Interview with Virginia Durr (Birmingham, AL activist) by Larry Rubin

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Man	Virginia Deer 1-1588, Montgomery, Alabama.	0:05
Woman	Here in Alabama now, in Mississippi,	0:14
	the law was changed in '73, but I do think thugh...	0:17
Man	I'm sorry, we ready to actually do this,	0:27
	so we're starting?	0:39
	That's why I'd like to get it flowing.	0:45
	But you're saying you've gotta be right...	0:48
Woman	Well I'll do the best I can,	0:53
	and I hope that she'll refute me	0:54
	because she's a lot younger than I am,	0:57
	and she knows a lot more than I do about	0:59
	young Black women, because I don't.	1:02
	I know about some of 'em, but I don't know about other...	1:05
Second Woman	Well we probably have to	1:07
	have that conversation another time. (laughs)	1:10
	I'm interested in these issues at the same time,	1:11
	but this is a documentary about women	1:14
	in the Civil Rights Movement, so we're gonna go back	1:16
	and talk about that, and should you wanna talk about...	1:20
	(laughs) We can't talk about this whole thing.	1:24
Man	But what I'd like to do is in three sections	1:31
	talk about your involvement and how you got involved	1:34
	in the Civil Rights Movement.	1:37
	And the historical (inaudible). The second thing is	1:43
	What do you see today that is an extension	1:48
	of the Civil Rights Movement?	1:51
	Your perceptions of where it's gone.	1:54
	It's come forward, and how much you were doing	1:58
	in the USA, and what is the legacy that is left	2:01
	by the Civil Rights Movement?	2:07
	And any conceptions you have now that-	2:11
	Part of the documentary talks about	2:14
	the Civil Rights Movement, in terms of desegregation,	2:18
	voting rights, and things like that, and at some point,	2:21
	because of the women in the movement and	2:24
	because of the women's movement itself,	2:27
	it moved into that more general human rights movement	2:29
	with women at the forefront.	2:34
Woman	No it didn't do that then, not yet.	2:37
Man	Well, the whole classic women's movement-	2:41
Woman	Took off some.	2:44
Man	Yeah, well that's where I'm going with that.	2:46
	And how far did you have to come,	2:50
	and how much farther do we have to go?	2:52
Woman	Well you seem, okay, surprised, but I don't	2:54
	I would have to say that--I don't think the classic women's	2:58
	movement has stressed gender so much	3:02
	(inaudible) to really answer the question.	3:06
-	Then that's fine	3:12
	And you know, I think that what we're up against now	3:18
	is a terrible economic crisis, and I think (inaudible)	3:22
	And so I think	3:29
	women have to be in the forefront, to make a living.	3:32
	Men and women, God help us.	3:40
	Well you start off.	3:47
Man	She's gonna ask you a question and...	3:50
Second Woman	They have to make it stay on track	3:53
	because they're getting off on asking tangential questions.	3:55
	(everyone speaking at once)	4:04
Durr	Well I got it--now, are you on or not?	4:10
Rubin	Yes Ma'am, we are ready to go.	4:13
Durr	Well let's go.	4:15
Rubin	Go ahead.	4:17
Durr	Well I went to Washington in 1933.	4:18
	My husband went up there	4:24
	to work for the Reconstruction Finance Corporation	4:26
	because all the banks were closed.	4:28
	And I got interested in the Democratic Party	4:33
	from Mr. Roosevelt and Mrs. Roosevelt.	4:36
	And so I began to be a volunteer	4:41
	for the Democratic National Committee Women's Division,	4:43
	and oddly enough, it's hard for you all to remember	4:47
	since you're so young.	4:51
	The District of Columbia was as segregated then	4:53
	as the governmental body.	4:56
	President Roosevelt's (inaudible) was segregated.	4:59
	I didn't know about anything,	5:03
	at that time, but it was.	5:07
	And every government building was segregated,	5:08
	and everything down there was segregated,	5:10
	and the whole of D.C. was segregated.	5:13
	So one of the first things that the women did,	5:18
	and one of the first things that Mrs. Roosevelt	5:21
	got interested in was doing away with segregation.	5:24
	And I have a friend named Paul Coleman from Atlanta	5:26
	who's the head of the paper there.	5:30
	And he had a black secretary.	5:44
	And you know, you never saw such carrying on in your life	5:48
	because he had a Black secretary	5:51
	She was very ambitious and a very nice woman,	5:54
	but he had to fight tooth and nail, you know,	5:57
	to keep her.	6:00
	And Washington was desegregated by a very fine woman	6:05
	named Mrs. Mary Church Terrell.	6:10
	She was an old lady that came from Memphis, Tennessee,	6:13
	originally, and she was married to a federal judge.	6:16
	And she went into some eating place with two men,	6:20
	and they wouldn't serve her, and so they brought soup,	6:25
	and that broke the segregation in D.C.	6:29
	So you see, I had my first experience working	6:34
	in the Civil Rights Movement	6:37
	in the District of Columbia and under the New Deal	6:39
	with Roosevelt, and having everybody on my side,	6:42
	I mean, the Supreme Court was on my side,	6:46
	and the White House was on our side.	6:48
	Everybody was on our side except the Southern Congressmen...	6:51
	(mumbles)	6:57
	Getting rid of the segregation was just wonderful.	7:07
	The difference was...	7:11
	But anyway, that's how I got interested.	7:13
	And then the next thing I got interested in-	7:17
	This was also through the Women's Division of the	7:19
	Democratic National Committee-	7:22
	Was the fact that women of the South black and white,	7:24
	were denied the right to vote.	7:26
	You see, when the Northern law had passed.	7:28
-	How are you Mrs. Carl, Nikki Crawford,	7:37
	pleased to meet you.	7:39
-	I'm so glad to see ya.	7:41
-	Oh this is a treat to have you two here together	7:45
-	This is Frank Rosso.	7:48
-	I'm producing a program for (inaudible)	7:52
Durr	And how about if we go ahead and finish this off?	8:04
	When we get to the Civil Rights stuff-	8:08
	And this is how I got into the Civil Rights Movement.	8:19
	I was talking about what happened in Washington with Chuck.	8:21
	How we had so many strengths on our side.	8:26
	And Judge Hastings, he wrote the bills for us.	8:30
	And Charlie Houston, do you know that man?	8:36
Second Woman	No.	8:39
Durr	Goodness. (laughs)	8:40
	Now black history has really got to be taught.	8:41
	Charlie Houston was probably one of the greatest	8:44
	black men that ever lived in this country.	8:46
	He was a great lawyer, he was the dean of the law school,	8:48
	and he was the man that won all these big cases.	8:50
-	Howard Law School	8:56
	Well Charlie Houston was a really a brave man.	9:01
	Well anyway we had all this power on our side,	9:04
	so segregation was done away with,	9:07
	and the next thing was the right to vote.	9:09
	And the things was, when the Civil War was ended,	9:12
	and the laws were enacted, he gave the black men	9:17
	and the white men the right to vote, except of course	9:21
	the white men couldn't vote if he had taken part	9:24
	in the Civil War, but if he hadn't then-	9:27
	but the women - neither black nor white women	9:35
	had any right to vote at all	9:37
	So down here in the South, they didn't even pass	9:42
	the right to vote for women, you know	9:49
	The Amendment, it was a movement to get the vote.	9:52
	Started about 1917, but I was too young for that.	9:59
	The thing was that neither the white women	10:03
	or the black women of the South ever voted.	10:06
	And neither did poor white folks either, cause you see	10:09
	you had to pay a poll tax	10:11
	which not only meant you paid a dollar and a half a year	10:13
	but you had to pay back taxes, all the taxes you'd missed	10:16
	so you'd pay 45 dollars, before you could start voting.	10:18
	So the next thing that the Women's Division did	10:24
	was begin to struggle for the right to vote.	10:28
	And the man that carried the burden for us was	10:31
	Claude Pepper of Florida, who came from Alabama.	10:34
	He was a volunteer in Clay County	10:39
	and he went and got elected	10:41
	To the Senate from Florida, and he was the one	10:43
	but he, you know, had got rid of the poll tax in Florida	10:46
	and he was the one that fought for the right to vote	10:50
	for everybody in the South. And over and over and over again	10:52
	he would introduce the bill on the right to vote	10:57
	and eliminate the poll taxes	11:00
	And it took years and years and years	11:05
	to get the right to vote, so I got interested in that.	11:08
	And that was really occupied use of my time and energy	11:12
	It just seemed so incredible that we had to fight against it	11:19
	But they didn't want Blacks voting and they didn't want	11:25
	the women voting either	11:28
	And it wasn't until Lyndon Johnson came in,	11:30
	and that was 1950... something	11:34
	when he got the Civil Rights Bill passed.	11:40
Second Woman	1965.	11:42
Woman	Was that 1965?	11:44
Second Woman	He did it.	11:45
Woman	He got the bill passed, he got the poll tax	11:46
	removed and the right to vote, but not 'til '65.	11:49
	You see, that was a long time.	11:53
	But intelligent people are mad at him still	11:57
	on account of the war	12:01
	And I think he was wrong about the Vietnamese War.	12:04
	But still he got Southern people the right to vote.	12:05
	And one of the things that happened when we came back South	12:11
	and my husband opened his office here	12:18
	was that the woman didn't, blacks didn't vote,	12:23
	and very few of the white men voted.	12:26
	Because, you know, the poll tax kept them from it	12:29
	And in Alabama, when the time to vote would come,	12:32
	and it wouldn't be more than 15 percent	12:37
	of the voting population that would cast a ballot.	12:40
	Isn't that right, John?	12:43
Man	That's right.	12:44
-	A tiny, you know, minority ever cast a vote.	12:45
	Well, it meanth they had no power	12:52
	and that everything was controlled completely	12:55
	by white men, and it was always the same white men,	12:57
	you know, they just had bigoted views, they called them	13:04
	About everything.	13:09
	So it really wasn't when they started	13:12
	the fight for the right to vote here in Montgomery	13:19
	had gone on before we ever came back here in 1951.	13:23
	Now Johnny can tell you about that because that started	13:26
	back before we got here in 1951.	13:30
	Mr. Nixon I think it was started the, uh,	13:34
	Did he start the voting club, or who did?	13:38
-	Cooper Lewis	13:41
-	Cooper Lewis?
	Well, you tell about it	13:43
Man	Okay, if we're gonna do that then,	13:46
	we'll get Charlie.	13:48
Second Woman	And I wanna hear about the Women's	13:51
	Political Council and how you started that	13:53
	and the work that you did.	13:57
	That's really important that we hear hear that.	13:59
-	(inaudible) that I started the women's political council?	14:02
-	Well you and Joanne Robinson.	14:04
-	Joanne Robinson.	14:07
	Joanne Robinson, Mrs. West, and some others.	14:10
	But I did not start it, but I was part of it.	14:14
	And as part of the community and because of	14:18
	my work in the community, I was invited	14:21
-	And I'd like to know how you all met each other.	14:26
	(laughter)	14:31
-	We couldn't help it, it was inevitable.	14:36
	Well we belonged to something called the Churchwomen United.	14:39
	And later, Mrs. Tilly, over in Atlanta Georgia, who was	14:43
	a great Methodist lady, and who was head of	14:49
	the Methodist women, she came over and she joined something	14:52
	called the Fellowship of the Concerned.	14:57
	And that was in (inaudible)	15:00
	And somebody oughta write a book about Ms. Tilly.	15:05
	She was a wonderful woman. But the first thing that started	15:08
	was called the Churchwomen United	15:11
	and that started here, and we used to have integrated	15:15
	meetings in various churches and Mrs. Johnny	15:19
	was one of the leaders, and then there was	15:23
	Mrs. Olive Andrews	15:29
	who was a white woman, and she was one of them.	15:32
	And Mrs. Rutledge	15:37
	And Mrs. Foster whose husband was president of Tuskegee	15:41
	She used to come to meetings	15:44
	And there was a Mrs. (inaudible) whose sister was named	15:47
	(inaudible) the college, you know? Simpson?	15:51
	And Ms. Campbell, Ms. Alexander	15:58
	And we'd meet and we wouldn't do actually very much	16:03
	but meet together.	16:07
-	Did you know Clarie Collins Harvey	16:09
	in Mississippi who was president of Church Women United?	16:11
	She was a Black woman and (inaudible)	16:15
-	The national Church Women United?	16:18
	Clarie Collins Harvey, who became later, this was 1975,	16:22
	became national president of Church Women United	16:27
	Mississippi, from Jackson, she was the first Southerner	16:33
	and the first black woman.	16:36
-	I'm trying to remember, I didn't know her at the time	16:41
	But I had met (inaudible)	16:44
	I'm trying to remember her husband	16:45
Second Woman	Hmm-mm.	16:49
-	I have one of his books, but I never, you know, met her	16:54
	Because I didn't get involved in the national until...	17:00
	(inaudible)	17:08
	'77. It was '77.	17:11
	We really didn't do anything except meet together and pray.	17:14
	And we usually met in black churches, 'cause no white church	17:19
	would have us, but they did have us at the	17:22
	Orthodox Greek Church.	17:30
	Remember that one time?	17:35
	(laughter)	17:43
	And then the Catholics had us at St. Jude's.	17:44
	That was the day that they attacked us.	17:46
	There was a man here named John Collin	17:51
	who had a group of people.	17:54
	What was the name of his organization?	17:56
	Anyway, it was extremely racist.	17:58
	What was the name of it?	18:00
	Anyway, he came that day and took our names, and addresses	18:07
	and telephone numbers and got them	18:12
	all on a license to pay.	18:15
	Then he began a series of calling people up	18:18
	and annoying them, threatening them	18:22
-	What did your husband say about you all women	18:27
	being in this situation? (laughs)	18:30
	Did they go along with this idea?	18:34
	Because certainly that was radical at such a time.	18:36
-	(laughs) It's funny you say it was radical.	18:40
Second Woman	At that time!	18:43
-	Well my husband thought it was my idea.	18:46
	(inaudible)	18:51
Man	Okay, we are just about ready to go.	18:57
	Mrs. Carr, would you say a couple things	19:01
	so we can make sure of your sound.	19:03
Woman	Ms. Virginia, how you feelin' this morning?	19:07
Man	Okay.	19:12
Second Man	That mic might be too low.	19:13
	I think it might have slipped.	19:15
Man	Apparently so.	19:26
	How's that?	19:31
	Testing one, two, three, four.	19:32
	Mic check one, two, three four	19:36
Second Woman	That's gonna be low, I can tell	19:43
	by the way that mic is situated.	19:46
Man	Yeah.	19:48
	(group chatter)	19:53
Second Woman	Mrs. Carr, are you from Montgomery?	20:05
	Originally?	20:08
-	Mrs. Carr's a great friend of Mrs. (inaudible)	20:13
	they went to school together as young women, girls	20:16
	and they've been very close friends for years and years	20:21
	(inaudible)	20:25
	(inaudible)	21:01
	(inaudible)	21:10
-	What's the matter?	21:16
Man	Well, we have just a little bit of a sound problem.	21:18
	Let me check one thing out.	21:19
	Test one, two, three.	21:22
Second Man	Not bad.	21:37
Man	Can you hear anything through the head set?	21:39
	One, two, three.	21:47
Second Man	There is a little hiss.	21:48
	Well we're gonna have to go with it.	21:50
	We don't know what's wrong.	21:52
Second Woman	I'm gonna get my daughter (inaudible)	21:56
	(laughter)	21:59
Man	Okay, we're ready to go.	22:00
Second Woman	Let me know when you get tired,	22:02
	and we can stop.	22:04
	Cause they are editing this so we don't...	22:06
Woman	I just don't know how long it's gonna take.	22:12
Man	Okay, please.	22:21
-	Well, you have to realize, and this is the last thing	22:22
	I'm gonna say. You have to realize	22:25
	That this is what makes T.V. very difficult.	22:26
Man	Absolutely.	22:31
Woman	Because the thing is when she asks what you're	22:32
	saying or what you're doing-	22:35
	I've been on T.V. a number of times,	22:37
	and I've never known it yet not to break down.	22:39
	So you really do-	22:42
	It's just constant interruption.	22:45
	And you do feel, you know, that what you have to say	22:47
	is all rolled over the (inaudible)	22:50
Second Woman	And trying to get the story.	22:52
Woman	When the damn thing breaks down all the time!	22:55
Man	Ms. Dare, I've been in the business for 15 years,	22:59
	and I've had the exact same experiences you've had.	23:00
	I have not been anywhere where the machinery hasn't	23:03
	broken down.	23:05
Woman	Why does it break down?	23:06
Man	Because you're dealing with 8,000 little tiny bitty	23:07
	parts that all have to work, you know?	23:10
	And writers have it relatively easy.	23:12
	They can take a pencil and an old piece of paper,	23:14
	and write down a thought.	23:16
Second Woman	Well that's why I choose to write.	23:19
	(laughter)	23:20
	Well because... and this was a problem.	23:23
	When I went to Mississippi to (inaudible)	23:26
	You know, these people didn't know me	23:29
	I had to sit down with you for two hours	23:31
	and tell you what I did with my story.	23:33
	And I had to get to know people first before	23:36
	I was even able to talk to them.	23:38
-	Well, we have been here now, you know nearly 45 minutes	23:44
	and we have had about 5 or 10 minutes of conversation	23:47
Man	Twenty. We've had twenty minutes of conversation.	23:51
	And actually 50 percent of the time being done on tape,	23:55
	it's not a bad ratio.	23:58
	So we're ready to go.	24:00
	(laughter)	24:01
-	alright, we're rolling	24:02
-	Why don't you, you were giving a talk about...	24:07
	I asked you about your husbands being	24:11
	supportive of your work	24:12
	about this inter-racial prayer group.	24:15
-	In the first place, inter-racial prayer group...	24:19
	The fact that everybody took exception to it showed that	24:21
	They were absolutely madly racist because we were as	24:24
	respectable a group of women as you could find anywhere.	24:28
	In the wide world. We were all church-goers, we all believed	24:32
	in the Christian religion as far as I can remember.	24:36
	We opened with prayer and closed with prayer.	24:42
	And the thing was that I think we were carrying after	24:47
	the very best that women could do	24:51
	in the situation that we were in	24:54
	This was the one place we could meet together	24:57
	without being, you know, arrested	25:00
	taken to jail	25:05
	and you know it was so hard for you young people to realize	25:07
	That just being together in the same place could cause	25:11
	them to arrest you	25:14
	That's just awfully difficult for you to imagine	25:17
-	You asked me if my husband	25:26
	went along with it.	25:29
	My husband had been supportive of all of the work	25:31
	that I had been doing, the civil rights work	25:34
	even before the movement started in 1955.	25:36
	Because Rosa Parks and I both worked with the NAACP	25:40
	of which Mr. Nixon at one time was the president	25:43
	And we worked together in the community	25:46
	So we had a relationship with each other, Rosa and I,	25:49
	and also my husband supported me, whatever I was doing	25:55
	with Civil Rights, all the time.	25:59
	So I had no problem with that.	26:01
	Two things I had in my favor: my job and my home.	26:03
	I worked for the Atlanta Life Insurance Company,	26:07
	and I had no problem with it agreeing with my job.	26:11
	'Course I had the support at home from my family.	26:17
-	Okay, can you all talk a bit about the Freedom Riders?	26:21
	That first came into town in 1961	26:24
	How you (inaudible) going in	26:27
	What was your reaction?	26:30
-	Well, we'd been hearing about 'em comin',	26:33
	and my husband had an office right across	26:36
	from the bus station, and there was this group of men	26:38
	that were hangin' around the station all the time,	26:42
	and everybody knew they were Ku Klux's.	26:44
	You know, uh, what did you call them?	26:47
	White Citizen's Councilmen.	26:52
	So we knew that the Ku Klux was comin',	26:56
	but the morning it came, I went down	27:01
	to pick up the mail	27:06
	and I had a friend with me, named Jessica (inaudible)	27:08
	who was a writer, (inaudible) is her novel	27:10
	and so we got to the office,	27:15
	and she went down out of the car and	27:20
	went into the bus station, because she saw there was a crowd	27:22
	and I was left with the car,	27:26
	so I finally parked it and went up to the office	27:28
	so I could see what was goin' on, and there was a riot.	27:32
	And the bus had come in and the people had gotten off	27:36
	and they were being beaten up, and it was just a terrible	27:40
	sight to see, and being hauled off, you know, in paddiwagons	27:43
	And then some of 'em being put in (inaudible)	27:51
	And then the next night, we drove by the, uh,	27:59
	Grace Baptist Church	28:06
	and they were having a Mass meeting, and that church	28:11
	was just surrounded by a mob.	28:14
	And Jessica (inaudible), the writer, said she was goin' in	28:18
	and we told her she'd be in trouble, but she went anyway.	28:22
	We took my car, and the car got banged up, and she got	28:26
	caught in that church 'til four o'clock the next morning,	28:30
	when the national guard got out	28:33
	and it was just a terrifying picture.	28:35
	Everybody was just terrified	28:38
	you were scared people were gonna be dead	28:39
	Because it was just a mob, and Dr. King came over.	28:43
	And he tried to, you know	28:48
	And then I do think that Bobby Kennedy said it was a mob.	28:50
-	I can remember very well that	28:59
	it was on a Saturday, and we had gone to Tuskegee	29:03
	to take a group of boys out	29:06
	on the tour, and I was incidentally carrying my little	29:09
	small transistor radio with me	29:13
	and I put the radio on and we heard all this commotion from	29:16
	the police, saying "move over, move over. Cross over."	29:20
	We got around the radio and began to listen	29:26
	and that was when we heard them saying that there were	29:29
	people being beaten, the ambulances couldn't get in	29:31
	But we were in Tuskegee with these children	29:37
	And we came home, and that night, they had a meeting	29:39
	At one of the churches, the organizers were getting ready	29:42
	for a mass meeting on Sunday night and a lot of people	29:45
	were afraid to go out over there with all this commotion	29:48
	At the bus station. But incidentally enough (inaudible)	29:53
	I went to find out what was going on, and they were getting	29:59
	ready to have this mass meeting at First Baptist Church	30:02
	That Sunday night.	30:05
	That Sunday night, when we went down to the church,	30:07
	I never got in the church, because I got within a block	30:11
	of the church, and it was so crowded.	30:14
	But later my husband was sitting on the porch,	30:17
	and he said, "You cannot get in that church,"	30:19
	and I said, "I bet I will."	30:22
	But I had two persons with me, and they weren't ready	30:23
	to go on, so we stopped at their house.	30:26
	I saw Mrs. Durr's car when it was being robbed.	30:27
	The guys got on the car and rocked the car,	30:32
	and flipped it over, and the gas started running out.	30:34
	It was a mess.	30:37
	We were looking at that when it happened, right down	30:38
	on the corner from the house where we were.	30:41
	We stayed at this house until about 12 o'clock that night,	30:43
	because we couldn't get down to the church.	30:46
	And these people in the streets were a mob.	30:49
	And that was the first time I had ever really seen a mob.	30:53
	People were running up and down the streets,	30:55
	and there was one white girl with long hair	30:57
	like a horse mane	31:00
	and she just kept doing a cat call.	31:02
	That was all she would do was keep doin' a cat call.	31:04
	But we stayed and watched inside this house where we were	31:07
	The commotion that was going on	31:10
	So when those trucks went down, with those marshalls	31:13
	and it kind of quieted down	31:15
	I told my husband and my nephew, I said, "We're going home."	31:18
	I said let's walk right on out, go close together,	31:22
	and don't stop.	31:26
	Get to the car and we're going home, and we did.	31:28
	We got home about one o'clock,	31:30
	but the people stayed in First Baptist Church	31:32
	all night that night, til about 4 o'clock that morning	31:34
	Before they were allowed to go home	31:36
-	That was when they called out	31:38
	the National Guard.	31:40
-	Right, uh-huh.	31:41
	And they had the National Guard	31:42
	and the Marshalls were there. To help people	31:43
	Because what the city was doing, was nothing.	31:46
	And so the National Guard had to come out	31:49
	I guess because (inaudible)	31:52
	But because of the leaders that were down in the church	31:55
	And they had communications with national leadership	31:57
	and that was what helped to get things (inaudible)	32:01
	And the days after then, Ralph Abernathy, who lived	32:05
	right down the street from me, on Hall St.	32:08
	And the days after then	32:11
	They were stationed around his house, to protect his house.	32:14
	It was just really something else	32:17
	We knew about the bus, I mean her car being burned	32:21
	and abut the people that were beaten at the bus station.	32:26
-	Talk a bit about your personal involvement	32:30
	in the movement, okay,	32:32
	what roles you both personally played?	32:34
	Certainly (inaudible)	32:36
	To participate in the Civil Rights Movement,	32:38
	meant almost being judged as a pariah among (inaudible)	32:42
	can you tell us about that?	32:47
-	Well you see, you gotta understand that my husband	32:48
	was a lawyer, and I was his secretary.	32:50
	And he was always the one that did the big doings	32:53
	He had all these people came to him as a lawyer	32:57
	and his clients, and his nephew's name was (inaudible)	33:02
	had begun taking Black clients	33:07
	Civil Rights cases, and then when my husband	33:10
	who was in the same office as (inaudible) he began	33:15
	to inherit, and Mr. Nixon who was the head of the NAACP	33:18
	was always bringing clients	33:23
	And there were always cases my husband	33:26
	thought were, you know, were really daring.	33:31
	And I look back on my life, and always feel that what he did	33:38
	He's the one that got Ms. Parks out of jail and he's the one	33:41
	and he's the one that Mr. Nixon made	33:45
	put up the bail money, who's dead now.	33:51
	He put up the bail money, but my husband	33:54
	did all the legal work to get them out of the jail	33:57
	That was the night we took 'em home, and that was the night	33:59
	that she decided she was going to carry	34:02
	the case on through the Supreme Court.	34:05
	And then that meant that Fred Gray who was the lawyer	34:08
	for the NAACP took the case over because the law...	34:13
	because the NAACP had to, you know, pay the bills	34:17
	and carry the case on through.	34:23
	But my husband worked with him.	34:26
	You know it was (inaudible)	34:33
	I told you before, I had gone all through this in Washington	34:38
	I'd gone through the whole struggle in Washington before	34:44
	and so the one in Alabama	34:47
	didn't have the support we had in Washingtn	34:50
	But by that time I was thoroughly convinced	34:53
	that, you know, we were right.	34:57
	I spent 20 years in Washington, and I certainly	35:02
	learned that segregation was wrong.	35:05
	People had the right to vote.	35:10
	(laughter)	35:12
	She's a revolutionary.	35:15
	For thinking people had a right to vote and	35:17
	shouldn't be segregated	35:21
	Segregation in the South was so blatant	35:26
	If you know what I mean	35:30
	If you were a librarian as a Black person in the South	35:35
	(inaudible) very difficult	35:40
	And I had a friend who was a librarian.	35:44
	And, now they did take after her	35:48
	She got so upset, she committed suicide	35:50
	(inaudible)	35:53
	But she got harassed a lot	35:58
-	Tell us about your personal involvement.	36:01
-	My personal involvement in the movement	36:03
	began when the movement first started.	36:05
	When Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1st, 1955	36:08
	That night Mr. Nixon called me	36:12
	'course we had been working together,	36:16
	and he said to me, "Mrs. Carr"	36:17
	he said, "they have arrested the wrong woman."	36:20
	I said, "Who have they arrested now?"	36:23
	He said, "Rosa."	36:24
	I said, "Not Rosa Parks?"
	He said yes they had arrested Rosa Parks.	36:27
	And he told me he had been and got her out of jail that day	36:29
	He said, "I don't know what the end result's gonna be	36:32
	but they have arrested the wrong woman."	36:34
	And that was the end of our conversation.	36:37
	And on Saturday, when they were getting organized	36:39
	to have the mass meeting that was	36:42
	gonna be held that Monday night, they had some of those	36:44
	scrips of paper where they had made the announcements	36:47
	that they wanted to put out in the community.	36:50
	And I was called and asked to help distribute those.	36:53
	I was not able to do that because I had	36:58
	to go to Birmingham for a board meeting.	37:01
	And I could not help them do it.	37:05
	But I did organize my section, and had some other	37:08
	persons participate and put those things out.	37:11
	Little pieces of paper, the little announcements that we had	37:14
	And I've heard so many versions of this but	37:21
	(inaudible) related	37:23
	One said that a black woman got one and carried	37:26
	it to the lady that she worked with.	37:29
	And she notified the official that	37:31
	the Blacks were fixing have an uprising	37:34
	And some said that Mr. Nixon got a person who worked at	37:36
	the chamber (cross talk) and told him about it	37:39
	And he was the one that-	37:42
	But anyway, whatever happened, the paper that Sunday	37:44
	had a big spread about the Blacks that were going to	37:48
	have this uprising and boycott and whatever	37:52
	So then the ministers in the pulpit on Sunday	37:55
	told us to go announce that we had	37:58
	plus a spread in the paper	38:02
	and it was on the radio and T.V.,	38:03
	but in spite of all of that, that Monday morning,	38:07
	when we were asked to stay off the bus,	38:10
	the city officials put two policemen behind each bus	38:13
	that went on the run that morning	38:17
	cause they said "goons," or Blacks	38:19
	are gonna get people off the bus	38:21
	and we had no idea of doing anything like that	38:23
	But that's what they said. so those who didn't get	38:27
	the announcement or go to church, didn't hear the radio	38:29
	or see the newspaper, when they saw those two policemen	38:32
	behind those buses, they didn't ride the bus.	38:34
	It made it almost 100 percent effective, because people,	38:39
	who didn't get any of the announcements, when they saw	38:42
	those policemen, they knew there was something wrong	38:45
	and they did not ride the bus, so that December 5th	38:47
	When we were asked to stay off the buses	38:50
	We found that it was really successful	38:56
	Because the buses ran empty all day that day.	38:58
	And then that night we had a mass meeting	39:01
	and of course I was asked to serve in several committees	39:03
	on the movement, because of being a person in the community	39:06
	as I said, working for Atlanta Life Insurance	39:10
	free to do as I please as far	39:12
	as my job is concerned, and having support from my family,	39:14
	I was not afraid to participate in what was going on,	39:17
	and certainly I was involved in it.	39:21
	In doing the process of the movement,	39:23
	there were groups in different cities who wanted people	39:26
	from the movement to come and appear to tell the story.	39:30
	And I remember I had three engagements that I filled	39:35
	for that (inaudible)	39:38
	I went to speak to the NAACP state meeting.	39:44
	And the next one I went was to Chicago, Illinois.	39:47
	The Illinois Women's State Convention	39:50
	was having their meeting and I went there.	39:52
	And the next one was in Newark, New Jersey.	39:55
	The Council of Negro Women was having their original meeting	39:57
	and I was asked to go there and speak	40:00
	And as we went to these various places to speak	40:02
	They would send contributions back to help our movement here	40:05
	And I was able to participate in going to some of the places	40:07
	Rosa went to some, Dr. King, Dr. Abernathy	40:13
	well many of the leaders went to some of those places too	40:16
	To help tell the story and also to bring funds back	40:20
	To help the organization	40:23
	So I was involved in it from the very inception	40:25
	And I had been involved in the community with the NAACP	40:28
-	What was the Women's Political Council?	40:34
-	The Women's Political Council grew out of the fact that	40:35
	we have a League of Women Voters here	40:38
	The League of Women Voters did not accept black women	40:40
	in their organization.	40:43
	Mrs. Robinson and Mary Fair Burks and some other women,	40:47
	when they found that we could not join	40:51
	the League of Women Voters here, locally,	40:53
	they applied to the national that we would have	40:55
	a Negro League of Women Voters for the Blacks	40:58
	But they said they could not have two in the same city,	41:01
	and so that's how the political council of women	41:05
	or, Women's Political Council got organized.	41:09
	They decided to have a political organization of black women	41:11
	And this is what we were doing	41:15
-	Well you know that the Women's Political Council	41:25
	I was called over to New Orleans, you know, by Jim Eastland	41:31
	And accused of trying to overthrow the government	41:36
	by force and violence	41:39
	So I got a Pell Grant	41:43
	They said, "Hooray, we'll call you," you know	41:45
	"We'll stand by you."	41:53
	Women's Political Council.	41:55
	And I got home, they invited me to a meeting, and I said,	41:59
	"Why did you have them send me a telegram?"	42:03
	They said, "Jim Eastland's against you,	42:07
	we figured you were OK."	42:09
	(laughter)	42:12
-	Why would Jim Eastland say that	42:13
	you tried to overthrow the government?	42:16
-	Well he said that about everybody that	42:20
	was trying to do away with segregation, and get the vote	42:22
	because he claimed it meant you were a Communist	42:27
	and you were trying to have a revolution	42:32
	to overthrow the government by force of violence	42:35
	And he thought everbody was trying to...	42:37
	Fannie Lou Hamer, you know who she was	42:41
	She was on his plantation, and she finally had to leave.	42:43
	But he was probably one of the most racist men	42:49
	in the South, wouldn't you say so?	42:51
	(inaudible)	42:55
-	He just built a statue, a monument	43:08
	(inaudible) himself and his brothers.	43:11
-	The thing that was (inaudible) about the women is	43:20
	that there was a very natural	43:25
	group of black women in Montgomery	43:30
	who were already leaders like	43:34
	(inaudible) and Jo Ann Robinson	43:36
	and the thing is that they had leaders in their churches	43:41
	(inaudible)	43:46
	but there was a very large group in Montgomery already	43:50
	of women who were already leaders	43:55
	And so the thing is that the whole thing with the women	44:01
	they were just such wonderful and remarkable leaders	44:05
	And the women that worked as maids over in the white homes	44:08
	they were so remarkable, because they would walk to work	44:14
	And they would just show	44:20
	so much bravery and so much good sense.	44:25
	It was just marvelous, the control they showed.	44:31
	It was really a remarkable group of women.	44:39
	And Jo Ann has written about a few of them	44:43
	Jo Ann Robinson, but	44:46
	and Parks has been written about	44:49
	I just feel like there ought to be a whole book	44:52
	written about them.	44:55
	And I don't say that the men didn't help too, but I think	44:59
	that the women were the ones that won the battle.	45:04
-	Well, I feel like (inaudible)	45:12
	during the movement, in 1955, there was one time	45:17
	that we found that all people came together.	45:22
	We had a lot of passion and we had a lot (inaudible)	45:26
	But we had people who had been afraid	45:31
	to come out and participate in anything	45:33
	but when this came about they just lost their fear	45:36
	or whatever it was and they came and got together	45:38
	and Dr. King used to say that we had youths, (inaudible)	45:41
	PhDs and Northerners all working together.	45:47
	And incidentally this week I was in the archives	45:52
	And I saw that (inaudible)	45:56
	where in eighteen sixty... sixty something	46:02
	that there were no women voting, only white men	46:08
	and they had to have a certain standard	46:13
	if they were able to vote	46:16
	And black men were able to vote at that time because	46:18
	if you remember, we did at one time have Black senators and	46:20
	representatives and that type of persons before they	46:24
	came along and set up the poll tax and all of the barriers	46:27
	that came up and destroyed their right to vote.	46:31
	And that's why we had to go back and fight so hard	46:35
	for the right to vote and that's why	46:37
	1965 was so significant	46:39
	That everybody was given the right to vote	46:44
	and the League of Women Voters here, I am a member	46:46
	And I work with the League of Women Voters here	46:48
	but at one time, we were not privileged to be members	46:52
	of the League of Women Voters	46:55
	And I don't ever let them forget it	46:57
	but I will continue to talk about what we have done,	46:59
	that we realize that we have come a long way,	47:02
	because now we have a black woman president.	47:05
	Of the local League of Women Voters	47:08

-	Because my flash is (inaudible)	0:03
-	Yeah, they are light sensitive.	0:04
	It will probably get a little darker as we go on.	0:07
	January 16, 1988 Modjeska Simkins.	0:12
	(woman speaking faintly in background)	0:15
	Columbia, South Carolina.	0:16
	(man speaking faintly)	0:18
	No, I think, well they look fine from here.	0:19
-	Sound alright to you?	0:35
-	What?	0:36
-	Pardon?
	Pretty rough?	0:38
-	We would need bars?	0:41
-	Yeah, give me 30-second bars or so.	0:42
-	Young men, excuse me.	0:46
	Look across and see if I pulled the phone off that hook	0:48
	over in that bedroom, please	0:50
-	Straight across?	0:52
-	Straight across.	0:53
	Just throw it.	0:58
	Did I take it off?	1:00
-	Yes, ma'am.	1:01
-	Alright.
	(mumbling)	1:06
-	Well,	1:17
	probably going to install that?	1:21
-	Yeah.	1:22
-	Can you tell me about how you got involved,	1:30
	you were here in Columbia?	1:36
-	Yeah, I was going to my church.	1:38
-	Which one?	1:41
	I already received that	1:46
	I nursed the civil rights movement with my mother	1:51
	because my mother and father were famous people.	1:53
	When I was a little girl,	1:58
	when my father had worked (inaudible)	2:00
	(inaudible) that may have caused the Industrial Revolution	2:06
	in the South so that as a builder, a contractor,	2:10
	a brick contractor, he worked on	2:13
	(inaudible) as it was going from the agricultural era	2:20
	to the industrial era,	2:23
	and they were building enormous factories,	2:26
	cotton factories, mills, and of course the raw materials too	2:28
	and until I was old enough to go to school	2:35
	which was about five years (inaudible)	2:40
	I traveled with him sometimes	2:42
	and on one occasion because whites didn't want to work	2:45
	under his labor group, he was fired upon	2:50
	and our home was fired into	2:53
	and there would be an awkward (inaudible)	2:55
	but	2:58
	I'm trying to remember	3:01
	my father's parents, my mother's parents	3:03
	was just in my blood, so I didn't have to be	3:05
	indoctrinated	3:10
	about civil rights, and about how people should be free.	3:11
	More than that, I was never taught to hate	3:16
	white people so to speak because of what they did	3:21
	to my parents.	3:23
	as of now I can say that I don't hate anybody in the world	3:26
	(inaudible)	3:29
	But that's besides the point.	3:33
	But I came up in a fearless	3:35
	a fearless atmosphere	3:37
	so that working as I have in the--	3:40
	I was state secretary of the NAACP	3:43
	during the very trying years	3:47
	of the	3:50
	always of course as always from the time	3:52
	even during slavery, even before	3:54
	the Declaration of Independence	3:57
	there were fearless Negros brought here enslaved	3:59
	but they were fearless and there were insurrections	4:01
	you don't hear much about them	4:03
	but there were slave insurrections	4:04
	So we can't say that all slaves were	4:07
	had been beaten down so that they had	4:12
	low spirits and lost the fighting-back	4:13
	because a number of the slaves were members	4:17
	of great fighting tribes in Africa, you see	4:20
	and so the blood was there, right,	4:24
	it was in the blood	4:26
	so the way the civil rights movement started up first	4:29
	became a high point with the authorization of the NAACP	4:33
	in 1909.	4:38
	History has a way of arising	4:41
	see we're in a low	4:46
	a low tide now in the civil rights movement in this country	4:48
	but so that whether it had been arised with the starting	4:52
	of the NACP in 1909 it quite accelerated	4:56
	towards race relations and concentrating on	5:01
	the lynching period.	5:04
	Concentrating on lynchings and other inequities	5:06
	inflicted upon Black people	5:10
	There was (inaudible)	5:13
	they didn't have the vote,	5:17
	there was no way to fight back	5:18
	all they could do was place themselves	5:20
	as (inaudible) and beggars for rights.	5:22
	And then beginning in the mid to late thirties	5:25
	moving into the early forties, there came another rise	5:30
	and the	5:36
	the great civil rights cases then, you'll find	5:39
	in several cases determining	5:45
	the civil rights, the fight for civil rights,	5:48
	for civil liberties and another rise	5:52
	and in ubiquitous southern South Carolina	5:55
	with the	5:59
	unnatural fact that we didn't have the vote,	6:02
	they had a time when my father always carried	6:04
	a registration certificate he voted at every	6:07
	election that he could,	6:10
	but it was only every four years in the general election	6:11
	but the South was governed by the white primary	6:15
	and at times shut out the black voter.	6:19
	So then,	6:22
	the fight came against what we call the white primary	6:24
	because it was governing the Solid South	6:27
	and one of the	6:32
	early cases was started in South Carolina	6:34
	In the early forties,	6:38
	I was state secretary of the NAACP at that time	6:42
	which I was for about eleven years	6:44
	and we carried up three cases from South Carolina.	6:47
	Principally the case against the white primary.	6:51
	Then there was a case,	6:54
	asking, or fighting for bus transportation	6:59
	because where white people had had transportation	7:02
	in buses for years,	7:06
	black children was still walking along	7:08
	the side of the road	7:10
	and even being, as the children said,	7:11
	(inaudible)	7:14
	fighting for people to have school buses.	7:18
	My mother was a teacher before I was born	7:21
	and she stopped when she started a family	7:24
	and she never went back to teaching after that.	7:27
	She gave birth to eight children, and	7:30
	my baby sister was old enough to go to school	7:33
	she was about seven or eight years of age	7:35
	and about then my mother would tell me that this fight	7:39
	was for the children,	7:42
	all that liberty running,	7:43
	not many of the shoulders of the roads were	7:45
	paved as they are now, they just had asphalt,	7:49
	you know, just running along in the middle	7:53
	and nobody dug a little.	7:54
	And then they just run off to a mud puddle	7:56
	and just bounce over there and douse some mud	7:58
	muddy water on the children	8:00
	and I mean things like that.	8:02
	Now the children themselves (inaudible)	8:04
	white bus guys	8:07
	they had gotten that from their parents.	8:11
	I mean, they were, you know	8:13
	it was (inaudible)	8:15
	the niggers just weren't any good	8:18
	The niggers ain't no good, whatever you tell them	8:20
	just like (inaudible).	8:23
	From the social system coming out of slavery	8:26
	where slaves were beasts of burden so to speak	8:31
	they weren't considered full human beings	8:36
	and they were	8:39
	when the census was taken their census was taken	8:42
	with the cows and the horses and the sheep	8:45
	and the turkeys and (mumbles).	8:47
	So that was in the blood	8:52
	and there's an old saying that	8:56
	what's in the flesh you can't beat out of the flesh.	9:01
	So generations of inequities and training children	9:06
	fathers their sons and mother their daughters,	9:11
	that niggers weren't any good.	9:15
	You couldn't expect anything else out of the white children	9:17
	driving school buses or spitting on blacks	9:19
	from school buses, you see	9:22
	It was in the bone.	9:24
	Couldn't beat it out of the flesh.	9:25
	Nobody tried to beat it out,	9:27
	but the fact is, that's the reason I'm explaining to you	9:29
	how with all of this that I lived through	9:33
	and the lynchings almost every Saturday night,	9:36
	There's a book called 100 Years of Lynchings it tells about	9:39
	these various awful things that happened	9:42
	to the victims of the lynch mobs.	9:46
	Now my mother read all of those things to the children,	9:48
	the average parent doesn't want the child to know about	9:53
	the bad things as they see them.	9:56
	But after we were through and my father finally	9:58
	moved us the country--I was born in the city	10:00
	moved us to the country where he said	10:03
	he wanted his children to learn the value of work	10:05
	and the value of a dollar	10:07
	So we were moved to a farm although my parents	10:10
	were born in the city, we learned about farming.	10:12
	They moved us out there and then we did learn from it.	10:15
	But after the fieldwork we had the state paper	10:19
	the paper at this time (inaudible)	10:23
	And it's always in my memory we took the paper at night	10:26
	after farm work, got into bed, all that kind of thing.	10:29
	My mother read the paper to us	10:33
	and always she read about the lynchings and all the	10:35
	and the million things that these people do	10:38
	they were burnt and emaciated in these lynchings	10:40
	lynching things.	10:44
	There is a book as I said called 100 Years of Lynchings	10:46
	it tells absolutely about the lynchings in South Carolina	10:49
	and so that	10:53
	not only were my parents fearless	10:55
	but they taught us that nobody was better than you	11:00
	My father kept guns all the time.	11:07
	A Winchester Rifle, a 17 shooter.	11:12
	He had a shotgun, a (inaudible) shotgun	11:16
	and he had targets out in the back	11:21
	but (mumbles) it was a very fine shotgun	11:23
	and he packed his own shells.	11:28
	You all are too young to know about that	11:30
	when you see cartridges, they're already packed.	11:32
	My father and others in that time of the empty shells	11:35
	were piling into one end	11:40
	and the shots, you know the shots,	11:42
	and packed the shells, so I saw my father packing his shells	11:46
	one day in midwinter, I saw the buck shot	11:51
	and I saw the little bird shell,	11:55
	so,	11:57
	I asked him about that and he said "well you use the shells	12:00
	"to for the birds	12:03
	"and then you use these others if anybody's bothering you."	12:05
	He didn't tell me anymore than that.	12:07
	But later, I was asked that question,	12:10
	and to a woman that was here the other day,	12:14
	and I said that my father packed his shells like that	12:19
	and she said,	12:22
	I said he packed the bird shot for the birds	12:24
	and he packed the buck shots for	12:27
	for (laughing)	12:31
	I said who ever bothered him?	12:34
	But he was, he had those things so that if anybody	12:36
	came up to his house, they'd be loaded with some buck shots	12:40
	so we were in El Dorado as I said, El Do-ray-da	12:44
	as they called it in Arkansas.	12:47
	A mark came to the house	12:49
	because they didn't want to work under my father	12:51
	as the foreman on this job	12:54
	they were motor carriers.	12:56
	Carrying all them buckets of wheat bearers	12:58
	and (inaudible) like they do now.	13:00
	they didn't want to work on either side	13:04
	so my father sent the family back to South Carolina	13:06
	and he stayed there and worked under guard	13:09
	A guard on either side of him with a gun.	13:11
	That's the kind of stuff I came out of,	13:14
	I'm trying to explain,	13:15
	nobody had to tell me of these terrors	13:17
	I was born that way, I was taught.	13:20
	Taught that way. I don't mean to say there's not bigotry now	13:22
	It's just--we just don't take anything.	13:25
	Somebody sat in this house just 48 hours ago	13:28
	and told me how some teachers were hurt about how	13:32
	they were treated in this town, but they don't	13:35
	know whether they ought to say anything.	13:37
	Well I didn't tell them (inaudible) but	13:40
	anybody in this day and time that has the law on their side	13:44
	if they want to go on and fight it	13:48
	if they don't stand up and let somebody made out of meat	13:50
	just like they are and do them any kind of way	13:52
	I don't have respect for them	13:55
	(inaudible) you know?	13:56
	That gives you something about my philosophy (inaudible)	14:02
	The types of social action that Blacks had to do	14:08
	and of course in this country	14:13
	the power structure does not respect people	14:16
	who cannot make their way	14:20
	to protect themselves well.	14:22
	They aren't	14:24
	if you have been or if you go into the mountainous areas	14:27
	of Tennessee and Kentucky and West Virginia	14:31
	you'll find the very poor whites	14:35
	and there's nothing in the world as pitiful	14:38
	as a poor, hungry beaten, down po' (tag?)	14:40
	because he expects his skin to save him	14:46
	just because he's white.	14:48
	But the man in power, money power, and political power	14:51
	doesn't give a damn about a poor (tag?) anymore	14:54
	than he does about a black negro	14:56
	and I've seen them all horse and tail	15:00
	you read about them up in the mountains.	15:01
	So the power structure in this country is heartless.	15:04
	We have on our money,	15:11
	what's that thing they have on the money,	15:14
	"in God we trust."	15:16
	Dirty lie.	15:18
	(inaudible)	15:20
	(inaudible) they oughta erase everything,	15:21
	off every coin and every greenback. "In God we trust!"	15:24
	it's a lie.	15:26
	It's a damn lie.	15:27
	So now, coming down to the forties,	15:30
	I'm giving you a background.	15:34
-	Tell me about what you did in the fifties now	15:36
	or in the sixties during the movement itself.	15:39
-	Well coming down, I'm giving you the atmosphere.	15:41
-	Okay.	15:44
-	We'll be working here.	15:45
-	Yeah.	15:46
-	Now coming down to the	15:47
	we won the case for the white primary in '48	15:49
	and then we - that's the time we got the movement started	15:54
	to make people get ready to vote.	15:57
	So then, even when we won the white primary case,	15:59
	there were different subterfuges set up	16:04
	by the power structure to cut the black vote	16:06
	as much as they could	16:09
	which meant that even up until the Johnson administration	16:11
	we were still fighting, coming up to the sixties,	16:16
	we were still fighting for	16:19
	an unobstructed voting process	16:22
	and of course for better educational advantages	16:25
	and also for the use of public facilities.	16:30
	The Greensboro, the movement up around Greensboro	16:35
	that largely started there, developed around lunch	16:37
	the use of the lunch counters you know	16:40
	and here ours was centered around political action	16:42
	and also the inequity of teachers' salaries.	16:46
	I taught, I was in the department of mathematics	16:50
	here in the city schools.	16:52
	I taught for six classes, for about nine years.	16:53
	I was in the	16:58
	in the line at the bank on payday	17:01
	getting paid up and somehow I got a mind to kind of	17:05
	go out and go around the corner and look, you know,	17:09
	women, they have short (inaudible),	17:10
	y'all don't know about women, you're too young	17:12
	but,	17:14
	there was a woman, a white woman	17:16
	about two people in front of me	17:17
	and I was just kind of looking at and I found that	17:20
	(inaudible) I taught sixth grade	17:23
	because (inaudible) over there in mathematics	17:25
	and I heard her say she was a sixth grade teacher	17:28
	and when she	17:32
	I kind of sidled around until I found that her	17:34
	check was twice as much as my check,	17:36
	yet if I wasn't short about a half	17:40
	(inaudible)	17:42
	and I know you can't pay what we get paid	17:44
	(inaudible)	17:45
	That didn't happen.	17:48
	I didn't expect it to happen.	17:50
	So then we went, and leading up to the sixties,	17:52
	late fifties to sixties.	17:55
	Beginning really with the vote fight,	17:57
	in the forties	18:02
	we moved into	18:05
	the Civil Rights Act of '60 and '65	18:08
	Lyndon Johnson in that era	18:12
	of '60	18:14
	those happened during the Johnson.	18:16
-	Can we stop (mumbling off the microphone).	18:19
-	The Johnson administration.	18:23
	So,	18:25
	it was then that	18:27
	the efforts of our voting,	18:30
	it use of the ballot would intensify.	18:34
	Just after the breaking of the white primary entity,	18:37
	it turned into.	18:41
-	We're going to hold you right there for a second.	18:44
-	Four, 18.	18:47
	Check.	18:48
-	What?
	Yup.	18:50
	(interviewer speaking off the microphone)	18:51
-	Am I getting what you want?	18:56
-	Yeah, yeah.	18:57
	We're getting to the movement itself.	18:59
	(paper ripping)	19:02
	I want to know what part you took in the movement	19:03
	and	19:05
	(tape peeling)
	what your feelings were about	19:06
	actually then in	19:11
	what is classically know as the civil rights movement itself	19:14
	in 1954, 1954 to 1961 or two	19:17
	leading up to the Voting Rights Act.	19:22
	Johnson 65 (inaudible) act	19:24
	(clattering)	19:26
	And some of the people that you worked with	19:27
	and	19:30
	did you participate in marches here in South Carolina	19:32
	or how did you function during that time.	19:36
	What did you personally do?	19:39
	And	19:45
	we want to work that in with	19:46
	what you think the young people learned from all that	19:50
	what did you get from it?	19:51
	In terms of the movement,	19:53
	did the only thing the movement really accomplish now is	19:56
	desegregation?	20:00
	Is there still a long way to go?	20:03
	I mean you can vote and my boss is a black woman	20:05
	Mary Hatwood Futrell	20:08
	president of the National Education Association	20:09
	and she is part of the legacy of what you all did.	20:11
	And	20:17
	then the younger kids, they don't have any recollection	20:18
	of this, I don't know if they're being taught,	20:21
	what I'm worried about is that we're going to end up	20:23
	having to repeat a lot of this stuff because the young kids.	20:26
-	But you see--	20:30
-	Answer your call?	20:31
-	Should be coming back.	20:33
-	I worked hard.	20:36
-	Take the keys.	20:38
-	I worked hard as hell to desegregate the schools	20:40
	(clears throat)	20:44
	Sometimes I feel that	20:45
	have to make for new students,	20:49
	that we shouldn't have moved towards	20:52
	a tight (inaudible) of desegregation	20:56
	but should have moved for better improvement in schools	21:00
	with	21:05
	(door shutting)
	in keeping up with educated black teachers if we have them.	21:08
	As long as those	21:11
	people were trained by black teachers that had	21:13
	no reason if they wanted to	21:17
	to	21:20
	speak their mind about what happened, for instance,	21:22
	I told you I taught mathematics.	21:24
	If some awful thing went down overnight over the weekend	21:28
	for a black kid in these days, a Negro as we say,	21:33
	on Monday morning, I would	21:35
	(inaudible)	21:39
	And then I'd tell about these atrocities	21:42
	and tell how there	21:44
	they should be an example and there parents to be an example	21:47
	and embrace some of this.	21:51
	Now we got a class of say,	21:53
	(microphone adjusting cuts off speaker)	21:54
	my contribution largely was as I told you long ago,	21:56
	I was secretary of the state conference of the NAACP	22:00
	in this state for about 10 years	22:04
	and having had exposure in	22:06
	newspaper writing, feature writing,	22:10
	writing newspaper articles,	22:13
	all that,	22:17
	I did a lot of the publicity	22:18
	for the movement.	22:22
	And then I traveled over the state now.	22:24
-	What kind of publicity, what did you do travel	22:27
	what did you do?	22:29
-	Making talks	22:31
	and setting up the person we called in	22:34
	a branch of similar organizations	22:37
	in the NAACP	22:42
	and other civil rights groups you know	22:44
	and if they had a problem in the community,	22:46
	for instance somebody, well any kind of civil rights problem	22:49
	they might call and say "this is happening	22:52
	"come up there."	22:54
	and I'd travel all over the state day and night.	22:56
	From 1942	23:00
	until 1954	23:03
	when I went into the banking business here	23:06
	and of course it never stopped, but it just lessened	23:10
	because I was otherwise, I was occupied	23:14
	I mean I was getting paid a salary.	23:16
	But in those years, I freelanced, I did what I wanted to do.	23:17
	It was definitely altogether as it pertained	23:22
	to the civil rights movement	23:25
	here in (inaudible) and throughout South Carolina	23:27
	and the power structure	23:32
	There were some articles about that in (inaudible)	23:34
	and the atmosphere we had at that time,	23:37
	naturally anybody but the power structure	23:42
	was going to be talking about (bail?).	23:44
	but the fact is that the, in the time you are talking about	23:48
	one of the main things was to get the people registered	23:55
	to vote, we were telling them that your redemption	23:59
	is going to be at the ballot box.	24:02
	And so that registration drives were put on	24:05
	and	24:09
	just after the white primary was struck down	24:11
	the drive was put on for voter registration	24:15
	and in a reasonably short time,	24:18
	there were a quarter million black votes.	24:21
	People registered 200,000 in the first spurt	24:23
	and we had a black press here	24:28
	Black weekly here,	24:32
	that was in the movement.	24:34
	And of course I gave my time, I have no more of it	24:35
	than anyone for anything.	24:38
	But I gave my time, I was taught that way.	24:40
	And so the	24:42
	there were times when	24:47
	the agencies that is the	24:49
	the Country registration boards that had	24:53
	even after we beat the white primary in the federal courts,	24:58
	would use all types of subterfuge,	25:03
	to see that Negroes didn't register.	25:05
	For instance, it was "registration will take place	25:08
	"at such and such a place," and you may go there,	25:11
	and then you got the books in the car and you're going	25:14
	somewhere else.	25:15
	But they were due to have those at the courthouses	25:17
	and we had 46 counties and state and the registration books	25:20
	were supposed to be at the courthouse and I was certainly	25:23
	the first Monday and Tuesday	25:25
	and Wednesdays in voting years, the first Monday	25:27
	in off years, which would be odd years,	25:30
	but they would haul the books,	25:34
	somebodies, any kind of lie to keep somebody	25:37
	from getting their names on the books.	25:40
	So, as state secretary of the NAACP on one occasion,	25:41
	I sent out letters to all of our contacts	25:45
	and we had at that time about 110 branches	25:50
	and all of them were virtually ordered	25:54
	because our oath was set up so that if you were	25:59
	if you were with the movement or if you were not with it	26:00
	if you weren't with, you better keep your mouth shut.	26:04
	That's just about the way we had to set up.	26:06
	And	26:08
	so I sent out the directives	26:10
	that	26:13
	that everybody then went up to register to vote	26:15
	would you take at least two people with you	26:18
	so that if anything happened, they would have	26:20
	their witnesses already set up, you know.	26:22
	Now, it wasn't enough in my opinion to send those letters	26:25
	just to our workers.	26:29
	We sent them to every one of the boards, registration boards	26:32
	so that they, that struck up a fear	26:36
	in some of those people that just made up their mind,	26:40
	they weren't told that (inaudible)	26:42
	But you see we already carried them up to the	26:45
	United States Supreme Court	26:47
	and every one of those people were kind of skittish	26:50
	about whether we'd carry them	26:52
	because you see they'd run a	26:55
	kind of psychological war you know	26:57
	there may be a better word for that, but	26:59
	it just kept waging and it's still being waged	27:02
	I mean not as much because we are having a kind of lull	27:04
	we are riding upon the ebb tide now, so to speak.	27:07
	In that time we were at high-tide.	27:11
-	Were you at the '63 Democratic Convention in Atlantic City	27:14
	did you go to that?	27:18
-	No.	27:18
-	Fanny Lou Hamer made her speech.	27:19
-	No I know about it, but I wasn't there, you see,	27:21
	I was occupied back at that time.	27:23
	But I went to the	27:25
	I went to	27:27
	I know what you're talking about,	27:29
	you know but I wasn't there.	27:31
	Now I worked	27:32
	for a long time	27:34
	I was connected with the Republican Party because	27:37
	my aim was always to try and see that we had a two-pronged	27:40
	avenue for expressing our political views	27:45
	When Adlai Stevenson was running for governor--for president	27:50
	I came out for it directly, I don't mean by that	27:54
	that I was ever of the white Democratic Party philosophy	27:57
	but I knew that	28:00
	I believed, I know we need balancing in this thing,	28:02
	even now we need balancing from the federal government down,	28:05
	but,	28:08
	but then when Adlai Stevenson's campaign was on	28:10
	I went over to the Democratic Party,	28:12
	but I don't vote straight ticket anytime	28:14
	I vote according to the strategy (inaudible)	28:16
-	Where do you think we're going,	28:20
	where do you think we're going	28:21
	(coughing)
	from here?	28:23
	What do you think needs?	28:25
	(mumbling off the microphone)	28:26
	What do you need?	28:28
-	What was it now?	28:31
-	What do you need,	28:33
	what do you think, where do you think, this will be	28:34
	the last question.	28:36
	Where do you think we're going from here?	28:37
	What should the younger generation, now,	28:38
	look forward to now that they're,	28:40
	they're benefiting from the work that you all did.	28:43
	What,	28:47
	do you think the young people are getting complacent,	28:48
	that they're not paying attention to history?	28:51
-	I think that leadership is involved.	28:53
	You see when you have a positive leadership.	28:57
	For instance, I think I've been	29:00
	as the old folks say, preaching in hell	29:04
	because I think the black churches need to (inaudible).	29:06
	They, and I hold that in every church,	29:09
	there should be a political action committee	29:13
	for every one, I don't mean (inaudible)	29:17
	that tries to see	29:19
	not only that people register to vote and do vote,	29:22
	but they should have brought to them	29:26
	and explained to them so that they can be sensitized	29:28
	to what is absolutely being done.	29:31
	You see,	29:34
	where this thing used to be open and obvious	29:36
	now it's subtle	29:39
	and unless you have an eagle's eye,	29:41
	sometimes you don't see it.	29:43
	I see it.	29:45
	I see every move that the opposition makes,	29:46
	the power structure makes,	29:49
	but that's because, I've been taught to eat and drink	29:51
	and sleep this thing.	29:54
	But	29:56
	I greatly fault.	29:57
	the Black ministry and leadership, church leadership	30:00
	in this country,	30:03
	that don't put before these conventions and conferences,	30:05
	the problems that are actually faced	30:08
	by the people who are disadvantaged.	30:11
	Now I recollect	30:14
	our Baptist state convention met	30:17
	about three years ago,	30:19
	we were having quite a problem in this day	30:22
	I don't remember what it was,	30:24
	but I asked them if they wouldn't,	30:25
	issue a statement, a press statement,	30:28
	during that convention, that state convention of actors,	30:31
	a press statement concerning this problem	30:35
	I've forgotten now what it was.	30:37
	And they told me that if I would write it,	30:39
	that they would put it before the group.	30:42
	Now all them old big fat-footed creatures,	30:44
	you know they could've done something about that thing.	30:46
	But on the whole,	30:50
	our churches failed us because--	30:53
	and they'll say well they're preparing people for heaven.	30:56
	Well I'll have my fight that way.	30:58
	You see, Christ fought the power structure	31:01
	or he would've lived and married	31:03
	Mary and had children cause he loved her,	31:05
	just like you might love a girl that you know.	31:07
	But all that jiving under the Bible	31:10
	about Christ saying nothing	31:13
	and I will be dying and all like that	31:15
	that's some stuff somebody wrote	31:17
	I don't know who wrote it and don't care who wrote it	31:19
	but the fact remains, that he flew into the power structure.	31:21
	And that's why he was crucified.	31:24
	And if he hadn't done that he would've lived a full lifetime	31:27
	Now,	31:32
	the,	31:33
	the thing we need now, people who will,	31:35
	who will soak again in the movement, perhaps indoctrinate	31:40
	these, you know these children need a shot in the arm.	31:43
	And we are bereft of that type of leadership.	31:46
	Now I'm talking about Martin Luther King.	31:50
	I don't think that the Lord or whoever it is,	31:54
	I know the great spirit in this universe,	31:57
	I don't say it's the Lord that the white people gave us	31:59
	when they brought us here as slaves and then whipped us	32:01
	and got in bed with our black women and had yellow babies	32:03
	and sold them all back into slavery, but	32:05
	somewhere in this universe lives,	32:09
	in this universe,	32:11
	there's a greater power than we are.	32:12
	Now whatever that power is, is what we should have within us	32:15
	to see that our brother who's disadvantaged	32:20
	has as good as bad as we can ever get.	32:24
	And	32:29
	when you find that the so-called Christian church	32:31
	is preaching a heavenbound gospel	32:34
	but you don't know a damn plain thing about Heaven.	32:37
	And after a while the great period after a while	32:42
	and everything beyond	32:45
	that's the thing that has hurt the black movement	32:46
	more than anything else is this heaven-bound gospel	32:48
	and if you just pray, I've been hitting on that this morning	32:50
	if you just pray and ask God	32:54
	will if you go and read about Christ	32:56
	or recall what they recordedin the gospels,	33:00
	when Christ	33:02
	found a miracle, I know I'm talking (?) all this,	33:03
	cause y'all don't read the Bible	33:07
	but when Christ performed a miracle what did he do?	33:09
	He told them they had to do something.	33:12
	When he made water to wine, he could've just said,	33:14
	he could've just said "water jump into the wine bottle."	33:17
	"And turn to wine." No, he said "fill them."	33:21
	They had to do that and in every miracle	33:25
	there had to be human assistance	33:28
	and so this isn't something that we should expect	33:31
	somebody else to do, but we've been preached	33:34
	the black people had all that crap that you hear	33:36
	about old Falwell and all of them	33:39
	they using that, that ain't nothing but conjure preaching	33:41
	fooling you and getting your money you know.	33:43
	And of course these preachers they come by	33:46
	and they can be preaching me into hell already	33:48
	which I don't expect to have them do	33:50
	I ain't going to let one of them preach on me	33:51
	because I'm going to give my body to science	33:52
	and if I'm too old for that they can let the buzzards eat me	33:54
	as far as I'm concerned	33:57
	(laughs)
	The fact is that we are weak now on the whole	34:01
	of Black leadership.	34:05
	And a lot of them are not doing what they oughta do	34:06
	because they're mad at Jesse, because he stepped out there	34:09
	in front.	34:10
	A lot of them that would be doing something, they're silent	34:12
	but you know just shut up all of them from talking	34:14
	about Jesse, you know what I mean?	34:16
	So,	34:18
	the,	34:20
	so far as the black segment of the population is concerned,	34:22
	the black leadership	34:26
	may not realize it	34:28
	but they have a (inaudible)	34:30
	they never realize it	34:32
	and this heaven bound gospel,	34:34
	is a narcotizing agent,	34:36
	that's what religion is,	34:39
	for any people.	34:41
	A narcotic.	34:42
	Tells if you don't do it somebody else is going to do,	34:45
	but God ain't never, as a friend of mine used to say,	34:48
	He ain't never dropped down out of a sack of clouds	34:51
	and signed a paper	34:53
	because you asked him to drop it down here	34:54
	and you said "I ain't never seen him sign a paper	34:56
	"that dropped down."	34:58
	Just cause you asked God for something you need	34:59
	So the solution,	35:02
	the solution is going to have to be the right kind of	35:05
	of leadership, honest leadership.	35:08
	We haven't been awake for coming to determine	35:12
	the national government's gone rotten	35:13
	Through,	35:16
	borrowing everyday.	35:17
	So now,	35:19
	there's a whole lot that (inaudible)	35:20
	I'm 88 years old, but I'm not hunting for death	35:23
	I'll tell you that I ain't carrying no coffin under my arm	35:27
	(chuckles)	35:29
	But the fact is a great note is going to fall	35:30
	on the young people in this country	35:32
	and	35:35
	there are elements in the country that are determined	35:37
	that there shall not be a liaison or a connection	35:40
	or a sympathetic relationship	35:44
	of the various population groups, you see.	35:47
	And	35:51
	I predict that over the course of 25 or 30 years,	35:52
	a composite of foreign groups like there are millions of	35:57
	whoever comes in this here muddled country	36:02
	that happen not to be blacks.	36:05
	The white man is going to,	36:07
	the American white man is going to let them become	36:09
	(inaudible)	36:11
	and the Negros are going to look up to the morning	36:12
	and some of them are going to pass by and they're going	36:15
	say "what the devil went by here?"	36:15
	We are the larger population now, you know.	36:18
	Though called the minority	36:21
	but there is going to be a combination of minorities,	36:25
	other minorities, you can ask up and down,	36:29
	you have away over in the West certain of the Mexican	36:32
	of the people of Mexican or Spanish-American background	36:35
	getting into office, a Negro couldn't get that office,	36:37
	right in the same territory.	36:40
	So there's a great poison in America.	36:42
	We are poisoned with race hatred.	36:45
	And pass it.	36:49
	And it's	36:51
	unless we have a great turn in the road	36:55
	we are going to sink further into	36:59
	the degradation, political degradation.	37:01
	It's just bad.	37:04
	I can't help it.	37:06
	(man mumbling off microphone)	37:08
-	10 minutes?	37:14
-	We'll need to play it for	37:16
	15 minutes only.	37:21
-	Okay.	37:23
-	We're good.	37:23
	(mumbling)	37:25
-	It's good.	37:27
-	Well I don't know whether I helped you out today.	37:29
-	You helped us a lot!	37:31
-	I don't know,	37:32
	cause I got some crazy ideas you know	37:33
	(laughing)	37:35
-	But you deserve them and you, you.	37:36

Item Info

Title:

Interview with Virginia Durr (Birmingham, AL activist) by Larry Rubin

Date:

January 15, 1988

Creator:

Rubin, Larry, 1942-

Description:

The audio in this recording has been digitally processed to reduce noise and enhance clarity. The unprocessed preservation file can be requested by contacting the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture https://library.duke.edu/rubenstein/franklin.

Subject:

Format: