Interview with Lattimore Cole, November 25, 1977

Dwayne Cox: Well this is just for the record is a oral history interview with Mr. Lattimore Cole I’ve been a associate with Mr. Cole for almost a year the project microfilm Louisville Leader which we may talk a little about later. My name is Dwayne Cox and I’m working with University of Louisville archives and today is November 26, 1977 one of the first cold days of the year we’re at Mr. Cole’s home in Louisville at 4341 Pruitt Ct. and I’m here to talk to Mr. Cole for several reasons, the first, the first that comes to mind is the fact that he is the son and was associated with in the a journalistic efforts of his Father, I. 1:00Willis Cole, who was the editor of the Louisville Leader newspaper that was a black neighborhood newspaper published in Louisville fro 1917 until 1950. Recently the University of Louisville Archives began a project to microfilm the leader and Mr. Cole, Mr. Lattimore Cole has helped us in collecting missing issues and raising money to microfilm the paper, in the process I’ve learned that he was associated with his Father and working on the paper. I’ve learned a lot about his family and his education. He was a student at the Louisville Municipal College which was a segregated undergraduate division of the 2:00University of Louisville that operated from 1931 until 1951. I just learned that Mr. Cole was in the first integrated graduating class at the University of Louisville after the Municipal College closed and I thought that maybe since a you’re a native of Louisville and have seen a lot of changes in Louisville, no doubt have recollection of your childhood and your neighborhood an what things were like in the old days that it might be a good idea to just start out say your full name, where you were born, your parents and then with your earliest recollections of your neighborhood and growing up and maybe just take it from 3:00there in a chorological fashion and then after that we can go back and pick up on anything that you would like to talk about or I would like to talk about.

LC: I am Lattimore Walls Cole. I am the fifth child I. Willis Cole, my full name was Aaron Lattimore Walls Cole I was named after Mr. Aaron Malone whose wife was associated with the poro college business and poro beauty products and college in St. Louis and in Chicago, Illinois, that business is not in existence at this time I believe and Mr. Malone is dead. I also, the Walls was after Bishop W. J. 4:00Walls who was a Bishop of the Amy Zion Church which I am a member and who was associated with my Father while he was pastor of the Broadway Temple Amy Zion Church here in Louisville, Kentucky and who is now deceased. I was born March 11, 1923 in the 1100 block of Chestnut Street, it was within a year of my birth I believe that we moved to 2317 West Walnut Street. This was a residential area of homes formerly owned by whites, I believe they must have been fairly well to 5:00do because of the condition of the homes and the general atmosphere of the neighborhood was one of middle class black from the time of my birth until more recently and I think the neighborhood has somewhat deteriorated since. I attended Weston School in the kindergarten and then I went to 29th Street School which was later named James Bond school for a black leader, national leader, 6:00educational leader who had ties in Louisville. I attended 29th Street School through the third grade I believe and then I went back up to Weston and stayed there through the sixth grade and I believe I got a skip in school there somewhere around the fifth grade and went on to Madison Junior High School which was later named Russell Junior High School after Mr. Harley C. Russell. My Father’ name was in the hat for as a candidate for the naming of that school as 7:00well as Mr. Jackson, G.W. Jackson I believe who was a teacher and outstanding educational figure in the community. From Madison I went onto Central and studied there for two and a half years and graduated in 1939. When I left Madison was the year of the flood in 1937 I believe that our graduating exercises were conducted in an atmosphere affected by the flood times. In ’39 at 8:00sixteen was the time of my high school graduation. I started in Municipal College in that year, I did this on the advice of my Father, I had received a scholarship from Segram’s distillery and we decided that I should not take the scholarship and it was to one of the big ten colleges, big ten universities but 9:00there was a restriction on the field of study to those which were could be utilized in the distilling business see, natural sciences and the like and I had been of an aide to my father in the business I think of the times of span of about ten years of involvement from the age of nine to the age of nineteen was the time period which I consider to be myself to have been involved most with my Father’s business. I stayed at Municipal for a couple of years and dropped out 10:00after not having done so well partially due to the time that I spent in the business, we worked long hours getting the paper out and it was time consuming and demanding and I went to after a layout of six months to a year and I saw interest that I worked at the Greyhound bus terminal and I saw interest in entrance into Howard University in Washington, D. C. I went there and they decided not to accept me on the basis of my record so I got employment through Congressman Emmett O’Neill and also on recommendation of Congressman Robison who 11:00was from one of the mountain districts and was acquainted with a friend of my Father. I got employment in the House office building in Washington an worked there a year. I worked two jobs and turned out to be a pattern for me for my life and I delivered telegrams for Western Union Company in Washington and so I saved a little money and I have the experience of coming in contact with 12:00Congressman at the House Office Building and delivering messages to the White House and to the various dignitaries in the area, John L. Lewis and so many I can’t name, the atmosphere there, the Washington Monument in that general area on Connecticut Ave. okay.

DC: That was in the 1940’s?

LC: Yeah, this was in 1942 or 1943, I was drafted in November of ’43 from Washington I took got a 21 day furlough and came visited home, visited my sister who was attending Overland College in Overland, Ohio and then back to Washington 13:00for induction and went on to Camp Lee, Virginia from there. Missed my sister, she was by our determination a child prodigy and so my Father’s efforts in that direction he devoted, she got the attention in the area of education because at a great sacrifice to him financial it was very costly for the amounts needed at that time so she went to Overland and she did very well. As far as going back I 14:00was the son my Mother who was Rosa Long Cole and I was the first born of her she was the second wife of my Father who’s first wife died and I don’t know I think she was twenty-eight years old and my Mother was I think twenty-five when she married my Father and this must have been maybe a couple years after his first wife died and my Mother was acquainted with the first wife and was a friend and neighbor and had babysat for the first group of children my brother Arlis and my sisters Ruth Lynn, Catherine and Anne Malone and then to the union of my Mother 15:00was also born the sister Telamarie and Arlis is still living and so far is relatively good health. Let’s see in so far as the business is concerned I got into that I would run the folding machine I think I started around nine years old and I mean with regular attendance expected and regular duties and I remember, I don’t know how early it was, but shortly after I was there now this is when we were on Sixth Street between Walnut and Liberty, Walnut and Cedar 16:00Streets and in the Mammoth Life building which was on Sixth Street facing the West side of the Armory building which is now Louisville Gardens, ok, and we were in the basement of this Mammoth building I think the district offices of the insurance company were there an we were there and I don’t know when the business it may have been there, no not from the very beginning I don’t remember just when. There was also at one time administrative offices in the Mammoth building on Walnut Street, we had the offices the plant on Sixth Street and then the offices, business offices on Walnut Street right at Sixth Street. Then in 1937 or 1936, well anyway, we moved I think in ’37 we had obtained ownership of 17:00the building at Tenth and Walnut, uh, 930 I believe, 932 West Walnut Street and this building had been owned by Mr. Berry or the Berry brothers I don’t’ know if both of them had joint ownership in that or not I know that and there was a newspaper, the Kentucky Reporter, that existed for many, many years. It was not very widely circulated and Mr. Berry I believe was had what was considered to be a good government job, uh, store keeper {inaudible}, I mean and I don’t know how 18:00much the paper how solvent the paper the Kentucky Reporter was but over the years but I think they fell into financial troubles and the building was lost.

DC: Let me interrupt you for just a second. This Kentucky Reporter was edited by Mr. Berry?

LC: There were two Berrys, B-E-R-R-Y and I don’t remember their first names I know that they the daughter of one of the Berrys taught me in junior high school and her name was I believe Camellia and she taught, oh I can’t remember what she 19:00taught but I remembered her to be a very good teacher. Anyway, they lost the building and my Dad was able to gain ownership of it and I think his political connections or relations helped him in this matter in so far as knowing about it and in so far as cost was concerned. I think it sold for, he got it for ten thousand dollars.

DC: Your Dad, bought out, did he sort of buy out the newspaper too?

LC: No, no. They moved to Eleventh and Chestnut Street somewhere between Tenth and Twelfth on Walnut Street and continued with the newspaper for a period of time.

DC: If you had to put dates on the Kentucky Reporter, what would they be? I mean, I realized it might be hard….

LC: It is hard ‘cause I don’t know when it started Kentucky Reported existed for as long as I can remember from the beginning and it ceased to exist, oh when, I’d say somewhere in the ‘40’s and I think it was maybe a four page paper.

DC: This was a weekly?

LC: Weekly.

DC: A weekly directed toward the black community…

LC: Yes, yes. It wasn’t very, the circulation was…

DC: Small.

LC: Very small. I think you’d by any standards at all say our circulation was small but the Kentucky Reported was probably and if I, I believe it also had some political not say affiliations but it projected a political a it’s association was notable and I think I believe it was Republican and so

DC: I’m sorry I interrupted.

LC: That’s alright, no I want you to and help guide me.

DC: See, we got you up, well we can go back and pick up on some of this but we got you up born in 1923 and elementary school and junior high, you mentioned the 22:00’37 flood, you mentioned you graduated from high school you attended LMC for a while, you went to Washington and worked around the government and met a lot of…

LC: Yeah, this was not only in the Washington thing it was you know not a job, it was meanial work in the House office building and it was, how old would I have been at the time, nineteen…

DC: Then you were drafted?

LC: Drafted then went from there to Camp Lee and stayed there for a while then to Alabama, Gadsden, Alabama and Camp Sibert, it was chemical warfare smoke 23:00generator units and pots, smoke pots that generated camouflage and certain things and chemical warfare, gas and that sort of thing that was the type of unit that which I was associated and then I began to drift into doing clerical work and this was would come before my MOS they call duration at Camp {inaudible} yes and went to Bethesda I can’t remember, Edgewood Arsenal, 24:00Maryland, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland I stayed there a few months then to Breckenridge, Kentucky and I went from Camp Sauer I was selected to be a part of a cadra, but then the plans for the cadra didn’t develop and of course some of the people with whom I had been when I originally was inducted they had gone to somewhere in Louisiana, Camp Polk or something like that and had gone overseas and were there for the D Day but I was fortunate I guess in that delay and I missed that some of that I understand, some of them didn’t make it, quite a few of them. Then I went from Breckenridge sometime in 1944 June maybe embarked for 25:00Europe from Camp Kilmer, New Jersey went to England, France and on into Germany a few months in Germany back out to France and I didn’t have enough time at the end of the European engagement then and off to the South Pacific and spent the majority great amount of that time in Manilla, I think I was on that ship for forty days from Marsails to Manilla we stopped in Panama and that was quite an experience there and stayed there until May of ’46 and I was came on home discharged at Camp Atterbury and returned back to Louisville so I made 26:00Louisville my home since then and got back in school in mid ’46 and then the second year back my Mary Lou, I met Mary Lou Bradford and this was in 1947 she started {inaudible} September ’47 and we were married in June of ’48 and we have eight children. How far do you want me to go into this?

DC: Well, let’s go back and pick up some things maybe that you touched on and 27:00then we can, we can begin with this. You said you started working for your Father in the Leader office on the folding machine, was that it?

LC: Well, let’s see, I ran errands and there was always somewhere for somebody to have to go, have to go to Courier Journal to make our cuts. Mr. Port down intertwined through the years there was a relationship between the Ports they did typogophy, line type word so they did some of it. I believe at Sixth Street I know we had one line type machine, I think we may have had two at one time and 28:00then we did have outside work. I say our mainstay in the business was the work that we did for the Mammoth Life Insurance Company there was a association with my Father and the President who was H.E. Hall at that time and the founder of this existed from prior to my birth fact is I think there was their association had something to do with even the start of the Leader and I don’t know maybe the Mammoth may have started very close to the same time but I know throughout the 29:00existence of the Louisville Leader and the Howard Cole Publishing Company then the association with the Mammoth Life Insurance Company was very close now I never did I don’t remember knowing Mr. Wright who was a partner of Mr. Hall and the family knew {inaudible} but I knew Mr. Hall though he was not a frequent visitor to the premises of the Leader but I there was contact and I know we did all the Mammoth Insurance Company’s printing, policies and everything so this was something you could bank on so all things whether of not everything else all 30:00the other things went this was …..

DC: Would it be fair to say that your Father did job work for Mammoth Life as sort of a certain income, steady income but his real passion was the newspaper?

LC: I guess you could, I’m pretty sure you could I he was pretty much involved though with the business of the company and its management now I don’t remember when he became a member of the Board but he was a member of the Board of Directors at the time of his death and of course for several years prior and I see then also I don’t remember I don’t know much about but he was President of the Mammoth Realty Company and I don’t remember what its I don’t know if it had 31:00to do with lots at the Louisville Cemetery or what I don’t really remember what the real business {inaudible} but in the organization

Side 2

DC: Between the Leader and Mammoth Life ….

LC: and when you asking whether or not his true passion was the Leader I would say definitely and in that area of {inaudible} but the pride in the quality I know he {inaudible} desire and {inaudible} circulation growing however the 32:00quality of the product was a major concern.

DC: It has always been my impression just from what you’ve said and what your Mother said and from what I’ve read that in a sense your Father was a predictable man, I guess he was what you would call steady. I guess he was, my impression was that he was steady in his work and if he said he would do something he would do it and he probably wasn’t, I don’t know I don’t even know if I’ve ever seen a picture of him, he probably was a conservative dresser is 33:00that right? Could you describe him from head to foot?

LC: Yeah, I think he was about my height may have been just an inch shorter, a little bit shorter and he was a dignified {inaudible} I don’t know if anybody {inaudible} if anyone carries themselves with more dignity and I don’t know if you’d call it dress conservative but he was well dressed individual always had his collar and tie on and then they had the detachable collars which relate a 34:00certain amount of discomfort but he had his stick pin his initials with one diamond or some sort of jewel my brother, he left it to my brother and so he was always neatly dressed and in the black community this image was not common he didn’t just have on a suit but it was neatly pressed and he was always clean and he was a dark complexion and had a permanent mole {inaudible} of the family inherited that nose and we are let’s see his Mother’s Mother was full blooded 35:00Cherokee I guess I’m right on the tribal Cherokee and so there’s so much Indian blood throughout most black families actually {inaudible} anyway Daddy, he was kind of a stern individual, sometimes I feel like he was difficult to approach 36:00sometimes he the conversation would go a certain way and it might change how his coming into the room my children are a whole lot freer then maybe some would say I’m a too, too easy and I think that I am being the way I am may be because of the atmosphere I felt and then that existed at time and I what do you say predictable I don’t know just well I he worked long hours, got up early and went to the shop and stayed late and came home for dinner and go back sometimes he would get into the print {inaudible} he would roll up his sleeves and something package something and the makeup on the paper that {inaudible}he didn’t really 37:00have any printing background technique that Mr. Carr worked for my Daddy who I work with now in the post office {inaudible} died young and Mr. Carr worked for my Father oh from the time he was a young boy I’d say over thirty years, let’s see could it be, ’27, ’37, ’47 around thirty years let’s put it that way.

DC: He still lives….

LC: No, he’s dead but his family his son and his daughter I see them, the family 38:00now Mr. Carr is dead he was a line tap operator I think early in his life he was sent to my Father sent him to Chicago {inaudible} to learn line tapping and so he was a style a stand by through the years but getting back to the {inaudible} my Father when I say stern he was he was a teaser, playful to that degree I don’t think he could take it very well but he could dish it out. He was a very, very strong personality very strong personality I think a person could be overwhelmed by that kind of thing I think I was of course now many years of being fearful that I’m becoming I’m much stronger individual helped come out of say shell or whatever and it concerns the self consciousness you know 39:00{inaudible} deserves a personality but oh let’s see I’m trying to get back to the word predictability I don’t know, I don’t know if that fits well it affords a consistency he was a regular dependable man of his word very definitely but well I don’t know if I touched on it but I’d say he was kind of on the fussy side and the atmosphere was not always in fact it was probably worse more often 40:00than not tenable, quiet or whatever it was about and so of course sometimes I talked to the other children and it’s very evident that he made a mark on their lives of all the persons, all the children and probably all the people that he was closely associated because you don’t fell, you feel very strongly in whatever way you do feel about my Father even though the descriptions won’t necessarily be consistent so in so far a picture I have some pictures I had made.

DC: Ok. Yeah, you told me….

LC: Did you want to see one of those?

DC: Later, yeah.

DC: Talk about that, I read a interesting article the other day I don’t know how much truth you could put into it but it was talking about, it was talking about really what you’ve just been talking about. It was talking about men who I guess where of your Father’s generation who were stern, who were…a …neat, immaculate dressers who believed, I guess you could you would call them Victorian type of people and then on the other hand it was comparing them to their children as you 42:00were doing saying that these people made a mark on their children but at the same time it wasn’t always an identical stamp.

LC: Well, I think what one thing when we get together and if we go if we reminisce and get into discussions and then we are not together actually I think we probably kind of avoid getting into the matter and getting into discussions then because we are at odds ends in a it can impede so I don’t think we do too much.

DC: Can you talk about that a little bit, about your perceptions and that and …I don’t mean to mention names or anything but just what are the different odds and why do you….

LC: I don’t know I know now we just had a gathering and the it was dedicated this was dedicated to the memory of my Father, this reunion we just had but outside the formal ceremonies that were conducted and even there it was just mentioned it there was not too much reviving of personality description or 44:00anything like that so I think over the years I can notice and maybe it’s because the time away from the scene cause you not to be current so you don’t discuss what I know we used to get into on a few occasions not that many but then when we got into discussions and you find that different people had different ideas regarding well form the time of Daddy’s death well ok I think this happens anyway but when people say well he thought this of me and he and you know others this is how he {inaudible} or somebody would say a husband was just that of a wife who is a member of the family but the ideas are not consistent with your 45:00own views see and so we got it get it somebody would be callus and make remarks that were not received well by somebody else they get emotional or tearful or anything like that so I think that over a period of time then you kind of avoid getting into these things because another person would maybe come up and make a…in a recitation a description which was might be laudatory or what not but it would all be all positive you know all and in you would be and so there would be in disagreement there or you would be {inaudible} so I think over a period of 46:00time in this instance and I think it would probably be anywhere or anything like that in any instance like this where people kind of get away from or avoid these conversations so well now, I don’t mind if names are {inaudible} I think well Tela Marie was you might say the apple of my Father’s eye and I kind of felt that she was the baby and she would come sit in his lap and she could run her hand in his pocket and get his change out and all that sort of thing and he seem to let his hair down with her and so then she had some problems somewhere in her late teens or early twenties and I don’t know too much about that I don’t 47:00discuss things with her and she was a student {inaudible} and I’m certainly not familiar with the terms of psychiatrist but I think there was mention of Father fixation or something like that involved and she was doing analytical …..

DC: Yeah.

LC: Yeah, and so let me jump about now my brother {inaudible name} quite a character he’s very much the church man now and I think he holds position of deacon in his church but he was very rash in his actions and would do things on impulse and he got in trouble several times in his youth and so he leveled off 48:00and he’s had six or seven children, how many children? I should certainly know how many children my brother’s got, well just to make relevance to that I would say he had six children and he did well by them but at this stage in life only he worked also for my Father the early part of my time there and {inaudible name} has a small print show there if you recall he’s a retired post office employee and so he bought out a business of a man who was ill and later died and he has a small printing business and he his knowledge came of course from his background but he had his way with Daddy, my Daddy would have to bail him out I 49:00don’t know if there was well I remember them arguing and that sort of thing I guess to a degree I can’t remember too much there I know it’s just standing out in my mind that Daddy wanted him to go to the grocery one time and he said something to the effect that he should have a car so that he could go and that the grocery was down was in the same block on the corner it’s not like {inaudible name} to kind of get away with murder so to speak with Dad but mind you also that when I talk about {inaudible names} some of this I guess is a recognize as a {inaudible} a that the bark being worse than the bite it was never so far a physical maybe once or twice in my life he may have struck me but 50:00then on top of that though he was overwhelming the person who was makes let’s say quick decisions he’s loud and forceful with it he’s makes for an atmosphere that….I hope I’m describing it right and let’s see now {inaudible} Catherine, Catherine who has she said she’s been teaching now for forty years she mentioned that this is her fortieth year I believe in the Louisville school system and I know she taught a year at Livingston College in what’s that Salisbury, North Carolina…

DC: Right, yeah.

LC: Well, that’s a church school of the connection of which I belong, Amy Zion Church, but she taught there and I think she came back here she was there during the year the flood and I think she started here in the Louisville school system in September 1937 and so that date so she’s completed her fortieth year in the school system and now she was more of the reserve type and she stayed in the household after she completed her college work she got a Bachelor’s at Municipal College and got a Masters degree in language at Indiana University and she 52:00married oh in around ’46 or something like that so she would have been ……oh…..I’d say around thirty years old so there was some years there when she and I felt she was somewhat dominated and then she also the same way she protective I think he doesn’t …true or not she the discussion is not favorable to her Dad now and I don’t think she generally is participative now, avoid it. I know he would get into some of her, well not some of her but her personal affairs which I feel would be settled on her own level of her business in so far 53:00as dating and {inaudible} get involved in Tela Marie’s a engagement before and I remember him writing out I don’t know how many pages I don’t know if it was thirteen pages or thirty pages but I know it was voluminous he was writing relative to her association with the gentleman who later became her husband the fellow was thirty years her senior and he was thirty years her senior so when she married him I think she was twenty-five and he was fifty-five and he’s dead now and I remember when Daddy came around and accepted it he told Mr. Debows not 54:00to call him Father said he could call him brother {laughs} and he was pretty close to Daddy’s age but he was really upset though about that the courtship and marriage. So, I don’t know if this has helped to give a idea….

DC: {laughs} I guess what you’re saying is that a…..that as you said your Dad was a hard worker and I guess he was a hard task master and he expected a lot of himself and his family too I guess.

LC: Yeah, very definitely. Now I’ll tell you this in so far as that he expected a lot of himself and all around him and in management I have tried to keep in mind to profit by what I consider to be a flaw and that was I find it so easy to do where people don’t do things satisfactorily for you that you are inclined to do everything yourself but he didn’t relegate a in my view he was short in relegation of authority I mean if it had to do with the paper, if it had to do with the printing, if the Coke man came in or all the various thing he would be involved in down to the …..

DC: He always thought he could do it better himself. {Laughts}.

LC: That’s right and even if he did then he would be over your shoulder pass by maybe you were folding papers so then you’d stop doing you may not have been doing it to his satisfaction so he would stop and show you how they should be done at least how he thought it should be done had to take that in and after he left you’d fold it like you had been {laughs}.

DC: {Laughs}.

LC: Now the general image in the community I think I hear so many people tell me now, now I was self conscious about him and his speaking I remember I think we 57:00were in Chicago one time somebody left said the honorable Iris Cole was in the audience and soon as he had a word to say he would get up and I would feel like I wish he would cut this short you know of course I never expected that he would and he didn’t but I’ve heard others to be completely fair about it I’ve had not others but still I wonder sometimes but people who I’ve been in contact with young people who I’d hire I had no idea they were in an audience when my Daddy spoke tell me something he said stuck with them through the years and how inspired and all they were by my Father. I know my kids are self conscious 58:00sometimes they’re on edge cause they don’t know what I’m going to do next see that’s what I was saying about this when I mentioned predictability cause I can’t think of instances when an unpredictable thing was done but generally speaking I don’t know just how predictable you might say he was in terms of personal actions those and of course my instance now with my kids sometimes when you find that it does get under the skin and it’s harmless you have a tendency to expand on it and do things that will get a laugh out of it or something that you normally wouldn’t do you know…so now in the business of recognition I don’t 59:00know how I should put this for the record but I do believe that in reflection that my Dad and Mr. Ward some of the little clippings of court cases when they certainly were militant and that was a word that he used very much in his in the paper there militancy and I felt that both of them were stand outs in that area, I think they were both militant in a time when it was really dangerous to be militant I have some thoughts I didn’t participate in the Civil War, Civil Rights Movement to the extent that I felt I should have because I was in the 60:00employ of the Government at the time and I also {inaudible} and you just didn’t pick up and go when you wanted to but then even so during the days of the ‘60’s things certainly weren’t as they were in the ‘20’s so for blacks to stand out alone and speak their peace well they, they really were doing something I think we were taking a step in the right direction and it was dangerous at that time so well, I don’t know if there’s been not many instances where their concerns or not, nobody is much concerned with that sort of thing these days, I’m talking 61:00about statues and such recognition of these and things that people do and I do remember a Mr. Beauford who was an associate and he was on the Board and after my Dad died and I attended a board meeting and this was a {inaudible} and he made mention that Mammoth that he would have steered Mammoth in the direction and given recognition I don’t know just what he had in mind but he made some concrete but then I know the when the school is named my Father mentioned as a possibility in that area and sometimes I didn’t, don’t know where my involvement 62:00was at that time and I didn’t get into that but I know my Mother and I was in agreement with her and she didn’t a well, we may have submitted a resume or something like that but there was no real effort on our part to promote but I think I’ve expressed this before but I think history may be very much what you’re affected by the problems of the airs or the ancestors or what not at the time of recording rather than the actual time period if you try to rebuild because those persons who push and you know public relations….

Tape 2, side 1

LC: …Get more of less out of a character or personality of a time gone by of {inaudible}design but I know in this case Mother said something about if she 63:00didn’t push that the name of the school wouldn’t be named after him if she didn’t make a strong effort it was asked of her information and all and she was saying that since it was a institution of education that she felt an educator ought to be the person so named and of course you know schools are named after Presidents, Generals and just whoever outstanding people and so I know recognition was important to him he was concerned with how history saw him he wanted to do a I don’t know how much that affected his everyday actions how much 64:00he did things so on the basis of how this will be seen sometime hence but I do know that a well the fact that he named the he really asked that the building be named the {inaudible name} Cole memorial building and I know he felt strongly about this and a am pleased to {inaudible} the Louisville Leader may have been preserved in film or whatever …

DC: You mentioned William Whorley, did you know William Whorley? Was he older than your Father? Is that….

LC: Yeah, I think he was but I knew him I didn’t know him personally but I didn’t know him that well but the relationship didn’t seem to be one of a fuedest well what I’m saying is that in this book that one of the reporter at 65:00the Courier Journal you know he wanted to project the idea that …..

DC: Gabriel? Bob Gabriel?

LC: Yeah that they were my Dad and Mr. Whorley feuded through the years now they had disagreements and I think Dad would write his own editorials and Mr. Whorley make take {inaudible} at Dad and talk and there may have been some probably well I know there were some say when the Louisville Defender came into existence Mr. Alvin Bowman was the editor publisher first and then {inaudible} Fenley was an owner and then later Mr. Stanley so I got the idea that maybe they the general thinking the if you almost had to be unfriendly with the competitor and so I 66:00don’t really know how much they how friendly or unfriendly Dad and Mr. Whorley now Mr. Whorley the paper his paper sure seemed to get it out credited for periods and then it would flounder and then I don’t know how many times it was revived and how many stretches this was the Louisville News…

DC: Yeah.

LC: Now one time it was printer by Atlanta World as a they had a sort of thing where they had communal advertisement and they had several papers I don’t know maybe twenty, thirty or forty papers weeklies and local news was inserted into 67:00the format and now in the Louisville News was printed by them during this period but this was just one of the stints of the times it was in existence and Mr. Whorley I believe at one time was a postal employee he was a carrier now I do believe it just comes to me I remember he may have been I’m pretty sure he was and a I just think that Mr. Whorley’s reputation was damaged some by this but uh {inaudible}

DC: Yeah.

LC: and he like seem him in condition and at that time more than now it was damaging to the individual in that sense but this is not to take away from it the accomplishments in the area of Civil Rights that I maybe he more before my Father got involved with Mr. Whorley was I don’t know if there is anybody who may have {inaudible} who may have made or done stuck his neck out more in the Civil Rights effort than my Father is Mr. Whorley he’s the only person I can 69:00think of who even comes into the picture because they were in the position of newspaper publishers and what not because they could have gotten around it they didn’t have to they were.

DC: Did you feel like…I know Pam Hass when she was working on the paper said that she came across a couple of times articles in the Leader about the Cole family, did you feel like you were in the public eye being the son of the newspaper editor?

LC: No, I didn’t feel like that. Or course I’ve had people in later life tell me 70:00that they were jealous envious of my positions when I got at the time it was not expressed nor did I feel it and then as far as it goes my Daddy, we lived comfortably I don’t remember ever having food problems I think we lived well but then some of my some of the fellows with whom I associated when coming up well we were in association well I was in association with generally people in black middle class and my Dad had six children and he was in business which you know can be touch and go and so many persons I felt lived better than we, we had an 71:00ice box when many people had refrigerators and what not and then I was at the paper and I remember when I say nine and maybe I’m the type of personality I don’t know because I just talked to Aaron this morning about another one of the children and sometimes people are concerned about how I get over with you and you if not careful will take advantage to f that and use them or at least in the personality struggle one or the other he may not do things physically but he’s distracted and he {inaudible} by a concern over here he’s got one part that’s 72:00for analytical listening watching to see what kind of reaction you know there is and {long pause} well let me go on I was at I remember when I was young and asking my Father to let me stay all night he needed me to run the folding machine and he was concerned about how my Mother would react and I’d say oh some on let me stay, let me stay you know there was a novelty in staying up all night and so if I’m not mistaking I stayed that night and then I stayed from then on and so in the my pay was small I don’t remember, I think I started off at fifty cents and I remember dispirited just constantly about my pay throughout and of 73:00course I was living at home and I was a kid so but some of the other boys were making fifteen, sixteen later in their teens on the paper routes and I was getting four and five working there the long hours {inaudible} played pinball, gambled and loose that little amount and so I didn’t feel that we didn’t we weren’t affluent in the sense my Daddy does but and I tell you we were comfortable but there was not excess at all and I graduated from high school I didn’t get but eight dollars I guess I could have but for a class ring but I remember I didn’t have and I remember wearing some winter pants in the I just 74:00remember somebody comes why do you have on heavy trousers at this time, in the summer things like that so I didn’t really I never felt that we were in any kind of a luxury {inaudible} but now my Daddy had nice cars but they were second hand he always bought I think he could have perhaps bought a new cheaper model but he had somebody {inaudible} Thomas West who married my oldest daughter Ruth and appears out I hadn’t thought about it in years but we had a Pierce Air with the headlights on the roof and somewhere we had a Super 6 it might have been a new car I don’t’ know but the others were Pierce Air, and a Cadillac and all throughout the middle years there were all used cars and now he bought a new car 75:00his last car and it was a ’46 Cadillac but it was the luxury model car {inaudible} he preferred it and so you know I didn’t think about I guess everybody new my Daddy everybody new he was a publisher now at one time the paper I remember way back we had and we had like a picnic or something like that with the association with the paper, a subscription campaign and my Daddy would have on and give away a couple new cars and these might have been years ’28, ’29,’ 30 I’m not very clear about that and gave as much gave two cars maybe once 76:00or twice maybe more times in one occasion and there were events like track events and things like that and then the person who sold the most subscriptions and won the car and so I’d see them in the room and figuring and computing and what not and so I think those were {inaudible} those cars probably I remember a new car cost five hundred dollar of course five hundred dollars was a lot of money in those years but then those contests continued to make {inaudible} he ceased to give car prices rose and I don’t remember, I don’t know the details 77:00probably because he didn’t continue with them well he continued with the contests but not with the cars but there became a Ms. Louisville Leader contest and the prize winner there was sums of money I don’t remember how much you might remember the paper there in a given year the prizes and so my Father had the prestige and to a degree he was a individual personality and then the paper somewhat the subscriptions diminished and I don’t know how much there ever way I don’t’ know if there was ever I don’t know if we ever printed over I don’t know 78:00oh I don’t know I couldn’t even guess but I know in the later years I say probably from the beginning of the ‘40’s it was really bad and …

DC: Why was that, did you have a feel for that?

LC: Well now there was competition the Louisville Defender was on the scene because now I tell you I just read an article in the Courier Journal see the Louisville Defender I don’t think they printed but about five thousand papers and I don’t know if the circulation was ever, ever too much I think they’ve got ….well not I don’t know how many blacks here in Louisville, say sixty thousand, 79:00seventy thousand something like that?

DC: Uh huh.

LC: So even if we had a paper to a family well say ten thousand papers would be good coverage and some guy that worked there was telling me he thought the Louisville Defender did up to twenty thousand but I don’t believe actually {inaudible} twenty thousand in sales or not I don’t think our paper I don’t think our paper {inaudible} considering how much it took to print those times when actually run off and I want to say if it was upward of ten thousand ever I’d be surprised but those contests did bolster the {inaudible} but we didn’t scrutinize the list and cut people off either as they should be as I recollect I don’t remember doing that.

DC: You mean people who didn’t pay for their…

LC: Yeah, after their subscriptions ran out in so far as their paid subscriptions goes at the time but I don’t really remember how much prestige went along with it but {inaudible} days when perhaps prestige like right now in the Barry Bingham son doesn’t necessarily impress me or people {inaudible}

DC: Who was your Father’s of course you mentioned his he had a close business and I guess personal association with the people at Mammoth Life but who were 81:00some of his other friends?

LC: Now about this business association I think about it crossed my mind when you mentioned coming in I think about how many people have been associated with our paper I mean there have been many a persons now it may have been our pay scale was low and they may have found things other to do I don’t know but there was just loads of people, many, many people either in the secretarial and always run into somebody well you know I worked for your Daddy since this…now in so far as his personal as I grow older I kind of see that we don’t do as much socializing and I never did see too much out of my Mother and Father they never were really party goers and never and weren’t too close to individuals but he had a wide in so far as friends, acquaintances they weren’t buddies very close 82:00but it was a wide range a great number of people now closer to him persons like they would get into conversations and laugh after church and sometimes they would stop by the business that he was {inaudible} and he would stand there and be visible from the street and Mr. Russell, A.C. Russell he was commissioner and in so far and being the Russell area came out of the Russell his being named to the Russell School see so there was a certain promise there and his son is the Pepsi Cola, one of the Pepsi Cola {inaudible} and he has another son who is very close name George who was with Pepsi Cola and then has some kind of business in 83:00Cincinnati now Betsy Stone that’s his daughter and Miranda who I understand has a Doctorate degree I don’t know what college and Anna Hobbs {inaudible} her husband was the president of {inaudible} Alcorn in {inaudible} Mississippi and he got North in Michigan or somewhere in there but Mr. Russell mainly talked for a long time and then my Uncle T. J. Young who was a became a teacher at Central High School teaching mathematics and then he taught at no he didn’t teach there he became the principal at Talbott school and then Jackson Junior High School 84:00and then he retired they had he died before they gave him and a ceremony in his honor and this was Thomas J. Young and this was my Mother’s brother so then he would come by and they would chat and let’s see I was in my Mr. Childress he was somewhat of a protégé of my Father he ran for a state legislature and he was a he ran for it and was appointed for at least one term I don’t know how many terms and then Mr. Jesse Owens was another protégé he ran for office but I don’t remember what I can’t remember I think at one when they was young he hired this 85:00young policeman guy but as a reaction because of Jesse Lawrence and Mr. Young both ran that year and actually you could vote for both of them but it became competitive between the two I don’t think either one of them won this was board of education, Mr. Lawrence for a period in there would come by and they’d chat and then there was a Mr. Titus, Early Titus or Titus Early, Titus Early I believe it was and he was political of some sort a deputy sheriff and he would come and introduce us to politics now I remember when I think about politics I try to think of a gentleman who I can’t think of his name, Mickey Brunner, they 86:00weren’t close but I remember there was contact there he was kind of a political boss here in Louisville and Junior Ross Todd was a Republican that of ranking who had and knew and my Dad knew him I mentioned Mr. Livingston well I say knew I meant that felt a relationship closer than just a {inaudible} sort of a tie in there….always call or….

DC: What was your Dad’s policitical persuasion was he…?

LC: He was an independent basically he was an independent don’t know if he ever came out he probably did as a Republican then in the later years he came out more for the Democrats I know about ’38 or something like that he really did a 87:00big thing with a two page add and what not this was during the time when Mickey Burns run…

DC: Rendon was a Democrat.

LC: He is a Democrat, uh huh and I think that Daddy was offered the job of manager of one of the housing projects, Beecher Terrace or something like that, but he could have gotten that if he had wanted to at you know at that time not as prestigious as running the paper and of course he could have done them both but then it probably may have been I don’t know money wise more stable and mine 88:00you know Dad was in the church {inaudible} Church and strong he came in late there now he ran for office of being manager of C & E Printing house I think that’s in Jackson, Tennessee I’m not sure, Jackson is that in Nashville? Anyway, he ran for that office but he didn’t get it but he had I remember a doctor, a reverend …..

DC: {inaudible question}?

LC: Well, I mentioned, I mentioned Walls but it was C & E oh…{inaudible} sometimes I went on some trips, several trips with my Daddy and he had a friends 89:00wherever he went Chicago, Louisiana, Memphis, his home down there so he enjoyed {inaudible} and in fact just being a newspaper man and of course the spaces weren’t his but then in I remember in ’37 I would {inaudible} George {inaudible} and everyday I was reflecting to try to determine how old I was at the time because I think he was sixty two maybe eight years old am I so you know but during this period thinking and let’s see reverend Finch he had a falling out, 90:00reverend Finch was seen in the church there he left that church before he died and went to another church with {inaudible} connections on the outer perimeter of the city I don’t know I can’t remember I never did know where the church was but it was very tearful when they died because they hadn’t resolved their differences because reverend Finch died he had all sorts and there was a bishop reverend Russell who became Bishop that Daddy was very close to, he had so many persons he was close to but I don’t feel he really had an cronies as such and he didn’t do well in the earlier life they used, Mother and Daddy used to go to some farm up there but then Mother got well I won’t put it on her but then as 91:00years went by they had a big anniversary, a wedding anniversary, twenty-fifth wedding anniversary I think that was in ’47 I believe either ’46 or ’47 we’ve got pictures of that….{inaudible}

DC: Did your Dad ever talk about himself? Growing up in Memphis? Wasn’t, he was from Memphis?

LC: Yeah, well I tell you not in everyday conversation but in some of his speeches he would talk about having sowed a commercial field and used cemetery representatives and he went to Lamore College in Memphis I don’t think he ever 92:00got a degree but he completed there I think it may have been a Junior College.

DC: uh, huh.

LC: and in these speeches he would talk about playing piano he never did do it much in later life but sometimes social functions he’s pick out a new thing I can’t remember this lullaby words but he would play this one number but he was a piano player and he used to, he was a tea toddler for a while at least he didn’t drink any hard liquor and you know he would {inaudible} strong disciplinarian unnecessary get a hand about how people would be in his life, be jealous and how they would pour liquor or what ever but he was abstaining but whatever it was he 93:00was in a honky tonk playing this jazz but then well, I think he was talking about going into the ministry and he was selling biblical encyclopedias and Mother got a set of those encyclopedias when he came to Louisville and that’s where he got involved with Mr. Whorley and end of this tape?

DC: No, I was clicking that….

LC: and that’s where he got involved with Mr. Whorely and he invested his 94:00savings with Mr. Whorley and he lost whatever I forgot how much it was maybe two thousand dollars something like that and he lost whatever he had so he was stuck here.

DC: He invested his savings in the Louisville News?

LC: Yeah, in the Louisville News it wasn’t the Louisville Leader he yeah and so he lost his money and he was stuck here and I think that was, was that Moody Bible College in Chicago he was planning on attending

DC: There was a Moody…

LC: There was a bible college….

Tape 2, side 2

LC: That would be secondary really in so far…

DC: Did you tell me that you, let me just make sure this, yeah it’s going, published the bantam yourself?

LC: Yeah I was the driving force behind it I don’t know how many, I don’t think we printed but about three or four copies and I got permission from Dean Lane and he okayed it, I think Mr. Barksdale might have been faculty advisor he’s 95:00dead Mr. Howard Barksdale and I got involved in it Municipal I tried to get my children to talk to them about taking tests and so forth in so far as the potential there what their inclinations or abilities part to now in Louisville with the schools being segregated and Daddy and the newspaper and I had journalism as a career a far career and so with no school of journalism available and he wanted me to stay here because see Tel Marie was on the scene then as far as going to college and he was strained and like I said I think I 96:00mentioned it to you earlier I probably would have taken the Seagram scholarship for whatever you know then you get Daddy who was going to pay for everything and then be more selective later you know but I didn’t went on and stayed at Municipal went to Municipal he said go to Municipal for a couple of years and he’d send me to Indiana but then I went into this liberal arts training and think English major and because that was as close as I could come to journalism going to Municipal but then of course people go Catherine was a student here 97:00before me and I don’t know Ruth may have gone there before she went to Kentucky State because I remember going to a football game when I was a little tot and they had pinned my back up pennant of Municipal I felt real silly I remember how silly I felt right now you know but anyway they had it on me and I was acquainted pretty much with Municipal the faculty people Municipal names mostly, Mr. Lawson and Dean Clemment was the Dean you said Dr. Wilson, what about Dr. Bright he was there for a long time see but I don’t remember but then I just recently saw later when I became a student but she didn’t remember me Hazel 98:00Brown, Hazel Brown Williams I believe and she was here for a recognition of Mr. Andrew Jackson they had anyway the executives pinned not to long ago and Mr. Barksdale was an English in English when he died young in his late thirties when I attended well, this was later Mr. Barksdale and Mr. Crawford I understand he is sick now he was there when I came back Mr. Crawford and Dean Doyle was in there between a Dean Clemment and Dean Doyle became a Bishop in the C&E church 99:00he was there and I see Mr. Wiggins who was a administrator, business administrator he retired he went to the Courier Journal in some capacity after Mr. McClune’s death but he’s retired now so like I said I mostly know all the names but that’s about the extent of it I studied under quite a few of the persons who were there I don’t know what else in that area. Do you have any questions?

DC: Well, you mentioned going to a football game, I know Municipal had a 100:00football team and I guess they had other sports too, didn’t they? Basketball, baseball?

LC: No.

DC: Just football?

LC: Football and basketball yeah and most of the time over the they couldn’t match the competition most of the time, they were a small school in the Midwestern Conference we were and Kentucky State was in it and Wilbor Force which later became Central State and of course Wilbor Force was a church school they with state subsidy I think and the state founded the Central State and then the Wilbour Force the church school and the C & E church still remains and I don’t know Fisk I think was in it, they played Municipal anyway and Tennessee 101:00State I just hadn’t thought about it, about there being Tennessee State and Fisk being in there. I don’t know if Tennessee State was in the Midwest Conference though Kentucky State, Wilbor Force and West Virginia and maybe Missouri and I can’t think of the name the fact is the football coach {inaudible} left Louisville and he had a {inaudible} year and he went onto the Lincoln University in Missouri, Jefferson City Missouri and anyway these schools were the larger schools and Municipal had hard time with them. One year, a few years there a 102:00couple times during the twenty years they had teams that threatened the teams that had winning seasons and I think maybe they did beat Kentucky State at least one time during the years they had the team they never did very well with a basketball. Fact is, I remember never won a game hell I already said West Virginia is playing this way and Madison Jim Brown I think we ended up with four men on the floor because every had fouled out and we didn’t have that big to start with and Fred became an artist or an entertaining would entertain {inaudible} he was short compared to these giants and I think Fred Clemments was 103:00the coach of this team I guess it was West Virginia of {inaudible} but West Virginia I think but he died this year it was back in the ‘40’s early ‘40’s that he was coach of this team I recollect.

DC: What was the, I asked when I talked to Dr. George D. Wilson, I had always been under the impression and discovered at least that according to Dr. Wilson that because the University of Louisville had bought the property and buildings of Simmons University at Seventh and Kentucky and had turned that into Louisville Municipal College and that because at that time Simmons University 104:00cut back it’s programs somewhat and Louisville Municipal College began to offer some of the programs that Simmons had offered just undergraduate college education and I guess because Dr. Parrish had taught at Simmons and then came to LMC I just assumed that along with the buildings and property that the University of Louisville bought the good will of Simmons University.

LC: Now I never associated the two and it may have been, go ahead.

DC: no that was just ….

LC: No, because I didn’t know this the I was a child in 1931 I was eight years 105:00old and I don’t know about the purchase and all you’re telling me something now but I don’t relate Simmons University with Municipal College even though they had preceeded it I don’t hardly think so, I don’t think so.

DC: What sort of image did Municipal College have in Louisville as far as you can tell? Would people rather go to Indiana or Kentucky State or Howard or where ever or did or was it looked upon as a place you went because you couldn’t afford to go anywhere else?

LC: I don’t know about that either because I had a discussion with my son today and he was relating some of his problems he said possibly had he not gone to 106:00school here at Kentucky Southern had he gone somewhere else because then I said well I’ve got some who went somewhere else and didn’t do so well they might have reversed it and said had I not gone ….so I don’t know about the well maybe people more able say like Jefferson Community College right now might attract some persons who couldn’t afford to go elsewhere but then there are some people who say well if I can get a college education why go elsewhere anyway because there are more books than I can read there more whatever my attention can be reached through this school as well as any other and so I had really my own 107:00personal my Father financially finally said may have certainly had something to do with it because he had Tel Marie at Overland and it never I don’t remember having any conversation about going anywhere else but I didn’t fell put down because I was going to Municipal College I was having a struggle to meet well I was really struggling but I wasn’t doing too well either and to have done well now I did pretty fair when I came back I had to to overcome the grade point deficiencies they had then they had minus four, minus and for every withdraw of “F” or whatever you got see so I had to a deficiency I think seventy two target 108:00point so they had to be overcome and at least equal your total number of hours before you could graduate see so I think that it did have some person that came back and went to another school and I don’t know legal that was they just forgot their pass instead of having a deficiency that they had to overcome they just entered into another school. Now I don’t really think Municipal of course now it’s something else like segregation itself I maybe subconsciously I may have had I probably did have some feelings that related to having been to being segregated but then it was a thing that you were used to it was there everyday. I don’t mean that you were used to it in a sense that you liked to back up like well I feel now that the persons who got promoted or initiated clearly dummies 109:00however much that I might be the one slighted but instead of felling inferior I think maybe I might feel superior I don’t know how I’ve always felt that way but I know I’ve never been particularly conscious unless some, some incident when some incident occurs a personal slight but just the fact the things that exist are I mean you were aware of it and you didn’t like it but it wasn’t something you carried with you daily conscious about it that this is so but that’s the way 110:00I feel about it but if a school or as far as that goes but then more recently we had a two hundred I mean a couple hundred people or more to attend a reunion in mists of that. I think the people who attend they don’t attend generally I just think this is something to promote the idea that see this was a diploma from the Louisville Municipal College from the Municipal College. So I would maybe put down the University of Louisville but then this maybe acknowledge the idea that it stayed as such I wouldn’t have any shame of putting down except 111:00maybe I’d have to explain what this was other than I would just as soon put University of Louisville it’s more convenient but people who had attended Municipal just the fact that you’re having a reunion nobody’s trying to pass over the idea that they had attended there see and really people who were from out of town seem to have responded disproportionally greater numbers that people who are right here because this was for the whole time not just a few years.

Say listen there was one thing I don’t know whether or not the interest I know 112:00how much I know about it in so far as this is not Municipal now this is businesses in the area of Walnut Street {inaudible} sometimes I wonder I hadn’t given it much thought until recently it was something about the Governor trying to rectify damage that were caused by act was but they brought my mind that they could very well have been in this very room as we’re related to the bussing and the people going to the suburbs you know this I don’t know how much good was done if any because urban renewal caused those people to relocate then those people went into they had funds available and people in the west end say in this 113:00city and in many cities this is the same thing and I’m thinking we can put the blame at the doorstep of the other government because they started the urban renewal thing killed out knocked out the city they entered the core these people with funds and at the time suburban housing really wasn’t available to them so they bought these other homes and gave these people funds with which they could buy homes of certain quality newer homes made sometimes with the same amount of 114:00money they sold their homes to with these other people and it has killed the inner city.

DC: Yeah.

LC: It’s gone, it’s really gone. Louisville, Chicago, well it’s just everywhere you look. Now I like the black business I don’t know how many of them were affected in a sense that they were out of business and to be completely truthful I don’t know what percentage of the businesses that were in the black area were actually black owned.

DC: Yeah

LC: because a good number of them weren’t but Mr. Moore and I spoke regular and he did end up owning the building at Sixth and Walnut on the Southwest corner in 115:00the Mammoth Building which is still there but there was a theater in it the Leer Theater. The Leer Theater was not run by …..it was the theater itself was run by whites though they had a black manager, Mr. Randsall, yeah and oh several clubs night clubs on there between Sixth and Seventh the Leer Grill, the 628 Club which was and pool rooms and this sort of thing and they were black owned and across the street there for a while the Louisville Defender was between Sixth and Seventh on Walnut Street and White’s Printing Company which was black owned, now White’s Printing Company still exists it’s down at Twenty-Seventh and Walnut 116:00and you have the Domestic Insurance company across the street and in my youth what was that? A bank? There were two banks, one across the street I remember them vaguely one was the Standard Bank and then I can’t remember the other and the one of the similar names Lovelett or Lovitt I believe, Mr. Lovitt. Mr Smith was connected with the Domestic Life Insurance Company and later Mr. Chick Sons, is he still living, do you know?

DC: I know the name…

LC: Chick Sons he was reputed to be financially well off and he had owned the 117:00Palace Theater down to Twelfth.

DC: Do you know the date, the day that you, Tom Owen and myself went to Frankfort? I remember that you and Tom talked about this business district and somewhere somebody, I don’t know whether it was you or someone else said that there had been some sort of a reunion or a semi-centennial celebration or something like that where people who had been associated with this area who had businesses there or whatever had brought out pictures and so forth of the area.

LC: No, I don’t remember I don’t know about that.

DC: Maybe that was Bob Gabrriel that I heard say that.

LC: Maybe.

DC: I’m sorry.

LC: No, but that’s interesting I hadn’t heard of that. Has it occurred, has it happened or is it in the planning?

DC: I think it’s occurred, it’s happened but I was just thinking along with what you were saying and I don’t want to interrupt anymore, but the advertisements the business advertisements in the Leader for instance are one source and maybe the only source that’s still in existence that you could use to reconstruct that business area. Well, you said that Mr. Moorman had some photographs maybe?

LC: Maybe, yeah, I’ll tell you I have a nephew who my brother lives in Chicago and it was funny thing that his son who lived all his life in Chicago would get 119:00a job and be sent to Louisville in his work and he was sent down here from Chicago to with the Supreme Life Insurance Company as some sort of manager, district manager or something like that. Well, what I’m saying that his Father born here and left and then he gets sent back to his son gets sent, well anyway Mr. Moorman had met him and talked to him and showed him a lot of pictures now I don’t know just what kind of pictures they are but they had historical significance and they were just to show them to him now since then he’s left that company gone with another Banker’s Trust I think and so Mr. Moorman would ask about him because he wanted to show him those pictures again but now I thought about Mr. Moorman and how knowledgeable he was about the area and some of the he was older than am I and on a level with some of the people we were talking about in age or close to it he was younger than some of the ones we were 120:00talking about but he was more of an adult than was I and he was treated to some of the happenings and what was going on than I was.

DC: You said that you earned about four dollars or so a week did you take it downtown and spend it on…can you talk about the businesses in this area that you had…

LC: Yeah well didn’t do much in as far as my money, I just I didn’t hardly get beyond the corner. This was something there at times there was a drugstore on the corner Levinstein, Sam Levinstein very nice Jewish young, he had two boys I 121:00think they are around here but I would when I first started smoking I was fifteen or thereabouts and I would go get five cigarettes and he would charge me for the cigarettes a penny a piece and right now you know you wouldn’t have time now for anybody a nickel is not certainly worth the effort or trouble of keeping records on how many I had gotten from him and at the time it was worth it I mean he wasn’t just doing it as a favor to me and so he used to get cigarettes in a flat tin and he would open up on and sell it by and so come payday my four or five dollars or whatever that was one of the stops I had to go pay him.

DC: Yeah, and that was on the corner of Tenth and Walnut?

LC: Tenth and Walnut. Let’s see we got there I was fourteen years old when we first moved there so I began smoking I remember in that building at Tenth and Robert Jones who was about a year maybe a year older than I am he’d deceased now he was about ten when he started working for my Father and he and I became close so….but then that block now there is a building that used to be Lincoln Theater now I didn’t remember that when it was functioning and somebody handed me a program, Mr. Carr’s son not to long ago gave me he had seen an old Leader and had made a copy of the program the theater program. The Lincoln Theater was 123:00between Ninth and Tenth on Walnut then later, oh it was empty for many years then Charlie Moore after Beacher Terrace was built I guess that was because of his move from the corner off Tenth and Walnut on the Northeast side then he moved over into this Lincoln Building he had renovated the building for so many years then he had that fixed for a little while and that didn’t last long after the closed up the tavern then he had a casket making company in there, it was late in life and that didn’t last very long {inaudible} of course down on Twelfth Street there was the Palace Theater owned by the people that owned the Lyric {inaudible} and who ran the Lyric and Grant theaters but Mr. Simons had 124:00owned at Twelfth on the other side of the street some years before, he had owned the Palace Theater this was I don’t remember going to the Palace Theater maybe oh yes I do, I remember seeing Rin Tin Tin but I can’t remember much about it I was really little and I think my Mother was a sold tickets even sold tickets I think or had the concession stand or ran the she didn’t own it but ran it in the Palace at Twelfth and Walnut Streets so through the years there was a concentration of businesses owned by blacks or ran by blacks or and or catering 125:00to blacks I think these were small businesses I don’t think they took too much away from Fourth Street in so far as certain types of merchandise but for handiness and convenience then it was a concentration of people so these are things that have done very well.

DC: Well, I guess the black community wasn’t, didn’t extend as far West as it does now, is that right? It was more concentrated?

LC: Let’s see now I would say West now on certain streets.

Tape ended.

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