Interview with Mickey Carroll, November 9, 2000

MICKEY CARROLL: -- but there's some interesting stuff here.

TRACY K'MEYER: Is it photocopies of things that you have the originals of?

MC: No, these are the only copies that I have. But I want you to have them. Maybe you can copy them and give me a copy of them.

TK: Yeah, I can do that. I can do that really quickly, actually. Monday or Tuesday.

MC: That would be great because it's the only copies that I have.

TK: Now, how did you collect them?

MC: You know what, it's ironic. A couple of the things I had, I had this and this. It's been in my briefcase, I've been carrying around for years. Whenever I run across one of Dad's old colleagues or somebody that knew the family really well, I'd give them a copy. Especially of the family. This is me.

TK: So that's your father, your mother. What was your mother's name?

MC: Mary Frances. And this is my older sister, Mona. That's Mona.

TK: OK, she's the one I originally contacted.

MC: Right. She's the one who wrote the letters of concern. And this is Connie.

TK: She's the one I didn't --

MC: Yeah, Connie's a year older than I am.

TK: Do you mind me asking how old are you?

MC: I'm fifty-six.

TK: So when were you born?

MC: 1944, December.

TK: Just to keep straight some of these dates.

MC: And then they all [unintelligible] I remember more.

TK: But you're youngest.

MC: I was closest to dad. I was his first son. He and I hung out together. We 2:00spent a lot of time, just father and son interaction. He was an excellent role model. Because of that relationship I was present, even as young as I was, I was present when he had a lot of dealings, contacts and interaction with people of that time. Professional and [unintelligible] because he was on Walnut Street, which was the mecca of black society.

TK: Is that where he had his offices?

MC: Yes, old Walnut Street.

TK: Can I ask a question? There's some basic things, like I know a certain amount about your dad from reading the newspaper. But really what I know is the period, kind of the late 1940s. I don't have basic information like was he born in Louisville?

MC: Yes.

TK: OK, he was born in Louisville. When was he born?

MC: Oh my goodness. Probably 1912.

TK: And then when did he die?

MC: 1963, I believe.

TK: Oh, that early. See, I wanted to try to find an obituary or something because usually they have some of the basic facts and figures.

MC: He had cancer of the spleen. He was really, really sick. And he was young. He was only fifty-four. He really deteriorated really fast, really rapidly. Of course, he was in and out of the hospital and Mother cared for him during that period. He suffered a lot. He really did. I got really distraught. I was in my early twenties. Because we had been so close, I didn't know how to take it.

TK: Were you still living locally here?

MC: Yeah, but I was really lost. I was devastated. I got into drinking really heavy and all of that type of thing. I really didn't know how to cope. But that was a rough time. A rough time for everybody.

TK: What's the age span between you and your sisters?

MC: Mona's about nine years older than myself. She was the first. Then Connie is one year older than me. Then I have a brother that's a year and a half younger. A.G. That's what we call him. A.G.

TK: Was he named for your father?

MC: Yes. His first name is Alfred and his middle name is Griffith, which is my mother's maiden name.

TK: Was your mother from here as well?

MC: Yes.

TK: So they were both born and raised in Louisville?

MC: Right, and their families before them. All of our names are very traditional. Like my middle name is my grandfather's first name, which is Allen. My first name, Milton, was my dad's middle name. So my dad was Alfred Milton Carroll. And my brother is Alfred Griffith Carroll. So Mom just kept everything in the family. Very traditional.

TK: So family just circulating around. I'd like to ask a couple basic questions and maybe we can also go through this as we do. Again, just to get some basic biographical information. So he was born and raised here?

MC: Right.

TK: His family was also from here. And his parents' names?

MC: I don't remember. I think his dad's name was Jerry and his mom's name was Minnie. They had like five kids. Four boys and a girl. Just from what I can recall. Because we weren't that close to his side of the family. They were born and raised in Smoketown, which was considered the East End by today's standards.

TK: I've heard that expression before.

MC: But actually it was the East End of the inner city. Now East End is East End of the county. So there's a big difference.

TK: Is that where your father grew up, in the East End?

MC: Uh-huh, in Smoketown. It was considered a pretty poor black area of the 7:00community and really run down and strictly black. It was just a small black community. It had their own culture. They had their own economics. All were socially, economically, and intellectually deprived. So like, in high school, I remember Dad telling me -- he had an instructor at Central High School that told him he was nothing and he would never amount to anything. He came from nothing and he would always be nothing. I think Dad was probably acting out or doing something that was negative that provoked this teacher to make that comment. And that stuck with him. From that time on, he strived to become professional and 8:00achieve higher goals for himself. Nobody else in his family did. Nobody else in the community did. But he struggled, made good grades and went on to college, which was very rare in those days.

TK: Where did he go to college?

MC: He went to Wilberforce University, which is an AME [African Methodist Episcopal Church] supported school. The church paid his way, because like I said, he was extremely poor. From there he went to Howard University and finished law school. Now in between those periods he was fighting to get into the University of Kentucky law school and was rejected. Repeatedly. He and a 9:00couple of his friends who were very strong in the civil rights movement set out to push for admission into schools that traditionally had never accepted any blacks at all. The main character, very renowned here in Louisville, was -- oh, what's his name? He died not too long ago. Really well known. He was a teacher at Central --

TK: Oh, Johnson, Lyman Johnson.

MC: Yeah, Lyman Johnson. Of course, of course. Lyman Johnson is a legend for paving the way, breaking new ground. So he and Dad teamed up with a couple other attorneys and they submitted application after application after application. I 10:00really treasure the rejection letters. Because they stated in the rejection letters that the reason they were not accepted was because they were Negro.

TK: Was that before he went to Howard?

MC: It was during the time that he was in Howard.

TK: Do you know about what years that would be?

MC: It would be in the early forties. And once he finished Howard and came back to set up practice, he continued the pursuit, which was interesting. James Crumlin was a good friend of Dad's and he hadn't finished law school. He wanted to fight. It infuriated him. And Dad told Jim -- and it's documented because I saw it on a history video on TV. He told Jim "The only way you're going to be 11:00able to fight this system is to finish law school. You've got to get some credentials in order to be recognized." And that's what motivated Jim to go back and finish up law school. So that he could be visible in the fight.

TK: Were they friends before, from growing up or did they meet somewhere else?

MC: No, Jim's not from here originally. I think he's from Chattanooga. I believe so. Dad and Jim had been so close, and my mother was extremely close friends with Jim's wife. All of the attorneys' wives hung together. They had a little clique Lunderman, Charles Lunderman, Shobe, Anderson, all of those women shopped together, hung out together. They were not working. They were a traditional 12:00family setting. Of course, these guys sat around and planned ways of breaking the system stereotype, which was really interesting. They tried it a lot of different ways. Alberta Jones was in there, too. She came in a little bit later.

TK: Oh, I've never heard of that person before.

MC: Oh yeah, Alberta was a female black attorney. She was younger than they were, but once she came on the scene she kind of took up the civil rights fight as well. She has a history all her own. She was very instrumental. But by her being so much younger than the rest of these guys, she didn't get the notoriety, the recognition. And she was found murdered at Shawnee Park floating in the 13:00river. They never found her murderer. It was a brutal murder, too. I mean, the body, I understand -- and I was quite young, so I'm really pulling from memory here. The body was badly beaten. I think they found her dentures in the park. Her body was floating in the river. They never found her murderer. They never even got close. I'm not even sure they ever tried. Because as far as the white superstructure was concerned, it was good riddance kind of thing.

TK: I think I have heard of that. Some recently told me about that.

MC: It kind of paralyzed the black community. It really traumatized the black community tremendously. And a lot of people got scared and backed off. This was 14:00some tragic stuff. That was probably -- I want to say it was in the fifties.

TK: I think I might have told you on the phone, I'm only up to 1954 in the Defender, so I got a way to go.

MC: Oh, as you research this stuff, I'm sure you'll run across it. You'll see articles about it and information about it. Because it was, it was very traumatic. Things like that our parents tried to keep from us, but it was so common and so widely discussed in the black community that you couldn't keep it secret.

TK: People usually pick these things up.

MC: Oh yeah, you're going to hear it.

TK: Deanna Tinsley is interesting. She talked about how when she was growing up, being around her father, they also tried to keep her protected but she would 15:00always pick things up. She said positive things, too, because she said she picked up the message that you have to be fighting. But also, people would come in to talk to her dad about something that happened and she would pick that up, too.

MC: Of course. Deanna and I are very close friends. We grew up together. It was all like one big happy family. And Shobe's family and my family was extremely close during those years. Because we were all struggling together. We lived at 26th and Walnut, they lived at 26th and Cedar. There was a lot of contact. Preschool years, Mom would take us over there or they'd come to our house. We had a lot of contact and interaction with each other.

TK: So your dad and Crumlin are not the same age. Is Crumlin just a little bit younger?

MC: A little bit, probably so.

TK: Because it seems to me that when he came to town to be a lawyer, he joined them, they were already in practice.

MC: Exactly, from what I recall, that was the way it happened. Deanna had a lot of information she could contribute as well.

TK: So he went to law school at Howard, and when did he meet Mary, your mother?

MC: They were high school sweethearts.

TK: So he comes back -- was he in World War II at all?

MC: No. He worked at -- that's another interesting story, too. You're rattling some real memories here. He worked at the quartermaster in Indiana. He was a supervisor. His boss liked him so well that he got him a deferment from the 17:00draft during World War II. He told Dad, he said "Alfred, it looks like we're going to lose you. Looks like you're going to have to join the cause." And my dad, being as slick as he was, said "Well, I'm willing to do whatever is needed. I'm going to be there to serve my country in any way I can." And that went across real well. So the supervisor arranged to have him deferred. He never had to go to the Second World War. He was kind of manipulative.

TK: So he was here through the whole war. That was after he got out of law school, though.

MC: That was before. He was working his way through into law school. He was working at the quartermaster during the time that he was trying to make his way 18:00through his college years. He told me those stories.

TK: I'm just trying to get the basic biography stuff.

MC: Sure, I understand.

TK: So he wasn't in the war. And then, from what I understand, right after the war, he got involved in the NAACP [National Association for the Advancement of Colored People]. Do you know anything about how that happened?

MC: No, it was always really fashionable. It was really popular to do that. It 19:00was really popular for the professional people to enhance their careers, to be involved in civic organizations and be very, very visible in the community as a whole. So you automatically sat on boards, served on committees, participated in anything that was designed for the advancement of the cause. That's why a lot of these professionals, they put themselves in the limelight, became ministers. And he was. He had his own church.

TK: I didn't know that. When did that happen?

MC: It was during that same period when he was fresh out of law school. He became ordained and was given a church. His first church was in Shelbyville, Kentucky. I never will forget it. It had an outhouse. There was no indoor toilet. And it had a school building right next door to it. A typical old fashioned country school. It was in the middle of the country. It was like out 20:00in the pastures. The church was falling down and the school was used as a meeting place for the church members on Sunday afternoon. They'd have dinners up at the school. They had a potbellied stove and chickens running around. I never will forget that. We would drive out there every Sunday. Seems like there was a church in another small town before that one. Simpsonville, Shelbyville, Pleasureville. Pleasureville was his first church. It was Pleasureville.

TK: And Shelbyville was after that?

MC: Shelbyville was after that. Pleasureville was the first one. And we would drive there every Sunday and we wouldn't get back home until well after dark and we'd come in and we had a little bitty screen TV and we'd watch Ed Sullivan. The 21:00Ed Sullivan Show. We'd always rush home. We lived in an apartment on 26th and Walnut. It was really shotgun, really steep steps, poorly maintained, run-down. He was struggling, you know, just trying to get on his feet. We were in poverty. We didn't know it but we were in poverty. Big black roaches. Huge black roaches. When you go in, I'll never forget on Sunday night, when we'd come home from church, going to the house and turning the lights on, and the roaches would just scramble. Dad had to go in first and clear out the roaches before the kids could come in. That's how bad it was. We didn't know. We didn't know that that was poverty. But he'd go in and he'd scurry out all of the roaches before he would 22:00allow us to come into the house. But we moved up from that. He fixed the place up as best he could. We moved on to bigger and better things as time progressed. But I was Dad's running buddy. Whenever the rest of the family didn't feel like making the drive to the church, I would go. And we'd just have a ball. Singing on the highway. It was great.

TK: Did he continue to have churches the whole time you were growing up?

MC: No, he eventually moved to St. Paul AMC Church, which was at 28th and Hill. That was in the early sixties. Let me back up. The church that he got in town, 23:00the first church that he got in town was at 34th and Southern.

TK: I don't know where that is. 34th, I can picture where that is. Southern, is that north or south of Broadway?

MC: It's north. I'm sorry, it's south. It's south of Broadway. It's south. It's just before you get to the area where the Cotter Homes and Park Duvalle was. It was about three blocks from the projects. During that time all that road was dirt and gravel. It wasn't paved through there. And the area adjacent to that from that street, 34th Street on to the river, was called Little Africa. And it was really underdeveloped. People had outhouses, they had dirt floor huts. They were living in dilapidated buildings that were falling down that they had built 24:00themselves. All the roads were dirt roads. There were chickens and goats and all kinds of farm animals. This was a self-contained community. Isolated, primitive blacks. They didn't have schools. Maybe one community grocery store. Naturally, a liquor store and a nightclub that was falling down. Every Saturday someone was killed.

TK: That area was 34th to the river, south of Broadway -- I'm just trying to keep everything organized in my head. That was before Southwestern Parkway was really developed, right?

MC: Right, exactly.

TK: Because that was developed late fifties, early sixties, I think.

MC: I was really small. I was very young, but I do remember going through those 25:00areas. Little barbecue hut. The people were very loyal. The people that did attend church were there every Sunday. They were extremely loyal and very sincere and committed and supportive.

TK: So when he's moving churches. He's out in the country and then he comes to this one and then to 28th and Hill. When he's moving to different churches are you still living in the same place?

MC: We moved into -- during this time, we moved from the central part of town, which was the 26th Street end, near my grandmother's house. We lived up there for a short time because he was in transition trying to get his practice established. Mother taught school for just a short, short time. She had a degree from Wilberforce as well. But she never truly worked. She just worked for a 26:00short period of time. She's an excellent seamstress. Her major was home economics. She made most of our clothes. She was an extremely good housekeeper. Very good mom. She was very present. In fact, everything that needed to be done as it related to the family unit and the household maintenance and upkeep and care, it was great.

We moved to the West End, to 34th and Kentucky. Bought a little shotgun frame house. Very small. All the kids stayed in one bedroom. Didn't have two bedrooms. And me and my sisters and brother stayed in the one bedroom in the back. I was going to Virginia Avenue Elementary School during the sixth grade. That was 27:001956. In 1957 was the first year of school desegregation. So we were assigned out to white schools for the first time in this city's history. My sister and I went to Shawnee. We were among the first blacks to attend Shawnee. Shawnee was a junior and senior high school at the time. It went from the seventh grade to the twelfth. Prior to that it had been an all-girl school. But they made it coed a couple of years before we started there in '57. I was really small for my age, had bucked teeth and a lot of acne. Very bad self-image. Dad always tried to 28:00compliment all the good things that we had done and motivate us to feel good about ourselves and to achieve. Very strong on that in my household. In my home you were recognized for accomplishments and motivated and encouraged and told how important education was. I never missed a day of school. Although I was scared of the white boys, I would get run home by the kids from Portland. I have a perfect attendance report from my high school days. And I also have a certificate of the times that I was arrested going to demonstrations. I'll find it because I want you to have a copy of that because I'm proud of that. Where do 29:00you want to go from here?

TK: I did want to ask about your father's law practice. How did he get that set up? Can you tell me a little bit about that? And then I noticed there's some stuff about the parks in there and I want to get to talking about that.

MC: From what I can recall, he always had an office on Walnut Street. He rented office space from Dr. Sweeney, who was a prominent dentist. He owned property between Fifth and Sixth on Walnut Street. That's a parking lot now. They tore all of that down. It was right across from what is now the Louisville Gardens. Back then it was called the Armory. Dad had a little rinky-dink office. He and 30:00Dr. Sweeney were -- again, Dr. Sweeney took up the fight. He took up the cause of civil rights and became very instrumental. He did a lot of noted things to change the race relations in the city. Those articles are in here as well. His son is the one who did the research and provided most of this stuff.

TK: So should I call Maurice and ask him to be interviewed, too?

MC: Absolutely. Maurice is a --

TK: I've heard that he's sort of a hobby historian.

MC: Yeah, he is. He set on a quest to locate and develop this information and preserve it. He's done a lot of research.

TK: So they knew each other, your father and Dr. Sweeney, from being in that 31:00neighbor and being professional. Is Major Sweeney older?

MC: I'm not sure. I'm really, really not sure.

TK: Now I also read that your father was President of the NAACP. Do you know anything about that? Because you would have been little [unintelligible]. So I think actually, the year I have is '46 to '48 that he was president. So you would have been more than a glimmer but not much more.

MC: Not much more. Absolutely, because that was so far back.

TK: From what I can tell from what I read is that he was president from '46 to '48 and then Crumlin took over. Then it gets kind of fuzzy in there. It's unclear to me who's after him. Maybe Cordery, maybe somebody else. There may be another person I'm not familiar with in there. But there seems to be new NAACP 32:00presidents every two years throughout that period and they seem to rotate through this professional group.

MC: That sounds about right. But it was just so far from me.

TK: Then why don't you tell me about some of the stuff you've got here. I keep asking you questions just before you get a sip.

MC: That is not a problem. Now, oddly enough I do remember the date this was taken. This was taken when we lived at 26th and Walnut. That was in our upstairs den. We had a sofa up there and I remember the photographer arranging us, setting us up for this shot. All people get is this headline on the paper here.

TK: Wow! "Thief Gets Death Sentence." That's a little harsh. Now my question is, 33:00this was in your living room? Do you know what the occasion is? Why it was taken or anything like that?

MC: Daddy had been so visible in fighting -- he was running for so many different offices. He ran for a lot of political offices knowing that he wasn't going to win, but just getting his name out there and making the civil rights fight. He had run for City Council, which we now call them Alderman. There had never been any blacks in that office. So he knew he wouldn't win but he still got out there --

(END OF SIDE A)

(START OF SIDE B)

MC: -- I went with him when he was going on talking to the different 34:00organizations. Anytime he could get a crowd together or get on the podium, he'd make his presence felt. He was a very dramatic, very dynamic speaker. Very intelligent. He enjoyed doing that kind of thing. I recall one instance where he was addressing an audience. I was really young, I was bored and just kind of sitting -- I always was. I didn't know what was going on. I was too young. But his pants were unzipped. And he got away from the crowd to try to correct that problem. He always made a joke of that long, long afterwards. It was a big, big 35:00joke among his colleagues and himself. I remember that well.

TK: I have to say my male friends who are teachers, that's their biggest nightmare. They always check before they go into the classroom.

MC: It is extremely humiliating and embarrassing. But he did a lot of things. See, I had no knowledge of the political climate, the political structure, government offices or anything of that type. I regret it. But of course I was a child. We didn't know anything about those kinds of things. Government and that type of thing. But he was very much out there. Any time he had the opportunity to put his name on a ballet he was doing that.

TK: I think I read that he ran under the Progressive Party ticket at one point.

MC: Yeah, that's what this is. From the House of Representatives.

TK: Ok, yeah. I have some notes from a speech that he gave. I think I might have told you that Anne Braden donated all her personal papers to the library. She was very involved in that campaign so she had, I think that's where I got that. I think from a radio address he gave that she had recorded, she had transcribed and typed out. I think that's how I knew that. Actually, one of the things I've heard and want to confirm but I think it's correct, but I have to confirm with a little bit more research, is that the Progressive Party was very important in Louisville because a lot of black leaders who became prominent in the civil 37:00rights movement were involved with it. You know, your father, Andrew Wade, Sterling Neal, and then the Bradens, too. And then -- what's that other guy's name? It was this one minister. There's this one person who argues that the civil rights movement in Louisville sort of came out of that campaign. I think that's overstating it, but I think it was really important.

MC: I wasn't aware of it, obviously.

TK: Because you would have been four or six when this was happening. One question I have with all this -- you say he's out there all the time. He's making speeches, he's running for office, he's doing all this civil rights work. Did the family ever feel any reprisals for this?

MC: Dad and Mother always protected us and sheltered us from those kind of 38:00things. We knew something was going on. And we didn't understand at the time the kinds of backlash it was causing. Like the anonymous phone calls, the threats, notes left of Daddy's windshield on the car. There was even sugar poured in his gas tank. Things of that type. But they would never tell us about it. They would never mention it to any of us. So we were kind of oblivious to it.

The one incident that I do recall extremely well was when we lived at 34th and Garland in the mid-fifties, Daddy's practice started to flourish. He started to 39:00become known. We bought a home a couple of blocks away at 35th and Garland, which was an extremely nice home in an all white neighborhood. Beautiful house. It's torn down now as a result of urban renewal. But it was in an all-white neighborhood, and shortly after we moved in, maybe a couple of months, the teenagers that lived behind us played basketball in the alley. They had a rim set up. Well, they wrote vulgarity and racist messages on the back of the garage. Broke out all the windows. We had small window panes across the top of 40:00the garage door. Broke out all those windows out. Used spray paint and mud and just defaced the whole back end of the property. When we discovered that we were all very scared. And to reassure us and to make us feel safe, Dad always taught us to fight back. So the night after we discovered that, we sat up in the bedroom window on the second floor with our little -- I had a squirrel gun. I had a twenty-two rifle that Dad had bought me to go out on Sweeney's farm and hunt squirrels. I also had a fourteen-inch shotgun for rabbits. Never really shot them but I had them in the closet. So we sat in the window all night, my 41:00brother and I and Dad. We were supposed to be watching for these scoundrels that defaced the property and threatened us. See, we didn't know that they weren't going to come back because Dad had already gone down to talk to the parents. Had told the parents what was going to happen if this occurred again. He had already cleared them out. But to make us feel that we were men of the house, protecting our rights and defending ourselves, he let us sit in that window all night long, knowing that nothing was going to happen. But it was to give us a feeling of security and to teach us how to stand up for ourselves and to protect what was ours. It was a real dynamic message. I didn't know it until I had grown up. I didn't know it.

TK: Did he 'fess up or something at some point?

MC: No, I think Mom had told me that Dad had already gone over there and 42:00straightened those guys out way later. Years after that. But during the time, I can see what the message was Dad was trying to give us. And he did things that way. He let us know that we had to stand up for our rights and hold your ground when you're right. Don't let anybody run over year or trample on your rights in life, period. And he demonstrated that just by little things that he did with us that way. That was an interesting lesson. I'll never forget that. I felt so heroic. I was protecting the home. It was a gas, it was so much fun.

TK: That's a great story. Do you think you would have shot if you had seen something?

MC: The bullets were in his possession. But I knew I could get them if I needed them. If I see somebody out there, especially one of these big, old white boys, I'll go get the bullets from Daddy.

TK: That's a great story. It's a real interesting lesson, too. I was wondering, because it's right around that time, around 1954 when the Braden-Wade house thing happened. Did your dad get involved with that at all?

MC: I'm sure he did.

TK: I've been trying to find his name in some of the records but I haven't looked very carefully.

MC: I'm sure that he did but Tracy, honestly, I don't know. I don't really know.

TK: You would have been about ten.

MC: Yeah, unless I was present when he was actually doing something in reference to that, I wouldn't have known about it because he wouldn't bring it up. He 44:00wouldn't bring it up to discuss it.

TK: I sort of assumed he must have been because he's in the same crew. He's in that crowd that got involved. Crumlin did, and the Progressive Party people did. But I'll keep looking and I'll let you know if I find his name. Actually, I can just ask Anne Braden and she'll tell me.

MC: I would be interested to know that.

TK: But I'll let you know if I find out anything about that. We've only got through two pages -- we keep getting sidetracked.

MC: And other things might come to me as well. I've had to do a lot of -- a lot of these I have not read, I've got to confess.

TK: I did see this article.

MC: Ok, this is the big deal with the park thing. Do you know, oddly enough, 45:00Mona doesn't remember anything of this.

TK: Really? She was about twelve at the time, I think.

MC: But she was the oldest, so Daddy used her to put her out there as the person who was discriminated against. She was very visible because he put her out there. I was too young, so he didn't subject me to it. This is the same article here.

TK: Yeah, you would have been three or four when it started. Evidently it took a long time.

MC: He couldn't use me. But see, Charlie Anderson was very instrumental in all of these activities. I don't remember a whole lot about Charlie. I don't remember having a lot of contact with him. But Dad did. Dad used to mention his name all the time. There was another Anderson that was killed by a train. You're 46:00going to run across that. But I remember that he was real devastated when that happened. But I'm confused as to how the Andersons -- the judge, Charlie Anderson, which I know was on the bench after the train wreck in which another Anderson had died. So I'm really not sure which is which.

TK: As far as I can tell there were at least three separate families of Andersons. There's the Charles Anderson, there's Felix Anderson who was eventually on the Board of Alderman, and then there's Reverend Fred Sampson, who was in the demonstrations in the late sixties. I'm pretty sure that these were three completely separate families of Andersons.

MC: OK, because I never really knew.

TK: With Reverend Sampson not being from here. The other two being from here.

MC: Ok, I got you. I don't know what this was in reference to.

TK: This must be Crumlin.

MC: It is, it's Crumlin.

TK: Is this a meeting?

MC: Yes, a meeting that they would have relative to the segregation of the parks. That one park, the golf course down there.

TK: That was one of his major cases, wasn't it?

MC: Uh-huh, yeah.

TK: Well, this is my question. I read a lot about him during the park case and during the forties. But after about the mid-fifties he kind of disappears. Was he still involved in public stuff in the late fifties through the early sixties?

MC: I think his involvement diminished somewhat and he focused on his law practice.

TK: Because that's when he was starting to get successful in his law practice.

MC: He really started to put his energy in his practice and started to try to get serious about becoming successful, to achieve some goals there in his career rather than doing all the civil rights stuff because it wasn't profitable. He had to make some money and get us out of the ghetto. I think that's the way he focused his attention and energies. There was something else that came to my mind but it will come back to me. See, the big thing was, the only park that blacks had to go to was Chickasaw and it was relatively run down. It wasn't well-maintained. We were beginning to find out about all the other parks around 49:00the community that we couldn't go to. That's why it became an issue. And they were much bigger and much nicer. But we could not go in. I think that that's the reason that -- plus that golf course thing. I don't think it was so much that blacks wanted to play golf. Nobody had grown up with golf. I think it was the principle, just the issue that being pursued. But that was something that I don't have a whole lot of memory about. I couldn't understand why they were making such a big deal over the parks. I couldn't comprehend that.

TK: What's interesting to me is that Mona doesn't remember anything.

MC: I think she's blocked it out. It wasn't as significant to her, really. She 50:00was just kind of a pawn. I think she just kind of put it aside in her mind. See, anytime that Dad saw a way of arousing the power structure, raising an issue that was taboo, he would jump on it. He was a fighter. He was always a fighter. When we were demonstrating, meeting at Quinn Chapel, that was the popular thing to do. All the kids all during the school day would pass the word around school to all of the other kids to make sure they went to Quinn Chapel when school was 51:00out. They would have hotdogs and Kool-Aid to serve us, and cookies. In the meeting room at Quinn Chapel in the back. I didn't miss a meeting. And it was every day. Every day. When the weather was nice, every day, all the kids from Central, Male High School, Shawnee, Manual, would converge and meet at Quinn. See, Quinn was our home church before Daddy became a minister. So we all grew up there. All the prominent blacks belonged to Quinn.

TK: I've heard that. It was an AME church.

MC: Another one was Plymouth. The snob -- well, they were all snotty. All of them were snobby, all the blacks that were prominent back then. School teachers and doctors, lawyers, anybody with any prominence at all. And sharp dressers. 52:00Mom made tailor-made suits. He stepped out sharp everyday. Loved it. He loved it. I used to watch him get ready in the mornings and he'd be up in the mirror. Anyway, we would all meet at Quinn Chapel and a lot of time we would have guest speakers. Martin Luther King even came in and spoke. We'd have rallies and everybody would really get geared up. All the kids were getting so much attention and being praised for what we were doing. And to us, it was just fun. It was a way of -- it was a social event. It really was. We weren't even concerned or even knowledgeable of the danger. That was really played down. The 53:00thing that we enjoyed was the interaction and coming together. And the guys leading little girls and the girls seeing all the guys. It was a party.

TK: Which high school were you at?

MC: I was at Shawnee.

TK: Were you a junior or a senior when this was happening?

MC: It must have been --

TK: It was in '61, and if you were born in '44 you would have been seventeen.

MC: I was about, I think in the tenth grade. I wasn't --

TK: Do you remember when you graduated from high school? Work backwards.

MC: '64.

TK: So you're right.

MC: I was about in the tenth grade. But boy, it was a popular thing. It was so 54:00neat. And we would march down to Fourth Street, go up Chestnut Street to Fourth Street, and we had already been given our instructions. We would break off into groups. The groups would go to specific business locations. That's where all the white theaters were. Blacks had only three theaters that they could go to. They were all very run down. Filthy and just nasty. We went to the theaters. We had been given instructions on how to form a line and keep in rotating, keep it moving in front of the sidewalk. I had some pictures of all that and I gave them to the library at Tenth and Chestnut. I had newspaper articles and pictures and I donated them. I had them framed and donated them to the Tenth and Chestnut 55:00library. I sure did.

TK: I should go down there.

MC: Yeah, I mean they've got some good stuff. There's a picture of me being put in a black paddy wagon. They used to have these big, black police paddy wagons. There was a black policeman escorting me into the wagon in one of those pictures. There's also pictures of all my main school buddies lined up at the lunch counter at Kresge's, sitting there waiting to be served. And we went to Blue Boar Café. I never will forget it. They were one of the biggest racist businesses in town. We sat in the sidewalks and people would kick us as we came through the doors. But you know, we were so supportive of each other, those things did not rile us up and get us bent out of shape. We were told not to 56:00retaliate under any circumstances. We were in front of all the Woolworth's and Kresge's, Stewart's Department Store.

I remember very clearly, when there weren't any bathrooms, Mom had to take me behind the buildings in the alley to relieve myself. And blacks couldn't try on the clothes. And blacks went to the back of the bus. I remember those things. I remember Mom pulling me aside at the bus stop so the whites could go on first. I didn't know it was a way of life. It was not something you even thought about complaining about because this was the place that we had in life. It was the natural thing to do. You didn't even realize at that point, I didn't even realize there was anything wrong with it. We couldn't get food at the counters. 57:00If we did, we had to take it out and eat it while we walked on the sidewalk. Couldn't try on clothes. Let you buy your clothes and take them home. Some stores would let you bring them back if they didn't fit, others wouldn't. Once you bought it, it was yours. But they had no fitting rooms for blacks, no bathrooms, no accomodations at all. So all of these marches were for open accomodations, open housing, better jobs. It was a lot of publicity about it. I remember the white guys driving through Fourth Street throwing bottles and cans at us. They weren't really trying to hurt us. It would be more trying to scare us. But their parents sent them out there to do that.

TK: Because you were young. All teenagers.

MC: Oh yeah, we were all really in our early teens.

TK: One of the things I wonder about this, Louisville is different in this way. Because, of course, a lot of places it was college students. So it was all these African American teenagers from the different schools that you mentioned. Are there any adults at all that sat in or did the adults just do other stuff?

MC: They were behind the scenes. They would be across the street watching. They would be monitoring. They would be making sure -- see, because they would lose their jobs. They would be given jail time or pay hefty fines. That's the reason they put us out there, is because there was no way of prosecuting us. They were very protective but they would be in the background. They had given us all the instructions. After the demonstrations, most of us would be locked up. But the 59:00ones that wouldn't be locked up would meet back at the church. Then they would review what happened. They would discuss exactly what had occurred. Which groups were taken to jail and why, and what would happen to those people that were taken to jail. They would -- what do you call it? Well, they would just analyze the progress that was made.

TK: So what happened when you were arrested?

MC: We were taken by the truck load to the juvenile detention facility. It was at Floyd and Chestnut. We would all be herded into the booking rooms there. In small groups, because it wasn't big enough to accommodate that many kids. And 60:00once we were processed they would put us into the basement because there was no beds for us up in the dormitory. They'd put these tumbling mats on the floor for us to sleep on. There was no way that place could hold all of us. And we knew that. And the parents and the adults really played on the numbers. You know, get as many people in there as possible so that you can make it really uncomfortable for them to deal with you. My dad would come -- this was very, very vivid in my mind -- would come into the detention center. Would come into the basement where we were being housed. I remember being scared. I'd never been locked up before. And the first couple of times I was scared. Well, they let us go. If you were 61:00having your first or second arrest you were released to your parents or a responsible adult. If it was your third, fourth or fifth time, they'd keep you at least overnight. So I graduated to the overnighters. I've been locked up so much. Plus, I was kind of a bad kid anyway. I would be right out there. Dad would come in and go down with the group, come down to meet with us after we were processed and booked in. Especially when he find out we wouldn't be able to go home. And he would tell us stories, he would wrestle with the boys. That's one thing I loved doing with Daddy is wrestling, because I could never beat him. And he'd just get on those mats and just wrestle and tumble with us on those mats. Take his shirt and tie off and lay it to the side. Take his shoes off and 62:00get on those mats. We'd just tumble and wrestle and he'd wear us out. He was strong. Dad wasn't nothing but about 5'7". No ma'am. He was a stumpy man. But like I said, a very, very sharp dresser. Man, I'm telling you, we had a ball down there. I did not want to see him leave. I mean, we were having such a good time. We got so much attention from the adults as a result.

TK: I'm assuming the boys were in one space and the girls were in another space.

MC: You know what, until the very end we were all in the same area. Until bedtime, and then they had to separate us. But up until that time -- we had just overwhelmed the place in our numbers. And there were some kids crying. There were some kids that were truly scared. I was just too bad.

TK: Did your dad do any of the legal work on these?

MC: All of it, yeah.

TK: [unintelligible] Lunderman is one of the people who did as well, right?

MC: Oh yeah. Dad definitely did. Dad was the one that represented all of us in court. He'd go into court and we'd get groups at a time. We'd be lining up in front of the judge. It was like an assembly line. Process us in and process us out. Everything had to be officially done for the records and all that type of thing. I'll tell you, if those records are in existing, that would be interesting to have. If any of those arrest records or any of those court hearings are documented anywhere. Of course, it's been so long ago, I'm not sure that they have --

TK: I know with court cases, the further they go in the process, like if it was 64:00appealed or whatever, then it becomes permanent record. Of course, these cases weren't, right?

MC: No.

TK: Now, I have interviewed Henry Triplett who was the main judge. It was very interesting. I interviewed him twice, actually, because my tape recorder didn't work the first time. So I interviewed him twice and he was talking about his dilemma. He didn't really think -- his options were to consider you disorderly conduct and delinquency, that's what it was. He didn't think you were being delinquent but he had to do something. It was really interesting, his own intellectual wrestling with what to do about the cases.

MC: That's interesting. I didn't know who the judge was.

TK: Raoul Cunningham had introduced me to him. He's still in touch with him and they have conversations occasionally.

MC: Wow. What kind of shape is he in intellectually?

TK: Fine. Actually, the way I got in touch with all of them is that I have a friend, who is a minister of the Highland Presbyterian Church. That's the church that Triplett goes to. He goes every Sunday. Yeah, he's still sharp as a tack.

MC: How old is he?

TK: He must be in his eighties. A great story teller, too. So that was interesting.

MC: And he remembers that?

TK: Uh-huh. It was really interesting because it really created a dilemma for him intellectually and ethically.

MC: Of course, I would imagine so.

TK: So it was interesting to hear his take on how it impacted him.

MC: Oh, that is so cool.

TK: He eventually became an open housing supporter as a result of this. He 66:00started out being typical, supporting segregation. But because of this, he changed his mind and became an open housing supporter. I'm going to change tapes here.

END OF TAPE ONE

START OF TAPE TWO, SIDE A

MC: -- Dad eventually bought his own building on Walnut Street and Jesse rented the office in Dad's building from him. Everywhere that Dad moved to, Jesse would move with him. They were extremely close. Very good friends. He was a good friend of mine. Jesse was a good person, awful nice person.

TK: He was eventually on the general something?

MC: Yeah.

TK: But he's passed away.

MC: Right, he has. Jesse was a good person. I really liked him. He and Dad were 67:00very close. Jesse, I remember, in later years. What kind of amazed me is that I didn't realize that there were a difference in political parties, and Jesse was a Republican. And Dad was always a Democrat. And I couldn't understand how they could be such good friends when they differed on their philosophy, their political philosophy, so much. That was after I got a little bit older. But I see Jesse's name mentioned in here and that's what reminded me of that relationship. Yeah, this is fishing in Cherokee Park. Mona said she never wanted to fish. She didn't care a thing about fishing. And P.O. Sweeney and Jesse Waters were related in some way. And Maurice can give you more information on that. One of the things that made Sweeney so dynamic and visible was because he 68:00could buy so much property. Sweeney's got some great store, stories along that line. You should ask him. He threatened to buy some property in the East End and make it a black country club. It was a purpose for that and I can't remember what that was. There was a punch line.

TK: Oh, look at this. Is that in (Ridgeway?) No, because that would too early. It looks like it's got all this information about him.

MC: Jerry Carroll and Minnie, yeah. There's your dates.

TK: That's a great article. I wonder where that came from.

MC: St. Paul AME Church.

TK: Looks like it's out of a Who's Who or something like that.

MC: There you go. President of the Louisville branch of NAACP, '46, '47. Ran for Congress. Progressive Party ticket in '48. Was co-counsel in the Sweeney verses the City of Louisville case. There you go.

TK: It almost looks like a Who's Who type listing.

MC: Yeah, it does. I don't remember where it came from. It might be -- it says obit.

TK: Yeah, but the date is '53.

MC: '58, it looks like '58.

TK: But it doesn't sound like an obit. Because obits usually say --

MC: That can't be right. Something's not jiving, but it looks like an obit. It 70:00really does. The Lyman Johnson case.

TK: It could be some kind of listing of things and then the information was used for the obit because then this other guy here, alphabetical one, with similar information. So I bet you it's a Who's Who of Kentucky or something like that. I'll have to look. That's easy to find, just old copies of those and see if that's what it's from. That's what research assistants are for.

MC: Do you have one?

TK: Yeah, well, I share her with like ten people, but yeah. I've seen that article, too.

MC: I haven't even read these. I remember that.

TK: Those are all the things he ran for at different times. (break) -- about these to everybody?

MC: Everybody that had been arrested a certain number of times. These are just attendance awards.

TK: My mom has those, too. Believe me, I've heard about it a lot. So that's 1959 to '60, and '56 to '57. You don't remember how many times you had to be arrested to get one of these, do you?

MC: I really don't.

TK: Do you remember how many times you were arrested? They all sort of blend together after a while.

MC: It was seven or eight. I know it was more than six because we were keeping notches. Everybody would brag about who had the most arrests. That was a big challenge. In fact, if I'm with a group and we're demonstrating at a particular 72:00business site, and another group is at a different business site and we see the paddy wagon focusing in on them, the group that I wasn't in, I'd run over to that group. A lot of kids did that. It was just excitement.

At the White Swan Restaurant at Fifth and Chestnut, the proprietor had instructed the workers to gather up all of the dirty dishwater and throw it on us. And that's what they did. The nasty dishwater. We got drenched. I remember an old white lady coming out of Blue Boar and we were sitting on the sidewalks blocking the doorway. The paddy wagon had already been called but hadn't gotten there yet. This lady was trying to come through the crowd of youngsters sitting 73:00there. She panicked. It scared her so bad. It frightened her so bad she panicked and she just started kicking and beating us in the head and hitting us. Everybody was covering up. But she went ballistic. That lady, as soon as she got out of the crowd and got through the maze, she collapsed on the sidewalk. Everybody ran over to try to help her. It was a tear jerker. It was so sad. Because here she had been so mean to all of us, and then when she needed help, everybody tried to do something to help that lady on the sidewalk. It was so 74:00compassionate. There was a lot of compassion. A lot of emotions. I'll never forget that. Some of these things are just going to stand out because of the dramatics of it, the drama. Stuff keeps coming back to me. One of the biggest things I'm probably going to regret is I'll remember some stuff after you leave that I'll wish I had --

TK: Well, you can write it down and call me.

MC: I know I will. It always happens to me when I do this kind of thing.

TK: I find that a lot of times I talk to people before the interview and during the interview. Then a lot of times, go back a second time because they say "oh, I remember all this other stuff." Actually, I even did a project once where we arranged it that way. Where we did every single person twice because people -- you know, once you get your juices going --

MC: Uh-huh, stuff starts to return. I told Mona and Connie both, I said "Look, 75:00once you start to read these articles and once you start to see these events, a lot of this stuff is going to come back." But it was like I was saying, that their relationship and association with my dad and involvement with all his activities wasn't quite as extensive as mine.

TK: What's your mother think of all this? Of your father's activity and of your activity?

MC: Mother was a support in the background. She was the one that would mend our wounds after the battle. She was the one that made sure we stayed focus, that we stayed grounded, that we didn't carry a lot of bitterness and anger into our 76:00daily lives. That we didn't have to, after the demonstration, go to school the next day and create some chaos with the whites that we had to be in classroom with. That type of thing. She really was a major factor in seeing that we were mentally healthy through the whole drama. I didn't realize that was happening at the time. But I began to see how she balanced everything out for us, was so supportive and nurturing throughout it all. Taught us to deal with so that we wouldn't be so traumatized, that we wouldn't get our values confused.

TK: What did your dad think of you doing the demonstrations?

MC: I feel that he was so motivated and so -- it was so important to him that he 77:00wouldn't have allowed us not to. I mean, that's how important it was. That's how significant it was. We was really encouraged. Very excited about us being involved. Made sure we were always there. And I liked it as well, because it pumped us up.

TK: You talked about how you were told how not to react. What did you think of the non-violence part?

MC: It made sense because I didn't want to fight anyway, personally. I had some buddies that were known to be fighters. They were football players. They'd get these big guys that were typically bullies around the school. But when you got 78:00them in a situation like that, they were on my level. They were my equal. We had something in common. So even the kids that didn't fit into our peer group in other situations would fit in during those times. That's what made it a camaraderie. It was really interesting. I mean, you had kids from professional families, the kids from blue-collar families and the kids that had single parents, that were from single-parent homes. See, that was unique during those days. Class was so prevalent and apparent. The kids from professional families typically wouldn't associate with the kids that were from single-parent homes.

TK: You'd just hang out with each other?

MC: Yeah, there was a lot of discrimination within our own race as blacks. It's 79:00the same way in the way we live, too. The blue-collar workers lived in the one section of the West End, and the professionals lived along the parkway, in the nicer homes, and they had a certain amount of prestige. They were recognized. You had this class system within the black community and it carried over to the kids. It was really interesting because we discriminated against one another. We really would. But when it came to the major cause, the big picture, everybody would pull in together. We were very protective of one another. Very supportive and embraced. That's what made it so cool. We felt good about ourselves because we had bonded across the barriers and the different economic lines. Then, in 80:00such large numbers made us feel like a force to be reckoned with. We felt powerful because of the numbers. Singing, getting all this attention. It was great. It was a lot of morale, a lot of enthusiasm. And it couldn't be broken. The spirit was so high it could not be broken. It was really something. I realize it now. I didn't then. But that unity and that force in numbers made you feel so powerful.

TK: I'm assuming most of your friends also participated?

MC: Oh yeah, it was the fad. It was the in thing to do. If you weren't going to

Quinn Chapel after school, you were just not in with the in crowd.

TK: How did your white classmates react to all this? You mentioned your mother's concern about relations there.

MC: The white kids that went to school with us were mostly from Portland. The only things they knew about it was what their parents told them or what they might have seen on the news. I did not feel a lot of pressure from them at all. I really didn't. I tried to make a note of whether or not they were going to pick on me because of this. I don't recall it happening. I don't recall any personal insults for my participation in the demonstrations. I'm not even sure 82:00if they knew that I personally was real active in it. I don't remember any repercussions as a result of it. Never really though about it.

TK: Were you involved in the Fontaine Ferry demonstrations?

MC: I don't remember.

TK: It was like a little subset of this.

MC: Yeah, yeah. I really don't remember. Whatever was the in thing to do, I made sure I was part of it. So I might have been down there. That wasn't exciting because it didn't bring us into contact with a lot of the community because it was rather isolated. It was removed and on the fringes. That wasn't exciting to 83:00do. That wasn't a fun thing. We didn't get a whole lot of cops and attention and stuff. I do remember going by there and seeing cops engaging with blacks that were demonstrating but I wasn't part of the group. I do recall passing by and seeing that interaction going on but I wasn't there.

TK: You know what amazes me, there is no trace of Fontaine Ferry left. They must have took out every bolt down there. You go down there and think, this was once an amusement park? There's nothing there.

MC: You're exactly right. I've been past there and it's just completely wiped out. Like it never existed.

TK: Yeah, because I bicycle through that area all the time and I just think, where was it exactly?

MC: Same thing is true of Walnut Street. That culture has been completely and totally removed. And another thing, you know Dr. Young has a lot of information.

TK: Milton Young?

MC: Yeah.

TK: I'm supposed to call him, too.

MC: That's great. I think you should. He's a real good friend of mine. He and I are very close. He lives right up the street.

TK: So do I, actually. Well, I live in Clifton, but that's practically right around the corner.

MC: Right. Give him a call. Do you have his number?

TK: Yeah, Merle Robertson gave it to me.

MC: Milton Young has a lot of documentation of old Walnut Street. He did a photo series. Collected photographs of all the businesses and establishments and the people of the day, the people of that era and everything. He did a tremendous photo document of old Walnut Street.

TK: Do you think that he'd be old enough to tell me very much about his mother?

MC: He's seventy.

TK: Oh, he is. Because his mother was involved in some of the behind the scenes of open housing stuff.

MC: Yeah, [unintelligible] was a trip. He would be able to bring a lot to the table. He would.

TK: Her name comes up a lot.

MC: He would. He definitely would. He's got all that information. He himself is an historian.

TK: So I wanted to clarify some things. These demonstrations were all in '61. You were in high school at that time, obviously you stay in high school for a while after it all sort of gets resolved. And then your father, if he died in '63, he would have died right at the end of this. So did he get sick and die 86:00suddenly, or was it protracted?

MC: No, it was gradual. He just deteriorated over weeks and weeks. Back in and out of the hospital. Red Cross Hospital was the black hospital. That's where he went. It was still Red Cross Hospital and that's where he died.

TK: In 1963, you said?

MC: I think, I'm not really sure on that year. Another thing that happened that's interesting with Dad is right before the year he became --

TK: Here's his obituary. But what were you going to say, right before?

MC: He was at G.C. Williams funeral home. Does it have the year?

TK: '66.

MC: That's right. That's right.

TK: So 1966. I can also see in the Defender, 1966.

MC: That's exactly right. November 22. Because see, [President John F.] Kennedy died --

TK: Three years after Kennedy.

MC: Yeah, and that's how I associated my dad's death with Kennedy's. Before he died -- and I've got the documents in here, too -- Dad had made a lot of enemies with some of the white political leaders and the people in office. And Maurice Sweeney and I discussed this, but we feel very strongly that Dad was set up to 88:00lose his license. He was charged with knowingly receiving some stolen merchandise. And electric organ. Don't know how it became about. Some thieves approached him to buy this stuff and gave him a song and a dance and Dad fell for it. And he purchased it. Nobody in our family could play organ. I remember the organ coming into our home. And then a few months, weeks maybe, he was charged. He took me to court with him. I heard him plead his case to the judge. 89:00What kind of confused me is that the court that he was going to was in the old post office building. Well, that wasn't the court that I had been going to with him. I had gone to court on other cases and stuff, just to keep him company and because I enjoyed being with him. But this court -- and it may have been a federal case. I'm not sure. Maybe that's the reason it was in the post office building at Sixth and Broadway. But anyway, he took me with him and he took me to help him to make his case to the judge in that I remember telling the judge that he had to set an example because he had a family and he had kids and I was there. That this was a case of poor judgment, bad decision and he regretted it. 90:00And he also took some white friends with him. The guy that owned the liquor store on the corner of Sixth and Walnut went in as a character witness for Dad. And Dad was on the crux of losing his law license. In fact, I think that they had already decided to suspend him for two years. That was a big concern to me.

I don't think the rest of the family -- I don't remember them acting to it quite the way that I was feeling. The importance of it to me at the time. But I was worried about how he was going to maintain us and the household if he couldn't practice law. He died before that went into effect. But it certainly aggravated his physical health. It really did. I saw his demeanor become flat. I saw him 91:00sit and worry a lot. He would just sit with his head in his hands. He wouldn't say anything. He never discussed any of this with us but I knew what was going on. I knew. I had read the Louisville Defender and some of those articles are in here. I knew it was extremely devastating to him. It was embarrassing. It was very humiliating. He had never been accused of anything really dirty, underhanded or illegal in his whole career. And then this thing crops up and he's totally humiliated. It crushed me. I saw what was going on. I didn't say a lot about it because kids stayed in their place in those days. You just didn't talk about grown folks stuff. So I couldn't say much, but I was crushed as well. 92:00I knew it was going to be a bad end. One of Daddy's --a real estate lady that rented office space from Daddy was very nurturing to all of us. I asked her, "What's he going to do? I'm worried about Daddy. How is Daddy going to feed us?" She said, "You don't have to worry. Alfred will always make it. He'll always find a way to make it so you don't have to worry." She tried to reassure me and I never will forget that. That was devastating.

TK: Was he still a minister at this time?

MC: He was a minister right up until he died. In fact, he went into the pulpit after having lost a tremendous amount of weight. His clothes didn't fit him anymore and he had to wear suspenders to hold his pants up. He looked bad. And he's weak and he's still trying to stand up in the pulpit and deliver a message, 93:00even as sick as he was. He was sick. He was an awful sick man. He suffered an awful lot. He really did. He still tried to go in there and meet with his congregation. He was very loyal to that. So that's some interesting additional trauma that was going on.

TK: Looks like that's an article on [unintelligible] and this is the start of open housing. I guess he would have just missed, huh? If he died in November of '66, it was really getting started in the fall of '66.

MC: Neville Tucker. That's a name I haven't heard in a long time.

TK: His name pops up a lot.

MC: He's highly respected. Bishop Tucker was extremely -- he was a real hothead. 94:00He would go off on people.

TK: Was Neville your age or older than you?

MC: Neville and I are about the same age. He's a little bit older. He's interesting, too. I don't know what this is.

TK: When he ran for Congress it looks like. That's nice because it has all the dates and everything in there. Once I have dates, I can look up more information about things, you know.

MC: Right, because you know what time to look into. That's good. This has got all the stuff in it, doesn't it?

TK: [unintelligible] stuff because it's written in '48. [unintelligible] . Alfred is only six months.

MC: Alfred is my brother. I must have been -- no, man, I'm not five years older than him. Two daughters and two sons, Mona, twelve.

TK: You were three.

MC: Three, ok. Mona was twelve, Connie --

TK: Your father's middle name was Milton, right? That's what the M stands for?

MC: Yes, right. His first name was Alfred and his middle name was Milton. Very interesting, something else he did, he taught at Davis Trade School. It was housed in the YMCA building at Tenth and Chestnut. Davis was kind of an entrepreneur and he had received a grant to open shop classes for blacks and Dad 96:00used to teach at night the woodwork classes. He was good. Dad was pretty good with his hands. He's really creative. I know he used to hang the wallpaper and paint the trim and all that type of thing around the house. Well, he taught at Davis Trade School for a number of years. And somewhere on record, there's photographs of the classes of him and his students gathered around him. They did some newspaper articles on the school. So that may be somewhere in the documents as you run into stuff. Well, you can take your time and read over this stuff.

TK: I was thinking what I'll probably do -- what I usually do is take notes on everything so I have --

MC: A connection.

TK: Then what I'll do, I'm going into school on Monday. I'll make you copies of everything and when I have the copies, I'll give you a call. I can bring them by here some time later in the week.

MC: Yeah, I would really like meeting with you again and seeing what you were able to find as an extension to this or addition to this.

TK: One of the nice things is, now that the semester is over and now that I've got some other things done, I can focus on this stuff almost full-time now. I have to teach still, but aside from teaching I can just work on this.

MC: That is so cool. I think what you're doing is so cool. I do. I admire you. I really wish I was --

TK: You know what's interesting, I always say to people is I moved here six 98:00years ago. And I started working on this project, not the first year, because the first year I was finishing up another book. I was finishing up my first book the first year and really maybe even into the second year. But I'd say from about -- the first book came out in the summer of '97, so I'd say that summer I started working on this. Now, because of being a teacher mostly, because most of our job is teaching, we can really only do research in the summer. So every summer I've done research. But this past year I did sixty-five interviews. Actually, I think you're my sixty-eighth interviewee. And that's a lot of people and I don't feel like I'm done. It's interesting, the one period I really don't have much information and I need to find more people to interview is the open 99:00housing marches. I have a lot of people from the sit-ins for open accomodations downtown, but I don't have as much on open housing. I really need to be fed up more. Because those are the two big things. So I have a lot on the sit-ins and I need to get some more on the open housing. I guess, actually, the difference there was that it wasn't all teenagers. It was all kinds of people. I've interviewed some whites that were involved with it but I haven't interviewed many African Americans who were involved in it. So I have some of the white perspective on open housing, but I don't really have the black perspective.

MC: That's interesting and I don't know why that is.

TK: I just haven't called the right people, it think.

MC: That's really interesting. I've got one little thing all for you. [unintelligible]

TK: "Building Inter-Racial Democracy." Well, I'll tell you when you come back in.

END OF INTERVIEW.