Interview with Bob Cunningham, September 1, 1999

TRACY K'MEYER: This is an interview with Bob Cunningham by Tracy K'Meyer at Mr. Cunningham's home on September 1, 1999. The basic biographical information to get started is, where and when were you born? BOB CUNNINGHAM:Trigg County, Kentucky. That's Cadiz, Kentucky, in western Kentucky. TK:Western Kentucky. And when were you born? BC:September 24, 1934. TK:So almost your birthday. Could you tell me a little bit about your family? Who were your parents and what did they do? BC:Well, my mother passed when I was about five months old and I was raised by an aunt who was my mother's sister and at that time, particularly in the black community, if there was a child, he just became your child, particularly 1:00in the family, so I was never legally adopted, she just took me as her child, which she had no children. And she raised me and she just died less than six years ago. So we lived in Trigg County and moved from there to Paducah when I was about seven years old. From there we came to Louisville and have been here the rest of my life; I came to Louisville, I guess, when I was about eight years old. TK:So you did grow up and go to school here. BC:Yes. TK:Where did you go to school? BC:I went to grade school here, S.C. Taylor, Samuel Coleridge Taylor Elementary School; I went to Madison Junior High School and I went to Central High School. I came out of Central in 1954 and I was one of the last classes to 2:00come out all black, legally all black classes, the last legally all black class to come out of Central because the 1954 decision had been made at that time to integrate the schools. So I was the last black class out of Central. TK:What did you do after high school? BC:After high school, I worked around a little bit and I was drafted into the military and I left here and went to Fort Knox to do my basic training and then I went to Missouri, Leavenworth, Missouri, and I ended up in California. I guess going to California, which at that time--we're talking about '58, '59--kind of opened my eyes to a lot of things because I had come up 3:00in an all black environment. Only when I moved to Paducah, I did live in a white community but we had our places; I lived in a community that was a street that was all white, I don't know how that happened, and most of my playmates and things were white kids. I had never been around white people before in a setting such as friends. In Trigg County, in Cadiz, Kentucky, I was very conscious, even as a kid, of our places, our different places as white and black. I saw the black water fountains and the black restrooms and things, you know, so I was already aware of that. It was only after, again, that I went to California that I was in to an equal, somewhat, arrangement with white people in the army. 4:00TK:Right, because it's integrated at this point. BC:In the military, right. So I began to, I guess, at that time, look at the commonality of our situation. I was thrown in, well, I shouldn't say thrown in, but I was placed with quite a few servicemen, who were from Appalachia, who were poor, working class white guys and I come to find out we were just alike in some of our needs and everything. So it woke me up to how terrible it was that we were divided by color and race when our social situation and our living situation was so much the same, our needs were the same. So I guess that woke me up, in California, woke me up more than anything about white folks who I had just . . . as I said, coming up as a kid in a all black environment, racism was there but it wasn't something that constantly plagued me; we knew it but we just made the best of a bad situation. 5:00But there was a support system within the black community that made racism something that wasn't something that was pressing every day so you didn't worry too much about it. It was only again, I knew white folks was out there and I knew I didn't belong with them, but at the same time I didn't miss them. But once I got to California, and I say again, I must say, at that time California, I guess, was one of the most liberal places in this country. TK:It's such a mix of people. BC:Right. The mixture of people; I'd never been around anybody other than black folks and white folks. Out in California there were Chinese folks, there was all kinds of folks so it broadened me a lot to see what a mix we, in this country, have; and what the possibility that melting pot or that salad bowl that we always talk about, how possible that was because I began to see other cultures and began to appreciate people for their differences. So I think that 6:00helped me and as I say, again, it made me begin to think a lot different while I was in California, while I was in the military. TK:A couple of questions that were raised, I was sort of scribbling while you talked, you said that you were in this, as a child you were aware of racism but it was sort of out there. How did your parents, or the people that raised you, your aunt, how did they teach you to respond to racism or to deal with it? BC:Well, in many ways I think, during that period, as I said before, the community was close together so we all knew that we were, that racism and bigotry were there but it was something that we propped up each other because we had each other. So it wasn't something that 7:00. . . I was very conscious of it as a kid and didn't know why. I mean, I didn't know what it was. For instance, I told you when I lived in Paducah on the street that happened to be all white, I noticed my aunt, who was a very gentle woman who loved children--she showed that by taking me--loved children, never had children of her own but she had kept children in white homes and she loved children. But I could always notice and I didn't know why--now I'm a boy at seven, eight years old--when we would play out in front of the house with the other boys up and down the street, and we played marbles and rode bikes and that type of thing, she would get incensed when she'd come to the front door or the window and see me out in the yard playing alone with a little white girl, Poochie, who lived right down the street. I never understood why. I know she didn't hate Poochie, she liked Poochie, so it never dawned on me until later why 8:00my aunt would say, "Come in this house, right now! You come in here!" And I'd wonder why would she do that. But again, I was too young at that time to understand what it was, which is what she explained to me later, after I guess I had become grown, that I could have gotten maybe hanged for playing with a white girl, and we were both seven or eight years old. I could have gotten lynched for that. So that fear was always there, I think with all of us in a sense, particularly the adults. But what she was trying to do was to save me. TK:Protect you. BC:On the one hand, she wanted me to be a strong man and grow up to be that; on the other hand, she knew if I got too strong and out of place, I could be killed for that. So it was a mix between trying to make your son a man and trying to keep him a boy. So I found out, as I say again, later why she was 9:00so angry or she would get so bent out of shape when she'd see me playing with a little white girl. And I knew it wasn't because she was white because I played with white kids all the time. But now let me say this: I understood there was something different because we went to different schools. When it was time for school, we went in our separate directions; white kids went to white school which was right across the street--McKinley School was right across the street from where I lived in Paducah on Hayes Avenue, the white kids went there--and I walked a good twenty minutes to the school where I went to. So I understood that. I didn't know why we had to go to different schools when we played together every day: we shot at bird together, we played marbles, as I said, together and ball. Why did we have to go to different schools? I couldn't quite understand that at the time. And my aunt, not being an educated woman, couldn't quite explain it to me but it was just a truth, something that you went through 10:00every day and you didn't, you just knew it was there. TK:When you were growing up in Louisville from eight until you get out of high school and worked, what was the extent of segregation in Louisville at that time? How would you characterize that? BC:Very segregated, Louisville was. However, again, at that time, the thriving, if I must say, black community made you somewhat unaware or not worrying about it that much because there was a black presence there that. . . . For instance, Walnut Street, which was the hub of the black community, there were theaters on Walnut Street, which were all black; there were stores; there were shops; up and down Walnut Street there were banks that were black on Walnut Street; so although there was a separation of black and white, you didn't have 11:00that problem because you didn't feel like, you didn't miss the fact that they kept you out of their theaters because you had your own. That's the way you felt. So you did not worry. Now I did notice that up and down Walnut Street--and I think anybody my age who went up and down Walnut Street at that time would tell you--that there were whites in the black community at that time; when whites wanted to hear jazz or blues or music, they came to the black community, which was fine. We had no problem with them coming to our bars and having a good time but we could not go into theirs. So I guess what I'm saying is although it was there, it was something that we knew existed but we didn't worry that much about it. Now, where it was most visible I guess was in school. Going into 12:00public schools in Louisville during that period, very well, would I pick up an English book and half the pages would be gone and written in the back of the book would be John Jones from Male High School. In other words, we got the books that the white kids used. TK:Tossed off. BC:Right. So these are the kinds of things that we saw that was very clear; but as far as missing the presence of white folk, that wasn't something that we thought that much about because we never had socialized that much together anyway. TK:Some of the people that I've interviewed who are maybe half a generation younger than you have talked about growing up being part of youth groups, youth organizations, clubs, things like that. Were you involved in anything like that? What kinds of activities did you have? BC:Yeah, let me say this: during that period, I must say, church was very prominent in the black community and church was somewhat of an anchor to the black community because it was a social agency. Church was the key, I guess, to 13:00most people in the black community at that time whereas you wouldn't find that today. It was the influence, it was a major influence within the black community, was the church, because a large percentage of us went to church mainly because we had no place else to go. But the church did a lot of things as far as set up youth groups for young people to have something to do. The early black church, I must say, was a vanguard for black people because it set up schools, our first schools of higher learning were through the black church. So there was quite a few youth, most of them set up by churches, as I said before. 14:00But yes, there was quite a lot for young people to do and young people at that time . . . again, within the black community, there was a presence there that, you hear the cliché today, "it takes a village to raise a child"; well, we were, if I must say during that period in the black community when I came up, there was something about the black child that they were children of the community. And we knew and felt that. And I think that came from black people having to raise all of the children. I, as I told you, with my mother dead and never knowing my father, I was a child of the community. So everybody took care of me, not only took care of me but they chastised me when I was wrong. [laughter] TK:Right, I've heard those stories. BC:Right. So we understood that very clearly and there was an appreciation by children and I see such a 15:00difference today, even with my own neighbors that are children, that lack of the same respect that I gave Miss Ada down the street. Regardless of what we were doing, it didn't mean that children didn't do some of the things they do now, but we didn't do it in front of Miss Ada, who was sixty years old. "Here come Miss Ada, let's stop that." So there was a certain amount of respect that children had in the community that we don't find today. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that, as I said, we were a close-knit community. Although we were oppressed in many ways, we were a community who understood that we needed to be together. TK:A couple of clarifying questions: which church did you go to? BC:I went to a Baptist church, a few Baptist churches. I think the first church I joined may have been Greater Salem, which is still there at Tenth and Chestnut, as a boy. I kind of drifted away from church and went back to church 16:00later in my life. And I find that happening a lot in our community; at some point you get away from church and later on, as you have children, you kind of want to bring them back to church for some reason. And if I must say, the church today is much different than it was then. As I said, then the church was about liberation; today I find the church too much of a country club setting. So I go today because I still think that it is that institution that is probably able to resurrect the black community, but I don't see it doing that. But now I go to Youngs Chapel AME Church. I go there primarily because my wife and her people, that's where they went and I kind of followed them there. But I still go to church primarily to make the church become what I think it should be and that is to empower those people who are at the bottom. And I think the black church probably has a mandate to do that more so than any church because it was set up 17:00by oppressed people who knew whoever their God must be, they must be concerned about their liberation. So that's one of my reasons, I guess, for continuing to go to church. It is not about dying and going to Heaven; it's about bringing some Heaven down here where we are. [laughter] TK:Where in Louisville did you live when you were growing up? BC:Nineteenth and Cedar Walnut, that's Muhammad Ali now. Nineteenth and Walnut and Cedar is where I came up, right in that area there. And let me say, during that period, black folk, because they were locked into a certain area, geographical area--you spoke of Judge Shobe, Judge Shobe 18:00lived not far from me. The point I'm making is, the professional black folks and the working class black folks all lived together because we had to. So although I came up in a poor community I came up next door to, let's say a lawyer who was black or a minister. So what I'm saying is, it's so much different now when you see us now, I don't want to say abandoning the people who are left behind, but you don't see that community that I came up in where there was, as I say--not that Dr. So-and-So didn't want to move out into the East End but he couldn't, so he had to stay there with me. So he became my neighbor and he was, as we say today, a role model for me. TK:What did your aunt do? BC:My aunt did domestic work. She worked in and out of homes here. One of the, Wyatt, for instance, Wilson Wyatt, you've heard the name probably. TK:Oh yeah. BC:She worked for one 19:00of his brothers, one of the people she worked for. But she did domestic work. TK:What was her name? BC:Carrie Jackson. She was my aunt, yes. TK:I like to have people's name so I don't just refer to them as "her." Now you said--going a little further on--you had talked about going into the military and so you're out of the city for much of the '50s, in other words. BC:Well, it was only a two-year obligation; I went into the military from '57 through '59. I stayed in California a short time after getting out in '59 and then I came back to Louisville, which I guess we're talking about '61 maybe. TK:How aware were you of what was gong on in terms of civil rights, either here in Louisville or elsewhere before you came back? Or while you were growing up in the '50s and then. . . ? BC:Okay, as I said, I became a little more politicized, I guess, after going to California. This was the period of the hippie movement; this was 20:00peace and love; this was Black Power and I was in the middle, I was thrown in the middle of that and I guess I began to really--I guess many people did during that particular period--I began to look at the many countries in Africa were seeking their independence and [H.] Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael, I began to listen to that. And I say again, it began to say something to me that I'd never heard before, you know. You talk about Black Power; I'd never even heard that phrase before. It frightened white Americans to death but it didn't frighten me at all. It sounded like something that was legitimate. So I don't know if I hadn't gone to California and that environment, and as I said, my white friends in the military, if all that hadn't happened I don't know if it would have had 21:00that same impact on me. But when I came back to Louisville . . . TK:What brought you back to Louisville? BC:Well, I guess being a home boy and not having anything out there--my aunt was still living at that time and I had a sister and a few people here--so I never was planning to leave Louisville, I guess; this was home, as I said. So I came back to live here. In that process, I was somewhat thrown into the midst of the turbulent '60s. TK:Did you say you came back in 1961? BC:Something like that. TK:The early '60s, you came back? BC:Yeah. Something like that, right. TK:What did you do when you came back? BC:To tell you the truth, once I got back here and I bummed around, I don't want to use that term, but around awhile--I had a job before I left at International 22:00Harvester and when I came back I could have gotten that job--but I began to play around and I didn't go back to work so I was thinking of going back to California. I had been bitten by the bug of California, I kind of liked it. I was in San Francisco a lot and I liked that area, so I couldn't quite make up my mind whether to stay here again or if I could stay here again. It was so different in a sense to me, than California, than the dose I had had of California at that time. So in coming back here, as I say again, I guess it woke up some of my militancy, if you will, and I began to look for something to tie into because by that time we had the, it wasn't an explosion, but the '60s was right up on us then and there was a little minister named King that I heard talking and other people, you know what I mean? And it really made me think, it really said something to me that I hadn't heard before: it said that I was 23:00somebody, that I had power and that I should grasp it, that I should be about a society that is . . . or that I should be about doing something about changing this society. So I looked around for something to be a part of. I wasn't really a part of the, and I hate it now that I wasn't, the Open Housing marches at that time. I wasn't, I guess what I heard more than anything was Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael talking about revolution, talking about black power, talking 24:00about coming together and getting what you deserve and standing up. And from that, as I said, I looked around for something to belong to and I guess the old line organization such as the NAACP, Urban League, were here at that time but to me, being young, male and black they were a little too moderate, maybe not militant enough for me. So there was a beginning of the [Black] Panther Party here and they were maybe either underground or it wasn't quite as organized as I wanted them to be. So that's when I saw the Black Workers' Coalition and I joined the Black Workers' Coalition, which was a group of black folk who saw the economic oppression that was suffered by black people and understood that even 25:00on the assembly line, those of us who were fortunate enough to get jobs, even on the picket line, that we were still black. That even the unions at that time were not too quick to protect victims of racism so we felt as though there needs to be an organization. By the way, at that time, I think we were subsidized in a small way by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC. TK:Okay. It was mentioned in the newspaper. BC: But we operated on a shoestring, we had no money, but we were respected in the community because we were grass roots and because most of our recipients, most of our constituents were grass roots people who didn't quite trust Dr. So-and-So. But we didn't have anything to lose 26:00because we didn't have anything and we were being bought because nobody gave us nothing. So we could do as we wanted to, whether it was Philip Morris or whomever it was, we were talking and saying what we felt like saying, openly. So I think we were respected by those who probably wouldn't have demonstrated with us themselves but were kind of quietly applauding those guys. I became publicity chairman, I think I was called, and my job really was to make sure that our organization, its presence was known, and that the media knew what our work was, and to just kind of throw our name out there. So we became somewhat of an organization, as I say again, that was very respected. What we lacked in organization and strategy and procedure, I guess, we gained in being those outspoken people who weren't afraid. So we were kind of a rag-tag bunch of 27:00people who were really a thorn in the side of the establishment here, who didn't see or didn't feel like that. We put race on the front burner. We began to talk about jobs for black folks; we began to make the comparison as to how during slavery all of us were employed, you found jobs for us then when you didn't have to pay us so we . . . as I say, that, I think, is where our strength came from. They knew we were on to an issue that was really valid. So for that reason, I guess, that's the reason they really couldn't dismiss us because there were many people in the black community who may not, as I say again, walk the streets with us but would say, "Those people are right in what they're doing." And there were cases of the Black Workers' Coalition cases that we won, if I must say, that 28:00were somewhat publicized. And one was with Brown-Forman whiskey distillery, who at that time had a group of workers, who were janitorial or maintenance workers, who were black, who were not a part of the union but were a group of black people, who did what was black people's jobs then. They weren't on the assembly line but they were people who cleaned up the plant. So--I hope I'm just as accurate as I can be on this--there became a time when the company wanted to fire these people really, to bring in a private company to do their clean-up for money reasons, we understand that. Some of these people had been there fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years. TK:They call it outsourcing now, don't they? BC:Maybe 29:00so. Well, anyway, they were talking about just ousting these people without severance pay or anything so we jumped into that, not understanding whether we could do very much about it or not. Now Brown-Forman, as you know, are whiskey distillery, so we didn't know what we could do about it, if anything. However, we did know that there were a lot of liquor shops in the black community, which there always has been--too many, more than there should be, even today--so we began to talk to people, a few shakers and movers in the black community about this and about what they were doing to those people and some of those people were fifty and sixty years old at that time and were getting ready to lose their jobs and had no place to go. So this little ragged group of people who were the Workers' Coalition sat down with some pretty powerful, if I must say, black entrepreneurs in the black community. I could name a few who looked into what we were saying and made it known that they would not buy products for their whiskey 30:00stores and their bars if they didn't feel like Brown-Forman was treating these people right. So this really ballooned. So this got back to the company so now it was a little more than those little ragged group of people from the Workers' Coalition. And finally they sent people here from their head office, from their . . . END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B BC:They brought people in from their head office and they sat down overnight, sat down and talked about it. To make a long story short, it ended up with those people keeping those jobs, those people being admitted into the union, and I'm sure those people, 31:00most of them, ended up staying there for retirement. But I guess I'm saying that to show you what we proved to ourselves and others was a little ragged group of people who stands up and comes together and organizes can make changes for the best. And that's one of the reasons why I think we accrued some of the respect, not only from our constituents but from some of the shakers and movers here who saw that those little ragged group of people can bring people together. TK:How would you find out about a case like that? How did the group find out about those people who were going to lose their jobs? BC:We had people who came into our office, we were at Twenty-third and Oak, a little ragged office building on the corner there, and people, once they found out we were there and we were in the paper all the time about marching in front of some plant or some business, who wasn't treating people quite right, people started coming in with their individual cases of what was happening to them on their jobs. We began to be 32:00known that way. And the way we got that case was that some people who worked out there, maybe a couple of them knew us and came by. And people would come and file complaints with us and sometimes we would try to follow up those complaints through the EEOC [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] or somebody such as that, Human Relations Commission, and oftentimes we found out they weren't going to do too much, they were just there really. So we found out, as I said, cases by individuals walking into our office and telling us some of the things that was happening to them, as a group or maybe as individuals how they were being fired off of a job or how they were not being able to get a better job, advancements in their work, or how they were passed over for white workers, those type of things. So that's how we got them. TK:Were these mostly working 33:00class jobs then you're talking about? Manual labor jobs and that sort of thing or other kinds as well? BC:Well, during that period a lot of them were factory jobs; a lot of them were people who worked at Ford Motor Company and other factories who, as I say again, sometimes belonged to unions but found out that when it came to racism, the union would kind of back up and wouldn't protect them really. The union was as white as the boss, let's face it. So the union oftentimes didn't feel as though they could attack or get into a situation of race. So they needed more help than what the union was willing to give them so that's when they would come to us. TK:I had a couple of questions just to probe a little bit more detail on some of this, how did you first find out about the Black Workers' Coalition? Did it exist or did you help found it? BC:No, I wasn't 34:00there from its initial but I guess it was through my reading the newspapers. As I say again, the newspaper was full of the things they were doing; not favorable, the stories weren't usually favorable but it kind of caught me that here was a group of people, grass roots people who were making an indentation into some of the things that were happening to people, particularly working class people and who were buckling race issues head on. And it kind of caught me because I was a little suspicious of those organizations where people who had it made, for instance, such as the NAACP, locally, I felt as though these people had a little bit too much to lose to stick their necks out and they were a little moderate, as I said before. So reading about them and Roosevelt Roberts 35:00at that time, I began to find out where they were and I appeared there and let them know what my feelings were and that I would like to work with them. So that's how I came to . . . they were quite regularly, frequently in the paper at the time, the work that they were doing. TK:Is that the Defender or the Courier-Journal that they're in? BC:Both. The Defender at that time, again, was much more into covering issues within the black community. Both, if I must say. They were an organization that was very much on the front of media coverage at that time. TK:I've only read up to 1954 in the newspapers so I've got awhile to go before I get to it I think. Could you tell me when you joined, a little bit about the other members, how many people were there, what kinds of people 36:00participated? BC:I almost say that when I joined that I had to have been thirty-five or so, maybe a little older. I was the oldest person, I guess, there. Everybody else was young. Most everybody else was young people, including Roosevelt, who was younger than myself. So most of them were young people, I think, who were . . . now a couple of those people had had problems on jobs. Firsthand they knew what was going on as far as racism on jobs and this type of thing. But many of them, I think, were young people at that time who were gaining a political conscience, black conscience and wanted to do something about it. Didn't feel quite comfortable getting into other organizations but being a street organization and being a grass roots organization, I think the 37:00Workers' Coalition kind of beckoned for you because you didn't have to have a degree to be a part of it; you didn't have to have no special skills; just be a person who wanted to do something about the situation. So I think this is what that was. These were young people who were, most of them were not college people, they were--well, the age, I guess the age at that time of people within the organization, I'm talking about key people, we're talking about fifteen people maybe--were the age of, plus the members who were people who met regularly when we'd have our membership meeting which still wouldn't be but about fifty people maybe--but we had a lot of support in the community. But most of these people that we're talking about were from eighteen to twenty-five. 38:00These were very young people who I think at that time you saw a movement of young people who--and the absence of that today bothers me, which is one of the reasons why the Kentucky Alliance now has a youth group, a youth leadership development project. Because I saw the void of that youth activism that I saw then and as I say again, I think this was young people who were listening to that homing sound coming by some of the youth or young activists at that time. King was quite young at that time; he wasn't an old man at the time. And Rap Brown and Stokely Carmichael and the Panthers and the SNCC and we can go on and on were very young black folk who were demanding change. So I think the 39:00Coalition was full of those people who were looking at the change and who were somewhat political minded and revolutionary minded, if I must say, who were kind of looking at the changes taking place in the world. These were, I call them revolutionary because I think in many ways they were in a positive term. They weren't talking about burning the city down or anything but these were revolutionary minded young people. Ronald Slaughter, Moscow Rapier, these were people--and there were a few women and men--but these were young people, as I say again, who were caught up into the fact that we needed a change in this country and we all needed to be about that change. And I think they saw then, although it was a black organization, per se that radiating racism was as much 40:00of an economic imperative to America as it was a moral one. And that we had to make people understand that, including white people, that it was correct economically to do something about racism. And I think that's true today and I think that's one of the things that we were trying to let them see is that you are going to gain also. You can't keep people down without being down there with them. I think that was one of the things we were saying. So we may have been perceived by some people as being anti-white by being pro-black but we were not. As a matter of fact, we had a lot of white friends, if I must say. There were white people, by the way, who worked within our organization. TK:Oh, so were 41:00there any white members? BC:Yeah, sure, sure, but it was overwhelmingly black and black-led I must say, which I think we felt as though it should be and I think the white folks who were with us felt as though it should be, as though it should have been. TK:Do you remember who any of the whites were or how many there were? BC:Carol Thomas, who is not here anymore, was a very close person who did a lot of work with and for us and I'm sure Anne would know more about her than myself, and maybe Roosevelt. Ira Grouper, you've probably heard . . . TK:Oh, I've met him. BC:You know Ira? TK:Hm-hm. BC:Okay. I'm not sure if he worked with us but he was around at that time and we knew Ira and he was a sympathizer, or I shouldn't say it like that, but he was a very close person to our cause. I must say he was around at that time. Maybe not a member, maybe not a person who was around all the time. But I won't say liberal but radical white folk at that time were very close to us. Very much close to us and identified with us so it wasn't like they were afraid to be seen with the Black Workers' Coalition. But as I say again, I'm sure we were perceived by those people and there were those who wanted to color us as a racist bunch of super-black people 42:00who were anti-white but we never worried about that. TK:Was there any separatist sentiments in Louisville? Any black separatism or anything like that in Louisville? BC:I can say I don't, let me say it this way: there were those people in Louisville who felt as though, and I think that feeling is still there, that the black movement needs to be lead by black people with the help of white people. But as far as saying we can't work with white people, we don't want to live with white people, I don't think you saw much of that during that period. Now it was fashionable to be super-black, understand me. TK:What does super-black mean? BC:Super-black was being nationalistic, "Down with white 43:00folks, man, I can't work with white folks." Everything is black. But that was only black folks finding themselves and beginning to appreciate something that they had long been taught to ridicule, which was themselves. So I think that wake up of, "Yes, you are somebody" that we heard from Jesse Jackson or that cry of "Black and Proud" that we heard from James Brown woke us up inside. So it wasn't that we hated somebody else, it was that we began to straighten our backs. When you straighten your back, it's pretty hard for people to ride on it. So I think that's what was happening is that we began to . . . so you heard a lot of that, but I don't think it was ever that white folks were not, I didn't 44:00know anybody here, any groups here that were to the point where they . . . the Nation of Islam who we called the Black Muslims at that time who weren't that political, more, I must say, religious, were somewhat nationalistic in a sense. What I mean is they were more about working with black folks than white folks but I don't think there was any hatred of white people. That was something, we didn't quite have that kind of time to hate white folks, we had to try to do something for our own, for ourselves. Everything that white folks perceived as far as hatred towards them, I think they were internalizing their own feelings of what they thought about black people. It was always the fear of white folks, many white folks that we were trying to get into position where we could do to them what they had done to us. That never was our feeling, that never was our 45:00position. We never wanted to enslave white folks. We never thought about raping white folks or lynching white folks. That wasn't what we were talking about at all. Ira used to say that every time we walked up to a white man and said we wanted to be his brother, he always felt we were trying to be his brother-in-law. And maybe that's it; he was afraid of something else that we weren't even thinking about so I think that although there was a perception of that separatism, I don't think that with most of the folk I know during that period that that was something we were looking toward. TK:You had talked about how this was a young group which sort of, the age you mentioned surprised me; for some reason I had in my head that they'd be older. Was there any relationship, there was another young black group called BULK [Black Unity League of Kentucky] in town for awhile, '68 or '69. Was there any relationship, either overlap in membership or any relationship between the Black Workers' 46:00Coalition and them? BC:I'm almost sure so. I remember the name but I wouldn't have remembered it again if you hadn't said it. I can't even think of some of the people who were part of that. But yeah, I think there was a close relationship with all of us. I didn't know of any black organization during that period who wasn't at least associating with one another. We may have not done things the same way but I don't recall there being any hostility among any of us. So I'm sure . . . and not only that but there were those of us who belonged to two or three organizations so probably some people from BULK were part of the Coalition, Black Workers' Coalition, but I'm not sure. But I'm not too familiar with--and there were organizations, you must understand that, during this period there were many of us who were trying to find a remedy for what was going on and trying to organize. So there were organizations, and I'm not speaking of BULK, 47:00but there were organizations that could have met in a phone booth, there were three people; but they were about the right thing, understand me. But they weren't a part of those other three people down the street. So there was that feeling of, "We better organize? by many people, and I'm sure we could sit here and if I could think back I could name you twenty-five groups during that same period. We all were about the same thing; we may not have been meeting at the same meeting hall but we all were really connected because we were all about trying to find something to alleviate problems that black folk were having and at the same time trying to identify with the movement that we saw swelling across this nation and across the world, particularly Africa. I think the anti-colonialism movement in Africa had a lot to do with what we were doing 48:00here. I think those of us who somewhat kept up with what was going in Africa began to associate differently with Africa. See, there was a time when--maybe I'm getting off course, I hope I'm not-- TK:That's okay. BC:When black folk in this country were somewhat ashamed of Africa. We knew Africa through Tarzan movies, you know, that's the Africa we knew. And I hate to say it, but I'm almost sure that, as a young boy, when I'd sit in there and look at Johnny Weissmuller who played Tarzan, I would be rooting for him, "Kill those Africans." That's sad to admit but I'm almost sure that was happening then. So when we began to hear about the striking down of colonialism in Africa and the people, Jomo Kenyatta and other people that we were hearing about at that time, Patrice Lamumba and those people, it woke something up in us and we began to 49:00identify with things that came from Africa. Although we would have our kufi (???) hat on and our beads and a cane, a dashiki, we may be riding in a Volkswagen, that's all right. [laughter] But we were identifying and many of us, if I must say, young black males, would have a dashiki on and a kufi (???) hat and a beard and an African pole and walking along holding hands with a white girl. That was fine because we were still identifying. In other words, to identify with Africa wasn't the fact that we hated white folk, it was trying to find our roots; something that said, "I came from a little more than a cotton plantation." Or that, "I had a beginning and it was more to me than what you saw; that there was a history about me, around me that was being suppressed by 50:00somebody who didn't want you to know really who I was and that we must begin to know ourselves." So I think that, and seeing Africa in a new light began then, and all the African art began to be something that we had in our houses. And I think that that whole swelling of that pride, what we saw in Africa I must say, is something that inflated the pride in black folks here in this country. TK:And in Louisville. BC:And we began, in 1972, I was a little older at that time but my son was born and I named him Lamumba and those people would look at that type--"Was that his real name?" Well, we as blacks were beginning to name our children something African rather than Benjamin Franklin Jones or George 51:00Washington Green. We began . . . so there became a whole new breed of black folk at that time who wasn't being understood by the whole of white America. I can remember vividly a white lady telling me that the people she feared most at that time was black people who had Afros, the Afro hairdo. I'd have one today but my hair won't grow. [laughter] But the point I'm making is you can see how they saw something, the emotional chemistry was so different until what we were doing they didn't even understand. Those that did embrace it with us . . . but too, and I guess that's one of the reasons why I say it gladdens me so much to have a person like yourself writing about this, because there were so many of us who saw this as black folk fighting against white folk. It was against white rule but it definitely wasn't against white folk. But I do think that movement again, 52:00I think that movement, what was going on in Africa at that period had a lot to do with the movement here in this country, even here in Louisville, Kentucky. There was a group called JOMO. TK:I was going to ask you about them. Actually, I'd written a little note. What was JOMO? BC:Anne would be able to tell you a little bit more about that too but JOMO was a group, as far as I know, of young, black folks who again identified with Africa. The name JOMO probably came from Jomo Kenyatta, who was the first president of Kenya who was one of those African leaders who emerged at that time. TK:So were they more of a cultural group then rather than maybe an economic? BC:I would say so, but political also, but a little more cultural, as you say. But trying to reunite that severed cultural 53:00roots that black folk had been severed from for so long. The black folk that we saw who was walking in the wilderness not knowing who they were. I think JOMO was one of those groups who began to try to seal those cultural rips and make black folk begin to look at themselves as another historical people. TK:It sounds like you were pretty busy with the Black Workers' Coalition, but did you participate in any other, like JOMO or any other organizations or attend their meetings or events or anything like that? BC:No. As I said, there were times when we did things together but no, most of my time at that period was with the Black Workers' Coalition. We knew people who were, other organizations such as ourselves, like the Panther party which was never really big here but there was a Panther party here; friends that we knew who we exchanged, we talked with and 54:00everything but most of my time at that period was with the Black Workers' Coalition. TK:Did you work with them full time? BC:Oh no, no, no, it was a volunteer. We all were, we all were. We didn't have money to pay anybody so all of us were committed. Had to have been. So I think it was for ourselves and our own dignity as much as it was for the struggle and the movement and the cause. But no . . . TK:So you had a different job during the day and then did this off work. BC:Yeah, I worked for the Louisville Water Company, I was a meter reader for the water company until my retirement. I don't know exactly when that was. But anyway, I had another job. TK:You said that you had done the publicity. How would you actually do that? How would you get the word out about things you did? 55:00BC:Well, when we were going to demonstrate, let's say, or participate in something of any magnitude, I'd call the media and let them know where we were going to be or what we were going to do or something that's going to happen and they would come. I was kind of the go-between or the person who contacted the media and let them know where we'd be, what street corner you can find us and that type of thing. And if I must say, we had quite a few people who were quite friendly at that time. Young people across the board was kind of swept up into the movement of the '60s, I think, during that period so we didn't find too many unfriendly young people. Now maybe we're not talking about the old people who run the newspaper but there were many young people, white and otherwise who were very, had a very positive opinion of what we were doing and would help us and would say, "Look, call me at home." Because it wasn't just story for them; I 56:00think some of them felt like, "Hey there needs to be this and I need to be a part of this too." So I think we saw quite a few people in that period . . . by the way, one of them who is not too young now but I think he was Merv Aubespin . . . TK:I'm interviewing him next week. BC:I was going to say, talk to Merv because Merv was one of the people who was very friendly and who was black and who I'm sure knew that he probably got his job because he was black and that there were people like us saying that black folks need to be on the paper, so Merv knew that. So these are people who were on the inside, if I must say, if you will, who helped us, or helped themselves by being friendly. And I'm sure they were a buffer who helped the boss because the boss had to have some way of finding out what those people were doing. [laughter] "So Merv you go down there." But he was a very helpful person. TK:Oh, he very openly said he 57:00basically got the job because they needed someone who could talk to the black community. BC:Okay, I'm glad he admitted that. TK:Oh yeah, he was pretty open about that. But yeah, I'm interviewing him next week so that'll be good. You were talking about that you had some influence and stuff like that with the black economic leaders and stuff. How did the power structure, the political leaders respond to you? Did you get any response from them or did you have any contact with political leaders? BC:Somewhat, somewhat. To tell you the truth, I can't even go back and remember who was our political leaders at that time, but if I recall we were taken seriously. But we were, there may have been those who 58:00felt like that they'd better be fairly nice with us because we were an organization within the community who could rally the community, who could bring people together. Because most people in the community at that time identified with or related to the injustices we were talking about. It wasn't too many black folk at that time who could say, "Well, I don't know what you all are talking about," because they knew because it was right there in front of them. So it wasn't like that we had to convince black folks, "Here's what we're trying to do. Here's what's going on." Most black folks knew that. So we were a voice of the black community in many ways so the powers that be downtown, I think, understood that. So "As much as we'd like to get rid of those little rag-tag group of people, if we did we can't attack them without attacking all the other 59:00people so we're going to just try to be nice to them and let them go." So I think that's what we had. There were individuals who, if I must say, who treated us much better than others that you would know but we didn't feel like that we could hobnob with the people in power anyway. We knew what their function was so for that reason we, I think, steered clear of getting into the camp of those who we knew was the system. TK:So you never worked on political campaigns or tried to elect anyone to office or anything like that? BC:No, we did not. We didn't. We had many political people who would come to speak to us but we were somewhat, we did not ever, no. TK:How did you get along with some of the . . . BC:Now, voting, excuse me, we did encourage people to vote and we had voting drives because we felt that . . . TK:Oh, you did? How'd you do that? BC:Well, we registered people to vote. We got many of us, and I don't know how we got them, 60:00to tell you the truth about it, but most of us acquired notary licenses or whatever and we were able to, yeah, and we were very much into getting people to vote because we felt as though that was something that was political power and we felt as though there were many black folks, which you can understand, that didn't feel as though it would change anything. So voting is one of the things I must say that we felt as though that we made people understand that they needed to do. And to try to get the people in who they felt was about dealing with their issues. So we were about that. Politically that was about the extent of 61:00the political issues. TK:But going through the process of becoming a voter, a notary, that's pretty . . . END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A TRACY K'MEYER: You mentioned that you had found some of these other groups too moderate, like the NAACP and stuff like that; how did they respond to you? Groups like the NAACP or the Human Relations Commission or groups like that? Did you work together? BC:To tell you the truth, I think organizations such as that were glad to see us there because most of them who wouldn't dare to do some of the things or say some of the things that we would, knew they should. So, to have us there, excused them to an extent for not being able to do that. So I 62:00think, as I said earlier, quietly I think some of them rejoiced at the fact that we were there and they identified with us even quietly, for being there. So yeah, I must say that there were people from NAACP and other organizations that were very friendly with us and many of them came to our place, many of them came to our meetings but we were, again, as Charlie Chisholm has said, unbought and unbossed. We were. And I think they liked that; although they were somewhat bought and bossed, they wanted to identify with something that they knew they should be and that's why . . . we were very friendly with other organizations. TK:I noticed that you had some notes there, are those notes that you had prepared to talk about? BC:I think it's primarily what I've been saying. I don't 63:00see too much here that I didn't cover. I was thinking of some of the things you would say to me, that I thought you would say and I kind of jotted a few things down. I don't see too much here that . . . TK:I wanted to make sure I was covering stuff that you wanted to talk about. BC:Yeah. TK:One thing--and if there's anything that you want to add along the way--there's one thing I did want to see if I can get you to tell me a few more of the examples. You talked about the one case with making sure those people from Brown Williamson, [Brown-Forman] the distillery, didn't lose their jobs; can you think of any other examples? Good stories and good examples are always useful. BC:Well, one of the examples, I guess, and I can't get the year and I wish I could, Peter Lorillard--you'll find it, it's a company that at one time was a tobacco company here, they got off of that and they became Lowe's and now I think they have their hands in some of everything--but Pete Lorillard, anyway, I'll find the name for you, had a tobacco processing company at Twenty-ninth and Muhammad Ali, 64:00which was Walnut Street maybe then, I'm not sure what year that was, it may be up in the '70s, I'm not sure; but anyway, there were black folks hired there--not as many as there should be--but most of the work force there were whites who did not live in the area, many of them coming from Henry County and Indiana and other places at a time when we felt as though many blacks in the community should be hired, particularly with a company in the community. This company, not only did it have only a few blacks hired there, the blacks that were there had the hardest jobs and one of the jobs was upstairs, if I'm not mistaken--I never saw the process but I--feeding tobacco down on the conveyor 65:00that went into processing the cigarettes. So there were a few meetings of a few of the blacks who worked there who were upset about this because some of them had been there a long time and they hadn't been able to get advancement or get out of that black department where they worked--and that's what it was, it was a black department where only black folks, with the foremen all being white, as you understand. So black--and you'll find this, I'm sure if you look in the newspapers and you'll find out what year this was, I'm thinking it's the end of the '60s but it may be into the '70s. Anyway, these people who worked in this place up here with hot, hard work, getting the tobacco down to the belts had a 66:00few meetings outside of the plant and decided to shut off that section one day, a work stoppage. So they did that. And one of the guys was Moskow Rapier who I hope at some point, he lives now in Henderson or somewhere in that area, Owensboro, I'll try to get him if I can. TK:Okay, because he's not local anymore, I know that. BC:No, no, he's not. But I may--can run him down and he can tell you a little bit more about it because he worked there which is what's so good about it and he was an official with the Black Workers' Coalition. He was on the guys working there. So they closed off this upstairs, locked the doors and had a work stoppage. Because without these guys, the whole plant had to shut down, nobody could work. Oh God, the plant went crazy; I mean, the big wigs who run the plant, they called the police and the police with all you would have thought that the whole West End was being seized by police, it was. These guys will not come out. They locked the doors upstairs and stayed there maybe 67:00for hours. Or Loew's maybe, who at one time owned movie theaters across the nation, the same Loew's--you'll look into that, I'm sure--but anyway, these guys, as I say again, were able to, where they were, although they were few in the plant, were able to close the whole operation of the plant down, man. Now this is big money that they're losing every hour that those guys don't let that tobacco hit that conveyor belt or however it works. Anyway, they called the police, the police didn't know what to do because they couldn't get up there. If it had been our plant, they would have burned it down, but they couldn't do that so they didn't know what to do. So finally, I've forgotten how it was broken but 68:00you'll find some things on it in the annals at the library maybe or wherever. But they finally . . . of course, they tried to get the guys that were locked up . . . they finally got rid of most of the guys who were part of the work stoppage; however, in the process black folks was called in to work in all parts of the plant. The union, I'm not sure if they were in the union before then . . . TK:Now they're in the union. BC:Black folks who work there today, and I'm not sure they make cigarettes any more, but who work at that place today probably don't have no idea as to how they got there. Moskow Rapier was almost run out of town. Tarred and feathered. He could not get another job so I understand, you may have to talk to him about that, in this area any more because of what happened. But in the process of doing that many other folks have gone there and retired there, and gotten a job because what these few little guys did. So again, that is a situation that the Black Workers' Coalition was very much a 69:00part of. I was outside informing the community about what was taking place there because all you saw was police and helicopters flying and they didn't know what it was so I had to tell them what was really going on there. And it started really a movement because people in the community found out, "You mean all these people work here and the people next door that needs a job can't get a job here?" True, that was right. We wasn't against white folks working in the plant, but we was wondering why we couldn't get black folks who lived right down the street a job in here and we can bring white folks in from Henry County and other places. So we had a legitimate beef, if I must say. And quietly it was dissolved so that, as I say again, people got . . . but I guess what bothers me more than anything is that I'm sure there are many people who worked there till retirement that never knew what got them the job there. How they got there. We looked back on, and you may want to do that, on some of the old policies of that company and 70:00found that there were just a few blacks even in the last of the 1800s who worked there and they had the menial, dirty jobs that nobody else wanted. So it was a plant who had been doing that for . . . TK:A hundred years. BC:A century. TK:Sounds like the old fashioned 1930s sit-down strike. That's exactly what it sounds like, just sat down and closed down the plant. BC:True. Well, see, what was so good about it is because the area they worked, the area where they . . . now, you can believe that they never put all blacks in that area anymore! [laughter] But these guys worked in an area where they could shut it down and they did that. They worked in an area where they could shut the doors and shut the place down and they did that. The company never thought of that, I'm sure. These guys being in that type of place where all they have to do is close the doors and it would shut this whole plant down. Well, that's what happened. TK:That's a lot of power. BC:And leading up to that, a few days, maybe a few 71:00weeks, we talked about how it would be done so it wasn't something that some disgruntled guys just one day thought about doing. We talked about where they were and how this could be done and what may happen. We didn't know if they were gonna burn down the whole plant just to get you guys because that could have been possible. But they didn't do that but they had, as I said, policemen with bull horns shouting, "Police, come down! We're going to lock you up." All of this. But it was a movement that you probably won't even hear about other than people such as Anne; Anne was there. But it's not something that, if you had read the newspaper you would probably have thought, here's a bunch of disgruntled guys who took over a plant, but not the causes. TK:Right, all the background to it. BC:Right. Or what's happened since then. The history of it, as 72:00I said, because many people who I have talked to who worked there who I reminded as to how they got the job there. Because I'm sure they don't have a plaque up there commemorating those guys who did this! [laughter] And the place is still there, Twenty-ninth. TK:Twenty-ninth and Muhammad Ali. I've seen that. BC:I think it has the big name of Loew's now. TK:On one of my bicycle rides, I'll go by. You said you had these meetings before and you sort of planned what you were going to do; how did you decide what kind of strategy and which issue you would take on? Is that an informal process or a formal? How did you figure out what you were going to do? BC:Well, one of the things we always knew, we always knew that, as they say, the businesses in which we were dealing, they were more concerned about the dollar than anything else and how they looked to the community so we knew that demonstrating out in front of a community, in a black 73:00community of discrimination by this plant is something we had a right to do. And we knew that they couldn't, because of them being in the middle of a black community, they would have to acknowledge, they couldn't just have us locked up or say those guys are for . . . I mean, they would have to acknowledge the fact that we had a point for being there. And many times black communities rallied around us because they needed the jobs we were talking about. They were the ones we were fighting for. Now if we had been out there fighting for ourselves it would have been different. But the black community understood that what we were saying was right and that they needed to at least back us. I remember distinctly a guy by the name of Paul Daniel who was somewhat of a bar owner in Louisville 74:00who died a number of years ago, and the day that we were at Pete Lorillard's, he passed by in his car--now here's a guy who was never involved that I saw in, well, never involved in anything that I saw politically in the neighborhood--he passed by in his car and blew his horn and everybody went. . . . He came back about twenty minutes later with about twenty boxes of chicken. He said, "Look, I can't walk with you guys and I can't sit out here in the car, but you guys have lunch on me." I'm saying that, what we were doing was touching many people that wasn't out there with us but that knew what we were doing was something that needed to be done and they wanted to lend a hand in some way because it touched their hearts or touched their souls. That we were doing what they had to identify with in some way. I remember that distinctly because he wasn't a guy, as I say again, that you ever saw in the paper or that ever . . . he wasn't a bad guy but he was just somebody that you would think would not be involved. But he was very involved that day because bringing us chicken. . . . So it let us know that we had many people who wasn't on the front line but who was there to 75:00put their weight on the right side of the struggle. TK:That's a great story point. What happened to it? The Black Workers' Coalition? BC:Well, I can't tell you other than I think it just kind of ran out its course as many organizations during that period did. There were some changes made and some of us began to rejoice that things were better and as some of the changes, and I must say there were many, were made I think some of the organizations such as ours, and if I 76:00must say, the struggle we were in was killed in many ways. And I say that, I'm talking about, we saw a civil rights movement that didn't die; I think it was killed, I think it was murdered really. I think maybe that was part of the Workers' Coalition also. The powers that be had begun to hide; oppression wasn't as visible as it had been at one time. When you went to one of the American Tobacco, they'd have a black guy sitting at the front desk. If they knew you were coming, they probably got him from the basement, you know what I mean? "Put your broom down and put on this tie and sit up there." And he'd talk about "we" 77:00when he was talking about the company. "Oh yeah, it's we," you know. So they began to do things that made people believe every large company or corporation within the community had a Minority Affairs Office to oftentimes pacify the black community, not often doing anything. But we have a black lady or a black guy who . . . so when you call the boss now he points you to this black guy or this black lady who is our Community Affairs or Minority Affairs Office and they'll talk to you. So it began to make many people, other than us, think that things are a lot better. I'm not saying some things didn't happen for the best, it did. Some things were better but I think it made us, too many of us feel like the fight was over. "We won it and we're on our way, we can begin to celebrate 78:00now. Victory has come." [laughter] And it's not funny, it's awful. But I think that partly what happened, an organization such as that felt as though there was no need for us anymore. I think although there were some of us who probably just gave up and felt as though we will never win this fight, this battle, and there were some of us who joined the other side, who got a good job and forgot about being out on the Black Workers' Coalition. "I'm one of the big guys now and now I'll discriminate people." [laughter] "I'm one of the discriminators now." I hate to say it but that happened. And I think again, we went the route of turning back the clock and we saw a period of Nixon, Reaganism where the young 79:00people, the programs to help people began to turn to more contempt than compassion. Where the poor was poor because they wanted to be. I think again that that brought in a period where people, as I say again, began to have more contempt for social programs than compassion for them. And it breeded a whole new generation of young people and it bothered me even yet. I saw such a connection, a sameness between young, hippie, white kids and me because we used to talk about that and I used to talk about that to young hippies. They were now 80:00America's niggers. Now America talked about how they smelled. [laughter] How their hair . . . TK:I never thought of it that way but you're right. BC:So they became . . . so we identified with them. We identified with the hippie movement. And we saw America, as I say again, treating them the same way they treated us. Shooting them down at Kent State [University]. They began to be, excuse the expression again, but they began to be niggers and I think many of them understood that. But the strong hand came down so heavy and hard on them until, as I say again, that murdering that I'm talking about, at Kent State, that was something we saw; but what they did to that movement, what they did to that 81:00period which I felt as though probably was a time when America was really coming into its own, they turned it around and made it look like it was something else. And it wiped it away, there's no . . . and too many of those people conformed and became . . . TK:Yuppies. BC:Yeah, right. And it bothers you to see that today but you kind of feel outdated when you talk about some of the things I talk about because people look at you and say, "What are we talking about?" TK:You said that the movement was killed and you had talked about the way that sort of companies kind of mollified, you might say, by putting a Minority Affairs Office in; was there any overt repression against either the Black 82:00Workers' Coalition or other similar groups in Louisville? Police repression or that sort of thing? Was it killed that way, I guess, is my question. BC:No, not to the point where . . . no. I tell you another person to talk to, Sister Kathleen Sheehan; I don't know if someone has told you about her. She is at St. John's, she's the director at St. John's Day Center at Shelby and Muhammad Ali. Make sure you talk to her; she was a nun who was in this area during that time, in the West End. She's white, by the way, she lived at Seventeenth and Magazine which is where the nun house or whatever you call it is. Well, she was one of the people who was here during the open housing period, I do know during that period. She was one of the nuns who, and you'll find this in the annals, I'm sure, one of the nuns who took a dilapidated house over on Seventeenth and Magazine and ripped the boards off of it and threw the boards out in the street. 83:00The police or the paddy wagon came and loaded up the nuns and took the nuns to jail. [laughter] Oh, you'll have to have that in your books. She laughs about it now. She's from Boston, by the way, but she lived here for the last thirty years or so. TK:Well, I will definitely . . . BC:Kathleen Sheehan and she can probably point to a couple more of the nuns that are here. They were of the order of the Sisters of Charity. TK:I don't have that. BC:And so that would be a good, that was something again that happened in the West End of Louisville that should have been national news but I doubt if it got out of Louisville. But they were loaded into paddy wagons and, as I say again, this was in the black community where they had houses that were ramshackled and eyesores that they wouldn't move or whatever. They continued on the city to get this out of the neighborhood so the 84:00mayor and the housing department and everybody else was slow doing it so the nuns went over there and tore the damn house down and threw the house out in the middle of the street! [laughter] So the paddy wagon came and loaded them up and took them to jail. Now you know what that did. That's the Catholic Church. Well, they had to come to the defense of their nice little nuns. So please, be sure to talk to her about that. But that was one, when you said was there any open repression, well, we always knew where the police was in what we were doing. We knew that the police was the defender of the establishment. So we knew that; and a lot happened. I can't get too much into it because I don't remember that much but there were a lot of happenings in that period and I often think that the drug thing that we saw right during the '70s was something that was, I know I 85:00sound paranoid but I have a right to sound paranoid, was something that was pushed into the community. Right behind that, as I said, came this siege of drugs and I think it was part of what tore down that coming together of the struggle that we saw. I really think that was part of it really. Whether it was planned or not or intentional or deliberate or not I can't say, but if it's coincidence, it's too coincidental to be a coincidence. TK:Well, I certainly remember seeing in some of the records that I've read a few prominent drug busts right around the time when it seemed like this kind of activity was slowing down. You know, it does seem like the timing . . . so I need to explore that 86:00further. BC:There were a lot of, I don't know of any, I'm sure they have my name and many others but there was a campaign across the nation, maybe we weren't quite dangerous enough, to do what you could to quiet these groups. And I'm sure that we were, particularly on a local level, investigated and I'm sure we had people who were coming into our ranks and that type of thing because, as I say again, there was much done to show disfavor and to make the people see that these types of organizations, even with the Panther Party, to show that they are 87:00a menace to the community, that they are out to kill everybody and all this bull stuff. So we, I think, were caught up into that too--it wasn't long before around the Patty Hearst thing and all this--to do what you could to paint those as crazy, wild people who are anti-establishment who are trying to tear America down. So many folks, I think, bought into that. And I think that started to demise the movement that we have seen die across the nation. TK:Now did the Black Workers' Coalition have an official disbanding or did it just sort of fade away? BC:Sort of faded away, yeah. I think it just sort of faded away. Many of the people, as I say, finally got a job and I think it just faded away. TK:Did you keep in touch with any of the people that you had worked with during that 88:00time? Either socially or through other kinds of actions? BC:Yeah, some of them I see now and they are involved in other things, like for instance, I went from there, around '73, I became, well, it was the founding of the Kentucky Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression, of which I was the first chairperson. TK:Oh really? Well, I do want to ask you about that but finish what you were saying first. BC:Okay. Well, and that became a little different organization but for the difference in times of the Kentucky Alliance is an organization that primarily brings together white and black for the eradication of racism. We've always felt that the issue of race, that maybe the destiny of America in large part rests on its capacity to deal with race, to come to terms with race. We've never really done that and we have different presidents to talk about these 89:00different conversations and things but never really has there been anything serious about race because we don't, not all the people know that it affects each and every one of us. And when we try to do that usually we're knocked off. I think that's what [Dr. Martin Luther] King [Jr.] was saying in his follow-up of the March on Washington. Poor Folks March on Washington. TK:Right. The Poor People's March. BC:The Poor People wasn't black people. The Poor People was primarily white folks so that was getting people together that hadn't been together before and that was dangerous, very dangerous when they see me talking to my white brother and sister in Appalachia because hey, we may hit a chord there. So I think that was--I lost my thought. But I think that was very 90:00important that they crushed that, that coming together of poor black and poor whites. You asked me a question. TK:Well, I wanted to come back and ask you directly because you had brought up the Alliance in talking about something else so I do want to specifically ask you how did that happen? How did that form? How did the Alliance. . . ? [phone rings] Do you want to get that? Actually . . . [tape off momentarily] How did the Alliance happen? BC:A few people here, Anne Braden being one of them, I can't think of who some of the others are, was very close to the movement around Angela Davis, during that period. And Angela was, we felt as though Angela . . . there should be a freedom of people to organize so the Alliance Against Racism and Political Repression was a coalition of organizations that came around Angela and her situation that you couldn't stop 91:00people from organizing. So Anne being a good friend of Angela's during that period, I guess was one of the reasons why we here began to be sympathetic to Angela's cause. So we thought of a chapter and at that time I think there were a few chapters of the Alliance . . . TK:It's a national organization, right? BC:Yeah. So the Kentucky Alliance was formed in 1973 and . . . END OF TAPE 2, SIDE A START OF TAPE 2, SIDE B BC:Or eradicating racial segregation at that time or racism at that time, but that's what we evolved into. But we became an organization that somewhat brought blacks and whites together in this city and 92:00we still are today. We're the only organization that, we call ourselves the Bridge Builder, a bridge around the eradication of racism because we again think that race is a key issue, that we're not fighting as well as we should. So the Kentucky Alliance has become an organization that deals primarily . . . this may not have been the initial purpose but with people who are discriminated against on jobs, personal or pushing organizations that set up to do this is something of the same work really that the Black Workers' Coalition was doing. Something of that same thing. Again, we didn't think at that time that's what we were 93:00trying to do but we became that. So now we are more of an organization who tries to combat racism and we're currently involved in addressing police abuse, inequality in the schools, repression in the prison system and the empowerment of youth which is what I . . . TK:Your special focus. BC:Right. So we've been, as I say again, since '73 and I think we are somewhat, I see ourselves as the soul of this city in that way. We make it fashionable for white folks to have a place to come and feel at home and talk about this because it's wrong, it's morally wrong. So we've gotten that same kind of respect that the Black Workers' Coalition did. Although now, as I say again, we've worked hard at being inter-racial. We do that consciously. TK:Why is that? BC:Well, I think that most 94:00of us feel as though in reality we are going to have to live together and racism has always been a white problem. White folks ought to do something about it! [laughter] And we've again, feel as though . . first of all we know that there are many white folk who understand that racism affects them and their children. So for that reason we understand that that coming together is something that 95:00needs to be and has to be and it brings more people to our movement. Most white folk we have found too often may discriminate against people because they're afraid of other white folks. If you don't sometimes invite me to your house to dinner, it's not because you worry about me, I'm not going to steal anything in your house or eat up everything, it's that the neighbors next door might not like it. So you're afraid of your neighbor, not really me. So I guess the point I'm making, we give a relief to many white folks who really want to stand up and say, "No, that is wrong." And "Not only is that wrong, this is something that's going to affect me and my children." For instance, a little story, when I was reading meters in the water company, I worked with a white guy and we walked out into the community every day like the mailman does and walked across yards and 96:00we was out in south Louisville at this time and we were walking into the yard and a little boy followed us for about three or four yards. He was just talking like little boys will do. His mother came to the door, "Johnny, you get in this house and you get back in here right now!" He looked and he kept walking with us. Now we're about four houses away. And finally, now he's about three, four maybe, he said, "Are you a nigger?" to me. I said, "I don't know. Probably so. Why do you ask?" Still walking. It didn't matter to him. And he said, "Do you kill people?" I said, "No, I don't kill people." I had to answer that. He said, "My mama said you kill people." Now, you can see what his mother was doing to him and he was three or four years old. So I guess that was what we were knowing that was happening. I'm not concerned about whether you are racist or not, I'm concerned about whether you are actively anti-racist. So we see--what happened 97:00to that little boy I don't know, I'd like to know today what happened to him. If his mother kept a hold on him, which mothers and both parents do on their children, I wonder whatever happened to him. He may be the kid that blew up those kids out in Columbine [high school shooting in Colorado], you know, in the school, it may be him. So I guess that's one of the reasons why we had to understand that there are white folks who needed to hear this and to select their sides. And not only that, we know that most people are good; most people we think do bad things based on bad information. They make bad choices based on bad information. But most people are good people. So that's one of the reasons why we consciously, as I say again, need and know that this is a struggle, not 98:00for black folks but it's a struggle for good folks. This is a struggle for people who feel as though this is something that we as human beings should do. TK:You said you were the first chair? And what did you do as chair? BC:Well, I chaired our meetings, most of the time was spokesperson at our various events. I served maybe for about two terms and I came back and served about three terms; nobody else wanted the job, I don't think. [laughter] But again, just kind of was the spokesperson for the organization and as I say again, chaired the meetings. That's about all, the chair does, and we had other officers who mainly, to tell you the truth, did most of the work. Anne, again, will talk about the Alliance to you, I'm sure, because she was very much a part of it. 99:00TK:Well, you've raised her name a couple of times and I just wonder, how did you meet her? In what context did you meet her? BC:Anne? Oh God, I wish I knew exactly how. I don't but at the time when I was, again, going around trying to find something to plug into because I was feeling like that I should be a part of this struggle, I have had to met Anne at a few of the demonstrations because she was at all of them. I don't really understand right now as to what working around at a time when I really met Anne and I met her about, I knew of her but I didn't know her really, to tell you the truth. Anne was being pretty, I don't know the word to use at that time, demonized at that time, Communist, all the other dirty words. Well, for the people who were calling her that, I felt like if Anne was the guy they were telling me to stay away from, I better go to Anne 100:00because they never told me nothing good for me. [laughter] So I began to know a little bit more about Anne and we met. And I've forgotten how again. She always says I was afraid of her. I don't think I was. I wasn't really afraid of her, I guess, I wasn't afraid of Anne but all of the talk around Anne was something that most people, I'm sure, would have stayed clear of Anne Braden. Really. And it's sad now that I think about it. And she'll talk to you about that, too. But that's how I met her. And I don't know from there as to what we, how we began to . . . I do know during the open housing, not open housing, the school desegregation, around '75 . . . TK:The busing issue. BC:Busing, right. We had an organization called PIE, Progress In Education of which I hooked up with. I was just trying to find everything. Anne was very prominent in that and so from that is when I really got to know Anne quite well. As I say, '73 came the Alliance 101:00and since that time we've been inseparable. But I think it was around, I knew her a little bit before Progress In Education but I think that was really the period when. . . . Now, during that particular movement around school desegregation was a time, and as I think back about it, even when I talked to some of the white folk who were there at that time, it would have been a heck of a good time for black folks and white folks, particularly working class white folks and black folks, to have come together around education. But again, getting the different messages which, if I could have, we could have, articulated to poor white folks that you're not getting an education either and you should be out there walking with us talking about a quality education for 102:00all of us, rather than throwing rocks and burning school buses, which is what they did. It was again, a time, when I reflect back on it, that we did not and could not come together because the powers that be kept us apart; kept us at each other's throats. And you can do that even with just skin color. The only thing different in myself and poor white folk is skin color, that's all. They were just as poor as me, just as uneducated as me, just as unemployed as I, just as unhealthy, everything. So the only difference was they were able to use that skin color. So while I was screaming for quality education for children, poor white folks were throwing rocks and saying, "Nigger, get out of my neighborhood!" and "Busing and segregation forever!" So I guess it woke me up 103:00again to how serious it is that white folks and black folks, particularly in the same condition, seemed to be locking heads. TK:So Progress In Education was an integrated group? BC:Yeah, very much so. And we wanted quality education; we didn't feel as though transportation or busing as they call it was maybe the best; we felt as though it was a remedy to a situation that needed a remedy but that it may not be the best. I sit on the Justice Department--it was the U.S. Department of Civil Rights that came in during the 19--anyway, sat on a committee . . . as a matter of fact, I'll give you the book and get it back to 104:00me when you want of the hearing here and talking about school desegregation, what it would mean and they wanted some voices from the community to talk about what would happen. As I say, I'll give it to you. TK:I'll photocopy it and get it right back to you. BC:Okay. Well, it's huge but you can give it back whenever you want to. But anyway, it covered some of that period and that particular hearing that was here in Louisville and many people were on it. Suzie Post for one, you may have heard of her. TK:She's on my list. BC:She was one of the people who testified. But--I'm rambling a little bit now--but we were more about a quality education than we were about desegregation or integration. We felt as though that was important, that's very important, but we also felt that a quality education for all of our children is key. So we, and I'm talking about 105:00Progress in Education, was more about bringing quality education to all of our children, hoping that we could do it in a desegregated manner. TK:The organization I've heard a lot about and I haven't gotten, since it is a later group, I haven't gotten to look into it yet but I believe some if its records are in the archives at U of L. I think Anne donated . . . BC:You mean Progress in Education? TK:Oh, yeah, I'm sure. She donated materials about it to the library. BC:Yeah, I'm sure. TK:So we'll be able to . . . BC:A person there at the library who can help you is Beverly Marmion. TK:Yeah, she's at the public library. BC:Yeah, at Fourth and York Street. Make sure and touch base with her 106:00because she's in the Alliance by the way and she's a person who's been there forever. I think they built the building around her, she's been there all her life, so she'll help you a lot running down whatever material, if anything, you needed. TK:Did you have children in school at the time? BC:Yes. I had a set of children young and then got too old and then had a set of children later, when I didn't think the Lord . . . I was through. And then here comes another set of kids. But yeah, I did. And I still have a great-granddaughter who is in middle school. Yeah, I had kids in school. TK:Were they bused? BC:Yeah. TK:What was that like for you? BC:Well, it was a bit of a hardship as it is for most people. We tried, those of us who were on the front end of this who were somewhat pro-desegregation, have to now look back and say, "Wait a minute, has it been 107:00worth that?" But what we were concerned about was . . . one of my greatest concerns was black kids taken into a white environment that is unfriendly would mess them up psychologically, and I think it has in many ways. So I was concerned about that. Although we had those little ragged schools with those used books that I was telling you about, we did have it and it was ours. So I saw black kids being brought into a society, into a setting that now told them they didn't look right, they didn't see themselves in the book any place, you don't talk right. That can wound you, and I think that happened. So I tried to find a middle ground and say that it has helped because it has brought these 108:00kids physically together, it has made that white kid go home and say, "No, all those black kids are not dumb either. There's a kid next to me that makes straight A's." It has made black kids see white kids, because my granddaughter even now, she comes home and tells me about something that happened in school, good or bad . . . I used to, in my old way of thinking, "Was he black or white?" And she'll look at me--and she's twelve years old, thirteen now--she says, "Well, I didn't even notice." She doesn't even notice it. The point, I guess, I'm making is I think it has done something because it has brought these kids together. However, what we're seeing now, I think, is a class question. Maybe I'm rambling, I'm getting off on something else. What we're seeing now is more of a class question and they're not about educating any poor children, black or white, and so I think what we're seeing is whatever good the education system 109:00now holds, it holds it for those kids who are able, not for poor kids. So I think we're faced with that right now, labeling kids and this type of thing. TK:So all this stuff is coming back up. BC:Yeah. True. And I think we're having to look back, we don't want to say we made a mistake, we want to say it didn't work and maybe some people didn't want it to work. But we're made to look back and people may well say, "Well, you're the one that caused this." Now you're saying, "You're the one that caused this." So it's hard for me to sit in a room now and discuss this with people and know what side to be on because I hear those guys who say, "We never could, I've always said we never could go to school with white kids." So I can't say he's wrong. And this other guy who says, "I think a lot has come out of this." And I can't say that he's wrong because a 110:00lot has come out of it but, you know, what have we done? What I mean is, in that poor, broken-down, ill-equipped school that I was in there was something there that was dear to me. There was something there that was mine, and I knew it. And when I sang the school song, this is my song! This is my school! There's no black kid can feel that way anymore. TK:Because they're a minority in every school, aren't they? BC:That's what I'm saying. And they're being made to know that. It's different if you're a minority and you're still . . . I think we went into a situation where we couldn't bring anything with us. In other words, I tell you, you are welcome into my house but when you hit that door you got to become black. You can't be white anymore, you got to become black. Well, no, that's not fair. Bring your whiteness in here and let's exchange. Black kids 111:00wasn't told that. Black people were told, "Please come and be as white as you can. You're now a little white boy." And a little black boy, after awhile, got tired of that and said, "Kiss my . . ." So now he's a bad kid. No, he's not. He came to school with the same aspirations of any other kid, most kids do. Ask a kid three or four years old, "What do you want to be?" "A fireman. I want to [be] president." Only after they're there awhile that he finds out, "Hell, they're not talking about me. Hey, man, this shit's not for me." So all at once he's a bad kid and no, he's not. He didn't fit there because too many educators in this society confuse cultural differences with intellectual deficiency. So because the kid walks in here and talks different . . . TK:There's something wrong. BC:Yeah. Because he has a different emotional chemistry about this 112:00country, you know, the white folks hear . . . the national anthem makes them cry; it makes me mad. Because we see it different. We came here in chains. Those white folks came here to escape chains. So that's the difference. It's a whole different . . . once we understand that, "Then you'll know what I'm talking about, white boy. and you won't be mad at me. You're mad at me because you don't understand what I'm talking about and you think I'm talking about you. And I'm not talking about you." So I think that's what we have seen and we've seen a period where they really haven't tried to make this work. TK:And I've noticed it's in the papers now. It's one of the main issues, when I teach civil rights in class that's what all the local students want to talk about, all the kids that are from the local area, they want to talk about schools. As you're talking, you're talking about some issues, you know, you've talked about schools, which you talked about back in the '50s too, and one question I have is how would you compare the work of the Alliance in the '70s and '80s with the movement activity that has gone further? What is the same and different about 113:00being involved and working against racism in the '70s and the '80s and earlier? What are the issues, the strategies? What is same and different? BC:Saying in now? TK:Well, through the Alliance you're talking about, I guess that was through the '70s and the '80s and obviously up to today; how would that compare with what you did with the Black Workers' Coalition or what people were doing before? BC:I think it's much different today because, again, the sophistication of racism and bigotry has blinded many people to what they're looking at and it's not near as visible for us to see. It's very easy to look at Cleveland say, 114:00or any city, and say, "Hell, how can you say it's bad? They got a black mayor." Now that's hard for me to answer to a person who doesn't quite understand what I'm saying. We got thirty-nine people in Congress--black folk. I'm not saying those aren't steps up, good things, they are. But I think today it's difficult for us to see what's going on; it's much different than it was at a time when you could see it and people could, right off, understand what you're talking about. So now you're having to explain it in a way where they understand it and it's not that easy. So I think it's much different now, particularly when you're 115:00talking about race, even when you're talking about class to white folks, for instance. It's very easy oftentimes for myself to talk with white folks, if they'll listen to me long enough. If they will just first of all, "Well, you know, maybe this black guy can tell me something." But if they've already felt the line, "There's nothing he can tell me." [laughter] If they'll already think like that, there's not too much I can tell you. But if they'll listen a little bit, I'll tell them, "If my brother was rich, my brother would see that I had something. Why is your brother rich and you're poor? Your brother owns this country, why are you poor? You know why I'm poor; I'm poor because I'm ignorant, I'm poor because I'm subhuman, I'm poor because I'm lazy--all the other stereotypes--you know why I'm poor so I'll admit all that. But tell me, white 116:00boy, why are you poor?" It makes them think. TK:I'll bet. BC:It makes them think. So that's the thing that I think we have to, and I'm not saying this from an elitist standpoint, but we have to as black folk begin to talk more to white folk, particularly those white folk who we see as allies. Don't allow the system to talk to them because it's going to give them the wrong story. Begin to talk to them yourself and point out, as I say, not what our differences are but what we are alike. How many ways we are alike. Personally I don't want you to marry my sister either, brother! [laughter] That makes them understand better. I say that because on my job working with blacks and whites, men, it was very easy 117:00once I could get with a white guy who was overly racist probably, and after we worked together for a few days, I became brother to him because he began to identify with what I was talking about and he began to look at himself and say, "Hell, this is true. I never thought about it that way." Well, where is he going to get it? He's not going to get that too much from other white folks. Because most white folks don't know it either. Racism, in this society, has always been a conditioning of white minds. In other words, black folks have always known what it was but couldn't do anything about it; white folks are fooled into thinking it's not that way. There's no way that some people in Mockingbird Valley could think that black kids are shot down by the police. "Hell, that doesn't happen. The police doesn't do anything but get your cat out of the tree. That's what he does in your neighborhood but not in mine." [laughter] So you see what I'm saying? As long as they can keep us apart, you know, they can make us 118:00believe differently. And that's what I guess is so dangerous. Even when I look at the Klan oftentimes, it's hard to do, but I identify with the Klan oftentimes much more than I do with [President Bill] Clinton. TK:Well, they're mostly lower income . . . BC:Yeah, that's what I'm saying. He just don't understand it. If he'd ever allow me to talk with him and we'd talk, we'd probably go out shaking hands and hugging each other. TK:Where do wealthy or upper class blacks fit into all this, do you think? BC:Well, that's taking different ways by different people. It's according to who they are individually. There are some, there is in America today . . . I think success has taken, or self, making it myself, me, 119:00has taken precedence over we. There was a time when black folks knew, "I'm not going to make it unless my people make it." It was just that simple. But today it's easy for me to feel as though, "Hell, I'm not like them." So there's not a lot of trust by those blacks on the bottom of the spectrum to those who have so-called made it. And too many of those who have so-called made it . . . I think that is one of the worst things happening in the black community today is 120:00that division between those who had made it and those who are locked in that sorry, sad underclass. And that may have been true to a certain extent as they used to call them, the house and the field nigger. There's still, that mindset is still here and too many of us--the model for us in this society is white people. That's what we long to be. So the closer I get to white people, the further I get from black people. So as I get that job or I get that house on the hill or as I get whatever, it moves me . . . . [phone rings] Sorry. TK:Do you want to get it? BC:Yeah. [tape off momentarily] Ask me and I'll try to be as specific as I can. TK:One last specific question and then just some wrap-up questions. BC:I'll probably end up telling you about the three little pigs and everything. [laughter] TK:Well, one last real specific question and then sort of general wrap-up questions, but the specific question is you had mentioned Angela 121:00Davis before; didn't she come to Louisville at some point? BC:Oh yeah. TK:Can you tell me that story? BC:We've had Angela here a few times . . . TK:One time was like in the mid-'70s. BC:Recently. TK:I knew of the recent one but . . . BC:She came in the mid-'70s and I wish I knew the date and we had a hard time finding a place for her to speak. She was coming here at that time campaigning for the release of Ben Chavis who at that time was part of the Wilmington Ten. TK:Okay, I didn't know that was why she came. BC:Yeah, she was, at that time she was here for, she was going around the country for the release of the Wilmington Ten who, I don't know if you know very much about that case, but Anne will fill you in on that. TK:I know someone who's writing a book about it actually. BC:Okay. Well, she was here for that. Now, as you know, Ben Chavis at that time was a minister with the United Church of Christ. However, we, and I'm talking about the Alliance--at that time she was an officer in the National Alliance. 122:00Well, what, as we know, has always been the black mark on Angela is her Communist leanings, being a member of the Communist Party, which is no problem. But anyway, she came here and we tried to find a place for her to speak and we thought in the black community the best place to speak is at the church, you know what I mean. So nobody, nobody would open their church to Angela Davis. Now this was a hurting thing because these were black ministers. Ninety-nine percent male, as you would know, who, as I say, she was here for the defense of a black minister, who was Ben Chavis. It shows you how messed up some of our . . . END OF TAPE 2, SIDE B START OF TAPE 3, SIDE A

BC:So I want to say that we were going into Central, I'm not sure, Anne can tell 123:00you that, I want to say that we had Central High School but somebody talked against it, I'm not sure, that might not be accurate; anyway, we couldn't find a place. All the ministers of the big churches, you know, "I don't really have anything against Angela, but you know, she doesn't believe in God." That type of thing, I mean, it was sickening to me. But anyway, so we finally, a minister by the name of Gilbert Schroerlucke who had a church, United Methodist Church, at Fortieth or Thirty-ninth and Broadway, told us to come to his church; he would welcome her there. He was a white minister, by the way; minister of a black church but a white minister. She came there. You never seen the crowd in your life and the reason for that is the paper and everything, you know, the media just blew this thing up. It helped us so much because it got so many people out. 124:00Well, in the process, check this out, Anne again can help you on this, but Lois Morris, who was a female at that time who was on the Board of Aldermen--she's dead now-- TK:She passed away, right. BC:Yeah. She was on the Board of Aldermen. The mayor happened to have been out of town, I don't know who the mayor was at that time and she was acting mayor. [laughter] So she gives Angela Davis the key to the city. Avowed Communist, radical, black woman! The key to the city! So hey, you know what that does. But anyway, let me say it this way: the church was overrun, they had to run speakers outside the building at Thirty-ninth and Broadway or whatever that was, people were everywhere, wasn't a seat nowhere, inside and outside there were people everywhere like I say again, for this speaking. Here come some of the ministers to the speaking now, ministers who 125:00wouldn't allow her in their pulpit, they came--you know how welcome they were as far as I was concerned and I spoke from the pulpit myself--but anyway, the city got together when the mayor came back and the Board of Aldermen to rescind or get back that key! [laughter] Never heard of that in my life, never heard of a city taking back their key. I'm not sure whether Angela gave them the key back or what happened in that case but it's always been the laughing stock of Louisville because it was around in other places. Oh God, it made us look like a bunch of bumpkins for real! Angela still laughs at it, you know. But not only that, but the fact that she's welcome here now and gets everything from everybody. I don't know why that is but the last time she was here which was what? TK:She spoke at the university last year. BC:Yeah. And we also had her at our unity dinner, we have a unity dinner every year at the Lions Club. Anyway, 126:00and now she gets it from everybody. The governor's office, she's a Kentucky Colonel, she gets everything now. But the point is, it shows you how that, what brought about that change, I don't know, but the change from then to now, even with the acceptance of Angela, shows you that there's been a great change. But sometimes I wonder if those changes conceal the problem that we still have somewhere. It makes some people think that all is well when it really is not. TK:There's been a lot in the paper lately in sort of questioning the effectiveness of demonstrating and I wonder, people, back when you were doing the worker's stuff people demonstrated; do you think that's still an effective tool? BC:I definitely do. I think there may be those who feel as though that's the old way of doing things and you don't do that anymore but I think visibly people need to see . . . they said that to us, I'm talking about the Alliance 127:00because it was one of the organizations a couple of years ago when the Klan came in to town . . . TK:That was my first year here. Yeah, I was at that rally. BC:Well, we were told by many, "Stay at home." Well, we didn't feel that way. Many other people in town, clergy and other people said that, I think the police chief and everybody, "Stay at home, just don't . . ."; but we didn't feel that. And we were right obviously because there were thousands of people there. Not only were there thousands of people, I would say at least eighty percent were white. TK:Hm-hm. It was cold and rainy. [laughter] BC:You know what I'm saying? So to answer your question, I think demonstrating, as much as it may, they sometimes say that you have to disturb the comfortable in order to comfort the disturbed sometimes. You have to disturb comfortable people in order to comfort 128:00disturbed people. So there . . . sure, maybe these demonstrations bother some people but I really think it is a way that people really show their commitment and show that they are willing to get out there and be seen. I think it has an effect, I really do. TK:I asked you before to compare, what are the continuities with what the Alliance does with before? How is the Alliance--League doing the same issues or the same people? BC:Yeah, the Alliance, well, one of the reasons, as I said, we took on a youth group because I saw things, I looked around the table one day and I saw all of us were bald heads and gray and paunches and everything and I said, "Wait a minute, guys! Where are all the young folks?" So I'm saying that to say that many of the people of the Alliance are still there, 129:00are still old and getting out of sorts. But I think things are done primarily the way they were always and I think, as I said earlier, we are the conscience and I think the best tool we have, as I said earlier, the white-black thing that we consciously do. I think when we have a meeting at 3208 West Broadway, which is the Braden center, it is probably the only place in the West End that you'll find black folks and white folks sitting together: male, female, old, young, everything from a cab driver to a professor, from a librarian to a garbage tipper. So I think that legitimizes us, it says who we are and it doesn't speak 130:00from no one voice. And the fact that the continuity, that we're still there means a lot. When you look at the difference between Beverly Marmion and myself, not that we're that much different but here's an East End librarian, who is the daughter of a priest, and here's a brother who came from the streets of West Louisville. So when people come in there for the first time, they're shocked, "I must be in the wrong place, what kind of place is this?!" But I think we work toward that because that keeps us going, it keeps us knowing that there are all kinds of people who are for supporting justice. But I think the Alliance is just as needed today as it was twenty years ago and I think there needs to be in every city of this size--and maybe every town and hamlet--there needs to be 131:00organizations that deal with nothing but racism. Now, if the churches were doing their job, I'd say, don't worry about it. If everybody else was doing it, we'd retire tomorrow. We're not doing this because we like it, it's because we don't see anything or anybody else doing it and we feel as though it's very important. And in going out, as I do from time to time, and speaking to, particularly school groups--I was over at Indiana [University] Southeast, and over in Kentucky Country Day [School] recently, and it's so good when you're received by young people who are sitting on the end of their seats because they've never heard this before--I question them as to why this is not in their books. "Why your teacher didn't tell you this? There must be some reason. Is this not important? They think it's important, so why is it you're not being taught that?" So I think again, as our days, we may look to some people . . . we are 132:00just as much needed today as we were some time ago. And again, for that history to be carried on by people like yourself, I'm glad because I think it's going to do some people like my granddaughter . . . TK:And my nieces. BC:Yeah. TK:I'm out of questions about your specific thing but are there any other people you can think of or groups that I should be . . . you've mentioned a few along the way; are there any other that you can think of? BC:Henry Wallace. TK:I have him on my list and someone who will put in a word for me. BC:Okay. His daughter, Carla, is somewhat young, well, I say young, she wasn't here too much--she was out there, we have an old picture of her, I wish we still had it, I think it was burned in the fire when we had a fire at Braden Center a number of years ago, of her and Henry. TK:Yeah, she's a little kid, right. BC:Yeah. TK:Yeah, I've seen copies of the pictures. BC:Okay. Well, I'm saying that, to say from the '60s through she 133:00can definitely tell you a lot about it. She'd be good. Henry was here and being a white guy, from his perspective, I think would be good to talk with him. I can't right off but I'll tell you what I'll do . . . END OF TAPE 3, SIDE A