38:34
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Finally, they decided that they were going to have to bring a front attack on segregation. But then they told Judge Waring this and that, "We'll win this case under you because you asked—" Said, "But in the appellate court, the three judge court, we aren't going to have one vote next. That's yours, we're going to lose it." He said, "You are right." Said, "You're going to lose it in appellate court. But then what?" Said, "Then you automatically get to the Supreme Court and that's the where you want to be. That's where you want to be. You're going to be in the Supreme Court." They did. And exactly what happened, what he told them, they won in his court, they lost in appellate court and then went to the Supreme Court. That's—But all of this was done because of the work done in Briggs. Now the reason why it was called Briggs—I mean Brown and not Briggs, normally it would be named alphabetically. All right. But now it was not named Brown—I mean, Briggs because the feeling was that in the Supreme Court when it went to the Supreme Court that they would not have a feeling that here's another attack on the south. See.	39:40
Mary Hebert	The Brown was—	41:20
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Brown.	41:20
Mary Hebert	It was in Topeka.	41:20
Alexander McAllister Rivera	That's right. They said, "Now, we don't want them to feel that like, well, okay, here you come again. Another attack on the south. They named it the Brown case. Brown versus Topeka Board of Education. That's how it was not Briggs.	41:20
Mary Hebert	I need to put in—	41:28

Mary Hebert	What were the people in Clarendon County like? Obviously, you visited Clarendon county.	0:03
Felicia Woods	And you covered it as a news reporter?	0:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	When you see the display down there at the school, you'll see a picture down there called Freedom Fighters. They looked nothing like freedom fighters. They were just ordinary people. And they were determined that whatever the causes were or whatever the consequences were, they were going to fight it out. And they raised money in churches and all around, the dollar contributions, and all around. During the struggle the school the Black school was burned down, the principal's house was burned down.	0:14
Mary Hebert	You covered all of this? You were there?	1:03
Felicia Woods	Did you actually see the burning?	1:07
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No. Saw the result. Most of the deliberations from the early deliberations were held in, of all places, the Liberty Hill Methodist Church, AME Church in Clarendon County. With it named Liberty, I used to think about how significant this was be, Liberty Hill AME Church. But it was very, very, very interesting.	1:08
Felicia Woods	Do you remember whether your family was involved in the church at all?	1:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Hm-mm.	1:56
Mary Hebert	Were you active in the NAACP throughout this period? Were you a member of the NAACP?	1:57
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. Yeah. I was a member, but I didn't do anything for the NAACP but cover these cases. They knew I was here to cover cases and they would write to the headquarters in Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh would assign me to cover.	2:02
Mary Hebert	They would request you?	2:23
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, they knew I was the only person here. They didn't have to request. They would request.	2:25
Mary Hebert	How do you think your coverage of these cases and the lynchings affected the civil rights movement? Do you think it had an impact on the Black community's willingness to step out, and take chances, and to fight the system of segregation?	2:32
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, all support helps. And they knew that my main support was exposing these things. As long as you could do something and you didn't have—See, the great fear was publicity. That was a great fear that what we doing is going to be exposed. And you had the White papers that were part of the establishment. And the White papers weren't going to expose it all, they were going to expose it with their slant in their way. And so by having a Black newspaper, a Black reporter, I had a tremendous impact. I knew I had anybody else in my same position would've had the same thing, I do believe. But I had tremendous impact on it. The battle to break down segregation, University of North Carolina, I was pivotal in that.	2:48
Mary Hebert	How so?	3:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	By exposing it.	3:58
Mary Hebert	Exposing it.	3:59
Alexander McAllister Rivera	By exposing it. And the thing about it, everybody, as soon as they had a problem, came right here where you sitting to tell me. And a lot of it I wouldn't even have to go out to investigate it. They'd bring it to me because they knew that this was the only way they were going to get it in the paper.	4:00
Mary Hebert	Were there other Black reporters like yourself?	4:17
Alexander McAllister Rivera	There was another Black newspaper here to Carolina Times.	4:25
Felicia Woods	But no other—	4:27
Alexander McAllister Rivera	But they didn't have national. I was working for the largest Black paper in the country. So what I wrote went nationally. What I wrote was read by the White House, the Senate, the Congress, everybody. You understand? Not because of me, but because I was working for the largest newspaper in the world. When Nixon got ready to go to Africa, he said, "I want Alex Rivera to go to Africa with me." And he wasn't thinking about going to Africa without some Blacks anyway, but we won an award together. And so he knew me and he asked for me to go with him. And that was March 1957, to the independence of Ghana.	4:28
Mary Hebert	Did you know Nixon before he asked you to go? I just wasn't clear on that. You said y'all were in the war together and—	5:20
Alexander McAllister Rivera	No, we weren't in the war. We won an award together.	5:25
Mary Hebert	Oh, won an award. I'm sorry. What kind of award?	5:29
Alexander McAllister Rivera	He was for—Mine was for reporting. We reported the impact of the Brown decision. And he won an award, I don't know what it was for, but we were receiving these awards together at the same time.	5:33
Mary Hebert	And so you'd met him. Okay. I wasn't clear on that.	5:54
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. Yeah.	5:58
Felicia Woods	Can you tell us, is there any one particular highlight or several highlights of your career that are most distinguished by you?	6:00
Alexander McAllister Rivera	You see what I was saying is that it was all a day's work with me. And some things were interesting. And I gave you the one that was most exciting, was the one I thought I was going to lose my life. I guess that would be—Yeah. Because I knew I was gone then.	6:13
Mary Hebert	Did you maintain any contact with Nixon after the trip to Ghana?	6:33
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I visited him at his home. And we had a reunion for the group that went to Africa with him and so forth. And we corresponded.	6:39
Mary Hebert	This is going way back to the beginning of our interview, but you said you established the News Bureau at Central. What did that involve? Establishing a news service, did you have to start from scratch?	6:50
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. Because it didn't have any. It involved the preparation of stories and pictures about the university. But by me being a photojournalist, then I also did for this whole area. Then when our teams played another team in this area, other schools didn't have photographers and they'd ask us, "Please send us some pictures of the game when you get back." So our stuff was going all around everywhere. And that's why people knew what we were doing.	7:03
Mary Hebert	I have one more question. I don't know if Felicia has any others, but I was reading about you being student body president of Central, of your senior class, and how Dr. Shepard really wanted you to do something else and to work for the school paper. How did that play out? How did that—	7:52
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well—	8:13
Speaker 5	I thought I had lost this, but that's the award he got—	8:13
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Turn this off.	8:18
Alexander McAllister Rivera	[INTERRUPTION 00:08:18]	8:18
Mary Hebert	Now, you're talking about student body president and that situation.	8:21
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Well, I'd already told you that. Dr. Shepard treated me like a son of his.	8:27
Speaker 5	Need anything?	8:36
Alexander McAllister Rivera	And so—	8:36
Speaker 5	Need anything? You want me to hand you—	8:39
Alexander McAllister Rivera	This was a relationship that we had all the time. Well, the student body acclimation voted me present of the student body. I didn't campaign for it or anything. I was a little, as a student, I was a little older than my classmates because as I told you at Howard, I dropped out of school and that's why I was out about three or four years. So I came here. I was older than most of them. So I'd also had the background experience at Howard University. And I had no fear of Dr. Shepard whatsoever because he was just like an uncle. So I was outspoken. So by being outspoken, the kids said, "Well, here's the person we need to represent us." So here I was. So Dr. Shepard not having control of the student government says—And he wanted to control everything. He said, "No, I don't want you to be president of student body. I want you to be editor of the school newspaper."	8:43
Alexander McAllister Rivera	I said, "But the students want me to be president of student body." So that's what I'm going to be. They asked me to be president. He said, "Well, I'm not going to give you a place to meet." I said, "Well, we'll find somewhere to meet." So we used to meet in front of the dining room there. I knew to have the meeting in front of the dining hall because I'd always have an audience. I knew I'd have a good audience coming in that dining room. So we'd have our meeting after lunch. We always had our meetings after lunch because I have a built-in crowd coming out of the dining. And I would tell him and speaking out there that, "Okay, Dr. Shepard, we are now meeting in God's auditorium. Now, what are you going to do about that?" It was just one of those things.	9:46
Mary Hebert	What kinds of programs did you enact as student body president?	10:37
Alexander McAllister Rivera	We didn't do anything. I think we changed the climate. Everything was so austere and so tyrannical. The girls had to be in by certain times. The boys' dormitories were locked by midnight. And there are a lot of things, those are some of the things that we were able to change. But most of all, we were able to change the attitude of the administration in some small measure toward the student body. See, the school and administration felt that they had the personal responsibility for each person's safety and whatnot. And it was a little tough. So that's about the only thing we did.	10:44
Mary Hebert	So there was more student participation?	11:49
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah.	11:52
Mary Hebert	The student voice was heard more.	11:53
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yeah. They were kind of following my leadership. I don't think we did a whole lot. But in the short time, it's usually a year, but that's a short time they're doing and go to school too.	11:54
Mary Hebert	Can you compare the differences between living in the segregated south? And I know Washington wasn't that much different, but was there a difference in?	12:11
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Washington was a segregated as any place I ever lived in my life.	12:21
Mary Hebert	So they had the same Jim Crow laws in Washington as they had in Durham?	12:25
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Let me see, I'm trying to think of the name of the biggest store there in town. Black women couldn't try on anything. And you tried on a hat, you bought it. That was yours. And so if you didn't know anything about it and you tried on three hats, you bought three hats because you didn't try on anything. Now, when I say anything, I am sure that they had to try on shoes, but no other clothing that I know anything about.	12:35
Mary Hebert	So Black business districts were very important because you didn't have to go through that kind of—	13:10
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Oh, yeah. Now, they had a hard, fast, distinct segregation. Theaters, everything. Now, we didn't have any Black theaters here, but in Washington DC, they had Black theaters. They weren't owned by Blacks. They were owned by Jews, but they were operated by Blacks.	13:16
Felicia Woods	Owned by Jews.	13:47
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Owned by Jews, but they were operated, ticket takers, and managers, and all that were all Black.	13:48
Mary Hebert	So Blacks who went to theaters here in Durham, had to go through a back entrance and sit in the balcony?	13:55
Alexander McAllister Rivera	Yep. Yeah. All except we had one Black theater in Hayti and that's the only Black theater. They had one Black theater here that was called the Regal. R-E-G-A-L, Regal.	14:01
Mary Hebert	The Regal Theater. Do you have any more questions? I'm sure that the—	14:23

Item Info

Title:

Alexander Rivera interview recording, 1995 June 02

Date:

June 2, 1995

Creator:

Rivera, Alexander McAllister

Contributor:

Description:

Name: Alexander McAlister Rivera; Date of birth: 1913-01-04; Place of birth: Greensboro, NC; Occupation(s): journalist; news reporter; photojournalist; Residence: Durham, NC
Informant ID: 1246; Interviewed by: Mary Hebert and Felicia Woods.

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Language:

English

Digital Collection:

Behind the Veil

Source Collection:

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

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

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Interview number: 338
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Alexander Rivera interview recording, 1995 June 02

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1. Alexander Rivera administrative file, 1995

John Hope Franklin Research Center

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Alexander Rivera interview recording, 1995 June 02

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John Hope Franklin Research Center

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